October 5, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

These energy companies put Oklahoma City on the map. Now they’re moving to Texas.

An NBA basketball team. An Olympic rowing facility. The state’s tallest skyscraper. All were lavished on this mid-American city by two oil-and-gas companies and their leaders over decades of investment to lure top talent. Now, the partnership has run into a Texas-shaped wall. Devon Energy and Expand Energy —the successor of Chesapeake Energy—said in back-to-back announcements this year that they were moving headquarters to a more desirable location: Houston. Just like that, Oklahoma City is losing its two largest public oil-and-gas companies, with market values of about $52 billion and $20 billion, respectively. The abrupt exits have frazzled some of the city’s elder statesmen, chagrined politicians—and prompted some chief executives to make not-so-subtle digs at their former neighbors.

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The companies have said they would maintain a large presence in Oklahoma City, but some officials fear that will dwindle over time. “We should be asking why Oklahoma keeps building energy companies only to watch so many of them eventually move south,” said state Sen. Dusty Deevers. The corporate migration carries extra sting because the companies were by far the top corporate boosters in Oklahoma City. They erected sprawling campuses and upscale strip malls—and even helped turn a moribund river into an Olympic water-sports venue. The drive from the airport to the city center is studded with signs celebrating the Oklahoma City Thunder, which won its first NBA championship two seasons ago. The departures are the latest sign that a frenzy of oil-and-gas mergers is consolidating the energy industry in Houston. Devon announced its departure after inking a deal to merge with Houston-based Coterra Energy. Chesapeake merged with Southwestern Energy, which was based in north Houston, two years ago and changed its name to Expand. Oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron both based in the Houston region, have acquired rivals once based in New York, Denver and Irving, Texas and centralized corporate functions in Houston. “People don’t understand that locating in Houston is like moving a film company to Hollywood,” said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.

Democrats lead governor races deep in Republican territory, polls show

One month until Election Day, voter dissatisfaction with the economy, concerns about political extremism and frustration with President Trump have Democrats within reach of flipping four Republican-held governorships, opening a wide lead in Iowa and an expanding advantage in Ohio among likely voters, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena University. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican fixture in the state for decades, is now narrowly behind his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa. The Democratic candidate also has an advantage in the race for governor of Alaska. The only place surveyed where the Republican is ahead in the campaign for the governor’s office in Kansas, now held by a retiring Democrat. The polls also show Democrats with an advantage in the Senate in these states, with Democrats ahead in Texas and Alaska, and with the edge in Ohio, while the races in Kansas and Iowa are neck-and-neck.

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While national attention has fixated on the fight for control of Congress, governorships will be important heading into a wide open presidential election in 2028. Not only will governors influence the electoral process, they will help shape the redistricting wars that are likely to spill into 2027 and beyond. The polling results underscore how Democrats have been able to push into states that have traditionally favored Republicans, as voters have soured on Mr. Trump amid frustration over the economy, rising gas prices and a deeply unpopular war in Iran. Still, the polls show that even as many of the Republican candidates for governor are at a disadvantage, they are outrunning the difficult political environment. Mr. Trump’s approval rating stands at just 40 percent across the five states. In four of five states surveyed, the Republican candidates for governor are doing better than the president’s approval ratings. Democrats, meantime, are boosted by broadly well-liked candidates who are, for the most part, seen as more politically moderate than their Republican opponents. In Texas, for example, just 28 percent of voters worried that Ms. Hinojosa was too far to the left, compared to 45 percent who were concerned Mr. Abbott was too far to the right. Gov. Abbott was expected to have an easy path toward re-election in a state that hasn’t put a Democrat in the governor’s office since Ann Richards, who served one term before losing to George W. Bush in 1994.

Amazon clears first water hurdle for $10B data center near Houston. Bigger obstacles remain.

Amazon’s plans to build a nearly 3,000-acre data center campus in Wharton County cleared a key hurdle recently when regulators approved groundwater permits needed for parts of the $10 billion project outside of Houston. The permits, which were hotly contested by Wharton County residents, would allow Amazon to tap into millions of gallons of groundwater a year for its office buildings and fire protection at the data center campus. The Coastal Bend Groundwater Conservation District issued the permits Sept. 8. The permits don’t include the millions of gallons in surface water Amazon is expected to need to cool the campus’ data center buildings, which could span more than 1.9 million square feet. Water is a central flashpoint in the national debate over the new wave of data centers powering artificial intelligence.

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Heat-generating computer equipment in the facilities often require an enormous amount of water, electricity, or both, for cooling. As public criticism of data centers mounts, Gov. Greg Abbott has said that the facilities must reuse their own water and that companies could face criminal penalties for failing to disclose their water use. On Sept. 21, Abbott told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to pause issuing permits for data centers until state agencies complete ongoing audits of the facilities. Amazon has said it would comply with Abbott’s water requests, disclose how much water it uses and avoid using groundwater to cool the data centers. The tech giant has also pledged to use technology to minimize its water use and fund regional water replenishment programs. Facing public pressure, the company has launched efforts to reach out to residents in the Boling area, which is located about an hour from downtown Houston. It has doubled the number of full-time positions the project is expected to create to 300 and established a Wharton County Community Fund with an initial donation of $200,000 that could support STEM education, veteran programs, housing and other local initiatives. It has held public events for Boling-area residents to answer questions about the campus.

State Stories

Data centers promise big financial returns. Should that outweigh other determining factors?

To Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, the debate over data centers starts with the boom in capital investment and property tax revenue the developments promise to the state. Creating regulatory guardrails on issues such as water usage and power are necessary but shouldn’t risk the potential return, Christian told the Fort Worth Report after appearing on a data centers panel Sept. 26 at the Texas Tribune’s annual TribFest conference in Austin. “I think you can learn from previous problems from data centers that have shown problems in the past,” said Christian, who doesn’t regulate data centers but has increasingly spoken on related questions about natural resources. “And what you do as an educated public is you fix the problems, you regulate to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But you don’t stop and turn down billions, billions of free market dollars.”

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Data centers — and their massive potential economic return — have careened into the intersection of the free market and community concerns about their environmental impact. The Texas Legislature is set to take up the debate over regulation in the 2027 session. The accompanying statistics highlight the choices and problems data center developers and operators face. Demand nationally for development of data centers — the buildings that house the digital infrastructure necessary for processing daily transactions worldwide for everything from paying water bills to buying airline tickets — is surging, according to research by the JLL commercial real estate firm. Seventy-nine percent of Americans support U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence, but only 14 percent support “data centers in our community,” according to research by JLL, Gallup and Reuters published by JLL in August. JLL declined a request by the Report for an interview for this story. Communities are experiencing the conundrum. In Fort Worth, property tax revenue makes up about 60% of the city’s general fund budget, which pays for most basic city services. But residential revenue — 63% of the tax base, compared to commercial — has turned soft in recent years because of protests and litigation, plus the Tarrant Appraisal District’s policy of reappraising every two years. Fort Worth struggled to close a $94 million budget shortfall for 2027 as a result.

As prediction markets spread in Texas, therapists warn about gambling addictions

Jessica Steinman fell hard for a gambling addict. They met when the Austin woman had just moved to Los Angeles in June 2011. She passed him her phone number while dining at a 24-hour restaurant where he had worked as a host. He called her the next day. Their relationship progressed quickly. He moved in. She covered the rent, his daughter’s preschool, vacations, dinners and other expenses. He spent his money on sports betting and at the local casino — entire paychecks. After three years of trying to “fix him,” she finally ended it. He had borrowed roughly $85,000 from her, she said, money that he never paid back.

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Today, Steinman is an addiction therapist who moved to Austin in August to help serve the growing Texas population of people — like her ex-partner — harmed by gambling. Texas has become a target of sorts for those who see the state as woefully unprepared to handle the explosion of online betting. “I would argue that we have the most demand in Texas,’’ said Sam DeMello, a recovering gambling addict and Boston tech entrepreneur. DeMello launched a digital gambling support platform that has doubled its number of users over the last six months. Hundreds live in Texas — and primarily North Texas. Problem gambling has been traditionally dismissed as an issue that can be fixed by willpower and moral conviction. A growing number of clinicians such as Steinman are raising concerns that excessive gambling can be more lethal and difficult to overcome than more well-researched addictions such as substance abuse or alcoholism. In young people, gambling disorders can create a dangerous rewiring of the brain, experts say, that is impossible to reverse without targeted support. And no matter the age, the disorder reports the highest rate of suicide attempts resulting in death among all addictions, experts say. What’s most troubling is that Texas, unlike more than a dozen other states, contributes no state money for prevention or addiction services, addiction experts say. The federal government spends billions annually on substance use. It dedicates no money to addressing gambling addiction.

As anti-Hindu rhetoric grows, Texas Hindus rethink public celebrations

For close to 15 years, Seema Ashar has hosted a celebration for Ganesh Chaturthi, a Hindu festival celebrating its namesake deity, inviting about 100 friends into her Irving, Texas, home. “It’s a very good thing to bring Lord Ganesh to your house, it gives you a lot of positive, strong vibes,” said Ashar, who has lived in Texas since 2003. Hindus around the world celebrate the god known for removing obstacles in their homes, neighborhoods and temples every August or September. But for some in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, this year’s celebrations felt different. In recent months, a wave of anti-Hindu and anti-Indian sentiment has swept across Texas. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, home to the second-largest Indian American community in the United States, has emerged as one of the major flashpoints, with much of the backlash targeting immigrants. The climate caused some local Indian Americans to call on others to celebrate Ganesh more discreetly out of fear of attracting unwanted attention.

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Others said that as celebrations have become increasingly large and loud amid the influx of immigrants, concerns about disturbing neighbors were valid. Ashar grew up in Coimbatore in southern India, where she saw a statue of Ganesh on “every street corner” for holidays. At her celebration last week, visitors gently swayed, chanting shlokas, or devotional hymns, while the rhythmic thudding of the tabla, or drums, enveloped her home. Along the walls, handmade lotus flowers made of purple and pink construction paper decorated a shrine for an idol of Ganesh. However, Ashar said as some celebrations have become more public, with some Hindu immigrants having parties in the streets, she was concerned about noise. “I enjoy all these events,” Ashar said. “I enjoy celebrating your culture, religion, whatever your faith is, but everything has a limit. You cannot disturb other people, and it’s getting wilder and wilder every year. You have to respect everybody around you.” The area has experienced a surge in immigration from India in recent years, attributed to the state’s booming technology and health care sectors. Today, about 270,000 Indian Americans live in the area, according to Pew Research Center. The majority of the community’s growth is concentrated in Frisco, Allen and Plano, which has sparked fierce debate in local city councils over the increasing number of temples, supermarkets and salons catering to the immigrant community.

Save Dallas City Hall group launches 60-day petition process for charter amendment election

The Save Dallas City Hall Coalition officially has filed notice to launch a citywide petition drive that, if successful, would add a proposed charter amendment to the May 2027 ballot. That charter amendment would designate the I.M Pei-designed building as the seat of city government, unless otherwise decided by the voters. The notice was filed Friday morning That started the clock to get around 20,000 signatures from registered Dallas voters within 60 days. “People are tired of backroom deals and misplaced priorities,” Chris Bowers, Save Dallas City Hall Coalition attorney, said in a statement. “They want City Hall focused on the things that truly matter to their families and neighborhoods, like stronger police and fire services, safer parks, better roads, and a prosperous economy that creates opportunity across our city.”

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Bowers added that the petition gives Dallas residents a way to “stand up, get involved and make their voices heard.” The coalition said in a press release that petition-signing events will begin immediately, with volunteers collecting signatures throughout Dallas starting Friday. The petition drive launched a year after the city council was first told that the building had millions of dollars in deferred maintenance and staff proposed relocating City Hall elsewhere in downtown. That briefing sparked strong debate in later months on whether the city should stay and repair the building or move elsewhere and use the land at 1500 Marilla Street for economic development opportunities. That debate sparked the creation of the Save Dallas City Hall Coalition, which has grown from a grassroots effort to an organized 501(c)(4) nonprofit that issued a number of legal notices to the city prior to filing a lawsuit last month. The group is made up of residents, neighborhood and business leaders, preservation advocates, architects, current and former elected officials, and other community stakeholders. The group has attracted support from community leaders like former Dallas mayor Laura Miller, Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia, attorney Ben Abbott, and Pei’s daughter Liane Pei. Liane Pei spoke during the coalition’s press conference outside of City Hall last week. “My father loved Dallas,” she said at the press conference. “He designed the City Hall and its plaza not for private interests, but for you, the people of Dallas, to conduct business, gather, celebrate, mourn, raise your collective voice in civic protest, and simply be together. It is your house.”

David French: The ‘God Gap’ is narrowing in Texas

Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, a 16,000-member congregation, stepped to the microphone at the Republican Party’s midterm convention last month and issued what sounded like a declaration of a religious cold war: “The beliefs of James Talarico are certainly wrong. But they’re more than wrong. The beliefs of James Talarico are blasphemous. They are evil, and they are not beliefs that any true Christian could support. Ever.” Talarico is running for Senate in Texas, and he has a chance to be the first Democrat to win a Senate election in the state since Lloyd Bentsen defeated a Republican congressman named Beau Boulter in 1988. Republicans are worried, and as a consequence their rhetoric is getting wilder and wilder. According to Talarico’s critics, he’s a heretic. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing who will lead God’s people astray. President Trump calls him “Talafreako,” and he’s apparently so dangerous to Republicans that, as The Wall Street Journal reported last month, right-wing podcasts are mentioning Trump less and less while attacking Talarico more and more.

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He’s young, he’s polished and he is, heaven forbid, a seminarian (on leave from his studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary). Talarico is running one of the most faith-forward campaigns in the country, along with other Democratic candidates like Adam Hamilton in Kansas (a pastor running for senator) and Rob Sand in Iowa (running for governor). Democrats have run a version of this playbook before. The Rev. Raphael Warnock has prevailed in two Senate elections in Georgia, winning a partial term in a 2021 runoff against Kelly Loeffler and then a full term in 2022, against a MAGA favorite, Herschel Walker. Democrats nationwide are trying to close the “God gap” that has been the Republican Party’s not-so-secret weapon since the 1970s and the advent of Ronald Reagan. Talarico’s Christian faith, though, is more liberal than the Christian faith of many Republicans. It’s more liberal than mine (which isn’t hard). But for many fundamentalists, Talarico’s theology makes him the wrong kind of Christian. And to some, no Christian at all. His opponent is Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, whose wife is divorcing him for infidelity and who was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House of Representatives for misconduct that included bribery, obstruction of justice and disregard of official duties. (The Texas Senate acquitted him.) Trump calls him “the greatest attorney general in the United States of America.”

National Stories

Democrats are struggling to beat Susan Collins. You can (still) blame one man.

Democrats hoping to retake the U.S. Senate have been enjoying a run of good luck. With Election Day barely four weeks away, polls show the party’s candidates leading in North Carolina, Georgia, and even Texas. Michigan, which looked iffy after a divisive primary that pitted centrists against progressives, seems increasingly winnable. Political forecasters have shifted races in deep-red Kansas and South Carolina toward Democrats, too, even though both remain long shots. And Donald Trump’s approval ratings continue to sink, creating formidable headwinds for any candidate with an R next to their name. But then there’s Maine. In the Pine Tree State, Democratic former state Sen. Troy Jackson appears to be struggling in his bid to unseat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. A gold-standard poll last month found Collins leading Jackson by 3 points, triggering a mini-freakout among Democrats. Conducted by the New York Times and Siena University in partnership with the local Portland Press Herald newspaper, the survey was notably worse for Jackson than others taken before and since.

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But polls generally show a close race, a major letdown in a state that went for Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024 and where the Democrat running for governor this year remains comfortably ahead. Collins is the only Republican senator up for reelection in a state that Harris won. That means a Jackson loss would hugely complicate Democrats’ path to reclaiming the Senate, forcing the party to bank on winning far more conservative states. So what’s going on? Some blame Jackson’s lack of charisma and mealymouthed speaking style. Others say consultants have transformed his campaign into a Washington-run effort ill-suited to a political moment that favors outsiders. Still others point out that Collins has repeatedly managed to get reelected, Maine’s blue-state status be damned. And some think the Times/Siena/Press Herald poll may be off, making things look more dire for Jackson than they really are. Yet if Jackson really is losing, it could also be because there’s a specter haunting his candidacy like something out of Stephen King. That specter is Graham Platner, Democrats’ original Senate nominee in Maine, whose gravel-voiced populist rhetoric caused national donors, progressive pundits, and 156,000 primary voters to swoon. Despite weathering a series of scandals—including revelations that he’d spouted offensive views on Reddit, gotten a Nazi tattoo as a drunken Marine, received significant financial support from his well-heeled father, and cheated on his wife shortly into their marriage—Platner was forced to drop out in July after an ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual assault. (He denies the allegations.) Those scandals left Maine Democrats with little choice but to replace Platner on the ballot. After holding meetings around the state at which voters nominated delegates, the party overwhelmingly picked Jackson at a statewide convention in late July.

21 states sue EPA to reinstate climate pollution rules for power plants

More than 20 states, including North Carolina, New York, California and Pennsylvania, as well as several cities, are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its repeal of most greenhouse gas emissions standards for coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. The agency’s proposal would also thwart future administrations from reinstating the rule. The state attorneys general, all of them Democrats, filed the lawsuit Oct. 1 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs are asking the court to review the proposed rescission. In a press release, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the coalition is arguing that the administration’s actions are “clearing the way for millions of additional tons of greenhouse gas emissions that will worsen extreme heat, deadly storms, flooding, and wildfires.” The coalition includes Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver and New York City.

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The EPA told Inside Climate News it does not comment on pending litigation. “We applaud Attorney General Jackson’s leadership in protecting our air quality and safeguarding public health,” said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of the nonprofit CleanAIRE North Carolina, of North Carolina’s Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “Joining this lawsuit sends a clear message: North Carolina will not stand by while federal rollbacks force our families to pay higher costs at the pump for dirtier air. Our health should not be secondary to fossil fuel industry profits.” Duke Energy operates five coal-fired power plants in North Carolina and 17 fueled by natural gas. In announcing the proposed rule, the agency argued that it lacks the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the largest stationary sources of the pollutants. That’s not true, said John Broderick, an assistant attorney general in the New York Environmental Protection Bureau, during an Oct. 1 EPA public hearing on the proposed rule. The agency not only has the authority, Broderick said, it has a “statutory duty to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants.” He called the EPA’s move “a blatantly unlawful attempt to undermine the Clean Air Act.”

Copyright October 05, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved