October 15, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Talarico announces record-breaking $64M haul

Texas Democrat James Talarico raised a staggering $64 million this summer — the largest third-quarter haul of any Senate candidate in history. The national Democratic darling raised more than $134.3 million since launching his campaign in September of 2025, according to figures shared first with POLITICO. More than 1.3 million donors contributed, the campaign said, as Democrats slowly reconcile themselves to their long-held but often fumbled dream of gaining a statewide perch in Texas. About 97% of those donations were of $100 or less. “Grassroots contributors from across Texas are coming together to end billionaire control over our politics and bring down costs for working families,” Talarico said in a statement shared first with POLITICO.

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The announcement is a bright spot in an otherwise rough few days, with Talarico reemerging on the trail after being out for more than a week with the flu. But Texas is an expensive state to run in, and Republicans are taking his campaign seriously. Talarico already had some $235 million spent against him as national Republicans scramble to hold the seat and boost Ken Paxton. Texas has emerged as a money pit for Republicans following a divisive GOP primary that saw Paxton, the controversial state attorney general, vanquish incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn, a favorite of the party establishment. Talarico faces a wall of GOP money in the final days of the race. “He’s fighting this battle basically alone while Elon Musk and the full weight of the GOP fundraising apparatus outspends him 2:1. This is still an uphill battle,” said a Democratic strategist doing work in Texas, granted anonymity to candidly discuss Talarico’s disadvantages. In his 2018 Texas Senate run, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) raised a record $38.1 million in the third quarter, and South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison eclipsed that amount with a $57 million third quarter in 2020.

Rising healthcare costs squeeze low-income and wealthy voters alike

For more than six months, Stefanie Wheat-Johnson’s jaw has throbbed in pain. The 44-year-old mother of three needs a root canal, but her health plan doesn’t include dental work. Paying cash at her local Texas clinic will cost $3,600 — money Wheat-Johnson and her husband Eric simply don’t have. The couple, who make $60,000 per year after taxes, weighed their options, including asking for payment extensions on their utilities and even delaying rent payments to get her care. In the Pacific Northwest, Ed Travalia has seen his family’s healthcare premiums skyrocket to nearly $32,000 per year for the most inexpensive, bare-bones Affordable Care Act plan. The 56-year-old was able to retire early and lives off his investments, but he still worries about how healthcare costs will look over the next several decades. Much of his time is spent looking for healthcare alternatives that won’t break the bank for his family of four and offer sufficient coverage. Nowadays, he also avoids doctor appointments if he can.

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Across the country, Americans spanning a multitude of income levels are navigating the increasing costs of healthcare. The issue, spurred by and contributing to a broader affordability crisis, is now at the forefront of this year’s election cycle. Healthcare costs outranked food, housing and utilities as the top economic concern alongside gas prices for voters in the midterm elections, according to a recent poll from health research group KFF. Healthcare was more important to voters than immigration, foreign policy, crime or AI in a separate Pew Research Center survey in October that polled about 4,000 people. Politicians are courting voters like Wheat-Johnson and Travalia, who despite having very different financial resources, are united in their frustration with a healthcare system that’s made getting care a challenge. About 30% of insured adults have skipped or put off medical care because of the cost, sometimes leading to worse health, according to a recent survey by KFF. Some didn’t buy the drugs they were prescribed because they were too expensive. “It’s affecting everyone,” said Drew Altman, KFF’s chief executive officer. “It’s not just low-income people, it’s not just the uninsured, it’s people with insurance who are struggling to pay their out-of-pocket healthcare bills.” In Waco, Texas, Wheat-Johnson is looking to the Democrats, who she often supports. She plans to vote for James Talarico for Senate, in a race that analysts see as a toss-up, with a recent Marist poll finding Talarico ahead by two percentage points. “We’ve been under a strong Republican government for a very long time, and we’ve seen what’s happened,” she said. “The healthcare system, it feels like it’s just being slowly dismantled, especially if you’re under a certain income level.” Just about any way you look at it, healthcare is getting more expensive. The government recently declined to renew some subsidies for ACA plans that help many Americans maintain healthcare coverage.

Inside Greg Abbott's push to turn Harris County red

Gov. Greg Abbott arrived at a Cypress barbecue joint last year and promised hundreds of cheering Republicans he would spend big to turn Harris County “dark red” this fall. It was an aggressive stance, considering Harris County hasn’t voted for a Republican for statewide office since Abbott’s first gubernatorial run in 2014. But the three-term incumbent has invested more than $25 million into the county, according to his campaign, to boost his own reelection bid and the campaigns of Republicans up and down the ticket. Abbott has recruited candidates to ensure a Republican is running for each of Harris County’s 24 state house seats – including districts the GOP hasn’t contested in more than a decade – hoping to turn out conservative voters in Democratic and Republican strongholds alike. Flipping Harris County would be ambitious in any year, but the challenge has only grown harder since Abbott staked his claim.

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President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are plummeting – his war with Iran has sent gas prices in Texas to nearly $4 per gallon, and his immigration crackdown has turned deadly on several occasions, including in Houston. The polls portend a difficult midterm for Republicans nationwide. And in Texas, Democrats like U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico and Abbott’s opponent, Gina Hinojosa, are running competitive campaigns and pushing for massive turnout in Harris County to put them over the top. A University of Houston poll released Tuesday shows Talarico with a 22-point lead over GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton in Harris County, and Hinojosa leading Abbott by 16 points here. But Abbott has given no indication that he regrets his investment, which makes up just a chunk of the $144 million his campaign has spent since the start of 2025. Ceding Texas’s largest county to the Democrats risks handing them the senate and gubernatorial seats, and Abbott’s campaign believes they’ll get their money’s worth by fighting for every vote. That Republicans won 10 of the 16 Harris County judicial races they contested in 2024, said Dave Carney, Abbott’s longtime political adviser, was proof that the largest county in Texas deserved more attention. “What would be the alternative? Give up on Harris County?” Carney said. “We're on the offense and we're going to deliver in Harris County.”

Talarico faces grilling from voters at town hall in tight Senate race

James Talarico, the Texas Democratic nominee for Senate, sat face to face with several undecided voters who grilled him on a slew of contentious issues including Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, abortion and foreign aid, during a CNN town hall on Wednesday evening. One voter, a devout small business owner, questioned the authenticity of Talarico’s faith, referencing a past remark where he described God as nonbinary. “When I said that, I was being provocative and I want to admit that and come clean about that,” Talarico responded. “What I was saying is actually not controversial theologically: the idea that we can’t define God using human categories. Not only did I say that, but the late Charlie Kirk said that – the late Pope Benedict said that.” Talarico added that he was receptive to feedback from Christians. Jodi Hunt, a self-described single-issue voter, probed Talarico’s pro-choice stance, asking: “How would you convince me as a Catholic voter that I can trust you would protect the most innocent among us?”

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Talarico described the Bible as being silent on abortion, to which Hunt countered quoting “Thou shalt not kill”. “We may have different, moral conclusions when it comes to this particular ethical question, but we actually have the same public policy goal,” Talarico said, framing abortion as a public health issue that could be solved with a reduction in unplanned pregnancies. During the night, Talarico cast himself as a moderate, who would put the needs of Texans over party allegiances. He railed against the ultra-wealthy, framing them as the common enemy. Talarico and the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, are locked in a competitive race to become Texas’s next US senator, with most recent polls showing Talarico with a narrow lead over Paxton. (Paxton declined an invitation to appear on CNN, host Erin Burnett said at the start of the town hall.) Though Democrats have not won a Senate seat in the state since the late 1980s, they’re hoping Talarico’s newcomer energy and popular appeal will persuade independents and Republicans fed up with Donald Trump’s second term – or turned off by Paxton’s many scandals. Over the weekend, Talarico became the subject of a disinformation campaign after he was absent from the campaign trail for more than a week.

State Stories

Voting rights groups sue Texas over failure to process more than 500,000 voter registrations

What happened? Voting rights groups are suing the state of Texas after more than 500,000 voter registration applications were submitted through the Texas Department of Public Safety’s web portal but never processed. The groups are asking a state district judge to enforce a 2021 settlement agreement that required Texas to provide a reliable way for people to register to vote through DPS’ online driver’s license portal. What’s the dispute? In 2016, Texas voters and voting rights groups sued the state over its lack of online voter registration. They argued it was a violation of the National Voter Registration Act that voters could not register online while updating their address, driver’s license, or state ID through DPS. A federal judge ruled in their favor in 2018, but an appeals court overturned the ruling in 2019 because the plaintiffs lacked standing.

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Voters and voting rights groups sued again in 2020. This time, a federal judge ordered Texas to offer voters the option to register to vote through DPS’ online portal when updating their driver’s license or state ID. In 2021, the state settled the lawsuit, agreeing to permanently maintain the process. Now, the new lawsuit argues that the recent failures of voter registration systems run by DPS and the Texas Secretary of State’s Office have prevented the state from meeting that obligation. DPS and the secretary of state’s office last month sent county election officials a backlog of hundreds of thousands of voter registration records and updates delayed by a software update error with the DPS web portal. There were at least 500,000 records dating back to October 2025. Election officials also said issues with the secretary of state’s voter registration system, known as TEAM, have made the backlog harder to resolve during a critical time. The lawsuit says some voters are still facing problems with their registrations ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.

More than 1 million customers impacted by CenterPoint Energy data breach, AG report filing shows

CenterPoint Energy had a data breach last month that affected more than one million customers, according to a filing with the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. On Wednesday, CenterPoint sent the following statement about the September data breach.

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"CenterPoint Energy continues to investigate the cybersecurity incident disclosed last month actively. Upon learning of the issue, CenterPoint activated our incident response procedures and engaged external cybersecurity, forensic, and legal advisors to assist with the investigation. We continue to work with third-party experts to assess the scope of affected customer data to identify which customers will be provided notifications in accordance with applicable legal requirements. CenterPoint's delivery of electric and gas services has not been impacted and remains operational and undisrupted." In September, CenterPoint said it was aware of an online post by a third party claiming to have obtained customer information. At the time, the company told ABC13 it was working to determine how many customers may have been affected. In a report to the state AG's office, CenterPoint said the data breach included customers' names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and driver's license numbers. The report also shows that CenterPoint has not yet contacted those customers.

San Antonio company races to build moon base out of lunar dirt

Astroport Space Technologies, a San Antonio space construction and materials company, has one ambitious goal for the end of this decade: be the first one to make a brick on the moon. Through its Artemis program, NASA is sending astronauts back to the moon, setting the foundation for an eventual lunar base and sustained human presence on the moon’s South Pole. The space agency is relying on private companies, universities and research institutes — including several in San Antonio — to work out important engineering challenges that come with construction on the moon. At Astroport, located at Port San Antonio, engineers are designing an autonomous rover, what they call Brickbot, capable of turning moon dirt into bricks that will form the foundations of rocket landing pads, human habitats and roads.

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The company’s broader goal, its founder and CEO Sam Ximenes said, is to make moon base construction a manufacturing and research niche for San Antonio as NASA expands its footprint across Texas — a “lunar surface supply chain” from San Antonio to the moon. “We want to make San Antonio known for lunar construction,” Ximenes said. With the help of private space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, NASA plans to land humans on the moon in 2028, something the space agency hasn’t done since the last Apollo mission in 1972. In April, NASA sent four astronauts on a flyby of the moon as part of the second Artemis mission. If successful, the Artemis missions will be the starting point for a sustained human presence and base on the moon’s South Pole by 2032. The longer term goal is establishing a framework for colonizing Mars around mid-century, what NASA refers to as its Moon-to-Mars initiative. There’s a long list of scientific and engineering challenges to overcome in order to make the moon base a reality, and several San Antonio organizations have been awarded NASA contracts to assist.

Rep. Trent Ashby: Legislature to review online purchasing

On a Fall Friday evening in Texas, the lights above a high school football field draw a whole town together. Neighbors catch up in the bleachers, volunteers work concession stands to support student clubs, and the drumline sets a rhythm that carries across the stadium. From the players and cheerleaders to the band and drill team, students showcase their talents and bring weeks of hard work to life. These nights remind us that the home team belongs to everyone, and the pride reaches well beyond the scoreboard. With football season in full swing, I encourage you to bring your family to a game and enjoy the music, excitement, and community atmosphere under the Friday night lights. In Austin, preparations for the 90th Legislative Session continue as committees hear from Texans and consider changes before we reconvene in January. On Sept. 30, the Senate Business and Commerce Committee examined online ticket sales and the implementation of the Texas Cyber Command.

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Anyone who has purchased tickets online knows the frustration of choosing seats at one price, only to discover additional charges at checkout. Families deserve to know the full cost before deciding whether an outing fits their budget. The committee reviewed ways to improve price transparency and protect buyers from unfair or deceptive practices, including in the resale market. The guiding principle should be straightforward: Texans ought to know what they are buying and what they will pay. A fair marketplace gives consumers clear information and holds sellers accountable for misleading practices. Protecting Texans online also means safeguarding the systems our communities depend on. Schools, hospitals, businesses, and county governments rely on technology to serve the public. A cyberattack can interrupt essential services, expose sensitive records, and create costly repairs —burdens that can be especially difficult for small businesses and rural communities. The committee also reviewed House Bill 150, which established the Texas Cyber Command during the 89th Legislature to help prevent and respond to cyber threats affecting governmental entities and critical infrastructure. As the agency takes on these responsibilities, we must ensure it delivers effective protection and uses taxpayer dollars wisely.

Leann Monk: I’m Tyler County’s treasurer. Here’s why the office still matters.

(Leann Monk is Tyler County treasurer.) Regarding “For Harris County Treasurer: Marc Cowart | Endorsement,” (Oct. 6): Your editorial raises legitimate concerns about the Harris County treasurer and whether the office is effectively serving taxpayers. While elected officials should absolutely be held accountable for their performance, suggesting that eliminating the office is the answer overlooks an important distinction between the actions of an individual and the value of the office itself. Your comparison of the county treasurer's office to a governmental "appendix" is shortsighted and dismisses the important responsibilities county treasurers perform across Texas.

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As Tyler County treasurer, I can tell you that Texas' 254 counties operate with vastly different needs, staffing and resources. Harris County may have the infrastructure to divide the treasurer's duties among other departments. Many smaller counties do not. More importantly, county treasurers are elected by the people they serve, providing a direct line of accountability for the management of public funds. Eliminating an elected office does not eliminate its responsibilities. It transfers those duties elsewhere in county government, potentially changing who is directly accountable to voters. That is a significant decision deserving thoughtful consideration, not a sweeping dismissal of an entire constitutional office. The Houston Chronicle has every right to scrutinize elected officials and question how taxpayer dollars are managed. But concerns about one officeholder should not diminish the important work of county treasurers across Texas or the voters' role in holding them accountable. Before suggesting the office has outlived its usefulness, I encourage the Houston Chronicle to look beyond Harris County and recognize that county government is not one-size-fits-all.

Property tax cuts aren’t supposed to affect Texas schools. Districts say it doesn’t always work

Texas legislators say they’ve successfully reduced property taxes by repeatedly raising homestead exemptions. In a recent state Senate committee meeting, former Harris County tax assessor-collector and now Houston-area Sen. Paul Bettencourt took credit for helping to cut billions in property taxes over several legislative sessions. “We’ve had so much legislation passed on property taxes, it would take an hour to just go name the major bills, much less the minor bills,” Bettencourt said. A decade ago, the state’s blanket homestead exemption — lowering the taxable value of a home — was $15,000 dollars. Today, it’s $140,000 — more if you’re a senior or have a disability. And while lawmakers say they’ve worked to reimburse school districts for lost property tax revenues, districts say they’re often left short. A study from Bettencourt’s office found nearly 1.5 million Texans now pay zero school property taxes.

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“In theory, anyway, we are held harmless,” said Johnny Hill, deputy superintendent for business operations at Plano ISD “How that works is we receive less taxes, but they make up that difference in additional state aid.” “Hold harmless” means the state will use some of its current surplus to reimburse school districts for property taxes they’ll lose out on because of rising homestead exemptions. But Hill said it doesn’t quite work out that way. “In reality, there is a gap that we miss out on,” he said. “I think this last bill there were $2 or $3 million dollars through the methodologies that we feel like were shorted in those calculations.” And it’s not just Plano ISD. About a dozen school districts were in the hole tens of millions of dollars because of hold-harmless bookkeeping errors, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told lawmakers last month during a House Ways and Means Committee meeting. The state, he said, mistakenly overpaid districts, and that money now had to be returned. Morath said he worries there are too many ‘hold harmless’ agreements in Texas now, mostly tied to property tax exemptions.

Brandon Herrera, Katy Padilla Stout take off gloves in pre-election debate

Tuesday night’s congressional debate between Republican Brandon Herrera and Democrat Katy Padilla Stout was largely devoid of the inflammatory rhetoric Herrera has become known for as a gun-loving YouTube personality. But that’s not to say it was without fireworks. Both candidates vying to represent Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, went on the attack early, even though both agreed that affordability, data centers and rural health care are priority issues for the border district. Herrera, a gun-rights YouTuber known as the “AK Guy,” played up generational ties to South Texas and said he would cut taxes for working families to deal with the affordability crisis. He also argued he better represents the district’s conservative values than his opponent.

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Padilla Stout, a child-welfare attorney, emphasized her four children and her past work as a teacher, saying she would help working families by pushing for Universal Pre-K and expanding Medicaid. She accused Herrera of being an out-of-touch millionaire. Even though Herrera described himself as the owner of a manufacturing business and never mentioned his YouTube channel during the debate, Padilla Stout blasted the Republican’s history of sharing edgy content, including offensive remarks about women’s bodies and a joke about veteran suicides that has dogged both of his U.S. House campaigns. Promoting hereallysaidit.com, a website her campaign set up to highlight Herrera’s past comments and online videos, she accused him of making light of Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School mass shooting, which took place in the district. “My opponent is unfit for this office for a multitude of reasons, but there’s one in particular,” Padilla Stout said. “He went to the Robb Elementary three months after the tragedy that occurred there and fired a gun at child-shaped targets. He said things like, ‘That’s a kill shot.'”

Jeremy Mazur: Texas water plans missed Corpus Christi’s crisis

(Jeremy Mazur is the director of infrastructure and natural resources policy at Texas 2036.) “Day Zero” sounds like something out of an apocalyptic horror film, but in truth, it’s the day a city runs out of water. This year, a major Texas city came uncomfortably close to it. Today marks The Value of Water Campaign’s annual Imagine a Day Without Water event. It’s an invitation to picture life on Day Zero and to recognize the value of reliable water not only to life, but to civilization as we know it. This was a very real problem facing Corpus Christi and other cities in Texas’ Coastal Bend earlier this year. Prolonged, severe drought conditions drained the region’s reservoirs below 8% of capacity. Timelines emerged projecting that Corpus Christi could declare a water emergency this year.

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Summertime floods have pushed this emergency back to 2028, The Texas Tribune reported, providing a reprieve, though not a solution. Had drought conditions persisted, the story would have been very different. Corpus Christi could have been the first major American city to run out of water. This catastrophe would have been felt beyond the city limits: diesel, jet fuel and gasoline production from refineries in the region would have been affected, sending ripple effects to gas pumps across Texas and the nation. The quiet premise of Texas’ water policy is to avoid Day Zero for a drought-prone and growing state. Nearly 30 years ago, the Legislature adopted a long-term water planning policy designed to identify shortages before communities run out of water. Peering into the future, this process is meant to recommend projects and strategies like desalination plants or reservoirs to ensure a steady supply. Both the state’s water plans, and the planning process, were put to the test when a real water crisis emerged in the Coastal Bend. Since the Legislature created this process, five state water plans have looked ahead to this decade. This raises a simple question: Did these water plans ever see this water crisis coming?

Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Nate Sheets for agriculture commissioner

Republican Nate Sheets has the experience and vision to be Texas' next commissioner of agriculture. Voters should choose him over Democrat Clayton Tucker. Sheets, 56, is founder of Nature Nate’s honey brand, formerly North Dallas Honey, which Sheets purchased in 1997. Sheets' career includes a little of everything. He served in the U.S. Navy for six years. He worked in advertising. He was a missionary. And he helped create the “I Am Second” evangelistic campaign. In 2013, he launched Bonton Honey in South Dallas with Bonton Farms leader Daron Babcock. Sheets told us that range of experience will help him serve an industry that produces everything from beef to hemp.

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His leadership experience won’t hurt either. More than 600 people work for the Texas Department of Agriculture, and the office interacts with hundreds more state employees and elected officials to make agriculture safe and profitable for Texas growers. Sheets' experience managing the largest honey brand in the U.S. should help him excel at the parts of the job that are about leadership and coalition-building. And Sheets will need to build coalitions to accomplish his agenda. He wants to improve Texans' health, particularly childhood nutrition and obesity trends. He wants to create platforms for local growers to sidestep big conglomerates that control much of our food processing and distribution. He wants to ensure that Texas institutions like schools and prisons source food from Texas producers. He wants fewer food recalls and fewer family farms closing in Texas. He admits that the solutions to many of those problems are beyond the scope of the ag commissioner, but he tells supporters that Texas ag needs a champion and he can deliver. “This takes vision,” Sheets told us, “and we’ve been vision-less for 12 years.”

Bobby Pulido to play his last-ever concert amid his run for Congress

Tejano singer Bobby Pulido is preparing to step away from music career as he campaigns for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, with his final concert scheduled for Saturday in South Texas. The Edinburg native will perform “La Última Desvelada” at 7 p.m. Oct. 17 at Bert Ogden Arena, according to his campaign. The show will cap a music career of more than three decades, during which Pulido won two Latin Grammy Awards. Pulido announced he would step away from performing to focus on politics. He is seeking to represent Texas’ 15th Congressional District, challenging Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz. The race is drawing attention as Democrats look to compete in a district redrawn by the Republican-led Texas Legislature ahead of the 2026 elections.

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Pulido's campaign has faced scrutiny over past social media posts, which included homophobic and racist slurs, and over a former bandmate who was convicted of a child sex offense. Multiple polls have shown Pulido and De La Cruz tied, prompting the Cook Political Report to rate the contest a "tossup" just weeks before midterm elections. Pulido’s final concert is scheduled less than three weeks before Election Day. Early voting in Texas runs Oct. 19-30, and Election Day is Nov. 3. Pulido has said the concert will be his last regardless of the election’s outcome.

Dallas Morning News Editorial: We recommend Nathan Johnson for Attorney General

There is at least one silver lining to Ken Paxton’s decision to run for the U.S. Senate: It opens the office of Texas attorney general to new management. The question is whether voters will elevate someone who can wash away the stench of the Paxton years. The race pits two state senators against each other: Democrat Nathan Johnson of Dallas and Republican Mayes Middleton of Galveston. Forget about Rs and Ds. This is a choice between the candidate who vows to get back to the meat-and-potatoes duties of this office and the candidate who has committed to more culture wars. We think most Texans want the former because they’re tired of the latter. Their votes should go to Johnson.

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Many of us forget about the core duties of the attorney general’s office because the dominant parties in Texas and other states have turned what should be an apolitical role protecting consumers and state agencies into a lawsuit cannon aimed at political enemies. Paxton waded into outright corruption. His top aides provided damning evidence that he had deployed his office to protect a political donor. Legal talent has fled the office or been forced out. If someone can restore honor to the attorney general’s office, it’s Johnson. He became a state senator in 2019, after flipping a red district in Dallas County. In the years since, we have commended him for his pragmatic style. In an interview with us, Johnson, 58, said he’s promising voters he won’t politicize the office. “I have pledged that I will sue Donald Trump if and when he breaks the law,” Johnson said. “Otherwise, I have better and more important things to do with the time and the resources of the attorney general’s office.”

Raw chicken, malnutrition and fear: The ‘nightmare’ of being pregnant in an ICE detention camp

The woman looked down at her lunch and, as hungry as she was, knew she couldn’t eat it. The chicken at the ICE immigrant camp was pink, cold and watery, the vegetables overcooked and falling apart. She placed a hand on her expanding belly and worried, as she did every day — would she be able to nourish her baby inside? Maria had been in ICE detention in Texas for six months. When agents arrested her in October 2025 at a check-in in Dallas, she said she told them she was pregnant, but they handcuffed her anyway and bussed her to the Bluebonnet Detention Center north of Abilene. For months, she tried to do what she could for her baby, but her options were limited. The camp’s commissary sold mostly junk food. Her prenatal vitamins were refilled inconsistently, she said. She felt her stress and anxiety wearing on her body, spiking her blood pressure, but could not stop worrying about what would happen when she went into labor — no one would tell her the plan for her baby’s arrival.

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As weeks turned into months, Maria’s anxiety grew along with her belly. Maria, who asked to be identified only by her first name and speaks Spanish, said through an interpreter that her life became “like a nightmare” at Bluebonnet. Her stress and malnutrition were evident in her medical records. The documents show she developed high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and gained only half the amount of weight that a pregnant person should by their third trimester. In April, at eight months pregnant, ICE abruptly released Maria without explanation. She returned to her home in North Texas, but her ordeal has not ended. “Since I came into the country, I did everything right, and I haven’t done anything wrong. I did everything right. That is what has bothered me most,” Maria said. “And that it wasn’t fair that my son — and, well, all of my family and my son and my baby — that we all went through what we have gone through, because it has been a great suffering for everyone.” Maria’s attorney, Paul Zoltan, said ICE should never have detained her, not only because of her pregnancy, but because she was simply doing what she was supposed to in reporting to the ICE office. “They detained her because the agency no longer prioritizes the removal of ‘the worst of the worst,’” said Zoltan, who has represented Maria since 2023. Maria’s story is but one example of the troubling conditions for pregnant people in ICE custody amid President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign, according to experts, attorneys and immigrant advocacy groups.

National Stories

White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia didn’t pass bar exam

When President Trump announced that Katie Zacharia would serve as the next White House press secretary, he referred to her as an attorney. But she hasn’t passed the bar exam in the U.S. Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from law school at Pepperdine University in 2011, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, but she didn’t pass. She took the exam around the time she was planning a wedding and preparing to move to China with her future husband, the person said. She moved to Beijing that summer to work as an associate on the international practice team at Zhong Lun Law Firm, a prominent law firm in China. Zacharia was later advised by lawyers that she could provide legal analysis based on her law degree and international transaction experience, the person said.

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Her legal credentials have come under scrutiny after she didn’t appear in searches for licensed attorneys in California, Texas or Washington, D.C., under her married or maiden name. Judd Legum, a progressive political activist and journalist, raised questions about Zacharia’s standing as an attorney in his Popular Information newsletter. When asked by a reporter on Tuesday in which state she passed the bar exam, Zacharia said, “When I moved to China,” without elaborating. In a statement this week, Zacharia said, “I practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.” “Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “She is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary.” A White House official said Zacharia wasn’t hired by the president to work on legal matters. A person familiar with Zacharia’s employment at the Zhong Lun Law Firm said she was one of four international associates who drafted multimillion-dollar agreements for cross-border transactions and focused on client communication for American and multinational corporations doing business in China.

Surprise Democratic donor blitzes Senate races in Republican-leaning states with ads

A surprise Democratic donor has emerged as a financier of a late effort to help the party deliver upsets in four red-state Senate seats. Steve Pajcic, a lawyer and philanthropist in Florida, and his children are spending at least $7 million for a blitz of ads in Florida, Kansas, Mississippi and South Carolina, a quartet of Senate seats in traditionally Republican territory. Mr. Pajcic, a co-founder of the personal-injury law firm Pajcic & Pajcic, is behind a new group called New Deal for All that was formed in the beginning of October and started to air ads Tuesday in Kansas and South Carolina. The group will soon expand to Florida, where it plans to spend most of its money, and Mississippi. The injection of even a modest amount of cash shows the optimism among Democrats about winning Senate seats that were thought beyond their reach as recently as last year.

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“Democrats have been way too timid and modest in their expectations in the past,” Mr. Pajcic, 80, told The New York Times. “There’s a real chance for something big happening with this election, and I’m kind of old. So why not see if you can if there’s anything you can do to help?” Mr. Pajcic has never donated at this scale before. He contributed $147,000 to a Democratic Senate super PAC in 2024, but he said he did not want to simply hand over $7 million — the most he has ever donated, he said — to outside groups. “If I’m going to put this much into it, I want to make sure it’s effective and doing what I want it to do,” he said. He said that he named his super PAC New Deal for All because he wanted to see Democrats win as many as 56 Senate seats and usher in a historic movement “comparable to the changes we had with the New Deal.” National Democrats in recent weeks have begun shifting more of their resources to these red states, particularly Kansas. But they are still spending relatively little in Florida — one of the country’s most expensive states to campaign in — as well as South Carolina and Mississippi. “We were looking for places where we might make a difference with a little bit of money with some creative and informative ads,” Mr. Pajcic said.

CFTC staff were told to retract analysis of suspicious oil trades

When President Donald Trump backed away from threats to strike Iranian power plants on March 23, it sparked a frenzy of buying and selling across oil, equities and other markets. Traders had grown accustomed to prices lurching wildly on developments in the Middle East. But this time, some bettors had timed it perfectly. Billions of dollars’ worth of contracts predicting oil would fall and the S&P 500 would rise were placed about 15 minutes before the president announced his U-turn in a post on Truth Social, fueling widespread speculation about whether someone had an unfair advantage. Responsibility for looking into the incident fell to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal derivatives regulator whose remit — and profile — has soared with the advent of cryptocurrencies and prediction markets. There, a team of career forensic analysts embarked on their usual task of pulling together data on the day’s winners and losers.

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Based on the timing of the trading they observed and who was behind it, the analysts, from the agency’s Division of Market Oversight, filed a referral to the Division of Enforcement, which would decide whether to launch a full-scale investigation into potential insider trading, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing government deliberations. Representatives from the two divisions also met and talked through how best to collaborate, people familiar with the matter said. What happened next, they said, was highly unusual: Mel Gunewardena, a senior adviser to the agency’s Trump-appointed chairman, Michael Selig, told a supervisor within the market oversight team to retract the referral. The team didn’t know how to proceed, the people said. As a practical matter, it was unclear how they might even carry out such an action since it had rarely, if ever, been done before. It marked a break with precedent in another way as well. Career experts had always been entrusted with the specialized but prosaic task of gathering reams of data and writing preliminary reports that the attorneys in enforcement would then decide whether to pursue. Now, according to the people, an adviser to political appointee Selig was intervening to scuttle the referral and oversee the gathering of data himself. Gunewardena, a Wall Street veteran who spent time at the CFTC during the first Trump administration, had rejoined the agency a few weeks before as head of the Office of International Affairs and Senior Markets Advisor to the chairman, and it wasn’t clear what role he had in the evidence-gathering process.

How do you land a journalism job right now? Nearly 60 journalists told us

It’s been a brutal year for many in the journalism profession, with newsrooms across the nation announcing layoffs and many talented reporters, editors, designers and photographers sharing heartbreaking stories of financial struggle or career malaise in social media posts. And yet the cheerful “some personal news” messages announcing a new job continue on X and LinkedIn, signaling that even in an era of industry contraction, some journalists are landing dream jobs, changing newsrooms and getting raises. To learn more about what’s happening in the job market, I reached out to journalists who moved into a new newsroom in 2026. Of the nearly 60 journalists who responded to my informal survey, more than half said their salaries and benefits improved with their new positions. But their good fortunes were hard fought, they said.

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Nearly every journalist willing to share their experience said it was “very hard” or “hard” to secure a journalism job right now. No one described the hiring process as “easy.” “Keep your support system. My mentors are everything to me,” said one journalist. “They will lend you the strength, positivity, and determination you will need to keep applying.” Another journalist said it had been a difficult year. “I’ve been ghosted after plenty of rounds, turned down from jobs after the recruiter told me to apply, and flat-out rejected from jobs that don’t even pay a living wage,” that person said. This was not a scientific survey, and the respondents were not randomly selected. I assembled a list of recent hires based on social media and corporate announcements and reached out to them directly via email, LinkedIn or X. I allowed journalists to share their experiences anonymously in a Google Form because I wanted them to be candid and not worry about potential retribution in an industry where everyone seems to know everyone. For many, the path to a new job started with a message from a recruiter. Some hustled for more than a year before receiving an official offer letter.

Nasty email fight between 2 top Trump appointees spills into the open

Two top appointees of President Donald Trump, including the deputy secretary of State, have been embroiled in a monthslong fight that include accusations of leaks to the media and “bizarre” threats of defamation — all over emails that at times included more than a dozen administration officials. The conflict centers on Paolo Zampolli, a personal friend of Trump’s and a special envoy at the State Department, and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, according to the messages obtained by POLITICO. The emails stretch over almost a year and show Zampolli and Landau disagreeing over chains of command as Landau admonishes Zampolli to stick to his remit on cultural issues — but devolve into bitter arguments and unproven allegations. Two top appointees of President Donald Trump, including the deputy secretary of State, have been embroiled in a monthslong fight that include accusations of leaks to the media and “bizarre” threats of defamation — all over emails that at times included more than a dozen administration officials. The conflict centers on Paolo Zampolli, a personal friend of Trump’s and a special envoy at the State Department, and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, according to the messages obtained by POLITICO. The emails stretch over almost a year and show Zampolli and Landau disagreeing over chains of command as Landau admonishes Zampolli to stick to his remit on cultural issues — but devolve into bitter arguments and unproven allegations. The messages stand out not just for the personal vitriol but because upward of 16 administration officials were included at times on the email chains, with the dispute at least once spilling over into communications with a top foreign official, opening a window into delicate State Department back-channeling to allies about apparent violations of diplomatic protocol.

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“I am hereby ordering you–once again–to immediately stop all work on ANY issues not directly tied to cultural diplomacy, including every one of the issues you mentioned in your recent emails,” Landau wrote to Zampolli in one email from Nov. 14, 2025. “You have no authority to engage in ANY issues of foreign policy outside of cultural diplomacy, including all the issues you have named,” he wrote. The next day, Landau emailed Zampolli, along with 15 other administration colleagues on the email chain, alleging that Zampolli had “no intention of staying in the cultural diplomacy lane that you were assigned and accepted, and that you fully intend to continue undertaking unauthorized and possibly unlawful ventures in commercial and economic matters.” Landau didn’t exactly specify what he meant but said in another email to Zampolli that working on issues outside the scope of his legal authority “and in contravention of my express directives, may expose you to disciplinary action, dismissal, and legal liability.” Zampolli denied any such claims of potential illegality to POLITICO. Landau wrote that Zampolli was “committed to a path of insubordination and hereby so inform the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House.” It was unclear if he did, in fact, notify the White House.

Data centers: Why developers are prioritizing community outreach over classic tech PR

The race to build data centers has created a problem for tech company developers: convincing communities to welcome them. In addition to investing in massive community benefits packages — Amazon Web Services last week pledged to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to communities around its U.S. data centers — tech companies are beefing up their comms operations. They are hiring PR execs at base salaries well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, bringing in PR firms and advisers and forming alliances to help make their case. The buildout is expected to be enormous. McKinsey estimates global spending on data centers could reach $7 trillion by 2030, driven in large part by the explosive growth of AI.

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“We have seen a surge in data center PR and public affairs activity dating to the fall of last year, and it continues to accelerate,” says Jim David, partner at Prosek Partners and head of the independent firm’s DC office. “PR is increasingly on the radar of smaller-scale developers as well as the hyperscalers, who obviously have a keen understanding at this point of the importance of comms around their projects, but it’s fair to say the level of pushback has come as a surprise to many in the industry and beyond.” He says it is the sheer scale of the coverage, how quickly it grew and how long it stayed in the news that caught the industry off guard. “We talk about how fast the news cycle is today and how stories wash out so quickly, but this one has captured the national and local spotlight in a way few issues have,” David notes. There are many reasons data centers are commanding so much more attention than other energy infrastructure projects. They raise familiar questions about energy and water consumption, land use and job creation, but their connection to the AI boom gives them a much broader public profile. Unlike many large-scale infrastructure projects, data centers are tied to a technology that millions of people already use, have opinions about and increasingly see as consequential to their lives — often in a negative way.

Ilhan Omar investigation aims to build case for stripping her citizenship

The Trump administration’s investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) is aimed at building a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe. The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father, some of the people familiar with the probe said. Nur Omar Mohamed brought his daughter and other family members to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya in 1995. Omar’s Washington, D.C., home was searched by federal agents early Monday, three weeks before the midterm election, in which she is seeking-re-election. The Justice Department said Homeland Security agents executed a court-authorized search, but it declined to elaborate.

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Items taken from Omar’s home included her cellphone, notebooks, personal computers and her passport, some of the people said. Only the congresswoman and her husband were home at the time of the search. Authorities have also issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of Omar’s relatives, seeking testimony before a Minnesota grand jury, a person familiar with those proceedings said. Among other things, the investigation is looking at her family’s immigration paperwork, the person said. In a Wall Street Journal interview earlier this year, Omar said she never committed immigration fraud. “President Trump would love to eliminate one of the most effective progressive voices in Congress. There is no basis for this,” her office said in a statement Wednesday. The Trump administration has made an unprecedented effort to denaturalize U.S. citizens by proving they lied in the process of obtaining citizenship, filing dozens of lawsuits. Omar’s case, if it proceeds, could become the highest-profile—and most controversial—part of that effort. The president has long called for Omar’s deportation, using her as a rallying point for the GOP’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim wings.

Podcaster Hillary Clinton: ‘I’m a walking Rorschach test’

If you haven’t already heard, Hillary Clinton is hosting a new pop-up podcast with Kara Swisher focused on the looming midterms. In the debut episode of High Stakes, the pair discusses everything from the year’s biggest Senate races to Pete Davidson keeping his Hillary tattoo to the weirdness of new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia. Below are some highlights. So how did this new series come about? Swisher explained part of the origin story. “We were at a dinner, and you were so sharp and fresh on a lot of the things, and one of the tropes about you is that people don’t really know you,” she said.

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"I feel like I’m a walking Rorschach test, and people see what they want to see in me, what they’re capable of seeing in me, or what is familiar to them. I understand that my presence, my arrival on the public scene in such a dramatic way when Bill was elected president, then when I ran for the Senate — first of all, I was the First Lady, I wore pants, and I tried to reform health care. It was very confusing to people, and I get that, but I made the choices that I thought were right for me and that I was trying to help serve my country and all the rest of it. When I ran for the Senate, it was like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to think about her.” Trying to create a kind of 360-degree holistic picture of me has been very hard, because I came into people’s consciousness at a time when tropes and caricatures and stereotypes about women in politics and First Ladies and all of that were pretty accepted," Clinton said. Swisher asked, "And you took a lot of the arrows, right? There was actually a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” as it turns out." Clinton replied: "You know what? I feel like I have been in the forefront of so many of the changes in women’s lives, about women’s choices, who we are, what kind of opportunities and rights we’re supposed to have — and that’s controversial. I don’t fault anybody for trying to figure out. I get it, I get it, but I’ve been on the scene long enough, and I have a long enough public record that people can judge me and—" "You don’t seem to care anymore, also," Swisher said.

Copyright October 15, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved