Lead Stories

Karl Rove: The good, the bad and the ugly of 2025

If you listed the worst years in American history, 2025 wouldn’t be near the top. Our economy is growing better than most of the world. Total nonfarm employment is up slightly year over year. Inflation is under 3%. The southern border is secured. U.S. murders are on pace for the biggest yearly drop on record. America isn’t involved in any major wars. The war in Gaza has ground to a halt. Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed terror groups are significantly weakened. The U.S. and Israel destroyed key Iranian nuclear facilities. And even though America dithered over critical aid, beleaguered Ukraine hangs on as Russia’s invasion approaches its fourth anniversary. This year had its share of bizarre developments. No American president has ever ruled the news cycle like Donald Trump. He’s omnipresent, completely dominating coverage, constantly in front of cameras and inundating us with round-the-clock Truth Social posts.

His pace is unrelenting. He throws at reporters so much fluff—personal asides, fulminations about adversaries real and imagined, commentary on culture and self-congratulation—that the press and public often ignore important things. This pace is also unsustainable. There are signs that the public is tiring of his hyperbole and insatiable desire for retribution. Increasingly, they may hear only the offensive or cruel things he says. Has the president convinced himself that he doesn’t need to sell his policies and actions? It appears that he believes he can will people into agreeing with him by claiming his achievements are the biggest, best and most amazing in American history. He’s gone way too far by slapping his name on buildings (the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) and government programs (the Navy’s “Trump-class” battleship). He might receive a fawning reaction from his MAGA base, but the average American finds such narcissism off-putting. Americans would be much more likely to support Mr. Trump if he explained what he’s doing and asked for patience as his administration makes necessary changes. But that isn’t his way. Presidents do best when they underpromise and overdeliver. The opposite—overpromising and underdelivering—angers voters. They often take out their anger at the ballot box. This year, Americans were also increasingly fascinated by conspiracy theories. Take Jeffrey Epstein. It isn’t enough that he committed heinous sex crimes and then took his life before being tried. Many people feel the need to place him at the center of a worldwide conspiracy of wealthy, powerful people. These co-conspirators murdered him in jail, it’s said, because of the threat he posed to them. Mr. Trump’s failure to deliver the goods on this vast plot has undermined his followers’ confidence in his Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Abbott calls for ‘Chief State Prosecutor’; gets backing from Elon Musk

After spending most of 2025 pushing to make it easier for judges to hold people accused of violent crimes in jail ahead of trial, Gov. Greg Abbott is continuing his tough-on-crime agenda entering the new year. His most recent proposal: create a new “Chief State Prosecutor” to override certain decisions made by local prosecuting attorneys. In recent days, Abbott cited two alleged cases from the X account “@AustinJustice” as proof the state needs the role. He first floated the idea on Dec. 22 by quoting an Austin Justice post about “Austin Man” Michael Nnaji. According to court records, Nnaji was arrested on suspicion of a terroristic threat on Oct. 3. Witnesses told police Nnaji, a homeless man, was banging on the doors of Padrón Elementary School and shouting “I’m going to go inside and kill” and “I’m gonna find a way to get in.”

According to the social media post, Nnaji “racked up 34 cases since 2019” and skipped court in his terrorist threat case. A search for his name on the Travis County Court Viewer shows 37 cases. According to a spreadsheet the account compiled, Nnaji spent several stints behind bars after plea deals, including a recent two-year sentence for pleading guilty to aggravated assault. Nexstar has reached out to the Austin Justice social media account and Nnaji’s listed attorney in his pending case — Jill Gately — for comment, but have not yet heard back. “I am calling for legislation that creates a Chief State Prosecutor to actually prosecute criminals like this that DAs in places like Austin refuse to prosecute,” Abbott wrote. “Progressive DAs are literally leading to the murder of Texans. Those DAs must be held accountable and prosecutorial power must be shifted to actual prosecutors.” A spokesperson with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office (TCDA) noted that Nnaji has been convicted multiple times, citing his two-year jail sentence. They also noted that the Travis County Attorney’s Office (TCAO) — a different entity led by County Attorney Delia Garza and not District Attorney José Garza — is responsible for misdemeanor charges including Nnaji’s arrest outside of Padrón Elementary.

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Texas appeals court upholds ruling preventing AG Paxton from targeting ‘rogue’ prosecutors

The judicial panel effectively sided with Democratic Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot and fellow urban prosecutors who argued the Paxton-imposed reporting requirements exceeded his statutory authority. The ruling, however, doesn’t end the legal fight. The case now returns to the Travis County district court that issued a temporary injunction in May preventing Paxton from requiring urban-area prosecutors to hand over sensitive case information and submit regular reports to him. “While this ruling is only preliminary, it shows progress in the right direction,” Creuzot said in a statement late Tuesday. “Yet another court has ruled that Attorney General Paxton overstepped his authority by proposing to enforce these rules with the likelihood of costing taxpayers millions of dollars.”

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office didn’t respond Tuesday to a request for comment. Tuesday’s decision was issued by the 15th Court of Appeals, a relatively new appellate court created by the state Legislature in 2023 that consists of three justices appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Among the court’s duties is handling all appeals brought by or against the state and challenges to the constitutionality of state laws. In its 14-page opinion, the panel said Paxton, a Republican from McKinney, didn’t have the authority to force local district attorneys to report to his office on certain matters. “Administrative rulemaking is a lawmaking power that the Legislature delegates to agencies to carry out legislative purposes,” the justices wrote. “Although the Attorney General is a constitutionally created officer…the Office of the Attorney General is part of the executive branch and therefore has rulemaking authority only if the Legislature grants it such authority.” The court battle between Paxton and district attorneys in counties consisting of more than 400,000 residents began earlier this year after the attorney general proposed expansive new rules that require chief prosecutors in the state’s most populous areas to submit regular reports and hand over investigative files for cases involving indicted police officers, poll watchers and defendants claiming they acted in self-defense. If allowed, the mandate would have given the attorney general unprecedented access to prosecutorial decisions and policies.

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Bankers are gearing up for another onslaught of monster deals in 2026

Megadeals returned in full force in 2025. Wall Street is already bracing for another wave in 2026. There were a record 68 transactions valued at $10 billion or more announced globally this year, according to data from LSEG going back to 1980. That drove the average annual deal size to a new high of nearly $227 million. “Large deals are driving the market. And when you see big deals, it’s a sign of CEO and boardroom confidence,” said Ivan Farman, global co-head of M&A at Bank of America. Farman said he and his team are anticipating momentum will continue in 2026 and beyond, and across industries. This year’s action picked up as concerns around President Trump’s tariffs were subsiding, and bankers and lawyers say it hasn’t slowed down since. One lawyer said she even got messages from clients on Thanksgiving—a 24-hour window that in past years has typically been sacrosanct, even on Wall Street.

In media, Netflix struck a $72 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studios and HBO Max streaming service, prompting Paramount Skydance to launch a $77.9 billion hostile takeover bid for the entire company. In July, Union Pacific agreed to buy Norfolk Southern for $72 billion, in a bid to create the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. A couple months later, videogame maker Electronic Arts said it would go private in a $55 billion deal. In November, Huggies diapers owner Kimberly-Clark agreed to buy Tylenol maker Kenvue for $40 billion. Jonathan Davis, a corporate partner at Kirkland & Ellis, said companies are moving fast because they don’t want to miss the boat. “For the first time in several years, there’s a growing perception that the failure to act quickly risks losing the asset,” he said. Still, he cautioned that there have been numerous times in the past few years when it seemed as though dealmaking activity was about to take off before something got in the way. “I am super bullish, but cautiously so,” he said.

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State Stories

Austin Energy unveils $735M 10-year grid resiliency plan

Austin Energy has released a sweeping, 10-year plan to strengthen the city’s electric grid, a move that comes in the wake of several catastrophic power outages that exposed weaknesses in the system and put the utility under intense public and political scrutiny. The $735 million Electric System Resiliency Plan is the result of more than a year of stakeholder engagement, cost analysis and third-party studies of Austin Energy’s overhead and underground distribution system. One of those analyses determined that fully burying the city’s power distribution lines would cost an estimated $50 billion, making the widely-discussed solution financially impractical. Instead, the plan focuses on targeted upgrades designed to deliver the greatest reliability improvements for the lowest cost. Those upgrades involve hardening vulnerable infrastructure, improving outage detection and restoration, and preparing the grid for increasingly extreme weather.

Vegetation management is also a central focus of the plan, reflecting findings that trees and limbs were a major driver of outages during recent storms. The utility plans to better align tree-trimming efforts with areas identified as highest risk. “Over the last five years, we've had our three worst events in Austin Energy's history with regards to outages,” David Tomczyszyn, Austin Energy’s vice president of electric system engineering and technical services, said in an interview. Tomczyszyn was referring to winter storms in February 2021 and February 2023 that caused widespread and prolonged power outages, as well as May’s freak “Microburst.” The utility had already been working on the resiliency plan when the latter storm hit. The 2021 freeze and 2023 ice storm, in particular, prompted city investigations, leadership shakeups and sharp criticism over Austin Energy’s preparedness, communication and response.

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Lina Hidalgo's chief of staff running for open City Council seat

Angelica Luna Kaufman, chief of staff for Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, has her eyes set on Houston's open City Council seat. Luna Kaufman, 53, officially filed to run for the City Council seat representing Montrose, Meyerland and the Heights on Tuesday as current Council Member Abbie Kamin steps down to run for Harris County attorney.

Becoming a council member was always in her periphery, Luna Kaufman told the Houston Chronicle Tuesday. But the timing of her campaign moved up with Kamin’s step back. “(Kamin) deciding to run for county attorney and the special election made me just realize, OK, well, I wasn't expecting it, but it's my window and it's now,” Luna Kaufman said. Before becoming the eyes, ears and guiding force in Hidalgo’s administration last year, Luna Kaufman previously worked communications for the state and local Democratic parties and for the late former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s campaign for mayor. If elected to the position, Luna Kaufman said she’d use her background as the right hand to Hidalgo to push forward critical issues in District C like addressing flooding, public safety, infrastructure and coming up with solutions to Houston’s longstanding budget issues.

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Sheriff: Body found near search area for Camila Mendoza Olmos

A body has been found near a field where Camila Mendoza Olmos was last seen, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Tuesday evening during a press conference, the individual’s identity has not yet been confirmed. Salazar said investigators had been operating under the possibility of self-harm, and that there are indications the death may have been self-inflicted, though he emphasized that the cause and manner of death have not been determined and will be confirmed by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office. Salazar said investigators were also searching for a firearm that was unaccounted for from the residence, a detail that had not previously been made public.

A firearm was recovered at the scene, he said but emphasized that authorities have not yet confirmed whether it is the same weapon. He added that the clothing worn by the unidentified individual matches the description of what Camila Mendoza Olmos was last seen wearing. Salazar reiterated that officials do not currently suspect foul play. The body was found in a field about a quarter mile from the search staging area and about a hundred yards from Camila’s residence, Salazar said. According to the sheriff, the discovery was made by a joint search team from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI during a renewed ground search Monday afternoon. The FBI, which had previously assisted with intelligence and digital forensic work, deployed agents to assist with boots-on-the-ground searching, Salazar said. Investigators made a deliberate decision to re-search an area that had already been checked, citing tall grass and visibility concerns. Salazar said the body was located approximately 10 minutes after the renewed search began. As of Tuesday evening, authorities were processing the scene, and Salazar said additional information would be released once identification is confirmed and the medical examiner completes its work.

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‘Bring Maher home’: Family of Arlington man detained by ICE makes plea to Trump

The family of an Arlington man detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making a plea to President Donald Trump for his immediate release. Maher Tarabishi is the primary caregiver for his 30-year-old son, Wael, who was recently hospitalized for the second time since his father was detained in October. Wael is a U.S. citizen who suffers from Pompe disease, a rare genetic condition that causes muscle deterioration and has left him bedridden. Speaking Tuesday morning outside the Methodist Mansfield Medical Center, family and advocates pleaded for Maher Tarabishi’s humanitarian release so he can care for his son while his case is underway.

“Studies tell that when the family is there, the patients survive,” said Dr. Bilal Piracha, an ER physician from another hospital who is not treating Wael but is helping the family. “And when the families are not there, the patients are in pain.” Piracha said the trauma of his father’s detention is affecting Wael’s medical condition. He is not able to eat or drink, and his feeding tube is not working, Piracha asaid. Tarabishi’s nephew addressed Trump directly as he spoke. “My uncle has never done anything wrong in this country,” Loui Tarabishi said. “He has followed the laws, abided by everything.” Tarabishi came to the U.S. from Jordan in 1994. The family did not elaborate on Tarabishi’s legal status, but said his green card had been approved and he had permission to stay in the U.S. for decades to act as his son’s caregiver. Tarabishi was detained during his annual check-in at the Dallas ICE Field office on Oct. 28. In a statement to NBC last month, ICE alleged Tarabishi was a “self-admitted member of the Palestine Liberation Organization."

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Dallas County GOP's plan to hand count ballots in primary election sunk by personnel, logistics issues, chair says

The Dallas County Republican Party's plan to hand count thousands of ballots for the March primary election has been sunk by a lack of personnel and logistics issues, Dallas County GOP Chair Allen West announced in a statement Tuesday. West said in a statement that the county was "woefully short" of the staffing required for the hand-counting effort.

"On Monday, December 29, I received a call from our Hand Count Task Force lead regarding several risks that did not have a clear path for mitigation. These issues involved financial reimbursement, logistics, and personnel. The two most concerning areas were logistics and personnel," West's statement said. "The logistics challenges involved the demand for additional tables and chairs, as well as ballot printing due to the high number of races. This leads to the second issue—personnel. We are currently tapped out at approximately 1,300–1,500 individuals for hand counting. With only 63 days until the election, that number is woefully short of what is required. The greatest risk would be to continue without having trained, qualified, and ready counters, which would place our election judges in an untenable legal position. Instead, West said he decided to "sign a contractual agreement" with the Dallas County Elections Department to manage their primary. "My decision, as Chairman of the Dallas County Republican Party, is to sign a contractual agreement with the DCED that enables us to conduct a precinct-based, community, separate Election Day electoral process. This approach reduces the liabilities of DCRP and protects the organization, while affording us an opportunity to maintain better control," West said.

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Behren Morton leading Texas Tech's improbable CFP run amid unreal injury journey

They’re everywhere in West Texas. Can’t swing a cowboy hat without hitting one. But here’s the thing about pump jacks that paint the flat landscape of the oil-rich state: The damn things never stop pumping. For anything. “That’s what I think of when you say West Texas,” says Texas Tech All-America linebacker Jacob Rodriguez. “What I think of when you say Behren Morton.” And that’s the story of this magical Texas Tech season. Not big money benefactors swinging a big stick in the transfer portal era, not a former high school coach managing all those egos and somehow making it work. But an overlooked and undervalued senior quarterback who has beaten significant injury odds, year after year, by gutting and grinding it out — and not stopping for anything or anyone.

This season, this time around, it’s a hairline fracture in his right leg. Or as medical professionals call it, a broken leg. For two years prior — two years, and two full seasons — Morton played with a Grade 3 AC joint sprain of his throwing shoulder, an injury so severe, it involved a complete tear of ligaments connecting the collarbone and shoulder blade. That’s three seasons of playing with significant injuries that would be season-ending for most players. But not this guy. Not this West Texas soul born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, where life is spent bending and lifting and working nonstop like those pump jacks. You just keep going. Day after day, year after year in the hardscrabble island of the Texas hinterlands. They’re not stopping, why should he? “It’s just not how I was raised,” Morton said. “I’m going to do everything possible to get on that field.” So he did, and wouldn’t you know it, the one thing that makes the $25 million dollar Texas Tech roster go, the one home-grown indispensable on a team of high-dollar, single-season mercenaries of the transfer portal era, is the pounding and persevering heart of West Texas. The first Big 12 title in school history. The first 12-win season in school history. The first appearance in the College Football Playoff in school history, beginning Thursday in the Orange Bowl quarterfinal against Oregon. Morton’s not missing this ride, he’s leading it.

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Ousted Alamo CEO asks for financial help in suing Texas leaders

A friend of Kate Rogers has launched an online fundraiser to help the former Alamo Trust CEO pay legal expenses related to a lawsuit she filed against state leaders who she says forced her out of her job. Rogers resigned on Oct. 23 under pressure from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who had objected to her academic writings and to social media posts by the Alamo that they deemed unacceptably "woke." Rogers later filed a federal civil rights suit naming Patrick, Buckingham, the Alamo Trust and Hope Andrade, who replaced her as Alamo president and CEO. In the suit, Rogers contends that the defendants violated her free speech rights. She is seeking reinstatement to her former job along with monetary damages for economic loss and emotional distress.

A GoFundMe campaign titled “Kate Rogers Legal Fund — Truth At The Alamo vs Politics” is soliciting donations to defray Rogers' legal bills. Mary Ullmann Japhet, owner of Japhet Media, a public relations firm, and a friend of Rogers for more than 30 years, announced the effort this week. “So many people were asking me, and asking her, ‘How can I help? What can I do?” Ullmann Japhet said in an interview. “Her legal fees are very real. This is a tangible way that people can help, at whatever level.” By Tuesday afternoon, the GoFundMe had received 10 donations totaling $1,695. The goal is $50,000. Rogers, who has one son in high school and another in college, said she earned $350,000 annually as Alamo CEO. She said she has paid more than $20,000 in legal fees so far and expects the total to exceed $50,000. “I’m not a wealthy politician. I live a nice life, but I’m also a professional who lost their job quite suddenly,” she said in an interview.

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Harris County elections officials find more than 100 voter registrations illegally tied to P.O. boxes

The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar's Office has found more than 100 voter registrations linked to private post office boxes, in violation of state elections law, and the Texas Secretary of State has asked the office to review an additional 126 addresses. The secretary of state began investigating after state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, filed a complaint earlier this year. His office identified voters whose home addresses were registered at UPS locations on Westheimer Road and Waugh Drive, in violation of legislation he authored. "No one lives in a P.O. Box, and Texans cannot legally register to vote from one," Bettencourt said in a Monday statement in response to the investigation's findings. "It's the law, and it's been the law for four years in statute."

In response to Bettencourt's November complaint, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson threatened potential state oversight of elections in Harris County, where there were more than 2.6 million registered voters as of November 2024. Texas’ most populous county has become a Democratic stronghold in recent years, and its elections have come under scrutiny by the state’s Republican leaders, who have passed laws regulating how the county runs its elections. Neither Bettencourt nor Nelson has alleged the voter address issue led to ballots being illegally cast in recent elections or impacted the outcome of any races. The secretary of state's office was not immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon. On Dec. 23, the office sent a letter to the Harris County Voter Registrar, acknowledging the actions the county took to address the P.O. box registrations. The secretary of state also provided the county with the list of additional addresses associated with commercial post office boxes. "Our office acknowledges and appreciates your diligent and timely efforts to respond to the items listed in the complaint and to ensure the accuracy of your voter registration records through proper list maintenance activities," the secretary of state's office said in the letter to the county.

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Ed Wallace, Fort Worth car columnist and DFW radio host, dies at 72.

Ed Wallace, who regaled radio listeners, TV viewers and newspaper readers with stories and advice about cars, died Sunday at his Fort Worth home. He was 72. “Ed was the most intelligent man I ever knew,” said his wife, Judi Smith. “There was a challenge of lifting me up to be a better person.” Smith described her husband as a “voracious reader” who was curious about everything. Wallace wrote almost 1,000 columns for the Star-Telegram about the auto industry and on topics such as the Middle East. He wrote his final column for the Star-Telegram on Feb. 12, 2021. He also hosted a five-hour radio show on KLIF every Saturday called “Wheels with Ed Wallace,” and he was the car and truck critic for the Fox 4 morning show, “Good Day” until he retired in 2022. Wallace was born in Riverside, California, on May 4, 1953.

Smith said Wallace was a “military brat” whose father was an Air Force pilot. His parents wanted to retire in Fort Worth, she said. Wallace graduated from Arlington Heights High School but never went to college. “He was too smart for college,” Smith said. Smith said her husband sold cars, had a stint on the “Dating Game” and played in a rock band called Santa Fe before his journalism career. Smith said her husband wanted to impart his knowledge to others. Smith said she and Wallace first met when she needed a new car and went to Vandergriff Acura where he worked in 1993. They went to dinner, but she lived in east Dallas and Wallace was in west Fort Worth, she said. Then when Smith was working at Fox 4, she needed a date to a company Christmas party. She asked Wallace. In January 1999, she said, “Why don’t we get married.” Wallace replied, “When?” They married six months later, Smith said. Wallace was known for his generosity, and didn’t hesitate to give someone a $1,000 check if they needed the money. “Ed was a kind and generous man, but he also wanted to make people think,” Smith said. “He did a tremendous amount of research about what he wrote. He wanted to see both sides of the story.” Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA.

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TCU pulls out overtime win against USC in Valero Alamo Bowl

TCU (9-4) managed an overtime win against the University of Southern California (9-4) at the Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on Tuesday night, with the Horned Frogs handing out a 30-27 win against the Trojans. TCU quarterback Ken Seals got his very first start as a Horned Frog as TCU appeared in their third straight bowl game against the No. 16 ranked USC Trojans in the Alamo Bowl. TCU Tight Ends Coach Mitch Kirsch handled the play-calling duties for the offense, after former offensive coordinator Kendal Briles left to take a job at South Carolina. For USC, their fourth straight bowl game under head coach Lincoln Riley ended with them breaking a potential three-win streak for such games.

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Attorneys for indicted Sugar Land plastic surgeon say medical board cleared him

Attorneys for a Sugar Land plastic surgeon accused of drinking while performing surgery told a judge the Texas Medical Board reviewed similar allegations and determined they were unfounded. Azul Shirazali Jaffer went before a magistrate judge this month after a Fort Bend grand jury indicted him on one count of performing surgery while intoxicated, court records show.

The magistrate set Jaffer's bail at $5,000, with restrictions subjecting the longtime surgeon to alcohol and drug testing and monitoring ahead of each surgery while the criminal case is pending. Jaffer was no longer in the Fort Bend County Jail as of Monday. Prosecutors in the magistrate hearing provided few clues about the specifics behind the allegations against Jaffer. Bond conditions mention that he shouldn’t have contact with several people, listed only by their initials, and his defense attorney, Troy McKinney, told the judge that several anesthesiologists were listed as witnesses in the case. Officials with the Texas Medical Board did not respond to a request for comment about whether they’d cleared Jaffer of the claims in the Fort Bend criminal case. A spokesperson for the medical board previously said it doesn’t comment on potential or ongoing complaints unless it takes disciplinary action.

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Texas man accused of trying to support ISIS ordered held pending trial

A 21-year-old Texas man accused of trying to support ISIS with bomb components and money has been ordered held pending his trial on an international terrorism offense, online court records show. John Michael Garza Jr., of Midlothian, was charged last week by federal complaint with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. During a detention and preliminary hearing in federal court in Dallas on Tuesday, the judge ordered Garza held pending trial, citing the nature of the alleged offense and finding that the defendant's release poses a serious danger to the community, court filings show. The court found that the government "satisfied its burden to show that no conditions of supervision would mitigate the risk posed by Mr. Garza's conduct and his desire to support a designated foreign terrorist organization," U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian McKay wrote in the detention order.

ABC News has reached out to Garza's attorney for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Garza was arrested following a Dec. 22 sting operation, according to the federal complaint. The investigation began in mid-October, when an undercover New York City Police Department employee began engaging with an Instagram account allegedly belonging to Garza that "followed several pro-ISIS Instagram accounts and wrote a comment on a pro-ISIS post," according to the complaint. The NYPD employee portrayed himself as an ISIS fighter in Iraq, according to the complaint. Over the next several weeks, Garza allegedly sent the undercover NYPD employee "official ISIS media releases," a video depicting a suicide vehicle bombing and a bomb-making instructional video, and "shared that he ascribed to the ISIS ideology," the Justice Department said on Monday in a press release announcing the charge. The DOJ accused Garza of sending "small sums" of cryptocurrency -- including several payments worth approximately $20, according to the complaint -- to the undercover NYPD employee in November and December, allegedly believing that he was supporting ISIS causes, such as buying firearms.

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College football transfer portal: Texas' Steve Sarkisian calls out irrational agents

Constructing a college football roster is wildly different now than it was even three years ago, as the transfer portal, NIL and revenue sharing completely reshaped the way coaches and programs must operate. There are plenty of teams that use the ability to (legally) pay players and the portal to their advantage, but the newness of everything related paying players and the lack of regulations in college football, due to the ever-weakening NCAA, created a number of challenges. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian detailed one major problem he hopes to see addressed after a reporter asked about how he approaches building through the portal. Texas doesn't have much issue with investment or resources, but Sarkisian explained that the lack of a certification process for agents can lead to some absurd situations.

"I think it's all so strategic, right? It's one about need. It's two about money and the cost and where's the market and which agent you're dealing with," Sarkisian said. "There are some agents that are rational, and there are some agents that this is the first time ever being an agent — I don't know if they are even licensed to be agents, but all of a sudden they get to be agents because we have no certification process in college football. In the NFL, you have to be certified. In college football, it may be their college roommate their freshman year who's their agent right now, and this guy is throwing numbers at you and it's like, we can't even deal with this. Like, you just move on. It's unfortunate. And we'll get there in college football, but right now it's a tough situation." Coaches complaining about NIL and the portal often amount to sour grapes, but Sarkisian's point about the challenge of dealing with agents which have no previous experience or understanding of the market is a legitimate one. That said, you have to wonder if this is fresh in Sarkisian's mind due to any of Texas' opt-outs, as they have 13 players who announced intentions to enter the transfer portal and won't play in the Citrus Bowl. Among them are the Longhorns top three running backs, headlined by Tre Wisner, and their second-leading receiver, DeAndre Moore Jr. Eventually one would think some governing body will emerge that can provide some form of regulations on that sort of thing and require certification to help everyone out -- as players would be better served being represented by more professional agents. However, it's not clear when that will happen as the fear of anti-trust litigation led the NCAA to await congressional action, which has yet to materialize in any meaningful way. In the meantime, coaches and GMs will have to deal with the occasional green agent who asks the world, which even a program with seemingly endless resources like Texas has to laugh off.

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National Stories

CIA behind strike at Venezuelan dock that Trump claims was used by drug smugglers, AP sources say

The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels, according to two people familiar with details of the operation who requested anonymity to discuss the classified matter. The first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September marks a significant escalation in the administration’s months-long pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government. The strike has not been acknowledged by Venezuelan officials. President Donald Trump first made reference to the operation in an interview Friday with John Catsimatidis on WABC radio in New York, saying the U.S. had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from.”

In an exchange with reporters Monday as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump added that the operation targeted a “ dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.” But the president declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA. The CIA and White House officials also declined to offer further comment on the matter. Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for Special Operations Command, which oversees U.S operations in the Caribbean, said in a statement that “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.” Related Stories US military carries out 30th strike on alleged drug boat A look at the US military's unusually large force near Venezuela US forces stop oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as Trump follows up on promise to seize tankers The strike escalates what began as a massive buildup of U.S. personnel in the Caribbean Sea starting in August, which has been followed by at least 30 U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More recently, Trump has ordered a quasi-blockade aimed at seizing sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of Venezuela.

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Warren Buffett stayed true to his ways in his final year as Berkshire CEO

In a year of record stock highs, artificial-intelligence moonshots and tense standoffs on global trade, Warren Buffett spent much of it watching, and waiting for the right moment to strike. Buffett, one of corporate America’s most-prolific—and patient—dealmakers, stuck to his script in his final year as Berkshire Hathaway’s chief executive. With the market’s rally limiting opportunities to make large acquisitions, Berkshire sold more stocks than it bought and stockpiled cash. He further pared Berkshire’s stake in Apple when tech stocks were still booming, and bought a petrochemical company with cash. But as the year drew to a close, it became clear Buffett’s biggest move in 2025 was his May announcement, from the stage of Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, Neb., that he would cede his CEO post to Greg Abel at the end of the year. Even Abel was surprised by the timing. “Warren exits in his final year having invested the same ways he did for six decades: patiently opportunistic and never placing the company in harm’s way,” said Chris Bloomstran, president and chief investment officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group, who has invested in Berkshire since 2000.

Americans have relied on Buffett’s straight talk for decades to make sense of all manner of financial developments. In March, weeks before President Trump’s taxes on imports set off a historic market crash, Buffett warned that his threatened tariffs amounted to an “act of war.” But after announcing his CEO tenure would end today, Buffett began to cede the spotlight. He told investors in his Thanksgiving letter last month that he is “going quiet”—“sort of”—and reiterated his confidence in Abel, Berkshire’s vice chairman of noninsurance operations. “Greg understands, for example, far more about both the upside potential and the dangers of our (property and casualty) insurance business than do a great many longtime P/C executives,” Buffett wrote. Not everyone is sticking around for what comes next. Berkshire’s stock price is down more than 6% since he announced his departure. One of his key lieutenants, Geico CEO Todd Combs, is joining JPMorgan Chase. Longtime finance chief Marc Hamburg is retiring in June. “When you don’t have Buffett as the magnet, it gets to be more like a normal company” where people leave for other jobs or retire by their 70s, said Bill Stone, chief investment officer at Glenview Trust in Louisville, Ky., which holds Berkshire shares.

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Democrat wins Iowa Senate election, holding off GOP supermajority

Democrat Renee Hardman made history after winning the Iowa Senate District 16 seat to become Iowa's first Black female senator, defeating Republican Lucas Loftin in a Dec. 30 special election to hold off a GOP supermajority. Hardman earned 71.4% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State, to represent the district that includes parts of West Des Moines, Clive and Windsor Heights — continuing a string of special election wins that have buoyed Iowa Democrats heading into the 2026 midterm elections. The seat has been vacant since the death of Sen. Claire Celsi, D-West Des Moines, in October. Hardman is the president and CEO of Lutheran Services of Iowa. She also made history as West Des Moines' first Black City Council woman when she was elected in 2017.

At an election night party Tuesday in Valley Junction, Hardman, 64, said she felt a responsibility to live out the words on her campaign yard signs to be “a voice for all people” and give all Iowans equal opportunity to thrive, adequately fund public schools, make health care affordable and support small businesses. “We ran to make life better for real people," Hardman said. "I ran to fight for people like you.” Hardman becomes the 17th Democrat in the Iowa Senate, holding Republicans at 33 members — one short of the 34 the GOP caucus would need to claw back their supermajority in the 50-member chamber. It means Republicans would need at least one Democratic vote to confirm Gov. Kim Reynolds' nominees to state agencies, boards and commissions. Iowa Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, told reporters her caucus will give all nominees the chance to explain themselves and make their decisions as a collective.

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Trump's first year was marked by racist controversies. These conservatives of color don't care.

Here at the breakout session at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, the vibe felt less like a political panel than an evangelical revival. Asian, Black, Latino and white attendees crammed into a meeting room in the Phoenix Convention Center, crosses dangling from necks, from the dainty and demure to the big and blinged-out. There were outbursts aplenty of “Amen!,” “Yes!” and “That’s right!!!” And there were testimonies, conversion stories about sin and redemption, about straying too far to the left before finally seeing the light and being put, quite literally, on the right path. The panel was called “The Story of How We Left the Left,” a session focused mainly on the perspectives of Black and brown voters whose increased support for Donald Trump helped fuel his victory a year ago. And if any of that support has ebbed after a 2025 that featured ugly controversies around things like Tucker Carlson’s interview with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, the (since reversed) downgrading of nooses and swastikas as hate symbols by the Coast Guard and the leaked Young Republicans group chat full of racist and antisemitic messages, it wasn’t evident here, at a gathering of MAGA’s most fervent supporters.

Instead, at AmFest, the young conservative activists of color were full of energy for what they considered the real battle: The one against Democrats who, they said, take minority votes for granted. “I was born and raised a Democrat,” said Bianca Garcia, co-founder and president of Latinos for Trump, one of three panelists addressing the crowd. “I didn’t know any better … Obviously, I was in the plantation of the Democrat Party. But thank you, Jesus, for waking me up.” The audience erupted in applause. Another panelist, Craig Long, a Black former prisoner, one-time liberal and self-proclaimed provider of “mean tweet commentary,” added, “Have I lost family members and friends? Absolutely. I have relationships that probably will never be rebuilt, [even] with my own mother and father ... Truth is very inconvenient.” Insofar as anyone at AmFest was talking about racists, most were pointing a finger at the left, arguing the real culprits were progressives who look down on people of color who have the temerity to think for themselves and break with the Democrats. That line is an old standby of conservative rallying, but its power hasn’t been diminished after an election where Trump made unprecedented inroads among traditionally Democratic constituencies.

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Tatiana Schlossberg, a grandchild of the late President John F. Kennedy, has died at 35

Environmental journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, one of three grandchildren of the late President John F. Kennedy, has died after she was diagnosed with leukemia last year. She was 35. Schlossberg, daughter of Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, revealed she had terminal cancer in a November 2025 essay in The New Yorker. A family statement disclosing her death was posted on social media Tuesday by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the statement said. It did not disclose a cause of death or say where she had died. Maria Shriver, a niece of John F. Kennedy and a former award-winning TV journalist, grieved for Schlossberg on social media and called her “the light, the humor, the joy” and a great journalist who “used her words to educate others about the earth and how to save it.”

“She loved her life, and she fought like hell to try to save it,” Shriver wrote. Schlossberg told of being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024 at 34. While in the hospital for the birth of her second child, her doctor noticed her white blood cell count was high. It turned out to be acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation, mostly seen in older people. In the November essay, “A Battle With My Blood,” Schlossberg recounted going through rounds of chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants and participating in clinical trials. During the most recent trial, she wrote, her doctor told her “he could keep me alive for a year, maybe.” Schlossberg also criticized policies pushed by her mother’s cousin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the essay, saying policies he backed could hurt cancer patients like her. Her mother had urged senators to reject his confirmation. “As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” the essay reads. Schlossberg had worked as a reporter covering climate change and the environment for The New York Times’ Science section. Her 2019 book “Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have” won the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award in 2020. Schlossberg wrote in The New Yorker essay that she feared her daughter and son wouldn’t remember her. She felt cheated and sad that she wouldn’t get to keep living “the wonderful life” she had with her husband, George Moran. While her parents and two siblings tried to hide their pain from her, she said she felt it every day. Her siblings, Rose and Jack Schlossberg, are JFK’s other grandchildren. “For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” she said. “Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

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Trump vetoes unanimously approved, Boebert-sponsored water bill

President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan, unanimously-approved bill sponsored by Rep. Lauren Boebert and Rep. Jeff Hurd that would have secured funding to bring clean water to communities on the Eastern Plains, according to a statement made to FOX31 by Boebert’s office. The Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act passed unanimously in the House and the Senate. The bill would have secured funding to continue building the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a water pipeline that would bring access to clean water for 39 communities between Pueblo and Lamar, an area that is known to have high concentrations of salt in the groundwater. It is not a new idea that has been recently created, but rather the end of a project that was developed just over 60 years ago, in 1962, as part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Colorado Democrats and Republicans alike have been working side-by-side on this project for decades, with Boebert the latest on the scene. Most of the land used for the pipeline site falls under her district.

Her office made a statement to FOX31 about the veto on Tuesday: “President Trump decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections. “I must have missed the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects. My bad, I thought the campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape. “But hey, if this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans; that’s on them. “I’m going to continue fighting for Colorado and standing up for our rural communities, our farmers, and every family that deserves safe, reliable drinking water without decades more delay.” Typically on the same wavelength as Trump, this is the second time that Boebert has found herself on the opposite side of the president recently, with her pushing for the release of the notorious Epstein Files in the last few months. Boebert was the sponsor for the House version of the bill, while Sen. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennet worked with her to progress the bill and sponsored the Senate version. Both responded to the decision by Trump.

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Health Dept. pauses child care funding to Minnesota, citing state’s fraud scandal

The Health and Human Services Department said on Tuesday that it had paused its child care payments to Minnesota, days after the posting of a widely circulated video that added new accusations to a fraud scandal in the state’s social services programs and led conservatives to call for a government crackdown. The decision blocks a funding stream that provides $185 million in annual aid to Minnesota day care centers, according to the health department. More than a dozen schemes have come to light in Minnesota in recent years, many of them involving people of Somali origin. Prosecutors say the schemes have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. The scandal has rattled Minnesota politics and drawn the ire of the White House.

On Friday, a conservative active on social media, Nick Shirley, posted a video purporting to uncover rampant fraud in day care centers run by people of Somali origin. While day care centers in Minnesota have been prosecuted for overbilling in the past, none of the centers featured in the video have been accused of fraud by the authorities. Nevertheless, the video drew accolades from several senior White House officials. Jim O’Neill, the deputy health secretary, said in a video statement on Tuesday that the department was pausing the funding in response to “credible allegations” of “extensive fraud” in Minnesota’s child care programs. Mr. O’Neill said he had sent a letter to the state’s governor, Tim Walz, a Democrat, demanding a thorough audit of the state’s day care centers. In a statement, Mr. Walz’s office said the governor had been combating fraud “for years.” “Fraud is a serious issue,” said the statement. “But this is a transparent attempt to politicize the issue to hurt Minnesotans and defund government programs that help people.”

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Homeland Security seeks emergency demolition of historic buildings in D.C.

The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to fast-track the demolition of more than a dozen historic buildingsat St. Elizabeths in Southeast Washington, asserting that the conditions of the vacant structures represent an “emergency” and pose potential security risks, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, in a Dec. 19 memo to the General Services Administration, said the buildings “constitute a present risk to life and property” on the 176-acre West Campus, a fortified complex that Homeland Securityhas been transforming into its new headquarters over the past 15 years. “Demolition is the only permanent measure that resolves the emergency conditions,” Noem wrote in thememo. A risk assessment report undertaken by her agency “supports immediate corrective action,” she wrote. The assessment report, which Noem included with her memo,concludes the vacant buildings “may be accessed by unauthorized individuals seeking to cause harm to personnel.” The structures “provide a tactical advantage for carrying out small arms or active shooter scenarios,” the report states.

DHS’s proposed demolition is prompting opposition from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the D.C. Preservation League, which are seeking to participate in a detailed on-site assessment of the structures, nine of which they say were built in the late 1800s. In a letter sent Sunday to the GSA, the preservation organizations raise “strong objections” to the proposed demolition, contending that no evidence of an emergency exists beyond “Secretary Noem’s unilateral declaration” of one. “A unilateral declaration like this is problematic because it bypasses the procedural safeguards designed to ensure stability, legitimacy and fairness,” reads the letter signed by Elizabeth Merritt, the National Trust’s deputy general counsel, and Rebecca Miller, the Preservation League’s executive director. Regarding the purported security risks, the preservationists wrote that the Homeland Security campus possesses “the highest security classification for a government facility.” Concerns about threats, they wrote, “imply a fundamental flaw in the facility’s security as a whole,” not the vacant buildings.

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Lead Stories

Harris County treasurer out on bond after being charged with burglary of a motor vehicle

Harris County Treasurer Dr. Carla Wyatt is out on bond after being arrested and charged with burglary of a motor vehicle, according to Houston police. Police say the incident happened on Wednesday along Washington Avenue. Officers were called to the area and reported seeing Wyatt taking items from a vehicle. According to investigators, Wyatt told officers she had permission to be inside the car. However, police say the vehicle’s owner told officers they did not know Wyatt and had not given her permission to access the car. Wyatt was taken into custody and later released on bond. Details about what led up to the incident have not been released yet. According to the Harris County Treasurer’s Office website, Wyatt has worked for Harris County for about 20 years and was elected treasurer in 2022. The treasurer’s office serves as the chief custodian of all Harris County funds.

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Trump’s Texas troubles

Texas is still Trump country, but the president’s economic policies are starting to sting — and the fallout could hurt Republicans at the ballot box in 2026. Donald Trump took 56 percent of the vote in Texas when he won in 2024, improving his margins from both of his previous campaigns. Republicans also held onto their two-decade majority in the state legislature in the Lone Star State. But as 2025 closes out, polls show growing unrest within the Texas economy, and voters are beginning to blame Trump and Republicans for failing to produce results. “Right now there’s such a deep level of anger about what’s happening,” said Eric Holguín, Texas field organizer for UnidosUS, a nonpartisan civil rights organization that released a poll in November of Hispanic voters’ attitudes.

Two-thirds of the survey’s 3,000 respondents nationwide said Trump and Congress aren’t doing enough to improve people’s economic well-being. Among Texas respondents, 55 percent said Democrats do a better job addressing inflation and affordability, while 25 percent favored Republicans. There are signs that Trump’s signature policies are responsible for some of the malaise. Trump’s immigration raids may be hurting the broader Texas economy, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve. The raids have hit permanent residents and foreign students, and the fear has made foreign-born people more likely to miss work and less likely to visit shops and restaurants, the Fed’s Texas Business Outlook Survey said. About 13 percent of companies reported they were having a harder time finding and retaining workers, while only 2 percent said it was easier, the survey found. Hispanic Texans in the Rio Grande Valley were surprised to see ICE agents raiding local businesses, the AP reported back in July. Many of them voted for Trump and “didn’t realize his deportation campaign would focus on their neighbors.” While Trump relishes taking credit for lowering the price of gas — which fell below $3 a gallon this year — the flip side is low prices for crude oil, which have created a burden in the Texas oil patch.

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US economy to ride tax cut tailwind but faces risks

A see-saw year for the U.S. economy in 2025 looks set to give way to a stronger 2026 thanks to tailwinds from President Donald Trump's tax cuts, less uncertainty around tariffs, the ongoing artificial intelligence boom and a late-year run of interest-rate reductions from the Federal Reserve. Among the biggest drivers of a pickup in growth, economists say, are fatter tax refunds and smaller tax withholdings on paychecks that are expected to provide a lift to consumer spending, the backbone of the American economy. Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill also gives companies a range of credits and tax breaks, including the ability to fully write off expenses from investments, that may fuel capital spending beyond data centers and other AI-related areas.

"The boost from fiscal stimulus alone could add one-half percent or more to first quarter GDP growth," wrote KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk. At the same time, the impact of Trump's tariffs on prices is projected to peak in the first half of the year. If price pressures then recede, as Fed policymakers increasingly believe they will, wages will have more room to outpace inflation, bolstering household finances further. Meanwhile business spending on the infrastructure that powers AI, a key component of economic growth in 2025, looks poised to continue as mega technology firms such as Amazon and Google parent Alphabet promise more investments ahead. The upshot: a better outlook for businesses stuck for much of this past year in a "low-hire, low-fire" mode as they sought to weather Trump's disruptive trade policies and aggressive immigration crackdown. "We expect fading policy uncertainty, the boost from tax cuts and the recent loosening of monetary policy to mean the economy strengthens in 2026," said Oxford Economics analyst Michael Pierce.

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Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene’s break with Trump and MAGA

Eleven days after Charlie Kirk was killed in September, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the third-term Georgia congresswoman, was watching his memorial service on TV as the luminaries of the conservative movement and the Trump administration gathered to pay tribute to the young activist. What stayed with Greene long afterward were the last two speakers who took the stage. First there was Kirk’s widow, Erika, who stood in white before the crowd filling the Arizona stadium, lifted her tear-filled eyes and said that she forgave her husband’s killer. And then there was President Trump. “He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose,” he said of Kirk. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”

“That was absolutely the worst statement,” Greene wrote to me in a text message months after the memorial service. And the contrast between Erika Kirk and the president was clarifying, she added. “It just shows where his heart is. And that’s the difference, with her having a sincere Christian faith, and proves that he does not have any faith.” It also, Greene said, clarified something about herself. Over the past five years, as Trump’s most notorious acolyte in Congress, she had adopted his unrepentant pugilism as her own. “Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” she told me in her Capitol Hill office one afternoon in early December. “You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that. I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.” Greene’s reaction put her in a distinct minority among influential conservative figures. Almost immediately after Kirk was declared dead, many of her comrades on the right — the billionaire Elon Musk, the Fox News host Jesse Watters, the podcaster Steve Bannon — labeled the killing an act of war by the left and exhorted their audience to think in similar terms. But Greene — who for years took a back seat to no one when it came to reactionary rhetoric, going so far, before she was in office, as to accuse Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of treasonous conduct and adding that treason was punishable by imprisonment or death — realized that she had suddenly lost all appetite for vengeance.

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State Stories

'Don't mourn, organize.' How disability rights advocate Bob Kafka helped shape Austin and the nation

Bob Kafka, an Austin-based activist who pushed for accessibility at the local, state and federal level for more than 40 years, died at his home in Austin on Friday at the age of 79. The former Army veteran moved to Texas in 1974 after a car crash left him quadriplegic, beginning a decades-long career of advocacy for disability rights. The Bronx native first joined the fight for accessibility in 1984 and became a pillar in the movement that balanced on-the-ground resistance with political know-how. Kafka is survived by his longtime partner and fellow advocate, Stephanie Thomas, who joined him in the long fight to increase access to public transit, Medicaid funding and voting rights for people with disabilities. For years, the two were known for carrying both a stick and a carrot, employing guerrilla-style protests that blocked city streets and crowded capitol domes with a legislative savvy to lobby for people with disabilities in Texas and across the country.

Dennis Borel, who worked closely with Kafka as head of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, said he was a good friend, a loving partner and a dedicated organizer who got things done. "He liked acts of civil disobedience," Borel said. "But ... his command involving public policy with people with disabilities was second to none. He was a combination of a guy in a T-shirt, rabble rousing, and then the guy in the back room incisively looking at legislation and making it better." Kafka's lobbying raised awareness ahead of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law that nationally enshrined protections for people with disabilities in 1990. Kafka also pushed for federal and state programs that use Medicaid funds to help people with disabilities live on their own, rather than at state hospitals or in institutions. His campaigning led to the establishment of Money Follows the Person programs after a landmark Supreme Court decision, Olmstead v. LC, which effectively ended segregation and discrimination based on someone's abilities in the United States. Kafka's advocacy also shaped life for people in Austin. Years before the ADA's passage, Kafka pushed Capital Metro to make public transit available to people with disabilities and lobbied the city of Austin to normalize "curb cuts," divots that allow people using wheelchairs to access sidewalks. Thor Armbruster, who worked with Kafka as an organizer at ADAPT of Texas, said Kafka celebrated victories small and large, but he always had a mantra: "onward." Armbruster added that Kafka wanted to pass on stories — and strategies — to the next generation of advocates for disability rights.

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Suspect accused of prominent Mission businessman’s and Abbott appointee's murder identified

The McAllen Police Department announced Monday morning that they are seeking a 60-year-old man accused of the Saturday murder of a prominent Mission businessman. Reynaldo Mata-Rios is accused of shooting and killing Eddy Betancourt, who was the vice chair of the Hidalgo County Appraisal District Board of Directors and an appointee of Gov. Greg Abbott for the Texas Facilities Commission. “Public notification of this suspect was deferred to allow the suspect to surrender,” police said in a news release. “The suspect indicated his intent to surrender to the McAllen Police Department for this charge but he has not done so to date.” Mata-Rios stands 6-feet tall and weighs 195 pounds, police said. He has brown hair, brown eyes and his last known address is in Pharr.

On Saturday at around 3:51 p.m., police were dispatched to the 800 block of North Ware Road after a 911 call reported a person lying on the floor and not breathing after possibly being shot. When police arrived, Betancourt, 61, had no pulse. He is the president of R&B General Construction Co. Inc., which is located in the area of the shooting at 805 N. Ware Road in McAllen. The Monitor previously reported that Betancourt was also the co-owner and president of National Tire and Wheel LLC, a general retail partner manager for E2H Investments, a member of the McAllen Board of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors, and an Abbott appointee for the Texas Facilities Commission.

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Duty? Insanity? These former members of Congress from Texas and elsewhere want to come back.

Republican House candidate Mayra Flores keeps getting the same question: Is she insane? Flores lost her seat representing her Texas district in 2022 just months after winning a special election. Two election cycles later, she’s fighting to win it back. On the Hill, the direction of travel is toward the door. Members of both parties — some disgruntled with a dysfunctional institution, some older and just ready to retire — have already announced they’re departing. But outside of Washington, another group is emerging: former lawmakers who want to return. “People are jumping ship — and we’re trying to get back on it. Why would anyone do that?” joked Democrat Tom Malinowski, who is running to reclaim a seat in New Jersey. By The Washington Post’s latest tally, at least 18 former members of Congress — 11 Democrats and seven Republicans — are asking voters to send them back to D.C. next year.

They’re seeking to rejoin a club that is decidedly unpopular: Recent Gallup polling shows 80 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing. When news broke that Colin Allred, who left the House earlier this year to run for Senate, was suddenly dropping out of that race to run for a newly drawn House seat, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pennsylvania) sent him a text. The message showed an animation of Eminem with the rapper’s lyric flashing across the screen: “Guess who’s back.” Other familiar faces running in 2026: Maryland Democrat David Trone, the co-owner of Total Wine & More who left the House earlier this year to dump $62 million into a Senate bid, now wants his old seat back. (He didn’t make it past the Senate primary.) Tom Perriello, who was ousted from his House seat in Virginia in 2011 after voting for the Affordable Care Act, is now campaigning to return on the issue of health care. Seasoned politicos John Sununu and Scott Brown are competing in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, and fresh-out-the-Senate Sherrod Brown is running for the Ohio seat vacated earlier this year by JD Vance. If Brown wins the special election, he’d serve alongside Republican Bernie Moreno, who defeated him for Ohio’s other Senate seat last year. After states like Texas, California and Utah redrew their electoral maps this year, some former lawmakers seized their chance. In Utah, McAdams is running for a new Democratic-leaning House seat. The state has not had a Democratic member of Congress since 2021, when McAdams lost his seat after voting to impeach Trump. In Texas, the state’s new electoral map makes Flores’s former district redder. She sees the chance to take back the seat — if she can win the crowded primary. Texas’s seismic redistricting effort, which the Supreme Court green-lit earlier this month, was designed to net the GOP five additional seats. The new map hurled some representatives into tough races — like Rep. Lloyd Doggett, 78, who opted to retire rather than compete against a younger colleague, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Crockett jumped last-minute into the Senate primary, and Allred, who had been in the race for months, assessed the fractured Democratic field and pivoted to a House race that would incorporate most of his old district.

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Jesus Ortiz: Latino leaders stand by Whitmire. Progressives should pay attention.

(Jesus Ortiz is the founder and editor of Our Esquina.) “It hurts us to our f______ core,” state Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, said in a viral tirade posted on social media back in 2023. “And you don’t understand that, you don’t live in our skin. And that’s what pisses me off.” As I saw Walle with Houston Mayor John Whitmire earlier this month, I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment two years ago when Republicans tried to stop discussion on Senate Bill 4, a bill that would empower local law enforcement to act as immigration agents. Walle, a proud and sensible Democrat, has devoted much of his adult life to fighting for Latinos. He was speaking for many of us when he candidly confronted his colleagues. But Walle wasn’t there to chastise Whitmire. He was there for a reception honoring the latest Latinas Whitmire has appointed to leadership positions: Sofia Gonzalez to the Houston First Corporation and Nelly Treviño Santos to the Houston Municipal Courts.

If Walle can stand proudly in support of Whitmire, that speaks much louder than an impotent reprimand the Harris County Democrats handed to Whitmire earlier this month. It was insulting to see the Harris County Democratic Party ignore some of the most respected Latino leaders in Houston and Harris County. State Sen. Carol Alvarado, state Reps. Walle, Ana Hernandez and Mary Ann Perez along with Harris County Commissioners Adrian Garcia and Lesley Briones signed on to a letter urging party unity over “a divisive resolution.” Contrary to what Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo would perhaps have you think, many Latino leaders in Houston support Whitmire. The Democrats who are working uphill trying to pass bills in Austin to help bring funds back to Harris County and Houston know you cannot accomplish anything in Texas without reaching across the aisle. Yes, sometimes you have to let loose, as Walle famously did, reminding his Republican colleague, “Y'all don't live in our f____ skin.” His tirade spoke to me. I know what it’s like to live in brown skin. I’m as brown and proud as you can get, a Chicano from East Los Angeles via Compton. I've made Houston my home since 2001 with the exception of almost three years living in St. Louis as a columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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Houston Houston Progressive Caucus leaders: Houston progressives knocked Whitmire. We’re coming back for more.

(Corisha Rogers, Anthony Rios, and Dr. Audrey Nath-Flaum are all members of the leadership of the Houston Progressive Caucus.) We knew the vote to deny Mayor John Whitmire the Democratic Party’s endorsement was decided when his campaign released an eleventh-hour list claiming the support of just 20 precinct chairs out of over 600 across Harris County. Whitmire’s team appeared unaware of the depth of opposition, scrambling to identify supporters at the last minute. It was a revealing moment — less about campaign mechanics than a mayoral governing style sealed off from ordinary Houstonians. That disconnect produced history. Whitmire became the first mayor in modern Houston’s history to lose the support of his own party ahead of reelection.

Last month, Houston Chronicle editorial writer Nick Powell asked who our city’s Zohran Mamdani would be. It’s a revealing question. Houston isn’t the sort of place that generates political change through a single personality. What we do produce — when pressure finally breaks through — is a collective revolt against a political order that has failed working people for decades. That is what is happening now. The unprecedented effort to deny Whitmire’s endorsement came from sustained anger at a governing model that elevates corporate access over public obligation. That anger crystallized when the sitting mayor appeared as a special guest at an event by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican. Crenshaw has supported legislation that would slash funding for health care and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), disadvantaging working families in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires. In a city already under intense cost-of-living pressure, this was unacceptable. But it was part of a broader pattern we’ve seen out of City Hall. Immigrant rights advocates are sidelined even as federal enforcement overreach harms law-abiding Houstonians. Transit advocates go dismissed. LGBTQ+ Houstonians get treated as peripheral.

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DOGE by the numbers: Why San Antonio was hit harder than other Texas cities

In Texas, one city has taken by far the biggest hits from the government cost cutting agency formerly led by Elon Musk. From its January launch until its apparent early demise last month, the Department of Government Efficiency killed federal contracts with Texas businesses worth at least $3.9 billion — with $3.6 billion of that cut from San Antonio vendors. The department’s estimates suggest the Texas cuts will ultimately save taxpayers more than $3.1 billion. But the math is murky and, though the agency promised transparency, it has offered few details about its calculations.

Most government contracts run for several years, which means much of the money claimed to be “saved” in the future hadn’t actually been doled out yet. Also, a canceled contract doesn’t mean the money is automatically returned to federal coffers. And sometimes the awarded contract amounts wouldn’t have been spent even if the contract hadn’t been cut. Musk left in May and, by September, DOGE had gone from killing billion-dollar deals to targeting contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars, including a Texas veteran’s prosthesis worth $15,289. The agency fell far short of its stated goal of cutting $2 trillion then quietly faded from the scene. In late November, the director of the Office of Personnel Management told Reuters that DOGE “doesn’t exist” as the centralized entity it was when President Donald Trump tapped Musk to lead it. Despite that, Wired magazine quoted government sources suggesting the agency hasn’t folded but instead had transformed and “burrowed into agencies like ticks.” Here are the findings of a Hearst Newspapers review of the slashed federal contracts across Texas: Of the total $3.1 billion in claimed savings from federal contracts in Texas, nearly 97% was from canceled contracts with San Antonio vendors.

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Bud Kennedy: Jasmine Crockett, James Talarico taking Texas Democrats to church

The battle for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate is coming soon to a mailbox near you. But so far, it’s been waged somewhere unusual for Texas Democrats: in churches. Both U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas and state Rep. James Talarico of Austin have taken their campaigns to churches, the first stops on a breakneck rush to Feb. 17 and the start of voting in the March 3 party primaries. It is not unusual to see Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and frequent guest preacher, deliver a sermon like he did Dec. 14 at Central Presbyterian in downtown Austin. We see Crockett, a lawyer who represents south Dallas and southeast Tarrant County, more on national TV news. She’s usually delivering saltier comments and litigating the case against Congress, the current Washington leadership and President Donald Trump. “I know I may have a potty mouth here and there, but my dad is a preacher,” Crockett said Sunday.

She was meeting reporters at a restaurant in far east Fort Worth after visiting worship at Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church, New Breed Christian Center and Pilgrim Valley Missionary Baptist Church. “All the civil rights movements were born in the Black church,” she said, “and right now, we are definitely in a moment where we need a movement. “ ... So that is why, absolutely, as many Sundays as I get, I’ll most likely be in church praising God and meeting people.” Don’t get me wrong. It is not unusual for a Presbyterian seminarian and a United Methodist pastor’s daughter to be in church on Sunday. But it is unusual for rival Texas Democrats to make religion a front-and-center part of their campaigns. In particular, white Democratic voters are mostly not church regulars, according to the Pew Research Center. The three recent Democratic nominees for Senate — Beto O’Rourke, M.J. Hegar and Colin Allred — did not mention church or faith prominently.

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Texas to receive more than $1.4 billion in federal funding to improve rural health care

Texas will receive more than $1.4 billion in federal funding over five years to address health care and access needs in rural areas. The funding comes through the Rural Health Transformation Program established by the tax and spending bill passed earlier this year. Texas will receive $281 million every year for five years – the largest amount awarded to any state. “We will strengthen our rural hospitals, expand access to critical mental and physical health care, and help reduce chronic disease through wellness and nutrition initiatives,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement Monday. The Rural Health Transformation Program includes a one-time federal appropriation of $50 billion for all states in the program. As a state with a large rural population, Texas officials hoped to receive a significant amount of funding.

Texas has 4.3 million rural residents, according to the funding application. Of the state’s 254 counties, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy identified 241 with at least one census area that’s considered rural – and 195 are considered fully rural. Large portions of the state’s population live in care deserts, where people may not have accessible doctors, OBGYNs or emergency medical services. Texas requested $1 billion – or $200 million each year – from federal health officials, but was awarded millions of dollars more. The state submitted its application for the program to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in early November. The proposal introduced the “Rural Texas Strong” project, which is built on several initiatives ranging from workforce development to use of AI in rural health care. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission will use a “competitive process” to distribute funding to local governments, rural hospitals, rural community health centers and other groups, according to Abbott’s statement. The funding will go towards grants to reduce chronic disease, investments in technology to engage with patients, workforce development and retention, improvements to cybersecurity and upgrades to equipment in rural hospitals and clinics. “Thanks to the input and partnership of our rural healthcare stakeholders, Texas now has the opportunity for innovative and tailored solutions that will improve health care for current and future generations of Texans,” HHSC executive commissioner Cecile Young said in a statement.

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Austin Muslim group urges state leaders to denounce park harassment

Austin Muslim leaders are calling on top state officials to condemn what they describe as “targeted harassment” of Muslims following an incident at Walnut Creek Park that they say mirrors similar cases in other states that resulted in criminal charges. In a news release, the Austin chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations linked the incident to recent actions by Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying their rhetoric is “fomenting anti-Muslim hate across the state.” The group urged the three Republican officials to publicly denounce the incident.

Abbott, Cornyn and Paxton did not respond to requests for comment. According to CAIR-Austin, the incident occurred around 7 a.m. Saturday morning at the North Austin park as a group of Muslims gathered for a fellowship breakfast. Video shared by the organization shows two men dressed in costumes resembling medieval Christian crusaders confronting the group and shouting Islamophobic insults. Muzzammil Ahmad, an Austin Imam who attended the breakfast, said the encounter was profoundly unsettling. "When Muslim families show up for this monthly potluck with their children right after morning prayers, they do so in good faith, seeking joy, fresh air, and connection to one another and God's nature,” Ahmad said in a written statement. “It was deeply troubling that those hateful individuals chose to intimidate and threaten us in a public place that is meant for children to play around safely.”

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Missing Texas teen in "imminent danger" as search continues

A massive search effort is underway for a young woman who mysteriously vanished outside her Texas home on Christmas Eve, with law enforcement officials saying she could be in "imminent danger". Camila Mendoza Olmos, 19, was last seen leaving her home in Bexar County, Texas the morning of 24 December, according to the Bexar County Sheriff's office. She normally goes on a morning walk, but her mother became concerned when she did not come home at a reasonable time, the sheriff's office said. Sheriff Javier Salazar told ABC News that authorities believe she is in danger and are not ruling out kidnapping or trafficking. They are also considering that the case may cross international borders. But, he added, Mendoza Olmos may have left on her own accord.

The search, now going on for nearly a week, has turned up scant clues, primarily a video believed to be of her recorded the day she disappeared. Surveillance footage shows a woman searching in the back of her car for an unknown item, the sheriff's office said. Authorities believe she then walked somewhere, because her car was left behind. The only items she had on her, authorities said, were her car keys and possibly her driver's license. They were concerned that she left her phone behind, which was unusual. Sheriff Salazar also told ABC News that Mendoza Olmos, who is a US citizen, was not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been conducting sweeps of suspected illegal immigrants throughout the country. "That was a personal concern. So, I had it checked to make sure that there were no stops, no detentions, and that she's not somewhere in a federal detention facility," Salazar told the outlet. Authorities have deployed deputies, investigators, search-and-rescue resources and teams, drones, and cadaver dogs in the search for Olmos, the sheriff's office said. FBI officers have also been helping out local law enforcement, Sheriff Javier Salazar told CBS.

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Former McKinney city manager and wife found dead; son identified as suspect

A Sunday afternoon welfare check turned into an officer-involved shooting after McKinney police discovered two people dead inside a home. One of the victims is a former city leader, officials confirmed. Police were asked to check on a couple Sunday after family members reported they had not been seen for several days. Upon entering the home on Dunster Drive, officers found the bodies of Leonard Ragan, 73, and his wife, Jackie Ragan, 72, in the living room. The couple’s son, 34-year-old Bryce Ragan, was found inside the residence armed with a handgun. Following a standoff with officers, police shot Bryce Ragan multiple times. He was transported to a local hospital and his current condition has not been released.

Leonard Ragan is a former city manager for the city of McKinney. City officials released the following statement regarding his death. "We have learned that former City Manager Frank Ragan and his wife were tragically found deceased in their home. Mr. Ragan served the McKinney community from March 2008 to June 2010. Our condolences and prayers are with the family. We are unable to comment further while this is an active investigation," said McKinney City Manager Paul Grimes. What we don't know: Investigators are still searching for a motive in the double homicide.

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Dallas suburbs want to ditch DART for 'microtransit' — but that has its own issues

Some suburban cities frustrated with Dallas Area Rapid Transit are considering adopting a new method of transportation: microtransit. Four cities — Irving, Farmers Branch, Highland Park and Plano — will hold elections this spring to possibly leave the DART over concerns about cost and what they say are inefficient services. In its place, some are already looking into city-run, on-demand services. Irving will set aside money to implement microtransit if residents vote to leave DART in May, according to the city's website. And a microtransit company representative appeared during a Carrolton DART Committee meeting to pitch the service, though the city hasn't called a withdrawal election. Plano will seek to adopt microtransit regardless of whether the city leaves DART or not, Amanda McNew, director of media relations, told KERA.

Plano is currently asking DART to end its standard bus service and allow them to pay less into the agency. That bus service would be replaced by microtransit as soon as March, but Plano still hasn't settled on a vendor or a deal with DART. "We really need to make some changes to be able to create a door-to-door service through different types of vehicles that work for our community," Plano Mayor John Muns said at a Nov. 5 special called meeting. "And so we're looking for those changes to help our residents utilize a public transit system even that much more." But what is microtransit? And how will it change public transportation in North Texas? Microtransit allows people to schedule a ride in a van or small bus at a pickup location, usually at a cost of under $10. Think of a subsidized Uber or Lyft ride, but you will likely share the ride with other passengers. Via, a microtransit technology company with a large presence in Texas, currently provides this service to Arlington, Denton County and Trinity Metro through multi-million dollar contracts. DART also has microtransit integrated into its service through GoLink, which contracts out to (companies). The rides are limited to zones established by the local government. This means your options for traveling outside a county or city are often limited.

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Months of road closures coming to tourist-friendly Hill Country area

Utility work will shut down some busy roads in tourist-friendly Gruene in the coming months, according to officials with New Braunfels Utilities. In January, the city-owned utilities provider will start work on the Gruene Road Sewer Main Rehabilitation and Relocation Project, a $7 million project intended to “increase the capacity and reliability of wastewater service” in the Gruene historical district, NBU said in a news release. Founded as a town by German immigrants, Gruene now operates as a historical district within New Braunfels. It is popular with tourists for its 19th-century buildings, shops, restaurants and Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas.

NBU's project calls for replacing a 12-inch sewer main with an 18-inch main in Gruene. The utility also plans to replace aging 6-inch and 8-inch cast-iron siphon lines that cross the Guadalupe River at Gruene Road. The utility will also install an “odor control unit along the 1200 block of Gruene Road to address existing odor issues," NBU said. The project is intended to be completed by May, according to the utility. The second phase of construction, dubbed the "River Phase," is expected to begin in March and continue through May. Specific details on road closures during the second phase of construction will be available “closer to the start date,” according to NBU. “Due to the nature of this project and possible weather impacts, dates and timelines are subject to change,” the utility said on its website. Information about the project and road closures can be found on NBU’s website and on its social media accounts.

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National Stories

CIA carried out drone strike on port facility on Venezuelan coast

The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country. The drone strike, the details of which have not been previously reported, targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for onward shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.

Two sources said US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support to the operation, underscoring their continued involvement in the region. But Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for US Special Operations Command, denied that, saying, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.” President Donald Trump appeared to first acknowledge the attack in an interview last week that initially attracted little notice, though he offered few specifics, including when reporters asked directly about it on Monday. The strike could significantly escalate tensions between the US and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the US has been pressuring to step down through an aggressive military campaign. The US has launched strikes destroying more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what it has described as a counter-narcotics campaign, and Trump has ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving Venezuela. Trump had also repeatedly threatened to carry out strikes inside Venezuela, but until the CIA attack earlier this month, the only known US strikes on Venezuelan targets were against the suspected drug trafficking boats in international waters.

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After a year of blistering growth, AI chip makers get ready for bigger 2026

Driven by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, the largest semiconductor companies in the world recorded more than $400 billion in combined sales in 2025, by far the biggest year for chips on record. Next year promises to be even bigger. Yet the blistering pace of growth, fed by what CEOs and analysts describe as “insatiable demand” for computing power, has created a host of challenges, from shortages of vital components to questions about how and when AI companies will be able to generate reliable enough profits to keep buying chips. Hardware designers such as Nvidia, which more than doubled its revenue year-over-year, are the main suppliers of the picks and shovels behind this new digital gold rush. But Nvidia faces growing competition from the likes of Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com, while the battleground shifts under its feet.

Last week, Nvidia signed a $20 billion licensing deal with the chip startup Groq, which designs chips and software that help accelerate AI inference, the process whereby trained AI models serve up answers to prompts. Where the last leg of the AI race was defined by training, tech giants are now competing to deliver the fastest and most cost-efficient inference. “Inference workloads are more diversified and may open up new areas for competition,” analysts at Bernstein wrote after Nvidia’s recent deal was announced. Data-center operators, AI labs and business customers have clamored for Nvidia’s advanced H200 and B200 graphics processing units. Google’s increasingly sophisticated custom chips, known as TPUs, and Amazon’s Trainium and Inferentia chips, both of which compete with Nvidia’s GPUs, are also scooping up customers, while software developers such as OpenAI are joining with custom designers such as Broadcom to design their own chips. Advanced Micro Devices, a half-century-old maker of gaming, personal computer and data-center chips, is launching a GPU in 2026 that represents its first major challenge to Nvidia’s AI processors.

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Outraged journos to urge David Ellison to protect CBS News' 'independence' after Bari Weiss pulled ‘60 Minutes' report

Former CBS News journalists are preparing a petition urging Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison to uphold editorial independence at the network after editor in chief Bari Weiss yanked a “60 Minutes” segment on migrants sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post on Monday. A group of “prominent journalists” signed the text – which they plan to send on Saturday, Jan. 3 – and are circulating it among current and former CBS News employees, asking for their signatures, sources told The Post. Weiss, whom Ellison hired to bring more conservative voices to the storied network, has been accused of spiking the “60 Minutes” episode for political reasons just hours before it was scheduled to air Dec. 21.

“The efforts by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss to prevent this story from airing on December 21, 2025, signals a breakdown in editorial oversight, and risks setting a dangerous precedent in a country that has traditionally valued press freedom,” the petition states. “Weiss’ last-minute proposal that the story be delayed until it included a White House official, despite reported efforts by the ’60 Minutes’ team to get comment from the Administration, was inappropriate.” “Her specific urging to interview White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller proved particularly troublesome, given that he went on to call for everyone at the CBS News network who was involved in the production of this report to be fired.” The petition calls on Ellison to send a message to top news staffers reminding them that CBS News “must respect editorial independence.” CBS News and Paramount did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment on the letter, the organizers of which are anonymous. “It’s not a crazy letter. Journalistic independence is important,” a source with knowledge of the letter told The Post. “What’s odd is no one is identifying themselves – that’s weird.”

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Las Vegas tourism continues its slump, with flight passengers down nearly 10% even amid Grand Prix

Sin City continues to see a tourism slump as flight passenger numbers are down nearly 10%. In November, there were 3,956,419 domestic travelers passing through Harry Reid International Airport, compared to last November’s 4,338,575 travelers, according to newly released airport data. The city hosted the Las Vegas Grand Prix last month, which was expected to boost tourism. The three-day Las Vegas Grand Prix was sold out, with more than 300,000 fans attending, according to Reuters. Emily Prazer, CEO of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, told Reuters the organization was proud of the sold-out event.

"We elevated the guest experience at every turn and created iconic cultural moments that could only happen in Las Vegas, all while staying firmly rooted in what matters most — the race," said Prazer. The event faced some controversy, with racing star Max Verstappen describing the race as something that was "99% show and 1% sporting event." International visitors to Vegas were also down in November, with 239,500 tourists compared to 303,834 tourists last year. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) held a board of directors meeting over the summer to address the tourism decline, highlighting the lower number of international visitors. Steve Hill, LVCVA president, reportedly spoke about the effect that tariffs have had on both returning and potential new visitors. "Some of the decisions our administration has made around international relations [have] caused a drop in tourism," said Hill, according to local outlet KTNV Las Vegas.

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Who is Nick Shirley, the 23-year-old MAGA journalist whose Minnesota fraud story went viral?

One week ago, 23-year-old Nick Shirley was relatively unknown in the public sphere. But in recent days, he has gained hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views, amplified by Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel. The MAGA leaders promoted Shirley’s video of himself and a Minnesota activist investigating federally funded facilities in the state that allegedly posed as daycares without any children present. It’s part of what many on the right say is widespread government assistance fraud perpetuated by the Somali community there. Shirley’s experience could only happen in today’s media and political environment – where seemingly anyone can go viral, helped along by social media gatekeepers like Musk. His Minnesota investigation video has garnered over 116 million views on X and 1.6 million views on YouTube - a number that most traditional newsrooms would trumpet as a major success.

Shirley and others like him present themselves as the future of journalism. They often claim the lack of traditional editing, fact checks and guardrails makes them more trustworthy. Meanwhile, the audience for mainstream media has been falling for years, and public trust in traditional journalists is at historic lows, amplified by political figures who make denigrating journalists part of their brand. Shirley has not always presented himself as an “independent journalist” as he does now. His YouTube account’s early videos are more along the lines of “shock content” and pranks. Six years ago, as a 16 year-old, he filmed himself flying to New York with his friends without parental consent. Three years after that, he posted a video titled “I Tricked TikTokers Into Auditioning For a Justin Bieber Music Video.” Though he found modest success with these videos, Shirley started really gaining views once he shifted focus to political issues.

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Special election could restore GOP's supermajority in the Iowa State Senate

A special election is set for Dec. 30 in Senate District 16 to fill the seat once held by Democratic state Sen. Claire Celsi, who died in October. The district covers parts of Clive, West Des Moines and Windsor Heights. Voters can find their polling location here. If Republicans flip the seat, the party can regain the supermajority they lost with the election of Democrat Catelin Drey in August. Republicans currently hold 33 seats in the senate, while Democrats hold 17. Regaining the supermajority means GOP senators can approve the governor's appointees without having to gain a vote from a Democratic senator, which requires 34 votes. Democratic candidate Renee Hardman of West Des Moines and Republican candidate Lucas Loftin of Clive are running for the vacant seat.

Renee Hardman, 64, of West Des Moines currently serves as the president and CEO of Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI), a nonprofit that provides social services to immigrants, people with disabilities, children in foster care and adoptive care, along with other groups. Hardman, who's lived in West Des Moines for close to 25 years, said she joined the senate race to prevent the Republican supermajority from being restored and to provide a balance in state government. Hardman is serving her third term on the West Des Moines City Council. She said making child care, housing and health care affordable is a top issue for her senate campaign. Lucas Loftin, 42, of Clive said his campaign is focused on affordability and on lowering taxes. Loftin currently works for Wright Service Corp. in software management and lives with his wife and five children. Originally from Kansas, Loftin and his wife settled in Iowa in 2015. In a Democratic-leaning district, the Republican candidate said he's telling voters he's "just a regular guy." "I buy groceries, I put gas in my car, I pay a mortgage. You know, all of these things," Loftin said. "Our dollars don't go as far as they used to, and everybody across the country, not just in Iowa, is feeling that." Loftin said abolishing property taxes is a "noble goal" but one that would be complicated to reach. He thinks the state is on the right track for pushing property tax reform, but he wants to see the state spend less.

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More musicians cancel Kennedy Center concerts after board votes to add Trump's name to the building

More musicians have canceled their upcoming concerts at the Kennedy Center after its board voted to rename the performing arts venue to include President Donald Trump’s name. The canceled performances to date include shows previously promoted for Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and Jan. 14. The Cookers, a jazz band that was scheduled to perform Wednesday night, did not cite a specific reason in announcing their decision, but their statement hinted at politics. “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice. Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us,” the statement read. "Our hope is that this moment will leave space for reflection, not resentment."

Kristy Lee, who was scheduled to perform Jan. 14, announced her cancellation on Instagram, saying canceling shows hurts, “but losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck.” “When American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else’s ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night,” said Lee, who described herself as "just a folk singer from Alabama." She said that instead of playing at the Kennedy Center next month, she would play a live show from her home. In a separate statement on her website, Lee said the cancellation was due to concerns for the center’s “institutional integrity.” She said she “believes publicly funded spaces must remain free from political capture, self-promotion, or ideological pressure.” “This decision is not directed at the Center’s dedicated staff, artists, or patrons, whose work and commitment to the arts remain deeply respected. Rather, it is a statement in defense of the Center’s founding purpose and the ethical responsibility shared by artists who grace its stage,” the statement read. The Kennedy Center, Lee and The Cookers did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday night.

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Lead Stories

Bankruptcies soar as companies grapple with inflation, tariffs

Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades. At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010. Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs. But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff policies — which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.

Consumer-oriented businesses with “discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings, represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary consumers are prioritizing essentials. The S&P data reflects both Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 filings. In the former, also known as a reorganization, the business goes through a court-administered process to restructure its debts while it continues to operate. Under Chapter 7, the company closes down, and its assets are sold off. Economists and business experts say the trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Though inflation is currently lower than many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7 percent in November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.

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Texas GOP faces legal opposition in bid to close state’s open primary system

The Republican Party of Texas — joined by Chip Hunt, a party precinct chair in Potter County — is suing Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson to force the state to close its open primary election system. The effort is raising concerns among disability advocates, who worry the move to require Texans to register their political affiliation could disenfranchise older voters. The state Republican Party adopted a rule in 2024 that only registered Republicans can vote in its primary elections. But Texas law requires county-level elections officials to conduct open primaries. "This was not done lightly or without cause," the plaintiffs wrote in their initial complaint. "It was rooted in the Party's experience with ‘crossover voting' – independents and Democrats strategically voting in Republican primaries to force the nomination of moderate candidates who they prefer or the nomination of weak candidates they believe will lose the general election."

The Republican Party rule runs counter to state law, which allows Texans to declare their party affiliation on primary election day. Voters are then limited to their first-round party choice for purposes of voting in runoff elections. Texas is one of 14 states that has open primaries. "This system presents an ongoing violation of the Party's First Amendment freedom of association, and this Court should declare that system unconstitutional as applied to the Party," the plaintiffs said. The plaintiffs argued the court should allow the Party to transition to a closed Republican primary in advance of future election cycles, whether or not the state Legislature chose to close the state's open primary system for all Texans. "There were bills filed in the last Legislature on this issue. None of them moved forward. And I think that’s a pretty clear sign that the party itself that’s in control did not move these through the process," said Chase Bearden, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, which filed a friend of the court brief on Nelson's behalf. Bearden expressed concerns that closing the state's primary system would broadly discourage political participation, particularly among older and disabled voters.

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Clean energy is surging despite political attacks. But a slowdown may be looming

Over the past year, the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans have waged a sweeping campaign against renewable energy, throwing a fast-growing industry into turmoil. The administration has used federal agencies to try to slow or stop the development of wind and solar projects. And this summer, the GOP-controlled Congress voted to get rid of tax credits for renewable energy, threatening to drive up the cost of projects. As a result of those moves, the United States is forecast to add a lot less power from renewables in the coming years than analysts previously expected, according to the International Energy Agency. All this is occurring as electricity demand is rising faster than it has in decades. Some experts warn that limiting new power supplies could have broad economic consequences, including higher electricity costs and slower business growth.

So far, it's unclear what the Trump campaign against renewables will mean for consumers or grid reliability. The Trump administration "may not love renewable technologies, but they're going to need them to meet the data center demand [and] also maintain energy affordability for all consumers," says Pavan Venkatakrishnan, policy advisor at The Foundation for American Innovation, a technology-focused research group. A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said in a statement that renewables drive up power prices. President Trump is trying to boost resources like natural gas, coal and nuclear power, Rogers said, in order to "lower energy prices, increase grid efficiency, and win the AI race." In a study this fall, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said wind and solar projects, on their own, do not in general raise power prices. With the Administration pushing to rein in renewables amid growing power demand, natural gas will likely be the big economic winner. Already the biggest source of U.S. electricity, natural gas generation is poised for dramatic growth by the end of the decade. Its continued dominance comes at a time when climate scientists have urged nations to sharply cut fossil fuel use to reduce climate pollution.

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Eddy Betancourt, a Mission businessman and Abbott appointee, killed in apparent shooting

Eddy Betancourt, the vice chair of the Hidalgo County Appraisal District Board of Directors and an appointee of Gov. Greg Abbott for the Texas Facilities Commission was killed in an apparent shooting in McAllen on Saturday, police said. Police were dispatched at about 3:51 p.m. to a business located in the 800 block of North Ware Road after a 911 call reported a person lying on the floor and not breathing after possibly being shot, according to a McAllen Police Department news release. “Responding (officers) confirmed the victim was ‘not responsive,’ had no pulse, and appeared to be injured by gunshot,” police said.

Betancourt, 61, of Mission was identified as the victim. He’s the president of R&B General Construction Co. Inc., which is located in the same vicinity where police reported the shooting, at 805 N. Ware Road in McAllen. As The Monitor has previously reported, Betancourt was also the co-owner and president of National Tire and Wheel LLC, a general retail partner manager for E2H Investments, and a member of the McAllen Board of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors in addition to being appointed by Abbott to the Texas Facilities Commission. His term on the commission, which controls and maintains state buildings and properties, wasn’t set to expire until Jan. 31, 2029. The person who reported finding Betancourt at the business has not been identified. Police are investigating his death as a homicide and provided no other details about the shooting or whether a suspect has been identified. Investigators are also working with other local, state and federal agencies in the probe.

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State Stories

Could STAAR elimination lead to more testing in Texas schools?

When lawmakers voted in September to eliminate Texas’ end-of-year state test and replace it with three shorter exams, they said they wanted to reduce the amount of time students spend taking assessments. But education researchers warn that hasn’t generally been how similar policies have played out elsewhere. In many states, a three-times-a-year assessment model has resulted in students spending more time testing, not less. “On its own, it’s just not a great solution,” said Morgan Polikoff, a professor in the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. “And in fact, it seems likely that it might exacerbate problems.” During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill eliminating the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR.

Beginning with the 2027-28 school year, the state test will be replaced with three shorter assessments that students will take at the beginning, middle and end of the school year, a model known as through-year testing. Lawmakers who supported the bill said it eliminates the high-stakes nature of a single test students take at the end of the year, and gives teachers access to information about how students are performing earlier in the year, when there’s still time to help struggling students catch up. But as a growing number of states have moved from end-of-year assessments to through-year testing, researchers have urged caution. In a paper released in 2023, researchers at the Center for Assessment, a national nonprofit that advocates for effective assessment policy, wrote that there are clear benefits from through-year testing, but they come with major trade-offs. Under the right circumstances, through-year testing could offer schools timely information about how their programs are performing. But if they want more data, schools have to administer more assessments, which means they spend more time testing and less time on instruction. Many states that have adopted through-year testing have done so in an effort to reduce the amount of time students spend taking assessments. But that hasn’t generally been the result, researchers wrote — every through-year assessment program resulted in students spending more time testing, not less, researchers wrote.

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

Big-time boosters transformed Texas Tech, but that’s not all it took to reach CFP

Texas Tech has played the role of disruptor before, but not like this. The Red Raiders won their first outright conference title since 1955, barnstorming through the Big 12 to a program-record 12 wins and No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff, earning a first-round bye. They face No. 5 Oregon in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day in what will be the most consequential game in program history. “Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl, that’s pretty surreal,” said head coach Joey McGuire. It’s a cut above the early 2000s, when the program had a sword-swinging, Air Raid resurgence under head coach Mike Leach. Those fan-favorite Tech teams put up points in bunches and climbed as high as No. 2 in the country in 2008. Despite punching up at the likes of Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M in the Big 12, they never fully broke through to the top.

This year’s Tech is a bully. An oil-rich bully, specifically, with an influx of donor support led by university board chair and megabooster Cody Campbell, a former offensive lineman under Leach who’s now a billionaire and benefactor. (He was there on the podium after the Big 12 championship victory, wiping away tears.) The liquid-gold finances have been the storyline for a Texas Tech program that poured $25 million into its depth chart and wasn’t shy about it. Money can’t buy happiness, but it buys a heckuva roster. Everybody spends money in today’s college football, though. The top teams spent north of $20 million this season between NIL and revenue sharing, with dozens of others over $10 million. Most of them still didn’t reach the Playoff. Some didn’t even make a bowl game. Texas Tech bought in and leaned into the narrative, confident it would pay off. It did. Campbell has become the face of Tech’s fortune, and for good reason. He’s not alone, though. The university’s Lubbock campus is located in the West Texas region known as the Permian Basin, the largest oil-producing field in America — and it’s been good for the Red Raiders.

Read this article at New York Times - Subscribers Only

How a left-right social media riff pushed Texas to fund parks

Texas is known for its deep devotion to private ownership and staunch aversion to government spending. So why, for much of the past year, has the state been on a land-buying spree to expand its park system? The answer might seem like a one-liner: A Republican megadonor and an environmental activist got into an argument on social media about the role of wind turbines in harming birds. Four years ago, Doug Deason, a Dallas megadonor, posted about how wind energy injured eagles and other raptors. Luke Metzger, the leader of Environment Texas, jumped into the thread, noting that carbon pollution would kill far more birds. “I couldn’t help myself,” he recalled. “He and I went back and forth on it.” Their brief online spat turned into an unlikely friendship, and a political alliance. The story of their success, which the two men agreed to tell in detail, illustrates the promise of social media to bridge political divides — while also underscoring just how rare such connections actually are.

“I hardly ever see what the left thinks about any issue,” Mr. Deason said in an interview, “because most of the people I follow are on the right. So I get that fed back at me.” Their improbable connection eventually paved the way for a $1 billion state fund created in 2023, which is now poised for its first major deployment as part of the acquisition of a 54,000-acre ranch in the Texas Hill Country about two and a half hours west of San Antonio. It will be the largest addition to the Texas park system in decades. The land, with its bucolic rolling hills and streams, will be the state’s second-largest state park. A commission gave approval for the acquisition last month, though the deal is still being finalized. The largest portion of the ranch belongs to the Moody Foundation, which is donating it to the state. If approved by a legislative board, the new fund could be used to acquire the rest of the land, said Rodney Franklin, the director of state parks for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “As my granddad used to say, they’re not making any more land,” Mr. Franklin said. “The things we’re doing now are going to impact the next generation of Texans.”

Read this article at New York Times - Subscribers Only

Tariffs hit Austin's economy in 2025 but they didn't provide a knockout

Tariffs hurt some Austin businesses in 2025 but the higher taxes haven’t forced the local economy to take major steps back. In 2025, the Trump Administration had levied an unprecedented amount of tariffs on American and international businesses, which caused a lot of uncertainty and many investments to be put on hold for much of the year. Businesses enacted more conservative plans due to the higher costs. Only recently has the area returned to clocking major manufacturing announcements that were more commonplace in recent years. Kevin Fincher, the CEO of the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association, said tariffs had a varied impact on his organization's members. Bigger manufacturers were in a better position to either absorb or pass on the costs compared to smaller manufacturers — "they have more levers to pull,” he said. “We would say that the tariffs have really made companies think about their supply chain and logistics,” Fincher said.

A Supreme Court decision on whether the tariffs are legal is widely expected sometime before summer. In the meantime, ARMA expects tariffs to continue for the foreseeable future, so its members are looking at many ways to improve their operations so tariffs aren’t as big of a hit next year. Those include shifting the supply chain, using artificial intelligence to improve operations and trying to find ways to bring more autonomy to the industry. Several manufacturers have woven tales of woes in recent months, but tariffs have also disrupted retailers. Tariffs have negatively impacted nearly all facets of Toy Joy’s operations, said Robby Pettinato, chief operating officer of Wild About Music Inc., the parent company of the local Toy Joy chain. He said he's seen business costs rise about 40% in 2025. To offset that, his crew raised prices by about 20% and cut back on some business operations. “The irony is that this year will probably be our highest grossing year that we've had, but it's definitely not the most profitable by any means,” Pettinato said. Pettinato said he doesn’t expect tariffs to go away, so Toy Joy is taking a more conservative approach to business planning and investing back into operations. It had been more on an expansion kick in recent years. “There's no rhyme or reason, so trying to plan strategically around (the tariffs) is a fool’s errand,” Pettinato said. “The only thing we can plan on is that we won't know what's going on there. So that means we have to be a bit more risk averse when it comes to trying new products or expansion.” But even with tariffs putting a significant damper on Toy Joy’s operations, Pettinato isn’t worried about the company’s ability to stay in business. The demand for toys in the Austin area is still growing. “If the tariffs never happened, I'm very confident that we would have had a significantly more profitable year,” Pettinato said. Terry D. Westbrook, the president of Austin-based Westbrook Metals Inc., said tariffs have driven prices up and caused instability in the metal production industry.

Read this article at Austin Business Journal - Subscribers Only

Texas Congressional Republicans launch 'Sharia Free America Caucus' aimed at defending 'Western civilization'

A pair of conservative lawmakers is launching a new group in the House of Representatives to "protect Western civilization in the United States," according to one of its founders. Reps. Keith Self, R-Texas, and Chip Roy, R-Texas, are starting the "Sharia Free America Caucus," Fox News Digital learned first. Self said it was "fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution." The caucus also has support in the Senate from Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who Self said he hoped could help push some of its legislative goals forward through both chambers. Among the bills they're hoping to push is a ban on foreign nationals who "adhere to Sharia" from entering the U.S., and a measure that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

"America is facing a threat that directly attacks our Constitution and our Western values: the spread of Sharia law," Roy said in a statement. "From Texas to every state in this constitutional republic, instances of Sharia adherents masquerading as 'refugees' — and in many cases, sleeper cells connected to terrorist organizations — are threatening the American way of life." Sharia broadly refers to a code of ethics and conduct used by devout Muslims. Sharia law more specifically often refers to the criminal code used in non-secular Islamic countries, like Iran. In its most extreme cases, such as when ISIS-controlled parts of the Middle East, charges like blasphemy could carry the death penalty. But guarantees of religious freedom in the Constitution mean that Sharia law can not be carried out on any governmental level in the U.S.

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Austin Energy releases 10-year, $735M plan to reduce power outages and improve grid resiliency

Austin Energy has finalized a 10-year, $735 million plan to improve system reliability and limit power outages in the face of mounting disruptions from aging infrastructure and severe weather. The December release of AE's decade-long Electric System Resiliency Plan, or ESRP, capped off recent resiliency reviews in the wake of the three most impactful extreme weather events in the utility's history. Those included winter storms Uri and Mara in 2021 and 2023, respectively, and this May's microburst storm that affected roughly 124,000 AE customers. AE completed its own internal evaluations of all three events. After the 2023 ice storm, City Council also asked the utility to look into burying thousands of miles of power lines to avoid future weather-related impacts. Consultant 1898 & Co. released studies into that concept, as well as hardening existing overhead lines, this year. Given the string of severe weather and building on the two completed consultant reports, AE announced its ESRP for an improved power grid Dec. 16.

“We had already started along this path after the first two [storms], and then you turn around and hit that third one and it just reaffirms that we need to go down this path," David Tomczyszyn, AE's vice president of electrical system engineering and technical services, said in an interview. "The big thing is to strengthen and harden our grid to keep the lights on, No. 1: reliability. But when something happens, we need to be able to spring back and recover—that’s that resilience piece—faster and restore power in the shortest amount of time, and get as many customers on as fast as we can.” AE is more reliable than the typical Texas utility today, based on industry power outage standards, although General Manager Stuart Reilly said "there's always room for improvement." AE is now pushing for strategic improvements officials hope can bring positive impacts and reduce risks for customers, Tomczyszyn said. "We do need to take a renewed focus on how to do this, and do it faster and more efficient," he said. "We can’t do enough fast enough, as far as hardening the system.”

Read this article at Community Impact Newspapers - Subscribers Only

What to know about the new Texas attorney overseeing visa programs

A Dallas attorney, salon owner and Project 2025 writer was recently appointed by the Trump administration to a key role overseeing passport and visa operations. Mora Namdar, a 39-year-old Iranian-American, was sworn in this week as the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Under her new role, she will look after the department's visa and passport programs, as well as provide assistance to Americans in distress overseas — such as help with arrests, deaths, births, adoptions, welfare checks and medical emergencies. Here's what we know about Namdar. Namdar had been appointed to the same role during the last couple of months of President Donald Trump's first term. More recently, she served as a senior bureau official Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State from May 19 to Dec. 1, "leading U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa," according to the Department of State's website.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Namdar had previously said visa decisions were a national security matter in prepared testimony for her Senate confirmation hearing in October. She said consular officers should have authority to deny or revoke visas when individuals violate their terms or undermine U.S. foreign policy. “If confirmed,” Namdar told senators, “I will ensure that your inquiries are met with transparency, responsiveness and a spirit of shared service to the American people.” Namdar received her law degree from American University and is licensed to practice law in Texas and Washington, D.C., according to her law firm's website. Namdar Law is not active while its owner serves in government. She is also the owner of hair salon BAM Beauty Bar, as indicated by Voyage Dallas, with locations in Dallas, Fort Worth and Plano. In Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise," Namdar criticized the U.S. Agency for Global Media for mismanagement. That organization is an independent federal agency that broadcasts news and information about the U.S. and other parts of the world to audiences abroad. Namdar described the agency as "mismanaged, disorganized, ineffective, and rife with waste and redundancy," calling for it to be reformed or shut down. She stated it was "vulnerable to exploitation by foreign spies" and abusing the J-1 Visa program by allowing foreign journalists and "foreign nationals to transition easily into jobs that American citizens with cultural and linguistic expertise could satisfy." Earlier this year in March, the Trump administration put out an order to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Namdar received her bachelor and master degree in international relations and affairs at Southern Methodist University and American University, according to her LinkedIn profile. She briefly studied as well at Oxford University in England.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

The ‘face of Dallas business’: How Dale Petroskey elevated the Dallas Regional Chamber

The likely candidates included Silicon Valley, Boston, San Diego and North Carolina’s Research Triangle. At his State of the Union address in early 2022, then-President Joe Biden called on Congress to create a new federal research agency, called ARPA-H, that would aim to develop world-changing healthcare technologies in the mold of DARPA, the Pentagon research agency that’s been credited with helping create the internet and GPS. The splashy announcement — and billions of dollars in government funding on the line — set off a high-stakes competition among cities around the country to host the new headquarters, and in the fall of 2023 the agency selected Boston and metro Washington, D.C., two traditional medical research powerhouses. But it also chose Dallas, after an unlikely coalition of partners had pushed hard for over a year to develop what was generally considered a long-shot bid.

“I thought there is no way, during an election year, that Joe Biden is going to give a gift to Texas, because Texas is out of play for him,” said Dale Petroskey, the president and CEO of the Dallas Regional Chamber, the area business group that helped lead the effort. “And that is a testament to a lot of people who believed in it and came together and made the pitch.” It was also a testament to Petroskey, who had spent the previous decade helping elevate the Dallas Regional Chamber into a nationally respected dynamo. In early July, Petroskey announced he’d be stepping down from his high-profile post, citing a desire to spend more time with family after his wife’s cancer diagnosis. In October, the chamber named SMU executive Brad Cheves as its next leader. Petroskey’s last day is Dec. 31, an exit timeframe that’s given him plenty of time to reflect on his own tenure — including through two extended interviews with The Dallas Morning News — and was meant to provide a smooth transition for Cheves. It also provided the area’s top business leaders a chance to heap rare praise on an executive they say quietly helped give rise to the modern shape of North Texas. “The legacy that he’s left with the DRC and the impact he’s made on this community is just remarkable,” said Jim Springfield, president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas and the current DRC board chair. “Dale’s really an icon in this town.”

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

Mario Ramirez Jr., retired state district judge, dies

Former State District Judge Mario Ramirez Jr., who retired one year ago, died Wednesday. State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa made the announcement about Ramirez’s death via Facebook on Thursday, highlighting his service in the Texas judiciary for 44 years. Ramirez began his career in the 1970s as an assistant municipal court judge followed by service as a Hidalgo County court-at-law judge in 1980. “In 1981, he was appointed as the judge of the 93rd District Court, and in 1983, he moved to the 332nd (state) District Court where he presided until his retirement last year, December 2024,” Hinojosa wrote.

Ramirez was born in Roma and graduated in 1968 from Rio Grande City High School. He later earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. Then in 1974, he earned his Doctorate of Jurisprudence from St. Mary’s University School of Law. Ramirez was appointed to the newly established 332nd District Court that year where he spent the remainder of his career. During his retirement party in December last year, Ramirez declared himself a pessimist and said with a laugh that he didn’t think anybody would show up. At the party, state District Judge Fernando Mancias described Ramirez as “very kind,” having the “heart of a servant,” and as a “very, very good man.” “He could have had a great legal career as a trial lawyer, but he chose to be a judge and help people out,” Mancias said then. Hinojosa also said at the time that Ramirez was fair and wouldn’t use the gavel when people were misbehaving or not following the rules, but he would only give them a stern look as deep down Ramirez really had a “corazón de mantequilla,” or a heart of butter, because he really cared about people.

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August Pfluger: Refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve now, before it’s too late

Following the 1970s oil crisis, Congress created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as America’s insurance policy against global energy supply disruptions. For nearly half a century, this emergency crude oil stockpile has served as an indispensable safeguard — ready to cushion the blow from unexpected market shocks, natural disasters or geopolitical conflicts. Today, however, this vital insurance policy is running on fumes. At just 409 million barrels, the SPR is at its lowest level since its inception, with less than 60% of its capacity currently being utilized. This depletion stems largely from the Biden administration’s unprecedented drawdown of more than 290 million barrels in 2022 in an attempt to ease high gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the move temporarily worked, it was the largest drawdown in the reserve’s history and came with no viable plan to replace what was taken. Three years later, the SPR remains dangerously depleted, and now the structural integrity of the salt caverns that protect the remaining barrels is at serious risk.

Fortunately, there is a clear solution, and Washington must act on it. Oil prices have hovered near multiyear lows, offering a prime opportunity to replenish the reserve at a discount. This year alone, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude has dipped as low as $57 per barrel and has averaged around $65 per barrel — prices well below the $75-$80 assumptions often used in federal budget models. At today’s low prices, refilling the roughly 321 million barrel gap would cost less than $21 billion — a bargain by any measure for this scale of investment. We should not repeat the mistakes of the previous administration that failed to capitalize on similar opportunities, making only token purchases even when prices fell below the $70 per barrel target. At that pace, restoring the SPR to its pre-2020 level of roughly 635 million barrels would take nearly a decade, which is more than quadruple the amount of time it took former President Joe Biden to drain it. President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have taken a modest first step. In the Working Families Tax Cut (WFTC) law, we secured $850 million to refill the SPR: $171 million for crude purchases, $218 million for critical cavern repairs and $461 million to cancel the upcoming mandated sale of 7 million barrels. Using the $75-$80 per barrel assumption, the Department of Energy estimates it can purchase roughly 2 million barrels with these funds and has already awarded the first contracts to do so.

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

Teresa Wagner and Melanie Stone: Many Texans are struggling with basic health literacy

(Teresa Wagner is a health literacy expert and president-elect of the U.S. Health Literacy Association. Melanie Stone is a health literacy expert and Membership Task Force chair of the U.S. Health Literacy Association.) In Texas, where rural regions stretch for miles and health disparities mean chronic conditions disproportionately affect our families, the ability to access, understand and act on health information can mean the difference between thriving and surviving. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, nearly 9 out of 10 adults in the United States struggle to understand and use everyday health information. In Texas, these gaps are even more pronounced in communities with barriers related to language, income, education and access to care. This isn’t just a communication issue; it’s a public health crisis. Healthy People 2030, an initiative of HHS that focuses on health literacy, defines health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.”

Navigating our health care system is complex. It includes everything from interpreting a medication label correctly to managing a complex illness like diabetes to deciphering informed consent and billing forms. Incomplete understanding is not just an annoyance; it can mean the difference between good and bad health outcomes, even life and death. Health literacy is not a burden to fall solely on the shoulders of the consumer. To make a system-level difference, organizations have a responsibility to make their services health literate, and currently, only 2 out of 10 health organizations are working to do so. Even in difficult times — with economic uncertainty, political division and climate-related health challenges — our commitment to improving community health must not waver. With modest investment, health literacy initiatives pay a large dividend by empowering people to take control of their health, advocate for their families and make informed decisions. Health literacy helps ensure fair access to information and safer care, no matter where you live or what your resources.

Read this article at San Antonio Express-News - Subscribers Only

At 40, Austin Film Society stands at the center of independent cinema

The same month that Richard Linklater walked the red carpet in France for the world premiere of his “Nouvelle Vague” at the Cannes Film Festival, film lovers gathered at the AFS Cinema in Austin to watch and discuss movies together. Aspiring producers and directors learned to work technical equipment, filmmakers tapped grant resources to evolve their craft, and the Austin Studios lot hosted the production of the Kevin Bacon feature “Family Movie” while preparing for a busy summer of commercial filming. The snapshot from May offered a striking symmetry: a world-class filmmaker soaring at the height of his powers with a film celebrating the French New Wave, and the Austin Film Society — the nonprofit film organization he founded inspired in part by the 1960s French movement — marking its 40th birthday while thriving across multiple platforms dedicated to empowering filmmakers and building community. Linklater, who also released the critically acclaimed “Blue Moon,” starring frequent collaborator and Golden Globe nominee Ethan Hawke, in 2025, acknowledged in the fall the correlation between his group of “film freaks” in Austin in the 1980s and the writers, critics and thinkers of France in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

“I was just around people who loved movies. That's who influenced me," Linklater told the American-Statesman. "I had these mentors — these adults in my life — who had dedicated their lives to cinema and were taking it very seriously: writers, critics, teachers, people in academia. “It's interesting to meet a cinephile as a young person, like, ‘Oh, that's a pretty good way to process the world, you know?’" he said. "It's like, yeah, film can be everything. I can be your whole life. People who dedicate their lives to this, they're probably looking for a subculture to live in.” Linklater founded AFS in 1985 as a way to screen and honor independent and world cinema, creating a gravitational center for Austin’s film subculture. Forty years later, AFS sits at the heart of independent cinema culture not only in Texas, but nationally and internationally. AFS has created an ecosystem of filmmaking and film production that makes it a multifaceted organization, meaning different things to different people. The nonprofit generated $9 million in revenue in 2025, with Austin Studios and contributed income, largely from grants and private giving, each accounting for about one-third of that total.

Read this article at Austin American-Statesman - Subscribers Only

National Stories

US offers Ukraine 15-year security guarantee as part of peace plan, Zelenskyy says

The United States is offering Ukraine security guarantees for a period of 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, though he said he would prefer an American commitment of up to 50 years to deter Russia from further attempts to seize its neighbor’s land by force. U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement. Negotiators are still searching for a breakthrough on key issues, however, including whose forces withdraw from where and the fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world.

Trump noted that the monthslong U.S.-led negotiations could still collapse. “Without security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end,” Zelenskyy told reporters in voice messages responding to questions sent via a Whatsapp chat. Ukraine has been fighting Russia since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists took up arms in the Donbas, a vital industrial region in eastern Ukraine. Details of the security guarantees have not become public but Zelenskyy said Monday that they include how a peace deal would be monitored as well as the “presence” of partners. He didn’t elaborate, but Russia has said it won’t accept the deployment in Ukraine of troops from NATO countries. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump were expected to speak in the near future but there was no indication the Russian leader would speak to Zelenskyy. French President Emmanuel Macron said Kyiv’s allies will meet in Paris in early January to “finalize each country’s concrete contributions” to the security guarantees. Trump said he would consider extending U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine beyond 15 years, according to Zelenskyy. The guarantees would be approved by the U.S. Congress as well as by parliaments in other countries involved in overseeing any settlement, he said. Zelenskyy said he wants the 20-point peace plan under discussion to be approved by Ukrainians in a national referendum. However, holding a ballot requires a ceasefire of at least 60 days, and Moscow has shown no willingness for a truce without a full settlement.

Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only

Democrats spy rare opening in rural America

Democrats are accustomed to losing in rural America — especially to Donald Trump. Now they’re hoping the president’s own policies might prove to be the leverage they need going into next year’s midterms. The party faces immense challenges in farm country that have overwhelmingly voted Republican for decades and turned out in droves on the president’s behalf three times. But over the past year, those same communities have borne the brunt of his tariff agenda, health care center closures, lingering inflation and cuts to public lands programs. Where Trump sees an “A++++++” economy, large percentages of both Republican and Democratic voters blame his decisions for stubbornly high prices for groceries and housing, according to recent polling from POLITICO and Public First. Democrats have a long way to go in rebuilding trust with rural voters.

But conversations with more than a dozen current and former Democratic lawmakers, party officials and political strategists suggest they also feel the urgency of tapping into the discontent being generated by Trump’s agenda. The party is trying to replace wishful thinking with a new shoe-leather strategy in rural communities where it has long lacked a presence and is deploying unhappy farmers in media campaigns. If Democrats mean to retake Congress in the midterms or have a shot at the White House in 2028, their candidates don’t necessarily need to sweep rural counties — they just need to eat into the margins Trump was getting, which were frequently north of 80 percent of the vote. “We have a unique opening because of all that’s happening with this administration,” said Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), whose district includes significant rural and farming interests. Farmers and rural voters “might be listening in a more unique way than they maybe have ever in the past. And we need to walk through that door.” Democrats have previously dedicated relatively modest amounts of money, staff and advertising to rural counties and districts outside of swing states. But after a string of off-year victories last month, House Democrats have launched their first-ever rural outreach program, an eight-figure campaign that will fund efforts to hire staffers for candidates, mobilize voters and run ads focusing on the cost of living. Even some Republicans acknowledge the GOP can’t take rural communities for granted.

Read this article at Politico - Subscribers Only

MAGA World zeroes in on Minnesota over fraud scandal

Allies of President Trump have set their sights on Minnesota in the wake of a fraud scandal in the state. The scandal centers on hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly stolen via a federally funded nutrition program. The New York Times late last month put the story into national prominence, noting federal prosecutors’ statements that as much as $1 billion of taxpayer money may have been taken. “To date, the FBI dismantled a $250 million fraud scheme that stole federal food aid meant for vulnerable children during COVID. The investigation exposed sham vendors, shell companies, and large-scale money laundering tied to the Feeding Our Future network,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on the social platform X.

“The case led to 78 indictments and 57 convictions. Defendants included Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud, Ahmed Ali, Hussein Farah, Abdullahe Nur Jesow, Asha Farhan Hassan, Ousman Camara, and Abdirashid Bixi Dool, each charged for roles ranging from wire fraud to money laundering and conspiracy,” he added. Vice President Vance said in his own post on X on Saturday that “[w]hat’s happening in Minnesota is a microcosm of the immigriation fraud in our system.” “Politicans like it because they get power. Welfare cheats like it because they get rich. But it’s a zero sum game, and they’re stealing both money and political power from Minnesotans,” he added. Trump has attacked Somali immigrants multiple times in recent weeks, with the president saying he didn’t want Somali immigrants in the U.S. and that Somalia “stinks.” The Minnesota fraud scheme’s alleged ringleader is white, but dozens of Somalis have been convicted and faced additional charges.

Read this article at The Hill - Subscribers Only

Hegseth thinks boot camp got too soft. He wants it to be 'scary, tough.'

Fresh off long flights from all over the country, the recruits spilled out of a bus, backpacks in hand, and dashed through the rain toward a reception center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. "Let's go! Quickly, let's go!" Air Force Tech. Sgt. Cory Sandifer, 31, cried as the new arrivals ran to an overhang to take shelter from the drizzle on a chilly Tuesday evening in December. "Get off the bus!" If the trainees expected to be chewed out as they formed lines and awaited orders, they were disappointed. There were no Hollywood theatrics. No screaming, red-faced drill instructors. No unprintable insults. The mood was calm, professional, business-like. Time was, Air Force newbies would endure high-decibel verbal abuse, intimidation, even manhandling. The armed services turned away from that rough style of indoctrination after a string of hazing scandals, some of which involved mistreatment so severe it led to deaths and suicides. The new philosophy emphasizes coaching, mentoring and teamwork.

Now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to turn back the clock. In a less-noticed portion of a speech he made to more than 800 generals and admirals in Quantico, Va., on Sept. 30, Hegseth said basic training “is being restored to what it should be — scary, tough and disciplined.” He vowed to bring back certain forms of hazing — including “shark attacks,” in which drill sergeants swarm new recruits and holler orders at them. And he said basic training instructors once again would be allowed to use physical force on trainees. "We're empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future warfighters are forged," Hegseth told the assembled brass. “Yes, they can shark attack, they can toss bunks, they can swear, and yes, they can put their hands on recruits. Hegseth said the terms hazing, bullying and harassment had been “weaponized” and applied too broadly. He ordered a fresh look at how the Defense Department defines such conduct, so that officers can “enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing.”

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US pledges $2B for UN humanitarian aid as Trump slashes funding and warns agencies to 'adapt or die'

The United States on Monday announced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian aid as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to slash U.S. foreign assistance and warns United Nations agencies to “adapt, shrink or die” in a time of new financial realities. The money is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past but reflects what the administration believes is a generous amount that will maintain the United States’ status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor. The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which money will be doled out to individual agencies and priorities, a key part of U.S. demands for drastic changes across the world body that have alarmed many humanitarian workers and led to severe reductions in programs and services.

The $2 billion is only a sliver of traditional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-backed programs, which has run as high as $17 billion annually in recent years, according to U.N. data. U.S. officials say only $8-$10 billion of that has been in voluntary contributions. The United States also pays billions in annual dues related to its U.N. membership. Critics say the Western aid cutbacks have been shortsighted, driven millions toward hunger, displacement or disease, and harmed U.S. soft power around the world. The move caps a crisis year for many U.N. organizations like its refugee, migration and food aid agencies. The Trump administration has already cut billions in U.S. foreign aid, prompting them to slash spending, aid projects and thousands of jobs. Other traditional Western donors have reduced outlays, too. The announced U.S. pledge for aid programs of the United Nations — the world’s top provider of humanitarian assistance and biggest recipient of U.S. humanitarian aid money — takes shape in a preliminary deal with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, run by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and government official. Even as the U.S. pulls back its aid, needs have ballooned across the world: Famine has been recorded this year in parts of conflict-ridden Sudan and Gaza, and floods, drought and natural disasters that many scientists attribute to climate change have taken many lives or driven thousands from their homes.

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SBA head Loeffler says small business owners have never been ‘so excited’ to pay taxes

Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler is projecting optimism during the holiday season for America’s small businesses. Loeffler and the SBA have pointed to rising small business optimism and consumer sentiments in December. Loeffler said the upward trends are thanks to the tax cuts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “Small business optimism is above its 52-year average, and according to the U.S. Chamber, in the third quarter, it reached all-time records, and a lot of it thanks to the working families tax cut that small businesses finally have certainty about what their tax rate is going to be,” Loeffler said.

The conversations around small business successes and purchasing during the holidays come as affordability has become a buzzword in 2025 politics. As Democrats say tariffs and GOP policies have led to high consumer prices, President Donald Trump has pointed to lowering gas prices and blamed Biden-era inflation as he speaks on his affordability tour stops. Loeffler told the network that because of policies and practices instated by Trump’s hallmark 2025 megabill, small businesses have never “been so excited to pay their taxes.” “That 20% pass-through deduction now, the 179 expensing — that means that higher limits on the ability to expense immediately for purchases they make and capital equipment — and also R&D expensing. So I don’t think small business owners have ever been so excited to pay their taxes, thanks to President Trump,” Loeffler said. Loeffler predicted that Trump is going to bring a “small business boom” during his administration.

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Colon cancer rates are spiking among young people. Here’s why, and how to lower your risk

Dr. Bethany Malone has treated a lot of colorectal cancer patients. The youngest, not counting those with genetic conditions, was 19 years old. Colorectal cancer used to be considered a cancer of older age. Not anymore. Patients in their teens and early 20s still aren’t the norm, exactly, but are becoming more common. “I have not gone a year in practice without taking a colon cancer out of someone in their 20s,” Malone said. Malone is a colon and rectal surgeon and the associate program director for the general surgery residency at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth. Her experience in North Texas reflects a worldwide trend.

Colorectal cancer — which includes cancer of the colon and of the rectum — is considered early onset when diagnosed in people under the age of 50. While the majority of diagnoses are still among people aged 65 or older, early onset rates have been increasing worldwide, particularly in high-income countries. In a 2023 report, the American Cancer Society wrote that the trends of decreasing incidence in older people and increasing incidence in younger people are “rapidly shifting the patient population younger.” In 2020, Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman died from colon cancer at age 43. More recently, former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders choreographer Criscilla Anderson died of colon cancer at age 45. Also locally, Dallas musician Joshua Ray Walker was diagnosed with colon cancer in late 2023, at age 33. (About 10 months later, after treatment and surgery, he announced that he was cancer-free.)

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Lead Stories

U.S. Supreme Court rules that Trump can't deploy Texas National Guard to Illinois

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on Tuesday, refusing to reinstate, for now, Trump's ability to send National Guard troops into Illinois over the objections of its governor. The administration argued in its appeal in October that it needed to federalize the National Guard to stop what Trump has said is unremitting violence against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at detention facilities in the Chicago area. But two lower courts ruled against Trump's claim that the protests in the Chicago area constituted a "rebellion or danger of rebellion" against the United States government that the president has the right to put down.

The court's action is one of only a handful of such "emergency docket" cases in which the conservative court has ruled against Trump since he began his second term as president almost a year ago. Many legal experts thought this emergency decision would take days or weeks, not months, as ended up being the case. It's unclear why it took so long. "At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois," the majority wrote in its brief opinion. The court wrote that the president failed to explain why the situation in Illinois warranted an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that limits the military's ability to execute laws on U.S. soil. It's the first time the highest court has weighed in on the controversial deployments. While the decision does not set precedent, it brings some clarity about the president's power to deploy federal military resources.

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Major release of Epstein documents contains mentions of Trump and Mar-a-Lago subpoenas

The latest batch of files related to the investigations of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein disclosed hundreds of references to President Trump and contained two subpoenas sent to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida, where, he once said, Mr. Epstein “hired away” an employee. The new documents — nearly 30,000 in all — also include different versions of Mr. Epstein’s will; blacked-out pages of tax returns for Ghislaine Maxwell, a confidante of Mr. Epstein’s who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021; and internal communications from the Manhattan jail where Mr. Epstein died. The partly redacted subpoenas sought employment records as part of the federal criminal case against Ms. Maxwell. Mr. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Mr. Epstein or Ms. Maxwell. The Justice Department said in a statement that some of the newly released material contained false accusations, without specifying which claims it believed to be untrue.

Most appearances of Mr. Trump’s name in the files that were released on Monday by the Justice Department came from news reports and other documents, but some dealt directly with the relationship between the one-time friends. One email, sent by an unidentified federal prosecutor in 2020, during Mr. Trump’s first term, alerted the recipient that Mr. Trump had flown on Mr. Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware),” though those trips have since become public knowledge. The names of the sender and the recipient are redacted, but the prosecutor wrote that they were sending the email for “situational awareness” and that they “didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road.” Ms. Maxwell received a series of letters from a sender she referred to as “Andrew,” which offer a number of identifying details that match those of Prince Andrew, who was recently stripped of his royal titles and evicted from the mansion where he lived because of his ties with Mr. Epstein.

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Texas billionaire Robert Brockman's heirs to pay $750 million in biggest-ever U.S. tax-fraud case

The estate of the late billionaire Robert Brockman has reached an agreement to pay $750 million in back taxes and penalties, settling a civil suit that stemmed from what the government had called the biggest U.S. tax-fraud case ever filed involving an individual, according to a U.S. Tax Court filing Tuesday. The Internal Revenue Service had been seeking $1.4 billion in the case, a figure that included interest. Counting only back taxes and penalties, it had been seeking $993 million. It isn’t clear from Tuesday’s filing how much interest the estate might have to pay. Brockman, a Texas automotive-software entrepreneur, was indicted in 2020 on tax-fraud charges, accused by the government of using a web of offshore entities to conceal more than $2 billion in income from the IRS. He used encrypted computer servers and fishing-related code names to communicate with those running his offshore empire, the government alleged.

Much of the money Brockman allegedly hid stemmed from his investments in private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners, which he helped launch as an early backer of the firm. Vista CEO Robert Smith previously settled his own related tax-evasion case with the government. Brockman, who denied the allegations, died in 2022 at age 81, while awaiting trial on criminal charges stemming from the alleged fraud. A Houston tax lawyer who allegedly advised both Brockman and Smith died by suicide on the eve of his own criminal trial. A parallel civil case continued in tax court after Brockman’s death. In the settlement, Brockman’s estate agreed to pay $456 million in back taxes and $294 million in penalties for tax years between 2004 and 2018. Brockman was known for his penny-pinching ways, staying at budget hotels and eating frozen dinners in his room while visiting one of his company’s offices, according to a former executive. He had an antigovernment streak and didn’t approve of the IRS, telling former associates it was a corrupt organization that unfairly targeted taxpayers.

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ERCOT says power grid is prepared for winter

The weather outside is far from frightful this Christmas week, but winter still carries echoes Texans haven’t forgotten. Nearly five years after a devastating, nearly weeklong freeze, grid officials say the chances of blackouts this season are low, though not eliminated. ERCOT, the state’s power grid operator, has projected about a 1% chance of ordering rolling blackouts in January and February, a last-resort move to keep the system from failing when demand overwhelms supply. The outlook is improved from recent winters, though a 2021-style freeze would again push outage risks sharply higher. That’s when an extreme winter storm blanketed the state in snow and ice for days. It overwhelmed power plants, fuel supplies and equipment, forcing grid managers to cut electricity to prevent a grid collapse. Millions of Texans lost power, many for days. More than 200 deaths were later linked to the prolonged cold and loss of heat. Billions of dollars in economic damage were reported statewide.

After years of reforms and investment, ERCOT says the grid is better positioned, even as it forecasts a colder winter than the last four years but warmer than average overall. Independent analysts largely agree. “Looking at the numbers that ERCOT put out, it looks pretty good,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist for the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin. “But there’s always a chance that something goes awry.” The Christmas Day outlook offers little hint of that. Thursday in Dallas is expected to be near-record mild, with highs in the upper 70s. Still, uncertainty remains over the coming months, with volatility in polar weather patterns making winter conditions harder to gauge, according to a Dec. 9 ERCOT report. Officials cited recent instability in the Polar Vortex, an Arctic stream of cold air that can push south when it weakens. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said at a recent ERCOT board meeting that while renewable energy generation — mainly solar power — has grown rapidly in recent years, its unavailability during the hours of highest winter demand creates a vulnerability. “Winter still represents the higher risk period in the ERCOT market, because fewer of these resources that are being added are available during the winter peak periods, which tend to be in the mornings, before the sun rises, or in the early evenings, right after it sets,” Vegas said. The rise in battery capacity over the last two years is perhaps the most significant factor affecting grid stability. The storage capacity of large-scale batteries has nearly quadrupled since December 2023, and recently overtook coal power.

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State Stories

Federal judge blocks Texas app store age verification law from taking effect in the new year

A Texas federal judge temporarily blocked a new state law requiring adults and minors to verify their age before downloading apps or making in-app purchases Tuesday. Senate Bill 2420, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, passed almost unanimously in this year's legislative session. Also known as the App Store Accountability Act, the law would require adults to verify their age before downloading any app, and minors would need parental approval before downloading apps or making in-app purchases. Parents would have to prove their identity and give consent with each download. Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, or SEAT, and two high school students under 18 sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — whose office would enforce the law — in October to stop it from taking effect. Plaintiffs argued the law would put content-based restrictions on speech, replacing parents' freedom to moderate their kids' internet access.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman of Austin sided with the plaintiffs in a preliminary injunction order Tuesday, finding that the law is likely unconstitutional. But Pitman also acknowledged the importance of efforts to curb children's use of devices, social media and games that can interfere with their real lives. "These consequences are substantial, and the Court recognizes the broad support for protecting children when they use apps," Pitman wrote. "But the means to achieve that end must be consistent with the First Amendment." Adam Sieff, one of the students' attorneys, said in a statement the law was Texas' latest attempt to censor the students and regulate their households, and he lauded Pitman for blocking it. “App stores allow anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection to access the accumulated sum of virtually all recorded human knowledge and expression," Sieff said. "Banning students like SEAT’s members, M.F., and Z.B., from accessing these massive libraries without parental consent, just because the government thinks that’s what their parents ought to want, has never been a constitutionally permissible way to protect kids or support families.”

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Texas Republicans propose new property tax cuts as campaign season kicks off

Texas has the seventh highest property taxes in the country — a sore spot for homeowners. Lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, worked to address the issue during the 2025 legislative session by increasing the homestead exemption. With the approval of Texas voters in November, homeowners will get an additional $40,000 added to their exemption, while citizens with disabilities or over the age of 65 will get an additional $60,000. That’s a big deal — and Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, says the reception has been great. “The seniors are stopping me in my district through Austin, because they had about a thousand dollar savings and over half of them are not paying any additional property taxes for schools at this point,” Bettencourt said.

For most property taxpayers in Texas, the homestead exemption is what ends up saving them the most money. That exemption applies to someone’s primary residence and reduces how much of the property’s value they’ll pay taxes on. Lawmakers have been patting each other on the back and touting their successes heading into an election year. But the battle is far from over, with many homeowners still complaining taxes are too high. Bettencourt recognizes that. He says this year’s move is just another cut on top of the pile that lawmakers have been working on for years. “What the state has been doing since 2019 is to dramatically ramp up how much money is being budgeted for property tax relief," Bettencourt told The Texas Newsroom. “We’re now at $51 billion, which is well into 20% of the state's budget.” Estimates from the state claim the average Texas homeowner will save around $1,700 on their property taxes each year due to the growing homestead exemption. But that isn’t the case for everyone, with some still seeing high tax bills. Shannon Halbrook, who handles fiscal policy research for nonpartisan policy group Every Texan, thinks that while it’s great to cut taxes, lawmakers must be mindful of the overall cost to the state. “We need to be asking ourselves how much we can afford to keep cutting them,” Halbrook said.

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Two candidates for Texas Supreme Court denied access to GOP ballot

Two would-be candidates for the Texas Supreme Court have been denied access to the Republican primary ballot after separate courts on Monday upheld the state GOP's decision to reject their applications because they lacked the required petition signatures. The rulings pave the way for Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock and Justice Brett Busby to run unopposed in the March 3 election. Former Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith had filed to challenge Blacklock and David Rogers, a member of the city council in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, had planned to oppose Busby. Under state GOP rules, candidates for the Supreme Court must submit at least 50 valid signatures from qualified voters from each of the state's 15 appeals court districts. The party ruled that neither candidate had met that standard in at least some of the districts.

The pair filed separate lawsuits challenging the state party's authority to determine how candidates gain access to the primary ballot. The Texas Supreme Court shot down Smith's challenge, saying his arguments were "threadbare" and that had he not waited until the final day for filing his candidacy, he might have been able to satisfy the party's requirements for ballot access. Neither Blacklock nor Busby participated in the ruling, which was unsigned. In the other case, state District Judge Amy Clark Meachum of Travis County last week temporarily paused the party's decision denying Rogers' request for access to the primary ballot, but on Monday affirmed the GOP's right to set its own rules on such matters. The Supreme Court's ruling was another in a series of political setbacks over the past two decades for Smith. In 2002, Smith won a special election to fill out the final two years of a vacated seat on the high court, defeating an establishment Republican in the primary who had been appointed by then-Gov. Rick Perry. Two years later, Smith was defeated in the primary. He lost a comeback bid in 2006. A decade later, he came in third in a four-candidate GOP primary field for a seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Rogers, who has served on the Pflugerville City Council since 2020, was a deputy staff attorney for Smith during his time on the Supreme Court. Rogers also managed Smith's successful campaign in 2002.

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NXP is putting its longtime US HQ on market in Austin

NXP Semiconductors NV is putting its 155-acre Oak Hill campus — which has served as its longtime U.S. headquarters — on the market as it scours the area for a new office space, several sources told the Austin Business Journal. The Dutch semiconductor company has enlisted the help of CBRE Inc. to list the 1.5 million-square-foot campus at 6501 William Cannon Blvd. for sale, sources said. The campus was originally built in 1984 for Freescale Semiconductor, which was acquired by NXP in 2015, and has been used for office, research and development and manufacturing. It makes chips used in cars, mobile phones, communications infrastructure and other products. The property was most recently appraised at $43 million, according to Travis Central Appraisal District.

NXP also has a 960,000-square-foot office and manufacturing space at 3949 Ed Bluestein Blvd. that was built in 1974, according to its website. In a statement, NXP officials said the company is "exploring options for a new office space driven by the need to modernize and create a vibrant environment that enhances how we work and engage." The company is considering locations based on traffic patterns, talent density, geographical growth trends in Austin, and where employees live, officials said, adding that they have communicated that to local employees. "NXP is committed to building a workspace in Austin that fosters greater collaboration, drives innovation, and enhances the overall team member experience," the statement said. Sources confirmed to the ABJ that NXP (Nasdaq: NXPI) is indeed known to be searching in the market for an office location. CBRE's Trey Low is handling the marketing of the Oak Hill site for sale. CBRE executives couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The move comes amid a series of changes for NXP. The company, which does both design and manufacturing, in October reported $3.17 billion in revenue during the third quarter, which was down 2% year-over-year. The company on Dec. 10 announced it was planning to shutter a Phoenix-area manufacturing facility and shut down part of the business, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.

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City of El Paso’s drone program not grounded, but future expansion unclear under FCC ban

The city of El Paso’s drone program could be grounded from expansion under a new federal rule that blocks the sale of new foreign-made drones – including those produced by China-based DJI, the city’s supplier. The Federal Communications Commission on Monday said it will ban new models of foreign-made drones from entering the U.S. market, stating that while the aircraft can enhance public safety, criminals and terrorists “can use them to present new and serious threats to our homeland.” The move follows a mandate in last year’s federal defense bill requiring a national security review of Chinese-made drones. The FCC’s decision effectively prevents U.S. cities, agencies and private operators from purchasing or importing new drones produced in foreign countries, according to an FCC fact sheet.

The ruling could have implications for the future of the city’s drone program, as the airport as well as police and fire departments rely on DJI drones for some public safety operations and airport monitoring. The FCC’s new guidelines also broadly covers critical components, which could affect the city’s ability to repair its fleet already in use. “At this time, the ruling does not require the city to immediately suspend existing drone operations. The city’s drone program remains focused on public safety, and we will continue to comply with all applicable federal guidance and requirements,” city spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta said in an emailed statement to El Paso Matters. The guidelines do not prevent consumers such as the city of El Paso from continuing to use the drones they previously purchased, nor does it prevent retailers from selling models previously approved through the FCC’s equipment authorization process, according to the agency.

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Harlingen mayor denies involvement in campaign mailer as more questions arise

Mayor Norma Sepulveda is denying involvement in a political mailer displaying newly elected Commissioner Delia Cavazos-Gamez’s police records in a dismissed case. Instead, Sepulveda is claiming she requested the police report and mug shots to determine Cavazos-Gamez’s “fitness” to continue serving on two city boards. “I had nothing to do with any campaign mailer and neither did the city,” Sepulveda said in a Facebook post. Sepulveda said she didn’t consider residents serving on city boards to be “private citizens in that role.” “When serious concerns arise that could affect fitness to serve, it would be irresponsible not to look into them,” she said in her post. “That type of review is not political. It is part of responsible oversight. When matters are resolved, the review ends.”

Sepulveda declined to speak on the record with the Valley Morning Star. On Tuesday, Sepulveda did not respond to another request for comment as to whether she has checked on other board members’ backgrounds. Meanwhile, Robert Drinkard, an attorney with the law firm of Denton, Navarro, Rocha, Bernal and Zech, who’s representing Cavazos-Gamez, is calling on the city commission to investigate concerns stemming from the campaign mailer. In the city’s Nov. 5 election, Cavazos-Gamez, a nurse sitting on two city boards, defeated former Commissioner Richard Uribe, whom Sepulveda supported, by 55.7% of the vote in the race for the city commission’s District 1 seat. Last week, Uribe strongly denied connection with the mailer, which did not include the producer’s name. As the election’s early voting period opened in late October 2025, a campaign mailer was sent to homes in District 1 displaying images of Cavazos-Gamez’s police report and mugshots stemming from a Jan. 9, 2024 incident at her home in which police arrested her for alleged “assault bodily injury family violence.” About four months later, the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case, Drinkard said.

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Cincinnati's second-largest private company relocating headquarters to Texas in 2026

Greater Cincinnati’s second-largest private company is moving its corporate headquarters to Houston. RelaDyne, an international distributor of industrial lubricants and the largest such firm in the U.S., will move to Houston effective Jan. 1, 2026. The firm was formerly headquartered in an office in Sycamore Township, Ohio. But few, if any, local RelaDyne employees are expected to relocate outside the region, according to CEO Eric Royse. The company’s recently announced expansion of its Hebron facility, according to Royse, will in fact increase its corporate presence in the region, albeit south of the river and with an incentive deal that reduces its income tax burden. A $5 billion company with more than 4,000 employees, RelaDyne was headquartered in Greater Cincinnati only in a titular sense, Royse told the Cincinnati Business Courier, a sister publication of the Houston Business Journal.

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Neiman Marcus parent reportedly considers bankruptcy

Saks Global Enterprises, facing limited options ahead of a more than $100 million debt payment due at the end of this month, is considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a last resort, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The company is also weighing additional ways to shore up liquidity, including raising emergency financing or selling assets, the people said, asking not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly. Separately, some Saks lenders have held confidential talks in recent days to assess the company’s cash needs, according to other people familiar with the matter. Those discussions have focused on a potential debtor-in-possession loan, a form of bankruptcy funding.

Saks raised billions of dollars from bond investors late last year to finance a bold turnaround plan centered on the acquisition of Neiman Marcus, betting that scale would revive the struggling luxury retailer. Instead, the deal deepened the company’s debt burden and failed to resolve long-running issues with vendors, many of whom halted shipments amid missed payments, accelerating losses. In June, Saks persuaded creditors to provide hundreds of millions of dollars more as part of a debt deal that reshuffled repayment priorities, creating multiple tiers of bondholders with differing claims on the company’s assets. Even those securities have since plunged, underscoring concern among investors that the turnaround effort is running out of time. “Together with our key financial stakeholders, we are exploring all potential paths to secure a strong and stable future for Saks Global and advance our transformation while delivering exceptional products, elevated experiences and personalized service to our customers,” a representative for Saks said via email. PJT Partners, which is advising the company, declined to comment. The tie-up with Neiman last year was intended to create a multibrand luxury giant powered by the technology of new high-profile investors, which included Amazon.com Inc. and Salesforce Inc. But by May, bondholders were already facing paper losses of more than $1 billion as the plan stumbled.

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Prairieland ICE shooting trial pushed to February

The federal trial of nine people charged for a July 4 shooting at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado was moved to Feb. 17 due to attorney scheduling conflicts, according to court records. Court documents allege about 11 people gathered outside the Prairieland Detention Center, setting off fireworks and spray painting building structures and property. Correctional officers called 911, and Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross arrived at the scene, issuing commands to people who began fleeing on foot. Then a person in a green mask allegedly opened fire on Gross and correctional officers, according to court records, which alternately describe Gross as being hit in the neck or upper back. Authorities say he's since returned to work following his injury.

Eighteen people in total have been arrested in connection with what defendants said was a protest and noise demonstration, facing a mix of state and federal charges. Four of them — Benjamin Song, Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda and Savanna Batten — pleaded not guilty in Fort Worth federal court earlier this month. Defendants Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Ines Soto, Elizabeth Soto and Daniel Sanchez Estrada pleaded not guilty in the weeks before and waived their arraignment hearings. Prosecutors brought a second superseding indictment Dec. 10 against the nine defendants going to trial with no significant changes. The defendants once again pleaded not guilty. The U.S. Attorney's Office called the indictment against the nine defendants the first in the country against a group of "violent Antifa cell members." The label has held extra weight since President Donald Trump designated the "antifa" ideology a domestic terror threat in September.

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ACA subsidies: Texas law could protect against biggest cost hikes

Americans who receive health insurance through the Affordable Care Act are bracing for steep premium spikes because of Republicans' decision not to extend subsidies. But the effects may not be as dramatic in Texas, thanks to a four-year-old state law that gives the state's insurance department more control over pricing. Public health experts say the little-known state law has resulted in lower premiums on some of the Texas plans sold on Healthcare.gov and could help people maintain their health insurance at close to what they're spending now.

For instance, in Harris County, a 40-year-old single adult earning $37,500 a year who is enrolled in a mid-level silver plan is set to see the premium more than double to $252 a month next year after tax credits have been applied. But they have the option to switch to a gold plan with better coverage for just $164 per month, or a bronze plan with a higher deductible and lower-cost sharing for $37 a month, according to analysis by the non-profit Texas 2036. "Sticker prices get the headlines but the prices people pay are staying relatively stable," said Alex Mendoza, a policy advisor at Texas 2036. "There are zero or low cost plans for a lot of Texans." Early data suggests Texas customers could already be figuring out how to maintain an affordable plan. According to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 17% more Texans signed up for Affordable Care Act plans this year through the first month of enrollment, which began Nov. 1. That's compared to an increase of 7% nationwide, according to analysis by the health news service Becker's Hospital Review.

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An oil tanker seized off the coast of Venezuela has arrived near Galveston. Now what?

An oil tanker seized by the United States near Venezuela earlier this month is now close to the Gulf Coast. An online marine traffic tracker on Monday showed the tanker located about 40 miles from Galveston, an island south of Houston. According to the Greater Houston Port Bureau, the tanker is too large to enter the Houston Ship Channel. Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, said the tanker was likely sent to the Galveston area because of its oil infrastructure.

"It's the closest harbor (that's) closest to oil infrastructure on the Texas Gulf Coast," he said. "It's pretty easy to get that oil onto shore." Hirs said the oil will have to be unloaded to smaller tankers, but what happens after that remains to be seen. The larger tanker, known as the Skipper, was seized on Dec. 10 amid escalating tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. It’s a conflict that has implications for the oil industry in Houston and beyond. "I think that's up to maritime law where the oil will go, what the disposition of the tanker will be," Hirs said. The U.S. Coast Guard referred Houston Public Media to the White House for more information about the tanker's offloading process. The White House did not immediately respond to questions. The U.S. announced over the weekend that it had seized a second tanker recently departing from Venezuela.

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National Stories

Poll finds every major political figure underwater in approval, with Powell and Rubio at top

A new Gallup poll highlighted the polarized state of the United States, finding that no national political figure has neared 50% approval. A Gallup poll conducted from Dec. 1 to Dec. 15 found that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was the highest-rated national political figure at 44%, followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 41%. The duo were the only two who had an approval rating above 40%, with the rest ranging from 28% to 39%. The most unpopular figure was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who had a 28% approval rating. His Republican counterpart, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), came in not far ahead at 34%.

Responses were heavily polarized along political lines. Vice President JD Vance ranked as the single most popular figure in his party with a 91% approval rating, even surpassing President Donald Trump among Republicans, who gave him an 89% approval rating. Vance’s overall approval rating was 39%; however, it was weighed down by heavy disapproval from Democrats, who gave him just a 5% approval rating. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were all closely clustered in approval ratings, ranging from 35% to 39%. Rubio’s status as the second most popular political figure bodes well for his future political ambitions, surpassing the popularity of the 2028 presidential nominee favorite — Vance. However, the vice president’s unparalleled popularity among Republicans would disadvantage him in a primary, with Rubio trailing his approval at 84%.

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ICE documents reveal plan to hold 80,000 immigrants in warehouses

The Trump administration is seeking contractors to help it overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system in a plan that includes renovating industrial warehouses to hold more than 80,000 immigrant detainees at a time, according to a draft solicitation reviewed by The Washington Post. Rather than shuttling detainees around the country to wherever detention space is available, as happens now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement aims to speed up deportations by establishing a deliberate feeder system, the document says. Newly arrested detainees would be booked into processing sites for a few weeks before being funneled into one of seven large-scale warehouses holding 5,000 to 10,000 people each, where they would be staged for deportation.

The large warehouses would be located close to major logistics hubs in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri. Sixteen smaller warehouses would hold up to 1,500 people each. The draft solicitation is not final and is subject to changes. ICE plans to share it with private detention companies this week to gauge interest and refine the plan, according to an internal email reviewed by The Post. A formal request for bids could follow soon after that. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said she “cannot confirm” The Post’s reporting and declined to answer questions about the warehouse plan. NBC and Bloomberg News previously reported on ICE’s internal discussions about using warehouses as detention centers. The full scope of the project, the locations of the facilities and other details contained in the solicitation have not been previously disclosed or reported. The warehouse plan would bethe next step in President Donald Trump’s campaign to detain and deport millions of immigrants,which began with a scramble to expand the nation’s immigrant detention system, the largest in the world.

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Federal judge blocks Trump administration's Homeland Security funding cut to Democratic states

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to reallocate federal Homeland Security funding away from states that refuse to cooperate with certain federal immigration enforcement. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy’s ruling on Monday solidified a win for the coalition of 12 attorneys general that sued the administration earlier this year after being alerted that their states would receive drastically reduced federal grants due to their “sanctuary” jurisdictions. In total, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency reduced more than $233 million from Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The money is part of a $1 billion program where allocations are supposed to be based on assessed risks, with states then largely passing most of the money on to police and fire departments.

The cuts were unveiled shortly after a separate federal judge in a different legal challenge ruled it was unconstitutional for the federal government to require states to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get FEMA disaster funding. In her 48-page ruling, McElroy found that the federal government was weighing states’ police on federal immigration enforcement on whether to reduce federal funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program and others. “What else could defendants’ decisions to cut funding to specific counterterrorism programming by conspicuous round numbered amounts — including by slashing off the millions-place digits of awarded sums — be if not arbitrary and capricious? Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this result,” McElroy wrote. The Trump-appointed judge then ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore the previously announced funding allocations to the plaintiff states. “Defendants’ wanton abuse of their role in federal grant administration is particularly troublesome given the fact that they have been entrusted with a most solemn duty: safeguarding our nation and its citizens,” McElroy wrote. “While the intricacies of administrative law and the terms and conditions on federal grants may seem abstract to some, the funding at issue here supports vital counterterrorism and law enforcement programs.”

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19 states sue to block White House plan to end gender-related care for minors

A coalition of 19 states on Tuesday sued to block the Trump administration’s plan to strip federal funding from hospitals providing gender-related care for minors, a policy that would effectively shut down any health care providers that failed to comply. That plan, announced on Thursday by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would cut off all Medicaid and Medicare payments — which make up a major share of hospital revenue — to any facility that provides minors with gender-related treatments in the country. Part of the underpinning of that plan is a declaration by Mr. Kennedy that gender-related treatments for minors “fail to meet professional recognized standards of health care.” In the suit, the states argue that the declaration is unlawful and a government overreach.

“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online,” Letitia James, attorney general of New York, one of the states in the lawsuit, said in a statement on Tuesday. “And no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices.” Gender-related treatments for minors — which can include puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies and, in rarer cases, surgeries — have been fiercely debated in other countries but are endorsed by most medical groups in the United States. Mr. Kennedy, in his announcement last week, referred to such treatments as “malpractice.” Mr. Kennedy drew on a report issued by his agency last month that concluded that the benefits of medical intervention were uncertain and that the risks, which could include irreversible changes, were more known. Authors argued that psychotherapy, an intervention that is also supported by little evidence, had fewer risks.

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Missouri voters sue to block GOP gerrymander until referendum vote

Missourians filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a court to stop the state from using its new congressional map until voters have the chance to approve or reject the measure in a referendum. It’s the latest development in an escalating battle over a string of efforts by GOP state officials to place hurdles in the way of the referendum over the gerrymander. Missouri lawmakers passed a gerrymandered congressional map in September at President Donald Trump’s behest. Missouri is one of three GOP-controlled states that redrew maps this year to help Republicans rig the 2026 midterm elections. Earlier this month, opponents of the gerrymander turned in more than 300,000 petition signatures supporting a referendum vote, a move that historically has triggered state officials to pause the legislation being challenged.

But Missouri Republicans – as part of a relentless effort to thwart the referendum – have defied precedent, insisting the new map is in effect until the vote takes place. Now, two voters who signed the petition are fighting back in court, arguing that state officials are denying them their state constitutional right to approve or reject legislation through a referendum. Both voters are residents of Missouri’s fifth congressional district, the seat targeted in the gerrymander. They are represented in the lawsuit by the ACLU of Missouri and the law firm Perkins Coie. Candidates will begin to file for a place on the Missouri primary ballot starting in February, and the referendum vote likely won’t be held until November. Gerrymander opponents point out that if state officials are allowed to use the new map until the referendum is held, they will in effect have circumvented the referendum process, at least for 2026, by enacting the gerrymander without voters having an opportunity to stop it. In the latest lawsuit, voters argue Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and Attorney General Catherine Hanaway are implementing a “transparent ploy” to force the use of the new map “until it is too late.”

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DHS gives Santa ICE makeover in deranged Christmas video

The Department of Homeland Security has taken its holiday-themed campaign for mass deportations to new lows with a video that turns Santa Claus into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Under the direction of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the department has attempted to glamorize its raids by creating glossy videos, which have sometimes earned the ire of musicians whose work is used as soundtracks. Even a former DHS chief of staff under Trump has called them “creepy,” “stupid,” and “wildly irresponsible.” The latest offering is unlikely to change the agency’s reputation. “AVOID ICE AIR AND SANTA’S NAUGHTY LIST!” the official DHS X page posted on Monday alongside a video of Santa working for ICE.

The cringeworthy artificial intelligence-generated clip shows Saint Nick suiting up for an evening on the ICE beat, cuffing arrestees, booking them at a grim-looking processing facility and loading people onto a plane to be deported. It ends with the message, “Merry Christmas.” The video also served as the department’s latest effort to popularize its CBP Home app, a rebranded version of the Biden-era CBP One platform that signals intent to deport and, if approved, gives travel assistance and financial support. “Self-deport today with the CBP Home app, earn $3,000 and spend Christmas at home with loved ones. Holiday incentive is valid through the end of 2025,” the rest of the X message from DHS read. It comes after Noem, 54, used an appearance on Fox & Friends to urge “illegal aliens” to leave voluntarily using the app—or face arrest and removal. “If you voluntarily want to go home now… we will give you $3,000," she said. She added on X that people ”should take advantage of this gift and self-deport because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will not return."

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Copyright January 01, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved