Lead Stories

Oil in U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve falls below 300 million barrels, lowest since 1983

Crude oil stockpiles in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve have fallen below 300 million barrels, the lowest level in more than four decades, as global inventories stay under pressure due to the Iran war. The SPR fell by 6.1 million barrels to 298.7 million barrels last week, according to data released by the Department of Energy on Monday. The reserve, created in 1975, is at its lowest level since January 1983. President Donald Trump ordered the release of 172 million barrels in March after Iran choked off oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering the largest disruption of crude oil supplies in history.

The drawdown in the SPR, whose authorized storage capacity is 714 million barrels, has raised questions about whether U.S. government stockpiles are on the verge of depletion. The minimum amount of oil needed to safely operate the SPR is about 70 million barrels, an Energy Department spokesperson told CNBC in July. There is enough oil left in the SPR to do another release if needed, said David Goldwyn, who served as a State Department special envoy for international energy affairs under President Barack Obama. “I’m not worried about the stability of the reserve or our ability to do another drawdown, if we needed to,” Goldwyn told CNBC. The SPR stood at around 415 million barrels before the U.S and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. U.S. government stocks will fall to around 243 million barrels when the release Trump ordered is completed. The SPR’s operational capability is at risk due to aging infrastructure, according to a May report from the Government Accountability Office. More than a quarter of its inventory was “not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages” as of December 2025, GAO investigators found.

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Gov. Greg Abbott touts tech company cooperation, following Trump criticism of data center policy

Gov. Greg Abbott is touting major technology companies' responses to his temporary moratorium on data centers, following recent criticism from President Donald Trump. "I established clear guardrails to ensure data centers protect our electric grid, conserve our water, respect our neighborhoods, and pay their own way," Abbott said in a statement. “They must not pass costs on to Texas families or interfere with their quality of life." The governor issued a directive last week, announcing that no new data centers could connect to the Texas power grid until state regulators conducted a thorough review of their energy and water usage, as well as their impact on nearby communities.

It's a reversal of the governor's previous stance. Abbott once courted data centers, calling Texas "the epicenter of AI development" in November. In an interview with Punchbowl News late last week, Trump criticized changes to Texas’ data center policy. "I saw Texas the other day sort of is against data centers," Trump said. "I think that's a mistake." Meanwhile, major technology companies have signaled their willingness to comply with Abbott's recent directives, which called for data centers to bring their own energy infrastructure to Texas and reduce their water usage. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, issued a statement on Monday, saying the company pays for its own infrastructure to connect data centers to the power grid. The company also announced the launch of a new fund to invest in water and energy infrastructure, educators and first responders. Google also touted a "$40 billion investment" in Texas infrastructure and jobs.

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Lubbock County commissioners pass resolution regarding large-scale industrial development in Texas

The public gathered, Monday, to hear Lubbock County commissioners discuss and potentially approve a resolution regarding large-scale industrial development in the state of Texas. This discussion mostly centered around data centers potentially being built in unincorporated parts of the county, but the wording opens it up for any major business to disclose how much water and electricity it would use for its projects. The resolution passed four to one, with only judge Curtis Parrish voting against it due to its language. “If the concern is about data centers, let’s make sure this resolution is tailored to data centers,” Parrish said. “I don’t have anyone coming and talking to me concerning about any other manufacturing businesses, any other expanding businesses.”

Commissioner Cary Shaw does not see it the same way, feeling each business should be up front about what it plans to use regardless of its industry. “Why would you not want all the information before a business comes in?” Shaw said, “what they’re going to use, what kind of resources they’re going to need from the county.” Nothing in this non-binding resolution creates or expands county authority. It does not require the county to take any action or authorize the county to prohibit, suspend, delay, or impose a moratorium on a privately financed project, except as expressly permitted by Texas law. This became a point of contention inside the commissioner courtroom. “All this is doing is telling Texas law that we need some help,” commissioner Jordan Rackler said during the meeting. “You just got done rattling off that this would make the data centers come talk to us,” commissioner Jason Corley said in response. “If you want it to pass, let’s pass it, but this is 10 minutes of my life I’m never getting back. Let’s get going. Resolutions do nothing, they are not binding. You want to pass it, let’s pass it.” After the resolution passed, Parrish said a lot more work needs to be done before anything moves forward regarding this topic. “We need to make sure that the state gives us enough teeth, enough authority that we can put a hiatus on these data centers coming and taking our electricity, taking our water and not giving anything back to the community,” Parrish said. “That’s what I want to make sure we’re protecting the citizens of Lubbock county for. This resolution does not do that.” Commissioner Shaw says the symbolic approval does send a message to Austin as the statewide debate over the future of its economy takes up more of its bandwidth.

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One source of Paxton’s wealth: A cell tower at a hospital he knew well

Over the course of Ken Paxton’s decade-long rise to prominence, through scandal and turmoil, questions about his finances have followed him. Opponents scrutinized his real estate holdings and suggested that he has used his public office to enrich himself personally — allegations that have never been proven. With Mr. Paxton locked in a close, contentious race for U.S. Senate in Texas, his Democratic opponent has questioned how Mr. Paxton, the state attorney general, has amassed a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio on a public servant’s salary. Now, Mr. Paxton’s federal financial disclosure forms and additional records obtained by The New York Times shed light on one unusual source of his income: a cellular tower company from which Mr. Paxton made between $100,000 and $1 million about every 18 months. The company controls at least one tower in a city north of Dallas that was erected around 20 years ago on the property of a hospital where Mr. Paxton was a board member.

Mr. Paxton co-founded the company, Premier Vertical Properties, in 2005; he reported serving on the board of the hospital, Centennial Medical Center, from 2003 to 2013. Records show that Premier signed a deal to lease space on the tower to T-Mobile in 2006; the hospital’s parent company at the time, Tenet Hospitals, was mentioned in the lease agreements. The terms of any agreement that may have been struck between Mr. Paxton’s company and the hospital are not clear. Tenet did not respond to questions, and the hospital’s current administration said it could not provide information about a deal made before its tenure. Industry experts said a hospital’s board would need to review and approve a decision to lease land to a cell tower company such as Premier. It is not clear whether Mr. Paxton, as a board member, voted on any contract between the hospital and his company, or whether he had participated in any such discussions. In a statement provided to The Times, Nick Maddux, Mr. Paxton’s campaign spokesman, did not address questions about Premier’s dealings with the hospital during Mr. Paxton’s time on the board. “This week, every major publication in Texas covered the overflow crowds at Attorney General Paxton’s Protect the Texas Promise tour, and the Times spent that same week combing through twenty-year-old lease paperwork on a cell tower that Ken Paxton has disclosed publicly for many years,” Mr. Maddux said in the statement. “That is not journalism; it’s a search for a story that does not exist.”

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State Stories

The Dog's Head deal was made with little public input. Now neighbors want their voices heard

Lee Edwards has lived on Hergotz Lane for nearly two decades. His property backs up to the Colorado River, giving him direct access to the water. It’s the reason he moved to the area. “This is a river neighborhood, a river community,” Edwards said. “We’re very identified with the nature here, the animals, the river, the whole thing.” It’s surprisingly rural, considering how close it is to U.S. 183 and the airport. There are trees and wildflowers. Bobcats and deer roam the land. Edwards is the president of the South East Colorado River Neighborhood Association. He said it's unlike any neighborhood he’s lived in before. “You’ve got our property and your house, and we have neighbors, that is nice,” he said. “All that is true but there is this whole other thing going on – it's a special and unique neighborhood.”

Garrett Tung, who has lived just a few doors down from Edwards for five years, agreed. “It's a quiet lifestyle,” Tung said. “It's kind of like you're in the middle of nowhere, but you're in Austin. The neighbors are amazing. The wildlife is amazing. It's just a crazy cool place to live.” If you look at a map of this area, the Colorado River bends around the neighborhood in a shape that resembles a silhouette of a dog’s head. So, people have taken to calling this area the Dog’s Head. Last month, the Austin City Council signed off on a 2,600-acre development for the site that will include housing, retail and office space and some green space. Amazon’s robotics division will be the property’s biggest tenant. But the project was approved with little public input. That’s where neighbors said the city failed them. Both Edwards and Tung fear that their little slice of paradise will be lost without a proper plan to develop the Dog’s Head.

Read this article at KUT - Subscribers Only

E-bike, e-scooter riders will have to dismount on central portion of UT campus

Riders of electric bikes, scooters and boards on the University of Texas at Austin’s campus will have to dismount and walk in a large portion of central campus, including the Speedway Mall, starting Aug. 24. The university is designating the area between San Jacinto Boulevard and Guadalupe Street and 21st Street to 24th Street as a “pedestrian friendly zone,” the university announced Monday. The changes start the first day of the fall semester. The announcement comes after signs went up on campus last week and after the university quietly posted new mobility regulations online, including a “dismount zone map.” The web page was then taken down. The original post did not make clear if the dismount areas included non-motorized vehicles. Cycling advocates expressed concerns about the plan's impact before the university clarified that the ban would not impact manual bicycles and scooters.

The new "pedestrian friendly zone" will also have a 5 mph speed limit for personal electric vehicles. Other sections of campus have speed limits of 15 mph. Eduardo Diaz, a student at UT, was one of the people concerned about a blanket ban for all scooters, bikes and boards on Speedway. "I still think that this confusion would have been avoided significantly if we had gotten some input before this went into place,” Diaz said. "I'm glad that this was clarified or that it was changed." He said he understands the decision more after the clarification, but that, for him, ideally the ban would only be in effect in between classes. "Speedway is basically the only protected car-free route that you can take from Central Austin, that's not really far out of the way,” Diaz said. "So if you're people who are coming up from Hyde Park, from all those areas, [you] probably would take Speedway.

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Peter Licata: We’ve acted fast to fix schools. And we’re not done

(Peter Licata is the superintendent of the Fort Worth Independent School District.) When I took the job as superintendent of the Fort Worth school district on March 24, I knew meaningful change would not happen overnight. But I knew it needed to start right away. The reason I was hired was one simple, indisputable fact: too many of our schools were failing to educate many of our kids. While there has been incremental progress in some areas, far too many of our students are still not achieving at the levels they deserve. That reality demanded change — not because our educators lack commitment but because our students deserve better outcomes. Accepting the status quo is simply not an option. Over the past four months, our leadership team has worked with urgency to stabilize operations, restore confidence, and build systems that put students — not adults — at the center of every decision we make.

One of our first priorities was ensuring that every student arrives safely at school each day. We eliminated all bus driver vacancies and hired additional qualified drivers to strengthen daily operations and reduce disruptions. Equally encouraging is the progress in staffing our classrooms. For years, Fort Worth ISD routinely began the school year with more than 200 teacher vacancies, many of which remained open throughout the year. This year, we opened school with only nine classroom teacher vacancies districtwide, a testament to our Human Capital team, campus leaders and the outstanding educators who chose Fort Worth ISD because they believe in our mission. We also restructured our central administration, eliminating positions that did not directly support student achievement and redirecting resources back into classrooms where they can have the greatest impact. This work has also required difficult decisions, including consolidating campuses. Instruction has remained our highest priority. This year, we introduced Cowtown 12, a districtwide instructional framework designed to protect instructional time while providing every teacher with clear, consistent expectations for high-quality teaching. Great teachers deserve clarity, and Cowtown 12 establishes districtwide expectations while honoring each teacher’s craft. Top schools are built one classroom at a time by exceptional teachers. Our responsibility is to provide them with outstanding curriculum, meaningful support, clear expectations, and the trust to do what they do best: teach children.

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Axiom Space CEO Jonathan Cirtain on NASA’s moon race and the fight to build the next space station

Jonathan Cirtain is drawn to big challenges. He was first pulled toward the sun, developing instruments that studied its complexities and earning a presidential award in 2011. He then led a team that used nuclear medicine to image and treat diseases. Now, Cirtain is leading Houston-based Axiom Space through two particularly big tasks: Deliver a spacesuit that can help NASA’s astronauts walk on the moon before China’s taikonauts and develop a successor to the International Space Station that will win NASA’s business. “I’ve always been drawn to complex problems and their solutions,” Cirtain said in a statement. “I’ve wanted to work on very difficult problems that, if solved, could significantly expand what we know and push humanity forward.”

Cirtain is an astrophysicist turned technology executive. With a doctorate in physics, he joined Axiom Space as its president in June 2025 and became its chief executive that October. He’s had a busy first year. The company announced it is opening overseas offices and moving its legal domicile to Texas from Delaware. It has begun building test versions of its spacesuits, partnering with sunglass company Oakley on the visor and luxury retailer Prada on some of the materials. It’s also preparing to receive the first two major structures of its space station in 2027. But there have been doubts, too. NASA’s Office of Inspector General suggested Axiom’s spacesuit might not be ready for the agency’s Artemis IV mission that seeks to land on the moon in 2028. And NASA has questioned the financial viability of commercial space stations. Cirtain said he can't imagine not finishing the space station. “We have been preparing for game day for 10 years,” Cirtain said during an interview with the Houston Chronicle. “We've been building this company for this purpose.” Axiom Space was founded in 2016 to build Axiom Station, an outpost that could replace the International Space Station when it retires in 2030. The company would own and operate the station; NASA would be one of many customers. Axiom Space plans to launch the first component of its space station into orbit in 2028. The company has raised more than $1 billion, and NASA awarded it a $140 million contract for early development.

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Has abortion become the forgotten issue in the 2026 midterm elections?

Ashley Brandt knows what it feels like to get smacked in the face by politics. She knows what it’s like to be affected by a draconian law that doesn’t see nuance or reason. She knows what it’s like to be an advocate, focusing on tiny wins whilst becoming a punching bag for the other side. She knows what it’s like to be lied about and smeared, and what it’s like to change a mind. For Brandt, abortion is not simply a law or a ruling or a campaign promise. It is the medical procedure that she received in Colorado in 2022 after being told that one of the 12-week-old twin girls she carried had developed an abnormality in her skull that would be lethal. Continuing to carry the child may have put the life of her healthy twin, and herself, at risk. In Texas, which operated under a near-total abortion ban even while Roe v. Wade was in effect, there was no way to terminate the life of the sick fetus.

Brandt was forced to travel out of state to receive care, a decision that thousands of Texas women have made since the 2021 passage of Senate Bill 8, which banned abortions in all instances after a heartbeat has been detected in an embryo. Brandt made it through the procedure, returned home, and was overwhelmed by fear. Would the daughter she still carried remain healthy? Would she or her doctors be prosecuted for the decision to cross state lines? It was amid that anxiety that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the decades-old precedent that guaranteed women across the nation access to abortion care, and the world cracked open. “Coming home and trying to process and grieve my situation, (and then) seeing that happen just a week later, was devastating,” Brandt, who lives in North Texas, told the Observer. “All I could think was how many more women, how many families, were going to suffer under this decision.” When the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, protests converged on the steps of the Supreme Court. Record-breaking amounts of donations poured into centers offering resources and aid to women in need of abortion care. In 2022 and 2024, Democratic candidates put money towards ads highlighting their pro-reproductive rights voting records, and they went on the attack against Republicans who had worked to limit abortion access. Polling overwhelmingly showed that a majority of Americans supported access to abortions in at least some cases.

Read this article at Dallas Observer - Subscribers Only

Jones and Galvan call for new vote on Spurs arena funding and back data center moratorium

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and District 6 Councilmember Ric Galvan are supporting a citywide vote on the proposed use of $489 million in city funding for a new downtown Spurs arena, while also opposing Gov. Greg Abbott’s call to introduce private competition into San Antonio’s electricity market. Appearing separately Monday on Texas Public Radio’s "The Source," Jones and Galvan stressed that the proposed vote would address the city’s contribution to the arena. And last November’s countywide vote on the issue was not sufficient. Bexar County voters narrowly approved $311 million in county funding for the project. “I think it’s really important that city voters have an opportunity to weigh in on the city’s $489 million contribution,” Jones said.

She cited the city’s projected $158 million budget shortfall, possible property-tax increases and changes to the broader Project Marvel proposal as reasons voters should have the chance to vote on the city funding for the new NBA arena. Jones said the county and city contributions would expose San Antonio residents to a combined $800 million in public arena funding, before any additional downtown infrastructure bond. The city council would have to approve an election ordinance by Aug. 17 to place the question on the ballot. Six members of city council have signaled they would not vote to place the issue on the November 3 ballot — which is enough to block the measure. However, when asked whether he supported a citywide vote, Galvan responded, “I’m supportive.” But he wouldn’t acknowledge that his position is likely in the minority on council and, therefore, not likely to pass. Jones urged residents who want a citywide vote to contact their council representatives before the Aug. 17 deadline. “If you want to vote on the city’s $489 million contribution to the arena, please reach out to your council member,” she said.

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Texas could owe $709M for food stamps. Food banks say the fallout would be ‘catastrophic.’

Food banks across Texas are raising the alarm over a federal policy change that could force the state to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for food assistance benefits or risk leaving millions of Texans without access to food. Beginning in 2027, states with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payment error rates above 6% will be required to share in the cost of benefits under the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed into law in 2025. Texas recorded a 9% error rate in fiscal year 2025, meaning the state could face up to $709 million a year in additional costs, and potentially more than $1 billion if that rate climbs above 10%. San Antonio Food Bank CEO Eric Cooper said the stakes couldn’t be higher.

“When you think about the San Antonio Food Bank, for every one meal we put out, SNAP provides nine,” Cooper said. “Should we see an increase in the number of families, we just won’t have the food supply to meet that need.” The San Antonio Food Bank currently serves around 140,000 people every week — a number that has continued to climb year over year. That growth comes on the heels of a recent study showing food insecurity in the San Antonio region has risen to nearly 22%, meaning roughly one in five people don’t have enough to eat. Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, the state association of food banks, said the error rate triggering these new costs is widely misunderstood. “The most important thing to know about the payment error rate is that it is not fraud,” Cole said. “It is a measure of accuracy.” Cole explained that the error rate reflects paperwork and processing mistakes, not intentional wrongdoing, and that roughly two-thirds of errors come from state agency mistakes, not recipients. She added that Texas consistently maintained an error rate below 6% before the COVID-19 pandemic strained state workforce capacity. If Texas cannot or will not fund its share of SNAP costs, Cole warned the consequences would be severe. “If they walk away from the program, what that’s going to mean is 3 million Texans without access to reliable food,” Cole said. “Our food bank network won’t be able to make up for that gap.” Food bank leaders across the state are now calling on Congress to delay the cost-sharing requirement by two years, giving Texas time to bring its error rate back below the 6% threshold. The Senate version of the Farm Bill, currently working through Congress, includes a provision for a one-year delay, but advocates say two years is what’s needed. Cooper echoed that urgency. “The fear that SNAP might be impacted — it’s catastrophic,” Cooper said. “I just don’t have the inventory at the San Antonio Food Bank to meet that need.” The Texas Legislature is set to begin its next session in January 2027 — the same session that would need to appropriate funds if the cost-sharing requirement moves forward without a congressional delay.

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American-Statesman Editorial Board: Texas leaders talk tough. Why won't they fight for Big Bend?

For years — when a Democrat was in the White House — Texas Republican leaders projected unflinching “Don’t Mess with Texas” swagger. Gov. Greg Abbott famously bragged, as state attorney general during the Obama years, “I go to work, I sue the federal government and then I go home.” Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a press release when his office filed its 100th lawsuit against the Biden administration. And in January 2024, when Abbott asserted Texas’ right to deploy the National Guard and state troopers at the border, the governor declared that “states should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats.”

Where is that energy now, as federal contractors have begun bulldozing a remote stretch of Big Bend National Park for a border construction project that threatens to permanently alter one of Texas’ greatest natural treasures? Instead, with Republican President Donald Trump pursuing his signature border wall project, Texas’ formidable political machinery has gone eerily quiet. That silence is infuriating and indefensible. There is one notable exception: Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham sent a cease-and-desist letter last month after finding a Customs and Border Protection contractor had improperly cleared more than a mile of state-managed grazing land in Presidio County. Buckingham’s letter says the lands “must be remediated and returned to their original condition.” More of that, please. The resolve to defend one of Texas’ most cherished landscapes should not be hard to find. Protecting the wild swaths of untamed Texas, the rights of private property owners and the integrity of taxpayer dollars should not be partisan causes. Yet all three are at stake in the massive border construction project now bearing down on the Big Bend region.

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Secretary of State opposes closing Texas primaries via GOP-led lawsuit

The Texas agency that oversees elections still opposes a lawsuit seeking to restrict Republican primaries to voters registered with the party but believes the issue will likely be resolved in the 2027 legislative session, Secretary of State Robert Howden said Monday in a court filing. The Texas GOP last year filed a lawsuit against the secretary of state's office, saying only registered Republicans should be allowed to vote in GOP primaries. Howden’s answer comes after Matthew Kacsmaryk, the federal judge overseeing the suit, on Friday ordered Howden to say whether the state’s official position has changed under his leadership.

Howden, who was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott last month after Jane Nelson stepped down, said the Legislature is the “proper forum for adopting any closed primary system” and coming up with a detailed plan on how it would work. Texans are not required to register with a specific political party under state law, allowing them to vote in either party’s primary. GOP activists say the state’s open primary system is allowing Democrats to vote for more moderate Republican candidates, boosting people they believe are insufficiently conservative. The secretary of state's office has asked Kacsmaryk to dismiss the lawsuit, while the state's Republican Party is asking him rule that the open primary system violate's the party's First Amendment rights and allow the party to exclude non-Republicans from primaries. Legislation seeking to close the state’s primary system failed in last year’s legislative session, prompting the party to file the lawsuit. A spokesperson for the state’s Republican Party did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Monday’s filing. The party also did not respond to a voicemail.

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How many voting sites does Tarrant County need? Commissioners to decide in September

After disagreeing with a proposed reduction in polling sites, Tarrant County commissioners are divided on how many locations to approve for the November midterm election. County staff are revising the proposed list of sites based on feedback from commissioners. One commissioner proposed keeping the number consistent with the total used during the 2022 midterms, while another suggested an increase to accommodate population growth over the last four years. Others haven’t suggested a specific number but were clear that the proposed list did not include enough sites. Commissioners were scheduled to vote on the list of sites Aug. 4 but ultimately delayed that decision until Sept. 1 after listening to dozens of speakers criticize the proposed reduction as an attempt to make it harder for voters to cast a ballot. The nearly seven-hour meeting saw attendees removed, banned and arrested.

After disagreeing with a proposed reduction in polling sites, Tarrant County commissioners are divided on how many locations to approve for the November midterm election. County staff are revising the proposed list of sites based on feedback from commissioners. One commissioner proposed keeping the number consistent with the total used during the 2022 midterms, while another suggested an increase to accommodate population growth over the last four years. Others haven’t suggested a specific number but were clear that the proposed list did not include enough sites. Commissioners were scheduled to vote on the list of sites Aug. 4 but ultimately delayed that decision until Sept. 1 after listening to dozens of speakers criticize the proposed reduction as an attempt to make it harder for voters to cast a ballot. The nearly seven-hour meeting saw attendees removed, banned and arrested.

Read this article at Fort Worth Report - Subscribers Only

She says she was fired from a nursing home after taking medical leave. It’s a common claim in Texas

Kendria Dubois felt she had sacrificed health and family to keep her job as a resident care coordinator at a Mansfield nursing home. One night in March 2025, Dubois, 46, says she began to vomit and pass blood during an overnight shift, prompting a call to her superiors and her staff. Nobody answered, she says, so she toughed it out until the end of her shift at 6 a.m. before rushing to the emergency room where she learned she had intestine inflammation. Dubois — who also has multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune nervous system disease with no cure — was fired a little more than two months later. In a federal lawsuit filed last month, she claims the nursing home discriminated against her for her disabilities. “I kept putting all these people first, and put myself at the bottom,” Dubois told KERA News. “But when it mattered, I was the first to go.”

The complaint is becoming increasingly common in Texas. The state had the highest number and percentage of disability complaints in the country filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2025. And that year saw more disability complaints filed than any other year in decades, according to EEOC data that goes back to 1992. Management for the nursing home, Cedar Bluff, did not respond to KERA’s request for an interview or comment. The company has also not filed a response to the lawsuit as of Monday. Disability discrimination complaints with the EEOC have only increased as older generations experience natural health decline, said Michael Maslanka, an associate professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas who teaches employment law. "Two words, one concept: baby boomers," Maslanka said. "You're going to have a spike, and it's going to continue for a while I think.” Texas could also have more complaints because some large states like California have their own agencies to handle discrimination claims. "There may be less action in the California EEOC, or even in California's federal court, because the state protection is better," said Brian East, an attorney at Disability Rights Texas. Employees with disabilities are largely protected from discrimination by the American with Disabilities Act and the Texas labor code, which aims to mirror the ADA.

Read this article at KERA - Subscribers Only

National Stories

Trump signs order calling for spacing out childhood vaccines, against medical groups’ guidance

President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits. The order advocates separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunizations at separate appointments whenever possible. It also directs the nation’s health department to improve research on vaccines, which are already extensively studied, and present a plan to offer separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines for children, since that is not currently an option in the United States. The renewed focus on vaccines marks a departure from the Trump administration’s recent efforts to emphasize less controversial health policies related to healthy eating, drug price negotiations and medical fraud crackdowns ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Childhood vaccines — and how and when to give them in combination — go through rigorous studies, and safety tracking continues for years as the shots are used. Trump called the announcement a “major victory for parents rights, religious and constitutional rights, and for the gold standard science.” Speaking about the order at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link. The order also includes several changes to the childhood vaccine schedule that his health department has already attempted, but that have been blocked by a federal judge. A White House official who insisted on anonymity to brief reporters said Trump was within his right to provide his own recommendation through the executive order and said the lawsuit blocking the health department’s schedule was a separate issue. Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the announcement spreads uncertainty, fear and confusion where “there doesn’t need to be any of that.” He disputed Trump’s recommendations and said previous ones should stand.

Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only

Will the left keep winning in the Midwest? Will Sen. Graham keep her seat? What to watch in Tuesday’s primaries.

The Democratic Party’s ascendant left flank, looking to build on its success in Michigan last week, faces fresh tests in two primaries in the Midwest on Tuesday. A democratic socialist appears to be clearly ahead in the governor’s race in Wisconsin, and a progressive is facing off against a moderate in an expensive Senate race in Minnesota. Wisconsin, like Michigan, is a closely watched national battleground. On the Republican side, President Trump’s choice to succeed Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina — Mr. Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham — is running in a special primary election against four more experienced rivals. Despite Mr. Trump’s endorsement, a runoff is likely in the crowded race.

Mr. Graham’s death last month rocked South Carolina politics, leading to Tuesday’s special primary election to succeed him. His sister, Ms. Graham, accepted Gov. Henry McMaster’s appointment to complete her brother’s term, but then she surprised South Carolina Republicans by deciding to run for a full six years in the Senate — with Mr. Trump’s support. Special elections, especially those run on a compressed calendar, can be unpredictable. Four other Republicans also decided to run, increasing the likelihood that a runoff will be necessary on Aug. 25. The front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor of Wisconsin is State Representative Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist. While her victory on Tuesday is assured by most accounts, where she does well — or less well — could reveal clues as to whether the socialist brand can work in a general election in a purple state. More moderate Democrats worry that candidates with “socialist” by their names would struggle to win in America’s heartland, risking the party’s chance at a governorship in November. Far-left candidates including Abdul El-Sayed, who won the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan last week, have tended to do best among white and college-educated voters. More moderate Democrats fear that trend might suggest that other slices of the electorate that the party has counted on, including Black voters, could stay home in November. How well Ms. Hong does in Milwaukee, for instance, will be closely watched as election results come in.

Read this article at New York Times - Subscribers Only

Taylor Swift songs removed from White House, Trump campaign posts

Some Taylor Swift songs have been removed from social media videos posted by President Donald Trump's campaign and the White House, which has used two of the American superstar's songs over the past ?week. The White House and a representative for Swift did not immediately respond to requests for ?comment. The Reuters Inside Track newsletter is your essential guide to global sports news. Sign up here. Swift has not spoken recently about Trump, although she endorsed his Democratic rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in 2024. During the 2020 campaign, Swift posted on social media that Trump was "WELL AWARE we do not want him as our president."

Trump has repeatedly criticized ?Swift. After she endorsed Harris, the Republican said on social media, "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!" Last year he ?wrote: "Has anyone noticed that, since I said 'I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,' she’s no longer "HOT?" Dozens of ?artists, including Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande, have called on the Trump administration not to use their songs. The Trump campaign ?used two Swift songs over the last week on its TikTok page. One, playing on her lyrics, featured the caption: "Red (Donald ?Trump's Version). Red (Taylor Swift Wrote A Whole Album About Republicans). Donald Trump. Everything Has Changed (At Our Southern Border). Donald Trump. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (The Biden Harris Administration). Donald Trump. The Last Time (An Autopen Runs The Country)." It referenced famous songs ?by the pop star. In June, Trump's campaign posted a video on the short-video platform with Swift's new "Toy Story ?5" song "I Knew It, I Knew You." The short video was captioned "Nobody loves our country & the American People more than @President Donald ?J Trump." ?It showed him interacting with children at the White House, dancing at a UFC match and appearing at a rally. It was the third time the Trump administration or his campaign had used one of the Grammy Award-winning pop star's songs in recent months.

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Judge temporarily blocks Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new pied-à-terre tax hit a wall on Monday after a Staten Island judge ordered an emergency pause on the implementation of the new surcharge. The ruling came in response to a Friday lawsuit from a group of three aggrieved homeowners suing to delay the rollout of the tax because of how it has been executed so far. Wayne Ozzi, a state judge in Staten Island, entered a temporary restraining order mandating that the Department of Finance remove the tax roll of 960,000 properties that it published last month as part of the pied-à-terre tax rollout. The court also banned the city from taking any additional enforcement action on the tax warning notices that have already been mailed to 17,000 homeowners. The next hearing is scheduled for the afternoon of Aug. 31. The lawsuit isn’t challenging the legal basis for the pied-à-terre tax as a whole. Rather, it argues that the rollout has been botched so far. The plaintiffs—Rachel O’Brien, Carmine Morano and Simon Hedley—are New York City residents who say they were falsely targeted with the pied-à-terre tax notices and are now scrambling to prove that they live there.

“We disagree with today’s ruling, but we are confident in both the pied-à-terre surcharge and the City’s ability to implement it fairly and effectively,” said Mamdani spokesman Matt Rauschenbach. “This surcharge asks those who own second homes valued at $5 million or more to contribute their fair share to the city they benefit from.” The spokesman added that the city’s Law Department intends to appeal the ruling immediately in order to halt the temporary restraining order and allow the tax rollout to proceed. State law requires the Department of Finance to make an initial determination of who is subject to the pied-à-terre tax based on available information like tax returns, property assessments and other official records. The lawsuit claims that city officials illegally placed the burden on homeowners to prove their residency status, rather than verifying that for themselves. “We are very gratified by the judge’s decision, which has vindicated the rights of hundreds of thousands of New York City homeowners who were subjected to a process they never should have been a part of in the first place,” said Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The pied-à-terre tax applies to homes worth $5 million or more and co-ops and condos worth $1 million or more in which the owner isn’t a primary resident. Mamdani has touted the tax as proof that he is delivering on his campaign promise to tax the rich to fund his agenda. The tax went into effect on July 1 and since then, the rollout has been messy. Some New Yorkers say they received notices warning they may be subject to the tax despite having lived in their residences for years or decades. Property owners had until Sept. 18 to challenge their tax notices or apply for an exemption. The judge on Monday said that no deadlines related to those tax letters should be enforced.

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NOAA says the Lower 48 US states set a record for hottest month in July

The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. July averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) across the Lower 48 states, eclipsing the Dust Bowl’s July 1936 by an eighth of a degree. Records go back to 1895. “It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl, which we are in this case,” said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections. “And that was a crazy sort of situation where you put tens of millions of people in motion. You had this great migration because of the drought and the heat that hit the center of the U.S. — just a cataclysmic event in U. S. history. If we’re exceeding records from The Dust Bowl, that says that we’re in deep trouble.”

Although it was unusually cool in Alaska, hotter-than-normal conditions blanketed the Lower 48, with the most excessive heat in the Mountain West, Southwest, Northern Plains and Southeast. The heat was so widespread that every one of the Lower 48 states was at least 1 degree Fahrenheit (nearly 0.6 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average, said Russ Vose, chief of monitoring at NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information. What’s happening now is due to the burning of coal, oil and gas, scientists said. “Extremely high temperatures across the continental U.S. this summer, along with intense drought and fire conditions, are absolutely consistent with the climate change signal,’ said Katharine Jacobs, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona. The biggest driver of the record heat was nighttime lows that smashed the old mark for hottest minimums by 0.7 degrees, NOAA said. Hotter nights are a classic sign of human-caused climate change, according to scientists and several studies in peer-reviewed literature. NOAA’s calculation is based on averaging 24 hours of temperature, not just highs or lows. “If you’re talking heat waves, that nighttime low is incredibly important for determining total heat stress,” Masters said. “So if it doesn’t cool off at night, your body doesn’t have time to readjust to all the heat.” As nighttime temperatures increase, more people die and lose sleep, studies show.

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Lead Stories

As solar and batteries dominate in Texas, Republican lawmakers consider natural gas minimums

As new electricity generation skews toward solar and battery storage in Texas, Republican state senators are questioning whether it’s time to impose minimum standards for building gas plants and move away from free trade in the state’s electricity marketplace. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s grid operator, reported last week that 70 percent of generation in the 460-gigawatt interconnection queue is from solar and battery storage. Natural gas facilities make up less than 17 percent of that line. And while it’s an uptick from three years ago, when there were less than 10 gigawatts of gas power plants seeking to connect, legislators and grid leaders say going forward the current level of planned gas facilities won’t be enough.

State Sen. Phil King, a Republican from Weatherford, asked the leaders of ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) at a public hearing last week whether there should be a rule that puts a quota on what share of new generation connecting to the grid comes from fossil fuels. “Should we say that from a point of interconnection that 50 percent—or some percentage of new generation—has to be dispatchable generation as opposed to just letting the market forces guide that,” King asked, referring to gas plants as “dispatachable” because they can be ramped up or down on demand, unlike intermittent wind and solar power sources. “That would be a pretty significant policy change to have a requirement like that,” ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas replied at a Senate Committee on Business and Commerce public hearing. But both Vegas and PUC Chairman Thomas Gleeson said there needs to be a way to provide long-term incentives for gas to get built in Texas.

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Data center backlash leads to a new land rush in the Texas oil patch

Energy companies in the country’s largest oil field have a plan to turn shrub-covered dirt into gold. It has nothing to do with oil—and everything to do with the data-center boom. Firms including Texas Pacific Land, LandBridge, and EagleRock sit on land empires nestled in the Permian Basin, which spans West Texas and New Mexico. Their customers are oil-and-gas producers that pay for the right to build roads, drill wells and dump toxic water that is produced alongside the oil they bring to the surface. Now, these landowners want a piece of the AI action. The companies’ ambition is to lease land to data centers and sell them everything from water to construction materials. They are betting that developers facing community pushback from Maine to Arizona will be drawn to the Permian’s abundant land, cheap energy and business friendly climate.

“A lot of places you see all over the country they’re worried about water, they’re worried about power, they’re worried about transmission, and the Permian has all of those things in spades,” said EagleRock Chief Executive Greg Pipkin Jr. The companies’ business model has been like catnip to investors because unlike drilling for oil, which requires huge upfront investments, leasing land is capital light. Texas Pacific’s stock is trading around 37 times its projected earnings over the next four quarters; LandBridge, about 39 times, which analysts say reflect investors’ growth expectations driven in part by data centers. Their respective stocks are up 14% and 56% so far this year. EagleRock, another firm that sits on a vast land domain, raised $320 million from an initial public offering earlier this year. “There’s so much money,” said Bryan Loocke, an energy partner at law firm Vinson & Elkins. “Everybody’s chasing that white whale.” Chevron recently signed a 20-year agreement to sell electricity to a Microsoft data center and is working to build a gas-fired power plant in the Permian to feed electricity to the facility. Texas Pacific sold land to Chevron for the project. Artificial-intelligence startup Poolside and cloud-infrastructure company CoreWeave have said they would build a massive data-center complex on a sprawling ranch in West Texas.

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Flock cameras can track every car in America. Police love them. Citizens don’t.

Driving down a road lined with strip malls outside Dallas, Philip, a 27-year-old cellphone tower repairman, was describing the exquisite piquancy of his homegrown hot peppers when he stopped midsentence. “Flock!” he said, pointing to a traffic light pole at an intersection. Attached to it was a small black box with a camera that takes photos as cars drive by. It was a license plate reader made by Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, that alerts law enforcement when it spots wanted cars and allows officers to see where cars of interest have been. Philip pulled into a strip mall, parked outside a dentist’s office and opened an app on his phone. The app, DeFlock, invites people to “view and contribute to an open map of public mass surveillance devices.” He zoomed in on the intersection on the digital map and plotted the location of the camera. Philip asked that his full name be withheld, because Flock’s chief executive, Garrett Langley, once called DeFlock “terroristic.”

To Philip, DeFlock is about pushing against the proliferation of cameras that capture the ordinary moments of ordinary people. “And what is my way of pushing back? Education. Data,” Philip said. “Am I just being paranoid? No, they’re actually everywhere.” Flock’s 120,000 cameras can be found alongside roads in every state but Alaska, allowing law enforcement officers to see within seconds where a car might be, and where it has been. The company has contracts with 7,000 law enforcement agencies, which is 40 percent of all departments in the United States. Other companies sell license plate tracking services, but Flock, a private company valued at $8.4 billion, has become a lightning rod because of its rapid expansion, the ubiquity of its cameras, and a number of controversies involving its product. A Texas officer used Flock’s cameras to track a woman across state lines who was suspected of self-administering an abortion. Officers across the country have abused their access to Flock’s cameras, including to track romantic partners, resulting in discipline and termination. Los Angeles and Dayton, Ohio, among other cities, recently suspended their contracts with Flock to prevent immigration authorities from accessing data from the cameras.

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'Weaker than we thought': Jobs surprise deals setback for GOP in elections

U.S. employers are shedding jobs and wage growth is decelerating, suggesting that President Donald Trump’s labor market looks much weaker than assumed. The Labor Department on Friday reported that employment unexpectedly contracted by 23,000 positions last month — compared with the 83,000 gain that economists had forecast. It also revised down the May and June reports by more than 100,000 jobs from payroll estimates that the White House had celebrated as a sign of the economy’s resilience. U.S. employers are shedding jobs and wage growth is decelerating, suggesting that President Donald Trump’s labor market looks much weaker than assumed. The Labor Department on Friday reported that employment unexpectedly contracted by 23,000 positions last month — compared with the 83,000 gain that economists had forecast. It also revised down the May and June reports by more than 100,000 jobs from payroll estimates that the White House had celebrated as a sign of the economy’s resilience. The report is a tough beat for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms, with voters already sour on the economy. “Recent economic history is weaker than we thought,” University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers wrote on X shortly after the report’s release. “July’s new number is downright concerning.”

Even though the jobless rate fell to 4.1 percent — a level that would normally suggest workers could secure larger paychecks — average hourly earnings are growing at a slower pace than at any point since early 2021, when the labor market was still recovering from the pandemic. The jobs report is likely to take some of the heat off the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at its next meeting to combat persistent inflation. That may keep borrowing costs from rising, but the combination of higher interest rates, inflation and uneven wage growth has fueled pessimism that has prevailed for the last half-decade. And the public’s negative mood about the economy is likely to persist, said David Blanchflower, an economics professor at Dartmouth College who specializes in labor market perceptions. “Maybe you know people are expecting more from their jobs, and they’re comparing themselves to different people,” he added. Or “maybe the jobs have just become shit.” Whatever the cause, measures of consumer sentiment and confidence have been weak. Cost-of-living issues have consistently kept Trump’s approval rating near record lows — a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that the GOP’s long-held advantage on economic policy has eroded — and Friday’s jobs report threatens to undermine the administration’s attempts to reverse the narrative.

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State Stories

Dallas awaits convention costs and how much government might reimburse

Dallas officials expect to seek federal reimbursement for city resources used during President Donald Trump’s Republican midterm convention, but they do not yet know the event’s cost or how much the federal government would cover. City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, asked about the potential cost to taxpayers of the Sept. 9–10 gathering at the American Airlines Center, said she was awaiting more details about what the convention might require of the city. “I’m hoping to hear more because I keep asking, when are we gonna know what they’re doing?” she said Friday after speaking to The Dallas Morning News editorial board.

Tolbert said that if the convention creates additional costs, the city would typically establish a separate pay code for officers to record the extra hours they work. That would allow Dallas to calculate its expenses and submit them for possible reimbursement, as it did for the FIFA World Cup events. She said federal reimbursement is common when an event requires the city to commit additional resources, but she did not know how much would be covered. “Generally, that’s what happens if they’re going to require us to pull a certain number of our resources to support it,” Tolbert said. “Then there’s typically a federal government reimbursement. I just don’t know what the level is going to be.” Public Safety Chief Dominique Artis said after The News meeting that detailed planning is only beginning. “We’re just starting now to really get into how this thing is gonna roll out with the White House,” Artis said. “They’re taking the lead, and so as we go through the planning phase, we’ll start understanding costs.” Tolbert said Dallas has the public safety network needed to support the Republican convention. “The good thing is that we have the infrastructure,” she said. “We’ve got the public safety ecosystem that’s important. They’re kind of just controlling everything right now.” Mayor Eric Johnson spoke Tuesday at a media reception where he promoted Dallas as the convention’s host city but made no mention of what the event could cost or whether city expenses would be fully reimbursed.

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A year into the job, Mayor Jones risks holding the bag on largest tax increase in decades

Roughly a year into her first term, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones is calling for some drastic measures to address a ballooning budget deficit: Reconsidering funding for a new $1.3 billion Spurs arena, sunsetting a workforce development program that’s popular with some of her closest political allies, and axing funding for popular events like Fiesta and the San Antonio Book Festival. Under San Antonio’s weak-mayor form of government, however, Jones has little power to do any of these things alone. And after months of irritating colleagues with her go-it-alone approach, she could soon be the one left holding the bag on the biggest tax increases in decades. “My administration inherited a mess,” Jones vented to reporters after Thursday’s council meeting. “This $158 million budget deficit did not happen overnight. This was years and years of poor decision-making.”

Six weeks out from its budget vote, the City Council returned from July recess with tensions as high as ever. Members have been grumbling privately all week about the slew of memos the mayor released about her spending plans without consulting them. On Thursday, a low-stakes vote over a community advisory board ended with one member accusing the mayor of lying about the status of the arena deal and the mayor requesting mediation from the city attorney. Then on Friday, a trio of council members raised the stakes with a press conference in which they characterized Jones’ budget efforts as “disingenuous” and an unwelcome distraction in the middle of the council’s busiest season. Despite not having the support to put a Spurs funding vote on the ballot, they pointed out, Jones has proceeded with a listening tour to rally residents in favor of the idea, the first of which kicked off last night.

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FDA authorizes wound spray to help protect Texas livestock and wildlife from New World screwworm

Texas ranchers and wildlife managers now have a new tool to help protect animals from New World screwworm, as the parasitic fly continues to spread in the state. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an Emergency Use Authorization for CLiK Extra, a wound spray that can help prevent New World screwworm infestations in livestock and several species of wildlife. The authorization comes as the U.S. responds to an outbreak that has resulted in 45 confirmed New World screwworm infestations, according to the latest federal data. New World screwworm is a parasitic fly whose larvae feed on the living tissue of animals. Female flies lay their eggs in wounds or other vulnerable areas. Once the larvae hatch, they can cause severe tissue damage and, in some cases, death.

The FDA said CLiK Extra may be effective in preventing New World screwworm infestations, known as myiasis, when used as authorized. The agency said the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh its known and potential risks. “Today's emergency use authorization provides a new tool for preventing the spread of New World screwworm infestations,” Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas said. CLiK Extra does not kill screwworm larvae directly. Instead, it works as an insect growth regulator, disrupting the development of the larvae and preventing them from completing their life cycle. The product can be applied to or around a wound when the wound appears or is created. The authorization covers wounds associated with injuries, birth and surgical or husbandry procedures, including dehorning, ear tagging, castration, tail docking and shearing. That could give Texas livestock producers another option for protecting animals after procedures that leave them with wounds that could potentially attract screwworm flies. But the spray is intended for prevention, not treatment of an existing infestation. If a wound is already infested with screwworm larvae, or if an infestation develops after the product has been applied, the FDA recommends contacting a veterinarian to discuss treatment options.

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In blue San Antonio, Paxton taps locals to warn Republicans about progressive rule

Attorney General Ken Paxton tapped some unexpected names to introduce him at his packed campaign rally at the Angry Elephant on Saturday. Bexar County Commissioner Grant Moody and San Antonio Councilwoman Misty Spears took the stage asking the roughly 200 Republicans in attendance to rally their friends and neighbors around Paxton’s U.S. Senate bid this November. The move comes just months after the two were stumping for Paxton’s primary opponent, the more moderate U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who they said was the best candidate to hold off Democrat James Talarico in a tough race this November. San Antonio has long been a last bastion of GOP moderates.

But Paxton went on to trounce Cornyn in the primary runoff, and his party is now scrambling to unite voters around a candidate with baggage from a high-profile affair, personal legal troubles and years of disagreements with other Texas GOP leaders. Despite those weaknesses, nearly all of San Antonio’s elected Republicans were in attendance Saturday, urging voters rally their friends and neighbors against sitting out this election. “What we stand for is on the line here, and what we have before us is Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is ready to deliver that Texas promise up to the U.S. government,” said Spears, a longtime GOP activist before she was elected to City Council last year. “So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sit out? Are you going to say ‘Ah, it’s fine’? Yell at the TV, at Fox News, and be upset? No, you’re going to get out there. You’re going to vote.” Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), state Rep. Mark Dorazio (R-San Antonio), state Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) and TX23 congressional candidate Brandon Herrera were also in attendance.

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Communities In Schools of Houston offers guidance to help families start the school year strong

Communities In Schools (CIS) of Houston, a leading nonprofit supporting students and families across multiple Houston-area school districts, encourages parents and guardians to help students begin the 2026–2027 school year with healthy routines that support academic success. Serving students from Pre-K through Alumni, CIS provides comprehensive services that help young people overcome barriers and thrive in school and life. CIS places at least one full-time CIS Student Support Manager (SSM) on each partner campus to deliver direct services and provide students and families with tailored referrals to community partners. SSMs provide students and families in need with services including academic support, supportive guidance and mental health counseling, health and social services, and college and career readiness resources.

“With the new school year beginning, our campus-based professionals, which could include licensed mental health staff, are ready to help students and families navigate challenges, build resilience, and take advantage of opportunities for success,” says Shubhra Endley, Director of Mental Health & Wellness for Communities In Schools of Houston. “The first few weeks of school are critical.” “Students who miss even a few days early on are more likely to become chronically absent and fall behind academically,” Endley continues. “We want families to have the tools and support they need to start the year strong.”

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Don Nelson, influential Dallas Mavericks coach & basketball pioneer, has died

The assignment was to knock on the door, and interview Dallas Mavericks head coach Don Nelson 90 minutes before tipoff inside Reunion Arena. Having never covered an NBA game, or practice, I did not allow the boss to know the level of terror I felt because, in January 2000, this was an opportunity you take, no matter how scary. Inside a small room, Nelson was sitting in a chair, smoking a cigar, Red Auerbach style. Don Nelson was a huge man, and unaware of how intimidating this was to a young, naive reporter. He didn’t care. We were the only two in the room, and this five-minute interview happened a week or so after a young tech guy named Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks; Nelson had no idea of what was coming with Cuban, a point he offered with his dry wit that caught me off guard.

“I have two years left on my contract as general manager,” he said, “whatever that means.” It didn’t matter who you were, Nelson wore who he was, his thoughts and feelings, like a pair of comfortable jeans. He believed in himself, and what he thought. We should all be so lucky. Like anyone who was ahead of his time, his thoughts and vision are revered now. Longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein reported on Sunday that Nelson has died. His family issued the following statement to Stein: “On Sunday morning our beloved husband, dad, grandfather and great-grandfather Don Nelson peacefully went to be with the Lord, surrounded by his loving family. Throughout his last week, friends and family encircled him with love, sharing the blessing of his friendship and revisiting treasured memories.”

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Longtime Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert dies at age 84

Longtime Republican Fort Bend County Judge Robert E. “Bob” Hebert has died at the age of 84 following a brief illness. Hebert assumed office in 2003 and led the county through what county officials called "an extraordinary period of growth and change" up through Hurricane Harvey in 2017. After serving as county judge for 15 years, Hebert lost his re-election in 2018 to then-Democrat KP George. The former judge is being remembered for his years of leadership, public service and generosity in the community, as an outpouring of tributes from local nonprofit organizations and county officials has been released.

"I always appreciated Judge Hebert's wisdom, his integrity and the thoughtful leadership he provided through the years," Republican Fort Bend County Commissioner Vincent Morales said in an Aug. 6 social media post. "He carried himself with dignity, treated others with respect and understood that public service is ultimately about leaving a community stronger than you found it." For one of Fort Bend County's longtime Democratic commissioners, Hebert represents a different era of county politics — one they remember as more measured and less defined by partisan conflict. He’s described as someone who knew how to work within the role of county judge and balance competing interests without allowing political differences to overshadow the county’s work. Democratic Commissioner Grady Prestage served alongside Hebert on commissioners court during the former judge's entire time in office and believed Hebert genuinely wanted to do what was best for Fort Bend County.

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Mavericks call Valley View arena deal called 'purely exploratory'

New legal documents raise further questions about the prospects of the Dallas Mavericks' proposed new arena and entertainment district on the site of the former Valley View mall. Documents obtained by Dallas Business Journal indicate the NBA team remains non-committal. In recent court filings, attorneys for the Mavericks described an agreement to buy land at Valley View as "purely exploratory." The legal filings emerged as part of an ongoing dispute between the team's current majority owners, the family of Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont, and minority owner Mark Cuban. Cuban argues he's being frozen out of "business opportunities" related to the team’s planned Valley View arena development and filed a pre-lawsuit petition last month.

In an Aug. 6 response, James Bookhout, who is serving as legal counsel for a Mavericks entity called Arena Development Intermediate LLC, or ADI, called the Valley View deal "purely exploratory" and said "there is no business opportunity to present" to Cuban given "uncertainty" over who will operate the new arena. He states Cuban's team has been made aware of this. Cuban, who maintains 27% minority ownership in the team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest filings. However, the legal dust-up appears to be heading toward arbitration. Judge Bill Whitehill of the Texas Business Court in an Aug. 6 filing sided with ADI's request to seek arbitration, rather than a full-blown lawsuit, in the case. Whitehill also set an Aug. 14 hearing on a petition Cuban originally filed in the 134th District Court in Dallas County. ADI successfully requested the hearing be moved from Dallas County to the Texas Business Court.

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Austin's pursuit of an NHL team is about to ramp up

Austin's impending pursuit of a National Hockey League team remains at "ground zero," stakeholders said, but there are at least signs that it's about to soon ramp up. About two months after NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman made the surprise revelation that the league signed an exclusive term sheet with the Friedkin Family and Houston-based Pursuit Sports to consider Houston and Austin for a new franchise, those involved maintained the latter is not just a throw-in to sweeten a deal with the franchise owner's hometown. That's because in recent weeks, representatives from Pursuit Sports have started initial conversations with local officials. Additionally, sources said Pursuit Sports has inked a local office lease, although it remains unclear where. Its CEO, David Beeston, is said to be soon spending extended time in Austin.

"I'm really pleased that the Friedkin group and Pursuit Sports are giving us a shot in this," Visit Austin CEO Tom Noonan said, adding the group had an initial call with Beeston. Noonan's team offered to serve as a connector as they roll out the welcome mat to court the city's first big four sports franchise. Representatives for Pursuit Sports and the NHL declined to comment. But Bettman, back during a June press conference, indicated the league has been working with the company for the better part of two years about Houston as an expansion opportunity. It was the realization a team would need a new arena that brought Austin also into the mix. Over the next six months, both the Houston and Austin areas will be evaluated for what Bettman has billed as a $3.5 billion project cost between an expansion fee and a new arena. A new Texas franchise would serve as the NHL's 33rd team. Public incentives are almost assuredly expected to be part of the discussion. The league's governing board will have the final say.

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Travis County taking its time on critical Dog's Head vote

Travis County officials plan to take their time considering whether the county should participate in a taxing plan that would support Endeavor Real Estate Group's development of the massive Dog’s Head area. The Dog’s Head is a 2,645-acre site along the Colorado River near Austin’s airport. The site is called the Dog’s Head because the shape of the Colorado River makes it look like a dog’s head from an aerial view. Most of the Dog’s Head site has been used for mining and industrial purposes. Endeavor has pitched the Dog’s Head as a massive development opportunity for Austin that could eventually hold millions of square feet of commercial real estate and over 12,000 residential units. But for Endeavor’s vision of the Dog’s Head to become a reality, the site needs an estimated $5.6 billion worth of infrastructure work.

That's why Endeavor is seeking for both the city of Austin and Travis County to participate in a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ. A TIRZ is a funding mechanism that local governments can use to pay for infrastructure and create a dedicated fund for improvement projects in a certain area. It works by creating a baseline of taxable value for an area of land, and increases in the land’s taxable value are put into a TIRZ fund for that area. The Austin City Council in July approved the city’s participation in the Dog’s Head TIRZ. The Travis County Commissioners Court is in no rush to vote on the Dog’s Head TIRZ. Travis County Judge Andy Brown told the Austin Business Journal that no decision has been made on when Commissioners could vote on participating in the Dog’s Head TIRZ. “I'd like to see the proposal come before the Commissioners Court when it's ready for thoughtful consideration and we have the information needed to determine whether it reflects Travis County's values,” Brown said in an emailed statement. “My focus is on getting it right, not on meeting a specific timeline."

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TACA annual meeting highlights Texas growth

The Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association (TACA) drew more than 600 attendees to its 72nd Annual Meeting at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa. TACA logo This year’s event, themed “Building the Community,” set records for attendance (600-plus), exhibitors (26), funds raised (more than $200,000) and more. Featured at the meeting were economic and legislative updates, leadership development, industry recognition programs, charitable initiatives and networking opportunities to support the continued growth of Texas’s construction materials industry.

“Every road, school, hospital, home and business begins with the materials our members produce,” says Andrew Pinkerton, president and CEO of TACA. “As Texas continues to grow, our industry remains committed to providing the essential building materials that support strong communities, create jobs and improve quality of life for Texans. The TACA Annual Meeting is a reminder that what we build goes far beyond infrastructure. Our member companies help build the communities where families live, work and thrive – not just today, but for generations to come.” The meeting opened with a community service project led by TACA’s Emerging Leaders Academy participants. More than 100 volunteers assembled 2,000 backpacks for students in need, benefiting charitable organizations serving communities in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. The general session featured updates on association initiatives, legislative and regulatory developments and presentations from nationally recognized speakers addressing the economic, technological and leadership challenges shaping the future of the industry. Featured economist Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group, discussed economic trends affecting the construction materials sector, including inflation, tariffs and workforce challenges. Despite ongoing uncertainties, Basu forecasts continued growth for Texas, citing the state’s strong economic fundamentals and population expansion. “Let’s empower the doers,” Basu says. “That’s one of the reasons the Texas economy remains such a powerful engine of growth. Texas is a doer state.”

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Fort Worth ISD says it will start school year with zero teacher vacancies

Fort Worth ISD says it will begin the 2026-27 school year with no teacher vacancies, marking a significant turnaround for a district that faced major staffing concerns earlier this year. The district announced the milestone Sunday, one day before students are scheduled to return to class Monday, Aug. 10. "A milestone worth celebrating! Fort Worth ISD is opening the 2026-27 school year with 0 teacher vacancies," the district said in a social media post. The announcement comes after a months-long push to fill positions following more than 1,000 staff departures ahead of the new school year. As recently as July 23, Fort Worth ISD reported it still had 20 classroom teacher vacancies remaining with fewer than three weeks before the first day of school.

The district said Sunday that historically it has begun the school year with more than 200 teacher vacancies. "This year, every student will have a teacher on day one," the district said. Fort Worth ISD credited school principals, its talent management team and other district employees with filling the remaining positions. The district has spent months recruiting educators, including holding hiring fairs throughout the summer. In April, Fort Worth ISD also announced an automatic 5% raise for classroom teachers as part of its efforts to recruit and retain educators. Although Fort Worth ISD says it has filled its teacher vacancies, the district continues to advertise other employment opportunities, including positions in special education and other areas. The district called reaching zero teacher vacancies the result of "teamwork, urgency, and commitment" from employees across Fort Worth ISD.

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National Stories

The ‘jury duty’ scam that cost this family $25,000

The sheriff’s deputy chatted breezily over the phone about his three young daughters as Kimberly Fudge drove through gritty streets and lush Florida byways on a grim errand: gathering thousands of dollars in bail to avoid arrest for missing jury duty. When Fudge, 38, a manager in the finance department of a government contractor, reached the drop-off point, she balked. It was a convenience store with abandoned gas pumps and a cryptocurrency machine inside. She was told to scan a QR code and feed the machine $4,000 in cash. She walked back to her car and began to voice doubts that had been building: “Are you sure this is where I’m supposed to post the bail?” The officer’s friendly demeanor vanished. His voice rose. He reminded her that he was tracking her location—and that deputies were two blocks away, ready to bring her in.

She went back inside and made the deposit. It was the first of many that day. A team of at least five scammers, playing different roles with dead-perfect Florida accents, would keep her on the phone for nearly 10 hours and talk her into handing over $25,000. “They had me scared,” Fudge said. They could read her texts and see her internet searches. “They knew my Social Security number. They knew how much I had in my bank account. They had every single thing about me.” Americans are awash in scams: phony UPS texts, AI-generated voices of loved ones in trouble, spoofed emails tricking city governments. People reported losing $3.5 billion to impostor scams in 2025, nearly triple 2020’s level, the Federal Trade Commission said in a June report. Some swindles originate overseas, run by sophisticated criminal syndicates. “Some of them have HR departments and performance reviews,” said Ben Bernstein, a cybersecurity expert at Huntress. But increasingly, they come from closer to home. In January, the Justice Department announced the conviction of two Georgia inmates who ran scams on stolen cellphones from behind bars. The jury-duty shakedown has surged in the Tampa area. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office alone has received 44 reports of the scam so far this year, up from 25 for all of last year, said Sgt. Andrew Miller, head of the economic-crimes unit.

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Surprises and scandals scramble the battle for Congress

The final stretch of primary season has scrambled the battle for Congress, as scandals, insurgent victories and voters’ rejection of party leaders’ preferred candidates reshape a small but critical set of races. Democrats’ path to a Senate majority narrowed with the triumph of progressive insurgent Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, whom polls show faring worse against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R) than his primary rival. Republicans suffered their own setbacks as a Trump-endorsed congressional candidate in Michigan lost to a rival who had suspended his campaign, while misconduct allegations drove a vulnerable North Carolina incumbent from the race. Republicans are eager to face several Democrats they believe are too far left for their districts, while Democrats see new openings where GOP candidates have suffered from controversies. With control of Congress potentially turning on a handful of seats, both parties are betting individual candidates will matter as much as the political terrain — though operatives’ judgments about electability often prove wrong.

“It’s really hard to tell you what the board’s going to be like,” said Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta, noting that antiestablishment fervor among grassroots organizers has made prognosticating harder for consultants and pollsters, and scandals are adding more volatility. For Trump, the stakes include the fate of his policy agenda for the rest of his term, as well as burdensome oversight and possibly a third impeachment. But he has taken a hands-off approach to the midterms, frustrating some Republicans who want him to help mobilize his supporters and dip into his super PAC’s $400 million war chest. “I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute, you don’t understand — I won, I’m not campaigning,’” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News released Friday. “If I don’t run, will those people go out and vote? … Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans.” To win the Senate, Democrats need to defend their seats in Michigan and Georgia, pick up North Carolina and Maine, plus win in two more states that Trump won by more than 10 points in 2024 — a tall order even in a year expected to favor them. The latest polls show how individual candidates can defy a state’s typical partisan makeup. Democrats are currently leading in red states like Ohio, Iowa and Texas by more than in left-leaning Michigan or Maine. Without Michigan, Democrats would have to win in a third state that Trump won by at least 10 points in 2024. Polls showed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan), who was endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), faring at least slightly better against Rogers than El-Sayed. But he edged her out in Tuesday’s primary by about one percentage point.

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Powerball jackpot climbs to $905 million ahead of tonight’s drawing, the largest of the year

The Powerball jackpot is at an estimated $905 million ahead of tonight’s drawing after there were no big winners in Saturday night’s drawing. Tonight’s drawing will be the 43rd in a row in search of a winner, and its prize ranks as the eighth-largest jackpot in Powerball history, according to the Multi State Lottery Association, which administers the game. If a player matches all five white balls and the red Powerball tonight, they can choose between an annuitized prize estimated at $905 million, paid out over 30 years, or a lump sum payment estimated at $391.9 million. Saturday night’s winning numbers were 5, 9, 35, 54, and 63, and the red Powerball was 7. There was a Power Play multiplier of 3.

Although there were no jackpot winners on Saturday, tickets sold in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and New York matched all five white balls to win $1 million each, lottery officials said. Another ticket, sold in Texas, matched all five white balls and included the Power Play option, winning $2 million. Nobody has won the grand prize in more than three months, since two players in Florida and Texas split a $20 million prize on May 2. The odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are approximately 1 in 292.2 million. They are considerably more favorable for smaller cash prizes, with a 1 in 24.9 chance. Powerball drawings are held every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET.

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Trump Crypto took $100 million from a businessman with red flags

During the World Cup soccer final in New Jersey last month, Zach Witkoff, co-founder of President Trump’s cryptocurrency company, took in the action from a luxury suite. Joining him was a man who had made the president, and all the company’s co-founders, much richer. Two years earlier, the man, Guren “Bobby” Zhou, was a failed hardwood flooring retailer in Britain who had come under investigation there for money laundering and presided over the collapse of a small crypto start-up. Then seemingly out of nowhere, he became one of the biggest buyers of tokens from Mr. Trump’s company, World Liberty Financial, dropping a total of $100 million through a new firm called Aqua 1. He kept quiet about it for months, other than speaking briefly as “Mr. Bobby” from Aqua 1 during a little-noticed audio stream on X.

“We’re very proud to be a major player in the World Liberty, which is Trump’s family’s crypto venture,” he said. Under World Liberty policy, as much as $75 million of that money was distributed to a company controlled by the president and his three sons. The money also benefited the family of Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special peace envoy and the father of Zach Witkoff. In any prior era, a windfall for the president of that size from a foreigner with no public signs of access to that level of wealth would have certainly gone against norms and might have spawned a congressional investigation. Instead, the curious case of Mr. Zhou illustrates the ease with which buyers with unknown backgrounds and motivations can use the anonymity of cryptocurrency to shower Mr. Trump with money. The president’s recent financial disclosure form shows that he collected $1.4 billion from his crypto businesses last year, the majority of it from anonymous sources. It is not clear how closely World Liberty scrutinized Mr. Zhou’s past, but the money laundering investigation in England was publicly available information, as were portions of Mr. Zhou’s troubled business history.

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Democrats’ new plan to win in November: Just be normal

Democrats are increasingly convinced that “double haters” — voters disappointed with both President Donald Trump and the Democratic Party — will make or break their chance at winning a House majority in November. All it’ll take to win this voting group over, Democrats think, is one very normal trick. In battleground districts across the country, Democratic candidates are attempting to prove that they are just like the average, everyday Americans they hope to represent. Their bet is that the promise of normalcy is enough to win over skeptical voters. It’s an effort that sits at the center of the party’s planned communication effort in the coming months, especially in the right-leaning seats its candidates need to win for a majority next year.

“What this really means is, are you putting your head down and working?” said Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan. “Are you talking about things that really matter and using language that normal people use, not something from inside the beltway?” McDonald Rivet, who won her Trump-supporting district with relative ease in 2024, is considered the template for the kind of candidate Democrats hope they recruited this year, a list that includes Rebecca Bennett in New Jersey, Zach Dembo in Kentucky and Chaz Molder in Tennessee. In interviews, they described a formula for coming across as normal that included focusing on economic pressures instead of Trump’s actions and avoiding statements and positions more aligned with liberal activists than the larger body politic. “The most important communication aspect of this is, ‘Hey, I’m a normal human being who’s going to focus on the economy,’” said one Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about party strategy. “‘I’m not a crazy Democrat.’”

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Trump names Will Scharf as White House counsel

Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, will become White House ?counsel and assistant to ?the president effective September 1, ?U.S. President Donald Trump ?said on Sunday. Scharf will become the ?White House's top lawyer after overseeing the administrative work of the ?Oval Office in his current ?role. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. He also led the National Capital ?Planning ?Commission, which approved the president's construction of the White House ballroom. Trump said David Warrington, the ?current ?White House ?counsel, is going to the private sector. ?Warrington formerly served as ?a ?personal counsel and a lawyer for Trump's 2024 campaign.

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Hawaii Democratic incumbent fends off left-wing challenger in congressional primary

U.S. Representative Ed Case easily fended off a Democratic primary challenge from ?a progressive rival for one of Hawaii's congressional ?seats, election results showed late Saturday. Case's victory over Jarrett Keohokalole, 43, marks ?the latest front of the battle roiling U.S. Democratic politics in which seasoned lawmakers have been pitted against more progressive newcomers. Case, 73, won 57% of the votes in his ?district, compared with Keohokalole's ?34%, official results showed. Neither could be reached immediately for comment on Sunday. Three others had ?also sought the Democratic nomination for the Honolulu-based district that is seen as safely Democratic.

Case, widely seen as a moderate, ?has held ?the seat since 2019, ?and also served in the ?House between 2002 and 2007. He holds a senior position on a key spending committee and has argued Hawaii will attract fewer federal dollars if he is not reelected. Keohokalole highlighted Case's campaign donations from businesses to argue he ?has lost touch with voters. Case's ?win stands out from a recent ?surge for left-wing candidates ?in states including Colorado, Kentucky and New ?York. In Hawaii's other congressional district, ?U.S. Representative Jill ?Tokuda easily won her Democratic primary with 84% of the vote. Hawaii Governor Josh Green, who has led the ?state since ?2022, also defeated several challengers for the Democratic nomination.

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Trump says there was ‘some contractor error’ during Reflecting Pool renovation

President Trump on Sunday said there was “some contractor error” with the renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool while still accusing a former Olympian canoeist of vandalizing the Washington, D.C., landmark despite charges against the athlete being dropped. “There was substantial damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We are working on the Pool, and it will reopen shortly. As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential.”

Trump claimed that a National Park Service “career employee, a highly credible witness,” saw Olympian David Hearn “in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by ‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating.” He added that this employee’s testimony was provided to U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. The president concluded his post by saying that security cameras “have been, and are being, installed.” The remarks went up on Truth Social the day after Trump posted photos of alleged vandalism amid a push for Pirro to revisit the decision to drop the charges against multiple people also accused of vandalizing the pool. This other post on Truth Social included two photos of what appeared to be graffiti and some peeling of the coating of the pool. Both photos were labeled with the word “Vandalism.” Trump is pushing for the Justice Department to backtrack on its move to drop criminal charges against people accused of damaging the site. On Friday, the president pressed for Pirro to revisit “her hastily made decision.”

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Lead Stories

Trump rebukes Greg Abbott’s Texas data center crackdown: ‘Mistake’

President Donald Trump has criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to pause approvals for new data centers, calling the move a “mistake” as the state weighs concerns over the industry’s growing demands for electricity and water. The president made the comments in a nearly hourlong interview with Punchbowl News released Friday, just days after the Republican governor ordered a pause on approvals for data centers seeking connections to the Texas electric grid, as reported by The Texas Tribune. "I saw Texas the other day sort of is against data centers,” Trump said. “I think it’s a mistake. And I’m not taking positions, I just think it’s a mistake, because there are other communities that want it. When a community wants it, it means a lot of money is going to come into that community.”

He later described data centers as “tremendously important for the economics,” adding that the industry “could be bigger than oil” for Texas. Data centers have become a growing source of concern in communities across the country. Facilities supporting cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) require large amounts of electricity and often significant quantities of water for cooling. Critics have also raised concerns about noise, pressure on power grids, rising electricity costs, and the environmental impacts associated with meeting growing energy demand. Newsweek contacted Abbott on Saturday via email for comment. On Monday, Abbott announced that Texas would halt approvals for proposed data centers seeking connections to the state grid while regulators conduct a comprehensive audit. The review will examine developers’ expected electricity and water consumption, cooling systems, tax incentives, ownership and efforts to mitigate impacts on surrounding communities. Abbott said projects that fail to meet the state’s requirements should be denied connections to the grid. Abbott’s press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told Newsweek in an emailed statement on Friday that the governor’s pause was aimed at protecting Texas’ power grid and water supply amid surging demand.

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New Texas Amazon data center stokes worry it would be the most polluting power plant in the U.S.

Amazon is investing in a large-scale natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas, the company confirmed on Friday, a facility that could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States. Amazon and other tech giants are racing to build enough data centers to keep up with surging demand for artificial intelligence services, and to secure the electricity to power them. A company spokeswoman said in a statement that its planned data center, in Pecos County, would be “powered by new on-site generation that won’t raise electricity costs for Texas families.” The new gas-burning plant, if built to specifications, would be permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, regulatory records show, more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country.

Amazon has been struggling to meet its promise that it would effectively eliminate its planet-warming emissions by 2040 as part of the Climate Pledge, a voluntary agreement among companies that Amazon co-founded several years ago. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas is the main driver of global warming, which is dangerously heating the planet. Amazon’s emissions have gone up each of the past several years. And the Seattle-based tech giant has acknowledged that rising emissions from A.I. data centers could get in the way of its climate goals. “The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge,” said Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokeswoman. Still, “our commitment hasn’t changed,” she said. The Texas project seemed to epitomize the difficulty in meeting the goal. Artificial intelligence data centers require immense amounts of energy to run the trillions of calculations needed to create A.I. systems and services. And the scale and urgency of their energy demands is fast exhausting the electricity-generating capacity of the nation’s power grid.

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Hugging Face hack marks start of dangerous AI cyber era and many firms 'don't even know it'

Cybersecurity executives are ready to close the book on the now-infamous Hugging Face artificial intelligence hacking incident and start talking solutions. “We need to chill the hype a little bit,” said Lior Div, CEO and cofounder of agentic security startup 7AI. “Can AI find vulnerabilities fast? The answer is yes. We’ve already proven it.” Last month, AI agents operating with OpenAI cyber models broke out of a training environment to hack Hugging Face, an open-source AI platform developers use to collaborate, test and share tools. The breach sent shockwaves across tech and signaled that the moment cybersecurity experts had warned about since Anthropic’s Mythos debut had finally arrived.

Over the last four months, cybersecurity vendors have faced mounting pressure to deliver security stacks that can outpace adversaries as hackers leverage agentic AI to expose vulnerabilities and condense attacks into seconds and minutes. While the Hugging Face hack sparked widespread debate over AI accountability, it also challenged previous notions about the limits of AI for defenders. For instance, AI agents took matters into their own hands and went to extreme lengths to accomplish their goal. As the industry grapples with the new agentic cyber reality, leaders agree that Hugging Face deserves the attention, but these incidents are unavoidable and it’s time to act. “What we’re talking about is whether we can govern and secure the capability, and that’s the reality that everybody’s waking up to today,” said CrowdStrike president Mike Sentonas. At the annual Black Hat cybersecurity conference this week, OpenAI revealed that agents created an internal message board to share vulnerabilities and exploits in the weeks leading up to the Hugging Face attack. The autonomous agents then delegated tasks for the attack to reach the Internet and complete an evaluation. Even after OpenAI discovered and stopped the planned attack, the agents were able to recreate their work and succeed.

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Corpus Christi Mayor suspended 30 days, reprimanded for conduct ‘beneath’ office

Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette Guajardo has been suspended from office for 30 days and formally reprimanded following a four-day hearing over a petition seeking her removal. The council's decision Friday does not remove Guajardo from office. Instead, she will serve a 30-day suspension, with the penalties running concurrently, and receive a formal reprimand for conduct described as beneath the dignity of the mayor's office. During a special City Council meeting Friday, the council formally voted to reprimand Guajardo and suspend her from office for 30 days. Under Article II, Section 5 of the Corpus Christi City Charter, District 4 Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Kaylynn Paxson will assume the responsibilities of the mayor during the suspension.

The ruling comes after days of testimony and deliberation surrounding the petition against Guajardo. The city says municipal services, emergency operations and daily city business will continue without interruption during the suspension. 3NEWS reporter Natalia Osuna was at City Hall throughout the hearing and spoke with council members following the final decision. During the fourth and final day, a key issue was whether council members could serve as both judges and witnesses in the proceedings. Mayor Guajardo’s attorney, John Flood, attempted to call Councilmember Sylvia Campos and Councilmember Gil Hernandez to the witness stand, but the petitioners’ attorney objected. The council sustained the objection, and neither council member testified. Hernandez said he believed the evidence presented during the hearing was enough to support the charges against Guajardo. “I tried to keep an open mind until I saw it and was able to hear it, and there was no doubt in my mind that she was guilty and all these charges, and there was no other way to see it for me,” Hernandez said. Campos said council members had differing opinions on whether the evidence warranted removal. “Some council members felt that there was enough for removal, others didn't,” Campos said. “Ultimately, I think it is what was ultimately decided — a 30-day suspension and a reprimand.”

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Hunter Biden says Joe Biden’s cancer has spread further and is ‘very painful’

Former President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer has spread further, his son Hunter Biden said in a BBC interview, offering a stark update on the 83-year-old’s health. “It’s really, really hard, and it’s really sad to watch... I wish he would complain more, because it’s not good,” Hunter Biden said in the interview. “The cancer has spread, is metastasized into his bones and further. It’s very painful. It’s very debilitating in many respects, but he’s still out there. He’s still doing his thing... he so believes in this country.” Joe Biden was diagnosed in May 2025 with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The former president later underwent hormone treatment and a course of radiation therapy.

In the wide-ranging BBC interview, Hunter Biden also discussed his father’s decision to pardon him in the final weeks of his presidency, saying he remains deeply grateful for the move. “I am the most privileged person, as it relates to that, that there could possibly be,” Hunter Biden said. “I was one of one, and I’m eternally grateful for it.” Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon to his son in December 2024, reversing earlier pledges that he would not use his presidential powers to intervene in Hunter Biden’s federal criminal cases. The pardon covered his convictions on federal gun and tax charges.

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State Stories

Poll: Hinojosa leads Abbott in Congressional District 15

The Democratic Party nominee for governor of Texas, Gina Hinojosa, is more favorable than Gov. Greg Abbott in Congressional District 15, according to a new opinion poll. The House Majority PAC poll gives Hinojosa a 52 percent to 47 percent lead over he general election opponent. President Trump won the district by 15 points in 2024. Hinojosa, a Rio Grande Valley native, said the poll findings show a powerful trend among Latino voters supporting her campaign. She noted that a Fox News poll showed her trailing Abbott by just one point across the whole state. That is within the margin of error.

“Our campaign is getting stronger by the day because my plan is simple: save public schools and put money in your pocket by ending the Greg Abbott Corruption Tax,” Hinojosa told the Rio Grande Guardian. “For 12 years, working Texans have suffered from Abbott’s record of putting his billionaire donors before working Texans: $1 billion drained from public schools, skyrocketing costs, and data centers siphoning our resources after getting the most generous tax dollar giveaway in the country. As I travel the state, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats are taking a stand to rebuild the American Dream in Texas with an economy that works for the people, not the billionaires.” Hinojosa was in Laredo recently to unveil her economic platform. The plan includes issuing all Texas households “$1,500 Corruption Tax Refund” checks to provide relief for working families and “account for the cost of Greg Abbott’s corruption.” Congressional District 15 includes parts of Hidalgo and Aransas counties, alongside the full counties of Bee, Brooks, DeWitt, Goliad, Gonzales, Jim Wells, and Lavaca, plus portions of Regugio and San Patricio counties.

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When a Texas school police officer got ‘riled up’ over a defiant teen

Officer Marc Laue was seething. Minutes earlier, while patrolling the hallways of Judson High School in Converse, Texas, he had confronted a 15-year-old accused of pushing an assistant principal. The teenager, Jeremiah Johnson, cursed at the officer and walked away. Officer Laue grabbed repeatedly at Jeremiah’s arms and backpack, body camera footage of the encounter shows. When the boy pushed away, the officer wrapped his arms around him and took him to the floor. Now Jeremiah was handcuffed in the school’s cramped police office. As another officer tried to lower Jeremiah into a chair, Officer Laue rammed his fists into the boy’s belly. “Sit the fuck down!” Officer Laue shouted.

Since 2022, when a gunman killed 21 people at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas has spent billions of dollars installing police officers at public schools. Under state law, officers are supposed to stay out of “routine student discipline.” But over the past few years, they have used physical force in thousands of cases, including to stop seemingly minor misbehavior. The incident at Judson High offers an extraordinary glimpse into a confrontation gone wrong. What makes it so unusual is that the student and the officer, as well as a teacher, discussed it with a reporter. The 33-minute episode, from November 2023, was also captured on body camera footage, which was reviewed by The New York Times and The San Antonio Express-News. The case underscores a concern that has been raised by parents and advocates since schools began stationing law enforcement on their campuses: that officers might clash with vulnerable students, derailing their lives. Ian Adams, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina who reviewed the footage for The Times and The Express-News, called it “horrific.” The way Officer Laue shoved his fists into Jeremiah, Mr. Adams said, went beyond the bounds of “normal policing.”

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Can a Tejano star restore Dems’ power in South Texas?

Bobby Pulido descended a staircase bedecked in flowers to face the quinceañara in her shimmering blue ball gown. Her magnificent hoop skirt swayed as the Tejano star-turned-South Texas Democratic congressional candidate launched into a rendition of “Hermoso Cariño.” It was Pulido’s second quince of four that night, part of a marathon run of birthdays, weddings, and even baptisms that have become the cornerstone of his campaign trail strategy. He finished with his hit song “Desvelado,” led the birthday girl by the hand around the dance floor, and gifted her a pink “Make Quinceañaras Great Again” hat. After 30 years of performing across the United States and Mexico, the two-time Latin Grammy winner officially announced in September 2025 his bid to run for the 15th Congressional District, a newly remodeled majority-Latino South Texas district that’s anchored in McAllen and stretches north all the way to New Braunfels outside San Antonio. Republican Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz flipped that then-open seat back in 2022 and held onto it in 2024 despite it being one of Dems’ top targets in the state.

The conservative Blue Dog Democrats PAC poured nearly $1 million into Pulido’s primary race, betting that the strength of his name recognition, cultural influence, and deep roots throughout the Rio Grande Valley would help to win back the seat after a Trump-fueled wave among Hispanic voters in 2024. In March, he easily defeated the more progressive yet little-known Ada Cuellar, an emergency physician with a law degree who largely self-funded her bid. His slogan, “Not team red. Not team blue. Team you,” anchors Pulido as the Democrats’ familiar, moderate champion to reclaim the 15th from De La Cruz. He’s determined to podcast, sing, and dance his way to Congress, brushing off every scandal that seeks to poison his good-vibes campaign. De La Cruz is the first Republican and Latina to represent the district, thanks to GOP gerrymandering that set up her successful run in 2022 as the 15th was redrawn to be much redder, prompting the incumbent Democrat Vicente Gonzalez to move to a neighboring district. But, in Texas Republicans’ bid to deliver five more House seats to Trump in yet another round of redistricting last year, the district has since been redrawn yet again, putting her on relatively more uncertain ground. “Eighty percent of that district she hasn’t represented in the last two two election cycles. They really don’t know her,” said Jon Taylor, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “She’s as much of a challenger—a non-incumbent—as an incumbent.”

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Mary Ellen Klas: These Texas builders backed Trump. They’ve had enough

(Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.) President Donald Trump has always liked to boast about the loyalty of his voters. But in South Texas, where the construction industry is being battered by immigration raids, industry leaders are starting to defect from the Republican Party. It’s a remarkable shift in political allegiance in a region that Trump dominated in 2024. It should be a flashing red light for the GOP, said long-time Republican Massey Villarreal, president and CEO of Houston-based consulting firm Precision Task Group. He recalled that when immigrants were surging across the border during the Biden administration, “You would see these ‘Trump trains’ in South Texas with half a mile of trucks with Trump flags on them. Today, there’s the same thing, but the flag is now ‘F-- Trump,’” he told me. Trump’s approval in Texas is at an all-time low, at 43%, according to the Texas Politics Project, with 52% of the state voters unhappy with this performance.

The anger at the president and his policies started welling up in Texas border towns last year, after masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began detaining workers at construction sites. In December, Mario Guerrero, executive director of the South Texas Builders Association, called a meeting of local businesses to air their concerns. He also erected a chain-link fence around his company’s construction site because, he told NBC News, federal agents told him if the general public couldn’t enter the site, they wouldn’t either. But in the months that followed, ICE raids at construction sites intensified. By July, workers were being apprehended so often that crews stopped showing up for work. Then, early one morning in Houston, as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 35-year Houston resident, was picking up his building crew, masked ICE agents in an unmarked car approached him from behind. Salgado stopped his van. An ICE officer approached on the passenger side and shot him. ICE called it “active self-defense,” but witnesses disputed that claim. Many questions remain unanswered. But the incident, along with the detention of a Catholic nun who was apprehended while walking to church in McAllen in June, prompted South Texas to turn its anger into activism.

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Newly appointed U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz touts Trump policies in Valley visit

Less than a month after being sworn in as the chief federal law enforcement officer for the Southern District of Texas, Aaron Reitz was in the Rio Grande Valley visiting two of the seven court divisions in his jurisdiction. Following a two-day visit to the Brownsville Division earlier this week, Reitz paid a visit to the McAllen Division at Bentsen Tower. He said that he didn’t frequent the Rio Grande Valley until he started working in state government first as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s deputy attorney general for Legal Strategy from 2020 to 2023. Those visits became more frequent when he worked as Senator Ted Cruz’s chief of staff.

Since being appointed, Reitz said that he anticipates visiting the area at least once a month. “Not only do we have a lot of our lawyers down here, but just the cases that are coming out of this region — the volume is extreme,” Reitz said Wednesday during a sitdown interview with MyRGV.com. “Just the issues that are of a priority to this administration are a lot. Whether it’s national security, cartels, border security, illegal immigration, the whole nine yards, you can find a mix of all of those issues right here in the Valley. So I expect I’ll be here quite a bit.” Reitz is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. While there, he was president of the Texas Federalist Society as well as editor in chief of the Texas Review of Law & Politics. Prior to law school, Reitz served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps which included tours in Afghanistan. Before being sworn in, Reitz had recently sought the Republican nomination for Texas Attorney General — earning the endorsement from the former Texas AG, but coming up short during the March 3 primary election.

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Harlingen commission can’t void data center water contract, attorney says

The city commission does not have authority to nullify a WaterWorks agreement potentially providing 4.7 million gallons a day of sewer water, while offering potable water as a backup, to a proposed 1,800-acre data center just outside of the city limits, City Attorney Mark Sossi told commissioners. In a meeting, commissioners voted to deny a motion requesting commissioners vote to nullify the September 2025 agreement with RGV Property Group, with Commissioners Frank Morales and Delia Cavazos-Gamez casting dissenting votes.

The agreement is part of a project of Eneus Energy, a company that has proposed the development of a 1,780-acre data center just outside the Harlingen city limits near Valley International Airport. In an interview, Sossi, noting the WaterWorks board stands as a semi-autonomous board, said the city commission’s authority is limited to setting water rates and approving wholesale water contracts, such as agreements supplying water to the cities of Palm Valley, Primera and Combes. Meanwhile, the WaterWorks agreement is considered a commercial contract that would basically sell treated sewer water while offering potable water as a backup, he said. During a meeting Wednesday, City Commissioner Michael Mezmar noted Gov. Greg Abbott this week directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to conduct comprehensive audits before the state allows data center projects to move forward.

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Crosby ISD ends partnership with East Harris County nonprofit, Muslim humanitarian agency

On July 31, Crosby ISD posted a statement on Facebook announcing the termination of its partnership with the East Harris County Empowerment Council. The statement was published the day before the district's annual back-to-school bash, an event in which the council had helped students and parents receive school supplies and interact with local businesses ahead of the new school year. The council had also donated funds, food and student support to Crosby ISD in some capacity since 2008.

The district's statement also said that the council's partner organization, Islamic Relief USA, would no longer be allowed to donate or volunteer at the event. According to the council's CEO Terence Narcisse, the two organizations began working together in 2021, providing aid after the Texas winter storm. "They provided around $15,000 in gift cards to East Harris County families that were impacted by the storm to help replace groceries and different things like that," Narcisse said. "Since that time, they have given us cash grants, in-kind supplies, essential supplies and support, food boxes, and a variety of types of support." Narcisse said the council works with a variety of faith-based organizations, and that its relationship with Islamic Relief USA is a strictly formal partnership. "We don't look at this relationship in a particular light," he added. "We see it as no different than if the Catholic Diocese of [Galveston-Houston] wanted to give us a grand."

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Judge orders Trump administration to pay $765,000 owed to Estrella del Paso

The Trump administration by Friday must pay millions of dollars to Estrella del Paso and other legal aid organizations that represent unaccompanied migrant children, a federal judge ordered Thursday. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguín of Oakland, California, ordered the government to release $65 million in payments it has withheld since December by 1 p.m. MDT Friday, including about $765,000 it owes Estrella del Paso. She also ordered the government to file by 2 p.m. MDT a declaration saying it has done so. “We are incredibly grateful for the court’s decision to order the payment of our outstanding invoices by noon PST tomorrow. The court saw clearly the government’s attempt to evade the injunction,” Melissa M. Lopez, executive director of Estrella del Paso, said in a statement to El Paso Matters.

The government had argued that the organizations weren’t properly filing invoices and providing information requested, while the legal aid organizations said the government was withholding payments in an attempt to force them to turn over confidential information about the migrant children they represent. Estrella del Paso — a ministry of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso — on Friday shut down its legal aid program for unaccompanied children, laying off 13 employees and cutting off services to any new minor clients, citing the lack of payments from the government and the expiration of its contract with the government. It is unclear whether Estrella or the other organizations that brought the lawsuit against the government will be able to continue providing legal services to the unaccompanied minor children. That’s because the government’s contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which subcontracts with the other providers, ended Friday. The legal aid organizations in court documents said that no bridge contract has been identified and no cases have been transferred to any other legal provider since Friday. About 24,000 cases are pending, according to court records. “Unfortunately, today’s decision does not restore the critical legal services to children that lapsed on July 31,” Lopez said. “We await the government’s update as to the steps being taken to ensure unaccompanied children receive the services they are legally entitled to receive.

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Toddler Annelise Camp in Texas brain-death dispute was taken off life support

A 2-year-old girl whose parents sued a Texas hospital to prevent it from testing if she was brain-dead after she drowned in a hotel pool on Memorial Day has been removed from life support and died, her family said this week. Annelise Camp “is now with Jesus,” her parents Johnston and Joy Camp said in a statement, weeks after a judge granted a temporary injunction in their favor. “While our hearts are broken, we trust in His perfect love, His faithfulness, and His promises.” The family had long said she still showed signs of life and wanted more time for her to recover and explore treatment. Breathing tubes were removed from Annelise on Monday, her grandfather Steve Camp posted online. “When this procedure was done, she passed very quickly.” A church service for Annelise is scheduled for next Wednesday in Houston. The Texas Right to Life organization supported the family’s case.

Annelise was discovered unconscious in the hotel pool and was brought to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Several days later, her parents petitioned the judge, requesting that she not be tested for brain death as advised by doctors. Court documents said Annelise’s heart was beating, although she was dependent on a ventilator, The Texas Tribune reported. The Camps also asked that Annelise be transferred to another hospital to explore other treatment options. However, Texas Children’s stated it wanted to conduct testing to determine next steps in her medical care and that it had no imminent plans to end care for Annelise. Texas Children’s officials said in court documents they had contacted medical facilities to ask about accepting Annelise, but 35 of the 36 have declined and the one pending hospital said it needed her to undergo brain death testing to consider transfer, the Tribune reported. The Camps eventually were able to transfer Annelise to a hospital in Louisiana. A state legislator, Rep. Steve Toth, told The New York Times that Annelise was brought back to Texas about a week ago and had been treated at Christus Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler. Messages seeking comment were sent to Roth and the hospital.

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How North Texas council meetings became heated political spectacles

In McKinney, the faces of those turned away Tuesday from City Hall by the fire marshal pressed against the glass doors of the council chambers, peering in to catch a glimpse. Listening to the council meeting on their phones, they banged on the glass in reaction to the more than four hours of public comment before the council unanimously approved the site plan for a proposed mosque just before midnight. The lobby, overflow room and parking lot had filled before Mayor Bill Cox hit the gavel. The item had been placed on the meeting’s consent agenda, which is typically for “non-controversial or housekeeping items required by law.” But the meeting became about much more than the placement of buildings, turning into a rowdy disagreement over American values, identity and Islam.

It’s been a familiar scene over the long, hot summer at city halls across North Texas. Once sleepy local meetings about zoning and contracts have erupted into crowded, angry spectacles, galvanized on social media. As the demographics of the suburbs change, some meetings have become proxy wars for cultural and social issues that cities cannot directly address. Other meetings, centered on local issues with national resonance, have brought attention to city governance this summer. North Texans packed City Halls and county buildings to protest data centers and defend voting access as midterm elections approach. Now local leaders are tightening meeting rules and removing disruptive speakers while wrestling with how to restore order without stifling dissent. Former McKinney Mayor George Fuller, who served for eight years up until last summer, views the meeting conduct as “very sad political theater.” He said Rep. Keith Self, R-McKinney, who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting and took to X to alert his followers about the proposed mosque, “should be ashamed” for using the forum to score points with voters. “There were residents there with very legitimate concerns, traffic and whatnot, and their comments and their voices were diluted by all these people coming in from outside our community to spread their bigotry and racism and fear,” he said. “That undermines our local community's voice.”

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Trump pardons former Plano mayor Jack Harvard decades after conviction

Jack Harvard revs up the engine on his Polaris Ranger, fills up a bucket of feed — the price has gone up again — and rides around his nearly 1,000 acres of rocky grassland at the top of the rolling Hill Country. He’s got African porcupines, giraffes, red stags and zebras to feed in the broiling July heat. His hundreds of animals from several corners of the world roam the land, racing across fields and down cliff sides, as far as the eye can see. He’s a long way from Plano. He led the suburb through its growth spurt as mayor for eight years in the 1980s.

Now he rules a new kingdom, a former drive-through safari he’s built into a breeding ranch for exotic and endangered animals with the help of his wife, four daughters and their kids. “This is Jack’s legacy, for his children and grandchildren,” his wife, Nancy, said in the back of the Polaris. She’s brought a bag of carrots to feed Bob, their giraffe. It was here, on these rolling hills in Bosque County, that Harvard received the call he said he never expected. Nearly three decades after the former Plano mayor went to federal prison for banking crimes, President Donald Trump quietly pardoned him July 3. Harvard says he was wrongly convicted 30 years ago. “I don't think I ever did anything illegal,” Harvard said in one of a series of recent interviews with The Dallas Morning News. Trump’s pardon revisits crimes Harvard insists he is innocent of, but the prosecutor who helped convict him says he was rightly found guilty for. Now almost 80 years old, Harvard said the unexpected pardon has lifted a burden he has carried since the 1990s.

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Fort Worth Councilman Michael Crain’s lawsuit against former business partner dismissed

A Texas business court judge ruled in favor of Will Northern in the lawsuit filed by Michael Crain, his former business partner in real estate firm Northern Crain. On Aug. 6, Judge Jerry Bullard of the Texas Business Court Eighth Division in Fort Worth dismissed a lawsuit filed by Crain in June 2025 alleging Northern improperly used Northern Crain companies’ confidential information, resources and personnel for a “potentially lucrative business venture.” In the lawsuit, Crain said Northern and others acted without Crain’s knowledge or consent to exclude him and the jointly owned firm from the business transaction involving the Woodhaven Country Club property.

According to the ruling, all of Crain’s claims against Northern have been dismissed. The court ruled that Crain does not have ownership of Northern Crain and did not when he filed the suit. The lawsuit was dismissed before a jury trial which was set to begin later this month, according to a news release from Northern and his attorneys. Under “Texas Shootout buy-sell options” Crain was ordered to sell his interest in Northern Crain back to Northern. “In my opinion, Michael Crain used the Courts in an attempt to profit from the Woodhaven redevelopment project in which he had no interest, he invested no time, money or effort,” Northern said in a statement to the Fort Worth Report. Crain, who represents District 3 on Fort Worth City Council, said he would appeal the ruling. “First and foremost, we believe the court lacked jurisdiction over the matter,” Crain said in a statement. “Rather than hearing evidence on the underlying facts or the merits of our claims, the case was resolved through procedural ruling based on a record we believe was incomplete and, in some respect, inaccurate.” On Friday, Northern also said there had been progress in the development of Woodhaven, a former golf course that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Crescendo Development, the company Northern is using to redevelop the neighborhood, is working with housing development company Blue Ridge Cascade on a mixed-used project at the site. Meetings with residents in the neighborhood will continue.

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National Stories

Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, Netanyahu says

Israel will not accept the 15-point plan for Gaza set out by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. “I want to clarify this: Israel rejects the 15-point document. I have heard people saying, ‘You didn’t say that.’ So here I am saying it again,” he told a Cabinet meeting, referring to the peace plan set out by Trump last year. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed,” he added. Trump, who last month touted a breakthrough in his Gaza peace plan, said that Hamas has agreed to lay down arms. However, the Board of Peace’s proposal calls for a phased withdrawal of Israel’s troops from Gaza alongside the disarmament of Hamas. Netanyahu said that Israeli forces are not going anywhere until Hamas completely disarms first.

“When I say Hamas must be disarmed, I mean heavy weapons, lighter weapons, all weapons. We are talking about genuine disarmament, not a fictitious one,” Netanyahu said Sunday. Hamas had last month said that it would disarm but only after Israel withdraws completely and stops all hostilities. The group also said that laying down its heavy weapons would come later in the process, conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu, meanwhile, reaffirmed that “as long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state.” The leader is currently facing a domestic political battle for survival ahead of elections set for October, with the status of the Gaza and Iran conflicts likely to prove pivotal. The explicit rejection of the peace plan, frequently touted by Trump as a key foreign policy achievement, also comes after months of growing tensions between the White House and Israel’s leadership over Iran. The White House did not immediately comment on the remarks.

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Horse racing’s Triple Crown may no longer be worth chasing

The chase for horse racing’s iconic Triple Crown is at risk of extinction. This week, the operators of the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes said they would launch a six-race series beginning next year with a $5 million prize pool attached. That leaves the Preakness Stakes, the other major race for 3-year-olds, that has traditionally been run two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes, on the outside looking in. The exclusion of the Triple Crown’s middle jewel comes after three of the last five Kentucky Derby winners skipped the Preakness, including in each of the past two years. The 14-day turnaround has become too tight for some trainers who prefer to give their horses more time to rest and recover after a race. Of the 95 horses who have run in the Kentucky Derby in the past five years, only 13 entered the starting gate for the Preakness.

Moments after Golden Tempo’s victory in this year’s Derby, trainer Cherie DeVaux was asked if she would run in the Preakness. “We’re not here for ourselves. We’re not here for our egos. We’re here for the horse,” DeVaux said. A few days later, DeVaux said that Golden Tempo would skip the Preakness and await the Belmont Stakes. The decision paid off as Golden Tempo went on to win that race five weeks later. “I do think that we made the right decision, I don’t think we’d have the same horse if we did run back in two weeks,” DeVaux said after the victory. After the Derby and the Belmont, the new “Thoroughbred Championship Series” includes existing races throughout the summer and wraps up with a newly created race at Churchill Downs in September. In addition to the purse money awarded in each race, a points system will be used to pay out bonuses from a $5 million prize pool based on the final standings. A spokesman for the New York Racing Association, which operates the Belmont Stakes, said that future changes to the schedule are possible.

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Window closes for Ohio GOP to replace Rep. Max Miller on the ballot

Rep. Max Miller, the embattled Ohio Republican who faces accusations of domestic violence from his ex-wife, appears almost certain to remain on the ballot in November after a key deadline in the process to replace him passed Saturday. Miller, who denies any wrongdoing, has resisted growing calls to drop his bid for a third term and resign from Congress. Under Ohio law, the deadline to fill a vacancy for the November general election is Monday at 4 p.m. But there are earlier steps in the process that seemingly would have necessitated Miller withdrawing already.

Most notably, the leaders of the local Republican parties in all four counties that are part of the district must meet to choose the replacement nominee. The statute requires that the chairperson from the most populous county provide at least two days’ notice to participants to convene the meeting. That means Miller would have had to withdraw his candidacy by Saturday to leave enough time for the selection process before Monday’s deadline. He did not. A spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), who oversees elections in the state, said the office could not confirm that interpretation of the law because of the potential for litigation. If Miller were to end his campaign after Monday, his name could still be removed from the ballot until 70 days before the November election — that deadline is Aug. 25 — but there would be no Republican nominee for the office. Some Republican officials, fearful of putting a conservative-leaning seat at risk as the GOP fights to hold its narrow House majority, have maneuvered to pressure Miller to drop out of the race. Withdrawing after he won the Republican nomination for Ohio’s 7th Congressional District would have allowed local GOP officials to select a replacement.

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Judge dismisses Reflecting Pool vandalism case against former Olympian David Hearn

A federal judge has dismissed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn, according to an order filed on Thursday. In his order granting in part the Department of Justice's request to dismiss the case, Associate Judge Todd Edelman said he would wait to determine whether to grant the dismissal with prejudice -- effectively blocking the government from trying to charge Hearn again for the same alleged crime in the future -- after hearing more arguments from the government and Hearn's attorneys. Edelman has set forth a filing schedule for both parties and said he would schedule a hearing for oral argument at some point when all submissions are made.

The Justice Department moved last week to dismiss the criminal case against Hearn, acknowledging the damage to the pool "was the result of flawed installation by the contractor." U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's motion sought to dismiss the case without prejudice, which could still leave Hearn exposed to a future indictment. Attorneys for Hearn filed a motion this week seeking to have the indictment against him dismissed with prejudice, citing "exceptional facts and circumstances." "Defying both decency and common sense, the government proceeded to indict Mr. Hearn before it had obtained or evaluated the information necessary to establish a good-faith basis for the charge," the filing stated. "The Court should not leave the defendant subject to the possibility of renewed prosecution," the filing stated. Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic canoeist, pleaded not guilty to a felony destruction of property charge last month after Pirro's office accused him of "forcefully and violently" ripping up parts of the pool floor. Pirro's office said in its filing seeking to drop the case that it only learned of evidence pointing to "a rushed and flawed installation process" after Hearn had been indicted by a grand jury. President Donald Trump this week blasted Pirro's move to drop the case, saying she "choked" and "folded like an umbrella," and continued to push allegations that vandals were responsible for cutting and tearing the pool lining.

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Trump moving forward with attempt to fire Lisa Cook after Supreme Court setback: Sources

President Donald Trump is moving forward with his attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, sources say, in a move that is likely to spark a new legal battle over the independence of the central bank. In a letter this week, the White House notified Cook that the president was "considering" removing her from her role on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and demanded that she respond to the allegations within three weeks, sources familiar with the letter told ABC News. The move follows a Supreme Court ruling in June that upheld limits on the president's attempt to remove members of the Federal Reserve stemming from the institution's historical independence.

In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said Cook was entitled to notice and an opportunity to respond to the allegations before she is removed "for cause." But the Supreme Court did not take a position on the underlying allegations against Cook and effectively left the door open for Trump to attempt to remove her. "Only after Cook has had the opportunity to respond to the charges made against her ... may a final decision be made," Roberts wrote. "And only then can the courts assess the validity and sufficiency of such charges." Following the decision, Trump signaled on social media that he would "take appropriate action immediately" to remove Cook from her position. "The Cook Lawsuit, having to do with her suitability in sitting on the Board of the Federal Reserve, was sent back by the Supreme Court on a strictly procedural basis, we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!" Trump wrote on June 29.

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WNBA commissioner stresses integrity, respect on topic of transgender athletes in league-wide memo

In a memo sent to team presidents, general managers and coaches Friday, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert advised the league’s leaders on their approach to the topic of transgender participation in women’s sports. The commissioner stressed approaching it with integrity and respect, without specifically defining the league’s stance. The issue has dominated conversation around the WNBA in the wake of Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham’s recent comments in favor of excluding trans athletes from women’s sports. Engelbert listed three guiding principles for the league in the discussion but did not clarify whether or not trans athletes are allowed to play in the WNBA.

“First, we will always approach this topic thoughtfully, respectfully, and in alignment with the long-standing values of our league,” she wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Athletic. “Second, our player eligibility rules, unlike the eligibility rules of some other leagues and governing bodies, are collectively bargained. Lastly, preserving the integrity of our game and ensuring fair competition will always remain among the league’s highest priorities.” There is no mention of trans athletes in the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement, although the document does state that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” Engelbert wrote in the memo that the league has a previously scheduled meeting of a task force of presidents and GMs in the coming week that will address this conversation and other league issues. In the wake of Cunningham’s comments and the subsequent rallies that have followed the Indiana Fever at road games, the commissioner acknowledged that she expects “this topic will continue to receive significant attention.” She praised team leadership for their response to increasing questions and invited them to continue reaching out to her with questions and perspectives.

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A judge rules that a law regulating some guns can't be enforced

A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday struck down a 1930s law that imposed regulations on firearm suppressors and guns that are considered the most dangerous, more than a year after President Donald Trump signed a bill eliminating taxes on those items. The ruling could allow firearm owners to purchase firearm suppressors — known as silencers — short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and other certain firearms without registration, while also removing a layer of background checks. Last year, Republicans eliminated a $200 tax on those devices under Trump’s massive tax and spending cut bill.

The regulations are required under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. Groups that support gun restrictions said the law still has important safety protections and criticized the ruling as reckless. U.S. District Judge James Hendrix said because there were no longer taxes under the act, the regulation should not continue either. “No longer can the challenged NFA provisions be justified — as they have been for nearly 90 years — under Congress’s taxing power,” Hendrix wrote. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces the regulations, did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The National Firearms Act has been in effect since 1934 and establishes key differences and regulates firearms considered the most dangerous. Because the act implemented a tax on the item, the registration was often used to ensure the tax was paid, gun rights groups said.

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Lead Stories

Senator Perry and Speaker Burrows spar over competing priorities for next Texas legislative session

State Rep. Drew Darby hosted a conversation with State Sen. Charles Perry and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows to open the 22nd annual West Texas Legislative Summit, organized by Angelo State University and the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce at the C.J. Davidson Conference Center at ASU on Thursday, August 6, 2026. The two-day event began with a soiree Wednesday evening and continued Thursday with a full day of political speeches and roundtable discussions. In the opening session, Burrows and Perry highlighted legislation they considered most significant from the 89th legislative session and sketched early priorities for the 90th session that begins in January 2027. Burrows said from last session he was most proud of the Teachers’ Bill of Rights. Senate Bill 27 and House Bill 6 strengthened classroom authority for Texas public school teachers.

The legislation gives teachers clearer legal authority to remove disruptive or threatening students and manage discipline with less administrative interference. It also refined formal grievance procedures and expanded flexible contract options for school districts. Burrows also pointed to a quieter but important change: the statewide ban on cell phones in classrooms. “Test scores are going to go up,” he predicted. The two lawmakers then turned to the next session and offered different emphases. Burrows called for further property tax reduction, ways to lower health, property and casualty insurance rates, and broader work on affordability. Perry stressed infrastructure investment and protecting the ability of counties and cities to manage their own needs. Burrows said the Legislature should pursue measures to make health insurance more affordable and examine ways to lower property and casualty rates. Darby then highlighted Perry’s ongoing work on produced water — the wastewater generated by oil and gas operations in West Texas. For every barrel of oil produced, operators typically generate four to five barrels of produced water. Perry said he is traveling to Orla, a small community between Pecos and the New Mexico border, to examine new desalination technology that could treat produced water to a standard suitable for agricultural use. “I’d drink it,” Perry said.

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Elon Musk, Greg Abbott confirm $17B Terafab plant for College Station

It’s official: SpaceX and Tesla are building a massive $16.8 billion chipmaking facility outside of College Station in Grimes County. SpaceX has been working on this deal for months and has already negotiated tens of millions of dollars in incentives with Grimes County, local school districts and the state for the advanced semiconductor facility, called Terafab. The facility is expected to span 100 million square feet and employ more than 3,000 people. The initial phase of development is expected to cost $16.8 billion, SpaceX said Thursday, lower than the company’s prior estimates of $55 billion. Terafab will build chips for self-driving vehicles, humanoid robots and space-based data centers, according to the company’s update. Both SpaceX and Tesla are based in Texas.

“We’re now embarking on the most epic chip-building effort,” Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, said in a statement. “The Terafab is bringing cutting-edge manufacturing to America, creating thousands of high-paying jobs in the Lone Star State and enabling us to produce AI chips at scale for use on Earth and in space.” The new facility is part of SpaceX’s rapid expansion across the state – it launches rockets outside of Brownsville, tests engines in McGregor and builds components for its broadband internet satellites in Bastrop. The company says it has created more than 56,000 direct and indirect jobs, $28 billion in estimated economic impact since 2024 and hundreds of millions in indirect tax revenue since 2024. Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that the project is receiving a $30 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant from the state. Anderson-Shiro CISD and Iola ISD gave their final approval for tax breaks for the project earlier this week, and Grimes County previously approved waiving property taxes.

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HHS awards small Texas firm with $150M contract to represent unaccompanied children

The Department of Health and Human Services revealed plans to award a multimillion-dollar contract to a small Texas law firm, tasking it with representing thousands of immigrant children as they face immigration court proceedings. HHS’s refugee resettlement division — charged with overseeing unaccompanied undocumented children — had a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice that was not renewed after expiring last Friday. The federal government had a fraught relationship with Acacia, including attempting to terminate its legal contract last March and withholding funding for months. Nonprofits have sued to get the agency to pay invoices dating back to December totaling roughly $65 million, the groups announced last week.

On Thursday, Acacia said its legal teams had defended more than 20,000 children despite not being paid. In a Tuesday statement before the new contract was published, the organization said it was “adamant” whoever took over the contract must have “deep experience” with the country’s immigration system. The Office of Refugee Resettlement quietly awarded the new contract — worth up to $150 million per year — to the Burke Law Group, a boutique law firm headquartered in Houston. No one at the organization specializes in immigration law, according to staff biographies on the website, though the site lists “immigration and asylum” as one of two-dozen practice areas on a separate page. The firm would “provide legal orientation, legal consultation and attorney-of-record representation services” for unaccompanied immigrant children while under Office of Refugee Resettlement care, the agreement reads, and help connect them with legal resources after being discharged. The federal government has been required to help facilitate legal counsel for unaccompanied children in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody since 2008.

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Abuse, harassment allegations threaten to derail Republicans’ midterm message

House Republicans are confronting an unwelcome political headache as a string of abuse or harassment allegations involving several GOP lawmakers threatens to complicate the party’s midterm message just months before the November elections. The domestic abuse allegations against Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), coupled with the scrutiny surrounding Reps. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) and Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), have dominated headlines and handed Democrats fresh political ammunition at a critical point in the campaign. The developments have also served as an unwelcome distraction for GOP leaders, who have sought to keep voters focused on their message that Republicans are best equipped to tackle inflation, the rising cost of living and other kitchen-table concerns.

The timing is particularly challenging for Republicans as they work to defend their narrow House majority. Although the controversies involve individual lawmakers, the steady stream of negative headlines could have a cumulative effect, forcing vulnerable incumbents to answer for events far outside their own districts. “Vulnerable House Republicans mistakenly think that no matter how awful their behavior is, they are untouchable. Voters in these districts are pissed over higher costs, Republicans’ broken promises, and are ready to reject these scandal-plagued members, who’ve made voters’ lives worse. Every single vulnerable Republican who has coddled and stood by these creeps should be ashamed of themselves, are unfit to serve, and will lose their job in November,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton told The Hill in a statement. Douglas Heye, a GOP strategist, said that “Miller and Mills make it harder for Republicans to talk about the issues they want to focus on.” “The faster they are gone, the better for everyone,” Heye said, arguing that both GOP lawmakers should drop their reelection bids.

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State Stories

Travis County Democratic Party eager to turn page after chair’s resignation

It’s been five months since the March primary election, and the dust still hasn’t settled within the Travis County Democratic Party. The latest chapter in the party’s internal turmoil came July 27, when the newly elected TCDP Chair Jessica Cohen resigned under pressure from party insiders who questioned her ability to lead the organization and raise money for its coordinated campaign at a time when Texas Democrats have a legitimate shot at winning both a U.S. Senate seat and the governor’s office. Cohen has a criminal background that records indicate started with a car burglary at 17. More serious charges include a 1990 aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and a 2004 assault causing bodily injury, according to records obtained by The Austin Bulldog’s Ken Martin, who has reported extensively on Cohen’s background in several bruising stories dating back to 2018, when Cohen was a City Council candidate.

Even so, Cohen defeated incumbent Doug Greco in the March primary by a decisive 61% to 39%. Greco had served as chair since June 2025 after winning a special election of precinct chairs to replace Pooja Sethi, who stepped down to run for Texas House District 47, a seat Democrats expect to retain in November. This isn’t the first time the party establishment has found itself at odds with Democratic primary voters’ choice for party chair. In 2018, Dyana Limon-Mercado defeated the establishment’s preferred candidate, Anne Wynne. Nevertheless, Limon-Mercado went on to serve as chair and was later elected Travis County clerk. As things stand now, the party’s precinct chairs will choose Cohen’s successor in a virtual special election on Saturday, Aug. 8, according to an email party secretary Iris Suddaby sent to precinct chairs. Two candidates have entered the race: Shenghao “Daniel” Wang, an attorney who serves on the Travis Central Appraisal District Board of Directors and was one of eight Democrats in the running for Texas House District 49, and Luke Warford, a former Texas Democratic Party strategist who now leads the Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund.

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Texas Republicans offer blueprint of plan to ban Islam, Shariah

A ban on the sale of halal foods. Hijabs forbidden in public schools. Required school lessons on the "violence and political domination of Islam." Some Texas Republicans have offered an early blueprint of a legislative agenda targeting the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the state with new laws that would make practicing their faith essentially impossible. The plan is part of a broader effort by Republicans to stop what they call the "Islamification of Texas," a political narrative describing the perceived growth in Muslim influence and communities. Critics, however, called the plan an attack on freedom of speech and religion that has left Muslims and other non-Christians vulnerable to harassment and violence.

At a conference this month hosted by the far-right grassroots organization True Texas Project, several Republican lawmakers and activists warned of a "Muslim invasion" that seeks to replace Christians across the country. State Sen. Bob Hall, an Edgewood Republican who represents a swath of North Texas, called blocking Shariah, the moral code laid out in Muslim scriptures, the state's top priority. Hall and others at the conference repeatedly echoed versions of the "great replacement" theory, in which white supremacists and Christian nationalists believe politicians are conspiring to replace white people with non-white immigrants. "It’s coming after us," Hall warned the roughly 350 people attending. "We’ve got to get in the way of it, and we’ve got to stop it." About 2% of Texas adults describe themselves as Muslims, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study. In comparison, 67% describe themselves as Christian. More than 100,000 Muslims live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is home to several dozen mosques.

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Major data center company backs Abbott’s audit as Texas pauses new grid connections

Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that QTS Data Centers has committed to meet the state’s new standards for data center projects, marking one of the first major industry responses to the state’s new oversight requirements. QTS, which owns four operational data centers in Texas, made their announcement days after Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to conduct a comprehensive audit of pending data center projects before allowing any additional facilities to connect to the state’s electric grid. The governor has said the review is intended to protect residential ratepayers, ensure projects have adequate power and water resources, and verify developers can deliver on their proposals.

According to the governor’s office, QTS agreed to meet several requirements Texas is seeking for future developments, including using closed-loop cooling technology that minimizes water consumption after startup, providing dedicated power generation rather than relying solely on the ERCOT grid and ensuring projects do not increase electricity costs for residential customers. “As demand for digital infrastructure continues to grow, we support policies that encourage responsible development, protect resources, ensure ratepayers see benefits of energy investments on their utility bills, and foster strong partnerships with the communities where data centers operate,” QTS Co-CEOs Tag Greason and David Robey said in a statement. QTS, one of the world’s largest data center operators, said it has committed since 2019 to building facilities that consume no water during normal operations and supports greater transparency, infrastructure planning and accountability as Texas continues to attract artificial intelligence and cloud computing investments.

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Former Dallas CFO warns against using debt to shore up pension

Dallas’ former chief financial officer had no plans to come back to City Hall, but she returned Wednesday to warn the city against asking voters to approve $500 million in bonds to invest in the police and fire pension system. Elizabeth Reich, who oversaw the city’s finances from 2016 to 2022, told council members that taking on more debt to close the $3.7 billion shortfall in the police and fire pension system goes against conventional wisdom. Pension obligation bonds (POBs) only work if you’re investing in them at a higher rate of return than the interest you’re paying on the debt, she said.

That means the city is betting the pension fund’s investments will outperform the cost of borrowing for decades. “I have yet to meet another pension restructuring expert who thinks that POBs are the silver bullet,” Reich said. Dallas officials are proposing a $1 billion bond package to pay for public safety facilities, including the police academy and a new 911 emergency center. Half of it will go toward pension obligation bonds. Residents could face a tax increase if approved. If the pension system does not make enough money in the market with a 6.5% return, then the city will still owe the debt and will likely have to increase its contributions to cover the gap. That’s why Reich said it was risky. Jack Ireland, the current chief financial officer and Reich’s right hand before she left, said the staff was recommending a bond to stop the city’s reliance on operating funds for pension payments. The city has built its budget around pension payments for the last two budget cycles.

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Lina Hidalgo’s proposed tax-rate hike for Harris County education programs fails for the second year in a row

Commissioners on Thursday denied Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s second attempt at a proposed tax-rate increase to fund early childcare programs. The rejection came almost one year after county commissioners voted against Hidalgo’s first penny-tax proposal and said the county judge’s efforts to pass the measure to support a slate of education programs disrupted decorum as she brought a group of children to the meeting in 2025. The same motion failed on Thursday after the proposal by Hidalgo, a Democrat who is not seeking a third term in this year’s election, did not receive a second vote.

Hidalgo said such a tax-rate increase — which she said would have come with a $10 addition on the annual tax bill for an average homeowner in Harris County — would have generated $66 million to fund Early REACH and other childcare programs funded by COVID-era federal grant dollars. Like last year, the proposal would have taken the tax-rate increase proposal to the voters of Harris County, which includes Houston. But commissioners said the option is costly — and they already are facing what could be the highest tax rate in the county’s history. “I’m so sorry for what we are telling the people of Harris County, that we don’t trust them,” Hidalgo said Thursday. “The question before commissioners court is simple: Do we trust the people of Harris County enough to let them decide on whether or not they would like to see more affordable child care? And we are not willing to let them decide. These are the kinds of decisions that turn people off of politics.”

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Texas Head Start leaders warn of quality risks in new rule

Federal officials proposed an overhaul of the Head Start program Thursday that they say would reduce bureaucracy, give local providers more flexibility and create as many as 236,000 additional preschool slots nationwide. Texas Head Start leaders say they worry children and families could lose critical services in the process. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the proposal would shift authority over issues including staff-to-child ratios, group sizes, workforce requirements, background checks and transportation practices from federal rules toward state and local systems. Officials say the changes would save $2.2 billion and lower administrative costs. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Head Start "the program that works for the most vulnerable, the poorest kids in our society," and said the administration hopes the proposal will end up "protecting the program as it was designed."

The proposal also would cap administrative costs at 5%, down from 15%, and add requirements related to nutrition and physical activity. The proposal is subject to a 60-day public comment period. It is not yet final. Texas Head Start leaders and program executives said they support expanding access to the federally funded early education program. But they warned that loosening requirements around staffing, group sizes, family services and administrative costs could weaken the quality that distinguishes Head Start from other childcare programs. “It’s not about my program; it’s about the people I serve that I’m most worried about,” said Hanna Adams, executive director of Cornerstone Community Action Agency. The agency’s Head Start program serves Parker, Palo Pinto, Jack and Wise counties and about 370 children, she said. About 23% of those children, or roughly 85, have identified disabilities. Alex J. Adams, an assistant secretary at HHS, said the department is hoping to give Head Start centers the flexibility by eliminating most of Head Start's regulations. "Federal mandates can certainly hinder local decision-making, drive up costs and limit the program’s reach,” Adams said on a preview call with reporters Wednesday night. He highlighted a decadelong decline in Head Start enrollment. “If we get this proposed rule right, we will grow the number of Head Start slots.”

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Christian nationalist influence on Tarrant County government the focus of upcoming panel discussion

A group of Tarrant County civic organizations aims to educate voters about the influence of religious nationalism in state and local government with a panel discussion and day of action Saturday. The League of Women Voters of Tarrant County planned the event as a way to educate neighbors about what they see as an attack on democracy, president Janet Mattern told the Fort Worth Report. The league is concerned about “the gutting of voting rights,” the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and other local government policy changes they believe are often traced to a common factor, Mattern said.

“That movement is the Christian nationalist movement, and they have been working towards undermining our democracy,” Mattern said. “In the League of Women Voters, we have as part of our mission to defend democracy … and so we thought it was very necessary to educate ourselves and to educate the community about what Christian nationalism is.” Christian nationalism is the belief that the United States is a country defined by Christianity, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan nonprofit that seeks to protect First Amendment rights such as religious liberty. According to the forum, Christian nationalists generally believe the government should advocate for Christian values and pass laws reflecting those values and that the separation of church and state should not be maintained.

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CPS Energy leaders defend against Gov Abbott's attacks

CPS Energy Board Chair Francine Romero is pushing back on Governor Greg Abbott's claims that bringing private competition to San Antonio's energy market would save consumers. “There is so much wrong with that,” Romero said. Speaking Thursday morning at Texas Public Radio’s Luminaries breakfast event, Romero said Abbott was misrepresenting how competition with residential electricity providers in Houston created lower energy bills. At an Aug. 4 San Antonio event, Abbott announced he would ask the state legislature to end city monopolies of energy which includes San Antonio and Austin. He said bringing private competition would lower power utility bills. Abbott said the average cost of electricity in San Antonio was about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.

“In Houston, it’s available as low as 6 cents per kilowatt hour. So you could really reduce your electricity costs a whole lot,” Abbott said. Romero said she went online to investigate how much a kilowatt hour would cost in Houston and she couldn’t find Abbott’s price of 6 cents. “The cheapest rate I could find was 12.6 – 12.9 cents a kilowatt hour.,” she said. She said there might be cheaper introductory rates for customers but then the price goes up. “I would challenge anyone to go look up these rates in Houston today and take the governor’s advice and he was wrong,” Romero said. Frank Almaraz, interim president and CEO for CPS Energy, rejected the governor’s office calling the transfer of 14% of CPS Energy’s revenue to the city’s general revenue fund as a “slush fund.” Last year CPS Energy provided to San Antonio’s city budget over $500 million, one of the largest sources of general revenue for the city. The city used that to pay for a variety of services including police, fire fighting, parks and libraries. Almaraz, who was also speaking at the TPR Luminaries event, said these are “critical services for our community.”

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‘Could we please not lie?’ Viagran, Jones clash as council creates Project Marvel advisory committee

The San Antonio City Council approved the creation of a 33-member community advisory committee to offer suggestions on how to use $75 million the San Antonio Spurs are committing to the downtown sports and entertainment district. The committee's creation was proposed by council members Sukh Kaur of District 1, Teri Castillo of District 5, and Marina Alderete Gavito of District 7 using a “three-signature memo.” It’s a process available to council members who want to bring an issue to the floor for discussion. But that approval didn’t come without another public disagreement among council members, similar to those that have come up during multiple discussions and votes over the proposed Spurs arena and surrounding district known as “Project Marvel.”

Thursday’s disagreement was between San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, with Viagran saying statements made by Jones were misrepresentations or lies. Early in the discussion, Jones said a presentation by city staff on the committee’s creation appeared to be outdated. “It sounds like we may have had an older version that was presented as the term sheet is not executed,” Jones said. The mayor was referring to a term sheet between the City of San Antonio and Spurs Sports & Entertainment that was considered by council in August 2025. At the time, Jones had pushed to delay the term sheet multiple times before it was approved by council. Councilwoman Viagran called for a point of order shortly after Jones made the claim. “The term sheet was executed. It was voted on by the council. The contract has not been decided upon,” Viagran said, triggering an argument between the two. Jones said it was not finalized. Viagran said Jones’ statements were misrepresentations. Jones then turned to City Attorney Andy Segovia. “Andy, please correct the councilwoman,” Jones said. “Mayor, this is an argument, semantics, only a law school student would appreciate. The term sheet was approved by the city council,” Segovia said. “We can use executed, approved, we can use whatever term we want to use. It was approved by city council.”

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Harris County commissioner seeks halt to affirmative action program

Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey is seeking to suspend a program designed to distribute government contracts to businesses owned by minorities and women after a judge struck down a similar program run by the city of Houston. Commissioners will consider Ramsey’s proposal Thursday, along with several other items related to the beleaguered program, which also faces a lawsuit brought by the same company that won the ruling against the city. Coupled with Texas’ recent move to dismantle a related statewide initiative, Harris County’s affirmative action program is facing an uncertain future. A spokesperson for Ramsey, the lone Republican on Commissioners Court, said in a statement that his issue with the county program is that it was an inefficient program that fails to support the people it was designed to benefit. q

“Commissioner Ramsey has raised concerns previously that Harris County’s … program is overly complicated, expensive to administer and falls short of helping the small businesses it was intended to serve,” said Precinct 3 spokesperson Amery Reid. Reid said Ramsey will ask the other court members to consider suspending the program while the county “develops a simpler and legally sound approach that better supports small businesses.” County Attorney Abbie Kamin indicated after the ruling against the city program, however, that she believes “there is a lawful and durable path forward that preserves meaningful opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses while satisfying constitutional requirements.” Commissioner Rodney Ellis championed the county’s affirmative action program and created the Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity to oversee it, among other responsibilities. He pledged to continue fighting for the program, calling actions against it “a cynical political maneuver designed to divide our community and deny opportunities to people across Harris County.” “Instead of undercutting small businesses and their workforce during an ongoing affordability crisis,” he said in a statement, “we should be expanding opportunities so that everyone in our community can thrive.” Ellis also added an item to Thursday's agenda to discuss the lawsuit against the county in a closed-door executive session.

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School leaders highlight Communities In Schools support at first leadership summit in Angleton

Strong relationships and community support can make the difference between a student falling behind and finding a path forward, local school leaders said during the first Communities In Schools Leadership Summit. The event Wednesday marked the Southeast Harris and Brazoria County chapter’s 40th anniversary and brought together school leaders to discuss student success, mental health, technology and community partnerships. Brazosport College President Vincent Solis opened the panel by asking what makes the partnership between school districts and Communities In Schools unique.

“It takes a village,” Columbia-Brazoria ISD Superintendent Steve Galloway said. “Every kid needs somebody they can depend on, regardless of who they are or what obstacles they face.” Helping students should take priority over bureaucracy, he said. “My staff has heard me say this, and it’s a little abrupt, but I’m saying, ‘Get the hell out of the way,’” Galloway said. “Don’t keep somebody who’s willing to help from helping.” The partnership gives students support schools often cannot provide alone, Angleton ISD Superintendent Alicia Press said. During a visit to Southside Elementary, Press found a classroom full of students participating in a Communities In Schools homework club. Students and parents had begun requesting the coordinator by name. “We’re seeing students’ grades improve because everything’s getting turned in,” Press said. Solis also asked what gives the panel hope about today’s students. “Kids these days are awesome,” Brazosport ISD Superintendent Danny Massey said. Adults often judge younger generations by comparing them with their own childhoods, he said.

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Sid Miller says Republicans will lose statewide elections due to rapid data center development, backlash

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said Thursday that Republicans are going to lose some statewide elections this year because of data centers, which has become a heated issue for Texas across the state. In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Miller also called out Gov. Greg Abbott for what he says is inaction on data center development in Texas. The lame-duck Republican said data centers are not a partisan issue, but declined to say who he might vote for come November. “I haven’t committed to anybody,” Miller said. “There’s some Republicans I may have to leave blank, I just can’t do it.” More than 300 data centers already operate in the state, and a Tribune analysis found at least 248 data center projects are planned. A majority of Texans in a new poll were against data center construction in their communities.

“Republicans should be on this issue and we’re not,” Miller said. “The Democrats are, and they’re right on the issue. I’m not endorsing any Democrats, but we’re going to lose some elections in the midterms because of this one subject.” Since the legislature doesn’t come back in session until January, and any new laws wouldn’t take effect until next September, Miller said he thinks Abbott is buying time for data center companies to gain a monopoly over the competition. “He’s given a wink and a nod to his data center people saying ‘Hey, you have plenty of time to get grandfathered in, then we’ll put the screws on all your competition,’” Miller said. In January, Abbott endorsed Nate Sheets, Miller’s Republican primary challenger for the office who later won. Sheets has kept mostly quiet about data center development, while his Democratic challenger, Clayton Tucker, has been vocal about his opposition to data centers. Tucker has traveled to data center community events around the state, many of which Miller was in attendance for too. Miller has not endorsed either candidate, but Miller and Tucker both spoke at a data center forum in June.

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National Stories

McConnell says he's been released from rehabilitation facility to recover at home

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office says the Kentucky Republican has been released from a rehabilitation center and will continue his recovery from home. “Earlier today, I was discharged from the rehabilitation center to continue my recovery at home,” the senator said in a statement released by his office. “Elaine and I are grateful for the many well wishes and support from friends, colleagues, and Kentuckians, and for the attentive care I’ve received from excellent doctors, nurses, therapists, and hospital staff.” McConnell, 84, has been absent from the Senate since his office said he fell at his home in Washington in June. The senator spent roughly four weeks in hospital care and then went to a rehabilitation center in mid-July to continue physical therapy, according to his office.

He has not been seen or heard from publicly for months, though his office has released a photo of him with his wife, Elaine Chao, from the rehabilitation center. He said in Thursday’s statement he would not be returning immediately to the Senate, which is still in session before a planned August recess. “On the advice of my doctors, I’ll maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy from home during the state work period, and I’ll continue to engage with my staff and colleagues on important Senate business,” he said in the statement released by his office. The senator voted by proxy in the Agriculture Committee on Thursday, as allowed by Senate rules.

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Murkowski to oppose Todd Blanche nomination, narrowing his path to confirmation

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said Friday she will vote against Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general, narrowing his chances at confirmation for the role. Murkowski said the so-called anti-weaponization fund was a factor in her decision, arguing that the $1.8 billion fund — which was only rescinded as Blanche’s nomination was in limbo — could be brought back if he is confirmed. “The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Murkowski said. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.” With Sen. Mitch McConnell absent from the Senate, Blanche cannot afford to lose any more Republican votes. The nomination now hinges on how Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the most prominent GOP critics of President Donald Trump, will vote.

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DOGE overstated savings, government watchdog says

President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting initiative that roiled the federal bureaucracy in the first year of his second term overstated its savings, a congressional government watchdog said Thursday. Number fudging at the Department of Government Efficiency — the executive agency spearheaded by Elon Musk to ostensibly eliminate excess spending — had already been documented in a myriad of news reports. Among them, an August 2025 analysis of DOGE’s receipts by POLITICO found only $1.4 billion of its claimed $32.7 billion in contract savings was legitimate. But the Government Accountability Office’s findings, released Thursday, add to the body of work suggesting that the now-defunct agency’s legacy is less tied to actual broad cost-cutting in Washington than it is to the high-profile fights surrounding the shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development and other small agencies, the contested firing of thousands of government employees and setting the tone for an unapologetically disruptive second Trump administration.

Taken at face value, DOGE’s claimed savings of $215 billion are a drop in the bucket compared to a federal budget that is around $7 trillion each year. Meanwhile, Thursday’s report, centered on the $110 billion reported savings listed on the agency’s Wall of Receipts, found that “some savings estimates are incorrect or lack supporting evidence.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. That website hasn’t been updated since Jan. 1. The report highlights how DOGE reported more than $1.7 billion in savings on a single contract for IT support at more than 700 military medical treatment facilities. Though the agency identified the contract for termination and met with the Defense Department, the report authors write, DOGE eventually decided against moving to terminate the contract. “While no action was taken on the contract, the Wall of Receipts continued to report savings of more than $1.7 billion,” the report states. And while some contracts did result in savings, the report authors were unable to corroborate the reported savings touted by DOGE because the agency did not disclose how it calculated those savings. That problem persisted when attempting to corroborate savings from canceled grants — which DOGE credits for roughly $49 billion in savings.

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Freedom Fuel, praised by Trump, sells cheap gasoline. But how?

As a steady stream of drivers pulled into the Freedom Fuel Network’s gas station on Roosevelt Boulevard this week, some pumps still had signs saying “Red Lion,” the station’s brand as recently as last Friday. Other pumps were freshly pasted with Freedom Fuel’s fierce-eagle logo. But what drivers mainly noticed were the prices: 10 to 20 cents per gallon below other stations. “It’s awesome,” said Edwin Torres, 29, who works for a rental car company and often stops by to fill up the fleet. “It’s to the point where 20 cents does go a long way.” The Roosevelt Boulevard station is one of four new locations announced this week by the Freedom Fuel Network, an expansion that deepens the mystery around a company that has revealed little about itself publicly while drawing praise from the White House for its discount gas.

Public documents link the network to a Baltimore Ravens special-teams coach, a New Jersey-based energy investor and a fuel distributor sued repeatedly for unpaid debts and other alleged misconduct, including fraud. Their refusal to talk publicly about the project — and the White House’s promotion of it — has prompted wide scrutiny, including from fuel industry analysts trying to figure out how they manage to sell gas at prices significantly lower than geographic competitors. When the network launched in early July, it charged $3.47 per gallon (in honor of President Donald Trump, the nation’s 47th president, Trump said). At the time, the price was about 40 cents a gallon below market, according to industry analysts. On its website, the company said it had experienced “explosive growth — an average volume increase of more than 50 percent, with several locations surging over 100 percent.” At such volumes, according to an analysis created for The Post by FuelTrust, a fuel supply chain technology firm, the company could have been forgoing as much as $24,000 a day in revenue compared with nearby competitors, or as much as $360,000 over the first two weeks.

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How the Reflecting Pool came to mirror Trump’s Washington

In January, the World of Concrete trade show drew 47,000 people to the Las Vegas Convention Center. One of them was the manager of a Trump Organization golf club in New Jersey, who had come seeking help with an enormous, unfamiliar task. The manager, David Schutzenhofer, wanted ideas for how to fix the leaking, algae-ridden Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington. Several vendors told him they knew just the guy to call: Rodney Jarboe, the president of the Missouri-based company Creative Polymers. Mr. Jarboe had worked on a bridge at another federal landmark, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. In an interview, Mr. Jarboe said he first spoke in March with Mr. Schutzenhofer, who made clear that the work would be rushed. President Trump, Mr. Jarboe said he was told, wanted the renovation project done in time for the country’s 250th birthday on July 4.

“For this thing to be done in the time frame that was required, we almost had to have a contract and start manufacturing by the first week of April,” Mr. Jarboe said. “So it was a very tight deadline to make a decision.” Those initial conversations about the Reflecting Pool, which have not previously been reported, kicked off an ad hoc plan by the Trump administration that involved coating the pool with a sheet of blue polyurea, which the president promised would make it beautiful. Within months, though, the pool was drained and ugly — the butt of jokes and memes. Many of the details of the saga are reported in this article for the first time. They show that the pool, which was supposed to reflect the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, became a striking reflection instead of the second Trump administration’s willingness to skirt laws, expend millions of dollars, ignore facts and punish truth tellers in service of the president’s demands to put his mark on the capital. The Interior Department, led by Doug Burgum, handed out no-bid contracts and squelched doubts about the costs and risks. An employee from Mr. Trump’s private business life, Mr. Schutzenhofer, played an off-the-books role in government decisions. A top federal housing official, Bill Pulte, brought Mr. Trump memes that encouraged him to keep going. And when Mr. Trump sought to blame the project’s failure on shadowy vandals, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, backed him up by charging members of the public with crimes, only to have the cases fall apart.

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Trump-endorsed Rep. Andy Ogles projected to lose GOP primary in Tennessee

Two-term Rep. Andy Ogles lost the Republican primary for his Tennessee House seat, the Associated Press projects, despite securing an endorsement from President Trump. With just over 80% of votes counted in Thursday's primary, Ogles trailed former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher by just over six points, according to results compiled by the AP. It marks the second loss this week by a congressional candidate backed by Mr. Trump, whose endorsement typically carries significant sway in Republican primaries. In a Michigan GOP House primary two days earlier, Trump-endorsed candidate Amir Hassan lost to Thomas Smith, who had suspended his campaign weeks earlier. In a victory speech Thursday night, Hatcher said Ogles had called him to concede and offered to help him transition into the job.

"I don't know what D.C. is going to be like. It's going to be a new environment for me," Hatcher told Nikki Hauser, a reporter for Nashville CBS affiliate WTVF. "I appreciate anybody that can mentor me and help me in that process ... He was nice enough to do that, and I accepted it." A member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, Ogles secured the president's endorsement last November, and Mr. Trump again urged people to vote for the "Conservative Warrior" in an Election Day social media post. But Hatcher was endorsed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and former Gov. Bill Haslam. Ogles has drawn controversy for incendiary rhetoric on social media, including posts stating that "homosexuality has no place in America" and that "Muslims don't belong in American society." He deleted the post about homosexuality, saying the "stupid" and "hurtful" post was written by a member of his staff who was later "reprimanded." Ogles' phone was seized by the FBI in 2024 as part of a campaign finance-related investigation. The lawmaker pushed back on the move, and the Justice Department agreed to return his phone earlier this year. He was not charged with a crime.

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Lead Stories

Talarico used parents' address to vote in 5 elections, report states

State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, used his parents' address to vote in five elections after buying his own home, according to a report the Texas Tribune and ProPublica published Wednesday. Talarico listed his parents' address on his voter registration in November 2021. Despite buying a home the following June, he failed to update his voting records until September 2024, the report says. Talarico himself has accused his Republican opponent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of voter fraud in light of an earlier report by the Tribune and ProPublica, stating he may have also voted with an address at which he did not live. Talarico's voting practices may have violated state law, according to the recent report. His spokesperson directed blame at Paxton in light of the coverage on Wednesday.

Paxton had cited a report by the conservative magazine The Federalist to accuse Talarico of voter fraud linked to his mother's address last week. "This is a lame attempt by Ken Paxton to deflect from his own hypocrisy and career of corruption," JT Ennis, Talarico campaign spokesperson, said in a statement to the Chronicle after the report broke. The campaign declined to comment on whether Talarico used his parents' address to vote while living elsewhere. "Given Ken Paxton's history of weaponizing his office to conduct baseless witch hunts — and the credible threats made by right-wing actors trying to track down the whereabouts of James and his family — our campaign will not enable this any further," Ennis said. Paxton also declined to answer a question about the potential illegal voting during a rare press conference last month. He blasted Talarico on social media in response to the Tribune and ProPublica report on Wednesday, calling him a "fraud who has zero respect for the rule of law." "He will do anything to push his radical agenda, even if it means breaking the law," he wrote on X. "Texans deserve better." In a statement to the Chronicle, Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said Talarico is the only candidate in the race to commit voter fraud. She reiterated the campaign's allegations that Talarico committed election fraud to run for office in 2022. The Tribune and ProPublica reported that he appeared to comply with residence requirements at the time. “Just like he’s flip-flopping on all his radical positions during the Senate campaign, Talarico can’t settle on a single version of events even if it means complying with the law,” Cercy said. Talarico’s home is roughly six miles away from where his parents live, but the two properties sit within the same county and the same state house district he represents, according to the Texas Tribune and ProPublica report. They fall under different jurisdictions for some local elections, the report states.

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Released after arrest at Tarrant meeting, former lawmaker considers suing county judge

Lon Burnam, the former Texas state representative arrested during a Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting, has been released from jail and is now considering legal action against County Judge Tim O’Hare. At about 1 p.m. Tuesday, Burnam, 73, was carried out of the courtroom by four sheriff deputies, who held him by his hands and feet. He was charged with disrupting a meeting and released Wednesday night from the county jail without paying a bond, Burnam said. He is now banned from attending commissioners court for six months, he said. The former state lawmaker, who represented Tarrant County as a Democrat from 1997 to 2015, is a frequent speaker at commissioners court meetings, often advocating for accountability for deaths in the county jail.

Burnam’s arrest came about three hours into a heated commissioners court meeting, where commissioners were scheduled to consider reducing the number of polling sites for the November midterm election. Commissioners ultimately voted to delay that decision after dozens of speakers, including Burnam, criticized the proposal as an attempt to limit voter access to the polls. “I am OK. I think I really did a good job of bringing attention to the attempt to do voter suppression,” Burnam told the Fort Worth Report on Wednesday. That morning, Burnam was en route to Austin to visit with state lawmakers about the increasing number of in-custody jail deaths, plus what he described as “filthy conditions” at the jail. He and several other local activists had previously arranged the trip and are planning to testify to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards during its Thursday meeting. “This will be my second time to speak to them, and it’ll be my first time to speak having personal knowledge of the situation,” Burnam said of the state agency tasked with regulating city and county jails.

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Texas’ first report on school voucher recipients is missing key data

The state has released the first in-depth look at the more than 85,000 students participating in Texas’ voucher program, shedding light on who will benefit from the state’s new $1 billion initiative. The report, which was required by the Legislature, provides high-level demographic data on recipients and where they live. But it leaves some questions about the program unanswered, and some data required by law wasn’t released. Newly appointed Comptroller Don Huffines said in a statement that “the initial success of this program speaks for itself.” “Giving all parents the power to choose the right education for their child encourages schools to compete and deliver better results for all students,” he said.

Here’s what the report does — and doesn’t — show: Most recipients live in low-income households. The Legislature’s voucher program prioritized students from low- and middle-income families and students with disabilities, and that’s what the data shows. About 80% of recipients come from households earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that’s about $66,000. A few students in households earning more than 500% of the level also received vouchers, since the law requires siblings to be awarded together, even if they’re living in different homes Nearly 21,000 students, about 25%, had a qualifying disability. Those students qualify for a voucher up to $30,000, although few actually received that maximum. Many students didn’t accept a voucher. The state awarded the vouchers, which can cover the costs of private or home school, to more than 122,000 students. But only about 85,000 actually accepted them by the report’s deadline. That’s a surprising 30% of recipients not participating. The reasons could be varied: Parents couldn’t find a spot in their chosen school, couldn’t afford tuition even with the voucher, they didn’t understand the state’s process or they simply didn’t want to participate. White students make up about 41% of funded recipients, according to the report. That makes sense — about 45% of applicants were white, according to the office.

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Why Republicans could still keep control of the House

Democrats are favored to flip the House, but Republicans could still save their majority under the right conditions. Historically, midterm elections are a referendum on the party that holds the White House, which voters are prone to punish. This year, the Democratic Party is well positioned to win a House majority, buoyed by voters’ dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and the war in Iran that he started. But Trump’s party could defy conventional wisdom and still eke out a win, election analysts say. Here’s how.

Registered voters support Democrats over Republicans in Congress by five percentage points, according to a Washington Post average of July “generic ballot” polls that ask preferences for parties rather than individuals. Analysts estimate that Democrats need to win the national House vote by three to four points to win the majority. Democrats have a bigger advantage among highly motivated voters, who are more likely to turn out in November. But polls also show that the Democratic brand is bruised. The Democratic Party is less popular than before the 2018 midterm elections, when a blue wave delivered 41 new seats, according to a CNN poll released in late July.Aggressive redistricting to favor parties in congressional elections has resulted in a smaller battleground for control of Congress. As of mid-July, Cook Political Report deemed 37 districts competitive. Eighteen were toss-ups, while 10 leaned Democrat and 9 leaned Republican. Republicans made it unusually hard for Democrats to win the majority by launching a national battle to redraw electoral maps mid-decade. While Democrats tried to gain their own seats, the redistricting gambit proved advantageous for the GOP. Because the two parties are competing on the new map, November’s results could be close even in a difficult year for Republicans, Wasserman said. If Democrats win all of the most competitive districts classified by the Cook Political Report, they would win 235 seats under the 2024 map. But under the current map, they would only win 223 seats.

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State Stories

Talarico unleashes ‘new American Dream’ in Arlington with tripartisan support

In the American Dream City, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico detailed his four-part plan to build a “new American Dream” surrounding economy, families, energy and technology. The Democrat’s half-hour speech was filled with ideas for putting Texans back on their feet after what Talarico described as a billionaires’ rigged economy that has kicked working-class people down. Over a thousand people were in the Esports Stadium Arlington to hear from the Democratic nominee. “We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis,” Talarico said. “We’re getting screwed. Whether you’re a little more conservative or a little more progressive, we’re all getting screwed.”

Ahead of Talarico coming to the stage, two local Democrats, a Tarrant County Republican and Arlington’s independent mayor took to the microphone and voiced their support. Democrats Congressman Marc Veasey and Tarrant district attorney candidate Tiffany Burks focused on the need to vote up and down the ballot. “There is a slate of candidates that are ready and waiting to serve you,” Burks said. “When you go to the polls, make sure that you don’t stop at the top. You go all the way down the ballot. Make no mistake. When you all wake up that morning, we are going to have a different Tarrant County.” Retired County Judge Glen Whitley, the Republican replaced by conservative Tim O’Hare, said he supports Talarico over Paxton because he trusts the Democrat will work across the aisle to benefit Texans. “I have always voted for the best candidate. I did not look at what party they had beside their name,” Whitley said. “What I’m going to have to tell you right now, as a Texan, I am ashamed of the fact that Ken Paxton is even on the ballot.” Ross, an independent, said a better future is on the horizon with Talarico because he leads with love instead of hate. “Nobody else can bring all these parties together like James Talarico,” Ross said.

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NRG Energy reveals details on $3.2 billion data center power project, its first in Texas

Houston-based NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG) has revealed details about its first power project for data centers in Texas just a day after the state’s governor called for a pause in data center approvals. In the company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call on Aug. 4, NRG said it is developing a 1.2-gigawatt power project in Texas with a “leading global cloud and AI hyperscaler.” NRG is targeting commercial operations in 2029 and could later expand it to 2.4 GW. NRG said the project will require $3.2 billion of investment and is expected to generate at least $500 million of annual adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and about $375 million in annual free cash flow. The project is still pending NRG's internal approvals.

CFO Bruce Chung added during the earnings call the investment in the project through 2026 will be about $800 million, including previous reservation payments. NRG’s earnings come just after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Aug. 3 directed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Public Utility Commission of Texas to conduct an audit of all data centers advancing through the interconnection queue before any project moves forward. The governor said ERCOT currently is considering approximately over 474 GW of requests to connect to the Texas grid — more than five times ERCOT’s record peak electricity demand — and about 90% of the new power requests are data centers. During the earnings call, in a response to an analyst asking about the governor’s directive, CEO Rob Gaudette said NRG’s project addresses the concerns state regulators have when it comes to the influx of new power and industrial developments. “It is the right project to meet the concerns of the communities and the elected officials because it doesn’t strain the grid and because it also can reduce the need for some transmission out there. As far as timing goes, Texas is a get-things-done state. I expect them to work through stuff to get to a higher-quality understanding of the projects to be put down over time,” Gaudette said.

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Asian American groups backing James Talarico for Senate say he needs to step up his game

Asian American groups in Texas say they are “sounding the alarm” on Democrat James Talarico’s Senate campaign, warning that if he wants to pull off an upset in Texas in November, he must change course on his outreach to voters in their community. The warnings came from the three Asian American groups that have endorsed him. The Asian Texans for Justice Action Fund announced in May that it backed Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian. But since then, executive director Nabila Mansoor said his campaign has fallen short of reaching Asian voters she said he needs if he is to beat his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton. The action fund is the sister group of Asian Texans for Justice, which says it represents more than 1.9 million Asians in the state.

Alternate text NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: ASIAN AMERICAN GROUPS BACKING JAMES TALARICO FOR SENATE SAY HE NEEDS TO STEP UP HIS GAME AAPI leaders who have endorsed Talarico point to a new poll first shared with NBC News showing that 50% of Asian voters in Texas know little or nothing about him. Click here to read on NBCNews.com – Please credit NBC News NBCNews.com story by Natasha Korecki Asian American groups in Texas say they are “sounding the alarm” on Democrat James Talarico’s Senate campaign, warning that if he wants to pull off an upset in Texas in November, he must change course on his outreach to voters in their community. The warnings came from the three Asian American groups that have endorsed him. The Asian Texans for Justice Action Fund announced in May that it backed Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian. But since then, executive director Nabila Mansoor said his campaign has fallen short of reaching Asian voters she said he needs if he is to beat his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton. The action fund is the sister group of Asian Texans for Justice, which says it represents more than 1.9 million Asians in the state. Two other groups that backed Talarico — Asian American Democrats of Texas and the AAPI Victory Fund — also expressed worries to NBC News. While Talarico has generated excitement in many corners of the state, Mansoor said that with only three months to go to Election Day, community groups do not feel the campaign is connecting with them. “I think that’s what’s been lacking,” she said. “He is the best person to win this race, but he will not win this race without the Texas-Asian vote,” Mansoor added. “While we are doing everything we can to make sure that we are encouraging folks to vote for our endorsed candidates, there has to be something that’s coming from the campaign to back that up. That’s been a little bit disappointing.” The Asian Texans for Justice Action Fund commissioned a poll, first shared with NBC News, that it says underscores their worries.

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Ted Cruz held a hearing on the Muslim Brotherhood's in the U.S. None of his colleagues showed up.

The Republican Party declared open season on America’s Muslims on Wednesday. On the very morning that Muslim American Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official campaign arm of Senate Republicans, released an ad showing grainy footage of El-Sayed and this message: “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America. El-Sayed pledged support for the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a designated foreign terrorist group … and when his ally claimed America deserved 9/11, El-Sayed refused to disavow it.”

And all that was but a warm-up for what happened Wednesday afternoon in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. There, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) used the authority of the United States Senate — specifically, his Judiciary subcommittee — to hold a hearing purporting to demonstrate that there has been a decades-long Muslim conspiracy, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to undermine and control the United States. And that El-Sayed is its crowning achievement. Cruz had his aides put up a poster showing El-Sayed alongside the Muslim Brotherhood’s emblem of crossed swords and the Quran. “FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO THE MIDWEST,” it announced. “COMMUNIST EL-SAYED, LINKED TO THE BROTHERHOOD, WINS DEM SENATE PRIMARY IN MICHIGAN.” Democrats on the panel, accusing Cruz of “scapegoating Muslims,” boycotted the hearing, saying they had “no intention of indulging this political creepshow.” Cruz’s fellow Republicans also skipped the hearing — though probably less because of the subject matter than because Cruz is so singularly disliked. The result was a one-man show of religious bigotry and conspiracy theories, an awkward development that Cruz attempted to conceal.

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The quiet work that has changed South Dallas

Billy Lane found a seat inside the crowded Dallas City Council chambers and reminded himself that the vote on his proposed townhomes was mostly a formality. But the pastor and social justice activist couldn’t relax, not about the affordable housing project his team had been trying to build in the Mill City neighborhood of South Dallas since 2018. Lane, executive director of the South Dallas Fair Park Innercity Community Development Corporation, better known as ICDC, thought the council vote he had witnessed three months earlier was the final OK. Only at the last minute — and only because of a city staffer’s casual remark — did Lane learn the project was back on the agenda, this time at the city attorney’s request to clean up some administrative language. After years of delays, Lane knew better than to take anything for granted. When the townhomes item was read aloud, a single thought ran through his mind: “We have for so long been so close, only for another dadgum wave to sweep us back out to sea. Don’t let it happen again.”

Finally, on June 24, the vote on the eight Mill City homes on the southeastern edge of Fair Park went South Dallas’ way. With construction of the alley and improvements to sidewalks and Brashear Street already completed, ICDC expects to start building by mid-September. The project is the latest hard-won battle in the often overlooked neighborhood-building that ICDC has accomplished since Diane Ragsdale founded the organization 40 years ago. While this local civil rights icon, community organizer, and former City Council member has long been celebrated for her activism, her construction successes have received far less attention. In a dogged and workmanlike way, ICDC has built or rehabbed about 300 homes in South Dallas, provided homeowner education, and partnered to bring healthcare and workforce training to the area. Other community development corporations and partners stepped up over the years, but ICDC has been at it the longest and shown the most staying power. “ICDC has weathered all of the storms,” including deficient infrastructure, political squabbles, and public safety challenges, said Scottie Smith II, a South Dallas resident and real estate broker, investor, and developer focused on this part of the city. “For decades, they’ve been able to see projects through and make progress despite all those storms.”

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Sen. Menéndez warns Lt. Gov. Patrick's religion initiative could further polarize Texas

Democratic state Sen. José Menéndez of San Antonio blasted Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s new religious-liberty initiative. He said it could deepen divisions among Texans while distracting public schools from their educational mission. "It's kind of weird to try to say to people, look, look, look, this is the time and place where you can practice your religion," Menéndez said during an interview on Texas Public Radio’s "The Source." Menéndez said Patrick is "trying to embolden people to demand something that isn't a problem. " Patrick created a seven-member Senate Select Committee on Religious Liberty in March, saying it would find ways to educate Texans about their religious rights and prevent those rights from being infringed.

On July 27, he directed the committee to compare state and federal religious-liberty protections and determine whether Texas needs additional laws. The committee must also develop ways to inform Texans about their right to practice religion in education, workplaces, government and health care. A third directive calls for reviewing the implementation of recent laws involving religion in public schools. The recommendations could become legislation when lawmakers return to Austin in January 2027. “Today, I released an additional seven interim charges for Texas Senate committees to study in preparation for the 90th Texas Legislature, reflecting issues facing Texans for the Senate to study,” Patrick said in announcing the broader package. Menéndez said Texans already have the right to practice their faith. He said the initiative will further divide Texans. "It's already doing it. It's causing people to pick what team they feel like they're on. Or 'are you Christian enough?'" he said.

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Pliny Fisk III, “mad scientist of the green building movement” and co-director of CMPBS, dies at 82

Pliny Fisk III, the exuberant and visionary co-director of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS), died on July 27 in Austin, Texas, due to complications of ALS. He was 82 years old. Despite the challenges of living with the disease, Fisk continued creating and collaborating until the last days of his life. Fisk earned a reputation as one of the founding figures of the modern sustainability movement in design, alongside pioneers like Ian McHarg, Buckminster Fuller, John and Nancy Todd, Sim van der Ryn, Bob Berkebile, and Paolo Soleri. Over his 50 years of leadership at CMPBS, known colloquially as “Max’s Pot,” Fisk—in tandem with his equally renowned partner, Gail Vittori—constantly experimented, venturing regularly into uncharted territory with an ever-changing cast of collaborators from all corners of the earth. The Center celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025.

“Pliny was the beloved mad scientist of the green building movement, the innovator and linkage maker,” said Jason F. McLennan, creator of the Living Building Challenge and chief sustainability officer at Perkins&Will. “He was the one who saw decades ahead of others on embodied carbon and natural materials and found connections between strands of research, data, and possibility. He will be missed by us all dearly and profoundly.” Fisk embodied the ecological designer archetype. He found boundless inspiration in natural systems, and his unique skill was translating natural processes and ambient materials into a never-ending stream of daring projects. Visitors and collaborators would often sit in awe of his passion, playfulness, encyclopedic knowledge, courage, and urgency. Underwriting this flurry of visionary design was The Center itself, tucked away on the outskirts of Austin. Created in Fisk’s image, it evolved into a living laboratory of design, where ideas swiftly flowed from concept to physical prototype. The unique organization has been a proving ground for generations of designers, drawn there to develop expertise in green building in the presence of the masters. On top of all that, The Center was a statement of Fisk and Vittori’s deep integrity—the clearest possible example of what sustainable principles looked like in practice.

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Texas A&M Fort Worth celebrates ‘Silicon Valley on the Trinity’ with new campus

Texas’ most promising legal minds will have a new home to hone their craft after Texas A&M officially opened its new law school building Wednesday. The eight-story $200 million building is the first of a five-building campus expected to reshape the economic landscape of Fort Worth. In addition to the new law school, the campus will include two research and innovation buildings, a performing arts building, and a gateway building serving as an entryway into the campus. It’s expected to create as many as 25,000 jobs and have a $3 billion economic impact on Fort Worth, according to a Texas A&M press release. At a groundbreaking event Wednesday for the first research and innovation building, law school Dean Bobby Ahdieh recounted early conversations with developer John Goff on what the campus and the surrounding “Switchyard Innovation District” could be.

“What if we could create Silicon Valley on the Trinity River?” Ahdieh said, adding the vision was to create an academic campus bringing together multiple disciplines, universities, industry partners and the community to advance innovation and economic growth not just for North Texas, but for the nation. The new campus would not be possible without the vision and collaboration of leaders not just at Texas A&M, but at the City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County and the business community as a whole, he said. Several speakers at Wednesday’s event took time to honor former congresswoman and Fort Worth Mayor Kay Granger, who died Aug. 3 at the age of 83. It was Granger’s leadership that shepherded Texas A&M’s takeover of the downtown law school from Texas Wesleyan University in 2013, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said. Parker recounted serving on Granger’s staff during tense negotiations with former Texas A&M chancellor John Sharp. “I can’t think of two tougher Texans to sit across a table from one another and negotiate about what the future of this law school could be,” Parker said.

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'I was taken aback!' | Former McKinney Mayor addresses physical confrontation during contentious mosque expansion vote

A marathon McKinney City Council meeting over a proposed mosque expansion ended with a unanimous vote in favor of the project, but the five-hour meeting was marked by heated public comments and a physical altercation involving former Mayor George Fuller. More than 150 people signed up to speak Monday night. While some voiced concerns about traffic, noise and the mosque's proximity to nearby neighborhoods along Virginia Parkway, many speakers criticized Islam. "The Islamification of our country has to stop, and it needs to stop now," said one speaker. "I ask you to reject the fear, reject the division, reject the hatred," said one speaker in favor of the project.

"Every country has this disgusting ideology in their country," said another speaker against the project. After addressing the council, Fuller said he was confronted by a woman carrying papers referencing Sharia law. "I started by saying it's a sad day in McKinney, Texas. What I saw last night was the worst behavior of our community," said Fuller, who was mayor of the city for 8 years. Fuller said he initially believed the woman was approaching to greet him. "I was taken aback. I thought she was going to greet me in a friendly way...did not know she was aggressively going to assault me," he said. Witness Samad Syed, who attended the meeting and worships at the mosque with his family, said he saw the mayor being escorted by officers on the way out of the building. "When he was assaulted, I was very disturbed by that," Syed said.

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'Boomtown' near Austin considers data center project as it preps for more

A Kansas City-based real estate developer is angling to earmark a portion of a long-planned development in Mustang Ridge for a data center developer after previous plans to build housing on the site did not materialize. It's the first of at least two data center projects expected to approach the city in the next few weeks. VanTrust Real Estate LLC, over the last several years, has been working to bring the roughly 1,400-acre development online in the small city of about 1,000 people that is about 20 miles southeast of downtown Austin. Officials during an Aug. 4 workshop with the Mustang Ridge City Council and residents revealed how those plans have shifted. VanTrust executive vice president Bill Baumgardner, who is in charge of the firm's Texas office, said during the meeting initial plans on a roughly 623-acre parcel at 13709 Schriber Road are still in motion.

The group annexed and zoned a piece of the property for what it's calling Mustang Ridge Industrial Park, which he indicated could eventually have 3 million square feet of speculative warehouse and logistics space. VanTrust is in the process of building infrastructure and aims to complete the first buildings by 2030. The remainder of the property, which still sits outside of the city, was previously set for potentially hundreds of homes and some retail, but those plans did not materialize, Baumgardner said. Instead, his team has been inundated with interest from advanced manufacturers and data center developers. They've agreed with an unidentified data center developer to carve out about 200 acres initially for data center uses – and he admitted the remainder of the piece could eventually house the same. "This would also be light industrial, but would also have a data center component on it. Whether this becomes all data center, I don't know," Baumgardner said. The workshop marked the first step in what's expected to be a long process if the Council opts to bring its first data centers online within city limits. Council billed the workshop as an opportunity for members and the public to ask questions ahead of potential annexation, zoning and other votes. It will also serve as a way to standardize further data center development, as officials indicated during the meeting that an additional data center developer is scheduled to hold a workshop later this month.

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Jerry Jones open to selling piece of Cowboys to Mark Cuban in future

Two of the biggest personalities in Dallas and across the sports world are reportedly "open" to discussing a deal in the future. Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban both discussed the possibility of the latter purchasing a minority stake in the Dallas Cowboys in recent interviews with the Dallas Morning News. While Jones told DMN that the Cowboys are not currently interested in taking on additional investors, he did not rule it out in the future, according to an Aug. 2 report. Jones told DMN he respects Cuban and what he could bring to a franchise.

"That’s exactly why if you’re me, you would be open to that, is because of the man," Jones told DMN. "I have all the respect in the world for him and I know what he did for the Mavericks and what he’s done for basketball. ... You want to associate with the highest quality of [a person] who loves the game and then also at the same time wants to do something about it. Mark leads the way in that." The Cowboys declined to comment and Cuban did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Dallas Business Journal. Jones purchased the Cowboys in 1989 and has built the team into the most valuable sports franchise in the world. Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur who made his fortune selling Broadcast.com at the height of the dot-com bubble, was the longtime majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He sold his majority stake in the NBA team in 2023 but remains a 27% minority owner.

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Texas Children's Hospital must open country's first 'detransition clinic' by October under finalized settlement

A legal settlement requiring Texas Children's Hospital to create what Attorney General Ken Paxton calls the country's first "detransition clinic" has been finalized, the attorney general's office announced Wednesday. Under the agreement, the hospital must open the clinic by the end of October, pay $10 million to resolve state and federal Medicaid fraud claims and permanently revoke the privileges of multiple physicians. The agreement also requires the hospital to permanently revoke the medical staff privileges of multiple physicians and amend its bylaws so performing gender-transition procedures results in the automatic loss of medical staff privileges.

The settlement was first announced in May following an investigation by the attorney general's Healthcare Program Enforcement Division into Texas Children's former gender-affirming care program. Paxton alleged the hospital improperly billed Texas Medicaid for gender-transition procedures using false diagnosis codes. "This historic settlement is a resounding defeat for the radical gender ideology that has preyed on Texas children under the guise of 'care,'" Paxton said in a statement Wednesday. "This settlement sends an unmistakable message: if you put radical ideology over children's health, my office will go after you." When the settlement was first announced, Texas Children's said it agreed to resolve the case to avoid prolonged and costly litigation while maintaining it had complied with the law. "To be clear — we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation," the hospital said in a statement at the time. "We stand proud knowing we will always put our purpose over politics and that we have and will continue to follow the law."

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Austin’s surprise $4.7 million sparks fight over social service cuts

As Austin faces a projected multimillion-dollar deficit that is expected to balloon in the coming years, one of the biggest tactics City Manager T.C. Broadnax has pushed to balance the books is deep cuts to social service contracts with a more than $5 million proposed reduction in the next budget. The effort has been bolstered by several findings suggesting Austin’s funding and oversight of those services are unsustainable. A city analysis found Austin relies far more heavily than peer cities on its general fund to pay for social services, while a more recent audit found nonprofits missed nearly half of the performance goals reviewed. But Friday’s discovery of $4.7 million in additional property tax revenue has upended the plan days before the City Council begins adopting next year’s budget.

A supermajority of council members now supports restoring at least some of the proposed cuts, prompting a debate over whether the money should preserve services, fund housing vouchers or be held until the city can determine which contracts are producing results. The council is expected to confront that question Thursday, when city staff will present a proposal to reserve the additional revenue for possible social service spending. Broadnax zeroed in on social services late last year shortly after Austin voters rejected Proposition Q, a council-backed plan to raise property taxes by more than 20% to fund social services and other city programs. He made the first cuts in December, slashing $5.28 million from the social services budget and promising nearly $17 million more would follow. Council then created a rubric for distributing the cuts that weighed factors like whether a contracted service provides essential programs, prevents costs elsewhere in the city, delivers a return on investment and meets its contract goals. At the end of February, council approved the rubric and directed Broadnax to use it in recommending cuts. When Broadnax released a proposed budget in July, staff recommended spreading the remaining $16.8 million in reductions over two years, leaving about $5 million in direct social service cuts this year. That would ease the burden on nonprofits that have relied on city funding for years.

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Texas governor’s data center moratorium prompts calls for special legislative session

After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a moratorium on new data centers, pending a state-led audit of these fast-emerging and controversial facilities, several of his political opponents issued statements critiquing his actions. But they weren't criticizing his decision to temporarily prevent new data centers from connecting to the Texas power grid. Instead, they said Abbott's actions didn't go far enough. "Let's be very clear about this: Abbott can take action now to end the data center madness," Austin state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for governor, said in a statement. "He could issue a moratorium until the legislature meets to put in place real protections for Texans and give them a seat at the table to decide if and how data centers move into their communities."

As Texas sees the fastest-growing data center market in the country, the governor’s moratorium on data centers has also prompted calls for a special legislative session focused on regulating these facilities. Large energy consumers are requesting about 474 gigawatts of power from the Texas grid — more than five times the amount of energy used to power the entire state during record-breaking demand. About 90% of those requests are from data centers. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, was among critics calling for a special session. Abbott endorsed Miller’s opponent, Nate Sheets, who defeated Miller in this year’s GOP primary election. "Without legislative action, this directive is all hat and no cattle — empty political rhetoric wrapped in meaningless fluff," Miller said in a statement. "Texans need laws with teeth, not another press release designed to make it look like something is being done while hyperscale projects continue moving forward."

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National Stories

Why so many C.E.O.s are getting a chief of staff

When Richard Gelfond, the chief executive of IMAX, hired his first chief of staff, he went looking for a shadow, someone who could take notes during meetings and let him know what was up next. But over time, as IMAX grew more complex — expanding from 55 theaters to almost 2,000 across more than 90 countries — his chief of staff grew in stature. “They’re really invaluable in helping me think through what I want to say and what I want to accomplish and then how to execute it and helping me execute it,” Mr. Gelfond said. Raphael Roesler, who was Mr. Gelfond’s chief of staff until June 2025, recently worked on a high-profile project: coordinating with research and development to build the special camera used in Christopher Nolan’s summer hit, “The Odyssey.” Mr. Gelfond has had a chief of staff for 16 years, but the position is becoming increasingly trendy among his peers.

Since early 2020, postings for the role have increased 85 percent, according to Indeed, the job posting site. That’s a faster clip than for executive assistants and secretaries, whose jobs are also tied to helping business leaders manage their day. Unlike executive assistants, the chief of staff is often a senior level role, according to data from Indeed, because they serve as a second brain for the busy boss. An executive assistant “figures out what time something goes on the calendar, but a chief of staff figures out whether it should go on the calendar at all,” said Clara Ma, founder and chief executive of Ask a Chief of Staff, a networking platform that brings together chiefs of staff across various industries. According to a survey she conducted, the position pays $150,000 to more than $200,000 a year, depending on experience. Executive search firms like Russell Reynolds Associates are fielding more requests from companies to help recruit chiefs of staff. And companies aren’t looking to hire them just for the top boss. Lower level executives, such as vice presidents within marketing, communications and finance departments, are getting them as well.

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After Michigan loss, AIPAC weighs a second effort to defeat El-Sayed

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has told allies that it is considering a major financial campaign to support the Republican Senate nominee in the Michigan general election this fall, after it failed its biggest test of the primary season on Tuesday. AIPAC’s super PAC spent $32 million in an unsuccessful effort to boost Representative Haley Stevens over Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a relentless critic of Israel, during the state’s Democratic primary. After Dr. El-Sayed’s victory, the group is unbowed and now appears willing to put what is expected to be tens of millions of dollars behind Mike Rogers, the Republican, as some of AIPAC’s major backers are urging, according to a half dozen people who have spoken with the group’s leaders.

In a statement, AIPAC suggested its supporters would be involved in the general election without laying out specific plans. “Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” said Deryn Sousa, a spokeswoman for AIPAC. In an interview, Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s main super PAC, said no official decision had been made about spending in the race. The organization had about $80 million on hand at the end of June, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Backing a Republican in a competitive general election — especially in a crucial swing state — would be an extraordinary shift for AIPAC. The organization has long considered itself bipartisan and began spending in federal elections only in 2022. Still, many AIPAC supporters consider Dr. El-Sayed to be a threat: He made opposition to Israel a centerpiece of his campaign and has repeatedly said that he would vote to cut off funding for the Jewish state. “The days when we are told to shut up and be nice are over — that’s not what is going to happen here,” said Sam Markstein, the political director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a national organization with several AIPAC donors on its board. “We are not going to be bullied, we are not going to be slandered. We are going to double down and we are going to do what we need to win.”

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Are rural law enforcement agencies using Flock cameras?

According to my analysis of data from the Atlas of Surveillance, a crowd-sourced database of police technology, nearly 800 rural law enforcement agencies use Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) as of December 2025. Rural jurisdictions with limited resources and staffing might find automated policing tools attractive, but investigative reporting on ALPRs reveals that they might do more harm than good. Flock Safety, the well-known ALPR company, has come under fire for encroaching on citizens’ privacy in ways that are difficult for the public to track. Flock Safety and its competitors use artificial intelligence (AI) to collect sensitive data on both individuals and vehicles. Although Flock Safety says that they don’t track down people, just cars, public records obtained by 404 Media revealed that police regularly used Flock cameras to look for individuals, searching their databases with terms like “heavy-set male with a black and white hat.”

(Note: ALPRs are not traffic cameras. While law enforcement agencies use traffic cameras for ticketing traffic violations by capturing photos of license plates, they use ALPRs primarily for investigative purposes.) “Much of the world hasn’t quite caught up yet to how much more powerful a surveillance camera is today compared to a few years ago,” said senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Jay Stanley in an interview with 404 Media. Stanley told 404 Media that, today, “oceans” of data can be searched with key terms like a text file, including for sensitive personal content, like one’s bumper stickers or clothing. The vast majority of these cameras are manufactured by Flock Safety. In nonmetropolitan, or rural, jurisdictions, nearly 80% of all agencies that deploy ALPRs use Flock cameras, representing 627 communities. The following map shows metro and nonmetro law enforcement agencies that have contracts with an ALPR company. Visit the interactive web map to click on points and explore the pop-up windows. This dataset was last updated at the end of 2025.

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Ohio Rep. Max Miller resists pressure to drop reelection

Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio resisted pressure Wednesday to exit his reelection campaign for Congress, even as anxiety over his electability was growing within his own party. Miller is facing a congressional ethics investigation related to domestic abuse allegations leveled against him by his ex-wife but is insisting he won’t withdraw. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told CNN on Wednesday. The second-term congressman’s actions in a parade of public appearances — beginning with a livestream from his X account Sunday — are heightening concerns among Republicans, who have only until Monday to replace Miller on the November ballot if he were to change his mind and withdraw.

Some senior House Republican campaign strategists worry that Miller’s chances of reelection in the competitive Cleveland-area district have vanished in light of the renewed attention on the allegations and his attempts to defend himself, according to a source familiar with the strategists’ thinking who requested anonymity to discuss internal party deliberations. Messages left for Miller were not returned. Miller said in a CNN interview earlier this week that he had spoken about his reelection prospects with President Donald Trump, who told him, “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to, you know, pull this one out.” Miller, a senior adviser to Trump during his first term, said he believes he retains strong support within his district and can raise the money needed for a winning campaign. Miller has so far raised about $2.1 million, compared to his opponent’s $603,000, according to federal filings. “There’s no chance that I’m removing myself from this race,” even if Trump were to ask him to step aside, Miller said in a Newsmax interview Tuesday evening.

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Trump, Hegseth clashed at Camp David over Iran missile depletion concerns

President Donald Trump’s frustration over the Iran war boiled over at Camp David last week, where he demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on why he had apparently been misled on extreme munitions shortages that now threaten to limit military options with Iran, two people familiar with the exchange told The Washington Post. The encounter took place on the sidelines of his Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday where Trump vented at Hegseth that he thought the munitions issue “had been fixed,” according to both people familiar with the conversation, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.

The shortages, particularly in long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors, have been part of the reason Trump has pulled back from launching additional massive strikes against Iran in recent days, one of the sources said. Trump said Monday that he had ordered and subsequently called off “the biggest attack since World War II,” pending claims of new negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz. The president asserted overnight that the United States has “massive amounts” of munitions, saying in a post on Truth Social that “large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed.” The “‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” he added. While the United States has announced new production agreements for some of the most critical munitions, such as Patriot air defense missiles, the munitions themselves can take as long as two years to produce, and there’s no immediate relief in sight for the shortages.

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Fauci faces contempt of Congress vote over refusing to answer COVID-19 questions

A Senate committee is set to vote Thursday on whether to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week focused on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the Republican committee chairman, has said that constitutional protection did not apply since Fauci last year received a pardon from President Joe Biden and thus did not have to worry about the threat of prosecution.

But Fauci, in a statement issued before the hearing, said he had good reason to fear the possibility of criminal charges given what he said was Paul’s determination “to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote.” The pardon from Biden covered acts from 2014 through the January 2025 day it was issued but does not shield Fauci from state-level prosecutions or from investigations into any testimony that he did give that lawmakers thought was false. The Republican-led panel is set to vote Thursday morning on whether to refer Fauci to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which would make a decision on whether or not to investigate or potentially attempt to prosecute the doctor for contempt. Paul, who has previously sent referrals on Fauci on his own, acknowledged Wednesday that contempt resolutions have often gone through the full Senate but said he did not “want to waste time” moving the matter to a vote of the full Senate, where it would be unlikely to muster the required 60 votes needed to advance. “We still might come to the floor,” he said, “but at this point, the first thing we will do is we will send it over as a recommendation from our committee, if it passes.” No matter what happens, the episode raises fresh and complicated questions about lawmakers’ ability to compel testimony from previously pardoned witnesses — and the outcome could resonate beyond Fauci given the possibility that Trump may also grant clemency to his own aides before leaving the White House.

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White House declassifies info on secret FBI probe into whether Trump fired Comey at Russia's behest, official says

The White House on Wednesday released declassified information saying the FBI opened an investigation into whether President Trump was acting as an asset for Russia when he fired FBI Director James Comey, a theory an administration official said was not backed up by evidence. The official said the investigation, known as Oxferd Comma, was a subcomponent of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI probe into potential collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government — an investigation that has long drawn Mr. Trump's ire. The predicate of Oxferd Comma was the newly elected president's decision to fire Comey in 2017. The case was marked sensitive, which is generally done to keep a case off the books from other agents, the official said.

The agents who opened the case said they believe it was going to be the least intrusive method to address a serious national security risk. Oxferd Comma was eventually rolled into Special Counsel Robert Mueller's larger probe into Mr. Trump, the official said, and was later found not to have any merit when the rest of the Mueller investigation was closed down. "I was unaware that the predicate for the obstruction included a claim that Donald Trump was somehow acting on behalf of Vladimir Putin," the official said. "The short of it is, almost everything in the FBI's possession at that point had debunked or ruled out that Trump or his campaign was colluding with Russia at that time." Mr. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, just months into his first term as president. The White House initially cited Comey's handling of the investigation into Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails as the reason for his dismissal, though Mueller's report claimed Mr. Trump was frustrated with Comey for refusing to publicly state that the president was not personally under investigation for potential ties to Russia. Comey's firing ended up as the catalyst that set a larger investigation into Mr. Trump in motion. After Comey's dismissal, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as a special counsel to investigate claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and any potential ties to the Trump campaign. Mueller ultimately did not find evidence that members of the Trump campaign "conspired or coordinated" with Russia, though he did describe some contacts between the campaign and Russian government-linked individuals.

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Lead Stories

Tarrant commissioners table decision on Election Day and early voting sites

Members of the Tarrant County Commissioners Court unanimously agreed Tuesday that a proposal to nearly halve the number of Election Day voting locations was out of left field and far too drastic. The decision on a proposed list was tabled by the commissioners until a later date, likely the Sept. 1 meeting. Under the proposed list, Tarrant County would have had 55% of the Election Day polling sites for this November’s midterm election compared with the number there were in the 2022 midterm election. Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare said the proposed number of 176 locations was too low. Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig said he came up with the number by apolitically looking at the map of election precincts and determining how many voting locations would be adequate with an increased turnout.

Ludwig outlined his methodology for configuring the 176 Election Day sites, which was done in a way that ensured there were 44 polling places in each commissioner precinct. On average, he said there are 1.3 miles between voting sites. Twenty-eight of the voting sites are within 1,000 feet of a bus stop. Ahead of the commissioners’ discussion and delayed vote, there was a flood of opposition from residents, politicians and voting right groups. Of the 70 public commenters who came to the microphone Tuesday, one supported the list as proposed. The other 69 called it un-American, voter suppression and an attempt to select who could have a voice in elections. A proposal to reduce the number of early voting sites was also tabled.

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‘Taxation through electricity prices’: Abbott takes aim at city-owned utilities like CPS Energy

Gov. Greg Abbott is calling on the Texas Legislature to break up “monopoly-run” electricity companies like CPS Energy, allowing other providers to come into the San Antonio area and compete for customers. The move would likely mean dramatic changes for the city’s financial structure, since CPS Energy contributes 14% of its profits to the city budget in lieu of paying property taxes. At a press conference Tuesday, Abbott suggested the change was at least in part a response to ideological disagreements over how blue cities have been spending their profits from municipally owned utilities. In a particularly good year for CPS Energy, for example, San Antonio’s City Council famously used some of its share of the utility’s windfall to create a Reproductive Justice Fund — which the state later outlawed.

“Over a course of about four years, money that was paid into CPS went into a fund for the city of San Antonio that they used for other things,” Abbott said on Tuesday. “Some money that was used in that fund was used for Zumba classes,” he continued. “Listen, I’m not diminishing Zumba classes, but I’m just saying, that’s not what you’re paying your electricity bill for.” In more recent years, City Council members have looked for ways to reinvest CPS Energy profits into keeping utility costs from rising, like putting some of the money toward utility infrastructure upgrades as CPS sells energy onto the Texas grid for a profit. On Tuesday, however, Abbott claimed his plan would lower utility prices for San Antonians by 10%-20% — while also keeping CPS Energy ratepayers who don’t live within the city from helping fund city services they don’t use. “There’s more than 100,000 people that live outside of the city of San Antonio, and yet they’re paying CPS, and a large percentage of what goes to CPS goes beyond just providing electricity; it goes to funding the city budget,” Abbott said. “This is taxation through electricity prices without representation, and it must come to an end.” CPS Energy contested the idea its agreement with the city unfairly punishes any of its ratepayers.

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Stevens, El-Sayed in tight race for Michigan's Democratic Senate nomination

Moderate candidate U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and progressive favorite Abdul El-Sayed were in a tight race for Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in the early morning hours of Wednesday. Both addressed supporters, saying the vote count could continue well into the day. “We knew that this was going to be a close race, and that’s exactly what we’ve got,” Stevens said. “I am feeling fired up, and you should be too.” The bitter and expensive campaign attracted national attention not just because the general election for the seat will help decide which party controls the Senate. It also became the most notable proxy battle between the Democratic Party’s establishment and progressive wings.

Candidates from the left-flank — including democratic socialists — have found surprising success in the party’s U.S. House primaries, including in New York and Denver. Those races, however, were in deep-blue cities. Michigan has a purple hue. A progressive victory here would be a more significant notch. El-Sayed maintained a lead as initial results rolled in Tuesday night, though Stevens made up ground as Wayne County, the state’s most populous and home to Detroit, reported more votes into the night. Wayne has historically released results later than other counties, and its voters have tended toward establishment candidates over progressives. That meant Stevens could see a boost as the counting dragged on, though that did not guarantee victory. The crowds’ energy at each watch party was a measure of the race’s competitiveness: Early in the evening, El-Sayed’s supporters in Detroit’s Majestic Theatre cheered at the first batches of votes, before mellowing. Hours later, Stevens’ previously subdued partygoers roared as she narrowed the margin. “Whatever happens tonight,” El-Sayed told a thinned but still energetic crowd, “we have a responsibility to ensure that we unite, unite to make sure that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the U.S. Senate.” Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers is the Republican nominee.

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Texas Comptroller leadership email orders list of employees for cuts

Leaders at the Texas Comptroller’s office received an email Tuesday directing them to create priority lists of employees they’d cut under potential staff reductions. The Dallas Morning News reviewed the email, which comes in Don Huffines’ first few days as acting comptroller after being appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott last month. Huffines has campaigned on shrinking state government with his own version of the federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, making it a campaign priority in the comptroller’s race, where the Dallas businessman faces state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt in the November election.

Tuesday’s email came from Michael Apperley, the comptroller’s director of administration, and was sent to several directors within the agency. When asked for comment, agency spokesman Kevin Lyons referred The News to a Tuesday afternoon news release saying the agency would undergo a performance review to find areas to save taxpayer money. The review will look at the agency’s business processes, vendor contracts and administrative structure. The email mentioned that state leaders had asked state agencies last month to cut spending by 3% in preparation for their budget requests for the next two-year budget cycle. “One of our largest objects of expense is salaries, so we must consider the potential need to reduce salary expenditures,” Apperley’s email said. The email asked the directors to provide a list of potential “staff to reduce” and broke them down into three categories: low performers with documented discipline issues; people who may be leaving the agency soon due to retirements, resignations or transfers to other agencies; and involuntary terminations.

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State Stories

Elon Musk's SpaceX tosses millions to Texas county

Elon Musk’s SpaceX just poured millions into the rural Texas county where it is planning to build its massive Terafab chip manufacturing plant. The company sent Grimes County a check for $10 million, making good on a deal for an upfront payment as part of a tax abatement agreement it won for the project in June. “I saw the check and they beat the deadline,” County Judge Joe Fauth said. Musk highlighted the payment by sharing a post about it on X. As part of the agreement, which county commissioners approved in early June, the nonrefundable payment was due within 60 days. The county treasurer received the check last week and deposited it Thursday, Fauth said.

The payment shows SpaceX is making good on the deal that waives all county property taxes on the project. In addition to the upfront payment, SpaceX will have to pay $20 million a year thereafter for the 35-year term of the agreement. As part of the deal, SpaceX also secured a tax increment reinvestment zone, which allows revenue generated by increased property values within its boundaries to be spent on improvements inside the zone. Though a Musk-linked company has been snatching up thousands of acres at the site near Gibbons Creek Reservoir and has won county and other tax breaks, Terafab's location has yet to be made official. In late July, Musk hinted that the site of the project, which is a joint venture between SpaceX, xAI, Tesla Inc. and Intel Corp., could be announced soon. SpaceX representatives have said that sites in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada have also been considered and that Terafab was prepared to walk away from Texas if school tax breaks were not approved. In July, Iola Independent School District and Anderson-Shiro Consolidated Independent School District both approved $1.66 billion in breaks under the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation program.

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What another Texas flood revealed about the state’s warning system

One year after several rivers and creeks in central Texas killed 139 people and spurred a statewide push to improve flood warnings, another historic storm tested those changes. This year’s disaster brought at least 12 inches of rain — and as much as 28 — to one dozen counties north and west of San Antonio and destroyed or damaged hundreds of buildings. Yet just three people died. “Here we are a year later, but under incredibly different circumstances,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said at a July 20 press conference. “Last year when we were here, we were grieving. We were in a pall of human loss.” Earlier forecasts, new warning systems, and a public primed by last year’s tragedies saved lives. But the catastrophe also exposed how much work remains, leaving many Texans counting on vigilance and neighbors when the water rises.

Many of those caught in this year’s flood were still mourning those who died in last year’s. The torrents that swept across the Hill Country then came with such speed and ferocity that many people were still asleep as the water crashed into their homes. The scale of the devastation, which included the deaths of 25 girls at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, shocked the nation. It also spurred action. Legislative hearings and investigations revealed failures by Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority that exemplified weaknesses in the state’s flood-warning and emergency management systems. Among them, the county lacked outdoor sirens, even along the most vulnerable stretch of the Guadalupe, and the authority had deferred building the warning system it knew it needed after the state denied funding. The county never activated a federal emergency alert system capable of reaching nearly every cellphone in the area and delayed some local alerts while dispatchers sought supervisory approval. Those shortcomings became central to lawmakers’ push for a more robust warning system across flood-prone communities. During a special late-summer session, lawmakers passed four flood-response bills. Two strengthened safety and licensing requirements at youth camps. Another launched an effort to expand flood-warning systems in 30 counties by identifying flash flood–prone areas that need warning siren systems, including sensors and gauges. The last bill provided $50 million to buy them and another $24 million for a two-year project to dot the Hill Country with more rain gauges, radar, and forecasting tools.

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'They're not real pastors': As clergy run as Democrats, Republicans question their faith

At last month’s Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, Joe Mitchell, a Republican running for U.S. Congress in the state’s second congressional district, jabbed at his Democratic opponent, state representative the Rev. Lindsay James, saying she “calls herself a pastor.” He then turned to the crowd of conservative evangelical pastors and coined a term he said applies to James, a Presbyterian minister, and other faith-forward Democratic candidates — namely, Lutheran minister the Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, an Iowa state senator also running for another seat in Congress, and James Talarico, a state senator and Presbyterian seminarian running for U.S. Senate in Texas. “I call them PINOS,” he said, explaining the term is an acronym for “Pastors in Name Only.” “Because they’re not real pastors, right? They don’t profess the true gospel of Jesus Christ,” added Mitchell, who has attended an evangelical church in the past.

It’s the latest in a series of faith-focused attacks that have intensified amid an election cycle featuring a striking number of clergy campaigning as Democrats — and, in recent months, besting their challengers. At least 12 pastors, seminarians and former clergy have run for federal office as Democrats this year, and five have already become the Democratic nominees. Some are even competing against each other: In Iowa, James, who is ordained within the Presbyterian Church (USA), had to beat out another pastor, United Methodist minister the Rev. Clint Twedt-Ball, to win her primary. At least seven current and former pastors, all evangelicals, have also launched campaigns for Congress as Republicans this year, but with less success. Of those seven, only three — Pastor Mark Harris, an incumbent in North Carolina’s 8th district; Pastor John Elleson, who is running in Illinois’ deep-blue 9th district; and Tim Walberg, an incumbent and former pastor in Michigan’s 5th district — ultimately became nominees. Tensions are high in competitive races with clergy candidates, with Republican opponents sometimes even turning to allegations of blasphemy as they hope to capitalize on longstanding divisions within Christianity to eke out victories. That includes Garriott, whose race is rated by The Cook Political Report as one of only 18 “toss-up” House elections in the country; in addition to Mitchell’s “PINO” remarks, Republican officials have referred to Garriott as the “Wicked Witch of Woke.”

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Spurs CEO defends arena deal after mayor says voters should decide

Days after Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones called for a public vote on the city’s contribution to a $1.3 billion NBA arena, the Spurs put out a letter saying that’s not necessary. The open letter from Spurs Sports & Entertainment CEO R.C. Buford doesn’t mention Jones by name, but it is clearly directed at her — and any City Council member who’s on board with her proposal. “The vote has taken place. The commitments have been made. The work is underway,” the letter states. Bexar County voters “made their voices heard” when 52% approved the county’s $311 million contribution to the project last November, Buford said in the letter, which SS&E released Tuesday. The county payment required a public vote because the county will raise its taxes on hotel rooms and rental cars to generate the revenue.

The city’s $489 million contribution, however, needed only a majority of council members to say yes — and seven members did that last August when they approved the draft financing plan for the arena. SS&E agreed to put $500 million toward the arena and pay for any cost overruns. In addition, SS&E will give the city $2.5 million each year under its 30-year arena lease, which amounts to $75 million. That money can be used on projects and programs chosen by City Council. Jones has scoffed at the payment, which she routinely notes would pay for 156 speed bumps a year — 15 for each of the 10 council districts. The city contribution would come from bonds repaid by rising property tax revenue and rent from developers leasing city-owned property to build restaurants, bars and housing around the arena at Hemisfair. Rent from the arena lease and the state’s share of hotel taxes would also help repay the bonds. Buford’s letter says the contribution “comes from visitor-based revenue” and “is legally restricted to venues and tourism-related projects.”

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Marc Whyte: San Antonio has an opportunity to get data center growth right

(San Antonio City Council Member Marc Whyte represents District 10.) San Antonio faces two realities. We need new sources of revenue to support a growing city that deserves more public safety, jobs and infrastructure solutions, and we need to protect our neighborhoods, natural resources and quality of life. The debate over data centers sits squarely at the intersection of those two priorities. The issue isn’t whether we want data centers in San Antonio. They are coming. What we should focus on is establishing the standards necessary to ensure they are good neighbors and responsible consumers of our natural resources. Data centers bring significant private investment, expand our tax base, increase city revenue and create temporary construction jobs along with long-term technical and operational jobs once they are up and running.

As San Antonio faces projected budget shortfalls that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars during the next several years, growing our commercial tax base is no longer simply an economic development goal — it is a fiscal necessity. Every time San Antonio expands its commercial and industrial tax base, more of the cost of running city government is shared by businesses rather than homeowners. That helps reduce pressure on residential property taxpayers while providing additional resources for police, firefighters, streets, parks and libraries. With the positives, however, also come challenges. Gov. Greg Abbott recently directed state regulators to ensure that future data center development includes adequate power generation and water conservation measures. He also supported limiting local tax incentives for these projects, and he was right do so. Those policies reflect an important principle: Large-scale developments should contribute to the infrastructure they rely upon rather than shifting those costs onto existing residents.

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Lina Hidalgo seeks property tax increase for daycare, preschool

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo will again ask Commissioners Court to consider a property tax increase to support a daycare and preschool subsidy for some residents, public agenda documents indicate. Hidalgo did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, and the exact details of the proposal remain unclear. But records state the tax increase would maintain a “portion of critical Harris County early childhood programming” — language that closely mirrors a proposal Hidalgo floated last year that ultimately failed after she brought dozens of kids to court in a bid to pressure her colleagues to support the measure. Commissioners will discuss the proposal Thursday. If approved, the proposed increase would go before voters in November.

The program provides free daycare and preschool to eligible low-income families, and provides professional development and training to childcare providers. As many as 1,000 children can receive free childcare through the program, which currently is funded through December using federal grant dollars. Hidalgo's 2025 proposal would have dedicated a portion of the county's tax revenue to support the initiative indefinitely. The county is facing a $130 million deficit for its coming budget year — similar to the shortfall it faced when Hidalgo made her proposal last August. Nancy Sims, a University of Houston political science lecturer, said a tax hike may face political headwinds. “This is a really complicated issue, and I think it's going to be a tough sell,” Sims said. “Everything that our local governments are experiencing with budgets, so are our local citizens. So asking them to pay one more penny for anything is going to need to be seriously thought out.” More than 90,000 children in Harris County are on a waitlist for subsidized childcare, according to a fact sheet

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More than 8,400 San Antonio students will use private school vouchers

At least 8,405 students who live in San Antonio school districts will use the state’s new voucher program, according to data released Monday by the Texas Comptroller, who oversees the initiative. These students are among the 85,434 statewide to receive some of the $1 billion from the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, an education program that gives families public funds for private education costs including tuition at private schools, learning supplies and therapy. More than 2,200 students living in Northside Independent School District will use a voucher, making it one of the top Texas districts with students claiming TEFA funds.

Other San Antonio-area districts with a large number of students using the vouchers include North East and San Antonio ISDs, with 1,536 and 972 students enrolled, respectively. The data from the comptroller’s office tracks the district where students live but does not list where they previously attended school. The state prioritized awarding TEFA money to children with disabilities from low- and middle-income households. The next priority group — making up around 80% of all TEFA recipients — is children from families with incomes at or below two times the federal poverty level, which is $66,000 for a family of four. The TEFA program gives students with disabilities up to $30,000 annually. Other students can get up to $10,500 for private schooling and $2,000 for homeschooling. Parents can only use the funds to pay for state-approved private education costs. Monday’s data reflects the number of students whose parents have claimed or used their awards. Of the program’s 274,000 applicants, 90.5% were eligible for the funding, and 31.1% received funding. About 121,000 students are on a waiting list.

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Families brace for change as Third Future reboots two struggling Waco schools

Laneisha Latimer has heard about the strict way Third Future Schools plans to run South Waco Elementary School, where her son is starting as a fourth grader. School begins Tuesday at South Waco and Dean Highland elementary schools under the control of the charter school operator Waco Independent School District chose to turn them around. Latimer learned in May how tightly scheduled her son’s day will be. He will have to walk in silence in between one-minute transitions. Several times per class period he will have to demonstrate through writing or peer discussions that he understands the lesson.

And he and his classmates will have 10 more instructional days than their Waco ISD peers, who start next week. So far, so good, Latimer says. Latimer believes the additional rules and structure will work for her son, Landon, who has struggled with behavior and academics. “It would take away a lot of distraction,” Latimer said. ”First of all, when the kids are loud, when they don’t have any structure like it’s been from my point of view. … Then the kids tend to get out of control when they’re able to talk in the hallway, then that causes arguments.” Waco ISD is among the latest Texas districts to choose Third Future Schools to take control of campuses with a record of failing under the state’s accountability system. South Waco Elementary had four years of failing grades under the A-F system and Dean Highland had three. The next round of accountability rates are due next week, reflecting the 2025-26 academic year. A fifth consecutive failing grade at any single school could trigger a state takeover of the whole district. But under state law, the third-party agreement protects Waco ISD from intervention for two years.

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House Democrats add 12 GOP seats, including Texas seat, to offensive target list

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), House Democrats’ campaign arm, on Wednesday announced it is adding 12 more Republican-held and leaning seats to its offensive target list — including seats held by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the chair of the DCCC’s GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee. The 12 new “Districts in Play” for the 2026 cycle bring the DCCC’s total number of offensive target seats to 58, nearly all of which have been rated as Solid Republican by the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper. President Trump won all of the new additions by double digits in 2024, though some of them saw Democrats performing well in previous cycles.

Those new additions include three Republican-held open seats, with no incumbent running: Rep. Mark Amoedi (R-Nev.) is retiring from Nevada’s rural northern 2nd Congressional District; Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) opted against reelection in New York’s upstate 21st District; former Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) resigned and ended his reelection bid for Texas’s 23rd District border seat, which is rated Likely R by Cook. The DCCC also put Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, a seat that is newly Republican as a result of partisan redistricting that is being vacated by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), on its pickup list. In Colorado, the DCCC is targeting not only Boebert — who last cycle moved across the state to run in a safer GOP seat after only narrowly winning reelection in 2022 — but also Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents the rural southwestern corner of the state. Trump won North Carolina’s central 9th District held by Hudson, the NRCC chair, by 16 points in 2024 — but Democrats are encouraged by their nominee in the district, veteran Richard Ojeda, who when he ran for Congress in 2018 in West Virginia performed 20 points better than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

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Texas A&M System sued over limits on race, gender teachings

A group of professors filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block the Texas A&M University System from implementing its policies that limit how faculty members can discuss race, gender and sexual orientation in the classroom. Under the policy, Texas A&M professors cannot teach courses that “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without prior approval. Four professors and the national American Association of University Professors argue the policies, first introduced in November by the Texas A&M Board of Regents, are unconstitutional and violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment plainly prohibits this egregious attack on academic freedom at a public university,” said Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, in a news release. “This broad policy and the university’s opaque enforcement process makes it impossible to teach or to learn freely and endangers course content about everything from the history of slavery to Shakespeare to the hard sciences.” A spokesperson for the Texas A&M University System described the lawsuit Tuesday as "without merit." "The System will vigorously defend its policies and procedures," spokesperson Chris Bryan said in a statement. "The A&M System remains focused on the important work of supporting our students and fulfilling our duty to the state." Monday’s suit is the second major legal challenge brought against a Texas university system over increased restrictions around what can be taught. In July, the national AAUP chapter sued the Texas Tech University System over its policies.

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Data centers use lots of water and power, but Texas officials don't know exactly how much

The high transmission line that bisects Torrie Martin’s ranch hums subtly. Occasionally the frequency changes to a droning buzz that ends in a pop. “?You can actually hear the power plant right now,” Martin said. “It's been pretty loud the last few years.” The Vistra Hays Power Plant is directly across the street from Martin's property. It generates around 990 megawatts of power, enough to power 250,000 homes. This facility is considerably larger than Austin’s biggest power plant — Sand Hill Energy Center — which generates 595 megawatts. The proximity to the power station makes Martin’s neighborhood a desirable place to build data centers. Data centers need a lot of power to operate, and, depending on how they’re cooled, a lot of water too. As more and more data center developers submit proposals to build in Texas, questions about how they’ll impact Texas’ grid and contribute to drought conditions across the state are widespread.

So much so, that Gov. Greg Abbott effectively ordered a pause on all data center projects looking to connect to the grid until officials get a better grasp on the amount of resources they will use. For Martin, these concerns aren’t just hypothetical. A year ago, a developer approached the city of San Marcos with a request to build a data center behind her ranch. She and many other residents of the city opposed it. “?I love San Marcos,” Martin said. “This is my home, and so I'm just standing up for it.” Martin grew up on the ranch in Hays County where she now tends to a herd of horses. She said, in this rural part of the county, power and water outages aren’t uncommon. “We do have brownouts kind of regularly and we get our water shut off at least twice a month, usually [for] two or three hours, sometimes more,” Martin said. A brownout is a reduction in power availability. It can cause lights to flicker and appliances like washing machines or microwaves to run sluggishly or make weird noises. Repetitive brownouts put extra strain on machines and can shorten their lifespan.

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Suzanne Bellsnyder: Don't leave rural Texas behind

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I watched a documentary about President Theodore Roosevelt. I have always been intrigued by Roosevelt, and his “Man in the Arena” speech on courage is one I return to when I need a reminder of why engaging in the political arena matters, even when doing so is difficult. More than a century ago, the country was rapidly shifting from a nation of farms and small towns to one of growing cities, factories and industry. As Americans left rural communities for urban opportunity, Roosevelt worried that something valuable might be lost in the rush toward progress. “There are no two public questions of more vital importance to the future of this country,” Roosevelt said, “than the problem of conservation and the problem of the betterment of country life.” Roosevelt understood that conservation was about more than protecting forests, rivers and wildlife. It was also about preserving the communities that had cared for those places for generations.

Over the past year, I have written about school vouchers, data centers, property taxes, the state budget and local control. Each of those debates raises a larger question about the direction Texas is heading and what that future will mean for the people who call rural Texas home. Too often, conversations about rural Texas begin with what we lack. Some communities have lost population. Hospitals have closed. Main Streets are quieter than they once were, and young people often leave to pursue careers elsewhere. Those challenges are real, but they do not mean rural Texas needs to be rescued from itself. Many of us live here because we choose to. Others are the fourth, fifth or sixth generation to care for the same ranch or farm. We stay not because it is the easiest place to make a living, but because it is where we find purpose. There is value in knowing your neighbors, supporting your local school, serving your church, volunteering at the fire department and believing your children and grandchildren might someday want to come home. That isn’t nostalgia. It’s a culture worth protecting.

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National Stories

Trump White House readies AI framework to review security risks

In a meeting on Tuesday with top artificial intelligence companies, White House officials said the federal government planned to review only certain types of artificial intelligence models for potential security risks and not others, according to four people familiar with the discussions. The A.I. models the government plans to review are known as “closed” models, which do not publish their underlying code and are made by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, according to three of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the meeting were private. The administration does not plan to review “open source” A.I. models, which have computer code available to the public to download and modify, although that could change as the technology advances, the people said.

The moves are an effort by the Trump administration to take a more hands-on approach to regulating A.I., and they formalize oversight of leading A.I. labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. But they delay addressing some of the most pressing regulatory issues with the technology, including potential threats posed by increasingly powerful open-source models made by Chinese companies. The decision to exclude open-source models could also be a boon for companies that are trying to catch up to Anthropic and OpenAI, which are widely considered leaders in developing next-generation A.I. Some companies, like Meta, have used open-source software to create products to directly compete with the two leading start-ups. The framework, which comes after months of private discussions between administration officials and a handful of the world’s most consequential tech companies, is likely to shape the global A.I. race. Companies have long decided largely on their own whether to give the public access to the latest advances or to withhold them over concerns about safety and security. Now, the United States will have a greater opportunity to weigh in, potentially giving the government the ability to slow down the rollout of the technology.

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Inside the Oval Office showdown between Trump and Jeanine Pirro

Jeanine Pirro had had it up to here with Doug Burgum. The famously voluble U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia strode into the Oval Office late Monday with her future on the line and the interior secretary, whom she privately called an incompetent liar, in her cross hairs. A few hours earlier — in front of the cameras, from the Resolute Desk — President Trump had accused Ms. Pirro, an ally and friend from New York going back decades, of “folding like an umbrella” and “choking” after she withdrew charges against a man accused of destroying the lining of his beloved but shoddily renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Why was he so angry at her? Because Ms. Pirro had dared to publicly demolish one of his most cherished narratives, promoted by Mr. Burgum, that vandals — and not a contractor hired by the Interior Department to do a rushed job — had defaced a Washington landmark.

Mr. Trump raged against Ms. Pirro in private on Monday. Then he raged a little to reporters. Rumors she would be fired burbled through West Wing. Then he raged a little bit more before hosting a high-drama, face-to-face meeting with Ms. Pirro at the White House worthy of two decorated veterans of confrontational reality TV. Mr. Burgum had been invited too, so Ms. Pirro came prepared. She entered the White House from the West Executive driveway in a bright red blazer that matched her fight-back mood, schlepping a white box containing evidence, plus a black box with documents, on wheels. Waiting for her in the Oval Office, along with the president: Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and David Warrington, the White House counsel. After about an hour of intense back-and-forth, Ms. Pirro emerged with her job intact, for now. Speaking to reporters during a trip to the West Coast on Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump said he had told Ms. Pirro he was “not happy” with her filing and was still weighing her future. “I haven’t made a determination,” he said when asked if Ms. Pirro’s job was safe. During the meeting on Monday, Ms. Pirro, her voice raised at times, directly confronted Mr. Burgum, accusing him of misleading the president. She made the case that Mr. Burgum had promoted a self-serving cover story to conceal his own missteps. Mr. Burgum spoke less, but did his best to defend himself, according to a person briefed on the exchange requesting anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

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Wesley Bell defeats anti-AIPAC challenge from Cori Bush

The pro-Israel lobby showed its sustained power in a high-profile House primary Tuesday, with Rep. Wesley Bell staving off a grassroots primary challenge from former representative Cori Bush amid a crescendo of criticism against Israel within the party. AIPAC, whose political arm spent millions to support him and oppose Bush, kept Bell on course for a second term in the heavily Democratic district. Tuesday’s race was a rematch of the 2024 primary, where the pro-Israel lobby spent $9 million to unseat Bush over her criticisms of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip. Bush cast Bell as an ineffective lawmaker who catered to the pro-Israel lobby, but Bell succeeded in pushing back on her grassroots campaign, highlighting Bush’s past personal controversies. Bell’s victory interrupted a run of wins by Democratic candidates critical of Israel and AIPAC’s political influence. Israel-critical candidates who have denounced political spending by the pro-Israel lobby have won in high-profile primaries in New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Bush expressed optimism going into Tuesday’s election that Democrats’ changing views of Israel and AIPAC had improved her prospects from two years ago. “I was pretty much isolated ... because people were afraid that they would have problems if they associated with me,” Bush said, recalling the 2024 race. “Having so much money spent from AIPAC and those other groups against a Democrat, it made some Democrats feel like, well, I don’t want that ire coming my way.” Democratic lawmakers have increasingly shown willingness to break with their party’s long-standing support for Israel. Nearly half of all House Democrats voted last month to cut off military aid to Israel — an unthinkable position for the overwhelming majority of the party only two years ago. Progressives assert the number would be higher were it not for campaign spending by the pro-Israel lobby, especially with nearly three-quarters of Democratic voters wanting to curtail aid to Israel, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll last month. AIPAC, the preeminent pro-Israel lobbying group, has been particularly subject to left-wing attacks.

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Authorities arrested a man with ammo and apparently monitoring security at Trump golf course near LA

A man carrying ammunition and with a gun in his car was arrested Sunday at President Donald Trump's Los Angeles-area golf course after appearing to monitor security preparations two days ahead of Trump's fundraiser there, authorities said Tuesday. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Jeanine John Taele, 38, was taking photos and video and had a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket. Authorities recovered a loaded pistol in his car. Law enforcement searched his home in the nearby city of Downey on Monday and found a plethora of firearms, magazines and ammunition, body armor and notebooks with "concerning statements."

The sheriff's department announced the arrest as Trump was preparing to arrive for a fundraising dinner for the Republican National Committee at the Trump National Golf Course in the suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes just south of Los Angeles. Taele was charged with several felonies including second-degree robbery, receiving a large-capacity magazine and possession of a short-barreled rifle or shotgun. He was also charged with carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle, a misdemeanor. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges Monday and was ordered to stay away from the golf course and not possess weapons. His bail was set at $250,000. It wasn't clear if he had an attorney, and family members could not immediately be reached for comment. The sheriff's department said when they made contact with Taele on Sunday, they had determined he was being investigated by the El Segundo Police Department for robbery.

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At least 12 states face cyberattacks on their water systems, sources say

Possible cyber intrusions targeting water and wastewater utilities have now been reported in at least a dozen states, multiple sources told ABC News. Iran is the prime suspect in the cyberattacks, which can blind utility operators by changing passwords or disabling alarms, according to the sources, though its involvement has not been officially confirmed. There have been no widespread disruptions to water supplies or wastewater treatment so far, sources said. The FBI is urging utilities to disconnect systems from the internet where possible, use systems with breakers and become familiar with reverting to manual controls if automated systems are compromised.

In Michigan -- one of the states affected -- state police said they are monitoring the situation and coordinating with federal partners. The Michigan State Police said they are working with the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to communicate with municipal water systems across the state and encourage facilities using the affected software to secure their systems and follow applicable cybersecurity guidance. "All systems continued to operate safely, issues were addressed by local operators, and there are no known impacts that posed a public health concern," the Michigan State Police said, citing information from the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. The Michigan State Police said the FBI is leading the investigation and referred additional questions to the bureau.

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Rand Paul’s Fauci diary dump exposed peoples’ medical histories

Anthony Fauci’s diary included the names and medical information of people he came into contact with as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, including people with cancer, Ebola or HIV. Sen. Rand Paul’s office published Fauci’s diary entries without redacting those sensitive details. The documents expose more than 20 individuals by name along with their medical histories, a NOTUS review found. Paul published over 1,600 pages of Fauci’s diaries last week ahead of Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, after obtaining the documents from the Department of Health and Human Services. The initial document dump was unredacted. Days later, those files were removed and replaced with partial redactions to some, but not all, of the personal medical information.

The unredacted entries have raised legal questions around how the Health Department disclosed these documents to the Senate. Several of the individuals named in the documents said they were unaware their medical history had been made public and expressed concerns around their personal privacy. “What this administration does with information is selective, it is unconstitutional and truly disappointing,” Leslie Adelman, one of the individuals whose medical information was revealed in the documents, told NOTUS in a text message. Adelman said she was “pretty offended that my name and public health information have been shared to the world.” NOTUS is only publishing the names of the private individuals who have given direct approval to appear in this story. Fauci’s diary entries remain accessible with some redactions on Paul’s Senate office website. Paul, who has long called for Fauci to be jailed for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, has suggested that the documents reveal that Fauci thought the COVID-19 virus emerged from a lab. The senator continues to promote the documents on social media.

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Lead Stories

Gov. Greg Abbott pauses new data centers until energy, water usage audit is completed

New data centers won’t be able to connect to the Texas power grid until state regulators complete a comprehensive audit of these facilities, following a directive from Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday. In a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Abbott called on the agencies to collect information on water and power usage at these facilities and to pause data centers’ ability to connect to the grid until the audit is complete. “Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” Abbott said in the letter. “That includes providing affordable energy, maintaining a reliable electric grid, preserving water for our communities, and championing Texas values. Those priorities can, and must, be achieved while also creating the jobs and providing the economic opportunity that comes with our national leadership in technological innovation and investment.”

ERCOT says large energy consumers are requesting 474 gigawatts of power — more than five times the amount of energy used to power the entire state during record-breaking demand. About 90% of those requests are from data centers. It’s the latest correspondence between the governor and the state’s energy agencies, who are grappling with how to regulate the fastest-growing data center market in the country. And it comes as data centers have faced increasing public scrutiny across the political spectrum. Earlier this summer, Abbott directed the commission to take action to ensure that data centers lower residents’ energy bills when facilities connect to the grid and require data centers to pay for the costs of their electric infrastructure. The governor also directed the commission and ERCOT, which operates the state’s electricity grid, to review their authority and “identify actions that can be taken under those authorities to safeguard Texans, their property, and resources.” PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson responded to the governor’s letter last month, outlining the steps the two agencies had already taken to prepare for an influx of data centers to the state. Most of the policies began before the governor’s directive and were undertaken in response to a state law passed in the 2025 legislative session.

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Blanche wins backing from Sens. Cornyn and Tillis after rescinding anti-weaponization fund

In a push to move his confirmation to the role forward, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche late Sunday formally rescinded the Justice Department's controversial $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund." The Trump administration's effort to potentially compensate allies of the president and Jan. 6 rioters was holding up Blanche's confirmation on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Two members of the panel who are both leaving Congress — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — said they wanted written assurances the fund was dead. The announcement appeared to appease their concerns, as the two senators released a statement on Monday saying they "look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon."

With the rescindment, Blanche said he was formalizing in writing his testimony before the committee that the fund would not move forward. He said that no members were appointed to direct the fund, no funds were transferred and no claims were paid in connection with the effort tied to the May deal with the Internal Revenue Service. In a second, unsigned statement, the Justice Department clarified the scope of audit protections announced in May that shielded Trump, his family and his companies from any tax audits or enforcement for prior tax returns. The statement said those protections only apply retroactively. "My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions. We have enjoyed good faith discussions, and as a result issue the following order and update with regards to the May IRS settlement," Blanche said in a statement on X. "The Department always welcomes and appreciates productive engagement with all members of Congress."

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‘Making too much money’: Trump blasts Exxon Mobil, Chevron profits

President Donald Trump turned up the heat on Exxon Mobil and Chevron over high gasoline prices on Monday, blasting his longtime industry allies for “making too much money” while Americans struggle with higher prices at the pump. Oil majors have reported bumper quarterly earnings, buoyed by higher crude prices caused by the supply disruptions in the Middle East and the soaring profit margins for refineries. That has put targets on the backs of companies as the Trump administration faces mounting pressure to show it is working to bring down high gas prices ahead of the midterm elections. “Based on a shortage, they’re making too much money,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Monday. “I don’t like it, and I should be the last one to say because I’m a big free enterprise guy — nobody bigger.”

Trump specifically called out the two biggest U.S. oil producers by name after both reported strong earnings on Friday. “Chevron, too much money. Exxon Mobil, too much, too much money,” Trump said. “They ought to give some of that back to the public, and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.” The average U.S. retail gasoline price has hovered near $4.10 a gallon for the past week, up from less than $3 before the United States and Israel launched their attacks against Iran in February. In late June, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate big oil companies for not bringing gasoline prices down fast enough as crude oil prices weakened. Pump prices are generally set by the retailers, often sole proprietors, who own gas stations, rather than major oil producers. Chevron declined to comment on Trump’s remarks, and Exxon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The two companies’ chief executives warned in earnings calls Friday that a shortage of refining capacity could keep gasoline prices high through the fall.

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Manufacturing survey shows inflation worries ‘worse than pandemic era,’ adding to Fed pressure

A burst in factory activity shows the U.S. economy may be escaping the burden of tariffs and gaining manufacturing jobs, while at the same time laboring under the geopolitical uncertainty that some industry leaders say is worse than the Covid pandemic. In its July survey of the manufacturing landscape, the Institute for Supply Manufacturing reported the fastest pace of growth in more than four years — a 55.6 reading that was the best since May 2022 and above Wall Street expectations for 54.0. The index measures the percentage of companies reporting growth, so anything above 50 represents expansion. Leading the way were strong gains in new export orders, backlogs and a 6.3-point spike in production.

At the same time, the employment gauge hit its highest since August 2022 and marked an expansion for the first time in 33 months, ISM officials said. But concerns lurked beneath the surface of an otherwise positive report. The prices index edged lower, but only to 71.1, indicating that nearly three-quarters of all respondents reported that prices were heading still higher, the 22nd straight month that has happened. Moreover, the commentary pointed to a highly volatile environment in which purchasing managers were struggling to stay ahead of events like the Iran war and tariffs. “No normalcy in sight in the world of metals,” an executive in the primary metals sector said. “It makes me yearn for the coronavirus pandemic chaos, which was more manageable than whatever this is that we are in.” A manager in the electrical equipment, appliances and components industry voiced similar concerns. “The pricing volatility and lead-time extensions in this market are arguably worse than the pandemic era,” the respondent said. “During Covid-19, we saw a surge of price hikes and inventory buy-ups, which caused constraints that eventually leveled out.” This time around, “We are seeing nothing but consistent upward trends for both pricing and lead times that show no signs of slowing down,” the manager said.

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State Stories

Federal relief for Kerrville's second round of flooding slowed

July 16 flooding damage to Kerrville has hit $55 million, but federal disaster relief is not triggered until that figure reaches $60 million, according to a high-ranking city official. Assistant Kerrville City Manager Michael Hornes recently briefed the Kerrville City Council on damage and recovery efforts following the flood, the second in a year to hit the city. He said he believed damage may reach $60 million dollars from this year's flood, but urged residents to be patient this go-around, reminding them of the much heavier devastation in the July 4, 2025, flooding, especially the associated 117 deaths within the county. Due to the terrible scale of the first flood, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump were able to move fast on disaster declarations, he said.

"Last year, it went so fast. I think the expectation from folks is ... why isn't it going to go this fast again," he told the city council. "Because it doesn't go this fast. There're sad, sad reasons why it was that fast last year. So, I know ... no one wants to hear it, but please be patient." The July flood this year claimed the lift of 65-year-old John Steward when his mobile home was swept away. Hornes told the council more than 800 homes within the city were reported damaged, destroyed, or affected by flood survivors. He said some of those reports appear inflated due to duplicated storm reporting. The Texas Department of Emergency Management and Federal Emergency Management Agency have been able to validate or certify more than 600 of those reports. Hornes said the second flood hit some homes already being repaired from last year's Fourth of July flooding. He said much flood debris has been removed, and dumpsters are being set up across the city for residents to help speed up that effort.

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Apollo Global Management confirms plans for HQ2 in Austin

Private capital firm Apollo Global Management has confirmed it's heading to downtown Austin, and there are indications its workforce here will be in the hundreds if not thousands. The New York-based financial giant on Aug. 3 announced the move, weeks after the Financial Times reported that the company chose Austin for the HQ2 over two Florida locations. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office issued an announcement calling Apollo's new Austin location a "strategic hub." Absent from the announcement was a location. But Apollo has tapped brokers from Newmark Group Inc. to lead its search, several sources told the Austin Business Journal. Apollo (NYSE: APO) is said to be looking downtown, and at least initially was looking for 250,000 square feet of office space.

A representative for Apollo on Aug. 3 said the company aims to finalize a long-term location in downtown Austin "in the next few months." In the meantime, Apollo has already set up an initial short-term office at the 300 Colorado tower. The representative also added that future growth for the company will be in Austin but will not materially impact New York operations. Representatives for Newmark said on July 31 they can't discuss anything related to Apollo "at this time," citing a matter of company policy. Apollo setting up locally is a major economic win for the Texas capital and its office market. The firm is a high-growth global asset manager that had about $1.03 trillion of assets under management as of March 31. “Austin lets us build the next generation of Apollo ... including challenger models for parts of our own business, with the talent, technology, and business environment already in place," Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said in the announcement. "That's why we chose Austin and Texas.” Other factors cited by the company include the presence of Fortune 500 companies in Texas, primarily in the hard-tech, chipmaking and defense technology sectors, along with the state's plethora of energy and infrastructure companies – all factors that "align with our thesis for the ongoing global industrial renaissance," Apollo officials said. Wherever Apollo lands, the bulk of the firm’s new hires will be housed in the new office, FT previously reported. Exact job creation numbers for the project were not initially announced.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Texas, keep politics out of college admissions tests

Texas’ higher education board is considering expanding the use of an alternative to the SAT and ACT, the Classic Learning Test, in public university admissions. The “traditional” admissions test has been labeled as being favored by conservatives and is accepted at the U.S. military academies, the Florida public school system and a handful of other schools, largely private religious universities. While it’s worth studying the test and evaluating alternatives to the College Board and ACT duopoly that has its grip on college admissions, the political framing attached to the CLT is exactly what Texas should avoid.

College campuses have become increasingly polarized and hostile toward students and faculty who present viewpoints inconsistent with what has been accepted in higher education spaces, but college admissions tests should be about predicting students’ success, not politics. The test uses reading passages from classical and historical texts. In contrast, the SAT and ACT typically use shorter, more contemporary reading passages. In a letter, Texas’ higher education commissioner wrote that the SAT, ACT and CLT “are of sufficient rigor and reliability” to be used in college admissions. This isn’t the complete picture. An independent study from the Texas A&M Public Policy Research Institute found all three tests met the threshold for continued consideration, but the CLT is “less mature than SAT and ACT for statewide high-stakes Texas admissions use." That’s not to say the CLT couldn’t evaluate students just as well as the SAT or ACT, but it’s too early to tell, and the potential for the test to be used in admissions by 2028 is presumptuous.

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A Texas-led federal lawsuit could affect disability rights. Here's why advocates are concerned

Disability rights advocates are urging Texas to withdraw from a federal lawsuit they say could weaken the protections that allow disabled people to live in their communities instead of institutions. The Texas-led lawsuit is questioning the constitutionality of the integration mandate — a requirement in the Americans with Disabilities Act that generally requires public entities to provide services to people with disabilities in the way least disruptive to their lives, according to Sabrina Gonzalez Saucedo, director of public policy and advocacy at The Arc of Texas, a disability rights advocacy group. “[The integration mandate] means that people with disabilities should have the opportunity to live in the community and receive services in the community when appropriate, and not be unnecessarily separated or forced into institutions,” Gonzalez Saucedo said. “This is all about being in the least segregated environment.”

Disability rights advocates and politicians gathered at the Texas Capitol in July to denounce the state’s involvement in the lawsuit. ADAPT of Texas, a grassroots disability rights group, hosted the rally. Attendees were encouraged to call Attorney General Ken Paxton's office to urge Texas to withdraw from the lawsuit. Paxton, who is the lead plaintiff in the case, did not respond to requests for comment. Ron Cranston, a longtime ADAPT volunteer, became quadriplegic at 19 after a spinal cord injury. Now 70, he said he has watched disability rights ebb and flow over the decades and believes Texas v. Kennedy poses a serious threat to disabled people's ability to remain in their homes and communities. “Sometimes we are building the rights and the mechanisms through statute, through programs to make sure that we have our access, we have our support,” Cranston said. “Other times we're just fighting to keep them, and we need to continue to be vigilant. ... Things can change at a moment's notice.” Cranston said that living in his home allows him to maintain independence and family connections, something that would be difficult to preserve if he were placed in an institution. Being able to see his grandchildren regularly is one of the everyday freedoms he worries could be at risk, he said.

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Lawyer for 2 witnesses in Houston ICE shooting faces malpractice suit over man’s deportation

A Houston-area attorney representing two of the witnesses to the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal immigration officer is facing a malpractice lawsuit recently filed by a man who was allegedly deported to Mexico. The lawsuit, which was filed in Somervell County in North Texas in June, claims Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, the attorney, represented Carlos Perez in his "asylum and immigration case," which resulted in Perez's deportation. An attorney for Carlos and Adriena Perez, the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which was first reported by KPRC.

Balderas-Ibarra is also representing Daniel Tirada Pantoja and Jose Trinidad Pliego, two of the men who were in a van driven by Salgado Araujo when he was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on July 7 in Houston. Pliego was released from federal custody last week, while Pantoja and the third witness, Salgado Araujo’s brother Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, have filed similar petitions for their release from detention. All three of the witnesses are immigrants and have disputed ICE’s claims that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo tried to run over federal agents and was shot in self-defense. The Perezes' lawsuit does not share details of the alleged malpractice in the filing, but asserts "loss of income and earning capacity, suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium, and household services" as damages. In a court filing, Balderas-Ibarra's attorney argued as such that the lawsuit is insufficient, urging the judge to order the Perezes iterate their complaints or dismiss the lawsuit. Balderas-Ibarra's attorney did not immediately return a request for comment. He is also moving to move the lawsuit out of Somervell County to Harris County.

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About 1K students living in Austin ISD to use private school vouchers

More than 1,000 students who live in Austin Independent School District boundaries will use the state’s new private school voucher program this year, according to data released by the Texas Comptroller on Monday. These students are among the 85,344 students statewide who will participate in the new $1 billion Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, which uses public funds to pay for private education costs, such as tuition or tutoring. The vast majority of the Texas students in the program — 68,000 — are from households that make less than 200% of the federal poverty line, about $66,000 for a family of four.

About 20,700 of the students have a disability and are from families living at or below 500% of the federal poverty line — about $165,000 for a family of four. Close to 13,000 students participating in the voucher program are these students’ siblings. The vouchers provide up to $10,500 for private school tuition annually. Students who receive special education services can receive up to $30,000 per year, while homeschooled students are eligible for up to $2,000 to cover tutoring, course materials or other costs. The comptroller’s data does not track where the TEFA recipients previously went to school, so a student living in Austin ISD boundaries may have been enrolled in a non-district school previously. As of June 10, 57% of the students who were awarded scholarships had previously been enrolled in a private school or homeschooled, not including students in prekindergarten, kindergarten or first grade. A little more than one-third of the 248,712 eligible students who applied for the program won vouchers. About 40.8% of participating students are white, 13.6% are Black and 28.2% are Hispanic, according to comptroller data. On Monday, Comptroller Don Huffines said the program was the third-largest of its kind in the country and had the largest beginning participation. Huffines was sworn in as comptroller on Aug. 1 after Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, who previously oversaw the program, stepped down. Lawmakers approved the controversial program in 2025 after years of unsuccessful attempts to pass a similar initiative. Some teachers and Democrats have criticized the voucher program over concerns that the TEFA diverts funds from public schools and strains traditional districts, many of which are already facing budgetary challenges.

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‘Tough but fair’ and focused on Fort Worth: Peers recall Kay Granger’s service

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker used to tease her former boss, U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, that the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” was about the congresswoman. Like Meryl Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly, Granger was hard to work for and wanted to be excellent at all times, said Parker, who was the congresswoman’s campaign manager and district director. Granger was incredibly caring, smart and focused, but tough, Parker said. “I used to joke with Kay, ‘They finally made a movie about you,’ and she’d just [be] like, ‘Hahaha, so funny, so funny,’” Parker recalled Monday. Granger both loved and hated the bit, Parker said. “She kept a really high standard for the people that worked in her office, mostly because — in my opinion — she had come up in politics when it was hard, especially as a woman in Fort Worth and in Texas and then in Washington,” Parker said. “She felt like she had very little room for error and held herself to a very high standard.”

Granger died Sunday at the age of 83, after a trailblazing career that was marked by a flurry of firsts. In 1991, having worked as a teacher and opening an insurance agency, Granger became the first woman to serve as Fort Worth mayor. Before that she served on the zoning commission and on the Fort Worth City Council. Granger won her 12th Congressional District seat in 1996 to become the first Republican woman to represent Texas in the U.S. House. She would go on to lead the Appropriations Committee, a powerful position where she had sway over defense projects — an issue vital to the economy of North Texas, with Lockheed Martin, Bell and the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth. Granger was the first Republican woman to hold the leadership role. Those who knew Granger remember her as a champion of Fort Worth and a hard-working, no-nonsense, consensus builder in Washington who wasn’t afraid to work across the aisle. “She was truly an old-style public servant, and I admired … that about her,” said former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price.

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Texas Republicans campaign with unusual urgency despite decades of dominance

For a party that hasn't lost a statewide race in Texas in more than three decades, the urgency was striking. Top GOP leaders descended last week on one of their strongholds to warn supporters that victory in November wasn't guaranteed. Their message reflected growing concern about turnout and a competitive Senate race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico. “God is on our side,” said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is seeking reelection against state Rep. Vikki Goodwin of Austin. “If Texas fails, if we turn blue, America’s through.” Dubbed the Red River Roll Call, the Sherman fundraiser featured Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, House Speaker Dustin Burrows and several other statewide and congressional candidates.

Organized by state Rep. Shelley Luther of Tom Bean, it was billed as the largest Republican rally ever in Grayson County. A day later, statewide candidates met at the Governor's Mansion to coordinate strategy ahead of the fall campaign. Paxton begins a statewide campaign swing this week with stops in Allen, Houston, McAllen and San Antonio. Republicans have controlled statewide elections since 1994, thanks to their strength in suburbs, small towns and rural areas. By running up vote totals there, Republicans have offset Democrats’ advantage in the larger urban areas. Grayson County overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024. “If we lose Texas, I have no doubt that the U.S. Senate turns to the Democrats,” Paxton said at the event before calling Talarico a “deceiver” who is trying to hide his record. “We need rural counties to deliver and not be apathetic, because we can lose Texas.” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder said Republican rallies will not stop his party's momentum. “They suddenly realized what we’ve known and been saying – Democrats are putting together a serious operation to turn out votes and are seriously contending in parts of the state that have been traditionally ignored,” he said. "Frankly, no one wants to vote for their slate because it’s a terrible lineup of self-servers.”

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Scholars say risks outweigh benefits of Texas' new Bible curriculum

As the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) debated this summer whether or not to add the Bible to the state's required reading list, critics argued that asking students to read Bible passages would infuse public schools with Christianity. Supporters, in turn, contended that knowledge of the Bible was key to understanding literature and U.S. history. "When we teach classical literature and social studies with biblical foundations, we are not simply preserving great books," one Lubbock resident told the SBOE as the body approved the changes. "We're helping raise young men and women who love truth, pursue wisdom and recognize God's hand throughout history and human experience Texas Republicans in support of requiring students to read Bible passages have made similar arguments, as well as said that it is important to emphasize America's founding as a "Christian nation."

That echoes similar pushes such as the effort to put the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. But after the SBOE approved adding passages like Matthew 6:25-34 or the parable of Jonah and the Whale, the argument that teaching the Bible wasn't such a bad idea found purchase outside of Texas Republican spheres. A Houston Chronicle op-ed argued that "Teaching the Bible in Texas schools is good, actually." A piece in The Atlantic magazine by Adam Kirsch declared that "The Bible Belongs in the Classroom." "Texas' decision to start teaching Bible stories—like its requirement to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, which the state legislature approved last year—is clearly meant to send a political message," Kirsch writes. "But regardless of your political or religious beliefs, there are good reasons to agree that the Bible should be part of young people's education." It's a thought-provoking question argument. After all, as Kirsch points out, countless classics of American literature contain references to the Bible, and Biblical context is helpful when understanding historical documents written during our nation's founding.

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How North Texas campaign stops reveal key differences in Talarico and Paxton bids for U.S. Senate

On a recent stop in North Texas, James Talarico stood on a shallow stage in the center of the crowded auditorium at Disciple Central Community Church in DeSoto, a city with a Black population of around 68%. It was his second stop in his race for U.S. Senate focused on reaching the state's Black voters — a group that has expressed lingering hesitation toward the 37-year-old state representative from Austin. For nearly an hour and a half, he answered questions from voters in an effort to connect with a demographic that will play a key role in November's midterm election. Left unmentioned: his opponent, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. "I don't want any Texan to vote for me because they don't want Ken Paxton as their next U.S. senator," Talarico told the press after the event. "I was here making my case. I'm not here talking about Ken Paxton."

Less than a day later, just 35 miles away, Paxton took a different approach. At the Texas Sheriffs Association annual conference in Fort Worth, the Republican was flanked by 22 sheriffs in front of a podium plastered with a mock-up mugshot of his Democratic opponent, who he said has "one of the most anti-law enforcement records in the history of Texas." "He's trying to distance himself from positions he's previously embraced," he said. "He's going to say he supports law enforcement. But what he won't tell you is the rest of the story." As November's midterm election draws closer, the race to be Texas' next U.S. senator is heating up — and though Talarico and Paxton vie for same seat, their campaigns fight different battles. While Talarico courts Black voters, a group that largely supported U.S. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in the primaries, Paxton looks to the moderate conservatives who preferred sitting U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in May's runoff election. While Talarico claims he’s moving away from negative campaigning, Paxton has embraced it. And while Talarico travels the state making stop after stop, Paxton's appearances have been rare and brief.

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Federal HIV funding changes threaten services in San Antonio and Texas

HIV prevention and treatment organizations in San Antonio and across Texas face uncertainty as the Trump administration redirects federal grants and proposes significant reductions in public-health spending. The administration recently decided not to renew approximately $46 million in direct Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants to 96 community organizations. The money supports HIV testing, outreach, connections to treatment and referrals for PrEP and PEP—medications that prevent infection. Federal officials plan to route funding through state and local health departments, arguing that local agencies can better determine community needs.

Advocates warn that states are not required to continue supporting existing organizations, which often have trusted relationships with people who might not visit government clinics. The potential consequences have already surfaced in San Antonio. In 2025, the San Antonio AIDS Foundation temporarily suspended free HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing after Texas officials told contractors to pause federally funded work while awaiting CDC guidance. Testing resumed, but the disruption demonstrated how funding delays can quickly affect patients. BEAT AIDS, the Alamo Area Resource Center, Metro Health and other local providers also offer testing, outreach, housing assistance and connections to care. Congress rejected most of the administration’s proposed fiscal 2026 HIV reductions, preserving major CDC and Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs. However, the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund was cut by $4 million. The White House’s fiscal 2027 proposal would eliminate roughly $800 million in core CDC HIV-prevention funding, although Congress will determine final spending. Health advocates warn that reduced testing and outreach could leave infections undiagnosed. Effective treatment can suppress HIV to an undetectable level, protecting patients’ health and preventing sexual transmission.

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National Stories

25 states sue over Trump’s new tariffs, calling them ‘pretext’ to replace his old ones

Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February. The United States last month imposed double-digit tariffs on 59 countries and the European Union, charging that they had not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as the clock ran out on temporary tariffs President Donald Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat. “After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Joining New York in the lawsuit announced Monday are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive American manufacturing, last year overturned decades of U.S. policy that favored lower tariffs and ever-freer trade. Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying America’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency. But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorize tariffs. The decision forced the administration to send refunds to importers that had paid the tariffs. Eager to make up the lost revenue, Trump turned to temporary 10% worldwide tariffs. But they expired at midnight July 24. Now he’s tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in unfair trade practices. Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.

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Oil giant Saudi Aramco reports 33% profit surge, despite Iran War disruptions

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, on Tuesday reported a 33 percent increase in profit despite severe disruptions to its supply routes caused by the war in the Middle East. The company said it earned $33.4 billion in adjusted net income in April through June, versus $25.2 billion in the same quarter last year. Oil companies have reported multibillion-dollar windfalls for the second quarter because the war has driven energy prices higher. By some measures, Aramco’s quarterly profit was the biggest since 2022. The performance underscores the strength of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned energy giant, which has scrambled to find new export paths for its oil. The United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. Since then Tehran has effectively paralyzed vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for oil and gas shipments from the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia quickly redirected more than 70 percent of its oil through a pipeline from its eastern fields to western port terminals on the Red Sea.

That allowed Aramco to continue to export millions of barrels per day. The company produced the equivalent of 9.5 million barrels of oil per day in the second quarter, down sharply from 12.6 million barrels in the previous quarter. But it sold that oil for an average of $108 per barrel, a big jump from about $77 per barrel in the first quarter of the year. Amin H. Nasser, the company’s chief executive, called the past months “one of the most challenging ever in the history of Saudi Aramco.” On a call with investors he credited the pipeline in part with allowing Aramco to limit supply losses. But now that alternative route, through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, has also become dangerous. On July 20, the Houthis, an Iran-aligned militia in Yemen, declared a blockade on Saudi vessels transiting the Red Sea. The Houthis have claimed attacks on several ships since then. Much of Saudi Arabi’s oil exports have now rerouted through Egypt, though tankers there have been vulnerable to drone strikes. The Saudi defense ministry said last week the country is forming a military coalition to protect Red Sea shipping from further attacks.

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Pirro meets with Trump at the White House after he said she ‘choked’ in reflecting pool case

President Trump met with Jeanine Pirro at the White House on Monday, hours after saying that she had “choked” when she concluded that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was not the work of vandals, as the president has claimed. Ms. Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., arrived at the White House on Monday afternoon and was taken to meet with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. She was not fired by Mr. Trump, nor did she offer her resignation in that meeting, according to two people briefed on the outcome. Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, was also at the White House when she arrived. Mr. Burgum has in recent days joined Mr. Trump in railing against Ms. Pirro’s decision to drop charges against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was accused of pulling up a two-square-foot piece of the pool’s lining.

Both men assert that the damage to the pool has been the work of vandals and not “the result of a botched installation and not vandalism,” as Ms. Pirro indicated in a Friday court filing. The decision to drop the charges set Ms. Pirro — a longtime ally and loyal appointee of a president — on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who has made sure to inflict consequences on people within his orbit who contradict his claims. In her filing, Ms. Pirro openly undermined Mr. Trump’s narrative that the Reflecting Pool’s peeling liner was caused by people slashing its coating with knives. Speaking earlier Monday in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump grew angry when asked whether he had spoken with Ms. Pirro about her decision. He went on to say that he believed that Ms. Pirro was intimidated by an “unfriendly” and “vicious” judge while pursuing a vandalism charge, and he lashed out at a reporter when asked whether he was reconsidering her role. He later ignored a question directly asking whether he was considering firing her.

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How Democratic Socialists are wrestling with their next moves

When a leader of the Democratic Socialists of America recently appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and enthusiastically affirmed the group’s platform — including goals such as eliminating the U.S. Senate and working toward abolishing prisons — Democratic strategists wrung their hands and Republicans licked their lips. Acknowledging such aims, both parties predicted, could hinder progressive candidates and other Democrats painted with an extremist brush in the midterm elections. At the D.S.A.’s national summit in Chicago over the weekend, many democratic socialists who had seen the Fox interview felt something different: pride. “You’re going to have to constantly push and advocate for things that people don’t think, until they think it,” said Chanpreet Singh, a D.S.A. leader from Seattle.

Hundreds of members of the group, the country’s largest socialist organization, gathered here at a moment of surging political influence, some wearing bright red shirts, swapping labor-strike tips with their “comrades,” sharing voter turnout strategies and admiring far-left merchandise (guillotine earrings, “Land Lords Suck” pins and red roses, a symbol of the group). Many dismissed the notion that their positions could be a political problem and said they felt no need to moderate them. Electoral wins were proof, they reasoned, that Democratic voters were moving closer to them. As an ardent socialist movement has encroached more deeply into the Democratic Party, with D.S.A.-backed candidates ousting incumbent Democrats from New York to Colorado and notching other victories this year, the challenges associated with that often-fraught cohabitation are coming into sharper focus. Those include questions on each side about the utility of working with the other. “Toxic to a broad majority of the country” was how Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, described aspirations such as prison abolition and doing away with the Senate. She predicted that Republicans would make socialist policies “one of their main attack lines.” Already, President Trump and other Republican leaders are going further, seeking to brand recent Democratic nominees, falsely, as “communists.” The next big tests for democratic socialists will begin on Tuesday in Democratic primaries in Michigan and Missouri for the U.S. House. And Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive doctor who is not a democratic socialist but shares many of D.S.A.’s priorities, is running for the Senate in Michigan, a major battleground.

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This GOP lawmaker has defied Trump 3 times — but the president doesn’t seem to mind

GOP Rep. Tom Barrett voted for the third time to limit President Donald Trump’s Iran war powers in late July — attempting to help drive a stinging rebuke of the commander-in-chief that can only pass if members of his own party sign on. But just four days later, Barrett stood at Trump’s side during a rally in his own Michigan battleground district, basking in the president’s endorsement and sending back kind words of his own. “He’s going to have a tough race. You got to help him,” Trump said as he called the Republican lawmaker onto the stage. “I’m proud to stand with you today,” Barrett responded.

Republican operatives describe Barrett and Trump’s alliance as a marriage of political convenience: Trump, who rarely gives ground to anyone who defies him, has granted Barrett unusual latitude to chart his own course — even as he seeks to thwart the president’s war with Iran. Trump recognizes that maintaining the GOP’s House majority depends on suburban districts like Barrett’s. As he works to defend one of the most competitive seats in the country, Barrett is leaning into his military service, even if his position puts him at odds with the president and much of his party. The race will likely come down to how Barrett is able to walk that tightrope between drawing contrasts with the president without alienating his support; a lonely road in Trump’s Republican Party. Barrett flipped the seat from Democratic control in 2024 Trump carried the district in the election. Barrett, who served 22 years in the Army and deployed to Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, was one of only four Republicans to vote against the Trump administration’s authorization of military operations in Iran. After the conflict crossed the 60-day threshold requiring congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution, Barrett became the only Republican to introduce a measure authorizing the use of military force in Iran while limiting the scope of military action and setting a firm deadline for ending the conflict.

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Author of Democrats’ 2024 autopsy releases ‘missing’ chapter

The author of the Democratic National Committee’s widely panned 2024 postelection autopsy report released what he said is an unpublished chapter on Monday, breathing new life into a scandal that threatens to distract the party as it prepares for the closing stretch of the 2026 midterms. Paul Rivera, a longtime Democratic consultant, shared the 28-page installment with The New York Times, claiming that the missing document includes questions about President Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection and addresses frustration that high-earning Democratic elites “drive too much of the decision-making within the ecosystem.” The consequences of Biden’s decision to run again were not discussed at length in the original 192-page document released in May. In the newly released chapter, Rivera addresses the former president’s decision.

“Is there a single point of failure for 2024? Perhaps it is a decision of the President to seek re-election instead of passing the torch, but Democrats do not have a time machine to go back and change his decision,” Rivera wrote. Rivera told the Times he personally delivered the chapter in a binder to Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin in January. But Martin and other representatives for the DNC disputed that they had ever seen the chapter in question, and that the “missing” chapter could not be located in an extensive search of the committee’s files. “That is false,” Martin wrote in a statement. “The only binder I was working with Paul on was for lessons learned materials. This alleged report section was not in any binder I reviewed.” If the DNC had received the chapter in question from Rivera, it “would have released it with the rest of the report,” Martin said. Neither NOTUS nor The New York Times could independently verify either account.

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‘He should quit’: Republican senators sound alarms about Max Miller accusations

Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter. Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations. Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter. Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations. Many of Bernie Moreno’s GOP colleagues were quick to back him following the statement. “I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in an interview.

Miller has denied the allegations, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife and holding a gun to her head. He has also denied accusations from his ex-wife that he broke his daughter’s collarbone. Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas condemned Miller, adding, “He should resign. He should quit.” “I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Marshall said in an interview. “I couldn’t imagine them wanting this out in public. So to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” The surge of support from Bernie Moreno’s Senate colleagues marks the first significant crack in a wall of GOP silence regarding the allegations against Miller. The skepticism from Miller’s own party will almost certainly weigh down the congressman’s already floundering campaign as he battles Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter to keep his Cleveland-area House seat.

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Copyright August 11, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved