September 1, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Texas hospitals expect to lose $27 million a day in Medicaid funding starting Tuesday

When the state’s new fiscal year begins on Tuesday, Texas hospitals expect to lose $27 million a day in additional Medicaid funding. The shortfall is the result of a decision by the Trump administration to withhold approval from Texas for about $9.8 billion in the next year from three programs, the bulk of which affects the Comprehensive Hospital Increase Reimbursement Program (CHIRP). This program gives hospitals additional funding to cover the difference between Medicaid rate payments and the actual costs that hospitals incur to provide services to Medicaid patients. Essentially, hospitals, which often are paid less than what they caspend on Medicaid patients due to outdated payment rates set by the state, are losing out on their additional reimbursement for 2027. Local governmental entities collect taxes from hospitals — about $4 billion a year, according to the Texas Hospital Association — and under CHIRP, the federal government matches those funds so that Texas hospitals can then use them to cover the actual costs of providing Medicaid services.

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Hospitals say those CHIRP dollars are critical and if they lose that funding, they will likely have to cut services to patients. Four million low-income Texans are enrolled in Medicaid, most of them children. “It is impossible for a hospital to take a huge loss on a Medicaid side of their portfolio and not have that impact services across the board, regardless of what type of insurance a patient has,” said Sara González, a THA vice president of advocacy, public policy and political strategy. In Houston alone, the impact could mean at least $258 million less for the public healthcare system there known as Harris Health and as much as $1.4 billion less for the region overall next year. “The impacts would be catastrophic for Texas’ safety-net healthcare system,” said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health. “We are carefully monitoring every dollar and would be forced to make difficult decisions about maintaining critical services if this impasse continues.” The federal government is withholding these critical dollars because they are calling into question how local jurisdictions in Texas calculate the amount of taxes collected from hospitals. Robert Fries, the chief financial officer for Children’s Health in Dallas said in a statement that this type of funding is crucial for children’s hospitals like Children’s Medical Center. “Delays and uncertainty threaten access to critical pediatric specialty care, behavioral health services and the workforce needed to deliver that care,” Fries said. “If these delays continue, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the health care safety net that Texas children and families depend on every day.”

Trump says communities that oppose data centers will end up ‘backwards and poor’

President Donald Trump came out strongly in favor of data center construction across the country on Monday, writing on Truth Social that those speaking out against the expensive and resource-intensive projects must want to “end up being backwards and poor.” His post comes at a time when data center popularity is plummeting. According to a survey this year by the Pew Research Center, “more Americans say data centers have a negative effect on the environment, home energy costs and people’s quality of life nearby than say they have a positive effect.” And a Reuters-Ipsos poll in June found that 77% of Americans worry that artificial intelligence will raise their electricity bills. Trump, however, disagreed with that assessment.

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“If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” he wrote Monday. “The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.” Many lawmakers who support data centers have pitched their development as an existential struggle to defeat China, which is also working to create sophisticated AI technologies. Trump highlighted this framing in his message, saying that “China could not be happier” with the anti-data center stances that candidates for both parties have adopted, including some Republicans who previously championed the developments. For example, just last year Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared his state the “epicenter of AI development” — but this month, he abandoned the claim and halted approvals of about 1,800 new data centers, citing concerns that they use too much power and water. Nationally, progressive Democrats are pushing a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers. A bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) had faced bipartisan pushback when it was introduced in March, with elected officials from both parties arguing the United States must continue to develop the technology to stay ahead of rival nations.

Texas prepares for severe weather as heavy rain, outages threaten region

State officials are warning Texans to prepare for dangerous weather from Tropical Storm Edouard that could bring heavy rain, damaging winds, flooding and widespread power outages. Gov. Greg Abbott and emergency officials say crews are on standby and ready to respond, but residents must also take steps now to protect themselves and their families. “This is a good time for everybody to go through both the mental and physical exercise of getting prepared for a storm like this.” Emergency management teams are forecasting heavy rain and high winds that could threaten lives and cause widespread power outages. However, officials tracking the storm say the state’s power grid is expected to hold. Texans from Brownsville to Beaumont are being urged to remain weather-aware, follow instructions from local officials and be prepared.

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Residents should follow any local evacuation orders, monitor forecasts and review their family emergency plans in case of flooding or a power outage. Officials also encourage people to be prepared to assist relatives and neighbors who may need extra help. “This is our first big storm of the season, and I’ll tell you, Texas is prepared,” said Orlando Alaniz with the Texas Division of Emergency Management. CenterPoint says it is closely monitoring conditions across Houston and 12 surrounding counties. Nearly 3,000 workers are on standby and ready to respond, along with 100 gas line workers. CenterPoint says all of its substations have been inspected and are ready. “We’re ready, we’re focused and we’re mobilized. We’re going to be responding as quickly and as safely as possible to any type of outages that come,” said Nathan Brownell with CenterPoint. Officials anticipate this will be a relatively short weather event but say it is still important to remain prepared. One final reminder: Officials say to assume any downed power line is energized and stay at least 35 feet away. CenterPoint is expected to provide another weather update at 5 p.m. tomorrow.

GOP soul-searching for life after Trump is ramping up

Republicans say their party will need to do a lot of soul searching to find its direction before President Trump leaves office in 2029, something that is coming into sharper focus with the approaching midterm election and the realization that Trump will soon become a lame duck. GOP strategists and political experts say the discussion about what comes next will begin to ramp up considerably after the November election. It’s a discussion likely to be impacted by how effective the GOP is this fall in defending its House and Senate majorities. “There will be a serious debate about the policy, about what the direction of the party is,” said Vin Weber, a GOP strategist and former member of House GOP leadership.

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That debate will center on whether the Trump revolution on a host of issues, such as trade, will live on with the GOP. Weber said Republicans have embraced tariffs in recent years because they “respect Donald Trump as the negotiator,” not because they’ve embraced the concept of tariffs generally. “The traditional position of the Republican Party is anti-tariff. Tariffs are anti-trade, tariffs are taxes. The Republican Party that I grew up in was never the party of tariffs. The Democrats were the party of tariffs,” Weber said. He said Republicans embraced Trump as a bold fighter who won’t back down, but he said not everyone in the party is thrilled about some of Trump’s policy positions, including tariffs and federal meddling in the private sector. “In my view, much of the appeal of Trump to the Republican Party was that he was able to rouse the faithful against the movement to the radical left that we experienced under Barack Obama,” he added.

State Stories

Texas’ Medicaid application backlog grows to more than 210,000, state data shows

Texas’ backlog of Medicaid applications grew from about 1,600 in January to more than 210,000 in August. During the same period, the backlog for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, grew from about 3,700 to more than 150,000, according to data from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, or HHSC, released by Texans Care for Children – a statewide research and advocacy organization. The group worries the backlog could continue to grow. “We’re very concerned that Texans are stuck waiting longer for healthcare and food,” said Diana Forester, director of health policy at Texans Care for Children. “We want to make sure pregnant women can start prenatal care quickly. We want to make sure that kids can see the doctor when they’re sick or need a checkup. We want to make sure people can eat.”

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Forester’s group points to recent changes to SNAP as one of the key drivers of the increasing backlog. Last year, federal policymakers approved significant changes to SNAP as part of the massive federal tax and spending bill. Texas will already see millions of dollars in additional administrative costs later this year when states will have to take on more of the administrative costs of running SNAP – going from an even share with the federal government to covering 75%. In addition, Texas could be responsible for covering more than $700 million in benefits costs if it doesn’t improve the accuracy of its program. In order to avoid paying for part of the program, Texas would need an accuracy rate of 94%, but in fiscal year 2025, the state’s rate was 91%. In an email to KERA, HHSC said it continues to focus on helping eligible Texans receive food and healthcare benefits as quickly as possible. The agency issued a similar statement to KERA in May after Forester’s organization released data showing more than 40,000 pregnant people in Texas were waiting at least a month for their application to be processed.

Matt Lanza: I’m a meteorologist who left Houston. Here's what the city needs.

(Matt Lanza, managing editor for Space City Weather and a former CenterPoint Energy meteorologist, will be leaving Houston for Connecticut after 15 years.) When the news came out this spring that I was leaving Houston, I thought it was interesting that some media reports framed it as a meteorologist fleeing climate change. That led people to ask, “If a meteorologist is leaving Houston because of climate change, what should I be doing?” It also produced humorous social media fodder. Everyone believes what they believe. But here’s the reality: Though I didn’t leave Houston because of climate change, it’s a reality that we need to build more resiliency in this city to manage the impacts. If anything, I’m bullish on Houston’s future more than most other Texas cities. Why? Houston works. It’s functional, and it has an attitude and culture to match. When I’m asked what I’ll miss most about Houston, I answer, “The people and the food.”

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The people speak for themselves. Houstonians are some of the nicest, most charitable, coolest people in the country. Sadly, it often takes disasters for the world to see that. But living here, you get it. As for the food? I don’t care what magazine or website rankings say, Houston has the best food culture in America. I’ve gotten to know folks in the food and beverage industry in Houston, and I cannot profess my admiration for them enough. And when I think about the consequences of extreme weather, I think about the people who work in that industry, where margins matter so much. One storm can end it for them. When I write for Space City Weather, I think of a restaurant owner as my audience. They care deeply about weather impacts, and they just want to know what everything means to their business, employees and livelihood. When thinking about climate change and extreme weather, I don’t think of the politics or even the causes. What I think about is the impact. And outside of maybe Florida, Louisiana and California, I don’t think any place in the U.S. has seen more impact than Houston in the last 10 to 15 years. When we think about solutions, we need to think about mitigation and resilience. And yes, that stuff costs money. But you know what else costs money? People fleeing to other cities because they’ve flooded repeatedly. Amazing restaurateurs could well decide that though they love Houston, in order to function with fewer flood risks or power outages due to storms, they need to take their business to Austin or San Antonio or elsewhere. Maybe even a top-tier energy company could decide that to keep their operations functioning with fewer risks of disruption, they should set up shop in Austin or Dallas.

Perry Fowler: Advancing Inner Harbor desal is responsible step for water

(Perry L. Fowler is the executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network.) (Editor's note: The Corpus Christi City Council is scheduled on Sept. 1 to vote on whether to award a design-build contract to Corpus Christi Desalination Partners LLC for 60% design services for the proposed Inner Harbor seawater desalination project, as well as design and construction of a demonstration plant and developing and verifying the guaranteed maximum price, at a cost of up to $78.6 million. The council had tabled the vote in June.) Recent rainfall has given Corpus Christi welcome relief. Reservoir levels have improved, restrictions have eased, and the immediate pressure on the region's water supply is lower than it was just months ago. That relief should be used to make long-term decisions from a position of stability, not crisis.

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The underlying challenge hasn't changed. South Texas will see another severe drought. Population and economic growth will keep straining limited supplies. Corpus Christi still needs a diversified water portfolio, one built on groundwater, conservation, reuse, regional projects, and desalination that can deliver reliably through both wet and dry years. The question isn't whether any one option should replace the others. It's whether the city should keep advancing one of the most developed major water-supply projects it actually controls: one with an effectively unlimited raw-water source, existing permits, substantial engineering already complete, and significant state financing available. It should. The first phase of the Inner Harbor desalination project is designed to deliver roughly 30 million gallons a day of potable water from the Gulf of Mexico, a source that doesn't depend on rainfall or watershed inflows. Corpus Christi has spent years advancing it through engineering, environmental review, and state and federal permitting. The permits are in hand. The project has received substantial support from the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas. It is significantly further along than most other large-scale alternatives now being discussed, and that head start matters.

South Texas ranchers fear imported beef could drive more producers out of business

The price of ground beef has climbed sharply in recent years, but South Texas ranchers say they are not necessarily benefiting from the higher prices consumers are paying at the grocery store. Federal Reserve data shows the price of ground beef has increased by more than $3 per pound, or about 80%, since 2019. At the same time, ranchers are dealing with the lingering effects of severe drought and the New World screwworm outbreak. "We're struggling. If it ain't the cost of the fertilizer, the cost of the feed, the cost of the cattle meds is way up the roof," said Walter Mencias, division livestock foreman for Wyatt Ranches. Mencias said some ranchers have already been forced to sell their herds because of rising costs.

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Now, ranchers are watching another potential challenge. President Donald Trump announced plans to bring more imported beef into the United States for 90 days in an effort to address high beef prices. The plan allows up to 661 million pounds of beef to enter the country tariff-free during that period. Mencias worries the additional imports could put even more pressure on cattle producers. "If this keeps up the way it's going, a lot of ranchers are gonna be forced to sell," Mencias said. "As it is, we're in a shortage of cattle." Mencias said if more ranchers are forced to sell their herds, it could make the nation's cattle shortage even worse. Consumer advocate John Breyault, vice president of public policy for the National Consumers League, agrees that the imports may not provide meaningful relief for shoppers. "Dropping tariffs on 661 million pounds of beef isn't going to fix those high prices," Breyault said. "It only represents a small percentage of the total amount of beef that we consume in the United States in a given year." Breyault also argues that a small group of large meatpacking companies, which he says make up over 80% American market, could benefit more than ranchers or consumers. "Who this really is going to help is the big meatpacking companies who control the industry," Breyault said.

Here’s what you need to know about Texas’ voter suspense list

Multiple headlines recently have fueled confusion among Texas voters who have been placed on the state’s suspense list. Voters on the suspense list can still vote. Despite its name, being placed on the suspense list does not mean a voter’s registration was suspended, canceled, or that the voter was removed from the voter roll. The list is made up of registered voters whose local election officials have reason to believe they may no longer live at the address they used to register to vote. Texas voters move every day, and they often don’t update their address on their voter registration record. Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, said the number of voters on the suspense list now — 1.2 million out of more than 18 million registered voters — is consistent with what the state has seen in previous election cycles.

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Voters on the suspense list can confirm their address by contacting their local voter registrar ahead of the Oct. 5 voter registration deadline and filling out a new voter registration form with their updated address. Voters can also update their address at the polls. What is the suspense list? It’s an address verification list. By law, if a county voter registrar “has reason to believe that a voter’s current residence is different from that indicated on the registration records,” the voter registrar “shall deliver to the voter a written confirmation notice requesting confirmation of the voter’s current residence,” according to the secretary of state’s office guidance. How are voters placed on it? Every two years, each county voter registrar mails a new voter registration certificate to all active voters, a move required by law to keep the voter roll up to date. If the U.S. Postal Service returns the certificate as nondeliverable, the voter registrar must then confirm that the voter still lives at that address. That’s when a voter is added to the suspense list. A voter registrar mails a notice of address confirmation to voters when: The voter’s registration certificate has been returned as nondeliverable. A jury summons or any mailing sent to the voter was returned as nondeliverable. The voter registrar has received information indicating the voter no longer resides at the address on file. For example, parents can notify their voter registrar if their children have moved, or a voter themselves can call the voter registrar to say they no longer live at that address.

Secretive Texas housing group builds apartment empire 1,500 miles away

Earlier this year, residents of an upscale multi-family apartment complex in a suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, received an unusual letter. It advised them that their homes at the Otarre Pointe Apartments had been sold, recalled City of Cayce Mayor Pro-Tem Phil Carter. The new owners would be converting most of the 299-unit complex into affordable housing. The upshot: Residents who did not meet the new lower income requirements would have to leave when their lease was up. The demand struck Carter as odd. “It’s just wrong to put people out of their homes,” he said. Equally strange, he said, was the identity of the new owner: A mysterious nonprofit attached to El Paso HOME, a Texas public housing authority located more than 1,500 miles away. Carter said his attempts to reach officials there were met with silence.

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Cayce isn’t the only distant place where the new entity, Sixteenth Floor Residential, has been scooping up property, either. Public records show that over the course of barely a year, the El Paso organization has acquired hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of multi-family real estate — about 2,000 apartments — in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. El Paso HOME’s foray into distant jurisdictions is unique, said Stuart Nicol, an S&P Global analyst who follows affordable housing. “This is the first public housing authority we’ve come across doing this,” he said. Why is a nonprofit operated by a far West Texas public agency, charged with providing affordable lodging for a mid-sized city, accumulating a large real estate portfolio on the other side of the country? Sixteenth Floor would prefer not to say. Executive Director Gerald Cichon declined several interview requests. In response to open records requests from the Houston Chronicle, Sixteenth Floor insisted that it is a separate nonprofit company that isn’t required to disclose financial details of its growing business.

Republicans look to hold Texas turf as midterm convention looms

Congress will get top billing when President Donald Trump brings the GOP’s political roadshow to Dallas. But farther down the ballot, his party has plenty at stake in the convention’s backyard. Republicans are defending two state House seats in Dallas County, where their influence has steadily fallen. They also are working to preserve control of major offices in Tarrant County, targeting a Democratic lawmaker in Collin County and seeking to recapture a state Senate district lost in a special election this year.

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For the candidates, the MAGA doubleheader Sept. 9-10 at the American Airlines Center could be a boost or a burden. Republicans hope to energize supporters who might skip a midterm election. Democrats aim to turn Trump’s unpopularity into votes in close races. Republican National Committee officials described the event last week as a “primetime showcase for President Trump’s success, candidates and causes that have propelled the 2026 midterms to unprecedented focus.” State Reps. Angie Chen Button of Garland and Morgan Meyer of University Park are the only Republican legislators who live in Dallas County, where Democrats have dominated countywide elections since 2006. Meyer, an attorney first elected in 2014 in District 108, is being challenged by Democrat Allison Mitchell, a small-business owner and children’s book author. A national Democratic group focused on state legislatures has made both districts priorities as it targets 12 Republican-held Texas House seats. Republicans hold an 88-62 majority in the chamber.

New Texas laws expand repair rights, regulate solar sellers and recognize gold as money

Texas laws taking effect Sept. 1 will change how consumers repair electronic devices, strengthen oversight of residential solar sales and allow certain forms of gold and silver to be used as legal tender. House Bill 2963 creates a limited “right to repair” for digital electronic equipment. It requires manufacturers to provide owners and independent repair businesses with the parts, tools and documentation available to authorized repair shops on “fair and reasonable terms.” “This law is a major step forward,” said Nathan Proctor, senior director of U.S. PIRG’s Right to Repair campaign. “It allows Texans to get access to parts, tools, and other things you need to fix modern electronics.”

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The law covers consumer electronics with a wholesale price of at least $50 — but only equipment originally offered for sale in Texas on or after Sept. 1. Consequently, devices already on the market before that date are not covered. The measure also contains numerous exemptions, including many motor vehicles, farm equipment, medical devices, video-game consoles, large home appliances, heavy equipment and certain cybersecurity-related products. Small countertop appliances are not included in the home-appliance exemption. The Texas attorney general can enforce the law, but it does not create a private right for consumers to sue over violations. “We strongly advocate for the right to repair everything,” Proctor said. “In Texas, there was clear agreement on personal electronics.” He said Texas lawmakers could expand the right to repair, as in other states, if enough voters make it clear this is what they want. Another change arriving Sept. 1 is the registration requirement under Senate Bill 1036, the Residential Solar Retailer Regulatory Act. Residential solar systems salespeople must now register with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and work for a registered solar retailer. Retailers that employ or contract with salespeople must also register.

Elon Musk’s xAI sued over Grok child sexual abuse material

A woman repeatedly raped as a child by a man who put photos and videos of the crimes online says in a lawsuit that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI allowed imagery of her abuse onto its X social media platform and that the company’s Grok chatbot generated additional child pornography from the images. The woman, identified as “Jane Doe,” is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Jose, alleging Grok produced child porn from imagery of her and thousands of other victims of child sexual abuse. The lawsuit claims xAI, aiming to add users to X and Grok, designed the chatbot “to respond to prompts to create and distribute sexual content using an identifiable person’s real image or video.”

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Doe, who is described only as living outside California, is seeking unspecified damages and a court order barring xAI from generating, possessing or sharing child pornography showing her or other alleged victims. Her lawsuit came as Palo Alto-based xAI — merged in February as a subsidiary into Musk’s Texas rocket company SpaceX — fights another lawsuit in the same court by three women and one man claiming Grok created sexualized “deep fake” images of them. Judge Casey Pitts in July shot down a bid by xAI to have the identities of the four plaintiffs — who are seeking class action status for their case — publicly revealed. The legal cases arose after Grok — embedded in X and also a stand-alone app — sparked worldwide outrage after xAI added an image-editing feature to the chatbot in December. The UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate reported that Grok generated 3 million sexualized images in the 11 days after image editing went live. Users digitally stripped real women in images — plus more than 20,000 apparent children — manipulating many into sexual poses, the group found. Musk responded to the furor by reposting an AI-generated image of a toaster in a bikini that he said he “couldn’t stop laughing” about. Doe’s lawsuit, overseen by Judge Nathanael Cousins, claims “xAI and its founder Elon Musk chose to capitalize and profit from predators’ appetite for non-consensual sexual images and videos of real people, including children.”

Steve Sarkisian gives embarrassing explanation for Texas' College Football Playoff loss: 'We were tired'

Expectations for the Texas Longhorns football program have reached a fever pitch, with star quarterback Arch Manning heading into his second year as the starting quarterback. The Longhorns are expected to once again have one of the best defenses in college football, brought in a top six recruiting class, and some services believe Texas has the most talented roster in the sport. At least by recruiting rankings. They also finished out their 2025 season with wins over Texas A&M and Michigan, taking some momentum into a pivotal 2026. Unfortunately, despite all these factors aligning in their favor, the Longhorns also have arguably the toughest schedule in the country. They host Ohio State, play at Tennessee, have the traditional Red River Shootout against Oklahoma, host Ole Miss, play at LSU, and at Texas A&M. With that schedule, the Longhorns could be a significantly improved team from 2025 and still finish 9-3 without playing poorly.

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But that might not be the biggest hurdle in head coach Steve Sarkisian's quest to bring a national title home to Austin. It's being mentally tired. Seriously. Sarkisian revealed on a recent podcast that their loss to Ohio State in the 2024-2025 College Football Playoff was due to the Longhorns being "tired." "I felt like the year we played Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, we were tired, and not necessarily physically tired," Sarkisian said. "We were mentally fatigued as well. That’s a long season. We had so many big games. So I think managing it this time around, how we manage their energy level, is as important as how we manage their legs and the physicality." Every team is tired at the end of a college football season. Every team deals with injuries and mental fatigue. And it's the job of a coach to prepare the players for each and every challenge. Specifically, if you can't overcome fatigue and being "tired" in the literal College Football Playoff semifinal, how can you ever? Not to mention, Ohio State was likely "tired" too. The Buckeyes finished their season with a top-5 Indiana team, rivalry game against Michigan, playing Tennessee in the first round, then the number one seed in the tournament, Oregon, in LA, then had to travel to Texas to play the Longhorns in what should have been an effective home game for Sarkisian just 200 miles from campus.

Sand Branch has waited 41 years for clean water. Then the fires came.

It’s been 41 years since the unincorporated community of Sand Branch has had clean water, despite being 400 feet from the City of Dallas’s Southside Wastewater Treatment Plant. In the intervening years, residents have made do with bottled water and the tenacity born from being told “no” a lot. Last night, 10 acres of Sand Branch caught fire, and when advocates and the fire trucks from neighboring towns and cities arrived, residents were using those bottles of water to try to put the flames out. There are no fire hydrants in Sand Branch. As of Sunday afternoon, fire fighters were still working to put out hot spots that continue to crop up. Sand Branch is a freedman’s town that sits in unincorporated land in Dallas County near Seagoville, roughly 20 miles south of downtown. Established in the 1800s, it was a thriving community for years. Until the mid 1980s, residents received water through wells dug throughout the community, and sewage went to septic tanks. In the mid-80s, people began to get sick. Testing revealed the wells were contaminated with E.coli. The residents of Sand Branch have relied on bottled water ever since.

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There have been many efforts to get clean drinking water running through the taps of Sand Branch homes for years. More recently, Derek Avery and the Water for Sand Branch Coalition has been working with the community to not only bring water to the area, but also improve the homes and properties there. Only last night and today, they are working to help residents survive yet another blow. A list of needs has been compiled, including a need for volunteers to help bring in water. Danielle Chambless worked social media channels to put fire blankets in every home, and continues to source fire extinguishers for each home. “How are we letting this happen right in our own backyard?” she asked Sunday. “These people are my friends. They deserve the basics. They deserve to be safe in their own homes. And we should be furious that they have been left without the basic infrastructure most of us never have to think twice about.” Long term, the Coalition hopes to convince the county and other officials to finally bring running water to Sand Branch. In the shorter term, Avery would like to install two large water tanks in the community that can be filled up frequently. Just like last year, the Coalition will be among the nonprofits hoping to attract donors during North Texas Giving Day. Giving Day opened last week, and will culminate on September 17. In 2022, we wrote about the weekly efforts to help the community that we encountered while on a bus tour of the county’s most notorious environmental hazards. In 1985, just as the environmental disaster was unfolding, Richard West wrote about Sand Branch. (Or Sandbranch, as it is sometimes called.) Incredibly, nothing has changed in regard to rectifying the situation.

What is sharia? Muslims and Texas Republicans have very different answers

In political campaigns and the party’s platform, Texas Republicans condemn “sharia law” as a dangerous system of extremist Islamic rules and restrictions that threaten democracy, religious freedom and personal liberty — an affront to American values that must be stamped out. But when Shaimaa Zayan considers what “sharia” means to her, the Austin resident doesn’t see a hot-button political issue or a legal code that undermines the U.S. Constitution. She sees a set of daily practices that gradually lead Muslims like her closer to paradise. Linguistically, she said, sharia means “a path to water.” Religiously, she added, the Arabic term describes “the path to success” or “how we should practice our faith.”

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“It’s for Muslims, so thinking that this is something that Muslims are bringing for everyone is just so far from the understanding of sharia,” she said. As Texas Republicans escalate attacks on Islam based on opposition to what they call sharia law, Muslims are pushing back, saying the term has been distorted by ignorance, fear and political opportunism. It’s time, they say, to set the record straight on the meaning of sharia as a religious concept. State Rep. Salman Bhojani, the first Muslim elected to the Texas Legislature, said sharia is an “ethical and moral framework that governs your personal conduct.” It involves “giving, charity, praying consistently to God, being honest with your neighbors, with your friends, with everybody.” “It is a personal moral code, and not something that I can impose on anybody else,” said Bhojani, D-Euless. Republicans see a far different meaning, denouncing sharia law as an oppressive legal code that is incompatible with state and federal laws.

National Stories

Army Secretary resigns after months of friction with Hegseth

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation to President Trump following months of tension with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the direction of the service and the ouster of numerous senior Army officers. He is expected to leave the Pentagon in coming days. With Driscoll’s departure, the Army will lack top Senate-confirmed civilian or military leaders. Gen. Christopher LaNeve has served as acting chief of the service since Hegseth fired his predecessor, Gen. Randy George. Mike Obadal, the Army undersecretary, would be the highest ranking civilian after Driscoll departs. Driscoll didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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Driscoll had been expected to step down this year from his role as the civilian leader of the Army after clashing with Hegseth, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. “Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “The United States Army is more powerful than ever thanks to his work alongside the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of War,” she added. Last week, Driscoll attended the retirement ceremony at Fort Bragg for Gen. Chris Donahue, who served as the top Army officer in Europe until Hegseth downgraded his position, effectively bringing an end to his military career. Donahue’s abrupt departure was presented as part of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals and admirals by 10% overall, plus a 20% cut to the number of four-star positions, the Journal reported.

Want an animal shelter? A lazy river? Cash? Data centers want to know.

In a few years, the city of Saline, Michigan, will have renovated its recreation center’s locker rooms, tiled the pool deck, expanded the children’s play area, installed a waterfall and constructed a lazy river. Down the road, part of OpenAI’s Project Stargate, a 2.2 million-square-foot, $43 billion data center, will hum away, churning out the next generation of artificial intelligence. As public sentiment on data centers has soured, AI companies are leveling up their efforts to sweeten the deal for communities that host them. In Saline, that included a $10 million donation from OpenAI, Oracle and other companies for a new and improved recreation center. In Richland Parish, Louisiana, teachers got $50,000 bonuses from Meta. Compass Datacenters forked over $15 million for a new animal shelter in Ellis County, Texas.

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In Florida, developers for the failed Project Tango offered to hide their building from view with a small forest of pines, palms and native shrubs. NorthPoint Development has proposed giving $10,000 to every household in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, if it’s allowed to build a massive data center for Amazon — a dangling carrot some residents have characterized as a bribe. Politicians from both parties are pushing the deal sweeteners too. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s energy office told counties to make “wish lists” for data center developers, and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is pitching free electricity for towns willing to play host. This summer’s data center backlash has underlined a glaring lack of guidance from federal and state leaders on what tech companies owe the communities they’re building in; in Washington, a growing slate of proposals range from requiring developers to procure and pay for their own power, and taxing data centers to prepare for potential AI-related job losses.

MAHA has arrived in Iowa — and Big Ag is reeling

There’s something in the water in Iowa. And Republican Zach Lahn has centered his gubernatorial campaign around it. Lahn is taking aim at fertilizers, pesticides and other farm chemicals seeping into drinking water supplies — and the agrochemical giants that make them. He believes Big Ag and Big Chemical are to blame for the state’s high cancer rates, a top issue for voters here. Once unimaginable for a politician of either party in Iowa, Lahn’s campaign is putting the state’s Republicans in the same bind that has bedeviled the Trump administration during its second term: stuck between the demands of Make America Healthy Again activists and the interests of agricultural and chemical companies that hold deep sway with the party.

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“Many people in the primary said, ‘You can’t win an election in the Republican primary talking about the big agricultural conglomerates that are extorting our farmers, talking about clean water, and how we need to lower our cancer rates,’” Lahn said in a stump speech earlier this month at the Iowa State Fair, where the farm industry’s influence loomed large, in the form of corporate sponsorships, expansive exhibits and free swag. “We did talk about it, and we won,” Lahn said. It’s not the campaign the Republican establishment wanted in a state with some of this fall’s fiercest battleground elections, including an open Senate seat and three competitive House races. Lahn pulled off an upset in the June primary, besting President Donald Trump’s pick, conservative Rep. Randy Feenstra. Lahn won Trump’s endorsement a month after the primary election. Now, rank-and-file Republicans are left with little choice but to support a candidate running on ideas most don’t agree with, in a year where Democrats believe they have their best shot in two decades to reclaim the governor’s mansion.

More mail ballots are arriving late this year, and they’re getting tossed

The rate at which mail votes have been rejected for arriving late has ticked up in primaries this year and general elections last year in roughly a dozen states, prompting election officials to worry that the U.S. Postal Service is ill-equipped to deliver ballots in the fall midterms. The states studied by The New York Times include some of the most critical battleground House and Senate seats where control of Congress will be determined, as well as key races for governor and secretary of state. The Times obtained data from California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington. In Wisconsin, which hosts an open race for governor, a competitive House election plus contests for both chambers of the state legislature, lateness accounted for about 5,000 rejected mail ballots in the spring primary this year, or 78 percent of all tossed ballots.

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During the last spring election, in 2023, the figure was roughly 2,300, or 47 percent of all tossed votes. The increase is particularly striking when comparing primaries in 2024 and this year. In Michigan’s primary earlier this month, more than 10,000 mail ballots were rejected for arriving after the state’s deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day. That is nearly double the number of ballots rejected in 2024. In Washington, the number of late-arriving mail ballots increased from about 16,000 to more than 20,000 in the same period. The rise in rejected ballots comes at a time of immense upheaval at the Postal Service, where a budget crisis has prompted widespread complaints about delivery delays. The increase also comes as President Trump and his allies are trying to transform the 251-year-old agency into a central player in their quest to restrict mail voting and otherwise overhaul the nation’s elections. Roughly two dozen states sued the government over the president’s executive order governing mail voting, which would require states to hand over voter information and would empower the Postal Service to block mail ballots from being sent or delivered in states that do not comply.

Roberts says Trump's ballroom 'likely unlawful' in SCOTUS dissent backed by liberal justices

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority, except for Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled Monday that the architectural historian who tried to block President Donald Trump from building a ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be didn't have standing to sue after all. Although the issuance of stay may not come as a surprise to those closely watching the Supreme Court's actions to this point and the proceedings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it nonetheless stood out that Roberts penned a dissent that, in a rare occurrence, was joined only by the court's liberal wing.

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Roberts, the circuit justice for Washington, D.C., had issued an administrative stay of a lower court injunction 10 days ago as the high court considered the DOJ's request for a stay. Thereafter, the Trump administration argued that a stay was warranted because Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon and the D.C. Circuit wrongly found the National Trust for Historic Preservation and architectural historian Alison Hoagland had standing to sue on "aesthetic injury" grounds. A D.C. Circuit panel, in a 2-1 decision, earlier rejected the "bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it flouts our constitutional order." But the lone dissenting appellate judge in that case, a Trump appointee, forecast the road ahead. U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao criticized the D.C. Circuit for appointing itself as supervisors of the president's construction project by signing off on Leon's "blatant abuse of discretion." Rao wrote that the majority "elevated the aesthetic displeasure of a single passerby" over Trump's determination that the "ballroom is necessary for the overall security of the White House as well as to provide a secure space for hosting large presidential events."

Kalshi hands George Santos its first lifetime ban

Former Rep. George Santos received a permanent ban and a fine of more than $71,000 from the prediction market Kalshi after he placed wagers on his attendance at President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address this year. The disgraced congressman publicly posted about plans to attend the annual address in February — even asking what kind of suit he should wear in a now-deleted post. From Feb. 2 to Feb. 25, Santos began placing large bets on his own presence at the address, and by the time he posted that he was watching it from an airport TV, the New York Republican had already allegedly switched his bet. “As a person capable of influencing the outcome of this underlying event, Santos was prohibited from trading in this market,” Kalshi wrote in a disciplinary notice released Monday.

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Kalshi’s Compliance Department found that Santos had profited $17,839.57 from manipulating the “price of the Yes or No contracts that he intended to purchase.” The notice also cited Santos’ lack of cooperation with Kalshi’s investigation. A representative from Kalshi told NOTUS in an email that Santos “evaded discussions with our compliance dept[ment].” Santos is the first person to receive a lifetime ban from Kalshi, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ban went into effect Friday. The former congressman spoke out against his ban in a series of posts on X, calling Kalshi “an unserious company” that “violates its own notices and deadlines.” “On August 7th they gave us a 30 day notice and today they leaked/ announced once again their frivolous nonsense,” Santos wrote Monday. “Leaking and attention seeking seem to be the M/O of this organization. Pathetic!” Kalshi told NOTUS that Santos can appeal the ban and the monetary penalty against him to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an independent federal agency that’s charged with regulating the prediction market.

Haitian immigrant in Ohio takes his own life after losing temporary protected status, family says

A Haitian immigrant who had grown increasingly distraught after losing his protection from deportation and being outfitted with an ankle monitor was run over and killed Monday in what his family believes was a suicide. Pierre Damas Bel, 20, parked on the shoulder of Interstate 70 in Springfield, Ohio, some time before 8:45 a.m., got out of his vehicle and walked into westbound traffic, the Ohio State Highway Patrol told local media outlets. He was hit by a tractor-trailer and pronounced dead at the scene. Like an estimated 350,000 Haitian immigrants, Bel had recently lost temporary protected status, which is given to people fleeing nations experiencing disaster. He had a pending asylum claim, but had been summoned to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office after the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with canceling the status for Haitian recipients.

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Federal immigrant agents placed an electronic monitoring device on his ankle, which is one way the agency tracks immigrants it is seeking to remove from the country. “He felt like he was treated like an animal,” his father, Pierres Ronal Bel, 40, recounted in a handwritten statement. Ohio authorities said they are investigating the crash. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has been calling Haitian immigrants into ICE offices in order to be equipped with ankle monitors and sent two deportation flights to Haiti since temporary protected status was canceled for people from the troubled Caribbean nation. Advocates for the immigrants say the U.S. government is sending people back to a country where criminal gangs are responsible for massacres, kidnapping and extortion. Haitian leaders in Springfield and beyond said Bel’s death is symptomatic of the extreme stress many immigrants are under as they fear being detained and sent back.

Copyright September 01, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved