Lead Stories

Democrats try to harness AI data center backlash against Republicans

When Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, began her campaign last year, candidates weren’t talking about — or hearing about — data centers that power artificial intelligence. But with barely three months until November’s contest, the perceived threat to rural life, ranchland and dwindling water supplies could become a defining issue for her long-shot challenge to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, dividing conservative rural areas that have traditionally served as a counterweight to Democrats’ urban strongholds. The backlash to energy-guzzling server warehouses is also shaping other statewide campaigns from Arizona to Ohio to New York, and even giving Democrats a glimmer of hope in Texas, where Republicans have dominated for three decades.

“There is this little issue that I recently started hearing about that I wanted to tell you about, in case you don’t know,” Hinojosa quipped to a Democratic Party-organized crowd of about 160 seated on fold-out chairs at an Amarillo social club in Texas’ panhandle. “It’s this issue of data centers.” The crowd booed, and she went on: “They are owned by the richest men in the world. We’re all footing the bill. There are no rules. It is the wild west of data centers.” The fast growth of massive data centers has already upended races for local offices across the country, often uniting conservatives and liberals in revolting against projects in their midst. People don’t like the secrecy surrounding the projects or the prospect of air, noise, water and light pollution. They fear electric bills going up, wells going dry and losing open space, farmland or forest. Now the ripple effects have spread to top-of-the-ticket races, where incumbents and challengers are trying to show that they hear an angry electorate. In Ohio, Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown aired a television advertisement attacking Republican U.S. Sen. John Husted as the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to outright ban their construction.

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The Texas Panhandle was hit by a magnitude 5.0 earthquake

A rare magnitude 5.0 earthquake rattled parts of the Texas Panhandle early Thursday morning. It's the strongest quake to hit that region in at least 100 years, according to online data compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The epicenter was located about 24 miles southeast of Spearman, a town northeast of Amarillo, USGS reported. "My cat woke me up. He kind of freaked out about it a little bit and that woke me up," said Robertson County Judge Mitchell Locke, who serves as emergency management coordinator. "But I did feel it. There was some shaking. Nothing too extreme, though."

Robertson County is a rural community with a population of about 900 people. As of Thursday morning, Locke said he had not heard reports of any significant damage. One area of concern is the potential damage to the extensive oil and gas industry in the region. Earthquakes in the Permian Basin to the south have been linked to industrial activity associated with drilling for oil, such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The process involves injecting large quantities of contaminated, salty water deep underground. "All of those companies, especially the pipeline companies, they do have earthquake protocols, and they will go check lines around the epicenter and check pressure in their lines, things like that," Locke said. "They do have earthquake plans." Damage to the oil and gas industry is also an area of concern for Hansfield County Sheriff Bob Mahaffee, who serves a neighboring county in the region. "Our main concern is the pipelines," Mahaffee said. "The companies are doing their pressure checks and everything they do to make sure the lines are normal." Earthquakes in Texas are not uncommon. However, their intensity has increased over the past six years.

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Trump to slap 'sweeping' new tariffs on 60 trade partners as global duties expire

The Trump administration will impose new tariffs just after midnight ET Friday on dozens of countries over alleged forced-labor violations, according to a notice in the Federal Register. The duties, set between 10% and 12.5%, will effectively replace President Donald Trump’s temporary 10% global tariffs, which are set to expire at the same time as the new ones take effect. The forthcoming tariffs will apply to 60 trade partners and cover 99.4% of U.S. trade, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a fact sheet Thursday afternoon. The office separately told CNBC that it could not provide an estimate of how much revenue the new tariffs will generate.

The move “is the most sweeping international labor rights action the United States has ever taken — that any country has ever taken,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters in a call earlier Thursday. The official noted that the new tariffs would not “stack” on top of existing import taxes on steel and aluminum, known as “Section 232? duties, that Trump imposed last year on national-security grounds. Thursday’s announcement underscores how the Trump administration is ramping its aggressive use of tariffs back up, after the president’s protectionist agenda suffered major legal setbacks earlier this year. Trump has long touted tariffs as key tools for generating revenue and gaining leverage over foreign trade partners, while brushing aside criticisms that they tax U.S. importers and raise prices for U.S. consumers. The White House recently imposed 25% tariffs on most U.S. imports from Brazil, which took effect Wednesday, and 50% tariffs on a wide range of goods from Canada, which are set to begin next month.

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OpenAI’s breach of Hugging Face stokes fears about what’s next for AI

Washington and the technology industry are on high alert this week after OpenAI revealed that some of its AI agents went rogue and hacked into the systems of technology start-up Hugging Face. The incident bore out years of warnings from the tech and cybersecurity community about the growing capabilities and hypothetical risks artificial intelligence could pose to critical infrastructure. Amid the warnings, Washington has tried to play catch-up to manage the cybersecurity risks, but concerns were stoked this week by the incident and fluctuating policy.

“What makes this wildly different,” for security teams at companies, is that it “brings the theoretical scenario of AI being capable of breaching a company and moving faster than a company can detect and respond to attack from theory to reality,” said Adam Ely, the general manager of AI security at the cybersecurity firm Check Point Software. OpenAI revealed on Tuesday that two of its models, including its latest GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model, were being evaluated in an internal, testing sandbox, but breached past the environment and broke into Hugging Face’s database without any prompt to do so. The incident caught the attention of even well-versed cybersecurity experts, as it involved autonomous agents and two separate companies. ‘Whether it’s sort of an autonomous situation that wasn’t intended to be malicious, or whether it’s attackers controlling a model to do that, that’s different than what most people have experienced,” Ely said. OpenAI in a blog post called the incident an “unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities.”

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State Stories

State Rep. Denise Villalobos seeks to replace Corpus Christi Groundwater District

A political dispute over groundwater oversight in Nueces County is continuing as State Rep. Denise Villalobos seeks to replace Corpus Christi's Aquifer Storage and Recovery Groundwater Conservation District with an independent district. Villalobos is expected to meet with Corpus Christi city leaders next week to discuss her proposal. According to Villalobos, the current structure creates a conflict of interest because the city regulates the aquifer while also being one of its largest users. City leaders dispute that claim, saying the groundwater district was created by the Texas Legislature and that the city has followed state law and the required permitting process since the district was established.

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Wesley Hunt remains silent on reported photo with Tate brothers

Texas U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt has declined to explain a photo circulating online that appears to show him with influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate inside what appears to be his congressional office. The Tate brothers are prominent figures in the online "manosphere," promoting male dominance and so-called red-pill ideology. The self-described misogynists, who live in Romania, face criminal allegations in multiple countries and were arrested in Miami last week in connection with extradition proceedings involving the United Kingdom. The arrest came days after a photo surfaced showing Hunt standing between the brothers, smiling inside what appears to be his congressional office.

The American-Statesman contacted Hunt's office seeking comment and to independently verify the photo's date and authenticity. The Statesman also contacted representatives for the Tates but did not receive a response before publication. In a video published by TMZ DC, Hunt immediately responded "no comment" when asked about the brothers' arrest and whether he regretted taking the photo. The Tate brothers have denied allegations against them stemming from investigations in Romania and Britain, where they face accusations including human trafficking. Andrew Tate also faces a rape charge in the U.K. A Florida woman also sued the brothers, alleging they lured her to Romania and forced her into sex work. Most of her claims were dismissed last month, though a judge allowed her to refile them, according to ProPublica. No criminal charges have been filed against the brothers in the United States. ProPublica also reported that White House official Paul Ingrassia, who previously represented the brothers before joining the administration, urged Department of Homeland Security officials to return electronic devices seized from the brothers during a 2025 visit to the U.S. The brothers' attorney, Joseph McBride, told ProPublica his clients were innocent, that no illicit material was found on the devices and that multiple investigations had produced no evidence of criminal conduct. Andrew Tate has repeatedly praised President Donald Trump and compared his legal troubles to those of the president in posts on X.

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Texas appeals court reverses temporary injunction against midwife accused of violating state abortion ban

A Texas appeals court on Thursday reversed a temporary injunction against a Houston-area woman accused of violating the state's abortion ban. Maria Margarita Rojas was arrested in March 2025 and accused of providing "illegal abortions" and practicing medicine without a license at a network of clinics in northwestern Houston, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Rojas' attorneys have argued that the allegations are not true and that the state has failed to prove any abortions were happening at the clinics or that any unlawful practice was occurring. A lower court in Waller County issued a temporary injunction against Rojas in May of last year, effectively shutting down the three clinics at which she worked.

In Thursday's memorandum opinion, the Fifteenth Court of Appeals in Austin found that "the State of Texas did not provide the trial court with sufficient evidence on which the trial court could grant a temporary injunction." The panel of three judges found the state improperly presented probable-cause affidavits from Rojas' separate criminal case at the civil hearing. "As a result, the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the probable-cause affidavits," the opinion read. "Without the probable-cause affidavits, the remaining evidence in the record does not reasonably support the State's allegations that abortions have been performed at the Clinics." However, the opinion notes that it only determines the status of the injunction and does not address not whether the allegations against Rojas are true. "Although the suit underlying this interlocutory appeal involves allegations that the appellants, a licensed midwife and a group of associated clinics, performed illegal abortions and practiced medicine without a license, this opinion does not decide whether those acts occurred," the opinion states.

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Toro District, others may be in doubt after judge voids 2021 election

A recent court ruling invalidating an amendment to the Texas Constitution could complicate Harris County’s plan for financing the Toro District and send ripples through a network of little-known taxing districts the county formed prior to the ruling. The amendment, which voters approved as Proposition 2 in 2021, was framed as giving county reinvestment zones the ability to issue debt. But some counties responded by creating these zones for the first time. Harris County has since created four and is negotiating with the Houston Texans and Howard Hughes to form a fifth to fund infrastructure for a new practice field and surrounding development in northwest Harris County. But state District Judge Jan Soifer’s July 10 ruling in a lawsuit brought by a group of conservative organizations may frustrate those plans.

Soifer agreed with the plaintiffs’ allegation that the ballot language used to describe the amendment failed to inform voters how the zones’ investments would be paid for – namely, by issuing bonds. “Therefore,” Soifer wrote, “the ballot language of Proposition 2 … omitted a chief feature of the amendment and misled the voters.” The lawsuit was brought against the Texas Secretary of State’s Office by Texas Uniting for Reform and Freedom, Grassroots America — We the People PAC and the True Texas Project. The organizations warned the language was misleading in a letter one of their lawyers sent state officials in August 2021, before the issue appeared on the ballot. Attorney Garrett McMillan pointed to a “nearly identical” proposal voters rejected in 2011. That proposal, he wrote, made clear that the reinvestment zones would fund projects through property taxes, unlike the 2021 measure.

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'It's killing us:' Austin's watercraft ban spells trouble for local businesses

The City of Austin extended its ban on watercraft, and lakefront businesses say it's affecting their margins. The ban was set in place on Friday, July 17, due to floodgate activity at several dams on the river following last week's floods. It was originally scheduled to be lifted on Tuesday, but city and water officials extended the ban through Thursday, July 23 at 5 p.m. "The 48-hour extension is necessary because higher and faster flows are expected to continue on the water for several days," the City of Austin wrote. Several waterfront businesses that rent out various watercraft have been forced to close temporarily.

Connor Champagne, Chief of Texas Operations at Lone Star Kayak Tours, says the hit to revenue is already apparent. "A weekend, generally, for a business like us is going to be a good 50% of our revenue for that particular week," he said. "It's usually like a $10,000 hit for us. And I imagine for larger businesses like Rowing Dock or Live Love Paddle who have bigger operations, they're probably seeing an even bigger hit to their margins." Casey Vick, the owner of Live Love Paddle, put it plainly: "It's killing us... it's killed our business. July is the busiest time of year," he said. This is the second year in a row that a watercraft ban has been implemented due to flooding. Last year's ban was prompted by the Fourth of July floods that ravaged much of Central Texas. "Safety is always first, of course," Vick said. "But in my opinion, [it] seems like they use an overabundance of caution, and maybe they need to consider the businesses on the lake a little more often than they do." If the ban lifts tomorrow as intended, Champagne says his tour guides will waste no time getting back on the water.

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Screwworm cases rise across Texas

On June 3, the first case of the New World screwworm (NWS) was discovered in La Pryor, Texas, infecting a three-week-old calf. Since then, screwworm cases have continued to gradually rise. As of July 22, 42 reported cases in cows, sheep, goats, and dogs have expanded throughout New Mexico and Texas – 41 of those reported in the Lone Star State. NWS are the larvae of the parasitic NWS fly, which burrows and eats the living flesh of warm-blooded animals. Screwworm flies lay eggs in the open wounds of animals, and the eggs hatch into maggots that “screw into” and feed on healthy tissue. Most commonly, the NWS is spread to livestock, pets, and wildlife. Infestations can cause serious and deadly injury to animals if untreated.

Infestations are highly treatable, as long as ranchers and farmers recognize signs early on and treat infested animals with medication. Anyone who notices an animal they suspect to have an NWS infection can report it to the USDA. The NWS outbreak is not a food safety issue, as NWS burrow only in the living flesh of animals. The NWS was largely eradicated from the U.S. in 1966, according to the USDA, through intense sterile fly programs. The sterile insect technique (SIT) involves breeding and introducing sterile NWS flies to known populations to slow reproduction and contain the spread. The program was extremely effective in the Sixties, but costly for ranchers and the state agencies that spearheaded it. NWS returned in 1976 in an isolated outbreak across Texas. SIT once again contained the infestation, but it put significant financial pressure on ranchers and farmers.

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San Antonio city attorney suggests mayor’s plan to end Ready to Work early may run afoul of state law

City Attorney Andy Segovia has responded to Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ latest idea to plug San Antonio’s $158 million budget gap, saying that asking voters to redirect funds from the Ready to Work program comes with significant limitations. The mayor made waves earlier this week when she floated the idea that ending the taxpayer-funded workforce development program early could divert up to $100 million of its collected funds to the city’s general fund. On Thursday, the city attorney advised council members that there could be strict limits on how Ready to Work funds can be used, according to a city memo obtained by the San Antonio Report. In the memo sent to the mayor and City Council, Segovia said Ready to Work funds are restricted under Texas’ Better Jobs Act.

State law allows the funds to be used for a specific purpose, he noted, related to developing a skilled workforce. That includes literacy and education — the memo mentions scholarships, secondary schools and after school programs as examples. Using it for unrelated purposes, like drainage or street improvements, wouldn’t be consistent with state law, according to the memo. Jones mentioned infrastructure improvements as a more pressing need in an interview with Texas Public Radio’s “The Source” on Monday. In her memo to council members on Tuesday, however, the mayor only pointed to high priority projects in the city’s general fund or 2027 bond as possible landing places for the money. Jones urged council members to consider putting the issue to voters as soon as the November ballot — and on Thursday, she didn’t seem to take Segovia’s response as a “no.”

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Southwest Airlines under fire after viral ICE airport arrest video

A viral video showing Department of Homeland Security officers detaining a woman as she attempted to board a Southwest Airlines flight at Denver International Airport has prompted criticism of the Texas-based airline on social media. The video, posted Tuesday on Instagram, shows 27-year-old Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas of Ecuador being detained by plainclothes Department of Homeland Security officers while attempting to board a flight from Denver to Oakland. In a statement, DHS said Morales Rojas entered the United States on a visa that allowed her to work as an au pair through Jan. 4, 2025, but remained in the country after it expired "in violation of our nation's laws." The footage quickly spread across social media, where many users criticized Southwest Airlines, accusing the carrier of helping facilitate the arrest. Some commenters said they planned to boycott the airline or cancel upcoming flights.

"I fly southwest for my commute and actually looking at my app right now to cancel all further flights. This is AWFUL," @jennifa_o_jenny wrote. "@southwestair I was looking at tickets last night with y’all. Glad I didn’t buy, taking my family trip business elsewhere," @frisco_lens added. Others criticized Southwest employees' actions during the incident, arguing they should not have assisted law enforcement officers. "Wow @southwestair you really threatened passengers to remove them from flights?!! That agent needs to be fired," @nuwing wrote. "I will never fly @southwestair ever again. Your employees don’t need to stand in the way but they sure as hell don’t need to assist," added @teep85. Southwest Airlines said it did not inform DHS officials about Morales Rojas' immigration status, CBS reported. However, the airline said the Transportation Security Administration and DHS have access to passenger information as part of the federal security screening process. Denver International Airport told CBS that "a number of federal agencies lawfully operate and have jurisdiction at DEN. As such, they are not required to inform the airport of their activity." Southwest Airlines also said that it has "provided guidance to its employees to help ensure appropriate legal documentation is presented by law enforcement agencies prior to interactions in the gate areas."

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Austin City Council set to approve outside firm to audit city operations

Austin’s first citywide efficiency audit is poised to move forward July 30, when City Council is expected to approve the selection of an independent firm to evaluate operations across all city departments. Pennsylvania-based public policy consulting firm Public Works LLC submitted the winning proposal, one of 25 bids received to perform a comprehensive assessment of all city departments. The proposed contract comes as Council also prepares to consider an initiative petition brought by conservative watchdog Save Austin Now PAC, which would require regular performance audits of city operations, potentially putting the issue of government accountability before voters this November.

The group collected more than the required 20,000 signatures to qualify the proposed charter amendment for the November ballot. Council must either place the measure on the November ballot or adopt it outright. It’s unclear how the city will proceed should voters approve the charter amendment while a separate assessment by Public Works gets underway. Council Member Marc Duchen, who unsuccessfully proposed an efficiency audit last year in response to a looming budget deficit, said the ordinance Council passed in February to create the Comprehensive Efficiency Assessment Program is not that far apart from what Save Austin Now’s initiative seeks to accomplish with a charter amendment. Mayor Kirk Watson brought forward the February ordinance to restore public trust in Council and the city as a whole. The PAC launched its petition drive after voters last year soundly rejected the city’s Proposition Q, which would have increased the property tax rate by more than 20%, resulting in the average Austin property owner paying an additional $200 a year.

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Conroe City Council backs Flock cameras despite residents' opposition

The Conroe City Council unanimously shelved two proposals Thursday that would have reviewed or reconsidered the city's use of Flock Safety license plate cameras, signaling strong support for the technology despite growing public opposition. Newly elected Council Member Kristin Hoisington called an effort to remove the cameras an “anti-police campaign.” “Over the last few days, it has become abundantly clear that this is no longer about creating reasonable policy; it’s being perpetuated by bad actors and performative agitators. In my opinion, it is an anti-police campaign,” Hoisington said.

“Its sole objective is to harass public servants and target families, stir up online outrage and suggest action that endangers those who serve the community.” Hoisington said she, along with fellow council members, has received “troubling” phone calls regarding the issue and said she would not put other community members in that position. She, along with Mayor Pro Tem John Sellars, brought forward an item to create a committee to study the cameras and their use in the community for council discussion. Hoisington asked the council to table the item indefinitely. The council agreed unanimously. The committee proposal was intended to examine how the city uses Flock Safety's automated license plate reader cameras amid growing public concern over privacy and surveillance. Opponents argue the cameras collect more information than the city has acknowledged, while city officials maintain the technology is a crime-fighting tool that records license plate numbers and vehicle characteristics — not people — and does not use facial recognition. Thursday's vote effectively halted efforts to further review the program or reconsider its future.

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TMPA warns of legal action against Mission regarding police chief

Mission could be hit with a lawsuit for failing to address “serious concerns” against Police Chief Cesar Torres, according to the Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA). “TMPA prefers professional dialogue over litigation, but we are prepared to use whatever legal measures are necessary to protect our members and hold failed leadership accountable,” read a letter written by Kevin Lawrence, the association’s executive director. Lawrence said he submitted the letter to the mayor and city council on June 30, with the document noting he was denied the opportunity to voice concerns during a regular meeting on June 23.

And on Monday, Lawrence said that his only statement regarding the letter was that he has not heard from the city since then, despite submitting it in person and through emails. “They have not responded at all,” Lawrence said. “I hand delivered that letter to city hall and I emailed it to every one of them — to their city email addresses — so I feel very confident they received them so they’ve chosen not to respond.” As for Mission, the city said in a statement Tuesday it received Lawrence’s letter, both in person and electronically, and has reviewed its contents. “As with any correspondence of this nature, the City handles such matters through the appropriate administrative and legal processes,” the statement read. “Because this involves personnel-related issues, the City has no further comment at this time.” Mayor Norie Gonzalez Garza echoed similar sentiments Tuesday, also confirming they received the letter and that it’s being reviewed by their attorney. “I am expecting a response from the attorney to Mr. Lawrence so I think that would be the proper thing to do,” she said. “I have not seen what’s been drafted, I couldn’t tell you what the comments are gonna be, but it is being reviewed.” As for Torres, he didn’t immediately respond to repeated requests for comment, including an in-person request from a reporter following a city council workshop Tuesday afternoon. In the letter, Lawrence told the council if he had been allowed to speak, he would’ve reminded them that the TMPA raised concerns regarding Torres before he was hired. “We believe the City either failed to fully vet him or chose to ignore his prior misconduct,” the letter stated. When asked why Lawrence wasn’t able to speak during the June 23 meeting, the city said it “follows established City Council procedures that provide members of the public an opportunity to address the Council on agenda items during the designated public comment period.” “The individual referenced sought to speak on a matter that was not listed on the posted agenda,” the city’s statement continued. “The City’s procedures were applied consistently in accordance with the Council’s established rules for public participation.”

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Sister Letty delivers statement following June ICE detainment

A crowd of parishioners gathered at a set of tables inside the conference room at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church Thursday morning. Just before 10 a.m., they began to applaud in support as Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja entered the room. Ugboaja took a seat at a table in the center of the room, sitting between Sister Norma Pimentel and her attorney Carlos Moctezuma Garcia. The occasion marked Ugboaja’s first public appearance since she was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while walking to Mass on the morning of June 28.

Garcia addressed the crowd of supporters and local media, informing everyone that Ugboaja would be reading a statement and would not be taking questions. “Good morning, everyone, and welcome,” she said. “It’s my pleasure to speak after all these weeks, days of stress, of anxiety, of fear. But according to the scriptures, ‘Do not be afraid, because I am with you always.’” As she continued reading her statement, she shared some details of her experience with ICE agents on the morning when she was detained. She said that she was stopped right outside the Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School. “Honestly, in that moment, I did not understand what was going on, what was happening to me, because I was busy reflecting on the readings of the Mass that very day,” she recalled. “I was very much afraid, with cold sweat. I can just hear my heart very tachycardic.” Ugboaja is originally from Nigeria, but she has been a community member for over a decade. While devoting her time to her religious services, she has spent many years working at different hospitals as well.

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Former WilCo sheriff, attorney demand $35M settlement in new civil lawsuit

The legal battle over the death of Javier Ambler is taking another turn. Just days after the felony case against former Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody and former County Attorney Jason Nassour was dismissed, they are now demanding $35 million from Williamson County to settle a new civil lawsuit. What they're saying: "This is one of the worst malicious prosecution cases that we've come across," Chody & Nassour’s attorney, Ryan Johnson, said. Chody and Nassour faced felony charges for tampering with evidence.

Prosecutors accused them of allowing producers for the reality TV show "Live PD" to destroy raw video of the March 2019 in custody death of Javier Ambler. It was later revealed Chody and Nassour never possessed or controlled the video and the footage had never been legally obtained before it was erased. The defense argued that is because prosecutors failed to use the proper legal process to obtain it. Former Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody and attorney Jason Nassour have filed a civil lawsuit against Travis and Williamson counties and their district attorneys, alleging malicious prosecution after evidence-tampering charges related to missing Live PD footage from the 2019 death of Javier Ambler were dropped. "They basically failed what a first-year law student would understand how to do and so that's embarrassing, and they tried to blame the county attorney, and they tried to blame a sheriff for doing their job and ultimately, it didn't hold up, and their case fell apart as it should," Johnson said. About a week-and-a-half ago. A judge dismissed all charges with prejudice. "When the charges were dismissed, I think that the main feeling was relief, some vindication, but they want to hold these people responsible because not only did they ruin their lives, they wasted millions of dollars in taxpayer money on a case that had absolutely no foundation," Johnson said.

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National Stories

Mortgage rates hit highest levels in nearly a year

Mortgage rates rose to their highest level in almost a year, as rising tensions in the Middle East spurred fears of higher inflation. The 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.58% this week, up from 6.55% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac, the highest level to date this year. Mortgage rates are closely tied to the 10-year Treasury yield, which hit an 18-month high Thursday due to rising oil prices. Yemen’s Houthi militants claimed attacks on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, promising to further constrict oil supply. The move sent oil prices past $100 a barrel Thursday. “Given what’s happened in just recent days with the 10-year Treasury, I think mortgage rates will get closer to 7% in the coming weeks,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American.

Mortgage rates briefly fell below 6% in February, sparking hope for a rebound in home sales following years of stagnation. But the beginning of the Iran war drove rates upward and they have remained volatile since. The surge in mortgage rates comes at the worst possible time. The real-estate industry had been hoping this year’s spring selling season, typically the busiest period of the year, would shake the frozen market loose. Instead, it was largely a bust, with buyers spooked by higher rates and uncertain about the path of the economy and job market. Earlier this month, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes slid 2.4% in June over the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.09 million, well below expectations. The housing market has been stuck in what is now a four-year slump after the rise in mortgage rates in 2022 concluded a pandemic-era buying frenzy.

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Satellite images show Iran is rebuilding. Fast.

Iran has quickly rebuilt infrastructure damaged during the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign over recent months, from missile bases nestled deep inside mountains to bridges, ports and production facilities, according to Israeli and Western officials and a review of satellite imagery. The faster-than-expected progress worries some Israeli officials. It helps explain Iran’s continued resilience despite an air campaign that involved more than 20,000 strikes at the height of the war and that continues along Iran’s coast in an effort to break Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz. Near Kangavar, in western Iran, satellite imagery from Planet Labs in March showed two tunnel entrances and an access road damaged by airstrikes aimed at blocking access to an Iranian missile base. Within weeks, imagery from Airbus revealed a neatly paved road leading to freshly excavated entrances.

In another case, an Israeli military official said Iran repaired a bridge that Israel had struck with three bombs within days, surprising Israeli officials and prompting them to question the effectiveness of their targeting. Planet Labs satellite images from the beginning of July also showed partial reconstruction efforts at a shipyard in the port of Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea that is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary group tasked with defending the regime. Israel said it hit dozens of targets there in March, including warships, the port, a command center and a shipyard used to repair and maintain vessels, aiming at a Russia-Iran supply line and calling it one of its most significant attacks of the war. Ran Kochav, a former commander of Israel’s air and missile defense forces, said the rapid recovery is consistent with skills Iran demonstrated in rebuilding its infrastructure and missile stockpile after the 12-day Israel-Iran war last June, before the new war began in February. “They refilled their stockpiles,” he said. “They have very impressive industrialization and reconstruction capabilities.”

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‘Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway’ signs face backlash from Vietnam veterans

Vietnam veterans in Sumner County, Tenn., are objecting to official signs honoring the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk that have appeared on a stretch of a state highway that has been designated Vietnam Veterans Boulevard since 1987. The signs, which say “Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway,” appeared on State Route 386 in Sumner County, north of Nashville, last month to the surprise of a number of Vietnam veterans who live in the area. “We woke up to find that there were signs placed on Vietnam Veterans Boulevard,” said David Black, 78, a Vietnam veteran and professor at Vanderbilt University, “and that road has been designated as a memorial to Vietnam veterans for over four decades.” Barry Rice, 80, president of the Tennessee State Council of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said “many of our veterans are very supportive of some memorial somewhere for Charlie Kirk.”

“But,” he added, “not on our Vietnam Veterans Boulevard.” Representative Johnny Garrett, a Republican who represents Sumner County in the Tennessee General Assembly, proposed a memorial designation for State Route 386 honoring Mr. Kirk in March. “This past year I was approached by several constituents who wished to find a way to honor Charlie Kirk for the life he lived defending the freedom of speech and inspiring an entire generation of young people to stand up for the freedoms and Christian values that our nation was built on,” Mr. Garrett said in an email. Mr. Garrett said he chose the location “because it is the main entrance to Sumner County from Nashville.” Vietnam veterans in Sumner County were “totally blindsided” by the move, according to Dr. Black, a Marine Corps veteran who said “no one from the Legislature reached out to us.”

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Government withdraws subpoenas of 3 reporters for The New York Times

Criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government on Thursday grudgingly withdrew subpoenas that would have compelled three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for articles about President Donald Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet. The withdrawals in U.S. District Court followed a remarkable back-and-forth between a visibly irritated Judge Arun Subramanian and government lawyers. They come at a time when the Trump administration is vigorously going after news organizations whose reporting and coverage it doesn’t like — and also trying to crack down on leaks inside the government. The government’s turnabout in the face of vigorous legal opposition and a stern reprimand from a judge marked the latest instance of the Justice Department making aggressive moves to compel journalists to identify their sources before a grand jury — only to later retreat.

The administration recently withdrew similar subpoenas that sought to compel testimony from journalists for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal related to separate national security coverage. Subramanian said he otherwise would have granted the newspaper’s request to reject the subpoenas because regulations pertaining to subpoenas served on journalists maintain that they should be issued as a last resort in an investigation. “Subpoenas are the last step, not the first step, but the last step,” the judge said, citing rules set to protect against violations of the First Amendment. He said the government’s actions had turned the law and the regulations “on its head.” “When you see something like this, if this were a civil proceeding, what I would normally do is ask the parties to show causes why sanctions should not be issued,” the judge said, referencing punishment for lawyers for egregious actions. After the hearing, the Justice Department lashed out at Subramanian in a statement, saying he “threatened our attorneys with sanctions unless subpoenas were withdrawn, and blocked us from presenting the meticulous process of this investigation.”

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Trump returns to White House correspondents' dinner after April attack halted gala

U.S. President Donald Trump will address the White House Correspondents' Association at a rescheduled dinner on Friday, nearly three months after a shooting at ?the Washington Hilton hotel interrupted the event. The black-tie gathering of journalists, politicians and administration officials was called off ?on April 25 after a man tried to force his way through a security checkpoint and fired a shotgun outside the ballroom where Trump and members of his cabinet were taking their seats. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. The suspect, Cole Allen, pleaded not guilty in May to charges including attempting to assassinate the president.

The dinner has been moved ?to the Waldorf Astoria hotel and will take place under heightened security. Secret Service Director Sean Curran told reporters Wednesday ?that an advance team was implementing a comprehensive security plan at the hotel. “We do expect bad people to ?show up," Curran said. "It's just a reality of where we are, but we're treating it no differently than any other site ?that the president goes to.” Trump has said the shooting in April showed the need for a $400 million ballroom being built at the White ?House, saying that holding such events there would increase the president's security. Friday's dinner will honor Secret Service officer Victor Gonzales, who was shot at a security checkpoint outside the ballroom in April and credited with stopping the attack. He was wearing a protective vest and was the only person injured ?that night. Washington Hilton staff who assisted guests will also be recognized, the WHCA said.

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Mike Johnson is ‘sick of this sh*t’ (but sorry he said so)

Speaker Mike Johnson was at his wit’s end. For months, he had been dealing with one rebellion after another, and now members were about to tank a bipartisan veterans bill. The House was scheduled to quickly approve the bill that Thursday morning and head out for the weekend. Trying to salvage another priority for his party, Johnson brought a handful of members, including those threatening to block the bill, into his “ceremonial room” across from the House chamber. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), who opposed the bill, and Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), who supported it, started yelling at each other. Luna then pointed her anger toward Johnson. Fed up, the speaker snapped and replied, “I’m sick of this shit,” according to multiple sources in the room.

Witnesses were shocked that the typically even-keeled Johnson had lost his cool. Almost immediately, he apologized to Luna for his outburst. He then walked over to the elementary-school-aged son of Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colorado), who had witnessed the interaction, and got down on one knee and apologized for cursing in front of him, the sources said. Johnson left the room and did what he’s been forced to do repeatedly this Congress: pull the bill because a few Republicans wouldn’t agree to vote for it. NOTUS spoke with more than a dozen lawmakers and aides for a broader view of how the speaker’s daily crises — often brought about by his own members — continue to derail his party’s agenda. Most rank-and-file Republican members are upset with the handful who regularly make the House look like a hot mess. Some lawmakers refuse to be team players, and the incentive structure that rewards them makes governing impossible, they say. (Proposals that would punish those who step out of line are even being considered, sources told NOTUS.)

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Number of U.S. troop deaths in Iran war appears lower on Pentagon website

On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran. By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war. Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April. The officials described sensitive internal discussions on the condition of anonymity. The acting press secretary for the Pentagon, Joel Valdez, attributed the change instead to “temporary data disruptions” on the website that he suggested would be quickly fixed.

Since the cease-fire collapsed, the Pentagon has provided little information about the American military strategy and has been slow to release information about troops’ injuries. The last major Pentagon briefing on the war was in early May. The Defense Department has said that disclosing Iranian strikes on bases where U.S. troops are housed would compromise operational security. The Pentagon withheld information about three Iranian strikes last week in Jordan that injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. After an Iranian strike in Jordan on Friday killed three soldiers, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, acknowledged that the number of U.S. military casualties since July 7 had risen to nearly 100. Defense Department officials say they are bound by law to report troop deaths, but not injuries. Critics, including Democratic senators, say the Trump administration is obligated to inform the public about the conduct of the war.

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Lead Stories

Texas politicians call for AI guardrails after OpenAI security incident

Texas politicians across the political spectrum are calling for guardrails on artificial intelligence and data centers. This comes after OpenAI disclosed that one of its AI models gained access to another company’s systems during a security evaluation. On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said via social media, “We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models.” OpenAI identified the target as Hugging Face, an AI platform that hosts models and datasets. “The model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information,” OpenAI said in a recent statement. The model then used that information to access Hugging Face servers.

The incident raises a broader legal question if it were to happen again: Who is responsible when an AI system hacks a company? University of Texas Law Professor Kevin Frazier says the answer is not so simple. “It depends,” Frazier told Nexstar Wednesday. “We know that the laws we have on the books in many ways were not written with these highly sophisticated AI models in mind.” Frazier says existing laws often focus on human decisions and company actions, creating uncertainty when AI systems act in unexpected ways. “The law that is currently being evaluated by legal scholars and by AI pundits is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA),” he said. “So it includes, in many of its provisions, a intent provision asking, for example, did a computer user intend to hack into another system? We’re not sure how that’s going to apply to situations like this one in which intent is really hard to attribute to an AI system.” Frazier noted the law likely won’t be tested in this circumstance, as OpenAI and Hugging Face appear to be handling the situation together.

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Ken Paxton’s fundraising woes are beginning to worry some in the GOP

James Talarico is the most well-funded Texas Democratic Senate candidate in years. Some in the Republican Party are worried about the challenge Attorney General Ken Paxton is mounting in return. “A joke,” one GOP strategist said of Paxton’s fundraising this week. Another, when asked if they were worried about the impact Paxton’s cash disadvantage could have on downballot races, said “everybody is.” “I’m more concerned than I was in 2018,” said Jill Tate, president of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, referring to Beto O’Rourke’s close loss to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. “Talarico is a formidable opponent.” Paxton’s campaign said it raised $9 million in the quarter ending last month, compared to Talarico’s $30 million

Some Republicans who support Paxton are optimistic that his strong connections to the base and to President Donald Trump will drive turnout in November. Others say his scorched-earth primary fight with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn turned off traditional GOP donors and is evidence that enthusiasm in the broader Republican umbrella is not what it needs to be ahead of a pivotal election. A candidate’s fundraising is important outside of the fate of their own race. Down-ballot candidates are often buoyed by high performers in their party who fund get-out-the-vote efforts, campaign events and generate excitement. Tate said Talarico comes across as likable and well spoken, and “that’s what affects the entire ballot.” She’s not the only one who thinks so. Cruz said Talarico has a “real chance” to beat Paxton on a radio show earlier this month. He’s now reportedly helping Paxton smooth things over with some major Republican donors.

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‘We’re getting into an ugly phase’: Trump’s new tariffs are angering voters and U.S. allies alike

Tariffs are back — and they couldn’t come at a worse time for the GOP. Some Republicans fear the eye-popping new levies President Donald Trump threatened to slap on Canada and generic drug makers this week will aggravate Americans who were already blaming the tariffs for stubborn inflation ahead of a midterm election dominated by economic issues. The president has long brandished tariffs as a cudgel in negotiations and some industry insiders see the promise of a future 50 percent tariff on $20 billion of Canadian goods and 100 percent levies on generic drugs as the latest example of a well-worn tactic. The administration is hoping to get Canada to re-negotiate a trade pact and pharmaceutical companies to reshore manufacturing.

But the president’s allies fear that nuance will be lost on voters and argue the new tariffs — which could raise the prices of popular goods like alcohol and bacon, and the heart pills necessary to mitigate their effects — threaten to undercut the long list of victories Republicans would rather be touting. “Everything that you do that’s not focused on affordability is not helpful. This might not be a negative five, but it’s a negative 0.5. Anything that you’re doing that is not on the plus side of the scale is a problem,” said one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak about the impact of the tariffs on the GOP’s midterm chances. “When you announce new tariffs, it’s not like, okay, well, let’s see what they do. It’s, ‘Oh crap, those are the bad things.’” The threat of new levies — the duties on Canada are not scheduled to take effect until mid-August and the generic duties until 2028 — come as the administration slowly rebuilds its tariff wall in the aftermath of a February Supreme Court ruling that struck down a broad swath of Trump’s trade regime. The president is set to unveil another set of tariffs ranging from 10 to 12.5 percent on 97 countries in the coming days. The administration also has several ongoing investigations that could result in tariffs on everything from wind turbines to industrial machinery.

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James Talarico rolls out plan to rein in data centers. It's a lot like Greg Abbott's.

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico on Wednesday rolled out a plan to address the growing backlash to data centers — and it sounded a lot like the one pushed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Opposition to the centers has galvanized voters, especially in deep-red rural parts of the state, and has led to calls for a moratorium from several Democrats on the ticket in November. Talarico’s proposal stops short of that. The Austin Democrat and the Republican governor — who is not running for U.S. Senate, but has sought to brand Talarico as “out of step” with Texans — are both pushing for a middle ground. “I don't know what Greg Abbott's plan is, but I'm willing to work with anybody, including the governor, to pass these common sense regulations,” Talarico said at a press conference in Austin, where he laid out his proposal. “We have to strike a balance between welcoming growth, welcoming investment, and protecting people and communities.”

Talarico and Abbott both want to repeal tax breaks that are driving the data center boom across the state. They want to require data centers to reuse water and to stop companies from passing on infrastructure costs to ratepayers in the communities where they build. The sales tax exemption for data centers was created before Abbott was elected governor in 2014, but he signed a law expanding it in 2015, well before demand boomed amid the rise of artificial intelligence. Talarico’s plan does go a little further than Abbott’s in some ways. Perhaps most notably, Talarico says he wants to “empower local communities to decide whether they want a data center in their town.” Any changes he wants to make in the U.S. Senate will have to be at the federal level, which could be more complicated, politically. “The biggest concern I hear from communities across the state is that this is being done without their consent,” Talarico said. “They may be open to some of these projects, depending on the guardrails, depending on if demands are met. But right now, folks in the community, taxpayers, aren't getting that input, and that's what we have to change.”

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State Stories

Nvidia supplier Wistron launches $700 million Texas factory for AI system production

Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang calls a partner's new supercomputer assembly plant in Fort Worth a key part of the artificial intelligence infrastructure ecosystem that will "re-industrialize" the United States. Huang and other executives from the world's most valuable company were on hand for the July 21 opening of the first of two Wistron Corp. plants in the city. They pulled a curtain off the first GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Superchip built by the Taiwanese company in Fort Worth, with Huang signing the chip: "The world's first made in Texas, U.S.A." Those chips ultimately will be installed in supercomputer racks for the GB300, the most powerful AI supercomputer in the world. The computers weigh two tons, cost $4 million and consist of 1.5 million parts. They are installed in data centers that power AI systems.

"We're producing them like phones right here in Wistron," Huang said. Huang believes Wistron's manufacturing sites in Fort Worth, an estimated $761 million investment, will be key to his company's $500 billion initiative to build out AI infrastructure. Other partners include Taiwanese companies Foxconn and TSMC. Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world with a market capitalization of $5.2 billion, according to Yahoo Finance. The first factory by Wistron in Fort Worth, called D1, is located in a 324,598-square-foot building at 15200 Heritage Parkway. The building is part of Hillwood’s 27,000-acre AllianceTexas development in far north Fort Worth. Wistron estimates the investment could create up to 900 jobs, which will assemble and test the technology. Wistron is one of several companies in Dallas-Fort Worth partnering with Nvidia to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure. Earlier in July, Huang spoke at a Coherent groundbreaking in Sherman about how artificial intelligence will "re-industrialize" the U.S. The city of Irving, in Dallas County, approved incentives for Nvidia projects.

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A tiny Texas town fights Trump's border wall plan

On one side: a small community in rural Texas. On the other: the Trump administration. A tiny Texan town along the border with Mexico is fighting the administration’s efforts to build a border wall running through a levee system protecting the community. The town argued in court Tuesday that the wall could cause flooding and that the administration isn’t following the law as it rushes forward with its plans. The hearing in federal court came as the Department of Homeland Security charges forward with its $46 billion plan to complete a border wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and deliver on what has long been a signature promise of President Donald Trump. But the department is running into opposition by landowners, environmental groups, Native American tribes and others who argue that the government’s rapid construction endangers historical and religious sites and a way of life along the border, when crossings from Mexico are already at extreme lows.

The lawsuit brought by the development district of Presidio pits a small town of a little over 3,200 residents against a department key to the Trump administration’s plans to carry out its mass deportations agenda. It also showcases a context that has long been important to many Americans, particularly Republicans: the scratchiness that sometimes arises between the most local of municipalities and the federal government in Washington. Lawyers for the development district contend the government’s plans could compromise the levee system protecting the town from flash flooding — a formidable problem in Texas — and that the government flouted a key act that requires it to seek permission from the Army Corps of Engineers before building on or near the levees. The government argues that there is no final plan for where the border wall will go or how it will be built. Regardless, the administration asserts it has the authority to waive a vast swath of regulations to build the wall as it seeks to get the number of people crossing the border every day to zero.

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Laredo's future rides on Trump’s next trade moves

Tractor-trailers rumble through the gates of the World Trade Bridge, punctuated by the squeals of air brakes and growls of engines. South of the border, a line of trucks stretches back into Mexico, extending for more than a mile at the busiest times. President Trump’s tariffs have reshaped America’s trading relationship with the world. Imports from countries like China have steadily fallen as tariffs went into effect. As a result, manufacturers have sought low-cost factories closer to home, prompting a boom in trade between the United States and Mexico. Laredo, Texas, has been a winner from the shift. A border city on the Rio Grande, it directly connects the factories surrounding Monterrey, Mexico, about 150 miles away, with Interstate 35, a central artery in the United States, and other highways that carry Mexican products throughout the country. Roughly 40 percent of U.S.-Mexico trade passes through Laredo.

That trade is now in question as Mr. Trump demands changes to the North American trade agreement that has stitched together the economies of Mexico, Canada and the United States for more than three decades. In negotiations in Mexico City this week, U.S. officials will push for significant revisions to the trade deal the president signed during his first term — the United States Mexico Canada Agreement — which replaced NAFTA. Under those deals, goods have been allowed to move between the countries tariff free, as long as they follow the rules of the pact. Mr. Trump has already taken a highly disruptive approach to North American trade. He has threatened to scrap U.S.M.C.A. altogether unless the United States gets a better deal, a disastrous scenario for the businesses that depend on it. On July 1, he declined to renew the agreement, starting a 10-year clock for its expiration. And on Monday, Mr. Trump signed orders to impose a 50 percent tariff, starting next month, on Canadian goods ranging from plywood and paper to cement and hockey sticks, a move some speculated was an effort to force Canada to the negotiating table. Negotiations with Mexico have been smoother, but U.S. officials say they want to see big changes to the relationship. Since U.S.M.C.A. was signed in 2018, the U.S. trade deficit in goods with Mexico has more than doubled, irking Mr. Trump. U.S. officials want their Mexican counterparts to adopt changes to the pact that would require manufacturing more products in the United States and give U.S. companies greater access to the Mexican market. Mr. Trump has put tariffs on some goods from Mexico, including steel, copper and tomatoes, but most U.S.M.C.A. goods continue to come into the United States tariff free.

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‘This isn’t a peacekeeping initiative — this is a terror campaign’: Texas faith leaders condemn ICE deaths

A group of religious leaders gathered Wednesday (July 22) at the Texas State Capitol to condemn recent immigration enforcement-related deaths in Texas, Maine and Florida and to demand that federal immigration agents end what one pastor called a “terror campaign” against migrants. “We grieve every death, every act of violence and every enforcement practice that unnecessarily endangers human life or diminishes the God-given dignity of our immigrant neighbors,” said Bishop Sue Briner of the Southwestern Texas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “When fear begins to shape the daily lives of our neighbors, it is time for the church to show up.” The news conference inside the Capitol brought together about two dozen leaders from the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, the South Central Conference of the United Church of Christ, the National Council of Jewish Women and other faith-related groups.

Texas Impact, an interfaith grassroots advocacy network, organized the event in response to the July 7 fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Houston. The religious leaders present condemned deportations, detention centers and enforcement-related deaths involving ICE amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. Federal agents who determine that their actions have been immoral should “resign and find other work,” said the Rev. Jim Harrington of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Austin, where he works with immigrants, and who is also a lawyer who founded the Texas Civil Rights Project. “Following orders is never a justification in the Christian tradition — nor in international law — to perpetuate evil,” Harrington said. The Rev. Dan De Leon, senior pastor at Friends Congregational Church in College Station, invoked the Sermon on the Mount. “Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ Notice that Jesus does not say, ‘Blessed are the peacekeepers,’ which is what ICE alleges to be doing in our communities,” De Leon said.

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Paxton dodges ethics questions while claiming Talarico isn’t Christian

Within the last week, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton has claimed his opponent holds views “antithetical … to historical Christian views” while refusing to answer questions about his own alleged illegal voting. Paxton, a Southern Baptist layman, will face Presbyterian minister James Talarico in this November’s general election for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas. Paxton already defeated Republican incumbent John Cornyn, a devout Catholic, in the May primary. Paxton has been dogged by ethics complaints for decades and was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives but spared conviction by the Texas Senate after Donald Trump threatened revenge against any state senator who voted against Paxton. This year, Trump endorsed Paxton in the primary despite a trail of ethics complaints.

One of the key themes of Paxton and the GOP in general against Talarico is that he is not an authentic Christian but someone who embraces the Social Gospel. That makes him not only a liberal in their eyes but also not a Christian. Other Republican leaders have falsely labeled Talarico as a homosexual and a transgender man. On June 25, Paxton appeared on the “Lieutenant Dan” podcast with Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and said this about Talarico: “His views are antithetical to Christian, historical Christian views. They’re — it’s deceptive for him to present his views as historical Christianity. They are not Christian views. They are his views that he’s adopted from liberal theology that do not reflect what Scripture says. None of his views that I’ve heard match up. They’re literally the opposite of Christianity.” Talarico’s “liberal” views include the belief that Christians should care for the poor, welcome immigrants, support public education, reject Christian nationalism, protect religious freedom and treat LGBTQ people with dignity. Paxton recently reached an out-of-court divorce settlement with his estranged wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.” The Texas attorney general’s extramarital relationships have been well documented.

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Floods expose dangers of Trump’s $3 billion Rio Grande buoy barrier plan

The Rio Grande floodwaters in Laredo and Eagle Pass are subsiding, but not the mess, which includes the closure of international bridges and financial losses estimated in the millions. This is all thanks to the Trump administration’s massive orange “waterborne barrier” buoys, each weighing a ton, which private contractors are still retrieving from the river. Dozens of buoys are also lodged on the Mexican side of the river. Texas border cities from Brownsville to Eagle Pass have opposed the administration’s plan to deter border crossers by turning the Rio Grande into what will look like the world’s largest swim lane, with 536 miles of chained-together orange buoys. Border city officials oppose the plan for various reasons, including flooding hazards and a lack of environmental and safety studies. The plan also violates the binational water treaty with Mexico. But the Department of Homeland Security is moving forward with the barriers anyway, doling out $3 billion in taxpayer money to a handful of private contractors.

Thousands of these buoys are waiting to be installed, staged up and down the river in different areas, many of them on private land. At least 17 miles of buoy barrier have already been installed at the southernmost part of the Rio Grande in Brownsville, where there was no flooding over the weekend. This weekend’s river flows were less than half of the historic flood of 2010, when Hurricane Alex dropped more than 50 inches of rain and the Rio Grande crested at 57 feet. But it was enough to demonstrate the failures, and the danger, of the administration’s plan for the “waterborne barriers.” The buoy plan has been carried out largely in secrecy after the DHS waived more than 30 federal laws that would have required public oversight and input. In most cases, city officials don’t know where the buoy staging areas are located, given that the administration and contractors haven’t communicated any of this information. When The Border Chronicle contacted city officials in Eagle Pass and Laredo on Monday, they were still trying to obtain information from DHS on how the buoys would be retrieved from the river and where exactly they came from.

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As state takeover pressure mounts, Austin ISD will close another middle school

The Austin school district is moving to immediately close Paredes Middle School before the start of the 2026-27 school year, a drastic step the district is taking as the campus faces the possibility of failing another state accountability rating and further state intervention. While Austin ISD in a statement on Wednesday attributed the imminent closure to slow academic progress, labor union Education Austin said district leaders told the group they expected the campus to earn a fourth consecutive failed rating when state ratings are released in mid-August. The closure comes at a pivotal moment for Austin ISD as it awaits state accountability ratings expected in mid-August. The ratings for Dobie, Webb and Burnet middle schools could determine whether the district faces a state takeover. If any of those campuses receive a fifth consecutive rating, Education Commissioner Mike Morath could either order the campus closed or replace Austin ISD’s elected board with an appointed one.

The district announced its proposal just months after Superintendent Matias Segura pledged to avoid additional school closures. Ken Zarifis, president of Education Austin, said the district informed the union midday Wednesday. Education Austin made public the proposed closure on a statement posted to social media Wednesday afternoon. Austin ISD trustees are expected to vote on the proposal next week after reviewing the proposal and gathering community input on July 28 and 30. School closures require board approval. Austin ISD said the proposal is a difficult decision, but district leaders are committed to high expectations and rigor for all students. “Middle school is a critical bridge to high school, college, and future careers,” Matias Segura said in the statement. “We cannot afford to wait when we have the ability to give these students access to stronger academic environments right now,” Zarifis said the closure is a difficult but necessary step to avoid more interruptions during the school year, particularly if the Texas Education Agency were to require further intervention at the school in response to another low academic accountability rating.

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A gas leak caused by a line strike outside an Uptown Dallas apartment forced an evacuation

A gas line struck by a construction company outside an Uptown apartment complex Wednesday afternoon caused a gas leak and the evacuation of over 180 apartments, Dallas Fire-Rescue said. The scene was cleared by 6 p.m. and residents had returned to their apartments, according to DFR. Firefighters responded to the gas leak at the MAA Meridian Apartments around 1:20 p.m. and dispatched the HazMat team to address the situation despite there being no gas readings inside the building, according to Jason Evans, a DFR spokesperson.

Reports indicated the leak was caused by a construction company hitting a 6-inch commercial gas line, Evans said. Atmos technicians were on location to address the leak. An investigation by KERA found excavators in Texas have struck thousands of gas lines this year alone. Most notably, a gas explosion in May killed three people in an Oak Cliff apartment. A preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report found a drilling company hit an unmarked gas line outside the apartment, causing a gas leak that led to the explosion. Multiple wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against Atmos Energy in the wake of the explosion, claiming the company failed to locate and mark the gas line that was hit.

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Dallas poll tests mayoral candidates and bond measures

Shortly after the dinner hour Tuesday, a text message popped up on my phone. It was “James with Zylun Insights” asking me to take a survey “on issues important to residents of Dallas County.” Now, usually I ignore these things. I have a limited list of things I use my phone for, and that’s not one of them. But the name of the company asking made me click through. Zylun Insights is now Clear Insights. The link in the text says Clear Insights. If you go to the Zylun Insights website, it redirects to Clear Insights. In April, WFAA’s Cole Sullivan led the charge in trying to uncover who hired Zylun/Clear Insights to survey Dallas residents about future arena sites. (The city’s contract for polling is with ZenCity.) That particular survey had 30 questions designed to feel out a survey taker about various high-profile Dallasites, including Mayor Eric Johnson, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, and others, as well as people connected with the American Airlines Center and the Mavericks, such as Miriam Adelson and Mark Cuban.

But it also asked the survey taker to choose from four options for a future arena site: City Hall, the former Valley View Mall site, the AAC, and an “unnamed location outside Dallas city limits but still inside Dallas County.” It also queried about whether people would be down with a future ballot measure that would direct tax dollars toward financing the arena. Yesterday’s survey kicks off by asking about the likelihood of the respondent voting in the November midterms. It then launches into specific Dallas questions: Is the city on the right path? What is the number one challenge the city faces? Will you still live in Dallas in two years? What would make you change your mind about living in Dallas? It also asked respondents to give the city an A-F grade on transparency, crime and public safety, cost of living and affordability, responsible use of taxpayer dollars, availability of good paying jobs, tourism and culture, homelessness, business and economic development, pensions and taking care of seniors, debt and long term finances, education and taking care of children, roads and transportation, sports and recreation, and city leadership. It also asked whether the survey taker has a favorable opinion on specific people: potential mayoral candidates like former mayoral candidate Lynn McBee and former Dallas ISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa, Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux, former police chief David Brown, and former Dallas City Councilmember Jennifer Staubach Gates. It also asks for job approval responses for Mayor Eric Johnson, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, Councilmember Gay Donnell Willis, Dallas City Council as a whole, the Dallas police and fire departments, and Dallas City Hall staff and administration. The survey then turns its attention to two bond measures that will likely appear on the November ballot. One would ask voters to approve nearly $400 million in bonds to complete two police training facilities. The other would ask voters to approve $500 million in bonds to address the city’s public safety pension shortfall. Both questions ask survey takers to say how likely they are to vote for or against the bonds, from “Definitely Against” to “Definitely For”. The next few questions lead survey takers through several statements that have or could appear in news stories or campaign materials for those ballot measures, asking the respondent to indicate whether the statement would make them more or less likely to change their minds about their leaning, or if it didn’t move the needle at all.

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ERCOT prepares for record demand during Texas heat wave

Texas power grid operators are preparing for record-breaking demand this week, due to a heat wave that is driving up energy use in the Houston area and across the state. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said Wednesday the grid is currently operating under normal conditions. "ERCOT continues a reliability-first approach to grid operations and will continue to operate the grid conservatively, bringing generating resources online early to mitigate sudden changes in generation or demand," spokesperson Trudi Webster said in a statement.

In the Houston region, an extreme heat warning was issued by the National Weather Service for Wednesday as triple-digit temperatures were forecasted along with heat indices, or “feels-like” temperatures, in the 110-115 range. There was a heat advisory on Tuesday. ERCOT's record demand of 85,508 megawatts occurred on Aug. 10, 2023. The council said the state may have set a new record on Tuesday, surpassing that usage by about 2,000 MW. However, ERCOT cautioned the numbers from this week were still preliminary, and have yet to be confirmed. In 2023, ERCOT narrowly avoided a power grid failure and rolling blackouts during one of the state's hottest summers on record. However, University of Houston Energy Fellow Ed Hirs said Texans don't have to worry about grid failures this summer, due to a growth in renewable energy. "We have more than enough capacity for wind, solar (and) batteries pitching in to meet the ever-rising demand on the Texas grid," he said.

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SpaceX makes history as one of the worst IPOs in years

Just over a month since its historic initial public offering, SpaceX has delivered one of the weakest post-debut performances of any major U.S. listing since the end of the Great Recession. A Barron’s analysis found that the stock has performed worse than 90% of other U.S. IPOs with market capitalizations of $1 billion or more since July, 2009. Over the first 27 trading days, SpaceX was down 23% from its first day closing price of $161. Across 955 public offerings, the typical IPO returned 0.8% over the equivalent period. On Tuesday, SpaceX broke a seven-day losing streak in which the shares fell 21%, gaining 3.1% to $123.54 by market close.

SpaceX IPO price was $135, but it is now trading below that price. The IPO was made available to large numbers of retail investors, unlike the typical IPO that is largely only available to institutional investors or those with large brokerage accounts. Poor IPO performance doesn’t determine a company’s long-term trajectory. Meta Platforms ultimately rewarded patient investors after its rocky debut, but the turnaround was far from immediate. In the months following its public listing, Meta came under renewed pressure after the lock-up period expired and insiders were free to sell. SpaceX faces a similar challenge: beginning in August, billions of previously restricted shares are expected to become eligible for sale, increasing the supply of stock at a time when demand has already weakened. Not all of those shares will hit the market at once. Shares held by founder Elon Musk are locked up until June 2027 and cannot be sold earlier. Together with holdings from other major pre-IPO investors, this group accounts for roughly 7.8 billion shares, or about 60% of the company’s 13 billion in outstanding shares after the IPO.

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Secret’s out: Amazon is the company behind Austin’s fast-tracked Dog’s Head project

The identity of the Fortune 100 company that has quietly driven the city’s push to fast-track approvals for the Dog’s Head development is finally public: Amazon. Austin Assistant City Manager Eric Johnson revealed at the City Council’s work session Tuesday that Amazon’s robotics division is the anchor tenant Dog’s Head developers have been trying to lure to the proposed 2,600-acre, mixed-use project in Southeast Austin. Johnson had argued for months that the city’s ability to land the company depended on moving quickly through the approval process. The urgency shaped the city’s handling of Dog’s Head. Before the project drew widespread public scrutiny, the City Council annexed the Southeast Austin land in late May. The city also signed off on a 45-year, wide-ranging agreement that allows the developer, Endeavor, to build almost anything.

Until Tuesday, the city and Endeavor had refused to name Amazon publicly due to confidentiality agreements. The disclosure answers a question that has lingered for months as residents and environmental advocates criticized the city for accelerating approvals without fully explaining what was driving the urgency. Dog’s Head is a four-square-mile proposed mixed-used development that could bring thousands of houses, businesses, industrial plants and even data centers to the site. Residents and environmentalists have protested the project, saying the city is moving too fast and regulating the development too loosely. Dog’s Head won’t move forward unless the City Council approves a tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, a financing tool. Under a TIRZ, Endeavor would build infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines. The city would reimburse much of that cost over time using the new property tax revenue generated within Dog’s Head. The council is expected to vote on that plan at its Thursday meeting.

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Elon Musk pumps nearly $5M into Texas GOP, Abbott campaign

Texas Republicans and their causes have received nearly $5 million from the world’s richest man this year. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, has given $500,000 to Texans for Greg Abbott in the six months through June, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the state. Other high-profile donations include $250,000 to Rep. Dustin Burrows, the speaker of the Texas House, and the Elon Musk Revocable Trust gave another $500,000 to Texans for Dan Patrick, the campaign committee of the lieutenant governor. At the start of the year, he gave $500,000 to Patrick’s Texas Senate Leadership Fund ahead of a Senate special election in North Texas. The Musk trust’s other political contributions this year include $2 million to the Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC and $1 million to the Judicial Fairness PAC.

Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which backs tort reform, has overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates for office. From 2025 through April, it is also the political action committee that has spent the most on state elections. The Judicial Fairness PAC has supported Republican judicial candidates across Texas. Musk is making donations outside of Texas, too. He gave $5 million to a super PAC supporting Republican billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign for Ohio governor. He also sent $10 million to both the Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund, which support Republicans. He contributed less than $500,000 in the second quarter to his own America PAC, which backed President Donald Trump’s re-election. In all, his donations for the midterm election cycle are at least $90 million. From September 2024 to April, he had given $5.5 million to political action committees in Texas. The year 2024 also saw his funding of a group that unsuccessfully tried to unseat Travis County District Attorney José Garza in the Democratic primary. Until increasing sharply in 2024, his donations to Texas politicians totaled $69,500, almost all of which was given in 2014. Musk’s personal net worth is tied largely to his 42% stake in SpaceX and roughly 15% ownership stake in Tesla. Much of his fortune is on paper, tied to the fortunes of his companies, and he’s said less than 0.1% of it is in cash. He briefly became the world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX went public in June. The company’s shares shot as high as $176 on their first day of trading, pushing Musk’s personal wealth above the $1 trillion mark and the company’s market value to $2.2 trillion. In recent days, Musk’s net worth has dropped to less than $800 billion as investors have driven down SpaceX shares after it aborted the 13th launch of its Starship rocket last week for engine trouble.

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National Stories

Ratepayer bill gains momentum in House amid data center backlash

A bill that seeks to mitigate data centers’ impacts on Americans’ electric bills is gaining steam in the House, as lawmakers face pressure to act in the face of sharp backlash to the sprawling AI infrastructure. The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act would require states to “consider” standards that put the costs on tech companies, rather than individuals. Its supporters say it could help alleviate potential price spikes caused by power-hungry data centers, but critics say it doesn’t go far enough to solve the problem. The legislation advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday in a 52-0 vote, a strong display of bipartisan support and a reflection of how the backlash to the data center buildout has crossed party lines.

The measure, which aims to codify a White House pledge signed by tech giants earlier this year, forces state regulators to hold a hearing on a standard that would ensure that large data centers pay for the cost of new power or power lines stemming from their electricity use. It does not force them to actually adopt such standards. “[I]t has become clear that across the entire industry there is one entity uniquely positioned to stand up for families and communities who are the ones paying electricity bills-and that is this Committee, and our colleagues in Congress,” House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said in a statement. The Ratepayer Protection Act also recently got a companion in the Senate, bolstering its chances of becoming law. Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) introduced the measure in the upper chamber last week. A spokesperson for the senator said in a statement that he is “encouraged by the bipartisan support and committee passage in the House” and will continue working with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to get the bill “across the finish line in the Senate.”

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Senate GOP expresses concern over Iran endgame after Hegseth hearing

Senate Republicans are growing increasingly concerned about what they say is a lack of a clear plan to end the military conflict with Iran, warning that rising U.S. casualties and stubbornly high gas prices are going to hurt their party in the midterm election. GOP lawmakers came away dissatisfied from a hearing Tuesday at which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified in support of the administration’s request for another $80 billion in emergency funding for the Iran war. Republicans want to provide the Pentagon with more money to replenish its munitions but are frustrated the administration hasn’t given them a clearer picture of how to end the conflict, which has dragged on since Feb. 28. “There’s got to be an off-ramp, that’s all there is to it,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.).

“Naturally all of us are concerned because we’ve lost three wonderful, wonderful service people in the last little while,” he said, referring to three U.S. service members killed in recent days. Justice also raised concern about mounting civilian casualties in Iran, which are believed to range from 1,700 to more than 3,000 people killed. “Every last one of us is super concerned about civilian casualties because first and foremost it’s terrible. Secondarily, it’s generally not very popular in the world,” Justice said. “In this situation, where we’re at right now, we’ve got to make one of two decisions, either just pull out and leave and roll the dice and hope for the best, or we’ve got to win, and winning is only one thing: Make sure they don’t have a nuclear weapon,” he added. Trump on Wednesday threatened to strike civilian infrastructure in Iran, such as bridges and power plants, if Iranian forces continue to target ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Stop the trucks: Inside Taco Bell’s rush to contain cyclospora

The word went out from Taco Bell’s leaders on the evening of July 14: Stop the trucks. Public-health officials that night had notified the chain that the shredded lettuce garnishing Crunchwrap Supremes, Cantina Chicken Burritos and other menu items was the suspected culprit in a rapidly expanding cyclospora outbreak. Executives rushed to halt shipments then on their way to hundreds of Taco Bell’s 7,785 U.S. locations. Over the course of late-night virtual meetings and gatherings since early last week, Taco Bell executives have pushed to respond to one of the biggest food-safety crises in the chain’s history—an episode that has lodged the phrase “explosive diarrhea” firmly in national headlines. More than 1,600 people who became ill in the outbreak reported eating at Taco Bell locations across five states, federal health officials said last week. Officials later named produce giant Taylor Farms as the lettuce supplier.

Taco Bell’s efforts to contain the cyclospora outbreak are testing the agility of a chain known as one of fast-food’s top operators and challenging the durability of its customer base, a dedicated and youthful clientele that has helped Taco Bell stand out in a challenged industry. The chain has said that it voluntarily acted to protect consumers, and urged other restaurants and retailers to do the same. This article is based on interviews with current and former Taco Bell officials and people familiar with its operations. It could take months for Taco Bell to rebuild its business, based on the experiences of other restaurant chains trying to move past a food safety crisis. Taco Bell risks alienating customers with its social-media messages and advertising since the outbreak, which have included a playful tone and kissy emojis, said Pam Goldstein, a crisis communications consultant who helped McDonald’s when it contended with a 2024 E. coli outbreak.

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The White House pushes healthy eating. It cut a landmark nutrition education program

Wholesome eating is a central part of the Trump administration's efforts to Make America Healthy Again. But a landmark nutrition education program for recipients of federal food assistance and other low-income people will cease to exist within weeks after President Trump eliminated it last summer when he signed a massive Republican spending and tax bill. For decades, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program, known as SNAP-Ed, has funded programs such as community cooking classes, farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods, school nutrition lessons and more in every U.S. state. The program is a "pillar of the public health infrastructure in the US," according to a report published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

The decision to end SNAP-Ed at a time of rising food prices and the Trump administration's push for healthy eating has mystified nutrition advocates and public health experts alike. "It doesn't make sense when we have an administration [promoting] the Make America Healthy Again efforts that are focused on decreasing consumption of ultraprocessed foods and wanting to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables," said Tashara Leak, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University, "to then get rid of the largest federally-funded nutrition education program that helps to achieve those goals." The White House did not provide specifics to NPR about how or whether eliminating this program aligned with the goals of the MAHA agenda, but said the law signed by President Trump had strengthened SNAP for future generations and provided tax cuts that improved all Americans' financial situations. Some recent SNAP-Ed projects include a series of cooking workshops led by indigenous chefs and traditional food experts in Southwest Colorado, classes on meal planning and budgeting in Kansas and a social marketing campaign in Michigan that urged parents and caregivers to model healthy behaviors for children. One North Carolina church built a fitness center that's free to use.

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Maine Democrat Troy Jackson has raised $1M for his Senate bid so far

Maine Democrat Troy Jackson has raised $1 million in the less than two weeks since he entered the race for Senate shortly after Graham Platner dropped out, his campaign told POLITICO on Wednesday morning. Jackson, the presumptive Democratic nominee, raised $613,000 of that haul since Sunday following the selection of the 601 delegates who will determine Platner’s replacement this weekend. More than 90 percent of those delegates have pledged to back Jackson.

The fundraising number is a strong showing for Jackson, who only raised a bit over $1 million in his entire run for governor earlier this year. But he still has a lot of work to do to catch up to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is sitting on an $11 million war chest. Jackson’s campaign said they received 27,283 contributions from 24,669 individual donors. A University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday showed Jackson with a narrow lead against Collins, 49 percent to 46 percent. The Maine Senate seat is a must-win for Democrats hoping to retake control of the upper chamber. Collins is the only sitting Republican senator up for reelection in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024.

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U.S. signs nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that gives it path to enriching fuel

The Trump administration on Wednesday signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia that gives that country a pathway to enriching nuclear fuel and commits it to using U.S. firms to supply its reactors. The agreement, which the Energy Department announced had been signed, is certain to spark heated debate in Congress, where many lawmakers have long expressed concern that exporting enrichment capabilities will lead to a proliferation of nuclear arms. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spoken openly about working to develop nuclear weapons if Iran is not stopped from getting them. While the Trump administration offered little information about the agreement’s contents, three people familiar with it shared details with The Washington Post. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agreement publicly.

The people familiar with the new agreement say it is designed with safeguards to keep the Saudis from enriching nuclear fuel to weapons-grade level. But they also acknowledge it includes a waiver that exempts the Saudis from the aggressive international inspections required in nuclear reactor deals with other countries, including the United Arab Emirates. Instead, sensitive inspections would be executed by American teams under terms spelled out in the agreement, which was initially worked out when the crown prince visited Washington in November. “These agreements reflect our two nations’ shared commitment to strengthening U.S.-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. “Rest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world’s best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States.” On Wednesday, Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed what is known as a 123 agreement, which lays out conditions for nuclear energy cooperation and includes stipulations aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

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The next big tests for the Left: Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota

Progressive Democrats have romped through primaries this summer, dispatching incumbents and minting new stars of the left in deep-blue territory in New York and Colorado. In the coming weeks, they’ll take their fight to tougher turf. Primary elections in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota will test whether Democratic voters in swingier territory have the appetite to send liberal candidates into statewide general elections where the outcome is not assured. The view from the left: Progressives believe that, in a moment of deep frustration with inequality and the cost of living, insurgent candidates can both win primaries and turn out voters in the fall — and send their party a sign that it should return to its populist roots.

The pushback: The rise of these candidates has spooked moderate Democrats who argue that their party’s activist base is on the verge of nominating figures who could fumble away winnable general elections. “We are in danger of losing some races we could otherwise win if we go too far left in states like Michigan that voted for Donald Trump a year and a half ago,” Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, told me. The Senate primary here pits El-Sayed, who also has the support of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, against Representative Haley Stevens of Detroit’s northern suburbs. The contest has become a summertime battle royale, with tens of millions of dollars washing through the race. The state’s Democratic primary for governor has gotten messy, to put it mildly. State Representative Francesca Hong, 37, a democratic socialist, has been steadily rising in a crowded field, making the case that her politics will appeal to factory workers and farmers in one of the nation’s swingiest states. My colleague Kellen Browning explored her candidacy this month. This has worried Democrats who believe that anyone associated with socialism can’t win a heartland governorship that the party sees as a bulwark for its national ambitions.

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Lead Stories

The Pentagon, sinking billions into Iran war, is quickly running short on cash

The Pentagon faces an urgent budget shortfall caused largely by the war in Iran, with some critical lines of funding set to run out within weeks even as President Donald Trump escalates the conflict with Tehran, according to lawmakers and current and former U.S. officials. The funding crunch is already leading the Pentagon to limit training and maintenance that help maintain military readiness, according to four current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the budget constraints. And the collapsed ceasefire with Iran could further strain the military’s budget: After four U.S. service members died during more than a week of intensified fighting, officials in Washington signaled they were preparing for a wider conflict.

The White House has asked Congress for an immediate infusion of $67 billion to help cover the costs of the war, but lawmakers are gridlocked over how to proceed. The House plans to leave Washington on Thursday for a month-long recess, leaving any deal on military funding weeks away at the earliest. “Everybody needs to look at this situation and get rid of the complacency that they have,” Rep. Pat Harrigan (North Carolina), a Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment Monday. On Tuesday, after this article published, press secretary Sean Parnell said in a statement that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would “do whatever is necessary” to preserve military readiness and that defense funding is “essential.” On Tuesday, Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine went to make their case for the money before the Senate Appropriations Committee — the first public hearing centered on the package. They last appeared on Capitol Hill in May, before a tenuous ceasefire broke down.

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Flock camera use backed by Texas police association

As the controversy surrounding Flock Safety cameras and other automated license plate-reader technology continues to rise nationwide, the Texas Municipal Police Association reached out to the Reporter-Telegram to provide a law enforcement perspective. The Reporter-Telegram spoke with TMPA legislative liaison John Wilkerson about the issue. “I represent over 35,000 members of law enforcement across the state, who rely on (ALPR) technology every day to help solve crimes and, of course, keep their community safe,” Wilkerson said about his role, confirming he has never worked with the Flock system directly. As previously reported, Flock Safety, which was founded in 2017 and is based in Atlanta, manufactures and operates cameras with license plate recognition functionality, allowing law enforcement agencies to better track down criminal suspects.

Midland originally purchased the contract for the cameras during the 2022-23 fiscal year, and the City Council voted unanimously in February to renew its contract to keep the Flock cameras in Midland for an additional 24 months. After MPD provided examples of the Flock cameras’ successes during the contract renewal phase, Wilkerson highlighted some examples where their absence was apparent. The first involved a May shooting in Austin that injured four people. Austin had not renewed its Flock camera contract when the shooting occurred, but afterward, Flock cameras caught the three suspects fleeing through Manor, Texas. “In essence, (Austin) was without the Flock camera system,” Wilkerson said. “As soon as (the suspects) got into Manor, law enforcement was alerted that these are the suspects that have been driving around and shooting up locations around Austin.” Following this, Austin said it would look into bringing Flock cameras back under new privacy guidelines. Another involved a Harris County constable who was fatally shot in September 2024, only for the suspect to flee into Galveston County, which did not have a large Flock system. Authorities eventually apprehended the suspect.

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Texas district launches new legal challenge to school finance system

Texas’ byzantine school finance system will face legal scrutiny for the first time in a decade after a rural school board voted to sue the state. The Midland Independent School District board unanimously greenlit the lawsuit Tuesday night, arguing that the state’s restrictive funding rules unfairly strip the local board of its power to levy property taxes. The suit, which will be filed in Travis County, sets up the first significant challenge to the system since 2016 and, if successful, could force the state Legislature to rework the system to allow districts to keep more of their local taxes. It comes as lawmakers have struggled in recent years to address voter anger over rising property taxes, with Gov. Greg Abbott going as far as calling for abolishing school taxes entirely for homeowners.

Josh Guinn, the Midland ISD board president who proposed the suit, said he did not know yet whether other districts would join. But the board must act to protect its power, he said. “I think Midland has paid its fair share in property taxes to the state, and it’s time to challenge it,” Guinn said in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. Asked by a fellow board member if the suit was connected to Abbott’s property tax push, Guinn said no. “I’ve never met the man,” he said. The state’s “Robinhood” system, created to collect and redistribute excess taxes from property-rich districts, has faced legal challenges from school districts about once a decade since the 1980s. The most recent lawsuit, which was joined by over two-thirds of Texas’ 1,200 school districts, was rejected by the state Supreme Court in 2016. Several previous challenges were more successful, forcing overhauls of tweaks to the state formula.

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Gov. Greg Abbott orders state health agencies to crack down on ‘birth tourism’

Gov. Greg Abbott has issued an executive order to crack down on the practice of "birth tourism." The move appears to be a response to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding birthright citizenship, despite efforts by President Donald Trump to restrict it. Abbott's order directs six health-focused state agencies to investigate schemes aimed at helping non-citizens travel to the United States illegally for the alleged purposes of giving birth and securing U.S. citizenship for their children.

"Texas will not tolerate the exploitation of our immigration laws by individuals traveling to the United States illegally or under false pretenses to give birth and secure citizenship for their child," Abbott said. "This executive order directs state agencies to investigate birth tourism schemes and hold accountable any provider that facilitates this fraud. U.S. citizenship is not for sale, and Texas will put a stop to individuals seeking to profit from birth tourism." The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that, at most, the number of babies born to tourists visiting the U.S. is less than 30,000 out of more than 3.5 million births per year. "There’s nothing in the law that says that somebody can’t come to the United States as a tourist when they’re pregnant," said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. program at the Migration Policy Institute. "We had a member of our World Cup team who was born in the United States just by accident because the airline decided that this soccer player’s mom was too pregnant to get on a plane to go back home, even though that was her intention to go back home and give birth." The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution automatically conveys U.S. citizenship on anyone born in the United States, regardless of the legal status of their parents. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its final decision of the 2025-2026 term, ruled that President Trump could not limit the practice of birthright citizenship.

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State Stories

John Cornyn: Closing Texas' GOP primary would be a costly mistake that would hurt voters

Texas is among a majority of states with open primaries where any eligible registered voter can vote in the primary election, regardless of their party affiliation. Nevertheless, there has been a recent movement among some Texas Republicans to close our Republican primary to only those who register as a Republican. At best, this would be a mistake that has the potential to harm our party in the long run as we hamper our appeal by narrowing our coalition of voters. At worst, it would limit our voters’ ability to have their voices heard in primary elections and undermine the American system of self-government. The right to vote is essential to our democratic republic: voting is one of the most fundamental ways ordinary citizens participate, and the mechanism by which the people consent to be governed.

When Texans fail to exercise this right, as a large majority have done by not turning out to vote in this past spring’s elections, they are giving up the opportunity to have their voices heard and to influence the direction our state and country take. They are ceding to others to decide who should govern. For the party to close the primary, we would exacerbate an already worrying trend. When fewer people participate in our elections, our very system of self-government is undermined. If only 7% of registered voters choose our nation’s leaders, as was the case in Texas’ recent U.S. Senate run-off election, our government becomes less like a democratic republic and more like an oligarchy, where the leaders are chosen by a select few. As our country continues to see increasingly low trust in government and low participation in elections, closing the primary elections would be a grave mistake, furthering these existing problems. By closing the primary, we risk taking away the voices of those who are disillusioned with the current government. With 93% of registered voters sitting on the sidelines, we find ourselves in a vicious cycle. Low voter participation means that those nominated represent the views of the few.

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Houston lawmaker’s firm blamed for $11M Texas teacher insurance hike

State Rep. Tom Oliverson has made lowering health care costs a top goal in the Legislature, even as the anesthesia conglomerate where he's a partner and investor has been accused of driving them up. The company, U.S. Anesthesia Partners, has been under the microscope of the Federal Trade Commission since 2023 for swallowing up smaller clinics and ratcheting up prices. Now it's being blamed for raising insurance premiums for hundreds of thousands of Texas teachers. A top official with the Teacher Retirement System of Texas recently singled out USAP before a legislative committee, where Oliverson is a member, for costing teachers $11 million more per year last year — an outlier even by the standards of America’s costly medical system.

Oliverson, who has made health care affordability one of his stated priorities, sat silent as the Retirement System official explained that the cost equated to a 0.4% increase on premiums for more than 400,000 of the state’s active teachers. The Republican doctor said he was silent because he didn’t know what to say. “That was all pretty shocking stuff to hear,” Oliverson said Friday. “Here I am sitting on a committee and they’re accusing my company of wrongdoing, basically." The statements sparked a behind-the-scenes campaign by USAP to rebut the retirement agency’s claims as House lawmakers look for ways to reduce health care costs during next year’s session. The company, which was sued by the Federal Trade Commission in 2023, met with lawmakers afterward and told them it had never raised rates above the rate of inflation. A spokesperson told the Houston Chronicle that TRS’ claims are “patently false.” The Retirement System is not backing down, however. A spokesperson noted that last month Chief Health Care Officer Katrina Daniel repeated the claim to a different House committee.

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University of Austin land pitch fraud trial tied to GOP power circles

The University of Austin, the self-described conservative alternative to “woke” liberal education, is the backdrop of a federal fraud trial that began Monday. The Justice Department says that John Robison, a conservative operative and filmmaker, bilked an investor out of $1 million he said would be used to purchase land in Bastrop County for a future University of Austin campus and community. Prosecutors on Monday portrayed Robison as a stickup man who held up Joe Lonsdale, a conservative venture capitalist who co-founded the University of Austin. “Not by pointing a gun at him, not by reaching over and taking it, but by telling a story,” Daniel Guess, chief of the Austin Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District, told the jury. “John Robison, is a con man.”

Robison has said he relocated from California to Texas at the behest of former Gov. Rick Perry, who wanted to bring Hollywood to Central Texas. Now, he’s being described as a real estate fraudster who, according to congressional investigators, also had a role in President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden using fake electors. Though he has said he’s a millionaire, Robison now claims poverty, asking for a court-appointed attorney to represent him. He pleaded not guilty after his arrest in November. Federal prosecutors say a Lonsdale-backed entity named FG Trust invested $1 million in Four Gates Property LP in 2022, in which Robison was the senior managing partner and held a 75% ownership stake. Walter Berkeley Fondren, a 29 year old with ties to the philanthropic Houston oil and gas family, was managing partner and held the remaining 25%. Robison told FG Trust that he was an experienced real estate investor and, according to records in an earlier state court trial he lost, already had property under contract. He did not.

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Hunter Biden gets ‘really kinky’ vibe from Ted Cruz: ‘It may be gay, it may not be gay’

Hunter Biden has thoughts on Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) sex life. The son of ex-President Joe Biden said he gets a “really kinky” vibe from the Texas conservative, debated whether Cruz is or isn’t gay, and quipped he may enjoy having sex with animals. Biden made the comments during a Saturday appearance on progressive pundit Jennifer Welch’s I’ve Had It podcast. Welch thought it would be fun to get Biden’s take on the “Top 3 MAGA laptops” he would like to see revealed, and he said Cruz definitely grabbed the silver medal after listing Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) first. “Ted Cruz, of course,” Hunter said. “100%.”

“Ugh, do you get a gaydar ping from Ted?” Welch asked. “No, you know what I get, I get a really, really kinky weird sh*t-type thing,” Biden said. Biden’s take stands out, given the New York Post in 2020 reported photos of Biden “surrounded by drug paraphernalia” and partying with “scantily clad women” were among the files on his unearthed laptop. Biden then pivoted and said Cruz might be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. “It may be gay, it may not be gay, it may be a little bit of this, it may be a little bit of that, but it may involve animals, too,” Biden said. Welch asked if he remembered when Cruz liked a tweet with a video of porn star Cory Chase on Sept. 11, 2017. Cruz blamed a staffer for the apparent mistake, and Chase said she “didn’t like that he watched it for free.” “He blamed it on his staffer, and everyone knows Ted did it on 9/11!” Welch said.

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DART votes to hire former Jacksonville transit leader as new CEO

Dallas Area Rapid Transit officials have selected Jacksonville's transit leader as the agency's new president and CEO, despite concerns over a history of spending controversies. DART’s board of directors voted 9-4 Tuesday to offer a contract to Nathaniel Ford. It comes after the board vetted three finalists in a process that involved rigorous public input. "DART conducted the longest, most transparent president and CEO search process in the history of this agency," said board chair Randall Bryant. "We found one of the most talented, sought-out executives."

Ford previously served 13 years as the CEO for the Jacksonville Transit Authority in Florida. He’s been credited with securing $400 million in federal funds for the agency and expanding a local gas tax to invest in transit infrastructure. His tenure was also marked by reports of excessive travel and spending. Action News JAX, a Fox station in Jacksonville, reported that Ford, who was paid more than $625,000 a year, spent tens of thousands of dollars on travel, taking 140 trips over the course of several years. He also spent more than $40,000 on travel in 2023, including a 14-day trip to Spain and a five-day visit to Hawaii, the station reported. The station also reported in 2024 that the transit agency’s card was used to purchase massages, resort hotel bookings and photo booths. Nathaniel Ford has faced public scrutiny for his spending habits at the Jacksonville Transportation Authority he led for 13 years.

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HPD called ICE on a woman reporting a violent threat — one of more than 100 calls from April through June

On April 21, a woman in North Houston called 911 to report a man threatened to kill her. According to a Houston Police Department incident report obtained by Houston Public Media, the man had three outstanding warrants and was arrested. The woman had an immigration warrant. HPD reported her to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The incident report does not state whether she was detained by federal immigration agents. Houston City Council member Mario Castillo, who represents the area, called the incident "concerning" and said he "asked to meet with HPD to discuss." That HPD officer's call to ICE was one of more than 100 from April through June, according to data the department released last week to members of the city council.

Council member Alejandra Salinas, who shared the data publicly, spearheaded the ordinance requiring the department to provide quarterly reports about its coordination with ICE. She told Houston Public Media she will seek more information about the incident from Mayor John Whitmire's administration. "If it is correct that HPD is contacting ICE when individuals are reporting a crime, I think it is a poor use of limited local law enforcement resources," Salinas said. "It should be more focused on keeping us safe — and no one in the city of Houston is safer when individuals are reporting crimes and are then being handed over or calls to ICE are being made." From April through June, 34 of the calls from HPD to ICE came after someone asked emergency responders for help. It's unclear how many of those incidents mirrored the one on April 21, when the person requesting emergency services was reported to ICE. HPD called ICE 46 times after encountering someone with an immigration warrant during traffic stops and 17 times while responding to car crashes. According to HPD, federal immigration agents took direct custody of 19 out of the more than 100 people reported to ICE. Within the data released by HPD, the description of the incident on April 21 suggested the woman was detained for an hour and taken to jail for "new charges." The incident report obtained by Houston Public Media states only the man suspected of threatening her was arrested. A spokesperson for Whitmire did not respond to a request for comment. HPD did not respond to a request for comment before publication. Afterward, the department referred to a general order instructing officers to contact ICE about immigration warrants.

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Back on track? Texas employment growth will return to long-term norm this year, Dallas Fed projects

Early this year, on the heels of a rough 2025, researchers at the Dallas Fed projected that in 2026 the state would add jobs at a rate of just over 1% — or roughly half of Texas’ traditional growth rate. But more than halfway through the year things are looking up: The latest projection from the bank’s modeling system, released late last week, shows Texas employment is now on pace to expand this year by 2%, in line with Texas’ long-run average. “Texas job growth has been surprisingly strong in light of labor supply constraints,” Luis Torres, a senior economist at the bank, said in a statement. “The data center buildout and relatively high oil prices continue to provide a boost to state economic activity and job growth.”

The rosier full-year projection comes on the back of robust June jobs numbers: For the month, Texas added over 42,000 jobs, representing an employment growth rate of an annualized 3.5%, according to the bank’s figures — the highest monthly increase in nearly two years. The jobs gains came largely from professional business services, construction and trade and transportation, which far outweighed losses in education, health services and government. Leisure and hospitality also saw a bump, which Torres attributed to increased activity from the World Cup. While the tournament was widely expected to provide a short-term boost to the sector — including in soccer-mad D-FW — analysts have also stressed that its long-term economic impact was likely to be minimal. “It’s a modest bump,” Barbara Denham, an economist at Oxford Economics who authored a report on the tournament’s economic impact, previously told The Dallas Morning News. “It’s not as significant as people think,” she added, “because people come for the games, spend a lot of money, then they leave.” Greater Austin notched the highest monthly growth rate, at 5.8%, while greater Fort Worth added jobs at a rate of 3.9% and greater Dallas added jobs at a rate of 3.7%. Houston saw slower growth, while San Antonio reported a net decline.

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The company in charge of CPS cases in Dallas has been ousted. Now what?

The private contractor that manages all Child Protective Services cases in the Dallas area is being removed from the job, according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. In an email to The Lab Report Tuesday morning, DFPS said the management of child welfare cases in Dallas and eight surrounding counties will be handed over to two other private contractors. The decision was made after “an extensive assessment,” the agency said, and comes four months after a judge placed Empower under state supervision due to mishandled cases and the deaths of two infants. All cases in Dallas County will be managed by Texas Family Care Network, which is based in Nederland, Texas and is currently the private contractor over child welfare cases in a 15-county region along the state’s eastern edge. The other eight counties Empower oversees will be managed by Our Community Our Kids, which is based in Fort Worth and manages cases in ten counties including Tarrant.

The transition process will take several months, DFPS said. In the interim, Empower will continue to manage the more than 2,000 child welfare cases in the nine-county region and will do so under state supervision. “This decision was made with one priority in mind: helping ensure children, youth, and families receive safe, stable, and high-quality services,” the state said in a written statement. “It also reflects DFPS’ continued commitment to the Community-Based Care model and to partnering with organizations that can deliver strong outcomes for children and families.” Empower leadership said in a written statement they are disappointed by the decision to end their management of foster care services. “We are proud of our dedicated staff, providers, and partners and the positive impact they have made in the lives of countless children and families,” the statement said. “We will work collaboratively with DFPS throughout this new transition to minimize disruption in services for children and families. The well-being of those we serve will continue to guide our efforts every step of the way.”

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Workers in Texas City enter fifth week of strike

More than 70 engineers, machinists, plumbers and electricians at Texas City’s Ashland Specialty Chemicals are in a standoff with company management over outsourcing and “misclassification” that they say is forcing them to do jobs outside their skill sets and presenting safety threats. A strike began when the workers’ contract expired June 24, and the union members say they plan to continue picketing until Ashland management gives in to their demands. Employees walk the picket line every weekday from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., and they have a large gathering during the 6:30 p.m. shift change on Friday nights. Lewis Crawford, a leader of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 564, is the lead negotiator for a four-union coalition deemed the Texas City Metal Trades Council.

Crawford told the Houston Press on Monday that workers are demanding an end to employees being assigned to jobs outside their craft, such as plumbers doing electrical work. They also want restoration of the paid sick time members earned over decades of bargaining, and a halt on outsourcing storeroom jobs to eliminate union positions. Ashland spokeswoman Carolmarie Brown issued a statement shortly after the strike began, saying that the company “is dedicated to the safety, health, and security of our employees, their families, and the communities where we work and live.” Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday on the status of negotiations with union representatives. Crawford said a federal mediator contacted him recently and they’re “going back to the table” with Ashland executives on Monday, July 27.

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Dave Lieber: Texas Electricity companies purposely fixed it so customers overpay

Memo to Laurel Peltier, retail energy expert from: The Watchdog. Laurel, I read your recent study on how Texas electricity companies deceive customers and nearly fell out of my chair. Investigative reporting that exposes wrongdoing and protects Texans’ money and rights. The Watchdog is looking out for you. You blew up the system. I’ll include your findings in Part One of my series helping newcomers adjust to moving to the Lone Scam State. Imagine arriving amid the chaos of a new home, new job, new school and new everything. Then someone tells you to choose a retail electricity plan.Where do you even start? Here’s the first lesson I’m borrowing from your study: Most Texans overpay for electricity.

They just don’t know it. You estimate that two years ago 11 million Texas families paid a joint total of $4 billion — or $480 a year for a family — in overcharges. That would not have happened if they had stayed with their monopoly electric companies and not moved to retail companies. Yes, the same retailers who promised lower prices because of a competitive market place. It didn’t work. As you put it, “These ratepayers losses are not the result of rising energy supply costs, renewable mandates, or poor consumer decision-making. They are the predictable outcome of a market structure that allows for no guardrails to prevent retail energy suppliers from exploiting customers.” How do they exploit us? You show how some contracts go on up to five pages. When a contract expires, the low introductory rates go up. It’s in the small print. You say that most customers are “inattentive.” You write, “About 75% of residential customers do not re-shop.”At that point, fixed rates can suddenly change to higher variable rates. “Notices are sent — but rarely understood or acted upon,” you write.

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Texas lawmakers review housing laws, consider new ideas to improve affordability

Texas lawmakers are taking another look at how to make housing more affordable as home prices remain high and the state continues to face a housing shortage. The Texas House Land & Resource Management Committee held a hearing on Monday at the Texas State Capitol to examine the effects of housing legislation passed during the 89th legislative session and to discuss potential policy changes lawmakers could pursue when they return to Austin next year. According to research from Texas A&M University, median home prices in Texas increased 40% between 2019 and 2023. Another report by Up for Growth, a nonprofit organization that focuses on housing poli­cy, estimated the state was 306,000 housing units short of meeting demand in 2023.

One of the committee's main topics was House Bill 24, which lawmakers passed during the 2025 session. The law changed a decades-old state process for protesting zoning changes by raising the threshold required for petitions to block development and reducing the number of local council votes needed to override those petitions. Supporters told lawmakers the changes have already helped move housing projects forward. Robin Stallings, trustee and treasurer of South Austin Christian Church, said HB 24 gave his church the confidence to move ahead with an affordable housing development near South Congress Avenue. "HB 24 gave a seller like our church the confidence to proceed, gave our development partner a predictable, bounded process, and most importantly, will give 64 Texas families a home near jobs, transit and opportunity that might otherwise have been delayed or lost to procedural obstruction,” Stallings said.

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Austin Council Member Vanessa Fuentes announces cancer diagnosis ahead of City Hall return

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes announced Tuesday she is battling breast cancer. Fuentes, who has been on parental leave since May 4, said in a statement that she was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer at 37 weeks pregnant. Fuentes said she felt a lump in her breast and immediately consulted with her doctor. “By acting quickly, we caught the cancer before it spread,” she said. “It’s so important to trust your body. If something feels off, get it checked. Early detection saves lives.” Fuentes said her daughter Vivienne was delivered safely on May 5 and is "healthy and growing fast!" She encouraged women to "be proactive with their health" and consider getting a mammogram before the recommended age of 40.

Within 36 hours of delivering her daughter, Fuentes said she began cancer treatment. She said she will continue to receive medical care while resuming her duties on the Austin City Council. “I now join the fight against cancer, standing shoulder to shoulder with the millions of people who show up to work, raise their families, and serve their communities while fighting this disease every single day,” Fuentes said. “This diagnosis hasn’t changed who I am or what I’m committed to. If anything, it’s reinforced why the work we do together matters.” Fuentes returns amidst the city’s budget planning cycle and ahead of major decisions about a bond election, the Dog’s Head development and city council elections.

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National Stories

The top of Arizona’s GOP ticket is littered with 2020 election deniers

To make it out of a Republican primary in Arizona, there’s one key litmus test: believing the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Election deniers who played prominent roles in efforts to overturn the 2020 results triumphed in statewide Republican primaries Tuesday, from Rep. Andy Biggs for governor to state Rep. Alexander Kolodin for secretary of state. State Senate President Warren Petersen was leading his primary for attorney general, though his race was not yet called as of early Wednesday morning. To make it out of a Republican primary in Arizona, there’s one key litmus test: believing the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Election deniers who played prominent roles in efforts to overturn the 2020 results triumphed in statewide Republican primaries Tuesday, from Rep. Andy Biggs for governor to state Rep. Alexander Kolodin for secretary of state. State Senate President Warren Petersen was leading his primary for attorney general, though his race was not yet called as of early Wednesday morning. Biggs, a staunch Trump ally who helped try and overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021, was later subpoenaed in an Arizona probe. Kolodin represented a slate of fake electors, leading to discipline from the Arizona state bar, and filed lawsuits to try to overturn both the 2020 and 2022 elections. Petersen launched a taxpayer-funded audit into Maricopa County’s election system that eventually led to a subpoena.

Their victories show GOP primary voters continue to prefer candidates who have pushed false narratives about elections or worked to overturn them. But that can prove toxic in November — and Democrats plan to make their rivals pay for those positions in the fall. “It’s one of those things that just won’t go away,” said former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.). “In the Republican Party in Arizona, in the primary, carrying the Trump line on virtually everything — and that includes election denialism — is still something that benefits you.” But in the general election, “it’s a stone around your neck,” Salmon said. “Among independents and moderate Republicans who vote in the general election, election denialism is not an asset.” Each of the triumphant election deniers Tuesday centered election integrity in their 2026 campaigns. Biggs has been a prominent supporter of the SAVE America Act, the stalled election bill that Trump has pushed repeatedly.

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Almost half say Supreme Court rulings on Trump agenda based on politics: Survey

Nearly half of Americans say they believe the Supreme Court is ruling on President Trump’s policies based on ideology instead of the law, according to a new poll. The Washington Post/Ipsos survey, conducted July 8-13, found that 46 percent of 2,648 respondents said they believe the nine justices are ruling on cases impacting the president’s agenda based on ideology. A quarter of respondents said the high court is ruling on those cases based on the law, while 28 percent had no opinion and 1 percent skipped the question. The Supreme Court has given Trump multiple unfavorable rulings during his second term. The high court in February struck down emergency tariffs the president issued on imports last year and invalidated his Day 1 executive order restricting birthright citizenship last month.

But the high court has also ruled in the president’s favor, including when it allowed him to fire Democrat Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The 6-3 decision, handed down along ideological lines, overturned the high court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States — which afforded certain executive branch agencies a degree of independence from the White House for 91 years. Under the latest ruling, the president has increased authority over federal agencies, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing the decision grants “far greater power than ever before” to Trump and future occupants of the Oval Office. “It is true that today’s decision does not eliminate the FTC or the many other agencies whose structures are implicated by overruling Humphrey’s,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “It is undeniable, however, that those agencies will be transformed in ways that those who created them never could have expected and actively sought to avoid, fundamentally recalibrating the balance of power in this country in the process.”

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USDA workers don’t plan to stay on the job as offices relocate

Workers at the Department of Agriculture are trying to stop mandatory relocations, which they warned are mass layoffs in disguise. Employees throughout the department told NOTUS their colleagues overwhelmingly did not plan to move to new offices across the country. This month, employee unions and nonprofit organizations asked a federal judge to halt the USDA’s plans. Their warnings: A reduction in force at this scale will delay policy changes, damage research, slow getting federal dollars out the door and hamper wildfire response. “No one was asking for this,” former USDA Undersecretary Robert Bonnie told NOTUS. “It’s hard to reach any other conclusion than that the purpose of this is to dramatically reduce the size of the federal civil service. There’s no compelling reason to do this.”

It’s potentially another drastic reduction in the USDA’s workforce, which already faced some of the most significant cuts during the DOGE era. In a 2025 workforce plan made public this month as part of the employee groups’ ongoing lawsuit, USDA said it was anticipating that “a significant number of employees will decline geographic reassignments” out of Washington and regional and state offices. “We absolutely do view it as a RIF in disguise,” one employee at the Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA’s trade policy arm, told NOTUS, using an abbreviation for the term reduction in force. In multiple polls from various unions representing USDA employees, around 80% say they would rather quit than move. It’s a percentage that would exceed the loss of staff in 2019, when the USDA moved hundreds of employees from its Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture offices in Washington to Kansas City, Missouri.

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Hegseth says Iran is weakened, but won’t give timeline for war’s end

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted on Tuesday that Iran was on the defensive, even as he declined to offer a timeline for when the war might end — and acknowledged that Tehran still poses a threat in the region. Iran’s military capabilities are “at the weakest point militarily” after nearly two weeks of new American airstrikes, Hegseth said. And he insisted that the White House is achieving its objective of preventing Iran from rebuilding its nuclear weapons programs and terrorizing countries throughout the Middle East. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted on Tuesday that Iran was on the defensive, even as he declined to offer a timeline for when the war might end — and acknowledged that Tehran still poses a threat in the region. Iran’s military capabilities are “at the weakest point militarily” after nearly two weeks of new American airstrikes, Hegseth said. And he insisted that the White House is achieving its objective of preventing Iran from rebuilding its nuclear weapons programs and terrorizing countries throughout the Middle East. “They still have capabilities, no doubt,” he told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “But the amount of damage that we’ve done to them over the course of these series of operations has put them in the worst place they’ve ever been.”

Hegseth’s appearance before the panel represented an attempt by the administration to sell the unpopular conflict as a necessary expense, one that the Defense secretary said has now totaled about $37.5 billion over the last five months. He pressed lawmakers to supply supplemental funds as soon as possible to cover those expenses and preserve military readiness. But Senate Democratic appropriators questioned both the success of the war so far and the need for more military money, citing $75 billion in unused funds from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. They flatly rejected the administration’s request for $67 billion in supplemental funds before the end of the fiscal year in September, calling it a tacit approval of the administration’s decision to attack Iran. “This administration has tried to sell this as an emergency request, but it may be better understood as an attempt to skirt the normal appropriations process,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “A lot of this request does not feel like an emergency.”

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U.S. 10-year Treasury yield flat as traders reassess Fed rate hike bets

U.S. Treasury yields inched higher on Wednesday as investors mapped escalating tensions across the Middle East and mulled prospects for Federal Reserve monetary policy in the months ahead. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note — the key benchmark for U.S. government borrowing — was broadly flat at 4.626%. The 2-year Treasury note yield, which more closely tracks short-term Federal Reserve interest rate policy, fell one basis point to 4.251%. The longer-dated 30-year Treasury bond yield was flat at 5.132%. One basis point is equal to 0.01%, and yields and prices move inversely to each other.

U.S. Central Command carried out its 11th consecutive round of strikes against Iran overnight. Early on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in the Philippines that Tehran is “not serious” about peace talks. “If they’re serious, we’re serious. If they’re not, then we will do what is necessary to protect our interests and also the interests of our allies.” he added. The latest escalation helped extend the rally in oil prices, which jumped as much as 4% in early trading, while investors continue to gauge prospects for more hawkish Federal Reserve policy measures. “The probability of a July hike was back up to 26% by [Tuesday’s] close, the highest since last week’s downside surprise in the U.S. CPI print,” Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid said in a note on Wednesday morning. “It was at 45% the day before CPI and as low as 10% the day after.” Money markets are now pricing in a 24.1% chance of a rate hike from the Fed this month, and a 69% chance of at least a quarter-point hike in September, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool. Investors will also be monitoring the latest S&P Global Flash U.S. PMI report due Friday, which measures the economic health of American manufacturing and services sectors.

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Something weird is happening beneath the stock market’s surface

The stock market is a lot like a duck at the moment. It’s gliding along the water, occasionally changing direction or ruffling its feathers. Beneath the surface, though, investors are paddling furiously to navigate shifting financial currents. Take the market’s closely watched “fear gauge.” The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, uses options prices to get a rough measure of how much choppiness investors expect in the S&P 500 index in the coming 30 days. At 17.5, it’s below the index’s long-term average. But look at how much traders are paying to hedge against big moves up or down in individual stocks and a totally different picture emerges. That can be seen from a related measure, VIXEQ, which is above 50. It’s derived from a similar calculation for each stock in the index, weighted by market value. Individual stock volatility is always higher, but the gap between the two just hit a record.

Investors aren’t bracing for some shocking development that would cause a market swoon, but they’re unusually concerned about some specific stocks and sectors, according to Citadel Securities strategist Scott Rubner. Mostly, those are the “momentum” stocks like chip makers that have gyrated with waxing and waning AI optimism. A similar split can be seen in a much simpler measure. The divergence between market price and breadth has never been higher, BTIG technical analyst Jonathan Krinsky wrote. According to a Monday note, there have been 52 trading days so far this year when the index went in one direction but a majority of S&P 500 stocks went the other way. That now ties tumultuous 2000 for the third highest number of instances this century. Since July isn’t over yet, 2026 will almost certainly break the record. Instances were also high in 2023 and 2024 when tech stocks were the only game in town, but that has now changed. Much like the peak tech bubble year, serious doubts seem to have emerged about many stalwarts. Earlier this year, software stocks, once market darlings, became toxic as AI models’ coding capabilities spooked investors. More recently, chip stocks flipped within days from powering the market to entering their own bear trend. The Magnificent Seven are lagging too and AI hyperscaler Oracle closed at a multiyear low Monday. Divergence can be the hallmark of a rally when a new industry has taken the market baton, but also a preview of broader market trouble. BTIG’s analysts write that, as the relationships between stocks normalize, “it’s likely to be a result of everything catching down to the recent pullback in AI names, rather than AI names catching up to everything else.”

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Software glitch put thousands of noncitizens on New Jersey voter rolls

A software error caused more than 6,000 noncitizens to be added to New Jersey’s voter rolls, the state’s Democratic governor said Tuesday, while fewer than 400 of them were found to have illegally cast ballots. Gov. Mikie Sherrill blamed a software vendor called IDEMIA for the issue, saying the software erroneously registered the noncitizens to vote while they were applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards through New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System. State officials said they would begin working with a new vendor. “These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen … but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway,” Sherill said in a statement. IDEMIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sherrill’s announcement comes less than a week after President Donald Trump railed against voter fraud and election interference in a prime-time speech to the country. During the fiery White House address, he asserted that the Department of Homeland Security had evidence that more than 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in the country. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin backed up the claim in a press conference the next day without providing further evidence. Noncitizen voting is extremely rare, election officials say, and there is no evidence that it has occurred on a mass scale that could change the outcome of an election. The White House said the incident is “exactly why” Congress needs to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s controversial elections bill. Trump himself has not yet commented publicly on the news. Sherrill acknowledged on Tuesday that Trump would likely use the news as evidence of widespread vulnerabilities in the country’s election security system, despite little evidence to support the claim.

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Kalshi launches midterm election forecasting hub

Kalshi launched a new online hub Wednesday for midterm election forecasting, displaying prediction market odds for major races alongside polling averages, fundraising data and other election information. The platform touted its “Midterms Hub” as a “one-stop-shop for state and federal election forecasting,” featuring Senate, House and gubernatorial races. “Prediction markets don’t care about spin or partisanship,” Kalshi CEO and co-founder Tarek Mansour said in a statement. “They cut through polarization and show you what the wisdom of the crowds actually believes, backed by real money, not rhetoric.” “That kind of clarity is rare right now and that’s what people are getting with the Midterms Hub,” he added.

Kalshi argued prediction markets can provide a clearer picture of races than traditional methods of gauging people’s views, such as polling, by relying on the “wisdom of the crowds.” The platforms, which have surged in popularity in recent years, allow users to place wagers on the outcome of various events, from sports to politics. Kalshi’s push into elections was bolstered by a 2024 court decision, which deemed betting on federal races legal. Its new hub will show live trading odds on midterm races, as well as aggregated polling averages, candidates’ latest fundraising reports, historical elections results and news and analysis from political outlets. Prediction market users across both Kalshi and Polymarket have traded nearly $200 million on the results of the upcoming midterm elections so far, according to a recent NBC News analysis. However, the platforms have faced some resistance on this front. The Wisconsin Election Commission warned residents Tuesday that betting on elections they vote in is illegal in the state and could cause their ballots to be disqualified. “With prediction markets and online gambling platforms growing in popularity, the Wisconsin Elections Commission is warning voters: if you bet on an election – it could cost you your vote,” the commission wrote. The statement drew a sharp rebuke from Kalshi. Robert DeNault, the company’s head of enforcement and legal counsel, argued on X that “threatening to prosecute Wisconsin voters and strip away their voting rights for engaging in legal trading activity is unconstitutional and illegal.” “The Wisconsin Elections Commission should retract this guidance before courts are required to force them to do so,” he added.

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Lead Stories

‘Worth keeping tabs on’: Tropical Storm Bertha in northeastern Gulf could impact Texas

Tropical Storm Bertha in the northeastern Gulf is expected to gradually strengthen as it moves west, according to the National Hurricane Center, which says the system has the potential to bring flash flooding and strong winds to Texas later this week. At 7 p.m. Monday, the National Hurricane Center officially upgraded the storm from a tropical disturbance to Tropical Storm Bertha. It is the second tropical storm this hurricane season after Tropical Storm Arthur formed in the western Gulf in mid-June and brought heavy rain and strong winds to coastal areas including Galveston. Cameron Self, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Houston/Galveston office, said Monday that weather-monitoring planes from the U.S. Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began flying into the system Sunday evening and will continue to monitor it as it makes its way through the Gulf.

"Even though right now the forecast is not showing significant impacts to our area, any storm in the Gulf is worth keeping tabs on," Self told Houston Public Media on Monday morning. "So we'd recommend checking on the [depression] at least once a day just in case." The system could bring tropical storm conditions to parts of the Gulf Coast, from the Florida panhandle to southeastern Louisiana, by Monday night or early Tuesday, according to a 10 a.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center. Bertha is not expected to have a major impact on the Texas coast, according to Monday forecasts from the National Weather Service, which said its forecast was "highly uncertain" beyond Thursday. Projections as of Monday morning show the majority of Southeast Texas, south Louisiana and Mississippi in the potential path of the system. Self said the forecast will solidify throughout the week. "Currently it is still in the northeast Gulf, and it's moving very slowly to the northwest," Self said. "We do expect it to turn more toward the west in the general direction of Texas, but the system does have some hurdles it's going to have to get through before it's able to get here." One of the potential hurdles is if the system makes landfall in Louisiana, Self said. "If that's the case, that'll take the system from being over the Gulf to over land, which would certainly limit the amount that it could intensify, if not weaken it," he said. "Also there's a lot of shear and dry air that it's dealing with." However, the system is still expected to strengthen before the end of the week, Self said. "The conditions are not necessarily so unfavorable to where the system can't strengthen,” he said. “It likely is going to strengthen some ... but right now as it stands, it's not looking like a major impact to Southeast Texas."

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Byron Cook: Texas broke its word on Texas Dream Act

(Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives and chairman of the House Committee on State Affairs.) In 2001, the Texas Legislature passed the in-state tuition law, known today as the Texas Dream Act, with overwhelming bipartisan support, and it took effect immediately with then-Gov. Rick Perry’s signature. Texas was the first state to do it because Texas leads and because the math made sense. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that states must provide K-12 public education to children regardless of immigration status. Texas taxpayers were already educating these children, often for 13 years per student. The only question was whether Texas would ever collect the return. The 2001 law was the deal we struck to collect that return. Live in Texas with a parent or guardian while attending a Texas high school. Reside here for at least three years by graduation. Earn a Texas diploma or its equivalent. Sign an affidavit pledging to apply for permanent U.S. residency as soon as legally eligible. Meet those terms, and you would pay the exact same resident tuition as the Texan beside you. Not free tuition. Resident tuition. The point was not to reward illegal immigration.

The point was to ensure Texas did not squander its own investment in students who were already educated here and paying taxes. We do not have to guess about the return. In 2017 alone, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reported that these students paid $72.8 million in tuition and fees to public colleges and universities, nearly three times what the state invested through formula funding. Now, Texas has walked away from that deal, an act of fiscal malpractice and a stain on our honor. I served on the House Committee on State Affairs from 2003 to 2019, chaired it during my final four sessions and presided over every hearing on this issue. I know exactly who these students are. Valedictorians. Salutatorians. Top 10% graduates. Nobody hands them anything. One witness I will never forget was brought from Nepal at age 7 and received a world class education in Texas schools. He repaid that investment the Texas way: graduating in the top 10% of his class before entering one of the University of Texas’s most selective honors programs to study pre-med and government. He did not ask for sympathy. His testimony was armed with the state’s own numbers, including a Perryman Group analysis estimating more than $8 in return for every $1 Texas invests. He made the business case himself, sounding every bit as Texan as you or me. He told us he was an American in every way but the paperwork. He was right.

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Letitia Plummer accused of seven campaign finance violations, including paying family

A complaint filed with the Texas Ethics Commission accuses Letitia Plummer, the Democratic nominee for Harris County judge, of seven campaign finance violations, including improperly paying a family member, according to a document obtained by the Houston Chronicle. It’s unclear who submitted the complaint, but it comes as Plummer and her opponent, Republican Orlando Sanchez, have begun campaigning in earnest ahead of the hotly contested November election. The document also accused Plummer of accepting illegal contributions from corporations, failing to properly disclose payments made to her dentistry practice and several other procedural and accounting discrepancies. Plummer often filed her campaign finance reports late leading into the primary elections this spring.

Plummer said in a statement that her team was aware of the complaint and has been in contact with the Texas Ethics Commission. “We are doing a full review,” Plummer said. “We will be ensuring compliance with campaign finance regulations and amend any public reporting if necessary.” The allegations, which have not been sustained, are based on figures Plummer reported July 15, which spanned May 17 through June 30. Andrew Cates, an Austin-based attorney who specializes in Texas ethics and campaign finance law, said that the documents the Chronicle obtained were likely compiled by a law firm hired to target the Plummer campaign. It’s unclear if all of the allegations included in the documents were officially filed against Plummer. But even if the document was politically motivated, Cates said, the allegations are serious enough that the ethics commission will likely conduct an investigation.

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James Talarico pledges $25 million to win over Black voters in U.S. Senate campaign

State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, has pledged to spend $25 million to mobilize Black voters on behalf of his campaign for the U.S. Senate this fall. Most polling shows Talarico in a statistical dead heat against his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said the investment is much larger than what Texas typically sees from statewide Democratic campaigns in terms of efforts to mobilize the Black vote. Garnering the support of Black Texans figures to be critical for Talarico as he seeks to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in more than 30 years. "This clearly signals the Talarico campaign is worried about making sure the Black vote comes out," Rottinghaus said. "The Black vote is central to Democratic success in Texas, and historically without a sizable turnout among Black voters, Democrats have not done well."

Talarico spoke at a town hall Sunday at the Kingdom Builders’ Center in southwest Houston, where he was joined by Black elected officials at the municipal, state and federal levels. Talarico said the spending pledge — which his campaign asserts is a record for Texas in terms of trying to mobilize the Black vote — was the start of greater engagement, not the end. "I’m going to keep showing up," Talarico said, "and I’m asking you to continue to hold me accountable." Much of Talarico's Sunday town hall was given over to a question-and-answer session, aimed at addressing concerns about the Talarico campaign's interactions with the Black community. The discussion was passionate at times. "I think he’s better off than where he was a week ago," said Shamier Bouie, chair of the Houston Black American Democrats. "I think there’s still more work to be done, and I think, from what I’m hearing, they are willing to be putting in the work, and that this is just the beginning of the conversation."

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State Stories

Halliburton lands contract in Iraq as companies seek solutions to avoid Strait of Hormuz

Houston-based Halliburton Co. has been awarded a contract by Basra Oil Co. in Iraq as Houston companies flock to the region. Last week, the prime minister of Iraq, Ali Al-Zubair, visited several oil headquarters in Houston, including those of Chevron Corp. and ExxonMobil Holdings Corporation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce then hosted on July 17 the signing of about $60 billion worth of memorandums of understanding and other agreements for projects in Iraq. At the time, Halliburton signed a commemorative agreement for field management services as well as engineering and construction management at the Bin Umar field. On July 20, the company shared more details, saying it will provide integrated field management services plus engineering, procurement and construction management to the development of both the Bin Umar and Sindbad oil and gas fields in southern Iraq.

“We are honored by the trust Basra Oil Co. has placed in Halliburton to support the development of the Bin Umar and Sindbad fields,” Zaid Khadra, Halliburton’s vice president of the Middle East North Africa, said in a July 20 news release. "We will work alongside BOC as a technical and project management provider to integrate workflows, digital solutions, and execution expertise to maximize asset value. We look forward to collaboration with BOC to advance Iraq’s production, infrastructure, and associated gas development objectives." Iraq hopes the development of these fields will strengthen energy security and reduce reliance on gas imports. The Middle East is looking for ways to become less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed on and off since the beginning of the Iran war at the end of February.

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Texas AG candidate cites TTU regent donation in Paxton attack

Texas Democratic nominee for state attorney general, Nathan Johnson, released a political ad on Tuesday attacking current Attorney General Ken Paxton over a recent donation to Paxton's U.S. Senate campaign from Texas Tech University System Board of Regents Chairman Cody Campbell. As The Texas Tribune reported, campaign finance records showed Campbell's donation was recorded as providing $274,300 on June 10 to one of Paxton's fundraising committees for his U.S. Senate campaign. A day later, Paxton issued a public statement threatening to sue the Big 12 Conference if it sanctioned Texas Tech for playing quarterback Brendan Sorsby after a Lubbock County judge granted an injunction allowing the Cincinnati transfer to play, despite the NCAA declaring Sorsby permanently ineligible for violating its rules against gambling.

"The Conference would face exposure to treble damages," Paxton wrote, "including for Texas Tech's lost football revenues, damages to its alumni contributions and damages to its recruitment, plus attorneys' fees. The total exposure — for both the Big 12 and its members, joint and severally — will be substantially more than $200 million." The attorney general's office also issued a letter from Thomas D. York, chief of the antitrust division, and Kimberly Gdula, chief of the general litigation division, in Austin. "We are aware that the Big 12 is considering invoking Bylaw 3.6 of the Big 12's Bylaws to sanction Texas Tech for respecting the Order and continuing its support of Mr. Sorsby as a student-athlete," they wrote. "This letter serves to notify the Big 12 that any such action would be unlawful and would expose the Conference to substantial liability." Cody Campbell has dismissed claims that his donation was "nefarious," saying the timing of the Texas attorney general's letter to the Big 12 was mere coincidence, as reported by USA TODAY citing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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Small Texas town weighs tougher data center rules amid AI growth

Another small Texas town has joined the growing number of communities considering action as data centers expand across the region and draw scrutiny from lawmakers. Elected officials in Lockhart, the city 30 miles south of Austin known as the “Barbecue Capital of Texas,” have directed city staff to develop “very strict standards” for the resource-heavy developments. City Council members said a data center ban, though preferred, could expose the city to legal challenges. “I would prefer an outright ban but I don’t know that it’s the best choice for us because of the possibility of years and years of litigation and excessive expense for the city,” Council Member Juan Mendoza said Thursday during a special meeting. “I would like to see what the city can come up with as far as guardrails — very strong guardrails that make it almost impossible for any of these centers to want to come into Lockhart.”

The move comes after widespread uproar over the growth of data centers in the region. At least five data centers are planned or under construction in Caldwell County, though all are outside Lockhart. Officials have not yet approved any within city limits. The county, with an estimated population of 55,150, is experiencing many of the same growth pressures as other communities in the Austin region. “We are the county seat for Caldwell County so it’s up to us to lead by example,” Lockhart resident Jesús Pantel told the council. Lockhart joins several local governments studying the potential impacts of data centers and looking for ways to slow the industry’s growth. As demand for artificial intelligence grows, Texas has become the country’s fastest-growing data center market, with developers drawn by affordable open land, incentives and access to energy. The state stands to gain billions of dollars in investment from such development, as well as thousands of temporary construction jobs. But local and state officials have raised concerns about the potential strains data centers could place on infrastructure in a state that’s already facing water shortages and whose power grid has struggled to keep up with growth.

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Friends fondly remember Carrollton soldier Isabella Gonzales, 19, killed in Iranian strike on Jordan air base

For the friends who grew up with Army Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, the news of her death overseas last week has been almost impossible to grasp. One year ago, a group of Gonzales' best friends had just graduated from Hebron High School. "We were just in a room over there, laughing and having the time of our lives," said Misael Galdamez. "Now she's just a memory, and it feels so weird." Gonzales, 19, was one of the American service members killed in action in Jordan on Friday during an Iranian strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, according to the Pentagon. She was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve and was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment in Ansbach, Germany.

"It's pretty devastating, and it's still pretty hard to believe, seeing her face everywhere," said Zuleyka Acosta. "It's something I haven't felt before, and at such a young age. I think people need to recognize that she's still just a teenager, just one year older than us." Gonzales' friends described her as outgoing, spontaneous, and someone who loved to dance. They said that one year ago today, she left for boot camp – determined to prove her discipline and bravery. "I think she really did want to make people proud of who she was," Acosta said. "She wanted to be very disciplined, and she wanted people to view her as someone who was very brave." They had been counting down the days until her visit to North Texas in September. Instead of planning that reunion, they're remembering her as brave, kind, and optimistic. "How proud we are of her for being able to handle boot camp," Galdamez said. "When she first had doubts that she couldn't, she did it. She pushed through. We're really proud of her. We just wish we could see her again."

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Texas turns to recovery after deadly floods, but danger isn't over along the Nueces River

While much of Texas has begun shifting from rescue efforts to recovery after days of catastrophic flooding, Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday the state's greatest concern remains along the Nueces River, where evacuations continued in parts of Uvalde County as floodwaters slowly receded. The storms killed at least two people and prompted disaster declarations covering dozens of counties. “We, as a state and our local communities, still have to get them through the remaining challenges over the next 48 to 72 — maybe even longer than that — hours,” Abbott said. In Uvalde County, the river crested at a record 28.01 feet, surpassing its previous high-water mark set in 1996. Floodwaters also destroyed part of the FM 481 bridge southwest of Uvalde, cutting off a key connection between Uvalde and Eagle Pass.

“Just because the skies may be clear here right now, doesn't mean that the aggregation of water that's flowing downstream has peaked,” Abbott said. “Downstream, the waters will continue to rise and continue to pose dangers for those local communities.” As rivers receded over the weekend, residents from Kerrville to Uvalde County returned to damaged homes and businesses to begin cleanup while local and state officials assessed the destruction and coordinated relief efforts. Abbott signed a major-disaster declaration last week seeking federal assistance for 28 flood-affected counties. President Donald Trump approved the request Saturday. “The state is working and it will continue to work with local officials to expedite debris removal as well as to accelerate the rebuilding process,” Abbott said. The governor said preliminary assessments identified damage to at least 490 homes and 100 businesses in Kerr County, along with about 100 homes in neighboring Kendall County. Officials are still working to determine the full extent of the damage. Despite the destruction, communities across South Central Texas quickly mobilized to help one another, organizing donation drives, cleanup crews and supply distributions as families began the long process of rebuilding.

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US Rep. Gonzalez introduces bill to protect Boca Chica Beach’s name

U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Brownsville, has introduced a new bill that aims to protect Boca Chica Beach from “unnecessary name changes.” The Hands off Our Boca Chica Beach Act was announced on Monday morning. According to a news release from the congressman’s office, the bill would codify the name “Boca Chica Beach” and require the Domestic Names Committee to notify Gonzalez of any proposed name changes that would affect his district. The bill was introduced less than two weeks after the Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) voted against a Mississippi resident’s petition to officially rename a portion of the beach to “Cyber Beach.”

“It is absurd that a name proposal from outside our state was able to threaten the very essence of a cultural and historic landmark in South Texas,” Gonzalez said in the news release. “The severe lack of transparency from the Domestic Names Committee almost shut out the people of Cameron County from a decision that directly impacted our daily lives—and would have created a financial burden for local municipalities responsible for replacing signage and other publicly used identifiers.” “While our community was able to quickly band together to stop this initial proposal from being adopted, my bill would ensure that Boca Chica Beach always remains the People’s Beach.” The BGN’s Domestic Names Committee announced on the evening of July 8 that there would be a hearing in Washington D.C. the following day to rename the beach to “Cyber Beach” at the request of an individual from Mississippi. News of the hearing prompted Gonzalez and State Rep. Erin Gamez to send letters to the committee who criticized the lack of transparency and the failure to give community members adequate time to respond.

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Hemp beverage industry navigates the highs and lows at recent expo

In the American Canning Machines facility in southeast Austin, silver drink cans jitter in what looks like a miniature cattle corral. The machine in front of me dances to an alien tempo. It whirrs and pops in 6/8 time. With a forest of spinning limbs, it plucks each can out of the corral and lines them up. David Racino, co-founder of ACM, said the scene reminded him of Willy Wonka. “Remember when they’re on like that train,” he said. “Or some contraption.” The cans are rinsed, filled and sealed so quickly that my eyes aren’t sure where to land. This is one arm of an industry with an estimated value in the billions. Last year, the hemp beverage industry sold around 2.3 million cases. Texas is one of the largest markets. But these are no ordinary drinks. These drinks will get you high.

On a hot day in June, a few miles north of the canning facility, business owners gathered in an Austin convention center for the Hemp Beverage Expo. The expo is a joint effort between Jage Media, an event organizer in the cannabis space, and the Hemp Beverage Alliance, an advocacy group for the industry. According to the Hemp Beverage Alliance, hemp beverages are any drinks that contain hemp-derived cannabinoids. Those are the chemical substances found in cannabis and other plants. CBD and THC are the most common, but there are hundreds of other so-called “minor cannabinoids.” Your body even makes its own, called endo-cannabinoids. The expo was not exactly what you picture when you hear the word “hemp.” Neat rows of corporate chic booths fill the echoey, well-lit expo space. Business owners exchange cards and promises to stay in touch. Not the ideal habitat for a stoner. This was something else — hemp would like to turn over a new leaf. “We’ve come a long way since brownie-on-the-couch days,” said Jasmine Hupp, a representative from one of the many beverage companies, Joy of the Adventure Living. “Now we have these incredibly, accurately dosed, reliable products. You’re gonna know how you feel every time you take a shot.”

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Nearly 500 homes damaged in Kerr County as community unites to rebuild once again

Just over a year after helping neighbors recover from the catastrophic 2025 Independence Day Floods, Notre Dame Catholic Church in Kerrville is once again trying to help the community rebuild, even as flood waters last week swept through its catholic school buildings. For Father Scott Janysek, the timing is almost unimaginable. It’s his second year as the head of the parish in Kerrville, and he’s already experienced two historical floods. “I’ve been here just starting my second year,” Janysek said. “I arrived here four days before the flood… and threw everything I planned out the window.”

This year’s flooding looked different than last summer’s disaster. Instead of primarily affecting communities along the Guadalupe River, Janysek said intense rainfall overwhelmed Kerrville’s urban drainage system, sending water through neighborhoods that had never flooded before. “We had areas outside of our buildings up to 2 to 2.5 feet of water rushing through our campus,” he said. “All but three buildings across our property” took on floodwater, including classrooms, the gym, the parish’s adoration chapel and community spaces.” Teachers also lost classroom supplies they had purchased themselves. Photos, books, rugs and educational materials were scattered across campus after floodwaters receded, just weeks before students are scheduled to return for the new school year. The flooding also hit parishioners far harder than last year’s event. Janysek said many families who were never considered at risk now face rebuilding homes without flood insurance. “I’ve got a list of probably 30-plus people… that have lost everything,” he said. “They may not have had their homes washed away, but they had multiple feet of water in their homes.” Gov. Greg Abbott, who toured flood-damaged areas in Kerr, Kendall and Comal counties Monday, said local leaders and residents were better prepared for this year’s flooding because of lessons learned after last summer’s disaster.

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Houston ISD student released from ICE detention three days after arrest, congresswoman says

A rising senior in Houston ISD who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents Friday was released from detention on Monday, according to U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston. An ICE spokesperson over the weekend confirmed the arrest of Alim Garipov, an 18-year-old student from Russia who attends Bellaire High School. The agency said Garipov was allowed entry into the U.S. in May 2022, but was permitted to stay in the country for only six months. Fletcher, in what her office described as a joint statement Monday night with Garipov’s family and an immigration attorney, said the teen was released after a “community-wide advocacy effort.”

"We are relieved and grateful that Alim has finally been released from detention and reunited with his family,” the statement also said. “This outcome came after a tireless, expeditious effort over the weekend, working in partnership to secure Alim's release.” ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment and confirmation Monday night. Friends of the Garipov family previously told Houston Public Media they were in the process of making an asylum claim to stay in the country legally. "A pending application does not confer any type of legal status in the United States," an ICE spokesperson said in a weekend statement after Garipov’s arrest. "If a person enters our country illegally, they are subject to detention or deportation." Garipov is not the first Houston ISD student to be detained by ICE during the second term of President Donald Trump, whose administration has ramped up immigration-related arrests and deportations.

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Fort Worth’s Sundance Square names new CEO to replace Sasha Bass

Former Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus has been named the new president and CEO of Sundance Square, replacing Sasha Bass, who has led the 37-block downtown commercial district since 2019. Kraus began his career at Sundance Square leading the security division after a 29-year career with the Fort Worth Police Department. He has led the company’s strategic focus in areas including safety operations and organizational excellence. He begins his new role Sept. 1. “We are blessed to have very talented teams at Sundance Square working together to make an impact far greater than any of us could do alone. I am humbled to step into this role, and I will lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place,” Kraus said in a statement.

Brothers Sid and Lee Bass began developing Sundance Square and the City Center Towers in the early 1980s. In 1983, Ed Bass opened the Caravan of Dreams night club, which spurred development in Sundance Square, including the Sundance West apartments. Ed and his wife Sasha took over full ownership of Sundance Square in fall 2019. Sasha Bass aimed to transform Sundance Square to more largely promote the arts and small businesses. By 2021 during the COVID pandemic, nearly a third of the storefronts downtown were closed. Sundance Square launched a program in 2022 to bring local entrepreneurs to the area. Businesses selected received free marketing and design consulting. Today, around 60 businesses call Sundance Square home. Bass’ focus on live events helped double the number of visitors to Sundance Square to 17 million in 2025, Sundance Square said. Thousands gather in the plaza for Saturday evening concerts, and crowds for the World Cup watch parties spilled onto Main Street. She also developed Sundance Square into a public art campus, with installations from national and international artists. The glittering rhinestone cowboy hat resting in the plaza is a popular photo opp with the Tarrant County Courthouse standing in the background.

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Dallas City Hall’s fate, mayor’s power could help shape the 2027 race

Michael Hinojosa chose City Hall as the backdrop last week for launching his campaign for mayor. But he stopped short of saying whether Dallas should remain in the I.M. Pei-designed building. The former Dallas ISD superintendent said city leaders will decide its fate before the next mayor takes office after the November 2027 election. He said he favors an approach that is “efficient” and “honors the past.” “They haven’t put much money in it, and you can’t talk your way out of things,” Hinojosa said. He pointed to The Academic, an apartment complex created from Dallas ISD’s former 70-year-old administration building on Ross Avenue, as an example of how City Hall could be repurposed.

Dallas Council Member Cara Mendelsohn, who opposes relocating City Hall, said in a social media post that “not taking a position” makes you “a non-viable candidate in 2027.” “There will be plenty more candidates for mayor and the City Council seats,” she wrote. “Let's see what they do.” The debate is particularly relevant for potential mayoral contenders already on the council. They will help determine what happens to the building and be saddled with the political consequences. The next mayor could inherit the challenge of funding millions of dollars in needed repairs or managing a move, along with facing tensions from whichever side loses. That makes the City Hall fight a test of how candidates would balance fiscal discipline, downtown redevelopment and some residents’ attachment to a civic landmark. Personal injury lawyer Ben Abbott, who is considering a run, has begun airing TV ads that present him as a civic leader who will “show up, listen and get results.” Council members Gay Donnell Willis, Chad West and Paula Blackmon, businesswoman Lynn McBee and developer and philanthropist Peter Brodsky are among those mentioned as potential contenders. The office itself also could change before voters choose the next mayor. Some local leaders are discussing an effort to put a strong-mayor proposal before voters in May 2027. Details remain unsettled, but that could shift some executive authority from the city manager to the elected mayor. The outcome could determine not only how much power Dallas’ next mayor will have, but also who decides to run for the job.

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Drone delivery could cut pollution. Can communities live with the noise?

Jonathan Pace first noticed the noise. But it wasn’t until he bought a Bluetooth-based drone tracker that what seemed like a neighborhood nuisance became something he could measure: how often Amazon drones flew above his home—and how low they flew. Pace, the chief operating officer of a software company, works from home in Richardson. He chose the neighborhood for its quiet streets, single-family homes and peaceful backyards, where the loudest interruptions were lawn mowers and the occasional airplane flying overhead. That changed when Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drones began to buzz near his home. “There are always planes flying overhead, and they’re loud,” Pace said. “But the drone noise is higher-pitched. It’s like a mosquito buzzing near your ear. It’s frustrating.”

Companies and researchers say electric drones can make last-mile delivery cleaner, faster and safer by replacing gas- and diesel-powered vehicles that carry small packages through neighborhood streets. But the disruption in Richardson, part of the trial run for a delivery system that could spread across the United States, shows the growing tension of drone delivery and the realities of life beneath the flight path. As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prepares rules that could allow routine drone flights beyond a pilot’s visual line of sight, the question is no longer whether drones can deliver a box of coffee, medicine or toothpaste. It is whether they can do so often enough to meaningfully reduce pollution, and quietly enough that communities will accept them. Curious about how often the drones were flying, Pace bought a drone tracker that detects signals broadcast under the FAA’s Remote ID rules. Screenshots he shared showed nearly nine drones per hour pass over his neighborhood between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on one January day. Some flights appeared to be as low as 135 feet, below the 150 feet Amazon told residents to expect at the time.

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National Stories

Trump says he will impose 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods in 30 days

President Donald Trump announced Monday that he will impose 50 percent tariffs on most Canadian goods effective in 30 days unless Canada drops what the administration called “discriminatory” trade barriers against U.S. products. The move comes one day after Trump threatened to impose tariffs in retaliation for wildfires in Ontario that sent thick smoke pouring into the United States late last week. After watching Sunday’s World Cup final alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump told reporters that the subject had come up. “Our air has been poisoned. Have a good relationship with Mark Carney, but you know we got to stop the fires up there. If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs,” the president said Sunday.

On Monday, however, a senior administration official said the president’s latest tariff action was unrelated to his irritation over the wildfires. Instead, the official said, the president was acting in response to Canada’s retaliation for emergency tariffs Trump imposed in April 2025, when U.S. alcohol was removed from Canadian store shelves. The administration has also complained about Canadian limits on auto imports and dairy products. Monday’s action relies on a never-before-used provision of a 1930 trade law, which provides for tariffs of up to 50 percent against countries that discriminate against U.S. goods. The 30-day delay provides time for the two nations to resolve the dispute before tariffs take effect. If the tariffs do take effect, they will apply to most Canadian goods, including those that qualify for duty-free treatment under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated during his first term.

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The man who runs the IRS spied on colleagues when he worked at JPMorgan

Frank Bisignano, the head of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration, sits atop two government organizations that store vast reams of sensitive financial data about every taxpayer. More than a decade ago, he was co-chief operating officer at JPMorgan Chase , another perch that gave him visibility and authority over every part of a massive financial institution. At the bank, people familiar with the matter said, he spied on fellow executives—using his authority over the security department and position to access sensitive information and internal communications without an apparent business justification.

The executive directed his security staff to use software to snoop in the email of rival executives—including Charlie Scharf, JPMorgan’s then head of consumer banking who is now the CEO of Wells Fargo, some of the people said. One executive said he suspected the spying and put a code phrase in his email, which he said Bisignano repeated back to him. Bisignano also accessed a draft complaint from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about a questioned derivatives trade that was a confidential document only seen by a few members of the legal department, some said. He also directed his staff to use software to surveil the work of employees, sometimes seeking to track keystrokes—which can show draft versions of written material—others said. The people said Bisignano’s goal was to keep a tight rein on employees and use the information to undermine his rivals as he expanded his responsibilities. No allegations are known to pertain to the improper access of customer information.

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The FDA says it did not ‘officially apologize’ to Taylor Farms

Confusion swirled around the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak on Monday after the produce supplier linked to the illness pushed back against the Food and Drug Administration. FDA officials said in a press call on Monday that its investigation still points to Taylor Farms’ iceberg lettuce as the source of the outbreak, despite the company claiming the agency apologized to it for announcing a false positive result on a test for cyclospora in Taylor Farms’ lettuce. “We did not offer an official apology, but did explain factually the issues,” an FDA official said.

Taylor Farms, a multinational produce behemoth, was implicated in the outbreak of the diarrhea-causing parasite after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention traced reports of illness back to Taylor Farms de Mexico lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in five states. The supplier put out a voluntary recall for iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico on Friday, including bagged salad mixes sold in grocery stores. Over the weekend, the FDA announced — and then retracted — the news that a sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms had tested positive for cyclospora. That test was a false positive, meaning the agency has not found any “confirmed positive sample results for product testing of Cyclospora,” the FDA said in a statement. Taylor Farms responded on social media late Sunday, saying the FDA had apologized to the company.

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Trump administration sought phone records of Times journalists and their relatives

The Trump administration sought the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives — including one reporter’s mother — in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of President Trump’s new Air Force One jet. The Justice Department told The Times late last week that it had issued subpoenas to third-party phone service providers seeking several journalists’ phone and text messaging records. That effort was in addition to the subpoenas issued on July 10 that sought to compel reporters to testify before a federal grand jury. The government’s actions amount to an extraordinarily aggressive and unorthodox attempt by the Trump administration to unearth the confidential sources of independent journalists whose reporting had angered the president.

The additional subpoenas — which also sought information about calls and messages on the phones of two of the reporters’ spouses — were described in a motion filed on Saturday by lawyers for The Times, which is seeking to quash the requests. The motion was unsealed on Monday morning by Judge Arun Subramanian of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The White House referred an inquiry to the Justice Department. A spokeswoman for the department, Kiersten Pels, said in a statement: “Any subpoena issued by the Department of Justice is done so in full compliance with federal law and internal department policy.” A spokesman for The Times declined to comment beyond the motion filed by its lawyers. The government began a leak investigation into The Times’s coverage days after the news outlet reported earlier this month that federal officials harbored significant concerns about the security capabilities of Mr. Trump’s new, Qatari-donated Air Force One jet. Mr. Trump was enraged by that reporting, and the White House directed the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, to oversee the investigation.

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Who is Troy Jackson, Democrats' likely Maine Senate nominee?

Troy Jackson, a former Maine lawmaker and fifth-generation logger from the North Maine Woods, has emerged as the likely new replacement for the state’s Democratic Senate nominee after former candidate Graham Platner quit the high-stakes race less than two weeks ago. Platner’s departure followed a sexual assault allegation that he denied but forced his exit anyway. It sparked a wave of potential candidates eager to prove to Mainers that they could take on longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. But by Sunday, the field had largely been cleared after Jackson supporters spent the weekend securing hundreds of delegates who promised to back him at the upcoming state convention.

Under a never-before-used system to replace Platner, delegates will vote Saturday in Bangor on a new Senate nominee. Out of the 601 delegates who will gather this weekend, Jackson’s campaign says they have 481 delegates committed to supporting him. Top opponents — ranging from Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to Nirav Shah, former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention — have since dropped out, while Jackson announced Monday that he was focusing his attention on ousting Collins. “I’m grateful to Democrats across Maine for putting their faith in me and in what we’re fighting for,” Jackson said in a statement. “This didn’t happen because of one person. It happened because hundreds of volunteers put in the hours, knocked on doors, made phone calls, and believed we could build something bigger than ourselves.” Yet securing the nomination is only just the beginning of challenges facing Jackson.

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Arizona primaries set the stage for contested fall races in a swing state

Arizona is the one state holding primaries Tuesday and offers a look at voter sentiment in a swing state, where Republicans narrowly outnumber independents and Democrats. The state went for President Trump in 2024 but elected a Democratic governor two years before that. Republicans will be trying to flip the governor's office this fall while Democrats hope to pick up a couple seats in the U.S. House, which could determine whether the party can wrest control from the GOP. Republicans hold the House by just a few seats and the party in the White House usually loses seats in the midterms. Some of the key races could come down to who has the support of President Trump or Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who lived in Arizona.

Arizona's First Congressional District is one of only 18 House seats in the country listed as a "toss up" in the Cook Political Report. In the Phoenix metro area, the district is currently represented by Republican Rep. David Schweikert but he opted to run for governor this election cycle. The frontrunners in the Democratic primary are former state lawmaker and emergency medicine physician Amish Shah and former broadcast journalist Marlene Galán-Woods It's a familiar matchup for Arizona voters. Two years ago, Shah beat Galán-Woods in the primary for the district and then Shah lost to Schweikert in the general election. Now, it's a new race. Both candidates say they have what it takes to appeal to independent and swing voters. Galán-Woods was a Republican until 2018 but now has the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the primary. In the Republican primary for the First District, it's a battle between a candidate with President Trump's endorsement and another who was a state lawmaker in Arizona's right-wing Freedom Caucus.

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White House says new Air Force One will be out of service for a month for ‘upgrades’

President Trump’s new Air Force One, the Boeing luxury jet donated by Qatar, will be taken out of service for about one month this fall for “additional upgrades and enhancements,” the White House press secretary said on Monday. The details about the additional work on the plane came a day after Mr. Trump appeared to acknowledge that the plane required more features, telling reporters that it would soon be “maxed out.” The plane has come under scrutiny over whether it is fitted with sufficient defensive capabilities. “The new Air Force One is perfectly safe for the president’s travels, but will receive additional upgrades and enhancements in the fall which will take approximately one month to complete,” Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, said in a statement. “During that time, the president will fly on the old Air Force One.”

Ms. Leavitt did not specify what upgrades would be made to the plane. Mr. Trump flew the new aircraft earlier this month to the NATO summit in Turkey, but then changed planes when flying back. He used the old airplane to fly from Turkey to Britain, then switched to the Qatari jet again for the trip to the United States. The New York Times first reported that the change came at the request of the Secret Service, which raised concerns about the president flying on the new plane given the resumption of hostilities with Iran. The Times then reported that the new jet lacks the same defensive countermeasures as the older model, including antimissile capabilities. The coverage prompted a leak investigation; shortly after the stories published, the F.B.I. hand-delivered subpoenas to Times reporters to testify before a federal grand jury. The Trump administration has also sought the phone records of several Times journalists and their relatives in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of the plane. Mr. Trump had long complained about the old Air Force One and has been frustrated by the yearslong delay in readying two brand-new jets that the government has commissioned from Boeing. The Qatari-donated jet, a roughly 14-year-old plane, went through a costly yet relatively rushed process before Mr. Trump first flew on it earlier this month. On Monday, the White House account on X referred to the planned upgrades as “planemaxxing,” internet slang for optimizing.

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Sen. Darline Graham running for full Senate term after being appointed to Lindsey Graham’s seat

Sen. Darline Graham announced that she will run for her late brother’s seat this November, after being appointed last week to serve out the rest of Lindsey Graham’s term. “I’ve made a decision. I’m in,” she said in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. Graham acknowledged the “tremendous amount of pressure” she’s felt to make up her mind quickly, with a filing deadline looming and President Donald Trump posting on Truth Social that he would like her to run for the seat. “I’ve been praying a lot, talking to my family, but with the love of my family, with the support of his staff — I know I’m a hard worker, I learned that from Lindsey,” she added. “He cared about the people of this state. I’ve worked for almost 30 years for the people of this state. I feel like I can do it. I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes, absolutely.”

Graham is the first woman to represent South Carolina in the Senate. She was appointed to the seat by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to serve until January 2027. A special primary election will take place August 11 to determine who will next hold the seat for the upcoming six-year term. Multiple influential South Carolina Republicans told CNN the initial reports last week that Darline Graham planned to seek a full Senate term came as a surprise, as it was understood by them she would only complete the remainder of Lindsey Graham’s term. A source with knowledge of the matter said that at the time McMaster appointed her to serve the remainder of her late brother’s current term, he was not under the impression Darline Graham would run as a candidate in the special primary election for a full term. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Monday that he is not endorsing Darline Graham at this time but called her “strong candidate.” When asked by CNN why she is a strong candidate and what practical experience she brings to the job, Thune said: “She obviously carries on Lindsey’s legacy. But I think she’s a very accomplished person in her own right, and so you know she has a right, like anybody else, to get into that race.”

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Lead Stories

Ken Paxton scrambles to win back the GOP’s big-dollar donors

A day after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated longtime Sen. John Cornyn for the party’s Senate nomination, his campaign called billionaire businessman Bob Rowling. Rowling, who had contributed more than $750,000 to groups supporting Cornyn, is one of the high-dollar Republican donors who could be key to Paxton’s efforts in a competitive race. But Rowling, a onetime supporter of Paxton, had been turned off by his alleged extramarital affairs and was emotional over his drubbing of Cornyn, he said. He initially declined to help. Then Rowling got a call from Sen. Ted Cruz, who asked him to meet with Paxton. Rowling said he had begun to consider whether Democratic opponent James Talarico was a concerning enough threat for him to open his wallet again.

He ended up taking a meeting with Paxton and Cruz to hear them out. Rowling’s hesitation highlights the bind confronting a bloc of deep-pocketed Texans weighing how involved to get in the race. Many can’t stomach Paxton—a populist firebrand dogged by legal and ethical scandals and known for targeting corporate interests. But with control of the Senate in the balance and a well-funded Democrat on the other side, some are deciding they can’t afford to sit this one out. Paxton’s success hinges, in part, on winning them back. He has his work cut out for him. After Paxton’s nomination, donors at one major Republican fundraising organization asked that their money not go to him—because his office had sued so many of them, and because they feared he could misuse it, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Paxton will need all the support he can get. Texas is a notoriously expensive state for political campaigns: It has 20 media markets and 19 million registered voters spread across two time zones. Talarico, buoyed by a Democratic base desperate for its first statewide win since 1994, has been a fundraising powerhouse, reporting $27 million in the first quarter of the year and $30 million in the second.

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Talarico has spirited exchange with Houston voters during U.S. Senate campaign stop

State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. senator from Texas, was about to answer the final question of a town hall in southwest Houston on Sunday when 50-year-old Kandice Webber stood up. "Our people don't trust you for this reason," said Webber, who is Black, after the crowd quieted to listen. "And you cannot win without us. So you stay here, you answer our questions, or you suffer the consequences." Talarico turned his attention to her and attempted to cool the tension: "I appreciate you being here, and I appreciate you traveling in and I appreciate you—" "I came for my people, not for you," she said. The crowd murmured. "It's alright, it's alright, it's alright," Talarico said. "This is what this conversation is supposed to be about."

He turned to answer more questions and push the event longer, but Webber stayed standing, visibly disappointed. She hadn't asked her question and wanted to hear Talarico address her concerns about Teach for America's effect on public education funding. Talarico formerly taught at a public San Antonio middle school through Teach for America and has characterized public education as a core driver of his political career. The moment underscored the passion and a keen sense of urgency inside a packed room at the Kingdom Builders Center, where hundreds of prospective voters turned out to listen to Talarico on Sunday afternoon. Talarico is in a tight race, if recent polls are correct, with Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — a race in which Talarico wants to be the first Democrat elected to statewide Texas office in more than 30 years. The room greeted him with a standing ovation full of cheers after introductions from U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, State Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons and Houston City Council Member Martha Castex-Tatum. The crowd chanted "Take back Texas" as they hoisted campaign signs.

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Trump immigration officials seek to mend frayed ties with business as arrests spike

The Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Markwayne Mullin is cultivating a relationship with business groups whose concerns about losing workers to aggressive immigration enforcement had been rebuffed by former secretary Kristi L. Noem. Earlier this month, DHS officials met at the agency’s Washington headquarters with the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major trade associations that depend on immigrant labor, according to several people with knowledge of the meeting, which has not been previously reported. It was the first such meeting to be reported since President Donald Trump reentered the White House. Business groups say they have been trying to gain a foothold at the agency since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests began to spike last year.

Mullin did not attend the early July meeting — which included officials from ICE and Customs and Border Protection, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly — and the gathering did not produce an immediate change in policies. But two of the people said DHS officials said they want to meet regularly with the group to assess the impact of Trump’s mass deportation campaign and business needs. “It was cordial, it was constructive,” one of the people said. “It’s actually very welcome because the last secretary was absent, and her proxies were not very responsive.” A DHS spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting; coalition members declined to comment publicly. Immigration arrests have more than quadrupled since Trump took office, driven by a dramatic increase in traffic and neighborhood stops, workplace sweeps and other public arrests, according to the Deportation Data Project. As a result, industries including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, health care and elder care say they are reeling from shortages in jobs critical to the economy.

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In search of fraud, Huffines plans to shift auditors at Texas Comptroller's Office from auditing businesses to government

Don Huffines told CBS News Texas that when he becomes the Texas Comptroller on August 1, he plans to make some changes at the office. "I'm going to be doing a lot of shifting with my team," said Huffines. "I have over 600 auditors down there, and we're going to be increasing that staff. I'm shifting a lot of my auditors over to auditing government from auditing businesses currently for revenue." When asked if he will still want to make sure that companies aren't defrauding the state, Huffines said, "Of course. Yes. It's a real delicate balance. It really is. If you owe your tax, we want to make sure you're paying that tax." Governor Greg Abbott appointed Huffines to the position after the current Acting Comptroller, Kelly Hancock, announced he would resign effective July 31st.

Huffines became the Republican nominee for the job in November after defeating Hancock and two other candidates in the March primary. Huffines faces Democrat Sarah Eckhardt, a State Senator from Austin, in November. While campaigning, Huffines has emphasized his desire to root out fraud and waste. Huffines said, "This is a nonpartisan issue to find out where our money is actually going. How is it being spent? Is it being spent correctly?" He often says he wants to "DOGE Texas", referring to the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, which was created by an executive order from President Trump last year and run by Elon Musk for several months. The Department shut down operations as scheduled on July 4th. Republicans praised the effort, while Democrats sharply criticized it. When asked if he believed the state of Texas has done enough to root out fraud, Huffines said, "No, I don't think the state has. There are so many government programs. Most states have said that's the federal job to review the program, to find out if the money is being spent correctly. We're seeing that across the board. That's just not the case. The federal government has not paid attention to how the money is being spent. People have been gaming the system for decades."

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State Stories

House members urge Trump to ease tariffs for Houston-area copper plant

Three U.S. House members are pressing President Donald Trump to ease tariff rules for a European company that plans to build a $1 billion copper cable plant to supply Texas' data center boom. U.S. Reps. Wesley Hunt, Michael McCaul and Randy Weber, all Republicans, are asking Trump's trade counselor Peter Navarro to allow a subsidiary of the Polish firm Tele-Fonika Kable to invest what it currently spends on tariffs exporting copper cable to the United States on building the plant in Waller, outside of Houston. "Rather than simply sending those funds to the Treasury, this approach would ensure that tariff revenue is reinvested directly into new American manufacturing capacity," they wrote in a letter in May. "This type of investment is exactly the outcome your trade policies are intended to encourage: global manufacturers choosing to build factories in the United States, hire American workers, and strengthen domestic supply chains for critical industrial materials."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Representatives of Tele-Fonika have been meeting with the Trump administration to try and get approval on the tariff relief proposal but so far have not gotten an answer, said Johnston Dietz, operations manager at JDR Cable Systems, a subsidiary of the Polish company. He said the company had begun working on building the Texas plant in 2022, before Trump instituted his tariffs on foreign imports last year. "The addition of these tariffs threatened the financial validity of the investment. It makes it difficult to secure the financing," he said. "We're not looking for something to last years on end, just support through the end of the financial investment." Copper cables have come under high demand amid the data center boom and the push to build out the electricity grid that powers them. Other traditional industries like oil and gas drillers in Texas also depend on the cables. The Waller plant would eventually employ 700 people, with plans to begin operations in three years, Dietz said.

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Climate scientists have predicted greater flooding in Texas for decades. It's happening now

One of the shocking things about the storms that hit Texas this week is that rainfall of similar devastating strength struck almost exactly a year ago in many of the same places. That tragic repetition may be less of a surprise to those who follow climate science. While it is tricky to attribute specific rain events to climate change, experts say they know enough about how the warming atmosphere and warming oceans affect precipitation to recognize trends. “We’re not saying that our warming climate caused these floods this year, last year” Shel Winkley, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, told Texas Public Radio’s The Source. "But we understand how it’s making it more likely, more frequent.” A warming atmosphere, for example, increases extreme rainfall risk because warm air holds more moisture that can lead to about 4% more rainfall for every one degree warmer the air becomes, Winkley said.

In a 2024 report, the Office of the State Climatologist of Texas noted that Texas had already seen up to a 15% increase in extreme rainstorms this century from the latter part of last century. That report predicted a 20% increase in the frequency of those storms by 2036 that would more than double the previous odds of extreme rainfall happening. The same report found that increased rainfall will contribute to a 10% to 15% increase in flooding in urban areas, potentially doubling the risk of floods from last century. Ocean temperatures, made warmer through heat-trapping pollution, also contribute to stronger storms. “Right now the Gulf of Mexico, even by July standards, is above average,” Winkley said. “A warmer ocean can allow for more evaporation, more rain making moisture.“

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Texas Ag Commissioner Sid Miller speaks at Lubbock data center protest

A Lubbock community group held a protest Saturday evening at Clapp Park as part of a national day of action against data centers, gathering signatures for a petition seeking an 18-month moratorium on data center development in the city. The “Citizens of Lubbock Against Data Centers” organized the event, which included free food and community outreach. The group said it was protesting in what it called “the Lubbock way.” The event comes as the Lubbock City Council has said it wants to explore the possibility of bringing a data center to the city. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller attended the protest and is leading an effort to regulate data center expansion across the state. Miller said data centers could threaten agricultural land, water supply, and the power grid.

He is calling for a special 30-day legislative session to address the issue, citing a lack of existing regulations. “We could deal with them, have the legislation up in the books in six weeks, and we could all get around this,” Miller said. “But so far, I haven’t heard back from the governor. Of course, I never hear back from him. Never got a meeting with him in twelve years, so I’m not surprised that he doesn’t answer back. So that’s why we’re here. We’re trying to raise awareness and highlight the issue... that we’re not saying that we’re all against data centers, but we need to know that they’re not gonna drive up our electric rates and use all our water and take away our good farmland.” State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, a Democrat running for lieutenant governor who represents an Austin district, also attended the protest. She said the impact of data centers on state resources remains unclear and called for a special session as well.

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'Important for us to stay united' | Hundreds take to Houston streets, demanding justice for Lorenzo Salgado

Twelve days after Lorenzo Salgado was fatally shot by ICE agents during an operation in Houston, hundreds of people gathered Sunday to demand justice and call for changes to immigration enforcement. The protest began at Chew Park in Houston's Fourth Ward before demonstrators marched toward the nearby U.S. Highway 59 bridge. The gathering came one day after Salgado's funeral and was organized by a coalition of about 30 groups, according to organizers. "This is the power of the people, and we will continue to manifest and push for these things to change," organizer Stephy Padilla with Immigrating Youth Texas said. Participants held signs and chanted as they marched, calling for accountability following the fatal ICE-involved shooting earlier this month.

"This is wrong as the day is long and won't be tolerated in Texas and won't be tolerated in Houston," protester Samuel said. Another attendee, Walter Mallett, questioned why incidents like Salgado's continue to happen. "How and why does something like this continue to happen to working-class people?" Mallett said. Federal officials have said Salgado was not the intended target of the operation. Before the march began, Salgado's two sons addressed the crowd. "We want to continue to pressure the government to allow for a full, transparent, independent investigation," Ronaldo Salgado said. His brother, Lorenzo Salgado Jr., urged supporters to remain united. "It's really important for us to stay united, to stay positive and keep fighting for justice," he said. Because of the excessive heat, organizers shortened the planned march route after several participants began feeling the effects of the high temperatures. They said, however, that the change did not alter the purpose of the demonstration.

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In Balcones Heights, a mayor takes his own city to court

In Balcones Heights, it’s Mayor Johnny Rodriguez Jr. against the city government he was elected to lead. Rodriguez portrays himself as a good-government reformer and an underdog. But many others inside city hall see him as an intolerant blusterer and an out-of-control micromanager. In March, the City Council hired a law firm to investigate a slew of workplace complaints against Rodriguez, which accused him of bullying, threatening and demeaning city employees. They also voted 3-1 to bar Rodriguez from parts of Balcones Height’s administrative offices and restricted his contact with city employees while the investigation played out.

The Austin-based law firm released a report in June that detailed some of the mayor’s heated interactions with city employees since he was elected in 2024. Rodriguez allegedly used the N-word “numerous times” during a meeting with city staffers, said he was disgusted by the “lifestyle” of an employee he believed was LGBTQ+ and called city workers “rats” in a voicemail, according to the 35-page report. More broadly, the report portrays Rodriguez as creating a culture of fear inside city government. He allegedly publicly berated employees and threatened to fire those who spoke out against him — even though under Balcones Heights' system of government the mayor can’t dismiss municipal workers or department heads. “The Mayor has created a culture that it is his way, or you will not be here anymore, making everyone fear for their position,” the report states. But the turmoil, which has been building for months, didn’t derail Rodriguez’s bid for reelection. No one ran against him in the May city election, and he returned to office with 54 votes.

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Coppell-based Csquare valued at $3.2 billion after lukewarm stock market debut

The rising AI tide can only lift a boat so high. Csquare, a Coppell-based provider of data center services, made its stock market debut Thursday, pricing its initial public offering below the target range it had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It offered 50 million shares of common stock at $21, bringing its total market capitalization to $3.2 billion. Shares of Csquare were trading for $20.35 when the market opened Friday. It ended the day at $20.40. In its Form S-1, initially filed confidentially, Csquare said it expected to sell its stock between $23 to $27 per share, but certain disclosures in the registration statement may have left investors reticent to buy the data center firm at quite that premium.

Proceeds of the IPO, tabbed at around $1.05 billion, were expected to go nearly entirely to paying down debt, according to the filing, and the company had reported significant losses, albeit on growing revenue, in 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. Csquare, which recently rebranded from Centersquare, operates 80 data centers across the U.S., Canada and London, specializing in colocation, in which businesses purchase data center space and the support services to house their own servers. The company was created by Brookfield Asset Management in 2024 after it acquired Cyxtera out of bankruptcy in 2023 for $775 million. Brookfield, which has more than $1 trillion in assets under management, then combined Cyxtera assets with its other data center outfit, Evoque, positioning the resultant company to capitalize on the AI and related infrastructure boom. Brookfield still owns a majority of Csquare’s voting power. Csquare made $987 million in 2025, improving on its revenue in 2024 by around $80 million. In the first quarter of this year, it improved revenue to $270 million, nearly 16% growth versus the same period last year. However, the company reported a nearly $120 million loss of income in 2025, and further losses of $66 million in the first quarter of this year, as interest expenses continue to grow.

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Alamo Drafthouse founder to bring new theater experience to Austin

The co-founder of Alamo Drafthouse, Tim League, is back at reinventing the cinematic experience and plans to open his new concept in Austin next year. Metro Private Cinema will be a private screening experience accompanied by a refined menu. The company is raising $4 million to $5 million in a convertible note structure and has already reached the halfway mark in that effort. The raise will close in six weeks, League said. Metro will open in April 2027 at the The Baker School in the Hyde Park Historic District, a property owned by League and his wife, Karrie. Metro was co-founded by League and Mikey Trafton, the former chief technology officer at Alamo Drafthouse and an early leader at Capital Factory.

Trafton died in 2025 before the first Metro location opened. HomeAway co-founder Brian Sharples is an investor. League said Metro was Sharples' original idea and the two workshopped the concept together. Alamo Drafthouse is also an investor in Metro, though League declined to disclose the investment amount. As League’s tastes have changed over time, so has his business vision. “I've always wanted to build things that I want to do, I want to go, I want to patronize,” League said. “I love this experience and it really kind of crystallized during Covid where we were just yearning to hang out with our friends. And honestly, the movie’s great but the time seated across the table for a family-style, really nice dinner in a quiet dining room is almost always my favorite part. And I’m a movie nerd.” The movie theater first opened about six months ago in the Chelsea area of Manhattan and that’s been going well, League said. Though Manhattan was its first location, the business is headquartered in Austin.

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Why Saronic picked Texas' southernmost county for $3.2B Port Alpha project

Over the last 12 months, executives from Austin-based Saronic Technologies Inc. scoured practically every state with water access — more than a dozen sites on the East, West and Gulf coasts — for their $3.2 billion Port Alpha manufacturing facility, according to CEO Dino Mavrookas. Their checklist included four items: massive land availability, deep water access, workforce availability and partnerships with local and state government. They ultimately picked the Port of Brownsville – reportedly over a site in Northern California and a few other unidentified locales – after "those last two (factors) ... tipped the scale for us," Mavrookas said. "Those first two are pretty binary," he said during a July 16 press event alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at the company's Southeast Austin headquarters at 1231 Dalton Lane. He called Abbott and his team "instrumental" as Saronic aims to break ground this year and be up and running in 18 months – a speedy endeavor for a project of this size and scope.

"I can't tell you another state where that's even possible," Mavrookas said. After months of speculation, Saronic and state leaders cemented Texas as the choice for Port Alpha, which the company has called its "next-generation shipyard." The economic impact was pegged at $160 billion for the Brownsville region and $264.5 billion for Texas over the next decade – one of the state's largest-ever economic development projects. Specifically, Saronic plans to build out a four-phased factory in Cameron County – the state's southernmost county and also home to Elon Musk's SpaceX and roughly 435,000 people. The first phase, targeted to become operational in 2028, will be located on 835 acres, with the option to expand to more than 4,000 acres in the following phases. It's slated to create 10,000 jobs over the next decade, with an average salary of $75,000. Abbott highlighted the $750 million annually in salary headed to that part of the state. He also highlighted the state's efforts to become a leader in the shipbuilding space. Earlier this year, Davie Defense Inc. announced it was undergoing a $730 million expansion and creating more than 2,400 jobs at a site in Galveston.

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Hood County judge dismisses lawsuit seeking automatic approval of proposed data centers

A Hood County district judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by developers seeking approval of two proposed data center projects, handing county officials a legal victory in an ongoing dispute over local oversight of large-scale industrial developments. District Judge Bryan Bufkin granted Hood County's Plea to the Jurisdiction Tuesday, dismissing claims brought by National CRE Holdings LLC and Greenland Capital LLC with prejudice and preventing the lawsuit from being brought again in the same form. In the lawsuit, developers argued two proposed data center campuses known as Project Red and Project Yellow should receive automatic approval because county officials did not act within a statutory 30-day deadline to approve development plans under the state's local government code.

The court rejected that argument after defendants argued the projects did not fall under the definition of "development plans," defined in statute as "a preliminary plat, preliminary subdivision plan, subdivision construction plan, site plan, general plan, land development application, or site development plan." In other words, they argued, the court could not rule in the companies' favor based on another definition of that term. The companies have indicated they will appeal the ruling in court filings. Laura Crawford — co-founder of Protect the Paluxy Valley, a local advocacy group that has opposed the proposed developments — said the decision is a significant victory because it prevents developers from using a state law's 30-day approval deadline to bypass county oversight. "I think it's a big win for us," Crawford said. "The projects are saying that they fall under the rule of law and the 30-day shot clock and they would be automatically approved if that were the case. The court sided with Hood County.”

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About 40% of Fort Worth ISD campuses will have a new principal this school year

With just weeks until the start of the 2026-27 school year, Fort Worth ISD is naming new principals at dozens of its campuses as expansive leadership shakeups continue across the district following the Texas Education Agency’s takeover. After another flurry of hires in recent days, the district has now filled 48 principal positions this summer through new hires and internal placements. Twenty-three of those were filled through internal promotions of former assistant principals or other staff, while the other 25 were external hires. Three principal positions still remain vacant as of Friday, July 17, according to data from the district provided to the Star-Telegram. Principals who left the district following the takeover have done so for a number of different reasons.

Some left on their own accord because of changes made following state intervention. Others were not retained by new district leadership that is looking to jumpstart progress at struggling campuses. The district also moved dozens of principals to new campuses following the creation of the Elevate Network, a group of schools handpicked by Superintendent Peter Licata and his team because of persistent underwhelming academic performance. Of the 19 campuses included in the network, 12 will have a new principal this upcoming school year. Five of those 12 are new to the district, a spokesperson told the Star-Telegram. Schools who most recently had principal changes this summer include: Carter Park Elementary, Sunrise McMillan Elementary, JP Elder Middle, Jacquet Middle, Stripling Middle, Daggett Middle, McLean Middle, Clifford Davis Elementary, Burton Hill Elementary, M.H. Moore Elementary, Wedgwood Middle, Western Hills High, Arlington Heights High, McLean 6th, North Hi Mount Elementary, Paschal High, Marine Creek, RJ Wilson Elementary, Southwest High, Carter-Riverside High, and dozens more.

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US military identifies 2 soldiers killed in Iranian attack on Jordan as from Texas and Hawaii

The Trump administration on Monday identified two soldiers killed in action last week as part of the U.S. war with Iran. The Defense Department said in a statement that 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, were killed in Jordan, where they were supporting a U.S. mission against the Islamic State. It’s unclear how they were killed. On Saturday, the U.S. Central Command had two service members were killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. The U.S. military has said the total number of deaths in the war with Iran is 17.

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National Stories

US gas prices hit an average of $4 a gallon again

U.S. gas prices jumped to an average of $4 a gallon again Monday as the U.S. and Iran launched more attacks. According to motor club federation AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is now back to $4. The average price a year ago was $3.14 a gallon. The price is a national average, meaning drivers in some states have been paying well over $4 a gallon for a while now, while others pay less. Prices vary between states due to factors ranging from nearby supply to differing tax rates.

People around the world are also dealing with high gas prices as a result of the war. Gas prices first went over $4 a gallon on average at the end of March. They dipped below that in mid-June and continued to fall as crude oil prices eased when the U.S. and Iran reached an interim deal. Even then, President Donald Trump expressed frustration that gas prices weren’t falling as quickly as oil prices. Affordability is likely to be a key issue for voters in the U.S. midterm elections, and higher gas and oil prices can help push up prices for groceries and other goods. Oil prices have climbed again in recent days as the U.S. and Iran move closer to resuming an all-out war. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3.2% to $90.95 per barrel Monday and benchmark U.S. crude climbed 2.8% to $84.04 per barrel.

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The Pentagon is finally buying (some) weapons from startups

Since taking the top job at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has rewritten rules and upended traditions that had for decades steered how the U.S. military buys weapons. More than a year into his tenure, he is keeping his promise to shower money on high-tech defense startups—while also unloading ever-larger sums of cash on the traditional vendors he has publicly disparaged as slow and bloated. Venture capitalists and startup founders have been salivating at what they hope is a true defense reformation that hands power—and billions of dollars—to defense-tech startups that have been excluded from the inner circle of weapons procurement. Investor exuberance in the sector has sent valuations soaring. Anduril, one of the fastest-growing defense startups, doubled its valuation from $30.5 billion a year ago to $61 billion in May. But many are anxious that Congress is preparing to slow the fire hose to a relative trickle amid growing scrutiny of Hegseth’s spending and disapproval of the Iran war, a move that could puncture the bubble around defense tech.

Pentagon contract spending on the 15 highest-valued defense-tech startups in the last fiscal year tripled from 2022. Yet they accounted for less than 1% of total dollars for all defense contractors, a rate that has held consistent for years, according to a data analysis from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute’s National Security Innovation Base Report Card. For many startups, even the scraps from the department’s trillion-dollar budget would spell success. “We’ve got a shot to disrupt this thing,” said Philong Duong, chief executive officer of startup NODA AI, which has a military contract selling software for autonomous weapons. Roughly 10,000 new defense companies have entered the market in the past two years, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. So-called nontraditional companies, which include venture-backed startups and also small businesses and commercial tech companies, received over $122 billion in the prior fiscal year, double the amount from a decade prior. But during that same period, the Pentagon also doubled its spending on traditional primes, as the top-tier mega defense contractors are known, to $372 billion, the CSIS analysis shows.

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Maine’s Troy Jackson is on a path to become Senate nominee

Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson may have effectively clinched the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine. Jackson, who is seeking to replace scandal-plagued Graham Platner on the Democratic ticket after Platner dropped out, has the backing of more than half of the delegates who will attend next weekend’s nominating convention, according to an analysis by the Bangor Daily News. His position strengthened Sunday as four rivals — former state Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Capitol Hill staffer Jordan Wood and Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban — withdrew from the contest.

On Saturday, 500 delegates and 101 members of the state’s central committee are scheduled to meet in Bangor, Maine. Those 500 delegates were being chosen this weekend. The Bangor Daily News reported that York County, which borders New Hampshire, put Jackson over the top, bringing his total of pledged delegates over 301. “Thank you, York County. We’re organized, we’re ready, and we’re going to win. Solidarity forever,” Jackson wrote on X. The delegates are formally unbound, meaning they are not legally required to vote for a specific candidate even if they promised to during the delegate selection process. Shah said he would withdraw from the race to put the party’s energy into defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November. “Today I am stepping aside, and I am doing it for exactly the same reason that led me to get in: we must defeat Susan Collins, and the Democratic Party must be unified to do it,” Shah wrote in a statement posted to X. Shah, Wood and Kleban immediately backed Jackson when they announced their decisions to drop out. The race to become the Democratic nominee for Senate reopened earlier this month after Platner withdrew amid sexual assault allegations, which he has denied.

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‘A better way to be relevant’: Greens embrace data center fight

The nation’s biggest green groups have joined the fray over data centers — and they’re starting to notch some victories after 18 months of stinging environmental setbacks under the Trump administration. Groups including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and Food and Water Watch are ramping up national campaigns, activating volunteers in states and providing support for local fights against the massive artificial intelligence facilities that are spreading across the country. The nation’s biggest green groups have joined the fray over data centers — and they’re starting to notch some victories after 18 months of stinging environmental setbacks under the Trump administration. Groups including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and Food and Water Watch are ramping up national campaigns, activating volunteers in states and providing support for local fights against the massive artificial intelligence facilities that are spreading across the country. Their strategy is aimed at engaging with voters where they are most focused, and it could help generate new enthusiasm — as well as a stream of fresh funding — from progressive backers who have been far less aggressive in fighting for environmental causes than they were during the first Trump administration.

“There is not a better way to be relevant that is as prevalent as data centers,” said Jane Kleeb, founder and director of BOLD Alliance, which got its start organizing rural landowners against the Keystone XL oil pipeline. “After doing this work for 20 years, it is easier to mobilize communities to block something than it is to build something.” Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the environmental movement has suffered a series of losses: a weakening of air and water pollution laws for factories and vehicles, eradication of climate change rules, and a sharp turn away from clean energy sources and toward fossil fuels. Now, opposition to the data center construction boom is offering a new opportunity — and green groups lodged a big win on Tuesday when Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul froze most new large-scale data center construction in the state, yielding to calls to pause projects until the state can establish standards around their development. That will enable the environmental groups to weigh in on new energy sources in the state and potentially head off the expansion of fossil fuel power sources that would increase climate change-causing carbon emissions and other pollution.

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Trump loomed over the World Cup, up until the awkward trophy ceremony

President Donald Trump’s World Cup ended with something he likely loved: being showered in gold. Trump appeared to shake off FIFA President Gianni Infantino as he lingered onstage after presenting Spain their second World Cup trophy ever. Trump stood next to the team as they lifted the trophy and cannons of gold confetti shot in the air. Infantino ushered Trump further from the team as they celebrated, putting the FIFA head and the president directly in the path of the flittering confetti. Trump was loudly booed as he entered the field after the match, waving to people as he made his way to the stage. He received a more mixed response when he was briefly shown on the big screen in the stadium after the national anthem. The reflective glass of his box made it difficult to see the president on screen.

Trump had long viewed the tournament as one of the signature events of his term: a chance to showcase his version of the United States to the world, in the middle of a summer that also included America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. Throughout the game, Fox aired commercials promoting the upcoming Freedom 250 Grand Prix, an auto race around national monuments that the White House is promoting. The hosting of the World Cup was awarded to the U.S., Canada and Mexico during Trump’s first term. It arrived eight years later as the largest version of the tournament ever staged — a 48-team, 104-match spectacle stretching nearly six weeks and carrying a global audience measured in the billions. “It turns out we are a soccer country,” Trump said in an interview ahead of the game with Fox. “We’re a football country, we don’t want to get it confused. But I don’t think there’s anything like what’s happened with the World Cup.” Trump appeared to enjoy interacting with the players as he presented them each with medals. He patted them and spoke with them, with the players often reciprocating.

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Spain beats Argentina 1-0 to win World Cup on Ferran Torres' goal

This is how good Spain was at the World Cup: Not even Lionel Messi had any answers. And when it was over, Spain walked off with the trophy. Messi simply walked off in tears. Spain is back atop the soccer world for a second time, after Ferran Torres’ first goal of this year’s World Cup — unquestionably the goal of his life — gave his country a 1-0 win over now-dethroned champion Argentina in the final on Sunday. “It was a goal scored by 47 million people,” Torres said, referring to Spain’s population. Maybe not by them — but certainly for them. The goal came with Argentina down to 10 men after Enzo Fernandez was sent off late in regulation following a reckless tackle. Tempers flared then, and flared again after the final whistle with Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni and players from both sides engaging in what appeared to be some pushing and shoving.

In the end, Spain denied Messi a second straight title in what he has indicated was his final World Cup match. Torres, a second-half substitute, pounced on a bouncing ball in the box and used his left foot to bury a shot just under the crossbar in the 106th minute. From there, the airtight defense that dominated opponents throughout the tournament came through one final time. Spain — which also won the title in 2010 — allowed only one goal in eight matches in this World Cup run, setting a record for fewest goals allowed by a champion. “I feel pride, to be honest,” said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who at 65 is now the oldest man to lead a team to a World Cup title. “Accompanying them on this journey is an honor.” This title, combined with the Women’s World Cup won by Spain in 2023, makes the European nation the first to hold both the men’s and women’s titles simultaneously. And in the streets of Madrid — probably many other places in Spain as well — countless people spilled into the streets, celebrating Sunday’s victory long into the wee hours of Monday morning.

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JD and Usha Vance welcome a baby boy, the first child born to a sitting VP in more than 150 years

Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, on Sunday announced the birth of their fourth child, the first born to a sitting vice president in more than 150 years. Born Sunday, Alec Neel Vance joins older siblings Ewan, 9; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4. Vance announced the birth on social media with a statement signed by him and his wife. “We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning. Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the statement said. They thanked doctors and staff at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and with the White House medical team.

The Republican vice president’s growing family is in keeping with his passionate advocacy for Americans to have more children. He has also suggested that the 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was his friend, factored into the decision to have another child. Vance, a former U.S. Marine, repeatedly expressed alarm about declining birth rates in America as he launched his political career in 2021 with a bid for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio. As vice president, he said in Washington at the 2025 March for Life anti-abortion rally, “I want more babies in the United States of America.” The vice president, who’s 41, has been accompanied on overseas trips by Usha Vance, 40, and their children, with the kids often pajama-clad as they board Air Force Two for the overnight flights. Usha Vance, the daughter of immigrants from India, had already been the subject of some public fascination because of her husband. Her pregnancy, which was announced in January, amplified that spotlight since it is rare for occupants of the United States’ highest public offices to add to their families while serving. The last time a sitting vice president became a new father was in the 1800s.

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Lead Stories

Greg Abbott's donors profit from data center boom he 'pushing back' on

The backlash to the Texas data center boom has Gov. Greg Abbott caught between some of his most dependable donors and his most reliable voters. Several of the Republican governor’s most generous financial backers are increasingly investing in the boom that has voters in deep-red rural parts of the state up in arms, according to a Hearst Newspapers analysis. They include real estate titan Ed Roski, Jr., who gave $1 million in April, and energy executive Kelcy Warren, who gave $500,000 in June. Both of their companies recently announced data center-related business deals. The governor also took $500,000 donations this year from Rhett Bennett of Black Mountain, an energy company building data centers across Texas, and Elon Musk, the tech titan and AI developer who is pushing to send data centers to space.

The donations, shown in the governor’s latest campaign finance report filed this week, underscore how data centers are becoming lucrative business opportunities for an array of Texas industries, beyond just tech and AI companies using their servers. Abbott has gone from touting Texas as the “epicenter of AI development” to vowing to push back against “AI data centers” in just a matter of months, as he came under mounting pressure from rural voters who polling shows are widely opposed to data center development near them. “It’s pretty clear that for Republicans in the state in general — and the governor in particular — the backlash to this really creates conflict with what has been a traditional Republican strength and talking point, and that's an emphasis on economic development,” said James Henson, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Abbott has sought to find a middle ground while also kicking the issue past this year’s high-stakes midterms to next year’s legislative session. Last month, the governor ordered state regulators to ensure data centers do not pass on costs for new electrical infrastructure to ratepayers. And he urged lawmakers to repeal the centers’ lucrative sales tax exemptions and set up rules on where they can be built.

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Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell addresses Ken Paxton Senate donation

Texas Tech’s Board of Regents Chairman Cody Campbell says there was nothing nefarious about a June donation to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign. The $274,300 donation to one of Paxton’s fundraising committees has drawn headlines because of its proximity to a letter Paxton’s office sent to the Big 12 Conference amid the debate over former Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s eligibility after he was found to be placing sports bets as a college player, including on his own team, in violation of NCAA rules. Campbell, who lives in Fort Worth and is a former Tech offensive lineman, made the contribution on June 10. The next day, Paxton’s office wrote to the conference warning that sanctioning Tech for supporting Sorsby was against the law and would carry consequences.

“If I wanted to make a nefarious deal, there are plenty of places and ways to do so,” Campbell said in a Friday evening interview with the Star-Telegram. “That was not at all what happened. I contributed because I wanted to support the race.” Paxton faces State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat, in the Nov. 3 general election. Campbell emphasized that he’s a longtime Republican donor. Federal and state election records show him contributing to statewide candidates Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. John Cornyn, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, as well as Tarrant County congressional candidates and state legislative candidates. He has also donated to Paxton in past elections. Campbell, the co-founder and co-CEO of Fort Worth-based Double Eagle Energy Holdings, has donated at least $25 million toward Tech’s athletic program. The university named the Jones AT&T Stadium playing field Cody Campbell Field to recognize what was the largest one-time contribution ever made to the athletics department. He’s a board member of Tech’s NIL collective, which has paid more $60 million to Tech athletes since 2022.

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Republican campaigns see immigration as a winning issue for midterms

Republicans are leaning into immigration enforcement as one of their top campaign issues this midterm cycle — despite a rocky start to the year for messaging on the president's top policy. An NPR analysis of advertisement data from the firm AdImpact shows that when it comes to immigration, Republicans are spending more money and running more ads than Democrats are. The data set includes ads purchased from January through June, before immigration enforcement officers shot and killed people in Maine and Texas this month. These political ads offer one indication of where each party sees its momentum going with voters, as candidates across the country gear up for the general election in November. The data suggests Republicans see immigration as a winning issue:

Since the start of the year, Republicans and their supporting organizations have run nearly 300 ads nationwide that either include a mention of immigration or are solely about immigration. This compares to 62 ads from Democrats and their supporting organizations. "Republicans stood up for Americans. Democrats sat down for illegals. Thomas Massie sides with these radical-left lunatics," reads one ad funded by the MAGA KY PAC, a political action committee that was set up to defeat Republican Rep. Thomas Massie in the primary. The ad cost over $831,000; Massie, a frequent critic of President Trump, went on to lose his race to Trump-endorsed candidate Ed Gallrein. Among the most expensive was a $928,000 ad buy in the Michigan governor's race. "No greater example of waste, fraud, and abuse in Michigan than using our tax dollars to give benefits to illegal immigrants. As governor, I'll be incredibly supportive of ICE coming here and removing these fraudsters," says Republican candidate Perry Johnson, who calls himself a "MAGA Conservative" and has pitched his business approach to running a state.

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Death of American troops raises fears of a wider war as US launches more strikes on Iran

Latest strikes: The US military launched another round of strikes after vowing to “swiftly punish” Iran for an attack on Jordan that left two US service members dead and one missing in action. Explosions were heard in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas and on Qeshm Island, state media reported. Widening conflict: There’s been another wave of Iranian fire on US allies in the region, including in Kuwait, where officials said a power and desalination plant was attacked for a second consecutive day. Bahrain also said it intercepted strikes. In Jordan: Air defenses intercepted three Iranian missiles and another fell in a remote area, the Jordanian military said, after sirens sounded and blasts were heard Sunday in the port city of Aqaba.

Jordanian air defenses intercepted three Iranian missiles on Sunday afternoon local time while a fourth landed in a remote area, the country’s military said in a statement. No casualties or material damage were reported in the attack, the statement added. Sirens had earlier sounded over Jordan, as the Israeli military reported Iran had launched missiles toward the Jordanian port city of Aqaba. Eyewitness in Aqaba reported hearing several blasts, which were likely the sound of missile interceptions. Given Aqaba’s close proximity to the Israeli border, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned that s?irens could sound in southern Israel too. They later confirmed that Israeli air defenses had taken part in intercepting the missiles. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the US struck an Iranian nuclear power plant currently under construction in the early hours of this morning. The strikes hit the construction site at the Darkhovin Power Plant, which is located in southern Iran, near the Iraqi border, the organization said.

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FDA says sample of iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms tested positive for US parasite outbreak

The Food and Drug Administration said on Saturday ?a sample of shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by ?Taylor Farms has tested positive for a parasitic illness that has sickened thousands of people in the U.S. Taylor Farms has confirmed ?that this product is not part of ?its current recall, the FDA said in the statement ?as it seeks to curtail the largest foodborne illness ?outbreak in the United States in recent years. The California-based ?lettuce supplier is working to identify whether any part of the sample that tested positive is available in commerce or ?in consumers' homes, the FDA said in its most ?recent update.

Earlier in the day, the supplier posted a list of ?lettuce ?products that had been recalled following investigations that it was a potential source of contamination. Taylor Farms was not immediately available for comment. The FDA said the sample ?was collected during ?targeted surveillance ?while investigating the ongoing outbreak and that the positive lot has been detained. Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia has so far resulted in ?around ?100 hospitalizations and no deaths, ?according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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State Stories

Ambassador Tilman Fertitta’s faces protests during Italy luxury yacht diplomacy tour

Several hundred protesters marched Friday against the arrival in Venice of the billionaire American ambassador’s luxury yacht, briefly clashing with riot police as they neared the vessel. Activists described hospitality mogul Tilman Fertitta’s arrival as an unwelcome display of American wealth and influence at a time when many Italians see the Trump administration upending the post-World War II international order. They marched carrying inflatable water toys and beach balls behind a sign reading: “Venezia non si USA,” a play on words meaning “Venice is not to be used,” with the USA acronym capitalized.

Protesters raised their arms to show they were peaceful as they reached a double line of riot police blocking access to the super yacht, but police pushed back with their shields when the demonstrators refused to stop. Inflatable toys flew through the air. After the clash, protesters yelled “Shame!” at the ambassador, the mayor and the police. Fertitta arrived in Venice earlier Friday, mooring in St. Mark’s Basin as part of a coastal diplomacy tour marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. Police boats were stationed around his yacht, which dwarfed buildings along the banks of the lagoon, and a heavy police presence accompanied the demonstrators, who carried signs reading “Make America Read Again” and “Oligarch in saor,” a reference to a Venetian specialty with sardines. The so-called Coastal Diplomacy 250 tour of 13 Italian coastal regions on a super yacht is intended to celebrate “our shared history, our economic partnership, and the cultural bonds that make the U.S.-Italy relationship so special,” Fertitta said in a social media post. Fertitta declined a request for an interview to discuss the tour and the planned protest, but he issued a short statement supporting the right to protest.

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More than 100 federal border buoys break loose in flooded Rio Grande

More than 100 federal border-security buoys broke free Thursday in the flooded Rio Grande and floated toward Eagle Pass, prompting officials to temporarily close the city’s two international bridges to Mexico. The Texas Division of Emergency Management and Eagle Pass Police Chief Amy Gonzalez confirmed to Texas Rep. Eddie Morales Jr. that the buoys were carried downstream from the Quemado area. Morales said his office asked TDEM Chief Nim Kidd to provide state equipment and personnel to help federal officials and contractors retrieve the barriers. No injuries or structural damage to the bridges have been reported. The closures were ordered as a precaution while the large barriers and other flood debris moved through the port of entry.

Farther downstream, Laredo activated its emergency operations center and warned that the buoys could eventually threaten its four international bridges. Officials authorized police, firefighters and emergency personnel to monitor and remove the barriers. Officials are using drones to track the buoys and say one or more of Laredo’s four international bridges could be closed if the debris poses a danger. Residents have been told not to approach or touch any of the barriers. The incident renews questions about the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation River Wall,” a plan to install more than 500 miles of connected buoy barriers along the Texas-Mexico border. DHS says the barriers are intended to deter unlawful crossings. Customs and Border Protection previously said the system was engineered to withstand a 100-year flood. But river experts and environmental advocates warned that sections could detach during extreme flooding and become trapped against bridges or other infrastructure.

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Houston ISD accepted $12M in donations without approval

Houston ISD departments and schools received nearly $12 million in outside donations without board approval, even though the board is supposed to approve many of these donations first, according to district policy. The purposes for the donations range widely and include staffing salaries, Chromebooks, and field trips. School principals can also use donations at their discretion. This is not the first time the state-appointed board has not followed policy meant to give oversight to the administration's financial decisions. In January 2025, the appointed board approved up to $870 million in purchasing agreements after district leadership acknowledged it had violated board policy for about 16 months.

The state-appointed board of managers in June approved quarterly reports listing donations since August 2023, including many donations that under current policy required board approval. That policy says that the board must approve any donation made with "a specified purpose," except gifts from parent groups, like booster clubs and parent-teacher organizations. The board, however, could change that policy so that they only approve certain gifts — like property or naming rights. They gave initial approval, but will need to take a second and final vote before the change takes effect. Some elected HISD trustees, who have no decision-making power under a state-appointed board, said they are okay with changes to the donation policy — as long as the administration vets contributions and students receive the funding intended for them. It could mean that students and schools get financial support faster, reducing bureaucracy for "routine, beneficial donations," elected Trustee Bridget Wade said in a statement. "In a large district like HISD, board review maintains public accountability, especially with external funds," she said. "Any shift should include clear thresholds, administrative safeguards, reporting requirements back to the board, and protections against inequity or misuse."

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A Texas law was supposed to help food trucks. Now some may lose their business

A Texas law that went into effect July 1 was supposed to give food truck owners a break by eliminating city permits in favor of one that allows them to operate anywhere in the state. But for operators who stay in only one city, the new permit from the Department of State Health Services costs far more than the one from the city. Angel Garza organized a meeting Monday night at Marine Park north of downtown to speak with over a dozen food truck business owners about the law and its implications. “In Austin, they want to change the law, but triple the money, that’s ridiculous,” Garza, who runs a commissary, and wanted to help out the Hispanic food truck owners who attended.

The new state law, House Bill 2844, also known as the “Food Truck Freedom Bill,” requires the Department of State Health Services to issue a permit for all licensed mobile food trucks. Before, food truck owners paid fees at local health departments in every city and county where they sold their food. The change was intended to save food truck owners money, but for some, it’s a far more expensive option. The state permit is based on tiers, ranging from $300 to $876 in application fees and $400 to $500 in pre-licensing inspection fees. Some owners could also pay up to $500 in routine or compliance inspections. The licenses require a yearly renewal. Cities can still regulate zoning, parking, noise, fire safety and local taxes. In Fort Worth, the annual health permit fee for mobile food vendors was $258. A request for a new permit included a $165 plan review fee.

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Houston police report reveals extent of HPD cooperation with ICE

Houston police encountered 103 people with civil immigration warrants from April through June, releasing most of them and handing 19 people to federal agents, according to the first report police leaders released under a new requirement passed by city council. The report’s release comes as local advocates are pushing the council and the Houston Police Department to revisit how they cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after last week’s fatal ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Magnolia Park thrust Houston into the national spotlight. Many have argued the council should renew a fight from earlier this year over a briefly-lived ordinance that restricted how police interact with ICE agents.

Friday’s report is the lone surviving requirement from that ordinance, which passed in a 12-5 vote and then was largely reversed two weeks later, after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull $114 million in grant funding from the city over the issue. The ordinance prohibited officers from extending traffic stops beyond their initial purpose while waiting for ICE agents to reach the scene. Still intact is a requirement that HPD release quarterly reports to city council on officers’ interactions with ICE agents. The one-page report covering April 1 to June 30 shows 57% of the people HPD encountered with civil immigration warrants were released. Another 18% were handed to ICE, and 14% were charged with new crimes and booked into jail. Some warrants could not be confirmed, and two people were transported to a hospital. The people were detained for 39 minutes, on average, during those 103 calls, the report shows. Councilmember Alejandra Salinas said the report's findings concerned her, and she has asked Chief Noe Diaz to come before council to explain the data. "HPD's average rate of monthly calls to ICE doubled, with more than 100 calls in three months, some detentions lasting nearly two hours and 19 Houstonians turned over to ICE custody," she said. Diaz needs to explain the upticks, along with any changes HPD has planned in response, Salinas said.

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As historic floodwaters recede, Uvalde residents assess the damage

Levi Gutierrez stood in the parking lot of The Light of The World church in Uvalde Saturday, handing out free clothes to people displaced by the record-breaking floodwaters that inundated the town. As the water recedes, Gutierrez said many in the community of around 15,000 are now looking for help. “We have a lot coming, and usually it's with children and with babies,” said Gutierrez. A little girl wandered behind him, picking out clothes from a rack. Volunteers were also distributing other essentials to residents, like cups, pots and pans. Gutierrez said his own home on the west side of the city was flooded. He was forced to evacuate with his grandmother, who uses a wheelchair.

Gutierrez said there’s been flooding in the past, but nothing like this. “The scope of the communities that were affected, and how bad they were affected — yeah, this is very unique,” he said. As of 4:30 p.m. Saturday, the Texas Department of Transportation reported multiple roadways across the region were closed due to damage and flooding. The Uvalde Police Department is asking residents to "please drive with caution and respect all barricades you encounter." "They are in place for your protection, and going around them puts you and others at risk," wrote the department in a Saturday social media post. The historic storm wreaked havoc across the Hill Country and South Central Texas last week, killing two people, displacing countless others and destroying property across a huge swath of the state. Some of the worst-hit areas include Uvalde and Zavala counties, where more than 125 people were displaced as of Friday afternoon, according to Gov. Greg. Abbott. While the storm has passed and rain isn’t in the forecast for the area, officials say rivers around Uvalde remain a threat.

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'Lost a legend': Kerrville man dies in home swept away by flooding, family says

A Kerrville man was killed early Thursday morning after flood waters swept away his home, his family confirmed. John Mark Steward was inside his home when it was overtaken by water Thursday, his wife Jennie Steward posted to social media. She had asked for help finding her husband in a Facebook post at 9 a.m. on Thursday. She was in Dallas during the flooding, she said. Hours later, she announced he had been found dead. “Mark, my love, I will forever be grateful for the beautiful years we shared together,” she wrote. “You made me be a better person. I love you all.” Jennie Steward's mother, with whom she's staying in Dallas, declined to comment to KERA Thursday on her daughter's behalf.

Other family and friends remembered John Mark Steward as a loving husband and expressed gratitude to those who supported the family in the hours he was missing. "He was a good man and he loved Jennie so," Steward's brother, Stephen, wrote on Facebook. "These types of tragedys are unexplainable yet they happened." Steward graduated high school from Westlake High School in Austin in 1979. He played football, ran track and sang with his school choir — the Madrigals — according to a Facebook post by the Westlake athletics department. Dozens of former classmates expressed their sadness and shared memories of Steward. "Westlake Nation lost a legend to the flood waters near Kerrville this morning," the post read. Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday at least one person died overnight after being swept away in an RV in Comfort, a city southeast of Kerrville. It wasn’t clear if that person was Mark. KERA could not confirm Steward's identity or cause of death with law enforcement or the medical examiner Friday.

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Kerrville families confront wrecked homes, big expenses after the flood

George Garcia ran along his Kerrville street at 3 a.m. Thursday, pounding on his neighbor’s doors to warn them of the approaching flood. Then Garcia saw it was time to get his family out of there. With water reaching his calves in their driveway, Garcia corralled his wife Carlie, her grandmother, their two small children, and their cat and dog into the Buick Enclave. But they made it only to the end of the block before surging floodwaters cut them off. The family and several neighbors parked at the highest point they could find — a parking lot of an auto shop on the corner — to wait out the flood. The Garcias watched some of their belongings, including a plastic slide from a backyard play set, race by. Garcia, a 29-year-old UPS driver, lives on Mimosa Street alongside Town Creek, which feeds into the Guadalupe River.

When they finally returned home just before sunrise on Thursday, they found that at least two feet of grimy floodwater had inundated their single-story house and destroyed many of the family’s belongings. Carlie Garcia, 29, said the water had moved so fast that it toppled a washing machine and freezer in the garage. The couple spent Friday mopping mud out of their house and hauling ruined furniture to the curb, with the help of 10 of George’s co-workers. The couple isn’t sure yet how they will pay to repair the damage and replace the household items they lost. They don’t have flood insurance. The flood took the Garcias by surprise. The creek running behind their neighborhood is usually dry, and during last year’s deadly July 4 flood, the water never reached the Garcia’s house. They plan to stay with family while they clear out the home. But they're worried about mold damage — and the possibility of more floods. “I was telling him earlier, 'We should move. We should move farther away from the water,'” Carlie said, looking at her husband. “Unfortunately, I think part of the problem is no matter where you go, there’s going to be some kind of risk. Tornadoes, fires, whatever.”

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San Antonio council members’ fundraising has dried up — now some want to change the rules

Fundraising for most of San Antonio’s City Council members has slowed to a trickle, with many donors already maxed out and unable to give again until June 2028. That could soon change, however, as the city’s Ethics Review Board faces pressure to increase their contribution cycles leading into the next municipal election. San Antonio currently holds its candidates to far stricter donor limits than those running for county, state and federal offices, capping the amount City Council hopefuls can collect from a single donor at $500 per election cycle, or $1,000 per cycle for mayoral candidates. While there’s long been grumbling about whether such limits truly level the playing field, complaints appeared to reach a boiling point when the council and mayor moved to four-year terms last year — and many donors were suddenly maxed out still years away from the next election.

Most weeks at City Hall, jockeying for a 2029 mayoral race appears well underway already, with constant clashes between progressive Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and her more business-centric colleagues. But semi-annual campaign finance reports due this week showed relatively little money raised for such a contest during the first half of 2026, at a time when some council members are eager to start building up their war chests. Most of the 10-member council raised less than $15,000 between Jan. 1 and June 30. Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), who uses a professional fundraiser to help him raise money, was a major outlier, raising about $68,000. But he said the changes have made it tougher for everyone, and caused concern among some members who want to revisit the issue before they’re on the ballot again.

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In Laredo’s last stand against Trump’s border wall, are city leaders making a deal with the Devil?

Early this year, a delegation of officials from the City of Laredo traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with federal representatives about the Trump administration’s plans to completely wall off the Texans’ border community from the Rio Grande. The Laredoans returned using language that dismayed opponents of the president’s beloved border barrier. When City Manager Joseph Neeb briefed local elected officials after the Washington meetings, he cautioned them that opposing the wall altogether was “not the argument that we’re going to actually win with this administration.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) says it plans to build “panels,” a term that could mean the 30-foot-tall steel fencing seen elsewhere on the U.S.-Mexico border, along all of the 40-mile stretch of the Rio Grande that passes through Laredo, one of the state’s major border cities and often the busiest commercial port in the country. This is a fate that Laredo has faced—and escaped—before. In total, the federal government has built about 140 miles of border wall in Texas over the past two decades, most of it in the Rio Grande Valley or out near El Paso.

During the Biden administration, the State of Texas tried its hand at wall-building and added around 80 more miles, some of this being in rural Webb County around Laredo. But in Laredo itself, local officials and activists have fended off essentially all border barrier, save for a stretch of less-obtrusive wrought-iron fencing around a Laredo College campus. Now, the border town of 250,000 has its back against the wall like never before, and some think it’s already too late. Last year, the Trump administration got $46.5 billion from Congress to build hundreds of miles of “smart wall” along the state’s 1,200-mile border, including 100 miles through CBP’s Laredo Sector, which includes Webb and Zapata counties. Smart wall is a vague term that means some combination of physical barriers, surveillance equipment, lighting, and roadways. In much of the Laredo Sector, the barrier’s full footprint will be 250 feet wide, including maintenance and access roads on both sides of the bollard panels. According to an online map published by CBP, only a short stretch of this sector, along Falcon Lake, will be spared the steel wall. Raising the stakes even higher is CBP’s plan to string dangerous river buoys the length of the Rio Grande. Laredo, a historic town founded in 1755 that boasts a picturesque central plaza, draws all its drinking water from the river, and officials are concerned the buoys could cause silt to build up in front of the city’s intakes.

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Texas county sues to close WM landfill; Amarillo investigates landfill fire

Two landfills in Texas have been under scrutiny in recent months for their impact on residents. One is the publicly run Amarillo Landfill, which sparked outrage after a fire jumped from the facility’s working face to a surrounding neighborhood, displacing residents. Meanwhile, officials in the Houston area are taking action to shut down a WM-run landfill that has been mostly inactive in recent years. The site has operated for decades near a historically Black neighborhood. When WM subsidiary USA Waste briefly pursued an expansion beginning in 2021, it drew a swift rebuke from residents and Houston Mayor John Whitmire. Robert Bullard, a Houstonian who helped kickstart the environmental justice movement after studying the placement of waste facilities in and around minority communities in the city, is among the critics of the site.

Texas communities, as in other states, continue to feel pressure to add disposal capacity. Last year, Waco became the latest municipality in the state to open a new landfill. Others around the country continue to debate the same step. Local and state officials are continuing to investigate whether a municipally owned landfill was operating with proper procedures prior to a fire that eventually spread off the property and burned dozens of homes. In a statement released last week, the city revealed investigations into the initial surface fire and the response remain ongoing. An inspection conducted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in May did not identify elevated levels of pollutants following the incident, and said staff followed proper fire response procedure. Those conclusions were published in a report in May. Amarillo operates its own municipal solid waste landfill. The facility accepts more than 280,000 tons of waste last year, and has enough remaining capacity to continue operations roughly 100 years, according to state solid waste data. On May 17, a fire broke out in an area of exposed waste in one of the landfill’s active cells. Firefighters arrived on the scene and were initially able to control the fire, but it eventually crossed the fenceline and evolved into a grass fire across 2,000 acres. The fire destroyed 52 homes and impacted 77 homes overall, the Amarillo Tribune reported. The incident led to an outcry from the public and review of practices at the landfill.

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Nearly 800 Fort Worth ISD teachers resign after state takeover

Nearly 800 teachers in Fort Worth ISD submitted their resignations in the three months after the arrival of the district’s state-appointed leadership — more than in the entire previous school year. The second-largest district in North Texas is under a state takeover after more than a decade of stagnant academic progress. When incoming Superintendent Peter Licata arrived in the district in March, he pledged that the takeover would mean good things for “excellent teachers,” including better pay, dynamic leadership and the opportunity to be a part of meaningful efforts to turn struggling schools around.

But since then, Fort Worth ISD has seen a sharp surge in the number of teachers leaving the district, records show. Departing teachers cited chaotic leadership, intense micromanagement and difficult working conditions as factors in their decision to leave. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced a takeover of Fort Worth ISD last year after one campus received five consecutive F ratings. By the end of the school year, the district had seen a marked uptick in teacher departures. Fort Worth ISD received 1,026 resignations from teachers by June 28, which was the district’s deadline for employees to resign, according to district data released in response to a Dallas Morning News public records request. That’s up from 648 teacher resignations by last year’s deadline, an increase of roughly 58%. But the surge in teacher resignations didn’t begin in earnest until after TEA officials announced the district’s new board and superintendent, data suggest. Before March 24, when Licata and the district’s state-appointed board took control, Fort Worth ISD had received just 7% more teacher resignations than the previous year.

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National Stories

Trump says 278,000 noncitizens are on voting rolls. Experts say that’s wrong.

President Donald Trump used his prime-time address Thursday to amplify an exaggerated claim that noncitizens are registering to vote en masse, threatening to undermine the nation’s secure elections. Doubling down on these dubious assertions, the Trump administration then threatened to punish states by withholding funding and arresting election officials if noncitizens vote in states that don’t participate in federal programs purporting to secure elections. “We are not going to spend taxpayer dollars reimbursing a state that is refusing to secure our elections,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a news conference Friday morning, the day after Trump’s address on election security.

According to Trump and Mullin, about 278,000 noncitizens are unlawfully registered to vote in federal elections in a number of states where they said the rolls were reviewed. They said 250,000 of those people were in just four states: Nevada, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Their assessment did not include all states. The president’s claim suggests that noncitizens who cast ballots could unlawfully swing election results in a particularly tight federal race. But a review of public documents and interviews with government officials and election experts shows that the figure is significantly overstated and that officials have struggled to find instances of voter fraud by noncitizens to back the president’s assertions. Assessments by government officials and outside election experts have repeatedly concluded that noncitizens represent a miniscule number of voters.

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In Maine, Troy Jackson gains momentum in bid to replace Platner

Democrats in Maine took a step on Saturday toward finding a Senate nominee to replace Graham Platner, choosing hundreds of delegates for a party convention next week and delivering a jolt of momentum to one candidate: Troy Jackson. After Democrats held a day of meetings in stuffy college lecture halls, middle-school gymnasiums, barns, civic centers and virtual gatherings, Mr. Jackson, a progressive former State Senate president, claimed to have secured a significant advantage in eight counties that voted Saturday on their delegates. A review of the county results, along with campaign delegate slates, and interviews with Democratic operatives, voters and candidates pointed to a very successful showing for him, even as some variables — including a high-profile debate next week — could still shift the race.

“I’ve been getting text messages all day about, you know, what a great job I did,” Mr. Jackson, a logger by trade, said in a video his campaign posted on Facebook, adding, “All of you just smoked it.” Eight other counties in the state had yet to pick their delegates, and the full scope of the advantage Mr. Jackson might take into the July 25 convention was still unclear. And while some delegates described their preferences in their nominating documents and in forms they submitted to campaigns, they could still change their minds before the convention. But it was clear by Saturday night that Mr. Jackson had built an imposing head start in a crowded race. The candidate chosen at the convention will take on Senator Susan Collins, who is seen as one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the midterms but has defied political gravity for decades in her Democratic-leaning state. In many ways, the day appeared to be less an exercise in small-town democracy and more about the political operations that candidates could build in the 10 days since Mr. Platner announced he would withdraw from the race.

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‘Cancer doesn't care what party you belong to’: Poisoned water is turning this rural state Bluer

Chris Jones, the 65-year-old Democratic nominee for Iowa secretary of agriculture, stands at the edge of a pond on a 72-acre farm in eastern Iowa. “What you see here is how fertile Iowa is,” he says, looking intently into the water. Massive bluegills dart about in the clear depths. “When we go up to a corn or soy field, we don’t see this anymore.” Jones isn’t just talking about the fish. He means the water’s clarity. Iowa’s lakes and ponds are often murky and fetid from algae blooms fed by fertilizer runoff, a byproduct of the state’s vast agricultural industry’s reliance on farming chemicals. Jones spent about a decade as a research engineer, monitoring the state’s rivers and streams. What he learned in that role about Iowa’s water is what spurred his run for office. Iowa has a long-simmering water problem that has finally begun to boil over — and it’s changing Iowa politics. People are angry and worried about the quality of the state’s water, the health risks it poses and its increasingly undeniable tie to the state’s signature industry: agriculture.

In recent years, Iowa’s cancer rate has climbed significantly above the U.S. average. It now stands as the nation’s second highest, and Iowa is one of only three states where the rate is rising. The situation has put a spotlight on nitrates, which are linked to a growing body of science to kidney, brain and ovarian cancer. Nitrates are a key component in the deluge of chemical pesticides and fertilizers used by the state’s farmers, some of which washes off farm fields and into waterways. A second culprit is glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most common weedkiller, which the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared “probably carcinogenic” in 2015, an assessment rejected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Historically, candidates for state-wide office in Iowa, from governor to agriculture secretary, Republican or Democrat, have avoided criticizing the agriculture industry, opting instead for platitudes about how Iowa’s farms “feed the world.” This year is different. Voters are steaming mad, and candidates on both sides of the political aisle are pointing fingers at Big Ag — and winning. And in a change that has drawn national attention, some of those winning candidates are Democrats. The water crisis and the shifting views of agriculture are scrambling Iowa’s politics, including its traditional partisan divides. In last month’s primary, voters delivered surprises to candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides of the ballot.

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They were charged with assaulting ICE agents. The cases are crumbling.

In its nationwide immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has charged hundreds of people with assaulting or impeding federal agents. President Trump has branded them “insurrectionists,” “animals” and “thugs,” part of a broader effort by his administration to cast protesters and immigrants as violent criminals. But a close examination of those cases reveals that in its rush to meet White House demands for deportations, federal law enforcement has engaged in extensive misconduct — ranging from attacking protesters to destroying evidence and misrepresenting facts in court. The New York Times found that the Trump administration has filed assault charges against more than 550 people who were caught in its immigration dragnet — far more than previously known.

Of the more than 400 cases resolved so far, nearly half have unraveled: Juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them. The record is abysmal by the typical standards of federal prosecutions: The Justice Department seldom loses criminal cases, with more than 90 percent of defendants pleading guilty or being convicted at trial. The Times obtained court filings for every assault case and reviewed hearing transcripts, interviewed witnesses and federal officials and watched videos of dozens of encounters that led to criminal charges. The review, the most comprehensive to date, suggests that the administration’s use of the law has often been less about protecting federal agents than about providing legal cover to cow protesters and immigrants into submission. “There seems to be a pattern of charges being filed without any merit,” said Jimmy L. Arce, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who served on a commission that investigated immigration raids in the city last year. He added that some defendants were “having their speech criminalized by the U.S. attorney’s office.”

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The Justice Department is pulling back on prosecuting corporate crime

The Trump administration has moved sharply away from charging companies over the wrongdoing of employees, recently closing a string of criminal investigations with lenient resolutions or no charges at all. In matters involving Alibaba, EagleBank and Abbott Laboratories, the department declined to charge companies even when prosecutors thought executives or managers were involved in the wrongdoing. In those cases, the department didn’t charge any individuals. Corporate investigations and prosecutions that were happening a few years ago “have pretty much been dialed way back,” said Evan T. Barr, a former federal prosecutor now with the law firm Reed Smith. “So if you’re in the world of financial services or a large public company, you can breathe a lot easier.” Charging companies is the strongest weapon in the Justice Department’s arsenal for punishing businesses that violate the law.

Convictions can send a strong message that wrongdoing carries public consequences. But businesses say they can also hobble a firm’s ability to get financing or compete for federal contracts, and other critics say that tends to hurt shareholders and employees more than executives. In some cases, prosecutors have spared big companies from that risk by putting them on a form of corporate probation known as a deferred prosecution agreement. If the company avoids trouble over a period of several years, the Justice Department dismisses its charges. Companies typically admit to their violations, pay fines and undertake compliance and leadership changes to deter future wrongdoing. The Justice Department says companies aren’t being let off easy. “All corporate cases that the department resolved this year were done so in a public fashion and were driven by the facts, the evidence, and the law—not a preference for any particular outcome,” Assistant Attorney General Tysen Duva said.

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DOGE was supposed to be dead. Its remnants are everywhere.

When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were initially tapped to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency at the end of 2024, the billionaire duo promised DOGE’s last act would be to delete itself by a mandated end date: July 4, 2026. Numerous lawsuits filed by federal workers, states and activists attempted to halt DOGE’s radical cost cutting effort, arguing Musk’s allies operated with little transparency and targeted agencies, grants and programs enshrined by law. Now, DOGE’s website, built to house “receipts” documenting its attempt to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, lies dormant, while posts from the DOGE X account have slowed to a trickle. But weeks after its 18-month end date has elapsed, DOGE has proved remarkably hard to kill. Instead, DOGE has evolved from its radical cost-cutting mission, with some of its members and agenda embedded across the government, continuing to reshape the federal bureaucracy behind the scenes.

“DOGE is a way of life. … It never terminates,” former DOGE staffer Katie Miller said on X on July 4, the day of its supposed expiration. Nearly two dozen people hired or vetted through DOGE remain in government, including an influential diaspora filtered throughout the executive branch, according to a Washington Post analysis of court records and government documents. This includes Gavin Kliger, chief data officer at the Pentagon, and Jeremy Lewin, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Lewin, who oversaw much of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, now directs the State Department’s foreign assistance programs. Meanwhile, the National Design Studio, which is run by former DOGE lieutenant Joe Gebbia, is seen by many of its members as the spiritual successor to DOGE, according to two people familiar with the organization, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Its chief engineer is Edward Coristine, the staffer known as “Big Balls,” who as a 19-year-old DOGE employee gained access to agencies including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

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Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami, US Marshals Service tells AP

Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, whose social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny has made them among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities, were arrested Saturday in Miami as British authorities sought their extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges. The brothers were taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service on a sealed warrant, agency spokesperson Brady McCarron told The Associated Press, placing the United States at the center of an international legal saga that has stretched from Romania to Britain. British prosecutors announced Saturday that they were seeking the brothers’ extradition on charges alleging they raped and trafficked women between 2010 and 2017.

The dual U.S. and British citizens moved to Romania in 2016. They were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations and the Romanian case hasn’t gone forward because of legal and procedural problems. Last year, they were allowed to leave Romania and flew to Florida on a private jet. The brothers are expected to appear in Miami’s federal court early next week, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations. The pending charges in the United Kingdom accused the brothers of abusing women in an area north of London, where they grew up. Their lawyers had said they denied the allegations.

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Lead Stories

At least 2 dead, hundreds rescued as major floods hit Texas Hill Country for second year in a row

At least two people have died in dangerous overnight flooding that prompted evacuations and damaged homes, schools and roads in the Hill Country. This week's floods came almost exactly a year after some of the worst flooding in state history struck the Kerrville area. Gov. Greg Abbott said in a 5 p.m. Thursday news conference that a man died after he was swept away in an RV in Comfort, a city located southeast of Kerrville. The Uvalde Police Department said a man also died about four miles north of the city Thursday morning after his vehicle was swept away by floodwaters. Multiple rounds of storms have hit Texas this week, resulting in "catastrophic flooding," according to the National Weather Service. The agency's preliminary data shows that Uvalde received more than 21 inches of rainfall from Monday to Thursday, while Kerrville received more than 19.

Since Wednesday, more than 1,300 people helped respond to the recent floods, Abbott said. More than 230 people have been rescued. Abbott said flooding of the Guadalupe River was more severe downstream from Kerrville than upstream, where many summer camps are located. "Right now, I am informed that none of those camps are facing any type of danger," he said at an 11 a.m. press conference on Thursday. The area around Comfort, Texas, is experiencing the brunt of the flooding, Abbott said. Less than two weeks after the anniversary of the July 4, 2025, floods, residents in the Hill Country found themselves in familiar territory: scrambling for higher ground and rushing to protect lives and property. The 2025 floods killed more than 130 people in Texas on the Fourth of July weekend, including 25 campers, two counselors and the owner of Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River.

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Greg Abbott to appoint adviser Robert Howden as secretary of state

Gov. Greg Abbott plans to appoint Robert Howden, his senior adviser and director of legislative affairs, to succeed Jane Nelson as the next secretary of state, according to a state senator briefed on the matter. State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt said Howden — who lives in her Austin district — called her to discuss the appointment on Wednesday. It's unclear when Abbott will make the announcement; Nelson's last day is Friday. Howden will take over just months ahead of this year’s high-stakes midterm election. His long history in state government means he has relationships with many lawmakers, including senators who would vote on his confirmation next year. He previously served in former Gov. Rick Perry’s office and led the National Federation of Independent Business Texas.

Nelson's decision to step down stunned several local election officials, given its proximity to the November midterms. The shakeup comes as President Donald Trump has increasingly called election protocols into question since taking office. Late last year, Nelson agreed to hand over the names, addresses and partial social security numbers of almost all of the 18.6 million Texans registered to vote, presumably part of an effort by the Trump administration to identify problematic voters. Abbott said in a press briefing on Wednesday that he hopes the next secretary of state will ensure that “only legal votes are cast.” “Texans deserve an election system they can have trust and competency in,” Abbott said. “And that’s exactly what the next secretary of state will be responsible (for).” Abbott has been silent for weeks on a successor. The only name election officials say they heard floated was former state Rep. Nate Schatzline, a Fort Worth Republican who has called for closing the GOP primaries and has denied the results of the 2020 presidential election. Abbott tapped Schatzline earlier this month for a new role as his senior adviser leading policy development on election integrity efforts. It’s unclear what he will specifically oversee, or whether it will work directly with the secretary of state’s office.

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Texas Tech donors gave big to Paxton as he defended QB Brendan Sorsby

Attorney General Ken Paxton received more than $650,000 dollars in campaign contributions from donors tied to Texas Tech the same month he used his office to defend the school’s star quarterback Brendan Sorsby amid a betting scandal, according to new campaign finance records. Quarterback Brendan Sorsby was barred from playing in the NCAA earlier this year after being accused of placing at least $90,000 in impermissible bets, including on his own team. The saga has ignited college sports and produced at least four major lawsuits over the NCAA’s decision. On June 11, Paxton sent a letter to the Big 12 Conference threatening to pursue up to $200 million in legal damages if it followed through with sanctions on Texas Tech for playing Sorsby.

One day earlier, Texas Tech Board of Regents Chair Cody Campbell donated $274,300 to a fundraising committee supporting Paxton in his U.S. Senate bid. On June 12, a Texas Tech alumnus named Larry Franklin gave Paxton’s committee $108,600. And later that month, on June 26, Campbell’s business partner, John Sellers, made a donation of $274,300. Sellers and Campbell played football together at Tech, according to a profile of their company. The donations, which totalled $657,200, were among the largest in Paxton’s latest fundraising haul, according to campaign finance report data published Wednesday. Neither Texas Tech, Campbell, nor Sellers immediately responded to a request for comment. Franklin could not immediately be reached for comment. Paxton did not respond to a request for comment on whether the donations and the letter were connected. The Campbell donation was first reported by the Texas Tribune. Campbell is an active political donor and has given thousands of dollars to conservative groups, including those associated with President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee. He’s also been an active defender of Sorsby, who has sought treatment for a gambling addiction.

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Takeaways from Trump’s address claiming election vulnerabilities

President Trump said his address on Thursday night was about building public confidence in American elections, but he spent much of his speech undermining them. A broken election system is one of Mr. Trump’s most common refrains, dating to early 2016. “Great damage has been done to our country,” the president said. “Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost. This cannot be allowed to continue.” But documents Mr. Trump released to support his claims — and previous assessments from the intelligence community — do not back up his most aggressive statements about election security. In fact, some of the documents reach the opposite conclusion.

They also do not contain significant new revelations about vulnerabilities in election systems. One of the documents posted on the White House website was blunt: “We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results.” Mr. Trump called for fixing vulnerabilities in electronic voting system so that “we can never watch a stolen election again.” “If you look at voting today, it’s in such bad shape in so many states,” Mr. Trump said. “And we are committing to fix it, and we are also committing to be working with those states and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the midterm elections.” But Mr. Trump has spent the first part of his second term dismantling the election protections built up over previous years. The F.B.I.’s task force on foreign influence was shut down, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence sharply cut back a task force that warned against foreign meddling and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been gutted. And Mr. Trump has appointed an heir to a housing fortune with no relevant experience as the interim director of national intelligence.

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State Stories

Gov. Greg Abbott rolls out initiatives to limit growth in home, car insurance costs

Gov. Greg Abbott is proposing measures to help rein in rising home and car insurance costs for Texas residents. Abbott spoke Wednesday following a campaign stop in northwest Houston to meet with residents to discuss their concerns about affordability. "Texas has what may be the highest home insurance cost of any state — if not the highest, we are one of the highest," Abbott said. Abbott noted that Texas ranks number one in the United States for the most hail damage and the most hail-related home insurance claims. Coupled with that, the state suffers an abnormal amount from wind damage, as a result of hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, and other wind-related disasters.

To address the problem, Abbott proposed adopting a roof fortification plan, following in the footsteps of southeastern coastal states from North Carolina to Louisiana, as well as Kentucky and Oklahoma. "Where this has been done, it leads to about an 8% reduction in premiums and, over the life of the roof, savings of about more than $15,000," the governor said. "And this is a proven strategy that I say is time that we adopted in Texas to ensure that we are reducing the leading cause of home insurance rates going up." Abbott also proposed changing Texas law to let insurers take moving violations into consideration when calibrating car insurance costs, with the aim of rewarding drivers for good behavior. "In states where that has been done, if you look at what the auto insurers say themselves, it could reduce your auto insurance policy by as much as 30%," Abbott said. "So, when you combine this auto insurance reform as well as the home insurance reform, it will lead to at a minimum hundreds of dollars a year, more likely thousands of dollars a year, in savings to homeowners and auto owners in the state of Texas."

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As flooding returns to Hill Country, Texas lawmakers say new safety laws already making a difference

A year after catastrophic flooding in the Texas Hill Country prompted lawmakers to overhaul the state's flood preparedness laws, Texans are once again watching rivers rise. This week's widespread flooding has become one of the first major tests of legislation passed during last summer's special sessions, when Gov. Greg Abbott and lawmakers promised changes that would better prepare communities before the next disaster struck. The flooding that swept through the Hill Country last July killed more than 130 people and prompted lawmakers to approve new safety requirements for youth camps, fund flood warning sirens, expand weather monitoring infrastructure and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in flood mitigation and disaster preparedness. On Wednesday, Abbott told the press that Texas was “better prepared than we have ever been to deal with weather events in general, but rainfall events and flooding events in particular.”

Abbott said Thursday that flood warning sirens installed around campgrounds along the Guadalupe River, one of the major investments lawmakers approved after last year's disaster, functioned as intended during the latest flooding. "I am told the sirens have worked," Abbott said, adding that one siren experienced a brief delay before sounding several minutes later. One person has died in overnight flooding from a storm that has already brought more rainfall to parts of Texas than the Hill Country received during last summer's deadly floods, Abbott said. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt wrote on social media Thursday that flood warning sirens in Kerr County “gave those that heard them and others downstream notice to get to higher ground immediately.”

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Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's family: Substance FBI suspects was drugs, was 'homemade electrolyte mix'

After the Federal Bureau of Investigation had filed to obtain a search warrant to look through 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's van, the family confirmed that the substance that officials claimed they found was a homemade electrolyte drink mix, their attorney says. Additionally, U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz released a statement outlining what his office says is the version of events under investigation.

Following the deadly July 9 shooting of Araujo, an FBI special agent said he "inspected the vehicle and observed in plain view several plastic bags with what appeared to be white crystal-like substances packaged in small plastic bags" from outside the van, according to a search warrant filed July 14. "Searches of the target vehicle will yield evidence of the crimes committed and violations of drug offenses," the warrant states. Just one day after the filing, the family of Araujo confirmed through their attorney, Ruby Powers, that the substances were not drugs but a drink mixture. "After consulting with my client and his family, our understanding is that this was granulated salt, which is paired with lemon and water as a homemade electrolyte mix used by outdoor workers in extreme Texas heat," Powers said in an official statement. The Harris County District Attorney's Office also shared that it didn't suspect the substances collected were drugs. On Thursday, DA Sean Teare shared on social media that "based on what we've learned about the passengers, it's inconsistent that drugs were in the van." Powers also said they are requesting immediate testing of the substance to clear Araujo's name, in addition to a request for Araujo's brother, Victor, to be released from ICE custody.

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Questions about Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger opposition campaign

Something odd recently showed up in the San Antonio Express News: a column opposing the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger. The piece warns about competitive risks and consolidation concerns. Standard merger opposition stuff, except for one thing: it's entirely about Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania workers. Pennsylvania steel. Pennsylvania grain. Pennsylvania chemical plants. Nothing about Texas. Nothing about San Antonio. Nothing about how the merger might affect freight operations across the state or port operations in Houston and Corpus Christi. The author is Bob Comeaux, listed as a contributor. There is a real Bob Comeaux in San Antonio, a former VIA transit board member who writes occasionally about local issues. But his published work doesn't typically focus on federal railroad policy or Pennsylvania agriculture.

That's the first oddity. The broader opposition campaign against the merger contains several more. Across the country, opposition to the UP-NS merger is popping up in remarkably coordinated ways. State attorneys general are sending letters. Industry groups are releasing statements on synchronized timelines. Opinion pieces are appearing in newspapers across multiple states using similar arguments. For Texans, this matters. Union Pacific operates across Texas. The merger would affect freight movement through Houston, Dallas, and across the state. More efficient rail networks could mean lower shipping costs for Texas manufacturers, petrochemical companies, and agricultural shippers. It could also mean more freight stays on rail instead of trucks on Texas highways. But understanding who benefits from blocking this deal matters more than the merger's hypothetical benefits. And a lot of people benefit from stopping it.

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Diana Forester: Texas mothers wait months for prenatal care. Lawmakers can change that.

(Diana Forester is director of Health Policy for Texans Care for Children.) When a woman finds out she's pregnant, one of the first things she should be able to do is schedule a prenatal appointment. Too often in Texas, that simple step turns into weeks — or even months — of waiting. I recently spoke with a Texas mom who learned she was pregnant in December. Since she didn't have health insurance, she applied for Medicaid for Pregnant Women. Then she waited for the state to process her application. After that, she waited for the next available appointment with a provider in her area. By the time she finally saw a doctor, it was March, and she was already in her second trimester. Her story isn't unusual.

Parents want to start prenatal care early. They know it matters. And this is one of the rare issues that draws broad agreement at the Texas Capitol. Lawmakers across the political spectrum understand that early prenatal care helps identify health risks, helps manage chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes, and helps connect women to critical supports, such as nutrition assistance and behavioral healthcare. When prenatal care is delayed — or doesn't happen — the risks increase. Late or no prenatal care is associated with higher rates of preterm birth and low birth weight. Improving access to prenatal care is also an important strategy for reducing infant mortality, an issue the Texas House Committee on Public Health is studying. Unfortunately, after years of improvement, the share of women receiving prenatal care in the first trimester started to decline. Nationwide, first-trimester prenatal care fell from 78.3% in 2021 to 75.5% in 2024. The challenge is even greater in Texas. In 2024, 11.3% of Texas mothers began prenatal care in the third trimester or did not receive prenatal care at all, compared to 7.3% nationally.

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Andrew Fuentes will be Mayor Gine Ortiz Jones’ new permanent chief of staff

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ new chief of staff is Andrew Fuentes, who was hired as her communications and policy director in February, but was named acting chief after Jenise Carroll resigned from that role in April. Fuentes will be Jones’ third chief of staff since taking office just over a year ago, in an office that’s experienced much turnover. Jones has yet to replace her deputy chief of staff Pat Wallace who also left the office in April. Carroll seemed to cite work-life balance issues as a reason for her departure, while Wallace hinted at a lack of respect for her many years of policy-making experience.

Fuentes comes to the role after a lengthy run on Capitol Hill, where neither are commonplace. He worked for former U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) for nearly 10 years, ending as a senior policy advisor focused on child welfare issues and healthcare. Later he worked as a senior legislative officer at the U.S. Department of Labor during the Biden administration. Fuentes is an Air Force brat who spent time here in his youth, and his parents now live in San Antonio. His position became official on July 4. Jones hired an additional communications advisor, MarkAnthony Ball, in June. Ball is a U.S. Army veteran, real estate agent and social media personality who participated in the Greater Chamber’s Leadership San Antonio program.

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Fort Bend Democratic commissioners weigh extending boycott, raising questions about August tax vote

With a civil lawsuit brewing between interim County Judge Daniel Wong and County Attorney Bridgette Smith-Lawson, the absence of Fort Bend County’s Democratic commissioners could continue into future commissioners court meetings as the county heads toward its August tax rate process. “As I have said from the beginning, I will not participate in a meeting presided over by someone who has been found not to be legally authorized to serve as County Judge,” Commissioner Dexter McCoy said in a July statement. McCoy made the statement after commissioners court recessed early on July 9 due to a lack of a quorum, where both he and Commissioner Grady Prestage were absent. The county courthouse only had two members sitting at the dais that Thursday, Wong and Republican Commissioner Vincent Morales. Commissioner Andy Meyers appeared on a virtual call.

According to the Texas Government Code, at least three members of a county commissioners court must be physically present to constitute a quorum needed to conduct county business, except when levying a tax. Wong called a special meeting of commissioners court on July 16 due to the absences. The two Republican commissioners are expected to attend. Prestage and McCoy’s continued absence comes after both commissioners publicly walked out of what they called an illegal meeting on June 25, with Wong still presiding over court. The day before the July 16 meeting, McCoy filed a formal notice with Fort Bend County Clerk Laura Richard. He said the letter is a public record of why he’s continuing to be absent on the grounds of legal guidance provided by Smith-Lawson. The county attorney filed her own lawsuit on behalf of the county government and the State of Texas, arguing there is no legal basis for Wong to serve as county judge and preside over the county's commissioners court.

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Michelle Cruz Arnold resigns from Houston ISD's Board of Managers

The Texas Education Agency announced Thursday that Michelle Cruz Arnold, a member of Houston ISD's state-appointed board of managers, has resigned. Cruz Arnold was among the state's initial appointees when it took over Houston ISD in June 2023. The TEA has appointed Karen Duffy, a former teacher and parent of two HISD students, to replace her on the nine-member board. “Stepping into this role, my goal was to lend my time and energy to support our district through a critical and unprecedented chapter, and I am deeply grateful for the privilege it has been to serve the students and families of Houston," Cruz Arnold said in a statement. "As the district continues to make meaningful progress, I have decided that this is the right and natural time for me to conclude my journey on the board."

This is the second change to the appointed board of Texas' largest school district since the TEA replaced half the Board of Managers in June 2025. At that time, the TEA removed then-board Vice President Audrey Momanaee, Cassandra Auzenne Bandy, Rolando Martinez and Adam Rivon. An HISD parent, Arnold has led government relations and advocacy for College Board — a national nonprofit best known for its SAT and Advanced Placement exams. She also has experience leading public policy for the Greater Houston Partnership, which serves businesses across the region, and managing government relations for the Texas Education Agency, according to HISD's website. The Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to questions regarding the selection of Cruz Arnold's replacement. In a statement, HISD's board president Ric Campo welcomed Duffy to the board and thanked Cruz Arnold for her service. Duffy is an appointed member of HISD's District Advisory Committee. “I am humbled by the opportunity to serve on the Houston ISD School Board, and I would like to acknowledge and thank outgoing member Michelle Cruz Arnold for her incredible service to the district," Duffy said in the TEA announcement. "As an HISD parent, this role is deeply personal for me, and I look forward to working with my fellow members, district leadership team, and our community as we maintain a relentless focus on student outcomes."

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Houston megachurch Second Baptist wins major victory in lawsuit filed by church members

The messy legal battle dividing Houston’s Second Baptist Church tilted sharply in the megachurch's favor Wednesday after a judge dismissed nearly every claim filed against it by a group of congregants. Judge Grant Dorfman said religious liberty protections barred him from determining whether the church broke the law in 2023 when it removed the right of members to vote on church business. At the time, Second Baptist said it was changing its bylaws to “protect our ability to continue operating as a biblical church,” according to court documents. A secular court can’t determine whether that was a fair characterization, Dorfman ruled, without trying to determine what “biblical church” means.

The court also lacked authority to kick out the church’s new senior pastor, Ben Young, the judge ruled. Young’s father, longtime senior pastor Ed Young, tapped his son as his successor in 2024 without a congregational vote. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, John Strawn, attorney for the plaintiffs, argued the judge had misinterpreted the doctrine of church autonomy. “Just using a word like 'biblical' in an announcement does not give you a get-out-of-jail free card,” he argued. The case is no longer moving to a jury trial that had been scheduled for July 27 in the Texas 11th Division Business Court, according to a court manager. Throughout the legal battle with a group of current and former members, Ben Young has maintained that the church, which boasts $1 billion in assets and counts Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and leading oil executives as members, did nothing wrong. In a statement on the Second Baptist website, Young said the church was “deeply grateful” for the ruling. “We remain committed to the work God has called us to,” he wrote. The church has declined to comment throughout the trial.

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MS NOW plans major live event in Arlington

MS NOW is planning a roadtrip to Texas, taking its annual fan gathering on the road to the Lone Star State, in what the cable news channel says will be its biggest live event yet (you know what they say about Texas, after all). The channel will host MS NOW Live: Together In Texas, Sep. 26, taking over College Park Center at the University of Texas at Arlington, and inviting thousands of its fans along for the ride. Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Jen Psaki, Stephanie Ruhle, Ali Velshi, Ari Melber, Chris Hayes, Symone Sanders Townsend, Alicia Menendez, Jacob Soboroff, Texas native Eugene Daniels, Michael Steele, Luke Russert, and Rev. Al Sharpton are among the talent expected to participate. The event was announced in a memo to staff Wednesday by MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler.

“Texas sits at the center of many of the defining conversations shaping this election cycle and our country, from democracy and voting rights to immigration, education, and the economy,” Kutler wrote. “As those conversations continue to unfold, we want to be there, not only to cover them but to bring our community together in the places where those stories are happening.” MS NOW launched its live franchise as MSNBC Live in 2023, and held its first event in New York in 2024, drawing thousands of attendees to Brooklyn. Last year it moved it to Manhattan. The Texas event will be the first flagship event to be held outside of the New York area (the channel held a smaller event in Philadelphia earlier this year). But Dallas-Fort Worth is nonetheless a gamble, a bet that MS NOW’s audience spans the entire country, not just the coasts, and that they will want to participate.

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DART CEO finalist has history of spending controversies at prior transportation agency

A finalist for CEO and president of Dallas Area Rapid Transit has a history of spending controversies at the transportation agency he currently leads in Florida. Nathaniel Ford was president and CEO of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority for 13 years, but he announced this month he would resign in January after becoming one of three finalists to lead DART. His time at the Florida transit agency was marked by accusations of financial mismanagement. Action News JAX, a Fox station in Jacksonville, began reporting in 2023 that Ford spent tens of thousands of dollars on travel.

The investigation found Ford, who was paid more than $625,000 a year, was frequently out of the office traveling, having taken 140 trips total since 2016. He also spent more than $40,000 on travel in 2023, including a 14-day trip to Spain and a five-day visit to Hawaii, the station reported. The station reported in 2024 that the transit agency’s card was used to purchase massages, resort hotel bookings and photo booths, prompting scrutiny from the Jacksonville City Council. Ford did not respond to multiple texts and calls on a cell phone number listed under his name over the last two days. KERA also reached out to the JTA, and will update this story with any response. Ford addressed the spending allegations to a Jacksonville City Council finance committee in 2024.

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More border buoys ready to go into Rio Grande in South Texas

Dozens of giant orange border buoys have been put near the Roma International Bridge, ready to be placed in the Rio Grande. Border Report Live: Soldier’s death helped spark a civil rights movement for Mexican-Americans Border Report on Wednesday saw the buoys, which U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to put up and down the Rio Grande in South Texas to stop illegal immigration from Mexico.

A worker told Border Report that the buoys are on leased land that is located almost under the bridge that connects to the northern Mexican city of Miguel Alemán. Last week, the Eagle Pass City Council unanimously rejected a lease request by Gibraltar Construction Company Inc., of Maryland, to use Shelby Park — it’s public park on the river — as a staging area for the installation of the 12 to 15-foot-long buoys in the Rio Grande. CBP plans to put 533 miles of waterborne barrier in the Rio Grande, according to the agency.

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Texas billionaire money flows into Waikiki Democratic primary race

A Texas oil billionaire is pouring money into a Democratic primary race in Waikiki — but the money isn’t going toward a Republican. It’s supporting a newcomer trying to unseat an incumbent. In the Democratic primary for House District 24, covering Waikiki, McCully and Moiliili, challenger Bulla Eastman is facing incumbent Rep. Adrian Tam. Eastman received a sudden wave of support from Texas billionaire Douglas Scharbauer, who also owns thoroughbred racehorses. Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission documents show Scharbauer and the Patriot Action Political Action Committee spent $30,000 on ads supporting Eastman at a local media outlet. Tam questioned the mainland money.

“He has supported candidates like Ken Paxton and Donald Trump. He has supported politicians that have tried to roll back environmental regulations, who have tried to limit a woman’s access to reproductive health care, and have tried to roll back policies advancing rights for LGBT folks,” said Tam, who is openly gay. “I’m curious as to why this super PAC with conservative right-wing ties is supporting someone in the Democratic primary,” he added. Eastman told Hawaii News Now he does not know Scharbauer, but is grateful for the surprise support. “I said, wow, this is kind of interesting,” Eastman said. “It’s amazing because you have a very successful businessman in the mainland who’s taken quite an interest here in this race, and I don’t think it’s so much for supporting me as it is he’s trying to get the incumbent out of office,” Eastman said. “It’s interesting for me because it’s a Republican supporting a Democrat running against a Democrat,” he added.

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National Stories

White House teleprompter operator made more than $100K betting on Trump's speeches: Sources

President Donald Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump's speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has been operating Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations he used his inside knowledge of the president's speeches to win more than $100,000, the sources said. According to the sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its "Mentions" market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.

"Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators," Kalshi's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, said in a statement provided to ABC News. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon, following ABC News' report, that Perez has been put on unpaid administrative leave. Leavitt said she spoke with President Trump about it, and he thought it was a "disgrace" and made the decision himself to put Perez on unpaid leave. Leavitt said she was unaware of any other White House staffers who have made such trades. "The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow," said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle when contacted by ABC News.

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GOP concerns grow after 2 ICE shootings in a week

Congressional Republicans and administration officials are demanding answers about the latest killings involving federal immigration officers, bemoaning a lack of bodycam footage and a failure to properly train officers for dangerous confrontations. Congress has been clamoring for more information after two ICE-involved shootings in Texas and Maine, where officers attempted to serve warrants and fatally shot two foreign nationals who were behind the wheel. None of the officers involved in the shootings had body cameras, despite pledges from former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February that those devices would be distributed to the ICE workforce with funds allocated by Congress. Congressional Republicans and administration officials are demanding answers about the latest killings involving federal immigration officers, bemoaning a lack of bodycam footage and a failure to properly train officers for dangerous confrontations. Congress has been clamoring for more information after two ICE-involved shootings in Texas and Maine, where officers attempted to serve warrants and fatally shot two foreign nationals who were behind the wheel. None of the officers involved in the shootings had body cameras, despite pledges from former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February that those devices would be distributed to the ICE workforce with funds allocated by Congress. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in a brief hallway interview called it a “mistake” that the officers lacked body cameras to document the scene and said “it would be wise” for DHS to distribute them to the workforce as fast as possible.

Republicans — including top officials in the administration — are concerned that the lack of video evidence of the shootings will end up damaging President Donald Trump’s ambitious crackdown on unauthorized immigration by making it difficult to set the narrative or identify issues in tactics. Lawmakers also said more training may be needed to ensure ICE officers understand when they can and cannot use deadly force. The shootings pose a test for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has pledged to keep his agency out of the headlines even as he steps up enforcement under Trump’s direction. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a sometimes critic of the administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, said “something has to change” and emphasized that the deaths of civilians could not continue. Frustrations are also growing in the administration. One administration official, who, like others, was granted anonymity to speak freely about the response to the shootings, said more training is needed for vehicle stops. The official also expressed concerns about how the lack of that footage could hurt DHS’ ability to explain what happened in the shootings or potentially defend officer conduct.

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Newsom hires prominent litigator Abbe Lowell to fight DOJ probe

Gavin Newsom has retained prominent defense lawyer Abbe Lowell to represent him as federal investigators probe the California governor’s circle, according to two people familiar with the arrangement. The Democratic governor hired Lowell to represent him and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom in a private capacity, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the hiring. A representative for Newsom declined to comment and a representative for Lowell did not respond to a request for comment. Gavin Newsom has retained prominent defense lawyer Abbe Lowell to represent him as federal investigators probe the California governor’s circle, according to two people familiar with the arrangement. The Democratic governor hired Lowell to represent him and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom in a private capacity, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the hiring. A representative for Newsom declined to comment and a representative for Lowell did not respond to a request for comment. The hiring of Lowell, who for years has represented some of Washington’s highest-profile figures, speaks to the politically explosive nature of the Department of Justice’s investigation, which Newsom has slammed as a baseless act of retribution — and a continuation of Trump’s history of targeting political opponents.

Many of those foes are also Lowell clients, including Hunter Biden, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook — a roster that has cemented Lowell’s status as the go-to lawyer for people under Trump administration scrutiny. Newsom has accused Trump of targeting him because he is exploring a presidential bid. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche brushed off that claim earlier this month. “I’m not sure his words are in any way grounded in fact,” Blanche told reporters. A person familiar with the multi-pronged investigation said it originated in California and has examined Newsom’s former chief of staff, who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges this year, and Siebel Newsom’s finances. No one is known to have been indicted in the latest probe. The Newsom administration has accused the administration of a fishing expedition, saying federal investigators have subpoenaed or questioned numerous people connected to the governor or the first partner and sought business records.

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Political text messages could get more effective and annoying. Blame AI

AI-powered platforms are training bots to sound like political candidates in text messages, holding personalized conversations with thousands of potential voters simultaneously. The bots are also gathering data, learning what each voter wants from their representatives and using that information to shape future campaign messaging. Aaron Sheeks, the CEO of Akillion, an AI platform that lets people run their own Large Language Models or bots, said many of his current clients are running for political office. "Our goal is to put the microphone back in the hand of the voter," said Sheeks. "We're giving agencies and political campaigns the ability to have a trained AI employee that can go back and forth and answer questions on police reform or education or tax changes."

Some in the broader political text messaging industry say generative AI's ability to answer voter's questions and gather data about their concerns is going to be revolutionary for campaigns; others say political text messages are a limited — and annoying — tool and using AI won't improve it. While it's difficult to ascertain how many campaigns are using generative AI to text voters this election cycle, experts say Republicans have been adapting to AI faster than Democrats. "My belief is that this is going to make campaigns more interactive, more responsive and more personalized," said Eric Wilson, a Republican strategist and the director of the Center for Campaign Innovation, a nonprofit that encourages conservative campaigns to adopt new technology. He said that generative AI "helps campaigns do more with less." In almost all cases the first text message sent to voters is written and sent by a human, Wilson said. The AI steps in when the recipient engages.

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ICE officer who killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero has a violent history, family and records say

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press. David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat. Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford. DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.” Brouillette didn’t respond to text messages or an email seeking comment. Three relatives who said they had spoken to him since the shooting, including an ex-wife and daughter, said he told them he acted in self-defense. When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” and that “The ICE officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use of force training.” The White House referred all questions about the shooting and Brouillette to ICE.

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House Dems’ midterm windfall

House Democrats are rolling in cash with just 109 days until the midterms. A new trove of campaign-finance reports released this week showed a concerning reality for the GOP: Democratic candidates raked in gargantuan amounts of money last quarter in key battleground districts. In fact, at least 25 GOP incumbents — and Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.) — were outraised by a Democratic challenger during that critical period, per a Punchbowl News analysis of FEC data. The majority of that GOP group hold competitive districts. And 11 of the Republicans had less cash on hand than their Democratic challenger. Tea leaves. This is a real danger sign for the GOP. Some of these House Democratic challengers raised more money last quarter than Senate candidates. And lackluster fundraising by Republican candidates is stretching the House map in Democrats’ favor.

“Numbers don’t lie, and they are all saying one thing: Democrats are poised to take back the majority,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene told us Thursday. Yet candidate fundraising is only part of the overall House landscape. Republicans have gained a slight edge in the redistricting wars. Democrats aren’t very popular. GOP super PACs are flush with cash, including MAGA Inc., which is sitting on $382 million. And the Supreme Court decision that nixed coordinated spending limits makes it exponentially easier for the NRCC to bail out underfunded campaigns. But two big factors are working against House Republicans heading into the late stages of this cycle: a terrible political environment and the striking Democratic fundraising edge. The two are related. Anti-Trump, small-dollar donors are fired up and expressing their frustration by funding campaigns. The Democratic base senses that winning the House majority is in reach. Democratic Senate candidates are also thriving financially. But it’s easier for them to raise money, and it’s a lot more difficult for first-time congressional candidates.

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Reflecting Pool peeling probably caused by application flaws, experts say

The lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool peeled away in at least seven places along seams that were created when the material was applied in large rectangular sections, indicating likely problems in how it was installed, according to a Washington Post analysis of visuals and interviews with experts. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said vandals are to blame for the damage that appeared just two weeks after the $14 million renovation was completed in early June. “The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs,” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday. On Tuesday, photos emerged on social media that showed the pool had been drained in preparation for repairs. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum made similar claims in television interviews in early July, saying on Fox News that vandals left gashes totaling 350 feet. “[The lining] didn’t peel off,” he said on CNN, adding that people were “literally trying to destroy part of a monument.”

Post reporters visited the Reflecting Pool on June 25 and identified seven locations where the lining — a waterproof membrane that was painted onto the concrete basin — had partially or entirely peeled away. The peeling occurred in irregularly shaped patches that stretched alongside the long edges of the pool. The pieces ranged in size from a few inches to as long as six feet. In one case, the concrete was visible underneath. (Reporters could not see the condition of the lining in the middle of the basin.) By comparing the seven locations with satellite imagery, photos and videos taken during the renovation process, the analysis found that all of the failures occurred at the seams — lines between two areas that were painted at different times. Four experts in waterproofing materials — who have decades of experience and have served as educators and expert witnesses in pool-related construction lawsuits — reviewed The Post’s findings and said the failure pattern strongly suggested errors in the application process. They said that while a precise cause cannot be determined without on-site examination and lab testing, such seams require careful attention and are especially prone to failure. When The Post shared its findings with the White House and the Interior Department, spokespeople disputed that the surface had been improperly applied. “There were no missteps during the initial repairs to the pool,” said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers. “Unfortunately, deranged individuals made several gashes in the side of the pool and destroyed over 300 feet of the pool’s siding. Once the necessary repairs to fix the vandalism are complete, the Reflecting Pool will be restored to all its glory.”

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Wildfire smoke will worsen in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic through Friday

Dangerous wildfire smoke is filling the skies from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic. And in some areas, conditions are expected to worsen. Through Friday, more than 115 million people are forecast to be exposed to air quality levels that are unhealthy or worse as winds funnel smoke south from out-of-control fires in Canada and Minnesota — and a heat dome traps that smoke near the ground. From late Wednesday into early Thursday, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and New York had some of the worst air quality of the world’s major cities, according to data from IQAir. In Detroit, the air quality index reached a value of 728 late Wednesday, far worse than the peak of 465 in New York during the apocalyptic June 2023 fires.

The smoke drifted into Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware, during the early hours of Thursday morning and was tracking southward along a path that roughly followed Interstate 95. However, shifting winds closer to Baltimore and D.C. may keep the worst of the smoke out for most of the day Thursday — but not Thursday night. That’s when unhealthy air quality levels are forecast to abruptly develop, as the smoke plume accelerates south, engulfing much of Virginia and parts of North Carolina — conditions that are forecast to last through Friday night. Meanwhile, a second strong smoke plume is also forecast to waft toward New York and Boston on Thursday afternoon and evening, with the New York City Emergency Management Office warning that “this could become the most significant smoke event in New York City since 2023, and conditions will be closely monitored for any deterioration.”

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Copyright July 24, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved