October 1, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Suspect arrested in ‘credible’ plot to attack Texas Capitol on Thursday, DPS says

The Texas Department of Public Safety found a “credible” threat to attack the Capitol on Thursday, the agency confirmed in an email. DPS said the threat was initiated by Benny Caldera Jr., 40, and several co-conspirators who had planned to carry out a "violent attack" on Oct. 1. DPS said they worked with the FBI and local law enforcement to arrest Caldera at his residence in Converse, a city just outside San Antonio, around 3 a.m. Wednesday.

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Caldera was transported to the Bexar County Jail and charged with felony terroristic threat against a public servant, DPS said. A $75,000 bond has been set for Caldera, according to county documents. Caldera has been charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon in Bexar County in 2023 and 2024, according to county documents. The news was first shared in a memo to members of the Texas Senate. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt said there is "speculation that there are other conspirators," but no one else has been charged. “They don't know anything about motive, who, what, when, where, yet,” Bettencourt said. “Literally, just within a few hours of the tip they had the potential perpetrator in custody.” DPS said its investigation into the threat is ongoing and that it will continue to have an increased presence at the Capitol.

Senate reaches bipartisan deal on permitting bill for energy projects

Senators from both parties said Wednesday they have reached a deal on legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects that now face yearslong delays, as lawmakers seek to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy. The bill, proponents argue, would cut down the arduous timeline for getting big energy projects off the ground at a time when demand is rising because of mushrooming data centers for artificial intelligence. The bill would ensure AI data centers are forced to pay for the increased electricity they use and would mark a significant change to a landmark environmental law that critics say slows the process of building energy projects. Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the bill “a major step toward making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects” of all types while maintaining important environmental protections.

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“The American people sent us here to do big things. This is a big thing. It’s monumental and it’s legacy-setting,” Capito said at a news conference at the Capitol where she was joined by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The four senators lead the chamber’s energy and environment panels. Heinrich said the bill “will mean more energy on the grid, more good-paying jobs, and lower electricity costs for families and businesses. And as data centers drive demand for more power, it will ensure they pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require — not leave that bill to American families.” A vote on the bill won’t happen until after the midterm elections — reflecting the fraught political reality as elections loom that could change partisan control of both chambers. But the bill represents a rare instance of bipartisanship over the country’s energy policy as lawmakers from both parties agree on the need to build new energy projects of all types. Lee, who chairs the energy committee, said he is confident the bill will be approved in a lame-duck session in November, noting its bipartisan support and encouragement from business and environmental groups.

Another day of pounding rain raises flooding fears in Texas

At a news conference this week, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said officials had positioned crews and equipment across the state ahead of moisture sent into the region from Hurricane Polo, which made landfall twice this week on Mexico’s western coast — about 500 miles from the parts of Texas expected to be hit by storms. Governor Abbott cautioned that heavy rain could lead to flooding and rising rivers. “We’ll do everything possible so that we can make it through this very heavy rain event with no loss of life,” he said. At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, where official weather records are taken, no rain fell from July 16 to Sept. 20, a 67-day stretch that tied for the second-longest period without measurable precipitation, according to the National Weather Service. More than 43 percent of Dallas County is experiencing an exceptional drought, the highest category of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

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The weather on Wednesday is a classic collision of colliding air masses colliding across the Central Plains, setting off storms and outbursts of rain in the afternoons and evenings. Those outbursts can also bring tornadoes, hail and damaging winds, a pattern that also occurs in late spring but occurs again as summer transitions to fall. What makes this system more potent is an influx of moisture from the remnants of Polo, which will drift into Texas on Wednesday. Over the next two days, the heaviest rainfall is expected in a band stretching across Central Texas from the Mexican border and into Oklahoma. The storms will begin in the west and slowly shift east. Downpours could drop up to five inches of rain in a short period, creating a severe risk of flash flooding. When water hits the dry soil, it will run off as if the ground were concrete rather than soaking in, heightening the threat of floods. Emergency managers were also concerned about the lingering rainfall over southeastern Colorado, where the ground was saturated from days of rain and could fuel more flooding.

Texas public schools could lose $227M from voucher exodus, estimate shows

Rural Texas school districts are poised to lose millions of dollars in funding this year after thousands of students reported using vouchers to leave for private or home schools, according to a new analysis of state data. Across the state, at least 28,200 public school students took a voucher, an estimated loss of at least $227 million in state funding for their public districts. Large urban-area school districts have seen the most students leave. But the effect could be felt more acutely among hundreds of smaller school districts, where losing a handful of students can have a dramatic effect on the budget. The analysis by the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency and Every Texan, two advocacy groups that oppose vouchers, provides the first glimpse into the program’s effect on public schools. About 70% of the state’s more than 1,000 school districts lost at least one student to a voucher as of Aug. 10, according to the organizations, which received the data from the Comptroller through a public information request. The districts range from Marathon ISD, which educates just 46 students at a single school in a remote patch of southwest Texas, to Houston ISD, with nearly 170,000 students and 270 schools.

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Because schools are funded based on student attendance, each student who leaves is a financial hit. The organizations conservatively estimated the average loss at $8,200 each, but that figure will vary depending on the student and where they live. Miles ISD, with about 500 students 20 minutes outside of San Angelo, estimates each departure costs the district about $15,000 in funding. “If you lose four kids to it, you lose a teacher’s salary,” Superintendent Ty Stevens said. But most districts still have no idea how many students have left. That’s because the Texas Comptroller won’t release exact numbers for any district with fewer than 30 students participating in the voucher program, citing privacy concerns. More than 540 districts fall into that category. “I have a feeling that we probably have fewer than 10 students receiving it,” said Brandon Enos, superintendent of Gunter ISD, with about 1,250 students 30 minutes north of Plano. “I have no way of knowing it.” Concerns about vouchers’ impact in rural Texas, where public schools are often the largest employer, were a big reason why 21 GOP lawmakers banded with Democrats to block Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher plan in 2023.

State Stories

Texas oil, gas production increases slightly in third quarter as Iran War uncertainty remains

Texas oil and gas companies reported increased activity in the third quarter but remain uncertain about the impacts of the Iran War, according to the latest Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Energy Survey. The survey included responses from 83 exploration and production firms, as well as 42 oilfield services firms across Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico. Oil prices have skyrocketed during the United States' and Israel's war with Iran, due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to infrastructure. On average, survey respondents said they expect the West Texas Intermediate crude oil price to be about $88 per barrel at the end of the year. However, Federal Reserve senior business economist Kunal Patel said many executives remain uncertain about the outlook for oil and gas firms next year.

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"I think a lot of that has to do with the price volatility. It's kind of unclear where prices will be," he said during a press briefing Wednesday. In survey comments, oil and gas executives echoed this uncertainty. "The Iranian conflict continues to be the wild card in the industry," a survey respondent from an exploration and production firm wrote. "Its movement correlates with commodity prices." "My oil price crystal ball broke when the administration first hit Iran," wrote a respondent from an oil and gas support services firm. The Federal Reserve Bank also asked oil and gas leaders when they expect Persian Gulf crude oil exports to return to normal. The highest share of respondents said they expect a return to normalcy in the second quarter of 2026. The survey saw modest increases in indexes measuring employment and hours worked. However, costs also remained elevated. "There is some limitation unless firms are willing to pay an incredibly higher price, whether it's goods or for services," Patel said. "That's kind of capping that increase in activity." The survey also asked companies about oilfield theft. Nearly half of firms in the Permian Basin said they had experienced oilfield theft. Most exploration and production executives whose companies were impacted by theft said that theft levels remained about the same over the past 12 months. The majority of these companies said the financial impacts of this theft were low.

Houston area man wins Fourth Amendment case against Bexar sheriff

A Houston area man, who won his Fourth Amendment case against the Bexar County sheriff's office, spoke to reporters on Tuesday at the federal courthouse, urging others to use his court victory to battle for their constitutional rights too. Alek Schott, who was traveling for his oil industry job as president of RMS Controls, said there was no probable cause for his I-35 stop in March 2022 by local sheriff's deputy Joel Babb or the search or interrogation that followed. He and his attorneys, Christie Hebert and Jeff Rowes of the Texas Office of the Institute for Justice, said roadside federal surveillance cameras, Schott's ordinary trip in a black Ford 250 pickup to near the border and back, an anonymous tip, a K-9 alert from a manipulated dog, and an invented traffic violation all set the scene for the unlawful stop.

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The attorney's said Babb told Schott he was stopped because he allowed his pickup to drift across a fog line on the road, but evidence at the trial showed he never did so. The local jury, who heard the case in Federal Judge Orlando Garcia's court this week, agreed the stop was unconstitutional. "I was returning from a work trip. Just driving back, not realizing there was an entire surveillance network for license plate readers, just marking people to be targeted on their journeys home," he said. "So, I was just traveling back home, trying to get back to my family and my kids and spent 76 minutes detained by the side of the road for doing nothing wrong." Nothing unlawful was found in Schott's truck either, his attorneys said. He said he sued for only $76, one dollar for each minute he was detained, because he wanted his case to be about justice and not monetary reward. Hebert said the case was not about tough law enforcement using high tech to fight crime, but rather unconstitutional "dragnet" style tactics.

Exxon, others defeat consumer lawsuit over plastic recycling claims

Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other major chemical producers persuaded a US judge on Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit accusing them of misleading ?the public for years about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and ?driving up costs for consumers. Here are the details: US District Judge Toby Crouse, in a ruling on Tuesday, said the plaintiffs — eight individuals and the board of a local county commission — failed to ?show that they have so-called standing to sue in the first place Crouse ?said the lawsuit, despite its length, “is light on facts connecting the ?defendants’ conduct and plaintiffs’ injuries.” The judge said the complaint “fails to allege that ?any specific plaintiff saw any specific ad or marketing material produced by any specific ?defendant”

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In their 2024 lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that Exxon, Chevron and other companies duped consumers into believing that plastic is recyclable, leading them to buy more plastic products. The plaintiffs proposed ?a class of millions of purchasers of plastic products nationwide In court papers, the ?plaintiffs said the companies “engaged in a coordinated, fraudulent marketing scheme to portray plastics as broadly and ?readily ?recyclable, knowing that the vast majority of consumer plastics cannot be and are not recycled” Crouse said other manufacturers and retailers that are not parties to the case are responsible for setting prices. He also found the “breadth” of some of the plaintiffs’ ?claims undermined their viability “The ?plaintiffs argue that ?the price of every single plastic product that they have ever purchased was artificially inflated because of the defendants’ conduct,” ?the judge wrote. “That bald conclusion fails to account for the ?obvious intervening ?events and market conditions” Exxon, Chevron and a lead attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment The companies in their bid for dismissal said the ?plaintiffs were ?seeking to impose liability on them “based on an ?innocuous and socially beneficial activity: the promotion of recycling”

$430M data center planned for this North Texas tech hub, as Abbott halts permits

A $430 million data center is planned for Fort Worth’s AllianceTexas development. In late September, state regulatory paperwork was filed for a data center at 14700 Heritage Parkway — on the west side of Interstate 35W in Denton County. The paperwork describes a data center building with 156,500 square feet of administrative area and four data halls with a 42,000 square foot screened-in equipment yard. The owner of the land is AIL Investment LP. The company Colovore is listed on the paperwork. California-based Colovore has data centers in several states, including one in Austin and two in Dallas-Fort Worth. According to its website, Colovore “designs and operates dedicated AI infrastructure in strategic metro markets” and describes its Texas data centers as “part of a growing Texas footprint.” The website also shows that the company is pre-leasing space at the Fort Worth site. Colovore did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesperson for the city of Fort Worth said in September that the company was not under consideration for economic incentives. Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing permits to data centers until an audit of the state’s electric grid is complete.

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GOP redistricting in Texas and Florida may not turn out as Trump hoped

Eric Flores, a former federal prosecutor and Army National Guard infantry captain, was one of the Republican Party’s prized recruits in this year’s midterm elections. With help from a redrawn congressional map in Texas, he seemed primed to dislodge longtime Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in a region that swung toward Donald Trump in the last presidential election. Now Flores is one of several candidates in tougher races than originally envisioned as Republican-run states heeded Trump’s call to begin an unusual round of redistricting to help retain control of the U.S. House. Republicans hoped to pick up as many as nine seats combined in Texas and Florida. But even though the districts were redrawn to make them easier to win for Republicans, the party is weighed down by the public’s dissatisfaction with Trump, the economy, the war with Iran that has raised gas prices, and the president’s deportation agenda.

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Republicans won 25 of Texas’ 38 seats in the U.S. House as Trump returned to the White House two years ago. Partially using that election as a baseline, the redrawn map was intended to help Republicans win up to 30 seats. Key to this plan was the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily Latino region on the southern tip of Texas that had shifted toward Trump. Republicans in Washington acknowledge that inflation, Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran have made their path harder. Latino voters’ discontent with Trump’s immigration agenda further scrambles their efforts. Republicans are also facing the potential loss of an incumbent who represents a redrawn district. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who is running for a third term, has a strong challenge from musician Bobby Pulido. A Latin Grammy winner whose top song on Spotify has 619 million streams, Pulido does not face the usual first-time candidates’ challenge of establishing name ID. Republicans already had 20 out of Florida’s 28 House seats, and they wanted to boost that to 24 with their new congressional map. But much like in Texas, their plan was based on 2024 results, when voters, including many Latinos, were dissatisfied with Biden on the economy and immigration. Republicans went after Rep. Kathy Castor in metro Tampa and Rep. Darren Soto in the Orlando area, while putting South Florida Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz into the same district.

Robert Wilonsky: Sad shrug of a farewell for downtown Dallas’ Neiman Marcus

They wanted to be interviewed for this piece, the current employees of the downtown Neiman Marcus who will become former employees of the downtown Neiman Marcus once it closes forever this very Wednesday. Lifers, veterans and relative newcomers alike, each with warm memories of lives spent toiling with pride, satisfaction and joy at what was once, and for a long time, known only as The Store. But on Monday, during my of-late daily wanderings through the store built for Dallas by Herbert Marcus Sr., his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband Al Neiman and sold to the rest of the world by Stanley Marcus, I was told time and again that I was to pocket my notepad and put away my pen. Employees, no matter how glowing their reminiscences, were instructed by corporate — New York-based Exemplar Luxury Group — not to offer their fond-farewells to media. Nor is there a scheduled valediction — no last toasts nor send-off speeches to the family that brought Dallas to the world and the world to Dallas. Just the clicking of locks and lights.

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Another reminder, as though one were needed, that Neiman Marcus — “The Proud Dallas Store,” as this newspaper’s great columnist Frank X. Tolbert once called it — is no longer a Dallas store. Nor a store come Wednesday. Nor, it would seem, very proud, either. “Personally, I am very sad,” said photographer Allison V. Smith, granddaughter of Stanley Marcus and co-editor and co-publisher, with her mother Jerrie, of Reflection of a Man: The Photographs of Stanley Marcus. “It’s a loss to the history of our lives. I am very grateful that my mom, Uncle Dick and Aunt Wendy are not here to witness this.” In recent weeks I’ve watched The Store, spared the executioner’s dispatch in May 2025, slowly fill with the grieving lined up over the still-open casket. One employee I’ve come to know told me the sadness has become overwhelming, that there would be tears enough come Wednesday. The worker had hoped for a wake — a joyful celebration of what had been, not the ceaseless lamentations for what would no longer be. “I just can’t make myself go,” said the woman tasked with overseeing 300 boxes overfilled with Marcus’ documents and correspondence and a room filled with his library. “People say it’s really depressing.” Yes, I said. Mourners at a funeral. “That’s what I’ve heard,” Peterson said. “I am just afraid for the building.” The structure, at least its exterior, isn’t imperiled: At the beginning of August, the Landmark Commission initiated the long-overdue process of rendering the downtown flagship a local monument worthy of legal protections. (It’s already on the National Register of Historic Places.) The commission did so with the blessings of Andrew Woodworth, Exemplar’s chief legal counsel, and local zoning and land use attorney Tommy Mann. Mann mentioned that Saks Global — by which Exemplar was known before emerging at July’s end from Chapter 11 bankruptcy — had previously gone to City Hall to ask for tax increment financing funds, worked with historic architects and presented designs for a reimagined Neiman’s to city officials. But Saks’ bankruptcy sidelined those plans.

Downtown Dallas Inc.’s plan to save downtown

Downtown Dallas has had an eventful year. In January, the largest tenant, AT&T, announced its move to Plano. Months later, Comerica pulled all employees out of its eponymous tower. Today, the flagship, 100-plus-year-old Neiman Marcus will close its doors for good. And, of course, the debate over City Hall‘s future rages on. That’s why Downtown Dallas Inc. CEO Jennifer Scripps said it’s “no accident that we are releasing [a new] plan as we are going into the fourth quarter of what has been a consequential 2026.” The morning of Sept. 30, Scripps alongside Chris Beynon of urban design firm MIG addressed hundreds of leaders and stakeholders to unveil downtown’s plan to prioritize mixed-use development with a goal of doubling downtown’s resident population in the next decade—downtown’s current population is about 16,000.

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The plan has five pillars: rejuvenating the economy, boosting residential growth, cultivating distinct districts, increasing mobility through trails and transit-oriented development, and investing in the ground-level experience for pedestrians. “We believe all of those flat parking lots are not fully contributing need to be turned into other assets,” Scripps told D CEO. “Once you have more people, … you think about all the things you like to do in your neighborhood. … By having a mixed-use development, we are a healthier downtown.” Scripps also noted that although downtown is less than 1.5 percent of Dallas’ geographical area, it’s nearly 5 percent of the city’s tax base. Beynon said that the key to boosting the economy downtown is converting vacant offices—as Chicago and Philadelphia have done—and creating experiences for pedestrian like “streateries.” Repurposing the AT&T Discovery District is also top of mind. “We have to make sure that we safeguard this great jewel in downtown and reinvent its next stage,” Beynon said. Given the district’s prime geography, the priority will be bringing new tenants, maintaining management and operations, and ensuring it remains the heart of the city.

Inside downballot Dems’ effort to flip Texas’ key county battleground

On an August day in Fort Worth, when the temperature will reach the high 90s before noon, Tiffany Burks is counting door hangers. Volunteers have gathered at Portico Coffee in the Northside neighborhood, and Burks, the Democratic candidate for Tarrant County district attorney, is reviewing logistics before a block walk. Her choice of venue was strategic: In the 1930s, banks, insurance companies, and housing authorities “redlined” Fort Worth, denying loans to people in neighborhoods like Northside based on race. The practice helped entrench racial and economic segregation in Fort Worth, with effects that continue to shape where people live and if they can accumulate wealth. As Burks sees it, the redlining also helped create long-term “disillusionment” in government. “I go and I talk to people and I ask them, ‘Who is your DA?’ And they have no idea,” said Burks. That’s why she and her volunteers are “going into areas where people don’t normally go, to try to let them know that we really do care about Northside.”

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While 40 percent of Tarrant County’s population is white, 92 percent of the death sentences sought by prosecutors since 2012 have been against people of color. The decision on which charges to file and when to pursue the death penalty lies with the DA’s office. Burks, who worked in that office as a prosecutor from 1999 to 2021, previously ran for the top job in 2022 against Republican candidate Phil Sorrells, who beat her by about 6 points. She says Sorrells is part of an “old boys network” that doesn’t work for the people they’re elected to represent. Burks wants to create a new diversion unit within the office that connects people struggling with addiction and homelessness to services rather than repeatedly jailing them. The DA hopeful frequently campaigns with fellow Democrats Nydia Cárdenas and Alisa Simmons, who are both running for spots on the commissioners court. Similar to Burks, Cárdenas meets many people who don’t know that the governing body handles county finances, elections, budgets, and taxes. Voters will ask her, “Oh, is that the one where the guy kicks everybody out and he’s rude?’” She tells them, “Yes, that’s the one.” County Judge Tim O’Hare—the Republican leader of the court and the guy who “kicks everybody out”—has spent years making it more difficult for people to vote.

TSMC mulls multibillion-dollar Texas campus for more AI chips

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is weighing a new campus in Texas that would add tens of billions of dollars in new investment to the company’s multiyear expansion into chipmaking in the US. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. is looking into further overseas facilities to help handle unrelenting demand for artificial intelligence hardware, according to people familiar with its plans. TSMC has already committed to spending $265 billion at an expansive site in Arizona, where it’s developing several fabrication plants, and the envisioned Texas investment would also involve multiple fabs, one of the people said. Business from North America accounts for more than 75% of the chipmaker’s wafer revenue so far this year, and AI silicon designers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. bring in huge orders for some of its most advanced technology. The AI boom has strained TSMC’s existing capacity and the company’s had to roughly double its planned equipment purchases over the past year in order to keep up with demand, Deputy Co-Chief Operating Officer Cliff Hou said last month.

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If TSMC ultimately decides to invest in Texas, the project would encompass multiple chipmaking plants, each of which would cost at least $20 billion, according to one of the people. The plans remain at an early stage, the people cautioned, asking not to be identified as the details aren’t public. The potential Texas investment is contingent on US legislators extending an advanced-manufacturing tax credit that is set to expire at the end of this year, one of the people said. That tax credit was a cornerstone of former president Joe Biden’s 2022 Chips Act, and it was increased to 35% and extended last year. While an extension has yet to find a viable path to passage this year, Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, and Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, have said they are committed to it. Texas already has a significant semiconductor foundation, including an extensive chip production complex that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. has established. Elon Musk is also developing his Terafab project, which will supply chips for his massive business empire, in the Lone Star state. TSMC executives including Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei have consistently said their international expansion will be in service of customer demand and dependent on cooperation and support from local governments. Beside its Arizona campus, Taiwan’s most valuable company is also building plants in Japan’s Kumamoto, in partnership with Sony Group Corp., as well as a nascent project in Saxony, Germany.

Talarico and Paxton go toe-to-toe on data centers

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico said Wednesday that data center construction in Texas should not be allowed to contribute to the state's ongoing affordability crisis. State Rep. Talarico, who is running against Republican Ken Paxton to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate, discussed data centers while participating in a Q&A dialogue with the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). USHBC President Javier Palomarez moderated the discussion and asked Talarico how he would approach data center construction if elected. Talarico said he believes data centers are "exacerbating the affordability crisis."

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"If a data center company can't meet the demands of the community where they seek to operate, if they can't pay for their own energy, if they can't pay for their own water and recycle their water, if they can't get the consent and the input of the police who live in these communities, then they shouldn't be built," Talarico said. Paxton participated in his own Q&A session with the USHBC earlier this week. In his own discussion, Paxton called for balancing border security with immigration reform to help labor-starved business sectors. Over the past year, artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to power them have become increasingly hot-button issues, particularly as the November midterm election approaches. Talarico argued data centers should not be strong-arming communities and should instead be working with the communities in which they hope to become a part of. "I'm someone who believes in local control, and I've fought for it in the state legislature, and I don't want to make economic development decisions for our communities," he said. "What I want to ensure is that it is a two-way street, because right now a lot of these giant data center companies are running over local communities, and these giant data centers are popping up in people's backyards and there's no input." During the discussion on data centers, Talarico criticized Paxton, Texas’ current attorney general, for allegedly taking campaign donations from some of the companies behind data centers. "I'll just say, I haven't taken a dime from data center companies," he said. "My opponent in this race has taken nearly half a million dollars from data center companies, and so what we need is a senator who's going to be independent, who is going to fight for Texans in these negotiations and ensure that these negotiations are fair."

Sarah Stogner: Oil theft steals billions.Texas leaders must listen to locals

(Sarah Stogner is the Republican district attorney of Texas’ 143rd Judicial District, which includes the town of Pecos and a swath of West Texas.) It was easy to miss amid all the electioneering across the state, but the Legislature recently held a hearing on a crucial, timely issue: oilfield theft. It’s a scourge eating away at Texans’ livelihoods. Unfortunately, many of us leading the fight were not heard from. Earlier this year, a Bloomberg headline read, “Oil Theft Is Burning a Billion-Dollar Hole in the West Texas Economy.” Such theft includes the illegal extraction and resale of crude oil, as well as the stealing of valuable oilfield equipment, tools and materials from production sites. Bloomberg cited a report that the losses could amount to $2 billion a year. Now, the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers says the annual impact could be even bigger, at $4.3 billion.

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In West Texas, where I serve as district attorney of the 143rd Judicial District, my office has announced two large-scale, successful crackdowns in recent months. In each case, we coordinated with the Department of Public Safety’s Organized Oilfield Theft Prevention Unit and other state, local and federal agencies. Alleged perpetrators were arrested and face charges. At a news conference, I explained that for far too long, many people in the know have looked the other way. Some have called oilfield theft a “cost of doing business.” But they’re wrong. Oil thieves leave a trail of victims. When they steal energy supplies for sale on the black market, undercutting legal rates, energy companies lose money. The vast majority are small businesses. Employees lose jobs. Local governments lose tax revenue, which creates budget shortfalls for schools, hospitals and other vital services. Meanwhile, criminal syndicates grow. There's nothing partisan about fighting this. It should be something Democrats and Republicans work together on. But many just jump on the bandwagon and make promises during election seasons in hopes of appealing to those of us who follow this issue. It’s a lot of talk, and not enough follow-through.

Austin ICE shooting: Bond denied for man shot by ICE agent; he's now in federal criminal custody

The man who was shot by an ICE agent in North Austin appeared in federal court on Wednesday. 28-year-old Wilber Garces Perez was charged with assaulting, resisting, interfering with, and impeding a federal officer. On Wednesday, his bond was denied, meaning he'll now be in federal criminal custody, instead of federal immigration custody. The hearing on Wednesday focused on his alleged assault on an officer before shots rang out.

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At the United States Courthouse in Downtown Austin, he attended a federal criminal bail hearing. For several hours, the court reviewed evidence from the moments leading up to the shooting, as well as questioning a Department of Homeland Security investigator, with a heavy focus on the initial traffic stop conducted by ICE agents. Federal prosecutors allege that on Sept. 20, federal agents stopped Perez after confirming he had a final order of removal. The officers said that Perez gave them his driver's license but ignored repeated requests to put his vehicle in park and step out. The federal complaint says the officers gave him additional instructions in Spanish before he abruptly closed his windows and drove away. It was during this time that prosecutors claim the driver's side mirror struck one of the officers in the torso. Much of Wednesday afternoon was spent reviewing the body camera footage of one of the ICE agents who conducted the traffic stop. The angle was from the agent assisting in the stop, not the federal officer who was allegedly struck by the vehicle. It was announced in court that footage of the incident would not be made available to the public.

National Stories

Flock's CEO claims its tech "solved" 1 million crimes last year. The company's own methodology undercuts that claim

Faced with recent questions about the privacy costs of its technology, the surveillance camera startup Flock Safety and its CEO have deployed a tidy statistic to tout its benefits. "Last year we helped clear just over a million crimes in America," Flock CEO Garrett Langley said in a March 2026 podcast interview. "Over a million cases were solved last year with this technology," Langley told the auto industry publication The Drive, "and the level of abuse is incredibly low relative to that." "Today, Flock technology assists your officers in more than one million crimes solved annually," Langley said in a blog post last month announcing new privacy updates. But a CBS News review finds the claim that Flock helped solve a million crimes in 2025 is not supported by the available evidence.

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In a statement for this report, Flock spokesman Paris Lewbel cast the statistic in a different framing. In addition to case clearances, he said, it includes "investigative leads, cross-jurisdictional assistance, searches conducted during active investigations, and other Flock deployments." "The most precise way to describe our 2025 national estimate is that Flock technology supported approximately 1 million investigations and incidents," Lewbel said. The company did not answer whether Langley had been imprecise in claiming Flock solved one million crimes in 2025, and did not provide CBS News with underlying data supporting that claim. Flock first explained the source of its claims of one million crimes solved in a May 2026 blog post announcing the results of its 2025 Impact Census, in which about 700 law enforcement agencies that use Flock's system participated. Flock says agencies that formally tracked outcomes supplied raw counts, while others provided percentage estimates. The blog post also said the study found 20% of cleared cases in customer jurisdictions in 2025 were assisted by Flock technology.

Rural hospital administrators: The Rural Health Transformation Program isn’t helping, yet

The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) was supposed to help rural hospitals deal with cuts to federal funding as a result of H.R. 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” but so far, those in rural health care say they’re not seeing any results. While some said it’s too early to see results, others said the program isn’t helping what really needs to be helped — rural hospitals. Kevin Stansbury, the CEO of Lincoln Health Community Hospital in Hugo, Colorado, said the negative impact of H.R. 1 has been real. Hugo, he said, is a town of about 800 people, but the hospital serves an area roughly the size of the state of Connecticut. “We operate on a negative margin typically, and we’re able to stay open because of tax support, and because of other income streams like the 340B program, and the supplemental payments that we get through the Medicaid program that are being targeted by H.R. 1,” Stansbury said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.

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“It worries us a lot. The projections we have from the Colorado Hospital Association say that when the cuts are complete, we could lose about $1.5 million in revenue to our already non-existent bottom line, which will really stress us tremendously. We’re trying to figure out ways to mitigate that the best we can.” The Rural Health Transformation Program was one of the compromises out of that legislation designed to offset budget cuts to Medicaid. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law will cut federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years and will increase the number of uninsured people by 10 million in 2034. To offset those cuts, Congress created the RTHP, which would invest $50 billion into rural health over the next five years. Administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the program allocates money to states to use on rural health initiatives. In December of last year, CMS determined how much each state would receive. Awards ranged from $147 million to $281 million, with the average being $200 million. States then began the process of allocating that money to different programs and initiatives within their borders. The money was intended to “expand access to care in rural communities, strengthen the rural health workforce, modernize rural facilities and technology, and support innovative models that bring high-quality, dependable care closer to home,” according to the CMS. “More than 60 million Americans living in rural areas have the right to equal access to quality care,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said last year. “This historic investment puts local hospitals, clinics, and health workers in control of their communities’ healthcare.” The one thing it didn’t do, however, was allocate money directly to rural hospitals.

OpenAI’s Greg Brockman backs out of second $25 million donation to A.I. Super PAC

The OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, pulled out of a $25 million donation that they had planned to give to a leading artificial intelligence advocacy group, a sign of how sensitive the company has become to the growing backlash to A.I. The group, a super PAC called Leading the Future, said last summer and repeated in later comments that the Brockmans planned to donate a total of $50 million, with the first $25 million in 2025 and a second $25 million this year. That second commitment has since wilted away. Mr. Brockman’s retrenchment was never announced publicly. But inside OpenAI, the 38-year-old executive shared in June that he had no plans to make additional donations beyond the first $25 million.

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“I also want to say that I feel terrible about the fact that LTF keeps reflecting on the company and become so much of a distraction for people here,” Mr. Brockman wrote that month in a Slack message obtained by The New York Times. “I’ve been thinking hard about how to turn the ship on it. We’ve donated $25m so far, and have no plans to donate more at this time.” OpenAI has drawn fire for a host of safety concerns, and the A.I. industry’s lobbying effort has attracted scrutiny in recent months. Some in the industry view Leading the Future as too dismissive of calls for A.I. safety, just as OpenAI tries to stake out a middle ground of sorts. Several ideological allies of the super PAC have also had issues with the group’s at-times aggressive tactics against opponents, including a high-profile effort against a New York congressional candidate. In June, 10 days before Mr. Brockman’s internal message, OpenAI published an unusual blog post distancing itself from the super PAC. “OpenAI does not direct the activities of LTF, or have visibility into their operations,” the San Francisco company wrote. It added in bold, “We want to be explicit: No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company’s views.”

Eric Schmitt was warned about the Jack Smith texts. He used them anyway.

As they prepared for the testimony of former special counsel Jack Smith, Republican staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee gave Sen. Eric Schmitt a warning: The texts they had obtained from the Justice Department — which Schmitt suggested was proof Smith had colluded with a Georgia state prosecutor — were “unvetted,” according to a source with direct knowledge of the conversation. Schmitt used the texts anyway. What followed was a congressional spectacle that unraveled almost as quickly as it began. Schmitt insisted Smith attended an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February 2024, suggesting he may have conspired in some way with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, only to watch the allegation implode within minutes as C-SPAN cameras broadcast the exchange to the world.

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According to a source familiar with the committee process and two sources familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice shared materials with GOP staff on the Judiciary Committee ahead of Smith’s hearing. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s team assembled a memo about key information for the hearing, according to one source. But Grassley’s staff did not include the texts in the memo, that source added. Grassley also did not share the texts with Democratic senators before the hearing, according to a Democratic staffer and another source briefed by committee staff. That omission deepened Democratic suspicion that congressional Republicans and the Trump administration were working together to undermine or trap Smith, one of the people said. Schmitt’s staff came to the Republican staff asking for material showing a connection between Smith’s investigation — which probed efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election through bogus claims of fraud — and Willis’ probe into whether Trump sought to manipulate the Georgia election results, according to a source with direct knowledge. The source said such back-and-forths over potential material is common practice ahead of congressional hearings.

Trump buys ads on CNN, MS NOW as he fights to bar them from the White House

The Trump administration bought advertising space on both CNN and MS NOW, running taxpayer-funded ads promoting President Donald Trump, even as the president barred both cable networks from the White House grounds — bans that have been paused by a federal judge. The White House in recent days began running three advertisements that it calls “public service announcements,” which Democrats and former ethics officials have claimed could violate government ethics laws because of their political nature. For two of the three advertisements in the campaign, the administration has bought ad space on CNN and MS NOW in local markets, according to data from AdImpact. “The Country He Loves,” a 30-second ad, in which Trump promises to “defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America,” has aired on MS NOW for viewers in Los Angeles. It has also aired on CNN in Los Angeles and Albany, New York.

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“Final Battle,” a 30-second ad with a similar tone, shows Trump railing against the “deep state,” “warmongers” and “globalists.” The ad has aired for viewers of MS NOW in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington. It also aired once on CNN in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has spent at least $2.87 million running the three ads, according to a modeled estimate from AdImpact. The company said that because the ad is classified as a PSA rather than traditional political advertising, it could not release administration’s exact spending; the company also could not isolate how much was spent specifically on CNN and MS NOW. The Trump administration made the bulk of its ad spend on CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC and Fox News — where it has bought thousands of ad placements in the past week. But the inclusion of MS NOW, on which it bought 38 ads, and CNN, where it bought 10 ads, according to AdImpact, are notable because of Trump’s ongoing battle to bar the networks from the White House. The White House bans, which also include Politico, were temporarily halted by a federal judge who found that the news outlets were likely to succeed in a case filed last week against the White House. The three outlets have since returned to the White House grounds to cover the president.

Hegseth cutting generals and admirals by 20%, including top officers who "clung to the woke department"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a speech on Wednesday that the Pentagon is eliminating roughly 1 in 5 generals and admirals during the second Trump administration through firing or position cuts, following through on Hegseth's pledge to fundamentally change how the Pentagon operates. Hegseth said he's aimed for the department to be "unrelenting, unapologetic, and uncompromising" in its mission to win. Generals who "clung to the woke department or seem to think civilian control of the military is simply a suggestion, well, they no longer work here," Hegseth said. "The number crunchers say we fired 10% of the generals and admirals across the force, and that number sounds about right," Hegseth said. "And I know because I directed it that we've also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10%. So yes, 20% reduction across the board. Now the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability, and long overdue."

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Hegseth gave that update in a speech dubbed the "State of the Force Address," a rare military address to military officers and enlisted service members at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. It marks the latest move by Hegseth to change the structure of the military, especially at its top levels. Fox News was first to report the planned reductions on Tuesday. In May 2025, Hegseth ordered that a minimum of 10% of all flag and general officers be cut, along with 20% of general officers in the National Guard. In a one-page memo posted on the Defense Department's website, Hegseth said at the time that the cuts were necessary to "drive innovation and operational excellence." He argued that the military must be "unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness," and the key to achieving this would be "removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions." As of July, there were 851 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, according to a Defense Department tally. A year earlier, there were 848 general and flag officers. Federal law caps the number at 857.

The gap between the rich and the very, very rich is getting wider

The ultrawealthy aren’t just pulling away from average Americans. Buoyed by a stock-market boom that has added trillions of dollars to their net worth, the extremely rich are even pulling away from other rich Americans. The top 0.1% wealthiest Americans have seen their total wealth more than double since the end of 2019, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. The year the pandemic started was when the ultrawealthy began to pull away from other rich groups, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Fed data. In dollar terms, the very richest Americans have gained a total of $14.5 trillion in wealth over that period, with most of that—about $10 trillion—coming from gains in stocks and mutual funds, according to the Fed data, which runs through the end of June. The 0.1% now control about $28 trillion, or about 15% of the nation’s total wealth, which amounts to nearly $186 trillion. The average wealth for a household in this group is more than $200 million.

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As of 2022, the minimum for the top 0.1% was $45.8 million, according to the most detailed data available from the Fed. With wealth among the group up by roughly 50% since then, that threshold is much higher now. The people who fall into this group aren’t usually traditional salaried workers. Rather, they are much more likely to be the owner of a bunch of car dealerships or an heir living off investment income. The ultrawealthy’s recent gains from the stock market dwarf the total wealth of the bottom 50% of all Americans, which is about $4 trillion. That bottom group has actually seen their wealth rise more than any other group on a percentage basis, thanks to a combination of rising home values and pandemic-era government relief that swelled bank accounts and helped pay down debt. Nevertheless, the bottom half’s share of total wealth, at an average of about $63,000 a household, comes to just 2.3% of the nation’s total wealth. The average household in the top 0.1% holds over 3,000 times as much wealth as a bottom-half household does. In the top 0.1% by wealth, 37% earn most of their income from businesses, and 26% derive it from capital gains, according to an analysis of Fed data from economics professors Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick for their recent book “The Everywhere Millionaire.” Only 10% derived most of their income from wages and salaries.

Copyright October 01, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved