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Newsclips - May 14, 2025 |
Lead Stories
Texas public schools, Dems worry time running out as finance bill ‘languishing’ in Senate
School leaders and advocates worry that the Texas Senate is dragging its feet to deliver on promises to provide the largest infusion of state dollars into public education. It wasn’t until late Tuesday that a public hearing in the Senate was announced. The education committee is expected to discuss the latest version of the bill Thursday. Neighborhood campuses have shuttered, popular programs cut and academic help to struggling students dialed back in recent years as districts face inflation and other budget challenges. But it’s been nearly a month since the House passed a $7.7 billion proposal that would help them by increasing the state’s per-student basic funding allotment for the first time since 2019. That’s created some hand-wringing among House Democrats over fears that the finance bill won’t make it over the finish line.
The funding measure was approved in the House alongside a deeply partisan school voucherlike bill that allows public dollars to flow to private education for the first time. Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the signing of the education savings accounts bill earlier this month with a carnival-like celebration at the Governor’s Mansion on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But money for public schools has barely moved since it reached the Senate. “We ought to be pushing back on that,” Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, said Tuesday during a meeting of the House Public Education Committee. “A lot of work was done here on the assurances that we would pass that bill into law or some form of it, and they’re not making any progress at all.” Little had been heard publicly about what is going on with the bill until late Tuesday. State Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who is helming the bill’s journey through the upper chamber, wrote on social media that the bill would have across-the-board pay raises for teachers when they reach their third and fifth years. “This is not a one-time bonus or stipend, this is a new commitment in our budget culture,” Creighton wrote on X.
Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only
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House works into the night as Republicans push ahead on Trump's big bill
Tax breaks tallying more than $5 trillion — but also sizable reductions in Medicaid health care, food stamps and green energy strategies to fight climate change — faced sharp debate as House lawmakers slogged through marathon overnight hearings on Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill.” Tensions rose and emotions flared as the hours dragged on into early Wednesday morning. House Republicans are working to push President Donald Trump’s signature legislative package through a gauntlet of committees and mounting opposition from Democrats, advocacy groups and even some wary Republicans themselves. Right from the start, one meeting was immediately disrupted by protesters shouting down what the panel’s top Democrat called “cruel” cuts to Medicaid.
“People feel very strong because they know they’re losing their health care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., on the Energy & Commerce Committee, Tuesday afternoon. And on it went. As midnight passed, two panels were still going, processing more than 100 amendments from Democrats that were largely failing, as Republicans marched ahead with their plan. It’s the biggest political and legislative debate for the Republicans leading Congress since Trump’s first term, setting up a career-defining clash over the nation’s priorities, all coming at a time of economic unease with Trump’s trade war and other uncertainties. Trump, speaking at a forum in the Middle East, struck an ambitious chord, saying Congress was “on the verge of passing the largest tax cut and regulation cut in American history.” “If we get that, that will be like a rocket ship for our country,” Trump said in Saudi Arabia.
Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only
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Republicans want to shift safety-net costs to states. It’s not going over well.
Congressional Republicans agree that the federal government has a spending problem. Now top GOP leaders want to make it someone else’s problem — by shifting some safety-net programs onto state budgets. The plans under discussion could generate hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to finance the GOP’s domestic policy megabill. But they’re vexing Republican lawmakers — many of them former governors and state legislators — who are not interested in addressing Washington’s fiscal woes by creating them in state capitals, including those run by their own party. It’s one big reason why Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are struggling right now to build consensus for the “big, beautiful bill,” with its expensive suite of tax cuts as well as border and defense spending plus-ups. Already they are scaling back ambitious plans that would force states to either subsidize health and food aid or kick thousands of residents off benefit rolls.
“Most of us are not interested in simply shifting costs,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a former governor, who warned “there most certainly would” be significant pushback from states if the GOP proceeds with cost-sharing plans. “I hope to goodness we don’t go there,” added Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), another former governor, whose constituents are heavily reliant on federal programs. The mathematical impetus for the GOP proposals is straightforward enough: The tax cuts that President Donald Trump and Republican leaders are eyeing are estimated to cost $5 trillion or more over the coming decade. Offsetting that cost requires more than shaking the couch cushions, and two safety-net programs have emerged as particularly appealing targets. Together Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, account for about $1 trillion in yearly federal spending. Republicans are mostly unified on instituting work requirements, tightening eligibility verification, excluding undocumented immigrants from benefits and cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse. But to achieve even deeper cuts, they are looking to make states pick up more of the tab.
Read this article at Politico - Subscribers Only
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Austin welcomed Musk. Now it’s weird (in a new way).
Each weekend for the past few months, Mike Ignatowski has gone to one of two Tesla dealerships in Austin, Texas, to protest Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and the most famous transplant to the state’s most left-leaning city. Not too long ago, Mr. Ignatowski, a 67-year-old computer engineer, was an admirer of Mr. Musk — before Mr. Musk aligned himself with President Trump. Now Mr. Ignatowski waves a “Fire Elon” sign during the protests, even as he conceded he’s not quite mad enough to part with the blue Model 3 Tesla that he bought “before we knew Elon was crazy,” as his bumper sticker attests. That’s how it goes in Texas’ capital, where Mr. Musk’s sharp rightward shift has been received with a mix of anger and hair-pulling agony. Austin’s conflicted feelings reflect both the billionaire entrepreneur’s economic influence on the city and the city’s broader transformation from a medium-sized college town arranged around the State Capitol to a tech-fueled metropolis with a glass-and-steel skyline and a changing image. Tie-dyed T-shirts still urge residents to “Keep Austin Weird,” mostly in hotels and tourist shops.
But a different kind of counterculture has taken root amid an influx of decidedly right-of-center figures (including Mr. Musk), self-described freethinkers (like the podcasters Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman), and conservative entrepreneurs (like Joe Lonsdale). Already in town was Austin’s resident conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his far-right Infowars. There’s even a new, contrarian institution of higher learning looking to compete with the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Austin. Weird, perhaps, but not in the way of the old bumper-sticker mantra. “If you say ‘Keep Austin Weird’ to somebody under the age of 40, they would think of that as an antique-y slogan, like Ye Old Shoppe,” said H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas. “It doesn’t have any resonance for their lived experience of Austin.” The city’s transformation followed a deliberate, decades-long project to attract technology companies to its rolling hills. “I’m one who thinks it has changed for the better,” said Gary Farmer, who helped attract new businesses as the founding chairman of Opportunity Texas, an economic development group. “The culinary arts, the performing arts, the visual arts, the music scene — it’s all better.”
Read this article at New York Times - Subscribers Only
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State Stories
Justin Yancy: Texas is booming: Here’s how to make sure students are ready
(Justin Yancy is president of the Texas Business Leadership Council, a statewide network of CEOs and senior business executives.) Texas, now the eighth-largest economy in the world, continues to be a job creation powerhouse, adding over 26,000 jobs in just the last month and nearly 200,000 over the past year. But according to the Dallas Fed’s Economic Outlook, “labor availability” continues to rank as a top concern among Texas businesses. If we want to sustain this major economic growth, we must invest in the workforce readiness of our next generation. Our state’s leadership has recognized the importance of doing just that. Gov. Greg Abbott rightly named “career education” as a priority in his State of the State address. From that charge, state legislators, led by State Rep. Keith Bell, R-Forney, crafted House Bill 120, which would promote the college, career and military readiness of students across Texas. The bill, as passed in the House, would make several strategic investments, the most significant being new targeted resources for advising in high school.
Investing in high-quality advising to connect students to the right opportunities is a proven workforce strategy that delivers real options for students and real returns for taxpayers. The Institute of Education Sciences, working alongside the Texas Tri-Agency, has found that students with an individualized career plan developed with an adviser experience “increased postsecondary engagement, improved academic performance” and ultimately “higher future earnings.” These findings are borne out by the outcomes achieved by Uplift Education, a public charter provider with locations across north central Texas. Uplift has made intentional investments in high school advising, keeping student-adviser ratios as low as 50:1. Their network has a college enrollment rate of 92% (compared to 48% for the state of Texas), a college completion rate of 55% (compared to 26% statewide) and its recent graduates ages 25-30 earn an average of nearly $70,000 annually, compared to an average of $45,000 for that age group in the same region. HB 120 would provide the resources to bring student-to-advisor ratios down from an average of roughly 350:1 to 200:1, a significant step toward the positive outcomes seen by Uplift and others. This focus on improving advisor access is supported by a vast bipartisan majority of Texas voters — 94% agree that high school students should have access to high-quality college and career advising, according to polling conducted by Ragnar Research Partners and the Commit Partnership. But that’s far from all this legislation promises to do.
Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only
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Texas food banks slam House Republicans' proposal to restrict SNAP benefits, shift costs to states
Food banks across Texas condemned a plan by House Republicans to restrict SNAP benefits and make some states pay for up to 25% of the federally funded benefits as part of plan to cut trillions in federal programs to pay for Donald Trump’s tax cut bill. The Republican-led House Agricultural Committee released the proposed changes Monday, which would include forcing states with SNAP, or food stamps, error rates — measuring how accurately distributes aid based on households' eligibility — over 10% to pay for 25% of the benefits and states with lower error rates to pay 5% of the benefits. The plan also proposes requiring more seniors and parents of children as young as 7 to document work hours to get SNAP benefits and cutting immigrants with humanitarian parole, conditional entry into the U.S. or withheld deportation from receiving benefits.
The House Budget Committee has laid out a savings goal of $230 million to the House Agricultural Committee, and the majority of that goal needs to be met by cutting funding to SNAP. While Trump lauded the plan on Truth Social on Monday, it has drawn a heap of criticism from food banks and Democratic leaders across the U.S. Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, a network of 20 food banks across the state, said in a news release that if passed, the $230 billion cut “would be the largest rollback of food assistance in our nation’s history at a time when one in six Texas households already struggle to put food on the table.” Feeding Texas estimated that if the changes were to take effect, Texas would have to pay over $1 billion annually in food benefits, costing the state an extra $87 million. Cole also said shifting the cost of SNAP onto states would “fundamentally alter the structure of the program.”
Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only
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Bill backed by Gov. Greg Abbott to ban 'furries' in schools stalls in Texas House
Legislation endorsed by Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows banning teens from acting like animals in schools is likely dead after failing to clear a House committee ahead of a key deadline this week. The “Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education (F.U.R.R.I.E.S) Act,” which would prohibit any “non-human behavior” by a student, including wearing animal ears or barking, meowing or hissing, did not advance out of a House education committee by Monday’s deadline. The bill’s author, Republican state Rep. Stan Gerdes, said in an interview Tuesday that there are “potentially” other ways to pass the bill banning "furries" in schools before the session ends in early June, but did not elaborate.
“I did everything I could,” he said. “But we’ll see what happens. The session’s not over.” Abbott told a gathering of pastors at a Baptist church in Austin in March that the so-called furries trend is “alive and well” in communities across the state, and that lawmakers needed to ban it in public schools. Gerdes, a two-term legislator and past aide to former Gov. Rick Perry, testified about the bill during an at-times tense committee hearing last month. He argued the legislation was needed to curb the “extremely concerning” trend while providing scant evidence furries are a problem, or even present, in Texas schools. He said the bill was spurred by a conversation with a school superintendent in his district, but she denied the schools had any problem. The furries trend has existed for years, at least among adults. Many like taking on animal personas, dressing up in costumes and attending gatherings. The annual Anthrocon convention in Pittsburgh draws thousands. Rumors about classrooms adapting to child furries appeared to start online in 2022. School districts in Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska later debunked claims they were providing litter boxes in bathrooms, and the fact-checking team at PolitiFact could not find any credible news reports that supported the claim.
Read this article at San Antonio Express-News - Subscribers Only
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Ted Cruz wants to give Americans $1K at birth to invest in the stock market
Every child in America would get $1,000 at birth to start investing in the stock market under a plan proposed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz that has been worked into the first draft of the massive tax cut plan making its way through the U.S. House. “Every child in America will have private investment accounts that will compound over their lives, enhancing the prosperity and economic participation of the vast majority of Americans,” Cruz said. The proposal, which stands to cost billions of dollars a year, is an unexpected, last-minute add to the tax package that is still facing months of negotiations on Capitol Hill. Cruz’s proposal would allow friends and family to add $5,000 a year to the private investment accounts. Cruz said over time, with compound interest and projected 7% growth, children could have up to $170,000 in their accounts when they turn 18.
Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only
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Hopes high for Texas bill seeking highway signs for Dallas Koreatown, Richardson Chinatown
A state house bill that would grant new highway exit signs to two of North Texas’ longest surviving Asian American enclaves faces a crucial deadline this week. The House Committee on Transportation earlier this month approved House Bill 3208, which would authorize highway exit signs denoting Dallas Koreatown and Richardson’s Chinatown, but the bill has yet to make it onto the House floor. Thursday is the deadline for the House to take up its own bills. At a May 1 transportation committee meeting, Charles Park, who has advocated for the Korean American community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since the 1980s, asked lawmakers to give Koreatown “a chance to grow.” “It will bring businesses prosperity,” Park said.
In addition to bringing more visibility for two of North Texas’ longest-surviving Asian American enclaves, the signs would be a symbol of the communities’ contributions to the area, said Charles Ku, a longtime Chinese American community advocate. Ku thinks of the younger generations of Chinese Americans who will see the sign. “When they see a sign that says Chinatown, it will make them proud of their own heritage because it’s recognized and accepted by the population,” Ku told The Dallas Morning News. On Monday, state Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, an author of the bill, remained optimistic about it making the House’s Thursday deadline. His office is “working feverishly to bring it to the floor,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming,” Anchía said. “The communities have anchored and revitalized important neighborhoods in both Dallas and Richardson, and we need to celebrate that.” In the last session, Anchía authored the state resolution that recognized the 1.6-mile stretch of Royal Lane in northwest Dallas as Koreatown. He said he worked on the highway sign bill early this legislative session with Republican state Rep. Angie Chen Button, who pushed for Richardson’s Chinatown to be included. “[The bill] is a bipartisan effort in its purest form,” Anchía said.
Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only
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Texas House votes to make it easier for parents to reject school vaccine requirements
It will be easier than ever for parents to opt their children out of public school vaccine requirements under a bill given initial passage in the Texas House late Tuesday. The bill from Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, would allow anyone to access and download the form needed to exempt children from public school vaccine requirements that include polio, hepatitis A and B and measles. Currently, parents must request a vaccine exemption form from the state for a reason of conscience, including religious beliefs. They then must get the form notarized before submitting it to their school district.
Hull’s bill would eliminate the need to request the form from the government. The Department of State Health Services would instead provide a downloadable copy of the form on its website. And the state health department would remove a seal that prevents the form from being copied and distributed by the public. Hull has said her proposal increases government efficiency and saves the state government about $177,000 a year in postage and labor it would have spent distributing the form to requestors. Vaccine advocates worry that it will further erode confidence in safe vaccines and create public health risks for children who cannot take vaccines because of preexisting health conditions. Other advocates worry that the move could lead to outbreaks of contagious diseases that could have been thwarted by child immunizations. During debate, Hull worked to steer the conversation away from what critics believe will be the unintended consequences of the proposal. She questioned the relevance of questions related to the ongoing measles outbreak or vaccines in general. “This bill is about where a form is printed,” Hull said on multiple occasions. Democrats offered several amendments to the bill, including changes that would have required school districts to report the immunization rates of their schools and had parents read educational information about vaccines before opting their children out of vaccine requirements. Both were defeated largely along partisan lines.
Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only
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87 charged with illegal entry into new Texas military buffer zone
A Mexican citizen with a lengthy record of criminal and immigration transgressions is being held without bond for allegedly trespassing on the new military buffer zone in El Paso. The May 2 arrest of Leonel Sotelo Santillan 1.2 miles west of the Paso del Norte Port of Entry might have been the first inside the Department of Defense’s recently designated Texas National Defense Area. But it was by no means the last. A total of 87 individuals were charged in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas between May 2 to May 8 for unlawful entry into Department of Defense property, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told Border Report.
Few details of the arrests are known beyond what can be found on court records. The surge comes on the wings of the Department of Defense taking over a 63-mile-long, 60-foot-wide stretch of land between the American Dam in El Paso and Fort Hancock, Texas, that was previously managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission. The move is part of the Trump administration’s expanded role of the military in border security. In April, the administration established a 170-mile-long National Defense Area in New Mexico stretching from the Arizona border to Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Eighty-two migrants were arrested in the New Mexico NDA during the first week of enforcement. Records show it was the Border Patrol who took most, if not all, of the trespassers into custody.
Read this article at Border Report - Subscribers Only
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How a ‘We Buy Ugly Houses’ franchise left a trail of financial wreckage across Texas
Ronald Carver was skeptical when his investment adviser first tried to sell him on an “ugly houses” investment opportunity eight years ago. But once the Texas retiree heard the details, it seemed like a no-lose situation. Carver would lend money to Charles Carrier, owner of Dallas-based C&C Residential Properties, a high-producing franchise in the HomeVestors of America house-flipping chain known for its ubiquitous “We Buy Ugly Houses” advertisements. The business would then use the dollars to purchase properties in which Carver would receive an ownership stake securing his investment and an annual return of 9%, paid in monthly installments. “Worst case, I would end up with a property worth more than what the loan was,” Carver said of the pitch. Carver started with a $115,000 loan in 2017. And sure enough, the interest payments arrived each month.
He had worked three decades at a nuclear power plant, and retired without a pension and before he could collect Social Security. He and his wife lived off the investment income. The deal seemed so good, Carver talked his elderly father into investing, starting with $50,000. As the monthly checks arrived as promised, both men increased their investments. By 2024, Carver estimates they had about $700,000 invested with Carrier. Then, last fall, the checks stopped. The money Carver and his father had invested was gone. Carrier is accused of orchestrating a yearslong Ponzi scheme, bilking tens of millions of dollars from scores of investors, according to multiple lawsuits and interviews with people who said they lost money. The financial wreckage is strewn across Texas, having swept up both wealthy investors and older people with modest incomes who dug into retirement savings on the advice of the same investment adviser used by Carver.
Read this article at ProPublica - Subscribers Only
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National Science Foundation has cut $1.1B in grants. What does that look like in Houston?
Two weeks ago, the Children's Museum Houston was finalizing plans to host a celebration for the National Science Foundation's 75th anniversary. Then Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency cut the grant to fund it. The museum went forward with 75th anniversary festivities Saturday anyway, digging into its own pocketbooks to host exhibits and provide transportation for participating students and families, the museum's Chief of Strategy Cheryl McCallum said. But McCallum said more cuts are coming to its after-school program after the National Science Foundation terminated more than $1.5 billion in awards focused on its former priorities, including those aimed at increasing representation in STEM careers.
For more than a decade, Children's Museum Houston has offered afterschool programming called A'STEAM, or Afterschool Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math, to more than 100 schools and community groups. The program focused on schools and organizations with fewer resources or higher shares of underrepresented students, including Yes Prep, local YMCAs and schools within Houston ISD. "Our team of educators develops curriculum, and they go out into schools and after-school environments, typically in underresourced areas where kids don't have as much opportunity to pursue high-quality after-school engagement," McCallum said. "Then our educators do these activities with them on a weekly basis." In 2022, the program got a more than $2.5 million boost. Through a National Science Foundation grant, UTHealth Houston's Children's Learning Institute infused the program with more resources and after-school providers and a new storytelling component aimed at improving literacy and giving students more real-world context and a stronger STEM identity, particularly for girls. "Being on the informal side is amazing because we can incorporate literacy and all these other things, but the kids are enjoying it because we're having a blast," said David Mink, the manager of the museum's camp programs and STEM education. "We're making sure that it kind of sticks." With the new programming, certain schools bolstered the A'STEAM curriculum by reading books featuring females in STEM, encouraged students to reminisce about their STEM experiences and watch video interviews of female parents and other members of the community who have pursued STEM careers.
Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only
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Cornyn introduces bill to provide $1B to upgrade NASA facilities in Houston
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn introduced legislation on Tuesday that would provide $1 billion to upgrade NASA’s human spaceflight facilities in Houston. The bill, titled the Mission to Modernize Astronautic Resources for Space (MARS) Act, would provide money to the Johnson Space Center through Sept. 30, 2034, for a variety of improvements aimed at getting humans to the moon and Mars. It comes after last year’s report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine highlighted the agency’s aging infrastructure. “The not-uncommon tendency in a constrained budget environment to prioritize initiating new missions as opposed to maintaining and upgrading existing support assets has produced an infrastructure that would not be viewed as acceptable under most industrial standards,” the report said of the agency overall. “During its inspection tours, the committee saw some of the worst facilities many of its members have ever seen.”
Funding from the Mission to MARS Act would be used to modernize NASA’s mission control and repair the facility that houses extraterrestrial materials, such as moon rocks. It would refurbish the planes and astronaut flight training facilities at Ellington Field. And it would prepare the Neutral Buoyancy Lab – a large swimming pool where NASA astronauts train in spacesuits – to be used when training for commercial, lunar or Department of Defense missions. The legislation also directs the construction of a new space food systems laboratory. And it earmarks money for more mundane maintenance: electrical substation switchgear upgrades, HVAC renewals, asbestos mitigation, roof repairs and more. “Throughout history, America has pioneered human space exploration and boldly charted the path into the great unknown,” Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said in a statement. “I am proud to lead this legislation to not only send humans back to the moon, but to the next frontier of Mars, where technological advancements and untold scientific discoveries await."
Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only
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Spring Branch ISD to appeal ruling that would dismantle district's trustee election system
Spring Branch ISD officials plan to appeal last month's federal ruling that the district violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by holding at-large elections, the board president said Monday night after an executive session discussion. While awaiting the appeal, the district must comply with the court order by choosing a preferred plan for how to create geographic representation districts on the board. The district's attorneys will submit an election map to the court on June 6 with five single-member districts and two at-large positions, Board President Board President Lisa Alpe wrote in a letter to the community Tuesday.
"Drafts of this map remain confidential right now because they have not been fully finalized. The final proposed map will be published on SBISD’s website and social media channels when it is filed with the court on June 6. If the court approves SBISD’s proposed map, the district will then develop a transition plan to adjust its election procedures to implement the new system," Alpe's statement says. It would likely not be finalized until next school year. Last month, federal judge Sim Lake gave the 32,500-student district 20 days to comply with the order to create single-member districts. The ruling comes four years after parent and former board candidate Virginia Elizondo sued the district in 2021, and months after the conclusion of September's five-day bench trial on the matter. However the ruling came too late for the May 3 board election for three seats, where a slate of Hispanic northside candidates was defeated by candidates from southside high school feeder patterns, including one incumbent.
Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only
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National Stories
The world is wooing U.S. researchers shunned by Trump
Help Wanted. Looking for American researchers. As President Trump cuts billions of federal dollars from science institutes and universities, restricts what can be studied and pushes out immigrants, rival nations are hoping to pick up talent that has been cast aside or become disenchanted. For decades, trying to compete with American institutions and companies has been difficult. The United States was a magnet for top researchers, scientists and academics. In general, budgets were bigger, pay was bigger, labs and equipment were bigger. So were ambitions. In 2024, the United States spent nearly $1 trillion — roughly 3.5 percent of total economic output — on research and development. When it came to the kind of long-term basic research that underpins American technological and scientific advancements, the government accounted for about 40 percent of the spending.
That’s the reason political, education and business leaders in advanced countries and emerging economies have long fretted over a brain drain from their own shores. Now they are seizing a chance to reverse the flow. “This is a once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity,” the Australian Strategic Policy Institute declared, as it encouraged its government to act. Last week, at the urging of more than a dozen members, the European Union announced it would spend an additional 500 million euros, or $556 million, over the next two years to “make Europe a magnet for researchers.” Such a sum is paltry when compared with U.S. budgets. So it’s understandable if their appeals are met with a request to “show me the money.” After all, salaries tend to be much lower in Europe. In France, for example, a 35-year-old researcher can expect to earn around €3,600 (about $4,000) a month before taxes, according to the French Education and Research ministry. A postdoctoral fellow at Stanford would stand to earn the equivalent of around €6,000 (about $6,685) a month in the United States. Still, there is interest. Of 1,600 people who responded to a March poll in the journal Nature — many of them Ph.D. or postdoctoral students in the United States — three out of four said they were considering leaving the country because of the Trump administration’s policies.
Read this article at New York Times - Subscribers Only
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Trump meets Syrian president, urges him to establish ties with Israel
U.S. President Donald Trump met with Syria's president in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and urged him to normalise ties with longtime foe Israel, after a surprise U.S. announcement that it would lift all sanctions on the Islamist-led government. Trump met Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa, who once pledged allegiance to al Qaeda and swept to power at the head of a group that Washington has called a terrorist organisation, before a summit between the United States and Gulf Arab countries.
Photos posted on Saudi state television showed them shaking hands in the presence of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan joined Trump and MbS virtually in the meeting, Turkey's Anadolu News Agency reported. Trump urged Sharaa to join the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, which normalised relations with Israel under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, the White House press secretary posted on X. The United States also hopes Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords, but discussions came to a halt after the Gaza war erupted and the kingdom insists there can be no normalisation without Palestinian statehood.
Read this article at Reuters - Subscribers Only
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Mexican security chief confirms cartel family members entered US in a deal with Trump administration
Mexico’s security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration. Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed a report by independent journalist Luis Chaparro that family members of Ovidio Guzman Lopez, who was extradited to the United States in 2023, had entered the U.S. Guzmán Lopez is one of the brothers left running a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel after notorious capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was imprisoned in the U.S. Video showed the family members walking across the border from Tijuana with their suitcases to waiting U.S. agents. Rumors had circulated last week that the younger Guzmán would plead guilty to avoid trial for several drug trafficking charges in the U.S. after being extradited in 2023.
Read this article at Associated Press - Subscribers Only
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Buttigieg, eyeing a presidential run, says ‘maybe’ Biden hurt Democrats
Pete Buttigieg said President Joe Biden’s decision to seek a second term “maybe” hurt Democrats and that “with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case.” But Biden’s former transportation secretary also tried to turn the page Tuesday night as he makes moves toward another presidential run in 2028, saying his party is “not in a position to wallow in hindsight” and using a packed town hall here to warn against counting on backlash to President Donald Trump in future elections. “There’s this theory out there that if we just kind of hang back, don’t do much, then the people in charge today will screw it up, and then they’ll get blamed for it, then we’ll win,” Buttigieg said Tuesday night. “I disagree.” The audience cheered. The town hall showcased Buttigieg’s vision for rebuilding the Democratic Party, hours after he suggested to an independent journalist that he would look at running in 2028. It also offered a glimpse of some potential challenges, including how he talks about his ex-boss Biden, who many in the party are still angry with over his decision to seek a second term.
Iowa is no longer Democrats’ first-in-the-nation caucus state where presidential campaigns are supercharged or deflated. But few think it is a coincidence that Buttigieg made his highest-profile public appearance since leaving government in the politically symbolic place where he pulled off an unlikely victory in 2020. The last time he was in Cedar Rapids, Buttigieg said at the town hall, he was working to “fix up” the local airport. “And last time I was here before that, I was sort of —” he paused — “winning the Iowa caucus.” Back then, in 2020, Buttigieg was the 38-year-old, openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana — a surprising standout in a Democratic primary field stocked with senators, billionaires and Biden. He raised his profile with a go-everywhere media strategy, narrowly beating Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) in the glitch-plagued Iowa caucuses before struggling in other early primary states and eventually throwing his support behind Biden. Now, after four years as Biden’s transportation secretary, Buttigieg is one of the most prominent politicians in a Democratic Party searching for leaders. Heading to Iowa this week, he dropped by a happy hour with some of the volunteers and staff from his 2020 campaign before joining the town hall hosted by a liberal veterans group, where he appealed heavily to the audience’s sense of patriotism and talked about teaching his young children about the values behind the American flag.
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Democrats pull off an upset in Nebraska, electing Omaha’s first Black mayor
John Ewing Jr. was elected Omaha’s first Black mayor on Tuesday, defeating the city’s three-term Republican mayor, Jean Stothert, in a race where Democrats sought to tie her to President Donald Trump’s unpopular agenda — another warning sign for Republicans in a critical battleground area. Omaha and its suburbs have played a unique role in national politics, as the “blue dot” in a conservative state that wields an unusual amount of power in presidential contests. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans in the city limits of Omaha, Stothert kept her seat over three terms by building a broad-based coalition that included the city’s many independent voters. But Ewing’s campaign and Democrats sought to tie her to economic uncertainty and anger about Trump, whom she backed in 2024. Ewing said Tuesday night that his victory belonged to “every resident of the city of Omaha” and that his campaign had demonstrated that when voters unite around shared values “we can achieve remarkable things.”
“Throughout this campaign, we’ve engaged in honest conversation about the challenges and the opportunities facing us and our city,” Ewing said, noting his focus on the need for affordable housing, living-wage jobs and “equitable economic development that revitalizes all neighborhoods, not just the select few.” “As your mayor, I am committed to addressing those challenges head-on,” Ewing said. “There are no excuses. We’re going to get it done.” In her concession speech, Stothert said she was proud of “twelve years of progress, determination and success.” “I am hopeful that the momentum that we have created will continue,” she said. “We have remained true to our goals from the very beginning of 2013 with great, great success to improve public safety, to manage the city budget and spend your tax dollars wisely, to increase employment and economic development and to improve the taxpayer experience.” The election was a fresh test of voter attitudes in a politically competitive slice of the country. The seat held by Stothert is technically nonpartisan, but disquiet over Trump’s agenda produced a surge of Democratic energy — reminiscent of the closer-than-expected special elections for Republican-held seats in Florida and a decisive victory for Democrats in the high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
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Birthright citizenship dispute at the Supreme Court has broad implications for Trump's agenda
The Supreme Court could give a major boost to the Trump administration's muscular use of executive power when it hears arguments Thursday over his plan to end birthright citizenship. The court is not actually using a trio of cases before it to give the final word on whether Trump can radically reinterpret the long-understood meaning of the Constitution's 14th Amendment. Instead, it will focus on the power of judges to block presidential policies across the country. Trump's plan to limit birthright citizenship to people born to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident is likely to ultimately be struck down, most legal experts say. The 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
But for now, the Supreme Court — which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three Trump appointees — is focusing only on the question of whether lower-court judges had the authority to block the policy nationwide, as three did in different cases. The administration and its allies have for months raged at judges for issuing "universal injunctions" that have stymied Trump's aggressive use of executive power. Republicans in Congress quickly introduced legislation on the issue, which was approved by the House of Representatives last month. It has not come up for a vote in the Senate. "Universal injunctions issued by district court judges ... continue to fundamentally thwart the president's ability to implement his agenda," a Justice Department official said Tuesday in a call with reporters. The administration sees such rulings as a "direct attack" on presidential power, the official added. There have been 39 such rulings so far during Trump's second term, according to the Justice Department. Injunctions have, among other things, blocked some federal funding cuts and federal employee firings instituted under the direction of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
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Trump officials balk at RFK Jr.’s attack on pesticides
A bid by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to label pesticides as a potential cause of U.S. health woes has attracted pushback from some White House and agency officials who are concerned the move would disrupt the food supply chain, according to people familiar with the debate. Kennedy, who is spearheading a coming report to “Make America Healthy Again,” wants to highlight what he views as the deleterious impact of pesticides, people familiar with the matter said. He previously campaigned on removing pesticides from the food supply. White House officials have raised concerns about the pesticide push and are closely reviewing the coming report, the people said, though it wasn’t clear where President Trump himself stood on the issue. And some officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides, and Agriculture Department have cast doubt on Kennedy’s desire to cast weedkillers as harmful to health.
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to investigate pesticides as part of an effort to win support from Kennedy’s backers. “Millions and millions of Americans who want clean air, clean water and a healthy nation have concerns about toxins in our environment and pesticides in our food,” Trump said at an Arizona rally with Kennedy in August, pledging to establish a panel of experts to work with Kennedy to investigate the causes of chronic health diseases. The report, due to be released May 22 in an event with Kennedy and MAHA influencers, is an overview of potential causes of chronic disease in children, including food, lack of exercise, use of technology and time spent looking at screens, pesticides, and the medical system. MAHA movement leaders are expected to preview the report at a Washington event Thursday. In particular, the report is expected to single out glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, made by Bayer, people familiar with the planning said. The report is also expected to call out atrazine, a herbicide used on grasses and corn, as possible problematic toxins, the people said. Glyphosate is controversial abroad, but can still be used in the European Union, which no longer permits the use of atrazine.
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Newsclips - May 13, 2025 |
Lead Stories
Fed official still bracing for economic shock despite China tariff pause
A temporary reprieve in trade tensions between the United States and China has reduced, but not eliminated, the odds of a shock to the economy that carries a whiff of stagflation, a top official at the Federal Reserve warned on Monday. Austan D. Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said tariffs and the uncertainty around President Trump’s policies still risked a combination of higher consumer prices and slower growth. Mr. Goolsbee welcomed the decision by the United States and China to lower tariffs on each other’s imported products for 90 days. But he said the temporary nature of the deal and the extent of the levies still in place would weigh significantly on the economy. “It is definitely less impactful stagflationarily than the path they were on,” Mr. Goolsbee, who is one of 12 Fed officials to vote on policy decisions this year, said in an interview. “Yet it’s three to five times higher than what it was before, so it is going to have a stagflationary impulse on the economy. It’s going to make growth slower and make prices rise.”
Under the agreement forged over the weekend, the United States reduced its tariff on Chinese imports to 30 percent from its current minimum 145 percent level, while China lowered its levy on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. Taking into account these reductions, as well as the tariffs that remain in place with nearly all of America’s trading partners, economists estimate that consumers still face an effective tariff rate of around 15 percent. The deal with China is the latest twist in what has been a tumultuous period for both the economy and global financial markets, as Mr. Trump has repeatedly changed which countries and products he wants to tariff and by how much. Before announcing the truce with China, the White House had also put in place a 90-day delay on so-called reciprocal tariffs that Mr. Trump had imposed on dozens of countries last month. These policies, plus shifting plans related to forthcoming tax cuts and other central pillars of Mr. Trump’s agenda, have upended forecasts for the economy. Officials at the Fed have for weeks warned that tariffs will stoke higher inflation and slower growth. What is unclear is the magnitude of the shock, which will depend on which tariffs will actually stay in place and for how long, as well as how consumers and businesses respond. Already, the uncertainty around these policies has started to have an impact. Surveys show that consumers have become increasingly downbeat about the economic outlook and that businesses are essentially frozen in place until there is more clarity about what Mr. Trump has planned.
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Proposals to require judges to deny bail more often advance through House panel, signaling a broader agreement
A Texas House committee on Monday approved a revised package of legislation to require judges to deny bail to some criminal defendants, signaling that lawmakers may be nearing a deal to finally pass one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s top priorities over three straight legislative sessions. The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee voted out two measures that would ask voters to amend the state Constitution to expand the list of violent offenses for which judges can deny bail, and to automatically deny bail to any undocumented immigrant accused of certain felonies. The panel also advanced an amended version of Senate Bill 9, which would enhance a 2021 state law that limited who is eligible for release from jail on a low-cost or cashless bond. Under the state Constitution, defendants, who are legally presumed innocent, are largely guaranteed the right to release before their cases are resolved — except in limited circumstances, such as when charged with capital murder.
The movement in the House suggests that top negotiators from both parties are closing in on an agreement with Abbott on a bail package that could muster the 100 votes needed in the House to put a constitutional amendment before voters. The package needs support from at least 12 House Democrats to pass if all 88 Republicans are on board. An agreement would likely clear away a legislative hurdle over which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had threatened to force a special session. Final approval by the Legislature would notch a massive victory for Abbott, who has made stiffening the state’s bail laws an emergency item for three consecutive sessions. Before this year, the effort died repeatedly in the House, with Democrats running out the clock or outright rejecting the proposals and denying the two-thirds support necessary to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. The bipartisan buy-in also reflects the shifting politics of crime and immigration that have aligned some Democrats more closely with Republicans on proposals that civil rights advocates had hoped would be rejected altogether. The expansiveness of the measures, too, reveals the extent to which state lawmakers, under Abbott and Patrick, have swung toward a tough-on-crime approach to criminal justice reform, away from the years-long effort in Texas to reduce mass incarceration and reduce wealth-based detention.
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A fierce critic of the Texas lottery is now offering the embattled agency a lifeline
One of the Texas Lottery's leading critics in the Legislature filed an 11th-hour bill Monday to keep the embattled agency alive, though the proposal would transfer its oversight from the Lottery Commission to another state agency. State Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, earlier in the legislative session proposed measures to abolish the revenue-generating, state-run gaming operation and make clear that no game tickets could be bought or sold online. On Monday, however, he filed Senate Bill 3070, which would allow the games of chance to continue under the auspices of the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation. The commission would also take over the operations of the state's charitable bingo games. In an interview after he filed the measure, Hall described SB 3070 as "an alternative" to shuttering the lottery and forgoing the revenue it brings to the state.
In an interview after he filed the measure, Hall described SB 3070 as "an alternative" to shuttering the lottery and forgoing the revenue it brings to the state. "It will be paring it down, limiting what (the lottery) can do," Hall said of the legislation. Under the bill, there would be limits on how many tickets can be purchased at one time by a player and that all sales would have to be made at a traditional "brick and mortar" retail store that is licensed to sell lottery tickets. And even though he filed the bill in the closing weeks of the legislative session, Hall said he expects quick action in the Senate. "It will be coming to the floor pretty quick," he said. Assuming it clears the Senate, the bill would have to be fast-tracked in the House to meet the legislative deadline. By turning the lottery over to the licensing and regulation agency, the five-member Lottery Commission would be dissolved. Both the members of the Lottery Commission and the Licensing and Regulation Commission are appointed by the governor and subject to confirmation of the Texas Senate.
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How Republican Medicaid cuts could impact Texas hospitals and patients
Texas hospitals are facing a freeze in billions of dollars in federal Medicaid funding under a budget proposal introduced by House Republican leaders Sunday night. Republicans are moving to limit access to a tax loophole that Texas and other states have used to tap extra Medicaid dollars for hospitals and medical providers. Texas hospitals would still be able to use so-called provider taxes to access higher federal reimbursements, but they couldn't be expanded, even as healthcare expenses continue to rise. "Ultimately it’s a cut to hospitals and other health care providers," said Darbin Wofford, deputy director of health care at the non-profit Third Way. "As hospitals costs grow and states want to increase base payments or supplemental payments, now you're tying the hands of the states."
The cuts come as House Republicans move to cut federal spending in line with President Donald Trump's plan to extend and expand tax cuts passed during his first term, which are set to expire later this year. The proposal Sunday also included a work requirements for Medicaid recipients, along with new protocols for patients to prove their eligibility. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, defended the proposal as strengthening Medicaid for, "for children, mothers, people with disabilities and the elderly—for whom the program was designed." Democrats attacked the move, citing analysis by the Congressional Budget Office the changes to Medicaid would result in 8.6 million Americans losing coverage. "These would be devastating cuts, especially in a tough economy that’s shrinking," said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. The Medicaid cuts did not go as far as many Republicans would have liked. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-San Antonio, criticized the budget proposal Monday morning as subsidizing, "healthy, able-bodied adults, corrupt blue states, and monopoly hospital CEOs." "I sure hope House & Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan…. because I’m not here to rack up an additional $20 trillion in debt over 10 years," he wrote.
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State Stories
U.S.-Mexico water treaty under scrutiny as drought persists in South Texas
Farmers in South Texas celebrated earlier this month when the Trump administration announced it had struck a deal with Mexico to increase water releases into the Rio Grande. But it was nowhere near what Texas farmers were owed. With drought ongoing on both sides of the border — conditions that are only expected to worsen with climate change — the future of the more than 80-year-old treaty governing water rights between the two countries appears increasingly unstable. Some Texas lawmakers say it's time to redraw the terms of the deal so Mexico has to release water more frequently. The river's water is use to sustain a more than $800 million farming industry in South Texas that ships grapefruits, onions and other produce around the country.
"This has been a longstanding problem," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said in an interview earlier this month. "The timing of water is critical to our farmers, so it doesn't do much good to get it at a time when frankly they don't need it as much." There's still a looming question about how much water will even be available to send. Scientists are projecting that not only will rainfall in South Texas and northern Mexico decline slightly in the decades ahead, but rising temperatures caused by climate change will increase evaporation rates, reducing the amount of water that ends up in the Rio Grande. "The Rio Grande is the most vulnerable river in Texas to climate change," said John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist. "When we look at projections, in most months the stream flow decreases. There's going to be months, one or two or four per decade, where the intensity in the rainfall increases the flow, but that's more erratic, which isn't good for farmers." The recent deal negotiated by the Trump calls for the release of more than 50,000 acre feet of water controlled by Mexico from the Amistad dam, along with an increase in water flows into the Rio Grande from seven tributaries on the Mexican side of the river, said Brian Jones, a farmer in Edcouch who sits on the board of the Texas Farm Bureau.
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Texas House votes to scrap STAAR exam in favor of shorter tests
The Texas House voted almost unanimously on Monday to scrap STAAR testing in favor of a series of shorter exams that public school students would take throughout the year. The plan, House Bill 4, is a priority for House Speaker Dustin Burrows that includes a replacement of STAAR as well as changes to the state’s A-F rating system for public schools. The plan would mark the most dramatic redesign of the state’s tests since STAAR was established in 2011 for public school students, including those in traditional ISDs and charters. State Rep. Brad Buckley, a Republican from Salado, said the lengthy tests don’t accurately measure knowledge or year-to-year growth and place too much pressure on students. His proposal cleared the chamber in a 143 to 1 vote with remarkably little debate for such a major bill, a signal of how discontent members of both parties have become with the tests.
“Today’s the day we return our schools into an environment where kids can learn and our teachers can teach,” Buckley said on the House floor to loud cheering from members of both parties. “This is something our school districts have been asking for for years.” The House must give final sign-off on Tuesday before the proposal heads to the Texas Senate, which has until the end of the month to consider the plan. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who presides over the chamber, hasn’t weighed in on the STAAR overhaul. If the bill passes that chamber and is signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, changes would come by the beginning of the next school year. The legislation calls for doing away with the lengthy end-of-year exams in favor of three much shorter tests given at the beginning, middle and end of each school year, known as through-year testing. The state has been piloting a small through-year program since 2021. The bill mandates the first test be given around October, the second in January or February and the last in late May, near the end of the school year. The test’s length would range from 60 to 90 minutes, depending on grade level.
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David Feigen: For Mother’s Day, the Texas Legislature should invest in childcare
(David Feigen is the director of early learning policy at Texans Care for Children.) Like so many other Texas mothers, Kassandra Gonzalez hustles every day. She’s up early in the morning to drop off her two-year-old at his childcare center, giving him a big hug before he runs in to play with his friends. Then, Kassandra’s on the road to Texas State, where she’s taking a full load of classes with the goal of becoming a physical therapist. After class, she heads to her full-time job at a clinic. As soon as her shift is done, Kassandra scoops up her son and they spend the evening together before she puts him to bed and hits the books. What keeps her going? Kassandra says it’s all about giving her son the life he deserves. The training and education to be a physical therapist will give her a more stable career and give her son a stronger future. Meanwhile, the high-quality early learning experience he’s getting at his childcare center — storytime with his teachers, enriching conversations, fun art projects — means that in a couple of years, he will start school with the skills he needs to thrive.
Each day is a high-wire act. She says there’s one thing in particular that makes it work: Her childcare scholarship. The state’s Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) runs a highly effective program that offers childcare scholarships to working parents on a tight budget, like Kassandra. I’ve spoken with so many Texas parents of the approximately 150,000 children who are receiving a scholarship today. Each story is unique, but they all have a similar message. They are so thankful that they have been able to go to school and work to provide for their family — and place their child in a safe, nurturing childcare program — thanks to the scholarship. Unfortunately, about 95,000 Texas families are on the waiting list for a scholarship according to the latest state date. In many cases, they could expect to be on the list for years. That’s a lifetime when you’re talking about childcare. While they sit on the waiting list, many of them are unable to work enough hours to provide for their family. Childcare in Texas typically costs about as much as in-state tuition at UT-Austin, putting it out of reach for so many families. Texas families — and many of the businesses having trouble recruiting a stable workforce — have been pushing the Legislature to action. Fortunately, the Texas Legislature has heard the message. In fact, legislators are close to taking an historic step to improve access to childcare for Texas families. The Texas House approved a $100 million investment in about 10,000 additional childcare scholarships like the one that Kassandra receives.
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Qatari jet Trump wants as Air Force One is at San Antonio International
The super-luxury jet President Donald Trump says he’s accepting this week as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar is at San Antonio International Airport — and could be converted into a temporary Air Force One in the city. Trump, who has long griped about the age of the current Air Force One fleet and Boeing Co.’s long-overdue delivery of two new jets it’s been working on at Port San Antonio since the first Trump administration, apparently is going his own way. It’s a move that’s raised concerns about costs, security and, now, foreign influence.
Trump toured the Qatari jet in February when it touched down in West Palm Beach, Fla. At the time, he told reporters he’s “not happy” with Boeing and that his administration was considering doing “something else. Since then, the plane, registered as P4-HBJ, has disappeared from most airplane tracking services. Adding to the mystery is the fact 747 landings are rare at San Antonio International. The last one, an Atlas Air cargo plane, was reported in July. There is no record of another 747 arriving or departing since then. But a Boeing 747-8 with the same white, gray and burgundy paint scheme as those flown by the Qatari royal family was seen outside ST Engineering’s giant orange hangars at San Antonio International in early May. It appeared to have its tail number hidden and there was extra security nearby. An airport spokesperson confirmed the 13-year-old craft was at the ST facility as recently as May 8. By then, it appeared to have been moved into one of ST’s hangars.
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Galveston may be the Houston region’s biggest buyer’s market as a wave of Airbnbs floods listings
Linda and Greg Stickline’s Galveston home is a vision of Victorian charm, with powder blue trim and intricate woodwork framing a wide front porch. Tall windows allow sunshine to filter inside, catching the light of an ornate chandelier anchoring a high-ceiling entryway and grand wood staircase. Before the couple moved into the home in 2012, they spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring the 100-year-old property, adding a modern kitchen and breezy backyard living space. But despite the home’s historic touches and its desirable location, the Sticklines haven’t been able to sell their six-bedroom home after more than 120 days on the market. And they’re not alone: the average Galveston home now sits on the market for over five months, as the beach town shifts into what may be the biggest buyer’s market in the Houston region. “We didn’t expect this,” said Linda Stickline, who has bought and sold multiple homes in the Houston area and Galveston over the years, always managing to sell quickly. Even after successful open houses, the Sticklines still haven’t received an offer. “This isn’t how it usually goes for us, so I think it’s a tough one.”
Although the $1.05 million asking price puts the home in the luxury range, the Sticklines’ broker, Tom Schwenk, said, “I don't think that the price is what's really stopping anyone anyway.” “Nobody’s really even looking,” Linda Stickline added. Sellers like the Sticklines are competing with a wave of vacation rentals hitting the market thanks to a surge in short-term rental owners looking to offload their properties. For some, the demands and costs of operating short-term rentals can outweigh the rewards. The number of homes for sale on Galveston Island has surged 42% in the past year – hitting about 1,000 listings in the first quarter, according to HAR. That’s more than double the number of homes for sale in the area two years ago, when there were just 431 homes for sale. The glut comes at a time of elevated mortgage rates and economic uncertainty, which have sidelined many buyers. Galveston now has nearly 17 months of housing supply, far beyond the 4 to 6 months considered a balanced market, according to the Houston Association of Realtors.
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Texas bill could eliminate Dallas’ equity and inclusion office
Dallas’ Office of Equity and Inclusion, which was heavily featured in the region’s human rights proposal required to host next year’s FIFA World Cup, could be on the chopping block if a Texas Senate bill intended to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion departments in local governments becomes law. “The core of this is getting back to the fundamentals of hiring and having the best person for the job,” said Rep. Stan Gerdes, R-Bastrop, who introduced the bill on Monday in the House’s State Affairs Committee. The bill was advanced out of committee. The legislation seeks to ensure governments hire, train and promote employees based on “merits and qualifications” instead of “things like race, gender, background and other social context,” Gerdes said.
In Dallas, the equity office has been at the helm of data analysis, guiding where and how the City Council invests money to progress efforts in southern Dallas, south of Interstate 30, to bring parity in the quality of life and infrastructure development neighbors in the northern half of the city are more accustomed to. The department also investigates discrimination in housing and employment and oversees the implementation of a plan to improve ADA infrastructure. Opponents of the bill say its language is vague and broad and could go beyond just eliminating the department. They worry that the bill’s language will reverse the progress local governments have made in addressing disinvestment and neglect in underserved and underrepresented communities, which have been exacerbated by local redlining policies. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Bazaldua said the bill imposes administrative burdens on the city and creates confusion regarding compliance. At the same time, the city is looking for ways to balance its budget, and eliminating the office could make that job a bit easier. In the city’s current budget, officials reduced funding for the department by 25% from the previous year’s allocation. The department at the moment has 19 positions, according to the city’s budget, and at least three positions were reclassified into other departments.
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Tarrant DA’s jail death stance questioned by A&M professors
The Tarrant County District Attorney’s interpretation of a state law mandating independent investigations of deaths in county jails would “gut” the statute, according to professors at the Texas A&M University School of Law. The District Attorney’s Office asked the Texas Attorney General’s Office in late March if the law requiring independent investigations into deaths in county jails applies only to those who die on jail premises. Such an interpretation would eliminate the need for an independent investigation if a person becomes hurt or ill in jail and dies at a hospital. At issue is Section 511.021 of the Texas Government Code, which directs the Texas Commission on Jail Standards to appoint an outside law enforcement agency to conduct an independent investigation into “the death of a prisoner in a county jail.”
Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells declined an interview request. His office sent the following statement: “This office is asking the Attorney General for guidance regarding the interpretation and application of a specific law.” While it previously told the Star-Telegram it is not advocating for either side of the issue, the District Attorney’s Office said in its request for opinion that the statute creates “debilitating staffing challenges” for sheriffs and investigating agencies, causing resources to be “needlessly” diverted to deaths that occur outside jail walls. Attorney General Ken Paxton did not respond to an interview request. In their brief, the A&M professors said the statute “requires an independent investigation of all deaths of individuals in the custody of a county jail.” The professors’ brief was one of 11 filed on the issue, all of which similarly requested the attorney general interpret the law in this manner. The Star-Telegram received them through an open records request to the attorney general’s office. Interpreting the law to only apply to people who die on jail property “would gut the investigation requirement of the Sandra Bland Act,” the brief states. Named after a Black woman who died in jail near Houston after being arrested over a traffic violation, the 2017 Sandra Bland Act sought to enshrine additional layers of accountability for how inmates are treated in jail, particularly those with mental health or intellectual disabilities. The professors countered an argument in the district attorney’s letter that narrows the scope of the law to people who are injured in a county jail and die offsite, saying this interpretation “would exempt the vast majority of deaths from any outside investigation.”
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Texas House OKs bill to expand medical marijuana provisions
A hefty expansion to the state’s narrow medical marijuana program won overwhelming approval in the Texas House on Monday, giving veterans broad access to THC treatments and raising the number of dispensaries allowed in the state. The bill also would nearly double the number of medical conditions non-veterans would now be eligible for treatment under the Texas Compassionate Use Program. That state initiative allows doctors to prescribe low-dose tetrahydrocannabinol – known as THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana plans — in cannabis oil or edibles. Military veterans would be given special access, and their doctors would be allowed under the law to prescribe low-dose THC for conditions that are not on the state’s list. The Texas Department of State Health Services also is given latitude in the bill to identify other conditions that may be added.
House Bill 46, by Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, was approved on a 118-16 vote, prompting a cheer to rise from the House floor. It is expected to get final approval on Tuesday. The Texas Senate has passed its own version of a more broad program, allowing 11 dispensaries and letting them store off-site. It does not add anything new to the list of qualifying conditions. The legislation now heads into negotiations between the House and Senate over differences in the two versions. If they can come to a compromise, the deal will be sent to the governor’s desk. “This is an amazing alternative to addictive, harmful opioids, which we know is a huge problem. This bill empowers individuals and families to avoid those dangerous drugs,” said Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston. “I am glad today that we’re voting for our veterans, rural communities and working families and taking a serious step against dangerous opioids.” About 12,000 people are involved in Texas’s Compassionate Use Program, which is run by the Department of Public Safety. The medical conditions covered by the program include post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, cancer and multiple sclerosis. There are only three dispensaries in the state, and they are not allowed to store their inventory in off-site facilities.
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Trials using psychedelic drug to treat trauma, addiction endorsed by Texas Legislature
U.S. Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, who once rescued three dozen people during a battle in the war-torn mountains of Afghanistan, was still in his 20s when the trauma came for him. Alcoholism, flashbacks, rages and midnight panic attacks wrecked his life, his marriage and his ability to parent his daughters. Then the Medal of Honor recipient traveled to Mexico to be treated with ibogaine — a centuries-old psychoactive drug derived from a plant indigenous to Central Africa, increasingly viewed by the medical and science community as the next big hope in trauma, depression, addiction and brain injury treatment. Meyer underwent one treatment session in 2019. And his life changed, almost overnight.
“It’s like going through years of therapy in one sitting. It’s a hard reset,” Meyer said in a recent committee hearing. “I‘ve never had an anxiety attack since. It saved my life. It gave my daughters their dad. And I’m now serving as a firefighter, as an author, and an entrepreneur, and a contributing citizen to my community. I’m present, I’m purposeful and I’m alive.” Now, Meyer and other advocates of ibogaine are pushing to bring clinical trials to Texas not only to help traumatized veterans and addicts who would participate, but also to build on the state’s vast medical research network to eventually make the treatment available in the U.S. On Monday, the Texas House overwhelmingly endorsed the idea with the 141-2 passage of a bill that would fund a grant program for research and medical trials of the treatment. “Texas stands at a crossroads, facing a tidal wave of heartbreak. Families torn apart by opioid addiction, veterans haunted by invisible scars and countless lives dimmed by despair,” said Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, the bill’s House sponsor. “Ibogaine could be their miracle.”
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Texas takes aim at ‘swipe’ fees, drawing ire from banks, credit issuers
Separate bills making their way through the Texas Legislature have banks and consumer advocates on edge, posing challenges to the state’s financial infrastructure and its pro-business bent. At issue are two sets of bills regulating credit card processing fees, which collectively set a record of nearly $188 billion last year, according to Nielsen Report data. While they can cost individuals hundreds of dollars per year in transaction fees, that money helps fund credit card perks and rewards programs that consumers have embraced. Texas’ efforts to regulate the fees may seem in the weeds, but proponents of the bill, like the Texas Restaurant Association, argue the fees are a burden for both consumers and merchants alike. Meanwhile, some critics say the downstream effects could seep into the everyday financial affairs of consumers — and risk Gov. Greg Abbott’s carefully cultivated pro-business stance.
The legislation has brought together an unlikely coalition of skeptics, including the leader of the largest bank in America. In a wide-ranging interview in March with reporters and editors from The Dallas Morning News, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that he was “very bullish” on Texas. Still, the Wall Street veteran warned that various efforts in the Lone Star State to reform consumer banking “should be very thoughtfully done. Fix the problem, but don‘t make it so that banks don‘t want to bank here.” Credit card purchases involve at least a few parties: card-issuing institutions, banks and the firms accepting the payments on behalf of the merchants (the acquiring banks). Major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and others are often involved on both sides, but there are also specialized services. Credit brands like American Express and Discover often serve as their own issuing banks. Meanwhile, firms like Fiserv and Stripe can serve as payment processors, a tech-based role that facilitates electronic transactions, and acquiring banks. When you swipe your card at a store, the store’s acquiring bank pays your issuing bank an interchange (or swipe) fee, which covers the cost of maintaining the credit card’s infrastructure and the risk banks incur by extending credit, among other things.
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Texas House passes $315 million bill focused on students' early literacy, math skills
Texas lawmakers are seeking to support kindergarten readiness and bolster literacy and numeracy skills with legislation aimed at improving students’ reading and math knowledge in earlier grade levels. House Bill 123, which the lower chamber passed Wednesday with overwhelming bipartisan support, builds on previous legislation aimed at increasing teacher training and providing supports for students. The $315 million proposal would revise requirements for teachers to attend and complete literacy and numeracy academies and require skills assessments for students in Kindergarten through third grade. The bill would also mandate tutoring interventions for certain students, based on their performance on the assessments.
Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, said the bill supports programming meant to strengthen basic skills for students early on to set them up for success later in their academic careers. “Between Pre-K and third grade, you learn to read, and after that, you read to learn,” Dutton said. “If you never learn to read, reading to learn is going to become next to impossible.” Only 41% of third graders met state standards for math and 49% met state standards in reading in 2024, according to results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test. While reading has largely recovered from pandemic-era lows, math scores for third-grade students in Texas continue to struggle to meet pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, 48% of third graders met state standards. Some lawmakers raised concerns about increased mandates to test students. Required testing is a persistent debate among Texas parents, some of whom worry that state-required standardized tests can place undue stress on students.
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Ed Hirs: Texas is failing to fix the grid (again)
(Hirs is a finance professional and economist in energy markets.) In Texas, electricity generating companies have no incentive to build enough power plants to keep the state online during periods of high demand – think hot August days or a winter freeze. For more than 25 years, the Texas Legislature has done nothing to address this fatal design flaw. The Texas grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, is an “electricity only” grid, meaning generators only earn revenue when they are actively feeding electricity to the grid. It also means ERCOT, the only purchaser of electricity in the wholesale market, only buys electricity on a minute-by-minute basis, without regard for the investment that is needed to power the state’s growing economy. Before committing to build a natural gas power plant today, a company has to question what the ERCOT market will look like in the five years or more it will take to build the plant (which just got more expensive due to steel tariffs and a five-year backlog for gas turbines). Wind and solar farms require zero-cost fuel and few employees, so they will continue to displace more expensive coal and natural gas power plants in this minute-by-minute calculus. The obvious problem is that electricity from wind and solar farms is intermittent. Utility scale batteries will solve that problem in time, but not today.
Because the Texas government has consistently turned down commercial offers from investment groups to build new natural gas power plants, the state by default has gone all-in on the wind and solar farms that have exploded across the landscape. So what’s the Legislature doing? Of the bills pending now, one would require wind and solar farms to contract for backup supply from dispatchable power plants or batteries. But there already are too few coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants to satisfy peak demand in Texas, and there’s certainly not enough to backstop the growing supply of wind and solar. The bill’s requirement cannot be met in a timely manner. Is the Legislature’s preferred solution really to impede wind and solar growth when everyone in Austin knows only wind and solar power helped the state avoid rolling blackouts over the past two summers and winters? The cost of this requirement would be borne by the new wind and solar farms, rather than spread across all consumers – making less investment in all modes of generation more likely just when the state needs more electricity. Another newly introduced bill that would provide hundreds of millions of tax dollars to nuclear power development is a tax-and-spend boondoggle. If started today, it would be years before new nuclear power could be added to the Texas grid. Texans need solutions now.
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National Stories
Trump’s Middle East trip marked by potential private business conflicts
President Donald Trump kicks off the first major international trip of his second term Tuesday in a region where his family business has grown significantly in recent months, presenting his administration with more potential conflicts of interest than ever. The president’s sons, who head the Trump Organization, have spent the last few weeks crisscrossing the Middle East, laying the groundwork for deals that will benefit the company and, in some instances, Trump himself. Government watchdogs, presidential historians and other critics say it is an escalation of unethical and even unconstitutional conflicts between the interests of the United States and its president. A week before Trump was scheduled to land in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, his son, Eric, spoke to a crowded convention center in Dubai about the Trump Organization’s plans to build an 80-floor hotel and residential tower there. He boasted that the “incredible icon” would “redefine luxury” and have the highest infinity-edge pool in the world, overlooking the towering Burj Khalifa building.
“On behalf of myself, on behalf of my family,” he said, “we love Dubai. … We have such a great relationship between the United States and just one of the greatest places and I’m glad to call so many of you friends.” Trump’s relationship with the Gulf states offers insight into the instincts of a lifelong businessman who has made a career of selling. Trump has notably declined to duplicate his first-term pledge to not advance his personal business interests from the White House, but he has also managed to evade efforts by Congress and the courts to rein in his potential conflicts. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have appeared at events in the region to advance deals including cryptocurrency and luxury penthouses, signaling the family intends to continue to pursue international deals even as Trump leads U.S. foreign policy in the region. Qatar, where Trump is scheduled to visit Wednesday, has previously paid his attorney general, FBI director and head of the Environmental Protection Agency, among others, to lobby or consult on behalf of the country and its royal family, a Washington Post review of Foreign Agents Registration Act filings and disclosures found. Trump himself has appeared unconcerned about conflicts of interest. On Monday, he spoke glowingly of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet gifted from Qatar, which would become Air Force One for the duration of his presidency and then turned over to his presidential library foundation.
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Trump’s gifted Qatari 747 would be a security problem, officials say
President Donald Trump on Monday praised Qatar for offering his administration a free luxury jet, but current and former U.S. military, defense and Secret Service officials said he will likely have to waive existing security specifications to be able to use the plane. Trump said he would be a “stupid person” not to accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8, and called it a “great gesture” by Qatar. The president said that he intended to use the plane for a “couple of years” while his administration waits for a pair of Boeing planes to be completed to the strict military standards befitting Air Force One. A White House official said it was premature to say how long upgrades to the Qatari plane could take. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, like others interviewed, also declined to say when the Trump administration expects to take possession.
Flight records show that the Qatari jet was moved five weeks ago to San Antonio International Airport, suggesting that preparations for improvements might already be underway. The Wall Street Journal first reported this month that Trump had commissioned defense contractor L3Harris to retrofit the Qatari plane in Texas. ABC News reported Sunday that the plane would be transferred to the Trump administration as a gift. The lavishly appointed double-decker jet — originally purchased for use by the Qatari royal family — left Doha on March 30, making a stop at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and then at Bangor International Airport in Maine on April 2, according to Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the flight tracking service FlightRadar24. The plane then flew to San Antonio the next day. Trump emphasized Monday that the Qatari jet is a significantly newer plane than the ones currently available for the president’s use, which — although fitted with state-of-the-art defensive countermeasures, in-flight refueling capability and secure communications equipment — date to the George H.W. Bush administration in the 1990s. “You know, we have an Air Force One that’s 40 years old. And if you take a look at that, compared to the new plane … it’s not even the same ballgame,” Trump told reporters. “You look at some of the Arab countries and the planes they have parked alongside of the United States of America plane — it’s like from a different planet.”
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Trump drug pricing proposal puts GOP senators in a tough spot
An executive order from President Trump aims to make deep cuts to prescription drug costs, putting GOP lawmakers who have traditionally opposed government-directed drug pricing in a tough position. Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) and Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso (Wyo.), have warned in the past that directing the federal government to set drug prices will slow innovation and limit patients’ access to lifesaving therapies. Now they’re in the tough position of having to respond to Trump’s latest move, which would cut deeply into pharmaceutical companies’ profits.
The industry, which contributes generously to members of both parties, warns that Trump’s proposed reform could jeopardize hundreds of billions of dollars in research and development investments. Thune on Monday said that Trump’s executive order would be “fairly controversial” if put into legislation on Capitol Hill, reflecting his party’s longtime skepticism of using Medicare’s huge buying power to pressure drug companies to lower prices. “My assumption is that would be fairly controversial up here if we were doing it … legislatively,” Thune said of Trump’s executive order on drug pricing. Trump’s executive order directs the secretary of Health and Human Services to work with the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to “communicate most-favored-nation price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to bring prices for American patients in line with comparably developed nations.” It would cover drugs offered under Medicare and Medicaid, as well as those offered under private insurance.
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Newark Liberty Airport suffers third system outage in less than 2 weeks, impacting hundreds of flights
Yet another equipment outage at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) caused widespread delays and a ground stop over the weekend. The Federal Aviation Administration said the third outage in less than two weeks happened Sunday morning after a backup air traffic control system momentarily failed. The FAA confirmed the latest system outage, but unlike the previous two out of the Philadelphia facility that controls Newark Liberty's operations, this one involved a momentary failure of a backup system, which prompted a 45-minute ground stop to ensure that system was back up and running properly. While the FAA said operations returned to normal, there was a domino effect with flights.
As of late Sunday night, there were more than 250 delays and at least 80 cancellations, impacting domestic and international flights. The one saving grace appears to be Mother's Day has resulted in less crowds at Terminal B. In addition to the system outages, Newark Liberty is also dealing with air traffic control staffing shortages. However, officials are assuring travelers that flights in and out of Newark are safe. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says a fix for the airport's problems is on the way, but in the coming weeks the number of flights will be cut. "We're going to have this reduced capacity at Newark. I'm convening a meeting of all the airlines that serve Newark, get them to agree on how they're gonna reduce the capacity," Duffy said. "We are building a new line that goes directly from Newark to the Philly TRACON, which controls the New York airspace. What happens now is it goes from Newark to N90, which is where it used to be controlled, and then down to Philly. That doesn't make sense. We're gonna have a direct line there." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the feds need to prioritize fixing the situation at Newark Liberty before the problems start popping up elsewhere.
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Democrats kick off 2028 shadow primary with contrasting styles
The shadow Democratic presidential primary is kicking off, with potential contenders ramping up their appearances in key battleground states. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is slated to take part in a VoteVets town hall in the early-contest state of Iowa on Tuesday, while Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) is set to headline the South Carolina Democratic Party’s Blue Palmetto Dinner later this month. And Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) attended a town hall in the critical swing county of Bucks County, Pa., on Saturday. The visits come as Democrats struggle to form a cohesive message in the second Trump era following a slew of losses in 2024. But the party’s strategists argue the emerging shadow primary is not as much about ideology but rather about who can land the most effective punch against Republicans.
“That’s where you’re seeing some of the cream rise to the top,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris. “Who understands this moment, can command attention and can move the ball forward?” Democrats have grappled with how to respond to President Trump and Republicans’ control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, but some of the potential 2028 hopefuls have already begun showcasing their responses. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) called for “mass protests, mobilization, and disruption” against the Trump administration, saying last month that “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has taken a different approach. While Whitmer has been critical of Trump, she notably worked closely with him and Michigan Republicans to secure funding for Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Last month, Whitmer greeted Trump with a hug on the tarmac when he traveled to the state to announce the funding.
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White South Africans granted refugee status by Trump administration arrive in US
A flight carrying a group of 59 White South Africans granted refugee status by the Trump administration arrived in the United States on Monday. They were the first people to be granted refugee status by the Trump administration and are not expected to be the last Afrikaners to come to the US. The South Africans, including children, were greeted upon their arrival at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia by US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar. The Trump administration has moved to not only admit but to expedite the processing of Afrikaners as refugees for alleged discrimination. At the same time, it has suspended all other refugee resettlement, including for people fleeing war and famine.
The policy of exempting only White South Africans from the indefinite pause has drawn criticism from the South African government and from refugee advocates. Landau told the new arrivals that the US was “excited” to have them, adding, “We respect what you had to deal with these last few years.” He noted that many of them are farmers and likened them to “quality seeds” that would hopefully “bloom” in the US. “We underscored for them that the American people are a welcoming and generous people, and we underscored the importance of assimilation into the United States, which is one of the very important factors that we look to in refugee admissions,” Landau told reporters after greeting the group. Landau claimed the Afrikaners had been “subject to very serious, egregious and targeted threats” and accused the South African government of failing to act. “The South African government has not done what we feel is appropriate to guarantee the rights of these citizens to live in peace with their fellow South Africans, which is why, under our domestic law, they were given refugee status,” Landau said.
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Newsclips - May 12, 2025 |
Lead Stories
Can Florida’s school vouchers program be a preview for Texas?
When Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ billion-dollar school voucher plan into law this month, he said the program would immediately become one of the biggest in the nation. But Texas isn’t the first big state to launch a universal private school choice plan. In 2023, Florida lawmakers expanded an existing school voucher program, making every student in the state eligible to apply. Two years later, Florida’s program offers a preview of where Texas may be headed. Since the expansion, Florida’s program has been massively popular. This year, the number of Florida students receiving school vouchers surpassed 500,000. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that total represents about a third of the school vouchers awarded nationwide.
But that growth carries a high price tag. As students opt for private schools, school districts lose revenue. School leaders in Florida say shrinking budgets are already leading to program cuts, teacher layoffs and larger class sizes. Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ new education savings account program into law earlier this month. The $1 billion voucher-like program will give families roughly $10,000 to put toward private school tuition. All students in the state are eligible to apply, as long as they are U.S. citizens or were admitted into the country lawfully. The bill had a long road to Abbott’s desk. Republican leaders have made the policy a priority for years, but they ran up against opposition from Democrats and rural Republicans, who worried such a program would drain money from public schools. But after a bill failed to pass the Texas House of Representatives in 2023, Abbott supported a slate of primary challengers looking to unseat anti-voucher Republicans. At a May 3 signing ceremony in Austin, Abbott told a crowd of supporters that the program would give families more freedom to decide how they want their children educated. The Texas plan immediately joins Florida’s as one of the nation’s biggest school choice programs. Florida has two main private school choice programs: Florida Tax Credit Scholarships and Family Empowerment Scholarships, both of which families can use to pay private school tuition. Both programs were originally targeted at helping students from low-income families get out of failing public schools. But in 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill eliminating eligibility requirements, opening the program up to all students in the state.
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U.S. and China agree to temporarily slash tariffs in bid to defuse trade war
The United States and China said Monday they reached an agreement to temporarily reduce the punishing tariffs they have imposed on each other while they try to defuse the trade war threatening the world’s two largest economies. In a joint statement, the countries said they would suspend their respective tariffs for 90 days and continue negotiations they started this weekend. Under the agreement, the United States would reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to 30 percent from its current 145 percent, while China would lower its import duty on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. “We concluded that we have a shared interest,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a news conference in Geneva where U.S. and Chinese officials met over the weekend. “The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling,” he said.
China said it will suspend or revoke countermeasures adopted in retaliation for escalating tariffs. In early April, the Chinese government had ordered restrictions on the export of rare earth metals and magnets, critical components used by many industries, including automakers, aerospace manufacturers and semiconductor firms. Mr. Bessent said the two countries may discuss purchase agreements of American goods by the Chinese government. Such a deal could help narrow the American trade deficit with China. The agreement, for now, breaks an impasse that had brought much trade between China and the United States to a halt. Many American businesses had suspended orders, holding out hope that the two countries could strike a deal to lower the tariff rates. Economists have warned that the trade dispute will slow global growth, fuel inflation and create product shortages, potentially tipping the United States into a recession. Chinese factories also experienced a sharp decline in export orders to the United States, heaping additional pressure on a sluggish economy. Chinese producers looked to expand trade to Southeast Asia and other regions to circumvent the U.S. tariffs.
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Texas faces major housing market correction as prices drop across state
The Texas housing market is undergoing a substantial correction, driven by a combination of oversupply, declining demand and persistent affordability issues. "We need to talk about Texas. Listings just hit 123,000 in April 2025. 53 percent higher than normal. And prices are now dropping across the state," Nick Gerli, a real estate analyst and the CEO of Reventure App, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday. He warned that Texas is now the fourth most oversupplied housing market in the United States. Newsweek contacted the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office for comment on Friday via email outside of regular office hours. Texas experienced a significant migration boom during the pandemic, attracting new residents with the promise of affordability, space and lower taxes. In 2022, net domestic migration brought 222,100 new residents to the state. However, by 2024, that number fell to 85,200, a 62 percent decline, according to Gerli. Additionally, Texas led the nation in homebuilding, issuing 15 percent of the country's new-home permits in 2024. But as population growth slowed and high mortgage rates locked out potential buyers, the increased supply outpaced demand, resulting in downward pressure on prices in major metropolitan areas such as Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
Gerli argued the housing inventory increase is primarily fueled by three factors: a wave of resale of newly constructed homes, a decline in migration into the state and a growing number of locals being priced out of the market. "Values are down -0.7 percent over the last year, and have dropped -1.6 percent from the middle of 2022," Gerli wrote on X, adding in a separate post. "Buyer demand keeps dropping, and listings keep rising." According to data from Norada Real Estate Investments, home prices in 31 Texas metropolitan areas are expected to decline by the end of the year. Austin, one of the hardest-hit markets, is projected to experience a 0.4 percent home price drop by October. The city has also seen a 20.4 percent fall in home values from peak pandemic highs, Gerli said, adding, "That's the biggest metro-level correction in America in that timespan."
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Republicans’ partial tax plan estimated to cost $5 trillion
An early version of the House GOP’s tax plan would cost nearly $5 trillion, according to a new estimate from Congress’s nonpartisan tax scorekeeper. The cost far exceeds what is permitted by the budget resolution Republicans adopted earlier this year, which set the parameters for the massive package of tax cuts and extensions, energy policy and border security investments the party wants to pass in the coming weeks. The estimate, released Saturday evening by the Joint Committee on Taxation, also underscores how much hinges on the final details of the plan, which are likely to be unveiled Monday afternoon ahead of a scheduled Tuesday markup by the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.). The House Republican-approved budget allows for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts — contingent on the GOP being able to find $2 trillion in spending cuts. Speaker Mike Johnson indicated last week that House Republicans are looking at a skinnier, $4 trillion tax plan, paired with $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.
The partial text of the tax proposal released by the Ways and Means late Friday would make permanent the individual income tax rates, which are otherwise due to expire at the end of the year. It also would extend and temporarily boost far-reaching tax benefits like the standard deduction and the Child Tax Credit. But this early, so-called skinny version of the tax bill is otherwise silent on President Donald Trump’s biggest tax priorities he touted on the campaign trail, like his proposal to eliminate taxes on tips. It also bears no mention of the expensive business provisions that Republicans want to restore. The tax plan also doesn’t at this point include any mention of the state and local tax deduction prized by blue state Republicans in swing districts. Last week, a contingent of House Republicans from New York, New Jersey and California indicated that despite weeks of negotiations it was nowhere close to an agreement to lift the $10,000 cap on the deduction. Republicans established that cap in 2017, which helped raise an enormous amount of revenue for the massive tax bill of Trump’s first administration.
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State Stories
HISD teachers will make the same pay next school year unless new Texas bill funds raises
Houston ISD plans to pay its teachers in the 2025-26 school year the same as this school year, unless an anticipated Texas Senate bill gives teachers raises. Starting pay for a first-year teacher at a non-New Education System reform school will remain at $64,000. Senate Bill 26, authored by Houston-area state Sen. Brandon Creighton, would bring HISD teachers with three to four years of experience $2,500 raises and teachers with at least five years of experience would receive $5,500. In all, the bill would bring $38 million to the state's largest district by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles' estimation. The compensation manual for 2025-26 at this time does not reflect this expected increase. "If that's the case, we will change the comp manual to increase," Miles said of the expected increase in early April. "Right now, if you look at our comp manual... the salary schedule that's in there right now is going to be the same as this year. Because I don't want to say it's going to go up (amounts in the bill) unless the state legislature passes."
The district has not yet released its compensation plan for the upcoming school year despite Miles saying in early April it would be released in mid-April. Like the prior school year, the district's 2025-26 compensation plan will list higher salaries for New Education System (NES) teachers executing Miles' reforms than those outside the system. NES elementary teachers make an average of $75,478 with zero to two years of experience, while NES middle and high school teachers make averages of $80,059 and $82,780 with that same level of experience, according to the 2024-25 compensation plan. Teachers outside of the 130 NES schools, comprising about half the district, will receive a 10-month salary starting pay of $64,000. Their salary schedule is based on years of experience with incremental boosts in pay, where a three-year teacher on a 10-month salary makes $65,500, a five-year teacher makes $66,000 and a 10-year teacher makes $69,000. Special education teachers outside the system are on a salary schedule based on years of experience, the 2024-25 compensation plan shows. The district will move away from experience-based salary schedules and link compensation to performance in 2026-27, which Miles called the largest school district pay-for-performance program in the nation and one of "the few true pay-for-performance plans in the nation." Under that system, a teacher could make as much as around $100,000. Evaluations conducted in 2025-26 will determine teachers' pay the following year.
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New role would boost Jasmine Crockett as face of Democrats’ opposition to Trump
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett may run for a new position that would super-charge her prominent role among Democrats pushing back on President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. The sophomore Dallas congresswoman has been sounding out colleagues about succeeding Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Connolly is battling esophageal cancer and not running for reelection. He turned the ranking position over to Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts on an interim basis. While Crockett and other Democrats say that means there is no official race for the position now, those interested have begun testing the waters.
Crockett is the panel’s vice ranking member and a recent subcommittee hearing on transgender athletes in women’s sports served as a preview of how she might handle the top spot. She accused Republicans of focusing on transgender athletes to deflect attention from broader policy goals and shield the Trump administration from legitimate investigations. “Don’t let these hearings distract you from their destruction,” Crockett said. “This is rage baiting instead of conducting oversight over the issues that Americans actually care about.” If Democrats regain the House majority in the midterm elections in 2026, the ranking member would be in a position to take over as chair of the committee and to be a significant thorn in the administration’s side. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was seen as a candidate who could have cleared the field, but she took herself out of consideration. Crockett said late last week the situation became more complicated after a more senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, indicated he might seek the post.
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Texas House bill would expand state's medical marijuana program
David Bass served in the Army for 25 years and retired as a major. When he returned from Iraq, he said he had strange symptoms that he did not understand. "I was hyper vigilant, had trouble sleeping, had nightmares about some things that happened in Iraq," Bass said. Doctors diagnosed Bass with post-traumatic stress disorder, and he turned to medical cannabis for help. "Cannabis controlled the symptoms of paranoia, anger outbursts. I sleep perfectly for eight hours every night. The nightmares about Iraq went away," Bass said. Dr. Matthew Brimberry is a palliative care physician in Austin. When it comes to his patients, he likens the effects of medical cannabis to a "series of small miracles." "They're able to have a better life without all that sedating medication," Dr. Brimberry said. Now, Bass and Dr. Brimberry are focused on helping other patients and say House Bill 46 would help more people. The bill is up for a House vote on Monday.
The bill allows patients to use products like cannabis patches and lotions as well as prescribed inhalers and vaping devices. If it passes, the list of qualifying conditions would also expand. People suffering from chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, Crohn's disease or degenerative disc disease could benefit. The bill also lets licensed dispensing organizations open more satellite locations, which advocates say could save patients time and energy. The bill would also allow DPS to issue more dispensing licenses. "We have patients that are in the Panhandle and in West Texas and have a hard time getting their medicine," Dr. Brimberry said. "Cannabis is medicine, so let's treat it as medicine. And so for me and many other veterans, cannabis has been life-changing," Bass said. Now, there is a hope to expand the list of changed lives. If passed, the bill goes into effect on Sept. 1.
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Texas considers new penalties for zoo trespassers under proposed legislation
Bills introduced in the Texas House and Senate would create a new criminal offense for trespassing in animal enclosures at zoos, aquariums and other facilities that house animals. HB 1720 and SB 2969 propose that a person who knowingly enters an animal's enclosure without legal authority or the facility’s consent would be guilty of a state jail felony. The legislation specifically targets areas designed to restrict access and contain animals for their protection and the safety of the public. The bill further increases penalties if the trespasser harasses the animal, resulting in injury or death. In those cases, the offense would be elevated to a third-degree felony.
The bill is a bipartisan effort. Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, introduced the bill in the House, and Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, filed the companion bill in the Senate. Zoo break-ins have occurred in Texas fairly recently, particularly in Dallas. Two years ago, a man broke into the Dallas Zoo and stole two emperor tamarins from their enclosure. The man allegedly hopped the zoo's fence at night and cut a mesh barrier to enter the monkeys' habitat. He was also accused of cutting a fence to release a clouded leopard named Nova. The monkeys and leopard were all found safe, but the man accused faced six counts of animal cruelty. In 2024, he was found incompetent to stand trial on those charges, but still faces two burglary charges. The bill outlines limited legal defenses, including if a person entered an enclosure to assist someone in distress or to protect an animal. If passed, the legislation would take effect on Sept. 1, 2025.
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Houston pitcher McCullers receives death threats directed at his children after tough start
Houston pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. said he received online death threats directed at his children after his tough start Saturday night against the Cincinnati Reds. McCullers, who was making just his second start since Game 3 of the 2022 World Series, allowed seven runs while getting just one out in Houston’s 13-9 loss. Afterward, McCullers said he had received the threats on social media. “I understand people are very passionate and people love the Astros and love sports, but threatening to find my kids and murder them is a little bit tough to deal with,” he said. “So just as a father I think there have been many, many threats over the years aimed at me mostly, and I think actually one or two people from other issues around baseball actually had to go to jail for things like that. But I think bringing kids into the equation, threatening to find them or next time they see us in public, they’re gonna stab my kids to death, things like that, it’s tough to hear as a dad.”
The Astros said that the Houston Police Department and MLB security had been alerted to the threats. McCullers and his wife Kara have two young daughters. A visibly upset manager Joe Espada addressed the threats at his postgame news conference and added that they were also threatening the pitcher’s life. “There are people who are threatening his life and the life of his kids because of his performance,” Espada said. “It is very unfortunate that we have to deal with this. After all he’s done for this city, for his team, the fact that we have to talk about that in my office — I got kids too and it really drives me nuts that we have to deal with this. Very sad, very, very sad.” McCullers, who has had numerous injuries that have kept him off the field in the last couple of seasons, said it’s difficult to have to deal with threats on top of trying to return to form on the mound.
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Texas Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit over 2018 Home Depot shooting that killed Dallas officer
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit determining whether an off duty Dallas police officer’s conduct was within the scope of his employment. The higher court’s decision reinforces the legal protections for police officers when performing official duties – even while off-duty – and protects businesses and individuals from civil claims if a police officer is injured when responding to suspected crimes. A central issue in the case was whether off-duty Dallas police officer Chad Seward, who was working as a security guard for Hope Depot at the time, was performing official police duties when he confirmed a warrant on Armando Luis Juarez, who opened fire on officers soon after.
“Objectively, Seward was doing his job and performing his peace-officer duties to prevent or suppress a specific offense against property that he had reasonable suspicion a person in his presence was committing or about to commit,” Justice John Devine wrote on behalf of the court. In an opinion released Friday, Devine argued Seward had reasonable suspicion that Juarez was committing theft. He also said that under Texas law, an officer has a “statutory duty” to interfere and prevent a suspected crime – even when off duty and in private employment. The higher court also agreed to adopt a principle known as the “firefighter’s rule.” It's a legal restriction that prevents emergency responders from suing over things that happen in the line of duty and protects Home Depot from suit. Scott Palmer -- an attorney for the Santander family called the rule dangerous for first responders in an email to KERA News.
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Dallas Morning News Editorial: A life-saving tool stalled, again, in the Texas Senate
The Texas Senate can’t get past a psychological hurdle that will help with fentanyl overdose deaths. A bill legalizing fentanyl test strips is, again, lingering after approval in the House. Despite support from Gov. Greg Abbott, this bill’s fate is written. Too bad; we could’ve saved some lives. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who decides what bills get heard in the Senate, has so far shown no interest. There is also a belief among some members of the Texas GOP that testing strips somehow incentivize addiction, at least this is what we heard in 2023, when a similar proposal cleared the House but was later ignored by the upper chamber. State Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, and chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, did not respond to our request for comment regarding this bill. Other members remain uncommitted on the subject.
The Texas House is a different story. House Bill 1644, by state Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, passed unanimously last month. Oliverson’s bill would legalize testing equipment for fentanyl and xylazine — a veterinary sedative commonly used with illicit drugs — from the list of banned drug paraphernalia. Oliverson, a physician, believes that testing strips are like mine detectors. “Most of the people in our state who have been and are still dying from fentanyl overdose are dying because they didn’t know they were coming into contact with fentanyl,” he told his colleagues at the House. The one-pill-can-kill epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 Texans since 2019. The good news is that overdose deaths nationwide are down and, in Texas, there is a 43% decrease in fentanyl-related deaths since 2023. This was the result of awareness campaigns and effective public policies, including the wide availability of naloxone (NARCAN), a medication that reverses opioid overdoses. While it can be argued that legalizing test strips is not as urgent as it was in 2023, fentanyl deaths are still happening, and we need all the tools we can get. Legalizing fentanyl test strips, however, remains elusive. Once wet, these paper strips help addicts identify the presence of this deadly drug. Studies have shown a positive change in overdose risk behavior among drug users when they have access to testing strips. Testing strips are a harm-reduction tool but also an indirect path to rehab programs since they are usually obtained through community outreach initiatives that also provide counseling and access to treatment resources.
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Cook Children’s warns of Medicaid coverage disruption
Nearly 2 million Texas children and expecting mothers could face disruptions in their health coverage if the state Legislature fails to act on a pair of bills in the coming weeks, according to Cook Children’s Health Plan. The health plan run by the Fort Worth-based children’s hospital warned of a “looming crisis,” saying in a press release Friday that “recent legislative inaction” threatens the health coverage of 1.8 million children and expecting mothers, 125,000 of which are within the plan’s Tarrant County service area. Bills brought by state Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican, and state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, a Democrat from Corpus Christi, aim to change how the Texas Health and Human Services Commission awards contracts for the management of Medicaid programs that provide coverage to low-income families. Medicaid’s STAR program covers children in low-income families and the CHIP program provides coverage to families whose income is too high to qualify for STAR but who cannot afford private health insurance.
The bills address what Cook Children’s called a “flawed procurement process” by the health commission that “inexplicably favored large, for-profit, out-of-state national plans over established local children’s health plans.” Cook Children’s said it hopes lawmakers will advance the legislation before the session ends June 2. Last year, the health commission declined to award the Medicaid contracts to Cook Children’s and two other nonprofit plans run by Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, choosing instead for-profit insurers like Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare and others. The Texas-based organizations have a better track record of serving these vulnerable populations, delivering high-quality care and maintaining high levels of patient, physician and provider satisfaction, the hospital said. If the awards that the state announced last year go into effect, the new contracts will require 1.8 million children and pregnant women across Texas to have to choose new health plans, most of which are run by out-of-state companies. “The potential consequences of inaction are dire, inevitably leading to further costly litigation and, more importantly, threatening to disrupt the vital health care services that countless Texas children and their families depend upon,” Cook Children’s said.
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Fred Cerise: What Medicaid cuts really mean for American health
(Fred Cerise is president and CEO of Parkland Health.) Congress is contemplating a proposal to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the Medicaid program while also committing to not directly cut Medicaid services. In the desire of some policymakers to support two opposing policy positions simultaneously, many of us fear that they will be deceived into accepting a simplistic explanation that such a cut will not impact the millions of beneficiaries who depend on Medicaid. Some policymakers are suggesting that these dollars can come from identifying fraud, waste and abuse without cutting Medicaid itself. Eliminating fraud and abuse wherever it exists is important. Significantly more common than outright fraud are improper payments, mostly due to documentation issues, and that amount ($31 billion or 5% of overall federal payments) does not come close to the hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts proposed to address fraud. Medicaid is a state-federal partnership to provide health insurance with eligibility that varies by state.
In Texas, Medicaid covers low-income pregnant women, children, individuals with disabilities, and nursing home residents. Medicaid financing is complex. It is this complexity that will allow policymakers to assert they can cut dramatic sums of funding without cutting the program. Here is one example. Every state must put up money to receive federal matching funds. Rather than relying solely on state general revenue, 49 states levy taxes on health care entities (e.g., hospitals, nursing homes, insurance companies) to help fund the state share. Often, these entities volunteer to be taxed because the federal money that the state share generates comes back to them in the form of higher Medicaid payments. This financing mechanism commonly used by states to fund their Medicaid programs is legal and patients in these states depend heavily on the federal funds raised to fund their Medicaid programs. Some people think these funding mechanisms allow states to draw federal funds without putting up their legitimate share of state funds, and they would like to see that end. That is a reasonable position to take. What is not reasonable is to suggest that by eliminating this funding mechanism, the result will be to cut out fraud and not to cut Medicaid. The truth is, that by eliminating this funding mechanism, states will lose billions in federal funding. States must react by either raising taxes to maintain services or taking actions that will reduce access to care such as cutting Medicaid rolls, reducing services offered, or reducing provider payments. Proponents anticipate that states will not replace the provider tax revenue with state or local funds. This means there will be billions less in the Medicaid program and people will ultimately have trouble accessing lifesaving care.
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Houston-area schools warn parents about Chromebook Challenge damaging school property
Some Houston-area schools are warning parents that they’ll have to pay for computers damaged by students copying a viral TikTok trend. The Chromebook Challenge has gained traction on social media sites like TikTok and encourages students to shove metal objects, such as lead pencils or paperclips, into the ports of school-issued laptops, which can lead to sparks, smoke and even fires. In an email sent to parents this week and obtained by the Chronicle, Pearland ISD warned parents and guardians that they would be financially responsible for replacing any school-issued equipment that is intentionally damaged.
"We want to be clear that Pearland ISD takes such matters seriously," the email reads. At least one other school has issued a similar note to parents, saying, "These devices are resources for learning that we use daily and their misuse disrupts the educational environment and poses a safety hazard." Instances of students participating in the Chromebook Challenge have been reported around the country. In Maryland, the Office of the State Fire Marshal said several fires were started as a result of the challenge. Schools in Colorado also issued warnings about the dangers associated with the challenge after the Colorado Springs Fire Department reported at least 16 incidents related to students attempting to destroy school laptops, Axios Denver reported.
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'A huge jump': S.A. school districts face soaring demand for special education
As a little kid, Sophia Munson loved to perform. She would often steal her mother’s high heels and dance around the living room like it was a stage, singing Spice Girls songs into whatever nearby object resembled a microphone. She was always filming silly videos with her older brother, riding her bike or goofing around with her friends. She was also an avid swimmer and dreamed of becoming a star cheerleader in high school. That was before Memorial Day weekend in 2019, when Sophia suffered a stroke and traumatic brain injury in a car accident. Now, the 16-year-old is confined to her wheelchair. Her visits to the pool are reserved for recreational therapy. “She has short-term memory loss, so she will remember things for a little bit. But unfortunately, with education, she’s not learning much anymore,” said Sophia’s mother, Jackie Martinez-Munson. “What I send her to school for is the social skills, to be with her friends and to keep doing therapies.” Sophia was one of nearly 765,000 Texas students who received special education services last year, according to state data. That total, a record high, marks a 32% increase in the number of public school students with disabilities since before the 2020 start of the pandemic.
School officials say parents' heightened awareness, improved testing procedures and pandemic-era learning losses have contributed to the spike in students requiring specialized instruction. So has a new law that puts the state’s swelling dyslexic population under the vast umbrella of special education, in addition to changes in state rules and regulations. In San Antonio, public schools are struggling to meet the rising demand for special education amid an ongoing staffing shortage and stagnant state funding. Unable to hire enough special education teachers, paraprofessionals, school psychologists and speech pathologists, districts have had to rely on costly contracts with third-party agencies to fill vacancies — even as they grapple with record budget deficits. An exodus of special educators has exacerbated the problem, leaving remaining employees with bigger caseloads and undermining the consistency high-need students often require in the classroom — such as interacting with the same teacher at the same time of day. Understaffed and overwhelmed with requests for evaluations, school officials say they need more money to do their jobs right.
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Texas Climate Office briefly went dark last month. Here's why that's troubling.
Last month, in the upheaval of widespread federal job cuts, a crucial resource for Texas ranchers and farmers briefly suspended operations. Although the Texas Climate Office is back at work, the agency’s role continues to be critical to Texas, and here’s why. One vital role played by the Texas Climate Office and the Southern Regional Climate Center is providing detailed drought severity information at the county level using weather and climate data. Without this input, the accuracy of the U.S. Drought Monitor, which collects drought data and releases updates to the public every Thursday, would be significantly reduced. The drought data the agency supplies directly influences how ranchers can be eligible for drought relief money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, explained John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist and director of the SRCC at Texas A&M University in College Station.
The Southern Regional Climate Center serves Texas, its neighboring states like Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as Mississippi and Tennessee. It specializes in providing climate data services with a focus on water resources and coastal resiliency. The SRCC also collaborates with the Midwest, High Plains, and Southeast regional climate centers to gather weather data across 21 states, and they share drought condition information, which is crucial for the nation’s researchers, scientists, farmers and ranchers. Nielsen-Gammon also touted how the agency’s program makes climate data easy to access, use and interpret through tools like the Integrated Water Portal and the Applied Climate Information System. “Right now, I’m spending a couple of days estimating precipitation values to give a more accurate precipitation trend in the Highland Lakes watershed (feeding the Colorado River),” he said. “Using ACIS, I can easily map which stations reported data in any given year and access that data immediately, spotting and filling in data gaps.”
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National Stories
Trump administration poised to accept 'palace in the sky' as a gift for Trump from Qatar: Sources
In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar -- a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News. The gift had been expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans. But a senior White House official said the gift will not be presented or gifted while the president is in Qatar this week. In a social media post Sunday night, Trump confirmed his administration was preparing to accept the aircraft, calling it a "very public and transparent transaction" with the Defense Department.
Trump had previously toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as "a flying palace," while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February. The highly unusual -- unprecedented -- arrangement is sure to raise questions about whether it is legal for the Trump administration, and ultimately, the Trump presidential library foundation, to accept such a valuable gift from a foreign power. Anticipating those questions, sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel's office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution's prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts "from any King, Prince or foreign State." Sources told ABC News that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump's top White House lawyer David Warrington concluded it would be "legally permissible" for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump's presidential library before the end of his term, according to sources familiar with their determination.
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Trump announces he’ll sign executive order that aims to cut drug prices
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he plans to resurrect a controversial policy from his first term that aims to reduce drug costs by basing payments for certain medicines on their prices in other countries. His prior rule, called “Most Favored Nation,” was finalized in late 2020 but blocked by federal courts and rescinded by then-President Joe Biden in 2021. It would have applied to Medicare payments for certain drugs administered in doctors’ offices. However, it is unclear what payments or drugs the new directive would apply to. In a Truth Social post Sunday evening, Trump said he plans to sign an executive order Monday morning that he argues would drastically lower drug prices.
“I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history. Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%,” he wrote. “I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World.” The directive comes as the Trump administration is also looking to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, which had been exempted from such levies enacted during the president’s first term. The tariffs could exacerbate shortages of certain drugs, particularly generic medicines, and eventually raise prices. If the new executive order is comparable to the 2020 rule, both Medicare and its beneficiaries could see savings. But it could also limit patients’ access to medications, experts said. Much depends on how the policy is structured. At least one health care policy analyst threw cold water on Trump’s claim that his latest effort would greatly reduce drug costs.
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Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander to be released Monday, Hamas says
Hamas said early Monday that it will release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who is believed to be the last living U.S. citizen held captive in Gaza by the Palestinian militant group, in the coming hours. “The Al-Qassam Brigades have decided to release the captive Zionist soldier who holds American citizenship, “Idan Alexander,” today, Monday, May 12, 2025,” a Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida said in a brief statement on Telegram early Monday. Hamas had previously suggested such a release would be a signal of good faith as part of “the steps being taken to achieve a ceasefire, open the crossings, and allow aid” into the Gaza Strip.
If successful, the release will come the day before President Donald Trump is set to travel to the Middle East in a trip that is expected to intensify efforts to bring a pause to Israel's sweeping military offensive in Gaza, from which aid has been cut off for several weeks. Trump's trip is not expected to include a stop in Israel. Israel on Monday paused its military operation in Gaza ahead of Alexander’s release, including air strikes and drone artillery, according to NBC News' crew on the ground. But the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Monday that it was committing only to a safe corridor to allow Alexander’s release, rather than any ceasefire or release of Palestinian prisoners or detainees. “We are in critical days, during which Hamas has a proposal before it that would allow for the release of our hostages,” the statement said, adding, “Negotiations will continue under fire and alongside preparations to intensify the fighting.”
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Attorneys in Sean Combs' case set to present dueling narratives in trial openings
Sean “Diddy” Combs long styled himself as a king of American hip-hop, cultivating a public image as a rap hitmaker and savvy entrepreneur whose influence stretched across entertainment, fashion and business. But when opening statements start Monday in Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial in New York City, lawyers on opposite sides of the case will portray him in dramatically contrasting terms, underscoring how he has lost control of a reputation he once fiercely protected. The federal prosecutors behind United States v. Combs plan to portray him as the ringleader of a sprawling criminal conspiracy, a serial abuser who used violence and threats to force women to participate in drug-fueled sexual encounters known as “freak offs.”
Combs’ defense lawyers are expected to forcefully reject that depiction, arguing he is being unjustly persecuted for consensual sexual activities with romantic partners. Combs has pleaded not guilty to five criminal counts, including racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. In the end, a jury of 12 everyday New Yorkers will decide whether to convict Combs based in part on which narrative they believe. Rachel Maimin, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said she believes Combs’ accusers’ testimony will be the single strongest element of the government’s case. At least three women who say they were victims are expected to take the stand during the eight-week trial. “Victim testimony is always powerful, and it goes to the core of the case here, because the defense wants to prove all of these events were consensual,” said Maimin, whose record includes prosecuting criminal organizations engaged in racketeering.
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Did you shoot somebody in self-defense? There’s an insurance policy for that.
The number of Americans buying self-defense insurance—dubbed “murder insurance” by critics who believe it can encourage the use of deadly force—has soared in recent years. About two million people have signed up, according to industry executives, some of whom estimate their membership has doubled in the past five years. The insurers offer a range of services, including bail and criminal-defense lawyers. Some also cover the cost of litigating civil lawsuits brought by victims of the shootings. The policies aren’t limited to shooting incidents; most companies will cover a member charged with other crimes, such as threatening somebody with a gun, so long as there’s a plausible self-defense claim. Many companies offer upgraded plans that can include crime-scene cleanup costs (in-home or vehicle), TSA-violation expenses, accidental-discharge costs and coverage for spouses and minor children.
USCCA and rival U.S. Law Shield are the industry giants, but there are about a half dozen midsize and small players. They charge monthly fees ranging from about $11 to $59. The companies’ marketing campaigns, which sometimes involve gun giveaways, include video testimonials from satisfied customers who shot in self-defense and got off, usually with no penalty. “There’s literally thousands of cases that have gone to trial that we have defended our members and exonerated them from charges,” said Tim Schmidt, USCCA’s founder and owner. The fine print of their policies, however, shows the companies usually have wide latitude to reject a member’s claim, sometimes launching their own investigations to decide if it is legitimate. Some plans won’t cover a member who is intoxicated during an incident, or if it involves shooting a family member. Many restrict members to their own stable of attorneys. USCCA’s policy says coverage ends if a member claims self-defense but is convicted of a violent crime. The policy also says its insurer can claw back legal fees or other expenses—although the company says it never has done so.
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Senate Democrats worried about Fetterman discussing ways to help
Democratic senators are having private conversations about how to help Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) in the wake of an explosive report that the first-term Pennsylvania senator is behaving erratically and in a way that may pose a danger to himself or others, according to sources familiar with those discussions. Two Democratic senators told The Hill they are talking with colleagues about how to best help Fetterman, who they fear is struggling to cope with the emotional rigors of serving in Congress, a stressful job even for the fittest individuals who often find themselves the targets of political attacks. “Every time I see him, I’m worried about him,” said a Democratic senator who requested anonymity.
The senator cited a recent report in New York Magazine that Fetterman’s former chief of staff alerted the senator’s doctor at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that he was “on a bad trajectory” and might not “be with us for much longer” unless something changes. “I know we’re all in touch with each other having conversations about how to intervene. I haven’t heard anybody say they’re not worried about it,” the senator said of the discussions among senators about how to help Fetterman. “People are trying to figure out what to do. People are worried about his safety,” the lawmaker added. A second Democratic senator, who also requested anonymity, described being “involved in discussions” about how to help Fetterman.
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RFK Jr., DOGE gutted legally required offices. Courts may undo it all.
The Trump administration’s purge of the health department is cutting so deep that it has incapacitated congressionally mandated programs and triggered legal challenges. The administration insists the cuts are a lawful “streamlining” of a “bloated” agency, but federal workers, Democratic lawmakers, state officials and independent legal experts say keeping offices afloat in name only – with minimal or no staff – is an unconstitutional power grab. While agencies have some discretion over how to fulfill Congress’s demands, the upheaval inside the Department of Health and Human Services has claimed a host of programs the agency is required by Congress to maintain — cuts that are especially vulnerable to lawsuits and could upend Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s goal of slimming down a workforce he has repeatedly said is rife with waste, fraud and abuse.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s sweeping layoffs at several agencies, including HHS, saying that cooperation of the legislative branch is required for large-scale reorganizations. Kennedy eliminated thousands of jobs in early April, paralyzing programs across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and particularly in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, that monitored health threats, researched cures and investigated everything from toxic fumes in fire stations to outbreaks of gonorrhea. The layoffs at NIOSH have halted the National Firefighter Cancer Registry, Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program, Health Hazard Evaluation Program, Respirator Approval Program and Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program. All are required by law, but their government websites explain they are no longer operating because of the layoffs.
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