March 24, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

'When will it end?’ The ‘elevator pitch’ oil executives and diplomats are making to the White House in Houston

The Trump administration is sending its top energy officials to Houston this week to meet with oil industry executives and foreign dignitaries — and they can expect to get an earful as its war in Iran has sent their industry into upheaval. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, National Energy Dominance Council Executive Director Jarrod Agen, FERC Chair Laura Swett and other administration officials will be in the midst of the largest gathering of energy industry officials in the world this week. The annual CERAWeek confab comes nearly a month into the U.S.-Israel-Iran war and the all-but-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s main thoroughfares for Middle East oil, fuel shortages in Asia and the destruction of huge parts of the region’s natural gas fields and export plants.

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If there’s one message the industry wants to deliver to the administration, according to interviews with half a dozen energy industry executives and foreign diplomats planning to attend the event, it’s this: People need to know when the conflict that is already causing major damage to their world order will end. “Generally in the elevator pitch, people are going to say, ‘Look, we need to know duration, and we need to know infrastructure possibilities. We need to make sure that the uncertainties are as limited as possible,’ said Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell, an energy law firm. “The events in Iran have just kind of overwhelmed what anybody was thinking this year might be about.” Wright met with a group of energy industry executives outside the conference hall Sunday evening, two people familiar with the meeting said. A DOE representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The chaos caused by the war led the CEO of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco to skip the conference this year, Reuters reported. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, who has also been a featured speaker at the conference in previous years, will also not attend this year, a person familiar with the plan said.

Stephen Miller asks why Texas pays to teach undocumented children

Stephen Miller raised the idea of ending public education funding for undocumented children in a closed-door meeting with Texas lawmakers in Washington last week, a move that would challenge a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent, according to two people who were in the meeting. Mr. Miller, President Trump’s hard-line immigration adviser, cited gridlock in Congress as he encouraged the state lawmakers to pass conservative legislation on immigration and other issues that are crucial to Republicans, hoping such action would spur on other red states and federal lawmakers. Republicans have been bracing for the possible loss of control in the U.S. House after the 2026 midterm elections, elevating the importance of state legislatures to the Trump administration as it looks to push its agenda on health, immigration and the economy.

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“He sees conservative states like Texas and Florida can be partners with the federal government,” State Representative Tom Oliverson, the chairman of the Texas House Republican Caucus, said in an interview on Monday. “We can be a place where some of those ideas can be tried out because they’re difficult to do at the federal level.” On immigration, Mr. Miller asked why the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature had not passed a bill last year that would have funded public education only for children who are citizens or “lawfully present in the United States.” Doing so would break with the Supreme Court precedent set in Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 decision that determined that states must pay for the elementary school education of all students regardless of immigration status. “There’s a lot of people that believe that that ruling has some pretty faulty logic associated with it,” Mr. Oliverson said. Ending public school funding for undocumented students in Texas would be a major reversal that could be replicated by other red states with large immigrant communities. While federal law bars collecting of immigration data about children in schools, studies in Texas have estimated the number at more than 100,000 students, out of more than 5.5 million schoolchildren in the state.

‘Petty, partisan politics.’ Tarrant Dem rips Patrick over committee seat snub

A Fort Worth Democrat who received national attention for flipping a historically red seat didn’t get a committee assignment for the months leading up to 2027 legislative session, a decision he described as petty partisan politics that silences Senate District 9 in Tarrant County. On Monday afternoon, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced which senators would fill committee vacancies, following recent membership shakeups. Lawmakers aren’t currently in session but typically hold hearings in the interim to study policy topics in preparation for when they next convene. Newly sworn in Sen. Taylor Rehmet wasn’t among the senators named on the lieutenant governor’s latest list of committee appointees.

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“After months of SD-9 having no voice in the Texas Senate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has chosen to silence our district even further by refusing to assign me to any committee,” Rehmet said in a statement. “This decision reflects the kind of petty, partisan politics that too often stands in the way of delivering results for working families.” Patrick’s office did not immediately return a request for comment when contacted about Rehment’s committee membership absence earlier in the day. The lieutenant governor endorsed Rehmet’s special election opponent Leigh Wambsganss, a Republican from Southlake who he’ll face again on the November ballot. “While I am disappointed, I remain fully committed — and as energized as ever — to using every tool available to improve the lives of my constituents,” Rehmet said. “My office has already begun research and policy development on all committee topics, and although we are being denied a formal seat at the table, I will continue working every day to ensure Texas works the way it should for working families. “

How Texas became ground zero for AI data centers reshaping the energy industry

A California-based company is planning a new type of ranch in the heart of West Texas, measured not in herds of cattle, but in gigawatts of electricity. At the site in Fort Stockton, Pacifico Energy wants to construct a private grid — roughly the size of Ireland’s — exclusively for data centers that train artificial intelligence models. Few other states could accommodate a country-sized grid. But Texas boasts open land and ample natural gas. This makes the state attractive to a growing number of companies like Pacifico that are sidestepping yearslong grid connections by building their own power plants — one of the quickest ways for data centers to get online. This speed is crucial to tech companies as they compete against each other to develop the most cutting-edge AI. According to Cleanview, a company that tracks data center projects, Texas has more proposals to circumvent the power grid than any other state.

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“You see a massive movement of these big data center campuses, all coming towards Texas,” said Aman Joshi, chief commercial officer of Bloom Energy, which provides on-site power generation to data centers. Most data centers, even the ones building their own power plants, still want to ultimately connect to the Texas power grid, where it’s faster to get online than grids elsewhere. But an unprecedented data center backlog is forcing even Texas to slow new grid hookups. So, more companies like Pacifico are turning toward developing self-sufficient power islands as they wait for the grid to catch up. The resulting flood of both on-grid and off-grid data centers is why Texas is emerging as the fastest-growing data center market. It could have more data centers than anywhere else in the world by 2030. Many data center developers who want to bypass the grid say using natural gas is the best way to do so. Compared to other energy sources, gas can most readily provide data centers power all the time, which is important because many of them host online systems for critical services such as banks, hospitals and first responders. That makes Texas — the country’s largest gas producer — one of the most attractive places for AI data center complexes.

State Stories

Houston airport's only 2 TSA checkpoints pass 4-hour waits after ICE arrival

Travelers at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport saw lines of more than four hours at the TSA security checkpoints in Terminals A and E, Houston airport officials warned Monday afternoon, as the partial government shutdown persists. The TSA lines continued to grow at Terminals A and E, the only two terminals open on Monday afternoon, after federal immigration agents arrived at both Bush Airport and William P. Hobby Airport in the morning. The Houston Airport System urged travelers to contact their airlines because they could miss their Monday evening flights. President Donald Trump had announced over the weekend that he would deploy ICE to U.S. airports on Monday.

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TSA has been without funding for more than a month while Congress is deadlocked over immigration enforcement policy. Hundreds of TSA officers have quit, unable to afford basic expenses like food, rent, gas and child care, said Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. A group of ICE officers gathered at baggage claim in Bush Airport's Terminal A, where a Houston Airport System staffer appeared to direct them toward their assignments shortly after 8:45 a.m. "Monitor the line, maybe spread out, maybe half upstairs," the airport staffer told the agents before the group disbanded. Later, at least three ICE agents stood alongside the winding TSA line on the top floor of the busy terminal. ICE agents maintained a quiet presence along the edges of the standard screening security line at Bush Airport's Terminal A. Some guided passengers between different segments of the twisting line. Others stood to the side and watched. ICE officers at Hobby Airport walked casually back and forth without engaging with waiting passengers or airport staff.

Explosion at Valero refinery in Port Arthur prompts shelter-in-place for west side residents

An explosion and large plume of smoke at the Valero refinery in Port Arthur prompted officials to order west-side residents to shelter in place, while nearby Nederland reported no impact from the incident Monday. The shelter-in-place was issued for the west side of Port Arthur from Stilwell West to South of 73. Pleasure Island and Sabine Pass are included in the shelter-in-place. Antonio Mitchell with the Port Arthur Fire Department confirmed an incident at the Valero facility. "The type of incident is unknown at this time," Mitchell said not long after the explosion as his crews headed to the scene. Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens said the incident may have involved a heater unit. No injuries have been reported, and no evacuations have been ordered. Officials are monitoring air quality in the area. All personnel have been accounted for.

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NTSB says TSA holdup in Houston slowed expert heading to deadly LaGuardia crash scene

Travelers across the country are feeling the brunt of the government shutdown in the form of exceptionally long TSA lines, and Houston is among the hardest hit, with waits stretching to four hours or more at Bush Airport Monday. Those long lines didn’t just frustrate passengers. They also slowed the federal investigation into a deadly overnight crash between an Air Canada jet and an emergency vehicle at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. During a news conference on Monday, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy was speaking to the media about the investigation and how the agency had trouble getting its team together. That included one person who was stuck in a security line in Houston.

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“We have one our ... air traffic control specialist who was in line with TSA for three hours until we called in Houston to beg to see if we can get her through so we can get her here," Homendy said. "So it's been a really, a really big challenge to get the entire team here and they're still arriving as I speak right up until about, I think the latest I saw was midnight, maybe 1 a.m. tomorrow morning." Homendy also mentioned that a ground stop at Newark and the closure of LaGuardia most of Monday also played a role in how quickly the team could start investigating the crash that killed two pilots and left many others injured. The airport delays come as Transportation Security Administration staffing levels continue to drop during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

Muna Javaid: Texas made progress on kids’ mental health — but more must be done

(Muna Javaid is the senior policy associate for child protection at Texans Care for Children.) As policymakers and parents look for ways to help Texas kids with mental health challenges, it’s important to remember that the solutions will look different for each child and family. The right mix for a particular child could include more exercise, limits on screen time, stable housing, therapy or other changes in their lives. However, the critical population of kids with the most complex mental health challenges will need more intensive services. In 2023, the Texas Legislature took a key step to figure out how to support these kids with acute challenges and ensure that parents desperately seeking help can find the services they need. During that session, lawmakers directed the Statewide Behavioral Health Coordinating Council to develop a strategic plan to guide the state’s work on mental health and substance use challenges among Texas kids.

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The council released the Strategic Plan a few weeks before the Legislature convened for its 2025 session — providing a road map for state leaders to help parents support their children through these challenges. Legislators had to move quickly to react to the recommendations in the new Strategic Plan. How did they do? That’s the question we tackled in our recent report. We compared the recommendations in the Strategic Plan to steps the Legislature took last year. Our analysis shows that lawmakers made meaningful progress in 2025. Sen. Lois Kolkhorst and Sen. Royce West, Rep. Brooks Langraff and Rep. Ann Johnson, as well as other legislators, came together to build on the Legislature’s history of bipartisan cooperation on mental health. They provided funding for new mobile youth crisis outreach teams, improved access to Multisystemic Therapy, expanded the workforce through the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC), and moved the ball forward in other ways. At the end of the day, the Legislature fully or partially implemented eight of the 31 recommendations in the state’s Strategic Plan for children’s mental health. We appreciate those steps forward.

Border wall plans changed to avoid Big Bend Ranch State Park

Federal officials said Monday that border walls are no longer being planned for a stretch of Big Bend Ranch State Park in West Texas, a shift from earlier indications that walls could be built along the Rio Grande on the park’s western edge. A spokesperson for the Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector told Marfa Public Radio on Monday that there are “currently no plans for border wall construction” within the state park. The news comes after federal authorities briefed Big Bend area officials on border wall plans at multiple meetings in recent days. The update about the state park no longer being targeted for border wall building was first relayed to Presidio County Commissioner Deirdre Hisler by Big Bend Sector Chief Patrol Agent Lloyd Easterling on Sunday evening.

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The change had not been reflected on the Trump administration’s map of “Smart Wall” projects planned across the U.S.-Mexico border as of midday Monday. In an interview, Hisler said that Easterling told her it might take a couple of days for the section of wall in the state park, a 5.6 mile stretch, to be removed from the map. A physical wall in the state park would have cut off access to the popular Hoodoos Trail and jeopardized river access for local outfitters. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Physical border walls are still being pursued across the Big Bend region, including from the towns of Ruidosa to Redford. It’s not clear whether the removal of wall plans in Big Bend Ranch State Park is final, as the Smart Wall map has continuously changed in recent weeks without advanced notice. Federal border authorities have over the past week met with officials in Presidio and Brewster counties for a briefing on the project. As of a Friday morning meeting in Presidio County, wall plans for the state park were still on.

Supreme Court declines to review Texas press freedom case

The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case testing a Texas law allowing law enforcement to arrest reporters who obtain information from government employees. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the decision not to hear the case. "This case implicates one of the most basic journalistic practices of them all: asking sources within the government for information. Each day, countless journalists follow this practice, seeking comment, confirmation, or even 'scoops' from governmental sources," she wrote. "Reasonably so." In 2017, Laredo, Texas, journalist Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "La Gordiloca," was arrested for publishing news stories about a border agent's public suicide and a car crash. She was arrested because she fact-checked her stories with information voluntarily provided by a police officer.

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"This was a blatant First Amendment violation," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. "No reasonable officer would have thought that he could have arrested Villarreal, consistent with the Constitution, for asking the questions she asked. Such an arrest is plainly inconsistent with basic First Amendment principles." The Texas law had never been enforced before Villarreal's case. The law makes it a felony to solicit from public officials information that has not previously been publicly disclosed. After a Texas court judge held that the statute was unconstitutionally vague, Villarreal sued both the prosecutors and police officers responsible for her arrest. When law enforcement officers appealed, a panel of three 5th Circuit federal appeals court judges ruled for Villarreal, asserting: "If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned. Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question. If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it's hard to imagine what would be."

Children ‘continue to suffer’ at Texas immigration detention facility, attorneys allege

Months after handwritten letters from detained children drew national attention to the conditions at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, a new court filing says conditions at the same Texas facility have not improved — and that the federal government has filed a starkly different account with the same court. Attorneys who represent all children in federal detention — and who have visited Dilley nine times since the facility opened last April — submitted the filing on March 20. Children there “continue to suffer,” the filing states, with nearly 600 held for more than 20 days during December and January. The latest publicly available Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, from early February, shows 900 people have been detained at Dilley, though The New York Times has since reported that the number of detainees there has dropped significantly: The federal government has been quietly releasing families from Dilley, MS NOW recently reported.

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The filing describes inadequate medical care for the children, inability to sleep due to lights being left on at night, children feeling hungry, exhausted and persistently ill, lockdowns, guards confiscating and destroying children’s drawings during aggressive room searches and mental health deterioration, including panic attacks, suicidal ideation and one suicide attempt. The suicide attempt, first reported by the Associated Press, involved a 13-year-old girl who tried to cut her wrists with a plastic cafeteria knife after guards took away her drawing materials. The teenager was deported to Colombia last month after nearly two months in confinement, according to the AP story, which was attached to the court filing. AP reported that the eighth grader stopped eating after finding a worm in her food, at times did not received her anxiety medication and had a breakdown when a lockdown was imposed and a guard blocked her from joining her mother and sister. The government’s account of Dilley — the only federal family detention center in the nation — was starkly different.

Texas schools should remove references to Cesar Chavez from curriculum, TEA says

The Texas Education Agency said Monday that students are no longer required to learn about Cesar Chavez in light of recent allegations that he sexually abused women and girls. Several districts, including Austin ISD and Houston ISD, have already cancelled or renamed days celebrating Chavez planned for the end of March. But the labor rights leader is also found in Texas’ statewide standards for social studies in at least two grades and could be part of questions found on the STAAR exam. That requirement will now be waived, TEA said, because of a state law that says teachers cannot be compelled to discuss controversial current issues.

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“School systems in Texas should eliminate, modify and otherwise alter any learning activities, individual lessons, and ancillary materials to remove references to Chavez,” the agency wrote in a letter to school districts. The move comes after Gov. Greg Abbott last week said the state would no longer observe Cesar Chavez Day and several cities have canceled celebrations in his honor. For over a decade, fifth graders have been required to identify Chavez’ accomplishments and contributions to the labor rights movement, among other civil rights leaders. High school United States history classes have included references to Chavez as well as Dolores Huerta, another labor rights leader who was among the women who said Chavez abused her. The allegations were first reported in a New York Times investigation last week. The agency also said it expected the state’s ongoing revision of the social studies standards to further remove references to Chavez. Those standards are currently being reviewed by the State Board of Education and are likely to go into effect in 2030.

How the FIFA World Cup is reshaping North Texas

The 1994 FIFA World Cup in Dallas, and across the United States, did more than introduce a global tournament to an emerging soccer market. It reset the trajectory of the United States’ sports economy, accelerating pro leagues, stadium development, media intrigue, and the commercial viability of the game on American soil. Now, after more than a decade of planning, the FIFA World Cup will finally return this summer to DFW. It will be the largest tournament in the competition’s history, but its influence is already being felt. Hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure investment, venue modernization, transportation upgrades, and private development have begun reshaping North Texas. What is unfolding is not merely a series of matches. It is the foundation of a permanent soccer economy. The 1994 World Cup marked a turning point for American soccer.

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DFW—plus Lamar Hunt and family—stood at the center of that launch. The Dallas Burn were formed as a founding club, and Hunt emerged as one of the league’s most influential architects, underwriting both its vision and its survival in its most fragile years. What began as a 10-team experiment in 1996 has since matured into a continental enterprise. Three decades later, MLS now spans 30 clubs across the U.S. and Canada, with expansion fees reaching $500 million and valuations soaring north of $1.2 billion for elite franchises. The Dallas Burn, now FC Dallas, became more than a founding MLS franchise. Over three decades, the club, now run by Lamar’s sons Clark Hunt and Dan Hunt, helped cultivate a regional soccer ecosystem that extends well beyond the top flight, laying the infrastructure for youth development, professional pathways, training facilities, and community-anchored clubs that now stretch across the region. It is in these lower tiers of the pro pyramid that a city truly becomes a soccer city—where neighborhoods adopt colors, where fan groups form identities, and where investors place long-term bets not on TV contracts, but on civic belonging. London, one of the great cradles of the global game, supports roughly 17 men’s professional clubs across a metropolitan population of about 15 million, along with nearly as many women’s teams. DFW, with roughly half the population and a far more crowded sports marketplace, may never reach that level of saturation. But that has not deterred local club owners from trying.

From Colorado to Texas: How strategy, legislation and training aim to tackle classroom violence

From a teacher shot by a 6-year-old in Virginia to an assistant principal in North Texas who lost her eye, violence in classrooms is forcing schools and lawmakers to confront a difficult question: what actually works to keep educators safe? KSAT Investigates has spent the last two years looking for answers — examining what other states are doing, pressing Texas lawmakers and tracking efforts closer to home aimed at preventing injuries and supporting teachers. In Colorado, a statewide survey released in 2024 revealed more than half of teachers who responded said they had been physically hurt by a student — a number that surprised even those tasked with improving school safety.

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“I was shocked,” said Christine Harms, director of the Colorado Office of School Safety. “Not only because of how many teachers have suffered this, but how many times this happens in elementary schools.” That data led to the creation of a state task force focused on solutions. The group developed what it calls a “roadmap for action,” which includes increasing staff training, improving school culture and investing more funding — something leaders there believe could have the greatest impact. Harms said one of the most important steps other states can take is gathering better data. “Doing a survey like that in Texas would probably be really helpful,” she said, “not only with educators, but also with parents, because we need their cooperation as well.” In Texas, lawmakers acknowledge the issue — but differ on how to address it. “I don’t know that there is an easy, clear-cut answer,” said State Sen. Donna Campbell. State Rep. Diego Bernal said more needs to be done. “I think the state could do more. It’s not doing enough,” he said.

National Stories

Volume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump's market-turning post

S&P 500 futures and oil futures flashed an unusual burst of activity early Monday minutes before a market-moving social media post from President Donald Trump. At around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume, breaking from an otherwise subdued premarket backdrop. With thin liquidity typical of early trading hours, the sudden burst stood out as one of the largest volume moments of the session up to that point. A similar pattern was observed in oil markets. West Texas Intermediate May futures also saw a noticeable pickup in trading activity at roughly the same time, with a distinct volume spike interrupting otherwise quiet conditions.

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Roughly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and that he was halting planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. That announcement prompted an instant rally in risk assets, with S&P 500 futures soaring more than 2.5% before the opening bell. West Texas Intermediate futures dropped nearly 6% following the announcement. The timing of the earlier volume spikes across both equities and crude caught the attention of traders, particularly given the absence of an obvious catalyst at the moment they occurred. Early-morning futures markets are typically less liquid, which can make short bursts of buying and selling more noticeable than during regular trading hours. Still, the trades raised some eyebrows because whoever purchased a large amount of stock futures and sold or shorted crude futures at that moment made a lot of money just minutes later. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the CME Group declined to comment. Algorithmic and macro-driven strategies can also generate rapid flows across asset classes without a single identifiable catalyst in early trading.

Senate confirms Markwayne Mullin as DHS Secretary

The Senate on Monday voted to confirm Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma as the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, after he pitched himself as a change from Kristi Noem’s leadership style. Mullin was confirmed 54-45, with Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico voting along with most Republicans to confirm Mullin. The Trump administration is hoping that the new face of the embroiled department will make inroads with Democrats amid ongoing shutdown negotiations. In his confirmation process, Mullin tried to address Democrats’ concerns over the department’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, attempting to strike a softer tone than his predecessor.

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In his hearing, Mullin said he regretted his statements in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of Alex Pretti by immigration agents in Minnesota earlier this year, in which Mullin called Pretti a “deranged individual.” Mullin also said that with him in charge, immigration officers would largely not enter homes without a judicial warrant. He said he would get rid of a Noem policy where any spending of $100,000 or more required secretary sign-off, which delayed disaster aid,something that many senators had been asking for. Following the vote, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski told NOTUS she hoped Mullin would prioritize the FEMA grants that had been delayed under Noem. “I’d like to see him help unlock some of the funding resources that have been held up in the FEMA sector,” Murkowski said. “We’ve already talked about it, and I just had an opportunity to congratulate him and tell him that I know he’s going to put 110% of himself into this and I wished him well.” Mullin also pledged to be more responsive than his predecessor, an issue that many lawmakers had complained about. The new DHS secretary will step into his role at a department that has been shut down for more than a month over Democrats’ demands that more guardrails be placed on federal immigration agents. Mullin has not been far from the negotiations — he had been working on a DHS funding deal with Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey for weeks before his appointment to lead the department, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz have a plan to save rural health care. Here’s the catch.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team want to Make Rural America Healthy again. He has suggested that AI nurses could save dying rural hospitals. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said robots could give ultrasounds to women and touted how AI avatars could help. And President Donald Trump’s administration is infusing $50 billion over five years to improve rural health, with some states proposing to use the money for drones to deliver lab samples or prescriptions. The rural health care industry has long faced tight budgets, doctor shortages and challenges reaching patients in remote areas. But even as Trump officials pitch advanced technology to close these clinical gaps,rural health providers are worried that much of it is being oversold.

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And the one-time $50 billion injection the administration has promised for innovation, they argue, won’t make up for theestimated $137 billion in Medicaid dollars rural areas are expected to lose over the next decade due to cuts from what Trump called the “big, beautiful bill,” according to an analysis by health policy research and news organization KFF. The challenges are daunting, said George Pink, a senior research fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Nearly 200 rural hospitals have closed or converted into facilities with fewer services in the last 20 years, as patients have became more likely to be uninsured or rely on Medicare and Medicaid, which have lower reimbursement rates than private insurance. But rural providers are also happy to see money invested into confronting the challenges they face to operate, experts said. “There’s a healthy amount of skepticism and caution,” Pink said of the CMS infusion, noting also “there’s optimism that the money will be helpful in transitioning, or in helping rural hospitals meet the challenges that they’re going to be facing over the next few years.” In a statement, CMS vowed that the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation fund would close access gaps.

Inside the path to funding DHS

For the first time in more than a month, there’s optimism that the Senate and the White House can finally find a path to reopening the Department of Homeland Security. Key Senate Republicans returned from the White House late Monday with a noticeably upbeat demeanor over the state of the talks with President Donald Trump, who had just rebuffed a GOP-backed off-ramp. The framework under discussion would fund all of DHS except for ICE’s migrant removal operations, and could eventually include some reforms that Democrats have been demanding. Republicans would then try to fund the rest of ICE via a party-line reconciliation bill. GOP leaders would also try to use reconciliation to enact elements of the SAVE America Act, which mandates photo IDs and citizenship verification for federal elections. Trump has called this bill his top legislative priority.

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This framework is similar to the outlines of an agreement that Senate Majority Leader John Thune discussed with Trump on Sunday — a strategy that the president rejected. Trump has insisted on tying the SAVE America Act to DHS funding, complicating matters even further. Thune said this was “not realistic.” It’s too early to say whether this DHS framework will satisfy Senate Democrats. There are several key details that still need to be ironed out. But many Democrats pointed to what they see as a sense of urgency to get something done, especially as nightmarish TSA security lines cause chaos for millions of air travellers. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), a key negotiator who attended the White House meeting with Trump, said she planned to be “working through the night” to try to “land this plane.” We’re told that appropriators are actively discussing a path forward and were exchanging legislative text last night. Another important dynamic: Senators are eager to leave Washington at the end of the week for the scheduled two-week recess, especially after being forced to stay in town all weekend. And Democrats have long been pushing to fund non-ICE portions of DHS, such as TSA, the Coast Guard and FEMA. “This is significant movement,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said of the potential off-ramp. “We have a dispute about ICE practices. We don’t have a dispute about funding TSA. We don’t have a dispute about funding the Coast Guard or FEMA.”

The Trump-inspired realignment of the conservative think tank world

President Donald Trump has reshaped nearly everything about Washington– including the groups clamoring to influence policy. Three new groups – the America First Policy Institute, American Compass and Advancing American Freedom – have formed since 2020, seeing an opening to create a home for their type of conservative policy that didn’t exist with the GOP old guard, like the Heritage Foundation. The battle for lasting influence is on, and who ends up on top in this new realignment of conservative think tanks will not only determine who is most influential in Trump’s second term but could also mold the shape of conservative policy in the post-Trump era. The three new groups are working to drive policy in the future by building on Trump’s brand, expanding on what Trump has built, or looking to counter the direction the GOP is moving in.

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“The modern American conservative movement is— in terms of the political ecosystem— not as old or as mature as the modern American liberal movement, going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said. It is “the natural order of things, you would see additional organizations come into the fold as there is this political realignment personified and led by Donald Trump.” Some trace the origins of the three groups and the resulting policy realignment back to 2017, when the GOP failure to repeal Obamacare exposed the fractures in Washington’s conservative policy circles. The White House organized dinners with various think tanks following the failed effort, said Marc Short, Trump’s first director of legislative affairs and chairman of AAF’s board. “If you remember, there were parts of the Freedom Caucus that labeled the repeal effort ‘Obamacare lite,’” Short said, recounting the way Republicans were not able to come together on whether – or how – to replace the Affordable Care Act. “So we began organizing these dinners with the president and many members of the conservative movement.”

Job losses, falling ratings, consolidation: What's behind the decline in local TV news

Ellina Abovian, a veteran correspondent for KTLA-TV, was recently on assignment covering a story about Los Angeles International Airport when she received a message that every media business professional dreads. She was asked to see her boss at the station when she was done. At the meeting, she was told she would be losing her job after 11 years. "I was totally blindsided," said Abovian, 40. "There was no indication." The Glendale native was among several longtime KTLA personalities who were laid off amid a wave of cuts at outlets owned by Nexstar Media Group in Los Angeles and other cities. They included midday anchors Glen Walker and Lu Parker along with veteran meteorologist Mark Kriski, who first joined the station in 1991.

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The layoffs prompted an outpouring of support for the journalists among Los Angeles TV viewers, who saw them as friends and neighbors. Abovian said she received more than 20,000 messages of support. “I had no idea that people felt so strongly," Abovian said in an interview. "For people to say, 'I loved hearing your voice,' and remember all these little moments. ... It's sad because you have these people in your living room every day.” Once the primary source of community news and information, local TV news stations are struggling with their own tough story, one marked by declining ratings, stagnant revenue growth and rapid shifts in how media is consumed in the internet era. Broadcast TV stations have long had the highest profit margins in the media business. But the financial model that sustained that growth has steadily eroded in recent years. Streaming — which now accounts for more than 40% of all viewing — has pulled consumers away from traditional TV, putting pressure on outlets to control costs so they can remain financially viable. More than 2,000 TV stations nationwide still provide a vital role in communities, delivering as much as 12 hours a day in programming, live sports and local news to every household in the U.S. But they are now faced with an aging audience that isn't being replaced by younger viewers who prefer streaming platforms and social media.

Democrats grow wary of AIPAC’s role in elections

A growing number of Democrats who were once supportive of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are condemning the political powerhouse as the pro-Israel group and its affiliates have turned increasingly divisive in elections. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), once a donor to AIPAC who is Jewish, condemned the group after Tuesday’s primary elections, saying it “really is not an organization that I think today I would want any part of.” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who’s enjoyed support from Jewish groups, including AIPAC, also said last week he would reject spending from the pro-Israel group moving forward. The rebukes reflect some Democrats’ increased frustrations as AIPAC-aligned groups have waded into competitive elections and as popular opinion on the political powerhouse and Israel, writ large, has rapidly declined.

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“I have no doubt that if I would run for reelection, they’d oppose me,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told The Hill. “I don’t know what’s happened to that organization.” Outside spending flooded a handful of Illinois congressional races for the March 17 primary, with several industry and lobbying interests pouring in money to tip the scales of safely Democratic House seats. Three groups, two of which were bolstered by contributions from a super PAC linked to AIPAC, spent heavily to boost four candidates in the Prairie State, with two of their four preferred candidates winning their primaries. The third group, reportedly tied to the pro-Israel group, has not yet filed its campaign finance filing. But allies of these groups posit that the real mark of success on primary night was to make sure that no “squad” members won their elections in Illinois. They say, too, that they want the most pro-Israel candidates in Congress.

Iran pours missiles into Israel and mocks Trump's talk of joint control of strait

Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli military said, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said there had been "very good and productive" talks aiming at halting the conflict raging across the Middle East. Three senior Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump appeared ?determined to reach a deal, but that they thought it highly unlikely that Iran would agree to U.S. demands in any new round of negotiations. After Trump's Truth Social comment on Monday, Iran ?said no talks had yet been held. Iran's embassy in South Africa posted an image on X showing a child's pink steering wheel placed on a car dashboard in front of the passenger seat, apparently mocking Trump's idea, aired to reporters, that he could control ?the Strait of Hormuz alongside Iran's supreme leader.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke to Trump less than 48 hours before their countries began the war, was expected to convene a meeting of security officials for talks on Trump's bid for a deal with Iran, two senior Israeli officials said. A Pakistani official has said direct talks may be held in Islamabad this week. The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28 after saying they had failed to make enough headway in talks aimed at ending Iran's nuclear program, even though mediator Oman said significant progress had been made. The crisis has escalated across the Middle East. Iran has attacked countries that host U.S. bases, struck ?key energy infrastructure and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, conduit for a ?fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas. On Tuesday, Iranian missiles triggered air raid sirens in Israel's biggest city, Tel Aviv, where gaping holes were torn through a multi-storey apartment building. It was not immediately clear if the damage had been caused by a direct hit or debris from an ?interception.

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