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Newsclips - November 4, 2024

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Wall Street Journal - November 3, 2024

The election-year fight over what counts as Chinese-owned U.S. farmland

Walton Global has been identified by the U.S. government as a Chinese owner of U.S. farmland for a decade. The private land-banking company has opened four new offices in China since 2018 and last year was named by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as one of the top five Chinese owners of American farmland. But last month, the company successfully petitioned the agency to reclassify much of its land as owned by investors from other countries, after The Wall Street Journal inquired about its holdings. It said the agency had made a mistake in saying so much of its land was held by Chinese investors. Opposition to Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland in the name of economic and national security is a popular message this election cycle. It is featured in more than $8 million worth of advertisements in the 2024 election cycle alone, from both Democrats and Republicans, according to data from ad tracker AdImpact.

Some of the largest such companies caught up in this criticism are now pushing back, underscoring the limited oversight the U.S. government has on the issue. Few agree on what even counts as owned by China or which aspect of that ownership is bad for the U.S., even when that land is close to military installations. Walton, which buys and resells land to developers, owns 14 sites that have some Chinese investment within 15 miles of military bases, the company said, including two near Joint Base Andrews, the hub of presidential travel. Two Walton sites near military bases with more than 90% Chinese ownership aren’t included in the USDA database because the underlying land isn’t designated as agricultural, a company spokesman said. “We do business in China. We’re proud to do business in China,” the company’s chief executive, Bill Doherty, said in an interview. But he said, “The company is owned by me and my family. And I’m most definitely not Chinese.” The company has touted its proximity to military installations, along with other local attractions, in some of its marketing materials in China.

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Associated Press - November 4, 2024

Mitch McConnell leaving Senate GOP leadership post. Will John Cornyn snag the role?

Senate Republicans vying to replace longtime leader Mitch McConnell have been crossing the country to campaign and fundraise for colleagues, making their final arguments before a consequential ballot the week after the presidential election. But their pitches are mostly behind closed doors, and most GOP senators won’t yet say which lawmaker they are backing. South Dakota’s John Thune, McConnell’s current No. 2, and John Cornyn of Texas, who held that job before Thune, are the front-runners in the Nov. 13 secret ballot to replace McConnell. The Kentucky senator is stepping aside from the post in January after almost two decades as leader. The winner could steer the direction of the party for years to come and possibly become the next Senate majority leader if Republicans win enough seats in Tuesday’s election. The outcome is, for now, uncertain.

Only a few Republican senators have publicly endorsed a candidate. Many say they are still undecided. The third senator in the race — Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who is dealing with his own reelection bid — could act as a spoiler. Another candidate could still jump in. In many ways, “the two Johns” are remarkably similar, making the choice difficult for their colleagues. Both are well-liked and, in the mold of McConnell, lean toward the more traditional wing of the Republican Party. But both have also suggested they will try to move on from the McConnell era with a more open approach. “I’m trying to find differentiation because they’re both great guys,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has worked closely with both of them. The two men are also trying to distinguish themselves from McConnell by making clear that they support Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election. Like McConnell, they have both sparred with Trump in the past, especially after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But both Thune and Cornyn have talked to Trump frequently in recent months, attended campaign events and visited his Florida home.

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NBC Philadelphia - November 4, 2024

Harris goes to church while Trump muses about reporters being shot

Kamala Harris told a Michigan church on Sunday that God offers America a “divine plan strong enough to heal division,” while Donald Trump gave a profane and conspiracy-laden speech in which he mused about reporters being shot and labeled Democrats as “demonic.” The two major candidates took starkly different tones on the final Sunday of the campaign. Less than 48 hours before Election Day, Harris, the Democratic vice president, argued that Tuesday's election offers voters the chance to reject “chaos, fear and hate,” while Trump, the Republican former president, repeated lies about voter fraud to try to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and suggested that the country was falling apart without him in office. Harris was concentrating her Sunday in Michigan, beginning the day with a few hundred parishioners at Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ.

It marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that Harris, who is Baptist, has spoken to a Black congregation, a reflection of how critical Black voters are across multiple battleground states. “I see faith in action in remarkable ways,” she said in remarks that quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. “I see a nation determined to turn the page on hate and division and chart a new way forward. As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.” She never mentioned Trump, though she’s certain to return to her more conventional partisan speech in stops later Sunday. But Harris did tell her friendly audience that “there are those who seek to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos.” The election and “this moment in our nation,” she continued, “has to be about so much more than partisan politics. It must be about the good work we can do together.” Harris finished her remarks in about 11 minutes — starting and ending during Trump's roughly 90-minute speech at a chilly outdoor rally at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, airport. Trump usually veers from subject to subject, a discursive style he has labeled “the weave.” But in Lancaster, he went on long tangents and hardly mentioned his usual points on the economy, immigration and rote criticisms of Harris.

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Austin American-Statesman - November 4, 2024

Experts: Travis County GOP lawsuit part of national strategy to sow distrust in election

Travis County Republican Party Chairman Matt Mackowiak made an urgent announcement last Tuesday, more than a week into early voting: The local GOP had sued the Travis County elections administrator, alleging that she created a “severe deficiency” in the number of Republican poll workers at the county’s 170-plus voting locations. “It is totally unacceptable that large portions of our county have no Republican election judges assigned, despite our providing far more than the number of available workers needed,” Mackowiak said in a statement announcing the emergency petition. He was referencing a list of people the county GOP had asked county officials to consider appointing to run polls during early voting in the Nov. 5 general election. It’s a common practice in Texas and other states to allow local Republican and Democratic parties to make such recommendations to help ensure bipartisan staffing at polling locations. The people on those lists are supposed to be given priority. In its emergency petition filed with the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals, Mackowiak and the county GOP accused Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado of failing to exhaust the party's list before appointing other people.

According to Mackowiak, the county GOP acted entirely in response to numerous complaints from would-be Republican poll workers who never were called upon to help run a polling location. “It was not driven or influenced by any event in other states,” he said in the email. But local and state arms of the Republican Party and even the Republican National Committee have lodged nearly identical allegations this year at election offices across the country, filing complaints and lawsuits in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The RNC, which did not respond to a request for comment, filed a similar case against Arizona’s Maricopa County in 2022. The RNC, for example, said it reached a settlement in October with the elections office in Detroit. And just last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court found that Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis, hadn’t exhausted a full list of Republican poll worker candidates, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. Mackowiak said in the email that the group reached out to the RNC “for assistance in rectifying the situation.” (One of the RNC’s outside lawyers helped draft the complaint.) But he maintained the county GOP wasn’t inspired by anyone else. Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at George Washington University who reviewed the petition at the Statesman’s request, said that while the argument could be valid, the Travis County GOP “offers no actual evidence or even factual allegations." “The complaint simply recites Texas law and asserts that the clerk isn't following it, based it seems only on the lack of parity,” Berman said. “I think the plaintiffs would need to allege something more specific — and certainly would need to offer more proof at trial — in order to win.” Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s “implausible” that elections administrators in multiple states are “systematically discriminating against thousands of potential poll workers based on their partisanship.” More likely, many of the individuals on these GOP lists didn’t take the required steps to become a poll worker. The effort has yielded some wins.

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State Stories

San Antonio Report - November 4, 2024

Bexar County expects busy Election Day with drop in early votes

Now that early voting has ended, Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said Saturday that the county’s voting is down from the 2020 presidential election. Callanen is still predicting a busy Election Day turnout on Nov. 5, however, in part because there have been fewer opportunities this year to vote ahead of time. Because of COVID-19 precautions during the 2020 election, early voting was extended by a week, and a tremendous emphasis was put on voting by mail. Against that backdrop, Callanen said that in 2020 the county received about 690,000 votes cast early or by mail — compared to 605,000 early and mailed votes cast in 2024, though mailed ballots are still being counted as they’re received.

That puts the county’s turnout at about 46.7% headed into Election Day this year, Callanen said on Saturday. Total turnout for county in the 2020 election was 65.1%. Callanen said it’s unlikely Bexar County will catch up to that percentage in 2024. But Election Day voting should account for a much larger share of the total votes cast this year, she said, bringing the raw vote total at least as high as 2020. The unusual focus on early and mail-in voting made for a much lower than expected Election Day turnout in 2020, with roughly 84,000 votes cast, Callanen said. “The key to this that we’re looking at is Election Day in 2020… which was like, ‘Where’s the voters?'” Callanen said. “So we’re taking a step back here, and we’re waiting.”

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Dallas Morning News - November 4, 2024

From president to propositions, ballot choices abound for North Texas voters

Tuesday is Election Day, giving North Texans one final chance to make selections for president, U.S. senator, seats in the state Legislature and much more, including the much-debated Dallas Hero charter amendments and a proposal to decriminalize marijuana possession in Dallas. Atop the ballot is the race deciding whether the state’s 40 electoral votes for president go to Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris. A high-profile U.S. Senate contest between Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Colin Allred — with most polls showing a close race and money pouring in to both candidates — could help determine which party controls the Senate and the levers of power over confirming presidential nominees, particularly to federal courts. Almost 45% of registered voters in Dallas County took advantage of early voting, leaving more than 809,000 residents eligible to cast ballots Tuesday.

Dallas voters will decide the fate of 18 propositions to update the city charter or codes, including Proposition R, which would bar the Dallas Police Department from making arrests or issuing citations for possession of marijuana or from considering marijuana odor as probable cause for search and seizure, except in cases involving a violent felony or high-priority narcotics felony investigation. Voters in the Frisco Independent School District will decide whether to approve more than $1 billion in bonds for school construction and renovation, new school buses, technology improvements and an $11.2 million tennis center. Five members of Congress whose districts include parts of Dallas County are seeking reelection, including Reps. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell; Jake Ellzey, R-Midlothian; Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving; Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas; and Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth. State Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, is running against former Arlington City Council Member Darrell Day and Libertarian candidate Kevin Hale to succeed Allred in the U.S. House. Seventeen state legislative races are on the ballot in Dallas County, with incumbents seeking reelection in all but three contests. Democrats Linda Garcia, an economic empowerment advocate, and Aicha Davis, a former member of the state education board, are running unopposed in House District 107 and 109, respectively. Democrat Cassandra Hernandez, a trial lawyer, is running against Republican John Jun, a former Coppell City Council member and mayor pro tem, in District 115. The winner will succeed Johnson, the Democrat running for Allred’s seat in Congress.

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Houston Chronicle - November 4, 2024

Chris Tomlinson: How Elon Musk became the most politically powerful Texan due to COVID and transgender rights

Maybe it’s something in Austin’s water, but Elon Musk has caught the politics bug, and the world’s wealthiest man could change Texas politics and the Republican Party for years to come. Musk’s higher profile also reveals our most famous billionaire’s weird obsessions. Normally, I couldn’t care less if he created a “Big Love” compound in Austin for the baby mamas of his 12 or more kids, but using his wealth and celebrity to reshape the nation invites scrutiny. The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter — now known as X — uses every tool to help elect former President Donald Trump. In addition to giving $132 million to support the Republican nominee, the Wall Street Journal reports X’s algorithm is pushing Musk’s political posts, including disinformation, to all users. The New York Times estimates Musk’s reprogramming is worth $100 million to Trump’s campaign.

Musk’s political awakening coincided with Tesla’s relocation to Texas in 2021. Musk was enraged that California public health authorities expected Tesla to follow the same COVID pandemic precautions as every other employer. At about this time, he also turned on his transgender daughter. By the time Musk donned a cowboy hat at the Austin Tesla plant in 2022, he was secretly financing a group called Citizens for Sanity, started by Stephen Miller, the vile racist behind Trump’s immigration policies. The money paid for ads vilifying transgender children and undocumented immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported. Musk began weighing into Texas politics this year, quietly spending $650,000 to defeat progressive Travis County District Attorney José Garza in the Democratic primary, the Journal also reported. “José Garza is filling Austin’s streets with pedophiles & killers,” a flyer paid for by Musk said. “The next victim could be your loved one.”

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Houston Chronicle - November 4, 2024

Cold front will shift Houston weather into fall mode again, but how long will that last?

Rain chances in Houston ramp up to 80% on Monday night, and the moisture-rich air will help keep overnight temperatures above 68 degrees. Then, a slow-moving cold front will move into and through Southeast Texas from late Monday night to Tuesday, forecasters said. “Showers and thunderstorms can be expected on Monday ahead of the front and then again Monday night and Tuesday with the front,” the weather service said in its forecast bulletin. “While the best dynamics look to be north of our forecast area, there could end up being a risk of some strong/severe storms along with the potential for locally heavy rain for parts of Southeast Texas.” Any storms that develop would only add moisture to already-saturated parts of Southeast Texas that experienced bouts of new rainfall in recent days.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 4, 2024

Central Texas news anchor shares colleague Kris Radcliffe’s unexpected death with viewers

Longtime Central Texas television news anchor Kris Radcliffe “died unexpectedly” Wednesday, his co-anchor Lindsay Liepman tearfully told viewers at the start of that evening’s newscast. “Kris loved this community and never took his role for granted,” Liepman said, calling his death “a true loss for our community.” Radcliffe was 51. The California native joined KCEN TV in 2002 as a sports anchor. The NBC affiliate covers Waco, Temple and Killeen. Radcliffe went on to anchor the station’s “Texas Today” morning show for nine years before becoming an evening anchor. He was named the “Waco Tribune-Herald On-Air Television Personality of The Year” for six years in a row from 2016 to 2021.

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Dallas Morning News - November 4, 2024

This year had the warmest October in Dallas-Fort Worth since at least 1898

Last month the Dallas-Fort Worth area topped the charts as the warmest October since the National Weather Service began record keeping in 1898. The determination comes after a number of days last month were reported as unseasonably warm with above-normal temperatures. The monthly average temperature for this October at DFW International Airport was 75.7 degrees, according to weather service data. This year’s average was a jump up from 69.2 in October 2023 and 69.1 in October 2022. This October was the first to break 75 degrees for the monthly average, according to historical data. The previous warmest October was set at 74.1 degrees in 2016 followed by 73.5 in 1963 and 73.2 in 1947 and 1934.

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Austin American-Statesman - November 3, 2024

Hudson Fire in Bastrop County grows to 100 acres, prompts evacuations on Sunday

Officials have evacuated multiple households in Bastrop County due to a spreading wildfire. The fire began west of downtown Bastrop just before 2 p.m. Sunday and quickly spread to 50 acres, the Bastrop County Office of Emergency Management said. By 3:40 p.m. Sunday, the Hudson Fire in Bastrop County had grown to an estimated 100 acres and was 0% contained, the Texas A&M Forest Service shared on X. Residents living near Texas Highway 71 and Alum Creek Road and north of Goiter Trace Road have been told to evacuate. Authorities said households along Park Road 1C were evacuated earlier in the afternoon. They did not say how many homes had been affected by the evacuations. Firefighters are expected to continue working to extinguish the "extremely active" fire throughout the night, Bastrop Emergency Management said.

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Inside Climate News - November 3, 2024

Holding out hope on the drying Rio Grande

The year was 1897. Floodwaters from the Rio Grande submerged entire blocks of downtown El Paso. The New York Times described the crash of crumbling houses and the “cries of frightened women and children” on its May 26 front page. The raging river displaced hundreds of people and destroyed scores of adobe homes. In Mexico, the Rio Grande is known as the Rio Bravo — the rough, or wild, river — signifying the force that caused several devastating floods in El Paso and neighboring Ciudad Juárez. Today, these historic floods are hard to imagine. The river channel in El Paso-Juárez now only fills during the irrigation season. Farther downstream, the river is frequently dry in a 200-mile section known as the Forgotten Reach. Inside Climate News documented this remote stretch of the river in July on a flight with the nonprofit Light Hawk. Other than limited flows from springs and creeks, known locally as arroyos, this section of the Rio Grande barely has water.

That’s because reservoirs now harness the flows of snowmelt and monsoon rains that once defined the river and deliver that water to thirsty cities and sprawling farms. Making matters worse, climate change is increasing temperatures and aridification in the desert Southwest. Competition over dwindling water is growing. All that leaves little water to support fish, birds and wetland ecosystems that once thrived along the Rio Grande. But environmental scientists and local conservation advocates say there are opportunities to restore environmental flows — the currents of water needed to maintain a healthy river ecology — on the Rio Grande and its West Texas tributaries. Proponents of environmental flows are restoring tributaries and documenting little-known springs that feed the river. They are working with counterparts in Mexico to overcome institutional barriers. Samuel Sandoval Solis, a professor of water resource management at the University of California Davis and an expert on the Rio Grande, compared this restoration model to a “string of pearls.” “Ultimately, we start connecting these pearls,” he said. “And we start putting it back together.” But to replicate and expand these local initiatives will require more funding and political support on the embattled binational waterway.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 3, 2024

How to ‘repurpose’ S.A.’s many closed schools? Some ISDs made it work. Some are still deciding.

When Paola Hernandez finishes her third grade day at Roosevelt Dual Language Academy, she hops on an Edgewood Independent School District bus and goes to another school. But this one hasn’t held classes in more than a decade. She arrives at the former Coronado/Escobar Elementary School, which since 2012 has been leased by the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. After a snack and recess, Hernandez and about 50 other girls get homework help and do arts and crafts through the free Girl Genius After School Tutoring program. Since 2023, rapidly fraying budgets and years of declining enrollment have forced Edgewood ISD and three other local school districts to close more than two dozen campuses in central San Antonio, most of them on the South Side and West Side. To grieving neighborhoods about to lose a community anchor, they vowed to repurpose the newly-vacant buildings, but in most cases, they’re still deciding how. A few successful examples of nonprofit and corporate partnerships might provide a model.

“I learn to be nice, kind, to be respectful. I learn to be like an artist, crafting,” said Hernandez, 8, as she mixed and sculpted model clay into a pink-and-black “tie-dye ghost” on a recent afternoon. She speaks Spanish at home and didn’t know any English when she started with the Girl Scouts programs back in her pre-K days. “When I grew up, I learned new words. I learned new things. Now I know a lot of English,” Hernandez said. The Girl Scouts have operated on the West Side for more than 30 years, said Stephanie Finleon Cortez, chief development and communications officer for the Southwest Texas group. Pre-pandemic, the organization hosted monthly community events. It runs a summer day camp called Camp Metro. “The reality is, most of the families on the West Side of San Antonio are coming from marginalized communities, and there’s not a strong history of Girl Scouting or even championing girls in that community,” she said. “And so we know that in order to serve the girl, we have to support her entire family structure, because it’s a family decision for a girl to be in Girl Scouting. And we really needed a center on the West Side to build trust with the families in the area.” Among the more recent batch of closures, Harlandale ISD has converted Carroll Bell Elementary School, one of the four campuses it decided to close in March 2023, into the Carroll Bell Education Center dedicated to career and technical education for high schoolers, which opened in August.

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MySA - November 3, 2024

Starr County's 'culture of corruption' unveils prosecutor's $44K bribes

A former elected South Texas attorney was sentenced to serve over three years in prison for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes while in office. The prosecutor is just the latest to be convicted in a known "culture of corruption" in Starr County. Victor Canales Jr., 51, pleaded guilty to extortion under color of law charges in September 2023. His sentencing was announced by U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani. on Tuesday, October 29 in a news release. Canales served nearly 20 years as Starr County attorney between 2005 and 2022. He was responsible for prosecuting misdemeanor crimes but accepted cash deposits and dropped charges instead.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 3, 2024

Adriana Rocha Garcia: Decide today what you’ll do the day after the presidential election

(San Antonio City Council Member Adriana Rocha Garcia represents District 4.) Last week, an unfortunate confrontation occurred when a voter allegedly assaulted an election clerk. The incident occurred in the area of San Antonio that I proudly call home and represent on the City Council. We pride ourselves on being a compassionate city, yet the angst people feel about this year’s presidential election seems to have impaired some people’s capacity to be empathetic. More Americans than ever are reporting feelings of anxiety around politics. While some may attempt to characterize the election results as a loss or a win, I refuse to subscribe to this notion that civility and collaboration suddenly dissipate. While divisive partisan politics make headlines and can be linked to an uptick in political violence, this cannot and should not be the norm we accept.

Recently, I attended Together We Dine, a dinner conversation about unity hosted by several nonprofit organizations from across Texas, including Common Ground USA and Project Unity. They asked the question: What happens the day after the election? I left thinking, what can I do to help bring people together? What can we all do? We can’t let our entrenched political beliefs tear us apart. As I pondered the question, I spoke to the city’s faith liaison, the Rev. Ann E. Helmke, who leads the Faith-Based Initiative & Compassionate San Antonio's efforts. She is working with local congregations to have drop-in hours throughout the day Wednesday to help those anxious or struggling to cope with the outcome of the election. Many of us, in times of pain, sorrow and tragedy, turn to community while we process our grief. This offers us an opportunity to reflect and consider the path we want to follow in the future. Our community is invited to convene at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Main Plaza in downtown San Antonio to experience a safe space where we can recognize what we gain when we stand united, forging ahead, despite our differences. Fear holds us back from our dreams, and we still have a long way to go to live up to the democratic principles that we fiercely defend. The very same foundation that affords us the opportunity to vote and mold the society we live in is only as strong as the people who stand together to address injustices, economic inequality and complacency.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 3, 2024

TikTok food critic Keith Lee shares his plan to move to Texas with some 16 million followers

Keith Lee, the famous food critic with more than 16 million followers on TikTok, announced he has moved to Texas. In a video posted Saturday, Lee shared that after living in Las Vegas for a decade, he made the move with his wife and two kids. "I moved to Vegas when I was 18," he said in the video, which had amassed more than 339,000 likes by Sunday morning. "I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life." Lee's announcement quickly sparked a guessing game of where the social media influencer has bought a home in the Lone Star State, especially when he ranked Houston as the second best food city in the nation even after visits to Dallas.

The former mixed martial arts fighter has become world-renowned for his honest and entertaining restaurant reviews, often traveling across the country to highlight small or family-owned businesses. With such a large following, Lee's reviews carry weight. A positive review can lead to booming business for some restaurants and even save a struggling business. But, any negative comment from Lee could elicit repercussions for restaurant owners. The critic, who had built up a following filming his his direct-but-not-too-harsh reviews in a car, panned a number of Atlanta restaurants, which garnered national attention. In his recent video, Lee lamented the downside of having such a large following. Specifically, Lee expressed frustration that his positive acts often are overshadowed by negativity from viewers and the media. "The Internet can quickly shift from something that's fun and beyond enjoyable to quickly reaching an audience that would never see your point of view or understand where you're coming from, and that's what I feel like we reached," he said. "It was to a point where it was really affecting me."

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National Stories

Inside Climate News - November 3, 2024

As Chinese EV maker puts down roots in Mexico, Harris and Trump offer competing visions

Paulina Hernández inspected her new BYD King plug-in hybrid sedan when the sales team removed the oversized red bow and cover. She noticed a smudge on the “Time Grey” finish and her sales rep, Veronica Montoya, rushed to her side with a spray bottle and cloth. Montoya held them as she answered her customer’s questions over the next hour, ready to wipe away any mark or doubts that this sale would go through. Hernández, 33, a classical dance instructor who lives in Mexico City’s tony Santa Fe district, had been looking for a better car for her daily 38-mile commute to the neighboring city of Toluca through the capital’s notoriously bad traffic. The BYD King, with an all-electric range of 31 miles and total range of 730 miles, sells for the equivalent of $24,940 USD. “The idea is that I’ll pay off this car with what I save from not buying gasoline,” Hernández said. She was the latest of what the sales team says has been an “explosion” of customers at BYD Santa Fe, the first of 30 showrooms the Chinese electric car juggernaut has opened across Mexico in the past year. The company plans to open 20 more dealerships in the country this year and soon will announce the location for a Mexico factory that will build 150,000 EVs per year.

This kind of rapid growth enabled BYD to overtake American EV pioneer Tesla as the world’s No. 1 electric vehicle company (when counting both its all-electric and its plug-in hybrids) in 2022. It’s now selling twice as many cars as Tesla. All signs point to an EV future, and BYD’s charge across Mexico is a vivid demonstration of how China has positioned itself to dominate that future. The U.S. presidential election, with two different visions for autos, will help to determine whether the country will try to close the gap with China, or double down on fossil-fuel-powered transportation. Inside Climate News spent the year examining the rise of EVs through the lens of U.S. politics. President Joe Biden’s climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, has set off an EV factory building boom. U.S. automakers are welcoming federal money and want to ramp up their EV lineups to compete globally, which is creating a wedge in the alliance between an auto industry and the oil industry. Auto workers are watching the changes with both trepidation and hope. Car dealers, meanwhile, are trying to figure out how to sell EVs and facing reluctance, especially in rural areas.

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Religion News Service - November 4, 2024

Charlie Kirk's TPUSA opens a new front in 'spiritual warfare' on Christian campuses

Just eight days shy of Election Day, 31-year-old political activist Charlie Kirk addressed a sea of college students in glaring-red MAGA hats at Grand Canyon University, near downtown Phoenix. Sporting a black T-shirt emblazoned with “xy = man” — a confirmation of where he stands on the GOP’s 2024 litmus test issue — Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA as a college student in 2012, was interrupted as his audience erupted into a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Afterward, students grabbed up TPUSA swag that said “Republicans are hotter” and “dump your socialist boyfriend.” “Gen Z is waking up … and voting,” Kirk posted on X later that day. “WATCH.”

Kirk’s fall 2024 “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour is an effort advertised as a way to help students “challenge left-wing indoctrination on college campuses.” TPUSA has already signed up nearly 800 college chapters, but the event at GCU, established by Baptists but now calling itself interdenominational, is part of Kirk’s recent push to populate evangelical Christian campuses with TPUSA chapters. Since 2020, TPUSA chapters have appeared at more than 45 Christian colleges or universities, at least 35 of them affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the largest association of Christian schools. Only 21 chapters at Christian universities appear currently active, however, with even fewer officially recognized by the universities themselves. Expanding to Christian colleges, some scholars warn, may divide their campuses. The group, whose website says it plays “offense with a sense of urgency to win America’s culture war,” gained notoriety in 2016 for its professor watchlist, which prompted harassment of faculty at secular as well as Christian colleges, who, TPUSA said, “advance leftist propaganda.” Kirk has disputed the results of the 2020 election, questioned the qualifications of Black pilots, called George Floyd a “scumbag” and said a Bible verse about stoning gay people to death is “God’s perfect law.” “The Democrat Party supports everything that God hates,” Kirk said at a recent campaign event he organized for Donald Trump. TPUSA did not respond to requests for comment.

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Washington State Standard - November 4, 2024

Inslee activates Washington National Guard ahead of Election Day

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday he had activated the Washington National Guard to assist local law enforcement and the Washington State Patrol as needed to quell any election-related unrest. The “purely precautionary measure” comes in response to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s nationwide warnings of threats to election infrastructure and a deliberately set fire that damaged and destroyed hundreds of ballots in a Vancouver drop box on Monday. Inslee, in a letter to Maj. Gen. Gent Welsh, the adjutant general, said the action was being taken “to ensure we are fully prepared to respond” to any potential civil unrest or violence.

“Our state depends on these skilled individuals for critical support to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, to include support necessary to protect vital infrastructure related to carrying out free and fair elections and to respond to any unrest related to the 2024 general election,” Inslee wrote. Welsh, who oversees the 8,000 soldiers and airmen of the Washington National Guard, will decide how many people will be activated and serve on standby from Monday until just after midnight on Thursday, Nov. 7, according to the governor’s office.

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Reuters - November 4, 2024

Michigan city of Warren in focus amid worries about delayed election results

Officials in the U.S. battleground state of Michigan said they worry that the Democratic-leaning city of Warren could lag behind the rest of the state in reporting the results of Tuesday's presidential election, raising early doubts about the state's vote count. Warren, unlike Detroit and most other cities in Michigan, opted not to take advantage of changes enacted in a 2022 state law allowing for up to eight days of preprocessing of absentee ballots. Instead, the city of 135,000 people will wait until Election Day to verify and tabulate more than 20,000 mail-in ballots. The potential delay from Warren has worried some Democratic leaders that it could leave the results appearing artificially high for Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday evening, and that the former president would seek to exploit the situation by falsely declaring victory in the state before all votes were in.

"If the state is close at all and we don't have returns from Warren, which is our third-largest city, it's going to create all kinds of concerns," said Mark Brewer, an attorney and the former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. "It's very, very worrisome." The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee did not directly address questions about Warren or Trump's plans to challenge the results. In a statement, Victoria LaCivita, the Trump campaign's Michigan spokesperson, criticized Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' record and expressed confidence that Trump would defeat her in the state. Opinion polls show a tight race between Harris and Trump in Michigan and other battleground states. The decision not to preprocess absentee ballots was made by Warren City Clerk Sonja Buffa, a nonpartisan elected official. She said in a press release that she believed stretching out the process over several days was inefficient and raised the risk of information on the election being leaked.

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Politico - November 4, 2024

Harris campaign: The Iowa poll is exciting, but…

Democrats were giddy Saturday when a gold-standard poll found Kamala Harris narrowly leading Donald Trump in deep-red Iowa. But Harris’ senior campaign officials are cautioning against getting too excited about the Des Moines Register survey. “What we are seeing across the board is energy and momentum,” said a Harris official on a call with reporters Sunday. “We are seeing that we're closing strong. I would not read into it any more than that.” The Harris aide was granted anonymity because the ground rules laid out by the campaign to participate in the call required it be on background. Few Democrats believe that Harris stands a chance in Iowa, which Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2020. But some hope that the shocking poll results signal that Harris is closing strongly in majority-white areas in the Midwest, which could be a good sign for her in battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan. Harris officials on the call also expressed confidence in their ground game, saying that on Saturday the campaign knocked on 807,000 doors in Pennsylvania, 256,000 doors in Michigan and 215,000 doors in Wisconsin. But they said that Harris remains the underdog and that the campaign must turn out its voters in the final days of the race.

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The Hill - November 4, 2024

School board seats and funding fights: The education ballot initiatives flying under the radar

Voters in states including Florida, Colorado and Kentucky face major decisions on their education systems on Tuesday. Activists and groups on both sides of issues ranging from school choice to partisan school board races have poured millions of dollars into the fights, which often generate fewer headlines than other ballot measures on abortion or marijuana. But Election Day offers a rare opportunity for voters to decide on these education issues head on. “Even though the ballot initiatives are different in different states […] At the core of all of it is ensuring that we have a well-funded public education system that is designed for all of our students,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA).

In Kentucky, Colorado and Nebraska, voters are making decisions that could help or inhibit school choice programs, which have done well among state lawmakers but have yet to face a real challenge at the ballot box. Nebraska’s initiative seeks to repeal a law that would allow public tax dollars go to private schools. In Colorado, a decision will be made to enshrine school choice as a right in the state constitution, while Kentucky wants to change its constitution to allow choice programs. “Every child in every neighborhood, of every color, class, and background deserves a school that will help them succeed,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) told The Courier Journal. “Educational freedom, as proposed by Amendment 2, ensures students are able to learn in the best environment possible and breaks the poverty cycle that far too often keeps children from fulfilling their potential,” Paul added.

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Washington Post - November 4, 2024

Quincy Jones, musical innovator and impresario, dies at 91

From bebop to hip-hop, Quincy Jones exemplified the producer and arranger as star. He elevated the voices of dozens of entertainers — most indelibly Michael Jackson, but also Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Aretha Franklin — with his unsurpassed artistry in combining jazz, rhythm-and-blues and classical orchestration. By the time of his death on Nov. 3 at 91 at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, he had become a renaissance impresario of music, film and television, catapulting the careers of Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith and smashing barriers for other African Americans. Mr. Jones’s death, of undisclosed causes, was announced by his publicist, Arnold Robinson, and in a family statement. Mr. Jones’s six-decade career was nothing short of Zelig-like. He brimmed with anecdotes about his encounters with figures from Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl to Sinatra to the rap star Tupac Shakur, who was engaged to one of Mr. Jones’s daughters before his murder in 1996.

“It takes a lot of guts to tell Sinatra what to do, man,” Mr. Jones once told the Sunday Telegraph of London. “He takes no prisoners and if you ask him to jump without a net, you better have got it right … He would love you, or roll over you with a truck and then reverse.” Starting out as a jazz trumpeter, Mr. Jones was in Seattle in 1947 playing juke joints with Ray Charles. A decade later, he was in Paris studying composition with Nadia Boulanger, mentor to Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. As the first African American to be a senior executive at a major White-owned music label — Mercury Records — he produced Lesley Gore’s 1963 hit “It’s My Party.” The next year, he arranged the jazz-pop mainstay “Fly Me to the Moon” for Sinatra and Count Basie; it was Sinatra who bestowed on him his enduring nickname, “Q.” Mr. Jones helped score films as diverse as “In Cold Blood” (1967), an acclaimed drama based on Truman Capote’s account of the notorious Clutter family murders in Kansas, and the all-Black musical “The Wiz” (1978), a major flop. In 1977 he shared an Emmy Award for his score of the TV miniseries “Roots,” a ratings juggernaut that traced a slave’s lineage. In 1979, he ushered the child singing prodigy Jackson into adulthood by producing the album “Off the Wall.” Three years later, he followed up with “Thriller,” the top-selling pop release of all time. He produced the all-star charity song “We Are the World” in 1985, a best-selling single that raised $50 million for African famine relief.

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Newsclips - November 3, 2024

Lead Stories

Des Moines Register - November 3, 2024

Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here's how

Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa — a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory. A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before a high-stakes election that appears deadlocked in key battleground states. The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time. “It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has abandoned his independent presidential campaign to support Trump but remains on the Iowa ballot, gets 3% of the vote. That’s down from 6% in September and 9% in June. Fewer than 1% say they would vote for Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver, 1% would vote for someone else, 3% aren’t sure and 2% don’t want to say for whom they already cast a ballot. The poll of 808 likely Iowa voters, which include those who have already voted as well as those who say they definitely plan to vote, was conducted by Selzer & Co. from Oct. 28-31. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. The results come as Trump and Harris have focused their attention almost exclusively on seven battleground states that are expected to shape the outcome of the election. Neither has campaigned in Iowa since the presidential primaries ended, and neither campaign has established a ground presence in the state. A victory for Harris would be a surprising development after Iowa has swung aggressively to the right in recent elections, delivering Trump solid victories in 2016 and 2020.

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Houston Chronicle - November 3, 2024

Leaked memo details $100M emergency request to address Texas oil well blowouts, contamination

Texas oil and gas regulators requested more than $100 million in emergency funds from the state last week to address pressing problems related to uncapped wells and oil field wastewater. In a letter obtained by the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry, told legislators that “emergent issues have developed” since it submitted its annual budget request Aug. 30. Railroad Commission Executive Director Danny Sorrells wrote that his staff needs additional funds to address a growing number of leaking wells. Without the additional funds, he said, the commission cannot sufficiently protect the state’s groundwater from contamination. The emergency request comes weeks after a 100-foot geyser erupted from a West Texas oil field plagued by earthquakes linked to wastewater injection. The geyser raised questions about whether the water fueling it was wastewater and, if so, how it got there.

Leaking and erupting wells are eating up more of the commission’s well-plugging budget, limiting its ability to get ahead of the problem by plugging wells before they begin to leak, it said in the letter. The additional funds would help alleviate that, the commission said in a follow-up statement. “This is all part of our vigilant work to plug wells,” it said. The surprise funding request underscores the growing nature of the problem simmering beneath the surface in West Texas. It increases the amount of state funds requested for well plugging by 72% compared to what was already budgeted. The Railroad Commission’s original budget was $234 million for well plugging in 2026 and 2027, including $95 million in federal funds provided under a new Biden administration effort. The commission’s budget noted that oil fields across Texas are aging, exacerbating the threat posed by neglected and orphaned wells without responsible owners to plug them. Orphaned wells, whose owners go bankrupt or dissolve, become wards of the state. They leave open holes in the ground that can allow wastewater to gush to the surface, requiring an emergency response from the commission. The commission spent nearly $10 million to plug 38 emergency wells during fiscal year 2023 alone, according to its budget request. Lawmakers have been warned that a new source of funds may be needed in order for the commission to do work that protects the state’s groundwater.

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New York Times - November 3, 2024

Trump, preparing to challenge the results, puts his 2020 playbook into action

Former President Donald J. Trump and his allies are rolling out a late-stage campaign strategy that borrows heavily from the subversive playbook he used to challenge his loss four years ago, this time with reinforcements from outside groups built on the false notion of a stolen election. With Election Day only three days away, Mr. Trump is already claiming the Democrats are “a bunch of cheats,” as his allies in battleground states spread distorted reports of mishaps at the polls to push a narrative of widespread fraud. Mr. Trump and his most prominent supporters have pointed to partisan polling and betting markets to claim that he is heading for a “crushing victory,” as his top surrogate Elon Musk recently put it. The expectation helps set the stage for disbelief and outrage among his supporters should he lose. And in a direct echo of his failed — and, prosecutors say, illegal — bid to remain in power after the 2020 election, some of his most influential advisers are suggesting he will yet again seek to claim victory before all the votes are counted, a move that ushered in his efforts to deny his defeat four years ago and helped set the stage for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In many respects, though, the effort that led to Jan. 6 never ended. “It’s been four years of spreading lies about elections and recruiting volunteers to challenge the system, filing litigation,’’ said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit group that works with state officials to bolster confidence in their elections. “What we’re seeing today is all of that coming to fruition.” The Trump campaign did not respond to an email seeking comment. In a statement, Dana Remus, a top lawyer for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, said, “It isn’t surprising that he is already questioning the results of a still ongoing election” and added, “He failed when he tried this in 2020, and he will fail again.” Polls show the race is effectively tied, leaving the possibility that Mr. Trump will win and have no reason to dispute the outcome. In that case, the question of whether to accept the results would fall to Ms. Harris, who has said she would uphold “free and fair elections” and the “peaceful transfer of power.”

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Austin American-Statesman - November 3, 2024

As US Senate race winds down, Cruz courts rural base as Allred looks to urban Texas

Facing a friendly nighttime crowd at a bucolic sport-shooting venue in the Texas Hill Country exactly one week before Election Day, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz felt compelled to remind his supporters that they were not in California. Not that anyone was confused about where they were. The roads leading to the private club called Hog Heaven just south of Dripping Springs, about 30 miles west of Austin, were lined with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's large "Make America Great Again" signs, many of them flanked by Texas flags. Cruz's point was that his Democratic challenger in Tuesday's Senate election might be confused about which state he would be representing if he pulls off an upset.

"Colin Allred, in his first four years in the House, he voted with (former Speaker) Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time, every single vote," said Cruz, who is seeking a third six-year term in the Senate. "It was literally as if he walked in, took out his voting card, handed it to Nancy and said, 'Here, Nancy, whatever San Francisco wants, that's what Texas wants too.' "But this ain't California." Six years ago, Cruz lost the state's five largest counties — four of them by double-digit margins — and nearly all of the historically Democratic-friendly counties along the Rio Grande. His opponent in that 2018 race, then-U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke of El Paso, also made significant inroads in the suburbs, which had been key to the Republican takeover of Texas in the late 1990s and into the 2000s. That left Cruz's 2.6 percentage-point victory over O'Rourke in 2018 to his deep strength in open-country places like Dripping Springs, which were part of the 53 stops he and several Republican allies made in a luxury RV emblazoned with his "Keep Texas, Texas" campaign slogan that features an open-air sundeck at the rear. According to the latest campaign finance reports, the two candidates have raised a combined $166 million with Allred having raised slightly more than Cruz. Late campaign polling shows a tight race. Emerson College's poll last week showed Cruz with a narrow lead with 48% to Allred's 47%. The University of Houston's Oct. 15 poll shows Cruz with a 4-point lead.

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State Stories

Dallas Morning News - November 3, 2024

AG Ken Paxton continues fight against State Fair of Texas gun ban

Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed an updated version of his lawsuit seeking to get rid of the State Fair of Texas’ ban on most attendees carrying firearms, showing he’s sticking to his vow to fight the policy in court. The amended lawsuit filed in Dallas County Civil District Court this week marks the second time the attorney general has updated his legal complaint. The original suit against the fair, Dallas and its interim city manager was filed Aug. 29 and then first amended Sept. 6 to add three state residents who are gun owners as plaintiffs, court records show. The latest version notes the fair is now over and drops two arguments made in prior complaints claiming the policy would lead to Dallas police illegally enforcing trespass laws against people who are licensed and unlicensed to carry handguns.

“The lease agreement between the city of Dallas and the State Fair of Texas does not and cannot supersede state law,” the complaint says. “The lease agreement correctly expressly states that the agreement is subject to applicable state laws and shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws and court decisions of the state of Texas. To the extent that the lease agreement operates to purportedly supersede state law, it is void.” Fair officials announced in early August that the fair was banning visitors from bringing firearms into South Dallas’ 277-acre Fair Park for the 24-day event. The policy change came after a man shot three people during last year’s festivities. The fair previously allowed attendees with a valid handgun license to bring firearms as long as they were concealed. State law doesn’t require Texans to have a permit to carry a gun in a public place. The fair’s firearm ban doesn’t apply to active and retired law enforcement officers. The policy change led to opposition from dozens of Republican lawmakers and the Republican attorney general. Paxton has argued that the policy violates gun owners’ rights and that Dallas, as the owner of the fairgrounds, had a duty to force the fair to drop its ban to allow people to carry firearms lawfully on government-owned property.

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Dallas Morning News - November 3, 2024

Thousands of Dallas and Collin County voters cast ballots in final day of early voting

In Dallas and Collin counties, Friday was a relatively smooth end to two weeks of early voting ahead of Election Day. By midday, elections administrators reported roughly 40% of registered voters had cast a ballot in Dallas County and 54% in Collin County, a robust start to the election leading up to Nov. 5. This election cycle’s early voting period was marked by a rocky start, prompting the Dallas County Commissioners Court to extend poll hours on the last three days of early voting. Poll workers on Oct. 21 in Dallas County experienced glitches with the electronic pollbook software used to check in voters, which resulted in wait times up to two hours long, and some were issued ballots for precincts where they do not live. Collin County did not report the same issues.

Voters still came out in droves throughout early voting in both counties, ensuring their ballot was cast well ahead of Tuesday. Collin County elections administrator Bruce Sherbet said the last day of early voting is usually the heaviest, and sometimes lines are longer that day than on Election Day itself. Wait times were relatively short through Friday morning and afternoon, although some polling places saw wait times over 45 minutes. Jade Osborne, 41, voted early Friday afternoon at the Samuell Grand Recreation Center. She said she normally votes early to avoid lines and waited about 30 minutes to vote Friday afternoon. As a mother of two, Osborne said she wants to provide a safe future for her children through her vote. She believes it is important to vote to make your voice heard. “Nobody else is going to do it for you,” Osborne said. “If you don’t speak up, you have no say in how your life is.”

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Dallas Morning News - November 3, 2024

Texas buys two ranches near border, including massive 350,000 acres near Big Bend

The Texas General Land Office announced this week it purchased two ranches near the nation’s southern border. The first property is a smaller 1,402-acre property in Starr County where state leaders plan to build a 1.5-mile stretch of border wall along the Rio Grande. The second is the massive 353,785-acre Brewster Ranch near Big Bend National Park. The state land office did not immediately respond to questions from The Dallas Morning News regarding the transaction. News releases from the agency did not reveal the purchase prices. This story may be updated with responses. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said the Starr County property’s frontage on the river makes it an ideal location for enhancing border security.

She alleged that the federal government has “abdicated its job to secure our southern border.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the state’s plan to build a border wall three years ago. By July, the state had built about 34 miles of steel wall — far from the 1,254 miles needed. The state has paid roughly $25 million per mile of wall, the Texas Tribune reported. Buckingham told the Texas Tribune there are a variety of leasing options for the larger Brewster Ranch, including hunting, agriculture, mineral and the storing of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the soil. In a news release published by the Land Report, Buckingham said she bought Brewster Ranch to prevent “foreign adversaries from purchasing this land.” Buckingham did not elaborate further on interested parties. Brewster Ranch was previously owned by Brad Kelley’s Texas Mountain Holdings. Kelley, a tobacco tycoon who lives in Tennessee, is Texas’ largest private landowner. He owned more than 940,000 acres in the state, according to the 2024 Land Report 100.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 3, 2024

Is San Antonio raising city pay to inflate Erik Walsh’s salary?

The firefighters’ union claims the city has been boosting employee pay in recent years so City Manager Erik Walsh can get a raise. That’s because the City Council can’t pay Walsh more than 10 times the wages of the city’s lowest-paid, full-time employee. “We have noticed that civilian pay increases have been much better in the past four to five years than they have been historically speaking, and that is a fact,” union President Joe Jones said. “And we don’t believe it’s a coincidence.” The San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association formed the Vote Against Prop C Committee, a political action committee, to campaign against Proposition C. That’s a city charter amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot that would remove the restrictions on how much the city manager can be paid and how long someone can remain in that role — restrictions the union petitioned to put on the November 2018 ballot, and which 59% of voters approved.

“The salary boundaries you voted for are working and have led to improved pay for all city employees,” reads a mailer the committee sent out ahead of early voting. But the across-the-board pay increases that the union is talking about — which have been higher than those given in years prior to the 2018 charter change — have had no impact on Walsh’s base pay. That’s because the city manager’s compensation is tied to the city’s entry-level wage. That wage doesn’t budge when the city gives across-the-board salary increases to civilian workers, such as the 3% increase they received for the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1. (Police and firefighters’ salaries are determined by the multi-year labor contracts their unions’ negotiate with the city.) Workers in entry-level positions got that 3% increase if they were hired before Oct. 1. But workers who start with the city after that date will earn $18 an hour — the rate the city’s entry wage has been at since Oct. 1, 2023.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 3, 2024

Tony Quesada: SpaceX’s bid to rename South Texas home as Starbase is grounded

(Tony Quesada is the deputy editorial page editor for the San Antonio Express-News.) Elon Musk’s dream of renaming the small unincorporated community in Cameron County, where SpaceX rockets take off, as Starbase to match the launch facility’s moniker brings to mind the narrator’s musings in the movie “Fight Club.” “When deep-space exploration ramps up,” the voice of Edward Norton declares, “it’ll be the corporations that name everything: the IBM Stellarsphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.” We’ll have to wait for manned space travel to see whether such branding comes to fruition. In the meantime, Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars propelled by SpaceX’s Starship rockets is years away, and apparently, his ambition to change the name of the area federally recognized as Kopernik Shores — also referred to as Boca Chica Village — may never happen unless a federal naming policy is changed or waived.

It turns out that officially changing the name of a geographic feature requires approval from an entity called the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which was created in 1890 and codified by law in 1947 to maintain uniformity in the use of such monikers. And that board’s website states that it will not consider name changes associated with a commercial enterprise. So Kensico Lake near IBM’s headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., can’t become Big Blue Lake; the unincorporated area near Beaverton, Ore., that houses Nike World Headquarters can’t become Swooshtown; and the North Mountain View neighborhood north of Santa Clara, Calif., that’s home to Googleplex can’t become Alphabet City, which is no doubt a relief to certain residents in Manhattan’s East Village. Perhaps a policy pause to Musk’s naming vision would be a good time to rethink it.

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KUT - November 3, 2024

Judge says pro-Palestinian student groups can sue UT Austin, other university leaders

A federal judge said pro-Palestinian student groups have a right to sue top officials at several public universities in Texas for allegedly violating their First Amendment rights, as first reported by the Austin American-Statesman. However, in his order this week, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, who is based in Austin, said the groups could not sue Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who earlier this year ordered universities to change their free speech policies. The Council on American-Islamic Relations first filed the lawsuit back in May against Abbott, university leaders and the Board of Regents for the University of Texas System as well as the University of Houston System. Pitman said this week the plaintiffs have standing to sue board members in their official capacities.

The Muslim civil rights group is representing student groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Committee at UT Austin as well as Students for Justice in Palestine at UT Dallas and the University of Houston. Law enforcement arrested students on all three campuses during the spring 2024 semester while they were protesting against Israel's war in Gaza. Gadeir Abbas, a senior litigation attorney for CAIR, said public universities in Texas cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests in response to an executive order Abbott issued in March. The Republican governor told public colleges and universities to update their free speech policies to include a definition of antisemitism and create punishments for “antisemitic rhetoric.” Abbott’s order also singled out the student groups that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He directed universities to ensure the new free speech policies “are being enforced on campuses and that groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine are disciplined for violating these policies.” Abbas said Abbott’s order incorrectly conflates antisemitism and criticism of Israel.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - November 3, 2024

North Texas’ Gateway Church announces removal of 4 elders

Gateway Church has removed four of its elders after an investigation into its founder’s alleged sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl, leadership of the North Texas megachurch announced Saturday. The four elders had some information or knowledge of former senior pastor Robert Morris’ conduct prior to public disclosure of the allegations this summer, but they did not take action, church elder Tra Willbanks said during a livestreamed Nov. 2 service. There were “two groups” of elders: One group who knew victim Cindy Clemishire was 12 at the time the abuse began in the 1980s, and another group who knew of sexual abuse allegations against Morris but didn’t ask further questions, Willbanks said.

“We can report to you that as of today, no individuals in either group serves as an elder, is employed by or works at Gateway Church. They have been removed,” Willbanks said. The removals come after an independent law firm hired by the Southlake-based church delivered a report of its findings to a church committee. The church is cooperating with an ongoing criminal investigation that does not involve the church or its current leadership, Willbanks said. In addition to that investigation, the church is also the target of pending or threatened litigation, as well as financial demands from Robert Morris, according to Willbanks. Willbanks said the church will not comply with Morris’ financial demands. Morris resigned from the church in June.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - November 3, 2024

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz rallies support in Fort Worth Stockyards

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz rallied supporters in the Fort Worth Stockyards on Nov. 1, emphasizing the importance of the upcoming election. While noting that politicians often talk about the importance of elections, Cruz said the 2024 race is exceptionally important. “Holy cow! Have you ever seen a starker difference between presidential candidates?” Cruz said. He was introduced by Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, who called Cruz a fighter for conservative values in the U.S. Senate. “Ted Cruz has moved the needle in the way we look at government and the way we look at our country, and the way people are now willing to stand up and fight for America,” O’Hare said. O’Hare termed Democrats “the greatest threat to American exceptionalism in the history of our country” and encouraged people to get out and vote.

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Houston Chronicle - November 3, 2024

Tilman Fertitta's True Blue Gala in River Oaks raises $1.1 million for HPD

Friday night in River Oaks, Tilman Fertitta's annual True Blue Gala caused quite a commotion. The evening's fireworks display was visible for miles, and drones and a helicopter or two buzzed about. This year's "Salsa: A Fiesta Fantastico" made the event extra festive. Neighbors may have heard the mariachi band. Or the sound of endless margaritas being shaken from one of the party's half-dozen cocktail bars. But who's complaining? The Texas-sized shindig raised $1.1 million for the Houston Police Foundation; Fertitta co-chaired with new HPD Chief J. Noe Diaz. Mayor John Whitmire, Houston Fire Chief Thomas Muñoz and Astros owner Jim Crane were among the many guests. Michael Fertitta, Patrick Fertitta and Blake Fertitta were all in attendance, too.

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Texas Monthly - November 3, 2024

Michelin restores rescinded invitations to two notable Texas BBQ joints

For many chefs, receiving a Michelin star for their restaurant is a lifelong dream. But chefs in Texas haven’t had much hope of the same recognition until earlier this year. In July Michelin announced it would be covering Texas, or at least the major cities in Texas, for the first time. Earlier this month, many hopeful chefs and pitmasters received invitations to Michelin’s big announcement event on November 11 in Houston. Two of those pitmasters were almost left out after a mix-up from the Michelin communications team. Ernest Servantes is the pitmaster and co-owner of Burnt Bean Co., in Seguin, the number four barbecue joint on our most recent Top 50 list. Like many other restaurateurs, he and fellow co-owner David Kirkland received a request for information about their restaurant and photos of their dishes from Michelin in late September. On October 15 they were elated to get an invitation to attend an event in Houston where Michelin will announce the restaurants it’s chosen to recognize in Texas. But two days later, a new email from Michelin rescinded the invitation, citing only “human error” as an explanation.

Chuck Charnichart, pitmaster and co-owner of Barbs B Q, in Lockhart, was excited to get the same invitation. “I originally thought we weren’t in contention for it,” she said, noting that Lockhart isn’t in a major city. The geographical boundaries for consideration in the Texas Michelin guide aren’t clear. Michelin is receiving $2.7 million over three years to judge our restaurants (and hotels); half of that sum is coming from the state, and the other half is reportedly being paid equally by the cities of Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. One would presume the understanding is that the restaurants recognized would be limited to those cities and possibly their suburbs. Back in August, we didn’t include Burnt Bean Co. in our Michelin predictions because Seguin is so far outside of San Antonio. In 2023 the highly regarded Annette restaurant, just outside Denver, missed out on Michelin recognition because it was five hundred feet from city limits. A week after Charnichart received the Michelin invitation, she clicked the link to RSVP for the event but it didn’t work. She reached out to the sender of the original email and was sent a vague message similar to the one Burnt Bean Co. received regarding “human error.” She said, “I just really wanted to celebrate with the Goldee’s guys,” referring to Goldee’s Barbecue, our current number one barbecue joint, which was also invited by Michelin. Now an honor she hadn’t even considered was being taken away. “It was a kick in the gut,” Servantes said about that last email. He and the team were dejected, calling it “the biggest disappointment of my culinary career.” I reached out to a Michelin media relations contact to seek an explanation last Friday. And while they didn’t directly respond to my emails, on Tuesday morning, Servantes got a call from a number in France. He picked up, and a woman with a heavy French accent apologized. The call from Elisabeth Boucher-Anselin, communication director for the Michelin Guide, was the first response he’d gotten from Michelin that wasn’t an email. She apologized for the mistake and asked the Burnt Bean team to attend the award event. A mistake was made, Boucher-Anselin told Servantes, but “the selection committee did not make a mistake,” she explained. Burnt Bean Co. was back in the fold.

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Houston Chronicle - November 3, 2024

Laura Higley, former appellate court judge and mayor of West University Place, dies at 77, family says

Laura Higley, former mayor of West University Place and longtime justice on the First District Court of Appeals, died Tuesday following a five-year struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, her family announced Thursday. She was 77. Higley served as the mayor of West University for a single term from 1989 to 1991. During that time, she earned a law degree from the University of Houston and received her license from the Texas State Bar in 1990. Her husband, Bob Higley, also served as the mayor of West University from 2019 to 2021. He said his wife was a bold woman who decided to strike her own path during a time when women were generally expected to devote their lives to their families. "Laura, upon reflection, had committed herself to a test,” Bob Higley said. “Could a woman have a career and devote herself to her family and perform rewarding work in her community?"

It was a challenge Higley was more than willing to face, according to a news release from the family. She began working at Baker Botts LLP in 1989, the same year she became mayor of West University. Higley declined to pursue a partnership at the firm, which the Chronicle recently ranked as the third-largest law firm in the Houston area, and instead negotiated to work a three-quarter schedule that allowed her to make time for her family, according to the release. The hours she missed to spend time with her family didn't hold her back. In 2002, after 13 years at Baker Botts, Higley pursued an open seat on Texas' First District Court of Appeals. She ran unopposed as a Republican and joined the nine-member panel in 2003. She ran again in 2008, this time against Democrat Leslie Taylor, whom she defeated by a margin of around 3% in the general election. She would hold the seat until her resignation in 2019. Higley was also known for her philanthropy and volunteer work. Throughout her life, she held board positions for various Houston-area organizations like the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Junior League of Houston, Children’s Assessment Center and Bo’s Place. Former West University city council member and longtime friend, George Boehme, said in the release that she left an impact on the lives of everyone she met.

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Houston Chronicle - November 3, 2024

Texas Democratic Party sends out Ted Cruz-themed postcards mocking Cancún trip

As Texas residents went to their mailboxes this week, some were surprised with a U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz-themed postcard, but it wasn’t from the senator himself. In several X tweets and Reddit posts, many residents wondered where this new Cancun postcard came from. In a tweet posted to X this week, a caption read “The @TexasDemocrats are sending greetings from Ted Cruz in Cancun postcards to voters.” The Texas Democratic Party confirmed to the Houston Chronicle that the postcards residents may have received was in fact from them.

The Chronicle reached out to Cruz and his campaign through calls and emails but did not immediately receive a response. “Every Texan remembers where they were when Ted Cruz fled to the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún during Winter Storm Uri. He abandoned us when we needed him most. On Nov. 5 Texans are going to send Ted on a permanent vacation,” said Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Monique Alcala. The postcard reads “Greetings from Ted Cruz in Cancun" on the front and on the back “Dear Texans, I know it’s freezing, and you wish you were here. It’s much warmer in Cancun, enjoy the freeze.”

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Houston Chronicle - November 3, 2024

Community rocked by allegations against Booker T. Washington, Yates educators tied to cheating ring

Community members spent this week grappling with the news that some of their campus leaders had been arrested as part of an alleged $1 million teacher certification exam cheating ring. The Harris County District Attorney announced criminal charges against five people, including head boys' basketball coach Vincent Grayson at Booker T. Washington High School; assistant principal Nicholas Newton at Booker T. Washington; and LaShonda Roberts at Jack Yates High School. Grayson is accused of organizing a cheating ring leading to the certification of more than 200 teachers, officials alleged. Newton is accused of wrongfully taking the tests for would-be teachers, and Roberts is accused of recruiting or referring nearly 100 people to the ring.

The staffers were longtime educators, each with at least a decade of experience in HISD and Grayson with at least 20 years. Grayson was also a well-know men's basketball coach. Under Grayson's leadership, the basketball team reached the Class 4A state championship game after the 2022-23 season and the regional final in 2023-24. Freshman Kordell Howard said the news came as a shock to the Booker T. Washington student community. Yates parent Carl Humphries' son, a senior, enrolled in the school a week before the allegations dropped. Humphries said the alleged cheating ring creates more distrust between schools and their families. "Some of these kids fail classes and aren't able to grasp the concept of different studies because these teachers were not qualified. That's a terrible thing," Humphries said. "It's a pitiful shame." Others, like Yates senior Lilianna Ortiz, said the news hasn't yet impacted their lives much. Christine Robertson, who has two nieces at the school, first heard about the alleged cheating ring Thursday. Roberston said the news was "not surprising" and that addressing challenges in education such as teacher shortages and more support could prevent other scandals from occurring.

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Houston Chronicle - November 3, 2024

Harris County Judge Hidalgo and fiancé pick up marriage license

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and her fiancé, David James, picked up their official marriage license at the County Clerk's office on Wednesday. Hidalgo shared the news of the event on social media that same day, adding that County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth had taken time out of a busy election cycle to be on hand. Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner was one of the first public figures to offer his congratulations, responding to the judge's Instagram post, “Congratulations to you both,” he said. In a statement to the Chronicle on Friday afternoon, Hidalgo said she and James plan to hold a wedding later this year. “David and I are incredibly grateful to share this special milestone,” Hidalgo said. “Obtaining our marriage license this week is just one of many exciting steps leading up to making it official at our wedding later this year. We look forward to celebrating our love and commitment surrounded by loved ones as we begin this new chapter together.”

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Hood County News - November 3, 2024

Commissioners court takes stand on taxpayer-funded lobbying

In a 3:2 vote Oct. 22, the Hood County Commissioners Court passed a resolution urging the Texas Legislature to ban all forms of taxpayer-funded lobbying. Taxpayer-funded lobbying is defined as the practice of using funds that come directly or indirectly from taxpayers for political lobbying purposes. Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle — who placed the item on the budget — noted that as of Nov. 11, proposed legislation can be submitted for the upcoming 89th Legislature, which is set to begin in January 2025. Eagle emphasized that during the Republican Party of Texas State Convention last May, a key legislative priority was established — to ban all forms of taxpayer-funded lobbying. He stated that this includes prohibiting the use of tax dollars for hiring lobbyists or funding lobbying associations.

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City Stories

Dallas Morning News - November 3, 2024

Dallas cuts wait time in half to get commercial construction permit, launches new project

Getting a commercial construction permit in Dallas now takes less than half the time it did three years ago, according to a city memo. The city took more than 300 days to approve a permit in 2021. That number had dropped to 122 days in October. Dallas closed half of its 9,800 stale or inactive permits languishing in the system and launched a project to remove bottlenecks from the workflow and speed up the permit application intake and processing time. “These inactive permits clog the permitting system and skew data outcomes,” said Assistant City Manager Robin Bentley.

Interim City Manager Kim Tolbert teased the permitting department’s progress during Wednesday’s State of Downtown event. “As a city, we needed to learn how to be more customer-centric,” Tolbert said at the event. Dallas is working with the Toyota Production System Support System. Bentley said the new planning and development department assembled a team of division representatives with expertise in building code, sanitation, zoning and transportation. The team is collaborating with the city’s business and analytics department. In its preliminary research, the team reviewed a sample of 36 multifamily housing permits issued between October 2023 and September 2024. It found permits related to drainage, paving engineering, water and wastewater engineering, zoning, building code, and landscape reviews took the longest to be approved.

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National Stories

Politifact - November 3, 2024

Overwhelming majority of ballot boxes are secure, rare for ballots to be lost or destroyed

Millions of Americans have already cast their ballots in the 2024 presidential election at polling places or by dropping them in the mail or into drop-off ballot boxes — long a popular way to return completed ballots in some states. When some ballots were damaged Oct. 28 in fires intentionally set at ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington state, it raised questions about ballot box security and how the votes would be counted. But election officials told PolitiFact that the overwhelming majority of ballot boxes are secure, and it’s rare for ballots to be lost or destroyed completely. Election officials are accustomed to and trained in dealing with damaged ballots. "I think we’ve had a few bad actors here," U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chairman Benjamin Hovland said. "By and large it's a secure way to vote." In Portland, Oregon, a fire suppression system inside the ballot box protected hundreds of ballots; just three were damaged.

The names of the voters were still visible, and the county clerk will follow up with those voters, said Laura Kerns, Oregon secretary of state communications director. Oregon voters can also track their ballots online. "Voters should be assured that even if their ballots were in the affected box, their votes will be counted," Elections Director Tim Scott of Multnomah County, Oregon, said in an Oct. 28 news release. In Vancouver, Washington, the ballot boxes had fire suppression systems, but they appear to have malfunctioned. Election officials identified 488 damaged ballots, according to a news release from Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey. Vancouver is in Clark County. Of those 488 voters whose ballots were damaged, 345 had contacted the Clark County elections office to request a replacement ballot as of Oct. 29, and election workers were mailing replacement ballots Oct. 31 to the remaining 143 voters. Six ballots were not able to be identified, and others could have burned beyond recognition, Kimsey said.

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Politico - November 3, 2024

Biden’s chips achievement is losing support before the money actually rolls out

Progressives and pro-labor Democrats are souring on President Joe Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act as the administration appears to be loosening some of the environmental and transparency guardrails initially attached to its $39 billion in subsidies. The 2022 law is a historic piece of industrial policy intended to boost the American high-tech sector by funneling money into semiconductor manufacturing. To sell the program to fellow Democrats, the Biden administration had promised it would come with a broad set of environmental rules, worker benefits and public reporting expectations. But early in October, Biden signed a law rolling back a key environmental review standard that companies would have been required to follow.

And the first binding award to be issued — $123 million to the Minnesota-based chipmaker Polar Semiconductor — came under sealed terms, leading many initial supporters to worry that tech companies will get what they want without any real public oversight. With former President Donald Trump attacking the CHIPS program in a recent interview, a signature Biden achievement now has an opponent who could take the White House next week and radically reshape how the law is being administered. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that if Trump wins and the GOP takes Congress, they could try to eliminate the law’s industry-unfriendly rules. The criticism on both sides of the political aisle raises the question of what will happen to one of the president’s biggest longterm policy legacies. “Whatever the administration does, it’ll be inadequate,” said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former top Treasury official. He predicts “blowback” from both sides as the law continues to roll out.

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CNN - November 3, 2024

House races to watch on election night (and beyond)

Entering Election Day on Tuesday, the battle for control of the US House of Representatives rests on a knife’s edge, with a historically small universe of competitive races poised to determine the chamber’s majority in the next Congress – an outcome that could have far-reaching consequences for the next president’s agenda. All 435 House seats are on the ballot, with Republicans defending a slim majority and Democrats needing a net gain of four seats to flip control of the chamber. There is a clear consensus among both parties that whichever side emerges with a majority is likely to have little room to spare. A single-seat majority is not outside the realm of possibility. That could pose a challenge for Mike Johnson, if the GOP retains control and restores the Louisiana Republican as House speaker, or Hakeem Jeffries, if Democrats retake the chamber and make history by installing the New York Democrat as the first Black speaker.

Virginia’s 7th District: The early indicator. Inside Elections rating: Tilt Democratic. This open-seat contest between Democrat Eugene Vindman and Republican Derrick Anderson will be one of the most closely watched races early in the night Tuesday. Nebraska’s 2nd District: The Biden crossover seat. Inside Elections rating: Tilt Democratic. GOP Rep. Don Bacon, a centrist retired Air Force officer who has been a top target for Democrats ever since he flipped the district in 2016, defeating Rep. Brad Ashford by a little more than a percentage point. He faces a rematch with Democrat Tony Vargas, a 40-year-old state senator vying to be Nebraska’s first Latino member of Congress. In 2022, Bacon defeated Vargas by less than 3 points. Maine’s 2nd District: The Trump crossover seat. Inside Elections rating: Toss-up. On the flip side, there are five seats currently represented by Democratic members of Congress that Trump would have carried during the 2020 election. Democratic Rep. Jared Golden has crafted a moderate profile by challenging his party on issues ranging from spending to immigration. Golden’s opponent is the Trump-endorsed Austin Theriault, a 30-year-old state representative and former NASCAR driver, who Republicans hope will be able to appeal across the massive, mostly rural district, which stretches from rocky shorelines in the south all the way north to the state’s border with Canada.

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Politico - November 3, 2024

EU braces for two-front trade war with US and China

Europe is already in a cold trade war with China. Can it handle a hot one with the United States? That’s the conundrum facing Ursula von der Leyen as the U.S. holds a historic presidential election that could return protectionist Donald Trump to the White House. It’s a moment of vulnerability for the EU, with the chief of its executive Commission embarking on a second term and forming her new administration. Trump has threatened to hit Beijing with punitive tariffs of up to 60 percent, and impose duties of 10 to 20 percent on all other countries. Those would have a direct impact on Europe, stemming transatlantic trade, while also redirecting rampant Chinese exports toward Europe’s relatively open market.

With its own protective duties against Chinese electric vehicles of up to 35 percent only days old, the European Union might soon find those are insufficient to hold back the Chinese tide. So should Brussels dial it back on China and deal first with Trump? Or should it double down? Fighting with its two top trading partners is the last thing that Europe — and its stagnating economy — needs. “We need to avoid trade wars, and shocks from the two sides,” said one EU official granted anonymity to speak freely. “We’ve had many shocks already,” they added, referring to the consecutive blows dealt by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Von der Leyen’s next trade commissioner, Maroš Šefcovic, has given some clues on strategy in written answers published before he is grilled by European lawmakers in a confirmation hearing on Monday, the eve of the make-or-break U.S. vote.

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Stateline - November 3, 2024

Trump’s mass deportation plan could rely on state cooperation

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to launch what he calls the “largest deportation program in American history” if reelected, targeting immigrants living in the United States without documentation — people whom he described in a rally this week as “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals.” “I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump pledged during the rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. By law, immigration is a federal matter, and Trump has said he’ll federalize state National Guard troops, activate the military and build detention camps. But experts and close Trump affiliates say state and local actions could affect any mass deportation program he might attempt. States trying to criminalize unauthorized immigration across their borders could use those laws to begin detentions, for example.

Sanctuary cities and states that refuse to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, the federal agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement and deportations, could look for barriers. In fact, Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan won’t work without states, said Mark Morgan, who served under the 45th president as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with securing the U.S. border and facilitating trade at ports of entry. “It’s not going to be successful, as long as we have sanctuary cities and states that refuse to allow local and state police departments to work with ICE,” Morgan said in an interview with Stateline. Over the past year, more than half a dozen red states have tried to address immigration independently. Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas have introduced or enacted measures that aim to criminalize unauthorized immigration into their state with severe penalties.

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Associated Press - November 3, 2024

Supreme Court allows Pennsylvania to count contested provisional ballots, rejecting Republican plea

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Republicans that could have led to thousands of provisional ballots not being counted in Pennsylvania as the presidential campaigns vie in the final days before the election in the nation’s biggest battleground state. The justices left in place a state Supreme Court ruling that elections officials must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected. The ruling is a victory for voting-rights advocates, who had sought to force counties — primarily Republican-controlled counties — to let voters cast a provisional ballot on Election Day if their mail-in ballot was to be rejected for a garden-variety error.

While the Supreme Court action was a setback for Republicans, the GOP separately claimed victory in a decision by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. That court rejected a last-ditch effort by voting rights advocates to ensure that mail-in ballots that lack an accurate, handwritten date on the exterior envelope will still count in this year’s presidential election. The rulings are the latest in four years of litigation over voting by mail in Pennsylvania, where every vote truly counts in presidential races. Republicans have sought in dozens of court cases to push the strictest possible interpretation for throwing out mail-in ballots, which are predominantly cast by Democrats. Taken together, Friday’s near-simultaneous rulings will ensure a heavy emphasis on helping thousands of people vote provisionally on Election Day if their mail-in ballot was rejected — and potentially more litigation. As of Thursday, about 9,000 ballots out of more than 1.6 million returned have arrived at elections offices around Pennsylvania lacking a secrecy envelope, a signature or a handwritten date, according to state records.

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Associated Press - November 3, 2024

Top House GOP ask for documents regarding Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment

Top House Republicans called on the White House to produce all documents and internal communications regarding President Joe Biden’s statement earlier this week in which he appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump. White House press officials altered the official transcript of Biden’s statement, drawing objections from the federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The lawmakers said they question whether the decision to create “a false transcript and manipulate or alter the accurate transcript” produced for the National Archives and Records Administration was a violation of federal law.

Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik demanded the White House produce the records. They’re also calling for the White House to make available for a briefing the top supervisor of the White House Stenography’s Office. “The White House cannot simply rewrite President Biden’s rhetoric,” Comer and Stefanik wrote. “...We are concerned with the latest reporting of the White House’s apparent political decision to protect the Biden-Harris Administration, instead of following longstanding and proper protocols.” Biden created an uproar earlier this week with his remarks to Latino activists responding to racist comments at a Trump rally made by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

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Newsclips - November 1, 2024

Lead Stories

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal - November 1, 2024

Rep. Glenn Rogers on Rep. Burrows column: Remember to trust, but verify

President Ronald Reagan famously advised us to “Trust, but verify.” State Rep. Dustin Burrows recently penned an Op-ed concerning the politics of school closings in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. With an exceptional amount of misleading claims in his piece, Texans reading it should certainly verify what Representative Burrows wrote. While there are over a dozen points to contest, here are some of the biggest concerns to address. Burrows called the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) a “gang.” The truth is, TASB is simply a group whose membership reflects the school board members that Texas voters elect every year. It gives our elected school board members a platform to communicate with each other and to share ideas on how to best educate our students. TASB always advocates for our students and local ISD’s. Contrary to Burrows’ conspiracy theory, the real reason school funding was not passed last session is because the voucher-entitlement crowd refused to separate school funding (including teacher pay raises) from a voucher-entitlement program.

When a bi-partisan majority voted to separate these two issues, the bill’s author sent the whole bill back to committee where it died. Thus, he refused to let the Texas House vote on school funding, which would have passed. Burrows suggested that Texas “allow for school choice (without taking any money from local districts).” This is beyond disingenuous. The truth is, if school vouchers had passed while we had an unprecedented $32 billion budget surplus, they initially would not cut into public school funds. But in just a few years, as is evidenced by the severe budgetary constraints of 2011, the program could only survive by taking money away from our public schools.As a rancher, I could double or triple my stocking rate during a rainy season (budget surplus), but this would not be a conservative or wise decision, and would definitely not be sustainable during a drought (budget deficit) as occurred in 2011. Conservatives pride themselves on responsible budgeting, but vouchers create runaway costs. Just look at states where vouchers have blown up budgets by expanding eligibility year after year. It’s hardly responsible to create a program without knowing how much it will drain from public education and the overall state budget. Conservatives should make decisions based on the long-term economic impacts of massive spending on a new entitlement program, not the short-term effects during an unprecedented surplus. Burrows referred to “false school finance fears,” immediately after describing real school finance problems. Later he spoke of “…ESA’s that would empower parents of the most vulnerable Texas students…” Would the “most vulnerable Texas students” include foster youth and would they be prioritized and guaranteed admission? Will special education students be guaranteed their federal protections? Will every private school give economically disadvantaged students free transportation, uniforms, and meals? And given the use of public funding, will private schools open up their records and results to public scrutiny?

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Texas Monthly - November 1, 2024

State Senator Phil King aided a utility he was doing business with

Eric Gay/AP Earlier this year, state senator Phil King took the unusual step of wading into a fight between Oncor, the company that owns and operates the electrical wires throughout much of North and West Texas, and its customers—among them some of his constituents. Oncor had asked the Public Utility Commission of Texas, in June 2023, for permission to charge its ratepayers higher fees to make up for $153 million in costs it had incurred for repairs and expansion of its local wires. Then it filed for another $56 million that September, plus $81 million the following March. Lawyers representing a coalition of municipal governments pushed back, arguing that Oncor couldn’t ask to pass on its expenses more than twice in a twelve-month period. In response, Oncor said that the limit was twice per calendar year. King, a Republican from Weatherford, about a 45-minute drive west of Fort Worth, had authored the 2023 bill that allowed utility monopolies such as Oncor to seek reimbursements for their spending semiannually—up from once a year previously. He weighed in with a letter to the PUC, writing that the customers’ argument represented an “irrational reading” of his bill. The commission, all of whose members were appointed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, sided with Oncor and King.

The bill—Senate Bill 1015—was one of four pieces of legislation King authored during the last session to make significant changes to how Texas’s regulated electric utilities can operate. SB 1015 proved to be a financial boon to Oncor. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company stated that the changes enacted by the bill generated more than $50 million in incremental revenue in 2023. In addition to allowing Oncor and other utilities to ask to raise rates twice a year, SB 1015 restricted the ability of municipal governments across the state to fight unreasonable utility expenditures. Tina Paez, Houston’s head of regulatory affairs, testified that the bill would replace a “balanced regulatory framework with what is effectively utility self-regulation.” Bill Kelly, who served as Houston’s director of government relations until earlier this year, said the bill as filed by King appeared to be retaliation against cities for their strong advocacy on behalf of residents. It was, he said, “like dropping a nuclear bomb because you’re mad we won.” Phil King is known for being friendly to companies such as Oncor. A Wall Street analyst I spoke with referred to him as “Mr. Utility.” In the past two years, the state political action committee that represents the electricity-delivery industry has given King’s reelection campaign $20,000, and Oncor’s chief executive has personally written two checks worth a combined $27,500.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 1, 2024

Company headed by Texas House candidate is facing fraud allegations by San Antonio nonprofit

A general contracting company headed by Texas House District 80 candidate Cecilia Castellano has been hit with fraud allegations by a San Antonio nonprofit that hired the firm to oversee construction work. Guardian House, which works with families going through divorce, took legal action against Castellano’s Azteca Designs Inc. last week after a subcontractor sued them both alleging it had not been paid for work on the project at 1354 Basse Road. “Simply put, Guardian House has no idea what Azteca did with the $1,070,873.64 Guardian House paid it,” the nonprofit said in court documents. “Azteca has failed to provide any accounting specifically identifying when, how much, or to whom Azteca paid out the monies it received from Guardian House.”

The nonprofit seeks unspecified actual, liquidated and punitive damages. It also wants a judge to appoint an auditor to investigate and examine the company’s books and records. In a statement, Azteca attorney Juan M. Gonzalez said Castellano’s company “stands behind its work” and indicated it would address Guardian House’s allegations in court with an answer and counterclaim. “Guardian House ejected Azteca from the job while Azteca was still performing,” Gonzalez said. “Guardian House failed to pay Azteca for work that had been done.” He also suggested the suit is politically motivated. “The fact that Guardian House resorted to making this case overtly political on the eve of the election involving Mrs. Castellano says much about the merits of their claims,” Gonzalez said. Brandy Peery, a lawyer for Guardian House, responded that Castellano “conveniently forgets her admitted failure to pay attention to this project and staff it with competent people. “She is borrowing from a more notorious politician who blames legal actions taken against him for wrongdoing as being politically motivated,” Peery said, referring to former President Donald Trump.

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Washington Post - November 1, 2024

Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired upon in escalation of violent rhetoric against his opponents

Donald Trump said former Rep. Liz Cheney is a “war hawk” who should be fired upon, as he raged against one of his most prominent intra-party critics while campaigning Thursday night in Arizona. “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” Trump also hurled insults at Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in House leadership, calling her “very dumb,” a “stupid person” and “the moron.”

Trump’s suggestion that Cheney be fired upon represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to target his political foes. And it comes days before an election in which the former president — who never accepted his 2020 loss — has already undermined public confidence. In recent weeks, he has also suggested a military crackdown on political opponents he has described as “the enemy within.” Cheney is perhaps the most vocal Republican critic of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his role in his supporters’ January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. She played a leading role on the House select committee that investigated the attack, and later was ousted from her deep-red Wyoming House seat by a Trump-backed primary opponent in 2022. In recent weeks, Cheney has campaigned alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, urging Republicans to set aside party differences to back the Democrat and reject a candidate she says poses a threat to democracy. Trump said Thursday he was surprised former Vice President Dick Cheney also endorsed Harris, because he had pardoned Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in 2007.

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State Stories

San Antonio Express-News - November 1, 2024

Inside Texas Democrats’ strategy to do what Beto couldn’t in 2018: Beat Ted Cruz

In his quest to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred has turned away from the all-of-Texas approach that Beto O’Rourke deployed ahead of his narrow loss to Cruz in 2018. Instead of holding town halls in every county in Texas like O’Rourke did, Allred and Texas Democrats are focused on flipping women and minority voters in the suburbs and exurbs around Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio – places where the party is competitive but where former President Donald Trump is also popular. “It’s fun having a candidate holding turn-Texas-blue pep rallies but it’s not a strategy to win,” said Democratic strategist Matt Angle. “To win a statewide race in Texas you have to do more than rally the base.”

People of color and college-educated women voted heavily for O’Rourke six years ago, but not in enough counties for Democrats to win outright. O’Rourke won Fort Bend County outside Houston and Tarrant County west of Dallas, for instance, but he lost critical suburbs like Collin and Denton counties outside Dallas and Bell County north of Austin. And he took less than 60% of the vote in Harris County, the sort of heavily populated urban areas Democrats need to dominate if they’re going to overcome Republicans’ advantage in rural communities. Counties like Fort Bend have only been growing in diversity since then, with the arrival of new potential voters from out of state lured by Texas’s growing economy and younger minorities coming of voting age. In Collin County, for instance, one the counties Democrats are focusing their attention on, the percentage of non-white residents increased by 5 percentage points between 2018 and 2022, the most recent year for which data was available. Democrats hope that demographic shift will give them a boost they didn’t have in 2018, leaving Allred a path to win crucial suburbs and drive up the numbers in urban areas like Harris County. But the degree to which those new minority and college-educated voters will turn out for Allred remains a huge unknown.

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Houston Chronicle - November 1, 2024

We asked 100 Houston voters about HISD's bond. Many said Mike Miles is why they're voting no.

When Tara Watson saw Houston ISD’s $4.4 billion school bond at the end of her ballot, she hesitated. Watson, a parent of two HISD students, said their campus “obviously” needs new infrastructure, including a permanent fix to the school’s persistent heating, ventilation and air conditioning problems. If the bond passed, the district estimates it would invest more than $4.3 million into facility improvements for her children’s highly rated elementary school in the Heights. Still, after standing there and staring at her voting machine for “a while,” she ultimately opted to vote against the district’s first school bond proposal in 12 years. The decision, she said, came down to HISD’s state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ recent “interference” into her children’s campus — Harvard Elementary. HISD placed the principal on administrative leave pending an investigation in early October, prompting anxiety among parents about the future autonomy of their campus.

“I was very conflicted because I think our schools are already super underfunded,” Watson said. “I think investment in them is an easy choice to make, but with Miles, his track record and how he's been acting within HISD, without seeming to care about community input and what the parents think, and being receptive to any type of feedback or guidance, I voted no.” Watson is one of a record 728,927 Harris County residents who voted during the first week of early voting. Along with the election for president and U.S. Senate, thousands of people have weighed in on HISD’s bond — the first election where voters are casting ballots that could meaningfully affect district operations since the state takeover of the district in June 2023. In brief, in-person interviews during the first week of early voting, the Chronicle spoke to more than 100 voters at eight polling locations across the city, including the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center, SPJST Lodge 88 and the Sunnyside Health and Multi-Service Center, about how they voted on the bond. About 67% of the voters surveyed by the Chronicle said they voted no on both Proposition A and B, while 30% said they supported both measures. The remaining percentage of voters said they split their votes between the two propositions.

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Houston Chronicle - November 1, 2024

Humble ISD Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen defends record at proposed termination appeal hearing

Despite a brief but explicit interruption by visuals of male genitalia when a Zoom-bomber entered the proposed termination hearing of Humble ISD Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen, the appeal continued Thursday afternoon with the superintendent defending her track record. Proceedings detailed the romantic relationship between Fagen and her husband, former Humble ISD Athletic Director Troy Kite, and the legal melee borne of numerous Title IX complaints against him. Trustees voted 4-3 to terminate Fagen in July, which she then appealed in a case being heard by a state hearing officer.

Lead attorney for the Board of Trustees, Craig Wood, argued that it was Fagen’s relationship with Kite that cost the district $1.3 million in legal fees and led to a year of litigation on various Title IX complaints related to the original complaint made against Kite. He also alleged that Fagen did not act appropriately when Kite’s determination was made and that there was a breakdown in the working relationship between Fagen and the board. "We will give you specific examples of how that (relationship) became disruptive. But in particular, we're going to show you that there was a very significant event that has been hugely impactful on the school district, and not in a good way," Wood said. "The trust is broken, and that's really what this case is about.”

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Religion News Service - November 1, 2024

Texas nuns in battle with Fort Worth bishop are dismissed from religious life

A group of Texas nuns engaged in a yearlong dispute with Catholic Church leadership has been dismissed from religious life and “reverted to the lay state,” according to their Vatican-appointed overseer. Mother Marie of the Incarnation, who replaced Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach at the behest of the Vatican in April, wrote in a statement posted Oct. 28 on the Fort Worth Diocese’s website that the seven nuns are no longer members of the Order of Discalced Carmelites because they “have reverted to the lay state by their own actions.” The decision came after the nuns, who live in a monastery on 72 wooded acres in Arlington, Texas, announced they would no longer recognize Mother Marie of the Incarnation as their superior and would join the Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic breakaway group. In response, the nuns in a statement called their dismissal “a moot point.”

“The Vows we have professed to God cannot be dismissed or taken away,” they added. It’s the latest dramatic development in a yearlong tussle that’s received international attention. The nuns have been at odds with Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson since he launched an investigation last year alleging that Gerlach had broken her vow of chastity with a priest. Though Gerlach initially admitted to violating the vow, according to a statement posted on the diocese’s website, she later told Olson she had never met the priest in person and was only guilty of “sexting,” Olson told reporters earlier this year. Matthew Bobo, the nuns’ attorney, called the original allegation “completely fabricated” and stated flatly, “She did not have sex with a priest.” The nuns, who argue that their order is autonomous and answers only to the Vatican, filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court alleging that Olson had overstepped his authority when he entered the monastery’s grounds, seized laptops and phones and questioned the nuns for hours. In a statement after the lawsuit was filed, Olson accused the nuns of “inciting hatred and animosity” toward him and the diocese.

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Border Report - November 1, 2024

Texas’ border takeover a factor in migrant, US citizen deaths, activists say

Texas has wrestled away control of immigration enforcement from the federal government after stationing thousands of troops and installing miles of razor wire along the Rio Grande, members of several civil rights organizations said on Wednesday. Those troops and barriers become a “gantlet” that prevents asylum-seekers from surrendering to the Border Patrol, say advocates who allege witnessing Texas National Guard members push migrants back toward Mexico, fire non-lethal projectiles or direct them to private land where they are charged with trespassing. “We have treated people who sustained injuries from canisters (launched) by the National Guard, injuries from the concertina wire, injured by rubber bullets,” said Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute in El Paso. “The U.S.-Mexico border is 2,000 miles long; more than 1,100 miles are in Texas. Texas has effectively taken control of immigration enforcement on more than 50 percent of the border. […] Twenty-year-olds with automatic weapons are now administering immigration law.”

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Dallas Morning News - November 1, 2024

Prominent University Park Baptist church leaves Southern Baptist Convention

Prominent Dallas-area congregation Park Cities Baptist Church is leaving the Southern Baptist Convention, according to a statement published on the church’s website. One factor in the church’s exit appears to be its support for women pastors. The Southern Baptist Convention has increasingly been cracking down on member churches with women pastors and ousted five churches with women pastors in 2023, according to the official news service of the convention. The number of churches that had left or been removed from the convention in a year increased each year from 2020 to 2022, according to a 2024 report from the evangelical research firm Lifeway Research. That group reported the total number of churches that had left or been disaffiliated over the three year period it surveyed was 498. It did not break down the reasons churches cited for leaving.

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Dallas Morning News - November 1, 2024

‘David versus Goliath’: Two PACs are raising money to fight Dallas Hero. Here’s how much

Two political action committees reported raising more than $1 million combined to get Dallas voters to reject three proposed charter updates that supporters say would boost public safety and local government accountability. Together for Dallas had a kick-off event in downtown Dallas at the beginning of October with more than 40 current and former city leaders urging people to vote no on Propositions S, T and U. It raised about $524,000 through Oct. 26, according to its campaign finance report. Dallas United for Progress, which touts the backing of more than a dozen local elected officials on its website, raised $533,000 from Sep. 27 to Oct. 26 in its campaign finance reports. The two groups reported spending more than $738,000 combined through Oct. 26, largely on advertising and campaign consultants. “I think it speaks to the breadth and depth of support and how the community truly feels about these propositions,” said Lorraine Birabil, executive director for Dallas United for Progress and a former Texas state representative.

The two PACs are focused on defeating Propositions S, T and U, a trio of proposals that qualified for the Nov. 5 ballot through a voter signature campaign led by the nonprofit group Dallas Hero. Of the 18 propositions on the ballot, the three are the only ones with both organized support and opposition. Dallas Hero is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which means it isn’t legally required to disclose its donors. A donation page on Dallas Hero’s website lists its fundraising goal as $750,000. As of Wednesday, the group reported having raised $104,000 and says it is from 38 donors but doesn’t name any of them. Proposition S would make it easier for Dallas residents to sue the city in some instances, Proposition T would give the community power to influence whether the city manager is fired or receives pay bonuses, and Proposition U would mandate Dallas spend half of its new revenue annually on police hiring, pay, pension and other benefits.

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Dallas Morning News - November 1, 2024

Man sentenced in overdose death of T. Boone Pickens’ grandson faces federal gun charges

A Fort Worth man on deferred adjudication in the overdose death of billionaire T. Boone Pickens’ 21-year-old grandson more than a decade ago and accused earlier this year of stalking an ex-girlfriend was charged Wednesday with federal gun crimes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas announced. Brennan Trainor Rodriguez, 33, was charged this week in a two-count indictment alleging illegal possession of a machine gun and illegal receipt of a firearm by a person under indictment, according to a news release. Rodriguez, a former TCU student, was charged in June 2013, with injecting heroin into Thomas “Ty” Boone Pickens IV who died from an overdose Jan. 29, 2013. He later pleaded guilty in the man’s death and was placed on 10 years of deferred adjudication beginning on Nov. 26, 2014, according to court records. Conditions of Rodriguez’s community supervision prohibited him from possessing firearms.

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San Antonio Express-News - November 1, 2024

Before shows at H-E-B Center, Texans blast comedian who called Puerto Rico 'island of garbage'

Some Texans are demanding that an Austin-area venue cancel shows by comedian-podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico an "island of garbage" at a Donald Trump rally over the weekend. Hinchcliffe, host of Austin-based podcast "Kill Tony," took the stage Sunday at Madison Square Garden and delivered the following line: "There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico." Hinchcliffe, who's set to bring his "Kill Tony" live tour to the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park in late December, also joked about how Jews don't like spending money, and at another point, he pointed to a Black man in the audience and joked that he had carved watermelons with him at a Halloween party the night before. The performance drew immediate condemnation from Democrats and Republicans. The Trump campaign distanced itself from the comedian in a statement, and on Tuesday, Trump said he didn't know who Hinchcliffe is.

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Baptist News Global - November 1, 2024

Lawsuit between SMU and UMC is headed to court again

Southern Methodist University in Dallas is headed back to court seeking to free itself from the authority of The United Methodist Church. Most sources trace this conflict back to actions taken by the UMC in 2019, but a tug-of-war between university and church goes back more than a decade further. According to a report in the Oct. 18 Dallas Morning News, the Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments in January 2025 in a lawsuit between SMU and the UMC’s South Central Jurisdiction, an eight-state region that includes Texas. Whether SMU has the authority to revise its governing language without jurisdictional approval forms the crux of the matter, because legally South Central owns much of the SMU campus. A framed poster-sized deed certificate hangs outside the bishop’s office at the United Methodist Center in Plano, Texas, attesting to the jurisdiction’s ownership of the university. Historically the resident United Methodist bishop in Dallas and other South Central bishops have served as SMU trustees.

Circumstances have changed since South Central brought the lawsuit in December 2019, but tense relations between the university and the church go back to 2003. That’s when SMU was negotiating a sweetheart deal to lease part of the campus as a site for the presidential library of George W. Bush. Even early on, SMU’s chances of landing the library looked good; not only was it a Texas location close to the Bushes’ retirement residence, but First Lady Laura Bush served as an SMU trustee. Another contender for the library was Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The site Baylor set aside now houses McLane Stadium for football. Texas Tech University and the University of Dallas also were finalists for the site selection. Amid this bidding war for the library, backlash swelled at SMU. A United Methodist clergyman, the late Andrew Weaver, spearheaded a drive against the Bush library that eventually gained support from more than 20,000 SMU alumni and South Central leaders. The dissidents professed themselves morally appalled that a church-owned institution would offer to house Bush’s presidential history given his administration’s manipulation of the Iraq invasion. Opponents argued that legally SMU couldn’t enter such a lease without the approval of the jurisdiction, a regional church body of several hundred delegates that meets only once every four years.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - November 1, 2024

Colin Allred: Texas’ abortion laws are hurting the economy

Abortion laws in Texas are having impacts on every aspect of residents lives, Democratic Rep. Colin Allred said at an Oct. 31 meeting with North Texas business leaders. That includes businesses trying to attract and retain talent to the state, he said. Former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, who joined Allred along with 15 other business leaders and former government officials, mentioned a friend whose daughter won’t return to Texas after college because of the climate created by the state’s abortion ban. “We’ve got to turn the tide, and we’ve got to get back to the moderate norm where we focus on facing and passing the issues that are important to us,” Whitley said. He mentioned Allred’s support of the CHIPS and Science Act helping to bring grant funding to support to businesses across Texas.

“That’s bipartisanship. That’s why I’m here,” Whitley said. Allred is facing Republican Ted Cruz for a U.S. Senate seat, a tight race that could have a say in which party controls the Senate after the Nov. 5 election. People want to come to North Texas because it’s a problem solving place rather than a partisan place, said former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. “Big businesses come to Texas for a lot of reasons, but not because of Ted Cruz,” Rawlings said. He added that employees of businesses relocating to Texas are scared of what Rawlings referred to as Cruz’s, “mentality and narrative.” “It’s not good for what we want to be as a community,” he said. Fellow former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk echoed Rawlings sentiments “If you think reproductive freedom isn’t a business issue, call any college president in this city right now and ask them how many faculty they’ve lost,” Kirk said. He referenced his experience sitting on corporate and smaller business boards, and noted the universal concern that talent attraction has gotten more difficult because of abortion restrictions.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - November 1, 2024

Tarrant GOP chair faces backlash from precinct chairs for post

Tarrant County Republican Chairman Bo French is not one to shy away from pushing buttons on social media, but a poll he posted on X this week may have gone a bit too far for some in his own party. “If you believe Kamala’s policies are better for Americans than Trump’s policies, you are:” he posted on Monday, Oct. 28. Poll takers had four choices: “Ignorant; A liar; Retarded; Gay.” The post received criticism in the comments section, and by Tuesday, French had deleted it from his feed. But the backlash continued, with one Republican precinct chair calling for his resignation in an email to her peers that was leaked on Wednesday.

“I stand alongside numerous precinct chairs in the Tarrant County Republican Party, disturbed by Chairman French’s consistent disparaging remarks about women, public berating of those in the gay community, and recent outright vile and dehumanizing language of those with special needs,” said Republican precinct chair Sheena Rodriguez in the email. Rodriguez confirmed on Thursday, Oct. 31, that she wrote and sent the email, but did not intend for it to be made public. The email first appeared on the X account for the conservative news site Current Revolt on Wednesday, Oct. 30. Rodriguez declined to comment further on the matter until after the Nov. 5 election. French’s “constant disturbing social media posts and public comments” do not represent the values of the Republican party, Rodriguez wrote before calling on him to resign from his position after Election Day. “Conservative members, supporters, and constituents of Tarrant County GOP deserve a new, humble, respectful, and productive leader — one who is capable of being a decent human being laser-focused on improving the county party, drawing new members and voters to the party, and promoting the conservative movement rather than hindering it,” she wrote.

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City Stories

San Antonio Express-News - November 1, 2024

Horse-drawn carriage ban could be up for City Council vote in December

The City Council is split over how quickly to remove horse-drawn carriages from San Antonio streets, with some wanting a ban to take effect as soon as March 2026 and others wanting to wait up to five years or longer. Those wanting to see the faster timeline lamented the fact that the proposal to ban the carriages has moved so slowly through the vetting process for city ordinances. It was filed nearly two years ago. “We did an airport deal faster than that,” said District 8 Councilman Manny Peláez. “We did a $126 million baseball deal in record time, in breakneck speed.” Others felt that the city was moving too fast and should respect carriage operators’ request for a transition period of at least five years.

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National Stories

Washington Post - November 1, 2024

As smuggling rings made billions from migrants, the U.S. was sidelined

He called himself a simple onion farmer, a Mayan Indian with four kids and a fourth-grade education. U.S. prosecutors knew better. By his late 30s, Felipe Diego Alonzo had built a crime route stretching from Central America to Texas, allegedly paying off Mexican drug cartels along the way. He tooled around Guatemala’s western highlands in a loaded silver Ford Ranger pickup. When the police finally raided his ranch, they found a study in rural narco-chic: wooden chalets, a swimming pool, a show horse valued at $100,000. What they didn’t find was a narco. Alonzo’s business “was more profitable than drug trafficking,” said one of the Guatemalan officials who detained him. Alonzo was moving people.

He was part of a human-smuggling business that has exploded in recent years, enabling a record number of migrants to reach the U.S. southern border. At least 80 percent of unlawful border-crossers hire smugglers, according to a 2023 report by the Department of Homeland Security. Even as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris spar over migration, each presidential candidate pledging tougher controls on the border, smugglers are creating an ever-more-efficient pipeline to get people there. They guide people through treacherous jungles on the trek from Colombia to Panama. They whisk migrants over remote Guatemalan border crossings and up traffic-clogged Mexican highways. With revenue estimated at $4 billion to $12 billion a year, the smuggling of migrants has joined drugs and extortion as a top income stream for groups like Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, increasing their economic clout throughout the hemisphere. Yet until the day Alonzo’s property was raided — Aug. 2, 2022 — the U.S. government had done little to prosecute and dismantle smuggling networks. “It is a major omission in our law enforcement strategy,” said Christopher Landau, who served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico in the Trump administration.

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NPR - November 1, 2024

Meet the Democrats using porn ads to convince Trump voters to stay home

Earlier this year, Wally Nowinski and his buddy Matt Curry were texting back and forth about what they — two regular voters with no ties to any political campaign — could do to defeat Donald Trump in the presidential election. "I'm in California, I could drive to Nevada and knock on doors or something, but I'm not going to reach 5 million people that way," Nowinski told NPR. Curry lives in New York. The two friends work in tech with experience in digital advertising and start ups, and Nowinski was particularly interested in what he calls "sub-prime" ad markets, aka porn sites.

Political candidates and their allied PACs don't advertise in these spaces because they don't want to associate their brands with explicit content, making the online pornographic market perhaps the last untouched frontier in political advertising. According to AdImpact, more than $10 billion will be spent in political ads in 2024 in all races across television, streaming, radio and digital platforms. While advertising in the Philadelphia suburbs, for instance, is quite expensive, ads on porn sites are inexpensive and have almost no competition. "These ads are like real cheap and it's like weirdly relevant to this campaign," Nowinski said. The relevance they saw was a market they believe can reach one of the key voter demographics in 2024. "There’s 3 million non-college white men across the 'blue wall' states, that's a lot of people, and they're probably breaking for Trump like 65-70%," he said. "You only need to make a very few of them change their mind to possibly make an impact on the election."

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The Hill - October 31, 2024

GOP: Anything short of 52-seat Senate majority would be a ‘failure’

Republicans believe that they are in prime shape to win at least 52 seats in the Senate with only days to go until Election Day. The GOP has long been favored to win back the upper chamber, but the size of its majority has been in question as the party’s candidates trailed against Democratic incumbents in a number of key swing states. Several of those races have narrowed, however, buoying Republicans’ hopes in the process. Nearly a dozen GOP senators, Senate aides and operatives with experience on Senate races predicted to The Hill that the party will hit the 52-seat mark. Most said the party brass will be left shaking their heads if they fall short of that goal. “At this point, we have to have 52,” one GOP operative involved in Senate races said, arguing that it is necessary especially after Republicans outspent Democrats in Ohio — considered their best pickup opportunity after West Virginia and Montana — by more than $20 million this cycle.

“If we can’t win a race with that level of outspending in a state Trump’s going to win between 8 to 10 points, that’s a failure,” the operative said. Republicans hold 49 seats in the Senate and are certain to pick up West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin (I) is retiring. They’ve also oozed confidence for months about picking up a 51st seat in Montana, where Republican Tim Sheehy has held a consistent lead over Sen. Jon Tester (D) in the reddest state on the battlefield. According to a recent survey by The Hill/Emerson College, Sheehy holds a 4-point advantage over the incumbent Democrat, with other polls showing that his lead is nearly double that figure. Party operatives have also grown increasingly optimistic about the state of play in Ohio. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is locked in a close race with Republican Bernie Moreno, but Moreno appears to have the momentum as Brown’s lead has been sliced to a single point.

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Reuters - November 1, 2024

Donald Trump sues CBS over Kamala Harris ‘60 Minutes’ interview

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sued CBS on Thursday over an interview of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris aired on its “60 Minutes” news program in early October that the lawsuit alleged was misleading, according to a court filing. The complaint, filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, alleges the network aired two different responses from Harris responding to a question about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The version that aired during the “60 Minutes” program on Oct. 6 did not include what the lawsuit calls a “word salad” response from Harris about the Biden administration’s influence on Israel’s conduct of the war.

“Former President Trump’s repeated claims against 60 Minutes are false,” a CBS News spokesperson said. “The lawsuit Trump has brought today against CBS is completely without merit and we will vigorously defend against it.” Trump and Harris face each other in what polls show to be a tight race ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election. The suit demanded a jury trial and about $10 billion in damages, the filing showed. It alleges violations of a Texas law barring deceptive acts in the conduct of business. Trump has repeatedly assailed the network on the campaign trail over the episode and has threatened to revoke CBS’s broadcasting license if elected. CBS has said Trump backed out of his own planned interview with “60 Minutes.”

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Wall Street Journal - November 1, 2024

I replied ‘Stop’ to a political text message. I got 100 more.

Friday, 12:05 p.m.: “Pres. Trump’s Sec. of State here!” I might have actually bought that Mike Pompeo was texting me from his fave lunch spot, if it weren’t for the survey link and donation request that followed. I replied, firmly, “Stop.” Friday, 1 p.m. until midnight: “It’s JD Vance.” It’s Don Jr.” “Ted Cruz here.” Twenty-seven more text messages took over my inbox, all claiming to be from various Republican candidates and political-action committees. On Saturday, 28 more arrived. On Sunday, another 29. In the game of political texts, “Stop” apparently means “Go! Go! Go!” Perhaps you’ve heard there’s an election next week. Ahead of it, campaigns and political groups are scrambling to get their messages out and gather last-minute donations. Some are using shady tactics to get it done.

For years, I’ve passed on—and abided by—the advice of messaging experts: Text “Stop” to end unwanted messages, as long as they’re not blatantly scammy. Often it works. Last week? Not so much. “Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous texting vendors out there who will perversely use that opt-out message that you sent back,” said Thomas Peters, chief executive of RumbleUp, a political texting platform. “They use that as a data point, that ‘Oh, we found a live number!’” Even though my flood of messages came from right-leaning groups, others I’ve talked to have had similar barrages from the left. Look at that—a nonpartisan issue we can all agree on: Relentless political texts need to stop. Since the text-pocalypse hit my iPhone, I’ve been digging into what happened, and how to filter out the SMS spam. Here’s what I suggest in these final days of election-related text spam.

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Politico - November 1, 2024

The stock market’s surprising bet on who will win the presidency

Wall Street executives, political gamblers and cryptocurrency traders are piling up their bets that former President Donald Trump is returning to the White House. But the stock market may be telling a different story. U.S. stocks have been on a tear, with the bellwether S&P 500 index climbing more than 10 percent since August. While the stock market is not necessarily representative of the broader economy, the S&P 500’s performance in the run-up to Election Day has historically been a strong indicator of whether the incumbent party’s candidate will retain control of the White House — correctly forecasting all but four presidential races over the last 96 years. If the index is falling, the theory goes, investors are bracing for more uncertainty from a new administration. But a climb in the S&P 500 signals that the market is expecting the current president’s party to win. And the index’s recent rise is suggesting that Vice President Kamala Harris, who took over the Democratic ticket from President Joe Biden this summer, could be bound for victory.

“The market’s making a call for Harris to win,” said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at the financial services company LPL Financial, which has compiled data on elections and stock prices. “When there’s more certainty about the incumbent party winning the White House, we know for the most part the policies they’ve [installed]. There’s just a level of comfort that the market has with that certainty.” Voters are clamoring for any hints of clarity about the neck-and-neck presidential race. That’s led to a surge of attention not only on public opinion polls but also on election-betting markets — which are leaning toward Trump — and just about any other indicator of who will prevail, from the “Redskins Rule” and the World Series to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. “People are just naturally going to feel anxiety,” said Justin Grimmer, a public policy professor at Stanford University. “All of these things, I think, are ways for people to try to relieve this anxiety they have about this election.”

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Wall Street Journal - November 1, 2024

The next president inherits a remarkable economy

Whoever wins the White House next week will take office with no shortage of challenges, but at least one huge asset: an economy that is putting its peers to shame. With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7% over the past year. It is outrunning every other major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate. More impressive than the rate of growth is its quality. This growth didn’t come solely from using up finite supplies of labor and other resources, which could fuel inflation. Instead, it came from making people and businesses more productive. This combination, if sustained, will be a wind at the back of the next president. Three of the past four newcomers to the White House took office in or around a recession (the exception was Donald Trump, in 2017), which consumed much of their first-term agenda. The next president should be free of that burden.

Meanwhile, higher productivity growth should make the economy a bit less prone to inflation, more capable of sustaining budget deficits, and more likely to deliver strong wages. All would be a boon to President Trump or President Kamala Harris. To describe this economy as remarkable would strike most Americans as confusing, if not insulting. In the latest WSJ poll, 62% of respondents rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” which explains the lack of any political dividend for President Biden. There are many reasons for the disconnect, most important the high inflation of 2021-23, whose effects still linger. When you’re unhappy at home, you can gain some perspective by checking in on your neighbors. The whole world has been through the wringer since 2020; any country’s performance alone is less revealing than how it compares with its peers. Most leaders from around the world would trade their economies for the U.S.’s in a heartbeat. Through the second quarter, the U.S. grew 3%; none of the world’s next six largest advanced economies grew more than 1%. Even China is struggling.

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Newsclips - October 31, 2024

Lead Stories

CNBC - October 31, 2024

Private job creation totaled a stunning 233,000 in October, far more than expected, ADP says

Private job creation burst to its highest level in more than a year during October, despite a devastating storm season in the Southeast and major labor disruptions, ADP reported Wednesday. The payrolls processing firm said companies hired 233,000 new workers in the month, better than the upwardly revised 159,000 in September and far ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for 113,000. ADP said it was the best month for job creation since July 2023. “Even amid hurricane recovery, job growth was strong in October,” ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said. “As we round out the year, hiring in the U.S. is proving to be robust and broadly resilient.”

The numbers counter expectations for a slowdown in October on the heels of two brutal hurricanes — Helene and Milton — that ravaged the Southeast, with Florida and North Carolina getting slammed in particular. On top of that, labor disruptions with port workers and Boeing were expected to hit payrolls as well, with some economists suggesting that October would be an outlier report that Federal Reserve officials would largely dismiss when meeting next week. However, the ADP report indicates that the labor market has held up. In addition to hiring rising, wages grew 4.6% from a year ago. Moreover, gains were widespread. Leading sectors included education and health services (53,000), trade, transportation and utilities (51,000), construction and leisure and hospitality, which added 37,000 apiece, and professional and business services, which contributed 31,000. Manufacturing was the only sector to report losses, down 19,000 on the month, as the Boeing strike since Sept. 13 has sidelined 33,000 of the company’s workers.

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Marketplace - October 31, 2024

The Fed’s about to get its preferred measure of inflation. Here’s what it could mean.

The Federal Reserve is about to learn how its preferred measure of inflation fared in September: On Thursday, the Commerce Department releases the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the last reading the central bank will get before it meets to set interest rates next week. From the same month one year ago, the PCE price index for August increased 2.2%. Prices for goods decreased 0.9% and prices for services increased 3.7%. This could be the week when inflation hits the Fed’s sweet spot of 2%. “You know, we’re getting back to where we should be,” said Alan Detmeister, an economist for UBS who used to work for the Fed. He expects the PCE price index for September to come in around maybe 2.1% or 2%, adding that’s largely due to recent declines in energy prices — specifically, gasoline. But don’t get used to that 2%, he said. “We’re expecting it to bounce back up over the next handful of months.”

That’s because Detmeister doesn’t expect energy prices to keep falling the way they have been, though he believes the overall trajectory of inflation is on track. That’s the good news, said Belinda Román, a professor of economics at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. “The maybe not so good news is what’s inside of it.” If you look at the make up of the most recent PCE price index, you can see that in August, prices for services were up nearly 4% over last year. A lot of that is due to housing, where prices have been slow to come down. Also, services tend to require a lot of labor, and after a few years of a tight job market, wages have gone up in many service sectors. Those wages “tend to be sticky and that also contributes to a little bit of inflation,” Román noted.

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Wired - October 30, 2024

Workers say they were tricked and threatened as part of Elon Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort

“I was in shock and disbelief,” says a paid door knocker flown to Michigan to help turn out the vote for former president Donald Trump on behalf of Elon Musk’s America PAC. In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions: A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump. A representative for Musk and America PAC did not return a request for comment. The contract these door knockers signed with Blitz Canvassing, which is a subcontractor of Musk’s America PAC, says they are “expected to maintain a 17-22% engagement rate during the campaign,” which is a high target relative to the number of people who typically open their door for a stranger. A group of out-of-state America PAC canvassers were told during a recent team meeting that if they didn’t hit their targets, which the door knocker says were more than 1,000 a week on total doors knocked, the organization would stop paying for their motel rooms.

“What’s gonna happen is, they’re gonna stop paying for these rooms,” a manager told the door knockers in an audio recording obtained by WIRED. “And then you’re gonna end up having to pay for it yourself. You can’t do that with no money.” The door knocker also alleges that they were told that they will have to pay for their own flight home. Blitz Canvassing, which had received more than $9 million from America PAC for presidential campaign canvassing as of October 29, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. One of the canvassers, who was flown in from outside the Midwest, tells WIRED they had no idea they would be knocking on doors in support of Trump or that the subcontractor they were working for was part of Elon Musk’s voter-turnout operation through America PAC. “I knew nothing of the job, or much of the job description, other than going door to door and asking the voters who are they voting for,” says a door knocker who was one of the people in the back of the van and who is requesting anonymity because they signed a nondisclosure agreement. “Then, after I signed over an NDA, is when I found out we are for Republicans and with Trump.” The door knocker adds that they had “overheard my supervisor and a few others mention Elon Musk” by name, marking the first time they had heard of the billionaire X owner’s involvement.

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Houston Chronicle - October 30, 2024

A Texas Supreme Court judge is being outspent by his Democratic challenger ahead of Election Day

Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine is being outraised and outspent by his Democratic challenger as Democrats see an opening to break through on the all-Republican high court after the court’s rulings that upheld the state’s near-total abortion ban. Devine is the only Republican high court judge being both outraised and outspent in this election cycle. Democrat Christine Weems, a Harris County judge and a civil and personal injury trial attorney, raised about $33,000 more than Devine between Sept. 27 and Oct. 26, according to the latest campaign finance reports. Weems also outspent Devine, shelling out nearly $185,000 compared to his $33,000.

Weems’ war chest is also in better shape, with $97,000 in the bank compared to Devine’s $31,000. Most of Weems’ fundraising came from national pro-abortion rights PAC Emily's List, consultant John Condos and a number of private attorneys. “Judge Weems’ fundraising is sort of indicative of the change people want to see,” said her campaign manager Eddie Rodriguez. “I do know that there’s been money raised not only across the state but money been raised across the country, so it shows that even people outside of Texas understand how important these races are.” Devine, whose campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, was first elected to the court in 2012 and has come under scrutiny this year for failing to recuse himself from a major lawsuit against Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler over alleged sexual abuse. Devine worked with Pressler at the time of the alleged conduct. Pressler was never charged criminally, and the case was privately settled last year.

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State Stories

Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

North Texas doctor sentenced to prison in sweeping $54 million Medicare fraud case

A North Texas doctor was sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison Tuesday for a scheme to defraud Medicare out of millions of dollars, authorities said. Dr. Daniel Canchola, 54, of Flower Mound, accepted bribes and kickbacks for ordering bogus cancer screening tests and medical equipment, the Justice Department said. Canchola, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, was also ordered to pay $34 million in restitution. Federal prosecutors say Canchola signed scores of phony doctor’s orders for genetic cancer tests without examining or speaking to patients, who were recruited at health fairs and by telemarketers. Between August 2018 to April 2019, Canchola received about $30 for each order, totaling over $466,000 in kickbacks, federal court documents say. Orders signed by Canchola were then used to submit more than $54 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.

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Border Report - October 30, 2024

State buys South Texas ranch to build its own border wall

A Texas agency has bought a ranch on the border in rural Starr County where the state plans to build more border wall. The Texas General Land Office on Tuesday announced it purchased a 1,400-acre ranch where corn and other crops were being grown and the state will build a 1.5-mile new segment of border wall on the property. The land is near where Texas built its first, 1.7-mile segment of state-funded border wall in 2022 as part of the state’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham told Border Report on Tuesday that the agency had been trying to acquire the land for a while because of reports that the area is notorious for sexual assaults of migrant women and children by Mexican drug cartel and human trafficking organizations. “This is a high traffic area at the border. A lot of terrible things happening there,” Buckingham said via a Zoom interview from Austin. “Because the landowner was not allowing law enforcement nor the border wall to be built on her property, once the bad guys know this is a free pass zone, then they just start running through. And the stories that I was hearing as we were getting closer and closer to acquiring this property were just heartbreaking. It was story after story of abused women and children.”

The agency bought the land on Oct. 23 with mineral revenue and Buckingham said the purchase was approved by two independent boards. The agency plans to give an easement of the borderland to the Texas Facilities Commission to start border wall construction in December. “It’s been a long fight to get here, to be able to acquire this piece of property to get this wall built,” she said. As of the summer, Texas has built about 34 miles of state-funded border wall at a cost of about $25 million per mile, according to an investigation by the Texas Tribune. Border Report asked the Texas Facilities Commission, which oversees state border wall projects, how much this new section will cost, but the agency declined to comment.

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Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

Billion-dollar company moves headquarters to North Texas from New Jersey

North Texas is getting another new corporate hub — and it’s one that’s helping clients around the world see and hear better with thoughtful designs and technology. Diversified, which specializes in audiovisual and media services, has moved its global headquarters to Plano, according to a statement. The company, which touts $1 billion-plus in annual revenue, formerly housed its main office in New Jersey, a spokesperson said. The new headquarters provides easy access to DFW International Airport and the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, the company said. The “central location” helps Diversified attract top talent from the region while providing accessibility for clients and partners, including globally. Diversified designs and builds what it calls “experiential environments” at spaces that include media organizations, retailers, sports venues and corporate sites. For example, earlier this year, it announced the build out of a sound system at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. It also worked on digital signage for Lululemon and Armani Exchange. Other clients include the National Football League and Microsoft.

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Baptist News Global - October 30, 2024

Mara Richards Bim: Why is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott violating Article VI of the U.S. Constitution?

(Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.) Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states, in part: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Yet, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is violating this article of the Constitution. Earlier this week, Abbott sent out a text message political ad to supporters. The ad falsely claims Elizabeth Ginsberg failed to pay her taxes seven times — an accusation the Democratic candidate for the Texas House adamantly denies. But what is most shocking is the religious litmus test issued by the ad. Superimposed over the opening image is the phrase “Anti-Christian,” as the voice over says “Elizabeth Ginsberg calls you an extremist if you’re a Christian or if you oppose radical ideology in schools.” Ginsberg was raised Methodist, and her husband and children are Jewish.

None of that should matter because using religious language to validate or invalidate a person running for office is unconstitutional. Also troubling is the not-so-subtle dog whistle Abbott is issuing to Christian nationalists. The image of a candidate whose last name is Jewish superimposed with the phrase “Anti-Christian” is designed to send a message — an antisemitic message. And this disgusting messaging plays on centuries old narratives. What is surprising is that Abbott would send such an attack ad less than three weeks after appearing at an event sponsored by The Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas honoring the victims of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. The ad ends with an endorsement of the incumbent Republican Rep. Morgan Meyer — who is Methodist, making the smear against Ginsberg even more startling. The ad states it is paid for by “Greg Abbott Campaign.” As a Christian, I also find the ad offensive. Christian nationalism is a problem in this country and especially in the state of Texas where I live. In fact, Texas has been identified as the epicenter of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalists like Abbott like to paint opposition to Christian nationalism as some kind of attack against Christianity. It isn’t.

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KCEN - October 30, 2024

Beloved 6 News Anchor Kris Radcliffe has passed away

It is with a heavy heart that we announce KCEN 6 News' Evening Anchor Kris Radcliffe died Wednesday. His passing was sudden and his family is asking for privacy. "KCEN and the Central Texas community lost a truly wonderful person," said Rob Dwyer, President and General Manager of KCEN/KAGS. "Kris Radcliffe, husband, father, grandfather and anchor for KCEN and the community will be missed. Kris was a kind and generous person who elevated everyone he was around. It is hard to say goodbye." Kris was with KCEN for the past 22 years, starting in 2002. He first started as a sports anchor and later became the morning anchor for Texas Today for years before transitioning into the evening anchor role, bringing the latest headlines and breaking news during 6 News at 5, 6 and 10.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - October 30, 2024

Northeast Texans criticize Marvin Nichols Reservoir plans

Dozens of sign-bearing, jean-sporting northeast Texans packed the meeting hall of a community center outside Pittsburg on Wednesday afternoon. A roughly 30-mile drive north along U.S. 271 — two and a half hours from Fort Worth — sat the subject of their fears and frustrations: tens of thousands of acres of forest, pasture, and wetland some Texas water planners hope to convert into a 66,000-acre reservoir preemptively christened Marvin Nichols. What Metroplex officials tout as a necessary and sensible strategy to plug future holes in the region’s water supply, critics dismiss as a pointless, damaging boondoggle, putting their livelihoods and businesses at risk. The North East Texas Regional Water Planning Group (dubbed Region D) convened the Oct. 30 meeting to afford Dallas-Fort Worth water planners another chance to respond directly to their concerns. A cross section of northeast Texans — county officials, ranch hands, timber cutters — took turns sharing their seemingly unshakable objections.

“I know, that you know, that this is just a land grab. This is more greed than need,” said one landowner living near the site before inviting reservoir proponents to have dinner with his family. “You can send the Texas Rangers, the FBI, and the National Guard, and I will not leave.” North Texas officials first conceived of Marvin Nichols in the late 1960s. Tensions surrounding its future intensified in the 2000s, as Dallas-Fort Worth’s surging population laid bare the long-term inadequacies of its water reserves. The officials tasked with managing the Metroplex’s water insist the reservoir is an economical way to help hydrate the millions expected to relocate to the region in the coming decades. They’re hoping to slot the project into the 2027 State Water Plan — a Legislature-approved guide for Texas water management. “We know conservation isn’t going to get us where we need to go,” Kevin Ward, the chair of the Metroplex’s water planning authority (Region C), told an unsympathetic audience. “We’re going to need water.” Constructing the $7 billion lake would require damming the Sulfur River and flooding more than 100 square miles of land near Cuthand, a ranching community of roughly 300 about 35 miles southeast of Paris. The massive man-made pool, slated for completion by 2050, would submerge portions of Red River, Titus, and Franklin counties. The Texas Legislature in 2007 deemed it a “site of unique value for the construction of a reservoir,” given the area’s ample surface water and the comparatively low estimated costs of sending water to consumers — in municipalities stretching from Henderson County to Wise County.

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Dallas Morning News - October 31, 2024

American Airlines mechanics, fleet workers ratify 27-month contract extension

Over 35,000 maintenance technicians, fleet service and cargo workers at American Airlines ratified a new 27-month contract extension this week. The contract extension will bring immediate pay rate increases ranging from 12% to 15%, according to Transport Workers Union of America, the union representing aircraft maintenance, material logistics specialists and fleet service workers at American. Some 68% of members voted and the contract extension passed with 90% approval, according to the union. “We set goals, and we achieved them,” John Samuelsen, TWU international president said in a release. “When the International and TWU locals work hand-in-hand, we win.” The new contract goes into effect Jan. 1 and includes two additional annual raises of 3% on Jan. 1, 2026, and Jan. 1, 2027.

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Dallas Morning News - October 31, 2024

Kamala Harris campaign deploys Jasmine Crockett to reach key swing state voters

Looking to fire up North Carolina Democrats who want to help Vice President Kamala Harris win the state, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett expressed amazement that the presidential race was so close. “What’s so frightening about it is that while we have this amazing talent on our side of the bench, and there are fools on the other side, we are in this race and it’s competitive,” Crockett said at the Guilford County Democrats unity dinner in Greensboro. “Like, what is happening? It’s a tight race.” North Carolina is among seven swing states where Crockett has appeared as a campaign surrogate for Harris since summer.

The Dallas Democrat brings a unique perspective as a Black woman with experience as a civil rights lawyer and grassroots organizer. Crockett’s social media savvy and clapbacks against political rivals have repeatedly made her a viral sensation in her first term in Congress. Crockett has deployed her acid wit and sharp tongue on Harris’ behalf in Georgia, South Carolina and other states that are filled with Black residents and college students who tend to vote Democratic. “She’s a tremendous motivator,” said Jim Gallucci, a Greensboro Democrat and sculptor who heard Crockett speak at the unity dinner. “She’s real and has real experiences, including getting things done on a state level. Now she’s shaking things up in Congress.” Crockett began the campaign season traveling on behalf of Biden but shifted her focus after he dropped from the race in July after a poor debate performance. She’s now a national co-chair for Harris, campaigning in states with demographic profiles that play to her strengths. The switch was smooth, Crockett told The Dallas Morning News before a speech in Charlotte.

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Associated Press - October 31, 2024

Colin Allred, Ted Cruz make final pitches to Texas voters for U.S. Senate seat

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred are making their final pitches to Texas voters in a frenzied burst of travel across the state near the end of one of the nation’s most expensive and closely watched Senate races. Cruz, who finds himself in another competitive contest after narrowly winning a second term in 2018, is leaning into conservative pledges for tougher border measures and attacks on policies that support transgender people, including at a bus tour rally outside of San Antonio on Tuesday. Allred, who would become Texas’ first Black senator, spent a day criss-crossing Houston, the state’s biggest city and a crucial Democratic stronghold for the underdog congressman, who needs a big showing from loyal Democrats to unseat the incumbent.

At a rally at Texas Southern University, a historically Black college, the three-term congressman emphasized his support for abortion rights and blamed Cruz for limiting women’s access to reproductive healthcare. Statewide races in Texas have been out of reach for Democrats for decades, but recent signs that the race might be tightening have led some to think 2024 might finally be the year. It’s an ambitious target but one of the few pickup opportunities for Democrats in a year when they are defending twice as many Senate seats as Republicans nationally.A surprise win in Texas would dramatically boost their chances of maintaining their narrow Senate majority. Both candidates combined have raised more than $160 million in the race. Last week, Democrats backing Allred announced a $5 million ad campaign on reproductive freedom for women. At one of his stops in Houston, Allred asked voters to turn the page on divisive politics and look to leaders who can accomplish something. “I don’t spend my time throwing bombs,” he said. “I work hard not because bipartisanship is the end goal, because that’s how you get things done.” Some 250 miles to the west, at a rally in the rural South Texas town of Jourdanton, Cruz cast himself as the reasonable candidate.

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Houston Chronicle - October 31, 2024

A surge in data center development is feeding demand for electricity. Here's why that's a win for natural gas in Texas.

The Texas natural gas industry could be a major beneficiary of the boom in data center development, which is expected to dramatically increase demand for electricity from already-strained power grids across the country, according to a recent series of reports from the credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings. That need for power is in turn feeding demand for more generation, which is expected to require between 3 billion and 6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas by 2030, said Michael Grande, midstream and refining managing director at S&P Global Ratings. “A lot of that three bcf at the lower end will be in Texas and the Southeast, because that's where the infrastructure will be able to be built,” Grande said in an interview, citing environmental opposition to new gas infrastructure projects in the Northeast. Data center demand, on top of energy security concerns because of geopolitical conflicts, “should contribute to at least a decade of supply growth” beneficial to midstream energy companies, especially those servicing the Permian Basin, Grande’s team concluded.

The development of data centers, buildings that house computers and other infrastructure necessary for running much of the digital world, is expected to surge with the advancement of artificial intelligence. Indeed, Houston-area electric utility CenterPoint Energy on Monday reported a 700% increase in requests from data centers to connect to its grid from the beginning to the end of summer. Running and cooling data center equipment requires a lot of electricity. In fact, data centers could add as much power demand to the U.S. grids by 2030 as the state of California uses in a year, according to S&P. To meet that demand, approximately 50 gigawatts of new power supply would need to be added, the firm’s analysts wrote. (The power demand record in Texas is 85.5 gigawatts.) Big tech companies have tried to square their AI ambitions with their pledges to reduce climate-warming emissions by touting various deals to power their data centers with clean energy. In the past week, various reports projected the possibility of 3 degrees Celsius of global warming if countries don’t accelerate efforts to limit climate-warming emissions.

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Houston Chronicle - October 31, 2024

Marathon Oil to lay off more than 500 at Houston office after ConocoPhillips merger

Marathon Oil will lay off more than 500 people as result of its $22.5 billion merger with oil giant ConocoPhillips, the company said in a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission this week. Marathon did not detail how many employees would be affected by the layoff, nor the types of positions that would be cut. However, the energy firm estimated that there would be “more than 500 employees at the company’s facility located at 990 Town and Country Blvd” — the address of Marathon’s headquarters in CityCentre. The layoffs would occur within a year after the merger is finalized in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to the letter. “While these employees will be notified of specific employment end dates within a month of close, many will be retained for transition roles. Transition role scope and duration are currently being finalized and more than 50% of these transition roles are expected to extend beyond six months,” said Jill Ramshaw, senior vice president of human resources, in the letter to the state. Ramshaw said the Town and Country Boulevard office would remain open, despite the layoffs.

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Houston Chronicle - October 31, 2024

About 1,600 Medicare Advantage patients expected to lose coverage at MD Anderson, officials say

About 1,600 patients covered by Medicare Advantage plans are expected to lose insurance coverage at MD Anderson Cancer Center by the end of this week, officials at the cancer hospital said Wednesday. The patients have been covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, which previously announced that its Medicare Advantage members would no longer receive "in-network" access to the hospital as of Nov. 1. That means those patients could not receive care at heavily discounted rates. The number of impacted patients has not been previously reported. "Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas made the difficult but necessary decision to remove The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston from our" Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans, the insurer said in a statement last week.

The decision affects "fewer than five" Medicaid patients, according to an MD Anderson spokesperson. The hospital has arranged to continue treating roughly 600 Medicare patients after the deadline and "is working to determine best options for others," the spokesperson said. The separation will not impact Medicare Advantage plans for retirees and retiree dependents who have health insurance through the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System, the hospital previously said. Medicare Advantage plans are offered by private insurance companies and, like original Medicare, cover people over the age of 65 or people with certain disabilities.

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Houston Chronicle - October 31, 2024

'Reddest county in the state': How Montgomery County powers Republican victories in Texas

Virginia Miller moved to this quiet enclave on the outskirts of Houston in 1978 when there were just around 7,000 people. The town’s only McDonald’s had just opened. Since then, the development, which Miller’s father helped plan, and surrounding Montgomery County have become a suburban behemoth, home to 700,000 and counting. The Woodlands is now the largest master-planned community in Texas, home to residents drawn to work at the corporate campuses of ExxonMobil and Chevron Chemical. “So many people are moving in, more so than ever,” said Miller, a retired accountant and president of the county’s Women Republicans. “It’s just extraordinary.”

Unlike other booming Texas suburbs that have undergone political shifts to the left, Montgomery is still firmly red and a key reason Republicans keep notching statewide wins. It will be critical for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday as he tries to fend off a spirited challenge from Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. The county consistently votes more Republican than any other among Texas’ top 15 counties by a long shot, and it provides GOP candidates with a high volume of votes as the state’s growing cities turn blue and rural red areas see population decline. In 2020, Donald Trump won Montgomery County by a margin of 120,000 votes, more than in any other county in the country. In 2018, the county vote made up nearly half of Cruz’s winning margin.

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National Stories

Politico - October 31, 2024

Judge accelerates, relocates hearing on suit over Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day giveaway

A Philadelphia judge moved up and relocated a court hearing on Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s lawsuit aimed at halting Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day giveaway to swing-state voters. The moves followed complaints by Krasner that he’s receiving threats and antisemitic messages in connection with the case. Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo Foglietta said he will now hold the hearing Thursday instead of Friday, and he set it for a courtroom in City Hall, which Krasner said has better security than the courthouse where it was originally scheduled. Krasner sued Musk on Monday, contending that the tech mogul and prominent backer of Donald Trump is violating Pennsylvania’s strict laws on lotteries by offering $1 million daily prizes for voters who sign a petition supporting the First Amendment and Second Amendment.

On the social media platform X, which Musk owns, Musk amplified a post claiming that Krasner knows the suit is meritless and wants a “leftist judge” to shut down the contest. The message resulted in “an avalanche of posts from Musk’s followers,” Krasner wrote in a court filing Wednesday. Many of the posts were antisemitic and one account repeatedly included Krasner’s home address, encouraging others to visit. “Mask up and leave all cellphones at home,” said the messages, which the DA described as “unquestionably … criminal.” The Justice Department warned Musk’s political action committee last week that the payments to voters might violate federal law. A lawyer for America PAC did not respond to several requests for comment.

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Associated Press - October 30, 2024

Supreme Court's conservative justices leave in place Virginia's purge of voter registrations

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday left in place Virginia’s purge of voter registrations that the state says is aimed at stopping people who are not U.S. citizens from voting. One Virginian, whose registration was canceled despite living in the state her entire life, called the purge “a very bad October surprise.” The high court, over the dissents of the three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The court provided no rationale for its action, which is typical in emergency appeals. The justices acted on Virginia’s appeal after a federal judge found that the state illegally purged more than 1,600 voter registrations in the past two months. A federal appeals court had previously allowed the judge’s order to remain in effect. The specter of immigrants voting illegally has been a main part of the political messaging this year from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans, even though such voting is rare in American elections.

Trump had criticized the earlier ruling, calling it “a totally unacceptable travesty” on social media. “Only U.S. Citizens should be allowed to vote,” Trump wrote. Youngkin said voters who believe they were improperly removed from the rolls can still vote in the election because Virginia has same-day registration. “And so there is the ultimate, ultimate safeguard in Virginia, no one is being precluded from voting, and therefore, I encourage every single citizen go vote,” Youngkin told reporters. That option was noted also by the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the White House. “Every eligible voter has a right to cast their ballot and have their vote counted, and this ruling does not change that,” campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said in a statement. “Our campaign is going to make sure every eligible voter is able to vote. Voting by noncitizens remains illegal under federal law.” Rina Shaw, 22, of Chesterfield, Virginia, said she was born in Virginia, has lived in the state her whole life and has never left the U.S. Shaw thinks she may have forgotten to check a citizenship box on a form when she was updating her voter registration at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles while getting her learner’s permit.

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USA Today - October 31, 2024

Harris breaks with Biden over 'garbage' comment about Trump's supporters after reluctance to distance herself

Vice President Kamala Harris disagreed with President Joe Biden's comments when he appeared to refer to former President Donald Trump's supporters as “garbage," saying that while the president clarified his remarks, she does not agree with criticisms of voters based on whom they're supporting. “First of all he clarified his comments, but let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for," she told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Harris pointed to her speech on the Ellipse on Tuesday evening in which she pledged to be a president for all Americans as she courted undecided voters. "I've been very clear with the American public: I respect the challenges that people face," she said. “I am serious, what I mean when elected president, I will represent all Americans, including folks who don't vote for me, and address their needs and their desires.”

Biden had addressed offensive comments comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made at Trump’s rally on Sunday, where he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage." Biden, during a virtual event Tuesday with Voto Latino, criticized those comments and went on to say: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American,” according to a transcript released by the White House. The president and the White House quickly clarified that the Biden was talking about Hinchcliffe specifically. When speaking with reporters Wednesday, Harris said that she spoke with Biden after her speech Tuesday but that the two did not talk about his "garbage" comment. After Biden's remark, Trump, at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, called the president's remarks “terrible," likening them to Hillary Clinton's comments calling half of his supporters "deplorables" during the 2016 presidential campaign, which he later won. Harris has come under fire for being reluctant to lay out how she will be different from Biden's presidency. During an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier earlier this month, Harris was pressed to lay out how her presidency would be different from Biden's.

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Wall Street Journal - October 31, 2024

Trump allies draw up plans targeting legal immigration

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump routinely promises he will end illegal immigration. Behind the scenes, his closest advisers and allies are also drawing up plans that would restrict many forms of legal immigration, some of which could affect the ability of businesses to hire foreign workers. Outside advisers including Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda when he was in the White House, and such groups as the America First Policy Institute have been preparing executive orders, regulations and memos for a future homeland security secretary to sign that would narrow legal ways to migrate. That is according to interviews with a dozen former Trump administration officials, a review of public plans published by the campaign, and outside groups aligned with the campaign.

While public attention centers on the hot-button topic of illegal migration, how Trump and his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, approach lesser-known legal-immigration issues could have a broad impact, from Americans looking to bring foreign family members into the country to businesses that rely on visas to fill jobs ranging from software engineering to seasonal positions at theme parks. The plans feature a return of some controversial policies from Trump’s first term. Included are a ban on travel to the U.S. from several Muslim-majority countries, a halt on refugee resettlement from overseas, and the public charge rule, a policy seeking to block immigrants who are low-income, disabled or speak limited English, so those people wouldn’t eventually use public benefits. Last time around, Trump’s team struggled to fully implement most of its immigration policies because they weren’t issued properly, allowing them to be toppled by lawsuits from Democratic states and immigration-advocacy groups. “They are explicitly more prepared this time around,” said Kristie De Peña, senior vice president for policy at the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington with libertarian roots that supports immigration. De Peña is one of several analysts tracking the emerging plans by parsing policy papers, social-media posts and public statements.

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Smart Cities Dive - October 30, 2024

Is US high-speed rail finally on a roll?

In just four years, trains traveling nearly 200 mph could whoosh passengers between the entertainment capital of Las Vegas and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. “When that starts to happen, people all across the country will say, ‘Why can’t we have this closer to where I live?’” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview. High-speed rail projects are under construction in California and Nevada and in the planning stages in the Pacific Northwest, the Southeast and Texas. Government officials, industry leaders, labor representatives and rail advocates this summer and fall described the growing momentum in the U.S. for true high-speed trains like those in Europe, Japan and China. Cities are increasingly looking to technology and data to address real-world issues from traffic safety to law enforcement. But the history of U.S. high-speed rail is one of starts and stops instead of smooth, fast journeys. When Japan launched the world’s first bullet train in 1964, some in President Lyndon Johnson’s administration called for the launch of similar service between Boston and Washington, D.C. Sixty years later, that corridor is still waiting.

The 1965 High-Speed Ground Transportation Act authorized high-speed rail research and development, primarily focused on the Northeast Corridor. The outcome was the development of electrically powered, self-propelled Metroliners for the Washington-New York City portion of the corridor, which is electrified, and trains with gas-turbine engines, dubbed TurboTrains, for the New York City-Boston portion, which was not completely electrified at that time. Both went into service in 1969. Despite being capable of running up to 160 mph, the Metroliners were limited to 120 mph by track conditions and electrical issues. Even so, the trains cut travel time between D.C. and New York City by almost an hour. Both the TurboTrains and Metroliners were unreliable, but by 1971 an Amtrak survey found that half of Metroliner passengers had switched from other transportation modes. In 1992, the Federal Railroad Administration designated five corridors as ripe for fast trains, including a line linking Chicago with other cities in the Midwest and one connecting Miami with Orlando and Tampa, Florida. The agency added more prospective high-speed rail corridors in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2009, the Obama administration made federal funding available for intercity rail projects, with priority given to high-speed rail. Republican governors in three states — Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin — rejected the money. In 2011, when Republicans held the majority in the House of Representatives, they eliminated funding for high-speed intercity rail.

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Newsclips - October 30, 2024

Lead Stories

Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

Ken Paxton calls on lawmaker to resign over Robert Roberson texts to judge

Attorney General Ken Paxton called Tuesday for state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, to resign, saying he was making a criminal referral over the North Texas lawmaker’s recent communication with a judge involved in death row inmate Robert Roberson’s appeals. Paxton’s announcement came one day after his office called attention to text messages from Leach urging a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider rulings that rejected Roberson’s bid for a new trial. “Jeff Leach sought to alter the outcome of capital punishment proceedings by criminally attempting to influence a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals,” Paxton said in a news release. “This is a violation of Texas Penal Code 36.04, which outlaws ‘improper influence.’”

Paxton called on Leach, a fellow Collin County Republican, to resign and said his office was “making a criminal referral” in the matter. He also called on House Speaker Dade Phelan to remove Leach as chair of the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence. Paxton’s office did not provide further details about the criminal referral and did not respond to an email seeking comment. Leach declined to comment on Paxton’s statement, referring reporters to his Monday apology for contacting the judge. “The only news worth commenting on today is that my son Brady, a golfer at Allen High School, shot a 74 and won 1st place in his tournament this morning,” Leach said in a text message. In text messages sent Friday to Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Michelle Slaughter, Leach appeared to ask the judge to reverse a decision on Roberson’s impending execution. Slaughter reported the messages, and the appeals court notified lawyers on both sides of Roberson’s case, saying it considered Leach’s contact to be a “clear violation” of professional conduct rules for lawyers. Leach is a lawyer.

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Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

Court records detail behind-the-scenes fight over testimony by death row’s Robert Roberson

In court documents made public Tuesday, Texas lawmakers provided a behind-the-scenes look at efforts to scuttle in-person testimony from death row’s Robert Roberson, either at the Capitol or at the inmate’s prison. In the end, the documents said, lawmakers were told Roberson would not be permitted to testify in “any form of hearing” before a House committee examining the inmate’s case. In a brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court, Reps. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and Jeff Leach, R-Allen, detailed their battle with the attorney general’s office and unnamed executive branch officials to secure public testimony from Roberson. The two lawmakers, both lawyers, sit on the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and were among seven panel members who voted to subpoena Roberson, ultimately delaying his Oct. 17 execution.

The subpoena compelled Roberson to testify at a Capitol committee hearing Oct. 21. Prison officials began working to bring Roberson to the Capitol — ironing out transportation and security details — before the Texas attorney general’s office stepped in, sending Moody a letter saying Roberson would have to testify from prison by videoconference. Moody began the hearing by explaining Roberson’s absence and said negotiations were underway to allow the committee to hear from the inmate, who argues his conviction and death sentence should be overturned because they were based on outdated science and debunked theories surrounding shaken baby syndrome. In the legal brief filed with the Supreme Court, which has been asked to weigh the legality of the committee subpoena, Moody provided his account of what was happening outside of public view — including his frustration with what he described as an unresponsive attorney general’s office. “The executive branch took exception and refused to honor the subpoena,” the lawmakers wrote. “That impasse remains today.”

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Wall Street Journal - October 29, 2024

At a pivotal moment, U.S. economic data will be a mess

When hurricanes hit, they send air pressure sharply lower. They can affect the barometers we use to read the economy, too. Hurricanes Helene and Milton are likely to wreak havoc on economic indicators at a particularly delicate time. The employment report for October comes out Friday, four days before the election. It will bear the hurricanes’ marks, which could make it especially susceptible to being spun for political advantage in the final stretch of the presidential campaign. The Federal Reserve’s next decision on rates comes just two days after Election Day. Hurricane effects on the data will make it harder for the Fed to decide how much—or whether—to cut interest rates to keep the economy solid and inflation headed down. Helene was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina, and many affected communities are still recovering. Milton came just two weeks later.

The storms temporarily put people out of work and shut stores, factories and construction sites. Eventually, the economy will bounce back, but these effects make it harder to understand how things are faring now. September’s jobs report rewrote the picture of the labor market from rising unemployment and slowing job growth to steady unemployment and robust job growth, reaching 254,000 for the month. October’s number will be depressed not just by the storms, but the Boeing strike. Economists expect the report will show the economy added 100,000 jobs. For that jobs number, the Labor Department surveys U.S. employers on how many people they had on their payrolls during the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. People who work at all during that pay period—whether weekly, biweekly or monthly—get counted as employed. Helene made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, too late to affect the September readings. The Boeing walkout began on Sept. 13. (A three-day port workers’ strike that ended Oct. 3 likely left no impact.)

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Houston Chronicle - October 29, 2024

Harris County DA Kim Ogg searched for Democratic election-rigging for 21 months. She found none

When Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced in August that she had found no evidence of election rigging during the 2022 midterm elections, it capped nearly two tumultuous years of speculation and finger-pointing from state and local Republican leaders. For 21 months, Ogg’s office had been investigating claims that local election workers intentionally withheld ballot paper from Republican voters during the November 2022 midterm elections. As the probe continued, a string of lawsuits and state legislation filed over the matter continued to sow doubts about election integrity in the nation’s third-largest county. But according to interviews with election workers and documents related to the investigation, Ogg’s office and the Texas Rangers – who assisted in the probe – had likely known there was no election tampering for at least a year before Ogg informed the public. Court records show that by the fall of 2023, the Ranger who led the election-rigging investigation had no suspect and no evidence of such crimes after interviewing more than a dozen witnesses. Meanwhile, legal bills for the election workers under investigation had added up to more than $700,000, all of which the county will pay with taxpayer funds.

Harris County prosecutors presented information related to the matter to a grand jury on Feb. 1 of this year, but they also did not name a suspect or an alleged offense, according to court records. The grand jury’s term ended that day, and six additional months passed before Ogg told the public the investigation was over. A spokesperson for Ogg, a Democrat who lost her primary election and has only a few weeks left in office, did not respond to multiple requests from the Chronicle to interview her. In the past, Ogg has said that she was simply following state law, but her critics claimed she was instead continuing a pattern of targeting fellow Democrats with whom she disagrees. Voting rights advocates also said that the drawn-out nature of the investigation ended up bolstering Republicans’ continued efforts to make Texas voting laws among the most restrictive in the nation in the name of election security — and to target Harris County. "When ballots are being counted, you want it to be swift and accurate,” said Emily Eby French, policy director for the nonprofit Common Cause Texas. “And we should expect the same of investigations into elections. And it is frustrating when that doubt is left open.”

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State Stories

Houston Chronicle - October 30, 2024

What to know about the HISD staff at the center of a statewide teaching certification cheating scandal

Three Houston ISD employees face criminal charges for allegedly running a teacher certification cheating ring, certifying more than 210 teachers with more than 430 bogus certification tests. All three HISD employees are on paid leave effective Monday, the district's Chief of Communications Alexandra Elizondo said this week. "HISD was made aware of the investigation into an alleged cheating conspiracy shortly before arrests were made," the district commented Monday. "Any educator who engages in conduct of this nature abdicates their responsibility to our students and to our staff and represents a complete betrayal of the public trust. HISD will cooperate fully with the Texas Education Agency and state and local law enforcement as the investigation progresses. All three of these employees have been arrested and will be receiving notifications relieving them of their duties effective immediately."

Vincent Grayson, 57, was head boys basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School. Under his leadership, the team reached the Class 4A state championship game after the 2022-23 season and the regional final in 2023-24. District records list Grayson as a campus athletic coordinator in 2023 and high school graduation coach in 2022. He had worked at least 20 years with HISD as of September and earned a salary of around $90,000. LaShonda Roberts, 39, was an assistant principal at Jack Yates High School in Third Ward. The Yates administrator was listed as a dean of students in 2023 and a physical education teacher in 2022, according to district records. She had 14 years of HISD experience as of September and a salary of $92,000. Roberts is accused of recruiting or referring 90 teachers to the cheating ring, forwarding roughly $267,000 to Grayson, according to a court document. Roberts' bail was set at $200,000 early Tuesday and later lowered to $50,000. Nicholas Newton, 35, was an assistant principal at Booker T. Washington High School. He is listed as a magnet coordinator for the high school's engineering program on the school's website. District records list Newton as an instructional specialist in 2022 and assistant principal in 2023. He had 12 years with HISD as of September and a salary of $129,000.

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Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

How school districts responded to online threats, violent incidents connected to sports

Interest in this year’s Duncanville and DeSoto football game was so high, dozens of fans who couldn’t get into the sold-out stadium snaked around the fencing just to get a glimpse. DeSoto’s Eagle Stadium drew a crowd of more than 10,000 that Friday night, making for an electric backdrop to the game between two rivals and defending state champions who recently tied their all-time series. Many of the players from Duncanville and DeSoto, cities separated by fewer than 10 miles, grew up playing youth football together. The close ties create competition among fans who take seriously a game that has bragging rights and often the district title on the line.

Fans arriving at this year’s game passed through metal detectors as local and DeSoto ISD police officers monitored all corners of the stadium. Before kickoff, the public address announcer reminded fans to show good sportsmanship and leave promptly after the game, and a pastor prayed that everyone would leave the game safe — and alive. Everyone did. And Duncanville won, 42-20, assuring its spot atop the state’s Class 6A rankings. But the serious pregame messages and security measures signaled the efforts North Texas school districts have taken to respond to increased online threats toward schools and incidents of violence at or connected to sporting events nationwide. Three weeks before the DeSoto-Duncanville game, DeSoto ISD announced comprehensive updates to its athletic events protocol for fans, including strict rules for students attending games. Gun violence has occurred before, during or after a high school game every week of the high school football season since 2022 to Sept. 1 of this year, according to David Riedman, who founded the K-12 Shooting Database, which provides information on more than 2,850 incidents nationwide dating back to 1966. Since Sept. 1, shootings have occurred at youth or high school sporting events all but one week this fall, Riedman found. In Texas, eight shootings connected to high school sporting events have occurred since 2021 and three have occurred this year, according to the database which accounts for shootings on school property.

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Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

Data breach hits 68,000 Texans, 800,000 nationwide at Texas life insurance servicer

Nearly 68,000 Texans and more than 800,000 people nationwide could be affected by a data breach at a Brownwood-based insurance servicer, according to filings with the Texas and Maine attorneys general offices. Landmark Admin announced the breach on Oct. 23, and notices have been sent to those affected, according to the filings. Information potentially gathered includes names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers/tax identification numbers, driver’s license numbers/government-issued ID numbers, financial information such as credit card numbers, and medical and health insurance information. Landmark offers third-party administration services for life insurance and annuity companies, including Liberty Bankers Insurance Group headquartered in Dallas. Liberty Bankers Insurance Group includes American Monumental Life Insurance Company, Pellerin Life Insurance Company, American Benefit Life Insurance Company, Liberty Bankers Life Insurance Company, Continental Mutual Insurance Company, and Capitol Life Insurance Company.

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Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

Young emerging Hispanic leaders in North Texas are working to get more Latinos to vote

Three young, emerging North Texas leaders have different political views, but they share a common goal: getting more Latinos to vote. Carlos Quintanilla, 19, Joshua García, 24, and Rogelio Meixueiro, 27, are working to educate North Texas Latinos about the 2024 elections. They discuss issues from deadlines and requirements to where local and national candidates stand on key issues like reproductive rights, the economy, immigration and public safety. “Latinos are the future of the state and the nation. We must make sure that our voice is heard and that we elect as many representatives as possible who will stand up for our community,” Meixueiro said.

More than 6.4 million Hispanic citizens over 18 live in Texas, which is second only to California with 8.5 million, according to U.S. Census data. In the 2020 elections, 59% of Latino voters supported Biden and 38% Trump nationwide, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. Nearly one-third of the Latinos eligible to vote are between the ages of 18 to 29, according to UnidosUS, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for Hispanic civil rights. In a nationwide poll of nearly 3,000 Hispanic voters released by UnidosUS in September, 48% of respondents in that age range said they had not been contacted by any party about voting in this election. That’s one of the reasons Quintanilla, García and Meixueiro each began knocking on doors, setting up tables at events, businesses and schools and posting on social media about where the Democratic and Republican candidates stand.

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Dallas Morning News - October 30, 2024

North Texas mayor born in Puerto Rico still supports Trump after joke at raucous NY rally

A North Texas mayor born in Puerto Rico says a comedian’s crude joke about the U.S. territory at a weekend rally for Republican Donald Trump has not weakened his support for the former president. Speaking at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden, Texas podcaster and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” drawing immediate backlash and angering many Latino entertainers and some Hispanic Republicans. But Keller Mayor Armin Mizani took to social media this week to explain his continuing support for Trump in the presidential race against Democrat and Vice President Kamala Harris. Mizani, who has an Iranian father and Cuban mother, said he lived in Puerto Rico from birth to age 9.

“For Latinos, faith, family, and economic opportunity motivates us — not some bad joke by a comedian,” Mizani wrote Monday on X. By Tuesday afternoon, the post had been reshared about 9,000 times, including by billionaire Elon Musk, also a Trump supporter. “Under the Biden and Harris administration, Americans have seen record inflation, an open southern border, increased crime, the weakening of the family structure, and the taking away of God from our daily lives,” the mayor wrote. “In contrast, under President Trump, Americans saw secured borders, economic prosperity, a respect for people of faith, and a respect for American values.” On Tuesday, Mizani told The Dallas Morning News that he and other Latino voters are not motivated by a “bad joke,” but by soaring costs of groceries, electricity, automobile insurance and rent under the Biden administration. “This is what will motivate us at the polls come November 5,” Mizani told The News in a Facebook message. Mizani, an attorney, was elected mayor of Keller in 2020. The city has emerged as a GOP-stronghold, with the school board voting this year to require parental approval for students to go by different names or pronouns than on their birth certificates. Earlier this year, a school board trustee resigned after a film crew from an evangelical Christian network filmed and interviewed students without families’ knowledge or consent.

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Houston Public Media - October 30, 2024

Fort Bend District Attorney’s Office investigates campaign sign vandalism

The Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office is investigating reports of damaged campaign signs this week at several locations across Sugar Land and Stafford. Investigators received reports from the Sugar Land Police Department of overnight vandalism on Monday. They say at least three candidates from both sides of the aisle were impacted. Photos provided by the district attorney's office show destroyed signs for Precinct 3 County Commissioner candidates Andy Meyers and Taral Patel. The photos also show a destroyed sign for Carmen Turner, a Democrat tax assessor-collector who is running for re-election.

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Houston Chronicle - October 30, 2024

Steve Kean: Houston’s students deserve safe and healthy schools

(Steve Kean is the president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership.) Amid the controversy and acrimony surrounding the Houston ISD bond election, it is sometimes hard to remember this is actually about our children. Educating our children, especially in our most economically disadvantaged areas, is critically important to their lifelong success and the success of our city. The Greater Houston Partnership, our region’s largest chamber of commerce and economic development organization, joins with many other groups and people across our community to support the bond. Our students, and the teachers who educate them, deserve safe and healthy schools to learn, work and thrive. It’s not rocket science.I think even most who oppose the bond agree that Houston schools should have working air conditioning. The water should be free of lead. There should be a single point of entry. A student should not have to avoid the rotten spot in the floor of a temporary building.

These conditions are unacceptable. This is Houston, Texas — a great global city. A city of opportunity. Of the ten largest U.S. metros, our population is growing at the highest rate. And of that same group of cities, we have the largest concentration of residents ages 18 and under. Our children need this bond, and they need it now. We know that many who oppose the bond see this as a rebuke of Mike Miles and the board of managers, along with the ongoing reforms across the district. A “no” vote is not going to push out the administration, nor the appointed board. The Texas Education Agency has been very clear about the conditions that must be met to return to elected governance. Improving student achievement across the district is the key to that path, and fortunately we’ve taken the first steps on the journey. We celebrate the unprecedented increase of A and B-rated schools in the district from 93 to 170 and the decrease in D and F from 121 to 41 – all in just one year. This is extraordinary progress in student achievement. This reflects the hard work of our teachers, school administrators, and most importantly, our students. This should be celebrated.

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Border Report - October 29, 2024

Texas hospitals to start checking citizenship status this week

This Friday, Texas hospitals will be required to collect information regarding patients who are not legally in the country as part of an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott signed the order in August in an effort to collect data on the costs of caring for undocumented patients, claiming Texas “absorbs a large percentage of the costs associated with medical care for individuals who are not lawfully in the United States.” The order also directs hospitals to inform patients that their response “will not affect patient care.” Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the nation at 17% — more than double the national average. Five million Texans have no insurance, the Texas Hospital Association reported. Last year, hospitals provided more than $8 billion in “charity care” for uninsured people, with more than $3 billion not reimbursed.

Most uninsured Texans are citizens, however. While 1.6 million undocumented immigrants live in Texas, they go to the hospital at lower rates than U.S. citizens and make up a minority of the uninsured cost burden on state hospitals, the Texas Tribune reported. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas worries the order will discourage undocumented Texans from seeking necessary medical care. They stress that patients do not need to answer the question, and cannot be denied care no matter their answer. “This order should not impact anybody’s access to care — period,” senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas David Donatti said. “Whether you are native-born, a U.S. citizen, an immigrant, whatever your status should be, you should be able to access the healthcare that you need and the facility should not have the ability to block you from receiving that kind of care. That is crystal clear as a matter of federal law.” Donatti said the ACLU is exploring possible legal action against the Governor’s order. The Texas Hospital Association also reassures patients that the new rule will not impact healthcare access.

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Inside Higher Ed - October 30, 2024

Texas State U adjunct accused of soliciting student votes

Tanner Neidhardt, an adjunct professor at Texas State University and a local judge, is accused of breaking state law by asking his students to vote for him, The Texas Tribune reported. Neidhardt allegedly asked Texas State students to vote and campaign for him on campus, offering a free T-shirt and pizza to volunteers, according to records shared with the news outlet. “I’ve always told you that you will make a difference in the future of our justice system,” he wrote in an email obtained by The Texas Tribune. “In fact, you can make a difference right now. When you support a judge committed to a better justice system, I can keep working to improve it.”

Neidhardt was appointed to the judicial post in 2022 by Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican. His term expires at the end of December, making this the first time the incumbent has campaigned for re-election. Neidhardt has taught a course on courts and criminal procedure at Texas State since fall 2023, according to his LinkedIn page, which shows he previously taught at the University of Texas School of Law as well. Contacted via the platform, he did not respond to a request for comment.

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KERA - October 30, 2024

Elon Musk joins list of billionaires funding Texas PAC backing GOP judicial candidates

Elon Musk has donated $2 million to the Texas-based Judicial Fairness PAC, making him the latest billionaire to back the group trying to unseat Democratic judges across the state. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s donation — made through his revocable trust — makes up almost half of the nearly $4.6 million the Judicial Fairness PAC raised between late September and Oct. 26, according to the group’s latest campaign finance report due Monday. Representatives for Musk at Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a KERA News request for comment. KERA reached out to Musk’s wealth manager on LinkedIn to request comment and will update this story with any response. The Judicial Fairness PAC raised $8.3 million in its previous filing period thanks to funding from some other notable billionaires and corporations, KERA News recently reported.

The Judicial Fairness PAC has poured thousands of dollars into advertising for Republican judicial candidates and against Democratic judges across Texas. In North Texas, the PAC claims Democrats in Dallas are letting out dangerous criminals on little or no bail, while Republican judges in Fort Worth keep crime down by keeping offenders in jail. But the group fails to tie the difference in the cities' crime levels directly to judges as opposed to other factors — such as geographic size, demographics and policing. The group is also formally endorsing intermediate appellate court justices and candidates in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Corpus Christi — not magistrate or trial court judges who make decisions about bail. A spokesperson for the Judicial Fairness PAC said the group is “highlighting the devastating consequences that soft-on-crime Democrat judges up and down the ballot have had on families.”

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Chron - October 29, 2024

Is Ted Cruz 'dead'? Seems like Senate Republicans want you to think so.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is bidding U.S. Senator Ted Cruz farewell in text messages and a social media post days before the November 5 election. The committee, which is - not surprisingly - backing Cruz, took to X, writing, “Our hearts sank…We prayed we were wrong. But if you don’t already know, here’s what happened.” The messaging of the committee's fundraising campaign on behalf of Cruz was reminiscent of a makeshift obituary. But, the Texas senator up for reelection against challenger U.S. Rep. Colin Allred is very much alive. “I thought this was very extreme as a tactic, and then I thought it’s maybe on the border of being brilliant,” Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston political science professor, said. “This was a way to grab people’s attention in a very crowded political environment where they’re being asked to volunteer, vote or donate at every turn.”

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Corpus Christi Caller-Times - October 29, 2024

What does Communities in Schools do for Corpus Christi ISD? See the numbers.

Communities in Schools of the Coastal Bend aims to remove obstacles to education, delivering mental health support, family engagement, enrichment and academic support. During a Corpus Christi Independent School District school board committee meeting Monday afternoon, Gloria Taylor, chief executive officer of Community in Schools of the Coastal Bend, shared an annual report on the organization's activities in CCISD. The organization was active at Allen, Gibson, Hicks, Oak Park, Travis and Zavala elementary schools; Adkins, Baker, Browne, Cunningham at South Park, Driscoll, Grant, Haas, Hamlin, Kaffie and Martin middle schools; and Carroll, Coles, King, Miller, Ray and Veterans Memorial high schools, as well as the Student Support Center and CCISD special programs.

CISD provided over 17,838 hours of intervention services in academic support, supportive guidance and counseling, health and human services, parent and family engagement, enrichment activities and college and career readiness. Campus-wide events and prevention and awareness initiatives served 18,834 students. CIS staff made over 130 home visits to promote attendance and provide support. Taylor shared a letter from a CCISD grandmother during the presentation. The grandmother said Communities in Schools is a "lifeline for a struggling family." The woman wrote that in the 1990s, CIS encouraged her son to achieve his high school equivalency. Now, she is raising two grandchildren and she has relied on support from CIS to provide the children with backpacks and school supplies, clothing, shoes and food. "Students arrive at school carrying a multitude of challenges, concerns and obstacles, often grappling with trauma that impacts their educational journey," Taylor said. "Our commitment is to stand alongside students, addressing the barriers they face, which may include poverty, hunger, stress, anxiety, resource limitations and more." Board member Jaime Arredondo said that he has seen "tremendous contributions" from Communities in Schools over the years. Superintendent Roland Hernandez and board members Marty Bell and Alice Upshaw Hawkins also praised the program.

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Construction Dive - October 29, 2024

Construction Partners buys Lone Star Paving for $654M plus stock

Civil builder Construction Partners has entered into an agreement to acquire Lone Star Paving for $654 million in cash and 3 million shares, the Dothan, Alabama-based infrastructure firm announced Oct. 21. At the previous day’s close, that puts the acquisition’s total value at $878 million. Lone Star, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a vertically integrated asphalt manufacturing and paving company operating in high-growth markets in Central Texas, with 10 hot-mix asphalt plants, four aggregate facilities and a liquid asphalt terminal, according to the release. The acquisition will be immediately accretive to earnings upon closing and is anticipated to generate an annualized run-rate contribution of $530 million in revenue in fiscal year 2025.

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County Stories

KERA - October 30, 2024

Dallas County's next chief medical examiner will be first woman appointed to that position

For the first time, a woman will be Chief Medical Examiner for Dallas County. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Jessica Dwyer will take over when the current director retires this week. Dwyer will head the county's Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences. She will be Dallas County's third medical examiner since the office was created. SWIFS manages many labs for the county and area law enforcement, courts and health departments, including toxicology, DNA and trace evidence. Dwyer has been with the medical examiner's office since 2017. She was an assistant professor of forensic pathology and a medical examiner until her promotion to deputy in 2023. She will take over from Chief Medical Examiner Jeffrey Barnard. He retires Nov. 1 after 37 years with the county.

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City Stories

Houston Chronicle - October 30, 2024

Houston Housing Authority president David A. Northern put on administrative leave

During the second special board meeting in a month regarding his employment, the Houston Housing Authority's president and chief executive, David A. Northern, Sr., was placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday. The housing authority's board approved a resolution stating that it had been "presented with information that warrants investigation of the president and chief executive officer" — specifically whether he has complied with his contractual and fiduciary duties. Until the investigation is concluded, an interim president and chief executive will be appointed by board members Jody Proler and Alton Smith. They did not give any indication of who is being considered for the position during the meeting.

The vote came two weeks after the board decided to hire an outside consultant to evaluate the president and an outside attorney to investigate the Houston Housing Authority's practices for awarding contracts and approving payments. It came three weeks after another special meeting had been called to discuss Northern's employment. During that meeting, the board had a lengthy discussion behind closed doors during executive session but took no action. Northern said in an email that he was confident the investigation would not turn up any grounds for removal. "I am deeply concerned about the weaponization of our housing authority and the negative impact that this has had on the morale of HHA staff and our ability to serve our constituents," Northern said. He pointed to his achievements — this year, the agency has secured $60 million in federal grants and caught up on an audit backlog that preceded his time at the housing authority.

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San Antonio Express-News - October 30, 2024

Business leaders outraise firefighters’ union more than 2 to 1 in fight over city manager caps

Business leaders have outraised the firefighters’ union in their push to get voters to strike restrictions on the city manager’s pay and tenure. The Renew San Antonio PAC raised nearly $419,300 in the last month, according to campaign finance reports filed Monday. That brings their total amount of cash raised to date to just over $544,000. However, that’s nowhere near the PAC’s goal of raising at least $1 million to get voters to pass all six city charter amendments that are at the bottom of the stacked Nov. 5 ballot. “We will continue right up to the very end to raise money and to wage an aggressive campaign on behalf of these amendments,” said Kelton Morgan, Renew SA’s campaign consultant.

The group’s focus is on passing Proposition C, which would undo the caps on the city manager’s terms of employment and give the City Council the authority to decide how much to pay that person and how long to employ him or her. The city manager is the only city employee overseen by the mayor and council. The Vote Against Prop C Committee brought in about $177,215 from Sept. 27 through Oct. 26, according to its latest report. All of those contributions came from the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Political Action Committee, with the exception of a $3,117 donation from the union. The firefighters union came out against Prop C on Oct. 7, two weeks before the start of early voting. The measure is a city-led effort to remove the restrictions that the union got voters to impose on future city managers in the November 2018 election. The union at the time was in a contract fight with then-City Manager Sheryl Sculley, who was earning $475,00 in base pay.

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National Stories

CNN - October 30, 2024

Steve Bannon is released from prison in time for the last-week push to Election Day

Steve Bannon was released from federal prison Tuesday, according to a source with knowledge, emerging just a week before Election Day to retake the helm of his weakened right-wing media platform. Bannon, a right-wing podcast host and the chief executive of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has remained a strident supporter of the former president. Even as he reported to federal prison in Connecticut in July, Bannon insisted he would influence the presidential race from behind bars and that his “War Room” podcast would continue to energize the Trump base. Bannon was met early Tuesday morning by his daughter Maureen. He is expected to host his radio program later Tuesday morning.

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CNN - October 30, 2024

Trump stokes voter fraud fears in Pennsylvania as counties investigate and state urges patience

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed two Pennsylvania counties are experiencing voter fraud despite both officials there maintaining they’re still investigating potential issues related to voter registration applications. A week from Election Day, the former president and the Republican National Committee appear to be laying the groundwork to challenge voting results if Trump loses. The former president did not wait for the results of the York and Lancaster county investigations before stoking fears on social media about allegedly fraudulent voter registration applications, even as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state asked the public for patience. And, in a separate instance, the RNC joined the Trump campaign in pushing claims of “voter suppression,” as election officials in the critical battleground pushed back.

“Wow! York County, Pennsylvania, received THOUSANDS of potentially FRUADULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications from a third party group,” Trump wrote Tuesday in a post on X that received over 1 million views in just a few hours. “This on top of Lancaster County being caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person. Really bad ‘stuff.’ WHAT IS GOING ON IN PENNSYLVANIA??? Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!! WOW!!!” he continued. Trump and RNC officials have increasingly floated claims about potential issues with mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania in the lead-up to November 5, as the former president’s allies also target mail-in ballots in court. State and county officials, meanwhile, have sought to reassure voters that they are investigating any alleged issues with the mail-in ballot process and that they are seeking to protect the integrity of the election process at this early stage. Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Tuesday night that the allegations are “more of the same” from Trump, adding that as the state’s attorney general he defeated 43 challenges to the 2020 vote count from the former president “and his allies.”

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Washington Post - October 30, 2024

Harris holds rally at Ellipse warning of Trump’s threat to democracy

Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the closing argument of her campaign against Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing that as president she would focus on delivering for everyday Americans while he would fixate on exacting revenge. She spoke before a large crowd at the same site where Trump rallied his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. A week before the end of the most turbulent and closely fought campaign in recent memory, Harris appeared on the Ellipse, surrounded by Washington’s iconic monuments to democracy, and tore into her Republican rival as un-American. She cast him as a “petty tyrant” and called him “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge,” “consumed with grievance” and “out for unchecked power.” “Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is,” Harris said during her 30-minute speech. “But America, I am here tonight to say: That’s not who we are.”

Skip to end of carousel Election 2024 arrow leftarrow right Follow live updates on the 2024 election and Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump from our reporters on the campaign trail and in Washington. Check out how Harris and Trump stack up according to The Washington Post’s presidential polling averages of seven battleground states. We’ve identified eight possible paths to victory based on the candidates’ current standing in the polls. We’ve collected Harris’s and Trump’s stances on the most important issues, including abortion, economic policy and immigration. The Post broke down the eight races and three long shots that could determine whether Democrats lose control of the Senate. Ten competitive races will determine whether Republicans retain their narrow control of the House. Harris spoke with the White House as a backdrop in an effort to remind voters of the stakes and of the very different ways she and Trump would serve as president. While she stressed the dangers she said Trump poses to democracy, she sought to tie those concerns to people’s day-to-day anxieties — including the economy, health care and immigration — in an acknowledgment that many voters may not be moved by theoretical warnings about authoritarianism. The vice president also reiterated the unity message that has been an increasing theme of her campaign’s final stretch. “I pledge to listen to experts, to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make — and to people who disagree with me,” Harris said. “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at my table.” She added, “It is time to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms.” More than two hours before the speech, thousands of people were lined up for more than a mile waiting to enter. Most of downtown Washington was shut down as throngs of supporters came to see Harris at one of her final events, in a city that typically does not get high-profile visits from presidential candidates.

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Washington Post - October 30, 2024

Majority of swing-state voters say they fear violence if Trump loses

A majority of swing-state voters are concerned that supporters of former president Donald Trump will respond with violence if he doesn’t win the presidential election next month and do not believe he will accept defeat. Significantly fewer voters across those key states feel the same is true about Vice President Kamala Harris and her backers, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. The poll of more than 5,000 registered voters conducted in the first half of October in six battleground states finds a 57 percent majority are very or somewhat worried that Trump’s supporters would turn violent if he loses, compared with 31 percent who think Harris voters would resort to violence. Two-thirds of voters are not confident Trump would accept a loss, while a little more than two-thirds are confident Harris would accept defeat. “These findings are discouraging,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

“It tells us we’ve lost a lot in a very short period of time, that we cannot assume that people will accept the legitimacy of the outcome of an election, and that a peaceful transfer of power is something that just automatically happens here.” The peaceful transfer of power is considered an essential element of any functioning democracy, and it had long been taken for granted in the United States that the losing candidate would concede. That changed with the last presidential election, when Trump incited an angry mob to attack the U.S. Capitol to disrupt certification of Joe Biden’s victory.Since then, Trump has been using discredited fraud claims to lay the groundwork to undermine the results if they don’t go his way in 2024. He has repeatedly said the only way he could lose the election is if the other side cheats, while claiming falsely that million of noncitizens are being allowed to vote. (Noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal and extremely rare.) Harris has said she has faith in the elections and has characterized her opponent as a threat to democracy — a line of attack she’s amplified in the final weeks of the campaign.

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The Hill - October 30, 2024

Tony Hinchcliffe defends his Puerto Rico jokes from Trump rally

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe is defending his jokes about Puerto Rico at former President Trump’s New York City rally on Sunday after facing significant backlash from figures across the political aisle. Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, responded to a clip on the social platform X of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticizing his material, which Hinchcliffe delivered on stage Sunday at Madison Square Garden ahead of Trump’s speech. “These people have no sense of humor,” Hinchcliffe wrote on X. “Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.” “I love Puerto Rico and vacation there,” he continued. “I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.” Hinchcliffe’s set also included jokes targeting Jews and Black men and a reference to Black Americans carving watermelons for Halloween instead of pumpkins, but it was his comments about Puerto Rico that generated the most attention and backlash.

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NBC News - October 30, 2024

Biden sets off a firestorm with his response to Trump rally comedian's Puerto Rico comments

President Joe Biden ignited Republican fury Tuesday night when he weighed in on racist jokes at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday. At the event, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” He also made crude, offensive and racist comments about Latinos and Black people. On Tuesday, during a video call for Latino voter outreach, Biden defended the Puerto Rican community and appeared to criticize either Trump supporters or Hinchcliffe. “They’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said, referring to the Puerto Rican community. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done.”

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Religion News Service - October 30, 2024

Republicans seek votes among the Amish, who rarely cast them, in swing-state Pennsylvania

On a recent weekday afternoon, an Amish man in a horse-drawn buggy navigated through a busy intersection of auto traffic in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, past a billboard proclaiming: “Pray for God’s Mercy for Our Nation.” The billboard featured a large image of a wide-brimmed straw hat often worn by the Amish. If there was any further doubt as to its target audience, the smaller print listed the sponsor as “Fer Die Amische” — referring to the Amish in their Pennsylvania German dialect. Researchers say most of the Amish don’t register to vote, reflective of the Christian movement’s historic separatism from mainstream society, just as they’ve maintained their dialect and horse-and-buggy transportation.

But a small minority have voted, and the Amish are most numerous in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania. So they’re being targeted this year in the latest of decades of efforts to register more of them to vote. Republicans are seeking their votes through billboards, ads, door-to-door canvassing and community meetings. Republican campaigners see the Amish as receptive to GOP talking points — smaller government, less regulation, religious freedom. “They just want government to stay not only out of their businesses but out of their religion,” said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., whose district includes Lancaster County, at the heart of the nation’s largest Amish population. Smucker, whose own family background is Amish, predicted a dramatic increase in the Amish vote, “basing that on the enthusiasm we see.” Most Amish don’t vote, but every vote matters in a swing state But while such efforts could yield an increase, don’t expect the Amish vote to dramatically swing the Keystone State’s bottom line, said Steven Nolt, director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County. “For most Amish history and in most Amish communities today, Amish people don’t vote,” he said. “They haven’t voted, they’re not voting, and I think it’s safe to say in the near future we wouldn’t expect them to.”

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Newsclips - October 29, 2024

Lead Stories

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal - October 28, 2024

Dustin Burrows: Politics at play in timing, threat of school closings in Lubbock, state

In gangster movies, we’re all familiar with shady characters saying, “It’s a nice place you’ve got here. It would be a shame if something should happen to it.” We accept it when we see that on the screen because it advances the plot. However, when it happens in real life, and our children’s education is threatened, we owe it to our kids to push back. As a legislator, it’s my honor to advocate for the families who send their kids to public schools and the teachers who have devoted their lives to their education. That includes pushing for the right balance of school funding and accountability for the administrators who sign the checks. It also includes visibility into school finances, which is why I was frustrated to recently learn about Lubbock ISD’s surprise shortfall and their seemingly rushed proposal for handling it. A scan of newspaper headlines in other Texas cities shows that school boards across the state (and nation) are talking about closing schools. Some districts began this conversation many months ago with a sober tone based upon the numbers. Others seemingly timed their announcements to coincide with early voting to stoke outrage that could affect choices on individual ballots. That said, I do not doubt that LISD has a budget shortfall. Enrollment is on the decline because population densities are shifting. This matters because Texas bases funding on children in schools, not the buildings themselves.

As LISD shrinks, surrounding districts are growing in terms of enrollment and funding. At the same time, LISD is subject to a $3.6 million claw back from Medicaid because the federal government taketh away almost as enthusiastically as they giveth. Also, LISD (like all of us) is having to pay much more for goods and services than in years past because of rampant inflation. In the progressive left’s spirit of letting no crisis go to waste, many are stirring the pot with political statements about school finance and school choice, urging parents to vote for Democrats based on false school finance fears. In choosing this path, those vocal advocates are obscuring the truth of what actually happened during the last legislative Session. Last year, while I worked with my fellow legislators to increase funding, our schools and allow for school choice (without taking any money from local districts), a gang of education associations (such as the Texas Association of School Boards “TASB” and the Texas Association of School Administrators “TASA”), and their lobbyists (paid with your tax dollars) came at us in wave after wave of opposition. This powerful gang is used to getting its way, and has had way too much influence on Texas education policy for decades. Tragically for Texas families, this gang consistently prioritizes the self-serving interests of their adult members ahead of our school children.

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Dallas Morning News - October 29, 2024

Ken Paxton accuses House Republican of unethical advocacy for death row’s Robert Roberson

Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Republican Rep. Jeff Leach on Monday of making unethical contact with a Court of Criminal Appeals judge in the Robert Roberson case. In a filing Monday, Deputy Solicitor General William Cole reported the correspondence to the Texas Supreme Court, which blocked Roberson’s Oct. 17 execution after the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee issued a subpoena compelling the death row inmate to testify at a Capitol hearing four days after his scheduled lethal injection. In a notice sent to lawyers in Roberson’s case, the appeals court said Leach had contacted an unnamed judge by text message to urge reconsideration of Roberson’s case. The state’s highest criminal court has rejected several requests for a new trial for Roberson, who argues his conviction was improperly based on a now-discredited theory of shaken baby syndrome. The notice from Sian Schilhab, the Court of Criminal Appeals general counsel, said the judge promptly reported the contact.

The court, Schilhab added, viewed Leach’s contact as a “clear violation” of professional conduct rules for lawyers. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit lawyers from any communication outside official channels that seek to influence a judge on a pending matter. Leach has been a licensed lawyer in Texas since 2009, according to the State Bar of Texas. In text messages detailed in Schilhab’s notice, Leach told the judge he struggled with whether and how to “send you this message legally and ethically.” But he felt compelled to do so, he said, noting he has spoken publicly about the case and is neither a party to any active litigation before the court nor representing any party as an attorney. “One Judge,” Leach wrote. “That’s all that is needed to simply say … there are too many questions and too many holes and too much uncertainty … and Robert Roberson deserves a new trial.” Leach called it “my hope and prayer” that the judge would voluntarily speak out to get Roberson a new trial. “Only sending this message to you,” Leach added. “And you alone.” “As my friend and as a wonderful Judge who I have so much faith in,” Leach continued, “I hope you’ll consider doing so.” The judge replied: “I cannot consider your message nor may I discuss any pending matters with you. Thank you in advance for your understanding.” Leach responded that he wasn’t aware of any pending matters before the court but acknowledged his “error.” Leach publicly owned his error as well.

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Politico - October 29, 2024

Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania. Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularly nearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent. Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state. And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.

“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters. “It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said. The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Almost a week before Election Day, he’s pushing to cut into Harris’ margins among Latinos, especially young men who are worried about the economy. But the comments from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday night, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” has reverberated throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the former president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the comments. And with the race essentially a toss up, every vote counts — especially in Pennsylvania. “This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.

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Dallas Morning News - October 29, 2024

Families tied to Texas death row ‘shaken baby syndrome’ case disagree on Roberson’s guilt

Conflicting letters were released Monday by separate family members linked to the case of an East Texas man who was set to be executed earlier this month after he was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter. Robert Roberson III, 57, was sentenced to death in 2003 for reportedly shaking Nikki Curtis. He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Oct. 17 in Huntsville, but was spared by an 11th-hour novel legal move in which a state House committee subpoenaed him to testify. A nine-hour hearing took place Oct. 21 but Roberson did not testify as negotiations to bring him to the state Capitol rather than him appearing via teleconference were unsuccessful.

The case — which already garnered international attention because lawmakers say if Roberson is put to death he would be the first person in the country executed in a “shaken baby syndrome” case — gained additional attention because Roberson, if allowed to appear in front of the committee, would be the first condemned prisoner in Texas to testify before state lawmakers. State officials and lawmakers have publicly butted heads in recent weeks, including Gov. Greg Abbott saying the committee “stepped out of line” to delay Roberson’s execution and Attorney General Ken Paxton publishing a statement after the hearing releasing documents to “correct falsehoods” he said the committee amplified. A new execution date could be set in Roberson’s case but under Texas law, it could not take place until about 90 days after a judge sets a new date, pushing the possible execution to at least 2025. An undated letter signed by Nikki’s brother Matthew Bowman, aunt Jessica Rachelle Carriere, and grandfather Larry Gene Bowman, was sent to the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence and multiple news outlets reported on the letter Monday morning. In the letter, the family members said they remain convinced that Roberson is guilty and directly responsible for the death of his daughter. They said there is an “ongoing saga” surrounding Roberson’s case and the facts of Nikki’s death have been “lost in this parade of people who are overeager to proclaim the innocence of a man found guilty by a jury of his peers.” Nikki’s family also said they witnessed “repeated abuse” by Roberson.

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State Stories

Dallas Voice - October 28, 2024

Harryette Ehrhardt given Juanita Craft Humanitarian Award

Former state Rep. Harry Ehrhardt was given the Juanita Craft Humanitarian Legacy Award. The seventh Juanita Craft Humanitarian Awards were presented by the State Fair of Texas and the Friends of Juanita Craft Civil Rights House and Museum. Craft was known for fighting to integrate the State Fair among other Dallas establishments. And at a time when local Dallas newspapers published license plate numbers of people parked near the bars on Cedar Springs Road, she and Ehrhardt would park directly in front of JR.’s and taunt the papers to publish their licenses. The Legacy Award is “lifetime achievement award for individuals, families or organizations that have made important and sustained contributions to the understanding and promotion of civil rights.”

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San Antonio Express-News - October 28, 2024

Spurs' Gregg Popovich blasts Trump for setting bad example for America's youth

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expressed concern Saturday about the corrosive effect Donald Trump's demeaning rhetoric and lies about the 2020 election might have on the nation's children and future generations. "The biggest whiner that ever walked the face of the earth," Popovich said of the Republican candidate for president. "He's like the poorest example of a fifth-grade bully I've ever seen. I mean, would you want your kids to act like he does?" Responding to a French reporter's question about whether he thought the outcome of the Nov. 5 election would be important for the future of democracy in the U.S., Popovich blasted Trump for continually disputing the integrity of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

"Would you want your kids to make the excuses he does?" Popovich said. "Everybody's come after me, everybody, this, that and the other. I'm doing this for you. Poor me, poor me. Whine, whine, whine. And you look at it, the election that he lost, and he continues to lie about it." The NBA's all-time winningest coach and five-time league champion personalized his comments, wondering what effect Trump's refusal to admit defeat would have on his own grandchildren should they lose an athletic competition. "Do I want him to be their mentor?" Popovich said. "Do I want him to be their example of how to act if it doesn't go well? Like everybody in this room, hopefully all of us taught our children, you're not going to win all the time, but when you win, be humble. When you lose, do it with grace. We all do that. He doesn't do that."

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CNN - October 29, 2024

Philadelphia DA sues Elon Musk and his super PAC over $1M sweepstakes

Philadelphia’s district attorney asked a state judge on Monday to shut down tech billionaire Elon Musk’s controversial $1 million giveaway to registered voters, calling it an “illegal lottery scheme.” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, filed the civil lawsuit against Musk and his pro-Trump group, America PAC. “America PAC and Musk are lulling Philadelphia citizens – and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) – to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million,” the lawsuit alleges. “That is a lottery. And it is indisputably an unlawful lottery.” A spokesperson for Musk’s super PAC did not comment on the lawsuit and instead highlighted the group’s latest $1 million winner, announced Monday – a registered voter from Hastings, Michigan.

A judge scheduled a hearing on the matter for Friday, meaning Musk’s sweepstakes could continue at least throughout the week, though Krasner’s office can ask for an expedited hearing. The case has been re-assigned to Judge Angelo Foglietta, a Democrat. In the lawsuit, Krasner’s office argues that Pennsylvania law requires all lotteries to be “operated and administered by the state” – and that Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway must be halted because it’s operating outside of those legal guardrails. “Though Musk says that a winner’s selection is ‘random,’ that appears false because multiple winners that have been selected are individuals who have shown up at Trump rallies in Pennsylvania,” the lawsuit says, arguing that the lottery rules are “deceptive.” The case is based on Pennsylvania’s lottery and consumer protection laws. Krasner said his lawsuit was not about state and federal laws that prohibit vote-buying.

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Dallas Morning News - October 29, 2024

Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire says kicker’s Donald Trump celebration was ill-timed

Texas Tech head football coach Joey McGuire said Monday that kicker Reese Burkhardt’s hand-drawn message supporting former President Donald Trump was ill-timed and has been addressed internally. After scoring on a fake field goal during Saturday’s 35-34 loss to TCU, Burkhardt celebrated by pulling up his jersey to reveal a message on his white shirt underneath. It read “Trump 2024 MAGA,” a show of support for Trump, the Republican nominee for president. McGuire said Monday the team has dealt with the matter internally. He said he wasn’t aware of the message, which was briefly shown on live broadcasts, until after the game.

“I really didn’t [know] at the time, we were told at the end,” McGuire said. “With him, we have addressed it, we will continue to address it. We’re going to address it internally… “I always think that the greatest thing about football, basketball, sports like that, it’s a team sport, and you always want to make sure that you’re putting your team in the best situation. There’s places that you express your opinions and I don’t think necessarily that’s the time or the place.” Burkhardt, who splits kicking duties with Gino Garcia, missed his first field goal of the season during the loss to TCU. McGuire said he encourages everyone to get out and vote this election season before concluding his weekly interview.

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Dallas Morning News - October 29, 2024

3 alleged Venezuelan gang members arrested in killing, Farmers Branch police say

Three men allegedly affiliated with the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua have been arrested in connection with an August homicide, Farmers Branch police announced Monday. The three suspects now in custody — Carlos Luis Zambrano Bolivar, Jhonata Nahin Toro Gonzalez and Ehiker Alexander Morales Mendoza — were arrested in other states and are waiting for extradition to Texas on charges of capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. Investigators traveled to Aurora, Colorado, to interview Bolivar and Gonzalez, who had been taken into custody by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a news release posted to the Farmers Branch police Facebook page.

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Dallas Morning News - October 29, 2024

Shad Rowe, Dallas financial titan and standard-bearer for Parkinson’s, dies at 78

Frederick “Shad” Rowe, Dallas’ highly regarded investment manager and standard-bearer in seeking a cure for Parkinson’s disease, died Friday at his home in University Park from cancer-related complications. The 78-year-old founder and manager of Greenbrier Partners Ltd. suffered with the progressively debilitating disease for 26 years, raising millions of dollars for research and using his body to test leading-edge treatments. He and his wife, Michele, lived in four different houses on Greenbrier Drive during the span of their 48-year marriage — hence the name of his company. “Despite the outward physical symptoms, it was very easy to forget that my dad suffered from Parkinson’s disease,” his son Adam Rowe said. “He almost never mentioned it except to support and celebrate research to find a cure. Even in the last years of his life, when the symptoms became more debilitating, Parkinson’s never prevented him from enjoying what he loved most — his work, and the company of friends and family. It never robbed him of his quick wit and buoyant good humor.”

Rowe said his dad delighted in his 10 grandchildren — whom he affectionately named “critters.” “He would grin and giggle as they crawled all over him. He was a loving and supportive father, and a devoted and adoring husband to my mom. He was a good man in every sense.” In 2007, Rowe and John Neill, co-founder of Telesis Co., launched Great Investors’ Best Ideas (which became known as GIBI and is pronounced gibby) as a way to raise a million bucks for their two favorite charities in an afternoon: the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation. Rowe sweet-talked star-studded speakers into giving their stock and investments ideas for gratis. “Shad was known, respected and appreciated by world-class investors all over the country,” Neill said. “The high esteem other investors held in Shad was truly amazing. His record was held in awe by his peers. “That’s what Shad brought to the party. And it was a party. We all had such fun.” One of Rowe’s selling points was that you didn’t have to wear a tux to attend the Winspear Opera House event. Michael J. Fox called Rowe “a model board member, a great friend and a force of nature” in a statement sent to The News on Monday.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - October 29, 2024

Harris supporters receive threatening notes in Texas: cops

Just over a week before Election Day, some Texas residents showing support for Vice President Kamala Harris are receiving threatening notes, authorities say. The San Marcos Police Department said Oct. 26 it received two reports of threatening flyers left on political signs. The next day, officers said they recovered more notes that threaten supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate. “YOU have been identified and are now in our National Database of miscreant Harris supporters, either by social interactions with your neighbors who are on our investigations team, or by yard signs, or vehicle bumper stickers,” the typed note read.

“Rather than the hangman’s nooses of the old days, you are now guaranteed that once the magnificent Donald Trump assumes the Presidency again YOU will be IRS tax audited going all the way back to your very first tax return – and at a minimum – 4 years of painful misery and attorney’s fees.” The flyers were signed by The Grand Dragon of Trump Klan #124 in San Marcos. The Grand Dragon, according to the Bullock Museum, is the highest-ranking Ku Klux Klan official in Texas. Police have not confirmed if the flyers are connected to the KKK. Officers said they are investigating who is responsible for leaving the notes. Officers said anyone who receives one of these flyers should call the department’s non-emergency number at 512-753-2108. “It’s a crime in the state of Texas to try to influence or coerce or even prevent a voter from voting,” San Marcos Police Chief Stan Standridge said. “When we identify the suspect or suspects, then we will present that to the district attorney’s office for consideration of applicable charges.”

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram - October 29, 2024

Are more Republicans or Dems voting early in Tarrant County?

More than 367,700 people have already cast ballots in Tarrant County during the first week of in-person early voting, a substantial increase from the last presidential election four years ago. In-person early voting started Monday, Oct. 21, and runs through Friday, Nov. 1. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 5. In the first five days of this year’s early voting, 367,752 people cast ballots at the county’s 51 early voting sites — roughly 28% of registered voters, according to Tarrant County’s Election Department. That’s higher than in the 2020 general election, when 311,254 people — about 26% of registered voters — had cast ballots in-person during early voting’s first week. Through Saturday, Oct. 27, the county had received 20,773 mail-in ballots. There were 70,821 mail-in ballots received for the entirety of the 2020 election, according to the election department.

An analysis of early voting turnout by Republican political consultant Derek Ryan suggests a GOP edge in Texas. Ryan’s analysis, based on voter history over the past four cycles, found that 38% of Texans who voted in the first four days last week were loyal Republicans — having participated in only GOP primaries. Some 24% of the early-voting Texans had cast ballots only in Democratic primaries. And 34% have only voted in a general election or have no prior voting history. In the first four days of early voting in Tarrant County, those statistics were 36% with only Republican voting histories and 26% with only Democratic, according to Ryan’s analysis. Thirty-five percent have only voted in a general election or have no prior voting history. In 2020, the final vote count in Tarrant County for the presidential race was 49.09% for Trump and 49.31% for Biden. Trump won the state of Texas.

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San Antonio Express-News - October 29, 2024

Greg Brockhouse is helping Clayton Perry’s mayoral campaign

Former City Councilman Clayton Perry has been leaning on two-time mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse to navigate his mayoral bid in the May 2025 election. “We’re talking strategy and we’re talking administration stuff — putting together the social media and things like that — and just overall politics,” Perry said. “Greg knows a lot about the politics here in San Antonio, and of course I reached out to him.” While that may sound like the role of a campaign manager, Perry isn’t ready to call him that. “He’s helping me right now, and that’s where I’d leave it right now,” Perry said. The former District 10 councilman made his mayoral intentions known last month, joining a crowded field to replace term-limited Mayor Ron Nirenberg in the May 2025 municipal election that includes at least three of Perry’s former colleagues: Council Members John Courage, Manny Peláez and Adriana Rocha Garcia.

Brockhouse knows what it’s like to run for San Antonio mayor: he twice sought to unseat Nirenberg, coming tantalizing close in 2019, when he forced the first-term mayor into a runoff. Nirenberg held onto his seat in that runoff by just 2,700 votes. During that election, Brockhouse denied allegations of domestic violence that his current and ex-wife made against him, as detailed in police reports obtained by the San Antonio Express-News. After his runoff defeat, Brockhouse admitted that his wife had called police on him, with her saying she falsely accused him because of postpartum depression. In 2021, Nirenberg handily beat Brockhouse with about 62% of the vote. From there, Brockhouse went on to advise former Republican County Commissioner Trish DeBerry in her campaign for Bexar County judge. Some political insiders blamed his advice for her defeat to Democrat Peter Sakai in the November 2022 election. Brockhouse told the Express-News last fall that he was considering a third run for mayor in 2025, or a campaign for council’s open District 8 seat. Most recently, he penned a guest commentary urging voters to reject the six city charter amendments on the Nov. 5 ballot. He didn’t respond to a request for comment about his involvement in Perry’s campaign. Perry said last month that he’d selected a campaign manager but was waiting to make that person’s name public.

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San Antonio Express-News - October 29, 2024

UTSA's plans to demolish Institute of Texan Cultures building dealt a blow by landmark designation

The Institute of Texan Cultures building has been named a state antiquities landmark, throwing a wrench into plans to raze it, potentially to make way for a new Spurs arena. The designation means the University of Texas at San Antonio, which owns the structure, must consult with the Texas Historical Commission to get approval before making any changes — including demolition. “The commission determines whether the work is permitted,” said Chris Florance, the agency’s spokesperson.

Lewis Vetter, president of the Conservation Society of San Antonio, said the approval was good news. The society has been pushing for preservation of the building, which was erected as the Texas Pavilion for the 1968 World’s Fair, and nominated it for the designation. The commission approved it Friday in a 7-2 vote. “It proves that a lot of concerned citizens working together can be effective,” Vetter said. However, UTSA leaders said they intend to proceed with their plan to tear down the structure at 801 E. César E. Chávez Blvd. and build a new home for the museum either near the Alamo or other downtown property. To pay for it, they have said they will seek proposals for developing the 13½-acre site it now occupies. “UTSA has always acknowledged the historical significance of the Texas Pavilion, which is reflected in our efforts to honor its history with extensive documenting and storytelling in our new museum,” spokesperson Joe Izbrand said. “The university continues to look at how to best maximize and monetize the resources of the Hemisfair Campus to support the temporary and future, permanent homes of the ITC. The university will continue its redevelopment plans.”

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San Antonio Express-News - October 29, 2024

Assault cases brought against Thomas J. Henry law firm by 2 women end without trials

Two lawsuits brought against Thomas J. Henry’s San Antonio-based law firm over allegations of sexual assault have ended without going to trial. In the first, Thomas J. Henry PPLC last week settled a federal lawsuit brought by a former employee who alleged she was drugged and assaulted at a 2019 event in Austin by its then-CEO. The two sides reached a settlement after a one-day mediation conducted by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth “Betsy” Chestney. No details of the settlement were made public. The parties entered a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice — meaning the case can’t be refiled — on Wednesday.

On Friday, a similar stipulation of dismissal was entered by Thomas J. Henry, his firm and a New York woman who alleged in a 2022 federal lawsuit in Austin that she was sexually assaulted by a director hired to work on a film commissioned by the flamboyant lawyer. The director, Robert “Bobby” T. Herrera, and his company Gray Picture LLC, also defendants in the case, signed off on the dismissal as well. No information on how the case was resolved was included in the filing. The San Antonio Express-News is not identifying either plaintiff as a matter of policy because they are alleged victims of sexual assault. Jay Ellwanger, an Austin lawyer who represented both women, didn’t respond to a phone call seeking comment. Lawyers for Henry didn’t respond to an email. The Henry firm is among the most recognizable personal injury law firms in the state, largely due to its heavy advertising in newspapers, on television, billboards and elsewhere touting big-dollar verdicts and settlements. It says it has won more than $1 billion for clients in the past four years.

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San Antonio Express-News - October 29, 2024

Why a Hill Country school district will allow some teachers to carry guns

Fredericksburg Independent School District officials have approved a program that allows some teachers to carry concealed firearms at school, with a district spokesperson saying the plan could provide an additional layer of campus security. Fredericksburg ISD trustees voted last month to authorize district teachers to apply to carry concealed firearms in classrooms, if they meet certain criteria and pass a screening process. The school district is already in compliance with state law that requires an armed police officer or guard on each campus, district spokesperson Rachel Malinak said.

“The main reason that we wanted to start allowing teachers or staff to apply to carry firearms is the safety and security of our staff and students,” district spokesperson Rachel Malinak told the Express-News. “It is our main priority.” Fredericksburg ISD has one school resource officer — a law enforcement officer working at a school — covering the district's six campuses and 3,000 students. However, each campus has armed security and the district has a “very good relationship with local law enforcement," Malinak said. Teachers will need to already have a state-issued concealed carry license to apply to the program, according to district officials. The screening process, which will be conducted by a third-party contractor, will include a psychological exam and a marksmanship test, according to the district.

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KUT - October 29, 2024

Austin moves to require landlords to disclose rental fees up front

Landlords in Austin may soon have to disclose any fees they plan to charge on top of rent before a prospective renter applies for an apartment. Council members voted Thursday on a resolution requiring landlords who rent out at least five homes to divulge monthly and one-time fees, such as those related to pets, parking and trash collection. The council asked staff to finalize the new rule for a vote by next summer. If made official, the ordinance would require landlords to disclose fees at the time a tenant applies for a rental home as opposed to when a renter is signing a lease. The council also asked staff to consider requiring landlords to disclose fees in apartment advertisements. The rule, supporters say, would help renters better understand the true cost of an apartment before submitting an application.

“When these fees are hidden, whether it's at the leasing stage or popped on somebody months in, that’s unfair and a lot of people can’t afford it,” said Council Member Ryan Alter, who represents neighborhoods south of the river, before the vote late Thursday. Earlier this year, researchers at UT Austin published a report detailing the rise of fees in rental housing. They found that it’s common for landlords to charge monthly fees for services such as valet trash, internet, cable, pest control and facilities upkeep. Often renters cannot opt out of these fees even when they don’t use these services. “We’re seeing this around all segments of our economy,” said Shoshana Krieger, program director at the nonprofit Building and Strengthening Tenant Action, or BASTA, which works with low-income tenants. “We see this decoupling of expenses which used to be included in the cost of a product,” including concert and airline tickets. It’s a phenomenon Sara Reeves has seen all over Austin. Reeves’ husband recently accepted a temporary job abroad and when they move out of the home they’re renting later this year she will move into her own apartment.

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National Stories

NPR - October 29, 2024

Over 200,000 subscribers flee 'Washington Post' after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of roughly 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon. A corporate spokesperson declined to comment, citing The Washington Post Co.'s status as a privately held company.

“It’s a colossal number,” former Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR. “The problem is, people don’t know why the decision was made. We basically know the decision was made but we don’t know what led to it.” Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis on Friday explained the decision not to endorse in this year’s presidential race or in future elections as a return to the Post’s roots: It has for years styled itself an “independent paper.” Few people inside the paper credit that rationale given the timing, however, just days before a neck-and-neck race between Harris and former President Donald Trump. Former Executive Editor Marty Baron voiced that skepticism in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on Monday. "If this decision had been made three years ago, two years ago, maybe even a year ago, that would've been fine," Baron said. "It's a certainly reasonable decision. But this was made within a couple of weeks of the election, and there was no substantive serious deliberation with the editorial board of the paper. It was clearly made for other reasons, not for reasons of high principle."

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Philadelphia Inquirer - October 29, 2024

Some of Trump's 2020 'fake' electors from Pennsylvania are back again this year. They say they're prepared to do it again

ive Pennsylvania Republicans who signed on to Donald Trump's 2020 slate of alternate electors are back this year — and some say that, under the right circumstances, they're prepared to do it again. The returnees range from a prominent Lehigh Valley election denier who funded fruitless efforts to uncover fraud in at least three battleground states to county-level GOP officials who, despite scrutiny of their decision four years ago, have maintained their party positions. They will join a group of 14 others chosen by their state party to gather in Harrisburg on Dec. 17 and cast Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes for Trump should he emerge the election's victor — and, perhaps, even if he doesn't. But they draw key distinctions between their actions in 2020 and those of their counterparts from other battleground states — namely language they included in their submission to Congress saying they were putting themselves forward as rightful electors only in the event that a court ruling overturned the state's results.

That caveat helped save them from criminal charges electors faced in states such as Arizona and Wisconsin, and several of this year's Trump electors specifically cited that caveat in explaining why they wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing, if necessary, this year. "I will stand on what I did in 2020," said Andy Reilly, a Republican National Committee member and returning Trump elector from Delaware County, who was subpoenaed by the FBI to testify about the electors scheme in Washington. "It cost me. But I think that if there's lawsuits or any questions about the result that those lawsuits could change, it's advisable — for Democrats and Republicans — if they have to meet the deadline, to meet as contingent electors." The 2020 election — and Trump's efforts to overturn it — cast a spotlight on the role of presidential electors, largely honorary positions typically granted to party loyalists who, up until that year, had conducted their duties without drawing much public attention. As Trump and his allies sought to stop congressional certification of President Joe Biden's victory four years ago with baseless claims of widespread fraud, they turned to GOP electors from Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to falsely attest to Congress that he'd won.

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The Mirror - October 29, 2024

Fires set at ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington state are 'connected' as hundreds of ballots are lost

Police say they have identified a "suspect vehicle" in connection with incendiary devices that ignited fires in ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state. Surveillance footage captured a Volvo stopping at a drop box in Portland, Oregon, shortly before security personnel discovered a fire inside the box. This incident occurred on Monday and resulted in damage to three ballots, according to Portland Police Bureau spokesman Mike Benner during a news conference. Meanwhile, a ballot box at Fisher's Landing Transit Center in Vancouver, Washington, was spotted smoking early Monday morning. In photos obtained by ABC affiliate KATU, dense gray smoke can be seen pouring out of the dropoff ballot box near Southeast 162nd Avenue just after 6 am.

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Wall Street Journal - October 29, 2024

Bosses are calling workers back to the office. That’s good news for landlords.

America’s historic retreat from the office building may finally be winding down. More companies are backing away from the looser workplace policies they adopted during the early years of the pandemic as executives increasingly recommit to promoting an office culture. Amazon called corporate staffers back to the office five days a week last month. The company is now looking for a big block of expansion space in Manhattan, according to brokers. Dell Technologies said it is requiring its global sales team to work from company offices full time. 3M’s new chief executive last week said the company expected higher attendance from senior employees at the company’s headquarters and other large sites. One-third of all companies required workers to be in the office five days a week in the third quarter, up from 31% in the second quarter, according to Flex Index, which tracks workplace strategies.

That terminated a streak over the previous five quarters when that rate had steadily fallen. One reason for that decline was because low unemployment gave employees leverage when pressing for more remote work. Now, the white-collar workforce isn’t growing as much, shifting the balance of power back to managers. No one sees workplaces returning to prepandemic patterns, but most believe the worst is likely over for the office sector. “We looked like we were on a path that we were going to see a drop continue quarter after quarter,” said Rob Sadow, chief executive of Flex Index. “All of a sudden in the third quarter we saw a shift in direction.” These signs of stabilization hardly signal an end to office-market turmoil. The vacancy rate is stabilizing at a near record level of 13.8%, up from 9.4% in the fourth quarter in 2019. Since the second quarter of 2020, U.S. office tenants have vacated close to 209 million square feet of space, the highest amount ever for a four-and-half-year period, according to data firm CoStar Group. A lot of the current empty office space is now considered obsolete. It may never be filled. Defaults and other missed payments also continue to rise. In September, the delinquency rate of office loans converted into securities increased to 8.36%, the highest rate since November 2013, according to data firm Trepp.

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The Hill - October 29, 2024

Democrats alarmed Harris’s economic message isn’t breaking through

Democrats are frustrated that Vice President Harris hasn’t done more to sell her economic message and worry that former President Trump continues to have a sizeable advantage on what many voters say is their No. 1 issue. Harris has focused on attacking Trump in recent weeks. But she has lost ground to him in the polls, as voters say they are less likely to be motivated moved by additional criticisms of Trump, whose flaws are well-known after standing in the national spotlight for more than eight years. The Harris campaign says it will put more focus on the economy in the final week of the campaign, but abortion rights and criticisms of Trump’s character get more applause at Harris’s rallies with stars such as Michelle Obama, Maggie Rogers and Bruce Springsteen. Some Democratic strategists view Harris’s scathing criticisms of Trump as necessary and effective, but they acknowledge she could be doing a better job of talking about the economy — a challenge that also vexed President Biden before he dropped his bid for reelection.

“Where I don’t think she’s done a good enough job is [Trump] gets away with saying, ‘The economy is the worst it’s ever been, there’s more unemployment, inflation is the highest it’s ever been.’ None of that is true,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist. “It’s almost like he lies so much you get tired of refuting it, and I think that’s a mistake,” he said, referring to Trump’s ability to frame the Biden economy to voters. One major Democratic donor told The Hill that Harris hasn’t properly made the case on the economy. “Her economic message hasn’t broken through,” the donor said. “And the economy is the issue most people care about. She narrowed the gap a little on the issue, but she’s left a lot of people wondering about her vision.” The vice president has put forth a list of proposals to help middle-class families: a plan to crack down on price gouging, an expansion of the child tax credit, an expansion of Medicare to cover home care, exempting tipped income from taxes, and a $25,000 down-payment to first-time homebuyers. And while Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead on the issue, a recent Reuters/Ipsos found that voters still think Trump has a better approach than Harris on the economy, by a margin of 46 percent to 38 percent. The survey found that 61 percent of voters in battleground states say the economy is on the “wrong track.” Robert Reich, who served as secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, on Monday wrote that Harris’s message needs to “center on anti-elitist economics.”

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The Hill - October 28, 2024

Biden administration announces $3 billion for rural electric co-ops

The Biden administration announced more than $3 billion Friday in funding for seven rural electric cooperatives, part of a broader effort to promote renewable energy in rural areas. The grants include nearly $2.5 billion in financing for the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, as well as nearly $1 billion through the Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program for six co-ops. The New ERA program, which uses $9.7 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funds, is the biggest federal investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s. The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association funding will cut electricity rates for members by an estimated 10 percent over the next 10 years, equivalent to about $430 million in benefits to rural electricity consumers.

Meanwhile, the six co-ops announced Friday, some of which will serve rural areas in multiple states, are in Minnesota, South Dakota, South Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska and Texas. “The Inflation Reduction Act makes the largest investment in rural electrification since FDR and the New Deal in the 1930s,” said John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy. “Today’s awards will bring clean, affordable, reliable power to rural Americans from Colorado to Texas to South Carolina.” The announcement comes more than a month after President Biden announced $7.3 billion in funding for rural co-ops in Wisconsin, a critical “blue wall” battleground state in the presidential election. The funding announced in Wisconsin in September included $573 million to La Crosse’s Dairyland Power Cooperative, part of a larger $2.1 billion project that the co-op will use to buy solar and wind power from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. That project is pitched to reduce rates at a higher rate than the Tri-State project — at a reduction of 42 percent over the next 10 years.

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Newsclips - October 28, 2024

Lead Stories

New York Times - October 28, 2024

State of the Race: National polls tighten with 8 Days to go

With one week to go until the election, Kamala Harris’s lead over Donald J. Trump in the national polls is starting to get very slim. Overall, she leads by less than one percentage point, according to The New York Times’s polling average. It’s her smallest lead since mid-August. Even so, last week’s polls did offer a silver lining for her: The state polls didn’t seem to lurch toward Mr. Trump, even as the national polling did. The battleground states remain extraordinarily tight, with no candidate holding any material lead in the seven states likeliest to decide the presidency. In a sense, that’s not surprising. What’s interesting is that Ms. Harris remains competitive in the battlegrounds even though her national lead has dwindled. Usually, a tied national vote would not augur well for Democrats. In his first two races, Mr. Trump did much better in the battleground states than nationally, allowing him to defeat Hillary Clinton without winning the national popular vote and almost doing the same against Joe Biden.

In 2020, he lost the national popular vote by 4.5 points, but he lost the core seven battleground states by an average of only 0.9 points — a difference of more than three points. In the current polling averages, the gap between the national polls and the battleground average has fallen beneath one point. The possibility that Mr. Trump’s Electoral College advantage might fade a bit this November isn’t necessarily a surprise. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of signs of it, from the midterm results to the demographic patterns in national polls. Still, these theories don’t necessarily explain why the polls have appeared to trend in different directions over the last few weeks.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Amid dropping crime rate, PAC takes another swing at unseating Democratic judges in election

For the second election cycle in a row, a political action committee tied to families of slain Houstonians has received a cash infusion from a billionaire-funded group intent on removing Democratic judges from the bench. Signs from Stop Houston Murders PAC have gone up along highways and chain-link fences around the city after the latest influx, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on radio and television advertisements urging voters to pick Republicans instead. “Don’t let soft-on-crime judges ruin another family like they ruined mine,” Jazmen Steele, the sister of Layla Steele, whose boyfriend was arrested and accused in her death in 2021. “Vote them out.”

The PAC made a similar pitch in 2022, when it was founded, and spent nearly $2 million to oust Democratic felony judges and other candidates, such as Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, from their seats The previous effort was mostly unsuccessful. Thirteen Democratic judges in 14 contested races retained their positions, though some political pundits noted that the margins were closer than expected. Despite that, and a steady decrease in reports of violent crime in Houston and nationwide, the group is trying again. Like 2022, Stop Houston Murders focused its spending on the verge of early voting. The group spent $114,000 on advertising between July and September. Most of the ad buys happened at the end of the reporting period, according to state campaign finance records. The amount pales in comparison with the $2.3 million it spent in the same period during the midterm elections.

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Wall Street Journal - October 28, 2024

Economists warn of new inflation hazards after election

A punishing 2½-year fight to bring inflation down appears to be succeeding. The election could change that. Inflation has fallen thanks to higher interest rates and big assists from healed supply chains and an influx of workers. But whether borrowing costs and price growth continue to ease next year could turn heavily on policy choices by Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Both candidates support policies to boost growth that might keep inflation from falling any farther. But economists and even conservative-leaning advisers worry that the ideas backed by Trump, in particular, risk stoking the embers of inflation. Those include his proposals to slap across-the-board tariffs on imported goods, to deport workers, and to lean on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. “Put them all together, these levers are moving more in an inflationary direction. I’m legitimately worried about inflation worsening in 2025,” said Brian Riedl, a former Republican Senate aide now at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

Moreover, a second Trump term would unfold against a much different economic backdrop than his first one, when price pressures had been low and stable for many years. In recent days, bond yields have risen on expectations that Trump will win the presidency and that his new term would bring higher deficits, inflation or both. Given the changed economic environment and the farther-reaching policies Trump has proposed, it is reasonable to worry that inflation threats would be magnified in a second Trump term, said Marc Short, who served as legislative-affairs director in the Trump White House. Trump’s proposals could draw him into new battles with the Fed, which is mandated to keep inflation low. Inflation is largely driven by global forces, not individual presidents. During Trump’s term, the overhang of the 2008 global financial crisis kept demand and price pressures subdued globally. Inflation soared beginning shortly after President Biden took office, as the U.S. reopened from the pandemic. Strong demand from that reopening received big booster shots from ultralow interest rates and Biden’s fiscal stimulus. All of this ran headlong into crippled supply chains and discombobulated labor markets. Inflation hit 9.1% in 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets.

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Associated Press - October 28, 2024

Trump’s Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults

Donald Trump hosted a rally featuring crude and racist insults at New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday, turning what his campaign had dubbed as the event where he would deliver his closing message into an illustration of what turns off his critics. With just over a week before Election Day, speakers labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute. “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic whose set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.

His joke was immediately criticized by Harris’ campaign as it competes with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny backed Harris shortly after Hinchcliffe’s appearance. The normally pugnacious Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement. But other speakers also made incendiary comments. Trump’s childhood friend David Rem referred to Harris as “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris ”and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” The marquee event reflected the former president’s tone throughout his third White House campaign. Though he refrained from doing so Sunday, Trump often tears into Harris in offensive and personal terms himself, questioning in recent weeks her mental stability and her intelligence as well as calling her “lazy,” long a racist trope used against Black people. The event was a surreal spectacle that included former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, politicians including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Reps. Byron Donalds and Elise Stefanik, and an artist who painted a picture of Trump hugging the Empire State Building.

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State Stories

Dallas Morning News - October 28, 2024

Ted Cruz: Bipartisan work brought microchip jobs to Texas

The Kelly-Cruz Building Chips in America Act is an example of bipartisan leadership delivering serious results for Texans. With our military and economy increasingly reliant on advanced technologies, it is critical that we manufacture advanced microchips on American soil. Last year, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., introduced a bill that streamlined the environmental review process for microchip manufacturing plants. This bill was written with good intentions, but it contained a fatal flaw: it would have created a preference for new microchip manufacturing in states that mimic the federal government’s burdensome, time-consuming environmental review laws. These states, the majority of which are exceedingly liberal enclaves like California and New York, would have received a massive leg up over states like Texas in any competition for new microchip facilities. I worked across the aisle with Sen. Kelly and together we rewrote the bill to create a better, fairer solution.

The rewritten bill leveled the playing field for all states, ensuring that federal law didn’t preference blue states like California over Texas so that both can compete fairly for new microchip manufacturing facilities and jobs. Sen. Kelly and I built a strong bipartisan coalition to support our bill. President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo even praised our leadership in streamlining the process for this national security imperative. And Secretary Raimondo explicitly urged Congress to pass the Cruz-Kelly amendment because it will “help us a lot to move faster.” Our bipartisan effort was successful, and in December Majority Leader Chuck Schumer advanced the Kelly-Cruz legislation on the Senate floor with unanimous bipartisan support. Over the last 10 months, I worked hand in hand with Republican leadership and rank-and-file members in the U.S. House of Representatives to secure a vote on our bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly without any changes. And on Oct. 2, very quietly and without fanfare, President Biden signed it into law. I am proud to have led the effort for new microchip manufacturing in the United States, but I also want to make sure we do it the right way. That is why I wrote and passed the Building Chips in America Act, but it is also why I voted against the 2022 Chips and Science Act. That bill combined many other bills, including the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors (FABS) Act — of which I was a co-sponsor — which created tax incentives for new semiconductor manufacturing. But I was forced to vote against the final 2022 version because it gave tens of billions of taxpayer dollars directly to extremely profitable multinational corporations. I oppose corporate welfare; it far too often leads to corruption.

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San Antonio Express-News - October 28, 2024

Voter accused of assaulting election worker released from jail; DA vows to 'vigorously prosecute'

A man accused of assaulting a 69-year-old election clerk at a Southwest Side polling site was released from jail late Friday, Bexar County court records show. Jesse Lutzenberger, 63, was arrested Thursday and charged with injury to an elderly person, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Friday. He faces a third-degree felony assault charge, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Lutzenberger posted a $30,000 bond Friday and was released from the Bexar County jail, court records show.

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said Saturday his office will “vigorously prosecute” Lutzenberger and anyone else who engages in this type of criminal behavior. “The right to vote is sacrosanct in our country and the bedrock of our democracy. But no one has the right to assault, threaten, harass or intimidate an election employee or voter,” Gonzales said. “Please rest assured that if anyone in our community engages in this conduct at a polling site, the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, under my leadership, will hold those individuals accountable.” The assault came after a 69-year-old early voting clerk asked Lutzenberger to remove his red hat bearing a slogan supporting former President Donald Trump. It’s against state law to wear clothing or accessories supporting a candidate, ballot measure, or political party inside a polling site. Doing so is considered “electioneering.” The Texas Election Code prohibits people from electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place.

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Dallas Morning News - October 28, 2024

Colin Allred embraces his inner Democrat, and a fired-up base responds

For much of his underdog campaign for U.S. Senate, Colin Allred has made pointed appeals to independents and Republicans he hopes will abandon Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred, a Democratic congressman from Dallas, has campaigned with former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to lure disaffected Republicans to his side. Touting his bipartisan credentials and a willingness to criticize President Joe Biden, Allred has downplayed his Senate campaign as a party building exercise. A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide race since 1994. Throughout the summer, Allred has been a tacit supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the White House. He rarely mentions her at his rallies.

Now, in the final days before his Nov. 5 showdown with Cruz, Allred has fully embraced Harris and is making a strong push for voters who strongly identify as Democrats. While he’s still pitching Republicans and independents, Allred is trying to shore up support from potential Democratic voters, especially those infrequent voters who don’t keep up with politics and may not be familiar with him. His job was made easier Friday when Harris publicly endorsed his candidacy in front of more than 30,000 enthusiastic people at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston. Harris told the crowd that Allred would be her partner in moving the country forward and in restoring reproductive rights for women. That was the theme of the star-studded mega-rally that included music sensations Beyoncé, Willie Nelson and Kelly Rowland. “There are many important races, including Colin Allred running for Senate,” Harris said before criticizing Cruz’s record on women’s reproductive rights. “Let’s remember, Texas, your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power.” Before Harris spoke, Allred’s speech drew a thunderous ovation, easily the most intense display of support he’s received on the campaign trail. That the rally occurred at all is significant. Harris has all but conceded Texas to former President Donald Trump. Her campaign chose Houston for the rally because Texas, with its strict abortion regulations, is considered ground zero in the fight for reproductive rights.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Rice fires football coach Mike Bloomgren

Rice football coach Mike Bloomgren was fired Sunday after seven seasons, athletic director Tommy McClelland announced. Pete Alomar, the Owls’ associate head coach and special teams coordinator, will serve as interim coach for the final four games. Bloomgren went 24-52 with the Owls, including a 2-6 record this season. The Owls lost to UConn 17-10 in Bloomgren’s final game Saturday. “I want to express my sincere appreciation to Coach Bloomgren. Over his seven seasons of service as our head coach, he has represented our university and football program with the utmost class and integrity,” McClelland said in a statement. “However, as I evaluated our program and compared our current and desired trajectory, I determined new leadership is necessary to guide us into the future.”

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Katy ISD ponders new policy after Native American book allegedly made white students ‘uncomfortable’

A Katy ISD proposal to institute a new training on how teachers should discuss "sensitive issues" with students ignited a heated and lengthy debate over critical race theory at a board meeting Monday. The proposed new training was sparked by one teacher's use of an excerpt from a book about a Native American boy. Board members who want to implement the training said the book is designed to make white students feel bad about being white. Opposing board members accused others of “micromanaging” teachers and argued the book is simply a story told from the perspective of a Native American child and not critical race theory.

Sherman Alexie’s 2007 book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” follows the experiences of a Native American high school student navigating a predominantly white school. The novel "tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation," according to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, the book's publisher. "Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot." The book in its entirety was not taught in a Katy ISD classroom. Instruction was one chapter that addressed the character’s concern for his physical size compared to that of his white peers. The new training is designed to make sure teachers are aware of how to “provide guidance in alignment to board policy," said Sanee Bell, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Prairie View A&M leaders want to become a 'top 10' public HBCU. Here's how.

Prairie View A&M University leaders hope a new strategic plan will catapult the 148-year-old institution into the top 10 public HBCUs by 2035. President Tomikia P. LeGrande released the “Journey to Eminence” plan this fall, stating a goal for Prairie View to become a “premier” public historically Black university in the next decade. The university, located about 45 miles northwest of downtown Houston, currently sits at No. 14 among state-funded HBCUs on the heavily cited U.S. News & World Report rankings.

LeGrande said she hopes Prairie View can boost its six-year graduation rate closer to the national average, which is 62%. The latest numbers from the Texas A&M System show that 43% of Prairie View undergraduates who began college in 2017 earned degrees in six years. The strategic plan also builds off LeGrande’s CARE team model, where students are receiving more financial, academic and career supports to better navigate college. Other steps toward improving student success could come through increasing available student grants, alumni engagement and interactions with faculty and staff. An upcoming campus master plan will help identify needs related to student housing, especially for freshmen and sophomores, LeGrande said. Prairie View’s residence halls can accommodate close to 5,000 students, according to the HBCU’s website. More than 8,800 undergraduates enrolled at the university in rural Waller County this fall, and school officials told the Chronicle last year that housing waitlists are typically long. In fall 2023, 1,000 students were on the list.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Another Houston-area city blocks utility-scale battery storage project. How will it affect the grid?

Battery storage facilities, seen by many as a key component in shoring up the state's fragile electricity grid, have taken fitful steps to gain a foothold in some Houston area cities. After months of delays, League City in September allowed its first under a newly crafted ordinance, and Katy earlier this month voted to block an application. Batteries, which can store excess electricity when it’s plentiful and cheap and sell that electricity back to the power grid when it’s expensive and in short supply, have made key contributions to the Texas power grid over the last two summers. Still, several area cities have paused or denied development, often due to residents’ fears of uncommon battery storage fires. Earlier this month, Katy City Council unanimously voted to deny a permit for a battery storage application.

Dozens of residents wrote to council members or spoke at council meetings against the project, proposed by developer Vesper Energy, many citing its location just over a half-mile from Katy High School. Some also noted that Vesper has no experience operating battery storage facilities, though it has operational solar farms. The opposition in Katy mirrors the wave of protest from residents seven months earlier in League City when battery storage developers began applying to build there. After pausing its consideration of applications in April, the city hired a consulting firm to draft a battery storage ordinance. The ordinance, which requires setbacks of at least 200 feet from homes and schools, or what’s deemed necessary by airborne hazards modeling, passed in July. The community pushback comes as Texas is one of the fastest-growing states for battery storage facilities, a technology that began to take off across the country in 2018. More than 4,700 megawatts of energy storage are connected to the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, compared to just 275 megawatts online in 2020.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Houston investor and Pappas family member reportedly wants to shake up the Cheesecake Factory

An activist investor and son of a co-founder of Pappas Restaurants is reportedly calling for change at the Cheesecake Factory. James Pappas' JCP Investment Management has acquired about 2% of the California-based restaurant chain, according to a Tuesday report in the Wall Street Journal, and wants to see it spin off several smaller brands into a new public company. The Journal reported that JCP has argued that three of the Cheesecake Factory's brands — North Italia, Flower Child and Culinary Dropout — should become a separate public company, focused on faster growth.

The Cheesecake Factory in an email Tuesday indicated it is aware of JCP's proposal. "We regularly engage with shareholders and consider their perspectives,” a spokesperson wrote. JCP Investment Management, based in Houston, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its investment in the Cheesecake Factory was first revealed in a regulatory filing in August. Pappas, a banker by background, is the son of Chris Pappas, co-founder and owner of Pappas Restaurants, the Houston-based restaurant concept that includes Pappadeaux, Pappasito's and Pappas Bar-B-Q, as well as Pappas Bros. Steakhouse. JCP, which launched in 2009, has developed a relationship as an energetic activist investor. It has sought to create change at restaurant chains including Jamba Juice, Taco Cabana and IHOP, with varying degrees of success. In 2020, for example, JCP put forward a plan calling for Dine Brands, parent company of Applebee's and IHOP, to spin off the latter and let the pancake concept stand alone; this was rejected by shareholders.

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Dallas Morning News - October 28, 2024

Cowboys running out of time to fix team’s countless problems after another loss to 49ers

The Cowboys went eight weeks into the season before losing on the road. But in so many ways, this team looks lost. Dallas has had worse defeats than the 30-24 setback it suffered at the hands of San Francisco Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium. One of them came on this very same field one year ago. But for a team coming off a 38-point loss at home to Detroit, for a team that had a bye week to discard certain plays, refine others and adapt, the outcome was damning.

A Dallas defense that appeared to take a step forward in the first half reverted to form in the second, allowing the Niners to score touchdowns on their first three possessions to turn a 10-6 halftime deficit into a 17-point lead entering the final period. “You have ebbs and flows of the game,’’ Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said. “We obviously stayed in that valley way too long. “The three, three-and-outs on offense, we didn’t give our defense any relief, either.’’ It should come as no surprise. This defense has now allowed opponents to score to open the second half six times this season, with five of those being touchdowns. Dak Prescott was no better. The Cowboys quarterback keeps saying he’s seeing the game well.

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Dallas Morning News - October 27, 2024

Dallas Hero propositions could have unintended consequences, experts say

It would be historic if voters approved three charter amendment proposals backed by Dallas Hero and touted as a way to address public safety and government transparency. None of the charters in Texas’ largest cities set minimums for police staffing, mandate a public survey that could earn the city manager a bonus or terminated, or waive governmental immunity. Dallas would be the first if Proposition S, T, or U is approved. “We believe our message is a strong one,” said Pete Marocco, executive director of Dallas Hero. “We continue to hear from the community that recognizes that we need more police, and we’re going to continue getting the message out that this is the clearest plan to do so.” The uncertainty of the real impacts has led to uproar from the City Council, with all 15 Dallas City Council members urging voters to vote no on all three proposals.

“If propositions S, T and U pass, their cost would force cuts to things residents tell me they want more of, like street repair, library locations and hours, park upkeep, and it could even affect pay for our tenured police officers,” said council member Gay Donnell Willis. “That’s nothing but bad.” The City Council initially approved three counter-proposals, Propositions K, M and N, to cancel out the Dallas Hero propositions. The Texas Supreme Court in September ordered the council to remove the three amendments because they didn’t clearly tell voters their approval would nullify Dallas Hero’s three proposals. Experts say while the reasons behind why some people support the Dallas Hero propositions may make sense, the proposals could have unintended consequences. “If any of them do pass, it’s likely they won’t be felt immediately,” said Brian Owsley, an associate professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas’ College of Law. “But there is probably going to be some sort of inadvertent impacts down the road.”

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Dallas Morning News - October 27, 2024

Neiman Marcus criticized for swapping ‘Christmas’ for ‘Holiday’ in catalog title

Neiman Marcus is under fire after pulling the word “Christmas” from the title of its shopping guide. Earlier this month, the Dallas retailer unveiled its annual publication that it now calls the Holiday Book instead of the Christmas Book, a decades-old publication that’s popular among fans of the chain. It features ideas for shoppers including its well-known “Fantasy Gifts.” The decision didn’t sit well with some on social media, drawing attention on X, formerly Twitter, and Threads, which is part of Facebook, and other platforms with some saying they should have retained the name “Christmas” and that they wouldn’t shop there. The New York Post reported on the change this week, and others joined, including Newsmax and The Washington Times. Yet Neiman Marcus said it’s been using the term “holiday” broadly for decades, and it has also become an industry standard. That reflects the entire season that starts before Thanksgiving and runs through the New Year, it said.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Texas's first cohousing condos — where community is the star amenity — nears completion in Houston

As a mother of three toddlers, getting out of the house was a chore for Kelli Soika when she lived in Austin. They'd have to pack up and head to a park, where she'd supervise the girls before packing up again to leave. Then, when her children were 3, 4 and 5, she and her partner moved to a cohousing community in Colorado. The difference was palpable. Her toddlers would spill straight out of her first-floor unit into a courtyard, where they could play while neighbors-turned-family-friends helped watch. During community meals, her husband would sometimes hear that a group was planning a bike ride he could join; if the family needed an avocado or to borrow a table, there was a built-in group they could ask.

"Everyone's needs were being met in a really easy way," Soika said. "It just happened. It felt like people were just there." Now, Soika and her family are among the founding members of Texas's first cohousing community, which is set to open January in the East End. Friday morning, she walked the grounds at 114 Delmar St. with Lynn Morstead and David Kelley. There, 33 units — eight still for sale — have been built around a courtyard. On one side is the Common House, with a communal kitchen and common area. Soika mentioned that she planned to cook Monday vegetarian meals for those who care to join. "I'll be there!" Kelley said. Cohousing is a collection of private homes grouped around shared spaces that usually include a communal kitchen and dining area, a guest house and a garden. While shared spaces are nothing new — condominiums and neighborhood associations typically offer rooftop decks or clubhouses — the intent of cohousing developments is much different. Shared spaces serve not as amenities, but as keystones to community. In cohousing, common dining areas are used as gathering places for regularly-scheduled communal meals that bring neighbors closer together. As those bonds form, picking up something for a neighbor from the store or keeping an eye on the kids next door becomes only natural.

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Houston Chronicle - October 28, 2024

Community members protest HISD bond in Halloween event

About 20 community members channeled their Halloween spirit in protest of Houston ISD's $4.4 billion school bond proposal outside the Metropolitan Multiservice Center on West Gray Sunday, as the last few days of early voting approach. The bond, split into Propositions A and B on the ballot, allocates $3.96 billion for school building renovations and expansions, including safety and security upgrades, and $440 million for technology equipment, systems and infrastructure.

Adults and children, many dressed in costume for the Halloween-themed event organized by Community Voices for Public Education, chanted holding paper masks with state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles' face and slogans reading "Reject the takeover terror!" and "Hands off HISD!" The event is the latest in intense campaigning both for and against the highly-debated ballot measure. Harris County Republicans and Democrats voted to oppose the bond, and a coalition of religious organizations, The Metropolitan Organization, later joined the opposition. State lawmakers urged Houstonians to vote against the bond on the first day of early voting. Volunteers opposing the bond have been talking to voters outside the polls about why to vote no.

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County Stories

KVUE - October 28, 2024

Travis County leaders try to fix transparency concerns over DA Jose´ Garza's secret security money

A move from Travis County commissioners could help them avoid litigation over claims they violated the Texas Open Meetings Act. County leaders unanimously approved a motion to "approve funding in the amount of $115,000 to the district attorney for necessary security enhancements" to protect Jose´ Garza's safety. The move happened during Tuesday's meeting, which could clear up a previous vote from March that led to a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The KVUE Defenders revealed in August that commissioners secretly gave Garza the money for home security enhancements. However, Paxton and government transparency experts say it all happened illegally outside of public view. Part of the problem is that commissioners used a vague, overly broad agenda item that critics say did not adequately inform Travis County taxpayers about how their money would be spent.

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KXAN - October 28, 2024

Hays County residents sue Commissioners Court over the transportation bond election

Four Hays County homeowners filed a lawsuit last Monday against the Hays County Commissioner Court over its August decision to call a transportation bond election, which Hays County residents are already voting on as Proposition A. On Aug. 14, in a 5-0 vote, the Commissioners Court approved pushing the bond election forward. If voters approve the bond, it would allow the county to execute around 30 transportation projects across the county by adding $0.02 per $100 valuation to the county tax rate – that would break down to about $80 a year for a home valued at $400,000. But the lawsuit’s plaintiffs allege that the Commissioners Court violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by not specifically outlining the scope of the bond package.

“County commissioners hatched this bond package in secret, ordering it onto the ballot at the last minute and in blatant violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act,” said Les Carnes, one of the plaintiffs, in a press release. “Hays County residents were deprived of both the required public notice that a bond proposal was being considered and the right to participate in determining what should be included or excluded, what the total price should be, and what it will mean for our taxes,” he continued. A spokesperson from Hays County said the county does not comment on ongoing litigation. The lawsuit said that several controversial projects were included in the package – some that would go in environmentally sensitive areas like the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.

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City Stories

KVUE - October 28, 2024

Liberty Hill bans TikTok on city devices

There are more bans for TikTok in Central Texas – this time from city leaders in Liberty Hill. This week, Liberty Hill City Council voted to ban the use or installation of the app on any device used for city business. The vote aligns the city with Gov. Greg Abbott's directive that TikTok must be banned on government devices. That stems from concerns the Chinese government could watch Texans and collect their data. Abbott’s directive says all Texas cities are required to ban the app on government devices by Nov. 20.

Earlier this year, national leaders proposed a law that would force TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company to sell the app or be banned in the U.S. The social media giant argued that law is unconstitutional and violates free speech. The Department of Justice says the app is a national security threat. TikTok has repeatedly said it does not share Americans’ data with the Chinese government. A panel of judges in a federal appeals court are set to decide the constitutionality of the law in December. If TikTok loses, it could appeal to the Supreme Court ahead of the January deadline to sell or be banned in the U.S.

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National Stories

Washington Post - October 28, 2024

Business etiquette classes boom as people relearn how to act at work

Since the end of last year, Daniel Post Senning — the great-great-grandson of American etiquette queen Emily Post and co-president of the Emily Post Institute — has been gobsmacked by the growing demand for his family’s services. Senning had anticipated a boom in training requests as companies brought workers back to offices after the pandemic, but it didn’t happen right away. Instead, the wave of interest has come since the turn of the year, with growing numbers of big corporations and small family firms paying to send employees to courses like “Manners at Work” and “Business Etiquette for Professionals.” He’s even seen an explosion of interest in learning to be an etiquette trainer. More than two years after employers began urging white-collar workers back to offices, Americans are still reckoning with the ripple effects of pandemic-induced disruption when it comes to workplace behavior. The years spent apart from colleagues have rusted workers’ social skills, and new ways of working have spawned a host of fresh etiquette issues.

Meanwhile, younger workers are making up an increasing share of the workforce and bringing with them a preference for more-casual working environments, which is creating friction with older generations, experts say. “People are asking: ‘What is business etiquette? Do I need etiquette training?’” said Senning. “And I don’t think it’s just younger employees or newer employees who are more challenged and stressed by this environment.” Workers who had substantial professional experience before the pandemic, including managers and executives, still need help adapting to hybrid and remote work, Senning said. He has been coaching leaders on best practices for such things as communicating through your calendar and deciding whether to call, text or use Slack to reach an employee. Establishing etiquette for video meetings has also been a challenge for many firms, he notes. Bad behavior in virtual meetings has occasionally made headlines in recent years, such as the backlash against Vishal Garg, CEO of the mortgage lending firm Better.com, for announcing mass layoffs over Zoom ahead of the holidays in 2021. “If I had a magic button that I could push that could get people to treat video meetings with 50 percent of the same level of professionalism they treat an in-person meeting, I would make a lot of HR, personnel managers, and executives very, very happy,” Senning said.

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Washington Post - October 28, 2024

Kamala Harris played hardball with banks. It meant billions for homeowners.

Kamala Harris had been California’s attorney general for about eight weeks when she gathered with her peers in front of a coffee station at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. Attorneys general from across the country were closing in on a multibillion dollar mortgage settlement with major banks, whose risky lending practices leading up to the Great Recession spurred an unprecedented crisis that by early 2011 was still costing Americans their homes. But Harris couldn’t believe her fellow attorneys general were ready to make a deal. The banks’ offer seemed paltry considering the damage people suffered, especially in California, which had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. It also would also give banks some immunity from future lawsuits. Some of the negotiators were concerned Harris might bail and risk killing the settlement. She skipped an afternoon session with her fellow attorneys general and headed to the Justice Department to drill down on what investigators were finding and push the Obama administration to do more.

“I don’t know that anyone can answer our questions,” two of Harris’s top aides recalled her saying after those meetings in March 2011. “We’re going to have to answer our own questions.” Unsatisfied with what she was hearing — from the administration, other attorneys general and the banking sector — Harris walked away from those initial multistate talks six months later. There were no guarantees that move would pay off. But by early 2012, she struck a historic $18 billion agreement for California, far more than what had been on the table before. Harris now describes the saga on the campaign trail as a key example of how she has delivered for middle-class families. The deal was far from perfect: Thousands of Californians still lost their homes, in some cases opting for sales where they lost home equity but avoided foreclosure. Advocacy groups were frustrated by the lack of data showing whether relief went to poorer communities and people of color. The settlement didn’t satisfy widespread ire at the banking system, and in the years that followed, enforcement wasn’t always smooth. Harris also wasn’t the only attorney general struggling with how much to push for, and when to decide enough was enough. When she ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, Harris’s Democratic opponent Loretta Sanchez accused her of exaggerating her influence in the settlement talks and faulted Harris at a news conference for not bringing “one single prosecution against any major bank executive.”

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NPR - October 28, 2024

At the heart of the Boeing strike, an emotional fight over a lost pension plan

At a rally this month in Seattle, machinists union vice president Gary Allen addressed a hall full of striking Boeing workers. “When I'm out on the picket line, I ask everybody, what is the strike about to you?,” he said. Allen didn’t even have a chance to answer his own question before the machinists in the room interrupted. “Pension! Pension! Pension!,” they chanted. Pensions are a major sticking point between Boeing and the union. The machinists want the company to restore the traditional pension plan they lost a decade ago. But Boeing hasn’t budged.

The strike is now in its seventh week after union members rejected the company’s latest proposal. The union said late Sunday night it's "been in communication with the U.S. Department of Labor in an effort to spearhead getting back to the table." The work stoppage has hobbled production at Boeing’s airplane factories in the Pacific Northwest, contributing to a $6 billion dollar quarterly loss for the company. On some issues, the two sides have moved closer to an agreement. But when it comes to the pension plan, they remain very much at odds. “Definitely the loss of that pension is still there right at the heart of this for many,” said Jon Holden, the president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751, after members voted down the company’s latest offer last week. The union says Boeing pushed members to give up their pension plan in 2014, in part by threatening to move production of new planes elsewhere if they didn’t. The company replaced that pension with a 401(k) retirement plan. A decade later, many workers still feel cheated.

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Fox News - October 28, 2024

Rogan reflects on podcast interview with former President Trump: 'Got this ability to just keep going'

Podcast host Joe Rogan recently reflected on his interview with former President Donald Trump. Rogan mentioned several takeaways he got from the landmark episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" that he had with Trump on Friday, noting that the former president is authentic and funny. He also marveled that he can hold a focused interview for over three hours. "He's got this ability to just keep going. This is what's crazy, like the podcast was three hours long. The guy didn't pee before the podcast. He didn't pee after the podcast. He just left," the host told guests Eddie Bravo, Brendan Schaub, and Bryan Callen during the latest episode of his podcast.

Rogan’s guest brought up the interview on Saturday, when they asked if he was "nervous" about sitting down with the former president, though Rogan replied that he was more "excited" and "hyped" than anything. "I was definitely hyped up. I was excited, because I wanted – there was a lot of questions I need to answer," he said, denying that he felt any pressure to perform in a certain way, and affirming that he prepared for the conversation ahead of time. Rogan’s first observation about Trump’s personality was that he likes to start on one talking and end up somewhere completely different. "He’s real good at – you ask him a question, and he starts to answer it, but then he takes you on a totally different route… But you got to bring him back in, but you got to be respectful."

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Associated Press - October 28, 2024

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 33, while truck ramming near Tel Aviv kills one

Israeli strikes on northern Gaza have killed at least 33 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as Israel's offensive in the hard-hit and isolated area entered a third week and the U.N. secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there “unbearable.” Israel said it targeted militants. In a separate development, a truck rammed into a bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel. The ramming occurred outside a military base and near the headquarters of Israel's Mossad spy agency.

Iran's supreme leader, meanwhile, said Israeli strikes on the country on Saturday in response to Iran's ballistic missile attack earlier this month “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation. It was Israel’s first open attack on its archenemy. That exchange of fire has raised fears of an all-out regional war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran and its militant proxies, which include Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of lower-level conflict. Two Israeli strikes killed eight people in Sidon city in southern Lebanon, with 25 wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. One strike hit a residential building, according to footage taken by an Associated Press reporter.

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Politico - October 28, 2024

Second Post columnist resigns while others defend publication

Michele Norris announced her resignation from The Washington Post in a social media post Sunday following the newspaper’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate this election cycle, making her the second columnist to leave after Robert Kagan. Norris called the non-endorsement a “terrible mistake” and “an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976.” Norris has been connected to The Post since 1988 when she was a reporter. She was also the first Black female host for NPR and has been an opinion columnist at The Post since 2019. However, other journalists inside and outside the organization have been coming to The Post’s defense — not for the editorial board or their decision, but for the reporters and editors who work at The Post and are suffering the consequences of canceled subscriptions and loss of trust.

David Maraniss, a longtime associate editor at The Post, initially reacted to the announcement that The Post wouldn’t be endorsing a candidate by calling the move “contemptible.” He wrote in a Facebook post on Friday, “This is the bleakest day of my journalism career.” But in another Facebook post published Sunday, he explained some of his reflection, writing that while he understands the dismay, he’s “come out on the other side.” “First let me ask: Why have all of you not quit Facebook? Do you think Mark Zuckerberg is good for democracy? Why on the other platform have so many people who cancelled subscriptions announced their actions on X? Do they think Elon Musk is good for democracy? Those questions are both rhetorical and real. I think we all know the reasons. Tradeoffs,” Maraniss wrote. He praised The Post’s reporters and editors who “have done one helluva lot more than anything on Facebook or X to uncover and illuminate the dangerous politics of the moment and the threats to democracy - and will continue to do so despite the craven cowardice of the owner and publisher.”

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The Hill - October 28, 2024

Democrats see female ‘ghost voters’ as best chance for Harris victory

Democratic strategists alarmed over former President Trump’s track record of outperforming the polls are hoping that Vice President Harris will benefit from a surge of Democratic “ghost voters,” young women they hope will turn out in large numbers for Election Day even though they are not being captured by recent polls. Polls in battlegrounds states such as Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin are not promising for Harris when considered in light of Trump’s history of winning more votes in these states on Election Day 2016 and 2020 than the polls indicated beforehand. Harris held a rally with Beyoncé in Houston on Friday to further emphasize abortion rights in the final days of the campaign, amplifying a national message targeted at women between the ages of 18 and 35 who are “low-propensity” voters. “You had the ghost voter in 2018 and 2022 because those turnouts were higher — particularly 2022 — higher than the Republicans predicted and it was a surge in young women, pro-choice voters,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

She said Harris could benefit substantially from young women who haven’t voted before, only voted occasionally, and who are not being captured by many polls. Trump has benefited from ghost voters himself, in 2016 and 2020 when he outperformed the polls because non-college educated, working-class voters who didn’t have a history of voting turned out in large numbers to support his candidacy. Some Democrats fear that Trump could outperform the polls again next month, which would be bad news for Harris because polls show the two candidates deadlocked in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Political handicappers say Harris must win these three so-called “blue wall” states to secure victory. “There is a potential for a ghost voter on both sides. The one on the Harris side would be young women,” said Lake, who noted that younger women turned out at a higher rate than any group of men during the Kansas abortion referendum in 2022. Voters in that referendum overwhelmingly rejected an anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution. The women who could become a surge of “ghost voters” for Harris aren’t usually engaged in politics or don’t follow campaign developments though traditional news outlets. “Normally why we miss them is because they are people without vote history or they have a very irregular vote history,” Lake said, explaining why these voters don’t get measured by pollsters.

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