Lead Stories

Trump’s retribution? What to watch in Tuesday’s elections in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan

President Donald Trump’s campaign to politically punish Republicans who stand in his way moves through Indiana on Tuesday, when seven state senators face Trump-backed primary challengers. An effort pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump last November to redraw Indiana’s congressional map failed. With the recent Supreme Court decision limiting the Voting Rights Act, some fear it could happen again. (AP video: Obed Lamy) In neighboring Ohio, primaries for U.S. Senate and governor will lock in the candidates for two major races with national implications. And in Michigan, voters in a bellwether district will fill a vacancy in the state Senate, a race with implications for the balance of power in a battleground state. Here’s what to watch for.

Trump is taking aim at seven Republican state senators in Indiana who opposed his plan to redraw congressional district boundaries to help the party gain seats in the U.S. House. Groups allied with the president have spent millions on advertising, an extraordinary flood of cash and attention into races that are typically low profile. The races are a test of Trump’s enduring grip over his party as Republicans grow increasingly anxious about the midterm elections in November. The results will signal to Republicans everywhere about how big a price they’ll pay with their voters if they distance themselves from Trump even as his popularity fades. And it will show the president whether he can still credibly threaten consequences for Republicans who cross him. The Trump-targeted state senators all represent districts he carried in 2024, mostly by 20 percentage points or more. The key races to watch are districts 1, 11, 19, 21, 23, 38 and 41.

Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only

Morris ouster signals battle for transportation policy in North Texas

Visions of the future of North Texas -- and how to engineer it from wishful thinking into reality -- are hatched in a large conference room about 100 yards from Six Flags over Texas in Arlington. It is where bureaucrats make decisions that impact the everyday lives of more than 8.3 million North Texans, who are mostly unaware of the proceedings. Article continues below this ad And it is where the region’s power brokers take high-stakes positions over how to spend billions of the public’s money. And where one man — for 36 years — led so many deals that they have become impossible to count. Michael Morris, as transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, has been the ultimate persuader.

How do you put a tolled highway in north Dallas without enraging the owners of high-rises in the way? Bore underground tunnels. How do you find cash to finish the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge when money is strangled by red tape? You depend on your local allies — the city of Dallas and private donors — to help foot the bill. But at the April 30 regularly scheduled meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, a 45-member group of elected officials from all over North Texas in charge of setting policy for the Council of Governments, Morris was not there. He was not seated in his swivel chair at the head of the meeting. Two days prior, Morris had been shown the door by the Council of Government’s Executive Director Todd Little in what past and current members of the Regional Transportation Council say was a strategic and unlawful coup to take control of the heart and soul of transportation policy in North Texas. Up until now, Morris was its heart and soul. But now, without Morris, the future direction of the transportation arm of the Council of Governments is up in the air. Morris may have left an indelible mark on North Texas’ highways, bus routes, commuter rail and air travel, but he also took positions that made him a polarizing figure and drew a fair share of criticism.

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DeSantis signs Florida redistricting map, drawing quick legal challenge

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law the congressional map his office created. Within hours, opponents filed a lawsuit. DeSantis’ plan could add four more seats for the Republican Party. It also threatens to dismantle Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, a voter-approved part of the constitution adopted in 2010. “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered,” DeSantis said on social media, attaching a photo of the new districts. The governor’s signature comes one week after his office first unveiled its proposal. Fox News received an exclusive, red-and-blue party-coded map before lawmakers did. Lawmakers approved the governor’s proposal after two days of a redistricting-focused special session. Democrats decried what they said was a violation of Florida’s constitution and a ploy to appease President Donald Trump, who has pushed red states to redraw their maps to keep GOP control of Congress.

Florida now joins the about half-dozen states that have redrawn their maps after Trump’s push, either in favor of Republicans or in favor of Democrats. No Republicans other than the bill sponsors in the House and Senate spoke out in support of DeSantis’ proposal during the special session. Five Republicans voted against the plan. DeSantis’ signature puts the new districts in place for the 2026 midterms. But a lawsuit filed Monday by the Equal Ground Education Fund and a group of 18 Florida voters asks the court to strike the map down. Six plaintiffs are from Tampa Bay, two are from Central Florida and 10 are from South Florida. The plaintiffs, who filed in Leon County court, are represented by the Elias Law Group, a Democrat-aligned firm that focuses on election law. The group’s lawsuit focuses on Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, which prohibits lawmakers from creating a map that favors a certain political party. The group is accusing Florida of drawing an explicitly partisan map in violation of the state constitution. “When the time came to present his proposed map ... the Governor left no room for doubt as to its purpose,” the lawsuit said, pointing to the plan’s release on Fox News.

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Inside the quiet Republican effort to flip Fetterman

It’s a few days after the election this November, and the results have become clear: Democrats have netted the four seats they need to claim a Senate majority. But then there’s a disturbance in the force: Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump persuade Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) to switch parties or at least become an independent to ensure Republicans retain power in the chamber. It’s a scenario that’s becoming less fantastical by the day. The political environment is curdling for Republicans, and the quiet campaign to lure Fetterman across the aisle is underway. Trump has made the sell, offering his patented total and complete endorsement plus a financial windfall to the Pennsylvanian. A handful of Senate Republicans are also gently feeling out Fetterman and responding to his concerns over the prospect of defecting from the Democratic Party, multiple high-level GOP officials tell me.

If Fetterman does flip, according to officials who were given anonymity to talk about sensitive matters, it will be thanks in large part to his deepening friendship with a pair of senators and their high-profile spouses: Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), and his wife Dina, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and her husband, Wesley. But the first-term Democrat — who’s infuriated his party with his harder line on immigration and staunch support for Israel, Trump nominees, government funding bills and most recently the president’s ballroom — isn’t yet persuaded. “I’m not changing,” Fetterman told me in an interview Friday when I asked if he was ruling out both becoming a Republican or turning independent. “I’m a Democrat, and I’m staying one. “ Yet, at least in private, he’s not totally rejecting dropping his “D.” When one senior Republican recently brought up the idea of becoming an independent to Fetterman, he absorbed the suggestion and didn’t embrace or reject the overture, according to a GOP official familiar with the conversation. In our interview, Fetterman said bluntly: “I’d be a shitty Republican.”

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State Stories

Houston Texans, Rodeo commit to Harris County for stadium plans

Team owner Cal McNair said the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo have decided to make things work in Harris County. Team president Mike Tomon said the Texans have not ruled out building a new stadium within the park but are focusing on renovating Reliant Stadium, which is said to be significantly behind on needed maintenance. “What we’ve talked to the Rodeo (about) is we’re going to make it work, and so we’ll figure out a way to make it work and have everybody a winner in this thing,” McNair said Monday at the team's annual charity golf event, which raised more than $565,000.

In February 2025, the Texans began negotiating a new lease with Harris County and the Rodeo. The current lease expires in 2032. At the time, the Texans said they wanted to remain in the greater Houston area but not necessarily in Harris County. But McNair’s latest comments represent a significant shift in their line of thinking. Whereas other nearby counties were thought to be viable candidates to potentially house a new stadium for the Texans and Rodeo, if it came to that, Harris County is now the sole focus. “The reason we feel that way is if you take a step back and you look at Reliant Park, the attributes of it, you have 350 continuous acres on major arteries with (Interstate) 610, and soon to be the third-largest city in the United States,” Tomon said. “That is pretty special. So when we think about our partnership with the Rodeo, we’re both aligned on we’ll do everything we can to make it work on that specific site because we really think that can be transformative for the city of Houston.” The facilities the Rodeo uses are also in need of renovations. Reliant Park is owned by the county, which leases the facilities to the Texans and the Rodeo. As part of the current lease agreement, the county is responsible for the facilities within the park and their upkeep. But the county is behind on those maintenance needs.

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The long, bitter fight to get ICE out of Dallas

Last November, Azael Alvarez was driving around a neighborhood in southeastern Dallas when he noticed what appeared to be a group of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers surrounding a car at a gas station. Alvarez, an organizer with the group El Movimiento DFW (Dallas–Fort Worth), had been heavily involved in the fight against ICE in the city since the start of the second Trump administration. As soon as he saw the masked agents, Alvarez pulled into the station and began recording the interaction. He noticed that a group of Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers was also present. When Alvarez asked the officers if they could verify that the masked men were from ICE, they said, “We don’t know [who they are] either.” As the suspected ICE agents detained at least one person, Alvarez asked the agents if they had a warrant, while DPD officers stood by watching. As police were driving off, an officer shouted, “Get a job!” in his direction. The incident came in the midst of an ongoing debate about the relationship between local Dallas law enforcement and ICE.

For the better part of a year, organizers, residents, and elected officials have called on the city’s leadership for accountability, transparency, and action in the face of the Trump administration’s pervasive mass-deportation drive. The debate reached a fever pitch less than three weeks before the gas station incident, when Eric Johnson, the Republican mayor of Dallas, ordered a special meeting of two city hall committees to discuss whether the DPD should enter into an official agreement with ICE, under a federal program known as 287(g). (Johnson, whose lax approach to his job led the The Dallas Morning News to dub him “the mayor of Somewhere Else,” didn’t show up to the meeting.) Across the country, local governments are increasingly leveraging their autonomy to curb ICE’s reach. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson issued a directive ordering city officials to investigate and potentially prosecute federal agents. Los Angeles’s mayor barred the use of city-owned properties as “a staging area, processing location, or operations base for immigration enforcement.” But in Texas, where the state legislature is dominated by right-wing politicians who threaten lawfare against cities that decrease their police budgets or adopt “sanctuary” statutes, local governments face challenges to establish policies protecting their immigrant communities against ICE, even if they are largely symbolic. Texas’s 2017 anti-sanctuary law prevents local governments from creating policy that “prohibits or discourages the enforcement of immigration laws” and requires them to honor ICE detainers placed on immigrants in local jails.

Read this article at The Nation - Subscribers Only

Alex Jones' Infowars site has finally shut down — for now

"There's a war on for your mind." That's what Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told his listeners, readers and acolytes for decades. Now, it seems that war is over. Jones' Infowars platform shut down quietly over the weekend after a court-appointed receiver refused to continue paying for the outlet's operating expenses. The same weekend, The Onion launched its Infowars-branded satirical takedown of Jones as his bankruptcy case lingers in state court. Families of the Sandy Hook school shooting successfully sued Jones for defamation in Texas and Connecticut courts, forcing him to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages. But, so far, plaintiffs' attorneys say Jones has managed to dodge paying anything to Sandy Hook families.

The Onion tried in 2023 to take over the site, only for a court to block it. Last month, the satirical publication announced it had a plan to acquire Infowars again, only for a court to side with Jones and stall that takeover. Last week, Mark Bankston, an attorney for plaintiffs, said the yearslong slog in courts has been frustrating for Sandy Hook families. "Everything should be done," Bankston said. "It's a frustrating element in this country that the legal system in general is much too friendly to individuals with wealth who want to seek to avoid paying that wealth to people that they've injured. That's a big problem in this country, and it's not isolated to Alex Jones." Over the weekend, Jones launched a new endeavor, the Alex Jones Network, continuing his controversial brand of broadcasting under that banner. Jones said he did not own the network, but that he was news director, telling his legal foes to "piss up a rope." "The Onion failed to get Infowars for the second time in a year and a half, but the receiver told us to get out of the building by midnight on the 30th," Jones said. "So they're turning the place off."

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Christian Menefee and Al Green, rivals in TX-18, align on aim of strengthening voting rights

U.S. Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green are vying for the same seat in the Democratic primary runoff election for Texas’ 18th Congressional District. But the two Houston-based lawmakers are on the same page when it comes to backing new voting rights legislation, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision last week to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court ruled last Wednesday, in Louisiana v. Callais, that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — the provision that allowed enforcement of the act — didn’t bar states from using non-racial factors when drawing maps, including to achieve partisan advantage. The immediate effect was to strike down a congressional district Louisiana had created as an African American opportunity seat. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court's conservative majority, called the district an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander."

Menefee, speaking with Houston Public Media, called for Congress to pass a national ban on partisan gerrymandering. "Because of the court decision," Menefee said, "that can be used as subterfuge as an excuse where you can take a racist map, put some lipstick on it and call it a partisan gerrymandering instead of racial gerrymandering. And so we have to ban partisan gerrymandering as quickly as possible." Menefee said there was effectively no chance that Congress would pass new voting rights legislation as long as Republicans are in charge. He said that made it even more important for Democrats to prioritize strengthening voting rights the next time they return to power. "I think it is a stain on the Democratic Party that we weren’t able to pass voting rights legislation when Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (I-WV) held it up the last time that we had a majority in the Senate," Menefee said. "But it is going to be incumbent upon us that next time we get the majority that we do whatever is necessary — I don’t care if it means suspending the filibuster — do whatever we can to make sure that we have fair access to the ballot box so that we can continue this pursuit of a true multiracial multicultural democracy."

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Magnolia mayor faces third federal lawsuit related to assault, retaliation allegations

A third federal lawsuit has now been filed against the mayor of Magnolia, further intensifying a growing legal and political crisis that has unfolded over the past several weeks. The newest lawsuit comes from the city’s former administrator, who alleges he was fired in retaliation for speaking out about claims that Mayor Matthew Dantzer assaulted and sexually harassed City Secretary Christian Gable during a work trip. The filing accuses city leadership of punishing him for raising concerns tied to the same allegations that are now at the center of both criminal charges and multiple civil cases.

With three federal lawsuits now filed, a criminal case underway, and a new mayor preparing to take office, Magnolia faces a complex and uncertain path forward. This latest case marks the third federal lawsuit connected to Dantzer in just over a month. Gable and former Human Resources Director Kristy Powell previously filed federal lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, retaliation, and failures by the city to properly investigate claims. Both women say they faced consequences after reporting alleged misconduct. Gable has publicly described what she says was a pattern of inappropriate and escalating behavior that began after she started working at City Hall. She alleges repeated sexualized comments, including being referred to as the mayor’s “sexitary,” and claims the situation escalated during an October work conference in Fort Worth. According to Gable, the mayor allegedly attempted to pull down her pants in public and later grabbed her by the throat, pinning her against a structure outside a hotel while she was five months pregnant. She says surveillance video reviewed later by investigators captured the incident. The allegations prompted an investigation by the Texas Rangers, which ultimately led to Dantzer’s indictment on charges including aggravated assault of a pregnant person and official oppression. He was arrested on a Tarrant County warrant and later released on bond. Dantzer has denied all allegations through his attorney, stating he maintains his innocence and intends to defend himself through the legal process.

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Austin police response times lag amid chronic staffing shortage

Last month, Austinites and officials alike heaped praise on the Austin Police Department after officers responded to a mass shooting on West Sixth Street in 57 seconds and took down the gunman minutes later. The praise for the speedy response was rare for the Austin Police Department, which has struggled for years with slow response times and regularly faces online criticism and complaints. The rapid intervention also raised a question: Is the Police Department getting faster? An American-Statesman analysis of median response times over the past decade shows that the swift reaction to the Buford’s Bar shooting was an outlier. Since 2017, response times – while seeing some improvement in the last year under Police Chief Lisa Davis – have lagged even as 911 call volumes have decreased.

The findings are reflected in public complaints. Since the city’s police oversight agency began categorizing grievances in 2022, the most common type has been “no assistance,” which includes slow responses and alleged no-shows. “It’s a large problem for APD,” Nelly Ramirez, a member of the city’s Public Safety Commission, said in an interview. “We’ve all been in a situation where we see a group of officers sitting around in their cars and we think: What are they doing? Why aren’t they responding to calls?” The Police Department also faces constant criticism on sites like Reddit, where users on the Austin forum regularly accuse police of being "useless" and “quiet quitting.” “I for one am grateful for APDs quiet quitting bc my vehicle tags are 3 years expired,” one user quipped in a post that racked up more than 400 comments. In a recent interview, Davis flatly denied such accusations while also acknowledging slow response times as a problem and emphasizing her department’s chronic, yearslong struggle with understaffing. She also pointed to response time improvements during her 18-month tenure. “No one is quiet-quitting here,” Davis told the Statesman. “It is just the opposite.”

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As DART loses Highland Park, leaders say future lies in growth

After walking away from a suburban mutiny with one less member city, Dallas Area Rapid Transit leaders laid out goals not just for working with remaining cities on improvements, but for expanding service. On Saturday, Highland Park became the first DART member city in almost 40 years to vote to leave the agency. The town’s voters overwhelmingly chose to cut ties with DART, after its leaders criticized the high cost of a one-cent sales tax they said does not match the value of services in its borders. Still, DART emerged victorious on election day in Addison and University Park, where residents voted to continue their membership. Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch had dropped their election plans months before.

At a news conference Monday, DART Board Chair Randall Bryant said governance and funding challenges “drove our 40-plus year partnership to its near breaking point” this year, despite the agency surviving rounds of withdrawal elections throughout its history. The agency’s focus is now on following through on proposed changes to overcome those challenges, plans that convinced three cities to cancel elections. Ultimately, the board chair said his goal is to see DART expand to meet growing transportation needs that roads alone cannot fulfill. “Even in the midst of ending transit services in our second smallest city in the days to come, we must continue to look beyond our current boundaries,” Bryant said, including north to McKinney, and in the southern sector. “That’s where the future of DART lies.” Member cities will have the opportunity to call an election on DART next in 2032. Over the next six years, the agency will seek to change its governance structure and funding model in the state Legislature.

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AT&T's multibillion-dollar HQ with 'mini Reunion Tower' moves forward

Plans for AT&T’s new multibillion-dollar headquarters in Plano — complete with a 280-foot structure that one official called a “mini Reunion Tower” — got key approval from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday night. Commissioners unanimously recommended approval for four items tied to the telecom giant’s new 54-acre campus at 5400 Legacy Drive and adjacent sites. The Plano City Council will get the final say. Preliminary site plans show there will be 2.3 million square feet of building space. The office campus will also include a daycare center, a pedestrian bridge, ¾ of an acre of public green space, and the tower. The southern half of the site will include parking garages. The tower may not exceed 280 feet.

The tallest building, excluding the tower, will be 8 stories. The 280-foot tower will feature AT&T’s logo and include an enclosed communications antenna. City codes prevent the tower from flashing, strobing or displaying other related light effects between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The structure must still be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, city planners said. The tower will be set back 320 feet from nearby residential structures, and any major changes would require the approval of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Plano planning commissioner Ban Alali said the structure resembles a miniature version of Dallas’ 561-foot Reunion Tower. The company announced earlier this year it planned to move its global headquarters out of downtown Dallas. AT&T’s lease at the 37-story Whitacre Tower at 208 S. Akard St. runs through Dec. 31, 2031. Two of the requests were filed by Dallas-based investment firm NexPoint. The group owns the 54-acre site. The firm requested to rezone 1.4 acres of the site as a planned development — which was required because the tower will also function as a communications antenna.

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TEA finds HISD did not violate parental rights at Bellaire HS

The Texas Education Agency did not find any wrongdoing at the district level in an investigation ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott into whether Houston ISD employees at Bellaire High School violated parents’ rights, records show. In March 2025, Abbott said he asked the TEA to investigate whether employees at Bellaire High School had engaged in misconduct or whether the school had violated any state policies after a local Moms for Liberty chapter alleged that teachers had been “socially transitioning” a student.

In a viral video, Denise Bell, the chair of the Harris County chapter of Moms for Liberty, said during an HISD school board meeting last year that an anonymous HISD mother was “shocked” to learn that teachers at Bellaire had been calling their child by a different name and pronouns. The TEA investigated whether the district had violated parents’ rights under the Texas Education Code, which states that parents are entitled to full information about the school activities of their child. It also notes that any attempt by an employee to encourage a child to withhold information from their parents is grounds for discipline. In a March letter to state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles and board president Ric Campo, the TEA said the investigation had closed in October and there would be no further investigative actions. “Based on the available evidence, the investigation did not result in a finding of district-level wrongdoing or identify violations of provisions of the Texas Education Code in effect during the period under review,” Richard Segovia, the TEA’s Division Director of Special Investigations, wrote. The TEA released the letter to Miles and Campo this week after the Chronicle requested it through public records. The TEA and HISD did not respond to requests for comment.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

‘All hat and no cattle’: Dallas City Council pushes back on mayor’s criticism of city spending

A day after Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson slammed the City Council for approving “bloated” budgets amid escalating costs and a $33 million financial shortfall halfway through the year, three council members said the mayor hasn’t backed up his words with proposed solutions. Council member Laura Cadena said everyone agrees the city needs to live within its means. But the mayor’s email did not offer any cuts of his own in the “already bare bone budget.” “It’s easy to write a bunch of fiscal statements with zero plan to back it up,” Cadena said. “Here in Texas, we call that ‘all hat and no cattle.’ ”

Last month, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert imposed hiring freezes, halted overtime and banned unnecessary spending. Johnson criticized the council, saying the belt-tightening should be a “wake-up call” for the council’s resistance to aggressive cuts. “Council members will pay lip service to fiscal responsibility, but when it comes time to vote, few are willing to follow through. Each has favored projects and programs to which they will tolerate no reductions,” Johnson said in his weekly newsletter. Johnson urged council members to identify programs to cut alongside those they want to preserve. He said resistance to cuts makes it difficult to follow through, pointing to the library system. The council recently approved four branch closures but later decided to keep all of them open. Council members say their projects are often bundled with other tiers of work and disrupting one could have a ripple effect on others. Cadena said she’s meeting with residents and community groups to learn their priorities. Council member Adam Bazaldua said he hoped the mayor “is just as enthusiastic on cuts being made to the unnecessary amount of security detail, he has ballooned his budget to include.”

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How Johnny Garcia rose from sheriff’s deputy to a high-profile congressional candidate

TX35 hopeful Johnny Garcia hasn’t even secured his party’s nomination yet, but national Democrats are already listing him among their top candidates to take back seats in the U.S. House this year. The 39-year-old Westside native has spent nearly his entire career at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, rising from jail guard to the SWAT team and later serving as the sheriff’s communications director. Though his campaign launch in the new 35th Congressional District surprised some local political watchers, national Democratic Party leaders say he’s exactly what they needed to put a tough seat in play. This week Garcia was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) red-to-blue program, an elite group of 20 candidates believed to have the best chance of flipping seats either currently held by a Republican or — in light of many redrawn congressional maps — drawn to favor one.

The designation means he’ll get additional strategic guidance, staff resources, candidate trainings and fundraising support for a race that Democratic super PACs are already reserving ads for this fall. That’s after he was already a personal guest of the Democratic National Committee chair at a national fundraiser earlier this year, and benefitted from hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ads boosting him through a four-way primary. “Johnny Garcia has dedicated his career to investing in San Antonio, and is ready to answer the call to serve his community in Congress,” U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington), who chairs the DCCC, said in a statement Monday. “Texans are eager to elect a leader that will put the needs of hardworking families first, and Garcia is ready to step up to the plate.” First, Garcia must still get through a May 26 Democratic primary runoff — which is not a given. In a district that was dramatically redrawn for the 2026 midterm, both parties wound up with crowded fields full of little-known candidates. And despite spending less than $5,000 on her campaign, housing activist Maureen Galindo finished first in Democrats’ race, taking 29% in the first round, to Garcia’s 27%.

Read this article at San Antonio Report - Subscribers Only

Matthew J. DeSarno: John Cornyn faces the ultimate test

(Matthew J. DeSarno is a retired FBI special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Office, with a career spanning the Army, the private sector and more than two decades in federal law enforcement.) Ken Paxton is unfit for the United States Senate. The Texas attorney general is ethically compromised, legally entangled and openly opportunistic. His rise is not about leadership. It is about loyalty — to power, not principle. With Texas Republicans now facing a choice between accommodation, scandal and integrity, this Senate race has become a test of political character. But the harder truth is this: Sen. John Cornyn is not being challenged because he stood up to President Donald Trump. He is being challenged because he didn’t. For years, Cornyn’s brand has been competence and restraint — the adult in the room, a steady hand when others chased headlines. That image carried weight because people believed that when it mattered, Cornyn would act. When it mattered, he didn’t.

When the Constitution was tested, Cornyn stayed quiet. When the party drifted toward grievance and personal loyalty, Cornyn adjusted instead of confronting it. When nominees appeared before the committees he serves, who were plainly unqualified or openly partisan, Cornyn allowed the process to move forward as if norms still applied. They don’t. I raised concerns with Cornyn's staff about Kash Patel — not casually, but repeatedly and with specificity. Cornyn’s staff acknowledged those concerns. In my view, those concerns should have raised serious questions about his qualifications, his independence and his approach to the FBI — treating it not as an institution to protect, but as a tool to use. And yet, when Patel sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which Cornyn is a member, there was no meaningful challenge. No sustained questioning. No effort to force clarity on the record. The hearing proceeded as if this were routine. It wasn’t. It was a turning point.

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Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney and top staff dismissed

Criminal allegations against Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza and top staff members were dismissed in court on Monday. Travis County Judge Karen Sage threw out two motions that alleged misconduct and violations of due process in connection with a 2020 police use-of-force case. Doug O’Connell is the attorney representing APD Officer Chance Bretches. O'Connell alleges that the DA’s Office withheld favorable evidence in the case against the officer.

O’Connell claimed that Garza and his staff hid evidence and held secret meetings with city leaders about the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations. He alleged they discussed whether the City of Austin, rather than an individual officer such as Bretches, was liable for injuries to protesters during the demonstrations. In this scenario, the city itself would be an “alternate suspect” in the case. “The court is not convinced by the 'alternative suspect' theory. That theory would say it was not your client; it was the city. I think in this case it cannot really just be the city without your client, so I am not really interested in that theory,” said Judge Karen Sage, Travis County 299th Criminal District Court. Sage says that she is interested in seeing an exact timeline of who knew what and when. This is relevant to accusations that Bretches used expired bean bag rounds during the protest that did not work as intended.

Read this article at CBS Austin - Subscribers Only

City Stories

City of Frisco launches on-demand rideshare service

The city of Frisco is launching a new pilot rideshare service in partnership with the Denton County Transportation Authority aimed at helping residents and visitors get around the central part of the city during the work week. Starting May 5, the new program, GoZone, is available to help people get to work, school, or run errands. This pilot promotes ridesharing at a very reasonable cost,” Frisco Director of Engineering Services Jason Brodigan said in a statement. “But what makes microtransit so successful is the fact it gets people from where they are to where they want to go.” GoZone will operate between 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Friday with rides at a distance-dependent cost between $3 and $5 per person. Rides can be secured through the DCTA GoZone app, which will show "Frisco's service" starting at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

“When people think about public transit, often times they think about a bus or train,” DCTA CEO Paul Cristina said in a statement. “But what makes microtransit so successful is the fact it gets people from where they are to where they want to go.” The 'Zone' for transportation through the service borders Eldorado Parkway to the north, as well as Hillcrest Road on the east, FM 423 on the west and Main Street and SH 121 on its southernmost boundary. The city says the service also connects to the Northwest Plano Park and Ride. “Once you call for the ride on the app, the ride will show up within 20 – 30 minutes,” Cristina said. “Other people may already be in the van, and you may stop at those riders’ destinations. But your ride will take no more than 30 minutes.” According to the city, riders may have to walk short distances to pre-set pickup points, which are placed to make rides more available and optimize routing. “DCTA has been a great partner,” Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney said in a statement. “This is a program we hope to learn from and expand in the future. It’s going to be an incredible transportation resource for our residents and visitors.”

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National Stories

Data centers used to be a prize. States are having second thoughts.

Politicians used to compete to lure data centers to their states. They’re starting to reconsider. Tempted by promises of more jobs, tax revenue and the chance to be on the cutting edge of technology, more than three dozen states rolled out the red carpet for data centers in the form of tax breaks and other financial incentives. But now a growing number of states are tempering their enthusiasm. Of the 38 states that currently offer incentives to the data center industry, at least 28 of them have weighed legislation this year to end or shrink those benefits, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research group.

The turnabout speaks to the rapidly shifting politics surrounding data centers, as well as the real-world impacts of their construction. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (D) has pointed out that sales tax exemptions for data centers — which include exemptions for electricity costs — cost the state up to $57 million every year. “Do we really want to subsidize data center’s consumption of energy and electricity when they make everyone else’s power bills go up?” Stein said in remarks early last month. “It doesn’t make much sense to me.” Last week, Democratic lawmakers in the North Carolina Legislature introduced a bill that would regulate data centers and repeal some tax credits. Officials in other states have pursued similar ideas. Washington state this year nixed a policy that let data center operators avoid sales taxes for replacement equipment. Minnesota last year scrapped tax exemptions for electricity costs. Nationwide, lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills that would rein in the data center industry. Some would force companies to pay more for electricity. Others would impose energy requirements or set other strict regulations.

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The secret team blowing up Ford’s assembly line to make a $30,000 electric truck

A crew of engineers slipped past the empty security gate at a Ford Motor truck plant outside Detroit just after 3 a.m. The factory lines were still at that hour—but that was the point. The crew was there to test a section of a new pickup that few at the company knew even existed. Ford’s secret project had an ambitious goal: to figure out how to make electric vehicles in the U.S. that could compete with the Chinese models clobbering competitors globally. The secret is now out as Ford races toward building its first model, a new truck it says will be nearly as fast as a Mustang, travel around 300 miles on a single charge and feature in-car technology to compete with Tesla and China. It’s aiming for a 2027 launch and a price tag of around $30,000, the cost of a Toyota Camry.

Getting there means tearing up a century of manufacturing practices in a notoriously hidebound industry. At stake for Ford is securing a future beyond the gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs that have long defined its bottom line. The project had been kept quiet from its 2022 start, led by veterans from Tesla and Apple who worked on designs out of a California office. Ford eventually brought in some of its own employees to help execute the vision. The process was filled with misunderstandings and distrust as the techie outsiders worked to win over the risk-averse industry veterans. To build these new EVs, the company must use fewer people and simpler parts, and dismantle decades of engineering inertia. Chief Executive Jim Farley is calling it Ford’s new “Model T moment.” Rival automakers say overcoming China on EVs can’t be done, given their advantages: extensive government backing, low-cost labor and a massive head start. Whether Ford’s bet big will work may come down to how well Detroit and Silicon Valley can work together. Traditional automakers have sometimes tried to infuse outsider know-how into their operations, with often bleak results, from abandoned robotaxi projects to costly, unpopular EVs.

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Supreme Court voting rights ruling set to reshape local power from statehouses to school boards

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new decision gutting a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act clears the way for state officials to drastically reshape not only Congress but also state legislatures, county commissions, city councils and even local school boards. The ruling, released last week in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, dismantled some of the final guardrails protecting the electoral power of Black, Hispanic and other racial minority voters that had been enshrined in the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal civil rights law that bars racial discrimination in voting access. The 6-3 decision all but nullifies a provision called Section 2 that required states to draw electoral maps to give racial minority voters the opportunity to elect their chosen candidates.

And while intense national attention on the case’s fallout has focused on the U.S. House as the 2026 midterm congressional elections loom, the new ruling also applies to state legislative districts and maps for county or municipal elections. Those localized changes are just hovering further down the road. “While everyone has been focusing on what this means for the power in Congress, there’s a whole other sector of power that it changes,” said Davante Lewis, an elected member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission and one of the litigants in a case that pushed Louisiana to create the congressional maps that were eventually struck down in the Callais ruling. “This is a decision on who gets to serve on a school board, who gets to serve on a city council, who gets representation in the judiciary,” Lewis said. Electoral maps are typically redrawn every 10 years after a census, but the Trump administration has encouraged Republican-led states to redraw districts to favor the GOP, a controversial move that has prompted some Democratic-led states to retaliate with gerrymandering of their own.

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Secret Service says suspect opened fire on them and was shot in exchange near Washington Monument

A man spotted carrying a gun in the vicinity of the White House by plainclothes officers and agents was shot by law enforcement Monday after he opened fire on them near the Washington Monument, the Secret Service said. Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said plainclothes agents spotted the man around 3:30 p.m. in the area near the White House complex and saw the imprint of the weapon on him. The agents followed him briefly and contacted the uniformed officers. The unidentified man attempted to flee when uniformed officers with the Secret Service approached him. Quinn said the man fired at the officers, who returned fire. The alleged gunman was transported to a local hospital. Quinn said he had no information on the suspect’s condition.

Quinn said emergency personnel also transported a minor who was shot but not seriously injured. Quinn said he could not say definitively that the bystander, who also was taken to a hospital, was struck by shots from the suspect’s gun. “We’ll let the doctors figure that out,” he said, though he noted that “investigators believe he was struck by the suspect.” Quinn said the Washington, D.C., police would investigate the officer-involved shooting. The Secret Service encouraged people to avoid the area as emergency crews responded to the shooting not far from the White House, where President Donald Trump was holding a small business event. The White House was briefly locked down as authorities investigated the incident. The Secret Service ushered journalists who were outside into the briefing room, and Trump continued his event without interruption. The incident drew a large police presence, coming just over a week after a gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with guns and knives. Cole Tomas Allen has been charged in that incident, in which a Secret Service officer was shot, although he was wearing body armor and was not seriously injured. Quinn said it was not known yet whether the Monday incident was related to Trump. “I’m not going to guess on that,” Quinn said. “Whether or not it was directed to the president or not, I don’t know, but we will find out.”

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Rubio expects 'frank' meeting with pope as Trump takes fresh potshots at Leo

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expects a "frank" meeting with Pope Leo during a visit to the Vatican this week, the U.S. ambassador said ?on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump took a fresh pot-shot at the pope for criticising the ?U.S. war in Iran. "Nations have disagreements, and I think one of the ways that you work through those is ... through fraternity and ?authentic dialogue," said Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. "I think the Secretary is coming here in that spirit," Burch told journalists. "To have a frank conversation about U.S. policy, to engage in dialogue." Trump has repeatedly disparaged the first U.S.-born pope in recent weeks, drawing a backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.

In his latest comments, ?Trump told right-wing radio talk show ?host Hugh Hewitt that "the Pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good. "I think ?he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people. But I guess if it’s up to the Pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. Leo has never said Iran should have ?nuclear ?weapons, but has opposed the war which Trump says is ?aimed at ending Iran's nuclear programme. Rubio is ?a Catholic, as is Vice President JD Vance. The two met Leo a year ago after attending his inaugural mass, the Trump administration's only previous known cabinet-level meetings with the pope. Burch was asked after an event hosted by his embassy at Rome's Gregorian University on Tuesday if Rubio was hoping to repair the relationship between Trump and Leo. "I don't accept the idea that somehow there's some deep rift," the ambassador responded. Rubio is coming, ?Burch said, so that the U.S. and the Vatican can "better ?understand each other, and to work through, if there are differences, ?certainly to talk through that." Rubio is also set ?to meet in Rome on Friday with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who defended ?the Pope. Her defense minister has said the ?war in Iran puts U.S. ?leadership at risk. Leo, who marks his first year as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church on Friday, maintained a relatively low profile on the global stage in the first months of his papacy but has ?emerged in recent weeks as a ?firm critic of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The pope has also sharply criticised the Trump ?administration's hard-line anti-immigration policies and called for dialogue between the U.S. and Catholic-majority Cuba to prevent violence.

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AP, Washington Post, Reuters and Minnesota Star Tribune among Pulitzer winners for 2025 work

The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for scrutinizing the Trump administration’s sweeping, choppy overhaul of federal agencies, and The Associated Press won the award Monday for international reporting about surveillance. In a year when several prize-winning projects zoomed in on the Trump presidency, the Post’s coverage illuminated the administration’s fast-moving, sometimes opaque drive to reshape the national government and what the cuts and changes meant for individual Americans. The Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown was given a special citation for her reporting, nearly a decade ago, that drew attention to Jeffrey Epstein ’s abuses. The New York Times won three of the coveted prizes, the Post and Reuters each won two, and less widely known outlets ranging from The Connecticut Mirror to the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” also were recognized in a challenging year for American journalism.

“This is always a day of celebration in our communities, but perhaps never more so than today as we face tremendous political and economic pressures,” prize administrator Marjorie Miller said in a livestream announcement. In the last few months, the Post cut a third of its staff, CBS News announced it would shutter its nearly century-old radio service, The AP offered buyouts to over 120 journalists and some regional newspapers also publicly struggled. CBS parent Paramount’s acquisition of CNN has raised questions about what’s next for those networks. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continued to bash, and sometimes sue, outlets whose coverage he finds objectionable. Spanning three years, thousands of pages of documents and numerous interviews, the AP project found that American companies help lay the foundations of the Chinese government’s system for monitoring and policing its citizens. “This was sweeping and deeply impactful reporting, the kind of work that highlights the unique strengths of AP’s global, multiformat newsroom,” executive editor Julie Pace said in an email to staffers. She is among the Pulitzer Board’s new members.

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Senate Republicans seek $1 billion for White House ballroom security

Senate Republicans want to provide U.S. Secret Service $1 billion for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the construction of President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom. The use of public funds would be limited to building “above-ground and below-ground security elements” only, according to the text of a reconciliation package released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It also includes $30.7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $3.5 billion for Customs and Border Protection. “Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda,” Grassley said in a statement Monday. “The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families. We will work to ensure this critical funding gets signed into law without unnecessary delay.”

The committee is expected to mark up the bill next week before sending it to the full chamber, where it will likely pass via a simple-majority vote. The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that construction of a new 90,000 square foot White House ballroom, which is to occupy the space of the former East Wing building that was demolished by Trump last year, would be financed by private donations and not cost taxpayers money. It is estimated to cost $400 million. “It’s not going to cost taxpayers a dime,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last year. The plans for the new “East Wing Modernization Project” include offices, a theater and military infrastructure, including a new underground bunker. A federal appeals court has allowed construction to proceed while legal challenges continue. “The military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed,” Trump told reporters in March, adding that the ballroom “essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built under.” The text of the reconciliation bill does include a limitation on the use of the $1 billion: “None of the funds made available under this section may be used for non-security elements of the East Wing Modernization Project.”

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Lead Stories

Why almost everyone loses—except a few sharks—on prediction markets

John Pederson, 33, couldn’t work. The former Outback Steakhouse line cook was recovering from a car crash and running out of money. Kalshi, the prediction market, promised a quick way to fix that. He took out a variable-interest loan and started betting. At first, it worked. Pederson turned about $2,000 into close to $8,000 by betting on daily snowfall totals in Detroit, where he lives. He parlayed that into $41,000 by trading on sports, using a strategy he developed with the help of AI, according to a Wall Street Journal review of his account records. Then he placed his most audacious bet yet: All $41,000 that a celebrity would say a particular word on TV. He lost it all. Pederson isn’t alone in walking away empty-handed from the bet-on-anything markets, which cover sports, celebrities, news and more.

Kalshi and its competitor Polymarket advertise themselves as life-changing tools for regular people—implying everyone has a fair chance to score. “I was about to be unable to pay my rent, but I got two years of rent through Kalshi’s predictions,” gushed one woman in a Kalshi ad on TikTok. But for most users the reality is nothing like that. Instead, casual traders are bleeding cash while a small number of sophisticated pros—including trading firms with access to vast streams of data—eat their lunch, according to a Journal analysis of platform data and interviews with traders. On Polymarket, the Journal found, 67% of profits go to just 0.1% of accounts. That means less than 2,000 accounts netted a total of nearly half a billion dollars. The Journal analyzed 1.6 million Polymarket accounts that have traded since November 2022. There are at least 2.3 million total accounts on the site. On Kalshi, too, losers vastly outnumber winners. Spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana said there are 2.9 unprofitable users for each profitable one based on data from the past month. She said the number is subject to change as the exchange grows. The company doesn’t make public comprehensive data on users’ profits and doesn’t share its total number of users. Total trading volume on both platforms has rocketed to $24.2 billion in April, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier, according to analytics firm The Block. Proponents say the markets don’t count as gambling, and that they harness the wisdom of crowds to accurately predict future events. Federal Reserve research shows Kalshi is an effective tool to forecast economic trends.

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Corpus Christi Water officials detail long-term water supply plan, conservation progress

City of Corpus Christi officials outlined the latest updates on the city’s long-range water supply planning during a public briefing on Friday, emphasizing ongoing projects, conservation efforts, and future diversification of the water supply. Nick Winkleman, Chief Operating Officer of Corpus Christi Water, said residential customers have significantly reduced water use and are already performing projected allocation levels below. Winkleman emphasized that reports of water blackouts or evacuations are false. “I’m here to emphatically state that that information isn’t true,” Winkleman said. “We want to ensure everyone has the most accurate information.” According to the latest data, Choke Canyon Reservoir sits at 7.3% and Lake Corpus Christi at 8.7%, bringing the combined capacity to about 7.7%, while Lake Texana remains higher at 66% following recent rainfall.

Despite the low levels, officials say residents are already doing their part, using less water than projected targets. “Our residential customers…have made tremendous efforts to reduce their water usage,” Winkleman said. “They are already below what a potential allocation might be. Winkleman also highlighted continued progress on major supply projects, including groundwater development in Nueces County, seawater desalination planning, reclaimed water reuse initiatives, and pipeline construction tied to new treatment systems. Winkleman noted that construction and design work are advancing across multiple projects, including brackish groundwater treatment, which is expected to begin initial deliveries in 2027. Officials also reiterated its goal of diversifying water sources to include surface water, groundwater, seawater, and reclaimed effluent to ensure long-term supply stability. Officials said no level one water emergency but stress that no restrictions are currently in effect. “Allocations and baselines…are not in effect until we go into a level one water emergency,” Winkleman said. If that happens, Texas law requires water reductions to be applied evenly across all users, including residential, commercial and industrial customers. At the same time, officials highlighted ongoing efforts to expand supply, including groundwater projects, wastewater reuse and desalination planning. “Our strategy is to diversify the water supply…to make it sustainable for future generations,” Winkleman said.

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Inside Democratic fundraiser ActBlue’s big spending and internal drama

Following Democrats’ bruising losses in the 2024 election, the chief executive of ActBlue, the platform that had helped Democrats raise $4 billion for that year’s contests, gathered staff for a four-day retreat. One of the first topics of the CEO’s remarks, according to people familiar with the matter: the outfit she had delivered to San Francisco for the occasion. Employees, still dazed after layoffs and election results, found the comments jarring, the people said. The platform that is integral to the Democratic Party’s infrastructure is now enmeshed in controversy, in part fueled by the management of its CEO, Regina Wallace-Jones, whose spending and legal decisions have raised concerns among Democrats and employees, according to people familiar with ActBlue’s operations.

Wallace-Jones, a former tech executive, has tried to run the group not like the political nonprofit that it is, but like a Silicon Valley firm that is acquiring startups to stay relevant and offering executives some perks, the people said. She played down risks over some fundraising practices flagged by the group’s lawyers in 2024, the people said, while dramatically increasing spending on travel and security. During the retreat last February, ActBlue booked hundreds of rooms at the Intercontinental San Francisco, and Wallace-Jones was comped a stay in a two-story presidential suite while security guards swarmed the hotel at her direction, the people said. The organization spent roughly $700,000 on the retreat, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. Wallace-Jones said in a statement that she was recruited to grow ActBlue. “We have been able to steer the organization from a single-service startup into a diversified technology platform supporting campaign operations well beyond fundraising,” she said. “Change on this scale isn’t easy, but neither is protecting the integrity of small-dollar democracy.”

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Warsh's take on Fed independence is met with confusion and some concern

Most people don’t know and don’t have much reason to care what a currency swap line is, except that the financial instrument could soon help markets understand what Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Warsh’s unique ideas about Fed independence really mean. Warsh has said categorically the Fed should be “strictly independent” in the making of monetary policy. But he adds that he’s willing to work with Congress and the Trump administration on “non-monetary matters.” In answers to senators’ questions following his April 21 confirmation hearing, he elaborated: “Fed officials are not entitled to the same special deference in areas affecting international finance, among other matters.”

Warsh has also talked often about a new “Fed/Treasury accord” that he’s suggested could govern the Fed’s balance sheet, though in ways he has yet to detail. To six former Fed officials interviewed for this article, those comments were unclear or confusing at best. When it comes to Fed independence, they found his analysis worrisome at worst. The outcomes could be benign, tinkering around the edges of existing conventions, or more concerning limitations to the Fed’s ability to use its balance sheet in a crisis. Because of the lack of clarity in Warsh’s comments, none of the former officials who spoke with CNBC were ready yet to draw conclusions either way. Former Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, long a hawk on interest rate and balance sheet policy, said he could welcome a new accord between the Fed and Treasury Department if it led to the Fed focusing on monetary policy, leaving credit policy up to Treasury. Under such an accord, for example, the Fed could be limited to just buying treasurys, not mortgages or other financial instruments.

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State Stories

Grapevine-based GameStop makes $55.5 billion offer to buy eBay

GameStop has announced it has made a $55.5 billion offer to buy eBay at $125.00 per share in cash and stock. CEO Ryan Cohen, who would become CEO of the combined company should the deal go through, told The Wall Street Journal he wants to make eBay a “legit competitor to Amazon,” as he bids to grow his business beyond games and merchandise and hit a $35 billion payout in the process. GameStop said the cash part of the offer is expected to be funded from a combination of cash and liquid investments on GameStop’s balance sheet, which totaled $9.4 billion as of January 31, 2026, and “third-party acquisition financing,” with up to $20 billion in debt financing from TD Securities. GameStop did not say exactly where this third-party acquisition financing would come from.

In its announcement, GameStop said eBay isn’t making enough money for what it’s spending, and that it would deliver $2 billion of annualized cost reductions within 12 months of closing the deal, suggesting plans for significant cuts. GameStop added that its 1,600 U.S. retail locations “give eBay a national network for authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live commerce,” confirming plans to bring the eBay business into its stores. GameStop posted a letter sent from Cohen to eBay president Paul Pressler in which the GameStop CEO said he would receive “no salary, no cash bonuses, and no golden parachute — I will be compensated solely based on the performance of the combined company.” In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cohen said that if eBay turns the offer down, he will go directly to shareholders. “There is nobody who is more qualified, based on my experience, to run the eBay business,” Cohen insisted. As for where he’ll get the money needed for the deal, The Wall Street Journal said Cohen may turn to Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds.

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After 43 years in DART, why did Highland Park voters choose to leave?

In 1983, when Dallas Area Rapid Transit was born at the ballot box, Highland Park embraced it by a higher margin than any city in the region. On Saturday, it said goodbye. Highland Park voters chose to abandon DART in a dramatic shift of priorities — from supporting a regional transit vision to questioning whether it delivers enough value. In doing so, it became the first city in nearly 40 years to break away. Nearly 70% of Highland Park voters Saturday chose to exit the system, a striking twist from the 77% who favored joining DART in 1983. That's when Dallas and more than a dozen suburbs agreed in an election to fund the transit agency through a one-cent sales tax. Coppell and Flower Mound were the last two cities to leave DART, back in 1989.

Walt Humann, known as the father of DART for his push in the 1980s to create the transit system, remembers Highland Park voting overwhelmingly to join the agency. Article continues below this ad “No one ever asked, ‘Tell me what’s in it for me,’” he said Sunday. “It was always how can we help the region and how can we help our own citizens … Today in Highland Park, it’s more transactional. How much are we getting and how much are we paying?” Although DART lost a member city for the first time in nearly four decades Saturday, the agency has emerged from more than six months of threatening uncertainty relatively unscathed. Since November, nearly half of DART’s member cities considered leaving the agency, and of the three withdrawal elections that moved forward, only Highland Park chose to leave. Buses, trains and other service will continue in Addison and University Park, where voters backed DART.

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Mariachi brothers detained by ICE invited to open for Kacey Musgraves after release

The crowd went wild when the three Gámez-Cuéllar brothers and their father took the stage on Sunday night. It was no ordinary concert. Two months ago, the brothers and their father, all musicians, were being held in federal immigration detention centers. Now, dressed in black mariachi suits, they were opening for the country music star Kacey Musgraves in New Braunfels, Texas. Just before they went on, the family uttered a prayer of thanks. “Thank you, Father, for giving us this great opportunity,” Antonio Yesayahu Gámez-Cuéllar, 18, addressed God, as he stood next to his 15-year-old brother, Caleb Gámez-Cuéllar; their 12-year-old brother, Joshua Gámez-Cuéllar; and their father, Luis Antonio Gámez. “We ask you, Father, to protect us and bathe us in your light.” In early March, the Gámez-Cuéllar family became snarled in President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Their detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents drew widespread and bipartisan outcries that led to the family’s release from an immigration facility in Dilley, Texas. The oldest sibling, Antonio, was released from a separate detention center near the border. Shortly after the family was released, Ms. Musgraves extended an invitation to the brothers on Instagram: “great so come on the road with me.” Antonio and Caleb, along with their younger brother, Joshua, all renowned mariachi players from McAllen, Texas, jumped at the opportunity to open three shows for Ms. Musgraves with their father. The performances on her Middle of Nowhere tour began Sunday and will continue for two more days at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, northeast of San Antonio. The venue is a whitewashed building that resembles a small church and considers itself the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas. “We were honored to be invited,” their mother, Emma Guadalupe Cuéllar López, said. At the concert, Antonio belted out a Spanish-language rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to applause and cheers.

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Proposed Fort Bliss data center could use more power than all of El Paso

The U.S. Army is proposing developing a gargantuan, 3-gigawatt data center complex on Fort Bliss property that within a few years would consume more electricity than all of El Paso Electric’s 460,000 customers combined – even as questions about its development, water usage and air pollution remain unanswered. If built, it would be the third major data center project in the El Paso region, along with Meta Platform’s $10 billion facility in Northeast and the $165 billion Project Jupiter campus that Oracle and OpenAI are building in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The combined scale and size of the three facilities could quickly transform the Borderland into one of the nation’s core hubs of power generation and AI infrastructure. The publicly-traded investment firm Carlyle Group would pay to build and operate the Fort Bliss data center – one of several planned in a national rollout under President Donald Trump’s administration to rapidly increase artificial intelligence technology for the Department of Defense.

At Fort Bliss, the Army is “targeting an initial operating capacity of about 100 megawatts on the compute side” by next year, David Fitzgerald, deputy undersecretary of the Army, said during a meeting with reporters April 22. An official estimated cost for the project has yet to be released. By 2029, the complex on military land in far East El Paso would require 3 gigawatts of electricity, Fitzgerald said. By comparison, El Paso Electric currently maintains about 2.9 gigawatts of generation capacity across its entire system that spans from Hatch, New Mexico, to Van Horn, Texas. The highest customer demand the power company has ever seen was just over 2.3 gigawatts during the summer of 2023. And whether most El Pasoans are on board with the rapid buildout of another data center here is not a question that Army leadership is asking at this point. “What we’re trying to do is find where are the common interests, common ground that we can solve for?” Fitzgerald said, referring to coordinating with El Paso city leaders on the data center project. “The state of modern warfare and future warfare is largely going to depend on the ability to capture, process and utilize massive amounts of data,” he said. “So, the reality is, this is a strategic priority, not just for the Army, but for the entire Department of War. So, we need these capabilities, and we need to put them somewhere.”

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Austin train derailment prompts renewed push to relocate freight rail

A freight train derailment in downtown Austin last month is prompting Travis County Judge Andy Brown to renew calls to move a major rail line out of the city’s urban core — a long-debated idea that has yet to gain traction. Seven Union Pacific cars derailed early on April 23 as a 230-car train rounded a sharp curve near West Third and Bowie streets in the Seaholm District. No one was injured, but the incident snarled traffic for hours and delayed school bus routes in West Austin as crews worked to clear the scene.

The train was transporting “mixed commodities” rather than hazardous chemicals, but Brown — a longtime passenger rail advocate who oversees emergency management in his role as county judge — said the cars could just as easily have been carrying something far more dangerous, like chlorine. “Chlorine can cause a cloud of chlorine gas, and that would be a horrible thing,” Brown said. “Just the fact that you’re potentially carrying hazardous chemicals right through this huge metro area with condos literally feet away from where this curve was is not great.” Brown has pushed for expanded passenger rail in Central Texas for years, including a proposed line between Austin and San Antonio. In October, the Travis County Commissioners Court — which Brown presides over — commissioned a feasibility study of a new passenger rail line between the two cities. The study examines the cost and technical feasibility of building the line within existing highway rights-of-way. The results have not yet been released.

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As the state targets cities over ICE policies, Austin considers next steps

In some ways, Texas has provided a crystal ball for the rest of the country when it comes to immigration policy. Before the Trump administration poured billions into immigration enforcement and built partnerships between local police and state and federal immigration agents, Texas was already doing it. So, for those opposed to the deportation surge, Texas is worth paying attention to. That was one of the takeaways from a panel Saturday at the KUT Festival. “Here in Texas, we have kind of a four- to five-year head start when it comes to the rest of the country,” said Kristin Etter, the director of policy and legal services at the Texas Immigration Law Council. “We have operated a program called Operation Lone Star that has used state resources. So we have a model here in Texas for this police/ICE collaboration."

Another takeaway from the panel: In a state where much of the voting public and all state political leaders support aggressive immigration enforcement, opposition becomes local. In liberal Austin, local leaders have tried to craft policies that would limit police partnering with ICE, but the governor took notice and the Austin Police Department had to soften one policy under threat of funding cuts. City Council Member Zo Qadri said Austin still has tools at its disposal “to make sure that folks are protected and are safe.” City Council Member José Velásquez pointed to millions in city funding for local immigration advocacy groups and the council’s support for Austin’s “safe to call” initiative as examples. That policy orders the city management to find ways people might call 911 without inadvertently opening themselves up to ICE detention. But regardless of those efforts, immigrant advocate Carmen Zuvieta said anyone who at risk of being targeted by immigration enforcement should think twice before interacting with the police. “In Texas, all the police are immigration,” she said. “So when you see one police stop one person, don't assume it's a ticket.” Kristin Etter concurred. Though, she said, some current state law may ultimately be struck down. “We believe that the Constitution is supreme,” Etter said. “Constitutional rights cannot be taken away from state laws.”

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Texas leads nation in utility shutoffs as electric bills rise, federal report finds

Texas had more residential electricity shutoffs than any other state in 2024, according to a new federal report that offers one of the clearest national pictures yet of how often households are left in the dark because they cannot pay their bills. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that utilities disconnected residential electricity service 13.4 million times nationwide in 2024. Texas accounted for more than 3 million of those disconnections, the highest total in the country. The report also found Texas had 206,372 residential natural gas disconnections, again the largest state total. Margo Weisz, executive director of the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute, said the numbers show that Texas is an outlier. She said Texas residents make up about 9% of the nation’s electricity customers but accounted for 22.5% of all electricity disconnections.

“So we’re seeing a real challenge specifically in Texas where we purport to have very low electricity bills,” Weisz told Texas Public Radio. Weisz said the problem is especially acute for low- and moderate-income Texans. TEPRI survey data found that half of those households report struggling every month to pay energy bills. Many cut back on basic needs, including food, medicine or school supplies, to keep the lights on. The pressure is rising as electricity bills climb. A TEPRI affordability outlook found residential electricity prices in the ERCOT competitive retail market rose by roughly 30% between 2021 and 2025, adding about $35 to $40 a month to a typical low- or moderate-income household’s bill. The group projects another 29% increase from 2025 to 2030, driven largely by transmission and distribution investments. Those investments are tied in part to Texas’ rapid growth, extreme weather demands, grid hardening after the 2021 winter blackout, and new large electricity users, including data centers, crypto mining and industrial operations.

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Texas Killing Fields suspect faces two new felony charges following search of Bacliff property

A man already accused of committing multiple crimes connected to the decades-old Texas Killing Fields case was charged with two additional felonies after authorities served search warrants on his Bacliff property. James Elmore, 61, was charged with possession of child pornography and possession of visual material depicting sexual assault on Thursday, according to Galveston County court documents. Elmore was previously arrested in March on charges of manslaughter and tampering with evidence in two of the Texas Killing Fields cases. The new charges come in the midst of a renewed investigation into the deaths of around 30 women, whose bodies were found in the late 1980s and early 1990s in an area referred to as the Texas Killing Fields — near the intersection of Calder Road and Ervin Street in League City, which is located between Houston and Galveston.

According to a search warrant served on April 16, Elmore’s phone — which was taken when he was indicted in March — allegedly contained multiple images of child pornography. The search warrant called for the forensic examination of any computer or computer-related media found at Elmore's home to look for potential evidence of criminal activity, specifically possession or promotion of child pornography, as well as the possible identification of other child victims of sexual exploitation. Another search warrant served on April 16 called for the search for possible human remains on Elmore’s property. Authorities confirmed that the search for human remains ended early this week. Authorities did not find human remains at the property of 61-year-old James Elmore, according to KPRC reporting. Elmore remains jailed on combined bonds totaling $4.5 million. A trial date for Elmore has been set for Aug. 31.

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Richardson is latest city pumping the breaks on short term rentals

The city of Richardson is the latest North Texas city to question whether short-term rentals are more of a nuisance than not. Last month, residents spoke of the noise, trash, parking and safety issues they have seen caused by short-term rentals in their neighborhoods. Short-term rentals are stays lasting no more than 30 days, and are commonly listed on websites such as Airbnb and VRBO. The complaints heard in Richardson are similar to those reported in Dallas, Arlington, Plano and a host of other cities that have passed ordinances regulating such properties or imposing outright bans on listings in residential neighborhoods. Following community complaints, the Richardson City Council approved a 90-day prohibition on new STR listings. The pause will run from the end of May through August, meaning homeowners will not be able to capitalize on last-minute demand driven by the FIFA World Cup’s presence in North Texas this summer.

During the pause, the city will begin collecting data on short-term rentals, including registered and unregistered properties, whether some neighborhoods have developed STR clusters, and the impact that vacation rentals have on residents’ quality of life. “This isn’t against STRs or the many responsible, involved owners,” said council member Joe Corcoran during an April 20 work session. “I think that adopting this prohibition allows us to be robust. It allows us to look forward and adopt responsible regulations that respect property rights, while also being responsive to all the residents that have come to us with concerns.” Corcoran added that he’d like to see city staff cross-reference the collected STR data with police and code compliance data to identify nuisance properties. Dallas attempted to pull similar data in its own short-term rental fight and, in 2024, found that code inspectors received 160 complaints in a year (not accounting for repeat complaints). At the time, more than 3,000 known STRs were registered within the city. Council member Jennifer Justice added that she supports the moratorium because complaints about STRs are the “number one issue” that she hears about from residents. The council will have the option to extend the pause after August if more time is needed for the study.

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Dallas mayor slams City Council for ‘lip service’ amid budget woes

Mayor Eric Johnson on Sunday backed the city’s new cost-cutting measures, slamming City Council members who talk about restraint but approve “bloated” budgets and resist meaningful cuts. "Council members will pay lip service to fiscal responsibility, but when it comes time to vote, few are willing to follow through. Each has favored projects and programs to which they will tolerate no reductions," Johnson said in his weekly newsletter. The newsletter marks Johnson’s first public comments on the budget, likely to stir tension from some council members who support the cuts and have called for a closer look at spending and how the burden is shared. Dallas officials are navigating a more than $30 million shortfall six months into the current fiscal year, driven in part by rising health care expenses and overtime costs. Last month, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert told department leaders to limit costs immediately.

She also imposed a hiring freeze for most city jobs, halted nearly all overtime and banned unnecessary spending and travel. Departments must now spend money only on essential needs and delay or cancel anything else. Since then, council members have weighed in, some pushing to grow revenue and others calling for a review of payroll and a “top-heavy” workforce. Johnson said he hoped Tolbert’s cost-saving directive will serve as “a wake-up call” for the council to hone in on aggressive measures to rein in spending. He said resistance to cuts makes it difficult to follow through, pointing to the library system in which the council approved branch closures but later resisted implementing them. In his newsletter, Johnson highlighted his budget record, voting against three budgets, calling to “defund the bureaucracy” and issuing a tax-cut challenge last year. He again urged council members to identify programs to cut alongside those they want to preserve. Protecting their own projects makes “meaningful spending restraint…impossible,” he said. Johnson is one vote on the council and does not control the budget, which is crafted by the city manager and approved by a majority of council members, including the mayor. The city is scheduled to meet this week for its first public discussion on next year’s budget.

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Tesla Semi production ramps up with first vehicle off high-volume line

The first Tesla Semi to roll off the company's high-volume line has arrived, the Austin automaker announced on Wednesday. The milestone at Tesla Inc.'s Nevada plant arrives shortly after a recent production win at Gigafactory Texas. Last week, the company announced that the Cybercab, its purpose-built robotaxi, was officially rolling off the assembly line. First unveiled in 2017, CEO Elon Musk had originally promised the tractor-trailer would be delivered to customers in 2019. Since then, other companies have been working up electric and autonomous options. For example, Einride is partnering with SH 130 Concession Co. to position SH 130 toll road, which connects Austin and San Antonio, as a corridor for autonomous freight operations.

Tesla's long-awaited vehicle will also be watched for whether it can deliver on key features. Tesla's Semi specs boast a range of about 500 miles and the ability to reach up to 60% of range after 30 minutes of charging. That long-range model will reportedly sell for $300,000 while a 300-mile range Tesla Semi could sell for approximately $260,000. Now, Tesla's tractor-trailer will soon be put to the test on last-mile container moves. On Wednesday, California drayage operator MDB Transportation, which hauls cargo short distances between ports and nearby warehouses, announced the start of a three-week operational pilot using a Tesla Semi on active drayage lanes serving port freight. MDB says it will track performance across energy efficiency, cycle time, and driver experience, but is reporting positive early impressions. “We’re proud to be operating the Tesla Semi, the future of freight isn’t a concept — it’s in motion,” said Haig Melkonyan, MDB director of operations. Musk has also talked up the vehicle’s smooth ride. In an X post earlier this month, Musk said the truck “feels like a sports car to drive.” Meanwhile, dozens of Tesla Semi electric trucks also are expected to operate in Texas by next year, and infrastructure is following.

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National Stories

European leaders see Trump’s troop drawdown from Germany as new proof they must go it alone

European leaders on Monday said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s snap decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany came as a surprise but is a fresh sign that Europe must take care of its own security. The Pentagon announced last week that it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters on Saturday that “we’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” He offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO, but his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the U.S-Israeli war on Iran, and Trump’s anger that European allies have been reluctant to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East.

Asked about the decision to pull out 5,000 troops from Germany, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said: “I wouldn’t exaggerate that because I think we are expecting that Europe is taking more charge of its own security. “I do not see those figures as dramatic, but I think they should be handled in a harmonious way inside the framework of NATO,” he told reporters in Yerevan, Armenia, where European leaders are holding a summit. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said “there has been a talk about withdrawal of U.S. troops for a long time from Europe. But of course, the timing of this announcement comes as a surprise.” “I think it shows that we have to really strengthen the European pillar in NATO,” she said. Asked whether she believes that Trump is trying to punish Merz, who said that the U.S. has been humiliated by Iran in talks to end the war, Kallas said: “I don’t see into the head of President Trump, so he has to explain it himself.”

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Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani hospitalized in critical condition, spokesman says

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is hospitalized in critical condition, his spokesman said on Sunday. Spokesman Ted Goodman didn't say what sent the 81-year-old to the hospital or how long he's been there. "Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he's fighting with that same level of strength as we speak. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America's Mayor-Rudy Giuliani," Goodman said. Giuliani hosted his online show, "America's Mayor Live," Friday night from Palm Beach, Florida. As he opened the show, he coughed and his voice sounded more raspy than usual. He remarked: "My voice is a little under the weather, so I won't be able to speak as loudly as I usually do, but I'll get closer to the microphone."

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He nearly joined Trump’s administration. Now he’s running for Congress as a Democrat.

George Conway has heard all the names Donald Trump called him during the president’s political rise, fall and comeback over the past decade. “Deranged loser.” “Whack job.” “Husband from hell.” (This in reference to Conway’s long marriage to Trump first-term adviser Kellyanne Conway.) “Stone-cold loser.” (Conway’s favorite.) “Moon face.” “That was the racist one,” Conway said with a half-smile during a recent two-mile walk with his corgi, Clyde, on Manhattan’s East Side. Arguably the country’s preeminent critic of the 45th and 47th president, Conway has a name of his own for Trump: “the lowest form of life on Earth.”

In the greatest hits of their forever feud, Conway is quick to recall his most cherished interaction with his favorite foe: When Trump learned that Conway was getting divorced from Kellyanne in 2023, he posted on Truth Social: “Free at last, she has finally gotten rid of the disgusting albatross around her neck.” In response, Conway, who revels in trolling Trump, reminded him of the sexual abuse and defamation allegations made by writer E. Jean Carroll and how Conway, who encouraged Carroll to take legal action, couldn’t wait to see him in court: “Hugs and kisses ????.” (Carroll was awarded more than $88 million in damages in these cases, but the rulings remain under appeal, and Trump has denied wrongdoing.) “I will tell you this,” Conway said, “I want a picture of the judgment in the E. Jean Carroll case on my gravestone.” At 62, George Conway has been a recurring character in the Washington soap opera spanning the Trump era of American politics. His well-documented arc is the stuff of an HBO series: Conway was once celebrated by conservatives as the operative who brought Bill Clinton’s affairs to light, and one of the most successful civil litigators in the country, living the good life as a behind-the-scenes power player with his wife and four children. In 2017, Trump was ready to tap him to become one of the administration’s top lawyers — either as solicitor general or as head of the Justice Department’s civil division. But Conway took himself out of consideration — and then guaranteed he would never get such an offer again a year later when he called the Trump administration “a s---show in a dumpster fire.”

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‘This is the new Ohio’: Why everyone’s watching the Nevada governor’s race

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is trying to run a reelection campaign befitting the neon-drenched, sagebrush-pocked desert he has for five decades called home. President Donald Trump is making that hard. The Republican governor started the year with a sevenfold fundraising advantage, double-digit net favorability ratings and the tailwinds of a swing state the GOP presidential candidate carried for the first time in two decades. Five months later, he finds himself in a neck-and-neck race with Democrat Aaron Ford, the state’s attorney general, yoked to a highly unpopular president, a wobbling economy and a Middle Eastern war that has sent gas prices in the state soaring from $3.50 to $5 a gallon, among the highest in the nation.

“Yes, I am concerned,” the governor told POLITICO in a recent sit-down interview at Starbucks in Las Vegas. “Not only because of my re-elect but because of Nevada, right? What’s the proverbial line — all politics are local? It’s no longer that way. What’s happening worldwide, nationally, either we embrace it or we don’t.” Lombardo’s race, while reflective of the idiosyncrasies of Nevada’s economy and politics, offers one of the earliest and most instructive tests of whether Republicans in battleground states can separate themselves from Trump’s political fortunes without alienating his coalition — a question with implications not just for 2026 but for the party’s path in 2028. And the gravitational pull of Washington politics looms large over the race: Nevada Democrats are all too keen to blame any discouraging headline on the “Lombardo-Trump economy.” Stung by tariffs that have chilled travel from Canada and Mexico and an immigration crackdown that has made international visitors wary of coming to the United States, Las Vegas saw 7.5 percent fewer guests last year — the worst non-pandemic decline since the city started tracking in 1970 — a heavy blow to a state economy still so reliant on tourism. Nevada’s unemployment rate remains among the highest in the nation, and the hospitality workers who form the backbone of the Las Vegas economy are seeing reduced hours, smaller tips and layoffs.

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Alabama and Tennessee seek new congressional districts

Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee have summoned lawmakers into special sessions this week seeking new congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes that the Supreme Court will allow the state to switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. It’s a move that Republicans legislative leaders said would “give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress.” The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats. In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state’s one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.

The Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana said the drawing of the district map relied too much on race. The ruling began reverberating through statehouses across the South as Republicans eyed the possibility of getting new lines in place for the 2026 midterm elections, or at least 2028. President Donald Trump encouraged the latest round of redistricting in a post on social media on Sunday, saying his party could gain 20 seats in the House. “We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said. “That is more important than administrative convenience.” Florida approved new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and Louisiana moved quickly to postpone its May 16 congressional primary, drawing lawsuits from Democrats and civil rights groups. The state’s Republican leadership started planning for a redraw that could eliminate one or both of its congressional districts now represented by a Black lawmaker. South Carolina’s governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, described the court decision and the redistricting scramble as an attempt to roll back the Civil Rights Movement.

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What to know about hantavirus

The virus that is believed to be responsible for the deaths of three people and the illnesses of three others aboard a cruise ship over the weekend is a relatively rare but devastating threat without a vaccine, treatment or cure. Hantaviruses, a family of pathogens, are spread by rodents, mostly mice, and excreted in the animals’ saliva, droppings and urine. On Sunday, the World Health Organization said hantavirus was confirmed in one case on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean and suspected in five others. Three people died, one passenger was in intensive care in South Africa, and two ailing crew members remained on board and were in need of urgent medical care, the cruise line Oceanwide Expeditions said.

Last year the virus killed Betsy Arakawa, the wife of Gene Hackman. Arakawa, 65, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and Hackman, 95, died a week later of hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, officials have said. Alzheimer’s disease was a significant contributory factor in Hackman’s death. In New Mexico, where Arakawa and Hackman lived, the most common carrier of hantavirus is the deer mouse, a small creature with a white underbelly, large eyes and oversize ears. “It’s a horrible disease,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, a retired public health officer in Seattle who helped characterize the first known outbreak of the disease in the U.S. in 1993. “It’s not uniformly fatal and it’s not always severe, but the fatality rate is still thought to be up to 40%, which is really high.”

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Inside Spirit Airlines’ failed ‘Hail Mary’ to the Trump administration

Winding down a major US airline is a complicated business. Doing so when the president of the United States hints it could be saved adds another layer of complexity. Wracked with financial trouble, Spirit Airlines had filed for bankruptcy for the second time in August 2025. Months later, the conflict with Iran had driven up fuel prices and made its financial position even more untenable, putting it on the brink of closure. For weeks, Trump administration officials were in talks with the bargain airline on the possibility of a $500 million bailout package. The proposal would effectively give the government control of the overwhelming majority of Spirit’s shares. President Donald Trump publicly suggested that he would be on board “if we can get it at the right price.” “They have some good aircrafts, some good assets, and when the price of oil goes down, we’d sell it for a profit,” he told reporters in the Oval Office last month.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Trump to lay out the options, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, which prompted some internal division among the president’s team. Lutnick, one source familiar with the deliberations told CNN, “was pushing” for a deal, with a second source familiar suggesting that he argued it would be a political win for the administration. But there were reservations about the possibility of a bailout from officials including Duffy, Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and members of the White House counsel’s office, a third source familiar with deliberations told CNN. Those included concerns about pumping money into a company with a bad financial record, two of the sources said. The?idea of a bailout for a single airline also sparked backlash from both the airline industry and among Republicans in Congress. Previous bailouts have been in support of all US airlines, not a single carrier or group of airlines. And those rescue packages were in response to a paralyzed industry, like when passengers were afraid to fly in the wake of terrorist attacks or a pandemic, not because of increased costs and losses.

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At least 12 hospitalized as gunfire rings out at Oklahoma campground party

At least 12 people were hospitalized after gunfire broke out during a party at a campground in Oklahoma on Sunday night, local officials said. The shooting at Arcadia Lake in Edmond happened just after 9 p.m., the Edmond Police Department said on X. The extent of the injuries and their exact nature were not immediately clear. "Edmond Police, along with Oklahoma City Police and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, responded to the scene and located numerous victims. Emergency personnel transported 10 victims to various metro-area hospitals," police said.

No one was in custody as of early Monday, and it was unclear what preceded the gunfire. As of early Monday, nine shooting victims were being treated at the Integris Health Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City while three were being treated at victims at Integris Health Edmond Hospital, a spokesperson for the hospitals told NBC News. "These are all victims of the shooting in Edmond this evening. No other patients that Integris is aware of at their hospitals involved in the shooting," the spokesperson said. The campground is about 20 miles north of Oklahoma City. The lake, popular for watersports, was created in 1987 in a joint operation between the City of Edmond and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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Lead Stories

Texas Supreme Court greenlights ban on Delta-8 THC in new ruling

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that state regulators may criminalize Delta-8 THC, the intoxicating compound found in some hemp products — a significant blow to an industry fighting for its survival. The ruling, which reverses a lower court decision, says the Department of State Health Services can enforce rules it set in 2021 that classified Delta-8 as an illegal substance. The change primarily affects products containing Delta-8, a milder form of THC found in many gummy, candy and vape products, including at gas stations and hemp-focused retailers. But the court’s finding that the Department of State Health Services has broad authority to regulate controlled substances could have wider implications for the industry. DSHS said it was reviewing the ruling and didn't have an immediate comment.

In a separate, smaller win for hemp businesses on Friday, a Travis County judge granted a temporary injunction against newer restrictions from DSHS that would hike fees on retail stores and limit the sale of THC-A, which would effectively ban smokeable hemp. But the decision is likely to be appealed and could be complicated by the Supreme Court’s ruling. The 2021 rules on Delta-8, meanwhile, had long been on hold after a group of hemp business owners, led by Austin-based Hometown Hero, sued to block them. The plaintiffs argued that officials overstepped their authority by banning a substance that had not been explicitly outlawed by legislators and said the decision would make it difficult for retailers to operate. A lower state court sided with the business groups and put the rules on hold as the case played out. But the state Supreme Court overturned the decision, finding that a state law known as the Texas Controlled Substances Act gives the DSHS commissioner “primary responsibility for overseeing the civil schedules of controlled substances.”

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Texas rejected Corpus Christi water project amid looming crisis

Months after Gov. Greg Abbott blasted local leaders for backing out of a plan to build a desalination plant on the Corpus Christi ship channel, the state declined to help finance another, larger desalination facility that could similarly ease the region’s growing water crisis. Early this year, the Nueces River Authority applied for a $140 million low-interest loan from the Texas Water Development Board to jumpstart planning and design for the larger project, which would be located on Harbor Island but intake water and discharge brine via a pipeline extending two miles offshore. That distance would help minimize the project’s impact on marine life and ecology, according to research.

The water board, whose members are appointed by Abbott, said the project was one of several it was unable to fund this year because its main lending program reached capacity and it had to prioritize other, higher-scoring projects. John Chisholm, the deputy executive director of the Nueces River Authority, said the decision was “very surprising.” “Our project is going to bring much-needed water to an area that is really suffering right now,” Chisholm said. The river authority is now working to find other funding sources to move the project forward. The move comes as Corpus Christi is experiencing historic water shortages amid rising demand from industry and a record drought. The city is likely to begin forcing residents and businesses to curtail their water use by 25% starting in September. Neither of the two proposed plants would help the immediate crisis, but seawater desalination has been pitched as essential to the region’s longterm future, including its ability to continue serving and attracting petrochemical plants.

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'Godspeed my friend': Inside the final hours of Spirit Airlines

Spirit Airlines was hours away from its final flights Friday afternoon. Jeremiah Burton was hours away from his first. “It’s my first time flying,” Burton, a 45-year-old air conditioning and heating technician, told CNBC at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Friday, shortly before he was scheduled to depart for New Orleans to visit his daughter and her newborn twins. “To tell you the truth, I just went online and Googled the cheapest airline ticket,” he said, adding that he paid about $500 for the trip late last month. He was scheduled to return on May 6. While Burton waited for his flight, Spirit was making final preparations to shut down overnight, ending a three-decade run that brought discount air travel to millions across the United States and as far away as Peru.

Spirit canceled international flights on Thursday, to start, so travelers, planes, and flight crews wouldn’t be stranded. The airline said it flew more than 50,000 people the day leading up to its collapse. Spirit bondholders rejected an 11th-hour bailout proposal from the Trump administration that could have included up to $500 million to keep the ailing airline afloat. The deal would have put the government ahead of other bondholders’ claims and given it an up to 90% stake in the airline. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called Spirit CEO Dave Davis to tell him there was no deal and that bondholders and the government were far from an agreement, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bondholders sent a letter to Spirit’s board, confirming that the end was near. Before dawn on Saturday, Spirit’s website and app were papered over with the message that operations had ended. “To our Guests: all flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available,” it read. By noon, LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal, an Art Deco facility that opened in 1940 and was home to Pan Am’s Clippers — and, most recently, home to Spirit at the New York airport — was nearly silent.

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Supreme Court asked to restore access to abortion pill by mail

Two manufacturers of the abortion pill mifepristone asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to immediately restore full access to the medication, putting the contentious issue of abortion back before the justices in a midterm election year. The requests came after a lower court on Friday temporarily restricted abortion providers nationwide from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and sending them to patients by mail. That process is one of the main ways women seeking abortions have obtained the medication in recent years. If the order on Friday by a federal appeals court is upheld, it could sow confusion and upend a major avenue for abortion access across the country — not just in states with abortion bans. About one-fourth of abortions in the United States are now provided through telemedicine.

Louisiana officials had sued the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to mifepristone, saying the availability of the medication by mail had allowed abortions to continue in the state despite its near-total ban on abortion. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday sided with Louisiana and essentially reimposed an F.D.A. requirement that health care providers prescribe mifepristone only after seeing patients in person. That rule was first lifted in 2021. The Fifth Circuit ordered that in-person dispensing of mifepristone be reinstated until the Louisiana lawsuit made its way through the courts. The manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, are also defendants in the Louisiana lawsuit. On Saturday afternoon, Danco filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to lift the lower court’s order, which applied to patients across the country. GenBioPro filed a similar request Saturday evening.

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As Clarence Thomas hits a milestone, his conservative stamp on US Supreme Court endures

Clarence Thomas this week will reach a major milestone on the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the second-longest-serving justice in American history. Along the way, the stalwart conservative has played an important role in guiding the court on a rightward course, even if he has not gotten everything he has advocated. Thomas, who is 77, has served since October 1991, having been appointed at age 43 by Republican ?President George H.W. Bush to replace liberal luminary and civil-rights pioneer Thurgood Marshall on the top U.S. judicial body. Marshall was the first Black member of the court. Thomas, after a contentious Senate confirmation battle, became the second. Thomas on Monday will overtake Justice Stephen J. ?Field, who served from 1863 to 1897, for the court's third-longest tenure, according to the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Thomas on Thursday will leapfrog his late former colleague Justice John Paul Stevens, who served from 1975 to 2010, for the second-longest tenure, the society said. If Thomas remains until May 20, 2028, he would set the court's longevity record, passing Justice William O. Douglas, who served from 1939 to 1975, the society said. Thomas has left his mark on the Supreme Court, even as his role has evolved over the years. "He began his time on the court often in dissent, and he stood his ground," said Haley Proctor, a University of Notre Dame law professor who previously served as a clerk for Thomas. "The justice's influence on the law has been profound," ?Proctor said. "And that is a consequence, not only of his many years on the court, but also of his persistence." Thomas has helped the court's 6-3 conservative majority, in place since 2020, to act assertively. On back-to-back days in June 2022, he was the author of a landmark ruling expanding ?gun rights protected by the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment and joined other conservative justices in overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide. Thomas also has championed an expansive view of religious liberty, opposed gay marriage, fought ?affirmative action preferences for minorities in university admissions and hiring, supported the death penalty and broad presidential powers, and curbed campaign-finance restrictions.

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State Stories

He was one of the Texas GOP’s biggest donors. Where did he go?

These were once the months of Farris Wilks, the time when the far-right billionaire’s fortune would shape Texas GOP primaries. Since 2015, when Wilks, his brother, and their wives made a record-breaking $15 million donation to a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, the fracking tycoon has injected a mountain of cash into Republican groups and primary candidates, working with Midland oil billionaire Tim Dunn to steadily pull the state and national GOP toward their hard-line religious and political views. But this cycle, Wilks has been all but missing. The longtime Republican kingmaker appears to have given just one large donation. And while it is possible that he has continued to cut checks to untraceable, dark-money groups, numerous sources have said that Wilks has largely pulled back from politics following a private break with Dunn. Why might one of the state’s most prolific donors have stepped away from his movement at the ostensible height of its power? Neither Dunn nor Wilks have responded to interview requests or publicly discussed the status of their relationship. But those close to them point to fallout from a white supremacist–related scandal from 2024 that they say frayed the billionaires’ already distant relationship, and may have added to mounting familial pressure on Wilks to curtail his political activity. Regardless of the cause, the result is a seismic shift for a state that he once bent to his will.

Even among Texas’s eccentric billionaire class, Wilks is a singular figure. He has eleven children, is one of the largest private landowners in the country, and has said that when he was growing up, his family was so poor that he sometimes slept in a goat shed at their ranch in Cisco, a roughly 3,800-person town in Eastland County where he is now a major public benefactor. Most of what’s known about the intensely private 74-year-old has come from a handful of brief interviews he’s done over the years or from audio recordings of sermons he’s delivered at the Assembly of Yahweh, a county-road church just outside Cisco that was founded by his father and mixes elements of Judaism, biblical literalism, and Seventh-Day Adventism. (The church, for instance, celebrates Sabbath on Saturday and eschews “religious holidays of the Gentiles,” including Christmas and Easter.) Beginning around 2014, the Wilks brothers also increasingly focused on the Texas Legislature, joining Dunn and a small group of other megadonors in their yearslong campaign to oust then–House Speaker Joe Straus and other GOP lawmakers who they claimed had betrayed conservative voters and values. Through a well-funded network of political groups, media websites, and nonprofits—namely, Empower Texans, an influential advocacy group founded by Dunn—the billionaires threatened incumbents with expensive, bruising primary challenges. Though lawmakers usually retained their seats, the Dunn-Wilks strategy forced them to campaign and legislate further to the right, which steadily pulled the whole statehouse with them.

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Newly-elected Robstown water board director: “The city of Corpus Christi does not care about our community”

Voters in Robstown made their voices heard Saturday in a closely watched election tied to ongoing water concerns, selecting three members to serve on the board of Nueces County Water Conservation and Improvement District #3. Twelve candidates appeared on the ballot, with the top three vote-getters — Myra Alaniz, current director Ramiro Alejandro Jr. and Belinda “Shorty” Valadez — earning seats on the board. Alaniz, who received the most votes, will serve as the district’s new director.

The race drew heightened attention as drought conditions continue to strain water resources across the Coastal Bend. Alaniz, who has been outspoken about water management in the area, said she believes the community has been overlooked. “The city of Corpus Christi does not care about our community,” Alaniz said. The district covers areas north of Robstown toward the banks of the Nueces River, near several of Corpus Christi’s groundwater wells — a key point of concern for residents. Alaniz criticized how untreated groundwater has been handled, saying it has impacted water quality. “If they cared about our community, they wouldn’t be dumping that untreated well water into the river that we pull,” she said. “Now we can’t pull that water because it has high TDS, arsenic and whatever else is in there. So now the water is compromised.” Which is why Alaniz says the district had to turn to the interconnection deal with Corpus Christi Water.

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Republican Brett Ligon, former Montgomery County DA, wins special election for open Texas Senate seat

Texas Republicans have held onto the State Senate District 4 seat with candidate Brett Ligon, unofficial election night results show. Texas held a special election Saturday, May 2, to fill a vacant seat in the Texas Senate whose term would expire in January 2027. The seat became vacant in October 2025 when the former holder, former Republican State Sen. Brandon Creighton, resigned to become the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. On the ballot were only two candidates: Ligon and Democratic candidate Ron Angeletti. Once the results are made official, Ligon will represent Texans from Montgomery, Harris, Chambers, Jefferson and Galveston counties in the Texas Senate.

“The voters of SD4 have delivered a clear message tonight. Conservative values and Republican dominance in Texas are alive and well,” he said in a statement declaring victory 25 minutes after polls closed. “Democrats from Texas and all over the country threw everything they had at us. Democrat politicians were here today in full force, campaigning hard for my opponent. As if we had been flying the ‘Come and Take It’ flag – they tried – and they failed.” Senate District 4 — which spans across Chambers, Harris, Jefferson and Montgomery counties — voted for President Donald Trump by a 34-point margin in 2024, making it one of the reddest seats in the upper chamber. It is considered a virtual lock for Republicans in November, even with midterm political headwinds that have left Democrats optimistic about flipping GOP legislative seats. Although the district has not had representation since Creighton’s departure in October, the Legislature has not been in session during that period and is not scheduled to reconvene until January for the next regular session.

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Amtrak will discontinue Texas-Oklahoma route this summer

The Heartland Flyer, a 206-mile route connecting Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, is set to be discontinued in 90 days after Texas and Oklahoma lawmakers failed to include the route in their respective budgets. The Texas Legislature did not include funding for the 206-mile train route in the 2026 and 2027 budget, according to the notice sent to Amtrak, which operates the train. Texas' portion of the route's budget was $3.5 million. The current agreement expires on Aug. 31. The train is only still running this year due emergency funding from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, according to Texas Rail Advocates. The council, which is currently undergoing a leadership change, also had to help out the route in 2024 with $100,000 in assistance, according to TRA.

But TxDOT said in its notice this month: "At this time, another suitable funding source has not been identified." Peter LeCody, president of TRA, said in a statement 80,000 people take the route and could be back on the highway if the train shuts down. "You can't say that nobody rides this train," LeCody said. As Oklahoma’s sole Amtrak connection, the train has provided daily service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth since June 1999, though it has faced a series of funding challenges. The Oklahoma Legislature is currently in session until May 29th, but shut down a proposal earlier this month to add funding to the route. While Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt noted the state was considering its options, the project has ultimately come up short. The Kansas Department of Transportation’s plans to extend the route to Newton now face instability caused by the lack of funding and shifting federal priorities under the Trump administration. TxDOT's letter ended on a farewell, signaling it may not expect new funding. "We appreciate the partnership of the State of Texas has had with the National Railroad Passenger Corporation over the years and thank Amtrak for its dedication to improving and supporting passenger rail in the region," the notice read.

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What a new Supreme Court decision means for Spring Branch voters

A federal court ruled last year that Spring Branch ISD violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the Hispanic vote — but that decision could be reversed after a recent Supreme Court decision. In the past few years, the district's at-large trustee system has come under scrutiny after a lawsuit claimed it racially discriminated against the area's Hispanic community by diluting minority voting power. The district has nearly twice as many Hispanic students as white students. The district appealed the initial ruling that sided with the plaintiff. The case was put on hold to see how the Supreme Court would handle a similar case, Louisiana v. Callais, a lawsuit over possible discrimination in how the state draws its voting districts.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority issued a ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. Under the court's updated view, states no longer need to draw districts based on racial considerations. If a state dismantles districts that favor Black or Hispanic candidates, challengers would have to provide evidence showing states “intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.” The new ruling from the country's highest court frustrates some community members in the Spring Branch area who had pinned their hopes on the voting-rights lawsuit against the school district. "We have seen (the Supreme Court) continuously over the past decade, really erode the rights of minorities and groups of people that have historically needed actions in the law," said David Lopez, executive director of civic nonprofit Somos Spring Branch. "It is deeply frustrating, and it should be for everyone, no matter what community you identify with. I think voting rights protections protect every single person in this country." SBISD relies on an at-large system of voting where residents in the entire school district cast ballots for every candidate and ballot measure. Critics say the practice can weaken the voice of people of color who are drowned out by white voters. They say school board candidates should be elected by voters in distinct districts.

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KENS 5 honored with Governor’s Volunteer Award for decade of mentorship and community service

KENS 5 has been named as a Corporate Champion Award recipient in the 42nd Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards, the highest recognition for volunteerism in Texas, according to the OneStar Foundation, which administers the awards. The station was recognized during National Volunteer Month at a ceremony held Wednesday evening at the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin. First Lady Cecilia Abbott, honorary chair of the Governor’s Volunteer Awards, announced the recipients in a statement released by her office, praising Texans whose service is “making a lasting difference” across the state.

“I am honored to recognize this year’s Governor’s Volunteer Awards recipients as Texans whose commitment to service is making a lasting difference,” she said in the release. “Their dedication reminds us that service has the power to unite communities, uplift neighbors, and inspire others to step forward.” KENS 5 was selected for its sustained commitment to mentorship and community service in San Antonio. For more than a decade, station employees have partnered with Communities In Schools of San Antonio to mentor high school students through the InspireU Workplace Mentors program, helping students build confidence and communication skills and identify career goals. The station also was recognized for its role in the annual Stuff The Bus School Supply Drive, which uses KENS 5’s broadcast and digital platforms to encourage community donations. In 2024, coverage of the drive generated more than 5.9 million impressions and helped provide school supplies to students in 140 schools. KENS 5 News Director Jack Acosta said the recognition reflects the station’s long-standing focus on service to South Texas. “On behalf of everyone at KENS 5, we’re proud to shine a light on the people and students building a better future,” Acosta said. “We’re grateful for our partnership with Communities In Schools and the opportunity to give back to South Texas.” The Governor’s Volunteer Awards recognize individuals, families, organizations and corporations whose service over the past year has strengthened communities and inspired others across Texas.

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5 from Amarillo dead following Thursday plane crash in Hays County

The five who were killed in the plane crash Thursday night have been identified: Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, Glen Appling, and Hayden Dillard.

Locally, the Amarillo Pickleball Club released the following statement: Today, the Club has received terrible news that we all must mourn in the loss of five members of our Amarillo pickleball family: Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, Glen Appling, and Hayden Dillard. Please keep their precious families in your thoughts and prayers. All five were killed last night in a private airplane crash near Austin, TX, while en route to a pickleball tournament. Although many were friends to players, the loss is most horrible to their close family. And those families may need our help in these times.

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KUT relocates festival as UT points fingers

The surprise decision to relocate this weekend’s inaugural KUT Festival out of its long-planned home on the University of Texas campus and to two venues in East Austin has left the Austin NPR affiliate struggling on two fronts: first, in trying to rebuild their entire event with almost no notice, and secondly, in a war of words with the UT administration. The event, combining music, community, and conversations with public figures about issues facing Central Texas, was first announced last November. The initial plan was for two days of events at both indoor and outdoor venues around the college campus. Instead, the schedule has been largely reduced to one full day, May 2, at the Eastside Ballroom and Central Machine Works.

So what happened? On April 28, Anita L. Vangelisti, interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, wrote to festival speakers that “our analysis has identified key areas where KUT provided insufficient planning for safety measures, including security, health, fire, and emergency services.” She added that, with the agreement of KUT and the UT administration, the community elements were being moved off-campus. KUT Director and General Manager Debbie Hiott sent her own follow-up email that stressed that the station had worked closely with UT on all issues since the beginning of planning, and had only been told of the university’s concerns on April 22. Moreover, they said they had not been provided the list of supposed deficiencies, nor been allowed to meet with the relevant administrators to discuss if the issue was fixable. Instead, Hiott wrote that UT “ordered KUT to cancel the outdoor portions of the events” on April 24, before agreeing to the relocation.

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Caldwell County residents holding Data Center talk

Data centers continue to be a hot topic for many people across the nation. According to Pew Research more than 1,500 new data centers are in various stages of development nationwide. Some of those data centers are right here in Central Texas. In Caldwell County, people will be gathering to discuss the topic on Sunday.

“The temperatures are really high so we want people to be able to, let’s not yell and blame who didn’t have any part in it, but let’s figure out what is the next step we can do to empower people to make a call to their legislators,” said Pat Stroka who is helping put on the event. Stroka says he hopes to educate people who are stopping by about data centers. Multiple speakers will be addressing the topic including Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden. A Caldwell County Spokesperson says the judge was invited to speak as a special guest, but the county was not putting on the event. “At this time, county commissioners have approved development agreements for two data center campuses in Caldwell County. The agreements were approved at the April 9 and April 23 meetings,” said a Caldwell County spokesperson.

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JR Trevino: Texas future depends on career pathways and civic trust

(JR Trevino is the mayor of Castle Hills, chief operating officer of Treco Enterprises Inc. and president of the 2026 Texas Lyceum.) Texas has long been regarded as a place of opportunity, with a strong economy and a thriving career market. Here, everything is bigger and anything is possible. But according to a 2026 Texas Lyceum poll, only a quarter of Texans believe they are in a long-term career, and some are losing faith in democracy. Texans are questioning the very systems that are designed to support and represent our best interests. And this disconnect should serve as a warning, not just for today but for the future of our state and the generations that come after us. As president of the Texas Lyceum, I have the privilege of hearing directly from residents. Each year, the Lyceum conducts a comprehensive poll to gauge Texans’ perspectives on issues shaping our state. Our purpose is not to advocate for specific positions but to raise awareness and foster informed dialogue so leaders are better equipped to serve their communities.

This year’s poll reveals a troubling reality: 75% of Texans believe they have a job, not a career. In a state with the eighth-largest economy in the world, this should raise serious concern. Texas is an economic powerhouse, but that success must translate into meaningful, long-term opportunities for its workforce. If Texans see only a paycheck and not a pathway to careers, something fundamental is missing. Equally worrisome, only 27% of Texans believe their children will have a more prosperous future than their own current economic situation. Addressing that gap starts with education. Career pathways are shaped early, through the combined influence of families, educators and public systems. Preparing students not just for employment but for long-term success — through skills training, career exposure and real-world learning — should be a central priority. State and local leaders play a critical role in ensuring those opportunities exist. That sense of uncertainty extends beyond the workplace. The poll also found that 1 in 4 Texans are unsure whether democracy is the best form of government, pointing to a deeper disconnect from civic life and a lack of confidence in public institutions. A healthy democracy depends on informed, engaged citizens who believe their participation matters.

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As license plate readers expand in Texas, privacy advocates are fighting back

Last week the City of Kyle, a fast-growing Austin suburb, interrupted a string of recent victories won by local activists to thwart the further expansion of police surveillance technology across Central Texas. On April 21, council members overwhelmingly voted 6-1 to authorize the Kyle Police Department to apply for another state grant—worth up to $381,200—to continue funding at least 38 preexisting Flock Safety automated license plate readers (ALPRs). Most of the local residents in attendance who spoke on the issue opposed the city’s move to obtain further funding for the artificial intelligence-powered network of surveillance cameras. “There’s one cell-phone tower within a mile of my house, and there’s four Flock cameras. You need a warrant to check my cell site records, but you have more granular data from the cameras than you do from [the cell tower],” David Moss, a Kyle resident, told the city council at the meeting.

Flock has sold nearly 92,000 such cameras to local police departments across the nation—including more than 10,000 in Texas, according to an open source map of the cameras compiled by DeFlock. The City of Kyle has had them since 2024. The cameras record the license plate numbers of trafficking motorists going about their daily routines and store immense logs of surveillance data that can be queried by participating law enforcement agencies across the nation. The records are stored for at least 30 days before being deleted, except in cases in which the data is pulled from the system for investigative purposes. Flock has come under fire from privacy advocates as well as local activists concerned about surveillance technology for allowing law enforcement agencies to conduct unrestricted searches of its data—including for the purposes of immigration enforcement and, in at least one instance, an abortion investigation. Flock Media Relations Manager Evan White told the Texas Observer that while the company doesn’t work directly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), “Agencies choose with whom to share data and can change or revoke their sharing settings at any point.”

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Ross clinches final term in Arlington mayor’s office, narrowly avoiding runoff

Incumbent Mayor Jim Ross has been reelected to a third and final term with 50.04% of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff election, according to unofficial results. Steve Cavender trailed with 39.4% of the vote, roughly 2,800 fewer votes than Ross. Cavender and his campaign team did not respond to multiple requests for a comment Saturday night. As soon as election data from Tarrant County showed 100% of votes counted, Ross took the stage to cheers and applause that shook the dishes on tables at J. Gilligan’s Bar and Grill, where he was hosting a watch party to which he invited every other candidate running for any office in Arlington.

His message after inviting other winners to the stage was of grace in victory. “Going forward, as much as some of us really want to get in somebody’s face and say, ‘We told you we won’t put up with this [expletive],’ we’re not gonna do it,” Ross told his supporters. “We’re gonna move forward, we’re gonna be better than the other side was.” Shaun Mallory and Hunter Crow, who are also running for the office, saw 4.9% and 5.5% ballots cast in their favor, respectively. The contest for Arlington mayor has been contentious, with many voters describing it as divisive and messy. Ross focused his campaigning, and especially on social media, on sharing his achievements, the reasons he’s proud of his city and the endorsements he’s received. Cavender’s strategy relied heavily on criticizing Ross, with special attention on his personal taxes, travel expenses and a video from a panel discussion on housing policy. He’s also placed the blame for increased property taxes, approved by council in a 7-2 vote last year, squarely on Ross’ shoulders.

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How Texas Republicans turned on George W. Bush

In their primary runoff for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, John Cornyn can say that Ken Paxton is divorcing his wife, that he’s alleged to have had multiple mistresses, that his own senior staff has accused him of corruption. All that is damning and true. But Paxton can make one charge that is more powerful than anything Cornyn can pin on Ken, and which may well push the attorney general over the line on May 26: John Cornyn was in office twenty years ago. There’s really no getting around that. It’s on his Wikipedia page. To put a finer point on it, Cornyn has the stink of George W. Bush about him. The problem with the senior senator, as one representative online poster put it this week, is that he’s “a corporate hack who was an instrumental member of the Bush/Rove machine” and “the last vestige of those hacks other than [Greg] Abbott.” The problem for Cornyn is that the sentiment above wasn’t shared by a bleeding-heart Austin liberal with a long memory of the Bush years and a Coexist bumper-sticker, but by someone who identifies as a Texas conservative.

The expectation might be that the Texas GOP has golden statues to Bush in every place it meets. It does not. A substantial portion of Republicans in the state are out to seek and destroy any last trace of the party left over from the Bush era—between 1994 and 2004 or so. When it was reported on April 15 that Bush had donated $5,000 to Cornyn’s campaign, the signal fires went up through the right-wing movement. (Even though it was a minor sum from a private citizen in a very expensive race—pro-Cornyn organizations, along with his campaign, spent $17 million in the first quarter of 2026.) “[The] old guard is all over Texas trying to claw back control and push out America First candidates,” wrote Kambree Nelson, a pro-Paxton influencer. “Bring it.” Another MAGA influencer posted a picture of an aged Bush and wrote that “voting for this RINO twice and defending him for 10 years after he left office was the worst political decision I’ve ever made.” That this is now the mood in a large faction of the GOP is a bit strange, because Bush’s party was one of the most savagely dominant political forces the state had ever seen. This is not properly appreciated today in part because Bush was the “compassionate conservative.” But the Bush-era GOP consumed the once-dominant Texas Democratic Party like locusts eat a field of wheat and made possible everything that came after.

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National Stories

Golden Tempo takes Kentucky Derby as Cherie DeVaux becomes 1st woman to train winner

After being asked all week about the possibility of becoming the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner, Cherie DeVaux was nearly speechless when Golden Tempo charged from the back of the pack Saturday to make history for her. “I’m just glad I don’t have to answer that question anymore,” DeVaux said to a rousing round of applause. DeVaux joined Jena Antonucci, with Arcangelo in the 2023 Belmont, as the only women to train the winner of a Triple Crown race. She was just the 18th woman to saddle a horse in the Derby in its 152-year history, and the gravity of the situation came into focus for her days earlier when she saw a young girl on the backstretch and realized the impact she is making.

“It really is an honor to be able to be that person for other women or other little girls to look up to,” DeVaux said. “You can dream big, and you can pivot. You can come from one place and make yourself a part of history.” DeVaux credits growing up with seven brothers and two sisters for her toughness. After winning the Derby on her first try eight years after starting her own stable, she thanked her husband for inspiring her to give it a chance. “I didn’t believe,” DeVaux said. “I started my career here 22 years ago as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed exercise rider. And I would not believe that I would be sitting up here today. Never in my life did I think I would.” It came with a lot of hard work. DeVaux fielded questions this week about Golden Tempo’s cracked heels, and she downplayed concerns. She put a lot of time into getting the colt into form, trying blinkers and other things to get the son of Curlin to focus.

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Trump’s new conditions on DEI, immigration could cut off states’ wildfire funding

A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands. Some liberal states can’t sign the documents because the policies clash with state law, forestry experts say. Already, at least one state is reporting that the new rules have stalled work to reduce wildfire risk and assist with projects on national forest lands. Other states say the requirements are so vague that they don’t know how to follow them. And some timber industry leaders believe the standoff could cut into their revenues.

“We’re kind of at an impasse,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “It’s already starting to slow down or shut down work.” The update to the requirements governing federal partnerships comes even as many Western states brace for a brutal wildfire season, following a winter that brought record high temperatures and a paltry snowpack. On Dec. 31, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins with little fanfare issued new general terms and conditions governing partnerships for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Spelled out in dozens of pages of fine print are new restrictions that require partner organizations to pledge compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders. The new conditions apply to all USDA agencies, but the department hasn’t yet said whether it will enforce them for food assistance programs.

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Alabama is latest state to try to halt its election to pass new gerrymander

Alabama may suspend its May 19 congressional primary elections to pass a new gerrymandered map in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA) — even though absentee mail ballots have already been sent to voters and some ballots have already been cast. It would follow Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s (R) unprecedented decision Thursday to halt his state’s May 16 congressional primary in order to gerrymander the map, a move that has already drawn legal challenges. Mail voting in that election is also already underway. On Thursday, Alabama asked the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to expedite a case* brought by Black voters challenging the state’s congressional map under Section 2 of the VRA. Alabama also asked SCOTUS to vacate an order requiring it to draw a map with two majority Black electoral districts.

Black voters challenging the Alabama maps quickly filed responses Friday morning asking the court to deny Alabama’s motion, arguing some absentee votes had already been cast in the May 19 primary. They are asking SCOTUS to either resolve the lawsuit through its normal review process or to order the parties to fully brief and argue the merits of the case. The Black voters also referenced the Supreme Court majority’s findings just a few months earlier in Texas’ redistricting case, when the majority wrote that the Texas district court had “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion.” In that case, no mail ballots had even been sent out at the time. Alabama has already entered into an agreement to use its current map until 2030 — but the state has repeatedly ignored court orders demanding it implement legally compliant maps in the past. While Alabama’s leadership has not openly declared its intention to ram through a gerrymander, Black voters have reason to worry.

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Minnesota passes the nation’s first ban on ‘nudification’ apps

The Minnesota Senate on Wednesday passed the country’s first ban on “nudification” apps 65-0, addressing one of the main sources of nonconsensual deepfakes. The bill was passed by the state House last week and now just needs the governor’s signature to become law. Advocates are optimistic Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, will sign legislation soon. This bill was the first attempt in the country to ban websites or apps that promote digital undressing, where photographs of fully clothed people can be uploaded and manipulated with generative AI to appear nude. These services power nonconsensual intimate imagery and don’t require any technical expertise to use. Google and Apple ban nudification apps from their respective web stores, but research by the Tech Transparency Project showed they remain easily accessible.

Investigations from multiple news organizations have found that Meta continues to allow these apps to advertise on their social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. This blend means the tools are easy for kids to use; the independent media organization Indicator has tracked 23 cases of deepfake abuse targeting school communities in the United States since 2023. Federal attempts to create a civil right of action for survivors of nonconsensual deepfakes have stalled in Congress. The DEFIANCE Act has yet to make it to the House floor, though it has been passed by the Senate twice. Last year’s Take It Down Act made it a federal crime to disseminate nonconsensual intimate images, regardless of provenance, but does not allow survivors to sue for damages. Minnesota House File 1606 would allow survivors to sue the owners of nudification apps for damages and empower the state attorney general to collect fines of $500,000 per violation. The number of nonconsensual deepfakes has risen over the past few years. A mass episode of digital sexual violence kicked off in December when the social media platform X enabled its integrated chatbot Grok to generate images for free. Reporting from The New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate estimates Grok created and posted over 1.8 million sexualized images of women over nine days.

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60 Minutes journalist decries ‘spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear’ at CBS News

The veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi expressed concern about “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at CBS News and her uncertainty about whether she will keep her job after she pushed back on a directive to change her December segment on Venezuelans who were sent to the Cecot prison in El Salvador. Alfonsi spoke about the incident for the first time on Thursday evening after receiving the Ridenhour prize for courage at the National Press Club in Washington. Her comments come as the Trump administration has piled pressure on US media and follow CBS News editor Bari Weiss’s decision to shelve the segment on the flagship news program. Alfonsi had alleged at the time that Weiss had “spiked” the story for political purposes, a significant accusation of journalistic impropriety. Weiss argued that the segment was delayed because it did not sufficiently include the perspective of the Trump administration.

The segment was originally supposed to air on the 21 December edition of the show. It ultimately aired about a month later, on the 18 January edition, but was not meaningfully different from the original report and lacked an on-air interview with a Trump administration official. “I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our Cecot story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents,” she said on Thursday. “It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear. It’s hard to watch.” She joked that her view was “for the attorneys”. CBS has been approached for comment. Alfonsi’s future at the network is said to be in jeopardy; it is unclear whether she will return for the show’s 59th season, which begins in September. She acknowledged that uncertainty in her remarks. “Thank you for this award. I didn’t know that the theme was hope. My hope recently has been that I still have a job,” she said. “And every morning I wake up to another headline that says I’ve been fired.” But, recalling an early job as a waitress that she lost, she said: “If I am fired, it will not be the first time.”

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A California dream? Some Democrats fear Harris picked the wrong race.

The current political math in California goes like this: There are eight candidates running for governor. Only four of them are breaking double digits in polling. And there’s a chance that Democrats could be shut out of the general election entirely in November. To many Democrats in the reliably liberal state, the calculus seems rather grim. Some can’t help but wonder about a never-was-but-what-if variable: Kamala Harris. Maybe, they say, she should have run for governor instead of publicly pondering a third run for president. Sunny Hostin, a co-host of “The View,” recently urged Ms. Harris, the former vice president, to reconsider. “California, it’s like running a country,” she said on the morning show. “I know that she’s talked about being president — I don’t know if that’s the right position for her — but my goodness, she certainly knows California.”

After Ms. Harris lost her bid for president in 2024, many believed that she would try to become the next governor of California. The state has a tradition of larger-than-life governors — Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gavin Newsom — who have happily used the statewide office as a megaphone to speak to a worldwide audience. But after months of speculation, Ms. Harris ruled out the possibility last July. Instead, she has been roaming the country on a book tour, saying recently that she “might” run for president again in 2028. It’s enough to give some party loyalists heartburn. The governor’s race, they say, would have been a better bet. “She would have been good at it, and it would have been a good job for her,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank based in Washington. “It would have been good for Democrats everywhere.” On the other hand, Mr. Bennett said, she would enter the presidential race “with a real burden” of defending the past.

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Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern refile rail-merger application

The proposed $71.5 billion merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to form a coast-to-coast railroad run by a single operator will have a projected 39% of the market share of rail freight in the U.S., the two railroads said. The companies on Thursday resubmitted their merger application to U.S. regulators, this time including a description of conditions that would compel Union Pacific to walk away from the merger. Such conditions typically include requirements that the buyers cede control of certain parts of the combined railroad and concessions that allow other rail carriers access to its rail lines and facilities. In January, the Surface Transportation Board rejected the railroads’ initial application, saying that it was incomplete, and invited the railroads to revise their application.

Market-share projections and a list of conditions that would cause Union Pacific to walk away were among the items that the regulator had asked for when it asked the two companies to reapply. Some of the information is confidential and redacted in the public filing. The Surface Transportation Board is overseeing the lengthy merger-review process and will decide to approve or reject the merger. If the board accepts the latest application, it will review public comment and rebuttals in the coming months before making a decision sometime in 2027. The proposed deal already has drawn skepticism from several lawmakers, state attorneys general and rail customers. They have asked the regulator to scrutinize the transaction, asserting that the combined company could concentrate too much market power, stifle competition and lead to higher prices and poorer service. Other railroads have lined up against it, saying that the rail industry is consolidated enough.

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Lead Stories

U.S. debt tops 100% of GDP

The U.S. national debt now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, crossing a once-unthinkable threshold, on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II. As of March 31, the country’s publicly held debt was $31.265 trillion, while GDP over the preceding year was $31.216 trillion, according to data released Thursday. That puts the ratio at 100.2%, compared with 99.5% when the last fiscal year ended Sept. 30. That figure will likely climb for the foreseeable future because the federal government is running historically large annual deficits of nearly 6% of GDP, which add to the debt. The government is spending $1.33 for every dollar it collects in revenue, and the budget deficit this year is projected at $1.9 trillion. That is little changed from 2025 as Republicans’ tax cuts kick in before their spending cuts take effect. The final tally will depend on Iran war spending, tariff refunds and the strength of the economy.

By itself, the milestone doesn’t mean much. There isn’t a special level where debt goes from problematic to catastrophic. And the ratio might bounce around in coming quarters as tax receipts come in, tariff refunds go out and GDP fluctuates in response to inflation and revisions. Still, the triple-digit mark is a potent symbol of the fiscal stresses on the U.S. that have been building for decades. Lawmakers in both parties have expressed alarm but given priority to tax cuts and spending increases with clearer short-term political benefits. “We’re headed toward uncharted territory,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “There’s no magic of 100% vs. 99%, but it’s a scary place to be.” The debt-to-GDP ratio is economists’ preferred metric for how much the country’s borrowing weighs on the economy. As it rises, debt consumes resources that could be used more productively elsewhere. The government also becomes more sensitive to interest rates as debt grows. One in seven dollars of federal spending now goes to interest. A 0.1 percentage-point interest-rate increase would cost $379 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

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Camp Mystic withdraws 2026 license application, will not operate this summer

Camp Mystic announced Wednesday it is withdrawing its application for a 2026 summer camp license, effectively ending the possibility of the camp operating this summer under any circumstances. The announcement came one day after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called publicly on the Eastland family to withdraw the application and cancel the season, and two days after 13 hours of testimony before the joint General Investigating Committee on the July 4, 2025, flood produced overwhelming legislative and public pressure to close the camp. “No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” the camp said in a statement released Wednesday.

The withdrawal resolves — at least for this summer — the regulatory standoff that dominated Tuesday’s hearing, in which the Texas Department of State Health Services disclosed a potential loophole under the Administrative Procedure Act that could have allowed Camp Mystic to continue operating even if its license was denied or revoked. By withdrawing the application, the camp removes that legal pathway entirely. The statement acknowledged the pressure of the past two days directly. “This decision is intended to remove any doubt that Camp Mystic has heard the concerns expressed by grieving families, members of the Texas House and Senate investigating committees and citizens across our state. Respect for those voices requires that we step back now.” The camp also acknowledged the more than 800 girls who had signed up to attend the Cypress Lake campus this summer. “Our special bond with our Camp Mystic families does not change or end with this announcement. We love each of you.”

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These oil giants had written off Venezuela. Now they are taking a second look.

Rising above the din of voices in the lobby of the J.W. Marriott in Caracas is an unusual sound: Spanish spoken with a Texas twang. Engineers, lawyers and other emissaries of the U.S. oil industry have flocked to the heavily guarded hotel to pitch their Venezuelan counterparts on plans to revive the country’s rundown oil fields. Dozens have met with a receptive Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s acting president. One small Texas operator was recently heard boasting that his company is nimble enough to get oil flowing faster than the oil giants. Even Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and other oil companies that just months ago deemed Venezuela too risky for business have come back to town for a second look. “It was unmistakable, the sense of impending opportunity,” said Jon Hughes, the chief executive of boutique energy investment bank Petrie Partners, who visited the bustling hotel last week.

“There were so many Americans meeting with so many Venezuelans. Both sides are engaged in a constructive way, with a shared vision of making things function better and getting production up.” The U.S. Embassy has even set up camp at the J.W. Marriott—to escape the black mold that overran its building after years of disrepair. More visitors are likely on the way: American Airlines on Thursday offered the first direct U.S. commercial flight to Venezuela’s capital city in seven years, out of Miami. In recent weeks, both Exxon and Conoco have met with Venezuelan officials and sent technical teams to the Latin American country. Exxon’s team inspected the Cerro Negro heavy-oil project that it operated before 2007 when Hugo Chávez’s government nationalized much of the country’s energy infrastructure. Conoco is also trying to assess oil-and-gas opportunities. Neither company has committed capital to projects in the country—but the fact that they appear more open to the idea is a far cry from their position just three months ago. A sharp rise in oil prices and the government’s moves to change laws in favor of foreign investors have softened their opposition, according to people close to the companies.

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Jeffries lays out more targets for gerrymanders in response to GOP’s renewed push

The Supreme Court decision has given Republicans a big opportunity to gerrymander more seats as they look to keep House control. But Jeffries insisted Republicans’ options for redraws before the midterms are limited given the calendar. And he stressed that Democrats would be aggressive in their counterefforts. “Republicans have concluded that they need to cheat to win, and the Supreme Court conservatives have decided to aid and abet their scheme. Democrats are going to fight back with every tool available,” Jeffries said. Some Democrats in the immediate aftermath of the Callais ruling raised the possibility of diluting majority-minority districts to help draw more seats favoring Democrats — even in states like California, where the party already stands to gain up to five seats after voters approved a new congressional map last fall.

Jeffries didn’t give a direct answer when asked whether blue states should look to split up those seats to draw more Democratic-leaning seats overall. “We’re looking at every opportunity to ensure that communities of color will continue to have the chance to elect the candidate of their choice in districts that have traditionally been covered by the Voting Rights Act,” he said, “while at the same time doing what is necessary, as occurred in California, to decisively respond to efforts by Republicans to gerrymander congressional maps.” Democratic governors in several of the states Jeffries highlighted for potential new maps slammed the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights act on Wednesday. Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed to plow ahead with efforts to redraw New York’s maps ahead of 2028. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, whose effort to draw out the sole Republican representing his state in the 2026 election flamed out this year, said in a statement that “until we have national redistricting reform, every state should stay part of the conversation.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called the ruling “voter suppression that will silence Black and brown voters,” adding that “the magnitude of this decision cannot be understated.”

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State Stories

Texas radio personality Chad Hasty dies at 43.

Texas lost a beloved voice on Thursday morning. Chad Hasty, a West Texas institution and Lubbock radio personality, died at age 43, according to longtime employer KFYO. The Grand Prairie native and Texas Tech alumnus was a fixture in Lubbock radio for decades, joining KFYO in 2003. "We are stunned and heartbroken by the sudden passing of our beloved KFYO family member, Chad Hasty," Townsquare Media Lubbock Market President Dan Endom said. "Chad was not only a brilliant on-air host, but an even better friend. Our deepest condolences go out to Jennifer and his baby girl, Ava. It's hard to imagine not seeing his welcoming presence roaming the halls of Townsquare Media Lubbock."

It didn't take long after the news broke for condolences to begin pouring in from multiple influential Texans. Quorum Report Editor Scott Braddock on X remembered Hasty's "heart as big as Texas," with multiple responders noting what a substantial loss this is for the state. State Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) noted Hasty's ability to keep leaders accountable and conversations grounded in reality, making the region a better place. State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), also speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, shared a photo and lengthy post remembering Hasty. "Chad wasn't just a broadcaster, he was one of the very best to ever cover the people, policy, and politics shaping the Texas Legislature and our state," he said in the X post. "He asked the right questions, gave fair room for debate, and, most importantly, he made sure Texans stayed informed." According to Hasty's biography on the KFYO website, he launched his first show in 2006 and incorporated in his career a variety of topics including politics, sports, "cigars and anything else that's on the listeners' minds." In his honor, KYFO will air a special edition of The Chad Hasty Show at 5 p.m. Thursday.

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Regional Transportation Council joins lawsuit in hope to rehire fired director, protect staffing decisions

Members of the Regional Transportation Council are looking to rehire longtime transportation director Michael Morris who was fired Tuesday. To do that, the group decided Thursday to allocate $5 million for legal expenses as it joins a lawsuit filed by Denton County officials over hiring decisions. The choice to sue the North Central Texas Council of Governments came during an emergency meeting in Arlington. RTC members said the suit is intended to change the Metropolitan Planning Organization structure in North Texas. The group would have the ability to hire and fire transportation department staffers, instead of the council of governments as its CEO Todd Little maintains. A proposed agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation still under negotiation would be similar to those used in other Texas metro areas, officials said.

Morris was fired by Little — weeks before the FIFA World Cup games in Arlington start in June. “We just voted today that the Regional Transportation Council is going to intervene in the lawsuit … to ensure that our regional (decisions) here in transportation, our interests, are protected and taken care of,” Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said. “The RTC is the policy-making entity for transportation here in North Texas and for someone to come in and unilaterally make a decision to get rid of an individual that has over four decades of institutional knowledge — we’re owed at least an explanation,” Ross said. Denton County Judge Andy Eads said he was encouraged by the transportation council’s strong show of support to address “the overreach” of the council of governments board of directors. Eads said the RTC’s actions “reinforces what we have maintained from the beginning.”

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Greater Edwards Aquifer Authority report sounds the alarm over proposed data centers in Texas

A new report from the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance is sounding the alarm about the proliferation of proposed AI data centers in the state. The report summarizes data center operations, growth, and impacts, along with a review of national and international efforts to respond to data center challenges and a summary of recommendations. Rachel Hanes is policy director for the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance. She says Texas could be in dire straits if action is not taken soon. “It's going to have very large impacts on our water supplies, on our energy supplies and public health, our coffers, our local government regulations and authorities and budgets,” she told TPR. More than 20 sprawling data centers that house and cool a massive collection of computer equipment are in the San Antonio area, and more are on the drawing board.

Among the recommendations in the report for local governments, regional entities, and utilities is to adopt policies that could serve as guardrails against the adverse impacts of data center development. These include policies to improve data gathering and state and local planning; allocate costs fairly; improve and expand local regulatory tools; limit incompatible land uses; improve transparency; limit detrimental energy and water use; and limit increases in pollution and public health impacts. The report also recommends data center operators adopt measures to limit potable water use; reduce demand on local water supplies; limit fossil-fuel energy generation and its public health impacts. “We really encourage people to take a holistic view of the industry and use it as an opportunity to better prepare the state for generations to come, whatever the next high growth and high impact," Hanes said. Pacifico Energy and other energy companies are rushing to build private power plants across the Lone Star State. Hanes says at present state agencies are not adequately prepared to deal with the influx of AI data centers and that could lead to major consequences for natural resources and communities.

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Republic National laying off 1,903 Texas workers amid sale talks

Republic National Distributing Co. is planning mass layoffs in Texas ahead of a potential sale. The struggling alcohol distributor notified the Texas Workforce Commission that it expects to lay off 1,903 employees throughout Texas, including 372 workers at its Schertz office, 164 at its Austin office and 689 at its Grand Prairie headquarters. Republic National has said it employs about 10,000 people across operations in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Elsewhere, reports indicate that the company plans to lay off 925 employees in Florida, 428 in Virginia, 451 in South Carolina, 320 in Colorado, 211 in Arizona and 318 in Maryland.

Amid a recent string of troubles, the nation’s second-largest wine and spirits distributor is in talks to sell 11 of its markets, including Texas, to Chicago-based Reyes Beverage Group, the nation’s largest beer distributor. In addition to Texas, Reyes has proposed buying Republic National’s Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C., markets, according to a spokesperson for the Texas-based distributor. Talks for six of those markets have been going on since at least January. “The Company understands that Reyes or its affiliate intends to extend offers of employment to many of the Company’s employees at or reporting to the facilities included in the transaction,” the WARN letter reads. “In addition, certain corporate and other employees may continue to be employed by the Company, including to provide transition services. However, we are providing this notice to you at this time since there is no guarantee that Reyes will provide employees with an offer of employment, as discussions remain ongoing, and it is not yet known who will be needed to continue employment with the Company.”

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First lawsuit filed against San Antonio’s CPS Energy after recent home explosions

The first lawsuit has been filed against city-owned utility CPS Energy following the explosions of two homes last week in Northwest San Antonio, KSAT reports. The joint lawsuit against CPS Energy was filed by Monday by Jose Ochoa and Mayte Terrie Reeves in Bexar County District Court. The couple, whose home was the second to blow up in the 1500 Block of Preston Hollow on April 21, allege that a natural gas leak from a CPS Energy line created a “gas cloud” inside their home, causing the blast, the station reports. Ochoa and Reeves both sustained permanent physical injuries due to the explosion and are seeking $1 million each in damages, according to KSAT.

The lawsuit also alleges CPS Energy failed to maintain its system, equip and train its employees and inspect the work performed near the residences. A CPS Energy spokeswoman told KSAT its officials don’t comment on active litigation. Five people, including a child, were injured during the string of explosions last week. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the cause. The federal agency’s preliminary report is expected within the next 30 days.

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TEA appoints 7-member board of managers, names Sandi Massey superintendent of Beaumont ISD

The Texas Education Agency appointed a seven-member Board of Managers and named a new superintendent Wednesday to lead the Beaumont Independent School District, marking a major step in the state's takeover of the district. Commissioner Mike Morath named Sandi Massey as the district's new superintendent. Massey, who previously served as Chief of Schools in Houston, brings more than three decades of experience across Texas public school systems, according to a news release from the TEA. She began work Wednesday under a 21-day interim contract, pending formal approval from the newly appointed Board of Managers. "For more than a decade, persistent academic struggles have held students back from reaching their full potential," Morath said in a statement. "Today's actions reaffirm our commitment to the children of Beaumont, by putting them first."

Morath appointed the following seven community members to the Board of Managers: Desmond Bridges Sr., a Beaumont native and West Brook High School graduate with more than 22 years in education and administration, and the parent of a current BISD student. Darrian Graves, a youth pastor and former Beaumont journalist who volunteers with multiple community organizations and is a BISD parent. Elias Ibarra, a Central High School honor graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, educator and local business owner with three children in the district. Laurie Leister, a BISD graduate whose professional background spans real estate, city planning and county government, and a mother of five BISD graduates. Arthur Louis Jr., an educator and community leader with degrees in education and educational administration who has spent decades coaching, teaching and mentoring students. Daniel Parker, a parent of BISD graduates and commercial lender with 30 years of experience in financial services. Jeff Wheeler, a West Brook High School graduate and business leader with more than 14 years in marketing and corporate relations.

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Can Texas A&M’s new president ease the political pressure?

Texas A&M regents are expected to vote next week on the flagship's third permanent president in five years — a high rate of turnover that may have led them to favor a sole finalist with insider and political know-how over a more traditional academic candidate, according to experts on college leadership. Longtime administrator Susan Ballabina could be named Texas A&M University's next president during a special board meeting Wednesday. While some faculty hoped for a former professor to shield them from what they call attacks on academic freedom, experts say the regents chose Ballabina to bring stability to the office after political pressures toppled the prior presidents. "To have a president that can build trust among the faculty is just simply not a priority," said Jorge Burmicky, assistant professor of higher education leadership and policy studies at Howard University. "A president that can deal with the politics, the system-wide expectations, is far more important."

With over 30 years in administrative positions, Ballabina's resume does not include any classroom teaching, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle. She is the second recent pick to arrive at a high-profile Texas presidency without going through the ranks as professor: Last year, the University of Texas chose James E. Davis, a lawyer, to lead the flagship. Texas A&M University System officials did not respond to a request for comment. System leaders previously cited Ballabina's leadership style and "unparalleled knowledge" as reasons for her selection. They also issued a press release boasting an "unprecedented level of support" for Ballabina, including a joint letter signed by the leaders of five of A&M's most influential cultural and alumni groups, including the Texas A&M Foundation, 12th Man Foundation, the Texas Aggie Corps of Cadets Foundation and the Association of Former Students. "As Texas A&M approaches its 150th year, this is a moment that calls for experienced, principled and steady leadership," the joint letter said. "We are confident Dr. Ballabina has the experience, character and commitment needed to lead Texas A&M into its next chapter while preserving the traditions, values and sense of purpose that have long defined this institution."

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'Texas got it wrong': At James Broadnax execution, a mixture of agony and closure

At 19 years old, James Broadnax participated in a merciless, arbitrary crime that took the lives of two loved and innocent men. In taped interviews that would trail his life like a shadow, he boasted about it from jail. He asked the state to kill him; not because he was remorseful, but because his past had been so agonizing, he had no desire to find out if the future would hold more or less of the same. At 37 years old, Broadnax believed he’d transformed on death row, where he taught classes on peacekeeping and mentored youth to keep them off the path to incarceration. He found God, got married and asked for forgiveness. He wanted to do so much with his life, that a friend in his unit said if it came down to it, and only one of them could get clemency, he’d pick Broadnax every time.

For years, county, state and federal courts ruled that neither Broadnax’s evolution nor his claims of an unfair trial were grounds for absolution. On Thursday evening, Broadnax was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, home of the prison system’s death chamber. He was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. His wife, Tiana Broadnax, wailed from the other side of the glass. Seeing him on the gurney and covered in a white sheet, she screamed repeatedly, “I love you” and “I’m sorry.” Broadnax used his final statement to tell his wife he loved her, and to ask, one last time, for the families to forgive him. “No matter what you think of me, Texas got it wrong,” he said of his case. “Let this be the moment that sparks the revolution.” Much of Broadnax’s family believes his death was a grave injustice, while those closest to the victims — with one unforeseen exception — hoped to see a long delayed sentence finally carried out.

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FCC orders ABC stations, including Houston’s KTRK, to re-apply for broadcast license amid political squabble

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered several television stations owned by Disney to re-file for their broadcasting licenses within 30 days, amidst a squabble over ABC content. That includes Houston-based KTRK. On Tuesday, the FCC issued an order saying Disney may have violated the Communications Act of 1934 and FCC rules, "including the agency's prohibition on unlawful discrimination." As part of the order, eight television stations, including KTRK, must file for their license renewal by May 28. The order comes amid a political fight over a joke made by Jimmy Kimmel, a late-night comedian whose show airs on ABC, which is owned by Disney. Kimmel referred to First Lady Melania Trump as looking like an "expectant widow.” President Donald Trump called for Kimmel to be fired for the joke.

A representative for KTRK, which is also referred to as ABC 13, declined to comment for the station. A spokesperson for Disney, speaking on behalf of all eight stations, said the company stood by its content. "We are confident that the record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels," the spokesperson said in a statement. "Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate." The broadcast licenses for each of the stations were originally scheduled for renewal between 2028 and 2031. The FCC and its chair, Brendan Carr, had previously been at odds with Disney after Kimmel made a joke about the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk in September. Kimmel was briefly suspended from his role by Disney, after Carr called for reining in broadcasters while speaking on a podcast. The FCC also made headlines in Texas when Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was set to appear on CBS's late-night program hosted by Stephen Colbert. Carr had called for ending an exception for talk shows to provide equal time commitments to candidates in a political race. Citing that guideline, which was not official policy, CBS allegedly blocked Colbert from airing the interview on the network.

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$20M state grant to fuel semiconductor expansion in Sugar Land, create 500 jobs

Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $20.8 million grant from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund to Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. to expand its manufacturing operations in Sugar Land. The project represents more than $279 million in total capital investment and is expected to create 500 jobs. Abbott said the expansion strengthens Texas’ role in advanced manufacturing and semiconductor production. “Texas is leading America’s resurgence in advanced manufacturing,” Abbott said in a statement. “This investment … will create hundreds of high-skilled jobs and advance our state’s leadership in innovation and semiconductor manufacturing.”

AOI, founded in Houston in 1997, designs and manufactures fiber-optic networking products. The Sugar Land expansion will increase production of semiconductor chips and optical transceivers used in high-speed data infrastructure. Company leaders say the investment will help meet growing demand tied to artificial intelligence and data centers. “We are proud to partner with the State of Texas to expand our homegrown manufacturing,” said Stefan Murry, AOI’s chief financial and strategy officer. “This investment helps us increase production, create high-quality jobs, and help define the future of AI data center infrastructure.” State Sen. Joan Huffman, who sponsored the Texas CHIPS Act, said the funding supports continued semiconductor growth across the state and strengthens the Houston region as a manufacturing hub. State Rep. Suleman Lalani added the investment highlights Sugar Land’s growing role in next-generation technology and economic development. The Texas CHIPS Act, signed into law in 2023, created the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, which provides grants to boost semiconductor research, design and manufacturing across the state. The program is administered through the governor’s office to encourage industry expansion and support workforce development.

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Texas uncertified teacher hires fall as veterans return to classroom

Last year, state lawmakers passed new rules clamping down on the number of uncertified teachers working in Texas schools and created programs designed to help districts put more well-prepared educators in classrooms. A year later, new data suggests those efforts are beginning to pay off. The state saw more experienced teachers returning to the classroom after leaving the profession years before and a small but substantial decline in the number of uncertified teachers hired for the current school year, according to data released by the Texas Education Agency. Nearly half of the roughly 44,000 teachers hired to teach in Texas public schools this year were experienced educators, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said at a State Board of Education meeting in March. About 42% of those teachers were coming back to the classroom after leaving earlier in their careers, and another 6% were teachers who came to Texas from out of state.

The number of teachers returning to the classroom is a good sign for Texas schools, Morath said. Those teachers aren’t untrained new hires, he said, but skilled veteran educators who are “maybe a little rusty.” They may be teachers who spent years in the classroom when they were in their 20s, then switched careers or dropped out of the workforce to raise a family, and then decided to return to teaching years later, he said. In 2015, state lawmakers loosened teacher certification requirements to help school districts deal with teacher shortages in career and technical education programs. A post-pandemic teacher shortage led more school leaders turned to uncertified teachers to fill the gap. In two years, the number of new uncertified teachers hired in Texas schools more than tripled, climbing from 4,285 in the 2020-21 school year to 14,170 in the 2022-23 school year. By the 2023-24 school year, about a third of all newly hired teachers in the state lacked certification, according to TEA data. Last year, Texas lawmakers re-tightened those rules and provided funding to help. By the beginning of the 2027-28 school year, districts must have no uncertified teachers working in math, science, social studies or reading, although districts may apply for a two-year extension.

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Bud Kennedy: Will James Talarico turn Texas blue? Not so fast — poll trend favors GOP

The news is good for Texas Democrats. Unless you actually read it. Austin Democrat James Talarico has a thin lead in polls over U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his Senate seat and a wider lead if Attorney General Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee. Democratic candidates Gina Hinojosa and runoff favorite Vikki Goodwin are already closer to Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick than Democrats Lupe Valdez and Michael Collier were back in 2018. That was the year when bottle-rocket Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz lifted Democrats within range of a statewide victory for the first time since 1994. Another bad sign for Republicans: Voters are now more intensely worried about money than they were in 2018.

Three times as many voters in the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll now say their family is worse off. Inflation and the economy combined are now the No. 1 issue for 24% of voters. And Texas voters have even lost our bravado. By 47%-42%, voters now say the state is on the wrong track. That should all add up to a close election in November. But when you read on, there is one big problem for Texas Democrats: They’re Democrats. Even though Texas voters are completely unhappy with their leaders, the state and their family situation, they are also more conservative now than in the 2018 poll. Back then, those voters polled mostly said they were Republicans, 46%-43%. That 3-point margin was what U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Paxton won by that fall in the closest races on the ticket. Now, based on the poll, Texas is 50% Republican and 40% Democrat. The baked-in winning margin for Republicans is now 10%. Not 3%. In the new poll, 43% of Texas voters have a favorable view of the Republican Party. Back in 2018, that number was 35%. Meanwhile, 50% of Texas voters now have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party.

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‘I know how to win’: Former Texas Democrats executive running to be party leader

Last year, Monique Alcala was fired as executive director of the Texas Democratic Party after Kendall Scudder became the party’s new leader. Now, Alcala is running against him in an election that will be settled at the party’s state convention in June. Alcala, a 15-year veteran of political campaigns at the local, state and national level, said she’s running to make sure Democrats capitalize on a crucial election year. “We have a huge opportunity for us here in 2026,” Alcala told Capital Tonight. “We have a real opportunity to flip the state and win statewide.” Earlier this month, three dozen Texas Democrats wrote an open letter calling on Scudder not to seek reelection this year, accusing him of a “hostile work environment” and operational failures.

Days later, more than 800 Texas Democrats wrote a dueling letter that backed Scudder and said the party needed more time to assess his leadership. Scudder brushed off the criticisms and filed for re-election, saying he was focused on helping the party win in November — noting a $30 million commitment he secured to target key races and a full slate of candidates for every congressional and state house race in Texas. Alcala filed her candidacy on Friday, the deadline to jump into the race, promising “real change, not more empty promises or missed opportunities.” Alcala said she would return to the work she had been doing as the party’s executive director. That includes building infrastructure to aid local parties and strategic partners, like the campaign arm of Texas House Democrats, in winning legislative races. She also criticized the party’s current leadership, saying they had lackluster fundraising. “It’s a far cry from the millions of dollars that it’s going to take to defeat Greg Abbott, John Cornyn or Ken Paxton,” she said. Alcala said she would focus on lessons she learned during her career in battleground states to help Democrats win in Texas, including running coordinated campaigns that would help the party’s candidates from the top of the ballot to the bottom. She also said she would focus on keeping employees on staff who had experience in organizing and running elections — a criticism that has been lobbed at Scudder by his opponents. “This is about building infrastructure on the ground when it comes to the TDP,” Alcala said. “We need people that are working at TDP that are leading TDP that know how to build coalitions but also know how to have hard conversations about how to move the organization forward.”

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Corpus Christi Harbor Island water project faces setback after $140M loan denial

The Nueces River Authority says its Harbor Island desalination loan ranked 13th, missing funding as only top 9–10 projects were approved. Corpus Christi’s water development plans hit a major setback after a $140 million low-interest loan for the Harbor Island desalination plant was denied. The Nueces River Authority applied for the loan earlier this year through the Texas Water Development Board. John Chisholm, deputy executive director of the Nueces River Authority, said the denial caught him by surprise. "This was the first year that they're telling me they had more projects, more value of projects than they have money available," he said. Chisholm said state officials received applications totaling about $4.2 billion, with demand outpacing available funding. "They were only able to fund like the first nine or ten, and we scored 13th. So we were out of the money," he said.

Chisholm said the denial comes as communities across Texas compete for limited water resources. "We're not alone," he said. "You know, our fellow Texans all over are in the same spot. Um, I think there's a great water, you know, North Texas, Central Texas, uh, West Texas as well. So I think that says a lot that there's a lot of projects and a lot of need in Texas right now." Corpus Christi At-Large councilman Roland Barrera, who opposed the Harbor Island project, said there was still to many unanswered questions. "Without even understanding the cost of facility is. The cost to convey is upward of a million dollars. The resources they'll have to provide to get electricity out there," he said. Political analyst Dr. Bill Chriss said with more regions across Texas drawing from the same well, Corpus Christi could have a harder time landing major water projects. "Because this is an emergency that requires immediate response not building something that could produce water for us in five to 10 years," he said. Chisholm said the project is too important to abandon. He said the Nueces River Authority is now looking to private investors and potential federal support.

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National Stories

Congress votes to reopen key parts of DHS without ICE funding

Congress voted to reopen key parts of the Department of Homeland Security — including the Transportation Security Administration — Thursday after weeks of GOP infighting that prolonged a record shutdown of the critical agency. President Donald Trump promptly signed the bill to fund the department, which went unfunded for 75 days, into law. In the end, House GOP leaders conceded in a weeks-long DHS funding fight in a major retreat by Speaker Mike Johnson as he faced a growing revolt from centrists in his party, multiple sources told CNN. The House abruptly passed the package — which includes no money for federal immigration enforcement, in a major win for Democrats — by a voice vote Thursday afternoon.

The move brings an end to a historic shutdown that led to long lines at airports across the country and comes just before paychecks were about to stall out once again for DHS employees. Johnson decided to move forward after a private leadership meeting earlier Thursday where the team agreed they had little choice but to move the bill — with their own members warning the situation was untenable. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former House member, had also repeatedly warned that he was almost out of money. And GOP leaders knew that the deteriorating DHS situation would only further underscore their party’s diminishing ability to govern in a House rife with divisions and infighting. Conservative hardliners — who had contributed to holding up the bill for weeks — eventually admitted they had no leverage left in the fight. GOP Rep. Andy Harris, who leads the House’s ultraconservative bloc, told reporters that “you really can’t stop anything from passing” if dozens of Democrats are also going to help.

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Louisiana governor postpones House primaries after Supreme Court ruling

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Thursday postponed his state’s May 16 primaries for the House, one day after the Supreme Court struck down the state’s congressional map as an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” “Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters,” the Republican governor said in a news release accompanying an executive order he signed prohibiting the state from conducting House elections under its current map. “This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map.” Primaries for other offices in Louisiana will go ahead on May 16, state officials said.

President Donald Trump lauded Landry for “moving so quickly to fix the Unconstitutionality of Louisiana’s Congressional Maps.’’ The Supreme Court decision invalidating Louisiana’s congressional map limits the use of race in drawing congressional districts and could lead to further redistricting nationwide, especially in Southern states. In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority found that Louisiana should not have been forced to draw a congressional map with a second Black-majority district to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Democrats denounced the decision to postpone the House primaries, saying changing the rules this close to the election – early voting was set to start Saturday – would create chaos and disenfranchise voters. “Louisianans have already cast absentee ballots, early voting was set to begin this weekend, and now those votes won’t count. That is unacceptable,” Rep. Cleo Fields, whose Black-majority district was at the heart of the Supreme Court case, said on social media.

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Immigrants file suit over Trump’s Catch-22 biometric data policy

A group of detained immigrants have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration over a catch-22 biometric data policy that they allege has blocked them from obtaining legal status. A 19-year-old from Venezuela detained for over a year is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security. At issue is a December policy change barring immigrants in detention from getting their fingerprints and photos taken for visa and other deportation-protection applications. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, denies applications of people who don’t attend their biometric screenings, which the lawsuit claims puts the immigrants in an impossible situation.

Other plaintiffs, such as a 22-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman from Mexico, are seeking visas they say they qualify for as victims of crime. The man applied for a visa meant to protect victims of human trafficking because he said his father abused him after bringing him to the U.S. as a minor. The woman claims to be a victim of domestic violence and stalking from the father of her children. She has spent nearly a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in Kentucky, according to the complaint. Attorneys from Democracy Forward, the National Immigration Project and the National Immigrant Justice Center are representing the immigrants in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint argues the policy violates the detainees’ due process. “In its zeal to block paths for lawful immigration, the Trump-Vance administration has yet again set up an unlawful trap for noncitizens, creating a system where people are required to meet a condition for relief and then blocking them from ever meeting it,” Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement. Another lawsuit against this policy led to DHS agreeing in March to transport the mother of a U.S. citizen who had been in detention for more than eight months to her biometrics-collection appointment as part of her application for a green card. USCIS is facing a mounting number of lawsuits over its processing freeze on applications from immigrant nationals of countries on President Donald Trump’s travel ban list.

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House votes to renew foreign spy program and creates pathway to end DHS shutdown

The Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to renew a powerful foreign surveillance program and passed a Senate-approved measure that would jump-start the process to fund ICE and the Border Patrol for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term. The House voted 235-191 to extend the critical spy program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires this week. Lawmakers later voted 215-211 along party lines to pass the GOP budget resolution previously approved by the Senate after a revolt by House Republicans over an unrelated farm bill delayed final passage by more than five hours. Asked to describe the chaotic day in one word, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., replied: “S---show.”

The successful budget vote could unlock the GOP support needed to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for a record 74 days because of Democrats’ demands for reforms to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. Wednesday was one of the more tumultuous days in the House in recent memory. Earlier, a handful of conservative hard-liners blocked a key procedural vote, preventing several of Trump’s legislative priorities from coming to the floor. The difficulty in passing even routine motions highlighted, again, the challenges of the GOP's narrow 217-212 majority as the 2026 midterm elections approach. In that vote series, Johnson and his team could be seen on the floor desperately trying to persuade the rabble-rousers — including Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo. — to flip their no votes to yes. After two hours of arm-twisting and cajoling in public view, Johnson's efforts proved successful, and the House passed the rule 216-210. In addition to the Republican budget and the renewal of FISA, the rule also advanced the farm bill, which sets agriculture policy for the next five years, on its way to a final vote.

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Republicans want Tennessee’s last Democratic House District

The Supreme Court’s blow to the Voting Rights Act had barely landed on Wednesday when Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, called on lawmakers to eliminate the last Democratic-held House seat in the state. Taking to social media shortly after the Wednesday morning ruling, Ms. Blackburn, the favorite to become the state’s next governor, urged the legislature to hastily adopt a new congressional map that would put Memphis, a majority Black city, in Republican hands. The chorus quickly grew. Her opponent in the gubernatorial primary, Representative John Rose, declared that the Democratic-led city “deserves Republican representation in Congress.” State Senator Brent Taylor, of nearby Shelby County, asked on X, “Got any ideas on who would make a great Republican congressman from West TN?”

By Thursday morning, President Trump said on Truth Social that Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had assured him in a call that he would “work hard” to get Republicans “one extra seat” in Tennessee, “and help save our country.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Lee did not respond to questions about the conversation, and it remains unclear whether a new map will be approved before the midterm elections. But for some Democrats, the eager chatter was the realization of fears that have percolated since 2022, when Republicans carved a Nashville-area seat long held by Democrats into three Republican districts. “Memphis could be like Nashville,” said Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat who has held the Memphis seat since 2007. “Thrown off the political map.” Mr. Cohen said he had been in touch with voting rights lawyers and would try to stop any redistricting effort. The Supreme Court ruling, which raises the bar for finding congressional maps racially discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act, was not unexpected. But it still set off a scramble across the South, as conservatives saw a new opportunity to break up districts with large numbers of Black voters who remain loyal to Democrats. Tennessee was not always as reliably ruby red. As recently as 2008, it had a Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, and five Democrats in its congressional delegation. But as the state’s electorate became increasingly disillusioned with the Democratic Party during the Obama years, the number of Democrats it sent to Congress dwindled.

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After Janet Mills' departure, more Democrats begin to rally around Graham Platner's Senate campaign

Gov. Janet Mills' decision to end her U.S. Senate campaign on Thursday dramatically changed the dynamics of a race with major national implications. Within hours, many prominent Democrats in Maine as well as national party leaders rallied behind Graham Platner, the Hancock County oysterman and populist who is now the presumptive nominee. But Platner said the governor's decision doesn't change how he's running his populist and anti-establishment campaign to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins this fall. "The race has never been about me or really about one person," Platner said. "It's about a movement of working Mainers who are fed up with being robbed by billionaires and the politicians who own them. We are now taking back our power. That is what this campaign is."

Platner was speaking a little more than two hours after Mills announced she was suspending her campaign. He was joined by nearly two dozen elected officials — most them Democratic members of the Legislature — for what had been planned as a fairly routine endorsement event. But the landscape had changed. So Platner started by thanking Mills for her lengthy career in public service — as prosecutor, attorney general and now two terms as governor — and by saying that her decision reflects their shared commitment to a singular goal: unseating Collins this November. "I look forward to working closely with her between now and November to do just that, to defeat Susan Collins and turn this seat blue again," Platner said. A Marine Corps veteran who farms oysters near his home in Sullivan, Platner has been leading in almost every poll for months over Mills and the third Democratic contender, David Costello of Brunswick. And there were plenty of other signs that the Mills campaign was struggling to find traction in a race that's a top priority for the national parties.

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Trump’s border wall expansion just bulldozed an ancient tribal site

President Donald Trump’s expansion of the wall along the southern border with Mexico has damaged a rare Native American archaeological site in the Arizona desert, area residents said Thursday, as the administration moves to rapidly build hundreds of miles of additional barriers in a $46.5 billion project. The aggressive expansion project — funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill — is erecting three miles of wall a week, introducing barriers in parts of Texas that did not previously have them, as well as a second wall in much of California, Arizona and New Mexico. The construction is not abiding by environmental laws and other protections, alarming advocates, national park staff and Native Americans.

In Arizona, construction crews ran heavy machinery through and destroyed a roughly 60-to-70-foot swath of an intaglio, a more than 200-foot-long ground etching that looks like a fish and is thought to be at least 1,000 years old, said Richard Martynec, a retired archaeologist who now volunteers his time surveying the area. Satellite imagery from Friday shows a disturbance crossing the intaglio area. Lorraine Marquez Eiler, an elder of the Hia-ced O’odham Indigenous people, said the damage happened last week. “If someone came to Washington and started destroying all the different sites that people in the United States revere, it’s the same thing for us,” Marquez Eiler said. “Those things were made by our ancestors, and it’s hitting home. … For me, it’s an emotional subject,” she added.

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Sheinbaum defies US demand to extradite Mexican officials on drug charges

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounced the U.S. prosecution of a sitting Mexican governor and other officials on drug trafficking charges as "political," and said Thursday that Mexico would not comply with Washington's demands that the accused be arrested and extradited to the United States. "We are not permitting a foreign government to say what is the future of Mexico," said a defiant Sheinbaum, who repeatedly assailed U.S. "meddling" in the incendiary case. U.S. authorities have not submitted "compelling proof" to justify the arrests and detentions of anyone in Mexico, Sheinbaum said. Sheinbaum's stance puts Mexico on a likely collision course with Trump, who says Sheinbaum's government hasn't done enough to crack down on cartels.

Sheinbaum's comments came a day after the unsealing of a bombshell indictment in federal court in New York accusing 10 current and former Mexican officials of drug trafficking, arms offenses and links to the notorious Sinaloa cartel co-founded by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Topping the list of accused is Rubén Rocha Moya, governor of the northwestern Sinaloa state. Rocha Moya and others named have denied the charges, calling them an attempt to subvert Mexico's sovereignty. The indictment presents Sheinbaum with one of her biggest challenges yet. In standing firm against the U.S. action, she risks being seen as shielding drug traffickers and their political allies. Sheinbaum faced "a terrifying Hamlet-like dilemma: to yield or not, with disastrous consequences in either case," Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, wrote in El Proceso magazine. Sheinbaum's response risks "sounding like a defense of corrupt governments," said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a professor of international relations at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics. Pérez said he agreed with Sheinbaum's plan to have Mexican authorities evaluate the evidence against the Sinaloa officials, which he said appeared "strong." Still, he said, she was correct to view the U.S. indictment in political terms. "There's no doubt the United States is weaponizing its prosecutorial powers to serve a political agenda," he said.

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Trump taps Nicole Saphier for surgeon general after pulling Casey Means nomination

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Dr. Nicole Saphier as the next U.S. surgeon general after pulling his previous pick, Dr. Casey Means, whose confirmation process in the Senate stalled for months. Saphier is a breast radiologist and was previously a Fox News contributor. She is listed as the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center-Monmouth and the author of several books. That includes one book that critiques the U.S.’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that political agendas often overshadowed scientific guidance. “Nicole is a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday.

“She is also an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans,” Trump continued. Means was nominated at the recommendation of her close ally Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Her nomination had stalled in the Senate for more than two months over concerns about her controversial stances on vaccines, birth control, pesticides and psychedelics. Her brother, Calley Means, is a senior White House adviser. Trump on Thursday also blasted Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., accusing him of standing in the way of Means’ nomination “I nominated Casey, a strong MAHA Warrior, at the recommendation of Secretary Kennedy, who understands the MAHA Movement better than anyone, with perhaps the possible exception of ME!” Trump wrote, adding: “Casey, thank you for your service to our Nation!”

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Lead Stories

Supreme Court ruling is set to reshape American politics

The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday handed Republicans their biggest victory yet in the perpetual battle to control the House of Representatives and statehouses across the country — but it may have come too late to have much of an effect on this year’s midterm elections. The 6-3 ruling effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that districts be drawn to give minority voters a chance to elect representatives of their choosing. One practical effect of that requirement was the protection of reliably Democratic-voting majority-minority districts, even in solidly red states where lawmakers could otherwise favor the GOP. With that mandate now largely gone, Republican lawmakers across the country — and especially in the South — have a freer hand to eliminate Democratic-leaning districts and pad the total number of seats they can win to hold the U.S. House. There are more than a dozen such seats in Republican-controlled states.

Shortly after the ruling, Republicans were urging a review of their congressional maps in Louisiana, Tennessee and elsewhere. Their immediate challenge is that the ruling came down well after filing deadlines for this year’s primary elections — and in some cases, after those primary elections have been held. That means ballots are set and in some states early and absentee voting has already begun. The timing makes it difficult to tear up maps and draw new ones. In Louisiana, where the mandate to draw a second, Democratic-leaning majority-Black House district led to Tuesday’s decision, the primary election for federal offices is set for May 16 — and early voting is scheduled to begin Saturday. Nevertheless, the state’s governor, attorney general and legislative leaders were meeting to discuss how the state would respond. Republicans have been scrambling to comply with President Donald Trump’s directive to redraw maps to add more winnable House seats to stave off losses in the midterms. In a sign of the pressure for Republicans to take advantage of the opportunity, multiple hopefuls running for governor in GOP primaries called for immediate redraws. “There is no time to waste,” Rick Jackson, a businessman and GOP governor candidate in Georgia, said in urging a redraw there even as voting is underway for the May 19 primary. “Georgia must act now to ensure secure elections in Georgia and counter the Democrats’ national assault on our elections.”

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Oil surges to highest price since 2022 on growing supply fears

Oil briefly surpassed $126 a barrel Thursday, its highest price in four years, as traders worried about a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, following US President Donald Trump’s decision to extend a blockade of Iranian ports. Brent crude, the global benchmark, surged overnight to touch $126.41 a barrel, before falling 1.5% to $116.3 a barrel, as trading volumes thinned. WTI crude, the US benchmark, was broadly flat at $106.7 a barrel. “The oil market has moved from… hoping for resolution to fixating squarely on the physical scarcity and long-term threat to supply with the possible escalation of conflict now looming,” Neil Wilson, a strategist at investment bank Saxo wrote in a note. US average gasoline prices hit a four-year high of $4.30 a gallon on Thursday, according to the latest national average reading from the AAA.

Global crude prices have now risen for nine straight days as face-to-face negotiations between the United States and Iran broke down, keeping the Strait of Hormuz – a critical oil and natural gas shipping channel – effectively shut. Thursday’s price spike was also driven by quirks in oil futures contracts, according to Wilson. The widely quoted June futures contract expires today and so trading volume has shifted to the July contract, which was trading above $110 a barrel. Last night, Trump said he wanted the US naval blockade of Iranian ports to continue, sources familiar with the talks with his senior advisers told CNN. US officials have begun laying the groundwork for such an extension, including a longer-term closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices have “nowhere to go but up,” until the permanent reopening of the strait comes into view, said Vandana Hari, founder of energy market analysis firm Vanda Insights. “As of now, how and when that might happen is anybody’s guess,” she added, noting that another few weeks of stalemate would unlikely sit well with Trump.

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Texas health agency, lawmakers clash over authority to suspend Camp Mystic license

State lawmakers are pressing the Texas Department of State Health Services to suspend Camp Mystic’s license as the camp prepares to reopen its Cypress Lake location in about a month, but the agency says recently passed legislation does not clearly spell out how it can take that step. The dispute played out during Tuesday’s investigative hearing, where lawmakers questioned DSHS about its authority to suspend a youth camp license if a camp violates state safety requirements. “You have the ability to suspend,” state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said. “And I'm asking you, will you suspend?” State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, also pushed for a definitive response, saying, “I need very clear answers on that, yes or no.”

DSHS has identified 22 deficiencies in Camp Mystic’s emergency management plan. During the hearing, the agency said it is actively implementing newly passed youth camp safety legislation and emphasized that emergency planning is required for licensing. “We will not approve a camp's license unless it has an acceptable emergency plan,” said Dr. Jennifer Shuford, the DSHS commissioner. The legislation at the center of the dispute is Senate Bill 1, passed in response to the deadly July 4 floods at Camp Mystic. The law updated emergency planning requirements, added enforcement provisions, and included language in the Texas Health and Safety Code stating: “The department shall suspend a youth camp license issued by the department if the camp or youth camp operator is in violation of state safety requirements, including emergency planning rules.” Lawmakers argued that language gives DSHS clear direction. “You have direct language, which gives you your marching orders. Do you agree?” Darby asked. Nycia Deal, chief deputy counsel for Texas Health & Human Services, said the agency does not interpret the statute that way, pointing to what she described as missing procedural language typically included when an agency is allowed to suspend a license immediately.

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Jerome Powell says he will continue to serve as a Fed governor, calls Trump criticism 'unprecedented'

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said he will stay on the Board of Governors for an indefinite period while a probe into the renovation of the central bank’s headquarters continues. “I’ve said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality, and I stand by that. I’m encouraged by recent developments, and I’m watching the remaining steps in this process carefully,” Powell said near the beginning of his post-meeting news conference. “My decisions on these matters will continue to be guided entirely by what I believe is in the best interest of the institution and the people we serve after my term as chair ends on May 15, and will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined,” he added.

By staying on, Powell for the moment is denying President Donald Trump a majority on the Board of Governors. Trump’s other appointees on the seven-member board include Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman. Trump appointee Stephen Miran, whose term has expired but has continued to serve, will leave after Warsh is confirmed. Powell’s decision to stay resolves for the moment a key question that hovered over the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Markets already had largely expected to keep its key interest rate steady, with the bigger question over Powell’s future. Powell’s tenure as chair ends next month, but he has two years remaining on his seat as governor. The chair, who has served eight years, congratulated his appointed successor Kevin Warsh, whose nominee cleared a pivotal hurdle earlier Wednesday when the Senate Banking Committee voted to move Warsh forward to the full floor for a vote.

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State Stories

14 Texas border county judges ask feds to include them in wall talks

All 14 county judges from the Texas border sent a letter to the head of the Department of Homeland Security asking “to serve as partners” in matters concerning security along the border with Mexico, including border wall construction. “Our purpose in writing is not to oppose or obstruct, but to help ensure that the people who live, work, ranch, farm and raise families along this border continue to have a meaningful voice in decisions that shape our daily,” they wrote. “Our counties lie directly along the international boundary. We see firsthand the impacts of unlawful crossings, including strain on local resources, risks to public safety, and challenges faced by landowners and law enforcement,” they said.

Among their concerns is that new border wall construction will impact or diminish water supplies. The letter was sent April 21 to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. And was sent by: Hudspeth County Judge Joanna MacKenzie, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, Presidio County Judge Jose Portillo, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino, Brewster County Judge Greg Henington, Terrell County Judge Dale Carruthers, Starr County Judge Eloy Vera, Kinney County Judge John Schuster, Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, Jeff Davis County Judge Curtis Evans, Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, Maverick County Judge Ramsey English Cantu, and Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens. The judges cite a change by the Trump administration to use more detection technology in the Big Bend region, for instance, after much pushback from the sheriffs of that region. “That approach reflects how thoughtful coordination can meet security objectives while preserving natural resources, access, and the unique character of the region,” they wrote.

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Texas Republican Party chair talks Islam, midterms

In a speech at the Rowlett Republican Men’s Club, Texas Republican Party Chair Abraham George touted his efforts working with state legislators on conservative priorities in the two years he has led the party. George, former chair of the Collin County GOP, was elected state party chair in a six-way race at the party’s convention in San Antonio in May 2024. He is running for reelection at the party’s June convention in Houston. About 9,000 delegates from across the state, many of them Republican precinct chairs, will gather to discuss the party’s priorities and elect a chairperson. So far, George has only attracted one challenger, D’Rinda Randall, the current vice chair of the state party who was his running mate in 2024.

George said he would lead the party through a competitive midterm election in November. Unlike two years ago when securing the Southern border was a priority for the party, Texas conservative activists have turned their attention to legal immigration pathways such as H-1B visas, which allow U.S. employers to hire foreigners for jobs requiring specialized knowledge. In fiscal 2024, 71% of H-1B visas issued nationwide went to Indian applicants, according to federal data. Activists have lamented the increase in Indian H-1B workers in cities such as Frisco, and some online have disparaged the Texas GOP for being led by George, who immigrated to the United States from India when he was 15 years old. Nativism in some corners of the GOP might influence George’s reelection chances, even though he said he supports banning H-1B visas in Texas. At a Monday night event at a Pentecostal church in Rowlett, a suburb one attendee dubbed a “red bastion in the corner of Dallas County,” about twenty five people gathered to hear George speak about a host of issues. “It's going to be a fight. It's not going to be easy for us,” George said of November elections for Congress and the Texas Legislature. He said representatives from the Republican National Convention told him about $1 billion will be poured into Texas in support of Democrats this election cycle.

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Texas judge says agency must comply with agreement made with Plano-area Muslim development

A Travis County District Court has ordered the Texas Workforce Commission to comply with an agreement it made with the developer of a Muslim-oriented community. The Meadow, formerly known as EPIC City, has been repeatedly targeted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and other officials. Civil rights groups claim religious discrimination is behind the attacks on the housing development — which has not been built. The agency and the developer, Community Capital Partners, agreed last fall to resolve allegations of fair housing violations against the project. Community Capital Partners sued the Texas Workforce Commission after it sent the commission fair housing policies for the development but didn’t receive any review or response from the agency according to a press release from the developer.

The proposed housing community a 402-acre development in unincorporated Collin and Hunt counties, roughly 40 miles northeast of Dallas near the city of Josephine. The project is years away from construction but has already faced intense scrutiny from top Republicans in the state. Texas officials have accused the development of implementing Sharia Law and creating a no-go zone for non-Muslims, something the developer has repeatedly denied. Imran Chaudhary, the president of Community Capital Partners, praised the court’s ruling in a press release. “This ruling confirms what we have maintained from the beginning — that Community Capital Partners has been willing, ready, and committed to complying with Texas law at every step,” said CCP President Imran Chaudhary. “We have acted in good faith throughout this process, and today’s decision reflects that.” The Texas Workforce Commission told KERA via email it plans to appeal the court's ruling.

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Hours before James Broadnax's lethal injection, chances to postpone his execution dwindle

One by one, legal options to postpone James Broadnax's execution are dwindling — with very little time left before his scheduled lethal injection. Hours before the sentence was scheduled to be carried out two chances in the Dallas County 2008 capital murder case remained. Broadnax's legal team on Tuesday requested from Texas Governor Greg Abbott a 30-day reprieve. Attorneys could learn the response when the public does, not before. Broadnax, now 37, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville, Texas for robbing, shooting and killing Christian music producers Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in Garland in 2008. He was convicted in 2009.

His cousin, Demarius Cummings, recently confessed to being the shooter. The U.S. Supreme Court had not yet issued a decision on one last appeal to pause the execution late Wednesday. Broadnax, 37, made two appeals to the Supreme Court to halt his execution: one alleging the use of rap lyrics as evidence against Broadnax during trial was unconstitutional, and another arguing prosecutors struck Black prospective jurors from the selection pool, resulting in a nearly all-white jury. "James continues to maintain faith and stoicism and belief that his case will still have a chance to be heard and that his life will be spared," said Allan Ripp, a spokesperson for Broadnax's legal team. Still pending is Broadnax's appeal after Cummings confessed in a sworn statement last month that he convinced Broadnax, then 19, to take the blame for the shooting while they were both high on PCP and marijuana. Cummings decided to come clean after finding out two months ago that Broadnax was scheduled to die, he said. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled earlier this month it would not consider the confession as a reason to pause Broadnax's execution.

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Jasmine Crockett maps next moves: boost other candidates, road show

Rep. Jasmine Crockett gave a peek into her political future Wednesday, telling a daytime TV talk show host she will work to elect like-minded candidates and launch a road show to share her views. “My focus is going to be to pivot to support others,” Crockett told Sherri Shepherd on the Sherri show. “We want to fuel individual rights everywhere. And so we are going to support other candidates as well as I'm going to go on tour across the country and we are going to educate people about what it is that elected officials can do, should be doing and what they’re doing wrong.” Crockett was referencing her Fueling Individual Rights Everywhere political action committee, or FIRE PAC. Such leadership PACs represent a fundraising mechanism in which politicians collect donations and distribute them to other candidates. Crockett did not share details on the timing of the tour and did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

Crockett’s plans come amid speculation about her next steps after losing the Democratic primary for Senate last month to state Rep. James Talarico of Austin. Talarico will face incumbent John Cornyn or Attorney General Ken Paxton, who meet in the GOP runoff May 26. Crockett has said she expects a book deal and a return to practicing law after she leaves Congress, although House rules restrict her ability to lock those down now. Crockett’s work on behalf of other candidates included her endorsement Wednesday of former Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas in the Democratic primary runoff against Rep. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch. Allred represented Congressional District 32 before leaving to run for Senate in 2024. Johnson succeeded him. After last year's mid-decade Republican redistricting revamped the district, Johnson opted to run in the newly drawn District 33 that favors Democrats. Article continues below this ad Allred initially announced a Senate bid but switched to District 33 after Crockett entered the Senate race. He and Johnson are locked in a heated runoff after neither finished with a majority of the vote in the March primary.

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For Texans with disabilities, voting can take weeks — or be out of reach

For one Texas voter, casting a ballot in the March primary took weeks of coordination, multiple phone calls, two applications and help from several people just to meet the deadline. “As a multi-disabled, homebound senior living in a rural area … there are a number of barriers I have to overcome just to cast my ballot by mail,” he said in a written account to Texas Public Radio. The voter requested anonymity due to pending litigation with the state of Texas. Without regular care at home, even basic steps depend on others. Living on a county road without mail delivery, the voter relies on a post office box and a volunteer who can only pick up mail occasionally. “I get my mail once a month,” he said.

After requesting a ballot by mail in January, delays meant the application did not reach election officials for several weeks. Then another problem came up. “County election staff called me that day and told me I had failed to choose a party preference, as required under Texas law, so I would not get a ballot for the primaries,” he said. He said local county election officials were helpful and did what they could within the limits of the system. With the deadline approaching, he had to start over. A second application was picked up, delivered and returned on the final day. Even then, retrieving and returning the ballot required coordination with a volunteer and a case manager to ensure it arrived on time. “The lack of regular home care and volunteers, not as easy to find as you might think, is the greatest obstacle to voting,” the voter said. Advocates and researchers say this experience reflects a broader pattern that may pose added challenges with two elections scheduled in May: The May 2 municipal elections and the May 26 primary runoffs. For many voters with disabilities, the biggest barriers are not the ballot itself, but the systems people rely on to navigate the process on time, including gaps in home care, transportation and access to assistance.

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Hispanic population experiences worst health care outcomes, access in Texas, report finds

A new report found that Texas has more severe racial and ethnic health disparities than other states in the Southwest. Hispanic people experienced the worst health outcomes, access and quality in Texas, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund – a private foundation focused on health equity in the U.S. The report notes that racial and ethnic health disparities “persist across every state” and may worsen as recent policy changes take hold. “In most states, American Indian and Alaska Native people and Black and Hispanic people and communities really continue to bear the highest burden and have the worst health access and affordability,” said Dr. Laurie Zephyrin, senior vice president for Achieving Equitable Outcomes at the Commonwealth Fund.

The report also finds that these populations are more likely to die from “premature and avoidable deaths” – while being less likely to have health coverage. Researchers analyzed the most recent state data available on 24 measures related to health care access, quality and use of services and health outcomes to produce the state-by-state report. Based on that performance data, the report evaluates differences across racial and ethnic groups both within and between states. “The Hispanic population had some of the lowest scores achieved in the report, particularly in a handful of southern and southeastern states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Texas,” said Kristen Kolb, a research associate for the Commonwealth Fund. She said the Hispanic population tended to be among the lowest performance on measures of affordable access to care. “When health services are not affordable, people are more likely to forgo needed care,” Kolb said.

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Inside SpaceX's IPO: Musk's most ambitious plan yet

In the days after the PayPal IPO in 2002, Elon Musk and company executives gathered at a Las Vegas casino to celebrate. But while others socialized by the pool, Musk was hunched over an old Soviet rocket manual and already planning ?his next venture: SpaceX. “He’d come off what was an unequivocally big win, he was one of the largest shareholders, and yet he was focused on this next thing,” Kevin Hartz, an early PayPal investor who ?was at the party, told Reuters. “Now it’s a multi-trillion-dollar business.” In the two decades since Musk took the reins at SpaceX, the company has grown into the world’s largest space business, launching thousands of Starlink internet satellites and pioneering reusable rockets, transforming the economics of space in a way Musk likens to inventing an airplane that no longer has to be destroyed after every flight.

Musk’s years of defying accepted logic through audacious risk-taking in space look set to be validated when SpaceX goes public this year at a possible valuation of $1.75 trillion, in what would be the largest public listing on record ?and one that could put him on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. But what comes next may be an even bigger ask than building reusable rockets or the first mass-market electric vehicle, according to a Reuters review ?of more than 100 pages of excerpts from SpaceX’s confidential pre-IPO prospectus, offering the most detailed look at SpaceX’s financials and its future plans since Musk took the helm. Reuters published a series of exclusive ?stories based on the documents last week. “I always thought he was crazy,” said Walter Isaacson, who spent two years shadowing Musk while writing a biography of the billionaire. “But the danger of betting against him is that he ends up being crazy like ?a fox and gets things done.”

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EF-3 tornado injures 5 people, causes extensive damage in Mineral Wells, officials confirm

Multiple people were injured after an EF-3 tornado struck Mineral Wells on Tuesday, prompting a Tornado Warning in Palo Pinto County, according to city officials. The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado’s strength Wednesday after surveying damage in some of the hardest-hit parts of the Metroplex. Five people were injured in the storm, Mineral Wells officials said during a Wednesday morning press conference. No reported deaths and no reports of any community members missing, officials confirmed “We’re going to get through this,” said Police Chief Tim Denison. “We’re going to be there for them.”

The city also confirmed structural damage in the industrial areas and the northeast portion of the city. Downed power lines were reported on East Hubbard Street near Highway 180. WFAA also spoke with business workers who reported large hail in the area. Multiple homes were damaged and several families were displaced; however, officials are unclear of how many as of Tuesday evening. There are also several homes and businesses without power, city officials said. WFAA was allowed inside the Holliday Hills Country Club neighborhood, located right next to the golf course, and our crews saw extensive damage. Homes were ripped apart and tree limbs snapped in half.

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Judge dismisses part of Eli Lilly's GLP-1 lawsuit against Houston's Empower Pharmacy

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed part of Eli Lilly's lawsuit against the Houston-based Empower Pharmacy — the latest development in the pharmaceutical giant's bid to curb sales of cheaper, less-regulated versions of their blockbuster GLP-1 weight loss drug. The lawsuit is significant because millions of Americans have gained access to GLP-1s through compounding pharmacies like Empower, which make customized versions of drugs without going through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration review process. Empower describes itself as the largest and most advanced compounding pharmacy in the country. Eli Lilly argued in its lawsuit that Empower violated federal trademark laws and state unfair competition laws by selling "untested and unapproved" versions of their tirzepatide products, Mounjaro and Zepbound, which the company said it spent billions of dollars to develop.

U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake dismissed the federal trademark law claims because Eli Lilly did not show it lost sales or suffered "irreparable harm" from Empower's allegedly false advertising. The judge also dismissed Lilly's allegations that Empower violated Texas' unfair competition laws. He did, however, allow the allegation that Empower violated unfair competition laws in other states to move forward. Empower and Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On its website, Empower continues to market versions of Eli Lilly's drugs with vitamin additives, in different concentrations and in pill form. Patients have commonly used compounded GLP-1s because they can be hundreds of dollars cheaper than the brand-name products, although the pharmaceutical companies have started to offer discounted cash prices. Compounding pharmacies were given the green light to produce copies of GLP-1 drugs starting in 2022, when the FDA declared a drug shortage. But the shortage has since ended, and the pharmacies have continued to make their own versions, under laws that allow them to make drugs for specific patients. Unlike brand-name drugs, compounded drugs are not required to go through the traditional FDA review process. Empower's revenue more than doubled when the drugs were on shortage, from $119 million in 2022 to $377 million in 2024, according to financial figures provided to the Houston Business Journal.

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UT Austin orders changes to KUT Festival days before inaugural event

A major portion of the inaugural KUT Festival, which Austin’s NPR station has billed as a springtime community celebration featuring live music, author talks and panel discussions, will have to change its location following a decision by the University of Texas at Austin. Citing safety concerns, university leadership announced in an email to attendees and staff on Tuesday evening that all of Saturday’s events — panels, musical performances and a street fair — will be moved off campus. The university announced that much of the Friday portion of the festival, including a keynote event with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, will continue as planned at the LBJ Presidential Library. Saturday’s events will be moving to Central Machine Works and East End Ballroom — two venues within walking distance of each other in East Austin.

In a staff-wide email, KUT Public Media General Manager Debbie Hiott said the university first raised its concerns last Wednesday afternoon, adding that the station had begun planning the event in the fall. “On Friday, the university ordered KUT to cancel the outdoor portions of the events citing a safety analysis that they have yet to provide us,” Hiott said, noting that the university's order took the station by surprise. “In our months of planning, we have agreed to every health, security and safety request that has been made of us and our production company, which has produced the Texas Tribune Festival and many other major events over the years.” Hiott said the station “would have been happy to sit down with the appropriate officials and go over their concerns and any remedies, but have not been provided that opportunity.” Anita L. Vangelisti, interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, which includes KUT and its sister music station KUTX, said in an email to festival attendees and staff that "our analysis has identified key areas where KUT provided insufficient planning for safety measures, including security, health, fire, and emergency services." A UT spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment or a copy of the analysis.

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Austin music venues, promoters hope antitrust ruling breaks Live Nation's grip on booking concerts

When Pedro Carvalho tries to book a rising artist at the Far Out Lounge in South Austin, he sometimes offers substantially more money than larger promoters and still loses the show. The reason, he said, has less to do with price than access: Artists often stick with Live Nation-connected tours and venues in hopes of landing bigger bookings and festival slots later. That dynamic was at the center of a federal antitrust case that found Live Nation and Ticketmaster operated as an illegal monopoly, a ruling that could reshape how concerts are booked nationwide, including in Austin. “They have these strong grips and holds on these agencies, and they say, ‘If you [don’t play] a Live Nation venue, then you are not gonna play one of the Live Nation festivals,’” said Carvalho, who co-owns Far Out Lounge. “So we can’t compete even with dollars.” The lawsuit, brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of states, now moves into a remedies phase that could determine whether Live Nation must change how it operates. Potential outcomes could include limits on its control of venues and ticketing, or requirements to alter how it contracts with artists and promoters.

Live Nation has already indicated it plans to appeal the ruling, though any challenge would likely come after a judge determines penalties, setting up what could be a prolonged legal fight. For independent promoters and venue operators in Austin, that timeline dampens any expectations of sweeping, business-altering changes anytime soon. Live Nation has become deeply embedded across the live event ecosystem. The company, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, operates as a promoter, venue owner and ticketing provider, giving it influence over multiple stages of how shows are booked and sold. For smaller companies, that reach can be difficult to work around. Randy Cohen, founder of Austin-based ticket broker TicketCity, said his company once tried to compete directly as a ticket marketplace but eventually moved away from that approach. It now focuses on buying blocks of tickets and reselling them on other platforms. “It’s a deep-pocket game,” Cohen said, describing how Ticketmaster can afford to spend far more on ads to get customers to click and buy through them. “We lost that battle.” In Austin, Live Nation’s influence often shows up not as a direct barrier, but as a factor in how tours are built from the start, shaping which venues artists play and which promoters get access to them.

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Mayor Jones’ chief of staff Jenise Carroll also departs City Hall

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ chief of staff Jenise Carroll resigned Wednesday — days after her deputy chief of staff Pat Wallace also left the office. Like the mayor, Carroll is an Air Force veteran with a background in federal policy. She moved to San Antonio for the job in July of last year, replacing Jones’ first chief, Jordan Abelson, who served as campaign manager before resigning just weeks into the job. Though Carroll was new to city government, she seemed to gain the respect of the council staff in other offices. As of Wednesday evening, her city email address was providing an automatic reply saying she’s no longer with the mayor’s office. It directed questions to the mayor’s executive assistant Laura Atamosa. Carroll later confirmed in an email that she’d resigned.

In a statement Wednesday night, Jones thanked Carroll for her leadership. “A superb professional, she brought a focused discipline that helped the office quickly make progress on my priority initiatives,” Jones said. “I wish Dr. Carroll only the very best in her next steps.” In the meantime, Jones’ communications director, Andrew Fuentes, will serve as acting chief of staff. Fuentes previously worked for the U.S. Department of Labor, and for then-U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California).

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National Stories

Florida lawmakers pass a voting map that could help Republicans flip 4 House seats

Florida lawmakers have approved a new congressional map that could position Republicans to win four additional U.S. House seats in the midterm elections in November. The 21-17 vote for final passage in the Senate came just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in a decision on a Louisiana congressional district Wednesday morning. Both developments will assist President Trump's national push to help the GOP in the midterm elections. With the Florida redistricting, the GOP likely gains an advantage of two or three new seats as Republican-led states have followed Trump's call and Democratic-led states have countered it.

However, control of the House will depend on the votes in November. Democrats have said the redraw in Florida makes several GOP seats more competitive, potentially leading to smaller seat gains if strong Democratic performances seen in recent special elections continue. The bill now goes for expected signing by Gov. Ron DeSantis. He has argued that the state's rapid population growth requires redistricting. And he's urged the redrawing of districts that were drawn with consideration for preserving the voting power of minority communities. He had predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would weaken the Voting Rights Act in a way that would support redistricting in Florida. Indeed, after that morning ruling, he posted on X that the it "invalidates" a Florida constitutional ban on districts that deny "the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process." But DeSantis' office has also released a color-coded map showing the partisan effect of the redistricting. Currently, the state has 28 districts with 20 leaning toward the GOP. The new map raises that to 24 districts favoring the GOP, according to the governor's office.

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Legal filing raises questions about who shot Secret Service officer at press dinner

A U.S. government court filing on Wednesday raised questions about officials’ initial assertions that a gunman shot a Secret ?Service officer while allegedly attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, fired a ?shotgun "in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom" where Trump, other administration officials and members of the press were gathered on Saturday night, according to the pretrial detention motion, which offered the government's most extensive account yet of the incident. In the motion, prosecutors referred to an officer firing five times, but the document does not mention that officer or any ?other being shot. A spent cartridge was found in the suspect's shotgun, according to Wednesday's motion.

The document did not accuse Allen of aiming at or ?striking the Secret Service officer who authorities say was shot in the chest but protected by his body armor. That contrasts with ?statements made earlier by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. It also raises the question of who ?fired the round that struck the Secret Service officer. Hours after the incident, Pirro told reporters that the suspect would be charged with "assault on a federal officer using a ?dangerous weapon," though that is not among the charges brought so far. Pirro has said Allen could face additional charges. Prosecutors did charge Allen with attempting to assassinate the president. Blanche told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that he believed shots from Allen's shotgun hit the officer. He reiterated that belief at a press conference on Monday, but added the caveat, "We're still looking at that."

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Louisiana governor prepares to suspend House primaries after court ruling

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) told Republican House candidates Wednesday that he plans to suspend next month’s primary elections so state lawmakers can pass a new congressional map first, according to two people with knowledge of the calls. The move follows a Supreme Court decision earlier in the day that found Louisiana had unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority Black congressional district under legal pressure. The ruling positions Republicans to gain one or two seats in the midterms as they fight to hold their narrow majority in the House. The 6-3 decision limited a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act and could lead to other Black Democrats across the South losing their House seats. Most states are unlikely to be able to redraw districts in time for the November midterm elections, but Louisiana could be one of the exceptions.

Landry’s announcement to suspend the May 16 primary could come as early as Friday — one day before early voting is to begin, according to people familiar with his plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Election officials sent ballots to overseas voters weeks ago. It’s unclear whether the governor’s suspension would apply only to primaries for the six House seats, or include other elections, including the heated Senate primary that pits incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) against Rep. Julia Letlow (R). Louisiana has six House seats, two of which are held by Democrats. A spokesperson for Landry declined to comment on his plans for the primary. Earlier in the day, Landry said the Supreme Court “affirmed what we have said for years: drawing districts for political reasons is the States’ prerogative, not a federal civil rights violation.” If Landry suspends the House primaries but not other contests, primary voters would have to go to the polls twice, just weeks or months apart from each other.

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Voting rights ruling means a big shakeup is coming for Black Caucus

Black members of Congress are bracing for a crippling shakeup of their ranks after a Supreme Court ruling gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act that had protected minority communities in political redistricting and helped boost their representation. Wednesday’s decision clears the way for Republican-led states to redraw U.S. House districts without regard to race, potentially creating many more GOP-friendly seats. Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters that its members and Democrats would fight the effects of the ruling. “The Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on Black voters across the country,” Clarke said. “This is an outright power grab.”

Clarke was joined by over a dozen of the 60 Black Caucus members, including Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Their responses to the court’s decision ranged from outrage to defiance to mourning. It’s not clear how many seats will ultimately be affected by the ruling, but redistricting experts predict that more than a dozen now held by minorities could be swept away. Rep. Troy Carter, one of two Black Democrats from Louisiana, the state at the center of the case, called the ruling “a devastating blow to our democracy, plain and simple.” Republican leaders in several Southern states already have been discussing how to apply the ruling and create new GOP-friendly congressional maps. In Florida, Republicans wasted no time approving a new U.S. House map, part of which redrew one district created to elect a Black representative. “I would be surprised if we do not see former slave-holding states moving at lightning speed to target districts that provide Black voters and other voters of color an equal opportunity to elect candidates,” said Kristen Clarke, general counsel for the NAACP and the first Black woman to be assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division.

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Takeaways from Hegseth’s testimony on Iran war and his tenure

In his first major public appearance before Congress since the beginning of the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the biggest adversary the United States faced was not Iran’s military, but the “feckless and defeatist words” of Democrats and some Republican lawmakers. It was a preview of what turned out to be a contentious debate over the Iran war. The Defense Department’s nearly $1.45 trillion budget request was ostensibly the reason for the House Armed Services Committee hearing, but lawmakers made little mention of it during several hours of questioning.

Mr. Hegseth offered a full-throated defense of “Operation Epic Fury,” which began on Feb. 28. Sitting next to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Jay Hurst, the Pentagon comptroller, Mr. Hegseth repeatedly stressed that the war was necessary because Iran posed an “existential threat” to the United States. The defense secretary grew testy during the hearing and mocked the questions of Democratic lawmakers, prompting a rare admonition from the committee chairman. Here are the main takeaways from the hearing. Mr. Hurst said that figure is mostly representative of the tens of thousands of bombs and missiles used in the conflict. It was the first time the Defense Department has publicly provided a cost estimate for the war. The war has consumed a large percentage of the Pentagon’s longest-range conventional munitions, such as air-launched stealth cruise missiles and ground-launched Precision Strike Missiles. General Caine mentioned that 14 U.S. military service members have died as part of Operation Epic Fury, although the Pentagon’s casualty analysis system online showed 13 U.S. deaths as of Wednesday morning. The 14th service member was Maj. Sorffly Davius of the Army National Guard, who according to ABC News died on March 6 after a medical emergency in Kuwait. Two Pentagon representatives, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, confirmed the death.

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Airbnb hosts prepped their homes for a World Cup windfall. They’re still waiting.

Mae Stewart has prepared for two years to host Airbnb guests at her Atlanta home during this summer’s World Cup. The design consultant refurnished the floors, relit the rooms and replaced the vanities. She put in new countertops and faucets. She monitored the pricing strategy for competing homes and made sure to rent hers out enough times to generate reviews with a high rating. Stewart did all this, spending roughly $60,000 in total, to lure soccer ticket holders who would be willing to splurge on her three-bedroom house. She is charging roughly $4,500 for a weeklong stay in mid-July during the tournament, about three times the price of what she’ll charge shortly after the World Cup. Now, she just needs someone to actually come. With the games less than two months away, Stewart is among thousands of Airbnb hosts hoping for last-minute bookings.

Uncertain travelers are grappling with surging costs from dynamic ticket pricing and pricier airfare. Hosts are also contending with the number of foreign fans put off by U.S. politics and more burdensome requirements to enter the country. Airbnb is advising hosts not to panic. Many bookings typically land shortly before a marquee event begins. Plenty of soccer fans won’t want to book a stay for a later round in the tournament until they know that their team has made it to that stage, according to Juan David Borrero, Airbnb’s global head of partnerships. “I think we’re going to see more demand as the tournament starts to unfold,” he said, “just because that is the nature of the tournament.” But that requires much patience from those who have been banking for months—sometimes years—on a hefty payday. The bulk of World Cup hosts on Airbnb, and other short-term rental companies such as Vrbo, are still waiting for guests.

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Mike Johnson’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Just about everyone is mad at Mike Johnson this week. The majority of the House Republican Conference, GOP senators, the White House and even members of his own leadership team are fighting with the embattled House speaker and believe Johnson has lost control of his members. They are also confused by his strategy, as he has repeatedly fumbled attempts to get must-pass legislation through the chamber. “Right now, it’s a shit show,” Rep. Chip Roy said. Asked to described Johnson’s handling of this week, another member simply said: “fucked.” After days of false starts, Johnson was finally able to get the rule on a controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act over the line and ultimately pass the FISA extension with Democratic votes and later pass the Republican budget resolution after hours of cajoling. But his conference walked away from the process scarred.

Some Republicans told NOTUS it was unwise for Johnson to have clumped multiple controversial bills into one rule — including one for Republicans’ budget blueprint for reconciliation. That decision deterred Democrats, who went out of their way to support the failed rule on FISA earlier this month. “This is what happens when you have leadership who can’t organize a one-car parade,” one senior Republican told NOTUS. Johnson stood by his game plan and told NOTUS that “this was the only way to have done it, and we’ll get through it.” “We’ve been working really hard to get consensus in here from all corners of the conference and get all viewpoints,” the speaker added. “It’s sometimes impossible to touch nearly 220 people, but most of the interests certainly been listened to.” However, everything boiled over on Wednesday night. To get the rule passed, Johnson had to make a deal with the holdouts. In exchange for their support, Johnson promised that faction of the conference he would postpone a vote on the farm bill, three sources told NOTUS, which has not been reauthorized since 2018, angering another faction of Republicans who wanted the bill on the floor this week.

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Lead Stories

Camp Mystic owners defend safeguards put in place after deadly floods

Family members who own and operate Camp Mystic expressed deep sorrow on Tuesday as they testified about their actions during last summer's deadly floods, which left 25 campers and two counselors dead. But they also defended their work to better prepare for such emergencies going forward, even as some lawmakers said they should no longer be permitted to continue operating the facility. "I think about the night of the flood every moment of every day. We tried our hardest that night, and it wasn't enough to save your daughters," said Edward Eastland, a camp director whose father had run Camp Mystic for several decades before dying in the flooding trying to rescue children. "Every moment of every day is hard. And yet that pain feels like nothing compared to what you're going through. To talk openly about our pain feels like I'm insulting you."

Eastland, along with his wife Mary Liz, and bothers Britt and Richard, were questioned for nearly three hours by a special Texas House and Senate committee investigating the tragedy. On Monday, the panel's investigative team laid out a minute-by-minute timeline of the storm and highlighted numerous missteps and lost opportunities to get every child in the all-girls Christian camp to safety. The panel was expected to hear from parents of the children who have died, as well from state regulators, later in Tuesday's hearing. Each member of the Eastland family said they are still grappling with grief and guilt with the help of therapy and prayer. They told the panel that they had done the best the could under horrendous and frightening circumstances, the likes of which they had never experienced, despite growing in the part of the Hill Country often called "flash flood alley" and being associated with Camp Mystic for much of their lives. State Sen. Lois Kolkorst, R-Brenham, questioned whether the family members are yet psychologically able to adequately care for the hundreds of children who would return to their camp. Others on the panel were more direct.

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UAE exit weakens OPEC+ power over oil market but group to stay together, sources say

OPEC and its allies will lose some of their power over the oil market when the United Arab Emirates leaves the group on May 1, but the rest of the producer alliance is likely to stick together ?and continue to coordinate on oil supply policy, OPEC+ delegates and analysts said on Tuesday. The UAE is the fourth-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and said it would quit the ?group on Tuesday after nearly 60 years as a member. That will free Abu Dhabi from the oil production targets imposed by OPEC and its allies to balance supply and demand. The UAE's exit came as a shock, said five OPEC+ sources, who asked not to be named as they are not allowed to speak to the press.

The exit would complicate OPEC+'s efforts to balance the market through adjustments to supply because the group would have control over less of global production, four of the five sources said. The UAE will become the largest oil producer to depart ?OPEC, a heavy blow to the organization and its de facto leader Saudi Arabia. Abu Dhabi pumped around 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd) or about 3% of the world's crude supply before the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran ?forced it and other Middle East Gulf producers to curb shipments and shut down some production. OPEC and the Saudi government communication office did not immediately reply to a request for ?comment. Once outside OPEC, the UAE will join the ranks of independent oil producers that pump at will, such as the United States and Brazil. For now, there is not much the UAE can do to increase production or exports due to ?the effective closure of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. If and when shipping recovers to pre-war levels, the UAE could increase output to the country's capacity of 5 million bpd of crude oil and liquids. There has been tension between the ?UAE and Saudi Arabia over the Emiratis' production quota, which stands at 3.5 million bpd. The UAE has asked for a bigger quota to reflect the fact that it had expanded capacity as part of a $150 billion investment program.

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Albright leaves hundreds of cases for busy colleagues to finish

Judge Alan Albright, after spending years making his Texas courtroom a national hub for patent litigation, is leaving behind one of the longest backlogs of cases of any federal judge for his colleagues to see through when he leaves the bench at the end of August. The Western District of Texas had 129 civil cases pending for three years or longer, as of last September—and 70% belonged to Albright. He also accounted for 63% of the 706 civil motions that were ripe for a decision for six months or longer but hadn’t been resolved. Albright had 446 undecided motions as of September 2025, nearly twice that of any other district judge in the three states that make up the Fifth Circuit. Albright’s judicial colleagues in Austin, Robert Pitman and David Ezra, had none. “He has a huge docket that now the other judges are going to have,” said Lee Yeakel, who was a judge in the Western District of Texas until 2023, “because it’s not going to go down appreciably by the end of August, no matter how hard he works.”

The former patent litigator revealed April 21 he’ll step down after eight years and return to practicing law as an attorney. He said he held off on the announcement until the Senate confirmed judicial nominations in Austin and Waco, two divisions in the district where he hears cases, rather than create another opening. His list of undecided cases highlights the struggles Albright was having on the bench—and a growing disinterest toward cases that are outside of his patent wheelhouse. Last December, he issued an order referring all criminal matters and many civil matters to a magistrate judge to make recommendations for Albright to review. He held onto only habeas corpus petitions, ex parte applications for temporary restraining orders, and patent cases. “There will be a significant adjustment,” after Albright leaves,” Ezra, a senior judge who maintains a full docket, said in an interview. Together, Ezra will tackle Albright’s caseload with Pitman and Andrew Davis, a former Lehotsky Keller Cohn partner who is on his way to Austin following his confirmation in the Senate on April 20. Other judges in the district have volunteered to chip in, Chief Judge Alia Moses said. It’s unclear how quickly the White House will move to replace him. “We’re going to make every effort to minimize the disruptions and get matters resolved as quickly as possible,” Ezra said.

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It’s all falling apart for House GOP this week

The wheels are coming off the House Republican Conference. In a week that was supposed to set the tone for a furious period of election-year legislating, Speaker Mike Johnson’s House GOP majority is once again the epitome of discord and dysfunction. It’s not really clear how House Republicans will get through the next few days. Johnson’s leadership team may lose yet another big rule vote. There’s constant grumbling inside House Republican leadership circles as people snipe at one another. Senate Republicans are furious with their House GOP counterparts. The White House seems fed up with the chaotic House GOP conference too. Plus, the stakes couldn’t be higher, politically and policy-wise.

After a Rules Committee hearing that stretched from Monday to Tuesday, House GOP leadership plans to go to the floor today with a blueprint for debating several key bills. These include a FISA Section 702 renewal; a farm bill; legislation allowing the year-round sale of E15 ethanol fuel; and a budget resolution to fund ICE and Border Patrol. But that GOP-drafted rule looks destined to fail, another potentially devastating misstep for Johnson and his top lieutenants. And then what? Will Johnson keep the House in over the weekend? Will Johnson cancel the upcoming week-long May recess? Will Johnson have to punt to the Senate to ensure that the nation’s most critical foreign surveillance program doesn’t expire? House Republicans want to portray themselves as the “grownups” in Washington ahead of what’s expected to be a difficult midterm election. But at this point, they look like amateurs — and their majority is in deep trouble. The legislative morass. Despite months of internal discussions, House Republicans can’t agree among themselves about how to move forward on extending FISA Section 702, a critical surveillance authority that expires Thursday.

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State Stories

Only 3 Texas summer camps approved to open as licensing deadline nears

Only three Texas summer camps have received licenses to operate this summer, as camps race to navigate a slate of strict new laws enacted following last year's catastrophic Hill Country floods. The deadline is nearing, with camps across the state scheduled to open in one month. Camp leaders said they are growing anxious about the tight timeline but remain optimistic the licensing process will be completed in time. “Everyone wants camps to open, and everyone wants safe camps,” said Eddie Walker, executive director of Mt. Lebanon Camp in Cedar Hill, one of the largest faith-based camps in the state. “But the process is challenging this year.”

State lawmakers last year passed a flurry of laws following the July flood that killed 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic, an all-girls’ camp in Hill Country. Parents of the girls, who became known as “Heaven’s 27,” pushed for reforms that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Under the new laws, camps are required to install emergency warning and public address systems, provide mandatory safety training to campers and distribute emergency plans to families. Some must build new cabins and move existing cabins out of dangerous floodplains, as designated by Federal Emergency Management Agency maps. Camps must outline safety and compliance details in thorough emergency plans. Unlike previous years, camps are now required to submit those plans to the Department of State Health Services, which is responsible for issuing licenses to both day and overnight camps. Texas state Rep. Wes Virdell, who represents Kerr County, which assumed the brunt of flood devastation, said he has heard from numerous camps struggling to meet the state's new requirements. Like other critics, Virdell worried the laws would financially cripple decades-old camps and create an unrealistic timeline for them to comply. "Ultimately, legislators passed a sloppy bill that is now causing massive trouble for camps across Texas," said Virdell, a Republican. "This was an egregious overreach by lawmakers."

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Meet the small-town Texas mayor whose vision is reshaping how cities like Dallas govern — and who controls their decisions

In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit accusing Dallas officials of failing to adequately fund the city’s police department and violating a voter-approved measure requiring it to hire up to 900 new officers. “I filed this lawsuit to ensure that the City of Dallas fully funds law enforcement, upholds public safety, and is accountable to its constituents,” Paxton said in a news release demanding that the city adhere to a 2024 change in its charter. “When voters demand more funding for law enforcement, local officials must immediately comply.” The reason Paxton could pursue such action, the reason the Dallas city charter even requires hiring more officers, was due in large part to a man named Art Martinez de Vara. A private attorney with a law practice based in Houston and a tiny South Texas town called Von Ormy, Martinez de Vara was one of the driving forces behind the changes in the charter that opened Dallas up to such a lawsuit in the first place.

Martinez de Vara’s personal website lists him as a state historian, an anthropologist and an attorney, in that order. He’s also the mayor of Von Ormy, a community of 1,100 people. But over the past two decades, Martinez de Vara has been much more than that. He has made a name for himself in Texas conservative circles as the architect behind the formation of a handful of small towns with austere — nearly nonexistent — local governments. His push for limited-government concepts is not out of the norm in Texas, a state that has long worn that badge with pride. But the so-called “liberty city” experiment, in which communities agree to lean governments, little to no taxation and scant regulation, never grew into a large-scale movement. So in recent years, Martinez de Vara and other limited-government advocates have taken a different tack: They’ve ramped up efforts to restrict local governments’ ability to decide how they spend their money and which policies they can adopt. That’s what happened in Dallas. Two years ago, Martinez de Vara joined a coalition of power players associated with a nonprofit called Dallas HERO, a group funded in part by Republican megadonor and Dallas-area hotelier Monty Bennett.

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Pharr mayor, AT&T rep clash at heated meeting

Normally, mayors and city commissioners do not comment during public testimony at commission meetings. They let the public have their say without responding. But Pharr Mayor Ambrosio Hernandez felt he had to comment after listening to AT&T representative Mario Barragan criticize a proposed amendment to a City of Pharr’s ordinance. Hernandez said: “The only truthful statement you made was your name and who you represent. The rest of it was all fluff. But you're entitled to your opinion.” In his remarks, Barragan said: “Good afternoon commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again. Mario Barragan, director of external legislative affairs for AT&T in South Texas. Mayor and commissioners, as you're already aware, AT&T remains opposed to this ordinance and the proposed amendment because we have raised concerns that have gone unaddressed."

“Through this ordinance and proposed amendment, the city is using its regulatory authority to compel private parties to support a government-owned network by shifting costs onto builders, businesses, renters and families, ultimately families in Pharr. At the same time, private providers are left trying to compete in the market where the city is writing the rules to benefit its own network. This government overreach discourages private investment, undermines competition and leaves consumers with fewer choices, less innovation and higher costs. In short, this is not good for Pharr residents." “As we have stated previously, this ordinance conflicts with state and federal law and goes far beyond ordinary development standards and uses the permitting and occupancy process to advantage the city's broadband operation over competitors. If the city truly wants greater connectivity and more investment for its residents, the answer is to adopt lawful, balanced policies that encourage all providers to compete. We respectfully ask that you work with us and other community organizations that have raised similar concerns on a balanced approach that expands connectivity without undermining competition or shifting costs onto the public. Thank you.”

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City of Austin will push for new driverless vehicle legislation

Austin leaders plan to ask state lawmakers to pass new rules for autonomous vehicles driving on Texas roads. The city’s legislative recommendations, including higher fees for safety violations and a new digital system for law enforcement to ticket AVs, were sparked in part by videos and reports of a Waymo blocking first responders after a mass shooting on Sixth Street in March. The city is also recommending autonomous vehicles stay out of a 1,000-foot radius for an hour during serious emergencies. The Austin Police Department already issues geofencing alerts to AV companies during some big events and emergencies, but complaints KXAN obtained from first responders show there have been issues with AVs still driving in those areas.

Austin’s recommendations are detailed in the Mobility Committee’s Wednesday meeting materials. Some of the committee’s recommendations appear to already be reflected in Texas law or are already occurring at some level within the city. A posted copy of the city’s presentation recommends the city hold regular meetings with AV companies on how they are working to improve their systems. APD officials said the department’s officers and other first responders have regularly been meeting with Waymo while it has been operating in the city, including a meeting that happened after the mass shooting to discuss a Waymo blocking an ambulance. The presentation also includes a legislative recommendation to “ensure the [Texas Department of Motor Vehicles] has the authority to immediately limit [and] restrict operations in fatal or serious injury crashes.” State lawmakers already passed a law last legislative session allowing the DMV to do just that. Starting on May 28, the DMV will have authority to restrict an AV operator, if an investigation finds its vehicle has caused, or is likely to cause, serious bodily injury.

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Trump’s new tool to speed up wall construction may be a trap for Texas landowners

As President Donald Trump’s second administration rushes to wall off the Texas border, landowners along the Rio Grande are being pushed to let construction begin on their property before the federal government purchases or condemns it. Owners of real estate on the border are receiving letters from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) offering a signing bonus of up to $5,000 to let government contractors survey their property and begin wall construction. In copies of the letters obtained by the Texas Observer, CBP promises to negotiate with landowners to purchase their real estate at a later date. They include a warning that if property owners don’t agree to the signing bonus or quickly sell, the government will file a lawsuit to condemn their property. It’s a new tactic. Past administrations, including Trump’s first, simply sought to survey land as the initial step, according to documents reviewed by the Observer and multiple attorneys, with the government taking landowners to court who refused access. Property owners often received only $100 at this step.

Negotiations over and possible condemnation of the land itself, using eminent domain, would come later and take place before construction began. In property condemnation proceedings, construction may still begin partway through the process thanks to the feds’ “quick take” power, but a court ultimately decides appropriate compensation. The letters being sent to landowners this year are “very different” than before, said Carlos E. Flores, a Laredo attorney who has represented landowners facing condemnation lawsuits for the border wall. “These actually give permission by the landowner to allow for construction operations on the property,” he said. “Theoretically if a person were to sign one of these [agreements], the government could come in, do measurements and build the wall.” The famed Big Bend national and state parks aside, nearly all the land along the Texas-Mexico border is privately owned. This has slowed down past presidential administrations’ wall-building efforts in the state, and most of the Texas border remains unfenced—though the Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas hosts significant wall stretches and could soon see itself entirely divorced from its river. Last year, Congress appropriated an unprecedented $46.5 billion for border barrier construction, including both 30-foot-tall steel fencing and river buoys, and the Trump administration has already awarded contracts for wall construction in Texas, despite having purchased very little property.

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Temple residents seeking to recall Mayor and City Council members over data concerns

A dispute over data centers moving into Temple has led a group to begin collecting signatures to recall the mayor and two members of City Council. Over the past several months, the City of Temple has approved two Rowan Digital Infrastructure data centers, and another one is working its way through the public hearing process. Some residents of Temple fear these centers are popping up too fast, and don’t like the way City Council is pushing them through. “They’re not listening to the people and they’re not doing basic due diligence, like, what’s the impact this is going to have on our community,” asked Joe Royer, one of the leaders of Temple Stands Together. In a statement released to FOX 44, the city disagrees with Royer and says they have done their due diligence.

“The City Council considers a wide range of factors when reviewing items for its consideration – including annexation requests, zoning cases, and potential development or incentive agreements. These factors include the impact to both existing infrastructure and the effect on future infrastructure planning, proposed economic impact, availability of current and future resources, alignment with the City’s future development plan, and how the matter may affect the future of the city and its residents,” wrote the City of Temple. Along with Temple, Rowan Digital Infrastructure also spoke about the work they’re doing to integrate into the community. “Rowan is a sustainable data developer, which means that we approach development with that lens every decision we make, and that includes power and water,” said Nathaniel Brown, the Director of Public Relations & Strategic Communications for Rowan. In a City Council meeting on April 16th, Royer along with dozens of other concerned residents voiced their concerns to City Council members about the partnership with Rowan. Representatives from Rowan were also present to answer any questions residents had. The meeting went on for over seven hours, due to the number of public comments, and ended with City Council unanimously voting to approve a development agreement with Rowan on another data center.

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Texas inmate James Broadnax denied clemency as execution nears

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency to James Broadnax, closing one of the final paths available to halt his Thursday execution. The vote against recommending clemency or reprieve was unanimous, according to a memo obtained Tuesday by The Dallas Morning News. The decision comes two days before Broadnax, 37, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Huntsville.

Clemency in Texas is historically rare for death row inmates, with only three cases since the penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to data tracked by the Death Penalty Information Center. Texas governors can't issue a pardon, commutation, or reprieve without a written recommendation from the board, but they do have the authority to grant a one-time reprieve of execution. In 2018, Gov. Greg Abbott commuted Thomas ?“Bart” Whitaker’s death sentence to life without parole. He listed several reasons, including the surviving victim’s opposition to execution and the fact that the man who killed the victims did not receive the death penalty. Broadnax raised the latter in his own appeals. In June 2008, court documents say Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, set out to rob Matthew Butler and Stephen Swan outside their music studio in Garland. By the time they left, Butler, 28, and Swan, 26, were dead, and the cousins had taken only $2 and a 1995 Ford. Broadnax and Cummings were both 19 at the time. The cousins were convicted of capital murder in separate trials. Broadnax, who was tried as the shooter, was sentenced to death, while Cummings, who was tried as his accomplice, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But on March 11, Cummings signed a written declaration stating it was he who shot Swan and Butler, not Broadnax. Cummings wrote that he persuaded his cousin to take the blame based on the circumstances of their criminal records.

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The U.S. wants to ban China’s high-tech cars, but they’re already here in El Paso

Just 5 miles from the U.S. border, a bustling commercial strip here offers the buzzy Chinese car brands currently blocked from the American market. A Geely dealership features the all-electric EX2, a sleek compact that starts at only around $20,000. A bulky hybrid pickup truck sits next to a charger outside a BYD dealership. Great Wall Motors boasts some beefy gas-powered sport-utility vehicles, one advertised with the slogan “Be More Tank.” Luis Hernandez, a Geely salesman, said he has poached many longtime Ford and Chevrolet owners attracted to the affordable sticker prices and whiz-bang Chinese technology. He recently sold two Geely Emgrand sedans, which start at around $17,000, to a Mexican family for their two daughters to commute to college in El Paso, where the sleekest Chinese cars are now attracting attention.

“If they were allowed to be sold in the United States,” Hernandez boasted of the Chinese models, “they would destroy the American car market.” U.S. automotive executives don’t entirely disagree. Without a clear plan to deal with Chinese competitors, some of them said in interviews, the arrival of affordable, high-tech Chinese cars could upend a U.S. industry that contributes $1.3 trillion to the economy each year. “I’m telling you, it is very difficult—not to say impossible—to compete,” said Hyundai Motor Chief Executive José Muñoz. “We cannot compete at the same price as the Chinese in the market where we operate. Otherwise, we will be losing money.” So far, the many Chinese car companies that want to expand into the U.S. have been kept at bay. The U.S. has applied sky-high tariffs to vehicles imported from China, and regulations make it nearly impossible for such vehicles purchased in Mexico to be registered in the U.S. A trio of senators has urged the Trump administration this month to ban Chinese vehicles sold and registered in Mexico and Canada from entering the country; several dozen House lawmakers sent a similar letter this week.

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Alex Jones files motion to stop Infowars licensing deal with the Onion

Alex Jones, the embattled Austin-based conspiracist who was ordered to pay $1.4 billion to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, filed an emergency motion Monday in an effort to stymie an attempt to turn control of Infowars over to satirical news outlet the Onion. Jones had told his millions of viewers on his web-based show Infowars that the shooting never took place, was a false flag operation, and that the grieving parents were crisis actors. He would later admit he was wrong about the shooting. His accusations caused numerous online attacks on the families, according to court testimony. Global Tetrahedron, the company behind the Onion, filed a motion to approve an agreement with the court-appointed receiver of Free Speech Systems, Jones’ former company, in a state district court in Travis County to license the logos, trademarks, domain and properties associated with Jones’ media property Infowars.

Under the deal, War Is Over LLC — an affiliate of Global Tetrahedron — would pay $81,000 per month to license Infowars.com and related intellectual property, according to court records obtained by the Austin American-Statesman. The proposal is backed by families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, who won defamation judgments against Jones and his Austin-based company. It is the second attempt by the Onion to take control of InfoWars. A bankruptcy court blocked an earlier offer. Jones filed an emergency motion for a temporary pause with the 3rd Court of Appeals. In court documents he says The Onion wants to destroy the value of Free Speech Systems, the umbrella company, and mislead his audience, citing new coverage and the comments of Onion executives. “The licensee’s intentions are clear and, remarkably, reflect its stated desire — destroy the value of the FSS assets,” read the motion. The Onion recently announced that Tim Heidecker, comedian, director, Second City alum and longtime Adult Swim showrunner, would steer the new iteration of Infowars. Jones lashed out online after the news, making demonstrably false allegations against Heidecker. The motion argues that the district court cannot rule on the agreement while the issue is before the appeals court, where it has been for the last three months. It also argues the agreement is void because ultimate authority rests with the bankruptcy court for the Southern District of Texas, which has a stay on collections.

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Fort Worth ISD board unanimously votes to cut dozens more staff positions

Fort Worth school district’s Board of Managers voted on Tuesday to implement another reduction in force despite overwhelming, often aggressive pushback from parents and community members during a marathon board meeting that included over six hours of public comments. Tuesday’s approved cuts impact staff members in the departments of Talent Management, Communications and Community Partnerships and Financial Services. The board voted unanimously to approve the reduction in force. Most of the cuts are related to positions that assist Early Language Learners.

The staff cuts come after days of intense debate and passionate difference of opinion from parents and education leaders across Fort Worth who argue the district would be worse off with less ESL, speech therapy and bilingual-related staffers. Superintendent Peter Licata said there will not be any less ESL, ELL, or emergent bilingual instruction, and argued it would actually be stronger. The board also voted to close International Newcomer Academy, the district’s only campuses designated for immigrant and refugee students new to the country. More than 130 people signed up to address the board during a public comment session that took so long the board paused for a five-minute recess halfway through to change microphone batteries. Most who spoke complained about how the district has not shared a plan on how students who require ELL instruction will continue to do so after staff cuts. “While overall district enrollment has declined, the emergent bilingual enrollment has continued to increase,” said Alice Garcia, the district’s emergent bilingual director. “Our students who are learning English are not disappearing. They are arriving, many as newcomers, immigrants, refugees, often with interrupted education, significant resilience and a strong desire to belong and succeed.”

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Hemp industry in court to argue for an extended pause on intoxicating hemp ban

The Texas hemp industry has two-and-a-half days to extend the judicial pause against new Department of State Health Services (DSHS) rules which essentially ban smokable intoxicating hemp. The rules originated from a Gov. Greg Abbott executive order issued in September 2025, but the fight over hemp started much earlier. Last spring, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the Texas Senate passed Senate Bill 3 attempting to ban hemp containing any amount of THC. Eventually, SB 3 made it to Abbott’s desk — where he vetoed it at the last minute. Instead he ordered the legislature to take a less restrictive approach during a pair of special sessions — and when they failed to do so, instructed state agencies to take actions like DSHS’ through an executive order.

The change became official on March 31. Previously, hemp was defined as a cannabis plant with less than 0.3% total THC. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), Delta-9 THC, commonly just known as THC, is a naturally-occurring chemical compound which grants users the “high” feeling. While 0.3% is not enough THC to make smokers feel any significant effects, Tetrahydrocannabinol Acid (THCA) could legally be found at any limit. When the THCA is exposed to heat (like being smoked), it decarboxylates — turning about 88% of the THCA into THC. Additionally, the industry is challenging a rule change dramatically increasing the fees for hemp producers and hemp retailers. Previously, hemp stores needed to pay a $150 fee to DSHS for their annual license. Under the new rules, they will have to pay $5,000. Similarly, hemp manufacturers currently have to pay $250 in license fees per facility. Under the new rules, they will be required to pay $10,000. On April 10, Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble granted the hemp industry at temporary restraining order to prevent an enforcement of the new rules. The order was later extended until May 1, the day after the two-and-a-half day hearing is set to end. The Hemp industry, represented by the Texas Hemp Business Council, Hemp Industry & Farmers of America and several Texas-based hemp companies, is asking Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle to grant a permanent injunction against the new rules until the full case is heard.

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Austin ISD to pause additional school closures, advance rezoning amid $181M budget shortfall

Austin ISD is planning to hold off on future school closures while moving forward with adopting new attendance boundaries. District officials discussed potential changes for the 2027-28 school year as AISD faces a $181 million budget shortfall and considers potential staff layoffs for fiscal year 2026-27. AISD Superintendent Matias Segura confirmed his decision to pause additional school closures in a letter posted to the district's website April 26. “I am very much committed to moving forward the boundary process but have concerns around taking on consolidations,” Segura said at an April 23 board meeting. In November, the AISD board of trustees voted to close 10 campuses this summer to address declining enrollment and mounting budgetary concerns.

Weeks before the board’s vote, AISD scaled back its initial plans to rezone students districtwide along with closing Maplewood, Bryker Woods and Palm elementaries amid community pushback and a district investigation. The district opened an investigation after community members shared concerns about district officials leading the school consolidation process. In an online update from January, Segura said the district's internal investigation determined "that the integrity of the process was maintained throughout the entire process." Segura said the district would resume its rezoning work and consider future school closures this fall. Going forward, AISD will focus on strengthening the district's special education services while improving student achievement at low-performing schools with turnaround plans, Segura said in an online update. Additionally, AISD will work to stabilize its budget, support families impacted by school closures next school year, improve declining enrollment and advance its 2022 bond projects. "Given the challenges we have taken on recently, I cannot put additional strain on our community that might detract from this strong progress," Segura states in his letter.

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Deadline nears for Texans to weigh in on future of state agencies

Texas residents have the opportunity to share ideas for improving agencies that serve families. The Texas Sunset process evaluates the performances of state agencies to determine if they should continue, be restructured or even abolished. Currently, the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission is reviewing the operations of 16 agencies and seeking input from the public. Diana Forester, director of health policy for the group Texans Care for Children, said they are proposing changes for the Department of Family and Protective Services, the Health and Human Services Commission and State Health Services.

"Right now there's some gaps in major children's mental health services," Forester explained. "Texas covers the most basic care and the most intensive care. When children are already eligible for health coverage, we want to make sure that they're able to sign up and stay covered." She added their goal is to make sure Texans who are eligible for benefits get the coverage they need. Recommendations can be made through April 30, via a public input form on the commission’s website. Commission members will propose changes to lawmakers during next year’s legislative session. Forester stressed anyone has the opportunity to submit their ideas to the state government. "Texans could share (their) experiences accessing services or navigating the eligibility process for Medicaid or SNAP, challenges you or your organization face when working with state systems," Forester outlined. "Then, ideas for improved coordination, efficiency or accountability." Other agencies under review this year include the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee and the Texas Workforce Commission. Most state agencies are reviewed every 12 years.

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DART tries to close commuting gap in car-centric Dallas

Not everyone can afford a car, and not everyone wants one. That places more of the burden on Dallas Area Rapid Transit, North Texas’ largest public transportation agency, to manage the challenge of providing reliable service for the ninth largest city in the United States and its suburbs. DART covers more than 700 square miles across 13 cities. Its network includes 93 miles of light rail, the new 26-mile Silver Line regional rail, 83 bus routes with more than 7,000 stops, 31 GoLink microtransit zones, paratransit, the Trinity Railway Express, and the Dallas Streetcar system. These services carried about 56 million trips last year, or roughly 171,000 boardings on a typical weekday. DART aims to put about 74% of residents in its coverage area within a half-mile of service. Core riders remain low-income residents, many of them people of color, who lack cars and rely on transit for jobs, school and everyday needs.

But financial pressures are weighing on the agency. DART relies heavily on a dedicated 1% sales tax from its member cities, which provides nearly two-thirds of its revenue. Its long range financial plan shows that earlier rail expansion and the Silver Line project left the agency with significant debt obligations into the 2030s, constraining how much new service it can add. “We just have to provide more service, but more service is expensive,” said Nadine Lee, who served as DART CEO until April. “Our revenues are not growing at the same pace, and there is constant pressure to spend less money.” This spring, residents in Addison, Highland Park and University Park will vote on whether to withdraw from DART, a sign of the agency’s central role and the strain in some member cities over how service and sales-tax contributions line up. DART rider surveys consistently point to three priorities, which Lee summarized as security, cleanliness and reliability. Under a 10-year, $2.5 billion program called DART Transform, DART is replacing vehicles and upgrading stations and safety systems. It reports violent crime is down and missed trips have fallen from about 15% of runs when Lee arrived to less than 1% today. But as Dallas grows, gaps in access and opportunity become clearer. Transportation is a necessity across North Texas, and the region is struggling to build a system that works for the people who depend on it most.

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National Stories

Budget airlines pitch Trump administration on $2.5 billion relief plan

A group of budget airlines including Frontier and Avelo is seeking $2.5 billion in government assistance in exchange for warrants that could convert into equity stakes in the companies. The Association of Value Airlines said Monday that it asked the administration to consider creating a $2.5 billion pool that budget carriers could draw from because they have been disproportionately affected by the run-up in fuel prices. The estimate assumed jet-fuel prices would remain above $4 a gallon on average for the rest of the year, according to people familiar with the matter. The group called it “a necessary and targeted measure to stabilize operations and keep airfares affordable.” The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on the group’s request.

Conversations about a potential economic aid package are expected to continue in the coming days, the people said. Low-cost airlines have been heartened by President Trump’s statements in the Oval Office on Thursday that he likes “having a lot of airlines, so it’s competitive.” The White House is aware of the budget airline group’s outreach to the Transportation Department and is monitoring the health of the U.S. aviation industry, a spokesman said. The request comes as the administration is separately considering extending a lifeline to Spirit Airlines to help it avoid liquidation. Spirit is in its own negotiations to receive a loan of up to $500 million in return for warrants that could give the U.S. government a significant stake in the low-cost carrier, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The budget carriers’ latest request represents an escalation from one made earlier this month. They had requested lawmakers approve a temporary holiday from certain taxes on airline tickets.

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Trump tells aides to prepare for extended blockade of Iran

President Trump has instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran, U.S. officials said, targeting the regime’s coffers in a high-risk bid to compel a nuclear capitulation Tehran has long refused. In recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted to continue squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from its ports. He assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried more risk than maintaining the blockade, officials said. Yet continuing the blockade also prolongs a conflict that has driven up gas prices, hurt Trump’s poll numbers and further darkened Republicans’ prospects in the midterm elections. It has also caused the lowest number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began.

Since ending the major bombing campaign in an April 7 cease-fire, Trump has repeatedly walked back from escalating the conflict, opening space for diplomacy after earlier threatening to destroy the entirety of Iranian civilization. But he still wants to tighten the grip on the regime until it caves to his key demand: dismantling all of Iran’s nuclear work. On Monday, Trump told aides that Iran’s three-step offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and save nuclear talks for the final phase proved Tehran wasn’t negotiating in good faith, The Wall Street Journal reported. For now, Trump is comfortable with an indefinite blockade, which he wrote Tuesday on Truth Social is pushing Iran toward a “State of Collapse.” A senior U.S. official said the blockade is demonstrably crushing Iran’s economy—it is straining to store its unsold oil—and sparked fresh outreach by the regime to Washington. Trump’s decision represents a new phase of sorts of the war and highlights the fact that the president, who always seeks a quick and salable victory, is devoid of a silver bullet. Unilaterally stopping the fight offers a quick exit to the conflict and relief to the U.S. and global economies. But Iran’s proposal last weekend would have allowed Tehran to set the terms of that off-ramp.

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In first electoral test, Mamdani's magic fails

Carl Wilson is on track to win the special election to the City Council district representing the West Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, and other parts of the west side of Manhattan on Tuesday, with a strong lead over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s choice for the seat. After one round of ranked-choice voting tabulations, Wilson led his closest rival, Lindsey Boylan, who rose to prominence as the first person to publicly accuse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, her onetime boss, of sexual harassment, by a commanding 43% to 25%, with more than 93% of ballots counted. “I stand here tonight deeply honored to be your next Council member for District 3,” Wilson told jubilant supporters at his watch party at the bar Vers in Hell’s Kitchen. Around 10 p.m., Boylan told supporters at the Chelsea Bell she had “called Carl to congratulate him on winning this race.”

Council Speaker Julie Menin celebrated Wilson’s victory, which pitted Mamdani against the Manhattan Democratic establishment. “Tonight, we had a resounding victory by electing Carl Wilson as our next City Council Member,” Menin said in a social media post. Election officials will keep counting ranked ballots until a candidate crosses 50% of votes. Wilson will be sworn in to the City Council after the results are ratified, but will need to win the June 23 Democratic primary and the November general election in order to serve a full four-year term. Wilson defeated Boylan despite her significant name recognition heading into the special election, which was declared when Councilmember Erik Bottcher vacated the seat in January upon his election to the state Senate. It was Boylan’s third run for office, after failed bids for Congress and Manhattan borough president in 2020 and 2021. Wilson had been Bottcher’s chief of staff. The special election became a proxy war between the city’s democratic socialist faction, headed by Mayor Mamdani, and the Democratic establishment. Wilson was endorsed by all four of his immediate predecessors, including former Council speakers Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson, and several of the district’s political clubs.

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Trump administration mandates enhanced security checks for immigration applicants

The Trump administration is subjecting broad categories of immigrants applying for legal immigration benefits to enhanced security checks, and is pausing some cases while the changes are implemented, according to internal government documents obtained by CBS News. Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services distributed internal guidance instructing its officers to resubmit pending applications for different immigration benefits, including asylum, green cards and U.S. citizenship, to enhanced FBI background checks, the documents show. Officers were directed to refrain from approving any pending cases that have not undergone the expanded background checks.

USCIS has long used FBI databases to vet immigration applications for potential national security or public safety concerns. But the documents indicate the enhanced security screenings were prompted by the FBI's decision to grant USCIS greater access to its criminal history database, as part of an executive order by President Trump in February. That order directed the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, to provide USCIS access to its criminal history database "to the maximum extent permitted by law" to identify criminal actors. "Such criminal actors may include foreign nationals with criminal histories who have entered or remained in the United States in violation of the immigration laws of the United States or who otherwise seek to violate the criminal laws of the United States," the president said in his order.

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Where the GOP-labor relationship goes after Chavez-DeRemer’s exit

Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s exit as Labor secretary last week amid a wave of misconduct allegations is raising questions about the fledgling coalition between Republicans and labor. The next moves from the administration and from Republicans more broadly will determine whether the political alliance and appeal to union workers that boosted President Trump in 2024 has fizzled out, or if it has just been dialed back to a slow burn that gradually builds into broader GOP embrace of pro-labor positions. After talking to several people on both sides of the labor issue in recent days — some of whom asked not to be named to speak candidly — it is clear that Trump has an opportunity to make a big symbolic gesture in naming Chavez-DeRemer’s replacement, if he wants to. Trump’s nomination of Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Department of Labor was seen as a major signal of his warming to unions and the labor movement, and a win for the “New Right” populist faction of the GOP that takes a more pro-worker, protectionist view of labor.

The one-term moderate was one of only three House Republicans to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act that was championed by Democrats. The Teamsters supported the pick, and the AFL-CIO was “encouraged” by her confirmation. The National Right to Work Committee, which has long aligned with Republicans and battled unions, opposed her nomination. The nomination, though, was largely symbolic. Now-Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling, who until last week was the deputy secretary, was reportedly running the bulk of the day-to-day operations. Many contentious labor issues are before the National Labor Relations Board rather than subject to the DOL. Sohrab Ahmari, the U.S. editor at UnHerd and a prominent voice on the New Right, expressed disappointment last week that Chavez-DeRemer didn’t do more on labor policy during her time as secretary beyond “giving her social-media staffers free rein to post ‘based and red-pilled’ memes on X featuring blond-haired, squared-jawed men in Fifties-style outfits, accompanied by calls to ‘BUILD YOUR HOMELAND’S FUTURE.’” “Trump’s labor policy has been more libertarian and pro-business than George W. Bush’s,” Ahmari argued in his piece last week. Others who supported Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination, though, don’t see it as quite that dire, and think the Trump administration has been friendlier to labor than Republicans past, even if it hasn’t issued the kind of sweeping policies that could be expected from a Democratic administration.

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Prosecutions of Trump’s foes add to GOP’s headaches in midterms

Republicans hoping their party’s standard-bearer will stay focused on voters’ priorities heading into the November midterms caught no relief on Tuesday as the Trump administration announced charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and an aide to former chief medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci, as well as a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses. The latest instances of turning government power against President Donald Trump’s critics and pursuing years-old grievances added to frustrations felt by Republicans who say the president isn’t doing enough to address the signature issues that won him a second term. Two-thirds of Americans said Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems in a CNN survey conducted late last month, up from 52 percent in February 2025 and higher than at any point in his first term.

“No Republican wants to run on ‘I stand with Donald Trump’s retribution tour’” while gas prices are so high, said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “There is no doubt that the vast majority of non-MAGA voters want Trump to focus on anything but his personal animus toward a wide variety of people.” The White House said the Comey prosecution has no bearing on Trump’s efforts to bring down costs — moves that include signing a tax-cut bill, adding discounted drugs to a government-run portal, expanding domestic beef production, releasing oil reserves and easing restrictions on tankers moving fuel between U.S. ports. “The idea that President Trump and his Cabinet agencies cannot execute multiple actions simultaneously is so laughably false,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “The insinuation that a grand jury returning an indictment is mutually exclusive with the administration’s strong efforts on the economy is objectively false.”

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King Charles promotes US-UK unity in speech to Congress amid Iran tensions

Britain's King Charles told the U.S. Congress on Tuesday that despite an age of uncertainty and conflict in Europe and the Middle East, the UK and the U.S. will always be staunch allies united in defending democracy, at a time of deep divisions between the two long-time allies over ?the war with Iran. "Whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we may have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to protect all our people from harm, and to salute the courage of those who daily risk ?their lives in the service of our countries," Charles told U.S. lawmakers during a rare speech to a joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives, and after a prolonged standing ovation at his entrance with Queen Camilla.

In a speech that Buckingham Palace said beforehand would not be political, Charles also made references to President Donald Trump's criticism of NATO, highlighted the importance of continued U.S. help for Ukraine in its war with Russia, the dangers of isolationism, and even a call for the safeguarding of nature, an important issue to the king for most of his life. Trump has been ?highly critical of NATO and European allies, most recently over their reluctance to provide military help in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Trump has also been ambivalent about prolonged U.S. financial and military aid to Ukraine. Charles referred to the ?September 11, 2001, attacks, saying, "we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan ?and moments that have defined our shared security today. Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine, and her most courageous people."

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Trump State Department puts president's face on America250 passports

The State Department is rolling out limited-edition U.S. passports to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence. The new passport designs, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, prominently feature President Donald Trump's image on the inside cover. Mock-ups show Trump's image surrounded by the text of the Declaration of Independence and American flag along with the president's signature in gold. Another page features the famous painting of the founding fathers at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The passports, which are set to be released this summer, are part of the Trump administration’s broader "America250" celebration, which also includes a Grand Prix race on the National Mall in August and a UFC fight on the White House South Lawn in June.

"As the United States celebrates America's 250th anniversary in July, the State Department is preparing to release a limited number of specially designed U.S. passports to commemorate this historic occasion," State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Fox News Digital. Featuring customized artwork and enhanced imagery, Pigott maintains the identification booklets will include the "same security features that make the U.S. Passport the most secure documents in the world." The cover of the commemorative U.S. passports has been slightly altered with the words "United States of America" enlarged and placed at the top of the passport, above the crest. The back cover will feature an American flag with "250" centered between the 13 stars featured on the 1777 version of the flag. A State Department official told Fox News Digital that the new designs will be available for "any American citizen" who applies for a passport when the rollout happens and will continue for as long as there is availability. The passports will only be available at the Washington Passport Agency, the official detailed. The launch is expected to coincide with the 250th Anniversary in July, the official confirmed to Fox News Digital. Americans all over the country are preparing for the major kickoff this summer of a nationwide celebration that's been years in the making.

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Lead Stories

Camp Mystic failed to train teenage counselors for floods, expert says

Several Camp Mystic cabins with girls as young as 8 were supervised by inexperienced teenage counselors during last year's deadly floods, and some had expressed concerns to their parents about their lack of training for emergencies, an expert told the legislative committee examining the tragedy on Monday. Casey Garrett, a lawyer and investigator hired by a select joint committee of the state Senate and House, said the operators of the family-owned Christian retreat for girls were well aware of the flooding dangers when torrential rains descended upon the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. Many of them had previously survived devastating storms there that forced evacuations and leveled some of the cabins.

"There was never any real training. There were never drills," Garrett told the committee, a fact that had not been fleshed out in that level of detail before. "No drills of any kind." The select committee is investigating circumstances surrounding the overnight flood that killed 25 children and two counselors at the camp. Lawmakers last year enacted reforms prompted by the flooding, including requiring youth camps in flood-prone areas of Hill Country to install flood warning sirens. The committee, appointed by House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, is charged with building on those measures. Investigator Casey Garrett speaks at a joint House and Senate flood investigating committee hearing at the Texas Capitol on Monday, April 27, 2026. Investigator Casey Garrett speaks at a joint House and Senate flood investigating committee hearing at the Texas Capitol on Monday, April 27, 2026. Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman Dozens of flood victim family members listen as investigator Casey Garrett addresses the joint House and Senate flood investigating committee during a hearing at the Texas Capitol on Monday, April 27, 2026. Edward Eastland, a camp official whose father, Richard "Dick" Eastland, was a co-owner, acknowledged earlier this month during a legal hearing that the camp did not have a detailed written flood evacuation plan in place when the storm hit.

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Corpus Christi water crisis has neighboring communities on edge of panic

At least six small cities and towns in the Coastal Bend region of Texas issued disaster declarations in the last two weeks, begging not to be forgotten amid a spiraling water crisis. All attention lies on the city of Corpus Christi as it grapples with the growing likelihood of an unprecedented disaster. But Corpus Christi, the eighth-largest city in Texas, doesn’t just provide water to its own industries and residents. It supplies the entire seven-county region, including 20 other municipalities. “Everyone is like, ‘What the heck is going on and what do we do?” said Elida Castillo, mayor of the small town of Taft, which issued a disaster declaration on April 21. “I’m just trying to figure out what we could do.” Castillo recently organized a town hall meeting on the water crisis for the 3,000 residents of Taft, but officials from Corpus Christi didn’t show up.

If Corpus Christi becomes the first modern American city to run out of water, it would take most surrounding communities with it. Up the coast of Corpus Christi Bay, the cities of Ingleside and Aransas Pass, with a combined 19,000 residents, issued disaster declarations on April 22. “There should be some type of legislation that will assist us now, rather than in the future,” said Ingleside City Manager Brenton Lewis. “All these small cities that have declared disasters are looking at alternate water supplies.” The towns of Three Rivers, Orange Grove and Alice also issued disaster declarations in the week prior. “Regional water demand is exceeding available supply,” said an April 14 declaration from the City of Alice, population 17,000. “Continued drought conditions threaten public health, safety and welfare, as well as essential public services.” Alice, however, expects to fare better than other communities. Last July it cut ribbons on a groundwater desalination plant, a decade in the making, owned and operated by an investor-backed water treatment company called Seven Seas. “They have a profit margin,” said Alice City Manager Michael Esparza. “We are paying a private company to do something for us. It’s no different than we do with a lot of things. Although, this one is pretty big because it’s our water.”

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Once again, House Republicans are a mess

This week is already unraveling for House Republicans. And it’s only Tuesday. House Republicans recessed the Rules Committee on Monday night without a path forward on extending FISA Section 702 authority, which lapses on Thursday. GOP leaders haven’t been able to resolve the same complaints from conservatives they’ve heard for weeks now, threatening what the White House and U.S. intelligence officials call a vital surveillance tool. Speaker Mike Johnson wants to change the Senate-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, another twist in the now 73-day shutdown. DHS needs funding by April 30 to continue paying its 270,000 employees, who are currently receiving their salaries under two executive orders from President Donald Trump.

Trump is urging House Republicans to adopt the Senate-approved budget resolution that tees up ICE and Border Patrol funding, despite widespread concern that it’s silent on other GOP priorities. House members are now fighting over various provisions in the farm bill, which was supposed to be the easiest legislation of the week. All together, this paints a multifront picture of chaos for Johnson and other top House Republicans. It puts new pressure on the Senate. And time is running short before next week’s recess. “They’re clearly not talking to their members,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), top Rules Committee Democrat, said shortly before midnight on Monday as Republicans failed to pass a rule to extend FISA. “They have no clue on strategy or how to move anything across the finish line, and it’s just frustrating as hell.” FISA. Johnson and House Republicans made modest tweaks to the FISA renewal proposal that failed just over a week ago. But GOP leaders won’t agree to warrant requirements for Section 702 inquiries involving a U.S. person, a key concession sought by conservatives.

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DeSantis redistricting plan gives Florida GOP 4 more seats in Congress

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday released a redistricting proposal that could give the Republican Party four more seats in Congress. His plan, released to Fox News before it was sent to lawmakers, could leave Tampa Bay without any Democratic seats. Only four seats out of Florida’s 28 — District 10 in Central Florida, and districts 20, 23 and 24 in South Florida — would lean in favor of Democrats, according to the proposal from the governor’s office. The map his office released is colored according to political party. The governor’s proposal comes amid a national redistricting battle initiated by President Donald Trump, who last summer started pushing red states to redraw their maps and keep GOP control of Congress. Some left-leaning states retaliated, and both parties are at about where they started before about half a dozen states created new maps. Florida’s proposal, if passed, could tip those scales.

Florida lawmakers are set to vote this week on the proposal during a special session called by DeSantis. Unlike in some other states, the map does not have to go in front of voters for approval. Opponents say DeSantis’ plan flies in the face of Florida’s ban on partisan gerrymandering, which more than 60% of Florida voters supported and the state adopted into its constitution in 2010. “It is illegal, plain and simple,” Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said. In discussing redistricting, DeSantis has avoided citing politics as a motivating factor. But Driskell said DeSantis releasing the map first to Fox News “shows this is just about giving red meat to his base.” In the Fox News article, DeSantis also cites the state’s 1.5 million Republican voter advantage and says his proposal “more fairly represents the makeup of Florida today.” DeSantis first started pushing for redistricting last summer as Trump began asking friendly states to help him keep a GOP majority. Though Florida bans partisan redistricting, the governor’s office on Monday suggested that it doesn’t need to follow the Fair Districts Amendment.

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State Stories

Molly Young and Janice Reyes: As therapists, we think it's too soon to return to Camp Mystic

(Molly Young and Janice Reyes are co-owners of Safe Haven Counseling, founded in 2024 in Austin. They are licensed marriage and family therapists and have extensive training in guiding children through grief and trauma.) In most situations involving significant loss or trauma, there is an understanding that returning to the place where it occurred requires pause. After events such as school shootings, natural disasters or large-scale accidents, spaces are closed, re-evaluated or permanently changed — because even though they were once meaningful, tragedy has fundamentally altered them. In trauma-informed environments, children are not expected to simply return and carry on. Their experiences are acknowledged, and space is made for them to process. Adults do the heavy lifting — creating physical and emotional safety and patiently rebuilding trust.

What feels different in the months following the deadly July 4 flood at Camp Mystic is the urgency to return. This summer, Camp Mystic plans to reopen its Cypress Lake location, not far from the still-closed Guadalupe River site where floodwaters filled cabins last July. We understand the pull to restore what was lost as quickly as possible. But that does not align with what we know about how children process loss and fear. It has been just over nine months since the flooding that claimed the lives of 25 campers and two counselors on the Guadalupe River site, and in that time families have been holding something that does not fit neatly into words. There is deep grief and fear, but also deep love for a place that shaped summers, friendships and a sense of self. The profound and tragic loss of such a meaningful place is disorienting. It disrupts not just memory but meaning. For many children, camp is not just a place. It is a source of identity, belonging and joy.

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Superintendent turnover is rising in Texas. Why?

Budget constraints, a shortage of high-quality teachers, school board turmoil and the demands of the job are accelerating turnover among school district leaders locally and across the state. In the Austin area, Bastrop and Leander Independent School Districts have announced new leaders this school year. Austin ISD’s superintendent has already outlasted many urban peers, even though he has held the job permanently since 2024. “This is absolutely a statewide phenomenon. This is not a local situation at all. And it’s not unique to Central Texas,” said Brian Woods, the former superintendent of San Antonio’s largest district. “I think there are … a number of factors contributing to it.” In Texas, school funding depends on enrollment, attendance and local property values. Many districts have faced financial strain in recent years as birth rates fall and charter schools draw students away.

Woods, who led Northside ISD for more than a decade, said a “lack of support from state leadership in Texas” to raise more money for traditional public schools has made the job harder and helped drive turnover. Northside stretches from San Antonio’s far West Side into Bexar County’s north-central area. It serves students in urban, suburban and semirural communities. Like the areas it serves, the district’s demographics closely mirror the state in both ethnicity and income. “You saw virtually no turnover in 2020 and early 2021,” Woods said. “Folks were staying in place just to try to get their districts through it, and so I think that’s part of it. But then you’ll remember, it didn’t take long after the pandemic got kicked off, that schools became a real…point of contention around all of the kind of social issues that the pandemic brought up.” The job, he said, has become harder. “I was about 55 or so, and there’s a real calculus in your mind about, ‘is the toll that this is taking worth staying around’” said Woods, who retired in 2023. “And I had opportunities to go do other things that were interesting to me, but perhaps not 70 or 80 hours a week, and that was enticing too.”

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In Big Bend, uncertainty persist around Trump's border wall plans

First a hiker stumbled on surveying stakes in Big Bend Ranch State Park in late March. Then a construction crew began work on a remote mountain road without notifying local officials in neighboring Presidio and Jeff Davis Counties. More than six weeks after the Trump administration appeared to have signaled it was backing off plans to build a border wall through Big Bend National Park and the adjacent state park, unexpected activity in and around the parks has residents and local officials on edge. "I'm getting phone calls. 'Hey judge, they're working down at the river. They're doing this; they're doing that," Jeff Davis County Judge Curtis Evans said in an interview Wednesday.

"I'm at a funeral for my cousin's 12-year-old son and I'm getting calls about something I know nothing about. These (federal officials) are too damn lazy to give us a call or too scared to catch us up on what's going on." The unrest is the latest development since U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent letters to landowners near the national park in February, informing them the administration was considering acquiring their land for “project construction or maintenance.” That set off a firestorm of opposition, including from prominent Republicans like former Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, who served in the first Trump administration, and JP Bryan, a former oil CEO and philanthropist in Houston. Combs and Bryan both own ranches in the area. The administration has yet to say definitively what it is planning, even as U.S. Customs and Border Protection updated its online border wall map last month to show a planned physical wall through the two parks replaced by a "detection technology" project.

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Ex-Spurs owner Holt, former yacht captain trade allegations of drug smuggling, extortion

A yacht captain is accusing former Spurs controlling owner Peter M. Holt of pressuring him to smuggle drugs across international borders — an allegation Holt calls fabricated and part of an extortion scheme. In dueling lawsuits, Jay Jones alleges he was pressured over months to obtain narcotics abroad and bring them into the United States aboard Holt’s yachts, while Holt denies the allegations and counters that Jones invented the claims to demand millions of dollars. Holt, whose family owns Holt Cat, also alleges Jones improperly took funds from a Holt-affiliated company for personal use.

Jones, who worked for Holt for more than a decade, describes a relationship that evolved from trusted employee to what he calls a coerced participant in illegal activity. He says he feared losing his job and jeopardizing his captain’s license if he refused the requests. His complaint describes trips to obtain Xanax and Provigil, instructions to carry drugs for Holt on commercial flights through Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, and directions to hide them in the engine room of one of Holt’s yachts or aboard his private jet to avoid detection. Jones says he objected to the requests and ultimately resigned after his refusals were ignored, citing concerns about Holt’s drug use. Holt’s lawsuit paints a sharply different picture. It says Jones was a highly paid employee who resigned after failing to obtain required certifications and being denied a raise, then attempted to leverage Holt’s struggles with addiction into what Holt calls a “shakedown.” Holt also alleges Jones “diverted” over $1 million to himself and his family from a Holt company, and that Jones used his position to provide family and friends with what the lawsuit describes as “effectively free vacations” on Holt’s yacht. The two sides attempted to mediate the dispute last week. Holt’s lawsuit alleges Jones threatened to go public with his claims unless he was paid millions, an assertion Jones’ counsel disputes. Holt filed his eight-page complaint Wednesday in Blanco County, where he lives.

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Tesla files to deliver Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package – ending the saga

Tesla has filed an S-8 registration statement with the SEC to register 303,960,630 shares of common stock for CEO Elon Musk under his 2018 pay package. At today’s share price of ~$376, those shares are worth over $114 billion. The filing confirms what many expected after the Delaware Supreme Court restored the award in December: the years-long legal fight over the largest executive compensation deal in corporate history is officially over. The 2018 CEO Performance Award was designed as an all-or-nothing bet. Tesla’s board granted Musk options to buy 304 million shares (split-adjusted) at $23.34 per share, contingent on Tesla hitting 12 escalating market cap and operational milestones. Musk reached the final milestone in December 2021.

But in January 2024, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick voided the entire package, ruling that the board’s approval process was deeply flawed. The court found that Musk effectively controlled the negotiation of his own pay through personal relationships with board members — a textbook governance failure. Tesla responded by asking shareholders to reincorporate in Texas and vote again on the same package. The company even spent advertising money to push shareholders toward a “yes” vote. In June 2024, shareholders approved the package a second time. That still wasn’t enough. Judge McCormick shut down the attempt in December 2024, ruling that a shareholder revote couldn’t retroactively fix the original disclosure failures. The turning point came a year later. In December 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed the lower court, finding that full rescission was too extreme a remedy. The justices ruled it would be “inequitable” not to compensate Musk for the six years he performed work under the award.

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U.S. Supreme Court denies James Broadnax death row appeals 3 days before scheduled execution

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied two appeals from Dallas County death row inmate James Broadnax three days ahead of his scheduled execution. Broadnax, 37, made two appeals to the Supreme Court in an attempt to halt his execution: one alleging the use of rap lyrics as evidence against Broadnax during trial was unconstitutional, and another arguing prosecutors struck Black prospective jurors from the selection pool, resulting in a nearly all-white jury. Without comment, the high court denied both. Broadnax was sentenced to death in 2009 for robbing and killing two Christian music producers in Garland. "James continues to maintain faith and stoicism and belief that his case will still have a chance to be heard and that his life will be spared," said Allan Ripp, a spokesperson for Broadnax's legal team.

Still pending is Broadnax's appeal after his cousin, Demarius Cummings, confessed in a sworn statement last month to being the shooter. Cummings said he convinced Broadnax — then 19 years old — to take the blame for the shooting while they were both high on PCP and marijuana. Cummings decided to come clean after finding out two months ago that Broadnax was scheduled to die, he said. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled earlier this month it wouldn't consider Cummings' confession as a reason to pause Broadnax's execution.

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Dallas City Hall survey questioned by city council members

Last month, the City Council gave city staff marching orders to gather more information on prospective options for City Hall. One of those orders was to provide residents with a survey that could help inform the Council’s path forward. That survey is live now (you can find it here), and it has 21 questions. Only, according to a memo sent by council members Adam Bazaldua and Paula Blackmon, those aren’t the questions the Council intended to be in the city’s survey. Attached to the memo are the draft questions, which the two say “seemed neutral and aligned with the goal of capturing genuine community sentiment.” Also attached are the questions in the current survey, which is being conducted on the city’s behalf by ZenCity. Those questions, the two say, “indicate a shift in tone and intent,” with the revisions “designed to guide the public toward a predetermined conclusion, without offering adequate space for residents to register an opposing opinion.”

The questions in the draft document were lengthier and asked questions such as, “When you think about decisions on City Hall and civic facilities, what is your single biggest concern?” and “What information would you most want before forming a final opinion?” The questions in the existing survey do not seem to give respondents the opportunity to offer a clear-cut sentiment, one way or the other. It also does not ask any questions—save the last one, which is open-ended—that would allow the taker to entertain an outcome beyond moving to a new City Hall. A statement from city spokesperson Robyn Gerard, attributed to the City of Dallas, says that the Office of Communications and Customer Experience/311 “leveraged its existing contract with Zencity” to “undertake a statistically valid survey of residents from all council districts.” The statement says that Zencity drew on its “best practices and experience” to develop preliminary survey questions. “City staff, informed by discussion at both committee meetings, reviewed and finalized the survey questions,” the statement continues. “In advance of the survey launch, the City Council was provided a memo on April 3rd outlining the process, goals, and timeline.”

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Former Texas Tech professors criticize course content changes, cite academic freedom concerns

Former Texas Tech professors say system leaders are harming the future of the university by what they believe is stifling academic freedom in the classroom. They claim the recent system-wide change is forcing Tech to take a step backward. The professors told KCBD they need to talk about this since current faculty are afraid to do so. The Texas Tech Board of Regents imposed the changes on April 9. Since then, critics of the new standards have come forward against the changes. “I’ve talked to some of my colleagues who are Republican, independent, and Democrats. All spectrums are frightened by what’s happening at Texas Tech,” said Gary Bell. He helped create the Texas Tech Honors College in 1998. He says the new standards are limiting academic freedom and will jeopardize the future of the university.

“I feel very strongly about Texas Tech. I love Texas Tech,” Bell said, “and I think what the Chancellor is saying, quite frankly, threatens the entire purpose for why universities exist.” Chancellor Brandon Creighton wrote the state law imposing these changes when he was in the Texas Legislature, building off of the state restrictions on DEI in the classroom. “It was the next iteration of addressing governance reforms and how our regents and our top level university leadership would have more say in traditional governance sense over upper level hiring and over course content that would match expectations for today’s economy that’s quickly evolving,” Creighton said. Creighton said the new changes are meant to be efficient for students in the labor market. “Our curriculum should match for an immediate hire for a position with a company that would pay a very good starting salary, extremely competitive or greater,” Creighton said. “That’s what our students expect. Our students are working so hard day in and day out.”

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“We jumped in with both feet”: Landscape designers in Texas and beyond on AI’s back-office impact

“We jumped in with both feet in 2025.” Bill Odle, ASLA, is talking about artificial intelligence (AI) implementation at TBG Partners, the Texas-based landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm where he is president. “Across all our AI use cases, the primary function is to augment our teams and streamline our operations,” says Odle, noting that this approach allows designers to focus on design and relationships. “People are at TBG because they are creatives who want to create. Leveraging AI to allow more time and space for creative thought and the creative process is a key benefit and use case for integrating AI tools.” John Payne, ASLA, a partner at the 14-employee landscape architecture firm SiteWorks, has used ChatGPT to respond to RFPs.

He says SiteWorks employees can input the RFP into ChatGPT and then use carefully constructed prompts. “The result likely generates about 20 percent of the needed document and still requires a lot of refinement, including likely altering 80 percent of the text [that the] AI generated, fleshing out ideas, personalizing it, and better focusing it.” While the public narrative about the use of AI in landscape architecture has focused on design iteration, the use of AI by landscape architecture firms to drive business and operational efficiencies and other improvements is increasing and could become as or more important to their bottom lines. “A shift is underway from an initial period of experimentation focused on generative AI, with most firms using off-the-shelf software, toward using AI in practice, particularly in text-based workflows,” says Phil Fernberg, ASLA, an assistant research professor of landscape architecture and environmental planning at Utah State University, who has been researching AI in the profession for several years. Since AI first emerged as a potential tool for design firms, adoption has been growing. Results from a recent (albeit narrow) survey set the benchmark: 43.4 percent of respondents reported using AI in their practice, while 56.6 percent responded that they were not using AI. The survey, authored by Heather Braiden, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of Montreal, also found that in many cases respondents used AI for early phases of the design process, including writing briefs (61 percent), concept design (51 percent), and RFP responses (43 percent). Notably, respondents working for multidisciplinary firms reported substantially higher levels of AI use than those working for landscape architecture firms.

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Fort Worth ISD leader addresses proposed staff cuts, school closure before vote

Fort Worth ISD’s new superintendent acknowledged the tough decisions behind potential staff reductions and another school closure that will be voted on at Tuesday’s board meeting. In an interview with the Star-Telegram on Monday, April 27, Superintendent Peter Licata addressed the proposed closure of International Newcomer Academy, 5% teacher raises going into effect next school year, and cuts to vacant positions that he says brought $40 million back into the district’s budget this year. He described these decisions and proposals, among others, as necessary to drive the district in a positive direction. The flurry of changes to the district came forward after Licata and a nine-person Board of Managers were appointed by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath to lead the district during a state takeover, which was prompted by the district’s years of stagnant academic performance.

The Board of Managers approved a reduction in force at its last meeting two weeks ago and is set to vote on another reduction in force on Tuesday, in addition to the proposed closure of International Newcomer Academy. The campus serves refugee and immigrant students in grades 6-9. Licata explained the district has been operating as if it’s been serving about 85,000-95,000 students — the enrollment it was built for — rather than the roughly 66,500 expected to enroll in the fall. “We can’t change what we’ve been doing by moving pieces of the furniture around the room. We have to do massive program changes, and that doesn’t mean less services for ELL (English language learners), SpEd (special education), new language learners, any of those groups, dyslexia…. What we’re doing is more targeted, but we have to do a massive program change. We have to give them an ability to get the resources that we’ve been paying for students that we don’t have,” Licata said.

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Future of the American Airlines Center is, at best, cloudy

The vision that was the American Airlines Center was realized, right about the same time its primary tenants that created the traffic will vacate the premises, which will change downtown Dallas. Every night the Dallas Stars host playoff games, the area in and around the American Airlines Center vibrates with activity, commerce and life. The same for the Dallas Mavericks, when they used to actually make the playoffs. People take the TRE from all over DFW to the Victory Station train stop to see a game. The entire scene is on a shot clock. Both the Stars and Mavericks have made their respective intentions known they plan to leave the AAC when the lease expires in 2031.

With the pro sports revenue model shifting away from local media rights money fueling teams, the franchises have to find a different way to make money. One way is real estate. “We have every intention to fulfill the end of the lease,” Dallas Stars president Brad Alberts said in an interview with the Star-Telegram. “There is no set date we have to notify [the AAC]. We are definitely not doing anything yet, but to do something in a new building, the construction would have to start in the middle of 2028, or early 2029.” Without the Stars and Mavericks filling up around 90 or so days on the calendar with games, as well as concerts and other events, will the AAC stay open for business? Initially, yes. Long term, doubtful. The Stars and Mavericks will open new buildings with the plan to host events other than hockey and basketball games. The acts and performers that play the AAC now will go to the new, shiny arenas. Dallas Mavericks president Rick Welts has said the plan is for their new arena to be a main attraction for concerts. The WNBA’s Dallas Wings plan to leave their home at the College Park Center on the campus of Texas-Arlington for Dallas next year, although the particulars remain in a difficult negotiation with the city of Dallas. The AAC is not viewed as a potential long-term home for the Wings, primarily because of practice space.

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Pudu Robotics opens U.S. headquarters in Texas to expand industrial and service robotics deployment

Pudu Robotics is opening a new U.S. headquarters in Dallas as part of a broader effort to expand its robotics footprint across industrial and commercial environments. The company said the new facility will support sales, service and engineering operations as robotics adoption grows across sectors including manufacturing and facility operations. Pudu has deployed nearly 15,000 robots across the Americas, driven by demand for systems that address labor shortages and improve efficiency. Its portfolio includes robots designed for material handling, facility support and industrial delivery tasks, with payload capacities ranging from 150 to 600 kilograms.

In production environments, these systems are used to move materials, support workflows and reduce manual handling while improving productivity. The company is also expanding into applications using embodied AI, aimed at enabling robots to operate more effectively in dynamic, real-world conditions. The Dallas headquarters reflects a shift toward regional deployment and support, as companies look to scale automation across multiple facilities while maintaining service and integration capabilities closer to operations. “We are building for the long-term in the Americas with a localized approach,” said Raymond Pan, general manager of the Americas at Pudu Robotics. “Our ambition over the next five years is to serve one million people across the U.S. Our new headquarters and infrastructure optimization provide a foundation for this ambition, alongside continuing investment in localized products, enhancing our local supply chain, and strengthening our partner ecosystem.” Pudu said it plans to continue growing its presence in manufacturing and industrial settings as part of a strategy to expand robotics infrastructure across global markets.

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Interim Fort Bend County Judge Daniel Wong's first court meeting brings frustration from some

Interim Fort Bend County Judge Daniel Wong presided over his first commissioners court meeting, which prompted protestors to voice their frustration. The words of displeasure outside of the historic courthouse in Fort Bend County were a sign of what was to come for Thursday's commissioners court meeting. "Wrong Daniel Wong," Vanessa Luna's sign read. "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" Around 10 people protested an item on the court agenda. It wasn't tied to a project, spending, or ordinance, but the swearing-in of a new county judge. "They're preempting our vote by putting in a candidate that hasn't been duly elected and is running for the exact position," Kevin Williams said. It's frustration that went from the courthouse steps to the chamber.

"I'm very upset that you would allow yourself to be pushed into this position knowing that this is wrong," Luna said. "Let us vote for you." In March, Daniel Wong became the Republican nominee for judge. He's on the November ballot, but he doesn't have to wait. Two weeks ago, a judge appointed Wong to the position of county judge. He replaced KP George. Last month, he was convicted of felony money laundering. George wasn't removed because of that. He was suspended because of a separate civil case. It's not just Wong's appointment that upset neighbors, but who he named to his staff. Wong appointed congressional candidate Trever Nehls as his chief of staff. On Thursday, Nehls' Democratic opponent, Marquette Greene-Scott, attended the meeting. "He's a chief of staff," Greene-Scott explained. "So, he's going to get some experience, and that's not fair because he wasn't voted for. Well, he wasn't, but his boss voted on. He was appointed, and then he was appointed."

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National Stories

False flag conspiracy theories swirl around White House Correspondents' Dinner attack

A flood of misinformation, conspiracy theories and false claims about the shooting at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents' Association dinner spread online at a notable and concerningly speedy rate, mostly about the baseless theory that the incident had been staged. The speculation on social media began to swirl within minutes of the first reports of shots fired, picking up steam throughout Sunday despite journalists — the vast majority of the gala’s attendees — and authorities quickly releasing verified and evidence-backed information about the suspect. There is no evidence that Saturday night’s incident was staged. Authorities have released ample evidence that Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California, rushed the event while armed and was stopped by law enforcement. A senior administration official said the suspect's brother told authorities that Cole Allen had sent him and other family members writings displaying anti-Trump sentiment prior to the incident.

Even President Donald Trump, long known for distributing conspiracy theories online, took note of the speed. “Usually it takes a little bit longer,” he said in an interview with CBS' “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Usually they wait about two or three months to start saying that.” This time, it was less than two or three hours. The response highlights how conspiracy theories and a knee-jerk skepticism of current events have become the default response for a growing number of Americans, deepened by the loss of trust in institutions and supercharged by starkly partisan politics. “I would have been surprised if they hadn’t developed because we’re in a society that is absolutely saturated with conspiracism,” Michael Barkun, professor emeritus in the political science department at Syracuse University, said of the theories. On Reddit, many of the platform’s most popular posts about the incident — including many in communities not dedicated to politics — either directly or indirectly poked at the idea that it had been staged, while comment sections were rife with the sensibility that believing anything else was naive. On Instagram, many posts from people arguing or theorizing that Trump or the White House had something to do with the situation drew thousands of engagements. On X, the word “staged” trended Saturday night and much of Sunday alongside “Butler,” a reference to the assassination attempt on Trump in that Pennsylvania city that has been the subject of similar conspiracy theories.

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New DHS chief’s call for quieter immigration enforcement alarms MAGA base

A month into his tenure, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is facing mounting pressure from conservative groups that fear the Trump administration is going soft on its mass deportation agenda amid a public backlash over aggressive enforcement tactics. Mullin has vowed to restore confidence in the Department of Homeland Security after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. In a recent cable news appearance, he expressed a desire to conduct enforcement in a “more quiet way.” Organizations such as the Mass Deportation Coalition, formed in March and led by the Heritage Foundation, interpret that approach as a potential betrayal of one of the president’s core campaign promises. The coalition recently published a lengthy report concluding that the administration had deported 350,000 immigrants in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, far fewer than the 650,000 deportations that Trump officials have cited.

The numbers “don’t represent a victory in quantity,” said the report, which offered 21 recommendations to vastly expand operations. “What remains is a policy choice: to carry out a program of mass deportation, in keeping with the campaign promise, or not,” the report said. Mike Howell, president of Heritage’s Oversight Project, said Mullin’s comments thus far appear aimed at “assuaging left-wing concerns.” “There’s not a lot of recommitting to the cause” of mass deportations, Howell said in an interview. “It makes you wonder.” DHS remains mired in a partial shutdown, and Trump is facing the lowest approval ratings of his second term, with the public souring on his handling of immigration, the economy and the war in Iran. Mullin has consistently struck a moderate message, saying his goal is to keep DHS from being the lead story on the news each night. That rhetoric reflects guidance given to Mullin by the White House, according to one federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

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Congress responds to WHCA attack with five separate bills to build Trump’s ballroom

In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, congressional lawmakers have begun offering their official policy reaction and so far it all points in one direction: building Trump’s ballroom. Within hours of the shooting, several GOP lawmakers from both the House and Senate announced they would introduce legislation to approve the project, which has stalled amid legal challenges. On Monday, at least five different proposals to build the ballroom were floating around Capitol Hill. On the House side, Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Randy Fine (R-FL) have announced separate plans to introduce legislation to authorize the ballroom.

On the Senate side, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO) are backing legislation to appropriate at least $400 million to build the ballroom. Sens. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) are expected to introduce their own separate bills on the topic as well. In a show of bipartisanship, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has also called for the ballroom to be built after the shooting. The president’s ballroom proposal has been the subject of a legal challenge from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has argued the project needs congressional approval. District Judge Richard Leon, a Bush appointee, has halted the construction project as the legal case plays out. Paul, who has at times broken from Trump on key issues, said in a statement he will introduce legislation on Tuesday to allow the construction to “proceed without new taxpayer costs and make it easier for Congress to review major White House projects going forward.”

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Defiant Jimmy Kimmel goes nuclear on Trump and Melania

Jimmy Kimmel fired back against Donald and Melania Trump’s calls for ABC to cancel his show after a supposedly inflammatory joke he made in his Thursday monologue. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination,” Kimmel said. “And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence, in particular.” Kimmel added, “But I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend.... And probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.” The late-night host told Melania, “I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.” Expand article logo Continue reading The line drew loud applause from Kimmel’s audience.

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22 Buddhist monks arrested at airport, accused of smuggling drugs in luggage

Nearly two dozen Buddhist monks were arrested in Sri Lanka for allegedly trying to smuggle cannabis into the country when returning from a trip Saturday. The group of 22 was arrested at the Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport around 10:10 p.m. when returning from a trip to Thailand, BBC Sinhala reported. The group was out of the country for about four days and returned with more than 240 pounds of Kush, a Sri Lanka Customs spokesman told CBS News. The spokesman said it is a very potent strain of cannabis. Police suspect the drugs were in the monks' suitcases without their knowledge, BBC Sinhala reported.

Each monk reportedly had roughly 11 pounds of drugs, which was found inside false walls in their luggage among school supplies and various sweets. This is the first time monks have been arrested at the airport with a stash of drugs, according to reports. Customs officials told CBS News this was the largest single detection of Kush at this airport. One other monk, only identified as "Amitananda" was arrested later in Sri Lanka on suspicion of being connected with the attempted smuggling, BBC Sinhala reported. The monks order told BBC Sinhala it "strongly condemns" the illegal actions and will work to expel any guilty monks.

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SiriusXM said to be in early talks to acquire iHeartMedia

SiriusXM is in early-stage discussions to acquire iHeartMedia, a deal that would create an audio giant with a foothold in traditional and satellite radio and podcasts, two people familiar with the discussions said Friday. Should a deal come to fruition, it would be the culmination of years of speculation about a tie-up. Liberty SiriusXM Group, once an affiliate of John Malone’s media empire, formerly held significant stakes in both companies. But it eventually sold its stake in iHeartMedia, primarily a broadcast radio company, and split off its ownership of SiriusXM, the satellite radio company, into a separate entity. The talks are still in their early stages and may not result in a deal, the people said, requesting anonymity because the conversations are confidential. SiriusXM and iHeartMedia declined to comment. Bloomberg News reported the discussions earlier.

Both companies primarily make their money in traditional broadcast radio and satellite subscriptions. IHeartMedia says it owns more than 860 radio stations across the United States. Sirius says it had around 33 million subscribers as of last year. The companies have complementary businesses, which could make the deal attractive to investors. Both SiriusXM and iHeartMedia have sizable audio advertising businesses and relationships with music labels, and both have begun to expand in podcasting. SiriusXM has hit shows like Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” and “SmartLess,” while iHeartMedia’s push into podcasts includes “Las Culturistas” and “Stuff You Should Know.” The deal could also help offset the deterioration of traditional radio businesses. Though SiriusXM has lost more than a million customers since 2022, it has started to regain them, according to MoffettNathanson, a research firm. Shares of iHeartMedia were up 35 percent at the close of trading on Friday, while shares of Sirius were down around 5 percent. In the event of a deal, the combined company’s grip on traditional and satellite radio could come under scrutiny from antitrust regulators. But executives may argue that the tie-up would provide a necessary counterweight to Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, digital giants that dominate smartphone music consumption, one of the people said.

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South Carolina's measles outbreak is over. But more are brewing around the country

South Carolina public health officials on Monday declared an end to the largest measles outbreak in the U.S. since 1991. On Sunday, the state marked 42 days with no new cases reported related to the outbreak. Over a six-month period starting last October, 997 people were infected with measles in South Carolina. Most of them were unvaccinated children. At least 21 people were hospitalized with measles complications. The outbreak was largely contained to the northwest region of the state. It never went statewide, "thanks to timely investigations, identification of those exposed, and people's willingness to stay home," said Dr. Edward Simmer, interim director of the South Carolina Department of Public Health. "In many ways, this was a textbook response to dealing with an outbreak."

The measles virus can lead to serious complications, including pneumonia and brain swelling. At a briefing Monday, Dr. Brannon Traxler of the South Carolina Department of Public Health said while many measles cases were mild, "it was, at times, life- threatening or potentially long lasting for others." Measles can be fatal. Last year three people — including two school-age children in Texas — died from the disease. While most people recover from measles, it can cause long-lasting complications, including immune amnesia, a phenomenon where the virus wipes out parts of the immune system, leaving kids vulnerable to new infections for several years. And children infected before the age of 2 are at higher risk of developing a fatal, degenerative neurological condition that typically develops seven to 10 years after a measles infection. The South Carolina outbreak was centered in Spartanburg County, where the majority of schools had measles vaccination rates below the 95% threshold required to prevent outbreaks. Traxler says the state succeeded in stopping the outbreak, in part, because of an uptick in people getting the vaccine. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known.

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Supreme Court heard case on how to label risks of popular weed killer

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup weed killer, which thousands of people blame for their cancers. How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. The case centers on who decides about warning labels on chemicals: the federal government — or states or juries. The main plaintiff in Monday's case is John Durnell. Durnell in 2019 sued Monsanto in a state court in Missouri, alleging he contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma because of his 20-year exposure to glyphosate, a chemical included in the weed killer. Durnell regularly sprayed the weed killer throughout his neighborhood. A jury sided with Durnell on his claim that Monsanto had failed to properly warn users about risks, awarding him more than $1 million in damages.

Missouri law bans the sale of dangerous pesticides that lack an "adequate warning," Durnell's lawyer Ashley Keller wrote. Keller says the key questions are for juries to decide. Durnell is one of tens of thousands of people to sue because they say they faced harm because of Roundup. Those plaintiffs have experienced mixed success in the lower courts. Monsanto argues those claims should have been preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which requires manufacturers to register pesticides with the EPA before selling them, which Monsanto did. The EPA also signs off on labels for those pesticides. Paul Clement, a former solicitor general and a lawyer for Monsanto, argued that it's important to have a uniform standard nationwide. "It's probably the most like studied herbicide in the history of man and they've all reached the conclusion, based on more data and the kind of expert analysis they can do, that there isn't a risk here," he told the justices. "You shouldn't let a single Missouri jury second guess that judgment."

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Copyright May 05, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved