Lead Stories

'Abused his power:' Husband of Tony Gonzales aide breaks silence about affair

For more than five months after his estranged wife died after setting herself on fire, Adrian Aviles declined to speak publicly about allegations that she'd had an affair with her boss, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales. In an interview with the San Antonio Express-News, he said Gonzales “abused his power” by becoming romantically involved with Regina Ann "Regi" Santos-Aviles, who worked in the Republican congressman's Uvalde office. “I said the truth would come to light when it’s time, and the time is now,” Aviles said via Zoom from his lawyer's office in San Antonio on Wednesday. “Tony abused his power. He should have held himself to a higher standard as a congressional leader.”

Aviles said he doesn't want an apology. “I hope that Tony will stand up and be accountable for his actions,” he said. Aviles, 40, spoke a day after the San Antonio Express-News reported that a text message shared by a former Gonzales staffer showed that Santos-Aviles acknowledged having an affair with the married congressman. The text was from a phone number that the paper verified was Santos-Aviles'. It was part of a thread from April 27, 2025. In the message, she wrote, "I had (sic) affair with our boss.” Santos-Aviles, 35, was Gonzales’ regional district director. She and her husband had an 8-year-old son. On Sept. 13, 2025, authorities said Santos-Aviles poured gasoline on herself outside her home in Uvalde and was engulfed in flames. She died the next day at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. In November, the Bexar County Medical Examiner ruled her death a suicide by self-immolation. Police said home surveillance video showed she was alone when the fire started and that there was no evidence of foul play.

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Prince Andrew arrested in connection with Epstein files revelations

Police have arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office, following the US government’s release of documents detailing the former prince’s ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mountbatten Windsor is the first senior royal in modern history to be arrested. He has denied all accusations against him and insisted that he never witnessed or suspected any of the behavior of which Epstein was accused. He has not commented on recent allegations of misconduct in public office. Police in the U.K. don’t normally name suspects when they are arrested. Police didn’t give any further details on the arrest, but disclosures about Mountbatten-Windsor’s dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have dominated headlines in Britain, with the former duke stripped of his titles and moved out of his royal residence in Windsor. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to his dealings with Epstein. Buckingham Palace didn’t have any immediate comment.

King Charles III said he learned “with the deepest concern” of his younger brother’s arrest, and stressed that “the law must take its course.” In the meantime, Charles said: “My family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all.” Misconduct allegations: The allegations of misconduct likely relate to Mountbatten-Windsor’s decade spent as UK trade envoy. He stepped down in 2011 after coming under fire for his friendship with Epstein. Documents released by the US Department of Justice showed that the former prince was in contact with Epstein during his time as trade envoy. Sandringham estate: Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. He had moved there earlier this month after being evicted from the royal estate at Windsor, where he had lived since 2003, by King Charles III, his older brother. Sandringham is also where Prince Philip, Mountbatten-Windsor’s father, spent his final months before his death in 2021.

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Fed minutes show no rush to restart rate cuts

Officials at the Federal Reserve signaled no rush to restart interest rate cuts after pausing reductions last month, according to minutes from January’s meeting. In fact, several policymakers even went so far as to raise the possibility of rate increases if inflation stayed stubbornly high. The record of the latest gathering, released on Wednesday, underscored the sharp divisions that have plagued the central bank as it contends with a mixed economic picture after a series of rate reductions last year. Several policymakers indicated that there was still a path to lower rates this year if inflation declined as expected, while a larger group signaled support to hold rates steady until there was “clear indication that the progress of disinflation was firmly back on track.”

The minutes showed that several policymakers wanted the Fed to convey “the possibility that upward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate could be appropriate if inflation remains at above-target levels.” January’s meeting marked the first gathering since July at which the Fed held rates steady, voting 10-2 to maintain the previous 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent level. Two governors, Christopher J. Waller and Stephen I. Miran, dissented in favor of a quarter-point cut, arguing that the labor market was vulnerable without additional support from the central bank. The decision to pause came after three consecutive contentious meetings at which officials splintered over how to contend with a slowing labor market and intensifying inflationary pressures caused by President Trump’s tariffs. The Fed, prompted by growing concerns about rising unemployment, lowered rates between September and December by a cumulative 0.75 percentage point, although those decisions featured dissents in both directions. Some officials wanted the Fed to cut even faster, while others voted for the Fed to stay on hold.

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To avoid state takeovers, Texas districts are spending millions to outsource struggling schools. Here’s how it works.

Texas school districts are opting to outsource their failing campuses to third-party operators in a little-known, but increasingly common attempt to avoid state takeovers, a WFAA investigation found. In exchange for paying millions to a third party with the promise of improved accountability scores, the TEA grants a two-year reprieve from state intervention and sends the district additional public education funds to help cover the cost. In these scenarios, superintendents and school boards keep their jobs and retain at least partial local control over their schools — all of which would be at risk with a state takeover. More and more districts are now turning to these "1882 turnaround partnerships" — named for the 2017 bill creating the option — as pandemic-paused accountability scores reach the five-year trigger for state intervention.

The only provider with more than one turnaround partnership — the Colorado-based nonprofit Third Future Schools — estimates it may nearly triple the number of Texas schools it runs on behalf of districts next year. "I think we’ll land between 10 to 12 additional campuses due to many schools being in year three or four of the F ranking, and districts needing to do something to pause the accountability clock," said Third Future Superintendent Zach Craddock during a January board meeting. Questions remain about what happens to student outcomes once the contracts end and the turnaround partners — and their often highly-paid teachers — leave the schools back in the districts' hands. In one instance, a West Texas school that hired Third Future Schools saw its test scores decrease after their contract ended. In a situation with a district in Southeast Texas, Third Future’s contract ended early after a dispute over payment. "Status quo is not an option — [districts] have proven they have not been successful," said former Dallas ISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who now works as an education consultant. "I think it’s an interesting experiment, but it’s got to stand the test of time." No matter the outcome, the reality for districts choosing to contract with turnaround partners is the same: They lose local control of select schools and send hundreds of thousands of public education dollars to third-party entities.

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State Stories

‘Horrible injustices’: Four men previously accused of Austin yogurt shop murders expected to be formally cleared

After spending decades of their lives wrongly accused of one of Austin’s most infamous crimes, four men previously believed to have killed four teenage girls at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop on Anderson Lane in 1991 will finally see their names cleared. On Thursday morning, prosecutors will ask a Travis County judge to formally clear Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn and Maurice Pierce. The hearing follows a major breakthrough in the case last fall, when Austin Police revealed ballistic and DNA evidence pointed instead to a known-serial killer, Robert Brashers, as the person responsible. APD cold case detective Dan Jackson said evidence shows Brashers, who has since died, acted alone.

The hearing is expected to spotlight the failures of the justice system in this case, with remarks from Travis County prosecutors, as well as at least two of the men — Welborn and Scott — and their attorneys. According to a news release from the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, Springsteen’s attorney, the executive director of the Innocence Project of Texas, which is representing the late Maurice Pierce, and Det. Jackson will also play a role. The gruesome crime has captured the attention of people across the country, since the bodies of the four girls — Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Sarah Harbison and Jennifer Harbison — were found with gunshot wounds and recovered from the burned wreckage of the yogurt shop. In the days and years that followed, police arrested Pierce, Welborn, Scott, and Springsteen in connection with the case. Scott and Springsteen were tried and convicted in the early 2000s, leaving Scott facing a life sentence and Springsteen on death row. During their trials, they both claimed the way police questioned them prompted them to deliver false confessions. Authorities have said no forensic evidence tied them to the crime, and an appeals court eventually overturned their cases on a constitutional violation related to their statements being the primary form of evidence against them.

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U.S. Sen. John Cornyn warns of a blue Texas if AG Ken Paxton wins Senate primary

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican trying to keep his seat in a heated primary election, warned of a blue Texas if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wins the March 3 race. Early voting started Tuesday, and U.S. Senate candidates are sweeping through North Texas as they try to turn out voters. A few dozen people gathered at the Fort Worth Police Association on Wednesday afternoon to hear from Cornyn, whose leading Republican primary opponents include Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Houston Republican. “It makes a difference who is at the top of the ballot, because if Ken Paxton is the nominee, we could well experience a massacre and the first Democrat elected since 1994 in the state of Texas,” Cornyn said.

Democratic Senate primary candidates include Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas Democrat, and state Rep. James Talarico, who represents the Austin area. Tarrant County recently saw a historically Republican state Senate seat won by a Democrat in a special election runoff. On the first day of early voting, the number of Democratic primary voters surpassed GOP primary voters. “I think Democrats are energized,” Cornyn told reporters at the campaign event, adding, that “they’ve got full blown Trump derangement syndrome” and an active base that turns out to vote. He encouraged Republicans to turn out and vote. The Senate candidates have exchanged barbs on the campaign trail, and Cornyn spent part of his time in Fort Worth working to distinguish himself from the embattled Texas attorney general. Cornyn boasted about trust and relationships he’s built during his more than two decades in Washington.

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Messy House primary in Texas becomes proxy war in broader Democratic identity fight

Tejano music star Bobby Pulido is a favorite of national Democrats this cycle, as he mounts an uphill battle to flip a deep-red Rio Grande Valley House seat that President Donald Trump won by 18 points in 2024. But before he can take on Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) in the state’s 15th District, he must navigate the politics of a messy primary with emergency room doctor Ada Cuellar in a race that has turned increasingly personal — and mirrors the fight up the ticket for one of the state’s Senate seats. The primary has emerged as somewhat of a proxy war in the high-profile Senate primary between Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who has backed Cuellar, and state Rep. James Talarico, who supports Pulido.

Both contests have become emblematic of larger divides facing a party that is still going through growing pains after across-the-board losses to Republicans in 2024. Pulido is running a race geared toward a general election with a Republican-leaning electorate. In an interview, he said he is “not trying to run a primary race,” but rather a “general campaign.” Cuellar, meanwhile, argues Pulido’s vision for the future of the party is out of touch with what’s on the ground. Cuellar herself is facing a tough path to even reach November. Pulido’s name ID alone may be enough to get him through to the general. Even still, she has mounted repeated attacks on Pulido across the airwaves, arguing he is too conservative of a Democrat. A few of them have landed. Pulido’s campaign has apologized for a past misogynistic comment directed toward Hillary Clinton. His opponents have also focused on past remarks in which he said he doesn’t live in Texas full time and used his friendship with a local judge to get out of a speeding ticket.

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University of North Texas warns of budget cuts amid $45 million deficit

A big reason for a UNT budget deficit might surprise you. The president of the university pointed to issues with visas and politics involving international students. The University of North Texas is now projecting a $45 million deficit, about $14 million larger than projected and a major factor the university president is pointing to is a sharp decline in one category of master’s degree students. These students typically pay much more in tuition and fees than their in-state counterparts.

In his letter to staff, UNT President Harrison Keller called the deficit structural and not temporary, saying that the university will now have to make some hard decisions to stabilize its finances and warned of budget cuts that will be felt across the university. "Nobody could have envisioned what was going to be happening in international student enrollments," said Keller. "A significant number of those master's students, particularly in some fields, data science, computer science, were international master's students." "That has a significant impact on our budget, on our budget forecast," said Keller. According to the university, it grew rapidly over the last decade in part because of those students. But now shifts in federal immigration policies have made it harder for many international students to enroll and stay in the United States. In January, the state department said it had revoked 8 thousand student visas as part of its mission to "Keep America safe." According to data released by the national student clearinghouse research center, there were almost ten thousand fewer foreign students enrolling at the graduate level in Fall of 2025. "When I talk to colleagues across the state, this is part of a larger trend that we're seeing," said Keller.

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Outgoing Bexar County DA backs 4 candidates in crowded Democratic primary

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales picked four candidates he thinks are suited to be his successor ahead of March’s primary election. Gonzales, a Democrat who announced in June that he would not seek a third term, said he would likely endorse one of four candidates in a crowded field to replace him. Three of them already work in his office. He said his endorsement would come during a potential run-off or general election in November. “The ideal candidate to take over should be somebody who's done this job before, who's been a prosecutor,” Gonzales said. “It's important that the voters know that this is not the kind of job that one should have on-the-job training.”

In an interview with the Express-News, Gonzales said his top picks are his juvenile division chief Jane Davis, his family violence chief Melli Powers and prosecutor Oscar Salinas Director of Bexar County’s Managed Assigned Counsel Office Jim Bethke is also high on the list, but Gonzales says the three others have an edge over him. Since Gonzales announced he would not run for reelection, a mix of prosecutors, defense attorneys and county officials have jumped into the race for their shot at the Democratic nomination. The winner of the general election will be responsible for overseeing a county office of more than 500 employees and a budget of over $55 million. “I'm in an awkward position,” Gonzales said. “It would be unfair of me to single out one over the others; that's why I've avoided making an endorsement until the primary.” Gonzales said Davis and Powers have done a "great job" leading their respective divisions and have decades of prosecutorial experience. He said Salinas has "a lot of energy and would do well" in the DA role. He then said Bethke has the administrative experience necessary for the job.

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Bexar County moves voter registration vendors for 2026 midterm

Forced to choose between a new paid voter registration system or a free state program that’s been faulty, Bexar County Commissioners voted Tuesday to move to a new private vendor for the 2026 midterm election. The contract totals roughly $2 million for a voter registration and elections management system software package. Like other large counties, the Bexar County Elections Department was thrust into chaos last summer when its longtime voter registration vendor, Votec, went under. They had to quickly onboard to a free state system, known as TEAM, at the same time that system was undergoing a massive update. The result was a massive backlog of voter registrations that the county had to hire temporary staff to manually enter in the days before early voting for the state’s November constitutional amendment election.

A similar backlog occurred in the lead up to the March 3 primary and was also resolved in the nick of time. However, voter registration cards — one of the many forms of identification people can use when they go to vote — have still not been delivered due to the delay. Under pressure to resolve the issues, this week county leaders forewent the traditional request for qualifications process to purchase services from a new vendor, VR Systems. VR Systems is now the vendor of choice for a number of other large Texas urban centers, including Tarrant, Denton, Collin and El Paso counties. One of its executives even attended a January meeting of the Commissioners Court to complain that Bexar County was causing unnecessary delays in the contracting process. But county leaders said they were being extra cautious to ensure that VR Systems would truly provide better services than the free state system once the TEAM System update is fully functional.

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School board rejection of prayer in schools grows

Trustees from a handful of Tarrant County districts recently voted not to create a daily period for voluntary prayer in public school classrooms stressing that students already have religious rights. Lake Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, Mansfield and Castleberry join a growing list of Texas districts declining the option in a vote a new state law requires of every Texas public school board by March 1. So far two area districts — Keller and Aledo — adopted the prayer period. A new Texas law requires trustees to take a recorded vote in a public meeting on whether to establish the designated prayer period in public schools. If districts adopt the period, they must set aside time during the school day for students to pray or read religious texts in segregated spaces. Parents would have to consent and waive their right to sue over constitutional claims related to the policy.

On Feb. 16, Lake Worth trustees unanimously rejected the prayer period after administrators explained how students already have broad rights to religious expression under existing law and district policy. “Our students do have the right to have self-expression,” said Sylonda Burns, executive director of campus leadership and school improvement. Students may pray individually or in groups before, during or after school and may read religious texts on campus — practices allowed under federal and state law, Burns noted. It would also cause logistical issues, she said. “So just like you have eight periods a day, now you would have like 8.5,” Burns said, describing the scheduling impact. Trustees said they received no complaints about current practices and that religious expression has long been accommodated on campuses. “Prayer has never been taken away from this district,” trustee Cindy Burt said. “We’ve always let students do what they believe.” The next night, Mansfield ISD trustees unanimously rejected the separate period as well. The vote came under the consent agenda, which allows elected officials to vote on multiple items in a single vote without discussion.

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Houston anti-fascist group responds to Paxton suit alleging ‘violent terrorism’

A Houston-based anti-fascist organization denied allegations that it violated Texas law after Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he was suing the group over claims it incited "violent terrorism." On Feb. 6, Paxton said he was launching an investigation into the Screwston Anti-Fascist Committee to determine whether the group engaged in unlawful activity, including terrorism and "doxxing," or the act of publishing a person's personal information to encourage harassment or violence. He said the group was self-admittedly associated with Antifa, which was designated as a terrorist group by President Donald Trump in September.

In a statement posted to its website on Wednesday, the organization said it was being targeted by the attorney general and called the lawsuit a "blatant act of intimidation." "This assertion of authority should concern everyone in Texas and beyond," the statement read. "He has used this tool against any perceived 'enemy' of his agenda, including organizations that provide valuable and fully legal services to marginalized groups across the state. We fully condemn this cynical erosion of rights to score political clout." Paxton claimed that merchandise sold by the group "promotes the death" of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and encourages "violence by mentally ill 'transgender' individuals."

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Can labor candidates help Texas Dems win back power?

After pulling off an upset special election win for the solid-red Tarrant County Senate District 9 in late January, Democrat Taylor Rehmet told his cheering supporters at the Nickel City bar in Fort Worth: “This win goes to everyday working people.” The local Machinists’ union president beat his right-wing Republican opponent Leigh Wambsganss by 15 percentage points in a district Trump had won by 17 just two years ago. Wambsganss had raised 10 times the amount Rehmet raised for his campaign. Democrats have been looking for a path forward since facing devastating losses two years ago—including by redoubling their efforts to shore up support among working-class voters. Rehmet’s stunning victory has not just energized the Democratic Party heading into the 2026 midterms; it’s seen as proof of concept for an upstart slate of candidates who have come from the ranks of organized labor to run for office and, ideally, shake up the status quo of Democratic politics in Texas. “People are tired of the same old politics,” Leonard Aguilar, the new president of the Texas AFL-CIO, told the Texas Observer in an interview in early February.

The state labor federation announced its 2026 primary election endorsements in January. “The working people of Texas are looking for somebody that is actually going through what they are, who can understand what their kitchen table issues are and make sure they have somebody that fights on their behalf. That’s what Taylor and the other labor candidates are about.” Take, for instance, Marcos Vélez, a Gulf Coast region labor leader-turned-upstart candidate for lieutenant governor, who made some waves when the Texas AFL-CIO endorsed him last month over four-term Austin state Representative Vikki Goodwin. These days, Vélez’s day job as the assistant director of the United Steel Workers District 13—which covers the union’s workers in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico—starts before dawn and goes until the afternoon when he begins campaigning for lieutenant governor for the rest of the evening and weekends. “You have working people all over the state of Texas that work 16- to 18-hour-days, and they can barely keep food on the table. So I’m not going to complain, because I’m very blessed for the job that I have, and it’s going to take long hours to get this done for the people of Texas,” Vélez told the Observer at his Steelworkers union hall in Webster.

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Former Harris County Tax Office workers accused of taking bribes to skip vehicle inspections

Two former Harris County Tax Office employees and the owners of a local vehicle title-service company have been charged with engaging in organized criminal activity after investigators uncovered a bribery scheme in which vehicle registrations and title transfers were processed without required inspections, proof of insurance and other legal requirements. Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen said the case strikes at the heart of public trust. "This involves public corruption by those who violated the people's trust in government and abused their positions to line their own pockets," he said. "This scheme was brazen, and the schemers will now face justice."

The four defendants charged are former tax office employees Renisha T. Wilkins, 35, and Sarah A. Anderson, 31, along with Oswaldo Perez, 51, and Adriana De La Rosa, 43, the owners of Bella's Multiservices, a South Houston vehicle title-service company. Wilkins, Anderson and De La Rosa have been arrested. Perez, who also goes by Osvaldo, remains a fugitive. Each defendant faces two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity, first-degree felonies each punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Detectives with Constable Precinct One's Special Investigations Unit conducted a two-year investigation into the scheme, which ran from at least November 2023 to April 2024, according to investigators. The two tax office employees were fired in April 2024. According to court records, Bella's Multiservices used TikTok and Facebook to advertise its ability to quickly process vehicle paperwork without the "BS" of meeting standard requirements. The company's owners paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to the two tax office employees in exchange for processing vehicle registrations and title transfers without valid proof of insurance, emissions testing, inspections and residency requirements. The employees also changed vehicle owner information to reflect Harris County addresses and ZIP codes to push through fraudulent transactions. The scheme was actually uncovered by officials at another Texas county tax office who spotted the TikTok advertisements. Those officials alerted state authorities, who then contacted the Special Investigations Unit at the Harris County Tax Office. Rosen credited the tax office for its role in bringing the case together.

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Head of Border Patrol union will be John Cornyn’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union

Sen. John Cornyn has named Border Patrol union chief Paul Perez as his guest at Tuesday’s State of the Union address, a pick heavy with political implications as Cornyn fights for survival in the March 3 GOP primary. The union has endorsed Cornyn’s reelection bid, with Perez joining him at campaign events to show appreciation for his work on border-related legislation. Cornyn highlighted Perez’s role in providing his union members with needed resources to secure the border. “I’m proud to welcome him to President Trump’s State of the Union address next week as my guest and look forward to continuing our work together to bolster border security, counter the disgraceful demonization of law enforcement by the Left, and keep Americans safe,” Cornyn said in a news release.

In a statement, Perez called Cornyn a strong advocate for the Border Patrol union and of Trump’s policies. “Our mission couldn’t be accomplished without Senator Cornyn’s leadership,” Perez said. Cornyn is facing Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston in the March 3 primary. Each member of Congress typically receives a guest seat in the House gallery for the president’s big speech. Some choose to hand the coveted ticket to a spouse, another family member or friend. Many go with guests intended to deliver a political message. Presidents from both parties have followed a similar course, filling the first lady’s section of the gallery with guests who illustrate key points in their speeches. In the Texas campaign, immigration and border policies remain potent among Republican voters, even as border crossings fall and the emphasis shifts to interior enforcement. Paxton and Hunt have attacked Cornyn as resistant to Trump on immigration, pointing to his past skepticism of building a “giant wall between the United States and Mexico from sea to shining sea.”

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Federal lawsuit claims Texas motels ignored signs of sex trafficking

A sex trafficking survivor filed a lawsuit in Lubbock’s federal court against the Lubbock and Amarillo Red Roof Inn and its owners, alleging they knowingly benefited from sex trafficking on their hotel premises. The victim, Jane Doe, said she was trafficked between 2013 and 2018 by two men, according to court records. Court records said Doe’s traffickers used several methods to control her, including forcibly injecting her with heroin. According to federal court documents, the traffickers repeatedly used the Red Roof Inn locations in Lubbock (now the Regency Inn) and Amarillo. The lawsuit claimed the hotels were chosen because their staff regularly ignored “obvious and pervasive” signs of ongoing trafficking.

The petition, which was originally filed in Lubbock County and removed to federal court, outlined dozens of “red flags” for trafficking that should have been noticed. Some red flags included paying with cash or prepaid cards, high volumes of men at rooms at unusual times and guests arriving with few possessions for extended stays. The lawsuit alleged that staff commented and acknowledged the illicit behavior but took no action. “The organizations who developed these red flags then educated and trained the hotel industry about them,” court documents stated. “For example, the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign initiative issued specific guidance to the United States hotel industry through a Hospitality Toolkit describing human trafficking warning signs that could be detected by various categories of hotel staff.” In one instance at the Amarillo motel, the lawsuit said a hotel employee believed to be a manager told the traffickers that he “knew what was going on and should call the police.” Court records said despite this, the manager did not contact law enforcement and allowed the group to keep renting rooms.

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National Stories

Nation's only unsalaried legislature asks New Mexico voters to reconsider its volunteer status

Members of the country’s only unsalaried legislature are asking voters to reconsider their volunteer status that has endured for 114 years since statehood in New Mexico. The state Senate on Tuesday night narrowly endorsed a constitutional amendment that would do away with the state’s prohibition on legislative direct compensation. That allows voters to decide in November whether to tie legislative salaries to the median income level in New Mexico — about $67,000 currently. After stalling for years, the initiative was promoted successfully this time by a group of young female legislators who have talked about the challenges of balancing work, family and legislative duties.

“Can working parents juggle child care, a mortgage and legislative service? Some of us do, but it’s not sustainable,” said Democratic state Sen. Angel Charley of Acoma, a sponsor of the measure. “When service requires personal wealth or extraordinary sacrifice, representation narrows. ... Democracy shrinks.” New Mexico taxpayers already foot the bill for travel expenses, and an allowance for meals and lodging, when the Legislature is in session. Many lawmakers also have access to public pension benefits. New Mexico’s “citizen legislature” of volunteer politicians has long been a source of civic pride in the state. But advocates for professionalizing the New Mexico Legislature say the current system discourages young, working-class candidates from serving and can inhibit progress on complex policy issues as legislators juggle separate paid and political careers. In New York and California, legislative salaries exceed $100,000, while New Hampshire opts for a nominal $100 annually per lawmaker.

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Gorsuch’s ‘told you so’ moment on Trump’s tariffs

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is having an ‘I told you so’ moment when it comes to President Trump’s tariffs. At November’s blockbuster arguments, Gorsuch raised alarm about what he called a “one-way ratchet” of authority from Congress to the president if Trump wins a case that challenges his use of emergency powers to impose duties on a host of countries. “It’s going to be veto-proof,” Gorsuch warned of Trump’s declared emergencies. “What president’s ever going to give that power back? A pretty rare president. So how should that inform our view?” Gorsuch’s concern is now in the limelight as the justices prepare to return to the bench to issue opinions on three separate days between now and next Wednesday.

Last week, Trump saw one of the first major pushbacks from Congress on the matter, when six House Republicans joined Democrats in voting 219-211 to repeal Trump’s Canada tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). That measure now heads to the Senate, where four Republicans joined Democrats last year on a similar effort. The new vote only needs a simple majority. But even if it gets to Trump’s desk, the revolt is largely symbolic. The bipartisan support for repealing the tariffs falls far short of the two-thirds majority needed in both the House and Senate to override an expected veto. Gorsuch saw it coming — and he wasn’t the only Trump-nominated justice to read the tea leaves back at November’s arguments. “Let’s say that we adopt your interpretation of the statute,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett told the government. “If Congress said, ‘Whoa, we don’t like that, that gives a president too much authority under IEEPA,’ it’s going to have a very hard time pulling the tariff power out of IEEPA, correct?” Congress can amend IEEPA at any time to make clear whether the 1977 law does, or does not, authorize Trump’s tariffs. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has expressed no appetite for doing so, leaving the nine justices to parse the nearly half-century-old phrasing that has left global financial markets in suspense for months.

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Billionaires’ low taxes are becoming a problem for the economy

California’s plan to hit its richest residents with a one-off wealth tax is a long shot, and its design has problems. But a look at who picks up the tab when billionaires scrimp on taxes, and how wealth concentration is affecting the wider economy, shows why the issue isn’t going away. The risk is that the U.S. economy becomes increasingly dependent on a narrow group of very rich households, whose spending is tied to the performance of the stock market. This could mean the entire economy pays a steep price in the next market correction. California has the highest concentration of billionaires in the U.S. with 255 individuals, or slightly more than a fifth of the country’s billionaire population, data from wealth-intelligence firm Altrata shows. Federal cuts to the state’s Medicaid program will leave its health system short of billions of dollars. A California healthcare union wants an emergency, one-time 5% levy on the wealth of any resident worth over $1 billion to plug the hole.

The proposal still needs to get enough signatures to qualify for a ballot in November, and a majority of voters would then need to approve it. Problems are already appearing with its design. The levy will be calculated based on whichever is the higher of a billionaire’s voting interest or economic interest in a company. The Tax Foundation says this could hurt tech founders, whose supervoting shares can be many multiples of their economic interest, resulting in outsize tax bills. Wealth taxes are hard to administer, and the ultrarich can simply leave if they don’t like where a state’s tax policies are headed. Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently left California. Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel says he might follow. Worries about California’s billionaires leaving and taking jobs with them may be enough to turn voters against the initiative. But debate about how much tax billionaires pay is likely to grow as America’s fiscal situation deteriorates and its wealth gap widens. Data from the Federal Reserve shows that only the richest 1% of households have grown their share of overall U.S. wealth since 1990. Their share hit a record 32% in the third quarter of 2025, equivalent to $54.8 trillion.

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DOT wants to block transit money to states that aid migrants

The Trump administration is pushing a legal change that could block states, cities and towns from offering free transportation to unauthorized immigrants, according to a proposal obtained by POLITICO — the latest in a series of Trump administration moves that seek to encroach on local transportation decisions. The draft law from the Department of Transportation would prohibit state and local governments from using federal transit money to help migrants elude federal immigration enforcement. But the proposed language could encompass a much broader range of activity, such as any free transportation to migrants, said a person familiar with the plan who was granted anonymity to discuss an internal matter. Such services have typically arisen in Democratic-run cities and states.

The proposal would ensure that “systems that receive Federal funds are not using them to circumvent or break Federal immigration law,” the text reads. It would cover all federal programs the Federal Transit Administration administers, including buses, subways, light rail and ferries. The plan is part of a package of measures — including prohibiting speed cameras in Washington and restricting funding for free buses — that DOT and the White House are considering for inclusion in the surface transportation reauthorization bill that Congress is supposed to approve this year. The current law expires Sept. 30. The DOT proposal takes aim at instances in which cities have provided free buses to help migrants reach resources, such as intake centers or shelters, according to a person familiar with the proposal. Many of those migrants had reached those communities after being shipped north by Republican governors during President Joe Biden’s time in office: Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas bused migrants to Democratic-run cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

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Walmart reports strong holiday growth, but earnings outlook falls short of estimates

Walmart said on Thursday that holiday-quarter sales rose nearly 6% and its quarterly earnings and revenue surpassed Wall Street’s expectations as gains in e-commerce, advertising and its third-party marketplace boosted its business. For the full current fiscal year, Walmart said it expects net sales to increase by 3.5% to 4.5% and adjusted earnings per share to range from $2.75 to $2.85. That earnings outlook fell short of Wall Street’s expectations of $2.96 per share, according to LSEG. In an interview with CNBC, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said speedy deliveries from stores are helping Walmart attract more shoppers, particularly those with higher incomes. “Our ability to serve customers at the scale that we have, combined with the speed that we now have, is really translating into continued market share gains,” he said. “Those market share gains are occurring across all income cohorts, but consistent with last quarter, the last few quarters, most notably in the upper-income segment.”

Rainey also said consumer price increases from inflation and President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes should ease in the coming months. Food inflation at Walmart in the fourth quarter was just above 1%, while it was slightly higher for general merchandise, he said. “It seems to be a little bit more of a normalized price environment,” he said. “I think we have, largely as a retail industry, absorbed or seen the brunt of the impact from tariffs.” Here is what the big-box retailer reported for the fiscal fourth quarter compared with Wall Street’s estimates, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG: Earnings per share at 74 cents adjusted vs. 73 cents expected with revenue at $190.66 billion vs. $190.43 billion expected The results also show an inflection point in the industry. For the first time, Amazon topped Walmart as the largest retailer by annual revenue, as the company posted $716.9 billion in sales for its most recent fiscal year compared with $713.2 billion for Walmart.

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How a recent shift in DNA sleuthing might help investigators in the Nancy Guthrie case

Investigators in Arizona are hoping that DNA found in and around Nancy Guthrie's house in Tucson could lead them to a suspect — and the missing woman. Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on Jan. 31. So far, a key tool — the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a federal database of genetic records mainly taken from people suspected or convicted of crimes — has not returned a match for samples that have been tested, according to the Pima County Sheriff's Department. But in cases where CODIS can't help, other DNA tools are available. "Investigators are currently looking into additional investigative genetic genealogy options for DNA evidence to check for matches," the sheriff's department said on Tuesday.

An important option is forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG), which incorporates public genealogy websites with DNA analysis. It has cracked high-profile cold cases such as the Golden State Killer attacks — prompting the National District Attorneys Association to proclaim in late 2023 that FIGG was ushering in a "new era in crime solving." That same year, FIGG helped solve a notable case. "The most obvious one that was recently used was the Bryan Kohberger case in Idaho, where he killed four college students," says Kathleen Corrado, executive director of the Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute at Syracuse University. That case, she says, showed FIGG "can be used in active investigations." Now that includes Nancy Guthrie's case. Here's a brief guide to FIGG and other DNA investigative tools that authorities could use as they continue the search for the missing woman:

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Lead Stories

Paxton surviving cash dump in Texas Senate primary

The GOP establishment spent more than $60 million to kneecap Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign. It didn’t work. Over the last six months, D.C. Republicans unleashed a tidal wave of TV ads boosting Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Those ads reminded Lone Star State voters about Paxton’s messy divorce, controversial impeachment proceedings and a slew of corruption scandals involving the longtime pol. But Paxton is entering the final weeks ahead of the March 3 Senate GOP primary just as he began it — the front-runner. And Paxton is convinced that he’s going to end Cornyn’s Senate career soon.

“My numbers look as good as they ever have. This is going to be a good race for me,” Paxton told us this week after an early voting kickoff event. “Now, John Cornyn’s at risk of finishing third. He may finish third. That’s where he’s at. He is in serious trouble of not even making a runoff.” Here’s the crazy part: Paxton didn’t air TV ads of his own until mid-February. He held just a few public campaign events and barely responded to the pro-Cornyn onslaught. “I don’t want to give their attacks dignity,” Paxton said. Cornyn’s fundraising dwarfs Paxton’s. YetPaxton enters any runoff in the pole position because those faceoffs draw the kind of smaller, more conservative electorate in which he thrives. Senate Republicans have been sounding the alarm for months that Paxton can’t win a general election. Senate GOP leaders say the reasons Paxton is so beloved by the far-right — his hardline conservatism — make him uniquely vulnerable against a Democratic opponent in the fall.

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Hunt files police report against Cornyn campaign staffer over alleged family 'doxxing' incident

Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Texas, filed a police report on Tuesday after a senior campaign staffer for one of his GOP opponents posted a 2016 provisional ballot that included personal information about Hunt and his family. The document included the last four digits of Hunt's Social Security number, his driver's license ID number and a home address. Matt Mackowiak, who serves as the communications director for Sen. John Cornyn's re-election campaign for U.S. Senate, posted the unredacted documents on his X account last Friday. Cornyn's campaign account then reposted the now-deleted images. Sources from the Hunt campaign told Fox News Digital that when asked by a law enforcement officer if he would like to press charges, Hunt said yes.

Harris County Constable Mark Herman's office confirmed a report had been filed. A source from the Hunt campaign told Fox News Digital that law enforcement officials intend to subpoena X to retrieve the deleted post which showed Hunt's personal information. Hunt accused Mackowiak and the Cornyn campaign of "doxxing" his family in a statement to Fox News Digital. "The tragic situation involving Savannah Guthrie is a painful reminder of how vulnerable our family truly is," Hunt told Fox News Digital. "They should never be put in harm's way. And yet, that's exactly what happened to my family." "Despite knowing how dangerous and irresponsible it is to doxx someone’s family, the Cornyn campaign did it to mine," Hunt added. "What happened to my family members should never happen to anyone." Hunt also said Cornyn had not reached out since the post was published.

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Tony Gonzales had affair with aide who set herself on fire, ex-staffer says

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales engaged in a romantic relationship with an aide who died last year by setting herself on fire outside her Uvalde home, according to a text message and people close to the aide and her family. A former staffer in Gonzales' district office who worked closely with the aide, Regina Ann "Regi" Santos-Aviles, said she told him they had an affair in 2024, and that she spiraled into a depression after her husband discovered the relationship and Gonzales abruptly cut her off. He also shared with the San Antonio Express-News a screenshot of a text message from Santos-Aviles in which she acknowledged having an “affair with our boss.”

The staffer, who asked not to be named, citing a fear of retaliation, faulted Gonzales' office for failing to intervene, saying he warned the congressman's district director months before Santos-Aviles' death that he was concerned about her well-being. He described her as his “best friend” and said their families knew each other. Gonzales, a Republican representing Texas' 23rd Congressional District, is currently seeking reelection in a contested primary. He and his staff did not respond to a list of detailed questions submitted by the Express-News. A lawyer for Santos-Aviles' husband said her romantic relationship with the congressman was an open secret, and that he does not believe it played a role in her death. Authorities have said there was no evidence of foul play in Santos-Aviles’ death. Both she and Gonzales were married to other people at the time of the alleged affair. Santos-Aviles, 35, was Gonzales’ regional district director in Uvalde and the mother of an 8-year-old boy. She died Sept. 14, 2025. The former staffer, 24, contemplated going public about the affair as early as November, but was afraid he would lose his job, he said. He said this week that he stopped coming to work for months after Santos-Aviles’ suicide and felt he could no longer "sell (Gonzales') message and his ideals." He resigned last month, moved to Los Angeles and now works for two local Democratic campaigns. He said he had not been paid or promised any compensation by any of Gonzales’ primary opponents.

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Trump wants the Fed to cut rates. Kevin Warsh has bigger plans.

For more than a decade, Kevin Warsh has advocated reining in the Federal Reserve’s pivotal role in the nation’s financial markets. Now, as President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Fed, he may finally get the chance to do that, aided by a Treasury secretary with the same goal. And Wall Street is obsessed with finding out what comes next — ?bracing for the possibility of extensive market disruptions. Warsh has bemoaned the Fed’s purchase of trillions of dollars in U.S. government debt and bundled mortgages after both the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic, a process that kept longer-term interest rates down to boost the economy and flooded banks with cash reserves. That policy, he says, has distorted the market and enriched Wall Street rather than ordinary Americans by propping up stocks and bonds, which are overwhelmingly owned by the wealthy.

But any effort to significantly reduce those holdings runs the risk of spiking interest rates and rattling the funding markets that underpin the financial system. So, to pull off any reform, he knows he will have to proceed with a lot of caution. “The transition to what I think is a more prudent system will take time, deliberation and an excess of communication with the public and the institutions in the banking system itself,” Warsh said last year at an event hosted by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where he is a visiting fellow. The dangers for Warsh run in multiple directions. Any turbulence that pushes up longer-term rates would clash with Trump’s goal of decreasing borrowing costs for the government and lowering mortgage rates. And Warsh will have to convince his colleagues on the Fed’s rate-setting committee to back any changes he’s proposing, which is no guarantee. Speculation about the path of future Fed policy is heating up as the president is eager to juice both the housing market and the broader economy in the run-up to the elections, with polls showing that voters are souring on his handling of pocketbook issues.

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State Stories

Rick Perry to Texas GOP: stick with John Cornyn in Senate primary

Texas Republicans risk losing clout if they dump Sen. John Cornyn for a political newcomer in Washington, former Gov. Rick Perry warned Tuesday. “A rookie can’t get that done,” Perry said, arguing that Cornyn’s seniority helped secure $11 billion for border reimbursements and gives Texas leverage that would disappear with a first-term senator. Perry joined Cornyn at a Mexican restaurant in Austin to rally supporters on the first day of early voting, underscoring the establishment muscle lining up behind the four-term senator. Cornyn faces a bitter March 3 primary against Attorney General Ken Paxton, a favorite of many grassroots conservatives and fans of President Donald Trump. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston also is running as a Trump-aligned alternative without Paxton’s baggage.

Dozens of Cornyn supporters, some proudly displaying their “I voted early” stickers, turned out to shake hands and show support. He was joined by members of the Border Patrol union, including its president, Paul Perez, who vouched for Cornyn’s work on border security. Cornyn said Texas and the country have been thriving under Republican leadership in Washington, with the border secure, crime down, the economy growing and inflation “on the run.” That progress, he said, would be at risk if Paxton tops the GOP ticket in November. “We will have an Election Day massacre,” Cornyn said. “Republicans up and down the ticket will pay the price of having an albatross like our corrupt attorney general hung around their necks.” A Paxton nomination would put the Senate seat at risk, help Democrats flip House seats and threaten Trump’s agenda, even raising the prospect of another impeachment fight, Cornyn said. All three candidates have sought to position themselves close to Trump, making heavy use of photos showing them next to the president. Cornyn rejected attacks from Paxton and Hunt that he hasn’t been supportive of the conservative movement and Trump. Cornyn pointed to his work in the Senate confirming Trump’s judicial nominees and getting the president’s tax cuts passed.

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Greg Abbott embraces 'Governor Hot Wheels' nickname in new campaign strategy

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week moved to reclaim an insulting nickname by officially changing his reelection campaign’s handle on social media platform X to “@GovHotWheels_TX.” The nickname stems from Abbott’s use of wheelchair. While some of the Republican governor’s detractors have used the insult online for years, it got widespread media attention last spring after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, drew criticism for using it to mock him during one of her public appearances. Abbott lost his ability to walk after a tree fell on him while on a jog in 1984. Although the governor’s said he’d do anything to be able to walk again, he’s faced criticism using his time a Texas Supreme Court justice and state attorney general to make it harder for Texans to win lawsuits similar to the one he filed after his injury.

Abbott reportedly received a half-million-dollar legal settlement after his injury that guarantees him a six-figure yearly income for the rest of his life. Abbott’s embrace of the “Governor Hot Wheels” nickname has been brewing for a while. The governor joked about the insult online mere days after Crockett publicly made it. And, on Valentine’s Day, his campaign account posted a virtual card signed “Governor Hot Wheels.” The rebranding comes as Abbott seeks an unprecedented fourth term in office. If he wins in November’s general election, he’ll go down as the longest-serving governor in Texas’ history. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, is the heavy favorite to emerge from the crowded Democratic primary and challenge Abbott on the ballot.

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University of Texas to vote on how race, gender can be discussed in classrooms

The University of Texas System Board of Regents will meet Wednesday during its quarterly meeting to discuss a policy that will decide how universities are allowed to teach “controversial topics” like race, gender and LGBTQ areas of study. The University of Texas System, which includes University of Texas at Arlington and UT Dallas, decided to vote on guidance on teaching such topics after the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents passed a similar ordinance late last year. Professors at A&M are now required to have their course syllabuses reviewed by department heads. Several A&M syllabuses have been rejected for including course content related to race and gender theory, the Star-Telegram previously reported.

One professor’s syllabus was rejected for including readings from Plato. Another had his class canceled just days before the spring semester for failing to submit his syllabus for review. According to the UT Board of Regents meeting agenda, university leaders believe the guidance will “foster classroom cultures of trust in which all students feel free to voice their questions and beliefs, especially when those perspectives might conflict with those of the instructor or other students.” The guidance would also prohibit professors from including course material that is not considered “relevant” to the course. “In the classroom, instructors must be careful stewards of their pedagogical responsibilities and classroom authorities and must endeavor to create a classroom culture of trust,” the ordinance reads. “Instructors must not attempt to coerce, indoctrinate, harass, or belittle students, especially in addressing controversial subjects and areas where people of good faith can hold differing convictions.”

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‘Only 8 of 31’: Texas Legislature missed most kids behavioral health recommendations, report finds

Of more than 30 recommendations a state council developed for the Texas Legislature on improving children’s behavioral health, lawmakers made progress on eight, according to a recent report. The Statewide Behavioral Health Coordinating Council released the Children’s Behavioral Health Strategic Plan in December 2024. Texans Care for Children, an advocacy organization, found that lawmakers took steps last year to partially or fully implement less than a third of the recommendations in the plan. “We know that six percent of Texas youth are entering the foster care system due to unmet mental health services or care,” said Muna Javaid, senior policy associate for child protection with Texans Care for Children.

“To avoid institutionalization or youth entering the juvenile justice system or the foster system, the more that we support and fund these community-based services, the less likely that that will be the outcome.” Javaid said one of the most concerning issues the report found was related to funding for the Youth Empowerment Services, or YES, waiver – a Medicaid program designed to help Texas “children and youth with serious mental, emotional and behavioral difficulties.” YES waiver services are meant to keep children in their homes and communities, instead of an institutional setting like a residential treatment center or inpatient facility. Among other things, the 2024 strategic plan recommended giving the Texas Health and Human Services Commission funding to increase rates for the YES waiver program and address administrative barriers. Instead, Javaid said, the legislature cut $1.3 million from the YES waiver.

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Plano offers $20M in incentives for AT&T's new billion-dollar HQ

Plano is calling AT&T, and the Collin County suburb is prepared to shell out $20 million in incentives — and a lengthy property tax rebate — to the telecom giant for its new multibillion-dollar global headquarters. The package deal represents the largest incentive package the city has offered to a private employer to date. Plano City Council members are scheduled to vote on the incentives at their Feb. 23 meeting. AT&T must spend a minimum of $1.4 billion in construction costs on the project. The firm must build a minimum of 2 million square feet of office, amenity and retail space at the site, eventually employ 10,000 full-time workers at the property and occupy the planned headquarters for 25 years, according to city documents.

The firm will also receive a 65% real property tax rebate on improvements made at the site over 25 years starting in 2030. AT&T did not comment on the proposal Tuesday afternoon. Half the grant is intended to offset the cost of redevelopment at the site. The $20 million will leave a balance of nearly $36.8 million available for future projects in the city’s economic development fund, according to city documents. AT&T must meet certain benchmarks to receive the grants and rebates. AT&T CEO John Stankey announced in early January that the Fortune 500 company would build its new home on 54 acres at 5400 Legacy Drive in Plano. The company is targeting partial occupancy at the new building as early as the second half of 2028. Dallas investment firm NexPoint owns 215 acres where AT&T plans to build its new home. The site includes the former Electronic Data Systems headquarters, H. Ross Perot Sr.’s information technology company that was founded in the 1960s. Plano Mayor John Muns and other city leaders have lauded AT&T’s move as another chapter in Plano’s success story. The corporate relocation build’s on the suburb’s long history of attracting large businesses, from Toyota Motor North America to JCPenney. “AT&T’s relocation represents a powerful reinvestment in the Legacy business district, building on an extraordinary foundation that has driven growth in Plano and our region for decades,” Muns said in a statement in January.

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Judge declares mistrial for 9 people arrested in connection with July 'ambush' of North Texas ICE facility

A federal judge declared a mistrial during jury selection in the federal case against nine people charged in connection with a July ambush on a North Texas ICE detention facility in Alvarado, and all 75 prospective jurors have been released. The ruling came after U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, who is presiding over the case, saw that defense attorney MarQuetta Clayton was wearing a T-shirt with images of protesters on it underneath her dark blazer while questioning potential jurors. Upon noticing the shirt, the judge said he would consider a mistrial in the case and would do some legal research to determine if Clayton was violating any court rules. "I'm left with no other choice," Pittman said, noting that he was unsure if the wardrobe selection was a calculated move on the part of the attorney. "I'm really surprised an attorney would do this."

According to a conversation Pittman had in open court with Clayton, her shirt featured protest images from the Civil Rights Movement, including depictions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Shirley Chisholm. Pittman ruled that the court prohibits lawyers -- or anyone else involved in the case -- from wearing clothing with political messages. "Even if it is something as admirable as civil rights or the D-Day landing," the judge said. Clayton's shirt was not the only problem the judge had with her presentation to jurors. At one point, she held up a visual aid depicting various kinds of protest and activism, from orderly to riotous, and asked jurors their thoughts on those topics. The judge stopped her and noted that she had not cleared using that visual aid with him, or the prosecutors. It was a few minutes later that he noticed her shirt and asked the potential jurors to step out of the courtroom while he addressed the lawyers about whether the jury pool was now tainted.

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High-profile endorsements help Alex Mealer, Briscoe Cain lead crowded GOP primary field in redrawn TX-9

Early voting starts Tuesday for the March 3 primary election. One of the most hotly contested races in the Houston region is in the redrawn 9th Congressional District. It stretches from east of downtown across eastern Harris County and northeast through Liberty County. Republican state lawmakers redrew the district last year to try to flip the Democratic-held seat. While the GOP primary field is crowded, two candidates have emerged as the strongest contenders: former 2022 Harris County judge candidate Alex Mealer and state Rep. Briscoe Cain. President Donald Trump may have given Mealer a big boost with primary voters when he endorsed her on his Truth Social platform Monday evening. That counters Cain’s biggest endorsement, which came from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Prior to last year’s congressional redistricting, Texas’ 9th had been a solidly Democratic district, covering southern Houston along with portions of Fort Bend and Brazoria counties. Republican state lawmakers drew U.S. Rep. Al Green, who has represented the 9th District for close to 20 years, into the 18th Congressional District. The new TX-9 was drawn to combine much of the former 29th Congressional District — another heavily Democratic district, represented by U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia — with portions of the 36th Congressional District, represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Babin. Last week, six of the nine Republican candidates for the new 9th Congressional District gathered on stage at the Dayton Community Center in Liberty County. When the candidates introduced themselves, Mealer spoke of her experience as an Army officer who defused bombs in Afghanistan. After leaving the service, she moved to Houston with her husband, a fellow West Point graduate, to take jobs in the oil and gas industry and raise a family. "When suddenly Texas didn’t feel like Texas much longer," Mealer said. "In Harris County, we had, after the Beto wave, the most progressive form of government in the entire country. So, I raised my hand to run against [Harris County Judge] Lina Hidalgo, because, quite simply, government was everywhere I didn’t want it to be.” Mealer lost that race, narrowly, and unsuccessfully contested the results. In that campaign, she argued that the government needed to get back to its core functions, such as infrastructure. She said that's still one of her top priorities as a candidate for Congress, particularly with regard to the Port of Houston.

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Federal officials say ICE won’t move into Northwest Side office building in San Antonio

The Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not moving into a Northwest Side office building, following questions about a potential federal presence at the site. A DHS spokesperson told Texas Public Radio that ICE has no plans to open a detention facility at the Landmark One building, located at 15727 Anthem Parkway near Interstate 10 and Loop 1604. “We have no new detention centers to announce at this time,” the spokesperson said in a statement to TPR. The agency declined to discuss specific office locations, citing safety concerns and saying ICE personnel have faced increased threats and assaults.

The spokesperson added that the agency is continuing to expand detention space nationwide as part of its broader enforcement efforts. “Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe,” the statement said. “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.” The owner of the Landmark One building also confirmed that ICE will not be leasing space there. The ownership group told KSAT that federal officials toured the property in recent months, but there are no lease negotiations underway. While ICE will not be moving into the Northwest Side office building, the agency has recently expanded its presence elsewhere in San Antonio. ICE earlier acquired a detention facility on the city’s East Side. Federal officials said the site would be used to hold immigrants in custody while they await immigration proceedings or removal. The expansion drew concern from immigrant advocacy groups and some local leaders, who called for greater transparency about the facility and its operations.

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Could Dallas City Hall be preserved? Discussions underway with its future in limbo

The city of Dallas' designation committee is set to discuss preservation criteria for landmarking City Hall, which — if approved by city council — could make it difficult to demolish or alter the building. A landmark designation is ultimately decided by the city council and, according to the city code, it would set certain preservation criteria on a property. Dallas City Hall is on the agenda for Wednesday's committee meeting. Landmark Commissioner Reagan Rothenberger told KERA that designation criteria would ensure preservation standards guided long-term care and repairs of a building like City Hall. After the full Landmark Commission's recommendation, Rothenberger said the ordinance approving the criteria goes to the Plan Commission and then to City Council. The landmark designation discussion is happening as the city expects to receive an updated repair cost study on City Hall.

The study is conducted by the Dallas Economic Development Corporation and AECOM, which did the initial study 10 years ago. That report is expected to be delivered to the Finance Committee next week. AECOM's study, published in 2018, looked at repair costs in 2016. The study found repairs estimated to cost nearly $19 million and replacements just under $93 million. However, it did not include water-infiltration assessments, engineering reviews, code compliance requirements, or addressing the removal of unknown hazardous materials. But nearly ten years later, City Hall repairs had a wider range. City staff said cost estimates were from $152 million to more than $300 million as of late last year. Sarah Crain, Preservation Dallas Executive Director, said she wants to see the full assessment from experts that gives a more precise look at what repairs will actually cost. Those updated repair costs, expected later this month, could impact whether the city of Dallas stays at 1500 Marilla Street or moves to a high-rise in downtown. "But, at the end of the day, if they do choose to stay in the building, then we at Preservation Dallas are committed to working with them on how we make a strategic and comprehensive maintenance plan that likely spans quite a few years," Crain said.

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Irving to consider calling off DART withdrawal election as transit agency weighs key changes

Irving officials said they’ll discuss the withdrawal election that would determine the future of Dallas Area Rapid Transit services in the city at their Feb. 26 council meeting. It comes after DART got the green light on a major funding boost from the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) Regional Transportation Council, which leads transportation policy and planning in the area. Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer and Council Member Dennis Webb expressed support for the transit system in a letter to the Regional Transportation Council. “The City of Irving believes in the value of a strong regional transit system and applauds the efforts of all stakeholders who have come together to propose a path forward that maintains our regional mobility partnership," the pair wrote.

The Irving City Council also voted unanimously to express support for a proposed DART governance model, in addition to calling for legislative action to implement it. The resolution supports reforms which would “provide no less than one vote per city and a weighted vote for cities who make up a larger portion of the DART service population.” DART and its member cities considering breaking away had a whirlwind week, as some of them may be considering calling off withdrawal elections. DART has been barreling toward a scenario where voters in up to six cities choose to leave the public transit system. Plano, Irving, Highland Park, University Park, Farmers Branch and Addison have all called elections to determine the future of DART in their cities, with leadership citing poor return on investment as a key motivation. But on Feb. 9, after potentially striking a deal with DART, the Plano City Council deferred a decision on an alternative microtransit option through Via. The next day, the agency’s Committee of the Whole voted in favor of a proposal that would alter DART's governance and funding models as an olive branch to frustrated member cities. Under the proposed model, millions of dollars in sales tax contributions would be given back to the cities over the course of multiple years. The full DART Board will hold a special meeting Feb. 20 to vote on the proposal. On Feb. 11, the Dallas City Council moved to reduce the city’s voting power on the DART board, giving up its majority.

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Two-month-old Dilley detainee Juan Nicolás rushed to hospital with bronchitis

Juan Nicolás, the 2-month-old baby detained at Dilley’s South Texas Family Residential Center, was rushed to the hospital Monday evening after a prolonged illness, according to a social media post by Univision-affiliated reporter Lidia Terrazas. The child’s mother has since confirmed that the baby has bronchitis, Terrazas reports. Despite the diagnosis, the baby has already been released from the hospital and is back in the detention facility located approximately an hour southwest of San Antonio, according to Terrazas’ video. Early Saturday morning, the baby had a health emergency in which he was choking on its own vomit and suffered respiratory issues as a result, U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro confirmed in a video shared Monday on social media.

However, the congressman added that there were no medical personnel in the family detention center in the early morning hours. Nicolás was given an aspirator to assist with his respiratory issues, Terrazas reports. However, his condition worsened again Monday evening, and he was rushed to the hospital, though at the time the reason and his condition were unknown, she added. Terrazas had to wait more than 12 hours for an update on the infant’s condition from his mother, though Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials assured her that his condition was “stable.” Though Nicolás reportedly has bronchitis, he’s already been discharged from the hospital and returned to detention in Dilley, Terrazas reports. “During my last conversation with the baby’s mom, she said that he had an episode where he was not responsive, which she described as extremely scary,” Terrazas stated in the video.

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Austin ISD can now run its special education program without state oversight

Austin ISD can now run its special education services on its own, after three years under state oversight. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath sent a letter on Tuesday to AISD Superintendent Matias Segura saying he was removing the two monitors appointed by the state to oversee AISD's special education program. The oversight began in 2023 when AISD trustees agreed for the district's special education services to undergo state monitoring after a TEA investigation found AISD was not complying with state mandates. The investigation also found a backlog of more than 600 special education evaluations that help determine if a student has a disability and create a plan to help them. The school district has 45 school days to complete an evaluation once a parent has given consent.

Additionally, the TEA had found 40 instances of the district not complying with special education requirements. The district agreed to the state oversight in 2023 to avoid a state-appointed conservator managing the district's special education department. Superintendent Matias Segura said the district has been working for almost three years along with TEA monitors to make sure the district complies with state laws. "We were charged with completing 99 tasks, with virtually zero room for failure," he said. In February of 2024, the district completed all 1,159 evaluations that were overdue from the 2022-2023 school year, but had to clear the remaining backlog. To comply with the TEA order, AISD had to have no overdue evaluations by December of 2025. Segura said the other tasks included completing more than 10,000 evaluations to make sure students with disabilities receive personalized support; establishing district-wide standards for every campus to guarantee that students have access to the same resources; hosting more than 100 family engagement sessions to ensure families feel informed; and launching a new digital management platform to help report student's services.

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Dallas attorneys target race involving controversial former judge

A group of seasoned Dallas defense attorneys have mounted an unprecedented effort to block a former misdemeanor judge’s return to the bench, saying her history of sanctions makes her unfit to serve. Etta J. Mullin, who previously presided over two Dallas County misdemeanor criminal courts, is now running in the March 3 Democratic primary for the 195th District Court against incumbent Judge Hector Garza. No Republicans filed for the seat. In a letter sent to the nearly 800 Dallas County Democratic precinct chairs, the attorneys urged support for Garza and described Mullin’s record as disqualifying for the 195th, which handles felony criminal cases. “This is not a matter of political disagreement or competing judicial philosophies,” the letter states. “It is a matter of documented judicial misconduct.”

Mullin didn’t respond to messages from The Dallas Morning News seeking comment. Attorney Bruce Anton, who helped organize the letter, said the coordinated push reflects broad concern within the defense bar. “I don’t want to see her on the bench ever again,” he said. “It’s frightening to me.” Anton, who also serves as a Democratic Party precinct chair, said that since getting the first 50 signatures, more lawyers have offered to sign. The group consists of former judges, prosecutors and presidents of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, with experience ranging from five to 56 years. Twice sanctioned by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Mullin’s record includes these findings: In 2015, the commission issued a 29-page public reprimand, the harshest sanction available, finding she repeatedly failed to show the “dignity, patience and courtesy expected of a Texas judge.” The panel cited incidents that included ordering a bailiff to handcuff a prosecutor who was eight months pregnant to a chair to prevent the woman from going to get something to eat, leaving the bench without explanation, delaying and resetting cases without cause and forcing lawyers and defendants to spend “inordinate amounts of time — hours and sometimes days — in her courtroom” on matters that could take minutes. In 2022, the commission issued a second public reprimand, citing three specific cases in which she made attorneys and defendants wait for unreasonable amounts of time, set hearings for them with little or no notice, and revoked defendants’ bonds without good reason.

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National Stories

Europeans quietly press U.S. lawmakers for clues on the midterms

On stage, top leaders at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference focused on the war in Ukraine and Europe’s changing relationship with President Trump. But in hallway chats and private meetings in stuffy hotel rooms, Europeans wanted to discuss something else: how coming U.S. elections could affect trans-Atlantic ties. At the annual gathering of national security elites in Germany, Europeans peppered their guests on the prospects of Democrats retaking one of the two houses of Congress during midterm elections this November, deeply interested in whether those results would either empower or check Trump’s assertive foreign policy. They also sought reassurances from Democrats that at least one American political party clung onto the historical alliance in the same way they did. “They are largely checking in asking, ‘We’re still good, right?’” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), one of at least six Democratic rumored presidential hopefuls who attended the Munich Security Conference this weekend.

“But it’s not just Europeans to Democrats, it’s also Democrats to Europeans.” Lawmakers, expecting to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine or Trump’s aims to acquire Greenland, found themselves also fielding detailed questions on the midterm election map, including Senate races in battleground states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska. They also asked whether domestic issues, such as the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, could cost Republicans in November and ultimately in 2028. “A lot of our conversations are bipartisan, but then when the meeting breaks up, they go, ‘So are you guys going to win? Who’s going to take the House? How’s Alaska looking?’” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), a frequent attendee of the annual conference. “I don’t think I have ever been asked as many detailed questions about the Senate map as I have this year.” Many took note that potential 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls appeared on public panels and private meetings to offer their visions for reviving trans-Atlantic relations and a global order European leaders say the U.S. has fractured—perhaps even ended. Some officials pointed to the irony of Europeans and Americans discussing the state of their rocky relationship over Valentine’s Day weekend.

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How Maryland Democrats are thwarting Wes Moore’s political ambitions

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s national political ambitions could be stymied by Democrats in his own backyard. The governor’s power play to redraw the state’s congressional lines and snare Democrats a single House seat has earned him accolades from progressive activists and party leaders in Washington, raising his profile as he weighs a 2028 presidential run. But Moore also has been outmaneuvered at times by members of own party, particularly those in the Maryland Senate where his gerrymander blitz is facing an unceremonious death. The redistricting gambit is one of the first big political tests Moore has faced that has national implications and could elevate him further within the party — or expose weaknesses as he positions himself as a counterweight to President Donald Trump.

Critics say Moore hasn’t been aggressive enough in using bare-knuckle tactics to push through his agenda. Supporters say the first-term governor is focused on redistricting because he sees it as vital to his future national ambitions. Some national Democrats question whether Moore can lead the nation if he fails to bend lawmakers in a solidly blue state with a Democratic-controlled Legislature to enact his policy priorities. POLITICO spoke to almost two dozen state and federal lawmakers and Democratic strategists for this story. David Turner, Moore’s senior adviser and communications director, said the governor spearheading Maryland’s redistricting effort is not about furthering his political career. “Anyone who thinks this is about national ambitions isn’t paying enough attention to the damage being done in 2026,” he said. “The Governor has been clear: at a time when other states are discussing mid-decade redistricting, Maryland needs to as well.”

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DHS spokeswoman who became a face of Trump deportation campaign steps down

The Department of Homeland Security’s top spokesperson is leaving the Trump administration, officials said Tuesday, a departure that comes amid falling public approval ratings for the president’s mass deportation agenda. Tricia McLaughlin, whose regular Fox News appearances made hera face of the administration’s hard-line immigration agenda, is leaving just over a year into Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem’s tenure leading the agency. The move comes after DHS and the White House have scrambled to tamp down public outrage over the killings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis last month. McLaughlin informed colleagues Tuesday of her departure. She had begun planning to leave in December but extended her stay to help the administration deal with the fallout of the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, according to people briefed on her exit. Politico first reported on McLaughlin’s departure.

Confirming McLaughlin’s decision in a post on X on Tuesday, Noem cited her “exceptional dedication, tenacity, and professionalism” and said she “has played an instrumental role in advancing our mission to secure the homeland and keep Americans safe.” In a statement, McLaughlin thanked Noem and President Donald Trump, saying she is “immensely proud of the team we built and the historic accomplishments achieved by this Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.” McLaughlin said she will be replaced by her deputy, Lauren Bis, and DHS’s public affairs team is adding Katie Zacharia, a frequent Fox News guest. Noem’s chief spokeswoman built a reputation as a fierce defender of the administration’s handling of immigration and ofthe secretary’s leadership, frequently sparring with reporters on social media and appearing on cable news programs. But her forceful pronouncements have drawn criticism from Democrats and immigrant rights groups, who point to incidents in which statements she made were later contradicted in court or in video footage recorded by witnesses.

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Uber to invest over $100 million in autonomous vehicle charging amid robotaxi push

Uber Technologies said on Wednesday it would invest more than $100 million to develop autonomous vehicle charging hubs, underscoring the ride-hailing company's latest push to scale up self-driving operations.The move includes building DC fast charging stations at its autonomous depots where Uber runs day-to-day fleet operations, and at pit stops throughout priority cities. Uber has made autonomous vehicles a key strategic priority, partnering with more than 20 firms across the world on self-driving freight, delivery and taxi services, as it races to secure market share and fight competition from companies such as Tesla .

The charging expansion will begin in the U.S. in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Dallas before moving to more cities over time.The company is also partnering with chargepoint operators in global markets to set up "utilization guarantee agreements", including with EVgo in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, Electra in Paris and Madrid, and Hubber and Ionity in London.These agreements are expected to support the rollout of hundreds of new chargers across these cities, and in places where charging is needed the most.Earlier this month, Uber backed its capital-intensive, early-stage autonomous vehicle strategy and said it was committing capital to vehicle partners to secure early supply and speed up deployments as its platform has a structural advantage. Uber currently offers robotaxis on its ride-hailing platform in four U.S. cities, as well as in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. It has partnered with robotaxi firms, including Alphabet's Waymo and China's WeRide, for autonomous vehicle fleet operations.

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Democrats plot protests for Trump’s State of the Union address

House Democrats are plotting a range of moves to broadcast their defiance of President Trump during his State of the Union address to Congress next week. Trump’s speech marks a significant flashpoint as it comes amid a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, with the White House and Democrats locked in an impasse over reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection after immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota. While some Democrats are making a quieter stand by skipping the high-profile event, others are prepared to walk out mid-speech and bring guests to underscore their arguments about the real-world impact of Trump’s policies.

“The only question for me is which of his disgusting lines prompts me to get up and leave, because at some point I will,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told Axios. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) told The Hill via text message that he’s “thinking” about protesting during Trump’s speech, though he didn’t share specifics on what exactly he’ll do. “I don’t have details to share but this President is not above (the) law, his massive corruption, unconstitutional actions, his insults to our allies and despicable acts at Epstein’s island must be protested,” he said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said in an emailed statement she will be bringing one of her constituents, “who is a small business owner of a nonprofit daycare and advocate for the Affordable Care Act,” as her guest. “With the address likely to be divisive, I believe it’s important to have a guest in the room who has the pulse of what the American people really care about: affordable childcare and healthcare for all,” she said.

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Noem's use of Coast Guard resources strains her relationship with the military branch, sources say

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s relationship with U.S. Coast Guard officials has become strained throughout her first year leading the department, according to two U.S. officials, a Coast Guard official and a former Coast Guard official. The tensions between Noem and the only branch of the U.S. military overseen by DHS stem from some early decisions she made that rankled Coast Guard officials, including a verbal directive to shift Coast Guard resources from a search-and-rescue mission to find a missing service member, the sources said. Noem’s leadership at DHS has created a specific split in the Coast Guard. Many rank-and-file members are motivated by her approach, in which she showcases their work by joining them on operations and visiting their ships. Some more senior officials, however, see that approach as taking away from the Coast Guard’s traditional missions.

The dynamic with more senior officials has only worsened in recent months as Noem oversaw a tenfold increase in the use of the Coast Guard's aircraft for immigrant deportations, which has strained its limited resources, the sources said. The increase was captured in data compiled by ICE Flight Monitor, a nonprofit group that tracks deportation flights. “It puts so much stress on the wing,” the Coast Guard official said, referring to the branch’s aviation units. Noem’s focus on meeting the Trump administration’s deportation quotas appears poised to further impact Coast Guard operations in the coming months, according to new guidance recently issued to Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento this year. Based on DHS priorities, the air station, which is among those responsible for a majority of deportation flights, has designated its first priority to be the transport of detained immigrants on its C-27 aircraft within the U.S., according to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the orders.

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Communities fight ICE detention centers, but have few tools to stop them

Outrage erupted last month when Oklahoma City residents learned of plans to convert a vacant warehouse into an immigration processing facility. Making matters worse was the secrecy of the federal government: City leaders received no communication from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement aside from a mandated disclosure related to historic preservation. Planning a major development without city input is antithetical to the in-depth, sometimes arcane permitting, planning and zoning process in Oklahoma City. Mayor David Holt, a former Republican state senator, said those land use decisions are among the most crucial of any municipal government. “For any entity to be able to open a detention center in our communities, potentially next to neighborhoods or schools, regardless of your views on immigration policy or enforcement, is very challenging, because that’s a very high-impact use, and that’s the kind of thing that we would expect to talk about,” he told Stateline.

Communities across the country are facing similar prospects as ICE undertakes a massive expansion fueled in large part by the record $45 billion approved for increased immigration detention by Congress last summer. During President Donald Trump’s second term, ICE is holding a record number of detainees — more than 70,000 as of January — across its own facilities as well as in contracted local jails and private prisons. ICE documents from last week show plans for acquiring and renovating 16 processing sites that hold up to 1,500 people each and eight detention centers that hold up to 10,000 each, for a total capacity of 92,600 beds. The agency also has plans for some 150 new leases and office expansions across the country, Wired reported. But ICE’s plans to convert industrial buildings — often warehouses — into new detention facilities have recently faced fierce opposition over humanitarian and economic concerns. From Utah to Texas to Georgia, local governments have sought to block these massive facilities. But with limited legal authority, city and state officials have turned to the court of public opinion to deter private developers and the federal government. Holt, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization representing the more than 1,400 leaders of cities with populations of 30,000 or more, said cities have little legal recourse over the ICE facilities.

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How Florida systematized its cooperation with ICE

Gaming control commissions and departments of lottery services often conjure images of slot machines, casinos and sports betting. In Florida, they are part of a patchwork system of departments and local agencies now working with the Trump administration to target undocumented immigrants across the state. Those partnerships illustrate how expansive the Trump administration wants to be in growing its ranks of immigration enforcement.More than a thousand law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have signed 287(g) agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They include wildlife and fishery departments, attorneys general offices, police departments and university public safety departments.

These partnerships allow them to take actions, such as identifying and detaining who they suspect to be undocumented immigrants, effectively serving as what ICE has called “force multiplier[s].” “They’re not leaving any stone unturned here,” Adriel Orozco, a senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit legal, research and advocacy organization, told NOTUS. “[They are] really trying to get whatever sort of law enforcement-focused components of other departments and agencies to support immigration enforcement.” It’s a matter of pride for the Trump administration. “287(g) is critical to having the enforcement we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country,” a spokesperson for ICE said in a statement to NOTUS. “We have had tremendous success when local law enforcement work with us including 40,000 arrests in Florida.”

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U.S. Air Force VIP fleet being repainted in Trump's preferred palette, sources say

The Kennedy-era paint colors on the exterior of aircraft in the U.S. Air Force presidential and VIP fleet are being replaced with a new design in President Trump's preferred palette. The new colors will appear on planes including the donated Qatari jet and two planes Boeing is converting to serve as Air Force One, sources told CBS News. Some of the blue and white aircraft are already being repainted in dark navy blue, deep red and gold as they come in for scheduled due repairs and maintenance, the officials said. The classic robin's egg blue color scheme of the current fleet dates back to the Kennedy administration. The new red, dark blue and white paint job is being required for Air Force One jets as well as others in the executive fleet, including the new 747-8i from Qatar and C-32 aircraft, an Air Force spokesperson said.

Mr. Trump in his first term rolled out a model airplane with the paint colors he wanted for Air Force One, but President Joe Biden canceled that paint design for the VC-25Bs, the Defense Department's version of the Boeing 747 airliner. The new paint requirement includes the smaller C-32 aircraft, which carry high-priority personnel such as the first lady or top cabinet officials, and serve as Air Force Two when the vice president is aboard. Contractor L3 Harris has been upgrading the Air Force Two planes at its plant in Greenville, Texas. Boeing continues to work on a new generation of Air Force One planes in a deal signed in 2018. Meanwhile, the plane donated by Qatar that the Air Force is refurbishing is expected to be ready for use as Air Force One no later than this summer. The first C-32 has been painted and is expected to be delivered to the Air Force in the next few months. The War Zone, a defense news and analysis website, reported on images of the C-32 painted in the new color scheme.

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Lead Stories

New Mexico approves probe of Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, where owner Huffines plans Christian retreat

New Mexico lawmakers on Monday passed legislation to launch what they said was the first full investigation into what happened at Zorro Ranch, where the late U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is accused of trafficking and sexually assaulting girls and women. A bipartisan committee will seek testimony from survivors of alleged sexual abuse at the ranch, located about 30 miles south of Santa Fe, the state capital. Legislators are also urging local residents to testify. The so-called truth commission, comprising four lawmakers, seeks to identify ranch guests and state officials who may have known what was going on at the 7,600-acre property, or taken part in alleged sexual abuse in its hacienda-style mansion and guest houses.

The legislation, which passed New Mexico's House of Representatives by a unanimous vote, could pose risks to any additional politicians linked to Epstein in the Democratic-run state, as well as scientists, investors and other high-profile individuals who visited the ranch. The $2.5 million investigation, which has subpoena power, aims to close gaps in New Mexico law that may have allowed Epstein to operate in the state. The committee starts work on Tuesday, and will deliver interim findings in July and a final report by year-end. "He was basically doing anything he wanted in this state without any accountability whatsoever," said New Mexico state Representative Andrea Romero, a Democrat, who co-sponsored the initiative. The new owners of the late Jeffrey Epstein’s sprawling Santa Fe County ranch revealed their plans for the property Monday — the same day they announced they would cooperate with any law enforcement investigations into potential crimes committed there. The Texas family who owns Epstein’s Zorro Ranch plans to convert it into a Christian retreat, owner Don Huffines posted on social media Monday night. “What the enemy once meant for evil, God can redeem for good,” Huffines wrote on X. That’s why he and his family renamed the property San Rafael Ranch, he wrote, “after the saint associated with physical and spiritual healing, and began plans immediately to remake it as a Christian retreat, reclaiming it for Jesus.”

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One of this century’s most important Republicans takes a beating in home state

One Republican candidate to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell introduced himself with an ad that shows a cardboard cutout of the longtime Senate majority leader in the trash. Allies for a rival hit back with ads that noted the first candidate gave McConnell money. And Daniel Cameron, the former Kentucky attorney general once considered a McConnell protégé, is now keeping his distance. “I’m my own man,” Cameron said in an interview, later suggesting McConnell donors prefer one of his opponents. The Senate primary to replace 83-year-old McConnell shows how profoundly the GOP base in his home state has soured on one of the most powerful and significant political figures in Kentucky history. McConnell drew low approval ratings for years but fended off challengers by flexing his raw clout and ability to deliver for his state.

While he at times expressed frustration or anger with President Donald Trump, McConnell used his political muscle to cement much of the president’s first-term legacy, including a 6-3 conservativemajority on the Supreme Court that has helped pave the way for an even more disruptive second term. But many in the MAGA movement still view him as the embodiment of the GOP establishment that sought to holdTrump back.Three former interns for McConnell have distanced themselves while running to succeed him, pitching themselves as “America First” Republicans in Trump’s mold. Cameron says voters don’t want a candidate who is “just bashing an old man” — a rebuke of his opponent Nate Morris, a businessman backed by national MAGA stars whose vociferous attacks on McConnell have alienated some Republicans in the state. Many operatives argued his initial assault went too far. Still, it’s clear that ambitious Republicans have diverged from the towering conservative figure, who is set to retire next year after four decades in Congress.

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Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader who sought the presidency, dies at 84

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten made him the nation’s most influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died on Tuesday. He was 84. His death was confirmed by his family in a statement, which said that Mr. Jackson “died peacefully,” but did not give a cause. Mr. Jackson was hospitalized in November for treatment of a rare and particularly severe neurodegenerative condition, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to the advocacy organization he founded, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In 2017, he announced that he had Parkinson’s disease, which in its early stages can produce similar effects on bodily movements and speech.

Mr. Jackson picked up the mantle of Dr. King after his assassination in 1968 and ran for president twice, long before Mr. Obama’s election in 2008. But he never achieved either the commanding moral stature of Dr. King or the ultimate political triumph attained by Mr. Obama. Instead, through the power of his language and his preternatural energy and ambition, he became a moral and political force in a racially ambiguous era, when Jim Crow was still a vivid memory and Black political power more an aspiration than a reality. With his gospel of seeking common ground, his pleas to “keep hope alive” and his demands for respect for those seldom accorded it, Mr. Jackson, particularly in his galvanizing speeches at the Democratic conventions in 1984 and 1988, enunciated a progressive vision that defined the soul of the Democratic Party, if not necessarily its policies, in the last decades of the 20th century. It was a vision, animated by the civil rights era, in which an inclusive coalition of people of color and others who had been at the periphery of American life would now move to the forefront and transform it. “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised,” Mr. Jackson said in the rolling cadences of the pulpit at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. “They are restless and seek relief.” His transcendent rhetoric was inseparable from an imperfect human being whose ego, instinct for self-promotion and personal failings were a source of unending irritation to many friends and admirers and targets for derision by many critics. Mr. Jackson, the writer and social commentator Stanley Crouch once said, “will be forever doomed by his determination to mythologize his life.”

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Warner reopens talks with Paramount after sweetened offer

Warner Bros. Discovery said Tuesday it will restart deal talks with Paramount, setting the stage for a potential bidding war with its preferred suitor Netflix. The move comes after Paramount PSKY 0.68%increase; green up pointing triangle last week sweetened its all-cash $77.9 billion hostile offer for all of Warner Discovery, including its cable channels CNN and TNT. Warner said Paramount has indicated it would be willing to up its offer to $31 per Warner share from $30 if Warner would agree to engage in negotiations. The price increase wasn’t part of Paramount’s latest amended tender offer for the company. Warner’s willingness to engage with Paramount is the latest stakes-raising plot twist in a monthslong takeover battle for the home of some of the entertainment industry’s most important properties and brands, including HBO, Superman and Harry Potter.

Netflix has an agreement in place to acquire Warner’s movie and TV studios and HBO Max streaming service in an all-cash deal, which is valued at $72 billion. Netflix has the right to match any offer Warner accepts from another bidder. Netflix said in a statement that it believes its offer remains superior but has granted Warner a seven-day waiver of certain obligations of their merger agreement to engage with Paramount “to fully and finally resolve this matter.” “We have the only signed, board-recommended agreement” with Warner, the streaming giant said. Warner shares were up more than 2% in premarket trading, while Paramount shares rose 3.5%. Netflix shares were flat. In its latest offer, Paramount said it would pay the $2.8 billion termination fee Warner would owe Netflix if that deal collapsed. Paramount also said it would add a “ticking fee” of 25 cents a share, which it would pay to Warner shareholders for each quarter its deal hasn’t closed, starting in January 2027. In a letter to Paramount’s board of directors reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Warner said Netflix has agreed to allow it to discuss Paramount’s latest proposal during a negotiating period that will end on Feb. 23. Warner said it is the board’s understanding that Paramount’s final offer will be higher than $31 per share. The letter said the potential higher per share price was communicated orally to a Warner board member by a senior representative on behalf of Paramount.

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State Stories

Stephen Colbert defies CBS, says network banned him from interviewing James Talarico on ‘The Late Show’

Stephen Colbert introduced the Late Show band, announced guest Jennifer Garner and then asked the audience, “You know who is not one of my guests tonight?” The CBS host then answered his own question. “That’s Texas state representative James Talarico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. “Then, I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly does not want us to talk about this…Let’s talk about this.” The Late Night host went on to explain FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s new guidance on the “equal time” rule, which requires broadcasters who feature qualified political candidates on their airwaves provide time to rivals, if requested.

Traditionally, news content has been exempted from the equal time rule and, in recent decades, stations have assumed that it has applied as well as to daytime and late-night talk shows, like The View and Jimmy Kimmel Live, which have featured presidential and other candidates, including figures like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. New FCC guidance, though, signaled to those talk shows that they no longer should believe that they would fall under the so-called “bonafide news” exemption. Carr said that a determination on whether a show is exempt would come down to a number of factors, including whether there was a “partisan motivation” in featuring a political candidate as a guest. “If you’re fake news, you’re not going to qualify for the bona fide news exemption,” said Carr. Colbert observed tonight, “It’s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel.” Carr himself mentioned the duo in his recent comments, a clip of which Colbert played. “If Kimmel or Colbert want to continue to do their programming,” said Carr, “and they don’t want to have to comply with this requirement, then they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming service and that’s fine.”

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Could a wastewater plant forever alter this suburban Fort Worth community?

Though it lies only minutes from Interstate 35, Michelle Quant’s property off FM 1187 near Burleson seems a world away from the city and its crowds. Down the hill from the plantation-style home, pecan and walnut trees surround a spring-fed pond that provides water for horses and cattle, as well as a home for catfish and bass. If you look, you can make out a nearby subdivision and some commercial buildings through the treeline, but those are about the only reminders of encroaching urban sprawl, at least for now. In April 2025, Greg Coontz, a Burleson attorney, and his sister, Cathy Frederick, a Burleson Realtor, filed an application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to allow a privately owned wastewater treatment facility to discharge treated wastewater into a normally dry creek bed that runs through Quant’s property into Village Creek, which in turn runs into Lake Arlington.

The wastewater system is meant to support a proposed mobile home community that’s slated to go on a vacant 65-acre lot directly across from Quant on the north side of FM 1187. According to TCEQ filings, the community is expected to grow from 10 mobile homes in 2027 to more than 1,100 by 2036. At its peak, the wastewater treatment facility would discharge up to 225,000 gallons per day of treated effluent into the creek that crosses Quant’s land, depositing water into her pond on its way to Village Creek. In late January, nearly a dozen nearby neighbors gathered around Quant’s dining room table and aired their concerns about what Coontz and Frederick are proposing to do. Neither Coontz nor Frederick responded to the Star-Telegram’s requests for comment, nor did the attorney they hired to oversee their TCEQ filing case. For her part, Quant doesn’t want treated effluent flowing into the pond where her livestock drinks and her family and youngsters from her church fish. When she reviewed Coontz and Frederick’s TCEQ filing, she was surprised to find that nowhere did it mention that her pond lay along the effluent path.

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South San ISD leans on Teach for America to hire certified teachers

Teach For America, a national recruiting group that places young professionals in classrooms with the most need, is growing its local footprint through way of South San Antonio Independent School District. South San and the nonprofit recently entered into a partnership to fill district vacancies for the 2026-27 school year. Under the agreement, corps members, the name for Teach For America recruits — would commit at least two years to South San ISD, and the district can hire and place up to 25 corps members in its classrooms. “This is a strategy I felt that would mitigate some of the vacancies that we’ve seen,” said Superintendent Saul Hinojosa. “It’s a great opportunity to increase our pipeline.”

South San currently has between 10-15 teaching vacancies, currently employing around 400 teachers and serving around 7,000 students. The harder to hire positions are usually for special education, bilingual education and sometimes secondary math. Even though enrollment dropped by about 350 students since last year and Hinojosa shored up South San’s recruiting efforts, certain teaching positions can be hard to fill, like special education, bilingual education and advanced math. Hinojosa took on the superintendent position last year, after the Texas Education Agency appointed him and a new board of managers to replace then-Superintendent Henry Yzaguirre and the elected school board. The takeover has prompted several shakeups and aggressive budget restructuring. In his first few months on the job, Hinojosa restructured South San’s central office to free up $3 million for sign-on bonuses and stipends for hard-to-fill teaching positions. South San ISD also has its own teaching residency program, partnering with Texas A&M University-San Antonio to train prospective teachers. Recruiting qualified teachers is still hard for most school systems.

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Houston’s World Cup host committee commits to $15 minimum wage, human trafficking mitigation in new report

The Houston host committee for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is committing to requiring vendors to provide a $15 hourly minimum wage and commit to certain anti-trafficking guidelines, under a new report unveiled Monday. FIFA requires each host city for the World Cup to share a plan for protecting human rights for the duration of the international soccer tournament. Houston's host committee calls its 40-page plan "Houston's promise that the world's most celebrated sporting event will be a catalyst for dignity and fairness." "We have a low rate of unions across the state," Minal Davis, the chief legacy officer for the Houston host committee, told Houston Public Media.

"We have a low minimum wage. Those are just two of many facets of making sure you’re promoting decent work and prohibiting certain types of exploitation. So, one of the big things that we chose to focus on is our responsible contracting policy as the mitigation for multiple workers' rights issues that came up from our local labor stakeholders." Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox. View FullscreenSkip to PDF content The Houston host committee based its criteria on the precedent established by the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, United Nations' guiding principles and FIFA's existing guidelines. In preparation, the host committee said it consulted more than 100 stakeholders and government officials to address six prioritized categories: workers' rights; inclusion and non-discrimination; safety and security; human trafficking; accessibility; and unsheltered populations. As well as the $15-per-hour minimum wage, the Houston host committee is also creating a worker support hub for employees to file complaints and find support services, among other employment resources. Much of the human rights plan focuses on labor and the prevention of trafficked labor. It also addresses sex trafficking by committing to a social media awareness related to prevention. A toolkit with information on prevention will be available later in the spring.

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Hill Country vs. South Texas: A stark turnout divide before the primary

Far apart on the Texas map, two counties delivered a stark contrast in 2024: Burnet County, a booming Hill Country enclave, led the state in voter turnout, and Maverick County on the Rio Grande, anchored by Eagle Pass, finished last. The gap wasn’t just numerical. It marked a line between an older, more affluent area tied to Austin’s growth and a borderland community where economic strain and access challenges can make voting more difficult. Now, as early voting kicks off Tuesday in the state’s March 3 primary, campaigns are counting on high-engagement counties to keep up their pace, while pushing for gains in places where participation has lagged. That matters because primaries typically draw a smaller, more motivated slice of voters. Even in the November 2024 presidential race, with a record 18.6 million Texans registered, only about 61% cast a ballot.

This time, Texans will pick Democratic and Republican nominees in contests from the U.S. Senate, House and governor to the Legislature, statewide and county offices, local courts and more. In primaries, turnout is everything, and the math shifts quickly when age, income and work patterns vary as widely as they do between counties like Burnet and Maverick, said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. “The system is set up so people with more flexibility and free time have an easier time to vote,” he said. In Burnet County, rolling, rocky hills give way to lakefront neighborhoods that have filled in as Austin pushes outward. The majority-white exurban county has grown from about 34,000 residents in 2000 to roughly 55,700 in 2024. Ahead of that presidential election, Tammy Hullum, chair of the county Republican Party, said precinct chairs relied on familiar networks. “It’s kind of like calling your neighbor and saying, ‘Hey, did you get out to vote yet?’” she said. The effort paid off. Burnet County posted a 72% turnout rate, the highest in the state, giving Republican Donald Trump 77% of its vote over Democrat Kamala Harris. Along the Rio Grande, Maverick County stretches across brush country, with Eagle Pass often thrust into national debates over immigration as a spike in unauthorized border crossings taxed local services. Overwhelmingly Latino and long a Democratic stronghold, the county has shifted sharply right in recent statewide races, backing Trump with 59% of its vote.

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Ken Paxton files another lawsuit over project once called EPIC City

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed another lawsuit in Collin County related to a planned Muslim-centric development with ties to the East Plano Islamic Center. Paxton’s office announced the lawsuit against Double R Municipal Utility District No. 2A of Hunt and Collin Counties and members affiliated with the board on Monday. The state’s top prosecutor accused the group of actions “that appear designed to evade state oversight and support the illegal East Plano Islamic Center (’EPIC’) real estate development” through improper appointments and the unlawful expansion of the district’s boundaries. The development, called The Meadow, is expected to feature more than 1,000 homes, a K-12 faith-based school, a mosque, elderly and assisted living, apartments, clinics, retail shops, a community college, and sports fields built on 402 acres in Collin and Hunt counties, roughly 40 miles northeast of downtown Dallas.

Community Capital Partners (CCP), a for-profit development group, was formed by members of the East Plano Islamic Center — one of North Texas’ largest mosques — to oversee the project. The development was previously called EPIC City. In a statement, CCP’s attorney said the filing was the “latest escalation in sustained lawfare” by Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott, who seek to politicize the project. The questions raised in the lawsuit are technical and will be resolved, the development group said. “I will not allow individuals to cheat the system to advance an illegal development and destroy beautiful Texas land,” Paxton said in a statement. “If EPIC City’s developers or operatives are attempting to illegally take over local governmental structures in North Texas, my office will do everything in our power to stop their scheme.” Municipal utility districts are authorized by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to support utilities such as water, sanitary sewer, drainage and flood control for planned residential developments within a certain area.

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Muslim group harassed while praying at Plano park

North Texas Muslim leaders are calling on public officials to speak out after a man spewing anti-Islamic slurs harassed a group praying at a park in Plano. In a video circulating on social media, a man is seen shouting “disgusting fake religion” and calling the group “wicked devils” who will “go to hell” if they do not repent, among other insults. Members of Islamic Relief at the University of Texas at Dallas were gathered at the park Sunday morning for a Barakah Breakfast, a community event focused on reflection, connection and service. The group can be heard praying while the man yells. “As Muslims, we are taught to respond to such incidents not with anger or insults, but with peace, patience, respect and dignity,” the service-based group wrote on Instagram.

Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of CAIR’s Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, asked “elected officials at every level of government” to condemn the anti-Muslim bigotry. “No one should be harassed, threatened, or intimidated for peacefully practicing their faith,” Carroll said in a statement. “The hateful rhetoric reportedly directed at these worshippers is deeply offensive and dangerous.” Muslim leaders say the Plano encounter reflects a broader and worrisome growth in anti-Islamic rhetoric among some Republican lawmakers. CAIR itself has come under attack, as well. In November, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he was designating the Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization a foreign terrorist group. Abbott accused the group of trying to “forcibly impose Sharia law,” the moral code laid out in Muslim scriptures. “These radical extremists are not welcome in our state,” Abbott said at the time. The incident in Plano has raised concerns within the local Muslim community about safely practicing their faith, CAIR said in a statement. “When public officials traffic in fearmongering and misinformation about Islam and Muslim institutions, it creates an environment in which bias incidents like this become more likely,” the organization said.

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A North Texas incumbent on the State Board of Education faces a challenger in the March primary

Two candidates are competing in the Democratic Party primary election for the State Board of Education seat that represents most of Fort Worth and Arlington. Incumbent Tiffany Clark, a DeSoto Democrat and former school counselor, is seeking her first full term on the 15-member board. Clark was elected in 2024 to complete the remainder of a term for a former member who stepped down. Challenging her is Kimberly Boswell, a Dallas ISD administrator who says the board needs more campus-level experience as it navigates politically charged education debates. In the Nov. 3 general election, the winner will face Arlington Republican April Williams Moore for the District 13 seat that includes parts of Tarrant and Dallas counties.

Clark, who has taught in Duncanville, DeSoto, Waco and Waxahachie schools, said she’s centering her campaign on transparency and advocacy. She pointed to her newsletters, youth policy summits and press conferences she said were designed to keep constituents informed about decisions made in Austin. “I’m not a politician,” Clark said. “I’m an advocate for students, and I’m an advocate for the voiceless.” Boswell, who has worked across elementary, middle and high school campuses and served as a principal, said her campaign is focused on ensuring educators have a stronger voice in policy decisions. Her nearly three decades in public education gives her insight into classroom realities that should inform decisions, she said. “We need to be in the business of educating our students so that they can be successful in society,” Boswell said. “So it’s not our job to teach them what to think, more so how to think.”

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Anti-abortion Heidi Group's suit over Texas funding cuts back in court

Nearly four years after it was filed, a federal lawsuit between the state of Texas and a group that says it was targeted by liberals in state government for its anti-abortion stance is back in court. The Heidi Group, once a force in Texas’ anti-abortion politics, was given millions in state funding to provide healthcare to low-income women through its network of clinics and crisis pregnancy centers. But the Round Rock nonprofit was dropped in 2018 for what the state said were disappointing results. It had been awarded more than $7 million to serve an estimated 70,000 women but lost funding after the state said it served only 3,300 in its first year. Heidi Group founder Carol Everett said the state's numbers ignored results at 16 of her clinics. But the Texas Health and Humans Services Commission, which administered the funding, said its numbers were correct.

Critical media coverage also dogged the group, notably from The Texas Observer. It noted that money had been clawed back from the nonprofit in 2017 and that the entire grant program showed poor performance. The Campaign for Accountability, a left-leaning government watchdog group, accused the group of mismanaging funds, questioned whether it had broken the law and called for investigations by various state, local and federal agencies. A 2019 state audit implied the group defrauded the state of more than $1.5 million. The amount of alleged fraud eventually was significantly reduced and a subsequent audit found no fraud. In 2022, four years after its funding was terminated, the Heidi Group sued, saying it had been targeted by bureaucrats in the Republican-controlled state government. It said the “swamp” of liberal Texas bureaucrats, still smarting over the state’s 2017 defunding of Planned Parenthood, saw how they could derail Everett, a prominent anti-abortion advocate, as revenge for her support of the defunding.

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Company will not sell Hutchins warehouse to ICE

After several weeks of concern over whether ICE was planning to keep upwards of 9,500 detainees in a warehouse in Hutchins, the owner of that building, Majestic Realty, says today that it is not selling to the agency. In a statement sent by a spokesperson, Marty Schechter, Majestic says: “While we were contacted about the potential sale of our building in Hutchins, Texas, Majestic Realty Co. has not and will not enter into any agreement for the purchase or lease of any building to the Department of Homeland Security for use as a detention facility. We’re grateful for the long-term relationship we have with Mayor Mario Vasquez and the City of Hutchins and look forward to continuing our work to find a buyer or lease tenant that will help drive economic growth.” Much like Hutchins, residents in cities across the country have successfully disrupted deals and persuaded property owners from selling to ICE.

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Robert Duvall's cinematic ties to Texas

Robert Duvall, who died in his sleep this week at age 95, was born in California, but had a long history with Texas, filming all or parts of over a half dozen movies in the Lone Star State and continuing to visit when not filming. Despite his Hollywood ties, Duvall was committed to telling stories from mid-America. He thanked Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash when he won his Oscar for Best Actor, and in an interview with TPR in 2015, said “a lot of people in New York don’t know what goes on beyond the South Jersey Shore. To try and show that there’s something out there besides New York and L.A., that justifies good emphasis.” Below are some excerpts from Duvall’s Texas filmography:

Tender Mercies (1983) — As Mac Sledge, a washed-up country star who finds redemption through the love of a widow and her young son in rural Texas, Duvall delivers a heartfelt performance. The movie was shot in and around Waxahachie, and Duvall’s quiet delivery, with camera focused on his face and eyes more than anything, helped him win his first and only Oscar in a career that included seven nominations. Time magazine’s Richard Corliss said of Duvall, “Duvall's aging face, a road map of dead ends and dry gulches, can accommodate rage or innocence or any ironic shade in between. As Mac he avoids both melodrama and condescension, finding climaxes in each small step toward rehabilitation, each new responsibility shouldered.” Lonesome Dove (1989) — No Hollywood studio was interested in producing Larry McMurtry’s epic novel for the big screen, so Motown Productions (!) made it into a miniseries for CBS. The result was one of the finest Westerns ever filmed. Shot in and around Del Rio, and at Alamo Ranch near Bracketville, Duvall stars as former lawman Gus McCrae, for which he was honored with a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Mini-Series of Motion Picture made for television. The New York Times said Duvall “makes a simple, sentimental creation seem complex, heroic, always human and altogether enjoyable.” Duvall was made an honorary Texas Ranger following this telefilm’s release.

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North East ISD under investigation over student anti-ICE walkouts

San Antonio’s North East Independent School District is under investigation for allegedly facilitating student protests against U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday. Paxton said his office also is investigating Dallas ISD and and Manor ISD near Austin “for facilitating and failing to keep students safe and accountable during various student protests against lawful immigration enforcement.”

In early February, Paxton launched an investigation into Austin ISD over student protests. Thousands of Texas public school students have staged walkouts in recent weeks to protest federal immigration enforcement. School district officials have said they take no part in organizing or facilitating the protests but cannot keep students on campus if they choose to leave. Paxton said in a news release that he launched the inquiries because “it appears that these ISDs have taken little to no action to ensure the safety of students and to stop large-scale interruptions of classroom instructional time.” Paxton demanded that NEISD and the other districts provide information on their policies governing how and when students can leave campus, unexcused absences and security protocols. He also asked for internal communications related to the protests.

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Austin students protest ICE on Presidents Day as Paxton investigates more school walkouts

Dozens of Austin public school students gathered downtown to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement on their Presidents Day holiday. Outside City Hall Monday, students railed against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence in Minneapolis after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the agency's recent activity in Austin. The demonstration came after students across Central Texas have walked out of schools to protest the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, prompting criticism from Texas lawmakers. Jacob Saldaña, a senior at Bowie High School, urged the crowd outside City Hall to keep demonstrating in spite of recent criticism from the state's governor and attorney general.

"Education and advocacy make a difference. What's happening around the country shapes how our friends and classmates live," Saldaña said. "The least we can do is acknowledge it, learn about it and stand by them. That is not politics; that is being human." Attorney General Ken Paxton, without evidence, accused Austin ISD of coordinating with students in a walkout late last month and opened up an investigation into the district's alleged involvement. The district has denied any collaboration, saying teachers, police and administrators were following along with students to keep them safe. AISD tweaked that policy in light of the criticism and an uptick in walkouts. Saldaña, whose family has been in Austin for nearly 140 years, said it was heartening to see students of all colors "actually take a stand" in support of Austin's Latino community. He said he hopes other students across Central Texas continue to speak out — and walk out. "We speak up for those who can't speak up with us. We speak up for those who stand with us, and we want to bring change," he said. "We want to bring good change to the world." Paxton announced on Monday he was launching investigations into three other school districts' walkouts, including one in Manor ISD. Following the rally at City Hall, the group of roughly 50 protesters marched down Congress Avenue to the Texas Capitol.

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GOP hopefuls for Texas Senate seat pledge Waco focus

The Republican primary race for Texas Senate District 22 on March 3 could be pivotal for Waco and McLennan County residents, regardless of their political affiliation. The Texas Senate is the state’s most powerful political body, but the Waco area has not had one of its own in the chamber since 2010. Incumbent State Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, is planning to step down this year after 16 years in the office, and has been nominated for a Pentagon post. Three Republican primary contenders – Jon Gimble, Rena Schroeder and state Rep. David Cook – are competing for the seat. Early voting begins Tuesday in the Republican primary, and the winner will face Democrat Amy Martinez-Salas of Arlington on Nov. 3. Historical results indicate whoever wins the GOP primary will have a decisive edge in the November general election.

The district favored Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election by 28 points. No Democrat has taken Senate District 22 since Chet Edwards ended his tenure in 1990, and Birdwell last won re-election in 2022 with more than 74% of the vote. The three GOP candidates are vying to show who can best represent Waco-area voters and deliver on local needs across the district’s 12 counties. The district includes Falls, McLennan, Hill and Bosque counties and extends to the southern edge of Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The Republican candidates are as follows: State Rep. David Cook, a former Mansfield mayor backed by big donations and an endorsement from President Donald Trump, Jon Gimble, a former McLennan County district clerk with deep Waco-area roots, and Rena Schroeder of Lott, a rancher and data center opponent running a grassroots campaign on a shoestring budget.

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Judson board approves closure of Judson Middle School amid $37M budget shortfall

The Judson ISD board of trustees unanimously approved closing Judson Middle School during a special meeting on Feb. 16, with hopes of chipping away at a $37 million budget shortfall. The school closure, which will take effect in the 2026-27 school year, will yield the district an estimated average of $2.5 million annually, said Cecilia Davis, deputy superintendent of innovation, business and operations. Closing Judson Middle will impact about 480 students who are considered “walkers,” which are students who live within a 2-mile radius and do not ride the school bus, so they could walk, bike, skateboard or carpool.

Daniel Brooks, assistant superintendent of operations, said the district currently has a shortage of buses, and the district does not know how many, if any, additional buses may be needed. “Once a decision is made, the demographer would have to go back and refine the boundaries so that we can know exactly what streets we’re talking about so we can then look at actual number of students per street as to where they’re going, then we’ll know how many buses are needed based on where they’re needing to be transported,” Brooks said. The closure will also impact 44 students in Judson Middle’s agricultural program. The program will move to Kitty Hawk so those students can continue with that pathway, Interim Superintendent Mary Duhart-Toppen said. Students in the JSTEM Academy will also move from Judson Middle to Kitty Hawk, which will cost the district about $45,000, Duhart-Toppen said.

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National Stories

Republicans are pushing DHS over ICE warehouse purchases

Republican lawmakers are dealing with tensions between local elected officials and the Trump administration over moves to transform warehouses in their districts into immigrant detention centers. Reps. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania and Paul Gosar of Arizona said they will spend their recess week meeting with leaders in their districts taken aback by the Department of Homeland Security’s purchase of three warehouses in the two states totaling $277 million. Republican lawmakers in Georgia and Mississippi, too, have been lobbying the administration to change its plans. Meuser, who served as the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania co-chair, told NOTUS he’s been speaking with DHS officials every day about local concerns that the two facilities the agency purchased in Berks County and Schuylkill County could put a strain on public infrastructure, security and jobs.

“We’re going to work it out to make it as nonnegative of an impact and, hopefully, a very positive impact on my district,” he said. DHS’s push to expand its detention footprint through warehouses, with plans to hold between 1,500 and 8,500 people in the GOP districts, has been met with local opposition. During county commission meetings, officials of the Schuylkill County township, where DHS has purchased a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse, said the sewer system can’t handle an influx of thousands of people. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania wrote that his constituents are also concerned about the economic impact; the federal government’s purchase of the two warehouses translated to a combined loss of $1.6 million in tax revenue per year for the counties, Fetterman said. “I don’t know if it’s the right location or if there’s a better location, they did all the analysis there,” Meuser said. He said he planned to visit the sites next week.

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Even Republican election officials are balking at Trump Justice Department’s voter roll crusade

As the Trump administration has sued 25 mostly Democratic state election chiefs for their voter rolls, it has also encountered quieter resistance from Republican officials who have balked at the Justice Department’s demands for confidential voter registration information. At least a half-dozen Republican-led state election offices have declined the Justice Department’s request for non-public voter data, which can include a voter’s Social Security number, driver license ID number or current residence, according to interviews, local media reporting and records obtained by CNN and by the Brennan Center, a left-leaning think tank that researches election issues. “They can have the voter rolls. They’re gonna pay for it like everybody else,” West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner told CNN last month, referring to the public list that can be purchased in his state for $500. “They’re not going to get our personal information.”

Several other Republican election administrators have provided the sensitive data but refused to sign an agreement proposed by the Trump administration that would require them to remove voters deemed ineligible by the Justice Department. In interviews with CNN about the department’s voter data quest, GOP election officials expressed concerns about the administration’s approach even though they’re aligned with the president on other matters of election security. They said the requests conflicted with state laws prohibiting the disclosure of sensitive voter information. They questioned the reasons the administration was seeking the data. And they bristled at the idea of the federal government — rather than state or local officials — leading the task of removing ineligible voters from the rolls. The Justice Department declined to comment. The voter data crusade is one of several ways the Trump administration is trying to insert itself more directly into election-related tasks carried out by states.

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Hyatt Chairman Pritzker leaves board over Epstein ties

Hyatt Hotels Chairman Thomas Pritzker said Monday that he would retire and renounced his relationship with sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. Pritzker will leave his post as the hotel chain’s executive chairman — a role he’s held for more than two decades — immediately, he said in a statement released by the Pritzker Organization. The 75-year-old billionaire Hyatt heir said he would not seek reelection to the board at the annual stockholder meeting. “My job and responsibility is to provide good stewardship. That is important to me,” Pritzker said in the statement. “Good stewardship includes ensuring a proper transition at Hyatt.” Pritzker said he has “regret” over his connection to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Epstein plead guilty to state criminal charges related to soliciting prostitution, including one charge involving a minor, in Florida in 2008. He killed himself in 2019 after being arrested for federal child sex trafficking charges. Recently released files show Pritzker and Epstein exchanged friendly emails after the disgraced financier’s 2008 plea deal. Being part of the release of thousands of documents and photos does not imply any wrongdoing. “I exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner,” Pritzker said in the statement. “I condemn the actions and the harm caused by Epstein and Maxwell and I feel deep sorrow for the pain they inflicted on their victims.” Following his retirement, Pritzker said he would focus attention on a science foundation he began. Pritzker’s announcement marks the latest in a series of high-profile resignations as more details about Epstein’s dealings become public. Former Goldman Sachs Legal Chief Kathryn Ruemmler and Paul Weiss Chair Brad Karp were both among the latest business leaders to step down from their positions. Both Ruemmler and Karp and have said they regret their connections to Epstein and that coverage of their ties were creating distractions for the companies they represented. Hyatt said its board appointed CEO Mark Hoplamazian to succeed Pritzker as chair starting immediately. Board member Richard Tuttle thanked Pritzker for his work and called him “instrumental” in determining the Chicago-based company’s strategy in a press release.

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Goldman Sachs plans to scrap DEI criteria for its board

Last year, Goldman Sachs dropped a commitment to support board diversity for clients it was taking public. Now it plans to drop diversity criteria for its own board. The Wall Street giant is preparing to remove race, gender identity, sexual orientation and other diversity factors from the criteria its board will consider when identifying potential candidates, according to people familiar with the matter. The board’s governance committee currently finds qualified candidates based primarily on four factors, one of which is a broad description of diversity, such as viewpoints, background, work and military service in addition to “other demographics” that includes a list of DEI factors. Now it plans to cross off the “other demographics” including race, gender identity, ethnicity and sexual orientation, the people said.

Goldman’s decision followed a behind-the-scenes request from the conservative activist nonprofit National Legal and Policy Center, which owns a small stake in the bank. The group submitted a proposal to the firm in September, seeking to remove the DEI criteria, the people said. The group requested its proposal be included in Goldman’s proxy statement that will be circulated to shareholders ahead of the firm’s annual shareholder meeting this spring. Goldman informed the NLPC that it plans to remove the DEI criteria, and an agreement was signed between the two parties that also includes the activist group withdrawing its proposal. Goldman’s board is expected to approve the new language this month, the people said. NLPC has argued to several companies that factoring in diversity when identifying individuals qualified to be board members raises the risk of discrimination. Goldman, like many large banks, has pulled back on DEI efforts over the past year. It retooled its diversity program, One Million Black Women, a multibillion-dollar commitment to invest in Black businesswomen and nonprofit leaders, including removing references to race. It also ended its requirement that companies in the U.S. and Western Europe have diverse boards for the bank to take them public. Goldman faced anti-DEI proposals going into last year’s proxy season but shareholders didn’t approve those changes. The DEI climate has changed radically for banks and many other companies in recent years. A turning point was President Trump’s executive order early last year directing federal departments and agencies to launch civil investigations into DEI programs at companies.

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Anderson Cooper leaving '60 Minutes' in latest CBS News shakeup

Anderson Cooper is leaving CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program after nearly two decades, in the latest staffing shake-up to hit the storied news magazine and network. Cooper has been a “60 Minutes” correspondent through a deal between Paramount Skydance-owned CBS News and Warner Bros. Discovery’s CNN since the 2006-2007 season, according to his page on the CBS News website. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time,” Cooper said in a statement Monday. Cooper is the latest high-profile journalist to depart CBS News since the arrival of Bari Weiss as the network’s new editor-in-chief in October following Paramount Skydance’s purchase of her outlet The Free Press.

Weiss unveiled her strategy in January, saying she would add 19 new contributors and focus on bringing a “streaming mentality” to the network, which has consistently trailed in ratings to rivals ABC and NBC. She is trying to revive the third-placed broadcast news network, which has been losing viewers in the age of social media and online information. In a statement, CBS thanked Cooper for his contributions and said the door is open if he ever wants to return. “For more than two decades, Anderson Cooper has taken 60 Minutes viewers on journeys to faraway places, told us unforgettable stories, reported consequential investigations and interviewed many prominent figures," the network said. "We’re grateful to him for dedicating so much of his life to this broadcast, and understand the importance of spending more time with family. 60 Minutes will be here if he ever wants to return.” Weiss had expressed interest in bringing Cooper to CBS News on a full-time basis, including the possibility of him anchoring the CBS Evening News program, according to a Puck news report, citing sources familiar with the situation. Since the launch of CNN’s prime-time television news program “Anderson Cooper 360,” Cooper has covered major global news events, ranging from U.S. presidential inaugurations and political conventions to the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. He joined CNN in 2001 and has reported on the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Cooper signed a new contract with CNN last year. Lachlan Cartwright’s Breaker newsletter first reported Cooper’s departure from “60 Minutes.”

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After Minnesota church protest, states move to crack down on disruptions

When Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Todd Gollihare introduced a bill last year to strengthen state law protecting places of worship from protesters, it failed to become law. This year, his church protest bill sailed through the legislature. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed it into law three days after Gollihare reintroduced it. In recent weeks, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in states including Alabama, Idaho, Ohio and South Dakota have pushed legislation (none has passed yet) that would increase the penalties for disrupting religious services at houses of worship in the wake of a widely publicized incident last month at a Minnesota church. On Jan. 18, protesters disrupted a worship service to confront a pastor who is a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official and to demand justice for Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent 11 days before.

Meanwhile in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Council Chair Julie Menin, both Democrats, want to create new buffer zones around houses of worship. Their proposals come in response to recent anti-Israel protests, including one outside a New York City synagogue in November where protesters chanted pro-Hamas slogans. Hochul has proposed a 25-foot buffer zone around churches, temples, mosques and other houses of worship, in addition to penalties for protesters who “alarm and annoy” worshippers. Menin has taken it further, proposing to let the police ban protests within 100 feet. Oklahoma’s law also establishes buffer zones that restrict protesting at places of worship. The recent push has sparked a constitutional debate: Critics on both sides of the political aisle say such measures infringe on the First Amendment right to free speech, even as supporters tout them as safeguards against those who would impede the free exercise of religion. The new laws could be challenged in court. If so, the idea of creating buffer zones, in particular, would be contested on familiar ground: A 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision upheld a Colorado law that restricted protesters from coming within a certain distance of reproductive health clinics or people trying to access them. Then in 2014, the court unanimously struck down a broader Massachusetts law, saying it went beyond the limits accepted in the Colorado case. Last year, the Supreme Court declined to consider overturning the 2000 buffer zone precedent.

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Shooting at Rhode Island youth hockey game leaves 3 dead, including shooter, and 3 more wounded

A shooting during a Rhode Island youth hockey game left three people dead, including the shooter, and three more hospitalized Monday night in critical condition, authorities said. Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters that someone helped bring a swift end to the violent scene Monday afternoon by intervening and trying to subdue the shooter, who was at an arena to watch a family member’s hockey game. The shooter died from an apparent self-inflicted gun wound, she said, noting that authorities were still investigating. “It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a family dispute,” she said. Goncalves identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, who she said also went by the name Roberta Esposito and was born in 1969.

The police chief did not provide further details about the shooter or the victims, except for saying it appeared that both victims who died were adults. She said investigators were trying to piece together what happened and have spoken with scores of witnesses who were there inside Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, a few miles outside Providence. They also were reviewing video taken from the hockey game. Unverified footage circulating on social media shows players diving for cover and fans fleeing their seats after popping sounds are heard. Outside the arena, tearful families and high school hockey players still in uniform were seen hugging before they boarded a bus to leave the area. Monday’s shooting came nearly two months after Rhode Island was rocked by a gun violence tragedy at Brown University, where a gunman killed two students and wounded nine others. That shooter went on to also fatally shoot a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Authorities later found Claudio Neves Valente, 48, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility. “The fortunate thing is that the two incidents are not related, but it is very tragic,” Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien said. “These are high school kids. They were doing an event, they were playing with their families watching, a fun time, and it turned into this.” Pawtucket is nestled just north of Providence and right under the Massachusetts state border. A city of just under 80,000, Pawtucket had up until recently been known as the home to Hasbro’s headquarters.

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Lead Stories

Abbott steps into Texas GOP primaries as poll shows his picks trailing

Fans of the 1942 classic movie "Casablanca" may remember Humphrey Bogart's character declaring, "I stick my neck out for nobody." For much of his 11 years as governor, Greg Abbott has lived by the same motto in election years when his name was on the ballot. In Texas, all candidates for statewide office are on their own. Each party's candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run independently. And Texas governors do not have a cabinet in the traditional sense, so agencies such as the Agriculture Department, the Comptroller's Office and the Attorney General's Office are run by people elected by voters and not necessarily by whomever the governor might prefer.

Abbott, who is seeking an unprecedented fourth term, is hoping to change that dynamic this cycle — a gamble that early polling suggests could backfire. A University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll released Tuesday shows Abbott’s preferred candidates trailing in two key Republican primaries. The governor was quick to endorse Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock in the March 3 Republican primary. Hancock, a former state senator, took over the duties of comptroller with Abbott's blessing in July 2025 after Glenn Hegar vacated his office to become chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. In January, the governor took the unusual step of snubbing Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a fellow Republican state officeholder, and throwing his support behind political newcomer Nate Sheets in the primary. And Abbott is sticking his neck out for Hancock and Sheets. There's little downside for political candidates struggling to become known to lean into their ties with a proven vote-getter like Abbott. The risk for the governor is that one or both candidates could come up short with voters — potentially undercutting his influence during the remainder of the election year and into next year’s legislative session.

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Palantir is the new Dem bogeyman

Palantir, the data giant and top government contractor, is quickly becoming one of the left’s most hated companies. The Palantir skepticism is keenly felt in competitive Democratic primaries, where any ties to the corporation are quickly turned into political attacks. Palantir’s work with ICE — at a time when many Democrats and immigration rights groups are demanding the agency be abolished — has made the tech company especially toxic. Progressives also criticize Palantir for working with the Israeli government. Palantir technology is allegedly being used in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Here’s how the Palantir controversy is playing out in Democratic primaries across the country.

Texas:Former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) is slamming his primary opponent, Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), for her history of owning Palantir stock. An Allred attack ad accuses Johnson of “making thousands from the company ICE uses to track and detain our neighbors.” Johnson has strongly pushed back while downplaying her Palantir holdings. “With Palintir specifically, it was less than $8,000, and I made $90 on the whole thing,” Johnson said. “I consistently voted against Palantir’s interest in Homeland Security [Committee], time, time and time again.” New York: Palantir is playing big in two New York City House primaries. In New York’s 12th District, Democrat Alex Bores is battling attacks over his former employment at Palantir from 2014 to 2019. Bores says he never worked on any ICE contracts. This hasn’t stopped attack ads that claim “ICE is powered by Bores’ tech” and that Bores was “powering their deportations.”

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Democrats’ struggles could be partly because they’re just too old, says Obama

Former President Barack Obama is urging the Democratic Party to invest in younger candidates if it wants to come out victorious in the 2026 midterm elections and, eventually, the 2028 presidential election. In an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen that was published Saturday, the 64-year-old said part of the reason his own elections were so successful was because he was young at the time. “I’m a pretty healthy 64, feel great, but the truth is, half of the references that my daughters make about social media, TikTok and such, I don’t know who they’re talking about,” he said. “There is an element of, at some point, you age out. You’re not connected directly to the immediate struggles that folks are going through.”

Former President Joe Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, was the oldest man to assume the presidency at the age of 78 in 2021. His decision to seek reelection in 2024 repeatedly drew concerns from voters who wondered how the octogenarian would be able to handle a second term in the White House. The fears were only amplified after a disastrous debate performance full of gaffes and losing his trains of thought. Obama, who had originally supported Biden in the election, went on to campaign for Biden’s younger replacement atop the ticket, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, after Biden ended his campaign. Congressional leaders have long faced criticism for the advanced age of members. A 2023 Pew Research poll found that nearly 80 percent of adults favor maximum age limits for elected officials. The idea extends to public attitudes toward Supreme Court justices, with 74 percent of adults favoring a maximum age limit for the nation’s highest court. “I’m not making a hard and fast rule here, but I do think that Democrats do well when we have candidates who are plugged into the moment, to the zeitgeist, to the times and the particular struggles that folks are thinking about as they look towards the future, rather than look backward toward the past,” Obama told Cohen. Obama also said he hopes to “reinvigorate” the “civic muscles” of Americans through his presidential center, particularly of young Americans.

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The break is over. Companies are jacking up prices again.

After holding the line on prices for several months, companies—big and small—have begun a new round of increases, in some cases by high-single-digit percentage points. Companies had raised prices last year after tariffs hoisted costs. Yet starting in the fall, many firms held off on increases and sometimes offered discounts to capture holiday shoppers. The pricing break is over. Many companies typically raise prices at the start of the new year. Yet increases appeared to be stronger than normal for January for electronics, appliances and other durable goods, said UBS economist Alan Detmeister. Some companies have pointed a finger at tariffs for their increases, while others, especially small businesses, also blame higher wages and hefty health-insurance costs that firms said they can’t absorb or share with suppliers.

Prices on the most affordable imported goods are up by 2.3% since dipping at the end of November, according to data through Feb. 10 collected by Alberto Cavallo, a Harvard Business School professor who tracks daily online prices at major U.S. retailers. The Adobe Digital Price Index found that online prices posted their largest monthly increase in a dozen years in January, driven by higher prices for electronics, computers, appliances, furniture and bedding. Columbia Sportswear said it is upping prices of spring and fall merchandise by, on average, a high single-digit percent after mostly avoiding increases for fall and winter goods. The company said it has also renegotiated prices with its factories and taken other steps to reduce costs. “When combined with our other mitigation tactics, our goal in ’26 is to offset the dollar impact of high tariffs,” Chief Executive Tim Boyle said in an earnings call earlier this month. Such new price increases follow last year’s wave of tariff-driven price hikes. Retail prices started falling beginning in October, with the biggest drops before Black Friday, Harvard’s Cavallo said. But they then started rising again, particularly after Christmas, in what looks like a postholiday reset.

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State Stories

How American Airlines is taking on rival United Airlines in Chicago

The Windy City is one of the premier battlegrounds for aviation in the U.S. It’s a popular hub for travelers connecting both to the east and west, and was recently named the No. 1 city for business travel, which airlines rely on to generate premium revenue. In fact, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is the dominant carrier at Midway International Airport. For these reasons and a few others, it’s also why American Airlines and United Airlines have found themselves locked in the aviation world’s equivalent of a cage match to dominate Chicago O’Hare International Airport — sparking a nasty turf war that’s riveted the industry. The knock-down, drag-out war between the longtime rivals seems to have no bounds, with the weapons of choice including dueling press releases, a lawsuit over gate space, and taunting highway billboards.

Fort Worth-based American, the leading U.S. airline by number of flights and Chicago’s hometown airline United, are going head-to-head by pouring hundreds of flights into the O’Hare hub, in addition to investing in other areas in attempts to win over potential customers. For American, the outcome of the battle could have a ripple effect on its entire business. The carrier is significantly lagging rivals United and Delta in earnings and is racing to close a gap in premium product offerings. “When it comes to Chicago, we would expect that it returns to the average profitability of our hub network,” American’s CEO Robert Isom told analysts during last month’s earnings call. “It’s going to be our third-largest hub, and we’re going to keep taking care of our customers and making sure that it performs as best as it possibly can.” This month, United and American will offer 3.5 million seats and 2.6 million seats, respectively. Combining for more than 53,000 flights, the two global airlines will account for about 85% of the market share at O’Hare this month, according to data from Diio by Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

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As expected, Austin's housing market fell flat in January

January results are in for the local housing market, and the data is a mixed bag. Despite a fall in finished sales, leases and dollar volume last month, Unlock MLS’s January report points to more pending sales as a positive sign for buyer momentum. Year-over-year sales and leases were down 14.8% and 4.1% respectively, but there were 2,349 in-progress sales for the month – 10.1% more than January 2025. “Deals are still happening across Central Texas, but they’re taking more time and strategy to get across the finish line,” said John Crowe, president of Unlock MLS and Austin Board of Realtors, in a statement. Austin’s current buyers are some of the most intentional in the nation. Redfin’s December housing report shows the average home took 106 days to go under contract – the longest of the nation’s 50 biggest metros.

The January data isn’t a shocker. Housing experts went into 2026 expecting a flat year for home builds and sales as buyers remain slow to jump into the market. Despite stabilizing interest rates and pricing falls, data shows many people are holding out for sub-five interest rates and better pricing. Dollar volume for home sales also sank at an average 14.3% across the metro. Bastrop County tumbled the furthest with $27,279,673 worth of sales last month – a 28.8% decrease from January 2025. Unlock MLS market research advisor Vaike O'Grady previously said the market requires a level-out after the highs of the pandemic. The January market only reinforces that, she said, showing signs of a "sustainable foundation" for the area.

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Despite pressure from Abbott, AISD students keep up anti-ICE protests

On Friday, Feb. 6, at about 2pm, hundreds of students at Clint Small Middle School walked out of class with backpacks on and posters in their hands to protest the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country, “including the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents,” according to their student-released statement. “We are skipping our lessons to teach you one,” one student’s sign read. Another sign, made of glued-together sheets of paper, spelled out “Abolish ICE.” As the large cohort of students made their way down the 290 frontage road to the Target shopping center, and later toward William Cannon Drive, the students displayed their signs to the passing cars, several honking in support.

“It’s been easy to feel like I don’t have a voice in these matters … like the recent actions of ICE,” one student, Emmet D., told the Chronicle. About the act of walking out of class in protest, Emmet said, “We don’t really have that much power in most things that are going on in the world, and this is a way that we do have power.” Emmet’s parents, Adam and Krisdee, were initially hesitant to allow their child to participate in the walkout, concerned about safety. But ultimately, they told the Chronicle they were proud of Emmet and the other student protesters for speaking up. “If ICE is invading schools and affecting families that are at schools, students very much should have a say, and they don’t get to vote yet,” Adam D. emphasized. “I think it’s beautiful that the kids have decided to do this. … And I hope it spreads all over Texas. I hope it spreads all over the country.” Over the last two weeks, the wave of students walking out of class in protest of ICE at over a dozen Austin ISD schools has brought the school district under calls for investigation by Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Commissioner of Education Mike Morath. On Jan. 30, Abbott requested that Morath investigate the student walkouts across Austin ISD. “AISD gets taxpayer dollars to teach the subjects required by the state, not to help students skip school to protest,” Abbott wrote on X. “Our schools are for educating our children, not political indoctrination.” On the same day, Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura clarified in a letter to families that the student walkouts were not sponsored or endorsed by AISD or any specific school.

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New Texas-led GOP caucus signals resurgence of anti-Shariah movement

A new congressional group is targeting what it claims is a growing threat of Shariah, or Islamic religious law, in the U.S., a move that harks back to anti-Islam movements that flourished during the post-9/11 era and the early 2010s. Leaders of the Sharia Free America Caucus say the growing number of mosques in the country is a cause for alarm, while critics say the group is an attempt to shore up votes for Republicans in places such as Oklahoma and Texas during campaign season. Led by Republican U.S. Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self of Texas, the caucus heard testimony about how some believe Shariah violates the U.S. Constitution at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Tuesday (Feb. 10). The caucus, which formed in December and is made of 36 Republican representatives from 18 states, aims to push legislation that counters what it calls “the alarming rise of Shariah Law in the United States.”

“Some of you might think of Shariah as a 2010s buzzword. That is wrong,” Roy, the subcommittee chair, said in his opening statement. “Over the last few years, efforts to impose Shariah on American communities have taken off, and nowhere more than in my home state of Texas.” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is not a member of the caucus, said the hearing was meant to stoke suspicion of American Muslims and “a cynical political ploy driven by the Texas Republican primary.” Haris Tarin, vice president of policy and programming for the Muslim Public Affairs Council advocacy group, said the caucus is made of “bigoted members” who are promoting a “hoax to drive people to the polls and scare them.” “They’re taking the playbook of the 2010s and just enhancing it with more fear and more racism, more xenophobia and more Islamophobia,” Tarin told RNS, adding that an interfaith coalition is prepared to challenge the caucus. Caucus members have introduced seven related House bills in recent months, including the No Shari’a Act, which would prohibit American courts from enforcing judgments based on Islamic law or other foreign legal systems that violate the Constitution.

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Regional council votes to fund public transit as part of plan to save DART

Regional leaders have agreed to help fund Dallas Area Rapid Transit in an effort to save the agency from withdrawal elections that could fracture public transit in North Texas. During a Thursday meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, leaders from various cities, counties and transit agencies approved $180 million in funding to transportation projects. “I think it was a really great day for the region,” regional transportation director Michael Morris told KERA after the meeting. “I’m very pleased with the leadership everyone exercised today.” The vote means that DART now has backing from the regional body on a new funding model that will give money back to cities in the hopes that they will call off elections to withdraw from the public transit system.

Plano Mayor John Muns, who sits on the council, said the vote is a pathway to keep public transit running in his city. The return of sales tax contributions was the same request the city made last year through failed legislative efforts. Plano is one of six cities set to hold withdrawal elections in May. “We’re very happy that we’ve come and been able to negotiate with DART on a deal that hopefully helps us through the next five or six years be able to make sure we’re operating the transit authority in Plano in a way that really provides a benefit to our citizens,” Muns said. DART CEO Nadine Lee said funding will still be an issue because much of the agency’s revenue will now be going back to cities. The agency has already had to make service cuts in recent months. “Obviously it’s money that’s coming out of DART’s funds, and so DART is going to have to scramble to figure out how we make that revenue available,” Lee said.

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Free speech concerns raised as Tarrant County judge removes meeting attendees

Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare likely violated legal protections that ensure the right to free speech and open government in the case of two of three men he had removed from the commissioners court on Tuesday, experts in those topics told the Fort Worth Report. Throughout the seven-hour Feb. 10 meeting, deputies with the county sheriff’s office removed Fort Worth residents Doyle Fine, 72, a retired U.S. Navy veteran; EJ Carrion, 36, who hosts the 817 Podcast focused on local politics; and Alexander Montalvo, 43, a progressive community activist. All were removed from the courtroom after criticizing O’Hare. Fine was removed after yelling from the audience as the meeting was ongoing. However, Carrion and Montalvo spoke during meeting breaks after O’Hare called recesses.

Fine and Carrion are barred from returning to the courtroom for a year, which experts described as a severe — and troublingly inconsistent — punishment. After returning from the recess during which Carrion was removed, O’Hare told the court’s audience he was going to say a “couple of things that everybody needs to hear.” “Number one, I’m the presiding officer of this courtroom, whether we’re in session or not,” O’Hare said. “Number two: We are going to maintain order and decorum in here.” However, O’Hare does not have legal authority to remove anyone during recesses, said Bill Aleshire, an Austin-based attorney who helped draft the original Texas Open Meetings Act, a law that requires government entities to keep official business accessible to the public. “That’s a violation of free speech rights and rights to attend a public meeting. That was not during a meeting,” said Aleshire, who was not at the meeting Tuesday. State law requires elected bodies, such as the Tarrant County Commissioners Court, to make government decisions publicly. Members of the public have the right to attend government meetings, excluding private legal deliberations, and to sign up to speak on agenda items under consideration.

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Texas AG Ken Paxton sues city of Dallas over 'insufficient' police funding

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the city of Dallas over alleged insufficient funding of the Dallas Police Department, which would violate a voter approved proposition. Proposition U, passed by Dallas voters in November 2024, requires the city to spend no less than 50% of new, annual revenue to fund the police and fire pension. But Paxton said in a statement that the city failed to properly calculate and allocate excess city revenue. He alleges that, compared to fiscal year 2024–25, the city's projected excess revenue for fiscal year 2025–26 is approximately $220 million. However, the city council were told that there was $61 million in excess revenue. “I filed this lawsuit to ensure that the City of Dallas fully funds law enforcement, upholds public safety, and is accountable to its constituents,” said Attorney General Paxton. “When voters demand more funding for law enforcement, local officials must immediately comply." KERA reached out to the city for comment, but a spokesperson declined to comment citing pending litigation.

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HISD lost thousands of students amid immigration crackdown.

Houston ISD's immigrant student population fell by nearly 4,000 students this year — a 22% decline, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle. This year, the state's largest district has also seen disproportionate drops among its emergent bilingual students and Hispanic and Latino enrollment. Both documented and undocumented students have been affected by President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown this year, experts say, and many students are staying home from school due to deportation fears. Those declines could have future impacts on students' careers, school funding and the local economy, according to advocates, educators and immigration experts. Here are five takeaways from the Chronicle's exclusive analysis.

Harris County and the surrounding counties have seen a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity since President Trump launched his mass deportation campaign in early 2025. Calls from Houston Police Department officers to ICE have also increased since 2025. One in four of those ended with a person being arrested by ICE agents. Advocates say the so-called “worst of the worst” aren’t the sole focus of ICE’s operations and that the agency is also targeting immigrant parents. That’s led to some U.S. citizen children being left without a caregiver or forced to follow a parent out of the country. Even as HISD's total enrollment dropped by nearly 20,000 students from 2020 to 2025, its immigrant student population continued to grow. The Texas Education Agency defines immigrant students as those who were not born in the United States and have not been attending school in any state for more than three full academic years. This school year, HISD's immigrant student population fell by nearly 4,000 students — a 22% decline — marking the first drop in that group since the pandemic.

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Charley Crockett sparks heated fan backlash with Trump 'grifter' comments

Texas country musician Charley Crockett seems to be churning up some Southern trouble after chiding President Donald Trump, calling for the deportation of billionaire Elon Musk and Palantir Technologies co-founder Peter Thiel, and slamming their supporters who he says are "licking their boots" in a heated update to social media. Crockett's Instagram post arrived in the immediate aftermath of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX halftime show, which drew in at least 133.5 million viewers. Crockett was one of those viewers. He said the "country music establishment should be taking notes" on Bad Bunny — "a Puerto Rican American who hasn’t forgotten his heritage and brought his culture’s traditional music back to the front."

The San Benito native slammed Trump, calling him a "cosplay president," a "draft dodger" and a "grifter who bankrupted 6 casinos," among other things. "The only thing he’s good at is filing lawsuits and portraying a successful business man as a reality TV actor," Crockett wrote. "Forgive me if I have a problem with a 34 time convicted felon running this country when I lost the right to vote or own a weapon for years over marijuana," he added, calling out his own turbulent past with cannabis. The two-time Grammy Award nominee went on to call for the deportation of Texas-based billionaire tech magnate Elon Musk and controversial Palantir Technologies co-founder Peter Thiel, then made an unfounded claim that Musk was "standing in the White House buying our elections." "Let’s deport his (expletive) and send Peter Thiel back with him since they both openly believe in a post democratic society where men of their class are above the law," Crockett wrote. The remainder of his comments centered on issues between the "oppressed" and the "oppressor," as well as the "rich" and the "poor." "As long as you’re hating the oppressed and loving your oppressor you’ll never know why our generation is poorer than our parents and grandparents. As a great man once said it’s welfare for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor. If you can sleep at night licking their boots that’s between you and yours, but that type of thinking isn’t freedom. It’s mental slavery ... Ride on."

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‘Risks to children.’ Why Texas is warning about unregulated home child care

It’s a rare, quiet morning off. Jemie Johnson Vaughn moves with ease around her house. It’s usually packed with kids settling in for the day. However, on this late December morning, they’re not expected until a little later. Johnson Vaughn’s home doubles as a licensed child care operation in southeast Austin. Drop-off for some kids starts at 5:30 a.m.; others have been there all night. Johnson Vaughn’s regulated operation requires her to comply with state standards that ensure the health, safety and well-being of children in her care.

However, the state has found hundreds of day care providers operating out of their homes without a license, lacking oversight and potentially putting kids at risk. As a licensed child care home, Johnson Vaughn is open 24/7 and can have 12 children at the house at one time. She and her two staff members care for 15 children total, ranging from toddlers to older kids, whose care is staggered throughout the day, overnight and on weekends. She said she currently has a waitlist for daytime care. Children at Risk, a statewide children’s advocacy organization studying child care needs, said family child care programs are still recovering after the pandemic. According to the nonprofit, Texas lost 21% of child care providers from March 2020 to September 2021. Out of those closed programs, 79% were child care homes. KXAN found Texas has nearly 1,600 licensed child care homes as of January, including Johnson Vaughn’s. Some families turn to home day cares started by family, neighbors, friends or recommended on social media — but they may not be licensed. “We want to make sure that if you are taking someone’s money, to care for their most precious thing in the world, their child, we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make sure that — that child is returned to them safe,” said Kim Kofron, senior director of education for Children at Risk.

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FAA issues Starship finding; report cites ‘no significant impact’

The Federal Aviation Administration said it has completed the environmental review process for a SpaceX proposal that would see more Starship landings at Boca Chica and require additional launch trajectories. SpaceX seeks permission to increase the number of Starship/Super Heavy launches and landings at Boca Chica to 25 each per year. In its review of the proposal, FAA has rendered a “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI). The agency said the Final Tiered Environmental Assessment (EA) and (FONSI) is now available online for review.

The full title of the document is “Final Tiered Environmental Assessment and (FONSI)/Record of Decision for Updates to Airspace Closures for Additional Launch Trajectories and Starship Boca Chica Landings of the SpaceX Starship-Super Heavy Vehicle at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas.” FAA served as the lead agency in preparing the EA. The document’s “proposed action” is to modify SpaceX’s existing vehicle operator license to authorized “updated operations for additional launch trajectories” for rocket operations at the Boca Chica launch site, and “updated operations for Starship Return to Launch Site mission profiles” at Boca Chica. The Draft Tiered EA was released for public review and comment on Sept. 19, though a virtual public meeting was canceled due to the government shutdown. The public comment period ended on Oct. 20. “All comments received on the Draft Tiered EA were given equal weight and taken into consideration,” FAA said. In the conclusion of the final document, the agency states that a 2022 Programmatic EA and an April 2025 Tiered EA “examined the potential for significant environmental impacts from Starship-Super Heavy launch operations” at Boca Chica and “defined the regulatory setting” for impacts stemming from those operations.

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‘Uno Reverse Card this policy y’all’: Southwest changes are infuriating fans

Whitney Westerfield boarded his Southwest flight from Tampa to Nashville on Thursday and went to his seat in Row 8. The overhead bins were full for several rows, forcing him and many other passengers to roam around the plane looking for spots as more people filed in. “I have never had the absolute mess that was boarding and then deboarding last night,” the Kentucky attorney said in an interview. The business trip that started Monday was the first time he’d flown Southwest since the airline switched to standard seat assignments from its old free-for-all model in late January. On both flights, he said, he told the flight crew: “Would you guys all please pass along to the big shots that we’d like the old way back?”

Under pressure to boost its bottom line, Southwest has been in transformation mode for more than a year. The airline announced the eventual end of open seating in 2024. Last year, it added fees for checked bags after holding on to its generous “bags fly free” policy long after other carriers had started raking in the bucks for luggage. Some travelers have welcomed the introduction of a seat assignment and boarding system similar to other airlines. Southwest has said research showed more people would fly the carrier if it offered assigned seats. But many are in mourning for a company that once stood out but now blends in with crowd. “We’re talking about one of the most beloved brands of all time, and they just completely nuked it over the course of the last 11 months,” said Kyle Potter, executive editor of the travel site Thrifty Traveler. In recent days, travelers have complained online about a lack of available overhead bins; young children being assigned seats away from parents; massive amounts of carry-ons slowing the boarding process; and rigid rules about staying in place despite a mostly empty plane. Southwest has been working to address pain points and has instructed flight crews to keep their own luggage in spaces that will clear up room for passengers. They had previously used bins at the front of the plane. “Since launch, we’ve been closely monitoring input and real-world behaviors to validate our assumptions and identify where we can refine the experience,” the airline said in a statement. “Those insights are now informing a series of early adjustments designed to smooth operations and reduce friction as Customers and Employees adapt to the new boarding and seating process.”

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National Stories

No clear path to ending the partial government shutdown as lawmakers dig in over DHS oversight

Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise Sunday in their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. A partial government shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump’s team failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund the department through September. Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration operations are conducted after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers in Minneapolis last month. Congress is on recess until Feb. 23, and both sides appear dug into their positions. The impasse affects agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The work at ICE and CBP goes on unabated because Trump’s tax and spending cut law from 2025 provided billions more to those agencies that can be tapped for deportation operations. About 90% of DHS employees were to continue working during the shutdown, but do so without pay — and missed paychecks could mean financial hardships. Last year there was a record 43-day government shutdown. White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration was unwilling to agree to Democrats’ demands that federal officers clearly identify themselves, remove masks during operations and display unique ID numbers. “I don’t like the masks, either,” Homan said, But, he said, “These men and women have to protect themselves.” Democrats also want to require immigration agents to wear body cameras and mandate judicial warrants for arrests on private property. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats are only asking for federal agents to abide by rules followed by law enforcement agencies around the country. “And the question that Americans are asking is, ‘Why aren’t Republicans going along with these commonsense proposals?’” Schumer said. “They’re not crazy. They’re not way out. They’re what every police department in America does.”

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AOC tests foreign-policy waters at Munich conference

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is better known for her strong progressive stances than her foreign policy views over the course of her seven years in Congress. An appearance at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference suggested a shift in approach and fueled more speculation of a presidential run in 2028. Ocasio-Cortez, who was invited by organizers of the annual event that attracts a host of world leaders, joined two panels, laying out her vision on the dangers of authoritarianism, Taiwan, Greenland and Gaza. Her appearance functioned as both audition and classroom, and gave audiences an inkling of what Democrats’ post-Joe Biden foreign-policy vision might look like. She demanded a foreign policy approach that counters record inequality and looks to undo a world “dominated by a handful of elites, a handful of oligarchs that sit in pretend democracies and make backdoor deals with one another.” In one panel, she said unconditional US aid to Israel had “enabled a genocide.”

“We’re at a fork in the road, I believe that leaders are increasingly acknowledging that we must present an alternative vision,” she said. The New York congresswoman was one of several Democrats with future political aspirations to attend, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and California Governor Gavin Newsom. He sought to reassure Europe that there would be life after President Donald Trump. “He’ll be measured in years, not decades,” Newsom said. But it was Ocasio-Cortez who drew the most buzz. It was her first time at the annual conference, and she doesn’t sit on the House foreign affairs or armed services committees. What foreign-policy work she’s done has centered mostly on Latin America and her opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza. Republican commentators back home declared her unprepared for primetime for what they called a flubbed answer to a question from Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua on whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked. Normally quick to respond, Ocasio-Cortez was at a loss for words, saying, “this is such a, a, you know, I think that, this is a, um, this is of course, a, ah, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States,” she said. But she recovered with a cogent response. The US should “avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise,” she said.

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More than ever, videos expose the truth. And cloud it, too.

Is seeing still believing? Based on the evidence of the past week, it is hard to say. Consider Exhibit A: Rauiri Robinson, an Irish filmmaker and visual effects artist in Los Angeles, posted two short A.I.-generated videos on X, a hyper-realistic action-movie sequence depicting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop while arguing about Jeffrey Epstein. The clips were created, Mr. Robinson explained, by feeding a two-sentence prompt into Seedance 2.0, an A.I. video-creation tool newly released by the Chinese company ByteDance. Its convincing imitation of an actual film sparked horror and outrage in Hollywood. “I hate to say it,” Rhett Reese, a screenwriter whose credits include the “Deadpool” films, wrote on X. “It’s likely over for us.”

But consider Exhibit B: The announcement on Thursday morning by Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s border czar, that federal immigration agents would soon withdraw from Minnesota. Although Mr. Homan declared the operation a success, the decision seemed a tacit acknowledgment of the political damage inflicted by bystanders’ videos of two fatal shootings of Minneapolis residents by federal agents last month. The videos immediately undercut the administration’s false and derogatory claims about the victims, drawing rebukes from even some Republican politicians and conservative commentators. “Escalating the rhetoric doesn’t help, and it actually loses credibility,” Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, said on his podcast in late January. It is a paradoxical moment, in which documentary evidence is still able to land a few punches, even as new technologies threaten its credibility like never before. “It feels deeply contradictory,” said Sam Gregory, the executive director of Witness, a human-rights organization focused on gathering video evidence.

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National Institutes of Health faces leadership vacuum as director positions sit open

The world’s largest public funder of biomedical research is in limbo. The National Institutes of Health has, in large part, managed to withstand the Trump administration’s attempts to slash its budget and upend how it distributes grants, thanks to decisions from the courts and Congress. But the agency now faces a growing vacuum in leadership in its top ranks — one that offers the administration a highly unusual opportunity to reshape NIH to its vision. Of the 27 institutes and centers that make up NIH, 16 were missing permanent directors as of Friday, when staff received news of the latest departure.

In an internal email viewed by NBC News, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced that Dr. Lindsey Criswell would no longer direct the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, effective immediately. All but two of the vacant director positions at NIH have opened during President Donald Trump’s second term — the result of a combination of terminations, resignations and retirements. Acting directors are filling in temporarily. “It’s like going to battle with half your generals in place,” said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who led NIH from 2002 to 2008 under President George W. Bush. “I don’t think it’s precedented to have so many vacancies so fast.” NIH director positions are some of the most powerful and prestigious in medicine, in some cases overseeing multibillion-dollar budgets and helping to decide how federal research funding is allocated for the country’s biggest health threats, including Alzheimer’s, diabetes and heart disease.

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Team USA’s dreams of a record Olympics are suddenly falling apart

They came to Italy for a gold rush. From the downhill course of Cortina to the cross-country tracks of Val di Fiemme and a figure skating rink on the edge of Milan, members of Team USA envisioned themselves spending the entire Olympics on the top steps of podiums. And with the biggest delegation here, they dreamed of a run that would surpass their record 10 gold medals the last time they hosted the Winter Games. Then came the disastri. One by one, America’s made-for-TV stars fell short of expectations. Lindsey Vonn crashed. Chloe Kim fell. Mikaela Shiffrin struggled.

The most shocking fumble of all came on Friday night when figure skater Ilia Malinin, the self-proclaimed “quad god,” melted down in the brutal heat of the Olympic spotlight. It was merely the latest disappointment of an Olympics souring faster than burrata in the sun for Team USA, which is suddenly on track for its fewest winter golds since 1998. A full week since the Opening Ceremony, the U.S. was stuck on four, the same number as Sweden and Switzerland. The Americans are looking up in the medal standings at host nation Italy, which is on pace for its best-ever Olympics, and they have been lapped by the Norwegian gods of the Winter Games. Before the Olympics, the betting markets suggested the Americans could reasonably expect to win 12 golds. They have already lost at least four of those events despite starting as the favorites. “There’s a lot of puzzle pieces that need to lock into place,” Jessie Diggins, the top-ranked cross-country skier in the world, said after finishing the skiathlon in eighth. “The things out of my control did not go very well.”

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Nancy Guthrie latest: Search enters 3rd week

The search for Nancy Guthrie entered its third week on Sunday. Investigators haven’t yet named a suspect or made arrests in the case, as they field thousands of tips submitted after the FBI released surveillance images from Guthrie’s doorbell camera. Authorities — including SWAT and forensics teams — swarmed a home on the edge of the Catalina Foothills neighborhood north of Tucson, Ariz., near Guthrie’s home, as it carried out a federal court-ordered search warrant. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said Saturday that the warrant was “based on a lead we received” and that no arrests were made from that law enforcement activity. Additionally, a person was questioned during a traffic stop on Friday night, but there weren’t any arrests from that either.

Sheriff Chris Nanos told the New York Times that DNA from someone other than Nancy Guthrie and those close to her was collected from Guthrie’s property, but would not disclose where it was located. Investigators are currently working to identify the DNA. Authorities last week expanded their call for video of any “suspicious activity” from people within a 2-mile radius of the 84-year-old’s home. The sheriff’s department said that “several items of evidence, including gloves,” were recovered and are being submitted for analysis. It’s unclear whether authorities believe the gloves are the same as those worn by the person seen in the footage. On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released a new description of the suspect based on forensic evidence from the doorbell camera. He is described as “approximately 5’9” - 5’10” tall, with an average build.”

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Iran says potential energy, mining and aircraft deals on table in talks with US

Iran is pursuing a nuclear agreement with the U.S. that delivers economic benefits for both sides, an Iranian diplomat was reported as saying on Sunday, days before a second round of talks between Tehran and Washington.Iran and the U.S. renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme and avert a new military confrontation. The U.S. has dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the region and is preparing for the possibility of a sustained military campaign if the talks do not succeed, U.S. officials have told Reuters.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking at a news conference in Bratislava, said President Donald Trump had made it clear that he would prefer diplomacy and a negotiated settlement, while making clear that may not happen."No one's ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran but we're going to try," Rubio said.Iran has threatened to strike U.S. bases in the Middle East if it is attacked by U.S. forces but on Sunday took a conciliatory line."For the sake of an agreement's durability, it is essential that the U.S. also benefits in areas with high and quick economic returns," foreign ministry deputy director for economic diplomacy Hamid Ghanbari said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.Advertisement · Scroll to continue"Common interests in the oil and gas fields, joint fields, mining investments, and even aircraft purchases are included in the negotiations," Ghanbari said, arguing that the 2015 nuclear pact with world powers had not secured U.S. economic interests. In 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the pact that had eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme, and re-applied tough economic sanctions on Tehran.

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Lead Stories

Don Huffines owns Epstein's Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County

The family of Texas businessman and politician Donald Huffines owns the late Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in southern Santa Fe County, which was purchased in 2023 by a limited liability company created just a month before the purchase. Huffines, a former GOP state senator from Dallas, is now running a high-profile campaign for comptroller — a statewide office in Texas overseeing state financial matters. Records obtained by The New Mexican also show the ranch has been renamed San Rafael Ranch and its address, formerly 49 Zorro Ranch Road, is now 49 Rancho San Rafael Road. The change was made in 2024. The ownership was previously unreported. Epstein died in 2019 in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. The property was listed for sale in July 2021 for $27.5 million; a published report later said the sale price had dropped to $18 million.

In 2023, San Rafael Ranch LLC bought Epstein’s sprawling property for an undisclosed price. The buyers behind San Rafael Ranch LLC have been private. New Mexico is one of a handful of states allowing anonymous ownership of property through limited liability companies. “Four years after Mr. Epstein’s death, the Huffines family purchased property in New Mexico listed at public auction whose proceeds benefited his victims,” a spokesperson for the family, Allen Blakemore, wrote in an email Friday. “Prior to the auction listing, they had never visited the property,” Blakemore wrote. Huffines’ spokesperson didn’t answer questions about the purpose of the property purchase, and Huffines didn’t respond to calls and emails left Thursday evening and Friday morning. The property was valued for tax purposes for tax year 2023 at $21.1 million, but representatives of the LLC protested, and court records show in December 2024, the Santa Fe County assessor determined the value of the property for tax purposes to be just $13.4 million for tax year 2023. (The LLC argued in part it was the “notoriety” of the property along with the sales price that justified a lower valuation and thus lower taxes.) Public records obtained by The New Mexican tie Huffines, who owns a large real estate company in Texas to that LLC.

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Inside the debacle that led to the closure of El Paso’s airspace

Last spring, in the early months of Steve Feinberg’s tenure as deputy defense secretary, Pentagon staff members briefed him on plans to employ new high-energy laser weapons to take out drones being used by Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs across the southern U.S. border. But their use was conditioned on getting a green light from aviation safety officials. The law, the staff members at the Pentagon explained to him, required extensive coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Department, which could slow the testing of the system. Transportation officials could even block the system’s use if they determined that it posed risks to aviation safety. Two people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive matters, said they recalled that Mr. Feinberg felt the Pentagon had the authority to proceed anyway. Sean

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, denied their account, saying it was “a total fabrication.” The meeting took place at an especially sensitive time for those regulating air safety as well as for the Pentagon. Just months earlier, an Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet near Ronald Reagan National Airport above Washington, killing 67 people and putting the military’s safety protocols under intense scrutiny. Now the question of whether the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security followed proper procedures and the law in deploying the laser weapon has become a flashpoint within the Trump administration. Working alongside military personnel, agents from Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, used the weapon this week not far from El Paso International Airport, prompting fury inside the F.A.A. and a brief shutdown of the airport and airspace in that region. Late Tuesday night, the F.A.A. administrator, Bryan Bedford, caught off guard that the system was being used without authorization and concerned for public safety, believed he had little choice but to close the airspace for 10 days, according to more than a half-dozen people. It was an extraordinary decision that surprised the flying public and local officials.

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‘South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids

Home builders are warning President Donald Trump that his aggressive immigration enforcement efforts are hurting their industry. They’re cautioning that Republican candidates could soon be hurt, too. Construction executives have held multiple meetings over the last month with the White House and Congress to discuss how immigration busts on job sites and in communities are scaring away employees, making it more expensive to build homes in a market desperate for new supply. Beyond the affordability issue, the executives made an electability argument, raising concerns to GOP leaders that support among Hispanic voters is eroding, particularly in regions that swung to Trump in 2024. Hill Republicans have held separate meetings with White House officials to share their own electoral concerns.

This story is based on eight interviews with home builders, lawmakers and others familiar with the meetings. “I told [lawmakers] straight up: South Texas will never be red again,” said Mario Guerrero, the CEO of the South Texas Builders Association, a Trump voter who traveled to Washington last week. He urged the administration and lawmakers to ease up on enforcement at construction sites, warning that employees are afraid to go to work. The construction industry is one of the latest and clearest examples of how the president’s mass deportation agenda continues to clash with his economic goals of bringing down prices and political aims of keeping control of Congress. Even the president’s allies fear disruptions to labor-heavy industries will undermine the gains with Latino voters Republicans have made in recent years, in large part because of Trump’s economic agenda. These concerns were the central focus of a White House meeting this week between chief of staff Susie Wiles, Speaker Mike Johnson, and a group of Republican lawmakers, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss it. The group talked about growing concerns that Hispanic voters are abandoning the Republican Party in droves, as well as the policies driving these losses — immigration and affordability concerns.

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Trump vs Bad Bunny: A Super Bowl feud with possible midterm consequences

President Donald Trump's attack on Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show - including a gripe that it was mostly in Spanish - has alarmed some Republican Hispanic strategists, politicians and business leaders who warn it risks further eroding his support among Latino voters ahead of November's congressional elections.Hispanics were central to the coalition that powered Trump's re-election in 2024, even after inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail, including a comedian calling the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at one of Trump's rallies. But their support has softened amid continued high prices, discontent over tariffs and his administration's aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. Some of Trump’s staunchest Latino allies called Republican attacks on the global music star — and on a performance widely seen as a rare prime-time celebration of Latino culture — a political misstep as the party fights to hold its razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.Several key House races are unfolding in Hispanic-heavy districts, including in California, Arizona and Colorado."It's going to do us more damage than good," said Vianca Rodriguez, a former Trump administration official who served as deputy Hispanic communications director for the Republican National Committee during the 2024 campaign. "That shouldn't have been a battle to have been picked culturally."

Rodriguez, who is Puerto Rican, said she remains an avid Trump supporter. Trump slammed Bad Bunny’s February 8 halftime show as “an affront to the Greatness of America” and a "slap in the face” to the country. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” Trump wrote on his social media account, calling the dancing “disgusting” and unsuitable for children.Even long-time Trump critics like Mike Madrid were baffled by the president's outburst."To see them doubling down on alienating the single most critical constituency they need for survival is beyond belief," said Madrid, a Republican strategist who is an expert on Latino voting trends. Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in the U.S., accounting for about a fifth of the population. Trump received 48% of the Hispanic vote in 2024 - more than any Republican presidential candidate in history - up from the 36% share he garnered in 2020, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.But a November survey of more than 5,000 Latino voters by Pew showed Trump is down 12 percentage points among those who backed him in 2024. At the beginning of his second term in January 2025, 93% of Latinos who voted for him approved of the job he was doing. Ten months later, that had fallen to 81%. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, did not respond to questions about Trump's weakening Latino support.

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Five years since the Texas blackout, anxiety remains and the big test has yet to come

This January, an arctic blast barreled toward Texas with the certainty of an avalanche, and Texans went, once again, into emergency mode. Grocery store shelves were cleared of some essentials even before the temperatures dropped. People shared tips about how to prepare for a blackout: everything from dripping your faucets to pre-grinding your coffee beans. A great number of people, no doubt, secured fuel for generators they had purchased since Feb. 15, 2021. The reason for all this, of course, is what began on that day five years ago: The worst blackout in Texas — and by some measures, U.S. — history. It lasted for four days. Millions lost power. Hundreds died. Some power companies, energy traders and natural gas suppliers got rich off the high cost of energy. Ratepayers got stuck with billions of dollars of debt that they are still paying off. The shared experience of the disaster continues to shape what it means to be a Texan.

As the anniversary of that catastrophe arrives, people inevitably wonder what has changed with our state power grid, and some point to the performance in this most recent storm as a sign of improvement. But even as they look for progress, grid anxiety remains a fact of life in Texas. It also seems to be growing outside our state borders, as more Americans learn that their own regional energy systems may not be well prepared for the next big storm. Despite days of freezing cold in some parts of the state last month, the Texas grid kept chugging along. If anything, the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, may have overestimated the impact of the freeze, forecasting a higher energy draw than actually took place during some moments of the long freeze. The relatively smooth ride in Texas was thanks, in part, to changes put in place after 2021’s winter storm Uri overwhelmed the Texas grid. “The big fear on our end was these dropping temperatures and ice forcing generators offline,” said Tim Ennis, an analyst with Grid Status, a platform that tracks the energy system. But, Ennis said, mandates to prepare power plants for cold weather seem to have paid off, keeping more energy flowing when it was needed most. "A lot of the lessons that we've learned in Uri, that in some ways were paid in blood, have [...] been followed," he said. Ennis also credits the proliferation of big grid-scale batteries for improving electric reliability. That’s despite some state lawmakers' attempts to curb battery growth.

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State Stories

Black voters could decide Crockett-Talarico primary

Just a month into his Democratic campaign for U.S. Senate, a public poll put state Rep. James Talarico ahead among white and Latino voters in a head-to-head matchup against his then-rival, former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. A campaign consultant posted a screenshot of the news on Oct. 9 — but cropped out the results among Black voters, who favored Allred by a more than 2-to-1 margin. State Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, was searing. “It’s disappointing to see a campaign share selective polling that leaves out Black voters entirely. Black voters CANNOT be an afterthought — they’re the foundation of our party,” Jones, who is Black, said on social media. “Leaving them out of your polling story isn’t just misleading — it’s disrespectful.”

It was an early indication of the tense racial politics that would eventually grip the race, growing only more fraught after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, launched her bid in December. Her campaign, which is headlined by her political brand as a partisan crusader, set off a firestorm of online commentary from around the country declaring her candidacy a liability for Democrats in a state that elected President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points. For many of her supporters, the scrutiny of Crockett seemed rooted in racism and misogyny, and conspicuously absent in relation to Talarico and other firebrand candidates, like Democrat Graham Platner in Maine, who are white. That tension has continued to frame the contest in the weeks leading up to early voting, with Talarico struggling to break 13% support among Black voters, according to recent polling. Then, a social media influencer alleged last week that the Austin Democrat referred to Allred as a “mediocre Black man,” prompting Allred to issue a scathing response and to endorse Crockett. Talarico called the allegation a “mischaracterization” and said he criticized Allred’s campaigning but would “never attack him on the basis of race.” He has repeatedly affirmed that he is running a positive campaign and urged his supporters to remain respectful of Crockett.

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Poll shows Brandon Herrera overtaking Tony Gonzales in key House primary

New polling shows incumbent Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales on defense with challenger Brandon Herrera taking the lead in a key House primary, according to a new Political Intelligence (PI) poll obtained by the Daily Caller. The PI poll, conducted between Dec. 17 and Dec. 22, 2025, asked “likely Republican primary election voters” who they would support if the race in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District were held immediately. Of the 422 likely Republican primary voters surveyed, 29% said they would vote for Gonzales, with 11% indicating they are “leaning” toward the incumbent. Gonzales’ most competitive challenger, Herrera — an entrepreneur and Second Amendment activist — polled at 33%, with 22% saying they would “definitely” vote for him and another 11% leaning in his favor.

The poll also asked voters how they would respond if only the top two candidates appeared on the primary ballot. In that scenario, 34% said they would vote for Gonzales — including 23% who said they would “definitely” support him — while 43% backed Herrera, with 32% saying they would “definitely” vote for the challenger. Another 23% of respondents said they were “undecided.” “Texas is tired of woke Tony Gonzales. The only thing worse than his voting record is his character. I’m giving Texas 23 what they deserve, a pro-gun, pro-life, pro-Trump congressman,” Herrera told the Caller in a statement. President Donald Trump officially endorsed Gonzales in the race on Dec. 18, declaring in a Truth Social post that Gonzales has his “COMPLETE and Total Endorsement for Re-Election.”

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MAGA lawmaker accused of lying on sworn statement as GOP Senate primary gets ugly

The campaign of Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is accusing one of his primary rivals, Wesley Hunt, of committing voter fraud in 2016 by lying to election officials so he could take a provisional ballot he was ineligible for. Hunt, along with Attorney General Ken Paxton, is locked in a close contest with Cornyn for the nomination. Most polls show Paxton at least slightly ahead of Cornyn, and Hunt placing third, with both candidates keen to reduce Hunt's numbers in the hope his voters will go to them. The allegation was laid out on X Friday by Matt Mackowiak, a longtime Austin-based Republican strategist now running communications for Cornyn's campaign.

"In a bombshell development today in the U.S. Senate primary in Texas, little known 2nd term Congressman Wesley Hunt attempted to show he voted in the 2016 general election, but his provisional ballot was not counted because he was not a registered voter," wrote Mackowiak. "Far more significant is the revelation that he claimed to the Election Judge and in a sworn affidavit that he was discharged in Oct. 2016 (one month before), but his official congressional biography, his campaign biography, and his military discharge document all show he was discharged four years earlier in 2012." According to the allegation, Hunt falsely told an elections judge that he had only just been discharged, as an explanation for why his voter registration wasn't in the system, so that he could take a provisional ballot. “Wesley Hunt has now unwittingly proved he committed voter fraud by lying in a sworn statement to an Election Judge both verbally and on a sworn document,” Mackowiak continued. “His military discharge form, and his official biography prove he was discharged in 2012, not in 2016 as he claimed in an attempt to illegally vote. Corrupt Ken Paxton should investigate Wesley Hunt for voter fraud and Wesley should admit he lied in a sworn document.”

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Illness is rampant among children trapped in ICE’s massive jail in Texas

The number of people held at the notorious Dilley immigration jail has nearly tripled since October. Amid growing calls from lawmakers and human rights groups to shut down the sprawling Dilley Immigration Processing Center in southern Texas, an analysis shows the number of people incarcerated at the notorious immigration jail for children and families has nearly tripled in recent months. Texas lawmakers and attorneys for immigrant families say a growing number of children at the facility are suffering in dangerous and inhumane conditions. People incarcerated at Dilley were quarantined after at least two became sick with measles last week.

In another recent case, an 18-month-old girl was hospitalized with a life-threatening lung infection after spending two months in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the migrant jail. The girl was reportedly returned to Dilley after spending 10 days at the hospital and denied prescribed medication, according to a federal lawsuit. She was only freed after lawyers filed an emergency petition demanding her release. As the nation’s main large immigration jail designed to hold families — though the Trump administration is racing to build more — families are transferred from across the country to a remote part of Texas as they wait weeks or months to see an immigration judge. Recent federal data show that the average daily population exploded from an average of 500 people a day in October to around 1,330 a day in late January, according to Detention Reports, a new tool that maps data on 237 immigration jails nationwide.

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Greg Abbott launches rural TV ad targeting Crockett and out-of-state Democrats

Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign is running TV ads in rural markets across the state attacking “radical Democrats” Zohran Mamdani, Kamala Harris and Jasmine Crockett — the first significant ad buy in the Texas Republican’s push for a record fourth term in office. The ad went live Thursday, and his campaign has reserved $1.3 million worth of airtime through the March 3 primary, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising. Abbott’s campaign says it is aimed at driving turnout in rural parts of the state, while other campaigns blanket the airwaves in major markets. While 10 Republicans are running in the GOP primary against Abbott, the ad is focused on Democrats. The 30-second spot frames Abbott as a bulwark against “radical Democrats,” though he is not facing any of the politicians in the ad.

It starts with a clip of Mamdani, the newly elected New York City mayor, saying he campaigned as a Democratic socialist and will govern as one. It’s followed by Crockett, a Dallas congresswoman running for U.S. Senate, saying the party needs to learn from Mamdani. In a post on the social media site X about the rural focus, Abbott’s longtime political adviser Dave Carney wrote: “Must be some magic sauce…” The early TV ad buy underscores how much Abbott has to spend this election cycle. The governor had more than $105.7 million in the bank as of the beginning of the year — $40 million more than what he had at the same point in 2022. It also comes as Abbott has political capital riding on other statewide races further down the ballot. The governor has endorsed candidates in both the comptroller and agriculture commissioner races. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat seen as the frontrunner in the race to challenge Abbott, cast the ad buy as a sign the governor is worried. Hinojosa’s campaign released internal polling Thursday showing her trailing Abbott by 3 percentage points, 43-46, which she argued is a sign the three-term governor is more vulnerable than it might appear. The University of Houston poll released a survey this week that showed a 7 percentage point margin between the two, with 6% undecided. “It looks like a governor who's not very confident with his base,” Hinojosa said about the ad buy.

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Carlos Spector, champion of immigrant rights, facing final days as family seeks help to bring him home to El Paso

Carlos Spector, El Paso’s most prominent immigration attorney and a champion for the right to asylum, is gravely ill with cancer at a Houston hospital, his family said. Spector’s family has started a GoFundMe campaign to bring him home so he can spend his last days in El Paso, said his daughter, Alejandra Spector. Carlos Spector has been treated for three weeks at the MD Anderson Cancer Treatment Center in Houston, where doctors determined that he likely would not survive surgery for the sarcoma in his throat, Alejandra said. “And they said, ‘You need to go home and just spend what time you have left,’” she said.

The family is looking at using an air ambulance service to bring him to El Paso, which could cost $25,000. The GoFund me campaign, which is seeking to raise $50,000, is meant to cover that and other costs the family has incurred while in Houston for the treatment. Spector, 71, is an El Paso native and Air Force veteran. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants who fled Russian pogroms; his mother was from Mexico. He has been an attorney for 40 years, specializing in immigration law. It was Spector’s advocacy that created the opportunity for Mexicans fleeing drug violence to qualify for amnesty in the United States, said Linda Rivas, a senior trial attorney for the El Paso County Attorney’s Office and former executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. “I think some would argue that he really started Mexican asylum. Mexican asylum was unheard of, and he really was able to prove that this issue with narco violence and the threats to people’s lives was something that the (Mexican) government could not control, was not willing to control,” Rivas said. “He was able to show that there were groups of people who were more vulnerable than others and did fit the definitions of asylum and should be eligible for asylum and not be ignored just because they were Mexican.”

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GOP candidate Bo French pulls out of Houston-area meetup at Islamic center

Republican Texas Railroad Commission candidate Bo French announced he would not be attending a Harris County bipartisan political event Friday night because it was being held at an Islamic center. French, former chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party, took to X to make the announcement, made just hours before the event was set to begin. "On the advice of my security team, I have to cancel my appearance at the Harris County GOP event tonight," he wrote. "This event is being held in an islamic center." The event was held at Masjid AlSalam in Spring. Chad Khan, the mosque's civic engagement committee chair, said French never RSVPed. "It was a very nice event," Khan said. "A lot of Democrat candidates came, a lot of Republican candidates come and they talk about their platform. It's nothing to do with Muslim, Christian or Judaism. We talk about mainstream politics, that's it."

In a statement to the Chronicle on Friday, French said, "It is sad to see how much more dangerous the Islamization of Texas has made our state. This is why we need a real leader who will defend Texas oil & gas and shut down the mullahs wherever they are." His reference to "Islamization" reflects the GOP's embracing of anti-Islamic rhetoric, which some Texas Republican Muslims say has deterred them from the party. Religious scholars refute some conservatives' messaging on Islamic Sharia law, stating that it isn't a legal code that competes with the nation's laws and is being misconstrued. French is running against Hawk Dunlap, a veteran oil field worker and well control specialist, and incumbent Chairman Jim Right in the Republican primary for Railroad Commissioner. French stepped down as Tarrant County GOP chairman in November to announce his candidacy. He said running for railroad commissioner was the "best way that I can defend Texas, stop the Islamic invasion, and defeat the left." He drew criticism in June from both Republicans and Democrats after posting a poll to X asking whether Jews or Muslims were "a bigger threat to America." In response, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for French's removal as Tarrant County GOP chairman. "Bo French’s words do not reflect my values nor the values of the Republican Party," Patrick wrote on X. "Antisemitism and religious bigotry have no place in Texas."

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Muslim lawmaker says his community feels targeted by Texas Republicans

If you haven’t noticed lately during the campaigns, Texas Republicans just aren’t talking about the border much anymore, as the policies of the Trump Administration have led to a 55-year low in crossings. They’ve instead turned their attention to Islam, Sharia Law, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with some Republican campaigns sending near daily texts on the matter. State Rep. Salman Bhojani, D-District 92, is one of two Muslims in the Texas Legislature. He says he gets a call from a Muslim family just about every day. “The Muslim community is devastated. It’s living under sort of a blanket of fear, a blanket of suspicion that, oh, if you’re Muslim, then you must be doing something illegal or these organizations that are fighting for your civil rights are also terrorist organizations,” Rep. Bhojani told us on Inside Texas Politics. “I get calls from Muslim community members that they’re being targeted just for wearing a hijab.”

Rep. Bhojani thinks it’s all political red meat, a way for Republicans to rally the base. Political consultants agree. But the Democrat says the situation can become dangerous when leaders from the President, down to the Governor, down to local lawmakers specifically target Muslims. “As a Muslim Texan, I feel really strongly that it’s not contrary to say I’m a proud Muslim and I’m a proud Texan,” he added. The lawmaker says Sharia is a framework for Muslims to govern their lives, which every religion has. There are no tribunals, he says, or compounds. Republicans have even targeted some proposed Muslim-centered developments, such as EPIC City in North Texas. “All they’re trying to do is come together, give a particular acreage to the mosque, and then have the community live close by to the mosque when they have older parents that can walk to the mosque. They just want to be able to pray in peace and that’s the right that we all enjoy in the state of Texas, in our country,” Bhojani relayed. The Democrat also expects legal action after reports surfaced that Muslim private schools are being excluded from the state’s new voucher program, which is now open for parents.

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HUD investigates EPIC over alleged religious discrimination in upcoming project

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating the East Plano Islamic Center over its upcoming project The Meadow, formally known as EPIC City. The department in a press release Friday accuses EPIC Real Properties, Inc., and Community Capital Partners, LP — the corporate entities for EPIC— of violating the Fair Housing Act over religious and national origin discrimination. "It is deeply concerning the East Plano Islamic Center may have violated the Fair Housing Act and participated in religious discrimination,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement. “As HUD Secretary, I will not stand for illegal religious or national origin discrimination in housing and will ensure that this matter receives a thorough investigation so that this community is open to all Texans.”

The probe stems from a complaint from the Texas Workforce Commission describing a "large-scale pattern of religious discriminatory conduct" by The Meadow's developers, according to the department. The allegations accuse developers of promoting The Meadow as a Muslim-only community and that it would represent “the epicenter of Islam in America.” Other claims include: Discriminatory financial terms that required lot owners to subsidize a mosque and Islamic educational centers. A bias sales mechanism consisting of a two-tier lottery system for lot sales, which granted lot access to Tier One buyers. The Meadow is planned to be a 402-acre development between unincorporated Collin and Hunt counties, roughly 40 miles northeast of Dallas near the city of Josephine. It would include more than 1,000 homes, a new mosque, a K-12 faith-based school, senior housing, an outreach center, commercial developments, sports facilities, and a community college. Planners from Community Capital Partners, LLC in the past have repeatedly said The Meadow is an open community where everyone is welcome. “CCP does not discriminate,” Emily Black said, a spokesperson for the corporate entity.“They do not seek exclusivity. They support equal housing opportunity and religious freedom, both of which are protected under federal and Texas law.”

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‘Teen Mom’ star Farrah Abraham site solicits donations above Austin's $500 limit

Reality TV star and newly minted Austin City Council candidate Farrah Abraham is already soliciting campaign donations, but her fundraising website lets supporters give more than the city’s legal limit. The site, which features a photo of Abraham posed in front of an American flag, includes preset donation buttons as high as $1,000 – double Austin’s $500 cap for individual contributions. The $500 button also includes a $20.51 processing fee, which would push the donation over the allowed limit.

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Texas man convicted in Jan. 6 attack on Congress wants a new job — in Congress

More than two years after being convicted as part of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a Texas Republican is looking to return to Washington, D.C., but this time as a member of Congress. Lubbock's Ryan Zink is one of seven Republicans in a crowded GOP primary for the 19th Congressional District. Current U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, is not seeking reelection, setting the stage for one of the wildest primary races in Texas.

Last year, President Donald Trump issued pardons or commutations for an estimated 1,500 people charged with the attack on the Capitol. Zink had been charged with a felony and two misdemeanors and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Zink didn’t respond to a request for an interview on Friday, but told Manny Diaz at KTAB in Abilene early last year that he was wrongly prosecuted. “I never entered the building,” he said. “I never assaulted anyone. I never damaged any property.” Federal agents ultimately used video of him during the attack to prove he was on “restricted grounds” — even if not technically inside the building. In that video, Zink says, “We knocked down the gates! We’re storming the Capitol! You can’t stop us!” Zink has sincesaid the "storming the Capitol" line was just a figure of speech. Zink is certainly a long shot in the race for the district, which stretches from Lubbock to Abilene. All six of the other Republicans in the race have outraised him, according to Federal Election Commission records. Zink isn’t the only one convicted that day who has since tried to run for office. In Longview, Republican Ryan Nichols, also pardoned by Trump, initially filed to run for Congress in the 1st Congressional District against U.S. Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Whitehouse, but later dropped out. And in West Virginia, Republican Derrick Evans is running for the U.S. House. Jake Lang, also pardoned, announced he is running for the U.S. Senate in Florida. He told the Miami New Times he expects others arrested that day to run of office too. “The Jan Sixers have risen out and emerged out of these prisons and these gulags, these lions’ dens, and we’re going to slay the giant now, just as David has,” he said.

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How radioactive oil and gas waste could lie beneath a North Texas elementary school

On a cold winter morning in Johnson County, at the southwestern edge of the booming Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, 52-year-old Lee Oldham stands beside the Pleasant View Elementary School and wonders what the drilling waste he helped lay underneath might mean for the children inside. Surrounding the school is the partially complete 2,500-home Silo Mills development that will supply it with children and that is also built atop drilling waste, according to satellite maps and interviews. The first families moved in two years ago. “They weren’t telling anyone this was a radioactive material. They told us it was safe,” said Oldham, who worked as a dozer operator here from 2009 to 2011, laying waste that he said was generally 6 inches to a foot deep, but in spots as much as 2 to 3 feet. In 2015, Oldham returned to the same area doing reclamation work that involved putting 1 to 2 feet of local dirt back over the waste. Hundreds of homes have already been built in this subdivision, and many are occupied, with cars parked in driveways and trampolines in yards.

Pleasant View Elementary School is part of the Godley Independent School District and already has about 500 students. The elementary school’s website shows photos of smiling children, a list of upcoming and recent events including chess club meetings, an area spelling bee, field trips, and a celebration marking the 100th day of school. School officials say the developer conducted a “Phase 1 Environmental Site” assessment prior to completing the school in 2022. “The assessment indicated that no evidence of recognized environmental conditions was identified in connection with the subject property and that no further action was required,” Superintendent Rich Dear said in a statement provided to Truthdig and the Texas Observer by email. “The Pleasant View Elementary School site was developed following voter approval of Godley ISD’s 2021 bond election and the donation of the property by the developer.” Students began attending the campus in January 2023. Dear identified Terra Manna, LLC, as the site developer and said that the company could provide the assessment. Terra Manna did not reply to questions sent through an online contact form, and phone calls to the company’s main line requesting the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment went unreturned.

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Hundreds join Walk for Peace homecoming for Buddhist monks in Fort Worth

Hundreds of supporters lined the streets of east Fort Worth on Saturday morning to welcome the Buddhist monks home after their 2,300-mile Walk for Peace. By 7 a.m., a large group had already gathered at Eastover Park, where the monks were due to arrive. Someone scattered red and white rose petals on the road and several people were carrying bouquets of flowers.

Yvonne Hanson left her home in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, at 6 a.m. Thursday and drove more than 17 hours so she could be on time to walk with the monks on the last leg of their journey from the park to their temple, the Húóng Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center. The monks set off from the Fort Worth temple on Oct. 26. Clad in brown robes and carrying simple packs on their shoulders, they prepared to walk to Washington, D.C., on a mission to promote national healing and unity. The journey spanned nine states in 112 days. Despite a serious accident near Houston that injured two monks, the group persevered and arrived in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. They returned to Fort Worth around 8:40 a.m. Saturday in a charter bus. Cheers erupted from the onlookers as the bus headed down Ramey Avenue toward Eastover Park. One woman held up a hand-lettered sign reading, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” A throng of people gathered around as the monks disembarked. Most joined the men and their dog, Aloka, for the approximately one-mile walk to the temple.

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National Stories

Trump’s relentless self-promotion fosters an American cult of personality

The racist online video that President Trump recently shared and then deleted generated a bipartisan furor because of its portrayal of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. What was little remarked on was how it presented Mr. Trump himself — as the “King of the Jungle.” After a year back in the White House, Mr. Trump’s efforts to promote himself as the singularly dominant figure in the world have become so commonplace that they no longer seem surprising. He regularly depicts himself in a heroic, almost godly fashion, as a king, as a Superman, as a Jedi knight, as a military hero, even as a pope in a white cassock. While Mr. Trump has spent a lifetime promoting his personal brand, slapping his name on hotels, casinos, airplanes, even steaks, neckties and bottled water, what he is doing in his second term as president comes closer to building a cult of personality the likes of which has never been seen in American history. Other presidents sought to cultivate their reputations, but none went as far as Mr. Trump has to create a mythologized, superhuman and omnipresent persona leading to idolatry.

His picture has been splashed all over the White House, on multistory banners on the side of federal buildings, on annual passes to national parks and maybe even soon on a one-dollar coin. His name has been etched on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on the U.S. Institute of Peace, on federal investment accounts, special visas and a discount drug program and, if he has his way, on Washington Dulles International Airport and Penn Station in New York. His White House is pressuring the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery to display portraits of Mr. Trump by his supporters. A group of cryptocurrency investors has shelled out $300,000 to forge a 15-foot-tall gold-covered bronze statue of Mr. Trump called “Don Colossus” to be installed at his golf complex in Doral, Fla. His administration is considering designating a new class of battleships in Mr. Trump’s name. His allies are pressuring foreign leaders to endorse his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize and threatening consequences for resisting. Some supporters in Congress have even proposed adding his face to Mount Rushmore, an effort that, for the moment, has gained little traction. This spree of self-aggrandizement goes beyond mere vanity, although Mr. Trump suffers from no particular shortage in that department. “I really have a big ego,” he noted at the National Prayer Breakfast this month, an assessment that drew no disagreement. What Mr. Trump is actually doing, though, is making himself the inescapable force in American life.

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In first public comments since Trump’s racist video, Obama laments lost decorum

Former President Barack Obama this weekend indirectly addressed a racist video posted earlier this month by President Trump, which depicted Mr. Obama and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, as apes. In a podcast interview published on Saturday, Mr. Obama was asked about the “devolution of the discourse” in American politics, with the host mentioning the video shared by Mr. Trump as one of several examples of inflammatory comments or statements by officials from the current administration. “There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office,” Mr. Obama told Brian Tyler Cohen, a YouTuber and podcast host. “That’s been lost,” he added.

Appearing on Mr. Cohen’s “No Lie” podcast, Mr. Obama did not directly address the video, which was deleted from Mr. Trump’s Truth Social account after it prompted rare, bipartisan outrage. But Mr. Obama stressed that he believed that most Americans found such content abhorrent. “I think it’s important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” Mr. Obama said. “It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. But as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.” Mr. Trump has refused to apologize for posting the video, saying he “didn’t make a mistake.” He said that he had not seen the entire clip and that someone else had posted it on his account. In the nearly hourlong appearance with Mr. Cohen, Mr. Obama spoke at length about the Democratic Party, public protest and Mr. Trump’s blunt immigration enforcement, including the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Minneapolis. “The rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous,” Mr. Obama said. He added: “It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis.” The Trump administration said on Thursday that it was ending its deployment of federal agents to Minnesota after it led to tense protests, thousands of arrests and at least three shootings in the Democratic-led state. Mr. Obama applauded the grass roots organizing that was occurring in places like Minneapolis and community efforts to protect immigrants there. “That kind of heroic, sustained behavior in subzero weather by ordinary people is what should give us hope,” he said.

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These young voters are starting to regret their vote for Trump

Week after week, images of Israel’s military pummeling Gaza filled news broadcasts and social media—and President Trump was losing patience. “People are getting sick of turning on the TV and seeing you bombing everything,” Trump said in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The young people don’t like it.” Trump’s private remarks last year, recounted by a person with knowledge of the conversation, came as his standing with young people has plummeted during his first year in office. After Trump nearly won the group in 2024, roughly two-thirds of young voters ages 18-29 now disapprove of the president’s priorities, including his approach to foreign policy and immigration, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll.

Young voters are part of Trump’s coalition that is showing signs of fraying ahead of the coming midterm elections, where history is already against the party that controls the White House, and the GOP has the barest of control in Congress. As the president looks to rebuild his standing with the group, he has sought to address economic concerns, including offering plans to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes and cap credit-card interest rates. He has directed the federal government to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous drug. Emboldened in his second term, Trump has also pursued an aggressive foreign-policy stance, pushed for amped-up deportations and swarmed cities like Minneapolis with immigration agents. Those decisions, and others, have pushed some young Trump supporters away. Trump and team are focused on “making life more affordable for working Americans, and winning the midterms,” said Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

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Europeans push back at US over claim they face 'civilizational erasure'

A top European Union official on Sunday rejected the notion that Europe faces “civilizational erasure,” pushing back at criticism of the continent by the Trump administration. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the Munich Security Conference a day after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a somewhat reassuring message to European allies. He struck a less aggressive tone than Vice President JD Vance did in lecturing them at the same gathering last year but maintained a firm tone on Washington’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its policy priorities. Kallas alluded to criticism in the U.S. national security strategy released in December, which asserted that economic stagnation in Europe “is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”

It suggested that Europe is being enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birth rates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.” “Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure,” Kallas told the conference. “In fact, people still want to join our club and not just fellow Europeans,” she added, saying she was told when visiting Canada last year that many people there have an interest in joining the EU. Related Stories Rubio's speech to European allies takes a softer tone but sticks to Trump's firm stance Europe hopes to repair trans-Atlantic trust as Rubio attends key security conference Europe warily awaits Rubio at Munich Security Conference as Trump roils transatlantic ties

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Architect submits most-detailed renderings so far for White House ballroom

The most-detailed renderings yet of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project were briefly made available Friday, showing the massive scale of the planned 89,000-square-foot space. The renderings from Shalom Baranes Associates — which were posted by the National Capital Planning Commission on its website and then swiftly taken down — show the new East Wing could span approximately one street block, significantly longer than the West Wing. It also appears to be more than half the length of the Treasury Building, which it would be next to. CNN has reached out to the NCPC, the planning agency for federal land that must approve the project; the architecture firm; and the White House regarding why the proposal was removed from the website and for additional comment.

The project is facing a legal challenge from the nation’s top historical preservation group, with a federal judge expressing deep skepticism last month over Trump’s authority to construct the ballroom without express authorization from Congress. Yet, construction is moving ahead, with Trump claiming earlier this week that the project is ahead of schedule and within budget. The White House has said the ballroom would be privately funded. “When completed, it will be the finest Ballroom ever built anywhere in the World, one that has been sought by Presidents for over 150 years — and now they are getting THE BEST!” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that future presidential inaugurations — which are traditionally held in the US Capitol — could be held in the ballroom. The National Capital Planning Commission is set to meet next on March 5 to discuss the proposal. Trump has appointed loyalists to the NCPC, as well as to the Commission of Fine Arts, the other organization that must review the ballroom plans.

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Soaring coffee prices rewrite some Americans' daily routines

For years, it was a daily McDonald’s trip for a cup of coffee with 10 sugars and five creams. Later, it was Starbucks caramel macchiatos with almond milk and two pumps of syrup. Coffee has been a morning ritual for Chandra Donelson since she was old enough to drink it. But, dismayed by rising prices, the 35-year-old from Washington, D.C., did the unthinkable: She gave it up. “I did that daily for years. I loved it. That was just my routine,” she says. “And now it’s not.” Years of steadily climbing coffee prices have some in this country of coffee lovers upending their habits by nixing café visits, switching to cheaper brews or foregoing it altogether. Coffee prices in the U.S. were up 18.3% in January from a year ago, according to the latest Consumer Price Index released on Friday. Over five years, the government reported, coffee prices rose 47%.

That extraordinary rise has brought some to take extraordinary measures. “Before, I thought, ‘There’s no way I could make it through my day without coffee,’” says Liz Sweeney, 50, of Boise, Idaho, a former “coffee addict” who has cut her consumption. “Now my car’s not on automatic pilot.” Sweeney used to have three cups of coffee at home each day and stop at a café whenever she left the house. As prices climbed last year, though, she nixed coffee shop visits and cut her intake to a cup a day at home. To make up for the caffeine, she pops open a can of Diet Coke at home or rolls through McDonald’s for one. Dan DeBaun, 34, of Minnetonka, Minnesota, has likewise trimmed back on coffee shop visits, conscious of the increasing expense as he and his wife save up for a house.

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Several ICE agents were arrested in recent months, showing risk of misconduct

Investigators said one immigration enforcement official got away with physically assaulting his girlfriend for years. Another admitted he repeatedly sexually abused a woman in his custody. A third is charged with taking bribes to remove detention orders on people targeted for deportation. At least two dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and contractors have been charged with crimes since 2020, and their documented wrongdoing includes patterns of physical and sexual abuse, corruption and other abuses of authority, a review by The Associated Press found. While most of the cases happened before Congress voted last year to give ICE $75 billion to hire more agents and detain more people, experts say these kinds of crimes could accelerate given the sheer volume of new employees and their empowerment to use aggressive tactics to arrest and deport people.

The Trump administration has emboldened agents by arguing they have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty and by weakening oversight. One judge recently suggested that ICE was developing a troubling culture of lawlessness, while experts have questioned whether job applicants are getting enough vetting and training. “Once a person is hired, brought on, goes through the training and they are not the right person, it is difficult to get rid of them and there will be a price to be paid later down the road by everyone,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2014 to 2017. Almost every law enforcement agency contends with bad employees and crimes related to domestic violence and substance abuse are long-standing problems in the field. But ICE’s rapid growth and mission to deport millions are unprecedented, and the AP review found that the immense power that officers exercise over vulnerable populations can lead to abuses.

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Lead Stories

Party balloons? FAA’s surprise El Paso airspace closure fuels questions

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) surprise closure and later opening of airspace over El Paso, Texas is fueling questions from the public and sharp rebukes from lawmakers. Trump administration officials initially contended the move came in response to the incursion of Mexican drug cartel drones. However, the closure of airspace — initially set to last 10 days, but lifted after 8 hours — reportedly came after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in the area used a laser counter-drone weapon, provided by the Pentagon, to take out objects that were later identified as party balloons. A White House official told The Hill on Thursday that FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford pulled the trigger on closing the airspace without notifying the White House, DHS and the Pentagon.

“The Department of War and the Department of Transportation having been working together for months regarding drone incursion operations. Last night’s action to disable the cartel drones was not a spontaneous action,” the official said in a statement. “At no point in the process of disabling these cartel drones were civilian aircraft in danger as a result of the methods used by DOW to disable the drones.” That explanation has not put to bed questions about why the FAA acted alone, why the decision was reversed so quickly, what CBP’s role was in the preceding events, or why officials initially defended the move as a necessary response to “address a cartel drone incursion.” “The FAA is in charge of the notification and the process of closing the airspace, but it’s historically done in consultation and coordination with other agencies, right? Because other agencies have equities in airspace,” said Charles Marino, ex-advisor to former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano. Marino, who is now chief executive officer of global security and intelligence advisory firm Sentinel, told The Hill on Thursday that he finds it “weird that the FAA would be the first stop regarding an imminent threat.”

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DHS shutdown imminent after Senate Democrats block Homeland Security bill

Senate Democrats voted Thursday to block a motion to advance a House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, putting Washington on the brink of a partial government shutdown that will affect more than 260,000 federal employees. The motion, which required 60 votes, failed to advance by a vote of 52-47. Centrist Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has a long-standing policy of voting against government shutdowns, was the only Democrat to vote for advancing the measure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) voted no for procedural reasons to be able to bring the bill back to the floor quickly at a later date. Shortly after, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) attempted to get unanimous consent to move a two-week stopgap bill, but Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) objected. Democrats blocked the legislation after rejecting an offer from the White House they said didn’t go far enough to reform immigration enforcement operations after the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis last month.

As a result, funding for key agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Coast Guard will lapse Saturday without further action from Congress. The agencies that are the main targets of Democratic fury, however, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will be able to continue operations without much disruption. Both agencies received tens of billions of dollars through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed into law last year. “Democrats have been very clear. We will not support an extension of the status quo, a status quo that permits masked secret police to barge into people’s homes without warrants, no guardrails, zero oversight from independent authorities,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote. Schumer acknowledged that White House border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that it was ending its surge deployment of ICE officers in Minnesota but declared the action falls short of what’s needed to prevent troubling incidents connected to law enforcement operations.

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Trump boasts of over $1.5B in political funds. How he chooses to spend it could rock the midterms

President Donald Trump has bragged about building a political war chest exceeding $1.5 billion — a staggering sum that he can wield at his whim to shape November’s midterms and the 2028 race to succeed him. Trump’s stockpile — which dwarfs any amounts raised by his predecessors in their second terms — is not easy to precisely calculate given that much of it is being collected by groups that aren’t required to file regular financial disclosures. Current and former staffers, as well as others in Trump’s orbit, wouldn’t say exactly where his political bank account stands six months after the president announced on social media that he’d raised, just since Election Day 2024, “in various forms and political entities, in excess of 1.5 Billion Dollars.”

But what is not in question is that it represents a mountain of cash that could reshape Republican politics for years to come — if he chooses. He’s been reluctant to spend money on other people’s races in the past, and he’s even found ways to funnel some cash to his own businesses. The $1.5 billion Trump claimed is roughly equal to what he and outside groups spent on his successful 2024 reelection bid, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks political spending. Related Stories Bondi clashes with Democrats as she struggles to turn the page on Epstein files furor Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into the fatal Minneapolis shooting Smith defends his Trump investigations at a House hearing. 'No one should be above the law,' he says By comparison, Democratic President Joe Biden’s various super PACs, political groups and nonprofits, as well as the Democratic National Committee, raised roughly $97 million during his first year in office, according to public disclosures. That’s only about 7% of Trump’s total, and Biden was gearing up for a reelection run Trump isn’t allowed to make. “I think a lot of people are asking, ‘What is it all for?’” said Saurav Ghosh, federal campaign finance reform director at the Washington nonprofit Campaign Legal Center.

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Julie Johnson says she only made $90, disputes attack over ICE-linked stock trades

Rep. Julie Johnson pushed back Thursday against a new attack from Democratic rival Colin Allred over her stock trades in Palantir, a tech contractor whose software assists immigration officials on deportations. The Farmers Branch congresswoman faces Allred, a former House member from Dallas, in an increasingly caustic primary March 3 for Congressional District 33. The Allred ad accuses Johnson of “profiting from ICE’s surveillance company, making thousands from the company ICE uses to track and detain our neighbors.” “In Congress, she was supposed to be overseeing Trump and ICE,” the ad’s narrator says. “Instead, Johnson was making money from it.” Johnson called that misleading.

“It was less than $8,000 and I made $90 on the whole thing,” she told reporters this week. “I owned it for a very short period of time and I consistently voted against their interests. So, Colin’s assertions to the contrary are false, misleading and deceptive to the voters.” Financial disclosures show Johnson bought Palantir stock on Jan. 15 and Feb. 12 of last year, each time in amounts between $1,000 and $15,000. She sold on April 1 and June 30, again in that same range. Those reports list ranges, not exact figures, leaving no independent way to confirm or refute Johnson’s $90 figure. Johnson’s campaign said an independent money manager handled her assets, she started divesting her portfolio in March 2025 and all Palantir stock was sold by June 2025. She had divested “all actively traded stocks” in 2025, the campaign said. She also cited her support for a revised congressional stock trading ban in November, two months after it was introduced. Allred signed onto a January 2023 version of a stock trading ban in mid-2024. Allred has stuck with his criticisms of Johnson’s stock trading, saying she is one of the most active stock traders in Congress. In contrast, he said, he never traded stocks while in office.

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State Stories

No tax hike despite budget headache, Whitmire says in State of the City address

At his second State of the City event on Thursday, Houston Mayor John Whitmire addressed daunting fiscal challenges and unveiled his aspirational visions. The address came about a year before the next municipal campaign season, when Whitmire will seek a second four-year term. "I’m prepared to give six years — the remaining best years of my life — for Houston," said Whitmire, who is 76 years old. If reelected, he would be 82 years old at the end of his second term. Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox. He said the main message of the address was "Houston is a strong city and is getting stronger every day." The city of Houston faced its highest-ever budget deficit last year, as expenses outpaced revenues by nearly $150 million.

As the end of the current fiscal year in June approaches, the city again faces a daunting deficit ­­— expected to exceed $120 million, with additional overages possible as the police, fire and solid waste departments are projected to overshoot their overtime budgets by about $54 million. Throughout his first two years in office, Whitmire refused to increase the property tax rate. He said the trend will continue until the city eliminates "waste, duplication, conflicts of interest and corruption." "We’re not going to raise taxes in this next budget cycle," Whitmire said. "We’re going to look for efficiencies, collaboration, eliminate corruption, conflicts. It can be done, and it will be done." He highlighted the voluntary retirement incentive program put forward by his administration last year, in which about 1,000 workers retired in exchange for lump sum buyouts equaling 25% of their annual salaries. It is projected to save $35 million per year from the city's $3 billion general fund.

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‘You’re being cute:’ Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo walks out during spat over office project

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo walked out in the middle of the Harris County Commissioners Court meeting on Thursday during a spat about a project that she said could restrict space inside her department’s office. Commissioner Lesley Briones said that her efforts to secure a second exit door from her precinct office inside the Harris County Administration building were delayed for months before commissioners overwhelmingly approved the request on Thursday. Though the item was set to be taken up in a closed-door session during the court meeting, Hidalgo requested that the discussions be taken in the public forum. Earlier in the day, she held up a map of her county office and said she’s been harassed by Briones’ precinct office, which has made attempts to tear down one of her office walls for the project, Hidalgo said.

However, Briones said that creating a second egress from her precinct office would ensure her staffers’ safety. “All we want is a second door in case there is an active threat, whether that is a shooter, whether that is a fire,” Briones said. “My office does not have a second exit in a separate area by which my team can leave.” Hidalgo spoke about commissioners last year failing to back her request for additional security detail during her trade mission to Paris. In an interview with Houston Public Media last year, she said she wasn't permitted to bring security detail on her trip, which was funded with money from her own political campaign. The request for an additional door from Briones’ office first arose in a meeting of the county’s space planning committee, which works with county departments and precinct offices to make security and space recommendations for local government buildings. On Thursday, Hidalgo said the county judge’s office inside the administration building is limited in space and has not been remodeled like other precinct offices. Some of the county judge’s staff need to work out of a conference room because the floor they work on is being treated for asbestos.

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Dallas County primary election early voting locations still in flux

With days left before early voting begins, where Dallas County residents can vote continues to change. Several places selected to be early-voting locations approved last month declined, were unavailable to host or were swapped for a different site. Local Democratic and Republican parties each set primary election day locations, but the county is required, under contract with the parties, to establish the early voting sites. So again, on Feb. 12, the list of early voting centers changed. Elections Administrator Paul Adams said during the special-called commissioners court meeting that separate Republican and Democratic elections has stressed planning.

"We kind of anticipated some of the things that might happen here today for early-vote, so we can kind of adjust for that," he said. "But as we get farther down the road with the polling places, the issue is going to be making absolutely certain — especially those places that only Democrats or only Republicans are voting, that the equipment that is dropped off, is the proper equipment for that place. "...If we have a place that's supposed to be a Democrat polling place, but they only get Republican equipment, that obviously is gonna be a problem for election day," he said. Staff are giving extra effort to serve the parties and voters, he said. "They're doing the best job that they can dealing with the circumstances that we are under," he said. "There are individuals in logistics that have worked through the weekend. They have been working 12-hour days in order to make this happen."

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Harris County's 100-year floodplain may swell 43% under new FEMA maps

Harris County’s 100-year floodplain could grow by more than 40% under draft maps newly released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. After a nearly four-year delay, FEMA posted last week an early version of the county’s updated floodplain boundaries on its website. The agency is now gathering feedback from local officials before beginning a broader public review process. If adopted, the new maps would mark the first comprehensive update to Harris County’s floodplain boundaries since 2007. A Chronicle analysis found the county’s flood zones could see substantial expansions. If finalized as currently proposed, the 100-year floodplain would grow by about 130 square miles, a 43% increase compared with today’s boundaries. The 500-year floodplain would increase by about 62 square miles, or 30%. Meanwhile, floodways, which represent the most dangerous areas, would shrink by about 5%.

For one, new data show that rainfall rates are over 30% higher than previous models assumed, according to Emily Woodell, a spokesperson for the Harris County Flood Control District, FEMA’s local partner in the update. The new maps also use more sophisticated technologies, she said. The latest analysis, for instance, takes into account almost all the channels in the county, while the previous model only included major waterways. At the same time, decades of development have replaced vast stretches of natural soil that once absorbed water. A recent Chronicle investigation found that builders have developed more than 65,000 new structures inside Greater Houston’s floodplains since 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. “We're developing and not thinking about downstream impacts,” said Sam Brody, an environmental science professor at Texas A&M University, whose research found that sprawling growth has consistently worsened flood damage. “I think that’s the biggest driver of the expanding floodplains.”

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UT Austin consolidates ethnic and gender studies, causing uncertainty for hundreds of students

The University of Texas at Austin is restructuring seven ethnic and gender studies departments into two new departments, causing concern among students and faculty. The decision was first announced by the dean of the College of Liberal Arts in a 30-minute meeting with department chairs on Thursday. The changes are likely to be finalized by September 2027, faculty from the departments said in a written statement. A university spokesperson said there's no official timeline for the consolidation. In a message to the UT community sent afterward, President Jim Davis said the departments of African and African Diaspora Studies; American Studies; Mexican American and Latina/o Studies; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies will be consolidated into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

The departments of French and Italian; Germanic Studies; and Slavic and Eurasian Studies will also be consolidated into the Department of European and Eurasian Studies. Davis said curriculums will be reviewed to determine what majors, minors and courses will be offered. He said students currently enrolled in the affected departments can continue pursuing their degrees as the changes are implemented. Faculty members said they were not given specifics at the meeting on Thursday on what the review of curriculums would entail. It is also unclear how the consolidation of these departments will affect institutes, research centers or staffing. Davis said these changes come after an evaluation of the college revealed fragmentation across departments. He also said the restructuring of the college would allow students to have access to a "balanced and challenging educational experience." Karma Chávez, a professor in the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies department, says the consolidation will take staff's attention away from students for the next couple of years while they figure out the new governance structures of the college. She said it could also have implications on what faculty teach.

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Austin ended its license plate reader program. Then the police department found a loophole.

Austin police are still using license plate reader technology months after the Austin City Council ended the city's program over privacy concerns. A KUT investigation found the Austin Police Department accessed data from Flock Safety license plate readers maintained by neighboring law enforcement agencies within the last month. The access skirts the city's push to end the firm’s presence in Austin — and highlights a gap in Austin’s policies on surveillance technology. The cameras scan license plates at intersections and allow police to search a database for certain criminal activity, like stolen cars or arrest warrants tied to certain vehicles. Austin ended its contract with Flock last June after pushback from residents who said the surveillance can be shared with immigration enforcement and that the system can be used as a dragnet that leads to wrongful arrests.

While APD no longer has the license plate reading cameras on city roads, it does have access to cameras maintained by at least two neighboring agencies: Round Rock and Sunset Valley police. Both agencies listed APD under the departments they had shared data with in the last 30 days. APD confirmed to KUT that it has access to Flock data from other departments, but said it only requests it in emergencies. "There may be situations where APD requests assistance from peer law enforcement agencies, such as during a joint investigation or when additional information is needed for investigative purposes," APD said. "These partnerships ensure the safety and well-being of our Austin community." APD did not say whether it had accessed data from any other departments' license plate readers, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, which recently installed Flock cameras near its headquarters off North Lamar Boulevard.

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Austin United PAC appeals convention center decision to Texas Supreme Court

An effort to stop the Austin Convention Center project from moving forward is not over. The group hoping to stop the construction appealed to the Texas Supreme Court days after a Travis County district judge sided with the city. The Austin United Political Action Committee — the group behind the petition that would let voters decide whether the expansion should move forward — filed the emergency appeal on Tuesday, Bill Bunch, an attorney representing the PAC, said. But the Texas Supreme Court faces a tight deadline. The last day to call for an election in May is Friday. “The court does have some leeway for ordering an election after the deadline,” Bunch said. “They have complete discretion to not consider this at all, or not consider it on an expedited basis, in which case the appellate process would be addressing whether we are entitled to an election in November."

Last October, the Austin United PAC filed a petition with more than 20,000 signatures — the amount needed to trigger an election — to force a ballot measure on if the convention center expansion was something voters wanted. But after reviewing the documents, Austin City Clerk Erika Brady said her office determined there were not enough valid signatures, and the petition was denied. The Austin United PAC believes Brady improperly disqualified hundreds of signatures from people who live in the extraterritorial and limited purpose jurisdictions to keep the petition below the 20,000 signature threshold. It sued the city over it in December. The lawsuit played out over two days in court last month, where Bunch and attorney Bobby Levinski argued that the people who live in these areas just outside the city are allowed to have a say in how hotel occupancy taxes are spent. Bunch said the group still believes the city disenfranchised those voters, which is a violation of state law and the city charter. “The question is whether our suburban voters in the extraterritorial jurisdiction and limited purpose jurisdiction have a right to vote on this matter,” Bunch said. State law says voters who live in these areas can only cast a ballot in certain city elections. The city believed the convention center petition wasn't one of them. A similar effort went before Austin voters in 2019 but failed. A city spokesperson said staff are reviewing the appeal and will respond as needed. Austin began its $1.6 billion project to expand the Austin Convention Center last year. The facility is already demolished and construction has begun. The center is set to reopen in Spring 2029.

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Bonck, deZevallos and Pratt lead crowded GOP field vying to succeed Hunt in TX-38

Texas' 38th Congressional District, stretching across west and northwest Harris County, is a solidly Republican seat drawn with U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt in mind. Twelve GOP candidates are vying to succeed Hunt now that he's running for the U.S. Senate. Jon Bonck, a mortgage loan officer and Baptist deacon, leads the 10-person Republican field in fundraising for the March 3 primary election. According to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission, Bonck has raised just over $1 million and has more than $846,000 in cash on hand. Bonck has also landed some of the most significant endorsements of the contest, including those of Sen. Ted Cruz and retiring Houston-area U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell.

West Houston Airport president Shelly deZevallos is second in fundraising on the GOP side. She's raised more than $666,000 and has more than $578,000 in cash on hand. Running third in fundraising among the Republican candidates is Michael Pratt, a Tomball ISD board member and former U.S. Marine Corps officer. Other candidates competing for the Republican nomination in Texas' 38th include journalist Carmen Maria Montiel, who has run unsuccessfully as a GOP candidate in Texas' 18th and 29th Congressional Districts; paralegal Avery Ayers; health care executive and retired U.S. Army officer Barrett McNabb; law enforcement leader and attorney Craig Goralski; business executive and political activist Larry Rubin; and firearms dealer Jeff Yuna. The Democratic field includes Marvalette Hunter, former chief of staff to Sylvester Turner, the late congressman and former Houston mayor; school counselor Theresa Courts; and real estate broker Melissa McDonough.

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Sheila Jackson Lee's daughter named as new Harris County administrator

Commissioners unanimously voted Thursday to appoint Erica Lee Carter to the position of county administrator — the fourth person to oversee the department since it was created in 2021. Lee Carter's appointment marked the end of a roughly nine-month nationwide search that cost the county more than $100,000. Lee Carter is the daughter of the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and was elected to briefly succeed her in a November 2024 special election. Her appointment takes effect March 9, and she will succeed Jesse Dickerman, who served as interim county administrator following the April resignation of Diana Ramirez. "'I've seen your commitment to strengthening infrastructure core services and engaging residents in every corner of this county," Lee Carter said to commissioners at Thursday's meeting. "I look forward to elevating governance, collaboration and communication across Harris County departments."

Lee Carter, 46, is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her master's in public policy from Duke University. She previously worked as policy director for Commissioner Rodney Ellis. Commissioners created the Office of County Administration to oversee 16 county departments, including flood control and public health, and handle various day-to-day operations. The intent was for the office to serve as a centralized administrative department empowered to put commissioners' plans into action, but skeptics say the office has failed to deliver on that vision. Although the Office of County Administration was created at least in part to help shield department heads from political exposure, Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey previously said that, in practice, the office simply created a single "bureaucratic scapegoat." "The county administrator position is nothing but a bureaucratic scapegoat. Since its inception four years ago, we’ve gone through two highly paid administrators, with the last one making $418,000 a year,” Ramsey said.

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A teen shattered Hector Garcia's face. He's one of many Texas juvenile officers who've suffered

A Dallas County juvenile detention officer is still recovering 10 months after he says he was attacked by a detainee while on duty. Hector Garcia, who had been on the job less than one year, said he intervened when a 15-year-old male resident tried to assault another juvenile last April. The teen began hitting Garcia, shattering bones in his face, according to medical records. "He broke my nose, he broke my jaw bone,” Garcia told KERA in an interview. “I might have passed out a little bit, but I was mostly aware and I'm not sure how much time passed, but it might have been like two minutes.” When he got up, he said he tried to help the other boy out of the shower before help came. Covered in blood — holding his eye — Garcia says he waited about a half-hour before a supervisor spoke with him. A nurse put him in a wheelchair and took him from the fifth floor to the third. "I lost a lot of blood," he said. "I couldn't walk. I was a little too woozy.”

Garcia is among the thousands of staff members at juvenile facilities who have been attacked in recent years. Serious incidents must be reported to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. That agency's data indicates more than 1,400 juvenile assaults on staff were reported statewide from 2022-2023, more than 1,900 in 2024 and nearly 900 from January to August 2025. After the attack, Garcia, 37, was taken by ambulance to Parkland Hospital. "Honestly, I kind of felt like someone should have been there, not just me by himself in the ambulance," he said. "I feel like someone should have gone with me. They just put me in an ambulance and I just went with the paramedics." He was treated as an "assault victim" with facial lacerations, abrasions, contusion, and fractures, according to hospital documents. Parkland discharged him at 6 a.m. the next day, April 29. "I requested from the hospital, like an Uber, to get me back over there so I can get my car, and I had one eye closed," he said. "My eye was all swollen. They told me they were going to give me a bus pass at first and I asked them can I get an Uber because I can't see."

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San Antonio Express-News Editorial: Hawk Dunlap, with 30-plus years in oil and gas, our GOP pick for Railroad Commission

We recommend Hawk Dunlap, a longtime oil and gas worker, in the Republican Party primary for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, which is tasked with regulating and overseeing this industry despite its misleading name Dunlap began working in oil fields more than three decades ago, and during his time in the business, he has held senior roles and developed operational expertise that would serve him well as one of three railroad commissioners.

And unlike the incumbent, Jim Wright, who has shown himself to be overly cozy with the companies the commission is supposed to be holding accountable, Dunlap takes that responsibility as paramount. To that end, he told us that his first priority would be to get produced water “under control,” referring to the water that comes out of the ground in the process of extracting oil and gas. Tens of millions of barrels of it are injected into the ground daily, which has been linked to contamination. “It's gotten out of hand,” he said. “That’s really threatening our groundwater.” Similarly, Dunlap believes the state must do a lot more to plug abandoned, or orphan, wells. And he’s proposed charging production companies 10 cents per barrel of produced water that they inject into the ground with the proceeds going toward plugging such wells. It’s past time for the commission to include someone who understands the industry while also being committed to making it as responsible as it should be. Dunlap could be that person.

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Sakai fired staffer after probe into texts to newspaper publisher

Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai fired one of his top staffers in December over flirtatious texts the staffer sent to the publisher of an East Side newspaper — messages the publisher said made her feel "creeped out," according to county documents and interviews conducted by the San Antonio Express-News. Jim Lefko, Sakai’s communications director, had been talking with staff of the San Antonio Observer, a weekly news tabloid, in an effort to generate support for a plan to revitalize the grounds of the county-owned Freeman Coliseum on the East Side. In November, Observer CEO Waseem Ali sent Lefko an email expressing concern about texts Lefko had sent to Stephanie Zarriello, Ali's wife and the weekly's publisher.

Lefko called her a "pretty lady," asked her to send him a photo of herself "all dolled up" and suggested they meet for drinks because he was a "bachelor for the weekend," according to a county investigator's report and text messages, copies of which Zarriello gave to the Express-News. The messages were part of an Oct. 23 text exchange. After Sakai heard about the texts, he requested assistance from the county ombudsman, an independent official who investigates complaints about county employees. The ombudsman interviewed Lefko, 67, but he refused to turn over his text messages. Lefko and Zarriello communicated over the course of three months and met twice — once at Lefko's office and again at a downtown bar. Their exchanges included debates over the county’s East Side plan, Lefko’s suggestion that he could arrange a ceremonial proclamation honoring the Observer and his invitation for Zarriello to sit next to him at a Commissioners Court meeting.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott scores endorsement from 800 Texas music venues

Gov. Greg Abbott was just called back for a political encore. A collective of 800 live music venues across the state – from classic theaters to honky-tonk dance halls – endorsed the Republican’s reelection bid on Thursday. In a statement released by Abbott’s campaign, the Music Venue Alliance – Texas praised recent pro-music initiatives and Abbott’s moves to lift COVID-19 restrictions that had threatened about 500 venues statewide. The group said those efforts also helped protect the tens of thousands of musicians who perform on their stages. “Governor Abbott has always been a champion for us,” said Edwin Cabaniss, alliance cofounder and chairman. The state has an estimated 1,000 live music venues, according to the alliance website.

Cabaniss also praised the Texas Music Incubator Rebate Program, which will give $200 million in tax rebates over the next decade for eligible Texas venues and festival promoters. Abbott is all but assured of the GOP nomination in the March 3 primary, while Democrats are still sorting out their field, with state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin widely viewed as the leading Democratic contender for governor. Live music is a $31 billion annual industry in Texas. The alliance includes Antone’s Nightclub in Austin, Trees Dallas, Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth, the Texas House of Rock in Corpus Christi and The Arcadia Live in Kerrville.

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National Stories

Goldman Sachs General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler resigns over Epstein ties

Goldman Sachs’s top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, resigned on Thursday in the wake of the Justice Department’s release of emails and other material that revealed her extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier. Ms. Ruemmler and representatives for Goldman said for years that she had a strictly professional relationship with Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender. But emails, text messages and photographs released late last month upended that narrative, leading to Ms. Ruemmler’s sudden resignation, which surprised many inside the firm. Before joining Goldman in 2020, Ms. Ruemmler was a counselor, confidante and friend to Mr. Epstein, the documents showed. She advised him on how to respond to tough questions about his sex crimes, discussed her dating life, advised him on how to avoid unflattering media scrutiny and addressed him as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey.”

Mr. Epstein, in turn, provided career advice on her move to Goldman, introduced her to well-known businesspeople and showered her with gifts of spa treatments, high-end travel and Hermes luxury items. In total, Ms. Ruemmler was mentioned in more than 10,000 of the documents released by the Justice Department. Ms. Ruemmler, in addition to being Goldman’s general counsel since 2021, was a partner and vice chair of its reputational risk committee. She earlier served as White House counsel under President Obama and was a white-collar defense lawyer at Latham & Watkins. “My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs’s interests first,” Ms. Ruemmler, 54, said in a statement confirming the resignation. In a separate statement, Goldman’s chief executive, David M. Solomon, said he respected her decision and described her as “a mentor and friend to many of our people.”

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Conservative heavyweights pan Trump’s ‘socialist’ drug pricing plan

A group of more than four dozen conservative and free-market activists penned a letter to members of Congress Thursday opposing the Trump administration’s new drug pricing model. The letter, sent to members of Congress, argued that the White House’s “most favored nation” drug pricing model released late last week would “import socialist price controls and values into our country.” It also suggests the program will reduce global competitiveness in medical innovation and “reduce cures available to patients while causing an unacceptable degree of drug shortages.” “While supporters of this proposal correctly identify the unique problems facing the American health care system — namely, wealthy countries paying artificially lower prices for prescription drugs than the U.S. and the fact that this depresses innovation and inflates our costs — MFN would not solve these problems,” the letter continued. “In fact, it would exacerbate them.”

Among the signatories to the letter were: President of the nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist; Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union; conservative pundit and former Trump adviser Stephen Moore; president of the nonprofit Taxpayers Protection Alliance, David Williams; and Ryan Ellis, president of the conservative nonprofit Center for a Free Economy. The groups who wrote Thursday’s letter argued that Trump’s drug pricing plan is essentially a manufacturer incentive program “based on the flawed assumption that American manufacturers are not already fighting as hard as they can against foreign price controls.” The White House announced in December that it had confirmed commitments to most favored nations pricing by more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies, requiring those firms to charge U.S. consumers prices on par with those of other peer countries. On Feb. 5, the White House also unveiled its TrumpRx drug portal, which allows pharmaceutical companies under the MFN initiative to market directly to consumers by linking out to private drug websites. “You’re going to save tremendous amounts of money,” Trump said during the announcement. “We have many of them, and in a very short period of time, we’ll have just about all of them.”

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A pilot fired over Kristi Noem’s missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS

Kristi Noem knew she needed a reset. It was two days after federal agents had shot and killed Alex Pretti, and Noem was facing fire from all sides. Even some inside the administration were pushing President Trump to remove her from her position for her handling of the chaotic immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis and comments she’d made saying Pretti committed an act of domestic terrorism. So Noem’s top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, messaged Trump’s pollster with a request: They needed to cut an ad to help her, according to two people familiar with the episode. The pollster, Tony Fabrizio, who worked on Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, ignored the entreaty, the people said. Throughout her tenure as secretary of Homeland Security, a sprawling agency charged with carrying out Trump’s central campaign promise of a mass deportation, Noem has attempted to burnish her personal stardom at every turn.

Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski have cut employees or put them on administrative leave. The pair have fired or demoted roughly 80% of the career ICE field leadership that was in place when they started. In the blanket incident, Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket wasn’t moved to the second plane, according to the people familiar with the incident. The Coast Guard pilot was initially fired and told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. They eventually reinstated the pilot because no one else was available to fly them home. The DHS spokeswoman didn’t address the episode but said the secretary has “made personnel decisions to deliver excellence.” In an incident last year that rankled some senior staff at the agency, Lewandowski made it known to top ICE officials that he wanted to be issued a law-enforcement badge and a federally issued gun, according to people familiar with his push. Officials are typically only issued a badge and a gun after undergoing law-enforcement training. The administration was preparing to bring on Tom Feeley, a former top ICE official in New York, as its new director when Lewandowski asked Feeley if he would be willing to issue him and several other political officials badges and guns. Feeley declined, and he was subsequently passed over for the top job at ICE.

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A 54-year-old personal injury lawyer from Minnesota just became the oldest US Winter Olympian

The stakes were low — and the time ripe — for a 54-year old personal injury lawyer and six-time winner of “Minnesota Attorney of the Year” to make Olympic history. It was the end of the U.S. men’s curling match against Switzerland on Thursday and they were down 8-2. The team called a substitution. Rich Ruohonen, from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, stepped onto the ice. He hurled the corner guard and watched his stone, biting his lip until it arrived safely at the left flank of the house. “Yeah, baby! Good shot, Rich!” skip Danny Casper — who was born in 2001, making him 30 years younger than Ruohonen — shouted across the ice. U.S. fans gave a standing ovation. The lawyer looked wistful. He’d had just become the oldest person to compete for the U.S. at the Winter Olympics.

“I would have rather done it when we were up 8-2 instead of down 8-2,” he said, “but I really appreciate the guys giving me a chance.” Since inviting Ruohonen onto their Gen-Z team as an alternate for Casper, who has Guillain-Barre syndrome, he has become something of an honorary uncle: driving them around, waking them up for morning trainings and buying them snacks. Related Stories A red headband earns quirky US curling star a nod from 'Pommel Horse Guy' at Winter Olympics US reaches first Olympic curling mixed doubles final, will face Swedish siblings for gold By The Numbers: A look at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics All while holding that much-discussed full-time job. “We got Rich. Uh, he’s a lawyer. I don’t know if you guys knew that,” said Casper at a recent press conference, after that fact had already been mentioned four times. Curlers from the US women’s and men’s teams cracked up. “If you need a lawyer, I think you can call Rich,” Casper said a few minutes later, again to uproarious laughter. All jokes aside, it’s a serious commitment.

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White House seeks to tighten control over HHS with personnel shakeup

The White House is looking to exercise tighter control over key areas of the US Health and Human Services Department, planning a shakeup of top personnel as the administration looks ahead to the midterm elections, an administration official told CNN. The moves are aimed at restructuring HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s senior-most ranks, installing four new senior counselors who will be charged with more closely managing the department’s daily operations and communications across the federal government. Chris Klomp, the administration’s current Medicare head and senior adviser at HHS, will become chief counselor and the department’s de facto chief of staff, the administration official said.

John Brooks, the deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be a senior counselor in charge of CMS-related issues. Two senior US Food and Drug Administration officials, Grace Graham and Kyle Diamantas, will take on senior counselor roles at HHS managing FDA-related issues. Matt Buckham, the current HHS chief of staff, will move to a senior counselor role, the administration official said, adding that the changes came out of conversations between White House officials and Kennedy. HHS confirmed the changes later Thursday, saying the hires would help accelerate the department’s agenda in their new roles, while still retaining their previous positions. “I am proud to elevate battle-tested, principled leaders onto my immediate team — individuals with the courage and experience to help us move faster and further as we work to Make America Health Again,” Kennedy said in a statement.

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Trans-Atlantic tensions in focus as annual Munich security gathering opens

An annual gathering of top international security figures that last year set the tone for a growing rift between the United States and Europe opens Friday, bringing together many top European officials with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others. The Munich Security Conference opens with a speech by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one of 15 heads of state or government from European Union countries whom organizers expect to attend. The many other expected guests at the conference that runs until Sunday include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. In keeping with the conference’s tradition, there will also be a large delegation of members of the U.S. Congress.

“Trans-Atlantic relations have been the backbone of this conference since it was founded in 1963 ... and trans-Atlantic relations are currently in a significant crisis of confidence and credibility,” conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger told reporters earlier this week. “So it is particularly welcome that the American side has such great interest in Munich.” At last year’s conference, held a few weeks into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, Vice President JD Vance stunned European leaders by lecturing them about the state of democracy on the continent. A series of Trump statements and moves targeting allies followed in the months after that — including, last month, his later-abandoned threat to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure U.S. control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. With Rubio heading the U.S. delegation this year, European leaders can hope for a less contentious approach more focused on traditional global security concerns, though a philosophically similar one. Rubio will face a heavy lift if he wants to calm the waters, however.

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FBI gives new details on suspect in Nancy Guthrie case, doubles reward to $100K

The FBI revealed new details about the man they now describe as the suspect in the abduction of Nancy Guthrie, based on evidence investigators gathered from the 84-year-old’s doorbell camera. The suspect was described as a man around 5 feet 9 inches tall with an average build, the FBI said in a social media post Thursday evening. Footage from the doorbell camera of Guthrie’s Tucson home showed the man was wearing a black “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack, according to the FBI. The FBI on Thursday also raised the reward for information leading to Guthrie’s location or to the arrest of a person involved in her disappearance to $100,000. “We hope this updated description will help concentrate the public tips we are receiving,” the FBI’s post said, which added that the agency has collected more than 13,000 tips about the case since Feb. 1, when Guthrie’s family reported her missing.

The same day the Pima County Sheriff’s Department requested neighbors within a two-mile radius of Guthrie’s home send in video footage, including of vehicles, people or anything they deemed “out of the ordinary” from between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2. Several items of evidence, including gloves, have been recovered and would be submitted for analysis, it said. Guthrie’s disappearance unfolded in front of a worldwide audience that was familiar with Savannah Guthrie as the host of the “Today” show and, over the past two weeks, saw her as a distraught daughter in search of her mother. The case has drawn intense interest from internet sleuths, a show of support from President Donald Trump and a flurry of special news segments, namely from NBC, Savannah Guthrie’s home network. Still, it remained slow-moving and mysterious. On Thursday, Savannah Guthrie shared what appeared to be a home movie of her family and a photograph in a post on social media. “Our lovely mom. we will never give up on her. thank you for your prayers and hope,” she wrote.

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CBS News producer quits in fiery note lambasting Bari Weiss’ break from ‘journalistic merit’

Producer Alicia Hastey departed CBS News on Wednesday after four years with the network, blasting Bari Weiss’ break from “journalistic merit” in a fiery exit note. “It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am taking a buy out and today was my last day in the Broadcast Center,” Hastey wrote in a statement. “I joined the network four years ago with gratitude and optimism and I want to leave you with these thoughts only as a reminder of things I know you already know.” She continued: “I am proud of the work that’s been done in my time here: segments that aimed to foreground underrepresented perspectives, interviews that challenged conventional wisdom and effort to make our journalism more responsive to a skeptical public.”

However, Hastey bemoaned that “a sweeping new vision” has prioritized “a break from traditional broadcast norms to embrace what has been described as ‘heterodox’ journalism.” “The truth is that commitment to those people and the stories they have to tell is increasingly becoming impossible,” she added. “Stories may instead be evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of idealogical expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.” While Hastey noted that this sentiment didn’t detract “from the talent of the journalists who remain at CBS News,” she called this shift in the industry “so heartbreaking,” adding, “The very excellence we seek to sustain is hindered by fear and uncertainty.” Representatives for CBS News did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

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Lead Stories

El Paso airport grounding was in response to testing of U.S. military technology, sources say

The grounding of aircraft at El Paso International Airport in Texas early Wednesday was in response to the testing of U.S. military technology that can be used to take down drones, according to four sources familiar with the matter. The testing was taking place in the proximity of the airport, raising concerns within the Federal Aviation Administration, which responded by issuing a "Temporary Flight Restriction Notice," the sources said. Three of the sources said the testing, which was taking place near Fort Bliss, was of high-energy lasers that are designed to protect against drones from drug cartels that could cross over the U.S. border.

The Federal Aviation Administration halted all flights out of El Paso International Airport in Texas for 10 days for what it said were “special security reasons” before abruptly lifting the order. It did not explain the about-face. A Trump administration official earlier told NBC News that Mexican cartel drones had breached American airspace and the Defense Department had disabled them. There is no confirmation from the Pentagon that any drones were shot down, despite the statement from the administration official. The military did recently shoot down a small party balloon, two of the sources said. Two of the sources said there was a miscommunication, or possibly a dispute, between the FAA and the Defense Department about whether the testing could affect commercial aviation that preceded the grounding of aircraft at El Paso airport.

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‘Money being burned’: Donors fret over Cornyn primary as Trump sits back

The hundreds of donors gathered in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm retreat on Saturday heard President Donald Trump’s political team outline how they plan to win the midterms. While no one at the Breakers resort publicly complained about Trump’s refusal to endorse Sen. John Cornyn, privately donors are furious, discussing over cocktail hour a looming and seemingly avoidable debacle, according to three people who attended the events. One of those donors, who like others interviewed was granted anonymity to discuss the gathering candidly, said an off-cycle election “was always going to be complicated, but this three-way primary is a self-inflicted wound.” Nervous donors watching a formerly safe Republican seat and high-profile special elections lost to insurgent Democrats fretted that Texas could also suddenly become unnecessarily competitive – and even more expensive for them – if Cornyn’s primary challengers, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton or Rep. Wesley Hunt, force a runoff.

Those establishment GOP donors gathered at the Breakers were largely aligned behind Cornyn and want to pull Trump into that, thinking he can clear the field, despite the president keeping the incumbent twisting in the wind. Trump has explained his position as an issue of personal relationships, saying his “problem” is “I’m friendly with all of them.” “I like all of them, all three,” he said earlier this month. But donors, many of whom increasingly feel like they’re throwing good money after bad, are anxious for Trump to pick a side. “Seeing the deterioration in overall GOP numbers in recent weeks has Republicans loath to watch donor money being burned in a Texas primary,” said another one of the people. The White House did not offer any comment about mounting pressure on Trump to endorse Cornyn. Last week at a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is “watching all of these races across the country quite carefully.” She added at the time that she wouldn’t get ahead of the president on potential endorsements.

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Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval after 88 years

Gallup will no longer track presidential approval ratings after more than eight decades doing so, the public opinion polling agency confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday. The company said starting this year it would stop publishing approval and favorability ratings of individual political figures, saying in a statement it “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership.” “Our commitment is to long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “That work will continue through the Gallup Poll Social Series, the Gallup Quarterly Business Review, the World Poll, and our portfolio of U.S. and global research.”

The Gallup Presidential Approval Rating has for decades been the among the top barometers cited by media outlets measuring public opinion of the president’s performance. President Trump has seen his rating by the agency slip in recent months, peaking at 47 percent last February and dipping to less than 37 percent in its last poll taken in December. “This change is part of a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission,” a spokesperson for Gallup said. “We look forward to continuing to offer independent research that adheres to the highest standards of social science.” When asked by The Hill if Gallup had received any feedback from the White House or anyone in the current administration before making the decision, the spokesperson said, “this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities.”

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In rebuke, House votes to roll back Trump’s tariffs on Canada

Six Republicans joined Wednesday night with Democrats in the House in voting to end President Donald Trump’s stepped-up tariffs on Canada, rebuking the president in the first of what could be several congressional challenges to his trade policies. The measure is largely symbolic and is not likely to succeed in overturning tariffs on the major U.S. trading partner, because Trump could veto the resolution if it clears the Senate as well. It would require a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers to override his veto. But the action showcases the long-standing frustration some congressional Republicans have with Trump’s controversial trade policies, and it’s the latest evidence of the difficulties House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) is having managing his razor-thin majority. Rep. Don Bacon (Nebraska), one of the Republicans who voted in support of the measure, said Congress has a responsibility to speak out on tariffs.

“We cannot & should not outsource our responsibilities,” he wrote in a post on X. “As an old fashioned Conservative I know tariffs are a tax on American consumers. I know some disagree. But this debate and vote should occur in the House.” The resolution from Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-New York) would end the “national emergency” underpinning Trump’s tariffs on Canada, which were first announced in February 2025. Wednesday was the first time that the House has considered a challenge to Trump’s tariffs. The Republican-controlled chamber had used procedural moves to preemptively muzzle opposition to the administration’s trade policy since March. “We should have a vote. The Constitution says, Article One, tariffs belong to the United States Congress. It’s standing up for what our jobs are,” Meeks said after the vote, adding that “these tariffs are hurting the American people.” The latest prohibition on voting on legislation to challenge Trump’s tariffs expired at the end of January, and Johnson attempted to renew it through July as part of a procedural vote Tuesday night. The House rejected that attempt,opening the controversial policy up for reversals for the first time in nearly a year.

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State Stories

Hood County’s proposed moratorium on data centers squashed by Texas senator

A proposal in Hood County for a moratorium on data centers and other large-scale industrial developments was stymied at the last minute Tuesday when a Houston lawmaker warned the county commission that it had no authority to even consider such a thing. The county was considering a six-month pause on any new projects to allow time to study regulations over air and water quality and pollution. Developers have multiple projects in the pipeline in Hood County, including a 2,600-acre data center complex called Comanche Circle that has triggered a tsunami of opposition from ranchers, landowners and conservationists near Glen Rose. The standing-room only Commissioners Court was hours into a public hearing on the issue Tuesday when a letter from Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt arrived.

Addressed to Attorney General Ken Paxton, with a subject line “Proposed Illegal County Moratorium on Development,” the letter said counties are merely political subdivisions of the state without any powers other than those specified by the constitution or state statutes. And a moratorium isn’t among those powers. The commissioners ended up voting 3-2 against the six-month moratorium . County attorney Matt Mills read Bettencourt’s letter following an impassioned public hearing where most speakers told commissioners that their quality of life, and livelihoods, were at stake. Bettencourt’s letter cited a law adopted last year that attempts to limit the ability of Texas cities to implement moratoria. He said the Senate Committee on Local Government “will be closely monitoring these situations” like with Hood County’s proposal. “I encourage your office,” Bettencourt told Paxton, “to investigate counties that implement such a moratorium and explore any necessary legal actions.”

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Chair of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission removes member after heated hearing on antisemitism

The chairman of President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission said Wednesday that he ousted a member of the commission after she sparred with fellow members during a contentious public hearing on antisemitism. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chairs the commission, said on X that it was his call to remove Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California USA, after tense exchanges during the hearing Monday over what constitutes antisemitism in the US. Boller, during the hearing, defended conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has boosted conspiracy theories and embraced antisemitic rhetoric to her millions of online followers.

“Carrie Prejean Boller has been removed from President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission,” Patrick said. “No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue. This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision.” Boller challenged Patrick’s authority to oust her, insisting on X, “As the name states, this is President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, not yours. You did not appoint me to the Commission, and you lack authority to remove me from it. This is a gross overstepping of your role and leads me to believe you are acting in alignment with a Zionist political framework that hijacked the hearing, rather than in defense of religious liberty.” CNN has reached out to the White House and the commission to confirm that Boller has been removed from the commission.

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Musk jumps back into political fray with big midterm donations

Billionaire Elon Musk is back in the political fray, giving Republicans a boost in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections. The Tesla CEO had injected hundreds of millions into the 2024 election but announced plans last spring to step back from political spending, a potential blow for the GOP ahead of the high-stakes midterms. Less than a year later, Musk had already given $20 million to two top Republican groups by the end of 2025, according to federal filings, and dropped $10 million into the Kentucky Senate race last month — signaling the tech mogul could again play a pivotal role in the fight for Congress this fall.

“Musk as a donor is important [because] money in politics is important, but Musk himself is a politically polarizing figure,” said Cayce Myers, a Virginia Tech public relations professor who has focused on political campaigns. “As his money is needed, the fact that he is involved does create a complicated political situation for Republicans.” Musk, who is the world’s richest person, spent at least $250 million boosting President Trump’s 2024 campaign, making him by far the top donor of the cycle. Following Trump’s election win, the tech billionaire cemented himself in the president’s inner circle and secured a wide-ranging role in the new administration as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, the cost-cutting initiative proved highly controversial, as DOGE sought to slash large swaths of government funding and make steep cuts to the federal workforce.

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Ireland pushing to free citizen held by ICE in Texas

Ireland will do “everything we can” to free an Irish citizen who has been confined for nearly five months in a U.S. detention camp in Texas, Prime Minister Micheál Martin vowed Tuesday. The high-profile case of Seamus Culleton — who was seized by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in September as he left a Home Depot hardware store in Boston — is complicating Ireland’s hopes of keeping relations with Washington upbeat ahead of Martin’s planned St. Patrick’s Day visit next month. Ireland prizes its exceptional political access to the White House and Capitol Hill tied to the annual March 17 Irish national holiday, when the Irish leader typically presents his U.S. counterpart with warm words and a bowl of shamrock.

The festivities have become diplomatic minefields in Trump’s era, however, given the contribution of U.S. multinationals to Ireland’s economic strength and record-breaking tax revenues — benefits that Trump has threatened to roll back. Culleton has been Ireland’s top news story since the Irish Times on Monday reported on his case and on the allegedly appalling conditions he faces in Camp East Montana, the ICE facility inside Fort Bliss army base near El Paso. The same day, Culleton appeared live on air on Ireland’s RTÉ radio to describe conditions of overcrowding, filth, disease, hunger and violence — and a personal fear, now set aside, that speaking out might make matters even worse for him. “I definitely am afraid of rotting away here. It feels like I’m just stuck and there’s no way out,” Culleton told RTÉ in an hourlong broadcast that included live interviews with his American wife in Boston and his sister back in Waterford, Ireland. Culleton admitted having overstayed his U.S. visa two decades ago, but said he’s been pursuing legal residency via his ongoing application for a green card, buttressed by his valid work permit, his employment as a plasterer and his April 2025 marriage. He’s one of at least 10,000 undocumented Irish citizens who have lived, often for decades, in the United States.

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Dallas votes to give up DART majority in bid to keep suburbs in system

Dallas decided Wednesday to sacrifice some of its power to keep the region’s transit service alive. The high-stakes move is aimed at stopping a half-dozen suburbs from bolting from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The City Council, in a 13-2 vote, approved a proposed governance framework that would shrink the city’s voting power on the DART board to at least 45%, marking the first time in the agency’s more than 40-year history that Dallas would no longer hold majority control. The plan also would guarantee each of DART’s 13 member cities at least one board seat, replacing a structure that now gives only Dallas, Irving, Garland and Plano dedicated single-city representation, and would likely expand the current 15-member board.

“I’m in support of the resolution, not because it’s going to solve the whole thing today, but because it’s necessary,” said Mayor Eric Johnson. “Not sufficient, but necessary.” The changes aren’t final yet. The proposal still needs the Texas Legislature next year to amend state law before any changes take effect. But the goal is to try to persuade six cities – Addison, Farmers Branch, Highland Park, Irving, Plano and University Park – to scrap May elections that could let voters decide whether to withdraw from DART. The six cities have until late February to finalize their special ballots and until March 18 to rescind their election plans altogether. Most council members framed the move as a rescue effort for the transit agency and for bus and rail service in Dallas. But the vote exposed sharp divisions. Council members Cara Mendelsohn and Chad West voted against the deal, saying it lacked tangible concessions from other cities or structural reforms within DART. Mendelsohn said Dallas, as DART’s largest financial contributor and ridership base, should not surrender majority control without concrete improvements in service, safety or accountability. West questioned whether other cities are truly committed to building the strongest possible system for Dallas.

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Trump administration is sending pregnant migrant girls to South Texas shelter flagged as medically inadequate

The Trump administration is sending all pregnant unaccompanied minors apprehended by immigration enforcement to a singlegroup shelter in South Texas. The decision was made over urgent objections from the administration’s own health and child welfare officials, who say both the facility and the region lack the specialized care the girls need. That’s according to seven sources who work at the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which handles the custody and care of children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian, or are separated from family by immigration authorities. All of the sources declined to be named for fear of retaliation.

Since late July, more than a dozen pregnant minors have been placed at the Texas facility, which is located in the small border city of San Benito. Some were as young as 13, and at least half of those taken in so far became pregnant as a result of rape, sources said. Their pregnancies are considered high risk by definition, particularly for the youngest girls. “This group of kids is clearly recognized as our most vulnerable,” one of the sources said. Rank-and-file staff, the source said, are “losing sleep over it, wondering if kids are going to be placed in programs where they’re not going to have access to the care they need.” The move marks a sharp departure from longstanding federal practice, which placed pregnant, unaccompanied migrant children in ORR shelters or foster homes around the country that are equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies. ORR sources, along with more than a dozen former government officials, health care professionals, migrant advocates and civil rights attorneys, said they worry the Trump administration is putting children in danger at the San Benito shelter to advance an ideological goal: denying them access to abortion by placing them in a state where it’s virtually banned.

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'Dawson's Creek' star and Austinite James Van Der Beek has died at 48

James Van Der Beek — best known for his role as Dawson Leery in the hit late 1990s and early aughts show Dawson's Creek — has died. He was 48. Van Der Beek announced his diagnosis of Stage 3 colon cancer in November 2024. His family wrote on Instagram on Wednesday, "Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend." Van Der Beek started acting when he was 13 in Cheshire, Conn., after a football injury kept him off the field.

He played the lead in a school production of Grease, got involved with local theater, and fell in love with performing. A few years later, he and his mother went to New York City to sign the then-16 year old actor with an agent. But Van Der Beek didn't break out as a star until he was 21, when he landed the lead role of 15-year-old Dawson Leery, an aspiring filmmaker, in Dawson's Creek. Van Der Beek's life changed forever with this role. The teen coming-of-age show was a huge hit, with millions of weekly viewers over 6 seasons. It helped both establish the fledgling WB network and the boom of teen-centered dramas, says Lori Bindig Yousman, a media professor at Sacred Heart University and the author of Dawson's Creek: A Critical Understanding. "Dawson's really came on the scene and felt different, looked different," Bindig Yousman says.

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She sued over her gender transition. Will the Texas Supreme Court decide it's too late?

The Texas Supreme Court will decide whether it’s too late for a woman to sue a therapist who recommended a double mastectomy as part of her gender transition. Soren Aldaco, a Fort Worth resident at the time, alleges various counselors and doctors recklessly pressured her into medical gender transition as a teen and were biased toward encouraging hormones and surgery as a remedy for gender dysphoria — psychological stress over one’s gender identity that is often the precursor to transitioning. The case is a test of how the statute of limitations should be applied when an act of alleged medical negligence and the resulting harm occur at different times. But it could also determine if and when mental health professionals are to blame for recommending transgender treatment that their patients later regret.

“What was done to Ms. Aldaco and many people like her is a medical scandal,” Aldaco's attorney John Ramer told justices. “Kids and young adults suffering from severe psychological distress went looking for help and what they found is medical providers saying that what's going to liberate them from their distress is pumping them full of cross-sex hormones and cutting off their body parts.” Aldaco started identifying as a boy in eighth and ninth grade. According to her lawsuit, Aldaco had a troubled family life, struggled with her body image and started exploring her gender after interacting with transgender friends online. Aldaco was hospitalized for a manic episode in 2018, during which she alleges a Fort Worth doctor pressured her to identify as transgender. It was this and interactions with other people supportive of medical gender transition that led Aldaco to start taking testosterone, she said. Aldaco began telehealth counseling with Barbara Wood of Three Oaks Counseling in 2020. She said the therapy primarily focused on relationship issues with her partner at the time, not assessing or resolving her “gender curiosity.”

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Major San Antonio builder Darren Casey seeks bankruptcy for 31 businesses

Prominent San Antonio builder Darren Casey is in a world of hurt. With his various operations facing a cash flow crunch and pressure from lenders, Casey has sought bankruptcy protection for 31 of his businesses. All but three of the businesses filed last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Fort Worth on its “Mega Docket,” which handles huge cases with assets or liabilities of $50 million or more. The other three were also filed in Fort Worth but not on the Mega Docket. All told, the 31 businesses have more than $50 million in assets and $25 million in debt, court filings indicate. Casey has developed millions of square feet of multifamily, industrial, commercial and office buildings, primarily in the San Antonio area, though he also has projects in the San Marcos and Austin areas.

He's also a major donor to his alma mater, Texas State University. The school’s athletic administration complex was named after him after he made what was then the single largest gift to the athletics department in 2008. His flagship business, Casey Development Ltd., formed in 1989, did not file for bankruptcy protection. Its headquarters are at 200 E. Basse Road, the former home of radio behemoth iHeartMedia Inc. Neither Casey nor Davor Rukavina, a Dallas bankruptcy lawyer representing the businesses, responded to requests for comment Wednesday. Casey has filed an emergency motion asking the court to consolidate all of the bankruptcies into one case. A hearing on that and other requests is set for Friday before Judge E. Lee Morris. One of the court filings shows that various businesses collectively borrowed at least $217 million. Casey, who didn’t personally file for bankruptcy, is a guarantor on substantially all of the loans, the document adds. The loans also are secured by real estate in Bexar, Comal, Travis and other counties in Texas.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Hawk Dunlap in the Republican primary for Railroad Commissioner

It speaks volumes that Jim Wright, the chairman of the Railroad Commission, makes news when he recuses himself from voting on a permit for a company he has a financial stake in. Such is the state of affairs for one of Texas’ most important agencies, which, for years, has been reduced to a rubber stamp for the oil and gas industry. The agency, originally created in the late 19th century to regulate rates and operations of railroads, hasn’t had anything to do with railroads since 2005. Yet the Railroad Commission’s name has stuck by design. It’s easier to get away with ignoring its responsibility as the state’s oil and gas watchdog if the public doesn’t understand what they’re voting for. Yes, Texans should want our state’s oil and gas industry to be a successful engine for jobs and economic growth. We should also want to ensure operators don’t profit by dumping their waste and pollution into Texas’ water, air and public land.

That’s hard to guarantee when commissioners are allowed to have a personal stake in that profit. Each of the three railroad commissioners routinely rakes in tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the companies they are supposed to regulate. The state’s lax ethics laws also permit commissioners to trade oil and gas stocks. Hence the surprise when Wright, the Republican incumbent in this race, declined to vote to renew a permit for an oilfield waste company he owns a small financial interest in during a November public meeting. It was reportedly the first recusal by a commissioner since 2020. Wright, who is running for his second term and did not meet with the editorial board, has deep financial ties to the industry. According to Commission Shift, a nonprofit watchdog organization, Wright owns stock in more than a dozen companies that handle oil and gas waste. Despite being named chairman of the Railroad Commission in June last year, he continues to serve as president of an oilfield waste company. His financial stake in these companies may have influenced some of his actions as a commissioner. For instance, one of his first official acts as commissioner in 2021 was to reissue waivers to rules that protect groundwater from industry waste pits. Months later, Wright voted to renew a permit for an oilfield waste company, Blackhorn Environmental, whose employees donated $3,000 to his campaign. To make matters worse, Commission Shift reported that two of Wright’s companies dumped their oilfield waste at Blackhorn’s facility 139 times over a roughly two-year period.

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Five takeaways from North Texas lawmakers' panel on education

Two North Texas state lawmakers said during a town hall meeting Wednesday that state leaders have a duty to make sure public school districts have the financial support they need to educate the state’s students. Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez, D-Farmers Branch, and Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, spoke at Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD’s Nancy Watten Technology and Events Center during a town hall meeting on public education. The event was organized by the education advocacy group Raise Your Hand Texas, as a part of a series of candidate forums in cities across the state. Both Anchia and Garcia Hernandez are running unopposed in next month’s Democratic primary. During the last legislative session, lawmakers sent $8.5 billion in new money to Texas schools, mainly for teacher pay raises. But Anchia said lawmakers didn’t raise the state’s per-pupil allotment enough to put districts on sound financial footing.

Insufficient funding from the state, combined with declining revenue from enrollment losses, are leaving districts in a bind, he said. He noted that many districts are closing and consolidating schools in an effort to shore up their budgets. Texas lawmakers passed a $1 billion education savings account plan last year. Gov. Greg Abbott and other proponents have said the plan, which offers families public money to pay for private school tuition or other expenses such as homeschool costs, will create more competition, forcing school districts to improve their offerings. But Garcia Hernandez said that increased competition also forces districts to recruit students in a way they’ve never had to before, without a budget to do it. At a time when districts are losing enrollment due to declining birth rates and increased competition from charter schools, she said she worries about the impact the new education savings account program will have on public school budgets.

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Ex-UT professor sought Epstein funding for conference on sexual consent

A former University of Texas professor in 2015requested thousands of dollars from child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to pay for an academic conference on the meaning of sexualconsent, new documents reveal. Professor Thomas K. Hubbard, who worked at the university from 1988 to 2021, wrote to Epstein on Aug. 18, 2015 seeking funding from Epstein’s foundation for a 2016 conference titled “Theorizing Consent: Educational and Legal Perspectives on Campus Rape,” according to records released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month. The conference, hosted at UT, aimed to gather scholars from different fields to question policies around consent and a university’s role in policingsexual assault. The conference was aimed at interrogating “the concept of sexual consent,” something Hubbard believed was too strictly defined.

Hubbard confirmed in a statement that he was aware at the timeof Epstein’s 2008 conviction for the sexual solicitation of a minor. The former professor said that he thought the convictionmight make Epstein more likely to contribute to the UT conference. “Like over 1,000,000 Americans, he did have a conviction for a sex-related offense, but from what I could see in 2015, it was for something that would not even have been illegal in most European countries and resulted in a very short sentence,” Hubbard said. “Given his own brush with the law, I believed his Foundation might have been interested in furthering critical discussion of the contours of consent and rape. They weren’t.” In his letter to Epstein — written on university stationary — Hubbard asked for help raising between $10,000 and $20,000 to supplement his $12,000 budget, which was in part funded by UT through a fund Hubbard controlled. Hubbard wrote that Title IX regulations; the Clery Act, which mandates universities be transparent about violent crimes; and “attention to 'campus rape culture' in the media” put an “unprecedented” responsibility on university administrators to police student sexual conduct.

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Texas AG Paxton files lawsuit against Snapchat over child safety concerns

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Snap, Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, alleging that the the social media platform fails to adequately warn parents and consumers about inappropriate content and the app's addictive design. The lawsuit claims that while Snapchat is marketed as being safe for children with a "12+" age rating on app stores, users of the platform are still exposed to mature and dangerous material. The suit alleges that the content includes profanity, sexual content, nudity and drug use. The filing also alleges that features such as “Snapstreaks” or other incentives for daily use of the app encourage addictive behavior, which the AG says can harm young minds.

The case seeks to hold Snap, Inc. accountable for what it describes as misrepresenting the platform's safety to parents and consumers. “I will not allow Snapchat to harm our kids by running a business designed to get Texas children addicted to a platform filled with obscene and destructive content,” Paxton said in a Wednesday news release. “Parents have a fundamental right to know the dangers of the apps their kids are using and not be lied to by Big Tech companies. This lawsuit will hold Snapchat accountable for illegally undermining parental rights, deceiving consumers, and for putting children in danger.” A spokesperson for Snap, Inc. sent the following statement in response to the lawsuit: "We strongly disagree with the Texas Attorney General’s complaint, which fundamentally distorts how our platform works. There is no single safety measure or policy that can eliminate every potential risk online - just as there isn’t offline. That’s why we’ve implemented strong safeguards, introduced safety tutorials and resources, partnered with experts, and continue investing in features and tools that support the safety, privacy, and well-being of all Snapchatters." The lawsuit follows similar ones filed by Paxton over the last year against the parent companies of TikTok and Roblox over child safety on those platforms.

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Austin American-Statesman Editorial: Berlanga is the most qualified GOP pick for Texas comptroller

Voters on both sides of the aisle largely agree on one pressing issue: Their property taxes keep risingas public school funding languishes. One Republican candidate for Texas comptroller offers a solution worth serious consideration. In our view, the most qualified candidate in the March 3 Republican primary is Michael Berlanga, a self-described “rare tri-licensed” certified public accountant, real estate broker and property tax consultant from San Antonio. Though less known statewide than his rivals on the GOP primary ballot, Berlanga brings credentials uniquely suited to the office. He and two other challengers aim to unseat acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, a businessman and former state senator appointed to the post last July.

The comptroller is the state's chief financial officer, responsible for collecting revenue, providing payments and making financial projections for state agencies. That includes a little-discussed report that Berlanga argues has a big impact on Texans' high property tax bills for schools. Every other year, the comptroller conductsproperty value studies, assessments of the total property value in each Texas school district. The higher a district's total property value, the more local taxpayers are paying — and the less school funding comes from the state. But valuing property is not an exact science. Appraisals produce a range of possible values, andBerlanga argues the comptroller’s office has long assessed taxable property at the high end of those ranges, resulting in what he described as the state “offloading that responsibility” onto school districts.

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Higher Medicaid reimbursement rates could stabilize ambulance services, Texas providers say

Texas is considering new Medicaid reimbursement rates for ambulance services that providers say could help stabilize access to EMS across the state. During a public rate hearing Tuesday, providers applauded the higher Medicaid rates proposed by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission that would raise reimbursement for certain ambulance services by up to 50%. “The proposed rates reflect the first meaningful adjustment to Medicaid reimbursement in nearly 17 years,” said Michael Furrh, president of the Texas EMS Alliance’s Board of Directors. “Adjusting Medicaid rates as proposed will improve the sustainability of EMS and ensure that most vulnerable Texans can continue to access high-quality, 911 medical response and ambulance transport.”

The proposed increase comes as HHSC considers significant cuts to other Medicaid services, including dozens of medical supply services. Texas already has a gap in emergency medical and ambulance services. Almost 95% of Texas counties have areas known as “ambulance deserts,” meaning people or places are 25 minutes or more away from an ambulance station. In addition, EMS agencies are still recovering from significant staffing shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Eric Maloney, a rural fire chief in Kerr County, said the Kerrville Fire Department provides emergency medical care across a 1,000-square-mile area. Over the past decade, the department has seen significant increases in operating costs, including staffing, fuel and medical equipment. “These rising costs did not get matched by reimbursement rates, placing strain on our ability to maintain reliable and timely emergency medical services,” Maloney said.

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National Stories

Democrats are field-testing new ways to talk about the Epstein scandal

Democrats have been publicly conflicted about how much to talk about Jeffrey Epstein on the campaign trail this year, with some worried a continued focus on the convicted sex offender and his political connections distracts from a winning platform centered on affordability. Now a growing faction in the party is asking: Why not discuss both? Some Democrats are now attempting to link the rolling Epstein scandal with the kitchen-table issues voters have traditionally prioritized. This wing of the party is pushing to establish the Epstein saga as emblematic of the Trump administration’s failure to address other issues the country faces.

“We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. You remember that? But this is a government of, by and for the ultra-rich. It is the wealthiest Cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class ruling our country,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection this year, said at a Georgia campaign rally on Saturday. “They are the elites they pretend to hate.” Ossoff is known to walk on a purple-state tightrope. But his embrace of these us-versus-them talking points illustrates that the antiestablishment take on the Epstein scandal isn’t limited to his party’s progressive vanguard.Ossoff did not comment for this piece, but some strategists say his rhetoric offers a potent midterm message — if Democrats more broadly are willing to take it up. Faiz Shakir, a progressive strategist and former Bernie Sanders presidential campaign manager, said Democrats focusing on the legal process of file releases and the administration’s transparency failures “doesn’t do justice to what the main mission is.” “Ossoff is on the right track, which is to say, I need to connect this thing, this saga, to something deeper about who fights for you and who doesn’t fight for you, who understands your life, who doesn’t understand your life,” Shakir said. “It’s going to be critical that people are able to take this out of partisan terms and move it into a place of persuasion.”

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US Energy Secretary Chris Wright visits Venezuela to assess oil industry overhaul

United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived Wednesday in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment of the country’s oil industry, a visit that further asserts the U.S. government’s self-appointed role in turning around Venezuela’s dilapidated energy sector. Wright met Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace in the capital, Caracas. He is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country. Wright’s visit comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela and help rebuild the nation’s most important industry.

It follows last month’s enactment of a Venezuelan law that opened the nation’s oil sector to private investment, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades. “I bring today a message from President Trump,” Wright told reporters as he stood next to Rodríguez with flags from both countries behind them. “He is passionately committed to absolutely transforming the relationship between the United States and Venezuela, part of a broader agenda to make the Americas great again, to bring our countries closer together, to bring commerce, peace, prosperity, jobs, opportunity to the people of Venezuela.” Rodríguez was sworn into her new role after the brazen Jan. 3 seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Caracas. She proposed the overhaul of the country’s energy law after Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuela’s oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment. Rodríguez on Wednesday acknowledged that Venezuela’s relationship with the U.S. has had “highs and lows” but said both countries are now working on a mutually benefiting “energy agenda.”

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Man pardoned by Trump for attacking US Capitol found guilty of child abuse

A man who took part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol and later pardoned by Donald Trump was found guilty on Tuesday of multiple child sexual abuse charges in Florida, officials said. Andrew Paul Johnson was arrested in Tennessee this August and extradited to Florida. He pleaded not guilty. Johnson was found guilty of five counts this week, on charges such as molesting a child under 12 and another under 16, and lewd and lascivious exhibition, NPR first reported. A jury found him not guilty of one count of transmission of material harmful to a minor by electronic device or equipment. The Guardian has contacted an attorney listed for Johnson.

“He is exposed to the possibility of life in prison,” said Walter Forgie, chief assistant state attorney for Florida’s fifth judicial circuit, of a possible sentence. “Sentencing will be at a later date.” The Hernando county sheriff’s office received a report in July that “two juveniles had fallen victim to lewd and lascivious acts over a many-month span”, according to a probable cause affidavit. This document claims that a mother of one of these children claimed she had discovered Johnson, her former boyfriend, who had lived with them, had sent “inappropriate” Discord missives to her son. She asked her child about these messages and whether Johnson had “done or said anything inappropriate”, the probable cause affidavit says. Her son allegedly said that “between April 1 2024 and October 2024” Johnson had “molested him three times”, starting when he was aged 11. The police document also claimed Johnson said “he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and he was being awarded $10,000,000 as a result of being a ‘jan 6er’” and would put the boy “in his will to take any money he had left over”.

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Bondi hearing devolves into shouting match over botched Epstein files release

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s defiant appearance Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee showed her contempt for any critique of her handling of the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. She repeatedly refused to apologize to victims whose names were exposed, while simultaneously defending redactions that continue to hide the names of powerful men that may be implicated in Epstein’s crimes. At one point, Bondi caused an audible ruckus at the hearing when she deflected by changing the subject to the nation’s economic state. “The Dow is over 50,000 right now!” she said. “The S&P at almost 7,000! And the NASDAQ smashing records! Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about. We should be talking about making Americans safe … what does the Dow have to do with anything? That’s what they just asked? Are you kidding?”

But Democrats and at least one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, pressed her on what they characterized as the Justice Department’s careless release of millions of records relating to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Massie cosponsored a bill last year with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna to compel the DOJ to release FBI documents about the network of men who partook in Epstein’s sexual abuse, while ensuring that victims’ names would remain redacted. Instead, the DOJ appears to have done the opposite, in some instances hiding the men’s names while publishing the women’s names — including one email clearly labeled “Epstein Victim List.” Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat, reminded Bondi that she’d already learned about the grave importance of protecting victims’ identities during her previous career as a state prosecutor who worked on sex crimes cases. “How many lives have been derailed because your department was either sloppy and incompetent or willfully tried to intimidate and punish these ladies?” he said as his allotted time neared its end. “Your time is up,” Bondi replied.

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Immigrant surge helped boost GOP states’ population, and they may gain US House seats as a result

The millions of immigrants who have crossed the border with Mexico since 2020 could change the balance of political power in Congress — but in a way likely to boost Republican states that emphasize border security, at the expense of more welcoming Democratic states. That’s because many of the new immigrants joined state-to-state movers gravitating to the fast-growing conservative strongholds of Florida and Texas, boosting those states’ populations. California and New York also had large influxes from the border but ended up losing population anyway. The vastly different population changes threaten to scramble the Electoral College map. California and other Democratic states lost immigration-related population gains when residents moved away during the COVID-19 pandemic or while seeking jobs and housing. Where did those state-to-state movers go? Florida and Texas, in large measure.

Republicans have long accused Democrats of encouraging immigration for their electoral benefit. But the shift is likely to help Republican-leaning states in the next decade: The Constitution allocates congressional representation by population — including noncitizens. Every 10 years, the country counts its people and then shuffles the number of U.S. House seats given to each state. In presidential elections, each state has the same number of electoral votes as it does congressional representatives. Several experts contacted by Stateline agreed that after the next decennial census in 2030, California is likely to lose four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas is likely to gain four. Adam Kincaid, president and executive director of the GOP-founded American Redistricting Project, said the changes could dramatically alter the Electoral College map, with the Midwest no longer a “blue wall” against Republican presidential victories if the region loses three seats, by his calculation. On the plus side for Democrats, he said, immigration helped stem population losses in many blue states. Three forecasts for 2030 — one provided to Stateline by Jonathan Cervas, an assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University; one from Kincaid’s American Redistricting Project; and one from William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution — all show Democratic states in the Northeast and West losing House seats while fast-growing, mostly Republican states in the South and West gain seats. In addition to the representation changes in California and Texas, Florida would gain either three or four seats in the U.S. House, depending on the forecast, while Illinois and New York each would lose either one or two seats.

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Trump lashes out at GOP Governor, ramping up criticism of fellow Republicans

President Trump lashed out at a Republican governor organizing a coming White House meeting with state leaders, the latest example of the president attacking a member of his own party. Trump’s target on Wednesday was Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican and chairman of the National Governors Association. In a social-media post, Trump disputed recent reports that he had limited invitations to next week’s White House meeting of the NGA to only Republican governors. “The RINO Governor of the Great State of Oklahoma…incorrectly stated my position on the very exclusive Governors Annual Dinner and Meeting at the White House,” Trump wrote, using the acronym for “Republican in Name Only.”

Trump’s beef with Stitt was the latest example of the president feuding with fellow Republicans. In recent months, Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who has pushed the Justice Department to release documents in the Jeffrey Epstein case, drew the president’s ire and a Trump-backed primary challenge. The president also criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), who left Congress last month after a public falling out with him. Last month, Trump slammed five GOP senators who sided with Democrats in advancing a motion aimed at blocking him from taking further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval, saying the lawmakers “should never be elected to office again.” He also called the senators directly to register his frustration. The senators included Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who faces re-election in a Democrat-leaning state. In a note to governors before Trump’s social-media post, Stitt wrote that the president was inviting all of the governors of the nation’s states and territories to a Feb. 20 breakfast at the White House, adding, “He was very clear in his communications with me that this is a National Governors Association’s event, and he looks forward to hosting you and hearing from governors across the country.”

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Homeland Security hires Labor Dept. aide whose posts raised alarms

The Department of Homeland Security has hired a social media manager from the Department of Labor for a key communications job, despite posts he made on Labor Department media accounts that raised internal alarms over possible white-nationalist messaging. Peyton Rollins, 21, was hired this month to help run Homeland Security’s social media accounts, which have become public bullhorns for President Trump’s mass-deportation efforts and come under scrutiny of their own for appealing to right-wing extremists. Tricia McLaughlin, the Homeland Security spokeswoman, said her public affairs office had “no personnel changes to announce at this time,” but Mr. Rollins has put his new position on his personal website. He is now digital communications director, according to screenshots of a Homeland Security staff directory reviewed by The New York Times. At the Labor Department, he was digital content manager.

Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, said only, “The department does not comment on internal or personnel matters.” Mr. Rollins has spent most of the past year giving the Labor Department’s social media pages a makeover in Mr. Trump’s image. Current and former employees said career staff members had been pushed aside after Mr. Rollins’ arrival and rarely, if ever, crafted social media posts once he took control. Instead, Mr. Rollins personally posted social media content, which he has included on his personal website. Agency posts of late have used evocative imagery, some reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s, with phrases like “Restore American Greatness” and “the globalist status quo is OVER.” An image of Mr. Trump, with bombers flying overhead, was accompanied by the message, “One of one.” Mr. Rollins has also claimed credit for a massive banner with Mr. Trump’s visage that has hung from the Labor Department’s headquarters.

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Copyright February 19, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved