Lead Stories

Trump judge who blocked Texas redistricting had won GOP praise

US District Judge Jeffrey Brown owes much of his judicial career to President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, but his opinion halting their redistricting plan to bolster Republican power nationally came as no surprise to judges who’ve worked with him. “He’s just a straight shooter,” said former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht. “He believes in the rule of law.” The federal district judge was appointed by Trump and clerked for Abbott when the governor was a Texas Supreme Court justice. He was also praised by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) as someone who “decides cases based on the rule of law” when he was confirmed in 2019.

The 160-page opinion from Brown, writing for a three-judge panel, dealt a potentially fatal blow Tuesday to Trump’s midterm plan with Abbott to add five new Republican House seats in Texas, a move meant to help Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives. It was the second time this month that a Republican-appointed judge gave the GOP a redistricting loss, after Utah Judge Dianna Gibson rejected a map drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature Nov. 10. Brown’s 2-1 ruling rejected arguments from Texas that the rare mid-decade redraw was for political reasons, holding instead that race was a factor. The new lines Abbott approved target only minorities, Brown wrote, emphasizing that a letter from the Justice Department threatening legal action if Texas didn’t draw new districts made no mention of districts with White Democrats as the majority. Brown ordered the state to proceed in the March primary elections with lines that had been in place before the redraw. Texas is appealing Brown’s decision to the US Supreme Court, and the case could move quickly: The deadline for congressional candidates to declare for the primary is Dec. 8.

Read this article at Bloomberg Law - Subscribers Only

Court order scrambles 2026 midterm in the middle of filing

Nearly two weeks into the candidate filing period for the 2026 midterm election, a federal court is scrambling the landscape by knocking down the congressional maps the Texas lawmakers approved this summer. The Republican-dominated legislature redrew the maps in hopes of giving their party as many as five additional pickup opportunities, helping to protect their narrow U.S. House majority in a potentially bruising midterm. Voting rights advocates immediately sued, alleging racial discrimination in the new maps, but candidates from both parties started lining up for the newly reshaped districts anyway, creating a domino effect of down-ballot openings as well. In just one example of the chaos, the new maps changed Texas’s 35th Congressional District from a deep blue Austin-to-San Antonio seat to a GOP pickup opportunity stretching southeast from San Antonio into a trio of counties that supported President Donald Trump.

That left the incumbent, progressive firebrand U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Austin), to fight it out with fellow Democrat Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) over the single remaining Austin-centric district — Texas’ 37th Congressional District — which Doggett ultimately ceded to Casar by signaling his retirement. At the same time, the new GOP pickup opportunity in Casar’s district lured Republican John Lujan (R-San Antonio) to run for Congress instead of reelection in his Southside state House seat. Multiple Republicans are now campaigning to succeed him in Texas 118th House District, and Lujan even endorsed a successor. Texas’ redrawn maps set off a firestorm of similar efforts in other states, where Democrats hoped to offset the losses and Republicans are still seeking to build on the gains. California voters, for example, just approved a plans to redraw the state’s districts and potentially give Democrats five additional seats.

Read this article at San Antonio Report - Subscribers Only

Nvidia profits soar, soothing investor jitters over AI boom

Nvidia reported record sales and strong guidance Wednesday, helping soothe jitters about an artificial intelligence bubble that have reverberated in markets for the last week. Sales in the October quarter hit a record $57 billion as demand for the company’s advanced AI data center chips continued to surge, up 62% from the year-earlier quarter and exceeding consensus estimates from analysts polled by FactSet. The company increased its guidance for the current quarter, estimating that sales will reach $65 billion—analysts had predicted revenue of $62.1 billion for the quarter. Shares in the world’s most-valuable publicly listed company rose about 5% in premarket trading Thursday. “We’ve entered the virtuous cycle of AI,” said Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang. “AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once.”

Wednesday’s result will allow investors to breathe a sigh of relief. Each Nvidia quarterly earnings report has come to be seen as a financial Super Bowl of sorts as the AI boom has taken off. The company is regarded as a bellwether for both the health of the tech industry and the market as a whole. This quarter, however, the stakes seemed higher. Rarely has an earnings report from a single company been greeted with such nervous anticipation. In recent weeks, investors have sold off big tech names, worried that companies are spending far too much money on data centers, chips, and other infrastructure in the race to design and operate the world’s most powerful AI models, with little hope of recouping their investments in the near term. Adding to the pressure is a flurry of recent AI deals structured using what critics have dubbed “circular” funding mechanisms—broadly referring to suppliers like Nvidia making large capital investments in the businesses of the customers who buy their products. Just a few months ago, investors viewed such deals with enthusiasm, pumping up shares for a variety of AI-related companies, but this week one such deal—between Nvidia, Microsoft and Anthropic—was greeted warily.

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Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with 'suspicious' travel patterns

The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found. The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement. Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.

Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor ordinary Americans’ daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years. The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show. This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only

State Stories

Crenshaw banned from international travel after Mexico trip

Top House Republicans banned Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) from traveling internationally for three months after an alcohol-related episode during a foreign congressional delegation. During an August trip to Mexico, Crenshaw was having drinks with a group of Mexican officials. One Mexican official cracked a crude joke that made a woman present uncomfortable. Crenshaw toasted the remarks. House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) urged Speaker Mike Johnson to remove Crenshaw from the panel. Johnson, who has full control over the highly secretive Intelligence Committee, opted against booting Crenshaw from the panel.

Read this article at Punchbowl News - Subscribers Only

Circuit judge says winners in Texas redistricting case are George Soros, Gov. Gavin Newsom

U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith blasted Tuesday’s preliminary injunction issued by a federal panel blocking Texas’ revised congressional maps, writing in his dissent that the majority opinion would be a “prime candidate” for a Nobel Prize for fiction. The 104-page dissent criticized U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown’s 160-page ruling, and at times mocked his legal acumen. At one point, Smith wrote that Brown is an “unskilled magician.” Smith, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote the winners from Brown’s opinion are George Soros and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Neither individual was a party in the lawsuit. “The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law,” Smith wrote.

Tuesday’s 2-1 opinion ordered that Texas use its 2021 Congressional map in next year’s elections instead of the map the Republican-controlled Legislature passed this summer. President Donald Trump asked Texas Republicans to redistrict mid-decade to flip five seats and give the GOP a better chance at maintaining control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Days before Gov. Greg Abbott called the overtime session to take up redistricting, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote a letter to Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, writing that four congressional districts in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution because they were drawn as “coalition districts” composed of majority nonwhite residents. Abbott cited the Justice Department’s letter when he added redistricting to the special legislative session agenda.

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

John Cornyn: Antisemitism’s rise is intolerable

The United States of America was founded on universal principles, chief among them that we are all created equal with certain unalienable rights. This serves as the foundation for all of the other rights and freedoms we enjoy as Americans, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of private property, and the rule of law. The recent resurgence of antisemitism, the world’s oldest form of hate, is an existential threat to the values that we hold dear. Judging a person by their race, ethnicity, or religion runs directly counter to what the founders of our country intended and undermines the very foundation of our constitutional republic. Antisemitism is on the rise in our country. In the past year, four in 10 American Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 said they experienced antisemitism at least once. A recent FBI report determined there’s been a nearly 6% increase in religiously motivated incidents against Jewish Americans from 2023 to 2024. Furthermore, 70% of religiously motivated hate crimes last year were targeting Jews, who make up just 2% of the population. That is shocking and unacceptable.

Many of the most vivid examples of this dreadful phenomenon are on the political left. In the wake of Hamas’ unprovoked attack on Israel two years ago, college campuses have become hotbeds for hate, synagogues have become canvases for vandalism, and Jewish Americans have become targets for ridicule, prejudice, and physical harm. Of course, it is natural to feel sympathy towards the suffering of innocent Palestinians trapped in Israel’s war against Hamas, but we cannot forget that the responsibility rests with the terrorists themselves, who use Palestinians as human shields. Moreover, we cannot let our sympathy borne out of tragedy excuse racial or religious hate. Support for the Jewish people and for Israel was once a bipartisan consensus, but as the left has increasingly turned its back on our Jewish friends, Republicans have taken on the mantle of defending Israel and the Jews against the rising tide of hatred. While these fringe ideas first began to find a home in the progressive left, there is an alarming emergence among self-styled conservatives as well. In recent years, words like “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi” have been thrown around carelessly, often as a caricature for anyone who disagrees with the Democrat Party dogma. But they accurately describe Nick Fuentes, an influencer who has positioned himself as an alternative to mainstream conservatism, publicly praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust, and called a white nationalist rally “incredible.” Fuentes has also made vile racist comments about the vice president and his wife. It doesn’t take an expert in constitutional law to know these comments run afoul of the core principles for which conservatives, and Americans, stand.

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Gov. Abbott ask law enforcement officials to investigate ‘Sharia Courts’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott continued his campaign against “sharia law” on Wednesday morning. The governor sent a letter to North Texas law enforcement officials to alert them of “possible criminal violations by Sharia tribunals masquerading as legal courts and to call for investigations into these entities purporting to enforce Sharia law.” The move came the morning after Abbott issued a proclamation declaring the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “foreign terrorist and transnational organizations.” “The U.S. Constitution’s religious protections provide no authority for religious courts to skirt state and federal laws simply by donning robes and pronouncing positions inconsistent with western civilization,” Abbott said in his Wednesday morning directive.

Abbott primarily targeted the Islamic Tribunal, which bills itself as “a mediation and non-binding arbitration firm that adheres to Islamic principles in the Muslim community.” Primarily, they handle divorces from the religious side, handing the civil side off to Texas courts. In a direct statement responding to Abbott’s decision, a representative for Dr. Taher Elbadawi, founder of the Islamic Tribunal, said that the governor’s comments are “factually and legally incorrect,” and called his actions those of a “desperate politician attempting to stoke fear and discrimination against Muslims.” His statement goes on to say: “The Islamic Tribunal only handles mediation and arbitration in family law issues, which are then referred to Texas courts for final enforcement and ruling. It is important to remind the Governor that religious courts have been a part of this republic since its founding. Catholic and Jewish rabbinical courts, addressing matters of faith and religion, have operated legally for over 250 years in Texas and elsewhere. Their existence and operation are fully protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

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Judge rejects Kyle Bass’ efforts to reverse judgment in water rights case

An Anderson County district judge ruled late Monday that she will not reconsider a court-approved settlement in a case pitting a group of poultry and cattle farmers against the Neches & Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District that could restrict or even prohibit Dallas businessman Kyle Bass from drilling for millions of gallons of water on two of his East Texas ranches. In a two-page order, Senior District Judge Deborah Oakes Evans rejected legal efforts by Bass to set aside a final judgment in a case in which Sanderson Farms and five East Texas poultry and cattle farmers had sued Neches & Trinity Valley’s Groundwater Conservation District to prevent the kind of drilling for water that Bass seeks to do. The ruling is a setback for Bass, who sought to intervene in the litigation. The Sanderson Farms plaintiffs reached a settlement with the water district, and then Anderson County District Judge C. Michael Davis approved the agreement in a final judgment order he signed Oct. 24.

Evans was assigned the case when Davis was promoted to the Tyler Court of Appeals. Lawyers for Bass filed their motion to intervene and a motion to set aside the final judgment Oct. 31. Jeff Tillotson, a Dallas lawyer representing Bass, said Tuesday that he will appeal the decision to the Tyler Court of Appeals. “Sometimes you win in regulation, and sometimes you have to win in overtime,” Tillotson said. Two Bass-owned real estate entities — Pine Bliss, a 4,300-acre property that serves as the Bass family ranch in Henderson County, and Redtown Ranch Holdings, a 7,200-acre ranch in Anderson County — claimed in their motion to intervene that the water district’s agreement with the Sanderson Farms plaintiffs violate Bass’ constitutional rights to access and use the water on his property. The Bass entities also filed a separate lawsuit Oct. 31 against the water district in neighboring Cherokee County seeking to force the agency to rule on their request to conduct exploratory water drilling. In two interesting twists, Evans has also been assigned to handle the Bass entities lawsuit in Cherokee County, while Davis, who issued the final judgment order in October in the Sanderson Farms case, is sitting on the state appeals court that will eventually hear both matters.

Read this article at Texas Lawbook - Subscribers Only

How only 4 voters in Rice Village approved more than $430 million in bonds

Four residents in the Rice Village area voted in the election to approve $430 million in bonds in November so that a Rice University-affiliated management district could finance infrastructure improvements and recreational facilities. The bonds were proposed by the Rice Village Management District, which spans roughly 26 acres, or 0.04 square miles, between Times and University Boulevard. The district was quietly created in March by the Houston City Council and was formed to fund improvements and projects that work in tandem with Rice University’s Gateway Project, which was announced Nov. 6 — two days after the election. "We're creating a small district over the area and then levying a tax on the property within that district,” said Sanjay Bapat, an attorney with Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP, which represents the district.

“That property is all owned by the Rice Real Estate company and nobody else. They have various retail tenants in there, and they'll levy a tax there, and that tax will be used to finance the public infrastructure that's required to bring the Village up to modern standards.” Voters authorized the district to levy a $1.50 per $100 of assessed property value tax rate to pay for the bonds — a staggering rate that exceeds those charged by Harris County and the City of Houston combined. While Rice owns the vast majority of the property within the district through its for-profit real estate company, it does lease several residential properties where a majority of the voters eligible for the bond election live. While a more-than $430 million bond issue approved in an election with four voters may appear to be an indicator of low voter turnout, only 12 people were actually eligible to vote in the election, according to registration data maintained by the Harris County Tax Office.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

Uvalde county judge suspended, accused of unlawfully detaining UPS driver

Uvalde County Judge William Ross Mitchell was suspended days after he was indicted on a charge of official oppression. Mitchell was suspended without pay Tuesday by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct after review of his official oppression charge, which is a class A misdemeanor. The indictment, obtained by the San Antonio Express-News, alleges that Mitchell subjected a person, identified as "T. Cox" to arrest, detention or seizure that the judge knew was unlawful while acting as a public servant. Mitchell was indicted Nov. 3 for an alleged incident March 27. The Texas Rangers are investigating the case, according to court records.

KSAT-TV cited a lawsuit filed by the delivery driver, identified as Tyler Cox, saying that Cox was delivering packages to the Uvalde County Courthouse when the judge began shouting at him. Cox said that he had been given permission to leave the packages on the first floor because the elevators were being repaired, according to KSAT. But Mitchell began shouting about where to leave the packages, and then the judge allegedly yanked a dolly loaded with packages from Cox, according to KSAT. After Cox began carrying the packages upstairs, Mitchell allegedly ordered a Uvalde County sheriff's deputy to arrest Cox, according to KSAT. The delivery driver alleges that he had been detained for five minutes without being read his Miranda rights, and that his cellphone had been seized for a total of nine minutes. Cox had requested footage of the incident from a hallway security camera, but he was told that “Judge (William) Mitchell alone decides if you get it,” KSAT reported.

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Hearst to lay off 26 at Dallas Morning News

Not quite two months after closing a deal that put the Dallas Morning News under Hearst’s ownership, the newspaper’s union tells us 26 people will be laid off. The Dallas News Guild says it received notice Tuesday that its new parent company is eliminating the entire copy desk, including sports. The Guild also says the company plans to outsource its print page production. (In newsrooms, copy editors review what reporters write for accuracy, brevity, and grammar, but in some papers, including the News, they also design newspaper pages.) This move will eliminate 26 positions from the newsroom.

This violates the three-year collective bargaining agreement the Guild had struck with DallasNews Corp. in 2023. Among several concessions negotiated between the Guild and the News, the contract limits reductions in force to 20 positions. The union says that Hearst “has chosen to blatantly violate our contract,” and they plan to defend it “through all legal channels available.” In August, Texas Monthly took a look at the sale and at Hearst’s impact on the other Texas papers it owns. “When Hearst bought the Statesman this spring, it declined to ratify the contract that the paper’s union had signed with Gannett just a few months earlier,” Michael Hardy wrote. “Hearst and the union are in negotiations over a new contract; in the meantime, the company has laid off the paper’s copy editors, eliminated job protections, and cut some employee benefits.” The company also added nine new positions in the newsroom and raised the minimum starting salary by $6,000. But its refusal to honor the Austin paper’s union deal also set alarm bells off in Dallas, where, as early as July, the Dallas News Guild posted its concerns about the impending merger on X.com. “We have kept an open mind about this merger. We had hope, and remain hopeful, that this can be a productive partnership that results in stronger journalism for the state of Texas,” the email from the Guild says. “But for that to happen, Hearst needs to respect our contract and come to the bargaining table in good faith.”

Read this article at D Magazine - Subscribers Only

5 Austin ISD employees detained by ICE spark campus alarm

At least five Austin school district employees have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sparking alarm among co-workers and administrators who say they’ve been left in the dark about their colleagues’ fate, the American-Statesman has learned. The number of detained workers was confirmed to the Statesman by Education Austin, the largest union representing district teachers and staff. Austin Superintendent Matias Segura declined to provide a specific number last week but said they could be counted “on one hand.”

The employees are a mix of instructional and support staff, including a teacher, a bus driver and lunchroom workers, according to Education Austin vice president Trasell Underwood. The arrests, she said, have rattled campuses and left staff defensive of their colleagues. “Some of them are highly-affected, really upset,” she said of district teachers. “People don’t know what else to do.” Underwood said she believes two employees were detained going to court dates and another after trying to return to the United States from Mexico, where he had gone for a funeral. Segura said the district does not know the status of the detained individuals because the federal immigration agency, unlike other law enforcement agencies, has not communicated the status of their cases or their whereabouts. “Here it’s just black. It’s just nothing — nothing at all,” Segura said. “I don’t even know if they’re in the country.” In a statement to the Statesman, the school district said through a spokesperson that it “follows all required protocols to ensure employees are properly cleared to work in Austin ISD, including verification of eligibility to work in the United States.” It declined to confirm what positions the detained staff held or when they were first hired. The identity of one detained staff member is known. The Statesman first reported on the September arrest of a fifth-grade teacher at Hart Elementary, Cuban national Roberto Lopez Falcon. Lopez Falcon had no known criminal record and was allowed to enter the country in 2022, ICE confirmed to the Statesman. Amid his ongoing immigration case, he was arrested during a check-in appointment in San Antonio.

Read this article at Austin American-Statesman - Subscribers Only

Texas education board debates narrowing focus of history curriculum

The Texas State Board of Education is moving forward with discussions of changes to how public schools teach social studies. In September, the board adopted a plan that emphasizes Texas and U.S. history, while reducing focus on world history and cultures. During a Wednesday meeting, the State Board of Education discussed which key topics would be included in the new framework. “A child deserves to learn the truth about our history, not a version of history that flatters us, not a version of history that hides our failures. Texas children deserve to be taught the truth,” Josh Robinson, the Senior Pastor at Hope Presbyterian Church, said. “Students need to see both the remarkable achievements of our past as well as the painful failures. They need to learn about a diversity of people, a multitude of people, a multicultural diversity of people that built this country and upon the backs of those who built this country, not just a sanitized version of the story that distorts and marginalizes when we teach history with integrity.”

Outside the meeting, some board members, a faith leader, and students spoke out against the changes. “When you narrow what children see, you shrink what they can imagine, you rob them of empathy,” State Board of Education Member Tiffany Clark said. “You weaken the critical thinking our democracy depends on.” Supporters of the plan say it will help students better analyze historical patterns and see America in a global context. The new framework focuses on teaching students in kindergarten through second grade about key people, places and events throughout Texas and U.S. history. From 3rd to 8th grade, it would add lessons on the development of Western civilization, but it would still place a heavy focus on Texas and U.S. History. Topics would be taught in chronological order, culminating in the modern era. That means kids would learn about ancient history in earlier grades. “We are leaving out important things like world cultures, well, geography, and the importance of making sure that all of our students are represented in history,” Clark said. “We need to continue to share the true facts and teach the truth of what has happened in our history to make America what we are today.” Currently, teachers focus on Texas history in 4th and 7th grade and on world cultures in 6th grade.

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Jennifer Crowley: UT-Arlington students’ cold case work shows how they serve DFW

(Jennifer Cowley is president of the University of Texas at Arlington, a position she has held since 2022.) University of Texas at Arlington faculty member Patricia Eddings was aiming high when she first proposed that the Arlington Police Department allow her criminal justice students to dive into unsolved homicide cases. Eddings, who also directs our university’s program in forensic applications of science and technology, said she hoped UTA students would find new leads so officers could pursue justice for victims and their loved ones. Our Mavericks did even better. Police announced Nov. 17 that they have made an arrest in the 1991 homicide of an Arlington woman whose body was found on a rural stretch of road in Johnson County. And they credited our students for cracking the case. Without Eddings and our UTA students — and the dedicated work of Arlington police — this case would have remained cold. “I just want them to love their careers as much as I love mine,” Eddings says of her students.

Closing a cold case is an enormous win for our community. It also represents why a university like ours should be considered essential civic infrastructure — a shared investment and public good that benefits the entire region. Through experiential learning opportunities like this cold case partnership with Arlington police, we strengthen the connection between classrooms and careers to build a strong workforce and make a positive impact on civic life. Nearly all of the 15 students in Eddings’ class say they intend to pursue careers as forensic scientists, crime scene investigators or law enforcement officers. In a few years, you’ll see them in labs, testifying in court, or patrolling our streets. Arlington Police Chief Al Jones said his department “put trust into these young men and women who will be our future leaders.” The University makes Dallas-Fort Worth stronger by teaching and training well-educated, workforce-ready graduates who are sustaining and transforming our local economy. With more than 280,000 alumni, 79% of whom remain in Texas, UTA graduates can be found in just about every company, nonprofit organization and government agency in the region.

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

North Texas transportation leader faces scrutiny about his job

A North Texas transportation expert who has had a powerful, decadeslong effect directing transit policy — and billions of dollars in funding — is facing scrutiny. Executive board members of the North Central Texas Council of Governments will meet behind closed doors in Arlington on Thursday afternoon to consider the job performance of Michael Morris, a council of governments employee since 1979 and the organization’s transportation director since 1990. Morris declined to comment, an agency spokesperson told the Fort Worth Report. In response to the posted agenda, regional elected officials, including those from Fort Worth, are expressing support for the transportation director.

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker and City Council member Elizabeth Beck are among those who endorsed Morris for his experienced, steadfast approach to regional transportation projects. A letter of support signed by elected officials from the council of government’s 16-county region was expected to be released Wednesday, Beck said. Arlington Mayor Jim Ross, a member of the Regional Transportation Council, offered his support for Morris during a City Council meeting Wednesday night. Ross said the organization’s new executive director Todd Little is “apparently” considering Morris’ removal in the future. “Michael Morris, who I’ve spoken with, does not wish to be removed,” the Arlington mayor said. Ross added that he has spoken with county judges, other mayors and the head of the FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee, who all agree that they must convince the executive board to keep Morris in his position. “He has been a vital part of what goes on throughout North Texas, not just Arlington, but all of North Texas for decades and decades,” Ross said.

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TEA extends FWISD board of managers application deadline after surge of applicants

An influx of interest for the soon-to-be appointed board of managers for Fort Worth ISD pushed the Texas Education Agency to extend its application deadline. Those seeking to serve on the board now have until 11:59 p.m. Dec. 1 to submit an application, TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said. The agency has received more than 180 applications with another 800 in progress. Of the completed applications, 140 candidates live within the district. “This overwhelming response demonstrates the community’s commitment to supporting the district’s students and their local schools,” Kobersky said. “TEA will thoroughly review each application and encourages anyone with a desire to serve and the belief that all students can learn to apply.”

Education Commissioner Mike Morath will appoint managers in the spring to replace FWISD’s nine locally elected trustees as part of the state taking control of the 67,500-student district. Managers will have the same powers and duties as the current trustees. State law does not require managers to reside within a public school district’s boundaries, but Morath previously appointed managers who represent the local community in other interventions, TEA officials said. Texas intervened in FWISD on Oct. 23 after a now-closed school received five straight F’s under the state’s academic accountability ratings that are largely based on STAAR results. Trustees are fighting back on the takeover by appealing the commissioner’s decision. Board President Roxanne Martinez said Nov. 18 that the appeal allows for a deeper review of the intervention. Morath tapped Christopher Ruszkowski, a former New Mexico secretary of education, to monitor district operations as FWISD’s conservator during the transition to state control.

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County Stories

Former Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff reportedly isn't endorsing nephew in District Attorney race

Bexar County District Attorney candidate Jason Wolff has publicly skewered his uncle, former County Judge Nelson Wolff, in a social media post, accusing the elder Wolff of refusing to endorse his campaign. In a TikTok clip posted Sunday, Jason Wolff — a former Bexar County assistant DA — said he plans to file his candidate paperwork this week. However, his campaign will be without the endorsement of his politically prominent uncle. “My heart was broken this morning — still breaking — but now my eyes are wide open,” the attorney said in the video. “See, I now know that if you’re not a political insider, you’re on the outside looking in, and it doesn’t matter if you’re family or not.” Nelson Wolff was unavailable for comment Monday to confirm whether he’d endorsed any candidate in the race.

In the three-minute-long clip, Jason Wolff alleges his uncle doesn’t approve of his messaging — which so far has included calling current DA Joe Gonzales a “pussy” — and instead plans to back State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who’s running for the office as a Democrat. “The difference between you and me, Uncle Sonny, is I’m willing to tell the public what I think, and I’m willing to put it out there, while you hide and play the game,” Jason Wolff said in the TikTok. Martinez Fischer last week said he’d launched an exploratory committee to weigh a run but hasn’t yet committed. Martinez Fischer and Nelson Wolff were both present at former Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s campaign launch for Bexar County Judge over the weekend. Meanwhile, criminal defense attorney Shannon Locke also has expressed interest in running for Bexar DA as a Democrat. Stay tuned. It can only get wackier.

Read this article at San Antonio Current - Subscribers Only

National Stories

A Washington humiliation leaves Trump more politically exposed on Epstein than ever before

To paraphrase a perennial Washington question: What is the president going to release and when is he going to release it? Donald Trump is reeling from a spectacular defeat, easily his worst from his own party on Capitol Hill during two turbulent presidencies, after every step he took to stall and deflect the Jeffrey Epstein saga blew up in his face. No one would have believed as recently as this past weekend that a bill requiring the Justice Department to release files related to the convicted sex offender would race through the GOP Congress with only one vote against it by Tuesday evening. But such can be the power of suddenly unleashed political justice.

Now, Trump and his Attorney General Pam Bondi, who both triggered the political uproar by pledging to open the Epstein files, only to then refuse to do so, are back where they started. Only in a much more vulnerable political position. And they have unappetizing political choices at a moment when Trump’s presidency appears damaged, his popularity is falling and a crush of other intractable issues bogs down his White House. Speculation is growing about whether a president who many were recently warning was a dictator is close to becoming a lame duck. The overwhelming House and Senate moves to release the Epstein files are a stunning triumph for Epstein’s victims after they became more visible earlier this summer. A president who believes he enjoys unfettered power and who disdains democracy was defeated by grassroots political campaigning in combination with a handful of courageous lawmakers from both parties.

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Trump signs bill to release Epstein files

President Donald Trump signed legislation on Wednesday ordering the Justice Department to release documents from its long-running investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — files eagerly sought by both his political opponents and members of his own base who have pressed for greater transparency in the case. The material could shed more light on the activities of Epstein, who socialized with Trump and other notable figures before his 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. The scandal has been a thorn in Trump's side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges.

Until recently, Trump had urged Republican lawmakers to oppose the measure, warning that releasing internal investigative records could set a precedent he viewed as harmful to the presidency, according to two congressional aides. But he reversed course this week as it became clear the bill had enough bipartisan support to pass with or without his backing. Trump, a Republican, celebrated the signing in a social media post, saying the measure would help expose “the truth about certain Democrats and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein". Trump accused Democrats of weaponizing the Epstein scandal to undermine his accomplishments and divert attention from what he called Republican policy victories. He portrayed Epstein as a Democratic ally and said the upcoming document release would expose “their associations” with him. “Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. At a news conference earlier in the day, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed that the Justice Department will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday. "We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency," Bondi said.

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A split at the top: Why Thune and Johnson are at odds this week

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have largely worked in lockstep since January. This week, they hit a rough patch. The two men are known for rising above whatever theatrics are embroiling their respective conferences. But in recent days they became enmeshed in just that, when they publicly split and shadowboxed over a pair of internal GOP dilemmas over politically toxic issues. The fissure emerged when Johnson trashed a measure that Thune tucked into last week’s government funding deal to allow senators to sue the government and reap damages for electronic records seizures. With the Louisiana Republican calling the provision “a bad look,” the House Wednesday unanimously passed a bill to repeal it in a major rebuke.

Johnson suffered his own loss at the hands of Thune this week when the South Dakota Republican rebuffed the speaker’s calls to amend the House’s Jeffrey Epstein disclosure bill to include more protections for victims and whistleblowers. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent, after months of Johnson trying to slow it down in the House and ultimately succumbing to an end-run by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). In an interview Wednesday, Thune downplayed the episodes, calling the phone records provision a “Senate issue” to work through and noting the congressional debate over the Epstein files “took on a life of its own” in the final stages. “We work very well together. Communicate regularly. There are always going to be hiccups along the way,” Thune said. “And I’ve served in the House. They are very different institutions and different cultures and ways of doing things but we make it work.”

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DNC ‘all in’ for Democrat in Miami mayor race against Trump-backed Republican

The Democratic National Committee is sending reinforcements to help elect a Democrat as Miami’s mayor, further nationalizing the race after President Donald Trump endorsed a Republican ally for the job. Though the position of Miami mayor is nominally nonpartisan, the race is headed to a Dec. 9 runoff between former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, and former Miami city manager Emilio González, a Republican. Both emerged as the highest vote-getters among 13 candidates in the Nov. 4 general election, with Higgins finishing almost 17 points ahead of González. The DNC doesn’t typically get involved in mayoral races, but the announcement comes after high-level wins during off-year elections — and as Democrats have seen some encouraging signs that Hispanic voters are dissatisfied with the GOP given worries about the economy. A win for Higgins would make her Miami’s first Democratic mayor in three decades and its first-ever woman mayor.

“Between now and Election Day, the DNC is all-in to elect Eileen Higgins and ensure Miami families have a champion who is fighting for them, not Donald Trump,” DNC chair Ken Martin said in a statement. The DNC is activating its national volunteer base and hosting virtual phone banks in English and Spanish to help turn out voters for Higgins, as well as recruiting and training bilingual voters who’ll be on the ground. The party didn’t say how much it was spending on the effort, but noted Democrats have been investing $22,500 a month into states that are traditionally Republican and making a commitment to build up support in the South. Martin, in a statement, tied González to Trump’s “toxic agenda,” citing how 1.5 million Floridians were expected to lose health insurance, most coming from lapsed Obamacare funding Trump opposes reinstating.

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Trump loyalist admits grand jury never saw final Comey indictment

A federal judge grilled the prosecutors pursuing charges against James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, on Wednesday, interrogating them with a series of questions that underscored irregularities in the case, including that the full grand jury did not see the indictment it was supposed to have approved. The questioning by the judge, Michael S. Nachmanoff, took place at an excruciatingly awkward hearing in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., that was nominally held to consider the narrow issue of whether the charges against Mr. Comey had been filed as an act of vindictive retribution by President Trump. But Judge Nachmanoff peppered prosecutors with questions on a range of topics, including Mr. Trump’s own statements about wanting Mr. Comey to be indicted, and an earlier decision by career members of the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria to forgo bringing charges.

In one remarkable moment, the judge posed some of his questions directly to Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. attorney handpicked by Mr. Trump to bring the case, quizzing her on how she had presented it to the grand jury. Just this week, that subject led another judge involved in the case to suggest that she may have engaged in prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Nachmanoff’s inquiries were extraordinary by almost any measure. But the answers prosecutors gave him in return were even more so. At one point, Ms. Halligan admitted that she had never shown the second — and final — version of the Comey indictment to the full grand jury before the foreperson signed the charging document. Mr. Comey’s lawyers immediately seized on that irregularity, calling it another reason to dismiss the case entirely. At another point, one of Ms. Halligan’s subordinates, Tyler Lemons, acknowledged that someone in the deputy attorney general’s office had instructed him not to discuss in open court whether his predecessors had — or had not — written a memo laying out their reasons for not bringing charges, because that was privileged information.

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House devolves into lawmakers just voting to punish each other

Not every fight in Congress is partisan. In the House this week, Republicans have been going after Republicans. Democrats have been going after Democrats. Lawmakers in both parties have been picking different sides each time. These aren’t policy fights. Lawmakers keep introducing resolutions to punish each other for various things they’ve done in the past.

Votes on these measures are entirely symbolic. A censure resolution is a formal statement of disapproval, but it doesn’t have any material effect, like forcing someone out of office. Similarly, a resolution to reprimand a member of Congress has no real impact, though unlike a censure, it spares the lawmaker the humiliation of standing in the well of the House and having the resolution read aloud to them. But these spats have eaten up hours of House floor time this week and escalated tensions between and within parties. And, because lawmakers can introduce these resolutions as a “privileged” matter, it means a single lawmaker can bring one up for a vote on the House floor pretty much anytime. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) started the trend Monday night, when she infuriated her party by bringing forward a resolution to reprimand Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) for what she called “election subversion.” She has accused Garcia, who recently announced his retirement plans, of scheming to install his chief of staff as his successor. The vote was awkward as hell: It passed Tuesday, with 10 lawmakers not voting at all and four others voting present. More than two dozen Democrats sided with Gluesenkamp Perez on the vote, along with all Republicans. “I am profoundly grateful to have had 235 other Members of Congress stand with me, including 22 other Democrats,” Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement after the vote. “It shouldn’t have caused as much friction as it did to speak honestly and consistently about election subversion.”

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George Conway, a vocal foe of Trump, eyes congressional run

George T. Conway III, the former conservative lawyer and one of President Trump’s fiercest critics, is moving closer to announcing a run for Congress in one of Manhattan’s wealthiest and bluest districts, pitching himself to potential donors as a top attorney who does not “have any more effs to give.” Mr. Conway, 62, who currently lives in Bethesda, Md., has hired the Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg to work on a budding campaign to succeed Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, who is retiring. He is also scouting apartments in the district where he lived and worked for years before relocating to Washington in 2017 when his wife at the time, Kellyanne Conway, joined the first Trump administration as a senior White House official. (The Conways divorced in 2023.) Mr. Conway outlined his pitch on Tuesday night at a private virtual event for paid members of Democracy Docket, the media outlet founded by Marc Elias, the Democratic attorney.

There, he said he had landed on the idea of running for Mr. Nadler’s seat after feeling frustrated by the eight Senate Democrats who caved this month and voted with Republicans to reopen the government without a deal to extend expiring health care subsidies. Once he started thinking about it, Mr. Conway said, he quickly came to the conclusion that “this is crazy, but the crazy thing about it is it’s not so crazy,” according to a video of the event obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Conway, once a card-carrying member of the conservative Federalist Society who also worked behind the scenes on behalf of former President Bill Clinton’s accusers, said he would run as a Democrat. “That will put some people off, I think,” he said. But he said his pitch to voters would be that he has proved himself to be a fearless opponent to Mr. Trump. And he said he would serve in Congress as a “wingman” to attorneys like Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, and Representative Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, who won his seat in Congress after serving as the lead counsel in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.

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Judge lets group defend Kentucky’s undocumented in-state tuition

A federal judge has granted a group of undocumented students in Kentucky the right to defend their in-state tuition rates when their state won’t. Since summer, the Trump administration has challenged in-state tuition policies in Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas, arguing they discriminate against out-of-state American citizen students. In a proposed settlement filed in August, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education agreed to end the benefit. But Kentucky Students for Affordable Tuition, represented by attorneys from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed a motion to intervene in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to defend the state’s policy. On Thursday, Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, a George W. Bush appointee, granted the motion despite protests from the plaintiff in the suit—the Justice Department.

“As the party that brought this suit, Plaintiff cannot say that it is prejudiced by having to prove its claim,” Van Tatenhove wrote in his ruling. He noted that the student group argued that its members, if not allowed to defend in-state tuition, “may have to reduce their coursework, withdraw from their degree programs, or reconsider attending college altogether.” The Justice Department had argued in a filing that it's “unclear that a voluntary choice to stop or not enter college courses because the student deems that the price is too high would constitute an injury … If a student chooses not to pay the increased tuition rate, that is no injury but a rational response to price signals.” A department spokesperson said Thursday that it is “reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue efforts to ensure U.S. students are not treated like second-class citizens.” A Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education spokesperson said their agency is reviewing the order and had no further comment.

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Lead Stories

With stunning blow in Texas, redistricting backfired on the GOP

President Donald Trump and House Republicans thought they had a winning midterm strategy — redraw congressional maps in red states to gain an insurmountable edge heading into 2026. This would be a huge plus for Trump, who wouldn’t have to face a Democratic-run House or a possible impeachment push. And Speaker Mike Johnson currently holds only a two-vote edge that could easily be swept away if the midterms go badly for Republicans. But their strategy hasn’t worked out as planned. In fact, it now looks like Trump and House GOP leaders may have been better off not doing anything at all. That became apparent Tuesday when a federal judicial panel in Texas overturned the Republicans’ aggressive redraw of the Lone Star State’s congressional map, a move that was supposed to give the GOP five new ruby red seats.

In Indiana, a cavalcade of state senators have said they won’t redraw the Hoosier State’s map to erase two Democratic seats, despite Trump’s aggressive pressure campaign. Meanwhile, Democrats — spurred into action by the GOP push — have faced fewer roadblocks, although they haven’t been successful everywhere. In California, Democrats easily engineered a ballot initiative that will net them between three and five seats. Democrats also have secured legislative buy-in on a push to gerrymander as many as three more seats out of Virginia. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told us that Democrats will keep pushing blue states to redraw regardless of the final outcome in Texas. “We are moving full steam ahead,” Jeffries said. “Republican extremists started this gerrymandering fight. We’re going to end it.” A harsh reality. We’ll note some big caveats here. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who is running for the Senate GOP nomination — has already announced that he’ll appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court, where the conservative super-majority could very well overturn the decision. The GOP is eager for this to happen.

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Despite congressional action, quick release of Epstein files is in doubt

For the past week, official Washington has talked constantly about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, except for the agency that has custody of the Epstein files. The Justice Department has been silent. On Tuesday, the House and Senate agreed to pass a bill calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all unclassified information and files related to the sprawling sex trafficking investigation into the onetime powerful financier. The Justice Department so far has continued to say nothing about how it would respond to that demand. There are many reasons to doubt that a bulk release of the files is imminent. If President Donald Trump wanted Bondi to release all of the Epstein files, he could have ordered her to do so at any point in the past six months. He didn’t. On Sunday, when Trump did an about-face and said House Republicans should vote in favor of releasing the Epstein files, he notably did not say he favored releasing them. Instead, he said in a social media post that the House “can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!”

What Congress is “legally entitled to” is a more complicated question than the rhetoric from Capitol Hill might imply. The legislation that Congress agreed to pass Tuesday gives the Justice Department a few exceptions under which it can refuse to release material. Among them: If release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.” On Friday, Trump ordered Bondi to launch a new federal investigation related to Epstein — this one aimed at his ties to several prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, megadonor Reid Hoffman and former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers. Bondi said the top federal prosecutor in New York City would take on the task. That investigation could become a reason for the Justice Department to block release of many files. Bondi and her deputies have previously said they cannot release information about active investigations.

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Nvidia results and delayed jobs data set up critical test for Wall Street

The fog masking the direction of the American economy and future of the artificial-intelligence boom is starting to lift. After mounting scrutiny of stratospheric tech investments, as well as a blackout of federal data during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Wall Street awaits two reports that stand to reshape its outlook for the months ahead. AI poster-child Nvidia is due to report earnings after the closing bell Wednesday, offering a snapshot of demand for chips that are a linchpin in the tech mania that has lifted markets and helped buoy the economy. A delayed September jobs report is slated to drop Thursday morning. The two releases will provide critical signals for investors after the most significant pullback in markets since President Trump’s tariff proposals sent stocks and bonds haywire in April.

A selloff in Nvidia has dragged down indexes, with Peter Thiel’s macro hedge fund and others dumping shares. The tremors extended beyond other AI names into crypto, gold and more. Even Warren Buffett’s latest big-tech bet, on Alphabet, hasn’t stanched the bleeding. America’s richly valued stock market has retreated in similar fashion multiple times during its yearslong run-up. In every instance, bargain hunters snapped up stocks, tech giants pumped out profits and the economy kept motoring ahead. “The fact that there’s so much fog or lack of transparency—the easiest thing for investors to do is move to the sidelines,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide. “That’s where you get this emotion and volatility. It’s not because they have everything figured out; it’s because they don’t.” The S&P 500 is still up 13% this year and only 4% lower than its recent record. But some technical signals beneath the market’s surface suggest the volatility could be longer-lasting than previous flare-ups, upping the ante for this week’s data to clarify whether the selloff is a healthy pause in the rally or a sign of a coming downturn.

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How a Dan Patrick political operative is literally rewriting the story of the Alamo

Months before top Republicans forced out the widely respected leader of the Alamo’s $500 million redevelopment for being too “woke,” a close political aide to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick undertook a literal rewrite of the heritage site’s three-hundred-year history. Some time in the summer, Patrick tapped Sherry Sylvester, who worked as his adviser for five years of his tenure as lieutenant governor, to “review” the 20,000-word text panels in development for the new Alamo museum and visitors center, scheduled to open in 2027. Sylvester’s job was to get the drafts ready for Patrick’s eventual assessment. On October 14, Sylvester, who did not respond to multiple interview requests, handed in her edits to the Alamo Trust, the nonprofit that oversees the site’s redevelopment and whose board she serves on. “[T]he lens through which many people now view all history has become a succession of stories sorting out who were oppressors and who were oppressed,” she wrote to staff in a memo describing her changes to the draft script. Instead, Sylvester proposed adopting a new historical lens, one “free from the ideological narratives that have mangled history to make political points.” The first step, she wrote, was to “to refuse to follow the dictates of those who proclaim some terms be required and others politically incorrect.” The memo, obtained by Texas Monthly, then laid out its own dictates and required terms. Out: “enslaved people.” In: “slave.” Unacceptable: “Indigenous people.” Acceptable: “Native people.” Verboten: “Colony, colonists, colonizer.” Instead, “settlement” and “settler.”

Throughout the memo, Sylvester described her edits as a neutral, fact-based corrective to the “oppressor/oppressed narrative” peddled by academic historians and activists. “Enslaved people is a politically correct phrase that has been thrust on us—like ‘unhoused’ for homeless,” she wrote. She also complained about “phrases that attempted to add a moral judgment on slavery,” adding: “Perhaps there is a more elegant way to do it, but if we indeed need to add the obvious point that slavery was bad, we need a better way to do it than what was suggested.” It’s unclear what phrases she was referring to; the General Land Office did not respond to a request to provide the edited script. Sylvester also ordered extensive revisions to the museum’s presentation of Native Americans, including references to what she described as “the myth that the natives were all one with nature – an idea straight out of Disney.” Stephen Harrigan, an historian and author who was hired to write the script before he was fired in November, said Sylvester is misrepresenting the draft. “This was not some kind of ‘Colors of the Wind’ lecture about how Native Americans lived in harmony,” he said. “What I wrote was that they were a mobile culture that moved in harmony with the growing seasons.” Ramon Vasquez, a member of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation who has pushed for inclusion of Native American history at the Alamo, accused Sylvester and Patrick of undermining years of work by experts and stakeholders such as himself in order to whitewash history for the “benefit of a few.”

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State Stories

Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett will run for reelection after court blocks Texas' congressional map

Longtime Austin Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett said he intends to run for reelection after a federal court blocked Texas from using its newly drawn congressional map in the 2026 midterm elections. "To borrow from Mark Twain, the reports of my death, politically, are greatly exaggerated," Doggett said in a statement. "This federal court order means that I have a renewed opportunity to continue serving the only town I have ever called home, as democracy faces greater challenges than at any point in my lifetime." Doggett had previously said he would not seek reelection if the state's newly drawn congressional map went into effect.

The map was passed by the Texas Legislature earlier this year in a special session after President Trump said he wanted five more Republican seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The map eliminates one of Travis County's two Democrat-held seats. If it had gone into effect, it would have pitted Doggett and Democratic Rep. Greg Casar against each other in the race for the remaining seat that represents Austin. "The Trump Abbott maps are clearly illegal, and I’m glad these judges have blocked them. If this decision stands, I look forward to running for reelection in my current district," Casar said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "No matter what, we must fight to pass a federal ban on gerrymandering once and for all." Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton said they will appeal the court decision.

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Veasey to seek reelection after court blocks Texas’ congressional redistricting

Fort Worth’s Marc Veasey said he unquestionably plans to seek reelection to his U.S. House seat after a federal judicial panel on Tuesday blocked Texas’ latest congressional redistricting plan. “I’m feeling upbeat. I’m encouraged,” Veasey told the Fort Worth Report after the three-judge panel threw out the redistricting map that cut Veasey’s District 33 congressional seat out of Tarrant County. The preliminary injunction temporarily halted plans by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican-led Legislature. The court said the months-old redistricting plan wrongly undercuts voting strength for Blacks and Latinos and cannot be used for next year’s elections.

Abbott, following the wishes of President Donald Trump, pushed the plan through a special legislative session this summer against Democratic objections that included many of them scrambling to other states in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the new map. The plan was designed to potentially give the president a pick-up of five GOP congressional seats from Texas. Veasey, whose congressional district spans parts of Tarrant and Dallas counties, was one of several Democratic incumbents whose congressional base would have been uprooted by the plan. District 33 would have been shifted solely to Dallas County in the map the judges blocked. The three-judge decision directs congressional candidates to run under maps drawn in 2021. Abbott pledges to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. Asked if he plans to seek reelection from the congressional seat he has held since 2013, Veasey responded, “Yes, sir, I’ll run in my current District 33.” Veasey acknowledged he was considering other political options, including running for another congressional seat but is now laser-focused on the 33rd district.

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Congressman Al Green awaiting SCOTUS redistricting decision before finalizing his reelection strategy

U.S. Rep. Al Green planned to run for Congress in Texas’ redrawn 18th Congressional District, but those plans may be upended after a federal court blocked Texas' new congressional map. Green said during a press conference Tuesday that he’s waiting until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in before making his next move. After a three-judge panel in El Paso issued its ruling, saying Texas must use the district map from the last two congressional elections during the 2026 midterms, Gov. Greg Abbott filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. Green has represented Texas' 9th Congressional District for years, but announced earlier this month that he would run in the new 18th, after the majority of his current district was redrawn.

"I will wait to see what the court does," he said. "But I will tell you this: I have been faithful to the people of the 9th Congressional District. I will continue to be faithful to the people that I represent." Texas politicians have until Dec. 8 to file for the primaries, which will take place on March 3, 2026. Green said he believed the Supreme Court would weigh in by then. The current 18th District has been without representation since March, when U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died at age 70. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards are heading for a Jan. 31 runoff election to determine who will complete Turner’s term. If Green exits the race for the next two-year term in the 18th District, it would be a significant development for Menefee and Edwards, who would no longer face a heated campaign against Green for the seat. In interviews on Tuesday, both Menefee and Edwards praised the decision from federal judges but did not speak about Green's candidacy. "I don't know what the primary is going to look like because there's a direct appellate to the United States Supreme Court, and I have no doubt in my mind that they will speak their piece on these maps," Menefee said. "We've been focused on the next 74 days first, and that is the runoff election," Edwards said. "This is going to be a very tight race, and we've got to stay focused on the race at hand." Green emphasized to reporters that his residence — and his constituency — did not change; rather, Republicans redrew the maps, redrawing his constituents into a new district. "I'm not moving, I've never moved," he said. "I'm staying where I've been for decades.”

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Fort Worth ISD votes 7-1 to appeal state’s takeover decision

The Fort Worth Independent School District’s board will appeal a decision by the state education commissioner to take over the district. At a meeting Tuesday evening, the board voted 7-1 to ask the State Office of Administrative Hearings to review Commissioner Mike Morath’s plan to remove the elected board and replace it with a state-appointed board of managers. The review represents the last step in the appeal process available to the board. Trustee Kevin Lynch voted against the appeal. Trustee Tobi Jackson joined the meeting via Zoom, but was unable to vote because of technology issues. All other board members voted to approve the proposal.

Morath announced last month that he plans to take over the district due to years of lackluster academic performance. In addition to replacing the elected board, Morath is conducting a nationwide search for the district’s next superintendent. Current Superintendent Karen Molinar is a candidate in that search. The takeover follows five consecutive F ratings at the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade Center. The school’s fifth F rating triggered a state law that requires the commissioner either to order the district to close that campus, or to take over the entire district. Board members met with Morath for about an hour in Austin for an “informal review” — the first step in the appeals process — on Oct. 31. During that meeting, board members and district officials spoke with the commissioner about academic progress the district has made in recent months and efforts in the district to continue that progress. But a week later, Morath reaffirmed his decision to take over the district and announced the appointment of former New Mexico education secretary Christopher Ruszkowski as the district’s conservator.

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New Texas petrochemical facilities are mostly in low income areas, communities of color, study finds

A recent report from Texas Southern University found that new and expanding petrochemical facilities in Texas are overwhelmingly located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Researchers evaluated the neighborhoods around 89 proposed or expanding petrochemical facilities across the state using a screening tool from the Environmental Protection Agency. They looked at air pollution and proximity to other "hazardous facilities" in the areas. Data related to the race, education, income level and languages within the areas was also collected. "The communities that are on the fenceline are getting pollution and they also are getting poverty," said Robert Bullard, one of the study's authors. "And also, if you look at the infrastructures within those neighborhoods that have these facilities, they are of poor quality."

The report found that 9 in 10 of the facilities are located in counties with "higher demographic vulnerability" – meaning they had more people of color, more low-income residents, or both, compared to the state and national averages. Over half of the new facilities were slated to be built in communities that have a higher proportion of people of color than the national average. Meanwhile, 30% of the facilities were slated to be built in areas with a poverty rate higher than the national average. "Segregation and racial redlining actually segregated pollution, and it segregated people," Bullard said. The analysis also found that the proposed facilities were being built in areas that are already struggling with air pollution. About 1 in 5 of the proposed facilities are located within the top 10% of areas nationwide with the highest amount of particulate matter pollution, and 46% of the new facilities are slated to be built within the top 10% of communities across the country with the highest amount of air toxins. The facilities were concentrated in 9% of Texas counties, with nearly half of them located in Harris County or Jefferson County.

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Federal judge orders Arlington, Fort Worth ISDs to remove Ten Commandments displays

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered several Texas school districts to remove Ten Commandments displays from classrooms, issuing the ruling in a lawsuit brought by families who argue the postings violate the Constitution’s ban on government-endorsed religion. U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia temporarily blocked 14 districts from enforcing Senate Bill 10, the new state law requiring public schools to display the biblical text in classrooms. Garcia wrote that it would be “impractical, if not impossible” to protect students from “unwelcome religious displays” without halting enforcement of the law. The districts must remove the displays by Dec. 1, and the order will remain in effect while the case continues. This applies only to the districts named in the lawsuit, but the groups behind the case are urging all Texas school districts to avoid displaying the Ten Commandments.

“Today’s ruling is yet another affirmation of what Texans already know: The First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in our children,” said Chloe Kempf, attorney for the ACLU of Texas. “Every school district in Texas is now on notice that implementing S.B. 10 violates their students’ constitutional rights.” The lawsuit was filed in September when some districts began putting up the posters after an August ruling in a different case that called the law “plainly unconstitutional.” That earlier ruling temporarily blocked the law in nearly a dozen other districts across Texas’ largest metro areas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a vocal supporter of SB 10, has appealed that decision. Paxton has also backed SB 11, which allows school boards to set aside time for voluntary prayer or the reading of religious texts in classrooms. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Similar lawsuits have challenged nearly identical laws in other states. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Louisiana's Ten Commandments law statewide and a federal court has blocked the law in several Arkansas school districts.

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Gov. Abbott declares CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood terrorist groups

Gov. Greg Abbott designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations Tuesday. The declaration prohibits both groups from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas and allows "increased enforcement" against both groups, the governor said. "The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam's 'mastership of the world," Abbott said. "The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable.”

Sharia broadly refers to teachings and traditions of the Islamic faith. The Muslim Brotherhood, an international Muslim movement, has advocated for the application of religious law in Muslim-majority countries. While there's no evidence the movement has taken hold in the United States, it has nonetheless been the focus of criticism and controversy. Among several things in Abbott’s proclamation letter, he cited accusations that CAIR was created as a “front group” for Hamas. There’s been little direct evidence of a link between CAIR and Hamas and the group denies those claims. He also claimed CAIR has “repeatedly employed, affiliated with, and supported individuals promoting terrorism-related activities.” CAIR’s website states the group was established to challenge stereotypes about Islam and Muslims. Most of its work focuses on civil rights and anti-defamation.

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Dallas Stars claim Mavericks are actually based in Las Vegas in escalating arena dispute

The legal battle between the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars over the management and future of the American Airlines Center has taken an unusual turn. After the owners of Mavericks claimed in a lawsuit filed last month the NHL team had violated an agreement by moving its headquarters out of the city, the Stars are using that same legal argument against the NBA team, pointing to business filings that show key executives and principal offices are located in Nevada rather than Texas. Those claims came in a Nov. 18 response to the Mavs' original lawsuit as litigation between the two professional sports franchises continues.

DSE Hockey Club LP filed an answer in the Texas Business Courts to a lawsuit filed by the owners of the Mavericks on Oct. 28. In that lawsuit, Mavericks ownership alleges the hockey team breached a franchise agreement with Dallas by moving its headquarters out of the city decades ago and have prevented much-needed maintenance and improvements at the American Airlines Center from moving forward. Both the Mavericks and Stars play at the American Airlines Center in Victory Park but the Stars have had their headquarters in the suburb of Frisco since 2003. The teams are now sparring over the business entity through which they each lease the AAC. The Mavericks tried to redeem the Stars' ownership stake in the partnership, while the Stars claimed their portion of revenue has been withheld wrongfully. While the Stars filed their own countersuit on Oct. 28, in the answer to the Mavericks lawsuit they took the NBA franchise's own argument and flipped it.

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State sues Round Rock, Leander ISDs over display of Ten Commandments

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued two Williamson County school districts on Thursday for allegations they failed to display donated copies of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. A state law passed earlier this year compelling school districts to do so. Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Round Rock and Leander school districts in the 425th District Court of Williamson County for the districts' “open refusal to comply with” Texas' Senate Bill 10. The law is currently enjoined in a number of small school districts because of ongoing litigation. While officials with Round Rock acknowledged their decision to not post copies of the posters, a spokesperson with Leander schools said the district was complying with the law.

The Leander district was “confounded” by the lawsuit, spokeswoman Crestina Hardie said. The district has received donations and “actively implemented the law.” “Had the AG’s Office contacted Leander ISD, the District could have shared its spreadsheet tracking precisely the number of donated posters the District has received and where in the District the posters have been displayed in accordance with SB 10,” Hardie said. Round Rock district spokeswoman Anne Drabicky confirmed Tuesday that the district had declined to post copies of the Ten Commandments while awaiting further legal guidance. “At this time, state law conflicts with longstanding federal law regarding the separation of church and state, where a public school district is considered 'state,' ” Drabicky said. The Round Rock district has received 30 donated posters for one campus and 170 for another. Earlier this month, Paxton also sued the Galveston school district for not displaying donated copies of the text. In August, U.S. federal Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio blocked SB 10's in a handful a districts, including Lake Travis and Dripping Springs. The districts involved had been sued by a coalition of parents and faith leaders.

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Texas gets 'D' rating for maternal and infant health from March of Dimes

Texas received a grade of “D” in the annual report card on maternal and infant health outcomes from the national nonprofit March of Dimes. The state’s low rating reflects its high pre-term birthrate: 11.1% of babies in Texas were born prematurely in 2024, a trend that remained flat from 2023. The United States, which earned a D-plus overall, saw a 10.4% pre-term birth rate. March of Dimes announced a targeted effort to improve Texas' pre-term birth rate earlier this month. Pre-term births are associated with higher infant mortality rates, developmental delays and other health risks. In Texas, there was disparity between different demographics within this metric. White and Asian mothers, for instance, saw rates below 10%, whereas Black mothers experienced pre-term birth rates of nearly 15%. The infant mortality rate was also significantly higher for babies born to Black moms.

“Texas is not alone there,” said Dr. Michael Warren, chief medical and health officer for March of Dimes. “Women of color tend to have worse birth outcomes than non-Hispanic white women, and that is true even when you control for other factors like education and income.” Warren said research was needed to understand how discrimination in prenatal and maternal care could be contributing to these disparities. The report card also showed that nearly 23% of Texas mothers did not receive prenatal care until the fifth month of pregnancy, compared with 16% nationwide. “We're really missing out on those important opportunities to make sure that mom is healthy, that the growing baby is healthy, and we're doing everything we can to make sure that they’re going to have a good outcome for that pregnancy,” Warren said. However, Texas did perform better than the national average for severe maternal morbidity outcomes, meaning mothers in the state saw fewer long- or short-term health consequences associated with labor and delivery. Warren said Texas’ move in 2023 to extend Medicaid coverage for mothers for a year after delivery was a positive step. Travis County fared better in the March of Dimes report compared with the state as a whole with a grade of C-plus and a 9.5% pre-term birth rate. However, that represented a slight increase from the previous year.

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All Texas Republicans in Congress vote to release Epstein files

All Texas Republicans in Congress voted Tuesday to require the Justice Department to release materials related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after President Donald Trump dropped his resistance and urged GOP lawmakers to do so. U.S Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, did not vote. Other Texas Democrats were unanimous in voting to require the release. Republican lawmakers echoed Trump’s statements from earlier in the week that it was time to get past the controversy and focus on their party’s achievements. Democrats said Republicans were simply caving to pressure. “These Republicans have been dragging their feet, doing everything they can to block and obstruct the release of the files until it became very, very clear that this was going to happen,” U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, said in a video she posted to X after the vote.

Only one lawmaker voted against the legislation - U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. In her video, Johnson noted that many of Epstein’s victims have been in Washington, D.C., begging for justice and accountability. She called for keeping pressure on the Senate to take up the measure and she didn’t have to wait long. The Senate later in the afternoon agreed to pass the measure by unanimous consent when it’s received, a procedure that means no senator objects and no roll call vote is recorded. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, highlighted on his podcast earlier this week how Trump had urged Republican lawmakers to vote for the measure. “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Cruz alluded to the administration’s previous reluctance to release the Epstein materials and speculated it could be because some Republican is implicated in the files.

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John Mulaney explains Texas cities

Comedian John Mulaney spent much of this month in Texas, first on stops in his Mister Whatever tour, and then last weekend at the Texas Tribune’s TribFest. He was in North Texas earlier this month and, just a couple of days after that appearance, he sat down with the Texas Standard for an interview where he answered the question: “What’s your takeaway when you think of Texas?”

His response: “I think of Texas as this father with like a bunch of different sons that are his cities. And, you know, Dallas is like trying to do everything right and run the family business and is responsible with money and Houston has a good job but is just boring as hell. Austin is like the little more emo kid at the end of the table that’s like, ‘What did you do today, Austin?’ He’s like, ‘I colored’ — a sort of artistic, libertarian son at the end of the table that does whatever he wants.” If you think he forgot San Antonio, he didn’t. “I love San Antonio. San Antonio’s like that kid that’s just always fine but doesn’t visit a lot,” he said. He also says that the first club he “ever headlined in my life” was the Laff Stop in Houston, which could, I suppose, have flavored his insights on Houston. But I think there are many people in Dallas who would argue about whether the impression Dallas made on Mulaney is correct.

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Austin budget revisions move ahead with focus on public safety

Austin leaders kicked off their review of a trimmed city budget as they move to approve the plan within the next week, with a focus on securing funding for emergency medical services and homelessness response. City Council adopted Austin's fiscal year 2025-26 budget in August with more than $100 million in added spending for homeless housing and services, public safety, parks upkeep and other priority items. That extra funding was tied to a higher tax rate beyond the voter-approval level, requiring a tax rate election. However, voters rejected a larger tax hike under Proposition Q, leading to this fall's downward revisions to the FY 2025-26 budget. City financial staff shared recommendations for a smaller general fund in early November that's in line with City Manager T.C. Broadnax's original draft budget and now the basis for what Mayor Kirk Watson billed as "basic budgeting for basic services."

Council's first public deliberation over the constrained budget Nov. 18 will be followed by another discussion and public hearing Nov. 19. Officials will approve an FY 2025-26 spending plan Nov. 20 or in the following days after further discussion of the reductions to come. Council member Ryan Alter noted that most department costs continue to rise each year by more than 3.5%—the level at which Texas caps cities' annual revenue growth—and that officials must focus on balancing the budget regardless of other spending priorities.“We are dramatically growing our departments at a rate that our revenue cannot sustain," he said. "We can’t cut and replace, we just have to cut.” Most departments under Austin's general fund, which supports public-facing services from public safety to parks and libraries, will see reductions from levels proposed under Proposition Q. The $1.48 billion general fund outlined by staff accounts for about one-fourth of the overall budget. Most of council's additions to that fund for things like new homeless housing units, fire and EMS employees and vehicles, parkland maintenance staff, public health services and community violence response are slated to be cut. Topics raised during council's Nov. 18 review included finding additional vacancy savings across city offices, addressing public safety overtime and fully funding public safety. For example, a group of officials led by Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes is proposing other department cuts to maintain normal EMS operations and avoid brownouts, or reduced coverage, around the city.

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City Stories

Neiman Marcus’ downtown Dallas store will not close after the holidays

A miracle on Main Street has just occurred. Despite multiple soap-opera-like episodes of near-death announcements for Dallas’ iconic downtown Neiman Marcus store, the destination has once again escaped the chopping block. In a statement given today to D CEO, Saks Global said the store will remain open beyond the 2025 holiday season—despite earlier indications it might close at year’s end. “We continue to have productive conversations with the City of Dallas to potentially reimagine the Neiman Marcus Downtown Dallas location,” a Saks Global spokesperson told D CEO. “The store will remain open past the 2025 holiday season while this process continues in 2026. We remain committed to serving our loyal Dallas customers and look forward to sharing more soon.”

It’s been a rollercoaster ride for all involved in the store’s near-demise this year. The drama first unfolded in February, when Saks Global announced it would be closing the store just over a month after acquiring the Neiman Marcus brand. Tales of a ground lease dispute ensued when Saks Global blamed the closure on “a landlord,” but the dispute was resolved when that landlord sold their spot of land to the city of Dallas. But in a twist of fate, Saks deemed that the donation wasn’t good enough, and that the store would be closing anyway. Dallas responded by creating a coalition of business leaders and public officials who seemed a hair’s breadth away from traveling to NYC to talk things over with Saks leadership. Just before that happened, Saks announced that it would keep the store open through at least the holidays while working with the City of Dallas on potentially reimagining the store site. With today’s confirmation from Saks Global, the storied retail spot has once again escaped what was once thought to be a certain death. For

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National Stories

Mike Madrid: Prop. 50 in California is trivial compared to this U.S. Supreme Court case

(Mike Madrid is a political analyst and a special correspondent for McClatchy Media.) On Oct. 15, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, a redistricting case that threatens to fundamentally reshape American voting rights. In a matter of months, a decision by the high court will have far greater implications than Proposition 50, the controversial initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot that would redraw California’s congressional district maps to favor Democrats if a majority of voters vote “yes.” At play in California is perhaps the future of five congressional seats. Many experts estimate close to 20 Congressional seats held safely by Democrats could be in play in this high court case. At the heart of the Louisiana v. Callais case is a deceptively simple question posed repeatedly by Justice Brett Kavanaugh: How long should race-based remedies continue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act 1965? For context, this section “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in one of the language minority groups identified (in the legislation).” These groups include, “American Indian, Asian American, Alaska Native, and citizens of Spanish heritage.”

This landmark legislation, hailed for 60 years a key milestone in the Civil Rights Movement, is now facing intense scrutiny from a conservative majority on a High Court that is noticing how “minorities” as defined in 1965 are no longer voting as they did in 1965. There is less daylight between how some “minority” groups have voted in recent elections and how white people have voted. But Black people in particular vote differently than whites in many parts of the country, particularly along party lines, and the current question before the courts is whether it’s legal to draw election maps that dilute Black voting patterns. Consequently, Kavanaugh is asking whether the definition of discrimination established in 1965 remains relevant today. Has America achieved the colorblind society the Civil Rights Act envisioned? Louisiana’s congressional maps are at the center of this constitutional storm. After the 2020 census, the state initially drew districts with only one majority-Black seat despite African Americans comprising nearly one-third of Louisiana’s population. Federal courts found this violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ordered a second majority-Black district. When Louisiana complied, three white voters sued, arguing that deliberately creating a majority-minority district itself constitutes racial discrimination. The Supreme Court expanded the case to challenge whether Section 2 (the last robust provision of the Voting Rights Act still standing) violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. Kavanaugh, a pivotal voice on the court, repeatedly emphasized that while race-based remedies might be permissible “for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades, in some cases,” they “should not be indefinite and should have an end point.”

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Takeaways from Trump's meeting with Saudi crown prince

A jovial President Donald Trump held a warm and friendly meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman at the White House, packed with plenty of handshakes and back pats. He brushed aside questions about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, praised the prince for his statesmanship and announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new Saudi investment in the United States. The White House rolled out plenty of pomp for the Saudi royal on Tuesday, dispatching fighter jets that the two leaders watched from a red carpet, parading out an honor guard on horseback and giving a lavish dinner in the East Room. In a sitdown in the Oval Office that took place just seven years after Prince Mohammad was implicated by U.S. intelligence agencies in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump and the prince took numerous questions from reporters — one of whom was repeatedly insulted by Trump — on everything from commerce to the sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Riyadh.

Trump had previewed his decision to sell F-35s on Sunday but formalized it before the prince on Tuesday when he said the approval was complete and that Israel’s fears about maintaining its qualitative military edge in the Middle East would be addressed. Details of the deal were not immediately clear, but some in the Pentagon and other agencies have opposed the sale because of the potential for advanced technology being shared with China, which also has close ties with Saudi Arabia. “As far as I’m concerned, I think they are both at a level where they should get top of the line,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia and Israel, which already has F-35s. “Israel’s aware and they’re going to be very happy.” Tuesday’s meeting was the first White House visit for the crown prince since Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018. U.S. intelligence said Prince Mohammad likely approved the slaying. In a remarkable scene in the Oval Office, the prince, nicknamed MBS, faced questions from reporters, something not typical for the de facto head of the absolute monarchy where dissent is criminalized. He was asked about Khashoggi’s slaying along with the role that Saudi citizens played in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Trump, however, lashed out at the reporter for the line of questioning.

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Mexican president rejects Trump’s offer of military intervention against cartels

Mexico’s president on Tuesday ruled out allowing U.S. strikes against cartels on Mexican soil, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was willing to do whatever it takes to stop drugs entering the U.S. “It’s not going to happen,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said. “He (Trump) has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups,’” she said. “But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.” Sheinbaum said she had said this to Trump and to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on previous occasions and that they have understood.

“Would I want strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said Monday, adding that he’s “not happy with Mexico.” The U.S. Embassy in Mexico shared a video on X later Monday that included previous comments from Rubio saying that the U.S. would not take unilateral action in Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexican and U.S. diplomats were trying to sort out Tuesday what may have been an actual U.S. incursion. On Monday, men arrived in a boat at a beach in northeast Mexico and installed some signs signaling land that the U.S. Department of Defense considered restricted. Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said late Monday that the country’s navy had removed the signs, which appeared to be on Mexican territory. And on Tuesday, Sheinbaum said that the International Boundary and Water Commission, a binational agency that determines the border between the two countries, was getting involved.

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Trump said to authorize C.I.A. plans for covert action in Venezuela

With the largest U.S. aircraft carrier now positioned in the Caribbean, President Trump has approved additional measures to pressure Venezuela and prepare for the possibility of a broader military campaign, according to multiple people briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump has signed off on C.I.A. plans for covert measures inside Venezuela, operations that could be meant to prepare a battlefield for further action, these people said. At the same time, they said, he has authorized a new round of back-channel negotiations that at one point resulted in President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela offering to step down after a delay of a couple of years, a proposal the White House rejected. It is not clear what the covert actions might be or when any of them might be carried out. Mr. Trump has not yet authorized combat forces on the ground in Venezuela, so the next phase of the administration’s escalating pressure campaign on the Maduro government could be sabotage or some sort of cyber, psychological or information operations.

The president has not made a decision about the broader course of action to pursue in Venezuela, nor publicly articulated his ultimate goal beyond stemming the flow of drugs from the region. And military and C.I.A. planners have prepared multiple options for different contingencies. Military planners have prepared lists of potential drug facilities that could be struck. The Pentagon is also planning for strikes on military units close to Mr. Maduro. Mr. Trump held two meetings in the White House Situation Room last week to discuss Venezuela and review options with his senior advisers. Any covert action by the C.I.A. would probably come before such military strikes. Both the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s order. Even as Mr. Trump has told the C.I.A. to prepare multiple possible secret operations inside Venezuela, he has also opened up back-channel negotiations with Mr. Maduro after cutting off such talks last month for a brief time, people briefed on the matter said. In those informal talks, Mr. Maduro has signaled a willingness to offer access to his country’s oil wealth to American energy companies. Mr. Trump acknowledged those talks, in a fashion, on Sunday. “We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out,” Mr. Trump said. While Mr. Trump emphasizes Venezuela’s role in the drug trade or illegal immigration when he discusses the issue in public, he has discussed in private the country’s huge oil reserves and American companies gaining access to them.

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Trump threatens war on Indiana Republicans over redistricting

President Trump and his allies are threatening to unleash war against Indiana Republicans over redistricting. Trump has said he will primary GOP holdouts in the Hoosier State who refuse to redraw the state’s map. He has also cranked up pressure on Indiana Gov. Mike Braun (R) to get members of his party in line. The growing pressure campaign underscores the divisions within the GOP over redistricting and comes as Democrats have racked up wins as they look to erase Republican gains heading into the midterms. “What they’re doing is a disservice to our country,” Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz told The Hill.

“My thought process is we have to defeat all of these people in this next election,” he said. “We need to get them out of office, and we need to … give the people of Indiana proper representation.” Trump and his allies have been pressing Indiana Republicans for months to aggressively draw a GOP-favored 9-0 map as the party looks to pick up House seats ahead of a challenging midterm environment next year. Republicans were dealt another major blow in the redistricting battle Tuesday when a panel of federal judges ruled that a map passed by Texas GOP lawmakers earlier this year could not be implemented during the 2026 cycle. That map, pushed by Trump, would have offered the party up to five pickup opportunities ahead of next year. Republicans are expected to appeal the decision. The GOP has passed other favorable maps this year in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. And a Florida House select committee on redistricting is scheduled to meet Dec. 4, signaling the next possible avenue for the party to expand its map.

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Kamala Harris Hits Campaign Trail in Tennessee Special Election

Former Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Tuesday with the Democratic candidate in a closely watched Tennessee special election for Congress, marking the first time since she left office that she has returned to the campaign trail for another candidate. The race for the open House seat is in a district that President Trump won by more than 20 percentage points last year, and is seen as a long shot for Democrats. But Ms. Harris’s decision to campaign is the latest sign that the Dec. 2 election is being seriously contested. National party leaders now see the contest as an important test of the political environment before next year’s midterm elections. Early voting has already begun in the race between State Representative Aftyn Behn, the Democrat, and Matt Van Epps, a veteran and the Republican nominee. Mr. Van Epps recently received some help from Mr. Trump in the form of a virtual rally.

Ms. Harris headlined a canvassing kickoff event at a local park for Ms. Behn on Tuesday afternoon after making an appearance on the campus of Fisk University, a historically Black college that is in the contested district. “Why am I in Tennessee? Because I know the power is in the South,” Ms. Harris said into a bullhorn at Hadley Park in Nashville. She did not mention Ms. Behn by name but urged the crowd to get out the vote in two weeks. “This election is 14 days from today!” she said. Several of the students, phone cameras held high, were not registered to vote in the district, but said they appreciated Ms. Harris drawing attention to their campuses and the state of Tennessee politics. Ms. Behn spoke before Ms. Harris’s arrival, telling the crowd the election was “the most competitive race in America.” Ms. Harris was already scheduled to be in Nashville this week for her book tour for her election memoir, “107 Days,” and adding the campaign event is a sign of her growing engagement in national politics a year after her defeat. She had considered running for governor of California but ultimately decided against a candidacy, and she has left open the door to running for president again.

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DeSantis created a conservative blueprint for higher ed with makeover of ‘left-wing’ college. It's been costly.

Nearly three years ago, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis championed his culture war policies during the run-up to a bid for the White House, he vowed to overhaul a small, quirky liberal arts college in Sarasota that was part of the state education system. New College of Florida was “more into DEI, CRT, the gender ideology,” the Republican governor said, using abbreviations for diversity, equity and inclusion and for critical race theory. He added: “We’re going to be able to offer some reforms.” DeSantis has largely succeeded in transforming what was one of the most liberal institutions in the state into a school that is now hailed by conservatives across the country. He handpicked a new president and appointed a board of trustees who fired and denied tenure to veteran professors. The school closed its gender studies center. It added sports teams and turned classrooms in a historic campus building into donor-friendly spaces with cigar smoking allowed on the balcony overlooking Sarasota Bay.

Now the bill for that effort has arrived, and it shows a remarkably high price. According to a report released this month by the Florida Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the cost to produce a degree at New College is $494,715 — the highest among public colleges in Florida and more than three times the $150,729 cost at the state’s flagship school, the University of Florida. Operating expenses at New College are $83,207 per student, compared with $45,765 at UF. New College also has the largest number of administrators per student, or 33.3 per 100, compared with 26.9 at UF, a school with nearly 62,000 students. Enrollment has increased since the overhaul, but with 732 current students, New College is still short of the school’s stated goal of 1,200. More than a third of the new students are athletes recruited to fill recently created collegiate sports teams, including baseball, basketball and softball. DeSantis and his supporters say the New College makeover, along with the governor’s other education policies, should provide a road map for education leaders nationwide.

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CPB agrees to revive a $36 million deal with NPR killed after Trump's pressure

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to fulfill a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after pressure from the Trump White House. The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of illegally yielding to Trump's demands that the network be financially punished for its news coverage. The argument, part of a broader lawsuit by NPR and several stations against the Trump administration, focused on CPB funding for NPR's operation of a satellite distribution system for local public radio stations. NPR announced Monday it would waive all fees for the stations associated with the satellite service for two years. The judge in the case had explicitly told CPB's legal team he did not find its defense credible. CPB lawyers had argued that the decision to award a contract instead to Public Media Infrastructure, a new consortium of public media institutions, was driven by a desire to foster digital innovations more swiftly.

"The settlement is a victory for editorial independence and a step toward upholding the First Amendment rights of NPR and the public media system in our legal challenge to [Trump's] Executive Order," Katherine Maher, President and CEO of NPR, said in a statement. "While we entered into this dispute with CPB reluctantly, we're glad to resolve it in a way that enables us to continue to provide for the stability of the Public Radio Satellite System, offer immediate and direct support to public radio stations across the country, and proceed with our strong and substantive claims against this illegal and unconstitutional Executive Order. We look forward to our day in court in December." In its submission Monday evening to the court, CPB did not concede that it had acted wrongfully — nor that it had yielded to political pressure from the administration. Instead, in a statement posted on its website, CPB asserted its side "prevails" as a result of the settlement. "This is an important moment for public media," said Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB. "We are very pleased that this costly and unnecessary litigation is over, and that our investment in the future through [Public Media Infrastructure] marks an exciting new era for public media." The contract with PMI will continue, CPB said.

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McMahon breaks up more of the Education Department

The Education Department is planning to move TRIO and numerous other higher education programs to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.” Instead of moving whole offices, the department detailed a plan Tuesday to transfer certain programs and responsibilities to other agencies. All in all, the department signed six agreements with four agencies, relocating a wide swath of programs. For instance, the Labor Department is set to take over most of ED’s higher education programs, which include grants that support student success, historically Black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions. Meanwhile, the State Department will handle Fulbright-Hays grants as well as those administered by the International and Foreign Language Education office. Indian Education and programs for tribal colleges are moving to the Interior Department.

Under the agreements, the other agencies will provide services to support the administration of the various programs they’ll now oversee and ensure compliance with federal rules. ED will transfer the funding, but continues to set the budget, criteria and priorities for the granto programs and manage hiring and other HR processes, among other activities. Several of the offices that have overseen these grant programs were gutted in recent rounds of layoffs, but any staff members who are still managing them will transfer their respective receiving agencies. ED also has moved to defund some of the grant programs that are being transferred, deeming them either redundant, irrelevant or unconstitutional. So it remains unclear whether they will actually remain operational in their new locations. The agreements were signed Sept. 30—the day before the government shut down. ED officials expect the transition to take some time. “These partnerships really mark a major step forward in improving management of select programs and leveraging these partner agencies’ administrative expertise, their experience working with relevant stakeholders and streamlines the bureaucracy that has accumulated here at ED over the decades,” the senior department official said in a press call Tuesday. “We are confident that this will lead to better services for grantees, for schools, for families across the country.” Republicans in Congress and conservative policy analysts generally praised Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s actions while lobbyists representing institutions and left-leaning student advocacy groups argued the changes would cause confusion and make it more difficult to get federal dollars out the door.

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Lead Stories

FEMA to Texas? Disaster agency mulls move to Lone Star State

The Trump administration is considering moving the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters to Texas and putting the state’s top emergency manager in charge of the agency, two former senior FEMA officials told POLITICO’s E&E News. Moving the agency from its headquarters in Washington would create “huge challenges” coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA and is located across town from the agency, according to one former official, who was granted anonymity so they could speak freely. Shortly after President Donald Trump took office, White House officials interviewed Nim Kidd, head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, to run the nation’s disaster agency. After POLITICO’s E&E News reported the interview, Kidd posted a statement on his LinkedIn account acknowledging the interview but saying, “My work in Texas is not done.” On Monday, FEMA acting Administrator David Richardson resigned after a six-month tenure and is returning to the private sector. Starting Dec. 1, FEMA chief of staff Karen Evans will assume the role of acting administrator, a DHS spokesperson said.

A panel appointed by Trump to review FEMA plans is expected to recommend moving the agency to Texas, which would accommodate Kidd and his refusal to leave his home state, according to a former FEMA official. “The admin wanted him, but he refused to leave Texas,” one FEMA source said. Kidd has remained close to the Trump administration and is one of 13 members of Trump’s FEMA review panel, which is expected to make recommendations shortly. Kidd had a high profile in July after flash flooding overwhelmed central Texas and killed at least 130 people, including many young girls at a summer camp. Kidd was at a news conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shortly after the deadly flood and met with Richardson at the disaster site. Kidd is widely respected and has extensive experience running one of the nation’s largest disaster agencies. He appears to meet all statutory requirements to run FEMA and likely would be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate. Kidd would be FEMA’s first permanent administrator since Trump returned to the White House in January. Before Richardson ran the agency, Cameron Hamilton was acting administrator until he was fired in May after publicly disagreeing with the administration about the importance of FEMA. When the White House interviewed Kidd in February, it also interviewed the head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, who has helped Trump by establishing an immigrant detention site in the Everglades to handle the increasing number of detainees. Neither Kidd nor the Trump administration immediately responded to requests for comment.

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As Trump looks for distraction on Epstein, Justice Dept. rushes to his aid

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s prosecutorial sprint speed is improving, at least from the perspective of the man holding a stopwatch, President Trump. Just 217 minutes elapsed between Mr. Trump’s command on Friday morning that she investigate prominent Democrats like Bill Clinton who were named in documents Congress obtained from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate and Ms. Bondi’s announcement that she had referred the matter to the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Earlier demands took days, sometimes weeks, to fulfill. Ms. Bondi’s statement was an unmistakable demonstration of Mr. Trump’s near-total success in subordinating the Justice Department’s post-Watergate independence to his will. Friday was a milestone of sorts. The department was deployed, in effect, as an arm of the president’s rapid-response operation to help him muscle through a damaging news cycle, current and former officials said. “Whether you are investigated or prosecuted, or whether you are pardoned or have your sentence commuted, depends on whether you are an enemy or a friend of Donald Trump,” said Mary McCord, who once oversaw the Justice Department’s national security division and is now a professor at Georgetown Law.

“There is no pretense of evenhanded justice,” she said. “That core principle is gone.” Mr. Trump has ordered partisan investigations in bulk: James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director; Letitia James, New York’s attorney general; John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director; Adam B. Schiff, a Democratic senator from California; and Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice indicted Mr. Trump, among others. Friday’s batch consisted of an all-Democratic roster of men who, like Mr. Trump, socialized with Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender. They included Mr. Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and the megadonor and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, along with a bank that has longstanding ties to Mr. Epstein. Several Trump allies, requesting anonymity to speak candidly, conceded that the investigation was an effort to shift attention from messages in the trove that suggested the president knew far more about Mr. Epstein’s abuse of underage girls than he previously acknowledged. Just as important, they said, was Mr. Trump’s need to spin a new narrative to deflect an emerging challenge within his own party: the push to release the remaining Justice Department and F.B.I. investigative files on Mr. Epstein.

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As data flow revives, Fed still faces a deep policy divide

A divided U.S. Federal Reserve begins receiving updated economic reports from the now-reopened federal government this week as policymakers hope for clarity in their debate over whether to cut interest rates when they meet in just over three weeks. It remains unclear how much of the shutdown-delayed data on employment, inflation, retail spending, economic growth, and other aspects of the economy will be in hand by then. As of Monday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said it would publish the delayed employment report for September on Thursday, but the White House has said some of the October reports may be skipped altogether, while data gathering for November may also be hampered by a shutdown that stretched to mid-month. But the lines of debate have been sharply drawn, and minutes of the Fed's October meeting to be released on Wednesday could provide more detail on the split that has emerged over whether the risk of higher inflation remains pronounced enough to delay rate cuts for now, or whether slowing job growth and looser monetary policy should take priority.

"I am not worried about inflation accelerating or inflation expectations rising significantly," Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Monday. "My focus is on the labor market, and after months of weakening, it is unlikely that the September jobs report later this week or any other data in the next few weeks would change my view that another cut is in order" when the Fed meets on December 9-10. Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson meanwhile said the central bank should go "slowly" given the benchmark interest rate, in the 3.75%-to-4.00% range, is likely nearing the level where it will no longer discourage economic activity and put downward pressure on inflation. Clear camps have formed within the central bank, with several Fed governors - all appointees of President Donald Trump - arguing for another cut, and several regional reserve bank presidents taking a hard line on inflation. Still, the intensity of those divisions may mask a narrower set of concerns about timing and the desire for more data to show a clearer direction for the economy. The Fed's approval of a quarter-percentage-point rate cut at the October 28-29 meeting included dissents in favor of both looser and tighter monetary policy, a rarity in recent decades. Afterward, Fed Chair Jerome Powell offered unusual, explicit guidance about the outcome of the December meeting.

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Could Paxton's push to close the GOP primary election help him against Cornyn?

Attorney General Ken Paxton says his push to restrict the upcoming GOP primary only to registered Republican voters is based on legal grounds. But one of his top advisors recently suggested the move could also benefit Paxton politically as he seeks to oust U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in one of the state’s most heated primary races. Michelle Smith told conservatives that blocking independent and Democratic voters from participating in the March 3 contest would help Paxton and hurt Cornyn. “(Critics are) saying Paxton just wants this so he can win his primary, and I said, ‘Well, of course, any Republican, it's good for all Republicans, not just General Paxton,’” Smith said on an X Spaces live event last month, adding about Cornyn: “These guys know they need to trigger the Democrats to come vote for them, and without that, they know they won’t win."

Paxton’s office has joined the Republican Party of Texas in its lawsuit against the state to close the March primary election, arguing its a First Amendment issue. The decision has split the state’s top GOP leaders. Grassroots conservatives, who say closed primaries help guard against moderate candidates, are rallying behind Paxton. “Republicans, and only Republicans, should select Republican nominees,” Texas Republican Party chair Abraham George said. Secretary of State Jane Nelson is fighting the suit, saying that changing the system so close to an election would create confusion among voters. Other Republican officials worry that restricting participation could risk turning away new GOP voters. Experts say closing primaries has had no meaningful impact on the results and would be unlikely to benefit Paxton. “A belief has taken hold in the Republican Party that closed primaries are better because you're keeping out moderates. You're keeping out members of the other party who might want to mess with your nomination,” said Robert Boatright, a political science professor at Clark University in Massachusetts who studies primary elections. “There’s no evidence that this happens. There's no evidence that there are any elections that have been swung like this.”

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State Stories

Gov. Greg Abbott's 332-day gift to President Trump

In the end, Gov. Greg Abbott will have bought President Donald Trump at least an extra 332 days of advantage in a tightly held Congress. On Monday, Abbott finally set the runoff election for Jan. 31 to fill the seat left vacant by the late Sylvester Turner. Once those results are certified, typically the next week, either Democrat Amanda Edwards or Christian Menefee will head to Congress to give downtown Houston a vote in the U.S. House for the first time since March 5. ?Abbott’s delay in filling the seat has paid huge dividends for Trump. With one less Democrat in the House, it allowed Trump to get his big spending and tax cut plan passed in the U.S. House by one vote back in the summer. And it left the vote on releasing more Jeffrey Epstein files one vote short — that is until Arizona filled its own vacant congressional seat this month.

bbott never said he was delaying because of Trump. Instead, he said Harris County needed the extra time to conduct the election — something county officials have denied. ?Two other members of Congress, from Arizona and Virginia, died in office after Turner’s death in March, yet both of those seats have already been filled through special elections. And in Tennessee, U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Republican, resigned in July, but that seat will be filled in an election on Dec. 2 — just over 130 days after it was left vacant. ?Since 2002, there have been more than 100 vacancies in the U.S. House. On average it has taken 136 days to fill them. ?While Houston's 332-plus days without a representative will be one of the longest vacancies in history, it isn’t the record. In Michigan, longtime U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, resigned in December 2017. But then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, didn’t set the special election to fill the seat until November 2018 in the Democratically-dominated district, giving the House GOP an extra seat edge for 359 days. California Gov. Gavin Newsom returned the favor when U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican in a GOP-safe district, resigned in January 2020. Newsom, a Democrat, decided not to fill the seat at all, leaving the San Diego-based district without a member of Congress for 356 days.

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Austin City Council faces showdown over public safety cuts

As the Austin City Council begins deliberating over a new austerity budget proposal Tuesday, public safety spending has become a major flashpoint. While the three public safety unions are pushing council to infuse millions of dollars into the fire department and emergency medical services, a coalition of nearly two dozen progressive organizations is advocating for a more equitable approach so that homeless services, parks and other programs don’t have to suffer cuts amid a nagging budget shortfall. The coalition also is calling for a reduction in police spending, which it described as “one of the few viable ways” to achieve its goal. The wrangling began in earnest last week after City Manager T.C. Broadnax released a revised budget proposal that reduced the Austin Fire Department and Austin-Travis County EMS budgets by a combined $14 million-plus. Leaders of the Austin Firefighters Association and Austin EMS Association, along with the Austin Police Association, were quick to blast the cuts and warn they would put Austin residents at risk by slowing response times and weakening the ability of their agencies to respond to severe fires and medical emergencies.

“What the manager proposed doesn’t adequately fund the resources we need,” EMS Association President James Monks said in an interview. Broadnax’s budget proposal came days after the Nov. 4 election where voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition Q, a measure that would have generated nearly $110 million by increasing the city property tax rate by more than 20%. The $6.3 billion budget City Council approved in August accounted for that money, so the council must now approve a new spending plan. A city staff presentation posted online ahead of Tuesday’s budget work session says Broadnax’s proposal calls for net cuts of nearly $55 million to the Prop Q budget, along with the elimination of a $40.5 million planned transfer to reserves and a $14.1 million withdrawal from that savings account. The presentation also includes updated estimates that show the city’s deficit could grow to $37.4 million by 2029, assuming a modest annual tax rate increase of 3.5% and no further budget cuts. Under the Prop Q budget approved in August, EMS was set to receive $6.3 million to hire more staff and purchase new ambulances and other equipment while the Fire Department had been set to receive $8.3 million to cover overtime costs. Both sums are nixed in Broadnax’s proposal – though EMS’ overall budget is still set to increase when compared to the budget for the fiscal year that just ended. (That spending plan gave the agency $143 million; Broadnax’s proposal gives it $148.2 million.)

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Texas lawmakers ask feds to reimburse state for immigration enforcement

Dozens of Republican Texas lawmakers are asking the federal government to reimburse the Lone Star State for years of immigration enforcement costs. Twenty-seven GOP lawmakers from Texas on Friday sent U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem letters asking that the state be reimbursed for $11.1 billion the state spent since 2021 on border enforcement operations through Operation Lone Star. “The State of Texas bore the heaviest burden, incurring $11.1 billion in costs over four years. We respectfully request that the departments prioritize Texas in disbursing these funds,” says the letter. The lawmakers, led by U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, cite the $13.5 billion in authorized reimbursement funds appropriated through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to repay states for immigration-related costs.

“President Biden’s open-border policies imposed a substantial cost on communities in Texas, through increased fentanyl trafficking, crime, and even stress on local emergency response services,” the letter says. Since March 2021, Texas has spent state funds on immigration enforcement including: Building miles of state-funded border wall. Spending $1 million for a 1,000-foot span of border buoys in Eagle Pass in the Rio Grande. Thousands of National Guard troops sent to the border. Prosecution of those suspected of crossing into the state illegally from Mexico. Dispatching of thousands of Texas state troopers to patrol border roads, especially in South Texas. “Texas’s actions through Operation Lone Star were absolutely vital to ensuring the safety and security of Americans across our great country. However, our State should not have had to bear alone the costs of securing the border,” the lawmakers say. “We therefore respectfully ask that, as the Departments prepare to disburse the funds set aside in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the State of Texas be fully reimbursed for the costs incurred to protect Americans from illegal immigration and drug trafficking.”

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‘What’s actually happening’: UT Austin students feel left in the dark, university remains silent on Trump compact deal

In just a few days, there’s a major Trump administration deadline. It’s one that the University of Texas at Austin has remained silent on. The school is among nine universities to be offered a deal that would give preferential federal funding in exchange for signing a compact that would change and double down on major changes to campus culture, hiring and admission processes, foreign student enrollment and more. Students are concerned how this deal, and other political influences might impact courses. There’s a worry that gender and ethnic study classes might be consolidated. “All we are looking for is transparency,” UT Junior and African Diaspora and Economics major Mikey Rush said. “We have an obligation to be at the table when decisions are made that affect us all. This silence has been intentional.”

UT Austin has not said whether it has plans to consolidate classes, but the UT system did announce in September it would be reviewing all gender studies courses at its 14 institutions to comply with state law and federal guidance. And in October, UT Austin announced a new core curriculum task force to review general education curriculum to comply with state law and federal guidance. President Jim Davis touched on academic integrity during his inauguration. “Some wonder if we’ve lost our way in how we teach,” Davis said. “We recognize that as a public university, we hold a position of public trust. And we recommit to our long-held and enduring values, that we teach with intellectual honesty. We honor the traditions of both academic freedom and academic responsibility. Year after year, Jacob Zaragoza has been by his family’s side for the small and big moments.Out of his 10 siblings, he’s someone they’ve looked up to. Now, a freshman at UT Austin, and the first in his family to go to college, he’s speaking up for the sake of those he loves most.“That’s why it’s so personal to me,” Zaragoza said. “Because it’s not just about my ability to do this. It’s about my younger siblings. I want them to have this luxury as well.” Zaragoza, a Mexican American, joined other Black and brown UT students on campus Monday to address concerns about whether UT will consolidate ethnic and gender studies. The university has still not said whether it’ll join the Trump compact deal, accepting federal funding in exchange for doubling down on no diversity, equity and inclusion practices, changing foreign admission policies and more.As the university constantly evolves, students said they feel left in the dark.“They’re hiding from us what’s actually happening,” a UT student said. Students told KXAN they’ve requested meetings, but have not been able to talk to UT Austin’s administration regarding its plans.

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New ‘Landman’ season gives oil, gas lobby a chance to promote itself

As Taylor Sheridan’s wildly popular West Texas oil drama, Landman, returned Sunday for its second season, the American Petroleum Institute also premiered new content: three 30-second ads featuring real workers in the oil patches. The TV show, which stars Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris, had more than 5 million viewers watch last year’s season premiere and broke streaming records. It also helped vault the modern oilfield into the pop culture spotlight. API president and CEO Mike Sommers told The Dallas Morning News that Landman, like other shows in Sheridan’s portfolio, is a reflection of the “current culture.” To be sure, the fossil fuels industry has its share of critics, particularly in an environmental movement motivated by climate change, and the imperative to shift away from oil and gas. But at least for now, “I think we are finally in a moment, a cultural moment, where people understand how important the oil and gas industry is,” Sommers said.

“There has been a lot of talk about the so-called ‘energy transition’ over the course of the last five years, but I think we’re finally at this point where people are starting to understand ‘energy reality,’ and that oil and gas are going to play a key role in our energy future for decades and decades to come," he added. More and more, politicians and leaders across the policy spectrum have called for an “all of the above” approach for meeting the world’s insatiable energy demand, as data centers and artificial intelligence surge and everyday life becomes increasingly digital. And rising numbers of Americans support offshore drilling and fracking today compared with five years ago, according to a Pew Research Center poll published in June. Just last week the International Energy Agency forecasted global oil production will increase through at least 2050. “I think people are understanding that the pie is getting bigger, and as the pie gets bigger there’s going to be a lot more new energy sources coming on, but the base is still going to come from the greatest industry in the world, the American oil and gas industry,” Sommer said. The show has also highlighted the “energy trilemma” of balancing conflicting goals of energy security, equity and environmental sustainability. Last year, API took out a seven-figure purchase of ads to run alongside the show in an effort to counter some negative depictions of the oil and gas industry.

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Former Alamo Trust CEO files federal lawsuit alleging first amendment violations

Former Alamo Trust President and CEO Kate Rogers has filed a federal lawsuit claiming she was fired for exercising her First Amendment rights. SAN ANTONIO - Former Alamo Trust President and CEO Kate Rogers has filed a federal lawsuit claiming she was fired for exercising her First Amendment rights. According to the lawsuit, Rogers alleges she was removed from her position in October 2025 after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick read her 2023 doctoral dissertation, which discussed her personal views on the Alamo’s role in unifying people by acknowledging differing historical interpretations. Rogers says the dissertation was written in her capacity as a private citizen.

The lawsuit claims Rogers was retaliated against again when she spoke to Texas Monthly about her termination and the importance of historical truth at the Alamo. After that interview, the filing states, the Alamo Trust and the Remember the Alamo Foundation revoked her severance offer. Rogers argues the organizations violated her constitutional rights by “silencing” her over viewpoints they disagreed with.

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A 370-mile powerline ‘superhighway’ sparks Hill Country outrage

As Jada Jo Smith wades into the clear water of the Sabinal River, she can see down to the stony base of the waterway, which is shaded by overhanging cypress trees. She’s spent countless summer days here, swimming alongside the Guadalupe bass and turtles as they navigate through the river grass. Her daughter, Viola, is growing up around the pristine waters. She recently celebrated her sixth birthday along the river, which is usually quiet save for the sounds of the trickling spring feeding it, humming insects and chirping birds. Many Texans have spent time here swimming, kayaking and fishing. The Hill Country the Sabinal runs through offers visitors an escape from the rapidly growing cities nearby, with a night sky still dark enough to view the Milky Way and a long history of ranches that have been in families for generations. Now, Smith says, one of the few parts of Texas still untouched by development is in danger.

Soon, a 370-mile-long swath of the Hill Country stretching from San Antonio to Fort Stockton could be sliced by a massive electric transmission line. Though the precise route of the 765-kilovolt line has yet to be determined, it would potentially cut through 14 counties including Uvalde, which includes the tiny town of Utopia. “It’s so important to save the uniqueness of it, the rawness of it,” Smith said. “Once it’s gone, you can never get it back.” The transmission line is a project of CPS Energy and American Electric Power. Known as the Howard-Solstice Transmission Line, it’s just the first step in what state officials say is a larger plan to improve grid reliability and transmission efficiency, with the immediate focus now on getting more electricity to the Permian Basin. Hill Country residents have been told the 160-foot towers carrying the highest-voltage lines ever seen in Texas are necessary to meet the state’s booming energy demand. But they’re questioning why pristine land and rivers must be sacrificed in the process. The headwaters of another Hill Country waterway, the West Nueces River, are the site of a ranch that’s been in Ted Flato’s family for nearly a century. The San Antonio architect’s father married into the ranch family and Flato said he and his dad learned together about fishing on the clear stream. Now, another generation — Flato’s daughter — lives on the property. So, when he heard about the power line project, he was concerned.

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Leader of Dallas’ largest police union placed on leave in internal affairs probe

Jaime Castro, a longtime officer who leads the Dallas Police Association, the city’s largest and oldest police union, was placed on administrative leave Friday while the department conducts an internal affairs investigation. The exact nature of the investigation was unclear Monday. Responding to a list of questions from The Dallas Morning News, a police spokesperson said no further information would be provided to “protect the integrity of the process.” “The Dallas Police Department expects every member of the organization to uphold the highest standards of integrity, professionalism and accountability,” Chief Daniel Comeaux said in a statement through the spokesperson. “Any allegation of misconduct is taken seriously and investigated thoroughly and fairly.” Castro did not immediately return messages seeking comment Monday. His attorney, John Snider, also did not return messages.

Castro, 52, joined the department in 1998. He holds the rank of senior corporal and is assigned to the department’s alarm unit, which is housed in the office of the police chief. Association members elected Castro president in January 2024, succeeding Mike Mata, who held the job for six years. Before then, Castro had served on the union’s executive board since 2016. As president, Castro has been a prominent voice for rank-and-file officers. He is a common fixture in debates around City Hall’s public safety obligations, particularly in the lead-up to a vote last November on a charter amendment to overhaul the Dallas Police Department. Voters overwhelmingly supported the measure, which requires Dallas to maintain a 4,000-officer force, devote half of new annual revenue to pensions and public safety, and ensure the department’s starting pay is competitive in North Texas.

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Texas raid targeting Tren de Aragua gang leads to arrest of 140 illegal immigrants

A raid at a sex and human trafficking operation in San Antonio operated by members of Tren de Aragua gang (TdA) resulted in at least 140 illegal immigrants being arrested, authorities said Monday. The raid was part of a joint operation between the Texas Department of Public Safety and federal and local authorities, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott said. On Monday, a regional Homeland Security Task Force was created to combat transnational criminal organizations. The aim of the task force is to dismantle drug cartels, foreign terrorist organizations, and criminal networks responsible for crimes like human trafficking, drug smuggling, and money laundering. Sunday’s raid was part of President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on Jan. 20 targeting transnational criminal organizations.

More than 140 illegal immigrants from Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico and other South American countries were taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The raid involved multiple federal agencies. “The Homeland Security Task Force enables the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to bring its sophisticated investigative techniques to the table, which have been instrumental in capturing the most violent drug trafficking organizations in the United States and worldwide,” said the Houston Field Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen. “We look forward to working hand in hand with our federal and state counterparts in bringing down drug traffickers pumping poison into our neighborhoods and devastating our communities,” he added. US Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, whose brother served as mayor of San Antonio, said he has asked the Justice Department and local agencies for more information on the raid. He claimed that raids conducted elsewhere have seen US citizens and immigrants with no criminal record arrested. Meanwhile, in Houston, ICE arrested 3,500 criminal illegal aliens, including child predators and murderers, during the 43-day government shutdown. The suspects taken into custody include 13 people convicted of murder, 51 child predators, 67 sex offenders and 23 gang members, including an MS-13 gang member charged with a triple homicide in Dallas, authorities said.

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Fort Worth ISD’s new guidelines ask teachers to work from rigid scripts

In the weeks leading up to the announcement that the Texas Education Agency is taking over the Fort Worth Independent School District, parents and community members worried the district would roll out the same kinds of tightly scripted lessons leaders in Houston ISD implemented during a similar takeover there. But Fort Worth ISD is already using scripted lessons in many subject areas, district officials told the Star-Telegram. District leaders developed a series of lessons over the summer and rolled them out at the beginning of the current school year. Fort Worth ISD officials say the move is designed to relieve overburdened teachers of some of their responsibilities, allowing them more time to focus on students. But some teachers say the change strips them of autonomy and doesn’t allow them the flexibility to give students the personalized instruction they need.

The new scripted lessons are a part of Fort Worth ISD’s new instructional framework. Each lesson includes a slide show presentation and a script teachers are expected to follow. The script is detailed, teachers told the Star-Telegram — it outlines words teachers are expected to emphasize and time markers they’re expected to meet. At the end of each lesson, students take a short quiz that’s intended to gauge whether they understood the material. The framework includes a second script for teachers to follow to re-teach the lessons to students who don’t pass the quiz. MJ Bowman, Fort Worth ISD’s executive director for literacy, said the district began developing scripted lessons over the summer, after Superintendent Karen Molinar asked district leaders to find a way to take the responsibility of writing lesson plans off of teachers’ plates. Especially in elementary schools, where teachers get one planning period per day, it’s important that central office leaders do everything they can to help teachers maximize their time, she said. Kim Axtell, the district’s director for mathematics, said the re-teach portion of each lesson is designed to give students a second look at material they didn’t understand the first time. In addition to the re-teach session, each instructional block includes 20 minutes for teachers to give targeted support to students who need extra help, she said.

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Election date set for North Texas Senate District 9 runoff

The runoff election to fill North Texas’ Senate District 9 is set for Jan. 31, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office announced Monday. Democrat Taylor Rehmet and Republican Leigh Wambsganss advanced to the runnoff to fill the North Texas district following a Nov. 4 special election. The seat is vacant after former Sen. Kelly Hancock, a North Richland Hills Republican, left for the Texas Comptroller’s office, where he currently serves as acting comptroller. Early voting starts Jan. 21 and runs through Jan. 27. Rehmet, a union leader and aircraft mechanic, was the top vote getter in the first round of voting, winning nearly 48% of the votes in the district, despite its being a historically Republican seat. Wambsganss, Patriot Mobile’s chief communication officer, got the second most votes— about 36%. Former Southlake Mayor John Huffman did not advance to the runoff. The Tarrant County district includes much of Northwest Tarrant County, including part of Fort Worth and suburban communities like Southlake, Keller and North Richland Hills.

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Media blitz opposes removal of LGBTQ protections in Arlington

Thousands of mailers, social media posts and television commercials are pushing the city of Arlington to restore its anti-discrimination ordinance and questioning City Council members’ values. The media campaign, called Arlington Strikes Out, wants council members to keep LGBTQ protections after they overhauled programs and ordinances to protect the city’s $65 million in federal funding. DeeJay Johannessen, the CEO of HELP Center for LGBTQ Health, said the campaign is a direct response to a lack of action to protect LGBTQ residents. “The discomfort they are having is that, for the first time in Arlington’s history, the LGBTQ+ community has the resources to have this discussion in the public square,” Johannessen said. “It’s not about getting 250 people to show up at a City Council meeting. It’s about being in tens of thousands of living rooms telling people exactly what’s going on.”

The campaign was paid for by the HELP Center for LGBTQ Health. Johannessen declined to say how much money the organization spent on the ads. The HELP Center, or Health Education Learning Project, is a Fort Worth-based nonprofit focused on providing preventative resources for HIV, AIDS and STDs. Alongside the organization’s resource work, it also advocates for LGBTQ rights. Johannessen was one of the initial proponents of an anti-discrimination ordinance in Arlington. In 2021, then-Mayor Jeff Williams and Arlington City Council unanimously adopted the anti-discrimination ordinance. Ahead of that vote, Johannessen urged council members to adopt the measure. “This ordinance will not magically make discrimination disappear in Arlington, but what it will do is, for the very first time in our city’s history, put down in writing that in Arlington, Texas, the American Dream City, discrimination is not OK,” Johannessen said at the time. Williams’ involvement in passing the ordinance was the subject of one mailer that ended up in Arlington mailboxes over the weekend. The front of the flyer reads: “Former Mayor Jeff Williams championed the inclusion of sexual orientation.”

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Gov. Greg Abbott sets special election runoff date for Texas' 18th Congressional District

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former city council member Amanda Edwards will compete in a runoff election to represent Houston's 18th Congressional District on Jan. 31. Early voting will begin Jan. 21. Gov. Greg Abbott announced the date on Monday. The winner of the special election will finish out the remainder of former U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner's term representing an an area that includes downtown, the Greater Fifth Ward, Acres Homes and the area around George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

?Menefee and Edwards finished first and second in a 16-candidate field on Nov. 4, but were sent into a runoff because neither won 50% of the vote. ?The timing means Edwards and Menefee will have to run two elections at the same time. As they battle in the runoff, vote by mail for the March Democratic primary will be underway to represent the 18th Congressional District for a full two-year term starting in 2027. ?The late January runoff date means the 18th Congressional District will have gone more than 330 days without any representation in the U.S. House. Turner died on March 5, but Abbott refused to set a special election until Nov. 4. ?Abbott said he delayed the election because Harris County has a history of election management issues and he wanted to give them extra time to prepare. ?But politically, the move has been a big help to President Donald Trump. Without a replacement for Turner, Trump’s big spending and tax cut package in the summer passed the House by one vote.

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De La Cruz: UTRGV should not be stripped of funding

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz has broken with President Trump over funding for Hispanic Serving Institutions. The Edinburg Republican disagrees with a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Education to rescind $350 million in funding from Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). UT-Rio Grande Valley is one of the HSIs affected. De La Cruz outlined her opposition to the decision in a letter sent to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon. It was co-penned by five of her colleagues in the Congressional Hispanic Conference, the only caucus of Hispanic Republican lawmakers in Congress. “As Hispanic Republicans, we firmly believe in upholding fiscal responsibility and have been strong proponents of supporting evidence and merit-based rationale over radical DEI policies as it relates to federal funding decisions.

“While we understand the Department raised constitutional concerns that HSI programs may violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause “by conferring benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas”, this reasoning overlooks the reality of most HSIs. “These institutions do not artificially seek to meet quotas to obtain federal funds; rather, they serve the communities in which they are located.” By way of example, the letter points out that UTRGV serves a population that is 91 percent Hispanic. The other five members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference to write to Mahon were Reps. Tony Gonzales, David Valadao, Juan Ciscomani, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez. They said they were particularly concerned about suspension of the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (Title III, Part E), the Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (Title V, Part A), and the Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans Program (Title V, Part B). “Given the extraordinary value of these programs in strengthening America’s workforce and serving the very communities that have helped sustain our Republican majority, we respectfully urge you to reconsider this decision and ensure continued support for these vital programs,” the members of Congress wrote. The letter says UTRGV is doing great work in strengthening the nation’s health workforce.

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Mayor John Whitmire sets new date for annual State of the City address following hotel strike

Mayor John Whitmire will give his long-awaited State of the City address on the Houston's future on Feb. 12 after a postponement due to striking workers at Hilton-Americas, the event's venue. The State of the City event was originally set for Sept. 25. It is held every year at around the same time of year, and is jointly hosted by Houston First and the Greater Houston Partnership at the Hilton-Americas hotel in downtown Houston. But after workers at the hotel went on strike, Whitmire opted to postpone his remarks until they struck a deal.

Hotel workers were pressing for a $23 minimum wage, safety improvements and more consistent working hours. After a 40-day strike, the workers ended up with a contract that promised $20 minimum wages. They also secured safety improvements and reduced workloads. In a post on X, Whitmire's office said the mayor is expected to provide updates on quality of life issues, public safety and infrastructure at the sold-out event.

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National Stories

Saudi crown prince returns to U.S. for first time after diplomatic isolation

Whether viewed as a visionary reformist or a murderous despot, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, will be taking a huge step toward rejoining the international community when he meets with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Bin Salman, 40, became an international pariah after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a fierce critic of his government, in 2018, though Trump defended the Saudi government even after the CIA concluded that the crown prince himself ordered the killing. Then-President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022 and controversially fist-bumped bin Salman, an image that went viral, at a time when most leaders had shunned the crown prince. Bin Salman said in 2019 that he took “full responsibility” for the Khashoggi killing since it happened on his watch, but denied ordering it.

But it is bin Salman’s trip Tuesday, his first during Trump’s second term, that will be seen more broadly as a move toward acceptance back into the diplomatic fold. “He’s a different kind of figure now. Obviously, the questions about the manner of his rule and internal repression, those things haven’t gone away. But he’s a changed figure; it’s a changed moment. And, I think, important symbolically in that sense,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, the U.S. program director at the International Crisis Group, a global nonprofit organization based in Brussels that works to prevent conflicts. He added: “He’s central to what this administration wants to do in the region.” Trump and bin Salman are expected to sign economic and defense agreements, a White House official told NBC News. Even before bin Salman had set foot in the United States, Trump confirmed at an Oval Office event Monday that he would be willing to sign off on the sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets to the kingdom, a contentious move that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East, where Israel has been the primary recipient of America’s cutting-edge military technology.

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Larry Summers stepping back from ‘public commitments’ over Epstein emails

Former Democratic treasury secretary Larry Summers is “deeply ashamed” of his years-long communication with Jeffrey Epstein and will be “stepping back from public commitments,” he said in a statement Monday night. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein. While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.” The House Oversight Committee released a new trove of documents Wednesday highlighting Epstein’s extensive ties to world leaders, politicians and other close confidants. Much focus went to Epstein’s talk of Donald Trump. But the messages also ensnared a broader web of powerful friends, Summers among them.

After Summers’ statement, a growing number of boards and think tanks said they no longer had relationships with him. Summers was set to have a leading role in the rollout of a set of economic proposals from the left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress. But the formal launch of that working group was put on hold as Summers continued to draw scrutiny. In a statement Monday, a CAP spokesperson said Summers was no longer a fellow at the think tank. A spokesperson for the Yale Budget Lab also said Summers had withdrawn from its advisory group. A former president of Harvard University, Summers still holds a professorship there. The school did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), an emerita professor at Harvard, told CNN on Monday that the university should sever ties with Summers. Summers holds affiliations with a number of prominent liberal economic policy groups. He remains a member of the Hamilton Project Advisory Council at the Brookings Institution, a spokesperson said Monday. He is also the board chair of the Center for Global Development and vice chairman of the board of directors at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Representatives from those groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump are at war. What’s her endgame?

It’s hard to miss Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office in the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill thanks to the enormous sign out front declaring, “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.” Behind a pair of walnut doors, a photo of Donald Trump, fist in the air and blood smeared across his face, sits on a secretary’s desk. A “Gulf of America” hat rests on a table nearby. All this unsubtle iconography might dispel the perception, which has echoed around Washington and beyond lately, that the Georgia congresswoman has changed. It’s hard to escape the question these days: What’s going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene? The woman known for wearing a red “Trump Was Right About Everything!” hat to the president’s March address to Congress has been openly challenging the Trump administration on everything from the Epstein files to the war in Gaza. She’s appeared for a chummy confab on The View, and clips of her speaking empathetically about Americans not being able to afford health care are going viral. In an appearance on CNN over the weekend, Greene apologized for taking part in “toxic politics.” The rift exploded on Friday night, as Trump attacked Greene on Truth Social. “I am withdrawing my support and Endorsement of ‘Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene, of the Great State of Georgia,” he wrote.

On Saturday morning, Trump bestowed upon Greene his ultimate token of disrespect: an insulting nickname. “Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!),” he wrote in one post, which was quickly followed up by another featuring a marginally improved alternative: “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green.” Trump, who called Greene “Wacky,” “Fake,” “a disgrace,” a “RINO,” and a “ranting Lunatic” in his various posts, said if the “right person” were to challenge her in a primary, he’d pledge his “Unyielding” support. Greene is up for reelection in 2026. Her campaign has raised $1.9 million as of September, according to the Federal Election Commission, and her closest Republican challenger is a woman by the name of Star Black, who has $78,000 cash on hand and four followers on TikTok. “It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” Greene wrote on X. In a post Sunday night, Greene said Trump’s “unwarranted and vicious attacks against me were a dog whistle to dangerous radicals that could lead to serious attacks on me and my family.” Since her ascension to Congress, Greene has fashioned herself as Trump’s most loyal foot soldier on Capitol Hill. She even looks a little like Trump; her hair is dyed platinum blond, and makeup covers her face in a cloak of ocher. Her smile, which comes easily, is the same perfect white as the vinyl trim her family’s construction business puts on the outside of homes across Georgia. Most Popular Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto: Read the Exclusive Excerpt News Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto: Read the Exclusive Excerpt By Olivia Nuzzi Timothée Chalamet and Adam Sandler Unite for Vanity Fair Scene Selection Live Hollywood Timothée Chalamet and Adam Sandler Unite for Vanity Fair Scene Selection Live By John Ross Inside the $700 Million Art Trove to Be Sold at Christie’s&-and That’s Not Counting the Secret Room Style Inside the $700 Million Art Trove to Be Sold at Christie’s—and That’s Not Counting the Secret Room By Nate Freeman On the day we met last week for an interview at her office, she wore nude pumps, black pleather pants, and a blue velvet blazer. From her neck dangled a crucifix; on her wrist, an iced-out paperclip bracelet. As I sank into a chesterfield sofa in the sitting room of Greene’s office, the president and his top officials were reportedly pressuring several House Republicans to kill a discharge petition compelling the release of further Epstein files. Greene, they had apparently determined, was a lost cause. That morning, Congress released thousands of documents from Epstein’s estate, several of which revealed shocking insights into the president and the disgraced financier’s relationship. Trump publicly urged Republicans to move on from the issue, calling it a “Hoax.” At a briefing last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the revived controversy “truly a manufactured hoax by the Democrat Party.” Greene had a distinctly different take. “If the cover-up continues, protecting rich, powerful people continues, we’re sending the scariest message to any victim—that no one will fight for you,” she told me.

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Democratic Lieutenant Governors want to be their party’s future

As Democrats continue to look around for a way out of the political wilderness, a group representing the nation’s seconds-in-command is suggesting primary voters consider making 2026 the Year of the Lieutenant Governor. “The LGs are a uniquely dynamic, diverse group of individuals and we should be the leaders that folks are elevating,” Austin Davis, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and chair of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, told NOTUS in a recent interview. “We’re in a moment when the Democratic Party is looking for leadership who aren’t just going to go to Washington or go to their state capitals and be part of the problem, but who are going to be part of the solution.” His candidates, Davis said, his fellow LGs, “are very exciting folks.” The DLGA just came back into being recently after years of dormancy. Like the official campaign arms for Democratic governors, senators and House members, it recruits new candidats and tries to grow the number of lieutenant governor seats held by Democrats. But unlike those groups, the DLGA is actively helping lieutenant governors run for different offices in open Democratic primaries.

The 2026 cycle will be the first major push for this plan, though the group spent some money on races in 2024. The “open primaries” distinction is incredibly important to the project, sources close to the DLGA said. When Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado of New York announced his intention to primary a fellow Democrat, Gov. Kathy Hochul, the DLGA pointedly said it was staying out. “We will offer our support only to Lt. Governors seeking higher office in open primaries,” the group said in a statement. The DLGA’s political operation expects to spend large sums backing candidates in high-profile primary campaigns like that of Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, running for the open Senate seat in Minnesota, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, running in the open Senate primary in Illinois. The group is also spending money in high-profile gubernatorial open primaries like the one in Michigan, where Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist is running to replace the term-limited Gretchen Whitmer. The DLGA has also formally endorsed Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis in the open California gubernatorial primary (though Kounalakis has reportedly intimated she’d drop her bid if Kamala Harris enters the race, as many expect). A source at the DLGA said the group has already maxed out in hard money contributions to Flanagan, Stratton, Gilchrist and Kounalakis. The bulk of the support the open primary candidates get will come from an independent expenditure group. It’s too early to know exactly how big that total will be, but the expectation is seven figures of political spending in each targeted race.

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National Republicans send deceptive text to ‘confuse and intimidate’ Missouri voters

Political text messages are a dime a dozen, helping campaigns and political action committees (PACs) raise funds, promote candidates, or denigrate their opponents. But few go as hard as an intimidating message urging Missouri voters to remove their names from an anti-gerrymandering petition “before it’s too late.” The manipulative text, sent out last week, is just the latest tactic Republicans are using in their madcap effort to prevent Missourians from putting the GOP’s gerrymander plans to a statewide referendum. And unlike many such political texts, this one came directly from the national Republican Party. Referendum supporters are calling it a “blatant attempt to confuse and intimidate voters.”

“Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has declared TENS OF THOUSANDS of petition signatures IMPROPERLY COLLECTED. Did you accidentally sign this? Text back or call 417-612-9044 to withdraw your signature before it’s too late,” the message reads. It came to public attention after Elad Gross, a former Democratic candidate for Missouri Attorney General, received the text and published a screenshot on Facebook. Soon, other Missourians responded saying they had also received it. The ad was paid for by the Republican National Committee (RNC), according to a disclosure accompanying the text. Missouri is one of three states that moved to gerrymander its congressional map this year solely at the behest of President Donald Trump, who is demanding GOP-controlled states redraw to win more Republican seats in 2026. But unlike in Texas and North Carolina, the Missouri Constitution gives voters the power to stop the gerrymander by collecting signatures and putting a veto referendum on the ballot. To do that, People Not Politicians, the advocacy group leading the referendum effort, must gather over 106,000 signatures within 90 days after the state legislature’s special session on redistricting adjourned. That deadline is coming up on Dec. 11.

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Judge scolds Justice Department for 'profound investigative missteps' in Comey case

The Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a federal judge ruled Monday in directing prosecutors to provide defense lawyers with all grand jury materials from the case. Those problems, wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to the grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications during the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings. “The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”

The 24-page opinion is the most blistering assessment yet by a judge of the Justice Department’s actions leading up to the Comey indictment. It underscores how procedural missteps and prosecutorial inexperience have combined to imperil the prosecution pushed by President Donald Trump for reasons separate and apart from the substance of the disputed allegations against Comey. The Comey case and a separate prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James have hastened concerns that the Justice Department is being weaponized in pursuit of Trump’s political opponents. Both defendants have filed multiple motions to dismiss the cases against them before trial, arguing that the prosecutions are improperly vindictive and that the prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed. A different judge is expected to decide by Thanksgiving on the challenges by Comey and James to Halligan’s appointment. Though grand jury proceedings are presumptively secret, Comey’s lawyers had sought records from the process out of concern that irregularities may have tainted the case. The sole prosecutor who defense lawyers say presented the case to the grand jury was Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience who was appointed just days before the indictment to the job of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. In his order Monday, Fitzpatrick said that after reviewing the grand jury transcript himself, he had come away deeply concerned about the integrity of the case.

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Faith-based institutions navigate Trump’s higher ed policy changes

Leaders of faith-based colleges and universities have spoken out on a slew of political issues in recent months, sometimes standing alongside secular universities and at other times differentiating themselves and defending their unique standing and missions. The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities signed on to an October statement from the American Council on Education opposing the administration’s higher education compact, for example. Over the summer, CCCU also came out with a statement on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that echoed those of secular associations and institutions, expressing concern that “it ultimately falls short in supporting student access and success.” ACE’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities was among the higher ed groups that lobbied hard against Pell Grant cuts, later dropped from the bill. At the same time, the University of Notre Dame and other faith-based institutions fought for an exemption for religious institutions from the higher education endowment tax, ultimately left out of the legislation’s final version.

Like their secular peers, faith-based colleges and universities have been buffeted by the rapid-fire policy changes roiling higher ed this year. Some leaders of religious colleges say their institutions are enjoying renewed support that they hope sets a precedent for future policymakers across party lines. At the same time, some advocates fear religious colleges—and their missions—are suffering collateral damage in Trump’s war against highly selective universities, and they’re making careful decisions about when and how to speak out. “I knew change would be coming,” said David Hoag, president of CCCU, “but I never expected the pace to be this fast.” Under any administration, CCCU’s job is to “make it possible for our institutions to achieve their missions,” Hoag said. But some recent policy changes pose an obstacle to that. Christian colleges—which tend to be small, enrolling about 2,500 students on average—can’t afford to join Trump’s proposed compact for higher ed, he said. He believes some of the compact’s demands, such as freezing tuition for five years, are a tall order with campus expenses on the rise. He also opposes the compact’s standardized test mandate when so many Christian colleges offer broad access, and he’s concerned by the possibility that government could have some control over curriculum, though he said the compact was unclear on that score. “On the curriculum side, most of our institutions are conservative. We have a solid Christian mission,” Hoag said. “I’m fine with civics being a part of some of the work that we do, but it, to me, starts to … step over academic freedom.” Christian colleges are also balking at the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, which these institutions use to bring in visiting professors from other countries.

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If Democrats regain the White House, Trump's ballroom could be an early casualty

The East Wing that President Donald Trump tore down last month stood for decades. The ballroom he’s building in its place could be gone not long after the first wave of guests sit down for dinner, depending on the outcome of the 2028 presidential race. If elected, a Democratic president would have plenty to worry about aside from White House decor; war and peace can easily fill up a day. But a new president may face considerable pressure from within the Democratic fold to do something about a massive new ballroom forever linked to Trump. Already, prominent Democratic officials are workshopping ideas for repurposing the space in favor of something that’s decidedly un-Trump. If any of these come to fruition, the $300 million ballroom that Trump birthed could take on a function that he never intended.

Should the ballroom be used as the president plans? “No way,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who said he will consider a presidential bid if Democrats gain control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections. “This is a space that’s owned by the people and that serves the people,” Raskin said in an interview. “So, it should be used opposite of what Trump has in mind, which is for the American aristocracy and plutocracy to gather.” Rep. Ro Khanna of California, another Democrat viewed as a possible presidential candidate, said the ballroom should be used in a way that “celebrates and empowers forgotten Americans” as opposed to accommodating guests for glitzy state dinners. Letting the 90,000-square-foot structure remain a ballroom would only validate the means by which Trump built it: demolishing the East Wing without forewarning and bankrolling the project with private donations, Democratic officials suggested.

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Lead Stories

Texas’ top voucher vendor taps Abbott allies in contract bid, program rollout

Even before the Texas Legislature finally passed its private school voucher bill earlier this year, the race was on among the handful of firms in the burgeoning voucher vendor sector to win the lucrative contract to launch and administer what will be the largest program of its kind in the nation. That race is now over as the Texas Comptroller last month awarded the job to a New York firm called Odyssey. In winning the bid, and in its plans to ramp up the program, Odyssey cultivated close ties to the political world of Governor Greg Abbott. One of the top outfits in the voucher vendor game, Odyssey is backed with major venture capitalist investments. As the Texas Observer previously reported, Odyssey and others pushed hard to win the Texas contract, essentially the industry’s holy grail.

Awarding the contract to the private administrator of the program—known as a certified educational assistance organization (CEAO)—marks a key milestone in the voucher rollout as the comptroller delegates control of almost every facet of the program, from handling applications and approvals for students to accepting the private schools and other vendors eligible to participate, plus controlling the flow of state money to and fro. Odyssey will also be in charge of the marketing and PR involved with promoting and defending the program, which the state has dubbed “Texas Education Freedom Accounts.”” Voucher funds will be eligible to be used not only for participating private schools’ tuition and homeschooling but also for tutoring services and an array of other educational materials. Abbott staked much of his hard-earned political capital, and campaign cash, on getting the school voucher program over the finish line. In the 2024 Republican primaries, he used his political war chest to oust several anti-voucher incumbents who’d previously blocked passage in the Texas House. This effort was aided by a record $6 million in campaign contributions from Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire and voucher advocate. During the legislative session, Odyssey tapped lobbyist Luis Saenz, who was previously Abbott’s longtime chief of staff, to work on its behalf as the governor worked to pass the bill (It also made Daniel Warner, ex-Speaker Dade Phelan’s education policy advisor, its state director.)

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In shift, Trump says House should vote to release Epstein files

In a sharp reversal, President Donald Trump said late Sunday that House Republicans should support a measure that would require the Justice Department to release the information it has related to its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — after key lawmakers said support was building ahead of a closely watched vote. Trump, who has resisted backing such a measure for weeks, said on social media that he believes Republican lawmakers “should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.” “Nobody cared about Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive and, if the Democrats had anything, they would have released it” before the 2024 election, Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social, urging Republican lawmakers to focus on the economy instead. Before Trump’s post, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who introduced the legislation with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), suggested that “100 or more” House Republicans could vote in favor of releasing the Epstein files this week despite opposition from Trump. Early resistance from Republican leaders led the two to press for a discharge petition to compel a vote on the matter.

“We could have a deluge of Republicans,” Massie said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote.” Several Epstein survivors have been increasing the pressure campaign on lawmakers. A group released a video Sunday night through the organization World Without Exploitation to urge people to call their lawmakers to back the vote to release more files. Khanna said House members who have been backing the release of more documents are planning to hold a news conference Tuesday at the Capitol with survivors. The lawmakers are also asking Trump to meet with the women. Until Sunday, the president had been ramping up pressure against the measure, even urging the four Republicans who had signed the discharge petition to remove their names. Trump still insisted that the focus on the Epstein files was a “hoax” promoted by Democrats, but he said Sunday night that the push to release more documents was distracting the party. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who controls which bills are brought to the floor, had resisted bringing the measure to a vote after it was introduced in July. But after the discharge petition obtained enough signatures last week to compel a vote, he said he is ready to put it before House lawmakers.

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Senate Republicans get more aggressive in defending John Cornyn in Texas

Tightening polls in North Carolina, Ohio and Maine have U.S. Senate Republicans starting to sweat more over the prospect of Texas falling into Democratic hands and the GOP losing its majority. ?Republicans currently have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning Democrats need four seats to flip the chamber, potentially roadblocking every future judicial or cabinet nomination from President Donald Trump in his final two years in office. Last week's election results, where Democrats stomped Republicans in purple states like Virginia, is only adding to the concern. ?Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., clearly knows the math and is taking a more hands-on approach in Texas. He put out an endorsement and fundraising letter for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn this week, stressing how vital the seat is for Republicans in making sure they hold the majority. ?“The Left has made Texas their top target,” Thune said in a fundraising email supporting Cornyn. “They know if they can defeat John, they flip the Senate, and stop President Trump’s agenda cold.”

?He followed that with a pair of campaign stops in Dallas and Houston this week in support of Cornyn. ?Cornyn is battling against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt in a tight primary. Some polling shows that if Paxton wins the primary, Democrats will have a better chance of flipping the seat with either former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred or state Rep. James Talarico, who are vying for the Democratic nomination. Many of those same polls also show Paxton leading in the GOP primary. ?Cornyn’s supporters have warned Republicans that if Paxton becomes the nominee, they will have to spend big in Texas to hold the seat against either Talarico or Allred. In a state with 20 media markets, $2 million goes really fast during a campaign. Plus, any money shoveled into Texas to defend the seat is not going to places like Maine and North Carolina, which are in greater danger of flipping to Democrats. "With the stakes as high as they are in the 2026 midterms, President Trump won't need to worry about Texas if John Cornyn is the GOP nominee," said Matt Mackowiak, a senior advisor to Cornyn's campaign.

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Homeland Security missions falter amid focus on deportations

The Department of Homeland Security has diverted thousands of federal agents from their normal duties to focus on arresting undocumented immigrants, undermining a wide range of law enforcement operations in response to mounting pressure from President Trump, a New York Times investigation has found. Homeland security agents investigating sexual crimes against children, for instance, have been redeployed to the immigrant crackdown for weeks at a time, hampering their pursuit of child predators. A national security probe into the black market for Iranian oil sold to finance terrorism has been slowed down for months because of the shift to immigration work, allowing tanker ships and money to disappear. And federal efforts to combat human smuggling and sex trafficking have languished with investigators reassigned to help staff deportation efforts.

The changes have extended deep into D.H.S.’s public-safety mission, as the Coast Guard has diverted aircraft to transport immigrants between detention centers and the department’s law enforcement academy has delayed training for many agencies to prioritize new immigration officers. The Times investigation is based on previously undisclosed internal documents from D.H.S. — including statistical reports about department workloads, search warrants and arrests — obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Times also spoke with more than 65 officials who have worked in the federal government during the current Trump administration, in addition to local authorities and others who collaborate with the department. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters and out of fear of retribution. The overhaul represents a striking departure for the behemoth agency that Congress created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Homeland Security Department was tasked with preventing terrorism, protecting the president, investigating transnational crime and responding to natural disasters, among other duties. Immigration enforcement was one of many responsibilities, but it was not envisioned as D.H.S.’s singular function. Today, the Trump administration has remade the agency into a veritable Department of Deportation.

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State Stories

Texas Senate braces for one of its biggest shake-ups in years

The Texas Senate is in the midst of a major transition. There are currently two vacancies, and by the time the 2026 elections are complete, at least five of the 31 senators who served in this year's legislative session will have gone on to other roles or retirements. Five newcomers are expected to take their places by January 2027. But wait, as they say in the infomercials, there's more. Two senators who aren’t up for election this cycle have announced plans to run for Texas attorney general. Another plans to run for Congress, and can do so without leaving the Senate. If one of the attorney general candidates and the congressional hopeful both win, that would mean seven freshmen senators next session — more if any of the incumbents on next year's ballot lose their bids for reelection. And those freshman would join a body that has welcomed seven new members since 2023. That would mean nearly half of the upper chamber would still be climbing the legislative learning curve.

For the past half-century, the Senate has been a fairly stable institution. Most sessions start with two or three freshmen, but rarely more than that. Who better to offer perspective on how the Texas Senate evolves than Patsy Spaw, who since 2001 has been the secretary of the Senate, which means she's the top of the Senate staff hierarchy. For 20 years before that, she was a management-level employee, a status she reached after a decade as a rank-and-file staffer in the chamber. Spaw, drawing on her half-century of institutional knowledge with help from researchers in the Texas Reference Library on the Capitol's second floor, was nice enough to compile a highlights reel of turnover trends in the Senate. She found that the biggest freshman class in the modern era of Texas politics came in 1973, when 16 of the 31 members were new, driven by a voter “throw the bums out” mood after what became known as the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal — a web of self-dealing and financial misconduct involving several lawmakers and other elected officials. Half of the House membership also consisted of freshmen. Looking back to 1876, when Reconstruction was ending and the current Texas Constitution was ratified, voters sent 27 wet-behind-the-ears senators to Austin.

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Rollins: SNAP participants to reapply for benefits to show "they are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.”

The Trump administration will require millions of low-income people to reapply for food stamps as part of an effort to crack down on “fraud,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said. Rollins told Newsmax on Thursday that she plans to “have everyone reapply for their benefits, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through ... food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.” She did not provide further information on when or how people would need to reapply. Her comment comes after funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ran out of federal funding during the government shutdown, leading many conservative pundits and even President Donald Trump to criticize just how much the government spends on food stamps. SNAP, which serves nearly 42 million Americans, cost roughly $100 billion in fiscal year 2024.

SNAP fraud can occur when participants intentionally lie about their qualifications for the program, retailers exchange benefits for cash or criminals skim EBT cards for benefits, per USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service. But anti-hunger groups say there’s not nearly as much fraud as the Trump administration alleges and note that SNAP only issues about $6 a day in benefits to the average participant. State SNAP administrators already require participants to recertify their information as often as every six months, and families that receive benefits are expected to keep their work history, income and other personal information up to date. USDA did not immediately respond to a request to clarify a timeline for Rollins’ new plan or how it differs from current state-level requirements for participants to reapply for the program. Rollins has teased an announcement of a new plan to overhaul the program in the coming weeks. She has already directed states to turn in sensitive data on SNAP participants, including their Social Security numbers — though that effort is currently being challenged in court.

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'Antivirus for libraries': How a Texas startup is capitalizing on book bans

As school administrators scramble to comply with a sweeping new state ban on controversial library books, a North Texas startup is selling a solution. The company, Bookmarked, has pitched itself as an “antivirus for libraries,” offering to flag potentially problematic material from thousands of titles and give parents direct insight into their children’s reading choices. “We give your team the data and transparency they need, so librarians, teachers, and board members can act from a place of clarity rather than fear,” reads a marketing email the company sent to Leander Independent School District last month.

Bookmarked’s business model has boomed in the wake of the new law, Senate Bill 13, which Republican advocates pushed as a means to shield students from harmful content, which has included many classic titles and some books with LGBTQ content. At least 130 Texas school districts have hired the company, agreeing to pay more than $600,000 in total for the service, according to records obtained by Hearst Newspapers. The company is among the fastest-growing private vendors to target SB 13 and other book censorship laws, and has been praised by the law’s author, state Sen. Angela Paxton. It has hired the powerful Texas lobbying firm Moak Casey to connect it with potential customers. Bookmarked’s co-founder Steve Wandler, who advocated for SB 13’s passage but now has reservations about the law, described his company as a neutral player in the censorship debate. “A book that might be a problem in another state or another district might not be a problem for you,” Wandler said. “If the school district decides to censor it, that's on them.” Critics of the platform, many of whom also oppose the law, say that it preemptively pushes districts to pull books over fear they could cause problems, even if no one has complained. “We just feel like it's really shady," Laney Hawes, cofounder of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, said of Bookmarked. “We have school districts that are being bullied and pressured into pulling books." Wandler started the company in 2022 as conservative groups like Moms for Liberty were mobilizing across Texas, demanding that schools remove books they viewed as sexually explicit or “woke.”

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Deadly Texas floods prompt calls for review of how rivers are managed

Thirty minutes south of Kerrville, in the “Cowboy Capital of the World,” David Maulk pulled out a map and began tracing his finger along the winding rivers flowing through a region with a more weathered nickname: “Flash Flood Alley.” “The terrain, the geography — it’s steep and it’s rocky,” he said. “And, when it rains here, it can be a contact sport.” On the wall behind him was the painted outline of a cowboy hat over the phrase: “BANDERA RUNS ON WATER.” Maulk is the general manager of the Bandera County River Authority and Groundwater District. The nine-member elected board is in charge of managing the Sabinal and Medina rivers running through Bandera County, which has a population of more than 20,000. Their work includes everything from water quality testing to drought and flood management. Unlike the vast majority of Texas’ river authorities, voters here get a say in its work.

KXAN looked at more than 15 river authorities and found just two — Bandera and San Antonio — whose revenue and accountability stream from the residents who live in the area. Nicole Marshall, a spokeswoman for the San Antonio River Authority, said the board “will decline to participate” in this report. Unlike other river authorities that raise money from selling water or hydroelectric power, Bandera’s board gets its funding from property taxes. “You have the taxpayers funding us who are also potentially the voters in the region,” he said. “And, they can affect change down the road, if they don’t like how things are going.” Originally, Bandera’s river authority — which the Texas Legislature established in 1971 — operated like the rest: the governor appointed the board. Its system switched in 1989 to a ballot box model after it combined with the local groundwater conservation district. For Maulk, this model generates more than just public buy-in.

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ERCOT forecasts stable Texas power grid this January

Texas’ power grid will likely remain stable in December and January, recent reports from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas show. Grid conditions could become tight if a winter storm hits large swaths of Texas, driving up demand for electricity. ERCOT, which operates the electric grid for 90% of Texas, found in a Nov. 7 report that there should be “sufficient generating capacity available” to serve customers throughout January. The grid operator said the same thing in an Oct. 3 report analyzing expected grid conditions for December, Community Impact previously reported. In the winter, demand for electricity spikes when people get up in the morning and return home in the evening. Less solar and wind power are available during these “higher-risk” periods, which can cause tight grid conditions, ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said last year.

ERCOT forecasts that the tightest period in December and January will be from 7-8 a.m. daily, when little to no solar power is being produced. During that time, ERCOT found the chances of a grid emergency are 1.81% in December and 1.4% in January. However, ERCOT’s models indicate that grid conditions could become tight if a winter storm blankets Texas, pushing temperatures down and electric demand up. ERCOT hit a new record for winter demand in February, reaching 80,525 megawatts of demand on the grid in a single day. This winter, if a severe winter storm leads to similar levels of electric demand between 7-8 a.m., the agency’s models show a roughly 35% chance of a grid emergency in December. That risk falls to less than 10% in January. If demand approaches ERCOT’s all-time record of 85,508 megawatts, which was set in August 2023, there is a 62% chance of a grid emergency in December and about a 25% chance in January, according to the reports. “The probability of the hourly load reaching 85,000 MW for [7-8 a.m.] is under one percent,” the December report notes.

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Trial date set for woman who claims marine spiked her drink with abortion pills

A pre-trial hearing was held Thursday morning in a lawsuit filed by a Corpus Christi woman who claims a Marine pilot poisoned her drink with abortion pills to kill their unborn child. Federal Judge David S. Morale presided over the hearing that was held via Zoom. Corpus Christi Woman sues NASCC Marine Pilot claiming he spiked her drink with abortion pills to kill their unborn child On Aug. 11, a local woman, we have decided not to be identify per her attorney's request, filed a lawsuit against a Marine pilot, who is stationed at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, and her company, Aid Access, which manufactured the abortion pill. The woman, a mother of three, was going through a divorce at the time.

During Thursday's hearing, the pilots defense team requested that this case go to trial, and the plaintiff's attorney told the judge they have been unable to contact Aid Access, which are based out of the Netherlands. The judge set Oct. 15, 2026, as the deadline for both sides to gather all their evidence and scheduled the trial for March 29, 2027. This all comes three years after the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating a woman's constitutional right to abortion. This lawsuit also comes as the use of the abortion pill has increased since the state of Texas passed the "Heartbeat" bill, which banned the majority of abortions in 2021. Now, state lawmakers are going after the companies, like Aid Access, that send abortion pills into Texas, likely creating a precedent for other states to follow. The plaintiff's attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, authored the "Heartbeat" bill, a law that bans abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, a point at which a heartbeat is detected on an ultrasound.

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San Antonio leaders say shutdown is just a preview of cuts to come

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history had an outsized impact on already vulnerable residents in Bexar County. Now that it’s over, local leaders say the panic over delayed food assistance and at-risk health care subsidies should paint a clear picture of what’s coming down the pipeline for a community consistently ranked among the most impoverished large cities. Republicans’ signature economic policy since taking control of the White House in November, signed into law by President Donald Trump in July, makes big cuts to Medicaid, environmental programs and food benefits to help pay for tax cuts, increased defense spending and border security.

“To give you an idea of the need in our community, in Bexar County, $50 million worth of SNAP benefits comes into our community every single month,” Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said on a Texas Tribune Festival panel Friday morning. “It was unprecedented for those benefits not to be forward-paid to those folks that would need it during the shutdown,” Jones said, ” … [and] what it did is give us a really good idea of, unfortunately, what the implementation of that lovely, Big Beautiful Bill is going to look like.” San Antonio famously experienced lines around the block at its food bank when residents were out of work during the COVID-19 shutdown — a situation Jones said could soon repeat if leaders aren’t careful. On Friday, Jones and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai were joined by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio), who had just returned from Thursday’s government funding vote in Washington. Castro was among the vast majority of Democrats disappointed to see some members of his party break with Republicans on a temporary spending measure that ended the shutdown by punting Congress’s next funding deadline to January — but didn’t make good on the goal of securing health care tax credits set to expire at the end of the year.

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Texas National Guard troops to leave Chicago after federal judge halts deployment

Members of the Texas National Guard are expected to leave Chicago soon and return home. Approximately 200 troops arrived in the city about a month ago following an order from the Trump administration. The troops were sent to assist with immigration enforcement and to protect federal workers. However, a federal judge halted the deployment, and the troops have remained at training bases outside the city for several weeks.

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150 migrants arrested by federal agents in San Antonio raid: FBI

Nearly 150 migrants were arrested in an overnight operation at a makeshift nightclub in San Antonio, the FBI confirmed to NewsNation. Most of the migrants apprehended were from Venezuela and have suspected ties to Tren de Aragua. Tren de Aragua was designated as a foreign terrorist organization under President Trump’s administration. The raid involved multiple federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. “I can confirm that FBI San Antonio & Homeland Security Investigations San Antonio, along with their local, state, and federal partners are conducting court-authorized activity in the vicinity of the intersection of San Pedro Ave. and Basse Rd. in San Antonio, Texas,” said an FBI San Antonio Spokesperson. The raid comes just hours after immigration officials arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, as part of what the Department of Homeland Security is dubbing “Operation Charlotte’s Web.”

Charlotte is the latest city to unwillingly receive federal agents in Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown. The federal government hasn’t provided a full explanation for why this began or how many people have been detained, but DHS blamed the operation in Democratic-led Charlotte on state officials, saying illegal immigrants fled there because of sanctuary policies they believed would protect them. A DHS press release included a list of migrants the agency called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” who they say were released onto North Carolina streets because of those policies.

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Massive fire burns at decommissioned Texas power plant

Firefighters from multiple agencies are battling a massive blaze at a decommissioned power plant near Galveston, Texas, authorities said. A huge black plume of smoke filled the sky over several cities in Galveston County, including San Leon, where the fire engulfed the old power plant alongside Highway 146, authorities said. At one point on Sunday, residents in the area were being asked to take precautions to avoid the heavy smoke, according to police in the Galveston suburb of Kemah. "At this time, two cooling towers and power lines are on fire," the Kemah Police Department said in a social media post, in part. "All residents are advised to avoid the area and take precautions not to expose themselves to the smoke," the post added. No injuries have been reported.

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Could this Houston City Council member be appointed interim county attorney?

Houston City Council Member Abbie Kamin is garnering support to potentially be chosen by Harris County leadership as the new interim county attorney as they contend with a potential opening. Kamin has gathered a list of nearly 60 elected officials, labor organizations, faith leaders and community leaders who are supporting her “appointment … as Interim County Attorney,” according to a document obtained by the Houston Chronicle. Among the officials on the list are U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and Minority House Leader Gene Wu. Kamin, a civil rights attorney, is currently serving her second term representing the Heights, Montrose and other area neighborhoods on the City Council. Her term is up in 2027, and term limits prohibit her from running for re-election.

The veteran council member’s most recent campaign finance report shows she has nearly $416,000 on hand – an amount one expert says sends a message. “(It) definitely indicates they’re looking toward another office,” said Nancy Sims, a politics lecturer at the University of Houston. Kamin said Friday she was asked to submit a list of supporters in case she was considered for the appointment. "While I continue to focus on the work in front of me, it is an honor to be considered, and I am grateful for the support of so many outstanding leaders," she wrote in a text. Rumors about Kamin’s interest in the position have been swirling since current County Attorney Christian Menefee filed to run to represent Houston’s 18th Congressional District, a seat left vacant following former U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner’s death from health complications in March. Menefee will face former Council Member Amanda Edwards in a runoff that has yet to be set. State resign-to-run rules required Menefee to step back from his role as county attorney to run for Congress. But a provision in that rule allows Menefee to continue serving as county attorney until commissioners vote to replace him. Commissioners opted to keep Menefee on board at a meeting in March. A permanent county attorney will eventually be chosen by the voters in the 2026 election. Kenny Friedman, the former chair of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, is among the names listed on Kamin’s endorsements. Friedman told the Chronicle Friday that he had not seen the endorsement list, but he had given Kamin permission to put his name on it. “She's an incredibly talented person, and she's got the right background to be a great county attorney, and I think she'll do a great job,” Friedman said. Another two people on the list, LULAC President Sergio Lira and Houston Federation of Teachers President Jackie Anderson, had also not seen the document but both said they chatted with Kamin about her interest in the position. Lira’s endorsement came down to Kamin’s support of LULAC in the past and how she has constantly spoken out about the organization’s issues at City Hall. Anderson’s came down to how Kamin has stood up for public education. “I'm quite concerned about how people view education, and if they're willing to stand up and make statements and stands about public education,” Anderson said. “It shows me their commitment to making sure that our future generation is educated. I believe that Abbie would do that.”

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Buddy Holly crosswalk in Texas hometown to be removed following governor's order on road safety

Fans of the Buddy Holly crosswalk in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas, with a painted depiction of the rock and roll legend’s iconic glasses, will soon have to say goodbye to it. That’ll be a day that will possibly make them cry. Lubbock City Council members said this week they have no choice but to remove it, to comply with a directive from the Trump administration and Republicans to rid the public roadways of any political messages or artwork. Laredo, in South Texas, removed a mural in October that protested the border wall along the southern border with Mexico. In August, Florida officials removed a rainbow-colored crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub where 49 people were gunned down.

Lubbock’s crosswalk was first installed in 2020 and is near the Buddy Holly Center, a downtown museum with exhibits honoring Lubbock’s most famous native son. “It’s such a tasteful cross section and people like it. But what do you do?” said City Council Member Christy Martinez-Garcia, who was among those questioning why it had to go. Lubbock received a letter from the Texas Department of Transportation with “some harsh wording” that threatened the possible loss of state or federal funding for road projects if such artwork was not removed, David Bragg, Lubbock’s interim division director of public works, told council members on Tuesday. “This was very broad letter. I don’t think it was intended to go after, say, the Buddy Holly glasses. Unfortunately it did,” Bragg said.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Tucker Carlson, Bo French and the GOP’s short memory

Is it too much to hope that the GOP won’t succumb to short memories that have become so typical of our politics today? The party that widened its tent in 2024 with a forceful economic message will lose its appeal and tear away at American society by tolerating antisemitism and bigotry from its politicians and thought leaders. Bo French recently announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection as Tarrant County GOP chair. But he didn’t do it for the reasons we’d hoped. It wasn’t because his party finally had enough of the bigoted garbage he spews on the internet. Nope. He’s running for statewide office instead. Earlier this year, French posted a poll to social media platform X asking his audience, “who is a bigger threat to America?” The response options were: Jews or Muslims. Rightfully, the since-deleted post drew calls for his resignation from prominent GOP leaders including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. John Cornyn.

But all the hubbub fizzled out. French never faced any substantial consequences. Now he’s running to become a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s top oil and gas regulator. He said on social media that “this will be the best way that I can defend Texas, stop the Islamic invasion, and defeat the left.” In August, French launched a bigoted attack against state House Rep. Salman Bhojani, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan. On social media, he called on the feds “to denaturalize and deport” Bhojani. He accused the Muslim state representative of trying to “further jihad.” Will GOP leaders remember their anger at French? The rebukes of him after his poll came years after French began posting hateful messages into the virtual void. But that wasn’t enough to diminish his presence within the Texas GOP. The current environment of permissiveness has only emboldened people like French. Take Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. Once a fringe figure in the conservative movement, Fuentes has been getting more attention in recent years. During a friendly interview with Carlson, one of the most prominent faces of the modern Republican Party, Fuentes made statements about “organized Jewry in America” and a need to be “pro-white” on some level.

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Texas Capital needed to transform, and it did. How is simpler than it seems

The words “bank” and “fun” don’t often go in the same sentence — unless you’re Rob Holmes, chairman, president and CEO of Texas Capital. “Bankers here are having fun,” he told The Dallas Morning News in an interview. “Because with wins, you have fun.” And recently, Texas Capital has done a lot of winning. The Dallas-based bank posted its best quarter under Holmes’ leadership yet in its third-quarter report, hitting the quantitative and qualitative goals it set in 2021 as part of its transformation into a full-service financial institution. Texas Capital’s shares, traded on the Nasdaq, are up over 11% year-to-date, outpacing an index of broader regional bank stocks. Bank earnings numbers are complicated, but the trick to hitting them was simple for Texas Capital: people.

“I came here to build something special in a special place with people who care about each other,” Holmes said. “It’s different.” Holmes came to Texas Capital in January 2021, after a 31-year career with J.P. Morgan Chase. With a true Texan sensibility — kudos to Highland Park High School, University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University education — Holmes entered with a vision to dig the firm out of a period of struggle, and transform it into a full-service financial institution. Texas Capital — which now has more that $26 billion in deposits and is the fifth-largest Texas-headquartered bank, per the latest Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data — was founded in 1998, raising a then-record $80 million in startup capital. But leading up to 2020, things started to go awry. Texas Capital primarily dealt in the loan-focused commercial banking sector, but expenses were outpacing growth. After trading at an all-time high of over $100 per share in May 2018, Texas Capital stock had sunk to just $50 in December of the same year. A merger with the McKinney-based Independent Bank Group promised to alleviate some of Texas Capital’s problems, but that imploded in early 2020 and its stock price tanked to just over $20. Both banks blamed the onset of the pandemic for the deal falling through, and then-Texas Capital CEO C. Keith Cargill resigned his post immediately.

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Judge denies Texas bid for bar on Tylenol marketing in state

A judge rejected for now a bid by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to bar Tylenol-maker Kenvue Inc. from marketing its over-the-counter pain medication as being safe for pregnant women within the state. After a hearing Friday, State District Judge LeAnn Rafferty denied Paxton’s request for a temporary restraining order, court records show. The attorney general suedKenvue and its former parent Johnson & Johnson on Oct. 28, claiming they concealed the risks of autism and other disorders for children if mothers take Tylenol during pregnancy.

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City Stories

‘Beginning of the end’: Dallas City Hall’s fate hangs in the balance of relocation study

Some Dallas City Council members fear last week’s vote to explore alternatives for the deteriorating City Hall building sets the stage for its eventual demolition. Council members Paul Ridley and Paula Blackmon, two of the three votes against the plan, told The Dallas Morning News the decision leaves key questions unanswered, particularly why the process is moving so quickly and what’s driving the urgency. “It’s kind of a sad day because it feels like the beginning of the end,” Blackmon said. “I really hope we know what we’re doing.” When asked whether the vote signals a move toward demolishing City Hall, Ridley said, “Oh, absolutely.” He noted that the building is purpose-built for government use and poorly suited for commercial tenants. “If we move out, no one’s going to move in here,” he said.

Both Ridley and Blackmon said they voted against the resolution because they wanted a full assessment of the building’s condition and repair costs before exploring alternatives. They also suspect undeclared developer interest may be driving the push to relocate, though no developer has publicly confirmed interest. “A lot of people are talking about it, but we haven’t seen any evidence that there is such interest,” Ridley said. “I suspect that’s what’s motivating this rush to judgment about the future of City Hall. I can’t think of any other reason why we would have to rush this process like we are.” The council voted 12–3 on Wednesday to direct City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert to evaluate real estate opportunities, including potential relocation sites for Dallas’ municipal government, and report back to the council’s finance committee by February 2026. The resolution also requires a third-party assessment of deferred maintenance costs for City Hall and an exploration of economic development opportunities for the downtown City Hall site.

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National Stories

Trump plans to meet with Mamdani, says he'll 'work something out' with New York City's mayor-elect

President Donald Trump indicated Sunday that he plans to meet with New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and said they’ll “work something out,” in what could be a detente for the Republican president and Democratic political star who have cast each other as political foils. Trump has for months slammed Mamdani, falsely labeling him as a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown, New York, if the democratic socialist was elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen, and to pull federal money from the city. Mamdani rose from an obscure state lawmaker to become a social media star and symbol of the resistance against Trump during his mayoral campaign. He campaigned on an array of progressive policies and a message that was stark in its opposition to the aggressive, anti-immigrant agenda Trump has rolled out in his second White House term.

The 34-year-old appealed to a broad cross-section of New Yorkers and defeated one of its political heavyweights, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, by nearly 9 percentage points. In his election night victory speech, Mamdani said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president. But the day after, while speaking about his plans for “Trump-proofing” New York once he takes office in January, the incoming mayor also said he was willing to work with anyone, including the president, if it can help New Yorkers. Representatives for Mamdani did not have an immediate comment Sunday night on the president’s remarks, but a spokesperson pointed to the mayor-elect’s remarks last week when he said he planned to reach out to the White House “because this is a relationship that will be critical to the success of the city.” Trump expressed a similar sentiment on Sunday. “The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us. We’ll work something out,” Trump told reporters as he prepared to fly back to Washington after spending the weekend in Florida. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified shortly after that Trump was referring to Mamdani and said no date had been set for such a meeting. “We want to see everything work out well for New York,” Trump said. Trump’s comments came as he also said the U.S. may hold discussions soon with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, after a military buildup near the South American country: “I’ll talk to anybody,” Trump said.

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Maryland Democrats want to redistrict. Their state’s Senate President isn’t making it easy.

As Democrats push ahead with nationwide redistricting efforts, Maryland has hit a snag. Its state Senate president is refusing to hold a special session on redistricting. Bill Ferguson, the Democratic state Senate president, is resisting calls from local, state and national Democratic leaders to redistrict. Ferguson believes that the move is too risky for Maryland Democrats and that it has the potential to cost them seats. It is some of the last remaining tension within a party that has otherwise largely adopted a redistricting strategy in the face of Republican efforts to redraw maps in their favor. While state Sen. Ferguson has remained steadfast in his stance against mid-decade redistricting in his state, Gov. Wes Moore, along with other state Democrats, have pushed ahead on redistricting in other ways.

“His position is on risk, on whether he thinks the risk is worth taking,” Rep. Steny Hoyer, who long served as part of House Democratic leadership, told NOTUS. “The president of the senate is a very respected individual, he’s an honest individual, I don’t think he’s trying to game anyone. I hope he comes to the conclusion that the risk is worth taking.” Ferguson did little to address his disagreement with other Democrats in a statement to NOTUS. “With this federal administration’s troubling willingness to ignore the law, Marylanders understand our vulnerability. We must act with urgency to confront the real challenges ahead in the upcoming session,” Ferguson said. “Everything else is a distraction from the mission.” In the past few weeks, Ferguson has made the case against redistricting as a member of Moore’s Redistricting Advisory Commission, arguing that it could lead to Democrats losing seats that they already have if a new map is drawn.

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Trump lashes out at Indiana Republicans after redistricting effort stalls

President Donald Trump is not happy with Indiana Republicans after state lawmakers refused to call a special session to redraw congressional maps. “Very disappointed in Indiana State Senate Republicans, led by RINO Senators Rod Bray and Greg Goode, for not wanting to redistrict their State, allowing the United States Congress to perhaps gain two more Republican seats,” Trump said in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social. “Because of these two politically correct type ‘gentlemen,’ and a few others, they could be depriving Republicans of a Majority in the House, A VERY BIG DEAL!” the post continued. Bray, the state Senate president, released a statement Friday saying the party lacked the votes needed to open the redistricting conversation.

“Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps,” Bray said in a statement to Politico, after conducting a private test vote Friday afternoon with his caucus. “Today, I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December.” Republicans across the state and country aired their disagreement with Bray’s decision over the weekend. U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz said in a post on Friday that state Republicans “should not be hiding behind closed doors but putting their votes on the board.” “Hoosiers deserve transparency,” Spartz posted on X. “Voters should know whether their senators stand with President Trump or with the NY & CA socialists destroying our country.” Rep. Marlin Stutzman said in a Friday statement that “Senator Bray and anti-Trump Indiana Senate Republicans made it clear today that they would rather protect [Democratic Rep.] André Carson, stand with Pete Buttigieg, and let Gavin Newsom steamroll Hoosier voices than support the conservative America First agenda.”

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Former Fed Gov. Adriana Kugler violated trading rules while at central bank: ethics report

bank’s rules barring trading of individual stocks and executing financial transactions close to meetings where interest rates are set, actions that led up to her abrupt resignation, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics released Saturday. The report comes three months after Kugler mysteriously left from the Fed’s Board of Governors without giving a reason. Kugler joined the Fed in September 2023 after being appointed by then-President Joe Biden. Kugler’s resignation came after she requested and was denied a waiver by Chair Jerome Powell on a disclosure form that showed she had impermissible holdings, Fed officials familiar with the matter told CNBC.com. An official said that concerns related to trading activity by Kugler or her husband date to at least September 2024, when she began working with ethics officials to resolve violations of trading policies.

A financial disclosure report that Kugler filed with the OGE this year on Sept. 11 — which contains details of securities transactions by either her or her husband — notes that an Ethics Office official declined to certify the report. In a note on Friday’s disclosure, an Ethics official says, “Matters related to this disclosure were referred earlier this year” by the office to the independent Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. An inspector general is an internal ethics watchdog for federal departments and agencies. Another note on the report says, “Consistent with her September 15, 2024, disclosure, certain trading activity was carried out by Dr. Kugler’s spouse, without Dr. Kugler’s knowledge and she affirms that her spouse did not intend to violate any rules or policies.” Kugler is married to Ignacio Donoso, who is an immigration lawyer. Her disclosure shows two kinds of violations of Fed rules regarding financial transactions by senior officials at the central bank: purchases of stock shares of individual companies, as opposed to mutual funds; and purchases of securities during so-called “blackout periods” leading up to and after meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee.

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Timothy Carney: The Trump era is one of GOP decline

(Timothy P. Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on civil society, family, localism, religion in America, economic competition, and electoral politics. He is concurrently a senior columnist at the Washington Examiner.) President Donald Trump has dominated the Republican Party for a decade, and in many ways, it has been good for the GOP and conservatism. Republicans won two of the three presidential elections (after losing two straight and four of six). Republicans control Congress, and for the first time in forever, the Supreme Court has a conservative majority. It even struck down Roe v. Wade. Trump’s policy accomplishments are also real. Taxes are lower, especially for the middle class. Illegal immigration was controlled for four years, and it’s getting under control again. And for the first time since the Cold War ended, we are avoiding senseless wars of choice. But just as Trump’s policy record is mixed (increased spending, federal support for in vitro fertilization, oodles of corporate welfare), so is the Trump-era political record. If you step back from the current political balance in Washington, D.C., you see a troubling trend, highlighted by the recent blowouts in New Jersey and Virginia: Republicans, in the Trump era, are mostly losing.

Yes, Trump wins. Yes, when Trump is on the ballot, the downballot Republicans get some lift from Trump. But when Trump isn’t on the ballot, the Trump era is a story of GOP loss. This is a big problem for Republicans because Trump will never be on a ballot nationwide again. It’s very possible that after Trump is gone, Republicans will experience their darkest hour and lowest point since the New Deal. Here’s one measure of the partisan shift in the Trump era: In 2016, Republicans controlled 31 governorships and 68 legislative chambers. Come January, the GOP will control only 26 governorships and 57 legislative chambers (more than a 15% reduction on both scores). In the Trump era, here’s the rule: Elections in which Trump is on the ballot, the GOP does fine. In elections in which he is not, the GOP does poorly. This isn’t just about incumbent disadvantage in midterm elections. Even during former President Joe Biden’s presidency, when Trump was the head of the GOP, its most recent nominee, and its next nominee, Democrats historically performed well. For instance, in 2022, they gained trifectas in four states, taking control of the legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, and winning the governorships of Maryland and Massachusetts — all while their party controlled the White House. The best place to see Trump’s impact on realignment may be in the Great Lakes states. Trump won in 2016 by pulling off upsets in three blue-leaning Rust Belt states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He won those states in large part by pulling in labor union voters and other non-college voters, a demographic that had been used by Democrats but had been politically homeless since the Clinton era.

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Firm tied to Kristi Noem secretly got money from $220 million DHS ad contracts

On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.” Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration. Her agency invoked the “national emergency” at the border as it awarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption. The Department of Homeland Security has kept at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure ad deal a secret, records and interviews show: a Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The company running the Mount Rushmore shoot, called the Strategy Group, does not appear on public documents about the contract. The main recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized.

No firm has closer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her top adviser at DHS, has worked extensively with the firm. And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin. The Strategy Group’s ad work is the first known example of money flowing from Noem’s agency to businesses controlled by her allies and friends. Government contracting experts said the depth of the ties between DHS leadership and the Strategy Group suggested major potential violations of ethics rules. “It’s corrupt, is the word,” said Charles Tiefer, a leading authority on federal contract law and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the Strategy Group’s role should prompt investigations by both the DHS inspector general and the House Oversight Committee. “Hiding your friends as subcontractors is like playing hide the salami with the taxpayer,” Tiefer added. Federal regulations forbid conflicts of interest in contracting and require that the process be conducted “with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none.”

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Trump defends Tucker Carlson after interview with activist known for his antisemitic views

President Donald Trump on Sunday brushed aside concerns about conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with a far-right activist known for his antisemitic views, which has caused a schism within the Republican Party. Trump defended Carlson, saying the former Fox News host has “said good things about me over the years.” He said if Carlson wants to interview Nick Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identity, then “people have to decide.” Trump did not criticize Carlson or Fuentes. Fuentes appeared to appreciate Trump’s sentiment, posting “Thank you Mr. President!” along with video of his interaction with reporters.

Carlson had an amiable sit-down on his podcast last month with Fuentes that touched off a controversy among conservatives. It roiled the Heritage Foundation, where the president of the right-wing think tank defended Carlson for his interview, drawing outrage from staffers. Heritage President Kevin Roberts later denounced Fuentes’ views. Trump told reporters as he prepared to fly back to Washington from a weekend in Florida that when it comes to Carlson, “You can’t tell him who to interview.” “If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out,” Trump said. “People have to decide.” Trump a few minutes later added, “Meeting people, talking to people for somebody like Tucker — that’s what they do. You know, people are controversial.” The president then said: “I’m not controversial, so I like it that way.”

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Lead Stories

Joaquin Castro on why a Democratic Senate logjam stopped him from running for AG

As he weighed a bid for the U.S. Senate earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro found himself at an impasse with three other big-name Democrats who also wanted to run for the upper chamber. At the time, Castro met over Zoom with the other then-prospective candidates — former U.S. Reps. Colin Allred and Beto O’Rourke and state Rep. James Talarico — to try to hash out their plans for 2026. Castro eventually offered to run for Texas attorney general if the others could divide up the remaining statewide offices, including governor and lieutenant governor, instead of running against each other for Senate. In the end, Castro said Friday, “we just couldn’t get there.” “All of us initially were interested in the U.S. Senate race,” Castro, a seventh-term congressman from San Antonio, said on a panel at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. “But, you know, it doesn’t really make sense to have four people running for the U.S. Senate, and then nobody’s running for anything else. So at one point, I told a few of those guys … hey, I’ll slot down to the AG race if you guys can figure out the rest.”

About a month after the May 31 Zoom meeting, which was first reported by The Dallas Morning News, Allred announced he was running for the Senate seat held by GOP Sen. John Cornyn. Talarico soon after joined the race, pitting the two Democrats against each other as the party remained without a high-profile candidate to take on Gov. Greg Abbott. Castro said Friday he’s “not blaming them” for seizing what “could be a great opportunity in 2026,” whether the Democratic nominee ends up facing Cornyn or one of his GOP challengers, Attorney General Ken Paxton or U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt. Still, Castro added, he saw the 2018 midterm as a cautionary tale, when O’Rourke ran for Senate and was “carrying the ticket” of other statewide Democrats, none of whom gained the same traction and fundraising support. O’Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz by less than 3 percentage points, the closest a Texas Democrat has come to winning statewide in decades. “Ideally, if you were gonna design the strongest possible chances of winning, you would design it so that you have strong candidates that are well-funded in each of those races,” Castro said. “That was my hope, that we would have a full slate, and we didn’t quite get there.” Castro added that he would do “what I can” to support the Democrats who have announced statewide bids, including Austin state Reps. Gina Hinojosa and Vikki Goodwin, who are running for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. Asked if he had ruled out a statewide run, Castro said he hadn’t made a “final decision” and would announce his plans at some point before the Dec. 8 candidate filing deadline. The San Antonio Democrat has toyed with statewide runs a number of times since he began representing Texas’ 20th Congressional District in 2013. He previously passed up Senate bids in 2018 and 2020.

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New videos, data and reporting give a detailed account of the Camp Mystic disaster

Across Camp Mystic on the night of July 3, 195 campers settled into their bunks. Taps played over a loudspeaker shortly after 10 p.m. Dick Eastland, the 70-year-old patriarch of the family-run all girls camp, was at home in his creek-side house on the camp property, not far from the cabins. So too was Edward Eastland, one of his sons. Edward grew up at Camp Mystic and now directs the camp along with his wife Mary Liz, living in a house even closer to the cabins and the Guadalupe River than his father. Heavy rain was in the forecast, and camp staffers had already pulled from the water the largest boats — 20-foot-long “war canoes” — as they always did before a big rain in the flood-prone area. What follows is the most detailed description to date of the events that took the lives of more than two dozen campers and counselors, and the elder Mr. Eastland, at the 99-year-old summer retreat.

The descriptions and rendering of those events were taken from the first interviews that Camp Mystic’s owners have granted, along with never-before-seen videos and photos taken during flooding at the camp, data from devices such as Apple watches, cell phones and vehicle crash data, and court documents from a lawsuit filed by some of the parents of children who died. The Times visualized the water levels at the camp over the course of the night using videos and photos from the camp and estimates from a flood simulation by First Street, a nonprofit that assesses flood risk in the United States. The moving dots on the diagrams in this story show the simulated flow and depth of water at different times, and the extent of flooding. At 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the National Weather Service warned of potentially life-threatening flooding in the area. By that point, according to data from his phone, Dick Eastland was already up and monitoring the weather. Around 1:45 a.m., he radioed his son, Edward. “His words were that we’ve gotten about two inches of rain in the last hour and that we need to move the waterfront equipment,” Edward Eastland told The New York Times, his first time recounting his story publicly. Members of the grounds crew went to the waterfront and pulled the remaining smaller canoes to higher ground on the hill nearer to the cabins. No one expected the water to rise that high, Edward Eastland said.

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Texas's water wars

In 2019, Corpus Christi, Texas’s eighth-largest city, moved forward with plans to build a desalination plant. The facility, which was expected to be completed by 2023, at a cost of a hundred and forty million dollars, would convert seawater into freshwater to be used by the area’s many refineries and chemical plants. The former mayor called it “a pretty significant day in the life of our city.” In anticipation of the plant’s opening, the city committed to provide tens of millions of gallons of water per day to new industrial operations, including a plastics plant co-owned by ExxonMobil and the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, a lithium refinery for Tesla batteries, and a “specialty chemicals” plant operated by Chemours. The facilities went into operation, but the desalination plant stalled out in the planning process, and its projected costs ballooned to more than a billion dollars. In the meantime, the city suffered through a multiyear drought, and local reservoirs reached alarmingly low levels. Residents were prohibited from watering their lawns or hosing down their cars; industrial operations, largely exempt from drought restrictions, kept drawing the water they had been promised. Officials predicted that Corpus Christi might enter an official water emergency—triggered when water demand is projected to exceed supply within six months—by the end of 2026.

This September, the city council met to vote on whether to proceed with building the desalination plant. The hearing started around noon; by midnight, it was still under way, and three women in the audience, including a former mayoral candidate and a college professor, had been arrested for disorderly conduct. Some opponents of the plan voiced concerns about its costs. Others were worried about environmental ramifications. Desalination results in large amounts of salty sludge that must be disposed of. Dumping it in the nearby bay risks harming the ecosystem and destroying the fragile local fishing industry; injecting it underground risks causing small earthquakes. Supporters argued that, without the desalination plant, the local economy would collapse. Around 1 A.M., the council elected to pull funding for the project; where, exactly, Corpus Christi’s water will come from is currently an open question. One possibility is groundwater pumped from nearby rural areas; another is relying on a private-equity firm that provides “water-as-a-service” to struggling municipalities, essentially by building its own treatment infrastructure and leasing the water to the local utility. But those plans, too, have met with local resistance. Texas’s economy has boomed for so long that it would be easy to imagine that the growth might go on forever. But, across the state, residents are being confronted with the alarming reality of limited water supplies. According to the state government’s 2022 Texas Water Plan, by 2070, the population is projected to increase by more than seventy per cent as water supplies decline by nearly eighteen per cent.

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Thousands protest crime and corruption in Mexico City as 'Gen Z' protests gain momentum

Several thousand people took to the streets of Mexico City on Saturday to protest crime, corruption and impunity in a demonstration organized by members of Generation Z, but which ended with strong backing from older supporters of opposition parties. The demonstration was mostly peaceful but ended with some young people clashing with the police. Protesters attacked police with stones, fireworks, sticks and chains, grabbing police shields and other equipment. The capital's security secretary, Pablo Vázquez, said 120 people were injured, 100 of them police officers. Twenty people were arrested. In several countries this year, members of the demographic group born between the late 1990s and early 2010s have organized protests against inequality, democratic backsliding and corruption.

The largest "Gen Z" protests took place in Nepal in September, following a ban on social media, and led to the resignation of that nation's prime minister. In Mexico, many young people say they are frustrated with systemic problems like corruption and impunity for violent crimes. "We need more security" said Andres Massa, a 29-year-old business consultant who carried the pirate skull flag that has become a global symbol of Gen Z protests. Arizbeth Garcia, a 43-year-old physician who joined the protests said she was marching for more funding for the public health system, and for better security because doctors "are also exposed to the insecurity gripping the country, where you can be murdered and nothing happens." Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum still has high approval ratings despite a recent spate of high profile murders that includes the assassination of a popular mayor in the western state of Michoacan. In the days leading up to Saturday's protest, Sheinbaum accused right-wing parties of trying to infiltrate the Gen Z movement, and of using bots on social media to try to increase attendance. This week some "Gen Z" social media influencers said they no longer backed Saturday's protests. While elderly figures like former President Vicente Fox, and Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego published messages in support of the protests. Saturday's march was attended by people from several age groups, with supporters of the recently killed Michoacan Mayor Carlos Manzo, attending the protest wearing the straw hats that symbolize his political movement. "The state is dying," said Rosa Maria Avila, a 65-year-old real estate agent who traveled from the town of Patzcuaro in Michoacan state. "He was killed because he was a man who was sending officers into the mountains to fight delinquents. He had the guts to confront them," she said of Manzo.

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On Epstein and Venezuela, Trump tries to rebrand

In need of a reset on multiple policy fronts, the Trump administration isn’t afraid of turning to some good old-fashioned rebranding. Tired of hearing about how Epstein emails released by a House Democrats feature President Donald Trump? Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate any Democrats who, like Trump, were Epstein associates and are mentioned in the emails. As the House moves toward a bipartisan demand for the FBI to release its Epstein files, Trump is trying to flip the script on what he’s now calling the “Epstein Hoax.” Need a reset for the unpopular military policy in the Western hemisphere? Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the operation a new name, “Southern Spear.”

Hoping to make people believe a militaristic deportation strategy is focused on dangerous criminals instead of the preschool teachers and parents who have featured in recent news stories? Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled “Operation Dirtbag,” in which ICE announces the deportation of previously convicted sex offenders, among mothers, in Florida. That Noem announcement came the same week a judge in Illinois ordered hundreds of detainees rounded up in ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” to be released. On affordability — Trump’s most obvious political problem at the moment — he is working hard to reframe his policies around that term to argue that they will drive costs down. In fact, tariffs are likely to drive costs up, and tax cuts passed by Republicans will predominantly benefit the wealthiest Americans. But it is the new name for Trump’s Venezuela policy that has the most obvious feel of a complete relaunch. Though it has not gotten authorization from Congress, the Pentagon has overseen the apparently extrajudicial killings of 80 alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific — and counting. The administration says it is protecting Americans from “narco-terrorists,” although it’s not clear the strikes will do much to stop the flow of drugs into the country, and it is deeply unpopular — less than a third of Americans said they supported it in a Reuters poll released this week.

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State Stories

Texas’s Eagle Pass voters turned to Trump. A year later, some have doubts

Along southern Texas, the Rio Grande forms the US-Mexico border, an arrangement established after the end of the Mexican-American war. Eagle Pass, which had been known as El Paso del Águila, became the first US settlement on the Rio Grande. Swimming across the river has remained treacherous ever since. But migrants never stopped risking their lives to set foot on US soil – and in 2023, those numbers reach record highs as Eagle Pass, the seat of Maverick county, became the epicenter of growing backlash over the Biden administration’s immigration policies. In 2024, for the first time in a century, the Hispanic-majority border county voted for a Republican: Donald Trump. Trump won 14 out of 18 counties along the southern border, gaining the most support there of any Republican in three decades. But he made his biggest gains in Maverick, with 59% of the votes, increasing his support by 14% from 2020.

While many supported Trump’s policies on border security, one year later some residents in Eagle Pass are increasingly uncomfortable with the tactics the administration has used across the country in keeping with its mass deportation agenda. Since Trump’s inauguration, federal agents have disrupted communities as they arrest parents who are with their children, show up at schools or daycare facilities, and accidentally sweep up US citizens. The intensity of the national crackdown is jarring for residents like Manuel Mello III who have been on the frontlines of border issues for decades. The chief of the Eagle Pass fire department, Mello explained that border crossings have always been part of the city’s history. Mello said his grandmother would pack food and water for those migrants that passed by. She would give them las bendiciones, or blessings in Spanish, and send them off. But what he saw at the Rio Grande in the last year of the Biden administration was unlike anything he had witnessed in his 33 years in the fire department. “We would get between 30 to 60 emergency calls a day about migrants crossing the river with a lot of injuries, some with broken femurs or this lady who had an emergency childbirth,” Mello said.

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Tiny GOP counties get big litigation in Paxton’s Texas

Roblox Corp. will face off against Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in King County, Texas — home to about 265 people and the latest unconventional venue choice for the Lone Star state’s top lawyer. The Nov. 6 petition accusing the popular video game of facilitating child sex trafficking joins divorce proceedings and custody battles as one of fewer than 10 active cases in the district court. “We’ve never had anything like this before,” said district clerk Jammye Timmons. But King County, five hours from Paxton’s Austin office, is just the latest tiny Texas location to earn a blockbuster filing from Paxton. Days before the suit, Paxton went to Panola County, with 22,000 residents, and sued Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue for an unproven claim that Tylenol causes autism in children.

Two of his biggest victories—a $1.4 billion settlement from Meta and a $1.375 billion settlement from Google to resolve two cases—were secured in Harrison, Midland, and Victoria counties—all less than 200,000 residents. Paxton has brought 11 cases to Harrison County alone—whose population is less than 2% of Harris County’s, the state’s most populous. Although Paxton has long been accused of judge shopping in single judge divisions in federal courts, little attention has been given to his venue choices in state court. The counties are by-and-large extremely conservative places where Paxton’s politics are popular. Only six of 135 voters in King County went for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the presidential election, presenting a jury pool that’s more likely to have negative feelings toward Big Pharma and Big Tech. “That’s very dangerous if you’re a defendant,” said David Coale, an appellate attorney with Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann. Additionally, the counties Paxton’s turning to typically have only one district court judge, always a Republican who’s guaranteed to get the case—a feature urban courthouse in the state largely can’t provide. Judge LeAnn Rafferty, who touted her membership in the National Rifle Association when running for office in 2016, will oversee the Tylenol case. Of Rafferty, who also hears criminal matters, “I think she was surprised to get the lawsuit,” said her friend, Michelle Slaughter, a Republican former judge on Texas’ high criminal court. Paxton’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment about its strategy in picking counties.

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Judge opens door for Texas AG to argue why Harris County’s misdemeanor bail reform should end

U.S. District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal is giving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton the opportunity to argue that new state laws could invalidate a first-of-its-kind bail reform in Harris County. In a recent 35-page opinion about Paxton’s August motion to vacate the ODonnell Consent Decree — which since 2019 has given most misdemeanor defendants the opportunity to be released from jail before trial without first paying cash bail — Rosenthal issued a critical review of the county’s bail practices before the consent decree took effect. The decree stems from a 2016 class action lawsuit filed by Maranda Lynn ODonnell, who argued that Houston-area defendants charged with low-level crimes were penalized for being unable to afford cash bail. The case found violations of defendants’ constitutional rights.

On Aug. 26, one day after President Donald Trump issued a federal executive order seeking to end cashless bail for people who are accused of violent offenses or pose threats to public safety, Paxton filed a motion to intervene in the ODonnell case and vacate the consent decree. Following a scheduling conference held Wednesday, the Texas Attorney General’s Office was given a Dec. 11 deadline to file a revised motion seeking to vacate the consent decree. A six-month discovery period is scheduled to take place until June of next year, followed by an Aug. 27, 2026, hearing on the state’s motion to vacate or amend the bail reform practice. In Rosenthal’s Oct. 30 opinion, the district court judge recognized reports about the consent decree that showed no significant increase in recidivism, a multi-million-dollar cost savings to Harris County and much-needed relief on the county’s overcrowded jail. Since the consent decree was issued in 2019, court-appointed monitors have consistently reported successes in reducing the population of misdemeanor defendants in the Harris County Jail, which has been plagued by crowding and staffing issues, costly contracts to outsource jail inmates and a rise of in-custody deaths this year.

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Nirenberg jumps into Bexar County Judge race

Former Mayor Ron Nirenberg is waging a primary challenge against Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai — a fellow Democrat who Nirenberg says doesn’t have the vision to steward a rapidly growing county. “I don’t think that that office is performing the way it should. It’s been reactionary to major issues. And frankly, we need strong leadership,” Nirenberg told the San Antonio Report of his decision this week. In recent years across the state, traditionally bureaucratic county judgeships have seen long-time incumbents replaced with more ambitious, and in some cases more partisan, successors.

Outspoken progressive Lina Hidalgo shocked political watchers by unseating longtime Republican Harris County Judge Ed Emmett in 2018. Then in 2022, voters chose Republican firebrand Tim O’Hare to succeed longtime Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley. Nirenberg went toe-to-toe with GOP state leaders many times as mayor, but suggested that isn’t necessarily his intention in replacing Sakai. “The county judge has the bully pulpit and has the ability to set the tone for this entire community,” Nirenberg said. “It doesn’t mean we’re looking for a fight, but it does mean that sometimes we’ve got to end them.” But he agreed that across Texas, other counties are approaching the role differently. “I think that the kind of energy, innovation and teamwork that are represented by some of these new leaders in counties, is an opportunity to look at Bexar County in a similar way,” he said. A campaign launch party on Saturday exuded energy and enthusiasm as roughly 200 supporters ate pizza while a live band played at Backyard on Broadway.

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Foreign exchange students could be banned from varsity sports in Texas starting next school year

Starting next school year, foreign exchange students could no longer be allowed to participate in varsity athletics in Texas, according to a rule change recently approved by the University Interscholastic League's legislative council. The change, which still needs the approval of state Education Commissioner Mike Morath, would not affect foreign exchange students wanting to participate in sub-varsity athletics or other activities the UIL oversees, like music and academics. The UIL's legislative council — comprised of 32 public school administrators — is its rule-making body. Several members of the council expressed concern about schools getting a possible competitive advantage when foreign exchange students receive a waiver to play at the varsity level.

"Our Texas kids are not allowed to go to a town — a neighboring town, without moving there — and play at the varsity level," said Aaron Hood, superintendent of Robert Lee ISD north of San Angelo. "But [foreign exchange students] are allowed to get on a plane and come across to our state and play immediately, taking the place, many times, of a community kid that has worked hard to get that position on an athletic team." Hood said he's also seen some foreign exchange students use social media to promote themselves to Texas coaches and schools. "They're actually putting height, weight, position," he said. "It is unfair to Texas kids and community kids." Greg Poole, superintendent of Barbers Hill ISD outside Houston, agreed and said he hopes the rule change results in similar changes for schools with open enrollment policies. "You can tell teams that have a higher percentage of foreign exchange. You can also tell teams that have a higher percentage of open enrollment athletes," Poole said. "I understand that's not politically popular, but I throw it out there for the sake of the coaches that I have that feel like it's unfair. I guess I would just say I hope we pass this, and I hope it opens the door for other motions."

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Just when the Texas hemp industry breathed a sigh of relief, it faces another extinction-level event

Here’s the good news: THC is still legal in Texas. Now, the bad news: Some Republicans in Congress still want to ban it — and they might get their wish. Yes, despite attempts by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to rip weed gummies out of the mouths of his constituents, it didn’t happen, and hemp advocates breathed a sigh of relief. Then, while guards were down, the U.S. Senate on Monday agreed to language in a spending bill that would ban almost all THC-containing hemp products nationwide, according to the Houston Chronicle. As for the federal level, “momentum has been gaining for Congress to take action to ban hemp products,” Katharine Neill Harris, the Alfred C. Glassell III Fellow in Drug Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told The Barbed Wire.

“The ban still has to pass the House, where it could potentially be watered down, but if it does pass, many open questions will remain,” she said. “As written, it wouldn’t take effect for a year. When it does, who handles enforcement? If it’s a mixture of federal and state agencies, who and how will online sales be restricted?” Sen. Rand Paul tried to fight it, proposing an amendment to remove language that he said would “destroy” the hemp industry. Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz (!!!) were the only Republicans to support the measure, which would have stripped a provision tightening restrictions on intoxicating hemp products legalized under the 2018 farm bill. And, yes, you read that right, Ted Cruz might be the only hope for the state’s $8 billion hemp industry. He tweeted on Monday that hemp regulation should be left up to the states. And, he even sided with Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been leaning against banning THC and in favor of regulation. “There is a vital need to protect children by, at a minimum, requiring that purchasers be 21 and prohibiting synthetics and dangerous foreign imports marketed to kids,” Cruz said. “That’s the approach Governor Abbott has taken in Texas, and I urge other states to follow Texas’s example.”

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Texas Radio Hall-of-Famer, Dallas TV talk show host Suzie Humphreys dies

Suzie Humphreys, Texas Radio Hall-of-Famer and former talk show host, has died, leaving behind a memorable legacy in Texas broadcast journalism. She was 87. Humphreys worked as a secretary in Dallas and performed in a comedy show before breaking into local journalism. In the 1970s, Humphreys anchored WFAA Channel 8’s morning television show News 8 etc… alongside Don Harris and Gene Thomas. The hosts produced the live show five days a week without cue cards or teleprompters, according to an article published by the University of North Texas. The show was known by local audiences for its quirky improvisation, celebrity guests and comedic stunts. The production was met with tragedy. In 1971, Thomas died in a drag-racing crash at the Dallas International Motor Speedway while reporting a story. Harris left the show, and was killed in 1978 while reporting in Guyana.

Humphreys herself narrowly escaped death by avoiding a helicopter crash by minutes at her next gig reporting from the KVIL station traffic helicopter. Humphreys, pregnant at the time, got off the chopper due to nausea just before it took off again and crashed, killing the pilot. The temporary assignment reporting on traffic from the air turned into two decades with the radio station alongside legendary radio host Ron Chapman. Her reports were filled with humor and authenticity, said long-time Dallas-Fort Worth broadcaster Jody Dean. “She’s a broadcast legend,” Dean said. “The contribution she made to the industry and the opportunities she helped create for women in particular because of her extraordinary talent, is just breathtaking.” Humphreys was also an actress, comedian and author. She also had a passion for motivational speaking. She was inducted into the National Speakers Association’s Hall of Fame in 2002. She was born in 1937 and grew up in San Antonio, according to an article published by the University of North Texas.

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How a San Antonio elementary went from failing to 'B' in 1 year

Before walking into Tradition Elementary School, visitors are greeted with a huge banner informing them: “This is a ‘B’ rated campus.” Inside, colorful hallways broadcast student work and a constant buzz of movement blankets the campus. Last year, Principal Karen Kopeck wouldn’t have celebrated her school’s F-rating, which is considered a failing grade by the state of Texas. Tradition, located in a rural town called St. Hedwig on the far East Side, scored a 57 for the 2023-24 school year. For the 2024-25 school year, the campus scored an 85, doing what often takes others years to do. “There were a lot of factors,” Kopeck said when asked why the school had previously struggled so much and what led to the growth.

Part of the East Central Independent School District, Tradition opened its doors in 2018, replacing John Glenn Elementary School, a space that now serves as an annex for East Central High School. Unlike most San Antonio-are school districts, ECISD’s student population has been quickly outgrowing the district’s facilities, increasing demand for new school buildings and teachers. The district had an enrollment of roughly 11,500 for the 2024-25 school year. In August, officials said it had 12,900 students for the current school cycle. By the 2033-34 school year, ECISD expects enrollment to skyrocket to over 25,000 students. Several of its schools are facing overcrowding or will soon be over capacity, including Tradition. Tradition’s current enrollment sits at about 700 students, and the school ended the 2024-25 school year with 600 students. Before that, the school’s enrollment had reached over 1,000. The building’s capacity sits at 901 students without using portable classrooms. The state’s public school accountability system doesn’t kick in until the second year a school campus is open, meaning the public doesn’t know how well Tradition performed during the 2018-19 school year. Because of COVID, schools weren’t rated for 2019-20, and later ratings were caught up in lawsuits after the Texas Education Agency updated the accountability system in 2022. Even though Tradition seemed to be steadily improving after COVID, earning a 72 for 2022-23, Kopeck’s team struggled to keep up with the growth. From 2022-23 to 2023-24, Tradition went from having 993 students to 1,141. That’s when it got an F-rating. “We were surviving, not thriving,” Kopeck recalled. “The teachers were tired. You could see it on their faces.”

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Mayor talks FWISD takeover, taxes and maintaining Fort Worth’s ‘vibe’ during TribFest

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker sat down with The Texas Tribune co-founder Evan Smith for a discussion ranging from how one of the nation’s largest cities maintains its signature “vibe” to partisan politics. During the Friday panel at the annual Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Smith noted that Cowtown is about to be one of the largest 10 cities in the country but keeps its authenticity and vibe. Parker attributed that to the city’s focus, pointing to the opening of the highly regarded Bowie House hotel on Camp Bowie Boulevard. “We worked for years with that developer to make sure it fit the fabric of the (Camp Bowie) bricks and the height was the way it needed to be,” Parker said. “These don’t just happen overnight. It takes a tremendous amount of focus. I give credit to our city staff. It’s intentionality.”

Other topics included Texas’ takeover of FWISD; Gov. Greg Abbott’s proposed property tax overhaul and its impact on cities’ ability to finance their growth; and how to improve maternal health, one of the mayor’s interests. Here are takeaways from Parker’s discussion in Austin: Parker continued to advocate that Fort Worth schools Superintendent Karen Molinar should keep her job as the state takes control of the district. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath plans to appoint a new superintendent in the spring along with a board of managers to step in for the district’s elected trustees. “I want to see a superintendent lead this district that cares about our kids in Fort Worth,” Parker said. “Maybe there are other leaders that are capable of that same heart. I just don’t know who those people are. And so as this process continues, I want to see that same level of leadership from our board of managers.” Smith pressed Parker, noting that the decision is solely Morath’s. “He’s listening to my opinions and my feelings about our city (and) the people I put in front of him for different positions,” she said. “That’s all I can ask him to do right now.” Smith asked whether the mayor was “good” with the state taking control of the district because one already-closed campus failed state ratings for five consecutive years.

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Ex-Catholic Charities Fort Worth CEO asks courts for investigation of his termination

Nearly three months after Catholic Charities Fort Worth and its former president and CEO Michael Iglio parted ways, the former nonprofit leader wants a Tarrant County court to help him get answers to why he was fired. Iglio filed the petition on Nov. 12 asking Tarrant County’s 352nd District Court for permission to take testimony of several leaders at the charity to investigate the “mysterious nature of the termination.” The purpose of the depositions is to assess whether Iglio was defamed by any staff or defamed or defrauded by the nonprofit’s board. Iglio alleges he was “treated differently than other past CEOs of Catholic Charities” and needs to determine whether he was discriminated against, according to the court filing. Iglio did not respond to the Fort Worth Report’s call and text requesting comment.

The depositions are a way to “find out the truth about what happened,” said David Fielding, an attorney representing Iglio. “We’re saying we need more information. Here, it looks like he might have been defamed. It looks like he might have been discriminated against for an unlawful reason, but we want to gather the information first before we make any allegations like that,” Fielding told the Report. “Catholic Charities Fort Worth is confident in our decision regarding the future of this agency and all who are served by it,” a spokesperson said to the Report in a statement. “These claims have no merit, and we welcome the opportunity to address any allegations through the appropriate channels of the judicial system,” the statement said. Catholic Charities Fort Worth officials announced that Iglio was no longer with the nonprofit in mid-August. They named the nonprofit’s board chair Beth Kwasny as the interim leader. Catholic Charities officials did not respond to the Fort Worth Report’s questions at the time about why Iglio was no longer with the nonprofit, whether he resigned or was let go, and other queries related to the leadership change. In October the charity named Heather Reynolds as its next president and CEO. She is expected to formally step into the role in February.

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Google investing $40B into Texas for AI, new data centers

Google will invest $40 billion into Texas to help expand Google Cloud, artificial intelligence and new data centers, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced at a press conference Friday. The money, funded through 2027, would help create three AI data centers in Texas: two in Haskell County and one in Armstrong County. It would also continue investing in the existing 400-acre Midlothian site and its Dallas Cloud region, which businesses and organizations use for their own AI solutions, Pichai said. “Texas has the optimism, the talent, the policy environment, and the innovation needed to lead this new era and create immense benefits for everyone,” Pichai said.

Pichai was joined by Gov. Greg Abbott in Midlothian at Friday’s press conference, who called the funding a “Texas-sized investment.” “Texas will be the centerpiece for AI data centers for Google in the whole world,” Abbott said. Abott said the investment has support from several state leaders, including Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz. Along with the data centers, a solar and battery energy plant with be built alongside one of the Haskell County locations. The company also announced $30 million will go towards the Energy Impact Fund and dispersed to local organizations and community partners focused on energy affordability. The funding comes as part of Google’s ongoing partnerships with state colleges and universities, like Dallas College, offering AI training courses and Google career certificates. The investment comes amid concerns about the impact of data centers on the environment and local communities. Last month, Fort Worth unanimously approved energy giant Black Mountain Power LLC’s request to expand its upcoming 431-acre data center in southeast Fort Worth. Several residents previously voiced their disapproval, saying the project would hurt nearby businesses and natural areas. Some raised concerns over noise, light and air pollution the center would generate – and increased electricity use from a data center could strain local energy infrastructure.Data centers could also have a negative impact on Texas’ electric grid as they’re built faster than traditional transmission planning can manage, according to the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas.

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Tony Quesada: TxDOT plan for statewide transit network is an admirable long shot

(Tony Quesada is the Express-News Deputy Editorial Page Editor.) As someone who has at various times relied on public mass transit for my daily commute, other intracity travel and occasional regional travel, I was pleasantly surprised to learn of and read the draft of a wide-ranging transit plan proposed by the Texas Department of Transportation. Among the most remarkable aspects of the recently released “Texas Statewide Multimodal Transit Plan 2050” is that it’s from TxDOT, the lead transportation agency in a state as partial to personal vehicles and pavement as any in the nation. I nearly fell over when I read TxDOT is advocating for and seeks to lead the development of a statewide transit network and hub plan for providing “an accessible and seamless way to travel across Texas without a car.”

The draft plan envisions such a network to be “safe, universally accessible, and integrated” while asserting that it would improve the quality of life and economy for Texans. It’s hard to refute that the projected increase in people coming to Texas will overwhelm our ability to move around the state in cars, trucks and SUVs alone. According to the plan, it’s projected that roughly 92% of Texas residents will live in an urban area by 2050, up from about 90% in 2020. And the biggest portion of that growth will be in the region known as the Texas Triangle — a contiguous 65-county mass bounded by San Antonio-Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. This megaregion’s population is expected to rise by about 50% by 2050, when it will be home to nearly 80% of the state’s people. And while the number of people living here — and businesses employing them — will increase, the space they will occupy will remain the same.

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Texas AG Paxton sues over rules on religious students

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking the unusual step of suing a state agency, arguing that three state-funded college work-study programs unconstitutionally discriminate against religious students. In a lawsuit filed Friday in a Travis County district court, Paxton’s office says the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board violates the First Amendment by barring work-study participants from engaging in “sectarian activities, including sectarian courses of study,” reports The Texas Tribune. The restrictions apply to the Texas College Work-Study Program, the Working Off-Campus: Reinforcing Knowledge and Skills Internship Program, and the Innovative Adult Career Education Grant Program, which provides financially needy students access to jobs to afford college.

Paxton argues the programs improperly exclude religious organizations whose employment opportunities are solely sectarian, and prevent seminary students from participating altogether. He said this amounts to a “wholesale exclusion” which the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected. “These anti-Christian laws targeting religious students must be completely wiped off the books,” Paxton said in a statement. “Our nation was built by patriotic Americans who had the freedom to express their religious beliefs without fear of being targeted, and we will honor that heritage by upholding the First Amendment in Texas,” he added. The coordinating board allocated more than $8 million for work-study programs in fiscal year 2026.

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National Stories

Right-wing media shrugs off latest Epstein document release

What do thousands of pages of newly released material reveal about the well-documented relationship between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and President Donald Trump? Not much of anything, according to some of the right-wing influencers who have long been clamoring for the government to release more information about Epstein and his crimes. "To me, these are nothingburgers. If they're even real," pro-Trump podcaster Jon Herold said on his Badlands Media Rumble livestream on Wednesday. Herold gained an audience in the wake of the 2020 election after spreading QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories. His fellow Badlands Media personality, Brian Lupo, took a slightly different view on his own livestream this week. The emails didn't exactly say nothing, he claimed, but they show that Trump was informing on Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. (Epstein died by suicide while in jail during the first Trump administration.)

"My take on this is Epstein and Maxwell are trying to figure out who's a mole or a rat or an informant in their circle of friends," Lupo said, referring to an email in which Epstein called Trump a "dog that didn't bark." (The White House has denied that Trump was an informant.) Epstein looms large for many conspiracy theorists, including QAnon believers. He's seen as a prime example of the satanic cabal of pedophiles they believe are entrenched among the world's most powerful people. QAnon adherents think Donald Trump is destined to defeat that cabal. Trump has acknowledged he and Epstein were once friendly but fell out decades ago. He's denied any knowledge of Epstein's trafficking of underage girls. While one of the newly released emails suggests Trump did know about Epstein's behavior, some right-wing media figures say the new disclosures prove Trump did nothing wrong. "They're claiming it's a hoax, they're claiming that the Democrats are cherry-picking the things that make Trump look the worst, and that these things prove that he didn't actually do anything wrong and that he's not a criminal and that he was actually gathering information for the FBI on Epstein," said Mike Rothschild, an independent journalist and author who has written extensively about conspiracy theories and QAnon.

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Trump buys at least $82 million in bonds since late August, disclosures show

U.S. President Donald Trump bought at least $82 million in corporate and municipal bonds from late August to early October including new investments in sectors benefiting from his policies, financial disclosures made public on Saturday showed. According to the forms released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Trump carried out more than 175 financial purchases from August 28 through October 2. The disclosures, made under a 1978 transparency law called the Ethics in Government Act, do not list exact amounts for each purchase, only providing a broad range. The maximum total value of the bond purchases exceeded $337 million, according to the filings.

Most of the assets listed in Saturday's disclosures consist of bonds issued by municipalities, states, counties, school districts and other entities with ties to public agencies. Trump's new bond investments span several industries, including sectors that have already benefited, or are benefiting, from his administration's policy changes such as financial deregulation. Corporate bonds acquired by Trump include offerings from chipmakers such as Broadcom and Qualcomm; tech companies such as Meta Platforms; retailers such as Home Depot and CVS Health ; and Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Purchases of the debt of investment banks in late August included bonds of JP Morgan. On Friday, Trump asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate JP Morgan over its ties to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The bank has said it regrets its past ties with Epstein and did not help him commit "heinous acts." Trump also acquired Intel bonds after the U.S. government, under Trump's direction, acquired a stake, opens new tab in the company. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. The administration has said before that Trump has continued to file mandatory disclosures about his investments but that neither he nor his family has a role in running the portfolio, which is managed by a third-party financial institution. Trump, who became wealthy in the real estate sector before entering politics, has previously said that he placed his companies into a trust overseen by his children. A disclosure filed in August indicated that Trump had purchased more than $100 million in bonds since returning to the presidency on January 20. Trump also submitted his annual disclosure form in June, which indicated that income from his various ventures still ultimately goes to him, raising concerns of potential conflicts of interest.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene says she’s had ‘warnings for my safety’ after posts by Trump

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Republican ally who previously fiercely defended Donald Trump and his Maga movement, said on Saturday she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced on Friday he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of the Georgia representative. In a post on X, Greene said that “a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”. Greene said that “aggressive rhetoric attacking me has historically led to death threats and multiple convictions of men who were radicalized by the same type rhetoric being directed at me right now. This time by the President of the United States.”

Greene did not specify any threats against her that had been received by security firms, but said that “as a woman I take threats from men seriously. I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel.” Greene also said that as a Republican who votes “overwhelmingly” in favor of party legislation, “his aggression against me also fuels the venomous nature of his radical internet trolls (many of whom are paid), this is completely shocking to everyone” . The accusation echoes claims made by Trump and administration officials that Democrats have used “paid actors” at protests. In later posts on X, Greene posted a chart of rising average grocery bills, calling it “the ultimate warning to all of my Republican colleagues” and equating cost-of-living pressures to a vote in Congress over the release of further Epstein files next week.

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Michelle Obama shuts down presidential run: 'You're not ready for a woman'

Michelle Obama has shut down the idea she might one day run for president yet again. While speaking to Tracee Ellis Ross this month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Obama insisted the United States is “not ready for a woman” to lead. “Well, as we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready,” Obama said in reference to the 2024 election, which Donald Trump won over Kamala Harris. “That’s why I’m like, ‘Don’t even look at me about running, ‘cause you all are lying,’ ” she continued, “You’re not ready for a woman. You are not. So don’t waste my time.”

Obama added: “We got a lot of growing up to do, and there are still, sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman, and we saw it.” The author and wife of former president Barack Obama has repeatedly shut down requests and rumors about her potential candidacy for years. The topic was broached by Savannah Guthrie in 2018, who asked Michelle during a segment for “Today” if she would consider a career in politics. “Absolutely not. I’ve never wanted to be a politician,” Michelle answered. “Nothing has changed in me. I want to serve. … There are so many ways to make an impact. Politics is not my thing. It’s as simple as that.”

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Border Patrol arrests 81 as 'Charlotte's Web' operation starts

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fanned out across Charlotte on Saturday, making arrests along Charlotte's immigrant-heavy Central Avenue and South Boulevard corridors. The arrests preceded a protest Saturday afternoon in uptown, where hundreds condemned the crackdown and the deployment of federal immigration agents. On Sunday morning, CBP Commander Greg Bovino said in a social media post that agents had arrested 81 people so far, "many" of whom have criminal histories. He said the agency will release more information about people who were arrested on social media. One arrest that was representative of the day took place in east Charlotte on Saturday morning. Agents wearing green uniforms with Border Patrol identifying patches, masks and sunglasses chased and arrested a man at a shopping center at the corner of Rosehaven Drive and Central Avenue.

The area is known for its large Latino and immigrant population. The circumstances of the arrest were not immediately clear. A WFAE reporter witnessed one arrest, and social media videos posted Saturday showed agents conducting arrests in other parts of the city, appearing to be concentrated in areas including east Charlotte and South Boulevard. Hours later in First Ward Park, hundreds of people gathered by the early afternoon, waving signs and chanting "No justice, no peace, no ICE or police." Many businesses on Central Avenue closed for the day. One restaurant employee declined to give his name, but said the arrests were spreading fear. "A lot of the workers are scared, and this, like - it’s going to be worse here in the east and South Boulevard where there are a lot of Hispanics," he told WFAE. Agents were also filmed questioning nearby landscapers, and smashing the window of a man’s car on South Boulevard and pulling him from his vehicle. Arrests also reportedly took place in Pineville and in Matthews. The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that it had launched an operation called "Charlotte's Web" because local law enforcement were not detaining people charged with serious crimes.

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Trump issues new pardons for Jan. 6 rioters

President Trump over the weekend pardoned two individuals charged in connection with the investigation into the 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol. The president issued pardons for Suzanne Ellen Kaye, who served an 18-month sentence for threatening to shoot FBI agents amid an investigation into her involvement in the riots, and Daniel Edwin Wilson, who remained imprisoned, despite Trump’s sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 rioters, due to an unlawful firearms possession conviction. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin posted photos of the pardons to the social platform X on Saturday. Martin said that he specifically advocated for Wilson to receive clemency, and that the Justice Department under former President Biden “targeted” Kaye.

In 2021, the FBI received a tip regarding Kaye and the Jan. 6 riots, according to court records. Agent Arthur Smith interviewed Kaye, a native of Boca Raton, Fla., over the phone, during which she denied being at the Capitol. Kaye, who went by “Angry Patriot Hippie” online, then posted two videos, one to Facebook and another to Instagram. Both videos were titled “F— the FBI,” and featured Kaye, while drinking alcohol from a bottle, saying she would “shoot your f—ing a– if you come” to her house. She posted the latter video to her TikTok account as well. Kaye was found guilty of threatening to shoot FBI agents in June 2022 and sentenced to 18 months in prison in April 2023. She was released last year. A White House official told NewsNation, The Hill’s sister company, Saturday that Kaye “suffers from stress-induced seizures,” which she experienced while the jury read its verdict. “This is clearly a case of disfavored First Amendment political speech being prosecuted and an excessive sentence,” the official added.

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How a tech billionaire philanthropist got caught between Trump and San Francisco

While tech moguls like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat center stage at President Donald Trump’s January inauguration, Marc Benioff, CEO of cloud software company Salesforce, was 4,000 miles away at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Benioff, an influential philanthropist and political voice in San Francisco, appeared set on making clear he wasn’t moving toward Trump. He said at one Davos event that the new administration would not change his or Salesforce’s core values, which include equality and sustainability. “Presidents change. Administrations change. We don’t change,” Benioff said in an onstage interview at a slick event space hosted by Axios, according to video of the event. But last month, many of Benioff’s onetime fans in San Francisco’s liberal community attacked him after he endorsed Trump’s proposal to send the National Guard into San Francisco to fight crime. “We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” he said in an interview with the New York Times.

Rafael Mandelman, president of the city’s Board of Supervisors, called Benioff’s National Guard comments a “gut punch.” San Francisco’s mayor, sheriff and district attorney all pushed back on the idea that federal troops could help the city. Nearly 200 Salesforce employees reacted with barfing-face emojis in an internal message channel after a worker posted the New York Times article that reported Benioff’s comments, according to screenshots viewed by The Washington Post. “This seems to conflict pretty heavily with our values,” one worker wrote. Tech workers broadly lean Democratic and many CEOs now cultivating friendlier relations with Trump have previously supported liberal causes. But Benioff has made issues such as homelessness relief and LGBTQ+ rights, and the liberal bastion of San Francisco, part of his personal and professional brand. The recent blowback to Benioff shows the challenges corporate leaders face as they wrestle with the political and cultural collisions of this era — when both the White House and local officials are willing to go after, or even punish, companies they don’t agree with. Some tech companies have donated millions to Trump’s new White House ballroom, but Benioff’s roots in liberal San Francisco turned his brief comments into a major controversy that could have enduring consequences. Salesforce did not donate to the ballroom or Trump’s 2025 inauguration.

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On edge in small-town America

CJ’s Coffee n’ Cream was the only coffee shop in town, and Paul Blount sat in the corner of the room, his chair facing the front entrance, his fingers hooked into the sides of a bullet-resistant vest labeled “POLICE,” so that to anyone coming or going, he would be difficult to miss. Paul, 51, believed it was the duty of a police chief in a place as small as Palmyra, population 1,719, to make himself available to the people of the village. And lately in Palmyra, there was a growing sense of unease that he was determined to talk through and, if he could, contain, before it became something dangerous. It was the day before homecoming weekend, which meant that soon there would be toilet paper streamers in the trees, a football game played under the lights and the largest parade the village hosted all year. The parade, which ran half a mile from one end of Main Street to the other, was a concern. “Given the climate and recent media headlines, we are taking the following precautionary measures for this weekend’s event,” Paul had written to members of the village board that governed Palmyra. The precautionary measures included the use of a neighboring county’s drone program, to scan the rooftops for threats. “My team and I are proactively preparing for the worst-case scenarios while continuing to hope for the best.” How had such a feeling reached a place like Palmyra?

A dot on the map between Madison and Milwaukee, the village had two bars, one grocery store, two gas stations and acres of farmland. It was about 20 miles from the interstate, making it a place where people said, “If you’re in Palmyra, you either intended to be here, or you’re lost.” Palmyra was also in debt, and without enough growth in the village to support its costs, the board had been talking about dissolving the police department, which was already understaffed, with just two other full-time officers and no overnight patrol. So when Paul saw a flier advertising extra funding through a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he applied. The program, which ICE called a 287(g) agreement, was offering big payouts to police departments that train and deputize their officers to enforce immigration law. Paul believed in cooperating with the federal government, and had told people he saw the program as a tool to address “serious criminal threats.” He’d also said he would leave it to the village board to decide whether to move forward with the agreement. But before that could happen, ICE had approved his application, and then came a statement from the ACLU, the TV news crews and emails to Paul saying he’d “sold his soul for money,” and now, so much of what he saw unfolding across the country felt like it was creeping into life in the village he was supposed to keep safe. When Paul had written his email warning the village board about the national “climate,” a gunman had just driven his pickup truck into a Mormon church in Michigan, and, four days before that, a man had opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, and two weeks before that, Charlie Kirk had been killed on a college campus in Utah.

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Lead Stories

TAMU System bans courses that ‘advocate’ for race, gender ideology

Texas A&M System Regents approved a policy prohibiting its 12 universities from teaching course content that “advocates” for race or gender ideology unless they are approved by the institution’s president or a designee — becoming the first system in Texas to impose such a ban. The policy follows the high-profile firing of Texas A&M Professor Melissa McCoul after a viral video of a student accusing her of “illegally” teaching gender ideology caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott. Though no law in Texas bars such teaching, McCoul, herdepartment chair and dean lost their jobs, and president Mark Welsh resigned amid criticism he mishandled it. The university system later approved a $3.5 million payout to Welsh.

Regents agreed the system must “lead the way with an in-depth and reputable review of our courses so that we can, simply put, make sure we are educating, not advocating,” said Regent Sam Torn, chair of the committee on academic and student affairs in his opening remarks. “Curriculum is created and approved based on the accepted body of knowledge needed for our students to be successful in their chosen profession,” Torn said. “It is unacceptable for other material to be taught instead.” The language in the policy softened from its initial draft — changing the prohibited action from teaching to advocating. “You were heard,” Regent Bob Albritton told those who publicly testified. More than 140 people submitted written testimony, with a large majority against the measure. Critics said the policy would infringe on their ability to teach about race and gender and would violate the principle of academic freedom. Regent John Bellinger said professors should use “common sense” in how they teach, responding to public testimony from faculty members who said they would be restricted in how they teach the Holocaust. Albritton agreed the policy only pertains to advocacy. The Texas A&M System, which serves 175,000 students, is the second largest university system in the state. Regents also passed a measure to require faculty to teach the approved syllabus, limiting a professor’s ability to tailor a class to their expertise.

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Amid new endorsements in tightening GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Cornyn says "the trend line is in our favor"

Thirty Republican current and former elected leaders from Dallas-Fort Worth are backing Sen. John Cornyn for re-election over Attorney General Ken Paxton and Houston Congressman Wesley Hunt. Among them are North Texas Congressmen Jake Ellzey and Craig Goldman, former Congressman Michael Burgess, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, and former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. In an interview in Dallas on Wednesday evening, Cornyn told CBS News Texas the endorsements give voters some validation of the services he has performed. "I think these elected officials, former and present, who are endorsing me, is sort of a sign of a good housekeeping seal," Cornyn said.

The Republican primary for U.S. Senate is close, according to a statewide poll of 1,097 likely 2026 GOP primary voters conducted Oct. 6-10, after Hunt entered the race. Paxton leads with 28 percent, Cornyn has 24 percent, and Hunt has 19 percent. Other polls have shown a similarly tight race. When asked why a four-term incumbent should be this low in the polls, Cornyn said, "It's early. I don't think most Texans, maybe political junkies like you and me, think about those things a lot, but not most folks are concerned about their kids going to school or their job or the government shutdown, or other things. I think as people begin to focus on it, as we get closer to March 3rd, I think that the numbers will tighten up considerably." Analysts say Cornyn's poll numbers have risen because of a flurry of TV and radio ads his campaign and third parties have aired since the summer, highlighting his record. Cornyn said, "So, the fact that we've been able to close the gap so dramatically where the Attorney General's numbers have not gone up, but my numbers have gone up dramatically, the trend line is in our favor, so I'm very optimistic." Analysts say Hunt's entry into the race raises the likelihood of a runoff in May. Cornyn said his campaign has not been hurt by Hunt's entry. "No, I don't think he can win. What could happen is it would force a runoff in May. We're prepared for the duration. Obviously, I'd prefer to have the race decided in March," Cornyn said. There are three and a half months before the March 3 primary. Because the race is so close, one analyst told CBS News Texas he expects there won't be a clear picture of how it will shape up until three weeks before the election.

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Trump faces heat from MAGA base on ‘America First’ agenda, Epstein

MAGA leaders erupted this week over President Donald Trump’s assertion that the United States needs foreign workers because it does not have enough “talented people,” questioning the president’s commitment to the “America First” politics he popularized. A congressional push to release the government’s files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a years-long cause on the right — moved forward against the wishes of the White House, even as Republicans overwhelmingly dismissed newly released emails Epstein wrote, including some about Trump. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a longtime Trump ally, sparred with the president on multiple fronts after suggesting that the White House was too focused on foreign affairs and denouncing recent aid to Argentina.

The dissent showed an impassioned base willing to challenge Trump on some issues while largely supporting his leadership. Trump’s critics voiced skepticism that the rifts will hurt the president’s support in any lasting way. But the rare criticism showed the limits of Trump’s authority over the “America First” agenda he championed as a candidate and raised some GOP concerns about enthusiasm ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Some warned that the rifts could depress turnout among less engaged voters that Trump mobilized, with Republicans already nervous that they will not show up when he is not on the ballot. “If you show them that you’re not standing up for them on these populist, nationalist issues, I think there’s a real risk for the 2026 midterms,” said Republican strategist Steve Cortes, who has argued that the U.S. admits too many foreign workers and foreign students. “I don’t know anyone on the right who’s so angry that they’re splitting with Trump, but we’re disappointed,” Cortes said. “And we want to lead him to a better place.” Trump has responded defiantly to criticism and cast himself as the ultimate arbiter of what his “Make America Great Again” movement wants.

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'Luv ya': Disgraced Baylor president emailed Jeffrey Epstein for years

There's little to no indication that Jeffrey Epstein, the New York financier and pedophile, ever spent time in Texas. But that hasn't stopped Texas connections from popping up in the ongoing scandal engulfing the federal government. Just days after new emails came to light showing the living conditions of Epstein's girlfriend in a Texas prison camp, newly released files shed new light on the relationship between Epstein and late Texan Kenneth Starr, the disgraced former president of Baylor University who was ousted in 2016. In the emails, Starr frequently expressed his wish to visit Epstein in both New York City and Florida. The two often shared thoughts on current events, such as the Trump Russian interference scandal and new allegations that began to come out about Epstein, leading up to his arrest in 2019. Starr and Epstein frequently expressed fondness for each other, and Starr frequently signed his emails with "hugs" and "love." Starr, who died in 2022, often conversed with other lawyers and elites in Epstein's orbit.

According to the new tranche of emails released by the House Oversight Committee, Starr, the Vernon, Texas native, corresponded with Epstein throughout 2016 and 2018. That itself isn't a surprise. After serving as the independent counsel in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair that led to Clinton's impeachment, the longtime conservative lawyer returned to private practice and was involved in many high-profile cases. Those include representing the school board in the 2007 "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Supreme Court case, supporters of a California proposition that outlawed same-sex marriage, and the private mercenary company Blackwater. But most controversially, Starr was part of the legal team that defended Epstein during his first criminal case in the mid-2000s. As part of that defense, Starr was instrumental in securing a plea deal for Epstein in 2008 that included an unprecedented non-prosecution agreement. Epstein, who was accused of running a "cult-like" network to rape underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion, was ultimately granted immunity from federal sex trafficking charges. Instead, he agreed to plead guilty to two state felony prostitution charges, serve 18 months in prison, and register as a sex offender. In 2018, Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown revealed the arrangement had allowed Epstein to be housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach jail and be granted work release. Epstein was allowed to leave the jail six days a week for 12 hours a day and work at his private office, despite rules barring sex offenders from work release agreements.

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State Stories

Student speech under scrutiny as Texas lawmakers hold first hearing after Charlie Kirk's death

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Thursday held its first hearing to examine free speech on college campuses following the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Lawmakers said civil discourse is important and it embodied the kind of work Kirk did. “Charlie Kirk, as we honor him in a way of starting this conversation, famously debated opponents with open handshakes instead of closed fists,” said Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham. “We can only have civil discourse and freedom of speech when we welcome all sides of a debate.” The Select Committees on Civil Discourse & Freedom of Speech in Higher Education held a joint five-hour hearing and lawmakers heard from invited speakers only.

Kirk’s death escalated conversations around the price of free speech on university and college campuses — the consequences conservatives can face when expressing their beliefs or the retaliation students and teachers who criticized Kirk faced. Kirk’s death escalated conversations around the price of free speech on university and college campuses — the consequences conservatives can face when expressing their beliefs or the retaliation students and teachers who criticized Kirk faced. Jim Davis, the president of UT Austin, told lawmakers the university tries to make sure students are able to have wide-ranging discussions in classrooms, including on controversial topics, so students can form their own conclusions. “Here we expect that our professors build a culture of trust, so that all students feel free to voice their questions and their beliefs, especially when those perspectives might conflict with those of the professor or other students,” Davis said. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, created the committees so they could examine “bias, discourse, and freedom of speech across Texas college campuses,” a news release said at the time. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who chairs the Senate committee, said Thursday the purpose of the committee was to make sure speech isn’t silenced in the future. He added that he believes that in 1968, “liberal speech” was being suppressed.

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Congressman Tony Gonzales decries 'completely untruthful' rumors in wake of staffer's death

Congressman Tony Gonzales on Thursday denied reports he was having an affair with a Uvalde-based staffer when she set herself on fire in September. It was the first time the Texas Republican has publicly spoken about the September death of 35-year-old Regina Santos-Aviles, which sparked an investigation led by the Texas Rangers. Earlier this week, the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office ruled her manner of death as a suicide. Gonzales, a Republican who represents a slice of Texas stretching from San Antonio to El Paso, made the comments at a Thursday panel at the Texas Tribune Festival, where he blasted rumors about him as "completely untruthful." At the same time, he praised Santos-Aviles' commitment to the community.

"Regina’s family has asked for privacy. If it was your family or any of our families, I would argue that you would want privacy as well," Gonzales said. "I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m waiting for a final report, I think that would make a lot of sense. But I would like everyone to remember Regina for all the wonderful things that she did for our community." Gonzales said those accomplishments include leading efforts to develop a new mental health facility in Uvalde, planning a new community center in Natalia and improving communication among local school districts. She also previously worked as executive director of the Uvalde Area Chamber of Commerce. "Anyone that ever met her knew she was a kind, welcoming soul," he added. "And that’s how everyone should remember her.” Santos-Aviles died on Sept. 13 at her Uvalde home. Local authorities have said from the start there were no indications of foul play in her death, and a subsequent report from the Uvalde Leader News said Santos-Aviles had "doused herself in gasoline and was ignited into flames." Uvalde police determined by Sept. 23 that Santos-Aviles was alone in her backyard when she died. According to LinkedIn, she had worked for Gonzales, whose district includes San Antonio and Uvalde, since 2021. The third-term Texas Republican said in an initial statement provided soon after her death was first reported that she would be remembered for working to make a difference in the lives of Texans.

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Federal THC ban is an 'extinction-level event' for Texas hemp industry, economist says

The newly passed federal ban on hemp-based products containing THC could have a significant negative effect on the Texas economy, hitting a wide range of Texas industries that rely on hemp in any form, according to leading economists studying the hemp industry. Language included in the spending legislation that just ended the federal government shutdown would dramatically lower the legal amount of THC — the psychoactive component of cannabis — permitted in hemp-derived products. Advocates, including a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general, argue this is necessary to close a loophole in the 2018 Federal Farm Bill that has led to the widespread marketing of intoxicating products, including to children. Notably, the coalition did not include Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, despite the significant push by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas lawmakers over the past year to ban such hemp-based products containing THC.

Texas produces more hemp than almost any other state in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Economist Beau Whitney estimated the Texas hemp industry employs roughly 53,000 people and pays wages of just $2.1 billion. "There’s roughly 6,350 businesses that are projected to fail as a result of this and displace over 40,000 workers. And so, this is a significant blow to the Texas economy," Whitney said, "because of the fact that those people now, instead of contributing into the state coffers from a revenue perspective ... payroll taxes, business taxes and the spending that occurs, sales taxes, this will now be an expenditure that is needing to be absorbed by the state." Those numbers include workers involved in cultivating, manufacturing, distributing and selling hemp-derived cannabinoids. But Whitney says the legislation would discourage the cultivation of any hemp.

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Young Texans were most immediately impacted by six-week abortion ban: study

It’s been four years since Texas enacted its then-unprecedented six-week abortion ban. Though the procedure is now nearly fully prohibited in the state, researchers are still trying to piece together how the six-week ban impacted access in its immediate aftermath – and are finding it had disproportionate effects on children and young adults. A study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health found that facility-based abortions both in and out of the state decreased by about 26% for Texans under 18 and and almost 20% for those between the ages of 18 and 24. For Texans 25 through 29, recorded abortions fell by 17%. For Texans 30 and older, they fell by about 18%. The study did not look at abortions that were self-managed through mail-in abortion medications.

Previous research has shown that facility-based abortions significantly decreased overall after the ban, but few studies have focused on children and young adults. Young Texans may be more likely to not recognize pregnancy early, know where to obtain an abortion, have fear about disclosing their pregnancy to family members or to be unable to travel and pay for care, especially without adult help, researchers wrote. To conduct the review, they looked at data from Texas and six surrounding states and estimated the percentage change in abortions from the nine months before and after the law went into effect in September 2021. Texas has since banned nearly all abortion except in cases to save the life of the pregnant patient, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion. Even before the abortion bans, young people faced barriers to access, including a requirement that minors get parental consent or seek permission from a judge to obtain an abortion in-state.

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Edinburg educator announces run for Texas House District 40

An educational professional from Edinburg on Tuesday announced that she is running for Texas House District 40. In a campaign announcement, Vangela Churchill said she is running as a Republican and said she has 25 years of experience in the educational field. “Churchill has personal experience with the daily battle she sees every day with children, parents, and families struggling to make their lives better,” the campaign announcement read. Churchill said she is running for the Texas State House because she can no longer watch families struggle while politicians argue.

“For my entire adult life, I’ve worked on the front lines as an educator, and all of us see these challenges our Rio Grande Valley families face every day,” she said in the announcement. “Educators deal directly with America’s biggest issues — students learning English as a second language, children without healthcare, families facing hunger or addiction, and classrooms stretched thin by budget cuts. “Every one of these problems walks through our school’s doors.” Churchill said the core of America’s problems can be found in schools, which is where solutions must begin. “But until the politicians in Austin hear the voice of the people in the Rio Grande Valley, nothing will change. That’s why I will be the voice of working families in Austin,” Churchill said.

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Jason Corley announces Exploratory Committee for Texas’ 19th Congressional District

After Congressman Jodey Arrington announced that he will not seek a sixth term. Lubbock County Commissioner Jason Corley says he has received an outpouring of encouragement from supporters across West Texas and the Big Country urging him to run for Congress. “I was surprised and humbled by the number of calls and messages from friends, supporters, and members of the media encouraging me to run,” Corley said. “After much consideration, I’ve decided to form an exploratory committee to assess the level of public support for a campaign to represent the people of West Texas and the Big Country in Congress.” According to the news release, further details about the exploratory committee and next steps will be announced soon.

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Tom Sell announces candidacy for Congressional District 19 representative

Lubbock businessman and conservative Tom Sell has announced his candidacy to serve West Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives for District 19. Sell’s announcement comes after current Congressman Jodey Arrington said he will not seek re-election in 2026. Arrington was elected to congress in 2016 and has served for nearly a decade. Sell is a fifth-generation West Texan committed to serving farm and ranch families, cities and rural communities throughout the southern High Plains. Sell graduated from Texas Tech to then serve former Representative Larry Combest when he chaired the House Agriculture Committee. Tom and his wife Kyla both live and work in Lubbock and have four children together. “We love our country and West Texas, and we want to repay all the great people of West Texas for the blessings they have given us and our family over our lifetime by standing by and defending them — and our country and everything they stand for,” Tom and Kyla said. “We are motivated by a strong sense of urgency and deep gratitude that we both feel.”

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Baylor AD, CFP chair Mack Rhoades takes 'leave of absence' after verbal, physical altercation, new allegations

Six days after our report on Baylor AD and CFP Chairman Mack Rhoades putting his hands on a player before the Arizona State game, followed by a physical altercation with an assistant coach, he is officially taking a "leave of absence" from his job. The news also comes just two days following his appearance on the College Football Playoff rankings show, where he did not comment on the investigation that took place. Rhoades was at the center of a school investigation into an alleged verbal and physical altercation with a football player and assistant coach. Now, OutKick can report new allegations were presented to the school on Nov. 10, which do not involve Title IX, student welfare or NCAA rules. They also do not involve the football program. The circumstances around Mack Rhoades have only intensified over the past month, with Rhoades skipping a prominent booster dinner on Wednesday night as well.

OutKick spoke to numerous sources regarding this incident, and are protecting their identities because of fear of future retribution regarding this matter. On Sept. 20, as Baylor was preparing to play Arizona State in a Big 12 conference game, tight end Michael Trigg was preparing to take the field for the opening series against the Sun Devils. As part of the uniform that day, Trigg was wearing a long-sleeved yellow shirt that was being used to cover a brace he was wearing on his shoulder. Sources tell OutKick that athletic director Mack Rhoades went up to Trigg as the ball was being kicked off to start the game, and while putting his hands on the player asked him ‘What the f--- are you wearing that yellow shirt for?'. Along the sidelines before the game, multiple assistants were around when this incident occurred, as it occurred in a brief span of time. On Thursday, Baylor athletics released a statement to OutKick regarding the decision from Rhoades. "Baylor Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Mack Rhoades is on a leave of absence for personal reasons, effective November 12. The University will decline to comment further at this time."

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Harlandale ISD regains local control, ends state conservatorship

After five years of being under direct state oversight, the Texas Education Agency decided to end Harlandale Independent School District’s conservatorship on Tuesday. The announcement comes three months after the state loosened the reins on the conservatorship, “elevating” Harlandale ISD to observing status, a less intrusive form of oversight. Now, the district has full local control over its own governance.

“This is a tremendous moment for Harlandale ISD,” said Superintendent Gerardo Soto. “It represents years of collaboration and dedication from our Board of Trustees, staff and community.” TEA began investigating Harlandale ISD in 2017 after complaints of alleged nepotism, issues with the district’s procurement process, financial mismanagement and dysfunctional governance. Then-superintendent Rey Madrigal “separated” from the district after the board moved to fire him. Soto was hired shortly after Madrigal left in 2019. He was recently named the Best Superintendent in the state’s Education Region 20. In 2020, TEA decided to take over Harlandale ISD by appointing a conservator, opting not to replace the school board trustees with a board of managers or Soto with a state-appointed superintendent . Even though the board and Soto weren’t replaced, the conservator had the power to override board decisions if they didn’t think they were in the best interest of students.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem hands out bonus checks to TSA workers in Houston

In a show of gratitude at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally handed out $10,000 bonus checks to Transportation Security Administration workers who she said went above and beyond during the recent government shutdown. Noem, speaking to a room filled with TSA staff, praised their unwavering dedication. “Every single one of these individuals served with exemplary service,” she said. “They were an example of not only taking seriously the security concerns and measures that TSA has every single day, but also, they went above and beyond.”

She highlighted how officers volunteered for extra shifts, assisted with transportation for colleagues commuting to work, and helped families who faced unexpected challenges. “They helped individuals. They served extra shifts. They helped with transportation of people getting back and forth to work,” Noem said. “Other challenges that families may have. They were all examples of what we need.” The Homeland Security secretary also stated that the department intends to continue recognizing workers nationwide, especially those who served during the shutdown. “We will be looking at every single TSA official that helped serve during this government shutdown and do what we can to recognize that and help them financially with a bonus check to get them and their family back on their feet,” she said.

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‘Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment’ doc reveals trailer featuring whistleblowers ahead of IDFA launch

A potentially explosive doc titled “Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment” is set to launch from the upcoming IDFA documentary festival in Amsterdam, where its Nov. 16 premiere will be attended by several former Tesla employees, insiders and whistleblowers who spoke out. “I had a moral obligation to tell the world what is really going on behind the curtain,” says former Tesla autopilot employee John Bernal in the doc’s trailer, which Variety is launching exclusively (watch above). “Elon Musk Unveiled” “pulls back the curtain on Musk’s empire, as close confidants, whistleblowers, victims and former high-ranking Tesla employees speak out,” says the doc’s logline. “Their testimonies expose hidden data and buried defects in the race for self-driving cars — where unchecked ambition costs lives and challenges Big Tech’s most powerful titan.”

“For the very first time, we get a really close insight of how Tesla works and how Elon Musk is managing his company,” producer Christian Beetz, CEO of Beetz Brothers, tells Variety. After he launches “Elon Musk Unveiled” on the European festival circuit, Beetz is very keen to also bring the doc to U.S. audiences. Produced by Germany’s Beetz Brothers and directed by Andreas Pichler (“The Milk System”), “Tesla Experiment” takes its cue from 100GB of leaked internal data provided by a whistleblower named Lukasz Krupski, who worked for Tesla in Norway, to German business newspaper Handelsblatt. The “Tesla Experiment” weaves three interconnected narratives. The first one is a storyline “that examines Musk’s grip on Tesla and his transformation from tech entrepreneur to political strategist,” according to promotional materials. The second is “victim stories, which focus on personal tragedies caused by Tesla’s autopilot, contrasting Musk’s grand technological ambitions with the real suffering of those left behind.” And the third delves into investigations into Musk following journalists and lawyers uncovering the inner workings of Tesla through leaked data and “revealing a pattern of cover-ups, regulatory evasion, and a growing entanglement between Musk’s empire and political power,” the materials say.

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Bee Moorhead: COP30: Cop to the truth

(Bee Moorhead is executive director of Texas Impact.) Monday was Earth Information Day at COP30. Earth Information Day is a plenary briefing where all the UNFCCC science groups, including the World Meteorological Organization, the World Climate Research Programme, and others brief the COP delegates on the state of climate science. As the UNFCCC “information note” explains: Systematic observation is vital for monitoring and understanding weather and climate status and trends to inform climate action. Earth observation networks, including in-situ and satellite-based observations, provide relevant data for forecasting and modelling climate change, response mechanism, risk management including supporting relate services such as early warning systems (EWS).

Within the UNFCCC process, the annual Earth Information Day (EID) provides an opportunity for Parties to engage with the systematic observation community to share and understand latest information, trends and projections of the climate to inform negotiations and wider decision-making. Through EID, messages on closing observation gaps, enhancing systematic observations and related initiatives, and advancing cooperation have been recognized. As a highlight of COP30, which is being dubbed “the COP of Truth,” Earth Information Day 2025 delivered some hard truths. It featured scary science, even scarier policy, and interesting takeaways for state and local governments. UNFCCC Executive Director Simon Steil kicked off the discussion by pointing out that “science and data give us resilience,” not just bad news. Observations are more important than ever, but unfortunately our observation systems are under strain. WMO executive director Celeste Saulo WMO reported that the past three years have been the warmest 3 yrs on record, and have delivered destructive weather on a daily basis. Science not only warns us, but also – and increasingly importantly – equips us. She argued the need for more and better bridges between science and policy. She also pointed out that scientists are increasingly able to attribute weather events to climate change, an important condition for policy action.

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With Prop Q’s defeat, an era of austerity begins

“I don’t think the voters appreciate how deep the cuts are going to have to be,” Austin City Council Member Mike Siegel told the Chronicle last week as Prop Q, the ballot measure to increase property taxes to fund a variety of city services, went down in flames. Siegel was talking about the cuts that will have to be made to the city’s 2025-26 budget with the defeat of Prop Q, which was envisioned as an opportunity to get homeless people off the streets and fix holes in the social safety net torn open by the federal government. City Manager T.C. Broadnax released a new proposed budget last Friday which showed the depth of the cuts. The proposed budget eviscerates funding for homelessness programs, compared with what would have been available with Prop Q. It cuts tens of millions of dollars from other social services. The cuts to homeless services include over $10 million intended for more emergency shelter beds and long-term supportive housing.

Additionally, $1.6 million is cut from public health initiatives like free vaccinations; $1.3 million is cut from the Family Stabilization Grant, which helps families avoid becoming homeless; and $1 million is cut from community violence intervention programs. Millions more are cut from programs for food pantries, city libraries, and wildfire prevention, to name just a few. Some of that funding may still be restored by moving money from other areas of the budget, but a coalition of community groups led by Equity Action is demanding that city leaders revise last year’s police contract in an effort to find more money. “[The city leaders’] proposal protects the bloated police budget while forcing cuts to every other essential public service including EMS, Austin Public Health, parks, contracts to community service organizations, and more,” Equity Action’s Savannah Lee wrote in a press release Tuesday. “In short, they have once again prioritized police over fully staffed city offices, services for folks experiencing homelessness, and quick and accessible healthcare for Austinites.” The community groups argue that a clause in the police contract approved last year allows the city to reduce APD’s budget when voters reject proposals like Prop Q, if reducing the budget is “necessary to meet the funding obligations set forth in [the] agreement.” Austin’s chief financial officer, Ed Van Eenoo, sent a memo to the mayor and City Council on Nov. 7, writing that a reduction in the police contract will not be “necessary” this fiscal year because the budget that will be adopted in coming weeks will be balanced. Lee called that statement a falsehood. “The clause refers to the budget that passed,” she told us. “Not the proposed one and not a future one. It exists to prevent exactly what’s happening now, where the police budget is deemed necessary and everything else is on the chopping block.” Broadnax’s proposed budget also decreases funding for the city’s public safety system, particularly its EMS response.

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'FoodWithBearHands' content creator Michael Duarte shot and killed by Texas sheriff's deputies

Michael Duarte, the food and barbecue content creator known widely online as "FoodWithBearHands," died Saturday after being shot by sheriff's deputies in Texas, according to officials. Medina County, located west of San Antonio, confirmed that deputies responded to a call in Castroville for man acting erratically with a knife. Officials said the man, later identified as Duarte, was threatening and charging at deputies and "making threats to kill everyone." Law enforcement said he attempted to assault other emergency personnel who had responded to the scene as the deputy arrived. They added that Duarte was given multiple verbal commands to get on the ground, but he charged toward a responding deputy while yelling, “I’m going to kill you.” The deputy then fired two rounds at Duarte, hitting him.

Duarte was taken to University Hospital in San Antonio where he was pronounced dead, according to Medina County officials. The Texas Rangers are leading the investigation into his death. Duarte's talent agency, Alooma Media Group, confirmed his death in a statement posted to Instagram on Saturday. "It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of our valued client and dear friend, Michael Duarte," the agency wrote. "His passion, professionalism, and creativity left a lasting mark not only on our team but on everyone who had the privilege of working with him." Family members initially said Duarte had died after what they described as a "horrible incident" while traveling in Texas. The 36-year-old California-based content creator had amassed more than 2 million combined followers across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, where he shared cooking videos and recipes focused on grilled meats and barbecue.

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Dallas-based Muslim artist detained by ICE is being ‘punished’ for his social media posts, his lawyers say

Attorneys for Ya’akub Ira Vijandre, a Filipino artist being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Georgia, are challenging his detention in court, arguing he is being “punished for his faith, his speech and his political beliefs.” A Muslim filmmaker and activist whose legal name is Jacob, Vijandre was detained at gunpoint by ICE officers while leaving his Dallas-area home for work on Oct. 7. His lawyers say officers unjustly targeted him based on his social media activity, which immigration enforcement officials claim “glorify terrorism,” according to a recent legal filing calling on the government to release him. “By detaining Mr. Vijandre for his activism and journalism, the United States government is mirroring the tactics it has long criticized abroad: suppressing voices that dare challenge those in power, intimidating journalists, and chilling public debate,” Maria Kari, an attorney representing Vijandre, said in a statement Thursday (Nov. 13).

Vijandre, 38, is one of several immigrants who have been detained this year after speaking out against the war in Gaza, including Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, Dallas community leader Marwan Marouf and Sami Hamdi, a British journalist who was detained and released this month. Civil rights groups have criticized these detentions as violating constitutional protections for freedom of speech. Vijandre posted publicly about his opposition to U.S. foreign policy, the policies of the Israeli government and abuse of prisoners accused of terrorism—speech that his lawyers say is protected by his First Amendment rights. “Equating such speech to ‘terrorism’ to justify detention would risk criminalizing a broad array of protected speech critical of U.S. government policy engaged in by citizens and non-citizens alike,” his lawyers wrote in a habeas corpus filed last month.

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National Stories

A new litmus test For Republicans running for Senate: Ending the filibuster

Republicans running in Senate primaries have a new litmus test for who the Trumpiest candidate is: Do you support nuking the filibuster? President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster — something that would require support from a majority of senators. Trump also made this push during his first term, but his efforts now have been significantly more intense. Republican Senate leadership has been adamantly against using the so-called “nuclear option” to end the 60-vote threshold for most legislation, and much of the conference is as well. But the 42-day government shutdown made Trump more aggressive in telling Republicans to change the rules to allow for a simple majority vote.

There currently aren’t enough Republicans in the Senate who support the nuclear option, but that could change in 2026. A NOTUS survey of Republican Senate candidates across the country found that, in most cases, there is at least openness to abolishing the filibuster — if not outright support to do so. NOTUS reached out to and examined the public statements of Republican candidates in Kentucky, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire and North Carolina. Only two candidates hadn’t said anything about the filibuster and did not respond to a request for comment: Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr and former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Three candidates expressed support for eliminating the filibuster: Nate Morris of Kentucky, Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia and Michael Whatley of North Carolina. In a statement to NOTUS, Whatley said: “All options must be on the table, including the removal of the filibuster, to move forward with Making America Affordable Again — cutting taxes for working families, lowering prices, achieving energy dominance, reindustrializing America, and bringing good-paying jobs back home.”

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Companies predict 2026 will be the worst college grad job market in five years

Employers have a warning for the Class of 2026: Next spring’s graduate-hiring market is likely to be even worse than this year’s. Six months out from graduation season, more than half of 183 employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers rate the job market for the Class of 2026 as poor or fair. That is the most pessimistic outlook since the first year of the pandemic, according to the survey, which is widely seen as an early signal of graduate hiring each year. A cooling job market is darkening that outlook. In recent months, employers from Amazon.com to United Parcel Service have revealed plans to cut thousands of jobs. The latest is Verizon Communications, which, according to people familiar with the matter, plans to cut 15,000 jobs over the next week in its largest reduction ever.

Companies say the uncertain economic outlook has pushed them to hire more conservatively, and many are giving priority to recruits with some experience as opposed to fresh-from-college graduates. More executives are also speaking openly about the potential of artificial intelligence to bring deep job cuts and take over more tasks that new graduates are traditionally tapped to do. For college seniors, that means they are also competing against junior workers who have been recently laid off. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.8% in June, greater than overall unemployment that month and the highest June level for recent graduates in four years, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis. Overall, employers say they expect a 1.6% increase in hiring for the Class of 2026, down considerably from their plans for the Class of 2025 last fall, according to the semiannual survey. College recruiting for full-time jobs typically kicks off in the fall or earlier, and by the spring, employers have a clearer sense of where hiring will land. In recent years, employers have revised their spring plans downward from the fall survey. Annika Swenson, a senior at the University of Iowa, said layoffs at companies like Amazon have made her more anxious about the search. The sheer number of applicants to positions and the fast-moving pace of AI have also increased her stress level.

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Trump administration targets Charlotte for next immigration crackdown, local sheriff say

Federal agents are set to arrive in Charlotte as early as this weekend as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on immigration, according to a local county sheriff’s office. The Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office on Thursday said the sheriff, Garry L. McFadden, was contacted by two unnamed federal officials this week who said U.S. Customs and Border Patrol personnel will be arriving in the Charlotte area either Saturday or early next week. Mecklenburg County encompasses Charlotte. “We value and welcome the renewed collaboration and open communication with our federal partners,” McFadden said in a statement. “It allows us to stay informed and be proactive in keeping Mecklenburg County safe and to maintain the level of trust our community deserves.”

The announcement follows several days of confusion from some officials in North Carolina, who on Tuesday said there had been no communication between the Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office and the Customs and Border Patrol. Though the agents’ operations have not been specified, the Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office stated it will not be involved with any Immigration and Customs Enforcement or CBP crackdowns. A Homeland Security spokesperson would not comment on the North Carolina operation. “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We do not discuss future or potential operations.” President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement a top priority and has deployed immigration officials throughout the country. It’s caused a major backlash in some communities, with some people decrying what they call heavy-handed tactics.

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Top Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential housing data

A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates. Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company’s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte’s behalf. “Lauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email is a problem,” Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae’s single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email. “That is confidential, competitive information.”

He also copied Fannie Mae’s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email, which bore the subject line: “As Per Director Pulte’s Ask.” Evans asked Fannie Mae’s top attorney “to weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to take legally to protect ourselves now.” While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies. The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also gave Pulte’s critics evidence to support claims that he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further his own political aims. “This is another example of Bill Pulte weaponizing his role to do Donald Trump’s bidding, instead of working to lower costs amidst a housing crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “His behavior raises significant questions, and he needs to be brought in front of Congress to answer them.” The episode marks the latest example of Pulte using what is typically a low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to enhance his own standing and gain the attention of President Trump. He’s prompted mortgage fraud investigations of prominent Democrats who are some of the president’s best known antagonists, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.

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California revokes 17,000 commercial driver's licenses for immigrants

California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses given to immigrants after discovering the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the U.S., state officials said Wednesday. The announcement follows harsh criticism from the Trump administration about California and other states granting licenses to people in the country illegally. The issue was thrust into the public’s consciousness in August, when a tractor-trailer driver not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that California’s action to revoke these licenses is an admission that the state acted improperly even though it previously defended its licensing standards. California launched its review of commercial driver’s licenses it issued after Duffy raised concerns.

“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” Duffy said, referring to the state’s governor. “This is just the tip of iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.” Newsom’s office said that every one of the drivers whose license is being revoked had valid work authorizations from the federal government. At first, his office declined to disclose the exact reason for revoking the licenses, saying only they violated state law. Later, his office revealed the state law it was referring to was one that requires the licenses expire on or before a person’s legal status to be in the United State ends, as reported to the DMV. Still, Newsom’s spokesperson Brandon Richards shot back at Duffy in a statement. “Once again, the Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his dear leader,” Richards said.

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Why every company suddenly wants to become a bank

Last year, Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse had a bone to pick with banks, saying they had shut him and his industry out. This year, his cryptocurrency company is asking the Trump administration for permission to start its own bank. Ripple isn’t the only company that suddenly wants to be a bank. Under Trump, crypto firms and fintechs including Coinbase and Wise are looking to open banks and retailers such as Amazon and Walmart are eyeing expansions of banklike services. Trump-appointed regulators are welcoming their efforts, taking cues from a crypto-friendly administration that has said it wants to remove barriers to new payments systems. “My view is that it’s better for it to be done within the banking system, if it’s legally permissible and can be done in a safe and sound manner,” Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said of cryptocurrency at a conference last month. Gould’s agency, part of the Treasury Department, regulates nationally-chartered U.S. banks.

Most of the new applications are for national trust charters. Trust banks differ from full banks in that they generally cannot take deposits or make loans. Instead, trusts charge fees for the safekeeping of customer assets. Since they don’t take deposits, they typically aren’t insured like full banks. So far this year, there have been 12 applications for trust charters, more than any in at least the preceding eight years, according to data compiled by Klaros Group, a financial-services advisory firm. In addition to Ripple, Coinbase and the U.K. payments company Wise, other applicants for trust charters include Sony Bank, a Japanese commercial bank whose parent company is partially owned by the electronics and entertainment conglomerate. Banking lobby groups argue that approving the flood of applications could threaten the stability of the financial system. They say companies such as Ripple want to compete for banks’ customers without shouldering the same regulatory oversight, such as stringent capital requirements. Other critics of looser regulation point out that since the 2008-09 financial crisis, regulators have been highly restrictive about who could launch a bank and what banks can do—for good reason, they say. The Bank Policy Institute in recent weeks sent letters urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to reject the Ripple, Wise and Sony applications, among others. The Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing smaller banks, also wrote in opposition.

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Catholic hospitals barred from offering gender-affirming care

Catholic leaders have formally banned their hospitals from providing gender-affirming care to transgender patients, following a Wednesday vote at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catholic health systems account for 1 in 6 acute care hospitals in the country — and in many rural areas, they are the only available hospital. The Catholic health ministry oversees more than 650 hospitals, according to numbers by the Catholic Health Association, plus another 1,600 health facilities, including those meant for long-term care. However, not all Catholic hospitals have explicitly disclosed their religious affiliation on their websites in the past, creating potential for confused patients seeking care that they cannot access. “Catholic providers will continue to welcome those who seek medical care from us and identify as transgender. We will continue to treat these individuals with dignity and respect, which is consistent with Catholic social teaching and our moral obligation to serve everyone, particularly those who are marginalized,” the Catholic Health Association said in a statement on Wednesday.

The formal gender-affirming care ban follows 2023 guidelines issued by U.S. bishops that urged Catholic hospitals to not provide gender-affirming treatments, “whether surgical or chemical,” as part of a patient’s medical gender transition. Now, that policy is official. Similarly, reproductive health care is heavily restricted at Catholic hospitals due to the church’s opposition to contraception and abortion: birth control pills, IUDs and vasectomies are prohibited, as is abortion. These restrictions limit how doctors at Catholic hospitals can treat urgent pregnancy complications. That does not always mean patients can’t get help. Some doctors find workarounds for their patients — and it’s been an open secret in Catholic hospitals for some time, said Debra B. Stulberg, chair of family medicine at the University of Chicago, secular institution. She has researched the church’s health care policies as they relate to reproductive health care and gender-affirming care. “People who want hormonal contraception — the clinicians are advised that you can’t provide these medicines for the purpose of contraception,” Stulberg said. “But if the patient has really painful periods or really bad acne, you can prescribe it for other reasons.”

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Trump official refers Rep. Eric Swalwell for a federal criminal probe over alleged mortgage fraud

A top housing official in President Donald Trump's administration has referred California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to the Justice Department for a potential federal criminal probe, based on allegations of mortgage and tax fraud related to a Washington, D.C., home, according to a person familiar with the referral. He is the fourth Democratic official to face mortgage fraud allegations in recent months. Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, alleged in a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday that Swalwell may have made false or misleading statements in loan documents. The matter has also been referred to the agency's acting inspector general, this person said.

"As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me," Swalwell said in a statement to NBC News. The referral, according to the source, alleges several million dollars worth of loans and refinancing based on Swalwell declaring his primary residence as Washington. It calls for an investigation into possible mortgage fraud, state and local tax fraud, and insurance fraud, as well as any related crimes. The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment. The move comes as Trump has publicly urged the prosecution of his political opponents. Pulte previously sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department for two other prominent Democratic critics of Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as well as Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook — who was nominated by then-President Joe Biden — on allegations of mortgage fraud. All three have denied wrongdoing.

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Lead Stories

Longest government shutdown in U.S. history ends after Trump signs funding bill

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended Wednesday night after President Donald Trump signed into law a spending package to reopen the government, capping 43 days of a political stalemate that caused widespread disruptions at U.S. airports and upended food assistance for families. Speaking from the White House late Wednesday, Trump blamed the shutdown and its harmful effects squarely on the Democratic Party and portrayed its end as a Republican victory. He also urged voters to remember the shutdown ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — an apparent attempt to use the moment as political leverage, despite a recent poll suggesting more Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown. “This is no way to run a country. I hope we all can agree that the government should never be shut down again,” Trump said in a live broadcast. He pledged to pass legislation to end politicians’ ability to filibuster and said the federal government “will now resume normal operations.”

Earlier in the day, the House voted to reopen federal agencies — the first time it had been in session in nearly eight weeks. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) had kept the chamber out of session since Sept. 19 in a bid to pressure the Senate to agree to a GOP funding extension, which Senate Democrats had repeatedly rejected. Lawmakers voted 222-209 to reopen the government. “We feel very relieved tonight. The Democrat shutdown is finally over,” Johnson told reporters after the House vote earlier Wednesday. “All this was utterly pointless and foolish. This outcome was totally foreseeable. … They got nothing for their selfish political stunt.” Federal paychecks will begin going out Saturday, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. The deal will fund the government through Jan. 30, pass three appropriations bills, reverse more than 4,000 federal layoffs the Trump administration attempted to implement earlier in the shutdown and prevent future layoffs through the end of January. It will appropriate funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, through September 2026.

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Jaworski, Johnson spar in fiery first Texas Attorney General debate for Democrats

Minutes after taking the stage, the two leading Democrats running for Texas Attorney General clashed in their first debate of the primary cycle. “There is only one fighter on this stage you can count on,” said Joe Jaworski, former Galveston Mayor. Jaworski went on the offense early attacking Nathan Johnson’s record in the state senate. “Nathan Johnson, when he had the opportunity to sit as a juror before Ken Paxton, he voted to acquit Ken Paxton on two charges that the House impeached him on,” Jaworski said. “Why would you give any comfort to that scoundrel?” Jaworski then put Johnson on the defensive with Senate Bill 2972 that the legislature passed this year.

“He was one of two Democrats to join all Republicans to pass this Campus Security Act which may as well be called the Suppression of Free Speech Act,” Jaworski told the audience. “A Reagan appointee found Mr. Johnson’s law to be unconstitutional.” Rebutting the former Galveston mayor, Johnson shot back. “This is exactly the attack I would expect from a Republican. This person is running to be Attorney General, and he told you if I find the prosecution has failed to meet its burden, I should convict anyway,” Johnson responded. “I voted to convict Ken Paxton 14 [of 16] times.” On SB 2972, Johnson said that “Gina Hinojosa, our nominee for governor, and [Democratic U.S. Senate candidate] James Talarico voted the way I did.” Denton Together hosted the event at The Lyceum Theater on the campus of the University of North Texas Sunday afternoon.

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Epstein alleged in emails that Trump knew of his conduct

House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged. Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. He has said that he and Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, were once friendly but had a falling out. But Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage.

In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure. Committee Republicans on Wednesday released the rest of the newly obtained material, condemning Democrats for choosing three that referred to Mr. Trump. They also identified the unnamed victim mentioned in two of the emails as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April and had said that she had not witnessed Mr. Trump participating in the sexual abuse of minors at Mr. Epstein’s home. In a statement, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, cited Ms. Giuffre’s past remarks about Mr. Trump, denouncing “selectively released emails” that she said were meant to “smear” the president. “The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Ms. Leavitt said. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”

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Democrats could make gains with Latino voters in Texas

President Donald Trump made historic gains with Latino voters in Texas during the 2024 general election, earning more than half of the state's Latino vote. Many Republicans used those gains as one reason to redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade. Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, says that wasn’t the safest bet. “Their partisanship is not as durable as a lot of other groups in the electorate, which means they move. They respond to events,” said Blank. Exit polling from the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial race show a majority of Latino voters supported the Democratic victors. But some Republicans running for the new congressional districts don’t think the trend will impact the Texas midterms.

Keith Allen is in a crowded GOP primary for Congressional District 34, a Democratic seat that would have gone to Trump by 10 points under the new congressional lines. In the newly drawn district near McAllen, Latinos are the largest demographic of voters. “When the Latino community sees that you have somebody that cares about people and wants to get this figured out for the greater good, I think they'll get behind that, and I believe they'll get behind me,” said Allen. Also in the race is former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, who decided to run for her old seat after the new map was passed. She described District 34 as one of the top GOP opportunities in the country. “South Texas is very supportive of President Trump. President Trump is doing exactly what he voted for. He ran on border security. He ran on focusing on deportation, especially focusing on those that crossing legally into the country,” said Flores.

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State Stories

Tarrant GOP Chair Bo French bids for Texas Railroad Commission

A North Texas Republican Party chair known for incendiary social media posts is looking to statewide office. Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Bo French on Wednesday announced a bid for the Railroad Commission of Texas. Despite what its name may suggest, the state commission oversees Texas’ oil and gas industry. He also resigned from his GOP chairman position, French said in a post on X and in a text. The local party’s executive committee is set to select a new chair on Nov. 22. The Railroad Commission is made up of three commissioners, who serve staggered six-year terms. The commissioners select who will serve as chairman. Chairman Jim Wright and Commissioners Christi Craddick and Wayne Christian, all of whom are Republicans, compose its members. Wright’s commissioner seat is up for reelection in 2026.

“Texas oil and gas made America great and literally fueled the fight for freedom across the world,” French said in a statement he posted to X. “With Iran and radical Islamists attacking our allies in the Middle East, the Chinese Communist Party pushing its agenda worldwide, and the radical Green New Scam artists waging war on domestic energy production, our state needs a strong leader who will fight back. I’m running for Railroad Commissioner to put American citizens, American interests, and American energy first.” French has faced backlash over social media posts during his tenure as Tarrant County GOP chair — a position he assumed in October 2023. In late October, French shared posts that critics called racist. “November 1, 2025 is National Chimp Out Day. It’s going to be lit,” French said, adding in a comment: “(N)o SNAP!” Nov. 1 was the day SNAP benefits were expiring amid the government shutdown. “Let’s be clear: in 2025, there is no excuse — none — for any public figure to liken African Americans or any people of color to animals,” said Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, an Arlington Democrat. “That’s not political speech. That’s racism, plain and simple.”

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Abbott’s property tax plan is full of holes

Gov. Greg Abbott has made eliminating homeowners’ school property taxes, and severely limiting local governments’ control over property tax, a top campaign issue. It’s a worrisome stance, given how little we know about how the governor plans to fund our schools. But we can understand some of the political impetus. Homeowners in much of the state are struggling financially as annual property tax bills keep rising. Still, it’s irresponsible to pledge to wipe out a key source of public school funding without offering a substitute. It’s like quitting your job without having any idea how you’ll cover the mortgage. Local governments in Texas rely on property tax to pay for services like police, fire, libraries and parks. Schools depend on it to help cover operating expenses like teacher salaries. Texas leans hard on property tax partly because it levies no personal income tax. Property tax is especially painful because it’s assessed all at once, rather than paid out in a few dollars here and there as sales tax is.

In a state as big as Texas, tax-related numbers are eye-popping. In 2023, the taxable value of all taxable property in school districts was almost $4 trillion, according to a report from the Texas comptroller’s office. About 45% of that value came from single-family homes. The total tax assessed on all categories of property was $81.4 billion, and the state’s 1,014 school districts assessed $39.5 billion of that. Meanwhile, local sales tax revenue in 2023 totaled $13 billion. Here is what we know about Abbott’s plan: It would limit property appraisals to once every five years and require all local property tax increases to be approved by a two-thirds majority of voters. Appraisal increases would be capped at 3% and the state would mandate spending limits on local governments. And it would allow voters to kill local school property tax for homeowners.

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Dispute between Rockwall County, developer raises the question: Who should pay for infrastructure?

Thirty miles east of Dallas is the quiet bedroom community of McLendon-Chisolm. Located in southeast Rockwall County, it’s a rural area with green space and land all around, but that’s quickly changing. In recent years McLendon-Chisholm, with a population of about 5,000 people, has attracted an influx of development, and new homes have sprung up throughout the area. But one development in particular – on 1,800 acres of unincorporated Rockwall County, just outside city limits – has become the subject of a lawsuit filed by developer DR Horton against the county earlier this year. At issue is who should pay for infrastructure to serve the new community. “When they build these developments, when they're done, they leave,” said McLendon-Chisolm Mayor Bryan McNeal.

He said he’s not against development in and around his city, but he said builders, including Arlington-based DR Horton, need to help cover costs. “They leave behind the residents who are in the surrounding areas as well as the city that they just dropped in and the governments have to figure it out," he said. "And they offer zero support.” The River Rock Trails development could eventually include more than 6,000 new homes — and it’ll need the infrastructure to serve it, like water and sewer services, new roads, police and fire, even schools. The county sent developers a list of items it wanted covered, including new sheriffs and improvements to an adjacent road. Rockwall County Judge Frank New said state law gives the county the right to ask developers to share infrastructure costs in certain cases. “It's a fairly new law," he said. "It's been there since 2019, so we weren't the first to actually implement the law, and D.R. Horton is challenging our authority.” DR Horton offered to pay for the roads and sheriffs, but after the county denied an application for the development, the company appealed the list, and sued.

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Coinbase moves incorporation to Texas from Delaware, following Musk’s lead

Coinbase is following Tesla out of Delaware and into Texas. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday that the crypto exchange is moving its state of incorporation, a year after Elon Musk did the same with his electric vehicle maker. Musk also reincorporated his rocket maker SpaceX from Delaware to Texas. “Delaware’s legal framework once provided companies with consistency. But no more,” Grawal wrote, pointing to recent “unpredictable outcomes” in the Delaware Chancery Court. A handful of notable names, including Dropbox, TripAdvisor and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz have announced departures from Delaware. It’s a move that was championed by Musk following a Delaware Chancery Court ruling that ordered Tesla to rescind the CEO’s 2018 pay package, worth about $56 billion in options.

“If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible,” Musk wrote in a post on X in February 2024, when he filed to change SpaceX’s incorporation state. Last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s more recent pay package, which could be worth up to $1 trillion. Delaware has long been the dominant state for U.S. companies to incorporate due to its flexible corporate code and expert judiciary, and is seen as balancing the rights of executives and shareholders. A Texas state law allows corporations to limit shareholder lawsuits against insiders for breach of fiduciary duty. Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz, an early backer, currently face a lawsuit in Delaware concerning the sale of shares in the crypto company tied to its public listing in 2021. Like Musk, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was a major contributor to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House.

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Glenn Beck sells DFW mansion ahead of move out of Texas

A big home -- with a big name behind it -- is off the North Texas real estate market. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck recently sold his Westlake estate, which was last listed for $11.75 million, according to Zillow. The final sale price was not disclosed. The sale closed on Oct. 31. Beck has long called Westlake -- an affluent enclave just west of Southlake in northern Tarrant County -- home, but he recently announced he and his wife are moving to Florida. Beck, 61, a former Fox News commentator, is the CEO and voice behind the conservative Blaze Media. His estate on King Fisher Drive in Westlake included an 8,900-square-foot home set on 3.5 acres.

"Tucked behind its own set of private gates is this estate of exquisitely designed interiors—where architectural brilliance and refined elegance coalesce in a symphony of scale, texture, and light," the listing touted. "From soaring ceilings & stone fireplaces to hand-hewn beams & floor-to-ceiling glass, the home exudes both grandeur & intimacy in equal measure. At the heart of the home, a designer chef’s kitchen with double islands, top-tier Viking appliances, and an expansive scullery is both a showpiece & a functional haven for culinary pursuits." The home was built in 2004, and Beck initially purchased it in 2012, according to Tarrant County property records. Pro golfer Brandt Jobe was a previous owner of the home, records say. The six-bedroom home includes stone fireplaces, "hand-hewn beams" and floor-to-ceiling glass windows, according to the listing. There's also a private gym, a guest casita, a firepit lounge and pool with a spa. Michael Hershenberg, of the The Hershenberg Group, and Brad Cook marketed the property.

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At least 44K school-aged children in North Texas may be at risk of deportation, according to report

Thousands of school-aged children and their families in North Texas may be impacted by U.S. immigration polices, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute. A report from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that 44,000 school-aged children between the ages of 5 and 18 in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton Counties don't have legal status, as well as around 218,000 more people who live with children under 18, according to 2023 data. The Migration Policy Institute also found that Texas was the second state most impacted by immigration policy, with an estimated nearly 2 million immigrants without legal status, according to the report. California is estimated to have had nearly 3 million, according to the data.

"The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States has grown sharply in recent years, with the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimating it reached 13.7 million as of mid-2023, following more than a decade of stagnation. Still, nearly half of this population—45 percent—had lived in the country for 20 years or more, with 80 percent having at least five years of residence," the report's summary reads. Texas was also estimated to have just under 1 million children who live with at least one parent living in the U.S. without legal status, according to the report. Texas again follows California, which was estimated to have nearly 1.3 million children living in the state with at least one parent living in the U.S. without legal status, according to the 2023 data. Dallas County alone was estimated to have 319,000 people without legal status, followed by Tarrant County with 127,000, Collin County at 43,000, and Denton County at 35,000, the reports show.

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Faith-based groups sue Texas over limitations on investment advice

Business and faith-based investment groups are suing Texas to stop enforcement of a new law that limits expert advice available to investors. “The plaintiffs are faith-based and nonprofit organizations that, as part of their missions, partner with institutional investors to engage with companies to seek strong long-term financial performance,” said Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal group leading the lawsuit filed Nov. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. At issue is the enforcement of Senate Bill 2337, a 2025 law that restricts the ability of advisory firms to offer nonfinancial investment guidance. The measure went into effect Sept. 1.

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, United Church Funds and Ceres filed the action asserting the statute violates advisors’ and investors’ freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment and is “unconstitutionally vague” about due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. “As part of that work, the plaintiffs take into account environmental and social impacts of company practices, as well as strong corporate governance and other factors, because they believe — correctly — that these factors can be central to the long-term financial success of companies,” Democracy Forward explained. “SB-2337 classifies those factors as ‘nonfinancial’ and places burdensome restrictions on sharing such considerations with shareholders.” The state already has been sued by two of the most prominent shareholder proxy advising firms in the U.S. In August, a district court blocked Texas from applying the law to Glass Lewis and ISS pending the outcome of a February 2026 trial.

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T.D. Jakes moves from pastoring to podcasting as his next focus

Less than a year after suffering a massive heart attack, megachurch founder T.D. Jakes is launching a podcast featuring celebrities and influencers discussing transformative points of transition in their lives. “NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes” will premiere on the iHeartMedia radio network Friday (Nov. 14) with an interview with media mogul Oprah Winfrey. “After experiencing a profound shift in my own life and career, I knew I was not alone,” Jakes says in a trailer for the podcast. “These moments of change, challenge and transformation touch all of us. That’s why I created this podcast to sit down with people from all walks of life — leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, athletes — and talk about the moments that changed everything for all of them.”

Others scheduled to appear in the first season of the show include actor-director Denzel Washington, rapper Jeezy and Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts, Jakes’ daughter and successor as co-leader of The Potter’s House, in Dallas. Jakes’ podcast comes as the popular preacher and bestselling author has experienced some transitions of his own. In April Jakes, 68, announced to the Potter’s House congregation that he was turning over its leadership to Roberts and Pastor Touré Roberts, his son-in-law. In the preceding months, attorneys for Jakes had filed a defamation lawsuit on his behalf relating to accusations of sexual assault dating to years before. The suit argued that the accusations, made by a Pennsylvania minister named Duane Youngblood, were false. But in October of this year Jakes informed the Pennsylvania federal district court where the case was filed that it had been voluntarily dismissed “by consent of all parties” involved in the litigation.

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Dallas’s next election will be November 2027

The other major item on the City Council’s agenda today was an initiative to move city elections from May to November of odd-numbered years. That means our next election will be on November 2, 2027, on the same ballot as any constitutional amendments the state legislature might cook up in the next session.

All 15 council members and Mayor Eric Johnson voted in favor of the move, but some expressed concerns about it. Councilmember Cara Mendelsohn pointed out that it would mean their terms would be extended by six months. The council’s budget discussions typically occur in August and September, which means the budget will be decided upon by councilmembers who could be voted out just a couple of months later, she said. Others had similar concerns about appointments to commissions, too, as well as what happens if there is a runoff, particularly in the mayoral election. However, in the end, they all acknowledged that voters approved this move during last year’s charter election. Longtime advocates pointed out that this will save the city money because it won’t be on the hook for as much of the cost. And cities that have moved their elections to November have seen better turnout, moving from single digits to low double digits. State Rep. Rafael Anchia, who sponsored the House version of the bill authored by state Sen. Nathan Johnson, explained it’s not a “silver bullet”: Turnout in the teens still low turnout, it’s not the abysmal turnout the city currently has in May elections.

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Austin City Council looks at cuts to EMS, public health and parks services after Prop Q fails

The Austin City Council will spend the coming days trying to balance the city’s budget. That's after residents voted down a controversial property tax rate increase known as Proposition Q, which was expected to generate nearly $110 million. The council has canceled a special called meeting scheduled for Thursday to go over changes to the city budget. City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in an email to council members that the city received a complaint Wednesday about a possible violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act in the posting language for the meeting. Broadnax said the city's legal team believes it met state requirements, but said "our goal with the budget is to restore trust in the City, so we are willing to take additional steps to achieve that goal."

The council is now set to take up the budget changes on Tuesday, Nov. 18. Council members were aiming to adopt an amended budget by Nov. 20, and it's unclear how the timeline for adoption might change. Last weekend, staff in Austin’s budget office proposed cuts that reach across many city departments, including nearly $6.3 million in cuts to emergency medical services. James Monks, president of the Austin EMS Association, said money from Prop Q could have meant hiring more staff and purchasing new equipment. “[Now] it’s going to mean less paramedics on the street, and more work for the paramedics we already have out there, who are already struggling, who are already dealing with overwork burnout, mental health issues and constant stress,” Monks said. He said the department is at a breaking point, and something has to change, especially as medics work to reduce response times and serve a growing population. “If you have a medical emergency in Travis County as a whole, you're going to be getting one of our ambulances,” Monks said. “And so, whether you work here, whether you live here, whether you visit here, you are going to be impacted by this.”

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UT Arlington's plans for the future include a boutique hotel and creating 'gateways' to campus

UT Arlington administration is planning for big updates to the campus, including a boutique hotel, new residential halls and updated or new academic buildings. The details of the university’s plan were shared at a recent town hall in Arlington. John Hall, the university’s vice president for administration and economic development, said the UTA’s plan hopes to prepare the institute for future students while integrating the campus into the larger landscape of downtown Arlington. A part of that will come with the creation of “gateways” and a “front door” for the university, Hall said at the Nov. 6 town hall.

The front door will be designed to look like the main entrance of the campus for visitors and potential students. Hall said it will be based around the University Center, on UTA Boulevard. Surface parking lots around the University Center would be transformed into green space while more development around the area would draw those unfamiliar with the campus to the front door, Hall said. Gateways would also help to define the campus' limits, Hall said. The gateways would be designed to simultaneously differentiate the campus from the rest of the downtown area while complementing the aesthetics and theme of the surrounding area. Planners have identified three gateways: the West Gateway at Davis Street and Greek Row Drive and the North Gateway and South Gateway, both at Cooper Street on either end of the campus. The surface parking around the University Center wouldn’t be the only to go — the master plan calls for most of the campus’ lots to be replaced with garages that will shrink the parking footprint and allow for more buildings and green space.

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UNT's Turning Point USA chapter hosts Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, discusses future of conservatism in America

The university’s Turning Point USA chapter hosted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Nov. 10, in which he remembered TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk and discussed a future for young conservatives in the country. The event hosted around 150 attendees, with additional speeches from Paige Rasmussen, TPUSA Lone Star field representative, university student Mary-Catherine Hallmark and right-wing podcaster Sara Gonzales, host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.” “I was really amazed when you can see the culmination of what Charlie Kirk was accomplishing happen in this election by getting people out to vote,” Paxton said in his speech. “And encouraging college students and high school students to be engaged like they never had [...] [conservative views] actually work, unlike the woke ideas that we hear infiltrated with every day at college and high school campuses.”

Paxton, who is running for a United States Senate seat in 2026, addressed the controversy the university faced regarding a viral video Hallmark posted online after Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University. Previously, Paxton made comments in a letter, expressing disapproval with the university for not addressing Hallmark directly after she said she received threats for saying Kirk’s death should not be celebrated, “no matter what political beliefs.” “I really am so appreciative of Mary-Catherine, her courage and the courage of other students that are willing to stand up and exercise their right to free speech, [...]” Paxton said. Paxton announced Oct. 16 that he is launching an investigation against the university for still not taking action against the students who “celebrated the political assassination” of Kirk and “who have threatened violent acts against students,” the press release said. “UNT’s silence has made one thing clear,” Hallmark said in her speech. “Their so-called ‘neutrality’ is nothing more than a quiet approval of the radical left’s agenda.”

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Texas A&M Faculty Council says professor’s dismissal violated academic freedom

ATexas A&M University faculty council determined in late September that Melissa McCoul, an instructor fired for teaching about gender identity in a children’s literature class, had her academic freedom violated and that former president Mark Welsh flouted proper termination processes when he fired her, The Texas Tribune reported Monday. McCoul was dismissed in September after a video went viral, showing a student confronting her in class and claiming the professor’s gender identity lesson was illegal. McCoul is actively appealing her termination. The documented justification for her dismissal was that McCoul’s course content and material did not match the description in the course catalog, but the faculty council said this was false.

“The content of the course was the reason for the dismissal and not the stated reason: failure of academic responsibility,” the council wrote in its report. “Given the timeline of dismissal, the political pressure brought to bear, and statements by Regents that the course content was illegal, President Welsh’s assertion that the firing was for failure of academic responsibility appears pretextual.” In an Oct. 2 memo obtained by the Tribune, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Blanca Lupiani rejected the council’s conclusions and said the council acted outside its charge to review matters that were “largely unrelated to academic freedom.” The complaint about McCoul was never assigned to the council, Lupiani said in the memo. University rules require the department head to write charges for dismissal, seek approval from the dean and give the faculty member a notice of intent to dismiss with five business days to respond, but Welsh requested McCoul’s dismissal on Sept. 9 “effective immediately,” the Tribune reported.

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From Texas to Kentucky, undocumented students, advocates intensify defense of in-state tuition laws

Immigrant students and their advocates are working to reopen federal lawsuits that ended in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students in two states and another state where the same outcome seems imminent. Advocates say the judges ruled in favor of the government without a public hearing and the affected students weren’t given the opportunity to defend the policies. Since the summer, the U.S. Department of Justice challenged in-state tuition policies in Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas, claiming state laws extending in-state tuition prices to undocumented students breach federal law. In Texas and Oklahoma, attorneys general quickly sided with the DOJ and judges swiftly ruled to end in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students. As a result, tuition tripled for some undocumented students this fall, forcing them to make difficult choices about whether they could afford to stay enrolled.

Kentucky’s undocumented students could soon face the same dilemma. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education agreed to end in-state tuition benefits for local undocumented students in a settlement filed in September, but a judge has yet to make a ruling. Meanwhile, legal battles in Minnesota and Illinois are ongoing as these states defend their policies. Since these lawsuits first emerged, civil rights groups and students have sought to intervene or become parties to them. They’re hoping to reopen the quickly closed cases to have their say in court. A Latino civil rights organization, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was the first to file a motion to intervene on behalf of undocumented students in Texas in June. A month later, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward and the National Immigration Law Center followed suit. They filed their own emergency motions to intervene on behalf of the activist group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, the Austin Community College District’s Board of Trustees and Oscar Silva, a student at the University of North Texas.

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Nasdaq Joins NYSE and TXSE with launch of new Texas-Based dual listings venue

The race to make Texas a national financial hub is heating up. Months after announcing a regional headquarters in Dallas, Nasdaq plans to launch Nasdaq Texas, a new dual listing venue that would join NYSE Texas and the Texas Stock Exchange on the newly established Y’all Street. Nasdaq expects to begin operations in early 2026, pending SEC approval. “Texas is the financial services capital of America,” said Governor Abbott. “With another financial exchange coming to Texas, Nasdaq Texas cements our state as a global economic leader and will help further grow our leading financial industry. I thank Nasdaq for choosing Texas for their expansion and look forward to working together to keep Texas the financial hub of the nation.” At the helm of Texas operations is Rachel Racz, who joined Nasdaq in 2013 to help stand up its oil and gas listings operation. Under her watch, she helped the exchange grow from capturing 20 percent of all energy IPOs to 80 percent.

“I think Dallas is the epicenter [of capital markets]—but really, it’s all of Texas,” Racz said. “The governor says it well: Texas has an incredible brand. What’s happening here, and what Nasdaq supports, is this miracle of leadership that’s been empowered across the state. “Think about it—Texas is the eighth-largest economy in the world, soon to be seventh,” she continued. “It’s the global center and the gravitational force for innovation. It’s a job magnet and a job creator. I believe Texas is the bridge between energy and technology—the leader in job creation for both—and it embodies smart, pro-growth, pro-business regulation.” Nasdaq might be third to join the capital markets party in Texas, but Racz is ready to compete. “We don’t think about our competitors—we think about our clients,” she said. “We welcome competition, and we’re glad other companies view Texas as important as we do. But when I look at our business model compared with others, I truly believe no one offers the same holistic support for the capital markets that Nasdaq does.

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Dallas to explore alternatives to City Hall building designed by I.M. Pei

The Dallas City Council directed City Manager Kim Tolbert late Wednesday night to formally explore alternatives to the current City Hall building, putting its future in jeopardy. Tolbert is expected to present options to council members early next year. The decision launches a process that supporters argue is simply about gathering information and exploring possibilities, not committing to any specific outcome for the nearly 50-year-old building, which faces repair costs estimated between $152 million to more than $345 million. “There are a lot of questions about City Hall,” said council member Chad West, who said the vote was not about moving from or staying in the downtown seat of Dallas city government, “and we are not going to get those answered unless we have the evaluation that the city manager has promised us.”

Opponents fear the process could be a step toward justifying the demolition of the iconic but neglected structure. Many worry the land could eventually be repurposed for uses they say are less meaningful, like a new arena for the Dallas Mavericks. Council member Paul Ridley asked his colleagues to focus first on analyzing the current City Hall. “It is not necessary at this point in time to assess real estate options and talk to every downtown landlord about moving into their buildings. There is always going to be time to do that,” Ridley said. “Doing that now is wasted effort, when what we need to do first and foremost is to assess the true condition of City Hall and the cost to repair.” Council member Gay Donnell Willis argued the city needs to make decisions about City Hall based on realistic numbers and a full understanding of all options. She emphasized the city should evaluate the land’s value and its highest and best use, just as it does with other city-owned properties. “This shouldn’t be a sacred cow,” she said.

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National Stories

Ex-Newsom aide accused of siphoning campaign cash for Gucci bags and yacht rentals

A trio of California political insiders has been indicted in connection with a sprawling federal public corruption probe that accuses them of siphoning campaign cash to fund a lavish lifestyle that includes yacht and private jet trips, luxury goods and hotel stays. Dana Williamson, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, was charged last week in the Eastern District of California with 23 counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. She made her first court appearance Wednesday. The 53-year-old allegedly tapped into a dormant campaign fund for Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services Secretary and current candidate for California governor, to pay for a lavish lifestyle that included a $150,000 trip to Mexico for her birthday, tens of thousands on Gucci and Chanel bags and a trip to theme parks in California.

Williamson is also accused of funneling the money to Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief of staff. In all, Williamson allegedly siphoned $225,000 from the account, partly to pay for “no-show” jobs facilitated by veteran California lobbyist Greg Campbell, including one reportedly arranged for McCluskie’s wife. The indictment, first reported by The Sacramento Bee, also states that Williamson misled Becerra about how the money was being used, claiming that he was purchasing campaign consulting services. “Disguising personal luxuries as business expenses—especially to claim improper tax deductions or to willfully file fraudulent tax returns is a serious criminal offense with severe consequences,” Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Linda Nguyen said in a press release published by the Department of Justice. Williamson was Newsom’s third chief of staff and previously ran a consulting firm, Grace Public Affairs. She also worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Gray Davis and has long been a fixture in Democratic politics in Sacramento, according to The Sacramento Bee. Newsom’s office told Politico Wednesday night that it put Williamson on leave last year after learning she was under criminal investigation, and emphasized that she had no current connection to the administration.

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This tiny Louisiana tribe is teaming up with Roger Stone to score big wins in Trump’s Washington

During the past few months, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana scored an Oval Office visit, a meeting on its reservation with top federal officials and a $10 million no-bid contract for construction work at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore. The political and financial wins came after the tiny Native American tribe said in July it would nominate President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize — all while boosting its federal lobbying operation, including hiring longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone to lobby the government on “tribal economic issues.” Stone has received $250,000 from the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe from mid-April to the end of September, according to federal lobbying disclosures.

Stone’s company, the Florida-based Drake Ventures, began lobbying at the federal level shortly after Trump began his second term this year. It’s since received a combined $1 million from four separate clients, including the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe. The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, which declined interview requests and did not respond to a detailed list of questions, is notable for its size — or lack of it. It’s one of the smallest to be federally recognized: 278 individuals live on its reservation in Louisiana, according to Census Bureau data, and the tribe estimates there are about 1,500 registered members scattered throughout the United States. But the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s political influence efforts are decidedly outsized. And while the tribe has maintained lobbyists in Washington for decades, its lobbying spending has skyrocketed since Trump began his second term. The tribe and its subsidiaries spent $590,000 on federal lobbying in the first nine months of 2025, up from $290,000 during the same period in 2024, according to federal lobbying data analyzed by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

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ICE plans to spend $180 million on bounty hunters to stalk immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is allocating as much as $180 million to pay bounty hunters and private investigators who verify the address and location of undocumented people ICE wishes to detain, including with physical surveillance, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media. The documents provide more details about ICE’s plan to enlist the private sector to find deportation targets. In October The Intercept reported on ICE’s intention to use bounty hunters or skip tracers—an industry that often works on insurance fraud or tries to find people who skipped bail. The new documents now put a clear dollar amount on the scheme to essentially use private investigators to find the locations of undocumented immigrants. “I am sure PIs, bounty hunters, process servers, and anyone with access to commercial databases can apply and will,” Igor Ostrovskiy, an experienced private investigator with Ostro Intelligence, and who expressed concerns with ICE’s plans, told 404 Media. “Money is money and people will jump at the opportunity to embed their business as a government contractor.”

The documents are part of a package published by ICE on Monday. They say ICE is seeking assistance with a “docket size” of 1.5 million, in which the agency will give vendors a batch of 50,000 last known addresses of aliens residing in the U.S. The bounty hunters are then to verify the people live at those addresses, or find their current location, and provide that information to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). ICE says bounty hunters are to start with online research such as Google or commercial data, before moving onto physical surveillance. “To achieve a higher level of confidence, the vendor may physically verify the alien’s location and presence, preferably confirming their home or work location. The vendor will then report the physical location to the Government or inform the Government that it is not able to locate the alien, and any additional visits would be fruitless. The vendor should prioritize locating the home address and only resort to employment location, failing that,” one of the documents says.

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Democrats’ latest long-shot Senate recruit: A Kentucky horse trainer

Any hope Democrats have of regaining control of the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections requires cashing lottery tickets in long-shot states. So here comes Dale Romans, a champion horse trainer who announced a campaign for the Senate seat in deep-red Kentucky that is being vacated after seven terms by Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Republican majority leader. Mr. Romans, 59, calls himself “an independent Democrat” who is aiming to ride a wave of frustration with both parties. He said in an interview this week that he would not commit to supporting Senator Chuck Schumer of New York to remain as the Democratic leader and that he opposed President Trump’s policies on tariffs and immigration enforcement, which he said had hurt people and industries in Kentucky. Mr. Romans, whose horse Shackleford won the 2011 Preakness Stakes, said he would model himself after former Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. A two-term red-state Democrat-turned-independent, Mr. Manchin served as a thorn in the side of the party’s liberal wing while nonetheless providing critical votes on most of the Democratic agenda.

To that end, Mr. Romans said in the interview that he would have voted to end the government shutdown, as eight Democratic-aligned senators did this week despite opposition from many in the party. He said he never would have voted to shut down the government in the first place. “I would say Schumer miscalculated and really screwed things up,” he said. Even mounting a competitive race will be a steep challenge for Mr. Romans, whose highest elected position was president of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. No Democrat has come within 10 percentage points of winning a Kentucky Senate seat since 2008, when Mr. McConnell won a fifth term by six points. Kentucky has not elected a Democratic senator since Wendell Ford won his fourth term in 1992. But with Mr. McConnell retiring, the state will have an open Senate seat for the first time in 16 years. Four other Democrats are already running, including Amy McGrath, who spent nearly $93 million on a 2020 Senate race she lost to Mr. McConnell by almost 20 points. That contest remains a punchline in Democratic political circles about the party’s habit of throwing money away on unwinnable races.

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Another democratic socialist wins a mayoral race, this time in Seattle

A progressive activist appears to be on the cusp of winning her bid for mayor of Seattle in a narrow victory that has echoes of the race to lead New York City. With a dwindling number of ballots left to count, Katie Wilson led Mayor Bruce Harrell by just over 1,300 votes, according to results released Tuesday by King County Elections. The incumbent led by more than 10,000 votes the day after the election but mail-in ballots counted after Nov. 4 favored the challenger. Harrell has not conceded but it was unlikely he can make up the difference with the ballots left to count, Democratic strategists said. “Kate Wilson won 61.23% of the 6,121 ballots counted today. Huge percentage and her total is close to not requiring a recount,” Crystal Fincher, a Seattle-based political consultant, said by text after the latest results. “I’m comfortable calling this race for Wilson now.”

Wilson, who like New York’s Zohran Mamdani is a self-described socialist, focused her campaign on affordability — highlighting her own struggles to afford life in Seattle. She supported a capital gains tax to raise revenue, a move opposed by Harrell, stronger protections for renters and improving public transit. Fincher said that message resonated in a city where housing has become out-of-reach for many of its citizens. “There’s a disconnect between what younger people are going through in day to day life today,” she said. “I think there’s a split in the Democratic Party about that, that we’re feeling our way through.” Wilson also pledged to do more to address homelessness, including fast-tracking shelter space, and was critical of Harrell’s support for clearing encampments from public spaces around Seattle. She called for cutting police funding in the past, but in this campaign called for changing tactics and adding more non-police response programs to supplement law enforcement.

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Judge hears challenge to Trump's appointment of prosecutor in James Comey and Letitia James cases

When acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan walks into federal court here in Virginia on Thursday morning, it will be Halligan — not the criminal defendants she hopes to prosecute — at the center of the court’s attention. Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both frequent targets of President Donald Trump, filed separate motions in their respective cases, arguing that Halligan is unlawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney and therefore the indictments against them should be thrown out. In a rare joint hearing, attorneys for Comey and James will argue this together before U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, who is traveling up from the District of South Carolina. Currie is hearing this joint oral argument session, not a judge from the Eastern District of Virginia, to avoid any potential intradistrict conflict of interest.

Halligan, who was part of Trump’s legal team in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case but has no prior prosecutorial experience, was sworn in to the job as interim U.S. attorney in one of the nation’s busiest federal court districts on Sept. 22. That’s three days after Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney who had been serving in the role since Jan. 21, resigned after being pressured to indict Comey and James. The indictments against Comey and James came after Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey, James and another of the president’s adversaries, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Comey and James both pleaded not guilty to their respective charges. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” the president wrote in a Sept. 20 Truth Social post. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” According to federal statute, individuals may only serve for 120 days after being appointed U.S. attorney, unless confirmed by the U.S. Senate before then. The Senate had not confirmed him, but district judges of the Eastern District of Virginia exercised their own independent appointment authority to legally retain Siebert as an interim U.S. attorney beyond the 120-day limit.

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Boebert claims ‘no pressure’ to remove her name from Epstein petition

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) denied reports that her meeting at the White House on Wednesday was to pressure her to remove her name from a congressional petition that would necessitate a vote to release files related to disgraced financier, convicted sex offender, and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The petition, initially proposed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), requires 218 signatures to approve the release of the files. Boebert was one of only four House Republicans to initially sign the petition, which included Massie, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). The Colorado congresswomen said the meeting was just adults having a conversation. “I love the White House,” Boebert said to CPR News on Wednesday night. “Adults are allowed to have conversations.” She explained that no one pressured her to make a decision, and the meeting on Wednesday was about transparency. “I want to honor President Trump’s legacy of transparency,” Boebert said. “I was assured today that this is an administration who’s going to continue to be transparent and honest, and we’ll see what comes of it.

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Sorry, America. Coffee prices probably aren’t coming down

With renewed verve for the word “affordability” after the GOP got absolutely trounced in last week’s off-year elections, the Trump administration is scrambling to show it’s doing something, anything, to bring prices down. One solution on offer: reversing its own policy of taxing coffee imports. “You’re going to see some substantial announcements over the next couple of days in terms of things we don’t grow here in the United States — coffee being one of them, bananas, other fruits, things like that,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday. “So that that will bring the prices down very quickly.”

Bessent here is implicitly acknowledging that tariffs do increase prices on American consumers — a fact the Trump administration has long denied. Bessent didn’t offer details about what the tariff reductions would look like or which countries would be included, but he said — seeming to acknowledge the financial strain that helped secure a Democratic sweep last week — that “the American people are going to start feeling better.” (The White House, when asked for more details on the plan, referred CNN to an executive order from September laying out potential tariff adjustments based on national security and economic goals.) Even if Trump and Bessent made a giant carve-out for coffee, it is highly unlikely that prices will go down significantly. And that’s because Americans, as a people, love coffee too much. To state the obvious: Coffee has become annoyingly expensive. Retail prices are up about 20% year-over-year. There are two primary causes for that price inflation: Extremely volatile weather has eaten into the harvest of an already labor-intensive, hard-to-grow crop. That’s been happening for a few years. And Trump’s tariffs on Brazil (50%), Colombia (10%) and Vietnam (20%)— the three biggest coffee exporters — are piling added costs on top of that. And since coffee only grows in a few places on Earth, it’s not like we can just mow down a few cornfields out in the heartland and start up our own domestic supply.

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Copyright November 20, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved