October 27, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Trump returns to Texas, turning to former football stars to motivate GOP base

Everything is bigger in Texas and with a week to go until Election Day that holds true here for the amount of campaign money being spent and the political capital at stake for President Trump. The president is making his third visit in the past month to the Lone Star state Tuesday with his endorsement power on the line after he helped oust incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn in favor of embattled state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s primary. More than $1 billion in ad spending has already poured into Texas overall by both parties, and the critical Texas Senate race between Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, where well over half of that money has gone, is on track to become the most expensive Senate contest in U.S. history.

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According to the latest polling average from MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne Talarico has a slight edge 49.2 to 46.5 over Paxton. Trump’s trip back to Texas to stump for Paxton and other Republicans is another stop on his red state tour in the campaign’s closing days to turn out his base with control of the House and Senate at stake. Tuesday he’ll make a play to energize those supporters, particularly young men, with two former college football stars beloved in the state, Johnny Manziel and Colt McCoy, along with two-time Super Bowl champion Danny Amendola joining him in Texas, according to a White House official. Axios was first to report the former football players joining Trump on the trail. Trump is making two stops, rallying first in the southern coast city of Corpus Christi followed by a visit to Lubbock in deeply conservative West Texas. Corpus Christi is located in the 34th Congressional District of Texas, which is one of a handful of congressional districts across the country that voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election but elected a Democrat in the House.

Fact check: Did North Texas senator avoid property taxes on Fort Worth home?

The Republican Party of Texas is accusing state Sen. Taylor Rehmet, a Fort Worth Democrat, of illegally taking a full property tax exemption on a property he rents out. Rehmet received national attention in a January special election runoff when he defeated his Republican opponent, Leigh Wambasganss, in a district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024. That election gave him a partial senate term representing much of North and West Tarrant County. Now, Rehmet and Wambsganss are in a Nov. 3 rematch for a full term. Up and down the ballot, Republicans are worried about Democratic gains in what is looking to be Texas’ most competitive election cycle in decades. Early voting runs through Oct. 30. Many Democrats have centered their campaigns on affordability and the working person — a move out of Rehmet’s playbook from January.

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With the cost of living as a top ballot issue, it’s no surprise property taxes have become a source of campaign fodder, including in the Senate District 9, where the Texas GOP claims Rehmet doesn’t pay his fair share. Rehmet — U.S. Air Force veteran, aircraft mechanic and union leader — disputes that attack line, but he and his campaign have avoided answering many of the Star-Telegram’s questions when working to check the claims. So did Rehmet skirt paying property taxes? Here’s what we know. A website and mailer from the Texas GOP claim Rehmet is illegally applying the state’s general homestead exemption and an exemption granted to disabled veterans to a rental property he owns. The party claims he lives at a friend’s house. In Texas, homeowners are granted a $140,000 homestead exemption on their primary residence when paying school property taxes. That means $140,000 is deducted from a home’s appraised value for the purpose of calculating the tax. Disabled veterans can also qualify for separate property tax exemptions, including a homestead exemption on the total appraised value of their primary residence. A video ad displays images of the home in question, which is in Fort Worth’s Greenway neighborhood, property tax records and a Zillow listing that shows the property as available to rent. A full address for the Fort Worth house is displayed at points. The address is publicly available online.

How Big Tech and Abbott made Texas the ‘epicenter’ of data centers

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has been cracking down on data centers for months, but less than a year ago his appointees and staffers were actively trying to bring projects to the state. On Dec. 16, 2025, two days before Texas announced sweeping changes to expedite grid access to data centers, Abbott’s top staff held a closed-door meeting with representatives of the state’s largest tech and transmission companies, according to records obtained by POLITICO. The documents show representatives from Google, OpenAI, Meta, Amazon Web Services and Nvidia were “confirmed” to meet with Abbott’s team, joined by Texas’ head electricity regulator and grid manager to discuss building out the state’s power grid. Also in the room, according to the records: officials with the state’s four main electric transmission companies — Oncor Electric, CenterPoint Energy, AEP Texas and Texas-New Mexico Power.

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A person at the meeting, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about what happened, said the message from Abbott’s office was clear: We want data centers to come to Texas, and we want to work with the industry to remove roadblocks to make that happen. “The point of that meeting really was to say, ‘We’re committed to fixing this and finding a better path forward,’” the person said. That path was laid out by grid officials to the state’s utility regulators at an open meeting Dec. 18, 2025 — a framework that was largely similar to one proposed by Google and a Texas-based hyperscaler. In the months that followed, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the state Public Utility Commission worked to write new rules and develop the new process to bring large power users — almost all of which are data centers — onto the state’s main power grid. The moves came as the Trump administration encouraged Texas leaders to support data center development and the growth of artificial intelligence.

Trump’s border chief defends wall plans in Texas’ Big Bend despite a court setback

The Trump administration's top border official defended plans to build a wall and other infrastructure in Texas’ Big Bend region despite mounting opposition against the project and a court-ordered pause on construction, saying his goal of fortifying the country’s borders was "non-negotiable." In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott argued that the $46 billion wall project was justified despite a bipartisan coalition of landowners, local businesses and environmentalists who view it as a waste of taxpayer money that could be destructive to a region with historically low migrant crossings. "Our number one goal right out the gate is we have to know who and what is coming into the United States," Scott said on Thursday. If the Big Bend region were left without a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas along the border get those fortifications, he said, "I am 100% convinced it will be completely overrun and destroyed."

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The fight over Big Bend has become a major test for how far the Republican administration is willing to go for the border wall, President Donald Trump’s signature infrastructure project. Scott, a former Border Patrol agent, was tapped by Trump to complete it. His agency is responsible for executing a plan funded last summer by Republicans in Congress to line the roughly 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border with Mexico with a mixture of 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel walls, vehicle barriers, new roads and surveillance technology to prevent illegal immigration and smuggling. The Trump administration says it is building about 12 miles (19 kilometers) a week. Scott, who gets daily progress updates, said it will be complete by the end of Trump’s second term. The primary border wall — some areas also get a secondary layer — will be done by the end of December 2027. "We're actually ahead of schedule," Scott said.

State Stories

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calls ‘not to give a dime’ to ICE at Houston stop

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Houston-area U.S. Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Christian Menefee met with members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on Monday to discuss how President Donald Trump's immigration policies are affecting Houston's workforce. Jeffries called for cutting off all funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Jeffries praised U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia for her work in pressing for comprehensive immigration reform, in the vehicle of the American Dream and Promise Act of 2026. The bill, of which Garcia is the lead sponsor, would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, as well as immigrants with Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure statuses.

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"That is just the beginning of what needs to happen in terms of getting this national nightmare that the people here in Houston and all across America have been experiencing and get to a much better place here in the United States of America, which will certainly include dramatic change as it relates to immigration enforcement and our continued commitment not to give a dime to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine," Jeffries said. Jeffries said that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security should not count on getting any funding from Democrats in Congress without structural changes to the agency, including greater accountability. "If you’ve got rogue ICE agents who think they’ll never be held accountable," he said, "then we’re going to continue to see the type of violence that has been unleashed and brutality on law-abiding immigrant communities and on American citizens as we horrifically saw with Alex Pretti and Renée Nicole Good." Jeffries, as the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, is in a strong position to become the next Speaker of the House if his party wins a majority of seats in the chamber in the midterm elections. His visit to Texas came one day before Trump’s Tuesday visit to the state — in the president’s case, to hold rallies in Lubbock and Corpus Christi. Garcia, who introduced Jeffries, stressed that aggressive immigration enforcement measures under Trump were hurting not only immigrants but the Houston economy. "Make no mistake, this is an affordability issue," Garcia said. "When workers are afraid to show up for work, families lose paychecks. When customers are afraid to leave their homes, restaurants, and small businesses lose money. And when construction workers are afraid to go to a job site, homes will not get built."

When James Talarico was Jimmy, he played in the sandbox of student politics at UT Austin

Friday nights at the University of Texas at Austin meant The West Wing for Jimmy Talarico and his friends. They watched the show on DVD, escaping into the fictional White House of President Jed Bartlet, imagining themselves in the corridors of power. "We were a bunch of dumb college kids doing politics," said Andy Jones, who was part of that circle of friends. "We were all caught up in the moment of being in college and the Iraq war and the financial crisis and all this stuff." But even among these political obsessives, Talarico stood out. He was unusually polished, smooth and deliberate, almost as if he had been preparing for a U.S. Senate campaign since elementary school.

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Nearly two decades later, he's within striking distance of becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. Public opinion polls suggest a neck-and-neck race between Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton in the Nov. 3 election. "I could tell from the very minute he stepped on campus that he had big aspirations," Talarico's college friend Zack Hall remembered from 2007. "The way he dressed like he looked like Bill Clinton." Hall, who took Talarico under his wing at University Democrats, sometimes thought his younger friend could loosen up a bit. "You look too much like a politician right now. You're acting too much like a politician," Hall remembers telling him. Talarico's four years at UT Austin, from 2007 to 2011, became a political apprenticeship. He helped register thousands of voters, organized protests, lobbied lawmakers and ran a bitterly fought campaign for student government. Along the way, he made political decisions that left some of his closest allies feeling betrayed.

Inside Jim Burke’s big bet on Vistra’s future

On a 104-degree August day in Texas, Vistra Corp. president and CEO Jim Burke was preparing to board a plane to visit the company’s Davis-Besse nuclear facility in Ohio. The trip reflected a strategy years in the making. In 2018, when the zeitgeist favored renewables, Vistra execs doubled down on grid reliability. Building on its longstanding investments in nuclear and natural gas, Vistra expanded its fleet of gas plants that could deliver power on demand. Now, as AI fuels demand for electricity, those assets are increasingly valuable. The company’s market cap has climbed from roughly $10 billion in 2017 to $48 billion today. Burke is helping meet the demand for AI infrastructure in two major electricity markets while keeping power affordable and reliable for existing customers. As a marathon and triathlon competitor, the Louisiana-born, 58-year-old is accustomed to pushing through discomfort. “I love this company because it takes on the hard stuff,” Burke says.

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Burke became CEO of TXU Energy in 2005, early in Texas’ transition to a competitive electricity market. He has experienced its upheavals firsthand, leading the retail business through its parent company’s leveraged buyout and subsequent bankruptcy before moving into leadership at Vistra. Lessons were learned and prices paid, he acknowledges. “I’ve been here through almost all of that,” says Burke, who served as COO and then CFO and president before becoming Vistra’s chief executive in 2022. “Five or six years ago, no one was really talking about dispatchable fleets,” Burke says, recalling the focus on renewables. In 2018, Vistra acquired Dynegy for $1.74 billion, doubling the company’s power generation capacity. Markets weren’t valuing gas plants—out-of-favor dispatchable assets that can adjust output to match power needs. Vistra pursued the deal on the thesis that those assets would become more and more important. The deal brought Vistra’s generation capacity to roughly 40 gigawatts (GW). Six years later, Vistra expanded its nuclear fleet through a roughly $6 billion acquisition of Energy Harbor. Amazon’s deal with Talen Energy to buy energy from the Susquehanna nuclear plant, an an adjacent data center, in Pennsylvania in 2025 took the industry by storm. “We announced our acquisition of Energy Harbor two years before that industry wake-up call,” notes Burke, who serves as vice chair of the Nuclear Energy Institute and sits on the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations board. Public acceptance of nuclear power has grown in recent years, he adds. “Safety and reliability is in the best place it’s ever been.”

Tom Giovanetti: This one’s on you, Republicans

(Tom Giovanetti is president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a conservative, Dallas-based think tank.) I was raised in a conservative, religious family. In the days before President Ronald Reagan, families like mine often resisted identification with a political party, choosing instead to “support the man, not the party.” They were conservatives, both fiscally and socially, they just weren’t necessarily Republicans. All that changed with the Reagan coalition. Many Christians came to see the Republican Party as their natural home because of its embrace of pro-life and pro-family policies. It also offered the promise of Supreme Court nominees who would reverse the liberal Warren and Burger courts, of which Roe v. Wade was exhibit A. I experienced this personally. As a teenager sitting at the breakfast table, I listened to Reagan’s radio broadcasts and heard a wise, confident man explaining the world and its problems to me in ways that made sense. Reagan advocated conservative solutions, and when he later put many of those policies in place, they worked. I have spent my life since as a “movement conservative,” writing, speaking and running a conservative organization.

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Conservatives have banked a lot of successes since then — not only social but also fiscal and international. Conservative policies strengthened the economy, defeated the Soviet Union, freed millions from communism and restored American confidence and leadership. They also nurtured a generation of legal scholars and judges who reformed judicial interpretation and ultimately the Supreme Court. In the course of enjoying all these successes, many found their identity within the party and forgot why their forebears joined the Republican coalition in the first place. Too many who called themselves conservatives found it easy to discard long-held beliefs in order to secure victory for Republican candidates, even when those candidates offended or even scorned their values. Many former allies have lost their ability to see it, but today I see a Republican Party that violates and ridicules the conservative principles that drew people like me into it in the first place. My party chose as its leader an incompetent, narcissistic, chronic liar who seeks nothing but his own enrichment and the indulgence of his own ego. Transgressions spin out of this White House with such frequency that we have become inured to them.

Data center boom leads to surge in demand for electricians — and interest in joining trade

Applications to the North Texas Electrical Training Center have climbed to about 700 a month, up from 60 to 70 a month just a few years ago, as a surge in data center construction drives demand for electricians, the center’s training director said. “Demand has grown crazy as of late,” said Jason Allen. “It’s gone exponential.” Allen said the program now receives about 10 times more applicants than it has spots to fill, and he's looking to expand to keep up. Allen said data centers are the main reason for the demand. “We have a bunch of them going and they require a lot of electricians and that is the big driver there,” he said, adding that the trend has been building over the last three years. “There’s just not enough of us out there,” Allen said. “And so when there’s not enough manpower you need to get people [and] the way you do that is incentives.”

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Allen said pay is a major draw. Wages start at $20.33 an hour plus benefits, he said, but some companies are also offering overtime incentives, including paying time-and-a-half and double-time. “There is a substantial amount of money to be made out there in the field for sure,” Allen said. He also credited social media for the jump in applications. “I think a big part of it is people on social media showing their checks,” Allen said. “People talking about how much money you can make in the trades has been a big part of the push.” Allen said the four year apprenticeship training involves 8,000 hours on the job — and a day in a classroom setting once every two weeks. “Our goal is to just train the best general electricians out there with our apprentices doing it safely every day,” Allen said. One of those apprentices, Jacob Hamilton, is learning the fundamentals of electrical circuits in class at the training center. He said he's already on his second data center job.

Houston's Memorial Hermann ends Medicare Advantage plan

Memorial Hermann Health System’s decision to close its Medicare Advantage plan at year's end comes as many healthcare providers and insurers struggle with financial and regulatory challenges, experts said. Houston’s largest health system announced last month that it will stop offering its private insurance alternative to Medicare beginning in 2027. The Memorial Hermann plan has more than 14,000 members as of this month, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Memorial Hermann pointed to a variety of reasons for its decision, including intensifying competition in the market and uncertainty around changing federal regulations.

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“By narrowing our focus on our System’s core strengths, including care delivery, access and clinical excellence, we can advance our mission while positioning the System for sustainable growth,” Memorial Hermann said in a statement on its website. Memorial Hermann previously announced plans to wind down its commercial insurance plans — types of plans administered by private companies and typically obtained through an employer — by the end of the year. Experts said Memorial Hermann’s decision to close its plan comes as many health insurers scale back coverage because of various financial and regulatory challenges. Hospitals and insurers have struggled with rising healthcare costs and a higher-than-expected demand for services. The federal government has also implemented several policy changes that have tightened payments to Medicare Advantage plans. “It can just create an environment where it’s very difficult to continue to operate a very complex line of business like a health plan when you’re navigating all these other things going on,” said Molly Smith, group vice president for public policy at the American Hospital Association.

Texans report receiving fear-mongering text about ‘furries voting’ in election

Over the weekend, Texas voters reported receiving a text sounding the alarm that furries are turning out to skew the state’s midterm election. The text, which four people independently told the Current they had received, was distributed Saturday, accompanied by a photo of a man allegedly walking away from a Collin County polling place while wearing a fox tail accessory. The text claimed that furries — a term for people who sometimes adopt personas of anthropomorphized animal characters — and “other weirdos” are turning out in “record numbers” to vote early and are a “big reason why Democrats hold an 86,000 vote lead on Republicans statewide.” “Don’t let weirdo furry Socialists pick our leaders!” the text read, encouraging recipients to vote for “every Republican on your ballot today to keep common sense conservatives in control of Texas.”

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The text states that it was sent out by Texans for Common Sense, a political action committee 100% funded by Texans United for a Conservative Majority PAC, a far-right group backed by West Texas oil billionaire Tim Dunn. Dunn, co-founder of Midland-based CrownQuest Operating, is one of the main financial backers of the increasingly far-right Texas GOP. Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico frequently mentions the deep-pocketed oilman on the campaign trail as he decries billionaires’ meddling in Texas politics. There’s no proof that the unknown man in the texted photo was walking away from a polling place during early voting or that he’s a furry. People wear fox tails for a variety of reasons, including as an alternative fashion statement. In addition to potentially signaling membership in the furry community, the accessories are popular among cosplay and anime enthusiasts, e-girls, Renaissance faire-goers and members of other niche subcultures. But even if the man is a furry, who cares? There’s no indication that furries share any political ideology, nor is there any estimate of how many Texans are part of the subculture. The state’s largest annual furry convention, Texas Furry Fiesta, draws an attendance of 8,000. Even that gathering, a major celebration of furry culture that also draws people from other states and countries, represents a tiny fraction of Texas’ 31.7 million residents. Or could the furry voting bloc be the literal dark horse this election cycle?

Lawsuits and police reports: Texas Dems are taking legal action against GOP opponents

Two Democratic candidates have taken legal action against their Republican opponents, as Election Day fast approaches. Gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa filed a lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott in Travis County on Oct. 19 to obtain unredacted emails between Elon Musk and Abbott. Vikki Goodwin, the Democratic candidate running for Lt. Governor, filed a police report against Republican incumbent Dan Patrick at the end of September for misrepresenting her views in AI deepfake ads. Hinojosa's lawsuit stems from a Texas Public Information Act request Hinojosa filed on Sept. 29, asking to inspect all documents exchanged between Musk, his companies, and the governor’s office. Texas Newsroom had previously requested the documents and received redacted versions.

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Goodwin filed a police report on Sept. 21, saying Patrick’s campaign advertisements violated state law. The since-deleted, AI-generated ads depicted the Democratic candidate describing policies she said did not reflect her campaign. The ad misrepresented Goodwin’s views on taxes, she said. Patrick’s campaign said the ads were “an obvious parody produced to entertain” and did not break state law because they were released before the mandated 30-day limit. “I did not personally do or say the things depicted in the video; although the ‘person’ in the video appears to be me, it was not actually me,” Goodwin said in the affidavit. “Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick posted the video with the intent to deceive Texans, injure a candidate, or influence the result of an election.” The two Democrats have had other things in common this election cycle, as they have repeatedly tried to capitalize on their opponents’ unwillingness to debate. Abbott and Patrick have declined many debate invitations from their opponents, which reflects a broader nationwide trend this cycle in which GOP candidates across the country will not debate their challengers.

Texas appeals court to review case of woman convicted after swearing at Tarrant Commissioners Court

The highest appeals court in Texas has agreed to review the case of a woman convicted of disrupting a Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting last year. Carolyn Rodriguez was arrested after cursing during the public comment portion of the meeting in January 2025. Part of her appeal request argues her freedom of speech was violated, the meeting was not hindered in any way and that profanity is not disorderly conduct so long as there were no threats of violence. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review last Thursday, according to court filings. Mark Streiff, an attorney for Rodriguez, told KERA News Monday elected officials should listen to their constituents, regardless of whether they agree with them.

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“We live in a democracy, and we have elected officials that we elect to certain offices,” Streiff said. “They don’t get to be little kings and tyrants.” During the January 2025 meeting, commissioners were set to vote on stricter meeting rules that prohibited swearing. In turn, Rodriguez protested these new rules by rattling off several swear words during her allotted time to speak. County Judge Tim O’Hare kicked her out of the meeting, and she shouted, “[Expletive] you!” and “It’s not against the law!” as she got arrested. The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office did not comment on the case but said in an email Rodriguez’s brief is due Nov. 23 and the DA’s office will file its response 30 days after that. KERA News reached out to O’Hare and will update this story with any response. Rodriguez is known in the community as a free-speech activist and films police interactions on her YouTube channel, Carolina in Fort Worth.

Fort Bend judge candidate uses AI to create Black 'supporters' in ad

Fort Bend County Judge Daniel Wong is facing heat for posting a campaign video generated by artificial intelligence that depicts Black people voicing support for his campaign because he paid for their basic needs. Wong, a Republican who was appointed to the role this year and is seeking a full term Nov. 3, posted a video on Facebook Friday morning that shows six Black, AI-generated "supporters" thanking Wong for his help in finding them jobs, getting them food and paying their light bills. The video has since been deleted from Wong's social media pages. "(He helped me) at my worst time," says one AI-generated character, who wears a misspelled "Daniel Wong" hat and stands in front of an illegible roadside marquee covered in gibberish letters.

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Fort Bend County Pct. 4 Commissioner Dexter McCoy, Wong's Democratic opponent, said the video was "reprehensible and disgusting" for reducing the perception of Black voters to people simply looking for a "handout." Making matters worse, McCoy said, was that the AI-generated characters depict the likenesses of real people — in this case, paid Wong campaign workers who were asked to send in selfies when they checked in for work at polling places, according to McCoy. "Stealing the faces of ordinary people to fake support from Black voters is racist, vile and flat-out wrong," McCoy said. "Wong knows his agenda is extreme and it doesn't sell well in Fort Bend County, so he's using AI to manufacture support that he can't earn, and I don't think that's the judgement of someone ready to lead the most diverse county in Texas." The Wong campaign did not respond to questions about whether the video was based on photos of his campaign staff. Wong posted a statement Saturday night claiming, without evidence, that the video was created by a Democrat and shared with his campaign. The campaign did not respond to a request for further comment.

With Muny in play, the city golf course is in the spotlight once again

Lions Municipal Golf Course has been a part of Volma Overton Jr.’s life for more than 70 years. He was 5 when he ran around and watched wildlife while his dad played 18 holes with friends. He was 8 or so when he first entered the “caddie shack” for food. And he’s worked for decades to help save the historic golf course from development. Now, for the first since it opened, the City of Austin has a chance to own the 141 acres. The course, nicknamed Muny, holds a place in national civil rights history as the first desegregated course in the South. It hosts 75,000 rounds of golf each year. “I think everything is finally moving in the right direction,” said Overton, now 78. “We’ve got enough people who believe that this is the best thing to happen for the city and for the golf course.”

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When Mayor Kirk Watson announced on Oct. 14 the city has a path to owning the course, Muny fans celebrated. The University of Texas owns the land and has leased it to the city for nearly 90 years,currently on a month-to-month basis. Now UT has tentatively agreed to give the course to the city in exchange for a large donation from anonymous donors and amendments to the 1989 Brackenridge Development Agreement, which governs how the 190 acres of university-owned land contiguous to Muny can be developed. The amendments could rewrite decades-old rules dictating building heights, environmental regulations and development standards of that property. Researchers, environmental advocates and residents have already voiced concerns about how future development would affect the city. Holly Reed, who is on the board of The Muny Conservancy, and West Austin Neighborhood Group, says people need more information about the development agreement before they can properly weigh in.

Dallas Morning News Editorial: Dan Patrick threatens books in schools while AI deepfakes target kids

There is something dystopian about boxing up books from classrooms and school libraries and sending them to storage. This sounds like the plot of a science fiction novel, but it’s also what is happening in Dallas ISD. The district is removing book titles at the request of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick whose list of “dirty, filthy and vulgar books” is based on about 2,000 titles compiled by a conservative activist group. This newspaper reported that in September, Dallas ISD directed schools to remove book titles flagged by Patrick. While the district evaluates the fate of the books, they are being stored at a district service center.

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It’s hard to blame Dallas ISD for sending its books away, especially since Patrick has threatened to punish school districts that don’t remove books with profane content by knocking them down a letter grade in the state’s accountability scores. But the focus on books is a side show, distracting from the district’s real work: educating students. It’s one thing for a high-performing district like Celina ISD to form a library council to discuss what students are reading — though it feels unnecessary when many of those participating in the process haven’t read the books, community input is low, and students aren’t checking out the books in question. But for a large, urban school district like Dallas that is educating some of the most vulnerable students in the state, directing staff to spend time culling books takes valuable time and attention away from teaching. The urgency to rid schools of profane books feels tilted given the other harmful content students are encountering at school, some of it enabled by those supporting Texas Republicans’ campaigns.

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker endorses across party lines in key races

Republican Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker has made endorsements in several key Nov. 3 midterm races that straddle party lines — but she has not made a decision in the race for U.S. Senate. State Rep. Jon Rosenthal of Houston, the Democratic candidate vying for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, announced Sunday that Parker has endorsed him. The Texas Railroad Commission — which oversees the state’s oil and gas industry, not railroads — has become a political lightning rod after former Tarrant County GOP chair Bo French won the Republican nomination for the seat. French received backlash in September for a series of social media posts targeting a diverse group of students cheering for the Longhorns at a Texas football game. “The Texas Railroad Commission is not a place for culture wars and bigotry,” Parker said in a statement endorsing Rosenthal, according to a post on his Facebook. “It is the foundation of the Texas economy, and we cannot afford to hand it to the wrong leader. Vote for Jon Rosenthal.”

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Parker told the Dallas Morning News and KXAS Channel 5 in a joint interview that she remains undecided in the Senate race between Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico of Round Rock. “I will ultimately vote in that election,” Parker told the outlets. “I just haven’t voted yet and I don’t know yet.” Parker endorsed U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary and told the outlets that she considered him a better model for a senator. Parker has also endorsed Republican Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare to keep his position. Parker was one of a handful of Republicans who endorsed former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price when she ran for Tarrant County judge, and she has spoken about division within the Republican Party. “We just eat our own,” she told the Texas Tribune in 2022. Parker was one of 10 mayors in Tarrant County who signed a letter in 2025 asking Tarrant County commissioners to “strongly consider” delaying a vote on redrawing voting precincts. In her endorsement of O’Hare, posted on his Facebook page on Oct. 16, Parker said that O’Hare was “the right choice for Tarrant County.” “Now is not the time for activist leadership,” Parker said, according to the post. “It’s a time to focus on governing our county into the future.” Parker has also endorsed state Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson of Dallas over state Republican state Sen. Mayes Middleton of Galveston in the race for Texas attorney general, telling the Dallas Morning News and NBC5 that she had worked with Johnson in the past.

Inside UT's response to Bo French's racist post about Longhorn fans

The weekend of Sept. 12, the University of Texas celebrated. Celebrating the win that night, UT sent out an “apply now!” link on X, inviting students to be a part of “moments like this.” A UT social media analyst tracked which politicians and celebrities had posted about the win (U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Matthew McConaughey and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico) and who had posted a picture with President Jim Davis — referred to behind the scenes as PJD — (Ohio State’s president, a local CEO and former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison). The day after, the UT account went comparatively quiet. On Sunday, Sept. 13, just before 8 a.m., Bo French — a Tarrant County Republican running for a seat on the oil and gas industry-regulating Texas Railroad Commission — posted a screengrab he’d taken from the game.

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The photo showed a student section erupting in cheers as the Longhorns charged into the fourth quarter to score the 21 points they needed to clinch the victory. French described the crowd, with celebrating South Asian fans in the front row, as a problem “far worse than anyone imagined.” French — a downballot conservative candidate — posts online angrily and often. He has argued that 100 million people, about a third of the country, should be deported, and has increasingly perpetuated Islamophobic and antisemitic views. But his post about UT’s student section hit a nerve, attracting millions of views and forcing those in the Republican party to answer the question: Was this politics as usual, or did French’s post cross a line? In the days that followed, Republicans including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows and Texas Tech University System Chairman Cody Campbell condemned French’s language as racist or wrong. Longtime conservative strategist Karl Rove said he would not vote for French in November. But the University of Texas remained quiet on the matter for 36 hours. UT leadership’s silence would create deep rifts with its students of color, some of whom already felt upset with the university’s decision to cut ethnic studies majors and some core classes.

City Stories

Ariat replaces Dickies as naming sponsor of top-grossing arena

Dickies Arena woke up with a new name Monday morning: Ariat? Arena. Ariat International Inc. has signed a 10-year naming rights deal with Trail Drive Management Corp., the nonprofit operator of the venue, effective immediately. The naming rights partnership also designates Ariat as the arena's official partner for Western and work wear, according to an Oct. 26 announcement by Ariat International. Financial terms were not disclosed. The naming rights builds on a partnership established when The Ariat Club opened inside the arena in 2023 and as Ariat continues to grow its regional headquarters in Fort Worth. Ariat opened its 1-million-square-foot distribution hub and regional HQ in the city in spring 2022 and in 2025 announced plans to invest $72.6 million to expand.

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"Fort Worth has played a huge part in Ariat’s growth, and the city and the State of Texas have been incredible partners every step of the way," Liz O'Neill, CEO of Ariat, said in a statement. "Putting our name on this iconic arena is the next chapter, and we’re honored to welcome the community for rodeos, concerts, and sporting events." Ariat International was founded in 1993 and is based in San Leandro, California. It is known for boots and apparel, including specialized equestrian gear, and has been the sponsor of the Texas Rattlers team in the Professional Bull Riders league since the inaugural season in 2022. At the time, Ariat was the first company to sponsor a PBR team. Ariat Arena has hosted more than 935 events and 6 million-plus fans since it opened in 2019. It was the highest-grossing venue in North America in the first six months of the year in the 10,001-15,000 capacity category, according to a Billboard? report. Trail Drive Management announced it was seeking a new naming rights partner earlier this year, after the relationship with Dickies'? new owner, New York-based Blue Star Alliance LLC, ended in a contract dispute. The Dickies headquarters moved out of Fort Worth for Costa Mesa, California, in 2025. The nonprofit had its eye on Ariat since it began searching for a new naming rights partner earlier this year, despite at least a dozen companies, both local and national, showing interest.

National Stories

Anthropic’s IPO sets up defining moment for Wall Street and AI boom

Anthropic PBC’s initial public offering is laying bare the extremes of the multi-trillion-dollar AI boom business model: extraordinary growth paired with uncertainty about demand and the spending required to continue developing the technology. The startup, which publicly filed IPO paperwork on Monday, is poised to be the first major US firm focused solely on building AI software to make its market debut. The filing offers proof of the billions of dollars in sales per year that Anthropic's products generate, but also puts forth hard questions about its extreme losses, government intervention and the potential for catastrophic harms that are specific to cutting-edge AI developers. Just five years into its existence, Anthropic is expected to raise more money in its IPO than any firm in history and overtake Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in market value.

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Its valuation has surged from $183 billion a little over a year ago to $965 billion in its most recent round, with early expectations that the company could be worth upwards of nearly $2 trillion once it goes public — creating a massive windfall, even for employees and investors who got into the company somewhat late. Its public market performance might cement or capsize Wall Street’s confidence in the AI boom at a moment when investors are increasingly anxious about the borrowing binge underpinning it. More than any other companies, Anthropic and archrival OpenAI have set the pace for global AI development. Anthropic has also put itself at the center of a complex web of interconnected investments from leading chipmakers and cloud providers that are helping to prop up the entire sector and the US economy. “This will really be investors’ first significant opportunity to invest directly in the company that is driving the AI economy,” said Gil Luria, head of technology research at DA Davidson. “It’s of monumental importance.” At the same time, Anthropic’s IPO may shape the prospects for an entire generation of AI startups. It’s anticipated to funnel more capital into the ecosystem through what promises to be an almost unparalleled wealth creation event and is expected to open the floodgates for others to go public in the coming months after a period of paralysis for the IPO market.

Silicon Valley AI political groups turn on each other in the 2026 election

Silicon Valley’s bid to dominate artificial intelligence politics has devolved into a fight with itself. With one week until the midterm election, political groups favoring faster AI development and lighter, more uniform rules have spent roughly $8 million in general-election congressional races, besting groups pushing for stronger safeguards and more room for states to regulate that have spent about $6.9 million, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings through Oct. 20. In Florida’s 25th Congressional District, that split has produced a direct face-off. During the primary, Think Big, an affiliate of Leading the Future, the main super PAC network pushing faster AI development and lighter regulation, spent $310,000 supporting Democrat Jared Moskowitz, whose district changed after Florida redrew its congressional map ahead of the 2026 election.

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On the other side, Defending Our Values, a super PAC favoring stricter safety guardrails and state-level authority, dropped almost $857,000 to boost Republican Scott Singer and an additional $740,000 to keep one of his primary opponents from being elected. Now, Moskowitz and Singer face off in the general election. It’s a microcosm of the breakdown in Silicon Valley’s bid to build a unified AI political machine. Both sides favor AI innovation and agree on the need for guardrails, but they remain locked in a costly tug-of-war over which candidates to back — and which will best align with their preferred deployment speed, regulatory reach and balance of state power. Electing more allies could give either camp an edge in shaping AI policy in the next Congress, even as the feud risks weakening Silicon Valley’s clout. “Everyone supports some form of regulation. It’s just a debate about how much,” said Bruce Freed, president and co-founder of the nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability and a former chief investigator for the Senate banking committee. “Money is flowing in all directions to be in the driver’s seat of what happens.”

Microsoft to shed 60,000 from workforce

Microsoft Corp. will offer buyouts to about 60,000 workers, representing roughly a quarter of its total staff, as part of the company’s efforts to trim costs and retool its workforce for the artificial intelligence era. Some personnel in the US, Canada, India and the UK at a vice president level and below will be eligible, said a Microsoft spokesperson. Divisions such as Xbox, Windows, Copilot and finance are fully participating in the offer, according to people familiar with the terms. Certain pools of employees, including some focused on data centers, sales, marketing, cybersecurity and quantum computing, aren’t eligible, the people said. Microsoft declined to comment on these specifics. “This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support,” Chief People Officer Amy Coleman said in a note to staff Monday. Workers will receive benefits similar to a standard severance package, the spokesperson said.

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The world’s largest software maker has shed tens of thousands of workers in waves of layoffs in recent years. In July, it offered buyouts to retirement-age employees, and more than 30% of the roughly 8,750 eligible people took the offer. Microsoft expects far fewer personnel to accept the latest buyout proposal compared with the voluntary retirement program, the spokesperson said. Microsoft’s headcount as of the end of June was 223,000. The figure has been largely flat since 2022, about the time Microsoft began spending heavily on AI and data centers — squeezing budgets and hiring elsewhere in the company. The company is scheduled to report financial results on Wednesday, and investors will be laser-focused on signs that the heavy spending on AI is paying off. Microsoft shares rose about 1% at midday in New York. Other companies have sought to shrink headcount as they redirect spending to AI infrastructure. Google offered voluntary buyouts in a number of units last year, CNBC reported. Meta Platforms Inc.’s headcount is down by more than 20,000 from a late 2022 peak. Both are among the biggest spenders on data center infrastructure.

Pentagon presses Congress to keep measure changing name to ‘Department of War’

The Pentagon is pressing Congress to keep measures in the annual defense policy bill that would formally authorize the name change from Department of Defense to “Department of War.” “President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had the conviction to say so plainly. Many in Washington would have left the name alone. The president chose clarity over convenience when he signed the executive order authorizing the Department of War name,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, wrote in an op-ed for Fox News Digital published Monday. “This is a restoration, not an invention,” wrote Parnell, who is also Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s senior adviser.

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The Pentagon’s insistence comes as both the House and Senate Armed Services committees adopted measures in their drafts of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would codify the department’s name change to one preferred by the Trump administration. The amendment — put forward by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), a staunch Trump ally — to formally rename the department was adopted during the June marathon NDAA session with a 29-27 vote. The push began after Trump signed an executive order last fall to authorize the name change with Hegseth taking on the title of “secretary of War,” and many Republicans on Capitol Hill have referred to the department by the new name. The War Department was established in 1789 under former President George Washington, and the name remained until 1949 when it became the Defense Department. “The president has acted. Now Congress must finish the job. The House and the Senate Armed Services Committee have both backed restoring the Department of War name in this year’s defense bill,” Parnell wrote in the op-ed. “Lawmakers should keep it in the final version and send it to the president’s desk. The name of the institution that sends Americans to fight belongs in law, not just in an executive order.”

Trump proposes local tax to curb infrastructure expansion

President Donald Trump wants data center companies to make an offer residents may find harder to refuse: a financial benefit from hosting the infrastructure powering the AI boom. In an Oct. 21 Truth Social post, Trump urged data center operators to pay dividends to the communities hosting their facilities, arguing that financial agreements could help turn unpopular projects into more acceptable developments. The proposal comes as communities increasingly question the electricity demands, water consumption and local costs associated with AI infrastructure. While Trump’s statement does not establish a nationwide payment requirement, it raises a larger question for the industry: Can sharing the economic benefits of data centers make it easier to build them?

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The rapid expansion of AI infrastructure has intensified concerns about the resources needed to operate large data centers, particularly electricity and water. While AI companies have tried to tout the benefits of these facilities, including permanent and temporary employment opportunities for residents, often running into the thousands, these efforts appear to have done little to quell opposition. Already, some states have begun imposing restrictions and moratoriums on data center construction in response to residents’ demands. These decisions are beginning to slow the pace of data center buildouts. While the effects are still early, continued opposition could eventually slow the advancement of AI and other technologies that rely heavily on data centers. Against this backdrop, US President Donald Trump has urged data center companies to make their projects more appealing to residents by offering them financial incentives. In a Truth Social post cited by Reuters, Trump framed his recommendation as something he had observed, suggesting that if more data center operators adopted this approach, opposition to their projects could begin to wane. “I have watched the process closely, and data centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area, have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck,” he said. Trump did not specify how the proposed dividends would work, who would qualify to receive them or whether payments would come directly from company profits. Those details would determine how much residents benefit and what the arrangements cost data center operators.

In Israeli election, Netanyahu's longtime leadership is on the line

Israelis are voting in a pivotal election Tuesday as their country wrestles with unresolved wars, continues to reel from Hamas’ 2023 attack and is deeply divided over the character of the state and the right person to lead it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who voted just after midday, faces an array of parties seeking to oust Israel’s longest-serving premier from power. Opinion polls have suggested a tight race with his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. Over 7 million people are eligible to vote, and tens of thousands have reportedly arrived from overseas. Inside Israel, the race is largely about security and who should serve to defend the country. Outside Israel, it’s mainly about the country’s reputation — and the security of Jewish people worldwide — after growing criticism over the war in Gaza and Jewish settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

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Almost 17% of Israelis voted in the first three hours, the highest turnout by that point since 1981, according to initial figures by the Central Elections Committee. In Israel’s fragmented parliamentary politics, no single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority. There is a chance that neither Netanyahu’s religious and ultranationalist coalition nor the group of parties hoping to remove him has enough support for a majority. That could set off weeks of negotiations before a leader is declared. Israel’s Arab-led parties could emerge as kingmakers — if other parties agree to join forces with them. “Our vote will change the government,” Mansour Abbas, head of the Islamist Ra’am party, said while voting, adding that he hoped turnout would surpass 70% in Arab communities. Arabs in Israel make up about 20% of the population. Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for taunting Palestinian detainees and saying some Palestinians in Gaza are “not even people,” warned that “it will be Mansour Abbas’ government” if Netanyahu and his allies don’t win.

GOP congressman suggests he’s open to deporting Melania Trump if she lied on her immigration paperwork

NewsNation anchor Nichole Berlie interviewed Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) on Monday about his threat to expel Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House and push to deport her should authorities find she lied on her citizenship application. “We certainly want to make sure people follow the law when it comes to citizenship, when it comes to anything. Do you think this type of scrutiny should be placed on others who are high profile with connections to the administration, like First Lady Melania Trump, Elon Musk, who was the head of DOGE? Both are high-profile citizens who are also immigrants to our country,” Berlie asked.

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“I believe that we should go back to 1990 and we should re-evaluate everyone who has become a naturalized citizen, because what I am understanding is the kind of fraud that we’re hearing about from Ilhan Omar is endemic in Minnesota, with many, many people having gotten citizenship without giving appropriate paperwork. So yeah, I think Ilhan needs to be the first. She certainly should not be the last,” replied Fine. “All right, so you would include that too, or you would want that to include the First Lady, to include Elon Musk, to include other high-profile immigrants as well?” Berlie pushed. “Anyone who was not honest in their immigration paperwork. I don’t know anything about the circumstances of the First Lady or Elon Musk. I don’t know that there’s ever been an allegation, but there are allegations about Ilhan Omar’s citizenship issues going back 10 years that people have refused to look at, in fact coming from the Somali community. I believe anyone who lied on their paperwork to become a citizen should be denaturalized and should be deported,” Fine replied. “Right, we know the First Lady came on the Einstein visa,” Berlie added before moving on.

James Comey charged for a third time by the Trump administration

Federal prosecutors have charged former FBI Director James Comey with transmission of national defense information and conspiracy to transmit national defense information. It’s the third federal case against Comey, who has been a longtime target of President Donald Trump since he initiated the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The case has played out under seal since Oct. 5. Comey’s defense attorneys filed a motion 10 days ago to dismiss the charges. He has not been indicted in the case. Comey responded to the new charges in a video Monday. “Well, they’re back again. It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to,” Comey said in a video on Substack after the charges were made public.

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“Nothing’s changed with me. I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary,” he said. The new charges stem from an Oct. 5, 2016, article in The New York Times with the headline “Yahoo Said to Have Aided U.S. Email Surveillance by Adapting Spam Filter” by reporter Charlie Savage. “The United States’ investigation has uncovered evidence that former FBI Director, James B. Comey, sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before,” Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak wrote in a filing unsealed Monday. “The investigation has uncovered evidence that Mr. Comey directed staff to speak to Mr. Savage about specific accuracy concerns related to the Reuters article, and thereby illegally transferred classified information.” Comey’s attorneys argued that both counts “are based exclusively on the October 5, 2016, alleged disclosure exactly ten years before the government’s filed criminal information” — and that the charges should be tossed out because of statute-of-limitations issues.

Copyright October 27, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved