March 28, 2024

Lead Stories

Associated Press - March 28, 2024

Joe Lieberman, former senator, democratic vice president nominee, dies

Former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who nearly won the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election and who almost became Republican John McCain’s running mate eight years later, has died, according to a statement issued by his family. Lieberman died in New York City on Wednesday due to complications from a fall, the statement said. He was 82. The Democrat-turned-independent was never shy about veering from the party line.

Lieberman’s independent streak and especially his needling of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential contest rankled many Democrats, the party he aligned with in the Senate. Yet his support for gay rights, civil rights, abortion rights and environmental causes at times won him the praise of many liberals over the years. Lieberman came tantalizingly close to winning the vice presidency in the contentious 2000 presidential contest that was decided by a 537-vote margin victory for George W. Bush in Florida after a drawn-out recount, legal challenges and a Supreme Court decision. He was the first Jewish candidate on a major party’s presidential ticket and would have been the first Jewish vice president. He was also the first national Democrat to publicly criticize President Bill Clinton for his extramarital affair with a White House intern. Lieberman sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 but dropped out after a weak showing in the early primaries. Four years later, he was an independent who was nearly chosen to be McCain’s running mate. He and McCain were close pals who shared hawkish views on military and national security matters. McCain was leaning strongly toward choosing Lieberman for the ticket as the 2008 GOP convention neared, but he chose Sarah Palin at the last minute after “ferocious” blowback from conservatives over Lieberman’s liberal record, according to Steve Schmidt, who managed McCain’s campaign.

Politico - March 28, 2024

Biden’s uneasy energy empire

President Joe Biden is presiding over a historic boom in U.S. energy production, with oil, natural gas and renewable power all setting records that would have seemed unfathomable two decades ago. And almost no one is happy about it. Republicans are angry about the hundreds of billions of dollars Biden is pouring into incentives for green energy, and his decision to place a temporary cap on the explosive growth of U.S. natural gas exports. Climate-minded Democrats and environmental advocates, meanwhile, say Biden’s approvals of pipelines and other fossil fuel projects violate his pledges to take on climate change — with some warning he’s demoralizing the young voters he needs to win reelection.

All the same, the once-unimaginable milestones keep coming: The U.S. set an all-time record for crude oil production in 2023, outstripping what any country — even Saudi Arabia — has ever produced in one year. Its natural gas exports also lead the world, providing a growing fuel lifeline to Europe and Asia. Wind and solar have emerged as the nation’s fastest-growing source of power, and now contribute nearly 15 percent of the country’s electricity, up from nearly zero 20 years ago. This abundance, the result of technological advances in drilling, energy tax policy tweaks across multiple administrations, state-level renewable energy production targets and the falling prices of wind and solar energy, means Biden has gotten the closest to an “all of the above” energy economy since presidential candidates from both parties started using the phrase in the 2000s. But the result has hardly been an era of untroubled bliss for the president. Instead, he faces continued unhappiness among many voters about gasoline prices, which spiked to record highs two years ago. And his administration must make tough decisions about whether, and how, to rein in fossil fuels that drive climate change. “We are an ‘all of the above’ country in many ways,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat whose state is one of the country’s largest oil producers. “But is that sufficient? Ultimately we’re going to have to figure out how we get to a clean energy future.”

State Stories

Austin American-Statesman - March 28, 2024

Why Dallas megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes was named in lawsuit against Sean 'Diddy' Combs

Dallas megachurch pastor of The Potter's House, Thomas Dexter (T.D.) Jakes, has been named in a lawsuit that associates him with Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. The lawsuit — filed by music producer for Combs’ Bad Boy records Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones — accuses Combs and several of his associates of participating in a "sex trafficking venture." The civil lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court for the southern district of New York and obtained by USA TODAY on Monday, alleges that for more than a year, Combs sexually harassed, drugged and threatened Jones. Jones is seeking $30 million in compensation and a jury trial.

The lawsuit states that Jones has “irrefutable evidence” of “Mr. Combs detailing how he planned to leverage his relationship with Bishop T.D. Jakes to soften the impact on his public image of Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit.” According to The Dallas Morning News, in December 2023, Jakes was accused of participating in sex parties hosted by Combs in unverified reports on social media. Jakes responded to the reports in a Christmas Eve service at The Potter’s House. “The worst that could happen, if everything was true, all I got to do is repent sincerely, from my heart,” he said. “There’s enough power in the blood to cover all kinds of sin. I don’t care what it is, the blood would fix it,” Jakes said. “But I ain’t got to repent about this.” Jakes founded The Potter’s House in 1996 and reportedly has more than 30,000 members of the church with locations in Frisco, Fort Worth, Denver and Los Angeles as well, according to NBC5DFW.

Border Report - March 28, 2024

Water scarcity hurting South Texas border agriculture

The South Texas border town of Mission is known as the “Home of the Grapefruit.” But the sight of grapefruit, lemon and orange groves could soon be no more as water scarcity is beginning to affect the citrus industry here significantly, and other Rio Grande Valley towns and communities are having to adjust because of Mexico’s inability to pay the United States water it owes. So far, Mexico has paid barely one year’s worth of water in the current five-year water cycle, which ends in October 2025, according to the International Boundary and Water Commission. Under a 1944 international treaty, Mexico must deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water by the deadline, an average of about 350,000 acre-feet per year. But as of Saturday, Mexico has only paid 382,538 acre-feet of water, and with just 19 months to go, border lawmakers do not believe Mexico will pay its debt in time.

Last month, Texas’ only sugar mill — and one of only three in the nation — closed down in nearby Santa Rosa because there wasn’t enough water for sugar growers. Over 500 mill workers lost their jobs. And local leaders fear it’s just the first of many industries to falter as water becomes scarcer. “We’ve passed two resolutions – one last year, and actually one at the last meeting – urging Mexico to release the water that is owed to us by the treaty. And so obviously, that has affected our water supply negatively,” Mission Mayor Norie Gonzalez Garza told Border Report. Garza spoke on Monday night after the Mission City Council unanimously voted to secure agriculture water rights with a local irrigation district to pump more water from the Rio Grande that they will then convert for municipal use. But it comes at a cost of $80 per acre-foot and they won’t get all they pay for. To move the water from the Rio Grande, the city will pay what’s called a “loss” of 15%, meaning for every 100 acre-feet of water they buy; they will get 85 acre-feet, Garza told Border Report.

Bloomberg - March 28, 2024

Can a ‘smart highway’ in Texas pave the way to self-driving?

Texas State Highway 130 swings a wide arc to the east of Austin, traversing a patchwork of farmland that is being carved into housing subdivisions. Semi-trailer trucks hurtle alongside sedans at 85 miles an hour, the highest posted speed limit in the US. Along the eastern edge of SH 130 sprawls Tesla’s factory, churning out cars that the company wants to eventually be capable of self-driving. Soon, the highway itself could help make that task easier. In 2023, the Texas Department of Transportation announced it would partner with a company called Cavnue to pilot the country’s first autonomous freight corridor on a stretch of SH 130 north of Austin. Cavnue intends to add sensors alongside the roadway to collect data on road conditions and, eventually, communicate with connected vehicles — cars and trucks that can “talk” to the highway as they speed down it.

“The way roads are designed, the way they’re operated, and the way information comes off the roadway needs to improve,” says Tyler Duvall, CEO and founder of Cavnue. The Washington, DC-based company was launched in 2020 from Google parent Alphabet’s Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners; its name is a portmanteau of “connected and automated vehicles,” or CAVs, and “avenue.” Smart roadways are the latest addition to a suite of vehicle automation technologies intended to deliver the self-driving revolution that we have long been promised. But it’s not yet clear if they’re the path forward. Enthusiasts like Duvall say that the more information that drivers — computers or humans — have about the road ahead, the safer and more efficient that road will be. The question now at play in Texas is whether adding technology to existing roads can dramatically improve AV performance and traffic safety. What makes a road “smart”? Mostly, the intelligence comes from capturing data via sensors installed on poles rising every 200 or 400 meters along the edge of the highway. These devices will collect and communicate information about traffic, weather, work zones, obstacles, and other road conditions. The advanced driver assistance features that allow some current vehicles to pilot themselves rely on cameras and other sensors contained within the vehicle itself. A smart road can expand that field of vision, Duvall says. “It’s a lot better to see a half mile or a mile ahead than it is 300 meters ahead, particularly for trucks,” he says.

Fort Worth Report - March 28, 2024

$270M National Medal of Honor Museum sets official opening date in Arlington

City Manager Trey Yelverton had a front-row seat during the process of bringing the National Medal of Honor Museum to Arlington — a process he likened to a series of speed dates between the community and the museum. First, the museum’s site selection committee met with longtime residents with past military connections. Then, residents got former Mayor Jeff Williams involved. Next, the community — students and business partners — joined the date. At some point, Texas Rangers and Dallas Cowboys owners also contributed by hosting the committee members. All the efforts culminated in a phone call that Williams put on speaker for hundreds of staff members gathered in the city manager’s conference room. The CEO of the museum said in the phone call, “There was no other place in the country than Arlington for this historic place.”

Five years later, the official date is set: The National Medal of Honor Museum will open on National Medal of Honor Day, March 25, 2025, at 1717 E. Randol Mill Road, north of Globe Life Field and Choctaw Stadium. The 100,000-square-foot museum will be the only national institution dedicated to telling the stories of America’s 3,517 recipients of the highest military decoration for valor in combat. There are 19 double recipients of the medals, bringing the total to 3,536. “This project was born here in Arlington. It’ll be in Arlington, but it’s a way that we, together, are going to inspire America,” said Chris Cassidy, president and CEO of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation. The museum was expected to open on Veterans Day this year, but global supply shortages and other issues stemming from the pandemic caused the delay, Cassidy said.

Texas Tribune - March 28, 2024

Republicans’ budding interest in Texas’ housing crisis could create strange political bedfellows

Republican lawmakers have begun to signal that curtailing the state’s high home prices and rents will be a major focus when they return to Austin next year. Texas Republicans’ traditional approach to combating growing housing costs has been to rein in property taxes, which are among the highest in the nation. But one idea to solve the country’s growing housing crisis has been gaining traction in red and blue states alike: reducing or eliminating city zoning and land-use rules that determine what kind of housing can be built and where. Many housing advocates believe these policies get in the way of adding enough homes. Curbing or getting rid of them, they argue, would bring down home prices and rents — and give would-be buyers a fighting shot at owning a home. Unlike many of the contentious issues that drive stark partisan divides among Texas lawmakers, tackling the state’s housing affordability crisis could foster rare alliances between Republicans and Democrats during next year’s legislative session. That’s because the underlying attitudes Texans hold about housing don’t break cleanly along partisan lines.

Would-be homeowners and renters, regardless of political affiliation, are desperate for cheaper housing. Homeowners who tend to resist development — often referred to as NIMBYs, which stands for “Not In My Backyard” — can be found in Republican and Democratic strongholds alike. For conservatives expressing support for zoning reforms in recent weeks, reducing government regulations and letting the free market take the wheel holds a clear appeal. It could also bolster property owners’ rights by allowing them to build more on their land. “There's too much government involved in the housing affordability issue,” said James Quintero, policy director for the foundation’s Taxpayer Protection Project. “To the extent that we can either limit or get government out of the way entirely, we will begin to ease the problem and allow market forces to correct for it.” State Rep. Cody Vasut, a Houston-area Republican who is close with House leadership, hinted he would welcome a proposal to at least tamp down on those regulations next session. “We want to have good policies that encourage development in order to lower prices,” Vasut said during a February panel at a gathering of pro-housing activists and groups in Austin. “And the best way to do that is to get the government slightly more out of the way so that the free market takes off and provides a good product at a lower price.”

Texas Monthly - March 28, 2024

Some leaders of the Texas GOP have found a new enemy: H-E-B Chairman Charles Butt

Up against the wall, Charles Butt! The Jacobins in the GOP have a new enemy, and it’s the 86-year-old chairman of Texas’s beloved grocery chain, H-E-B. This weekend, party officials in four counties in East and Southeast Texas voted to condemn the “Democrat billionaire” for involving himself in “advocating for policies contrary to the Republican Party of Texas platform.” Among Butt’s alleged offenses against the party: Advocating against “election integrity.” (Ahead of the 2020 election, Butt publicly supported Harris County, home to Houston, in its quest to send mail-in ballots to all eligible voters.) Lobbying “against parents’ God-given rights and against empowering parents to choose the education that is best for their children.” (It’s unclear what “God-given rights” Butt opposes—in general, the resolution is poorly worded—but otherwise, his apostasy involves contributing to candidates and groups that support public education and oppose private-school vouchers, which would divert tax dollars away from public schools and toward private ones.) Sponsoring “drag queen shows for children.” (The resolution doesn’t specify what events it is referencing, but right-wing news sites have accused H-E-B of sponsoring pride events that included drag shows.)

To understand how Butt has become a target of so many among the GOP faithful, consider how the party crafts its most sacred document: the party platform, a notoriously long and ideologically extreme text that activists wield like a cudgel against Republican elected officials and candidates. For crimes against the principles outlined in the platform, the Texas GOP has adopted resolutions censuring a who’s who of the party’s top leaders, including—in chronological order—former House Speaker Joe Straus, Congressman Tony Gonzales, state representative Andrew Murr, and House Speaker Dade Phelan. (After contacting the Charles Butt Foundation, a representative for Butt and H-E-B declined our request for an interview.) The drafting of the platform is an every-other-year affair, in even years. It begins ahead of the biennial state Republican Party convention, during precinct, county, and state Senate district meetings that take place across the state. If the Republican Party convention is a sort of right-wing Burning Man—a gathering of like-minded eccentrics—then the local and regional conventions are tailgating parties, where activists propose and debate resolutions that will be considered at the state convention. The platform is supposed to reflect the ideology of the GOP base, which can be defined, for practical purposes, as the very right-wing 3 percent of Texans who decide Republican primary elections. Though it’s nonbinding, the document is treated with grim seriousness by its authors—and therefore commands at least some respect, or perhaps fear, among elected officials. Platform fundamentalism is a core feature of the Texas Republican Party.

WFAA - March 28, 2024

Jennifer Garner starring in movie based on accountant, wife convicted of embezzling $17 million from North Texas bakery, report says

Texas-born actress Jennifer Garner is set to star in a movie about a couple who embezzled nearly $17 million from the Collin Street Bakery based in Corsicana, according to a new report. The movie, entitled Fruitcake, according to Deadline, will feature Garner as Kay Jenkins and Paul Walter Hauser as Kay's husband, Sandy Jenkins, a seemingly upstanding middle-class couple, who achieved the American dream after Sandy used his job as an accountant to embezzle $17 million from Collin Street Bakery, the world-famous fruitcake company based in Corsicana. In September 2015, Sandy was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Kay was given five years probation and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. Deadline had previously reported in 2020 that Will Ferrell and Laura Dern were set to portray the Texas couple, but the project "has undergone a makeover," according to Deadline's new report released earlier this month.

The movie is being directed by Max Winkler, known for films like Flower and Jungleland. "The saga of the Collin Street Bakery’s fruitcake factory, based on Katy Vine’s brilliant article, remains our white whale. I’m thrilled and honored to get to bring it all to the screen with this wonderful team we have assembled.,” Winkler told Deadline. A timetable for the movie's release has not yet been reported. According to federal authorities, Sandy Jenkins caused Collin Street Bakery checks to be written to his personal creditors and then manipulated Collin Street Bakery's computerized accounting system to show that the checks had been voided. According to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Texas' Northern District, the prosecution said the Jenkins took 223 trips on private jets from 2004 until the embezzlement was discovered in 2013 at a total cost exceeding $3.3 million. Additionally, the government found the Jenkins spent more than $11 million on an American Express black card alone — which comes out to roughly $98,000 per month over the course of the scheme — and $1.2 million at the Neiman Marcus store in Dallas' Northpark Center.

Dallas Morning News - March 28, 2024

Gov. Abbott issues executive order fighting antisemitism at Texas colleges

Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Wednesday aimed at fighting what his office called an increase in antisemitism at Texas’ colleges and universities. “Some radical organizations on our campuses engaged in acts that have no place in Texas,” Abbott said in a press release. “Now, we must work to ensure that our college campuses are safe spaces for members of the Jewish community.” Abbott said acts of antisemitism began to grow “in number, size and danger to the Jewish community” since the Hamas attack in early October that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel. The order requires all public colleges and universities in the state to review their free speech policies to lay out punishments for antisemitic rhetoric on campuses; to ensure administrators enforce those policies; and to include the definition of antisemitism.

However, some worried about the impact it would have on free speech and criticized it as overly broad. The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Texas) condemned the order in a statement, calling it “an unconstitutional overreach.” “This order not only undermines the principles of free speech and academic freedom but also perpetuates a harmful narrative that equates criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism,” CAIR-DFW Executive Director Mustafa Carroll said in a statement. In the executive order, Abbott noted that protected free speech areas on Texas university campuses, including the buildings and parking lots of Jewish student organizations, have been covered in antisemitic graffiti. He said multiple protests and walkouts staged by schools’ student organizations have featured chants that included antisemitic phrases, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which he described as being “used by Hamas supporters to call for the violent dismantling of the State of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish people who live there.” The governor is distributing more than $4 million in grant funding for security enhancements among Jewish organizations; directing state agencies to cease purchasing goods produced in or exported from the Gaza Strip and from any organization or state with ties to Hamas; and encouraging schools across the state to use lessons and resources shared by the Texas Education Agency to help students understand the Israel-Hamas war.

Dallas Morning News - March 28, 2024

IRS owes Texans $107 million in unclaimed tax refunds. Time is running out to file

More than 93,000 Texans have unclaimed tax refunds, but the deadline to file a tax return is approaching. The IRS said this week that roughly 940,000 people in the U.S. have until May 17 to submit tax returns for unclaimed refunds for tax year 2020, which total more than $1 billion nationwide. In Texas, unclaimed refunds total $107 million, with a median refund of $960. The national median refund for 2020 is $932. “There’s money remaining on the table for hundreds of thousands of people who haven’t filed 2020 tax returns,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement “We want taxpayers to claim these refunds, but time is running out for people who may have overlooked or forgotten about these refunds.” Taxpayers typically have three years to file and claim their tax refunds before the money becomes the property of the U.S. Treasury. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the deadline for 2020 was extended from 2023 to 2024.

By not filing a return, taxpayers could lose more than a refund. Many low- and moderate-income workers may be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which in 2020 was worth up to $6,660 for taxpayers with qualifying children. The program helps individuals and people whose incomes are below certain thresholds. “People faced extremely unusual situations during the pandemic, which may have led some people to forget about a potential refund on their 2020 tax returns,” Werfel said. For those who need to file a return, the IRS advises taxpayers to request their W-2, 1098, 1099 or 5498 from their employer or bank — or order a free wage and income transcript using the “Get Transcript Online” tool at IRS.gov. This week’s announcement from the IRS comes weeks after the federal tax collector launched a pilot program called Direct File in a dozen states, including Texas. Some 50,000 people in those states have used the free program so far this year.

Dallas Morning News - March 28, 2024

How many Texas bridges are ‘structurally deficient?’

Texas bridges are among the safest in the nation, according to a 2023 analysis by the non-partisan American Road & Transportation Builders Association. Nearly 20% of the state’s more than 56,000 bridges need repair, but less than 2% are considered structurally deficient, meaning one of the key elements is in poor or worse condition. On Tuesday morning, a cargo ship smashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, bringing the structure down and presumably killing six construction workers on the structure. The bodies of two people were recovered from the site Wednesday, Maryland State Police said. North Texas does not have any boat ports or bridges similar in structure to the Francis Scott Key Bridge, but there are hundreds of bridges that cross other roadways, railroads, rivers, lakes and basins.

Dallas Morning News - March 28, 2024

North Texas county issues disaster declaration for solar eclipse, expects 200K people

A North Texas county issued a disaster declaration ahead of the April 8 solar eclipse, warning of traffic and potential gridlock as the celestial event ends. Kaufman County Judge Jakie Allen issued the declaration Wednesday due to “projected and expected number of visitors,” according to a news release from the county’s Office of Emergency Management. County officials are expecting 200,000 people in attendance — nearly double its population — to view the total eclipse as Kaufman and Terrell are in the path of totality. “The dramatic increase in population, even for a short time, will greatly impact our public safety agencies, taxing their ability to respond to calls,” officials wrote in a release announcing the declaration.

City Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 28, 2024

It just became a little easier, and cheaper, to run a restaurant in Dallas

Dallas City Council approved a code change Wednesday that no longer requires food service managers to register with the city. Prior to the code revision, restaurant and food business managers had to submit an application form through the city to show they were certified through the state’s health department. The registration cost $63, and food service managers faced a penalty of up to $500 if they didn’t comply. Now, they are only required to obtain a food manager certificate from the state’s health department. It may be a small change, but restaurateur Tanner Agar says it’s a meaningful one. When he and his business partners opened Rye in Dallas after operating in McKinney for years, they were surprised and confused by the Dallas requirement.

“You had to register to show that you were registered,” Agar said of the code requirement. “You can see why we thought it was odd.” Agar said the change is a welcomed one in a city where the process for opening and operating restaurants is notoriously choked with red tape on things from awnings to parking requirements. “I do think there should be rules for restaurants, but it can be helpful when there are fewer hoops to jump through, especially when I don’t think those hoops are making things safer,” he said. “The city is growing and changing, and code needs to change to reflect that for the best interest of the citizens, and doing away with obstacles only benefits the people who have jobs with us and the people who dine with us.”

National Stories

Associated Press - March 28, 2024

Trump is selling ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills

Former President Donald Trump is now selling Bibles as he runs to return to the White House. Trump, who became the presumptive Republican nominee earlier this month, released a video on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday urging his supporters to buy the “God Bless the USA Bible,” which is inspired by country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic ballad. Trump takes the stage to the song at each of his rallies and has appeared with Greenwood at events. “Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible,” Trump wrote, directing his supporters to a website selling the book for $59.99. The effort comes as Trump has faced a serious money crunch amid mounting legal bills while he fights four criminal indictments along with a series of civil charges.

Trump was given a reprieve Monday when a New York appeals court agreed to hold off on collecting the more than $454 million he owes following a civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. Trump has already posted a $92 million bond in connection with defamation cases brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexual assault. “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in the video posted on Truth Social. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.” Billing itself as “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” the new venture’s website calls it “Easy-to-read” with “large print” and a “slim design” that “invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time.”

Border Report - March 28, 2024

Mexico adds more troops to hot spot for unlawful migrant crossings

Mexico’s National Guard is deploying more soldiers to an area between San Diego and Tijuana that has seen an increased number of unlawful crossings in recent weeks. The added foot patrols are also a result of verbal abuse and threats from smugglers directed at the soldiers, according to David Pérez Tejada, head of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration in Baja California. “We are getting a lot of aggressive encounters,” he said. “We’re also asking migrants to stay out of this area.” The area is just east of Tijuana’s bullring in a canyon about half a mile from the coast, where, according to Pérez Tejada, at least 100 people are unlawfully crossing the border daily.

Kaiser Health News - March 28, 2024

Some Medicaid providers borrow or go into debt amid ‘unwinding’ payment disruptions

Jason George began noticing in September that Medicaid payments had stalled for some of his assisted living facility residents, people who need help with daily living. Guardian Group Montana, which owns three small facilities in rural Montana, relies on the government health insurance to cover its care of low-income residents. George, who manages the facilities, said residents’ Medicaid delays have lasted from a few weeks to more than six months and that at one point the total amounted to roughly $150,000. George said the company didn’t have enough money to pay its employees. When he called state health and public assistance officials for help, he said, they told him they were swamped processing a high load of Medicaid cases, and that his residents would have to wait their turn. “I’ve mentioned to some of them, ‘Well what do we do if we’re not being paid for four or five months? Do we have to evict the resident?’” he asked.

Instead, the company took out bank loans at 8% interest, George said. Montana officials finished their initial checks of who qualifies for Medicaid in January, less than a year after the federal government lifted a freeze on disenrollments during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. More than 127,200 people in Montana lost Medicaid with tens of thousands of cases still processing, according to the latest state data, from mid-February. Providers who take Medicaid have said their state payments have been disrupted, leaving them financially struggling amid the unwinding. They’re providing care without pay, and sometimes going into debt. It’s affecting small long-term care facilities, substance use disorder clinics, and federally funded health centers that rely on Medicaid to offer treatment based on need, not what people can pay. State health officials have defended their Medicaid redetermination process and said they have worked to address public assistance backlogs. Financial pinches were expected as people who legitimately no longer qualify were removed from coverage. But the businesses have said an overburdened state workforce is creating a different set of problems. In some cases, it has taken months for people to reapply for Medicaid after getting dropped, or to access the coverage for the first time. Part of the problem, providers said, are long waits on hold for the state’s call center and limited in-person help.

March 27, 2024

Lead Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 27, 2024

AG Ken Paxton strikes deal to resolve 2015 securities fraud charges

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and prosecutors agreed to dismiss almost 9-year-old criminal charges Tuesday if the Republican state official completes community supervision and pays about $270,000 in restitution. Terms of the 18-month intervention agreement, announced Tuesday in a pretrial hearing that had been delayed from last week, also include 100 hours of community service and 15 hours of legal education classes focused on ethics. Paxton was to face trial on April 15 on three felony counts, including two charges of securities fraud. If Paxton, who was in the courtroom Tuesday, completes the terms of the arrangement, the charges will not appear on his record. In a statement after the hearing, Paxton said he did not admit guilt under the agreement, which was proposed by prosecutors.

“For over a decade, my family and I have been dealing with the ongoing stress of these accusations and are relieved to finally have a resolution in this matter,” Paxton said. “The prosecution came to us to begin negotiations, and we were able to come to an agreement on terms. There will never be a conviction in this case, nor am I guilty,” he said. Brian Wice, who was appointed as a special prosecutor in the case, had said earlier this year that an agreement without an admission of guilt would not be appropriate in this case. But on Tuesday, Wice said Paxton’s decision to pay restitution offered a rare opportunity to undo any wrongdoing to the victims. “In a typical criminal case, victims are seldom, if ever, made whole,” Wice said. “In this case, you were able to do exactly that.” Paxton will have 18 months to pay the $270,000 to former state Rep. Byron Cook and the estate of Florida businessman Joel Hochberg, who died last year. Wice said that, if Paxton repays money lost in the investment deal early, he would entertain cutting short his supervision of Paxton. The agreement requires the attorney general to check in with prosecutors every 60 days.

Austin American-Statesman - March 27, 2024

How Ken Paxton's securities fraud deal boosts both his GOP friends and Democratic enemies

By settling the securities fraud case that has dogged his entire tenure as Texas' attorney general, Ken Paxton on Tuesday shed a legal and political albatross that has swung from his neck for nine years, and immediately became a champion among his fellow Republicans and politically weaker in the minds of Democrats with two and half years left before the state's top attorney will have to face voters again. "This is redemption for him politically, at least in the eyes of (his fellow) Republicans," University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus told the American-Statesman on Tuesday after attorneys in a Harris County state District Court announced Paxton's pretrial intervention agreement. The 18-month agreement, which comes with no admission of guilt by Paxton, would sweep away the securities fraud charges filed against him in 2015, if he meets the requirements of the deal, including serving 100 hours of community service, enrolling in 15 hours of legal ethics training and paying $271,000 in total restitution.

And while his attorney emphatically told reporters that the settlement affirms Paxton's oft-repeated claim that he has committed no wrongdoing, the provision that requires the three-term Republican to pay $271,000 in total restitution to investors tied to the fraud allegations will stand as a tempting target for Democrats in any future election where Paxton's name is on the ballot. A six-figure payout to end a legal case speaks much louder than a defendant's claim of innocence, said veteran Democratic operative Matt Angle. "By agreeing to the terms of the confidential settlement," Angle said, Paxton "has admitted that he engaged in fraud and failed to register as an agent for security. And of course, he's getting a sweetheart deal. They're treating him like he's a teenager who smoked pot. He does community service, and his record expunged." Paxton, whose third term ends in 2026, has not publicly indicated whether he plans to run for reelection. But he has expressed at least some interest in launching a primary challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, whose term also expires in the same election cycle. Texas Republican operative Luke Twombly sees the equation much differently. He likened Paxton's deal to the settlement of a nuisance civil lawsuit in which a lump-sum payment is less expensive than ongoing litigation. More telling, Twombly said, was Paxton beating the 20 impeachment charges, including bribery and abuse office, filed against him last year by the Texas House, which led to a trial in the Senate after which senators, largely along party lines, acquitted him of wrongdoing. Also notable was Paxton's near run-the-table defeat of many House Republican incumbents who voted to impeach him and of the three GOP members of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who blocked some of the attorney general's legal initiatives.

San Antonio Express-News - March 27, 2024

U.S. Supreme Court challenges anti-abortion groups’ ability to sue over abortion drug

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared unlikely to roll back mifepristone access after hearing arguments from the federal government and anti-abortion groups challenging the medication’s availability nationwide. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested granting relief only for the doctors who raised an issue with the drug. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch also expressed doubts about triggering nationwide change when only a small number of doctors contend that the medication’s availability harms them. “This case seems like a prime example of what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide assembly on an FDA approval or any other federal government action,” said Gorsuch, noting a recent “rash” of broad court actions.

Tuesday’s hearing was the first time the Supreme Court took up the issue of abortion since overturning Roe v. Wade almost two years ago. The case stemmed from a federal lawsuit challenging the drug’s safety and was filed in Texas by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, and anti-abortion doctors and medical groups. At the hearing, the court’s scope was limited to whether the FDA improperly made procedural changes that increased access to mifepristone nationwide in 2016 and 2021, and whether the plaintiffs showed evidence of harm related to those changes. The court’s decision, not expected until June, could roll back access to the drug nationwide by reinstating requirements for patients to visit a physician in person and attend multiple clinical appointments, among other restrictions. Right now, patients can get a prescription for mifepristone via telehealth and have the medication mailed to them. Even in Texas, which banned medication abortion, some women are receiving prescriptions via telehealth from doctors in states where abortion is legal.

Bloomberg - March 27, 2024

Banks shying away from fossil fuels bolster private credit deals

Private credit managers are doing significantly more fossil-fuel deals now than just a few years ago, as they step into a void left by banks exiting assets they worry pose too big a climate risk. The value of private credit deals in the oil and gas industry topped $9 billion in the 24 months through 2023, up from $450 million arranged in the preceding two years, according to data provided by Preqin, an analytics company that tracks the alternative investment industry. That’s based on the limited pool of deals reported publicly or disclosed directly to Preqin. The figures offer the clearest signal yet that fossil-fuel exclusion policies among banks — driven by regulatory and reputational concerns — are shifting some oil, gas and coal assets to less transparent corners of the market. It’s a trend that investors say is only going to increase in the coming years.

The expectation is that some banks “will just exit” the loans market for coal, oil and even gas, said Ryan Dunfield, chief executive officer of SAF Group, one of the largest alternative lenders in Canada’s energy sector. The shift is particularly pronounced among banks based in Europe, where climate regulations are stricter than in other jurisdictions. Lenders stepping up restrictions on fossil-fuel loans include BNP Paribas SA and ING Group NV. The trend is hardest felt by less diversified mid-sized companies with weaker environmental, social and governance policies, according to Dunfield. European banks that used to be involved in financing oil and gas in SAF’s home market of Canada “have backed out over the past five years,” Dunfield said. Combined with a partial retreat by some US banks, the development has left a financing gap, he said. Canada is “a very progressive country,” but “a big part of our GDP comes from energy,” Dunfield said. As a result, the “economic engine conflicts with public policy in that sense.” For companies shifting from banks to private credit, the cost can be considerable. Sydney-based Whitehaven Coal Ltd., whose recent efforts to secure a $1.1 billion loan attracted 17 private credit lenders and just one bank, is paying 650 basis points, or 6.5 percentage points, over the so-called secured overnight financing rate, Bloomberg News reported last week.

State Stories

Austin American-Statesman - March 27, 2024

Will Texas AG Ken Paxton's securities fraud deal be public? Probably not. Here's why.

With embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and state prosecutors cutting a deal Tuesday to end the state's nearly nine-year criminal securities fraud case against Paxton, the public might never know the details of how the three-term Republican officially responded to the charges because the agreement legally can be kept secret. The Texas Public Information Act allows that information to be kept from public disclosure as such agreements do not equate to a criminal conviction. Brian Wice, the special prosecutor on the case, said Paxton's pretrial intervention agreement is not a public record. "It is not filed with the papers of the court," he told reporters Tuesday after announcing the deal in a Harris County state District Court. Paxton was indicted in 2015 for three securities fraud felonies stemming from his work to seek investments for a Dallas-area tech startup without disclosing to potential clients that the company was paying him $100,000 in company stock for each referral.

As per the terms of the deal announced Tuesday, Paxton's charges will be dismissed if he completes 100 hours of community service in Collin County, enrolls in 15 hours of legal ethics training and pays $271,000 in total restitution to investors. The actual agreement, though, was not released to the public. There is a level of irony in play in Paxton's case. In 2016, his office released a formal opinion that a deferred prosecution agreement in a misdemeanor case that the Travis County attorney's office had reached with a defendant in a misdemeanor domestic violence case should be publicly released. The process involved more than a few twists and turns, including a lawsuit that triggered an appeal, an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court that the justices declined to hear. The settlement of Paxton case is called a "pretrial diversion agreement" because of the level of supervision he is subject to over the agreement's 18-month life. According to an April 3, 2020, write-up for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, the Travis County attorney's office asked the attorney general's Open Records Division to weigh on whether a public information request by the victim of domestic violence should be disclosed.

Texas Observer - March 27, 2024

Dade Phelan's efforts to expand healthcare still leave many struggling in his district

Three years ago, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan unveiled a set of bills that he declared would improve the health of millions of Texans, largely by expanding access to healthcare. The measures, authored by Republicans and Democrats, were applauded by health advocates such as the Texas Medical Association. This month, an updated version of one of the most noteworthy bills took effect, extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers from two months after giving birth to a year. The reforms—most of which passed—fell short of full Medicaid expansion, but they cast the newly elected House speaker in a milder light: a conservative Texas GOP leader willing at times to prioritize the state’s serious healthcare gaps. Phelan toes a conservative line, including supporting one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bans. But some advocates were hopeful that Phelan’s “Healthy Families, Healthy Texas” plan, which included bills from Republicans and Democrats, might signal openness to Medicaid expansion approval to cover more low-income adults.

Other than abortion, healthcare issues are not dominating the debates in Texas campaigns. Phelan’s office declined to talk to Public Health Watch for this story or provide a statement on Medicaid expansion. But back home in his district—state House District 21, a vertical stretch of rural, metro, and industrial communities sandwiched between Houston and Louisiana—the needs for affordable healthcare are high. District 21 represents all of Jasper and Orange counties and about a quarter of Jefferson County’s population, including part of Beaumont, Phelan’s hometown. Nearly 19 percent of District 21 residents younger than 65—or about 28,500 people—are uninsured, according to the Census Bureau’s 2022 five-year estimates. Like much of Texas, the district has a shortage of primary care providers. Hospital services are tenuous. In rural Jasper County, there’s only one hospital—Jasper Memorial, part of Christus Southeast Texas—and it no longer has a labor-and-delivery unit. The next closest is an hour northwest to Lufkin or an hour south to Beaumont.

Dallas Morning News - March 27, 2024

Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax takes step toward Austin job

Outgoing Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax is a step closer to becoming city manager in Austin. According to a city council message board post from Mayor Kirk Watson, a subcommittee has recommended Broadnax move forward to become the next city manager. In the message, with a heading of “City Manager Search Update,” Mayor Watson writes that the subcommittee “recommends that we post a council action for April 4, 2024, to authorize negotiation of an employment agreement with T.C. Broadnax.” The notice further says, “This posting will also be for potential passage of an ordinance to employ T.C. Broadnax as Austin City Manager.” Broadnax did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

Dallas Morning News - March 27, 2024

North Texas teacher changes name to Literally Anybody Else to run for U.S. president

A North Texas school teacher has legally changed his name to Literally Anybody Else and announced he is running for U.S. president. Formerly known as Dustin Ebey, Else said he is deeply unhappy with 2024 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump so he requested a name change in January to make a point. Else’s long-shot presidential bid is attracting widespread attention. On Tuesday, the 35-year-old told The Dallas Morning News he is fielding a flurry of calls from news outlets across the U.S. and as far as Germany and India. Interviews with radio and television stations are piling up. “People are fed up,” said Else, who lives in North Richland Hills and teaches seventh grade math. “Government is supposed to be by the people, for the people, but that’s not what we have here. We have a billionaire and a career politician.”

Else knows he faces near-impossible odds. Just getting on the ballot will be difficult. In Texas, an independent candidate needs 113,151 signatures of registered voters who did not vote in the presidential primary of either party by May 13 to get on the ballot, per state law. Other states have their own requirements and deadlines. Understanding that will be challenging to navigate, Else is encouraging voters to write in Literally Anybody Else. To spread the word, the U.S. Army veteran campaigned before a Dallas Stars game and is considering hosting a campaign event this month. Other than that, he is relying on word of mouth, and Else said he hopes to hire an assistant soon to help field media calls. Donations have begun to trickle in on his website and a GoFundMe, reaching just under $1,000 by Tuesday evening. “Literally Anybody Else isn’t a person,” Else writes on his website. “It’s a rally cry.” “We’re victims of political parties that put party loyalty above governing,” Else said. “We need to a send a message that you will represent the people or be replaced.”

Chron - March 27, 2024

Report: Austin has the fastest-growing number of millionaires in the U.S.

While Austin was ranked as the city with the fastest-growing number of millionaires – growing a whopping 110 percent in the last decade – Houston's millionaire population still dwarfs that of the Texas capital, with 58,200 more top earners, according to a report by Henley & Partners. According to the investment consultancy's annual wealth report, Houston ranks in the top five wealthiest cities, with 90,900 people living in the city making at least $1 million. In comparison, Austin is ranked No. 10, with 32,700 millionaires, the largest increase in the U.S., according to the report. Texas is very well represented in the top ten wealthiest cities in the U.S., with Dallas coming in at No. 6 with 68,600 people living there making at least $1 million.

Austin's tech boom between 2013-2023 is the culprit behind the city's giant leap, but it isn't the only reason for the surge. With its booming tech sector, Austin has been dubbed "Silicon Hills" as major tech companies such as Tesla and Oracle have moved their headquarters to the city. Houston has proven to also be a millionaire magnet with high-earning residents surging by 70 percent in the same period. New York City continues to hold the No.1 spot as the biggest millionaire magnet, with 349,500 people, followed by the Bay Area with 305, 700, Los Angeles at 212,100, and Chicago at 120,500, according to the study. "Cities such as Austin, Miami and Scottsdale are gaining residents, while traditional hubs such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago experience modest declines," Henley & Partners managing partner wrote in the 2024 report. The steady number of millionaires in the area seems to reflect strong home sales in the luxury segment in Houston, according to the Houston Association of Realtors latest report. Last month, the high-end market, representing houses valued at $1 million or more, saw the strongest performance in February, surging 48 percent year over year. Homes priced between $500,000-$1 million rose 18 percent year over year.

San Antonio Express-News - March 27, 2024

San Antonio's 'AK Guy' is famous online. Can that take him to Congress over U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales?

“What’s up, you sexy YouTube mother-lovers?” Brandon Herrera opens many of his videos the same way: with that catchphrase, in a T-shirt, his hair slicked back, sitting in front of a wall showcasing dozens of guns. The social media personality-turned-San Antonio congressional candidate has more than 3 million YouTube subscribers who tune in to watch his very specific brand of content about firearms, politics and “dark humor.” In one video, Herrera and his buddies crash a gun buyback program in Dallas. In another, he reviews memes about different firearms. He’s made a series of videos testing different guns used in the assassinations of influential political figures, including Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the MLK Jr. video, Herrera tried to mimic the shot that killed the civil rights leader. After twice shooting at a dummy, he walked over to the fake head and said his reenactment was “pretty faithful to the shot.” Later in the video, he shot the dummy execution-style as he attempted to make a joke about the FBI allegedly killing its critics. Herrera laughed to himself as the dummy’s head exploded on the table: “This is so (expletive) wrong.” Herrera, also known online as the ‘AK Guy,’ is a gun manufacturer, a political neophyte and, according to his social media bio, “VERY politically incorrect.” He’s also one of the only people now standing between U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales and a third term in Washington. Gonzales is the only Republican congressional incumbent in Texas facing a primary runoff election on May 28, after Herrera and three other GOP challengers siphoned enough votes earlier this month to stop the congressman from winning the nomination outright. Herrera’s online fame likely had a lot to do with that.

Houston Chronicle - March 27, 2024

Abbott announces members for Texas Space Commission that will help shape industry

Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday unveiled the 18 people who will lead Texas’ efforts to remain competitive in civil, commercial and military space. The nominees – including representatives from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, smaller commercial space companies and academia – will guide the Texas Space Commission and the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium. The Texas Legislature created the organizations last year to keep Texas competitive with Florida, Colorado and other states capitalizing on the new era of space exploration. “In this past session, one of the most forward-looking things we did was to create the Texas Space Commission,” Abbott said Tuesday during a news conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

The Texas Space Commission will be tasked with developing a statewide strategy that promotes innovation, creates incentives (including grant funding) and develops workforce training. They initially have $350 million to work with, $150 million budgeted for grants and $200 million for a new research and training facility built by the Texas A&M University System. The Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium, which is part of the Texas Space Commission, will identify research and development opportunities and find ways to further integrate space into the Texas economy. Texas is already home to major space exploration companies. SpaceX is developing and launching the world’s most powerful rocket in South Texas while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches its suborbital rocket from West Texas. Houston is home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center as well as private companies pushing beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Intuitive Machines last month became the first private company to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. Axiom Space is developing a commercial space station.

Houston Chronicle - March 27, 2024

Mayor Whitmire appoints Gwendolyn Tillotson-Bell to replace chief development officer Andy Icken

Houston Mayor John Whitmire has appointed Gwendolyn Tillotson-Bell to fill the vacancy left by the city’s longtime chief economic development officer Andy Icken after his departure earlier this month. A key role within the mayor’s office, the chief development officer is responsible for promoting local economic growth and attracting businesses to Houston. The officer also oversees Houston’s various economic development tools, including a contentious program called Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZ). Icken recently retired after serving as Houston’s chief development officer under both former Mayors Sylvester Turner and Annise Parker. Whitmire announced on Tuesday that Tillotson-Bell, the deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, has succeeded Icken.

Tillotson-Bell has focused on business management and workforce development since joining the city about 17 years ago. As the deputy director of the economic development office, she contributed to projects including the development of the Energy Corridor business district, the introduction of Meow Wolf immersive art installations and the creation of the East End Maker Hub, among others. Facing steep fiscal challenges in the coming years, Whitmire recently suggested scrutinizing the financial implications of the TIRZs. These zones allow some property tax revenue generated within their boundaries to be used exclusively for improvements in those areas, instead of contributing to the city’s general fund. The controversial program currently claims nearly $200 million of city revenue every year. While Whitmire did not provide specifics on the economic development office's future direction, he said he expects Tillotson-Bell to assist the new administration in rethinking the office’s priorities and functions.

Houston Chronicle - March 27, 2024

Julie Kocurek: I’m a Texas judge. A defendant shot me. That shouldn’t happen.

State and local court judges play a pivotal role in our society. They preside over cases that shape the lives of individuals and the fabric of our communities. They uphold the rule of law and the Constitution. Alarmingly, state and local judges and court officials across the nation are facing increasing attacks and threats of violence and intimidation just for doing their job. In 2021, individuals protected by the U.S. Marshals Service — including federal judges, prosecutors and court officials — faced over 4,500 threats, a 400% increase since 2015. In Texas, 522 general threats, 29 assaults, and 68 bomb threats were made toward judicial officers from 2018 to 2023, according to the Texas Office of Court Administration. Simply stated, an attack on a judge is an attack on our judicial system and the rule of law. I know this all too well.

In 2015, a defendant who appeared in my courtroom weeks before shot and seriously wounded me in my car. My 15-year-old son watched the attack unfold, coming face to face with the gunman. My attacker obtained my home address, phone number, and the make and model of my vehicle from online searches, and he stalked me and my family for weeks. Shot four times, I spent 40 days in the hospital and underwent 30 surgeries. I lived in fear that my attacker, or someone else, would come to finish the job or harm my family. I was determined to fight against fear and intimidation, so I returned to the bench after I recovered. As I began taking measures to increase my personal security and my family’s security, I realized that state and local judges have virtually no access to expert resources to understand the threat environment, take personal protective measures, design more secure court facilities and protocols, and share threat information. Because of my attack, in 2017 the Texas Legislature passed the Judge Julie Kocurek Judicial and Courthouse Security Act, which requires local law enforcement to report judicial security incidents to the Texas Office of Court Administration. It created a filing fee to fund training for judges and court staff, and a special division to house information on judicial security.

Houston Chronicle - March 27, 2024

Former Harris County judge candidate Alex Mealer starts on Metro transit board

Alexandra Moral Mealer on Thursday joined the Metropolitan Transit Authority board at the request of leaders of smaller cities that participate in the bus and rail agency, bringing the crime-focused county judge candidate to the board at a time of transition. Mealer lost her first elected office bid when Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo won re-election in 2022. She later challenged the results of her loss, then Mealer withdrew the complaint in September 2023 after the efforts to question the validity of the election gained little traction. Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey issued Mealer the oath of office to serve on the Metro board around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, at the transit agency's downtown Houston headquarters. An hour later, Mealer participated in her first round of board committee meetings.

Ramsey announced the appointment Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, applauding her “leadership and management experience.” “Her service to Harris County is a valuable asset that will benefit our communities and residents for years to come,” Ramsey said. In a statement she posted on social media, Mealer said she planned to meet with the city officials who appointed her and examine their needs. "I am honored to be able to represent their communities and believe that the health and success of Metro is critical to ensuring our region's vibrant future," Mealer said. Paramount to that, she wrote, is to "understand how Metro can better deliver value to their residents," noting that only one-fifth of Houston's population lives within Loop 610, and the transit area is sprawling. Mealer is an uncommon choice because she is among those who live within the Loop. She replaces former Katy Mayor Don Elder, who served the maximum allowable eight years on the transit board.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 27, 2024

Director of Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is retiring

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth director Marla Price is retiring after 30 years at the museum. The former associate curator of 20th century art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and well-known scholar of contemporary art came to Texas in 1986 to serve as the museum’s chief curator, presenting shows like 1989’s renowned touring show “10 + 10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters.” Price became acting director after E.A. Carmean left for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in 1991. She took the job in 1992, coinciding with the state’s oldest art museum’s centennial. She oversaw an aggressive expansion of the permanent collection with acquisitions of works by Francis Bacon, the world’s largest collections of Robert Motherwell, Wangechi Mutu of Kenya and the Nigerian American Njideka Akunyili Crosby.

When its growing collection required a new home, she oversaw the construction of a new building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando and opened in 2002. Peter Plagens wrote in Artforum that “If everything goes according to design [it] will have turned itself into the most elegant museum in the entire country.” (Plagens was a huge fan of the neighboring Kimbell as well.) A larger building allowed for more ambitious exhibits like “KAWS: WHERE THE END STARTS,” “Mark Bradford: End Papers” and “Lucian Freud: Portraits,” and dedicated space for the collection. An expanded lobby, auditorium and large café created more opportunities to engage the community. Board Chair Marsland Moncrief and Board President Rafael Garza praised her leadership. “The Modern has become an outstanding star on a national and international scale, while the mission has grown to be an inclusive community space for people to engage on different levels with the art of our time,” Moncrief said. Garza commended “her artistic vision and commitment to scholarly excellence have cultivated a robust organization with devoted, longstanding supporters and staff.”

Houston Landing - March 27, 2024

Houston firefighter back-pay settlement could cost up to $1.3 billion, controller says

Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s proposed settlement with the firefighters union could cost significantly more than previously advertised, City Controller Chris Hollins said Tuesday. The total cost of a back-pay settlement with the city’s firefighters could be $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion after taking into account interest and fees, Hollins said. In addition, a forward-looking contract that raises firefighter pay over the next five years could cost upwards of $400 million by the end of that period, according to the controller. Hollins declined to weigh in on whether he thinks the settlement is fair, but his take on the settlement cost underscores the heavy hit to taxpayers from the deal that Whitmire struck earlier this month. Before the end of June, Whitmire hopes to win approval from the Texas Attorney General’s Office and City Council for the historic settlement, which would wrap up a protracted dispute with the union representing thousands of firefighters. Whitmire was elected to office promising to strike a deal that eluded his predecessor, Sylvester Turner.

Whitmire’s administration previously had pegged the cost of the back-pay settlement at $650 million. That figure does not include the interest and fees that will come with the financial instrument known as a judgment bond that the mayor hopes to use to spread the cost of the settlement over 25 to 30 years. Under questioning from council members last week, Whitmire defended the deal as a win for taxpayers, noting the high cost of a loss in court to the firefighters. “This was the businesslike approach to get out of court and not have a billion-plus exposure,” Whitmire said. “I didn’t go into this for the purposes of making people feel good. These are tough discussions.” Council members also asked Whitmire why he elected to strike a long-term deal with the firefighters on their pay going forward. Whitmire said he wanted to lock in financial predictability while enticing more firefighters to work for the city. A mayoral spokesperson said the city still was in the process of calculating the long-term cost of the back-pay settlement. “The numbers will be reviewed with the judge and the agreement will go to the council,” Communications Director Mary Benton said.

Longview News-Journal - March 27, 2024

David Simpson: Declaring political independence

Our best statesmen have been principled and independent, especially our first president. Washington eschewed political parties and warned Congress of their evils: “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely … to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Washington goes on to describe the dire consequences of seizing partisan power and placing an unwarranted and pernicious trust in its chieftain: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge … is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction … turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” This may explain why Republicans reluctantly and yet zealously support Trump despite his instituting lockdowns, heeding Fauci and Birx, abetting the captivity of federal agencies by appointing leaders of industries they are regulating and adding trillions to the national debt. Similarly, Democrats doggedly support Biden overlooking his cabal of corporate censorship, unending support of foreign wars, relentless promotion of minimally tested and ineffective vaccines, years disregarding massive illegal immigration and increasing the national debt by trillions of dollars. The principles of liberty that I espouse have more closely aligned with the Republican Party. However, its state and federal leaders increasingly are demanding fealty to themselves, to which I cannot submit. Neither can I overlook their hypocrisy, self-serving and vengeance. This has so alarmed me that I have protested repeatedly. Today, I am doing that by declaring myself an independent. Washington led the way as the first and so far only independent president. But now there is hope of another, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who humbly, winsomely and courageously is forging the way of freedom.

KHOU - March 27, 2024

Turkey Leg Hut files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, owing nearly $5 million in debt, court records show

Turkey Leg Hut, a popular restaurant that's become a staple in Houston's Third Ward community, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to court records, the restaurant owes nearly $5 million in debt to 19 creditors. A list of creditors owed includes American Express, City of Houston - Water, the IRS and the Small Business Administration. The bankruptcy news comes nearly two weeks after co-owner Lyndell 'Lynn' Price was ordered to pay his former business partner Steve Rogers nearly a million dollars. Rogers was also listed as one of the creditors in the bankruptcy filing. The restaurant that's known for its massive, stuffed turkey legs and long lines of customers has seen its fair share of financial drama over the years. In 2018, a lawsuit was filed against co-owner Nakia Price after she allegedly failed to pay rent after assuming a lease for Turkey Leg Hut. This civil case is still ongoing, according to court records.

NBC News - March 27, 2024

Divided appeals court extends block on Texas immigration law

A federal appeals court early on Wednesday extended its hold on a new Texas immigration law, meaning the measure cannot go into effect while litigation continues. A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a 2-1 vote said in a decision issued overnight that the statute, known as Senate Bill 4, should remain blocked. The same court temporarily froze the law March 19, just hours after the Supreme Court said it could go into effect. "For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration — the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens—is exclusively a federal power," Judge Priscilla Richman wrote for the majority. She cited in part a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that invalided a similar law in Arizona.

Whatever the state’s criticisms about the federal government’s “actions and inactions” on immigration, it is the president’s role “to decide whether, and if so, how to pursue noncitizens illegally present in the United States,” Richman wrote. The state law would allow police to arrest migrants suspected of illegally crossing the border from Mexico and impose criminal penalties. It would also empower state judges to order people to be deported to Mexico. The dispute is the latest clash between the Biden administration and Texas over immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas could potentially now ask the Supreme Court to allow the law to go into effect. In the meantime, the appeals court holds another hearing on April 3. Richman and Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez voted to block the law. Judge Andrew Oldham voted for it to go into effect. Richman and Oldham are both Republican appointees, while Ramirez was appointed by President Joe Biden. It was the same lineup of judges that issued the temporary block. Oldham wrote a lengthy dissenting opinion saying the law should not be blocked in full because of hypothetical concerns about how it would be enforced.

National Stories

NBC News - March 27, 2024

Democrat wins Alabama special election in early test for IVF as a campaign issue

Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands on Tuesday won a special election for a state House seat in Alabama after she made in vitro fertilization and abortion rights central to her campaign. Lands, a licensed professional counselor, defeated Madison City Council member Teddy Powell, a Republican who once worked as a Defense Department budget analyst. A Republican had held the Huntsville-area seat in the state's 10th District. "Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation. Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception," Lands said in a statement shared by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which supported her candidacy. Lands had 63% of the vote to Powell's 37% with all precincts reporting.

“The voters have spoken and I’m honored to have been considered for this office," Powell said in a statement to Alabama Daily News. "I wish Mrs. Lands the absolute best as she goes on to serve the people of District 10 in the House of Representatives.” Powell's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While campaigning, Lands focused on IVF and access to abortions, telling voters that she supports repealing the state’s near-total ban on abortions, which went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022. Her campaign website notes endorsements from groups such as Planned Parenthood, the Alabama AFL-CIO and the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed a GOP-backed bill to protect IVF after widespread backlash to a ruling by the state Supreme Court in February that threatened the procedure. Tuesday's contest was seen as an early test for Democrats campaigning on IVF after the high court's ruling. The special election was called after David Cole, a Republican who defeated Lands in 2022 by 7 percentage points, pleaded guilty to a voter fraud charge last year and resigned.

Market Watch - March 27, 2024

Renting is now cheaper than owning in all of America’s 50 biggest metro areas

While it was already cheaper to rent than to buy in 90% of metro areas as of last year, a hot real-estate market has pushed that to 100%. And it’s the first time that has happened since Realtor.com began tracking renting versus buying in 2021. “With rents continuing to fall and the cost of buying a home remaining high” due to mortgage rates and home prices, “renting a home is now a more cost-effective option in all major U.S. markets,” Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, said in a statement. To be sure, buying a house is a form of forced savings that builds wealth via an asset that appreciates over time. But the current market is too expensive for many Americans, given the steep rise in borrowing costs and home prices, relative to rents, in recent years.

For instance, the median rent in the New York–Newark–Jersey City metro area was $2,852, which was far cheaper than the $4,995 monthly cost of buying. Realtor.com calculates the monthly cost of buying a home by averaging the median listing prices of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom homes in a market; it is weighted by the number of listings in each market. It also assumes that buyers are putting down 8% on a home purchase with a mortgage rate of 6.78%, and the figures include taxes, insurance and any applicable homeowners association fees. That gap between renting and buying is the widest in the Austin–Round Rock–Georgetown area in Texas, where the median rent was $1,530, while the monthly cost of buying was $3,695 in February. In other words, it was 142% more expensive to buy a home in that metropolitan area versus renting. Rents were lower there in part because of increased supply. “There’s definitely quite a bit of rentals on the market in certain neighborhoods,” Cynthia Mattiza, an Austin-based real-estate agent with JBGoodwin, told MarketWatch. Austin has seen a wave of new apartments hit the market in recent years, according to analysis by RealPage Analytics, a real-estate software company. In 2023, over 17,000 apartment units were added to the market in Austin, which increased the total inventory by 6%, the company said. The city is expected to see an 11.2% increase in apartment inventory this year.

Washington Post - March 27, 2024

‘Mayday’ call from ship stopped Baltimore bridge traffic, saved lives

As a cargo ship the size of a skyscraper drifted dangerously close to a major Baltimore bridge that carried more than 30,000 cars a day, the crew of the Dali issued an urgent “mayday,” hoping to avert disaster Tuesday. First responders sprang into action, shutting down most traffic on the four-lane Francis Scott Key Bridge just before the 95,000 gross-ton vessel plowed into a bridge piling at about 1:30 a.m., causing multiple sections of the span to bow and snap in a harrowing scene captured on video. “C13 dispatch, the whole bridge just fell down!” someone shouted on an emergency channel. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) hailed those who carried out the quick work as “heroes” and said they saved lives, but the scale of the destruction was catastrophic and will probably have far-reaching impacts for the economy and travel on the East Coast for months to come.

Much of the 1.6-mile bridge fell, sending at least eight construction workers repairing potholes into the 48-degree waters of the Patapsco River. Two were rescued, including one who was seriously injured. Authorities announced Tuesday night that six were presumed dead and suspended the search. Authorities planned to resume the hunt for the victims at 6 a.m. Wednesday. The collapse halted shipping at the Port of Baltimore — one of the nation’s largest — and severed a crucial portion of Baltimore’s Beltway, which is also a major artery in the busy corridor between Washington and New York. President Biden pledged that the federal government will foot the bill for the repairs and work quickly. The impact led to a scene of utter destruction — mangled bridge trusses, shipping containers split open like tin cans and the cargo ship wedged under fallen debris. Officials turned to Hollywood to register the magnitude of what happened. “This is a tragedy you can never imagine,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) said at an early-morning news conference. “Never would you think that you would see … the Key Bridge literally tumble down like that. It looked like something out of an action movie.”

Washington Post - March 27, 2024

NBC reverses decision to hire Ronna McDaniel after on-air backlash

Amid a chorus of on-air protest from some of the network’s biggest stars, NBC announced Tuesday night that former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel will no longer be joining the network as a paid contributor. In a memo, NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde told staff that he had listened to “the legitimate concerns” of many network employees. “No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned,” he wrote. “Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.” The network had only just announced four days earlier that they were bringing McDaniel on board to provide “expert insight and analysis” on politics. “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” one NBC News executive told staff at the time.

But the company’s on-air personalities — especially those on NBC’s liberal-leaning cable affiliate MSNBC — disagreed vehemently, saying that McDaniel’s promotion of former president Donald Trump’s media-bashing and false election-fraud claims disqualified her from a role in their news divisions. And one by one, they took to the airwaves to deliver that message to their bosses in front of their live audiences Monday. “Take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call,” MSNBC’s top-rated star Rachel Maddow said on her show that night. “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong.” NBC delivered the news of its course correction to its employees before informing McDaniel, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve confidence.

Education Week - March 27, 2024

History group finds little evidence of K-12 'indoctrination'

The combination of COVID-19 school closures and rising culture wars put a harsh spotlight on educators, but none had it worse than the nation’s social studies educators. Social studies has long been a political punching bag, but it reached a new peak around 2021, with teachers accused of indoctrinating students in a variety of political viewpoints, teaching students to “hate” the United States, and coloring key moments of U.S. history with a paintbrush of contemporary “woke” politics. Pushback hasn’t been limited to conservatives, either: Lessons based on slavery simulations and other damaging, ahistorical lessons periodically go viral and create an uproar. Fueled by this rhetoric, policymakers in some 18 states have passed legislation or other rules regulating how teachers can discuss issues of racism, sexism, and inequality in the classroom. Discussing critical race theory, the study of institutional racism, and even current events is banned or limited in some states, and under attack in others.

But preliminary findings from a new study by the American Historical Association, a professional organization of historians provides evidence that most middle and high school teachers history teachers strive to keep their lessons politically neutral. In the essay, published in TIME magazine, 97 percent of the about 3,000 teachers surveyed for the study said the top objectives of a social science lesson is to turn students into critical thinkers and informed citizens. “The divisive concepts legislations that have been introduced by lawmakers make assumptions about what teachers are teaching. We always knew that teachers don’t really teach critical race theory in their classrooms. But not one [piece of legislation] had any data on what’s being taught,” said Jim Grossman, the executive director of the AHA. Few teachers rely on political extremes to teach their lessons, but still most must navigate the rhetorical accusations that they’re indoctrinating students, the AHA concluded. Over three quarters of teachers surveyed said they cobble together a multitude of online resources,from such sources as the Library of Congress, the federally funded Smithsonian Institution websites, and YouTube educational series like Crash Course, run by popular YouTubers John and Hank Green. Teachers tend to use textbooks only as a reference, rather than source material.

Philadelphia Inquirer - March 27, 2024

Joshua M. Cowen: The false promise — and hidden costs — of school vouchers

(Joshua M. Cowen, the author of “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers,” is a professor of education policy at Michigan State University.) If you’ve ever run a small business or talked to a business owner, you might have heard the phrase “under promise, over deliver” as a strategy for customer service. Unfortunately, when it comes to school voucher plans like those being considered by Pennsylvania lawmakers this spring, what happens is the opposite of a sound investment: a lot of overpromising ahead of woeful under-delivery. As an expert on school vouchers, I think about the idea of what’s promised in the rhetoric vs. what actually happens when the real cost sets in. To hear voucher lobbyists tell it — usually working for billionaires like Betsy DeVos, or Pennsylvania’s own Jeff Yass — all that’s needed to move American education forward is a fully privatized market of school choice, where parents are customers and education is the product. As I testified to Pennsylvania lawmakers last fall, however, vouchers are the education equivalent of predatory lending. One promise that never holds up is the idea that states can afford to create voucher systems that underwrite private tuition for some children, while still keeping public school spending strong.

Other states that have passed or expanded voucher systems have rarely been able to sustain new investments in public schools. Even when those voucher bills also came with initial increases in public education funding. Six out of the last seven states to pass such bills have failed to keep up with just the national average in public school investment. But for children and families — especially those who have been traditionally underserved by schools at different points in U.S. history — the cost of school vouchers goes beyond the price for taxpayers. Although most voucher users in other states (about 70%) were, in fact, in private schools first, the academic results for the kids who transfer are disastrous. Statewide vouchers have led to some of the largest academic declines in the history of education research — drops in performance that were on par with how COVID-19 or Hurricane Katrina affected student learning. Although school vouchers have enjoyed fits and starts of bipartisan support from time to time, today’s push for universal voucher systems across the country is almost entirely the product of conservative politics. All 12 states that created or expanded some form of a voucher system in 2023 voted for Donald Trump in 2020. Of those that passed voucher laws since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, only two (Arizona and New Hampshire) voted for Joe Biden that election year.

New York Times - March 27, 2024

Biden, promising corporate tax increases, has cut taxes overall

President Biden, amping up a populist pitch in his re-election campaign, has repeatedly said he would raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations to make them pay their “fair share.” Republicans say Mr. Biden has “an unquenchable thirst for taxing the American people.” His Republican opponent in the election, former President Donald J. Trump, said recently that Mr. Biden was “going to give you the greatest, biggest, ugliest tax hike in the history of our country.” So it might come as a surprise that, in just over three years in office, Mr. Biden has cut taxes overall. The math is straightforward. An analysis prepared for The New York Times by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank that studies fiscal issues, shows that the tax cuts Mr. Biden has signed for individuals and corporations are larger than the tax increases he has imposed on big corporations and their shareholders. The analysis estimates that the tax changes Mr. Biden has ushered into law will amount to a net cut of about $600 billion over four years and slightly more than that over a full decade.

“It’s reasonable to conclude from those numbers that the Biden tax policy hasn’t been some kind of radical tax-raising program,” said Benjamin R. Page, a senior fellow at the center and author of the analysis. The analysis strictly looks at changes to taxes over the course of Mr. Biden’s presidency, including some direct benefits to people and businesses that flow through the tax code. It does not measure the effects of inflation or certain regulations, which Republicans sometimes label “tax hikes” since they can raise costs for companies and individuals. It also does not measure the social or economic benefits of Mr. Biden’s spending policies, or of his regulatory efforts meant to help consumers, like cracking down on so-called junk fees and limiting the cost of insulin and other medication. Instead, the analysis provides a comprehensive look at what Mr. Biden has done to the tax code, and how those policies add up. It is clear by that measure that his record has not matched his own ambitions for taxing the rich and big companies — or Republicans’ attempts to caricature him as a tax-and-spend liberal. That’s largely because Mr. Biden has struggled to pass his most ambitious tax-raising plans. “It’s what can be got through Congress and signed,” Mr. Page said. “They were subject to compromise.”

March 26, 2024

Lead Stories

NPR - March 26, 2024

A Supreme Court abortion pill case with potential consequences for every other drug

Abortion is back at the Supreme Court Tuesday. This time anti-abortion doctors are challenging the FDA's regulatory actions making abortion pills more accessible. More than half of American women who choose to terminate a pregnancy do so using a two-drug combination of pills. So you might call this case "daughter of Dobbs," the Supreme Court's 2022 decision reversing Roe v. Wade and leaving the legality of abortion to the states. Only this time, there is more at stake than abortion rights. It's the entire structure of the FDA's regulatory power to approve drugs and continually evaluate their safety—a system that until now has been widely viewed as the gold standard for both safety and innovation.

"It would be traumatizing to the system," says Marsha Henderson, a former FDA associate commissioner for women's health and a 22-year veteran of the agency. "We have a very clear scientific approach...it's not just a helter-skelter set of ad hoc opinions," Henderson says. "There are teams of scientists and researchers that participate over many years, starting from phase one pre-clinical all the way through post market...and the information, the data evolve, and they collectively help to enhance the whole research world." If you start putting politics or junk science into the mix, she warns, the system will collapse. The challenge in this case was brought by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, an association of anti-abortion doctors founded just months after the Dobbs decision. The group quickly filed a lawsuit seeking to get rid of abortion pills altogether. After a tortuous and tumultuous series of lower court rulings, the Supreme Court intervened to prevent any change to the status quo while it considers the case.

Associated Press - March 26, 2024

Cargo ship hits Baltimore's Key Bridge, bringing it down. Several people believed to be in water

A major bridge in Baltimore snapped and collapsed after a container ship rammed into it early Tuesday, and several vehicles fell into the river below. Rescuers were searching for at least seven people in the water. The vessel appears to have hit one of the supports of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the roadway to break apart in several places and plunge into the water, according to a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The ship caught fire, and thick, black smoke billowed out of it. “This is a dire emergency,” Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told The Associated Press. “Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people.” Emergency responders were searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water, Cartwright said, though he said it’s too early to know how many people were affected. He called the collapse a “developing mass casualty event.”

He added that some cargo appeared to be dangling from the bridge, which spans the Patapsco River, a vital artery that along with the Port of Baltimore is a hub for shipping on the East Coast. Opened in 1977, the bridge is named for the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Agencies received emergency calls around 1:30 a.m. reporting that a ship leaving Baltimore had struck a column on the bridge, according to Cartwright. Several vehicles were on the bridge at the time, including one the size of a tractor-trailer truck. The temperature in the river was about 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius) in the early hours of Tuesday, according to a buoy that collects data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. From a vantage point near the entrance to the bridge, jagged remnants of its steel frame were visible protruding from the water, with the on-ramp ending abruptly where the span once began. The ship is called “Dali,” according to Cartwright. A vessel by that name was headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, as its final destination, according to Marine Traffic and Vessel Finder. The ship was flying under a Singapore flag, WTOP radio station reported, citing Petty Officer Matthew West from the Coast Guard in Baltimore.

Houston Chronicle - March 26, 2024

AG Ken Paxton in court for last scheduled hearing ahead of April 15 securities fraud trial

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is expected back in court on Tuesday, as his criminal securities fraud trial looms and the window closes for prosecutors and defense attorneys to resolve the case outside of court. In one of the longest-running cases in Texas history, Paxton is set to go to trial on April 15 — nearly nine years after he was charged. A Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton on three felony securities fraud charges in July 2015, just months after he was sworn in as the state’s top lawyer. He was charged with two first-degree felony counts for failing to inform friends that he would make a commission off their investment in a North Texas tech company, as well as for one lesser, third-degree felony charge for neglecting to register with the state as an investment adviser. The penalties range from two to 99 years in prison.

He pleaded not guilty and cast the case as a “political witch hunt.” The pre-trial hearing Tuesday is before Harris County state district Judge Andrea Beall. It could present one of the last opportunities for Paxton and the special prosecutor to reach a deal that would negate the need for a trial. If Paxton were to be convicted, it would jeopardize his ability to run for office and retain his law license. Paxton, a third-term Republican, is coming off the heels of an acquittal of corruption-related impeachment charges by the Texas Senate last fall. Since then, he’s been more politically invigorated than ever, launching a revenge campaign against conservative Texas House members who voted in favor of his impeachment and filing lawsuits that have garnered national attention as he fights the Biden Administration over immigration policy. Despite his legal challenges, the hardline conservative has never lost the support of far-right Texans, and his approval rating has edged up 9 percentage points from 32% in October, a month after he was acquitted, to 41% as of last month, according to Texas Politics Project polling.

CNN - March 26, 2024

Fed officials are now considering fewer rate cuts this year

Americans hamstrung by high borrowing costs on car loans, mortgages and credit cards shouldn’t expect much of a break this year. That’s because some Federal Reserve officials are reconsidering forecasts they made three months ago that called for three rate cuts this year. Currently, the Fed’s target interest rate is between 5.25% and 5.5%, a 23-year high. Four of the 19 officials on the rate-setting committee now see rates staying above 5% this year, implying one or no rate cuts, according to new economic projections from last week’s meeting. Meanwhile, in December, three officials saw rates staying above 5%. On the opposite end, just one official — compared to five previously — sees rates dipping below 4.5%, implying four cuts.

The stakes are high because there are consequences if the Fed cuts rates soon or if it leaves rates where they’ve been for the past eight months. If the central bank cuts prematurely, it could risk losing its grip on inflation, which hasn’t yet returned to its 2% target. But if the Fed waits too long to cut, high interest rates could further punish Americans and the economy by potentially triggering a recession. Beyond their official projections, various officials have also been making their case in public speeches and media appearances on how the Fed should approach the difficult task of when to begin cutting interest rates. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, currently a voting member on the Fed’s rate-setting committee, went as far as to suggest that the central bank should only cut rates once this year. “The economy continues to deliver surprises and it continues to be more resilient and more energized than I had forecast or projected,” Bostic said last week. That’s why he said he revised his belief that the central bank should cut rates twice this year to once.

State Stories

Houston Public Media - March 26, 2024

Texas Medical Board provides rules for how doctors can navigate Texas abortion laws. Some say it still leaves many questions.

The Texas Medical Board published what it sees as guidance for doctors on how to define what constitutes a medical exception under the state's strict abortion ban on Friday. Dr. Sherif Zaafran, president of the Texas Medical Board, spoke to Houston Matters about why they chose to give guidance, rather than a specific list of exemptions. "A list of exemptions is, number one, never going to be exhaustive," Zaafran said. "And, number two, it’s always going to have to take consideration of the circumstance of the case itself, and that’s why we use very specific language of medical judgment.” Zaafran added that medical judgment would be dependent on the circumstances of the case, the location of the case, and what other considerations had to be taken while that case was going on.

"One of the things that we listed in the proposal is the ability, for example, to transfer to a higher level of care," he said. "So, there may ... one circumstance where you’re in an urban area versus in a rural area, where there may not be the ability to render care in a way that you may be able to in an urban area." Zaafran said during the height of the pandemic the board tried to provide guidelines around elective surgeries, and many surgeons came back with questions about specific cases. "A lot of surgeons would ask us, ‘Well, what about this type of case? What if it was cancer here or what if it was cancer that could not wait more than a month,'" he said. "And what we really said, at the end of the day, is you just have to document to us if you and your judgment believe that a case is emergent and describe the scenario in this situation and why." This is similar to that kind of circumstance, Zaafran said. Doctors will have to describe why they believe that a woman's life is in danger and an abortion must be done to preserve the woman's life or organ function.

San Antonio Express-News - March 26, 2024

Keller Williams faces class action over profit sharing

Austin-based Keller Williams Realty Inc. is facing a potential class-action lawsuit over changes to its profit-sharing program that could collectively cost former associates millions of dollars. Ex-Keller Williams agent Jerri Moulder wants a court to rule the company cannot retroactively reduce distributions earned by former associates vested in the profit-sharing program just because they now work for a competitor. She’s now an agent with another firm in Kansas City, Mo. Last summer, Keller Williams announced plans to slash from 100% to 5% the profit distributions it shares with agents vested in the program but who left the brokerage to join a rival — unless they returned to the firm within six months. The change takes effect July 1, but does not affect Keller Williams agents who have retired or left the industry.

“Under the revised policy, former KW agents who actively compete against our brokerages will receive less profit share, with more redistributed to the agents who continue to partner in our growth,” said Darryl Frost, a spokesperson for Keller Williams. The dispute involves big money. In Moulder’s case filed Friday in federal court in San Antonio, she seeks damages of $250 million or an amount to be determined at trial. The class is expected to number more than 100 former agents. As of July 31, Keller Williams had distributed almost $1.6 billion to associates since the profit-sharing program took effect in 1987, HousingWire reported in August. According to the lawsuit, Keller Williams paid from $25 million to $40 million in distributions in the year before an August 2019 presentation to the company’s International Associate Leadership Council. The damages claim was calculated by multiplying $25 million by 10 years, said Kenneth McClain, a Missouri lawyer representing Moulder.

San Antonio Report - March 26, 2024

Colin Allred, Joaquin Castro get personal campaigning on health care

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas), who hopes to make health care a top issue in Texas’ U.S. Senate race this year, huddled with local health care experts in San Antonio Monday. The roundtable at the North East Bexar County Democrats’ office focused on how San Antonio leaders are dealing with closing hospitals, like one that recently shuttered on the South Side, and a large uninsured population that’s growing as residents who received Medicaid during the pandemic are being removed from the rolls. Allred said that in his district, when the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center closed several years ago, he was able to get the facility donated to the Department of Veterans Affairs so that the community wouldn’t completely lose those hospital beds.

“I know what we’re facing in North Texas very well,” said Allred, who used the meeting to learn about San Antonio-specific challenges ahead of a statewide race this November. Leaders from South Texas Allergy & Asthma Medical Professionals and the equity research nonprofit Every Texan participated in the event. Though the 2024 election cycle has so far been dominated by immigration and border security, the NFL player-turned-civil rights lawyer sees potential in reviving a topic Democrats have had success with in the past. Allred is running against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz who famously shut the government down in his crusade against the Affordable Care Act in 2013 — a time when Republicans were picking up seats over backlash to the health care law. But Obamacare has since grown in popularity, and Cruz’s continued efforts to unravel it — by gutting its protections for people with preexisting conditions — provided Democrats with their most effective line of attack against Republicans across the country in 2018. Cruz’s own campaign said he was hurt by 11th-hour ads suggesting he wanted to kick people off their health care, contributing to his narrow 2.6% victory over Democrat Beto O’Rourke that year.

BEEF - March 26, 2024

Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association names new leadership

Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the oldest and largest livestock association in the Southwest, has elected Carl Ray Polk Jr. as president during the 2024 Cattle Raisers Convention & Expo. Polk, of Lufkin, Texas, is a respected figure within the industry, bringing extensive expertise and a proven advocacy track record to his two-year term as TSCRA president. As a third-generation rancher and land steward, Polk is well-positioned to steer the association toward continued growth and success.

Border Report - March 26, 2024

Mayorkas says Texas immigration law is unconstitutional

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday that a Texas law giving state authorities the power to arrest and deport migrants who have entered the country illegally is unconstitutional. “It is our strongly held view as a matter of law that SB4 (the Texas law) … is unconstitutional and it is our hope and confidence that the courts will strike it down with finality,” Mayorkas said during a joint news conference with Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo in the Guatemalan capital. The Texas law passed last year would allow the state to arrest and deport people who enter the U.S. illegally. The U.S. Justice Department has challenged the law as a clear violation of federal authority.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on the Texas law Wednesday, but did not rule. The law is on hold for now. In an interview with The Associated Press later Thursday, Mayorkas added that “Should SB4 be permitted to proceed, we are very concerned about the effect it would have and the chaos that it could bring to the challenge of border migration.” Mayorkas described the U.S.-led regional strategy toward immigration as seeking to “build lawful, safe and orderly pathways for people to reach safety from their place of persecution and, at the same time, returning people to their countries as a consequence when they do not take advantage of those lawful pathways.” Among those safe pathways is a U.S. effort to streamline the process for those seeking U.S. asylum in the region through so-called safe mobility offices. They allow migrants to start the process where they are rather than making the dangerous and costly journey to the U.S. border.

KXAN - March 26, 2024

2 Army veterans posthumously awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor

Two Army veterans were posthumously awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor on Monday. Gov. Greg Abbott presented the prestigious award to the families of U.S. Army Major Jerry L. Bell and Army Master Sergeant Mike C. Peña at the Texas Capitol Monday morning. KXAN spoke to the daughter of Bell, Wendy Baldwin, who spoke on what the award means to them. Bell was recognized for his service in the Vietnam War, and Peña was recognized for his service in World War II. Additionally, Peña gave his life during the Korean War, Abbott’s office said in a news release Monday.

KXAN - March 26, 2024

19% of Texas school districts, charters did not report bus crash data last year

Nineteen percent of Texas school districts and charters failed to report details on school bus crashes that occurred last school year to the Texas Education Agency. The agency tracks school bus accidents through an annual survey that collects information on accidents involving school district or charter school buses. Districts and open-enrollment charter schools are supposed to report information showing basic information about crashes – like the type of bus, the number of students and adults involved or injured, and whether passengers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash, according to TEA and state statute. According to a TEA report, not all school districts responded to last year’s survey. The agency’s data shows that 233 districts and charters did not report school bus crash data for the 2022-23 school year. KXAN investigators discovered this following last week’s deadly bus crash in Hays CISD.

Houston Public Media - March 26, 2024

Many Houston charter schools are violating state transparency laws. Here’s why it’s an issue

Many Houston-area charter schools are violating state transparency laws designed to make school governance and financial decisions open to the public, a pattern that has drawn minimal scrutiny from state officials. Nearly 85 percent of the 39 charter school networks based in Harris County did not have all their up-to-date transparency records posted online as required by state law, the Houston Landing found this month after reviewing their sites. The missing records include board meeting notices, agendas and minutes, which would allow the public to monitor the board’s governance, as well as annual budgets and year-end financial reports. In recent years, the types of records missing from many school sites have helped expose questionable financial deals and lax oversight of charter schools, prompting calls for state lawmakers to increase oversight.

Most notably, Texas Education Agency officials appointed a conservator to oversee the state’s largest charter school chain, IDEA Public Schools, after a state investigation into multiple allegations of financial mismanagement. One of the most controversial decisions by IDEA leaders — spending $15 million to lease a private jet — received extensive media coverage after a teachers union spotted the plans in board meeting records. Charter schools receive nearly all of their funding from Texas taxpayers, but they are privately operated by nonprofit governing boards. Voters in Texas elect the board members of their local independent school districts, which the vast majority of the state’s school-aged children attend. Almost all the schools violating the law are relatively small operators, while almost all the region’s biggest charter organizations — including KIPP Texas, IDEA and YES Prep — were in compliance. One charter operator, Houston Classical Charter School, updated its website following an inquiry from the Landing for this article. Ten other charter organizations did not respond to requests for comment.

Houston Chronicle - March 26, 2024

La Niña is back this summer. Here's what it means for Texas and hurricane season

Adios, El Niño. It’s looking increasingly possible that a transition to La Niña is at hand by the start of meteorological summer on June 1, according to the latest data from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. What does La Niña mean for the summer months in Texas? Could the switch to La Niña have consequences on the upcoming hurricane season? Let’s discuss. What is La Niña? La Niña is a natural climate pattern characterized by unusually cooler sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. Strong trade winds blow from east to west during a La Niña pattern, pushing warm surface waters toward Asia and Australia. This causes cold, nutrient-rich waters to well up along the west coast of South America.

The warming of these same waters is known as El Niño, and the ripple effects from changes in ocean temperatures near the equator can influence weather patterns in North America and other parts of the world. Understanding La Niña helps forecasters predict weather patterns and their potential effects on agriculture, water resources and economies. Governments, farmers and communities use this information to prepare for possible floods, droughts, or other weather-related challenges associated with La Niña. How does La Niña affect Texas weather? The effects of La Niña or El Niño in Texas can depend on the season. In the summer, for instance, the phenomena aren’t as consequential in Texas. That’s because La Niña, much like its counterpart, El Niño, influences the positioning of the subtropical jet stream. During the summer, the subtropical jet stream is found well to the north of the Lone Star State. Locally, our summers are plagued by stretches of relentless heat, courtesy of large systems of high atmospheric pressure circulating thousands of feet above our heads, more commonly referred to as “heat domes.”

Austin American-Statesman - March 26, 2024

Higher education in Texas: What lawmakers hope to tackle in the 89th legislative session

In the legislative session last year, Texas lawmakers revamped the state's community college financing model, boosted research funding at several universities and invested billions in higher education. Lawmakers also passed controversial measures dealing with higher education such as Senate Bill 17, which bars public colleges and universities from having diversity, equity and inclusion offices or performing those functions, and SB 18, a law to further regulate how a tenured professor can be fired. With the 89th legislative session set to begin in January, Texas' higher education is again in the crosshairs. At a policy summit hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, in downtown Austin last week, conservative panelists, including state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, called Texas a leader in the fight against "woke" ideologies — also referred to as identity politics — on college campuses. They also said Texas is far from done.

"We're going to ask some very tough questions to make sure that it's actually being enacted in the way that the bill intended," Bettencourt, who serves on the Senate Education Committee, said about SB 17, which bars DEI. Sherry Sylvester, a senior policy fellow at the foundation, said at the panel that SB 17 is "the strongest (law) in the nation to fight institutionalized woke," but that it could take decades to fully address "illiberalism on campuses and restore intellectual diversity. In response to a question about further limiting tenure protections, Bettencourt told the crowd that "everything's on the table" for the next session. "We filed bills about tenure last session; I expect we'll file bills about tenure again this session," he said. Bettencourt also spoke against faculty senates. Heidi Tseu, assistant vice president of national engagement at the American Council on Education, a national higher education association that aims to shape policy, said a "flurry" of DEI bills have been filed at state legislatures across the country in the past couple of years. "What we've broadly seen is these are targeting specific, very specific things," Tseu said. "There are think tanks that have put out guidance on how to push back on the 'woke' culture. So you're seeing the language being replicated across these different states."

KUT - March 26, 2024

Austin judge upholds ruling to block Texas from demanding trans kids' records from LGBTQ+ group

An Austin judge on Monday once again stopped the state from accessing information on trans youth from national LGBTQ+ organization PFLAG. Judge Amy Clark Meachum from Travis County’s 201st Civil District court granted the organization a temporary injunction against the Texas Attorney General’s Office and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Lambda Legal is one of the organizations representing PFLAG in court. Senior Counsel Paul Castillo said he “did not anticipate a decision today from the bench,” but he’s thankful the court saw “the urgency of our requests for injunctive relief.” “It was important for PFLAG to convey just how disruptive these demands were to their mission, where they are providing a safe space and peer support,” he said. PFLAG received a notice in February to turn over any documents involving “contingency plans and/or alternative avenues to maintain care” for trans youth, along with “recommendations, referrals and/or lists” of health providers treating trans youth.

The Office of the Attorney General of Texas (OAG) has sent inquiries to hospitals, clinics and other organizations to turn over any documentation on trans youth and their health services. Seattle Children’s Hospital sued the office in December 2023, writing in an affidavit that the hospital does not treat any Texas patients and the inquiry was a fear tactic to stop Texans from seeking care in other states. The OAG’s demands stem from Senate Bill 14, a law passed after last year’s legislative session that bans gender-affirming care for trans Texans under eighteen. PFLAG won a temporary restraining order earlier this month. Monday’s ruling grants a temporary injunction as the courts sort out the validity of the state’s request. Castillo said the state’s request has already been harmful to PFLAG’s chapters in Texas. “Membership and participation in those meetings has decreased since the demands have been issued,” he said. “Volunteer chapter leaders are moving meetings from public libraries to private homes. There is reluctance to secure and obtain sign-in information from members because parents and families fear that the Office of the Attorney General is collecting information about who these trans and non-binary young people are in Texas.”

Dallas Morning News - March 26, 2024

Outgoing Dallas City Manager Broadnax says chance at Austin job came at ‘perfect time’

Outgoing Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax told Austin residents on Monday that he’s excited at the idea of working with their City Council and being their top municipal executive, calling the opportunity the “perfect place” at the “perfect time”. During a public forum Monday where the two finalists for Austin’s city manager job made their case for why they should be hired, Broadnax said he believed the Austin City Council was “committed to doing things to the benefit of this community,” with a long-term vision. He said he was excited to work on their behalf to execute those plans. Broadnax called Dallas “the city I had dreamed of leading” but said he looked forward to the chance of leading the state’s capital city.

“I would love to have an opportunity to lead that city so that we can be the beacon for any other city in this great nation, let alone in the (state) of Texas,” said Broadnax during a question and answer session in front of a capacity crowd that included Mayor Kirk Watson and several council members at the Permitting and Development Event Center in Austin. The other finalist is Denton City Manager Sara Hensley, a former Austin assistant city manager who has also led the city’s parks and recreation department. Both will be interviewed by the Austin City Council during a closed Council meeting on Tuesday. Watson has said the city plans to invite at least one of the candidates back for interviews next week and the council could approve negotiations starting with one of them as soon as next Thursday. Broadnax started as Dallas city manager in 2017. His resignation was announced Feb. 21 and goes into effect June 3. While Broadnax answered a series of questions from a moderator at the Austin event, he never referenced anything about the circumstances that led to his resignation nor how it was at the suggestion of the majority of the City Council.

Houston Public Media - March 26, 2024

Baytown plant with troubled track record could receive up to $332 million from federal government to lower emissions

A Baytown power plant with a track record of federal air quality violations could get up to $332 million from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of a national decarbonization initiative. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $6 billion in funding for 33 decarbonization projects across the country — including six projects specifically in Texas. One of those projects could grant up to $331.9 million to the ExxonMobil Baytown Olefins Plant to “enable the use of hydrogen in place of natural gas” for ethylene production, with the goal of cutting down the plant’s total emissions by more than half. However, environmental advocacy groups say they’re skeptical. Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, said the hydrogen that Exxon would use would likely be produced using natural gas, which would add to the plant’s omissions and nullify the benefits of the project.

Dallas Morning News - March 26, 2024

Speaker Dade Phelan creates committee to examine Biden pause on LNG facility permits

House Speaker Dade Phelan created a special committee Monday to examine President Joe Biden’s executive order pausing new permits for facilities that export liquified natural gas, a move that has drawn backlash from the oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats. Phelan, R-Beaumont, directed the committee’s three Republicans and two Democrats to determine if the Biden administration had the authority to freeze the permits and assess the policy’s economic, social and environmental impact. The panel was given until May 13 to report its findings. “President Biden’s abrupt decision earlier this year to pause pending approvals of LNG export projects will likely have significant economic implications for Texas, and it is important we fully understand what a prolonged pause would mean for our state’s thriving energy sector,” Phelan said Monday.

Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, will chair the Select Committee on Protecting Texas LNG Exports. Other members include Reps. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa; Cody Vasut, R-Angleton; Christian Manuel, D-Beaumont; and Mary Ann Perez, D-Houston. Patterson said the pause hurts U.S. allies across the world. “The US is the top exporter globally of clean, abundant, and inexpensive energy, creating jobs and wealth here at home,” Patterson said. It was the second special panel Phelan has created ahead of the 2025 legislative session, which begins in January. The other committee was directed to make recommendations related to the devastating Panhandle wildfires that started in late February. Biden announced the ban in January so his administration could study how exports of liquified natural gas, which is cooled to a liquid state for shipping and storage, affect climate change, a priority in his first term. “This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” Biden said Jan. 26. “We will heed the calls of young people and frontline communities who are using their voices to demand action from those with the power to act.”

County Stories

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 26, 2024

Hackers demand $700K from Tarrant Appraisal District

Ransomware attackers who took control of the Tarrant Appraisal District website have demanded $700,000, the district announced Monday. The hackers have threatened to release “sensitive” information if their demands are not met, but TAD does not know if they actually have any information, said Lindsay B. Nickle, a cybersecurity attorney from Dallas hired by the district. The district said it is weighing its options, but does not want to pay, Nickle said. Nickle and TAD suspect that Medusa ransomware, which was first spotted in 2021, is behind the attack. Medusa has previously used extortion and the threat of selling sensitive information on the dark web as a tactic to negotiate, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency.

Jingguo Wang, a professor of information systems and operations management at UT Arlington, told the Star-Telegram Friday that the public nature of TAD’s security struggles might have made them a target for the attack. TAD board members did not field questions following their closed session about the matter Monday afternoon. Following closed session the board approved the reallocation $235,000 to purchase Microsoft Office 365, the cybersecurity platform Sentinel 1 and a cybersecurity consultant. Tax Assessor Collector Wendy Burgess — who is a member of the districts board — was not present for the meeting. The site has been down since the attack on Thursday, the second time it crashed in two weeks. TAD’s email and phone lines are still down. After the initial crash on March 14 — which the district blamed on a “database failure” — the district rolled out its new website ahead of its planned launch.

City Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 26, 2024

'We're done': Spring Brand ISD Board votes to keep name on building

Former Superintendent Duncan Klussmann’s name will remain on the Spring Branch Educational Center, the board voted unanimously Monday, after hearing copious community feedback against their proposal to remove his name from the building. More than 40 people spoke at the public hearing asking the board not to remove the name of the now University of Houston assistant professor, many of whom wore red or pink in solidarity. Before the meeting, a petition to keep his name on the building was submitted to the board with over 600 signatures.

A rival petition was submitted with over 300 signatures asking the board to reverse the vote that put Klussmann’s name on the building in the first place, but only two people spoke in public comment in favor of that option. Those who spoke against the name change cited concerns with free speech and retaliation for differing opinions, as Board President Chris Earnest announced his intent to begin the process to remove Klussmann’s name after the former superintendent published a critical op-ed in the Houston Chronicle. Others expressed frustration that the board would spend time discussing the name of a building instead of dealing with the current financial issues at hand.

National Stories

NBC News - March 26, 2024

N.Y. appeals court reduces Trump's bond in his civil fraud case to $175 million, a victory for the former president

A state appeals court ruled that Donald Trump and his co-defendants in the New York civil fraud case have 10 days to post a $175 million bond, down from the $464 million judgment that was originally due Monday. The 11th-hour ruling from a panel of state Appellate Division judges, all appointed by Democratic governors, is a major victory and relief for the former president, whose attorneys had said coming up with the larger bond was a “practical impossibility.” The ruling also means state Attorney General Letitia James’ office cannot yet begin collecting on the judgment. “I greatly respect the decision of the appellate division and I’ll post the $175 million in cash or bonds or security or whatever is necessary very quickly within the 10 days, and I thank the appellate division for acting quickly,” Trump said in front of cameras after he left a New York courtroom for a hearing in the hush money case.

Before Monday’s ruling, Trump was liable for $454 million, most of the fraud judgment, but the amount he owed had been increasing by more than $111,000 a day because of added interest. Trump claimed on social media Friday that he had nearly $500 million in cash that he had planned to use toward his 2024 presidential campaign. The former president, however, hasn’t used his own money toward his presidential campaigns since 2016. He had also floated the idea last week of mortgaging or selling off his properties, saying he would be forced to do so at “Fire Sale prices.” His lawyers noted in court filings that bond companies typically “require collateral of approximately 120% of the amount of the judgment” — which in this case would total about $557 million. Trump's lawyers said in one filing a week ago that they hadn’t been able at that point to secure a bond, and believed it was “a practical impossibility.” They said that they approached 30 surety companies through four separate brokers, trying to negotiate with the world’s largest insurance companies.

Washington Post - March 26, 2024

Biden-Netanyahu rift grows, as Israel cancels delegation visit

Senior Biden administration officials believed they made clear to their Israeli counterparts in nonstop talks over the weekend the possibility that the United States would abstain from — rather than veto — a U.N. Security Council resolution Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. But the White House was taken aback by what happened after the abstention vote was cast: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly canceled a high-level delegation’s trip to Washington, specifically requested by President Biden in a phone call last week, to discuss U.S. concerns about Israel’s plans for a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. In a reaction that understated the administration’s shock, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the cancellation “surprising and unfortunate.”

The remarkable turn of events has transformed a widening rift between Biden and Netanyahu into a public chasm. Administration officials hastened to insist there had been no U.S. policy change, that Israeli plans for a Rafah operation were not imminent in any case, that negotiations over the release of hostages would continue, and that they looked forward to future conversations with Netanyahu and his government. Despite the extensive weekend consultations, and with no effort by the Israeli leader to reach out to Biden directly, Netanyahu alleged in a statement released by his office after the vote that the United States had “abandoned its policy in the U.N. today. ... Regrettably, the United States did not veto the new resolution, which calls for a ceasefire that is not contingent on the release of hostages.” This, the statement said, was “a clear departure from the U.S. position.” The meeting was off — a delegation headed by Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s senior strategic adviser, would not travel to Washington as scheduled.

New York Times - March 26, 2024

What ‘KateGate’ says about royalty, celebrity and Internet culture

Once upon a time, the British monarchy exerted a unique hold over the imaginations of millions of Americans, an interest that elevated its crown-bearing figureheads above the average A-lister or Hollywood hoi polloi. Lately, however, a succession of births, deaths and marriages in the royal family, and several high-profile scandals, have collided with the rise of an internet culture evermore obsessed with celebrity. The monthslong frenzy over the whereabouts of Catherine, Princess of Wales — culminating in a televised statement on Friday in which she revealed she was battling cancer — reflects a fundamental shift in the sentiment of a growing faction of the public: that the Windsors are like any other celebrity family in the public eye, and that they deserve to be treated as such. The online maelstrom that fueled KateGate came largely from outside Britain — and especially from across the Atlantic. It exploded thanks to a 24-hour news cycle, a boom in conspiracy theories and rabid social media punditry, as millions of users sought clicks and a boost in followers with increasingly provocative posts.

“Everyone is watching a different thread on their phone, following a different theory or even becoming an armchair expert or sleuth broadcasting about the royals from their living room,” Wendy Naugle, the editor in chief of People magazine, said last week. These days, many of Ms. Naugle’s American readers follow every update about the British royals as they would other celebrities — “for the outfits and family drama,” she said. And while millions of people wanted only to offer well wishes to the princess, the criticism, mockery and expectation that interested parties should be given boundless information about her reached levels rarely seen before. Matters were not helped by an edited photo released by Kensington Palace on Mother’s Day that fed speculation that Princess Catherine was missing, dying, using a body double or seeking a divorce. TMZ footage of the princess in a car with her mother, Carole Middleton, was published widely in the United States. Thousands of posts and reposts asked whether, given the angle of her face, it was even her. “The moment grew far beyond the corners of social media into the mainstream media and the national conversation in America,” Elizabeth Holmes, a journalist and royal expert in Los Angeles, said last week, before Catherine’s statement was aired. New ground was broken by outlets and individuals with audiences of millions in terms of what they said publicly about royals. Certainly any expectation that three months of silence by a family in the public eye was shown to be unrealistic.

NPR - March 26, 2024

Truth Social will start trading on Tuesday. Trump stands to earn a fortune

The company behind Donald Trump's social media app Truth Social will start trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Tuesday, potentially delivering a windfall of more than $3 billion to the former president. Trump Media and Technology Group is set to become a public company after completing a merger with a listed shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC), which was created to merge with the former president's company.\ Trump Media will trade under the stock symbol DJT, short for Donald J. Trump. The former president would own at least 58% of the merged company, a stake that could be worth billions of dollars at current market valuations. The windfall comes as Trump is mired in a slew of legal cases. Earlier on Monday, a New York appeals court reduced the amount Trump must post as bond in his civil fraud case to $175 million from nearly half a million dollars — and gave him him another 10 days to post it.

Fox News - March 26, 2024

NBC considering cutting ties with Ronna McDaniel after intense backlash: Insider

There's active consideration at NBC News to cut ties with Ronna McDaniel after the brutal reception her hiring as an analyst has gotten, a network insider tells Fox News Digital. The former Republican National Committee chairwoman was signed as a paid contributor last week, leading to an immediate uproar among current and former NBC staffers, as well as media critics who considered the longtime Donald Trump ally unacceptable for the news organization. An MSNBC insider told Fox News Digital that the pushback against McDaniel's hiring was worse than leadership anticipated, and not just from within NBC, and due to that there was discussion about cutting her. Spokespersons for NBC News and MSNBC didn't respond to a request for comment, and McDaniel remains with the network as of Monday.

The source added they'd be glad to see NBC cut McDaniel, saying she has long operated in bad faith, had credibility issues and has engaged in election denial, alluding to her role in helping President Trump's efforts to overturn 2020 election results and rhetoric about that election being unfair. MSNBC President Rashida Jones already told colleagues over the weekend that McDaniel wouldn't appear on their airwaves. MSNBC is NBC's left-leaning cable news arm, and insiders there told Fox News Digital she wouldn't be welcome on their programs. Another source at NBC News said they were "totally blindsided" by McDaniel being added to the team. "I haven't spoken to a single person who thinks it's a good idea," they told Fox News Digital. Another MSNBC insider also supported NBC dropping her entirely, suggesting she be replaced by a former Trump official who wasn't involved in the "Jan. 6 scheme." A separate NBC source told Fox News Digital they were not aware of discussions about possibly dropping McDaniel.

Wall Street Journal - March 26, 2024

Boeing’s next CEO will have ‘massive job’ at company in crisis

Federal probes, sloppy factories, angry airlines, tense union negotiations and supply-chain snarls. Boeing’s crisis won’t end when David Calhoun exits as chief executive. The next leader of the American manufacturing icon will have to address some of the same issues that Calhoun, a longtime Boeing director, was brought on to clean up four years ago when the board he led ousted his predecessor. Boeing said Monday that Calhoun will step aside by the end of the year, though he is expected to leave as soon as his replacement is found. Calhoun’s biggest ally on the board, Chairman Larry Kellner, is also stepping down, and the top executive for the commercial aircraft unit was replaced on Monday.

Airline executives and government officials said they welcomed the shake-up. The board has started searching for a new leader. While it will look at internal executives, it faces added pressure to bring on an outsider who can clean up quality issues that have slowed production of 737 MAX jets that airlines need. “They understand what they need to do,” General Electric CEO Larry Culp said in an interview in mid-March, when asked about Boeing. “As it was for us, a lot of work ahead.” Culp would know. He has just spent five years restructuring GE by splitting off business units, paying down debts and streamlining its factories. Soon he will oversee a slimmed-down GE Aerospace, which makes jet engines that go into the 737 MAX. By setting Calhoun’s exit date at the end of the year, Boeing gave itself ample time to find a successor who the board hopes could instill confidence in the company internally and externally. And if other controversies surface at Boeing in the coming months, Calhoun can take the blame for them instead of the new CEO, executive advisers said. “Let’s hope there aren’t any front-page scandals” to come, said Peter Crist, chairman of the executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates. “But boards do think about that stuff.”

March 25, 2024

Lead Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 25, 2024

Under new immigration law, DPS plans to arrest only migrants seen crossing Rio Grande

If the courts allow Texas’ sweeping immigration law to go into effect, Department of Public Safety troopers will arrest only migrants they see crossing the Rio Grande and will limit enforcement to counties along the border, according to a top DPS official. Troopers would not check an individual’s immigration status during traffic stops or other encounters farther inland. In addition, only adults would be arrested. Family units and children would not be charged with any of the crimes created by the new law but would instead be handed over to Border Patrol agents, said Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the agency’s South Region. “This law was not designed for interior enforcement,” Olivarez said. “This law is designed for border security along the river.”

Olivarez’s comments provided the first clarification by the DPS about how the state agency plans to enforce Senate Bill 4, which authorizes state and local police officers to arrest undocumented migrants. Texas has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the law after a U.S. district judge found it to be unconstitutional in February. The law would also allow state district judges to order unauthorized migrants to be deported. The U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups oppose the law, arguing that immigration enforcement is the federal government’s responsibility. Last week, SB4 briefly went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court gave the state permission to enforce the law and sent the matter back to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked SB4 about nine hours later. The back-and-forth rulings had law enforcement agencies scrambling for advice on what to do, with some along the border ready to arrest migrants who they believed were violating the law and others holding off until they heard back from the DPS or Gov. Greg Abbott’s office. The DPS did not enforce the law last week, Olivarez said, because the agency did not receive approval from Abbott or the attorney general’s office. The appeals court heard oral arguments last week on whether to continue blocking the law or let it go back into effect while the judges determine its constitutionality. Additional oral arguments are set for April 3 on the heart of the case — whether Texas can legally enforce SB 4.

Reuters - March 25, 2024

Trump has hours to cover $454 million judgment or risk property seizure

Donald Trump faces a Monday deadline to post a bond to cover a $454 million civil fraud judgment or face the risk of New York state seizing some of his marquee properties. Trump, seeking to regain the presidency this year, must either pay the money out of his own pocket or post a bond while he appeals Justice Arthur Engoron's Feb. 16 judgment against him for manipulating his net worth and his family real estate company's property values to dupe lenders and insurers. The Trump campaign on Friday called for donations from "one million pro-Trump patriots," saying that the "iconic Trump Tower" was among his properties at risk of seizure. The case cuts to the core of his public image as a prosperous businessman. Trump rose to fame as a developer of flashy properties like Manhattan's Trump Tower and often boasts of his financial success - even though his companies have at times struggled.

But Trump, the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election, now faces a web of financial worries including campaign fundraising lagging behind his rival. The judgment in the case was entered in Manhattan, where Trump properties such as Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street may be in the sights of New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who brought the civil case in 2022. James also has notified Westchester County, just north of New York City, of the judgment, a step toward potentially seizing assets there such as a Trump golf course and a 60-room mansion and estate called Seven Springs. Taking control of Trump's properties would pose a host of legal and logistical challenges for the attorney general's office. Placing liens on them to ensure they are not sold or transferred and going after Trump's liquid assets would be more straightforward. Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the case politically motivated. The first former U.S. president ever to face criminal charges, Trump has been indicted in four separate cases, pleading not guilty in each. In one of those cases, a New York judge on Monday is set to hear arguments on Trump's bid to postpone a mid-April start date over charges related to hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 U.S. election.

San Antonio Express-News - March 25, 2024

ERCOT admits Texas grid faces risk of ‘cascading outages’ in wait for new CPS transmission line

The state grid operator is admitting it underestimated how quickly the San Antonio region would grow — a missed forecast that’s left it with transmission issues that “could lead to cascading outages” that put the statewide grid at risk. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas this week told regulators its analysis missed the need to boost transmission capacity between the southern and northern regions of the state. While CPS Energy has a new line in the works to solve the problem, it won’t be done for three more years. “We should have been able to see this in 2018,” Chief Operating Officer Woody Rickerson told the Public Utility Commission on Thursday. “If we saw it in 2018, we’d have time for this line to have been built last year.”

Now, ERCOT is preparing to cut off power to keep it from overcrowding lines when demand is high and power supply is uneven between the south and north ends of the existing lines. The action, which would curtail about 250 megawatts systemwide, aims to head off emergency conditions like those reached Sept. 6, when the state grid came closer to blackouts than it’s been since the February 2021 winter storm that left millions of people in the dark for days and more than 200 dead. Commissioners weren’t thrilled with the idea of keeping power off the market. Rickerson said he wasn’t, either, but that in certain situations, it’s the best option to stave off a more dire scenario. When there are outages or lower supply from renewables on one end of the line — typically the end opposite San Antonio toward Waco and Dallas — the path to move the extra supply to where it’s needed can become like a crowded highway of speeding cars. The more cars, the more potential for crashes.

CNBC - March 25, 2024

Biden signs $1.2 trillion spending package for government funding until October

President Joe Biden on Saturday signed Congress’ $1.2 trillion spending package, finalizing the remaining batch of bills in a long-awaited budget to keep the government funded until Oct. 1. Almost halfway into the fiscal year, the president’s signature ends a months-long saga of Congress struggling to secure a permanent budget resolution and instead passing stopgap measures, nearly averting government shutdowns. “The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security,” Biden said in a Saturday statement. “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted.” The weekend budget deal slid in just under the wire before the Friday midnight funding deadline, as has been typical this fiscal year with eleventh-hour disagreements derailing near-complete deals.

The Senate passed the budget in a 74-24 vote at roughly 2 a.m. ET Saturday morning, technically two hours after the deadline due to last-minute disagreements. However, the White House said that it would not begin official shutdown operations since a deal had ultimately been secured and only procedural actions remained. The House passed its own vote Friday morning after a week of scrambling to reconcile a lingering sticking point: funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which the White House took issue with last weekend. The White House’s qualms delayed the negotiation process further, just as lawmakers were preparing to release the legislative text of the budget proposal. This trillion-dollar tranche of six appropriation bills will fund agencies related to defense, financial services, homeland security, health and human services and more. Congress approved $459 billion for the first six appropriations bills earlier in March, which related to agencies that were less partisan and easier to negotiate. With the government finally funded for the rest of the fiscal year, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has cleared his plate of at least one looming issue. But in so doing, he may have created another. Hours before the House passed the spending package Friday morning, hardline House Republicans held a press conference to lambast the bill. Moments after the House narrowly passed the bill, far-right Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to oust Johnson.

State Stories

Religion News Service - March 25, 2024

A feud over a coffeemaker and Christmas decor leads to another Fort Worth Southern Baptist seminary lawsuit

A feud between a Southwestern Baptist seminary and its former president appears headed for federal court. Lawyers for Adam Greenway, who resigned as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in September 2022, alleged in a complaint filed Wednesday (March 20) that the school and the chair of its trustee board defamed Greenway, violated the terms of a non-disparagement agreement and made him “unemployable.” “The actions of Defendants have exposed Plaintiff to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule,” the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges. Greenway’s attorney had previously sent the school a demand letter for $5 million dollars to settle the dispute. The school denies any wrongdoing. “We categorically deny the allegations contained in the lawsuit, will defend vigorously the institution, and are confident the outcome will demonstrate that these claims are entirely baseless,” the school said in a statement.

The complaint filed this week alleges that leaders at Southwestern — one of six Southern Baptist seminaries — released incomplete and misleading details about the school’s finances that painted Greenway in a negative light. Among those details were the alleged purchase of an $11,000 espresso machine and more than $1.5 million in renovations to Pecan Manor, the school’s on-campus presidential residence, including $60,000 in Christmas decorations. Those details were released in a report on Southwestern’s finances, which detailed $140 million in overspending across 20 years, much of it under the leadership of Greenway’s predecessor, Paige Patterson. That report, released by the school’s trustees, gave no details of why trustees allowed the overspending to go on for so long. “The compilation and overview demonstrate that the financial challenges at Southwestern are longstanding,” the trustees said in their report, adding that Greenway had failed to turn around the school’s finances. However, outrage over the espresso machine and the repairs to the presidential home went viral on social media and overshadowed the school’s larger financial issues. Those expenses even became a joke at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting last summer in New Orleans.

WFAA - March 25, 2024

'Less than ideal' | CBS Sports crew, Gregg Berhalter critical of AT&T Stadium field conditions

As kickoff loomed in the 2024 Concacaf Nations League Final at AT&T Stadium, the "less than ideal" field conditions was a sticking point as part of pregame coverage. CBS Sports host Susannah Collins, who was serving as a reporter for the Paramount+ coverage, called the field "patchy" and "a really heavy surface," a sentiment apparently shared by United States coach Gregg Berhalter. Collins said she spoke with Berhalter one day prior to her reporting of Sunday's pregame coverage, asking him what he thought of the pitch. "[Berhalter] kind of smiled at me and said 'you were down there ... what did you think?' obviously alluding to his displeasure with the quality of the pitch," Collins said. "But [Berhalter] said look it was bad. It took its toll on the guys. You saw them cramping up, but at the end of the day it's just something they have to play for." Collins went on to say, according to CBS Sports reporter Nico Cantor, Concacaf has hired a "high-level field maintenance company" ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, where they are bringing in grass from a farm in the Dallas area.

San Antonio Express-News - March 25, 2024

South Texas cities are rebranding themselves amid unprecedented SpaceX-fueled space tourism

On a gravel road less than 4 miles from the Starship launch site, a row of SpaceX “millionaire mansions” are rising next to private outposts where people pay to camp along the Rio Grande to watch liftoffs. One of the sites, Keith Reynolds’ Raptor Roost, drew 75 people for the most recent launch, more than doubling the occupancy from Starship’s last flight in November. Each guest paid at least $150, arrived before authorities shut down Texas 4 and signed a liability waiver to be there for the launch. A few lots away, dozens more gathered at an outpost called Rocket Ranch. In between, construction workers on the riverfront homes being built for SpaceX employees paused to watch Starship fly. Across the bay on South Padre Island, hotels had a historic sellout the night before the launch, with space fans bolstering spring break crowds that descend on the beach destination each year. Other area cities also reported hotel sellouts. Rental car businesses sold out, too.

As with the first two, Starship’s third launch was a boon for businesses across the region — and an apparent turning point in the evolution of SpaceX in South Texas. As launches become more regular and successful, the race among South Texas cities to nab space tourism dollars is ratcheting up. Some signs of their efforts are easy to spot. Before the March 14 launch, a banner reading “Your Space Escape” welcomed people to South Padre Island. It’s a play on the island’s “Your Island Escape” branding, said Cindy Trevino, director of marketing for South Padre’s convention and visitors bureau. “We wanted to go full bore” in presenting South Texas as “the third space coast” along with Florida and California, said Blake Henry, executive director of the bureau. About 20 miles west, Brownsville has been angling for its piece of the action, too. Two years ago, the commercial space company’s rapid growth inspired that city to tweak its motto from “On the border, by the sea” to “On the border, by the sea and beyond!”

Chron - March 25, 2024

Trailblazing Texan journalist Liz Carpenter always shook it up

Liz Carpenter is one of those Texas pioneers whose name doesn’t ring out quite the way it should. She was one of the first women to cover politics in the nation’s capital, breaking into a boys’ club and making her presence known with her tenacity and wit while covering the Roosevelt administration. Then, as a do-everything member of the Johnson administration, she wrote the 58-word speech LBJ gave in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. As Lady Bird Johnson’s press secretary, chief of staff, and closest adviser, she helped craft the president’s environmental policy and was a driving force behind Lady Bird’s whistle-stop tour through the South during the 1964 presidential campaign, often facing down hostile crowds in Goldwater country. Later, she became a leader in the women’s movement, rallying support for the Equal Rights Amendment and campaigning hard for Ann Richards, only the second woman (and the last Democrat) elected Texas governor. She personally knew every U.S. president from FDR to George W. Bush.

Carpenter, who died in 2010, came a long way from growing up in rural Salado and burgeoning Austin, where she paid $12.50 per semester to attend the University of Texas. Now she has her own documentary, Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this month. Directed by Carpenter’s daughter, Christy Carpenter, and Abby Ginzberg, the film provides a snapshot of a woman in perpetual motion whose presence made the corridors of power bend to her will, not the other way around. Bawdy, outspoken, as comfortable throwing an Austin hot tub party as giving a political speech, Carpenter was a strong progressive woman in a state whose old boy network can make it hard for progressives and women to make their mark. In the film, which makes no bones about its admiration for its subject, we hear about the time LBJ Special Assistant Jack Valenti asked to have Carpenter take a run through a presidential speech so she could “sex this up.” Yes, apparently a presidential speech can be sexed up. Carpenter could be a pistol, and, as they say, she knew where the bodies were buried. “Sex was rampant throughout the city,” she tells a National Press Club crowd in footage from the film, “starting right here in this building, where in 1926 Calvin Coolidge laid the cornerstone—and didn’t even know it.” The line brings down the Press Club house, one of many things Carpenter knew how to do.

San Antonio Express-News - March 25, 2024

GoFundMe raises over $50K in wake of fatal Hays CISD school bus crash

A GoFundMe campaign organized by a former Tom Green Elementary teacher has raised over $50,800 for those affected by the fatal Bastrop County school bus crash that killed two people, including a preschooler, and left dozens injured. The Hays Consolidated School District bus was carrying 44 preschoolers from the Buda elementary school and 11 adults on Friday when it was struck by a concrete truck traveling in the opposite direction. A child on the bus and a man who was in a Dodge Charger behind it were killed. In a statement released Saturday evening, Tom Green Elementary School Principal Jennifer Hanna informed community members that Molly Andrews, a member of the school’s campus leadership team, set up a fundraiser to help students and staff with medical bills and to offset funeral expenses for the student who died.

Houston Chronicle - March 25, 2024

'It took everything we had.' How UH survived in overtime to beat Texas A&M and reach Sweet 16

With less than four minutes left in regulation Sunday night, Ja’Vier Francis was the first starter to foul out for the University of Houston. With 55 seconds left — and most of a 13-point lead gone against Texas A&M — leading scorer L.J. Cryer picked up his fifth foul. Next was Emanuel Sharp, less than two minutes into overtime and with UH on the brink of adding another heartbreak chapter to its history. Then Jamal Shead, the Big 12’s player of the year, took a seat. “I looked at the end of the bench,” Cryer said. “Who else is left?” Sharp had a career-high 30 points, Shead had 21, and Cryer added 20 as the top-seeded Cougars escaped with a 100-95 win over the ninth-seeded Aggies at FedExForum and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the fifth straight NCAA Tournament.

UH (32-4) will play fourth-seeded Duke — a 93-55 winner over James Madison — on Friday in Dallas in the South Region semifinals. The other half of the bracket will feature No. 2 Marquette and No. 11 seed North Carolina State. “We know if we lose, we go home. The season is over,” UH guard Mylik Wilson said. “We didn’t want it to be over yet.” “Survive and advance” is the mantra in the NCAA Tournament, and the Cougars squeezed every ounce out of their roster for 45 minutes. Texas A&M (21-15) wiped out a 10-point deficit in the final 84 seconds, sending the game to OT when Andersson Garcia drilled a 3-pointer from the top of the arc at the buzzer. By the time the Aggies got within 98-95 in OT, the Cougars' lineup included only one starter (forward J’Wan Roberts), walk-on Ryan Elvin and guard Ramon Walker Jr., who just a month ago was thought to be lost for the season with a knee injury. Elvin made the “biggest free throw of my life” to give the Cougars a 99-95 lead. “With three minutes left in overtime, (Sharp) looked over at me and said, ‘Stay ready,' ” Elvin said.

Houston Chronicle - March 25, 2024

The courts blocked SB4. Texas soldiers threatened to deport migrants under it anyway.

Texas had been barred by a federal court for nearly two days from enforcing its sweeping new migrant deportation law. But that wasn’t the message Oscar Martínez, a 35-year-old Venezuelan man, received Thursday afternoon when he tried to cross the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass. A group of Texas National Guard members standing atop a wall of shipping containers on the American side of the border warned him falsely through a megaphone that the law, known as Senate Bill 4, was in effect. “They told me they couldn’t let anyone cross because it’s a crime and that they could arrest me, send me back and that (Mexican immigration officials) would deport me anyway,” Martínez said shortly after in Spanish. The father of three said the guardsmen told him to find somewhere else to cross, anywhere but Texas.

Martínez was one of two migrants whom the Houston Chronicle witnessed being intercepted by the Texas National Guard on Thursday as they attempted to cross the river from Piedras Negras, Mexico. Both men said they were threatened with arrest and deportation under SB4, despite the state not having any power to do so. In Martínez’s instance, a Chronicle reporter directly heard the guardsmen offer false information about the state of the law. Texas was briefly allowed on Tuesday to enforce the new law, which makes it a crime to enter the state from Mexico without permission and gives state judges the power to issue removal orders to those convicted of illegal entry. A federal appeals court later blocked it again, and a legal battle continues over the state’s unprecedented attempt to seize immigration authority from the federal government. The whiplash sent confusion reverberating through immigrant communities in Texas and in border towns in Mexico, where migrants like Martínez often arrive after monthslong treks through Central and South America. Officials in Texas have given conflicting messages about how and where they plan to enforce the law if it is allowed to take effect permanently. The Texas Military Department did not respond to a request for comment on the incidents Thursday, or on what directives have been issued to National Guard members about what to tell migrants about the law. Gov. Greg Abbott’s office also did not respond to those questions. A spokesman for the governor, who oversees the state’s military, said earlier this week that the office will not share enforcement plans or directives related to SB4.

Texas Public Radio - March 25, 2024

CBP denies permissions to Mexico in 62 year parade tradition with Eagle Pass

The 62nd annual International Friendship Festival Parade in Eagle Pass on Saturday would have normally featured floats and school marching bands from Piedras Negras, but this year Customs and Border Protection (CBP) denied permission to some from south of the border to participate. Those denied permission this year include some officials and organizers without U.S. crossing cards and, as a result, all of the Mexican primary schools who would usually participate with “Bandas De Guerra”—the traditional military-style marching bands seen at school and civic ceremonies throughout Mexico. Mike Garcia, director of the Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce, said it's a break in tradition for a binational community and a step further in a rapidly changing approach to border control by U.S. agencies.

“Back in the mid 70s and earlier, they would actually start the parade in Eagle Pass, go across Bridge 1 into Mexico, circle the plaza, and then come back out again to Eagle Pass,” said Garcia. “So it was actually on both sides of the border, and you had groups from both sides. We're talking about Drum and Bugle Corps, flags, and all the different things. It was a big deal.” Local officials have not been able to clarify the reason for the denial from CBP, and the agency did not immediately respond to TPR’s request for comment. Garcia said the change may have something to do with the current litigation over SB4, the Texas law that would allow local law enforcement to ask people about their immigration status and Texas judges to deport a person in lieu of criminal proceedings. “CBP has been kind of tight about stuff lately with this SB4 thing coming up, I think is the problem,” said Garcia. “I think they're afraid it's going to get approved while they're here. Somebody's going to, you know, ask them for papers. They don't have any papers, really, it's just a kind of an informal letter. The letter gets approval.”

Austin American-Statesman - March 25, 2024

Michael Webber: Green energy growth has great potential. Politics is messing it up.

(Webber is the John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in Engineering and the engineering academic director of the KBH Energy Center at the University of Texas.) Elon Musk recently implored utility executives to build power plants faster because he expects demand for electricity to double or triple during the next 20 years. Others from across the political spectrum are singing the same tune. Environmental groups are calling for similar growth rates of clean power to mitigate climate change. And, last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he expects electricity demand in Texas to grow 15% annually. Across the board, analysts in industry, think tanks, national labs and researchers at universities are calling for more clean electricity as a way to implement energy efficiency and decarbonize the economy. Unfortunately, we’re not moving at the pace we need. We have great potential, but politics is messing it up. In fact, according to a recent story by USA Today: “local governments are banning green power faster than they’re building it.” Wind and solar are facing more obstacles than ever before with a mixture of moratoria, land-use criteria, height restrictions and setback ordinances. Most of which are happening by local governments in some of the most prime areas for wind and solar. This is a disaster. These bans undermine our energy security, throttle our potential prosperity from a massive wave of energy addition, and make the task of reducing emissions that much harder.

In Texas, for instance, some lawmakers tried to essentially outlaw new renewables development, but a coalition of rural Republicans and urban Democrats killed those bills. However, punitive fees on electric vehicle registrations and tax credits for new fossil energy development that explicitly excluded renewables were passed, so even in energy-friendly Texas, political leaders were able to land a few punches on the clean energy industry even if they could not get a knockout blow. This red tape is worrisome because we need a lot of clean energy, and we need it quickly. In response to the oil crises of the 1970s, we built a huge fleet of coal-fired power plants that today are old, dirty and ready for retirement. We need to build a lot of new clean power to replace those behemoths. Plus, we need to build more power to serve new loads from data centers, electric vehicles, carbon capture facilities and heat pumps for cold winters. One of the most important causes of new demand for electricity is the oil and gas industry, which is using electric pumps and controls to improve efficiency, lower costs, reduce safety risks, and avoid emissions. We need to move away from central regulators or politicians who mandate one form of energy over another. Instead, we need to use performance-based standards that would help move things along more quickly. Industry has been calling for performance-based standards for decades, and environmental groups and social justice groups could accept them, too, as long as those standards include labor protections and cleanliness standards.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 25, 2024

Tarrant County school districts face Voting Rights Act suits

After receiving warning letters saying their election systems may violate federal voting rights laws, school board members in two Tarrant County districts are left to decide what to do next. The Arlington Independent School District and the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District both elect their board members at large, meaning every voter in the school district votes for candidates for every seat. A Dallas law firm says those election systems violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But is that the case? Maybe, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “It could be true, but it’s not necessarily true. It’s not inherently true,” Levitt said.

The Dallas law firm Brewer Storefront sent warning letters to the Arlington and Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school districts in Tarrant County, and 11 districts across Texas, saying their at-large school board seats and off-cycle elections deny diverse representation on their school boards and limit voting by people of color. The law firm sent the letters on March 6 stating neither district represents the diversity of their communities. Neither district commented on the letters before publication time. Arlington ISD’s board discussed pending litigation in a closed session during a meeting Thursday, and Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD’s board is scheduled to do the same Monday. It’s not clear if those conversations were prompted by the law firm’s letter. William Brewer III, founding partner of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, and its pro bono arm, Brewer Storefront, has been involved in voting rights litigation with local school boards and city councils for the last decade. The firm has worked with experts like demographers, statisticians and historians to map old school districts across Texas to strategize what school districts are violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and where they had an opportunity for quick, effective change that would have a positive impact on the education of children.

County Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 25, 2024

Alamo Colleges mulls lower tuition for students living outside Bexar County

Students who are new to Texas or live outside Bexar County may see a decrease in tuition at the Alamo Colleges starting in the fall. The community college district covers all of Bexar County but its service area includes seven other counties. The district’s board will vote Tuesday on a proposed 20 percent drop in tuition rates for students from those counties and a 31 percent reduction for non-Texan and international students, to get their tuition closer to what Bexar County residents pay. If approved, tuition would decrease from $225 per credit hour to $180 for “service area-plus” students living in Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Kerr, and Wilson counties, and from $476 to $327 for international students and those who have lived in Texas for less than 12 months. Tuition would remain at $109 per credit hour for Bexar County s

City Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 25, 2024

Hundreds march through downtown Dallas in protest of Texas’ Senate Bill 4

More than a dozen North Texas-based organizations marched Sunday afternoon through downtown Dallas in protest of a new immigration law that grants the state a role in the arrest and deportation of migrants. Senate Bill 4 was set to go into effect this month but has been tied up in the courts over its constitutionality. The bill creates a series of new state crimes for unauthorized migrants who crossed into Texas, allowing Department of Public Safety officers and other local police further ability to arrest those believed to be undocumented. Xavier Velasquez, president of La Frontera Nos Cruzó, said the bill is a “huge attack on the community.” “It gives police a free hand in discriminating against anybody they think is undocumented,” Velasquez said.

National Stories

Washington Post - March 25, 2024

Weakened House GOP majority reckons with Johnson’s leadership

Less than six months after a faction of House Republicans led a revolt that removed Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, more Republicans are already complaining about the party’s direction and questioning whether his replacement, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), is the right person for the job. The complaints picked up after the House passage Friday of a $1.2 trillion funding bill, and they are familiar ones for the chamber, similar to those that had been lodged against McCarthy (Calif.): Both men have relied on Democrats to pass key funding bills in the narrowly divided chamber and have bypassed rules in order to move the legislative process along more quickly when facing key legislative deadlines. The speed of their disenchantment with Johnson is a reminder of the difficulty of leading the restive Republican caucus, which has been shrinking because of member departures. On Friday, Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin announced he would resign next month to join the private sector, leaving Johnson with just one vote to spare to get measures passed on party lines.

At the same time, the Republican Party faces deep divisions over how to handle major policy issues and whether to ever work with Democrats. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have already admonished Johnson as a weak leader who they believe does not fight back in negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “Mike was wrong,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who vehemently opposed his right-flank peers’ effort to oust McCarthy last year, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, describing Johnson’s approach to steering a $1.2 trillion funding bill that passed the House 286 to 134 on Friday, with the support of 185 Democrats and 101 Republicans. The majority of House GOP members — 112 — voted against it, meaning it only passed because of Democratic support, a source of tension for many conservative members. Johnson, Roy said, did not give House Republicans the 72 hours required by the rules negotiated by the party’s most conservative members to review the measure, which passed the Senate early Saturday and was swiftly signed by President Biden, averting a partial shutdown of the government. Roy also insisted that the speaker should have forced a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels while House Republicans continued pushing for further border funding and budget cuts in the final bills. (Roy and other Freedom Caucus members had said publicly that they would vote against the package even if Johnson had followed the 72-hour rule, and they had condemned and routinely voted against continuing resolutions, including some that included House Republicans’ border security proposal.)

Politico - March 25, 2024

Why New York’s casino bidding process will continue to face delays

The wait for a downstate casino is not ending anytime soon. The state Gaming Commission indicated last week that it likely won’t start accepting applications in the high-stakes casino bidding war until the City Council approves a land use change necessary to build a casino in the five boroughs. The state commission previously said it would also not begin considering those applications until state-appointed advisory committees meet to evaluate the bids. That means casino licenses won’t be awarded for many more months, if not longer — much to the chagrin of gaming supporters. “I think the word frustrating just doesn’t capture my emotions,” state Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., a Queens Democrat, said. The state Legislature in 2022 passed a law to expedite the process with the hope that the bidding would have started last year.

The commission is expected to provide further detail into the process’s timeline at its meeting Monday. At the very least, the regulatory body suggested it will not open the bidding process until the approval of a citywide zoning change, which could happen in the coming weeks. But it is likely they could wait on accepting applications until some bids obtain additional zoning approvals — like state legislation or city zoning modifications — specific to their projects. The revelations represent a look inside the tight-lipped agency responsible for handling and deciding the high-stakes casino bidding process. “The Board is cognizant of the many factors relating to the zoning requirement, including New York City’s proposed text amendment relating to gaming facilities and of the many zoning-related questions posed by applicants during the first two rounds of questions,” reads a statement from the Gaming Commission, referencing the powerful Gaming Facility Location Board, which will ultimately award the licenses. “The updated timeline, expected to be finalized soon, will consider these and other factors.”

NBC News - March 25, 2024

Kevin McCarthy-Matt Gaetz feud heats up months after the former speaker's ouster

The ever-evolving feud between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz continued on Sunday as dueling stories emerged about an alleged offer centering on an House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz. Speaking to CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning, McCarthy referenced a motion filed last week by Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene aimed removing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. McCarthy, who was voted out of the speakership in October after Gaetz filed a similar motion, gave advice to the Republican conference — and dinged Gaetz. “The one advice I would give to the conference and to the speaker is: Do not be fearful of a motion to vacate,” McCarthy said Sunday. “I do not think they could do it again. That was surely based on Matt Gaetz trying to stop an ethics complaint.”

Reached by phone on Sunday afternoon, South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman disputed McCarthy’s version of events. His assessment was based on a conversation he witnessed — but didn't hear — on the House floor between McCarthy and Gaetz that he found unusual because “they weren’t friendly.” Norman told NBC News that when Gaetz returned to sit near him after that conversation with McCarthy, he asked about their conversation and Gaetz told him that McCarthy had asked, “‘Do you want this to go away?’ or something like that.” Norman added that Gaetz said he didn’t entertain the notion of an alleged offer in that conversation, and he said that McCarthy didn’t have the chance to ask for something in return for making the ethics investigation “go away.” “I don’t think it even got that far,” Norman said. “The only thing Matt said was, ‘Kevin said, “Do you need the ethics violation to go away?”’” Norman added, “And I think Matt — I’m trying to think — said, ‘No you’re the reason it’s there.’” Gaetz’s office affirmed Norman’s account of the events to NBC News.

NPR - March 25, 2024

The IRS touts improved customer service and a hassle free filing option

Have you done your taxes yet? April 15th is less than a month away. So far, the IRS says this year's tax filing season is going smoothly. Paper returns are no longer piling up in government cafeterias. And frustrated callers aren't giving up on un-answered phone lines. The agency is investing billions of dollars to improve customer service, and to go after wealthy tax cheats. And the IRS wants people to know about that. "Sometimes it's the little things," IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told an audience at American University last week. "Like that this filing season we added a call-back function on our main 1-800 number, ending the era of taxpayers being required to stay on hold listening to elevator music."

As of March 15, the IRS had received more than 71 million tax returns -- about half the total it expects by the April 15 deadline — and processed 98% of them. It helps that nearly all the returns are being filed electronically this year, which cuts down on paper delays. About 7 in 10 people filing taxes so far are owed refunds. And the average refund is $3109 — 6% higher than last year. Even when everything runs smoothly, though, the tax collector is a punching bag. Commissioner Werfel opened his speech at American University with a video clip from the Simpsons, in which Homer is heard loudly booing the IRS. Werfel hopes improved service will help. The agency hired thousands of additional telephone operators last year to help answer questions from taxpayers. It's also opened dozens of new walk-in centers around the country. And it's beefing up its website so more people can find information there. This year, the IRS is testing a new program that allows taxpayers to file electronic returns directly with the government for free, bypassing commercial tax preparers. It's a limited pilot program, available in only 12 states and only to people with relatively simple tax returns. The formal launch was less than two weeks ago, and since then more than 50,000 people have tried it out.

Religion News Service - March 25, 2024

Threats to Catholic Charities staffers increase amid far-right anti-migrant campaign

The man who left a recording on Appaswamy “Vino” Pajanor’s voicemail earlier this month spoke with an even keel, but his message was anything but calm. Over the course of roughly 40 seconds, the caller accused Pajanor, the head of Catholic Charities San Diego, of “facilitating illegal immigration,” “breaking the law” and being “not really Christian.” The man saved his most volatile remarks for last, calling Pajanor, an immigrant and U.S. citizen, “scum” and much worse before ending with “Go back to India, you piece of garbage,” according to a recording provided to Religion News Service. Over the past few months, Pajanor and staffers at Catholic Charities across the country, a decentralized, 113-year-old faith-based non-profit, have become the targets of right-leaning media personalities, conspiracy theorists and even members of Congress. The smear campaign is rooted in opposition to offering aid to immigrants, which critics frame as incentivizing illegal immigration, while sometimes accusing faith groups of breaking the law or working with drug cartels.

The result has been a series of unsettling incidents that have transpired near or even inside Catholic Charities facilities in what officials say is a rapidly growing threat to their safety. “We have never seen this level,” Pajanor said, referring to the avalanche of vitriol he and his staff have received. “Some of our team members have been here for 20, 30 years, and they have said they have never seen such a thing happen.” Some local agencies of Catholic Charities assist migrants after they’ve been processed by Customs and Border Protection, providing resources such as food, clothing and short-term housing before asylum-seekers depart for other parts of the country ahead of a scheduled court date with immigration officials. The Catholic group is one of several faith-based organizations — including Lutheran and Jewish groups, among others — that have long partnered with the federal government to offer such services. “Catholic Charities agencies staff and volunteers all around the country choose to spend their time serving those most in need, like families whose homes were destroyed by a natural disaster, seniors who can’t afford their medicine, and hungry children in need of a nutritious meal,” Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, the national membership organization that advocates for local agencies, said in a statement. “Their work should earn respect and admiration, not demonization.”

New York Times - March 25, 2024

ISIS affiliate linked to Moscow attack has global ambitions

Five years ago this month, an American-backed Kurdish and Arab militia ousted Islamic State fighters from a village in eastern Syria, the group’s last sliver of territory. Since then, the organization that once staked out a self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria has metastasized into a more traditional terrorist group — a clandestine network of cells from West Africa to Southeast Asia engaged in guerrilla attacks, bombings and targeted assassinations. None of the group’s affiliates have been as relentless as the Islamic State in Khorasan, which is active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran and has set its sights on attacking Europe and beyond. U.S. officials say the group carried out the attack near Moscow on Friday, killing scores of people and wounding many others. In January, Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, carried out twin bombings in Iran that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was targeted in a U.S. drone strike four years earlier.

“The threat from ISIS,” Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel this month, “remains a significant counterterrorism concern.” Most attacks “globally taken on by ISIS have actually occurred by parts of ISIS that are outside of Afghanistan,” she said. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of the military’s Central Command, told a House committee on Thursday that ISIS-K “retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.” American counterterrorism specialists on Sunday dismissed the Kremlin’s suggestion that Ukraine was behind Friday’s attack near Moscow. “The modus operandi was classic ISIS,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. The assault was the third concert venue in the Northern Hemisphere that ISIS has struck in the past decade, Mr. Hoffman said, following an attack on the Bataclan theater in Paris in November 2015 (as part of a broader operation that struck other targets in the city) and a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena, England, in May 2017. Islamic State Khorasan, founded in 2015 by disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban, burst onto the international jihadist scene after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government in 2021. During the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 civilians.

March 24, 2024

Lead Stories

Washington Post - March 24, 2024

Putting chaplains in public school is the latest battle in culture wars

Lawmakers in mostly conservative states are pushing a coordinated effort to bring chaplains into public schools, aided by a new, legislation-crafting network that aims to address policy issues “from a biblical world view” and by a consortium whose promotional materials say chaplains are a way to convert millions to Christianity. The bills have been introduced this legislative season in 14 states, inspired by Texas, which passed a law last year allowing school districts to hire chaplains or use them as volunteers for whatever role the local school board sees fit, including replacing trained counselors. Chaplain bills were approved by one legislative chamber in three states — Utah, Indiana and Louisiana — but died in Utah and Indiana. Bills are pending in nine states. One passed both houses of Florida’s legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature. Texas Impact, an advocacy arm of Muslim, Jewish and mainline Christian groups, listed 104 large districts that rejected the creation of a chaplain position. Those 104 districts serve 2.7 million students, director Josh Houston said.

The bills are mushrooming in an era when the U.S. Supreme Court has expanded the rights of religious people and groups in the public square and weakened historic protections meant to keep the government from endorsing religion. In a 2022 case, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch referred to the “so-called separation of church and state.” Former president Donald Trump has edged close to a government-sanctioned religion by asserting in his campaign that immigrants who “don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t” would be barred from the country in a second term. “We are reclaiming religious freedom in this country,” said Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator and the president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, which he founded in 2019 to craft model legislation, according to the group’s site. Its mission is “to bring federal, state and local lawmakers together in support of clear biblical principles … to address major policy concerns from a biblical world view,” the site says. The group hosted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) late last year at its gala at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. The chaplain bills, Rapert said, are part of an effort to empower “the values and principles of the founding fathers.” Critics who compare such efforts with theocracy, he said, are creating “a false flag, a boogeyman by radical left to demonize everyone of faith.” Rapert says he’ll push in the next round of chaplain bills to make the positions mandatory.

Community Impact Newspapers - March 24, 2024

Texas Medical Board proposes guidance on medical exceptions to abortion ban

After months of pressure, the Texas Medical Board proposed narrow medical exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban during its March 22 meeting. The board has been silent on the issue since Texas’ “trigger law” took effect in August 2022, banning nearly all abortions except to save a pregnant person’s life or prevent serious injury. The law does not include exceptions for rape or incest. The board opted to consider new guidance following calls for clarity from patients, doctors and lawmakers. Nearly two dozen women sued the state in the past year after they were forced to carry nonviable pregnancies under the abortion law. The board relied heavily on existing state statutes to craft its proposed rule. It did not list exceptions for specific medical conditions, instead deferring to physicians to determine when an emergency abortion is necessary.

The rule defines a medical emergency as "a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that, as certified by a physician, places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless an abortion is performed."Board president Dr. Sherif Zaafran said the board has the ability to “enforce the law as it’s written,” but the law can only be altered “through the legislative process.” The Texas Legislature is not scheduled to meet until January 2025.“??We do have some discretion as to help define what the law says or help to expand on how the process works,” Zaafran said. “But we do not have discretion in rewriting the law or changing certain provisions of the law.”Reproductive rights advocates said they hoped the board would provide clearer guidance to help doctors provide the best medical care for their patients.“You've got people that are scared to death. They're facing death, and they're scared to death,” Austin attorney and lobbyist Steve Bresnen said. “We think that you can do more than it seems that your proposed rule would do. In that sense, we're disappointed."Bresnen and his wife, Amy, petitioned the board to expand its guidance in January.Several women who sued Texas over limited exceptions to the abortion ban also spoke in front of the board after it released the proposed rule.“An abortion saved my life,” said plaintiff Kaitlyn Kash, whose fetus received a fatal diagnosis.“The mental anguish of carrying that pregnancy to term would have killed me,” Kash continued. “I probably would have taken my own life to end my child's pain.”Amanda Zurawski said she “probably would have died” if doctors had waited any longer to perform an abortion in 2022. Zurawski experienced a condition called preterm premature rupture of membranes, which caused her water to break too early and led to a severe infection."No person should have to ask themselves, 'Can I take my dying wife to the hospital?'" Zurawski’s husband, Josh, said.

Austin American-Statesman - March 24, 2024

Texas AG Ken Paxton could see criminal charges dropped in deal with prosecutors

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is nearing a resolution to the 9-year-old securities fraud charges that have dogged his tenure as the state's top attorney through a special agreement with prosecutors, the American-Statesman has learned. Under a draft agreement, prosecutors would dismiss felony charges against Paxton if he successfully completes the terms of the deal, according to three sources familiar with the negotiations. The sources, with knowledge of the discussions between Paxton's legal team and prosecutor Brian Wice, a Houston attorney appointed to handle the case, said the terms could include community service, advanced legal education classes and a six-figure restitution, among other possible punishment. Two sources said the restitution could be between $300,000 and $400,000.

Under the conditions, Paxton likely would not have to formally enter a plea but must not violate any law for an extended period. Paxton, a 61-year-old Republican, could have faced up to 99 years in prison if convicted. Such agreements generally do not require a judge's approval, underscoring the wide authority that Texas prosecutors have to resolve cases. The sources could not be named because they are not authorized to speak about the deal. Contacted Friday, Wice declined to comment. Paxton attorney Dan Cogdell said in a text message to the Statesman and KVUE-TV that "I'm not going to comment on something that hasn't happened and may well not happen." Particularly in urban Texas counties, felony cases are frequently worked out through similar agreements, sometimes referred to as "conditional dismissals," "pretrial intervention" or "deferred prosecution agreements" that are outside the traditional path of a case and keep a conviction off a defendant's record without approval from a judge. Wice and Cogdell have been working in recent weeks to resolve the charges before an April 15 trial date in Harris County state District Court in Houston. This week, Wice announced that a final pretrial hearing that was set for this past Wednesday had been rescheduled for Tuesday. It is expected that the attorneys will inform District Judge Andrea Beall of the agreement and the resolution to the case at the Tuesday hearing.

Associated Press - March 24, 2024

Law enforcement officials in Texas wonder how they will enforce migrant arrest law

During the nine hours that Texas was allowed to arrest and deport people who illegally enter the U.S., Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland never changed his tactics with migrants in his remote border county. Not because he opposes the idea. There’s just no practical way to do it, said the sheriff of Terrell County, where last year an average of about 10 people each day were caught crossing the border from Mexico. “We don’t have a van that we can use to transport people in,” said Cleveland, whose county touches more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) of border, most of which is an unforgiving rocky desert landscape. Texas’ extraordinary expansion into immigration enforcement remained on hold Thursday after a whirl of legal action that included the Supreme Court allowing it to take effect Tuesday while sending it back to an appellate court for further review. Shortly before midnight, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals put the law known as Senate Bill 4 back on hold.

The confusion along Texas’ vast border during that brief window revealed that many sheriffs were unprepared, unable or uninterested in enforcing SB4 in the first place. For months, Texas has made urgent appeals to judges that the state cannot afford to wait for tougher border measures. But given a chance to test Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest provocation with the Biden administration over immigration, there was no indication any law enforcement agency in Texas tried. Defiance from the Mexican government, which said it would not accept any migrants whom Texas attempts to send back across the border, and caution among law enforcement officials cast uncertainty over what a full implementation would look like. The law would allow any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. But Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith, the president of the Texas Sheriff’s Association, said the law will have little effect in his jurisdiction in East Texas, which is far closer to neighboring Louisiana and Oklahoma than Mexico.

State Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 24, 2024

Energy transition breakthroughs will come from the Silicon Valley of energy, Bill Gates says

Billionaire investor Bill Gates sees Houston, the Silicon Valley of energy, as a leading player in the global energy transition. The investor and Microsoft co-founder, who dropped in at the annual CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference, said in an exclusive interview that small companies developing potentially world-changing technologies are gravitating toward Houston and along the Gulf Coast, where they can connect with a workforce steeped in project development capabilities and industrial know-how. Gates has investments in an array of businesses and industries, with a stake in several energy transition enterprises in the Houston region. Carbon Engineering, for example — a direct air capture company that won early investments from Gates and was recently acquired by Houston-based Occidental Petroleum — is now a key component of Oxy’s ambitions to develop 100 facilities worldwide that would pull carbon from the atmosphere and store it underground.

Gates’ Breakthrough Energy investment vehicle has a stake in another Houston-based company, geothermal energy firm Fervo, which could benefit from partnering with a larger company capable of bringing its work drilling for underground heat to a world stage. Developing hydrogen and other types of clean energy facilities is complicated, Gates said at a CERAWeek stop Thursday. “It’s far, far more difficult than anything I’ve worked on at Microsoft.” Energy transition projects will need all the horsepower they can get from traditional energy companies and talent congregated along the Gulf Coast, he said. “We need to draw on that in order to get to scale up quickly,” Gates said. “A lot of the breakthrough ideas will happen in small companies. Not all of them, but a lot of them will. But then they need to get paired up in some way.” Gates’ visit to Houston and Corpus Christi coincided with his Thursday keynote at CERAWeek, the major energy conference known informally as the “Super Bowl of energy.” He toured energy sites that he’s invested in, such as an e-fuels site developed by Infinium and Mars Materials, a Houston-based startup that recently relocated from California as it hones technology that could use carbon captured from the atmosphere to make carbon fibers.

Dallas Morning News - March 24, 2024

Spending bill passes U.S. House, but border issues divide Texas Republicans

Republicans regularly blast President Joe Biden for policies they say invite illegal immigration, but U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin said blame also falls on GOP lawmakers who voted Friday for the latest spending bill. The bill, Roy said, funds Biden border policies, implicating any Republican who supported the measure. To emphasize his point, Roy highlighted a viral video showing a throng of migrants pushing their way through barriers Thursday and overwhelming Texas National Guard troops near El Paso. He also invoked the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and a Venezuelan immigrant who entered the country illegally and was charged with her murder. Republicans who supported the bill “own” the policies behind the surge of migrants, Roy said Friday.

“My Republican colleagues cannot go campaign against mass parole and use the name of Laken Riley, because you pass a bill in her name when you fund the very policies that lead to her death,” Roy said. The $1.2 trillion legislation approved Friday by the House, which would avoid a partial government shutdown, covers a host of agencies, including the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. It was the second of a two-part collection of fiscal 2024 spending bills that were supposed to be finalized months ago. The bill passed 286-134, with 101 Republicans in favor and 112 opposing. Support was overwhelming across the aisle, with 185 Democrats backing it and 22 opposing. Roy said Republicans abandoned their position that funding the Department of Homeland Security should be contingent on adopting House Resolution 2, a GOP package of hardline immigration and border policies. Republicans who backed the bill defended their votes, in part by citing the need to fund the military. U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Midlothian, was one of six Texas Republicans who voted for the bill. Ellzey defended his vote by citing constitutional provisions related to Congress’ role in supporting armies and maintaining a navy. “That is my constitutional duty and I did it. Everything else comes second,” Ellzey said. “And the border is the president’s fault, not mine.”

San Antonio Express-News - March 24, 2024

Texans are searching for ways around Pornhub blackout, Google data show

To judge from their internet searches, plenty of Texans are looking for a way to access Pornhub after the adult entertainment site blocked viewers from the Lone Star State last week. Pornhub cut off Texas to protest a new state law requiring it to verify users' ages to screen out people under 18. Adult entertainment purveyors tried to overturn the law in court but failed. Virtual private networks, or VPNs, offer a potential way around the blackout. They give privacy to users by concealing their IP addresses. This hides a web surfer's location and allows them to access content that's not supposed to be available in their region or state. After Pornhub went dark in the Lone Star State, searches for VPNs in Texas reached their highest point in a year, Google data show. Among Texas metro areas, Dallas-Fort Worth led the way in Googling for VPNs, with Houston and Austin close behind. El Paso and Waco-Temple-Bryan came in fourth and fifth, respectively. San Antonio had the sixth-most searches.

Dallas Morning News - March 24, 2024

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger steps down as House Appropriations chair

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger announced Friday that she is giving up the House Appropriations Committee gavel, accelerating a loss of North Texas clout on Capitol Hill. The 81-year-old Fort Worth Republican announced last year that she would retire after 14 terms, ending a career in which Granger fought for robust national security funding that often benefited defense contractors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That included her advocacy for weapons systems such as the F-35 fighter jet built at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility. She also secured funding for a host of significant initiatives around the district, such as the $1.1 billion Trinity River Vision/Central City flood control project. “I have accomplished more than I ever could have imagined,” Granger said in a statement Friday.

Her announcement came shortly after the House passed the second and final round of fiscal 2024 spending bills, which were supposed to be completed six months ago. She noted in her statement the appropriations process in election years typically drags on well past the fall deadlines. Granger said she’s stepping aside now to ensure a seamless transition to the new chair before work on the next round of spending bills begins in earnest. She said she plans to remain on the committee to offer advice to her colleagues. Granger became the first Republican woman elected to the U.S. House from Texas in 1996. She’s held office longer than any other woman, or Texan, in the House GOP conference. She became chair of the committee last year but under the party’s leadership term limits would have been required to give up the spot next year because of her previous time as the ranking member of the panel. She has faced criticism from some hard-right conservatives in the district who objected to her support for spending bills they said contribute to the national debt and her opposition last year to the speaker bid by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

KSNT - March 24, 2024

Texas lawmen point guns, threaten to arrest migrants south of border wall

Tension between members of the Texas military and migrants coming across illegally from Mexico boiled over for a second consecutive day at the border wall in El Paso. On Friday, members of the Texas Army National Guard informed migrants over loudspeakers they were about to replace torn-down concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande and threatened to arrest those who did not return to Mexico. “Attention: We will begin installing razor wire in this area. For your safety, we need you to return to Mexico. If you damage the wire or try to cross, you will be arrested,” a booming voice said in Spanish.

Soldiers carrying bulletproof shields advanced in a column toward a group of migrants trying to pull down the razor wire a few feet from the river. Mexican news reports said members of Texas law enforcement earlier had fired non-lethal projectiles – presumably bean bags or rubber bullets – at migrants threatening to tear down the wire. Border Report reached out to the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety for comment and is awaiting a response. Friday’s altercation comes on the wings of Thursday’s viral videos documenting how a group of about 500 migrants tore down the Texas wire barrier and forced their way through several guardsmen. Some members of the Guard could be seen subduing at least one migrant, with women shouting for them to stop.

Houston Chronicle - March 24, 2024

VPN service says web traffic jumped nearly 50% in Texas after Pornhub disabled its content

When she saw that Pornhub was disabling access in Texas, Express VPN privacy advocate Lauren Hendry Parsons's reaction was rooted in what she's seen the past few years. "Honestly, all I thought was, here we go again," Parsons said. Texas was the latest state to see Pornhub pull access to its content for people logging on from people in the state. But there is a workaround for people looking to access that content: VPNs. A VPN is a virtual private network that hides a user's IP address, which means the location of the user also is hidden and they can operate their device as if they aren't in the location they are currently residing. Pornhub pulled its access in Texas on March 14. Express VPN saw a 48% increase in web traffic from Texas over the next week.

This is the second-biggest increase in web traffic following the implementation of age verification laws. Utah saw a 57% increase in traffic after its law went into effect last May. Arkansas was the only state that didn't see an increase in web traffic following laws being implemented. All other states saw an increase of at least 12%. "We look at the web traffic to expressvpn.com and we see that there's a notable uptick in interest in VPN services. What that tells us is people find a way to stay connected and to find what they want," Parsons said. Pornhub pulled its access in Texas as an objection to HB 1181, a law that requires sites distributing pornography companies to have age verification systems to dissuade minors from using the site. In the wake of the decision from Pornhub, Paxton has also sued two more pornography companies this week.

Houston Chronicle - March 24, 2024

Ken Paxton sues additional porn companies after Pornhub pulls content from Texas

After Pornhub disabled access, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced this week he sued two more pornography companies for allegedly violating HB Bill 1181. Paxton sued Multi Media, LLC, and Hammy Media in two separate lawsuits. Multu Media, LLC, runs the website Chaturbate. Hammy Media operates the website xHamster. MySA reported xHamster disabled its content in the state while Chaturbate has changed its site so you have to provide a driver's license to enter the site. Paxton's previous lawsuit against Pornhub led the company to disable service in Texas. “PornHub has now disabled its website in Texas," Paxton said in a statement. "Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children. In Texas, companies cannot get away with showing porn to children. If they don’t want to comply, they should leave Texas.”

San Antonio Express-News - March 24, 2024

New York Mayor Eric Adams scraps trip to Mexican border, cites 'safety concerns'

New York Mayor Eric Adams abruptly canceled a trip to the Rio Grande Valley this weekend, citing "safety concerns" about a city he planned to visit on the Mexican side of the border. Adams, who has been struggling to deal with an influx of migrants traveling to his city from Texas, announced Friday that he would travel to the border Saturday night to meet with faith and humanitarian leaders. On Saturday afternoon, he pulled out. "We were eager to discuss our work in New York City and explore new ways to collaborate with leaders in cities across the country,” Adams' spokeswoman said in a statement. “But due to safety concerns at one of the cities we were going to visit in Mexico flagged by the U.S. Department of State, we have decided to pause this visit at this time.

"We hope to continue our partnership with these nationally recognized Latino leaders and organizations as we look for concrete solutions to resolve the crisis at the border,” the statement said. The mayor's office did not identify the Mexican city or elaborate on the safety concerns. It would have been Adams' second trip to the border to call attention to how a flood of immigrants has filled New York City shelters, strained social services and created a budgetary and political crisis for the first-term mayor. More than 180,000 migrants have streamed into the city over the last two years, many of them bused there under Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's program of exporting newly arrived asylum seekers to New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities led by Democrats. New York has spent more than $4 billion dealing with the crisis, and Adams has said the cost will reach $12 billion by the end of the 2025 fiscal year.

Fort Worth Report - March 24, 2024

Natural gas leaders reflect on success, obstacles to future growth during TCU summit

No productive wells or pipelines laid in the area when the leaders of Fort Worth’s Four Sevens Oil Company first considered drilling gas wells in Tarrant County. The risk scared off even George Mitchell, the “Father of the Barnett Shale,” who didn’t want to come that far south and drill in the urban environment, said Larry Brogdon, the company’s geologist at the time. “Each municipality needed to be educated on drilling,” Brogdon said. “We would take them on field trips, trying to get them comfortable and see what was going on. Working in an urban environment was very, very challenging.” Brogdon joined other leaders of Four Sevens Oil Company on March 21 to reflect on the company’s journey as Texas Christian University’s Ralph Lowe Energy Institute hosted its 2024 Global Energy Symposium. The school honored the Fort Worth wildcatters with the 2024 TCU Legends in Energy award for their work pioneering the development of the Barnett Shale, particularly in Tarrant County.

Mitchell Energy had pioneered the production of shale gas north of Tarrant County using horizontal drilling and fracking, but didn’t want to move into an urban environment, said Brogdon. “The way you made yourself competitive is you went in and got the drill sites, and the pipeline right away. Once you had that, you controlled the gas, so you really knocked the competition out of the game,” said Brad Cunningham, also at Four Sevens and the son of the late Dick Lowe, one of the company’s partners. “That’s what we did. We went and carpet bombed this place with drill sites.” Four Sevens acquired acreage from Haslet down to Burleson, eventually obtaining 26,000 acres for mineral rights in Tarrant and Johnson counties. They sold the acreage to Fort Worth’s XTO Energy for leases for $155 million, then acquired more land and sold it to Chesapeake Energy for $845 million in 2007. Hunter Enis, a former Horned Frogs quarterback and one of the partners at Four Sevens, said the company’s ties to TCU, and football in particular, were key to securing the leases. Along with Enis, Lowe also played football for the Horned Frogs.

Houston Landing - March 24, 2024

Houston ISD backtracks on contested principal ratings after community outcry, legal concern

Past 2 a.m. Friday, at the end of a marathon nine-hour board meeting, Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles read a statement to a practically empty room, walking back plans he had defended just days before. HISD was reversing course on the use of its “proficiency screening” process for principals, he announced, and would not use the measure as a reason to fire campus leaders — a change that came after community members argued the practice would violate the law. “The proficiency screener rating will not be used in the evaluation of principals or other campus administrators in any adverse employment decisions for 2023-24,” Miles said. “This communication supersedes any prior communications regarding the same.” The announcement reversed plans outlined during a Monday press conference in which Miles had said principals whose proficiency screening scores fell in the bottom 10 percent districtwide would not be asked to return to the district. Those who fell between percentile 11 and 20 would be able to stay only at the discretion of their supervisor, he said.

Fort Worth Report - March 24, 2024

TAD to hold emergency meeting Monday to address ransomware attack

The Tarrant Appraisal District will hold an emergency board meeting March 25 after a criminal ransomware attack disrupted the agency’s network March 21, causing the website to crash. The district has taken steps to secure the network and is working with cybersecurity experts to investigate, respond and restore the network, it said in a press release. The incident was reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Texas Department of Information Resources. The website is now live again, but emails and phone lines remain down. Appraisal board member Alan Blaylock, who is also a Fort Worth City Council member, said board members anticipate receiving more detailed information at the March 25 meeting. “I think that the chief appraiser and the new team are going to great pains to communicate all they can as they are able,” Blaylock said, “and I expect that there will be significant communication coming forward early next week as investigations into what happened continue.”

KUT - March 24, 2024

Hays CISD school cancels classes Monday following fatal bus crash

Tom Green Elementary School has canceled school on Monday, March 25, after a serious bus crash involving their students occurred Friday afternoon. A school bus was returning from a field trip to a zoo in Bastrop County when it collided with a concrete truck driving in the other direction. The incident killed one adult and one pre-K student, and 53 total patients were evaluated for injuries according to Kevin Parker, division chief with Austin-Travis County EMS. As of Saturday afternoon, at least three staff members and two students are still in the hospital. The Hays Consolidated Independent School District said the bus involved in the crash was not equipped with seatbelts. The district began buying buses with seatbelts in 2017, but about 20% of its buses are older and do not have them. The district will look into funding bus replacements so all Hays CISD buses have seatbelts as soon as possible.

County Stories

MySA - March 24, 2024

Texas Democrats aim to ban Texas secessionists from ballots

A group of Democrats in a county just about 30 minutes away from San Antonio are making national headlines for a resolution recently passed by a Kendall County Democrats committee. The goal: Prevent anyone who supports the Texas Nationalist movement from holding elected office. The resolution passed by the Kendall County Democratic Party’s Executive Committee seeks legislation that would bar anyone who supports Texit, directly or indirectly, from appearing on state or county election ballots. “We talk a lot about the Texas Nationalist movement and what they’re trying to accomplish,” Kendall County Democratic Party Chair Laura Bray told MySA. “One of our core volunteers, it was really annoying him what they were trying to do, and he’s a former attorney. So, he decided to put together a resolution that would disqualify anyone running for office that proposes such a thing.”

City Stories

San Antonio Express-News - March 24, 2024

‘Anti-democratic’: Once again, Southwest ISD’s very unusual elections are an election issue

The May 4 election for three seats on the Southwest Independent School District board has renewed a debate over voter representation, with three incumbents seeking to retain their seats against a slate of challengers who say the district needs polling places where most of its people already vote. The board’s seven trustees serve three-year terms. They are elected at-large, rather than from single-member districts, so the top three vote-getters will win. Longtime trustees Florinda Bernal and Eugene James Sullivan Jr. and the more recently elected Daniel Ray Carrillo are being challenged by Carla Reyes Medina, Pete Bernal and Yolanda Garza-Lopez, who are running on a joint platform to make voting more accessible and improve board transparency.

National Stories

Associated Press - March 24, 2024

4 arrested in Russia attack IS took credit for

Russian authorities arrested the four men suspected of carrying out the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday during an address to the nation. He claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine. Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday’s attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility. U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by the IS affiliate. Get the latest breaking news from North Texas and beyond. “ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement. The U.S. shared information with Russia in early March about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow and issued a public warning to Americans in Russia, Watson said.

CBS News - March 24, 2024

New government spending bill bans U.S. embassies from flying Pride flag

Tucked in the massive government funding package signed Saturday by President Biden is a provision banning the flying of LGBTQ Pride flags over U.S. embassies. But even on the same day Mr. Biden signed the package, the White House vowed to work toward repealing the provision. The prohibition was one of many side issues included in the mammoth $1.2 trillion package to fund the government through September, which passed early Saturday shortly after a midnight deadline. As Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, a conservative Christian, scrambled for votes to get the bill passed in his chamber, he allegedly touted the Pride flag ban as a reason his party should support the bill, the Daily Beast reported.

The White House said Saturday it would seek to find a way to repeal the ban on flying the rainbow flag, which celebrates the movement for LGBTQ equality. "Biden believes it was inappropriate to abuse the process that was essential to keep the government open by including this policy targeting LGBTQI+ Americans," a White House statement said, adding that the president "is committed to fighting for LGBTQI+ equality at home and abroad." The White House said that while it had not been able to block the flag proposal, it was "successful in defeating 50+ other policy riders attacking the LGBTQI+ community that Congressional Republicans attempted to insert into the legislation."

Politico - March 24, 2024

RFK Jr. is activating a whole new kind of political donor

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent presidential bid is largely powered by a wave of new donors who aren’t political — or at least haven’t been in years. Kennedy’s deep ties with anti-vaccine and environmental activism coupled with his campaign’s dedication to new media is engaging people like Michelle Frank, a yoga studio owner who is not registered to vote but has already chipped a few hundred dollars to Kennedy’s campaign. “I haven’t voted in about over 15 to 20 years, actually,” Frank told POLITICO. After hearing Kennedy on a podcast, Frank hosted an aerial yoga class for local Kennedy supporters at her studio outside of Austin, Texas, attracting a small group of fellow political neophytes. She said one attendee came to the event because of the Super Bowl ad, paid for by the super PAC American Values 2024, that aired the week before.

After hearing Kennedy on a podcast, Frank hosted an aerial yoga class for local Kennedy supporters at her studio outside of Austin, Texas, attracting a small group of fellow political neophytes. She said one attendee came to the event because of the Super Bowl ad, paid for by the super PAC American Values 2024, that aired the week before. “Knowing that he has this great, this most pure intention like his uncle and his dad did. I feel like the purity and the intention is really what drew me to him,” she said. Irregular and first-time voters can help decide elections. They helped propel Trump to victory in 2016. And interviews with some of Kennedy’s recent backers reveal an electorate that’s both newly engaged with politics and turned off by a rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. Roughly 21,000 donors have given Kennedy’s campaign at least $200 since he declared his independent run in October, and a POLITICO analysis found that 74 percent of them did not make any political donations during the 2020 cycle. And interviews with numerous Kennedy backers reveal it’s made up of a powerful bloc of people not only drawn to Kennedy but turned off by the general election matchup.

CNN - March 24, 2024

Lisa Murkowski, done with Donald Trump, won’t rule out leaving GOP

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting from the GOP. The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him. “I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.” The party’s shift toward Trump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP. In the interview, she would not say if she would remain a Republican. Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.” And she added: “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”

Pressed on if that meant she might become an independent, Murkowski said: “I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.” Murkowski hasn’t always been on the outs within her party. Appointed in 2002 by her father, Gov. Frank Murkowski, the senator’s politics were in line with the president at the time – George W. Bush – as she maintained a tight relationship with the senior GOP senator from her state, Ted Stevens, who helped build Alaska through federal dollars he funneled back home. She later found herself at odds with Sen. John McCain’s running mate, the then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who had been sharply critical of her father. As the tea party rose in 2010, Murkowski was at sharp odds with the insurgent right-wing of her party. She lost a primary in 2010 to Republican Joe Miller, only to later hold on to her seat after she became the second candidate ever to win a write-in campaign for Senate in the general election. Murkowski skated to reelection in her next two elections, even after voting to convict Trump in 2021, voting against Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court in 2018 and supporting Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022. She had been targeted by Trump and his allies in 2022 but was backed by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and his high-spending outside group.

CNN - March 24, 2024

NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected

NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedly attacked the network and its journalists, assailed the news media as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020 vote, as an on-air commentator ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memo to staff. McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016. During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.

McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.” At times, she even targeted NBC News and MSNBC with dishonest attacks. In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.” “How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?” McDaniel asked. McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.” An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC. In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest. McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”

The Hill - March 24, 2024

Trump spirals as bond deadline in fraud case nears

The eye-popping judgment against former President Trump in his New York fraud case has laid bare his precarious financial status, a matter that has sent the notoriously incensed real estate mogul off the rails. In Truth Social posts, Trump has laid out mini diatribes lambasting the judge and attorney general in the case, claiming they want to swindle him out of precisely the amount of cash he has on hand to the tune of half a billion dollars. Trump is known for his online rants and raucous rallies that frequently whip up his base, but the $454 million bond he must pay – or face the possibility of his assets being seized – appears to have sent the former president over the edge. “They do not care about the Law, the facts, or anything, but tying up my money, and interfering in the Election!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “This case should be OVER, but instead, the Attorney General wants to abuse her power to steal my money!!”

March 22, 2024

Lead Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 22, 2024

Rep. Tom Oliverson, a Dade Phelan ally, announces run for House speaker

State Rep. Tom Oliverson, a Republican ally of Speaker Dade Phelan, said Thursday he will seek to replace Phelan as leader of the House when lawmakers return to Austin in January for the 2025 legislative session. “At this point, leadership change is required in the Texas House,” Oliverson said in a hastily called morning news conference. “The status quo is too dysfunctional to continue, and the change from top to bottom is needed.” Oliverson’s announcement was a blow to Phelan, who is mired in a Republican primary runoff against David Covey, an oil-and-gas consultant backed by former President Donald Trump and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Oliverson, a Cypress anesthesiologist, said he had not informed Phelan — or any of his Republican colleagues — that he would enter the 2025 race for speaker. Phelan said in a statement Thursday that he was focused on his May 28 runoff and increasing the Republican majority in the House.

“As Speaker, I’m focused on winning these races, getting our team over the finish line and ensuring we start the session united and ready to deliver another banner conservative session for Texans,” Phelan said. Thursday’s development indicates Phelan’s future as Speaker of the House is in jeopardy, even if he were to win the runoff after finishing second to Covey by 1,032 votes in the March 5 primary. Phelan has been criticized by his party’s far-right flank for last year’s vote to impeach Paxton and for continuing the tradition of appointing Democrats to lead some House committees. Phelan named nine Democrats during the 2023 legislative session as committee chairs. Oliverson has served in the House since 2017 and did not face opposition in the March primary. He chairs the House Insurance Committee, serves on the Public Health Committee and was named to the Select Committee on Health Care Reform in the 2023 session. Oliverson was the House sponsor of Senate Bill 14, which banned gender-affirming care for minors in Texas, and was opposed by national organizations, including the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association. Abbott signed SB 14 into law last summer. Oliverson also voted for legislation that would have created a school voucherlike program in the state. During his announcement, Oliverson vowed to appoint only Republicans to head legislative committees and called the Paxton impeachment a “colossal failure in leadership” because lawmakers had only a few days to decide if the attorney general should face an impeachment trial before the Senate. Oliverson missed the impeachment vote in the House last May, when 60 House Republicans joined 61 Democrats in a vote to impeach the attorney general on charges that included bribery and abusing his office to help a friend and political donor, Austin real estate investor Nate Paul. When asked why he would ban Democratic chairs, Oliverson said the practice creates dysfunction and leads to Republican bills dying during the legislative process.

Reuters - March 22, 2024

Republican trading firm owner and TikTok investor Yass emerges as top donor in US election

The biggest donor in this U.S. election cycle is Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian trading firm owner who started off as a professional poker player and is now a major investor in TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance. Philadelphia-based Yass has donated more than $46 million to Republican causes so far in the 2024 election cycle, data from political donations tracker OpenSecrets shows. The funds have gone to support former rivals of Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, as well as a raft of groups supporting school choice, programs that use taxpayer dollars to send students to private and religious schools. Yass, 65, was thrust into the spotlight this month after Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, reversed course on his preference for banning TikTok, saying that a ban would hurt some children and only strengthen Meta Platforms' Facebook. Trump made the comments days after he met Yass at a gathering of the conservative Club for Growth donor group in Florida.

The U-turn on TikTok amid a major cash crunch led to speculation that Trump may be trying to court Yass. Trump says the pair only met for "a few minutes," and did not discuss TikTok but instead talked about education. Trump has been significantly outraised on funding by Democratic President Joe Biden and faces hostility from many traditional Republican donors, all while scrambling for money to pay off around a half-billion dollars in legal judgments. Yass, who leads Pennsylvania-based trading firm Susquehanna International Group and whose net worth Forbes puts at around $27 billion, has not donated to Trump. He did, however, give money to support four of Trump's former opponents for the Republican presidential nomination: Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a major Trump critic. Yass has not previously donated to Trump. A spokesperson for Yass declined to comment for this article. Yass' political contributions have soared from the levels he spent in previous elections, OpenSecrets data shows. In the entire 2016 election cycle, for example, Yass and his wife donated just over $5 million - a ninth of his donations in the current cycle, which wraps up with the Nov. 5 general election.

Houston Chronicle - March 22, 2024

Mexico asks court to block Texas migrant law, citing threats to trade, citizens abroad

The Mexican government is urging a federal court to block Texas’ migrant deportation law, arguing it will trample the country’s right to regulate its own borders, terrorize the 2.4 million Mexican nationals living in Texas and threaten crucial cross-border trade. “The unforeseen ramifications of this law would have a substantial impact and hardship on the Mexican community,” the nation wrote in a brief submitted Thursday as a federal appeals court weighs whether to keep the law on hold. The law, known as Senate Bill 4, makes it a crime to enter Texas from Mexico without permission. It empowers any law enforcement officer in Texas to arrest migrants they suspect of violating the law and allows judges to order their removal from the country. Those who do not comply face 20 years in prison. Mexican officials have said the nation will not accept anyone Texas tries to send across the border. And the government argued the law will frustrate international efforts between Mexico and the U.S. to manage migration.

The law is “likely to cause confusion and chaos at the border as people seek to enter Mexico to avoid criminal penalties under SB 4,” said the brief, which was signed by Austin attorney Sinéad O’Carroll. The law briefly took effect on Tuesday but was put on hold while the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals weighs its constitutionality. Civil rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice sued to block the law permanently, arguing the law runs afoul of more than a century of court precedent on immigration powers and would interfere with the federal government’s enforcement efforts. Texas Republicans, who passed the law last fall, say it is necessary to protect the state against a rise of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. and Mexican drug cartels. They say the state has to step in because the federal government is not doing enough to stop border crossings, which have hit new records under the Biden administration. Mexico’s brief said the law “wholly eviscerates” the longstanding principle that immigration should be handled solely by the federal government. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2012 that struck down portions of an Arizona law authorizing police to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

Bloomberg - March 22, 2024

Texas’ divestment is ‘reckless’ and bad for schools, says BlackRock

BlackRock Inc. criticized Texas’s decision to divest $8.5 billion from the asset manager’s funds, calling the move “reckless” and detrimental to the finances of the state’s schools and families. “Your actions put short-term politics over your long-term fiduciary responsibilities,” Mark McCombe, a BlackRock vice chairman, said in a letter Thursday to Aaron Kinsey, chair of the Texas State Board of Education. “We were dismayed.” McCombe urged Kinsey and the board to reconsider, arguing that BlackRock has worked with the Texas Permanent School Fund for almost two decades and has produced strong investment performance with competitive fees. The firm’s international investing mandate beat the fund’s own benchmark during that span, generating more than $250 million for Texas, according to the letter.

“Ending a long, successful partnership that has been a positive force for thousands of Texas schools and families in such a reckless manner is irresponsible,” McCombe wrote. “How our clients invest and whom they entrust to manage their money is entirely their decision, but we feel an action of this magnitude warrants transparency and consensus — not political-driven decision-making.” The Texas divestment is one of the biggest actions taken against BlackRock in the three-year anti-ESG campaign run by Republicans across the US. One of the few comparable moves was in late 2022, when Florida said it would pull $2 billion from the New York-based company. Earlier this week, Kinsey said the fund’s leadership ended its relationship with BlackRock to comply with a 2021 Texas law that restricts investments with companies that engage in so-called boycotts of the fossil-fuel industry. BlackRock is on a list of firms that state Comptroller Glenn Hegar considers to engage in such a boycott. BlackRock has long disputed this, and McCombe said the $10 trillion money manager holds more than $320 billion of global energy investments, including about $120 billion in Texas-based, publicly traded energy companies.

State Stories

Austin American-Statesman - March 22, 2024

Abbott is 'vice presidential,' Patrick says touting conservative polices at TPPF conference

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Texas is at a "historical moment," and he called Thursday on conservatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation's annual summit in Austin to push for Republican candidates, school voucher legislation and a crusade to crack down on illegal border crossings. "This country is in as bad of shape as I've ever seen in my entire lifetime," Patrick said during the luncheon at the AT&T Conference Center on the University of Texas campus. Patrick, in lambasting President Joe Biden, praised Gov. Greg Abbott for his speech Wednesday to the conservative think tank in which he emphasized the state's immediate need to quell illegal crossings into Texas from Mexico and to continue making arrests along the border regardless of the legal status of Senate Bill 4 — the state's sweeping immigration law that has bounced between federal courts in recent days as judges weigh whether to keep a temporary hold on the law while constitutional challenges to the measure are settled.

"Joe Biden, get out of our way," Patrick shouted to the crowd of lawmakers, lobbyists and policy wonks. "Texas can close the border and secure it immediately." Under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government has long held full authority over the country's international borders. Complimenting and building upon Abbott's remarks from a day earlier, Patrick hinted that the governor's speech and policies showcase his political prowess, to the point of nodding that Abbott could join the 2024 ticket as former President Donald Trump's running mate. "I thought it was one of the best speeches he's ever given," Patrick said of Abbott. "It was very vice presidential." When Abbott took the stage Wednesday, his focus centered on the border, expressing a concern that migrants who have crossed illegally into the country through Texas could mount a terrorist attack, echoing worries raised by FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 22, 2024

Texas bans health departments from promoting COVID shots

Public health agencies in Texas and across the world spent most of 2021 working overtime to distribute the COVID vaccine, the public’s best defense against the virus that has killed more than 100,000 Texans since 2020. Now, though, that same work is effectively banned in Texas. A provision in the state’s budget passed in May 2023 prohibits any entity funded by the state health department from promoting COVID vaccines in fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The provision, known as Rider 40, has meant that local public health departments have stopped almost all outreach encouraging Texans to get the latest COVID vaccine. Local health departments have stopped hosting COVID vaccination clinics and have even stopped distributing pamphlets that encourage getting a COVID vaccine. “This particular rider is within Texas’ legal and constitutional power to adopt,” said Dr. William Sage, a professor of law and medicine at Texas A&M University. “But I think it’s a really bad idea.”

The goal of public health agencies, Sage said, is to convey useful, accurate information, such as informing people that staying up-to-date with COVID vaccines is the best way to protect yourself from becoming seriously ill or dying from the coronavirus. “Why dictate by law that a whole bunch of useful, accurate information can’t be conveyed?” Sage said. The rider, which went into effect Sept. 1, says that no general revenue funds appropriated to the Department of State Health Services “may be used for the purpose of promoting or advertising COVID-19 vaccinations in the 2024-25 biennium.” The rider also notes that “to the extent allowed by federal law, any federal funds allocated to DSHS shall be expended for activities other than promoting or advertising COVID-19 vaccinations.” Riders “convey specific instructions on how agency funds can be collected or spent” and follow traditional line items in the state budget, according to the Legislative Reference Library of Texas. The rider does not prevent local health departments from distributing the COVID-19 vaccine at all, according to emails sent by state health department employees obtained by the Star-Telegram through a records request. Rather, departments are being told not to single out the COVID-19 vaccine from any other vaccination that is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

KXAN - March 22, 2024

‘Organized criminal enterprise’ busted in Austin tied to fraudulent paper tags, inspections

An “organized criminal enterprise” accused of cranking out fraudulent vehicle inspections and paper license plates in Austin was recently busted, according to authorities — just as the state prepares to enact a new law meant to put the brakes on this years-long problem. Fraudulent temporary tags are often used to mask criminal activity — from avoiding tolls to turning vehicles into “ghost cars,” allowing criminals to avoid detection and hide in plain sight. “The location we’re going to come up on here in a minute … that’s where the investigation led us,” said Cpl. Mike Bradburn with the Travis County Constable’s Office Pct. 3. “Let’s see if I can get you a better vantage point up here.” Bradburn took KXAN for a drive past a blue building in Austin where he says the interconnected fraud — involving two car dealerships licensed in Travis and Bastrop counties, multiple people and at least two state vehicle inspectors — allegedly took place. It’s the site of a recent bust by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Dallas Morning News - March 22, 2024

Dallas police chief says he’s working out how to enforce SB 4 amid community concerns

Dallas police Chief Eddie García said Thursday he’s begun mapping out how his officers will handle Texas’ new immigration law even though its future remains in flux. After a dizzying week of back-and-forth court rulings, law enforcement agencies across Texas have expressed confusion and uncertainty about their mandate under Senate Bill 4, which empowers local law enforcement to handle a series of new state crimes for unauthorized migrants in the state. Dallas’ top cop shared his concerns about the law, which a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional in February, prompting an appeal by Texas that is awaiting resolution. García voiced concerns about how SB 4 could impact DPD’s community relationships but said there’s a bottom line: “If this passes, we must have policies in place,” he told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday. “We can’t prohibit enforcement of the law.”

The chief said he’s setting up meetings to establish what the department’s policies would include should the law go into effect. Those efforts, he said, are to “ensure we do not violate anyone’s civil rights” and to alleviate community fear about how officers would enforce the law. “Training, general orders, department policy to ensure we are not violating people’s rights is paramount and would have to be in place prior to any enforcement,” García said. The latest legal head-spinner started Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court extended an order blocking SB 4. The nation’s high court reversed course the next morning and gave Texas permission to enforce the law. About nine hours later, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked SB 4. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel on the appeals court heard arguments over whether to continue blocking the law or let it go back into effect while the judges weigh its legality. Additional oral arguments are set for April 3 to discuss the heart of the case – whether Texas can legally enforce SB 4. In the brief time the law was in effect, García sent a statement to officers and the media Tuesday evening saying the department would adhere to current policies and prioritize fighting violent crime “until we have more clarification” on SB 4 and can provide more training to officers.

Dallas Morning News - March 22, 2024

In Dallas, Southern Baptists pick California seminary president to lead troubled administrative body

A top Southern Baptist administrative body has selected its first permanent leader in nearly two-and-a-half years, a time when it has navigated a tumult of controversies ranging from a sexual abuse scandal to financial struggles — to its own stumbling efforts to find a new president. Jeff Iorg, the longtime president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s only seminary outside of the denomination’s historic Bible Belt heartland, is the incoming president and CEO of the denomination’s Executive Committee. He was elected unanimously Thursday by committee members meeting in Dallas. Iorg has been president of Gateway Seminary since 2004. He oversaw a change in name and location for the school in 2016, when the former Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary relocated its main campus from the San Francisco area to Ontario, California, near Los Angeles. It now has multiple campuses in the West and online. Total full- and part-time enrollment is 1,499, according to data from the Association of Theological Schools.

Iorg had recently announced plans to retire from the seminary but agreed to be considered for the Executive Committee post, which he will start on May 13. Iorg said he is grateful for the denomination he is serving. In a Thursday news conference, he said he “came to faith in Jesus Christ because of the witness of a Southern Baptist church” and has degrees from a denominational college and seminaries. He and his wife are “the product of Southern Baptists, and we’re grateful at this juncture in life to serve Southern Baptists,” Iorg said. “Leadership matters, and Dr. Iorg is a leader among leaders,” said Philip Robertson, chairman of the committee, which handles day-to-day business for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Iorg succeeds Ronnie Floyd, who resigned in October 2021 as president amid internal rifts over how to handle an investigation into the SBC’s response to sexual abuse. Floyd and other committee members resigned after a majority on the committee agreed to waive attorney-client privilege for an independent review of its handling of clergy sexual abuse in the denomination.

Houston Landing - March 22, 2024

Mayor Whitmire promises shakeup in City Council rules, new process for member ordinances

Hours into the public comment session at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, it finally was Karen Williams-Caldwell’s chance to speak about a business she saw as a nuisance to her corner of northeast Houston. Williams-Caldwell, who had her moment at the podium after a parade of speakers addressing a controversial roadway project in Montrose, was told that she would be limited to one minute. She was distressed. “Montrose got to be able to speak as long as they wanted to speak,” Williams-Caldwell said. “I am a person just like you, and I want to be heard. I didn’t know how this works.” In the end, council members gave Williams-Caldwell more time to complain about a business she said pumps loud music and the smell of drugs into the residential neighborhood.

Speaking out at public meetings is a treasured civic right in the United States, where residents opine on everything from marital to international relations in front of bored, bemused or intrigued officials. Mayor John Whitmire says experiences like Williams-Caldwell’s are too common in Houston. At many council meetings, residents complain about hours-long waits for minute-long speeches. Whitmire has promised a revamp of council rules for public comment to make it easier to speak at the last minute or even after workday hours. It is not the only council shake-up Whitmire is pursuing. Four months after Houstonians voted to allow City Council members to place items on the agenda, Whitmire’s administration is moving to implement that charter change, appointing District G Councilmember Mary Nan Huffman to oversee a new committee to vet council ordinances. More broadly, Whitmire claims he is making a stylistic break with former Mayor Sylvester Turner by giving council members more leeway to debate important issues. He says he wants City Council to have more of the deliberations common at the Texas Capitol, where he served as a legislator for a half century until his December election.

Houston Chronicle - March 22, 2024

NFL to vote on Cal McNair becoming Houston Texans majority owner

At next week's NFL meetings, league owners are expected to vote on approving Texans CEO/chair Cal McNair as the new principal owner of the franchise, a source with knowledge of the vote told the Chronicle on Thursday. Janice McNair has been the Texans' principal owner since November 2018, after her husband Bob McNair died from cancer. She is one of 10 women who are principal owners of NFL teams. But Cal McNair, Janice’s youngest son, has run the day-to-day football operations and acted on her behalf in meetings in recent years. Becoming the principal owner makes him the official representative for the franchise. The source added that the team is not for sale and that it was Janice’s decision to make Cal McNair principal owner. If approved, Cal McNair would continue to run the Texans as he has the past 5½ years.

Houston Chronicle - March 22, 2024

Dozens of Houston ISD parents express outrage over principal screening at school board meeting

Dozens of Houston ISD community members voiced outrage over the results of state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ controversial principal screening during Thursday’s school board meeting. As part of its mid-year proficiency screening, HISD notified about half of its principals earlier this month that they had not yet met the requirements to guarantee their jobs next year and would have to achieve proficiency under a second screening if they want to guarantee their spot during the next academic year.

The screening results prompted significant community pushback and frustration after the Houston Chronicle published the names of 117 principals who received the message, including longtime veterans and new principals in both HISD’s highest- and lowest-performing schools. The Chronicle later removed the list after receiving a tip that one principal's name may have been included erroneously, although Miles and the district have declined to detail any specific inaccuracies in the Chronicle’s list. While the district’s principal screening was not on the public agenda of the monthly meeting of the HISD Board of Managers, that did not stop parents, teachers and students from giving one-minute speeches for about three hours, where many defended their school principal’s performance and urged the board to halt the implementation of the screening.

Houston Chronicle - March 22, 2024

Inside Texas' 'manipulative' adoption marketing campaign that targets young women and teen girls

Since Texas banned virtually all abortions, Texans may have seen a rosy message about adoption pop up on their phone screens or dot the view on their daily commute. It might read something like this: Adoption helps “empower” women and allows them to be "in control” of their future. That message or sentiment appears on billboards and digital advertisements that direct people to ModernAdoptionPlans.org — the product of a targeted, state-funded marketing campaign aiming to increase adoptions among young women and girls with unplanned pregnancies, according to documents obtained through an open records request. In the documents, organizers explicitly laid out a target audience with "the highest incidence of unplanned pregnancies": low-income, single women that "skew African-American and Hispanic" between the ages of 12 and 34.

Seven adoption experts, including academics, adoptees and a birth mother, told Hearst Newspapers the campaign’s fundamental message paints a misleading picture and oversimplifies what is a complex, traumatic experience for mothers who relinquish their child. Many of the experts were concerned about the potential for young people to make a life-altering decision based on an idealized image. “It’s so manipulative,” said Adam Pertman, president of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency and an adoptive parent. “It doesn't take into account what we know historically, what we know from research, what we know from personal experiences.” The advertisements reflect a common anti-abortion talking point that adoption can replace pregnancy terminations and come as Texas increases its investment in groups that actively promote childbirth and marriage. Several of the private adoption agencies promoted on the adoption campaign website are Christian organizations that received up to $1.8 million in state funding in fiscal year 2023, according to public financial reports. The campaign, dubbed Modern Adoption, was pitched as a pilot project by the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, an anti-abortion group and the largest contractor under a state program known as Thriving Texas Families, formerly Alternatives to Abortion. TPCN tested the campaign in 2017 and officially launched it in August 2022 with $2 million from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Last year, HHSC gave the group another $4 million to continue the project through fiscal year 2025, on top of TPCN’s roughly $35 million annual budget, according to contract documents obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

Houston Chronicle - March 22, 2024

In Houston, Biden lashes into Trump, GOP for blocking bipartisan immigration deal

President Joe Biden used a fundraising stop in Houston on Thursday to blast Republicans on immigration and border issues again, part of a monthlong effort to turn the tables on the GOP over an issue that polls show has damaged the Democrat’s reelection effort. Biden didn’t mention Gov. Greg Abbott or the state’s recently court-halted deportation law. Instead, he directed his attacks on former President Donald Trump for helping scuttle a bipartisan border security plan that Biden has said will help enforce existing immigration laws. As he did on a stop in Brownsville last month, Biden noted that the bill would have given the nation 1,500 more border security agents, 100 more immigration judges and 4,300 more asylum officers to handle backlogged asylum cases.

The president told donors at a 26,000-square-foot mansion in the River Oaks section of Houston on Thursday that Trump and the Republicans blocked the deal out of fear it would give Democrats a political win. Biden warned if Trump wins in November, it will bring more chaos to the border and immigration as a whole. “Unlike Trump, I’m not going to demonize immigrants,” Biden said. “I will not say immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of this nation. I will not call immigrants from Mexico ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers.’ I will not separate families.” Trump’s campaign said ahead of the visit that Biden is the one responsible for the situation at the border. “Texas is on the front lines of the Biden Border Crisis, but instead of working to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl and migrant crime, Joe Biden is rubbing elbows with elite donors,” said Michael Whatley, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Forbes - March 22, 2024

Super PAC backing Ted Cruz received $215,000 from iHeartMedia—fueling ethics concerns after podcast deal

A super PAC affiliated with Sen. Ted Cruz reported receiving $215,000 in “digital revenue” from iHeartMedia on Wednesday—despite a spokesperson for the Republican from Texas previously denying there was an ethical issue with the company producing his podcast and saying it was no different from Cruz appearing on a cable news show. In a Wednesday filing with the Federal Election Commission, the Truth and Courage PAC, which is dedicated to “supporting Ted Cruz’s reelection to the U.S. Senate,” reported receiving $214,752.98 from iHeartMedia Management Services in February.

Rachel Nelson, vice president of public relations at iHeartMedia subsidiary Premiere Networks, told Forbes that Cruz volunteers his time and is not paid, but the company sells the advertising inventory for the podcast and the revenue the super PAC reported is “associated with those advertising sales.” In 2022—shortly after Cruz and iHeartMedia entered a partnership in which the company markets and produces his podcast, “Verdict”—the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group filed a complaint against Cruz and asked the Senate ethics committee to investigate whether the deal violated a federal law barring senators from receiving gifts from registered lobbyists. A Cruz spokesperson denied that the senator violated the ethics law, though, telling Forbes at the time that Cruz “receives no financial benefit from Verdict” and that there was no difference between his podcast airing on iHeartMedia or him appearing on network television.

Dallas Morning News - March 22, 2024

Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban rips Dinesh D’Souza over stance on diversity hiring

Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban ripped conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza on Thursday for making fun of a viral social media post, featuring a worker expressing extreme frustration with their employment. Cuban has been vocal on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, for embracing DEI efforts in his corporate hiring, drawing praise from some circles but backlash from others. The video featured a person venting about work grievances, including frequent deadnaming, the lack of hours from their company and low pay. D’Souza tagged Cuban on the platform, making fun of the user and Cuban: “if you’re looking to diversify your corporate workforce—'diversity is our greatest strength’ and all that—you might consider calling this person…,” D’Souza wrote, in part. Cuban, who used expletive language in his response, said he related to the user’s frustrations, calling out D’Souza:

“So this person wants to vent because despite thinking he was going to get hours at a job, he hasn’t. You ever been in that position ? I have “Then he vents because he is living out of a car and is upset because minimum wage is not enough to pay the bills. Think you might vent because you arent making enough to pay the bills ? I have. “You know what I didn’t hear this person do ? Ask for public assistance. Ask for money to do nothing….” In January, Cuban responded to Elon Musk, who owns the platform, outlining why DEI initiatives are beneficial to businesses. In the original comment, Musk wrote, “Discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism.” Outlining each word in the acronym, Cuban wrote that taking into account people’s race, ethnicity, identity and sexual orientation in hiring processes helps “find people that are more qualified.” He added that a workforce that is diverse and representative of “your stakeholders is good for business.” About an hour after Cuban’s social media response Thursday, D’Souza launched another jab at Cuban. “In short, you won’t hire him because you know he would be a pain to work with and probably sue your company for misgendering him. This is the point I was really making—that your position on diversity is all talk! You’re in it for the virtue signaling. Thanks for confirming,” D’Souza wrote.

County Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 22, 2024

119 trials in a day: Attorneys scramble as Dallas judge clogs docket with criminal cases

A judge in Dallas County is trying to shore up efficiency and move criminal cases through the courthouse faster by forcing plea deals or trials, but the result has been a bottlenecked docket and more than 100 trials scheduled for a single day, about a dozen lawyers told The Dallas Morning News. Judge Amber Givens, who hears felony cases in the 282nd District Court that carry punishments up to the death penalty, is scheduled to preside over 119 jury trials on April 1, according to court records as of Thursday morning. It’s likely only two cases will face a jury that week, but Dallas County prosecutors and defense attorneys have to research and prepare as if all 119 will go to trial — interview witnesses, collect and catalog evidence, brainstorm strategy. It’s an onerous task, and lawyers are balking. “A judge’s job is not to force the process,” said Douglas Huff, immediate past president of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. “A judge’s job is to call balls and strikes, a judge’s job is to be the umpire.”

Attorneys say the caseload is unmanageable, unrealistic and may compromise an accused person’s right to a fair trial or justice for the victim of a crime. The bottleneck has caused angst, confusion and panic for those navigating Givens’ courtroom near downtown Dallas, souring the relationship between the judge and disaffected trial lawyers. Givens, 44, declined to speak to or answer questions from The News citing the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct canons. The canons do not prevent judicial officers from making public comments to the media, unless it would prejudice a pending matter before the court. Heath Harris, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, believes Givens is right to push lawyers to move cases. “Her system holds both the state and the defense accountable,” he said. “... In the end, it’s going to prove to be a more efficient system.” Defense attorney Steven Lafuente said Givens’ system is “extremely ambitious” and taxing for the prosecutors, defense attorneys and even other judges because of its inflexibility. “I understand what she’s trying to accomplish,” Lafuente said. “And I do applaud her for being bold enough to take that kind of a step. “But I also have that feeling like, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ And we’ve been doing things in Dallas County for years. It may not be the best system, but it’s worked. We get cases tried and we get them moved without all this anxiety.”

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 22, 2024

Tarrant Appraisal website crashes second time in two weeks

Déjà vu for property owners? The Tarrant Appraisal District’s website crashed again on Thursday. It has since been brought back online. The website crashed last week after a database failure, which prompted the appraisal district to launch its new website early. One week later, that one crashed. “The Tarrant Appraisal District experienced a network disruption. We have taken prompt action to secure the network, and we are working with leading independent cybersecurity experts to assist with our response and the restoration process,” the Tarrant Appraisal District told the Star-Telegram in a statement Thursday morning. The statement also said that the appraisal district could not estimate when “full access” would be restored.

City Stories

Dallas Morning News - March 22, 2024

President Joe Biden’s motorcade met by pro-Palestinian demonstrators as he leaves Dallas

President Joe Biden’s departure Thursday morning from Dallas was met by the jeers of people who gathered in front of the Fairmont Dallas hotel to protest his response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Israeli military’s killing of civilians in the region. Nidaa Lafi, a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement in Dallas, said about 100 people gathered at the hotel around 5:30 a.m. By 9:50 a.m., about the time Biden was scheduled to leave for Houston during his visit to Texas, 40 demonstrators crowded the corner of North Akard Street and Munger Avenue in downtown Dallas. Roughly nine police cars and a dozen police officers could be seen creating a barrier in front of the demonstrators at the street corner. Many streets around the hotel already had metal barricades blocking off traffic and pedestrians. As Biden’s motorcade turned the corner, demonstrators banged on pots and pans and yelled into megaphones.

National Stories

Reuters - March 22, 2024

Mexico reaches agreement with Venezuela to deport migrants

Mexico has signed an agreement with Venezuela to deport migrants and reached deals with Mexican and Venezuelan companies to employ them, Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena told a news conference on Thursday. Venezuelans have been among the largest groups of migrants arriving in Mexico on their way to the United States, as they seek to flee their country's political and economic crisis. There are 4,000-5,000 Venezuelan migrants currently stranded in Mexico, mostly in the city of Tijuana. U.S. citizens are increasingly concerned about migrants reaching their borders, with a Reuters-Ipsos poll earlier this year finding that 17% considered the issue was the most important problem facing the country, up 11% from December. Venezuela's government did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

"The plan lacks legal basis," said Enrique Lucero, the municipal director of migrant care in Tijuana. Lucero called on authorities to normalize migration routes for people seeking asylum in the United States. The Mexican government said it will give migrants in the country around $110 a month, part of a program in which they will also have the opportunity to work for different companies in both countries. Venezuelan brewers Empresas Polar and state oil firm PDVSA, and Mexican breadmaker Bimbo and retailer FEMSA are among the companies participating in the program, Barcena said. The companies did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Politico - March 22, 2024

Johnson spurs fresh conservative fury with new spending deal

Speaker Mike Johnson is plowing forward with his plan to fund the government — at a cost. House conservatives have renewed their threats that any actions against the Louisiana Republican are on the table, incensed over the latest spending deal that Johnson reached with Democrats and how quickly he’s pushing the legislation to the floor. In the past, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, had broadly defended Johnson and dismissed talk of taking direct action against him, such as calling a vote to remove him from the speakership. But after leadership released legislative text for the massive spending bill in the middle of the night, Norman fired a direct warning shot on Thursday morning. “We’ll just see,” Norman said when asked if calling for a vote to oust Johnson is an option. “I like Mike as a person. He’s honest. I just don’t know if it’s in his DNA to fight. … This is just sad.”

NBC News - March 22, 2024

The ex-Democrat catching Trump's and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s eyes

Tulsi Gabbard wanted to be president. Now she wants to be vice president. And while that’s hardly unusual, the paths — plural — she’s considering to get there are. Neither involve the Democratic Party, which Gabbard used to represent until she left it in 2022. The four-term former member of Congress from Hawaii is now getting consideration for both former President Donald Trump’s and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tickets, two sources familiar with the candidates’ deliberations told NBC News. It’s a remarkable turnaround for the onetime progressive rising star, who within the span of eight years has gone from supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign to running for the Democratic presidential nomination herself in 2020, eventually endorsing President Joe Biden, before then gravitating to the right and becoming a regular conservative media personality and conference speaker.

More so, it’s exceedingly rare for a politician to attract interest from more than one presidential ticket or party. (Ahead of the 1952 election, Democrats and Republicans led dueling efforts to draft another politically ambiguous veteran, Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, for the presidential race.) But Gabbard’s 2024 possibilities are not fully in her control, nor are they both equally likely. As one source said, Gabbard would be more likely to seriously consider running as Kennedy’s vice presidential nominee had she not been swept up by the possibility of serving with Trump. This person said Gabbard “was enticed” by the chance of serving on Kennedy’s ticket but is now focused on the possibility that Trump will select her. “My understanding is that Tulsi is convinced that Trump is going to pick her,” this person said. “Had that not been the case, she probably would have gone with Kennedy.” Trump allies and insiders say that while she may be getting a look from the former president, she’s an unlikely choice at best, though she could still land another role in the campaign or in a potential future administration. Some on the right have floated her for defense secretary or another national security post. She was one of the only Democrats who met with Trump during his transition in 2016, as he was interviewing people for posts in his administration.

NBC News - March 22, 2024

No charges to be filed in fight involving Oklahoma teen Nex Benedict, DA says

No charges will be filed in connection with the fight that happened the day before Nex Benedict, a nonbinary high school student, died by suicide in Oklahoma, the district attorney investigating the case said Thursday. The fight in the high school bathroom appeared to be an "instance of mutual combat," Stephen Kunzweiler, Tulsa County's district attorney, said in a statement announcing his decision not to charge anyone. Kunzweiler also noted that Owasso police officers discovered "some brief notes" that were written by Nex and "appeared to be related to the suicide." "Although the notes do not make any reference to the earlier fight or difficulties at school, the parents indicated that Benedict reported being picked upon for various reasons while at school," Kunzweiler wrote in the release, adding that the contents of the notes would not be released.

Nex was transgender and used he and they pronouns. All of the students involved in the fight were minors, the DA said, adding that "if charges were justified, those charges would be handled as a delinquent child cause of action in a juvenile court of law." "I do not have a reasonable belief that the State of Oklahoma could sustain its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt if charges were presented for prosecution," Kunzweiler wrote. Nex, 16, got into a fight with other students at the Owasso High School West Campus, northeast of Tulsa, on Feb. 7. His mother took him to the hospital and called police to report the fight. According to body camera video from a police interview at the hospital, Nex said three students "jumped" him after he threw water on them because they were bullying him and his friend for the way they dressed. Nex had reportedly told his mom that he faced bullying at school because of his gender identity.

Washington Post - March 22, 2024

Two major newspaper chains dropped the AP. What will it mean for readers?

Since the Mexican-American War of 1846, newspapers large and small have turned to the Associated Press for reporting from places inaccessible to their own reporters. With more than 200 bureaus around the globe, the AP remains the biggest brand name among what came to be known as the wire services, transmitting its articles and images to news outlets for a licensing fee. Some smaller papers came to rely so heavily on its content that “AP” was their single most frequent byline. But now, two major American newspaper chains have said they will no longer use the AP for news. Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and more than 200 local newspapers, and McClatchy, which publishes the Miami Herald and Kansas City Star among more than two dozen other newspapers, said this week that they were ending their content relationship with the AP.

In memos to staff and public statements, executives with both companies described it as a cost-saving move — in the “millions” of dollars, according to McClatchy brass — and said they will have no trouble filling the news gap. “We create more journalism every day than the AP,” Gannett executive Kristin Roberts said in a Tuesday memo obtained by the Wrap. But some media observers — including staff members at the affected newspapers — warned that the decision will cut off a vital source of reliable reporting that their readers have come to depend on. “It’s a loss,” Ilana Keller, a content planner and reporter at the Gannett-owned Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, told The Washington Post. “As our reporting staff got smaller and smaller, we relied more on more on wire services to help fill in the gaps, and losing that is incredible.” Margot Susca, an American University journalism professor and author of “Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy,” said she is worried about what might now fill those pages. “The Associated Press is one of the most reliable organizations that provides … national and state coverage,” she said emphasizing the role “objective reporting” plays in an election year.

CNN - March 22, 2024

New York Attorney General takes initial step to prepare to seize Trump assets

The New York attorney general’s office has filed judgments in Westchester County, the first indication that the state is preparing to try to seize Donald Trump’s golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, known as Seven Springs. State lawyers entered the judgments with the clerk’s office in Westchester County on March 6, just one week after Judge Arthur Engoron made official his $464 million decision against Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization. The decision against Trump and the difficulty the former president is having securing a bond while he appeals the verdict strikes directly at Trump’s image as a billionaire as he attempts to raise more cash for both his legal bills and third run for the White House.

Entering a judgment would be the first step a creditor would take to attempt to recover property. Additional steps, such as putting liens on assets or moving to foreclose on properties, or taking other actions in court would follow, if the asset is going to be seized. The judgment is already entered in New York city where Trump’s properties including Trump Tower, his penthouse at Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his hotel abutting Central Park, and numerous apartment buildings are located. Judgments have not been entered in Florida counties including Miami or Palm Beach where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property and the Trump National Doral Golf Club and resort are located or Cook County, Illinois, where Trump’s hotel in Chicago is located, according to a review of records Thursday by CNN. Trump now has four days to satisfy the judgment or sway an appeals court to allow him to post a smaller amount or defer posting the payment until after the appeal.

CNN - March 22, 2024

Georgia DA plans to press ahead in effort to put Trump on trial before election

Fani Willis, the embattled Fulton County District Attorney, plans to press ahead with her goal of putting Donald Trump on trial before the November election, and intends to ask the judge presiding over the Georgia criminal case to schedule a trial date as soon as this summer, according to three people familiar with her thinking. It’s a bold move considering the hurdles Willis faces in getting the case back on track after a two-month detour revealed embarrassing details of her personal life, damaging her credibility in the eyes of Judge Scott McAfee and leaving her politically vulnerable ahead of her own reelection bid in November. Willis narrowly avoided being disqualified over her romantic relationship with lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade, who resigned last Friday following a blistering rebuke from McAfee, publicly questioning both Wade and Willis’s decision-making. On Wednesday McAfee granted requests from Trump and his co-defendants to seek an appeal, meaning the threat of disqualification still hangs over Willis.

Georgia Republicans continue to investigate allegations that Willis benefitted financially from her relationship with Wade. A state Senate committee could use its subpoena power to unearth new information and plans to meet several more times to hear from additional witnesses. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp last week signed changes into law that give a state commission the power to investigate Willis and authority to remove or sanction state prosecutors. Willis’s rock-solid political standing has also been shaken. This month, Democrat Christian Wise Smith, a former Fulton County prosecutor and Atlanta solicitor, launched a campaign challenging Willis in the May 21 primary. Republican lawyer Courtney Kramer, an attorney who worked in the Office of the White House Counsel under Trump, has also joined the race. And then there’s the Supreme Court’s looming decision on whether the former president enjoys absolute immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges, one that could affect various criminal proceedings against Trump. Any ruling in favor of the former president from the high court could be a major blow to both criminal cases against Trump related to the 2020 election, including in Georgia. Hearings begin in April, with a decision expected by the end of June.

March 21, 2024

Lead Stories

Houston Chronicle - March 21, 2024

Appeals court raises doubts of legality of new Texas deportation law, SB4, pointing to past rulings

The chief judge on an appeals panel weighing whether to block a Texas’ new migrant deportation law appeared skeptical that it does not run afoul of longstanding precedent leaving immigration enforcement solely to the federal government. Questioning the state’s solicitor general, Priscilla Richman, the chief judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, read from a landmark Supreme Court decision from 2012 that held only the federal government has the power to enforce immigration laws. In that case, the high court struck down portions of an Arizona law that authorized police to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. “Decisions of this nature touch on foreign relations and must be made with one voice,” Richman said, reading from the ruling. “It goes on and on and on,” she continued. “It talks about the discretion — even if they’re here unlawfully, the United States can decide not to remove them.

“It seems to me this statute washes that away,” Richman said of the new state law, known as Senate Bill 4. The exchange came during a last-minute hearing before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which quickly sprung to action after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to further delay SB4, allowing it to briefly take effect Tuesday afternoon. The law, originally set to take effect March 5, makes it a crime to enter the state from Mexico illegally and allows any law enforcement officer in Texas to arrest migrants they suspect of violating the law. It empowers judges to order the removal of anyone convicted under the law. The Supreme Court said it could not take further action until after the 5th Circuit made the first move. The conservative appeals court then halted the law late Tuesday while it weighed what to do next. A federal judge in Austin last month blocked the law, calling it “patently unconstitutional,” and the appeals court is now deciding what to do with his order. Texas argued Wednesday that it is not trying to seize immigration enforcement powers. Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson said the state is seeking to work cooperatively with the federal government to enforce immigration laws Congress has written, and that the state has tried to mirror those laws with SB4. The federal government is suing the state to block the law from taking effect.

Wall Street Journal - March 21, 2024

Trump claims 2024 will be rigged, putting Republican turnout at risk

After making years of unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, Donald Trump is dialing up warnings that there could be an even bigger theft this time around, a tactic that threatens to complicate Republican turnout efforts. “Too Big to Rig.” That is the phrase Trump began unveiling in recent weeks, including in an appearance in Greensboro, N.C. His campaign also has printed signs with the slogan to hand out to supporters. The idea behind the pitch is this: Trump needs a lead so large that no one can take it away. “We want a landslide,” Trump said at the rally. “We have to win so that it’s too big to rig.” The line has garnered energetic applause from the Trump faithful, but it presents messaging challenges for Republicans. Even as the former president says the voting process could be rigged, he is urging GOP supporters to participate in it anyway.

Trump also needs to woo moderate and swing voters, yet they could be turned off by his drumbeat of election-fraud claims. “There is no way to effectively toe this line,” said David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, focused on election administration. “When you still want voters to turn out but you’re telling them it’s rigged—it’s no surprise that some of them are on the fence about that.” Democrats and other Trump critics have said the former president’s continued claims of election theft are grossly irresponsible and doing lasting damage to the U.S. Two of the four criminal cases Trump is facing involve his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. That includes a federal prosecution in Washington, D.C., where he is facing allegations that he knowingly spread false claims of widespread election fraud that contributed to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has paired his recent remarks with arguments that Republican-controlled states could better secure their elections right away by insisting on single-day, in-person voting, with identification checks. That position is at odds with intensive GOP efforts to encourage supporters to make use of early voting and mail-in ballots, methods that appeal to a growing portion of the electorate.

San Antonio Express-News - March 21, 2024

Abbott says vouchers are still two votes short in Texas House, but May runoffs should tip the scales

Gov. Greg Abbott said his private school voucher plan is two votes shy of passing in the Texas House after he successfully ousted reluctant Republicans in the recent primary election. And the Republican governor predicted chances are high he’ll make up the deficit in the upcoming May runoff elections. “We’re now at 74 votes,” Abbott said to widespread applause at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s annual conference on Wednesday, held at a conference center on the University of Texas at Austin’s campus. “But 74 does not equal 76.”

“If you look at the way the primary vote turned out, who’s in a runoff and what the percentage looked like, we should be able to win,” he said of the remaining six key GOP races. They include a Central Texas race between Rep. John Kuempel and Alan Schoolcraft, a Northeast Texas race between Rep. Gary VanDeaver and Chris Spencer, and a Houston-area election for the seat left open by Rep. Ed Thompson’s retirement between the Abbott-endorsed Alex Kamkar and Jeffrey Barry, who is preferred by Thompson. Vouchers are a dividing line in all the races, with the incumbents opposed to using public funds to subsidize private schools or homeschools. Abbott tried to hype up the crowd with a football analogy, saying he would rather end the runoffs with a touchdown, rather than settle for a field goal. “What every head coach knows is they don’t want to have to rely on the field goal kicker to win the football game,” he said. “With all due respect. I’m sure there’s some former fellow kickers here today.”

New York Times - March 21, 2024

Inspired by Texas, Republicans in other states eye immigration bills

On Tuesday, the same day that Texas was briefly allowed to enforce a new law empowering police officers to arrest unauthorized migrants, Iowa lawmakers passed a bill that would make it a crime to enter their state after having been deported or denied entry into the United States. At least seven states, all controlled by Republicans, are hoping to follow suit or have already considered bills that were not passed. The flurry of laws and proposals meant to crack down on undocumented migrants entering the country is part of the extraordinary mix of immigration, litigation and politics that is producing legal gridlock in the courts and confusion at the border. The fate of all of these bills, though, will most likely hinge on the outcome of the Texas case, according to legal analysts and groups involved in migration issues.

If the Texas law is upheld, then observers expect even more bills from Republican-leaning states modeled after what Texas did. Kansas and Oklahoma are among the states that this year have introduced legislation related to illegal entry into the United States, echoing the law in Texas. Louisiana became the most recent on Monday. And Missouri has two bills, including one sponsored by State Senator Bill Eigel, who is one of the leading candidates for governor this year. Describing the surge at the border as an “invasion,” Mr. Eigel, who represents a St. Louis suburb, blamed “the failures of our federal government led by President Joe Biden to deal with that” during a committee hearing last week. It is too early to tell whether any of these bills will advance as far as Iowa’s did. Bills in West Virginia and Mississippi have already failed. And a similar bill passed by Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat.

State Stories

Austin Business Journal - March 21, 2024

Texas beer industry faces sobering moment

The surge in new craft brewery openings in Texas has slowed to a less frantic pace while more beer-related businesses are tapping out. An industry backed by entrepreneurs who have competed against behemoth brands and fought archaic laws is at a tipping point. “We are definitely entering an era of a maturing market,” Texas Craft Brewers Guild Executive Director Caroline Wallace said. According to the Brewers Association’s 2023 Year in Beer report, the U.S. gained roughly 420 new breweries while more than 385 shut down. That group has pointed to multiple challenges including competition from other alcoholic beverages, declining draught sales and reduced retail shelf space for craft beer brands.

The craft beer industry is also still feeling the effects of Covid-19. “People took on a lot of debt and stretched themselves very thin during the pandemic to remain open,” Wallace said. “The bounce back just hasn't been as strong as folks would have hoped.” The Austin-San Antonio region has seen its share of shutdowns in the last couple of years. Roughly a dozen craft breweries opened in the Austin area in 2023, according to Craft Beer Austin. But nearly just as many have closed. The San Antonio market has also lost some breweries. Second Pitch Beer Co. closed in early March after undergoing a significant expansion. Nearby Boerne has had some casualties too. The list includes Boerne Brewery, Barrelman Brewing Co. and Kinematic Brewing Co. As the craft beer craze fizzles for many, some companies are pivoting their strategies to keep customers coming. Austin-based Hopsquad Brewing, one of three breweries left in North Austin near Q2 Stadium and The Domain, is opening a cocktail lounge that will include a variety of mezcals, an alcohol that's become increasingly popular, and other alcoholic beverages.

San Antonio Express-News - March 21, 2024

Texas mayor’s cocaine trafficking arrest has a complicated backstory. What to know.

On Aug. 8, 2020, a man driving a tractor-trailer pulled into a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in barren scrubland west of Padre Island National Seashore. Behind the wheel was Jose Rosbel Salas, a former school bus driver with a sketchy past. Federal agents at the Sarita checkpoint inspected Salas’ rig and saw something suspicious-looking in the undercarriage, near the drive shaft. It was a 30-pound package of cocaine. Salas fessed up on the spot, according to court records. He admitted he knew the drugs were there. He admitted “he was going to be paid for transporting the narcotics within the United States,” court records show.

The drug bust launched a federal drug trafficking investigation that eventually ensnared the mayor of the border town of Progreso, along with his brother, who was president of the local school board and an assistant Progreso city manager. The connection is documented in reporting by Dave Hendricks, a reporter/producer for CBS 4 News and Valley Central.com. Progreso Mayor Gerardo “Jerry” Alanis, 31, was arrested Monday and charged with conspiracy to possess more than 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of cocaine with intent to distribute, an offense punishable by a minimum 10-year federal prison term with no possibility of parole. His brother, Frank Alanis, was arrested in October and charged with the same offense. A federal grand jury indictment cites three dates in 2020 and 2021 on which Frank and Jerry Alanis and two co-defendants allegedly conspired to distribute cocaine. The amounts involved ranged from 30 pounds to 58 pounds, according to the indictment. Frank Alanis has pleaded not guilty and is free on bond. Jerry remains in custody pending a court hearing Thursday where a federal judge will consider whether to release him on bond.

Presbyterian Outlook - March 21, 2024

PC(USA) discourages certain gatherings in Texas

Presbyterians in Texas and nationally are seeking ways to respond to Senate Bill 4 (SB4), which would make border crossing from Mexico without required documentation a state crime and not just a federal one. It is the latest legislative effort to criminalize immigration, and members of the denomination wish to respond in ways that align with the values of their faith and the policies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The issue of SB4 first came to the attention of many in February when the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) released an update discouraging PC(USA) organizations from holding national meetings in the state of Texas, except for those planned at Presbyterian sites such as schools and conference centers. Acting Stated Clerk Bronwen Boswell clarified that OGA is not advising a boycott but is asking national committees and other groups to “take care when meeting.”

Ministers and advocates in the state of Texas are working to make sense of the SB4 and discerning how to respond. Ezequiel Herrera, for one, is glad the national church is drawing attention to the crisis facing the communities he serves. Herrera works as the Rio Grande Valley evangelist for Mission Presbytery, which includes Central Texas and much of the border region, and he pastors a new worshipping community called New Life Faith Community/Comunidad de Fe Nueva Vida. Texas Impact Executive Director Bee Moorhead said other courses of action include attending “Know Your Rights” trainings, getting to know the immigration court system in your community, and contacting your congresspeople to ask for comprehensive immigration reform. Whatever route you choose, she said, people of faith have a responsibility to identify the levers of power they can press to alleviate the suffering of migrants. “People are not coming [to the border] because they love to travel, they are coming because they could not stay where they were,” Moorhead said. “And when they get here, we should welcome them.”

San Antonio Express-News - March 21, 2024

Asylum-seekers in San Antonio worried about Texas immigration law — and paying for travel

A dozen asylum-seekers sat on the curb outside the city Migrant Resource Center’s gate Wednesday, hours after the latest legal tug-of-war over whether a controversial — and potentially unconstitutional — Texas immigration law will take effect. Most of the migrants had their immigration documents in clear plastic folders, on full display so there would be no question that they were in the U.S. legally. “I want to always be here legally,” said a 24-year-old Venezuelan man who declined to give his name. His first immigration court appearance is March 26 in Seattle. He was far less concerned about whether Senate Bill 4 would take effect than with how he, his wife and their 3-year-old son would make it to the Pacific Northwest.

Originally set to take effect March 5, SB 4 makes it a crime to enter the state from Mexico illegally and allows any law enforcement officer in Texas to arrest someone they suspect of violating the law. It empowers judges to order the removal of anyone convicted under the law. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court said Texas could begin arresting and deporting migrants under the law. But a federal appeals court put SB 4 back on hold hours later. On Wednesday, the appeals court heard arguments in the case, with the next hearing scheduled for April 2. Most of the asylum-seekers passing time outside the city of San Antonio’s Centro de Bienvenida, commonly referred to as the Migrant Resource Center, were familiar with SB 4. “I’ve heard it’s unconstitutional,” said Alexandra Balza, who is trying to get to North Carolina with her brother and three daughters after leaving Venezuela last year. “But it will worry a lot of people because they’ll fear the police.” Balza keeps her immigration papers close at hand, and said she would keep quiet and ask for an attorney if stopped by a police officer. Edison Rodriguez of Ecuador was warned about SB 4 by family members living in the U.S. Rodriguez said he felt “persecuted” by the law, and he wants to get out of San Antonio — and Texas — as soon as possible. But that depends on how quickly family members in Pennsylvania can send him airfare.

Texas Monthly - March 21, 2024

The retiring head of the Texas GOP inflamed a party civil war that will outlive his tenure

Most successful political leaders try to expand their party’s appeal. Across the country, many Republicans have concluded that nominating extreme far-right candidates gets in the way of that goal. But in Texas, where the Republican Party has maintained a thirty-year dominance of statewide races, the party, under the direction of chairman Matt Rinaldi, has concluded that its best path forward is continuing to march further rightward. Nearly a dozen candidates backed by members of the far right prevailed in the March primary over conservative incumbents, with many others forcing their opponents into runoffs, validating the chairman’s plan. Soon, however, Rinaldi won’t helm the Texas GOP. On Friday, the surly Dallas lawyer abruptly announced that he would not seek reelection, ending his three-year tenure as chairman. Delegates at the Texas GOP convention will decide his replacement in late May in San Antonio.

Historically, there’s been an unspoken understanding that the GOP chairman primarily serves to raise money, remain ideologically flexible enough to keep a big-tent majority of Republican voters happy, and otherwise get out of the way. But Rinaldi, once a pugnacious legislator, took a different tack. While leading the party, he simultaneously worked as an attorney for Farris Wilks, an oil billionaire and prodigious right-wing political contributor. Instead of trying to make the party as appealing as possible to the varying factions of today’s GOP, Rinaldi used his position to bring others in line with the vision of Wilks and Midland billionaire Tim Dunn for what the party should look like; he once even suggested that “party activists” should pick which candidates run on the GOP ticket. The chairman backed a primary challenger against the Speaker and against several centrist incumbents in the Legislature who opposed Defend Texas Liberty. Owing to a noncompetitive state Democratic Party, and gerrymandering, those primaries are where the future governance of Texas is decided. And because the 3 percent of Texans who vote in them are far more right-wing than the state at large, Rinaldi’s purge was largely successful: 11 of the 28 House candidates supported by Dunn and Wilks won their primary races outright; another 8 forced incumbents into runoff elections this May. Rinaldi has sought to ensure that his exit won’t diminish Defend Texas Liberty’s influence on the state GOP. Twenty minutes after announcing his plans to step down, he endorsed a successor: Abraham George, a software developer and former chair of the GOP in Collin County, northeast of Dallas. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is a longtime ally of George, followed suit, as did a handful of far-right state lawmakers. One Republican source close to party leaders, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said that George is an ideological protégé of Rinaldi.

San Antonio Express-News - March 21, 2024

SpaceX plans to launch next Starship from South Texas by early May

SpaceX’s second in command says Starship could fly from South Texas again by early May. During a panel discussion Tuesday at the Satellite 2024 conference in Washington, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, said the next launch could be, “hopefully, in about six weeks.” “We’re still going through the data,” she said of last Thursday’s flight, which saw Starship fall just short of its planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean. “It was an incredibly successful flight.” Still, problems crept in after the lower-stage Super Heavy Booster separated from the upper-stage Starship and both eventually were lost. That means Starship won’t be able to fly again until a mishap investigation is done and SpaceX completes any required modifications.

San Antonio Express-News - March 21, 2024

Forbes Advisor hits Texas on gender pay gap, ranks it among worst in U.S.

Texas has one of the worst wage gaps between women and men in the country, according to Forbes Advisor. A study from the personal-finance outlet found that women's median earnings here are 25 percent less than men's: $39,615 versus $52,823. The study ranked each U.S. state by women's financial situation relative to men's, using factors like median income, unemployment rate and poverty rate. North Dakota and Alabama were the only two states ranked worse overall than Texas, coming in at 49 and 50, respectively. Texas also has one of the biggest disparities between women and men making six figures, the study shows. The state ranks 10th-worst in that department; over 24.61 percent of men working full time make over $100,000, while just over 13.19 percent of women earn the same.

Houston Landing - March 21, 2024

Teare says he would recuse Harris County DA’s office from case against Hidalgo staffers

Whether politics played a role in the criminal indictment of three of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s former aides was hotly debated during the Democratic primary race between District Attorney Kim Ogg and challenger Sean Teare. The race is over, but politics almost certainly will arise in the eventual prosecution of the case. Or whether it even goes to trial. The accused — former Hidalgo Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis, former policy aide Aaron Dunn and former policy director Wallis Nader — have not appeared in court since December and multiple hurdles remain before the case can proceed to trial. Any trial would need to begin quickly if they are to be prosecuted by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. That is because Sean Teare, the former county prosecutor who ousted Ogg in the Democratic primary earlier this month, said he plans to take the district attorney’s office off the case.

Teare easily defeated Ogg in the primary following a campaign largely focused on the case against the former Hidalgo staffers. Teare accused Ogg of weaponizing her office against Hidalgo, who she previously had clashed with over policy differences and budgetary disputes. Ogg denied the claims, but voters preferred Teare by more than 55 percentage points. Teare said he will request on his first day in office that state District Judge Hazel Jones remove the Harris County District Attorney’s office from the Hidalgo staffers’ case and hand it off to a nearby county’s district attorney. “I want to remove politics from it by getting a completely independent DA’s office that has no relationship with anyone involved to look at it and just make a determination,” Teare said. “I think that is the way you can ensure we are not dealing with any type of political malfeasance.” Teare first must defeat another former prosecutor, Republican Dan Simons, in the November general election. Simons called Teare’s decision to comment on the case “highly inappropriate” in a statement Wednesday.

Houston Chronicle - March 21, 2024

David Carroll and John Williams: How to run elections that Republicans and Democrats can agree on

(David Carroll is director of the Democracy Program at The Carter Center, which has observed more than 115 elections in 40 countries, including the United States. John Williams is co-director of the Baker Institute’s Presidential Elections Program, which offers nonpartisan analysis during and after presidential elections.) A growing number of Americans are concerned about the legitimacy of election results, and it’s partly due to the hyper-partisanship in politics nowadays. But party differences are not new. And in the past, they proved to be productive. For instance, former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, were intense adversaries. Yet their fierce political battles helped shape the nation. And they both believed elections “are the heart of democracy.” The leadership both men practiced is consistently different from what we see today. Each sought common ground with their adversaries, often defining challenges in ways that opposing sides could support. They both recognized that when opponents can agree on overall goals, they have a better chance of building consensus to achieve them.

The U.S. election system — and the democracy it supports — must be a national priority. With that in mind, the Carter Institute and the Baker Institute for Public Policy suggest these 10 principles to guide our elections: America’s election system — and the democracy it supports — must be a national priority. Election laws and policies should be clear, transparent and well-communicated to the public. Voter registration should be widely available to all who qualify. It should be easily accomplished, secure and well-run. Voting — specifically the act of receiving and casting a ballot — should be flexible enough to meet voters’ needs equitably. Voting technology should be a gateway, not a barrier, to the voting process. States and localities should prioritize policies that allow ballots to be cast and received on or before election day so that the final count can be completed as soon as possible after the close of polls. Military and overseas voters should continue having the opportunity to cast timely and valid ballots. Tabulation of election returns should be transparent and proceed in an orderly fashion. Jurisdictions should commit to regular and rigorous audits of the election process. And the U.S. should embrace recognized standards and best practices for elections and welcome nonpartisan independent election observation efforts.

Dallas Morning News - March 21, 2024

Joe Biden, in Dallas for fundraisers, asks donors to ‘look how far we’ve come’

President Joe Biden, in Dallas for two private fundraising events, told supporters Wednesday night that Americans are better off today than when Donald Trump was in the White House. “Four years later look how far we’ve come,” Biden told donors at an event hosted by Dallas lawyer Russell Budd. “Donald Trump is not president, that’s the first thing.” Biden pointed to Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as evidence of how Americans struggled during Trump’s administration, adding that under his watch there have been advances in cutting health care costs, creating more manufacturing jobs and rebuilding roads and bridges. “Does anyone here want to go back to 2020?” Biden asked, adding that “the problem is where he wants to take us now.”

Biden said that if Trump were reelected he would try to repeal the Affordable Care Act and sign a national ban on abortions. “Look at the judges he put on the bench,” Biden asked. “Imagine who else he would put on the bench.” Biden said Trump was dividing America. “I see a picture of America where we don’t demonize, where we leave hate behind,” Biden said. “We can’t stand for this stuff,” he added. “We have to say, in one voice, … “There’s no place for violence in America.” Biden flew into Dallas in the evening for the political fundraiser hosted by Budd, a prolific Democratic Party donor who held past Biden fundraisers, including a 2019 event at his home, and a second fundraiser hosted by Dallas businessman and physician Kneeland Youngblood, who was a key bundler for President Barack Obama. Budd said his fundraiser netted $2.5 million. Biden also has a Thursday fundraising reception planned in Houston. State Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, panned Biden’s two-day visit to Texas. “From Biden’s failed economic policies that have caused prices to spike, to his open border policies that make us less safe, we are worse off under Biden,” Shaheen told The Dallas Morning News. “We need Trump back in the White House.”

Dallas Morning News - March 21, 2024

Texans are leading the way on IRS pilot program for direct filing of tax returns

A Texan was the first person to use a new, free electronic tax return filing system, and thousands have followed suit since, but millions more are eligible. The IRS launched the pilot program known as Direct File in a dozen states this year, including Texas. About 50,000 people in those states have used it so far. While the exact number of Texas filers in the system was not immediately available, the Treasury Department says the state has the most filers on a per capita basis. But as April 15 approaches, many more can use it – a total of 3.8 million Texans are eligible. “We want as many of them as possible to do so because it means that they will save money – because the tool of course is free – and we think they will save time because we think the tool is intuitive and easier to use than many of the other alternative ways of filing taxes,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.

Dallas Morning News - March 21, 2024

Rollercoaster rulings on Texas’ immigration law causes confusion for law enforcement

Back and forth court rulings over Texas’ new immigration law left local and state law enforcement agencies struggling to understand their mandate as the legal ground repeatedly shifted. Monday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court extended an order blocking Senate Bill 4 — which seeks to give the state a role in arresting and deporting migrants — only to reverse course Tuesday morning and give Texas permission to enforce the law, which had been struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in February. That changed again around 10 p.m. Tuesday, when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked SB 4. The appeals court followed by hearing oral arguments Wednesday about whether Texas should be allowed to enforce the law while its judges determine whether it is constitutional.

The legal whiplash had some law enforcement agencies scrambling to receive guidance from the state or the Texas Department of Public Safety — the agency that would be in charge of handling a bulk of the arrests under SB4, which created a series of new state crimes for unauthorized migrants who crossed into the state. In Maverick County, home to Eagle Pass, which has been the epicenter of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security crackdown, Sheriff Tom Schmerber said his deputies did not enforce the law in the nine hours it was in effect. “I don’t have the information, and I don’t have the manpower,” Schmerber said Wednesday. “I don’t have the resources to be able to process immigrants.” Schmerber said his office has about 32 deputies. To begin making arrests, Schmerber said he would need closer to 90 deputies to patrol the county and enforce the new sweeping immigration law as well as other laws. In Kinney County, Sheriff Brad Coe said his deputies were ready to begin making arrests if there was probable cause to detain migrants believed to be in the state illegally. His deputies made no arrests Tuesday. It’s not clear if DPS troopers who were already stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border under Operation Lone Star — the state’s multibillion dollar border security effort — attempted to enforce the law Tuesday.

Fort Worth Report - March 21, 2024

In unprecedented move, a candidate won a precinct chair election. Then the Tarrant Republican Party chair deemed him ineligible

Chris Rector won a Republican primary election to chair Tarrant County Precinct 4230 with 75% of the vote. A week later, the head of the Tarrant County Republican Party declared him ineligible. Party Chairman Bo French sent Rector a letter, dated March 13, in which he accused Rector of pretending to be a Republican in order to dissolve the party and merge it with the Tarrant County Democratic Party. As a result, French wrote, he would not issue a certificate of election to Rector. “Under our governing parliamentary authority, the Republican Party of Tarrant County is not obligated to permit as members Democrats who are set on dissolving the Republican Party and disrupting our operations,” French wrote in a statement to the Fort Worth Report.

Rector disputes French’s allegations — and said he is considering filing complaints of voter suppression and election interference with the Tarrant County Election Integrity Unit. The unit was formed by County Judge Tim O’Hare, Sheriff Bill Waybourn and Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells in 2023 to investigate election fraud. A political science expert told the Fort Worth Report he’d never seen a party chair declare someone ineligible after they’d won, and said it could result in a legal challenge in court. The Texas Secretary of State’s election administration office advised Rector, he said, that French’s actions were improper. The Texas Secretary of State declined to comment to the Report. “The fact is, he’s changed the outcome of the election because he didn’t like the results of it,” Rector said. Rector ran as a Democrat in 2022 during a primary election for Texas House District 97; public records show he also filed a statement of candidacy for Congress as a Democrat in June 2023, but withdrew from consideration and terminated his campaign committee in November 2023. He pointed toward his 2021 Fort Worth mayoral campaign, where he said he ran on a conservative platform. Questions about Rector’s eligibility should’ve been handled by the party chair before his application for a place on the ballot was accepted, Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University, said. “I would say shame on the county party chair, who couldn’t do his job in both recruiting and screening candidates for this,” he said.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - March 21, 2024

If trucks keep coming, so will tickets says North Texas city

Driving into Glen Rose just before noon on a warm March day, you can see the water and shoreline at Big Rocks Park packed with families. Just a few hundred feet away, nearly every seat in Shoo-Fly Soda Shop is filled as workers sling ice cream to families looking to cool off. A block over vendors are setting up for a market in the city’s center. For the North Texas city with a population just short of 3,000, the spring break crowd brings vibrancy and business to their quiet downtown, but city administrator Troy Hill is fixated on an intersection he believes poses a major safety threat to residents and visitors. From the corner of Elm and Barnard streets, collision after collision nearly occur as rock haulers and semitrucks — almost all from area quarries — attempt to turn onto lanes far too narrow for them. The roads are part of Texas 144, which runs from Granbury to Meridian.

There is no rhythm to the four way stop as the trucks honk at confused drivers, asking to go out of turn or waving their hands to signal to them to reverse or change lanes so they can make the turn. The issue is worse during spring break, because visitors aren’t familiar with the problem, Hill explained. In December, the city tried to enforce an ordinance that required trucks to take a route around downtown. It was quickly met with legal threats. In the months since, the Texas Department of Transportation and nearby quarries haven’t budged on the issue, according to Hill, which he said is forcing his hand. “We have legal options, obviously we don’t want to do that, but we could pursue it that way, “ Hill said. “At the end of the day we can enforce existing traffic laws if someone is making an unsafe turn. Whether it’s a truck or a car, we will ticket them for making an unsafe turn. “Does that affect certain types of automobiles or trucks more than others? I guess that’s up to them.” At the beginning of this year, the city posted signs asking large trucks to take an alternate route around the downtown.

Austin American-Statesman - March 21, 2024

Why UT president dismissed TAs grievances over work reassignments after pro-Palestinian note

University of Texas President Jay Hartzell recently dismissed two teaching assistants' grievances against their work reassignments after they sent in November a pro-Palestinian message on the class's messaging page. Callie Kennedy and Parham Daghighi spent dozens of hours writing statements, collecting evidence and gathering materials to argue their grievances alleging that their work reassignments constituted discipline and violated their academic freedom. But in a disposition sent last week, Hartzell officially dismissed the complaints, a decision that can't be appealed. “Academic freedom protects the ability of instructors to provide points of view and a fulsome discussion around classroom material. That is not what happened here," Hartzell said in a statement Wednesday to the American-Statesman.

"The statement distributed was overtly political, went beyond the classroom material, and is not protected under academic freedom. This boundary applies no matter the subject matter of the message." As an example, Hartzell said that if teaching assistants in a calculus class received permission to send "a political opinion statement" about the war in Ukraine, "that permission alone cannot bring the statement into relation with the calculus course for purposes of academic freedom." The former teaching assistants, however, have said that, with the class being focused on mental health and social justice being a principle of social work, it was relevant to offer support and resources to Palestinian students. In interviews with the Statesman, the graduate students described the university's grievance process as time consuming and laborious. The students also said the process was changed halfway through its course in a way, they alleged, that limited their due process, but the university said it made the process more efficient.

Texas Observer - March 21, 2024

A new documentary reveals the real Eagle Pass

The Flores siblings were supposed to leave their small Texas border town and make films together. Robie Flores, a self-described “awkward Tejana” teen who just wanted to “get the fuck out” of Eagle Pass to reinvent herself, had dreams of making movies with her brothers, Paco, Alex, and Marcelo. But their dreams were crushed when Marcelo, who went by Mars, died in 2015. He had recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin’s Radio-Television-Film program and was only 23. In the wake of her brother’s death, Flores returned home and reexamined her hometown through new eyes. This reappraisal is the basis of her new film, The In Between, an 82-minute feature documentary that premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin on March 9.

Using a combination of old footage recovered from Mars’ hard drives along with fresh film recorded by siblings in the wake of his death, The In Between serves as an homage to Mars’ memory, the culture of South Texas, and the Mexican-American youth who grow up there. The film begins with a man and child on a hike-and-bike trail in Piedras Negras, across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, looking across the river at Shelby Park on the U.S. side, where Eagle Pass is hosting a festival. The camera pans to the international bridge, connecting the sister cities, and Flores introduces herself and her relationship to la frontera. “I must have crossed this bridge a million times,” she recalled. “But the first time I remember was when I was five. That was when my brothers, the twins Mars and Alex, were born.” Her parents had crossed to the Mexican side of the bridge the day before the twins were born, Flores continued, because the hospitals were better. The In Between explores both the magical and the mundane aspects of border life: kayaking on the Rio Grande, Texas football and Friday Night Lights with team chants in Spanish, young girls dancing and dressed up in Selena’s iconic sparkly purple jumpsuit, teenagers dancing at quinceañeras, stands of nopales, and coyotes crossing the street.

City Stories

Austin American-Statesman - March 21, 2024

Austin police union appears ready to comply with voter-approved oversight ordinance

Wednesday's bargaining session between the city and the Austin police union appears to show that the association could be ready to comply with the voter-approved city ordinance to increase police oversight — signifying an about-face from last week when the Austin Police Association said it was "not our intention to be in compliance with Prop A." The second meeting between the city and the union representing officers with the Austin Police Department ended in less than 10 minutes on Wednesday, as the two parties decided to postpone bargaining on the contract as the union stated it needed more time to work through the city's oversight proposals. Both sides agreed to come back in about a month to work on the "complex issues," namely those related to oversight and the release of officer personnel information typically withheld from the public.

As was discussed last week during the first day of bargaining — the first time the city and the Austin Police Association came together in more than a year — the current contract talks have a whole new slate of things to be bargained since voters approved the Austin Police Oversight Act, also known as Proposition A, last May. Among other things, the proposition called for the department to do away with the "G-file," a personnel file held by the Police Department that is not accessible to the public and holds information such as complaints lodged against officers that were determined to be unsubstantiated. Michael Bullock, president of the Austin Police Association, has told the American-Statesman that the union is concerned this would harm officers by making that information available to the public. Mayor Kirk Watson, who has been pushing to get both sides to the table, has said that a "G-file" cannot be included in the contract.

Houston Chronicle - March 21, 2024

Houston approves 100% tax exemption for some child care centers, Harris County likely to follow suit

In an effort to mitigate widespread closures due to a federal funding cutoff, Houston City Council approved a 100% property tax exemption for eligible child care facilities, and Harris County officials are planning to consider a similar policy in the coming days. Last November, Texas voters approved a statewide proposition allowing cities and counties to offer qualified child care providers tax breaks covering at least 50% of the property’s appraised value. Since then, Austin, Dallas, Bexar and El Paso counties, among others, have all moved forward with a 100% exemption for local child care facilities. Houston City Council approved the 100% tax exemption for qualified child care centers Wednesday in a 12-4 vote. Meanwhile, Harris County Commissioners Court is expected to review a similar measure next week, according to Scott Spiegel, a spokesperson for Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia.

The aim of the new policies, according to city and county officials, is to help mitigate the funding shortfall threatening to shudder thousands of local child care facilities. From March 2020 to September 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 580 Harris County child care businesses – a fifth of the county’s total facilities – shut down, research from nonprofit Children at Risk shows. In April 2021, the federal government approved $24 billion in subsidies to support the industry. By last September, however, these funds had been depleted, leading to what some advocates have termed a “child care cliff.” A 2023 survey by the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children, which included 1,800 child care providers across the state, revealed only 31% were likely to remain open without additional financial support. The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, recently estimated that the funding shortfall could result in the closures of nearly 4,000 care child businesses in Texas.

National Stories

Wall Street Journal - March 21, 2024

Short-term rates are sharply higher. Long-term rates are steadier. What’s a central bank to do?

The Federal Reserve is still aiming to lower interest rates later this year, and for many U.S. households and small businesses those rate cuts can’t come soon enough. But for big companies able to tap the corporate bond market, and for investors riding a rising stock market, relief from the Fed doesn’t seem all that necessary. The Fed on Wednesday left its federal-funds rate target steady at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, the highest level in more than two decades. But it left in place plans to cut interest rates this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell again characterized the level of rates as “restrictive,” and said that “it will likely be appropriate to begin dialing back policy restraint at some point this year.” Changes in the Fed’s benchmark fed-funds rate have a strong effect on a variety of short-term rates, such as those on bank deposits and money-market funds. But their influence on longer-term rates, such as those on corporate bonds, can be more tenuous.

The idea that the Fed’s target rate is restrictive is driven by a variety of models, many of them versions of the Taylor rule put forth by the Stanford economist John Taylor. These calculate where the Fed should set rates based on its inflation target, current inflation, estimates of how much slack there is in the economy, and estimates of where rates will eventually need to settle. Three versions of the rule calculated by the Atlanta Fed suggest the Fed’s target rate should now be 3.9% to 4.7%. A lot of Americans probably don’t need to consult the Taylor rule to conclude rates are restrictive: They can just look at the interest their credit-card accounts are charging. The average interest rate on commercial bank credit-card plans in the fourth quarter was 21.5%, according to the Fed. That is the highest in the 30 years of available data, and compares with just 14.9% in the fourth quarter of 2019, right before the pandemic hit. Recent research from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and co-authors suggests that households’ high borrowing costs might even help explain what has been a bit of a mystery: Why, despite a strong job market and moderating inflation, consumer moods remain so dour.

Bloomberg - March 21, 2024

Justice Department to sue Apple for antitrust violations as soon as Thursday

The Justice Department is poised to sue Apple Inc. as soon as Thursday, accusing the world’s second most valuable tech company of violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features of its iPhone. The suit, which is expected to be filed in federal court, according to people familiar with the matter, escalates the Biden administration’s antitrust fights against most of the biggest US technology giants. The Justice Department is already suing Alphabet Inc.’s Google for monopolization, while the Federal Trade Commission is pursuing antitrust cases against Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

Apple and the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The people familiar asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter. Apple shares fell as much as 1.4% to $176.10 in late trading on the news. They had been down 7.2% this year through Wednesday’s close. The coming case will mark the third time that the Justice Department has sued Apple for antitrust violations in the past 14 years, but it is the first case accusing the iPhone maker of illegally maintaining its dominant position. The lawsuit comes as Apple also is coming under increasing scrutiny in Europe over alleged anticompetitive behavior. The company was hit with a €1.8 billion fine this month for shutting out music streaming rivals from offering cheaper deals. Apple’s appealing the penalty and has said that regulators failed to uncover any “credible evidence of consumer harm.”

Washington Post - March 21, 2024

‘Very, very troubling’: Judges, lawyers flummoxed by Judge Cannon

Lawyers and former judges said they are baffled by an order issued this week by the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s pending trial on charges that he mishandled classified documents — and believe her instructions suggest the case will not go to trial anytime soon. “In my 30 years as a trial judge, I have never seen an order like this,” said Jeremy Fogel, who served on the federal bench in California and now runs the Berkeley Judicial Institute. On Monday evening, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered the defense lawyers and the prosecutors in the case to file submissions outlining proposed jury instructions based on two scenarios, each of which badly misstates the law and facts of the case, according to legal experts.

She has given the sides two weeks to craft jury instructions around competing interpretations of the Presidential Records Act, often referred to as the PRA. While the law says presidential records belong to the public and are to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of a presidency, Trump’s lawyers have argued the PRA gave Trump the right to keep classified materials as his personal property. “What she has asked the parties to do is very, very troubling,” Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts, said of Cannon. “She is giving credence to arguments that are on their face absurd. She is ignoring a raft of other motions, equally absurd, that are unreasonably delaying the case.” Trump’s team has argued that under the PRA, he automatically designated the classified records he is accused of willfully retaining as personal documents when he removed them from the White House and took them to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and private club. Prosecutors and legal experts have rejected Trump’s interpretation and said the former president’s reading of the PRA is simply wrong.

Washington Post - March 21, 2024

Trump dominated Florida GOP primary, but didn’t beat his 2020 numbers

Former president Donald Trump may have captured an overwhelming percentage of the Republican vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary — but he was unable to match his own numbers from the last election. Eighty-one percent of GOP voters cast their ballots for Trump, significantly less than the 93 percent he won in 2020 primary. Former GOP candidates Nikki Haley got 14 percent of the vote, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drawing 4 percent. Though both are no longer in the race, their names remained on the ballot. DeSantis said Wednesday that people shouldn’t read too much into the votes for Haley over Trump because thousands of early mail-in ballots were cast before Haley dropped out. But analysts nonetheless note that the lower numbers in 2024 could indicate an enthusiasm gap among Republicans as Trump seeks to return to the White House.

“There are some early indicators that Republicans who are opposed to Donald Trump are a little firmer in that position than would be typically true during what we call the consolidation period, when party partisan voters tend to come home,” said Kevin Wagner, chairman of the political science department at Florida Atlantic University. Wagner said it’s impossible to say whether early voters who sent in their ballots for Haley would have changed their vote after she dropped out. But a vote for Haley nevertheless offers some hint at the headwinds Trump might face in the general election, he said. “Haley was a long shot, almost from the moment that it was a one-on-one,” the professor said. “And so a Haley vote in some ways is always going to be, at least to some extent, a protest vote against the former president.” Political analysts don’t expect Florida to return to its battleground state status, as GOP voter registration has far surpassed Democrats in the past four years. However, they say Tuesday’s results should ring some warning bells for the Trump campaign.

San Antonio Express-News - March 21, 2024

EPA loosens car emission standard, allowing more time and greater reliance on plug-in hybrids

The Biden administration announced final car emissions standards Wednesday that will force a dramatic shift away from gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles while giving automakers more time to transition to fully electric models than was initially proposed last year, senior administration officials said. The final version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s clean car standard, which would take effect in 2027 and run through 2032, delays emissions targets and permits greater reliance on hybrid and plug-in hybrid models that partially rely on petroleum-based fuels, changes the auto industry had lobbied for. The EPA is now projecting the emissions standard will result in electric vehicles accounting for as much as 56% of cars sold in 2032, compared with more than two-thirds in last year’s draft regulation.

While the final rule will not result in as great a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions — 50% compared with 56% in the draft — senior officials said the final rule would be “more durable” than the proposal they released last April. Emissions from medium-duty vehicles are projected to decline 44%, the same as in last year’s proposed rule. “With transportation as the largest source of U.S. climate emissions, these strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future and creating good-paying American jobs, all while advancing President Biden’s historic climate agenda,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. Even with increased flexibility for automakers, the new emissions standards are likely to upend the oil sector’s almost centurylong dominance over the transportation sector. That represents a threat to oil companies in Texas and beyond, with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel currently representing more than two-thirds of U.S. petroleum demand.

Religion News Service - March 21, 2024

Sen. Schumer called for Israel’s new elections. American Jews fractured.

An umbrella group of major U.S. Jewish organizations issued a statement Tuesday (March 19) saying it had “deep reservations” about Sen. Chuck Schumer’s speech on the Senate floor last week in which he branded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel a major impediment to peace in the Middle East and called for elections to replace him when the war winds down. The group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, representing 50 of the largest U.S. American organizations, said in its statement that it was “distressed” that Schumer, the Senate majority leader, would suggest to Israel how it should conduct its electoral process, adding, “We believe that at a time when Israel is fighting an existential war, on the embers of the 1200 innocents massacred on October 7th, it is not a time for public criticisms that serve only to empower the detractors of Israel, and which foster greater divisiveness, when unity is so desperately needed.”

The Conference of Presidents met for a 45-minute conference call with Schumer earlier this week to discuss his speech. Afterward, CEO William Daroff and board chair Harriet P. Schleifer issued the statement. Within hours, several of the council’s member groups took to social media to say the statement does not represent them. On Wednesday, the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest U.S. Jewish denomination, and seven other Jewish organizations put out a rebuttal, saying the Conference of Presidents’ words were “divisive and unfair.” “Their statement does not reflect the views of several member entities who support much of the important content of Sen. Schumer’s speech, or even those who disagreed with some of what he said but understood that this speech was a constructive critique made by one of the U.S. Congress’ most passionate champions of a strong and safe Israel,” the URJ’s statement said. In addition to the URJ, those taking issue with the Conference of Presidents included the National Council for Jewish Women, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Central Conference of America’s Rabbis, and Americans for Peace Now. Separately, a group of 1,700 former Israeli air force pilots backed Schumer’s call for new Israeli elections.

NPR - March 21, 2024

This year it's a slow crawl to financial aid packages for students

Prospective college students are one step closer to financial aid packages this week, but the timeline is still months behind. This "is definitely one of the stranger years that we've had," says Keith Raab, director of financial aid at Oregon State University. That's because, this year, the U.S. Department of Education gave the federal student aid application, or FAFSA, a long-awaited makeover. The goal of the revamp was to simplify the form, and when it works, it is easier to fill out. Unfortunately, the effort has been marked by delays and bugs that have caused confusion in higher education and in high schools – not to mention the millions of students waiting to learn how much money they'll have for college.

NPR - March 21, 2024

Rupert Murdoch and new 'Washington Post' CEO accused of cover-up in hacking scandal

For the first time, media titan Rupert Murdoch was accused in court of personally knowing about phone hacking and other illegal acts by his British tabloids stretching back nearly two decades, far earlier than he admitted, and giving "knowingly false" evidence under oath in an official inquiry. In addition, lawyers for Britain's Prince Harry, the actor Hugh Grant and other prominent figures accused The Washington Post's new publisher and chief executive, Will Lewis, of actively plotting to cover up senior executives' role in the scandal when he worked for the Murdoch publishing empire in London, now called News UK. NPR previously reported on these allegations against Lewis, but Wednesday's presentation fleshed them out with damning detail. The accusations threaten to tether the two men together at a time when Lewis is seeking to push forward in his new role at the Post. Lewis and the Post declined comment through a newspaper spokesperson. An aide to Murdoch did not respond to a query seeking comment from the 93-year-old media mogul.

The accusations arose during an effort by litigants to amend their phone-hacking lawsuit against Murdoch's British newspaper arm. If successful, the case would lodge broader and deeper charges that place Murdoch, Lewis and News UK chief Rebekah Brooks, among other executives, at center stage. Harry and the others are suing over a variety of forms of invasion of privacy, which include phone hacking, computer hacking, and payments to acquire confidential personal information. Brooks, a former chief editor of Murdoch's News of the World and Sun tabloids, resigned as the head of his British publishing empire amid the scandal. She returned to the same job in 2015 after she was acquitted of criminal charges related to the hacking. Harry's lawyer, David Sherborne, wrote in legal briefs in support of the argument that Brooks "lied and/or gave deliberately misleading evidence" at her criminal trial. Sherborne is representing 40 plaintiffs. Murdoch's News UK says the allegations and the documents on which they are based are too old to justify broadening the scope of the lawsuits.