October 7, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Talarico steps off Texas Senate campaign trail after flu diagnosis

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico has stepped off the campaign trail after being diagnosed with the flu. Talarico disclosed his illness Sept. 30 at a virtual forum sponsored by the United States Hispanic Business Council. He had been scheduled to attend the Rio Grande Valley event in person but said he was diagnosed the night before at a Dallas urgent care facility. His last public appearance was Sept. 28 in New York, where he attended a fundraiser hosted by actor Robert De Niro. Talarico, a state representative from Austin, faces Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

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“I guess I’ve been shaking too many hands on the campaign trail, and so I want to keep everybody safe,” Talarico said at the Hispanic Business Council event. “The best thing to do was to put safety first and put everyone’s health first.” Talarico’s campaign on Tuesday acknowledged the break in events. It comes less than two weeks before early voting starts Oct. 19, in advance of the Nov. 3 election. “After holding more than 100 public events and meeting with tens of thousands of supporters, James came down with the flu but will be back on the trail soon,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. At least two events have been scrapped, an Austin fundraiser Tuesday and a Monday event aimed at turning out Black voters in Central Texas. Ennis said Talarico has kept a busier schedule than Paxton, who drew attention this summer for taking a European vacation around the July Fourth holiday. “Ken Paxton has spent this campaign hiding from everyone — running away from reporters and ducking repeated offers to debate James Talarico, even on FOX News,” Ennis said.

PUC sues Paxton’s office over release of data center records

The Public Utility Commission of Texas is asking a Travis County judge to block the release of information showing where data centers and virtual currency mines operate, saying those details could aid terrorists. The lawsuit filed Monday pits the state agency responsible for regulating utilities against Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office over the scope of Texas’ public-records law and the state’s protections for critical infrastructure. At the center of the dispute are two seemingly basic geographic details: the county where a facility is located and the regional water planning area in which it sits. The PUC argues that those details are “privileged information” and become sensitive when combined with other information collected through its survey of the industry, including electricity demand, actual electricity consumption, projected peak demand, water consumption, water sources, cooling technology and the utilities and infrastructure serving a facility.

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The commission is not asking the court to declare the entire survey confidential. Instead, it wants the court to rule that the two geographic fields are exempt from disclosure under the Texas Homeland Security Act, which is meant to “protect against homeland security threats and hazards . . . and prevent significant criminal and terrorist attacks.” The lawsuit does not represent a final ruling on whether the information ultimately must be released. But it does come as Texas officials are seeking more information about the state’s data center industry. Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies to conduct additional reviews of data centers seeking to connect to the state’s electric grid, including reviews of electricity and water use, cooling systems and other information. He has also directed the Texas Water Development Board to take enforcement action against data centers that fail to comply with required water use reporting. In 2025, Texas lawmakers directed the PUC to collect information about water and energy consumption at data centers and virtual-currency-mining facilities to better understand the growth of the industry. The effort reflects a growing concern among state officials and Texans about the resources required by large computing facilities. Data centers can consume enormous amounts of electricity because of the thousands of servers operating inside them. Depending on their cooling systems, they can also require substantial quantities of water to help keep their servers cool during operation.

Gov. Greg Abbott spent $141 million only to be neck-and-neck with Democrat Gina Hinojosa

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s reelection campaign has churned through $141 million this year to end up running neck-and-neck in the polls with Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat who’s largely run on a shoestring budget, the latest campaign filings show. Abbott, a Republican seeking a historic fourth term in office, had only $17 million in cash on hand at the end of the most recent reporting period. That’s a far cry from the $106 million war chest he had at the start of the current election cycle. Of his total spending this year, $74.1 million came during the latest reporting period, which ran July 1 to Sept. 24, documents show. Despite his hefty spending, polls released this month, including a New York Times-Siena College survey, show Hinojosa, an Austin state representative, with a narrow lead. Others show the pair nearly tied.

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That comes even though Hinojosa’s campaign spent a meager $17 million in her bid for the governorship, according to the Washington Post. The closeness of the race isn’t lost on Abbott, who told backers at a fundraiser over the weekend that he’s “having trouble sleeping at night knowing what’s at stake in this election.” Abbott told reporters this week that he also won’t be able to attend President Donald Trump’s rally Wednesday in San Antonio because of a scheduling conflict. Some political observers speculate Abbott is trying to save face by not campaigning with Trump, whose approval rating is hanging around 37%. That ties George W. Bush in 2006 for the worst presidential approval rating heading into a midterm election. ? Texas Democratic Party Spokesman Jacob Long said Abbott’s in ability to pull ahead of Hinojosa even though he’s massively outspent her shows Texans are ready for change. “They know that four more years of Greg Abbott means more data centers, fewer public schools, and higher property taxes,” Long said in a statement. “He can duck debates, flood the airwaves, and turn his back on Trump all he wants, but no amount of money can change his record of selling out Texas to his billionaire donors.”

The S&P 500 hits a new record high, powered by tech—and not much else

The AI trade is propelling stocks to new heights—and it is dragging the rest of the market along for the ride. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite blew past new closing records on Tuesday, the latest leg of a rally that has powered through everything in its path, from the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise rates for the first time in three years to a monthslong war that lifted oil prices to $100 a barrel. Increasingly, the market is running on one engine: a familiar cast of tech companies that are building out (and benefiting from) the AI revolution. Nvidia, whose grip as the dominant supplier of chips that power AI has made it the world’s most-valuable company, has jumped 4.5% in the past week to a new all-time high. Meta Platforms is up 24% since Aug. 13, when the S&P 500 had its previous high.

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Just about everything else is going down. Shares of healthcare firms, banks and consumer staple companies are declining. So are small-cap stocks. And blue chips, like the Dow industrials. The yawning gap between the market’s biggest winners and other stocks is growing larger. Less than half of the stocks in the S&P 500 closed above their 200-day moving average on Tuesday, Dow Jones Market Data shows, a figure that has steadily declined since August. The AI powerhouses have grown so vast, and the momentum behind AI’s build-out so relentless, that many investors now see these stocks as immune to the effects of higher interest rates, analysts said. The hope is that eye-watering earnings forecasts will keep propelling tech names forward, even with higher rates and a cooling economy bearing down on the rest of the market. “People look around and say ‘Which areas of the market can weather this?’” said Keith Lerner, chief investment adviser for Truist Advisory Services. “Tech is almost seen as defensive in some ways.” Big tech companies—particularly AI “hyperscalers” including Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta—have been traditionally known as cash-rich and relatively debt-free companies that can keep growing even when borrowing costs rise.

State Stories

Federal judge strikes Texas AG’s effort to end Harris County’s misdemeanor bail reform decree

A federal judge has denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s effort to shutter Harris County’s misdemeanor bail reform decree, which stemmed from a lawsuit that argued Houston-area defendants charged with low-level crimes were penalized for being unable to afford cash bail. In a 40-page opinion Monday, United States District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled that the attorney general’s office exceeded the amount of time it has to make certain arguments in the case, therefore making its legal challenge to vacate the consent decree moot. "The court's decision today ensures the Consent Decree will continue to protect the physical liberty of tens of thousands of people every year,” Travis Fife, an attorney who represented Harris County in the case, said in a statement. “Vacating the Consent Decree would have been disastrous for taxpayers, public safety, and presumptively innocent people accused of crimes.”

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Since 2019, the bail reform decree, referred to as the ODonnell Consent Decree, has given most misdemeanor defendants the opportunity to be released from jail before trial without first paying cash bail. The decree was created after Maranda Lynn ODonnell filed a lawsuit in 2016 arguing she had been penalized for being unable to afford cash bail. ODonnell had been arrested for driving without a valid license that year and was held in the Harris County Jail for several days because she was unable to post bail. In August 2025, one day after President Donald Trump issued a federal executive order seeking to end cashless bail for people who are accused of violent offenses or pose threats to public safety, Paxton filed a motion to intervene in the ODonnell case and vacate the consent decree. During arguments held last month, attorneys who represented the AG’s office argued that the case should be moved from federal court to state court, urging Rosenthal to abstain from overseeing the case. In his opinion this week, Rosenthal ruled that the office failed to make those arguments in a reasonable time frame.

Austin’s ACL mudfest becomes a political fight over Zilker Park

After weekend downpours turned Austin City Limits Music Festival into a swampy “mudfest,” it seemed like just about everyone had something to say. Drone photos showed Zilker Park’s green grass giving way to brown mud — stark before-and-after images quickly spread across social media and fueled the backlash. Soon, the muddy music festival had become a political flashpoint. Progressives focused on the strain on the environment and the park. Conservatives pointed to the mud as evidence of what they saw as mismanagement in Texas’ liberal capital. Austin music critic Andy Langer said the muddy aftermath reignited long-running tensions with environmentalists, who have criticized ACL’s environmental impacts on Zilker Park and the park’s closure during festival’s setup and breakdown.

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While those concerns mainly came from the left, Langer said, the right also seized the moment to argue more broadly that Austin’s government is incompetent. “It's almost the same argument, but they're using it for different purposes,” Langer said. Environmental advocate Robin Rather, who works with Rewild Zilker and often critiques the city, said she supported moving the festival to another location to protect the park from long-term damage. She called the issue “the heart of the whole problem,” and said she worried about the park’s soil health and water protection. Matt Mackowiak, who previously led the Travis County Republican Party, said he thought the organizers had no plan for the heavy rain and that Austinites were right to want changes before next year. “Zilker Park belongs to all of us,” he said in a statement. “Anything that materially harms it should be of concern to all of us.” Under the city’s current agreement, C3 Presents, which organizes the festival, is responsible for repairing damage the festival causes to Zilker Park, including damage to plant life. The city’s parks director determines whether damage occurred, how much repairs will cost and whether the festival is responsible for paying.

Trump visits San Antonio for rally with Paxton, De La Cruz

President Donald Trump will stop in San Antonio Wednesday afternoon to drum up support for two Texas congressional candidates as the Republican Party works to hold its majority in both chambers. Carlos De La Cruz, the Republican nominee for the redrawn 35th Congressional District, will speak at the rally at the Freeman Coliseum on the East Side. So will Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running in a close race against Democrat James Talarico for Republican John Cornyn’s U.S. Senate seat.

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That Trump would need to stump for the party nominee for the 35th District wasn’t part of the thinking when Texas lawmakers redrew the Democratically-held seat in 2025 to favor a Republican candidate. Under the new lines, Trump would have won the district by 10 points in 2024. But a lot has changed since then as Trump’s war on Iran has pushed up gasoline prices and his tariffs on imported goods have driven up costs at the grocery store. The president’s approval rating is at a record low, and he has fallen out of favor with many Hispanic voters who helped him win back the White House in 2024. About 54% of the 35th District’s voting-age population is Hispanic, up slightly from 51% under the previous boundaries. The district is now anchored on San Antonio’s Southeast Side and includes 26% of Bexar County, and all of the reliably red Guadalupe, Karnes and Wilson counties. De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran, faces Bexar County sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia in the Nov. 3 election. Both are first-time candidates who are relatively unknown to voters. Trump is expected to speak at 6 p.m., with programing to start at 4:30 p.m. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. and tickets are required to enter the Freeman Coliseum. Deputy Joshua Hamby, spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said there will be a significant law enforcement presence around the coliseum and advised drivers to avoid the area due to congestion and expected delays. “Road closures will occur intermittently as needed,” Hamby said.

Former TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M football coach Dennis Franchione dies at 75

Dennis Franchione's head coaching career lasted from 1985 to 2015, he won the Iron Bowl and the Lone Star Showdown, but it was his three years at TCU that were his greatest contribution to the sport. The coach whose tenure gave birth to a new era of growth and prosperity for TCU, and the city of Fort Worth, died on Tuesday at the age of 75 in Austin after a decade with cancer. Family members confirmed the news this morning. He was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his kidney in 2016, and cleared that. In 2021, he was given a more dire cancer diagnosis, but after treatment was in full remission. According to family friends, the cancer returned earlier this year, and he was moved to hospice care in October.

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He most recently returned to TCU as a guest of coach Sonny Dykes to attend a spring football game in 2022, which unofficially ended any remaining bad feelings from members of the community toward Fran. For a long time, some members of TCU’s fanbase could not get over how he handled his exit from the school after the end of the 2000 regular season. Franchione said later in life that his greatest coaching years were those spent at TCU. Before he was hired by TCU after the 1997 season, Fran had successful runs at Pittsburg State, Southwest Texas State (now Texas State) and New Mexico. He arrived at TCU to replace coach Pat Sullivan, who in his final season with the school finished 1-10. The football team was bad, morale in the athletic department was terrible, and the school was in the first phase of a massive effort to catch up to the rest of higher education, and NCAA athletics.

Texas ordered dangerous gas pipes removed 25 years ago. One was linked to a recent Lake Dallas home explosion.

Texas ordered gas companies to remove a dangerous type of natural gas pipe more than 25 years ago. Yet earlier this year, the same type of pipe was linked to a home explosion in Lake Dallas that left a woman severely injured. The discovery raised a troubling question: Did the Texas Railroad Commission ever ensure utilities complied with its order to remove the plastic pipe, known as Poly-1? For months, CBS News Texas has sought answers from the state's three elected Railroad Commissioners, who oversee pipeline safety in Texas. The commissioners declined multiple interview requests. When a reporter approached them after a recent public meeting in Austin, they left without answering questions. Records reviewed by the CBS News Texas I-Team indicate that Poly-1 pipes were still being found in the system years after the state-imposed deadline.

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The commission's only response came in an email from an agency spokesperson. Asked what actions the agency took to verify the pipe had been removed, the spokesperson wrote: "Because this is part of an ongoing investigation, we are unable to comment at this time." Efforts to replace Poly-1 pipe accelerated after an explosion in Garland on Jan. 28, 2000. The blast destroyed a home and killed 80-year-old Albert Holbert, his wife, Lillian Holbert, and her 83-year-old sister, Callie Hickerson. Investigators traced the explosion to a Poly-1 pipe. By then, the early-generation plastic natural gas pipe, installed in the 1970s, had developed a history of cracking and leaking. In some cases, those failures led to explosions. After the Garland disaster, the Railroad Commission ordered the utility TXU Gas to identify and remove all remaining Poly-1 pipe from its system. When TXU missed an initial deadline, the commission assessed a penalty, imposed new deadlines and ordered the company to provide progress updates. But nearly three years after those deadlines passed, officials reviewing the case for the Railroad Commission reported the work was "not yet completed." TXU later sold the system to Atmos Energy in 2004.

Two key groups launch Latino voter turnout operation in South Texas

Latino voters are upset about the cost of living and immigration enforcement operations, according to polls and interviews. Whether they actually show up to vote in November — and in what numbers — is another question. Getting Latinos to the polls next month is a central push of two of the largest Latino advocacy organizations in the country, the Voto Latino Foundation and the Hispanic Federation, according to plans first shared with NBC News. This week, the groups are launching a six-figure get-out-the-vote operation that specifically targets Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where they estimate that nearly 316,000 Latinos who could vote did not participate in the 2024 election. In 2024, Latino voters in the Valley made history when a majority backed Donald Trump. Since then, many key figures have come out opposing Trump’s policies, including his economic plans and how the administration is carrying out deportations.

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In addition to those who sat out in 2024, the advocacy groups say nearly 500,000 Texas Latinos have turned 18 in the last two years and are now eligible to vote. On Saturday, the groups will host a community town hall in Edinburg called “Juntos en el 956,” where organizers will assist residents with making plans to vote and answer questions. Claudia Lopez, a social media personality in the Rio Grande Valley who focuses on South Texas politics, will moderate the town hall. Another televised town hall will follow in cooperation with Telemundo, and an end-of-the-month rally to promote voter turnout is in the works. Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, said he believes educating Latinos about their voting rights and hearing their concerns is central to improving turnout. “When we do this right, we are going to see a correlation in the participation of Latinos on Election Day,” Miranda said. Talking to voters, he said, the group will encourage people to vote early and, for those already registered to vote, to check ahead of time that nothing happened with their registrations.

Houston Chronicle Editorial: Carla Wyatt convinced us: Eliminate the Harris County treasurer

In the state of Texas, the county treasurer is a bit like a governmental appendix. It’s a vestigial office that doesn’t do much and you only think about it when something goes wrong. Four years with the scandal-plagued Democratic incumbent, Carla Wyatt, 56, has made one thing clear: Harris County needs a treasurer-ectomy. It is time to get rid of the office. Harris County commissioners agree. They unanimously voted in February to pursue dissolving her office, which is meant to oversee county payments but has no real power. That bipartisan coalition also voted to strip Wyatt of most of her authority and transfer staff from the treasurer’s office over to the county’s Office of Management and Budget following recommendations by County Auditor Michael Post. Here’s the thing, county treasurers have astray far too often, and from both major parties in different parts of Texas. They have undermined taxpayers’ trust in government instead of safeguarding it.

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Now we have to wait for the Legislature to approve a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Harris County treasurer, like lawmakers did for Galveston County in 2023, and for voters statewide to approve the amendment. Until then, Harris County voters should support Republican challenger Marc Cowart, 59. He’s a longtime Republican operative who didn’t have much in the way of specifics for improving the office. We’re wary of his time working for politicians with their own troubling records, including former Fort Bend County Judge KP George, who was convicted of money laundering, and Bob Wolfe, a justice of the peace who essentially leverages his court as a lucrative wedding chapel. Cowart also doesn’t agree with plans to eliminate the treasurer position. Nevertheless, he did tell us he wants to restore “dignity” and “competence” to the office. The incumbent has set a low bar. Since she first took office in 2023, Wyatt has been twice arrested for drunken driving, twice violated bond conditions, and was charged with burglary of a vehicle, though a grand jury declined to indict her. Most recently she was cited after causing a four-vehicle crash on Interstate 45. Dash camera video of the incident makes it look like she’s an automotive pinball bouncing against cars. In meeting with the editorial board, she seemed to have no concern about how she was threatening the safety of other drivers on the road or putting herself at risk. “Car accidents happen every day,” Wyatt said. She seemed oblivious to all of these criminal charges. When we asked about the car crash, Wyatt told us: “I haven’t seen what you’re describing.” It felt reminiscent of reports that she once told an officer that she thought she was “in heaven” before being arrested on DWI charges. Wyatt also told us that, in spite of all of this, she is still getting behind the wheel of her car. That makes us worry for her wellbeing — and everyone else’s. Overall, she demonstrated an uncanny calm and, admittedly, professional demeanor when talking about her time as treasurer with the editorial board, which felt discordant with her record.

Bo French uproar exposes a Texas GOP fight over who belongs in the party’s ‘stables’

Republican strategist Karl Rove called for the GOP’s “stables” to be cleaned after Railroad Commission candidate Bo French disparaged the racial makeup of students celebrating a University of Texas football victory. French’s supporters agree the party needs cleaning. They just think Rove has identified the wrong people to throw out. That dispute frames the uproar over French and what kind of conservatism defines the Texas GOP. Does his provocative rhetoric fall outside the party or reflect the America First movement that displaced its old guard? That divide was already on display this year when Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated longtime Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary with support from hard-right conservatives.

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In Dallas, conservative talk radio host Mark Davis put it bluntly: “The stables in Texas were cleaned on May 26,” the day Paxton defeated Cornyn. To insurgents seeking a wholesale party takeover, Cornyn was precisely the kind of Republican who needed to go. Now French, who narrowly defeated GOP incumbent Jim Wright for a seat on the oil and gas regulatory agency, is at the center of that fight, with some Republicans concerned his inflammatory views could drag down the party’s ticket in November. Several prominent Republicans condemned French after he posted a photo Sept. 13 of students celebrating a Longhorns victory and suggested, without evidence, that they were in the country illegally. “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” French wrote. The citizenship status of all the students is unknown, but at least two pictured have said they are U.S. citizens. French did not respond to a text message. Last month, however, he told Davis that his post was not racist and that “most people in the America First movement think we ought to be prioritizing Americans.” French said he had nothing against the students personally but asked, “Are we going to have policies to prioritize Americans … or are we going to have policies that prioritize foreigners?”

Advocates call out Monica De La Cruz for refusing to back DACA bill

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz recently launched a campaign ad featuring the wife of an immigrant protected by an Obama-era policy, thanking the South Texas congresswoman for assistance as the family navigated “a broken immigration system.” “We reached out to Monica De La Cruz. She helped with my husband’s immigration case,” Stephanie Villarreal says to the camera. De La Cruz has made a point of spotlighting her work on behalf of families swept up by the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown. But in Washington, she is among the Republican holdouts on a bill with some bipartisan support aimed at protecting families like the one in the ad. Immigrant rights groups and Democrats said De La Cruz has so far refused to be the final signature they need to force a vote in the GOP-led House.

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The legislation would codify safeguards for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants immigrants brought to the U.S. as children an opportunity to legally work and remain in the country. Villarreal’s husband, Juan Chavez Velasco, is a DACA recipient who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as he tried to visit their daughter in the neonatal intensive care unit earlier this year. “If it is true that DACA is an issue that she deeply cares about, as we were told by her legislative team, and if it is true that she wants to be a champion for people with DACA, the Dream and Promise Act should have been a very simple sign-on for her,” said Dani Marrero Hi, deputy director of LUPE Votes, which is a political advocacy group encouraging people to contact De La Cruz and ask her to sign the discharge petition. De La Cruz’s office said she doesn’t sign on to efforts to force floor votes as a general policy, and is cosponsoring a different bill giving some protections to DACA recipients.

El Paso ISD among four Texas school districts selected for state spending review

The Texas Comptroller’s Office has included El Paso Independent School District among four institutions picked for “a detailed review” to examine if they spend state funds in compliance with state law. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested a review process in August to ensure that districts spend state funds on students, classrooms and teachers and not on more administration or what he called “non-instructional bureaucracy.” Comptroller Don Huffines said in an Oct. 5 news release that his office was committed to providing a clear assessment of how the state’s education dollars are used. The office also will review the Austin, Prosper (north of Dallas) and Barbers Hill (east of Houston) school districts. “This review is an important step to ensure transparency, accountability, and the responsible use of public funds,” Huffines said.

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EPISD officials in an emailed response late Tuesday pointed to the recent academic gains in TEA accountability ratings and how it reflects on the district’s commitment to student success and directing resources to the classroom. The district’s email mentioned its combined efforts to reduce expenses such as 326 central-office and non-campus positions, eliminated vacancies, reassessed contracts, streamlined operating expenses and stronger financial controls. Additionally, the spokesperson pointed to the Financial Budget Dashboard and the district’s Financial Stability Plan as the district’s latest efforts to be transparent and improve efficiency. It is unknown when EPISD was informed about the upcoming review and which departments might be involved in the comptroller’s review. EPISD last school year spent just about 11% of its budget on leadership and general administration, according to Texas Education Agency data. The Ysleta Independent School District also spent about 11% on leadership and administration, while the Socorro Independent School District was at about 10%.

Republican incumbent fundraising keeps outpacing Democrats ahead of Tarrant County midterms

As the November midterm elections near, Republican candidates for Tarrant County office continue to outperform many of their Democratic opponents’ campaign fundraising, with County Judge Tim O’Hare leading the way in cash raised and spent. Among the candidates for county government, Republican incumbents far outraised and outspent their Democratic challengers in the races for county judge, county commissioner and district attorney. Further down the ballot, Democratic fundraising outpaced the Republicans in the races for district clerk and county clerk. Campaign finance reports published Oct. 5 detail candidates’ financial activity from July 1 to Sept. 24. Candidates for the county commissioners court, district attorney, district clerk and county raked in more than $1 million, cumulatively, from a range of contributors that includes political action committees, investors, real estate developers, local elected officials and other candidates on the ballot.

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O’Hare, who is seeking his second term, has more than $836,000 in available campaign cash as of Sept. 24. He reported raising about $415,000 over the tracking period and spent about $290,000, primarily on consulting services and canvassing. Alisa Simmons, the Precinct 2 county commissioner challenging O’Hare for the countywide judge seat, maintains a campaign war chest of about $247,000. Over the reporting period, she raised about $286,000 and spent nearly $75,000, largely on consulting, phone-banking and campaign signage. The latest campaign finance reports detail an uptick in fundraising over the last two months for both Simmons and O’Hare. In the first six months of the year, O’Hare raised about $314,000 and Simmons raised about $111,000. From July to late September, O’Hare’s largest cash donation, $100,000, came from Texans United for a Conservative Majority, a political action committee led by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. Other PAC contributions include $10,000 from the National Cutting Horse Association’s Texas Events PAC, $1,500 from the Frederick Douglass Republicans of Tarrant County and $750 from Responsible Government.

Harris County leaders gave elected officials raises before a tax hike. Will it matter in November?

Political analysts are projecting an abysmal election cycle for Republicans, but the elected Democrats who run Harris County appear to be doing everything in their power to erode their advantage. Commissioners recently voted to raise most county elected officials' salaries to $305,000, then approved the highest county property tax rate in decades at a time when polls show affordability is a key concern for voters. Republican challengers for county office also have finished within single digits of Democratic incumbents in each of the last two election cycles. It’s a recipe that should spell trouble for local Democrats in November. But experts said the backlash to President Donald Trump’s policies and GOP U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s lack of popularity likely will overshadow local issues, protecting county Democrats.

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“Salary increases that are in principle funded by tax increases is like the kiss of death for most candidates,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. But, he added, “In the current cycle, with the Democratic wave likely coming, I don’t think these issues are going to knock anyone out.” Harris County has seen this dynamic before — the 2018 Blue Wave that swept Democrats into power throughout county government coincided with Trump’s first midterm election. That election saw a 27-year-old Lina Hidalgo unseat then-County Judge Ed Emmett, a moderate Republican who enjoyed crossover support from some Democrats. That 2018 Democratic sweep reversed a long-running trend in Harris County that saw Republicans post gains in midterm elections. Democrats have since expanded their advantage through a 2021 redistricting effort that saw their 3-2 Commissioners Court majority grow into a 4-1 supermajority following Democratic Commissioner Lesley Briones’ 2022 election. Yet that governing position has given the Democrats a record to defend. Hidalgo is not seeking reelection, but the three Democratic commissioners — Briones, Adrian Garcia and Rodney Ellis — all voted to pass the county’s highest property tax rate in decades last month. The same three Democrats voted alongside Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the court’s lone Republican, to raise most county elected officials’ salaries to $305,000.

County Stories

Fired Dallas County chief arrested on theft, official oppression

Former Dallas County Fire Marshal Assistant Chief Zack Masri turned himself in to police Tuesday after being accused of theft and official oppression by the Texas Rangers, his legal counsel said. Masri bonded out of the Wylie jail on Tuesday after posting a $15,000 bond, according to his lawyer Mark Lassiter. The arrest comes four months after Masri was fired from his county job following a series of alleged infractions that include: pointing a gun at a colleague in a “joking” manner, calling female co-workers “bitches” and ghost-writing an email defending his office before having a county commissioner send it, according to personnel records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

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Wylie Police Sgt. Donald English confirmed Masri’s arrest, but the arrest warrant issued by the Dallas County Sheriff's Office that provides details of the alleged incidents was not immediately available Tuesday evening. Lassiter told The News that Texas Rangers from the Texas Department of Public Safety were leading the investigation into Masri and that his client is not guilty of the accusations. “While we understand the process, we look forward to proving Zack's innocence,” Lassiter said, declining to comment further. It is unclear if Masri's charges are tied to his June 8 termination, but they are related to his time as a county employee. English said Masri was charged with three counts of misdemeanor abuse of official capacity, which relates to a public servant violating a law relating to their office, according to the Texas penal code. Masri was also charged with misdemeanor theft of property of $100 to $750 and felony theft of property between $2,500 and $30,000, according to English. Masri, 40, worked for the Dallas County Fire Marshal's Office for nearly six years and was responsible for overseeing its building security division, which has come under scrutiny for testing the limits of its power.

National Stories

In first Maine Senate debate, Sen. Collins seeks to distance herself from President Trump

Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins distanced herself from President Donald Trump during her first Maine Senate debate with Democrat Troy Jackson, arguing she has maintained her political independence by repeatedly voting against Trump’s agenda and saying that she’s “not exactly his favorite senator.” Democrats are trying to flip the Maine Senate seat as they work to win control of the Senate. President Trump lost the state in 2024, giving Democrats hope of defeating the five-term moderate Republican, who has been targeted by Democrats in previous elections and survived. During the hourlong debate, Jackson focused largely on attempting to connect Collins to Trump. He kicked off the night by pointing out she cast a critical vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee who eventually helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

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Collins supports abortion rights and said Kavanaugh assured her it was settled law, but she has said recently that she does not regret her vote to confirm him. “Would you trust her to pick the next Supreme Court justice?” asked Jackson, a former state lawmaker and logger. He also repeatedly brought up her procedural vote to advance the president’s 2025 tax and spending bill — though Collins ultimately broke with her party to vote against it. Collins countered that she has voted against Trump more than she did Joe Biden when the Democrat was president, and has pushed back against Trump on tariffs, immigration enforcement and the war in Iran. “I voted against my party more than another other senator on either side of the aisle,” Collins said. The attention on Trump comes as only 31% of U.S. adults approved of how the Republican is handling the presidency, according to a September AP-NORC poll. That’s well below where his approval stood when he took office last year.

Congress killed the penny — now it's coming for the 13-cent nickel

It's common sense that common cents are getting less use in Americans' daily lives. Congress already took action to eliminate the lowest rung — the penny — and now another coin collecting dust in people's wallets could be on the chopping block next. The House and Senate both passed bills earlier this year aimed at eliminating the penny once and for all. The bipartisan Common Cents Act was unanimously approved in each chamber, but has yet to get President Donald Trump's signature to become law. It followed the Treasury Department announcing last December that the U.S. Mint would no longer produce pennies, which at the time cost more than three times their value to make.

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Now, lawmakers want the administration to act on another portion of their bill, which would direct the Treasury to study the potential of making the nickel with cheaper materials than are currently used. "If it costs 13 cents to make a five-cent coin, Washington should fix the problem instead of wasting more taxpayer money," House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich., told Fox News Digital. "My bill gives Treasury a path to make nickels at a lower cost without disrupting how Americans use them. It is a simple reform that saves money and brings a little more common sense to government. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who led the bill in the Senate, told Fox News Digital, "More and more Americans are paying with credit cards, debit cards, and stablecoins for everyday purchases that once would have been made with cash or coins." "The half-cent coin was retired when it was no longer needed, and the penny has now reached that same point. It’s my hope that we can find a cheaper way to produce the nickel so that it remains economically viable for years to come," Lummis said. Nickels are produced at a loss to taxpayers of roughly eight cents per coin, according to the latest data. They are currently made of a mixture comprised of 25% nickel and 75% copper.

Justice Dept. turns to partisans and conspiracists to fill depleted ranks

A former prosecutor forced off a high-profile murder case for peeking at the defense team’s strategy documents. A onetime gambling executive who promoted conspiracy theories about the Las Vegas massacre in 2017. A Florida activist who once served 20 days in jail for hacking a local elections system. They are among the 130 lawyers who have recently joined the Justice Department’s short-staffed civil rights division as the Trump administration has struggled to fill the depleted ranks of a unit that was once a magnet for legal talent. Since early 2025, upward of 300 nonpolitical career employees, representing decades of experience, have left the division after its leader, Harmeet Dhillon, repurposed it to pursue President Trump’s agenda.

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As a consequence, the division has opened its doors to recruits, many of them conservatives, some with education and work histories that might have disqualified them from being hired in the past, former officials said. Some have left a trail of hyperpartisan, conspiratorial and, in some instances, bizarre statements, according to an examination of about a dozen recent hires based on court records, social media posts and interviews. Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said they have rejected nearly as many applicants as they have hired, 126. Any ideological tilt in the career ranks, they added, reflected the Trump-era applicant pool, which includes conservative activists and recent law school graduates. Ms. Dhillon praised the quality of the new lawyers, and said she was revamping a division that had been dominated by liberals for far too long. “For years, the civil rights division recruited from a narrow pipeline of progressive activists and called it excellence,” she said in a statement.

Israelis mourn on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 as Palestinians grapple with war it sparked

Israelis gathered Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 251 taken hostage and sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has left much of the territory in ruins and its 2 million people living in dire conditions. In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters and the site of a music festival that the militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack in the country's history. It is the first anniversary since all the hostages, living and dead, were returned, marking a new stage of grief. For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day of misery after an Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people.

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Most Gaza residents live in vast, squalid tent camps, with large parts of the strip's cities reduced to rubble. More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military. Despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily. For the region, the day highlights a startling transformation over the past three years. Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with the Hezbollah militant group, which began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas. Iran and the United States are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across Gulf Arab countries and has shaken the global economy — a conflict that Israel helped launch and that the Gaza war paved the way for, even if they weren't directly connected. Near the town of Reim, where the music festival was underway when militants attacked, families gathered around photos of their killed relatives. Hundreds of people paid their respects to the more than 350 people killed in and around the festival site. Videos from that day showed militants gunning down fleeing revelers, shooting the wounded at point-blank range and ambushing those seeking refuge in nearby bomb shelters. On Wednesday, survivors' relatives hugged at 6:29 a.m. — the exact time the first rockets were launched three years ago — as explosions boomed in nearby Gaza.

How does Susan Collins keep winning?

National Democrats, who’d effectively let Collins walk to victory in 2014, wanted her seat in the worst way this time. The Democratic candidate, state House Speaker Sara Gideon, and her outside affiliates raised more money than could even be spent on a political campaign in Maine. Democrats’ heavy-handed assault seemed to be working: Collins did not lead in a single public poll for the entirety of 2020. While not celebrating prematurely, Democrats had reason to be cautiously optimistic that they might finally catch their white whale. “Sara was leading every private poll that she had,” too, former Rep. Tom Allen, who lost to Collins in 2008 and is a friend of Gideon’s, told me. Collins’ team didn’t know what was coming, either. “I don’t think anybody had a firm bead on what the result was going to be,” Lance Dutson, a Maine Republican strategist who worked on Collins’ 2008, 2014, and 2020 campaigns, told me. “There was definitely some concern.”

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Six years later, Collins again is in a competitive election—albeit against a very different kind of opponent—in a bad political environment for Republicans. National Democrats, again, have their sights trained on flipping her seat. Collins has led in only a few polls this year. Here we go again. How, then, does Susan Collins do it? How, in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, has she been able to survive the ever-closing-in walls of nationalized politics and polarization, where the quality of individual senators matters less to voters than which party controls the Senate? And, despite it being perhaps the worst political environment for Republicans that she’s ever run in, can she do it again? If you’ve tried to watch a YouTube video in Maine over the past few months, you have probably been asked to thank Susan Collins. The millions of dollars in ads run by a dark money group tied to Senate Republican leaders follow a similar structure. You like water? Collins secured millions to protect Maine’s water. Hospitals? Millions to expand them. You hate diabetes? She has a long and thorough career securing money for diabetes research. The ads, for a while, encouraged viewers to “call and thank Senator Collins” and “tell her you appreciate all she is doing for Maine.” Perhaps recognizing that it was a bit tin-eared to encourage voters to call and thank their public servants for doing their jobs, the more recent ads now encourage viewers to “call and tell” Collins to keep fighting for these interests.

Nobel chemistry prize goes to pair who solved mystery of 'mirror image' molecules

Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won ?the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a long-standing riddle of asymmetric "mirror image" molecules, a discovery hugely important for pharmaceutical manufacturing, the award-giving body said ?on Wednesday. Soai, 76, is Japanese, and Kagan, 95, is French, and their work built on a discovery by the 19th century French chemist Louis Pasteur. "This is the most exciting day in my life, I am very glad to share this prize with professor Henri Kagan," Soai said, speaking by phone to the Nobel Prize press conference, adding he had been out shopping when receiving the news. The Nobel committee was still trying to ?contact Kagan to inform him of the award. The chemistry Nobel, always the third prize to be awarded during Nobel week, followed those for medicine and physics announced on Monday and ?Tuesday.

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Many of the molecules essential to life exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and ?right hands. Yet living organisms almost exclusively use only one version, a phenomenon known as "homochirality" – from the Greek word for hand – that has puzzled chemists for more than a century. This ?year's prize was awarded for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can be driven to favour a single molecular mirror image, work that has been key for chemists who design reactions for ?the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. "The left-handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right-handed version can have another effect, and then we need methods for selectively preparing them," Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said. "In developing such methods the findings of this year's laureates are important. They provided powerful tools for that," he said. The first link in the chain in ?solving the problem was work by Pasteur, who died before the Nobel Prizes were first awarded. He was looking at tartaric acid, important in the production of wine, and noticed that ?bacteria only ferment one of the two forms of tartaric acid – that which is naturally found in grapes. With the other there is no fermentation. That proved that some substances occur in two forms and that ?they have ?different properties, sometimes very damaging to health.

The inescapable Hasan Piker

By 8:30 p.m. on day one of the Socialism 2026 conference, Hasan Piker was tired and hungry and ready to leave. He had flown to Chicago from L.A. that morning, moderated a panel, interviewed an academic about her forthcoming book Confronting Zionism, broadcast everything live per usual, and now wanted to go to Au Cheval, a restaurant in the West Loop with a famous hamburger. “Let’s see if we can get in,” he said, looking down at his phone. It was a Friday night in September. While he tried to find a table, Piker commented that the organizers of the conference had not given him a tote bag. “Which is the craziest thing because everybody has totes here. This is tote central.” He had been presented with other gifts, including a Democratic Socialists of America hat designed to look like a White Sox hat, another one that said SATAN’S SCHOOL OF GAY COMMUNISM, and a vintage tie clip in the form of a USSR locomotive. People at the conference, which was taking place at a Hyatt, were treating him like a visiting dignitary. Piker, 35, who is six-foot-four, was wearing a royal-blue suit and tasseled brown loafers.

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He used to dress in streetwear, but as his profile exploded this year, he started wearing jackets and ties. “It’s respectability politics to a certain degree,” he explained. “I’m not going to change my commentary or my worldview, but maybe I can change the immediate way you receive it.” The last time I’d seen Piker, in August, the socialist livestreamer was filming in the VIP section of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s election party on the night of the Michigan Senate primary. Now he was speaking at a literal socialism convention, an event I had imagined would channel the energy of the ascendant American left. That turned out not to be the case. It was late summer in Chicago, but there would be no rerun of the ’68 DNC, no latter-day yippies disturbing the peace and parading livestock around town and getting bludgeoned by the cops on Michigan Avenue. The conference, put on by the book publisher Haymarket, was niche and dryly academic. Organizers required attendees to wear a KN95 or N95 mask, an anachronistic rule that literalized the conference’s airless aspect. The whole event was unnervingly quiet as people trudged silently to panels or carried on muffled conversations. Piker was conflicted about the masks. “lmao. woke 1.0,” he wrote when I first texted him about the rule.

Copyright October 07, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved