August 23, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

As Flock battles public scrutiny, other police surveillance companies see an opening

Dozens of people crammed into a conference room for a gathering at a public library in Washington, D.C. The topic? Automated license plate readers, such as the ones sold by Flock Safety, a company facing major backlash from residents in communities across the country who find themselves deeply unsettled by privacy concerns. On Monday, members of DeFlock DC, a grassroots group dedicated to ending all contracts between the Metropolitan Police Department and Flock, explained to the group how these controversial cameras work and where they are located throughout the city. But as Loreal Hawk, a member of DeFlock DC, told the group gathered, automated license plate readers are neither new nor unique to Flock. Competitors such as Axon, Motorola Solutions and Verkada, offer similar products to law enforcement agencies, and have for years.

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Flock has been the target of much of the public's ire, but its rivals have largely avoided it. Now, some of those competitors are trying to cash in on Flock's fall from grace. More than 130,000 automated license-plate readers, or ALPR's, can be found in cities and towns across the country, according to the crowdsourced database DeFlock.org. The cameras take images of the backs of cars. Law enforcement has increasingly turned to this tool to help solve crime. "The Flock ALPR technology has captured the public's attention" and spurred a realization that "maybe we don't want to be surveilled all the time," said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University. But now, he said, Flock is the one that has "the target put on its back." Flock CEO Garrett Langley regularly posts on social media extolling the benefits of his company's tech, often noting that communities are safer because of it. Flock was credited with helping to track the suspect in last year's Brown University shooting, which killed two students and injured nine other people. License plate readers are only one piece of a growing police surveillance industry. Many law enforcement agencies use integrated tools such as facial recognition, gunshot detectors, predictive policing, drones and real-time crime centers that pull all this information into one central hub used by investigators. Ferguson, who is also the author of Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance, says in his view, those integrated systems raise far more red flags for privacy than license plate readers alone. Yet, they've drawn almost no large-scale public protest.

Greg Abbott asks DOJ to investigate Muslim airport accommodations

passengers at Texas’ biggest airports, requesting on Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate the matter. “Airports can no more offer Muslim-only bathroom spaces than they can maintain white-only bathrooms,” Abbott wrote to Justice officials. “Your office has authority to investigate and put a stop to these discriminatory practices.” Abbott threatened last week to pull state funding from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston over their ablution stations, saying they amounted to religious discrimination.

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The stations are used by Muslim passengers who perform ritual washings before their daily prayers. Abbott also asked the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration to review the facilities and “take appropriate corrective action.” DFW Airport responded by canceling a plan to install additional washing facilities. The plan had created an uproar among conservatives online and was seized by Abbott and other Republicans who have been campaigning against Sharia law, accusing Muslim groups of having ties to terrorists and entertaining right-wing conspiracies of an Islamic takeover. “Ten Commandments = good. Muslim foot washing rituals = bad. Next question,” U.S. House Rep. Brandon Gill of Flower Mound wrote on social media after Abbott’s initial letter. IAH Airport has had the stations in place since 2024. DFW Airport appears to have had them since 2019.

US and Canada fall deeper into a trade war with new tariffs

The United States and Canada, historic allies along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade war Saturday marked by angry recriminations and new tariffs that are expected to raise prices for products in both countries. Each side blamed the other for the collapse of negotiations in Washington late Friday, leading the U.S. to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods and Canada setting Sept. 8 as the start of its retaliatory penalties. President Donald Trump’s import taxes will hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors. Prime Minister Carney said Ottawa would respond with targeted tariff protection for industries exposed to the new U.S. duties, including some steel products. He also mentioned the dairy, appliance, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics sectors.

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No further talks were planned. Whatever the eventual outcome, a loss of trust seems one of the earliest casualties. Carney accused Washington of using “economic integration as a weapon” and said “its signature was written in pencil.” Resorting to the language of battle, he said his country had been “attacked” by the new American tariffs. “You’re at war when you get attacked,” he said, adding that Canada had the reserves, resilience and plan to respond. But to Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. was compelled to act after a year of retaliation by its longtime partner. “We’ve said enough, and so we’ve taken countermeasures. Our interest is in protecting American workers and protecting American supply chains,” the U.S. trade representative told “Fox & Friends Weekend.” Carney said Canada had been willing to drop remaining retaliatory tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos if the U.S. substantially lowered its own, and to encourage provinces to restore U.S. alcohol sales. But he said Washington’s final demands went too far. “They asked too much and offered too little,” Carney said.

Jeffries and Kushner meet privately as midterm attacks fly

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, met privately in recent weeks with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and top outside adviser, and discussed potential areas of common ground, according to five people with knowledge of the meeting. The rare engagement was held in a private space in New York City, offered up by a mutual friend of the two men, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting and a third who was briefed on it. They and others were granted anonymity to discuss a meeting about which they were not authorized to speak publicly. Through aides, neither man would comment on the session, which was described by one person with knowledge of it as a broad conversation on a range of topics. Still, its timing underscored that those around Mr. Trump were well aware of the likelihood of a Democratic-led House, and trying to foster as much of a working relationship as possible before any change.

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Mr. Jeffries is in line to be the speaker, were Democrats to win the majority. Democrats and the president have been savaging each other on the campaign trail with increasing fury as the midterm elections approach, and as Republicans are fighting to retain their thin House and Senate majorities. Mr. Trump has called Mr. Jeffries a “thug,” and at a May campaign event referred to him as a “low IQ” person who had inspired him to deride Democrats as the “Dumocrats.” Mr. Jeffries routinely suggests that Mr. Trump is not only extreme but corrupt, vowing that Democrats would “hold the crooks accountable” if they won control. The private get-together was described by one of the people as a catch-up for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Jeffries. The two men have stayed in touch since they worked together on a criminal justice bill midway through Mr. Trump’s first term. During the recent meeting, the pair discussed housing, immigration and the high cost of living as potential areas of common ground. Mr. Kushner suggested that Mr. Jeffries should meet with the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, two people with knowledge of the meeting said. The likelihood of any compromises between the White House and Democrats on those issues seems remote. Mr. Trump this year refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill in part because he said it was “Warren centric,” referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, its top Democratic champion. And he has repeatedly expressed openness to a deal with Democrats on immigration, only to back away from any such agreement. He successfully lobbied Republicans to abandon a bipartisan border security bill in 2024. White House officials and an aide to Mr. Kushner did not respond to messages seeking comment.

GOP lawmakers criticize Trump’s beef import plan amid blowback from ranchers

House and Senate Republicans on Friday criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend tariffs on ground beef imports, with lawmakers from agricultural states decrying the impact Trump’s decision will have on farmers. Nebraska’s GOP senators, Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, said in separate posts on X that Trump’s decision was unwise. “I’m extremely disappointed by this decision from the White House,” Fischer wrote. “We all want lower grocery prices, but as I’ve said for months, we cannot do it at the expense of American producers. Flooding the market with foreign beef hurts our livestock industry.” Ricketts wrote: “I appreciate the Administration’s work to lower grocery prices. Short term policy shifts do not equal long term solutions. Flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers.”

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The president announced Friday on Truth Social that “the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.” Trump did not say which companies that import beef had agreed to this commitment or what countries would supply the meat. Explaining his decision, the president pledged that this deal “will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again.” Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., also cited the hardships American cattle farmers would face as a result of the president’s decision and referred to conversations he’s had with Trump about this issue. “The President’s heart is in the right place on wanting lower prices for the American people, and beef prices have been impacted by the Mexican screwworm,” Sheehy wrote on X. “But the reality is this action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people. And most importantly, this will harm our ranching families who feed the nation.”

State Stories

Immigration enforcement adding to workforce shortages in Texas restaurants, report finds

A new report from the Texas Restaurant Association finds that immigration enforcement is contributing to ongoing workforce shortages facing restaurants across Texas. The association surveyed about 50 restaurant operators across the state for its latest report. According to the research, 36% of operators said they have lost employees because of immigration enforcement, while 28% said they are seeing fewer job applicants or fewer people accepting job offers. The report also found that some restaurants are seeing a decline in customer traffic because people are afraid to be out in public.

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Kelsey Erickson Streufert, Chief Public Affairs Officer for the Texas Restaurant Association, told KVUE that the findings show the issue is affecting a significant portion of the industry. “Those are pretty significant numbers,” Streufert said. “That tells us that a really sizable portion of Texas restaurants are feeling one or more impacts because of our immigration enforcement activities.” Streufert said about 20% of the restaurant workforce is foreign-born, many of whom have work authorization. “Immigrants are really critical at every stage of our food pipeline,” Streufert said. “Food costs, as I mentioned, have already gone up 35% since the COVID-19 pandemic. And we've got a study that shows they're going to go up an additional 14.5% if we stick to our current immigration policy playbook.” At L’Oca d’Oro in Austin, co-owner Adam Orman said the restaurant industry has faced significant challenges over the years. Orman has worked in the restaurant industry for nearly 30 years, including through the 2008 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. “I've seen restaurants deal with a lot of adversity,” Orman said. Now, he said immigration enforcement is creating another challenge for restaurants. “More than half of our employees have been impacted by immigration enforcement over the last year and a half,” Orman said.

‘A life well lived’: Funeral service for U.S. Rep. Kay Granger held in Fort Worth

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger’s legacy as a leader in North Texas and Washington was honored at a Saturday funeral service. The pews of First United Methodist Church of Fort Worth were filled with family, friends and former colleagues as Rev. Danny Tenney delivered a homily outlining the congresswoman’s life’s work — her impact as a teacher who would eventually rise in the ranks of Congress, breaking barriers along the way. “Let us celebrate a life well-lived,” Tenney said, leading guests in prayer. “Let us celebrate a life now lived in perpetual presence.” Granger died peacefully, surrounded by family members, on Aug. 2 following an “aggressive late battle with Alzheimer’s,” according to her obituary.

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Her casket sat at the front of the church, draped with an American flag. An organist played “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” during a processional at the start of the ceremony. Granger, remembered as tough but fair, joined Congress in 1997, representing Texas’ 12th Congressional District. She held the office for nearly three decades, climbing the ranks in Washington to eventually become the chairwoman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. She was the first Republican woman to hold the leadership role — adding to her accolades of serving as Fort Worth’s first female mayor and the first Republican woman to represent Texas in the U.S. House. Much of her time in Congress was marked by her focus on the defense industry and Fort Worth, including her work around the Central City Flood Control Project, often called the Panther Island project. Granger announced she wouldn’t seek re-election in November 2023. Near the end of her time in office, it was reported that she was experiencing health challenges.

Pressure increases for Texas to allow treated drilling waste into rivers and rangeland

Elected officials and industry leaders warn that Texas is at the “precipice” of running out of underground space to dispose of the nearly 1 billion gallons of wastewater that oil and gas production generates every day in the Permian Basin. The toxic wastewater, known as produced water, is usually injected underground into disposal wells. But these wells have increased underground pressure, triggering earthquakes and blowouts. Instead of underground injection, the oil industry is now seeking alternatives to treat and reuse produced water. Industry experts made clear last week, at a legislative hearing in Austin and a conference in Midland, that a lack of disposal space could soon constrain oil production in the Permian Basin.

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The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is developing two permitting programs for re-using treated produced water. The agency began accepting permit applications to discharge the treated wastewater into rivers in 2024 but has yet to issue any permits. The agency released a proposed rule earlier this year to allow treated produced water to be applied on land for irrigation or rangeland restoration. In public testimony last week, Commissioner Jim Wright of the Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas, emphasized the urgency of providing alternatives to disposal wells. “Continued delay could restrict oil and gas development across the Permian Basin,” he said during a Texas Senate hearing. “I respectfully urge TCEQ to finalize and issue workable permits as soon as possible.” While political pressure mounts on the TCEQ to issue permits, pilot projects using treated produced water are ongoing. Researchers are still gathering data to publish more peer-reviewed papers that will inform the permitting programs.

Travis County DA's Office announces new indictment against former Texas Lottery Commission, former executive director

The Travis County District Attorney's Office has announced a new indictment against the entity formerly known as the Texas Lottery Commission and its former executive director, Gary Grief, for abuse of official capacity. Back in April, Grief was indicted by a Travis County grand jury, but the charges were dropped three days later. However, shortly after that, a grand jury again indicted Grief and the commission, alleging intentional misuse government of resources, "including property, services, personnel, or assets in their custody." The initial indictment against Grief stated that the misuse involved the Lotto Texas drawing on April 22, 2023.

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The DA's office said, "The Texas Government Code required the Commission and the Executive Director to promote and ensure integrity, security, honesty, and fairness in the operation and administration of the lottery." The office added that the commission's alleged conduct was authorized by Grief. In February 2026, the Public Integrity & Complex Crimes Division of the DA’s office received the case from the Texas Department of Public Safety for review. On Friday, Aug. 21, the DA's office said the second April 2026 indictment wasn't public until Grief appeared in court on Aug. 21. Grief was never arrested and instead appeared in court on summons, so the indictment was effectively sealed. "Our office will hold accountable powerful actors who violate our state laws,” Travis County District Attorney José Garza said. "We thank the grand jury members who heard the evidence and the law and decided that their conduct was unlawful."

Texas juvenile prisons were on 'full lockdown' for days after officer's assault, state says

Youth prisons across Texas were on lockdown for several days beginning last week, according to an email sent to families and guardians of children in Texas Juvenile Justice Department custody. That was because of an “exceptionally brutal” assault by youth on a correctional staffer and another at a halfway house, TJJD Executive Director Shandra Carter told board members at their meeting Friday. “I want to be unequivocally clear: this is not punishment, and inherently it is not a violation of youth rights,” Carter told board members.

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Carter said an officer she referred to as “JCO Hernandez,” a woman, was hospitalized after an assault by a boy at the Gainesville State Juvenile Correctional Facility. The boy was sent to TJJD after violating probation for stealing his mother’s gun, Carter said. He had been at the facility for two weeks. Carter said the incident occurred on a Friday but didn’t specify when. There was nothing in his record that indicated he was a high risk or highly violent youth, Carter said. The boy was moved to a maximum security unit in Mart, near Waco, and will remain there. JCO Hernandez has been discharged from the hospital, Carter said. “It’s evident that the youth in TJJD, and in our county detention facilities, are becoming more violent and more aggressive,” said board chairman Manny Ramirez, who is also a Tarrant County commissioner. All five TJJD secure facilities are under “lockdown, shutdown and slowdown” procedures on an individual dorm basis, Carter said, with the “lockdown” phase being the most strict and the “slowdown” phase being the least strict.

Texas court reduces Alex Jones' payment to Sandy Hook families to $1.5 million

A Texas appeals court drastically reduced the amount of money Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones owes to victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. The Third Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the $50 million previously awarded to two Connecticut families targeted by Jones' Infowars platform was an overstep, reducing the amount owed to $1.5 million between the two parties. Jones consistently called the 2012 shooting that left 20 schoolchildren and six adults dead a hoax. He repeatedly called families "crisis actors" on his Infowars platform and Jones' supporters harassed Sandy Hook families for years. Jones later said a "form of psychosis" led him to push the narrative that the shooting was a ploy by the government to restrict gun rights.

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The families successfully sued Jones for defamation in 2022 and he filed for bankruptcy shortly after. A Connecticut judge also sided with families, ordering Jones pay $1.4 billion in damages. Friday's ruling in Texas does not impact the Connecticut case. The ruling ends a back-and-forth over legal damages in Texas courts for now. Jones has been repeatedly knocked by a bankruptcy court in Houston and a Travis County court for failing to provide evidence throughout the proceedings, and families successfully pleaded the Travis County judge award more than Texas' $750,000 cap on damages in 2023. The Third Court's ruling Friday said that plaintiffs didn't prove their damages should exceed the state's cap on damages, reducing the money owed to $750,000 to each family. Jones' assets — including his Infowars platform — have been tied up in his bankruptcy case for years. A court ordered Jones shut down Infowars in May. The satirical publication The Onion effectively took over the brand to parody Jones last month after years of trying to acquire the brand. Onion CEO Ben Collins told KUT's Austin Signal the goal of the takeover was to mock Jones' brand of brash misinformation and provide some money to Sandy Hook families.

Shut out of special education, this Texas family is fighting back

In March 2020, Courtney and Spencer Morey moved to Aledo, Texas, a rapidly expanding suburb of Fort Worth, because of the stellar reputation of its schools. But about three years later, when their daughter Annie, who has Down syndrome, was supposed to start preschool, she was denied the education that is guaranteed to her by law under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), even though no one from the school had ever met her. I met the Moreys on an unusually warm afternoon last spring. Dressed in white shorts, a sleeveless red sweater, and modest jewelry, Courtney waved me into her well-air-conditioned SUV, and she and I drove to pick up Annie from KinderFrogs, an early-intervention program for children with disabilities on the campus of nearby Texas Christian University. Annie has attended KinderFrogs ever since the district’s requirements for an assessment of her special-education needs—including an IQ test—prevented her from enrolling in its preschool program. When we reached the Texas Christian University campus, Courtney pulled up to KinderFrogs’ beige stone building, where children sat cross-legged outside on a shaded patio as teachers helped them gather their oversize backpacks.

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As Courtney tried to coax a few more bites of ice cream into Annie’s mouth before it turned to soup, she told me that Annie was born with a heart defect that required complicated surgery when she was 4 months old. She went into cardiac arrest during the surgery and was without oxygen for 52 minutes. Afterward, she spent nine days on the highest form of life support. “The doctors didn’t expect her to live,” Courtney told me, fear still catching in her throat. The memory of those traumatic early weeks of Annie’s life are why the family has brought a case against the Aledo Independent School District. “Annie didn’t fight so hard to live so some school district could limit her potential,” Courtney explained. Although they had moved to Aledo because of the good reputation of its schools, Courtney and Spencer were later warned about the district’s approach to special education. “We started to hear from other parents who had gone before us,” Courtney said. Most of them were unsuccessful at getting their children with disabilities into mainstream classrooms. “Inclusion was what we wanted for Annie,” Courtney said, meaning that they wanted their daughter to learn in a general-education setting rather than a segregated, special-education classroom. But the Moreys knew that first they would need to work with teachers and school administrators to write an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, for Annie. The IEP would be based on an evaluation of Annie’s development and provide a plan for the support and accommodation that she would need in order to learn alongside the other students in a mainstream classroom.

Five-year-old picked up by ICE in Austin, sent to Dilley detention center alongside dad

A five-year-old boy and his father were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Austin on Sunday, Aug. 16, according to a GoFundMe post from the family. “My son is only five years old; he was supposed to start kindergarten this week, and instead he is being held in an immigration detention center. He should be in school, playing soccer and at home with his family. I am asking ICE to release Liam and his father immediately so that our family can be together again,” Liam’s mother said in a statement posted by FWD.us.

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Patricia Resendiz said in the GoFundMe that she is the aunt of Liam. She wrote the boy, Liam Tadeo, is being held at the Dilley processing center alongside his dad. That facility is near San Antonio, and advocates have previously called for its closure. It’s the same location where another five-year-old boy, also named Liam (Conejo Ramos), was sent after he and his father were detained in Minnesota. That case sparked significant outcry nationwide. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson confirmed ICE arrested Victor Martinez Nieto, the father, during a traffic stop in Austin. He is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. DHS said ICE has arrested the man before, in late 2025 in Hutto. “He accepted voluntary departure and was removed from the country on February 12, 2026. Martinez Nieto illegally reentered the country at an unknown time and place after being removed,” the DHS spokesperson said.

Data centers want to be sustainable, panelists say. Transparency also in demand

University of Texas at Arlington computer science and engineering assistant professor Mohammad Atiqul Islam has observed misinformation spread about data centers, particularly about how the supercomputer hubs work and their technology. That’s why he wants to see more transparency from those representing the data center industry, including details on their impact on natural resources. “It is bringing a lot of economic activity” to Texas, Islam said of the industry. “We want to have that, but we have to think about what are the consequences of having data centers.”

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This was one of the points Islam joined other panelists in making at Thursday’s event, Informed Discussion: Data Centers in Fort Worth, hosted by the Fort Worth Report and moderated by local government editor Scott Nishimura. TCU Ralph Lowe Energy Institute executive director Nikki Morris and journalist and Concept Elemental founder Jennifer Warren joined Islam as panelists. They each answered questions about data center demand, the state’s economy, the electric grid, and pushback from residents and local governments as interest in the topic booms in North Texas. Texas houses 26 gigawatts of existing and under-construction data center power capacity, according to a report from Fort Worth Inc. Morris referred to this power demand as “in the queue” — projects pending connection to the state’s electric grid. She said those numbers are tentative. “Under half of those projects will ever be connected,” Morris said. “They’re not going to be connected tomorrow.” While a pause is needed to assess those demands, Morris reassured attendees that Texas is successful when it comes to providing substantial infrastructure, energy sources and land to meet those demands.

Hurricanes routinely threaten the Texas coast. But mass evacuations pose risks of their own

Maya Hart’s hand stung as she gripped her Dodge Ram’s stick shift. She winced in pain and slammed on the brakes — a routine the 45-year-old mother had mastered in the 24 hours since she and her family began driving north from Galveston Island. She looked in the rearview mirror to steal a glance at her daughters and grandson, who sat baking in the Texas heat in a car of their own. It was mid-September 2005 and Hurricane Rita was rapidly closing in on the Texas coast. A barrage of alarming news reports, paired with a dearth of directives from disaster management agencies, had created a wave of collective terror. Rita was already the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Gulf of Mexico, known for supercharging hurricanes with its warm, flat waters. Nobody wanted to suffer a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, which had ravaged the Gulf Coast just weeks before.

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“It was all the hype on television,” Hart, now 65, told Public Health Watch. “Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, this doomsday scenario. People were panicking, thinking of Katrina. The roads just swelled up.” Hart didn’t know it at the time, but she was caught in one of the largest — and arguably worst-executed — mass evacuations in American history. In a span of four days, more than 3.5 million Southeast Texas residents swarmed the roads, creating bumper-to-bumper traffic that spanned miles, clogging highways and city streets. Even inland communities north of Houston had begun evacuating in fear of a far-reaching storm, leaving residents from the most hurricane-vulnerable communities like Galveston stuck behind a growing tide of cars. As the hours passed, stalled drivers began to worry that the storm would hit them then and there, with nowhere to go and no shelter to seek. Others ran out of gas, food and water, leaving them exposed to the suffocating Texas elements. Tensions rose and some people began fighting. Many suffered — and even died — from heat-stroke and dehydration. A bus carrying residents of a nursing home caught fire and exploded, killing 24 of its elderly passengers. In total, 107 people died during Hurricane Rita’s evacuation, far more than the six Texans killed by the actual storm.

City Stories

What’s with the 6th Street billboard calling out Alamo Drafthouse?

Love it or hate it, the change in how to order food at Alamo Drafthouse movie theatres is a hot topic. Hot enough that celebrities, fans and film critics have addressed it, and a billboard went up near downtown Austin. Yes, a billboard. In mid-July, a billboard reading “MAKE DRAFTHOUSE GREAT AGAIN BAN SMARTPHONE ORDERING” went up on West Sixth Street near Winflo Drive.

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Earlier this year, Austin-based movie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse replaced its pen-and-paper food ordering system with a mobile-based system. The change drew criticism from staff and movie-goers alike, as well as celebrities and film critics. In January, before the change even rolled out, Austin Film Critics Association (AFCA) President Jon Partridge called it “a gross self-inflicted wound.” Former Austinite and “Lord of The Rings” star Elijah Wood posted about the system change on X in June, calling the food ordering experience “truly awful.” As much criticism as the move has drawn, some folks don’t mind the change and have even gone as far as defending it. During a KXAN editorial meeting discussing it, at least two people said they liked the mobile ordering system. One Reddit user posted in the Alamo Drafthouse SubReddit that the change “has not had a negative impact on the movie experience.” But the billboard doesn’t just call out Alamo Drafthouse. It rotates through three different messages at once, and the messages are changed out pretty frequently. The billboard rotates through different messages, each marked with the Howdy.com branding. But what is Howdy.com, and who’s deciding what messaging goes up?

Residents question if La Marque mayor should remain in office after indecent exposure allegations

La Marque Mayor Keith Bell was arrested Friday after the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office said he was seen exposing himself inside an office building in Angleton. The sheriff’s office said that around 9:30 a.m. on August 21, someone walked into the lobby area of the building and saw bell “with his genitalia out self-gratifying in an office chair.” Bell, 53, was booked into the Brazoria County Detention Center on an Incident Exposure charge. He bonded out Saturday, according to jail records. The arrest has prompted questions among some La Marque residents about whether Bell should remain in office. Bell also serves as the city’s emergency management director and is a local pastor.

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“It’s just crazy hearing about it,” La Marque resident Trina Jackson said. “I have kids. And I wouldn’t want my kids to see that or anybody else’s kids, but like I said, it’s unfortunate.” La Marque resident L’Tanya Ivory added, “We look up to you. You’re in this position and you do something like that. Do that at home.” The possibility of a recall election is one potential next step, according to KHOU 11 political analyst Brandon Rottinghaus. “The likely provision here is that the mayor is going to be subject to a recall election, because voters are likely pretty unhappy about this,” Rottinghaus said. Rottinghaus said the La Marque city charter allows any citizen to initiate a recall by gathering signatures on a petition. “What it says is that if 51 percent of voters from the prior election have certified that they think that mayor should be removed, then that process can move forward. That election will go to voters, and voters will have to decide if they think the mayor should be removed or not,” Rottinghaus said.

National Stories

Trump’s visa ban on 75 countries struck down by federal judge

The Trump administration must resume processing visas for people from 75 countries that the government deemed likely to become a “public charge,” a federal judge in New York ruled Friday, curbing one of the latest efforts to restrict legal immigration pathways to the United States. The halt to visa processing began in January, affecting dozens of countries in every corner of the globe. It was meant to limit visas for people the government said would probably rely on public benefits for their basic needs, long a complaint from President Donald Trump. But U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled that the policy “represents a direct abrogation” of consular officers’ exclusive, congressionally granted authority to determine if someone is eligible for a visa.

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Vargas also said the nationality-based visa ban, which applied to all nationals of the 75 countries no matter their income or economic status, ignores antidiscrimination protections in federal immigration law. Vargas’s order came in response to a lawsuit from two nonprofit groups and 11 individuals: six people whose family members’ visa applications had been rejected under the freeze, and another five who had filed work-related petitions to come to the United States. Amaha Kassa, executive director of African Communities Together, one of the groups that sued, welcomed the ruling against a policy that he said lacked solid evidence or rationale. “The decision on whether [someone should] receive a visa should be an individual decision,” he said. “It shouldn’t be based on profiling on stereotypes of certain countries.” The State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it was not clear if or how soon visa processing would resume. The January policy did not affect visas that had already been issued. Nor did it apply to nonimmigrant visas, such as those granted to students and tourists, but otherwise prevented consular officers from issuing visas on work or family grounds.

IndyCars to race through the capital for Freedom 250 event

Public roadways in Washington, DC, have been converted into an IndyCar speedway for an event hosted by Freedom 250, a nonprofit backed by President Donald Trump. It took an extensive, two-month process to erect safety barriers and viewing areas along the track, which drivers will navigate at speeds up to 180 miles per hour. The race is the latest in a series of marquee events celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. The events have dovetailed with Trump’s efforts to remake Washington, DC, through major construction projects at the White House and across the capital.

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Trump discloses 1,000 stock trades in June

President Trump’s investment accounts continued to actively trade individual stocks in June, revealing they made more than 1,000 transactions, according to his latest government disclosure. The White House said Saturday that the president has no role in the trading, which it said is handled by independent managers that use computer models that automatically replicate stock indexes. There were more than 550 purchases and more than 450 sales revealed in the latest filing released Saturday. Among the largest stock trades were purchases of at least $1 million worth of each Berkshire Hathaway, Visa and Mastercard. These are all companies that the Trump accounts have previously traded.

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Those purchases were made on June 18, the same day his accounts sold more than $1 million worth of Meta Platforms and Motorola. That was a day after the president signed an interim peace deal in Versailles, France, to end the conflict with Iran. Trump’s accounts have been active buyers and sellers of individual stocks he returned to the White House, raising concerns about the potential for conflicts of interest. He made big bets on tech stocks in the first quarter, though some of his biggest investments in June were financial institutions. Earlier this year, a 900-page filing revealed the accounts had made more than 21,000 trades last year. Trump made more than $2 billion in 2025, largely from his investments in crypto ventures. The investment accounts are in a revocable trust overseen by Donald Trump Jr. “Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in an email. “All investment decisions are made entirely by independent managers.”

Forget Mar-a-Lago Face. The real symbol of right-wing politics is the cinched waist.

On a warm evening in May, Lauren Sánchez Bezos walked the red carpet at New York’s legendary Met Gala wearing a sculpted, midnight-blue satin gown with a plunging neckline. The dress code for the party was “Fashion Is Art,” and Sánchez Bezos and her designer, Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry, drew inspiration from the museum’s famous John Singer Sargent portrait “Madame X,” a 19th-century painting of an American socialite posing in a sultry black gown. The painting had at one point sparked scandal for the form-fitting sexiness and bejeweled straps of its dress, and Sánchez Bezos suggested Roseberry take it up a notch: “Let’s do a waist,” she told him. Roseberry complied — snugly binding her abdomen in a corseted style that visibly laced up her back. The cinched waist looked familiar on Sánchez Bezos, harkening back to the many outfits she wore during her extravagant Venice nuptials in June 2025, including a tight-laced, corseted wedding gown that could have been pulled straight from the Victorian era in which the real Madame X resided.

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And she is hardly alone. “The tiny, tortured waist has returned as a bodily preoccupation,” The New York Times reported last fall, “ready to eclipse voluminous breasts and buttocks as areas of obsession, manipulation, distortion and angst.” But the waist is not simply a matter of fashion. It is, increasingly, a statement of values. We’ve reverted “to a sense of what a woman should wear and look like that is restrictive,” historian Stephanie Coontz, who has studied the prevalence of the hourglass shape in modern culture, told me. The idea is that clothing should “show off your body and your fertility and your sexuality more than anything else about your personality.” For powerful women on the right, the uniform has become severe, as exemplified by the nipped-waist dresses worn by Kimberly Guilfoyle and Ivanka, Lara and Melania Trump. This trend is, in fact, an old story. Fashion, like politics, is cyclical, and in periods of conservatism, the cinched waist tends to reign. It has previously been correlated not only with patriarchy and threats to women’s rights but also with rising authoritarianism. Since the start of the second Trump administration, there has been a lot of chatter about “Mar-a-Lago face” — the artificially enhanced lips, chins and cheeks common among MAGA women.

USPS publishes rule to restrict mail voting if courts lift injunctions

The U.S. Postal Service published a 95-page final rule late Friday that would stop delivering mail ballots in states that refuse to share voter registration data with the federal government, but the rule cannot take effect unless courts lift existing injunctions blocking it. The Nov. 3 midterm elections are now less than three months away. The rule, which will be formally published Aug. 26, requires states to provide USPS with the names and barcodes tied to their mail-in ballots for federal elections. Under the rule, USPS would review every ballot envelope for compliance and would not deliver ballots in states that do not comply.

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USPS said it is issuing the final rule now so it could take “immediate effect” if courts lift the injunctions currently blocking it. The agency said it "will not take actions to implement the rule specifically for the 2026 election" unless injunctions are lifted. The rule carries out a March 2026 executive order signed by President Donald Trump. Courts have largely blocked the order this summer. Last week, a federal judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction blocking USPS from implementing the order for the November midterms, finding the executive branch “has no authority to regulate elections” and that the order was causing “irreparable harm” to voters. A separate ruling has blocked the order in about two dozen states. The Supreme Court is reviewing the issue and will decide whether the Postal Service can put in place the new restrictions on mail-in voting. Trump signed the executive order after years of pushing unsubstantiated claims that mail-in voting enabled widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Anthropic market debut could break SpaceX IPO record: media

The market debut of artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, a chief rival to OpenAI, could break the record set by SpaceX, US media have reported. Elon Musk's space company went public in June at a value of $1.77 trillion and raised $85.7 billion in its blockbuster initial public offering, the largest in history. Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI models, "expects to match or beat the size" of SpaceX's deal, according to Bloomberg. The company's bankers have told potential investors it could seek to raise "more than $100 billion" in its IPO, which could put the company's value at $2 trillion, The New York Times reported Friday, citing two unnamed sources with knowledge of the talks.

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That would more than double the five-year-old company's previous valuation at $965 billion, reached in its last funding round in June. Only a handful of companies including Apple, Microsoft and chip maker Nvidia have surpassed the $2 trillion mark. Anthropic declined AFP's request for comment. After filing to go public in June, the company could reveal its public offering prospectus in the coming weeks, the Times reported, with shares possibly listed in the autumn. Anthropic could then beat OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, to market. That company is hoping to list its shares in 2027. Founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei and other former executives at OpenAI, Anthropic has positioned itself as a safety-focused alternative in the AI race. Claude Code, its coding assistant for developers, has become one of its most popular products, helping push its projected annual revenue to $47 billion.

Copyright August 23, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved