October 28, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Trump visits Lubbock and Corpus Christi as Republicans fight to hold Texas’ U.S. Senate seat

Election Day is just a week away, and political campaigns are racing toward the finish line. For Republicans in Texas, that means bringing out their party’s biggest figure: President Donald Trump. Trump will make stops in Corpus Christi and Lubbock on Tuesday, while Vice President JD Vance plans to visit Weatherford on Thursday. The visits are aimed at rallying support for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in his U.S. Senate race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. “They’re pulling out all the stops to come here and fight to try to keep that Senate seat,” Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston, told The Texas Newsroom.

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The outcome of Texas’ Senate race could determine which party holds control of the chamber in Washington for the final two years of Trump’s term — a major factor in whether the president will be able to advance his agenda. Recent polling underscores how competitive the Texas race has become. An October Emerson College/Nexstar Media poll put Talarico at 48% and Paxton at 46%, too close to establish a clear leader. A separate Rasmussen Reports survey found the candidates tied. In Corpus Christi, the GOP isn’t just looking to excite voters for Texas’ U.S. Senate race. The region’s congressional contests are also pivotal for the party. That includes Texas 15th, 28th and 34th Congressional Districts, where polling shows close races. Trump narrowly won majority-Latino Nueces County in 2016 and 2020. But that support exploded during the 2024 election, when Trump won Nueces County by double digits for the first time. According to Del Mar College political science professor Dr. Paul Gottemoller, the president’s visit highlights the importance of Latino voters for Republicans’ overall success.

Texas’ largest oil and gas trade group leaves Bo French off endorsement list in rare move

An endorsement list distributed Monday by the Texas Oil and Gas Association was silent on the most consequential race for the state’s oil and gas industry. The major trade group previously endorsed Bo French, the Republican candidate in the race for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, the three-person board that oversees oilfield regulation in Texas. The endorsement came days before French’s infamous post on X where he described a group of non-white Longhorn fans as a “problem.” But a new list of TXOGA’s preferred candidates did not mention the pivotal race. President Donald Trump also did not include French in his social media posts plugging a long list of Republican candidates in Texas.

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The snubs come as French faces widespread scrutiny over his comments deriding various ethnic and religious groups in Texas, raising the prospect that his Democratic opponent Jon Rosenthal, a sitting state representative, could win the statewide race. A Democrat hasn’t held a seat on the Railroad Commission since 1994. TXOGA and French could not be immediately reached for comment. TXOGA represents some of Houston’s largest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Reached Tuesday, Rosenthal said French’s absence from TXOGA’s endorsement list “speaks for itself.” “French does not seem to reflect the values that our industry forwards,” Rosenthal told the Chronicle. “I was surprised when they endorsed him in the first place.” Karr Ingham, president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, which represents smaller oil and gas firms, said his group does not endorse candidates. That said, he said Rosenthal has been more proactive about engaging with the group than is historically true for Democratic candidates. “There’s a reasonable chance he may win that race,” Ingham said.

The worst-case midterm scenario for Democrats

With the 2026 midterms looking more and more like a big blue-wave election thanks to Donald Trump’s weak job-approval ratings and the lack of any sign he understands why voters aren’t happy with him, we’ve reached a moment when Democratic loyalists are crossing their fingers, touching wood, and forcing themselves to remember recent electoral disappointments. It’s understandable. Democrats were deeply shocked by Trump’s 2016 and 2024 victories — and, for that matter, by Trump’s surprisingly strong performance in 2020. Of the last four midterm elections, only 2018 produced Democratic gains, and even then, Republicans gained two Senate seats. General superstition aside, there are four reasons why Democrats’ hopes of a big midterm could be exaggerated or even mistaken. To a remarkable extent, the close contests of 2026 are occurring in territory recently claimed by the GOP. Of the ten U.S. Senate races rated as competitive (either toss-ups or leaning Republican or Democratic) by the Cook Political Report, seven involve seats that Republicans have held at least since 2014 and six are in states Donald Trump carried three times.

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Add in the GOP’s current three-seat majority in the chamber (effectively a four-seat majority because of Vice President J.D. Vance’s tie-breaking vote), and you can see why the GOP has a home-field advantage in Senate races this year. Of the 50 U.S. House seats Cook rates as competitive, 39 are currently held by Republicans and 36 of them are in states Trump won in 2024. The GOP’s late gerrymandering campaign of 2025–26 increased the number of GOP House districts either in play or essentially already won. And of 12 Cook-rated competitive gubernatorial races, 11 are in states Trump won in 2024. The deep-red coloration of the 2026 map obviously means Republicans have an awful lot to lose in a blue-wave election. But it also means a lot more voters who are accustomed to voting Republican and may be more receptive to GOP messaging and conservative media outlets. Any overestimation of national, regional, or local Democratic trends will leave a lot of endangered Republican candidates in a position to survive. To be clear, the Trumpian mythology of “fake polls” always benefiting Democrats is unfounded, and as Nate Silver has shown, polling errors have in recent years been (a) mostly nonexistent in midterms and (b) unpredictable in their direction.

‘Absolutely ridiculous’: Dallas still hasn’t received Republican midterm convention reimbursement

Dallas city staff have released the final bill for hosting the Republican midterm convention at the American Airlines Center for two days in September: $800,000. The Republican National Committee has yet to reimburse the city, and it's unclear if they will. Council members raised concerns over the city taking on the full cost during a finance committee meeting Monday afternoon. "That's absolutely ridiculous," council member Maxie Johnson said. "I'm just really uncomfortable, and I feel that this is wrong that this has not been rectified at this moment." Kevin Oden, the city's emergency management director, told Johnson the city plans to receive a contractual reimbursement from U.S. Capitol Police before invoicing organizers for the rest of the cost.

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The capitol police reimburses Dallas whenever local security is needed for members of Congress. The Secret Service protects presidents. City officials said that historically the Secret Service has not reimbursed Dallas for helping with that. When asked by Johnson who specifically would be invoiced, Oden said it would be "either the RNC or the host committee, whichever pays the bill back." The Dallas 2026 Host Committee, which raised at least $45 million to support the convention, said it would reduce government costs. But its unclear how much it intends to pay or if there's a formal agreement between city leaders and the committee. Oden said the city provides provides security for dozens events and protests annually and often doesn't get reimbursed. Council member Kathy Stewart pushed Oden to regularly update the committee on any potential reimbursement status. "It is our job as stewards of our taxpayer dollars to watch over something like this and to make sure that we do get that reimbursement," Stewart said.

State Stories

Arlene Alvarez’s mother asks for Abbott ad to be taken down, steps back from Arlene’s Law

Wendy Alvarez says her daughter Arlene’s memory should bring people together. After backlash over a political advertisement supporting Gov. Greg Abbott, she says she is stepping away from a legislative effort bearing her daughter’s name. Alvarez announced the decision in a Facebook post, saying she has asked for the commercial to be removed and did not know about it beforehand. The ad features family advocate April Aguirre with a picture of Arlene, who was 9 when she was killed. Alvarez said she had not agreed to her daughter becoming part of a political campaign. Although she met Abbott and sought his help advancing Arlene’s Law, she said her advocacy was focused on preventing other families from experiencing a similar loss. She rejected suggestions that her meeting with the governor meant she had turned against her community or that her efforts were about immigration.

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Alvarez said hateful messages and accusations had left her emotionally exhausted. “But today, with a very heavy heart, I have decided to step aside from pursuing Arlene’s Law at this time,” she wrote. Her post also defended Aguirre’s intentions and acknowledged years of friendship and support. Alvarez said Aguirre had helped her family and other families seeking justice. Alvarez asked people to remember her daughter as a child with dreams and a family who loved her. “Arlene was not a political party. She was not a campaign slogan. She was not a vote,” she wrote. “She was my baby.”

Ken Paxton’s ‘October surprises’ are pure disinformation

As polls for the Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico remain tight, right-wing influencers, media outlets, and Paxton campaign surrogates have taken their shot at ginning up an “October surprise” by spreading at least two extraordinary stories aimed to discredit Talarico. The first was that Talarico, who was taking time off the campaign trail early this month to recover from the flu, had actually checked into a psychiatric hospital in Ohio due to a mental breakdown. The second, which unfolded as early voting kicked off, involved unsolicited text messages and mailers sent to Texan voters regarding resources for transgender youth—a topic that Paxton has said is his best line of political attack and that his campaign’s largest financial backer, Elon Musk, has hammered Talarico on in recent weeks. But both stories turned out to be disinformation, spread maliciously or recklessly in many cases by amateur-ish “influencers” whose shoddy work was easily exposed. (Hillary Clinton’s emails, these would-be scandals are not.)

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The first attempted surprise started life around October 8. That morning, Sara Gonzales, a host on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV network and the vice president of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Texas Family Project, informed her more than 518,000 followers: “I have received unverified information on James Talarico’s whereabouts. If true, it will END his campaign.” Two hours later, Paxton himself—who remains the state’s attorney general until January—alleged in a post on X that Talarico was having “a full-blown mental Tala-freak-out” and requested “proof of life.” Within minutes of Paxton’s post, an anonymous X account that uses a photo of a young red headed woman, “TickleTexts,” spun up the allegation into a full-blown theory that Talarico was in a mental facility and by the next day had identified the Lindner Center, a psychiatric hospital in Ohio, as the place where Talarico was hospitalized. A right-wing influencer named Rhein Amacher separately shared a recording of a call purporting to prove the Lindner Center had admitted Talarico. Michelle Smith, a senior adviser to Paxton, added on social media that a doctor told a friend of hers that Talarico “has definitely been admitted to a mental institution.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Musk made numerous posts about Talarico’s absence, implying that his campaign was not being truthful. But the story then swiftly fell apart. On the evening of October 11, the Linder Center denied that Talarico was ever a patient, and the following day the New York Times reported on home security footage Talarico provided that proved he had been at his residence while recovering from the flu and not in Ohio. Even right wingers including Texas journalist Tony Ortiz expressed dismay about the slipshod influencing effort. Conservative commentator Carmine Sabia wrote: “I support Ken Paxton, but the truth matters more than winning on a lie.”

Republican DA in West Texas investigating ‘trans resources’ pamphlets mailed to ‘students in the household’

Sarah Stogner, the Republican district attorney for Loving, Reeves and Ward counties, located west of Odessa, has opened a criminal investigation into pamphlets that were mailed recently to voters across the state purporting to have come from or be connected to the Transgender Education Network of Texas, or TENT, and marked as a resource guide for LGBTQ+ youth, according to reports by The Texas Tribune. Stogner said that while her office is investigating as a potential forgery, she added that the scope of the investigation could expand depending on what information is uncovered. Forgery, as the Texas Tribune notes, is a state jail felony under Texas law.

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The pamphlets were labeled as having come from “The Texas Transgender Student Union,” which was actually created just recently in Wyoming as a limited liability company, and the return address on the mailer was a Houston-area post office box. The pamphlets were an obvious effort to continue the right-wing’s scare campaigning targeting the transgender community ahead of the 2026 midterms. President Donald Trump has claimed that parents are sending their sons to school in the mornings and then picking them up as daughters in the afternoon because teachers and other school officials are “forcibly transitioning” the children at school. And Democrat James Talarico’s support for transgender people and the rest of the LGBTQ+ community has been a constant source of attacks from the campaign of Republican Ken Paxton in the race to replace John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate. Paxton’s campaign has even tried to attack Talarico — or as they call him, “TalaFreako” — by claiming he is, himself, transgender. While the pamplets, which were addressed to the students in the households and offered suggestions on how transgender teens could escape unsupportive families, repeatedly referenced TENT, which has categorically denied having to do with the pamplets. A TENT spokesperson said in an email that the “messages were deliberately distributed in a manner calculated to cause maximum harm to TENT and to create confusion and strife among the Texas electorate.”

Nick Powell: How a toxic river convinced Texas conservatives to vote for a Democrat

(Nick Powell is a columnist and editorial writer for the Houston Chronicle.) It’s unusual to see more than a trickle of water on the parched bed of the Pecos River. But outside Imperial, a mysterious rust-colored stream has emerged in the midst of a drought. It stretches at least half a mile through the high desert of the West Texas oil patch and is a sign of governmental failures so egregious that longtime conservatives are lining up behind a Democrat, Jon Rosenthal. The Permian Basin is the second biggest oil field in the world and is the center of an election battle that’s garnering national headlines — but for reasons that have nothing to do with oil and gas. Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Railroad Commission, the agency that regulates Texas oil and gas drillers, is a shameless bigot. His xenophobia is so revolting and over-the-top, that CNN and the Wall Street Journal are covering the obscure race and Republican leaders are endorsing Rosenthal — most recently Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker. Donald Trump even left French’s name off his endorsement list.

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Meanwhile, the people on the ground in the Permian rarely get a word in. For years, oil and gas drillers have tapped billions of gallons from freshwater sources like the Pecos — water that could otherwise be used for agriculture and drinking water. They use it for hydraulic fracturing to extract oil. That in turn produces huge volumes of dirty water, which is then pumped into shallow fields with leaky wells that can contaminate groundwater aquifers. It all adds up to a potential environmental calamity. One landowner told us the whole region is worthy of being designated a Superfund site. On a cloudless day in early October, photojournalist Sharon Steinmann and I flew from Houston to Midland, and rented a car to drive out to that riverbed. We followed Schuyler Wight, a local rancher, down the sloped banks of the Pecos to get a closer look. The salt-crusted reeds and mesquite branches crunched and crackled beneath my sneakers. At first glance, the water just looked muddy. But standing on the riverbed, I saw the unmistakable sheen of oil on the surface. Crystallized salt wreathed around the edges of the ochre pool, a glittering halo that looked like something you’d see on the surface of Mars. I turned my head, searching for a water source. “You can’t really tell where it’s coming from,” Wight said.

CenterPoint expands 10-year capital plan by $4B to handle load growth

CenterPoint Energy expects to see 14 GW of new demand online through 2030, and has added $4 billion to the utility’s 10-year capital investment plan, company officials said Tuesday in a third-quarter earnings call with analysts. Total planned capital expenditures through 2035 stand at $70.7 billion, up from $66.7 billion the company announced in July. The company has also accelerated about $1.5 billion of capex into the first half of the plan, helping drive a $4.5 billion increase to planned investment through 2030. CenterPoint has improved system reliability 40% since 2024 and intends to file its next System Resiliency Plan by the end of 2027.

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The utility increased its 10-year capital plan by $4 billion to $70.7 billion and accelerated $1.5 billion of investment into 2026-2030 timeframe. Of CenterPoint’s planned capex, $51.5 billion is on the electric side and $19 billion will go towards the company’s natural gas operations. The remainder will occur at the corporate level. “This incredible demand is creating a powerful multiplier effect, as large industrial expansions drive broader commercial growth across our service territory,” CenterPoint Chairman, President and CEO Jason Wells said on the earnings call. “Notably, industrial and commercial leasing activity in the Houston area is up more than 30% from last year.” CenterPoint has received nearly 1 GW of distribution-level load requests in the last year, he added. The 14 GW of expected demand growth are expected to generate $5 billion in customer savings across Texas over the next 10 years, company officials said. “To replenish that capacity and sustain the region’s competitive advantage for the next wave of demand, earlier this year we began an internal transmission study focused on increasing load serving capacity in three key areas,” Wells said, pointing to import transmission capacity, system stability and intra-regional transmission capacity.

New DART CEO’s former colleague alleges he covered up money issues at prior transportation agency

Nathaniel Ford, CEO and president of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority in Florida, is a finalist candidate to run Dallas Area Rapid Transit despite prior allegations that he mismanaged spending at his current job. Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s new CEO Nathaniel “Nat” Ford faces new allegations of covering up financial mismanagement at his previous job in Florida. Jacksonville Transportation Authority Board Member Daniel Vallencourt alleged this week that Ford withheld that the agency had a $39 million deficit, owed vendors tens of millions of dollars and was pulling from its reserve fund to stay afloat.

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“Nat Ford and his executive leadership team painted a picture for the Board that did not reflect reality,” Vallencourt wrote in a statement Monday. “The house was on fire, and leadership was doing everything it could to convince everyone otherwise.” Just two months after DART hired Ford, JTA said it would eliminate up to 194 positions and make service cuts last month to close a $39 million budget gap. Florida’s attorney general then opened a criminal investigation into JTA’s spending earlier this month and requested Ford’s text messages and emails between his consultant and wife between 2023 and 2025. KERA asked DART for comment on Vallencourt’s allegations. His response only addressed the investigation. “I am confident that at the conclusion of this process, it will be clear that the dedicated public servants at JTA, including myself, were responsible, ethical stewards of public funds,” Ford told KERA in an email. “I intend to participate in the investigations as I am able while I shift my complete focus to the opportunities for transportation in North Texas.”

One of the largest UMC churches in the country just voted to leave the denomination

In a special vote on Sunday and Monday (Oct. 25-26), members of one of the largest United Methodist churches in the country elected to leave the denomination, setting up what is likely to be a prolonged court challenge. Following two days of in-person voting by 4,775 of the 15,000 members of Dallas’ Highland Park United Methodist Church, some 90% elected to withdraw from the United Methodist Church. The church did not provide the exact vote count. The move comes in response to a heated dispute between the church and the denomination’s regional governing body. In August, that regional governing body, called the Horizon Texas Conference, sued Highland Park over changes that the church made to its governing documents that attempted to chart a more independent course.

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Those changes removed “United Methodist” from the church’s legal name and gave the church council authority to make broad decisions typically made by the denomination. Membership at the 110-year-old church, in the tony University Park neighborhood adjacent to the Perkins School of Theology on the campus of Southern Methodist University, includes many prominent Dallas business and civic leaders, including former President George W. Bush. The church’s three senior ministers, Matt Tuggle, Paul Rasmussen and Mark Craig, all recommended breaking away. “Based on these results, the congregation has voted to follow the recommendation of the Church Council and separate from the United Methodist Church,” a statement posted to the church website reads. “Beginning this Sunday, we will worship as Highland Park Methodist Church, with the commitment to protect the mission, ministry and future of our Church while still honoring our history and past.”

Last-minute spending surges to shore up Republicans in should-be-safe San Antonio-area seats

In the final weeks before the Nov. 3 election, more than $1 million has been spent helping first-term Republican state Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio) in his reliably red Northside district. No Democrat has carried Texas House District 121 since 1981, but LaHood and his allies are now launching last-minute attacks against his little-known challenger, Zack Dunn. Campaign finance reports covering money raised and spent between Sept. 25 and Oct. 24 indicate LaHood pulled in a staggering $1.1 million during that span. That includes roughly $200,000 from a PAC aligned with the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which wants to legalize casino gambling in Texas, plus big money from trial lawyers, who LaHood helped during the last legislative session.

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Dunn, a 33-year-old prosecutor, brought in close to $400,000 in the same span, including $225,000 from a Democratic PAC aligned with former state Sen. Wendy Davis, called Blueprint Texas PAC. Dunn is just the latest in a long list of Democrats who’ve sought to put the seat in play in recent years — hoping to win over moderate Republicans who’ve grown tired of the GOP’s rightward march. The old Joe Straus district includes wealthy suburbs of San Antonio, which have long favored more moderate, business-centric Republicans. Dunn’s campaign manager Colt Osburn, who has been working in the district for many years, said this election cycle could be a breaking point for those voters, who Democrats have to win over to be successful in this district. “If all of the quote-unquote Democrats — people with Democratic primary history — all vote for us, we still lose by about 5%,” Osburn said. “But we’re getting people at the door that are literally telling us, ‘I voted Republican for the last however many years, and I can’t take it anymore.'” Last-minute campaign cash is also flowing into a nearby U.S. House race that Republicans didn’t expect to have to defend this cycle: Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. This week the National Republican Congressional Committee — a group charged with protecting the GOP’s House majority — purchased ads to shore up their candidate, 30-year-old gun content creator Brandon Herrera.

Tarrant County is the starting point of Texas’ blue wave, Gina Hinojosa says

Tarrant County is ground zero for a blue wave in Texas, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa said at a Tuesday night get-out-the-vote rally in Lake Worth. In January, when Taylor Rehmet won the Texas Senate district that voted for President Donald Trump by 17 points in 2024, people thought it was a fluke, Hinojosa said. “They thought it was a one-off,” Hinojosa told the Star-Telegram. “Then we started seeing Democrats winning all throughout the state, all throughout the year. And now what we’re seeing is polling numbers that show we are winning. It’s not because people are Team Democrat. It is because people are for change.”

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Hinojosa’s rally at the National Hall SPJST Lodge 92 included two Republican voters who selected her on their midterm ballots this week. Ashleigh Johnson, a mother of four in the Grapevine-Colleyville school district, said her values haven’t changed, the Republican Party has. “I voted for Greg Abbott more than once,” Johnson said. “And in fact, until last Friday, in fact, I never voted blue, but I did just that.” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who Hinojosa is running to unseat, and the Republican ticket have abandoned their base by passing school vouchers and stripping the public school system of resources, Johnson said. Tim Buchanan, a legendary Aledo football head coach and Republican, also addressed Hinojosa’s roughly 250-person crowd Tuesday night. It was the first rally other than a pep rally he’d ever spoken at, he said. Earlier this month, Hinojosa announced Buchanan’s endorsement of her on social media. Since then, Buchanan said he has received boxes and boxes of real estate brochures and magazines for blue states. “They’re trying to tell me I need to move to a blue state,” Buchanan said. “Well, I got news for you. Gina Hinojosa is fixing to turn this [darn] state blue.”

UT Southwestern reported 18 retained object errors in 18 months

Among Texas hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, one facility stood out with an unusually high number of surgical “never event” errors. That facility also happens to be the No. 1 hospital in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to U.S. News & World Report’s rankings, and No. 2 in the state of Texas. Over the most recent 18 months of reporting — from July 2024 through December 2025 — UT Southwestern Medical Center reported 19 “never events.” That included 18 reports of objects left in a patient after surgery. That’s an average of one unintentionally retained object per month.

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UT Southwestern spokesperson Russell Rian did not respond to repeated requests for an interview with a representative of the medical center. He did send an emailed comment about the medical center’s retained object reports. “UT Southwestern considers patient safety of paramount concern,” Rian wrote. The comment then explained UT Southwestern’s reporting process — which it believes is more expansive than other institutions’ — and whittled down the reported number to account for mistaken reports. Retained objects — when a surgical team accidentally leaves behind a sponge or an instrument or another surgical item — are in a category of errors sometimes referred to as “never events.” Surgical never events, including retained object as well as wrong site, wrong surgery and wrong patient errors, were the focus of a months-long investigation from The Dallas Morning News, which looked into why these errors happen and how patients fare after the fact. That investigation included analysis of state data on “preventable adverse events,” which includes these four surgical never events. Of the Texas facilities that filed reports, UT Southwestern had the highest number of surgical never events in the state. One of those errors was a wrong surgery error. The rest were retained objects.

Denton moves closer toward implementing 6-month pause on new data centers

The Denton City Council held a public hearing Tuesday night about data centers, a required step as the city moves closer to implementing a six-month pause on new data center projects amid growing pushback. The city council is set to vote on the moratorium Dec. 1. At Tuesday's public hearing, more than two dozen public speakers voiced their support for the pause. No one spoke against implementing the temporary ban. The public opposition goes beyond Denton and a poll just released from the University of Houston shows how far. The survey found four out of five likely voters in Texas would support policies that limit data center development in the state. Two-thirds of those polled believe the projects will increase their water and electricity costs — a sentiment echoed among public commenters Tuesday in Denton.

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However, two existing data centers in Denton have generated "substantial" revenue, the city said in documents accompanying Tuesday's public hearing. Even though the two projects are not yet fully online, they've already contributed $3 million in sales tax revenue alone, the documents said. Two council members indicated they would support the moratorium when it comes up for a vote. The others did not speak on it during Tuesday's meeting. Denton already took action earlier this month to add zoning restrictions to new data center projects, requiring a special permit for any proposed data center. Those changes took effect Oct. 27, the city said. If the city votes to authorize the temporary pause in December, it could only last through May at the longest, the city said. State law requires the moratorium last no longer than 180 days — and after a city implements one, it cannot do it again for two years.

Texas judges block student loan debt relief agreements

When Travis Estes finally admitted he had to declare bankruptcy, creditors were already suing him over his debts. He and his wife owed nearly $1 million to dozens of lenders. He had been largely unable to work since a stroke robbed him of his career as a construction superintendent in 2016, when he was 34 years old. The stroke left his body unable to regulate heat and his balance was off. He couldn’t stand for sustained periods. Estes went from navigating billion-dollar construction projects to navigating physical therapy. He still has near constant eye and face pain, a condition called trigeminal neuralgia. The syndrome’s symptoms are so intense it’s nicknamed the “suicide disease.”

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His bankruptcy took three months in late 2023 to complete. The couple’s possessions were liquidated, leaving them with their house. But Estes still had $64,000 in debt from his federal student loans. He was like the nearly 10 million other Americans with such debt they cannot afford to pay. Part of the reason is that for decades, federal courts have made it nearly impossible to wipe away that debt in bankruptcy, requiring proof of extreme duress both physically and financially to qualify. But after his bankruptcy was complete, Estes’ lawyer told him there might be a new way to get a clean slate. In November 2022, the Biden administration gave federal agencies guidance intended to streamline the bankruptcy process. It aimed to increase the number seeking such relief while decreasing the cost of such cases for borrowers. Estes filed the paperwork regarding his hardship and federal education and justice officials agreed that his student loans should be eliminated. Unfortunately for Estes, he filed his case in the Western District of Texas, where judges have rejected the agreements and made their own determinations outside the new executive branch guidance. “I felt like the door shutting on my face,” Estes said.

Former Texas health official resigns from top CDC leadership role just months after joining

Former Texas health official Dr. Jennifer Shuford will step down from her roles as deputy director and chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention several months after joining the agency. The Washington Post first reported the news of Shuford’s departure Tuesday. A CDC spokesperson said Shuford’s last day at the agency will be Nov. 12. “I am deeply grateful for Dr. Shuford’s outstanding leadership and commitment to CDC and public health, especially as she has navigated an exceptionally demanding, high-profile, and constantly evolving environment over the past several months,” said CDC Director Dr. Erica Schwartz in a statement from the agency.

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Both Shuford and Schwartz were tapped by President Trump to join the CDC’s leadership in April. “These Highly Respected Doctors of Medicine have the knowledge, experience, and TOP degrees to restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE at the CDC,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform TruthSocial at the time. Like Schwartz, Shuford has supported vaccines, including when she oversaw the 2025 measles outbreak in West Texas and helped lead Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic before that. She was trained as an infectious disease physician at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and earned a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, has in the past come into conflict with CDC leaders due to disagreements over vaccine policy — including former CDC director Susan Monarez, who said those disagreements led to her firing. In the CDC’s statement, Shuford said she is stepping down to spend more time with family. “I am so thankful to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for giving me the opportunity to help lead CDC,” she said. “It has been an amazing experience and I will be forever grateful for it.” KUT News has reached out to Shuford for additional comment. Dr. Satish Pillai will serve as the CDC’s acting chief medical officer until a long-term replacement for Shuford is identified.

Fort Worth’s Range Resources acquired in $13 billion deal

Fort Worth-based Range Resources Corp. is being acquired in a $13 billion all-stock deal by EQT Corp., ?an energy company with operations focused on the Appalachian Basin. The merger creates what EQT said in a news release is “America’s largest and only vertically integrated natural gas producer” with a combined enterprise value of $50 billion. Together, EQT and Range are estimated to produce more than 9 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent, or NGE, a day. NGE measures the energy from natural gas as compared to the energy in one barrel of crude oil, which is equal to approximately 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

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Though headquartered in Fort Worth and energy-rich Texas, Range Resources has become known as an early entrant in drilling and production in the Marcellus Shale. That’s the geologic formation underneath Pennsylvania and other areas of Appalachia believed to hold trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. “This merger is a major milestone in the Range Resources story,” said Dennis Degner, chairman and CEO of Range, in a conference call following the announcement. “Following the discovery of the Marcellus Shale more than 20 years ago, Range’s technical team has transformed that world-changing discovery into a high-quality drilling inventory measured in decades.” Range has about 500 employees split between its Fort Worth headquarters and the Appalachian Basin area. The company recently said it was moving its headquarters into a 94,500-square-foot space in the 777 Main building, relocating from its current Two City Place headquarters on the northwest side of downtown. Range officials did not say what impact the merger would have on its presence and employment in Fort Worth.

County Stories

Smith County appoints new budget officer

The Smith County Commissioners Court appointed Jason Adams as the county’s new budget officer when it met Tuesday at the Smith County Courthouse Annex. “I’m grateful to Judge Neal Franklin and the Commissioners Court for their confidence, and I can’t wait to get to work,” Adams said in a statement. “My goal is to build a budget process rooted in accountability, transparency and strong fiscal stewardship, one that the court, our elected officials, department heads and taxpayers can all trust.”

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As a former budget analyst for Tarrant County, Adams helped develop the North Texas county’s $1.5 billion budget and assisted with keeping multiple budgets below the no-new-revenue tax rate. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master of public administration from the University of North Texas. Adams is currently working on completing his certified government finance officer designation. “I’m looking forward to working alongside Auditor Timothy Hollis, our elected officials and department heads,” Adams said. “I came to Smith County to put down roots, and I’m excited to be part of this community for the long haul.”

National Stories

Inside the Trump administration’s controversial lists of alleged noncitizen voters

In the closing days of the midterms, the Trump administration has sent multiple states lists of what it alleges are noncitizens on the voter rolls, intensifying its controversial efforts to stop those people from voting in the election. In California, the administration claimed there were 20,000 people who could be noncitizens on the rolls, while in Washington state, the administration alleged this week that 400 possible noncitizen voters had voted 1,500 times in past elections. The Justice Department sent letters to both states demanding they set aside the ballots of those the department claimed could be noncitizens — and sued California when the state said that the request ran afoul of its laws. The demands this month of California and Washington marked a significant escalation of the administration’s efforts to hunt voter fraud by creating lists of potential noncitizen voters, one of numerous ways the federal government has tried to prove President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud.

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The allegations have sparked questions about how the administration created its lists of voters who could be noncitizens — and criticism that its claims of tens of thousands of noncitizens voters have whittled down under scrutiny. State election officials and election experts have questioned the validity of the data the Trump administration is relying on to make its sweeping allegations — in addition to the decision to bring these demands to the states as early voting in the midterm election is already underway. At a district court hearing Tuesday in the California case, attorneys for the secretary of state, Los Angeles County and outside groups argued that the federal government’s data was outdated, flawed and was a “recipe for disenfranchisement” of US citizens. “This is a deeply troubling process, that is trying to use social security numbers that they’ve glued to the voter file, to go fishing for anyone who has an alien number,” said Anna Baldwin, an attorney arguing on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens and NAACP.

Netanyahu holds on as election results show no clear winner

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party moved into the lead position in Israel’s election Wednesday morning, denying his opponents a victory but still sitting short of a majority that would return his coalition to power. The partial results could still fluctuate in the hours and days ahead as more votes are counted. But his showing gives the prime minister a solid position for the high-stakes showdown in the coming weeks over whether he will stay in office. The results showed Netanyahu’s coalition losing its current parliamentary majority, reflecting anger over his performance among voters across the spectrum. But with more than two-thirds of the votes counted, his coalition was ahead of its rivals. The Yashar party of Netanyahu’s main challenger, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, had won the second greatest number of votes so far. His coalition was also short of a majority and slipped behind Netanyahu’s bloc of allies as the votes rolled in.

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If the results hold with neither side commanding an outright majority, Netanyahu’s fate could come down to whether Israel’s president gives the prime minister or Eisenkot the first chance to form at least a 61-seat Knesset majority. In either case, a scenario many experts foresee is a hung parliament that ultimately heads to another round of elections, with Netanyahu hanging on as a caretaker premier. Early results had Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party with around 28 seats and Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar with around 21. The prime minister’s bloc was in the lead with around 56 seats, compared with around 48 for his challengers. The numbers moved around as votes were counted and could continue to do so. Speaking to supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu called the results “merely a prelude.” “Iran is weaker than ever, while Israel is stronger than ever, yet, it is not over,” Netanyahu said in a brief speech. “As long as this regime exists, it will seek to destroy us. Together, with our wonderful friend President Trump, we must eliminate this threat once and for all.”

How AI has got the Fed in a bind

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh says artificial intelligence will ultimately provide a “huge benefit” to the economy. But a cooling off of investment in the skyrocketing technology might actually help him right now. The rapid construction of AI data centers across the nation is stoking inflation by juicing financial markets and creating shortages in electricity and construction. Yet it’s also a massive engine for the economy, fueling spending by consumers enriched through rising stock prices and by businesses, which are pouring money into tech-related investments. That creates a dilemma for Fed policymakers: Raise interest rates too sharply to fight inflation and risk damaging a key driver of the economy. Move too slowly and risk entrenched inflation. But if the AI industry’s growth were to moderate on its own, that would make it easier for the Fed to tame inflation.

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“The demand behind the AI build-out is so intense that it’s putting pressure on the supply of goods and services that are needed to do the AI build-out,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed staffer who is now chief economist at New Century Advisors. “So if that demand for the build-out just took a little bit of wind out of the sails, well, then maybe the production could catch up and we wouldn’t have these bottlenecks.” The stakes for the central bank are high, as Warsh and his colleagues are aiming to cool inflation without wrecking the job market or causing financial turmoil. But given the frenzy around the new technology, the bulk of AI investment isn’t likely to be affected by Fed rate hikes unless borrowing costs go significantly higher, which the central bank for now has not signaled it intends to do. That means inflation could stay stubbornly high even if the Fed raises rates, which investors expect the central bank will do in December, rather than now, just days out from congressional elections. Fed officials will announce their next interest rate move Wednesday. In other words, it would be one fewer headache for the Fed if markets themselves tempered the boom without any intervention from the central bank.

This tycoon's WhatsApp messages influence oil transport prices

The messages from the world’s biggest supertanker owner often begin with pleasantries: “Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.” Within minutes, the WhatsApps are the talk of the oil-tanker industry, a multibillion-dollar corner of the energy market that’s been plunged into chaos by the Iran war this year, and where word of mouth is the main way information spreads. The details vary, but the messages to shipbrokers from Sinokor Group, the South Korean company controlled by tycoon Ga-Hyun Chung, mostly boil down to the same thing — one of its vessels has just been hired at a new sky-high rate to ferry oil out of the Persian Gulf. Some messages detail a new contract, listing the ship, counterparty and eyewatering price. Others just refer loosely to negotiations underway. The format fluctuates from terse strings of numbers and names to full sentences and florid signoffs: “Very respectfully. Thank you very much and best regards,” concludes one message sent to brokers in August, and seen by Bloomberg. Usually, in the days that follow, the global benchmark price set by London’s Baltic Exchange takes another leap higher.

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What would simply be fodder for gossip in most industries, brokers say that Sinokor’s WhatsApp messages have for months played an outsized role in setting the cost of transporting oil around the world. Rates for very-large crude carriers — the biggest kind of oil tanker — have soared more than 1,600% this year amid disruptions caused by the war, creating an unprecedented boom for the industry, but throwing a spotlight on the arcane system used to price the world’s shipping contracts, and the centuries-old institution that manages it. The world of oil tanker rates is coming under fresh scrutiny this week, as hearings begin in a London lawsuit brought against the Baltic Exchange by trader Mercuria Energy Group, which argues that the benchmark rate is no longer fit for purpose because of the disruptions caused by the Iran war. Mercuria has complained to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority about the benchmark, according to its legal filings, and at least one other market participant has also contacted the regulator, according to a person with knowledge of the complaint, who asked not to be identified because it is not public. The Mercuria case doesn’t refer to Sinokor or its role in the market. Mercuria argues that a near-cessation of normal commercial shipments through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began meant that there was no basis on which to calculate the oil tanker market’s most important reference price, known as TD3C, which measures the cost of shipping oil from inside the Persian Gulf to China.

Shouting match erupts at UN as Cuban foreign minister moves toward US ambassador's podium

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Cuba's foreign minister to "back up" Tuesday after the Cuban diplomat approached the podium and interrupted his remarks on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly. "Well, we know. We know where it went. And today we are here to share it to the world," Waltz said as he accused Cuba's government of enriching its leaders while its people suffered. As the Cuban delegation sought to interrupt his remarks, Waltz fired back. "I know you don't like to hear this," Waltz said. "This is America, my friend. This is the United Nations. This isn't your communist dictatorship. You cannot silence me."

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Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla continued toward the podium as the president of the General Assembly attempted to restore order, reminding delegates that they would have an opportunity to respond. "This individual needs to back away from this podium," Waltz said as the confrontation escalated. "He's not going to intimidate me in the United States of America. "I'm the representative of the United States of America. Back up! Back up, Ambassador. Back away! This isn't Havana." The confrontation erupted during the General Assembly's annual debate over the decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba, with Waltz urging member states to reject a resolution calling for an end to the restrictions. Waltz accused Havana's communist government of enriching itself while blaming Washington for hardships he said were caused by corruption and repression inside Cuba. After Cuba was eventually granted the floor, the delegation's foreign minister accused Waltz of "lying" and asked the General Assembly president to call him to order. "Mr. Waltz is lying yet again," he said, arguing that the U.S. ambassador's remarks were "beneath the dignity of this forum and member states" and were insulting to Cuba's government and people.

Inside Vivek Ramaswamy's Ohio flameout

The mood at the Vivek Ramaswamy rally was upbeat—confident, even—but the cracks started to show before it began. The town hall in the small Cleveland suburb of Parma was entitled “Pierogis, Pabst, and Patriots,” and there were plenty of all three on hand at the Union House Bar and Restaurant. But we weren’t really supposed to be here. We were supposed to have convened at the Cleveland Harley-Davidson outpost for a “Christians, Bikers & Patriots” campaign event, before a sudden cancellation necessitated a shift to this woodsy sports joint. There was no word on what had gone wrong with the bikers. Still, the energy was real in this crimson-tinged bar, bustling with elderly Ohioans in OSU jerseys and MAGA merch alongside watery tubs of PBR. (Among the T-shirts: a red-ink outline of Charlie Kirk raising his fist, and a Trump-Vance shirt where the year was crossed out and replaced, in Sharpie, with 2028.)

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Once the actual event kicked off, however, even the speakers couldn’t help but strike notes of concern. “If you choose not to decide in this election, you are supporting a cast of characters that wants to take our state in a fundamentally dangerous direction,” said Secretary of State Frank LaRose, invoking Rush’s “Freewill” as he opened for the guest of honor and promoted his own campaign for state auditor. “The Democrats are feelin’ chippy,” he warned. “But there will be no blue wave. There will be a bright-red Ramaswamy tsunami!” Ramaswamy finally took the stump to raucous applause and harped on his finely honed campaign planks—improving public schools, reducing property taxes and everyday costs, welcoming legal immigrants—while firing some culture-war drive-bys at the evils of “wokeism” and “transgenderism.” Former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel subsequently took the mic and felt the need to emphasize Ramaswamy’s devotion to God. “I’ve been with Vivek at churches all over the state. There’s this band of Christian warriors who are following and supporting Vivek because he supports them,” Mandel stressed. The sentiment proved to be a bellwether for the audience Q&A. An answer Ramaswamy gave condemning sanctuary cities wasn’t enough for a hoarse-voiced attendee who repeatedly interrupted: “Damned immigrants are hurtin’ everybody! We gotta get all of ’em out of here!”

‘I felt blind panic.’ They opened their new $2,000 iPhone Duo—and it broke.

It took about five minutes for Jesse Dalton’s iPhone Duo dream to shift into nightmare mode. Last Friday, the Dallas-area resident unboxed Apple’s just-released $2,000 folding phone. He transferred cell service and apps from his old iPhone, then showed the novel device to his wife. He had only opened and closed the Duo four or five times when the hinge got stuck at a 45-degree angle. Dalton tried to pry it open and heard a loud pop. “I felt blind panic,” he says. Immediately, bright lines appeared on screen, one along the crease and another multicolor strip shooting across one side of the screen. The whole interior display also appeared “wavy,” he says.

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Shane Basinski’s new iPhone Duo broke after about six hours. “I was babying it, like fine china,” says the Melbourne, Australia, resident. “I put on a case right away.” While opening the phone to show it to a friend, he heard a “loud audible crack” and felt a small bump on the display where lines suddenly appeared. Both Dalton and Basinski were able to get replacements at their local Apple Stores. Basinski says opening and closing his replacement Duo feels much smoother. An spokesman said, “We are aware of an issue impacting the inner display on a small number of iPhone Duo units. If users experience issues with their iPhone Duo display, they should contact AppleCare for a replacement.” He didn’t specify how many units are affected, and says Apple isn’t recalling the product. While the larger concern for would-be iPhone Duo buyers has been getting their hands on one, some who succeeded have encountered this fatal flaw. And this isn’t Apple’s only hardware headache during its high season: Earlier this month, the company offered to replace some iPhone 18 Pro Max models which were unable to connect to AT&T’s network for calls, text and data. There are reports of similarly damaged Duos on social media, all with bright lines across the same parts of the screen. Are these units just lemons—or are they part of a systemic issue? “The consistency points to a possible sensitivity in the hinge tolerances or in how the display is supported during the fold,” says Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of worldwide devices at research firm IDC.

The Democrat dilemma: Border contradictions and the midterm elections

In Arizona a high-stakes battle for control of the House of Representatives is underway between Republican incumbent Juan Ciscomani, who won the seat in 2024, and Democrat JoAnna Mendoza. The battleground is House District 6 in the southeastern borderlands, which include a significant portion of Cochise County. In polls tabulated by The New York Times, updated on October 26, Mendoza holds a slim lead. This race matters because, to win a majority in the House, Democrats must net three districts, and to win the Senate, they need to gain four seats. In the House, 435 seats are up for election, including several in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands that merit attention. Many analysts anticipate a “blue wave” for the Democrats. In Arizona’s District 6, the candidates are at each other’s throats. Day and night, their campaign commercials appear on Arizona televisions. Ciscomani calls Mendoza, who identifies as bisexual, an extremist.

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Mendoza claims that Ciscomani’s platform is responsible for soaring prices and an unpopular war in Iran championed by the Trump administration. She criticizes Ciscomani for talking about his immigrant heritage without condemning the Trump administration’s enforcement operations. In this sense, the two candidates would seem to differ sharply on border and immigration enforcement issues. In reality, however, their policies are nearly identical. In Ciscomani’s campaign ads, he makes sure the public knows he’s “secured manpower at the border.” He says this while walking along a border road, the wall towering next to him as if he had built it with his own two hands. Mendoza’s campaign ads, meanwhile, ensure that voters don’t forget her military background. Talking to the Copper Courier, she said, “As a 20-year Marine who has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, national security is always going to be a top priority for me, protecting the homeland is a top priority for me.” She said “a strong border equals a strong country,” a slight variation on a Trump slogan: “If you don’t have borders, then you don’t have a country.” It might be surprising that the Democratic candidate whose opponent has accused her of wanting to “defund the police” would so strongly favor border control. In many ways, however, Mendoza follows a decades-long Democratic tradition of support for border and immigration enforcement, dating back to President Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address, when he boasted that his administration was moving “aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards.”

Copyright October 28, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved