August 24, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

For Republicans, Dallas convention is both rally and rescue mission

President Donald Trump's Republican Party is increasingly viewing its first-of-a-kind midterm convention in Dallas next month as crucial to regaining momentum at a time when opinion polls show voter frustration over the economy and the Iran war, according to party officials, donors and ?convention planners. When Republicans announced the convention earlier this year, some strategists dismissed it as a distraction as campaigns entered the final stretch. They questioned the need for a national gathering with no ?official party business. Now, after months of negative headlines tied to the war and rising living costs, party officials see the September 9-10 gathering as their best opportunity to rally voters behind Trump's agenda as Democrats mount a serious challenge to Republican control of both houses of Congress in the November 3 election. Some Republicans, however, remain skeptical it can meaningfully shift voter sentiment.

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The party officials said the event offers a platform to refocus voters on Trump's tax cuts, immigration policies and other achievements. Organizers plan to spotlight Americans they ?say have benefited from those policies while portraying the Democratic Party as increasingly dominated by socialist ideas and activists, according to a source familiar with the planning. The party plans to put Trump at the ?center of the convention, a tactic some strategists warn could backfire by drawing attention to a president with a low approval rating who has repeatedly urged Americans to ?endure the economic costs of the Iran war. Republican National Committee spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said the convention would rally voters behind Trump's agenda, including efforts to lower drug prices, cut taxes and secure the southern border with Mexico. "President ?Trump turns out voters like no other candidate, and this convention will provide the momentum needed to expand our majorities in November," Baldassarre said in a statement. It remains unclear which congressional candidates will speak ?during the two-day event. Advisers to three campaigns in competitive districts told Reuters they had yet to be informed whether their candidates would be offered speaking slots. Reuters contacted representatives for Republican candidates in 37 competitive U.S. House races and eight closely contested U.S. Senate races to ask whether they planned to attend the convention and deliver a speech.

Texas conservatives are ‘breaking rank’ and pledging to vote Democrat

Twyla Lowry plans to do something this November she could not have imagined doing even a few months ago: She’s going to vote for a Democrat. That would be Gina Hinojosa, running to prevent Republican Greg Abbott from winning a record fourth term as governor. Hinojosa, 52, has a fairly standard platform of Democratic issues — end state school vouchers, and lower health care, grocery and utility costs. She has even promised to send every Texan $1,500 from the state rainy day fund. But for Lowry, a retired social worker and special education teacher in this Central Texas city of about 100,000, all that matters is that Hinojosa wants to impose a moratorium on data center projects and Abbott doesn’t. “He’s pushing for them. Everything’s so shady,” said Lowry, 56, who had voted for Abbott all three times.

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Lowry, a conservative Christian and lifelong Republican, said she’s not switching parties. In fact, she plans to vote for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in his race for U.S. Senate. But her willingness to split her ticket for even one race is a sign the Texas political landscape — at least this cycle — is scrambling in unprecedented ways that could result in surprising statewide wins for the Democratic Party. A recent Fox News poll showed Hinojosa, a lawyer and state legislator based in Austin, within a point of Abbott, a sign of weakness in a state where the GOP usually boasts a nine- to 12-point advantage. This week, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the governor’s race from “solid” to “likely” Republican. The picture in the U.S. Senate race to replace John Cornyn is even tighter, according to Cook, which lists the contest as a “toss up” between Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. This wouldn’t be the first time polls have given Democrats reason to hope for an upset, only to be disappointed on Election Day. And Texas Republicans have shown a reluctance to split tickets over the past several decades. Republicans control the levers of power in Texas, and a Democrat hasn’t won statewide office since 1994. Texas last elected a Democratic governor in 1990 (Ann Richards) and a Democratic senator in 1988 (Lloyd Bentsen). But now some conservatives and right-leaning independents say they plan to vote Democrat in protest, dissatisfied with how the GOP is handling issues such as data centers, water, electricity, schools and the economy.

Can Texas trust its water planning process? Report calls for changes

Earlier this year, officials in Corpus Christi warned the city was months away from a water emergency. Supply levels had dropped to the point that officials were making hurried plans to implement surcharges and water use reductions that would have impacted roughly 500,000 people and the energy industry in the region. Flooding rain earlier this summer brought relief, for now. But the way the situation played out is raising questions about the state’s water planning process. A new report from nonprofit Texas 2036 is now calling for changes in the process. Jeremy Mazur, Director of Infrastructure and Natural Resources Policy at Texas 2036 will discuss the report Monday at a field hearing of the Texas House Natural Resources Committee. He noted that the state’s water planning process was created nearly 30 years ago. Mazur describes it as a “bottom-up process.”

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“Regions across the state identify long-term water supply needs, available supplies, and potential water shortages, but also recommend the water supply strategies and projects such as reservoirs and desalination facilities needed to meet those anticipated shortages,” Mazur explained. The regional plans are rolled into the state water plan prepared by the Texas Water Development Board. The report says the long-term planning process did not project the shortage that pushed Corpus Christi to the verge of a water emergency. Mazur said the data used in the process needs to be reevaluated to reflect current conditions. “I think one of the big factors is that these plans focus on what’s called the drought of record, which is a historic long-term drought,” Mazur said. He noted that the Coastal Bend region that includes Corpus Christi endured several droughts of record in the decades since the water planning process was created. “This radically affected the water supply projections within the plans. And so the water supply projections in the earlier plans were projected a lot more water availability than what actually happened to be the case when the drought from this year, which they suspect to be historic and very severe, really decimated the available water supplies in the region,” Mazur said. The report recommends ways for the Legislature and the Texas Water Development Board to strengthen the planning process, including stress testing for worse droughts and better data verification. “The lessons learned from our report is not that the plans or the planning process is bad, but it can certainly be perfected with better data and better planning objectives to better identify what we need to do to build the water infrastructure for a drought-prone and growing state,” Mazur said.

Homeland Security made a big claim about noncitizen voting. Now it can’t prove it.

A month after the Trump administration declared without evidence that thousands of noncitizens had illegally registered to vote in Nevada, officials with the Department of Homeland Security were unable to substantiate the claim. The administration claimed to have identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in four states, including an exact number of 15,903 in Nevada. But during a meeting last week with state election administrators, Homeland Security officials said they had identified just 185 potential noncitizens in the state so far, according to emails as well as recordings of the meeting obtained by The New York Times. The federal officials said they were still considering 14,000 names for further review, according to one of the emails. In the virtual meeting, federal officials told Nevada that the nearly 16,000 they had originally identified represented “the ceiling” of potential noncitizens.

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But the list the Homeland Security Department shared with Nevada is incomplete — it doesn’t even include names — and is nearly impossible to verify, according to files released by the secretary of state’s office. Nevada officials have requested more information, but the department has not yet offered it. Unproven claims that large numbers of noncitizens have voted in elections have been at the core of President Trump’s political message and central to his justification to enact the SAVE America Act, which would require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the legislation is aimed at tipping the scales in this year’s midterm elections for Republicans, in part by making it more difficult for some eligible Americans to cast ballots, notably younger voters and people of color, who tend to vote for Democrats. To determine that the Department of Homeland Security had not verified Mr. Trump’s accusations, The Times examined 16 emails as well as recordings of a video call obtained from the Nevada secretary of state’s office through a public records request. At the time of Mr. Trump’s accusation, the department specified that it had found noncitizen voters registered in four states: Nevada, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. “We are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security,” Mr. Trump said, implying falsely that the government had found solid evidence.

State Stories

John Moritz: Talarico’s age-old problem: Young voters may not decide Texas race

As he sought to perfect his messaging ahead of entering the race for the U.S. Senate in the summer of 2025, Democrat James Talarico began road-testing a line that still finds its way into nearly every stump speech and cable news appearance more than one year later. "The biggest divide in our politics is not left vs. right," Talarico has told audiences from Amarillo to Edinburg, "it’s top vs. bottom." It's catchy, memorable and designed to cast the Democrat as an ally of everyday Texans while suggesting his adversaries are in bed with billionaires. And it's also incomplete. Largely overlooked inside the charts and crosstabs that explain polling results in the U.S. Senate matchup between Talarico and Republican nominee Ken Paxton is the yawning gap that divides young and older voters. Put simply, Talarico decisively leads among voters ages 18 to 49, while Paxton rules among those who are eligible for senior discounts.

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In short, the election is very much old vs. young. And as counterintuitive as it might sound, that should worry Talarico and his strategists over the next 10 weeks leading to the Nov. 3 election. Here's why: In the 2018 midterm election, which was the best election cycle Democrats have seen this century, 56% of the votes cast were by Texans 50 and older. The rest were from voters in their 40s and younger, according to stats compiled by Texas political data analyst Derek Ryan. That trend grew even worse for younger voters in the midterms four years later. In 2022, voters 49 and younger accounted for just 41% of total Texas turnout. Much of the horse-race speculation in the matchup between Talarico and Paxton has fixated on whether the Democrat has done enough to energize Black voters or whether the Republican can make the same inroads among Latinos as Donald Trump did two years ago. If you're a Democrat, you like what you're seeing in polling. Many surveys have shown Talarico performing as much as 20 percentage points better this summer than Democratic Senate nominee Colin Allred was polling in 2024. Talarico is also outpolling Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' performance from this time two years ago. Harris and Allred are Black, and virtually no one in 2024 was sounding the alarm that Black Texans were falling out of favor with the Democrats.

Texas oil and gas regulators will no longer have to accept public comment at open meetings

The three elected officials who regulate the oil and gas industry in Texas hold an open meeting each month in Austin to vote on matters from pipeline violations to permit renewals. Members of the public can register to speak for up to three minutes at the end of each meeting. People often travel hundreds of miles from South Texas, the Permian Basin and the Gulf Coast for the opportunity to speak directly to the officials who have the final say in oil and gas regulation in Texas. The commission does not accept public comment over the phone during these meetings. This week the commissioners adopted a new public participation policy by a 2-1 vote. The new policy will remove the public comment agenda item at monthly meetings. Going forward, commissioners can individually request a public comment agenda item. If no commissioner makes a request, there will be no guaranteed public comment.

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The new policy includes other changes, including more frequent “listening sessions” where residents can bring issues to commission staff. However, the commissioners do not attend these sessions. The new policy was not circulated to the public before Commissioner Wayne Christian introduced it Tuesday. It appeared that the other two commissioners had not read it beforehand, as they quickly paged through a printout while sitting on the dais. The policy was not read into the record prior to a vote. Commissioner Christi Craddick voted against the new policy, saying she thought people should have the opportunity to speak at open meetings. The motion carried with votes from Commissioners Christian and Jim Wright. Virginia Palacios, executive director of the nonprofit watchdog Commission Shift, has provided public comment at almost every open meeting since 2021. Palacios registered to give comment on the proposed policy, but the commissioners did not call on her. She spoke during the general comment period after the commissioners’ vote. “You just approved an agenda item on public participation without allowing public participation,” Palacios said. Craddick cut in to remind her that public comment cannot address items that were already posted and voted on. “You are not to speak about things that were posted,” she said. “I wanted to point out the irony,” Palacios responded.

Suit says FCC targeted Houston's ABC13 over James Talarico interview

When ABC took the rare step of suing the Federal Communications Commission over the early review of its broadcast licenses, it thrust Houston's ABC affiliate, KTRK/ABC13, into the spotlight. In its lawsuit, filed in federal court last Tuesday, the TV giant says the Trump Administration’s review of eight ABC-owned local news stations is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. ABC also says the FCC repeatedly singled out ABC13 as part of its probe, including demanding thousands of pages of documents on the local station's hiring practices and internal communications. The FCC scrutinized activities at ABC13 far beyond any other ABC-owned station, according to the lawsuit. The FCC’s scrutiny has included ABC13’s decision to air an interview from “The View” with State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat running for Senate in Texas against Republican Ken Paxton.

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“It is noteworthy that many stations in KTRK’s market aired interviews with select candidates prior to the recent primary election without provoking any apparent interest or inquiries from the Commission,” ABC13 wrote in a May FCC filing defending its decision to air the interview. KTRK News Director Keaton Fuchs referred questions to a spokesperson for ABC’s parent company, Disney, who declined to comment. In FCC filings this spring, ABC13 claimed to be the leading station by audience share in the Houston media market. "Suing the government is always a dangerous thing," Jim Speta, a telecommunications law professor at Northwestern University, said. "Given that ABC has made that decision, it seems to me that it has decided to stand up and fight." ABC’s suit asks Judge Loren AliKhan of the District Court in the District of Columbia to halt early license reviews initiated by the FCC, saying they pose an "existential threat" to the company. "The Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts," the lawsuit claims. In a statement, the FCC described ABC’s lawsuit as an attempt by Disney to halt an investigation into diversity, equity and inclusion practices the agency says may be discriminatory.

Exxon turns to automated drilling in the Permian in push for higher oil output

In rural west Texas where oil rigs and pump jacks dot the sparse flat ?landscape, an ExxonMobil contractor sits in a small office on a drilling rig, using controls on a screen to operate robotic ?machinery and move tall steel pipes weighing roughly 2,000 pounds. This work would usually require human overseers standing on the rig floor, the most common location for accidents on a rig.

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Exxon, the largest oil producer by volume in the U.S., operates more than 30 drilling rigs in the Permian Basin, two of which are automated rigs with robotic equipment. By 2028, the company ?aims to transition half of its fleet to automated rigs to reduce the need for workers to perform potentially dangerous work and increase ?efficiency to drill wells faster, an executive told Reuters. The Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, the biggest U.S. ?oilfield, revolutionized energy markets two decades ago when development of the shale basin turned the U.S. into one of the leading oil-producing countries. But the relatively ?quick decline rate of shale wells has prompted drillers to develop more technologies to extract the oil. Some in the industry are also concerned about when the ?Permian's production could begin to decline. Exxon plans to grow its Permian production by almost 40% to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030. By contrast, rival oil major Chevron plans to hold production steady at about 1 million boepd, focusing instead on free cash flow.

Writer sues Taylor Sheridan, claims 'Yellowstone' was built from her rejected pitch

Writer and entertainment journalist Lauren Salkin filed a federal copyright lawsuit accusing "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan and a long list of studios and producers of building the hit series from a television project she pitched to his representatives years before it premiered. The suit, filed Aug. 21 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, names Sheridan, Paramount, 101 Studios, Elevate Entertainment and others as defendants, according to the complaint. According to the complaint, Salkin spent more than a decade developing "Sovereign Nation," a drama about tribal governance, casino politics and a fight over reservation land. By late 2016, she had a completed pilot script, show bible and pitch deck, along with a commitment from director Rodrigo García, and had filed materials with the U.S. Copyright Office, according to the lawsuit.

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The lawsuit states that Salkin's agent and manager submitted those materials to Sheridan's management company, Elevate Entertainment, in late 2016 and January 2017. On Feb. 1, 2017, Elevate responded in writing that Sheridan "thanks you very much for your interest" but was "unavailable for TV projects," the complaint says. Paramount announced "Yellowstone" as its first scripted series roughly three months later, and the show premiered on the Paramount Network in June 2018. Salkin's suit argues the shows share "specific expressive choices," including a tribal casino serving as the center of political power in both stories, a confrontation staged in a tribal chairman's casino office over expanding development beyond reservation land, and shared reliance on trust-land status, an absence of zoning restrictions and a 99-year lease as the mechanism driving that expansion. The complaint also alleges that Salkin's pitch deck, submitted before "Yellowstone" was announced, proposed actors Danny Huston and Gil Birmingham for roles built around casino politics and land development. Both actors were later cast in "Yellowstone" in what the lawsuit calls "materially parallel structural roles."

What Texas' surging wealth, new Dallas hub mean for Goldman Sachs in Lone Star State

There's perhaps no greater symbol of how far Dallas has come as a financial center and the wave of wealth that has flowed to the region than the new Goldman Sachs building rising on Field Street next door to Victory Park. The 800,000-square-foot building, located on 3 acres on the southeast corner of the North End development, represents a roughly $700 million investment by New York-based Goldman in North Texas. Expected to open in 2028, the campus will serve as a regional base for the financial giant, housing more than 5,000 employees across a wide range of functions and roles. While Dallas-Fort Worth's ascendance as a financial hotspot was already well underway, many financial and commercial real estate insiders point to Goldman's decision in 2022 to build a hub in Dallas as a tipping point. The campus broke ground the following year, before the "Y'all Street" term was a part of the daily vernacular.

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Since that time, the Texas Stock Exchange was formed and launched, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq set up local arms and other financial behemoths like Scotiabank followed Goldman's lead by setting up a regional headquarters. Morgan Stanley could be next. For Scott Mueller, managing director and head of private wealth management for the Southwest region at Goldman, the wealth wave the region has experienced has exceeded everyone's expectations, save for maybe Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson. "He was very bullish," Mueller said of the mayor. "But I think the way things have played out has really been remarkable, and it's a little bit of lightning in a bottle, right? There's changes that happen like this around the world or around our nation every so often and it so happens that one of them is happening here in Dallas and in North Texas right now." Mueller worked at Goldman for years before serving a stint as Oklahoma's secretary of commerce and workforce development. He returned to Goldman in 2022. In his role, he oversees a seven-state region that includes Texas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, part of Arkansas and part of Louisiana.

Texas governor's summer playlist includes unfortunate error

What's your song of the summer? Your bop of bops? Could it be the classic record "Texas Sun Krugbhagin"? That's apparently what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has at the top of his Spotify Repeat Rewind playlist right now, even if there are like three things wrong with writing "Texas Sun Krugbhagin." The leader of the Lone Star State posted what he's calling his "2026 Summer Playlist" on Friday afternoon, claiming that "Texas is the song of every season." Whatever that means. Anyway, it's a real playlist you can find if you click through Abbott's Facebook linktree. It's 19 songs, most with "Texas" in the title, which totally doesn't mean anyone was Google searching "songs with Texas in the title."

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The playlist is mostly country flavored, spanning from the 1959 Marty Robbins classic "El Paso" to current No. 1 song that will never die, "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley. Because country music is all people listen to here I guess, right? But there are a few non-country songs on the list, including "Texas" (duh) by BigXthaPlug, the Dallas rapper who was just charged with driving while intoxicated, marijuana possession of less than two ounces and unlawful possession of a firearm. The presence of his "Texas" on the playlist leads one to wonder if Abbott also pours drank inside his lemonade until it looks like a Pepsi. But let's go back to "Texas Sun Krugbhagin," which is actually supposed to be "Texas Sun" by the Houston band Khruangbin and Atlanta singer Leon Bridges. It's honestly incredible that Khruangbin became Krugbhagin in the Facebook post. Not sure how that could've even happened. Anyway, that's a good song, but we should note President Barack Obama already included it on his 2020 summer playlist.

The Texas activist putting the Ten Commandments back into American classrooms

The vault lies inside a grassy hill, next to the rolling Texas prairie. In the windowless room, climate controls ensure the humidity remains constant, while a suppression system stands ready to snuff out fires. A bulletproof steel door guards the contents. One recent August afternoon, a burly security guard pried it open, and David Barton, a sprightly 72-year-old conservative political activist, strolled inside to his prized collection: tens of thousands of founding-era American documents and artifacts he values at millions of dollars. Barton darted among glass cases and rattled off the highlights of his trove: a Revolutionary War-era shot flask, a 1795 handwritten prayer proclamation from Samuel Adams, and what he says is a lock of George Washington’s hair. A former math and science teacher with no academic training as a historian, Barton has used this vast collection to position himself as the intellectual architect of a movement advancing a conservative agenda in policy and education. “I own the stuff,” Barton said. “So I know more about this history than most of the professors.”

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Writing books and speaking in state legislatures, he champions a controversial narrative: that America’s founders established a Christian republic and wanted the church to influence the state. The “separation of church and state,” he argues, is a myth. Now, bolstered by a favorable political climate and Supreme Court rulings, Barton’s stature is rising. He and his nonprofit have helped facilitate legislation in more than a dozen states to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. He also helped craft social-studies curricula for the nation’s second-largest statewide public-school system, advises hundreds of state lawmakers, and helped the White House plan exhibits for America’s 250th anniversary. “David is one of the most impactful individuals in the faith arena that I have ever met,” said former U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, of Virginia. “When David speaks, people really are going to listen because they know most of the time he’s going to be right.” Many historians and academics accuse him of twisting history to fit his agenda. “He is a very accomplished collector, but that does not make one an expert, a scholar, or historian, no more than collecting stamps would make me a postal worker,” said Mark A. Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University. In 1988, he founded WallBuilders, named for a biblical passage in which the Jewish people rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The goal: teach the public that America was “overwhelmingly rooted in Christian ideology.” He quit his job and spent more than a decade crisscrossing the country with his family in a 15-passenger van, visiting churches, civic clubs and military bases to propagate his theory, while home schooling their three children. “We called it van school,” his wife, Cheryl, said.

Barratry or lawful marketing? Loncar Lyon Jenkins’ civil trial begins

An unknown number lit up Barry Marshall’s phone two days after a driver crashed into his pickup truck near Stephenville. After Marshall answered the sixth call, a man offered to refer him to Loncar Lyon Jenkins attorneys to handle the case. A contract with the firm, owned by Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins and former state Sen. Ted Lyon, was in his inbox minutes later. In a lawsuit filed last year Marshall alleges he never asked to be contacted by the law firm or a lead generator after his April 2024 crash, accusing them of a type of unlawful solicitation that is rampant across Texas. An attorney representing Loncar Lyon Jenkins alleged Marshall clicked an online link to invite the referral, making the contact perfectly legal. A jury in Erath County this week will weigh whether the law firm and its middleman crossed the line in a rare civil trial concerning how prominent personal injury lawyers find clients.

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It’s illegal for attorneys or their intermediaries to initiate contact with crash victims within 31 days of an accident to drum up business. But law firms are permitted to use lead generators to refer clients who are seeking legal help — as long as they are not making the first move. Social media has fueled a new climate where lead generators are increasingly using deceitful tactics indistinguishable from unlawful solicitation, causing law firms to get tangled in allegations of barratry, said Waco personal injury attorney Vic Feazell. “They’re cyber ambulance chasers,” Feazell said in general about barratry. “It gets worse every day and it's bad not only for the legal consumer but it's bad for the legal profession.” Barratry is so widespread lawmakers last year upped the civil penalty from $10,000 to $50,000. But cases can be difficult to prove, and defendants look to cut their losses, so lawsuits are usually dropped or settled before getting to a jury. Barratry is also a criminal offense in Texas, but prosecutors rarely pursue charges, leaving allegations to be litigated in civil lawsuits if at all.

Texas Space Summit in San Antonio postponed until 2027

Organizers have scrubbed Texas’ first-ever space summit just a few months before it was to occur in San Antonio. The conference on the state’s booming commercial space business had been set for Sept. 21-23 at the Henry B. González Convention Center, but it was pushed to sometime in 2027. Jeff Webster, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said he made the call earlier this summer. The chamber is hosting the event. “I thought we’d have good, but I wanted kick-ass,” he said. “So, we decided to give ourselves more breathing room and extended time.” The Texas Space Summit will happen in San Antonio next year, he said, but no dates have been set.

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“I wanted this to be such an out of the park, great experience, and we had great momentum,” he said. “We had great speakers lined up, but it wasn’t to where I wanted it to be. “I think we quasi-rushed it because we really gave ourselves a year to really work up to it.” Webster said the Texas Space Commission and the space companies were good with the delay. “SpaceX was in the middle of their IPO and Blue Origin had stuff going on, and NASA had Artemis,” he said. “The industry people and the suppliers— it’s been a crazy year for them — so, I think we actually end up providing plenty of time for them to breathe.” Planning for the summit began last summer. The space commission committed to holding it in San Antonio after the chamber offered to host the event. Space commission Chair Gwen Griffin, San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and Webster held a news conference at Brooks in November 2025 to announce the summit. At the time, the event was expected to attract more than 2,000 attendees with a budget of between $1.1 million and $2.1 million. Now the budget is closer to the lower amount, Webster said.

Tony Buzbee buys $15.5 million Houston mansion just to tear it down

Prominent trial attorney Tony Buzbee is expanding his River Oaks footprint after buying a mansion listed for $15.5 million in one of Houston’s priciest purchases in July. Buzbee wasn’t drawn to the 15,000-square-foot mansion for its design. Instead, he plans to demolish the entire structure at 1708 River Oaks and donate the materials, worth about $4 million, to Habitat Humanity, Buzbee said in an email. “I’ve never liked that house and over the years have made several attempts to acquire it,” Buzbee said. The former mayoral candidate already owned a 12,000-square-foot home next door at 1722 River Oaks. Buzbee listed that property for sale at $27.5 million in 2022, but eventually pulled it from the market in 2024, according to the Houston Association of Realtors.

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“I never wanted to leave the street. I love this house,” he said of his current home. “We just wanted more space.” Now Buzbee and wife, Frances, plan to combine both parcels into a single 2-acre compound, he said. They hope to build an English garden and pool house in the place of the demolished home. “More green space is always good,” he said. Buzbee’s new property wasn’t the only high-profile luxury purchase in July. One of the most expensive homes to hit the market in Texas this year, 603 W Friar Tuck, also sold last month. Originally listed for $14 million, the Memorial-area estate was owned by Houston surgeon Richard J. Andrassy, a professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, the Chronicle previously reported. The asking price was later slashed to $6.15 million, according to HAR.

National Stories

Nvidia is spending $6 billion to build a powerful U.S. alternative to Chinese AI

Nvidia is planning to use a $6 billion deal it struck this week to build one of the world’s most powerful open-weight AI models, one that would compete with Chinese heavyweights like DeepSeek and Kimi K3, according to people familiar with the matter. The chip giant’s licensing deal with the AI startup Poolside is also set to present a direct challenge to frontier U.S. AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic, since open-weight models are generally far cheaper to operate and allow easy customization. Although Nvidia counts big labs like OpenAI and Anthropic as some of its closest partners, the move reflects Chief Executive Jensen Huang’s efforts to position Nvidia for success in multiple AI battlegrounds simultaneously, ensuring the company is able to hold on to its dominant market position.

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Poolside, which was founded in 2023 by Eiso Kant, a software developer, and Jason Warner, the former chief technology officer of GitHub, sent a letter to shareholders Thursday announcing a dramatic restructuring of its business. Nvidia will invest $1 billion in the company at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion, and more significantly, will pay $6 billion to license Poolside’s technology and hire the bulk of its engineers, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Poolside’s founders wrote that the Nvidia deal was meant to secure a future where artificial general intelligence, or humanlike computer reasoning, “would not be a closed technology controlled by few but one built by many out in the open.” The startup’s leadership—including Kant, Warner and operations executive Margarida Garcia—won’t join Nvidia and will continue working on unspecified research projects. The deal was first reported by Newcomer, an independent tech newsletter. More than 100 Poolside employees, including engineers, will join Nvidia and will work on the chip-designer’s Nemotron project—an effort to develop open-weight models that Nvidia debuted in 2023—according to people familiar with the matter. The Poolside engineers will help improve Nemotron’s largest and most sophisticated models under development, these people said.

‘The writing on the wall’: Trump’s staff departs ahead of possible turmoil

President Donald Trump heads into the second half of his term with key vacancies among his senior White House staff. That means whoever comes off the bench must contend with the possibility of a Democratic-controlled Congress, a slew of subpoenas, a lingering war in the Middle East and an open Republican presidential primary. James Braid, the top liaison to Congress, this week announced his exit. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she would depart the week before. Replacements for either have not been announced. President Donald Trump heads into the second half of his term with key vacancies among his senior White House staff. That means whoever comes off the bench must contend with the possibility of a Democratic-controlled Congress, a slew of subpoenas, a lingering war in the Middle East and an open Republican presidential primary. James Braid, the top liaison to Congress, this week announced his exit. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she would depart the week before. Replacements for either have not been announced. Though it’s not unusual for staff to depart around the midterms, Trump’s desire to run the country through a handful of close, fiercely loyal aides means each loss is more impactful than in a White House where power and responsibility are more diffuse. These departures don’t guarantee a tougher road for the administration, but they inject a dose of uncertainty at an already tenuous time, when the president is facing a slew of challenges — both foreign and domestic.

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“I think people are seeing the writing on the wall and thinking Republicans probably aren’t going to have the House, might not have the Senate either, and things are going to be stalled,” said an official who served in Trump’s first term, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “People are thinking, ‘what are my post administration business prospects? Is it worth taking these hits every single day, being part of these battles, and how does that hurt my prospects when I go to the private sector?’” the person said. The president is also losing two key legal hands as he girds for an onslaught of congressional oversight and potential litigation if Democrats take control on the Hill. Trump announced Friday that his pardon attorney and longtime ally Ed Martin would leave for the private sector, coming on the heels of a similar announcement regarding White House counsel Dave Warrington.

Sullivan endorses Sullivan against Sullivan in Alaska

Three Dan Sullivans are wading in on Alaska’s Senate race but only one Dan Sullivan has earned the support of a former lawmaker with his namesake. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-Alaska) was endorsed by former Anchorage Mayor Dan A. Sullivan (R) last Tuesday as he prepares to face off against Dan J. Sullivan and Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) in November. “As the OG Dan Sullivan, I urge Alaskans to vote for Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan. He’s been great for Alaska,” the former mayor of Anchorage wrote in a Facebook post last week. The post comes after Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign faced legal challenges, as Dan S. Sullivan and the National Republican Senatorial Committee accused him of launching a Senate bid to create confusion for voters seeking to elect the incumbent lawmaker.

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Carol Beecher, a registered Republican and the director of the Alaska Division of Elections, attempted to remove Dan J. Sullivan from the primary ballot and disqualify his campaign, citing his logo’s similarities to the incumbent senator’s. However, Dan J. Sullivan challenged the measure in court, and in June, Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ruled that Dan J. Sullivan could remain on the ballot for the state’s primary on Aug. 18. Republicans Dan J. Sullivan and Dan S. Sullivan advanced to Alaska’s general nonpartisan election in November alongside Democrat Peltola (Alaska), who Dan. J. Sullivan has said he voted for twice in previous elections. The race is considered a toss-up by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report while Decision Desk HQ has Peltola favored to win due to her past success in statewide races and status as a moderate Democrat who hires Republican staffers on the Hill. Some Republicans have accused Dan J. Sullivan of being a Democratic plant and entering the race to siphon votes away from the incumbent senator with the same name. Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, has denied those accusations.

Baby Boomers are smoking more pot. Their neighbors are fuming.

Senior citizens are at a record high for getting high. For Fiorella Terenzi, it’s been…not cool, man. The 64-year-old astrophysicist started to notice wafts of marijuana coming into her home from a nearby unit in her Miami-area high rise. Her neighbors, a married couple in their 70s, told her it was medical marijuana used in small amounts. Terenzi wasn’t buying it. She set out to stop the fumes. To argue her case, she held a piece of toilet paper by the crack in their front door to test the skunky draft and found it strong enough to make the tissue “wave like a flag.” She placed multiple calls to police but said officers were reluctant to knock on the couple’s door late at night. She had intense conversations with the neighbors that felt straight out of high school.

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“It was actually always that kind of smirk,” Terenzi said. “Like, ‘Oh, come on. If you’re stoned, it’s cool.’” Seniors are among the fastest-growing demographics for marijuana use in the U.S., taking the drug to manage pain, fall asleep and have fun. But it’s not all bliss. Tensions are rising as the scent perfumes senior centers and retirement communities. Some elderly adults blame secondhand pot smoke for a host of medical problems, from depression to headaches to breathing issues. There are social pressures, too, with a number of baby boomers saying their peers make them feel like narcs and nerds if they complain. About 10% of respondents to a recent study of marijuana use by seniors in New York said they use cannabis to “fit in,” said Joseph Palamar, a professor at NYU Langone Medical Center who co-wrote the report. “If Edna is the one that has the gummies, then it might be like, ‘Oh, I want to be cool like Edna. I don’t really want it, I’m scared, but she’s the cool one and I feel like I have to try it now,’” Palamar said. Many senior pot smokers are loud and proud. San Antonio grandmother Sandra Bomar, 63, who goes by “Stoner Granny” online, posts pot memes on Facebook to her like-minded community. One recent item features a doctor in a white coat and the line, “In my professional opinion, you should smoke a fatty.”

Man arrested by US immigration agents as son waits return from USS Lincoln

When Luis Manuel Aviles was arrested by immigration authorities, his son was entering his ninth month on the USS Abraham Lincoln with the Navy — a vessel that set a U.S. military record for uninterrupted time at sea, stirring concerns about supply shortages and deteriorating mental health among soldiers. Luis Manuel Aviles, 48, was arrested after leaving his house to take his car to the mechanic, according to his wife, Argelia Aviles. She said her husband, a handyman in Key West, Florida, has a permit to work in the United States. Originally from Nicaragua, he has lived in the U.S. for 19 years. “He dedicates himself only to work so he can put food on the table at home. He is a good father. He loves his children with all his soul,” said Argelia, 47.

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Aviles’ arrest comes as the Trump administration rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, detaining at least dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops. At least six family members have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track. One spouse, the wife of a U.S. soldier who spent more than a month in federal immigration detention, was removed from a deportation flight to Brazil after the AP’s reporting. One of the military’s most highly advertised immigration benefits is “military parole-in-place,” which allows the spouses, children and parents of active-duty service members and veterans to obtain legal immigration status from within the country. Not everyone qualifies: those who overstayed visas or who already applied for legal status at the border, for example.

Democrats are on the verge of picking another 80-year-old

Ed Markey’s campaign knows he is old. He is the oldest senator Massachusetts has ever had and the oldest Senate Democrat seeking reelection in the midterms. He has served in Congress since before his primary challenger, 47-year-old Rep. Seth Moulton, was even born. So at a rally earlier this month, his allies don’t try to hide the fact that Markey is an 80-year-old man, nor can they. Rather, they paint his age as battle-hardened experience, in a move that would have made Ronald Reagan proud. “You tell me a time that’s more important for us to have someone in Washington … that knows the issues, knows every relationship down there, and has the experience to fight the fight,” says Massachusetts state Sen. Michael Moore before a crowd of young families, even younger students and a handful of senior citizens in this post-industrial college town.

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Moore’s talking points, along with the claps and cheers coming from the crowd, feel off-key at this moment in American politics. More than ever before, people are frustrated with the notion that Washington is ruled by aging politicians, including those who struggle to do their jobs amid declining health. The monthslong absence of Mitch McConnell, the 84-year-old former Senate GOP leader still recovering from a fall and hospitalization, is only the latest reminder. And, of course, there are the six lawmakers who have died in the current Congress. Democrats, it seems, should be particularly hostile to returning their old leaders to power. This is a party still traumatized by Joe Biden’s presidency — the questions about his mental faculties, his frailty in public and the collapse of his 2024 presidential campaign after his debacle of a debate with Donald Trump (himself now an 80-year-old). The party establishment also appears to be facing its own tea party uprising, with growing calls for generational change: Seven Democratic House incumbents have lost primaries so far, six to candidates who are younger. But much of the party’s insurgent energy is coming from the left — and that might be what saves Markey. Unlike other long-serving Democrats who have been felled by democratic socialists, Markey is a progressive facing a more moderate rival.

California cancels talks with Paramount over Warner Bros. merger

California’s attorney general has canceled a meeting with representatives of Paramount that was scheduled for Monday to begin discussing a settlement of the state’s lawsuit seeking to block Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Rob Bonta, the attorney general, called off the meeting late Sunday, accusing Paramount of acting in bad faith. In a statement to The Times, Mr. Bonta accused Paramount of leaking details of a meeting the parties held on Friday. “Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith,” Mr. Bonta said in the statement. “As soon as Paramount stops playing games and engages sincerely, my office is happy to meet again.”

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A spokeswoman for Paramount did not have immediate comment on Monday morning. The Monday meeting was supposed to be preliminary, and there was never any assurance that it would lead to meaningful negotiations toward a settlement. But the possibility that the two sides could begin moving toward an agreement was seen as something of a breakthrough after Paramount threatened to leave California and Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed a preference for settling the case. Paramount’s proposed $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros. would create a media giant, combining two major movie studios, multiple streaming services and the news outlets CNN and CBS News. The company, headquartered in Hollywood, would also be a major employer in Los Angeles. Last month, California led a group of 12 state attorneys general in suing to block the deal, arguing it would create a company with outsize market power in cable television and movie studios. Mr. Bonta had previously said he would be willing to accept only structural remedies to resolve the lawsuit, which would typically mean requiring the companies to sell off parts of the combined business. Executives are often reluctant to hive off parts of a newly merged company because they have already made financial assumptions about the combined operations.

Copyright August 24, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved