Lead Stories

TAMU System bans courses that ‘advocate’ for race, gender ideology

Texas A&M System Regents approved a policy prohibiting its 12 universities from teaching course content that “advocates” for race or gender ideology unless they are approved by the institution’s president or a designee — becoming the first system in Texas to impose such a ban. The policy follows the high-profile firing of Texas A&M Professor Melissa McCoul after a viral video of a student accusing her of “illegally” teaching gender ideology caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott. Though no law in Texas bars such teaching, McCoul, herdepartment chair and dean lost their jobs, and president Mark Welsh resigned amid criticism he mishandled it. The university system later approved a $3.5 million payout to Welsh.

Regents agreed the system must “lead the way with an in-depth and reputable review of our courses so that we can, simply put, make sure we are educating, not advocating,” said Regent Sam Torn, chair of the committee on academic and student affairs in his opening remarks. “Curriculum is created and approved based on the accepted body of knowledge needed for our students to be successful in their chosen profession,” Torn said. “It is unacceptable for other material to be taught instead.” The language in the policy softened from its initial draft — changing the prohibited action from teaching to advocating. “You were heard,” Regent Bob Albritton told those who publicly testified. More than 140 people submitted written testimony, with a large majority against the measure. Critics said the policy would infringe on their ability to teach about race and gender and would violate the principle of academic freedom. Regent John Bellinger said professors should use “common sense” in how they teach, responding to public testimony from faculty members who said they would be restricted in how they teach the Holocaust. Albritton agreed the policy only pertains to advocacy. The Texas A&M System, which serves 175,000 students, is the second largest university system in the state. Regents also passed a measure to require faculty to teach the approved syllabus, limiting a professor’s ability to tailor a class to their expertise.

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Amid new endorsements in tightening GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Cornyn says "the trend line is in our favor"

Thirty Republican current and former elected leaders from Dallas-Fort Worth are backing Sen. John Cornyn for re-election over Attorney General Ken Paxton and Houston Congressman Wesley Hunt. Among them are North Texas Congressmen Jake Ellzey and Craig Goldman, former Congressman Michael Burgess, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, and former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. In an interview in Dallas on Wednesday evening, Cornyn told CBS News Texas the endorsements give voters some validation of the services he has performed. "I think these elected officials, former and present, who are endorsing me, is sort of a sign of a good housekeeping seal," Cornyn said.

The Republican primary for U.S. Senate is close, according to a statewide poll of 1,097 likely 2026 GOP primary voters conducted Oct. 6-10, after Hunt entered the race. Paxton leads with 28 percent, Cornyn has 24 percent, and Hunt has 19 percent. Other polls have shown a similarly tight race. When asked why a four-term incumbent should be this low in the polls, Cornyn said, "It's early. I don't think most Texans, maybe political junkies like you and me, think about those things a lot, but not most folks are concerned about their kids going to school or their job or the government shutdown, or other things. I think as people begin to focus on it, as we get closer to March 3rd, I think that the numbers will tighten up considerably." Analysts say Cornyn's poll numbers have risen because of a flurry of TV and radio ads his campaign and third parties have aired since the summer, highlighting his record. Cornyn said, "So, the fact that we've been able to close the gap so dramatically where the Attorney General's numbers have not gone up, but my numbers have gone up dramatically, the trend line is in our favor, so I'm very optimistic." Analysts say Hunt's entry into the race raises the likelihood of a runoff in May. Cornyn said his campaign has not been hurt by Hunt's entry. "No, I don't think he can win. What could happen is it would force a runoff in May. We're prepared for the duration. Obviously, I'd prefer to have the race decided in March," Cornyn said. There are three and a half months before the March 3 primary. Because the race is so close, one analyst told CBS News Texas he expects there won't be a clear picture of how it will shape up until three weeks before the election.

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Trump faces heat from MAGA base on ‘America First’ agenda, Epstein

MAGA leaders erupted this week over President Donald Trump’s assertion that the United States needs foreign workers because it does not have enough “talented people,” questioning the president’s commitment to the “America First” politics he popularized. A congressional push to release the government’s files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a years-long cause on the right — moved forward against the wishes of the White House, even as Republicans overwhelmingly dismissed newly released emails Epstein wrote, including some about Trump. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a longtime Trump ally, sparred with the president on multiple fronts after suggesting that the White House was too focused on foreign affairs and denouncing recent aid to Argentina.

The dissent showed an impassioned base willing to challenge Trump on some issues while largely supporting his leadership. Trump’s critics voiced skepticism that the rifts will hurt the president’s support in any lasting way. But the rare criticism showed the limits of Trump’s authority over the “America First” agenda he championed as a candidate and raised some GOP concerns about enthusiasm ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Some warned that the rifts could depress turnout among less engaged voters that Trump mobilized, with Republicans already nervous that they will not show up when he is not on the ballot. “If you show them that you’re not standing up for them on these populist, nationalist issues, I think there’s a real risk for the 2026 midterms,” said Republican strategist Steve Cortes, who has argued that the U.S. admits too many foreign workers and foreign students. “I don’t know anyone on the right who’s so angry that they’re splitting with Trump, but we’re disappointed,” Cortes said. “And we want to lead him to a better place.” Trump has responded defiantly to criticism and cast himself as the ultimate arbiter of what his “Make America Great Again” movement wants.

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'Luv ya': Disgraced Baylor president emailed Jeffrey Epstein for years

There's little to no indication that Jeffrey Epstein, the New York financier and pedophile, ever spent time in Texas. But that hasn't stopped Texas connections from popping up in the ongoing scandal engulfing the federal government. Just days after new emails came to light showing the living conditions of Epstein's girlfriend in a Texas prison camp, newly released files shed new light on the relationship between Epstein and late Texan Kenneth Starr, the disgraced former president of Baylor University who was ousted in 2016. In the emails, Starr frequently expressed his wish to visit Epstein in both New York City and Florida. The two often shared thoughts on current events, such as the Trump Russian interference scandal and new allegations that began to come out about Epstein, leading up to his arrest in 2019. Starr and Epstein frequently expressed fondness for each other, and Starr frequently signed his emails with "hugs" and "love." Starr, who died in 2022, often conversed with other lawyers and elites in Epstein's orbit.

According to the new tranche of emails released by the House Oversight Committee, Starr, the Vernon, Texas native, corresponded with Epstein throughout 2016 and 2018. That itself isn't a surprise. After serving as the independent counsel in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair that led to Clinton's impeachment, the longtime conservative lawyer returned to private practice and was involved in many high-profile cases. Those include representing the school board in the 2007 "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Supreme Court case, supporters of a California proposition that outlawed same-sex marriage, and the private mercenary company Blackwater. But most controversially, Starr was part of the legal team that defended Epstein during his first criminal case in the mid-2000s. As part of that defense, Starr was instrumental in securing a plea deal for Epstein in 2008 that included an unprecedented non-prosecution agreement. Epstein, who was accused of running a "cult-like" network to rape underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion, was ultimately granted immunity from federal sex trafficking charges. Instead, he agreed to plead guilty to two state felony prostitution charges, serve 18 months in prison, and register as a sex offender. In 2018, Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown revealed the arrangement had allowed Epstein to be housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach jail and be granted work release. Epstein was allowed to leave the jail six days a week for 12 hours a day and work at his private office, despite rules barring sex offenders from work release agreements.

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State Stories

Student speech under scrutiny as Texas lawmakers hold first hearing after Charlie Kirk's death

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Thursday held its first hearing to examine free speech on college campuses following the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Lawmakers said civil discourse is important and it embodied the kind of work Kirk did. “Charlie Kirk, as we honor him in a way of starting this conversation, famously debated opponents with open handshakes instead of closed fists,” said Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham. “We can only have civil discourse and freedom of speech when we welcome all sides of a debate.” The Select Committees on Civil Discourse & Freedom of Speech in Higher Education held a joint five-hour hearing and lawmakers heard from invited speakers only.

Kirk’s death escalated conversations around the price of free speech on university and college campuses — the consequences conservatives can face when expressing their beliefs or the retaliation students and teachers who criticized Kirk faced. Kirk’s death escalated conversations around the price of free speech on university and college campuses — the consequences conservatives can face when expressing their beliefs or the retaliation students and teachers who criticized Kirk faced. Jim Davis, the president of UT Austin, told lawmakers the university tries to make sure students are able to have wide-ranging discussions in classrooms, including on controversial topics, so students can form their own conclusions. “Here we expect that our professors build a culture of trust, so that all students feel free to voice their questions and their beliefs, especially when those perspectives might conflict with those of the professor or other students,” Davis said. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, created the committees so they could examine “bias, discourse, and freedom of speech across Texas college campuses,” a news release said at the time. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who chairs the Senate committee, said Thursday the purpose of the committee was to make sure speech isn’t silenced in the future. He added that he believes that in 1968, “liberal speech” was being suppressed.

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Congressman Tony Gonzales decries 'completely untruthful' rumors in wake of staffer's death

Congressman Tony Gonzales on Thursday denied reports he was having an affair with a Uvalde-based staffer when she set herself on fire in September. It was the first time the Texas Republican has publicly spoken about the September death of 35-year-old Regina Santos-Aviles, which sparked an investigation led by the Texas Rangers. Earlier this week, the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office ruled her manner of death as a suicide. Gonzales, a Republican who represents a slice of Texas stretching from San Antonio to El Paso, made the comments at a Thursday panel at the Texas Tribune Festival, where he blasted rumors about him as "completely untruthful." At the same time, he praised Santos-Aviles' commitment to the community.

"Regina’s family has asked for privacy. If it was your family or any of our families, I would argue that you would want privacy as well," Gonzales said. "I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m waiting for a final report, I think that would make a lot of sense. But I would like everyone to remember Regina for all the wonderful things that she did for our community." Gonzales said those accomplishments include leading efforts to develop a new mental health facility in Uvalde, planning a new community center in Natalia and improving communication among local school districts. She also previously worked as executive director of the Uvalde Area Chamber of Commerce. "Anyone that ever met her knew she was a kind, welcoming soul," he added. "And that’s how everyone should remember her.” Santos-Aviles died on Sept. 13 at her Uvalde home. Local authorities have said from the start there were no indications of foul play in her death, and a subsequent report from the Uvalde Leader News said Santos-Aviles had "doused herself in gasoline and was ignited into flames." Uvalde police determined by Sept. 23 that Santos-Aviles was alone in her backyard when she died. According to LinkedIn, she had worked for Gonzales, whose district includes San Antonio and Uvalde, since 2021. The third-term Texas Republican said in an initial statement provided soon after her death was first reported that she would be remembered for working to make a difference in the lives of Texans.

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Federal THC ban is an 'extinction-level event' for Texas hemp industry, economist says

The newly passed federal ban on hemp-based products containing THC could have a significant negative effect on the Texas economy, hitting a wide range of Texas industries that rely on hemp in any form, according to leading economists studying the hemp industry. Language included in the spending legislation that just ended the federal government shutdown would dramatically lower the legal amount of THC — the psychoactive component of cannabis — permitted in hemp-derived products. Advocates, including a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general, argue this is necessary to close a loophole in the 2018 Federal Farm Bill that has led to the widespread marketing of intoxicating products, including to children. Notably, the coalition did not include Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, despite the significant push by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas lawmakers over the past year to ban such hemp-based products containing THC.

Texas produces more hemp than almost any other state in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Economist Beau Whitney estimated the Texas hemp industry employs roughly 53,000 people and pays wages of just $2.1 billion. "There’s roughly 6,350 businesses that are projected to fail as a result of this and displace over 40,000 workers. And so, this is a significant blow to the Texas economy," Whitney said, "because of the fact that those people now, instead of contributing into the state coffers from a revenue perspective ... payroll taxes, business taxes and the spending that occurs, sales taxes, this will now be an expenditure that is needing to be absorbed by the state." Those numbers include workers involved in cultivating, manufacturing, distributing and selling hemp-derived cannabinoids. But Whitney says the legislation would discourage the cultivation of any hemp.

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Young Texans were most immediately impacted by six-week abortion ban: study

It’s been four years since Texas enacted its then-unprecedented six-week abortion ban. Though the procedure is now nearly fully prohibited in the state, researchers are still trying to piece together how the six-week ban impacted access in its immediate aftermath – and are finding it had disproportionate effects on children and young adults. A study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health found that facility-based abortions both in and out of the state decreased by about 26% for Texans under 18 and and almost 20% for those between the ages of 18 and 24. For Texans 25 through 29, recorded abortions fell by 17%. For Texans 30 and older, they fell by about 18%. The study did not look at abortions that were self-managed through mail-in abortion medications.

Previous research has shown that facility-based abortions significantly decreased overall after the ban, but few studies have focused on children and young adults. Young Texans may be more likely to not recognize pregnancy early, know where to obtain an abortion, have fear about disclosing their pregnancy to family members or to be unable to travel and pay for care, especially without adult help, researchers wrote. To conduct the review, they looked at data from Texas and six surrounding states and estimated the percentage change in abortions from the nine months before and after the law went into effect in September 2021. Texas has since banned nearly all abortion except in cases to save the life of the pregnant patient, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion. Even before the abortion bans, young people faced barriers to access, including a requirement that minors get parental consent or seek permission from a judge to obtain an abortion in-state.

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Edinburg educator announces run for Texas House District 40

An educational professional from Edinburg on Tuesday announced that she is running for Texas House District 40. In a campaign announcement, Vangela Churchill said she is running as a Republican and said she has 25 years of experience in the educational field. “Churchill has personal experience with the daily battle she sees every day with children, parents, and families struggling to make their lives better,” the campaign announcement read. Churchill said she is running for the Texas State House because she can no longer watch families struggle while politicians argue.

“For my entire adult life, I’ve worked on the front lines as an educator, and all of us see these challenges our Rio Grande Valley families face every day,” she said in the announcement. “Educators deal directly with America’s biggest issues — students learning English as a second language, children without healthcare, families facing hunger or addiction, and classrooms stretched thin by budget cuts. “Every one of these problems walks through our school’s doors.” Churchill said the core of America’s problems can be found in schools, which is where solutions must begin. “But until the politicians in Austin hear the voice of the people in the Rio Grande Valley, nothing will change. That’s why I will be the voice of working families in Austin,” Churchill said.

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Jason Corley announces Exploratory Committee for Texas’ 19th Congressional District

After Congressman Jodey Arrington announced that he will not seek a sixth term. Lubbock County Commissioner Jason Corley says he has received an outpouring of encouragement from supporters across West Texas and the Big Country urging him to run for Congress. “I was surprised and humbled by the number of calls and messages from friends, supporters, and members of the media encouraging me to run,” Corley said. “After much consideration, I’ve decided to form an exploratory committee to assess the level of public support for a campaign to represent the people of West Texas and the Big Country in Congress.” According to the news release, further details about the exploratory committee and next steps will be announced soon.

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Tom Sell announces candidacy for Congressional District 19 representative

Lubbock businessman and conservative Tom Sell has announced his candidacy to serve West Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives for District 19. Sell’s announcement comes after current Congressman Jodey Arrington said he will not seek re-election in 2026. Arrington was elected to congress in 2016 and has served for nearly a decade. Sell is a fifth-generation West Texan committed to serving farm and ranch families, cities and rural communities throughout the southern High Plains. Sell graduated from Texas Tech to then serve former Representative Larry Combest when he chaired the House Agriculture Committee. Tom and his wife Kyla both live and work in Lubbock and have four children together. “We love our country and West Texas, and we want to repay all the great people of West Texas for the blessings they have given us and our family over our lifetime by standing by and defending them — and our country and everything they stand for,” Tom and Kyla said. “We are motivated by a strong sense of urgency and deep gratitude that we both feel.”

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Baylor AD, CFP chair Mack Rhoades takes 'leave of absence' after verbal, physical altercation, new allegations

Six days after our report on Baylor AD and CFP Chairman Mack Rhoades putting his hands on a player before the Arizona State game, followed by a physical altercation with an assistant coach, he is officially taking a "leave of absence" from his job. The news also comes just two days following his appearance on the College Football Playoff rankings show, where he did not comment on the investigation that took place. Rhoades was at the center of a school investigation into an alleged verbal and physical altercation with a football player and assistant coach. Now, OutKick can report new allegations were presented to the school on Nov. 10, which do not involve Title IX, student welfare or NCAA rules. They also do not involve the football program. The circumstances around Mack Rhoades have only intensified over the past month, with Rhoades skipping a prominent booster dinner on Wednesday night as well.

OutKick spoke to numerous sources regarding this incident, and are protecting their identities because of fear of future retribution regarding this matter. On Sept. 20, as Baylor was preparing to play Arizona State in a Big 12 conference game, tight end Michael Trigg was preparing to take the field for the opening series against the Sun Devils. As part of the uniform that day, Trigg was wearing a long-sleeved yellow shirt that was being used to cover a brace he was wearing on his shoulder. Sources tell OutKick that athletic director Mack Rhoades went up to Trigg as the ball was being kicked off to start the game, and while putting his hands on the player asked him ‘What the f--- are you wearing that yellow shirt for?'. Along the sidelines before the game, multiple assistants were around when this incident occurred, as it occurred in a brief span of time. On Thursday, Baylor athletics released a statement to OutKick regarding the decision from Rhoades. "Baylor Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Mack Rhoades is on a leave of absence for personal reasons, effective November 12. The University will decline to comment further at this time."

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Harlandale ISD regains local control, ends state conservatorship

After five years of being under direct state oversight, the Texas Education Agency decided to end Harlandale Independent School District’s conservatorship on Tuesday. The announcement comes three months after the state loosened the reins on the conservatorship, “elevating” Harlandale ISD to observing status, a less intrusive form of oversight. Now, the district has full local control over its own governance.

“This is a tremendous moment for Harlandale ISD,” said Superintendent Gerardo Soto. “It represents years of collaboration and dedication from our Board of Trustees, staff and community.” TEA began investigating Harlandale ISD in 2017 after complaints of alleged nepotism, issues with the district’s procurement process, financial mismanagement and dysfunctional governance. Then-superintendent Rey Madrigal “separated” from the district after the board moved to fire him. Soto was hired shortly after Madrigal left in 2019. He was recently named the Best Superintendent in the state’s Education Region 20. In 2020, TEA decided to take over Harlandale ISD by appointing a conservator, opting not to replace the school board trustees with a board of managers or Soto with a state-appointed superintendent . Even though the board and Soto weren’t replaced, the conservator had the power to override board decisions if they didn’t think they were in the best interest of students.

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Bee Moorhead: COP30: Cop to the truth

(Bee Moorhead is executive director of Texas Impact.) Monday was Earth Information Day at COP30. Earth Information Day is a plenary briefing where all the UNFCCC science groups, including the World Meteorological Organization, the World Climate Research Programme, and others brief the COP delegates on the state of climate science. As the UNFCCC “information note” explains: Systematic observation is vital for monitoring and understanding weather and climate status and trends to inform climate action. Earth observation networks, including in-situ and satellite-based observations, provide relevant data for forecasting and modelling climate change, response mechanism, risk management including supporting relate services such as early warning systems (EWS).

Within the UNFCCC process, the annual Earth Information Day (EID) provides an opportunity for Parties to engage with the systematic observation community to share and understand latest information, trends and projections of the climate to inform negotiations and wider decision-making. Through EID, messages on closing observation gaps, enhancing systematic observations and related initiatives, and advancing cooperation have been recognized. As a highlight of COP30, which is being dubbed “the COP of Truth,” Earth Information Day 2025 delivered some hard truths. It featured scary science, even scarier policy, and interesting takeaways for state and local governments. UNFCCC Executive Director Simon Steil kicked off the discussion by pointing out that “science and data give us resilience,” not just bad news. Observations are more important than ever, but unfortunately our observation systems are under strain. WMO executive director Celeste Saulo WMO reported that the past three years have been the warmest 3 yrs on record, and have delivered destructive weather on a daily basis. Science not only warns us, but also – and increasingly importantly – equips us. She argued the need for more and better bridges between science and policy. She also pointed out that scientists are increasingly able to attribute weather events to climate change, an important condition for policy action.

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With Prop Q’s defeat, an era of austerity begins

“I don’t think the voters appreciate how deep the cuts are going to have to be,” Austin City Council Member Mike Siegel told the Chronicle last week as Prop Q, the ballot measure to increase property taxes to fund a variety of city services, went down in flames. Siegel was talking about the cuts that will have to be made to the city’s 2025-26 budget with the defeat of Prop Q, which was envisioned as an opportunity to get homeless people off the streets and fix holes in the social safety net torn open by the federal government. City Manager T.C. Broadnax released a new proposed budget last Friday which showed the depth of the cuts. The proposed budget eviscerates funding for homelessness programs, compared with what would have been available with Prop Q. It cuts tens of millions of dollars from other social services. The cuts to homeless services include over $10 million intended for more emergency shelter beds and long-term supportive housing.

Additionally, $1.6 million is cut from public health initiatives like free vaccinations; $1.3 million is cut from the Family Stabilization Grant, which helps families avoid becoming homeless; and $1 million is cut from community violence intervention programs. Millions more are cut from programs for food pantries, city libraries, and wildfire prevention, to name just a few. Some of that funding may still be restored by moving money from other areas of the budget, but a coalition of community groups led by Equity Action is demanding that city leaders revise last year’s police contract in an effort to find more money. “[The city leaders’] proposal protects the bloated police budget while forcing cuts to every other essential public service including EMS, Austin Public Health, parks, contracts to community service organizations, and more,” Equity Action’s Savannah Lee wrote in a press release Tuesday. “In short, they have once again prioritized police over fully staffed city offices, services for folks experiencing homelessness, and quick and accessible healthcare for Austinites.” The community groups argue that a clause in the police contract approved last year allows the city to reduce APD’s budget when voters reject proposals like Prop Q, if reducing the budget is “necessary to meet the funding obligations set forth in [the] agreement.” Austin’s chief financial officer, Ed Van Eenoo, sent a memo to the mayor and City Council on Nov. 7, writing that a reduction in the police contract will not be “necessary” this fiscal year because the budget that will be adopted in coming weeks will be balanced. Lee called that statement a falsehood. “The clause refers to the budget that passed,” she told us. “Not the proposed one and not a future one. It exists to prevent exactly what’s happening now, where the police budget is deemed necessary and everything else is on the chopping block.” Broadnax’s proposed budget also decreases funding for the city’s public safety system, particularly its EMS response.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem hands out bonus checks to TSA workers in Houston

In a show of gratitude at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally handed out $10,000 bonus checks to Transportation Security Administration workers who she said went above and beyond during the recent government shutdown. Noem, speaking to a room filled with TSA staff, praised their unwavering dedication. “Every single one of these individuals served with exemplary service,” she said. “They were an example of not only taking seriously the security concerns and measures that TSA has every single day, but also, they went above and beyond.”

She highlighted how officers volunteered for extra shifts, assisted with transportation for colleagues commuting to work, and helped families who faced unexpected challenges. “They helped individuals. They served extra shifts. They helped with transportation of people getting back and forth to work,” Noem said. “Other challenges that families may have. They were all examples of what we need.” The Homeland Security secretary also stated that the department intends to continue recognizing workers nationwide, especially those who served during the shutdown. “We will be looking at every single TSA official that helped serve during this government shutdown and do what we can to recognize that and help them financially with a bonus check to get them and their family back on their feet,” she said.

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‘Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment’ doc reveals trailer featuring whistleblowers ahead of IDFA launch

A potentially explosive doc titled “Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment” is set to launch from the upcoming IDFA documentary festival in Amsterdam, where its Nov. 16 premiere will be attended by several former Tesla employees, insiders and whistleblowers who spoke out. “I had a moral obligation to tell the world what is really going on behind the curtain,” says former Tesla autopilot employee John Bernal in the doc’s trailer, which Variety is launching exclusively (watch above). “Elon Musk Unveiled” “pulls back the curtain on Musk’s empire, as close confidants, whistleblowers, victims and former high-ranking Tesla employees speak out,” says the doc’s logline. “Their testimonies expose hidden data and buried defects in the race for self-driving cars — where unchecked ambition costs lives and challenges Big Tech’s most powerful titan.”

“For the very first time, we get a really close insight of how Tesla works and how Elon Musk is managing his company,” producer Christian Beetz, CEO of Beetz Brothers, tells Variety. After he launches “Elon Musk Unveiled” on the European festival circuit, Beetz is very keen to also bring the doc to U.S. audiences. Produced by Germany’s Beetz Brothers and directed by Andreas Pichler (“The Milk System”), “Tesla Experiment” takes its cue from 100GB of leaked internal data provided by a whistleblower named Lukasz Krupski, who worked for Tesla in Norway, to German business newspaper Handelsblatt. The “Tesla Experiment” weaves three interconnected narratives. The first one is a storyline “that examines Musk’s grip on Tesla and his transformation from tech entrepreneur to political strategist,” according to promotional materials. The second is “victim stories, which focus on personal tragedies caused by Tesla’s autopilot, contrasting Musk’s grand technological ambitions with the real suffering of those left behind.” And the third delves into investigations into Musk following journalists and lawyers uncovering the inner workings of Tesla through leaked data and “revealing a pattern of cover-ups, regulatory evasion, and a growing entanglement between Musk’s empire and political power,” the materials say.

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'FoodWithBearHands' content creator Michael Duarte shot and killed by Texas sheriff's deputies

Michael Duarte, the food and barbecue content creator known widely online as "FoodWithBearHands," died Saturday after being shot by sheriff's deputies in Texas, according to officials. Medina County, located west of San Antonio, confirmed that deputies responded to a call in Castroville for man acting erratically with a knife. Officials said the man, later identified as Duarte, was threatening and charging at deputies and "making threats to kill everyone." Law enforcement said he attempted to assault other emergency personnel who had responded to the scene as the deputy arrived. They added that Duarte was given multiple verbal commands to get on the ground, but he charged toward a responding deputy while yelling, “I’m going to kill you.” The deputy then fired two rounds at Duarte, hitting him.

Duarte was taken to University Hospital in San Antonio where he was pronounced dead, according to Medina County officials. The Texas Rangers are leading the investigation into his death. Duarte's talent agency, Alooma Media Group, confirmed his death in a statement posted to Instagram on Saturday. "It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of our valued client and dear friend, Michael Duarte," the agency wrote. "His passion, professionalism, and creativity left a lasting mark not only on our team but on everyone who had the privilege of working with him." Family members initially said Duarte had died after what they described as a "horrible incident" while traveling in Texas. The 36-year-old California-based content creator had amassed more than 2 million combined followers across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, where he shared cooking videos and recipes focused on grilled meats and barbecue.

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Dallas-based Muslim artist detained by ICE is being ‘punished’ for his social media posts, his lawyers say

Attorneys for Ya’akub Ira Vijandre, a Filipino artist being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Georgia, are challenging his detention in court, arguing he is being “punished for his faith, his speech and his political beliefs.” A Muslim filmmaker and activist whose legal name is Jacob, Vijandre was detained at gunpoint by ICE officers while leaving his Dallas-area home for work on Oct. 7. His lawyers say officers unjustly targeted him based on his social media activity, which immigration enforcement officials claim “glorify terrorism,” according to a recent legal filing calling on the government to release him. “By detaining Mr. Vijandre for his activism and journalism, the United States government is mirroring the tactics it has long criticized abroad: suppressing voices that dare challenge those in power, intimidating journalists, and chilling public debate,” Maria Kari, an attorney representing Vijandre, said in a statement Thursday (Nov. 13).

Vijandre, 38, is one of several immigrants who have been detained this year after speaking out against the war in Gaza, including Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, Dallas community leader Marwan Marouf and Sami Hamdi, a British journalist who was detained and released this month. Civil rights groups have criticized these detentions as violating constitutional protections for freedom of speech. Vijandre posted publicly about his opposition to U.S. foreign policy, the policies of the Israeli government and abuse of prisoners accused of terrorism—speech that his lawyers say is protected by his First Amendment rights. “Equating such speech to ‘terrorism’ to justify detention would risk criminalizing a broad array of protected speech critical of U.S. government policy engaged in by citizens and non-citizens alike,” his lawyers wrote in a habeas corpus filed last month.

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National Stories

A new litmus test For Republicans running for Senate: Ending the filibuster

Republicans running in Senate primaries have a new litmus test for who the Trumpiest candidate is: Do you support nuking the filibuster? President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster — something that would require support from a majority of senators. Trump also made this push during his first term, but his efforts now have been significantly more intense. Republican Senate leadership has been adamantly against using the so-called “nuclear option” to end the 60-vote threshold for most legislation, and much of the conference is as well. But the 42-day government shutdown made Trump more aggressive in telling Republicans to change the rules to allow for a simple majority vote.

There currently aren’t enough Republicans in the Senate who support the nuclear option, but that could change in 2026. A NOTUS survey of Republican Senate candidates across the country found that, in most cases, there is at least openness to abolishing the filibuster — if not outright support to do so. NOTUS reached out to and examined the public statements of Republican candidates in Kentucky, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire and North Carolina. Only two candidates hadn’t said anything about the filibuster and did not respond to a request for comment: Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr and former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Three candidates expressed support for eliminating the filibuster: Nate Morris of Kentucky, Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia and Michael Whatley of North Carolina. In a statement to NOTUS, Whatley said: “All options must be on the table, including the removal of the filibuster, to move forward with Making America Affordable Again — cutting taxes for working families, lowering prices, achieving energy dominance, reindustrializing America, and bringing good-paying jobs back home.”

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Companies predict 2026 will be the worst college grad job market in five years

Employers have a warning for the Class of 2026: Next spring’s graduate-hiring market is likely to be even worse than this year’s. Six months out from graduation season, more than half of 183 employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers rate the job market for the Class of 2026 as poor or fair. That is the most pessimistic outlook since the first year of the pandemic, according to the survey, which is widely seen as an early signal of graduate hiring each year. A cooling job market is darkening that outlook. In recent months, employers from Amazon.com to United Parcel Service have revealed plans to cut thousands of jobs. The latest is Verizon Communications, which, according to people familiar with the matter, plans to cut 15,000 jobs over the next week in its largest reduction ever.

Companies say the uncertain economic outlook has pushed them to hire more conservatively, and many are giving priority to recruits with some experience as opposed to fresh-from-college graduates. More executives are also speaking openly about the potential of artificial intelligence to bring deep job cuts and take over more tasks that new graduates are traditionally tapped to do. For college seniors, that means they are also competing against junior workers who have been recently laid off. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.8% in June, greater than overall unemployment that month and the highest June level for recent graduates in four years, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis. Overall, employers say they expect a 1.6% increase in hiring for the Class of 2026, down considerably from their plans for the Class of 2025 last fall, according to the semiannual survey. College recruiting for full-time jobs typically kicks off in the fall or earlier, and by the spring, employers have a clearer sense of where hiring will land. In recent years, employers have revised their spring plans downward from the fall survey. Annika Swenson, a senior at the University of Iowa, said layoffs at companies like Amazon have made her more anxious about the search. The sheer number of applicants to positions and the fast-moving pace of AI have also increased her stress level.

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Trump administration targets Charlotte for next immigration crackdown, local sheriff say

Federal agents are set to arrive in Charlotte as early as this weekend as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on immigration, according to a local county sheriff’s office. The Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office on Thursday said the sheriff, Garry L. McFadden, was contacted by two unnamed federal officials this week who said U.S. Customs and Border Patrol personnel will be arriving in the Charlotte area either Saturday or early next week. Mecklenburg County encompasses Charlotte. “We value and welcome the renewed collaboration and open communication with our federal partners,” McFadden said in a statement. “It allows us to stay informed and be proactive in keeping Mecklenburg County safe and to maintain the level of trust our community deserves.”

The announcement follows several days of confusion from some officials in North Carolina, who on Tuesday said there had been no communication between the Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office and the Customs and Border Patrol. Though the agents’ operations have not been specified, the Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office stated it will not be involved with any Immigration and Customs Enforcement or CBP crackdowns. A Homeland Security spokesperson would not comment on the North Carolina operation. “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We do not discuss future or potential operations.” President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement a top priority and has deployed immigration officials throughout the country. It’s caused a major backlash in some communities, with some people decrying what they call heavy-handed tactics.

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Top Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential housing data

A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates. Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company’s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte’s behalf. “Lauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email is a problem,” Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae’s single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email. “That is confidential, competitive information.”

He also copied Fannie Mae’s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email, which bore the subject line: “As Per Director Pulte’s Ask.” Evans asked Fannie Mae’s top attorney “to weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to take legally to protect ourselves now.” While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies. The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also gave Pulte’s critics evidence to support claims that he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further his own political aims. “This is another example of Bill Pulte weaponizing his role to do Donald Trump’s bidding, instead of working to lower costs amidst a housing crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “His behavior raises significant questions, and he needs to be brought in front of Congress to answer them.” The episode marks the latest example of Pulte using what is typically a low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to enhance his own standing and gain the attention of President Trump. He’s prompted mortgage fraud investigations of prominent Democrats who are some of the president’s best known antagonists, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.

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California revokes 17,000 commercial driver's licenses for immigrants

California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses given to immigrants after discovering the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the U.S., state officials said Wednesday. The announcement follows harsh criticism from the Trump administration about California and other states granting licenses to people in the country illegally. The issue was thrust into the public’s consciousness in August, when a tractor-trailer driver not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that California’s action to revoke these licenses is an admission that the state acted improperly even though it previously defended its licensing standards. California launched its review of commercial driver’s licenses it issued after Duffy raised concerns.

“After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” Duffy said, referring to the state’s governor. “This is just the tip of iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.” Newsom’s office said that every one of the drivers whose license is being revoked had valid work authorizations from the federal government. At first, his office declined to disclose the exact reason for revoking the licenses, saying only they violated state law. Later, his office revealed the state law it was referring to was one that requires the licenses expire on or before a person’s legal status to be in the United State ends, as reported to the DMV. Still, Newsom’s spokesperson Brandon Richards shot back at Duffy in a statement. “Once again, the Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his dear leader,” Richards said.

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Trump official refers Rep. Eric Swalwell for a federal criminal probe over alleged mortgage fraud

A top housing official in President Donald Trump's administration has referred California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to the Justice Department for a potential federal criminal probe, based on allegations of mortgage and tax fraud related to a Washington, D.C., home, according to a person familiar with the referral. He is the fourth Democratic official to face mortgage fraud allegations in recent months. Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, alleged in a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday that Swalwell may have made false or misleading statements in loan documents. The matter has also been referred to the agency's acting inspector general, this person said.

"As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me," Swalwell said in a statement to NBC News. The referral, according to the source, alleges several million dollars worth of loans and refinancing based on Swalwell declaring his primary residence as Washington. It calls for an investigation into possible mortgage fraud, state and local tax fraud, and insurance fraud, as well as any related crimes. The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment. The move comes as Trump has publicly urged the prosecution of his political opponents. Pulte previously sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department for two other prominent Democratic critics of Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as well as Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook — who was nominated by then-President Joe Biden — on allegations of mortgage fraud. All three have denied wrongdoing.

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Catholic hospitals barred from offering gender-affirming care

Catholic leaders have formally banned their hospitals from providing gender-affirming care to transgender patients, following a Wednesday vote at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catholic health systems account for 1 in 6 acute care hospitals in the country — and in many rural areas, they are the only available hospital. The Catholic health ministry oversees more than 650 hospitals, according to numbers by the Catholic Health Association, plus another 1,600 health facilities, including those meant for long-term care. However, not all Catholic hospitals have explicitly disclosed their religious affiliation on their websites in the past, creating potential for confused patients seeking care that they cannot access. “Catholic providers will continue to welcome those who seek medical care from us and identify as transgender. We will continue to treat these individuals with dignity and respect, which is consistent with Catholic social teaching and our moral obligation to serve everyone, particularly those who are marginalized,” the Catholic Health Association said in a statement on Wednesday.

The formal gender-affirming care ban follows 2023 guidelines issued by U.S. bishops that urged Catholic hospitals to not provide gender-affirming treatments, “whether surgical or chemical,” as part of a patient’s medical gender transition. Now, that policy is official. Similarly, reproductive health care is heavily restricted at Catholic hospitals due to the church’s opposition to contraception and abortion: birth control pills, IUDs and vasectomies are prohibited, as is abortion. These restrictions limit how doctors at Catholic hospitals can treat urgent pregnancy complications. That does not always mean patients can’t get help. Some doctors find workarounds for their patients — and it’s been an open secret in Catholic hospitals for some time, said Debra B. Stulberg, chair of family medicine at the University of Chicago, secular institution. She has researched the church’s health care policies as they relate to reproductive health care and gender-affirming care. “People who want hormonal contraception — the clinicians are advised that you can’t provide these medicines for the purpose of contraception,” Stulberg said. “But if the patient has really painful periods or really bad acne, you can prescribe it for other reasons.”

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Why every company suddenly wants to become a bank

Last year, Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse had a bone to pick with banks, saying they had shut him and his industry out. This year, his cryptocurrency company is asking the Trump administration for permission to start its own bank. Ripple isn’t the only company that suddenly wants to be a bank. Under Trump, crypto firms and fintechs including Coinbase and Wise are looking to open banks and retailers such as Amazon and Walmart are eyeing expansions of banklike services. Trump-appointed regulators are welcoming their efforts, taking cues from a crypto-friendly administration that has said it wants to remove barriers to new payments systems. “My view is that it’s better for it to be done within the banking system, if it’s legally permissible and can be done in a safe and sound manner,” Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said of cryptocurrency at a conference last month. Gould’s agency, part of the Treasury Department, regulates nationally-chartered U.S. banks.

Most of the new applications are for national trust charters. Trust banks differ from full banks in that they generally cannot take deposits or make loans. Instead, trusts charge fees for the safekeeping of customer assets. Since they don’t take deposits, they typically aren’t insured like full banks. So far this year, there have been 12 applications for trust charters, more than any in at least the preceding eight years, according to data compiled by Klaros Group, a financial-services advisory firm. In addition to Ripple, Coinbase and the U.K. payments company Wise, other applicants for trust charters include Sony Bank, a Japanese commercial bank whose parent company is partially owned by the electronics and entertainment conglomerate. Banking lobby groups argue that approving the flood of applications could threaten the stability of the financial system. They say companies such as Ripple want to compete for banks’ customers without shouldering the same regulatory oversight, such as stringent capital requirements. Other critics of looser regulation point out that since the 2008-09 financial crisis, regulators have been highly restrictive about who could launch a bank and what banks can do—for good reason, they say. The Bank Policy Institute in recent weeks sent letters urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to reject the Ripple, Wise and Sony applications, among others. The Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing smaller banks, also wrote in opposition.

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Lead Stories

Longest government shutdown in U.S. history ends after Trump signs funding bill

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended Wednesday night after President Donald Trump signed into law a spending package to reopen the government, capping 43 days of a political stalemate that caused widespread disruptions at U.S. airports and upended food assistance for families. Speaking from the White House late Wednesday, Trump blamed the shutdown and its harmful effects squarely on the Democratic Party and portrayed its end as a Republican victory. He also urged voters to remember the shutdown ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — an apparent attempt to use the moment as political leverage, despite a recent poll suggesting more Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown. “This is no way to run a country. I hope we all can agree that the government should never be shut down again,” Trump said in a live broadcast. He pledged to pass legislation to end politicians’ ability to filibuster and said the federal government “will now resume normal operations.”

Earlier in the day, the House voted to reopen federal agencies — the first time it had been in session in nearly eight weeks. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) had kept the chamber out of session since Sept. 19 in a bid to pressure the Senate to agree to a GOP funding extension, which Senate Democrats had repeatedly rejected. Lawmakers voted 222-209 to reopen the government. “We feel very relieved tonight. The Democrat shutdown is finally over,” Johnson told reporters after the House vote earlier Wednesday. “All this was utterly pointless and foolish. This outcome was totally foreseeable. … They got nothing for their selfish political stunt.” Federal paychecks will begin going out Saturday, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. The deal will fund the government through Jan. 30, pass three appropriations bills, reverse more than 4,000 federal layoffs the Trump administration attempted to implement earlier in the shutdown and prevent future layoffs through the end of January. It will appropriate funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, through September 2026.

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Jaworski, Johnson spar in fiery first Texas Attorney General debate for Democrats

Minutes after taking the stage, the two leading Democrats running for Texas Attorney General clashed in their first debate of the primary cycle. “There is only one fighter on this stage you can count on,” said Joe Jaworski, former Galveston Mayor. Jaworski went on the offense early attacking Nathan Johnson’s record in the state senate. “Nathan Johnson, when he had the opportunity to sit as a juror before Ken Paxton, he voted to acquit Ken Paxton on two charges that the House impeached him on,” Jaworski said. “Why would you give any comfort to that scoundrel?” Jaworski then put Johnson on the defensive with Senate Bill 2972 that the legislature passed this year.

“He was one of two Democrats to join all Republicans to pass this Campus Security Act which may as well be called the Suppression of Free Speech Act,” Jaworski told the audience. “A Reagan appointee found Mr. Johnson’s law to be unconstitutional.” Rebutting the former Galveston mayor, Johnson shot back. “This is exactly the attack I would expect from a Republican. This person is running to be Attorney General, and he told you if I find the prosecution has failed to meet its burden, I should convict anyway,” Johnson responded. “I voted to convict Ken Paxton 14 [of 16] times.” On SB 2972, Johnson said that “Gina Hinojosa, our nominee for governor, and [Democratic U.S. Senate candidate] James Talarico voted the way I did.” Denton Together hosted the event at The Lyceum Theater on the campus of the University of North Texas Sunday afternoon.

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Epstein alleged in emails that Trump knew of his conduct

House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged. Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. He has said that he and Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, were once friendly but had a falling out. But Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage.

In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure. Committee Republicans on Wednesday released the rest of the newly obtained material, condemning Democrats for choosing three that referred to Mr. Trump. They also identified the unnamed victim mentioned in two of the emails as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April and had said that she had not witnessed Mr. Trump participating in the sexual abuse of minors at Mr. Epstein’s home. In a statement, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, cited Ms. Giuffre’s past remarks about Mr. Trump, denouncing “selectively released emails” that she said were meant to “smear” the president. “The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Ms. Leavitt said. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”

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Democrats could make gains with Latino voters in Texas

President Donald Trump made historic gains with Latino voters in Texas during the 2024 general election, earning more than half of the state's Latino vote. Many Republicans used those gains as one reason to redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade. Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, says that wasn’t the safest bet. “Their partisanship is not as durable as a lot of other groups in the electorate, which means they move. They respond to events,” said Blank. Exit polling from the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial race show a majority of Latino voters supported the Democratic victors. But some Republicans running for the new congressional districts don’t think the trend will impact the Texas midterms.

Keith Allen is in a crowded GOP primary for Congressional District 34, a Democratic seat that would have gone to Trump by 10 points under the new congressional lines. In the newly drawn district near McAllen, Latinos are the largest demographic of voters. “When the Latino community sees that you have somebody that cares about people and wants to get this figured out for the greater good, I think they'll get behind that, and I believe they'll get behind me,” said Allen. Also in the race is former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, who decided to run for her old seat after the new map was passed. She described District 34 as one of the top GOP opportunities in the country. “South Texas is very supportive of President Trump. President Trump is doing exactly what he voted for. He ran on border security. He ran on focusing on deportation, especially focusing on those that crossing legally into the country,” said Flores.

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State Stories

Tarrant GOP Chair Bo French bids for Texas Railroad Commission

A North Texas Republican Party chair known for incendiary social media posts is looking to statewide office. Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Bo French on Wednesday announced a bid for the Railroad Commission of Texas. Despite what its name may suggest, the state commission oversees Texas’ oil and gas industry. He also resigned from his GOP chairman position, French said in a post on X and in a text. The local party’s executive committee is set to select a new chair on Nov. 22. The Railroad Commission is made up of three commissioners, who serve staggered six-year terms. The commissioners select who will serve as chairman. Chairman Jim Wright and Commissioners Christi Craddick and Wayne Christian, all of whom are Republicans, compose its members. Wright’s commissioner seat is up for reelection in 2026.

“Texas oil and gas made America great and literally fueled the fight for freedom across the world,” French said in a statement he posted to X. “With Iran and radical Islamists attacking our allies in the Middle East, the Chinese Communist Party pushing its agenda worldwide, and the radical Green New Scam artists waging war on domestic energy production, our state needs a strong leader who will fight back. I’m running for Railroad Commissioner to put American citizens, American interests, and American energy first.” French has faced backlash over social media posts during his tenure as Tarrant County GOP chair — a position he assumed in October 2023. In late October, French shared posts that critics called racist. “November 1, 2025 is National Chimp Out Day. It’s going to be lit,” French said, adding in a comment: “(N)o SNAP!” Nov. 1 was the day SNAP benefits were expiring amid the government shutdown. “Let’s be clear: in 2025, there is no excuse — none — for any public figure to liken African Americans or any people of color to animals,” said Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, an Arlington Democrat. “That’s not political speech. That’s racism, plain and simple.”

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Abbott’s property tax plan is full of holes

Gov. Greg Abbott has made eliminating homeowners’ school property taxes, and severely limiting local governments’ control over property tax, a top campaign issue. It’s a worrisome stance, given how little we know about how the governor plans to fund our schools. But we can understand some of the political impetus. Homeowners in much of the state are struggling financially as annual property tax bills keep rising. Still, it’s irresponsible to pledge to wipe out a key source of public school funding without offering a substitute. It’s like quitting your job without having any idea how you’ll cover the mortgage. Local governments in Texas rely on property tax to pay for services like police, fire, libraries and parks. Schools depend on it to help cover operating expenses like teacher salaries. Texas leans hard on property tax partly because it levies no personal income tax. Property tax is especially painful because it’s assessed all at once, rather than paid out in a few dollars here and there as sales tax is.

In a state as big as Texas, tax-related numbers are eye-popping. In 2023, the taxable value of all taxable property in school districts was almost $4 trillion, according to a report from the Texas comptroller’s office. About 45% of that value came from single-family homes. The total tax assessed on all categories of property was $81.4 billion, and the state’s 1,014 school districts assessed $39.5 billion of that. Meanwhile, local sales tax revenue in 2023 totaled $13 billion. Here is what we know about Abbott’s plan: It would limit property appraisals to once every five years and require all local property tax increases to be approved by a two-thirds majority of voters. Appraisal increases would be capped at 3% and the state would mandate spending limits on local governments. And it would allow voters to kill local school property tax for homeowners.

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Dispute between Rockwall County, developer raises the question: Who should pay for infrastructure?

Thirty miles east of Dallas is the quiet bedroom community of McLendon-Chisolm. Located in southeast Rockwall County, it’s a rural area with green space and land all around, but that’s quickly changing. In recent years McLendon-Chisholm, with a population of about 5,000 people, has attracted an influx of development, and new homes have sprung up throughout the area. But one development in particular – on 1,800 acres of unincorporated Rockwall County, just outside city limits – has become the subject of a lawsuit filed by developer DR Horton against the county earlier this year. At issue is who should pay for infrastructure to serve the new community. “When they build these developments, when they're done, they leave,” said McLendon-Chisolm Mayor Bryan McNeal.

He said he’s not against development in and around his city, but he said builders, including Arlington-based DR Horton, need to help cover costs. “They leave behind the residents who are in the surrounding areas as well as the city that they just dropped in and the governments have to figure it out," he said. "And they offer zero support.” The River Rock Trails development could eventually include more than 6,000 new homes — and it’ll need the infrastructure to serve it, like water and sewer services, new roads, police and fire, even schools. The county sent developers a list of items it wanted covered, including new sheriffs and improvements to an adjacent road. Rockwall County Judge Frank New said state law gives the county the right to ask developers to share infrastructure costs in certain cases. “It's a fairly new law," he said. "It's been there since 2019, so we weren't the first to actually implement the law, and D.R. Horton is challenging our authority.” DR Horton offered to pay for the roads and sheriffs, but after the county denied an application for the development, the company appealed the list, and sued.

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Coinbase moves incorporation to Texas from Delaware, following Musk’s lead

Coinbase is following Tesla out of Delaware and into Texas. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday that the crypto exchange is moving its state of incorporation, a year after Elon Musk did the same with his electric vehicle maker. Musk also reincorporated his rocket maker SpaceX from Delaware to Texas. “Delaware’s legal framework once provided companies with consistency. But no more,” Grawal wrote, pointing to recent “unpredictable outcomes” in the Delaware Chancery Court. A handful of notable names, including Dropbox, TripAdvisor and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz have announced departures from Delaware. It’s a move that was championed by Musk following a Delaware Chancery Court ruling that ordered Tesla to rescind the CEO’s 2018 pay package, worth about $56 billion in options.

“If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible,” Musk wrote in a post on X in February 2024, when he filed to change SpaceX’s incorporation state. Last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s more recent pay package, which could be worth up to $1 trillion. Delaware has long been the dominant state for U.S. companies to incorporate due to its flexible corporate code and expert judiciary, and is seen as balancing the rights of executives and shareholders. A Texas state law allows corporations to limit shareholder lawsuits against insiders for breach of fiduciary duty. Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz, an early backer, currently face a lawsuit in Delaware concerning the sale of shares in the crypto company tied to its public listing in 2021. Like Musk, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was a major contributor to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House.

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Glenn Beck sells DFW mansion ahead of move out of Texas

A big home -- with a big name behind it -- is off the North Texas real estate market. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck recently sold his Westlake estate, which was last listed for $11.75 million, according to Zillow. The final sale price was not disclosed. The sale closed on Oct. 31. Beck has long called Westlake -- an affluent enclave just west of Southlake in northern Tarrant County -- home, but he recently announced he and his wife are moving to Florida. Beck, 61, a former Fox News commentator, is the CEO and voice behind the conservative Blaze Media. His estate on King Fisher Drive in Westlake included an 8,900-square-foot home set on 3.5 acres.

"Tucked behind its own set of private gates is this estate of exquisitely designed interiors—where architectural brilliance and refined elegance coalesce in a symphony of scale, texture, and light," the listing touted. "From soaring ceilings & stone fireplaces to hand-hewn beams & floor-to-ceiling glass, the home exudes both grandeur & intimacy in equal measure. At the heart of the home, a designer chef’s kitchen with double islands, top-tier Viking appliances, and an expansive scullery is both a showpiece & a functional haven for culinary pursuits." The home was built in 2004, and Beck initially purchased it in 2012, according to Tarrant County property records. Pro golfer Brandt Jobe was a previous owner of the home, records say. The six-bedroom home includes stone fireplaces, "hand-hewn beams" and floor-to-ceiling glass windows, according to the listing. There's also a private gym, a guest casita, a firepit lounge and pool with a spa. Michael Hershenberg, of the The Hershenberg Group, and Brad Cook marketed the property.

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At least 44K school-aged children in North Texas may be at risk of deportation, according to report

Thousands of school-aged children and their families in North Texas may be impacted by U.S. immigration polices, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute. A report from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that 44,000 school-aged children between the ages of 5 and 18 in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton Counties don't have legal status, as well as around 218,000 more people who live with children under 18, according to 2023 data. The Migration Policy Institute also found that Texas was the second state most impacted by immigration policy, with an estimated nearly 2 million immigrants without legal status, according to the report. California is estimated to have had nearly 3 million, according to the data.

"The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States has grown sharply in recent years, with the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimating it reached 13.7 million as of mid-2023, following more than a decade of stagnation. Still, nearly half of this population—45 percent—had lived in the country for 20 years or more, with 80 percent having at least five years of residence," the report's summary reads. Texas was also estimated to have just under 1 million children who live with at least one parent living in the U.S. without legal status, according to the report. Texas again follows California, which was estimated to have nearly 1.3 million children living in the state with at least one parent living in the U.S. without legal status, according to the 2023 data. Dallas County alone was estimated to have 319,000 people without legal status, followed by Tarrant County with 127,000, Collin County at 43,000, and Denton County at 35,000, the reports show.

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T.D. Jakes moves from pastoring to podcasting as his next focus

Less than a year after suffering a massive heart attack, megachurch founder T.D. Jakes is launching a podcast featuring celebrities and influencers discussing transformative points of transition in their lives. “NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes” will premiere on the iHeartMedia radio network Friday (Nov. 14) with an interview with media mogul Oprah Winfrey. “After experiencing a profound shift in my own life and career, I knew I was not alone,” Jakes says in a trailer for the podcast. “These moments of change, challenge and transformation touch all of us. That’s why I created this podcast to sit down with people from all walks of life — leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, athletes — and talk about the moments that changed everything for all of them.”

Others scheduled to appear in the first season of the show include actor-director Denzel Washington, rapper Jeezy and Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts, Jakes’ daughter and successor as co-leader of The Potter’s House, in Dallas. Jakes’ podcast comes as the popular preacher and bestselling author has experienced some transitions of his own. In April Jakes, 68, announced to the Potter’s House congregation that he was turning over its leadership to Roberts and Pastor Touré Roberts, his son-in-law. In the preceding months, attorneys for Jakes had filed a defamation lawsuit on his behalf relating to accusations of sexual assault dating to years before. The suit argued that the accusations, made by a Pennsylvania minister named Duane Youngblood, were false. But in October of this year Jakes informed the Pennsylvania federal district court where the case was filed that it had been voluntarily dismissed “by consent of all parties” involved in the litigation.

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Dallas’s next election will be November 2027

The other major item on the City Council’s agenda today was an initiative to move city elections from May to November of odd-numbered years. That means our next election will be on November 2, 2027, on the same ballot as any constitutional amendments the state legislature might cook up in the next session.

All 15 council members and Mayor Eric Johnson voted in favor of the move, but some expressed concerns about it. Councilmember Cara Mendelsohn pointed out that it would mean their terms would be extended by six months. The council’s budget discussions typically occur in August and September, which means the budget will be decided upon by councilmembers who could be voted out just a couple of months later, she said. Others had similar concerns about appointments to commissions, too, as well as what happens if there is a runoff, particularly in the mayoral election. However, in the end, they all acknowledged that voters approved this move during last year’s charter election. Longtime advocates pointed out that this will save the city money because it won’t be on the hook for as much of the cost. And cities that have moved their elections to November have seen better turnout, moving from single digits to low double digits. State Rep. Rafael Anchia, who sponsored the House version of the bill authored by state Sen. Nathan Johnson, explained it’s not a “silver bullet”: Turnout in the teens still low turnout, it’s not the abysmal turnout the city currently has in May elections.

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Faith-based groups sue Texas over limitations on investment advice

Business and faith-based investment groups are suing Texas to stop enforcement of a new law that limits expert advice available to investors. “The plaintiffs are faith-based and nonprofit organizations that, as part of their missions, partner with institutional investors to engage with companies to seek strong long-term financial performance,” said Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal group leading the lawsuit filed Nov. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. At issue is the enforcement of Senate Bill 2337, a 2025 law that restricts the ability of advisory firms to offer nonfinancial investment guidance. The measure went into effect Sept. 1.

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, United Church Funds and Ceres filed the action asserting the statute violates advisors’ and investors’ freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment and is “unconstitutionally vague” about due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. “As part of that work, the plaintiffs take into account environmental and social impacts of company practices, as well as strong corporate governance and other factors, because they believe — correctly — that these factors can be central to the long-term financial success of companies,” Democracy Forward explained. “SB-2337 classifies those factors as ‘nonfinancial’ and places burdensome restrictions on sharing such considerations with shareholders.” The state already has been sued by two of the most prominent shareholder proxy advising firms in the U.S. In August, a district court blocked Texas from applying the law to Glass Lewis and ISS pending the outcome of a February 2026 trial.

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Austin City Council looks at cuts to EMS, public health and parks services after Prop Q fails

The Austin City Council will spend the coming days trying to balance the city’s budget. That's after residents voted down a controversial property tax rate increase known as Proposition Q, which was expected to generate nearly $110 million. The council has canceled a special called meeting scheduled for Thursday to go over changes to the city budget. City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in an email to council members that the city received a complaint Wednesday about a possible violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act in the posting language for the meeting. Broadnax said the city's legal team believes it met state requirements, but said "our goal with the budget is to restore trust in the City, so we are willing to take additional steps to achieve that goal."

The council is now set to take up the budget changes on Tuesday, Nov. 18. Council members were aiming to adopt an amended budget by Nov. 20, and it's unclear how the timeline for adoption might change. Last weekend, staff in Austin’s budget office proposed cuts that reach across many city departments, including nearly $6.3 million in cuts to emergency medical services. James Monks, president of the Austin EMS Association, said money from Prop Q could have meant hiring more staff and purchasing new equipment. “[Now] it’s going to mean less paramedics on the street, and more work for the paramedics we already have out there, who are already struggling, who are already dealing with overwork burnout, mental health issues and constant stress,” Monks said. He said the department is at a breaking point, and something has to change, especially as medics work to reduce response times and serve a growing population. “If you have a medical emergency in Travis County as a whole, you're going to be getting one of our ambulances,” Monks said. “And so, whether you work here, whether you live here, whether you visit here, you are going to be impacted by this.”

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UT Arlington's plans for the future include a boutique hotel and creating 'gateways' to campus

UT Arlington administration is planning for big updates to the campus, including a boutique hotel, new residential halls and updated or new academic buildings. The details of the university’s plan were shared at a recent town hall in Arlington. John Hall, the university’s vice president for administration and economic development, said the UTA’s plan hopes to prepare the institute for future students while integrating the campus into the larger landscape of downtown Arlington. A part of that will come with the creation of “gateways” and a “front door” for the university, Hall said at the Nov. 6 town hall.

The front door will be designed to look like the main entrance of the campus for visitors and potential students. Hall said it will be based around the University Center, on UTA Boulevard. Surface parking lots around the University Center would be transformed into green space while more development around the area would draw those unfamiliar with the campus to the front door, Hall said. Gateways would also help to define the campus' limits, Hall said. The gateways would be designed to simultaneously differentiate the campus from the rest of the downtown area while complementing the aesthetics and theme of the surrounding area. Planners have identified three gateways: the West Gateway at Davis Street and Greek Row Drive and the North Gateway and South Gateway, both at Cooper Street on either end of the campus. The surface parking around the University Center wouldn’t be the only to go — the master plan calls for most of the campus’ lots to be replaced with garages that will shrink the parking footprint and allow for more buildings and green space.

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UNT's Turning Point USA chapter hosts Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, discusses future of conservatism in America

The university’s Turning Point USA chapter hosted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Nov. 10, in which he remembered TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk and discussed a future for young conservatives in the country. The event hosted around 150 attendees, with additional speeches from Paige Rasmussen, TPUSA Lone Star field representative, university student Mary-Catherine Hallmark and right-wing podcaster Sara Gonzales, host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.” “I was really amazed when you can see the culmination of what Charlie Kirk was accomplishing happen in this election by getting people out to vote,” Paxton said in his speech. “And encouraging college students and high school students to be engaged like they never had [...] [conservative views] actually work, unlike the woke ideas that we hear infiltrated with every day at college and high school campuses.”

Paxton, who is running for a United States Senate seat in 2026, addressed the controversy the university faced regarding a viral video Hallmark posted online after Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University. Previously, Paxton made comments in a letter, expressing disapproval with the university for not addressing Hallmark directly after she said she received threats for saying Kirk’s death should not be celebrated, “no matter what political beliefs.” “I really am so appreciative of Mary-Catherine, her courage and the courage of other students that are willing to stand up and exercise their right to free speech, [...]” Paxton said. Paxton announced Oct. 16 that he is launching an investigation against the university for still not taking action against the students who “celebrated the political assassination” of Kirk and “who have threatened violent acts against students,” the press release said. “UNT’s silence has made one thing clear,” Hallmark said in her speech. “Their so-called ‘neutrality’ is nothing more than a quiet approval of the radical left’s agenda.”

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Texas A&M Faculty Council says professor’s dismissal violated academic freedom

ATexas A&M University faculty council determined in late September that Melissa McCoul, an instructor fired for teaching about gender identity in a children’s literature class, had her academic freedom violated and that former president Mark Welsh flouted proper termination processes when he fired her, The Texas Tribune reported Monday. McCoul was dismissed in September after a video went viral, showing a student confronting her in class and claiming the professor’s gender identity lesson was illegal. McCoul is actively appealing her termination. The documented justification for her dismissal was that McCoul’s course content and material did not match the description in the course catalog, but the faculty council said this was false.

“The content of the course was the reason for the dismissal and not the stated reason: failure of academic responsibility,” the council wrote in its report. “Given the timeline of dismissal, the political pressure brought to bear, and statements by Regents that the course content was illegal, President Welsh’s assertion that the firing was for failure of academic responsibility appears pretextual.” In an Oct. 2 memo obtained by the Tribune, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Blanca Lupiani rejected the council’s conclusions and said the council acted outside its charge to review matters that were “largely unrelated to academic freedom.” The complaint about McCoul was never assigned to the council, Lupiani said in the memo. University rules require the department head to write charges for dismissal, seek approval from the dean and give the faculty member a notice of intent to dismiss with five business days to respond, but Welsh requested McCoul’s dismissal on Sept. 9 “effective immediately,” the Tribune reported.

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From Texas to Kentucky, undocumented students, advocates intensify defense of in-state tuition laws

Immigrant students and their advocates are working to reopen federal lawsuits that ended in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students in two states and another state where the same outcome seems imminent. Advocates say the judges ruled in favor of the government without a public hearing and the affected students weren’t given the opportunity to defend the policies. Since the summer, the U.S. Department of Justice challenged in-state tuition policies in Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas, claiming state laws extending in-state tuition prices to undocumented students breach federal law. In Texas and Oklahoma, attorneys general quickly sided with the DOJ and judges swiftly ruled to end in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students. As a result, tuition tripled for some undocumented students this fall, forcing them to make difficult choices about whether they could afford to stay enrolled.

Kentucky’s undocumented students could soon face the same dilemma. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education agreed to end in-state tuition benefits for local undocumented students in a settlement filed in September, but a judge has yet to make a ruling. Meanwhile, legal battles in Minnesota and Illinois are ongoing as these states defend their policies. Since these lawsuits first emerged, civil rights groups and students have sought to intervene or become parties to them. They’re hoping to reopen the quickly closed cases to have their say in court. A Latino civil rights organization, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was the first to file a motion to intervene on behalf of undocumented students in Texas in June. A month later, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward and the National Immigration Law Center followed suit. They filed their own emergency motions to intervene on behalf of the activist group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, the Austin Community College District’s Board of Trustees and Oscar Silva, a student at the University of North Texas.

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Nasdaq Joins NYSE and TXSE with launch of new Texas-Based dual listings venue

The race to make Texas a national financial hub is heating up. Months after announcing a regional headquarters in Dallas, Nasdaq plans to launch Nasdaq Texas, a new dual listing venue that would join NYSE Texas and the Texas Stock Exchange on the newly established Y’all Street. Nasdaq expects to begin operations in early 2026, pending SEC approval. “Texas is the financial services capital of America,” said Governor Abbott. “With another financial exchange coming to Texas, Nasdaq Texas cements our state as a global economic leader and will help further grow our leading financial industry. I thank Nasdaq for choosing Texas for their expansion and look forward to working together to keep Texas the financial hub of the nation.” At the helm of Texas operations is Rachel Racz, who joined Nasdaq in 2013 to help stand up its oil and gas listings operation. Under her watch, she helped the exchange grow from capturing 20 percent of all energy IPOs to 80 percent.

“I think Dallas is the epicenter [of capital markets]—but really, it’s all of Texas,” Racz said. “The governor says it well: Texas has an incredible brand. What’s happening here, and what Nasdaq supports, is this miracle of leadership that’s been empowered across the state. “Think about it—Texas is the eighth-largest economy in the world, soon to be seventh,” she continued. “It’s the global center and the gravitational force for innovation. It’s a job magnet and a job creator. I believe Texas is the bridge between energy and technology—the leader in job creation for both—and it embodies smart, pro-growth, pro-business regulation.” Nasdaq might be third to join the capital markets party in Texas, but Racz is ready to compete. “We don’t think about our competitors—we think about our clients,” she said. “We welcome competition, and we’re glad other companies view Texas as important as we do. But when I look at our business model compared with others, I truly believe no one offers the same holistic support for the capital markets that Nasdaq does.

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Dallas to explore alternatives to City Hall building designed by I.M. Pei

The Dallas City Council directed City Manager Kim Tolbert late Wednesday night to formally explore alternatives to the current City Hall building, putting its future in jeopardy. Tolbert is expected to present options to council members early next year. The decision launches a process that supporters argue is simply about gathering information and exploring possibilities, not committing to any specific outcome for the nearly 50-year-old building, which faces repair costs estimated between $152 million to more than $345 million. “There are a lot of questions about City Hall,” said council member Chad West, who said the vote was not about moving from or staying in the downtown seat of Dallas city government, “and we are not going to get those answered unless we have the evaluation that the city manager has promised us.”

Opponents fear the process could be a step toward justifying the demolition of the iconic but neglected structure. Many worry the land could eventually be repurposed for uses they say are less meaningful, like a new arena for the Dallas Mavericks. Council member Paul Ridley asked his colleagues to focus first on analyzing the current City Hall. “It is not necessary at this point in time to assess real estate options and talk to every downtown landlord about moving into their buildings. There is always going to be time to do that,” Ridley said. “Doing that now is wasted effort, when what we need to do first and foremost is to assess the true condition of City Hall and the cost to repair.” Council member Gay Donnell Willis argued the city needs to make decisions about City Hall based on realistic numbers and a full understanding of all options. She emphasized the city should evaluate the land’s value and its highest and best use, just as it does with other city-owned properties. “This shouldn’t be a sacred cow,” she said.

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National Stories

Ex-Newsom aide accused of siphoning campaign cash for Gucci bags and yacht rentals

A trio of California political insiders has been indicted in connection with a sprawling federal public corruption probe that accuses them of siphoning campaign cash to fund a lavish lifestyle that includes yacht and private jet trips, luxury goods and hotel stays. Dana Williamson, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, was charged last week in the Eastern District of California with 23 counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. She made her first court appearance Wednesday. The 53-year-old allegedly tapped into a dormant campaign fund for Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services Secretary and current candidate for California governor, to pay for a lavish lifestyle that included a $150,000 trip to Mexico for her birthday, tens of thousands on Gucci and Chanel bags and a trip to theme parks in California.

Williamson is also accused of funneling the money to Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief of staff. In all, Williamson allegedly siphoned $225,000 from the account, partly to pay for “no-show” jobs facilitated by veteran California lobbyist Greg Campbell, including one reportedly arranged for McCluskie’s wife. The indictment, first reported by The Sacramento Bee, also states that Williamson misled Becerra about how the money was being used, claiming that he was purchasing campaign consulting services. “Disguising personal luxuries as business expenses—especially to claim improper tax deductions or to willfully file fraudulent tax returns is a serious criminal offense with severe consequences,” Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Linda Nguyen said in a press release published by the Department of Justice. Williamson was Newsom’s third chief of staff and previously ran a consulting firm, Grace Public Affairs. She also worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Gray Davis and has long been a fixture in Democratic politics in Sacramento, according to The Sacramento Bee. Newsom’s office told Politico Wednesday night that it put Williamson on leave last year after learning she was under criminal investigation, and emphasized that she had no current connection to the administration.

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This tiny Louisiana tribe is teaming up with Roger Stone to score big wins in Trump’s Washington

During the past few months, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana scored an Oval Office visit, a meeting on its reservation with top federal officials and a $10 million no-bid contract for construction work at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore. The political and financial wins came after the tiny Native American tribe said in July it would nominate President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize — all while boosting its federal lobbying operation, including hiring longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone to lobby the government on “tribal economic issues.” Stone has received $250,000 from the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe from mid-April to the end of September, according to federal lobbying disclosures.

Stone’s company, the Florida-based Drake Ventures, began lobbying at the federal level shortly after Trump began his second term this year. It’s since received a combined $1 million from four separate clients, including the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe. The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, which declined interview requests and did not respond to a detailed list of questions, is notable for its size — or lack of it. It’s one of the smallest to be federally recognized: 278 individuals live on its reservation in Louisiana, according to Census Bureau data, and the tribe estimates there are about 1,500 registered members scattered throughout the United States. But the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s political influence efforts are decidedly outsized. And while the tribe has maintained lobbyists in Washington for decades, its lobbying spending has skyrocketed since Trump began his second term. The tribe and its subsidiaries spent $590,000 on federal lobbying in the first nine months of 2025, up from $290,000 during the same period in 2024, according to federal lobbying data analyzed by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

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ICE plans to spend $180 million on bounty hunters to stalk immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is allocating as much as $180 million to pay bounty hunters and private investigators who verify the address and location of undocumented people ICE wishes to detain, including with physical surveillance, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media. The documents provide more details about ICE’s plan to enlist the private sector to find deportation targets. In October The Intercept reported on ICE’s intention to use bounty hunters or skip tracers—an industry that often works on insurance fraud or tries to find people who skipped bail. The new documents now put a clear dollar amount on the scheme to essentially use private investigators to find the locations of undocumented immigrants. “I am sure PIs, bounty hunters, process servers, and anyone with access to commercial databases can apply and will,” Igor Ostrovskiy, an experienced private investigator with Ostro Intelligence, and who expressed concerns with ICE’s plans, told 404 Media. “Money is money and people will jump at the opportunity to embed their business as a government contractor.”

The documents are part of a package published by ICE on Monday. They say ICE is seeking assistance with a “docket size” of 1.5 million, in which the agency will give vendors a batch of 50,000 last known addresses of aliens residing in the U.S. The bounty hunters are then to verify the people live at those addresses, or find their current location, and provide that information to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). ICE says bounty hunters are to start with online research such as Google or commercial data, before moving onto physical surveillance. “To achieve a higher level of confidence, the vendor may physically verify the alien’s location and presence, preferably confirming their home or work location. The vendor will then report the physical location to the Government or inform the Government that it is not able to locate the alien, and any additional visits would be fruitless. The vendor should prioritize locating the home address and only resort to employment location, failing that,” one of the documents says.

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Democrats’ latest long-shot Senate recruit: A Kentucky horse trainer

Any hope Democrats have of regaining control of the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections requires cashing lottery tickets in long-shot states. So here comes Dale Romans, a champion horse trainer who announced a campaign for the Senate seat in deep-red Kentucky that is being vacated after seven terms by Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Republican majority leader. Mr. Romans, 59, calls himself “an independent Democrat” who is aiming to ride a wave of frustration with both parties. He said in an interview this week that he would not commit to supporting Senator Chuck Schumer of New York to remain as the Democratic leader and that he opposed President Trump’s policies on tariffs and immigration enforcement, which he said had hurt people and industries in Kentucky. Mr. Romans, whose horse Shackleford won the 2011 Preakness Stakes, said he would model himself after former Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. A two-term red-state Democrat-turned-independent, Mr. Manchin served as a thorn in the side of the party’s liberal wing while nonetheless providing critical votes on most of the Democratic agenda.

To that end, Mr. Romans said in the interview that he would have voted to end the government shutdown, as eight Democratic-aligned senators did this week despite opposition from many in the party. He said he never would have voted to shut down the government in the first place. “I would say Schumer miscalculated and really screwed things up,” he said. Even mounting a competitive race will be a steep challenge for Mr. Romans, whose highest elected position was president of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. No Democrat has come within 10 percentage points of winning a Kentucky Senate seat since 2008, when Mr. McConnell won a fifth term by six points. Kentucky has not elected a Democratic senator since Wendell Ford won his fourth term in 1992. But with Mr. McConnell retiring, the state will have an open Senate seat for the first time in 16 years. Four other Democrats are already running, including Amy McGrath, who spent nearly $93 million on a 2020 Senate race she lost to Mr. McConnell by almost 20 points. That contest remains a punchline in Democratic political circles about the party’s habit of throwing money away on unwinnable races.

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Judge hears challenge to Trump's appointment of prosecutor in James Comey and Letitia James cases

When acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan walks into federal court here in Virginia on Thursday morning, it will be Halligan — not the criminal defendants she hopes to prosecute — at the center of the court’s attention. Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both frequent targets of President Donald Trump, filed separate motions in their respective cases, arguing that Halligan is unlawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney and therefore the indictments against them should be thrown out. In a rare joint hearing, attorneys for Comey and James will argue this together before U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, who is traveling up from the District of South Carolina. Currie is hearing this joint oral argument session, not a judge from the Eastern District of Virginia, to avoid any potential intradistrict conflict of interest.

Halligan, who was part of Trump’s legal team in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case but has no prior prosecutorial experience, was sworn in to the job as interim U.S. attorney in one of the nation’s busiest federal court districts on Sept. 22. That’s three days after Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney who had been serving in the role since Jan. 21, resigned after being pressured to indict Comey and James. The indictments against Comey and James came after Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey, James and another of the president’s adversaries, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Comey and James both pleaded not guilty to their respective charges. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” the president wrote in a Sept. 20 Truth Social post. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” According to federal statute, individuals may only serve for 120 days after being appointed U.S. attorney, unless confirmed by the U.S. Senate before then. The Senate had not confirmed him, but district judges of the Eastern District of Virginia exercised their own independent appointment authority to legally retain Siebert as an interim U.S. attorney beyond the 120-day limit.

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Boebert claims ‘no pressure’ to remove her name from Epstein petition

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) denied reports that her meeting at the White House on Wednesday was to pressure her to remove her name from a congressional petition that would necessitate a vote to release files related to disgraced financier, convicted sex offender, and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The petition, initially proposed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), requires 218 signatures to approve the release of the files. Boebert was one of only four House Republicans to initially sign the petition, which included Massie, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). The Colorado congresswomen said the meeting was just adults having a conversation. “I love the White House,” Boebert said to CPR News on Wednesday night. “Adults are allowed to have conversations.” She explained that no one pressured her to make a decision, and the meeting on Wednesday was about transparency. “I want to honor President Trump’s legacy of transparency,” Boebert said. “I was assured today that this is an administration who’s going to continue to be transparent and honest, and we’ll see what comes of it.

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Sorry, America. Coffee prices probably aren’t coming down

With renewed verve for the word “affordability” after the GOP got absolutely trounced in last week’s off-year elections, the Trump administration is scrambling to show it’s doing something, anything, to bring prices down. One solution on offer: reversing its own policy of taxing coffee imports. “You’re going to see some substantial announcements over the next couple of days in terms of things we don’t grow here in the United States — coffee being one of them, bananas, other fruits, things like that,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday. “So that that will bring the prices down very quickly.”

Bessent here is implicitly acknowledging that tariffs do increase prices on American consumers — a fact the Trump administration has long denied. Bessent didn’t offer details about what the tariff reductions would look like or which countries would be included, but he said — seeming to acknowledge the financial strain that helped secure a Democratic sweep last week — that “the American people are going to start feeling better.” (The White House, when asked for more details on the plan, referred CNN to an executive order from September laying out potential tariff adjustments based on national security and economic goals.) Even if Trump and Bessent made a giant carve-out for coffee, it is highly unlikely that prices will go down significantly. And that’s because Americans, as a people, love coffee too much. To state the obvious: Coffee has become annoyingly expensive. Retail prices are up about 20% year-over-year. There are two primary causes for that price inflation: Extremely volatile weather has eaten into the harvest of an already labor-intensive, hard-to-grow crop. That’s been happening for a few years. And Trump’s tariffs on Brazil (50%), Colombia (10%) and Vietnam (20%)— the three biggest coffee exporters — are piling added costs on top of that. And since coffee only grows in a few places on Earth, it’s not like we can just mow down a few cornfields out in the heartland and start up our own domestic supply.

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Another democratic socialist wins a mayoral race, this time in Seattle

A progressive activist appears to be on the cusp of winning her bid for mayor of Seattle in a narrow victory that has echoes of the race to lead New York City. With a dwindling number of ballots left to count, Katie Wilson led Mayor Bruce Harrell by just over 1,300 votes, according to results released Tuesday by King County Elections. The incumbent led by more than 10,000 votes the day after the election but mail-in ballots counted after Nov. 4 favored the challenger. Harrell has not conceded but it was unlikely he can make up the difference with the ballots left to count, Democratic strategists said. “Kate Wilson won 61.23% of the 6,121 ballots counted today. Huge percentage and her total is close to not requiring a recount,” Crystal Fincher, a Seattle-based political consultant, said by text after the latest results. “I’m comfortable calling this race for Wilson now.”

Wilson, who like New York’s Zohran Mamdani is a self-described socialist, focused her campaign on affordability — highlighting her own struggles to afford life in Seattle. She supported a capital gains tax to raise revenue, a move opposed by Harrell, stronger protections for renters and improving public transit. Fincher said that message resonated in a city where housing has become out-of-reach for many of its citizens. “There’s a disconnect between what younger people are going through in day to day life today,” she said. “I think there’s a split in the Democratic Party about that, that we’re feeling our way through.” Wilson also pledged to do more to address homelessness, including fast-tracking shelter space, and was critical of Harrell’s support for clearing encampments from public spaces around Seattle. She called for cutting police funding in the past, but in this campaign called for changing tactics and adding more non-police response programs to supplement law enforcement.

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Lead Stories

Speaker Johnson faces an unruly House as lawmakers return for shutdown vote

After refusing to convene the U.S. House during the government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson is recalling lawmakers back into session — and facing an avalanche of pent-up legislative demands from those who have largely been sidelined from governing. Hundreds of representatives are preparing to return Wednesday to Washington after a nearly eight-week absence, carrying a torrent of ideas, proposals and frustrations over work that has stalled when the Republican speaker shuttered the House doors nearly two months ago. First will be a vote to reopen the government. But that’s just the start. With efforts to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and the swearing in of Arizona’s Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the unfinished business will pose a fresh test to Johnson’s grip on power and put a renewed focus on his leadership.

“It’s extraordinary,” said Matthew Green, a professor at the politics department at The Catholic University of America. “What Speaker Johnson and Republicans are doing, you have to go back decades to find an example where the House — either chamber — decided not to meet.” When the House gavels back into session, it will close this remarkable chapter of Johnson’s tenure when he showed himself to be a leader who is quietly, but brazenly, willing to upend institutional norms in pursuit of his broader strategy, even at the risk of diminishing the House itself. Rather than use the immense powers of the speaker’s office to forcefully steer the debate in Congress, as a coequal branch of the government on par with the executive and the courts, Johnson simply closed up shop — allowing the House to become unusually deferential, particularly to President Donald Trump. Over these past weeks, the chamber has sidestepped its basic responsibilities, from passing routine legislation to conducting oversight. The silencing of the speaker’s gavel has been both unusual and surprising in a system of government where the founders envisioned the branches would vigorously protect their institutional prerogatives.

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Federal action may end fight over intoxicating hemp products in Texas

A proposal to reopen the U.S. government that passed the Senate on Monday contains language that would outlaw the sale of consumable hemp products across the nation. The language was included in the proposal to fund the Agriculture Department and closes a so-called loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that allowed the sale of intoxicating hemp products in Texas stores. Texas passed its version of the Farm Bill in 2019 to reflect the federal law. But since then, the fight over regulating or banning consumable hemp products containing THC — the psychoactive chemical in the cannabis plant that gives its consumer a “high” — has become a highly-debated and controversial issue in Texas government.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, offered an amendment to remove the language from the Appropriations bill on the Senate floor. His proposal drew tepid support — it was tabled with only 24 votes supporting the amendment. The only other Republican to oppose the hemp language change was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. “I have long believed that the regulation of hemp and marijuana products should rest with each individual state,” Cruz wrote on his X account. “Reasonable minds can disagree, and a blanket federal prohibition disempowers the voters in each of the fifty States.” He added that he believes a “one-size-fits-all” standard will create “unintended consequences.” The move by the U.S. Senate reflects what the Texas Senate did three times this year, passing a bill to ban intoxicating hemp products in the state. The policy was a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who strongly opposed the rising prevalence of intoxicating hemp products in the state.

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Democrats push for a ‘ruthlessly pragmatic’ approach to counter Trump

The fury at eight Democratic-aligned senators who voted with Republicans to end the longest-ever government shutdown highlights the dramatic shift in the Democratic Party less than a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, as voters and lawmakers argue that the party needs to adopt more ruthless tactics to counter the president and claw its way back to power. The reaction to the two votes on Sunday and Monday, which provide a pathway for the government to reopen after more than 40 days, was fierce. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) called for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) to be replaced, suggesting he was an ineffective leader even though Schumer opposed the government funding measure. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) blasted the eight senators and said House Democrats would not support a government funding bill that did not include the health care measures the party has demanded. Democratic advocacy groups, politically vulnerable lawmakers, potential 2028 presidential candidates and voters all followed suit, lambasting those in their party they saw as caving.

The desire for Democrats to hold firm despite the pain inflicted by the shutdown — even though the party’s prior posture was that shutdowns are self-destructive — was the latest sign that the party has decided it must adopt an altogether different playbook given Trump’s willingness to resort to unprecedented measures to consolidate and maintain power. Rather than try to uphold norms as the president shatters them, they have decided to fight Trump with tactics they previously disdained — and have excoriated those who have stood in the way, whether on redistricting or candidates with problematic pasts. “Early on, there were not enough members of Congress who recognized the magnitude of the threat Donald Trump poses to our democracy and Constitution,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), who opposed the government funding deal. “That has changed.” Van Hollen said there were a few senators in what he dubbed the “no business as usual caucus” at the beginning of Trump’s term, but it has since grown dramatically in response to energy from the party’s base. “The lesson is there is power in unity and in members of Congress working in partnership with the grassroots community,” he said. “This is why so many people are feeling let down at this moment, because that unity was important.”

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In Texas, these booming housing developments come with hidden costs: 'It's an illusion'

When Sandra Wilson sold her townhouse near downtown Dallas and moved to Josephine, a small city 40 miles outside the metroplex, she looked forward to quieter streets and cheaper taxes. Then she got her first property tax bill. “I came unglued,” she said. Wilson, who is 71 and retired, was aware when she bought her new home that it was in a municipal utility district, or MUD, and that she would have to pay a special tax. But what she didn’t know was how much that tax would be — more than $2,400 annually, double what she paid to the county — nor that she would be charged it essentially indefinitely. Lawmakers and developers have sold municipal utility districts as a way to provide affordable homeownership quickly and efficiently as the state’s population booms.

But homeowners who buy in MUDs, lured by affordable sales prices, often are saddled with high property tax bills, with double or triple the tax rates charged by neighboring cities, in addition to monthly fees for basic services like trash pickup or police protection. And the surrounding cities and counties are often on the hook to maintain infrastructure and provide services, without fully recouping the costs. “The developers and their lobbyists have become huge advocates for MUDs and they’ve really convinced the state that this is a great solution to affordable housing,” said Lisa Palomba, the city administrator in Josephine, which has struggled to keep up with the growth of MUDs outside city limits. “We know that in the long run, it is not affordable. Not for the residents, not for the city.” The state’s MUDs have historically been clustered in the Houston region — in Harris County, one in four homeowners lives in one. But over the last decade, the districts have proliferated throughout fast-growing counties in Central and North Texas. Today, there are more than 1,440 MUDs statewide, up from 960 in 2018, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In Rockwall County, just south of Josephine, county judge Frank New said developers are “dropping cities out of the sky … with no services.”

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State Stories

Wall Street Journal Editorial: The education of the Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts

Heritage Foundation leader Kevin Roberts now knows it was unwise to publish a video bear-hugging Tucker Carlson and assailing critics of the podcast host’s chummy interview with Hitler fanboy Nick Fuentes. On Wednesday he finally told his think-tank staff he wants to take responsibility, but the saga underscores the risks to the right from playing footsie with antisemites. Mr. Roberts’s first move was to dump his chief of staff who wrote the statement he read into the camera. Then he blamed the audience: “Not as many people as I thought were ready for a little bit of nuance,” he said in his first response to criticism. When that didn’t work, Mr. Roberts changed tack. “Sometimes you can make a mistake with the best of intentions,” he said Monday. “My mistake was not saying we aren’t going to participate in cancel culture—we’re not. My mistake was letting that . . . override the central motivation that I had,” which was “fighting against antisemitism in all its forms.”

Nice words but striking given that Mr. Roberts’s video had joined Mr. Carlson in the Jew-baiting. The video’s major theme was that critics of Mr. Carlson—for promoting rather than challenging a proud antisemite—were trying to suppress Christian criticism of Israel and impose loyalty to a foreign government, betraying America. Heritage’s Victoria Coates ignored this in her letter to us last week detailing her institution’s good work, which Mr. Roberts undermined. The antisemitism task force she co-chairs has now severed ties with Heritage. In a private staff meeting Wednesday, Mr. Roberts recognized he had erred with his no-enemies-to-the-right talk. “There is a limiting principle,” he said at last, adding that there was no need to defend a “softball interview” with a Hitler admirer. Why was that so hard? “I made a mistake, and I let you down and I let down this institution,” Mr. Roberts said. In explanation, he said he didn’t know much about Mr. Fuentes, who had been central to his remarks; didn’t write the video script; didn’t question it because he believed it had been vetted by others; and doesn’t “consume a lot of news” in general. It’s as if he were trying to reassure his staff that he doesn’t pay attention to what he says. “I made the mess; let me clean it up,” Mr. Roberts told staff. But when senior fellow Robert Rector asked about Mr. Carlson, Mr. Roberts replied instead only about Mr. Fuentes. Senior fellow Amy Swearer spoke up to observe that Mr. Roberts has shown a “stunning lack of both courage and judgment.”

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Anthony J. Hinojosa: The ICE raids we are witnessing violate what the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce stands for

(Anthony J. Hinojosa is vice president of government and international affairs for the United State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.) It's no secret that we're living in some of the craziest times in the history of our country. In particular, the Hispanic community seems to be facing a barrage on many fronts that are attempting to weaken our communities and ultimately, our businesses. The USHCC champions the growth and success of America's small businesses, with our mission focusing on the more than five million Hispanic-owned businesses that contribute over $800 billion to the US economy each year. We advocate for a network of more than 260 local Hispanic Chambers and business associations, and proudly partner with over 100 major US corporations to empower and support small businesses nationwide. The Hispanic business community is not only the fastest growing segment of the US economy, it is the driving force of innovation, resilience and entrepreneurship.

Today, Hispanic owned businesses contribute over $800 billion to the economy, employ millions and create opportunities across every sector. We can boast a gross domestic product of over $4 trillion. Effectively, we are the fifth largest economy in the world, surpassing countries such as India, the United Kingdom and France. Latina entrepreneurs are the major driving force behind this, creating businesses at six times the national average. But to unleash our full potential, we need a policy environment that reflects both our challenges and our strengths. This is why the USHCC is committed to championing policy priorities that build our ecosystem to accelerate Hispanic business growth and prosperity. Our first policy priority is immigration. Immigration is not just a social issue, it's an economic engine, from entrepreneurs who launch businesses to essential workers who fuel our industries, immigrants strengthen America. We call for comprehensive immigration reform that balances border security with economic opportunity. This would include a pathway for legalization for Dreamers and DACA recipients, policies that recognize immigration as a tool to strengthen our workforce, grow our GDP and maintain America's competitive edge, strengthen our visa policies and a modernize guest worker program to meet the demands of our workforce.

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Ken Paxton sues to shut down Texas Latino voter registration group ahead of 2026 election

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing to shutter a Texas voter registration nonprofit ahead of the 2026 midterm election, alleging that members of the Latino advocacy group attempted to sign up noncitizens. “Any organization attempting to register illegals, who are all criminals, must be completely crushed and shut down immediately,” Paxton, a third-term Republican running for U.S. Senate, said in a statement Monday. “I will make sure they face the full force of the law.” The lawsuit, filed in state court last month and announced Monday, came after Paxton abandoned an earlier attempt to investigate Jolt over the same allegations in federal court.

The group’s leaders say his latest legal action amounts to retaliation, and on Tuesday, they filed a federal countersuit to stop it. The Houston-based organization, founded in 2016, works to increase civic participation among young Latinos through voter registration, education and leadership training. “Let the record show that the Texas Attorney General is using the power of his office to silence Latino voters,” said Jackie Bastard?, executive director of Jolt Initiative, in a statement. “After we challenged his first unconstitutional attempt to intimidate us, he escalated his attack by moving straight to the corporate ‘death penalty’, seeking to revoke our ability to exist.” Paxton’s claims stem from an August 2024 post on X by Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who said that a friend of a friend’s wife had seen organizations registering immigrants to vote outside state driver’s license facilities in Fort Worth and Weatherford. She did not say how she knew they were immigrants or provide any other evidence to back up the claims.

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Ken Paxton sues Harris County over its immigrant legal defense fund

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Monday against Harris County after its commissioners recently drew backlash for renewing funding for a 5-year-old immigration legal defense program. Last month, Harris County commissioners approved allocating more than $1 million for legal defense services as part of the county’s Immigrant Legal Services Fund — a years-long program that aims to improve due process in the federal immigration system. The program provides funding for legal representation to immigrants in the Houston area who are in detention or facing the threat of deportation, according to county documents. The attorney general’s lawsuit names as defendants county officials, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and each of the four elected commissioners — including Tom Ramsey, the lone Republican and a dissenting vote on the legal defense funding.

The 17-page lawsuit claims that Harris County’s allocation of public funds to nonprofit organizations, including BakerRipley and the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, violates the Texas Constitution’s gift clause. “These expenditures are gratuitous because they confer direct financial and professional benefits on private entities and individuals without providing reciprocal public benefit or consideration to Harris County,” Paxton wrote. The attorney general’s office filed the lawsuit as Paxton is running for a higher office. He is challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the 2026 Republican primary. The lawsuit asserts that the decision to fund deportation defense services was motivated by policy opposition to federal immigration raids “rather than by any legitimate public purpose.” Acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, a Democrat who is running to represent Texas’ 18th Congressional District, called the defense fund “perfectly legal” in a statement Tuesday. He also said the lawsuit is a “cheap political stunt.” “Harris County has funded this program for years because it's the right thing to do,” Menefee also said. “We're helping people who live in our communities and who contribute every day to our local economy. That's what good government looks like.”

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U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt takes Senate Republican primary pitch to Ken Paxton’s home turf

U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt says he jumped into the U.S. Senate Republican primary last month after Attorney General Ken Paxton’s polling numbers were eroded by relentless attacks from incumbent John Cornyn and his allies. The numbers revealed an opening for him, Hunt said, making the case he’s the best Republican to defeat Cornyn in the primary and keep the seat in GOP hands next November while staying true to President Donald Trump’s agenda. The Houston-area congressman took his pitch to Paxton’s back yard Monday night as the keynote speaker at a Denton County Conservative Coalition event where he hailed Trump for reversing Joe Biden’s policies but said there’s more work to be done.

“We must continue this America first agenda. We must continue to move the football and progress it as far as possible,” Hunt said in his speech. “Because not only do we have to make up for the ills and the struggles that we saw for the past four years, we’ve got to make sure that we codify what we have now for our future.” Audience members gave Hunt a standing ovation and several said afterward they were impressed with his presentation – while adding they remain Paxton supporters or are still waiting to make up their minds in the race. Hunt’s entry has complicated Cornyn’s bid for a fifth six-year term. Hunt and Paxton have largely avoided criticizing one another, using every opportunity to instead bash Cornyn as a Republican in name only. Cornyn has embraced Trump in his campaign messaging, highlighting the many times he has backed the president on issues such as border security and saying he has a proven track record of delivering results for the state. He has hammered Paxton over legal woes and personal baggage while dismissing Hunt as an unserious, attention-seeking novice.

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Texas parks now have a new plan to manage invasive feral hogs

Feral hogs are causing serious problems in Texas national parks, damaging ecosystems, cultural sites and visitor experiences while proving difficult to control due to their high reproductive rates. They are present in parks across the state, including Big Thicket National Preserve, Big Bend National Park and Padre Island National Seashore. To address the issue, researchers at Texas A&M University have developed the first nationwide framework to help the National Park Service (NPS) manage feral hog populations. Led by the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the framework provides park managers with science-backed tools for monitoring, management and control. It can be tailored to each park's conditions, including environmental limits, legal requirements, visitor use and stakeholder priorities.

Anna Racey, a doctoral student and project lead, said the framework offers a cohesive set of guidelines to help structure conservation programs while balancing ecological outcomes and resource constraints. "A unified framework for feral hog management plans would make control more attainable for all park managers—even those who have not encountered wild pigs, but could face invasion in the future," Racey said. Racey developed the guide after surveying more than 400 national parks, conducting in-depth interviews with select park staff and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data. The resulting structured decision-making tool helps managers select strategies suited to their park's conditions. Feral hogs were first introduced to North America by European explorers and now inhabit at least 35 states, with Texas hosting the largest population. They have been documented in all but four of Texas' 254 counties, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department estimates roughly 2.6 million hogs statewide. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, feral swine are among the country's most destructive invasive species, causing more than $1 billion in annual damages.

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La Marque pushing property tax hike due to major budget shortfall

The Galveston County city of La Marque is facing major budget issues. The city previously had just two weeks’ worth of funds and is now trying to jack up property taxes to fill the gap—despite questions about the legality of the hike. So how did the financial situation get so bad? Galveston County Commissioner Robin Armstrong thinks the answer is simple. “Oftentimes, it is a result of management at the local level—and a result of overspending at the local level,” he said.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has weighed in, warning that the property tax hike could violate recently passed and signed state law. Armstrong believes this could spark a legal battle. “La Marque is going to have to ultimately follow the law,” he said. “I suspect the AG is gonna win, and they’re not gonna be allowed to just indiscriminately raise taxes like this.” The state legislature passed a law during the 89th session that requires any city raising property taxes to be in compliance with financial audit reporting requirements. Because La Marque was late in sending its audits to the state, it is not in compliance.

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Bexar continues sending inmates, dollars outside of the county

Bexar County continues to send inmates to jails in nearby counties — a practice Sheriff Javier Salazar says will remain necessary to meet state jail standards. County Commissioner Grant Moody calls it “an additional cost on top of the costs of running the jail,” as it moves more than $4 million in taxpayer dollars out of the county each year. In July 2024, Bexar County began transferring inmates to other county jails to ease pressure on a facility that, the month prior, was just 51 inmates shy of capacity. At the time, Salazar said the practice would become “the new normal” as his office and county commissioners worked to finalize contracts with Burnet and Kerr counties. County data shows that as of Sept. 26, 252 Bexar County inmates were housed outside the jail — 182 in Burnet County and 70 in Kerr County. All were what’s known as “paper-ready” or inmates who have completed the court process and are awaiting pick up by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to serve out their sentences.

State law provides a maximum of a 45-day window for pickup and transport to TDCJ facilities from counties after an inmate becomes paper-ready. Until they’re transferred, those inmates remain the county’s financial and logistical responsibility. “They get basically 45 days of free rent from Bexar County. It’s more cost effective for them to wait as long as they can within that 45 days,” Salazar said. “Knowing that we’re going to have to incur the cost, we do what we have to do as far as jail standards, and we have to house them out of county at that point.” That pickup process currently takes an average of 29 days for Bexar County — just one day under the statewide average, according to TDCJ data. At the county’s daily housing cost of $87.17, a 29-day stay comes to roughly $2,527 per inmate. Sending an inmate to Kerr or Burnet counties at rates of $65 and $80 per day, respectively, reduces that cost to between $1,885 and $2,320. Those day rates include fixed expenses such as staffing costs, facility maintenance and upkeep as well as food and medical care for the inmates.

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Land Commissioner says Alamo plans remain the same

Weeks after the Alamo Trust’s top leader was ousted for writings deemed “incompatible” with state leaders’ vision, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham told reporters she doesn’t foresee revisiting the way the landmark is represented in its ongoing redevelopment. “This museum has always had the plan to discuss the battle in the context of time, from the early Native Americans, all the way through how it affects pop culture today,” Buckingham said Tuesday. “Those plans have not changed.” Like most other statewide officials, Buckingham, a former Republican state senator from Austin, is up for reelection in 2026.

On Tuesday she attended a Veterans Day event at the Alamo, joking in her remarks that her office is “the agency that rolls up our sleeves, touches your lives in a positive way, and for the most part, you had no idea we existed.” For some San Antonians, that changed last month when Buckingham responded to an Alamo Trust social media post recognizing Indigenous People’s Day, declaring it “woke,” and vowing to hold those responsible accountable. Within days, pages from Alamo Trust Inc. President and CEO Kate Rogers’ doctoral dissertation were circulating among state leaders, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was calling for Rogers’ resignation, saying her views were out of line with a historic site he’s long insisted must be focused on the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. Local officials panned those complaints, with Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones calling for state leaders to have the “courage to tell the varied experiences of those at the Alamo,” and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai suggesting Texas GOP leaders’ politicization of history had gone so far, it could next include denying the existence of Japanese internment camps.

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Lakewood Church responds to TikTok plea for baby formula: ‘No problem with the fake baby lady’

A TikTok user with hundreds of thousands of followers recently called Lakewood Church and asked if it could help a 2-month-old in need of baby formula as a child cried in the background. The cries were from a recording, and the baby wasn't real. But the video was part of a viral series in which the TikTok user, who goes by the name Nikalie Monroe, calls places of worship across the U.S. to test whether they would be willing to help a parent in crisis. In the video, the phone operator for Lakewood said the church offers a benevolence ministry and could take a request for Monroe, and that it could take a couple of days or weeks to provide aid, if approved. Monroe ended the call soon after that, unimpressed by Lakewood's response. “I don't know anymore about these churches,” Monroe said in the video after the call ended. “I already knew, don't get me wrong, but it's like, when it's in your face and you're seeing it and hearing it, it's like, this is reality right now.”

A spokesperson for Lakewood said it supports 21 crisis pregnancy centers across Greater Houston and 16 food pantries that carry infant formula, while the church does not. The spokesperson said that the phone operator “made an error” by not sharing that information with Monroe. “We have no problem with the fake baby lady conducting her telephone experiment,” said Lakewood spokesperson Donald Iloff. “She has every right to do so.” Monroe did not respond to requests for comment by Tuesday evening. Many responses to Monroe’s video about Lakewood expressed disappointment with the church, with some users mentioning its Hurricane Harvey response. In 2017, Lakewood had posted online that its facility was inaccessible due to severe flooding, sparking a public backlash. The church announced it was formally opening to those in need two days later. Monroe has called dozens of churches, a mosque and a pregnancy center in what she is calling a “social experiment.” In a TikTok video explaining her efforts, she said she wanted to understand if churches were using donations to help their communities and people in need. She didn’t think many churches would rise to the occasion.

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Nico Harrison wanted to be a hero. Instead, he burned down the Mavs and tanked his career.

It’s important to remember, as the Mavericks spend the next decade digging out of the wreckage that Nico Harrison wrought, that none of this had to happen. Harrison did not need to snuff out the team’s bright future by exiling the best basketball player ever to wear its uniform, and he damn sure did not need to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Harrison did not need to do this for a return that other people in his profession made fun of long before the post-Doncic Mavs underperformed even the lowest expectations. For that matter, the Mavericks did not need to accost their fanbase for daring to feel betrayed by Harrison’s actions, and they did not need to skirt accountability like a cat conducting a jewel heist. Above all, the Mavericks did not need to spend the last nine months hemorrhaging wins, attendance, dollars, and, most of all, credibility—the collateral damage of one guy getting really mad at work.

Try as he might, Nico Harrison never stood for the Dallas Mavericks. As of yesterday morning, he is out of a job. He’ll likely never again work in the NBA, which is as it should be. You may be able to come back from waging internal political warfare, firing a beloved senior staff member by Zoom as he tended to his dying mother, perhaps even making the greatest, most loyal athlete in Dallas history wary of the Mavericks’ whole deal. But you cannot do all of those things and trade a civic treasure and express zero remorse for it. For that, you get shitcanned, and you stay shitcanned. Now that Harrison is gone, it’s impossible not to watch this video of him at last night’s game and wonder if he knew what was coming. He, like everyone else, spent the last nine months watching “Fire Nico” reach Green Eggs & Ham status: applicable in any situation, for any reason, under any circumstance. Because we heard it at Mavs games and at their own draft party, but also at college games near and far from the American Airlines Center. For that matter, we heard “Fire Nico” at baseball games, hockey games, and soccer games. Near the Rio Grande and in the heart of the Midwest. On parade routes, at film premieres, in Medieval Times, before pro wrestling shows. And it’s been spotted on at least one vanity license plate. “Fire Nico” transcended basketball long before this new, terribly depressing Mavs season began. It became Dallas culture.

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Environmental activists battle nurdles on Galveston shores, calling for regulation

On Nov. 7, Laura Leavitt knelt on the Galveston shore beside her best friend, picking tiny bits of plastic out of the sand. The two friends were among around 20 other volunteers working piece by piece to help rid the beach of nurdles — small plastic pellets used to create plastic products such as soda bottles or cottage cheese containers. "What we don’t take care of circles back to us, and I think just from picking up a piece of trash in your neighborhood, you’re contributing," Leavitt said. The group of volunteers was part of Environment Texas and the Turtle Island Restoration Network's Galveston cleanup. Along with continued nurdle beach cleanups, the groups also recently asked state leaders for more nurdle regulation since they said the pellets can be a threat to wildlife and people.

"We’re not asking for plastic production to be stopped. We’re asking for regulations to be in place to keep it safe for our environment," Joanie Steinhaus, who is the ocean program director for the Turtle Island Restoration Network, said. There are 36 facilities in Texas that produce nurdles, with three facilities along Galveston Bay, according to Turtle Island. Steinhaus said companies transport the microplastics to other facilities by truck or train in order to make the plastic products. Steinhaus said since nurdles are lightweight, when they spill during manufacturing or transport, they escape into the environment and eventually work their way onto Texas beaches. On Nov. 7, volunteers collected 1,216 nurdles. Since 2020, Steinhaus said Turtle Island has collected over 16,000 nurdles on Galveston beaches, which she said is a concern for wildlife and humans since nurdles attach to toxins in the water.

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Families, officials urge Texans to help end 25-year streak of daily traffic deaths

Every day for the past 25 years, at least one person has died in crashes on Texas roads. Texas officials and the families of some fatal crash victims commemorated the grim anniversary with a candlelight ceremony at the Texas Capitol on Nov. 7. Over 91,000 people have died in Texas traffic crashes since Nov. 7, 2000, Texas Department of Transportation records show. Officials emphasized Nov. 7 that the majority of fatal crashes can be prevented if drivers follow speed limits, avoid distractions, wear seatbelts and do not get behind the wheel when under the influence of alcohol or drugs. “Those are real lives,” Rep. Caroline Harris Davila, R-Round Rock, told reporters Nov. 7. “Those are kids who won't see graduation, those are parents who won't come home. ... Life is sacred, and it's worth more than a text or a phone call or getting somewhere faster.”

Jamie White said her 2-year-old daughter, Allie, was hit and killed by a distracted driver at Round Rock’s Old Settlers Park in September 2019. “It only takes [a few] seconds... to kill somebody,” White said Nov. 7. “Can you imagine doing this, taking somebody's child from them, and living the rest of your life knowing that you caused that?” Following Allie’s death, her parents launched Allie’s Way, a nonprofit aimed at ending distracted driving. “You can't multitask—we think we're capable of it, but when you're driving a vehicle, you have to look forward, you have to look to the side,” White said. “You have to look in your rearview mirror to make sure nobody else hits you. At the same time, you're trying to figure out where you're supposed to go, and you're also supposed to be responding to somebody by text message or by phone conversation. It is not possible.” Texas law prohibits using a portable device to read, write or send texts while driving. Violators face fines of $25-$99, with up to $200 in fines for repeat offenders.

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National Stories

Republicans demand tougher abortion restrictions to extend Obamacare funds

Senate Republicans say they’re open to extending a pot of Affordable Care Act funds that will expire at the end of the year — but only if Democrats acquiesce to stricter abortion restrictions on insurance plans. The demand presents a significant hurdle to reaching a bipartisan deal to extend ACA funding designed to avoid major premium hikes next year for more than 20 million Americans, as Democrats are adamant that existing abortion guardrails under Obamacare are sufficient. If the funds are not extended by the end of the year, some people insured under Obamacare could see their bills rise by thousands of dollars per month, raising concerns that millions will choose to go uninsured. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said there will be a negotiation about an extension after the government reopens. He said one condition will be stricter rules pertaining to the Hyde amendment, which bars federal funding from being used for abortion.

To satisfy Democratic demands to comply with the Hyde amendment when Obamacare passed in 2010, the law does not allow federal funds to cover abortions. Some states allow people insured under Obamacare to access abortion coverage using state or other funding. Republicans want to change that. “That’s what we’re going to negotiate,” Thune told reporters before the Senate passed the bill to end the government shutdown. “A one-year extension along the lines of what [Democrats] are suggesting, and without Hyde protections — there’s just not even, doesn’t even get close.” Thune’s demand for more stringent abortion limits on Obamacare money is backed by colleagues, including Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., an outspoken proponent of extending the ACA funds, as well as Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. Rounds warned that “you won’t get any” Republican votes to extend the money without more stringent abortion limitations.

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Democrats lose shutdown battle — as Trump, Republicans risk losing war

The votes by a handful of Democratic senators this week to end a government shutdown without key concessions from Republicans have left the party bruised and divided, struggling to explain to a furious base why they folded without securing the health care subsidies they called essential. For many this was a head-scratching defeat, just days after election triumphs showed voters were on their side. But the closing chapter to the more than 40-day standoff, and the underlying fight over extending tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, could prove perilous for Republicans in the long term. President Donald Trump’s own pollsters and allies have warned that not extending the health care subsidies would amount to a major political risk in the midterms, and the public has shown it will blame a shutdown on the party in power — making any future breakdowns risky for Republicans.

The result: The longest government shutdown in U.S. history has no clear ultimate political victor as the House prepares to vote Wednesday on the deal to reopen. Polling shows the public disapproves of both parties’ approach. Democrats are bearing the brunt of the political losses in the immediate term, while Republicans are bracing for longer-term consequences. Trump took a victory lap on Fox News, saying Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) “thought he could break the Republicans, and the Republicans broke him.” Democrats, he boasted, are “not getting much.” Schumer said Republicans now “own” the health care fallout. “They knew it was coming,” said Schumer, who opposed the deal but is facing intense criticism from his base for the outcome. “We wanted to fix it. Republicans said no, and now it’s on them.” Most polls have found more Americans blaming Trump and Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats, though that margin decreased over time. A Washington Post poll on the first day of the shutdown found 47 percent of the public blaming Trump and Republicans in Congress more for the shutdown, while 30 percent blamed Democrats; by late October, the margin was 45 percent to 33 percent.

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‘Cloudy weather’: Hassett says some economic data was never collected during shutdown

Some essential U.S. economic data used to calculate job growth, GDP, inflation and other critical information used by policymakers may never be released because of the extended government shutdown, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Tuesday. “I’ve been told that some of the surveys were never actually completed, so we’ll perhaps never even know what happened in that month,” Hassett said in an interview on CNBC. “So we’re gonna be kind of staring a little bit in cloudy weather for a while until we get the data agencies back up.” The lack of information will leave politicians, Wall Street and the public not fully informed on the state of the U.S. economy and labor market since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. The data is highly sought after, as analysts look for bottom-line information in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s widespread tariff policies and the deportations of undocumented immigrants across the country.

Some estimates from private firms show pessimism, but it’s hard to know for sure without the more comprehensive government data. Groups, such as Goldman Sachs, estimate a loss of about 50,000 jobs in October. It’s unclear which data Hassett was referring to specifically. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in October that the consumer price index — the main indicator of U.S. inflation levels — would not be released. The government shutdown started three days before the Bureau was set to release the September jobs report, which is expected to be released once the government reopens. “I think some of the stuff is lost forever, and some of it isn’t,” Hassett said. Hassett said on Fox Business over the weekend that the shutdown’s impact on the economy was much worse than originally expected due to its extreme length. “I think we were thinking we’re going to have at least 3% growth in the fourth quarter, now we’re expecting something like half that,” Hassett said. The Bureau underwent significant changes in recent months, with Trump firing former commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a disappointing jobs report, claiming without evidence that the numbers were “rigged.” Trump then nominated E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, before he dropped out. William J. Wiatrowski, a longtime agency employee who was promoted to deputy BLS commissioner in 2015, has been the acting commissioner since McEntarfer’s firing.

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Supreme Court extends temporary pause on $4 billion in SNAP payments for November

With a potential end to the government shutdown in sight, the Supreme Court on Tuesday extended a freeze on a federal judge’s ruling that would require the Trump administration to fully fund the SNAP food program in November. The decision means the government, for now, does not have to distribute about $4 billion in additional SNAP funding as required by Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John McConnell. The Supreme Court block remains in place until midnight on Thursday. The case would likely become moot if the shutdown ends, as the bipartisan bill to reopen the government would fully fund the SNAP program through September of next year. The House is expected to vote Wednesday on the Senate-passed measure to end the record-long shutdown.

Nearly 42 million people rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps. "The only way to end this crisis — which the Executive is adamant to end — is for Congress to reopen the government," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the Trump administration's latest court filing. The brief court order noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the government's request. The court had temporarily put McConnell’s ruling on hold Friday while it waited for the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to act. That court on Monday morning declined to intervene. The Trump administration has argued that, because of the shutdown, it could only spend $5 billion out of a contingency fund to partially pay for November SNAP benefits. The program usually costs about $9 billion a month. The government objected to McConnell’s order that required the other roughly $4 billion to be paid from a separate pot of money that funds child nutrition programs, called Section 32. The practical impact of the Supreme Court decision Tuesday means that until the government shutdown ends, the SNAP program will be about 65% funded. The Trump administration's failure to fund SNAP was challenged by a coalition including cities, churches and nonprofits that provide food assistance.

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The Epstein files fight is finally coming to the House floor

The Epstein files fight is finally coming to the House floor Long-delayed swearing-in of Arizona Democrat will set the stage for a vote President Trump has sought to avoid. Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) speaks with reporters after a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on the 15th day of a government shutdown, Oct. 15, 2025. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images) Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will kick the process into motion Wednesday when she signs a House discharge petition following her swearing-in. | Francis Chung/POLITICO By Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Nicholas Wu 11/12/2025 04:45 AM EST The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid. The cascade of action is set to begin Wednesday evening, when Johnson will swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva right before the House votes to end the government shutdown, ending a 50-day wait following the Arizona Democrat’s election. Shortly afterward, Grijalva says she will affix the 218th and final signature to the discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a vote on the full release of DOJ’s Epstein files.

That in itself will be the culmination of months of drama that blew up into a full crisis for Johnson this summer, with a GOP mutiny grinding the floor to a halt and forcing leaders to send the House home early for August recess. The uproar over a possible Epstein cover-up faded but never disappeared entirely. The completion of the discharge petition, a rarely used mechanism to sidestep the majority party leadership, will trigger a countdown for the bill to hit the House floor. It will still take seven legislative days for the petition to ripen, after which Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. Senior Republican and Democratic aides estimate a floor vote will come the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess. The discharge petition tees up a “rule,” a procedural measure setting the terms of debate for the Epstein bill’s consideration on the House floor. This gives the effort’s leaders greater control over the bill, which will still require Senate approval if it passes the House.

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More than 850 flights canceled in US early Wednesday, tracker says

At least 878 flights were canceled in the United States early on Wednesday, with the departures from the busy hubs of Chicago, Denver and Atlanta leading the list of the most cancellations, according to a flight-data tracker. Another 404 flights had been delayed as of about 5 a.m. ET, according to FlightAware. Chicago O’Hare International topped the tracker’s list of cancellations, with 44 as of about 4 a.m. local time. Next was Denver with 43 and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson with 37. Wednesday’s flight cancellations appeared set to continue a dayslong streak of chaos at American airports, which were operating under duress amid a federal government shutdown. The Federal Aviation Administration continues to limit capacity at 40 major U.S. airports. Many federal employees, including Transportation Security Administration staffers, were working without pay as the partisan impasse dragged on in Washington.

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New Yorkers fill gun classes as concealed carry applications surge

In New York City, once proudly unwelcoming to guns, residents are arming up. Since June 2022, when a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision forced state lawmakers to relax longstanding restrictions, tens of thousands of New Yorkers have sought permits to carry concealed weapons outside the home. The number of permit applications submitted per month has risen nearly tenfold in the past three years, according to an analysis of New York Police Department data by THE CITY and The Trace. This boom could portend a city where legally carrying a firearm becomes, as in most other parts of the country, commonplace.

New York state requires every would-be gun carrier to go through a “safety training course” involving 16 hours of instruction, a written proficiency exam, and a live-fire assessment. That’s more training hours than any state but Maryland and Illinois requires, according to legal experts. But New York hasn’t standardized the classes beyond outlining a handful of topics to touch on. As a result, a growing group of gun aficionados have stepped in to develop and run them. A person who passes a pair of National Rifle Association training courses can become a “duly authorized instructor.” Few instructors are busier than Lance Dashefsky. The 57-year-old has more reviews on the U.S. Concealed Carry Association’s website than anyone else in the New York City area, earning a five-star rating. Most weekends, he is helping residents get locked and loaded. On a drizzly Sunday morning in October, he laid out bagels and lox in an empty youth center in East Harlem to which a friend had lent him access. Eleven students were signed up for the training, which would be divided over two weekends, and they showcased the breadth of interest. An accountant from Jamaica, Queens, had heard about the class through a co-worker. A teacher from Brooklyn learned about it from her husband, who had taken it first. A rangy equity trader from the West Village was referred by his landlord. “I don’t advertise anymore,” Dashefsky said. “It’s self-advertising.”

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Lead Stories

Even as Senate passes measure to end shutdown, hemp fight may prevent reopening

Though Congress appears to have a deal to end the government shutdown, a vote on that agreement is being held up by an unexpected issue: hemp. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is objecting to speedy consideration of the bill that would end the longest shutdown in U.S. history over a hemp provision tucked into funding for the Agriculture Department, three people familiar with conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly told NBC News. The provision would close the so-called hemp loophole created by the 2018 Farm Bill that has allowed unregulated THC products to be sold around the country, irrespective of state cannabis laws. Paul has long pushed to keep the loophole and told GOP leadership and hemp industry insiders that he wouldn’t give his consent to speed up passage of the government funding legislation unless the loophole is preserved, according to two of those people.

A spokesperson for Paul, who has voted against federal funding bills for a majority of his 15-year career in the Senate, told NBC News: “Dr. Rand Paul affirms his commitment to reopening the government without delay. However, he objects to the inclusion of provisions in the government-funding package that unfairly target Kentucky’s hemp industry—language that is unrelated to the budget and the government-reopening goal." "Dr. Paul will work to ensure that the final bill excludes this unrelated language to defend the livelihoods of Kentucky farmers, hemp processors, and manufacturing jobs," the spokesperson continued. Paul's opposition to the hemp provision is not enough to prevent Congress from passing legislation to reopen the government. But he can slow it down for several days, forcing the Senate to run through procedural hurdles before approving the bill. The agreement to end the shutdown announced Sunday represents a collaboration between a group of Democratic senators and Republicans. It is expected to pass the Senate and the House before heading to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature to reopen the government.

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USDA official who roiled Capitol Hill with his erotica now one of Rollins’ closest advisers

The USDA staffer whose smutty novella sparked controversy in September — and inside President Donald Trump’s White House, where top aides considered his termination — remains at the department. In fact, he’s been promoted — despite the swift blowback his foray into penmanship sparked just months ago. After the dust settled, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins quietly made Tucker Stewart a trusted legal adviser, moving him out of his position as deputy assistant secretary of agriculture in the department’s congressional affairs unit, according to five people. Those people, who include an agriculture lobbyist, two Capitol Hill aides and others with knowledge of the matter, were all granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive personnel matters.

A spokesperson for the USDA verified that Stewart has left the agency’s congressional affairs unit and “is now working on USDA’s lawfare portfolio.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Stewart did not respond to a request for comment sent via LinkedIn. His reassignment has also left a void in USDA’s office of congressional relations during a chaotic time for farmers and participants in USDA’s nutrition programs, all of which have been affected by the shutdown. (Former Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) is still awaiting Senate confirmation for the post of assistant secretary for congressional affairs.) Rollins, one of the people said, told colleagues she “felt bad” for the humiliation Stewart endured when POLITICO broke the story of his 28-page novel, written when he was a congressional aide, followed by a monologue by “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert. The new position, a second person said, places the young Kansan in Rollins’ inner circle and in a position to advise the secretary on some of the most sensitive initiatives at the department.

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Camp Mystic sued by families of 7 who died in July 4 flood

Camp Mystic and the family that runs the Christian girls summer camp have been accused of putting “profit over safety” by the families of seven campers and two counselors who died in the July 4 Central Texas flood that killed 27 people. Three separate lawsuits were filed Monday in Travis County district court. In a 32-page lawsuit filed Monday afternoon, a set of families representing seven who died in the flood brought claims brought claims of negligence, premises liability, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful death. The families are seeking more than $1 million in damages and have demanded a jury trial. “The Camp chose to house young girls in cabins sitting in flood-prone areas, despite the risk, to avoid the cost of relocating the cabins,” the lawsuit alleges.

“The Camp chose not to make plans to safely evacuate its campers and counselors from those cabins, despite state rules requiring evacuation plans, and not to spend time and money on safety training and tools. Instead, the Camp chose to assure its campers and counselors that these cabins are built on ‘high, safe locations.’ And the Camp chose to order its campers and counselors, as a matter of policy, to stay in these flood-plain cabins regardless of life-threatening floods.” The plaintiffs in that suit are Warren and Patricia Bellows, parents of Anna Margaret Bellows; Blake and Caitlin Bonner, parents of Lila Bonner; Matthew and Wendie Childress, parents of Chloe Childress; Ryan and Elizabeth Dewitt, parents of Molly Dewitt; John and Andrea Ferruzzo, parents of Katherine Ferruzzo; Ben and Natalie Landry, parents of Lainey Landry; and Lindsey McCrory, mother of Blakely McCrory. Separately, Timothy Peck and Melissa Peck, the parents of Eloise “Lulu” Peck, who was 8 years old when she died, filed a separate 31-page lawsuit against Camp Mystic alleging negligence that seeks more than $1 million in damages and a demand for a jury trial.

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Death of Regina Santos-Aviles ruled a suicide

The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled the death of Regina Santos-Aviles, a congressional staffer for U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales, as a suicide by self-immolation following an investigation into the September incident at her Uvalde home. Santos-Aviles, 35, served as Gonzales’ Uvalde Regional District Director. She was found critically burned in her backyard the night of Sept. 13, after emergency crews responded to reports of a disturbance around 9:30 p.m. Paramedics transported her by air to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where she died early the next morning on Sept. 14. Firefighters reported finding and extinguishing a burning gas can at the scene. According to the Uvalde Police Department, which investigated the case with assistance from the Texas Rangers, there was no indication of foul play and no evidence that anyone else was present when the fire occurred.

In an Oct. 24 letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, attorneys representing the City of Uvalde requested that investigative materials—including 911 recordings, police reports, and body-camera footage—be withheld from public release. The city argued that the records contain highly sensitive information and that their release would infringe on the privacy rights of Santos-Aviles’ family. The letter also stated that the investigation would soon be closed without any criminal charges being filed. Under Texas law, records from cases that do not result in a conviction or deferred adjudication may be exempt from disclosure. Representative Gonzales has not publicly commented on his staffer’s death. The case has drawn broad public scrutiny and renewed debate over how much information should be released in sensitive death investigations involving public officials or their employees. Both state and local agencies have cited privacy protections and ongoing investigative procedures as reasons for withholding records.

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State Stories

Chris Bell joins the race for Texas governor in 2026

Former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell on Monday announced a campaign to challenge Republican incumbent Greg Abbott for governor. “Given what we saw in the elections last Tuesday, people are ready for change,” Bell told The Dallas Morning News, saying that his record of public service and interactions with voters throughout a long career in politics give him an edge against Abbott. Abbott launched his reelection campaign Sunday in Houston. “The experience factor is going to be huge,” said Bell, who announced his campaign with an Austin news conference. Bell, 65, is running in the March 3 Democratic primary in a field that includes state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin, Houston businessman Andrew White and Quitman rancher Bobby Cole. He said he was the best choice to be the nominee against Abbott.

“It’s one thing to talk. It’s another thing to deliver,” Bell said. “I have a record that people can look to, and they don’t have to be guessing about how I handle certain issues.” “That’s going to be especially important for a Democratic governor working with what will most likely be a Republican-majority House and Senate,” Bell added. “I’ve been in those situations before, where I have had to look to work things out with people on the other side, and I really have always enjoyed doing so.” Bell, a Houston lawyer, was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2006, when he lost to Republican Rick Perry. A former Houston council member, Bell served one term in Congress (2003-2005). He was caught up in the Republican-driven 2003 redistricting effort. His 25th Congressional District was renumbered District 9 and revised to include a heavy majority of Black and Latino voters. In 2004 Democrat Al Green, a former president of the Houston NAACP, won the seat.

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State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer considers a run for Bexar County district attorney

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer is considering a run for Bexar County district attorney. The San Antonio native announced Monday he formed an exploratory committee of local attorneys to help decide whether to seek the Democratic nomination. Martinez Fischer — an attorney in private practice — currently represents House District 116, which includes a large portion of the city's northwest side. He previously served as the chair of the House Democratic Caucus from 2022-2024. The district attorney seat is up for election in November 2026. Current Bexar County DA Joe Gonzales, a Democrat, announced earlier this year he would not be seeking reelection for a third term as the county’s top lawyer.

“I am concerned about the void being left at the District Attorney’s office and the impact it will have on our community,” Martinez Fischer said in a press release. “I will seek counsel from our legal community … and consult with county leaders on how best to implement any necessary financial and structural changes to strengthen this office.” The exploratory committee will be led by three local attorneys, each of whom has been practicing law for more than 40 years. Criminal District Court Judge Ron Rangel formed a similar exploratory committee earlier this summer, but announced last month he would not run for the position.

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'We’re scared': Texas providers urge state to reconsider Medicaid cuts to medical supply services

Providers warn proposed cuts to Texas' Medicaid reimbursement rates could hurt medical supply companies and the patients that rely on them. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission is proposing significant cuts to reimbursement rates for dozens of services provided through Medicaid, like ventilators and wheelchairs. Providers said during a public hearing Monday the cuts could reduce access to services or lead to closures. Stephen Hernandez, director of operations at Angel Medical Supply in Houston, said these cuts could lead to a decrease in vital support for patients throughout Texas. “Everybody in here is scared,” Hernandez said. “And if we're scared, imagine how the patients feel.”

Hernandez was one of dozens of providers who asked HHSC to reconsider the new rate proposals for services related to feeding tubes, mobility aids and respiratory care. Angel Medical Supply serves patients within a 100-mile radius of Houston. Hernandez said these cuts could lead to companies like his limiting what services they provide and who they can provide the services to. “We can't be smarter than this,” he said. “There's no cutting costs. You can't cut your way out of this.” The proposed changes would reduce reimbursement rates for some services by more than half, with some cuts reaching up to 85%. If approved, majority of the cuts would go into effect next year. Stephen Vigorito’s son uses a feeding tube known as enteral nutrition. That service would face a cut of more than 44%. “There are no other alternatives except for him to go on a continuous feed... instead of the feeding pump, which means a decreased quality of life,” Vigorito said. “It appears that there's like this calculus, like how can we reduce [medical supply company] profit enough to where they'll still stay in business but just limp along.”

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Runoff election for Houston’s 18th Congressional District on track for late January

It's been nearly a week since Houston voters chose the top two candidates in the special election to fill out the term of the late Congressman Sylvester Turner, and Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to schedule the runoff for Texas' 18th Congressional District. On Monday, a spokesman for Abbott told Houston Public Media, “An announcement on that will be made at a later date.” Abbott is constrained as to when he can call the runoff by both federal and state election laws, according to University of Houston Law Center assistant professor David Froomkin.

"The state election code requires that the runoff be held between 70 and 77 days, or in other words, between 10 and 11 weeks after the final canvass of the election," Froomkin said. That 10-11 week window is designed to guarantee participation of serving members of the military based overseas, under the federal MOVE (Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment) Act. Harris County expects to canvass the results of the election on Thursday, Nov. 14. The Texas state election code requires that the runoff take place on a Saturday, which effectively limits the date the secretary of state can set to January 24, 2026. That will leave just three weeks between the runoff and the start of early voting for the 2026 primary elections. The runoff candidates are acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards, both Democrats.

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Abbott orders DPS investigation after financial audit at Texas Southern

Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Rangers and state comptroller to investigate Texas Southern University's finances after the state auditor allegedly uncovered mismanagement worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including asset oversight, contracting and financial reporting. "Waste, fraud, and abuse will not be tolerated," Abbott said on X. "TSU's Board of Regents and all university officials must fully cooperate with these investigations to ensure taxpayer dollars are not squandered." Abbott's announcement came Monday after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick released a copy of the state auditor's "interim update" on the audit, which has not been finalized. Patrick also said he would ask Abbott and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, to work with him to freeze the Legislature's appropriations to the university.

Abbott did not address a possible freeze in his statement, and his office did not return a request for comment. Burrows said that he would work with Abbott and Patrick to identify any potential misuse of state funds, and would exercise their authority as members of the Legislative Budget Board as needed. TSU officials said Monday that they had already remedied some issues. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to further questions, including what a freeze on state funding would mean for the school's 1,400 faculty and staff and more than 9,000 students. The university, a historically Black institution, is slated to receive almost $123 million from the state in the 2026 fiscal year, supporting a $248 million operating budget. "Texas Southern University has cooperated with the state auditor in evaluating our processes," officials said in a statement. "The University enacted corrective measures prior to the release of the interim report, including a new procurement system. We look forward to gaining clarity and continuing to work with the state auditor to ensure transparency for all taxpayers of Texas."

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Texas' transitional dialysis program led to significant decline in utilization of emergency dialysis

A new study reveals that a transitional dialysis program piloted in Travis County (Austin, TX) resulted in a significant decrease in emergency department visits and hospital admissions for emergency dialysis by providing a pathway for outpatient dialysis in uninsured patients. The findings were presented at ASN Kidney Week 2025, held November 5–9. Central Health, an organization that provides health and wellness services for uninsured patients in Travis County, piloted the transitional dialysis program in November 2022. The goal was to provide in-center/outpatient dialysis for Travis County residents who lacked insurance coverage.

When investigators reviewed data from November 2022 to December 2024 on the 101 patients who enrolled in the program, they observed that there was a significant decline in the number of days patients utilized emergency dialysis in the hospital prior to finding an outpatient facility. Additionally, within one year of starting dialysis, most patients were able to obtain permanent dialysis access with either an arteriovenous fistula or a peritoneal dialysis catheter. Once accepted into the program, Central Health provided an insurance plan to cover outpatient dialysis and transplantation. To date, 18 patients have been listed for kidney transplantation, and two have received living donor transplants.

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Proposed Muslim-centric community renamed

Collin County Judge Chris Hill says the developer of an Islamic-focused neighborhood near Josephine has changed the name of the project from EPIC City to The Meadow.Hill said Community Capital Partners (CCP) had not yet filed any paperwork with the county but was expected to seek approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to form a municipal utility district and also could soon file a plat with the county.The 402-acre development in Collin and Hunt Counties was proposed by members of the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC). It was expected to include more than 1,000 homes, a mosque, school and retail outlets.More than 60 residents spoke against the project at a March 31 meeting of the Collin County Commissioners Court.

Hill said the county’s role would include ensuring compliance with state and county regulations, particularly regarding infrastructure and utilities. “All Texas and all federal laws will be adhered to in this project, just as they are in all projects in our county,” he said.Houston lawyer Dan Cogdell, who represents CCP, said the project had been the victim of racial profiling. “These aren’t foreign adversaries,” Cogdell said. “These are Texans. These are Americans. These are United States citizens.”

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Study links all-day phone bans to modest academic gains

Nearly three months into its implementation, Texas’ new school cellphone ban has led to fewer classroom distractions and more conversation among students, North Texas district leaders say. But if the results in Texas are similar to those seen elsewhere, school leaders here can expect to see benefits beyond an improved school climate, new research suggests. “I think you can expect to see improved learning environments, probably a little bit better test scores, a little bit a little bit better attendance rates and engagement,” said David Figlio, an economics professor at the University of Rochester who recently published a study on the impact of school cellphone restrictions elsewhere.

Texas’ new statewide school cellphone ban took effect at the beginning of the school year. The law requires districts to enact policies barring students from having their phones out anytime during the school day, including at lunch and during passing periods between classes. Some districts have adopted policies requiring students to leave their phones in a locked pouch in the school office at the beginning of the school day. Others allow students to keep their phones with them, but require them to keep them in a pocket or backpack during school hours. Matt Smith, superintendent of the Arlington Independent School District, said the policy has made a noticeable difference on campuses. Teachers say they spend less time dealing with distractions, he said. And where students previously spent their lunch period buried in their phones, they now spend it talking with each other. One principal in the district recently bought a handful of games for the school cafeteria and walked in one day to find a group of students playing on a life-size checker board, Smith said.

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Ken Paxton softens tone in UNT speech weeks after launching university investigation

The Ken Paxton who took to the stage at the Lyceum Theatre at the University of North Texas on Monday sounded somehow softer than the Ken Paxton who announced last month that his office was investigating the university. The Texas attorney general launched an investigation into UNT's response to campus reactions to the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September. UNT student Mary-Catherine Hallmark posted a video on TikTok that went viral, showing a confrontation she had with another student she said celebrated the death of Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA. While the viral video didn't show any students cheering, Hallmark said the celebration happened when she wasn't recording, and that some students said "the same thing needs to happen to Donald Trump."

"You know, there's been a little controversy here," Paxton said Monday evening at UNT. "And I really am so appreciative of Mary-Catherine, her courage and the courage of other students that are willing to stand up and exercise their right to free speech." Paxton told the audience that students who allegedly celebrated Kirk's assassination were exercising their First Amendment rights, something he hasn't said in his press releases about the campus controversy. He reserved his jabs for the UNT faculty "who are very liberal." "And that's why I appreciate so much what Mary-Catherine did by speaking out against speech that was actually calling for the death of a president, or celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk," Paxton said. "That's free speech. But it's also sickening. I mean, somebody has just been killed. For those kinds of thoughts to be exercised, with no discretion and no thoughtfulness for what that does to people around you, and for ... the family members of Charlie Kirk." Paxton's office hasn't named any faculty member or administrator in the investigation.

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TAMU Regents to vote on revised race, gender classroom discussion policy

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents will vote on revisions to A&M’s Civil Rights Protection and Compliance and Academic Freedom, Responsibility and Tenure policies on Thursday, Nov. 13. The proposed changes follow the controversial firing of senior lecturer Melissa McCoul in early September, an instructor who became the center of a social media firestorm when Rep. Brian Harrison (R-10) leaked a video of a student confronting McCoul over her discussion of gender studies in the classroom. The revisions were submitted to the Committee on Academic and Student Affairs as a joint policy by General Counsel for the System R. Brooks Moore and recommended for approval by Chancellor Glenn Hegar and Executive Vice Chancellor Susan Ballabina, Ph. D. There are set to be no changes to System funding or other financial implications as part of those changes.

The Civil Rights Protection and Compliance policy is proposed to be amended to include supplementary definitions of gender and race ideology. The changes outlined in the agenda items for the meeting define gender ideology as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex,” and race ideology as “a concept that attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity, accuse them of being oppressors in a racial hierarchy or conspiracy, ascribe to them less value as contributors to society and public discourse because of their race or ethnicity, or assign them intrinsic guilt based on the actions of their presumed ancestors or relatives in other areas of the world.” Additionally, the amendment notes this “also includes course content that promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity, rather than academic instruction.”

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This week could mark beginning of the end of Dallas City Hall.

This Wednesday, the City Council will consider whether it’s time to vacate City Hall for, well, other to-be-named-later pastures. The cost of repairing City Hall continues to balloon to the point that the $81.25 million baseline that we wrote about in August seems quaint. Nevertheless, at its Wednesday meeting, the Council will potentially direct city staff to “evaluate economic development options to redevelop City Hall in a manner supportive of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Master Plan, that increases tax revenue to the City of Dallas, and that creates catalytic growth in the central business district.”

The resolution doesn’t necessarily make it a forgone conclusion that the world will have one fewer I.M. Pei building, but it certainly brings it a little closer to being true. Already, we’ve seen op-eds in the Dallas Morning News from developers Shawn Todd, Lucy Billingsley, and Craig Hall urging “bold action” to “take down” the nearly 50-year-old I.M. Pei building so the property can be redeveloped for “enormous economic development opportunities.” Sources tell me that this vote could go either way. Last week’s Council committee meetings on the topic gave me the feeling that, while the discussion about the state of City Hall has been ongoing for a while, the talk of tearing it down seems to be operating on someone else’s timeline. That timeline very well could align with Mavericks CEO Rick Welts’ goal of naming a new site for the team’s next arena by the end of the year.

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Mark Cuban, Jerry Jones join 100 other Dallas investors to launch $5 million nonprofit fund

A star-studded group of investors, families, entrepreneurs, corporations, and nonprofits have pooled $5 million to launch a GreenLight Fund in Dallas. With the capital, GreenLight—a nonprofit founded in Boston in 2004—plans to address some of Dallas’ most critical unmet needs tied to racial, social, and economic inequities. The Dallas outpost marks the organization’s 15th fund in the United States. Across its 14 cities, the nonprofit has invested $42 million in 63 organizations and helped draw $400 million in additional funding. Last year alone, it reached more than 1.3 million individuals and families.

“We want to be an addition, not a substitution, for all the great things United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and all the other organizations in Dallas are doing,” said longtime private equity investor John Simon, who also serves as the co-founder and board chair of GreenLight Fund. “From the very beginning, we always wanted to come to Dallas. The city has big companies moving in, the economy is growing and diversifying, and a lot of amazing things are going on. But certain populations are falling further and further behind with less economic mobility.” GreenLight has expanded to Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and now Dallas. Houston, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Seattle are all potential cities on the roadmap, according to Simon. “I invested because I thought this was a positive for the city,” Mark Cuban told D CEO. “I didn’t get into the specifics on where they’d invest the funds—they can make the decision they think is best. All I’ll say is: I like helping Dallas.”

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National Stories

Supreme Court rejects bid to overturn same-sex marriage ruling

The Supreme Court rejected a long-shot effort Monday to overturn its ruling guaranteeing same-sex marriage nationwide. Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis directly asked the justices to overrule the 2015 landmark decision after a jury awarded damages to a couple whom Davis refused to issue a marriage license. “The Court can and should fix this mistake,” her attorneys wrote in court filings. In a brief order, the justices declined to take up Davis’s appeal, alongside dozens of other petitions up for consideration at the justices’ weekly closed-door conference. There were no noted dissents.

Court-watchers viewed Davis’s appeal as a long-shot effort, but it sparked trepidation among LGBTQ rights groups, since several conservative justices who dissented in the decade-old case remain on the court. Davis gained national attention after she raised religious objections to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Among the refused couples was David Ermold and David Moore, who sued. Davis was found to have violated a judge’s order in another case, which required her to keep issuing licenses. Davis was jailed for five days, the couple obtained their license and Kentucky later passed a law enabling clerks to keep their signatures off marriage certificates.

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Age is the issue that Democrats can’t shut down

The Democratic unity and good feelings after the party’s big election victories lasted under a week. Now, the knives are back out. As eight Democratic-aligned senators with an average age of about 70 voted with Republicans to end the 40-day government shutdown without the health care concessions Democrats had demanded, the party again convulsed with two questions that have long racked its members: How old is too old and how vigorously should they fight Republicans? Democrats are still dealing with the fallout of Joe Biden’s calamitous decision to seek re-election at age 79. What has been less discussed is the fallout of having so many members of Congress who are at (and well beyond) retirement age.

And as liberal voters just found out, it’s a lot easier to vote for something your base hates if you’re too old to worry about re-election. Of the Democratic-aligned senators who voted for the shutdown deal, two are not running again: Dick Durbin of Illinois, 80, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, 78. Angus King of Maine is 81 and Jacky Rosen of Nevada is 68. Both Tim Kaine of Virginia and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire are 67. All would be past 70 years old if they decide to run again when their terms end. The other “yes” votes were from Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, 61, who represents a state where the Las Vegas tourism industry feared taking a major hit from canceled flights, and from John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who is just 56 but has already alienated much of his party by embracing Trump on a slew of issues. “This is the problem with the gerontocracy,” said Amanda Litman, the leader of Run for Something, a group that recruits young progressive candidates to run for office. “When you have older leaders who are never going to face re-election again, you make decisions that are disconnected from what their voters believe.”

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Trump threatens to sue the BBC for $1 billion after Jan. 6 documentary

President Trump on Monday threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over a documentary that his lawyer claimed included “malicious, disparaging” edits to a speech Mr. Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021. The legal threat came in a letter from Alejandro Brito, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, to the BBC that was obtained by The New York Times. The letter demanded a full retraction of the documentary, an apology and what his lawyers said would be payments that “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.” The letter said that if those demands were not met, “President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages.” It said that the lawsuit would be filed if the BBC had not taken action by this Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern time.

“The BBC is on notice,” the letter said, adding, “PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.” The head of the BBC, Tim Davie, and the chief executive of BBC News, Deborah Turness, resigned on Sunday after growing pressure over the editing of the documentary. The BBC said on its website that it had received a letter threatening legal action and that it would “respond in due course.” The documentary, called “Trump: A Second Chance?” and broadcast before the presidential election last year, had already been removed from the BBC’s online player. Samir Shah, the BBC’s chair, said in a separate letter Monday that complaints about the editing of the clip had been discussed by the standards committee in January and May, and that the points raised in the review had been relayed to the BBC team that produced the documentary, part of a long-running current affairs series called Panorama. “With hindsight, it would have been better to take more formal action,” he wrote. He added: “We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgment.”

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Democratic senators blame White House, AI data centers for rising electricity prices

Democratic senators on Monday blamed the White House push to fast track artificial intelligence data centers and its attacks on renewable energy for rising electricity prices in certain parts of the U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and others demanded that the White House and Commerce Department detail what actions they have taken to shield consumers from the impact of massive data centers in a letter sent Monday. Voters are increasingly feeling the pinch of rising electricity prices. Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger campaigned on the issue in the New Jersey and Virgina governors’ races, which they won in landslides last week. The senators took aim at the White House’s relationship with companies like Meta, Alphabet, Oracle, and OpenAI, and the support the administration has shown for the companies’ data center plans.

The Trump administration “has already failed to prevent those new data centers from driving up electricity prices from a surge of new commercial demand,” the senators wrote. They accused the White House of making the problem worse by opposing the expansion of solar and wind power. The White House blamed the Biden administration and its renewable energy policies for driving up electricity prices in a statement. President Donald Trump “declared an energy emergency to reverse four years of Biden’s disastrous policies, accelerate large-scale grid infrastructure projects, and expedite the expansion of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power generation,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said. The tech sector’s AI plans have ballooned in size. OpenAI and Nvidia, for example, struck a deal in September to build 10 gigawatts of data centers to train and run AI applications. This is equivalent to New York City’s peak baseline summer demand in 2024. The scale of these plans have raised questions about whether enough power is available to meet the demand and who will pay for the new generation that is needed. Renewable energy, particularly solar and energy storage, is the power source that can be deployed the quickest right now to meet demand. Retail electricity prices in the U.S. increased about 6% on average through August 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. Prices, however, can vary widely by region.

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Federal and state websites descend into political finger-pointing as SNAP fight drags on

Some agencies that administer food assistance benefits have posted partisan messages on government websites as the federal shutdown drags on. The U.S. Department of Agriculture informed states late last month that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP would be paused for November if the shutdown continued. Funding for the program, which serves nearly 42 million people each month, remains up in the air as a court battle over the frozen benefits continues. Though SNAP is federally funded, each state administers the program differently – leaving it up to states to communicate about the pause. State agencies in Texas and Iowa linked to documents addressing frequently asked questions. In Michigan and Missouri, state agencies provided lists of food banks and nonprofits that could help SNAP recipients during the shutdown.

A few states took a more partisan approach in addition to providing information and resources. A header on all web pages within the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services site includes a quote from Gov. Jim Pillen saying SNAP benefits will not be available in November "due to a failure by Democrats in the U.S. Senate." The message was initially posted without attribution before quotation marks and Pillen's name were added on Oct. 30. Department spokesperson Jeff Powell said the message was added "per consultation with Gov. Pillen's office." "It has since been updated to eliminate any confusion about its source, which was Gov. Pillen," Powell said. In Illinois, a drop-down notice on the state's Applications for Benefits Eligibility site previously referred to the "Republican federal government shutdown" and put the onus on "the Trump administration to reopen the government." That language has since been softened, but it still directly names the Trump administration and the federal government.

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Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend may be a smart political move. But it would be a huge economic gamble

One of the only things that polls worse than the Trump economy is the president’s almost unprecedented use of tariffs. The White House, in an apparent bid to turn sentiment around on both the economy and tariffs, is once again floating a bold idea: redeploying tariff revenue to fund $2,000 dividend checks to lower- and middle-income Americans. It’s easy to see how these tariff rebate payments could win over skeptical voters and help people who are struggling financially. Yet beyond the political appeal, it’s hard to make sense of the economic logic behind this idea. Economists tell CNN that tariffs are unlikely to generate enough revenue to pay for dividend payments the size President Donald Trump has promised.

If all the tariff revenue is blown on dividend payments, there would be nothing left to chip away at the $38 trillion national debt – one of Trump’s other promises. Depending on how they are structured, dividend payments could even add to America’s mountain of debt. If rebate checks are distributed, history shows that many Americans would likely spend some or all of their cash from Uncle Sam. This would increase demand without boosting supply, which could worsen the cost-of-living problem at the heart of Americans’ frustrations with the economy. “All of this is exactly the wrong recipe if you want to get inflation under control and make things feel more affordable,” Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, told CNN in a phone interview. The risk of raising prices is why direct payments, typically called stimulus checks, are normally reserved for emergencies when demand is low – such as during the 2008 financial crisis or the Covid pandemic. Even during the pandemic, stimulus checks may have been partly to blame for the ensuing inflation crisis. The St. Louis Federal Reserve estimated that US fiscal stimulus during Covid contributed 2.6 percentage points to annual inflation.

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When neighbors lost SNAP benefits, the internet stepped in to feed them

Ashleigh Young hit her breaking point in late October. Months after rising grocery prices forced her to skip meals to keep her children fed, Young received a text alerting her that her $250 benefits in monthly food assistance benefits were unlikely to arrive in November. That text, coupled with her son throwing out his uneaten breakfast that morning, broke the typically stoic mother of two. She began to cry. “How do I tell my son, ‘You can’t throw away your breakfast because I don’t know that we’re going to be able to afford food next month,'” she said. In a now-viral TikTok recorded that October day, Young tearfully explained that she had stopped eating dinner about two months before to stretch her family’s meals. The 42-day government shutdown, which appears likely to end this week, put extraordinary stress on 42 million people who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.

It also expanded a relatively new form of online activism featuring people like Young, who lost those benefits and turned to social media not only as a source of commiseration and political protest, but also found that going viral helped them pay for food. Young’s video eventually amassed more than 2 million views. Commenters on the video asked how they could donate — and they did. Young raised $2,500 — more than enough to ensure her family could afford groceries for the next two months. She distributed much of the remaining funds to local food organizations and moms in her community. Most of the money Young received came in small donations from others also struggling, like a person who sent the $8 left over after paying their bills, which they said they normally used to buy one latte a week. Young sent it back and told them they deserved the drink. “Why should people have to choose between affordable health care [and] making sure we get fed?” Young said of the ongoing government shutdown, in which Democrats demanded that Republicans extend health care subsidies that will expire next month. “It’s sickening to me that we’re being basically used as leverage.”

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Lead Stories

Greg Abbott kicks off reelection campaign with aggressive property tax relief plan

Gov. Greg Abbott officially launched his reelection campaign Sunday with a promise to provide Texans significant property tax relief, including the ability for voters to abolish property taxes that fund public schools. “Local governments must live within their own means — just like you have to live within your means,” Abbott said during a Houston rally. “I want all property tax increases to be voted on and approved by two-thirds of voters.” Abbott released a one-page synopsis of his plan before his speech, which stated “despite record state relief, local government tax increases have wiped out billions in savings for homeowners” and “voters deserve the right to decide whether to abolish school district taxes.”

Abbott’s plan does not detail how public schools would be funded without school district property taxes. Last week voters approved a series of constitutional amendments, many of them related to property tax relief. “We are going to turn the tables on local taxing authorities, put the power with the people, and end out-of-control property taxes in Texas,” Abbott said. Abolishing school property taxes would require a Texas constitutional amendment, which can only be placed on the ballot with 100 votes in the Texas House and 21 in the Senate. Public school advocates and local leaders have been wary of plans to mitigate the taxing authority of municipalities or abolish property taxes outright. Former Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said removing property taxes as a funding source could create more reliance on sales taxes to fund services like public education. “A sales tax is a progressive tax and creates an unfair burden on poor folks,” Hinojosa said. “If you take away the property taxes, it just creates an unfortunate division between the haves and the have-nots. It’s popular with people who own property, but it’s not popular when you’re trying to run government, to run a school district, to run the city or municipality where you need services that everybody benefits from, like sewer and water and schools and roads.”

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Senate clears major hurdle to end shutdown

The Senate voted 60-40 late Sunday to move forward with a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government through Jan. 30, combined with a three-bill minibus covering FY2026 funding for MilCon-VA, Agriculture and the Legislative Branch. This package includes language reversing the mass firing of federal workers during the shutdown and barring future layoffs through Jan. 30. This was a huge moment. Eight Senate Democrats broke with the party in voting to end the shutdown in exchange for a commitment from Senate Majority Leader John Thune to hold a vote by mid-December on expiring Obamacare subsidies — an offer Thune first made weeks ago. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s faced tremendous criticism from both the left and right during the impasse, was a no. That’s not saving Schumer from progressive fury, however. The Senate will come in at 11 a.m. today. While senators hope to finish voting on the CR-minibus package today to get home in time for Veterans’ Day on Tuesday, that would require consent from all 100 senators.

Then the House will need to take up the package. This could be Wednesday or Thursday. We’ll note that GOP leaders are now saying House members will get 36 hours — not 48 hours as previously promised — before any floor votes. But if you’re a House member, you should just start heading for Capitol Hill right now, just in case. The endgame of the shutdown is a major challenge for Schumer and other Democratic leaders, who now have to manage a situation where they may privately agree with the outcome but are publicly opposed. The base is very angry at Schumer — again — even though he voted with them. Most Senate Democrats were seething after a two-and-a-half-hour caucus meeting on Sunday night, lamenting that the handful of their colleagues providing the votes to reopen the government were making a huge mistake. Democrats saw last week’s election victories as a validation of their shutdown strategy that put them in an even stronger position. President Donald Trump said the shutdown has been “worse for us than for them.” “It would be a policy and political disaster for Democrats to cave,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said. “Essentially, if Democrats cave on this issue, what it would say to Donald Trump is he has a green light to go forward toward authoritarianism. And I think that would be a tragedy for this country.” Yet it was also painfully obvious after 40 days that Senate Republicans weren’t going to engage on the Obamacare subsidies until the shutdown was over.

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Trump pardons top allies who aided bid to subvert the 2020 election

President Donald Trump has pardoned a long list of prominent allies who backed his effort to subvert the 2020 election, according to Justice Department Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, who posted the relevant document Sunday night. Among those who received the “full, complete and unconditional” pardons were Rudy Giuliani, who helped lead an effort to pressure state legislatures to reject Joe Biden’s victories in key swing states; Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff in 2020 and a crucial go-between for Trump and state officials; John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, two attorneys who helped devise a strategy to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021; Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser; and Sidney Powell, a conservative attorney who launched a fringe legal assault on election results in key swing states. The pardons are largely symbolic — none of those identified were charged with federal crimes. The document posted by Martin is also undated, so it’s unclear when Trump signed it. The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Giuliani, Eastman and Powell were among those identified by former special counsel Jack Smith as Trump’s co-conspirators, though he never brought charges against them. The pardons would preclude any future administration from potentially pursuing a criminal case against them. The language of the pardon is broad, applying to “all United States citizens for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting activities, participation in or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors … as well for any conduct relating to their efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 presidential election.” Though Trump has long insisted he has the power to pardon himself for federal crimes — an untested proposition — it appears he is not yet prepared to test that theory. Though the pardon document indicates it could apply to others who fit the same criteria, it explicitly excludes Trump. In addition to his inner circle, Trump pardoned dozens of GOP activists who signed paperwork falsely claiming to be legitimate presidential electors, a key component of the bid to pressure Pence.

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Fort Worth's Mercy Culture online class trains Christians to run for office. Now it may go national

Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline’s energy was palpable as he gazed out from the video on the computer screen, grinning ear to ear, the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up. The Republican legislator from Fort Worth had a message to share with people watching the prerecorded video: As a Christian, you have an essential role in politics and local government. “There is no greater calling than being civically engaged and bringing the values that Scripture teaches us into every realm of the earth,” Schatzline said. The legislator was teaching a section of Campaign University, a series of online lessons he and others associated with Fort Worth-based megachurch Mercy Culture created to raise up so-called “spirit-led candidates.” The course, created in 2021, is an extension of Mercy Culture’s increasingly overt political activities that have included candidate endorsements. The church’s political nonprofit, For Liberty & Justice, houses Campaign University.

Campaign University builds on Mercy Culture’s growing political reach as Schatzline, a pastor at the church, joins President Donald Trump’s National Faith Advisory Board and as the course now is offered at other congregations across the country. The lessons emphasize that would-be candidates don’t need to be experts in government or the Constitution to seek public office or a place in local government. They also train potential candidates to “stand for spiritual righteousness” and teach them how to build a platform and navigate the campaign trail while maintaining a strong family and church life. At the core of Campaign University is the idea that there is no separation between what happens within the church and what happens in the government. Students are taught to interpret the First Amendment’s establishment clause on the separation of church and state as a protection against government involvement in religion, rather than vice versa.

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State Stories

Austin city manager releases revised budget after voters reject Prop Q

The Austin City Council received a new version of the city’s fiscal year 2026 budget from the city manager’s office on Friday, days after voters rejected their request to raise property taxes to fund the budget they approved in August. After Austinites overwhelmingly rejected Proposition Q, the city no longer had the $109 million in additional property tax revenue included in the budget released in July. Now that the money is off the table, the city has released an amended budget proposal with significant cuts across several departments. Among the cuts are $38 million from social services contracts, nearly $6.3 million from the Austin Emergency Medical Services, $5.2 million from Parks and Recreation, $3.7 million from the Municipal Court, $1.3 million from Austin Public Health, and $1 million from the Austin Fire Department. The Homeless Strategy Office will see an increase of $3.7 million, according to the amended budget.

“It’s a serious morale hit,” said James Monks, president of the Austin EMS Association. “We supported [the proposition] because it included multiple resources and funding for our department,” he said. Monks said the added funding would have helped Austin EMS keep up with the city’s rapid growth by adding dozens of sworn EMS positions. “That funding was needed for resources that we have needed for a while,” Monks continued. “I think we’re just at a breaking point at this point. Something needs to change.” In a post on the council’s message board Thursday, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said that he spoke with City Manager T.C. Broadnax and his staff about the budget. “Voters told us that city government can’t be all things to all people. We can’t pick up all the expenses, grants, and needs that other levels of government don’t cover, even if they’re for things we think are important,” he wrote. “Voters want us to avoid adding to Austin’s unaffordability. Well, as I’ve said this week–message received.” “We have very clear marching orders, I think, from the public on how they expect us to approach this,” Watson said at a Friday press event. “I’m very pleased that the manager acted promptly.”

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Parts of Texas, including near S.A. under a freeze warning

Fellow Texans... have y'all stepped outside? If you haven't had your daily dose of touching grass, then you probably haven't felt the wonder of the temperatures outside dropping into sweater weather. And as the temperatures have already steadily fallen across the Lone Star State on Sunday, November 9, it's time to buckle that Texas sized buckle up even tighter and maybe pull out the tiger colcha. While San Antonio is looking ahead to low temperatures near the lower 40s, other parts of Texas have now fallen under a Freeze Warning, according to the National Weather Service. Including areas just minutes away from the 210.

Starting at midnight on Monday, November 10, parts of the Texas Hill Country and southern Edward's Plateau will be under a Freeze Warning, with parts of the area from Rocksrpings to Llano and even Georgetown near Austin, could experience temperatures between 26-32 degrees until 9 a.m. So is caldo on the menu before Veterans Day? It certainly may be for some. Elsewhere, beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday night until 9 a.m. Monday areas of Central and North Texas will be under a Freeze Warning. The NWS says some lower-lying areas could experience temperatures as low as 25 degrees overnight. Folks near the Dallas-Ft. Worth area are already experiencing high wind gusts between 30-40 miles per hour. Come Monday, the dip in temperatures from as high as Sherman down toward the will range between below freezing temperatures, up to just a hair under 40 degrees. However, after the front finishes its trek through the state, it's looking like temperatures could return to normal, with some places getting "well above average temps return by Wednesday [November 12]."

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Texas Workers' Compensation System reports $12 million loss in 2024, report finds

The Texas workers’ compensation system saw a modest $12 million loss in 2024 as insurers reported an increase in direct losses paid and overall, according to a report compiled by the Insurance Council Texas (ICT). The 2025 Texas Workers’ Compensation Market Report found that employer participation in the workers’ comp reached its highest since 2016, with 87% of employees covered. Ninety-eight insurers represented 335 companies reporting voluntary direct premiums written in 2024 – a 10% increase in companies compared to 2023, the report found. Direct written premium fell 4% in 2024 to $2.6 billion (voluntary market), making Texas’ workers’ comp system the fifth largest in the U.S. behind California, New York, Florida and New Jersey.

Texas Mutual accounted for approximately $1 billion of premiums written for a 39.4% market share. Zurich was next highest with $148 million, followed by Travelers with $140 million and Hartford Fire & Casualty with $134 million. Direct losses in 2024 rose 8.7%, from $1.03 billion to $1.12 billion, following a 14.3% increase from 2022 to 2023. There were 1,536 fraud reports received in 2024, up from 1,451 in 2023. Fifty-three cases were opened for investigation, with four cases referred for prosecution and three convictions.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: The budget outlook for the state’s largest cities? Uncertain at best

Connect the dots and the resulting picture isn’t pretty. Economic and political trends will make it harder for local governments in Texas to balance their budgets in the coming years. Elected officials need to start preparing residents now for the budgetary trade-offs their communities could soon face. If entities cannot grow their tax base through new development, the surest way to balance their books will be to cut programs, positions and services. The state’s biggest cities already feel the effects of these trends. Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Houston all grappled with deficits while assembling their 2026 budgets. In recent years, at least a half-dozen North Texas school districts have decided to close campuses because of declining enrollment and budget constraints.

Cities, counties and school districts still write their own budgets, but state lawmakers have repeatedly restrained local governments’ ability to raise additional revenue through property taxes. These legislative moves have been a reaction to Texans’ mounting frustration with higher tax bills. With strong approval from voters, legislators this year raised the school property tax homestead exemption and gave an extra discount to homeowners who are disabled or age 65 and up. To help small-business owners, lawmakers also raised the business personal property tax exemption from $2,500 to $125,000. Rising exemptions effectively shrink the tax base. Two other important sources of revenue are leveling off or declining. Dallas’ sales tax did not grow as much as expected, and Austin’s year-to-date sales tax actually dropped slightly. Federal funds, which help local governments address affordable housing, public health and infrastructure, will likely shrivel. For local governments, that means conservative budgeting is critical. Jurisdictions must keep reserves fully funded and think twice about adding new debt.

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Some Tarrant County College faculty must repay portion of salaries

Dozens of Tarrant County College faculty members have been ordered to pay back portions of their salaries, with college administrators saying the teachers did not meet their contractual obligations. According to a statement from Chancellor Elva LeBlanc, contracts for 65 full-time faculty members “were adjusted to address concerns raised by faculty members about clear documentation of contract dates.” LeBlanc said the affected faculty members taught fewer classes than required by their contracts, and thus must reimburse the college. “The salary repayment is limited to those faculty members who were paid for hours not performed under their contract,” wrote LeBlanc.

A TCC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request asking if faculty members must repay money paid under this year’s contract or a previous year’s. LeBlanc said only a small percentage of TCC’s full-time and adjunct faculty were affected. She added that they “will be given fair and flexible repayment options.” The college’s spokesperson has not clarified what the repayment terms will be. “As a public institution, TCC is legally obligated to recover those overpayments to comply with board policy and state law,” LeBlanc said in her statement. A TCC professor declined to comment when contacted by the Star-Telegram. According to TCC’s Board Policy Manual, full-time faculty members are required to work a minimum of 35 hours per week, which includes instruction time, preparation time and time spent meeting with students. Those on nine-month contracts must devote 480 hours to instruction — which can include things like lab work, clinical work and internships in addition to lecture time — over the course of the contract. Full-time faculty members on 12-month contracts commit to another 192 hours during TCC’s two summer sessions.

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AI use at Texas colleges: a 'minefield' of rules, cheating and confusion

University of Houston freshman Ava Romero doesn’t use artificial intelligence much for classwork — but when she does, her professors call the shots. In English and government, she must stick to approved tools and stay within the school’s 20% threshold, measured by special AI detection software. But her history professor bans AI entirely. There, Romero can’t touch it — or she’ll risk violating UH’s academic honesty policy. Across college campuses from UH to Rice to Texas A&M, those shifting rules show how AI is already upending teaching and learning in higher education.

University of Houston freshman Ava Romero doesn’t use artificial intelligence much for classwork — but when she does, her professors call the shots. In English and government, she must stick to approved tools and stay within the school’s 20% threshold, measured by special AI detection software. But her history professor bans AI entirely. There, Romero can’t touch it — or she’ll risk violating UH’s academic honesty policy. Across college campuses from UH to Rice to Texas A&M, those shifting rules show how AI is already upending teaching and learning in higher education. Still, some students cheat — and professors say those cases have made things harder for everyone. “AI has become a temptation for some students,” said Lois Parkinson Zamora, a UH English professor. “I have this extra thing I have to look into.” Policies vary widely. On one end of the spectrum: teachers who’ve embraced the technology, weaving it into assignments so students can learn how to use the tools responsibly. Others allow AI for homework or essays, as long as students show proof of their prompts. Some say AI is only OK for grammar and spelling edits. And some, like UH history professor Robert Zaretsky, have gone old-school with hand-written essays in blue books.

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Does the state of Texas have a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate?

Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire expected this question and, to break ahead of the curve, he answered it before the microphone had been passed on to anyone else. “The Heisman is given to the best football player,” McGuire said Saturday in an opening statement after Texas Tech’s 29-7 win vs. BYU. “It’s not given to the best quarterback — they have an award for that — and you can’t say that Jacob Rodriguez, at his position, is not playing at that level, an elite level, an elite level, as good as anybody in the country." Rodriguez, a senior linebacker, finished with a team-high 14 tackles, an interception and a fumble recovery in Saturday’s win vs. the seventh-ranked team in the College Football Playoff poll. He leads the country with 7 forced fumbles and leads Texas Tech with 84 tackles and 3 interceptions.

His 93.5 grade is the fourth-best among all defensive players, per Pro Football Focus, and he’s done so for a Texas Tech defense that has been statistically among the best units in college football. A grassroots Heisman Trophy campaign has begun because of that. The Red Raiders (9-1, 6-1 Big 12) and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes have championed Rodriguez for the award on social media, while McGuire urged national media to spread the word as well. The Wichita Falls Rider alum leads the Heisman Trophy’s fan vote leaderboard. “That kid deserves to be a part of that,” McGuire said. “He really does.” Rodriguez does not have listed Heisman Trophy odds by any major sportsbook as of Sunday morning. His teammate David Bailey — a linebacker whose 10 sacks lead the nation — doesn’t either. Zero defenders do, in fact, largely because a full-time defensive player hasn’t won the award since Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson did so 28 years ago.

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A tiny Texas town is bracing for a Hollywood boom with an Elon Musk tech hub and film studio plans

There's a Texas size boom happening just outside the capital of the Lone Star State. A rural area full of farms, 40 minutes from Austin, is set to see mega-growth as the site of a new film studio, an Elon Musk technology hub, and a new luxury housing community. Bastrop, TX—population only about 13,000 people—is preparing to welcome thousands more moving in within the next few years. "These recent developments are likely to attract more residents to the larger Bastrop County area," says Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com®. "In the short term, a rapid influx of residents could strain local infrastructure and resources, but over time, continued investment should support new development and economic growth."

Two Los Angeles film production companies, Line 204 and Zio Studios, are building a new film studio in town, to be called Texas Line 204. CEO Alton Butler told MySA that at least four soundstages should be finished by the end of 2025. The production company provides stage and production equipment for media giants like Netflix, Warner Bros., Paramount, Hulu, and Disney. In 2021, Butler purchased 546 acres in Bastrop County, which had plenty of cheapish land for sale, offered better tax incentives than he could get elsewhere, and had a stunning topography that the exec said was perfect for making movie magic. With the nearby Colorado River, McKinney Roughs Nature Park, a plethora of green pastures, and a "beach on site," he says that the Bastrop studio will offer the type of scenery that makes Hollywood salivate. "I think Texas really has a chance of being that Hollywood 2.0," he told the outlet. According to a county analysis, the studio will bring in $1.9 billion to the area within the next decade. It's that wide-open land combined with the pro-business environment of the Lone Star State that attracted Tesla founder Elon Musk in 2021. The billionaire is expanding a tech campus that will be the headquarters for his social media platform, X; his infrastructure company, Boring Company; a Tesla gigafactory (to produce lithium-ion batteries); and a SpaceX/Starlink facility. Bastrop locals have mixed feelings about Musk moving in.

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‘Chaos has gone’ - quiet streets on Texas border after Trump crackdown

In Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, the immigration debate has spilled into the streets, sparking almost daily demonstrations while immigration agents ramp up arrests. But in El Paso - a city in Texas on the US-Mexico border - the streets are unusually quiet. A year after the BBC last visited the border to understand the impact of the migrant crisis on the border, sites that were once teeming with migrants lie largely silent. Just a few years ago, as many as 2,500 migrants once camped outside the city's historic Sacred Heart Catholic church. Many lined the streets sleeping on donated blankets, idling while they waited for food and water to be distributed by local charities. Now, only a handful of parishioners can be seen coming in and out of the church.

The same is true of a nearby park and of shelters throughout the city, where migrants once huddled to exchange their experiences of trudging through jungles and deserts or being detained, robbed or nearly kidnapped on their long journeys through Latin America to the border. The influx prompted El Paso's government to declare a state of emergency in late 2022 as local shelters ballooned beyond capacity. Then, when US President Donald Trump came into office in January - elected in part because of his promise to fix the border - the regular flow of migrants into El Paso slowed to a trickle. It is a trend that has repeated itself along the length of the 1,900-mile (3,145km) border, from the Pacific Coast in California toTexas' Gulf coast. Figures for detentions of border crossers are at a 50-year low. In September alone - the last month for which complete data is available - 11,647 people were detained along the entirety of the US-Mexico border, compared with 101,000 in September 2024 and 269,700 the same month in 2023.

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Houston's top magnet high schools could become private partnership charter schools, raising equity concerns

Each year, thousands of students apply for a seat at one of the top performing magnet high schools in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) through an open-enrollment lottery system. Regardless of their background, all district applicants have the same chance of being admitted to these elite schools if they meet the criteria for their specialized programs, including Houston’s storied Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA). But that opportunity could end under a proposal to turn seven of Houston ISD’s top public high schools into private partnerships under Senate Bill 1882—a state law that offers districts incentives to hand over public school campuses to private operators, including nonprofits, charter school operators, or higher education institutions. On October 31, HISD announced that four of the district’s top performing magnet high schools—Challenge Early College High School, Energy Institute High School, Houston Academy for International Studies, and HSPVA—are moving forward with the district’s offer for “expanded flexibility and innovation opportunities” by creating a SB 1882 partnership by the 2026-27 school year.

Three other top-performing magnet high schools—Carnegie Vanguard High School, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, and Eastwood Academy—are still evaluating the possibility. District spokesperson Lana Hill told the Texas Observer that these schools may not be required to participate in the lottery system. They “are going to be able to make their own decisions,” she said. “If one school chooses to do one thing, that doesn’t mean that another school has to.” That has parents and teachers concerned that the district’s top schools will not be equally accessible to all students. Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, told the Observer that she worries these operators will “pick and choose students” to enroll like private schools and other charters. Anderson added the teachers union is against “any type of inequities that this may cause for our students.” Historically, Houston ISD’s magnet school program began as an effort to desegregate the district in 1975. Still, critics have long complained that there were already more hurdles for students of color from lower-income neighborhoods to enter the top magnet schools.

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Olivia Julianna: Gavin Newsom fought for Texans and won. Now it’s Maryland’s turn.

(Olivia Julianna is a progressive political activist.) Earlier this year, Texas Democrats used every tool in their political toolbox to stop Republicans from surrendering our state to President Trump by passing the mid-decade redistricting he demanded. Texas Democrats broke quorum, built a national movement and put their Republican colleagues to the test: Would they answer to voters or to Trump in Washington, D.C.? Republicans answered: Trump. And passed new maps on a party-line vote. Trump celebrated after the state bent to his will, posting: “Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. ” What Republicans didn’t expect was for Democrats — led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom — to fight back. And win.

Last week, California voted to redraw its own map and match Trump’s new seats in Texas punch-per-punch. But unlike Texas, which worked in the partisan shadows to pass Trump’s map, California gave everyday voters a say, putting its map on the ballot as Proposition 50. The people overwhelmingly approved. With millions of votes still being processed, more than 5 million “yes” votes are already locked in. Texas tried to redraw the battlefield. California drew it back. But the fight won’t end with these two states. Republicans are already advancing similar redistricting efforts in Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina — where Democratic Governor Josh Stein has no power to veto new maps drawn by a Republican-run state Legislature. Redistricting is no longer a once-a-decade ritual. It has become an ongoing battle for power. That is why Newsom issued a public warning and a challenge. “We need the state of Virginia, we need the state of Maryland” he said on election night. “We need to see other states with their remarkable leaders that have been doing remarkable things meet this moment head on as well to recognize what we're up against in 2026.” He echoed that call again this weekend in Houston, standing alongside Texas lawmakers to demand that Democrats across the country to bring this fight against Trump to their own states.

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Former astronaut Terry Virts switches from Senate race to Democratic primary for congressional seat

A former U.S. Senate candidate said he now wants to run as a Democrat for the Houston area's redrawn 9th Congressional District. Col. Terry Virts announced his candidacy as he withdrew from the race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican John Cornyn. This past summer, Republicans in the Texas Legislature redrew the 9th with the aim of ousting incumbent Democratic Congressman Al Green. Green has said he will be on the ballot next year, but that he will not run in the 9th District. Virts enters a field that already includes two Democrats, one independent, and several Republican candidates — including state Rep. Briscoe Cain, whose district overlaps the 9th, and former unsuccessful Harris County Judge candidate Alexandra del Moral Mealer.

"District 9 is going to be an interesting race to watch because of all of these variables, and although it may have been drawn as a safe Republican district, I don’t think it is as safe as maybe the original mapmakers had hoped it would be," said Renée Cross is executive director at the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs. Virts originally entered the Democratic race for the U.S. Senate in June, but he was unable to gain traction in the polls against former congressman and former U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred. The entry into the Senate race by state. Rep. James Talarico worked against him as well. "I think [Virts] certainly has a much better chance at winning a seat such as Congressional District 9," Cross said. "We’re looking at a district of less than 800,000 people, versus a statewide campaign, which is incredibly cost-prohibitive." Cain and Mealer have largely dominated the contest to date. But Cross said she doesn't think either will be able to pigeonhole Virts with 9th District voters in the way they might a more progressive Democrat. Virts is a retired NASA astronaut and a decorated Air Force fighter pilot. "I do think that it will be very difficult to paint Colonel Virts as a communist or even as a Democratic socialist," Cross said. "He’s already talking about affordability and working-class issues, which will resonate extremely well in that district the way it’s drawn now, between east Harris County and Liberty County. That more populist approach, I think, will attract some attention and perhaps even attract some of those old-time Reagan Democrats back to the Democratic Party."

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Texas returns to Associated Press top 10

Texas returned to the top 10 of The Associated Press college football poll on Sunday, the Atlantic Coast Conference has five teams ranked for the first time this season and two Group of Five conferences are now represented in the Top 25 a month before the playoff bracekt is set. The top five was unchanged. The Longhorns, the preseason No. 1 team, are ranked No. 10 in advance of its visit to No. 5 Georgia this week. They had been in the top 10 for the first six polls before their loss at Florida knocked them out of the Top 25 for a week. Four straight wins elevated them to No. 13 last week, and they jumped three spots ahead of BYU and Virginia and an idle Oklahoma, which they beat 23-6 on Oct. 11. Texas did not play over the weekend.

Ohio State was No. 1 for the 11th week in a row with 55 first-place votes. Indiana remained No. 2 after its narrow escape at Penn State, but the Hoosiers’ six first-place votes were five fewer than last week. No. 3 Texas A&M got four first-place votes, three more than a week ago, and was 31 points behind Indiana. Alabama and Georgia rounded out the top five. Mississippi, Oregon, Texas Tech, Notre Dame and Texas rounded out the top 10. In all, 19 spots in the Top 25 have new teams. The ACC has five teams with one loss in conference play and two others with two losses. That’s reflected in the closely bunched group of ACC teams in the poll — No. 14 Georgia Tech, No. 16 Miami, No. 19 Louisville, No. 20 Virginia and No. 23 Pittsburgh. The last time the ACC had as many ranked teams was Nov. 3, 2024. The race for the Group of Five’s automatic bid in the College Football Playoff got more interesting with Memphis’ loss to Tulane on Friday. The CFP committee did not have a G5 team in its top 25 but said Memphis was first in line. That will almost certainly change when the committee’s next rankings come out Tuesday. No. 24 James Madison of the Sun Belt Conference made its first AP poll appearance since 2023. The Dukes are 8-1, their only loss to Louisville, and are the highest-ranked G5 team. No. 25 South Florida of the American Conference is right behind, and Tulane of the American received the most votes among the unranked.

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National Stories

Appeals court won’t let Trump administration limit SNAP benefits

A federal appeals court late Sunday denied the Trump administration’s bid to avoid fully funding federal food-assistance benefits for November, a ruling that means the government will have to make the payments within 48 hours unless the Supreme Court intervenes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in a decision just before midnight, said a trial judge hadn’t abused his authority by ordering the administration to make the full monthly payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, during the government shutdown. On Friday, the Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to withhold the payments while the appeals court considered the government’s arguments. But that pause, issued by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, lasts now for only two more days. It will be up to the high court to decide what happens next.

The litigation, however, may be overtaken by political developments. The Senate on Sunday cleared a procedural hurdle and advanced a measure that could end the shutdown. The SNAP program typically costs $8 billion a month to help roughly 42 million people buy food. Benefits have remained in flux across the country since the Trump administration initially declined to draw from emergency funds during the shutdown. Lawsuits challenging the suspension of benefits were quickly filed by states, as well as a coalition of cities and nonprofit groups, leading two judges to rule the administration must use emergency funds to make payments. The broadest ruling came from U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, who said the administration had to use contingency funds to make partial benefits payments quickly. After the government didn’t meet that deadline, he ordered the administration to fund SNAP fully by supplementing the emergency funds with money from child nutrition programs. “As the district court found, ‘this is a problem that could have been avoided,’” Judge Julie Rikelman, a Biden appointee, wrote in Sunday’s appeals court ruling. “The record here shows that the government sat on its hands for nearly a month, unprepared to make partial payments, while people who rely on SNAP received no benefits a week into November and counting.”

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A key segment of the job market isn’t hiring. These businesses say why.

Cyndi Gave went nearly 30 years without ever needing to cut staff at her North Carolina-based consultancy, which advises businesses on hiring and leadership development. But in August, she began calling some of her favorite clients, telling them they had the opportunity to hire The Metiss Group’s “superstar” office manager — a 14-year employee and one of three she ultimately laid off. But the pitch went nowhere. Gave’s clients — mostly businesses with 250 or fewer employees — were also pulling back on spending and hiring. “I was beginning to think it was just us,” she said. Many small businesses are similarly taking defensive actions as they contend with multiple pressure points, from inflation and a weeks-long government shutdown, to increasingly dour consumer sentiment and rumblings of a recession.

They are crucial economic engines in their communities and collectively employ more than 40 percent of the U.S. workforce, but they tend to experience financial shocks more acutely than their corporate peers. “Small businesses play an outsize role in the economy, and they are more vulnerable to what the larger economy is going through,” said KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk. “All the datasets are pointing the same way as far as lower momentum and small businesses doing more with less.” Several recent surveys show small businesses expressing a lack of certainty in their financial futures. The mutable policymaking of the Trump administration — from its immigration crackdown, to its on-again, off-again edicts on tariffs — has created a kind of a paralysis among some businesses, experts say, making it difficult to land on a strategy to move forward. “That does add up to a picture of companies that don’t want to contract, but they don’t want to expand either,” said Harry Holzer, a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Labor who now teaches at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

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The year’s hottest crypto trade is crumbling

The hottest crypto trade has turned cold. Some investors are saying “told you so,” while others are doubling down. It was the move to make for much of the year: Sell shares or borrow money, then plow the cash into bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies. Investors bid up shares of these “crypto-treasury” companies, seeing them as a way to turbocharge wagers on the volatile crypto market. Michael Saylor pioneered the move in 2020 when he transformed a tiny software company, then called MicroStrategy, into a bitcoin whale now known as Strategy. But with bitcoin and ether prices now tumbling, so are shares in Strategy and its copycats. Strategy was worth around $128 billion at its peak in July; it is now worth about $70 billion. The selloff is hitting big-name investors including Peter Thiel, the famed venture capitalist who has backed multiple crypto-treasury companies, as well as individuals who followed evangelists into these stocks.

Saylor, for his part, has remained characteristically bullish, taking to social media to declare that bitcoin is on sale. Skeptics have been anticipating the pullback, given that crypto treasuries often trade at a premium to the underlying value of the tokens they hold. “The whole concept makes no sense to me. You are just paying $2 for a one-dollar bill,” said Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra Markets. “Eventually those premiums will compress.” When they first appeared, crypto-treasury companies also gave institutional investors who previously couldn’t easily access crypto a way to invest. Crypto exchange-traded funds that became available over the past two years now offer the same solution. BitMine Immersion TechnologiesCrypto prices rallied for much of the year, driven by the crypto-friendly Trump administration. The frenzy around crypto treasuries further boosted token prices. But the bullish run abruptly ended on Oct. 10, when President Trump’s surprise tariff announcement against China triggered a selloff. A record-long government shutdown and uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve monetary policy also have weighed on prices. Bitcoin prices have fallen 15% in the past month. Strategy is off 26% over that same period, while Matthew Tuttle’s related ETF—MSTU—which aims for a return that is twice that of Strategy, has fallen 50%. “Digital asset treasury companies are basically leveraged crypto assets, so when crypto falls, they will fall more,” Tuttle said. “Bitcoin has shown that it’s not going anywhere and that you get rewarded for buying the dips.”, a big ether-treasury company backed by Thiel and run by veteran Wall Street strategist Tom Lee, is down more than 30% over the past month.

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MAHA’s gone viral. Can science?

In some ways, Lauren Hughes is a classic “momfluencer”: She is a bubbly mother of three who sells mugs with slogans like “I need this FORKING coffee” and makes videos for her 548,000 followers about how she weaned her twins off pacifiers. In other ways, she is not. A pediatrician whose day job is running the medical practice she founded in Kansas City, Kansas, Hughes is offering something not often associated with social media’s health influencers: evidence-based information. Her Instagram account’s pinned post is a flowchart on how to follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations on the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. “It’s a lot of just saying these things over and over and acknowledging that people have questions, which is a perfectly reasonable, normal response,” Hughes told NOTUS.

Hughes is part of a growing ecosystem of online influencers trying — and struggling — to counter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement and its most misinformed and dangerous policy positions. This campaign now includes some familiar names from the Democratic party; Chelsea Clinton recently launched a podcast called “That Can’t Be True,” writing on X that it will “sort fact from fiction — especially on issues impacting our health.” As Kennedy’s MAHA movement grows its cultural footprint, American public health professionals, medical practitioners and scientists are contending with an almost existential question: Can they compete against MAHA? Or are they too late? The anti-MAHA message “needs to be said as aggressively as the people who are actually putting out the pseudoscience and the cherry picking,” said Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who quit after Kennedy pushed out CDC Director Susan Monarez. Daskalakis has since regularly appeared on TV and in print news criticizing the administration’s public health policy. The call to action has put a magnifying glass on major public health institutions and created new demands — like going viral — on scientists and medical professionals that go beyond their traditional training.

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From jailed jihadist to the Oval Office: Syria's president caps unlikely rise with Trump meeting

The Oval Office is a long way from Abu Ghraib. When he’s greeted by President Donald Trump on Monday, Ahmad al-Sharaa will have completed his journey from jihadist leader to head of state receiving a warm White House welcome. Since toppling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, Syria‘s interim leader has spent the past year transforming his global image while tackling deep divisions at home. Now, al-Sharaa, who has thrown off his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, will make history as the first Syrian president to visit the White House.

“I think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump said last week, setting the tone for his landmark meeting with al-Sharaa, who would not have been able to set foot in the U.S. a year ago thanks to the $10 million bounty on his head. “It’s a tough neighborhood and he’s a tough guy, but I got along with him very well and a lot of progress has been made with Syria,” Trump said. During his Washington visit, Al-Sharaa is expected to commit to joining the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS, two U.S. officials told NBC News. It would be a significant step in his country’s engagement with the West. The State Department removed al-Sharaa and his interior minister from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list on Friday, while the U.K. and Europe removed sanctions on al-Sharaa after the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a U.S.-drafted resolution to do so.

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The AI boom comes to America’s loneliest place

Late at night at the Silver Legacy in Reno, Nevada, in an elevator from the casino to the hotel rooms above, a man told me that he was having a miserable time, though he used stronger language. He’d just lost $20,000 at the tables. The casino was cursed, the city was cursed, the state was cursed. He was heading to wake up his girlfriend and drive them home to California. To do that, he’d head west through the forest of the Sierra Nevada mountains, escaping the Great Basin into the Central Valley and towards the blue ocean beyond. I would head in the other direction, deep into the desert heart of the jagged brown bowl of the American west. Just east of the neon of Reno is an area that advertises itself as the largest industrial park in the world. Its tenants include major factories, distribution facilities and data centres. They are the back-office infrastructure of modern commerce and the power-hungry engine rooms of modern computing and AI.

East of that is the Basin and Range, a vast desert alternation of parallel valleys and mountain ranges, caused by “the fragmentation of a crustal slab above a plastically extending substratum”, according to the US Geological Survey — the stretch marks of the Earth. On the quadrilateral of Nevada, they look like stone raindrops dripping down a windowpane. Through the belly of the basin runs US Route 50, a two-lane highway spanning nearly the entire country, east to west from Ocean City, Maryland, to West Sacramento, California. The segment that ribbons over and around the Nevada mountains is known as “the loneliest road in America”. It’s among the most untouched parts of the continental US. Most of the time, a driver on this road could safely stop their car, climb atop it and witness in every direction no evidence of human existence. Instead, they would see an ancient lake bed, alkali flats and sagebrush, cradled east and west by ranks of fading peaks. But modernity may soon leave its imprint. A planned high-voltage transmission line called Greenlink North would follow the path of the loneliest road for 235 miles, in a utility corridor two-thirds of a mile wide, connecting with a new collector station and expanded substations.

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Two top BBC leaders quit over editing of Trump documentary

Two of the top executives of the BBC resigned abruptly on Sunday following a report suggesting the public service broadcaster had misleadingly edited a speech by President Trump that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The surprise resignation of the director general, Tim Davie, and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, came several days after The Daily Telegraph published details of a leaked internal memo arguing that a BBC Panorama documentary had juxtaposed comments by Mr. Trump in a way that made it appear that he had explicitly encouraged the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “Like all public organizations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent and accountable,” Mr. Davie said in a statement. “While not being the only reason, the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to my decision.”

Mr. Davie added: “Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility.” Ms. Turness, in her announcement, said, “The ongoing controversy around the Panorama on President Trump has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love.” She said that “the buck stops with me” and conceded that “mistakes have been made” but insisted that “recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.” Mr. Trump welcomed the resignations in a post on his Truth Social account. With about 21,000 employees, the BBC calls itself the world’s leading public service broadcaster, and is funded primarily from a license fee paid by Britons who watch TV, supplemented by commercial revenue. It produces a huge range of material, from news to entertainment, and has reach outside Britain through its international broadcasting operations.

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On Dorothy Day’s birthday, the life and work of the last living Catholic Worker who knew her

Jane Sammon was terrified the first time she met Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker founder now being considered for sainthood by Rome. “?I was at the front mopping the floor, and I thought my stomach would drop out,” Sammon said. “It’s like that saying, ‘Jesus is coming look busy,’ you know? Well, Dorothy is coming, look busy!” It was 1972, and at 25, Sammon had traveled from Cleveland, Ohio, to St. Joseph’s House, a house of hospitality in Manhattan run by Dorothy Day and other members of the Catholic Worker, eager to see a place where Catholics were standing “unequivocally” against the Vietnam War. Staying with friends in Brooklyn, Sammon one day decided to visit St. Joseph’s House on E 1st Street. The rest, she said, is something of a mystery. Decades later, Sammon is the only member still living in the movement’s New York Houses of Hospitality who lived and worked alongside Day, a woman known worldwide for feeding the poor and advocating for workers’ rights.

Since 1933, when The Catholic Worker newspaper was founded, the world around the movement has changed, but Sammon says Day’s presence still looms large. “?I don’t think anybody else in this house could say they knew Dorothy in the flesh,” Sammon said. “But for me, and this is the big thing, I think we could all know Dorothy Day the way we know Jesus.” Fifty-three years have passed, and Sammon, 78, has spent most of her life within a two-block radius, living and working at St. Joseph’s House and Maryhouse. The Catholic Worker movement is a community founded by Day in New York through the first houses of hospitality, rooted in voluntary poverty and dedicated to living among and serving the poor in faith and solidarity. “She’s been a very constant presence in that house,” Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Day, said. “She’s been very dedicated to Maryhouse, to the movement and to Dorothy.”

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Lead Stories

The crack-up at the Heritage Foundation is a warning sign for MAGA world

The Heritage Foundation is no ordinary think tank. Since the days of Ronald Reagan, it has been the conservative movement on the march, delivering ready-made policies and battle-hardened pundits to Republican presidents. Heritage spoke proudly with “one voice,” insisting that its scholars take a unified stand on key issues. Today, that almost military discipline has collapsed, and many current and former staffers blame Kevin Roberts, who took over as the foundation’s president in 2021. They joke that the group’s operating principle is now more of a “one man” policy, with Roberts moving aggressively to align the think tank with the Make America Great Again movement. As Democrats revel in their electoral success this week, the divisions at Heritage highlight growing fractures facing President Trump’s winning 2024 coalition. The long-simmering conflict between Roberts and the institute’s old guard spilled into public view in recent days. The immediate cause was a video posted by Roberts late last month defending Tucker Carlson, who drew widespread condemnation for his respectful interview with the right-wing influencer Nick Fuentes, an avowed white supremacist and Holocaust denier.

Roberts’s critics say the video amounted to a reckless invitation to antisemites to join the Republican establishment, which has long sought to keep at bay the party’s most radical fringe. Roberts has acknowledged in recent days that the video was a “mistake,” but it hasn’t quelled unrest at the think tank. When Trump rose to prominence and upended the conservative movement a decade ago, Heritage was left largely on the sidelines. Roberts’s mission has been to make the group relevant again, according to Heritage employees and others close to the think tank. By many measures, he has succeeded. He has cultivated relationships with powerful Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance, who he sees as the future of the party, according to people familiar with his thinking. Heritage’s Project 2025 policy blueprint, much maligned by Democrats during last year’s political campaign, has become a playbook for the Trump administration. And under Roberts’s leadership, the think tank has broken fundraising records, while hiring pro-Trump staffers who reflect the views of the MAGA faithful. Roberts is now facing the biggest threat to his leadership in his four years at the helm of Heritage. His handling of the unfolding crisis is a test not just of the MAGA right’s entanglement with antisemitism but of its often hostile relationship to longstanding Republican principles. “It is a wrestling match for the future of America First, whether it goes back into the clutches of the swamp of the neocons, of the deep state—or whether it gets passed to a new generation of fighters,” said Paul Dans, the former Project 2025 leader who is now mounting a primary challenge against South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. Dans called Roberts a “patriot and very fair leader.” In a nearly three-minute video posted on social media on Oct. 30, Roberts defended Carlson from the “venomous coalition attacking him” for giving a platform to Fuentes and not asking him tough questions about his positions. “I disagree with, even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either,” Roberts said.

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Nearly one in five Texas Latinos who voted for Trump regret their choice, poll finds

Nearly one in five Texas Latinos who voted for President Donald Trump have buyer’s remorse after helping the Republican win by historic margins last November, according to a new poll of hundreds of registered voters in the state. Released by Latino civil rights and advocacy group UnidosUS on Thursday, the bipartisan-run poll of 400 Hispanic Texas voters indicates they are overwhelmingly concerned about pocketbook issues, including the cost of living, healthcare, housing and wages. “This is, I think, a real worry spot for the Republicans heading into 2026,” said University of Texas political scientist and Republican pollster Daron R. Shaw, whose firm Shaw & Co. jointly conducted the poll with BSP Research. “There's some suggestive evidence here that people are concerned they're not focusing enough on the bread and butter issues that they thought they were going to focus on.”

The poll also reports that 64% blame Republicans for the shutdown, as compared to 21% who blame Democrats. A bipartisan supermajority, 81%, are also concerned that the Republican-majority Congress is not exercising its role of providing checks and balances on the executive branch. But Shaw also said that the results show discontent from Texas voters on both sides of the aisle, with less Latino support for each party this year than in 2024. The Texas findings were part of a nationwide poll of 3,000 Latino registered voters between Oct. 8-22 using phone calls, text invitations and online panels. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish, and has a margin of error is +/- 1.8%. The findings come as the government shutdown stretches into its 37th day, as the Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of Trump’s sweeping tariffs and as Republicans grapple with Tuesday’s Democratic wins in competitive gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. Senate Democrats have blocked a spending bill passed by the Republican-majority House, saying they won’t budge until the GOP agrees not to cut health insurance premium subsidies.

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Congressman Al Green prepares to run for 18th District in Houston

U.S. Rep. Al Green isn’t ready to hang it up. ?Even though Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on a redistricting map that essentially eliminates the 78-year-old’s congressional district, Green is preparing to officially file to run for Congress in the neighboring 18th Congressional District, where two millennials have been expected to be the favorites. ?Green was scheduled to hold an “eve of filing” rally near NRG Stadium on Friday night. In a flyer promoting the event, his campaign said it was for “supporters of Keep Al Green in Congress,” and put in bold lettering: “Vote Al Green for District 18.” ?The official qualifying period to get on the ballot for next year’s elections began on Saturday.

Green’s campaign did not respond to a request for further comment. ?If he enters, he’ll be jumping into a March primary election that will likely include both Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, 37, and former city councilmember Amanda Edwards, 43. Both are currently battling in a special election to fill out the final months of the late U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner’s term in the 18th District. On Tuesday, they advanced to a final runoff battle that Abbott has yet to set. ?Menefee and Edwards both said they are focused on the runoff, but also will file to run in the March Democratic primary to hold the seat beyond 2026, when it is reconfigured. ?Green has noted that a lot of his current voters are going to shift from the 9th Congressional District to the new 18th next year. But his decision to take another shot at running for Congress comes as pressure has mounted on other veteran Democrats in Congress in their 70s and 80s to make way for a new generation. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 85, announced on Thursday she would not seek reelection. ?Others, like Rep. Jerrold Nadler, 78, of New York, and U.S. Sen Tina Smith, 67, of Minnesota, have also said they won’t seek reelection so a new generation of leaders can have a shot. But other older Democrats are digging in. In Tennessee, 76-year-old U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen is pushing for another term in office even as Democratic challenger Justin Pearson, 30, tries to unseat him. Pearson on Thursday was quick to praise Pelosi for stepping aside “and passing the torch for the next generation of leaders.” ?Edwards knows a thing or two about the generational divide. The late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, defeated Edwards in the primary in March 2024 before dying at age 74 of cancer in July. Then Edwards lost to Turner, 70, in the battle to replace Lee.

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Newsom, eyeing 2028, tries to mess with Texas: ‘Don’t poke the bear’

Fresh off a resounding victory to gerrymander congressional maps to help Democrats, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California chose to celebrate in the place where the nation’s escalating redistricting fight started: Texas. “We can shape the future here in Texas,” he said on Saturday at a union hall in Houston packed with cheering Democrats. “We can shape the future here all across the South and across the United States of America. You have that power. You do. Not Donald Trump.” Against the backdrop of an enormous American flag befitting a national campaign event, Mr. Newsom framed the redistricting battle in historic terms. The rally by the California governor, who grinned as shouts of “2028” echoed out, was yet another signal of his hopes to run for president, a possibility he openly acknowledged last month.

Indeed, one of the warm-up speakers, Representative Al Green of Texas, seemed to all but endorse Mr. Newsom for the nation’s highest office. “I’m here today because he is a future president of the United States of America,” Mr. Green said. But for Mr. Newsom, it was also another chapter in an intensifying rivalry between the governors of the country’s two most populous states. He and Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, have for years engaged in schoolyard taunting and showy stunts, with Mr. Abbott sending planes of migrants to Los Angeles in 2023. “Eat your heart out, Greg Abbott,” Mr. Newsom said as he began his speech on Saturday. The two states have been on a political collision course ever since word leaked in June that President Trump had urged Texas to help Republicans in the midterm elections by taking the rare step of redrawing its congressional maps in the middle of the decade. As the Republican plan firmed up, Mr. Newsom shot back on social media: “Two can play this game.” This past week, he and his state’s voters followed through, approving a ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional district lines to wipe out as many as five Republican seats in the state.

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Trump doubles down on the economy despite a strong rebuke from voters

It’s not in President Donald Trump’s nature to accentuate the negative — at least not when it comes to his own performance or plans — and in the current moment, that has put him at risk of sounding out of touch with Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. “We had the greatest economy in the history of our country,” Trump said of his first term in an interview with Norah O’Donnell for CBS’ “60 Minutes” a week ago. “But my second term is blowing it away.” Two days later, voters blew away Republican candidates up and down the ballot in Virginia and New Jersey, results that reinforced NBC News polling showing that the vast majority of voters — about two-thirds — think the president hasn’t lived up to his promises to curb inflation and improve the economy. The common watchword for Democratic candidates who won on Tuesday — both progressives and centrists — was “affordability.”

Look no further than Trump's predecessor to see the peril for the president. Early in his single term, President Joe Biden ignored inflation, then his administration dismissed it as a “transitory” effect of government spending during the Covid-19 pandemic, before scrambling to minimize the political fallout of losing trust with the public. For Trump, who has described himself as a “cheerleader” for the country, his handling of the substance and messaging around affordability amounts to a bet that he’s on the right track — and can prove it quickly — even if most American voters don’t see it that way right now. Biden thought the same. “Trump has an enormous gamble,” said Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker and a Trump ally. He is betting that his economic policies — including tariffs, tax cuts and investments in the U.S. — will combine to create a “boom of extraordinary proportions” by next summer, Gingrich said in an interview. “If that’s true, Republicans are going to have a very good 2026,” Gingrich said of next year’s midterm elections. “If it’s not true, Republicans are going to have a very tough 2026.” Like Trump, Biden argued that the broader economy was strong, even as taxpayers suffered. And like Trump, Biden watched his party’s fortunes change at the ballot box a year after his own election.

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State Stories

Texas agency spent at least $43K to withhold info on power plant loan program

Texas lawmakers were furious after an applicant to the state’s $7.2 billion loan program for natural gas power plants was accused of fraud last year. The state agency administering the program should have Googled the applicant — and found that the CEO had been previously convicted in an “embezzlement scheme” — before choosing the project as a finalist for taxpayer-backed loans, lawmakers said. The Texas Energy Fund process must be transparent, lawmakers said, because the Public Utility Commission of Texas was handing out billions in taxpayer dollars. And even though applications to the fund are typically confidential, there was one exception.

“Fraud doesn’t cover confidentiality, does it?” state Rep. Todd Hunter asked at a legislative hearing last fall. “Correct,” PUC Chairman Thomas Gleeson replied. A year later, the PUC is still fighting to prevent the agency’s records about the questionable application from being released to the public. It’s spent more than $31,000 in taxpayer funds through July to hire outside lawyers to do so, according to invoices obtained by the Houston Chronicle through a public records request. Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office ruled that the PUC had to release those records after the Chronicle requested the documents last year. In response, the PUC sued Paxton’s office. PUC spokesperson Ellie Breed said such appeals are “routine” to decide whether information should be released to the public. The PUC had to hire outside counsel because agencies are prohibited from representing themselves before a state court. Those contracts are approved by Paxton’s office, Breed said.

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Texas House lawmakers question if state is prepared for next major wildfire

More than 20 months after wildfires swept through the Texas Panhandle in early 2024, burning over 1.2 million acres of land, state lawmakers questioned if Texas has the tools needed to tackle another major fire.“We're coming into fire season, and we have this as a recurring nightmare every year,” Rep. Ken King, a Republican representing Canadian and other Panhandle communities, said during a Nov. 3 committee hearing. During Texas’ regular legislative session earlier this year, state House lawmakers advanced legislation aimed at helping the state access firefighting aircraft and improving emergency communications for first responders. Both measures died in the Texas Senate, King told the House State Affairs Committee on Nov. 3.

State senators declined to consider a similar emergency communications bill during special legislative sessions this summer. Texas is always a fire-prone state, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association. The association’s website reports that annual wildfire risk is most severe from February-April, when dry grasses and high winds can cause fires to spread, and August-October, when high temperatures and droughts contribute to fires. “Our purpose today is to figure out—what is our response going to look like next February and March?” King said Nov. 3. “Are we better prepared as a state after the legislative session ... or are we in the same position we were in 2024, when our response was lacking, to say the least?” Each of Texas’ 254 counties has been under at least one wildfire declaration this year, Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told lawmakers Nov. 3. Kidd said that as of Oct. 29, state agencies had responded to nearly 700 fires that consumed about 100,000 acres.

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BNSF revenue rises to $6B in Q3

Increases in rail shipments this year by Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway led to $6 billion in revenue for the third quarter, a 2% rise over the same period last year. The Class 1 railroad said its revenue for the first nine months of the year increased by 1% to $17.4 billion over last year. BNSF also saw its third-quarter net income rise 5% to $1.4 billion during the same period, according to an earnings report. BNSF said it is hauling more consumer goods, including automobiles, from the West Coast after vehicle production increases. The railroad also noted small increases in shipping agricultural products, due to slightly higher grain exports that were partially offset by lower domestic grain and feed shipments.

However, other shipments — for coal, petroleum and construction products — decreased by 2% in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, the report said. A slowdown in construction led to lower demand for building materials while coal shipments decreased due to mine production challenges, BNSF said. A company spokesperson said the railroad is dedicated to servicing its customers. “As we enter parcel peak season, we continue to remain focused on our customers, striving to keep improving our service through greater efficiencies, more streamlined operations, and safely delivering goods for the nation’s supply chain,” said Kendall Kirkham Sloan, director of external communications at BNSF. Third-quarter operating expenses increased slightly although the railroad noted that its year-to-date expenses for the first nine months actually decreased by 2%. BNSF said the fuel expenses decreased by 3% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, driven primarily by improved fuel efficiency.

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Texas, oil and football: How Texas Tech has raised a football monster in no time at all

In February, during the grand opening of Texas Tech’s 300,000-square foot, $242 million football facility, athletic director Kirby Hocutt, delivering a speech from behind a pulpit within this goliath of a structure, gestures into the audience before him. He identifies those responsible for not only this lavish building but the talented new roster that trains within it. In the room of dignitaries and donors, among the more than 200 people here to celebrate what the school believes is its informal arrival as one of college football’s havenots now-turned haves, there is gobs of money: at least a half-dozen billionaires and 30 more families worth at least nine figures. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” Hocutt says to them.

But, in a way, the responsible party lies well below this facility, deep within the Earth’s rock: a well of oil the size of the state of Florida. The Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the United States, produces more than 6 million barrels of oil per day and generates 40% of the country’s oil supply. It fuels something else: the Texas Tech football team. “It’s why we are so well funded. So many alumni have gone to work around this oil field,” says booster Cody Campbell, a former Tech player who sold his last three oil businesses for a combined $13 billion. Eight months after the unveiling of that new facility, in the wake of arguably the most lucrative and aggressive recruiting effort from any program in the country, the Texas Tech football team is 8-1, ranked as the eighth-best team in the land and poised for its most momentous game in nearly two decades this Saturday when No. 7 BYU (8-0) visits in a Big 12 showdown in West Texas. The Red Raiders are scoring in bunches and stuffing opponents. After all, they are one of only three teams that rank inside the top 10 in both total offense and total defense (the others: Indiana and Oregon). Issues that have plagued this program for years — defensive lapses and physicality up front — are no longer problems. They are led by a genuinely gregarious Texan as coach, Joey McGuire, who fits here like a wide-brimmed hat atop the head of a cowboy. And they are funded by some of the richest oil barons in the world, a group that pooled their resources this spring in an effort to elevate this place into a different stratosphere.

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Odus Evbagharu: What Democrats — and Republicans — can learn from the Cy-Fair sweep

(Odus Evbagharu is a lifelong Cy-Fair resident and Democratic candidate for Texas House District 135.) In recent years, Cy-Fair ISD, the state’s third-largest school district and once a point of pride for our community, had become a cautionary tale. Negative headline after negative headline told the story of a board that banned books, cut bus routes, and generally eroded the trust and pride that once defined us. Board members garnered attention for pushing a partisan agenda — one even secretly recorded constituents. This distressed me: I’ve lived in Cy-Fair my entire life, and I’m a proud graduate of its public schools. But this fall I had the honor of working with the campaign that swept every single Cy-Fair ISD school board seat and brought our district back to its roots: focusing on children, classrooms and community. What happened next was a community turning point.

Families, teachers, and alumni came together with a shared belief that Cy-Fair could do better. We refused to let division define us and decided to organize around hope, competence, and care for our schools. It was a good election for Democrats across the country, but our win in Cy-Fair wasn’t guaranteed. It took lots of work that was months in the making, and offers real lessons for anyone — Republican or Democrat — facing an uphill political battle. Our success didn’t happen overnight. It began after painful losses in 2023, when a group of Democrats, Republicans, and independents came together under a simple name, Cy-Fair Community Voices (cyfairvoices.com). We had some hard conversations. We listened. We set aside pride and personal feelings and asked the question that guided everything that followed: What does Cy-Fair deserve? The answer was clear. Our district deserved leaders who reflected our people, diverse in background, profession and perspective, and who understood that families move here because of the strength of our schools. They don’t move here for headlines about banned books, fired librarians, closed bus routes, or adults picking fights with children. They move here for excellence. That’s what we were going to campaign on.

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‘Preventable gap.’ How Texas misses the mark in tracking kids withdrawn for absences

It took about a year for teachers and administrators at Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders to see a “sharp decline” in one of their students. The high schooler had been “academically successful and engaged,” they said. Then she started missing school. School officials would learn the girl’s mounting attendance problems reflected a chronic health condition. Ultimately, they withdrew her because of her absences. The impact of that withdrawal – and the student’s struggle to reenroll the next year – had a profound effect on her life, according to her mother, who asked that KXAN not use their names because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Tens of thousands of students are withdrawn each year from Texas schools – severed from the public school system for myriad reasons with no public or media attention. But how often are Texas kids, like the Ann Richards student, withdrawn specifically over absences and truancy? When KXAN sought records of how frequently that’s happening, we found there is no clear answer because the state isn’t tracking it. Additionally, Texas isn’t collecting exit data on students in 6th grade and below. Education experts and a state lawmaker told KXAN those are blind spots that should be addressed. Dropouts are not a new issue in Texas. School officials have been wrestling with reducing them for decades and slowly enhancing and tweaking data collection along the way. The state currently has 19 separate so-called “leaver” codes to classify why students leave the school system. Codes include classifications for students departing to be homeschooled or attend private school; other codes indicate expulsions and deaths. Some codes track tiny numbers of students leaving under certain circumstances, like the 47 students who dropped out because of a medical injury in 2023-24, or the five children of military members — statewide — who graduated outside Texas through an interstate compact that year.

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Polk County Emergency Management orders evacuation around Carter Lake dam

Emergency services have announced t6hat the Carter Lake Dam in Camden has been compromised and some residents are being urged to evacuate the area. Residents located south of the dam may be in danger of flooding if the dam should breach. Polk County Emergency Management are asking all residents in areas along Henry Darden Rd, Marie Rd, Community Dr, Bo Peep, Herb Collins Rd, and Girard to evacuate the area. Dunbar Gym located at 1103 Dunbar Avenue in Livingston is available as shelter for those in need. Residents are asked to follow official instructions from Polk County Emergency Management.

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Authors forced to miss Texas Book Festival due to unforeseen issues including 'flight challenges'

At least 18 authors scheduled to attend this weekend's Texas Book Festival have had to drop out for "unforeseen issues, including flight challenges," organizers announced Friday morning. The list includes Julia Ioffe, a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award; R.L Stine, author of the popular series Goosebumps; and best-selling author Peter Swanson. Organizers posted on the festival's Instagram account a list of the authors who canceled, and said they would keep it updated. The festival, now in its 30th year, features a variety of panel discussions, author talks and book signings. More than 300 authors were expected at this weekend's event in and around the Texas Capitol. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered flights at major U.S. airports to be scaled back starting Friday because of the government shutdown. The FAA cited safety concerns as air traffic controllers, who have gone unpaid for weeks, call in sick. Austin's airport is not on the FAA's list of affected airports, but aviation experts told KUT News travelers could expect to feel the ripple effects.

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Rodney Ellis doc screens at Round Top Film Festival

Politics. There may be no more dividing word in the English language, or one more popularly misunderstood. A new short documentary about Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis explores exactly what politics in practice is as the United States hurdles toward some of the most important elections of its long history. The film had its world premiere this Saturday at the Round Top Film Festival. Inside Man: Rodney Ellis and the Art of the Possible is the culmination of decades of work by three storied political documentarians: Louis Alvarez, Andrew Kolker and Paul Stekler.

It’s also, partially, a sequel to one of their greatest works, the 1995 Emmy Award-winning documentary Vote for Me: Politics in America. That film, a four-hour interstate look at political processes across the country, featured a bombshell segment starring then-State Senator Ellis on the floor of the Texas Legislature. Unbeknownst to the rest of his colleagues, Ellis was wearing a wireless microphone as he whipped votes for a civil rights measure. It was an unabashed look into the making of the legislative sausage, with Ellis compromising, cajoling, commiserating, and more to nudge Republicans to support judicial restructuring that would increase Black representation among Texas judges. When the film came out, Ellis faced an immediate backlash from colleagues. “That sequence in Vote for Me is amazing,” says Stekler. “I've always thought that's one of the reasons why it won an Emmy and a Peabody and DuPont award among other things. But, it was a trying time for him and it was something that was very unexpected.”

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Dallas mayor says he supports council decision to reject ICE-DPD partnership

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says he supports the city council's decision not to partner police with ICE on immigration enforcement. In a statement Friday, Johnson said that there was still confusion over how the program would work fiscally for the city and operationally for DPD. Johnson’s comments came weeks after he called for a joint committee meeting to discuss and reconsider joining the program after it was turned down by Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux. The Public Safety and Government Efficiency committees met Thursday to discuss the program and unanimously voted to postpone reconsideration of the program "indefinitely,” meaning it will not go in front of the whole council. Johnson was not at the meeting.

"While we should always be willing to discuss ways we can cooperate with our federal law enforcement partners to make our communities safer, we cannot afford to stray from our public safety strategies that have led to a remarkable five-straight years of violent crime reduction in Dallas," Johnson said in his statement. The ICE 287(g) task force program uses local and state police officers for immigration enforcement. Under 287(g), a trained officer would conduct their day-to-day department tasks. If they saw probable cause that someone was undocumented, such as during a traffic stop, they could conduct immigration enforcement. Comeaux told 13 of the 14 council members present during Thursday's meeting that detaining, transporting, and booking a suspected undocumented person could take DPD officers off the street and impact its already high response times. Several council members and dozens of residents said the program would damage trust between officers and the residents they serve. Both council members and residents commented on Johnson's absence from the meeting he called. Council Member Adam Bazaldua said he was "deeply disturbed" by Johnson's call to reconsider the program.

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Texas attorney general closes investigations into alleged school district electioneering

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has closed investigations into two North Texas school districts he accused of using tax dollars to advocate for recent funding elections. Paxton’s office sent letters to Garland and Northwest ISD, as well as Judson and Liberty Hill ISDs, accusing them of illegal electioneering ahead of Tuesday’s election. The letters quote a Texas law that says “the board of trustees of an independent school district may not use state or local funds or other resources of the district to electioneer for or against any candidate, measure, or political party.”

Voters in Garland and Northwest ISDs passed Voter-Approval Tax Rate Elections this week. Garland ISD’s VATRE is expected to generate $56 million for special education, salary hikes for improved teacher retention, student programs and added safety and security measures. Northwest’s VATRE, for $12 million, will go toward helping reduce class sizes and improve teacher compensation, the district said. Paxton’s office said the districts used taxpayer funding to encourage voters — through posts on their websites and on Facebook — to support the VATREs, but later removed “the offending material” after receiving the letters. Northwest ISD denied all allegations, calling Paxton’s Friday press release “factually inaccurate.” The district acknowledged it "voluntarily rephrased" a sentence in a post after the AG's office outlined in its letter, but said in a statement to KERA that it did not electioneer during its 2025 election. A spokesperson said the district communicated that fact to the Attorney General’s office on Nov. 4 in response to the letter it had received a day earlier. “As with all district elections, communication materials were reviewed by a third-party legal consultant for full compliance with all state laws, including those governing electioneering,” the district told KERA. “Throughout the district's most recent election, Northwest ISD provided fact-based communication to help the community understand the ballot measure." Last week Judson ISD told Texas Public Radio it also hadn't engaged in electioneering, but removed an online video ahead of the election "in an effort to avoid protracted time-consuming litigation."

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Galveston ISD for not displaying Ten Commandments

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Galveston Independent School District on Friday for its refusal to display the Ten Commandments inside of school classrooms as required by a new state law that’s being challenged in federal court. Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this summer signed Senate Bill 10 into law, requiring every public school classroom in the state to include a poster with the Ten Commandments. Some Houston-area school districts’ elected boards of trustees have taken up votes to initiate the new requirements. Following a civil rights lawsuit this year challenging the law, a federal judge in August temporarily blocked 11 Texas school districts from displaying the biblical posters in classrooms, finding the law likely violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments in the dispute next year.

The attorney general’s litigation targeting the small island school district comes weeks after an Oct. 22 meeting in which the Galveston ISD board of trustees voted to delay the postings while the question is held up in court. Elizabeth Beeton, a Galveston school board trustee, who placed the Ten Commandments item on the agenda, said that certain legislation in Texas — like vouchers that provide public funds for private school education — makes it difficult for public schools to compete. “My reason for placing this item on the agenda is not really about the ironies or wisdom or lack thereof with the Ten Commandments law, it is that the law is unconstitutional,” she said during the October meeting. Before the school board voted 4-3 to delay displaying the posters, trustees heard both support and backlash from public speakers about the decision on whether to adhere with the state’s controversial law. In a statement Friday, Paxton said that the Galveston school district chose to ignore the legislature and the “legal and moral heritage of our nation.”

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Wait times at Houston's IAH and Hobby airports decline as number of canceled flights rises

Houston travelers experienced 20-minute waits at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Saturday morning, the day after the Federal Aviation Administration began canceling flights to reduce air traffic across the country. Wait times at IAH Saturday averaged 10 to 20 minutes at Terminal A, according to the airport's website. TSA wait times at William P. Hobby Airport averaged 10 minutes. The waits were similar to those on Friday morning. By Saturday afternoon, wait times at both airports had fallen to less than 10 minutes. As of 3 p.m. on Saturday, 46 flights were canceled at Houston airports, according to data from FlightAware. Since the FAA on Friday moved to reduce traffic in the face of air traffic controller staffing issue, a total of 112 flights have been canceled at the city's airports.

The FAA has also put out a warning for expected ground delays at IAH from 4 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, which could result in an average delay time of 42 minutes for departing flights. For some passengers Saturday morning, the short lines at IAH came as a surprise after reduced security checkpoints resulted in wait times of three hours last weekend. "I got here early because I didn't know how bad it was going to be," said Lillian Soto, 55. "I'm so early I can't even check in my bags." Soto, who was flying to Los Angeles with her daughter on an 11:37 a.m. flight, said she arrived nearly four hours early after hearing her family missed their flight on Sunday because of long lines through security. Instead, Soto spent an hour waiting in the ticketing lobby to check in as TSA lines remained sparse. Houston Airport System officials said in a news release Friday that they would no longer issue daily advisories with expected TSA wait times as airlines expand their communication with passengers. Instead, Houston Airports will share updates through its IAH and Hobby social media pages as well as its websites.

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Ghislaine Maxwell's prison emails show she is 'happier' at minimum-security Texas facility

Within days of her arrival at a Texas prison camp in early August, Ghislaine Maxwell gushed in emails to her friends and family over the cleanliness and safety of her new surroundings. “The institution is run in an orderly fashion which makes for a safer more comfortable environment for all people concerned, inmates and guards alike,” wrote Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting minors to be sexually abused by her longtime confidant, the wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell’s unexpected move to the all-women’s Federal Prison Camp Bryan, which houses inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses and white-collar crimes in dormitory-style quarters, drew immediate condemnation from current and former federal Bureau of Prisons employees. They said it was very unusual for prisoners with sex offenses on their records to be incarcerated in such an unconstrained setting, indicating Maxwell was receiving preferential treatment.

Maxwell, 63, had been in a low-security federal correctional institution in Tallahassee, Florida, following her conviction in December 2021 on federal sex trafficking charges. FCI Tallahassee is more restrictive than a camp like FPC Bryan, where inmates have access to work programs, recreation and other activities and are often serving shorter sentences. Maxwell was moved days after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July. NBC News has reviewed emails Maxwell sent during her first few months at FPC Bryan, which were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee. The emails describe Maxwell’s relief at being in a calmer facility without violence, where staff was polite and the food was better. "My situation is improved by being at Bryan," she wrote in one email. “The kitchen looks clean too — no possums falling from the celling to fry unfortunately on ovens, and become mingled with the food being served,” she wrote in another, complaining about her previous prison. Maxwell also praised prison camp warden Tanisha Hall, whom Maxwell called a “true professional.” “I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderlands looking glass,” Maxwell wrote to a relative, adding, “I am much much happier here and more importantly safe.” The emails were shared with the House Judiciary Committee after the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, wrote a letter to Hall on Oct. 30 asking about Maxwell’s perceived “VIP treatment.” The letter cited a Wall Street Journal report last month describing special accommodations for Maxwell’s visitors and other perks, such as meals sent to her dormitory room, late-night workouts and her ability to shower after other inmates were already in bed for the night.

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National Stories

Top GOP mapmaker calls on donors to fund more gerrymandering

Republican donors are being urged to bankroll a new wave of nationwide gerrymanders — and the plea is coming from the GOP’s top mapmaker himself. Adam Kincaid, the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, told Bloomberg News this week that campaign contributors should see funding gerrymanders as the best investment they can make ahead of 2026. “If you’re looking for a return on your investment, redistricting is second to none when it comes to the value for what you can accomplish,” Kincaid said. “There are a handful of donors who get the importance.” The remarks are a rare public appeal from the man who has quietly drawn — and defended — some of the nation’s most aggressive gerrymanders. His call came as Republican-aligned groups such as Club for Growth funnel new money into state-level redistricting fights in Ohio, Florida and Missouri, seeking to secure a GOP House majority before voters even cast ballots.

Kincaid underscored the strategy earlier this year. “It’s a priority to keep the House and Republicans should be looking for as many seats as we can get,” he told a reporter. “It makes sense for Republicans to try ahead of 2026.” Behind the scenes, Kincaid was at the center of Texas’ mid-decade gerrymander — a Trump-endorsed plan that could hand Republicans up to five new congressional seats if it survives ongoing court challenges. During a recent federal trial in El Paso, which Democracy Docket extensively covered, he testified that while he had once been told by GOP leaders to avoid dismantling minority districts protected under the Voting Rights Act, this year he received no such instruction. Under oath, Kincaid said he took direction from the White House and from Texas’ Republican congressional delegation. And he said he used Signal to ensure that communications among the group could not be recovered. Kincaid has consistently portrayed partisan manipulation of congressional maps as a mandate. “It’s a priority to keep the House,” he said again earlier this year. “There were a handful of seats that weren’t politically possible to get before that may be possible now.”

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Trump clings to filibuster demand as shutdown drags on

President Donald Trump careened into the weekend with no sign of abandoning his futile “kill the filibuster” strategy to end the shutdown, despite a stinging week of political rebukes. Trump on Friday repeated his calls for Senate Republicans to terminate the 60-vote Senate rule — a “nuclear” off-ramp that even he has admitted has little chance of becoming reality. Those demands, echoed by administration officials, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, came after deep Republican losses during Tuesday’s off-year elections, a Supreme Court hearing that called Trump’s tariff power into doubt and new signs of cracking in public support for his party’s handling of the shutdown. “I am totally in favor of terminating the filibuster, and we would be back to work within 10 minutes after that vote took place,” Trump told reporters Friday. “It doesn’t make any sense that a Republican would not want to do that.”

The president’s insistence on an unproductive filibuster strategy — and Senate Republicans exhibiting a rare refusal to go along with his agenda — provides little clarity on how the shutdown, now in its 39th day, may end. Shortly after Trump demanded senators remain in Washington to reach a deal, Majority Leader John Thune said he would bring the chamber back on Saturday. But what, if anything, senators vote on this weekend is unknown. Trump’s posture reflects his belief that he’s in a filibuster arms race with Democrats, who he fears would immediately repeal the rule if they retake the chamber and use it to pass sweeping legislation. The push mirrors the failed effort he deployed during his first term to scrap the filibuster, as he similarly warned that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats would do it if Republicans didn’t. Democrats did not. “The president is showing the American people that he’s looking at this from every angle to end the shutdown, and he’s willing to call out his own party to do something,” said a former Trump official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “There’s a political tool piece of this,” the former official added.

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Where Democrats will duel next for the party’s future

The victories this past week of a democratic socialist in the New York mayor’s race and two moderate Democrats in the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey represented only the beginning of the battle over the future of the Democratic Party. On one side are centrists like Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, who declared in her victory speech that voters had chosen “pragmatism over partisanship” and promised “actionable policies.” On the other are progressives like Zohran Mamdani of New York, who warned hours later against bowing “at the altar of caution.” “Democrats,” he said, “can dare to be great.” Now the stage is set to test those dueling visions in the 2026 midterm elections, which will feature a staggering number of consequential Democratic primary races, especially in contests for the Senate.

States holding competitive Democratic primaries for Senate include Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota — and that is just the places that start with “M.” At stake is the party’s positioning on a host of issues: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whom to tax and by how much, transgender rights, the role of money in politics, how expansive a health care agenda to pursue, what type of new energy production to embrace, and how to craft a left-wing or center-left answer to President Trump’s populism. “What you are seeing is a growing division among Democrats as to what the future of the Democratic Party should look like,” Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who finished as the runner-up in the last two open Democratic presidential primary races, said in an interview. An impatient next generation of ambitious politicians is ratcheting up the pressure on the old guard. These Democrats are chafing over style, substance and strategy — just as the party’s ideological direction is at an inflection point. So far, Mr. Sanders himself has endorsed Senate candidates in Michigan and Maine, holding rallies in both states and joking in Kalamazoo, Mich., that he was there for the selfish reason that he gets “lonely” in the left wing of the Senate. “I need some friends,” he told the crowd.

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Skyrocketing ACA premiums force enrollees to make tough decisions

Late last month, Elizabeth Wick got the email she had been dreading. Her insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, told her that the monthly premiums for her Affordable Care Act policy would soar to $1,380 next year, up from $862. Wick, 57, currently gets $400 in federal premium subsidies, which makes the monthly cost of her health insurance more manageable. But the Arlington, Texas, resident is not counting on that assistance for next year since she also received a letter from the federal Obamacare exchange saying she likely won’t be eligible for any help in 2026 if the enhanced subsidies expire as scheduled at year’s end. The rising health insurance rates and lapsing subsidies could upend Wick’s life. A therapist who focuses on sexual assault survivors, she launched a full-time private practice earlier this year but depends on Obamacare coverage since she has preexisting medical conditions. However, having to pay three times her current tab is unaffordable and could force her to give up her practice and find a job that offers health benefits.

“Health insurance will determine what my life will look like, whether or not I can continue with my private practice,” said Wick, who ruminates over the situation before she goes to sleep and when she’s out for her daily walks. Wick is among the millions of Americans with Affordable Care Act policies who must contend with the looming lapse of the enhanced subsidies. The increased cost of coverage can lead to agonizing trade-offs for many enrollees, including cutting back on other necessities, trying to avoid getting care or forgoing health insurance entirely. The issue is at the center of the stalemate on Capitol Hill, which has led to a record federal government shutdown. Democrats say they will only support a federal funding package for fiscal year 2026 if it also extends the more generous assistance, but Republicans say they will only negotiate after the government reopens.

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Inside Trump’s ‘guns-a-blazing’ threat and Nigeria’s race to head it off

Nigeria’s aging leader awoke on Nov. 2 in the sprawling presidential Aso Rock villa for a morning routine that included a freshly brewed shot of espresso, a doctor taking his vital signs and an aide delivering a two-page executive summary on the myriad threats facing Africa’s most-populous nation. The top item, Nigerian officials said, on President Bola Tinubu’s briefing: A Truth Social post from President Trump the day before, threatening to send the U.S. military into Nigeria, “guns-a-blazing,” to stop what he characterized as the mass slaughter of Christians. Less than 48 hours earlier, U.S. officials said, Trump had been watching Fox News aboard Air Force One, descending toward Palm Beach International Airport, when host John Roberts led a segment chronicling the killings of Christians by militants in Nigeria: “Does this president need to do more?” he asked. Shortly after Trump’s social-media post, the Pentagon commissioned war plans, U.S. officials said. Tinubu, Nigeria’s bespectacled 73-year-old leader, was shocked by the saber-rattling from one of his country’s most important partners.

Nigeria’s president now asked if there was any way to reach and reason with America’s commander in chief, Nigerian officials said. How, Tinubu quizzed his befuddled aides, had this idea reached the U.S. president? And how could Nigeria set the record straight? Since then Nigeria has been trying to persuade Trump not to send the world’s most-powerful military into a West African country of 232 million people, to intervene in what its government says are long-running local disputes over livestock-grazing rights. A coalition of American evangelicals and influencers has been speaking out for a group of mostly Christian farmers who for years have been battling with a tribe of largely Muslim cattle herdsmen in central Nigeria over dwindling natural resources. Some activists and Republican lawmakers have called it “Christian genocide,” a characterization the White House hasn’t used. Nigerian officials say the problem—in a country plagued by deadly conflicts—is much more complicated. More than 12,000 Nigerians have died since 2010 in clashes between the nomadic cattle-herders and settled farmers over lands that both groups claim as their own, according to ACLED, a conflict-monitoring group, whose analysts scour local news and contacts for real-time data.

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Trump administration ‘working on’ 50-year mortgage to boost housing affordability

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte announced on Saturday that his agency is actively working to introduce a 50-year mortgage term, a move that comes as President Donald Trump is grappling with the public’s concerns about affordability. Trump recently blasted the issue of affordability as a “con job” after Republicans suffered widespread losses in the 2025 midyear elections because of Democrats’ messaging on it. Despite it stoking his ire, the president is reportedly planning to discuss the issue much more frequently, evident in his recent press conference announcing discounted prices for obesity drugs.

Trump only seemed to continue his focus on the issue at the start of the weekend. On Saturday, he posted a graphic teasing a 50-year mortgage term. The image, titled “Great American Presidents,” has former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Trump side by side and under the titles “30-Year Mortgage” and “50-Year Mortgage,” respectively. Pulte later confirmed that the administration is “working on” a potential 50-year mortgage term to boost housing affordability, calling it a “complete game changer.”

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Genetically engineered babies are banned. Tech titans are trying to make one anyway.

For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby. Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called Preventive—has been quietly preparing what would amount to a biological first. They are working toward creating a child born from an embryo edited to prevent a hereditary disease. In recent months, executives at the company privately said a couple with a genetic disease had been identified who was interested in participating, according to people familiar with the conversations. Gene-editing technologies now in use for treatment after birth allow scientists to cut, edit and insert DNA, but using the process in sperm, eggs or embryos is far more controversial and has prompted calls by scientists for a global moratorium until the ethical and scientific questions get resolved.

Editing genes in embryos with the intention of creating babies from them is banned in the U.S. and many countries. Preventive has been searching for places to experiment where embryo editing is allowed, including the United Arab Emirates, according to correspondence reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Many experts worry that the science is too unpredictable to be safe and could usher in a new era of human experimentation by private companies without public or government input or debate. Some also raise the specter of eugenics. There is only one known instance of children being born from edited embryos. In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world with news that he had produced three children genetically altered as embryos to be immune to HIV. He was sentenced to prison in China for three years for the illegal practice of medicine. He hasn’t publicly shared the children’s identities but says they are healthy.

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‘People are really hurting’: From airports to grocery stores, shutdown leaves Americans scrambling

The impacts of the longest federal government shutdown in United States history are reverberating around the country — leaving millions of Americans in limbo and igniting concerns about an economic downturn. Frustrated travelers were scrambling as more than a thousand flights were canceled Friday and thousands more were delayed. Those who count on food stamps were in limbo as President Donald Trump’s administration continued fighting in federal court to resist paying full benefits for November. Federal workers who haven’t been paid in weeks said their bills were due and they were running out of options. With Congress in a stalemate — majority Republicans still short of the 60 votes they need to pass a government funding measure in the Senate, and minority Democrats sticking to their health insurance funding demands — no end to the shutdown is in sight.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, told reporters Friday that the “wheels came off” in compromise talks with Democrats. He told senators to remain in Washington and available for votes this weekend. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would agree to end the shutdown in exchange for one more year of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies — an attempt to further pressure the GOP to make a deal. The uncertainty over when the shutdown might end has led to deepening concerns about damage it could do to the overall economy — with one of Trump’s top economic officials sounding the alarm on Friday. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on Fox Business that the economic impact of the shutdown is “far worse” than initially expected “because it’s gone on for so long.” “If we go another month or so, then who knows how bad the economy could be this quarter,” he said. A 4% reduction in domestic flights ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration took effect Friday, leading to more than a thousand canceled flights across 40 major airports — with further cuts slated for the weekend due to air traffic controller staffing issues.

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Lead Stories

Senate considers revised plan to end government shutdown

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told Senate Republicans Thursday that they should expect to vote on a new proposal Friday aiming to end the government shutdown, according to people familiar with the plan, in an attempt by GOP leaders to build momentum toward a deal. Democrats, however, indicated they weren’t sold on the emerging package, with some saying they would need their core demand of extending Affordable Care Act subsidies to be part of any legislation. The plan to vote on a revised proposal comes as the impact of the shutdown continues to grow. Government workers have gone without pay for weeks, and low-income families are seeing cuts in food aid and other assistance programs. On Thursday, airlines scrambled to review flight plans after federal officials said they would reduce commercial air traffic starting Friday in response to the government shutdown.

The proposal would combine a short-term spending measure with a package of three full-year funding bills, covering the legislative branch, agriculture, and military construction and veterans affairs. It was unclear whether the interim measure would aim to keep the government open through mid-December or January. How ACA subsidies, a central concern of Democrats, would figure into the revised approach also remained in flux, and some Democrats warned they wouldn’t be satisfied by a pledge of future action. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said the subsidies needed to be included in any stopgap bill. “Settling for some kind of vague promise about a vote in the future on some indeterminate bill, without any definite inclusion in the law, I think is a mistake.” Thune acknowledged the uphill fight. Democrats “seem to be walking back or slow-walking this,” he told reporters. “This is what they asked for.”

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Nancy Pelosi won't seek reelection, ending her storied career in the US House

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will not seek reelection to the U.S. House, bringing to a close her storied career as not only the first woman in the speaker’s office but arguably the most powerful in American politics. Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco for nearly 40 years, announced her decision Thursday. “I will not be seeking reelection to Congress,” Pelosi said in a video address to voters. Pelosi, appearing upbeat and forward-looking as images of her decades of accomplishments filled the frames, said she would finish out her final year in office. And she left those who sent her to Congress with a call to action to carry on the legacy of agenda-setting both in the U.S. and around the world.

“My message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she said. “We have made history. We have made progress. We have always led the way.” Pelosi said, “And now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.” The decision, while not fully unexpected, ricocheted across Washington, and California, as a seasoned generation of political leaders is stepping aside ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Some are leaving reluctantly, others with resolve, but many are facing challenges from newcomers eager to lead the Democratic Party and confront President Donald Trump. Pelosi, 85, remains a political powerhouse and played a pivotal role with California’s redistricting effort, Prop 50, and the party’s comeback in this week’s election.

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USDA to issue partial SNAP benefits, but Texans and others remain confused.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said Wednesday evening that SNAP would be issuing partial benefits in November, following federal court orders in two states. However, the funds may not come as soon as its 42 million recipients hope. In a Nov. 3 court filing, the Trump administration initially promised the USDA would comply with the court rulings and "will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today." This was echoed by Patrick Penn, the deputy undersecretary for the USDA's Food Nutrition and Consumer Services (FNS). "Per orders issued by the United States District Courts for the Districts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, FNS intended to deplete SNAP contingency funds completely and provide reduced SNAP benefits for November 2025," Penn wrote in the court filing.

The contingency fund holds around $4.65 billion for this months benefits, which the USDA reported was about half of the approximate $9.2 billion required to cover the full amount for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Therefore, SNAP households would receive roughly half of the usual benefit amounts. A Nov. 5 court filing then corrected the 50% figure, which was reportedly based on a miscalculation, saying the actual reduction would be closer to 35%. This means recipients would be issued around 65% of their typical benefits. Despite a Truth Social post by President Trump from Tuesday that implies food assistance benefits would not be issued until the federal government reopens, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt assured reporters the court rulings would not be violated. "The administration is fully complying with the court order," Leavitt said Tuesday. "The recipients of these SNAP benefits need to understand, it's going to take some time." The exact timeline for SNAP recipients getting partial benefits is unclear due to the situation's unprecedentedness: Since its establishment in 1961, SNAP has never halted benefits, not has it ever issued partial monthly benefits.

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Austin's Musk could become history's first trillionaire as Tesla shareholders approve giant pay package

The world’s richest man was just handed a chance to become history’s first trillionaire. Elon Musk won a shareholder vote on Thursday that would give the Tesla CEO stock worth $1 trillion if he hits certain performance targets over the next decade. The vote followed weeks of debate over his management record at the electric car maker and whether anyone deserved such unprecedented pay, drawing heated commentary from small investors to giant pension funds and even the pope. In the end, more than 75% of voters approved the plan as shareholders gathered in Austin, Texas, for their annual meeting. “Fantastic group of shareholders,” Musk said after the final vote was tallied, adding “Hang on to your Tesla stock.”

The vote is a resounding victory for Musk showing investors still have faith in him as Tesla struggles with plunging sales, market share and profits in no small part due to Musk himself. Car buyers fled the company this year as he has ventured into politics both in the U.S. and Europe, and trafficked in conspiracy theories. The vote came just three days after a report from Europe showing Tesla car sales plunged again last month, including a 50% collapse in Germany. Still, many Tesla investors consider Musk as a sort of miracle man capable of stunning business feats, such as when he pulled Tesla from the brink of bankruptcy a half-dozen years ago to turn it into one of the world’s most valuable companies. The vote clears a path for Musk to become a trillionaire by granting him new shares, but it won’t be easy. The board of directors that designed the pay package require him to hit several ambitious financial and operational targets, including increasing the value of the company on the stock market nearly six times its current level.

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State Stories

Austin council staff to get training after Statesman spending probe

Austin City Council staff will soon get a refresher on what they can and can’t charge to their taxpayer-funded credit cards. An email obtained by the American-Statesman shows council staffers were asked Wednesday to attend a “refresher course” next week covering city rules for credit card use and travel. The directive came days after the Statesman published its latest investigation into questionable credit card and travel expenses by Austin City Council members — some likely made in violation of city policy. The training, described as specifically for City Council staff, will walk through “what are and aren’t allowed purchases” on city-issued cards and offer “best practices for completing travel authorization and reimbursement forms,” according to the email from City Manager T.C. Broadnax’s chief of staff.

Previous Statesman reporting revealed that Broadnax himself had expensed his lunch almost every working day since he started the job last year, mostly at the upscale salad chain Sweetgreen. Council Member Ryan Alter likewise expensed thousands of dollars worth of “working lunches” in likely violation of city policy. Both men agreed to reimburse taxpayers for a combined $4,500 after the Statesman started asking questions. City spokesperson Erik Johnson did not provide answers to several specific questions from the Statesman about next week’s training, including whether it was called in response to the newspaper’s recent reporting. In prepared statements, Johnson said Wednesday’s invite was directed at “designated staff members,” “but City Council members and other staff in their offices are able to attend as well.” An earlier statement noted that “refresher trainings” are offered annually to council offices, as well as one-on-one sessions for new chiefs of staff, and that all city employees receive training before they are issued a procurement card, or ProCard. “This training will also include guidance on other financial topics related to travel and ProCards as a knowledge refresher,” Johnson said of the Nov. 14 training. A second refresher will be offered in March, according to Wednesday’s email. The Statesman’s latest investigation revealed that some council members, including Alter, had spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on donations to nonprofits and advocacy organizations, furniture, artwork, consultants, staff development, international travel and more.

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5th Circuit ruling allows SB 12 drag ban to take effect

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling Thursday reversing a lower court ruling that had declared Texas Senate Bill 12 — aka the drag show ban — unconstitutional, according to a press release from the ACLU of Texas. In a joint statement released after the ruling the ACLU of Texas and the plaintiffs in the case said: “Today’s decision is heartbreaking for drag performers, small businesses and every Texan who believes in free expression. Drag is not a crime. It is art, joy and resistance — a vital part of our culture and our communities.

“We are devastated by this setback, but we are not defeated. Together, we will keep advocating for a Texas where everyone — including drag artists and LGBTQIA+ people — can live freely, authentically and without fear. The First Amendment protects all artistic expression, including drag. We will not stop until this unconstitutional law is struck down for good.” ACLU of Texas and Baker Botts LLP filed the lawsuit in August 2023 on behalf of The Woodlands Pride, Abilene Pride Alliance, Extragrams LLC, 360 Queen Entertainment LLC and drag performer Brigitte Bandit of Austin. A federal district court issued a permanent injunction blocking the law two years in the case The Woodlands Pride, Inc., et al, v. Warren Kenneth Paxton, et al, ruling that the law targeting drag performers and shows violated the U.S Constitution under five different grounds. But today’s Fifth Circuit ruling sends the case back to district court for “further analysis” on one of those five issues, the ACLU of Texas press release explains. The Fifth Circuit did not, however, address anything related to the other four issues on which the trial court had based its ruling.

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Dick Cheney's death went hardly recognized by many Texas Republicans

When a former vice president passes away, it's pro-forma for policitians of that party to issue a statement of condolence recounting that politician's achievements. But after news of former vice president Dick Cheney's death Tuesday, Texas Republicans in Congress largely stayed silent, mirroring the response of President Donald Trump, whom Cheney famously derided as a "threat to our republic." Cheney had connections to Texas. He served under George W. Bush, the first Texan since Lyndon B. Johnson to win the White House, and was the CEO of Texas oil field services giant Halliburton before agreeing to join Bush's campaign in 2000.

Some Texas Republicans said they hadn't personally known the 84-year-old Cheney, who had not served in public office since 2009. But others had, including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who is facing a competitive primary challenge in March. In 2009, as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Cornyn praised Cheney as a thoughtful critic of then president Barack Obama. "I'd be proud to appear with the vice president anywhere, anytime," he said. But this week, his office declined to comment on the senator's public silence about Cheney's death. The Republican party has largely distanced itself from the policies of the George W. Bush presidency, opting instead for Trump's economic populism and isolationism.

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Have Ray Hunt et al. gotten their money’s worth with the Republican Mayors Association?

As Zohran Mamdani was poised to become the next mayor of New York City last night, the mayor of Dallas dropped his take on Twitter. Speaking as the chairman of the Republican Mayors Association, a group he created in 2023, Eric Johnson said: Zorhan Mamdani’s victory in America’s largest city should serve as a wake-up call as to what the modern Democrat Party stands for: candidates who proudly call for defunding the police and who are determined to implement economic policies rooted in Soviet-era socialist ideology. New York City’s capture by the Democratic Socialists of America is a troubling sign for cities across our country. America’s great cities will not thrive under mayors who prioritize these patently un-American ideologies over the pleas of our citizens for increased public safety and economic growth. Elections—like the one that just occurred in New York City—have consequences: unsafe streets, stalled economic growth, and neighborhood deterioration. The Republican Mayors Association remains committed to electing and supporting Republican mayors to help build the strong, safe, and prosperous cities Americans deserve.

The tweet got me curious about how the Republican Mayors Association is doing—and what it is doing. Thankfully, ProPublica offers a great tool to satisfy, as least partially, such curiosity. It’s called the 527 Explorer. That’s what the RMA is, a political organization called a 527. KERA back in March published a story about the RMA’s finances, but for some reason that story didn’t mention anything about donors. That’s what I found most interesting when I looked up the RMA. ProPublica’s data for the RMA runs only through 2024. That’s what I’m focused on. So far this year, through June 30, the RMA hasn’t been very busy. It has taken in only $26,200. A PAC for Texas Realtors accounts for $25,000 of that. A Houston woman named Stephanie Nellons-Paige accounts for the other $1,200; oddly she donated it in six $200 installments. Back to the available data from ProPublica. There you can see that the RMA raised a total of $593,878 through 2024, and it has spent $337,197. Small shakes. But the biggest donors stand out. The following six names are responsible for 80 percent of the money raised by the RMA: Steve A Hall — $100,000, Ryan LLC — $100,000, Carl Sewell Jr. — $100,000, Ray Hunt — $100,000, John Carona — $50,000 and Carl Sewell III — $25,000.

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TEA commissioner names FWISD conservator amid state takeover

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath doubled down on his decision of a state takeover of the Fort Worth Independent School District on Thursday. He also named a conservator who will oversee turnaround plans for underperforming schools. Morath notified the Fort Worth ISD school board and Superintendent Karen Molinar of his plans to move forward with replacing the elected school board with an appointed board of managers, in addition to initiating a nationwide search for a superintendent. Molinar will be considered as a candidate for the position. Morath named Christopher Ruszkowski as the district’s conservator on Thursday, effective immediately. Morath said he would announce the board of managers and superintendent appointments later. Applications for the board of managers are due on Nov. 21.

Morath reaffirmed the takeover decision after an informal review meeting took place with district representatives in Austin a week ago. The district has the option to appeal this decision to the State Office of Administrative Hearings within 15 days. “As you are aware, in correspondence dated October 23, 2025, I provided notice of my intent to appoint a board of managers to the Fort Worth Independent School District to exercise the powers and duties of the district’s board of trustees and of the appointment of a conservator to the district. On October 30, 2025, I conducted an informal review of the appointments at the Texas Education Agency. After careful consideration of the information submitted by the district and presented during the review and in the best interest of the students of Fort Worth ISD, I am affirming my appointment of a board of managers and a conservator to the district,” Morath said in his Thursday correspondence to the district. The takeover resulted from the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade campus receiving five failed accountability grades in a row from the state. Per state law, officials are required to either close the campus or replace the school board with a board of managers. The district had already closed the school at the end of the 2022-23 school year, consolidating it with Forest Oak Middle.

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Inside Houston’s stunning new Ismaili Center, a first of its kind in the U.S.

After nearly two decades of planning and construction, a vacant property near Buffalo Bayou has been transformed into a majestic, 150,000-square-foot Ismaili Center — a new cultural and religious landmark that is the first of its kind in the United States. While the Ismaili Center, Houston will serve as a prayer venue, its representatives hope locals also embrace it as a peer to the likes of the Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel, Asia Society Texas, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The center plans to host art exhibitions, lectures and music recitals.

"We're here to recognize the Ismaili community's greatness, and in doing so, we get to show the greatness of the city of Houston," Mayor John Whitmire told the audience in a speech that praised the city's diversity. "This is a historic event," Whitmire added. "Pause a moment and realize what we're experiencing, what we're witnessing." Ismailis belong to a branch of Shia Muslims who trace their faith to their belief in the hereditary Imam. An estimated 35,000 to 40,000 Ismailis live in Greater Houston. They believe the Imams they follow are spiritual guides descended from the Prophet Muhammad, said Georgetown University associate professor Shenila Khoja-Moolji. The current Imam, Aga Khan V, is the 50th descendant in that lineage. Aga Khan V is the son and successor of the Ismaili Center’s initial visionary: His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, or the Aga Khan IV. Though the land had been purchased years earlier, the center was officially confirmed in 2018. As the project neared completion, Aga Khan IV died in February. One of the center’s closest local collaborators, former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, passed away about a month later.

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Cowboys DE Marshawn Kneeland dies in apparent suicide at 24

Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland, 24, died Thursday morning from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, according to law authorities. The team put out a statement Thursday but did not mention a cause of death. "It is with extreme sadness that the Dallas Cowboys share that Marshawn Kneeland tragically passed away this morning. Marshawn was a beloved teammate and member of our organization. Our thoughts and prayers regarding Marshawn are with his girlfriend Catalina and his family." The Cowboys have made counseling resources available to all players, coaches and staff. The players are on their bye week and are not scheduled to practice again until Monday.

According to Frisco (Texas) Police, the department responded to assist the Texas Department of Public Safety with locating a vehicle that evaded troopers during a pursuit that entered the city at approximately 10:39 p.m. CT Wednesday. DPS troopers found Kneeland's vehicle crashed on southbound Dallas Parkway near Warren Parkway. According to the report, Kneeland fled the scene on foot and officers searched the area with help from K-9 and drone units. As authorities were looking for Kneeland, a dispatcher told officers that people who knew him had received a group text from Kneeland "saying goodbye. They're concerned for his welfare," according to recordings from Broadcastify, which archives public safety radio feeds. Approximately three hours later, Kneeland was found with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Kneeland's agent, Jonathan Perzley, described his death as "a pain I can hardly put into words."

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Dallas police chief says rejected $25M ICE partnership required 50 arrests per day

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux told the City Council on Thursday that the $25 million partnership offered by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) would have required the department to arrest at least 50 undocumented immigrants each day to receive payment. Comeaux stated that the quota was shared with him during a phone call conversation about the program, although a representative from ICE denied that the initiative comes with an arrest requirement. In October, Comeaux told the Community Police Oversight Board that he’d rejected a $25 million offer for the Dallas Police Department to join the 297(g) program, which grants local law enforcement authorities jurisdiction over federal immigration enforcement.

In response, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called for a joint hearing between the Public Safety and Government Efficiency Committees, suggesting that policy decisions, especially those that come with a paycheck, should be made by “elected policymakers after receiving public input.” Addressing the committees on Thursday afternoon, Comeaux defended his decision by stating that a 287(g) partnership would “make no sense” for Dallas because the program would require as many as 250 DPD officers to be reassigned from their regular duties to take over ICE responsibilities “all day every day.” Comeaux said that such a change in personnel would have ramifications on 911 response times, community engagement and drops in violent crime. He told council members that a 287(g) partnership would result in hundreds of Dallas Police officers spending their days traveling to fast food restaurants and hardware stores “trying to find illegal immigrants to meet [ICE’s] quota” rather than carrying out local law enforcement duties. Comeaux also voiced fiscal concerns, stating that while the 287(g) program reimburses regular hours worked by officers who participate in the partnership, it would not cover the overtime hours required to staff positions left vacant by officers focusing on immigration enforcement.

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Glenn Rogers: Don't Austin my College Station

In the summer of 1976, I was a student at Texas A&M University, taking a political science class. I was trying to get into veterinary school and was very GPA conscious. My professor was a young liberal with unkempt long hair. I had the standard Corps of Cadets haircut. In appearance, politics and philosophy, we were worlds apart. One late Friday afternoon, I ran into him at Northgate — a popular row of socializing establishments across the street from campus. We had some interesting discussions over more than one beer at the Dixie Chicken. I thought I was going to fail his class because of our obvious disagreement on most political issues. Growing up in a small, rural conservative town and then attending Texas A&M, I had been quite sheltered from opposing views.

On the final exam I knew my answers to essay questions were highly inconsistent with his beliefs. Surprisingly, and to my relief, I made an A. In comments on the exam, he stated he did not agree with my conservative stance but was impressed with my arguments. He never changed my views, and I never changed his, but we were allowed to have the interaction. If that professor had not been allowed to teach due to differences of political ideology at the bastion of conservatism known as Texas A&M, neither one of us would have experienced this healthy exchange. And now there’s a segment of Texas Republicans that wants to prevent just that kind of growth. In September, Gen. Mark Welsh resigned from his role as president of Texas A&M. A student’s confrontation with a professor about gender identity content in a children’s literature class was secretly recorded. State Rep. Brian Harrison, a prolific grandstander and media hound, proceeded to make the recording public by launching a relentless and vicious social media attack on Welsh. Public outcry from Aggies and non-Aggies alike led to calls to fire the popular university president over his handling of the situation. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick inserted himself in the discussion supporting Welsh’s removal. Not to be outdone by the Aggies, University of Texas grad (and governor) Greg Abbott called for the firing of the professor. Abbott does not have the authority to fire faculty, but does appoint university regents who do. He later stated that Texas will go after professors for “ideological differences,” sending chills up the spines of academics.

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Joe Kirby: Don’t let closed primaries destroy the Texas Republican Party

(Joe Kirby is a national spokesperson for Open Primaries.) I’m a fourth-generation South Dakotan and lifelong conservative Republican. I support the principles of limited government, reduced taxation and individual liberty. I love South Dakota. My great-grandfather was present at the state’s constitutional convention in 1889. But I hate our state’s system of closed, partisan primaries. That system isn’t in our constitution but instead was created over time by misguided politicians who wanted to control our state’s politics. We’ve learned the hard way that when you limit competition, limit participation and silo voters, you disconnect voters from their representatives and stifle innovation. So when I read that the Texas GOP had filed a lawsuit to enact closed primaries in the Lone Star State, I wanted to scream, “Don’t do it!” Let me offer a warning from experience: Closed systems weaken state government.

Why sacrifice the growth, dynamism and freedom that is attracting people to Texas from all over the country by enacting a political system that will put a damper on all that makes Texas great? No conservative, no Republican, should ever want a system that limits competition and participation. In South Dakota, over 90% of the time the Republican primary is the only election that matters. Only registered Republicans can participate, yet all taxpayers — Republicans, Democrats and independents alike — pay for these elections. Half of South Dakotans are Republicans, but that group alone decides who governs everyone else. The result is predictable: complacency, stagnation and growing dysfunction. Now, our Republican Party has imploded. It is run by a recently converted Obama Democrat. It shows little to no support for Republican members of our congressional delegation, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Supporters have stopped contributing to the party. The party fights among itself because of lack of competition.

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Moody Foundation donates Hill Country ranch for Texas' second-largest state park

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission on Thursday accepted a gift of some 50,000 acres of western Hill County land from the Moody Foundation, property that will be transformed into the second largest tract in the state's park system. With little discussion and no dissent, the commission voted to begin the process of taking possession of the sprawling Silver Lake Ranch, a rugged stretch of terrain that straddles Kinney and Edwards counties along the Nueces River 125 miles west of San Antonio. No closing date has been announced for the formal transfer of ownership. Ross R. Moody, trustee of the Moody Foundation, said in a statement that he hopes that as a park it will be "enjoyed by generations of Texans to come.”

“Silver Lake Ranch has been a special place for generations of our family, and we’re proud to see it become a public space where Texans can connect with nature and help preserve our state’s remarkable landscapes,” he said. Parts of the property are leased to a private family to run livestock. The land is home to a lake and abundant populations of white-tailed deer, turkeys, javelinas and doves. The foundation owns nearly 90% of Silver Lake Ranch's 54,000 acres. A separate transaction will complete the transfer of the remaining parcels, but the Parks and Wildlife Department declined to disclose who owns those tracts and whether they will be purchased or donated. Once the state takes full ownership of the property, Silver Lake Ranch will be second in size only to the 300,000-acre Big Bend Ranch State Park, which was purchased in 1988. "We are grateful for our partnership with the Moody Foundation and appreciate their long-standing commitment to conserving some of the most beautiful places in Texas for use by future generations," the agency said in an unsigned statement. The acquisition is part of a $1 billion initiative called Centennial Parks Conservation Fund launched in 2023 to bolster the state's parkland inventory. Texas' state park system ranks 37th per capita in the nation in parkland acreage.

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Muslim student group says a protestor burned a Quran during prayer at University of Houston

A man disrupted an Islamic student group's event at the University of Houston by allegedly throwing the Quran into a fire, according to the student group. In a post on Instagram, the University of Houston Muslim Students Association said they held a peaceful gathering at Lynn Eusan Park on Oct. 30. During a prayer, they say a man "entered our reserved space shouting anti-Islam hate through a megaphone and threw a copy of the Holy Qur'an into our event bonfire." A video shared on Instagram appears to depict a man with a megaphone approaching a small, controlled fire, holding a book in his hand. He places the book in the fire and flees as a security guard approaches him. A photo attached to the post depicts a Quran with the top portion of the cover singed and blackened.

"What happened was not an interruption," the post reads. "It was a direct attack on our community, our faith, and our sense of safety at the University of Houston." In a statement, a spokesperson for the University of Houston said it has notified its campus police department of the incident, which is investigating it. "The University of Houston takes all allegations of harassment against members of our community very seriously," a spokesperson said. The Muslim Students Association, though, called on the university to go further. They asked for the university to restrict the individual's access to campus, release a public statement, and "provide all students of faith a dedicated safe space to congregate." The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called for law enforcement to investigate the incident as a possible hate crime, while praising the university's response.

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McKinney ISD to shutter 3 schools as enrollment declines and young families get priced out

Three elementary schools in southern McKinney will close after the McKinney ISD school board moved to consolidate services because of declining enrollment caused by high property values and low housing turnover that has priced out young families. Students at Eddins, McNeil and Wolford elementary schools will have to attend one of the 10 remaining schools in the area in the next school year. Closing the three schools is expected to save the district $3 million annually. While residential growth in the northwest and northeast regions of McKinney ISD could lead to crowding in some schools, elementary school enrollment in the southern regions of the district has declined, the school district said.

Since 2023, the district has been studying enrollment patterns to identify schools that aren’t being used to capacity. McKinney ISD superintendent, Shawn Pratt, said the closures were necessary because the district has been operating at a budget deficit for the last five years and measures to increase revenue like opening enrollment to families in other districts and charging tuition for child care haven’t closed the gap. Over the current school year, McKinney ISD reduced costs, shrinking its budget deficit from $22 million to $1.7 million. “I love this school district ... It’s not something I ever wanted to do,” Pratt said of the school closures. A facilities committee had recommended the three schools for closure at a Tuesday night meeting, after considering 13 elementary schools located south of highway 380 and west of U.S. 75. It based its recommendations on criteria like the condition of school buildings, financial efficiency and proximity to other elementary schools.

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ICE arrests Episcopal priest who reportedly works for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice

An Episcopal priest in Texas was arrested by immigration authorities for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Episcopal Diocese of Texas criticized his arrest, saying he was legally employed by the state of Texas. James Eliud Ngahu Mwangi, a Kenyan immigrant, was arrested Oct. 24, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He's accused of overstaying his B1 Visa, which ICE said required him to leave the United States on May 16, 2024. In a statement, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas said Mwangi was legally employed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was arrested in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The Episcopal Diocese of Texas expressed "deep concern" about the arrest and is calling for transparency and due process in Mwangi's case. "The Episcopal Diocese of Texas stands firmly for justice, dignity, and compassion for every person," Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle, IX Bishop of Texas, said in a news release. "This priest has served both the Church and the State of Texas faithfully. We are praying for his safety, for his family's peace of mind, and for fair and humane treatment as this case moves forward." The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately return a request for comment. The diocese said Mwangi was transferred to an immigration detention center in Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston, and that he's been able to speak with his family. The organization said he was detained while returning home from work. Episcopal churches across Texas are calling attention to Mwangi's arrest. St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Austin shared a message on Facebook, asking for prayers for Mwangi. St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Cypress also asked for prayers.

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National Stories

Flight-cancellation plans prompt scramble across travel industry

Airlines and travelers scrambled to review flight plans after U.S. transportation officials said they would throttle commercial air traffic starting Friday, a move that has heightened pressure on lawmakers and the president to end the government shutdown. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said traffic at 40 major airports would be reduced as much as 10% as a safety measure prompted by the shutdown. He has said that while the country’s air-travel system is safe, the reduction is aimed at keeping it that way. Air-traffic controllers and airport security agents aren’t being paid during the shutdown, which federal officials said has led to stretched staffing, flight delays and long security lines. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill floated proposals to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history as the widening political and economic fallout has spurred interest in reaching a deal.

An agreement to end the shutdown could involve votes on a package of three full-year spending bills for military construction and veterans, agriculture and the legislative branch, along with a stopgap measure that would reopen the entire government through at least December. The Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Department emergency order, which takes effect Friday, outlines a gradual increase in flight cuts. A 4% reduction in traffic will take effect Friday. The reductions will reach 6% by Tuesday, Nov. 11, 8% by Nov. 13, and 10% by Nov. 14. The order also limits commercial space launches to nonpeak hours and prohibits some parachute operations. Some of the nation’s busiest airports are among those the FAA targeted for flight capacity cuts, including those in Atlanta, Chicago and New York. “To put that in perspective, a 4% reduction in key markets represents approximately 100 flights, a level we routinely manage during standard weather or irregular operational events,” according to a Southwest Airlines internal memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Some airline industry officials compared managing the planned reduction to dealing with a winter storm—if a storm were to hit dozens of major airports all at once.

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Judge orders Trump administration to deliver full SNAP benefits to states by Friday

A federal judge in Rhode Island has ordered the Trump administration to deliver SNAP payments in full to states by Friday. The order, which U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued Thursday afternoon, followed two weeks of chaos and confusion about the fate of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, during the government shutdown. McConnell ruled last week that the Trump administration had to distribute benefits as soon as possible, in response to a lawsuit filed by the progressive legal advocacy group Democracy Forward.

The group sued the Department of Agriculture late last month, after the agency said SNAP funding would not be distributed in November as long as the federal government remained closed. The lawsuit alleged that the USDA’s actions were arbitrary and capricious and therefore violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The Trump administration agreed to partially fund the program by using $4.65 billion in contingency funds to cover about 65% of the benefits that eligible households would ordinarily receive. But it declined to draw from additional funding set aside for child nutrition programs. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also said it would take several weeks to deliver the partial payments. Given those expected delays, Democracy Forward filed an emergency request asking McConnell to order the Trump administration to expedite benefits or grant additional relief.

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Stefanik poised to announce bid for New York governor on Friday

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, an ardent ally of President Donald Trump, will launch her long-expected bid for governor Friday, four people with direct knowledge of her plans told POLITICO. Stefanik’s announcement will include a video and will be followed by a statewide tour. She has worked to line up endorsements from Republican leaders and elected officials, according to three of the people with knowledge of the calls. The upstate Republican has served in the House for the last decade and in recent months has ratcheted up her criticism of Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, repeatedly calling her the “worst governor in America.” Stefanik is making her announcement after Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican reelected to a second term on Tuesday, signaled this week he was also considering a bid for governor. A Stefanik spokesperson declined to comment about her plans.

But Stefanik will be running in a deep blue state where Trump is highly unpopular. The president helped clear the field for Stefanik earlier this year when he endorsed Rep. Mike Lawler, a moderate GOP lawmaker considered a potentially strong statewide candidate, for reelection to his swing seat in the New York City suburbs. Stefanik expects to leverage Zohran Mamdani’s election this week in the New York City mayor’s race and plans to tie the governor to the democratic socialist, who holds anti-Israel views and is deeply polarizing in the bellwether suburbs. Stefanik’s withering questioning of Ivy League presidents over campus antisemitism earned her support from Jewish voters and she plans to release a book on the issue next year. Still, she will have to introduce herself to a broader Democratic-dominated electorate in New York that has not backed a Republican for the governor’s office since 2002.

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DraftKings CEO says prediction markets aren’t luring customers away from sports betting

DraftKings CEO Jason Robins told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that prediction markets aren’t driving customers out of sports betting, stressing that the two have different offerings. “Simply going and spending five minutes looking at the products, you’ll see what I mean — it’s night and day,” Robins said. “The amount of markets, even the pricing, isn’t something that I would view as competitive with what we do.” Robins pointed to U.K. and Western European markets, where there is both exchange based betting and traditional sports betting. In those areas, he said “exchange products are typically low to mid single digit percentages of share of the total industry,” suggesting that indicates there is little volume migration from the sports books.

But DraftKings is making its own foray into prediction markets. It acquired prediction platform RailBird last month and announced it would launch a mobile application that allows users to bet on outcomes in a variety of sectors, including finance and entertainment. Robins told Cramer that prediction markets present an opportunity for DraftKings, especially in places like California and Texas where traditional online sports betting is illegal. However, he added that his company is going to continue to focus on sports books in states where the practice is legal. “I think the reality is that at least for the near term, it looks like the momentum is here,” Robins said of prediction markets. “They’re here to stay. And so, I think with that in mind, we need to participate, and we should have the tools to win.” The company reported earnings Thursday after close and lowered its full-year sales outlook, sending shares down more than 5% in extended trading.

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With a Sununu running for Senate, Democrats warn against 'sleeping on New Hampshire'

Former Sen. John E. Sununu’s comeback attempt in New Hampshire has Democrats there warning about a tougher-than-expected Senate race that could complicate the party’s effort to flip control of the chamber next year. Sununu — a Republican who served one Senate term two decades ago and whose younger brother, Chris, was more recently the state’s popular four-term governor — jumped into the race last month. The GOP establishment quickly rallied around Sununu in a primary that also includes Scott Brown, who served as an ambassador in President Donald Trump’s first term and as a senator from neighboring Massachusetts in the early 2010s.

Democrats are likely to counter with Rep. Chris Pappas for a seat that is up for grabs next year after Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen, who beat Sununu in 2008, decided against seeking re-election. Mindful that their party’s recruiting windfalls in Maine, North Carolina and Ohio have brought more attention to those 2026 Senate battlegrounds, Democrats fear New Hampshire could be lost in the national shuffle. “I think people are sleeping on New Hampshire nationally, and that’s really foolish,” said Aaron Jacobs, who managed Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan’s 2022 re-election effort there and ran the state campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris last year. “I certainly think a Sununu getting in the race puts this race at a different level,” Jacobs added. “John Sununu is not Chris Sununu. It’s been a long time since he was a senator. But the bumper stickers are still going to say Sununu

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Supreme Court rules White House can implement anti-trans passport policy

As the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar last week—a case that could overturn bans on conversion therapy in more than 20 states and the District of Columbia—a group of conversion therapy survivors gathered in Washington, D.C., to support one another and ensure their experiences are not ignored. Some members of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network (CTSN), a nonprofit organization that provides a safe, non-therapeutic space for survivors nationwide, began their day on the steps of the Supreme Court. The small but dedicated group of protesters held signs, waved Pride flags, and shared stories of survival. They were joined by representatives from the Born Perfect Campaign, the Human Rights Campaign, and The Trevor Project—the LGBTQ suicide prevention nonprofit that has worked to save queer lives since 1998.

The case centers on whether parents have the constitutional right to subject their children to conversion therapy under the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom. Dozens of states have banned the practice, citing overwhelming evidence that it does not change sexuality or gender identity and often leads to long-term psychological harm. Survivors of conversion therapy are at significantly higher risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide, according to every major U.S. medical association—including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Medical Association—all of which have disavowed the practice. Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist from Colorado, brought the case after arguing that Colorado’s 2019 law banning conversion therapy for minors violates her First Amendment rights. Chiles, who provides what she describes as “religiously informed care,” contends that the law restricts her ability to counsel clients in accordance with “biblical understandings of sexuality and gender.” During oral arguments, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared sympathetic to her claim that the law constitutes “viewpoint discrimination.” Justice Samuel Alito went so far as to say the ban represented “blatant viewpoint discrimination,” signaling that the court may be willing to expand First Amendment protections to cover conversion therapy.

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Cuomo backers burned $65 per vote, including $13.3 million from Bloomberg

In the weeks before Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral dream went up in smoke on election night, a handful of independent spending groups backed by New York City’s oligarchy spent more than $55 million supporting the ex-governor or attacking his ultimately victorious rival, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. With Cuomo garnering just under 855,000 votes, that amounted to the would-be power brokers spending $65 per vote for a losing candidate. Meanwhile, independent committees that included backers such as the Working Families Party dropped a relatively paltry $16 million to either support Mamdani or go after Cuomo. Mamdani snagged a little more than 1 million votes, making their investment come in at $15.81 per vote. For a winner.

And in the final weeks of the general election, one of the groups backing Cuomo unleashed a high-voltage ad featuring a photo of Mamdani placed over a an image of the burning World Trade Center, an ad that even some Cuomo supporters considered overtly Islamophobic and that some observers say may have actually backfired. If anything, this bruising election raised questions about the effectiveness of such committees — which are not permitted to coordinate with candidates and are not bound by the usual restrictions campaigns must adhere to — in swaying voters. Authorized under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the committees are a workaround of sorts from the strict rules campaigns must follow. Mayoral campaigns that wish to accept public matching funds are barred from accepting contributions from unions or corporations. Campaigns also can’t keep any donation from an individual totaling more than $2,100, and if the individual does business with the city, that cap shrinks to $400.

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Copyright November 14, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved