October 16, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

Trump says 'if Ken Paxton loses' Texas Senate race, blame Cornyn and Karl Rove

President Donald Trump on Thursday said that if Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton loses, it will be the fault of incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn and conservative commentator Karl Rove. Trump accused Cornyn and Rove of “doing everything possible to make it hard” for Paxton, the state’s attorney general, to beat Democratic nominee James Talarico. Cornyn lost the Republican primary to Paxton, whom Trump controversially endorsed. “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump’s preemptive blame-casting came as Texas has surprisingly become one of the most competitive battlegrounds of the 2026 midterm cycle. Most recent polls show state Rep. Talarico maintaining a lead in the low-to-mid single digits over Paxton.

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The reliably red state has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988. In 2024, Texans voted for Trump over Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by nearly 14 percentage points. Cornyn’s office and Rove did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment on Trump’s post. Trump’s decision to back Paxton in the GOP primary delivered a major blow to the four-term incumbent Cornyn, whom the president viewed as disloyal. The move was also seen as a major gamble, as Paxton’s history of scandal and opposition within his own party has made him a polarizing figure. Hoping to stave off Democrats’ goal of winning majority control of the Senate, groups backing Republicans have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Texas contest, making it the most expensive race of the cycle. GOP spending in the race has topped $370 million so far, eclipsing Democratic spending by nearly $235 million, according to AdImpact. Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Rove, calling him a “loser” and urging Fox News to stop putting him on air. Rove, who was a senior advisor to former President George W. Bush, “is so bad for the Republican Party, and completely wrong so often,” Trump wrote in a Sept. 14 Truth Social post. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed two days later, Rove said that he would back a Democratic candidate in a different race in Texas, voting blue for just the second time in his life.

$3M renovation planned for GOP Comptroller Don Huffines' office

A state agency that manages and invests Texas funds plans to spend $3 million renovating Republican Comptroller Don Huffines’ offices, drawing questions about the use of the money as he campaigns against government waste. Records show Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co. would pay for the renovation of the comptroller’s executive suite, including office space, conference rooms and a work cafe. The renovation in the Lyndon B. Johnson State Office Building in Austin would retain an executive’s private restroom, storage and break area. Documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News through an open records request list nearly $2.1 million budgeted for construction, $280,000 for architecture and engineering, $130,500 for project management and nearly $500,000 for contingencies.

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The records do not state why the renovation is needed, what condition the existing offices are in, why the trust company is paying for the project or whether Huffines requested the work. The trust company, a fiduciary that manages and invests funds belonging to the state of Texas or under its control, is listed as the funding agency for the $3 million renovation. Sen. Sarah Eckhardt of Austin, Huffines’ Democratic opponent in November, criticized the proposed use of trust company funds, calling it “highly inappropriate.” “The comptroller is supposed to keep those funds segregated,” she said. “You can’t raid it for operational expenses in the comptroller’s office.” Spokespeople for the comptroller’s office and executives at the trust company did not respond Thursday to a list of questions from The News. As comptroller, Huffines is the sole officer, director and shareholder of the trust company, according to state law. Paul Ballard, who served as the trust company’s CEO from 2003 to 2019, said the trust company’s budget was not used during his tenure to cover comptroller expenses unrelated to the company’s investment operations.

Most of Ken Paxton’s money can be traced to one man: Elon Musk

If Ken Paxton wins in Texas, he may have Elon Musk to thank. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person and a Texas resident who has major business interests in the state, sent $158 million in September to a super PAC that immediately flipped that much money to a group backing Mr. Paxton’s Senate bid, according to campaign-finance filings released Thursday. The donations from Mr. Musk, collectively some of the biggest ever recorded in American politics, have allowed Mr. Paxton to remain financially competitive even as he is vastly outraised by his Democratic opponent, James Talarico. Republicans in Texas have grown increasingly worried about the race, one of this year’s most expensive and high-profile contests, fearful of losing a statewide election in Texas for the first time in more than three decades.

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Mr. Musk sent the money to Senate Republicans’ top super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, in donations of $75 million on Sept. 9 and $83 million on Sept. 23. Each time, the very next day, the super PAC cut a check of the same amount to Texas PAC, a group that the Senate Leadership Fund had set up to support Mr. Paxton. The money sent to the Texas group was not necessarily Mr. Musk’s, and super PAC officials have said publicly that they were seeking new donations to finance a pro-Paxton operation. But without Mr. Musk’s historic donations, it’s unlikely that such a large amount would have flowed Mr. Paxton’s way. Rarely has an individual donor been effectively tied to such a large commitment for a single candidate. The New York Times reported on Monday about Mr. Musk’s contributions to the Senate Leadership Fund and how they could end up helping Mr. Paxton, but the campaign filings offered more detail on the choreography of Mr. Musk’s donations. Mr. Musk also donated $10 million to a separate pro-Paxton super PAC, money that allowed the group to start running television ads in late August. Mr. Musk, who lives in Austin, and Mr. Paxton, who as the state attorney general regulates Mr. Musk’s businesses in Texas, have been allies in state politics. Mr. Musk has not shown much enthusiasm in public or private about any midterm candidates, rarely posting on X, his social media site, about Republican nominees. But in recent days, he has posted negatively multiple times about Mr. Talarico. On the campaign trail, Mr. Talarico has criticized the political influence of billionaires like Mr. Musk.

Power struggle erupts in Trump’s White House as midterm losses loom

White House aides, who have kept clashes muted during President Donald Trump’s second term, have begun jostling more openly for power as they brace for widespread midterm election losses and internal upheaval, according to interviews with 20 staffers, advisers and people close to the president. The interviews, most of which were conducted on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel machinations, paint a picture of infighting that has started to resemble the pitched battles of Trump’s first term. Believing that Chief of Staff Susie Wiles might step down after the election, a handful of Trump aides, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, top housing official Bill Pulte and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, have begun angling for the position should it become available. Wiles has given no indication to aides or allies that she plans to leave. Still, high-level White House staffers frequently cycle out of their stressful jobs after 18 months to two years, and Trump had four chiefs of staff, including an acting one, during his first term.

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The past week in the White House has been “the new Wild Wild West,” one Trump ally said. The jockeying started in earnest last week after Trump first reached out to Katie Zacharia about joining the administration as the new White House press secretary, a move he made without consulting Wiles, according to four people familiar with the decision. The unilateral action by the president was viewed internally as undermining Wiles, creating the impression of a less-disciplined operation and an unsettled center of power inside the West Wing. For longtime observers of Trump’s inner circle, the friction this week harks back to his first term, when shifting factions of aides and family members vied for power and undermined one another in the process — a pattern this White House has mostly avoided, until now. Compounding the uncertainty is the president, who has told allies he feels frustrated that no one is publicly defending him as vociferously as he would like 18 days before the midterm elections. Trump has embarked on a frenzied schedule of campaign rallies in the final stretch to juice enthusiasm among the Republican faithful, but with a historically low approval rating and growing voter frustration about high prices, he and the Republican Party face major political headwinds.

State Stories

Republican Marc LaHood rode into office on Abbott’s school voucher train. Now he’s struggling to defend it.

State Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio) walked into the lion’s den on Tuesday. LaHood was among the roughly dozen Republicans who Gov. Greg Abbott backed over popular GOP incumbents who stood in the way of the governor’s much-desired school voucher program two years ago. Now that early reports on Texas Education Savings Accounts paint an unflattering picture of their success, the first-term lawmaker is struggling to defend them in his first reelection race. “If the ESA program is a bust, I’ll be the first to admit. ‘Hey, I was wrong. How do we fix it?'” LaHood told a crowd of about three dozen NEISD parents on Tuesday. “I want to fix things, and transparency is how we get there. But that applies to both sides.” Texas House District 121 on San Antonio’s North Side hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1981, but LaHood is now in a fiercely contested reelection race against Democrat Zack Dunn, who is getting help from state and national Democrats.

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The only general election debate of that race was held Tuesday, hosted by North East ISD Council of PTAs and Raise Your Hand Texas at the Piper Bass Memorial Student Center, where nearly all of the questions were about school vouchers. “I could not be more anti-ESAs, anti-voucher scams,” Dunn said at the debate. “This is a billion dollars that was taken away from our public education system, and it was given to private institutions.” North East ISD has identified 16 schools that it could close in the wake of dropping enrollment and lack of funding, and Dunn and LaHood — a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, respectively — paced the podium area with their passionate takes. Afterward the debate, NEISD leaders and PTA organizers said they were stunned by some of LaHood’s comments. For example, they said, families of students with disabilities have had well-documented problems finding private schools that will accept ESAs, but LaHood said he needed more data before weighing in on the issue. “I want to know how many children and families with disabilities actually applied for the program,” LaHood said. ” … Some of my closest friends have children with severe disabilities, so for me, it’s personal — I want to make sure they’re prioritized, but I don’t want to [go off of] a soundbite.”

Hinojosa stages empty lectern at Texas governor’s mansion amid Abbott debate snub

Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa (D) spoke next to an empty lectern in front of the Lone Star State’s governor’s mansion Thursday after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) did not accept her debate invitation. “I guess the governor is a no-show, which is not surprising because he has been a no-show for Texans for years,” Hinojosa said after Abbott did not appear at the event. The Democratic nominee accused the governor of shutting down the street in front of the executive residence where she originally planned to host the debate. “If Greg Abbott’s not man enough to debate me then he doesn’t deserve to be the governor of Texas,” Hinojosa told the crowd. Texas Democratic Party spokesperson Jacob Long slammed the Republican governor for his refusal to debate the Democratic challenger in a statement Thursday afternoon.

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“The contrast in this race could not be more clear,” Long said. “Gina Hinojosa is traveling the state, hosting more than 150 public events and meeting directly with thousands of voters in their homes and in their communities. The only people who seem to have access to Greg Abbott are the billionaire donors lining his pockets.” At one point during the Thursday event, independent gubernatorial candidate Jenn Mack took the stage and stood behind the second lectern, according to a video clip shared online by a local Fox 7 Austin reporter. “You came to debate Abbott on his record, and I came to debate both of you on your records,” Mack said, eliciting loud boos from the crowd. Mack was later escorted away from the podium by an officer and another man. Abbott’s campaign criticized this moment in a social media post, sharing a video of Mack’s removal from the stage. “The misogyny shown toward a candidate who came to debate proves how insincere and hypocritical Gina Hinojosa is,” the campaign said in a statement. Additionally, the Republican’s reelection campaign accused the event of not being a “sincere attempt to debate,” pointing to the fact that the empty lectern — a standing podium only reachable by stairs — was inaccessible to Abbott, who uses a wheelchair.

Trump says the border is secure. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott keeps declaring an emergency.

Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott repeated a claim he’s made for the past five years. He stated that the number of people crossing the Texas-Mexico border illegally “posed an ongoing and imminent threat” across the state. In doing so, he renewed a border security disaster proclamation that has greatly expanded his powers without going through the state Legislature. Abbott’s declaration stands in sharp contrast to the numbers reported by the Trump administration, which says the drop in the flow of migrants crossing the border has been unprecedented and has reached historic lows since it took over in January 2025. Yet, since Abbott first declared an emergency at the border during the Biden administration in 2021, he’s renewed or amended the proclamation at least 69 times — 21 of those during Trump’s tenure.

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The Republican governor, who is running for his fourth term next month, has consolidated power like no Texas governor before him, building on his predecessors’ efforts to strengthen what by design is supposed to be a “weak governor” state as the constitution limits what can be done without legislative approval, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have reported. One of the methods he’s used to do that is issuing executive orders and disaster declarations that allow him to shift funds, suspend regulations and award no-bid contracts at times of emergency. Since January 2025, two of the top agencies involved with border enforcement — the Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department — have awarded more than $5 million in noncompetitive contracts citing the emergency for items like a Ford F-150, rifles and apartments, state records show. “I think it’s unprecedented,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “I don’t think that there is a similar example, certainly not as to the length of the emergency, and certainly not after the emergency has seemed to pass.” Abbott’s office did not respond to specific questions for this story, including about the noncompetitive contracts, but Deputy Press Secretary Madeline Waschak said in a written statement that the governor has been clear that border security is an ongoing priority.

Texas senator plans to file legislation to address emergence of cychlorphine

As concerns grow about cychlorphine, a drug about 10 times more potent than fentanyl, one state senator wants to make sure dealers are punished properly. According to the latest data from the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, there are two cychlorphine deaths on record, and they both occurred this year, one in April and one in July. Both cases were marked as “accidental” deaths. The victims were 18 and 22 years old. This year, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sounded the alarm on cychlorphine, temporarily designating it as a Schedule I drug. When this happens, harsher federal penalties are available for those found dealing or in possession of said drug. That designation is set through Aug. 27, 2028.

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Schedule I drugs are defined as having no accepted medical use in the U.S., compared to Schedule II drugs, which have accepted medical uses, but are flagged for their high potential of abuse and dependence, according to the DEA. Fentanyl, for example, is a Schedule II drug. The enhanced federal penalties only come into play, however, if a case is charged on the federal level. In Texas, State Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), told KXAN in a statement “I continue to work with law enforcement and prosecutors as the illicit market shifts from fentanyl to newer synthetic opioids. Our statutes have to keep pace.” Family of teen hopes ‘more awareness’ prevents future fentanyl deaths Huffman was pivotal in the passage of a 2023 law that made murder charges possible for fentanyl dealers in cases that meet certain criteria. “Next session I will file legislation to tighten the intent standard, so a dealer who knowingly delivers a drug laced with a synthetic opioid cannot hide behind a claim of ignorance when that drug causes a death,” she said in a statement. The next legislative session begins in January. “A public safety issue, always has a lot more support than something that just comes out of the blue from an interest group,” said UT professor Randy Erben, who formerly worked as the legislative director for Gov. Greg Abbott. “There’s a lot concern about the drug problem, especially among younger people. And so an expansion of the definition to prohibit more dangerous or harmful drugs is probably going to receive a better reception.” Medics in Austin have said cychlorphine overdoses can require more than two doses of Narcan to reverse. Fentanyl, by comparison, typically takes one or two.

Jason Vaughn: I believed in Ken Paxton. Here are three reasons why I can’t anymore.

(Jason Vaughn previously served as policy director for Texas Young Republicans.) In 2014, I dove headfirst into Texas politics. I had moved to the state two years earlier and was quickly drawn to the conservative grassroots — what some might call the liberty wing of the Republican Party. But for me, it wasn’t about factions. It was about conviction. About protecting life, defending children and standing up for the vulnerable. That’s why I launched Pro-Life Texas. It wasn’t an organization — just a network to share information and rally around pro-life candidates. One of the first I supported was Ken Paxton. He was running for attorney general and had served in both the Texas House and Senate. Everyone I knew praised him. He spoke our language: courage, faith, conviction. I helped decorate the stage on runoff night. I even snapped a photo — Angela Paxton cradling his face, smiling, surrounded by their kids. The campaign made it his Facebook banner. I believed in them. I believed in him. That was 11 years ago. I couldn’t feel more differently now. Three reasons explain why.

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Ken Paxton didn’t make a one-time mistake. He had a years-long affair. Angela, now a state senator herself, stood by him through it all. She stood by Paxton even as his mistress was called to testify at his impeachment trial and, although deemed unavailable, planned to plead the Fifth so as not to incriminate herself. She stood by him even as staff were allegedly pulled into covering it all up. Through humiliation and betrayal, she stayed. Until now. Angela recently filed for divorce on biblical grounds, i.e. adultery. I don’t celebrate divorce, but I admire her strength. What disgusts me is how some in our movement have turned on her. I have seen her called disloyal, selfish and many more vile things — all because she finally said “enough.” If our political cause demands that women endure emotional abuse and public humiliation to keep a man in office, what exactly are we fighting for? According to testimony from Paxton’s former chief of staff Katherine “Missy” Cary, Paxton held a meeting after being confronted about the affair and repented with Angela by his side. Then he privately asked some of those same staffers to help him keep it going. But that wasn’t all. Inside the attorney general’s office, staff raised red flags about Paxton’s dealings with real estate investor and donor Nate Paul — including pressure to intervene in Paul’s legal matters and decisions that ignored expert advice. These staffers weren’t political enemies. These were trusted conservatives.

Chamber fights to keep commercial traffic at El Paso border crossing

Leaders with the El Paso Chamber of Commerce are calling on local, state and federal officials to stop the closure of commercial traffic at the Bridge of the Americas, saying this will push El Paso back economically and environmentally. Ricardo Mora, president and CEO of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, was joined by Royal Jones, CEO and president of Mesilla Valley Transportation, and Paul Dipp, president of Economy Wholesale Grocers, for a news conference on Wednesday.

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“This modernization of Bridge of the Americas should be a major opportunity for El Paso. Instead, the current plan will set us back both environmentally and economically. Nobody wins here,” Mora said. “Some local and state officials pushing this plan do not seem to care about the irreversible damage that will be caused to our economy, and we do. We will not stand for it.” This comes after the Chamber commissioned and funded a study by the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness at UTEP about how much the commercial traffic ban at BOTA would affect El Paso. According to the study, about $2.3 billion would be lost in economic output, over 9,500 jobs would be lost and $601 million would be lost in labor income in El Paso County, between 2028 and 2036. “Bridge of the Americas is the region’s only toll-free port of entry. That is very important for commerce in this community. BOTA handled $12 billion of two-way truck trade in 2025 alone. And yet, we’re closing commercial traffic,” Mora said. Mora added that 10.9% of commercial trade could go to other border regions, making El Paso less competitive and even causing some companies to relocate. He emphasized that in just one year, El Paso will lose $36.6 billion. Additionally, BOTA ranks second among major U.S.-Mexico border points of entry in both truck export value and commercial crossing growth. “In total, regardless, this is a mistake. Our community needs to wake up,” Mora said. While construction has not started, the work is expected to start by mid-2028.

Bud Kennedy: Who’s not supporting Ken Paxton? A lot of good Texas Republicans

The revenge of John Cornyn is nearly complete. Two weeks from an election that could change Texas, the silence of Cornyn’s and George W. Bush’s past voters rings loudly statewide. Their Republican Party — the party has run Texas for 24 years — is gone. In its place are swindlers, grifters and online “influencers” using the party as a racketeering front. Two weeks before a telling Texas election, look at the Republican leaders openly refusing to vote for one or more candidates: • Cornyn, a nine-time winner in November, isn’t supporting Paxton. He also says he definitely will not vote for racially divisive downballot candidate Bo French of Westover Hills. • Bush has not said specifically how he’s voting. But he took part in a Dallas event to raise money for six other Republican senators, leaving out Paxton. His nephew, George P. Bush, lost to Paxton in 2022 for attorney general. But that was a tiny runoff where Paxton was actually the choice of only 3% of Texas voters.

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Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, former Texas House speaker and six-time November winner, told Texas Monthly he can’t vote for Paxton or French at all. He also may not vote for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who runs the Texas Senate and the state with an iron fist. Fort Worth state Rep. Charlie Geren, winner of 13 elections since 2000, openly shared a post on X from Democrat James Talarico’s campaign. Geren shared more posts criticizing Paxton for lax prosecutions and also for spending $2 million on out-of-state travel. Geren was one of the Texas House prosecutors who were shut off when Patrick rigged Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Texas Senate. Ten-year Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, a Republican leader since 2000 and for most of her career the most popular officeholder in Tarrant County, told KTVT/Channel 11 she won’t vote for Paxton and will skip that line on the ballot. Earlier, she had texted a Star-Telegram reporter that Paxton is “corrupt and immoral.” Former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley is a different case. For years, he has criticized the West Texas Republican power clique and now openly backs many Democrats. This year, he outright endorsed Talarico. Whitley also said he’ll vote for Democrat Jon Rosenthal over French for the open seat on the Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas. Whitley also said he’ll vote for Democrat Sarah Eckhardt over Comptroller Don Huffines. The most telling number is in the recent Texas Politics Project poll. A total of 8% of likely Republican voters say they definitely plan to vote. But not for Paxton or French at all. They remember when Republicans were winners.

Harris County Flock reports shows gaps in oversight, transparency

Harris County officials do not fully understand the extent to which Flock Safety cameras have been deployed throughout the county, according to an Office of County Administration report released Wednesday. The report confirmed that Harris County — like many other jurisdictions nationwide — is home to an interconnected system composed of potentially thousands of surveillance cameras installed by various organizations and government agencies that is near-impossible to quantify. Who can access those cameras and for what purpose is governed by a patchwork of policies, the report stated, with some agencies strictly regulating access and others having no policy at all. “We still lack information on where the cameras are in Harris County, which agencies have access to them and if immigration officials have access,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a Commissioners Court discussion of the report at the court’s Thursday meeting.

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County leaders have some information on the cameras managed by the 13 county departments or offices that have access to the Flock network. Commissioners voted 3-2 to direct county staff to compile a list of recommendations on how departments should regulate access to the data produced by the automatic license plate readers and present the ideas to the court in February. Commissioners Tom Ramsey and Adrian Garcia voted against the plan, citing concerns about bureaucratic slowdowns and a potential overlap between those efforts and a similar process spearheaded by the sheriff’s office that’s currently underway. Six of the county’s eight constables refused to provide Commissioners Court with any information on the cameras they administer, and no county law enforcement agency provided camera locations. No elected law enforcement officials attended Thursday’s meeting. Hidalgo said they cited concerns over vandalism if the cameras’ locations were made public, though there was no indication that information would become public. She also said Flock Safety has not provided a map of active cameras in the county, as required as part of its contract with the county, which the court renewed earlier this year. Only the sheriff’s office and constables of precincts 2 and 8 gave a count of the cameras they administer. Most county law enforcement agencies said they had policies governing access to Flock systems, but only the Fire Marshal’s Office and the constables in precincts 2, 7, and 8 provided them, according to the report.

Tarrant County commissioner: Most critics speaking at meetings are paid

Tarrant County Commissioner Manny Ramirez told a constituent that most of the people who speak out at meetings are paid by political organizations, according to a recording of the conversation. Since the three Republicans on the Commissioners Court began to redistrict commissioners precincts in April 2025, more residents have become fixtures at the government meetings. Each month, roughly a dozen are consistently in the audience, though the number swells depending on the agenda. Many of those same people address the commissioners during public comment to say their two cents on the decisions being made that day. In a Sept. 29 private meeting with retired Oklahoma City news anchor Jack Bowen, Ramirez said he thinks many of them go to Fort Worth City Council meetings too.

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“So it’s an organized political organization that most of these folks — when I say most, probably 75% — are actually paid by the political organizations that they show up to voice their causes for,” Ramirez said on the recording. He said they are not ordinary citizens just wanting to voice their opinions but political activists organizing “to turn Tarrant County Democratic.” In a statement to the Star-Telegram, Ramirez didn’t outright say if he does or does not believe it to be true. “There is a clear difference between residents exercising their right to address their government and professional political activists whose livelihood depends on generating controversy,” the statement said. “Whether through podcasts, newsletters or social media, political outrage can be profitable. Commissioners Court should remain focused on serving taxpayers, not becoming a platform for organized political grandstanding.” In a conversation with the Star-Telegram, Bowen said he decided to meet with Ramirez as his constituent because the commissioner rarely speaks in meetings. Bowen wanted to know Ramirez’s perspective about how Commissioners Court has become a spectacle with people being ejected (and arrested) from meetings and disputes between elected officials on the dais.

Gina Hinojosa has a promise for Fort Worth schools if elected Texas governor

Democrat Gina Hinojosa would end existing state takeovers, like the one in the Fort Worth school district, if elected as Texas governor, she told reporters Thursday, Oct. 15. Hinojosa, an Austin state representative who is facing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for governor on Nov. 3, has made supporting public schools a top priority while on the campaign trail. Firing Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath on “Day One” in office is a campaign pledge, as is stopping state takeovers. On Thursday, Hinojosa was asked if she could — and would — take any steps to direct the TEA to end existing takeovers, if she wins. Her response was short and definitive. “Yes, and I will,” Hinojosa said.

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Hinojosa was addressing reporters near the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin, where her campaign had two podiums set up as she presses Abbott to debate her. The candidates haven’t debated, but Hinojosa has accepted invitations and proposed terms, according to her campaign. A mobile billboard was parked in view of the event, airing negative ads about Hinojosa. Abbott has maintained his time is better spent on the campaign trial in communities than debating. Morath announced in October 2025 that the Fort Worth School District’s board of trustees would be removed and replaced with state appointees. The decision came after the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade Center received its five consecutive failing scores in Texas’ A-F accountability ratings. When that happens, per state law, the commissioner must either close the campus or take over the district. The campus in question had already been closed and merged with another by the time the takeover was announced, but Morath said many of the district’s schools were struggling. Hinojosa elaborated on her position on state takeovers while answering another question at Thursday’s event.

A debate over canceling a Veterans Day ceremony highlights lack of representation in a Texas congressional district

The San Antonio Veterans Advisory Commission floated canceling Fort Sam Houston’s Veterans Day ceremony at a meeting last month and it was immediately met with outcry from veterans. Organizers announced this week that this year’s ceremony will continue as scheduled. Next year is a different story, said the cemetery’s director. Fort Sam Houston Cemetery director Gerald Lefler said at a follow-up meeting Monday that no changes would be made to VA ceremonies this year in honor of the 250th anniversary of the country. But he said they are still thinking of canceling next year’s event given that a separate San Antonio ceremony has both outside help in putting it on and higher attendance, and Fort Sam still holds a Memorial Day ceremony every year. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which manages the cemetery, considered canceling the ceremony each of the past two years, but separate efforts by then-U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a U.S. Navy veteran, saved it.

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In 2024, the VA, citing low-attendance, sought to consolidate and cut costs by discontinuing the Fort Sam Houston ceremony, and move to only having one event at the San Antonio National Cemetery. A congressional letter led by Gonzales convinced the agency to keep both ceremonies. Then, during the government shutdown of 2025, the ceremony almost didn’t happen, until Gonzales and his office organized it themselves. Both times, local veterans objected to the proposed cancellations. Gonzales resigned from Congress in April following sexual misconduct allegations, and his office currently sits vacant. During the debacle, leaders emphasized the impact of a lack of congressional representation for the roughly 800,000 people in the district, with U.S. census data indicating that more than 56,000 veterans and military personnel are residing within. “There’s a big gap where veterans aren’t getting support,” said Maira Alejandra Carrier, an Army veteran who is San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ representative on the commission. While congressional representatives do handle legislative matters, a core part of their duties is responding to constituent inquiries.

Taiwan to fund $4 billion Texas complex for AI, Nvidia partners

Taiwan plans to raise billions of dollars to develop industrial parks in the US that would build a base for a comprehensive supply chain for Nvidia Corp. and other AI hardware makers in the country. The initiative is starting with a complex in Texas that would cost as much as $4 billion to build, according to Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin. The facilities would help smaller suppliers that are essential to the operations of Nvidia’s main production partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and AI server assemblers including Foxconn Technology Group to set up shop in the US, Kung said.

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Each complex would run between $2 billion and $4 billion to build, and the government is planning “more than one” site on US soil, Kung said in an Oct. 12 interview with Bloomberg News. The Taiwanese government is partnering with the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, which will be responsible for raising required funding to develop the complexes, he said. “We are going to establish a long-term, sustainable supply chain there that can also be joined by American firms and local workers, and not just Taiwanese companies,” Kung said. Companies like TSMC, Foxconn and Wistron Corp. provide essential hardware for data centers and are critical to the success of US AI chipmakers including Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., and cloud service providers such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. These Taiwanese manufacturing titans depend in turn on lesser-known partners that make a wide range of parts from chip packaging substrates to cooling modules — everything that’s required in an AI data center.

Michelin Guide uses AI to write Dallas reviews

The Michelin Guide became the world’s most famous and prestigious restaurant rating system by building a secretive judging process. Chefs never know who inspectors are, let alone when or whether they will come to dine. Restaurant inspectors’ identities are closely-kept secrets, as is the process by which Michelin decides on ratings and writes its guides. But a secretive process only works if it is founded on trust. On October 8, Michelin updated its Texas guide, adding five new restaurants in the Dallas area. An analysis by D Magazine, including consultation with detection software and academic experts, shows that most or all of Michelin’s new Dallas entries were written by large language model (LLM) software, commonly known as AI. Asked for an interview to address the matter, Michelin responded with the following statement:

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“All Inspector notes appearing on the MICHELIN Guide website and app are developed collaboratively by the Inspection team based on their firsthand dining experiences. AI is not used in the writing of these reviews.” In answer to follow-up questions, Michelin clarified that AI is also not used in the editing process and sent an additional comment: “It’s worth noting that the MICHELIN Guide has its own editorial team of which the restaurant text editor is a part.” Michelin stated that it typically does not describe its restaurant writeups as “reviews,” instead using such terms as inspector notes, restaurant texts, and restaurant descriptions. Michelin declined requests to interview Guide leadership and declined an opportunity to review the evidence before publication. This investigation began shortly before Michelin’s October 8 announcement, when a local chef texted me the Guide’s recently rewritten description for Sushi Kozy and asked, “Do you think this is AI generated?” I pasted that text into the AI detector Pangram. Pangram is specifically known for minimizing false positives; it claims a false positive rate of only 1 in 10,000 and its accuracy has been confirmed by third-party teams of researchers. It immediately flagged Michelin’s description: “100 percent of this text is AI.” I emailed Michelin on October 1, asking if the company has an AI policy and naming Sushi Kozy as the description under investigation. Michelin did not respond.

Why AISD trustee candidates are competing for a board that faces state takeover

Sarah Dille would much rather be a real Austin ISD trustee – with full voting power on the school board and oversight over the district’s governance. “I have always thought about running for the board at some point in my life. It’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do,” she told the Chronicle. But now two AISD campuses – Burnet and Webb middle schools – have received five consecutive F scores, and some form of state intervention is required by the Texas Education Agency. As soon as mid-December, the state agency could decide to take over management of the school district – just as they have in Houston and Fort Worth. Five seats on the school board are up for election in November. But despite being chosen by Austinites, the board could lose its voting power and authority mere months later and be replaced with TEA-appointed managers.

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Dille, a former AISD Teacher of the Year, AISD parent, and UT education professor, decided that she was going to run for the South Austin District 6 seat anyway. Twelve other individuals have also stepped up to run for the board this year. “I believe in public schools so fully that if there’s any fire I’m going to run toward, it’s going to be one that’s in protection of what it means to be a democracy, a part of the community,” Dille told us. “I knowingly got into this understanding that I could be elected and not have voting power. But I got into it anyway, because I’m willing to do the work even if I don’t have voting power.” Jessie Neufeld, a lawyer, AISD parent, and co-founder of ATX116 – a group that works to connect campuses across the district – was hesitant to run at first. “I thought about it for a really long time,” Neufeld remembered. It was when TEA rejected AISD’s 1882 partnership application, which would’ve staved off the possibility of takeover for another two years, that Neufeld started to believe that takeover was likely. “And I felt like the work I had been doing in advocacy and through ATX116 to build community, build awareness, build coalitions – I thought, ‘This work can apply to being a pushed-out trustee in a really unique way,’” Neufeld said.

Despite tough talk from Abbott and Paxton, Texas penalties for data center violations are light

In recent weeks, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have adopted increasingly tough rhetoric against data centers, promising to crack down on hundreds of facilities that failed to disclose required information about their water use over the past five years. But the law that Texas political leaders are invoking carries a maximum fine of just $500 — a potentially negligible penalty that’s just a blip for large companies. Data centers use millions of gallons of water a year to run their facilities and cool their servers. Under state law, facilities that fail to complete required water-use surveys can be charged with a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine, and barred from certain state funding and environmental permits. But some experts say those consequences have significant limitations, raising questions about whether the state has the tools to force compliance from an industry expanding rapidly across Texas.

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State officials don’t know whether misdemeanor penalties have been issued against data centers, and the facilities aren’t eligible for state funding. Increasing fines for Class C misdemeanors in the Water Code would require state legislation. Lawmakers do not convene in Austin for the 2027 legislative session until January. “The governor is like, ‘Let’s enforce the laws on the books that weren’t being enforced.’ That’s not much in the way of incentive,” said Kathryn Guerra, who leads a watchdog campaign at the environmental nonprofit Public Citizen. “If those are the laws that we already have and nobody’s enforcing them, the data centers know.” Abbott’s office defended its enforcement crackdown by saying that the water board, along with other agencies including the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Public Utility Commission of Texas, will work together. “No other state agency will approve data centers until the Public Utility Commission, ERCOT, and the Water Development Board have the information they need to make informed decisions,” said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary. Mahaleris added that the governor has recommended that data centers pay for their own electric infrastructure, use less water-intensive cooling technologies and add power generation to the state’s power grid.

National Stories

3 children, 1 teacher killed in shooting at Bend, Oregon, elementary school, police say; suspect dead

Three children and a teacher were killed, and two others were critically wounded, in a shooting Thursday at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, authorities said. The suspect, a 16-year-old male, was shot and killed by a bystander, Bend police said. The children killed were ages 5, 8 and 11, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said at a news conference Thursday night. Two others, a 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher, were taken to St. Charles Medical Center with critical injuries. No names were immediately released. Krantz said officers were called to the school just before 1 p.m. on a 911 call from a person who said they had been shot at several times while in their vehicle by a suspect with a long gun. Emergency dispatchers then received dozens of 911 calls that the suspect had entered the school.

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The shooter forced his way into the school by "shooting at locked doors," Krantz said. When officers arrived at the school within three minutes of the first 911 call, they discovered that the suspect had been killed by a bystander, Krantz said. "An officer reported that the suspect had been shot by a community member who had seen the suspect enter the school and pursued him into the school and engaged him," Krantz told reporters. After officers entered the building, Krantz said, they found the four deceased victims. Officials would not say exactly what type of weapon was used in the attack or how many rounds were fired. Multiple law enforcement sources told CBS News the suspect used a shotgun, and The Associated Press cited a law enforcement official briefed on the incident as saying it was a pump-action shotgun purchased by his mother. There was no word on a motive. Police could also not say if the suspect had a connection to the school. No details were provided on the bystander who shot and killed the suspect. Authorities evacuated the school and transported all students and staff to a nearby church where they could be reunited with their families, Krantz said.

On the campaign trail, JB Pritzker courts farmers like he's running for president

The town of Shirley, Illinois, population 135, is an unlikely place for a campaign stop. Yet billionaire Democrat JB Pritzker traveled there to spar with his opponent in his bid for a third term as governor of the state in the November midterms. At Funk Farms, ?a 200-year-old corn, soybean and livestock operation there that was once represented by young lawyer and future president Abraham Lincoln, he extolled the virtues of farming. “Agriculture drives an enormous part of Illinois' economy. We've got to do ?all we can to weather the storm and get Washington to take a different course,” Pritzker said at the August event.

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Pritzker's visits to farms across Illinois reflect a broader Democratic effort to capitalize on farmer frustration over lost export markets and rising costs tied to President Donald Trump's tariffs and war with Iran. But analysts see his trips as largely an effort to cultivate a rural profile before a possible 2028 run for the White House, given he does not need farmers to win in November. A Republican has not won statewide office in Illinois since 2014, and most political forecasters give Pritzker a solid lead over Republican candidate Darren ?Bailey, a third-generation soybean farmer and former state lawmaker whom he defeated by about 12 percentage points in 2022. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune, also boasts a campaign war chest that dwarfs Bailey's. It was recently replenished with $65 million ?of his own money. “He’s auditioning,” said Brian J. Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Illinois. “He’s not banking on Illinois farmers but if he finds something that works, he’s going to ?keep it in his pocket because he’s thinking about the presidential contest to come.”

Susan Collins and Troy Jackson clash in final Maine US Senate debate

Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson faced off Thursday night in their final debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election, clashing over immigration enforcement, the war in Iran, campaign finance, and several other issues facing Maine voters. The race for Maine's U.S. Senate seat could have major implications beyond the state, potentially helping determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the chamber in Washington, D.C. The candidates exchanged sharp criticism throughout the evening, with several moments standing out: A protester interrupts: An audience member interrupted Collins' response to a question, shouting about AI data centers and climate change. Collins suggested the protester supported Jackson, prompting a heated exchange between the candidates.

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Campaign finance sparks accusations: Collins challenged Jackson's claims that he does not benefit from corporate PAC money, while Jackson questioned Collins' ties to Trump and his administration. Immigration enforcement divides candidates: Jackson criticized Collins' votes to fund ICE, while Collins called for reforms, including restrictions on enforcement in sensitive locations and improved agent training. The war in Iran: Jackson called for U.S. troops to return home, while Collins argued Trump should have had a better plan and emphasized the need for energy independence and negotiations. Gun control and climate change: Both candidates discussed potential restrictions on assault weapons and disagreed over how Maine should address energy costs and reliance on fossil fuels.

Democrats are happy to focus on Trump in campaign ads

President Donald Trump says he wants voters to pretend that he’s on the ballot in this year’s midterm elections. His rivals are doing their best to help his case. Democratic candidates and their allies have spent more than $163 million since Sept. 1 on television advertising that mentions the president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from AdImpact, which charts media spending. That includes airing ads that reference Trump on broadcast, cable and streaming nearly 180,000 times, the data shows. Republicans, meanwhile, have run ads that talk about the president just 16,000 times, at an estimated cost of $11 million, over the same period. It’s a noticeable silence about the party’s dominant yet unpopular leader. Many of the Democrats’ ads accuse Republican opponents of siding with the president over voters, particularly on issues like tariffs and the Iran war, which they blame for jacking up costs.

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The ads include one from the campaign of Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is running for reelection and has spent nearly $3 million on a Trump-focused ad attacking his rival, Rep. Mike Collins, for his close relationship with the president. “Mike Collins voted for Trump’s war in Iran, sending gas prices through the roof. He voted for Trump’s tariffs, sending grocery prices soaring. And Mike Collins voted with Trump to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians,” it says. “Mike Collins sides with Donald Trump and makes you pay more.” Republican National Committee spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said Democratic messaging reflected the party’s hollowness instead of its strength. “Democrats are lighting money on fire talking about President Trump because they have no agenda other than investigation, obstruction and impeachment,” she said. “Trump Derangement Syndrome isn’t a policy platform, it’s a $160 million way of saying you have nothing to offer to the American people.” Another ad from the House Majority PAC, a super PAC dedicated to electing Democrats to the House, opens with a middle-age woman standing over her kitchen stove and talking about how her family is “barely getting by” before she expresses her disappointment in Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who is one of Republicans’ vulnerable incumbents. “He used to be independent. But now it seems like he’s in lockstep with Donald Trump. It really bothers me,” she says, adding, “Congressman Fitzpatrick is not for us anymore.”

Sullivan, Peltola trade verbal blows, accuse the other of lying during ‘Debate for the State’

Alaska’s top two candidates for U.S. Senate disparaged and frequently interrupted each other during ‘Debate for the State" Thursday night. Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and his challenger, Democratic former Congresswoman Mary Peltola, traded barbs over affordability, Alaska’s energy future and accused each other of lying. The night was tense before the debate even started, with dozens of Peltola and Sullivan supporters waving signs for their candidate outside the Alaska Public Media studio.

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Loren Baxter was holding a sign in support of Sullivan. Baxter said he worked in missile defense in Alaska. “I appreciate his stand on that and the military perspective, and also on a lot of the work he's done as far as trying to repeal a lot of the executive orders that were done under the Biden administration,” Baxter said. Multiple supporters of Peltola declined to be interviewed. Several said the campaign staff told them not to speak to reporters. During the debate, Sullivan repeatedly alluded to a New York Times piece that featured former Peltola staffers alleging she subjected them to angry outbursts and derogatory terms for gay people and people with disabilities. Peltola said she's worked to maintain respect among her staffers. “I do not think that this election is about me on my worst day, and I found so many of these allegations concerning and outright fabrications or mass exaggerations of the truth,” she said. Sullivan was asked why he didn’t condemn President Donald Trump for disparaging women and people with disabilities as harshly as he condemned Peltola’s remarks. “I have denounced the president's language on these kinds of issues,” Sullivan said. Pressed for an example, Sullivan said he spoke up when Trump insulted Fox News personality Megyn Kelly in 2015. After the debate, Sullivan added that he also pushed back when Trump insulted the late Sen. John McCain.

AI runs into its next big obstacle: Insurance

A string of artificial-intelligence safety incidents is exposing a gaping hole for the fast-growing industry: the lack of available insurance. Rogue agents have hacked into websites. AI chatbots have been accused of encouraging suicides and murders. An agent submitted fake unsolved murder tips. The latest episodes add to existing lawsuits AI companies face alleging chatbot harm and copyright violations when models are trained. The seemingly limitless possibilities of artificial intelligence to change the world also include a wide-ranging capacity for harm that could leave companies that produce or use AI legally vulnerable. The biggest AI companies are racking up potential legal liabilities running into the tens—if not hundreds—of billions of dollars, as AI adoption spreads through the economy, according to insurers specializing in AI risks. Some industry officials have even called for the U.S. government to provide a liability backstop.

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AI companies have the usual corporate suite of traditional insurance policies, such as general liability and cyber-insurance, brokers said. But the industry’s phenomenal rate of growth means AI-related claims have the potential to outpace the limits on that coverage, according to AI and insurance industry insiders. “There’s too little capacity in every aspect of the risk that is being created by the AI capital boom,” said Nick Studer, chief executive of Marsh Risk, the insurance brokerage arm of professional-services firm Marsh. “But that is changing.” A few insurers sell coverage specifically for AI risks, including from agents. But the policy limits are small compared with the potential exposure of the AI giants. Reinsurer Munich Re offers a policy to cover errors by AI models with limits of up to $50 million, according to a spokesman. Startups are hoping to fill the gap, and insurance companies more broadly see AI down the road as a new opportunity for offering specialty products. Rune Kvist, a former Anthropic employee, is a co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, which has backing from Lloyd’s of London’s insurance marketplace.

After booting 760K off ACA health plans, the Trump administration adds some people back

Late last month, the Trump administration announced that it had cut 760,000 people from the Affordable Care Act rolls, claiming fraud and improper enrollments and touting billions in potential taxpayer savings. Not all of those kicked off were fraudulently enrolled, KFF Health News has learned. Insurance industry sources said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has reinstated a small number of people whose coverage should not have been canceled. More could follow in the coming weeks if enrollees discover they are uninsured when they go to use their coverage. Still, the sweep was long overdue, say supporters such as Brian Blase, whose Paragon Health Institute has supplied many of the sometimes controversial findings cited by those who allege widespread enrollment fraud in the ACA.

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But other policy experts question how many legitimate consumers were caught in the dragnet, perhaps because they failed to open a letter from their insurer or answer a phone call. Questions continue to swirl, even as a second phase of the anti-fraud effort is underway. An additional 419,000 sign-ups are being scrutinized. Insurers must let CMS know how many of those enrollees don't respond to outreach efforts by "around mid-to-late November, after the midterm elections," said David Merritt, senior vice president of external affairs at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. He confirmed that some BCBS members are among those who have been reinstated. He also said that CMS has an expedited review process for those who discover they have been improperly disenrolled. Overall, however, the administration is providing few details about the cancellations, such as how robust the outreach was to those it targeted, how long it takes for people to get reinstated after discovering their coverage was wrongly canceled, and how many such cancellations have been reversed. "It may be true that some of those enrollments were not authorized, but it can be equally true that people got lost in the shuffle and have a valid enrollment. Without more information, it's almost impossible to tell," said Katie Keith, a director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown Law. "That they are not being very transparent is telling too," she said of the administration.

Copyright October 16, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved