Lead Stories

Allred wants James Talarico to apologize for alleged racially charged remark about him

Former Democratic Congressman and current Congressional candidate Colin Allred of Dallas is calling on fellow Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico to apologize following their clash that went viral last week over an alleged racially-charged remark he made to a supporter and influencer in a private conversation. In some of his first remarks since he posted a video on "X" criticizing Talarico, Allred spoke to CBS News Texas Monday afternoon at the MLK Community Center in Dallas. "I think there needs to be an apology either way; an apology and some attempt to recognize that there are certain things, whether the full intent was intended or not, that it came across in a way that was offensive to that young woman and to many others," Allred said. In a video posted on TikTok by the woman identified as Morgan, she said, "James Talarico told me that he signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable and intelligent black woman."

Morgan was referring to Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who entered the race in December, hours after Allred left the race to run for the 33rd District seat in Congress. Morgan said she is now supporting Crockett. CBS News Texas has reached out to her several times, but she has not responded. Last week, Talarico responded to the controversy with a statement, "This is a mischaracterization of a private conversation. In my praise of Congresswoman Crockett, I described Congressman Allred's method of campaigning as mediocre - but his life and service are not. I would never attack him on the basis of race." Allred said Monday that he and Talarico spoke by phone after the dust-up. "I offered him a chance to apologize, and he declined to do that," said Allred. "It is surprising. I think it's the easiest thing to do in this situation. Say, listen, whatever, you can even say. 'I feel like that's not how the conversation went, but either way, I apologize for the offense that was given,' which I think would have been the right thing to do."

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Trump’s threats to Cuba’s oil suppliers put Mexico in a bind

When President Trump declared a “national emergency” last month, accusing Cuba of harboring Russian spies and “welcoming” enemies like Iran and Hamas, it came with a warning: Countries that sell or provide oil to the Caribbean nation could be subject to high tariffs. The threat seemed to be directed at Mexico, one of the few countries still delivering oil to Cuba. Earlier this month, he even said that he had specifically asked President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico to cut off its supply. Mexico and Cuba’s long alliance — rooted in economic and cultural cooperation and a shared wariness of U.S. intervention — survived and even deepened after the Cuban Revolution, when Mexico preserved ties with Havana even as much of the region aligned with Washington. Ms. Sheinbaum now faces a fraught balancing act: upholding her country’s historical alliance with Havana, while managing its vital yet increasingly tense relationship with the United States.

The Sheinbaum administration has been careful not to provoke Mr. Trump, who has strained Mexico’s economy with tariffs and threats of military action to stop fentanyl from crossing the border. He has also threatened to withdraw from the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico, the U.S.’s largest trading partner. Ms. Sheinbaum has largely held to her country’s commitment to Cuba, a Communist country, where people are struggling with surging food costs, constant blackouts, a lack of critical medicine and dwindling fuel. But Mexico has not sent any oil to Cuba since early last month. “No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing because of the sanctions that the United States is imposing in a very unfair manner,” she said during a news conference on Monday. She added that Mexico had deployed two Navy ships carrying more than 814 tons of humanitarian aid — mostly staple foods and hygiene supplies — to Cuba. Cuba, whose main oil provider was Venezuela, has faced chronic fuel shortages for years, but the situation has become far more severe since last month, when President Trump took control of Venezuela’s oil supply. He halted deliveries to Cuba, which now only has a fraction of the oil it needs.

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Less than 14% of those arrested by ICE in Trump's 1st year back in office had violent criminal records, document shows

Less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump's first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News. The official statistics contained in the DHS document, which had not been previously reported publicly, provide the most detailed look yet into who ICE has arrested during the Trump administration's far-reaching deportation operations across the U.S. The internal DHS figures undermine frequent assertions by the Trump administration that its crackdown on illegal immigration is primarily targeting dangerous and violent criminals living in the U.S. illegally, people Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have regularly called the "worst of the worst."

The statistics show ICE has dramatically increased arrests since Mr. Trump's return to office. Nearly 60% of ICE arrestees over the past year had criminal charges or convictions, the document indicates. But among that population, the majority of the criminal charges or convictions are not for violent crimes. For example, while Mr. Trump and his aides often talk about immigration officials targeting murderers, rapists and gangsters, the internal data indicate that less than 2% of those arrested by ICE over the past year had homicide or sexual assault charges or convictions. Another 2% of those taken into ICE custody were accused of being gang members. Nearly 40% of all of those arrested by ICE in Mr. Trump's first year back in office did not have any criminal record at all, and were only accused of civil immigration offenses, such as living in the U.S. illegally or overstaying their permission to be in the country, the DHS document shows. Those alleged violations of U.S. immigration law are typically adjudicated by Justice Department immigration judges in civil — not criminal — proceedings.

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Trump to repeal landmark climate finding in huge regulatory rollback

The Trump administration is planning this week to repeal the Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, according to U.S. officials, in the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date. The reversal targets the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which concluded that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The finding provided the legal underpinning for the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules, which limited emissions from power plants and tightened fuel-economy standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act. “This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an interview. The final rule, set to be made public later this week, removes the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal greenhouse-gas emission standards for motor vehicles, and repeals associated compliance programs, credit provisions and reporting obligations for industries, according to administration officials.

It wouldn’t apply to rules governing emissions from power plants and other stationary sources such as oil-and-gas facilities, the officials said. But repealing the finding could open up the door to rolling back regulations that affect those facilities. The move is likely to be seen as a victory for the fossil-fuel industry, which for years has pushed back against federal climate regulations. Since taking office, President Trump has sought to repeal rules that his allies in the oil-and-gas industry have cited as overly burdensome. Trump has framed fossil fuels as vital to economic and national security, and he has argued that expanded reliance on them will help lower energy prices. The decision to repeal the endangerment finding might also create fresh uncertainty for companies with global operations, which could find themselves caught between lower environmental standards at home and a higher baseline for emissions rules abroad. A void at the federal level might prompt states to implement their own regulations, and create new legal exposure for companies. Environmental groups have said they would challenge a rollback in the courts, and it could be years before litigation is resolved. The administration could decline to enforce rules and fines while a legal process unfolds. Several unsuccessful attempts to revise or repeal the “endangerment finding” have been made in recent years—including in the courts.

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State Stories

Why Elon Musk says recruiting top engineers in Texas is still difficult

California still has it over Texas in at least one key way, Elon Musk says: Hiring. After moving headquarters of SpaceX and Tesla Inc. to Texas in recent because of political disagreements, he said it’s still easier to recruit employees to work in California. With one exception. “Austin, it helps,” Musk said — while noting that Tesla still has most of its engineering staff in California. “Getting engineers to move … I call it the significant other problem.” That’s what makes engineering recruiting toughest at Starbase, the remote South Texas outpost where SpaceX is developing its Starship mega-rocket.

“For Starbase that was particularly difficult, since the odds of finding a non-SpaceX job are pretty low,” Musk said, referring to the idea that Austin can be an easier pitch for tech hires because they know they can move to other local companies, too. “It’s quite difficult. It’s like a technology monastery thing, remote and mostly dudes.” Musk companies also have operations in Robstown McGregor, Bastrop and elsewhere across the state. He disclosed the issues on the Cheeky Pint podcast during a chat in which he also accused tech giant Apple Inc. of trying to poach Tesla’s talent when that company was working on its own self-driving electric car, a project it later scrapped. “They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls,” Musk said. He claimed their opening offer would be roughly double the compensation at Tesla, indicating what he referred to as a “Tesla pixie dust” factor, in which other companies assume if they hire someone from Tesla, the employee would put them on track to success. “When we had the pixie dust problem, we would get relentlessly recruited from,” Musk said. “Also, Tesla being engineering, especially being primarily in Silicon Valley, it’s easier for people to just … They don’t have to change their life very much. Their commute’s going to be the same.”

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott: State will fix Fort Worth school ‘indoctrination’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott cited failing schools and indoctrination as reasons for a state takeover of the Fort Worth school district in a post on X. The governor’s post came in response to a Star-Telegram article looking at a growing list of student walkouts at schools in and around Fort Worth to protest federal immigration enforcement after the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. “The State will course correct FWISD,” the governor said in his Sunday post.

The Texas Education Agency released guidance on Feb. 3 about consequences for students, teachers and districts that engage in walkouts. These include investigations, sanctions, and the possibility of a state takeover, according to the guidance. Representatives for the governor did not immediately respond to an email from the Star-Telegram with questions about the post. Representatives from the Fort Worth school district did not immediately respond to an email from the Star-Telegram seeking comment about the governor’s post. The TEA announced in October it would be taking over the Fort Worth school district and replacing the school board, citing five consecutive years of failing grades at a middle school campus closed in 2023. The district board appealed the decision, but that appeal was denied by a panel of administrative judges on Feb. 5. The TEA is evaluating 286 applications for a nine-member board of managers to oversee the district. It’s not known when the appointees will be announced, however, state Education Commissioner Mike Morath said he hopes to have the panel in place by spring.

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San Antonio councilwomen move to censure Mayor Jones after reported blowup at colleague

Five members of City Councilwomen filed a memo Monday calling for the censure of Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, a move typically reserved for serious misconduct such as DWIs or other criminal charges. The memo alleges Jones engaged in “repeated instances of unprofessional conduct,” including a reported argument last week with District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur over a vote about whether to close downtown LGBTQ+ nightspot the Bonham Exchange due to a fire code violation. Jones allegedly yelled and cursed at Kaur when the two stepped away from last Thursday’s council meeting, the Express-News reports, citing three people familiar with the situation. After the confrontation, Kaur was absent from the dais for 90 minutes, during which time she holed up in a meeting room to regain her composure, the daily report, again relying on City Hall sources.

One source reportedly told the Express-News Thursday’s incident was the “last straw” for come council members tired of Jones’ confrontational actions against people who disagree with her. The memo was submitted by District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, District 5’s Teri Castillo, District 7’s Marina Alderete Gavito, District 8’s Ivalis Meza Gonzalez and District 9’s Misty Spears — all the women on the dais excluding Kaur and Jones. “We all experience difficult days, but when a leader repeatedly fails to meet these standards, it is our duty to hold them accountable in order to preserve the integrity and trust of San Antonio’s government and the people we serve,” the memo states. Even so, the signatories added that none of them questions Jones’ “desire to represent the City well.” City Council members typically use censure votes to signal disapproval of a colleague’s action without imposing an actual penalty, such as moving for their removal or denial of committee assignments.

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Plano leaders postpone transit decision after offer from DART

Plano city leaders surprised residents and public transit advocates on Monday by announcing that they may have a deal with Dallas Area Rapid Transit ahead of a May withdrawal election. During an evening city council meeting, city manager Mark Israelson asked the council to postpone a decision on an alternative transit option that would replace DART with a rideshare service provided by Via if voters choose to withdraw from the agency. That service would work similarly to other rideshare options such as Uber, Lyft or DART’s GoLink service. Via already operates services in other North Texas cities including Arlington and Denton.

"The city has been in active discussions with our transit provider DART for the last 6 or 7 months and really over the last several weeks talks have become more focused around a potential offer that we have heard from the chair of the DART board," Israelson said, though he did not provide specific details. The council voted unanimously to table a vote on a contract with Via and instead make time to review DART's proposal. Plano previously proposed keeping train and express bus service but ending regular bus routes as a way to possibly prevent the May election; DART leaders will meet again Tuesday to consider potential agreements with some member cities. Pro-DART residents who showed up to the meeting Monday to protest the Via option said they felt a sense of relief by the council's decision to delay a vote until later this month. Embher Chaffin, director of the advocacy group Keep DART in Plano, said the announcement was unexpected. "I think that it shows an effort of collaboration from both parties," Chaffin said. "For the city to acknowledge the DART is trying, gives me a lot of hope."

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Austin American-Statesman Editorial: Lincoln-Goldfinch blends urgency and realism for Texas House 50

The dilemma for Democrats in the solidly Republican Legislature is whether to take impassioned stands on losing votes or focus on incremental work, scraping out modest wins in the margins of the possible. Immigration attorney and community advocate Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch struck us as someone who can make a real impact in both lanes: a pragmatist who understands when it’s time to meet in the middle and when it’s time to go down swinging. That earned her our recommendation in the crowded March 3 Democratic primary for the Texas House District 50 seat held by state Rep. James Talarico, who’s running for U.S. Senate. “At the end of the day, I want to actually get things done,” Lincoln-Goldfinch told our Editorial Board. “Will I be a firebrand and create viral moments and be really loud when the Lege is doing racist stuff? Yes, I’m capable of that. But I don’t intend to be that type of legislator. I intend to actually make friends where I can and get stuff done.”

She said that starts with building arguments around data — not competing emotional narratives — to show where a policy would serve common interests. And years of legal work have shown her the importance of focusing on the solutions needed now, not debating the origins of the problem. That strategic outlook is a defining feature in a race where the candidates largely share the same policy goals: expanding Medicaid, boosting school funding, promoting more affordable housing, supporting immigrants and unwinding abortion restrictions. This open seat in Northeast Austin drew a highly qualified crop of candidates who did not make our endorsement decision easy. Samantha Lopez-Resendez, who served as chief of staff to state Rep. Donna Howard, impressed us with her legislative acumen and personal perspective. “I am running as a woman of reproductive age, a former bilingual educator and a proud daughter of immigrants, all three of which are issues currently under attack right now,” Lopez-Resendez told our board. Jeremy Hendricks, a longtime labor leader and community advocate, is a seasoned negotiator and coalition-builder who would also make an effective lawmaker — in his case, focused on issues affecting Texas workers. Rounding out the field are John Hash, who has worked as a youth outreach coordinator; information technology specialist William Rannefeld; and Nathan Boynton, who comes from a small business sales background. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will face Republican Howard Olsen in November.

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Austin American-Statesman Editorial: Garibay ready to lead on education in Texas House 49

Education changed everything for Montserrat Garibay. And she has used that knowledge to organize and uplift others — from defending Austin’s prekindergarten programs years ago from budget cuts, to advocating for workers in the Texas Capitol, to championing bilingual students as a U.S. Department of Education official in the Biden administration. “To me, coming to the U.S. as an undocumented child and not speaking a word of English, education totally transformed my life,” said Garibay, a former bilingual educator and labor leader who became a U.S. citizen in 2012. “My mother used to work three jobs, and she told us the only thing that will change your life is education, and it has. It’s the bedrock of our democracy and it’s worth fighting for.” Garibay earned our recommendation in the packed Democratic primary for Texas House District 49 because she is ready for that fight.

In a state where some lawmakers are more inclined to attack and politicize public education than properly fund it, Garibay brings the expertise and track record in the trenches to champion quality schools. Central Texas especially needs such an advocate now. Two of the strongest defenders of public education in the Texas House are leaving their Austin-based seats: District 49 Rep. Gina Hinojosa is running for governor, and District 50 Rep. James Talarico is running for U.S. Senate. Garibay recognizes education shouldn’t be a partisan issue: Texans of all stripes want quality schools. The hard work of championing good policies comes from building rapport with key players and making a data-driven case for “why this needs to happen and how it’s going to benefit our entire state,” she said. “If we don't have a strong education — if we don't invest in our young students now — we will be paying for it later, in building jails and detention centers,” Garibay added.

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Evan Mintz: While America watched the Super Bowl, Texas politicians had an online meltdown

While the rest of the country was watching the Super Bowl — or, like my brother, the Puppy Bowl — Texas politicians were getting mad on the internet. No, they weren’t mad about Bad Bunny, the Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rican singer whose performance during the halftime show attracted so much partisan ire for reasons I still don’t understand. (Who can disagree with “Together, we are America” as a message?) They were mad at Gene Wu. Apparently the End Wokeness content farm account on X, formerly Twitter, shared a 2024 video of the Houston state representative on a podcast hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. According to End Wokeness, Wu said, “Non-whites share the same oppressor and we are the majority now. We can take over this country.” No. That’s not what Wu said.

If you actually click the video and listen, you won’t hear Wu say the word “non-whites,” nor will you hear him say the word white at all. Instead, he offers a rather generic description of the Democratic Party’s difficult multiracial politics. “I always tell people the day the Latino, African American, Asian and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning,” Wu said. “Because we are the majority in this country now. We have the ability to take over this country and do what is needed for everyone. And to make things fair. But the problem is our communities are divided — they’re completely divided.” While I can understand some quibbling about the phrasing of “take over this country,” there’s little in Wu’s statement that should be controversial. Heck, the Chronicle’s Joy Sewing even wrote a column about Wu’s speech more than a year ago as his comment went viral not on End Wokeness, but on platforms popular with Black audiences.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend acting comptroller Hancock in the Republican primary

The GOP primary for Texas comptroller has attracted three well-known political figures with stuffed campaign accounts, along with one interesting outsider running on a pocket-change budget. The comptroller serves as the state’s chief financial officer. Kelly Hancock is a former state senator from northern Tarrant County. He stepped down from that seat in June, became chief clerk for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, then rose to interim comptroller when Glenn Hegar resigned to become chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. Hancock’s temperament, his breadth of experience in both houses of the Legislature and his integrity give him the edge in this race. He chaired the Senate Business and Commerce Committee and served on the Legislative Budget Board. He’s also been a small business owner and a school board member; he understands revenue and budgets from a variety of perspectives. He has a strong track record of fiscal conservatism. We recommend Hancock in the primary.

The other three candidates include Don Huffines, a real estate developer from North Texas. He served in the state Senate from 2015-19 and ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 GOP primary for governor. His key policy idea is “to DOGE Texas.” He has signed onto a pledge that encourages the state to secede from the United States. Another candidate is Christi Craddick, who currently serves on the Texas Railroad Commission. The daughter of longtime state representative and former Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, she was first elected to the commission in 2012. Her campaign materials emphasize her desire to “audit everything,” meaning state agencies and local governments as well. Michael Berlanga, a CPA and real estate broker, is a longshot candidate whose campaign focuses on the comptroller’s role in the property appraisal process, an esoteric but important duty of the office. He also wants appraisal districts to more clearly explain the protest process and property owners’ rights. The comptroller’s job is invisible but crucial. The state needs an honest account of its balance sheet and a careful certification of its budget, just two of the office’s many roles. Also, lawmakers often hand the office additional duties. During the 89th Legislature, they passed a $1 billion education savings account program, and gave the comptroller responsibility for overseeing it. Legislators also established a cryptocurrency reserve fund that the office must manage. We aren’t confident Huffines would put the real numbers ahead of his politics. We are also queasy about Craddick, given her indifference to persistent conflicts of interest as a railroad commissioner. Gov. Greg Abbott has endorsed Hancock. We believe Hancock has the standing, knowledge and personal integrity to ensure that Texas is handling its accounts properly.

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He vowed to revive RadioShack and Pier 1. Investors say they were swindled.

Taino “Tai” Lopez was living proof the American dream was still attainable for young men willing to bet on themselves. The entrepreneur hosted parties at a mansion in Beverly Hills and boasted about the black Lamborghini in his garage. The college dropout had made a name for himself on social media by offering get-rich-quick advice and self-help courses. He urged his followers to invest in a new company he had started that was scooping up distressed retailers on the cheap—RadioShack, Pier 1 Imports, Dressbarn, Modell’s Sporting Goods and Linens ‘N Things—with a promise to turn them into e-commerce winners. Sean Murphy saw Lopez’s posts on his Facebook and Instagram feeds and was drawn in by the brand names and a promise of 20% returns. He invested $175,000 in the company, called Retail Ecommerce Ventures, and related Lopez ventures. All told, Lopez raised more than $230 million from hundreds of mostly small investors.

Murphy, an Illinois grandfather, got a $10,000 Pier 1 gift card and monthly checks of about $1,000 for about two years. What he didn’t know was that his payouts allegedly were funded mostly by other investors. “These guys lied,” he said. “They conspired. They led people on.” The payments stopped abruptly in late 2022, and the struggling retailers were taken over by some of the company’s creditors. Last September, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Lopez and his partners, accusing them of running a Ponzi scheme, misleading investors and misappropriating $16.1 million. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been contacting investors as part of a criminal investigation into what happened, according to people familiar with the matter. No charges have been filed. Lopez and his lawyer, Marty Ready, didn’t respond to requests for comment, and the FBI and SEC declined to comment. Court filings indicate that lawyers for Lopez and the other defendants are in settlement talks with the SEC.

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Amanda Edwards suspends congressional campaign following defeat in special election

Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards announced Monday morning that she had suspended her campaign for Texas’ 18th Congressional District. Edwards fell far short of victory in the recent special election runoff against former Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who garnered more than two-thirds of the vote. Edwards had previously planned to run for the same seat in the upcoming Democratic primary.

"Although my name will appear on the March 2026 Primary ballot, I have decided to suspend my campaign for Congress," Edwards wrote in a social media post. "My commitment to serving and advocating for the community remains unchanged. I cannot thank you enough for working with me to elevate people over politics and to deliver results for our community." Menefee, who was sworn into office following his special election victory, praised Edwards in a statement on Monday. "It's an honor to have run alongside Amanda Edwards in this campaign," he said. "She's always been a voice for the community, committed to service, and the consummate professional." Though the special election runoff and the proper Democratic primary in the race are only weeks apart, the course of the elections could be drastically different. Menefee will now faceoff against Congressman Al Green, who is running in the 18th district after last year’s mid-decade redistricting. Representatives for Green's campaign did not immediately return a request for comment. The Democratic primary for the 18th Congressional District is on March 3.

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Eagle Mountain-Saginaw students say admin changed ICE walkout rules, discipline

Chance Howell grew up on a two-house property near his dad’s oil company in Saginaw. One house for him and his family, the other for his father’s best employee, Jose. The two families grew so close that Jose regularly came over for dinner, and Howell also spent dozens of evenings after school at Jose’s house learning how to speak Spanish. The two houses were separated by just a few yards, but the occupants couldn’t have been any more different. Yet, the two families were still best friends. “I’m a white boy,” said Howell, a senior at Saginaw High School in Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school district. “It’s always impressing people when I say I can speak Spanish. That’s because I grew up with immigrants. Immigrants are part of life here in Texas.”

Howell’s childhood experiences with Jose, coupled by recent events in Minnesota where two died at the hands of federal immigration agents, inspired him to speak up about what he believes is the mistreatment of immigrants by ICE. Howell is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of students across the Dallas-Fort Worth region in recent weeks who have organized or participated in anti-ICE protests at their schools. Some students have walked out in the middle of their school day, down busy highways and through neighborhoods holding signs and chanting anti-ICE slogans. Some school leaders, most notably those at Saginaw Boswell High School, are in a firestorm with students regarding punishment and disciplinary action for participating in walkouts that interrupt the school day. Students believe administration helped them walk out just to be disciplined by the district days later. Now, they could lose their senior prom or ability to walk the graduation stage as punishment. Protests Howell has led at Saginaw High School have been after school hours.

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Former Fort Worth City Council member Gyna Bivens dies at 71

Gyna Bivens, a former Fort Worth City Council member and mayor pro tem, has died at 71. While her cause of death has not been announced, Bivens said in October that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing an in-patient evaluation at Clements University Hospital in Dallas. Mayor Pro Tem Carlos Flores, who served with Bivens the longest out of the council members, reflected on her passing in both personal and professional terms. “I lost a friend today,” Flores said in a phone call with the Star-Telegram. Flores talked about Bivens’ strength of character and her sense of humor, which he said she kept until her last days.

On council, she was diplomatic when she needed to be, but was also very forthright, Flores said. Sometimes she could be like an icebreaker moving through the arctic, because that’s what was needed, he said. District 4 council member Charles Lauersdorf, who sat next to Bivens at every council meeting and work session, wrote that he misses her in a social media post on Monday. “I miss her common sense approach, her nonpartisan viewpoints, and the fact that she actually knew what was going on,” Lauersdorf wrote. “The world was a better place with Gyna and I’m going to miss my friend. Rest in power Mayor Pro Tem, we got the watch.” Bivens was a woman of great faith, said District 5 council member Deborah Peoples, who succeeded Bivens on the council. “She was a child of Fort Worth, Texas,” Peoples said. “She knew the people and the neighborhoods like the back of her hand, and had a passion for public service.” Peoples credited Bivens with always being willing to help her understand the district and impart her institutional knowledge. “That’s something we don’t see enough of these days,” Peoples said. Bivens paved a path for all those called to public service, District 6 council member Mia Hall said in a post on Facebook. “She was comfortable being uncomfortable, standing resolute in her beliefs regardless of popular opinion, and that is something I will always cherish,” Hall said in the post. District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck wrote, “Gyna Bivens was all of 5’1” but you wouldn’t have known it because her personality was giant. Her determination to bring change to the things that mattered most to her was unparalleled. All you had to do was listen to her talk with pride about the demolition of the Dairy Queen or ensuing Fort Worth has one of the toughest tree ordinances. You knew if Gyna cared about it, something was going to happen.”

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Lecturer 'no longer teaching' at Texas State University after social media message to plastic surgeon

A lecturer is "no longer teaching" at Texas State University (TxSt) in San Marcos after a plastic surgeon said he sent her a social media message involving explicit language. On Wednesday, breast reconstructive surgeon Dr. Dhivya Srinivasa, MD FACS, posted a screenshot to Instagram of a Facebook message she said she received from Bret Bryon. The message said in part, "I hope Kristi Noem deports you," and called Srinivasa several derogatory terms. After Srinivasa made the post, TxSt initially responded in the comments on Wednesday, saying the university was looking into the incident. Then, on Thursday, the university added an additional comment that read, "As of February 4, 2026, Bret Bryon is no longer teaching classes at Texas State University."

Bryon's name has since been removed from the list of faculty members on the university's website. Srinivasa later posted a video to Instagram, stating in part, "Gotta give a major shoutout to Texas State University. Within 48 hours of hearing about this, to take definitive action and share it with us, that means that they care and they deserve a round of applause." She also shared her feelings following the exchange. "The reason I'm still kind of bummed is it makes me face the reality that simply identifying these people, shaming them, firing them is likely to be completely insufficient to fix the problem," Srinivasa said in the video. "To fix the problem, you have to raise boys differently, you have to teach them differently." According to The Texas Tribune, Bryon worked in the university's Department of Organization, Workforce and Leadership Studies in the College of Applied Arts.

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Sarah Stogner: What the GOP got wrong about voters in the Texas Senate election

(Sarah Stogner is the Republican district attorney of Texas’ 143rd Judicial District, which includes the town of Pecos and a swath of West Texas.) The victory of Democratic candidate Taylor Rehmet in deeply “red” Tarrant County is being described as the “political equivalent” of “a 9.5 Richter scale earthquake.” But take a look at what’s been going on here in Texas and across the country, and you realize the results should not come as a shock. To people who think “Republican” these days automatically translates to “staunch Trump supporter,” Rehmet’s big win in a state Senate race would seem inexplicable. Donald Trump won the district by 17 points in the 2024 presidential election. In advance of Saturday’s special election in the Fort Worth-area suburb, Trump gave Republican Leigh Wambsganss his “Complete and Total Endorsement” (capitalization his, of course). Yet Rehmet beat Wambsganss by about 14 points.

But having voted for Trump does not automatically mean supporting the direction in which he has taken the Republican Party. Also, his re-election had a big boost from the implosion of President Joe Biden’s campaign. And voters were rejecting incumbents all over the world. Across the United States, people were dissatisfied with Democrats on the economy, security and more. Here in Texas, voters can’t blame Democrats for our problems. We’ve been under one-party GOP rule for decades. The way so many Texans see it: You break it, you fix it. And a lot feels broken right now — including our economy and education system. Voters have told me they’re also fed up with hateful rhetoric from GOP figures who demonize Democrats. And they’re deeply concerned about growing antisemitism, racism and other forms of bigotry in both parties. They want candidates who will unite people. That played out here. “This isn't red versus blue; this is right versus wrong,” Rehmet said in his victory speech. “We can talk about partisanship all we want. I was focused on unity, bringing people together. We're all Texans. We all want to look out for each other.”

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Despite legal setbacks and border closures, Annunciation House continues ministry

Ruben Garcia had long expected that an overzealous federal government would one day accuse him of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. "And that doesn't mean that they would necessarily have been successful," Garcia said during a recent interview at Casa Papa Francisco, a house of hospitality in El Paso that houses migrant women and children. Dressed in blue jeans and a white button-down shirt, Garcia, 77, sighed as he discussed the Texas attorney general's efforts to shut down his migrant ministry. "I never would have imagined that the state of Texas would be the one that came after us," Garcia said. "That's something that never, ever crossed my mind." On Feb. 7, 2024, representatives from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office arrived at the front door of Annunciation House, a shelter for migrants in El Paso that Garcia helped found nearly 50 years ago.

Armed with an official Request to Examine, the attorney general's representatives demanded to enter the shelter and examine its business records. Annunciation House, which is part of a network of shelters that includes Casa Papa Francisco, balked at the request, which led to Paxton, a Republican, suing to shut down the shelter. In court documents and public statements since, Paxton has accused Annunciation House of "harboring illegal aliens" and serving as a "stash house" engaged in human smuggling. Garcia, the executive director of Annunciation House, pushed back against the allegations. Despite the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown and Texas state officials' moves to close nonprofits that serve migrants, Garcia said the shelter and its volunteer staff are determined to stay true to their mission. "I'm very open about the work we do," he said. "We provide hospitality to migrants and refugees. Some of them have been documented, some of them have not been documented. Annunciation House is not the only one that does this. Churches and [nongovernmental organizations] across the country have been providing hospitality to migrants. And the courts have said that to provide that to human beings is not illegal."

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National Stories

Health costs are fueling voter stress and powering Democratic campaigns

President Donald Trump’s second term has presented an array of opportunities for political opponents, from immigration crackdowns and lingering inflation to attacks on independent institutions and friction with overseas allies. Many Democrats, however, are staying focused on health care, an issue that was once a political liability but has become foundational for the party in recent elections. They insist their strategy will help the party regain control of Congress in the November elections and fare better than chasing headlines about the latest outrages out of the White House. Republicans last year cut about $1 trillion over a decade from Medicaid and declined to extend COVID-era subsidies that had lowered the cost of health plans under the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats are filming campaign spots outside struggling hospitals, spotlighting Americans facing spiking insurance premiums and sharing their own personal health care stories. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, one of the party’s most endangered incumbents this year, said at a rally Saturday attended by more than 1,000 people in an Atlanta suburb that health care is part of Trump’s abandonment of working people. “While prices are going up and jobs are getting harder to find, they decided to let health insurance premiums double for more than 20 million Americans, including more than a million Georgians,” said Ossoff, the only Democratic senator seeking reelection this year in a state that Trump won in 2024. He said 200,000 people in Georgia had lost their coverage. Brad Woodhouse, a Democratic strategist and executive director of advocacy group Protect Our Care, said health care is “a banger of an issue for Democrats.” “I think it will be part of every single campaign, up and down the ballot,” he said. Republicans defend their votes as reining in ballooning health spending and cracking down on what they call waste, fraud and abuse. Trump recently launched a website to help patients buy discounted prescription drugs.

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Dems reject W.H. counteroffer with 3 days until DHS shutdown

A brand new edition of The Tally — our campaign special publication — will be out this morning. The Top will feature a lengthy and newsy interview with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), conducted by our own John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio. Check your inboxes at 10 a.m. Crunch time. Democratic leaders rejected a White House counteroffer on DHS reforms in a late-night statement on Monday, complaining that the GOP proposal “included neither details nor legislative text.” Earlier Monday, Senate GOP leaders were trying to lay the groundwork to pass another short-term DHS funding patch. They were working closely with the White House to convince enough Senate Democrats that negotiations are on the right track as Friday’s shutdown deadline looms.

But the joint statement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries made clear that persuading even a small handful of Democratic senators to support a stopgap measure will be a heavy lift. “The initial GOP response is both incomplete and insufficient in terms of addressing the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct. Democrats await additional detail and text,” Schumer and Jeffries said. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been striking an unmistakably optimistic tone about the negotiations, knowing that’s the key to securing enough Democratic support for a short-term funding patch. The exchange of offers was a sign that there’s some level of horse-trading going on as the deadline nears. “Obviously there’s a lot of work ahead but I think the sides are engaged in good-faith efforts at trying to find common ground,” Thune said. “[Democratic support] depends on how well the negotiations are going and whether it looks like there’s a pathway to success. And based on what I’m familiar with about the discussions so far, I think there is.”

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For $1 million, donors to U.S.A. birthday group offered access to Trump

President Trump’s allies are offering access to him and other perks to donors who give at least $1 million to a new group supporting flashy initiatives he is planning around the nation’s 250th birthday, according to documents and interviews. The group, Freedom 250, is threatening to overshadow years of plans meant to reach the broadest cross section of Americans for semiquincentennial celebrations. They are now taking on a Trumpian flare, replete with marble and machismo. But Freedom 250 has also emerged as another vehicle, akin to the White House ballroom project, through which people and companies with interests before the Trump administration can make tax-deductible donations to gain access to, and seek favor with, a president who has maintained a keen interest in fund-raising, and a willingness to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters.

When Mr. Trump announced the creation of Freedom 250 in a social media post in December, he promised that it would give the nation “the most spectacular birthday party you’ve ever seen.” Several of Freedom 250’s planned events and monuments lack obvious connections to the Boston Tea Party, the signing of the Declaration of Independence or other seminal moments in the nation’s founding. Rather, they are tailored to Mr. Trump’s political agenda and his penchant for spectacle, personal branding and legacy. They include the construction of an arch overlooking Washington, an IndyCar race through the nation’s capital, a national prayer event and an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the White House lawn to coincide with the president’s 80th birthday. Meredith O’Rourke, the president’s top fund-raiser, is amassing private donations for Freedom 250. Her team is circulating a solicitation, obtained by The New York Times, offering “bespoke packages” for donors.

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How cigars, whiskey and an old-school Oklahoman got the government funded

The crucial votes to fund the government last week were brokered in Speaker Mike Johnson‘s ceremonial office just off the House floor. But the groundwork to get the $1.6 trillion spending package through the chamber was laid in a literal smoke-filled room just steps away. That would be the domain of Rep. Tom Cole, the 76-year-old cigar-and-whiskey-loving chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Inside that haunt, the Oklahoman took an unabashedly old-school approach over the course of months to getting the congressional funding process unstuck after a record-long, 43-day shutdown last year. “That’s not actually an office — it’s a smoke room,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a regular in what some members cheekily call the “Cigar SCIF,” a play on the “sensitive compartmented information facilities” where government officials review state secrets. Inside, Cole “doesn’t dazzle you with numbers, he works on people-to-people skills,” Issa said, “and it’s the reason we’ve gotten something done.”

That’s something of a miracle considering who Cole is and what his colleagues have demanded. When Cole took the Appropriations gavel in the spring of 2024, conservative demands for spending reductions were mounting. Hard-liners citing unfulfilled promises of funding cuts had ousted Kevin McCarthy, a close Cole ally, from the speakership just six months earlier. Months later, Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president and immediately began freezing billions of dollars top appropriators had already fastidiously allocated. “We often joke: Boy, did we get here at a bad time,” Cole said in an interview, describing the situation he and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) confronted. While the politics of government spending grew stormy as 2025 wore on, Cole and his allies were biding their time and working — puff by puff and sip by sip — to build support for the government funding bills he was quietly negotiating with his counterparts across the aisle and across the Capitol. Matters came to a head in the weeks after the longest shutdown in U.S. history concluded in November.

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Federal court blocks California’s law enforcement mask ban

A federal judge in California on Monday temporarily blocked the state from enforcing its ban on most law enforcement officers from wearing masks during operations. US District Judge Christina Snyder in Los Angeles granted the Trump administration’s request for a preliminary injunction, finding that the ban “unlawfully discriminates” against federal agents because it does not equally apply to state law enforcement officers. Snyder, however, kept in place another law requiring federal officers operating in the state to display either their name or badge number. The ruling is a partial win for the Trump administration, which challenged the policies in federal court last year, insisting both be thrown out to protect federal agents.

The administration had argued that the laws, signed in September in response to immigration raids last summer in Los Angeles, were an unconstitutional attempt to regulate federal law enforcement officers. Attorney General Pamela Bondi touted the ruling on Monday as a “key court victory” in a post on X. “We will continue fighting and winning in court for President Trump’s law-and-order agenda — and we will ALWAYS have the backs of our great federal law enforcement officers,” she said. In a statement Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta stressed that the judge’s ruling “denied the Trump Administration’s attempt to block California from requiring law enforcement officers, including federal agents, to visually identify themselves by agency and either by name or badge number.” “Safe communities thrive on transparency and trust and California is committed to doing our part to uphold public safety and civil liberties,” he added.

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ICE, CBP officials face questions from Congress about Minneapolis surge

Top Department of Homeland Security officials are set to testify Tuesday before a House committee, as the agency faces growing scrutiny over its immigration enforcement tactics. Todd M. Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Rodney Scott, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director, are scheduled to appear. It will be the first time the heads of ICE and CBP appear before the House Committee on Homeland Security since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. Tuesday will also mark the first congressional oversight hearing since two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renée Good, were shot and killed by federal immigration personnel in Minneapolis last month.

Their deaths have prompted public backlash and bipartisan calls for an independent investigation. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has also faced bipartisan criticism for suggesting after Pretti’s death that he had committed an “act of domestic terrorism” and sought to kill law enforcement, despite video from witnesses contradicting that account. Members of Congress are seeking to avert another partial government shutdown this week, amid negotiations over DHS funding. Democrats are pushing for new restrictions on federal immigration authorities, including tighter rules around the use of warrants, independent investigations of alleged misconduct, a ban on masks for federal immigration agents and a requirement that agents wear body cameras. Some Republicans have already rejected those demands. Noem announced last week that “effective immediately” DHS would deploy body cameras “to every officer in the field in Minneapolis” and would expand the body camera program broadly, “as funding is available.”

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Congressman says redacted part of Epstein file suggests Trump never banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago

A previously unseen part of the Epstein files may refute one of President Donald Trump's most common claims about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Democratic congressman. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin spoke with reporters on Monday, Feb. 9, after reviewing unredacted versions of some documents in the Epstein files. The Department of Justice has released countless documents to the public in large batches, though many of the documents were shared with heavy redactions that omitted significant context. Raskin was among a select group of House members who were granted permission to view some original documents in person. Raskin, 63, said he has only had the opportunity to review about "30 or 40" of the documents so far, in preparation for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 11.

However, one of the documents he did see had an interesting exchange that could call some of the president's previous statements into question. The document in question was an email forward from Epstein to his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, from 2009, which was just after the late billionaire's 2008 conviction on charges of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. The email exchange apparently recounted a conversation between lawyers for Epstein and Trump. "Epstein's lawyers synopsized and quoted Trump as saying that Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of his club at Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and he had never been asked to leave," Raskin said. "That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason." "I know it seems to be at odds with some things that President Trump has been saying recently about how he had kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club or asked him to leave, and this was at least one report that appears to contradict it," Raskin continued. PEOPLE reached out to Raskin for more context on the document he referenced, and sought comment from the White House and DOJ about Raskin's claims.

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House overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing package

The House on Monday overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan, comprehensive housing package aimed at ameliorating the affordability crisis in the U.S. and increasing homeownership. The legislation, dubbed the Housing for the 21st Century Act, passed the lower chamber by a vote of 390-9. It is sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and it passed the committee overwhelmingly in December. The bill includes more than 20 provisions that would direct the Government Accountability Office to study gaps in federal housing programs and modernize the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program, among other actions.

“When there aren’t enough homes, prices go up. The Housing for the 21st Century Act includes real, bipartisan solutions to boost development by clearing out red tape and letting communities and local banks do their job. That’s how we expand supply, lower costs and give families more options,” Hill, along with Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.), wrote in an op-ed for The Hill last week. The bill now moves to the Senate, where lawmakers will likely make changes to the legislation. Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had sponsored their own bipartisan housing bill, dubbed the ROAD to Housing Act, last year. They had pushed for provisions of the bill to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act in December, but it was not included. Hill wrote in a statement at the time that he looked forward to working with the Senate “to send a bill to the president’s desk that reflects the views of both chambers.” More than 50 groups have endorsed Hill’s bill, including the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, American Hotel and Lodging Association, Americans for Prosperity and others, according to a press release. The nine lawmakers who voted against the bill were Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) and Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas).

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Lead Stories

Trump accepts ownership of the current economy: 'I'm very proud of it'

President Donald Trump says it’s his economy now. In an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas that aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday, the 47th president said the country is already experiencing the Trump economy. “At what point are we in the Trump economy?” Llamas asked. “I’d say we’re there now,” he replied. “I’m very proud of it.”

His remarks come at a time when most Americans tell pollsters they are not satisfied with the state of the economy and as Trump executes a barnstorming strategy to bring his economic message to political battlegrounds before the November midterms. An NPR/Marist/PBS News survey released last week showed that 36% of adults say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 59% disapprove. In off-year elections last November, Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and New York hammered away at “affordability” on their way to victory. In the interview, which was taped Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump said the economy is doing so well that Democrats are abandoning that message — and also blamed his predecessor, President Joe Biden, for stubbornly high prices on some staples. “In the last four days, it’s only four days, the Democrats have not uttered the word ‘affordability,’” he said. “They’re the ones that caused the problem. I took over a mess in every way.”

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Pro-Paxton PAC, mystery group buy up $3M in ads attacking Wesley Hunt

With just amonth to go before the Republican U.S. Senateprimary, a Super PAC supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a newly formed outside spending group is pouringa combined $3 million into newadvertising attacks against U.S. Rep.Wesley Hunt of Houston. The Conservatives for Texas PAC, which just formed last month and has yet to disclose its donors, launched one ad thatcalls out Hunt for not voting for President Donald Trump — a claim Hunt's campaign denies — and voting with U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on an unspecified piece of legislation. Routine bills oftenpass the House with unanimous support. "Washington Wesley is no conservative, he's a backstabbing RINO Texas Conservatives can't trust," the ad states, using an acronym for the insult"Republican in name only."

The March 3 primary has become a tight three-way race, with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Paxton and Hunt all vying for the toptwo spots in what most observers believe will end in a runoff. In a statement Thursday, Hunt criticized Cornyn and Paxton for attacking him, saying, "The result will be the same, and it won't work." "They're scared. That's why they're attacking. And that's why we're going to win," he said. The pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC hasn't started running ads attacking Hunt yet, but on Thursday the group reported buyingmore than $680,000 in advertising opposing Hunt through a Florida consulting firm. "Wesley Hunt has a lot to answer for for his time in Washington, D.C., and we'll be prosecuting that message aggressively from now until election day," said Gregg Keller, a spokesman for the group. The ad by the Conservatives for Texas PAC started running in the Houston area Tuesday, according to the research firm AdImpact. The group reported $2.7 million in advertising buys on Wednesday, setting up for a longer campaign.

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Trump's ICE crackdown will limit Texas job growth in 2026, Dallas Fed says

Texas should see modest employment growth in 2026, according to an annual forecast from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, although President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown stifled job growth last year and is likely to remain a constraint. The Dallas Fed’s annual Texas Employment Forecast indicates the state will add about 154,600 jobs over the course of the year, an increase of 1.1%. That comes after employment growth was essentially flat in 2025, when the state added just 10,700 jobs. All told, Texas has about 14.4 million people employed. “The immigration crackdown is really having an effect limiting labor supply,” Pia Orrenius, a labor economist and vice president of the Dallas Fed, said Friday at an economic outlook event where the forecast was released.

The Dallas Fed previously raised this concern in a report in October, which found that the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement was making it harder for many Texas businesses to hire or retain foreign-born workers. “It’s almost more the chilling effect, than people actually leaving or being deported,” Orrenius said, adding: “This is actually impacting both unauthorized immigrants and legal immigrants.” Several other factors help explain Texas’s tepid job growth last year, Orrenius said, and remain relevant as 2026 begins. The growth of artificial intelligence helped the state notch healthy productivity gains, for example, but those productivity gains likely suppressed hiring to some extent: “Firms can do more with fewer workers.” Low oil prices may also serve as a drag on growth this year, as they did in 2025. The Greater Houston Partnership said in its own employment forecast, released in December, that it expects the region’s oil and gas sector to shed about 3,200 jobs in 2026 even as it forecasts the region will add about 31,000 jobs overall. Census Bureau data released earlier this month found that state population grew by about 391,000 people in 2025, a decrease of about one-third compared to the prior year. Orrenius said that, based on her own calculations, the state saw a steep drop in the number of domestic and international migrants who moved to Texas last year. She forecasts just 89,000 people will move to the state this year. That would be the slowest population growth Texas has seen in more than a decade and it would be a worrisome development for Texas, Orrenius suggested. The state has long experienced outsized economic growth alongside, and as a result of, outsized population growth.

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K Street: Dems stronger in 2026

Most K Street leaders (90%) said Democrats are in a stronger position than the GOP ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, according to our most recent Canvass survey. Notably, 84% of Republican respondents ranked the Democratic Party in the more favorable position heading into the campaign season.

In their midterm messaging so far, Democrats have focused heavily on health care — including the expiration of premium enhanced ACA subsidies — and affordability. Democratic leaders have also worked to offset key House GOP redistricting gains, although which party comes out with the edge heading into the November midterms remains to be seen. Issues top of mind. More than eight out of 10 respondents said President Donald Trump’s immigration and deportation policies will be a top issue in the midterms. More than two-thirds said Trump’s tariff and trade negotiations will have an impact, while 51% also said mid-decade redistricting outcomes would weigh on the election. Other major events K Street predicts will have an impact in November: the Jeffrey Epstein files (35%); military actions in Venezuela and other foreign nations (24%); and the reconciliation law (23%).

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State Stories

Why San Antonio public schools are closing — and it’s not just enrollment

When she learned her family’s beloved neighborhood school was marked for closure, Shannon Oster-Gabrielson passionately fought to keep it open, then mourned when it closed. Her kids, now 7 and 9, attended Lamar Elementary – a school older than San Antonio Independent School District. It was just a block from their house. They considered it home; the family knew everyone at Lamar. Opened in 1878 and later a fixture in Mahncke Park for a century, Lamar in its final years became a choice school built around an innovative, real-world learning model. But enrollment dwindled to 315 students in 2023. Searching for a way to “rightsize” district resources and address a steady decline in students across SAISD, trustees voted late that year to close Lamar and 14 other schools. The district argued it was a necessary step to make sure students across all campuses had the best resources possible – and students at under-enrolled schools weren’t making do with less.

The decision devastated families who had to find a new place to send their children. “When I talk about it and the impact, I still get very emotional. It feels like you lost a family member. It’s one of the most trusted institutions that you have. When it closes, you lose that,” Oster-Gabrielson said. Experts say students who attend a school that shutters during their K-12 education suffer from lower test scores, spotty attendance and a diminished sense of belonging that sometimes leads to behavior issues on campus. Later on, they’re less likely to finish college and pursue well-paying careers. But school choice advocates argue that a competitive education landscape is the answer to improving student outcomes. Families have more options than ever to educate their students outside the traditional public school system. Charter schools, which began in Texas in the 1990s as a public school alternative to test out innovative learning models, have proliferated since then. The model now ranges from individual charter campuses focused on particular student demographics up to expansive networks with campuses across Texas and other states.

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Flesh-eating parasite sparks disaster declaration in Texas

Texas will not get screwed by the flesh-eating parasite known as the screwworm — with Gov. Greg Abbott declaring a preemptive disaster declaration before the devastating organism even gets to the Lone Star State. The New World Screwworm, a fly which can burrow into and feed on living tissue, has been steadily making its way north from Central and Southern America, officials said. “State law authorizes me to act to prevent a threat of infestation that could cause severe damage to Texas property, and I will not wait for such harm to reach our livestock and wildlife,” Abbott said.

The blowflies primarily affect animals, experts said. And while human cases are rare, they can be terrifying. Doctors ended up surgically removing 100 to 150 screwworms from a cancer patient in Florida last year, after the man apparently contracted the bug during a week-long visit to the Dominican Republic. There were so many larvae, the bugs clogged the hospital’s suction machine, the hospital said. There have been more than a dozen cases of the screwworm in Tamaulipas, Mexico, a town just south of the Texas border, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller confirmed in January. Miller urged ranchers to remain vigilant. “Now is the time for Texas producers to stay sharp and be prepared… Early detection is our strongest weapon,” he said. Abbott is also ordering state agencies to gear up before the parasite arrives, directing the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Animal Health Commission to form a joint New World Screwworm Response Team.

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Wildfires ignite across central Texas amid hot, dry conditions

Hot and dry conditions have sparked multiple wildfires across central Texas, with flames erupting from Austin to the Hill Country. The Texas A&M Forest Service attributes the increased wildfire activity to recent short-term drying and warm weather. Reilly Ruggiero, public information officer for the Texas A&M Forest Service, said, "People still do need to be aware during those times." One significant fire ignited near the Gillespie-Blanco County line, expanding to around 70 to 80 acres. Blanco County Emergency Management reported that the fire was 80% contained as of 6 p.m., with no injuries or structural damage. "Whenever we see those higher percentages such as 80-100 percent containment, it doesn't mean that the fire is out," Ruggiero said. "We still can see some smoke or pockets of the interior burning."

In Johnson City, another fire burned 1.5 acres after starting as a structure fire. A third fire occurred in Mustang Ridge. Ruggiero says the warm and dry conditions are to blame. "We had some short-term drying, along side with warm and dry conditions that did support an overall increase of wildfire activity across the state," she said. Both of these fires have been contained. The Texas A&M Forest Service urges residents to remain vigilant and adhere to local burn bans and fire restrictions. "Please follow local burn ban and fire restrictions. And even if we aren't in a burn ban, please be safe," Ruggiero advised. Blanco County Emergency Services confirmed that Gillespie fire resources have left the area, and airdrop operations have concluded, though monitoring continues.

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DHS buys El Paso warehouses for $123 million ICE mega detention center as deportation capacity expands nationwide

The federal government has purchased industrial park warehouses in Far East El Paso County for nearly $123 million to be used as a massive ICE detention center, according to newly filed deeds. The purchase comes as hundreds of residents speak out against the project and city and county leaders question what authority, if any, they have to intervene. A general warranty deed filed with the county this week shows the property transfer from El Paso Logistics II LLC in Delaware to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was executed Jan. 17. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans a 8,500-capacity mega detention facility on the property off Gateway Boulevard East near Clint. The property falls within the boundaries of the city of Socorro.

The property in an industrial zone – Eastwind Logistics Center – comprises three reinforced concrete warehouses of about 296,000 square feet each, with an adjacent plot of land available for expansion, a commercial real estate brochure indicates. The park was previously available for lease, but disappeared off real estate and developer websites the past month. A second deed filed with the county this week sets up long-term drainage and stormwater obligations for the property, with an effective date reversing back to Jan. 1. That includes shared stormwater detention ponds for multiple parcels – including future development. The effective date indicates the infrastructure work likely began before the land sale was complete. The facility falls within the Lower Valley Water District service area, raising questions about the availability of water to the facility housing thousands of people. Officials with the water district didn’t return calls for comment. State Rep. Vincent Perez, D-El Paso, on Friday warned about potential fires at the planned mega center, citing the lack of water pressure and infrastructure as dangerous. He urged El Paso County Emergency Services District No. 2 that serves the area to deny a permit for the center. He noted the 2023 fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez that killed 40 detainees and injured 27 others as an example of the potential dangers.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Katherine Culbert in the Texas Railroad Commissioner Republican primary

For too long, the Texas Railroad Commission has been criticized for essentially being in the hands of the oil and gas industry it is supposed to regulate. There are well-documented examples that reveal that the state agency basically operates a rubber-stamp system. This is why it was refreshing that three of the candidates in the Republican primary for Railroad Commissioner were concerned about conflicts of interest at the agency and the need to rebuild trust. From this group, we recommend Katherine Culbert, a process safety engineer, as having the best credentials for this agency and for her commitment to transparency. Culbert, 50, told us she likes to look at things with a preventive eye to make sure workers and communities are protected. Orphan wells are an example of how the agency is not doing enough, she said. “When a plugged well leaks, the Commission needs to take responsibility for the well, no matter the history,” she wrote in the Voter Guide. “It does not benefit Texans to have the Railroad Commission turning away from helping landowners because of an old well that is not on the books.”

Hawk Dunlap and James Matlock, who also interviewed with us, could be part of a much-improved Railroad Commission. Also running are incumbent Jim Wright and Bo French, the former Tarrant County GOP chairman. French is the least qualified and is running to “stop the Islamic invasion.” Dunlap, 55, has vast experience in oil fields all over the world and was concerned that landowners in Texas are forced to hire lawyers to do the job that the Railroad Commission is supposed to do. Matlock, 53, brought very specific examples showing the agency is failing everyday Texans and shared a proposal to change its name to be more descriptive of what it does and to expand its scope to oversee more of Texas’ energy sources. But we have concerns over a Jan. 31 post on X, where he justified the use of deadly force against protesters. Culbert, Dunlap and Matlock told us they are not receiving campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. According to the Texas Ethics Commission, Dunlap has raised about $65,000 and Culbert roughly $7,000. Matlock told us he is self-financing his campaign. They all pale in comparison to incumbent Jim Wright’s contributions. He reported over $440,000, including contributions linked to the oil industry. Wright did recently recuse himself from a vote related to an oilfield waste company that he had financial ties to. The recusal was so rare it made news. In 2021, Wright reported active interests in 18 companies, according to Commission Shift, a watchdog group. “Recusal needs to be mandatory,” Culbert told us. We agree; the perception of conflict of interest is not a good look for any regulating agency. This is an agency that no longer has credibility and is in serious need of reform. The way it operates is so well-known that it has even become a punchline in Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ series Landman.

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Austin American-Statesman Editorial: Sethi's statehouse know-how would benefit Texas House 47

Cash-strapped school districts are shuttering schools. Homeowners’ insurance rates keep jumping by double digits: 21% one year, 19% the next. And West Travis residents are particularly vulnerable to wildfire risks, making amenities like additional fire hydrants essential. Texas House District 47 needs a state rep who knows how to tackle problems within the corridors of the Capitol. In our view, that candidate in the Democratic primary is Pooja Sethi, an attorney who spent the past four and a half years working on this district’s issues as chief of staff for Rep. Vikki Goodwin, who’s now running for lieutenant governor. Sethi impressed us with her targeted, realistic ideas for addressing the state’s “Robin Hood” school finance system.

She suggested capping recapture payments to no more than 30% of a school district’s revenue (Austin ISD currently sends 52% of its local dollars to the state), and reducing recapture payments for districts that lose students to private schools under the state’s new voucher program. “It is unbelievable to me that we're getting penalized twice: We have to pay all this money in recapture as well as lose money in the voucher scam,” she told our Editorial Board. She also sees opportunities to incentivize wildfire mitigation efforts in a way that improves safety while bringing down homeowners’ insurance bills. Sethi faces Joseph Kopser, an energetic tech entrepreneur focused on jobs and healthcare, in the March 3 primary. The winner will face Dr. Jennifer Mushtaler, a Republican, in the November election.

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Three Democrats take on long odds in bid to unseat Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

Toppling a powerful GOP lieutenant governor after a decade of leadership in a deep-red state is no small task. Three Texas Democrats say it’s time to take a swing at Dan Patrick anyway. First they have to duke it out in the March 3 primary to get a shot – however small – to take him on. State Rep. Vikki Goodwin of Austin, considered the frontrunner, has emphasized her legislative experience, voting record and support of public education. But challengers Marcos Vélez, a Houston labor leader, and political newcomer Courtney Head say three decades of Democratic statewide losses demand a break from the past and a new generation of leadership. Still, the odds remain steep. Upsets happen but incumbents enjoy advantages in name recognition, money and media attention, said Sara Johnson, a political science lecturer at SMU. Even with a message that might resonate with voters, Johnson said, “outsiders face many challenges winning elections.”

Goodwin said her experience helps narrow that gap. ‘‘I’ve built relationships. I like solving problems with public policy. I’ve been able to work on issues that impact all different parts of the state,” she said. The Democrats remain undaunted. All three are centering their campaigns on economic pressures, from health care access to affordability and wages. Vélez, a former refinery worker turned steelworkers union leader, is betting that frustration over wages, affordability and economic insecurity can cut across party lines. He said he sees signs of momentum, citing his Texas AFL-CIO endorsement and last week’s Democratic upset in a Republican-leaning state Senate seat in Tarrant County. Vélez, who had $46,000 in his campaign account as of late January, is pushing priorities such as raising the minimum wage and calling out what he describes as decades of failed policy decisions. “We get really frustrated with the lack of progress in the Texas Legislature,” Vélez, 40, said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. “Let’s swing for the fences.” He said voters are tired of inaction. Head, a San Antonio resident and head of legal operations and management for an Ohio-based software company, said she hopes to rally first-time voters, students and young adults, pitching innovation, bipartisanship and education affordability. A 35-year-old wife and mother, Head interned for U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro in San Antonio while still in college – a job that taught her how energy and relatability can drive voter engagement.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Staci Childs is Democrats' best pick to replace Alma Allen

Most Houstonians have never heard of the State Board of Education, let alone watched one of its meetings, but that’s where the work of writing curriculum standards that affect every public school kid in the state happens. As a member of that board, Staci Childs makes the most of her voice. “I see ancient Israel, I see ancient Greece, ancient Rome, why wasn’t ancient Africa parsed out as a separate topic?” the board member asked earlier this year. “Please, we want to see Black folks represented in different ways outside of being enslaved in the United States.” By the end of the exchange, she got a promise that the curriculum developers will “take a look at that.”

It’s a small glimpse into the ideological battleground that is Texas public education — from vouchers to Bible verses in schools. But the interaction, posted to Childs’ social media, shows what kind of leader she has been and will be. If elected to the Legislature this year, constituents can count on her to be attentive, thoughtful and direct — putting both her background as a teacher and a lawyer to work for constituents. That’s why we’re recommending Childs, 38, for the Democratic primary in House District 131. The seat has been held since 2004 by Alma Allen, a stalwart defender of public education, but she is stepping down. The district includes a narrow band of southwest and south Houston with parts of Alief, Hiram Clarke and Minnetex. Allen’s own son Lawrence Allen Jr., 64 — also a longtime educator and former member of the State Board of Education — is also in the race. He has won his mother's endorsement as well as a handful of others from Democrats in the House. We found him well versed in some issues but were surprised by his lack of insight on the coming property tax relief debate as the Legislature readies a showdown between Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s and Gov. Greg Abbott’s competing proposals.

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Na’Cole Thompson wins race for Leander mayor, making her first city's first Black mayor

Na'Cole Thompson reacted to her victory in the race for mayor of Leander. "I’m really excited to continue serving the city of Leander, and I firmly believe that this win belongs to all of us," Thompson told Community Impact. "We had so many people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, different parts of the city that all came together and showed up to vote, just to show they care about the future of Leander."

Unofficial results show Na’Cole Thompson garnered 57.01% of ballots cast in the race for mayor of Leander with 3372 votes. Challenger Mike Sanders received 25.88% with 1531 votes, and Kathryn Pantalion-Parker received 16.92% with 1001 votes.

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Constitutional law expert: Gov. Abbott has law on his side regarding school walkouts

The Texas governor says the Supreme Court supports his stance that the right to free speech is not absolute for students. Gov. Greg Abbott emphasized that students cannot simply walk out of school to attend protests without facing consequences. “The Supreme Court has been very clear about free speech of students,” Abbott said. “And that free speech of students does not include leaving the school.” Both the governor and the Texas Education Agency say students who walk out during school hours to protest will face repercussions, most likely being marked with an unexcused absence. Teachers who encourage walkouts could face even harsher consequences, including the potential loss of their teaching license. School districts are also prohibited from facilitating protests in any way, with the risk of losing funding if they do.

But is all of this legally sound? Would these measures hold up in court? Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law, said there are three layers to consider. “Students have some free speech rights at school but they can’t cause a disruption. I think the entire point of a walkout is to cause a disruption,” Blackman said. He added that teachers “have no obligation, in fact, are not allowed to encourage students to leave school. They can encourage them to protest after school or on a weekend, but not during the school day.” And regarding school districts, which are largely governed by Texas Education Agency, Blackman said they will likely be cautious about imposing punishments or accepting state monitors. It is conceivable that these rules and repercussions could be tested in court in the future. Outcomes could depend on how key terms, such as “facilitating a walkout,” are interpreted.

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Uvalde CISD superintendent announces resignation from district, will join Pflugerville ISD

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District will be looking for a new leader by the end of the current academic year. In a letter to parents Friday morning, Superintendent Ashley Chohlis announced her resignation. KSAT Investigates obtained a copy of Chohlis’ letter. Her departure will go into effect on April 7, 2026, according to the letter. In her Uvalde CISD announcement, Chohlis said she will be pursuing “new opportunities” outside of the district.

“During my tenure, I have been continually inspired by the dedication and passion of our educators, the curiosity and brilliance of our students, and the unwavering support of the families and school community members who help make Uvalde CISD an exceptional place,” Chohlis said in the letter, in part. “I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to work alongside such remarkable individuals.” According to a Friday news release obtained by KSAT Investigates, Chohlis will become the chief of staff at Pflugerville ISD, an Austin-area school district. “Ashley Chohlis brings exceptional leadership experience, deep operational knowledge, and a strong commitment to people and purpose,” Pflugerville ISD Superintendent Dr. Quintin Shepherd said in the news release. “Her collaborative leadership style and focus on student-centered outcomes will be a tremendous asset as we continue advancing Pflugerville ISD’s strategic priorities.” “Strong leadership empowers educators, supports families, and transforms the student experience,” Chohlis said in the Pflugerville ISD news release. “I am honored to join Pflugerville ISD and look forward to supporting the district’s strategic goals while working alongside staff, families, and community partners to advance student success.”

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National Stories

Seahawks ride their 'Dark Side' defense to a Super Bowl title, pounding the Patriots 29-13

The “Dark Side” defense carried Sam Darnold and the Seattle Seahawks to a Lombardi Trophy. Devon Witherspoon, Derick Hall, Byron Murphy and the rest of Mike Macdonald’s ferocious unit pummeled Drake Maye, and the Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29-13 on Sunday to win the franchise’s second Super Bowl. “We never waver, man. We believe in each other. We love each other, and now we’re world champions,” Macdonald said. Darnold threw a touchdown pass to AJ Barner, Kenneth Walker III ran for 135 yards and Jason Myers set a Super Bowl record by making all five of his field-goal tries. “To do this with this team, I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Darnold said. “So proud of our guys, our defense. I mean, I can’t say enough great things about our defense, our special teams.”

Walker became the first running back to win the Super Bowl MVP award since Hall of Famer Terrell Davis did it with Denver 28 years ago. Uchenna Nwosu punctuated a punishing defensive performance by snagging Maye’s pass in the air after Witherspoon hit his arm and running it back 45 yards for a pick-6. Related Stories Pro Picks: Patriots will top the Broncos and Rams will edge the Seahawks to reach the Super Bowl Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl is not so much of a rematch as it is a matchup of contrasts Sam Darnold has overcome doubters, Drake Maye has lived up to hype. Only one will win Super Bowl 60 “We went through a lot, but we believed,” Witherspoon said. “All of you all doubters out there who said all that other stuff, you all don’t know what’s going on in this building. We’re one of one over here.” Seattle won its first Super Bowl a dozen years ago behind its “Legion of Boom” defense, then was denied a repeat when New England’s Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson at the goal line. The Seahawks hadn’t been back to the Super Bowl since.

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Turning Point USA’s All-American Halftime Show draws 6.1M concurrent viewers on YouTube

Streamed opposite Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance, Turning Point USA’s “All-American Halftime Show” featuring Kid Rock drew as many as 6.1 million concurrent viewers on its YouTube channel Sunday night. The show, which started after the conclusion of the first half of the Super Bowl, began with a message in support of late conservative pundit Charlie Kirk. “This one is for you, Charlie,” a spokesman said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a video appearance on the YouTube livestream before the concert commenced, and the stream included a pro-adoption advertisement funded by “Adoption is an option.” But the show, which also saw performances from country singers Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, was mostly devoid of political messaging. “From the War Department, we salute Turning Point USA and everyone who believes freedom is still worth the fight,” Hegseth said in the video. “Thank you for your courage as an organization, your clarity and leadership, and for this halftime show the war department is proud to support.” While Turning Point USA drew over 6 million concurrent views on YouTube, the television audience for the Bad Bunny halftime show was expected to be much larger. Last year, Kendrick Lamar’s halftime concert drew 133.5 million views, the most for any Super Bowl halftime show. Messages in opposition to the stream appeared at times in the YouTube comments, including some writing “ICE Out.” Other users expressed their support.

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Bad Bunny brought Puerto Rico's history and culture to a revolutionary Super Bowl show

The sun hung low when Bad Bunny emerged in Puerto Rico’s sugar cane fields during his halftime show, surrounded by jíbaros in pavas (rural farmers in traditional straw hats), viejitos playing dominos (an affectionate term for older men) and a piragua stand (shaved ice) — undeniable symbols of Puerto Rico. From a small Caribbean island with a complicated colonial history, to the world: The artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio brought Puerto Rican culture to the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, for his 2026 Super Bowl halftime show in what was always going to be a landmark moment for Latinos. He started with his huge reggaeton-and-then-some hits, “Tití Me Preguntó” moving into “Yo Perreo Sola,” as he remerged on top of the casita (“little house”) from his Puerto Rican residency — Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Pedro Pascal, Karol G, Young Miko, Ronald Acuña Jr., Alix Earle and Dave Grutman were guests at his pari de marquesina (“house party.”)

Then he crashed through the roof — Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” played for a moment, clearly an acknowledgement and celebration of the Puerto Rican artists who laid the path for his career to go global. “Mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio,” he introduced himself to the crowd in Spanish. “Y si hoy estoy aquí en el Super Bowl 60, es porque nunca, nunca dejé de creer en mí y tú también deberías de creer en ti, vales más de lo que piensas.” In English: “My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and if I’m here today at Super Bowl 60 it’s because I never, ever stopped believing in myself and you should also believe in yourself, you’re worth more than you think.” The strings of his song “Monaco” played — then, a surprise Lady Gaga emerged at a real wedding scene, singing her portion of the Bruno Mars-duet “Die with a Smile,” joined by the salsa band Los Sobrinos. Her dress featured a maga, Puerto Rico’s national flower. As they performed, the couple was married and Benito served as their witness and signed their certificate.

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Republicans want nothing to do with conservative efforts to ban gay marriage

In late January, a number of prominent conservative advocates launched a campaign with the explicit goal of organizing to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. Elected Republicans want nothing to do with it. “If government is going to be in the marriage business, it cannot discriminate based upon any of the protected classes, including sexual orientation,” Rep. Nick LaLota of New York told NOTUS. “I don’t think it’s a viable effort, legally, politically or otherwise, to try to overturn that decision.” The “Greater Than” campaign is an attempt to garner support — both popular and political — to overturn the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which declared that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional.

In a video announcing its launch, Katy Faust, founder and president of the conservative group Them Before Us, said that “when you redefine marriage, you redefine parenthood. When you make mothers and fathers optional in parenthood law, children are harmed.” “Children are greater than equal,” conservative activists, taking turns, said in the video. The Republican Party has been toning down its opposition to gay marriage in recent years. For decades, the party’s official platform declared that marriage was a union exclusively between a man and a woman. In 2016, a year after Obergefell was decided, the party added a clause explicitly condemning the ruling. But in 2024, under the direction of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate at the time, the language around “natural marriage” was removed, and the platform was changed to say that “Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage.” Polling also shows that most Americans overwhelmingly support keeping gay marriage legal. A May 2025 Gallup survey found that 68% of Americans believe that same-sex marriages should be considered valid under law. While current support is high, the most recent number is a decline from the 71% record high reached in 2023.

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The sordid story of Trump, the Trump–Witkoff family business, and the UAE

In autumn 2024, when it had become clear that he’d likely win back the White House in about six weeks, Donald Trump and his friend Steve Witkoff founded a crypto business called World Liberty Financial (WLF). WLF was (and remains) an ideal vehicle for leveraging political power in search of financial gain. Crypto is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. The public generally doesn’t understand it. The Federal Reserve says just 2 percent of Americans used crypto to pay for something in 2024. The “value” that investors promote and customers purchase is vague. Hence, a crypto business — whether in tokens, currency, or other iterations — is an ideal way to disguise political payoffs as financial transactions. And, because they have sons who do not hold government positions and could ostensibly run the crypto business, President Trump and his Middle East envoy, Witkoff, would be poised to claim that WLF is a private enterprise, walled off from Trump’s political influence — even though that influence was the magnet for foreign investment and consumer purchases.

Reportedly, and predictably, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire felon named Changpeng Zhao, who ran a corrupt international cryptocurrency exchange called Binance and was desperately seeking a presidential pardon, contributed invaluable technical expertise for building WLF’s infrastructure. So did Zhao’s close associate, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the top intelligence operative and the second-highest-ranking royal family member of the United Arab Emirates, a tiny, rich Gulf monarchy. The UAE had big ambitions to become an AI powerhouse but had been blocked by Washington from access to cutting-edge American chip technology because of its extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The UAE also wanted a pardon for Zhao, who lives in Dubai and could move Binance to Abu Dhabi if regulatory complications from his felony convictions were removed. Four days before Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, the UAE began pouring what is now publicly known to be at least $2.5 billion into the Trump crypto enterprise. Before Trump’s first year in office was over, Zhao had his pardon. And the UAE had its chips, in addition to being feted at the White House, inflated into a nation of real consequence in Middle East geopolitics, included in the Trump administration’s Stargate project to build global artificial intelligence and super-computing capacity, and given an ownership slice of TikTok when the president — after a year of flouting a congressional statute mandating divestiture of China’s stake — cut a deal to preserve the platform’s operation in the U.S. Before we get into the gory details, it’s worth observing that, at National Review, we extensively covered the Biden family business of corruptly profiteering off Joe Biden’s political power and influence. So did congressional Republicans. Indeed, three investigative committees, led by Representative James Comer (R., Ky.), who is still the Oversight chairman, spent hundreds of hours gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, and threatening to hold President Biden’s son, Hunter, in contempt.

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HUD headquarters move draws legal, funding scrutiny

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has started its long-awaited, multistage relocation of Washington-based staff to Alexandria, Virginia, even as questions swirl over the move’s legality, cost and congressional oversight. The union representing HUD employees argues the department is violating federal law that requires the agency to maintain its headquarters in the District of Columbia, absent explicit approval from Congress. Lawmakers, meanwhile, have been waiting since June — when HUD announced plans to relocate to the previous National Science Foundation building in Virginia — for basic information about the budget and decision-making behind moving approximately 3,000 federal employees.

“We need more transparency and more insight into their plans when it’s possible to ask questions and make changes, not just be presented after the fact with what they’ve decided to do,” Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in an interview. “These guys may think they’re being very clever by hiding information from us, but in the long run, they’re just hiding it from the American people,” HUD has defended its accelerated relocation plans as important to save taxpayer dollars and protect the well-being of employees, but critics say the administration’s efforts to push the move forward with limited congressional input reflects a broader White House pattern of sidelining the legislative branch. “It shows the same kind of contempt for Congress and congressional oversight as pretty much every other part of the Trump administration demonstrates,” Warren said. In response to questions for this story, a HUD spokesperson said the department “is complying with all applicable laws and regulations related to the move to Alexandria, including providing required information to Congressional appropriations staff.”

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Demanding support for Trump, Justice Dept. struggles to recruit prosecutors

Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in. Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor have they been asked in the past to prove political or ideological fealty. “If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” wrote Mr. Mizelle, a fierce Trump supporter who remains close with Justice Department leaders and senior officials in the West Wing. Mr. Mizelle was acting as a private citizen expressing his own views. But the post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address.

The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. The number of applications is down significantly from previous years, officials said, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. Some of those applying are generally not as qualified as those who sought the position in the recent past, they added. A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to specific questions, but said all of the department’s actions reflected Ms. Bondi’s February 2025 memo requiring all employees to “zealously advance, protect and defend” the interests of Mr. Trump in his role as the nation’s chief executive. The White House has exercised extraordinary control over the Justice Department, with prosecutors pressured to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, all in the name of reversing purported politicization under Democrats.

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Lead Stories

Democrats confront the party’s questionnaire-industrial complex

A group of moderate Democrats is kicking off the midterm season by targeting one of the mightiest, if least-known, forces in their party: the interest group questionnaire-industrial complex. Rohan Patel and Seth London, who oversee Majority Democrats — a group of young Democrats that have won competitive races — want their candidates to know they shouldn’t feel obliged to complete the often-expansive advocacy group forms. They’re also telling these organizations’ donors to think twice about contributing and urging the groups to heal thyselves by overhauling or mothballing the documents, which are typically used to determine endorsements. “These questionnaires, and more broadly the interest groups, are hurting our chances of winning,” Patel told me. “They all have their own niche questionnaires, some of which are so broad as to be almost absurd, 20 to 30 pages of questions that don’t always have anything to do with their actual issue focus.”

While long a staple of campaigns up and down the ballot, and a bane for many a candidate and staffer, the liberal litmus tests are little-known by the broader voting public. That began to change, though, in 2024 when Kamala Harris was hammered by Republicans for saying she supported taxpayer-funded trans surgery for prisoners. Harris made that pledge in the 2020 campaign, and it stemmed from an ACLU candidate questionnaire she filled out, in which she vowed to use executive authority to ensure transgender people, including those in prisons or immigration detention, would be granted “comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition.” It was, Patel said of the ACLU form, “one of about 20 questions that were absolutely deranged.” Harris has been blistered for her answer, but what about the groups asking the questions in the first place, he asked. Trans surgery for prisoners was no aberration. As Patel and London will post on a site they’re calling “The Questionable,” other groups have asked candidates to commit to federally mandated 32-hour workweeks, halting the expansion of all fossil fuel projects and signing broadly-worded pledges on criminal justice that Republicans happily portray as defunding the police.

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Following Talarico appearance, FCC launching probe into ABC's 'The View' amid crackdown on equal time for candidates

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is launching an investigation into ABC's "The View" amid the agency's crackdown on equal time for political candidates, Fox News Digital has learned. Last month, the FCC announced it will require the broadcast networks to adhere to the "statutory equal opportunities requirement," citing the Communications Act of 1934, "including their airing of late-night and daytime talk shows." A source at the FCC told Fox News Digital that Monday's "View" appearance by Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico triggered the probe. Talarico was among the first political candidates to appear on "The View" since the FCC announced its crackdown.

There has been a longstanding "bona fide" exception for news programming that wouldn't require equal time for an opposing candidate, but the FCC now says it "has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late-night or daytime television talk show program on the air presently would qualify for the 'bona fide' news exemption." ABC's parent company, Disney, never made an equal-time filing to the FCC regarding Talarico's recent appearance, which would implicitly indicate to the FCC that Disney believes "The View" is bona fide news and would be exempt from the policy, the source said. The equal opportunity requirement applies to all legally filed candidates on a ballot regardless of political party, meaning all eligible Democratic primary candidates would require equal time. Notably, Talarico received roughly nine minutes of airtime in one segment while his top primary rival, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, had roughly 17 minutes of airtime across three segments during her appearance on "The View" last month. Crockett's appearance came before the FCC announced its policy enforcement.

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Texas’ troubled election software and new congressional maps delay voter registration cards

Texas' unusual mid-decade redistricting and problems with the state's new voter registration system have delayed the mailing of voter registration certificates, the documents that give voters information about their polling place and their assigned districts, state and local officials say. Under state law, the certificates should have been issued by Dec. 6, though there's no penalty for a late mailing. With early voting for the March 3 primaries set to begin Feb. 17, the delay has confused some voters who were expecting to have received the certificates by now, and multiple election officials said they have been fielding calls and questions about the missing certificates for weeks. The certificates are small postcards that counties send to registered voters every two years, listing the voter's local voting precinct, their congressional, state Senate and House districts, county precincts, and city and school districts.

Voters don't need the cards to vote, but election officials say the cards can serve as an additional form of ID and help voters identify their new congressional or legislative district if it has changed. They also help election officials conduct voter list maintenance: When a card is returned as undeliverable, it signals that the voter may have moved. Most of the state's 254 counties rely on the Secretary of State's free election and voter registration management system, called TEAM, to produce the certificates. Local election officials have for months complained that they are struggling with the system, which was overhauled in July, and several election officials said that is contributing to the delay. State election officials said they also didn't anticipate the system needing to handle the unexpected midcycle redistricting lawmakers undertook last year, and the redrawn boundaries are creating additional complications. Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State's Office, said the state is still working with "several counties" to upload redistricting data, including Harris and Tarrant counties, which could not begin the process until they completed special runoff elections Jan. 31. The system has lagged in producing reports containing large amounts of data and images that county officials need to print the certificates. Those reports are reviewed by both state and local election administrators to ensure voters' information, including street addresses, cities, precincts, and districts, is accurate.

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Republicans rarely criticize Trump in his second term. A racist post briefly changed that

President Donald Trump received rare blowback from Republican lawmakers over a video posted to social media that included a racist image of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, depicted as primates. Since Trump’s return to the White House, Republican lawmakers have treaded carefully when disagreeing with the president, often communicating their concerns in private for fear of suffering his wrath. But the swift calls to remove the post, which also echoed false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, represented a rare moment of bipartisan backlash to Trump’s actions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Multiple GOP members of the Senate and House joined their Democratic colleagues in voicing disgust and criticism at the post and urged the president to remove it. Trump declined to apologize, saying he did not see the racist portion of the video when he passed it on to staff.

South Carolina’s Tim Scott, the only Black Republican senator and chair of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, criticized the image and urged the president to remove it. “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” Scott wrote on social media. Other Republican senators echoed the sentiment. “Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this,” Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, wrote on social media. “The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.” Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called the image “appalling.” Roger Wicker, the senior senator from Mississippi, denounced it as “totally unacceptable.” “The president should take it down and apologize,” Wicker wrote. Sen. John Curtis of Utah called Trump’s post “blatantly racist and inexcusable. It should never have been posted or left published for so long.” In the House, Rep. Mike Lawler of New York called Trump’s post “wrong and incredibly offensive—whether intentional or a mistake—and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic, quipped on social media about the White House’s shifting explanations for the video’s origin and deletion.

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Washington Post publisher Will Lewis abruptly steps down, days after massive layoffs gut the newspaper

The Washington Post’s publisher and CEO Will Lewis has abruptly stepped down, just days after the newspaper laid off one-third of its staff, including at least 300 journalists in the newsroom. Post journalists, who believed Lewis had failed to turn around the publication’s fortunes, openly celebrated the news. “After two years of transformation at The Washington Post, now is the right time for me to step aside,” Lewis wrote Saturday in a brief note to staff. “I want to thank Jeff Bezos for his support and leadership throughout my tenure as CEO and Publisher. The institution could not have a better owner.”

“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” Lewis’ note concluded. The Post said that CFO Jeff D’Onofrio, the former CEO of Tumblr who joined the Post in June, will take over as acting publisher and CEO, “effective immediately.” D’Onofrio wrote in a Saturday memo to staff that he is “honored to take the helm as acting Publisher and CEO to lead us into a sustainable, successful future with the strength of our journalism as our north star.” “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos, the paper’s owner, said in a statement — his first since the layoffs. “Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”

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State Stories

Austin officials correct campaign donation cap after providing incorrect information

Individual donors to Austin City Council candidates may contribute up to $500 per election, not $450 as previously stated by city officials, a city spokesperson confirmed. The clarification follows recent reporting that raised questions about whether Council Member Paige Ellis had accepted campaign contributions exceeding the city’s individual contribution limit. At the time, both Ellis and the city told the American-Statesman the limit was $450. City spokesperson Jenny LaCoste-Caputo also provided a statement on Jan. 29 that suggested Ellis’ contributions could be a violation of city rules, saying that if a finance report listed an amount "above $450 with only one name, that would be an issue for the city’s Ethics Review Commission to review."

The next day, the American-Statesman noticed the city’s elections webpage had been updated with a higher individual donation cap of $500. Asked about the change, LaCoste-Caputo confirmed that officials had provided incorrect information and that $500 is the current limit. Another city spokesperson, Jessica King, said city communications officials mistakenly provided outdated information because the staff who were familiar with the current limit were at a court hearing in a lawsuit related to an effort to thwart the ongoing convention center expansion. However, those staff confirmed the $450 limit to the Statesman, which was present at the hearing.. King added that the webpage updates to reflect the actual limit were not related to the Statesman’s reporting. Ellis said via text message Friday that she was unaware of the new contribution limit. “I had not heard it changed,” she wrote.

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Texas National Guard silences troops posted at ICE facility near S.A.

In advance of a planned visit by members of Congress, Texas National Guard troops stationed in an ICE facility in South Texas have been ordered not to answer questions from elected officials or the media about their activities. The San Antonio Express-News viewed an image of the written order from the Texas Military Department, which oversees the National Guard. The order bars guard personnel from speaking publicly about their mission in support of ICE and says “all media inquiries, Congressional inquiries and internal inquiries regarding this operation” must be referred to the guard’s public affairs office. It also instructs guard members to avoid “speculation or discussion of the mission with unauthorized individuals.” U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from San Antonio, is scheduled to visit the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall on Friday, along with Rep. Maxine Dexter, an Oregon Democrat. The facility is in Frio County, 55 miles southwest of San Antonio.

Asked about the order silencing the guard troops, Castro said he suspected it came down after the Express-News, quoting the congressman, reported on Wednesday that Texas guard members in civilian clothes were “embedded” in ICE facilities to support the Trump administration's campaign to detain and deport immigrants. Responding to inquiries from the paper, the guard and Gov. Greg Abbott’s office confirmed Castro’s assertion in general terms but provided few details, saying only that troops were performing administrative and logistical functions. Castro said Thursday that he wants to talk to guard soldiers at the Pearsall facility about what they are doing there. In a letter to Todd M. Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Castro asked for "the opportunity to speak directly with the Texas National Guard personnel currently stationed or performing duties within the facility.

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‘A disaster waiting to happen’: How the fracking boom put an oil field in the Guadalupe River floodplain

More than 500 enormous oil tanks dot the floodplains of the Guadalupe River and its tributaries where they cross one of Texas’ leading oilfields, an Inside Climate News investigation has found, posing risk of an environmental disaster. Longtime residents of these historic ranchlands still remember the last time these plains filled up with water in a biblical inundation in 1998. That was before the fracking boom hit this region and the oil-rich geological formation that lies beneath it, known as the Eagle Ford Shale. Today, a repeat of the historic flood could wreak havoc, locals worry. “There’s a whole lot of tanks full of oil that are going to float away,” said Sara Dubose, a fifth-generation landowner in Gonzales County with 10 tanks in the floodplain on her family’s ranchlands, each holding up to 21,000 gallons of oil or toxic wastewater. “Spill all over our land and ruin it for 100 years.”

Almost 20 feet of water could submerge some of the tanks on the Dubose family’s land in an event similar to 1998, according to an Inside Climate News analysis of data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Inside Climate News scoured satellite imagery on Google Maps to identify batteries of oil tanks and other oilfield infrastructure near waterways of the Guadalupe River Basin where it crosses the Eagle Ford Shale. We then took the latitude and longitude coordinates of each tank battery and used FEMA’s flood mapping data to extract the agency’s estimates for the depths of its benchmark flood scenarios at these locations. In some areas, the 1998 flood exceeded the worst-case scenario considered by disaster planners. FEMA calls this the “500-year flood,” a hypothetical event the agency estimates has a 0.2 percent chance of happening in any year. Today, a 500-year flood across this entire area would cover at least 22 tank batteries containing 144 individual oil and wastewater tanks with 10 or more feet of water, ICN’s analysis found. Of those, 12 tanks would sit beneath at least 20 feet of water. FEMA’s estimates for a 500-year flood understate present risk in many locations, research shows, as warming air and oceans continue to fuel an intensification of extreme rainfall. Dubose experienced the 1998 flood, when the Guadalupe River sprang from its banks and filled the shallow valleys here at the edge of the coastal plains.

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Dirk Nowitzki seems ready to move on, embrace future after Mavs’ trade of Anthony Davis

The Dallas Mavericks took another huge step forward in moving on from the Luka Doncic trade this week by shipping out Anthony Davis and looking toward the future. The greatest player in the history of their franchise seems to agree with their line of thinking. Dirk Nowitzki, while on the job Saturday for Prime TV in his studio analyst role, discussed the Mavericks’ trade of Davis from the perspective of a fan hoping to move forward and embrace the future of the franchise around rookie Cooper Flagg.

“I’ll tell you one thing, I think Mavs fans are happy with this,” Nowitzki said on Saturday. “I think they didn’t want to be reminded of what happened a year ago in the Luka trade. So to me, looking at this deal at first glance there’s not a lot that came back, picks or player-wise. This is all really about financial flexibility for the future.” The Mavericks have, of course, dismissed the primary architect of last season’s Doncic deal, as they fired Nico Harrison in early November. Ultimately, though, it sounds like Nowitzki agrees that the time was right to pull the plug on the Davis experiment as well and instead “go young.” “I’m a little disappointed, I think when AD actually played with Cooper, they played off each other really, really well,” Nowitzki admitted. “But we’ll never know. What this ultimately is now is build around Cooper, go young. See what the next year brings with the draft this summer. Ultimately now, they’re all in on Cooper Flagg and his future.” Dirk might’ve even thrown a bit of a not-so-subtle dig at Harrison, as after some teasing from his co-hosts Steve Nash and Blake Griffin about the Mavericks landing Flagg on a 1.8% chance, Nowitzki replied: “That was the vision.”

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San Antonio Mayor Jones could face censure vote for allegedly yelling at council member

City Council members are mulling over whether to reprimand Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones after she allegedly yelled and cursed at Councilwoman Sukh Kaur when the two stepped away from Thursday’s City Council meeting, according to three City Hall insiders familiar with the situation. The incident was the last straw for some members who have grown tired of Jones’ confrontational behavior with council members who have sided against her on high-profile votes, a source said. Jones got into an argument with Kaur in a private area in the Municipal Plaza Building that’s reserved for city staff, according to multiple City Hall sources who requested anonymity because they feared retribution for publicly discussing the matter. The area is adjacent to City Council Chambers, where the council meeting was underway.

Council was slated to vote on whether to allow the Bonham Exchange to remain open after the historic gay nightclub blew past an Oct. 1, 2023, deadline to install legally required fire sprinklers. Kaur was pushing for a resolution that would have given the Bonham Exchange until Feb. 1, 2027, to install sprinklers without having to cut its occupancy in half, as the San Antonio Fire Department had urged for months. Joan Duckworth, the club’s general manager and co-owner, said that limiting capacity to fewer than 300 people would make it impossible to keep the venue in business. Jones disagreed with the resolution that Kaur forced onto the meeting agenda with the support of Council members Teri Castillo and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez. The mayor brokered a last-minute deal to get Duckworth to comply with the city’s demands, rendering the three council members’ resolution moot. Jones publicly committed Thursday to helping the club raise the $550,000 it needs to cover the costs of installing automatic fire sprinklers throughout the three-story venue. The city and the Bonham Exchange finalized a compliance agreement on Friday. The deal allows the club to continue operating, but with an occupancy limit of fewer than 300 people, among other safety precautions. Before taking up the Bonham Exchange issue during Thursday’s meeting, the mayor and City Council’s 10 members went into a closed-door executive session to discuss it. There, Kaur talked about her encounter with Jones, and Castillo asked City Attorney Andy Segovia about the possibility of calling a censure vote against the mayor, a source said.

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Austin ISD updates protest protocols for staff, campus police as walkouts continue

The Austin Independent School District is updating its protocols for how campus police officers will monitor student walkouts. The district is just one of several across Central Texas that have seen an increase in walkouts over the past two weeks, as students protest immigration enforcement actions taken by the Trump administration. AISD’s response to the protests has received scrutiny from Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, both of whom have launched investigations into how the district responded. In a letter to parents Friday evening, Superintendent Matias Segura said AISD will implement new protest protocols beginning Monday. If walkouts remain on campus and are within 300 feet of a school building, the students will be monitored by administrators and AISD police officers.

If the protest moves more than 300 feet away from the building, administrators and staff will stay on campus, while police will follow the students to monitor safety. Once students leave campus, local law enforcement will monitor them, rather than AISD police, Segura said. Segura also reiterated several policies to ensure AISD employees remain “in alignment” with guidelines released earlier this week by the Texas Education Agency, including a reminder that school staff are not allowed to participate in, help plan, provide guidance or endorse walkouts, unless directed to do so for safety and monitoring purposes only. Teachers are also directed to remain in the classroom with any students who do not participate in the walkout. “State law requires educators to support student learning in ways that are objective and free from political bias,” a TEA spokesperon told KXAN earlier this week. “Schools also have an obligation to ensure students are safe and attend school, with consequences for students for unexcused absences.” “TEA takes allegations that schools have violated these requirements seriously and is investigating these complaints thoroughly. If violations of law are found, the agency will take appropriate action to ensure that state law is upheld,” the spokesperson said.

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Redrawn TX-35 sets stage for high-stakes Democratic primary

For more than a decade, Texas’ 35th Congressional District was easy to describe. It ran like a political spine between Austin and San Antonio, linking two liberal urban centers through a corridor of heavily Latino and working-class neighborhoods. It reliably sent a Democrat to Washington. In 2026, the district barely resembles that version of itself. After Republican lawmakers unveiled new congressional maps in 2025, TX-35 was carved away from Austin almost entirely and reshaped into a district anchored in Southeast Bexar County and extending through Guadalupe, Wilson, and Karnes counties, along with smaller portions of surrounding rural areas. Analysts now rate the seat as Republican-leaning, a dramatic shift for a district that had long been considered safely blue. The map’s political impact has been matched by legal chaos.

In November, a three-judge federal panel in El Paso blocked Texas from using the 2025 congressional map for the 2026 cycle, finding that the new lines amounted to unlawful racial gerrymandering and ordering the state to use its 2021 map instead. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly appealed, and in early December, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Texas a stay, effectively allowing the new map to be used while the case continues, leaving campaigns and election officials to plan around a district map that remains under active litigation. Nowhere is that shift more evident than in TX-35. Under previous maps, TX-35 consistently elected Democrats by comfortable margins, powered largely by voters in East and South Austin and central San Antonio. That coalition sent progressive Democrat Greg Casar to Congress in 2022. Casar no longer lives in the newly drawn district and is now running in Texas’ 37th Congressional District, a newly configured Austin-based seat that remains solidly Democratic, which Rep. Lloyd Doggett currently holds. Casar’s departure leaves TX-35 open for the first time in years and strips the district of its most visible progressive anchor. Under the new lines, TX-35 is rated R+4 by the Cook Political Report, meaning Republicans hold a four-point structural advantage based on past election results and partisan composition. That shift has transformed what was once a safe Democratic seat into a battleground and given Republicans their best chance in years to flip it.

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Junior grand champion steer fetches record-breaking $550K at Fort Worth Stock Show

On Saturday, Feb. 7, a Hood County teen’s life was forever changed after his beloved steer White Castle was sold for $550,000 to the Azle-based company Trico Electric at the Fort Worth Stock Show Junior Stock Show Sale of Champions. Caiman Cody, a 13-year-old from Tolar, Texas, was awarded the grand championship title on Friday after spending the past year caring for the white European crossbreed steer. Wearing his bright purple Tolar Rattlers shirt, Cody walked White Castle into the auction ring to raucous applause before the bidding began. The bidding started at $25,000 and blew past last year’s purchase of $375,000 in less than three minutes before settling at that record-breaking $550,000.

After the auction, the visibly shocked Cody family spoke to reporters alongside the buyers from Trico Electric in a closed-off media room as the auctioneer bellowed outside. “I’m just so thankful for these two nice men who donated so much money,” Caiman said. Caiman’s mom Kasey said that the prize money will transform their family’s farming operation. “My husband is a fourth-generation cattlemen...not only will we be able to grow our operation, we’ll be able to help more families,” Kasey said. “This is what we do, we live and breathe it every single day. To see that pay off in this scope is incredible.” What’s next for young Caiman, who now has such a large sum of money before he can drive a car? “Well, I want to go to college one day, and I’d also like to be on the Texas Junior Ambassador board so I can help educate more kids about agriculture and help teach people,” Caiman said. “I love teaching people about stuff they don’t know.” Caiman isn’t quite sure where he wants to go to school — he’s only in eighth grade, after all — but he knows that he wants to stay in agriculture.

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Fort Worth ISD’s final appeal of TEA state takeover denied by judges

The Texas Education Agency is cleared to move forward with a state takeover of the Fort Worth Independent School District, according to a ruling by three state administrative law judges. Fort Worth ISD lost its appeal in the case in which it challenged TEA’s takeover decision. In an order issued Thursday, the administrative law court granted TEA’s request to dismiss the case. The administrative judges’ order is final and can’t be appealed, according to state law, meaning the TEA will move forward with appointing a board of managers to replace the elected school board. The court reviewed pleadings and evidence submitted from both the district and state education officials on the issue and determined there were no factual disputes that would justify overriding the TEA’s plans. A formal decision and order with the judges’ analysis will be issued within 30 days.

Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Karen Molinar said in a statement Friday that the district will continue staying focused on students while the final order is forthcoming. “This action does not change our focus. Our team remains fully engaged in the day-to-day work of serving nearly 70,000 students, and we will continue working collaboratively with the Texas Education Agency while keeping student success at the center of every decision,” Molinar said. “Fort Worth ISD remains committed to serving students by strengthening classroom instruction, supporting educators, and ensuring safe, stable learning environments across the district.” A TEA spokesperson said on Friday that the search process for a board of managers and superintendent remains ongoing. Fort Worth ISD Board of Trustees President Roxanne Martinez said in a statement that the court’s action “is deeply disappointing” and “disregards the meaningful progress taking place in Fort Worth ISD.” She echoed Molinar’s sentiments, saying the board is dedicated to the success and support of all students.

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Texas AG opens probe into Houston anti-fascist group accused of 'doxing' neo-Nazis

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday he's taking "legal action" against a Houston-area anti-fascist group that's posted personal information of alleged neo-Nazis and members of other far-right movements online. Paxton accused the Screwston Anti-Fascist Committee, an "Antifa-affiliated" nonprofit, of potentially violating state law by aiding in the commission of terrorism and "doxing," or publishing a person's private information online with malicious intent. The attorney general issued a legal demand for records and documents to identify any potential violations of law. “Radical leftists have engaged in coordinated efforts to militantly attack our nation and undermine the rule of law," Paxton said in the release. "Screwston and related groups have illegally doxed Texans and encouraged violent terrorism against fellow citizens. These deranged traitors will face the full force of law. No stone will be left unturned, and no tool will be left unused.”

KERA News reached out to the AG's office and the Screwston Anti-Fascist Committee for comment and will update this story with any response. According to the "About" section of the group's blog, the committee was formed in 2016 and is dedicated to "building resistance to fascism and the far-right in Houston, Texas." The committee dedicates a section of its blog to highlighting "local fascists," generally people associated with far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Texas. The blog links to separate sites that list the personal information of those individuals, including their full name, date of birth, address and vehicle information. Among the groups referenced on their site is Patriot Front, which the George Washington University Program on Extremism describes as a white nationalist and fascist organization founded in the wake of the 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally. Photos on the site show people in Nazi-associated tattoos and iconography. The Screwston committee also sells merchandise with messages like "Antifa Zone, refugees welcome" and "Make Racists Afraid."

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Defamation lawsuit against former Gateway Church elders will continue, judge says

A Dallas judge denied requests from two former Gateway Church elders asking to be dismissed from a defamation lawsuit filed by the woman who was sexually abused by founding pastor Robert Morris. During a court hearing Friday, Judge Emily Tobolowsky immediately denied the motion after arguments by the attorney for elders Kevin Grove and Steve Dulin and an attorney for Cindy Clemishire. Clemishire declined to comment after Friday’s hearing. In June 2024, Clemishire accused Morris of sexually abusing her when she was 12 years old and he was 22 during the 1980s. She said the abuse lasted for more than four years.

Morris pleaded guilty to five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child in October and was sentenced to 10 years at Osage County Jail in Oklahoma, where the abuse took place. He’s serving six months of that time, will pay out $270,000 to Clemishire and register as a lifetime sex offender. Gateway parted ways with Dulin a month after the accusations from Clemishire. Grove was one of four elders removed following a four-month internal probe into the Southlake megachurch that revealed they knew about the abuse. Last June, Clemishire and her father sued Gateway, its elders, Morris, his wife, and his charity group over statements elders made about the abuse, allegedly covering it up for years and financially benefiting from it. Elders released a statement on June 14, 2024, acknowledging Morris’ sexual abuse. It also said he had been involved in “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady,” and that her family forgave him.

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Professors, students push back as Texas A&M regents increase curriculum oversight

One of the nation's largest university systems has been in a state of academic and political turmoil over the past several months. Since September, the president of Texas A&M University has resigned, a professor has been fired and subsequently sued the university, the faculty senate has been dissolved and several courses have been canceled due to the system's new race and gender policy — under which faculty can be put on leave or fired if they stray from approved course syllabi. During this year's first quarterly Texas A&M System Board of Regents meeting Thursday, the board approved the establishment of general education review committees at each of its 12 university campuses. These new review committees will act as an additional level of administrative supervision over course curriculum and were implemented to comply with Senate Bill 37.

Several faculty members and students spoke out against this oversight Thursday, including philosophy professor Martin Peterson, who said the committees were yet another form of censorship. "We have recently seen several attempts to politicize the university by closing academic programs for ideological reasons and prohibiting important topics from being taught," Peterson said. "Even Plato has been censored at Texas A&M in recent weeks." Peterson's mention of Plato was in reference to his own course syllabus, which, according to the New York Times, was flagged by university administration, who asked Peterson to remove some teachings of Plato — a central figure in Western philosophy. Texas A&M civil engineering student Robert Day also spoke to the board and said the actions by the regents are causing some to consider taking off their Aggie rings and canceling any future donations to the university. "I fear the actions this board has taken to cancel the gender studies major, dismissively fire faculty and your capitulation to political pressure bear grim consequences for students who share the same mission I have to lifelong learning and critical thinking," Day said. "Academic freedom is the great equalizer and it is the protector of our ability to learn without fear." Day's comments on the potential risk to alumni donations came just one day after Jon Hagler, an A&M class of 1959 graduate and prominent donor to the Texas A&M Association of Former Students, published an editorial in the Dallas Morning News saying the regents had failed to protect the university's independence.

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Comal County Judge Sherman Krause dies at home

Comal County Judge Sherman Krause, a long-serving leader who presided over the county for more than 15 years, passed away early Saturday morning at his home. The Comal County Public Information Office announced his death in a statement, describing the county family as "devastated" by the loss. "Judge Krause was more than a leader," the statement read. "He was a colleague, a mentor, and a friend to many." Krause first took office on Jan. 1, 2011. Throughout his tenure, he was regarded as a "steady presence" through various periods of both challenge and progress within the community. He had announced his retirement back in December. County officials have asked the public to keep the Krause family in their prayers during this time. Details regarding memorial services or a successor have not yet been released, though officials noted that additional information will be shared as it becomes available. Krause was a New Braunfels native. He graduated from Texas State University.

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National Stories

Senators far apart on DHS deal as talks stall with deadline looming

Pessimism is increasing across the Capitol that lawmakers will reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as they point fingers over the lack of talks and float canceling the upcoming recess. Senators return to Washington on Monday facing a sprint to strike a deal and avoid a shutdown that would affect agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Coast Guard. Democrats, facing intense pressure from their base to rein in Trump’s deportation crackdown, have insisted GOP lawmakers acquiesce on including far-reaching immigration reforms in the funding bill. Republicans have little appetite to even put most of those demands on the table. And, with a Feb. 13 deadline looming, negotiations hadn’t even gotten off the ground by the end of last week.

When asked of his level of optimism that a deal could come together by then, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) responded: “About a minus squillion.” Kennedy placed the blame squarely on Democrats. “It’s not enough time. … This is not about reforming DHS. This is about the Karen wing of the Democratic party that wants to defund ICE, just like they wanted to defund the police,” Kennedy said. “I think even if we agreed to every one of [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s] suggestions, I don’t think most Democrats would vote for the bill because the Karen wing of the party would punish them.” Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) laid out the party’s 10-item wishlist in a letter to Republican leaders on Wednesday night — much of which was repurposed from their previous asks after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

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Seahawks, Patriots—or asleep by halftime? Ultimate last-minute Super Bowl guide for a last-minute fan

Few events in American life are more overexposed, over-promoted and over-discussed than the Super Bowl—and I say that as a sportswriter who’s a gleeful part of the plague. The NFL’s extravagant finale is preceded by a two-week rodeo of media gasbaggery in which the country is bombarded with hype and nonsense and everyone but the neighborhood squirrels is polled for a prediction on the outcome. Will it be the Seattle Seahawks? Will it be the New England Patriots? Or will it be a righteous nap on the couch that begins on in the second quarter and ends Monday morning? Then there’s the whole gambling component, increasingly legal and brutally ubiquitous.

The Super Bowl is a wagering peril in which, if you’re dedicated, you can lose money betting the winner, the game MVP, the time it takes to power through the national anthem, the color of the Gatorade poured on the coach’s head, and the paragraph at which I get to my inevitable line about the Super Bowl being the final sliver of the national monoculture. If you bet the sixth paragraph, you won. Watching this game is indeed the last thing we do collectively as a country, other than scream over each other on the internet. If I really want to sound pretentious, I’d call the Super Bowl the final fireplace of the digital era, with a live audience that dwarfs every other show in the U.S., even Bluey. This is why an advertisement costs many millions, and perhaps why most Super Bowl advertisements are terrible. Finally, mercifully, game day arrives. I am thrilled to report: we are here. The Patriots will face the Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif. Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET. There used to be a robust search-engine business in writing content that answered the question “What time is the Super Bowl?” but we all work for the AI robots now, and they just say 6:30 p.m. ET in a haunting metallic voice.

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Breezy Johnson wins U.S.'s first gold medal

Breezy Johnson became the second American woman ever to win the Olympic gold medal in downhill skiing Sunday, hours after the first person to accomplish the feat, Lindsey Vonn, crashed violently on the famed Tofane course. Johnson finished in 1:36.1 to earn the first Olympic medal of her career. A native of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Johnson was skiing in her second Olympics. The win was not an upset — Johnson entered the competition as the reigning world champion in downhill. It was the United States' first medal of the Milan Cortina Olympics. Johnson extended both arms above her head as she stepped atop the podium before accepting her gold medal. She held back tears while mouthing the words to the U.S. national anthem.

"I had a good feeling about today, I sort of still can't believe it yet, I don't know when it will sink in yet," Johnson said. "I knew I had to push and go harder than I did in training. I had to be super clean and I felt like I did that." Emma Aicher of Germany earned the silver medal, just four-hundredths of a second behind Johnson. Italy's Sofia Goggia earned bronze to win the host country's fourth medal of these Olympics. The victory required Johnson, 30, to confront and overcome her own history of difficulty on this course. In 2022, she crashed on a training run in Cortina and tore cartilage in her right knee, forcing her to miss that year's Olympics in Beijing. "I'm going to have to come back to this same place with a body that's been put back together and try to accomplish my goals," she told NBC last May. "It's a beautiful place, (but) it has teeth and has also hurt a lot of people." Johnson survived the 1.6-mile course with more than 2,000 feet of elevation drop on Sunday by making up time on the five women who taken the course ahead of her during the back half of the race. Seven skiers later, however, Vonn did not — crashing violently after only 13 seconds. She was airlifted off the course, which reopened after an approximately 30-minute delay. It came 16 years after Vonn won the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver, Canada.

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Bad Bunny rewriting the ‘rules’ of American popstardom

Recording artist Bad Bunny will command one of America’s biggest stages this Sunday when he is poised to make history as the first Super Bowl halftime headliner to sing primarily in Spanish. In less than a decade, he has become one of the world’s most popular artists while embracing traits that have historically been seen as barriers to the widest success: he sings almost entirely in Spanish, champions his Puerto Rican identity, and doesn’t shy away from speaking his mind on politics. Bad Bunny, 31, whose full name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, was born and raised in Puerto Rico. His first album, “X 100PRE” (pronounced “por siempre” meaning “forever”), came out in 2018. His songs blend Latin trap and reggaeton with pop, rock and classic Puerto Rican styles including salsa, bomba and plena. Since his debut, he has skyrocketed to global stardom, dominating charts and obliterating streaming records.

“He is someone who has broken countless records and just keeps breaking them,” said Vanessa Diaz, professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-creator of the Bad Bunny syllabus. “It’s just kind of unimaginable how many accolades he has acquired in a relatively short time,” Diaz said. Bad Bunny’s embrace of video and visuals has also helped his popularity, including with non-Spanish speakers, said Diaz. He has 19 videos on YouTube with more than one billion views – the most of any artist on the platform - and his channel has 51.7 million subscribers. Diaz points to the video for “La Mudanza” (The Move), a salsa track from the album as an example. The lyrics reference Puerto Rico’s pro-independence and decades-long resistance movements. In the video, Bad Bunny runs with a Puerto Rican flag while being chased by men in military fatigues, followed by shots of salsa musicians and dancers, and historical footage of Puerto Rico’s independence struggle. Then there’s the music itself. “You don’t have to understand every single historical reference in a song like ‘La Mudanza’ to want to dance to ‘La Mudanza’,” said Diaz. “Everyone’s getting something different, with or without the lyrics.” The data show Bad Bunny’s formula is working. He ranks consistently on Billboard’s list of top artists, and his albums remain popular years after release.

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The troubled state of the Senate has members eyeing governorships

The U.S. Senate has long been considered the pinnacle of American politics. Governors, in particular, saw the deliberative and dignified body as a natural last stop when their time in the executive mansion was up, a place to confront the big issues before the nation in momentous debates. Those days are over. Frustrated by Senate dysfunction and the inability to accomplish much of substance, senators this year are reversing the steady migration from state capital to Capitol Hill as a record four sitting senators are running for governor. It is one of the best indicators yet of how the Senate, plodding and polarized, has lost its allure. “I like my job in the Senate,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, in declaring at the end of January that she wanted to head home to head up her state’s government. “But I love our state more than any job.”

Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, was candid about his decision to run for governor there rather than stick it out in the Senate. “I think what is driving people the other way — what is driving me the other way — is the feeling that the real battle now is going to be in the states, that it is not going to be in D.C.,” Mr. Bennet said in an interview, noting the “dysfunctional nature” of the Senate. “It just isn’t working for the American people.” Besides Mr. Bennet and Ms. Klobuchar, Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama are also running for governor in their states. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, explored the possibility of running for governor there like her father, Frank Murkowski, had done as a senator in 2002, but she has made no firm move in that direction, with time running short to do so.

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Gabbard under scrutiny over whistleblower report, election probes

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard is coming under scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties for delays in transmitting a whistleblower complaint and her involvement in two different seizures of voting records. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gabbard’s office had failed to relay a whistleblower report made last May accusing her of wrongdoing to Congress. Two days later, Gabbard’s office confirmed its involvement in the seizure of voting machines in Puerto Rico, news that came after the DNI was spotted during the execution of a search warrant in Fulton County, Ga.

Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been highly critical of Gabbard on both fronts, hammering her for failing to swiftly turn over the whistleblower report while calling her involvement in voting a threat to the coming elections. “It appears there may be a coordinated effort to try to interfere in the ’26 midterm,” Warner said, noting that President Trump said he requested Gabbard be on site for the Fulton County search. “I think we’ve got a president that can’t get over the fact that he lost in 2020 and now in kind of a Nixonian effort is going to try to do everything he can to make sure he doesn’t get another beating in 2026.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) elections probes were done in conjunction with other agencies, with FBI officials seizing 2020 ballots in Fulton County and voting machines in Puerto Rico after the ODNI said it received allegations of “discrepancies and systemic anomalies.” Gabbard has taken heat not only for her involvement but for evolving explanations surrounding her presence. It’s extremely unusual for high-level officials to be on site for the execution of a search conducted by rank-and-file officers and even more unusual for Gabbard, since her intelligence job is focused on foreign countries and is not connected to domestic law enforcement.

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Lindsey Vonn crashes out of Olympic downhill

Lindsey Vonn’s audacious bid for an Olympic comeback ended in a cloud of snow on Sunday morning after a dramatic crash in the women’s downhill. Vonn, the 41-year-old alpine skiing star competing on one rebuilt knee and another with a torn ligament, appeared to tag the fourth gate hard with her right shoulder as she carved through a corner. The contact spun her around and left her splayed out on the course, screaming in pain. Her day was over less than 14 seconds into the run. She received treatment on site leading to a 15-minute delay in the race as a helicopter swooped in overhead. For the second straight week, Vonn was airlifted off a mountain. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three-time Olympic medalist and perhaps the best downhill racer in history would attempt to return at these Games.

The crash in her first race brought a shocking end to Vonn’s return to competition on an ACL that she had completely ruptured in a pre-Olympic event just 10 days earlier. While some athletes require surgery and a year of rehabilitation after tearing the ligament, which helps stabilize the knee, Vonn said she had no pain and little swelling. That allowed her to strap on a knee brace and return to the mountain within days. Vonn made a comeback to the sport in late 2024 after nearly six years of retirement, her body battered by years of crashes and surgeries. She had undergone a reconstruction on her right knee that included titanium parts, and felt so good that she returned to the slopes. This season, she stunned the sport’s fans by winning two World Cup races and leading the overall standings in the downhill. She made her fifth U.S. Olympic team at age 41, becoming the oldest in alpine team history, and she was set to try to repeat her gold in the downhill at 2010 Vancouver.

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The big split driving the tricky politics of AI data centers

The tech industry is facing fierce local backlash to data center projects around the country. But a new poll suggests national opinion is still up for grabs. Cities from Madison, Wisconsin, to Chandler, Arizona, are rejecting new data centers — the hulking, server-packed complexes that make up the backbone of the booming artificial intelligence industry — citing everything from rising electricity costs to depleted water tables and air pollution. Nationally, however, the tech giants behind the rapid rollout of data centers have a window to shape public opinion despite opposition they’re seeing on the local level, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. The survey, conducted by London-based independent polling company Public First, found that most voters are blasé — even mildly positive — about the possibility of having a data center in their area, associating them with new jobs and other economic benefits. But the industry’s standing is also precarious, and the poll suggests a partisan split is emerging: People increasingly see the tech companies as aligned with Republicans, the survey shows.

And Democratic Govs. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey won races in November in part by campaigning to force data center operators to help upgrade the electric grid and keep utility rates down. As the AI-driven projects spread, the map the industry will have to defend politically and financially will keep expanding, far beyond traditional clusters of data center growth in places like Virginia and Texas. “I think it’s going to be a big issue in the midterm elections,” said Brad Carson, a former Oklahoma Democratic representative and head of Public First, a super PAC pushing for AI regulations that has no relation to POLITICO’s polling partner. He said that while most people can tune out data centers as an abstraction, “we know there are discrete pockets of people — often quite conservative in their politics — who care a lot about it.” Carson said people who are against data centers “are likely to vote on that issue, right, because, ‘I don’t want a data center in my neighborhood, I’m opposed to it.’ The guys who are for [data centers] are like me — they’re a million miles away from the nearest data center.” While distance from a data center is a factor, the poll found that voters aren’t reflexively opposed to the idea of having one nearby the way they might be quick to complain about new transmission towers or freeway expansions: Thirty-seven percent of respondents say they would support a new data center in their area, compared with 28 percent opposed. That leaves a large portion of people — 36 percent — that could swing either way.

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Lead Stories

Layoffs in January were the highest to start a year since 2009, Challenger says

Layoff plans hit their highest January total since the global financial crisis while hiring intentions reached their lowest since the same period, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday. U.S. employers announced 108,435 layoffs for the month, up 118% from the same period a year ago and 205% from December 2025. The total marked the highest for any January since 2009, while the economy was in the final months of its steepest downturn since the Great Depression. At the same time, companies announced just 5,306 new hires, also the lowest January since 2009, which is when Challenger began tracking such data. The crisis recession officially ended in March 2009. With the recent narrative centering on a no-hire, no-fire labor market, the Challenger data suggests that the layoff part of the equation could be stepping up.

“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for the firm. “It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026.” To be sure, if employers are stepping up plans to furlough workers, it hasn’t been showing up much in official government data. However, initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 31 totaled a seasonally adjusted 231,000, the highest since early December though the spike likely had something to do with a brutal winter storm that hit large parts of the country. The longer-term trend still was at its lowest since October 2024. Some high-profile layoff announcements have boosted fears of wider damage in the labor market. Amazon, UPS and Dow Inc. recently have announced sizeable job cuts. Indeed, transportation had the highest level from a sector standpoint in January, due largely to plans from UPS to cut more than 30,000 workers. Technology was second on the back of Amazon’s announcement to shed 16,000 mostly corporate level jobs. Planned hiring dropped 13% from January 2025 and was off 49% from December.

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Trump’s war on wind energy is costing him blue-collar support

President Donald Trump built his 2024 campaign around the country’s working-class voters. Some of those voters are changing their minds about him as his administration’s war on renewable energy has cost them their jobs, labor leaders and workers said. “A lot of my members voted for President Trump in the last election, and they completely turned around on him,” Patrick Crowley, the president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, told NOTUS. His union represents thousands of workers who work on renewable energy projects like Revolution Wind, the offshore wind development the Trump administration halted in August and then again in December. The project resumed construction last month after a federal judge ruled in its favor, but the impacts remain, Crowley said. The Trump administration’s sweeping attempts to stymie energy projects and other infrastructure have impacted thousands of jobs.

Revolution Wind is one of many infrastructure projects the administration has paused, canceled or defunded. The list includes onshore and offshore wind farms, massive public works projects like the Hudson Tunnel in New York and New Jersey and billions of dollars in energy projects. The exact impact on jobs is difficult to measure, but estimates for each project range from hundreds to thousands of direct and indirect construction, manufacturing and other labor jobs lost or threatened, according to court filings, company statements and NOTUS’ conversations with lawmakers and labor leaders. It’s an upheaval that could cost the president’s allies at the ballot box in 2026 and beyond. “When a family is feeling like that, they’re looking for somebody to blame and they could look at the president and say, well, he canceled the project that was employing me because he didn’t like it was solar,” Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told Politico. “And yes, that could cost you at the ballot box.” Crowley said his union members haven’t felt heard.

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Senate primary between Jasmine Crockett, James Talarico turns sharper with negative TV ad

The first major attack of the Democratic Senate primary came Thursday from an outside group supporting James Talarico, attacking his rival Jasmine Crockett as too weak to win. The TV ad says Crockett, a U.S. House member from Dallas, is “backed by Republicans” because she would be easier for the GOP to defeat in the November. “If she wins, we lose,” says the narrator of the ad, which uses clips from media commentators who say that Crockett would struggle in the general election against Republican incumbent John Cornyn. The spot marks a major escalation in advance of the March 3 primary in which the Democratic candidates mostly have campaigned on competing visions for breaking their party’s long statewide losing streak.

In January, Talarico, a state representative from Austin, said that Crockett, seemed poised to run negative ads against him and that Democrats should not spend time turning on each other. But it was a pro-Talarico super PAC, Lone Star Rising, that struck first, with ads are running throughout Texas. Talarico’s campaign on Thursday said it wasn’t involved in the Lone Star Rising ad. JT Ennis, a Talarico spokesman, noted that federal law prohibits coordination between political campaigns and super PACs. “James has made it crystal clear…he wants to run a positive campaign focused on records and ideas,” Ennis said. He did not denounce the ad, but said Talarico would fight to ban an independent political committee like Lone Star Rising that raise unlimited donations and spend freely on ads, as long as they do not not coordinate with candidates. Crockett’s team labeled the ad “hypocrisy on par with the Republican playbook” and showed why “people don’t like politicians.” In a statement, a campaign spokesman said the spot was bankrolled “by the same millionaire mega-donors Talarico claims not to have,” adding, “Texas voters recognize when games are being played.” Meanwhile, the Talarico campaign said it will air an ad in the Houston market during Sunday’s Super Bowl, aimed at empowering working people and pushing billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes.

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Why lawyers, big business are pouring millions into a San Antonio primary race

If you live in San Antonio's North Side, chances are you’ve been bombarded with ads about a topic most Texans think little about: tort reform. Television ads warn of “ambulance-chasing lawyers” who are “driving your insurance rates through the roof.” Mailers allege a history of damaging personal legal battles. A Newsmax host brands the local Republican lawmaker a “liberal Democrat” before cutting to his GOP challenger promising to “stop these predatory lawyers.” The GOP primary for House District 121, featuring state Rep. Marc LaHood and challenger David McArthur, has turned into a ferocious power struggle between the state’s well-funded trial attorneys and Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the corporate lobbying juggernaut that has for decades tried to take them down.

With spending already blowing past $3 million, the race has become more expensive than any other state House race this cycle and even outpaced spending on some statewide and state Senate races, according to a Hearst Newspapers analysis of data from the Texas Ethics Commission. The outcome of the race, and dozens of others like it, is in part a referendum on failed legislation last year that aimed to protect businesses from lawsuits. It’s also a test of whether personal injury attorneys, a major donor to the left who once reigned supreme when conservative Democrats led Texas, will gain a sturdier foothold in the state’s now dominant Republican Party. Texans for Lawsuit Reform has been the largest contributor to Republicans in Texas for decades and counts billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk and business magnates from across Texas among its backers. In recent years, however, its grip has been waning.

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State Stories

Parents of final missing camper file suit against Camp Mystic, several other defendants

A fifth lawsuit has been filed against Camp Mystic seven months after 27 campers and counselors died when the July 4 floodwaters swept through the camp. The legal team for the family of eight-year-old Cile Steward, the final missing camper, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Travis County. In the legal filing, it is said that Cile is "presumed to be deceased." In addition to suing the camp. the Stewards are also suing a number of the Eastland family members. The more than 100-page lawsuit goes into detail about the warnings that were sent from the Texas Department of Emergency Management regarding the storm.

It also goes on to allege at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., the Eastlands moved canoes to higher ground. At 1:14 a.m. The NWS issued a Flash Flood Warning for Kerr County with a "considerable" threat tag. The legal team alleges Camp Mystic owner Dick Eastland received this alert. Dick Eastland also died in the July 4th floods. Around 3:00 a.m. the lawsuit said Dick Eastland decided to evacuate the cabins closest to the river. It then goes on to say Cile and other campers in her cabin, Twins II, could hear Edward Eastland allegedly telling them to "stay put in their cabins until the water gets 'so high they couldn't stay any longer'." The Stewards’ lawsuit said Edward Eastland returns around 3:30 a.m. and said the water was too high to leave "and will soon recede." While in Twins II, the lawsuit said Edward prayed for Jesus to stop the rain while bracing the doorframe. Around 4:09 a.m. Edward Eastland is swept away with two Twins I campers holding onto him.

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Texas Education Agency warns districts of potential state takeovers for 'encouraging' student protests

The Texas Education Agency on Tuesday warned school districts that they could be taken over by the state if they help facilitate students walking out of class to attend protests. The agency released guidance after Gov. Greg Abbott directed Education Commissioner Mike Morath to investigate a social media post showing Austin Independent School District students participating in nationwide walkouts against the recent killings of several people by federal immigration officers. Austin school district police officers drove near some of the students during the Friday protest in downtown Austin. In the guidance released Tuesday evening, the education agency said students, teachers or school districts participating in “inappropriate political activism” could face the following consequences:

Students being marked absent and districts losing state funding, Educators being investigated and disciplined, including losing their teaching license, Districts facing state oversight, including the replacement of an elected school board with a board of managers and “Today, in classrooms across Texas, tomorrow’s leaders are learning the foundational, critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary for lifelong learning, serving as the bedrock for the future success of our state and nation,” the TEA’s press release said. “It is in this spirit that school systems have been reminded of their duty and obligation to ensure that their students are both safe and that they attend school, with consequences for students for unexcused absences.” State law grants Morath authority to conduct special investigations into school districts as he determines necessary. Based on the results of those investigations, the commissioner could lower the district’s accreditation status or accountability rating. He could appoint an individual to monitor the district. He could also replace its elected school board.

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Football fans are wagering millions on the Super Bowl in Texas where gambling is illegal

Gambling is illegal in Texas, but it’s not stopping football fans from wagering millions of dollars on this year’s Super Bowl as an emerging industry of prediction markets and daily fantasy companies takes advantage of betting loopholes. Prominent companies such as Kalshi and DraftKings are making a play in states such as Texas where there are bans on betting on the outcome of sporting events. Texans still can make money on the outcome of the game, the score, player performances and halftime show cameos. They are inundating airwaves and streaming platforms with advertisements and sponsoring podcasts to promote the platforms ahead of the biggest betting event of the year. The American Gaming Association projects more than 67 million Americans will bet more than $1.76 billion on the game with U.S. legal sportsbooks, which operate in 39 states (not Texas) and the District of Columbia.

That doesn’t account for prediction markets, which are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and mimic traditional sports betting. Those who take part buy and sell yes and no contracts with each other on events that run the gamut from politics to sports and culture. For instance, Kalshi offers the chance to put money on everything from the winner of the game and traditional prop bets like who will score a touchdown to what will the NBC broadcasters say during the game. Will NBC’s broadcast tandem of Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth say “tush push?” Fifty-nine percent of traders say yes. Kalshi spokesperson Laura Frank told The Dallas Morning News that the $167 million traded on the Super Bowl outcome this year represents more than five times what was traded on last year’s game ($27 million). She also said 84% of states — all except New England, Georgia and South Carolina — have picked the Seattle Seahawks to win.

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Mercy Culture pastor says God has forgiven Gateway founder Robert Morris

The pastor of Mercy Culture Church said he told Gateway Church founder and convicted child sex offender Robert Morris that God has forgiven him. Landon Schottt said in a Facebook post Feb. 3 that he visited Morris at the Osage County Jail in Oklahoma. “Today I had the honor of sitting with Pastor Robert. I am grateful for the role he played in my life. I am grateful for what I learned. And I am grateful that the story of grace is still being written,” Schott wrote. Morris is serving six months in jail after he pleaded guilty in October to charges of indecent conduct with a child in connection with the sexual abuse case that led to his resignation from the North Texas megachurch.

Morris, who founded Gateway in Southlake in 2000, was convicted on five counts of lewd and indecent conduct with a child and was sentenced to 10 years with all but six months suspended. After his release from jail, Morris will serve the remainder of the sentence on probation in Texas. He must also register as a sex offender. Morris resigned from the church in June 2024 after he admitted to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s. He was indicted in March 2025. Schott did not respond to messages seeking comment. Cindy Clemishire, who came forward in 2024 and accused Morris of sexually abusing her over four years, said she was disappointed when she read Schott’s Facebook post. She said Morris told her not to tell anyone and that he and others from Gateway covered up the abuse for years. “I just don’t understand why he would even make a public announcement,” she said. “It just seems self-serving. I know we are called to forgive, to restore and all of that, but I just don’t see the fruit of it.”

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Glenn Rogers: How far are Republican candidates willing to go with Trump?

Recently, driving to my childhood home of Graham, my eyes darted toward a ginormous Trump flag, high on the tallest flagpole in the area, flapping in the northern breeze. I found the sight unsettling, not because it conveyed support for Trump; we see pro-Trump signs commonly in the rural areas around Possum Kingdom Lake. It was the sheer height, the singularity, and the prominence above all else that sent a chill up my spine. I think it illustrated how we have digressed as a nation, at least some in my political party. This placement of such a pronounced flag display is usually left for an American flag, a Texas flag or even one of our great Texas universities. But a highly elevated flag with the name of one man? It got me thinking.

President Donald Trump has always been crass. But his recent, worsening behavior — from slandering the recently murdered Rob Reiner, to whining about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, to threatening an attack on a NATO ally — gives me pause to wonder: Where do I personally draw the line? How far does Trump have to go to lose my support? And where do current Republican leaders, with the capacity to rein in the impact of Trump’s dangerous and excessive behavior, draw the line? At an Iowa campaign stop 10 years ago, Trump remarked, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters. It’s, like, incredible.” At the time, this quip was quickly dismissed by Trump supporters, including myself, as just harmless bravado and “Trump being Trump.” But 10 years later, with increasingly hateful speech and dictatorial behavior, maybe the specific question about loyalty boundaries needs to be asked of every Republican. In April 2025, Trump phoned in and persuaded a reluctant group of Texas House members to vote for a school voucher-like program, even against the consciences of many of them and the wishes of their districts. Both Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott received millions in campaign contributions from megadonor voucher supporters.

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Texas' newest inspector general will target 'educator misconduct'

The Texas Education Agency this week named former assistant attorney general Levi Fuller as the state’s first Inspector General of Educator Misconduct. In the newly created role, Fuller will closely oversee TEA policies and processes to help “foster safe learning environments for the state’s 5.5 million public school students,” the agency’s announcement said. State Education Commissioner Mike Morath said Fuller, who also served as former chief of staff for Republican state Rep. Andy Hopper, has more than a decade holding bad actors to account, and Fuller will help root out “flawed” teachers.

He’ll participate in certification sanctions, placement on the Do Not Hire Registry, settlement decisions and case closures. He’ll also offer guidance and recommendations to the State Board for Educator Certification. Texas recently enacted tougher school oversight including aK-12 DEI ban and guidance on stopping student walkouts amid protests over immigration enforcement. In a statement, Zeph Capo, president of the teachers group Texas AFT, raised concerns “that this new position will be weaponized against educators over political differences or frivolous allegations of misconduct.” He urged the TEA and Fuller to protect teachers’ due process rights.

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University of Houston faculty must pledge not to “indoctrinate” students

Faculty members in the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Science were asked to sign a three-page memo pledging not to “indoctrinate” their students, the Houston Chronicle reported. In a November email to faculty, Houston president Renu Khator wrote that the university’s responsibility is to “give [students] the ability to form their own opinions, not to force a particular one on them. Our guiding principle is to teach them, not to indoctrinate them.” The recent memo, sent by college dean Daniel O’Connor, asks faculty to “document compliance” with Khator’s note. It’s a way to ensure all faculty members are compliant with Texas’s Senate Bill 37, O’Conner told associate English professor María González in a meeting. The law mandates regular reviews of core undergraduate curriculum but does not address indoctrination or what material can or cannot be taught.

By Feb. 10, faculty must signal their agreement with the following five statements: “A primary purpose of higher education is to enhance critical thinking;” “Our responsibility is to give students the ability to form their own opinions, not to indoctrinate them;” “I understand the definition and attributes of critical thinking;” “I design my courses and course materials to be consistent with the definition and attributes of critical thinking;” and “I use methods of instruction that are intended to enhance students’ critical thinking.” Faculty immediately pushed back. The University of Houston American Association of University Professors chapter encouraged faculty members to use proposed “conscientious objector” language in response, which states, in part: “The premise of this assertion is a straw man, and I am concerned that my signing of this letter could serve as some admission of guilt concerning these false accusations. As such, I request that you accept this letter, in which I am asserting that I have never engaged in indoctrination and that I take offense, as a scholar, at such insinuations.” González said O’Conner told her that “no punitive actions will be directed at anyone” who doesn’t sign the acknowledgement form, but that he will have to review the syllabi of any faculty member who doesn’t sign the form. González refused to sign the acknowledgement or even click the link, she said.

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Teamsters back Greg Abbott as unions split endorsements in governor's race

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday drew the backing of a slew of labor unions, including the Texas Teamsters, in his bid for a record fourth term in office — a series of endorsements that the Republican touted as a first from labor groups that have historically backed Democrats. “Literally the backbone of our economy are the workers who built that economy — the plumbers, the pipe fitters, the welders, the longshoremen, the truckers,” Abbott said during a press conference with union leaders in Houston. “All those job skills have made Texas what it is. They've had my back, and I want them to know I will always have their back.”

The governor has long had a rocky relationship with unions. The state’s largest labor group, the Texas AFL-CIO, is a vocal critic of Abbott’s and is backing state Rep. Gina Hinojosa in her Democratic primary bid to challenge him. The union’s 250,000 members include teachers, firefighters, public employees and more. The Service Employees International Union’s Texas branch, which counts airport workers, hospital employees and janitors as members, also is backing Hinojosa. “Greg Abbott does not represent workers. During his 12 years in office, his divisive politics have made our families worse off,” Leonard Aguilar, president of the Texas AFL-CIO said in a statement. “Texans deserve a governor who will fight for all workers.” The Teamsters have been warming to Republicans in recent years. The union’s national president Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2024 and has praised President Donald Trump. He met with Abbott last year. “Governor Abbott has kept an open door to the Teamsters union during his tenure, willing and eager to partner with us on job creation and workplace protections,” said Brent Taylor, vice president of the union’s southern region, which includes Texas. “The Teamsters do not care if you have a D, an R or an I next to your name. We're interested in one thing: Are you ready to help us tackle big issues to improve the lives of working families.” Taylor touted the state’s film tax credit as among the programs Abbott has supported that the Teamsters benefit from. And he said the state should continue to invest in job-training programs that Abbott has also backed. The unions endorsing Abbott include the Plumbers Local Union 68, International Longshoremen South Atlantic & Gulf Coast District Association and the Pipefitters Local Union 211.

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Texas firms set to cash in on ICE camps, Pentagon spending

More than 30 Texas companies, including some in the San Antonio and Austin areas, made the cut for a Pentagon program that Homeland Security can use to build detention sites across the nation. Vendors on the list can bid for contracts worth up to $45 billion. The Texas firms are among 109 nationwide that the Defense Department has selected as vendors under a mega-contract that helps government agencies quickly get supplies and services during “military operations” in the U.S. and around the world through 2029.

The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement already have used the program to set up and operate a 5,000-bed facility at Fort Bliss near El Paso under a $1.2 billion contract with Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics LLC. Originally intended to help the military get goods and services for overseas work, the program has rapidly grown its domestic deals under the Trump administration. A recent update raised the contract limits to $45 billion per vendor as ICE looks to expand its network of detention facilities across the nation, including a warehouse on San Antonio’s East Side that it acquired this week. Solicitation documents list “Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) to include but not limited to Temporary Staging Support to Immigration and Custom Enforcement” as one of the types of activities it supports. It falls under the work that the Pentagon does to help federal, state and local authorities with border security, civil disturbances, natural disasters, public health emergencies, oil spills and events like presidential inaugurations.

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Study: Big Country County one of biggest Texas spenders per capita on Only Fans

One Big Country County is at the top of the list in Texas for the most money residents spent on Only Fans per capita. Coleman County ranks #4 out of 254 Texas counties studied when you break down the dollars per capita, spending an estimated $273,264.31 per 10,000 residents on Only Fans in Fiscal Year 2025, according to data released by OnlyGuider in their Only Fans Wrapped 2025 study. This is more than the per capita spending in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Ft. Worth, which make up the counties where the most money was spent overall, due to the size of their population.

Here is a list of how much money residents each Big Country County spent on Only Fans total in 2025, as well as how they each break down per capita (per 10,000 residents): Taylor County ($1,022,909.09 total, $68,737.89 per capita), Coleman County ($218,338.18 total, $273,264.31 per capita), Eastland County ($196,309.09 total, $92,569.21 per capita), Nolan County ($67,370.91 total, $47,504.52 per capita), Callahan County ($53,614.55 total, $36,684.60 per capita), Jones County ($46,383.64 total, $22,246.35 per capita), Runnels County ($33,685.45 total, $34,545.64 per capita), Haskell County ($24,690.91 total, $45,429.46 per capita), Stephens County ($23,809.09 total, $25,128.33 per capita), Throckmorton County ($11,287.27 total, $73,676.70 per capita), Kent County ($10,229.09 total, $145,506.26 per capita), Knox County ($8,112.73 total, $24,923.90 per capita), Coke County ($6,349.09 total, $18,695.79 per capita), Stonewall County ($1,940.00 total, $15,708.50 per capita), King County ($1,763.64 total, $82,029.77 per capita).q

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‘Hubris caught up with her’: Texas leaders unload on ex-Alamo CEO

State and Alamo Trust leaders accuse former CEO Kate Rogers of “biting the hand” of Texas lawmakers who allocated hundreds of millions for a major makeover of the Alamo, which she spearheaded for four years. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Rogers “needlessly” criticized the Legislature’s “conservative” agenda in a 2023 doctoral dissertation. He made the claim in a written response to a Nov. 17 lawsuit brought by Rogers, who resigned under pressure on Oct. 23. Her lawsuit alleges Patrick, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham and trust leaders violated her First Amendment rights in retaliating against her for the opinions she expressed in her dissertation.

Patrick learned of the document and called her credibility into question, suggesting in letter to the trust’s board — which he also posted on X — that she step down CEO. In the court papers filed Tuesday, trust CEO Hope Andrade — Rogers' replacement — and board chair Welcome Wilson Jr. said Rogers resigned “without any coercion,” and Patrick and Buckingham called her lawsuit a publicity stunt. “Rogers knew she was playing with fire when she was highly critical of those actors she knew were absolutely vital to the future success of the Alamo Plan, the Alamo and her job,” trust leaders said in their filing. “Rogers knew full well that she had sealed her own fate.” They also said Rogers negotiated her severance agreement in bad faith, refusing to agree not to make derogatory comments about them and others working on the Alamo project until after she had already given an interview lambasting them. The trust's board ultimately revoked her severance package. Buckingham also alleges that Rogers “consistently placed her interests above the long-term interests of the Alamo” by undermining the General Land Office’s efforts to oversee her work and using private donations to pay for trips and “excessive” staff raises.

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County Stories

Judge Speedlin Gonzalez suspended without pay by State Commission on Judicial Conduct

Bexar County Court at Law 13 Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez has been suspended without pay, one week after her indictment on multiple criminal charges. The suspension order, issued Thursday morning from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, states Speedlin Gonzalez’s suspension will remain in effect until the charges are dismissed, she is acquitted of all charges or until the commission issues another order.

Speedlin Gonzalez was indicted last week by a grand jury on charges of unlawful restraint by a judicial officer, a felony and misdemeanor official oppression. Speedlin Gonzalez’s indictment came two weeks after KSAT Investigates revealed a December 2024 incident in which the judge ordered a defense attorney in her courtroom to be placed in handcuffs and seated in the jury box. The judge is free on bond after making her initial court appearance last week and later heard cases in court this week. County officials have not said who will preside over County Court 13 moving forward. Speedlin Gonzalez did not respond to a text message seeking comment Thursday afternoon. A visiting judge would be put in the court, if requested. As of Thursday evening, an official with the Fourth Administrative Judicial Region, which oversees courts in Bexar County, told KSAT no visiting judge had been requested.

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National Stories

U.S. automakers’ foreign troubles now extend to Canada

Canada’s decision this month to give Chinese carmakers a toehold in the country’s car market may be an ominous development for U.S. automakers that are already struggling to stay relevant outside North America. General Motors and Ford Motor — the two largest U.S.-based car manufacturers — have been steadily losing customers in Asia, Europe and Latin America, as Chinese carmakers have gained ground. Now Canada plans to lower tariffs on a limited number of Chinese-made vehicles, potentially giving companies like BYD, SAIC or Geely a small but significant presence on the United States’ northern border after already building a thriving business in Mexico and much of Latin America. If they lose significant ground to Chinese companies in Canada, Mexico and other countries where they once dominated, Ford and G.M. could gradually become niche manufacturers, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

They will end up primarily making and selling large pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles favored by many Americans but that tend to sell less well in much of the rest of the world. “There’s a real danger that the market for U.S. carmakers is going to largely to be the U.S., and only that part of the U.S. market that wants big S.U.V.s and trucks,” Mr. Gordon said. The number of Chinese vehicles eligible for low tariffs in Canada will be small — less than 3 percent of the Canadian car market. Still, “it is very symbolic and significant to the industry,” said Lenny LaRocca, who leads the auto industry practice at the consulting firm KPMG. The U.S. automakers, he said, “are taking it very seriously.” The deal with China, which was announced Jan. 16 in Beijing by Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, was the latest example of how President Trump’s policies have disrupted the U.S. auto industry. His hostile rhetoric toward Canada and 25 percent tariffs on cars imported from Canada have devastated the Canadian auto industry, which is highly intertwined with U.S. automakers and parts suppliers.

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ACA tax credit negotiations have stalled. Senators can’t even agree on a reason why.

Negotiators on both sides of the aisle say that the prospects to renew Affordable Care Act tax credits are increasingly bleak. But Democrats and Republicans involved in the health care talks cite different reasons for why things fell apart. A bipartisan Senate group, led by Sens. Bernie Moreno and Susan Collins, has been working to finalize legislative text to revive the ACA subsidies, which expired at the end of 2025. The group began its effort after debate over the subsidies led to the longest government shutdown in history. Democrats in the working group now say proposed language around restricting federal funding for abortion services is responsible for tanking negotiations. “The issue is Hyde, 100%,” Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and has been involved in the talks, told reporters Thursday, referring to the long-standing measure included in health care bills that prohibits federal funding for abortion care.

“The ACA already has Hyde language in it, and it’s really, it’s a shame that this anti-abortion thing has to screw up the ability of millions of Americans to have reasonable-priced health care.” The debate about the issue is a particular point of contention for both parties. Democrats have said the Hyde Amendment does not need to be included in any extension of the subsidies while Republicans wanted to see the issue particularly addressed. Negotiators thought they had come to a compromise on Hyde by including language that would require an audit of states’ adherence to the amendment. But Sen. Tim Kaine told reporters Thursday that Democrats in the group were taken aback by new abortion-related language applying to health savings accounts included in the legislative text offered by Moreno. “It fell apart for one reason: the Hyde Amendment,” Kaine said. “We talked to our colleagues, and we said, ‘the Hyde Amendment was included in the ACA, and we’re willing to state that nothing we’re doing here contravenes that.’ They wanted more, and that was going to be a nonstarter.”

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U.S., Russia to resume high-level military talks

The United States and Russia will resume a high-level military-to-military dialogue that was suspended just before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, officials said Thursday, in the latest sign the Trump administration is pursuing more normalized relations with Moscow even as a key nuclear weapons treaty between the two powers expired. Thursday marked the end of New START, which limits the numbers and types of nuclear weapons each country maintains. In response, President Donald Trump called for a “new, improved, modernized” pact that could last for a long time. Both developments coincided with the latest efforts to end the four-year-old Ukraine conflict. The decision to resume military talks between Washington and Moscow, according to one U.S. official, was a direct by-product of the peace negotiations, which so far have failed to produce a significant breakthrough that would halt the fighting. U.S.-Russian interactions in recent days created an opening for further dialogue, the official said.

The Kremlin had no official comment on the resumption of military talks, and its embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The nuclear treaty’s lapse has worried nonproliferation experts, who fear it will spur a new, destabilizing arms race as each side looks at short-range nuclear weapons and explores potential new uses — including in space. Trump has also suggested that a future U.S. battleship could serve as a platform to launch nuclear missiles. For now, there’s no agreement by either side to hold to the terms of the expired treaty, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. Her Russian counterpart, Dmitry Peskov, said “everything will depend on how events develop,” and that Russia will “maintain its responsible approach to strategic stability in the field of nuclear weapons, guided first and foremost by its national interests.” The U.S. disbanded military-to-military dialogue with Russia in late 2021, as the Kremlin amassed a large invading force outside Ukraine’s borders. Since then, relations between the nations cratered as the U.S. and its European allies provided Ukraine with advanced weapons systems to defend itself. Russia has responded with nuclear threats and aggressive long-range strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

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Trump promises Schumer funding for NY tunnel project — if Penn Station and Dulles Airport are renamed after him

President Donald Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last month that he was finally prepared to drop his freeze on billions of dollars in funding for a major New York infrastructure project. But there was a condition: In exchange for the money, Schumer had to agree to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport after Trump. The startling offer, which was described by two people familiar with the conversation, was swiftly rejected by Schumer, who told the president he didn’t have the power to deliver on such an unorthodox request.

In the weeks since, Trump has continued to withhold the more than $16 billion earmarked for the long-planned Gateway project connecting New York and New Jersey through a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River. The two states are now suing the Trump administration over the freeze, alleging in a complaint filed earlier this week that the funding suspension is unlawful. A spokesperson for Schumer declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The episode, first reported by Punchbowl, offers a fresh window into Trump’s ever-expanding effort to secure an outsized place in American history — and to do so in part by branding nearly everything around him with his own name. Since returning to the White House, the president has introduced a slew of initiatives bearing the Trump name, including the Trump Gold Card offering a high-priced path to citizenship, the TrumpRx website offering lower-priced prescription drugs, and a new Trump-class battleship meant to solidify his era of “peace through strength” foreign policy for years to come.

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Analilia Mejia and Tom Malinowski locked in a tight Democratic primary for US House from New Jersey

The Democratic special primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District remains too early to call with progressive Analilia Mejia and former US Rep. Tom Malinowski locked in a tight race. Mejia was slightly ahead of Malinowski at the close of counting on Election Night. But with nearly all election day ballots counted, the race could come down to uncounted mail ballots. According to reports late Thursday from the counties in the district, upwards of 1,000 are already in hand and remain to be counted. Additional ballots can be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and arrive before Wednesday.

Trailing the top two vote-getters are former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way and Essex County commissioner Brendan Gill, among a ballot of more than a dozen Democratic primary candidates. Whoever wins will face Republican Randolph Township councilman Joe Hathaway, who ran unopposed, in the general election on April 16, and will be favored in a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly nine percentage points in 2024. Thursday’s primary was seen as an early testing ground for the debates that will shape the Democratic push to retake the US House in this year’s midterms. A win by Mejia, who served as political director on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, would be a major success for national progressive leaders who had backed her run. Malinowski, meanwhile, would be in position with a victory to return to the House four years after losing a bid for reelection.

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Inside Trump’s takeover of D.C.’s golf courses

In early spring, the founders of the National Links Trust met with a White House adviser to talk about the future of golf in Washington, D.C. The White House adviser, William Doffermyre, who was set to become the solicitor general at the Department of the Interior, pitched founders Mike McCartin and Will Smith on the idea of a partnership. According to sources familiar with the meeting, Doffermyre’s plan was for the federal government to help renovate the three public golf courses the trust controlled: East Potomac Golf Links, Langston Golf Course and Rock Creek Park Golf. Doffermyre expressed to the founders that President Donald Trump was eager to cut red tape and could help raise money for the venture.

While skeptical, the founders were intrigued. But they needed something: assurances from the Trump administration that their organization’s commitment to affordable and accessible golf would be maintained. Doffermyre said he would fight for that. The three talked about the project throughout the summer of 2025. Doffermyre even recommended a lawyer at a Trump-aligned firm for the group to use as a conduit to help with negotiations with the White House. Near the end of the summer, Doffermyre told Smith and McCartin that he was working to arrange a meeting with Trump. But a promising beginning morphed into chaos as Trump increasingly took an interest in remodeling many of D.C.’s iconic buildings and public spaces. By the end of 2025, the Interior Department notified the nonprofit it was terminating its 50-year lease, signed in 2020, with the National Park Service and said the National Links Trust owed millions in back rent to the government.

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White House unveils TrumpRx website for medication discounts

The Trump administration finally has unveiled TrumpRx.gov, a website for consumers to find discounts on brand-name drugs if they pay cash instead of using their health insurance. It launched Thursday evening with 43 drugs from five companies that made deals with the Trump administration: AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer. Discounts from the other 11 companies that made agreements with the administration will be available in the coming months, the White House said. "It's the biggest thing to happen in health care, I think, in many, many decades," President Trump said during a launch event.

The discounts ranged from 33% off Pfizer's Xeljanz, which treats autoimmune disorders such as ulcerative colitis, to 93% off Cetrotide, a drug made by EMD Serono that is used in fertility treatments. In order to get some discounts, customers must click a button stating that they aren't enrolled in a government insurance program, such as Medicare, and won't seek insurance reimbursement for out-of-pocket costs or count them toward a deductible. Then, they can get a coupon to take to a pharmacy for a discount. Some offers, such as the discount for AstraZeneca's Bevespi inhaler for COPD, require consumers to go to the company's website. Trump and administration officials announced their plan for TrumpRx in the fall as part of deals with drug companies to get lower prices for American consumers. In exchange for exemptions from certain tariffs, the drugmakers agreed to lower prices for Medicaid, to launch future new drugs at prices no higher than those paid in other wealthy countries and to offer discounts through TrumpRx to patients paying cash for their medicines. Drug policy experts say that the site will likely only be helpful for a limited number of patients.

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Lead Stories

Supreme Court lets California use new Democrat-friendly congressional map

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed California to use a new congressional map that will undermine President Donald Trump’s effort to keep control of the House of Representatives, marking a defeat for Republicans who claimed one of the new districts was redesigned based on race rather than politics. There were no noted dissents, and the court did not explain its reasoning. The emergency appeal from state Republicans was the latest to reach the high court tied to an ongoing arms-race-style mid-decade redistricting that Trump initiated to keep the House after the midterm elections.

California redrew its map, which puts five GOP-held seats in play, as a response to a partisan redistricting in Texas that benefited Republicans. Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, don’t get involved in cases dealing with partisan gerrymanders. But state Republicans had argued that racial considerations motivated the redrawing of one district that covers portions of the Central Valley between San Francisco and Fresno. Those allegations were based largely on comments by a mapmaking consultant, Paul Mitchell, who said publicly that he intended to “ensure that Latino districts” were “bolstered” in the 13th Congressional District. The state’s “professed purpose was to pick up five seats in Congress for the Democratic Party to offset the five seats the Republican Party gained in Texas,” California Republicans told the Supreme Court in their emergency appeal. “But those officials harbored another purpose as well: maximizing Latino voting strength to shore up Latino support for the Democratic Party.” The map was ultimately approved by state residents in a referendum in which 64% of voters backed the plan.

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'This job sucks,' overwhelmed DHS lawyer says in court hearing over ICE's response to judicial orders

An exasperated and frustrated Department of Homeland Security attorney declared in a stunning moment in court that her job "sucks," the existing legal process "sucks," and that she sometimes wishes that the judge would hold her in contempt so she "can have a full 24 hours of sleep." Julie Le, who according to public records is a Department of Homeland Security attorney that had been detailed to the U.S. Attorney's office, was called to testify Tuesday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn., about why the government has been nonresponsive to judicial orders regarding people in ICE detention. "What do you want me to do? The system sucks," Le told Judge Jerry Blackwell, according to a court transcript obtained by ABC News. "This job sucks. And I am trying [with] every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need."

A review of federal court records shows that Le had been assigned to 91 immigration cases over the past month -- 88 in Minnesota and three in Texas. Most of the cases are habeas petitions filed by immigrants detained by enforcement officials. Blackwell said the administration has routinely not been following court mandates, ignoring multiple orders for detainees to be released that has resulted in their continued detainment for days or even weeks. "The overwhelming majority of the hundreds [of individuals] seen by this court have been found to be lawfully present as of now in the country," said Blackwell. "In some instances, it is the continued detention of a person the Constitution does not permit the government to hold and who should have been left alone, that is, not arrested in the first place," according to the transcript. Operation Metro Surge has "generated a volume of arrests and detentions that has taxed existing systems, staffing, and coordination between DOJ and the DHS," Blackwell acknowledged, but said that was no excuse for the government's lack of response to court orders.

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Cornyn campaign targets Paxton’s divorce in heated exchange

The spat, like so many these days, began on X. A bruising Republican primary race between U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton erupted Wednesday with the men trading personal insults. Paxton took aim at Cornyn’s relevance. Cornyn’s campaign responded with a taunt over Paxton’s divorce and cheating scandal. In an already bitter race to get the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, the exchange stood out. The fight unfolded when Paxton posted a story from The New York Times about the extraordinary amount of money pouring into the March 3 race in an effort to save Cornyn, who is seeking his fifth term. Cornyn is by far the best-funded contender in the tight race between Paxton and U.S. Rep, Wesley Hunt, but the race is widely expected to head to a runoff in May.

In a tweet, Paxton shared a snippet from The Times story: “Some establishment Republicans worry that no matter his financial advantage, he will be a serious underdog against Mr. Paxton in the runoff — and that donors’ money would be better spent helping Republicans like Senator Susan Collins of Maine in the fall.” Paxton chimed in with his own thoughts: “Cornyn’s career is done and everyone knows it. He’s stolen $50+ million from races in NC, ME, MI, and GA and what does he have to show for it?” More than an hour later, Cornyn’s campaign fired back: “Ken, when this over, you will have nothing. Which turns out to be the same thing you offered to give Angela in divorce proceedings. This after you cheated on her multiple times.” Angela Paxton, a Republican state senator from McKinney, filed for divorce last year after nearly four decades of marriage, citing her husband’s alleged infidelity among the reasons. Unsealed divorce records revealed that Paxton asked his estranged wife in a response to “take nothing.” Paxton has blamed the divorce on political attacks and public scrutiny. Paxton did not respond to an email for comment from The Dallas Morning News. In an email to The News, Matt Mackowiak, senior campaign adviser for Cornyn, said, “Sen. Cornyn believes character matters. In this primary, character is on the ballot.” This is not the first time Cornyn has poked fun at Paxton’s romantic history. Last year, he posted news that Coldplay would introduce camera-free sections for concertgoers after a CEO was caught on a “kiss cam” with a woman who was not his wife. “Good news for @kenpaxtontx,” he wrote. A month later, responding to Paxton’s instructions to Texas public schools to display the Ten Commandments, Cornyn took another swipe: “Might want to brush up on the Ten Commandments, Ken.”

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After the Minneapolis shootings, Trump says his administration could use 'a softer touch' on immigration

President Donald Trump told NBC News on Wednesday that he believes his administration could use “a softer touch” in its immigration enforcement operations after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis. “I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas. “We’re dealing with really hard criminals. But look, I’ve called the people. I’ve called the governor. I’ve called the mayor. Spoke to ‘em. Had great conversations with them. And then I see them ranting and raving out there. Literally as though a call wasn’t made.” Trump has been engaged in a weekslong feud with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, two Democrats who have been highly critical of his immigration crackdown in the city and condemned the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, in separate incidents in January.

Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other high-ranking administration officials had been quick to blame the fatal shootings on Good and Pretti, at several points characterizing them without evidence as domestic terrorists. Video footage of the incidents also contradicted some initial claims that administration officials made to suggest the shootings were justified. Trump’s remarks to NBC News on Wednesday reflect his continued shift in tone as national outrage over the killings takes hold. At a Jan. 20 White House briefing, Trump said that federal agents “make mistakes sometimes.” Earlier Wednesday, U.S. border czar Tom Homan announced a withdrawal of 700 federal immigration agents from Minnesota. Asked by Llamas if that call had come from Trump, the president affirmed that it had. “But it didn’t come from me because I just wanted to do it,” Trump added. “We have — we are waiting for them to release prisoners, give us the murderers that they’re holding and all of the bad people, drug dealers, all of the bad people. We allowed in our country, I say, 25 million people with an open-border policy for four years under [President Joe] Biden, and that group, the autopen group, I call them. We allowed to come into our country people the likes of which no country would accept. And we’re getting ‘em out.” Trump’s claim about 25 million undocumented immigrants, which he has made before, is false. During the Biden administration, 7.4 million undocumented immigrants crossed the border outside of legal checkpoints, according to data from Customs and Border Protection.

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State Stories

Houston Chronicle Editorial: Time for Democrats to replace Hubert Vo in the Texas House

For two decades, a hyper-diverse community on the west side of Houston has been served by Rep. Hubert Vo, whose story of fleeing Communist Vietnam resonated with many voters. In 2007, he was instrumental in the creation of the International Management District that helped invest in public safety and beautification projects that have made the area a commercial destination. Since then, he has struggled to add to that accomplishment. His wins in the Legislature could be called modest at best. In our conversation with him this time, he mentioned the success of the management district several times, repeating himself to a worrying degree. The state Legislature is set to tackle major issues next session, including cuts to property taxes that pay for public schools. Residents in this district deserve and need active representation. We recommend Democratic voters go with current Alief ISD school board president Darlene Breaux to serve District 149 in the House.

As eighth of nine siblings growing up, she nearly fell behind in school due to her struggles with dyslexia. But the determination of one teacher in particular, whose name she still says with reverence, put her on a path that’s led all the way through graduate education and serving on Alief’s school board since 2017. As board president, she’s helped pass more than $520 million in bond projects for technology upgrades, safety improvements, and new career and technical equipment, as well as a new district agricultural facility. At a time when many school districts have struggled to get voters to approve what were once safe bets, Alief’s success signaled an important win: “Our community trusts us,” Breaux told us. Another sign: endorsements from both City Council Members Tiffany Thomas and Martha Castex-Tatum, as well as the AFL-CIO. She has also used her time on the board to understand the needs of the broader immigrant-rich community, like weeknight and weekend ESL classes at district facilities. That’s a collaborative solution that reflects knowledge of the region’s international community.

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No, Buc-ee’s founder didn’t donate $1M to ICE, company says

Buc-ee’s, the iconic Texas-based travel center chain, is flatly denying viral social media rumors claiming the company or its leadership donated to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The speculation, which began circulating on various social platforms in January, prompted a direct response from the company’s legal team Tuesday after the claims gained traction online. What they're saying:

"The claim is entirely unfounded," Jeff Nadalo, general counsel for Buc-ee’s, Ltd., said in a statement to FOX Local. "Neither Beaver nor Buc-ee’s has made any donations to ICE." Despite the traction the claims received, the origin of the controversy remains a mystery. An exhaustive search of public records and social media trends has failed to identify a specific catalyst or piece of evidence that triggered the allegations. Buc-ee’s has often been the subject of internet discourse due to its massive cultural footprint, particularly in Texas, but this specific claim appeared to lack any factual secondary support.

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Texas voucher applications are open. These schools are still left out.

Palm Tree Academy in El Paso hoped Texas’ new private school voucher program would boost enrollment and eventually help the community establish a middle school. The private academy, which has operated for nearly 30 years, is the only full-time school serving El Paso’s small but burgeoning Muslim community, which includes many longstanding Hispanic Muslim families as well as more recent Arab and South Asian immigrants drawn to jobs at local hospitals and universities. But on Wednesday, as families statewide began applying for the state-funded tuition subsidies, Palm Tree was among nearly two dozen Islamic schools that remained blocked from participating in the $1 billion program.

The state comptroller’s office said it has held up a handful of schools over alleged ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group that Gov. Greg Abbott has deemed a terrorist organization. But the move is affecting schools like Palm Tree that say they have never been in contact with CAIR and still have received no information from the state about why they have not been invited to apply. As of Wednesday morning, just three of the roughly 25 accredited Islamic-oriented private schools in Texas had been let into the program: Bayaan Academy in League City; Ameen Academy in Plano and Ilm Academy in Lewisville. After Hearst Newspapers published this story, the schools were removed from the approved list. Now no Islamic private schools appear on the state map. Masoud said he was at a loss on what to tell parents who have been eager to sign up. “Still, no one has done anything to respond to us or to tell us what we need to do to proceed, how to go forward,” Masoud said. Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock said the agency is still vetting some schools accredited by the nonprofit Cognia over his concerns about possible ties to the Chinese government or CAIR, which is fighting the terrorism designation it calls defamatory and unconstitutional.

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A look at the top fundraisers in San Antonio's congressional races

Out of more than 40 candidates competing to represent Bexar County in Congress, former Major League Baseball player Mark Teixeira, a political newcomer vying to replace U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Dripping Springs), is raising money in a league of his own. Campaign finance reports covering money raised and spent up to Dec. 31 were due Saturday for federal candidates. Teixeira’s indicated that the 45-year-old Bee Cave resident had raised more than $3 million — $545,000 from donors and a staggering $2.5 million personal loan — since launching a congressional bid in August. He’s one of a dozen candidates running for the GOP nomination in the deep-red 21st Congressional District, which drew several other Republicans with connections to state and national donors, including former FEC Chair Trey Trainor, and former Small Business Administration adviser Michael Wheeler.

But the next-highest fundraisers in that race reported having about a tenth as much money to spend on their campaigns as Teixeira, who played 14 seasons of professional baseball and signed a $180 million contract with the New York Yankees in 2008. Self-funding dominated the crowded field of Republicans running to succeed Roy. After Teixeria, the next-highest fundraiser was Wheeler, a financial analyst who has worked at some of the nation’s largest banks. He reported a total of $325,000 raised as of Dec. 31, including a $250,000 personal loan. Similarly, Jason Cahill, who owns his own oil and gas company in Boerne, raised $284,000, including a $250,000 personal loan. After narrowly surviving his 2024 primary runoff, Gonzales appears to be spending big for this year’s four-way race. He’s raised big money from PACs that typically give to incumbents, reported $2.5 million in the bank at the end of 2025 and has been on TV with ads for much of January touting his endorsement from Trump.

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Jon Hagler: Regents have failed to protect TAMU’s independence

(Jon Hagler, a 1958 graduate, received an honorary doctorate from Texas A&M in 2015. He was the lead donor for the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, which annually brings renowned scholars to Texas A&M for a year to collaborate with faculty and students.) A time comes when silence starts to feel like betrayal. That time for me is now, as I watch the board of regents of the Texas A&M University System bow to political pressure and shirk its obligations to preserve academic freedom and institutional independence. Independence is a cornerstone of institutional excellence. I think this is especially true for educational institutions. That is why a mandate for independence is embedded into existing Texas law and into current Texas A&M System policy. But a Dec. 10, 2025 investigative news article in the Texas Tribune exposed how Texas A&M System regents have allowed undue political influence to affect our university in significant ways. More recent reports chronicle how political influence has reached directly into classrooms. Late last year, regents imposed restrictions on how faculty can talk to students about race or gender. Texas A&M then killed an entire set of programs — women and gender studies in the College of Arts and Sciences — and canceled six classes, including a graduate course on ethics, of all things. In an untold number of other classes, faculty and administrators are censoring curricula. One example involves limiting the philosophies of Plato.

I watch these alarming matters closely because I am a proud former student, Aggie class of 1958, who has actively supported decades of efforts — beginning with those of former Texas A&M President Earl Rudder — to transform my beloved alma mater from the small, all-male military college I attended to one of America’s genuinely great public universities. Regents are flouting two provisions of Texas statute. Sec. 51.352 of the Education Code says it is the responsibility of each governing board to “preserve institutional independence and to defend its right to manage its own affairs through its chosen administrators and employees.” Texas A&M System Policy (02.01.2(a)) mirrors that provision. The state’s Education Code goes on to say that each university must “protect intellectual exploration and academic freedom” and “strive for intellectual excellence.” To me, it appears that our regents are failing in their sworn duty to uphold state law. In the Tribune article, Board Chairman Robert Albritton acknowledged that regents have made key decisions in compliance with the wishes of Gov. Greg Abbott or to alleviate other political pressure coming from Austin.

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Todd Little: Data centers are powering Texas’ next era of growth

(Todd Little is executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments and a former Ellis County Judge.) Texas is entering one of the most consequential periods of growth in its history, and recent extreme weather underscores why infrastructure investment matters. As freezing temperatures moved across the state in recent weeks, Texas avoided the kind of widespread power outages seen in past storms. Governor Greg Abbott pointed to years of grid upgrades and private sector investment as key to that reliability. Those improvements were supported in part by long-term commitments from large power users, including modern data centers, which give utilities the certainty needed to strengthen generation, transmission, and overall grid reliability. Our state is on track to add and attract several million new residents in the decades ahead. Meeting that growth will require a strategy that strengthens infrastructure, supports long-term economic development, and positions Texas to lead in the industries shaping the future.

A surprising force is helping to meet that challenge: modern data centers. These facilities have become the backbone of the digital economy, but in fast-growing regions across North Texas like Ellis County and Red Oak, they also play a much more immediate role. Local leaders across the region increasingly recognize data centers as critical partners for preparing communities to absorb growth responsibly, not just through technology, but through infrastructure investment. They are emerging as one of the most effective levers for upgrading long-overdue infrastructure and preparing communities for the next chapter of Texas’ development and prosperity. Much of our state’s critical infrastructure was built 50 to 60 years ago. Electric substations, water systems and transmission corridors were never designed for the population and economic footprint that exists today. What our grid needs most is capital investment. Data centers can provide a dependable revenue base that helps unlock those investments. Large facilities provide utilities with financial certainty to build new generation, reinforce transmission, and upgrade the grid in ways that benefit all customers. An analysis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and The Brattle Group found that states with growing large-load demand have often seen more stable electricity prices, in large part because major users like data center operators help spread the fixed costs of maintaining an aging grid. Already, this model is taking shape in our state. When major operators commit to building in Texas, their long-term, around-the-clock demand allows utilities and local governments to accelerate upgrades that have been postponed for years. Increasingly, operators are turning to a bring-your-own-power approach, pairing new facilities with dedicated generation or battery storage that comes online alongside them.

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And just like that, Anthony Davis isn’t a Dallas Maverick

And just like that, Anthony Davis isn’t a Dallas Maverick. You have to, I guess, appreciate the symmetry in the Dallas Mavericks trading Anthony Davis away during the anniversary week of the Luka Doncic trade that brought him here in the first place. But indeed, the Associated Press, citing an unnamed source, reports that an eight-player trade with the Washington Wizards will bring Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson, Malaki Branham, and Marvin Bagley III to Dallas, along with two first-round and three second-round draft picks. The Wizards get AD, Jaden Hardy, D’Angelo Russell, and Dante Exum.

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Paxton sues Bexar County over immigration legal services program

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit today against Bexar County, the Bexar County Commissioners Court and county officials, alleging the county unflawfully used taxpayer funds to pay for immigration-related legal services. The suit challenges a Dec. 16 vote by commissioners to approve an additional $566,181 for the county’s Immigration Legal Service Fund, which provides legal representation for immigrants facing federal deportation proceedings. The funding was allocated to American Gateways, a nonprofit legal services organization, that provides free or low-cost, culturally sensitive immigration legal services to low-income immigrants, refugees, and survivors of persecution, torture, and human trafficking. In the filing, the state argues the spending violates the Texas Constitution’s “Gift Clause,” which prohibits local governments from granting public funds to private entities without a clear public benefit.

The lawsuit claims deportation proceedings are civil matters — not criminal — and that individuals are not entitled to government-funded legal representation. “Leftists in Bexar County have no authority to use taxpayer dollars to fund their radical, criminal-loving agenda,” said Paxton. “State funds cannot underwrite deportation-defense services for individuals unlawfully present in the country. This use of hardworking Texans’ dollars is a flagrant violation of state law and the Texas Constitution.” The state is seeking a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to halt any further payments under the program and block the county from renewing or entering similar contracts Named defendants include Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, all four county commissioners and James “Jim” Bethke, executive director of the county’s Managed Assigned Counsel Office, which administers the immigration legal services program. Bethke is also currently running in the crowded Democratic primary for Bexar County district attorney. His campaign recently received an endorsement from the Texas Organizing Project, a progressive group active in criminal justice reform efforts across the state. In response to the announced suit, Monica Ramos, public information officer for Bexar County, said the county does not comment on pending litigation. The San Antonio Report has reached out for comment from all defendants named in the suit but had not received responses at the time of publication. This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

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Project Safe Neighborhoods expanding in North Texas to fight violent crime, feds say

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas on Tuesday announced the expansion of the Project Safe Neighborhoods program into Northwest Dallas to combat violent crimes. The program aims to reduce violent crime by utilizing data, intelligence and community engagement, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Ryan Raybould said during a press conference. The key partners in this project include the FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; IRS and local police agencies, Raybould said. “We work very closely with the (Dallas police) chief here to pinpoint areas with significant violent crime rates. It combines and leverages federal, state and local law enforcement officials, prosecutors and community leaders to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in our community,” Raybould said.

Northwest Dallas has become a “corridor for organized criminal” activity, Raybould said. Law enforcement agencies said they have seen networks that exploit people, traffic narcotics and illegally move firearms. “Often times, these crimes like drug trafficking and sex trafficking do not occur in isolation,” Raybould said. Traffickers rely on guns for intimidation, control and protection of their criminal proceeds along with drugs to entrap and manipulate victims, launder money and commit various tax crimes, Raybould said. The program also provides support and resources to the victims through specialists who help them through the criminal process by accompanying them to court and notifying them of upcoming events along with mental health and counseling services, Raybould said. He said the goal for Northwest Dallas is to reduce violent crime linked to drugs, guns and human trafficking and increase early victim identification. “Our goal is ultimately, we want people to have a safe and better life,” Raybould said.

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Hutchins city leaders meet to discuss ICE detention center as residents continue opposition

Hutchins city leaders met briefly Wednesday to discuss a proposed immigration facility as residents and local lawmakers gathered to oppose it. The federal government plans to convert a 1 million-square-foot warehouse into a detention center that would house up to 9,500 migrants, as first reported by the Washington Post. Mayor Pro Tem Steve Nichols reiterated the council has not received confirmation or information about the facility. The council took no action Wednesday. “To date, no one from the city has been contacted by the federal officials to discuss any such plans or local impact,” he read from a statement during the special called meeting. “We are not even aware of the need of transfer having been reported to the county for the properties in question."

Nichols told the public they would keep the community informed and “act to protect community interest to the best of our abilities.” The facility would be one of five sites in Texas, according to documents reviewed by the Post. It would be located in an industrial area off of I-45. City leaders and community members have spoken out in opposition to the proposed warehouse since it was first reported. “If you think anybody up here is on board with it, you're in the wrong building,” Mayor Mario Vasquez said during a council meeting earlier this week. Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, lawmakers and activists with the League of United Latin American Citizens held a news conference outside Hutchins City Hall to express their opposition to the detention center. “We should never accept the idea that a small working class city should be forced to host the largest detention center in the nation against its will,” said state Rep. Linda Garcia. “Hutchins has said we did not choose this. We do not want this, and we deserve to be heard.”

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8 Bexar County DA hopefuls debate reform, public safety

Democratic primary candidates for Bexar County district attorney took the stage Tuesday night in a fast-moving debate at the Carver Community Cultural Center hosted by the San Antonio Report and the Greater San Antonio Chamber. Eight candidates clashed over how to fix an office facing staffing shortages, case backlogs and growing public scrutiny over high-profile prosecutions. In a blue county, the winner of the Democratic primary is the odds-on favorite to carry the race in November. Candidates seeking the Democratic nomination include three current prosecutors in the DA’s office: Jane Davis, who oversees the Juvenile Division, Angelica “Meli” Carrión Powers, who oversees the family division, and Oscar Salinas, who also works in that division. Three other contenders are former prosecutors now working in private practice, Veronica Legarreta, Shannon Locke and Meredith Chacon.

The other candidates are James Bethke, who oversees the county’s Managed Assigned Counsel Office, and Luz Elena Chapa, who served on the Fourth Court of Appeals. After incumbent District Attorney Joe Gonzales opted not to seek reelection, several bigger name candidates passed on the race, leaving voters with little time to get to know the long list of candidates before early voting for the March 3 primary starts on Feb. 17. Against that backdrop, many candidates used Tuesday’s debate to attack Chapa, the candidate with the most political experience and connections, but least experience when it comes to prosecuting cases. “I think it’s very important that you realize that someone here is recommending somebody take over this office who has absolutely no experience in being in a DA’s office, or in leading a DAs office, or even trying a case, I think that’s terrible,” Davis said. Davis has spent the past 40 years working under seven different district attorneys and working in every division in the office. “I have done every job in the DA’s office except being the DA.”

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Wildlife refuge, historical sites vulnerable to border wall construction

Long-time environmentalist Jim Chapman points out his favorite trees as he walks among the brush and crunches on the trails of Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. Chapman is a board member of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a nonprofit that helps to safeguard thousands of acres of these wildlife tracts along on the U.S.-Mexico border of South Texas. On Tuesday, he greeted other park visitors, examined the vegetation, and even stopped to decipher the species of an animal based on its droppings.

A retired physician’s assistant, the 78-year-old says he loves it here, and he spends plenty of time on the trails and talking with fellow enthusiasts. But he’s worried should a new border wall dissect this national park. “It would keep wildlife that’s in the refuge from getting out and when this becomes absolutely dire is when the river goes into flood,” Chapman told Border Report during a stroll through the 2,000-acre park. “Then everything that can’t fly or swim drowns,” he said. He remembers the 2015 flood when waves of wildlife and trees died from standing water. And if there’s a 30-foot-tall steel border wall built and 15-foot-long buoys put in the river, he says the animals will have no where to escape. His biggest concern is that Congress did not put language into the last summer’s Big Beautiful Bill providing for Santa Ana’s exemption from border wall construction, as it has for annual appropriations bills for the past few years. Other exemptions included La Lomita Chapel; the National Butterfly Center; Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park; the Eli Jackson Cemetery; and other historical cemeteries in the Rio Grande Valley.

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National Stories

Washington Post cuts more than 300 jobs

The Washington Post carried out a widespread round of layoffs on Wednesday that decimated the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage. The company laid off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. That includes people on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom, the people said. The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet. The paper expanded during the first eight years of his ownership, but the company has sputtered more recently.

Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said on a call Wednesday morning with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long and had not been meeting readers’ needs. He said that all sections would be affected in some way, and that the result would be a publication focused even more on national news and politics, as well as business and health, and far less on other areas. “If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming a more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape,” Mr. Murray said. “And after some years when, candidly, The Post has had struggles.” Mr. Murray further explained the rationale in an email, saying The Post was “too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product” and that online search traffic, partly because of the rise of generative A.I., had fallen by nearly half in the last three years. He added that The Post’s “daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years.”

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Bitcoin briefly drops below $70,000 as sell-off continues

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $70,000 on Thursday amid a broader sell-off of risk assets. The move, which happened around 6:27 a.m. ET, was the first time bitcoin fell below $70,000 since November 2024. Bitcoin bounced off that low and was trading at around 70,453.68 at 6:40 a.m. ET, according to CoinMetrics data. Some market watchers have suggested $70,000 is a key level to watch and a break below that could trigger more falls for bitcoin.

The drop follows a broad sell-off in tech stocks in the U.S. on Wednesday which filtered through to cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, precious metals continue to be volatile with silver plunging again on Thursday and gold under pressure. Liquidations — when traders' positions are automatically sold as bitcoin hits a certain price — continue to weigh on markets. This week, more than $2 billion long and short positions in cryptocurrencies have been liquidated this week as of Thursday, according to data from Coinglass. Bitcoin has been on a steady decline since it hit an all-time high above $126,000 in October. It now sits around 40% off that record high with other cryptocurrencies, including ether and XRP, off by much more. "[The] straight line bull run that a lot of people expected hasn't really materialized yet. Bitcoin isn't trading on hype anymore, the story has lost a bit of that plot, it is trading on pure liquidity and capital flows," Maja Vujinovic, CEO of digital assets at FG Nexus, told CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange."

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'Setting this agency up for failure': Amid staffing crunch, IRS taps employees with no relevant experience to assist during filing season

The Internal Revenue Service is asking seasoned employees without any direct tax experience to perform entry-level tasks of answering phones and processing tax returns, a step impacted staff call unprecedented as the agency scrambles to prepare for filing season. The reassigned workers, who are being detailed out on an involuntary basis, are coming from the IRS human resources and, potentially, the IT departments. Some employees reported that supervisors first asked for anyone who had experience in the front-line fields to consider the roles, but they ultimately chose many individuals with no prior experience working directly on tax issues. The details come as IRS has dramatically slashed its workforce, cutting more than 20,000 employees—or more than 20% of total staff—in the last year.

The divisions seeking internal staffing support have seen similarly significant losses to their workforces and have struggled to rebuild in time for filing season, according to a new report from the IRS inspector general. The divisions in IRS that process tax returns and provide telephonic and in-person customer service, as well as other duties related to filing season, have lost 8,300 workers, or 17% of their staff, the IG found. The IRS division tasked with processing original and amended tax returns has hired just 50 employees in anticipation of the 2026 filing season, or 2% of its authorized level. It can take up to 80 days to train new employees, the IG said, meaning employees hired now may not be ready to assist during filing season at all. Accounts Management, which handles IRS customer service, has hired just 66% of the filing season employees for which it has been authorized.

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Trump withdraws 700 immigration agents from Minnesota deportation surge, thousands remain

The Trump administration is withdrawing some 700 federal immigration enforcement agents from Minnesota, although about 2,000 agents will stay in place, White House border czar Tom Homan announced on Wednesday, a number the state's Democratic leaders say is still too high.In an unprecedented surge, U.S. President Donald Trump has deployed thousands of armed immigration enforcement agents in and around Minneapolis this year to detain and deport migrants, resulting in weeks of feuding with the state's elected leaders, angry and sometimes violent confrontations with residents, and street protests across the nation.

Homan said the deportation campaign was in the interest of public safety. He was partially reducing the deployment because he was seeing "unprecedented" cooperation from Minnesota's elected sheriffs who run county jails, although he did not give more details."Let me be clear, President Trump fully intends to achieve mass deportations during this administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country," Homan said at a press conference. "President Trump made a promise. And we have not directed otherwise."Homan also said there had been "a gap" in giving agents body-worn cameras, which he was hoping to fix with Congress. The deportation sweeps, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, have been opposed and denounced since early January by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other elected Democrats, drawing angry insults and unspecified accusations of law-breaking from Trump. Walz and Frey have sued the Trump administration in federal court, demanding the restraining or withdrawal of a federal deployment that was about 20 times the normal number of immigration enforcement agents in the state, outnumbering local police forces.Asked about Homan's announcement, Trump told NBC News: "I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough."Both Walz and Frey, in separate statements, called Homan's announcement encouraging but insufficient."The drawdown and body-worn cameras are a step in the right direction, but 2,000 ICE officers still here is not de-escalation," Frey said.

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Justice Department under scrutiny for revealing victim info and concealing possible enablers in Epstein files

The Justice Department failed to black out identifying information about many of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and redacted the details of individuals who may have aided the convicted sex offender, prompting an outcry from survivors who accuse DOJ of botching the release of more than 3 million documents last week. A CNN review of the Epstein documents identified several examples of people whose identities were blacked out possibly helping to connect him with women, including redacted co-conspirators in a much-anticipated draft indictment of Epstein from the 2000s. A redacted individual wrote in one 2015 email to Epstein: “And this one is (i think) totally your girl.”

In another 2014 email in the files, a person wrote to Epstein: “Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty.” But the name of the individual who wrote that message is redacted. The Department of Justice on Friday released what it said was the last of the Epstein files that it was required to disclose by law, but the documents have prompted widespread outcry about a continued lack of transparency and justice for Epstein’s many survivors. Epstein survivors are up in arms about the mishandled redactions, including blacked out statements that victims made to the FBI. A DOJ official said in a statement that any fully redacted names are of victims. “In many instances, as it has been well documented publicly, those who were originally victims became participants and co-conspirators,” the official said. “We did not redact any names of men, only female victims.” FBI and law enforcement names were also redacted, the DOJ official said.

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Republicans’ political crunch over affordability

Vulnerable Republicans have a big political problem on their hands. The bipartisan Senate negotiations torevive enhanced Obamacare subsidies are all but dead, leaving health care costs skyrocketing for millions of Americans. At-risk GOP lawmakers must now wage a new fight, figuring out if — and how — they can force their party to take up legislation to help Americans dealing with rising costs before the midterm elections. “It’s necessary to do everything on affordability across the board,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told us. “Health care is the most significant piece of it. There’s also housing, there’s food, there’s fuel, there’s childcare, there’s elder care, there’s transportation. It’s all unaffordable right now.” Yet Republicans face numerous hurdles in doing this.Speaker Mike Johnson has a razor-thin margin and faces near-constant revolts from his right flank.

The speaker wanted to spend the early part of 2026 on health care, but intervening events have diverted his focus. The Senate is now consumed with a funding standoff over ICE, and there are a host of other issues that Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to take up — housing, a farm bill, a highway bill, crypto and more. There’s deep skepticism among Republicans about getting another reconciliation bill done this year, which makes it much harder to see any health care bills passing. Bipartisan efforts on housing and permitting bills — both top priorities for vulnerable House Republicans — are facing problems. The appetite for bipartisan dealmaking will shrink even more as the midterms grow closer. Yet as President Donald Trump’s poll numbers tank and the economy wobbles, at-risk Republicans have no choice but to try whatever they can to push legislative fixes.

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Lead Stories

Texas’s biggest right-wing donor has abandoned Ken Paxton

Since the beginning of his lengthy and oft-scandaled political career, Attorney General Ken Paxton has held one of the most valuable get-out-of-jail-free cards in Texas politics: the seemingly limitless support of Midland oil tycoon Tim Dunn. Whenever Paxton got into trouble, which was frequently, Dunn would be there to bail him out. In turn, when Dunn’s political operation went to war against the Texas Ethics Commission, Paxton, in his capacity as attorney general, refused to defend the agency. For nearly two decades, the Dunn–Paxton partnership seemed unshakeable. But a funny thing has happened in Ken Paxton’s run for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Tim Dunn has disappeared. Dunn and Paxton both made their first big splashes in Texas politics in the same year, 2002, with similar objectives. Dunn, who would soon become the most influential and ruthless political donor in the state, wrote his first substantial political check that year—a $10,000 donation to Free Enterprise PAC, a group that sought to advocate right-wing causes at the Texas Legislature, among them prohibiting “homosexual marriages and adoptions” and requiring “a super majority to increase taxes.” Paxton, a first-time candidate for state representative who closely aligned himself with the religious right, was Free Enterprise PAC’s biggest single beneficiary in that year’s legislative elections.

From that point on, Dunn went from being merely a Paxton backer to his most vigorous defender. In 2015, after a Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton for securities fraud, Dunn wrote a heated op-ed in the Midland Reporter-Telegram claiming the attorney general was a victim of a witch hunt against strong conservatives. In 2023, when the Texas House impeached Paxton on articles of bribery and abuse of public trust among other charges, Dunn not only contributed to his defense but helped orchestrate a multi-pronged counteroffensive. Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which Dunn backed, threatened to primary any Republican state senator who voted to remove Paxton from office, and the group gave $3 million in loans and contributions to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who was presiding over the trial. After he was acquitted, Paxton campaigned against some of the key House members who impeached him. Dunn pitched in to fund their primary opponents. But according to multiple sources I spoke with while reporting my recent Texas Monthly feature on the primary battle between Paxton and incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn, when Paxton approached Dunn about backing his Senate challenge, Dunn told him to stay out of the race. One source who is familiar with Dunn’s thinking told me, “Tim sat down and told Ken, ‘I don’t want you to be a senator; I want you to be a good attorney general.’” Dunn apparently saw Paxton’s challenge as a costly and unnecessary drain on resources that would weaken the party for the general election. (The billionaire, who seems to relish conservative internecine feuds and a good Republican primary throwdown, apparently likes Cornyn enough that, so far at least, he hasn’t seen a reason to spend heavily to oust him.)

Read this article at Texas Monthly - Subscribers Only

Republicans are freaking out about Hispanic voters after a Texas upset

Republicans are in full-out panic mode over their plunging support with Hispanic voters after losing a special election in a ruby-red Texas district over the weekend. On Saturday, a Democrat posted a 14-point victory in a Fort Worth-based state senate district President Donald Trump had won by 17 points in 2024, a staggering swing that was powered by significant shifts across the district’s Hispanic areas. It’s the clearest sign yet that the GOP’s newfound coalition that propelled Trump’s return to the White House may be short-lived. Many Republicans are warning the party needs to change course on immigration, focus on bread-and-butter economic issues and start pouring money into competitive races — or risk getting stomped in November. Polling already showed that Republicans were rapidly losing support from Hispanic voters. But the electoral results were a confirmation of that drop.

“It should be an eye-opener to all of us that we all need to pick up the pace,” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican from a majority-Hispanic district in South Texas, said in an interview. “The candidate has to do their part, the party has to do their part. And then those of us in the arena, we have to do our part to help them as well.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday that the election was a “very concerning outcome.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted on X that the results should be a “wake-up call for Republicans across Texas. Our voters cannot take anything for granted.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said “a swing of this magnitude is not something that can be dismissed.” Taylor Rehmet, the Democrat who flipped the state Senate seat over the weekend, made huge gains with Hispanic voters amid national pushback to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics and widespread economic frustration across demographic groups.

Read this article at Politico - Subscribers Only

Flirty emails and chummy photos show how far Epstein reached into business world

Casey Wasserman was in Italy for the Winter Olympics, scheduled to make a presentation to the International Olympic Committee on the progress of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Peter Attia, the longevity doctor with cult followers and a bestselling book, was days into a new role as a CBS News contributor. And Brett Ratner was promoting “Melania,” his documentary about the first lady—his first film since 2017, when six women accused him of sexual misconduct. All three men had reached—or returned to—the pinnacle of their industries in February 2026. And all three, it turned out, had secrets in the Epstein files. Flirtatious email exchanges between Wasserman and Ghislaine Maxwell from 2003 were among the files released by the Department of Justice on Friday. Attia’s name appeared more than 1,700 times in the documents, with correspondence showing he maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein through 2019.

Twenty undated photos showed Ratner hanging around with Epstein at his Manhattan townhouse, the two men with their arms wrapped around women whose identities are redacted. These interactions have largely escaped scrutiny. The Epstein saga has generated headlines about people such as former President Bill Clinton and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor whose fame have ensured maximum attention. Clinton, who has been called to testify before Congress, has said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity. Mountbatten Windsor, who was stripped of his royal title, has denied that he participated in sexual abuse. But the files contain millions of pages, and many of the people in them aren’t former royals or former presidents. They are executives, doctors, lawyers, and dealmakers at the tops of their fields. Their now-public messages and photographs reveal just how intricately Epstein spun his web of influence and how he traded on his connections to amass wealth and powerful friends. The files also show that some people sought the counsel and companionship of Epstein—sometimes even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008— associations that some had previously denied and were until now largely hidden. This week, they have had to discuss their secrets. Wasserman and Attia said they regretted their email exchanges and didn’t know about Epstein’s crimes. Ratner said the photos were from 20 years ago, the woman in the photos was his then-fiancé and he didn’t really know Epstein.

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Trump signs bill to end government shutdown and fund DHS for two weeks

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law a massive funding package to end the brief government shutdown that began Saturday. The bill passed the House earlier Tuesday on a vote of 217-214. It passed the Senate last week. The legislation will ensure full-year funding for the federal government through the end of September, with the lone exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is put on a two-week leash as Democrats insist on changes after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minneapolis.

The measure tees up a frantic 10-day window for Congress to negotiate a DHS funding agreement as Democrats demand reforms to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The new deadline when DHS funding will expire is Feb. 13. Earlier in the day, House Republicans voted 217-215 to advance the legislation, a procedural motion for which Democrats provided no help. A vote on the bill was delayed by one day after Democrats privately indicated they wouldn't provide the large number of votes needed to fast-track it on Monday. The procedural "rule" vote provided some drama as the House GOP's one-vote margin showed its challenges. It was held open for an extended period when Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., unexpectedly joined Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., in voting against it. Massie has held his ground against spending bills and was seen as all but impossible to flip. Rose, who complained that the Senate wasn't doing enough to pass the SAVE Act, which mandates proof of citizenship to vote, eventually flipped to "yes."

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State Stories

Houston Chronicle Editorial: Do you want to win or not? Democrats should make Talarico their Senate candidate

If you want to understand why we recommend state Rep. James Talarico in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, you have to remember what it was like to be an Astros fan in 2014. The team was barreling toward its third straight 100-loss season. Seats were empty. Tickets were cheap. Only the most die-hard supporters were paying attention to the last-ros, disast-ros, best days were in the past-ros. Fast-forward three years and a Houston Strong crowd packed Minute Maid Park, roaring through a five-hour slugfest as the Astros toppled the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series before going on to win the best of seven.How did a perennial loser become a champion? That’s a question Texas Democrats should be asking themselves. The party hasn’t won a statewide race in more than a quarter-century.

The answer, at least in baseball: The Astros did whatever it took to win. They broke with the past. They tore down the roster, invested in young talent, leaned into data, and stopped confusing loyalty with effectiveness. Stop running candidates who excite the base but lose in the general. Give up on the illusion that demographics is destiny. Do whatever it takes to secure the narrow plurality required to win in November. And lean into the metrics. On that topic, the national data is clear: Moderate candidates, if they can make it out of primaries, enjoy a small but notable general election advantage over their more ideological counterparts. And Talarico, 36, is running as an inspiring yet pragmatic reformer. His chief opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, 44, is a prominent member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Meanwhile, nobody really knows what electability looks like in Texas because Democrats remain a generation removed from a statewide win. Still, we see campaigns come closest when they convince some Republicans to cross over — and only Talarico is working to assemble that coalition like Beto O’Rourke did in 2018. Yes, research finds the gap between progressives and moderates isn’t huge. Current polls show Talarico and Crockett as basically tied in a matchup with a Republican. Data sets for elections are relatively small — nowhere near baseball’s 162-game season. And Talarico is hardly a conservative. But Democrats are at risk of letting a potential wave year go to waste. O’Rourke lost by just three points in 2018. A few thousand voters on the margins might decide whether President Donald Trump gets another two years to reshape the federal judiciary with his hand-picked choices.

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Blackstone, New Balance CEOs among top donors to John Cornyn Super PAC

U.S. Sen John Cornyn continues to out-fundraise the rest of the Republican field, while Democratic state Rep. James Talarico reported a slight edge over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett with a month until the primary election for U.S. Senate. The pro-Cornyn Super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority reported $7.3 million in donations over the last three months of 2025, leaving the group with $5 million as of Dec. 31, according to campaign finance reports filed Saturday.

Among the PAC's largest donations was $1 million from Stephen Schwartzman, the New York-based CEO of the financial giant Blackstone, and $500,000 from Jim Davis, the Boston-based CEO of the sneaker company New Balance. The PAC also received $450,000 from Dallas investor Trevor Rees-Jones and $250,000 from Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren's pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners. By contrast, Lone Star Liberty, the Super PAC supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's U.S. Senate campaign, reported $2.8 million in cash at the end of the year, following $2 million in contributions in the fourth quarter. The largest donor was Jonathan Knutz, the Houston-based CEO of the medical company Legacy Medical Consultants, who gave $600,000 to the PAC. It's unclear how much outside money is behind U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who has no Super PAC supporting his campaign. Instead, he is relying on a dark money group called Standing for Texas, which does not have to report its finances to the Federal Election Commission. His senate campaign and other fundraising committees raised $1.1 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $1 million for Paxton and more than $7 million for Cornyn.

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Texas opens applications Wednesday for new $1 billion school voucher program

The application window for Texas' new statewide school voucher program will open on Wednesday, allowing families to use public funds to help cover private school tuition and other education-related expenses starting in the 2026-2027 school year. The program, created by Senate Bill 2, establishes Texas Education Freedom Accounts, which provide families with $10,474 per student each year to spend on approved educational costs. Students with disabilities enrolled in approved private schools or in pre-K or kindergarten programs may be eligible to receive up to $30,000. Those expenses can include private school tuition, textbooks, tutoring services and certain transportation costs. Eligible students must be U.S. citizens or lawfully present in the country and qualify to attend a Texas public school, charter school or pre-K program. Parents must be Texas residents.

While any student can apply, the state will rely on a lottery if funding runs out. Students with disabilities from families earning up to about $240,000 a year for a family of four will be prioritized first. Next come students from lower-income households earning about $60,000, followed by families earning up to $240,000. Higher-income families would receive vouchers only if funding remains. Applications will close March 17, with funding notifications sent to families beginning in early April. At least 25% of approved funding will be available in participant accounts starting in July, followed by 50% in October. The remaining funds are expected to be released by April 2027. The voucher program was among the most contentious issues of the 2025 legislative session, drawing opposition from public school advocates and many rural lawmakers who said it would divert taxpayer dollars from already strained public schools. Hundreds of opponents testified against the measure at a Texas House hearing early last year, which was followed by months of protests over the issue. Critics say such programs effectively function as tax breaks for higher-income families. In North Carolina, which has a similar voucher program, a 2025 state report found nearly 90% of voucher recipients were already in private schools after income limits were lifted, with participating families earning nearly twice the typical household income. But supporters, including Gov. Greg Abbott, said the program expands parental choice and gives families more control over their children's education. Abbott made school choice a central priority of the 2025 legislative session, campaigning heavily for lawmakers who supported the measure. And after years of pushing the issue, including multiple special legislative sessions in 2023, Abbott signed the voucher program into law in May 2025, marking a major victory for the governor after repeated failed attempts to pass similar legislation.

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Here's who's spending in San Antonio’s Texas House races

Challengers scored some unusually high-profile endorsements headed into the March 3 primary election, but the five San Antonio state lawmakers facing contested primary races are blowing them out of the water in terms of fundraising. Campaign finance reports covering Jan. 1 through Jan. 22 were due Monday. They indicated that the biggest spender on the Texas House landscape, pro-business group Texans for Lawsuit Reform, seems to be pumping the brakes on its expensive fight with state Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio). Meanwhile trial lawyers are still pouring in money to help incumbents from both parties, Gov. Greg Abbott is picking sides the race to replace state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio), Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) is helping LaHood raise money, and a pro-charter school PAC is helping Democratic state Rep. Philip Cortez (D-San Antonio) in his contested primary.

The only insurgent candidate who rivaled an incumbent’s haul in the last reporting period was Republican Willie Ng, a security company owner who served on the board of Texas’ largest chamber of commerce and is now running against state Rep. Mark Dorazio (R-San Antonio), a member of the GOP’s conservative wing, in Texas House District 122. Ng raised $130,000 in the first three months of January, compared to Dorazio’s $150,000. Much of Ng’s haul came from the Associated Republicans of Texas PAC, which has long been a defender of the state’s more moderate, business-centric Republicans. Dorazio, a former Bexar GOP chair known for his socially conservative views, won a four-way primary to replace former moderate Republican Lyle Larson in 2022. Ng is getting help from the Las Vegas Sands Corporation’s deep-pocketed Texas Defense PAC, which wants to legalize casino gambling in Texas, as well as mail ads and other campaign grassroots services from Texans for Lawsuit Reform. Like other conservatives in that group, Dorazio’s campaign received money for the Texas Trial Lawyers Association PAC in January, plus $100,000 from Texans for Truth and Liberty PAC, which gets most of its funding from a single Houston law firm.

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Gov. Abbott cites youth alcohol arrests to criticize statewide public school ICE protests

On Tuesday morning, Gov. Greg Abbott took to social media to show his continued displeasure with widespread school walkouts protesting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Linking to a story about two minors arrested at a school walkout in Kyle, Abbott shared strong words. “It’s about time students like this were arrested. Harming someone is a crime — even for students,” he said. “Disruptive walkouts allowed by schools lead to just this kind of chaos. Schools and staff who allow this behavior should be treated as co-conspirators and should not be immune for criminal behavior. We are also looking into stripping the funding of schools that abandon their duty to teach our kids the curriculum required by law. More to come.” His complaints, however, conflicts with the Kyle Police Department’s statement on the incident.

“During the demonstration, officers observed a minor in possession of alcohol, resulting in the arrest of two juveniles,” they said on Facebook. “We are aware of concerns that these arrests were related to the walkout activity; however, we would like to clarify that they are unrelated.” The latter portion of the statement was included in the article Abbott shared. “The Governor is still choosing to take this moment of one high school student making a bad decision and trying to use that to attack student protesters across the state,” State Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Hays County, said. “I am sick of Governor Abbott using Hays CISD as a prop in his attack on public schools.” The alcohol-related arrests were one of multiple incidents involving Hays CISD on Monday. The most prominent story was a counter-protester allegedly assaulting students in a viral video. “A grown man picking a fight with teenage girls is an incident I find far more concerning than a teenager having contraband and making a bad decision when a law enforcement officer asked them to get rid of it,” Zwiener said. “I really would like to call on the Governor to help tone down the rhetoric and don’t set up other of his followers to come out and attack teenagers.” Nexstar reached out to Abbott’s office for this story, asking direct questions about the conflicts between his post and the Kyle PD statement and if he had a statement on the counter-protester alleged assault. His team did not return our request for comment.

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Ruben Garcia, longtime San Antonio radio voice and TPR's VP of Technology and Operations, dies at 66

Ruben Garcia, Texas Public Radio’s Vice President of Technology and Operations, died on Tuesday, Feb. 3, following a sudden brain aneurysm that struck him on Feb. 1. He was 66. Garcia was hired by Texas Public Radio in 2011 as a production announcer, and soon began working with the engineering department, ascending to VP of Technology and Operations in 2024, where he oversaw broadcast operations, including the station’s automation system and IT. Garcia is also The Voice of Texas Public Radio, heard daily on all stations through many on-air sponsorship and promotional messages, and, of course, the top-of- the-hour time check that you can always count on. Before arriving at Texas Public Radio, longtime San Antonio listeners would have known Garcia’s voice from many commercia

Born in May of 1959, Garcia’s start in the industry began in 1975 while still a teenager in Laredo, at KLAR-AM. He soon worked his way to San Antonio, where one of his early gigs was hosting on KZ100, “The Hot FM.” Ruben’s career took him to Houston for a short time, and back to San Antonio. He worked for KSAQ-FM, and at Cox Radio from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, including stints on Y100 and KONO-FM. Roger Allen, former program director at Cox, recalled that Garcia was “a humble, very nice person” with “a golden voice.” “He was so smooth in his delivery, and so natural,” Allen said. Commercial radio was a fiercely competitive business in the 1980s and 1990s, and according to former colleague Chrissie Murnin, Garcia's “mischievous streak” helped him win the audience on more than one occasion, even if it meant a bit of trickery. Murnin remembered that Garcia, then working the night shift, called a competitor’s DJ on their station hotline, pretended to be the station engineer, and instructed the host to power down the station for maintenance for a few hours, to which the DJ readily complied. Finding dead air on the competitor, the audience would naturally tune in to his show instead, Garcia surmised! Garcia was also known to be handy with tech, said Murnin, who called him “Mr. Fix-It.” Murnin noted he could fix just about anything at the station … and then some, whether it was a lamp, a vacuum. … You get the idea. “It didn’t surprise me that he wound up at TPR as VP of Technology,” Allen said.

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Legal battle continues for death row inmate Robert Roberson

Attorneys for Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson are urging an Anderson County district judge to reject the State’s request for more time to respond in his ongoing post-conviction case, arguing prosecutors have already had months to answer and have repeatedly addressed the substance of his “changed science” claim. In a filing submitted Tuesday, Roberson’s counsel opposed the State’s motion seeking a 60-day extension to file its answer. The defense argued the State has not provided justification for why additional time is needed now, after the court previously allowed roughly four months for the State to respond.

“Counsel for the State offers no explanation as to why, after being granted four months to answer, on the eve of its deadline, the State now seeks yet another two more months simply to answer,” Roberson’s filing stated. “As previously noted, the State has already filed multiple responses to the substance of Mr. Roberson’s changed-science claim.” The latest filings focus on procedure — whether the State should get more time — but they sit within a larger fight over whether Roberson is entitled to relief under Texas law that allows courts to revisit convictions when relevant scientific understanding has changed since trial. Roberson’s case has long drawn attention because it involves contested medical testimony associated with shaken baby syndrome, also known as abusive head trauma, an injury that critics say earlier diagnostic approaches lacked understanding of the science, often treated as definitive and ignored alternative explanations for the injury.

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Man arrested after fight with Hays CISD students during anti-ICE walkout

Buda police officers have arrested a 45-year-old man following a fight with student protesters near Johnson High School on Monday. Chad Michael Watts, who lives in Kyle, was charged Tuesday afternoon with two counts of assault causing bodily injury. The incident was captured in a now viral video. A man and a student protester are seen getting into a verbal argument that quickly turns physical and results in the man throwing the girl to the ground and striking her repeatedly until other students intervene and pull him away. Video posted to social media shows he then returned to his truck.

Watts was later brought in for questioning by Buda Police. "After further thorough investigation, it was determined that Watts was the primary aggressor in the physical altercation," the department said in a statement. The student, a sophomore, was checked by Emergency Medical Services and chose not to be taken to the hospital. The protest was one of several walkouts that happened Monday in Hays County. Students from Hays High, Johnson High, Lehman High, Barton Middle and Live Oak Academy High schools made up some of the hundreds of students who gathered to protest the actions of federal immigration officers. Students gathered at all four corners of the intersection of FM 1626 and RM 967 during the Johnson High demonstration, holding signs and cheering. Around 200 students walked out of the school and participated in the protest. “Leading up to the [incident], it was very peaceful," sophomore Isabella said. "Nobody was being violent, nobody was like tormenting the people driving by. We were just standing there … hooting and hollering, just making our voices heard. There wasn't really anything, I think at all, that would have prompted a grown man to attack a teenage girl." Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra released a statement on Tuesday afternoon, saying, “No matter one’s political views, an adult bears a clear responsibility to exercise restraint, especially in the presence of children," he said.

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One of Austin's oldest Mexican restaurants is closing after almost 40 years

The road once known as Austin’s Mexican Mile is losing another one of its long-time residents. Little Mexico is closing at the end of February after 34 years at that location. Rosa Martinez opened the homey restaurant that serves Tex-Mex and interior Mexican cuisine at 2304 S. First St. in 1994. She opened the original in North Austin in 1986 and moved it just south of Oltorf Road on South First Street for five years before settling the restaurant on the land she purchased in 1992.

“I’m happy and kind of sad,” Monterrey, Mexico native Martinez said Tuesday, fighting back tears between visits with a couple tables of regulars. “These people are like family.” The restaurant has been one of the stalwarts that has kept the old South Austin spirit alive on a street that has undergone massive development over the last decade. The road was once home to Jovita’s, La Mexicana Bakery, which closed in 2022, and El Mercado, which closed in 2025.

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TEA warns sanctions for districts, teachers over anti-ICE walkout absences

The Texas Education Agency warned school leaders Tuesday that it could sanction educators who help student leave class for political activism or take interventions against school districts that don’t follow state attendance requirements. The notice came after Texas students walked out of class in recent days to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. TEA’s guidance also followed calls from two state leaders for investigations into and more information from the Austin Independent School District over its student walkouts. In press release from the agency, a spokesman said that “school systems have been reminded of their duty and obligation to ensure that their students are both safe and that they attend school.”

The guidance released to school districts specified that while it’s “inappropriate for educators to neglect students released onto public streets with no supervision or parental notification,” school districts also shouldn’t “facilitate disruption by encouraging students to leave campus during instructional hours.” Educators who encourage or help students leave class could be reported to the State Board for Educator Certification, which has the final determination on revoking an educator’s license, according to the guidance. School districts that don’t adhere to state attendance laws could be subject to an audit or investigation, and any violations found could trigger sanctions as drastic as a state takeover, according to the guidance. School districts should also notify parents when students may leave school property, according to TEA. The agency noted that students can’t disrupt the learning environment when expressing their speech. In many local districts, like Austin ISD, officials said that the protests weren’t sponsored by the district, and that school officials want students in class during instructional time.

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Hutchins Mayor: ICE doesn’t ‘match what we’re trying to do.’

If the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is planning to convert a warehouse in Hutchins into an ICE detention facility that could hold 9,500 people, it is keeping those plans very close to the vest. So close, in fact, that even the city that will be tasked with providing the facility with water, sewer, and other services doesn’t have any details, officials said Monday night. It’s been about a week and a half since we published our story about the 1-million-square-foot warehouse in Hutchins that the federal government has allegedly purchased for use as a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Since then, the news has gained a great deal of attention, especially since Hutchins isn’t the only place the federal agency is considering for potential places to hold people it has detained.

But Monday night, the Hutchins City Council kicked off its meeting by making it clear what the body thought of ICE plans to use an actual warehouse built for Amazon as a “Amazon Prime, but with human beings,” as acting ICE director Todd Lyons said last spring. Mayor Mario Vasquez began by saying that the city has heard nothing from the feds—no confirmation, no paperwork, and no permit applications. The statement began as a word-for-word recital of what was already on the city’s website. But then Vasquez might have gone off script a little bit. “If you think that anybody up here is onboard with it, you’re in the wrong building,” he said. “Nobody up here on this dais is onboard with what they’re trying to put here.” He pointed to new billboards the city just put up proclaiming Hutchins is a “city on the rise.” “This don’t match what we’re trying to do here,” he added. “We are not on board with this thing here.” The crowd that had gathered to speak against the facility erupted in cheers.

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McKinney teacher's desperate plea after husband detained

After meeting at a salsa dancing class in Dallas’s Klyde Warren Park in 2024, Rafael and Heather Alambarrio seemed destined for happily ever after. “Something we really like to do is go to concerts,” said Heather, combing through dozens of photos on her dining room table. The couple married at the McKinney courthouse in June, followed by a reception with friends. “My best friend said something, and it’s just so true. She said, ‘When I think about Rafael, I just think about joy and kindness, and it’s so hard to imagine him in a place like that. You know? It’s so hard to imagine him there',” she said.

The couple had just one final hurdle. In November, they met with U.S. Customs and Immigration to apply for Rafael’s Green Card. He’s a Venezuelan native who came to the U.S. fleeing political persecution in 2023. Heather said the interview went well and that the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services told them to expect it to arrive in 30 to 60 days. But the next day, the White House announced it would pause processing applications for people from 19 countries, including Venezuela. A Department of Homeland Security report from 2023 documents the torture Rafael faced as a result of protests. The Credible Fear Determination interview found, “he was harmed and would be harmed if [he] returned to Venezuela.” Rafael was granted parole as he applied for asylum, but that parole eventually expired. On Jan. 15, the couple reported to the Dallas ICE office for an annual check-in. Heather says Rafael never came back out.

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Christian Menefee outlines priorities after winning 18th Congressional District seat

After securing victory in the race for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, Christian Menefee said his first priority in Congress is to make sure residents finally feel represented again. Menefee, the former Harris County Attorney, was sworn in on Feb. 2, stepping into a seat that has been without full representation for nearly a year following the deaths of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and then Congressman Sylvester Turner. Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott did not schedule the first round of voting until November for the Black and Democratic stronghold. Menefee accused Abbott of delaying the election and attempting to weaken the district’s political voice, and he pledged to oppose President Donald Trump’s policies.

“I want people in our communities to know that they have an office that they can go to when they’re having issues with Medicare, the VA hospital, social security, a place that they can go to get their questions answered and their problems solved, whether it be immigration case work or anything,” Menefee said. Menefee won a special runoff election, amassing 68.4% of the vote compared to his Democratic challenger, Amanda Edwards, who received 31.6%, according to results released Saturday night by the Harris County Clerk’s Office. He will have to immediately campaign again for this seat in the Democratic primary against Edwards and U.S. Rep. Al Green, the incumbent representative for TX-9. Menefee and Edwards were the top two finishers out of 16 candidates in this past November’s special election. Since both fell short of the 50% threshold, they had to face each other for the January runoff.

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Houston realtors drop plan to add flood risk to Texas home listings

At the last minute, the Houston Association of Realtors pulled the plug on a two-year project that would have published detailed flood risk data on tens of thousands of active home listings across the state. The project would have added flood risk scores to HAR.com, the association’s home search portal and one of the most widely used real estate websites in Texas. But it collapsed late last year after triggering a revolt among members who feared the information could steer buyers away from properties with higher risk scores. “It came out of nowhere at the very end when we were literally about to go live,” said Sam Brody, an environmental science professor at Texas A&M University and director of the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas, whose team developed the underlying tool.

Across the country, major home-search portals have faced mounting pressure over whether to display disaster risk data to prospective buyers. Advocates say clearer disclosure can spare buyers from unexpected financial losses later on. Some agents and sellers have resisted, arguing that risk models are imperfect and can negatively affect home sales. This debate carries particular weight in Texas, experts said, as development pushes deeper into flood-prone areas and buyers often have to rely on outdated flood maps. Wesley Highfield, a senior research scientist at Texas A&M University who also worked on the tool, said fears that greater transparency would disrupt the housing market are often overblown. He added that the tool is still available on his institute’s website under the name Buyers Aware. “In the Houston area, being informed will be less likely to turn away a buyer, but more likely to have a buyer purchase that property with their eyes wide open,” Highfield said. “The effect on the sale price is potentially marginal relative to the expense borne by an uninformed buyer.”

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San Antonio Express-News Editorial: Philip Cortez recommended in Democratic primary for Texas House District 117

We recommend incumbent state Rep. Philip Cortezin the Democratic Party primary for Texas House District 117, although we acknowledge and are excited by the potential of his lone March challenger. Cortez, a South Side native and former Air Force officer, deeply understands the constituents in this district, which includes parts of the South, Southwest and far West sides, having been a San Antonio City Council member representing District 4 before joining the Texas House in January 2013. Democrats in the Legislature, by virtue of their entrenched status in the minority, face a perpetually steep climb in getting measures passed or defeating those they oppose. Cortez’s longevity continues to be an asset on selected fronts, particularly in his position as chairman of a key subcommittee on veterans’ affairs.

During the 2025 legislative session, he pushed through a $50 million appropriation as an incentive for the U.S. Air Force to build a military cyber campus at Port San Antonio, only to see Gov. Greg Abbott kill it with a line-item veto. We understand that many Democrats fault Cortez for not joining fellow Texas legislators in his party who left the state to break the quorum in an attempt to derail mid-decade redistricting. But we were always leery of that endeavor. And in the end, it proved ill-fated in that it delayed the trial that resulted in a three-judge panel rejecting the new congressional districts, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court reinstate them largely because it was too close to the deadline for candidates to file. Challenger Robert Mihara also impressed us, and if he does not win this primary, we hope to see him seek other ways to bring his considerable talents and varied background to bear.

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Cy-Fair ISD leader challenges Greg Abbott in pointed letter: 'Nothing to hide'

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD leaders say they are following the law — not politics — as the state's third-largest district becomes the latest flashpoint in Gov. Greg Abbott's escalating fight over the Islamic Games and a Muslim civil rights group. Superintendent Douglas Killian wrote a personal letter to the GOP governor late last week, expressing frustration over his demands for Cy-Fair ISD to cancel the Islamic Games of North America at its facilities and saying he needed to clear up "significant inaccuracies related to this situation." According to the letter, which the Chronicle obtained Monday, Killian challenged Abbott's demand directly, saying that it would be illegal for the district to discriminate against the Islamic Games and that the group "is not identified as a foreign terrorist organization."

"If there is an existing legal basis for the edict to disallow The Islamic Games of North America from using CFISD facilities that was inadvertently left out of your correspondence, please provide this citation," the superintendent wrote. Killian said that the district would cooperate with all investigations, but that "CFISD has nothing to hide." The public standoff comes as the attorney general launched an investigation into two Texas school districts and Abbott that demanded schools bar the games from using public facilities over alleged ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country. The governor has also designated CAIR and its affiliate groups as "foreign terrorist organizations," barring any taxpayer dollars from going to institutions linked to the group. Abbott plans to try and ban the group from operating in Texas. CAIR has since sued the governor over the designation. Cy-Fair ISD leaders previously said that they did not have any plan to lend district facilities to the organization because the registration for any outside group to use district facilities next year opens in August. They also argued the governor's demands could run contrary to a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The superintendent's letter echoed those sentiments.

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Plano Mayor talks AT&T, DART in 2026 State of the City address

In a speech Tuesday, Plano Mayor John Muns highlighted the Collin County city’s momentum and key upcoming considerations, touting AT&T’s planned relocation while pointing to the city’s changing relationship with public transportation as the suburb seeks an exit from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. Muns’ remarks were part of his annual State of the City address delivered to an audience of about 350 people who gathered Tuesday evening at the Robinson Fine Arts Center. Muns addressed residents, elected officials, city staff and community leaders as he sought to define Plano’s next “chapter of excellence.” Plano has eyed some impressive wins — from claiming AT&T’s headquarters from downtown Dallas to courting the Dallas Stars hockey team for a potential move, the suburb is on an economic development streak that began years prior with wins like Toyota and JCPenney.

“Our growth has been purposeful,” Muns said in his address, from a small farming community to one of the largest cities in North Texas. “Plano’s story has always been about steady progress, not sudden leaps, but intentional steps.” The city of nearly 300,000 residents has also taken center stage in debates around the future of public transportation in North Texas as it leads a possible suburban exodus from DART, the first of now six cities to put membership in the transit agency on the ballot for city residents. In a celebration of Plano’s story of growth, the mayor’s remarks sparked rounds of applause from residents and other elected officials. Muns took office in 2021 and was reelected for another four-year term last May. After decades of big-name corporate relocations and expansions in Plano, AT&T announced plans last month to build its new headquarters at a site that includes part of the former Electronic Data Systems campus in the suburb.

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National Stories

Immigration agents draw guns and arrest activists following them in Minneapolis

Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, while education leaders described anxiety and fear in Minnesota schools from the ongoing federal sweeps. Both are signs that tension remains in the Minneapolis area after the departure of high-profile commander Greg Bovino of U.S. Border Patrol and the arrival of Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, which followed the fatal shooting of protester Alex Pretti. “There’s less smoke on the ground,” Gov. Tim Walz said, referring to tear gas and other irritants used by officers against protesters, “but I think it’s more chilling than it was last week because of the shift to the schools, the shift to the children.”

At least one person who had an anti-ICE message on clothing was handcuffed while face-down on the ground. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the arrests. Federal agents in the Twin Cities lately have been conducting more targeted immigration arrests at homes and neighborhoods, rather than staging in parking lots. The convoys have been harder to find and less aggressive. Alerts in activist group chats have been more about sightings than immigration-related detainments. Several cars followed officers through south Minneapolis after there were reports of them knocking at homes. Officers stopped their vehicles and ordered activists to come out of a car at gunpoint. Agents told reporters at the scene to stay back and threatened to use pepper spray. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said agents detained the activists because they hindered efforts to arrest a man who is in the country illegally. A federal judge last month put limits on how officers treat motorists who are following them but not obstructing their operations. Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the judge said. An appeals court, however, set the order aside.

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Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon

He had decided that the America he believed in would not make it if people like him didn’t speak up, so on a cool, rainy morning in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jon, 67 and recently retired, marched up to his study and began to type. He had just read about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s case against an Afghan it was trying to deport. The immigrant, identified in The Washington Post’s Oct. 30 investigation as H, had begged federal officials to reconsider, telling them the Taliban would kill him if he was returned to Afghanistan. “Unconscionable,” Jon thought as he found an email address online for the lead prosecutor, Joseph Dernbach, who was named in the story. Peering through metal-rimmed glasses, Jon opened Gmail on his computer monitor. “Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” he wrote. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”

That was it. In five minutes, Jon said, he finished the note, signed his first and last name, pressed send and hoped his plea would make a difference. Five hours and one minute later, Jon was watching TV with his wife when an email popped up in his inbox. He noticed it on his phone. “Google,” the message read, “has received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.” Listed below was the type of legal process: “subpoena.” And below that, the authority: “Department of Homeland Security.” That’s how it began. Soon would come a knock at the door by men with badges and, for Jon, the relentless feeling of being surveilled in a country where he never imagined he would be. Google hadn’t provided him a copy of the subpoena, but it wasn’t the conventional sort. Homeland Security had come after him with what’s known as an administrative subpoena, a powerful legal tool that, unlike the ones people are most familiar with, federal agencies can issue without an order from a judge or grand jury. Though the U.S. government had been accused under previous administrations of overstepping laws and guidelines that restrict the subpoenas’ use, privacy and civil rights groups say that, under President Donald Trump, Homeland Security has weaponized the tool to strangle free speech. For many Americans, the anonymous ICE officer, masked and armed, represents Homeland Security’s most intimidating instrument, but the agency often targets people in a far more secretive way. Homeland Security is not required to share how many administrative subpoenas it issues each year, but tech experts and former agency staff estimate it’s well into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Because the legal demands are not subject to independent review, they can take just minutes to write up and, former staff say, officials throughout the agency, even in mid-level roles, have been given the authority to approve them. In March, Homeland Security issued two administrative subpoenas to Columbia University for information on a student it sought to deport after she took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

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As school cellphone bans gain in popularity, lawmakers say it’s time to go bell-to-bell

The momentum behind cellphone bans in schools has reached more than half the states, as teachers, superintendents and education experts praise these policies as a way to boost student achievement and mental health, and to rebuild a sense of community that many believe has been diminished by students’ addiction to screens. Now, the question for many states and school districts isn’t whether to remove distracting devices from students each day, but for how long. States that have passed laws requiring some kind of cellphone policy now are considering going further and mandating daylong bans, even for high schoolers. The idea has gotten some pushback from students, but also from teachers and parents who say strict bell-to-bell bans aren’t necessary. Some say they worry about safety in the event of a school shooting or other emergency.

Education experts say the modern push for school phone bans accelerated after the pandemic reshaped how students use technology and interrupted crucial in-person experiences in a classroom. Kara Stern, director of education and engagement for SchoolStatus, a data-collecting firm that assists K-12 districts with attendance and other school issues, said smartphones shifted from being tools of connection during remote learning to sources of isolation once students returned to classrooms. “During remote learning, phones became a primary way kids entertained themselves and stayed connected,” Stern said. “But once schools reopened, phones stopped being a connection tool and started creating disconnection.” Currently, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted some form of statewide restriction or requirement for districts to limit student phone use. Of those, roughly 18 states and the district have full-day bans or comprehensive statewide restrictions (including during classroom and noninstructional time).

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Trump’s chaotic governing style is hurting the value of the U.S. dollar

Fallout from the recent Greenland crisis clipped the U.S. dollar, aggravating a year-long decline that has shaved more than 10 percent off the greenback’s value since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. The dollar is under pressure on multiple fronts. After a long period of U.S. financial market outperformance, many foreign investors are rebalancing their portfolios to reduce excessive exposure to the United States and to capitalize on improving prospects elsewhere.Washington’s failure to address its mounting public debt, including crisis-level annual budget deficits at a time of low unemployment, isn’t helping. But perhaps the key to the dollar’s drop is the ripple effect of the president’s erratic policymaking, including abrupt stops and starts with tariffs and military action against a lengthening list of countries. After more than a year of nonstop upheaval emanating from the White House, many foreign investment managers are exhausted.

“There is a visceral dislike of this kind of policy chaos,” said economist Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I think the dollar will fall around 10 percent [more] this year.” One sign of the dollar’s ebbing appeal has been a staggering surge in gold prices, up almost 80 percent over the past year. On Friday, the dollar rallied — and gold sank — on news that Trump had nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, to be the next chairman of the nation’s central bank. But the broader trend of dollar weakness remains in place, several economists and money managers said. The president has pushed repeatedly for the Fed to cut its benchmark 3.75 percent interest rate to levels far below what mainstream economists say is appropriate, which would be likely to further erode the dollar’s standing. “We should have the lowest interest rate anywhere in the world. They should be two points and even three points lower,” the president said on Thursday during a Cabinet meeting. The Fed’s policymaking committee left rates unchanged last week. But financial markets expect cuts to resume in June.

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Trump says steel to be 'fully exposed' in Kennedy Center rebuild but 'not ripping it down'

President Donald Trump on Monday elaborated on his plan to close the Kennedy Center and rebuild it, saying that the steel would be "fully exposed"in the process but insisted that, "I'm not ripping it down." When asked by a reporter at an Oval Office photo op whether he wanted to tear it down, Trump said that he will be “using the steel” and “some of the marble” for the renovation. "I'm not ripping it down. I'll be using the steel. So, we're using the structure. We're using some of the marble and some of the marble comes down, but when it's opened, it'll be brand new and really beautiful. It'll be at the highest level,” he said. "The steel will all be checked out because it'll be fully exposed," he said.

He estimated the cost of the renovation at “probably around $200 million.” "And, you know, we're fully financed. And so, we're going to close it, and we're going to make it unbelievable, far better than it ever was, and we'll be able to do it properly. I was thinking maybe there's a way of doing it simultaneously, but there really isn't," he said. Trump said that center would close around July 4, instead of trying to do the renovation around events. "We can do a much better job, probably, in a way, a faster job in terms, you know, because when you do it piecemeal, for instance, they have a play tonight and you can't do anything. You have to pull out everything, and you can't have stanchions all over the place, and people are walking in to see a play. So, we'll be closing it, sometime around July 4th. It's like we'll close it on July 4th in order to do something great for America, and then we're going to build it," he said.

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Laura Loomer must resume payments to Muslim advocacy group, judge says

A federal judge ordered far-right influencer Laura Loomer to resume her monthly $1,200 payments to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Loomer was originally ordered to pay in a settlement reached after her failed lawsuit against the Muslim advocacy group. After multiple appeals, the ruling affirms Loomer’s requirement to pay CAIR and its Florida chapter the remaining balance of a nearly $125,000 settlement from a lawsuit the influencer brought against the organization in August 2019, alleging that CAIR Florida had conspired with the social media company then known as Twitter to ban her from that platform. Loomer had stopped the payments in December 2025 after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order designating CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist organization, as foreign terrorist organizations.

The governor had written that providing contract, employment or funds to these organizations would be considered “material support.” On Thursday (Jan. 29), the court denied Loomer’s request to cease payments based on DeSantis’ executive order. Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of the Southern District of Florida, who affirmed previous court rulings on Thursday, said Loomer didn’t prove the order would be enforced nor that she would suffer “irreparable injury” if she resumed her payments. “Plaintiff is required to make approximately three more settlement payments,” wrote Reinhart.”It is not in the public interest to continue expending judicial resources on this case.” CAIR hailed the ruling, saying in a statement that the group used the settlement money for its legal actions. “We look forward to receiving Ms. Loomer’s final payments and using the funds to once again protect American Muslims and our neighbors from hate,” wrote CAIR litigation director Lena Masri.

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Tulsi Gabbard running solo 2020 election inquiry separate from FBI investigation

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is running her own review into the 2020 election with Donald Trump’s approval, working separately from a justice department investigation even as she joined an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia last week. Her presence at the raid drew criticism from Democrats and former intelligence officials, who questioned why the country’s top intelligence officer with no domestic law enforcement powers would appear at the scene of an FBI raid. But Gabbard, whose role ordinarily focuses on overseeing the intelligence agencies, has played only a minimal role in the criminal investigation, according to three administration officials. “She’s doing her own thing,” one of the officials said.

The parallel investigations into the 2020 election underscore the extent to which it has returned as a priority for the president. And Gabbard being sent to the raid showed the interest on voting machine manipulation claims that Trump has cited as evidence the election was stolen. The review led by the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), authorized on the basis that it is assessing election integrity, has been focused for months on potential vulnerabilities in voting machines and the possibility of foreign interference. As part of that effort, Gabbard has been briefing Trump and senior White House advisers every few weeks. Officials said Trump directed her to travel to Fulton county, Georgia, so she could observe the FBI executing a search warrant on Wednesday. The raid itself was overseen by Andrew Bailey, the deputy FBI director, who was also sent by Trump to Georgia. A copy of the search warrant cited possible violations of federal laws governing the preservation of election records and the procurement of false ballots or voter registrations.

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Lead Stories

Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign roiled as he denies referring to ex-rival as ‘mediocre Black man’

With now just a month to go until Election Day, the Democratic primary for US Senate in Texas has become so fraught that a TikToker’s accusations have roiled the race and prompted a major endorsement in the backlash. The incident started Sunday night when Morgan Thompson posted a video recounting what she says was a comment Texas state Rep. James Talarico made to her in a private conversation in January: that he called his onetime opponent, former US Rep. Colin Allred, a “mediocre Black man.” Talarico’s campaign released a statement from the candidate on Monday calling Thompson’s claims “a mischaracterization of a private conversation,” going on to explain, “I described Congressman Allred’s method of campaigning as mediocre — but his life and service are not.”

Thompson acknowledged that she didn’t have a recording and that they had previously agreed to treat their conversation as off the record. But the accusation slammed Talarico’s campaign on Monday, sending aides into a flurry and prompting Allred — who dropped out of the Senate race when Rep. Jasmine Crockett decided to make a last-minute entry — to endorse her in the intense race, despite frustrations he had in December that she had chased him out of the race by getting in. It also renewed the questions about identity politics and electability that have riven the primary and the Democratic Party more broadly. Thompson alleges that Talarico, who is White, said: “I signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable, intelligent Black woman.” Talarico, in his statement denying the exact wording as Thompson relayed it, said, “I understand how my critique of the Congressman’s campaign could be interpreted given this country’s painful legacy of racism, and I care deeply about the impact my words have on others.”

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Trump, in an escalation, calls for Republicans to ‘nationalize’ elections

President Trump called in a new interview for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters. During an extended monologue about immigration on a podcast released on Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them. “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Under the Constitution, American elections are governed primarily by state law, leading to a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts across the country. Mr. Trump, however, has long been fixated on the false claims that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and that Democrats are perpetrating a vast conspiracy to have undocumented immigrants vote and lift the party’s turnout. Mr. Trump’s remarkable call for a political party to seize the mechanisms of voting follows a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections,as he and his allies continue to make false claims about his 2020 defeat. Last week, F.B.I. agents seized ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election from an election center in Fulton County, Ga., where his allies have for years pursued false claims of election fraud. The New York Times reported on Monday that Mr. Trump had spoken on the phone to the F.B.I. agents involved in the Fulton County raid, praising and thanking them. The Justice Department, which has been newly politicized under Mr. Trump, is demanding that numerous states, including Minnesota, turn over their full voter rolls as the Trump administration tries to build a national voter file.

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Shutdown ends today, but it's far from over

The partial government shutdown, all of three days old, is likely to end at some point this afternoon. It was a mostly fruitless exercise, and it sets Congress up for another, more politically charged funding cliff at the end of next week. Later today, theHousewill take up and vote on legislation to fund critical departments such as the Pentagon, State, Health and Human Services, Transportation and others until Sept. 30. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will be extended until Feb. 13 while the White House and Democrats try to work out a deal — if possible — on new restrictions for ICE and CBP. There’s a real chance that Congress won’t be able to notch a deal, leaving DHS funding in a precarious position for the rest of the year.

In what’s become an-all-too-familiar pattern this Congress, President Donald Trump convincedReps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) to drop their blockade of the funding measure. The pair — close political allies — were threatening to vote against the rule unless Speaker Mike Johnson attached a voter ID bill (the SAVE Act) to the funding package. Trump made clear that wasn’t going anywhere. Anything can happen in the House these days, but clearing Luna’s objection should allow the chamber to adopt a rule and pass the funding package using a simple majority threshold. If and when the House adopts the rule, we expect the five underlying FY2026 funding bills to pass handily with dozens of Democratic votes. But what you should really be focusing on is the mess that this entire process sets up next week, which we recently laid out. In 10 days from now — right up against the Presidents Day recess — DHS funding will run out once again. That’s fine with lots of Democrats, who point out the department got tens of billions of dollars under the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill last year. They think it can keep going for a while if needed, maybe the rest of FY2026.

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U.S. manufacturing is in retreat and Trump’s tariffs aren’t helping

The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a golden age for America is going in reverse. After years of economic interventions by the Trump and Biden administrations, fewer Americans work in manufacturing than any point since the pandemic ended. Manufacturers shed workers in each of the eight months after Trump unveiled “Liberation Day” tariffs, according to federal figures, extending a contraction that has seen more than 200,000 roles disappear since 2023. An index of factory activity tracked by the Institute for Supply Management shrunk in 26 straight months through December, but showed a January uptick in new orders and production that surprised analysts. The Census Bureau estimates that manufacturing construction spending, which surged with Biden-era funding for chips and renewable energy, fell in each of Trump’s first nine months in office.

The gradual slowdown is in some ways a continuation of decadeslong trends that pulled factory jobs overseas and helped empty out Midwestern cities. In an industry where capital plans and construction timelines extend years into the future, turnarounds also don’t happen overnight. In November, the Federal Reserve slashed estimates for overall U.S. output since the pandemic in an annual revision to metrics for industrial production. “We never got all the way back” from the pandemic, said Josh Lehner, a U.S. economist at SGH Macro Advisors. While auto and chip makers have cut tens of thousands of workers over the past year, stable layoff rates across the sector suggest that the jobs pullback is gradual. Lehner and other economists also say there are signs output has stabilized, if not inched higher, though gains in efficiency could limit the number of new jobs. A White House spokesman noted that manufacturing productivity ticked upward in recent quarters and that workers’ wage hikes outpaced inflation over the past year.

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State Stories

ICE halts "all movement" at Texas detention facility due to measles infections

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement halted "all movement" at a detention center in Texas for families and quarantined some migrants there after medical staff confirmed two detainees had "active measles infections," the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday. The measles cases at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center were detected Friday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News. The ICE facility houses parents and children taken into federal custody over alleged violations of immigration law. It is located in south Texas, roughly an hour drive from San Antonio. "ICE Health Services Corps immediately took steps to quarantine and control further spread and infection, ceasing all movement within the facility and quarantining all individuals suspected of making contact with the infected," McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin said medical officials were monitoring detainees and taking "appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection." "All detainees are being provided with proper medical care," she added. Before McLaughlin's statement on Sunday, immigration lawyers had reported concerns about a potential measles outbreak at the Dilley center. Neha Desai, a lawyer for the California-based National Center of Youth Law, which represents children in U.S. immigration custody, said she hopes the measles infections at Dilley are not used to "unnecessarily" prevent lawmakers and attorneys from inspecting the detention center in the near future, citing broader concerns about the facility. "In the meantime, we are deeply concerned for the physical and the mental health of every family detained at Dilley," Desai said. "It is important to remember that no family needs to be detained — this is a choice that the administration is making." In 2025, the United States saw the most measles cases in decades. Overall, the nation recorded more than 2,200 measles cases, including 762 people in a West Texas outbreak, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Two young children died and 99 people were hospitalized, according to state data.

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Text messages show Steve Bannon bragged to Jeffrey Epstein about secretly building private border wall near El Paso

Right-wing nationalist leader Steve Bannon boasted to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein about starting a private border wall outside El Paso in 2019 in a way that avoided possible court intervention. In a May 25, 2019, text message exchange with Epstein as the wall was in its second day of construction, Bannon also said he wanted to stay in the background on the effort. Bannon would later face federal criminal charges over the private border wall effort, but was saved from prosecution by a pardon from President Donald Trump in the last hours of Trump’s first term. “I also can’t seem like I’m running trumps nose in his own incompetence,” Bannon said in an exchange replete with typos. Bannon served as Trump’s chief strategist for seven months during the president’s first term in 2017, and is now an influential figure in the conservative nationalism movement.

Bannon has not responded to a request for comment from El Paso Matters. The text message exchange was among the 3.5 million pages of documents released by the Justice Department on Friday in response to a law passed by Congress last year. Identifications other than Epstein’s are redacted in the released documents, but Bannon’s ties to the disgraced financier have been well documented. Details in the exchange match Bannon’s involvement in the private border wall effort that have been detailed in court records. The exchange includes a discussion of the sudden construction of a privately funded border wall in Sunland Park, New Mexico, just outside the El Paso city limits over Memorial Day weekend in 2019. The private wall was built as Trump struggled to expand government barriers in the El Paso region in his first term. “My wall dude — New Mexico – right outside El Paso — in total secret — we go on fox and friends on Monday to release,” Bannon said in the message to Epstein on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend in 2019.

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Local leaders push back against potential ICE detention center in San Antonio

Local leaders are raising alarms over a massive East Side warehouse that could eventually become a massive immigration detention center. The nearly 640,000-square-foot industrial facility, the largest of its kind in San Antonio according to property listings, is reportedly being eyed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a potential detention center. While the City of San Antonio says it has not received any official notice confirming the plans, city and state officials say they are closely monitoring the situation, and some are pushing back. State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, a Democrat whose district includes the East Side, says the scale of the facility alone raises serious concerns. “We’re talking about creating probably one of the largest detention centers in America, and it is wrong,” Gervin-Hawkins said.

A report from The Washington Post indicates ICE plans to renovate several industrial warehouses nationwide to expand detention capacity. Cities in Arizona and Missouri are in similar places right now after the federal government purchased large warehouses. Gervin-Hawkins says while immigration reform is needed, this isn't how she'd like to see things handled. “Building large detention facilities is not the answer,” she said. City officials say if the federal government purchases the property, San Antonio would lose zoning authority over the site. Federal facilities are not required to comply with city zoning rules or permitting requirements. District 2 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran says she does not support any detention center within city limits and worries about what oversight, if any, the city would have. “Once we get that information, of course, we’re going to ask the questions about what we legally can and can’t do,” Viagran said.

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Hutchins City Council, Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia come out against proposed ICE facility in Hutchins

Hutchins Mayor Mario Vasquez says the city has not received any official confirmation, paperwork, or contact from the federal government regarding reports that a large warehouse in the community could be converted into an ICE detention facility. These comments came up during a Monday evening city council meeting, which saw several residents speak out against the proposal. Vasquez repeated a statement published on the city's website last Wednesday regarding the proposal, in the city of Hutchins said it hasn't received any official information confirming the proposed warehouse, and that no one from the federal government has contacted it about the proposal.

"There have been no applications for building permits or certificates of occupancy, nor any inquiries related to infrastructure capabilities," the city's statement said. "When and if we have any verified, factual information that we can share, we will certainly do so, as part of our abiding commitment to public transparency and protecting the interests of our community to the best of our abilities." Vasquez added that immigration enforcement falls under federal authority, not municipal control, but said the city would commit to transparency if verifiable information becomes available. He also made clear where he and other council members stand. “If you think that anybody up here is on board with it, you’re in the wrong building,” Vasquez said. “Nobody up here on this dais is on board with what they’re trying to put here.”

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Texas launches $13M spay, neuter and vaccination program to help pets statewide

Texas is rolling out a $13 million statewide spay, neuter, and vaccination program aimed at reducing pet overpopulation and protecting public health. The new Texas Spay and Neuter Pilot Program is administered by the Texas Department of State Health Services and is now open for applications from animal shelters, nonprofits, and local governments across the state. The program will provide grant funding to support spay and neuter services for dogs and cats, along with vaccinations to help prevent the spread of diseases like rabies, toxoplasmosis, and leptospirosis. All Texas counties are eligible, with a tiered approach designed to reach both urban and rural underserved communities. “This is a historic investment by Texas lawmakers in both animal welfare and public health,” said Texas Humane Legislation Network Interim Executive Director Jaime Olin.

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Elon Musk merges SpaceX with xAI (and X)

Elon Musk is merging two of the companies that he leads, SpaceX and xAI (which also owns X), into one. According to an announcement from Musk: SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform. This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!

Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts of power and cooling. Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment. In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution therefore is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason. The merger follows SpaceX’s filing with the FCC last week to get approval to launch a constellation of as many as 1 million data center satellites orbiting Earth. The deal also brings SpaceX and X, which is under intense scrutiny and an investigation in the EU because of the nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes generated by Grok, into one company. The combined company of SpaceX and xAI has a valuation of $1.25 trillion, and SpaceX still plans to IPO later this year, Bloomberg reports. SpaceX earned about $8 billion in profit last year, according to Reuters.

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Fort Worth, national adoption organizations call for exemptions to Trump’s travel ban

Mark Melson, CEO of Fort Worth’s Gladney Center for Adoption, says local and national adoption agencies are in a wait-and-see period after efforts in urging Congress and President Donald Trump to provide travel ban exemptions to adoptees was followed by federal guidance allowing some exemptions. “It rectifies it for the moment,” Melson said. The U.S. Department of State issued the new guidance on Jan. 28, stating that children being adopted by U.S. citizens may qualify for an exemption on a case-by-case basis. The move comes after organizations like the Gladney Center and the National Council for Adoption urged families for several weeks to contact their Congress members to advocate for adoptee children from other counties to not be barred from Trump’s recent orders on travel ban and visa freezes.

In June, the administration placed travel bans or restrictions on several countries with exemptions to adoption visas. Another iteration of the order issued in December — and went into effect on Jan. 1 — no longer included exceptions for adoption visas,” both Republican and Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the U.S. Department of State. The State Department announced mid-January the government will suspend processing immigrant visas of 75 different countries over public assistance concerns, according to the Associated Press. Before the exemption, restrictions made adopting families at the Gladney Center and agencies across the country “gravely concerned,” Melson said. Melson is also on the National Council for Adoption’s board of directors. The travel restrictions brought delays for children who have already been legally cleared to immigrate to the U.S. through the adoption process, he said.

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Tarrant County maintains in court filing it is not responsible for Anthony Johnson Jr.'s death

Tarrant County maintains it is not responsible for the death of Anthony Johnson Jr., who died in jail custody in 2024, according to a court filing Monday. Filed in the U.S. Fifth Circuit of Appeals, the county argues among several things that the Johnson family have not proved Tarrant County is responsible for any civil rights violations or that jailers lacked proper training that risked the safety of inmates. “[The Johnsons] have wholly failed to plead a pattern of similar violations, much less a pattern arising out of allegedly similarly deficient training, supervision, or discipline,” the court filing read. "[The Johnsons] did not allege specifically how Tarrant County’s policies were defective or how the county should have further trained its officers.”

The filing is part of a lawsuit from the family of Johnson, a Marine veteran who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to his family. He died after detention officers pepper sprayed him and restrained him face-down on the floor of the jail, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and video of the incident. Partially released video footage shows one jailer knelt on Johnson’s back for 90 seconds, while Johnson said he couldn’t breathe. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Johnson’s death a homicide by asphyxiation. Johnson Jr.’s parents sued Tarrant County and 15 detention officers following his death, but U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor dismissed Tarrant County and seven jailers from the suit last year. O’Connor ruled the Johnsons failed to prove the county’s policies and procedures led to Anthony's death and that those six jailers had any responsibility in his death. Two jailers -- Rafael Moreno and Joel Garcia — have been indicted for murder and are awaiting trial.

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Christian Menefee sworn in to U.S. House ahead of key budget, immigration votes

Christian Menefee, who won a special election Saturday to represent Texas' 18th Congressional District, was sworn into office in Washington Monday evening. The first African American to serve as Harris County Attorney, Menefee is taking over the seat of the late congressman and former Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, who died last March while recovering from treatment for bone cancer. In his speech, Menefee highlighted the legacy of Turner, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Jordan and other prominent Black politicians who have represented the district going back decades. "The commitment you have from me is that I will work as hard as I can to live up to their legacy," he said. "I will treat this job with the seriousness it deserves. I will work full days and I will fight as hard as I can to advocate for and protect the people of the 18th Congressional District."

He was sworn-in on the same Bible his mother gave him as a child, according to his campaign. Ahead of the ceremony, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked down the aisle to hug Menefee and shake his hand, as other Texas Democrats mingled around him. Menefee's swearing in gives Democrats a much needed vote in the U.S. House, where Republicans' majority will now be whittled down to just four seats. And with a critical vote coming this week to end a partial government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson can now afford just one Republican defection if he is to pass the spending bill. "I told everybody, and not in jest, I said, 'no adventure sports, no risk-taking, take your vitamins. Stay healthy and be here'," Johnson said last month, according to media reports.

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See how Annise Parker, Marty Lancton did in fundraising for Harris County judge

Two front-runners have garnered nearly $1 million from Harris County residents, organizations and political donors in the race to build war chests ahead of the November Harris County judge election. Campaign finance reports for elected officials and candidates due Jan. 15 reports detailed contributions and expenditures made across a six-month period from July to December. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker took the top spot on the Democratic ticket, raising more than $416,000, according to her report. Firefighter-turned-union-leader Patrick "Marty" Lancton led the Republican ballot with more than $500,000 in contributions.

Combined, Parker and Lancton accounted for 76.5% of all contributions made to Harris County judge candidates during the six-month period. While the pair lead their parties in fundraising, two runners-up — Democrat Letitia Plummer and Republican Orlando Sanchez — also received significant support from political donors. Plummer reported $118,160 in contributions, while Sanchez took in $113,156, according to a copy of his report his team provided to the Houston Chronicle. Sanchez’s report had not been published to the Harris County clerk’s website as of Wednesday evening. George Zoes’ campaign finance report was also not available by Wednesday evening. The remaining four candidates trailed distantly behind their party’s lead fundraisers. Matthew Salazar, a Democrat, reported zero contributions during the period. Republican Piney Point Mayor Aliza Dutt took in $42,500, according to her report. The two remaining Republican candidates — Warren Howell and Oscar Gonzales — each reported just a few thousand in contributions.

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Fort Bend County Judge KP George’s money laundering trial pushed to March

Fort Bend County Judge KP George's money laundering trial will be pushed back to March 10. The top official was initially set to go to trial this month, but his defense attorneys asked for a delay, saying they have additional evidence to review and a member of the defense team was not available during the originally scheduled trial. George faces two felony counts of money laundering. Prosecutors allege he used campaign funds for a down payment on a house and to pay property taxes. The county judge is also facing one misdemeanor charge of misrepresentation of identity, after allegations surfaced that he worked with former staffer Taral Patel to fake racist social media attacks against his own campaign. His trial in that case is scheduled for early May.

George's defense attorneys filed a motion last week seeking to disqualify Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton and his office from prosecuting the county judge's criminal case. In the motion, the defense attorneys claim that Middleton is facing a criminal investigation related to his prosecution of George. The motion does not say which agency is allegedly investigating Middleton or provide any additional details about the nature of the investigation. Jared Woodfill, one of the attorneys representing George, told Houston Public Media that a law enforcement agency interviewed another one of George's defense attorneys about Middleton. Woodfill declined to provide additional details about the alleged investigation.

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Texas dropped ABA law school accreditation after 4 decades. Can it come up with a better system?

Nelson Locke thinks he might have inspired some of this. The 75-year-old lawyer spent three years asking the Texas Board of Law Examiners to admit him to the state bar without requiring him to take the bar exam. The Marine Corps veteran had 20-plus-year careers in retail and mortgages before he graduated from Purdue Global Law School at 61. The board wouldn't waive his exam requirement because Purdue Global is a fully online law program that wasn't accredited by the American Bar Association — or any state bar at the time. “That’s what started this whole thing,” Locke told KERA News in an interview. “Because I realized that — if I can quote from Star Wars — the force was strong here, OK? I was going to achieve my goal, and it was in every fiber of my body.”

Then in April, the Texas Supreme Court announced they’d reconsider whether the ABA should have the final say over which law school graduates can become licensed lawyers. Two months later — after years of Locke’s applications, lawsuits and petitions to the court — justices signed a certificate admitting Locke to the state bar, finding he met the criteria necessary to become licensed without taking the bar exam. And earlier this month, Texas became the first state to end its reliance on the ABA for law school approval, which could allow graduates of non-ABA-accredited schools to become licensed lawyers in the state. “Why do we even have the ABA? Can we have non-ABA schools, and how easily should we allow them to come in? And could there be other accreditation models?” Locke said. “All of those things, those are all arguments we made.” A spokesperson for the Texas Supreme Court denied Locke’s case was connected to the court’s split from the ABA. The Texas Board of Law Examiners declined to comment.

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National Stories

Greene: MAGA ‘was all a lie’

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said President Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan was a “lie,” saying his first year back in office was focused on obliging wealthy supporters. “I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen. “The big, big donors that donated all the money and continue to donate to the president’s PACs and donate to the 250th anniversary and are donating to the big ballroom,” she added.

The former Georgia representative recently resigned from Congress, after airing concerns over the future of health care premiums and the war in Gaza, citing fractures within the GOP and falling out with Trump and MAGA, despite years of loyal support for the president. On Wednesday, she said the people who truly benefit from backing Trump are financial benefactors, telling Iversen: “Those are the people that get the special favors. They get the government contracts, they get the pardons, or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon.” Since the start of the second Trump administration, the president has encouraged wealthy sponsors to provide private contributions for his political endeavors, including the construction of a White House ballroom and the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. Greene criticized the favoritism for Trump’s wealthy allies and also slammed the president for focusing on foreign policy rather than problems at home in her interview. “It’s the foreign countries. They are running the show here. It’s the major big corporations and what is best for the world. That’s really what MAGA is. We are seeing war on behalf of Israel, we are seeing the people in Gaza, innocent people in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of them completely murdered so that they can build some new real estate development. Money can pour in and everybody can get rich there in the new Gaza,” she told Iversen. “And we’re seeing a whole plan play out, which is really a new world order. It’s a new way of doing business. And that’s the — it’s kind of like the ‘Scooby-Doo’ meme where … they pull the mask off the bad guy,” Greene continued. The former lawmaker alleged that the MAGA movement “isn’t really about America or the American people.”

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Bill and Hillary Clinton agree to testify as part of the House’s Epstein probe

Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed on Monday to comply with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee and testify as part of the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Lawyers for the Clintons emailed the committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer, Monday evening to say that the couple would sit for interviews. If the testimony does happen, it will be one of only a few times a former president has been called before Congress. The Clintons have spent months fighting the panel’s subpoena. Oversight Committee Republicans, along with the support of a handful of Democrats, voted on Jan. 21 to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress for failing to appear before the committee, prompting a last-ditch effort to negotiate terms.

In a letter on Saturday to Comer, which was obtained by The New York Times, Bill Clinton’s lawyer asked that the former president only appear for a four-hour transcribed interview. In the case of Hillary Clinton, lawyers argued that because she never met or spoke with Epstein, she should be allowed to submit a sworn declaration in place of testimony. Comer rejected the offer in a response to the attorneys, calling it “unreasonable” and claiming that the requests amounted to special privileges. “The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again and they have provided no dates for their depositions,” Comer said in a statement to NOTUS. “The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt. I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.” A former president has never testified before Congress for a criminal case of this magnitude.

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‘Crisis’: The fallout from Trump’s surprise plan to close Kennedy Center

President Donald Trump’s surprise Sunday announcement that he planned to close the Kennedy Center for two years sent shock waves through the center, Washington and the broader arts world. “I’m not ripping it down. I’ll be using the steel,” Trump told reporters Monday, when asked whether he would demolish the building. “So we’re using the structure, we’re using some of the marble and some of the marble comes down, but when it’s open, it’ll be brand new and really beautiful.” He said the project would cost about $200 million. The center’s staff learned of the imminent closure through Trump’s Truth Social post, which proposed “temporarily” closing the “Trump Kennedy Center” for “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding” starting July 4. Trump added the move is subject to approval by the center’s board, which he chairs.

He posted at 6:21 p.m. Eastern. Staff received no official communication until more than an hour later, when President Richard Grenell sent a copy of the Truth Social post to all employees, along with this brief note: “We recognize this creates many questions as we plan to temporarily close most of our operations. We will have more information about staffing and operational changes in the coming days.” Five people familiar with the board of trustees’ activities, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said at least some board members were blindsided by Trump’s announcement. One of the people was not aware of any upcoming meetings to consider the plan. If a vote does take place, it could follow the example of the unanimous vote to add Trump’s name to the center, which came months after changes to the Kennedy Center’s bylaws ensured only presidentially appointed board members could vote. (The center said that change followed long-standing practice.) Within hours, speculation and fear had spread as the center’s staffers, performing artists and patrons began preparing for an uncertain future. The Kennedy Center had already booked a slate of performances after July 4, including shows of touring productions “The Outsiders,” “Back to the Future: The Musical” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.” Listings remained onlineMonday afternoon. The National Symphony Orchestra, meanwhile, has performed a full season of subscription concerts at the venue since 1971.

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Groundhog Day highlights: Punxsutawney Phil predicts 6 more weeks of winter

Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of wintry weather Monday, a forecast sure to disappoint many after what’s already been a long, cold season across large parts of the United States. His annual prediction and announcement that he had seen his shadow was translated by his handlers in the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club at Gobbler’s Knob in western Pennsylvania. The news was greeted with a mix of cheers and boos from the tens of thousands who braved temperatures in the single-digits Fahrenheit to await the annual prognostication. The extreme cold kept the crowd bundled up and helped keep people on the main stage dancing.

Last year, Phil also predicted six more weeks of winter, by far his most common assessment and not much of a surprise during the first week of February. Phil isn’t the only animal being consulted for long-term weather forecasts Monday. There are formal and informal Groundhog Day events in many places in the U.S., Canada and beyond. Along with the many groundhogs, the winter forecasts were credited to an armadillo, ostriches, and Nigerian dwarf goats. Groundhog Day falls on the midpoint between the shortest, darkest day of the year on the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The tradition is rooted in European agricultural life, but the science behind it is questionable at best. In northeastern Illinois, Woodstock Willie, the marmot inspired by the film “Groundhog Day,” had a prediction of his own. Filmed in Woodstock, 61 miles (98 kilometers) northwest of Chicago, the 1993 film was directed by Harold Ramis and starred Bill Murray and Andie McDowell. “Willie looks skyward to the east and behind to the ground and stated clearly in groundhogese, ‘I definitely do not see a shadow!’” Stephen Tobolowsky, who portrayed annoying insurance salesman Ned Ryerson in the movie, read from a proclamation before a crowd. “Spring is coming!”

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Nancy Mace is not okay

Right up until she lit the fire, some of Representative Nancy Mace’s own staff and advisers didn’t know what she was going to say on the House floor in February 2025, let alone that it would be a pivotal moment in her life. That speech now appears to be a before-and-after moment, separating Mace’s once-promising (if often bizarrely colorful) career from the seemingly irredeemable mess it has become. Flanked by a metal safe and an in-home security camera, with Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida seated behind her, Mace wore a white dress and three necklaces, one with her Congressional member pin and another with a thick cross. She also had crosses on her earrings, but her engagement ring was nowhere to be seen. Mace proceeded to accuse her ex-fiancé, Patrick Bryant, of secretly filming her, physically assaulting her, and engaging in a conspiracy to drug, rape, and film other women. She declared she was going “scorched earth” on Bryant and three of his associates.

Many of her former staffers are inclined to believe her allegations of abuse against Bryant, even if they never saw anything untoward, but the chaotic and highly public fashion in which she has gone after him makes them question her judgment and overall well-being. “She’s not okay,” said a former staffer. “There’s nothing here I can point to and say, ‘Oh, this is normal.’” “Looking at the floor speech and what went on there, it’s very clear that that was the breaking point to me,” the former staffer added. “Because you’ve now gone from standing up for people — whether rightfully, wrongfully, performative or not — you were on this mission, and now this is about you. The whole frame shifted, and she centered herself in it all. That’s when it became apparent to me that this is broken.” A second former staffer told me they had concluded that “she’s deteriorated, and it sucks.” Mace has continued to shed much of her staff, torched her relationship with President Donald Trump, and torpedoed her bid to become governor of her home state of South Carolina. Her erratic behavior burst into view in October when she had a meltdown while going through security at the Charleston airport during the government shutdown.

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Paris prosecutors raid X offices as part of investigation into child abuse images and deepfakes

French prosecutors searched the offices of Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into a range of alleged offences, including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. The investigation was opened in January last year by the prosecutors’ cybercrime unit, the Paris prosecutors’ office said in a statement. It’s looking into alleged “complicity” in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges. Prosecutors also asked Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to attend “voluntary interviews” on April 20. Employees of X have also been summoned that same week to be heard as witnesses, the statement said. Yaccarino was CEO from May 2023 until July 2025.

A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment. In a message posted on X, the Paris prosecutors’ office announced the ongoing searches and said it was leaving the platform while calling on followers to join on other social media. Related Stories What you need to know about Grok and the controversies surrounding it Malaysia will take legal action against Musk's X and xAI over misuse of Grok chatbot Musk's AI chatbot faces global backlash over sexualized images of women and children “At this stage, the conduct of the investigation is based on a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, as it operates on the national territory,” the prosecutors’ statement said. European Union police agency Europol ’’is supporting the French authorities in this,? Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth told The Associated Press, without elaborating. The investigation was first opened following reports by a French lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms on X were likely to have distorted the functioning of an automated data processing system.

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Maryland House OKs new congressional map, but Senate will likely prove a roadblock

The Maryland House approved a new congressional map Monday that could enable Democrats to win the state’s only Republican-held U.S. House seat, but leadership in the state Senate has said since October the bill doesn’t have enough support to advance in that chamber — largely due to concerns it could backfire. The Maryland House pushed forward with unusual mid-decade redistricting at the urging of Democratic Gov. Wes Moore in response to redistricting in other states. Democrats now hold a 7-1 advantage over Republicans in the state’s U.S. House delegation. The new map would make it easier to defeat Republican Rep. Andy Harris and enable Democrats to win all eight seats. President Donald Trump launched mid-decade redistricting efforts last summer, when he urged Republican officials in Texas to redraw maps to help the GOP win more seats in hopes of preserving a narrow House majority.

Maryland Democrats spent much of the four-hour debate on Monday criticizing Trump’s presidency. Del. C.T. Wilson, a Democrat who is the sponsor of the bill containing the map’s new boundaries, said the measure is needed “to help ensure that this administration finally has a Congress that puts his power in check.” Republicans who oppose the new map focused on how Harris’ district, which is mostly on the state’s largely rural Eastern Shore, would jump over the Chesapeake Bay to include more Democratic voters to help oust Harris. “It is about nothing except party politics,” Del. Jason Buckel, a western Maryland Republican who is the House minority leader, said. But Del. Marc Korman, a Democrat in the Montgomery County suburbs of the nation’s capital, argued that the district has extended over the bay several times since the 1960s — including once by court order — and five different Republicans still won the seat when it did, including Harris.

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Chaos in Minneapolis exposes an Internet at war with truth

The deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of law enforcement have plunged the country into a political crisis much like the one after the police killing of George Floyd in the same city in 2020. Now, though, advances in technology and an erosion of trust are distorting realities, both online and off, like never before. Enormous changes have transformed the internet in the six years since Mr. Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Artificial intelligence tools did not exist for general use in 2020; now they are everywhere. Social media has become even more toxic. Efforts to moderate it have loosened. The influencers behind some of the most pernicious digital lies, who once toiled in the dark corners of the internet, are now emboldened, promoted on major platforms and even mimicked by some of the most powerful people in the country.

All of these forces came together with newfound intensity in the opening weeks of the year. After federal immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, A.I. fakes of the victims spread, genuine videos were viewed with suspicion, a Democratic lawmaker displayed an altered image on the Senate floor and online sleuths misidentified random people as being the agents involved in the shootings. The federal government spread an altered image and backed provably false narratives. Experts fear that Americans are losing their ability to distinguish between fact and fiction — and that fewer people seem to care about the difference. The online churn that now accompanies any major news event obscures the common reference points that once helped guide the country forward. With technology, impudence and apathy all colliding at once, the shock to American attitudes toward reality — and the public consensus required by the democratic experiment — may be a permanent one, experts said. “In moments past, we thought that this online fever would break, and now it is a systemic feature rather than a bug,” said Graham Brookie, the senior director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies online communities. “This is just how it is right now — we’re all collectively navigating that for the worse.”

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Copyright February 10, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved