September 9, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Republicans are hoping ‘Trump-a-palooza’ isn’t only about Trump

President Donald Trump will be at the center of this week’s GOP midterm convention. Many of his fellow Republicans are hoping he doesn’t make it all about him. The parade of lawmakers, candidates, donors and party officials now headed to Dallas for the two-day spectacle are counting on Trump to make a compelling pitch on the national stage before voters hit the polls. According to interviews with dozens of Republicans, they are largely hoping for a two-pronged approach aimed at getting the president’s committed supporters off the sidelines: a focus on what they call Democrats’ extreme positions and the accomplishments of the Republican Congress — most of which are now more than a year old. “Communism vs. common sense,” Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) said in an interview, calling the event a “scene-setter” that should stay laser-focused on “what’s on the line” for voters in the election.

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Republicans have reasons to be wary. Trump’s approval ratings are at record lows for his time in office, and many swing-district GOP lawmakers are torn between running from an unpopular president and alienating his base of committed supporters. There is little evidence Trump is content to let rank-and-file Republicans run away from him. The first pair of national midterm ads funded by his cash-rich political operation put Trump at the very center. One ad begins with businessman Dana White extolling Trump as “the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met.” The other is more up congressional Republicans’ alley, with a Trump voiceover running through a litany of tax cuts included in last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Even if not all agree Trump is the party’s best spokesperson at this point, they are eager to see a new effort to promote the tax cuts, which were enacted in July 2025, and want to see them touted anew in Dallas. “It’s incredibly important that we highlight what we’ve accomplished,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said in an interview. “That’s the perfect venue for that.” “It’s a great opportunity for us to brag about what the Republican Party has done the last year and a half,” added Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Texas). “So certainly talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Oil hits $100 a barrel as turmoil intensifies in Middle East

The global price of oil reached $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July as tensions in the Middle East escalated. That’s nearly 40 percent higher than on the eve of the war in Iran. The rise reflects investors’ concerns about how long the war, now in its seventh month, will last; tensions have snarled a large chunk of global oil shipments. Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, briefly surpassed $100 a barrel in July. In the early months of the war, Brent peaked near $120 a barrel. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, is up 41 percent since the start of the war, at $95 a barrel.

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Crude oil is the primary ingredient for fuels like gasoline and diesel. Rising oil prices have pushed the average price of gasoline in the United States past $4 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, while diesel this month hit a record high, surpassing its previous peak set four years ago. Diesel is now nearly $6 a gallon, up more than 55 percent since the start of the war. “The biggest impact of the conflict has been on petroleum products rather than crude oil itself,” Bank of America analysts said in a research note on Tuesday. Such high fuel costs squeeze businesses and households as the cost of transporting goods, growing crops and driving a car get more and more expensive. Volatile energy prices remain one of the biggest wild cards in monthly inflation reports. The next measure of U.S. inflation is set to be released on Friday. Since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, oil exports from the Persian Gulf have been greatly curtailed. Iran has used force to keep most ships from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that before the war carried a fifth of the world’s oil. The U.S. Navy is helping ships navigate the strait, allowing some oil to flow and helping to keep prices from rising more.

Democrats see a wave. Can they afford to ride it?

Democrats see a wave building. They’ve identified paths to House and Senate majorities that seemed laughable not even a year ago courtesy of an unpopular president, a cost-of-living crisis and a prolonged conflict in Iran. They also see a potential catastrophic problem in their campaign accounts. Interviews with two dozen top Democratic and Republican campaign strategists, party officials and donor advisers described an electoral map, eight weeks before Election Day, as teetering between a district-by-district, state-by-state knife fight and a Democratic landslide. But even the most optimistic Democrats said it’s not clear they’ll have the cash to pull it off. “The money has been slower than anyone anticipated. It’s not at all slow on the candidates’ side, which is maybe the bright spot, but the outside money is not what people expected,” said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC that’s pledged to spend $50 million this cycle. “The money is a five-alarm fire, and the fire starts in September, when the spending gets going, and people are worried.”

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Mike Smith, who leads the flagship Democratic House super PAC, said, “We all wish that more people were stepping up and doing larger checks. And would that have a material effect on the battlefield? Yes.” A major Democratic outside group made its own private plea to more than 300 donors and operatives last month. “The next four weeks will determine if we can take advantage of these opportunities, but it requires us to double down on resources now,” according to a copy of the memo, obtained by The Washington Sun. Those concerns — Republicans swamping Democrats with cash and blunting their momentum this fall — only intensified last week, with the start of spending from Elon Musk and MAGA Inc., where President Donald Trump has $400 million stashed. And even though Democratic candidates have held their own in fundraising against GOP counterparts, Republicans hold a significant combined advantage across outside groups and party committees. “You can be a shitty candidate and have a shitty campaign and bad environment, and still win by one instead of nine,” said Corry Bliss, a national GOP consultant who led the party’s premier super PAC in 2018. “Of course people are pissed off, but you only have to win by one in these red states,” and red-leaning districts, “so there’s some wiggle room,” he added.

KPRC's Harris County judge debate between Plummer, Sanchez crashes

A debate between Harris County judge candidates Letitia Plummer and Orlando Sanchez was postponed Monday night after technical problems on a KPRC live stream disrupted the virtual event. KPRC was set to moderate the debate between Democratic candidate Plummer and Republican candidate Sanchez, who are vying to succeed Democratic Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo when her term ends Dec. 31. The public livestream ran for about 10 minutes before going offline. Plummer said she was unable to hear Sanchez before dropping off the call. "It seems that Dr. Plummer has temporarily left and will come back," KPRC anchor and reporter Stephania Jimenez said shortly after. "And that’s something that we've had to do in order to make sure that everybody can hear everyone."

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Plummer's campaign said the stream crashed, and the next two questions were not broadcast after the debate resumed. A producer had already asked the candidates to log back into the call twice due to audio issues, and after sending them a new link, Plummer spent about 40 minutes in a virtual lobby waiting for Sanchez to reconnect, according to her campaign. Plummer's campaign said she remained ready to continue the debate. Jimenez and producers said they were attempting to reach Sanchez's team, and Plummer later learned he asked to debate another day with "no intention of rejoining." Sanchez's campaign blamed Plummer for failing to make the "necessary technical arrangements," saying that caused repeated disconnections. "Because of technical issues, the debate between Harris County judge candidates Dr. Letitia Plummer and Orlando Sanchez has been postponed," Jimenez wrote on Facebook Monday night. "When I get an update, I’ll let you know." Both campaigns have traded blame and expressed interest in setting a new debate date, but none had been scheduled as of Tuesday morning. KPRC's news director did not immediately return a request for comment. The three local organizations that partnered for the event — Houston's chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Menudo Club and the Culture Commission Coalition — said the event would be rescheduled due to the technical difficulties and an "influx of unexpected volume." The new debate date would be announced soon, and organizers would ensure it comes without "further disruption," the groups wrote in a statement.

State Stories

Texas state leaders aim to crack down on alleged birth tourism, as Trump’s executive order hits legal barrier

Texas Republican leaders are pushing ahead with efforts to crack down on alleged "birth tourism," even as a federal district court has blocked an effort by President Donald Trump to do the same nationwide. A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's August executive order banning the practice last week. The ruling last Wednesday marked the latest defeat for Trump's efforts to curtail or restrict the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which grants U.S. citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States, regardless of the legal status of the parents. Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term denying automatic U.S. citizenship to anyone whose parents were in the United States illegally. On June 30, the final day of its 2025-26 term, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the definition of birthright citizenship as defined in the Fourteenth Amendment, ruling 6-3 that Trump's order was unconstitutional.

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Trump responded by issuing a new pair of executive orders in August. One of these ordered the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take steps to revoke the visas of any noncitizens coming to the U.S. for the purposes of giving birth and gaining U.S. citizenship for their children, as well as to permanently bar such noncitizens from entering the U.S. "What the Supreme Court said is if you’re born on U.S. soil, you’re presumptively a citizen unless there’s some sort of a fiction, some reason why you’re not actually here," said Josh Blackman, a professor of constitutional law at South Texas College of Law Houston. "I think what Trump [was] arguing in this order is that if there’s allegations of fraud, that is you didn’t come here under the right circumstances, it’s as if you were really never here ... I don’t see that that clearly follows from the Supreme Court’s opinion." Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland agreed. Boardman wrote in her decision, issued last Wednesday, that the Supreme Court's June ruling meant that Trump's August executive order "is almost certainly unconstitutional."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defends Trump economy at SMU event

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a prelude to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas at a talk hosted by Southern Methodist University. Fielding questions from Dallas developer and Cox School of Business executive board member Ray Washburne, Bessent defended the Trump administration's economic record and made his pitch for why Republicans should keep Congress. "Texas is the lab for the Trump economy," Bessent said. "In the U.S., we have good trade policy, good tax policy, great energy policy, and importantly, deregulation. So I think we're going to see three competing economic visions: the U.S., the growth agenda, .... the European sclerosis model, ... and then the Chinese state model. I think in 20 years we're going to see that it was the U.S. model that won."

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A frequent topic in the hour-long conversation was the national debt, which recently hit $40 trillion. Bessent repeated his common mantra that the U.S. could "grow our way out of it" with 3% annual growth in gross domestic product. "I think that we were well ahead of that when the president rightly decided that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon. We'll get to the other side of this Iran conflict, and the underlying economy is very, very strong, and I think re-accelerating," he said. In the second quarter of 2026, U.S. GDP grew at an annualized rate of 1.5%, down from 2.1 % in the prior quarter, dragged down by high oil prices from the war in Iran. GDP also grew at about 2% in 2025, as the country dealt with tariffs leveled unilaterally by President Donald Trump and then struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February. Bessent claimed the federal budget deficit-to-GDP ratio, which currently sits at about 6%, would have been down year-over-year this year, "except the Supreme Court made me give back $180 billion of tariff refunds." Though praising Bessent for a 4.1% unemployment rate, Washburne asked about interest rates, which remain high. Bessent responded by positing that interest rates are the most correlated with energy prices they've ever been, and positioned high energy prices as temporary, potentially a year or two, saying "on the other side of this, I think that the market is going to be oversupplied with oil."

Longtime Texas politico Ben Barnes is out with a new memoir examining his legacy

Ben Barnes was first elected to the Texas Legislature at age 22. By 26 he was Speaker of the Texas House — and Lyndon B. Johnson was predicting he’d be president one day. Today, Barnes, who went on to serve as Texas’ lieutenant governor, is still something of a political kingmaker at age 88. His new book, “Get It Done: Seven Decades of Lessons from a Political Legend,” reflects on his time in politics. Barnes grew up on a small peanut farm and didn’t have much exposure to politics in his young life beyond his father’s support for Franklin Roosevelt. “Of course, we didn’t have television then. As a matter of fact, we didn’t have electricity at my house until we were in the eighth grade,” he said. “But we would listen to FDR’s fireside chats on a radio.”

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Barnes did not think about running for public office as a young person. By the time he was in his early 20s ,he was more focused on his coursework at the University of Texas at Austin. “It was beyond my wildest dreams that I would run for office so young and really, quite frankly, run for office without any money. And that was the most difficult thing,” he said. “I literally knocked on every door in the three counties in Central Texas. And if I had not knocked on the doors, I don’t think I would have had a chance to win.” Barnes said the work ethic he picked up from farm life was key in his early political career. “We had to work or we weren’t going to be able to hang on to the farm — we weren’t going to survive or make a crop,” he said. “So hard work was something I was used to, but I really felt like that this was a chance for me to do something.” He was also influenced by a high school English class in which he read Les Misérables, which introduced him to ideas of justice and revolution. “It was the fact that I realized that you could have a real impact, no matter how old you are,” he said. “Those young teenage children in the streets of Paris made me think that I was maybe 21 and wasn’t too young to run.”

COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Texas

We are steadily approaching flu season in North Texas, but that’s not the only respiratory illness folks should be vigilant about — COVID-19 infections and emergency department visits are also on the rise. Texas is one of 47 states where COVID infections are growing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state's seeing a moderate increase in emergency room visits related to COVID and wastewater monitoring shows that viral activity for COVID-19 in Texas is "very high." Dr. Trish Perl, a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center who specializes in infectious diseases, recently told NTX Now's Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning that North Texas is in the early days of a "seasonal epidemic."

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"What we're seeing right now are positive tests, a few hospitalizations here and there, but it's early on," she said. "I think it's a little early for us to say, 'Is this more severe or less severe?' We just really, at this point, don't have that much information. Even if it seems like it's less severe to me or you, if you're somebody who's immunocompromised, it can be absolutely extremely life-threatening, and so it depends also on your perspective and your underlying condition as to how that may manifest for you." Perl also noted that it’s been hard to track when COVID cases will spike. We know that the fall is flu season and can generally anticipate an uptick in respiratory illnesses, but COVID is not quite as predictable. "Last year, it was more early fall, but prior to that, we had some summer waves," she said. "We have less of a sense of what the sort of classic epidemiology of when we're going to see this is going to be. The current pattern is consistent with last year, and so I think we'll have to wait and see." But Perl said COVID is starting to act like a typical respiratory virus that spreads more in the fall and winter. "We'll just have to really follow it over the next few years to see if the pattern continues in this direction," she said.

As Texas expands public pre-K, longtime childcare providers struggle to keep their place

Gwendolyn Sneed points to photographs of children dressed in white caps and gowns on the wall of Good Street Learning Center in South Dallas. "1954, class of 1957 — wall of fame," she said proudly. She's been the director of Good Street Learning Center for more than 20 years. The Baptist church opened the nursery and day school in 1952, when Dallas schools were still segregated. For decades, Good Street has provided South Dallas families a safe place for their children to learn and be cared for. "And look how large those graduating classes were," Sneed said. Decades ago, the school had more than 60 preschoolers. Today, Sneed has just five children in her 4-year-old preschool class. She said enrollment never recovered from the pandemic, and now the nonprofit faces another challenge: the growth of free public pre-K offered by its longtime partner, Dallas ISD.

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"It's more like a competition now," Sneed said. "They need seats filled. We need seats filled." Good Street partnered with Dallas ISD in 2008. Sneed said it was because they were already losing 4-year-olds to the district's free pre-K program. "The school district had literally taken children from us when they began enrolling 4-year-olds," Sneed said. "Because we can't compete with free." Under the partnership, the child is enrolled in both Dallas ISD and the childcare center. The district provides a certified teacher, while Good Street offers care before and after the school day for a fee. Families at Good Street can drop children off as early as 6:30 a.m. and pick them up as late as 6 p.m. Today, the district partners with more than 20 childcare centers. Assistant Superintendent Debbie Ramos said the partnerships give families another option. Ramos oversees Early Learning and Centralized Development for the district. "So if they want to go to a partnership center, they have that choice before they're ready for a big school," Ramos said. But the district has also dramatically expanded pre-K on its own campuses. Nearly every Dallas ISD elementary school now offers full-day Pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Sand Branch, Texas, has no clean drinking water. She's trying to fill the gap.

Days after a large grassfire ripped through four acres of land in Sand Branch, Christina Parks is exhausted. On August 29, brush, trash and debris on a vacant property fueled the blaze, and two nearby structures were damaged. There were no reported injuries, though some residents were forced to temporarily evacuate. After two days of containment efforts by Dallas Fire-Rescue and mutual aid crews from nine neighboring areas, the fire was finally suppressed, according to the department. For Parks, who lives in Sand Branch, it’s another blow to the already struggling community that lacks clean accessible water and makes disasters such as this more difficult to handle. “I’m drained physically and mentally,” she told The 19th. Amid the chaos, she’s once again assumed her role as a community leader. With the assistance of other volunteers and community organizations — some of whom traveled as long as two hours — Parks is taking the steps to care for her neighbors in the immediate aftermath of the fire as she grapples with their ongoing need for basic necessities.

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Sand Branch is an impoverished pocket of land tucked away in Seagoville, Texas, roughly 14 miles southeast of downtown Dallas. It has been without safe drinking water for decades, and it does not have a sewage system or even trash collection. Historically, it’s a predominantly Black community. Parks has heard stories about a time when more people lived in Sand Branch — that it was once a happy place. When she first arrived four years ago, more young children like her own 12-year-old daughter had also lived there. But since moving to the unincorporated area, she’s seen families go and seen her neighbors struggle. Some people left to start anew in places where resources are easier to come by. Driving along the thoroughfare, as asphalt highways fade into open plains, the area slowly begins to resemble a scene from a bygone era. Horses freely roam along unpaved trails. Abandoned dogs drift through the community. Some residents have begun installing solar solutions to supplement the lack of streetlights. “It’s like you took a step back in time,” Parks said. She is one of the few residents who is raising a child in the area. In 1998, the Texas Almanac listed a population of 400. Today, residents estimate that those numbers have shrunk to about 150 people. “What you’ll hear the older people say,” Parks said, “is that they’re just trying to wait till we all die so they can have our land. And that’s sad because, if you think about it, why else? Why are there no children? Why is there nothing here?”

Battle over large Gillespie County solar farm heading back to court

Gillespie County and AMPYR Energy USA will soon be back in court in Fredericksburg in a legal battle over development of the 1,100-acre Marshall Springs solar farm and battery energy storage system (BESS) in the heart of the scenic Texas Hill Country. It's a battle over green energy in one of the greenest-looking parts of Texas. The county has taken legal steps against the Long Beach, California-based company over alleged fire and environmental risks at the planned facility, north of Fredericksburg and about an hour's drive northwest of San Antonio. The two sides are scheduled to be back in state district court in Fredericksburg on Sept. 29 for a hearing over the county's request for a temporary injunction, which, if granted, would stop the project until a lawsuit over it could be heard.

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A group and website opposed to the project — fightFBGsolar.com — has been working to educate the community about the alleged risks associated with it. Opponent David Baker said while there is only a slim chance of a battery fire, explosions, and a runaway thermal event, just one could be dangerous. "When that happens, they are burning toxic metals, releasing toxic metals and also gases, such as hydrogen fluoride, which is the worst gas is released," he said. "And hydrogen fluoride is very toxic. Can be deadly." Baker also said much of the private property leased by AMPYR Energy USA for the solar farm and battery storage will have to be cleared for installation, creating runoff issues and possible ground contamination. The Fredericksburg City Council passed a resolution to come out formally against the project. Gillespie County commissioners passed a resolution to proactively mitigate "safety and environmental risks" associated with the project. And the Gillespie County Economic Development Commission passed a resolution too—against all utility scale solar and wind projects. Its resolution read the majority of those projects are not really green or environmentally friendly, harm property values, and "generally thwart smart economic growth."

Federal appeals court denies request to rehear Texas Dream Act case

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied advocacy groups’ bid for a new hearing to defend the Texas Dream Act, a state law that granted in-state tuition rates at public universities for undocumented students. In July, a panel of three judges from the federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that Austin Community College and advocacy groups could not intervene in a lawsuit that ended the Texas Dream Act. The panel said federal law bans colleges from offering benefits to undocumented students unless citizens, including out-of-state residents, are also eligible. In response, the advocacy groups requested an “en banc” hearing, an appeal for the full bench of federal judges to rehear the case. For the case to be reconsidered, at least one judge must request a vote on whether to take up the case again, and a majority of the judges must agree.

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None of the judges requested the court be polled on whether to rehear the case, according to Tuesday’s ruling. The denial marks the latest legal blow to the first-of-its-kind state law, which granted students who had lived in Texas for three years before high school graduation in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing one of the groups in the case, said he was "disappointed" in the court's denial to rehear what he called a "terribly flawed panel decision." "We are considering our best option to protect the rights of the many Texans who relied upon tuition equity and the Texas Dream Act to pursue higher education," he said in a statement. Undocumented students and advocacy groups have sought to weigh in on the case for over a year after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas, arguing the 2001 act violates federal law. Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed and declined to fight the suit. In a matter of hours, a district court had blocked the law.

Parents seek to wrest Camp Mystic bankruptcy from Eastlands’ control

Parents whose children were killed in a flash flood at Camp Mystic are asking a federal judge to appoint an independent Chapter 11 trustee to take control of the Texas Hill Country retreat’s bankruptcy case, a remedy that departs from the typical practice of allowing management to remain in the driver’s seat. In a motion filed Tuesday, Camp Mystic’s unsecured creditors committee asked for an independent fiduciary with the power to investigate potential claims against the family who owns and operates the business and to evaluate a potential sale of the camp’s property. The committee also wants someone who can negotiate with the victims’ families and make progress in resolving the bankruptcy cases. Most parents of the 25 children and two counselors killed in the disaster last summer at Camp Mystic 18 miles southwest of Kerrville are suing the camp, three related businesses and several members of the Eastland family who own or operate the private Christian summer retreat for girls.

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Those parents are seeking millions of dollars in damages, accusing the defendants of wrongful death and gross negligence, among other allegations. An attorney for the creditors committee — which includes 13 parents whose children died at the camp — said no real progress has been made since Camp Mystic and the other debtors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on June 24. That won’t change while the Eastlands are in control, he said. Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases allow companies a chance to reorganize with hopes of paying their debts while remaining open for business or someday resuming operations. “Eliminating the Eastlands from all decision making is a critical step in moving these cases forward and paving a path to closure for the victims’ families,” Brett Miller, one of the attorneys for the creditors committee, said in a statement. “The Eastlands refuse to acknowledge their obvious conflicts of interest and have run these cases to protect their own interests.” Because the Eastlands currently control the bankruptcy estate that will decide the parents’ claims, the creditors committee accused the family of using that position to shield themselves rather than trying to emerge from bankruptcy. Bankruptcy attorneys for Camp Mystic and the Eastlands did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Despite criticism, China Grove doubles down on ICE partnership

Unfazed by outside criticism and potential legal liability, China Grove has reaffirmed that its police officers will continue to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in enforcing immigration law within the city's boundaries, a relationship officials say has generated nearly $200,000 in federal reimbursement. The City Council on Thursday ratified a memorandum of agreement between the police department and ICE, allowing officers to continue assisting the federal agency under Section 287(g) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. The provision authorizes ICE to delegate some enforcement responsibilities to local police and sheriff's deputies. Police Chief Ralph Sramek had already signed an agreement with ICE, and his department had been cooperating with the agency, in some cases alerting ICE when it encountered suspected undocumented immigrants.

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The agreement was put to a vote of the five-member council on Thursday on the advice of the city attorney. It was ratified 3-0, with one council member abstaining and a fifth absent. The vote came three weeks after U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar, along with nine state legislators, three Bexar County commissioners and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai — all Democrats — urged China Grove and five other municipalities to withdraw from the Section 287(g) program, saying it led to racial profiling and other civil rights violations. The program permits several levels of cooperation between local police and ICE. China Grove participates under the Task Force Model, in which police perform immigration enforcement during routine police work such as traffic stops. The agenda for the council meeting included a summary of the controversy and listed pros and cons of cooperating with ICE. It said the Task Force Model is "the subject of documented civil-rights concerns involving racial profiling and unconstitutional detention or enforcement practices," and added that "misconduct associated with the exercise of delegated 287(g) authority can result in civil-rights litigation in which the city itself may be named as a defendant.

Ken Paxton whistleblower endorses James Talarico for Senate

A former Texas Ranger who became Attorney General Ken Paxton's top law enforcement official before testifying against him at his impeachment trial endorsed Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico Tuesday in a new campaign ad. "Ken Paxton ended my five decade career because I blew the whistle on his corruption," David Maxwell says in the online spot. Maxwell was one of eight top aides who reported Paxton to law enforcement in 2020, accusing him of abusing the office to help a friend and campaign donor. No charges were ever filed, but the allegations formed the bulk of the impeachment charges brought against Paxton by the Texas House.

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Maxwell testified against Paxton in the Senate's impeachment trial in 2023. The members ultimately acquitted Paxton, who had insisted that the effort to remove him from office was politically motivated. Maxwell, who was fired along with several other whistleblowers, sued Paxton's office. Last year, a civil judge in Travis county awarded them $6.7 million to cover lost wages, emotional pain and attorney’s fees. Maxwell's endorsement of Talarico follows a similar endorsement of Dan Cogdell, who was part of Paxton's legal defense team during the impeachment trial. Polls have shown Paxton and Talarico neck-and-neck in the months before the Nov. 3 election. Paxton's campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

Austin's Red River Cultural District demands city help amid major venue closures

For years, Austin’s Red River Cultural District has thrived with gritty, music-centric bars, crowded streets and an electric nightlife. The area marks a historically significant part of the city as a vibrant live music and entertainment hub. Today, that identity is being threatened. The district’s board of directors released a letter Tuesday urging the city to save Red River. In the letter, the board cited the closing of bars and venues, including Empire Control Room & Garage, Marlow, Koriente and Feels So Good. Valhalla also announced its upcoming closure, and the building housing Elysium and the 13th Floor was recently listed for sale. “One closure is a headline. Two is a cause for concern,” the board said in the letter. “This many, this close together, is a dire warning!”

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The letter asks the city of Austin and other stakeholders to enforce zoning rules designed to protect live music spaces in the area, outlined in Austin City Council resolutions. The board also called for cultural-preservation measures. The directors point toward other major cities like San Francisco and Seattle as places with successful cultural-preservation policies. Both cities use antideplacement strategies and development incentives to support local businesses and performing arts venues. “Growth does not have to come at the expense of culture,” the letter said. “Other cities have built policy around that principle. Austin can too.” The Red River Cultural District is urging community members to sign the letter to increase awareness and support. "I will continue to partner with leadership at Red River Cultural District to find resource options that work for our local venue owners and tenants, in addition to working directly with business owners," City Council Member Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, who represents the district, said in a statement. "I highly encourage Austinites to show up and support your local music venues, artists, and creatives. The best part of doing this work is seeing the community, celebration, culture, and history made in our city as a result."

National Stories

At 9/11 tribute, Trump adds new claim to his disputed role after attack

At an event honoring those who died on Sept. 11, 2001, President Trump on Tuesday claimed that two firefighters lifted him up and carried him away from a seemingly unstable building when he visited the area shortly after the terrorist attacks. This was the latest in Mr. Trump’s evolving — and often disputed — account of his actions on Sept. 11 and in its aftermath, when he was working as a real estate developer in New York City. Mr. Trump was watching television the morning of the attacks, which is verifiable from news coverage of that day, but what he did next has long been a matter of debate. He has repeatedly said that he took a construction crew with him to Lower Manhattan and was deeply involved in cleaning up the site, a claim that has been called into question by at least one former fire official who was involved in the recovery effort.

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On Tuesday, Mr. Trump renewed his claim that he had taken a crew to a building near the site where the World Trade Center had stood shortly after the attacks. He said that two large firefighters picked him up and took him to safety when he observed an unstable building. “I was building a big building in New York, and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday during an address from the Ellipse. He went on: “The United States Steel building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is, it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks, but it never came down. And I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys. And I’m not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here.’ And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself,’ but they were amazing.” There is no evidence backing up Mr. Trump’s claim about the firefighters carrying him to safety shortly after the attack. Almost from the moment the planes hit the towers, Mr. Trump has sought to position himself close to the recovery effort. He has also made a series of questionable and provocative statements to burnish his political brand, notably by sharing a widely debunked claim that Muslims in New Jersey were celebrating after the planes hit.

Challenge to abortion drug heads back to court ahead of midterm elections

A federal appeals court in Louisiana is set to hear oral arguments Wednesday in a high-profile case that could limit access to a drug used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States. The court action over whether the abortion and miscarriage drug mifepristone can continue to be distributed through the mail and telemedicine appointments, coming weeks before the midterms, is legally and politically thorny for the Trump administration. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised GOP state attorneys general a year ago that the Food and Drug Administration would review mifepristone’s safety. But the effort initially stalled amid sharp Trump administration divisions over how to handle the divisive issue in an election year.

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The Justice Department is defending a Biden administration policy on mifepristone on procedural grounds at this stage, but Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing in July that the administration wants to reinstate restrictions on the drug. Previously, patients could only get mifepristone at in-person doctor visits. The state of Louisiana, which sued the FDA last fall to reverse the Biden policy, has now asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to side with it on a procedural issue as the case appears destined to return to the Supreme Court. In its initial complaint, Louisiana argued Biden-era regulators expanded access without properly considering potential safety risks. The state also claimed the policy violated the Comstock Act, which generally bars mailing of abortion drugs. More than 20 interest groups on both sides of the abortion debate have since intervened in the case, along with the drugmakers. After ping-ponging through the court system over the past year, oral arguments will be heard by a panel of three judges — appointees of former presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Anthropic researcher quits over ‘out-of-control’ AI fears

An Anthropic researcher is quitting the artificial-intelligence industry over fears that the lab and its competitors are racing to build systems they won’t be able to control, a sign of mounting safety concerns within top AI companies. Jacob Coxon, a researcher who specializes in training new AI models by having them consume vast amounts of data, said Tuesday that he is leaving the company because he doesn’t want to participate in an industrywide rush to build AI systems that can improve themselves, worried such systems could spiral out of control and destroy humanity. The 27-year old Brit, who previously studied mathematics, said many of his industry colleagues now use phrases like “crunchtime” and “endgame” to describe the trajectory toward self-improving models.

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“We’re on track for a lot of the most aggressive of these scenarios where by the end of next year things could be out of control already,” Coxon said, adding that safety trade-offs are inevitable when companies are competing against one another and Chinese upstarts. Anthropic didn’t immediately comment on the departure. Chief Executive Dario Amodei and other company leaders have repeatedly warned about the risks of rogue AI models, and urged the industry to slow development. Coxon said he left OpenAI earlier this year to join Anthropic because it is known for its model-safety efforts. But even though he found Anthropic’s safety efforts to be earnest, he now believes no company can responsibly develop AI that can outperform humans in a range of tasks, sometimes called artificial general intelligence, absent government intervention or a coordinated industry slowdown. Recent hacks by models from OpenAI and Anthropic, some operating in collaborative swarms of agents, have illustrated how AI systems can adopt nefarious goals and try to conceal them from humans. Once the systems begin to improve on their own, Coxon said, he fears they could advance enough to refuse commands.

Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show set to end in 2027 after 24 years on air

Next season of ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will be the last, Page Six is told. “His contract is not getting extended,” a source familiar with the situation explained. The season begins Tuesday and would wrap up, after 24 years on the air, in May 2027. A spokesperson for ABC Entertainment told us, “[This] information is inaccurate — any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.” Kimmel takes pride in signing year-to-year deals, which are rare in the TV biz and allow him unusual flexibility. The news comes on the heels of Rosie O’Donnell completing a four-night guest-hosting run on his show that was a ratings success.

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O’Donnell was “in her element,” a source told us. So much so that she went viral for mocking her longtime nemesis, President Trump, by performing a parody of the traditional Irish song “Danny Boy” that she called “Donnie Boy.” Kimmel has been fronting the show since 2003, making him one of the longest-running network late-night hosts. Insiders say the move is unlikely to be related to Kimmel’s antagonistic relationship with the Trump administration. Kimmel was embroiled in a nasty feud with Trump earlier this year after he quipped that first lady Melania Trump “had a glow like an expectant widow,” days before a third assassination attempt on the president. An infuriated Trump immediately called for ABC to fire him. He also criticized the late-night host for his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, which subsequently found him temporarily yanked off the air under Disney CEO Bob Iger. But our sources say new Disney boss Josh D’Amaro wouldn’t be swayed by politics. “He’s not afraid of the administration … Josh isn’t folding,” the TV insider said.

States curb data center tax breaks after AI boom raises costs

Over a decade ago, Ohio lawmakers exempted tech companies from sales taxes on computer servers and other equipment needed for data centers, betting that changes worth millions of dollars would lure much-needed investment to the state. It worked, turning Ohio into one of the leading destinations for data centers. But then the artificial-intelligence boom supersized the tax exemption, pushing it to more than $1.5 billion last year, more than 10 times the original state estimate. Voter outrage after news outlet Signal Ohio reported the scale of the provision prompted Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to pause new applications for the sales-tax exemption in May. Now, some state lawmakers, including Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, want to repeal the sales-tax exemption and renegotiate past deals with companies such as Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google that secured exemptions for decades by signing contracts with the state. In several states, the exemptions for tech giants have exceeded $1 billion annually.

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“They seem to have more money than God and they’re able to build without the need for these types of incentives,” said Rader, who is proposing new data-center taxes and requirements that developers pay more for power and electrical infrastructure. He represents parts of Cleveland, where locals have pushed back against the facilities, and he hopes the new threats force the companies to the negotiating table. A similar dynamic is playing out across the country, as legislators or governors in more than 10 states, including Illinois, New Jersey and Washington, have slammed the brakes on the tax breaks. The reversals underscore how state leaders who once welcomed the facilities powering the AI boom as an economic engine suddenly treat them like a political liability. Dozens of other states including Texas have proposed similar bills or steps, potentially costing the industry billions in tax benefits. That has the potential to push future projects to states such as Indiana, West Virginia and Wyoming that have retained favorable tax regimes, industry executives and advisers say. Industry advocates are telling state officials that other taxes they pay fund local schools and police departments and that eliminating incentives will force data centers to move elsewhere. Amazon said it has invested nearly $40 billion in Ohio data centers since 2015, creating thousands of jobs, and paid almost $11 million in state property taxes and fees last year. Meta and Google declined to comment, as did DeWine’s office.

Trump gave $45,000 holiday gifts to Natalie Harp and two other aides

President Donald Trump gave sizable holiday gifts to four White House aides, according to new financial disclosures released by the administration. The gifts of $45,000 each to executive assistant Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris as well as a $20,000 gift for director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta were noted in the staffers’ annual financial disclosure forms that were published by the administration last week. Harp, Martin and Harris make $150,000 annually and Nauta is paid $175,000 a year, according to the White House’s salary disclosure report to Congress. A White House official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Trump “has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector.”

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The official did not say if any other staffers were given similar gifts from the president, but added that the cash gifts were not related to the “individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.” The disclosures of the gifts were first reported earlier on Tuesday by The Washington Post. Harp is a constant presence by Trump’s side and is known for carrying a portable printer with her so she can print out favorable media coverage and social media posts for the president, who prefers reading important information on paper rather than on a screen. Martin has been working for Trump since his first go-around in the White House. She started in the first term as a White House press assistant and followed the president to Palm Beach, Florida, to help run his media operations after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. She returned to the White House with Trump after his 2024 victory. Earlier this year, Trump appointed Harris to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which has oversight over the president’s White House ballroom project.

Copyright September 09, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved