May 14, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Greg Abbott pushes Texas Supreme Court to oust Rep. Gene Wu for leading last year's quorum break

Gov. Greg Abbott is prodding the Texas Supreme Court to act on his months-old lawsuit to force state Rep. Gene Wu from office because of the Houston Democrat's role leading last year's quorum break that delayed the Republican-led plan to redraw Texas' congressional district boundaries. “He (Wu) clearly abdicated the remainder of his current term," Abbott's lawyer Trevor W. Ezell wrote to the justices in April, the most recent filing in the case that has yet to be scheduled for a hearing. The lawsuit by Abbott is an unprecedented move by a sitting Texas governor. And it's the last lingering ramification for Texas House Democrats, who've already been financially punished by their Republican counterparts for fleeing to the state to fight a map that gives the GOP an advantage in the midterms.

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In an interview, Wu called Abbott's lawsuit a sideshow that should be brought to an end and said that he no longer reads the court documents "because they're all just the same nonsense again and again." "I miss having adults in the room," said Wu, who leads the Texas House Democrats. "I really miss having adults in the room in government. Yes, this is politics, but this is serious." Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said the governor also sees the matter as serious, and that he has no intention of backing down. “Governor Abbott is committed to holding absent Democrats like Wu accountable for their dereliction of duty," Mahaleris said in a statement. "This matter remains pending before the Texas Supreme Court. State law—and common sense—require the removal of legislators who violate their constitutional oath.” If Abbott persuades the court to oust Wu, it would only be for the remainder of his current two-year term. Wu is up for re-election in November and if he wins, would be sworn into a new term in January ahead of the next legislative session.

Hill County temporarily bans data center construction in what appears to be a Texas first

Homeowners and landowners packed the courtroom Tuesday morning to oppose the possibility of data centers coming to the area. “I am begging you.... No, no, no. We demand you all stand against this,” one Hill County resident said. The vote was close. The four commissioners split evenly, leaving County Judge Shane Brassell to cast the deciding vote in favor of the pause as the courtroom erupted in applause. According to the Texas Tribune, the one-year moratorium appears to be a first by a Texas county. The moratorium applies only to unincorporated land within Hill County. Residents urged commissioners to do everything possible to slow the developments. “We need to do everything we can to slow this down. We don’t want this. I’m not going to sit here and tell you we’re not going to get it, but it ought to be them pushing a million-ton rock up Mount Everest,” resident Tom Lyness said.

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But not everyone in the room opposed the projects. A data center developer also addressed commissioners, warning the local economy could miss out on major economic growth. “We’d be bringing a lot of long-term tax revenue to the county to fund your schools and infrastructure, and I’d like to keep an honest, open relationship with the commissioners court,” said Pervez Siddique, chief development officer for Prime Power Inc.. County officials said several construction teams have expressed interest in building data centers in the area. Commissioners said the pause would give them time to weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks before granting approvals. Other homeowners spoke about concerns over noise pollution, traffic and electricity bills during the four-hour public comment period. “If this data center comes and our home value plummets and our utility bills skyrocket, how are we supposed to stay in this rural setting?” a Hill County resident said. However, Siddique assured residents his company would not drive up electricity prices and would work closely with neighbors. “We’re not increasing anyone’s electricity prices because we are generating our own electricity. We are not using more water than the equivalent of five households in Hill County,” Siddique said. During the one-year period, the county plans to conduct studies on traffic, environmental impact and emergency response capacity. Despite the moratorium, commissioners left the door open for exceptions. They could still grant waivers to developers if a proposed project is determined not to pose a threat to public health and safety.

Last-second filings from Camp Mystic attorneys delay lawsuits against them

Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble was not pleased with Camp Mystic’s legal team on Wednesday morning. She was set to spend all day in a courtroom hashing out the latest motions in the five cases against the camp — brought by various parents of the 27 young girls who died at the camp during last summer’s deadly Independence Day floods. “What we were supposed to do today was hear the defendant’s motions to compel arbitration and motions to stay — a hearing for which I was fully prepared, had fully read all the briefings and was fully ready to make a decision” Gamble said. “At midnight, we got an email… so those motions have been withdrawn, so we won’t be doing that today. However, I noticed that they immediately filed — which I don’t have right now — amended motions.”

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The action of withdrawing motions itself is not an issue, Gamble said. However in this specific instance, especially with Gamble saying the motions “are “appear to be, in substance, identical,” it may be an issue. “A motion’s just a motion, what I don’t like is the last-second notice,” Gamble said. “I especially don’t like it when I think I know what’s going on because I’m getting emails about Spurs games and weddings in Italy, so I don’t love that.” The Italy wedding referred to Camp Mystic’s lead attorney Mikal Watts, who was absent from today’s hearing. “Friends of mine since high school got married in Italy on a wedding trip this and last week that was planned long before the July 4 tragedy,” Watts told Nexstar in a statement. “Regrettably, because of this wedding celebration – which my wife officiated – I could not attend this week’s Camp Mystic hearings, but look forward to representing my clients in future proceedings.” Brad Beckworth, the lead attorney for CiCi and Will Steward, speculated the withdraw and refiling was a delay tactic. The Steward’s eight-year-old daughter, Cile, is the last victim of last summer’s Camp Mystic floods to not be recovered. “Kind of reminds me of being in grade school when somebody picked a fight and said, ‘Let’s go meet at the football field at noon on Saturday, and we’ll duke it out. They didn’t show,” Beckworth said. “A little subterfuge and trickery at the last minute to avoid their day in court.”

Why the oil crisis could become a full-blown catastrophe within a month

Global oil stockpiles have provided a cushion for the severe production disruptions caused by the U.S. and Israel war’s with Iran — and the resulting near-standstill of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. But as hopes for peace falter and with U.S. inflation hitting a three-year high on Tuesday, analysts are sounding the alarm about dwindling energy reserves. From a geopolitical perspective, the current stalemate in peace negotiations and the mix of ultimatums and extensions could go on for a long time, said Jaime Brito, executive director of refining and oil products at Dow Jones Energy.

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“But from the point of view of energy, this is a snowball — and every week that passes, you have tighter markets,” Brito said. If the Middle East war doesn’t end quickly, the world — including the Group of 7 developed nations that have relied on their ample oil reserves — “will start facing scarcity,” warned Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Swissquote. And analysts at J.P. Morgan recently said that developed countries’ commercial crude stocks could be close to operational stress levels by early June. On paper, global crude inventories are ample, and they include both commercial stockpiles held by companies and strategic stockpiles held by governments. But not every barrel is available, and operating with low levels of inventories causes its own problems. Estimates on exactly how much is stockpiled vary, because both companies and governments are playing it close to the vest: They are not keen on letting the world know exactly how much crude they have stockpiled. Analysts at Morgan Stanley recently pegged global commercial and SPR crude inventories at 5.75 billion barrels, while Societe Generale sees it at about 7.8 billion barrels and J.P. Morgan has it at around 8.2 billion barrels — and all three used a mix of official and private data to arrive at their estimates. For context, there were about 9 billion barrels sitting in inventories back in 2020.

State Stories

Corpus Christi city council approves revised Level 1 Water Emergency plan on first reading

Corpus Christi city council voted Tuesday to approve the first reading of a revised Level 1 Water Emergency Plan after sending Corpus Christi Water back to the drawing board over concerns about fines and water allotments. Mayor Paulette Guajardo said the council was united in its opposition to certain parts of the original plan. "Every council member up here had something to say about citations, about surcharges," Guajardo said. Corpus Christi city council approves revised Level 1 water emergency plan on first reading The revised plan eliminates the potential $500 citations for residents that council members had opposed. The new plan also increases the baseline water allotment to 8,000 gallons per month. After a 25% curtailment is applied, residents will be allotted 6,000 gallons per month.

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Nick Winkelmann, COO of Corpus Christi Water, noted the allotment would only take effect under specific conditions. "That is implemented on the date of a Level One Water Emergency," Winkelmann said. While citations are gone, surcharges remain for customers who exceed their monthly allotments. All customers — residents, businesses, and industry — will be billed $4 per thousand gallons over their allotment. Customers who exceed their baseline will be billed $8 per thousand gallons. At-Large Councilmember Mark Scott suggested the surcharge structure may be too lenient and referenced a tiered format used in 1984. "They charged three dollars for the first thousand gallons, then five dollars for the next thousand gallons over, and then ten dollars for the next thousand gallons over, and then twenty five dollars for the next thousand gallons," Scott said. Under the revised plan, amenities such as splash pads and pools will remain open. Commercial car washes will also be allowed to operate as long as they comply with all drought contingency plan measures.

Why Downtown Dallas can't fill its "zombie" office towers

The downtown Dallas office market is at a crossroads. Overall vacancy is near 30 percent, but the city’s 10 largest office towers are half-empty, with a 48.8 percent vacancy rate, according to data from Downtown Dallas Inc. and Dallas CAD. In all, they account for 6.26 million square feet of empty space. At first glance, the numbers suggest a collapsing office market. Top tenant rep broker Jeff Ellerman of Stream Realty points to Goldman Sachs’ decision to leave downtown for Uptown to show that it might just be. Developer Ray Washburne calls most towers downtown, “basically zombie buildings.” But many developers, brokers, and downtown investors argue the story is more complicated. In some cases, they say, the issue is not demand—it’s infrastructure. More specifically, parking.

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Take Bank of America Plaza for example. Technically, the tower is roughly 70 percent leased. But the building is effectively full. That’s because it can’t accommodate additional tenants under modern parking expectations. With 1,336 spaces in its 14-story garage, there simply are not enough places for workers’ cars five days a week. The building would need roughly 1,200 additional parking spaces to truly reach full occupancy, according to Mike Ablon who, alongside Mike Hoque, has intentions to redevelop the tower. (The duo has yet to close on acquiring the property.) “You want to fix downtown?” Ablon says. “Go build 10 parking garages.” That may sound almost absurd in an era dominated by conversations around transit-oriented development, walkability, and the future of remote work. But to many downtown real estate pros, the parking shortage is not a new problem; it’s the predictable outcome of how the city was built. Early versions of downtown were accessed by rail and streetcars. But, unlike older American cities such as New York City or Chicago, Dallas largely came of age after World War II—during the automobile era. The region exploded outward during the postwar economic boom, fueled by highway construction, suburban housing growth, and cheap land. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Dallas spread out.

Paxton demands Dallas County sheriff work with ICE

The Dallas County sheriff must cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or face legal consequences, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned Wednesday. In a letter to Sheriff Marian Brown, Paxton called her decision not to seek a cooperative partnership with ICE "troubling" and "not yours to make." He provided a deadline of June 1 for Brown to begin the process. "I will not let the people of Dallas County pay the price for your dereliction of duty," Paxton wrote. Brown said in a statement the sheriff's office already "maintains an active working relationship with ICE" and that it "remains committed to continued compliance with applicable state and federal law."

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As it seeks to deport roughly 1 million people a year, the Trump administration revived a decades-old program that allows local law enforcement officers to interrogate immigrants and detain them for potential deportation. Typically, that authority is reserved for federal agents. Since President Donald Trump took office, ICE has expanded the program to hundreds of agencies across the country. Texas lawmakers last year passed a bill requiring every Texas sheriff's office with a jail to sign an agreement, formally called a 287(g), with the federal government. Sheriff's offices must sign an agreement by Dec. 1, 2026 under the law, not June 1, Brown noted in her statement. Tarrant, Denton and Ellis counties are among the 300 Texas law enforcement agencies that have signed an agreement. Dallas County has so far declined to do so. Late last year, Brown said she did not plan to pursue an agreement. “No, there are no additional efforts that we’re going to put into it,” she said at an event at the University of North Texas at Dallas.

Regions taps BofA vet to lead Texas growth push

At a moment when “everyone sees Texas as an opportunity,” new Regions executive Christina Clemmons plans to lean on her roots in the state to drive growth for the bank. Having lived and worked in Texas her entire life, Clemmons said she understands the nuances of the state’s various markets. That and the size and scale of the state are “what trips people up sometimes,” said Clemmons, Regions’ Texas consumer banking executive. “You have micro-markets within these big markets,” she said in a recent interview. Clemmons, who’s based in Dallas, recently joined Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions after spending 31 years at Bank of America. Clemmons will lead operations across Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Tyler and east Texas. An area of particular focus for Clemmons: expanding the regional bank’s reach in serving small-business owners in the state.

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Fast-growing Texas continues to benefit from population growth and business relocation, creating “tremendous opportunity” for the $161 billion-asset bank to go after, she said. To be sure, Regions faces a raft of competitors racing to capture more business within Texas, from locally based Frost Bank and Texas Capital, to bigger lenders such as Bank of America, PNC and Truist, to Ohio-based regionals Fifth Third and Huntington. Regions’ deposit market share for the county in which Dallas is located was 0.74% as of the most recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data from June 2025. In the county that covers Fort Worth, it was 0.83%. In Austin’s county, it was 0.88%; in Houston’s, 0.54%. Regions’ Texas-based subsidiary, Ascentium Capital, which provides small businesses with lending options for equipment purchases, is a notable component in the bank’s ability to serve entrepreneurs, Clemmons said. Regions is also upskilling some retail bank staff to meet the needs of small-business clients, she noted. And in April, CEO John Turner said the bank is deploying a small-business digital origination platform at the end of the month, which brings a “fairly significant improvement in our digital offering” for small businesses.

Longtime KUT host Jennifer Stayton stepping away from 'the best job' in public radio

After 22 years greeting Austin first thing in the morning, Jennifer Stayton is hitting the snooze button. KUT News’ longtime Morning Edition host will be moving to a later time slot on air, as well as focusing on special events and reporting on a soon-to-launch project about aging in Austin. Prior to her early morning tenure with KUT, Stayton also spent a few years as the Morning Edition host for WAER in Syracuse, N.Y. “So we're pushing 25 years of getting up, you know, around 4 a.m., if not a bit earlier,” she told Jimmy Maas, KUT’s program director. “I'm ready to sleep a little bit later, quite honestly.”

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"I will be on the air from 9 to noon, Monday through Friday, once we have someone who is going to slide into Morning Edition; that's going to take a few months. So this schedule will also allow me maybe to slide in and host Austin Signal a few more times when Jerry [Quijano] needs a break from hosting duties, maybe hop into All Things Considered when, you know, folks are on vacation. Looking forward to kind of hopping around and hosting different things on the schedule. And then, I know we're gonna talk more about this later, but I'll be doing some interviews, some special events, and some reporting around a project we are launching about aging in Austin," she said.

Sen. John Cornyn's 'Ken' dolls target AG Ken Paxton's scandals

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is rolling a line of "Ken" dolls, but not the kind typically remembered as Barbie's beau. In a recent ad, Cornyn, R-TX, is taking aim at his U.S. Senate primary runoff opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, with a collection of dolls meant to shed light on the attorney general's numerous scandals over the years. "Twelve years as attorney general," a news release from Cornyn's campaign stated. "One federal indictment. Eight of his own staffers blowing the whistle on him. A mistress conveniently employed by the donor whose FBI investigation needed to disappear. A child sex trafficker he personally cut loose. An impeachment his own party showed up to vote yes on.

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"The dolls practically built themselves." In all, 10 dolls can be found on the senator's website representing a variety of familiar Paxton scandals — Kentucky Derby Ken comes complete with a mistress and taxpayer-funded security detail; Mortgage Fraud Ken comes with four "primary residences" and 11 total houses; Soft on Crime Ken comes with a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for a child sex trafficker. "Every accessory is real," the campaign noted. "Every scandal is documented. Every doll is waiting for you. "Texas deserves better than Crooked Ken. The collection agrees."

Texas Tech ‘On and On’ campaign surpasses $1 billion in donations

Texas Tech University’s ‘ON&ON’ fundraising campaign has raised more than one billion dollars, creating endless possibilities to impact future generations, President Lawrence Schovanec said. “Because of this campaign, we have been able to create over 600 new scholarship endowments and when you talk about going forward, those funds will always be there in the future to support students,” Schovanec said.

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The fundraising campaign publicly launched in 2024 and has received more than 80,000 donations, including 37,000 first-time donors. Schovanec said one of the biggest impacts is the ability to provide financial support to students. “How special are those graduates from Texas Tech, when other students hear of their success, they also want to be part of that, and it’s very and its very competitive environment to be able to provide financial support,” Schovanec said. “When I talk to advisors, the most common thing I what on what really closed the deal, is probably financial support.” The campaign will also build and enhance facilities and programs the university offers, with some construction and upgrades already taking place. “The design village will house architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, construction engineering, six or seven colleges will be in that building,” Schovanec said. “The building in the Davis College of Agricultural sciences and natural resources, another project that will start this summer, so there is a lot of effort to raise funds for that building as well.”

How Texas’ foster care fix fell apart in North Texas

On March 14, a baby with big brown eyes and dark brown curls died in a Dallas hospital days after spending her first birthday on life support. Athaliah Leilani Silva Bernal, whose family said she was hospitalized with head trauma, died from what the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services called “intentional injuries.” The fate of Athaliah was the breaking point for a child welfare system already under scrutiny. At 2 months old, she was removed from her parents for suspected child abuse but was later returned and not regularly checked on, according to DFPS. Four days after her death, a judge placed the private contractor in charge of managing all Child Protective Services cases in the Dallas area under state supervision.

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The judge’s receivership ruling is the first of its kind in Texas since legislators nearly a decade ago implemented a statewide “community-based care” model in which private contractors handle the management of child welfare cases. Empower, the contractor over Dallas and eight surrounding counties, is currently under review for failures to keep kids safe. In the request for receivership filed by DFPS, which administers the state’s child welfare system, the agency laid out a biting assessment of Empower’s performance since it began managing CPS cases two years ago. The petition called out “systemic failures” that place children in “imminent danger,” such as a lack of in-person visits with kids and case files missing critical information. It said exhaustive efforts to address those failures — including more than a dozen quality improvement plans and two corrective action plans — were unsuccessful, warranting the “extraordinary” step to request receivership. North Texas’ at-risk children have been at the center of such concerns before.

Austin law firm to sue Denver over 'preventable' runway death involving Frontier flight

An Austin-based law firm is preparing to sue the city and county of Denver on behalf of passengers who were on board the Frontier Airlines flight involved in last week’s deadly incident at Denver International Airport. Attorneys with DJC Law told KVUE they are representing about four Denver-area passengers who were on board the flight and are working alongside Ramos Law, which is representing additional passengers. The incident happened on Friday as the Frontier Airlines plane was taking off for Los Angeles with 231 people onboard. Officials said the aircraft struck and killed a person on the runway after that individual jumped a perimeter fence.

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Airport officials said there was also a brief engine fire, causing smoke to fill the cabin. All passengers and crew members evacuated the plane. Twelve people were injured, and five were taken to the hospital. Attorney Andres Pereira with DJC Law said his clients expected safe travel but instead experienced a “preventable aviation incident” that left them with physical and psychological injuries. “I have three clients right now who were sitting in a row right next to the engine, and they actually saw portions of the individual's body go through the engine, which you can imagine must be a very traumatic experience,” Pereira said. “As soon as that occurred, of course, everybody on the aircraft, my clients included, they all thought they were going to die.” Pereira said some of his clients suffered smoke inhalation, while another was injured while evacuating down the emergency slide. The law firm claims there were “multiple failures in the design, maintenance, monitoring, and operation of the airport’s perimeter security and intrusion-detection systems,” as well as failures to timely notify air traffic control and to halt operations on the runway after the breach. Both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the incident. Pereira said a formal Notice of Claim was served on Tuesday, and attorneys expect to file an official lawsuit in the coming days.

Frisco pastor calls Islam 'demonic agenda,' says mayoral race is 'spiritual battle'

In Frisco, a mayor’s race that might ordinarily have been fought over issues of zoning and development has become a “spiritual battle for the soul of the city,” according to Keith Craft, lead pastor at Elevate Life Church. He made the remark from the pulpit the day after the May 2 election in which Rod Vilhauer, a member of the nondenominational church, garnered about a third of the vote and advanced to a runoff. On stage in front of a sanctuary that accommodates about 3,000 in stadium-style seating, Craft warned his congregation that Muslims were “making a play” for Frisco and that Islam was not a religion but an “ideology from hell.”

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He said Vilhauer, who stood a few rows from the church’s stage, was the right man to lead the city. He laid his hands on Vilhauer’s head as members of the congregation, with outstretched hands, joined him in asking God to give the candidate “wisdom, knowledge and divine favor” as he continues to campaign. Four candidates were on the ballot in Frisco, the first time in nine years that city residents had a chance to weigh in on an open seat for mayor. In that time, the city’s population grew by about 40% and has grown more diverse in terms of race and religion. No candidate won a majority of votes, so Vilhauer will face outgoing Frisco ISD board trustee Mark Hill in a June 13 runoff. Vilhauer, 65, is a retired construction business owner who has lived in Frisco since 1986. At a late April service, Craft said he first met Vilhauer in 1998 soon after he landed in Frisco, after years of preaching around the world with a group of Christian bodybuilders. Craft began holding services out of an elementary school when Frisco was what he called a “little Podunk town” with fewer than 30,000 residents. Rodman, the construction company Vilhauer co-owned, undertook about $6 million worth of excavation work at the site of the church’s first building in the early 2000s. Vilhauer was also the first person to donate $1 million to the church in a single check, Craft said. Several of Vilhauer’s campaign volunteers and staffers are people he met through Elevate Life Church.

Hartzell defends UT response to 2024 pro-Palestine protest

Former University of Texas President Jay Hartzell returned to Austin on Tuesday to testify that he was not in contact with Gov. Greg Abbott during a 2024 pro-Palestinian protest that resulted in the arrest of more than 50 people. The current leader of Southern Methodist University insisted that he decided to cancel the 2024 demonstration due to worries it would disrupt campus, not over the viewpoint of the protesters. In two hours under questioning, Hartzell connected the actions of Austin pro-Palestinian protesters to the tactics of a national movement disrupting colleges across the country with widespread student encampments or building occupations in spring 2024. “Columbia (University) was front and center on my mind,” Hartzell said. “It looked to me that the clear intent was to do things at UT Austin that happened at Columbia.”

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This is the first lawsuit that has gone to trial related to the April 24, 2024 protest where 57 people were arrested for conduct protesters asserted was peaceful, but university leaders, including Hartzell, said broke university rules. The trial began on Monday and is expected to wrap up by Wednesday. Hartzell, who led the university at the time, cancelled the protest on April 23, 2024 because he believed it would resemble other pro-Palestine encampments taking place across the country. Students and community members still gathered on April 24, setting the stage for a stand-off between protesters and law enforcement on Speedway and UT’s South Lawn. Qaddumi, a student leader with the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which organized the April 24 protest, was the first person arrested at the demonstration, which student leaders, including Qaddumi, insisted would abide by university rules. After UT’s dean of students ruled to suspend Qaddumi for three semesters for his role in the protest, the former UT student sued the university for retaliation and viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman will decide whether to strike the suspension from Qaddumi’s record. Qaddumi is expected to graduate from UT in May, according to court documents. At Hartzell’s request, more than 100 state troopers and 30 UT police officers responded to the event. Though Abbott oversees the Department of Public Safety, Hartzell acted alone in asking for help, he said.

Houston World Cup Committee hones in on transport details

World Cup Houston Host Committee members have a lot of messages to share with the public in the final month before festivities kick off on June 14, but one directive was loud and clear at a press briefing on Monday: Take the METRO. Host committee officials expect 500,000 people to visit Houston between mid-June and July 4, although they have emphasized that not all the guests will be in town at the same time. Seven World Cup matches are scheduled at NRG Stadium, rebranded as Houston Stadium, on June 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, and July 4. A free Fan Festival is planned in East Downtown from June 11 through July 19, where people can watch the soccer matches on one of nine big screens and enjoy food, entertainment and family-friendly activities.

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But there’s a growing concern from Houstonians about how the long-term event will affect their work commutes. Thus, the advice repeated at Monday’s media briefing was to take the METRO whenever possible, whether you’re an international traveler or a Houston resident. Host committee officials say they’re confident that Houston has the capacity to accommodate the largest sporting event in the world and its fans, but they’re preparing for every possible scenario, including heat-related illnesses, a possible tropical storm, cyber attacks, human trafficking, immigration raids, infectious diseases and, of course, gridlock along Houston highways. METRO’s goal is to make the light rail an easy choice for guests while keeping daily commuters happy, said Elizabeth Brock, chair of the transit authority’s board of directors. Buses will depart from Bush and Hobby airports every 30 minutes and go downtown, where travelers can connect to a rail line, bus or an on-demand service to take them to a hotel.

Peter Thiel-backed, crypto-based bank to launch in Dallas

A proposed crypto-based bank, headquartered in Dallas, is a step closer to fruition. Augustus National Bank received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on May 8. It plans to be a branchless full-service insured national bank with a wholly owned stablecoin subsidiary, “to engage in issuance, custody, conversion, and payment of U.S. dollar-denominated reserve-backed stablecoins,” according to the OCC’s decision filing.

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The company, rebranded from its earlier iteration Ivy, said it aims to revamp a “clearing model [that] runs on legacy correspondents that are closed 115 days a year, built for humans, and take two days to settle.” “Legacy banks are made of paper, Augustus is made of code,” co-founder Ferdinand Dabitz said in a statement. “It’s obvious we need to upgrade clearing to the [artificial intelligence] era. But only this unique regulatory moment at the intersection of US financial regulatory innovation, the Genius Act, and AI enables us to finally do so.” Dabitz, 25, would be CEO of Augustus Bank, N.A. – becoming the youngest CEO of a federally chartered bank in more than 100 years, the company said.

Nearly every Lake Worth takeover manager lives outside the district. Why?

Four of the five people governing Lake Worth ISD under a state takeover live outside the district, according to property records and a Fort Worth Report analysis. Only longtime Lake Worth educator Judy Starnes appears to live within Lake Worth ISD boundaries based on Tarrant Appraisal District records. Others are tied to addresses in Fort Worth neighborhoods outside the district, including areas near downtown and the Ridgmar corridor. The board of managers and new superintendent are tasked with reversing years of low academic performance in the 3,200-student district. Board President Tom Harris said several members were recruited by the Texas Education Agency after participating in governance training connected to Fort Worth ISD’s takeover process. Harris, Ken Nichols and Mason Sneed all applied to serve on FWISD’s takeover board, according to previous Fort Worth Report findings.

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Managers volunteered for the role because they want to help guide the district, Superintendent Ena Meyers, teachers and administrators as they work to give students the opportunity to excel in the classroom, Harris said. “The entire LWISD board of managers believes all students deserve a high-quality education regardless of their ZIP code and look forward to engaging with the community as we move forward,” he said in an emailed statement. The residence of two members, Amy Morgan and Ken Nichols, could not be confirmed through available public records. The makeup of the board reflects both how the state selects managers and the limited number of Lake Worth residents who applied to serve. Only 19 people applied for positions on the board of managers, according to updated data the Texas Education Agency released alongside its appointment of the managers and new Superintendent Ena Meyers. Of those, only four lived within district boundaries. Texas law does not always require board of managers members to live in the district they oversee, agency spokesperson Jake Kobersky said.

National Stories

The White House is meeting with DOJ, DHS and USPS about creating voter lists

President Donald Trump’s attempt to impose federally approved voter lists on states and restrict mail-in voting is moving full-steam ahead. White House officials have held discussions in recent weeks about putting the plan into action with the help of the Justice Department, the postmaster general and a known election conspiracy theorist who’s been put in charge of “election integrity” at the Department of Homeland Security. According to a government official with direct knowledge of these discussions, the talks have involved top administration officials at particular departments. The official responsibilities of the individuals involved hints at how the government is planning to implement — and defend — the policy in court. This source provided evidence that these discussions have involved DOJ Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon and her deputies; U.S. Postal Service CEO David Steiner; and Heather Honey, a far-right activist whose disproven research fueled Trump’s 2020 election challenges.

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Honey is now the DHS deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the department’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans. She has been described as a “protege” of Cleta Mitchell, a Republican lawyer who guided Trump as he attempted to cling to power after losing his 2020 reelection bid. Trump’s March 31 executive order, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” tasks DHS with establishing what it calls a “state citizenship list” and calls for the DOJ to “prioritize” the prosecution of state and local officials who distribute ballots to anyone not eligible to vote. The nation’s postal service is also ordered to create rules that would force states to submit rosters of eligible voters to USPS in order to distribute mail-in ballots. Progressive groups have decried the maneuver as an attempt to violate the Constitution by having the federal government seize control of state-run elections. Speaking on background, a White House staffer would not acknowledge that these discussions have taken place but said “it is standard process for administration officials to coordinate on implementing President Trump’s executive orders. We do not comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened.”

Five takeaways from the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing so far

The U.S. and China agreed to forge more cooperative ties at their summit in Beijing on Thursday, in a high-stakes meeting full of friendly gestures between two countries that have been battling for years on issues ranging from intellectual property and human rights to technology and trade. Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to develop a “constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability,” according to Beijing’s official English readout of the summit. Beijing will treat this as the guiding framework for the next three years and beyond, he said. The strategic positioning would be led by cooperation and “measured competition” with manageable differences, Xi said, according to the readout, while stressing that the framework must be translated into concrete actions.

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The two countries’ trade envoys reached “overall balanced and positive outcomes” at the preparatory summit in South Korea on Wednesday, according to Xi. That delegation was led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. “Both sides should work together to preserve this hard-won positive momentum,” Xi said. Beijing welcomes deeper commercial engagement from the U.S., he said, and “China’s door to opening up will only open wider.” The comments came as a dozen business leaders from some of the biggest American companies joined Trump’s visit, including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Both sides should make better use of diplomatic and military communication channels, Xi said. He also called for deeper cooperation in economic and trade issues, agriculture and tourism. Trump, Xi and their teams discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation, including expanding market access for U.S. businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into American industries, according to a White House official.

Venezuela embarks on $150 billion restructuring of debt amid political turmoil

The Venezuelan government announced Wednesday that it has begun a “comprehensive and orderly process” for restructuring its enormous sovereign and state oil company debt. In a statement, Venezuela’s economics and finance ministry said the intention was to “put the economy at the service of the Venezuelan people and free the country from the burden of accumulated debt.” “Venezuela demonstrated solvency throughout the years, fully complying with all its international obligations. This capacity and willingness to meet our financial commitments was impeded from 2017 onward as a result of financial sanctions,” the government said. “For too long, the country has been deprived of normal access to financing, and its economy lost the capacity to invest in health, electricity, water, education, infrastructure, productive recovery, and the well-being of its population.”

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The restructuring process aims to guarantee substantial debt relief, officials said, which will be used to benefit the country and its population. “Venezuela will fulfill its commitments sustainably and will do so under the conditions that the Venezuelan people deserve, building a solid path to recover well-being, justice, and social equality,” the statement said. In 2017, during his first presidential term, Donald Trump slapped financial sanctions on Venezuela in a bid to restrict the Maduro regime’s access to capital. In January, an extraordinary U.S. military operation saw American troops capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He was brought to the U.S., where he was indicted on narco-terrorism conspiracy and other charges alongside his wife Cilia Flores. Both Maduro and Flores have denied any wrongdoing.

Russia keeps attacking U.S. firms in Ukraine. The White House is silent.

The Russian drones slammed into the American-owned warehouses one after another. Each announced its arrival with an eerie whine. Then came the blasts, ripping through a vast grain terminal in southern Ukraine and lighting up the night sky. Seven drones in three minutes. The target, according to a video of the mid-April attack recorded by a truck driver, was the U.S. farming giant Cargill. “This is insane,” the driver is heard repeating in the video, which was obtained and verified by The New York Times. “This is insane.” The attack was one of the latest in a series of Russian strikes on major American companies since last summer, including facilities tied to Coca-Cola, Boeing, the snacks maker Mondelez and the tobacco giant Philip Morris.

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The corporations have largely avoided publicizing the strikes, wary of alarming investors and insurers. While Ukraine has disclosed several attacks on American assets, the strikes on Cargill and Coca-Cola have not been previously reported. Russia’s motivation for striking U.S. companies is unclear. Some Ukrainian business figures say the attacks are part of a broader campaign targeting all types of assets, regardless of companies’ nationality, aimed at choking off the country’s economy. Others see a more focused goal: to deter U.S. investment just as Kyiv is trying to deepen business ties with a deal-making White House. The companies have quietly raised concerns with U.S. officials about what they see as a deliberate and escalating campaign against American business interests in Ukraine. The White House, despite its pledge to defend U.S. commercial interests abroad, has been muted in its response. The Trump administration has not condemned any of the attacks that Ukraine has made public this year. After U.S. diplomats in Kyiv and Ukrainian business figures and officials warned about the attacks, the administration offered a response that amounted to little more than an acknowledgment of the concerns, according to three people familiar with the exchanges, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Trump White House explores 250 pardons to mark America’s 250th birthday

White House officials are weighing a plan for President Trump to issue 250 pardons as a way to mark the celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan is still in preliminary discussions but, if carried out, would expand Trump’s already wide use of the pardon power. His apparent willingness to grant pardons has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle and encouraged some high-profile candidates to openly campaign to have their convictions or alleged crimes wiped away with a signature. Some in the White House have raised concerns about doing too many more pardons, or any at all, before the midterm elections this fall, some of the people said. Trump could announce the 250 acts of mercy on June 14, which is both Flag Day and his birthday, or on the Fourth of July, some of the people said.

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A White House official said there are always conversations about how to best carry out the president’s priorities, but no decisions had been made. Trump is the ultimate decision maker on any clemency-related actions, the official added. Trump has been determined to put his imprint on the national celebration, known as the semiquincentennial. He has pushed for a National Garden of American Heroes featuring 250 life-size statues of figures including past presidents George Washington and Ronald Reagan and baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson. He has launched plans for the “Patriot Games,” athletic competitions featuring high-schoolers. And he has commissioned the repainting of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Throughout history, kings and popes traditionally celebrated “jubilee” years with granting pardons and forgiving sins. Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed pardon attorney at the Justice Department, harked to that history earlier this year in a guest essay published in “Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture,” writing that pardons were “especially essential to the administration of justice” to past rulers.

How a legal challenge over gender dysphoria became a fight for disability rights

Charlotte Cravins’ son Landry turned 2 in January. He’s a smiley little boy who loves singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and recently got his first pair of glasses. Landry was born with Down syndrome and has impaired vision. He receives publicly funded therapies that have helped him learn to crawl, to pull himself up to stand, and to use American Sign Language. Landry lives with his parents and sister in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, one of the eight states whose attorney general has chosen to remain in a lawsuit challenging a federal rule that protects accommodations for people with disabilities. States are asking a federal court in Texas to declare unconstitutional a part of federal law that requires states to provide services to disabled people in their communities, rather than in institutions, when appropriate.

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Cravins, an attorney, has followed the case with increasing concern. If the states succeed, that could strip disabled people like her son of the right to publicly funded services that allow them to live in their own homes and neighborhoods, and instead push them into institutions such as state hospitals and nursing homes. “Landry is a part of our family, a part of the community,” she said, “and to present his involvement in our family and in our community as a burden is unconscionable.” The lawsuit is unusual. It began in 2024 with 17 Republican-led states suing the Biden administration over its inclusion of gender dysphoria as a protected disability under a portion of federal law known as Section 504. The states also challenged the constitutionality of Section 504 itself. But the suit has since morphed into something different. After President Donald Trump was reelected and his administration made clear it would not enforce the Biden rule protecting gender dysphoria, eight states pulled out of the lawsuit.

Amazon looks to redefine a need for speed with 30-minute deliveries

More than 20 years after it redefined fast shipping, Amazon is preparing to raise the bar on consumer expectations again by offering to fulfill customers’ most urgent product needs in a half-hour or less for an extra fee. The company, which revolutionized online shopping in 2005 with two-day deliveries for Prime members, is rapidly opening small order-processing hubs in dozens of U.S. and foreign cities to cater to shoppers who can’t or don’t want to wait for cough medicine to relieve flu symptoms or tomatoes for tonight’s dinner salad. The ultrafast service, called Amazon Now, first launched in India last June. Amazon says 30-minute deliveries now are also available in urban areas of Brazil, Mexico, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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The mini-warehouses devoted to Amazon Now are about the size of a CVS drugstore. They stock about 3,500 products for expedited delivery, including beer, diapers, pet food, meat, nonprescription medications, playing cards and cellphone charging cables. "We know that customers love speed and always have," Beryl Tomay, Amazon's head of transportation, told The Associated Press on Monday. "What we see customers doing, when we offer faster speeds, are they purchase more from Amazon. And Amazon becomes more top of mind for that or other types of items as well." In the U.S., the company first tested Amazon Now in Seattle, the home of its headquarters, and in Philadelphia. Most residents of Atlanta and the Dallas-Fort Worth area now have access as well. The service is also live in Houston, Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Florida, and dozens of other cities, Amazon said, with New York City and others expected by year-end.

Across the borderlands, wall construction threatens sacred sites

On October 22, 1992, Mount Kuchamaa—a 3,900-foot-high peak spanning Southern California and Baja California—became the first site listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its cultural and religious significance to a Native American tribe. The mountain is sacred to the Kumeyaay people, whose homeland spans San Diego County and northern Baja California. Also known as Tecate Peak, the rugged Kuchamaa (Cuchumá in Spanish) is strewn with granite boulders and covered in green chaparral plants. It holds rare, endemic forests of Tecate Cypress, and on clear days, the Pacific Ocean is visible from its peak. In Kumeyaay cosmology, Mount Kuchamaa is considered the home of the spirit of a shaman, also named Kuchamaa, who taught the tribe their rituals and directed them to stop fighting one another. Traditionally, the mountain has served as a site where the tribe trains its religious leaders. In the 1980s, tribal elders recounted to an anthropologist a case in which shamans had danced so much “that they wore a circular rut in the rock on the mountain top.”

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In April, however, federal contractors from Fisher Sand and Gravel Company began dynamiting the sacred mountain, despite efforts by the Kumeyaay and surrounding communities to convey its importance to the Trump administration. Explosions sent plumes of smoke billowing from the mountain’s hillside. Heavy machinery moved across dirt roads. The mountain was being sacrificed for the construction of a second border wall. Unable to persuade Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to stop the desecration of Kuchamaa, on April 12, “dozens of residents, including Kumeyaay people on the Mexican side, gathered on a small Tecate soccer field in the shadow of the existing border fence” to perform a ceremony honoring the mountain, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Kuchamaa is not the borderlands’ only sacred site facing irreparable damage. In July 2025, the Trump administration and the Republican Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated more than $46 million for border barriers—over three times the amount spent during the first Trump administration. New sections of steel wall are now under rapid construction across the region, including second walls running parallel to those constructed in previous administrations and walls in areas previously left intact because of geological challenges or concessions for environmentally sensitive areas. From California to Texas, this unprecedented escalation of construction is threatening sites sacred to borderland communities.

Inside Marty Makary’s downfall at the FDA

In the end, Dr. Marty Makary had just about run out of allies. The chorus calling for the Food and Drug Administration commissioner to be ousted—from inside and outside the administration—grew so loud that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles went to President Trump last week to discuss the concerns about his leadership, according to people familiar with the matter. She had previously defended him and liked the former Johns Hopkins surgeon. Earlier in the week, Wiles discussed with Chris Klomp, the No. 2 official at the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the FDA, the reasons Makary had become a net liability for the administration, the people said. Those conversations followed a decision made privately by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who around the end of April concluded he would need to replace Makary, the people said. Kennedy directed Klomp to lead the effort to find a replacement.

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Makary’s downfall was cemented Tuesday when Trump announced Makary was leaving his role, capping a tumultuous 13-month run leading an agency that regulates about one-fifth of U.S. consumer spending. He had upset advocates for vaping and rare-disease patients, antiabortion groups, and some drug-industry leaders—as well as other officials in the administration. Senior officials told Makary on Monday that they believed he needed to go, according to people familiar with the discussion. On Tuesday, the president posted on his Truth Social platform a screenshot of a text message that included Makary’s resignation. “It’s been the honor of a lifetime to serve as your FDA Commissioner,” Makary said. “I am forever grateful.” White House spokesman Kush Desai said: “President Trump pledged to accelerate innovation in the United States, lower drug prices, and Make America Healthy Again. The FDA will continue to build on Commissioner Makary’s historic work delivering on these presidential priorities.” Senior leaders in the White House increasingly concluded Makary was out of step with the president’s priorities on vaping and other policy issues, people familiar with the matter said.

Copyright May 14, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved