October 5, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Campaign ‘all coming from DC,’ Paxton says

Ken Paxton is less than a month out from the conclusion of a D.C.-outsider campaign for a Texas U.S. Senate seat that he privately admitted is being run by Washington. “I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming — you know — from D.C.,” Paxton said during a small fundraising event last month, according to an audio recording obtained by POLITICO from a person in the room who does not support Paxton, and verified by another attendee. “I don’t control message or what we’re doing.” The lunch, hosted Sept. 24 in Washington by Chris Brinson and Susan Hirschmann of the D.C.-based lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, was attended by about a dozen people including Scott Kopple, VP of government relations at defense contractor BWXT.

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Democrats lead governor races deep in Republican territory, polls show

One month until Election Day, voter dissatisfaction with the economy, concerns about political extremism and frustration with President Trump have Democrats within reach of flipping four Republican-held governorships, opening a wide lead in Iowa and an expanding advantage in Ohio among likely voters, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena University. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican fixture in the state for decades, is now narrowly behind his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa. The Democratic candidate also has an advantage in the race for governor of Alaska. The only place surveyed where the Republican is ahead in the campaign for the governor’s office in Kansas, now held by a retiring Democrat. The polls also show Democrats with an advantage in the Senate in these states, with Democrats ahead in Texas and Alaska, and with the edge in Ohio, while the races in Kansas and Iowa are neck-and-neck.

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While national attention has fixated on the fight for control of Congress, governorships will be important heading into a wide open presidential election in 2028. Not only will governors influence the electoral process, they will help shape the redistricting wars that are likely to spill into 2027 and beyond. The polling results underscore how Democrats have been able to push into states that have traditionally favored Republicans, as voters have soured on Mr. Trump amid frustration over the economy, rising gas prices and a deeply unpopular war in Iran. Still, the polls show that even as many of the Republican candidates for governor are at a disadvantage, they are outrunning the difficult political environment. Mr. Trump’s approval rating stands at just 40 percent across the five states. In four of five states surveyed, the Republican candidates for governor are doing better than the president’s approval ratings. Democrats, meantime, are boosted by broadly well-liked candidates who are, for the most part, seen as more politically moderate than their Republican opponents. In Texas, for example, just 28 percent of voters worried that Ms. Hinojosa was too far to the left, compared to 45 percent who were concerned Mr. Abbott was too far to the right. Gov. Abbott was expected to have an easy path toward re-election in a state that hasn’t put a Democrat in the governor’s office since Ann Richards, who served one term before losing to George W. Bush in 1994.

Republicans and Democrats find a unifying target: Pharmacy benefit managers

Amye Joseph says America's political polarization has made it an "interesting time" in her Tennessee household. She and her husband, Charlie, have been married for 35 years. She's a Republican. He's a Democrat. But their shared disenchantment with profit-driven healthcare has provided a unifying target: pharmacy benefit managers, known as PBMs. The Josephs' frustration is focused on CVS Health. The conglomerate, which reported $400 billion in revenue last year, includes a major health insurer (Aetna), one of the country's dominant PBMs (CVS Caremark), and America's largest retail pharmacy chain (CVS Pharmacy). "We hate CVS. I'm going to be straight-up," Amye Joseph said. She laments the lack of face-to-face interaction with pharmacists, prices that seem to rise without explanation, and pressure from the couple's CVS Caremark drug plan to use CVS stores instead of their local pharmacy.

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"They're not even a middleman," she said. "They're a money grab for CVS." PBMs were conceived as a way to manage prescriptions and hold down costs. But these middlemen have become bipartisan punching bags, accused of sucking up profits at the expense of employers, governments, and patients. And while healthcare debates still divide Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., taking on PBMs has become a unifying cause in an era of widespread frustration over rising healthcare costs. In recent years, every state has imposed restrictions on PBMs. The Josephs' home state of Tennessee, where the GOP has a lock on state government, is among a growing number looking to outlaw companies that own PBMs from also owning brick-and-mortar pharmacies, as CVS does. That's aligned conservative, business-friendly Republicans with Democrats, who are traditionally more open to government regulation. This legislative push reflects a feeling even in the GOP that the market for prescription drugs is being gamed, said Antonio Ciaccia, CEO of 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit think tank that tracks drug pricing. "Republicans are looking at this issue, saying, We know what competition is supposed to do, and it isn't happening," said Ciaccia, a critic of the PBM industry. "This is not a free market."

What to expect from the Supreme Court this term

The nine justices of the Supreme Court open a new term Monday with a wide range of tough cases—and few friends. President Trump has renewed his periodic attacks on the justices’ integrity. Leading Democrats, eyeing the 2028 election, are embracing proposals to blunt the court’s conservative bent by adding more members. Among the public, the court’s approval rating is underwater. And there are signs of friction between the high court and the lower courts it supervises. Amid these tensions, the justices are venturing into cases at the front lines of politics and culture. In the coming months, they will take up climate change, gun control, the role of religion in public life and the rights of parents whose children are transgender. They also will resolve the legality of two core pieces of Trump’s deportation agenda.

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The high court’s previous term revolved around Trump-related fights. The justices struck down the president’s global tariffs and his bid to end birthright citizenship, drawing ire from Trump even as the court used temporary emergency rulings to greenlight many of his other policies. So far, this term centers more on the sorts of traditional culture-war schisms that have defined the court’s shift to the right over the past two decades. Opening day starts with a bang. On Monday, the justices—minus Samuel Alito, who has recused—will consider whether local governments can sue oil companies for damages to their communities allegedly caused by climate change. Dozens of such lawsuits are percolating around the country, threatening the energy industry with billions of dollars in potential liability. The court in November and December will hear arguments on guns, religion and transgender minors. One case tests whether states and localities can ban AR-15s and similar semiautomatic guns—or whether the Second Amendment gives people the right to own a weapon that the challengers describe as “the paradigmatic American rifle.” Another case asks whether Colorado can withhold public money from religious preschools that don’t agree to accept children from LGBTQ households. A third case is about when parents have legal standing to challenge a state law that protects the ability of transgender children to access gender-affirming care.

State Stories

Data centers promise big financial returns. Should that outweigh other determining factors?

To Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, the debate over data centers starts with the boom in capital investment and property tax revenue the developments promise to the state. Creating regulatory guardrails on issues such as water usage and power are necessary but shouldn’t risk the potential return, Christian told the Fort Worth Report after appearing on a data centers panel Sept. 26 at the Texas Tribune’s annual TribFest conference in Austin. “I think you can learn from previous problems from data centers that have shown problems in the past,” said Christian, who doesn’t regulate data centers but has increasingly spoken on related questions about natural resources. “And what you do as an educated public is you fix the problems, you regulate to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But you don’t stop and turn down billions, billions of free market dollars.”

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Data centers — and their massive potential economic return — have careened into the intersection of the free market and community concerns about their environmental impact. The Texas Legislature is set to take up the debate over regulation in the 2027 session. The accompanying statistics highlight the choices and problems data center developers and operators face. Demand nationally for development of data centers — the buildings that house the digital infrastructure necessary for processing daily transactions worldwide for everything from paying water bills to buying airline tickets — is surging, according to research by the JLL commercial real estate firm. Seventy-nine percent of Americans support U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence, but only 14 percent support “data centers in our community,” according to research by JLL, Gallup and Reuters published by JLL in August. JLL declined a request by the Report for an interview for this story. Communities are experiencing the conundrum. In Fort Worth, property tax revenue makes up about 60% of the city’s general fund budget, which pays for most basic city services. But residential revenue — 63% of the tax base, compared to commercial — has turned soft in recent years because of protests and litigation, plus the Tarrant Appraisal District’s policy of reappraising every two years. Fort Worth struggled to close a $94 million budget shortfall for 2027 as a result.

San Antonio Express-News Editorial: No Recommendation for agriculture commissioner, but at least Sid Miller is done

Weeks before early voting begins, the closing argument for the two major party candidates for agricultural commissioner is that the other one fails to meet the literal qualifications for the job. Democrat Clayton Tucker, a rancher, progressive activist and secretary of the Texas Farmers Union, is asking state GOP leadership to declare Republican Nate Sheets ineligible for the election because he lacks the qualifications outlined in the Texas Agricultural Code. The campaign for Sheets, founder of Nature Nate’s Honey, the bestselling branded honey in the nation, countered by alleging that it’s Tucker who is all hat and no cattle. Still, when it comes to important issues such as ensuring food safety by removing pesticides and chemical products, seeing that children have access to nutritious and filling meals, and opposing farm monopolies, the candidates are fairly similar.

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In our interviews, both approached the office with seriousness. Either would be an upgrade to the incumbent, Sid Miller. We were impressed with Sheets' knowledge of how to eradicate the new world screwworm fly, his ideas for addressing concerns about data centers through dividends and water recycling, and his passion for limiting pesticides in the food chain. We would have recommended him, but we were disappointed with his answer to our question about a racist social media post by Bo French, the Republican candidate for railroad commissioner. The infamous post targeted minority University of Texas students celebrating at a football game. “I think he chose a poor way to express a sentiment that a lot of people have and are frustrated with the results of our H-1B immigration policy here in Texas,” Sheets said, before adding he didn’t agree with French and conveyed that to him in a private text message We believe him, but we wish that answer had been stronger. We also think it’s weak and naive for Tucker to ask the opposition party to disqualify its nominee. Beyond this, Tucker's policy ideas are mushy. His call for a two-year moratorium on data centers is unrealistic. His support of a toxic bait system to combat screwworm is antiquated. After multiple discussions, our opinion team remains split on this race and can offer no recommendation. At least both candidates are better than Miller.

As anti-Hindu rhetoric grows, Texas Hindus rethink public celebrations

For close to 15 years, Seema Ashar has hosted a celebration for Ganesh Chaturthi, a Hindu festival celebrating its namesake deity, inviting about 100 friends into her Irving, Texas, home. “It’s a very good thing to bring Lord Ganesh to your house, it gives you a lot of positive, strong vibes,” said Ashar, who has lived in Texas since 2003. Hindus around the world celebrate the god known for removing obstacles in their homes, neighborhoods and temples every August or September. But for some in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, this year’s celebrations felt different. In recent months, a wave of anti-Hindu and anti-Indian sentiment has swept across Texas. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, home to the second-largest Indian American community in the United States, has emerged as one of the major flashpoints, with much of the backlash targeting immigrants. The climate caused some local Indian Americans to call on others to celebrate Ganesh more discreetly out of fear of attracting unwanted attention.

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Others said that as celebrations have become increasingly large and loud amid the influx of immigrants, concerns about disturbing neighbors were valid. Ashar grew up in Coimbatore in southern India, where she saw a statue of Ganesh on “every street corner” for holidays. At her celebration last week, visitors gently swayed, chanting shlokas, or devotional hymns, while the rhythmic thudding of the tabla, or drums, enveloped her home. Along the walls, handmade lotus flowers made of purple and pink construction paper decorated a shrine for an idol of Ganesh. However, Ashar said as some celebrations have become more public, with some Hindu immigrants having parties in the streets, she was concerned about noise. “I enjoy all these events,” Ashar said. “I enjoy celebrating your culture, religion, whatever your faith is, but everything has a limit. You cannot disturb other people, and it’s getting wilder and wilder every year. You have to respect everybody around you.” The area has experienced a surge in immigration from India in recent years, attributed to the state’s booming technology and health care sectors. Today, about 270,000 Indian Americans live in the area, according to Pew Research Center. The majority of the community’s growth is concentrated in Frisco, Allen and Plano, which has sparked fierce debate in local city councils over the increasing number of temples, supermarkets and salons catering to the immigrant community.

Ryan Alter’s Prop Q push, governing approach shape District 5 race

Last fall, Council Member Ryan Alter made an urgent case for Proposition Q. The former Capitol staffer and Harvard Law graduate argued the city needed the measure’s money to sustain services and help vulnerable residents. Prop Q would have raised Austin’s property tax rate by more than 20%, adding about $300 a year to the average homeowner’s city tax bill, to generate roughly $110 million for homelessness programs, parks, public health, public safety and other city expenses as Austin faced a historic budget shortfall. Voters resoundingly rejected the measure, with about two-thirds voting against it. Afterward, Alter said he had fought for Prop Q because it “wasn’t just a policy debate; it was a lifeline for many in our community,” warning that residents could fall behind or into homelessness without resources to help them.

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Nearly a year later, Alter is asking District 5 voters to reelect him to a second term. He faces three challengers: David Weinberg, an environmental and voting-rights advocate who led the Texas League of Conservation Voters for six years; Liz Brink, a union electrician; and former reality TV star Farrah Abraham. Brian Smith, a political science professor at St. Edward’s University, said Weinberg is Alter’s most serious challenger and that they share similar progressive ideologies. One of their biggest differences appears to be over the best way to approach policies like Prop Q. Weinberg says polling and regular outreach should guide major decisions, and while Alter acknowledges that he misread residents’ financial strain and says he is not looking to raise taxes again, he also contends that elected officials must sometimes take unpopular steps to make progress. Brink, a fiscal conservative, said she wouldn’t have supported Prop Q. “The taxpayers of Austin should not be thought of as ATMs,” she said.

Save Dallas City Hall group launches 60-day petition process for charter amendment election

The Save Dallas City Hall Coalition officially has filed notice to launch a citywide petition drive that, if successful, would add a proposed charter amendment to the May 2027 ballot. That charter amendment would designate the I.M Pei-designed building as the seat of city government, unless otherwise decided by the voters. The notice was filed Friday morning That started the clock to get around 20,000 signatures from registered Dallas voters within 60 days. “People are tired of backroom deals and misplaced priorities,” Chris Bowers, Save Dallas City Hall Coalition attorney, said in a statement. “They want City Hall focused on the things that truly matter to their families and neighborhoods, like stronger police and fire services, safer parks, better roads, and a prosperous economy that creates opportunity across our city.”

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Bowers added that the petition gives Dallas residents a way to “stand up, get involved and make their voices heard.” The coalition said in a press release that petition-signing events will begin immediately, with volunteers collecting signatures throughout Dallas starting Friday. The petition drive launched a year after the city council was first told that the building had millions of dollars in deferred maintenance and staff proposed relocating City Hall elsewhere in downtown. That briefing sparked strong debate in later months on whether the city should stay and repair the building or move elsewhere and use the land at 1500 Marilla Street for economic development opportunities. That debate sparked the creation of the Save Dallas City Hall Coalition, which has grown from a grassroots effort to an organized 501(c)(4) nonprofit that issued a number of legal notices to the city prior to filing a lawsuit last month. The group is made up of residents, neighborhood and business leaders, preservation advocates, architects, current and former elected officials, and other community stakeholders. The group has attracted support from community leaders like former Dallas mayor Laura Miller, Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia, attorney Ben Abbott, and Pei’s daughter Liane Pei. Liane Pei spoke during the coalition’s press conference outside of City Hall last week. “My father loved Dallas,” she said at the press conference. “He designed the City Hall and its plaza not for private interests, but for you, the people of Dallas, to conduct business, gather, celebrate, mourn, raise your collective voice in civic protest, and simply be together. It is your house.”

East Texas town hall meeting held to prepare for legislative session

A little over a hundred people attended a Sept. 25 town hall meeting to discuss subdivision and industrial high-load development in rural Polk County and throughout East Texas. State legislators, legislative candidates, real estate professionals, property owners’ association leaders, volunteer fire chiefs, first responders and other community stakeholders were invited to the town hall meeting because each group sees a different part of the issue. The purpose of the meeting was to bring those perspectives together, explain plainly what current Texas law allows and does not allow counties to do, discuss how those limitations affect rural communities, and identify practical changes that will support responsible growth while protecting property owners and taxpayers.

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“Many roads across the county were built before state law granted counties the authority to enforce minimum engineering standards. When Tropical Storm Edouard brought heavy flooding, these older roads, never constructed to withstand such conditions, were severely damaged or destroyed outright. Because they are privately owned and not part of the county-maintained road system, the county cannot lawfully use taxpayer funds to repair them,” County Judge Sydney Murphy said. “The result is that residents can be left without dependable access to their homes, and school buses, emergency medical services, fire departments, and other first responders may have difficulty reaching them. Recent legislative changes have further eroded the authority counties rely on to oversee new subdivisions. Stripping away local enforcement will only invite more substandard development, repeating the very mistakes that created this problem in the first place,” Murphy said. “We cannot use taxpayer funds on private roads. It creates an access problem because when the roads aren’t built to specs, the access gets worse. In Polk County, the problem that is created is people cannot get in and out during emergency management situations,” she said, as she recounted a situation in which first responders had to haul a patient on a stretcher between to four-wheelers because the ambulance could not get down the road.

Amazon clears first water hurdle for $10B data center near Houston. Bigger obstacles remain.

Amazon’s plans to build a nearly 3,000-acre data center campus in Wharton County cleared a key hurdle recently when regulators approved groundwater permits needed for parts of the $10 billion project outside of Houston. The permits, which were hotly contested by Wharton County residents, would allow Amazon to tap into millions of gallons of groundwater a year for its office buildings and fire protection at the data center campus. The Coastal Bend Groundwater Conservation District issued the permits Sept. 8. The permits don’t include the millions of gallons in surface water Amazon is expected to need to cool the campus’ data center buildings, which could span more than 1.9 million square feet. Water is a central flashpoint in the national debate over the new wave of data centers powering artificial intelligence.

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Heat-generating computer equipment in the facilities often require an enormous amount of water, electricity, or both, for cooling. As public criticism of data centers mounts, Gov. Greg Abbott has said that the facilities must reuse their own water and that companies could face criminal penalties for failing to disclose their water use. On Sept. 21, Abbott told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to pause issuing permits for data centers until state agencies complete ongoing audits of the facilities. Amazon has said it would comply with Abbott’s water requests, disclose how much water it uses and avoid using groundwater to cool the data centers. The tech giant has also pledged to use technology to minimize its water use and fund regional water replenishment programs. Facing public pressure, the company has launched efforts to reach out to residents in the Boling area, which is located about an hour from downtown Houston. It has doubled the number of full-time positions the project is expected to create to 300 and established a Wharton County Community Fund with an initial donation of $200,000 that could support STEM education, veteran programs, housing and other local initiatives. It has held public events for Boling-area residents to answer questions about the campus.

As prediction markets spread in Texas, therapists warn about gambling addictions

Jessica Steinman fell hard for a gambling addict. They met when the Austin woman had just moved to Los Angeles in June 2011. She passed him her phone number while dining at a 24-hour restaurant where he had worked as a host. He called her the next day. Their relationship progressed quickly. He moved in. She covered the rent, his daughter’s preschool, vacations, dinners and other expenses. He spent his money on sports betting and at the local casino — entire paychecks. After three years of trying to “fix him,” she finally ended it. He had borrowed roughly $85,000 from her, she said, money that he never paid back.

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Today, Steinman is an addiction therapist who moved to Austin in August to help serve the growing Texas population of people — like her ex-partner — harmed by gambling. Texas has become a target of sorts for those who see the state as woefully unprepared to handle the explosion of online betting. “I would argue that we have the most demand in Texas,’’ said Sam DeMello, a recovering gambling addict and Boston tech entrepreneur. DeMello launched a digital gambling support platform that has doubled its number of users over the last six months. Hundreds live in Texas — and primarily North Texas. Problem gambling has been traditionally dismissed as an issue that can be fixed by willpower and moral conviction. A growing number of clinicians such as Steinman are raising concerns that excessive gambling can be more lethal and difficult to overcome than more well-researched addictions such as substance abuse or alcoholism. In young people, gambling disorders can create a dangerous rewiring of the brain, experts say, that is impossible to reverse without targeted support. And no matter the age, the disorder reports the highest rate of suicide attempts resulting in death among all addictions, experts say. What’s most troubling is that Texas, unlike more than a dozen other states, contributes no state money for prevention or addiction services, addiction experts say. The federal government spends billions annually on substance use. It dedicates no money to addressing gambling addiction.

David French: The ‘God Gap’ is narrowing in Texas

Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, a 16,000-member congregation, stepped to the microphone at the Republican Party’s midterm convention last month and issued what sounded like a declaration of a religious cold war: “The beliefs of James Talarico are certainly wrong. But they’re more than wrong. The beliefs of James Talarico are blasphemous. They are evil, and they are not beliefs that any true Christian could support. Ever.” Talarico is running for Senate in Texas, and he has a chance to be the first Democrat to win a Senate election in the state since Lloyd Bentsen defeated a Republican congressman named Beau Boulter in 1988. Republicans are worried, and as a consequence their rhetoric is getting wilder and wilder. According to Talarico’s critics, he’s a heretic. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing who will lead God’s people astray. President Trump calls him “Talafreako,” and he’s apparently so dangerous to Republicans that, as The Wall Street Journal reported last month, right-wing podcasts are mentioning Trump less and less while attacking Talarico more and more.

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He’s young, he’s polished and he is, heaven forbid, a seminarian (on leave from his studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary). Talarico is running one of the most faith-forward campaigns in the country, along with other Democratic candidates like Adam Hamilton in Kansas (a pastor running for senator) and Rob Sand in Iowa (running for governor). Democrats have run a version of this playbook before. The Rev. Raphael Warnock has prevailed in two Senate elections in Georgia, winning a partial term in a 2021 runoff against Kelly Loeffler and then a full term in 2022, against a MAGA favorite, Herschel Walker. Democrats nationwide are trying to close the “God gap” that has been the Republican Party’s not-so-secret weapon since the 1970s and the advent of Ronald Reagan. Talarico’s Christian faith, though, is more liberal than the Christian faith of many Republicans. It’s more liberal than mine (which isn’t hard). But for many fundamentalists, Talarico’s theology makes him the wrong kind of Christian. And to some, no Christian at all. His opponent is Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, whose wife is divorcing him for infidelity and who was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House of Representatives for misconduct that included bribery, obstruction of justice and disregard of official duties. (The Texas Senate acquitted him.) Trump calls him “the greatest attorney general in the United States of America.”

Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Morgan Meyer in the race for Texas House District 108

State House District 108 contains some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Texas, including the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, Bluffview and parts of Uptown and East Dallas. Southern Methodist University sits inside it, as does NorthPark Center and the urban oasis of Turtle Creek. Morgan Meyer has represented the district since 2015. He has been an effective lawmaker, able to parse the intricacies of property tax proposals and public education funding — and to listen sympathetically as parents testified about losing their young daughters during last year’s flash flood tragedy at Camp Mystic. He has earned another term in office. Meyer, a Republican, has lived in the district for almost three decades. He received his undergraduate degree from SMU and his law degree from Washington and Lee University. He leads the House Ways and Means Committee, a powerful committee that has jurisdiction over bills concerning local and state taxes and property tax appraisals.

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Texas homeowners may not know his name, but Meyer is one of the legislators they should thank for significantly cutting their property tax bills. While the House and Senate have often taken different approaches to lowering homeowners’ taxes, members of both chambers have agreed to raise the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $140,000 since early 2023. Lawmakers boosted the exemption for disabled homeowners and those age 65 and older to $60,000. The state increased its share of public school funding to help offset the revenue lost by local school districts. Meyer also led the successful effort to significantly increase the exemption for business personal property tax, which is a tax paid on the value of a company’s inventory and equipment. His challenger is Democrat Allison Mitchell, an entrepreneur who grew up in the district. As the mother of a child with developmental disabilities, she said her priority is ensuring that the state adequately funds public schools. She strongly opposes the new educational voucher program. Mitchell is smart and clearly capable of leadership, but she does not match Meyer in this race. Here are some other reasons we recommend Meyer: He strongly denounced the overtly racist rhetoric of Bo French, the GOP candidate for Texas Railroad Commission. His campaigns are positive and focus on relevant issues. He is not given to grandstanding. He rejects the idea that every bill must reflect a partisan viewpoint. That’s worth cheering in this day and age.

East Texas Water Institute launched

The future of East Texas’ water resources is promising with the Sept. 24 launch of the East Texas Water Institute (ETWI), a new regional initiative designed to expand the information, expertise and partnerships available to communities as they plan for generations to come. The initiative is a joint effort of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, Stephen F. Austin State University and Angelina College. “Water is our greatest resource. It’s a throughline connecting nearly every part of East Texas’ future – our health, economy, land and communities,” Charlie Glover, president and CEO of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, said. “A thriving East Texas for all will depend on how well we work together to steward this resource, strengthen regional capacity and ensure communities have the tools and partnerships needed to plan for the future.

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“This won’t be an ivory tower on a hill, but a base camp in the pines, a resource now and for the future,” Glover said. The T.L.L. Temple Foundation is endowing the institute’s executive director position, making a long-term investment in the leadership and capacity needed to sustain the Institute’s work across East Texas. Dr. Drew Gholson was appointed as associate vice president and executive director of the Institute. He most recently served as an associate professor and director of the National Center for Alluvial Aquifer Research at Mississippi State University. Gholson brings a wealth of credentials and experience to the table. He holds a bachelor of science degree in rangeland ecology and management, a master of science degree in water management and hydrological science, and a doctorate in soil science. Having been raised on a cow/calf operation in Iowa Park, Texas, Gholson said he grew up knowing the importance of water.

Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Angie Chen Button in the race for Texas House District 112

House District 112 voters have a choice between two thoughtful candidates who clearly care about serving their communities. We were impressed by Democratic challenger Zach Herbert, a Marine Corps veteran and attorney who is qualified for the job, but ultimately Republican incumbent Angie Chen Button has earned another term. Button, 72, has represented the district that includes northern Dallas, Richardson, Garland, Sachse and other cities since 2009. She brings valuable leadership experience and has long been one of the Legislature’s most pragmatic Republicans. An immigrant who arrived in the United States from Taiwan, she attended the University of Texas at Dallas and served on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board before assuming her seat in the Legislature.

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Button’s story represents the best of an immigrant achieving the American dream — the kind of story GOP leaders used to celebrate before the party began embracing rhetoric against immigration, even the legal kind. Article continues below this ad Button chairs the House Trade, Workforce and Economic Development Committee and is a senior member of the Ways & Means Committee. She has focused on affordability, backing tax relief for individuals and businesses while also ensuring Texas remains economically competitive. We wish Button would be more willing to take firmer positions. Some of our questions were met with assurances that the Legislature was “looking into” an issue or that there was a process underway, rather than a clear statement of what she would suggest moving forward. Voters deserve direct answers, particularly from experienced incumbents. But Button deserves credit for demonstrating some degree of independence that is increasingly uncommon within today’s Republican Party. She voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2023 and drew three primary challengers this year, all running to her right. And at the end of our interview, she said she would not vote for her party’s nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, Bo French. French made comments on social media last month attacking the racial diversity of University of Texas football fans celebrating after the team’s win against Ohio State.

National Stories

The US said China was priming a trade superweapon. Then it vanished.

Four years ago, the United States warned that China was poised to unleash a trade superweapon: a state-backed digital dragnet that would rapidly expand across the globe and give Beijing unprecedented insight into the flow of international cargo. The LOGINK platform promised to streamline global shipping by providing a digital system to exchange logistics data from customs authorities, ports and third-party transport services, replacing paper processes. Instead, the venture suffered a stunning reversal, reported here ?for the first time. Its flagship global partnerships have stalled, it dropped out of an international maritime association, and it has become mired in domestic lawsuits over unpaid bills, according to interviews with more than 20 shipping industry insiders and officials, as well as a Reuters review of legal ?filings.

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When a reporter visited LOGINK’s operations hub in the coastal city of Wenzhou in September, the offices appeared abandoned: lights off, reception bare, computer cabling stripped out. Calls and emails to LOGINK went unanswered. China’s transport ministry declined to answer questions. The ministry in June, however, issued a policy document calling for the system to be connected to more domestic data streams. LOGINK's international retreat is a setback for Beijing, which has been engaged in a battle with Washington to control the physical infrastructure and technologies underpinning global shipping, a sector that carries 80% of world trade. The platform's decline will be welcomed by the US, which contributed to LOGINK's reversal in fortunes by "naming and shaming" those who used the system, said Randall Schriver, chair of a US Congress commission that issued a report on LOGINK in 2022. Reuters could not establish ?why the platform championed by China’s cabinet as a “key project” abruptly went dark and spiraled into financial and legal troubles. The timing of its retreat, however, coincided with US efforts to pressure allies and organizations that had made tentative steps to collaborate with LOGINK as it pushed for global expansion.

AI is supercharging political ad wars. But viral doesn’t mean victorious

Artificial intelligence is dramatically lowering the cost of political advertising, allowing campaigns to churn out attack ads, memes and other targeted messages at a pace that would have been prohibitively expensive just a few years ago. In the political ad wars, campaign operatives can now use generative AI to produce in minutes or hours what once required days by a team of writers, voice talent, video shoots and production teams. The shift is turning political creative from an expensive campaign asset into something much more affordable and closer to disposable content, potentially giving candidates and outside groups the ability to flood voters with more messages.

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While the exact number is difficult to identify, the ad-tracking firm AdImpact had identified 29 campaign ads in federal and gubernatorial contests that disclosed using AI content, as of two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Wesleyan Media Project, which also counted ads that did not make AI disclosures, has identified at least 164 AI-influenced ads this cycle. But the jury is still out on whether the use of AI for campaign messaging can help produce the ultimate objective: an election victory. "It certainly allows you to produce more content in varying styles and more cost effective," veteran Republican consultant Jesse Hunt told Fox News Digital, as he pointed to the creative and economic appeals of using AI in political advertising. Democratic strategist Chris Moyer said that "AI gives campaigns more tools for less cost. So there is a democratizing of the tools that campaigns used to have to spend valuable resources on....You can get access to things with a smaller budget." Will Ritter, a longtime Republican ad maker and media and political strategist, told Fox News Digital that the creative advertising and political strategy agency he co-founded, Poolhouse, "went from last cycle doing basically doing nothing with AI to most of our ads now have some AI component."

21 states sue EPA to reinstate climate pollution rules for power plants

More than 20 states, including North Carolina, New York, California and Pennsylvania, as well as several cities, are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its repeal of most greenhouse gas emissions standards for coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. The agency’s proposal would also thwart future administrations from reinstating the rule. The state attorneys general, all of them Democrats, filed the lawsuit Oct. 1 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs are asking the court to review the proposed rescission. In a press release, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the coalition is arguing that the administration’s actions are “clearing the way for millions of additional tons of greenhouse gas emissions that will worsen extreme heat, deadly storms, flooding, and wildfires.” The coalition includes Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver and New York City.

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The EPA told Inside Climate News it does not comment on pending litigation. “We applaud Attorney General Jackson’s leadership in protecting our air quality and safeguarding public health,” said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of the nonprofit CleanAIRE North Carolina, of North Carolina’s Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “Joining this lawsuit sends a clear message: North Carolina will not stand by while federal rollbacks force our families to pay higher costs at the pump for dirtier air. Our health should not be secondary to fossil fuel industry profits.” Duke Energy operates five coal-fired power plants in North Carolina and 17 fueled by natural gas. In announcing the proposed rule, the agency argued that it lacks the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the largest stationary sources of the pollutants. That’s not true, said John Broderick, an assistant attorney general in the New York Environmental Protection Bureau, during an Oct. 1 EPA public hearing on the proposed rule. The agency not only has the authority, Broderick said, it has a “statutory duty to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants.” He called the EPA’s move “a blatantly unlawful attempt to undermine the Clean Air Act.”

Democrats are struggling to beat Susan Collins. You can (still) blame one man.

Democrats hoping to retake the U.S. Senate have been enjoying a run of good luck. With Election Day barely four weeks away, polls show the party’s candidates leading in North Carolina, Georgia, and even Texas. Michigan, which looked iffy after a divisive primary that pitted centrists against progressives, seems increasingly winnable. Political forecasters have shifted races in deep-red Kansas and South Carolina toward Democrats, too, even though both remain long shots. And Donald Trump’s approval ratings continue to sink, creating formidable headwinds for any candidate with an R next to their name. But then there’s Maine. In the Pine Tree State, Democratic former state Sen. Troy Jackson appears to be struggling in his bid to unseat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. A gold-standard poll last month found Collins leading Jackson by 3 points, triggering a mini-freakout among Democrats. Conducted by the New York Times and Siena University in partnership with the local Portland Press Herald newspaper, the survey was notably worse for Jackson than others taken before and since.

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But polls generally show a close race, a major letdown in a state that went for Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024 and where the Democrat running for governor this year remains comfortably ahead. Collins is the only Republican senator up for reelection in a state that Harris won. That means a Jackson loss would hugely complicate Democrats’ path to reclaiming the Senate, forcing the party to bank on winning far more conservative states. So what’s going on? Some blame Jackson’s lack of charisma and mealymouthed speaking style. Others say consultants have transformed his campaign into a Washington-run effort ill-suited to a political moment that favors outsiders. Still others point out that Collins has repeatedly managed to get reelected, Maine’s blue-state status be damned. And some think the Times/Siena/Press Herald poll may be off, making things look more dire for Jackson than they really are. Yet if Jackson really is losing, it could also be because there’s a specter haunting his candidacy like something out of Stephen King. That specter is Graham Platner, Democrats’ original Senate nominee in Maine, whose gravel-voiced populist rhetoric caused national donors, progressive pundits, and 156,000 primary voters to swoon. Despite weathering a series of scandals—including revelations that he’d spouted offensive views on Reddit, gotten a Nazi tattoo as a drunken Marine, received significant financial support from his well-heeled father, and cheated on his wife shortly into their marriage—Platner was forced to drop out in July after an ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual assault. (He denies the allegations.) Those scandals left Maine Democrats with little choice but to replace Platner on the ballot. After holding meetings around the state at which voters nominated delegates, the party overwhelmingly picked Jackson at a statewide convention in late July.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded for discoveries in neuroscience

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries in neuroscience. The three scientists researched light-gated ion channels, a type of proteins, to establish the field of optogenetics, a pioneering technique that uses tiny lights to activate discrete groups of neurons in the brain, said Abdel El Manira, a member of the Nobel Committee that awarded the prize. The discovery has illuminated how specific circuits function in the brain and provides clues for the treatment of conditions such as blindness, depression, addiction and dementia.

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Dr. Karl Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. He and a team developed tiny optical fibers that activated neurons in the brain and elicited specific behaviors for the first time, Professor El Manira said. Dr. Peter Hegemann is a professor of experimental biophysics at Humboldt University in Berlin. He discovered a protein that converts light into an electrical signal, Professor El Manira said. Dr. Georg Nagel is a professor of plant physiology at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. Alongside Dr. Hegemann, he discovered that the proteins contained a light-gated ion channel, which generates an electrical signal when exposed to light. Professor El Manira described it as “the switch” that allows neuroscientists to activate the protein. The discovery has enabled neuroscientists to link nerve cells in the brain to specific behaviors, said Anna Wedell a professor of clinical genetics at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and an adjunct member of the Nobel awarding committee. “Before, we had an anatomical map of the brain,” Professor Wedell said. “Now we can generate functional maps, and we can also understand how different cells speak to each other across the brain.” She described the discovery as heralding “a completely new dimension of understanding of the function of the brain.”

Family of Epstein victim appears in ad targeting Republican

A Democrat running for Congress in a competitive Colorado district released an ad on Monday that features the family of Virginia Giuffre, one of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victims. The ad is squarely pointed at Representative Jeff Crank, criticizing him for blocking the release of federal files related to Mr. Epstein and accusing him of refusing to meet with Ms. Giuffre’s relatives. “Jeff Crank covered up Epstein’s crimes to protect Donald Trump,” says Sky Roberts, the brother of Ms. Giuffre, who died by suicide last year. “He has no business being in Congress.” Mr. Roberts and his wife, Amanda, who is also featured in the spot, are constituents of Mr. Crank, a Republican who is facing a tough re-election race against Jessica Killin, an Army veteran and former congressional aide to Democratic lawmakers.

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Mr. Epstein and his crimes have emerged as a major issue in this year’s midterm races, as candidates across the country hammer their opponents over their positions on releasing the files and their ties to donors and supporters associated with him. A New York Times analysis identified at least 35 congressional races with TV or digital ads that mentioned “Epstein” since January 2026. Many featured candidates running against what they called the “Epstein class.” But the ad in Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District is unique because it features testimony from family members of one of Mr. Epstein’s most well-known victims. Speaking directly to the camera, the couple say they have repeatedly asked to see Mr. Crank but were refused. The spot concludes with an image of their meeting with Ms. Killin. “When he had the chance to expose the truth and release the Epstein files, he repeatedly voted to cover them up,” Ms. Roberts says in the ad. Mr. Crank did not sign onto the bipartisan discharge petition that helped forced a vote on the release of the files, and he voted to block consideration of the Epstein Files Transparency Act on the House floor. In the final vote, however, Mr. Crank joined nearly every member of the House to approve the legislation.

Soldiers and families press Army leaders after deadly Iranian drone strike

On a sunny, cloudless morning on March 1, the day after President Donald Trump started the war against Iran, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan was coordinating critical Army supplies out of Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. In an instant, a drone crashed through the ceiling and exploded, killing Marzan, who had served in the military for 36 years. The force flung soldiers into the air, fragments of sheet metal and glass shards impaling them. The tin roof was peeled back “like opening up a sardine can,” one soldier recalled. Six soldiers were killed and dozens were injured in the deadliest known strike on U.S. troops since Operation Epic Fury commenced on Feb. 28. For many, the attack at Port Shuaiba has receded into memory as the war nears its eighth month. But to those there that day and their families, it showed the cost of a hastily drawn conflict. The planning had apparent flaws, and commanders did not take intelligence reports of the Iranian threat seriously enough, leaving wounded soldiers questioning Army leadership and the military medical system.

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That warning went unheeded, the soldiers say. Some also said higher-ranking officers pushed for an all-clear to be called, but it’s not certain from their accounts who ultimately made the decision to move soldiers out of a safer space in nearby bunkers. The wounded also would later say their serious injuries were not treated promptly or adequately in the weeks following the attack. “We have the right to know what really happened,” Marzan’s widow, Tina Marzan, told the AP. “If somebody messed up, those people need to be held responsible.” Battlefield conditions are inherently chaotic and assessments drawn by those involved are often in tension. The AP’s account of the attack is based on interviews with 13 soldiers, primarily officers, serving in key positions of responsibility there or familiar with high-level briefings leading up to the strike. Along with several Gold Star families — the military’s designation for relatives of a soldier killed while on active duty — many are raising their concerns publicly for the first time and calling for the Army to reconcile what they say are failures of preparedness.

Copyright October 05, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved