Lead Stories

Texas land commissioner sends cease and desist for alleged illegal land clearing in Hudspeth County

A Texas state agency is pushing back on what it calls illegal entry and unauthorized clearing of more than a mile of state land near the Rio Grande. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham sent a cease and desist letter Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and a contractor working on border wall construction. In a release, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) said Buckingham sent the letter after finding that federal contractor Barnard Construction illegally entered and cleared more than a mile of state land. The letter claimed the contractor CBP hired trespassed across and altered GLO-managed state lands in Presidio County without permission. The land at issue also partly falls under Hudspeth County.

The Texas GLO said its leases don't allow land modifications, excavations or construction without the office's written consent. “Significant grazing acreage was disrupted by this unauthorized activity that has devalued our lease and diminished our ability to generate future revenue for the schoolchildren of Texas,” said Commissioner Buckingham in a news release. The letter included a map with areas that match an online property sale listing for the Moody Bennett Ranch, which extends across Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties. Online Presidio County property records show that Trans Pecos Ice LLC owns parcels in that same area, which match the GLO's map included in Buckingham's letter. The Texas GLO said Trans Pecos Ice LLC has been told they're in breach of their lease agreement for allowing unauthorized access. The office told it to take immediate action. Additionally, the GLO demanded any and all state land damaged by the reported activity be restored to its original condition. Barnard was asked to work with the CBP and lessee to develop a reclamation proposal plan for the GLO to approve. “The people of Texas entrusted the General Land Office with more than 13 million acres of state land, and we take that responsibility seriously,” Commissioner Buckingham said. “We will work with our federal partners to keep the southern border secured, but we will not compromise the integrity of Texas state property to do it. State land is damaged and it must be restored.” Texas State Senator Cesar Blanco shared his support for Buckingham's letter Friday. "I applaud Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham’s decision to order an immediate halt to land-clearing activities related to border wall construction and require a more transparent process. This is an essential step toward protecting Texas' sovereignty and ensuring proper oversight," the senator said in a statement.

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The Democrats’ biggest donors have gone on strike

George Soros and his son Alex donated more than $400,000 to the Democratic National Committee during the 2018 midterms. They gave more than $1 million during the 2022 midterm election cycle, campaign finance records show. This year, they have yet to give the DNC a dollar. The Soroses aren’t alone—other high-profile donors have given little or no money to the Democrats’ central committee this year. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, wrote steady checks to the DNC for years but during the midterms has yet to give money. In a sign of the party’s challenges, a running joke among some donors is that the DNC stands for “Do Not Contribute,” said one Democratic strategist who advises major party donors. Months ahead of pivotal midterm elections, the Democratic fundraising apparatus has a big donor problem.

While many Democratic elites still feel bullish about taking back the House and are willing to throw big money at their favorite candidates, institutional fatigue—and in some cases, full-on drama—have set in among a number of the party’s biggest donors. Like voters, donors say they feel disillusioned with Washington and the party establishment they have long supported. The DNC isn’t the only problem spot for Democrats—other Democratic committees and super PACs lag behind Republicans across the board. It is common for a party that is out of power in Washington to struggle, but Democrats are increasingly concerned it will hurt their chances of winning this fall as Republicans stack up significantly more money in committees and PACs that can organize door-knocking efforts and air TV ads. Some of the problem is the lingering frustration among major donors over how their money was spent in the 2024 presidential election, when nominee Kamala Harris quickly raised more than $1 billion but still lost after a rushed process to nominate her. Others point to the painful divisions in the Democratic Party’s donor base over the war in Gaza, antisemitism in the U.S. and an insurgent group of Democratic socialists.

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Abbott vows to prevent cities from collecting sales tax if they circumvent housing laws

Gov. Greg Abbott is continuing to push for lower housing costs in Texas, arguing that local regulations are circumventing recent reforms designed to clear red tape to build homes. “One thing that’s driving up the cost of housing is our local government regulations,” Abbott said. “Now already last year, I signed a law to make it easier and cheaper to build homes, but some local governments are skirting the law, imposing costly mandates.” Abbott pointed to multiple laws he signed last year as an example of his efforts to reduce housing costs. One was Senate Bill 840 — aimed at increasing housing in the state. The law primarily allows multi-family housing and mixed usage in areas previously zoned for retail, office or commercial purposes.

According to a recent report conducted by Texans for Reasonable Solutions, Texas Appleseed and American Enterprise Institute, SB 840 can be linked to 8,764 new housing units in it’s first nine months. Abbott said cities are passing regulations that are designed to subvert laws like SB 840. “So what they try to do to limit new residential building, they will add very costly amenities to what the requirements are. It could be requiring eight stories be built for multifamily housing. It could be adding very large swimming pools,” he said. “I can’t even express my frustration,” Nicole Nosek, Founder of Texans for Reasonable Solutions, said. “These mandates don’t come out of a developer’s pockets. They come out of the rent check of a nurse, a senior citizen, a teacher.” As Abbott seeks a fourth term, he says he’ll crack down on cities by hitting them where it hurts — their pocketbooks.

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How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking

Marci Bakely couldn’t understand how her ex-boyfriend always seemed to know where she was. When she went to buy groceries or on a date or to the doctor, he’d text her about it, sometimes within minutes, despite working 15 miles from her home as a police chief in a small town in the Atlanta suburbs. One day in 2024, when he incorrectly suspected that she’d gone to see a man against his wishes, he messaged her, “I didn’t think you would slip up,” according to texts she shared with The Washington Post. Bakely, 50, began to feel like she was constantly being watched. She says she installed three cameras around her home and on her patio, to see if he was staking out her cul-de-sac. She bought a hidden-camera detector and nervously waved it down every wall. Three times, in desperation, she says she drove her Kia to a mechanic’s shop, asking them to scan for trackers on her car. Then one day, when she pressed him for answers, her ex told her in a text: He was using Flock.

Like thousands of other law-enforcement agencies across the United States, his police force could follow cars spotted by Flock’s sprawling network of artificial-intelligence roadside cameras, which record passing license plates into a mappable database that officers can search while investigating crime. Flock had sold its system as a police officer’s dream crime-fighting tool. But the tool had also given the chief, Michael Steffman, the power to silently monitor Bakely’s life. By the time she understood what was happening, Steffman had looked up the tags for her and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times, according to Have I Been Flocked, a website that aggregates police search logs made available through public records. Steffman was arrested in November on charges of stalking, harassment and license-plate-reader misuse. In April, before a trial could take place, he was found dead in his home from what officials said was a suicide. The town manager of Braselton, where Steffman worked, declined to comment. The town’s new police chief and four members of Steffman’s family did not respond to requests for comment. Backed by some of Silicon Valley’s top investors, Flock has rapidly grown into a colossus of American technological surveillance. A leader of the surging industry for license-plate readers, the company told The Post that its more than 120,000 shoebox-size cameras now scan the roads of more than 6,000 communities and record 20 billion plate scans a month.

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John Curtis: I won’t change the filibuster

(Mr. Curtis, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Utah.) The debate over the filibuster is often misunderstood. Most people think it is about a rule. It isn’t. It is about the absence of a rule. When the Senate was established, the Constitution gave it the authority to create its own rules. The Senate chose not to give itself a mechanism to end debate. Unlimited debate wasn’t an accident or a loophole. It was simply how the Senate operated. This original design assumed a very different environment from today’s. There were no established political parties as we now know them. No modern leadership structure. Very little media. No mass communication. It was a small group of people sitting in a room, working through issues, knowing that if they wanted to act, they had to reach agreement. In that setting, if no one could force the end of debate, the only way forward was to work it out. Cloture, which is what we usually mean when we talk about the filibuster today, came much later in the Senate’s history.

Eventually the chamber grew, and unlimited debate threatened to bring all business to a permanent halt. While cloture was adopted in 1917 to limit debate, its current 60-vote threshold protects the Senate’s original design in the face of today’s realities by requiring a broad number of members to “work through issues” before passing bills. This tradition contributed to the Senate’s reputation as the world’s greatest deliberative body. Not because senators speak longer, but because no one can be easily ignored. The structure forces engagement. It requires listening. It pushes ideas to be tested beyond a simple majority. Because of that, individual senators hold real power. This is an important distinction between the Senate and the House. In the House, power is centralized. Leadership controls the flow of legislation, the terms of debate and often the outcome. Even senior members can have limited influence. I served there and saw how difficult it is for an individual member to shape major legislation. The Senate operates differently. Because debate isn’t easily cut off, individual senators can’t be dismissed in the same way.

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State Stories

Contractor who built Colossus and Colossus II says Elon Musk owes him colossal amount of money

A mechanical contractor who helped build Elon Musk’s Memphis-area data centers at breakneck speed says SpaceXAI is dragging its feet on paying his company for work performed since 2024. Darrell Cuttell, owner of Ohio-based Darana Hybrid, said SpaceXAI owes his company more than $136 million. Dima Amro, the real estate and economic development reporter for the Memphis Business Journal, broke the story Friday. Cuttell’s company is one of several with liens filed against SpaceXAI for failing to pay for services rendered. “The contractors are alleging they haven’t been paid for years of construction work,” she told Action News 5.

The Shelby County Register of Deeds website shows Darana Hybrid filed two liens against SpaceXAI this week. Cuttell said his company has not been paid for more than $118 million worth of work at the Tulane Road Colossus II data center in Whitehaven, and $18 million for construction at the Colossus facility near Boxtown. The work was performed from 2024 through June of this year. Cuttell is expected to file additional liens for construction performed at the Southaven plant as well which would take the total amount of money he says is owed to him by SpaceXAI to more than half a billion dollars. “So it looks like more liens are going to be coming to the surface,” said Amro, “About $400 million more worth of liens. I was told that that would be filed in Mississippi for the SpaceXAI facilities there.” Two other companies also filed liens against SpaceXAI. USW-Menard Inc. claims it is owed $2.2 million for work done at the water treatment plant. TorcSill Foundations says SpaceXAI owes the company $65,000 for two days of work at Colossus II. Amro said Cuttell has been affected by the dispute. “He said he hasn’t slept in over four months. He’s lost a lot of weight. And he feels like there’s no future right now after filing those liens,” Amro said.

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Hundreds of El Paso teachers leave classrooms as enrollment decline reshapes area schools, workforce

Last spring, Patricia Amezaga, a physical education teacher at Coach Wally Hartley PK-8 School, tossed volleyballs and talked to students who visited her gym every day as part of an afterschool program for military families. Amezaga knew it would be one of the last days she’d have to wrangle footballs, referee a game of pickup basketball and watch students head home with their parents at the end of the day. Amezaga said she had considered leaving her job after teaching for 35 years, but wasn’t sure until the El Paso Independent School District offered a $3,000 buyout to employees to give an early notification of their plans to retire or resign at the end of the school year. She took it and retired at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

“When they offered $3,000, I said, ‘You know what, I’m 99.9% sure I’m going to leave, so, I’m going to take the leap,’” Amezaga said. “It’s going to be really hard to leave, because I love it here. It’s a great place to be. I think now it’s just time for me to go.” Hundreds of El Paso teachers took similar steps after the city’s three largest school districts offered separation incentives to reduce staffing costs in response to declining enrollment. About 820 teachers from the El Paso, Socorro and Ysleta school districts – nearly 10% of all teachers in the districts – either retired, resigned or were terminated during the last fiscal year, which ended in June. That same year, the districts only hired a combined 470 teachers – 260 at EPISD, 160 at SISD and the remainder at YISD. Over the last seven years, the number of full-time equivalent teachers working for the three districts declined by about 10% to 8,400 during the 2025-26 school year, according to data from the Texas Education Agency. Meanwhile, the total number of employees in the districts fell by about 8% to 18,200.

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Texas Stock Exchange rings bell to mark historic milestone

Gold confetti coated the floor underneath the Texas Stock Exchange's formidable closing bell Friday, a physical manifestation of the capital foundation provided by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab that made TXSE the most well-capitalized stock exchange ever when it debuted in the summer of 2024. Just two years later, the nascent Dallas-based is celebrating a major milestone, literally rung in Friday at the exchange's temporary headquarters in Knox/Henderson: the complete launch of trading on TXSE's platform. Having begun a phased launch of operations on July 6, Friday's closing bell ceremony marked the ability to trade all the more than 13,000 stock symbols that trade in the U.S. on the Lone Star State's homegrown exchange.

"Today is an important moment for the state of Texas and America's capital markets. The Texas Stock Exchange has successfully completed its launch of trading and is now firmly part of the global market structure. We are recognizing this milestone because what this team and our partners have accomplished is simply remarkable," said founder and CEO James Lee before striking the bell. "Here's what they've delivered in a mere 18 months: a fully integrated exchange that's trading and listings at once, something that has never been done before, and the broadest day one participation of any new exchange in a half a century. This is pure infrastructure built to support what comes next: real competition for primary listings for the first time in decades," he continued. On Friday, more than $700 million worth of shares were traded on TXSE, according to NasdaqTrader.com, as the exchange seeks to slowly but surely nab market share from the New York capital markets duopoly it aims to challenge. TXSE has raised more than $275 million in backing to create its own trading platform from the ground up and eventually give companies an alternative venue to list, with the goal of restoring health to public markets.

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U.S. House candidate Claire Reynolds searches for blue dots in West Texas

laire Reynolds stood before a group of 30 neighbors at the Pflugerville Library on a recent July day and explained how she came to be running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. “I was living my life, working at the State Bar of Texas, and I woke up one morning and found that I was in a completely different congressional district,” Reynolds told the audience. “When I looked to see where that district was, and who the current representative was, I was very disappointed. I felt like that representative did not represent my values. So I was mad.” She paused and laughed shyly. “And then I decided that being mad was getting me nowhere. I decided: Let’s beat them at their own game.” Reynolds is a 51-year-old attorney whose home at the edge of North Austin was, until December of last year, part of the 37th Congressional District of the U.S. House, represented by the Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett.

But after Donald Trump demanded that Texas Republicans provide him with five additional Republican seats for the House last summer, Reynolds and approximately 193,000 other residents in the area were stripped out of nearby districts and placed in Congressional District 11, considered one of the reddest districts in the nation. On maps, TX-11 resembles a blocky handgun, pointed west. It covers an immense stretch of Central and West Texas almost twice the size of Massachusetts, much of it very remote. The Pflugerville-area neighborhoods added to the district appear as a tiny, twisting tail tacked onto its southeast corner. For years, the district has been represented by conservative Republicans, most recently a retired Air Force colonel named August Pfluger. Though equipped with the perfect name to represent the area, Pfluger has no perceptible connection to Central Texas. He lives in San Angelo. The most relevant thing about him is that on January 6, 2021, three days after being sworn in to office, Pfluger helped Donald Trump attempt a coup against our country, voting to block certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. He has gone on to become a close ally of Trump.

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Environmental groups threaten Clean Air Act lawsuit over San Antonio data centers

Three environmental organizations are threatening to sue the developers of two West San Antonio data centers, alleging the companies improperly used streamlined state permits to avoid stricter federal air-pollution requirements. The Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club and Public Citizen sent a formal notice of intent to sue Vantage Data Centers and VoltaGrid on July 22. The notice is a required step before filing a citizen lawsuit under the federal Clean Air Act; it does not establish that the companies violated the law. The projects at 14270 Omicron Drive and 5207 Rogers Road include two natural-gas power plants and 151 backup diesel generators.

Together, the dedicated “behind-the-meter” systems, which serve the data centers rather than the regional grid, provide 423 megawatts of primary generating capacity. The groups contend Vantage and VoltaGrid treated the equipment as separate, minor pollution sources when the interconnected operations should have been evaluated as major sources. In 2024 and 2025, the companies obtained four minor-source authorizations from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. According to the legal notice, the facilities have the potential — not necessarily the expectation — to emit approximately 5,600 tons of nitrogen oxides and 323 tons of volatile organic compounds annually. Those pollutants help create ground-level ozone. The groups also estimate potential emissions of 1,190 tons of carbon monoxide and more than 70 tons of formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen. The allegations carry particular significance because TCEQ classifies Bexar County as a “serious” ozone nonattainment area, meaning it does not meet the federal health standard for ozone. Major-source permits generally require pollution controls, monitoring and opportunities for public participation before construction. The environmental groups say those safeguards were bypassed.

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Family, community honor Carrollton soldier Isabella Gonzales at funeral service

Family members, military leaders and elected officials gathered in Plano Saturday to honor the life of Army Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, remembering the 19-year-old as a woman of deep faith, selfless service and unwavering determination. Gonzales, a Hebron High School graduate who enlisted in the Army shortly after graduation, was killed July 17 while serving in Jordan. She volunteered for the deployment and was remembered throughout the service as someone who embraced challenges and put others before herself. Her uncle, Alfredo Muñiz, told mourners Gonzales "made the ultimate sacrifice. She was killed in action doing exactly what she wanted and chose to do."

Muñiz said Gonzales lived intentionally, choosing to spend her time helping others and pursuing her dream of serving her country. "Don't measure Isabella's legacy by the length of her years," he said. "Measure her legacy by the depth of the love she left behind and the profound impact she made on the people around her.” Carrollton Mayor Steve Babick said Gonzales never lost sight of her goal to make a difference. "Today we honor a hero, a 19-year-old female soldier that with all of her patriotic heart answered the call to serve," Babick said. Brig. Gen. Glenn Henke, commander of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, shared stories from Gonzales' fellow soldiers, describing her as a quick learner whose personality strengthened her unit. "She became a source of laughter and joy. She became the glue of her team," Henke said.

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Parents sue Plano ISD, principal and teacher for $1 million over alleged sexual abuse of daughter

The parents of an8- year-old girl are suing Plano ISD, saying the district failed to prevent longtime 2nd-grade teacher Paul Campbell from sexually abusing their daughter. The suit, which also names Campbell and Brinker Elementary principal Jennifer King as defendants, claims the school knew about an earlier accusation against Campbell but didn’t report it to the state as required, didn’t investigate Campbell, or supervise his actions. “Campbell was allowed to continue to teach at Brinker placing him in a position of authority over second-grade students as a teacher where he could have unfettered access to girls,” the Collin County suit reads.

The parents, listed as John and Jane Doe, say Campbell repeatedly sexually abused their daughter – listed as Janie Doe – when she was his student last year. They’re seeking $1 million in damages. Campbell taught at Brinker Elementary for 28 years before he was arrested on July 8 and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, a first-degree felony. Police later filed three additional charges of indecency with a child, a second-degree felony, after more alleged victims stepped forward. The Plano ISD school board voted unanimously after Campbell’s arrest to take steps to fire him. He remains at the Collin County Detention Center, records show. The district said in a statement it “cannot comment on pending litigation or confidential personnel and student matters.” It called the alleged conduct “serious, unacceptable and wholly inconsistent with the standards and expectations of Plano ISD.”

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Harris County launches ‘Priority Pass’ in an effort to streamline vehicle registration

The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector's Office launched an online vehicle registration service, called "Priority Pass," earlier this week. The new online service is designed to speed up vehicle registration for Harris County residents by reducing tax office wait times. According to the tax assessor-collector’s office, Priority Pass allows residents to submit their documents online for automatic verification before going to the tax office in person. After submitting their documents online, residents will receive a barcode. The barcode can then be taken to the tax office, allowing the resident to bypass paperwork that can often result in longer wait times.

The new Priority Pass service is available via MyHarrisCountyTax, which was launched by the office last year as the county's online property tax payment platform. MyHarrisCountyTax also allows residents to set up a property tax prepayment plan. "Priority Pass is the next step in bringing the full range of tax office service onto one platform," the office said in a news release announcing the new program. According to the tax assessor-collector's office, when residents create a MyHarrisCountyTax profile, they can receive due date reminders via email, pay taxes for multiple properties at once, apply for recurring payments, see their bill history and save their payment methods, receipts and documents.

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Mayor targets funding for Spurs’ new arena in hunt to reduce city budget gap

After a flurry of proposals over the last week, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has taken aim at cutting the City of San Antonio’s $158 million budget gap again. In a memo Friday, Jones proposed another vote on the public funding for a downtown arena for the San Antonio Spurs in November. She said now that city residents understand the budget shortfall, which could lead to an increase in property taxes, they should vote on the city funding for the arena. “November would allow city voters to vote clearly informed by what they are paying, what they are receiving in return and whether the latter is good enough,” Jones wrote in a memo to City Council on Friday.

The Spurs’ downtown arena, part of Project Marvel, would cost $1.3 billion and is scheduled to host the team beginning in 2030. Bexar County voters approved using $311 million in hotel tax dollars for the arena in November 2025. City officials said their $489 million in funding — a combination of sales tax revenue from hotels and hotel-related businesses and funds borrowed against projected future property taxes — did not need a public vote. City council members linked their $489 million contribution to the county vote. Now, Jones is saying voters who live in the city should have another bite at the apple because they are residents of both Bexar County and San Antonio. “City voters will pay twice towards the proposed arena, as they will contribute to the county’s $311 million contribution and the city’s $489 million contribution,” Jones said. “Since they pay twice, city voters deserve to vote twice.”

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Gilberto Cárdenas, revered for his advocacy for Chicanos and Latino art, dies at 79

Gilberto Cárdenas, a highly respected sociologist who many considered a great advocate for advancing Latino and Chicano identity through academia and art, has died. Cárdenas died Sunday at his home in Austin, Texas, after a long illness, according to a statement released by his family. He was 79. Born and raised in San Gabriel, California, Cárdenas became deeply entrenched in the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Chicano was a rallying social and political identity embraced by Mexican Americans fighting for equality and civil rights. Cárdenas advocated for the cause with his camera. He documented marches, meetings and other community gatherings.

He also loved to acknowledge Chicano artists in the movement and often swapped his photos for posters, prints and other artworks. He would even save posters that were about to be thrown away because of their potential cultural significance. “Looking at all his accomplishments, he was such a gentle and humble man and really appreciated where he came from,” said Richard Flores, a friend and Mexican American Studies professor at University of Texas at Austin. Cárdenas was always “trying to make a contribution not only to the community but the artists he so loved.” He went on to earn a doctorate at the University of Notre Dame and then was hired by the University of Texas at Austin as a sociology professor. He spent nearly 25 years lecturing on the sociology of immigration. Cárdenas is credited for establishing Mexican American Studies there. In 1999, Cárdenas went back to the University of Notre Dame as a faculty member. In his role as assistant provost, he created the Institute for Latino Studies.

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Interstate 635 construction in Dallas is almost done. What to know

The Interstate 635 East project, also known as Lyndon B. Johnson East, is nearing the end, with most of the roadway now open. The reconstruction of the highway started six years ago, but plans were made long before the crews came in. During this time, North Texas motorists navigated detours, lane closures and constant construction on their commutes. Now, the project is entering its final stretch and transportation officials estimate construction will be completed by the end of the summer. The highway first opened in 1969, originally designed for a much smaller region, and could withstand about 180,000 cars per day.

The Texas Department of Transportation estimates the current traffic volume on I-635 is about 230,000 cars per day. Dallas’ population has significantly grown since the interstate’s construction. The city's population increased from 844,401 in the 1970 U.S. Census to an estimated 1,329,491 as of July 1, 2025, about a 57% increase, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Due to the region’s population increase, the highway often ranks as one of the state’s most congested corridors. As part of TxDOT’s statewide Texas Clear Lanes initiative, the transportation authority wanted to address the busiest roads and improve mobility on major motorways. How much did construction cost? The I-635 East project is one of the largest highway investments in Dallas County, with a budget of $1.74 billion. Public updates have not identified major cost increases beyond the design-build contract value, which requires TxDOT to report the overall amount rather than incremental spending totals. The design-build contract was finalized in 2019, and construction crews broke ground in spring of 2020.

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National Stories

Capital One says it closed Trump Organization's accounts after anti-money laundering probe

Capital One Financial hit back on Friday against a lawsuit over its decision to close the Trump Organization’s bank accounts years ago, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money laundering experts. The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to U.S. President Donald Trump’s family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case by casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking — or denying services on religious or political grounds — the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization and Capital One did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of illegal money laundering. But Friday’s filing argues that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons. The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance.” Capital One gave notice of its plans to close more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts in March 2021. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president’s son, filed a lawsuit in March 2025 in a Florida federal court, alleging the accounts were closed because of Capital One’s “woke” beliefs and its desire to benefit from the political mood after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The federal court in Miami has tossed two complaints in the Capital One case, but gave the plaintiffs opportunities each time to submit an amended complaint. Capital One said that the latest version, filed in July, “suffers from the same fundamental flaws as their prior two pleadings.” Capital One said in Friday’s filing that the Trump Organization’s allegations of political pretext were “misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of documents submitted to the court.

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Trump says parameters met for a deal to end Iran war

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will order American forces to hold off on new strikes against Iran, claiming Mideast allies have reached the parameters of a deal to end the 5-month old war. The emerging deal “would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” Trump wrote in a Saturday evening social media post. “Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” Trump said. Trump has announced halts to strikes in Iran on several occasions since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, only for things to unravel and fighting to resume again.

Iran’s defense minister said on X that the country was “neither surprised nor passive” following Trump’s announcement and said Iran continues to remain alert in the face of concrete threats from the U.S. A regional official says the proposal announced by Trump over the weekend calls for the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations and continue working out many of the issues that have stymied prior progress on the deal. The official, who is involved in the mediation efforts, said the proposal calls for reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and halting attacks across the region, including by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on the Arab Gulf countries and Jordan. The U.S., in exchange, will end its naval blockade on Iran and allow Tehran to export its oil as stated in the tentative ceasefire deal, he said. No deal has been reached yet, but mediation efforts are underway, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media. Trump said that Israel is joining his commitment to end the war by implementing the ceasefire deal. Israel did not publicly comment on the announcement.

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Loudoun County, other Virginia localities consider hitting the brakes on data center development

Loudoun County, ground zero of Data Center Alley and home to over 250 of the power-hungry digital warehouse facilities, is considering a pause on all new data center project applications, officials said this week. “The community has basically been begging us to do something about the unchecked growth of data centers,” County Supervisor Juli Briskman said Thursday. “The communities have been asking us to fight back against these big corporations that have basically been able to run roughshod over the county.” Briskman asked the board to have county staff draft a plan for what a data center pause would entail. The county is currently revisiting its comprehensive plan zoning ordinances regarding data center permitting and zoning. Phase one of the review process concluded in the spring of 2025.

Following that review, supervisors removed “by-right” permitting for data centers and moved it to a conditional use permit application that allows for more public input into the process. In the second phase of the ordinance review, supervisors will examine existing standards for data centers and utility substations in the zoning ordinance, Briskman said. From there, they will determine if amendments are necessary to minimize community impacts while ensuring operational functionality. Briskman said they will also “evaluate provisions related to onsite power generation and energy storage, (and) noise parking standards.” She suggested data center applications pause while review of potential amendments to the comprehensive plan is underway. This would mean no new applications would be considered for months. “I decided it was time that we actually just pumped the brakes, listened to the community, and just put a pause on all of it until we can get our arms around some of these other standards that we’ve been working on,” Briskman said.

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Why Trump won’t just break the Blanche impasse

The irony is that Todd Blanche can’t be confirmed for the very reason that he shouldn’t be confirmed: He is willfully running interference for something tawdry that President Trump is insistent on doing under the guise of Justice Department authority, namely, establishing the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund. An attorney general fit for the job would resign rather than be a part of that. As I’ve been telling you, despite Blanche’s testimony to the contrary, the slush fund is not dead. Moreover, a lot of creativity went into its creation, and because the fund is a raid on the Judgment Fund for paying judgments, awards, and compromise settlements against the government, Blanche was an essential participant.

In essence, the Anti-Weaponization Fund would be underwritten by nearly 2 billion taxpayer dollars filched from the Judgment Fund, which could then be paid out as “compensation” for Capitol riot defendants and other Trump political allies without any specific congressional appropriations. (For good measure, the scheme — camouflaged as a legal settlement of a lawsuit Trump brought against his own administration, for wrongdoing that occurred during his last administration — also included an attempt by Blanche to immunize Trump, Trump’s elder sons, and Trump’s business empire from tax audits.) Needless to say, if a Democratic administration had pulled such a stunt, Republicans would be apoplectic. Consider this: The amount of money involved in the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” dwarfs the $24 million in influence-peddling by what Republicans gleefully labeled the “Biden Crime Family” while devoting much of the last Congress to tracing every penny. The point, however, is that the Blanche nomination is in suspended animation because the president does not want to forfeit the fund. Blanche, of course, is now the acting AG, as well as the Senate-confirmed deputy AG.

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In-N-Out president says ‘heart is broken’ after employee, customers killed in Idaho shooting

In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder said her "heart is broken" after an employee and customers were killed when a gunman opened fire at one of the burger chain’s newest restaurants in Idaho. Three people were killed and seven others injured, some critically, in the Saturday afternoon shooting at the In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, city spokesperson Josh Palmer said. Police found the suspected gunman dead near the restaurant, though Palmer said it was not immediately clear whether the shooter was included in the city’s reported death toll. "We lost one of our beautiful Associates tonight," Snyder said in a statement posted to Facebook. "She was taking care of our most important asset — our Customers, and her life was taken by a disgusting human who doesn’t value the lives of others or his own."

Snyder said the gunman fired both on and away from In-N-Out property before ending his own life shortly after killing the employee and customers. "My heart is broken, my chest is heavy, my eyes burn from the tears I’ve shed," she wrote. Officials had not released the names, ages or other identifying details of the victims as authorities worked to notify their relatives. Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said investigators were also working to identify the suspected shooter and determine a motive. "We believe the threat to the community is over," Hicks said during a news conference. "It was a very chaotic scene." The shooting unfolded at about 2 p.m. in a busy shopping plaza where hundreds of people were in the area, according to Palmer. Video recorded from across the street appeared to show a person dressed in black carrying a long rifle toward a white vehicle. The person opened the driver’s door and then the trunk before reaching inside, prompting the driver recording the scene to leave out of concern that the shooter might be retrieving additional weapons. Multiple victims were taken to St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center. A hospital spokesperson said the facility was working with law enforcement and emergency personnel as they responded to the shooting.

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Louisiana AG says state will investigate Fauci after Senate hearing

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) said her state will investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci after a recent fiery Senate hearing where the retired government scientist pleaded the Fifth Amendment in response to questions from Republican lawmakers. In a post on the social platform X on Saturday, Murrill said that “Louisiana and Missouri deposed Dr. Fauci.” “At the time, he claimed to not recall many key details of his own actions and now we are discovering contemporaneous records he kept,” she added. “Louisiana will join Alabama & Florida in investigating Fauci and whether he committed any other offenses that could be pursued in our State courts.”

On Wednesday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) said he was beginning an investigation into Fauci after the former chief White House medical adviser invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times during a Senate hearing focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. “Fauci’s lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable,” Uthmeier wrote on social media. “My office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci. It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID.” Fauci’s Senate hearing on Wednesday turned into an hourslong chance for Republicans to express criticisms, arguments and theories on the response to COVID-19, with Fauci refusing to answer questions. A few days before the hearing, over a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary entries and work records were released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). The longtime health official called the action from Paul an attempt at “embarrassing and intimidating” him. The Hill has reached out to an attorney for Fauci for comment.

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In dropping reflecting pool case, Pirro draws Trump’s wrath

Jeanine Pirro faced the cameras on July 2 with characteristic self-assurance to announce the indictment of the 67-year-old ex-Olympian David Hearn for trashing “sacred” government property, President Trump’s highly prized but shoddily renovated Reflecting Pool. “This is not only a priority for the president, but for myself,” said Ms. Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, disclosing felony vandalism charges against Mr. Hearn for touching the lining of the pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. She added: “We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property.” This was not the case. Ms. Pirro’s office dramatically reversed course on Friday, not only withdrawing the charge against Mr. Hearn but blasting the Interior Department for the rushed and “botched” renovation, along with U.S. Park Police officials who fed bad information that led her to publicly cite “tremendous evidence” against Mr. Hearn.

In the process, intentionally or not, she skated perilously close to contradicting Mr. Trump — and he noticed. Ms. Pirro’s 20-page filing did not refer to, much less rebuke, Mr. Trump for claiming the damage was caused by left-wing vandals rather than his administration’s missteps. But it raised innate doubts about his assertion that criminals had slashed the pool’s lining with a “knife or blade.” That Ms. Pirro, a former Westchester, N.Y., district attorney and Fox News personality was aiming much of her criticism not at Mr. Trump, but his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, who oversaw the issuance of a no-bid contract to renovate the pool, did not appear to matter much. On Saturday morning, Mr. Trump dashed off a post on Truth Social that made clear he was unhappy with Ms. Pirro, a friend and ally since the 1980s. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro,” Mr. Trump wrote.

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Lead Stories

Fox News Poll: Talarico leads Paxton by 3 points, Abbott and Hinojosa are neck and neck

President Donald Trump won the Lone Star state by nearly 14 percentage points in 2024, but a new Fox News Poll of Texas registered voters suggests this year's Senate race is far less settled. Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton has yet to fully unify the GOP despite the president’s endorsement in the GOP primary against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. In addition, more voters are concerned Paxton lacks the character to serve than worry Democratic challenger James Talarico is too extreme, and more Democrats than Republicans are extremely motivated to vote (by 7 points) and extremely interested in the midterms (by 6). Those dynamics give Talarico a 3-point edge over Paxton (51% vs. 48%) in the Senate contest (within the survey’s margin of sampling error).

Talarico's advantage in the race grows to 6 points among both extremely motivated and extremely interested voters (53% vs. 47% in each group). Most independents (68%) and virtually all Democrats support Talarico (98%), while fewer Republicans are unified behind Paxton (89%). In part, that’s because one quarter of non-MAGA Republicans back Talarico (24%). Paxton is the choice among White evangelical Christians, White men without a college degree, rural voters, regular worship attenders, men and voters ages 65 and older. Some of Talarico’s best groups are Black voters, moderates, voters under age 30, Hispanic voters, women and voters with a college degree. "Although Paxton dominated Cornyn in the GOP primary, that bruising contest left scars," said Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts Fox News polls with Democrat Chris Anderson. "He has considerable work to do with non-MAGA Republicans and independents, and that undoubtedly requires aggressively tying Talarico to the Democratic Party’s far left." By a 12-point margin, more voters are concerned Paxton lacks the character to serve as a senator than believe Talarico is too extreme (59% vs. 47%). Twice as many Republicans are concerned about Paxton's character as Democrats are that Talarico is too extreme (36% vs. 17%). In the race for governor, incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is favored by 1 point over Democrat Gina Hinojosa.

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Defying Trump, Cornyn uses his lame-duck power

Not long after Senator John Cornyn lost his re-election bid to a right-wing challenger backed by President Trump, the Texas Republican predicted that the remainder of his Senate tenure might be a “pretty bumpy ride” for the president. He warned that he and other lame-duck senators had “some cards to play” and would not hesitate to use them. This week, depending on the metaphor you prefer, Mr. Cornyn either made himself a giant senatorial pothole or laid his hand on the table. By wielding his vote on the Judiciary Committee as leverage, a newly liberated Mr. Cornyn threw Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general, Todd Blanche, into limbo as the Senate left town for the weekend on Thursday night.

Both he and Senator Thom Tillis — the North Carolina Republican who chose not to seek re-election after Mr. Trump threatened to unseat him — said that they would not advance Mr. Blanche’s nomination unless the Justice Department agreed to narrow an immunity settlement that Mr. Trump reached with the I.R.S. to protect himself and his family. The red line that Mr. Cornyn has drawn is fairly thin. He and Mr. Tillis are not seeking to kill the deal that Mr. Blanche negotiated with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, which gave the president, his family and his businesses broad immunity, potentially saving them at least $100 million in penalties and drawing accusations from Democrats of self-dealing. They are merely demanding modifications — in writing. Still, his willingness to dig in his heels against a demand by Mr. Trump at a moment when the president’s popularity is sagging and senators are increasingly frustrated with him is notable. Though Mr. Tillis has been more openly critical of Mr. Trump for months, Mr. Cornyn, a onetime contender for Senate majority leader, had long been a reliable Republican vote who rarely said a critical word about the president.

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With future of U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade in limbo, Texas businesses navigate choppy waters

It's hard to overstate just how much Texas has riding on a successful renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Mexico and Canada are Texas' No. 1 and No. 2 trading partners, respectively, just as they are for the U.S. as a whole. And that doesn't take into account direct investment in Texas by Mexican and Canadian companies. All that trade and investment means that thousands of Texas jobs depend on the smooth flow of goods and services between the U.S. and its southern and northern neighbors. So, too, does the competitiveness of North America in the world economy as a whole. Since July 1, when the Trump administration announced it would not renew the USMCA and instead put the agreement under annual review, the U.S. has held bilateral trade talks with Mexico but not with Canada.

In the meantime, ratcheting up the pressure, President Donald Trump has announced a new 10% tariff on a fraction of Mexican imports and 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian imports, including cars and trucks. "The problem is not for Washington or Mexico City or Ottawa," said Tony Payan, director of the Claudio X. Gonzalez Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University's Baker Institute. "The problem is for businesses, because a lot of these companies — manufacturers, energy companies — they’ve got long-term plans. They have to plan ahead 5, 10 years. And now they have to learn to live with the uncertainty of investments that may not be covered by the agreement whenever that is ratified, if it all." In 2024, two-way trade between Texas and Mexico came to $281.2 billion, while trade between Texas and Canada came to $69.2 billion. Taken together, that's equivalent to 12% of the state's economy. Texas' main exports to Mexico and Canada are oil and natural gas products – but its manufacturing, particularly of vehicles, depends heavily on parts imported from both countries. Texas' and Mexico's economies have been historically integrated, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't suffer if the USMCA dies. That's even more the case with Texas' ties with Canada. Air Tractor, Inc. is a prime example of a company that has thrived thanks to USMCA. Based in the small North Texas city of Olney, the company makes aircraft for farming and aerial firefighting. It sells to customers throughout the U.S. and in more than 50 countries across the world.

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Appeals court rejects the Trump administration’s expansion of mandatory detention for immigrants

The Trump administration cannot deny immigrants detained inside the United States a chance for release on bond, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 2-1 decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with a judge appointed by President Donald Trump in the majority, deepened a split between federal appeals courts over the administration’s mandatory detention policy. Four other appeals courts have also rejected it, while the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans and Eighth Circuit in St. Louis have sided with the Trump administration. The expanding circuit split increases the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually take up the issue. The administration last month asked the high court to consider it.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement it “strongly disagrees with the Ninth Circuit panel and is confident in its legal position regarding mandatory detention.” “President Donald Trump and Secretary Mullin are now enforcing the law as it was actually written to keep America safe,” the statement said. Under previous administrations, most noncitizens without a criminal record who were arrested inside the U.S. were allowed to seek a bond hearing while their immigration cases were pending. Mandatory detention was generally reserved for people arrested at the border. Last July, immigration officials issued guidance expanding mandatory detention to immigrants in the U.S. interior. The move — part of the administration’s mass deportation campaign — prompted a deluge of federal lawsuits by immigrants seeking release from custody. Some federal judges who ordered bond hearings blasted the administration for repeatedly violating their orders.

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State Stories

Paxton’s MAGA Inc. bailout & Thune’s crypto stall

While every Republican is still waiting to see how Donald Trump will deploy MAGA Inc.’s nearly $400 million cash hoard in the midterms, three sources told me that the super PAC plans to put at least some of that dough to work in support of Ken Paxton in Texas. MAGA Inc. will be “meaningfully involved” in the Texas Senate race, one of the sources told me. That commitment—the first real insight into how the MAGA Inc. money will be spent—would bring considerable relief to the party’s Senate campaign committees: Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn in the primary could cost the party hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general can defeat well-financed Democrat James Talarico. A cash infusion from MAGA Inc. seems like the least Trump could do.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has threatened to bring the Clarity Act, the crypto market regulatory bill, to the floor and force Democrats to vote on it. But after months of negotiations—especially over an ethics provision intended to curb the president and his family’s crypto dealings—Thune still lacks 50 Republican votes, disincentivizing him from putting it on the floor. Sens. Josh Hawley and John Cornyn, who are hearing complaints from local banks, remain undecided. Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis is working with Democrats to shore up the White House ethics provisions. Sen. Mitch McConnell is out of the office. And I’m told there are several other Republicans who aren’t on board yet, either. Thune and other Republicans want a vote before the August recess to pressure Democrats. Hundreds of millions of dollars from pro-crypto super PACs are waiting to be deployed, but most groups have held back their spending while talks continue. Thune is calculating that money will start flowing into races to defeat Democrats if they vote against the bill. The problem, of course, is that he can’t even hold a procedural vote until his own members are prepared to support it.

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Big new power lines could prevent blackouts in Texas, but landowner opposition is fierce

Opponents of new ultra-high-voltage transmission lines voiced their concerns into the wee hours of the morning at a 15-hour-long state capitol hearing on Wednesday and Thursday. Speakers shared their fear over the project’s local impacts, their anger over the proliferation of data centers and their distrust of renewable energy. State regulators and grid managers say that new electric transmission is necessary to maintain Texas grid reliability. But the long night of protest laid bare the challenges ahead for major additions to the energy system. Here are some key takeaways.

The 765 kilovolt transmission lines would be constructed in phases to move more electricity, more efficiently, around fast-growing Texas. The first phase of that larger transmission network, the routing of which is already underway, is called the Permian Basin Reliability Plan. That would create three 765 kilovolt ultra-high-voltage transmission lines running from the central part of the state to West Texas to answer energy shortages due largely to high demand from the oil and gas industry. The lines are bigger and taller than any currently in Texas, reaching a height of 160 feet and occupying a right of way 200 feet wide. At the hearing, state electric utility regulators said they approved the plan for ultra-high-voltage lines because building a few big lines leaves a smaller footprint than building several lower voltage lines to carry the same amount of electricity. “765 is fewer lines,” Thomas Gleason, Executive Director of the Public Utility Commission of Texas told lawmakers. “While each line requires more right of way, in totality, it's actually less right of way.”

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Texas officials tell counties to reinstate some voters flagged by a federal program as potential noncitizens

Election officials across the state should immediately reinstate some voters who were incorrectly flagged as potential noncitizens through a federal program, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office told county officials Wednesday. Christina Adkins, the state elections director, told county officials the state had reviewed Texas Department of Public Safety records confirming the citizenship of some of the 2,724 registered voters who were flagged as potential noncitizens, according to an audio recording of her comments obtained by Votebeat and The Texas Tribune, as well as election officials who heard them. The voters were flagged after the state checked its voter roll through a federal program called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, used to verify the citizenship of people registered to vote.

Adkins said the state is still working through the data and that she couldn’t yet say how many of the 2,724 people had provided proof of citizenship to DPS and should thus be reinstated if they were already removed from the voter roll. She characterized SAVE as having “some inaccurate information” but added that “most of the data that we got out of SAVE was consistent with what DPS had.” According to election officials, the secretary of state’s office said it plans in the coming days to send voter registrars additional information from DPS showing some of the flagged registered voters had in fact provided proof of citizenship to DPS while registering to vote or obtaining a driver’s license or state ID. There isn’t yet an exact number of how many U.S. citizens’ registrations were actually canceled or how many were canceled in total by counties after being flagged by SAVE, said Kristin Miles, the Bastrop County elections administrator and president of the Texas Association of County Election Officials. “Counties are following appropriate list maintenance procedures under Texas law, and will ensure eligible voters whose registrations were cancelled are reinstated, and that only U.S. citizens remain on the voter rolls,” Miles said in an emailed statement.

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'We'll keep pushing forward': Consumers and businesses brace for expanded Texas THC ban taking effect July 31

New restrictions on several synthetic THC products will take effect across Texas starting Friday, forcing retailers to pull many popular items from their shelves while customers scramble to make final purchases. The change comes after a Texas Supreme Court decision in May that ended a 2021 injunction preventing the Texas Department of State Health Services from enforcing its classification of various hemp-derived THC compounds as Schedule I controlled substances. "Now they rescheduled everything to a Schedule 1 so even if you possess it now it's going to be a crime,” said Jackie Walji, owner of Mellow Monkey in San Antonio. For smoke shops like Mellow Monkey, the impact will be immediate. Customers have been stopping by before Friday to purchase various products before they're banned.

"Most of what we have is going to be gone," said owner Jackie Walji. Walji said the list of prohibited products has expanded over time. "Originally, they said just take off the smokable THCA flower and concentrate. And then how they're saying THCP, Delta-8," Walji said. Delta-10 products are also among those affected by the new enforcement. Not every THC product is disappearing. Hemp-derived Delta-9 products containing no more than 0.3% THC remain legal under state and federal law, prompting retailers to stock up on those items ahead of the deadline. Walji says Mellow Monkey's broader inventory of smoking accessories will help soften the financial blow. "Since we're more of a smoke shop too we have pipes, papers, other things that people can get, so if this was my whole business, a good 95% of this is gone," Walji said.

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Texas approves AI data center co-location next to wind farm, with curtailment caveats

The Public Utility Commission of Texas last week approved a net metering arrangement for a 260-MW AI data center co-located with a wind farm of approximately the same capacity in a case that could serve as a template for other co-located loads in the Lone Star State. The data center is the second one planned for the site, and the developer had argued it should not be subject to the same curtailment requirements as the first because the total load of both – about 525 MW – exceeds the generation resource’s capacity of 265.5 MW. The commission rejected that argument. According to the July 23 order, the data center must be capable of curtailing its full load within 30 minutes during grid emergencies, with physical breaker disconnection if necessary. It is also barred from participating in paid demand response programs tied to the arrangement.

The proceeding represents one of the first major tests of Texas’ SB 6, which became law last year and established new rules for large loads in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ territory, including giving the grid operator the authority to disconnect data centers during grid emergencies. Rather than creating a project-specific exception, commissioners largely adopted ERCOT’s proposed reliability conditions. The order allows the co-location arrangement to move forward while establishing operating requirements for future behind-the-meter projects. Chris Talley, co-founder of GridTracker, wrote in a LinkedIn post following the decision that the order is not a “death blow” to co-location in ERCOT. “It just means that this architecture now essentially requires full backup capacity,” he said. In a follow-up message to Utility Dive, Talley clarified that by “full backup,” he meant resources capable of carrying the load off-grid for a meaningful period of time, rather than simply riding through a short interruption. He cautioned that this was an “untested assumption” and pointed to a pending co-location application from Amazon and Vistra to build a data center campus next to the Comanche Peak nuclear plant, southwest of Fort Worth, as a case to watch.

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San Antonio Mayor Jones warns of deeper cuts ahead as she defends her budget proposals

With San Antonio staring down a $158 million budget deficit, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones devoted much of a town hall Wednesday night to preparing residents for difficult financial decisions ahead — including defending her proposal to ask voters to end the city’s Ready to Work workforce development program early instead of raising property taxes. Speaking to dozens of District 1 residents at Edison High School, Jones argued the city should exhaust every available option before asking taxpayers to pay more, describing a financial outlook she said has worsened in recent weeks. “We’ve got a $158 million budget gap,” Jones said. “For context, if you closed every library, if you closed all of Animal Care Services, if you took all of the money in the general fund out regarding public health, you’d still have to go find another $20 million.”

Jones said after meeting with City Manager Erik Walsh earlier Wednesday, the proposed budget scheduled for release Aug. 13 is expected to include even deeper cuts than council members had previously anticipated, though she declined to identify which programs could face additional reductions before the proposal is unveiled. She added that the city’s next bond program — which funds major capital projects like streets, sidewalks, drainage improvements and parks — is now expected to be significantly smaller than originally projected because property values have not grown as anticipated. “This is how we get after those projects, drainage, in infrastructure projects, parks, etc. In the 2022 bond, we had a $1.2 billion dollar capacity,” she said. “This year, we were expecting ideally something similar, but based on where property values are, we were initially at $600 million. We will now be south of $600 million.” Jones said the combination of a shrinking bond program and widening budget deficit has forced city leaders to reconsider ideas that may have previously been politically untouchable.

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South Texas Builders Association calls for protection from targeted ICE raids

A few minutes after 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the crowd inside the Brookhaven Event Center was told to take their seats as the third community meeting of the South Texas Builders Association was set to commence. The crowd slowly filled into the seats on the left and right side of the stage, but a few dozen seats designated for local elected officials remained largely unoccupied. Following a performance by Mariachi Xochipilli and some local folklorico dancers, South Texas Builders Association CEO Mario Guerrero took to the stage and welcomed those in attendance to the meeting titled “Rally the Valley.”

He invited any local elected officials in attendance to sit in the middle section, joining U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, state Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston, and Texas District 41 Democratic and Republican candidates Julio Salinas and Gary Groves. “Where are our elected officials?” Guerrero asked. “We need to start making better choices as a community. We need to start really opening our eyes and seeing who really cares for us.” He applauded Groves for being in attendance, explaining that he did not expect any Republicans to attend the meeting. At one point both Groves and Salinas, who sat next to each other, shook hands and were met with applause from those in the crowd. “We are not Democratic and we are not Republicans here,” Guerrero continued. “We are builders. Once again, this is not a gathering of politics.” He explained that the purpose of the meeting was to focus on the needs and safety of the men and women who work in construction.

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Tarrant commissioners could slash polling location quantity for Nov. election

Tarrant County commissioners will decide on Tuesday whether to cut back on voting locations for the Nov. 3 general election. The Election Day locations could be cut nearly in half from 316 sites in the last midterm election to 176 this year. Early voting sites might go down from 50 in 2022 to 42 in 2026. In last November’s constitutional amendment election, the county downsized the number of polling locations, citing cost reductions and low turnout in odd year elections. The commissioners will consider the polling location quantity at their 10 a.m. meeting Tuesday in the county administration building, at 100 E. Weatherford St.

Brody Mulligan, who works on Tarrant County-area Democratic campaigns, raised concerns Thursday about the reduced number of voting sites. He said two of his clients — Kevin Burge, who is running in the 24th Congressional District, and Nathan Smith, a candidate for Tarrant County district clerk — would join Tarrant County Young Democrats in suing the county’s election department and commissioners if locations aren’t added. They are concerned about a lack of sites for Tarrant County College’s Northeast campus, UT-Arlington and areas with a high concentration of people, particularly in the southeast and southwest parts of the county, Mulligan said. He expects the midterm election to be of high interest and hopes to avoid litigation by reaching a “reasonable agreement” to restore sites, particularly on Election Day. “Our main concerns here is to alleviate confusion, to alleviate disenfranchisement,” Mulligan said. Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday evening.

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Denton City Council Member and former legislative staffer Jordan Villarreal resigning to focus on 'personal health'

Two months after he was elected, Denton City Council Member Jordan Villarreal announced Thursday that he will resign as the District 1 representative in an email to the mayor and city officials. In the July 30 email, Villarreal said he is planning to step down Sept. 1 and was providing notice so that the city could hold a special election that coincides with the general election in November. “At this time, I must step away from my duties to focus on my personal health,” Villarreal said in the email. “After careful consideration, I believe it is in the best interest of both my well-being and the continued effective representation of my constituents that I transition out of this role in an orderly manner.”

Kayla Herrod, the city’s interim director of marketing and communications, confirmed that the city had received Villarreal’s official resignation. Herrod said that the next step is for the council to hold a special-called meeting to fill Villarreal’s vacancy. Whenever a vacancy on the council occurs, the vacant seat is filled by a special election, held on the first authorized uniform election date following the vacancy, according to the city’s code of ordinances. “Those dates have not yet been confirmed,” Herrod said in an email on Thursday afternoon. Mayor Chris Watts has asked staff to schedule the special-called meeting for Aug. 5 to vote on acceptance of Villarreal’s resignation and to call the election in November to fill his seat. “I enjoyed serving with council member Villarreal albeit for a short time,” Watts said in a statement Thursday. “I support Jordan for doing what he feels is best for his well being. I know from personal experience how difficult that can be. I wish him good health moving forward.”

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Bucking Texas decline in vaccination, El Paso public schools record high immunization rates

Last school year, El Paso County kindergarteners had the highest vaccination rates among those in the 10 most populated Texas counties, according to an annual report by the state health department. As the United States faces the worst measles outbreak in more than a quarter century, vaccine exemption rates ticked up for Texas kindergarteners and their immunization coverage fell below 95% in all six school-required vaccines. Measles, a once-eliminated disease, has made a resurgence in recent years because of falling immunization rates. More than 95% of a community needs to be fully vaccinated against measles to achieve herd immunity.

El Paso bucked the state trend with both kindergarten and seventh-grade vaccination rates above 97% for all childhood vaccines. In comparison, Dallas reported kindergarten vaccination rates barely above 90% for measles and polio, and just above 89% for pertussis, also known as whooping cough. Immunization coverage improved for Dallas seventh graders, though measles vaccination remained below the herd immunity threshold. “I believe culture plays an important role in our community’s positive attitude toward vaccination, and that is reflected in the higher vaccination rates we see across the Borderland,” said Dr. Hector Ocaranza, El Paso city-county health authority. Ocaranza said the trust El Pasoans have in healthcare providers combined with strong partnerships with public health organizations helped maintain confidence in childhood immunizations.

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Crypto kiosks linked to $56.8M in losses for Texans, lawmakers examine scams

Texas reported more cryptocurrency kiosk-related losses than any other state in 2025, with Texans losing roughly $56.8 million, according to FBI data. On Thursday, Texas lawmakers met to discuss the effects of financial influences and illicit networks by foreign adversaries, with a focus on cryptocurrency kiosks. Cryptocurrency kiosks are ATM-like electronic devices that allow individuals to exchange cash and cryptocurrency, a digital form of currency. The kiosks have increasingly been used in scams in which criminals persuade victims to withdraw money from their bank accounts and deposit cash into a cryptocurrency kiosk. Across the U.S., the FBI received 10,956 cryptocurrency kiosk complaints in 2024, with reported losses of $246.7 million. In 2025, complaints increased to 13,460 and reported losses rose to nearly $389 million. In the span of one year, there was a 23% increase in complaints and a 58% increase in losses.

Texas accounted for 1,179 of those complaints in 2025, with reported losses totaling $56.8 million. The state’s losses were the highest reported by any state. The Texas Tribune estimates there are 4,000 kiosks across the state in gas stations and convenience stores. On Thursday, the Texas House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans’ Affairs met and heard invited testimony to discuss financial influences from foreign countries and their effect on Texans. Lawmakers quickly pointed to cryptocurrency-related activity. “In my career, I’ve never seen a more efficient, cleaner way to steal money,” said State Representative AJ Louderback, R- Victoria. Kelley Currie, a founding partner of a geopolitical advisory firm, Kilo Alpha Strategies, and a fellow of the Think Tank Atlantic Council, emphasized the magnitude of financial crimes across the globe. “Scamming is now treated by INTERPOL as an industry, a criminal industry in its own right, comparable to drug trafficking and human trafficking in terms of the size of organized crime revenue it generates,” Currie testified.

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Hegseth’s ‘gold standard’ college exam tests middle-school math

The college entrance exam that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth hailed as the nation's new "gold standard," promising to open doors at some of America's most elite institutions, is instead seeing its heaviest use as a remedial high-school graduation test. A USA TODAY investigation found that in Florida, the first state to broadly embrace the exam, the Classic Learning Test has become less a college admissions test than a graduation alternative for struggling students. School officials credit it with boosting graduation rates, while critics say it allows students to earn diplomas without demonstrating the skills – especially the math skills – Florida otherwise requires. Since 2023, high school students who couldn't pass the state's reading and Algebra graduation exams — or earn qualifying SAT or ACT scores — have instead used the newer CLT to receive a diploma. An analysis comparing the CLT, ACT and SAT math sections found the Classic Learning Test has a higher concentration of questions the researchers described as pre-algebra, or middle-school-level math.

If a student struggled with algebra or concepts beyond it, “I can conceive that they would have more success on the CLT because there's a higher proportion of items that come in everything before algebra," said Anna DeJarnette, a University of Cincinnati professor. She was one of five mathematics education experts who conducted the review. Yet two years after Florida started its experiment with the CLT, the nation's elite military academies and several state university systems have added it to their accepted college entrance exams. USA TODAY scoured school board minutes and found officials in at least nine Florida districts attributed a rise in graduation rates to the introduction of the CLT in 2023. At a May 2025 school board meeting, Christopher Bernier, superintendent of Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, told the board the CLT helped boost the district’s graduation rate by seven percentage points after its introduction in 2023. “We’re hopeful that CLT will remain,” he told the board, “because it has been a game changer for some of our kids, who can't seem to manufacture the ACT or SAT score.”

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County Stories

Leaders of new Fort Bend LULAC chapter say fatal ICE shooting in Houston accelerated its launch

Organizers with Fort Bend County's new chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, said the fatal ICE shooting of a Mexican immigrant in neighboring Harris County accelerated plans to establish the chapter, which is launching with a focus on advocacy and educational scholarships for Hispanic students. "We’re having to take action, be active, because this event has forced us to be active," LULAC Communications Director Chris Fernandez said. "And yes, it’s bittersweet. I feel that it’s something that’s big enough that it affects everyone." Fernandez said the new chapter of the nationwide Latino civil rights organization, Greater Fort Bend Area LULAC Council 22571, is organizing a public vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in August.

The 52-year-old father of three was shot and killed by an officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 7 in Houston. He had been living in the United States for decades without legal immigration status, according to his family. The ICE agents involved were not wearing body cameras, and the passengers in Salgado Araujo’s van at the time he was shot have disputed the federal agency’s claims that he tried to run over the officers. JoAnne Gonzales, the president of the new LULAC chapter, made statements on behalf of the chapter and its demands from ICE early in Wednesday’s meeting. "These demands center on use-of-force incidents," Gonzales said, "all the lethal shootings that have occurred and demands for evidence transparency, full transparency and a halt to further funding [ICE] until systemic reforms and constitutional compliances are met." While founding members, including elected officials and candidates from both political parties, attended the inaugural meeting at a Sugar Land Mexican restaurant on Wednesday, much of the discussion centered on expanding college opportunities and scholarships for the county's growing Hispanic student population.

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City Stories

Former 'Teen Mom' star Farrah Abraham files for Austin City Council

Former reality television star Farrah Abraham has filed to run for Austin City Council. Known for her time on MTV's "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom," Abraham filed Monday to run for the District 5 seat in the November election. Current council member Ryan Alter is running for reelection, and union electrician Elizabeth Brink has also filed paperwork to run for the seat. "Raising our voices for South Austin local businesses, safety, and community advocacy," Abraham posted to Facebook on Tuesday, adding, "Ready to represent South Austin residents, champion local shops, and advocate for every neighborhood."

Abraham got her start in 2009 on MTV's "16 and Pregnant," where she documented her journey and birth of her daughter. That same year, she continued her reality television career as an original cast member on "Teen Mom," a spin-off of "16 and Pregnant." She eventually left "Teen Mom" in 2018 during the show's seventh season after an apparent conflict with the show's executive producer. In 2019, she started Enigma Productions in Los Angeles, California. Her daughter is now a teenager.

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National Stories

Trump says he may pull Blanche AG nomination until Sens. Cornyn, Tillis leave office

President Trump says he is willing to pull Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general. The news comes as two key Republicans are withholding their support over concerns about the Justice Department's deal with President Trump to end his IRS lawsuit. Trump said Thursday he was willing to end the nomination, but he was by no means conciliatory in his tone, saying he would keep Blanche on as acting attorney general and renominate him later. In addition, Trump took aim at the two Republican senators withholding their support — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both of whose support Blanche would need to advance in his nomination in committee. "I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office," Trump wrote in a social media post.

Both Cornyn and Tillis are leaving Congress in January. Tillis announced his retirement last year, after publicly clashing with Trump over his massive tax-and-spending bill. Cornyn lost his primary this year to a Trump-backed challenger. In his post, Trump bragged that both senators' "political careers have been ended by my action." Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, has been a contentious pick to lead the Justice Department amid questions about his handling of the Epstein files, the targeting of Trump's political foes and the broader politicization of justice. Tillis and Cornyn this week voiced their opposition to Blanche over an agreement the Justice Department struck to end President Trump's IRS lawsuit over his leaked tax returns. The settlement included the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, which Cornyn and Tillis have vocally opposed for weeks. That fund would compensate people who alleged they were unfairly targeted by the government, meaning money could have gone to defendants charged with wrongdoing in the Jan. 6 riots.

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U.S. says Hamas has agreed to broad plan to disarm

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups agreed to a plan that, if followed, would see the groups disarm and lose power in the Gaza Strip as long as Israel withdraws from the enclave, U.S. officials said. The officials, speaking to reporters Thursday evening, said the agreement is the start of an indefinite, multiphase process to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza and rebuild the enclave. The officials acknowledged many challenges ahead, such as verifying the Palestinian groups’ compliance and ensuring that a skeptical Israeli government doesn’t scuttle any progress. The announcement is the culmination of months of diplomacy between the U.S., Israel, Hamas and Middle East mediators, as well as the Board of Peace created by President Trump to oversee Gaza’s transition. But it is only the first step in a pathway laden with political and military traps.

“What the agreement says matters. What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real,” Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s chairman, said in a social-media statement praising the agreement. Trump was far more optimistic in his own social-media post minutes before the briefing. “Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” the president wrote. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team, said the group agreed to place its weapons in a storage facility overseen by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a Palestinian-run technocratic group charged with the enclave’s political and security transition. “We didn’t say disarmament, we didn’t say handing over the weapons, and we didn’t agree on any Israeli involvement,” Hamad said, adding that the plan is contingent on Israel ending military operations in Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid in.

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Airports, nursing homes and schools brace for disruption without Haitian workers

The Department of Homeland Security alerted employers this week that it had officially ended humanitarian protections for 350,000 Haitian immigrants, triggering mass layoffs that threaten to disrupt summer travel and destabilize an array of essential institutions and industries up and down the East Coast and across the Midwest. Nursing homes terminated hundreds of workers, including nursing assistants, dietary aides and housekeepers, industry and union leaders said. At airports including those in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Boston, contractors terminated scores of Haitian workers, including janitors, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants, according to union leaders at Service Employees International Union 32BJ. At Florida schools, landscapers, bus drivers and other staff were fired. And in New York City, dozens of security guards were terminated only to be rehired because of confusion around their eligibility to continue working, union officials said.

The tumult comes about a month after the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration permission to cancel the humanitarian program, known as temporary protected status (TPS), potentially stripping permission to live and work in the United States from as many as 1.3 million immigrants from Haiti, Syria and a dozen other countries. The high court said the program for Haitians, one of the largest groups affected, could end on Monday. But attorneys for Haitian TPS holders said the protections should remain in effect until a lower court that had blocked the Trump administration from ending the program formally recognizes the Supreme Court decision. In response to a question about the status of TPS for Haitians, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement that “activist lower court judges are openly defying the Supreme Court on this, but the end result will be the same. Haitians with TPS cannot and will not be able to stay.” Earlier this week, DHS informed employers that it considered the “Haiti TPS designation … terminated, effective” immediately, and businesses have been laying workers off ever since.

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Anthropic said its AI models hacked into other companies’ systems during testing

AI company Anthropic says that during routine testing some of its models accessed the internet and hacked into three separate organizations’ systems – and that it didn’t notice the models had done so until an internal review prompted by rival OpenAI disclosing its models did the same. Anthropic said in an announcement on Thursday that it started a review of its own systems after OpenAI disclosed last week that during a cybersecurity test some of its models escaped their testing environment, accessed the open internet and hacked into AI platform Hugging Face’s systems. Anthropic said it found three instances where its AI models accessed the open internet when they were not supposed to and “gained unauthorized access to the production infrastructure of three different organizations.”

The company said it discovered the incidents while reviewing more than 140,000 evaluations following OpenAI’s disclosure. Like during OpenAI’s tests, normal safety guardrails were removed during Anthropic’s evaluations to assess their models’ full capabilities. Anthropic explained that in the three instances its models were given a fake “capture the flag” challenge, told that the “flag” was hidden on a different machine on the network and that its objective was to break in and retrieve it. Unlike OpenAI’s situation, Anthropic said none of its models deliberately attempted to escape their testing environments. Instead what happened was that the models were not supposed to have access to the open internet but that they were able to due to a misunderstanding between Anthropic and its evaluation partner, the company said in its statement. To break into the three unnamed organizations, the models used basic techniques like “exploiting weak passwords” and finding system points that do not require log ins or tokens, Anthropic said. The most advanced version of its models did at some point recognize it was on the open internet, and stopped itself from continuing, the company said.

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The MAGA media machine is fracturing

Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster, was racking up tens of millions of views on YouTube during Donald J. Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, posting about divisive cultural issues and criticizing Democrats. Things have changed. Views for Mr. Johnson’s YouTube channel are down by millions from the heights of 2024. The surge of attention he received on X has slowed to a trickle. His loyalty to Mr. Trump has become unappealing to some Republicans who are frustrated with the rising cost of living and the president’s decision to start a war with Iran. Other high-profile right-wing influencers are contending with similar shifts of fortune. Dan Bongino, a podcaster and a former deputy director of the F.B.I., has seen his livestream views shrink by about half from their peak in 2024.

Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News host, has found moments of explosive growth, yet that attention has been hard to sustain. The shifts add to a growing body of evidence that suggests the audience for pro-Trump content has fallen from its heights and, for some creators, has reached new lows. Views are dropping for many of Mr. Trump’s greatest allies, while some figures on the right who have taken to criticizing Mr. Trump are showing uneven gains. The shifts threaten to complicate messaging this year for Republican candidates, who have for years relied on a united front of content creators to rile up Republicans and guide them to the polls each election cycle. “The vote is in November, but the heart of the midterms is happening now,” said Ryan Broderick, the founder of Garbage Day, a newsletter about online culture and influence. “A lot of the propaganda that they’re pushing out just isn’t really connecting the way it would have even three or four years ago,” he added.

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Critics say historic sites are endangered by Trump-aligned panel’s plan

For decades, from the highway boom of the 1960s to the recent surge in construction of data centers, federal law has sought to protect America’s historic sites from destruction or disturbance as the push for industrial development complicated efforts to preserve the country’s past. At issue over the years have been burial sites dating back millenniums; earthen structures that have survived a thousand years in the desert; government buildings that evoke the early days of American democracy; and plantation houses that carry the painful history of slavery. Now, a Trump-aligned panel is proposing to overhaul the regulations in ways that would speed up the review of industrial projects by limiting the input of preservationists and the public.

The proposed rules received initial approval from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency, this month. If adopted, they would, according to proponents, boost the economy by, say, helping to ease the way for commercial projects such as oil and gas drilling. The changes would also, as preservationists note, aid President Trump’s efforts to redesign Washington, including his plans for the National Garden of American Heroes, by limiting public review. A draft of the rule changes that circulated in recent weeks prompted an outcry from preservationists, architects, archaeologists and organizations representing Native American tribes. Though officials have said the draft is still subject to feedback and revisions, lawyers for preservation groups are already preparing for legal action in the event of a major overhaul. “It’s both a scalpel and a bludgeon,” said Greg Werkheiser, a lawyer who specializes in preservation cases. “It cuts out whole swaths of what we are used to in terms of historical preservation over the past 60 years.”

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U.S. weighs $100,000 fee for foreign students wanting to work after graduation

The Trump administration is considering attaching a $100,000 price tag on international students’ ability to work in the U.S. after they graduate from an American university, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would make it much less attractive for foreigners to study in the U.S. If enacted, the fee would significantly advance President Trump’s efforts to restrict nearly all forms of legal immigration. It would particularly harm universities, which rely on recruiting international students as a reliable source of revenue, as well as top Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms, which disproportionately hire international college graduates to fill technical roles. The fee would be attached to a program called optional practical training, or OPT, which allows international university graduates to work for one to three years on their student visas.

There were roughly 419,000 foreigners working on OPT in 2024, the latest year that data are available. The move, in essence, accomplishes the goal originally set out by the administration’s $100,000 levy on H-1B visas for foreign professionals, which caused a panic in Silicon Valley last year. The government was blocked from collecting the H-1B fee by an appeals court in Boston last week. Though officials originally intended that fee to apply to all H-1B visas, widespread opposition from tech giants led the administration to narrow it to foreign recruits seeking to come to America. Broadly speaking, foreigners moving to the U.S. directly on H-1B visas tend to be recruited by IT and accounting firms, while the top companies in tech and finance generally prefer to recruit from top American universities and convert their employees from student visas to H-1Bs several years into employing them. In that way, the new fee on OPT would more directly target these firms. A DHS spokeswoman said in a statement: “No policies should be considered final until formally announced. At DHS we are always having conversations about how to use all tools in our arsenal to protect the integrity of our legal immigration system.”

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Ohio Haitians lose jobs, face terror — and impossible choices

With Ohio’s Haitian refugees losing their protected status Monday, Springfield’s large population has begun being terminated from their jobs, a pastor who works with the community said on Tuesday. Without legal status, their work permits become invalid. They also face being forced to return to a nation that the International Rescue Committee says is “in the grip of an overwhelming humanitarian crisis.” Right now, gangs control Haiti. Kidnapping, murder, and rape are rampant. And the pastor, Carl Ruby, said one Springfield 12-year-old faces having to return to a place where he saw animals feeding on murdered corpses when he was just five.

“They’re just terrified for their physical safety,” Ruby said during a virtual press conference. “Many of them have already been traumatized… Some of them have been in prison. Some of them have been tortured. Some have been beaten. Some had been raped. Nearly all of them have seen friends or family members killed.” And some of those families — those who have had children since coming to the United States — face an excruciating choice: whether to take their children with them into the violent chaos that is Haiti or leave them behind in a relatively peaceful, prosperous place where their children’s citizenship gives them the right to stay. More than 330,000 Haitians have received temporary-protected status since an earthquake devastated the impoverished Caribbean country in 2010. Once in the United States, their status has been renewed as conditions in Haiti continued to deteriorate. Early last year, Ohio’s then-Attorney General Dave Yost and 27 other Republican state AGs wrote a letter to the Trump administration stressing the word “temporary” in temporary protected status.

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Lead Stories

Nate Schatzline's role in Abbott's office unclear despite high salary

Gov. Greg Abbott’s new senior official advising on election integrity, Nate Schatzline, is among his highest paid employees, even as Schatzline’s duties remain a mystery. Schatzline, a former state lawmaker and consistent 2020 election denier, is making an annual salary of $275,000, according to payroll records. That puts him in the top 10 highest-paid governor's office staffers, and at a higher salary than Abbott himself. Abbott announced earlier this month the Fort Worth Republican would serve as his senior adviser for election integrity, but has yet to specify what his new role entails. Hiring documents reviewed by Hearst Newspapers make little mention of how Schatzline will be expected to help shape state elections policy. The two-page job description says the position is “responsible for providing policy and strategic direction related to legislative and electoral matters,” but doesn’t mention elections again in any of the 18 essential duties.

A spokesperson for Abbott's office did not answer questions about Schatzline's role or whether there were any other applicants for the job. “Governor Abbott appointed Nate Schatzline as Senior Advisor because of his proven conservative record fighting for election security,” said spokesman Andrew Mahaleris. “As the Governor stated: his experience in the Texas House will be a tremendous asset as we protect the voices of Texas voters.” The July 2 announcement of his hiring came just weeks before Secretary of State Jane Nelson stepped down ahead of the high-profile midterm elections, and as Republicans are pushing for stricter voting laws in next year’s legislative session. Schatzline has advocated for closing the state’s GOP primaries and denied the results of the 2020 presidential election. In his resume, he described himself as “a spiritual leader who has given his life to bringing Godly reformation to the Governmental realm.” He listed work experience as a pastor at a Fort Worth megachurch and as president of a nonprofit that mobilizes religious leaders to run for office.

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Why Republicans aren’t funding the Texas Senate race yet

In one of this year’s most competitive Senate races, Republicans are refusing to spend money — so far. That peculiar dynamic is playing out in Texas, where the fate of the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, will help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. But Mr. Paxton has struggled to raise cash, and no one has stepped in yet to help him. Mr. Paxton finds himself in a unique situation among Senate candidates, according to interviews with a dozen Republicans with ties to his campaign. Republican donors still hold grudges from a bruising primary. The state, with its 18-plus television markets, is an epically expensive setting. And his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, has proved to be a particularly strong fund-raiser.

Perhaps the most striking piece of Mr. Paxton’s money woes is the high-stakes game of chicken that two of the Republican Party’s biggest money committees, along with their allied donors, are playing. Both of those groups, the Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc., are not so secretly hoping that the other one swoops in to boost Mr. Paxton with tens of millions in spending, the Republicans said. Neither group has reached for its wallet yet. “Somebody is going to have to spend big money,” said Dan Eberhart, an oil executive who is raising contributions for Mr. Paxton. “We’ll see who blinks.” In the primary, Mr. Paxton defeated Senator John Cornyn, a favorite of many of the country’s and state’s largest donors. The Republican nominee still lacks enthusiasm from these contributors, who financed ads in the primary repeatedly calling him a criminal and a womanizer. Their opinions largely haven’t changed, especially with the continuing drumbeat of revelations of Mr. Paxton’s world travels with his girlfriend, the Republicans said. Mr. Paxton is not getting help from Washington, either. National Republican groups are slated to spend tens of millions of dollars this summer and fall in every other top-tier Senate race, including in some states that prominent handicappers think are not as competitive as Texas. They even plan to spend more in noncompetitive Kansas. In most states, Republicans are expected to outspend Democrats — for instance in Ohio, where the G.O.P. commitment totals over $100 million.

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With Cornyn holding up nomination, Todd Blanche won’t get Thursday vote in Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee has abandoned plans to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general Thursday, a significant speed bump that will make it difficult for Republicans to confirm him before the chamber begins its August recess next week. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) held firm Wednesday in his demand that Blanche revise a controversial settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS. Cornyn, who was defeated for renomination earlier this year by a Trump-backed primary challenger, was explicit on the legal language he needed from Blanche — even providing the Justice Department with a revision to the agreement that would address his concerns — but an agreement could not be reached in time to have the Thursday morning vote.

“We actually sent them a red-line strikeout of what we need, and they just need to make a decision,” Cornyn said earlier Wednesday, adding that he was “trying to make it easy for them.” Just one GOP “no” vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee would effectively sink Blanche’s nomination. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the panel with concerns about the settlement, said he would follow Cornyn’s lead. Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), along with Tillis, met late afternoon in Cornyn’s office to hammer out the issues on Blanche, but with no resolution. “We made it clear that we need the language to move forward with the markup,” Tillis said of the meeting. The vote could still be rescheduled if Cornyn and Tillis are satisfied, though it might not happen in time to get Blanche across the floor before the recess begins at the end of next week. A DOJ official granted anonymity to describe the negotiations said the department sent “new language” to the two senators and remains “in discussion” with them.

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American oil majors trying to get into Venezuela have hit a wall

Seven months after the U.S. deposed strongman Nicolás Maduro, Big Oil has yet to make any big moves in Venezuela. ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other major oil companies are fighting for a small number of the country’s most attractive drilling spots, but some of the talks with Venezuelan leaders recently hit an impasse, according to people familiar with the negotiations. President Trump and his lieutenants had high hopes that big U.S. oil companies would quickly sign investment deals to kick-start production in Venezuela, home to some of the world’s largest reserves. They see the country’s rising oil exports as a boon to U.S. supplies while Iran hobbles shipping lanes in the Middle East that typically carry 20% of the world’s oil and gas.

The administration is also putting pressure on interim President Delcy Rodriguez to boost Venezuela’s production quickly—before the end of Trump’s second term. Among the issues that have handicapped any big deals: Major U.S. oil producers are interested in many of the same prized assets, including fields in eastern Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt and the northeastern state of Monagas—and they want to secure the most favorable fiscal and regulatory terms possible. The devastating earthquake that shook the country last month also slowed the progress. “Few of them are really jumping into the water,” said José Ignacio Hernández, a law professor and consultant at advisory firm Aurora Macro Strategies. “It’s like when you’re trying to sell your house. You have a very successful open house with 100 people attending, but then nobody calls.” The negotiations are largely being led by state-run Petróleos de Venezuela, which is holding separate meetings with companies and making private offerings. Some of the American companies, which are more accustomed to public bidding processes, have requested U.S. officials intervene. So far, the administration has let the process play out without choosing any winners.

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State Stories

Gov. Abbott suggests lowering health insurance costs by nixing state mandates

Gov. Greg Abbott raised the curtain on the third part of his plan to lower insurance costs for Texans. This section focuses on health insurance costs for small businesses and their employees. In conversations with small business owners, Abbott said, he heard time and time again that the employers were having trouble providing health insurance to their workers due to rising premiums. According to the Texas Association of Health Plans, insurance premiums for small businesses in Texas are jumping 15-20% in 2026 — 36-82% above the national average. As a result, only about 38% of the small businesses can afford to offer healthcare coverage to their employees.

Because Texas is one of the most heavily mandated states in the country, the state is one of most expensive for healthcare, says the Texas Association of Health Plans. Texas’ regulations mean health insurance policies in the state exceed what is required by the Affordable Care Act and federal regulations. Abbott is suggesting to nix dozens of those mandates, equating to less coverage for Texans but at a more affordable price for the small businesses they work for. He said at a press conference in Fort Worth on Wednesday that the health insurance policies offered would still cover the necessities. In conversation with local entrepreneurs, Abbott heard from Vicki Cisneros, owner of the Stockyards’s staple Tex-Mex restaurant Los Vaqueros. She told him about 90% of their employees had insurance “not too long ago,” but today, only about 10% have insurance because of the rising cost.

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Texas virtual schools expand as new law opens online opportunities

Several North Texas school districts are launching virtual schools this fall, giving leaders another way to stay competitive at a time when enrollments are dropping statewide, and creating more options for students who want to go to school without actually going to school. Last year, lawmakers loosened the state’s rules around virtual schools, making it easier for school districts to build course programs that are partially or entirely online. Following the change, several North Texas school districts, including Frisco ISD, Arlington ISD and Grand Prairie ISD, are launching virtual school programs with the beginning of the upcoming school year. District leaders say those programs give them more flexibility to meet their students’ needs, and another tool to prop up their enrollments at a time when the number of students in public schools across the state is shrinking.

Last year, Texas lawmakers passed a bill overhauling the state’s framework for virtual schools. Senate Bill 569 makes it easier for public school districts and charter schools to offer individual courses or entire programs online. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, the bill’s author, said it’s intended to replace "a patchwork of outdated virtual learning laws with a clear structure." Among other changes, the bill allows school districts to count students in their virtual and hybrid programs toward their average daily attendance, meaning they receive state funding for those students at the same rate as for in-person students. That provision in the bill was critical in getting Grand Prairie ISD’s new virtual program off the ground, said Felicia Layne, chancellor of the district’s Grand Prairie Collegiate Institute. The new program, called Grand Prairie Collegiate Institute: NEXT, launches this fall. District leaders had discussed the possibility of launching a virtual school for years, Layne said. After schools reopened during the pandemic, some of the district’s students transferred to virtual programs, she said. So district leaders got to work building a virtual program that would allow Grand Prairie ISD students to take some or all of their classes online. The idea was to give students and their families another option for their education and, in doing so, avoid losing those students to other school systems, she said. The district has lost about 3,600 since 2019, and while virtual schools aren’t the only factor driving that decline, Layne said the program is part of a larger strategy geared toward keeping students in the district.

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Flock cameras expand across Bexar County as privacy concerns grow

Automated license-plate readers are spreading across Bexar County, giving police a powerful investigative tool while prompting concerns about mass surveillance, civil rights and documented misuse. Flock Safety cameras record license plates, vehicle descriptions, locations and times. Police use the searchable database to locate stolen vehicles, missing people and vehicles connected to crimes. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office operates 33 cameras. Its public dashboard recently showed more than 750,000 vehicle detections during a 30-day period. Flock cameras are also used by area municipalities and homeowners’ associations. Live Oak has credited the technology with arrests in 16 stolen-vehicle cases, while New Braunfels reported 19 arrests.

But Savannah Kumar, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas, told TPR’s The Source that the cameras collect information about everyone, not only suspects. “They’re actually recording the license plate and all of this other accompanying information of every car that’s passing by, logging the movements of every driver regardless of whether they’ve done anything wrong,” Kumar said. Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, said misuse is a foreseeable consequence of allowing officers to search the system without judicial supervision. “We’ve found tons of cases of law enforcement officers using these databases to stalk past and potential romantic partners all across the country,” Soyfer said. “They don’t have to go to a judge. They don’t have to prove probable cause.” A Pasadena, Texas, officer resigned after being accused of using the system to monitor a female colleague. In Johnson County, a deputy used the nationwide network while searching for a woman whose family reported her missing after she had self-administered an abortion.

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Texas Capital CEO blasts proxy advisers, vows to renew 'Dexit' push

Texas Capital CEO Rob Holmes intends to renew a campaign to move the company's legal home from Delaware to Texas after shareholders rejected such a proposal earlier this year and has blasted proxy advisory firms that came out against the change for having "too much power." The bank, which is based in Uptown Dallas, asked shareholders to vote on a proposal to "redomicile" in Texas at its annual meeting in April. The move failed to win shareholder approval, with about 45% of votes cast in favor and 55% opposed, according to a regulatory filing. Shareholders cast 18.2 million votes supporting the redomicile and 22 million against it, preventing the company from completing the move to Texas. Proxy advisory firms influenced many investors to oppose the move, Holmes said during a July 23 conference call with analysts to discuss the company's second-quarter financial results.

"I think we would have gotten the vote, had our shareholder base been more retail as opposed to institutional where they listen to irresponsible, uninformed proxy advisers," he said. "And I'll go on the record and say it ... it's a problem, and they have too much power. So we'll do it again, and we look forward to continuing educating our shareholder base, and we look forward to becoming incorporated in the great state of Texas." At the center of the redomiciling debate are the two largest proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis & Co. Large institutional investors such as BlackRock Inc., T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP — all shareholders of Texas Capital Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq: TCBI) — often align their votes with the recommendations issued by those firms. Texas Capital's push for reincorporating from Delaware to Texas comes amid a recent influx of reincorporations by other companies including ExxonMobil Holdings Corp., Dell Technologies and Tesla, a trend referred to as "Dexit." The legal domicile of a business is important because it determines tax obligations and legal jurisdiction, among other things. Delaware has long been the country's top destination for incorporation but that has been changing amid growing frustration among corporate leaders with its courts.

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Miguel Solis: Tom Luce’s odyssey made Texas better

(Miguel Solis is president of The Commit Partnership, and formerly president of the Dallas ISD board of trustees.) Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey has rekindled interest in one of literature’s greatest stories. Caught up in that renewed interest, I'd been rereading Homer's epic. Then I learned that Tom Luce, the noted Texas attorney and public servant, had passed away. I've since been reflecting on Tom's 86-year journey and its epic impact on those of us who were lucky enough to join him in it. Since his passing, many tributes have celebrated Tom's Odyssey-like life, one that moved from chapter to chapter of Texas history the way Odysseus moved from island to island. They should. Few Texans have shaped our state as profoundly. He helped transform public education; advised local, state and federal officials including presidents; stood beside Ross Perot during defining moments including freeing two Electronic Data Systems employees imprisoned in Iran; helped shepherd a 13th century copy of the Magna Carta across the Atlantic; built institutions still shaping education, mental health, biotechnology, workforce development and public policy, and that's just the beginning. Like Odysseus, he had a story for nearly every shore.

I had the privilege of knowing Tom for more than a decade. Our first meeting came out of the blue: He invited me to discuss challenges facing Texas school districts, the first of many such invitations over the years. His questions were thoughtful and pointed, hinting at a bigger vision for state education policy that would position students, and Texas, for success. I'd later come to realize what he was doing: plotting the creation of Texas 2036, a non-partisan policy think tank that has helped shape Texas education for nearly a decade. As the invitations grew, I realized this instinct to build things that would outlast him showed up everywhere. I'd eventually learn where that instinct came from. Raised by a single mother doing her best under difficult circumstances, Tom never embraced the mythology of the self-made man. He spoke often about the teachers, mentors and civic leaders who believed in him early, and the impact this had on his life. I'm sure he also thought often about the kids who never got that same break, whose potential went unclaimed simply because no one showed up in time, and how easily an entire life could tip the other way. Rather than simply expressing gratitude, Tom repaid that debt through a dogged pursuit of better systems, and through conversations, quiet investment and coalition building aimed at solving the systemic issues holding Texans back. My colleague Todd Williams, CEO of Commit and a frequent collaborator of Tom's, described him as “relentlessly committed to systemically making Texas a better place.” His expansive interests were all connected by one question that animated the second half of his life: How can our state remain a place where every child has greater opportunities than the generation before them?

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Rush Enterprises ends profit slide as demand improves

Rush Enterprises Inc. broke a three-year streak of falling profit while reporting signs of further improvement on the horizon. Among those signs: Demand for aftermarket parts and service is gradually improving as fleets are driving more miles, and repair activity is starting to pick back up as customers resume spending on vehicle maintenance. “While the recovery remains in early stages, improving freight rates and customer confidence, increased quoting activity and significantly stronger new truck order intake all contributed to better business conditions as the quarter progressed,” CEO and President W.M. “Rusty” Rush said during a Wednesday morning call with investors. “We feel good about the second half of the year.”

On the sales front, the New Braunfels-based commercial truck company is faring better than the market as a whole, which saw a decline in the quarter. Rush’s sales remained relatively flat compared with the second quarter of 2025, with 3,172 Class 8 trucks sold in the U.S. Rush said the company’s diversified business model has been key to navigating the turbulence of the last 16 months. There have been more variables, including tariffs and technology changes, “than I’ve seen” before, he said. The company is doubling down on that diversification strategy by getting into the refrigerated transport business and expanding geographically. Rush entered into a 50-50 joint venture with MCT Cos., a commercial-transport refrigeration business, last week. The move will help establish the New Braunfels company’s presence in the refrigerated transportation market, which the CEO said complements its core dealership operations. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

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Joe Rogan warns liberals against trying to turn Texas blue, says it would wreck the state's 'delicate balance'

Podcaster Joe Rogan warned liberals Tuesday that moving to Texas and turning the state blue would ruin the delicate balance for everybody, including liberal Texans. "The liberals that want to turn Texas blue, like, don't. You're going to ruin it," he said. Rogan, a former Californian, has spoken out numerous times about his choice to leave California over its far-left policies, particularly those from the COVID-19 pandemic years. Rogan lamented that many "coastal elites" and "coastal snobs" often "have this idea of it being filled with rednecks and ignorant people and foolish people. It's not that way at all. Especially Austin. Austin is like one of the most, like, liberal, easygoing, progressive cities, but even the progressives here, they’re like, more reasonable."

He specified that liberal Texans, while they shifted somewhat leftward in recent years, are nowhere near the same far-left positions as those of Los Angeles or New York. "There’s this saying about Austin: ‘Keep Austin Weird … and surrounded,’" Rogan said. "And surrounded? What is the ‘and surrounded?’" guest Forrest Galante asked. "Surrounded by red people. Like it’s all red states around you, and it’s this pocket of blue that’s in the center of this red state," Rogan said. "I think that's good for everybody. I think that's good. It's a balance." Rogan warned against liberals fleeing blue states only to vote for the same left-wing policies. He compared the state’s delicate political balance to that of an ecosystem. "You're going to ruin it," he warned. "You're going to ruin it for you too. You don't get it. Balance is important. … You can't kill all the predators because then the deer get overrun, and you're hitting them with cars. And you can't kill all the deer because then there's no food. That's what they did when they were market hunting. Balance. And you need balance with humans, too.

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Bee Moorhead: A call to end ICE violence on behalf of Texas faith communities

(Bee Moorhead is executive director of Texas Impact.) As Texans of faith and conscience, we affirm the belief—widely shared and deeply held across the world and throughout history—that all people, regardless of country of origin, are members of the family of God, and that we are called to welcome the stranger. While recognizing the need to maintain our national borders, we oppose policies that dehumanize, criminalize, or endanger our immigrant neighbors. We hold that public policy must protect human life and human dignity, especially the lives of the most vulnerable among us. We call for restoration of trust and an end to enforcement that terrorizes communities. We call on our leaders to reject enforcement practices that treat entire neighborhoods as targets and that make our immigrant neighbors afraid to drive to work, report a crime, or seek help.

We renew our long-standing call for just, humane, and comprehensive immigration reform that keeps families together and honors the dignity of every person. We acknowledge that immigration policy and policy enforcement are under the purview of the federal government. We also assert that state officials can impact federal policy in two ways: first, by intervening with federal officials on behalf of their communities, and second, by shaping incrementally how federal policies are carried out in their state. We believe change is needed at the federal level, and that Texas officials can help. We call on federal authorities to make the following reforms to ICE enforcement operations: Clear, enforced limits on the use of lethal force, and an end to vehicle-based enforcement tactics that predictably escalate to deadly outcomes; An immediate review and restriction of the use of unmarked vehicles and plainclothes agents in routine enforcement stops, which sow confusion and fear and make peaceful compliance nearly impossible; A binding requirement that federal immigration agents wear activated body cameras and visible identification during all enforcement operations; Prompt and humane notification of families when a loved one is injured, detained, or killed, so that no family again learns of a death through social media; Independent oversight of ICE operations and real accountability when agents violate policy or the law.

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Gov. Abbott reappoints all 10 Texas Business Court judges to new terms

Governor Greg Abbott reappointed all 10 Texas Business Court judges to new two-year terms Wednesday. The terms will begin on Sept. 1, the judges' second since the court was created in the 2023 legislative session. “Businesses choose Texas in record numbers because Texas delivers results,” said Abbott in a release. “The Texas Business Court has resolved complex commercial disputes with unmatched speed and expertise. Hundreds of cases already filed and scores resolved prove these judges fuel Texas’ status as the economic engine of America. I have reappointed these skilled judges to protect that success and to ensure that Texas’ business jurisprudence is on steady ground for years to come.”

The Texas Business Court specializes in complex corporate litigation that normal district courts may not have the time or expertise to deal with effectively, and it is currently made up of five divisions each helmed by two experienced jurists. Unlike state district court judges, who are elected, business court judges are appointed by the governor. The inaugural 10 judges were sworn in in September of 2024, and in their first year on the bench, the Texas Business Court saw more than 180 cases filed. The judges are: Andrea K. Bouressa, Bill Whitehill, Melissa Davis Andrews, Patrick K. Sweeten, Marialyn Barnard, Stacy Sharp, Jerry D. Bullard, Brian Stagner, Sofia Adrogué, and Grant Dorfman.

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Texas law shields San Antonio-area data center water usage from public records requests

As data centers rapidly expand across South Texas, KSAT Investigates learned the public cannot find out how much water San Antonio-area data centers are using because of a Texas law that its author says is being interpreted far more broadly than intended. Water is used to cool and produce power used by data centers. Data centers could potentially account for 3% to 9% of Texas’ water use by 2040, according to a report from University of Texas at Austin researchers. A 39-acre plot of land in Cibolo is expected to become home to a new data center. Legacy Investing plans to build a 243,000-square-foot facility on the property, according to the San Antonio Business Journal.

To better understand how much water existing data centers are using, KSAT Investigates filed a public information request with the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) seeking water usage records for 36 data centers in Bexar County over the past three years. SAWS said they could not release data from after the implementation of smart water meters, which would start around 2023, because of a provision in Texas law. That provision is the result of a six-year-old law written by Texas State Representative Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, which he said was meant to protect individuals and families’ water usage data from payday lenders — not corporations or companies. “Data centers are doing tremendous damage to Texas, to our water supply, to air quality,” said Bernal. “We need to know as much as we possibly can.”

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Ken Paxton investigates RGV hospitals over 'birth tourism' claims

Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that his office will investigate two South Texas hospitals for “potentially unlawful birth tourism schemes,” escalating state Republicans’ latest effort to crack down on immigration. The hospitals, Mission Regional Medical Center and Knapp Medical Center, came under fire after photos of Spanish-language billboards advertising their childbirth services, including the email “havemybabyinTEXAS.com,” went viral on social media. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to investigate the claims, and the agency asked Paxton to investigate the South Texas Hospitals earlier this month.

“My office will investigate any suspected illegal birth tourism schemes in Texas, including the operations of two South Texas hospitals that appeared to advertise birth tourism on a billboard near the border,” Paxton said in a release. “My office will continue to hold accountable any entity that knowingly facilitates fraud in our state.” Texas Republicans have ramped up their fight against foreigners coming to the U.S. to give birth since the Supreme Court issued a ruling that protected birthright citizenship. Paxton sued Houston-area center De’Ai Postpartum Care Center in April for allegedly encouraging Chinese nationals to come to Texas to have children, and the state GOP adopted language supporting a ban on commercial surrogacy for foreign nationals in June. It’s not illegal for foreigners to give birth in the U.S., but critics have accused the centers of engaging in visa fraud by facilitating travel for that express purpose. Estimates suggest the practice does occur, but is rare and affects about 10,000 to 26,000 children a year. Some experts note that pregnant foreign nationals may come to the U.S. for higher-quality medical care, not expressly to access citizenship for their children.

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National Stories

Government report to show how US economy performed amid Iran war

A government report on Thursday will show whether the United States economy held sturdy as an inflation surge took hold over the early months of the Iran war. The fresh data is set to provide gross domestic product (GDP) over three months ending in June, a period that followed a historic global oil shock. The national average price for a gallon of gasoline soared to a price as high as $4.56 a gallon in May, AAA data showed, before easing somewhat after a preliminary peace agreement last month. Annual inflation has climbed to 3.5%, putting it more than percentage point higher than the Federal Reserve's target rate of 2%. Still, hiring has proven more resilient than many economists feared, despite elevated costs for businesses and shoppers.

Economists expect GDP to have grown at an annualized pace of 1.8% in the second quarter, which would mark a slight slowdown from 2.1% growth in the previous three-month period. Still, the anticipated figure would amount to better performance than 0.5% annualized GDP recorded over final three months of 2025. In recent quarters, a burst of investment in artificial intelligence has accounted for a large share of the nation's economic growth. A surge of AI spending accounted for roughly two-thirds of gross domestic product growth over the first half of 2025, JPMorgan Asset Management found, outpacing the contribution made by hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers. Many of the nation's largest companies have poured funds into the chips and data centers necessary to operate AI. Observers will likely pay close attention to whether that trend held steady in the data to be released on Thursday.

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FIFA plan for Kushner-backed $20 billion operation to run World Cup meets fury from Europe’s UEFA

FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s plan to create a $20 billion company running the World Cup with private investors, including the Kushner family, was announced Tuesday — and immediately attacked by European soccer body UEFA. “It is not FIFA’s to sell,” UEFA said in a statement. “None of us are the owners of football.” Infantino’s plans to form a commercial subsidiary, which would be called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), running competitions like the World Cup and Club World Cup was first reported by The Times of London. FIFA said in a statement FFE would raise up to $4.2 billion later this year to help fund development programs “based on an initial equity valuation of $20 billion by carefully selecting long-term investors who will purchase minority, non-controlling interests.”

FIFA is working with J.P. Morgan while intended investors include Thrive Eternal launched by Joshua Kushner, whose brother Jared Kushner is a son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump. The men’s World Cup that finished this month only deepened the political and personal ties between Trump and Infantino, and fueled concerns about those ties, including from UEFA. “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially,” UEFA said Tuesday, responding to the reports of selling stakes in FIFA competitions. FIFA is currently a Swiss-based not-for-profit association of its 211 national member federations worldwide. Those members must approve any plan and would get the chance “to access up to $20 million in one-off capital,” FIFA said.

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Democrats fear viral DSA interview on Fox News will leave a scar

Democrats are worried that widely circulated comments from a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) leader outlining the group’s priorities could become Republican attack fodder as the midterm elections draw closer. The unease from moderate Democrats intensified after Megan Romer, DSA co-chair, was asked a lightning round of questions on Sunday during a Fox News interview about the organization’s platform, answering true to several proposals, including abolishing the Senate and — as a long-term goal — prisons. The moment has also circulated widely online and has been played up on other cable news networks. Democrats say the interview could not have come at a worse time.

They fear Republicans will seize on Romer’s comments in campaign ads, much as President Trump’s 2024 campaign repeatedly highlighted then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s past support for taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners. The ad — which concluded “Kamala Harris is for they/them, President Trump is for you” — was devastating to Democrats at the time. Now, on the heels of a string of primary victories by DSA candidates in states including New York and Colorado, some Democrats worry that it will have an impact on Democrats across the board. “You now have to argue to voters that you aren’t insane when you want to talk about making groceries cheaper,” said Democratic strategist Steve Schale. “It’s all just off message,” Schale said, adding that Democrats in competitive races will now “have to spend time and research dollars learning how it impacts the race, then you may have to spend limited campaign resources pushing back on the idea that you want to eliminate the presidency or close prisons when you need to be talking about how to make life more affordable.”

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Redacted Fauci diary entries depict him personally helping Katie Miller

Former White House official and conservative influencer Katie Miller heralded the release of Anthony Fauci’s diaries as a bombshell discovery that outed him as a calculating attention-seeker. “The most disturbing part of Fauci’s diary — is what he decided to memorialize versus what he kept out of his diary,” she wrote in a post on X on Monday. “It’s almost like he knew this diary would one day become public. He wanted to cast himself as the hero, as famous, as the savior.” Katie Miller, who is married to Trump adviser and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, has called for Fauci to be jailed. She derided Fauci’s appearance in front of the Senate Wednesday, questioning why he repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment. And she’s said he caused “decades of harm” to children as a leader of the federal government’s COVID-19 response.

Since-redacted excerpts from Fauci’s diary indicate his relationship with Katie Miller was not always this way. In entries dated to 2020, Fauci’s diary suggests he had a close relationship with Katie Miller, who was Vice President Mike Pence’s communications director at the time and heavily involved in the White House’s COVID-19 response. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a longtime critic of Fauci’s, published more than 1,000 pages of the infectious disease doctor’s diary Saturday. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News that he handed the entries over to Senate Republicans after finding them on government servers. Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases who served as the face of the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response, writes about providing medical advice to Katie and Stephen Miller. He writes that he counseled the family after Katie Miller tested positive for COVID-19 while pregnant in 2020, when Stephen Miller tested positive and when their newborn child experienced a medical episode later that year.

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Trump’s support for Graham’s sister stirs GOP backlash in South Carolina

President Donald Trump has put his weight behind Sen. Darline Graham in her bid to succeed her late brother, Lindsey Graham, for a full term. But rather than embracing the president’s endorsed candidate in a whirlwind election less than two weeks away, influential conservative activists in South Carolina say they’re not swayed. Trump’s conservative base could again reject one of his chosen candidates this year — as they did in South Carolina’s GOP gubernatorial primary in June — as his supporters question whether the president is acting with their top priorities in mind. “People are going to be independently minded in this, and I don’t think that Trump is the end all, be all that he used to be,” said CJ Westfall, chairman of the Dorchester County Republican Party.

Many conservative activists say they aren’t sold on Graham because of her lack of a political record, besides her public support for her brother. Trump initially appointed Graham to serve the remaining six months of her brother’s term, then quickly backed her after she unexpectedly decided to seek a full term. A dozen GOP candidates filed to run in the Aug. 11 primary election before this week’s deadline. They include U.S. Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who have conservative voting records in Congress, and former governor Mark Sanford. The crowded special election is expected to go to an Aug. 25 runoff. And runoff elections, Westfall said, “typically bring out the hard core of the hard core.” Even national Republican operatives sympathetic to Darline Graham, and who were aligned with her brother, are privately conceding that her odds of success in the primary race appear slim. In interviews, more than a dozen South Carolina Republican operatives and activists described three issues working against Graham: She had never held office and is little-known across the state, despite her brother’s high profile.

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Establishment fails to stop rise of democratic socialist in Wisconsin

A democratic socialist is surging in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary race for governor, and establishment figures are showing no signs of stopping her. Polling this week shows that state Rep. Francesca Hong is well-positioned to win the five-way primary on Aug. 11. She had 38 percent of the vote in a survey of likely voters released Wednesday by Marquette University Law School. Behind her were former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes with 16 percent and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley with 7 percent. Two other candidates — state Sen. Kelda Roys and former state administration secretary Joel Brennan — trailed with 2 percent each. More than a third of those polled were undecided.

Hong also led in a State Navigate poll released Tuesday that showed her with support from 44 percent of likely voters. Crowley had 15 percent, Barnes 14 percent and the other two in the low single digits. Thirteen percent of likely voters were undecided. Democratic socialists have performed well this year in solidly Democratic urban areas, and they hope to expand their reach into swing states that President Donald Trump has won. Hong offers a test case of how progressives can fare in such places, as does Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for Senate in Michigan’s Aug. 4 Democratic primary on a left-wing platform. Establishment Democrats worry that Hong can’t win the general election, but they have not coalesced around a single alternative to try to truncate her rise. The polling shows those challenges would continue even if they did rally behind someone. In the only televised debate of the primary campaign Tuesday, Hong’s opponents took a hands-off approach. None of them used the debate to criticize her, even when moderators left them openings by asking Hong about her past calls to abolish the police. The winner of the Democratic primary contest is expected to face U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who has a nominal opponent in the Republican primary race.

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Lead Stories

Financial woes weigh on Texas school bond ratings

As Texas public schools gear up for the coming school year, some are facing financial pressures that have led to negative underlying rating actions, while competition for students could heat up with the advent of state-funded private and home school vouchers. A legal battle over a state funding system aimed at addressing inequities between districts with high property values and those with low values is brewing as well. Fitch Ratings reported last week that about 26% of public schools it rates in Texas had their outlooks revised or their underlying ratings downgraded, including some by multiple notches, since January 2025 due largely to deteriorating financial profiles.

"Weaker finances are driven by enrollment pressures and limited and infrequent increases in the state's basic allotment to school districts that has often failed to keep pace with rising labor, benefits, and other operating costs," the rating agency said in a report. "This has resulted in narrowing or negative operating margins and lower reserves. Even districts with a longstanding strong fiscal track record are reporting weaker-than-expected results." Last year, state lawmakers boosted funding by $8.5 billion, including raising the $6,160 per student basic allotment in place since 2019 by $55 per student — a less-than-1% increase seen as inadequate given the surge in inflation over that time period. The Republican-controlled legislature also created a $1 billion Texas Education Freedom Account program that launches with the 2026-27 school year. Nearly 106,660 students received accounts out of more than 274,000 applicants. Gov. Greg Abbott and legislative leaders have alluded to increasing funding for the program in Texas' next biennial budget.

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Floodwaters from devastating Texas storms help delay Corpus Christi water emergency

The same floodwaters that caused widespread devastation across parts of Central and South Texas are providing unexpected relief for Corpus Christi’s strained water supply. Water flowing down the Frio and Nueces rivers is replenishing Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi, prompting city officials to push the projected start of a Level 1 water emergency from September 2027 to September 2028. “The rains have been beneficial to our reservoir levels, to our water supply, and it’s pushing off what we have talked about for well over a year, which is this Level 1 water emergency until September 2028,” Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni told KSAT.

He added that the city recognizes the devastating toll the flooding has taken on communities upstream. “We have sympathy for those regions that were impacted by the floods,” Zanoni added. “We know that persons were in harm’s way, property was, whole communities were. We sympathize with that, and we’re thinking of those individuals in those communities. Just weeks ago, city leaders warned that a Level 1 water emergency could begin as early as September 2027. Earlier forecasts this spring projected the emergency could arrive even sooner, in December 2025, before seasonal rainfall improved reservoir conditions. A Level 1 water emergency is triggered when water supply projections show the city will have only about 180 days of water remaining to meet demand under Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) guidelines.

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ICE arrests surge at airports, opening new front in deportation drive

The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration lawyers — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation. Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks. Some of the arrests have occurred quietly, while others have happened as angry fellow passengers filmed the encounters. The recent arrests appear to be an expansion of an arrangement between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Times reported in December that ICE officers were arresting people with deportation orders at airports with the help of information provided by airlines to the T.S.A.

Now, through a review of Homeland Security Department documents and interviews with lawyers for more than 25 people from more than a dozen countries recently detained at airports, The Times has learned that the program apparently now includes people with expired visas — a much larger group. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and visitors overstay visas each year. Many with expired visas occupy a legal gray area, as they are awaiting visa extensions or green cards and have been issued work permits. Such individuals were not prioritized for deportation in the past unless they had committed crimes, and they were rarely detained while waiting for visa extensions or green cards. But that has changed under President Trump, whose administration has undertaken a campaign of mass deportation and views all visa overstays as illegal. “This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport,” a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department said in a statement. The agency did not confirm the expansion of the program.

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OpenAI, Anthropic ask U.S. government to consider slowing down AI

Two of the biggest players in the race to develop artificial intelligence endorsed a letter asking the U.S. government to find a way to slow down the development of the technology should it become too rapid. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and its main rival, Anthropic, which provides the Claude chatbot, endorsed a petition released Tuesday that had been signed by hundreds of employees at the two companies, as well as Google, Meta and other leading companies working on AI. The letter warned that companies could be close to automating the work of AI research, a development that it said could lead the technology to careen out of control. “We request that the U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development,” the petition said. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

Coordinating international agreement to limit AI development would be a gargantuan diplomatic task that has been likened to implementing a nuclear weapons control treaty for software that can be freely distributed through the internet. In the United States and around the world, development of AI is largely unconstrained by regulation. Companies and national governments are investing billions of dollars to build and deploy the best technology they can. That race has become a central part of the geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China. Despite the corporate endorsements and broad range of signatories to Tuesday’s letter, many people in the AI industry and across Silicon Valley argue that the technology should be aggressively pursued to bring about new innovations, cure diseases and help the U.S. maintain its military edge in the coming decades. The letter follows several other tech industry petitions since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT in which prominent AI researchers or executives called for a pause on AI development or warned that AI could wipe out humanity. The previous letters did not lead to major shifts in how companies or governments approached AI development.

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State Stories

With 2 weeks to go, an update on school vouchers

Delia Scott has two dyslexic daughters who need more specialized attention than what she says they were getting at their Katy ISD elementary school. When the state’s voucher program started taking applications in February, Scott seized the chance to send her girls to private school. “I don’t know why everybody isn’t doing this,” says Scott, who works in compliance for a construction company while her husband is a homemaker. “I told at least 10 people about it, whose kids are friends with my kids. Only one parent applied and she got the grant.” The reasons vary as to why everybody is not getting in on the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program. Some people applied and got rejected. Some were approved for voucher money but turned down by the private school they picked. One Houston family moved to be closer to a Catholic school they’d selected for their son but still hasn’t heard if they’ll be bumped up from a waitlist.

Meanwhile, more than half of the state’s public school administrators don’t know how many students they’re going to lose to the voucher program because the comptroller’s office is withholding data from districts where fewer than 30 students accepted vouchers. And the clock is ticking. Houston ISD starts August 10. Fort Bend ISD goes back on August 11. Cypress-Fairbanks and Katy ISDs start August 12, and Spring Branch ISD returns to class on August 13. Scott says she was thrilled to learn that each of her children would receive $16,000 and were accepted to Texas Christian School, where tuition is $9,800 per student per year. The excess can be used for uniforms and some school supplies, but it stays in a protected fund rather than being deposited in the recipient’s bank account. Scott’s children didn’t get the $30,000 top award amount offered to students with disabilities, but hardly anyone did. The dollar figures are based on Individualized Education Plans, so the voucher may go toward speech therapy for one student and tutoring for another. Those who don’t have a child with a disability are eligible for $10,474, and homeschool families can get up to $2,000 per child.

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Willie Nelson joins backlash to ‘water thieving, light polluting’ data centers

Texas music legend Willie Nelson on Tuesday came out against data center development, adding his voice to a growing chorus of bipartisan critics. Nelson, who grew up in Abbott and still owns a home there, wrote in a social media post that the last thing the community needs is a “loud, water thieving, light polluting data center.” “Now our community, like many others, needs to fight against data centers invading our land,” Nelson wrote. His post comes as data centers have emerged as an unexpected flashpoint ahead of November’s midterms. But the message from the country music staple is a sign the backlash is spilling beyond the grassroots activists and rural voters who have been calling for a moratorium.

Polling from the University of Texas at Austin last month found most Texans do not want data centers built in their communities, with opposition especially strong among rural voters. This week, community activists and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller staged a protest outside the Capitol and urged Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session for lawmakers to strip tax breaks for data centers and set rules on where they can be built. Abbott has sought to address the bubbling backlash among voters in deep-red rural Texas by directing state regulators to ensure data centers do not pass on costs for new electrical infrastructure to ratepayers. He has resisted calls to bring lawmakers back to Austin, but has called for them to take action when they reconvene in January. Nelson is a longtime advocate for family farms and a co-founder of Farm Aid, an event that raises money for farms. He’s also a regular supporter of Democratic candidates. "The strength of rural America has never come from big industrial footprints," he wrote. "It comes from generations of people, open spaces, local businesses and a connection to the land."

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Harris County Jail explores using AI cameras to monitor inmates

Artificial intelligence could soon be used to monitor inmates at the Harris County Jail. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office recently invited companies to submit proposals for an AI-powered camera system capable of analyzing inmates’ behavior and detecting weapons and other contraband. While the sheriff’s office has not yet chosen a vendor, it’s the first step toward bringing the technology into the jail and follows a wider pattern of AI implementation across county government. The jail is a multi-building facility in downtown Houston along the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Its location, and the complexity of its layout, make it difficult for staff to monitor the thousands of inmates who enter and exit each day, said Jason Spencer, a senior policy advisor to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

“There are lots of blind spots and little nooks and crannies throughout the jail,” Spencer said. “So it’s a challenge keeping eyes on every square foot of that building. I don’t know that this kind of technology would fix that entirely, but it seems like it has the potential to help.” Spencer compared what the sheriff’s office is looking for to similar technologies already in use at stadiums and by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The hope, he said, is that the same technology can be adapted for use in a jail setting. The move comes amid mounting public scrutiny toward AI-powered monitoring systems, such as FLOCK cameras and other license plate readers. But a 1984 Supreme Court ruling found prisoners do not have a right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, so implementing the technology in a jail setting would be less politically fraught than the ongoing roll-out of license plate readers along streets and highways. “It's not out in the community, and the intent is to enhance the safety of the people who are held in the jail and the people who work there,” Spencer said. “There’s already cameras all over the jail. This seems like a good use of the technology that doesn’t come with any significant privacy concerns.”

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Texas lawmaker introduces bill to protect Mount Cristo Rey from border wall construction

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has introduced legislation that would prevent the federal government from using eminent domain or federal funding to construct border security infrastructure on or near Mount Cristo Rey, a prominent Catholic pilgrimage site overlooking the border region of Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. The Mount Cristo Rey Protection Act comes after the federal government initiated legal action to obtain approximately 14 acres of land near the base of the mountain in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The land is owned by the Diocese of Las Cruces, and the proposed acquisition is intended to support an extension of the barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress, told NCR the bill is one of several efforts her office is pursuing to prevent construction from affecting the mountain and the religious activities that take place there.

"Mount Cristo Rey is a very special place for my community, for the region, for people of faith, not just in the region, but people of faith who have come to visit and hike to the top," Escobar said in a phone interview. "My constituents have asked me about what I am doing to try to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from, in their eyes and in our eyes, desecrating such a sacred site." The mountain is topped by a 29-foot limestone statue of Jesus Christ, dedicated in October 1939. More than 40,000 people visit the site annually, according to Escobar's office. Pilgrimages traditionally take place on Good Friday and during the Feast of Christ the King, drawing participants from Texas, New Mexico and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Under the proposed legislation, no federal funds could be used to litigate the government's eminent-domain case concerning the 14.259-acre property. The bill would also prohibit federal funding for roads, fencing, vehicle barriers, security lighting, cameras, sensors or related structures on or near the mountain.

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Travis County hires D.C. law firm to represent José Garza in GOP probe

Travis County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to hire a Washington, D.C.-based law firm to represent District Attorney José Garza in a congressional investigation of his office’s prosecution of noncitizens and interactions with federal immigration authorities.. After discussing the matter in closed session, commissioners voted unanimously to pay Miller & Chevalier up to $60,000 to help Garza respond to a request from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee for five years of records.

Garza received the demand in a June 23 letter from three committee members, including Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, who accused him of pursuing “pro-crime, pro-illegal immigration policies” that allowed undocumented criminals “to freely operate, terrorize local communities, and reoffend without consequences.” The committee members cited statements Garza made while campaigning in which he pledged to consider the consequences of criminal charges and convictions and avoid imposing excessively harsh sentences.. The letter also accused his office of taking a “soft-on-crime approach” that resulted in the release of at least five non-citizens in 2024. Roy said on social media that Garza’s “dereliction of duty has raised questions about whether repeat offenders, including criminal aliens, are being adequately prosecuted and whether the safety of law-abiding Austin residents is being put first.”

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Lawmakers renew push to close Dilley as number of detained children rises

Members of Congress said Tuesday that more than 500 people were being held at the South Texas facility, including 112 children, as they renewed their months-long push to close it. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio said 96 children were being held at Dilley during a congressional visit in May. He and other lawmakers also raised concerns about detainees’ access to legal information. Tuesday’s visit came less than two weeks after Castro led 110 other House Democrats in a letter urging the Department of Homeland Security to close Dilley and end family detention nationwide. Castro was joined by members of the Congressional Democratic Women’s Caucus, advocates from FWD.us and Families Belong Together, and pediatric critical care physician Dr. Anita Patel. The delegation held a news conference in San Antonio after the tour.

Castro said Tuesday marked his seventh visit to Dilley. He criticized the federal government’s use of CoreCivic, a private prison company, to operate the center under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We have commodified child imprisonment in our nation,” Castro said. “CoreCivic is a private prison company whose investors include some of the largest asset managers in this country. They are making money. The more kids that are put in Dilley.” Castro attributed the reported increase in detainees to intensified ICE enforcement over the past month. “I believe that is the result of the ICE surge that we’ve seen over the last month or so,” Castro said. “We’ve seen families that have been torn apart on the street and brutality on the street. The result of that is that more families and more children are now imprisoned at Dilley.” Castro also questioned how detainees were being informed about their rights under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which establishes standards for the treatment and release of immigrant children in federal custody.

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‘A deal with the devil’: Religion motivates data center opponents in Texas

When Matt Long stood before the Granbury, Texas, city council zoning meeting back in April to oppose the influx of proposed data centers in Hood County, he likened them to a spiritual abomination. “I’d consider us a Christian city inside a Christian county,” said Long, a member of the county’s development commission who lives near Granbury. “As Christians, do we think that trading 2,100 acres of natural beauty for godless technological complexes is moving us closer to the creation, or further away?” “Do we think that entering into negotiations with Google, Meta and Amazon are closer to making a covenant with God, or making a deal with the devil?” he asked the council. Christians, Long concluded to applause, must stand up against data centers.

Controversy surrounding data center construction has roiled Texas in recent months, fostering a bipartisan coalition of opposition, particularly among rural and suburban residents. With at least 248 planned data center projects and 335 in operation, the state is poised to become a leader in data center development. Much of the opposition focuses on environmental impact and the large amounts of water and power needed by massive facilities that operate AI applications. But opposition has also coalesced around religious appeals from a theologically diverse group of residents, leaders and politicians who see data center development as an affront to their most sacred values. Clayton Tucker, a Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner, is a leader in the anti-data center movement. A Catholic, he wonders if data centers are akin to the apple in the Garden of Eden. “If we take a bite of that apple of knowledge, is that what’s going to kick us out of this blue marble of Eden … that we call Earth?” he said. Religion isn’t solely the domain of the opposition. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, a Republican, said he supports data center construction because “throughout history, Christians have embraced innovations that improve lives, from the printing press to modern medicine.” “We should approach data centers the same way: embracing their benefits while ensuring they’re built responsibly,” Christian said in a statement.

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'Extraordinary life' | Janice McNair, co-founder and senior chair of the Houston Texans, laid to rest

Janice McNair, the co-founder and senior chair of the Houston Texans, has been laid to rest. She died last week at the age of 89. The service was held Friday, July 24, in the sanctuary of St. Luke's United Methodist Church. "Janice lived an extraordinary life rooted in faith, family, philanthropy and football," her obituary read. "A gracious Southern woman and beloved matriarch of the Houston Texans, Janice welcomed everyone she met with her signature warmth, radiant smile and genuine kindness." Serving as pallbearers were D. Cal McNair, her son; Robert D. McNair, her grandson; Calhoun McNair, her grandson; Michael McNair, her grandson; Dr. Judson Suber and Jonathan Suber.

She and her husband, Bob McNair, helped bring the NFL back to Houston and were instrumental in founding the Texans. Through the Houston Texans Foundation and The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, the couple donated more than $500 million to education, medical research and community programs across the city. In 2025, McNair was inducted as the fourth member of the Texans Ring of Honor in recognition of her role in bringing football back to Houston and her lasting impact on the organization and the community. She is survived by her four children, 16 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

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Texas bet on privatized foster care. EMPOWER tested its limits

Among Nicolette LaRoe is a court-appointed attorney for kids in the child welfare system. But she advocates for them like they're her own. That's why she's so passionate about CJ. “CJ” is how a recent court filing refers to the boy, whose full name and age aren’t disclosed. According to the document, CJ was diagnosed in June 2024 with type of lupus induced by Depakote or divalproex sodium, a medication used to treat epilepsy and other conditions. But caseworkers for EMPOWER — the private nonprofit managing foster care in the Dallas area at the time — didn’t properly document CJ’s medical needs in his case record and authorized the hospital to give the boy divalproex sodium Nov. 26, 2024.

CJ was admitted to the hospital February 19, 2025, with chest pain and pneumonia, according to the filing — conditions believed to be caused by lupus. In the eight months between his diagnosis and his admission to the hospital with lupus-related conditions, the document states, CJ had five different EMPOWER caseworkers assigned to him. His medical needs were miscommunicated in the shuffle. “All the stuff that has happened has been tragic,” LaRoe said in a July interview with KERA News. “And while they were going through all these caseworkers and supervisors and different directors and all this crap, it's like trying to hold jelly in your hand. You can never get a grip on anything.” A KERA News analysis of two years of DFPS corrective plans showed CJ's case wasn't seen as an outlier: EMPOWER’s caseworkers reportedly weren’t showing up to court — and when they were, they were unprepared. Caseworkers dealt with large caseloads, lacked basic training and made simple mistakes that led to negative — and sometimes fatal — outcomes for kids, according to those documents.

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Austinites storm DA José Garza's office to protest APD's fatal shooting of unarmed teen

More than two dozen protesters gathered at Wooldridge Park Tuesday afternoon under an unforgiving sun to demand accountability — and prosecution — for the officers involved in last week's fatal shooting of a teenager identified Tuesday as Anthoneil Williams II. Williams allegedly called police to report a young man brandishing a gun. Officers responded just after 4 a.m. last Friday and fired dozens of rounds into Williams after he lifted up his shirt. Williams was unarmed, carrying only a water bottle. The officers involved in the shooting are on administrative leave, and the incident is under investigation. Williams' friend Ameer Alogaili, 16, said he always "put a smile on everybody's face." Alogaili attended Bohls Middle School and Connally High School with Williams. He said the officers "took a part of me with him" and asked for some accountability.

"[There are] so many families that are suffering right now all because of these cops and them wanting to shoot their guns at a little kid at a park for having a water bottle," he said. "Long live Anthoneil." After remarks, the protesters marched to Travis County District Attorney José Garza's office lobby, storming past metal detectors and chanting "Jail killer cops!" The protest escalated after one demonstrator approached a Travis County Sheriff's deputy at the front desk. After staring down the crowd, the deputy locked himself away in a nearby room as an unidentified protester pounded on the door. Two Travis County Sheriff's deputies responded, pushing the crowd outside and barring the doors after a brief scuffle with demonstrators that was broken up by Anthoneil Williams II's father. The elder Williams pleaded with protesters to fall back as another 10 deputies approached the DA's office.

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Two Wilmer officials arrested following alleged racist confrontation at gas station

Two Wilmer city officials were arrested this month following an investigation into racially charged threats allegedly made at a gas station, according to arrest warrant affidavits obtained Tuesday by The Dallas Morning News. Moses Garcia, 53, elected to the city council in May, was arrested Monday by Wilmer police after he was linked to a July 22 disturbance at a Shell gas station. He faces a terroristic threat charge. Wilmer police allege acting police Chief Jesus Mancillas, 57, attempted to take control of the investigation into Garcia’s actions and interfered with the collection of evidence, according to his affidavit. Wilmer is in Dallas County about 15 miles southeast of Dallas.

Mancillas was appointed as acting chief last week, according to a statement from Wilmer Interim City Administrator Frank Posada, and was expected to provide leadership and oversight as the department addressed ongoing administrative issues. He is accused of inserting himself into an active criminal investigation and preventing the lead detective from performing assigned duties. “I had no knowledge that the Wilmer Police Department was contemplating or carrying out an arrest involving Mr. Mancillas,” Posada said. “He was assisting the city of Wilmer at my request, and I am disappointed by what has occurred.” According to surveillance video footage described in Garcia’s affidavit, Garcia arrived at the gas station in a Tesla and began talking with a man and an employee. In the footage, the group can be seen continuing their conversation until Garcia allegedly calls the man an explicit name. Garcia then begins making statements regarding his influence on Wilmer’s city council, according to the descriptions in the affidavit.

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6 matches, $8.4M in booze: AT&T Stadium broke its record, but did Dallas profit from FIFA?

Take a guess: how many beers and margs do you think were sold at AT&T Stadium during each game of the World Cup? All along, one of the great questions was how much impact the games would have on local bars and restaurants. Projections from the Dallas Sports Commission estimated it would generate up to $2.1 billion for all of North Texas. The state of Texas just released its June mixed beverage gross receipts report, which shows the amount of alcohol every bar or restaurant with a TABC license sold in the month. TABSReport makes it easy to sort through. We looked at the just-released June report for both Dallas and Arlington, and it’s clear that, overall, the World Cup had a financial impact on alcohol sales alone. In some cases, the impact was huge, but don’t get too excited because FIFA kept a lot of that.

While this is just a sliver of the story — just booze in June — it’s something real and substantive, not just figureheads talking. The giant stadium in Arlington hosted six World Cup matches in June (and another three in July, for a total of nine). The stadium sold $8,396,103 in alcohol in June. For comparison, in June of 2025 it sold just $572,605. Previously, during the NFL season, the most it had sold was $8.2 million, making this a new record. (Of course, there would never be six NFL games at the stadium in one month, so it feels like the Cowboys win here.) How many beers and margs is $8.4 million? Let’s say each drink is $20 (beers averaged about $17 and a margarita was $25.50); that’s 419,805 drinks. Over six games, that’s 69,967 drinks per game. Before you get excited for the Cowboys and all that money they just made, it goes to FIFA, the nonprofit that runs the world’s largest soccer tournament. Per its agreement with host cities, it gets all revenue from tickets, concessions, parking and broadcast rights. Host cities pay for security, transportation and most of the Fanfest. Feels a little lopsided, right? Some cities, including Chicago, bowed out of even hosting games because they couldn’t justify the costs versus potential revenue.

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National Stories

Diary entries, a subpoena and an anticipated clash: Dr. Anthony Fauci and Rand Paul’s long-running battle returns to the Hill

Even before the US enacted a national shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci pondered whether he might have testified before Congress more than any other official. As the longtime face of the government’s infectious disease response, he was on Capitol Hill roughly 250 times over the course of his career to discuss threats such as the HIV/AIDS crisis and Ebola. On Wednesday, the retired scientist will notch one more testimony, in what is expected to be a combative hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. The appearance will mark the latest showdown with Sen. Rand Paul, the committee’s chairman, who has long sought to blame the Covid pandemic and shortcomings of the US response on Fauci.

Fauci did not agree to turn up willingly. In June, Paul subpoenaed the 85-year-old former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for his appearance. Internal correspondence shared with CNN shows that Fauci initially declined to appear voluntarily, citing his past clashes with Paul and the senator’s efforts to indict him. “Your request that Dr. Fauci appear before the Committee arises within a context that cannot be ignored — the context of repeated public and absolutely baseless pronouncements by you, a sitting United States Senator, that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted and jailed,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to Paul. Ahead of the hearing, the committee released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s personal diary from 2019 to 2022. Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday night on Fox News that he had recently handed the files over to Paul and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson after finding them on government servers following an eight-month search.

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DHS stats chief rips Trump’s ‘war on immigrants’ in blistering resignation letter

A top official at the Department of Homeland Security announced his resignation over the weekend in a blistering letter that lashed out at President Donald Trump and excoriated what he described as the administration’s “war on immigrants.” Marc Rosenblum, the former executive director of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, wrote in a public LinkedIn post on Saturday that he was “sad, and thrilled, to say that yesterday was my last day working at DHS.” Rosenblum joined the Office of Immigration Statistics in 2016, and said he watched the team grow from a “scrappy team of 11” to a staff of 45 prior to Trump’s second term. In the more than 10 years Rosenblum served at the agency, he said, his team expanded its data processing and reporting efforts.

“But it will come as no surprise that I’m thrilled to end my relationship with the current administration,” Rosenblum wrote. “Between the war on immigrants, the war on feds, and the war on facts (not to mention the crazy war in Iran and the brazen corruption), I just need a change.” A representative for DHS told NOTUS that while the department does not comment on personnel decisions, “people are always welcome to their opinion — that doesn’t make it right or factual.” The White House declined to comment. The Trump administration launched expanded immigration enforcement efforts at the beginning of the president’s second term, but critics on both sides of the aisle have requested better data on the impact of those efforts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not release data on either detentions or deportations from April 9 until July 24, 2026, missing multiple semimonthly “Detention Management” reports that typically include arrests, detentions and deportations, according to The Marshall Project. Rosenblum did not address the data-sharing lapses explicitly in his resignation letter — though he described a “challenging and often hostile work environment” that he and others allegedly experienced at DHS. Multiple organizations have taken legal action against the Trump administration, seeking data on immigration enforcement and detention practices. The Oversight Project, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, filed a lawsuit this month against DHS to release the updated data. American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed a lawsuit against the department in June seeking records relating to deaths in immigration custody.

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Iran launches surprise ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces in the Middle East

Iran targeted American forces in the Middle East with ballistic missiles late Tuesday stateside, U.S. Central Command said, raising tensions in the region again after the warring sides had briefly halted hostilities. Centcom in a post on X said that the attack originated from Iran, but all missiles were intercepted. “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces based in the Middle East.“ While the U.S. military command did not specify where the attacks were aimed at, Axios reported the attack was directed at a U.S. base in Jordan, citing U.S. officials. In a subsequent statement posted on X, Centcom said U.S. and Saudi forces struck “multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites” in eastern Iraq Tuesday stateside, retaliating against more than 30 drone attacks in the past three days by “Iran-aligned terrorists.“

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said the strikes were carried out in coordination with U.S. Central Command, and added the kingdom does not seek escalation, but will respond to any aggression it faces. Riyadh said earlier that drones launched from Iraq by “Iran-affiliated terrorist militias” attempted to target petroleum facilities in Saudi Arabia. The Iran-backed Iraqi Mobilization Forces said in a statement later on Tuesday that at least 20 of its members had been killed in the strikes and 32 had been wounded. Tensions have escalated after a two-day pause in hostilities between Washington and Tehran, sending oil surging, after prices declined for three straight days. U.S. President Donald Trump had set aside plans to escalate the war against Iran amid worries over diminishing stockpiles of Patriot interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East, The New York Times had reported. Trump had dismissed concerns over stockpile depletion.

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Senate votes to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton will become the next director of national intelligence after the Senate voted to confirm his nomination following a monthslong stalemate. Clayton's nomination was confirmed by a 51-47 party-line vote. Clayton's confirmation comes as senators work to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a critical national security tool that went dark after Democrats revolted against its extension over concerns over the next DNI.

Following the resignation of previous DNI Tulsi Gabbard in May, President Donald Trump tapped Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as acting DNI despite his lack of intelligence experience. The move caused all Democrats, with the exception of Sen. John Fetterman, to vote against moving forward with consideration of the FISA authorization despite the fact that some, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, had previously been supportive of FISA reauthorization. Trump's appointment of Pulte as acting DNI also frustrated some Republicans, including Majority Leader John Thune, who argued the reauthorization had a bipartisan, bicameral path forward but was derailed due to the timing of Trump's announcement. "There have been timing issues around several things that they've done in the last few weeks," Thune said of the administration in early June. "I'm sure that's the, you know, that's the conclusion Democrats have drawn, but I still think that, not withstanding their feelings on that, that it's irresponsible not to keep this agency going," Thune said.

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Trump, Senate give tearful goodbye to Lindsey Graham

Former Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) received an emotional send-off Wednesday at two memorial services, where political allies and foes, some of whom had shifted back and forth during the South Carolinian’s long career, bid him tribute. “He was a force of nature, and I will miss him greatly,” President Trump said at the latter service at Washington National Cathedral, where the political crowd was dominated by Trump administration officials and global leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump nodded to his friendship with his fellow Republican, which grew from a rivalry when the two were running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2015.

“As you remember, Lindsey and I did not exactly get off to the best of starts, running against each other,” Trump said, recounting how he had publicly given out Graham’s cellphone number at a campaign event in response to a political attack. “His phone totally, I don’t know what he did with it, but it exploded,” the president joked. Graham went on to become one of Trump’s strongest allies in the Senate, a major turn given the South Carolina Republican’s previous alliance with former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in 2018 as a firm GOP opponent of Trump. “That was the beginning of a friendship, in a way,” Trump said of the cellphone episode. “But it was Lindsey who had the last laugh, because while I blew up his phone for one day, we became great friends, and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years. It was not easy.” Earlier in the day, Graham was honored in a memorial service at the Capitol Rotunda, which was attended by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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New Mexico is divided over what to do with $75 Billion in oil cash

In a beige office park on the edge of town not far from a Walmart, waves of oil-and-gas money are crashing on Jon Clark’s desk. A flood of $7.6 billion arrived in 2024. Followed by an additional $5.3 billion in 2025. This year, Clark, New Mexico’s state investment officer, is projecting $5.4 billion. New Mexico’s oil-and-gas bounty has helped build a $75 billion investment fund that would be the envy of Wall Street. New Mexico has become the second-largest-producing oil state in the country, behind Texas, and soaring crude prices from the U.S. war with Iran are translating into another burst of revenue. The question for the state now: What to do with it?

New Mexico is one of America’s poorest states, and many here in the state capital believe its relatively new oil wealth is its path to stability. That opportunity comes with inherent tension over what to fund now and how much to save for the future. Spending more of the money today will eat into the state’s safety net for the next time crude prices crater or the wells run dry. It isn’t as simple as saving or spending. Some state officials are betting that shelling out on new programs now can help bolster the economy before the next bust. When energy prices were low early this year, about $160 million flowed into the largest bucket of New Mexico’s fund each month from royalties paid by energy companies pumping on publicly owned land. That jumped to $241 million in March after the Iran war sent crude prices higher. More cash is expected to arrive from taxes on oil-and-gas sales. “We’re going to increasingly be part of how the state pays for everything moving forward,” Clark said. “The potential for impact is almost limitless in the long term.”

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Lead Stories

A rare bipartisan coalition takes aim at Texas data centers, urging Abbott to call a special session

Calls are growing among data center opponents for Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session for lawmakers to rein in the projects that have roiled rural communities. On Monday morning, in advance of two interim hearings this week dealing with data centers, grassroots organizers from across the state convened at the Capitol to voice their opposition to the massive computing centers that have proliferated rapidly over the last year. The protest comes as data centers have emerged as an unexpected flashpoint ahead of November’s midterms. Roughly 40 people held signs reading “Governor Abbott is all hat and no cattle” and chanted “special session now.” Abbott, who as recently as November touted Texas as the “epicenter of AI development,” has sought to address the bubbling backlash among voters in deep-red rural Texas by directing state regulators to ensure data centers do not pass on costs for new electrical infrastructure to ratepayers.

He has urged lawmakers, who reconvene for the next Legislative session in January, to repeal the centers’ lucrative sales tax exemptions and set up rules on where they can be built. Troy Jones, a GOP precinct chair from Paris, said Abbott has not gone far enough. “To go far enough would be to have a special session to get the House and the Senate to get on board and to get something done,” Jones said. “It just keeps getting kicked down the road. Nobody really wants to do anything. Counties' hands are tied. They can't do anything.” Abbott is the only official with the power to bring lawmakers back for a special session. Sid Miller, the outgoing Republican Agricultural Commissioner whom Abbott campaigned against in the primary, pointed to the governor’s office and urged the crowd to call on him to act. “He can hear everything we're saying, and I invite him to come down here and join us today,” Miller said. “The governor has authority to bring the legislature back tomorrow. He can have them in session tomorrow. So we're calling on him to do just that.”

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Judge orders release of a witness to Lorenzo Salgado's shooting

A federal judge on Monday ordered U.S. immigration authorities to release Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, one of the witnesses to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's shooting death. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison granted Rojas' habeas petition and ordered ICE to release him from a Conroe detention facility within 48 hours, according to a filing issued in the Southern District of Texas. Ellison said Rojas' continued detention would violate his Fifth Amendment rights to due process, if he were held without an "individualized justification." Justice Department lawyers argued in a Friday motion that precedent set by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans allowed Rojas to be detained throughout removal proceedings. Ellison noted the Fifth Circuit's ruling, but wrote that it had "no effect" on Rojas' claims.

Rojas' lawyer couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The U.S. Attorney's office and Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Rojas has been held at the Conroe facility since July 7. He was one of three construction workers whom Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving to work that morning, shortly before immigration agents began pursuing the van they were riding in. The chase ended on Canal Street in Houston's East End, where an ICE agent fatally shot Salgado. Federal officials have said in statements that Salgado "weaponized" his van and rammed pursing ICE vehicles. But through statements passed through their lawyers, Rojas and the other men have denied that Salgado attempted to hit anyone on purpose. Salgado's death sparked weeks of protests in Houston and prompted calls for independent investigations. At least three agencies — the Department of Homeland Security, the Harris County District Attorney's Office and the Texas Rangers — have said they are investigating the shooting. Rojas had been detained without a bond determination while removal proceedings continue. He has applied for a U visa based on the circumstances of the shooting, with certification from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

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Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow new mail-in voting rules

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow federal agencies to move forward with new mail-in voting policies. The application seeks to lift a lower court ruling that blocked, in nearly half of all states and the District of Columbia, two parts of an executive order from March that directed the U.S. Postal Service to create mail ballot rules and the Department of Homeland Security to compile a national database of eligible voters. Attorneys for the administration argued that an injunction against the policies is “premature” because the agencies have not yet implemented the executive order, which gave them “substantial discretion” to do so. “Accordingly, much remains uncertain as to what a final USPS rule might include or what the contents or uses of any DHS lists might be,” the filing says.

And, with fewer than 100 days until the midterm elections, the administration said it does not have time to let the lower court process play out first. “Even if the agencies’ implementation plans end up being entirely lawful, there is not enough time to obtain ordinary appellate relief from the injunction in order to carry them out before the November election, especially given that any such plans will need to be implemented well before November given the timing of election procedures concerning voter-roll verification and mail voting,” the filing says. Efforts to implement any DHS rule or USPS rule would need to begin as soon as early- to mid-August to be in place for the 2026 election, the filing argued, “particularly given that absentee and mail-in voting begin (in some States) several weeks prior to Election Day.” The order would require USPS to regulate the redesign of mail-in ballots and envelopes. A state must also notify USPS if “it intends to allow for mail-in or absentee ballots to be transmitted by the USPS,” 90 days before the election, and any mail-in ballots submitted must be checked through a preapproved list of eligible voters.

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ICE extends no-bid contract for major detention center in Texas, rejecting calls for closure

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to keep one of its largest and most expensive detention facilities open for at least another year despite calls to close it over reported human rights abuses, according to a notice published last week. ICE plans to extend the no-bid contract of the firm that runs Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, through Sept. 30, 2027, at a potential additional cost to taxpayers of $776 million, the notice says. This is on top of a $452 million initial contract that the firm, Amentum Services Inc., was awarded in March when it was hastily installed to take over the camp’s operation from a contractor removed for poor performance.

For months, Democratic members of Congress and several advocacy organizations have called for Camp East Montana to be closed, citing reports that detainees have been routinely mistreated since its opening in August 2025. A report released earlier this month by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union alleged that staff routinely beat detainees, denied them medical care, made them live in filthy conditions and fed them inedible meals. Reports by federal agencies have also found unsafe detention conditions and that the Army and ICE have wasted millions of dollars paying for unnecessary services. At least three Camp East Montana detainees have died. The facility at Fort Bliss, an Army base near the U.S.-Mexico border, has housed an average of more than 2,000 male and female detainees a day since Oct. 1, though its population has declined significantly in recent months, according to ICE data.

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State Stories

House ethics panel investigating Gooden, who rejected the allegations

The House Ethics Committee announced Monday it is investigating unspecified allegations against Republican Rep. Lance Gooden of Terrell. The Office of Congressional Conduct referred the matter to the committee June 10. Gooden indicated the allegations are related to “spending” and he dismissed them as unfounded. “These are bogus spending allegations perpetrated by dishonest unelected OCC bureaucrats, and as the fifth Texas GOP ally of the president to endure one of these attacks, I am confident the House Ethics Committee will confirm their baseless nature,” Gooden said in a statement.

He did not specify whether the spending in question was by his official office or his campaign. The committee provided no details about the allegations, saying it will announce next steps by Nov. 9. “The committee notes that the mere fact of a referral or an extension, and the mandatory disclosure of such an extension and the name of the subject of the matter, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the committee,” it said in the announcement. The Office of Congressional Conduct, previously called the Office of Congressional Ethics, fields many complaints and refers a small number to the committee for further review. Under House rules, the panel can review those complaints confidentially for a period, but is required to issue a public statement if it needs more time.

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Why Greg Abbott is targeting James Talarico instead of Gina Hinojosa

Greg Abbott’s challenger for governor is Democrat Gina Hinojosa, but Senate nominee James Talarico is commanding most of his attention. Abbott and his GOP allies see Talarico’s record-breaking fundraising and voter turnout operation as a bigger threat to Republicans up and down the November ballot. They see no need to engage with Hinojosa, a state representative from Austin who is not as widely known and lacks the same political resources. So whether it's a rally, news conference or fundraising appeal, Abbott doesn't say Hinojosa's name. And when his campaign aides are asked about Hinojosa, they respond by asking, "Who?" It's an old-school strategy for a new-era race.

"We don't talk about her. We don't think about her. We don't care about her," said Dave Carney, Abbott's longtime chief political strategist. "We are running our own campaign, and she can run her own campaign." In response, Hinojosa said Abbott is "scared" to engage her because he's in the pocket of corporate donors and has a poor record to tout. "Greg Abbott won't talk about me because he's afraid to run against me," she said in a text message. "He sees the polling showing this is the closest race of his political career." Talarico, a state representative from Austin, raised more than $31 million in the second quarter of this year, more than tripling the $9.3 million hauled in by his Republican rival, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Carney warned that along with the money Talarico raises for his individual campaign, up to $400 million in outside money could pour into Texas to mobilize Democratic voters.

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North Richland Hills City Council unanimously approves more data center regulations

North Richland Hills council members unanimously voted to amend zoning requirements for data centers that want to locate in the city. After a public hearing Monday, July 27, the council voted to require that data centers must have specific use permits before they can operate. Councilman Matt Blake was absent because of work. Planning Director Cori Reaume told the council that the specific use permits means city staff would consider noise, water systems and effects of data centers on adjacent properties. She added that there are specific use permits for other types of businesses, including drive-thru restaurants and secondhand goods sales.

Reaume also said that a FlashVote survey went out to residents asking them to list their top four concerns about data centers. Those concerns included high water use, noise from backup generators and the concern that tax revenues wouldn’t cover the infrastructure demands that data centers would cause. During the public hearing, speakers shared similar concerns. Resident Karen Martin said the recommendation for specific use permits is a “good starting place.” “Time is of the essence because our doors are open,” she said. Martin also said she is worried about the grid, although improvements have been made. She provided information packets to the council members and said she had concerns about “heat islands” from data centers. North Richland Hills adopted data center regulations in June 2025 to address the new use. Some requirements include specifying that data centers larger than 10,000 square feet are allowed on industrial property by right, or on commercial property with a specific use permit.

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Fort Worth council member says cop who shot child sex offender did ‘Lord’s work’

Fort Worth City Council member Charles Lauersdorf was criticized over the weekend following his Facebook post saying the officer who fatally shot a convicted child sex offender was doing the Lord’s work. Lauersdorf made the post shortly after midnight on July 26 after he attended a press conference with Police Chief Eddie Garcia at the scene of the shooting in south Fort Worth. Police were looking for 56-year-old Ricky Shane Lindsey on a felony warrant for cutting off his ankle monitor, Garcia told reporters late Saturday night. Lindsey was convicted in McLennan County in 2004 on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child, according to the Fort Worth police department’s sex offender registry.

He was released from prison in October 2024, but indicted in January 2026 for failing to register with the Fort Worth Police Department, according to court records. Lindsey was spotted driving near Interstate 35W and Risinger Road about 8 p.m. After a short vehicle pursuit, Lindsey stopped at a motel parking lot on the 100 block of Palette Drive, just south of the Everman Parkway exit, where police say he produced a weapon, Garcia said. Police fired, Lindsey was struck, and died after receiving medical attention, Garcia said. In his post, Lauersdorf characterized the shooting as the Lord’s work. “Our Directed Response Unit took a sex offender off the street - Permanently - saving taxpayers money and keeping us safe. I couldn’t be more proud!” Lauersdorf said in his post. One person called Lauersdorf’s post disgusting, arguing police don’t sign up to be “judge, jury and executioner.”

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How a Dallas mom says leaders of a nonprofit tried to take her baby

(Editor’s note: WFAA repeatedly reached out to the leaders of Reflection Ministries, including traveling to Midland to try to talk to them. Both declined to answer questions.) On a recent day inside a Dallas courtroom, there were baby gifts, balloons and a small celebration. For DeAmber Brown, it was a moment she wasn’t sure she’d ever see — holding her baby again after months of separation, court fights and weeks in jail. “I’m just happy to have my baby back,” Brown said. But Brown also said her ordeal is far from over. What started as a search for shelter while she was pregnant turned into a fight for her freedom and her child that stretched from Dallas to Midland. Brown, a human trafficking survivor, says the leaders of a West Texas ministry that promised to help her instead tried to take and keep her baby. “To hear what I have to say is unbelievable,” Brown told WFAA.

Brown’s story began in November 2025. “I was at the end of my pregnancy,” she said. “I’d just quit both my jobs, too big to work,” she said. Homeless and in need of help, Brown says a Dallas shelter referred her to Reflection Ministries, a Midland-based nonprofit that works with trafficking survivors. On Nov. 21, Brown arrived at the group’s housing complex outside Midland, known as “The Village.” “I really thought it'd be a place where I could start over, bring my other kids, have a life, a new life,” she said. Ten days later, Brown underwent an emergency C-section at Midland Memorial Hospital. “They were like, you're going to have this baby tonight,” Brown said. Brown says while she was in the hospital, Elizabeth Walker, the chief operating officer of Reflection Ministries, began making strange comments. “’She's just having a baby for me. She's just the surrogate,’” Brown recalled Walker saying. “And I really thought she was joking. I was laughing and never in a million years did I think it was real,” Brown said. Reflection Ministries’ founder, Lisa Bownds, would later produce paperwork – which has since been filed in court and obtained by WFAA – claiming Brown signed over temporary guardianship of her newborn to her.

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Inside the parish-led fight against a $123M ICE facility in Texas

In the 1980s, Maria Estella Padilla went door to door after Mass, organizing house meetings to bring running water and sewerage services to hundreds of thousands of homes along the Texas-Mexico border. Today, at 82, she’s back to organizing her neighbors and fellow parishioners at La Purisima Catholic Church in an effort aimed both at stopping a planned immigration detention center and protecting the access to water that she and others fought so hard to win decades ago. “We did it back then when we didn’t have the internet, when we didn’t have social media, but now they communicate quickly. It would be easier in a way to do it now than it was back then when we had to go door to door and take signups after Mass,” she said of her latest fight.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, then headed by Secretary Kristi Noem, announced a $38 billion plan to buy and retrofit 11 warehouses across the country to convert them into sprawling detention facilities to serve the administration’s mass deportation program for undocumented immigrants. (DHS spent $1 billion on buying the 11 facilities.) That included three warehouses on the edge of Socorro, about 15 miles southeast of the El Paso city limits, which were built to hold nuts harvested from nearby pecan groves. The property, sold to DHS for $123 million by a Kansas City area developer, included three reinforced concrete warehouses of about 296,000 square feet each, with an adjacent plot of land available for expansion. DHS initially said the Socorro facility would hold up to 8,500 immigrants awaiting deportation, which would have made it one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the country.

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Kerr County officials still taking stock of damage from latest flood

County Judge Rob Kelly picked up his wooden name plate on Monday morning and tapped it like a gavel on a folding table. That was how the Kerr County Commissioners Court started its first regular meeting since flooding struck the county on July 16. “That’s as good as I got today,” Kelly said. “Where in God’s name do we begin?” With their usual home at the Kerr County courthouse rendered unusable by the flooding, the commissioners met at the old Kerrville municipal court building. They sat behind two joined folding tables, with a small console table serving as a podium. As they continue to take stock of the damage done to county infrastructure by this year's flooding, the commissioners on Monday got briefings from multiple county officials. Some of the takeaways include:

County officials aren’t sure when they can return to the flood-damaged courthouse; Several flood-damaged bridges remain closed; County staffers are still assessing damage to infrastructure along the Guadalupe River. As much as seven feet of water flowed into the basement of the county courthouse, and it could take a year to repair, Kelly said. Damage to the courthouse varies by level, Kelly said. The first floor will take at least a month to reopen. Before employees can return to the first floor, it must be cleared of asbestos, mold and bad odors, Kelly said. The courthouse’s second floor was not damaged by the flood, but the building’s elevator is out of commission. Kelly said federal law prevents county offices from operating on the second floor if a working elevator is not available. “The nastiness downstairs has caused problems upstairs,” Kelly said. Kelly said it's not clear when the elevator will be repaired. Flooding did significant damage to 10 bridges in Kerr County and four of those remain closed, said Kelly Hoffer, administrator of the county's road and bridge department. Flood debris remains wedged under some of the bridges, and the county lacks the proper equipment to remove it and will need to "get some help" Hoffer said.

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Texas AG Ken Paxton launches investigations into feminine care products

The Texas attorney general says he's launching an investigation of popular cosmetics and feminine care products that potentially contain toxic chemicals. On Monday, AG Ken Paxton announced investigations into Tampax and Kotex, as well as products that brand themselves as "clean" and "non-toxic," like LOLA and L. The investigation cites a UC Berkeley study that found heavy metals like lead, cadmium and arsenic in tampons. “I will continue to work tirelessly to help Make America Healthy Again by stopping companies that illegally put toxic heavy metals and dangerous chemicals in their products,” Paxton said in a media release.

“Many corporations have neglected the health of women by using harmful ingredients in their everyday products, but my office will fight to defend Texas women and their health. No corporation should mislead women about the safety of its products, and my office will thoroughly investigate any company that harms the health of Texans.” KVUE reached out to the companies mentioned, but we have not heard back yet. The attorney general also said he's investigating lip products that may contain harmful ingredients like titanium dioxide. He did not name specific cosmetic companies he's looking into. Paxton said the investigations will focus on potential violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and whether consumers were misled over the safety, quality or chemical makeup of the products.

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As bus drivers threaten to strike, CapMetro board member urges more pressure on management

With the possibility of a transit strike shutting down virtually all fixed-route bus service in Austin, a CapMetro board member joined transit workers Monday in calling on the agency to push harder for a labor agreement. Meanwhile, an executive with Keolis, the private contractor which operates most of CapMetro's bus service, acknowledged to KUT News that the company must negotiate within financial limits set by the transit agency. Council Member Zo Qadri, who also serves on the CapMetro board, told reporters that he's asked tough questions of the agency's leadership as about 1,400 bus drivers, mechanics and other workers threaten their first strike since 2008.

Asked whether CapMetro controls how much workers can be paid, Qadri said "it seems like CapMetro could put their thumb on it ... a little bit firmer." The comments increase scrutiny on a central question in the dispute: How much control does CapMetro have over negotiations it has publicly characterized as being a matter between Keolis and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1091? Keolis Assistant General Manager Cynthia Rasco said the company decides how to bargain within the constraints of money available. And she confirmed the limits are set by CapMetro. "Not that they tell us how to do that, but there's a certain financial parameter that we do have to remain within," Rasco said. A July memo to CapMetro's board uses similar language, saying Keolis is negotiating "within the financial parameters provided by CapMetro." The memo says Keolis may have to find savings elsewhere in the union agreement.

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Fort Bend resident whose lawsuit led to Daniel Wong’s appointment as county judge wants that decision vacated

Fort Bend County's Democratic commissioners remain in a stalemate with their Republican counterparts over Daniel Wong's authority to serve as county judge – a key question as the suburban Houston-area county approaches tax rate discussions and the elected position is set to be on the November ballot. The county resident who filed a lawsuit last fall against former county judge KP George – which led to Wong's interim appointment in April – is asking a district court judge to help provide an answer. Wong, a Republican who is facing Commissioner Dexter McCoy in November's county judge election, was appointed to serve in the role by Judge Jeth Jones.

The visiting Republican judge from Galveston County did so while suspending George – in response to a civil lawsuit filed by a resident who claimed George violated her free-speech rights and was incompetent to hold office. Jones' decision followed George's criminal conviction in March on felony money laundering charges. Now an attorney representing the resident who filed the civil suit, Sarah Roberts, is asking Jones to vacate his temporary appointment of Wong as of June 17, the date the lawsuit was initially dismissed at Roberts' request. Jones presided over a court hearing last Thursday that included Roberts' attorney as well as legal counsel for Wong, who is challenging Roberts' request. Jones called the case “complex” and indicated he would make a ruling “soon,” also discussing the possibility of another hearing in the case. In addition to arguing that Wong's appointment became invalidated when the lawsuit against George was dismissed, Roberts' attorney, Dylan B. Russell, also argued that his client lacked standing to sue in the first place because a county attorney or county district attorney was not involved in litigating the matter.

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In ‘limbo’: North Texas family’s legal battle with school district could affect special ed statewide

Shannon Harriman is careful when he talks about his son, Kelton Lightfoot. Harriman describes his son as a funny 17-year-old who wants to get a job, learn how to drive and spend time with the family’s gentle black labrador retriever, Hudson. For all of his affection and devotion to Kelton, there’s also exhaustion, frustration and concern. “A lot of times, it is good,” Harriman said. “[He] can be funny and great to be around. It’s just when it’s bad, it’s sometimes really bad.” Kelton’s intellectual and behavioral development has been significantly affected by a traumatic brain injury he sustained when he was two weeks old. Harriman said Kelton’s disabilities manifest mostly in his behaviors — which can often be violent.

“He can go from being happy to spitting on you, to hitting, throwing things, threatening you with knives, a lot of verbal escalation as well,” he said. For several years, Harriman has split his time and energy between his job in IT and trying to ensure his son has the resources he needs. That’s how Kelton became the center of a legal battle that could have far-reaching implications for accessible education across Texas. Earlier this year, Weatherford ISD — about 30 miles west of Fort Worth — was given 10 days to comply with an order to provide specific resources for Kelton. Months later, the family is still waiting — and advocates warn Kelton might not be the only kid affected. As a child, Kelton went between school districts, full-time therapy providers and short-term treatment programs.

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The latest front in the Texas trans wars? The American Revolution

A Texas member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and her supporters are calling on the national nonprofit organization to bar transgender women from its ranks, pitting traditionalists against progressives on yet another culture war battlefield. At the group’s 135th Continental Congress in June, members voted down a resolution to clarify the term “woman,” as used in the organization’s bylaws, to only include “a woman who was born female.” For three years before that, Laura McDonald, a member from Mount Pleasant, had lobbied to keep transgender women out of the group, known as the DAR. McDonald said she discovered in 2023 that the DAR had transgender members. While investigating further, she found a frequently asked questions document that had circulated among state and national officers of the DAR confirming the organization’s stance on allowing transgender women. According to a copy of that document, which McDonald shared, the DAR’s position is that because transgender women live and identify as women, they are permitted to join the DAR as long as they meet other membership requirements.

The stipulation is that transgender individuals seeking membership must have birth certificates stating they are female. In all but a handful of states, people can change the gender on their birth certificates. Texas, however, is not one of them. The head of the DAR in Texas, Susan Johnston, referred the Star-Telegram to the organization’s national president, Ginnie Storage. Storage did not respond to an email asking for perspective on the DAR’s policy regarding transgender members. None of the Fort Worth DAR chapters responded to requests for comment. The DAR was founded in 1890 by women who were excluded from joining the Sons of the American Revolution, a historical preservation organization founded by men whose forebears helped the United States secure independence from Great Britain in the previous century. The DAR’s bylaws state that membership in the organization is open to women 18 or older who can prove “direct lineal bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided the fight for American independence.” According to the DAR’s website, there are 175,000 members and 3,000 chapters in the U.S. and abroad. When asked how many transgender women were in the DAR, McDonald said she was told there were three or four.

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City Stories

Dallas 'hid' homeless people from FIFA, council member says, cites ongoing 'inhumane' conditions

Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn — who chairs the city's Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee — says the city hid its homeless community from FIFA World Cup visitors and pushed unsheltered individuals out of downtown with no enforcement. The comments were part of a Facebook post made on her official District 12 profile late last week. Mendelsohn wrote that she cared deeply about homelessness but also voiced frustration that some people experiencing homelessness push back attempts to help. "If you are homeless in Dallas, and aren't willing to go to any shelter or program, be reunited with your family, go to in-patient detox or mental health care, there has to be a forced removal and some kind of consequence," she wrote.

"People can't take over public land and make our medians their toilet. It's not safe and sanitary for Dallas residents, businesses, or the homeless. In the post, Mendelsohn said she received notice that a “bucket” of human feces was found dumped at the intersection of Frankford Road and the Dallas North Tollway. She later clarified in a follow up post that a city contractor sent out to clean the debris said it was sausage and ribs, not human feces. “The city isn't enforcing state laws and local ordinances,” Mendelsohn told KERA. “It is unsafe and inhumane to ignore that people are living unsheltered.” There were 44,545 calls regarding homeless encampments between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2025, according to the latest data from Dallas 311. Several Texas Penal codes and Dallas City codes prohibit camping, obstructing roadways, sleeping in public places, and urinating or defecating in public. Mendelsohn said in her post that the city needs to encourage people to move to shelter and, if necessary, enforce the law to make that happen. She says the answer should be as unique as the individual's situation or crisis that led them to become unsheltered.

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Under pressure from Mayor Jones, Spurs to pay part of penalty over failed MLS bid

The Spurs organization will pay the city of San Antonio and Bexar County a penalty of $2.6 million because it failed to lure a Major League Soccer team to the Alamo City — a requirement under a decade-old soccer stadium deal. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has made it her mission to enforce the provision, repeatedly calling on Spurs Sports & Entertainment to fulfill its end of the $21 million agreement, which resulted in the city and county purchasing Toyota Field from philanthropist and one-time developer Gordon Hartman in 2015. “Payment in accordance with the contract would remind everyone of the strength of the City’s relationship with the Spurs owners — a relationship built on mutual respect,” Jones said to SS&E managing partner Peter J. Holt in a May 15 letter.

SS&E, which owns San Antonio FC, agreed to repay the San Antonio-Bexar County Soccer Public Facility Corporation a combined $5 million penalty if it failed to secure an MLS expansion team by 2021. The corporation is the city-county entity that owns Toyota Field, which San Antonio FC leases for $100,000 a year. San Antonio FC plays in the USL Championship, a men’s professional league a tier below MLS. SS&E declined to answer questions about the payment, which the PFC board will vote to approve on Thursday. “This will fulfill the City’s portion of the amount owed to the PFC by SS&E,” said city spokesperson Brian Chasnoff. To date, SS&E has repaid $250,000, according to the city. It has missed $1.75 million worth of scheduled payments, which amounted to more than $2.1 million after factoring interest as of April.

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National Stories

Pentagon reports more than 600 Iran war casualties in quiet database update

The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”. According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action. These figures have been a point of contention after the Pentagon previously reduced the totals from 18 deaths and 482 wounded that had been recorded just days earlier.

The dispute comes after the collapse of the ceasefire with Iran and the resumption of near-daily airstrikes beginning on 6 July. Analysts and officials have questioned whether casualties from the renewed fighting should be counted separately from Operation Epic Fury, a move that would be unprecedented. The Trump administration is seeking to classify the renewed military campaign as separate from Operation Epic Fury, the US military’s official name for the Iran conflict. The change is tied to the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires the president to end military operations within 60 days unless Congress authorizes an extension. The Trump administration has argued that the April ceasefire with Iran paused the clock on 1 May for the conflict’s initial period. The separate casualty count beginning on 7 July follows that interpretation.

Read this article at The Guardian - Subscribers Only

McConnell says he is unable to return to US Senate yet

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell said he will not ?rejoin the Senate when it returns to work on ?Monday because he is still recovering from a fall and from pneumonia. "As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time," McConnell said in a ?statement on Sunday, his first since he was hospitalized last month. "And ?on the advice of my doctors, I won’t be ?able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet." He ?said that he suffered a fall in mid-June that left him ?briefly unconscious. While hospitalized, he developed pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics, according to a separate statement that McConnell's office attributed to the attending physician. ?The physician was not identified.

McConnell, 84, said he is now at ?a rehabilitation center, which he did not name. He will focus on "physical therapy and ?strategies ?to reduce his risk of future falls," according to the physician's statement. The Kentucky Republican and former Senate majority leader, who now chairs the Senate Rules Committee, said he has been working with his ?legislative staff on ?current issues ?and keeping in touch with Senate colleagues. McConnell has been out of public view since mid-June, when he ?was taken from his home to a hospital ?in the ?Washington area for reasons that were not disclosed until the latest statement. Less than a day earlier, the office of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a ?South ?Carolina Republican and one of the ?chamber's most prominent members, announced that he had died from a heart ailment.

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Kevin Warsh’s first two months as Fed Chair: What he changed, and what could happen next

On the evening of June 15, before the first day of his first policy meeting as Federal Reserve chairman, Kevin Warsh sat down to dinner with the 18 officials who set interest rates alongside him. Gathered around a rectangular table, he announced his plan: five panels of outside experts would spend the next few months examining how the Fed reads the economy and explains itself. Governor Christopher Waller, a former economics professor with a reputation for saying what others won’t, put Warsh on the spot, according to several people familiar with the dinner. What’s the point of all this, he asked. Tell me who you’re putting on these groups, he said, and I’ll tell you what they’ll say. There were no brilliant ideas out there that everyone had somehow missed. The dinner was an early sign of the central tension of Warsh’s chairmanship. He is determined to remake the Fed and convinced it can’t afford to wait.

Last year, Warsh persuaded the most rate-cut-hungry president in modern memory to hand the central bank to him despite his long record of worrying about inflation. Now he faces another tricky sale: convincing his colleagues to abandon the intellectual habits of an economics profession he thinks led it astray. The Fed meets again this week with an outcome that is unusually uncertain. Many expect it to hold rates steady, but a renewed inflation scare has put a surprise increase in play. Part of why it’s so hard to call is Warsh’s signature early move on Fed reform: He is saying less—about the economy, about where policy is headed, about his own thinking—and that silence is generating its own tension. Last month’s dinnertime exchange was, in one sense, exactly what Warsh says he wants: a “good family fight,” in the phrase he uses often, over outcomes not settled in advance. Waller had obliged, insinuating Warsh was importing outside authority to ratify long-held views and dressing them up as discovery.

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Why Trump’s SAVE threats aren’t working

President Donald Trump is upping his pressure campaign on Senate Majority Leader John Thune over the SAVE America Act, backing a push from hardline conservatives to scrap the August recess to try to pass the voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill. But it’s not as easy as Trump makes it out to be. First of all, Thune doesn’t want to cancel the recess for a bill that has nowhere close to 60 votes. And he’s not alone. There are two potential paths to get the bill moving — blowing up the filibuster or bringing the House-passed budget resolution to the floor. Nuking the filibuster isn’t happening. Trump has pushed for months to eliminate the 60-vote threshold on legislation, and a big chunk of Senate Republicans still won’t budge. More alarming for the White House: Senate Republicans still don’t have the requisite 50 votes to proceed to the House-passed budget resolution.

And even if they did, the SAVE America Act’s $10 billion blueprint may not pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian. The hangups. Why is the budget resolution so unpopular in the Senate Republican Conference? There are those like Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) who won’t vote for anything that includes SAVE Act provisions. “It doesn’t have the votes,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who backs the measure. “It is an exercise in futility if the votes aren’t there. Period, end of story. Do something productive with your life.” Another big problem: Defense hawks say the House’s $67 billion for the Pentagon isn’t nearly enough amid the war in Iran and Trump’s massive $1.5 trillion FY2027 budget request. Thune told us Monday he’d “prefer doubling” the defense number — and then suggested it may have to be bumped up to get 50 Senate Republicans on board. “I do think that’s an issue,” Thune said in an interview. “Frankly, if we’re going to do this — and what it’s going to take to get this done — you kind of want to make it worthwhile. I think the president asked for $350 billion… We’re at $67 [billion].”

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A desert town may run out of water. Others could face the same fate.

Mayor Curtis Stacy starts every morning checking two websites that tell him how much he needs to worry about water. One site tells him about the reservoir that supplies his tiny desert town — it’s effectively empty. The other site tells him if the town gets additional water that other communities with more senior rights aren’t using; right now, the answer is yes. But Stacy tries to remind Kearny’s roughly 2,000 residents that they could easily tip back into crisis mode, just like this spring. In newsletters, he underscores that fragility with no less than 20 exclamation points. If other communities call for more water, they will have to cut back again. “!!!!!!!!!!THIS SITUATION IS ALMOST CERTAINLY TEMPORARY!!!!!!!!!!” he wrote in one bulletin posted on the Kearny Facebook page and taped up and down the glass doors of the town office.

Kearny is an extreme example of the water crunch facing communities across the West as states and cities stare down a future of “megadrought” and fight over scarce resources. An unusually dry winter this year left the Southwest parched, with not enough water for everyone laying claim to it. In the complex web of water rights that govern how that short supply is distributed, the tiny town of Kearny comes last. Other cities around the West could face similar challenges and cutbacks. The federal government is set to release a plan for the shrinking supply of Colorado River water this summer that could force dramatic cuts. Kearny is not directly affected by the Colorado River negotiations, officials say, but its dilemma shows how dwindling resources — and water-rights rules that can feel arbitrary to those most affected — can upend daily life. Kearny usually uses about 280 acre-feet of water a year; this year, it was allocated 77 acre-feet (one acre-foot supplies about three homes annually). Town officials realized they were on track to run out of water in July. The crisis forced steep reductions in water use and now hangs over the town’s future, testing residents’ ability to adapt to shortage. It has also consumed much of Stacy’s final year in charge, giving him new gray hairs and new worries about his hometown, a community where everyone knows everyone and where you can get ahold of the mayor by walking into his office.

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El-Sayed comes under fire for 'ogre on a pike' leaked comment

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing backlash from within his own party after using controversial rhetoric to describe the stakes of his victory in a recent donor meeting. “If I win ... well y’all came at me so now I get to come at you, and you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that,” he said, according to audio of a Zoom meeting obtained by POLITICO. “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different,” El-Sayed added later, referencing how he could help propel the progressive moment. On Monday, several Democrats were quick to slam his comments. “Violent, vulgar threats have no place in a democratic electoral contest,” said Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.). “With political violence on the rise, we need to be doing everything we can to lower the temperature — not raise it. It’s the American people who suffer most when we degrade the political process this way.”

Some took El-Sayed’s remarks as an attack on the party. Shannon Watts, founder of gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, said on X that El-Sayed “doesn’t mean Republicans.” Another gun control activist, Fred Guttenberg, wrote: “That is what Abdul El-Sayed and his DSA movement think of Democrats and the party.” Guttenberg — whose daughter was killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting — urged Michiganders to support El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, and “show AES the loss he deserves.” An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson referred POLITICO back to an earlier statement that the candidate was “speaking metaphorically” about his intention to support a primary against Fetterman, a Pennsylvania senator. Fetterman and El-Sayed have clashed over support for Israel. The senator, who possesses a towering stature, has been mocked for his physical appearance by political rivals, and the “ogre” moniker partly stems from an attack by Kari Lake, a failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate and ally of President Donald Trump.

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Washington says goodbye to Sen. Lindsey Graham

President Donald Trump, congressional colleagues and world leaders Tuesday will say their final goodbye to Sen. Lindsey Graham, the influential and colorful foreign policy hawk whose sudden death this month at age 71 stunned Washington and reverberated in capitals around the globe. Two days of ceremonies and funeral services will begin around 10 a.m. ET Tuesday when Graham’s casket arrives at the Capitol for a brief ceremony in the rotunda that will include nods to both his military service and his more than three decades in Congress. The ceremony will be private but livestreamed.

From there, Graham’s casket will depart for Washington National Cathedral for an invitation-only funeral service at 2 p.m. ET. That also will be livestreamed. Trump is expected to speak at the funeral. Cabinet officials and congressional and military leaders are expected to be on hand, as are global leaders who viewed Graham as a key American ally on defense and foreign policy matters, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Also present will be Graham’s sister and successor, Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., who was sworn in to her late brother’s seat this month and plans to run for a full term in an Aug. 11 primary. Remembrances will continue at the South Carolina State House on Wednesday morning. Graham’s casket will be carried by a South Carolina State Guard horse-drawn military wagon, known as a caisson, followed by an F-16 flyover to mark his more than three decades in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve.

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SpaceX stock-purchasing by Congress members fuels conflict concerns

Three days after SpaceX’s blockbuster public debut, Rep. William Timmons bought as much as $100,000 of the rocket company’s stock. The South Carolina Republican chairs a House oversight panel on military and foreign affairs and sits on a financial services subcommittee covering artificial intelligence — two sectors central to Elon Musk’s newly public empire. He was not the only member of Congress to buy in. Within six days of the June 12 initial public offering, at least six House members or their immediate families purchased a total of between roughly $83,000 and $245,000 in SpaceX shares, according to a CNBC tally of the amounts reported in House financial disclosures, where transactions are reported in ranges. Joining Timmons were Reps. John McGuire, R-Va., Dan Meuser, R-Pa., Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., John James, R-Mich., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.

That total reflects the combined minimum and maximum values reported for the six transactions: $50,001 to $100,000 for Timmons; $1,001 to $15,000 for McGuire, Moskowitz and Cisneros; and $15,001 to $50,000 for James and Meuser. That count could rise. House members must report stock trades over $1,000 within 30 days of learning of them and no later than 45 days after the transaction. Monday was the deadline for reporting IPO-day purchases; trades in the following six days are due by Aug. 2. Five of those members serve on committees overseeing aspects of SpaceX’s business — including defense, satellite communications and AI — and securities markets. The company relies heavily on federal approvals and receives billions in government contracts — spending directed by the very lawmakers buying its stock. There is no evidence the lawmakers traded on nonpublic information, violated congressional trading rules or used their offices to benefit SpaceX. The trades are legal; three were made by a spouse or child, and some lawmakers say outside advisors manage their portfolios. While there have been efforts to limit the practice, Congress members are allowed to own and buy individual stocks provided they disclose their purchases and holdings.

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Lead Stories

Tom Luce, one of the state’s most influential behind-the-scenes leaders, dies at 86

Tom Luce, a Dallas attorney and one of the state's most influential behind-the-scenes leaders in education, public policy, and civic philanthropy over the past half century, has died. He was 86. “We have lost a great Texan with the death of Thomas W. Luce, III,” said former President George W. Bush, in a statement on Sunday. “Tom was a champion of education reform. He believed that every child had potential and deserved the right to read and succeed. Without Tom, Texas would not be the powerhouse that it is.” Luce, a champion of public education, was born in Dallas and attended school in Highland Park. He earned his law degree from SMU. Luce was a long-time advisor and personal attorney to Ross Perot, Sr. Luce also chaired Perot’s 1992 campaign for president.

In the early 1980s, Perot and Luce led the state’s school reform effort. It transformed public education in Texas by introducing higher academic standards, teacher accountability, statewide testing, and stronger graduation requirements. “I was one of so many people whose careers were shaped by Tom’s passion for education reform," said Margaret Spellings, the former U.S. Secretary of Education for President George W. Bush." He gave me my start in 1984 when he hired me to staff a special committee of the Texas legislature, which led to major education legislation. When I became U.S. secretary of education, I brought Tom to the department to help create a coordinated policy team to implement the No Child Left Behind act, laying the groundwork for improved math and reading skills for millions of students.” Luce served as the Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education in 2005 and 2006. He ran for governor in 1990 but placed third in the Republican primary. But he served in multiple roles for different Texas governors including chief justice pro tempore of the state Supreme Court. Luce later founded Texas 2036, a bi-partisan think tank to tackle the state’s most pressing problems in the coming decade. “Tom was a visionary leader whose dedication to public service transformed the lives and opportunities of millions of people across our state,” said David W. Leebron, president and CEO of Texas 2036. Circumstances of Luce’s death and arrangements have not yet been made public.

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The DNC put up its headquarters as collateral to obtain its massive loan

The Democratic National Committee put its physical headquarters up for collateral last year in order to obtain a $15 million line of credit to help invest in off-year elections, according to D.C. deed records not previously reported. The building, located in Southeast Washington and partially owned by the DNC, has been used as collateral in the past, including in other election cycles. That the DNC had to do so again ahead of the 2026 elections to obtain its biggest-ever off-year loan raised concerns among some members that it was further evidence of its intensifying financial strain. The DNC did not explicitly declare the building as its collateral in its monthly or loan-related filings to the Federal Election Commission.

“Ken gaslighting us about the DNC’s finances and not being transparent about the financial situation makes us doubt if he can oversee the DNC during the most important primary of our lifetime,” said a DNC member, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. The DNC is working toward two main goals: to help the party win back control of Congress in November, as well as gubernatorial and local elections across the country. And it’s also preparing for the 2028 presidential primary, which is expected to be wide open and have no clear front-runner. Those objectives have been complicated by the DNC’s current lack of money. Federal disclosures from June showed it only had about $16 million in its account and $18 million in debt. That’s a sobering amount of money compared to the Republican National Committee, which declared that it had $128 million in cash with no outstanding debts.

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Musk’s SpaceX tumbles back to Earth, dragging Tesla stock down with it

It seemed to be only good news for Elon Musk and investors in companies he oversees. SpaceX had marked a record-setting IPO, Musk was the first trillionaire in history, and the rocket company vaulted to an all-time high of more than $225 per share. That was last month. Since then, their fortunes have shifted. Musk has shed hundreds of billions in wealth, demoting him from trillionaire status, and SpaceX’s stock price has been cut practically in half. On top of that, electric vehicle maker Tesla has lost more than 18 percent of its value over the past week, in part after falling short of its quarterly earnings expectations, as investor patience for its artificial intelligence and robotics bets has worn thin. Musk cheekily nodded at the situation in a post on X on Friday. “(Former) Trillionaire,” he wrote.

But while the world’s richest person could become a trillionaire again with a few big up days in the market, the challenges for SpaceX are deeper. It’s a new era for a company that was once on a glide path, that seemingly could do no wrong on its way to a historic $75 billion initial public offering. For SpaceX, “one of the benefits of being private is that there wasn’t a market to weigh in on and evaluate business decisions,” said David Meier, senior investment analyst at the Motley Fool. “Being publicly traded means everything will be evaluated and information transmitted through market prices. So every SpaceX launch, every Starlink decision and every xAI decision will be scrutinized by the market,” he added, referring to the company’s satellite internet service and artificial intelligence arm. Case in point: After SpaceX aborted a launch because of engine issues this month, the company faced another problem — a plummeting stock. SpaceX’s IPO documents had touted its plans to establish a colony on Mars and put data centers in space. Then SpaceX was dealt its latest setback in propelling Starship off the ground. The company is trying to power its data center and exploration bets by using a roughly 400-foot rocket to carry out missions including taking humans back to the moon.

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Baytown police investigates officer who may have misused Flock cameras

A Baytown police officer is being investigated for potential misuse of the Flock license plate reader system. Baytown Police Chief John Stringer on Friday announced the investigation via Facebook, where he said he authorized an internal affairs investigation for potential policy misconduct. He also said there will be a separate criminal investigation for potential criminal misconduct. For the criminal investigation, Stringer said he has requested the help of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. “The executive staff of the Baytown Police Department and I recognize our community's concerns for the protection and respect of individual privacy, as well as for police accountability,” Stringer said in the video. The department has not identified the officer.

“If these allegations are sustained, then the employee involved will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law and policy,” Stringer said. Flock Safety is a public safety technology company, and its license plate reader cameras provide 24/7 monitoring for police departments, businesses and neighborhoods. The company has been the subject of debate across the country and in Houston. The Harris County Commissioners Court voted in May to renew the county's contract with Flock Safety through June 2027, but Conroe residents voiced their opposition to the cameras at Conroe City Council last week. “The Baytown Police Department has worked very hard to build trust and establish strong relationships in our community,” Stringer said. “I value those relationships. They're important to the Baytown Police Department. And we want you to know that we hold fast to the standards and trust that our community has given to us, and that they expect from us.” The Baytown officer isn’t the first in the Houston-area to be accused of misusing the technology. A Pasadena officer resigned this month during an internal investigation in which he was accused of using the Flock camera systems to monitor and stalk a female officer.

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State Stories

Texan Christopher Wingate, former Cruz aide and Heritage employee was caught with drugs trying to get into the Senate

A Heritage Foundation employee faces a drug-possession charge after a security screening at a Senate office building turned what tested presumptively positive as cocaine and fentanyl, according to court records. Capitol Police officers detained Matthew Christopher Wingate on July 14 after he entered the Russell Senate Office Building and placed his bag on the X-ray belt as part of routine screening, according to an affidavit filed in Washington, D.C., superior court. Wingate is the government-relations director for defense and foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation, and previously worked as a national security adviser for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and a military legislative assistant for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), according to Legistorm.

An officer observed an image consistent with a pistol magazine inside the brown briefcase, and a secondary screening found a magazine with 10 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, the affidavit states. Officers placed him under arrest, the affidavit states. That was apparently because of the magazine. Firearms and ammunition are generally prohibited from being carried into Senate office buildings. Officers ran a check through the Metropolitan Police Department’s Gun Registry Unit, which confirmed Wingate held a valid license to carry a firearm in D.C., the affidavit states. A crime-scene officer discovered a plastic sandwich bag in the exterior pocket of the briefcase containing four capsules and three blue-pressed tablets, the affidavit states. Field testing of the blue pills, which were imprinted with the letter “A” on one side and “7 6” on the other side, returned a presumptive positive result for cocaine and fentanyl, the affidavit states. Under questioning, Wingate said he forgot the magazine was in the briefcase and “explained that the drugs were his and were prescribed to him from a medical professional,” the affidavit states.

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USMCA uncertainty threatens border investment, Cuellar says

President Donald Trump’s decision not to extend the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement for another 16 years is creating economic uncertainty along the Texas-Mexico border, where businesses depend on predictable trade rules. “I’m not looking to renew it,” Trump said in June. “We don’t need anything that Canada has. We don’t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have. They have to treat us better.” The Trump administration subsequently declined to extend the agreement in its current form, saying it wants to address the pact’s “shortcomings” and U.S. trade deficits. The USMCA, which Trump negotiated to replace NAFTA during his first term, remains in force until July 2036. The decision triggers annual reviews until the three countries agree to an extension or the pact expires.

Democratic Laredo Congressman Henry Cuellar said he views Trump’s threat as a familiar negotiating tactic and does not believe the president ultimately wants to eliminate North American free trade. “He took the same approach when he said he was going to not do this NAFTA,” Cuellar said. “But at the end of the day, Congress played a role in this.” Cuellar argues Trump cannot terminate the congressionally approved agreement without Congress, although the division of withdrawal authority between the president and lawmakers remains legally disputed. “The only thing he can do is just start a cycle of yearly renewals,” Cuellar said. “But this renewal causes a lot of uncertainty.” That uncertainty has immediate consequences for border communities, Cuellar said. “Being in the largest port of entry in the United States, I’ve seen that uncertainty of the trade agreement really freeze investment — new warehouses, the new money coming in,” he said.

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China oil contracts at center of Texas Fuel Group fraud case

An oil deal in China was supposed to pay millions to a group of Texans, but one investor says the deal may never have existed. Round Rock-based Fuel Group Trading LLC said it had contracts with Chinese companies needing a combined 22 million barrels of fuel each month, according to court records. It sold equity in the company, saying $1 million could net an investor as much as $550,000 each month in return. Now the company is facing a lawsuit alleging fraud. It filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

“We are defending this action, and the Chapter 11 is part of that defense strategy,” Fuel Group Trading CEO Dennis Kruse said in an emailed response to questions. “I have no further comment.” Attorneys for the company did not respond to requests for comment. In his lawsuit, Houston eye surgeon Stephen Slade said that in 2021, his friend Tommy Soriero told him he had a line on a great investment and introduced him to another friend: Kruse. They told Slade that Kruse had “proprietary methods” and contacts high up in the Chinese military, along with contracts to deliver oil to several companies and potential deals with government agencies. Court documents say Kruse alleged he had contracts with Jiujian Refining/Sinopec Shandong Energy and Hainan Yingu Energy. Juijian appears to be a misspelled reference to Jiujiang Petrochemical or Sinopec Jiujiang Co. He also said it had prospective deals with a Chinese rail company. According to Slade’s suit, Kruse provided copies of documents showing that $200 million in credit from a Chinese bank was available to a company with which it apparently would do business.

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Can Democratic Representative Jon Rosenthal flip the Texas Railroad Commission?

Democratic State Representative Jon Rosenthal (HD-135) is seeking to become Texas’ next Railroad Commissioner, saying it’s time for someone with firsthand oil and gas experience to lead the agency and bring meaningful change. Rosenthal has represented House District 135 for nearly eight years. A mechanical engineer, he spent more than 25 years working in the oil and gas industry before serving four terms in the Texas House. Now, the Houston-area lawmaker is taking his campaign statewide. Rosenthal said he decided to run following the widespread power outages during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, which exposed weaknesses in Texas’ energy infrastructure.

“When the chairman of the Energy Resources Committee flatly refused to act on the problem, I was extremely frustrated. I used some coarse language… I had decided I was going to come back to address this problem, and this is me coming back to address that problem,” Rosenthal shared. “The first thing is weatherizing natural gas facilities, and we’re [the oil and gas industry] already working on it… In that, you want to make sure that your most critical production fields will stay up and operating if a massive winter storm happens again, and so I would just work with industry on reliability plans to weatherize our most critical natural gas facilities.” Rosenthal said the Railroad Commission oversees roughly 1,000 employees and operates with a biennial budget of about $500 million. He believes his engineering background sets him apart from the current commission. “I feel like you need that kind of experience to develop sensible solutions that work with our industry partners to move our state forward, keep our industry responsible and profitable at the same time. And I’ll just say, when a Democrat wins in the state of Texas for the first time in decades over 30 years, I think that’s an opportunity to shake up the status quo and really push for real change,” Rosenthal said.

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North Texas housing advocates say the affordability crisis has deep roots

Housing advocates say the affordability crisis North Texans are facing did not materialize overnight and that Dallas' housing challenges have been years in the making. Dallas Housing Coalition executive director Bryan Tony and historian Jerry Hawkins say the recently passed bipartisan federal housing package, called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, is an important first step but it's only the beginning of addressing the issue. "This will take time," Tony said. "We have built ourselves into a big hole in terms of our housing shortage and it's going to take time to build ourselves out of that hole." Tony and Hawkins partnered with the Dallas Free Press to create the zine, A People's Guide to Dallas Housing History. It outlines how the decades of housing decisions that continue to influence affordability, neighborhood development, and opportunity across the city.

Hawkins traces Dallas' housing history back to the displacement of Native American communities. "Dallas, like many other American cities, started with the displacement of American Indian/Native American groups," he said. "They had housing here. They would build very sustainable housing." After Indigenous communities were removed, segregation quickly became embedded in how Dallas developed, according to Hawkins. Segregation laws were written into the city's 1907 charter. That, plus single-family zoning rules and other policies, deliberately separated Black and white residents. Hawkins also pointed to examples of intentional segregation, like the construction of highways through historically Black neighborhoods such as Deep Ellum.? He said eminent Domain was exercised to take over minority business districts that were thriving. Hawkins argues that public policy consistently shaped where people could live, and where wealth could be built. "The ability for people to own a house to gain equity and to build wealth in this country," he said. "Everyone wasn't allowed to do that." And that, Hawkins said, is contributing to the widening wealth gap.

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Recent rains prompt Edwards Aquifer Authority to ease pumping restrictions

Recent rainfall has helped raise Edwards Aquifer levels, allowing the authority to ease pumping restrictions across the region. Permit holders in the San Antonio Pool, which includes Bexar County and parts of several surrounding counties, have moved from Stage 2 to Stage 1. Under Stage 1, they must reduce pumping by 20%. Conditions have also improved in the Uvalde Pool. Under the EAA’s Critical Period Management Plan, it moved out of Stage 4 last week for the first time since March 2024. The pool has since moved from Stage 3 to Stage 2, reducing the required pumping cut from 10% to 5%.

The changes apply to municipal water utilities, including the San Antonio Water System, and other permit holders that draw large amounts of water from the aquifer. SAWS residential and commercial customers remain under Stage 3 watering rules. The utility relies on several water sources beyond the Edwards Aquifer, so its watering restrictions do not always change when the authority adjusts pumping limits. The Edwards Aquifer Authority is the groundwater conservation district that manages and protects the aquifer, which supplies water to more than 2 million people in the region. Its jurisdiction covers eight counties: all of Uvalde, Medina and Bexar counties and parts of Atascosa, Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe and Hays counties.

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North Texas grew the state’s best wheat crop. Urban sprawl threatens what’s left

Rain levels and viruses led to a statewide nightmare for wheat farmers this season, though the Dallas-Fort Worth area had the best in Texas, according to a report from Texas A&M. The report found that DFW has the best non-irrigated wheat in the state due to rainfall at the right times and the fungal issues in the wheat crops in other parts of the state. Throughout the rest of Texas, triticum mosaic viruses took over wheat crops due to the lack of rainfall. In DFW, the crops faced fungal pathogens and insect pressure from pests like Hessian flies. Brandon Gerrish, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension statewide small grains specialist, performs variety testing for grains across Texas. He said that this year, a lot of the wheat won’t even be harvested because of “how bad it was.”

Around 1.6 million acres of wheat is expected to be harvested throughout Texas this season, though that is only around 29% of the 5.5 million acres that was planted. This is the lowest harvested acreage since 2022, when 1.3 million acres were harvested. Despite the lower amount of Texas wheat, consumers shouldn’t see a noticeable price increase for items containing wheat at the grocery store. The European Union, China, India and Russia are all top producers of wheat. Though considered the best in the state, the DFW crop was “less of a tragedy than others,” according to Robert Braden, president and CEO of the Texas Grain and Feed Association, who noted that North Texas farmers still struggled significantly compared to previous years. Across Texas, farmers faced freezes, hail, heavy winds, rainfall and lack thereof. “Mother Nature is wreaking havoc from one end of the state to the other. We love rain, but there are times and amounts that are not that are just not helpful,” Braden said. “And we’re living that nightmare right now.”

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Morales Shaw says school funding, immigration policies are key issues affecting youth

State Rep. Penny Morales Shaw said increasing school funding and protecting immigrant families should remain top priorities as Texas lawmakers work to address challenges facing children and young adults across the state. Morales Shaw, who represents House District 148 in northwest Houston, discussed education, immigration and youth issues during a recent conversation with Houston Community Media. The Democratic lawmaker argued that adequate school funding plays a critical role in addressing issues ranging from academic success to student mental health and school violence.

“There are some schools that have more affluent students or families” and can raise additional money through their communities, Morales Shaw said. She said state and federal funding helps level the playing field for students who don’t have access to the same resources. Morales Shaw said while lawmakers approved billions of dollars for public education during the last legislative session, she believes it still wasn’t enough to meet the needs of Texas schools. She said lawmakers pushed for at least a $1,000 increase in per-student funding to help schools cover classroom supplies, teacher pay, building maintenance and other essential services. Without adequate funding, she said, schools struggle to provide students with the support they need. The Houston lawmaker also addressed concerns about how federal immigration policies and actions by Texas leaders could affect immigrant families. Morales Shaw said cuts to grant funding have impacted nonprofits and organizations that provide food assistance, housing support and other services many families rely on. She also criticized recent state directives requiring proof of lawful presence for certain professional license renewals and housing programs that receive government funding, saying the changes could disproportionately affect immigrant communities.

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Trump revives ‘Talafreako’ nickname in Talarico roast

James Talarico was one of the Democrats President Donald Trump mocked Friday night at a redo of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Trump’s remarks were delivered in his typical riffing style over about an hour. He roasted a series of prominent Democrats, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also directed a few jabs at Talarico, who is running for Senate in Texas against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Trump referred to the Austin state representative as “James Talafreako” and accused him of hating guns, oil, sex, women and Christianity. “Other than that, I think his platform is quite good,” Trump said sarcastically. “And that means that he's not going to do very well against Ken Paxton.” The Talarico campaign has previously rejected similar Republican attacks as distortions of his record and religious faith. In his remarks, Trump said Talarico looks like Mad magazine’s fictional character Alfred E. Neuman, a resemblance Trump brought up when Paxton and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick visited Trump in June in the Oval Office. On the campaign trail, Paxton has tossed around a number of nicknames portraying Talarico as weak and radical, including the “Talafreako” sobriquet Trump deployed Friday night.

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Dallas mayor’s budget blueprint: Reduce taxes, shrink bureaucracy

Coffee shops in Dallas libraries. Higher prices for suburban visitors at the zoo, arboretum and other city attractions. A smaller city government. Mayor Eric Johnson proposed those ideas in a newsletter Sunday as ways to cut spending and raise revenue while Dallas confronts a projected $51 million gap in its next budget. In his most extensive prescription yet for confronting the shortfall, Johnson called for cutting excess spending and shifting some services to other government or private entities while protecting public safety and reducing the property tax rate.

“The City’s bureaucracy is simply too large and too expensive,” Johnson wrote in a memo Friday to the city manager. He said spending has expanded over the past decade, and while some of it was necessary – such as in public safety – much of it has been “growth for the sake of growth.” Johnson’s suggestions come as most city employees are being asked to take unpaid leave to overcome a midyear gap in the current budget. City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert previously ordered hiring freezes and travel restrictions, saying rising costs, constrained sales tax collections and overtime expenses meant the city already was short nearly $30 million. Johnson’s recommendations are not binding. Tolbert will present her proposed budget to the mayor and City Council, which can revise the plan before it goes into effect Oct. 1. Her draft will be made public Aug. 11, kicking off town halls in every district where residents can weigh in. In his memo and newsletter, Johnson said Dallas should concentrate its resources on public safety, streets, infrastructure, parks, planning and development and code compliance. Services outside those areas should be examined to determine whether they could be handled by Dallas County, private businesses or other organizations, he said.

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Passenger rail between San Antonio and Austin? Two routes, major hurdles

Recent studies have found that expanded passenger rail service between Austin and San Antonio is possible, though getting trains on the tracks remains a long way off. The Texas Department of Transportation recently released its Austin-San Antonio Passenger Rail Study. A separate study commissioned by the Travis County Commissioners Court is expected to be released soon. The TxDOT study looked at using the existing rail corridor between the two cities near Interstate 35. The Travis County study examines a potential route along State Highway 130 and Interstate 10 east of San Antonio.

Amtrak currently provides passenger rail service between the two cities, but its one round-trip per day offers limited scheduling options. An estimated 266,000 trips are made between the Austin and San Antonio areas on a typical weekday, most of them along the Interstate 35 corridor. The proposal using the existing rail corridor is estimated to cost between roughly $810 million and $1.9 billion. The alternative route could cost considerably more because much of it would need to be elevated. Neither proposal has secured construction funding.

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National Stories

An admiral’s rise reveals the politics driving Hegseth’s Pentagon

Adm. Daryl Caudle saw an opening to land the Navy’s top job last year, and he seized it. Before Pete Hegseth had even been sworn in as defense secretary, Admiral Caudle, then the head of a major Navy training command, offered to help Mr. Hegseth prepare for his politically contentious Senate confirmation hearing, according to current and former defense officials. Nothing came of the offer. But soon after Mr. Hegseth took office, he fired the first woman to lead the Navy: Admiral Caudle’s boss. Days later, a senior officer on Admiral Caudle’s staff contacted Mr. Hegseth’s team in another breach of protocol. The outreach was a breach of military ethics, the officials said. Senior military officers are supposed to avoid any hint of partisan bias or political activity.

His pitch: Mr. Hegseth should choose Admiral Caudle to be the next chief of naval operations, the current and former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters. The officer described Admiral Caudle in terms that matched Mr. Hegseth’s view of the values that military officers should embody. There was “no one more in line” with Mr. Hegseth’s vision for remaking the military, he said, according to an official familiar with the exchange. The officer cast Admiral Caudle as a “warfighter” who wanted to remove “woke barriers” that he claimed were weakening the force, the official said. Even though Admiral Caudle was not on a list of candidates recommended by senior Navy officials, Mr. Hegseth chose him for the job. But before the promotion could be finalized, the admiral needed to address another problem. There was an unresolved inspector general investigation into comments he had made to sailors about the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevent and Response program, officials said. Some interpreted his remarks as blaming victims.

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U.S.-Iran War pauses for 2nd straight day with both sides holding off on strikes

The war between the United States and Iran remained on pause for a second straight day on Sunday, while the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that there had been some movement in talks between Tehran and mediators over the Strait of Hormuz. No U.S. strikes on Iran have been reported since Friday, while Iran has similarly held off attacking American allies around the Middle East after about two weeks of skirmishes brought the two countries back to the brink of full-blown war. President Trump decided last week to put off plans to escalate the U.S. assault on Iran, at least for now, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Trump and his aides were motivated in part by dwindling stockpiles of interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

Mr. Trump has struggled to decisively end the war on Iran that the United States and Israel started jointly five months ago, even as the global economic toll and number of American casualties have mounted. A cease-fire signed last month effectively collapsed after Iran continued to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas shipments. Two weeks of American bombing runs on southern Iran have failed to break the deadlock over the strait. Before the war, ships could freely travel through the waterway — but Tehran has since effectively blocked transit, throttling global energy markets and increasing the pressure on Mr. Trump to end the war. Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that officials from the Gulf sultanate of Oman, which abuts the Strait of Hormuz, visited Tehran over the weekend for talks about the waterway. Oman has occasionally served as a mediator between Iran and the United States. “These talks were useful, and progress was achieved,” Mr. Baghaei said in remarks carried by state media, though he offered no further details.

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Big companies are starting to hire again, defying predictions of AI wipeout

America’s biggest companies say they might need more people after all. For months, major employers treated hiring as an expensive last resort. Now, a shift is emerging across industries. Companies ranging from railroad giant CSX to Google parent Alphabet have told investors in recent days that they plan to hire to meet growth goals or to seize on emerging technologies. The push to expand head count, at least modestly, is a reversal from the prevailing corporate messaging during much of the AI era. Major employers largely held back on adding people due to economic uncertainties or a belief that artificial intelligence could shoulder more tasks on the job. But some executives say the costs and limitations of AI now demand that more people be added; others want to hire people back following layoffs.

“We actually need to accelerate hiring a bit. We’re a little bit behind right now,” Booz Allen Hamilton’s Chief Operating Officer Kristine Martin Anderson told investors Friday. “We’re addressing that now.” The government contractor cut thousands of jobs last year as the Trump administration slashed federal contracts and asked firms to justify their costs. Total head count stood at roughly 30,900 as of June 30, down 7.5% from a year earlier. But the company now sees healthy demand for its services, including in national security for workers who need security clearances. For much of the past 18 months, big employers were convinced fewer workers meant faster growth. U.S. public companies shrank their white-collar workforces. Now layoffs are shrinking. The most recent week of U.S. jobless claims was the lowest on record since 1969, according to federal data. Part of the change in hiring also reflects a recalibration among employers about what AI can do, said Sarah Franklin, CEO of the human-resources platform Lattice.

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America’s big cities are rapidly losing kids

When Fernando and Patricia Escobedo moved to the Willows, an affluent neighborhood in El Paso, Texas, 25 years ago, kids were everywhere. About half of the homes on their cul-de-sac had children. Growing up, the couple’s twin daughters used to ride their scooters outside with other neighborhood kids. At an annual block party, they jumped around in a bouncy house and climbed into the local firetruck. The twins are now in college—and the neighborhood feels a lot different. The Escobedos also have a 12-year-old at home, and Fernando said she is one of a few children under 18 on the block. The local elementary school has noticeably fewer kids. And Fernando said he’s more likely to see a retired neighbor gardening than a child on a bicycle. “It’s not the vibe it was 10 years ago when there were still kids here,” he said.

With the nation’s fertility rate at record lows, the number of children under 18 is falling across the U.S. The decline is especially pronounced in big cities, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The number of children under 18 living in big U.S. cities is down 6% in the past decade, the Journal found, compared with a 1% decline nationwide. The drop is especially stark among families with little kids: The number of children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, compared with a drop of 7% nationwide. Even cities that are gaining population are losing children. In all, the number of children declined in about two-thirds of the 38 U.S. cities with more than 500,000 residents. The Journal analyzed census data from 2015 through 2024, the most recent data available. Families with children cite concerns about costs, safety and quality of life in their move away from cities. Also contributing to the drop is a growing number of childless residents opting to stay that way, worried about the financial implications and lifestyle trade-offs of having a family. The drop is happening in cities across the economic spectrum.

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New UK Prime Minister Burnham says he would be prepared to call out Trump

The U.K.‘s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, said he would be willing to call out U.S. President Donald Trump to defend the U.K.’s national interest, as he set the tone for the key trans-Atlantic relationship. Speaking to the BBC in an interview aired Sunday, Burnham said he had a phone conversation with Trump on Monday when he officially took on the role, describing it as “a good exchange” and that he found Trump “warm”. “We will continue to build the relationship as we go forward,” Burnham added. Asked if Burnham would place his trust in Trump, Burnham said: “it’s a changing world isn’t it, and you just obviously have to call things as they develop”. Trump has frequently criticized the U.K., among other European and NATO allies, for not pulling their weight in the U.S.-led war on Iran.

But Trump has welcomed Burnham’s plan to fast-track oil and gas exploration in already-licensed fields in the North Sea. Writing on Truth Social last week, Trump called North Sea oil “invaluable,” adding it will take the U.K. from a “Poverty Stricken Disaster, to one of the Richest Countries anywhere in the World!” Trump had criticized Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer, over the U.K.’s energy policy. In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper in April, Trump said: “All Starmer wants is costly windmills that are driving your energy prices through the roof.” Starmer announced last month that he would step down from his post. His two years in office were marked by a series of policy U-turns, scandals over staffing appointments and a dramatic loss in Britain’s local elections which sparked calls for his resignation from within his own ranks. Asked by BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg if he would call out Trump if it was the right thing to do, Burnham said, “of course”, and added: “You have to defend your own national interest before anything else. That’s what you’re required to do if you’re to do this job properly.” “I can’t at any point say that I won’t take a different opinion from him, that I will need to voice a different idea that is right for Britain,” Burnham said.

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Inside the fights to maintain TPS status for thousands after the Supreme Court sided with Trump

Dahlia Doe is holding on to hope. A month after the Supreme Court curtailed lower courts’ ability to block the Trump administration from revoking temporary deportation protections, fresh efforts to halt the government’s plans for the Syrian national and thousands of others fleeing war and natural disasters are heating up around the country. “I feel so much stress and uncertainty,” Doe, who arrived in the US in 2015 as the civil war in Syria intensified, told CNN. “There’s nothing for us to do but to continue fighting and not give up.” Doe, a pseudonym, is one of several Syrians who sued to keep the government from revoking the humanitarian program, known as Temporary Protected Status for nearly 4,000 others from the country.

The high court’s conservative supermajority said in late June that judges do not have the power to review challenges to the Homeland Security secretary’s decision to end TPS for a slew of countries based on claims the administration didn’t follow proper legal procedure. But the justices left the door open for TPS beneficiaries to bring constitutional challenges to the administration’s actions. In recent days, legal advocates representing Doe and migrants from a handful of countries have either repackaged their earlier procedural arguments into new constitutional claims or signaled plans to do so soon. For several of those countries, attorneys defending the TPS designations are also now pushing novel, non-constitutional arguments about whether the department has the authority in the first place to terminate the protections. Time is of the essence, said Shane Kadidal, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights who is challenging the revocation of TPS for migrants from Yemen. He pointed to an effort underway by the Justice Department to get judges who previously ruled against the administration to quickly lift those orders so officials can begin deporting scores of migrants from Haiti, Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Burma, Somalia and Yemen who have been living legally in the United States.

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NBA star rips socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani as 'mayor playing president' after Netanyahu video

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew criticism over the weekend from an unlikely source: Milwaukee Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma, who mocked the democratic socialist as a "mayor playing president." Responding to the mayor's video on X, the nine-year NBA veteran suggested Mamdani was more concerned with appearances than governing, labeling the mayor's talking points as performative.

"This is 2026. People cosplaying as things they don’t have the authority, the talent, or the track record to actually be. Just for content," Kuzma wrote, quote-tweeting Mamdani's address. The response came after Mamdani released a video calling for the arrest of Netanyahu under an International Criminal Court warrant ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. "A mayor playing president. A founder playing operator. A content creator playing one-on-one, thinking he’s a pro. A 25-year-old with a ring light playing economist. Everyone auditioning. Nobody building. We're raising a generation that is learning the reward isn’t in doing the thing; it’s in looking like you did the thing.

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Lead Stories

Ken Paxton now has to do the unthinkable: Try

Elías Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Digital subscribers can listen to this article. Subscribe today for unlimited access to Texas Monthly. Already a subscriber? Log in. Say you woke up one morning and HaShem, with his infinite wisdom and his unknowable plans, had blessed you with extraordinary protection. No harm would come to you; no endeavor would truly fail. Each setback would set you up for greater success down the road. The normal laws of gravity wouldn’t apply to you. No weapon, or impeachment, formed against you would prosper. For an exceptional type of person, maybe, this would be an invitation to thrive—to do extreme sports, write a novel, fight crime at night. For most of us, it would probably result in a certain dulling of the senses. What makes the pickpocket develop his art, of course, is the fear of getting caught. With God’s protection, we could stop staying at work after five, walk out of any meeting that bored us. We could finally stop trying. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has received a similar kind of blessing, found himself in an unfamiliar position upon defeating John Cornyn to become his party’s candidate for Senate.

He would finally have to work hard for something. He would have to start giving stump speeches for normal voters, speeches of the kind a candidate seeking high office gives often. By rights, he should have done this thousands of times already, and his oration should have been polished. But when he got up on stage the night he won the runoff, he revealed that, though the spirit may be willing, the flesh was weak. He just wasn’t very good at it. Paxton stared at the teleprompter a few feet away, in the way conservatives used to make fun of Uncle Brandon for doing, and mumbled his way through a half-hearted pitch about affordability. But in a sense he had lucked out again. In a recurring theme in Paxton’s career, his weaknesses, which might have provided an opportunity for humility and self-reflection, had become everyone else’s problem. Right now in Texas there is a team of people who wake up every morning stressed, conspiring to find ways to sell this man to the median voter. God bless, you know. Part of getting him over the hump is holding public events. The point of these, in the main, is to get little snippets of Paxton sounding tough and competent onto local news broadcasts. So it was, this week, that Paxton found himself in front of a passel of cameras in Fort Worth. The Sheriff’s Association of Texas was meeting nearby, and the Paxton campaign gathered more than twenty of them in a show of force, along with Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn and state Representative A.?J. Louderback, a former Jackson County sheriff. These events are a subgenre of political life in Texas. You get law enforcement officers together, dress ’em up nice, and have them bring the biggest, whitest hats they have. Big guns too, if they can. It’s a venerable version of what the kids call “aura farming.” The thing is, the strength of the men behind you is supposed to make the candidate look stronger.

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Trump's tariffs are based on a forced-labor argument. Are they just a way to avoid Congress?

The Trump administration has imposed double-digit tariffs on more than 60 countries, using a legal justification that permits the president to levy import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices. The new tariffs announced in recent days take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expired, and critics say they are less about cracking down on forced labor than they are a way to replace those tariffs. The expired tariffs were themselves a temporary replacement for worldwide tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February. The tariffs were levied on countries that the U.S. says either don’t have or don’t effectively enforce a forced-labor import ban. The affected countries, which account for 99% of U.S. imports, were quick to protest, calling the Trump administration’s claims unfounded and arbitrary, as nations with vastly different records on forced labor received the same tariff level.

The U.S. spent four months investigating but gave few details on how it arrived at the tariff rates, which are either 10% or 12.5%. The tariffs were levied under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 on countries that the U.S. determined had failed “to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.” During President Donald Trump ‘s first term, he cited Section 301 to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports amid a dispute over the sharp-elbowed tactics Beijing was using to challenge America’s technological dominance. The U.S. is also using 301 powers to counter what it calls unfair Chinese practices in the shipbuilding industry. “The 301s allow a permanent tariff without going to Congress to settle the dispute,” said Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law. “That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in.”

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Higher prices are rewriting grocery lists and family menus in 2026

What’s for dinner? Lately, at Apral Jack’s house, it’s whatever is on sale. Jack scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys groceries. When she reaches the store, she grabs the weekly circular to look for coupons she might have missed. If the shelf prices look too high, she scratches items off her list or tries to find lower prices someplace else. “The apples went up here, the ones I eat, so now I’m not going to get them here. I’ll go to Market Basket, where I can get them cheaper,” Jack, 50, said as she pushed a cart into a Stop & Shop near her home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Couponing, comparison shopping and cutting back on favorite foods are new habits for her and millions of other Americans as they absorb the biggest jump in grocery prices in a half-century. Buying food to eat at home has gotten 33% more expensive in U.S. cities since the beginning of 2019, according to government figures. In the 7 1/2 years before that, prices rose 6.4%.

The historic increase happened for numerous reasons. The coronavirus pandemic snarled supply chains and raised labor and transportation costs. Droughts, hurricanes and diseases like bird flu drove down production. Tariffs raised prices on foreign products like coffee, tomatoes and chocolate. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine disrupted oil and fertilizer supplies. With a fresh conflict in the Middle East accelerating food price inflation again this year, the cost of filling their refrigerators, freezers and pantries has become a frustration for Americans and made affordability a central issue in the fall midterm elections. By some measures, Americans are better equipped to handle the higher prices, if only slightly. The average weekly earnings of people with full-time jobs job have gone up a bit faster than the cost of groceries since 2019, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But consumers have long memories when it comes to food shopping, and they know their dollars aren’t going as far as they used to, said Jared Bernstein, a senior policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy.

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Republicans see ‘scary’ lack of enthusiasm among core voters ahead of midterms

Republican pollsters and political groups are raising the alarm that their party faces a listless and demotivated base ahead of November’s midterm elections. A raft of discouraging data from polling, door knocking and focus groups is unsettling Republicans as their party heads into a midterm election season that would be challenging no matter what, given President Donald Trump’s low standing in polls and the fact that the party in control in Washington almost always loses seats. The lack of enthusiasm is reaching deep into Republicans’ loyal base, spreading to the party’s most consistent voters — who have shown up to vote in all of the past four primaries and general elections, according to an analysis done by Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative super PAC that was founded by billionaire Charles Koch. This new issue with the base adds to the party’s more enduring problem of turning out less-frequent voters who support Trump but often skip midterm elections.

About 1 in 5 reliable Republican base voters are at risk this November, according to Nathan Nascimento, executive director at AFP Action. Those voters in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire and Michigan are either saying they may stay home or are weighing voting for Democrats, according to their data, which is based on polling and extensive efforts to engage targeted Republican voters by knocking on their doors. The voters are primarily worried about inflation and the economy. “This is a big chunk,” Nascimento said. “This is a scary number.” The group has found that reaching these voters at the door usually moves them toward Republican candidates — or at least away from Democratic ones and toward undecided, he said. The 20 percent of Republican base voters the group sees this issue with does not take into account low-propensity conservative voters who tend to turn out in general election years to support Trump but skip other elections. Motivating those Trump voters is a separate issue Republicans face in November.

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Inside the phone-throwing drama at the troubled, broke Democratic Party

The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections. The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the Democratic National Committee and its embattled leader as money troubles threaten to undercut Democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms. So much is going politically right for Democrats these days. President Trump’s approval is down, gas prices are up and an unpopular war with Iran drags on. But dysfunction and debt inside one of the party’s key institutions — which is getting crushed in fund-raising by its Republican counterpart — are creating rising anxiety for top Democrats.

At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs. Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department. The fallout from the phone-throwing episode was described by half a dozen people familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the encounter, and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone was tossed. Mr. Martin was said to have thrown the phone at the desk, rather than at the aide. Mr. Martin later met with D.N.C. human resources officials about his behavior, according to three of the people. The Democratic National Committee declined to comment on the incident. Mr. Martin declined an interview request.

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State Stories

Congressional Democrats demand ICE reforms in wake of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s killing in Houston

Democratic members of Congress are signaling they plan to investigate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and enact changes if they regain control of Congress this fall. They held a forum in Houston on Friday to gather testimony on the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE agents earlier this month in the city’s East End. U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Houston, offered some of the strongest condemnation of ICE. "This is an agency that needs to be torn down to the studs and rebuilt into an agency that enforces immigration law, while recognizing the dignity of the people that it encounters," Menefee said. "But we all know that that will not happen under this administration, and it won't happen under this Congress that's currently controlled by Republicans."

That, he argued, would likely change after November's midterm elections. He said one of the first orders of business if Democrats regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives will be an investigation with regards to the deaths of Salgado Araujo and others at the hands of ICE agents since Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Salgado Araujo, 52, was a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years without legal status, according to his family. He was not the intended target of the ICE operation that resulted in his shooting death. "In January, new leadership will happen in the halls of Congress. And I know that every single person sitting up on this dais right now will be in full-throated support of an investigation," Menefee said. Salgado Araujo's two sons were among the first to testify, lending additional weight to such calls."There must be a thorough, truly independent investigation, not one where the agency under investigation also controls the evidence and is able to unilaterally clear its own personnel of any wrongdoing," said Ronaldo Salgado. "Congress should insist that federal, state, and local investigations all move forward with full federal cooperation and should demand answers on a public timeline."

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Gov. Abbott confirms third fatality in July floods

State officials have confirmed a third death connected to this month’s flooding, while warning that dangerous conditions will continue for communities downstream along the Nueces River for days. Governor Greg Abbott announced at a press conference in Cotulla on Friday that a person died after driving into high water in Val Verde, bringing the statewide death toll from the July flooding to three. “On July the 20th, there was a report that in Val Verde County, a report of a death of someone who was driving through high waters and got swept away and lost their life,” said Abbott. Previous fatalities were reported in Kerr and Uvalde counties.

Abbott made the announcement during a visit to the La Salle County Courthouse, where state and local officials reviewed damage and recovery efforts following widespread flooding along the Nueces River. The governor praised local leaders in La Salle County, saying early warnings and evacuation efforts helped prevent additional deaths as floodwaters rose around Cotulla. “They were knocking on doors 10 days in advance, letting local residents know they needed to either evacuate or to be prepared for the rising water and to take measures days before the water got there,” Abbott said. The Nueces River crested at more than 29 feet in Cotulla, flooding homes, businesses and roads. Although water levels have begun falling, much of La Salle County remains inaccessible, and damage assessments have been delayed. Abbott said an aerial tour revealed the extent of the flooding and will help support the state’s request for federal disaster assistance. “By being able to fly over in the air, we were able to observe submerged properties right now that we otherwise would not have seen,” said Abbott. That informs us about what needs to be done in response but also provides us information we need to make our full request to the federal government for their assistance.”

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San Antonio Mayor Jones asks execs, philanthropists to help close city budget gap

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has asked local business and philanthropic leaders to financially support organizations that have counted on city dollars to trim a little from the city’s nearly $160 million deficit over the next two years. It’s the second such proposal Jones unveiled this week to cut city spending without affecting city services. On Tuesday, she suggested redirecting millions of sales tax dollars that were raised for the Ready to Work job-training program to other projects. Jones has said raising property taxes to generate more revenue is a “last resort.” City staff have proposed raising the tax rate from 54 cents per $100 of assessed property value to almost 58 cents. Both of Jones’ proposals have taken City Hall by surprise, with the mayor announcing them via memo or letter — her preferred way of conducting city business.

Jones’ Friday letter is addressed broadly to “Business, Foundation, and Philanthropic Leaders.” Chief of Staff Andrew Fuentes has not responded to a request for the specific recipients. Jones asks whether the leaders would consider “a three-year funding commitment” to match what the city gave 15 organizations this fiscal year. The organizations received a combined $6.5 million this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. They include the San Antonio Botanical Garden, which Jones singled out during a June 18 budget briefing as an entity that should not receive city dollars at the expense of other services, such as city-run nutrition sites that provide free lunches to seniors. “If you charge a ticket fee, then you can figure it out,” Jones said at that meeting. The garden received nearly $1.1 million in this year’s general fund budget, which pays for city services such as fire and police protection, libraries, parks, and street maintenance and repairs. The nonprofit pushed back against the mayor’s comments, saying a funding cut would limit its ability to offer free or reduced-entry.

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U.S. resumes Mexican cattle imports as screwworm spread continues

The United States will reopen parts of the southern border to Mexican cattle imports in August after keeping it closed for more than a year to prevent the spread of the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that infects calves and threatens the cattle industry. The port of entry for cattle in Douglas, Ariz., will reopen on Aug. 24, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Forty-two screwworm cases had been reported in the U.S. as of Friday, according to the USDA. All but one case has been in Texas. The Trump administration closed the border to cattle imports in spring 2025 in response to a rise in screwworm cases in northern Mexico. The Biden administration had cut off imports for the same reason in 2024 but President Donald Trump reopened it shortly after taking office in January 2025.

They pose a major threat to Texas' $17 billion cattle industry, which produces more beef than any other state in the U.S. The flies can also infest any warm-blooded animals, including pets. “The closure of the Southern ports of entry for the last year has been a tough but necessary action to control the spread of NWS in Mexico and protect the American livestock industry,” Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement. The plan to reopen the border to cattle is contingent upon Mexico adhering to a joint action plan to combat the screwworm outbreak, the USDA said in a statement. Every animal that crosses the border will be screened for screwworm. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller praised the move. “Resuming cattle importation from Mexico is the right move for ranchers and American consumers, but it’s a decision that should have been made sooner,” Miller said in a statement. “While I’m pleased to see this important trade relationship restored, the prolonged closure has already taken a toll on producers, disrupted supply chains, and created uncertainty that could have lasting consequences for the cattle industry.” The fight against the parasite is ongoing. The Texas Animal Health Commission has restricted the movement of cattle in 22 different Texas counties due to the parasite. Any warm-blooded animal in a so-called “Infested Zone” can’t leave the area without approval from the state.

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Knocked down by yet another flood, can Kerr County get back up again?

As the July 4 fireworks exploded above the Guadalupe River, the crowd filling Kerrville's Louis Hays Park cheered, then marveled as a drone show lit up the sky. The city's annual Fourth on the River felt like more than a typical holiday celebration. It signaled the end of a hard-fought year of working to recover from the flood that struck last Independence Day, killing 119 people and cutting a swath of devastation along the Guadalupe River. Watching the fireworks from the Sidney Baker Bridge, Carra Gray said it felt like a milestone. People were still grieving, still struggling to get back on their feet, still weary. But that night, for the first time in a long while, “we all kind of had this big exhale,” said Gray, who lives in Hunt. Twelve days later, that feeling was ripped away.

A second flood tore through Kerr County on July 16, as heavy rainfall sent creeks surging out of their banks and rushing through homes and businesses. State officials estimate about 500 homes and 100 businesses in the county suffered flood damage this time. The death toll was far lower than in 2025, as only one person died in Kerr County during the most recent flooding. But being hit with a second devastating flood on the heels of the 2025 disaster was a gut punch for Kerr County's residents. It shattered a fragile sense of progress and security that had begun to set in — and left many wondering how they could get back up after being knocked down yet again. “The damage to homes, businesses, streets and other infrastructure is staggering,” said Bill Blackburn, a former Kerrville mayor and local minister. “And there is real damage to hope."

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Regina Lankenau: What Black voters say about James Talarico when he’s not there

(Regina Lankenau is an editorial writer, columnist and a member of the Houston Chronicle editorial board.) “Talarico’s got a Black people problem.” That was the frank analysis of Christian Alexander, a 36-year-old political podcaster and strategist for Houston Black American Democrats. I met him on Tuesday inside the Third Ward Multi-Service Center right past an abandoned convenience store and down the street from Texas Southern University. Alexander wasn’t the only one with a lot to say about the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. Already, James Talarico, the former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, had gotten a tough scolding over the weekend. During a town hall in southwest Houston, he’d said all the right things: about protecting voter rights, supporting Black candidates and fighting for public education funding. He’d touted his efforts, showing up at a handful of Baptist churches and historically Black universities and stopping for a plate of smothered chicken at Mikki’s Soul Food.

He’d even pledged to spend $25 million on Black voter outreach – a level of investment he said was a first in Texas' modern political history. But when Talarico’s campaign staff tried to wrap up questions after about an hour, Kandice Webber, a Houston nurse and political content creator, wasn’t impressed. “Our people don't trust you for this reason," said Webber, who is Black. "And you cannot win without us. So you stay here, you answer our questions, or you suffer the consequences." The tense moment went viral, of course, even if it didn’t reflect the prevailing cordial tone of the town hall. But what Webber said, about Black voters being the backbone of any winning Democratic campaign, is true – and Talarico knows it. He’d said as much in his opening remarks. And after the primary, where U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett won 8 of 10 Black votes in Houston and Dallas, Talarico also knows that he can’t take for granted that those voters will show up for him in the general election. Recent polling shows a majority of likely Black voters do plan to support him over his ethically challenged, dismally unfit opponent Ken Paxton. But to flip this seat, Talarico needs the unlikely voters – the young, the disaffected and the ones not quite persuaded yet. Webber, the influencer, later posted another video in which she said “real Black folks” were going to sit the election out to teach “white moderates” a lesson about earning the support of Black voters. I don’t doubt that Talarico’s earnest pitch – about fighting for the bottom and middle at a time of yawning inequality – resonates with many Black Americans. I think it resonates with many people, period. But what would it take for Talarico’s Black doubters to truly believe him, to want to head to the ballot box and give this self-described choir boy a chance?

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After a hometown soldier’s death, a Texas suburb wrestles with Trump’s Iran war

The “Wall of Honor” is just inside the entrance to American Legion Post 597 in this Dallas suburb’s historic downtown, an alcove covered with pictures of dozens of local service members killed in recent overseas conflicts. Now, they have another: U.S. Army Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, killed in an Iranian strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17, according to the Pentagon. Russ Ganzer knows some of the others memorialized on the wall. The retired fishing guide didn’t know Gonzales, but said he’s a father of six, his youngest daughter just four years older than Gonzales. “Any loss of life is terrible,” Ganzer, 65, said. “But when it’s your hometown, it hits you. Especially when they’re so young.”

The death strikes close for many in this diverse, politically divided Dallas suburb of about 135,000, which last lost a member of the military at war 16 years ago. Gonzales is one of 18 U.S. service members to have been killed since President Donald Trump ordered the first strikes in late February, four of them since the ceasefire collapsed July 7. Her death has prompted people here to reflect on the necessity of a war that has divided public opinion from its inception. Gonzales attended nearby Hebron High School, where she served in Junior ROTC and wore a U.S. Army stole to graduation last year. She enlisted last spring, was assigned as an air and missile defense crew member to the 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade and the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany. “We’re just so proud of her. We were very proud of her when she went in and she paid the ultimate service,” said her mother’s aunt, Elizabeth Muniz, 58, of La Feria, Texas.

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Katherine McLane: Winning the conversation before breaking ground on data centers

(Katherine McLane is the founder and CEO of The Mach 1 Group.) Despite all the political and cultural changes the U.S. has experienced in recent years, one truth remains constant: When public opinion reaches critical mass, government has little choice but to respond. We're watching that play out with data centers. Demand for AI, cloud computing and digital infrastructure is driving an unprecedented wave of data center development. New facilities are being proposed across the country, and industry analysts expect demand for additional capacity to continue growing throughout the decade. As construction accelerates, so does public scrutiny. Across the country, familiar concerns are emerging at the local level: water consumption, tax incentives, infrastructure demands and energy use. Virginia experienced this first. Texas, now the nation's leading data center market, is following a similar path. Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently delivered a blunt message to the industry: Bring your own power and reuse your water.

The lessons from Virginia and Texas are clear: Buying land and securing permits is no longer enough. From an industry perspective, data centers represent investment, high-paying jobs, tax revenue and America's leadership in the digital economy. At the local level, however, residents are asking a much simpler question: What will this mean for my community? No two communities evaluate projects the same way. In rural communities, where agriculture and groundwater are central to the local economy, concerns often center on water use, land impacts and long-term resource availability. Messaging built around innovation or national competitiveness may miss the issues residents care about most. In fast-growing metropolitan areas, the conversation is more likely to focus on grid reliability, transmission capacity, traffic congestion and how additional industrial development fits within broader growth plans. The communications challenge facing the industry is becoming increasingly local. The traditional development model — buy land, file permits and break ground — can leave communities feeling surprised, excluded or forced to react after major decisions have already been made. When that happens, organized opposition becomes far more likely, placing projects, timelines and investments at risk.

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Texas GOP cuts ticket prices to Trump’s unconventional convention

The cost of getting close to President Donald Trump is falling. Texas Republicans have slashed the price of their premium convention packages, cutting thousands of dollars off the price of a coveted spot at the Trump-led September gathering in Dallas. D’rinda Randall, chair of the Republican Party of Texas, said in a July 14 video on X that the party had fielded “questions about the cost and the access” to its top-tier offerings for the Sept. 9-10 event at the American Airlines Center.

The discounts offer one of the first public glimpses into how Republicans are building the gathering, and how state parties are taking markedly different approaches to deciding who gets in. When Trump announced the event, it carried the trappings of a national political convention. Weeks later, it increasingly resembles a hybrid rally and GOP fundraiser with convention-style branding. State parties are selling or distributing access through five-figure honorary delegate packages, premium tickets, raffles and applications, even though there will be no presidential nomination, delegate votes or official party business. At the same time, Republicans have not disclosed overall attendance projections, state-by-state participation estimates or the expected public cost to Dallas taxpayers. Randall, the Texas GOP chief, has said fundraising has been part of the concept from the outset.

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Texas among states in Federal “SIM Farm” raids tied to text scams

Texas was one of several states targeted in a nationwide ICE Homeland Security Investigations crackdown on illegal “SIM farm” operations. Authorities say the ‘SIM farms’ are used to flood phones with phishing and scam texts while disguising where the messages come from. “SIM farms” are collections of devices — called SIM boxes — that can hold hundreds or thousands of SIM cards, allowing criminals to route communications over the internet and disguise their origin, ICE said. The agency cited Federal Trade Commission estimates that these operations cost Americans about $15 million each year.

Operation Signal Break, ran June 22nd through July 10th and included deployments to Texas along with California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Since 2024, HSI says it has executed more than 116 federal search warrants, seizing more than 500,000 SIM cards, over 1,900 SIM boxes and more than $700,000 in alleged illegal proceeds. HSI also reported one criminal arrest, 11 administrative arrests, and the disruption of 68 SIM farms in 15 states. HSI said analysts will examine seized SIM data and network evidence to identify victims, measure losses and trace money allegedly linked to Chinese transnational criminal organizations, supporting potential future indictments, asset seizures and sanctions.

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Austin police fatally shoot unarmed teenager in what they say may be 'suicide by police'

Police officers killed an unarmed 17-year-old in Northeast Austin on Friday morning in what Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis characterized as “potentially a suicide by police.” The Austin Police Department responded to a 911 call at 3:51 a.m. Friday about a teen in a parking lot possibly brandishing a gun. Officers responded to the scene and found the 17-year-old, a Black male, on the playground at a community park in the 10100 block of Baden Lane, Davis said at a press conference on Friday afternoon. Body cam footage released by APD on Friday shows officers approaching the playground and telling the teen to keep his hands up repeatedly. Shortly after, the teen appears to lift his shirt and reach for his waistband, and officers immediately fire multiple times, causing him to fall to the ground. Officers shoot again in response to the teen apparently moving on the ground.

After securing the scene, Davis said, the officers rendered aid until Austin-Travis County EMS arrived. The teen died on the scene at 4:25 a.m. APD said it will release the teen’s name after identification from the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office. Officers didn’t find a gun on the scene. A water bottle was in the teen’s waistband, Davis said. APD said it determined that the initial 911 call came from the teen’s phone. Audio from the call shared by police starts with the dispatcher asking if the caller needs police, fire, EMS or mental health services. The caller responds with police. Police radio traffic audio released by APD indicates that the caller hung up and didn’t respond to a follow-up call. “All points are indicating that this was a suicide by police,” Davis said. Davis said APD has not had prior interactions with the teen. “A young man lost his life,” she said. “I cannot imagine the pain and the grief that his family is going through, and I want them to know that I am thinking about them. And I am very sorry about this incident.”

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Ken Paxton touts his efforts to fight voter fraud. His Senate opponent is now accusing him of committing it.

The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas is trying to turn a key talking point of his Republican opponent against him — alleging Attorney General Ken Paxton is guilty of the same type of voter fraud he has spent years trying to eliminate. “As our state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton has gone on a voter fraud witch hunt,” state Rep. James Talarico, who is challenging Paxton in the race to replace U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, said during a campaign event in Houston. “Turns out, he was committing voter fraud the whole time, voting illegally in six elections in a row from the wrong address.” Talarico’s comments come after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed that Paxton moved out of the home he shared with his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, in 2024 but continued to vote using that address, including during the March Republican primary in which he beat Cornyn. Three election experts told the news organizations that Paxton may have broken state law.

Last week, the Collin County Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Texas secretary of state, urging that office to investigate Paxton for election fraud. Paxton has repeatedly declined to answer the newsrooms’ questions about his voter registration and residency. On Tuesday, he held a rare news conference to tout the endorsement of nearly two dozen sheriffs and attacked Talarico as soft on crime. Talarico denied the charge at his own news conference Wednesday, saying he’d voted for billions of dollars in law enforcement funding as a member of the Legislature. When a Dallas Morning News political writer asked Paxton why he voted in Collin County, the attorney general shook his head as a campaign aide interceded. “We’re just going to answer questions on law enforcement today,” the aide said. Paxton’s office and campaign did not respond to similar questions on Thursday from ProPublica and the Tribune. They also did not answer questions about Talarico’s comments.

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For CCISD students, Communities in Schools is giving students a lifeline, a future, and a fighting chance.”

The CCISD board of trustees held a special meeting on Monday evening, during which the upcoming budget for the 2026-2027 school year was discussed. Not on the budget this year is funding for Communities In Schools, which places a site coordinator on each campus, save for the prekindergarten campus. $200,000 partially funded the site coordinators. CIS has had a presence on CCISD campuses for more than three decades, according to CIS board member Bruce Vasbinder. During the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting, BrendaLiz Gomez addressed the board, sharing her concerns that without CIS reps on district campuses, counselors at CCHS will not be able to fill the need.

“Our high school counselors currently serve approximately 550 students each, which is well above the American School Counselor Association and the Texas School Counselors Association recommended ratio of 250 students per counselor. While our counselors work tirelessly to support students, that caseload makes it nearly impossible to meet every academic, social, emotional, and family need,” Gomez told the board. “Communities In Schools helped fill the gap. Ms. Vines worked alongside counselors, administrators, teachers, local businesses, churches, and community organizations to meet the needs that often extended beyond the classroom. She connected families with food, clothing, hygiene items, and basic utilities during times of crisis. She helped students experiencing housing instability, supported families facing medical emergencies, and ensured students could remain focused on learning instead of worrying about their basic needs. She also helped students participate in milestone experiences like prom, giving many the opportunity to feel included and valued. “These services were not a duplication of existing roles; they were an expansion of support.” Winett Vines likewise addressed the board. Vines has been the CIS site coordinator at CCHS and appealed to the board regarding the students she has served. She acknowledged what she called a “riff” on social media about CCISD not continuing to contract with CIS in the upcoming school year.

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National Stories

Former ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Cecilia Vega details claims CBS News brass wanted her to insert political bias in stories

Cecilia Vega, one of the 60 Minutes correspondents fired in a management overhaul of the show earlier this year, followed up on her claim that she was instructed to insert political bias into stories. Vega appeared Thursday at a session at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference in New Orleans. In her remarks, reported by Status newsletter, she told John Quiñones that, among other things, she was encouraged to insert footage of protesters attacking ICE officers in plain clothes, but could find no credible examples for a piece on the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, in which federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Per Status, Vega said another suggestion was made to find a clip of Minneapolis’ police chief rolling his eyes at Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s suggestion that local police confront ICE agents. No such moment was found, she said.

On another piece about the war in Iran, Vega said she was told to introduce a story by saying, “Who is winning the war? Iran is totally outgunned by the United States and Israel.” Per Status, Vega called it an “administration talking point.” In another example, on West Virginians impacted by cuts to nutritional assistance programs, she said that she was queried why she did not interview JD Vance, who wrote Hillbilly Elegy, even though his account of his experiences in Ohio was published a decade ago. The proposed changes did not make it into her pieces. Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were among those fired from 60 Minutes in May, with executive producer Tanya Simon replaced by Nick Bilton. Correspondent Scott Pelley was fired the next week after he challenged Bilton in a staff meeting and said that CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss was “murdering” the show. Vega issued a statement at the time saying, “In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions.

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Maine Democrats pick Troy Jackson to replace Platner as Senate nominee

With just over 100 days to go until the midterm elections, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson officially clinched the Democratic nomination for Senate at a party convention here Saturday, setting up a marquee fall matchup against longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Jackson will replace Graham Platner, who withdrew as the nominee just over two weeks ago after an allegation of sexual assault, which he denies. “This process came together faster than any of us expected,” Jackson said in his victory speech before the gathered delegates and party officials at the Cross Insurance Center. “But this is important. The movement represented in this room did not just begin two weeks ago.” Delegates picked Jackson over pharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier by a vote of 566-5 during a roughly two-and-a-half hour party convention that also served as a fall campaign kickoff for the state’s Democratic faithful.

“Power is never just given to working people. We have to band together and take it,” Jackson said earlier Saturday during his nominating address. “When the people in power refuse to listen, well, you have to organize. You have to stand together in solidarity together.” “That’s how we took on the companies exploiting Maine loggers, and it’s how we’re going to take on Susan Collins,” he said. Jackson’s pick wraps up a chaotic few weeks for Maine Democrats, who had to convene Saturday’s convention to pick a new nominee ahead of a Monday deadline. They’ve been seeking to move on from Platner, who easily defeated Gov. Janet Mills in a primary last month with a populist message that resonated with Democratic voters despite a series of negative headlines that dogged his nearly yearlong campaign. Jackson, who unsuccessfully ran for governor this year, came into the convention as the prohibitive favorite after securing the support of a vast majority of delegates elected across the state’s counties last weekend to serve at the convention. Eve Breedlove, a young delegate from Penobscot County, said she’d supported Jackson in the gubernatorial race because of his support for progressive policies, which she said were similar to what Platner had campaigned on. “People still had that momentum behind him, and just with all of this happening, it’s unprecedented,” she said. “But in a way, I’m only 20 years old, so everything that’s ever happened in my life is very unprecedented.”

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Vance, Caine raised concerns about escalating war in Iran, sources say as US pauses consecutive nights of strikes

Vice President JD Vance and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine both raised concerns about escalating the war in Iran as President Donald Trump weighed the possibility during a White House meeting on Friday, a source familiar with the matter and a US official told CNN. On Friday night, the US appeared to pause its bombing campaign on Iran after nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of strikes. Operations are “on a hold,” a Department of Defense source told CNN on Saturday. On Friday, Caine specifically raised concerns about the US munitions stockpile and other potential negative implications, according to the sources. One of the sources said that Caine told Trump and the US military they could carry out the options available to him and be successful but then warned of the possible implications.

The stockpile concern was one of many raised to Trump during the meeting, both sources said. It’s currently unclear if the stockpile concern or warning about escalation were the primary reasons why the US paused consecutive nights of strikes or whether it will continue to do so. “President Trump has always been consistent in saying he prefers a diplomatic solution, but he continues to retain all options if Iran continues terrorist activities in the (Strait) of Hormuz or against allies,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “Combined with successful sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy and 13 straight days of strikes against military targets in response to their repeated aggression, it would be wise for Iran to work towards a negotiated deal. Otherwise, they know what will happen.” CNN has also reached out to Vance’s office for comment. This comes as key US weapons stockpiles remain significantly depleted and could come under more pressure if strikes on Iran continue, as CNN has previously reported.

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Standout moments from Trump’s appearance at makeup WHCA dinner

President Trump was given a second chance Friday evening to deliver a speech before the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner — his first time addressing the crowd as president. Three months after the first event was derailed by an assassination attempt, Trump took to the podium at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington, acknowledging he had to amend his remarks in light of the April shooting. His words were mixed with familiar jabs at the media, political opponents and even himself. Here are some of the standout moments. Following the dinner portion, which included steak and lobster, the event began on a somber note with a tribute to the U.S. Secret Service, law enforcement officers and hotel staff who responded to the April 24 incident. One Secret Service agent, Officer Victor Gonzales, was awarded the WHCA President’s Award for Exceptional Service. Gonzales was shot while confronting the gunman, but his bulletproof vest likely saved his life.

One of the night’s most memorable visuals — aside from the stunning Czech crystal chandeliers overhead — was Trump’s signature red hat. Instead of the familiar “Make America Great Again” slogan, this version simply read: “Trump 2028.” “When I’m not around, you’re going to be broke. There’s not going to be anyone to report on,” he joked. “To show just how much I care about the press, and I want to save your ratings, I am pleased to announce my intention to, and this is somewhat of a scoop, my intention to run for a fourth term as president of the United States,” Trump said before producing the cap from behind the lectern and placing it on his head. “I won three times and now, I’m going to do it again,” he added later, likely including the 2020 presidential election which he lost to former President Biden. Though, he maintains without evidence that the race was stolen from him. “I’m gonna do it. It should be easy. I’m getting very good at running for president.” The quip was met with a room full of laughter. The president several times in the speech insisted the idea was just a ruse.

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GOP leans into anti-communist messaging amid DSA surge

Republicans are increasingly leaning on anti-communist messaging as a cudgel against Democrats heading into the November elections. With only 100 days until the midterm elections, Republicans have launched repeated attacks tying the rise in socialism in the Democratic Party to communism. Democrats have seen a surge in socialist candidates in the 2026 cycle, with the socialist wing of the Democratic Party set to more than double its numbers after November. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) held a roundtable last week on the “threat of communism,” and said during her opening remarks that “What my biggest concern is today is what we’re witnessing here in America, and what we’re witnessing is the rise of communism.

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AI chatbots know how to make deadly biological weapons. Some will teach you.

After OpenAI enhanced the brain power of its chatbot last summer, hundreds of users worldwide began asking it how to make and deploy biological weapons and poisons. The models, operating largely free of U.S. government restrictions, patiently answered, issuing step-by-step instructions described by company employees as simple enough for a high-school biology student to follow. Biology and terrorism experts later reviewed the exchanges for ChatGPT and judged some as deadly accurate, said people familiar with the matter. Most queries were about concocting poisons, according to OpenAI. OpenAI banned these and other user accounts that asked about how to make poisons and biological weapons, but it didn’t alert law-enforcement officials. The U.S. has no federal laws requiring AI companies to either restrict or disclose queries about making weapons or formulating plans that pose a safety threat.

The absence of mandated safeguards coincides with a rise in queries from users asking AI models how to kill en masse—and chatbots responding with credible plans for mass-casualty attacks, according to current and former employees at the major AI labs, including OpenAI, as well as policy advisers and researchers who study biological weapons. The queries followed troubling exchanges earlier in the year: Users asked ChatGPT how to aerosolize pathogens, essentially converting infectious germs to a deadly, breathable mist. One wanted to know how to modify the measles virus to make an outbreak resistant to the measles vaccine. In those cases, the chatbot provided instructions. Another user wanted to know how to make ricin, a highly toxic poison banned under international treaties, according to people familiar with the matter. The chatbot gave detailed instructions, and the user said something about killing his parents. OpenAI banned these accounts but didn’t alert authorities.

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The shrinking world of former president Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s world has grown smaller. Eighteen months after leaving the White House, the 83-year-old former president moves within a narrowed circle of relatives, old friends and longtime aides as he undergoes treatment for metastatic cancer. The treatment appears to be working, according to five former aides and others close to Biden, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his health and private life. But the disease — and the toll of treating it — has left him visibly frail. Those around Biden describe a post-presidency constrained by illness with his days increasingly organized around treatment, family and efforts to shape his legacy. Unlike some recent predecessors, Biden has maintained a limited public schedule, has yet to build a sprawling philanthropic or policy operation and has struggled to raise money for a presidential library, leaving him with fewer avenues to influence how his presidency is remembered.

That frailty is likely to become harder to keep private this fall, when Biden begins promoting a memoir scheduled for publication on Nov. 17, two weeks after the midterm elections. The timing has unsettled some friends and former advisers, who worry not only about Biden’s well-being, but also about how much his visible health struggle could revive the bitter arguments of 2024 just as Democrats are trying to make the election a referendum on President Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly mocked Biden’s age and acuity and replaced his portrait along a White House colonnade with an image of an autopen, a visual taunt built on the unsupported allegation that aides used the device to exercise presidential authority for a debilitated commander in chief. Those close to Biden bristle at the way his illness and physical decline have become part of his critics’ case against him and his party. Hunter Biden gave voice to the family’s frustration last month after a critic attacked his father’s cancer diagnosis on social media. “Listen man — I understand if you don’t like my Dad’s politics and you hate me because you believe everything Fox News has told you,” he wrote. “I’m fine with that, but my Dad has cancer. How is that an issue you want to attack. What sickness is in you that makes that fair game?”

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Copyright August 02, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved