July 29, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Financial woes weigh on Texas school bond ratings

As Texas public schools gear up for the coming school year, some are facing financial pressures that have led to negative underlying rating actions, while competition for students could heat up with the advent of state-funded private and home school vouchers. A legal battle over a state funding system aimed at addressing inequities between districts with high property values and those with low values is brewing as well. Fitch Ratings reported last week that about 26% of public schools it rates in Texas had their outlooks revised or their underlying ratings downgraded, including some by multiple notches, since January 2025 due largely to deteriorating financial profiles.

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"Weaker finances are driven by enrollment pressures and limited and infrequent increases in the state's basic allotment to school districts that has often failed to keep pace with rising labor, benefits, and other operating costs," the rating agency said in a report. "This has resulted in narrowing or negative operating margins and lower reserves. Even districts with a longstanding strong fiscal track record are reporting weaker-than-expected results." Last year, state lawmakers boosted funding by $8.5 billion, including raising the $6,160 per student basic allotment in place since 2019 by $55 per student — a less-than-1% increase seen as inadequate given the surge in inflation over that time period. The Republican-controlled legislature also created a $1 billion Texas Education Freedom Account program that launches with the 2026-27 school year. Nearly 106,660 students received accounts out of more than 274,000 applicants. Gov. Greg Abbott and legislative leaders have alluded to increasing funding for the program in Texas' next biennial budget.

Floodwaters from devastating Texas storms help delay Corpus Christi water emergency

The same floodwaters that caused widespread devastation across parts of Central and South Texas are providing unexpected relief for Corpus Christi’s strained water supply. Water flowing down the Frio and Nueces rivers is replenishing Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi, prompting city officials to push the projected start of a Level 1 water emergency from September 2027 to September 2028. “The rains have been beneficial to our reservoir levels, to our water supply, and it’s pushing off what we have talked about for well over a year, which is this Level 1 water emergency until September 2028,” Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni told KSAT.

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He added that the city recognizes the devastating toll the flooding has taken on communities upstream. “We have sympathy for those regions that were impacted by the floods,” Zanoni added. “We know that persons were in harm’s way, property was, whole communities were. We sympathize with that, and we’re thinking of those individuals in those communities. Just weeks ago, city leaders warned that a Level 1 water emergency could begin as early as September 2027. Earlier forecasts this spring projected the emergency could arrive even sooner, in December 2025, before seasonal rainfall improved reservoir conditions. A Level 1 water emergency is triggered when water supply projections show the city will have only about 180 days of water remaining to meet demand under Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) guidelines.

OpenAI, Anthropic ask U.S. government to consider slowing down AI

Two of the biggest players in the race to develop artificial intelligence endorsed a letter asking the U.S. government to find a way to slow down the development of the technology should it become too rapid. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and its main rival, Anthropic, which provides the Claude chatbot, endorsed a petition released Tuesday that had been signed by hundreds of employees at the two companies, as well as Google, Meta and other leading companies working on AI. The letter warned that companies could be close to automating the work of AI research, a development that it said could lead the technology to careen out of control. “We request that the U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development,” the petition said. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

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Coordinating international agreement to limit AI development would be a gargantuan diplomatic task that has been likened to implementing a nuclear weapons control treaty for software that can be freely distributed through the internet. In the United States and around the world, development of AI is largely unconstrained by regulation. Companies and national governments are investing billions of dollars to build and deploy the best technology they can. That race has become a central part of the geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China. Despite the corporate endorsements and broad range of signatories to Tuesday’s letter, many people in the AI industry and across Silicon Valley argue that the technology should be aggressively pursued to bring about new innovations, cure diseases and help the U.S. maintain its military edge in the coming decades. The letter follows several other tech industry petitions since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT in which prominent AI researchers or executives called for a pause on AI development or warned that AI could wipe out humanity. The previous letters did not lead to major shifts in how companies or governments approached AI development.

ICE arrests surge at airports, opening new front in deportation drive

The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration lawyers — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation. Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks. Some of the arrests have occurred quietly, while others have happened as angry fellow passengers filmed the encounters. The recent arrests appear to be an expansion of an arrangement between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Times reported in December that ICE officers were arresting people with deportation orders at airports with the help of information provided by airlines to the T.S.A.

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Now, through a review of Homeland Security Department documents and interviews with lawyers for more than 25 people from more than a dozen countries recently detained at airports, The Times has learned that the program apparently now includes people with expired visas — a much larger group. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and visitors overstay visas each year. Many with expired visas occupy a legal gray area, as they are awaiting visa extensions or green cards and have been issued work permits. Such individuals were not prioritized for deportation in the past unless they had committed crimes, and they were rarely detained while waiting for visa extensions or green cards. But that has changed under President Trump, whose administration has undertaken a campaign of mass deportation and views all visa overstays as illegal. “This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport,” a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department said in a statement. The agency did not confirm the expansion of the program.

State Stories

With 2 weeks to go, an update on school vouchers

Delia Scott has two dyslexic daughters who need more specialized attention than what she says they were getting at their Katy ISD elementary school. When the state’s voucher program started taking applications in February, Scott seized the chance to send her girls to private school. “I don’t know why everybody isn’t doing this,” says Scott, who works in compliance for a construction company while her husband is a homemaker. “I told at least 10 people about it, whose kids are friends with my kids. Only one parent applied and she got the grant.” The reasons vary as to why everybody is not getting in on the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program. Some people applied and got rejected. Some were approved for voucher money but turned down by the private school they picked. One Houston family moved to be closer to a Catholic school they’d selected for their son but still hasn’t heard if they’ll be bumped up from a waitlist.

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Meanwhile, more than half of the state’s public school administrators don’t know how many students they’re going to lose to the voucher program because the comptroller’s office is withholding data from districts where fewer than 30 students accepted vouchers. And the clock is ticking. Houston ISD starts August 10. Fort Bend ISD goes back on August 11. Cypress-Fairbanks and Katy ISDs start August 12, and Spring Branch ISD returns to class on August 13. Scott says she was thrilled to learn that each of her children would receive $16,000 and were accepted to Texas Christian School, where tuition is $9,800 per student per year. The excess can be used for uniforms and some school supplies, but it stays in a protected fund rather than being deposited in the recipient’s bank account. Scott’s children didn’t get the $30,000 top award amount offered to students with disabilities, but hardly anyone did. The dollar figures are based on Individualized Education Plans, so the voucher may go toward speech therapy for one student and tutoring for another. Those who don’t have a child with a disability are eligible for $10,474, and homeschool families can get up to $2,000 per child.

Austinites storm DA José Garza's office to protest APD's fatal shooting of unarmed teen

More than two dozen protesters gathered at Wooldridge Park Tuesday afternoon under an unforgiving sun to demand accountability — and prosecution — for the officers involved in last week's fatal shooting of a teenager identified Tuesday as Anthoneil Williams II. Williams allegedly called police to report a young man brandishing a gun. Officers responded just after 4 a.m. last Friday and fired dozens of rounds into Williams after he lifted up his shirt. Williams was unarmed, carrying only a water bottle. The officers involved in the shooting are on administrative leave, and the incident is under investigation. Williams' friend Ameer Alogaili, 16, said he always "put a smile on everybody's face." Alogaili attended Bohls Middle School and Connally High School with Williams. He said the officers "took a part of me with him" and asked for some accountability.

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"[There are] so many families that are suffering right now all because of these cops and them wanting to shoot their guns at a little kid at a park for having a water bottle," he said. "Long live Anthoneil." After remarks, the protesters marched to Travis County District Attorney José Garza's office lobby, storming past metal detectors and chanting "Jail killer cops!" The protest escalated after one demonstrator approached a Travis County Sheriff's deputy at the front desk. After staring down the crowd, the deputy locked himself away in a nearby room as an unidentified protester pounded on the door. Two Travis County Sheriff's deputies responded, pushing the crowd outside and barring the doors after a brief scuffle with demonstrators that was broken up by Anthoneil Williams II's father. The elder Williams pleaded with protesters to fall back as another 10 deputies approached the DA's office.

Harris County Jail explores using AI cameras to monitor inmates

Artificial intelligence could soon be used to monitor inmates at the Harris County Jail. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office recently invited companies to submit proposals for an AI-powered camera system capable of analyzing inmates’ behavior and detecting weapons and other contraband. While the sheriff’s office has not yet chosen a vendor, it’s the first step toward bringing the technology into the jail and follows a wider pattern of AI implementation across county government. The jail is a multi-building facility in downtown Houston along the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Its location, and the complexity of its layout, make it difficult for staff to monitor the thousands of inmates who enter and exit each day, said Jason Spencer, a senior policy advisor to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

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“There are lots of blind spots and little nooks and crannies throughout the jail,” Spencer said. “So it’s a challenge keeping eyes on every square foot of that building. I don’t know that this kind of technology would fix that entirely, but it seems like it has the potential to help.” Spencer compared what the sheriff’s office is looking for to similar technologies already in use at stadiums and by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The hope, he said, is that the same technology can be adapted for use in a jail setting. The move comes amid mounting public scrutiny toward AI-powered monitoring systems, such as FLOCK cameras and other license plate readers. But a 1984 Supreme Court ruling found prisoners do not have a right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, so implementing the technology in a jail setting would be less politically fraught than the ongoing roll-out of license plate readers along streets and highways. “It's not out in the community, and the intent is to enhance the safety of the people who are held in the jail and the people who work there,” Spencer said. “There’s already cameras all over the jail. This seems like a good use of the technology that doesn’t come with any significant privacy concerns.”

Texas bet on privatized foster care. EMPOWER tested its limits

Among Nicolette LaRoe is a court-appointed attorney for kids in the child welfare system. But she advocates for them like they're her own. That's why she's so passionate about CJ. “CJ” is how a recent court filing refers to the boy, whose full name and age aren’t disclosed. According to the document, CJ was diagnosed in June 2024 with type of lupus induced by Depakote or divalproex sodium, a medication used to treat epilepsy and other conditions. But caseworkers for EMPOWER — the private nonprofit managing foster care in the Dallas area at the time — didn’t properly document CJ’s medical needs in his case record and authorized the hospital to give the boy divalproex sodium Nov. 26, 2024.

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CJ was admitted to the hospital February 19, 2025, with chest pain and pneumonia, according to the filing — conditions believed to be caused by lupus. In the eight months between his diagnosis and his admission to the hospital with lupus-related conditions, the document states, CJ had five different EMPOWER caseworkers assigned to him. His medical needs were miscommunicated in the shuffle. “All the stuff that has happened has been tragic,” LaRoe said in a July interview with KERA News. “And while they were going through all these caseworkers and supervisors and different directors and all this crap, it's like trying to hold jelly in your hand. You can never get a grip on anything.” A KERA News analysis of two years of DFPS corrective plans showed CJ's case wasn't seen as an outlier: EMPOWER’s caseworkers reportedly weren’t showing up to court — and when they were, they were unprepared. Caseworkers dealt with large caseloads, lacked basic training and made simple mistakes that led to negative — and sometimes fatal — outcomes for kids, according to those documents.

Lawmakers renew push to close Dilley as number of detained children rises

Members of Congress said Tuesday that more than 500 people were being held at the South Texas facility, including 112 children, as they renewed their months-long push to close it. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio said 96 children were being held at Dilley during a congressional visit in May. He and other lawmakers also raised concerns about detainees’ access to legal information. Tuesday’s visit came less than two weeks after Castro led 110 other House Democrats in a letter urging the Department of Homeland Security to close Dilley and end family detention nationwide. Castro was joined by members of the Congressional Democratic Women’s Caucus, advocates from FWD.us and Families Belong Together, and pediatric critical care physician Dr. Anita Patel. The delegation held a news conference in San Antonio after the tour.

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Castro said Tuesday marked his seventh visit to Dilley. He criticized the federal government’s use of CoreCivic, a private prison company, to operate the center under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We have commodified child imprisonment in our nation,” Castro said. “CoreCivic is a private prison company whose investors include some of the largest asset managers in this country. They are making money. The more kids that are put in Dilley.” Castro attributed the reported increase in detainees to intensified ICE enforcement over the past month. “I believe that is the result of the ICE surge that we’ve seen over the last month or so,” Castro said. “We’ve seen families that have been torn apart on the street and brutality on the street. The result of that is that more families and more children are now imprisoned at Dilley.” Castro also questioned how detainees were being informed about their rights under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which establishes standards for the treatment and release of immigrant children in federal custody.

Willie Nelson joins backlash to ‘water thieving, light polluting’ data centers

Texas music legend Willie Nelson on Tuesday came out against data center development, adding his voice to a growing chorus of bipartisan critics. Nelson, who grew up in Abbott and still owns a home there, wrote in a social media post that the last thing the community needs is a “loud, water thieving, light polluting data center.” “Now our community, like many others, needs to fight against data centers invading our land,” Nelson wrote. His post comes as data centers have emerged as an unexpected flashpoint ahead of November’s midterms. But the message from the country music staple is a sign the backlash is spilling beyond the grassroots activists and rural voters who have been calling for a moratorium.

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Polling from the University of Texas at Austin last month found most Texans do not want data centers built in their communities, with opposition especially strong among rural voters. This week, community activists and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller staged a protest outside the Capitol and urged Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session for lawmakers to strip tax breaks for data centers and set rules on where they can be built. Abbott has sought to address the bubbling backlash among voters in deep-red rural Texas by directing state regulators to ensure data centers do not pass on costs for new electrical infrastructure to ratepayers. He has resisted calls to bring lawmakers back to Austin, but has called for them to take action when they reconvene in January. Nelson is a longtime advocate for family farms and a co-founder of Farm Aid, an event that raises money for farms. He’s also a regular supporter of Democratic candidates. "The strength of rural America has never come from big industrial footprints," he wrote. "It comes from generations of people, open spaces, local businesses and a connection to the land."

Texas lawmaker introduces bill to protect Mount Cristo Rey from border wall construction

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has introduced legislation that would prevent the federal government from using eminent domain or federal funding to construct border security infrastructure on or near Mount Cristo Rey, a prominent Catholic pilgrimage site overlooking the border region of Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. The Mount Cristo Rey Protection Act comes after the federal government initiated legal action to obtain approximately 14 acres of land near the base of the mountain in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The land is owned by the Diocese of Las Cruces, and the proposed acquisition is intended to support an extension of the barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress, told NCR the bill is one of several efforts her office is pursuing to prevent construction from affecting the mountain and the religious activities that take place there.

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"Mount Cristo Rey is a very special place for my community, for the region, for people of faith, not just in the region, but people of faith who have come to visit and hike to the top," Escobar said in a phone interview. "My constituents have asked me about what I am doing to try to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from, in their eyes and in our eyes, desecrating such a sacred site." The mountain is topped by a 29-foot limestone statue of Jesus Christ, dedicated in October 1939. More than 40,000 people visit the site annually, according to Escobar's office. Pilgrimages traditionally take place on Good Friday and during the Feast of Christ the King, drawing participants from Texas, New Mexico and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Under the proposed legislation, no federal funds could be used to litigate the government's eminent-domain case concerning the 14.259-acre property. The bill would also prohibit federal funding for roads, fencing, vehicle barriers, security lighting, cameras, sensors or related structures on or near the mountain.

6 matches, $8.4M in booze: AT&T Stadium broke its record, but did Dallas profit from FIFA?

Take a guess: how many beers and margs do you think were sold at AT&T Stadium during each game of the World Cup? All along, one of the great questions was how much impact the games would have on local bars and restaurants. Projections from the Dallas Sports Commission estimated it would generate up to $2.1 billion for all of North Texas. The state of Texas just released its June mixed beverage gross receipts report, which shows the amount of alcohol every bar or restaurant with a TABC license sold in the month. TABSReport makes it easy to sort through. We looked at the just-released June report for both Dallas and Arlington, and it’s clear that, overall, the World Cup had a financial impact on alcohol sales alone. In some cases, the impact was huge, but don’t get too excited because FIFA kept a lot of that.

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While this is just a sliver of the story — just booze in June — it’s something real and substantive, not just figureheads talking. The giant stadium in Arlington hosted six World Cup matches in June (and another three in July, for a total of nine). The stadium sold $8,396,103 in alcohol in June. For comparison, in June of 2025 it sold just $572,605. Previously, during the NFL season, the most it had sold was $8.2 million, making this a new record. (Of course, there would never be six NFL games at the stadium in one month, so it feels like the Cowboys win here.) How many beers and margs is $8.4 million? Let’s say each drink is $20 (beers averaged about $17 and a margarita was $25.50); that’s 419,805 drinks. Over six games, that’s 69,967 drinks per game. Before you get excited for the Cowboys and all that money they just made, it goes to FIFA, the nonprofit that runs the world’s largest soccer tournament. Per its agreement with host cities, it gets all revenue from tickets, concessions, parking and broadcast rights. Host cities pay for security, transportation and most of the Fanfest. Feels a little lopsided, right? Some cities, including Chicago, bowed out of even hosting games because they couldn’t justify the costs versus potential revenue.

'Extraordinary life' | Janice McNair, co-founder and senior chair of the Houston Texans, laid to rest

Janice McNair, the co-founder and senior chair of the Houston Texans, has been laid to rest. She died last week at the age of 89. The service was held Friday, July 24, in the sanctuary of St. Luke's United Methodist Church. "Janice lived an extraordinary life rooted in faith, family, philanthropy and football," her obituary read. "A gracious Southern woman and beloved matriarch of the Houston Texans, Janice welcomed everyone she met with her signature warmth, radiant smile and genuine kindness." Serving as pallbearers were D. Cal McNair, her son; Robert D. McNair, her grandson; Calhoun McNair, her grandson; Michael McNair, her grandson; Dr. Judson Suber and Jonathan Suber.

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She and her husband, Bob McNair, helped bring the NFL back to Houston and were instrumental in founding the Texans. Through the Houston Texans Foundation and The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, the couple donated more than $500 million to education, medical research and community programs across the city. In 2025, McNair was inducted as the fourth member of the Texans Ring of Honor in recognition of her role in bringing football back to Houston and her lasting impact on the organization and the community. She is survived by her four children, 16 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

Two Wilmer officials arrested following alleged racist confrontation at gas station

Two Wilmer city officials were arrested this month following an investigation into racially charged threats allegedly made at a gas station, according to arrest warrant affidavits obtained Tuesday by The Dallas Morning News. Moses Garcia, 53, elected to the city council in May, was arrested Monday by Wilmer police after he was linked to a July 22 disturbance at a Shell gas station. He faces a terroristic threat charge. Wilmer police allege acting police Chief Jesus Mancillas, 57, attempted to take control of the investigation into Garcia’s actions and interfered with the collection of evidence, according to his affidavit. Wilmer is in Dallas County about 15 miles southeast of Dallas.

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Mancillas was appointed as acting chief last week, according to a statement from Wilmer Interim City Administrator Frank Posada, and was expected to provide leadership and oversight as the department addressed ongoing administrative issues. He is accused of inserting himself into an active criminal investigation and preventing the lead detective from performing assigned duties. “I had no knowledge that the Wilmer Police Department was contemplating or carrying out an arrest involving Mr. Mancillas,” Posada said. “He was assisting the city of Wilmer at my request, and I am disappointed by what has occurred.” According to surveillance video footage described in Garcia’s affidavit, Garcia arrived at the gas station in a Tesla and began talking with a man and an employee. In the footage, the group can be seen continuing their conversation until Garcia allegedly calls the man an explicit name. Garcia then begins making statements regarding his influence on Wilmer’s city council, according to the descriptions in the affidavit.

‘A deal with the devil’: Religion motivates data center opponents in Texas

When Matt Long stood before the Granbury, Texas, city council zoning meeting back in April to oppose the influx of proposed data centers in Hood County, he likened them to a spiritual abomination. “I’d consider us a Christian city inside a Christian county,” said Long, a member of the county’s development commission who lives near Granbury. “As Christians, do we think that trading 2,100 acres of natural beauty for godless technological complexes is moving us closer to the creation, or further away?” “Do we think that entering into negotiations with Google, Meta and Amazon are closer to making a covenant with God, or making a deal with the devil?” he asked the council. Christians, Long concluded to applause, must stand up against data centers.

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Controversy surrounding data center construction has roiled Texas in recent months, fostering a bipartisan coalition of opposition, particularly among rural and suburban residents. With at least 248 planned data center projects and 335 in operation, the state is poised to become a leader in data center development. Much of the opposition focuses on environmental impact and the large amounts of water and power needed by massive facilities that operate AI applications. But opposition has also coalesced around religious appeals from a theologically diverse group of residents, leaders and politicians who see data center development as an affront to their most sacred values. Clayton Tucker, a Democrat running for Texas agriculture commissioner, is a leader in the anti-data center movement. A Catholic, he wonders if data centers are akin to the apple in the Garden of Eden. “If we take a bite of that apple of knowledge, is that what’s going to kick us out of this blue marble of Eden … that we call Earth?” he said. Religion isn’t solely the domain of the opposition. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, a Republican, said he supports data center construction because “throughout history, Christians have embraced innovations that improve lives, from the printing press to modern medicine.” “We should approach data centers the same way: embracing their benefits while ensuring they’re built responsibly,” Christian said in a statement.

Travis County hires D.C. law firm to represent José Garza in GOP probe

Travis County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to hire a Washington, D.C.-based law firm to represent District Attorney José Garza in a congressional investigation of his office’s prosecution of noncitizens and interactions with federal immigration authorities.. After discussing the matter in closed session, commissioners voted unanimously to pay Miller & Chevalier up to $60,000 to help Garza respond to a request from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee for five years of records.

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Garza received the demand in a June 23 letter from three committee members, including Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, who accused him of pursuing “pro-crime, pro-illegal immigration policies” that allowed undocumented criminals “to freely operate, terrorize local communities, and reoffend without consequences.” The committee members cited statements Garza made while campaigning in which he pledged to consider the consequences of criminal charges and convictions and avoid imposing excessively harsh sentences.. The letter also accused his office of taking a “soft-on-crime approach” that resulted in the release of at least five non-citizens in 2024. Roy said on social media that Garza’s “dereliction of duty has raised questions about whether repeat offenders, including criminal aliens, are being adequately prosecuted and whether the safety of law-abiding Austin residents is being put first.”

National Stories

Diary entries, a subpoena and an anticipated clash: Dr. Anthony Fauci and Rand Paul’s long-running battle returns to the Hill

Even before the US enacted a national shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci pondered whether he might have testified before Congress more than any other official. As the longtime face of the government’s infectious disease response, he was on Capitol Hill roughly 250 times over the course of his career to discuss threats such as the HIV/AIDS crisis and Ebola. On Wednesday, the retired scientist will notch one more testimony, in what is expected to be a combative hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. The appearance will mark the latest showdown with Sen. Rand Paul, the committee’s chairman, who has long sought to blame the Covid pandemic and shortcomings of the US response on Fauci.

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Fauci did not agree to turn up willingly. In June, Paul subpoenaed the 85-year-old former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for his appearance. Internal correspondence shared with CNN shows that Fauci initially declined to appear voluntarily, citing his past clashes with Paul and the senator’s efforts to indict him. “Your request that Dr. Fauci appear before the Committee arises within a context that cannot be ignored — the context of repeated public and absolutely baseless pronouncements by you, a sitting United States Senator, that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted and jailed,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to Paul. Ahead of the hearing, the committee released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s personal diary from 2019 to 2022. Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday night on Fox News that he had recently handed the files over to Paul and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson after finding them on government servers following an eight-month search.

DHS stats chief rips Trump’s ‘war on immigrants’ in blistering resignation letter

A top official at the Department of Homeland Security announced his resignation over the weekend in a blistering letter that lashed out at President Donald Trump and excoriated what he described as the administration’s “war on immigrants.” Marc Rosenblum, the former executive director of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, wrote in a public LinkedIn post on Saturday that he was “sad, and thrilled, to say that yesterday was my last day working at DHS.” Rosenblum joined the Office of Immigration Statistics in 2016, and said he watched the team grow from a “scrappy team of 11” to a staff of 45 prior to Trump’s second term. In the more than 10 years Rosenblum served at the agency, he said, his team expanded its data processing and reporting efforts.

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“But it will come as no surprise that I’m thrilled to end my relationship with the current administration,” Rosenblum wrote. “Between the war on immigrants, the war on feds, and the war on facts (not to mention the crazy war in Iran and the brazen corruption), I just need a change.” A representative for DHS told NOTUS that while the department does not comment on personnel decisions, “people are always welcome to their opinion — that doesn’t make it right or factual.” The White House declined to comment. The Trump administration launched expanded immigration enforcement efforts at the beginning of the president’s second term, but critics on both sides of the aisle have requested better data on the impact of those efforts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not release data on either detentions or deportations from April 9 until July 24, 2026, missing multiple semimonthly “Detention Management” reports that typically include arrests, detentions and deportations, according to The Marshall Project. Rosenblum did not address the data-sharing lapses explicitly in his resignation letter — though he described a “challenging and often hostile work environment” that he and others allegedly experienced at DHS. Multiple organizations have taken legal action against the Trump administration, seeking data on immigration enforcement and detention practices. The Oversight Project, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, filed a lawsuit this month against DHS to release the updated data. American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed a lawsuit against the department in June seeking records relating to deaths in immigration custody.

Iran launches surprise ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces in the Middle East

Iran targeted American forces in the Middle East with ballistic missiles late Tuesday stateside, U.S. Central Command said, raising tensions in the region again after the warring sides had briefly halted hostilities. Centcom in a post on X said that the attack originated from Iran, but all missiles were intercepted. “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces based in the Middle East.“ While the U.S. military command did not specify where the attacks were aimed at, Axios reported the attack was directed at a U.S. base in Jordan, citing U.S. officials. In a subsequent statement posted on X, Centcom said U.S. and Saudi forces struck “multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites” in eastern Iraq Tuesday stateside, retaliating against more than 30 drone attacks in the past three days by “Iran-aligned terrorists.“

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Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said the strikes were carried out in coordination with U.S. Central Command, and added the kingdom does not seek escalation, but will respond to any aggression it faces. Riyadh said earlier that drones launched from Iraq by “Iran-affiliated terrorist militias” attempted to target petroleum facilities in Saudi Arabia. The Iran-backed Iraqi Mobilization Forces said in a statement later on Tuesday that at least 20 of its members had been killed in the strikes and 32 had been wounded. Tensions have escalated after a two-day pause in hostilities between Washington and Tehran, sending oil surging, after prices declined for three straight days. U.S. President Donald Trump had set aside plans to escalate the war against Iran amid worries over diminishing stockpiles of Patriot interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East, The New York Times had reported. Trump had dismissed concerns over stockpile depletion.

Senate votes to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton will become the next director of national intelligence after the Senate voted to confirm his nomination following a monthslong stalemate. Clayton's nomination was confirmed by a 51-47 party-line vote. Clayton's confirmation comes as senators work to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a critical national security tool that went dark after Democrats revolted against its extension over concerns over the next DNI.

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Following the resignation of previous DNI Tulsi Gabbard in May, President Donald Trump tapped Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as acting DNI despite his lack of intelligence experience. The move caused all Democrats, with the exception of Sen. John Fetterman, to vote against moving forward with consideration of the FISA authorization despite the fact that some, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, had previously been supportive of FISA reauthorization. Trump's appointment of Pulte as acting DNI also frustrated some Republicans, including Majority Leader John Thune, who argued the reauthorization had a bipartisan, bicameral path forward but was derailed due to the timing of Trump's announcement. "There have been timing issues around several things that they've done in the last few weeks," Thune said of the administration in early June. "I'm sure that's the, you know, that's the conclusion Democrats have drawn, but I still think that, not withstanding their feelings on that, that it's irresponsible not to keep this agency going," Thune said.

Trump, Senate give tearful goodbye to Lindsey Graham

Former Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) received an emotional send-off Wednesday at two memorial services, where political allies and foes, some of whom had shifted back and forth during the South Carolinian’s long career, bid him tribute. “He was a force of nature, and I will miss him greatly,” President Trump said at the latter service at Washington National Cathedral, where the political crowd was dominated by Trump administration officials and global leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump nodded to his friendship with his fellow Republican, which grew from a rivalry when the two were running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2015.

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“As you remember, Lindsey and I did not exactly get off to the best of starts, running against each other,” Trump said, recounting how he had publicly given out Graham’s cellphone number at a campaign event in response to a political attack. “His phone totally, I don’t know what he did with it, but it exploded,” the president joked. Graham went on to become one of Trump’s strongest allies in the Senate, a major turn given the South Carolina Republican’s previous alliance with former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in 2018 as a firm GOP opponent of Trump. “That was the beginning of a friendship, in a way,” Trump said of the cellphone episode. “But it was Lindsey who had the last laugh, because while I blew up his phone for one day, we became great friends, and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years. It was not easy.” Earlier in the day, Graham was honored in a memorial service at the Capitol Rotunda, which was attended by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

New Mexico is divided over what to do with $75 Billion in oil cash

In a beige office park on the edge of town not far from a Walmart, waves of oil-and-gas money are crashing on Jon Clark’s desk. A flood of $7.6 billion arrived in 2024. Followed by an additional $5.3 billion in 2025. This year, Clark, New Mexico’s state investment officer, is projecting $5.4 billion. New Mexico’s oil-and-gas bounty has helped build a $75 billion investment fund that would be the envy of Wall Street. New Mexico has become the second-largest-producing oil state in the country, behind Texas, and soaring crude prices from the U.S. war with Iran are translating into another burst of revenue. The question for the state now: What to do with it?

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New Mexico is one of America’s poorest states, and many here in the state capital believe its relatively new oil wealth is its path to stability. That opportunity comes with inherent tension over what to fund now and how much to save for the future. Spending more of the money today will eat into the state’s safety net for the next time crude prices crater or the wells run dry. It isn’t as simple as saving or spending. Some state officials are betting that shelling out on new programs now can help bolster the economy before the next bust. When energy prices were low early this year, about $160 million flowed into the largest bucket of New Mexico’s fund each month from royalties paid by energy companies pumping on publicly owned land. That jumped to $241 million in March after the Iran war sent crude prices higher. More cash is expected to arrive from taxes on oil-and-gas sales. “We’re going to increasingly be part of how the state pays for everything moving forward,” Clark said. “The potential for impact is almost limitless in the long term.”

Copyright July 29, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved