Lead Stories

Stagflation? Fed sees higher inflation and an economy growing by less than 2% this year

Federal Reserve officials slashed their economic outlook in the latest projections released Wednesday, seeing the U.S. economy growing at a pace lower than 2%. The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee downgraded its collective outlook for economic growth to 1.7%, down from the last projection of 2.1% in December. In the meantime, officials hiked their inflation outlook, seeing core prices growing at a 2.8% annual pace, up from the previous estimate of 2.5%. The moves suggested the central bank sees the risk of a stagflation scenario, where inflation rises as economic growth slows. In a statement, the FOMC noted the “uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased,” adding that the Fed is “attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate.”

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Fears of an economic slowdown and inflation reacceleration have increased significantly as President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs on key U.S. trading partners are expected to raise prices of goods and services and dent consumer spending. “Inflation has started to move up now. We think partly in response to tariffs and there may be a delay in further progress over the course of this year,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference. “Overall, it’s a solid picture. The survey data both household and businesses show significant large rising uncertainty and significant concerns about downside risks.” For now, the Fed still expects to make two rate cuts for the remainder of 2025, according to the median projection, even as the inflation outlook was raised. The so-called dot plot indicated that 19 FOMC members, both voters and nonvoters, see the benchmark fed funds rate at 3.9% by the end of this year, equivalent to a target range of 3.75% to 4%. The central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged in a range between 4.25%-4.5% on Wednesday. Still, their view has leaned more hawkish in their rate projection, with four members seeing no rate changes in 2025. At the January meeting, just one official foresaw no changes in interest rates this year.

Judges threatened with impeachment, bombs for ruling against Trump agenda

Federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration this year are confronting a wave of threats, potentially compromising their personal safety and the independence of the judiciary. The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a bomb threat earlier this month, and lower court judges who hit pause on some of President Trump's efforts to dismantle federal agencies and programs have been singled out on social media. Republican lawmakers close to the president even have proposed impeachment proceedings against a few of those judges, who serve for life. Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency making cuts to federal agencies, himself has repeatedly posted on social media about impeaching judges who delay or block parts of Trump's agenda.

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Efforts to undermine the judiciary come at the same time the Trump administration has moved to fire lawyers inside the Justice Department and the Pentagon, penalize private law firms who represented clients Trump does not like, and to back away from participation in the activities of the American Bar Association. Judge Richard Sullivan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said in his lifetime four federal judges have been killed in retaliation for their work on the bench. "This is not hypothetical," Sullivan, who leads a Judicial Conference panel on security issues, told reporters in a news conference this week. The Judicial Conference is a representative body of federal judges that frames policies for courts. "It's real. It's happened before. We have to be certain that it doesn't happen again," he said. The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary group of more than 1,000 judges across the nation, said the judiciary plays a "critical role in preserving democracy and a law-abiding society."

Texas’ 1.2 million English-learning students at risk amid layoffs

Statewide and national child advocates are sounding the alarm on impacts to emergent bilingual students, one group among many who have been left with less academic support and resources after mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education. Almost half of staff at the federal department were recently cut as part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to reduce staff across multiple federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Education cuts have resulted in the disbandment of the department’s Office of Language Acquisition, which provides support to English-learning, emergent bilingual students. This student population is among the fastest-growing in Texas with 20% of students statewide — about 1.2 million — identified as emergent bilingual, according to the Texas Education Agency. The apparent elimination of federal oversight for these students, advocates say, could prompt them to fall behind academically, disengage from school and face lower graduation rates.

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“One of the things that a lot of people don’t understand is that while immigration may have partly something to do with this, we are a Latino state in many ways. We are a legal immigration hub in many ways. We have a lot of children here that are American citizens, that are still bi-language learners,” said Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of Children at Risk, during a virtual press conference on Wednesday, March 19. “This decision effectively eliminates federal leadership, educator support and resources designed to help emergent bilingual kids succeed in school,” he added. According to Children at Risk, a Texas research and advocacy nonprofit focused on improving children’s quality of life, Texas’ emergent bilingual student population grew by 49% from 2013 to 2023. The Texas state director of Emgage, a group of organizations dedicated to politically empowering Muslim American communities, shared a story of an emergent bilingual student who received support through middle and high school and graduated speaking fluent English. He is now working full-time and attending college to obtain his bachelor’s degree. Jida Nabulsi, the state director, said many emergent bilingual students don’t realize they have the same opportunities as this student to open doors for themselves.

Texas THC retailers should close as proposed ban looms, Lt. Gov. Patrick warns

Sellers of gummies, vapes, drinks and other retail products containing synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol — or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — should shut their doors “voluntarily” or the state would be doing it for them, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick warned Wednesday. Hours later, the Texas Senate approved its bill creating a total ban on the products in a 24-7 vote, sending it to the House. Patrick said he would push the Legislature into multiple special sessions beyond the June 2 end date if that’s what it takes to rid Texas of nearly 8,300 retailers operating in shops, gas stations and other outlets under state agriculture laws. Only Gov. Greg Abbott can call a special session.

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“We’re going to ban your stores before we leave here for good, whether it’s in May or July or August,” Patrick said during a news conference. “This is a poison in our public and we, as a Legislature — our number one responsibility is life and death issues.” His remarks come a day after a video surfaced of Patrick going into a THC shop near a middle school in South Austin — the latest in a growing series of personal investigations the powerful lieutenant governor is doing this session. A shop employee is heard asking for his identification as the store requires customers to be at least 21. Those in the industry are pushing back on Patrick’s efforts. “Concerns about semi-synthetic THC can be directly addressed through regulatory enforcement and by legalizing natural cannabis,” Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center, said in a statement. “It is Texas' commitment to prohibition that has created this market for converted cannabinoids in the first place.”

State Stories

She won Lotto Texas jackpot but state isn't yet handing over the $83.5M: 'I'm just angry'

The person who purchased the winning ticket for the $83.5 million Lotto Texas jackpot in the Feb. 17 drawing came forward to collect her prize Tuesday but was sent away empty-handed because of the mushrooming controversy over the use of third-party vendors who broker ticket sales through smartphone apps. The person, who spoke with the American-Statesman on the condition that her name not be used because of privacy concern, said she did nothing illegal or wrong when she purchased $20 worth of tickets using a phone app she has used on and off to buy Lotto and scratch-off tickets. Still, her payment is being held up pending the outcome of an investigation by the Texas Rangers. "I've gone through frustration and being sad and stressed," she said in an interview that included her lawyer, Randy Howry of Austin. "And now I'm just angry."

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Just days before the drawing that would change the winner's life, lottery Executive Director Ryan Mindell and members of the lottery's governing board were excoriated during a Texas Senate Finance Committee hearing because third-party operators, called courier companies, had bypassed the state's prohibition of selling game tickets by telephone. Mindell at the time told the Senate panel that he had no authority over the companies, because they were legally making in-person purchases from licensed lottery retailers. Still, several committee members said the companies could be used by unscrupulous buyers who might be underage or otherwise ineligible to play the Texas Lottery. The members were especially upset that a courier company was used to make a bulk purchase totaling more than $25 million to buy up more than 99% of the possible number combinations to win a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot in April 2023. Although the bulk purchase did not go through an app, Mindell was told that he should have suspected that the massive purchase of tickets could have involved a money launderer who was using the state-run lottery to legitimize profits from illicit enterprises.

How bogged down are Harris County courts? This Houston man was jailed for 18 years without a trial

Last spring, as local officials were taking a closer look at the thousands of inmates in the Harris County Jail, they discovered something shocking: a man who had been locked up for 18 years without a trial. Edric Wilson, who is now 47, was accused of murdering the great-aunt of Lakewood Church Pastor Joel Osteen back in 2006. He also faced a separate aggravated assault charge involving a different victim from earlier that year. Both cases then languished for nearly two decades, winding their way through six district attorneys’ administrations, three judges and six court-appointed defense lawyers. Finally, on Aug. 30, 2024, Harris County prosecutors dismissed the murder charge against Wilson after concluding that the key piece of evidence linking him to the woman’s death, a DNA test result, was far weaker than they’d originally believed. He pleaded guilty to the unrelated aggravated assault charge and was released on parole last month.

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“I think there were failures at every level,” said Sean Teare, who was sworn in as Harris County District Attorney a few months after Wilson’s charges were resolved. “It’s a tragic case, and the thing that it spells out is, people can fall through the cracks.” Authorities declined to comment on whether the murder investigation might be reopened. Members of the Osteen family declined to comment. Wilson is one of about 230 people who county staffers identified last year had been in the Harris County Jail for more than 1,000 days. That number has since gone up, county data shows. Along with another 1,350 who have been behind bars for at least a year, the group is a major driver of the Houston region’s ongoing jail population crisis, and it shows no signs of shrinking. “A broken, ineffective, slow system doesn't benefit anyone, including victims,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a previous interview with the Houston Chronicle. “People deserve their day in court, and if cases are prosecuted fully, we should hold people accountable … but people are just getting stuck here.”

South San ISD adopts controversial Bible-infused curriculum

South San Antonio Independent School District is switching to a controversial, Bible-infused curriculum next year — but not before setting up a committee to vet the learning materials for "inappropriate" content. The South San ISD board of managers unanimously approved the purchase of the state-written lessons and textbooks known collectively as Bluebonnet Learning on Monday, at the district’s second meeting since being taken over by the Texas Education Agency. South San’s new superintendent, Saul Hinojosa, recommended adopting the curriculum to address the district’s historically poor performance on standardized testing compared to the rest of the state, region and city. He said Bluebonnet Learning will help close those gaps in academic outcomes.

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“I know there’s some concern as you read out there of this particular curriculum, but we are going to have some safeguards by formulating a committee that’s going to consist of teachers, parents and board members that will audit the curriculum,” he said. “If there’s anything we feel is inappropriate, we will have the ability to pull that out and change that little piece.” South San is one of the few San Antonio school systems to approve the widely debated curriculum since it was narrowly approved by eight of the 15 members of the State Board of Education in November. Harlandale ISD voted to adopt it at a December board meeting. Other local school districts, including East Central, Edgewood, Judson and Southwest ISDs, have approved portions of the curriculum. Bluebonnet Learning was created through House Bill 1605, which directed the Texas Education Agency to develop textbooks that align with state standards. The curriculum is free to access online, and school district are paid $60 per student to adopt it — $40 for using its instructional materials and $20 to cover printing the Bluebonnet textbooks.

Police, firefighters’ unions stay out of San Antonio mayor’s race — for now

The city’s deep-pocketed police and firefighters’ unions are staying out of the race to replace Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who is term-limited from seeking reelection — at least until voters narrow the crowded field of 27 contenders on May 3. With that many candidates, a runoff election is widely expected. The San Antonio Police Officers’ Association and the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association could decide to endorse one of the top two vote-getters who makes it to the June 7 runoff. “At this point in time, with several candidates that could literally step in and have a profound impact on our community right out of the gate, we think that it’s better to let the community kind of pare that list down before we weigh in,” said Joe Jones, president of the firefighters’ union.

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Those vying for the mayor’s seat include Council Members Manny Peláez, John Courage, Melissa Cabello Havrda and Adriana Rocha Garcia, and former Councilman Clayton Perry. Other major candidates include tech entrepreneur Beto Altamirano, former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, and former U.S. Air Force Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones. All 10 council seats are up for election and those who are elected, or reelected, will serve a four-year term instead of a two-year one, the result of a city charter amendment that voters approved last fall. The new mayor and council will also earn substantially more, with the next mayor taking home $87,800 annually (up from $61,725) and council members earning $70,200 (from $45,722). The next mayor and City Council will vote on new labor contracts with both unions, starting with the San Antonio Police Officers’ Association. Its collective bargaining agreement with the city expires on Sept. 30, 2026, while the contract the City Council approved with the firefighters’ union last September runs through September 2027.

Google to set sail in 35-story downtown Austin tower near Lady Bird Lake this year

After several delays over the past couple of years, Google Inc. has confirmed it will finally be moving into the high-profile, 35-story sail-shaped tower in downtown Austin this year. “We look forward to opening our new Austin office at 601 W 2nd this year that deepens our longstanding commitment to Texas and the local community," Ryan Lamont, a Google spokesperson, said via email Tuesday. Six years ago, Google signed a lease for the entire building overlooking Lady Bird Lake. Completed in 2022, the building — one of the newest and most recognizable on Austin's skyline — is leased to Google through 2038. But the sail-shaped tower has sat empty due to the new world order that has defined the office market since the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in remote and hybrid work. Work-from-home has led to rising vacancy rates in many office buildings, both in Austin and around the country.

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Bob Sanborn and Caroline Roberts: Texas can't afford to leave half a million young people behind

(Bob Sanborn is the president and CEO of Children at Risk, a Texas-based, nonpartisan research and advocacy group. Caroline Roberts is the group's general counsel and senior director of policy.) The future of Texas' economy is at risk, yet the solution is hiding in plain sight. Nearly 500,000 Texans between the ages of 16 and 24 are neither working nor in school. That's roughly equivalent to the population of Lubbock and Waco combined. These young people, whom advocates call Opportunity Youth and Young Adults, represent both our greatest challenge and our greatest potential for economic growth. This challenge is particularly urgent given the ever-changing demands of our workforce. Gov. Greg Abbott announced that expanding career training is an emergency item for this legislative session. The governor highlighted that by 2030, more than 60% of jobs in Texas will require some form of post-secondary education or training. Yet as it is now, less than 40% of Texas students attain a degree or workforce training within six years of graduating from high school. This skills gap threatens to leave even more young Texans behind while employers struggle to fill critical positions. Texas is failing thousands of young people who need a bridge to opportunity. Almost half of disconnected youth in Texas lack health insurance, and 1 in 4 rely on SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps.

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We have the tools to make a difference. The Texas Workforce Commission is investing $80 million in youth programs for 2025. These funds can be used to help young people get back on a career or education pathway. While this money represents a significant commitment, we are not making the most of these resources. Why? Because we lack basic transparency about how these funds are being used and what results they're achieving. Three straightforward policy changes in Senate Bill 1143, authored by Sen. Ce´sar Blanco, D-El Paso, and its companion, HB 3173, authored by Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, could transform how we serve these young Texans. First, Texas must track and report how workforce development funds are being allocated for young adults. Without transparency, we have no way to measure program effectiveness or make necessary improvements. You can't improve what you don't measure, and right now, we're flying blind on program effectiveness. Second, local workforce boards must develop specific strategies for engaging opportunity youth, complete with clear goals and performance measures. This is not just about accountability, but ensuring that successful programs can be replicated across our state.

AI rush has TPG-backed intersect in talks on Texas data centers

Intersect Power, a clean-energy developer backed by private equity firm TPG Inc., is in talks with technology companies to build two enormous data center sites in Texas, the latest sign that the race to develop artificial intelligence continues to heat up. Intersect is marketing two locations in the Texas panhandle, one capable of supporting a three-gigawatt data center and another that could host a one-gigawatt facility, Intersect Chief Executive Officer Sheldon Kimber said in an interview. Intersect is in talks about the sites with big hyperscalers who want to train AI models, he said, declining to name the companies.

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A gigawatt is typically enough to power 250,000 homes in Texas. “It’s the Disneyland of energy,” he said of the state. The wind and the sun in Texas can power the sites about 70% of the time, he said, with the grid or an on-site plant fueled by natural gas able to provide the rest. “We’re essentially going to be building microgrids that interact with the grid, and at a gigawatt scale.” Remote areas of the US, including parts of Texas, are attracting attention from the world’s biggest tech firms as they pursue the electricity generation and space they need to build data centers that power AI. Intersect partnered with Google and TPG Rise Climate in December to develop the facilities alongside new clean-energy sources. With data centers and other large loads taking up an increasing amount of grid interconnections, developers will need to build more and more of their own power, according to Kimber. “We see the potential for truly off-grid data centers where the onsite gas fills in for the role of the grid in firming the onsite renewables,” he said.

John Soriano and Chad Engelland: Why Irving must say no to casino plan

(John Soriano, Ph.D., is assistant professor of economics, and Chad Engelland, Ph.D., is professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas, which is adjacent to the site of the proposed casino. Both live with their families in south Irving.) A striking contrast occurred at last Friday’s Town Hall in Irving, where more than 500 residents showed their opposition to the behemoth casino resort that the Las Vegas Sands Corp. is seeking to bring to Irving. A crucial step in bringing that casino a stone’s throw away from where our children live and go to school is an upcoming vote by the Irving City Council on whether to rezone the land formerly occupied by Texas Stadium for a casino resort. After an hour of fielding angry question after question, the Sands’ spokesman asked from the mic for a member of his team to bring him some water. No one did. The questions continued. The Rev. John Bayer, a Cistercian monk and a member of the monastery that would be a neighbor to the casino resort, noticed the omission and brought him a glass of water. Despite his fervent opposition to the development, Father John recognized the human needs of that man, and in bringing him a glass of water, offered a small representation of what we believe Irving actually stands for. It’s the opposite of what the Sands Corp. plans to do to Irving.

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We call on the Irving City Council to recognize the human needs of the community its members represent. We are deeply concerned that the casino will yield social ills without the economic benefits it supposedly promises. Irving residents need economic development that prioritizes the goods of the community: safety, good jobs, family-friendly gatherings, and excellent education, including the nationally recognized University of Dallas, where we teach in the shadow of the proposed casino site. This piece of land is an opportunity to augment, not diminish, Irving’s many virtues. Yet casinos directly caused 8.6% of property crime and 12.5% of violent crime in counties where they operate, according to the most rigorous and comprehensive study on casinos and crime, conducted by economists Earl Grinols and David Mustard and published in The Review of Economics and Statistics. Their research examined a 19-year period when casino operations expanded from just one state (Nevada) to 29 states — making their findings directly relevant to Texas, which has potential casino gambling on its doorstep. These crime increases included assault, rape, robbery, larceny, burglary and auto theft. Even more concerning, they found crime spilled beyond casino borders into neighboring counties, proving that what happens in casinos definitely doesn’t stay there and poses a direct threat to the families in our community. A likely primary culprit behind these alarming statistics? Gambling addictions that progressively breed financial desperation and ultimately drive people to criminal behavior, argue the authors.

Coppell schools sued over alleged ‘woke,’ illegal ‘CRT’ efforts, Texas AG Paxton says

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Coppell ISD, arguing school officials broke state law by teaching students critical race theory and pushing “woke ideology.” On Wednesday, Paxton’s office announced the lawsuit with agency officials referring to a hidden-camera recording that appeared to show a Coppell school administrator evading the state’s “prohibitions on the use of CRT in state policies and curricula.” “Texas children deserve to receive the best education in the world, not have woke ideology forced upon them,” Paxton said in a statement. “My lawsuit aims to put an immediate end to this illegal and hateful curriculum and immediately stop the blatant refusal to follow state law by certain officials at Coppell ISD.” Coppell ISD officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment over phone and email. The school district is on spring break.

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State Senate gives initial passage to Texas property ban for residents from China, Russia

The Texas Senate gave initial passage to a bill Wednesday that would ban residents of and organizations based in China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from owning property in Texas. The bill’s passage comes as many Asian community groups have decried the proposal from Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, as discriminatory. The bill now heads to the House, where a similar proposal has also been filed. The nations targeted in the ban are derived from annual threat assessment reports by the Director of National Intelligence. China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are the only countries listed as hostile nations in the most recent federal threat assessment reports. This is the second time Kolkhorst has proposed a property ban linked to hostile nations.

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Her previous attempt in 2023 passed the Senate but never came up for a vote in the House. A key change in the bill from Kolkhorst’s previous bill is that it would not ban citizens of those countries from owning property in Texas as long as their primary home is not in a banned country. “We’ve had some that say that has weakened the bill. Not at all,” Kolkhorst said prior to the vote. “I think that it has made it stronger and constitutional, more constitutional.” With a larger and more conservative majority in the House, Kolkhorst’s bill is seen as having a greater chance of becoming law this year. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made the proposal a priority bill this session designated by a low bill number – Senate Bill 17. The bill passed 24-7, with four Democrats, including Dallas Sen. Royce West, joining Republicans in favor of the bill. It will require another vote before it heads to the House, though the margins rarely change. No senators spoke against the bill, but Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said that it could have unintended consequences of putting the state between the private property rights of those involved in a land sale. Perry voted for the bill.

Why TCU football is the key to future conference realignment

The chaos of realignment in college athletics has calmed, but every athletic director across the country is preparing for the next round of movement. That includes new TCU athletic director Mike Buddie, who has plenty of experience with realignment after he led the efforts to get Army West Point into the American Athletic Conference. With all the talk of potential super conferences and the SEC and Big 10 commanding more power in the College Football Playoff, it’s Buddie’s desire to have TCU in the best possible position whenever conferences like the Big Ten are ready to expand again. “(TCU) is unique,” Buddie said. “Because it’s in a destination city, because we’re playing at a Power Four level, how do we set ourselves apart from everybody else in our league so when the next iteration of college football armageddon we have a chair when the music stops?”

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Buddie doesn’t just want TCU to have a safe landing spot when the next wave of realignment hits, he also wants the Horned Frogs to be in a position of power. “We want a chair with Ohio State, we want a chair with Alabama,” Buddie said. “Nobody knows what that looks like. From our standpoint we’re rallying the troops, we’re getting our donors together, we’re getting our loyal supporters together.” An all-in approach is necessary as the Horned Frogs could easily find themselves battling some of their in-state rivals if a spot in the Big Ten ever comes available. As for why TCU would be interested in making a potential move, it’s simple in Buddie’s eyes. “I think we owe it to our kids to compete at the highest level,” Buddie said. “Right now we are at the highest level, but as the Big Ten and SEC start to creep further away, we want to lasso them. That revenue gap continues to grow and that’s an opportunity we want to be a part of.” TCU will be able to sell its premiere location in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, but it’ll take more than location and money to put the Horned Frogs in the best position for the future.

National Stories

The 1960s ‘chicken tax’ shows the lasting impact of tariffs

Nothing is more American than the pickup truck. One big reason why: the “chicken tax.” The U.S. has imposed a 25% tariff on imported trucks ever since President Lyndon Johnson hit back at European levies on American poultry in 1963, less than two weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As the Trump administration pursues a barrage of new tariffs, the longstanding tax on pickup trucks bears witness to the power of high duties to reshape global trade, competition and industry over decades, with effects far exceeding their original purpose. Like today’s tensions, the dispute that became known as the “chicken war” was punctuated by worries about the trade deficit, accusations of protectionism and threats to cut Europe loose from America’s defense umbrella. Back then, though, Washington favored lower import duties and imposed the chicken tax only after more than a year of fruitless diplomacy.

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Johnson’s trade representative “emphasized that the tariff increases weren’t necessarily permanent and could be canceled” as soon as Europe cut its poultry levies, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Since becoming president, Donald Trump has introduced a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, a 25% tax on many goods imported from Mexico and Canada and an additional 20% duty on Chinese products. He has said he would give details of further wide-ranging tariffs, including a potential 25% levy on all light-vehicle imports, on April 2. Some lessons from the 1960s auto tariff are consistent with the current White House’s America-first agenda, others less so. Thanks in large part to the chicken tax, virtually all pickup trucks sold in the U.S. are built in North America, and most of them by American brands. General Motors, Ford and RAM owner Stellantis sold 80% of all light trucks in the U.S. last year. Ad campaigns have also helped cement American brand loyalty among truck buyers.

Trump releases JFK assassination files

The Trump administration on Tuesday released more than 30,000 pages of previously classified or censored documents relating to the death of former President John F. Kennedy, potentially providing answers to decades-old questions that helped make the 1963 assassination an emblem of distrust in government. Donald Trump had said last year on the campaign trail he would disclose those documents if elected, and on Monday said most of the 80,000 remaining pages would be released in full. “You’ve got a lot of reading,” he told reporters while visiting the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Lawyers from the Justice Department’s national-security division were tapped to review hundreds of documents each, which they did late into the night on Monday, in preparation for the release, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said officials were working to unseal additional documents still covered by grand jury and other secrecy laws.

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The Warren Commission in 1964 found that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, who acted alone. In the years since, a raft of alternate theories have bubbled up, including whether the U.S. government itself killed him. Some have suggested Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson, worked with the Central Intelligence Agency and the mafia to eliminate a president who was skeptical about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. No evidence has substantiated those claims, but the CIA withheld from the commission key information about its own operations, fueling those suspicions. The latest release, made public by the National Archives, contains at least 31,000 pages of digitized paper documents going back to the 1960s. Some have faded typewritten text and handwritten notes; others contain faint classified “SECRET” markings. The documents appeared to address a range of topics, from a trip Oswald took to Finland, to a $210 rent reminder for a CIA safe house in Maryland, to the financing of covert operations. One March 1993 memo shows the CIA arranged for two Washington Post reporters to interview Yuri Nosenko, a former KGB agent, about his knowledge of Oswald when he lived in the Soviet Union. “The POST reimbursed Nosenko for expenses and paid him a $250 consulting fee,” the memo said.

Israeli strikes across Gaza hit multiple homes, killing at least 58 Palestinians, medics say

Israeli strikes killed at least 58 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to three hospitals. The strikes hit multiple homes in the middle of the night, killing men, women and children as they slept. Hours later, the Israeli military restored a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City, that it had maintained for most of the war. It warned residents against using the main highway to enter or leave the north and said only passage to the south would be allowed on the coastal road. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to what remains of their homes in the north after a ceasefire took hold in January. Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages. Israel blamed the renewed fighting on Hamas because the militant group rejected a new proposal that departed from their signed agreement. The Trump administration, which took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire, has voiced full support for Israel. More than 400 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday alone, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

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4 more progressive groups pressure Schumer to ‘stand up’ or resign as leader

Liberal youth groups are piling onto Chuck Schumer, urging the Senate minority leader in a new letter to fight more aggressively against President Donald Trump or resign as leader. “Chuck Schumer, your leadership is failing to meet the moment,” reads the memo, which was first shared with POLITICO. “Gen Z voters want leaders with a backbone who will stand up to billionaires and fight for working people. But it’s not just us. You have lost the trust of millions of voters and many of your colleagues in Congress.” The sideswipe against Schumer is the latest sign of mounting pressure he is facing from within his party after voting last week for a GOP stopgap funding bill.

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Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) became the first Democrat in the House on Tuesday to openly suggest that Schumer should call it quits as minority leader. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) also said “yes” when asked if he should retire or resign. The liberal organization Indivisible has called for Schumer to leave his leadership post as well. The letter by youth organizations demanded that Schumer “Obstruct the MAGA agenda with every tool you have” and “Stand beside us at protests.” It was signed by the Sunrise Movement, College Democrats of America, United We Dream Action and Voters of Tomorrow. Schumer has sought to quell the rising dissent within his party, arguing that he took a difficult vote because it represented the best of two bad options. Failing to prevent a government shutdown, he said, would have given Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk more power.

‘Captain Canada’ takes on Trump

Snow plows rumbled and salt trucks spewed de-icing pellets onto Toronto’s streets, barely visible under two feet of snow. A stocky man brandished a comically small red shovel as he helped dig out a car trapped at an intersection. The helping hand was provided by Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and its largest economy, who came to the rescue of drivers trapped in the January 2022 snowstorm, even giving a few of them rides home. Some residents criticized the gesture as having the patina of a public relations stunt, but the “little red shovel” moment captured Mr. Ford’s essence: the Everyman who, despite lacking some of the polish of other politicians, still gets the job done. Mr. Ford has lately been leading the charge against a different kind of storm that has rolled into Canada: President Trump’s threats to the country’s economy and his desire to make it the 51st state.

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Mr. Ford, 60, has thrust himself into the public spotlight, aggressively defending Canada’s sovereignty, economy and honor, earning him the moniker “Captain Canada” among some Canadians at a moment when the country feels betrayed by the United States and has responded with fury. “It’s like a family member stabbing you right in the heart,” Mr. Ford told reporters after Mr. Trump began threatening tariffs on Canada. The premier has taken to wearing a “Canada Is Not For Sale” baseball cap and a “Never 51” hockey jersey, both alluding to Mr. Trump’s repeated statehood declarations. He has pulled American alcohol off liquor store shelves — Ontario is one of the largest buyers of U.S. spirits — and canceled the government’s contract with Starlink, an internet company owned by Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s billionaire ally. Mr. Ford, whose office said he was unavailable for an interview, also briefly imposed a 25 percent surcharge on the electricity that Ontario supplies to Michigan, Minnesota and New York. Those tactics have caught Mr. Trump’s attention. “There’s a very strong man in Canada,” Mr. Trump told reporters last week, referring to Mr. Ford, who retreated on the surcharge after speaking with Trump administration officials who offered to meet their Canadian counterparts to discuss the tariff standoff.

Pentagon's DEI purge erases Colin Powell, Tuskegee Airmen, but not this group

Links to “Notable Graves” of Black, Latino and female veterans were scrubbed from Arlington National Cemetery’s website. Among the notables who were disappeared: Gen. Colin Powell, the first African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later secretary of state. Also banished to digital oblivion was Ira Hayes, a Native American who was among six Marines seen raising the American flag at Iwo Jima in 1945 in one of the most iconic photos from the war. Articles about the famed Navajo Code Talkers, who used their tribal language for secret Allied communications during World Wars I and II, were taken down as well. The list goes on.

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Yet the Pentagon's ongoing purge of words and images celebrating diversity in the military has spared — at least for now — a roster of Texas-born Hispanic heroes who are buried in military cemeteries in San Antonio and showcased in an online Veterans Legacy Memorial. Why? That online honor roll and the two cemeteries are part of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the VA has not moved against diversity, equity and inclusion with anything like the intensity shown by the Department of Defense. The websites from which Powell, the Navajo Code Talkers and other illustrious minorities were deleted are operated by the DoD or military service branches. Arlington National Cemetery and its website are run by the Army. The VA is a separate cabinet-level department, and that distinction has offered at least temporary protection for minorities honored on VA websites. Among the best-known of those showcased in the gallery is Army Gen. Richard Cavazos, the nation’s first Hispanic four-star general. Cavazos, a decorated veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, was born to Mexican American parents in Kingsville. President Joe Biden awarded him the Medal of Honor posthumously in December.

Child tax credits, long a liberal priority, find favor in Republican states

Cash would flow directly into the hands of Ohio parents under a proposal from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. As part of multibillion-dollar budget negotiations this session, Ohio lawmakers will consider the new refundable tax credit worth up to $1,000 per young child, to be paid for by an increase in tobacco taxes. In neighboring Indiana, the state Senate approved a bipartisan plan to give a $500 refundable tax credit to families with an infant. If passed, the measures would mark the first time a Republican-controlled state has implemented a refundable child tax credit. Advocates view that type of credit as key because it delivers cash even to poor families with little or no income tax liability.

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State interest in creating or expanding child tax credits boomed after the pandemic-era expansion of the federal child tax credit delivered cash directly to millions. That move quickly lifted millions of children out of poverty. But the expanded tax credit expired in 2021 — leading to a doubling in the nation’s childhood poverty rate in 2022. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have some child tax credit programs. But so far, all 11 states with refundable credits are led by Democratic governors and legislatures. “Obviously, it’s great to see more places are interested in it, but I think it really comes down to the design of them and who’s included and who’s excluded,” said Megan Curran, policy director at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. “That’s going to determine how effective they are at the end of the day,” In Indiana, lawmakers want to include parents who recently adopted a child or those with children under the age of 1. Even those with no income could qualify for the refundable credit. As proposed, eligibility would top out for families with an adjusted gross income that’s 720% of the federal poverty level — about $191,000 for a family of three. The legislation’s Republican sponsor, state Sen. Greg Walker, said the program could be expanded over time to include older children. “I think it’s — pardon the pun — a baby step to introduce a credit for a newborn,” he said. “I don’t think anyone disputes … all the costs associated with bringing a new baby into the world.”

Lead Stories

‘Too many women have suffered’ under Texas abortion ban, Fort Worth Republican says

Clarifying the state’s abortion ban to save mothers’ lives is the “most important” legislation filed by one North Texas lawmaker, he said of his 24-year career. Texas must spell out the circumstances under which doctors can provide abortions, Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, said Tuesday at a press event alongside religious leaders inside the Capitol. Medical professionals and advocates have repeatedly said language in the state’s current abortion ban is unclear, making doctors uncertain when they’re legally allowed to provide medically necessary abortion care. “Too many women have suffered. Too many have died,” Geren said. “If one has died it’s too many, and more have. I have friends whose wives can no longer conceive because of the problems they went through with their first pregnancy and the delay that doctors face in addressing the problems.”

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Geren and Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, filed similar versions of what’s known as the Life of the Mother Act on Friday. The bills have garnered an unusual amount of agreement and support for such a hotly contested issue. Geren joined female faith leaders Tuesday from across the state who want the law clarified. Pastor Danielle Ayers of Justice at Friendship-West in Dallas said “pregnancy and motherhood are sacred.” The bills are a “step in the right direction to restore full body autonomy to women because our bodies belong to us and not anyone else,” Ayers said. Hughes and Geren have been strong anti-abortion voices in the Legislature. Hughes is considered a leader in the state’s anti-abortion legislation, in part because he authored the state’s six-week abortion ban in 2021, known as the Texas Heartbeat Act. The clarification proposal “is the most important bill that I’ve ever carried,” Geren said, vowing to get it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The Tarrant County lawmaker said he told Abbott: “If I ever make you mad this session and you have to veto something, veto everything else. But you leave this one alone.”

Slower economic growth is likely ahead with risk of a recession rising, according to the CNBC Fed Survey

Respondents to the March CNBC Fed Survey have raised the risk of recession to the highest level in six months, cut their growth forecast for 2025 and hiked their inflation outlook. Much of the change appears to stem from concern over fiscal policies from the Trump administration, especially tariffs, which are now seen by them as the top threat to the U.S. economy, replacing inflation. The outlook for the S&P 500 declined for the first time since September. The 32 survey respondents, who include fund managers, strategists and analysts, raised the probability of recession to 36% from 23% in January. The January number had dropped to a three-year low and looked to have reflected initial optimism following the election of President Donald Trump. But like many consumer and business surveys, the recession probability now shows considerable concern about the outlook.

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“We’ve had an abundance of discussions with investors who are increasingly concerned the Trump agenda has gone off the rails due to trade policy,” said Barry Knapp of Ironsides Macroeconomics. “Consequently, the economic risks of something more insidious than a soft patch are growing.” “The degree of policy volatility is unprecedented,? said John Donaldson, director of fixed income at Haverford Trust. The average GDP forecast for 2025 declined to 1.7% from 2.4%, a sharp markdown that ended consecutive increases in the three prior surveys dating back to September. Gross domestic product is forecast to bounce back to 2.1% in 2026, in line with prior forecasts. “The risks to consumers’ spending are skewed to the downside,” said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research. “Alongside a frozen housing market and less spending across state and local governments, there is meaningful downside to current estimates of 2025 GDP.”

Court records detail investigation leading to Texas AG abortion arrests

After two people were arrested and charged Monday with unlawfully performing abortions and practicing medicine without a license, new court documents obtained Tuesday paint a clearer picture of some of the first abortion-related arrests in the U.S. since federal protections for the procedure were overturned. Authorities on Monday arrested Maria Margarita Rojas, 49, who owns several Houston-area clinics, and Jose Cendan Ley, 29, and charged them with the second- and third-degree felonies. Their arrests are believed to be the first made under Texas House Bill 1280, a trigger law that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June 2022 and bans abortions except when a pregnant person could die without one.

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Another employee of Rojas' was arrested March 8 for practicing medicine without a license, the attorney general's office announced Tuesday. The staff member — nurse practitioner Rubildo Labanino Matos, 54, whose license is on probation — was not charged with violating Texas' abortion laws. He was released from jail March 9, according to court records. The unlawful abortion allegations stem from one anonymous complaint submitted to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in January, according to a lawsuit the attorney general's office filed against Rojas on Monday afternoon. Three-term Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton's office is prosecuting the case after being asked for help by Republican Waller County District Attorney Sean Whittmore. The woman who tipped off HHSC claimed that two women terminated their pregnancies "not for any medical complications," but "for irresponsibility of not wanting to protect themselves using birth control," the lawsuit from Paxton's office states. She alleged that in 2023, a woman who was three months pregnant had an abortion, and in January 2025, another who was eight weeks pregnant terminated her pregnancy. Both procedures allegedly took place at the Clinica Latinoamericana, also known as the Maternal and Child Healthcare and Research Center, LLC, in Waller, a northwestern Houston suburb.

Trump aides prep new tariffs on imports worth trillions for ‘Liberation Day’

White House aides are preparing to impose new tariffs on most imports on April 2, laying the groundwork for an escalation in global economic hostilities that President Donald Trump has called “Liberation Day.” Through his first two months in office, the president has raised tariffs on roughly $800 billion in imports from China, Mexico and Canada, although estimates vary widely. These tariffs have sent the stock market careening and raised the risks of a U.S. recession, while inviting retaliation against domestic industries by trade partners. Despite the blowback, senior Trump advisers are now publicly pledging to create a new tariff regime that would impose new duties on trade with most countries that trade with the United States. A person familiar with internal planning, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations, confirmed administration officials are preparing tariffs on “trillions” of dollars in imports.

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The potential to more than double the scope of Trump’s tariffs has alarmed economists and some congressional Republicans, while other White House allies are concerned about the logistical challenges of a complicated new import tax regime. The precise nature of these new duties has spurred extensive discussions at the highest levels of the administration, with Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House aide Peter Navarro and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent all playing a role in the talks, the person familiar with the plans said. “The last two months have already hurt American businesses and consumers, but the April 2 deadline seriously could make all of that look like a tempest in a teapot,” said Joseph Politano, an economic policy analyst at Apricitas Economics. “We don’t know exactly what they’re going to do, but from what they’re saying, it sounds functionally like new tariffs on all U.S. imports.” The internal preparations suggest Trump remains unbowed in his push to upend the global trade order, despite deepening unease among allies on Capitol Hill and Wall Street and outright fury from overseas. Trump has said the tariffs are necessary to encourage companies to move production back to the U.S. and force concessions from foreign trading partners, but the fallout has rattled investors and consumers, leading to declines in several key economic indicators. “It’s a liberation day for our country because we’re going to be getting back a lot of the wealth that we so foolishly gave up to other countries, including friend and foe,” Trump told reporters on Monday.

State Stories

Texas is already facing water shortages. Here’s the big choice lawmakers face in finding a solution

Texas lawmakers agree now is the time to invest billions into the state’s water infrastructure. But a rift is emerging over whether to pump most of the money into costly projects to secure“new” water, like desalination plants or pipelines from other states, or into the more mundane work of repair, like shoring up Houston’s leaky pipes that lose billions of gallons a year. Proposals in the House and Senate would carve out $1 billion annually from the state’s tax revenue for water supply and infrastructure. A bill filed by state Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican who has been the leading voice on water issues, would require that 80% of the funding go to new water supply projects, like buying reserves from other states and piping it into Texas or constructing plants to make seawater drinkable.

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Legislation filed by state Rep. Cody Harris, a Republican from East Texas where the state’s water reserves are most plentiful, would give state regulators total flexibility in allocating the funding to new projects or aging infrastructure. Texas 2036, a nonpartisan think tank, has estimated that Texas will need to spend $154 billion on water infrastructure over the next 50 years. The sum includes $59 billion to access new water supplies and another $95 billion to fix deteriorating drinking water systems and broken wastewater infrastructure. How much the legislature allocates to each need will be “the crux of the policy conversation,” said Jeremy Mazur, the director of infrastructure and natural resources policy for Texas 2036. “Whether or not this emphasis on water supply development goes too far when we compare that to the need to fix our aging and deteriorating systems.” Water experts have unanimously praised the measures, emphasizing how desperately the funding is needed as parts of the state – like the Rio Grande Valley – already face dire shortages. The state’s water supplies and needs vary widely by region. West Texas, which relies primarily on groundwater, has seen agriculture and a booming oil and gas industry deplete those reserves. As Central and North Texas have swelled in population, rivers and aquifers are being stressed.

Christian Menefee endorsed by some of state's top Democrats in congressional campaign's first day

In his congressional campaign’s first 24 hours, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee has raised contributions from more than 5,000 supporters and garnered endorsements from some of the state’s top Democratic leaders. Menefee’s team announced Monday it had collected $100,000 from 2,000 donors in the six hours after unrolling his candidacy to represent Texas’ 18th congressional district. On Tuesday, the campaign announced it had raised more than $200,000 from more 5,000 donors. The average donation was around $40, his campaign said. Also on Tuesday, his team unveiled endorsements from former U.S. Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred, Harris County Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Lesley Briones, and Houston Controller Chris Hollins, along with several Houston City Council members.

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“The enthusiasm we’re seeing in the first few hours is a clear message that people want bold, progressive leadership in Washington,” Menefee said in a Monday statement. “This momentum sends a powerful signal that we’re ready to challenge the status quo and lead Texas’s 18th District into a new era of leadership that prioritizes the needs of working families.” The agility of Menefee’s fundraising was described by University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus using one word: “Stunning.” There’s a premium on raising money early, Rottinghaus added — it indicates not only power, but a sophisticated campaign operation. “It demonstrates that he’s the one to set the tone,” Rottinghaus said. Menefee is vying to replace former Mayor and U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died March 5. Turner had just started his first term in Congress replacing his longtime friend U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died in July after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Menefee has the backing of Jackson Lee’s daughter, Erica Lee Carter, who is also serving as Menefee’s campaign chairwoman.

Tony Buzbee exits Diddy lawsuit as court reveals he's not allowed to practice

Prominent Houston-based trial lawyer Tony Buzbee has withdrawn as an attorney in the ongoing monthslong legal battle involving rapper mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs. The notice, filed Monday night, stated that Buzbee was withdrawing from the lawsuit after the judge ordered him to explain why he failed to disclose that he’s not admitted to practice in the Southern District of New York. Per the court document, Buzbee moved to withdraw his appearance "until such time as he is admitted to practice" in the district. Buzbee's client will continue to be represented by the remaining counsel on the case from Curis Law. Buzbee signed off on the filing.

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Buzbee withdrew after U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams issued an order for Buzbee to file a letter explaining why he failed to notify the court about the issue earlier and propose next steps to rectify it. In Abrams' order, the judge says Buzbee was warned about his admittance to practice in a parallel case, and did not address it in court. Abrams could reject Buzbee's motion and request the attorney explain why he didn't disclose such information. "A grievance was filed by Shawn Carter against me alleging I was practicing law in the Southern District of New York without formal admission. Until that's sorted out I'm going to let my colleagues who are formally admitted push those cases while I continue to march on the New York State cases," Buzbee told Chron. "We also will be filling cases in Nevada and California very soon."

University of Houston-Victoria could move under Texas A&M System with lawmaker approval

Texas lawmakers may soon consider transferring the University of Houston-Victoria to the Texas A&M University System. State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, who filed the bill with Sen. Paul Bettencourt last week, told The Texas Tribune that the switch would better serve the area's workforce and industries. If passed and signed into law, Texas A&M would take on the school as its 12th university. The UH System would decrease its oversight to three universities, all of them in the greater Houston area. UH officials did not shut down the idea.

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"The University of Houston System has always been deeply committed to the success of our students and the communities we serve through our four universities," a university system statement said. “With the proposed transfer of the University of Houston-Victoria to the Texas A&M University System, we recognize that the academic programs offered by the TAMU System, specifically in the areas of agribusiness and agricultural economics, may be better aligned to support the Victoria region’s economic growth and local workforce needs." This is the second time lawmakers have attempted to move the Victoria university under the Texas A&M System's umbrella. An attempt in 2011 was not successful without the UH System's support. UH leaders reaffirmed their commitment to UH-Victoria students and said that they would work closely with Kolkhorst, state leaders and Texas A&M leadership as legislation potentially proceeds. Outgoing Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp, who is from the Victoria area, said the A&M System would also help facilitate the move.

Pentagon deploys Navy destroyer to Texas-Mexico border to combat drug cartels

The Pentagon has deployed a U.S. Navy destroyer to the Gulf Coast near the Texas-Mexico border, making good on a promise Vice President J.D. Vance made two weeks ago in Eagle Pass to ramp up the nation’s military presence to help combat Mexican drug cartels. “Drone technology that the cartels are using requires, unfortunately, a military response and military support,” Vance said after he toured the border from the sky in a Black Hawk helicopter formation. The Pentagon hasn’t detailed how the USS Gravely will be used, other than to say it will support the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard in both U.S. and international waters.

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“Gravely’s sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security,” said Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander, U.S. Northern Command. The destroyer, equipped with dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles, last year spent 9-months near the Red Sea where launched defensive strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, according to the U.S. Navy. The military show of force aimed at the cartels comes on the heels of Trump signing an executive order designating six Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Earlier this month, in his address to Congress, he made it abundantly clear that it is time for a more aggressive military approach to those gangs. “The cartels are waging war on America, and it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels,” Trump told Congress. U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, has long been an advocate of pushing the Mexican government to do more to crack down on the cartels or allow the U.S. to work with the Mexican military to disrupt and destroy their operations. Crenshaw earlier this year told me he envisions an arrangement similar to the U.S. operations in Colombia, where U.S. Special Forces assist their Colombian counterparts in combating cartels.

Nasdaq CEO on opening new Dallas headquarters: ‘It’s time'

The Nasdaq on Tuesday unveiled a new regional headquarters that will be located in Dallas, becoming the latest elite financial institution tapping into a “Texas miracle” of pro-business sentiment and strong regional growth. In a statement, the world’s second-largest exchange (based on a market capitalization) said the Dallas hub will serve Nasdaq clients and the community at large, while being a “premium convening space to celebrate the leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators that call the Lone Star State home.” “We have a lot of revenue here in Texas,” Adena Friedman, Nasdaq chair and CEO, told The Dallas Morning News in an interview conducted on the sidelines of a luncheon honoring Dallas entrepreneur Ross Perot Jr.

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Friedman cited the hundreds of companies that trade on the market, many of which are either based or have a strong presence in the Lone Star State, such as Texas Instruments. However, the booming regional economy, combined with Nasdaq’s own evolving business model, made the timing right to deepen its roots in Texas, Friedman added. “We’ve reflected on the fact we have 800 clients here ... on the fact we have 200 companies listed here,” Friedman said. “We have a presence in California. Obviously have a presence in New York. ... But it’s time for us to kind of put a real presence here that we can grow and expand over time.” The news comes after the New York Stock Exchange announced a similar move in February and as the upstart Texas Stock Exchange gets closer to launching. “It should be no surprise that there’s so much interest in bringing the capital markets to Texas. The leadership of Gov. Abbott and our state Legislature to drive population and economic growth have created a pro-business environment that is the economic envy of the world,” the Texas Stock Exchange said in a statement.

Nathan Johnson files legislation to pave way for casino gambling referendum.

Last week was the deadline to file bills in Austin, and state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) filed a senate joint resolution that would allow voters to weigh in on whether Texas should allow casino gambling. “Where there is a disconnect between what the Legislature will do and what the voters want, the issue may best be decided directly by voters. I filed SJR 82 to give the voters the right to decide this one. I sincerely hope my colleagues in the Senate feel the same way,” Johnson said in a statement. “Polls consistently show that more than 80 percent of Texans want the right to vote to decide this issue. It makes sense for the Legislature to let that happen.” The lawmaker says that doesn’t authorize casino gambling outright, but allows voters to change the state constitution’s 150-year-old ban on gambling and also impose regulation around gaming, sports betting, and the state lottery.

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Johnson says that lifting the ban on gambling would also provide more funding for the state to address other needs, like property tax reductions, teacher pay raises and education funding, water infrastructure, and more. He says the state is missing out on revenue from Texans who spend money at casinos in neighboring states, as well as illegal gambling that happens within the state. “The state of Texas receives no benefit from this economic activity, nor do we effectively regulate it to protect consumers. I’m putting to the voters whether we should change that.” Casino gambling has been considered by the Legislature before. There were at least five pieces of legislation filed by both Democrats and Republicans in the last session alone. And while a House effort to move gambling along was declared “dead on arrival” earlier this year, momentum could be building for a different outcome. Earlier this month, the Irving City Council voted to consider rezoning a 182-acre tract of land owned almost entirely by a company connected to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (owned by Dallas Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson). The zoning, if adopted, would allow everything from casino gambling and hotels to “an arena with a minimum of 15,000 seats.”

SpaceX to build $280 million semiconductor facility expansion in Texas

SpaceX is making a sizeable investment in its operations near the Texas capital, according to a Wednesday release from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott announced the state will be chipping in with a $17.3-million grant to supplement an expansion of the American space technology company's semiconductor research and development and advanced packaging facility in Bastrop, Texas. The grant comes courtesy of the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, a funding stream created by the governor's 2023 Texas CHIPS Act, which incentivizes the development of semiconductor manufacturing in the state through public grants. "Texas connects the nation and the world with the most advanced technologies manufactured right here in our great state," Abbott wrote.

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The future of higher ed is in Austin

Grayson Oliver came to the University of Texas at Austin three years ago as a freshman. A closeted queer kid from a small, conservative community near Fort Worth, he was one in the long line of students who’ve flocked to this quintessential college town, for decades considered a mecca for slackers, misfits and artists. And, like many students before him, Oliver blossomed on campus: He came out, joined student government and found a close circle of friends. It was a sunny winter day when we spoke—crop-top weather in February—and all around Oliver, students lounged on a grassy quad, headphones over their ears, scrolling. But the bucolic scene belied an underlying malaise at Texas’ flagship university, Oliver told me, a pervasive atmosphere of anxiety and confusion. “There’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” he said. “It’s sad, and it’s hard.”

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Austin is still in many ways an exemplar of American college culture, but in a way that runs counter to the free-spirited experimentation that’s been the norm in higher education. As a public university, UT-Austin is under the control of the state legislature. In an effectively one-party state like Texas, that means it’s under the thumb of Republicans, who are bent on changing what they see as woke college campuses. At the behest of the legislature, UT shuttered its diversity, equity and inclusion programs a full year before Donald Trump returned to the White House. (More than a dozen states have since passed similar laws.) Scores of staff members, some of them with decades of service to the university, lost their jobs. Long-standing traditions, such as the bilingual graduation ceremony for students from Spanish-speaking families, were canceled. The administration defunded, at the state’s behest, the Asian/Asian American Faculty and Staff Association, a mentorship program for Black and Hispanic women and another that helped undocumented students negotiate the college experience. One of the 10 biggest universities in the country no longer has a dedicated center supporting LGBTQ students. Student-run groups have attempted to pick up the slack, but because they’re banned from receiving any university funding, they’ve found themselves scrambling for resources. “We’re losing so many programs,” says Elizabeth Tomoloju, a junior from Dallas. “Students are a lot more careful about what they say and do, because they don’t know what’s allowed anymore.”

After funding freeze, refugee dollars flowing to Texas again but program's fate uncertain

After a six-week federal funding freeze that decimated refugee services in Texas, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday released $47 million to the state’s refugee services designee. The health department, which includes the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, stopped sending such reimbursements to states across the country in early February. For reasons that remain unclear, the pause continued in Texas even after all other states started receiving reimbursements again. That prompted a lawsuit from the Catholic Charities of Fort Worth, which runs the nonprofit Texas Office for Refugees, the designee that distributes reimbursements to the state’s 29 refugee services providers. At a hearing in the case last Friday, a Justice Department lawyer announced that the agency had completed an unspecified type of review of the nonprofit office and of Catholic Charities – a process that had apparently delayed the release of funds – and would soon send money to cover the requested reimbursements.

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“I was very glad it happened, so that we can continue our work,” said Simone Talma-Flowers, executive director of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, the largest local provider of English-language learning programs for refugees. “We can continue serving refugees, teaching English language instruction, youth, mentoring, health and wellness. This is all very good news for us.” Neither Catholic Charities nor the Texas Office for Refugee responded to a request for comment. While leaders of other Texas refugee service providers are relieved, they also say it’s going to take a long time to recover from the furloughs, layoffs and other cost-cutting measures they had to use to get by. They also are bracing for an even bigger challenge. On Friday, the same day as the court hearing, the Trump administration published a policy letter saying it plans to stop sending reimbursements to the Texas Office for Refugees and other state designees in October when the new federal budget cycle begins. That would affect Texas and 13 other states, where designees exist because the state government has chosen not to accept federal dollars intended to support refugees. Anjum Malik, executive director of Austin-based refugee service provider Global Impact Initiative, said the letter adds to the sense of ongoing uncertainty that has already taken rooted within many organizations.

Federal jury in San Antonio convicts two men in connection with deadly 2022 tractor-trailer incident

A federal jury in San Antonio on Tuesday found two men guilty in connection to the deadliest human smuggling incident in modern U.S. history. Fifty-three migrants, including six children, died in a stifling tractor-trailer on June 27, 2022. Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Ortega may spend the rest of their lives in prison for those deaths, which took place in the back of a tractor-trailer without air conditioning in the South Texas sun. The two men who were a part of a human smuggling network will be sentenced on June 27, exactly three years after the incident.

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Dozens of men, women and children from Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and other nations were found trapped in the tractor-trailer on Quintana Road in southwest San Antonio in 2022. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said at the time that a worker at a nearby facility heard a person crying for help and found the trailer with numerous dead inside. San Antonino Fire Chief Charles Hood said they were hot to the touch and suffering from heat exhaustion. “No signs of water in the vehicle, it was a refrigerated tractor-trailer, but there was no visible working AC unit on that rig,” he added. Temperatures in San Antonio at the time regularly exceeded 100 degrees. San Antonio has seen migrant smuggling attempts unravel many times over the past decade, but this was especially egregious, said San Antonio immigration attorney Jonathan Ryan.

Are new religious displays coming to Texas schools? Here's how the Senate is paving a way.

The Texas Senate advanced its bid to herald religion in public schools Tuesday with its passage of a bill to allow districts to carve out time for in-school prayer and by giving its initial approval to a separate proposal that would require all campuses to post of copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The two measures, identified as priorities by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, continue efforts by the Republican-controlled Senate to confront the long-established separation of church and state, especially within public education. Patrick, who presides over the Senate, praised the upper chamber's swift approval of Senate Bill 11, the proposal by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, to allow time for prayer in schools.

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“Religious freedom is a bedrock principle upon which America was founded, recognizing our rights come directly from God, not the government,” Patrick said in a statement. SB 11 gives districts the option to schedule time each school day to pray or read “the Bible and other religious texts.” Employees and students wishing to participate will be required to sign a form acknowledging that they are voluntarily taking part in the activity and waive their right sue the district related to the prayer time. The bill also prohibits the district from broadcasting a prayer or reading religious text over the loudspeaker. Middleton said SB 11 is intended to support personal religious liberties. “What that consent form allows is free exercise of the individual’s right to exercise their faith,” Middleton said.

National Stories

Chief Justice John Roberts rebukes Trump after president calls for US judge's impeachment

The growing clash between President Donald Trump and the judiciary took a major turn Tuesday as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump's call for the impeachment of a federal judge. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a rare public statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of a federal judge who tried to stop the Republican administration from deporting hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members via the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law last used during World War II.

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Trump, in a social media post, referred to Chief U.S. Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, as a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge" and "a troublemaker and agitator." Unlike himself, Trump argued, Boasberg did not win all seven battleground states in the 2024 White House election en route to an "OVERWHELMING MANDATE" that the president said was centered on his promise to fight illegal immigration. "I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!" Trump said in his post on Truth Social. "WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY." Trump responded to Roberts' statement in a Fox News interview aired Tuesday night. "Well, he didn't mention my name in the statement. I just saw it quickly," Trump said. "But many people have called for the impeachment of this judge. I don't know who the judge is, but he's radical left." Asked by Fox News' Laura Ingraham whether he would defy a court order, Trump said: "No, you can't do that. However, we have bad judges. We have very bad judges, and these are judges that shouldn't be allowed.”

Tesla board members, executive sell off over $100 million of stock in recent weeks

As Tesla stock has fallen in recent weeks, members of the board and an executive at Elon Musk's company have been selling off millions of dollars in stock, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Together, four top officers at the company have offloaded over $100 million in shares since early February. Last week, longtime Musk ally James Murdoch -- the estranged son of Fox boss Rupert Murdoch and a board member since 2017 -- became the latest to do so, exercising a stock option and selling shares worth approximately $13 million, according to an SEC filing. The sale took place on March 10, coinciding with the stock's largest single-day decline in five years.

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According to one filing, the shares were sold "to cover the exercise price relating to the exercise of stock options to purchase 531,787 shares, which are scheduled to expire in 2025." Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk, who also sits on the board, unloaded 75,000 shares worth approximately $27 million last month, according to a filing. The chairman of the board, Robyn Denholm, has offloaded more than $75 million dollars worth of shares in two transactions in the past five weeks, federal filings show. The selloffs made by Denholm came as part of a predetermined sales plan. A number of board members and executives made similar moves in November and December. But the recent sales come at a tumultuous time for Tesla, with the stock falling nearly 50% from a peak in mid-December. The company's shares have suffered most of those losses since President Donald Trump took office and Musk began his controversial governmental cost-cutting efforts as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump Administration weighing major cuts to funding for domestic HIV prevention

The Health and Human Services Department is weighing plans to drastically cut the federal government’s funding for domestic HIV prevention, according to people familiar with the matter. The plans could be announced as soon as within a day, the people said, but they haven’t been finalized and could be pulled back or adjusted. The discussions come as the Trump administration is preparing for deep cuts of personnel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of a reorganization of the agency, people familiar with the planning said. The cuts and reorganization would take advantage of a weakness of the agency’s legal underpinnings: No single law outlines its purposes and authorizes its many programs. The CDC has a department dedicated to the prevention of HIV and other infectious diseases. The department funds state and local surveillance programs for HIV, syringe services and community-outreach initiatives.

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The agency spent about $1.3 billion on the prevention of HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis in the 2023 fiscal year, the agency said on its website. About three-quarters of the CDC’s funds to address the infectious diseases go to grants and cooperative agreements with organizations outside the agency, the CDC has said. That includes money for state and local health departments and nonprofits working to prevent HIV or respond to outbreaks. Among the programs that could be scaled back or eliminated is the CDC’s PrEP initiative, which launched last fall as a pilot program and provides free pre-exposure prophylaxis, medication that helps prevent HIV, according to Mitchell Warren, executive director of HIV prevention organization AVAC. “One of the greatest lessons in public health is you can’t end epidemics with treatment alone. Without prevention, we are going to be fighting the virus with one hand behind our back,” said Warren, who also noted that cuts to domestic HIV prevention would conflict with President Trump’s 2019 pledge to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. The Health Department said it is following the administration’s guidance and taking a careful look at all divisions to see where there is overlap that could be streamlined to support the president’s broader efforts to restructure the federal government. “No final decision on streamlining CDC’s HIV Prevention Division has been made,” a department spokesman said.

Judge says dismantling of USAID was unconstitutional, orders Musk to restore access for employees

The judge ordered a pause on any efforts to shut down USAID. Elon Musk's attempt to unilaterally dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the United States Constitution, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ordered Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to immediately give USAID employees access to their "email, payment, security notification, and all other electronic systems," and ordered a pause on any efforts to shut down USAID. Judge Chuang wrote that Musk's takeover "usurped the authority of the public's elected representatives in Congress to make decisions on whether, when, and how to eliminate a federal government agency, and of Officers of the United States duly appointed under the Constitution to exercise the authority entrusted to them."

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While Judge Chuang rebuked Musk's role within the Trump administration, the exact implications of the decision on the operations of USAID are unclear. DOGE and Musk were also ordered to submit a written agreement within two weeks that ensures USAID can reoccupy its former headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. The foreign aid agency was among the first government agencies DOGE slashed in its effort to scale back or dismantle much of the federal government. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of employees, revoked funding for more than 80% of its programs, and shed its Washington, D.C. headquarters. Critics of the Trump administration say its efforts to nullify the agency will cripple American influence overseas and carry devastating effects for some of the most vulnerable populations in the world, which relied on U.S. funding for health care, food, and other basic needs.

Federal judge blocks Trump effort to ban transgender troops from military service

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration over its attempt to ban transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military. Tuesday's decision by U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes temporarily blocks the Department of Defense from carrying through with a policy directive designed to remove transgender service members from the military. In a sweeping and at times strongly worded opinion, Reyes pushed back against the administration effort, writing that the ban violated the constitutional rights of transgender troops. "Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives – to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them," Reyes wrote.

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The preliminary injunction is the latest example of a federal court moving to pause or block efforts by President Trump to enact his agenda through executive action. The steady cascade of orders against the president has raised fears among Trump critics that the administration may in time choose to defy a federal court decision and spark a potential constitutional crisis. Trump has pledged to adhere to court decisions, saying he would appeal rulings where judges have sided against the administration. At the same time, he has been openly critical of federal judges who have ruled against him. There are about 1.3 million military service personnel. The Defense Department has told NPR that an estimated 4,240 active duty service members, or less than 1% of forces, have gender dysphoria. But others have put the number higher. Palm Center, a research institute that advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion within the U.S. military, estimated in 2018 that the number of transgender troops was about 14,700. The challenge was brought by six transgender service members and two prospective service members in response to a Jan. 27 executive order that sought to bar transgender troops from serving in the military and directed the Pentagon to release a plan for carrying it out within 30 days.

Republican Tudor Dixon praises Trump as she eyes 2026 run for governor or Senate in key battleground

Business executive, conservative commentator and 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon says she's seriously mulling another run for statewide office in 2026 in her home state of Michigan. But Dixon says she hasn't decided whether she'll bid for the Great Lakes battleground state's open Senate seat or governor's office. "I want to do the most good for our beloved state. That's why I'm considering a run for governor or U.S. Senate," Dixon announced Tuesday in a statement on social media. "Both races present unique opportunities and different ways to benefit Michigan."

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Dixon said that she "will decide soon where my experience and talents would most benefit the state we love so dearly." In her statement, Dixon praised President Donald Trump, emphasizing that he "is leading the way nationally." "He is delivering on his promises to secure the border, bring manufacturing jobs home and boost energy independence," she argued. "I am committed to standing with President Trump to deliver on the America First agenda here in Michigan. Trump's endorsement of Dixon in the summer of 2022 helped boost her to the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Dixon went on to lose by ten points to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who secured a second term steering Michigan. Whitmer is now term-limited and prevented from running for re-election in 2026.

NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally return home after more than nine months in space

NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — who gained international attention as their planned short stay in space stretched into a more than nine-month, politically fraught mission — are finally home. Williams and Wilmore, alongside NASA’s Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, safely splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 5:57 p.m. ET Tuesday. The crew’s highly anticipated return came after the crew climbed aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and departed the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. ET Tuesday.

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The quartet are part of the Crew-9 mission, a routine staff rotation jointly operated by NASA and SpaceX. The Crew-9 capsule launched to the space station in September with Hague and Gorbunov riding alongside two empty seats reserved for Williams and Wilmore, who had been on the orbiting laboratory since last June, when their original ride — a Boeing Starliner spacecraft — malfunctioned. Safely reaching Earth concluded a trip that, for Williams and Wilmore, has garnered broad interest because of the unexpected nature of their extended stay in orbit and the dramatic turn of events that prevented them from returning home aboard the Boeing Starliner vehicle. “Welcome home to the Crew-9 astronauts — NASA’s Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Your dedication and unwavering commitment to space exploration inspires us all,” Boeing Space shared on social platform X after the crew returned home.

Lead Stories

Houston-area midwife and 1 worker arrested in first criminal case under Texas abortion ban

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday announced the arrest of a Houston-area midwife for allegedly performing illegal abortions and practicing medicine illegally, marking the first criminal case to be filed under the state’s abortion ban. Maria Margarita Rojas, 48, is accused of illegally operating a network of clinics in the Northwest Houston area, according to a statement from Paxton’s office. A person who worked for Rojas, Jose Ley, was also arrested and is expected to face the same charges as Rojas, according to court records. Rojas is accused of performing an abortion on a person, identified as "E.G.," on two separate days in March, court records show. She is also accused of performing an abortion on another person in Harris County earlier this year, the documents state. She could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Rojas was taken into custody in Waller County in early March on the charge of illegally practicing medicine, but she was rebooked Monday with the performance of an illegal abortion charge added, county jail records show. Both Rojas and Ley are being held with a bond total of $700,000, court records show. Employees who picked up the phone Monday afternoon at Rojas’ clinic locations in Waller and Harris counties were not aware of her arrest. When asked whether abortions are performed at the Cypress location, a staffer who declined to give their name said, “No. Not at all. That’s all a lie.” Illegally performing an abortion is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while practicing medicine without a license is a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $10,000. Under a separate law, Paxton can seek at least $100,000 in civil penalties for every illegal abortion someone is found to have helped provide. “In Texas, life is sacred. I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said in the release. “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”

Powell contends with double threat of economic chaos and political hostility

Not long ago, it looked like Jerome Powell’s final test as Federal Reserve chair would be to stick the soft landing. Now, with about one year left in his term, he faces a serious complication: navigating a trade war that threatens to push prices up while weakening the economy. During a seven-year tenure that included Donald Trump’s first trade war, a pandemic, historic inflation and high-profile bank failures, Powell’s final act also unfolds with an imperative to preserve the institution’s apolitical DNA that protects its autonomy in setting interest rates. Fed policymakers are alternately referred to as inflation-fighting “hawks” or labor-market defending “doves.” Right now, Powell looks more like a duck—calm on the surface while constantly paddling beneath murky waters. Inflation fell over the past two years as supply-chain bottlenecks eased and workforce participation rose. Now, tailwinds are becoming potential headwinds. Falling immigration and cuts to federal contracts risk hitting labor supply and demand. Dramatically raising tariffs could create an uncomfortable combination of weaker or even stagnant growth and higher prices.

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Powell’s 18 colleagues who participate in monetary policy meetings have shifted their outlook. A few doves have become hawks, and vice versa. At least one has an eye on possibly succeeding Powell next year. The Fed cut interest rates by 1 percentage point last year after lifting them to a two-decade high to combat higher prices. Inflation declined to around 2.5% in January from a recent peak of 7.2% in 2022. Officials are set to hold rates steady at their meeting this week. Ahead of the latest trade-related swoon, acquaintances have tried to congratulate Powell on achieving a soft landing, even if for a brief time. The Fed chair has been too superstitious to agree. At a congressional hearing last month, he would only say that the economy had avoided a recession. “I call that a soft landing,” Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) told him. “I don’t know why you don’t take the credit.” Trump’s latest trade war makes that tricky. When prices go up but growth falters, officials must choose between cushioning demand by lowering rates or preventing price increases by keeping rates higher. “If the Fed does cut interest rates now, it’s only really going to be because the economy is getting much worse,” said Dario Perkins, an economist at GlobalData TS Lombard.

Schumer is doing damage control. It isn’t working.

Chuck Schumer is in damage-control mode. It isn’t going great. The Senate minority leader and his aides in recent days have been talking privately with liberal groups in an apparent effort to ease tensions after sparking a civil war in the Democratic Party over a stopgap funding bill, according to five people familiar with the conversations. They were granted anonymity to describe them in a frank manner, and some of the discussions were confirmed by Schumer himself on Monday to POLITICO. The outreach by Schumer and his team included officials at Indivisible. The pro-Democratic organization called for him to step down from his leadership position on Saturday over what it saw as his unwillingness to resist President Donald Trump. Schumer enraged Democrats across the party on Friday by voting for a GOP bill to prevent a government shutdown.

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Schumer spoke with Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, the people said, and he and his staff have been in communication with the group’s local leaders in New York, as well. The minority leader is in a perilous position in the party, drawing furious backlash from Democrats after his vote last week. While maneuvering privately to repair relationships, he postponed scheduled book tour events this week, with a spokesperson citing “security concerns.” The events would have taken him to heavily Democratic cities, including Baltimore and Washington, and activists had made plans to protest them. Schumer’s team tried to persuade the New York leaders at Indivisible not to immediately sign onto a statewide letter that called for Schumer to quit his position as minority leader, said one of the people familiar with the discussions. Schumer spoke to the New York Indivisible officials on Sunday. They called for him to step down as minority leader anyway on Monday. “The goal was to get Sen. Schumer in front of Indivisible group leaders before they made any decisions on anything,” said a second person familiar with the meeting.

With his national profile on the rise, is a White House run in Greg Abbott’s future?

From his strategic partnership with President Donald Trump to his headline-grabbing border policies, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is riding a wave of Republican popularity that has raised his national profile and could put a 2028 White House campaign within reach — if he wants it. Few Republican governors have Abbott’s national stature, and for the past decade Abbott has basked in praise from Trump, who devoted part of his Jan. 20 inaugural speeches to lauding him as the “leader of the pack” among the nation’s governors. At the least, Abbott will have the choice to run for president or stay as governor in the nation’s most important and prosperous Republican state. Either way, he can strongly influence GOP politics on a national scale. “That’s something that really came to mind when I saw Trump praise Abbott during that second inaugural speech,” said Aaron Kall, a University of Michigan political scientist and author of the book Debating the Donald.

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“Abbott and Trump are similar. A lot of the governor’s actions are designed to solicit media attention on a larger, national stage. That suggests the potential for seeking something beyond being governor of Texas, and it will be a wide-open race in 2028,” Kall said. Abbott is, for now, focused on his future in Texas, his chief political consultant Dave Carney, said. “The governor has been consistent that he has the second-best job in the country, and he loves what he’s doing and he’s going to run for reelection,” Carney said. “That’s what he’s focused on, Texas. He told the president when he [Trump] was a candidate that he has no interest in going to Washington.” Even so, speculation about Abbott’s future persists. Abbott and Trump see eye-to-eye on immigration, border security and reducing government regulation, providing common ground for one of the governor’s newest objectives — federal reimbursement for $11 billion spent on state border-security efforts during the Biden administration. Abbott has made several treks to Washington to rally support for the payout.

State Stories

Drew Springer: Lottery scandal confirms need for gaming commission

If we Texans pride ourselves on anything, it’s that we believe in common sense. And if there is anywhere common sense is lacking, it’s in the unfolding scandals surrounding the Texas Lottery Commission. As a former Texas senator and representative who proudly served the people of the Lone Star State, I’ve watched with alarm as the lottery scandal has exploded. Recent revelations about courier services evidently exploiting loopholes, suspicious bulk ticket purchases and questionable multimillion-dollar jackpot wins represent a failure of oversight that should concern every Texan. Generally, I am not a fan of government regulation. All too often, it stifles healthy entrepreneurial risk-taking and innovation. But for private enterprise to work, there must be basic frameworks of legal rules and enough government oversight to protect the public. The Texas Lottery Commission’s sudden about-face — claiming it now has authority it denied having for years — is too little, too late.

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The Texas Legislature has an opportunity to create a Texas Gaming Commission. This commission would be fully funded by legal and licensed operators through a gaming tax and operator fees, a policy I worked on the last session in the Senate. This commission would offer exactly what’s needed: robust oversight of gaming activities such as the lottery, bingo, and limited casino gaming and sports betting as well, all with real law enforcement power. The commission would have the power to go after illegal gaming as a statewide agency for things like 8-liners, which in 2022 the Texas Second Court of Appeals ruled were illegal, and gambling on dogfights. Had such a commission been in place, courier services could never have operated in legal gray areas for so many years. The new commission would ensure proper accountability while preventing the institutional paralysis we’ve witnessed. Most importantly, the commission would have clear licensing authority and enforcement tools that the current Lottery Commission either lacks or refuses to use. A gaming commission that oversees audit, enforcement and investigations could have identified and stopped the problems before they spiraled into scandals requiring legislative hearings.

With Christian Menefee running for U.S. Congress, what happens to the Harris County attorney seat?

When Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee filed to run in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner in Congress, he effectively opened up an opportunity for another official to take his position at the county. The reason: a Texas law that prevents certain county and city officials from running for one seat while holding another elected position. If a local elected official who serves a term longer than two years wants to run for another position, the official has to wait until a year and 30 days before the election to announce their next campaign. If they announce a campaign any earlier than that, they have to resign from their current seat.

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Menefee’s congressional campaign filing on Saturday and his announcement on Monday both effectively triggered the law, meaning he automatically resigned as county attorney. He recently won another term as county attorney in November. The position will be filled through a Harris County Commissioners Court vote. Until then, the law requires Menefee to remain the acting county attorney, a spokesperson for his office wrote in a text to a reporter. The person who replaces him will remain in the role until the next election to fill the position in November 2026, the spokesperson said. The position will also be up for grabs in November 2028 to get the slot back on its regularly scheduled election cycle. Menefee acknowledged his resignation in his bio on X where he calls himself the "former" Harris County attorney. "The County Attorney's office is filled with talented, selfless public servants," Menefee wrote in a statement. "It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve alongside them. I knew when I decided to run, the office would remain in good hands. I have no doubt that the office will continue to provide the same level of service to the county and its residents moving forward." County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s spokesperson Tami Frazier said the commissioners will hold a special meeting on March 27 at 10 a.m., but it’s unclear whether officials will vote to replace Menefee during the meeting.

Why some North Texas Republicans are against school vouchers

Hollie Plemons took her seat before a panel of lawmakers in Austin to make her conservative case against school vouchers. “This is going against everything that a Texas Republican is,” said Plemons, a mother of three and Tarrant County GOP precinct chair from Fort Worth who has been outspoken in her opposition. She was one of hundreds in a marathon hearing on March 11 to testify before the House Public Education committee as they considered House Bill 3, the House’s version of an education savings accounts program, a voucher-of-sort that supporters say would give parents more choice in their child’s education. A similar proposal passed in the Texas Senate on Feb. 5. The details are different, but both would let parents use state dollars for their child’s private or home schooled education.

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The issue has historically been a tension point for Texas Republicans, facing opposition from some within the party, particularly among rural House members who have feared for their local public schools. As the legislation is debated there are also Republicans — like Plemons — whose opposition stems from what they see as a breach of traditional Republican principles opposing government subsidies and supporting small government. This is despite support for vouchers from many in the Republican Party’s upper-most ranks. “In a way, for these conservatives, vouchers are big government,” said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus. “Vouchers are basically setting the table for winners and losers. That’s something that many conservatives, fiscal conservatives, are adamantly against.” Plemons said she’s been attacked by Republican groups and called a Democrat, communist and Marxist for her stance. “I’m none of those, but the bill is,” she said. Dallas County GOP Chair Allen West mulled the idea of “school choice” in a recent post on the local party’s website. The former Texas GOP chair ran against Abbott for governor in 2021, challenging him from the right. “I do not think we have a very clear understanding of what ‘school choice’ means,” the post reads. “When I hear people use language such as ‘universal school choice,’ well, it sends chills down my spine because of the word ‘universal,’ which was also used to describe Obamacare as “universal healthcare.” West addresses the Senate’s proposal, saying it goes against a party platform item that calls for funding that follows a child with “no strings attached” and opposes “regulations on homeschooling or the curriculum of private or religious schools.” “Instead of issuing a voucher, why not enable Flexible Education Savings Accounts that are tax credits, not vouchers?” West said in the post.

UNT targeted by Trump administration in civil rights probe

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said it is investigating the University of North Texas and nearly four dozen other schools for engaging in “race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs.” The department said Friday it believes the 45 universities are violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by being involved with a relatively small project that aims to promote racial diversity at business schools. The investigation is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to rid institutions of “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs. The target of the investigation is “The PhD Project,” an organization that “purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a PhD and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants,” according to the Department of Education. Rice University is also on the list.

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UNT said in a statement to the Star-Telegram that it is not involved with The PhD Project. “The University of North Texas has received formal notice of the investigations and is fully cooperating. UNT is not affiliated with The PhD Project,” the statement said. The Department of Education also said it is investigating six universities for allegedly “awarding impermissible race-based scholarships and one university for allegedly administering a program that segregates students on the basis of race.” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement that the department is working to “reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination.” “Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin. We will not yield on this commitment,” McMahon said. In January, The PhD Project’s “about us” section on its website said the organization was founded in 1994 with the “goal of diversifying corporate America by diversifying the role models in the front of classrooms,” according to internet archives. It also included how the organization has helped increase “the number of historically underrepresented business professors in the U.S., from 294 in 1994 to over 1,700 today,” which was first reported by the Texas Tribune.

Bradford William Davis: Who cares if Trump’s ag chief is from Fort Worth when she slashes food-bank funding?

One month before Brooke Rollins pulled $2 million from Fort Worth dinner tables, the city she threatened to starve honored her ascension. The downtown office building became a red, white and blue beacon commemorating Rollins as the new U.S. secretary of agriculture and the first Cowtown native to join a presidential cabinet. Mayor Mattie Parker, who once said there was no one “more qualified and prepared to lead the Department of Agriculture,” called attention to the “historic moment for our city.” After Rollins boasted that she was “putting the American farmer first,” the cuts siphoned money that the Tarrant Area Food Bank used to purchase produce from local farmers (and feeding Parker’s constituents.) The food bank’s president and CEO, Julie Buntner, told the Star-Telegram on Friday that the funding allowed her organization to reduce reliance on shipping food from other states or countries but “grow it right here locally, and bring it directly into our grocery stores, and into our local food bank.”

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Rollins touted her work with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, “to streamline USDA operations by cutting wasteful spending.” Rollins bragged about DOGE identifying and canceling a $600,000 grant for scientists studying menstrual health because the research might benefit some transgender people. She proudly scrapped a $397,000 federal grant to Agroecology Commons, a California nonprofit that incubates young farmers — something Rollins also said was a priority just two weeks ago — because the nonprofit welcomes minorities and queer people to its program. Flaunting your million-dollar hair clippers while hiding your billion-dollar buzzsaw feels like sleight of hand, but I can grimly appreciate her indirect admissions. First: Some Americans don’t deserve healthy lives. Second: What you call dinner, Rollins sees as waste. I like Rollins’ confessions. I love her timing. Our secretary of agriculture is slashing access to American-grown produce just as American consumers are increasingly pessimistic about rising costs. Economists are just as convinced that President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs on Mexican and Canadian products will raise prices at the grocery store. Yet the Trump administration insists its trade war will ultimately benefit American farmers, promising them that “nobody is going to be able to compete with you.”

At the border, a migrant evangelization ministry on pause

Back in December, a group of migrants, released just hours before from detention centers or Customs and Border Protection processing, sat beside a large photo of Nazareth in the sanctuary of Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville, ready to participate in Wednesday night worship. After a dinner of spaghetti, pizza and Coca-Cola prepared by women from this Southern Baptist church, the Rev. Carlos Navarro hoped they could turn their attention to Jesus. The group of 15 migrants joined about 40 regular congregants for a Bible study and worship service in a sanctuary decked out with Christmas decorations, images of Israel and declarations in Spanish that “Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Church.” In a sermon on Psalm 140, a prayer for protection from the evildoers, Navarro told the newly arrived migrants and his congregants to rely on God for protection against evil people surrounding them, whether bosses or family members.

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“When God wants to protect me because he knows that there is something that could happen, he takes away that person that I am sure had something planned against me. Deliver us Lord from all evil,” he preached in Spanish before encouraging the migrants to accept Jesus in a silent prayer. Where the “government sees a threat, a problem, society sees a danger with people that they don’t know, we see an opportunity to share the Gospel,” Navarro, a 64-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1982 and a decade later became pastor of the West Brownsville church, told RNS in English in December. In 2017, Navarro began Ministerio Golán, a ministry of Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville named after the biblical Golan Heights — a nod to the congregation’s devotion to Israel. Since then, the church has worked with government authorities, who would tell Navarro when they were releasing migrants from their custody. The church would briefly host them for food, supplies and evangelization before dropping them off to sleep at the airport, on their way to their final destinations in the U.S. But now, with President Donald Trump having shut down the Biden-era app that allowed migrants to make appointments to seek asylum and curtailed other asylum opportunities, the Baptist church is only serving the slow trickle of unaccompanied minors released from the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services after their 18th birthday, as well as six migrant families who have chosen to stay in Brownsville, hearing there won’t be work in other U.S. cities. “The word ‘migrants’ will be forgotten soon,” said Navarro in a March 5 phone call with RNS, describing the recent shuttering of migrant services along the border.

Cops, not social media vigilantes, responsible for busting sex predators, Montgomery County DA says

The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office is asking residents to let police investigate child sex predators and avoid engaging in online vigilantism. Self-described "pedophile hunters" have become increasingly common on social media. Users, often posing as minors online, typically goad alleged sex offenders into meeting them at public places where they are recorded in a video posted online. One such video recently went viral and has sparked criticism from Montgomery County residents who accused officials of failing to prosecute a man who the creator alleged agreed to meet him at a book store while posing as a minor. But Mike Holley, first assistant at the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, said that kind of social media-based vigilantism can do more harm than good.

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"No one wants to protect children more than we do in Montgomery County. Nobody, full stop," Holley said. "But it has to be done the right way ... There's a huge knowledge gap between how the general public and legal professionals understand crime. We can't for example, use a confession that was given without the proper statutory warnings." Although the Houston Chronicle will not share the video in question as the individual in it has not been charged with a crime, Holley noted that they are still under investigation and said charges may be filed at a future date. Holley said another concern officials have when it comes to online "pedophile hunters" is public safety. Individuals accused of crimes against children are often erratic, dangerous and potentially armed, he said. He pointed to a case in Michigan where a vigilante was shot and killed by a man who he had accused of agreeing to meet with a 15-year-old girl. "We don't want to encourage that type of behavior because it can end in tears, frankly," Holley said. "When you meet up with one of these individuals in public anything can and does happen. When we do it, it's in a very controlled way so that bystanders are safe and that other individuals, including the suspect, are safe."

TAMUSA's esports partnership with the Port is shaping San Antonio

San Antonio college student Esmy Infante wasn’t always a diehard video game fan. The Texas A&M-San Antonio senior said they decided to enroll at the university after attending a gaming event hosted by the school. They started exploring the growing world of esports once in college, spurred on by friends who also attended the Southside university. Infante is now a team captain for TAMUSA’s Overwatch team, a multiplayer first-person shooter video game, and ranked within the top 1% of Overwatch players in the country. They won one of just five Student Leadership Awards from the National Association of Collegiate Esports in 2024. Esports, or electronic sports, refers to organized, multiplayer video game competitions. These competitions can take place both online and in person, often attracting large audiences and offering significant prizes. Popular esports video games include titles like League of Legends, Fortnite, Dota 2 and Mario Super Smash Bros.

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Infante said competitive gaming has become a big part of their life, allowing them to meet people from all over the state and represent their school. Last month, Infante was just one of the dozens of Texas A&M students from across the state who competed in the inaugural A&M System Showdown at the Boeing Center at the Tech Port’s state-of-the-art LAN gaming facility. TAMUSA hosted teams representing Texas A&M campuses in College Station, Corpus Christi, Texarkana and Commerce. Teams competed in an array of games, including Overwatch, Mario Super Smash Bros, League of Legends and even online chess, Infante said. TAMUSA placed first in Super Smash Bros for independent players, second for Super Smash Bros for crew play, and second for Overwatch to win first overall out of six competing campuses. The unique, growing partnership between Tech Port and TAMUSA is transforming San Antonio into a Texas esports hub, said Aaron Jaggers, head esports coach and assistant director of recreation at TAMUSA. Five years ago, Jagger’s position at the university didn’t even exist. As esports have surged in popularity, high schools, colleges and universities have recognized that adding esports programs gives them a competitive edge over schools without teams. TAMUSA’s unique position both as a newer A&M campus and in geographic proximity to the Tech Port has equated to it having arguably the strongest esports program in the A&M system, Jaggers said. Of the 70 competitors in the A&M System Showdown, about a quarter of them were from TAMUSA.

Feds ordered to pay Catholic Charities Fort Worth millions in blocked refugee funds

The federal government has until March 18 to pay Catholic Charities Fort Worth millions in grant funds that have been withheld since January. A federal judge on March 14 ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to release $47 million that became entangled in the Trump administration’s restructuring of federal programs. The grants were allocated to pay for organizations that partner with Catholic Charities Fort Worth, such as the Texas Office for Refugees, which provides resettlement services to people fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries. Catholic Charities Fort Worth sued HHS and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy earlier this month, alleging the federal government had unlawfully frozen the funding. The pause led to thousands of refugees losing their cash payment benefits, which resulted in evictions and other hardships, the organization said, as well as the possibility of having to lay off almost almost half of its staff across Texas.

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On March 10, Catholic Charities Fort Worth filed a WARN Act notice that it would lay off 169 of its approximately 400 employees in Texas effective Friday. The 1989 Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification Act is meant to protect workers and their families by requiring employers to give 60-day notice of mass layoffs and plant closings. In a joint statement on Friday, Michael Iglio, CEO of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, and Jeff Demers, state refugee coordinator of Texas Office of Refugees, said the U.S. District Court in Washington ordered the funds to be released during a status conference on the lawsuit on Friday. “The withholding of these essential funds led to significant challenges, including widespread layoffs and the disruption of vital services for more than 100,000 across 29 partner agencies throughout Texas,” they said. “The anticipated release of these funds marks a pivotal step toward restoring and enhancing the support systems that empower individuals and families to achieve self-sufficiency and build successful lives within our communities.” HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Catholic Charities Fort Worth has administered the state’s refugee resettlement services since 2016, when Gov. Greg Abbott pulled Texas from the federal program.

How Texas students, teachers could be impacted by a school discipline overhaul

Texas teachers have made it clear that student behavior can be a problem. In a poll cited by the state’s 2023 Teacher Vacancy Task Force report, nearly half of educators cited discipline and safe working conditions as a top concern. That motivated school administrators and lawmakers to propose changes to the state’s discipline rules. The most prominent bill aimed at addressing misbehavior is House Bill 6. As the session goes on, other legislation likely will be discussed as well. Among the voices pushing for change is a group of district officials that formed the Student Behavior Management Coalition. They say more must be done to ensure disruptive students don’t detract from other children’s experiences and safety in school.

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However, some education advocates are concerned that Texas is swinging back toward zero-tolerance policies that were in place years ago. That approach disproportionately removed children of color and those with disabilities from class, data repeatedly showed. Here are some of the changes being proposed: About a decade ago, Texas’ public schools suspended more than 100,000 students in pre-K through second grade. Faced with this data, lawmakers in 2017 banned out-of-school suspensions for these littlest learners, except for serious offenses such as if they brought a gun to class. HB 6 would allow those children to be kicked out of class for “conduct that results in repeated or significant disruption to the classroom.” Some education advocates are concerned that this would essentially reverse the ban because young children are frequently disruptive and the bill language is vague by not defining what is “significant.”

Dallas gets meeting with Saks Global over downtown Neiman

A Dallas city official is set to get time with Saks Global as the date for the closure of the downtown Neiman Marcus nears. Dallas city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert is slated to have a conversation with the department store, according to a statement by Saks Global. “We’ve always been open to speaking with the city manager of Dallas, and we look forward to doing so next week,” the company said in an email. “Our plans for the Dallas downtown store have not changed.” Last week, Tolbert signed a letter addressed to Richard Baker, executive chairman of Saks Global, that requested a meeting in the next 10 days, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Dallas Morning News. It also included others on a downtown consortium seeking to preserve the store.

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“At our in-person meeting with you, we will be prepared to discuss an opportunity that you will find 1) financially beneficial to your company, 2) beneficial to the Neiman Marcus brand equity and the continued support, loyalty and goodwill with your Texas clientele, and 3) creative and doable,” the letter said. The talk will be the latest in a series of efforts that have centered around the downtown Neiman Marcus store, which has had a presence in the city’s core for over a century. The site is set to close at the end of this month after a dispute between the company and a landlord, a challenge that the consortium worked to address. However, Saks Global has said repeatedly that it plans to close the store. “Our decision to close the Neiman Marcus Downtown Dallas store is final and we are moving forward as such,” Saks Global said in a statement about two weeks ago.

University of Texas System chief says schools will not sponsor, host drag shows. Here's why

The University of Texas System will no longer allow its institutions, including UT in Austin, to sponsor or host drag shows, Chairman Kevin Eltife said in a statement shared with the American-Statesman. Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare on Thursday urged the University of Texas System's board of regents to ban drag shows after complaining about an event at the University of Texas at Arlington that featured a drag performer. O'Hare cited a Jan. 20 executive order from President Donald Trump, which banned the use of federal funds in promoting "gender ideology," as the basis for the drag show ban. "As an alumnus of UT-Austin, I care about the reputation of the UT System," he said in his letter to the board of regents. "It is imperative the UT System leads in Texas and across the nation as a System prioritizing academics and student dignity."

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A day later, Chairman Kevin Eltife released a statement through a spokesperson saying the UT System wouldn't allow drag shows at its campuses. The system's board did not vote to adopt a new policy, as the Texas A&M University System did. Eltife said the board will consider further action if needed, but that all system institutions are expected to follow federal, state and local laws and executive orders. There is no current federal or state executive order explicitly banning drag shows. The Texas A&M System's board on Feb. 28 unanimously passed a resolution banning drag shows at its 11 campuses, citing Trump's "gender ideology" executive order. It said drag shows, which the board views as "hostile" to women, are not in line with the system's values. LGBTQ groups deny that the shows are hostile to women, instead defining the shows as artistic presentations of exaggerated gender expression that originated in the queer community.

National Stories

Ceasefire shatters as Israel pounds Gaza with wave of deadly strikes

Gaza’s fragile ceasefire shattered early Tuesday as Israel carried out what it described as “extensive strikes” on Hamas targets, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to use “increasing military strength” against the militant group, and Defense Minister Israel Katz declaring: “Tonight we returned to fighting in Gaza.” Hamas accused Israel of overturning the nearly two-month-long ceasefire agreement and “putting the captives in Gaza at risk of an unknown fate.” Israel accused Hamas of “repeatedly” refusing to release hostages and rejecting mediation offers.

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Israel’s attack has killed over 320 people and wounded hundreds more, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. A doctor told CNN the scenes at one Gaza City hospital were “nothing close to anything I’ve experienced before” and that the majority of cases she had seen were children. Israel consulted the Trump administration before the Gaza strikes. “Hamas, the Houthis, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News.

From France comes a call for Trump's America to return Lady Liberty. Here's why it won't happen

Hey, America: Give the Statue of Liberty back to France. So says a French politician who is making headlines in his country for suggesting that the U.S. is no longer worthy of the monument, which was a gift from France nearly 140 years ago. Raphaël Glucksmann, as a member of the European Parliament and co-president of a small left-wing party in France, can’t claim to speak for all of his compatriots. But his assertion in a speech this weekend that some Americans “have chosen to switch to the side of the tyrants” reflects the broad shockwaves that U.S. President Donald Trump’s seismic shifts in foreign and domestic policy are triggering in France and elsewhere in Europe. “Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” Glucksmann told supporters of his Public Place party, who applauded and whistled, on Sunday. “It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her. So she will be happy here with us,” Glucksmann said. The White House brushed back on the comments Monday, saying France instead should still be “grateful” for U.S. support during World War I and World War II. Glucksmann, in turn, then shot back that French gratitude for Americans’ wartime sacrifices is “eternal,” but added: “If the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.” “No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty,” he wrote in X posts. “The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone.”

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Can France claim it back? Dream on. UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural arm that has the statue on its list of World Heritage treasures, notes that the iconic monument is U.S. government property. It was initially envisaged as a monumental gesture of French-American friendship to mark the 100th anniversary of the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence. But a war that erupted in 1870 between France and German states led by Prussia diverted the energies of the monument’s designer, French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi. The gift also took time to be funded, with a decision made that the French would pay for the statue and Americans would cover the costs of its pedestal. Transported in 350 pieces from France, the statue was officially unveiled on Oct. 28, 1886. Is France’s government offering asylum to Lady Liberty? No. French-U.S. relations would have to drop off a cliff before Glucksmann found support from French President Emmanuel Macron’s government. For the moment, the French president is treading a fine line — trying to work with Trump and temper some of his policy shifts on the one hand, but also pushing back hard against some White House decisions, notably Trump’s tariff hikes.

Trump picks Fed Governor Michelle Bowman to replace Michael Barr as Fed’s supervision head

President Donald Trump announced Monday he has chosen Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman to take over the central bank’s top supervisory role. The announcement comes after Michael Barr resigned from his role as the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, though he remains a Fed governor. In January, when Barr announced that he would step down, he said in a statement that “the risk of a dispute over the position could be a distraction from our mission. In the current environment, I’ve determined that I would be more effective in serving the American people from my role as governor.” The elevation of Bowman gives Trump someone seen as more friendly to the banking industry in the top oversight role at the Fed. Bowman, a former bank executive and state regulator in Kansas, joined the central bank during Trump’s first term.

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Bowman is expected to take a lighter approach to the regulation of small banks in particular. “I am pleased to announce that Michelle ‘Miki’ Bowman will be the Federal Reserve’s new Vice Chair of Supervision,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Miki has been serving honorably on the Fed’s Board of Governors since 2018, and has great expertise dealing with Inflation, Regulation, and Banking. Our Economy has been mismanaged for the past four years, and it is time for a change. Miki has the ‘know-how’ to get it done. I am confident we will achieve Economic heights never before seen in our Nation’s History.” Bowman takes over a role that Fed Chair Jerome Powell is not a big fan of. During Congressional testimony in February, Powell said that he thought the creation of the vice chair for supervision had created “volatility” for the central bank. The position was introduced as part of regulatory reforms after the 2008 financial crisis. Bank stocks have outperformed the broader market since Trump’s election, likely in part because of expectations for lighter regulation on the sector.

Trump administration aims to eliminate E.P.A.’s scientific research arm

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, according to documents reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The strategy is part of large-scale layoffs, known as a “reduction in force,” being planned by the Trump administration, which is intent on shrinking the federal work force. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the E.P.A., has said he wants to eliminate 65 percent of the agency’s budget. That would be a drastic reduction — one that experts said could hamper clean water and wastewater improvements, air quality monitoring, the cleanup of toxic industrial sites, and other parts of the agency’s mission. The E.P.A.’s plan, which was presented to White House officials on Friday for review, calls for dissolving the agency’s largest department, the Office of Research and Development, and purging up to 75 percent of the people who work there.

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The remaining staff members would be placed elsewhere within the E.P.A. “to provide increased oversight and align with administration priorities,” according to the language shared with The New York Times by staff members who work for Democrats on the House science committee. Molly Vaseliou, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in a statement that the agency “is taking exciting steps as we enter the next phase of organizational improvements” and stressed that changes had not been finalized. “We are committed to enhancing our ability to deliver clean air, water and land for all Americans,” she said, adding, “While no decisions have been made yet, we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to increase efficiency and ensure the E.P.A. is as up to date and effective as ever.” Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the science committee, said that without the Office of Research and Development, the E.P.A. would not be able to meet its legal obligation to use the “best available science” when writing regulations and considering policy. She also said that the office was created by congressional statute and that dissolving it would be illegal.

Trump to release 80,000 pages of JFK files on Tuesday

President Trump announced he will release 80,000 pages of unredacted files Tuesday about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, after promising on the campaign trail to declassify the documents. “While we’re here, I thought it would be appropriate — we are, tomorrow, announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files. So, people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people … lots of different people, [Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard, that they must be released tomorrow,” the president told reporters while touring the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “You got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘just don’t redact, you can’t redact,’” the president said, adding it will be about 80,000 pages that he described as “interesting.” He said he has “heard about them” when asked if he has seen what’s in the files; he added, “I’m not doing summaries, you’ll write your own summary.” Trump in January signed an executive order directing the release of federal government documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, former Attorney General Robert F .Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

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The order instructed the director of national intelligence and attorney general to present a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.” Trump promised during his 2024 campaign to declassify the remaining government documents about the John F. Kennedy assassination, which has remained a point of public interest for decades after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald. Conspiracies have persisted about CIA involvement or the existence of another shooter. “I said during the campaign I’d do it, and I’m a man of my word,” Trump said Monday. Trump made the same pledge during his first term, but he ultimately kept some documents under wraps amid intelligence concerns. The last large dump of documents was in 2022, when the National Archives released nearly 13,000 new files related to the assassination. Congress passed legislation in 1992 requiring all remaining government records about the John F. Kennedy assassination to be released by October 2017, unless they posed certain risks to national defense or intelligence, and both Trump and former President Biden issued extensions to keep certain documents private.

Record number of Americans working more than one job

At least 5 percent of the American workforce has a second job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In a release earlier this month, the BLS reported that a record high of approximately 8.9 million Americans stated they work multiple jobs. That is the highest rate since the Great Recession in April 2009. A March report from the Federal Bank of St. Louis revealed that 50.2 percent of multiple job holders in 2024 had a college degree, which is a 9.1 percent increase from 2019.

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“If you’re going to try to have some semblance of a traditional life with kids, and a house and transportation, [it] takes a lot of money to do that,” Carolyn McClanahan, certified financial planner, told CNBC. “If employers are seeing soft demand for labor and cutting hours, that’s another reason why people are taking on additional jobs to fill the week and to fill their bank accounts,” Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told the outlet. The data comes less than a year after a July 2024 Bankrate survey showed that the share of people with side hustles dropped from 2023 — with 36 percent of adults reporting a second job compared to 39 percent the year before. But, even as inflation seemingly cools, 32 percent of those with a second gig say they believe extra work will always be needed to make ends meet, according to the poll.

Who is the judge stopping Trump’s deportations, and what comes next?

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan migrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law previously invoked only during wartime. Three flights containing more than 200 deportees landed in El Salvador after Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia gave his verbal order to return them to the United States on Saturday. The Justice Department argued Monday that none left the United States after his written ruling came through and that, in any case, the court had no jurisdiction once the aircraft flew over international waters. Here’s what to know about the judge in the case, what might happen next, and how the dispute fits into Trump supporters’ attacks on the courts and critics’ concerns over a constitutional crisis that could result if President Donald Trump refuses to comply with orders from the judicial branch.

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James E. Boasberg is a former homicide prosecutor who has served 23 years as a judge in Washington, appointed by presidents of both parties. He took over as chief judge of the high-profile federal trial court in the nation’s capital in March 2023, where he oversaw disputes over grand jury investigations involving former president Donald Trump, including claims of executive privilege over then-Vice President Mike Pence’s testimony before a grand jury. His rulings were upheld by an appellate panel. A native Washingtonian, the 6-foot, 6-inch Boasberg played basketball for St. Albans School and Yale College, where he graduated with undergraduate and law degrees. He earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Oxford. Boasberg, 62, who goes by Jeb, has a history of bipartisan support. President George W. Bush appointed him in 2002 to the D.C. Superior Court, which oversees criminal and civil matters in the District, and President Barack Obama named him in 2011 to U.S. District Court. A law school housemate of Trump-nominated Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Boasberg has been noted as a feeder judge whose law clerks have been picked for similar posts at the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. named Boasberg presiding judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from January 2020 to May 2021. Glenn Kirschner, Boasberg’s supervisor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, recalled assigning him the toughest homicide cases. He called Boasberg “a singularly remarkable prosecutor. I say that because he never lost a murder case. And because he would never tell anybody he never lost a murder case. It wasn’t in his identity to talk about himself or his accomplishments.”

Trump administration moves to reinstate thousands of probationary workers

The Trump administration has moved to reinstate at least 24,000 federal probationary employees fired in the president’s push to shrink the government, according to filings in one of two cases in which a federal judge ruled the terminations illegal. The records filed in federal court in Maryland late Monday span 18 agencies and mark the most comprehensive accounting to date of sweeping firings in recent months, which the administration has repeatedly declined to detail. Most of the reinstated employees were placed on paid administrative leave, according to declarations from officials at the agencies. Others were fully reinstated with pay, or reinstated without pay if they had been on unpaid leave before their termination, according to filings. The officials asserted that offering all of the employees their jobs back would sow chaos, particularly when an appeals court might later allow the terminations to move forward. But they indicated they were nonetheless trying to comply with judicial orders.

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U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar had given the Trump administration until Monday to send out the job offers to fired probationary employees and until 7 p.m. to submit a comprehensive report to the court documenting their compliance — a deadline that came just as Justice Department lawyers fought in an entirely separate immigration case in D.C. federal court over the extent to which they had to comply with a judicial order there. The administration is facing an array of legal challenges on a wide range of issues, including the ongoing effort led by Trump adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce. The Maryland ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general in early March alleging that the Trump administration had illegally terminated tens of thousands of probationary workers across 18 federal agencies. The states argued those firings were conducted in an opaque way that has overwhelmed state government support systems for unemployed workers and caused economic harm. That harm would have been mitigated, the states argued, if the Trump administration had given them a 60-day notice — a warning they said in court papers is required of the federal government during mass layoffs. The lawsuit, filed by 19 states and the District of Columbia, claimed that the workers’ termination letters falsely said they were fired for performance issues when, according to lead plaintiff and Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown, “the firings were clearly part of the administration’s attempt to restructure and downsize the entire federal government.”

Lead Stories

Texas Republicans want to curb shareholder lawsuits, like the one that blocked Elon Musk's $50B check

Elon Musk began moving his companies to Texas after a Delaware judge blocked a more than $50 billion pay package for the Tesla CEO last year. Now Texas Republicans, who have welcomed the billionaire with open arms, are pushing legislation that business law experts say would make that court outcome next to impossible here. Their proposal, a priority of House Speaker Dustin Burrows, would make it significantly harder for shareholders to file lawsuits in Texas against publicly traded companies, like the one that spurred Musk to ditch Delaware and urge other companies to file suit. RELATED: Elon Musk moved Tesla and SpaceX to Texas. They could test the state’s new business courts Shareholders could only bring so-called derivative claims that allege wrongdoing by executives if they held a 3% stake in the company, which for Tesla, would shrink the eligible pool to only a handful of big financial firms.

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But the legislation would go far beyond the billionaire Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO. It would insulate all corporate directors and officers from most shareholder claims brought in the state’s new business courts, unless it could be proven that they committed fraud or knowingly broke the law. And the changes would shield executive’s emails, texts and other communications from shareholder inspection in most cases. The bill would mark a significant expansion of protections for corporations in the state’s new court system that launched just last year and is a key piece of Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to convince more businesses to incorporate in the state. The Republican governor has yet to comment on the proposal. State Rep. Morgan Meyer, a Dallas Republican who authored the bill, told a House judicial committee this month that the changes will shield businesses from “meritless, distracting lawsuits” and allow companies to “flourish, create new Texas jobs and contribute to Texas' soaring economy.” The changes would only apply to publicly traded corporations or companies that opt into the new rules via the court.

Five years into COVID, more Texans are avoiding vaccines – for everything

Round Rock family physician Dr. Tina Philip keeps having the same conversation with patients these days. She encourages them to get vaccinated for COVID and flu. They say no. "I’ve even had patients that, you know, previously would get the flu vaccine every year, and then now they’re like, ‘Nah, I’m just not going to do any of that anymore,'" Philip said. At the end of 2021, 77% of Travis County residents aged 5 and up had gotten at least one dose of the COVID vaccine — many of them after eagerly waiting in line for a shot that could bring a bit of normalcy back to their lives. But as of this month, only 23% of adults had received the latest shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Likewise, the CDC reports, flu vaccination rates have tracked steadily downward since 2019. More kindergartners are opting out of school vaccine requirements, and state lawmakers are trying to make it even easier to do so.

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Dr. Claire Bocchini, an infectious disease specialist with Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, said vaccine hesitancy was rising even before COVID-19 emerged – but the pandemic exacerbated the trend. "With the COVID vaccine generating so much media attention and misinformation online via social media, I think that we did see a rise of vaccine hesitancy in general," Bocchini said. KUT News received more than 200 responses to a survey this month about attitudes toward vaccines. Many respondents said their education about the COVID-19 vaccine had reinforced the importance of immunizations to protect themselves and the community. But others, like Austin resident Alicia Giangiacomo, said they had become more skeptical following the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. Giangiacomo said she never got the vaccine, partly because she was never required to, and partly because she was nervous about how quickly it was developed.

Trump has a plan to remake the economy. But he’s not explaining it very well.

President Donald Trump acknowledges that his economic plan is causing short-term pain while the nation advances to a new “Golden Age.” But administration officials have been much less clear about what that destination will look like — and how long it will take to get there. The president talks about reindustrializing the Midwest while his treasury secretary emphasizes weaning Americans from an unhealthy reliance on government spending. Trump’s commerce secretary is keen to balance the federal budget. His top White House economic adviser touts the virtues of tax cuts and “massive deregulation.” Amid signs of investor unease, the Trump administration insists it aims to help Main Street, not Wall Street. But so far, the administration’s discordant chorus is not satisfying either one. The erratic pace and tone of Trump 2.0 is taking a toll on the stable economy the president inherited, denting growth prospects and leaving Americans more downbeat than they have been in years.

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On Friday, a closely watched consumer confidence index sank to its lowest level since November 2022, when inflation was near a 40-year high. The stock market, meanwhile, is losing altitude, as investors fear that the president means what he says about using tariffs to reverse decades of globalization. “It is a bit of a muddle right now, what they mean. Each of the economic spokespeople speaks in different ways. And I’m not even saying they’re speaking in different ways about the same thing. They’re just speaking about different things,” said economist Glenn Hubbard, who was President George W. Bush’s top economic adviser. “It’s unsettling.” Trump’s voice, of course, is the loudest and most authoritative. The president describes his objectives using a salesman’s best-case superlatives. His economic plan will produce “the highest quality of life” and make the country “the wealthiest and healthiest” of any in the world, he told Congress this month. Trump has left it to his aides, particularly Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to articulate a more complete description of his economic overhaul.

Job seekers hit wall of salary deflation

It used to pay to switch jobs. Now it doesn’t. The salary difference between those who stay in their roles and those who change jobs has collapsed to its lowest level in 10 years, according to the latest federal data. Job stayers increased their wages by about 4.6% in January and February. Meanwhile, those who switched jobs received only slightly more at 4.8%. That gap has narrowed considerably since the start of 2023, when job switchers could fetch an average salary bump of 7.7%, compared with job stayers’ 5.5%. “We’re not in a recession obviously, but things are not as good as before,” says Yongseok Shin, a professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis. “People are responding by staying put.” Keith Sims runs Indianapolis recruiting firm Integrity Resource Management and places teams of five to 40 people in software implementation with big companies such as Panasonic. Many offers are coming in low these days.

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“We’re seeing wages be off from expectations most of the time,” he says. Kim Vandrilla, 42, had been working as a creative director for a major consumer brand up until this past fall when she was laid off. She was making more than $200,000. During her job hunt, she is finding the same role listed for $140,000 to $160,000. “And that’s at the high end of the range,” she says. “My first role as a creative director was for $175,000, and that was in 2017.” Even in the tech industry, where not so long ago workers bounced around for big raises with ease, more people are hanging on to the job they have. Workers who negotiated their salaries during the pandemic when the sector drove big pay increases, especially at high-growth tech firms, aren’t likely to find a new job for more money than they are already making. “There’s little incentive for those folks to go out and look for a new job,” says Zuhayeer Musa, co-founder of Levels.fyi, a platform for salary data.

State Stories

Central Texas town, counties prepare for future water demand as growth continues

For three years, no one has been able to swim in the clear, cool waters of Jacob's Well, a popular artesian spring in Hays County with the second-largest submerged cave in Texas. That's because the drought and overpumping of the Trinity Aquifer have reduced its flow to a trickle, said David Baker, founder of the nonprofit Watershed Association that is dedicated to water preservation. "It's sad to see something so beautiful impacted to the point where it's not as vibrant as it was," he said. Central Texas is among the fastest-growing places in the country. Along with the growing population, water-intensive businesses in Central Texas such as artificial intelligence, data centers and semiconductor manufacturing plants also are booming. Suburban cities in Hays, Williamson, Bastrop and Travis counties are trying to find ways to make sure everyone has the water they need.

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Many of those suburbs rely on at least one of three aquifers in Central Texas — the Trinity, Carrizo-Wilcox and the Edwards — along with Lake Travis and other area lakes for their water. At least one city official said their town will run out of water for new development in a few years if no new sources are developed. Other officials say they have their cities' water needs met until 2040 or 2050. But some water experts, such as groundwater conservation managers and geologists, say they have doubts about promising residents water very far into the future. One water district in Hays County has "no expectation" that the Trinity Aquifer can sustain the growth the county is experiencing in the long term, said Charlie Flatten, its general manager. "Projections show that by 2036, Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District allocations will have reached the limit of the total available groundwater as modeled by the Texas Water Development Board," Flatten said. "Diversification of our supplies will require a long-term effort by local and state leadership to secure and deliver water." The western Williamson County town of Liberty Hill, which relies on water from Lake Travis and the Trinity Aquifer, could run out of water for new development in a few years if it doesn't make plans to acquire more sources, said Zach Stein, a water resource project manager at HDR Engineering, during a City Council meeting in February. "The city needs to develop more than five times the current water supply volume by 2050," Stein said. Stein said Liberty Hill's population of about 12,000 is predicted to grow by 12% annually for the next 10 years.

Solar and wind generation continue to grow

Texas continues to be a leader in both solar and wind generation. Solar is now the fastest-growing source of electricity in the United States, according to data released by our partners at Climate Central. Texas generated the second most electricity from solar energy in 2024, behind California. What’s better is that Texas led the country in wind-generated electricity. In all, the United States generated a record 756,621 gigawatt-hours from both solar and wind last calendar year. That’s enough to power the equivalent of more than 70,000,000 average American homes. Solar and wind combine to account for a record 17% of the total generation in the U.S. in 2024. It’s also tripled the amount generated in 2015.

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Texas is generating more clean energy sources now, with solar and wind accounting for 30% of the state’s electric power. That’s good news for the environment. Those with solar panels are likely saving more money on their electric bill because of the green energy solution. Texas is the leader in green wind energy generation with 28% of all the wind power in the U.S. last year. The numbers show the Lone Star State’s wind generation was 124.936 gigawatt hours in 2024. The country as a whole generated 453,454 gigawatt hours. That’s almost triple the wind power generated by the second biggest wind energy-producing state, Iowa. There, wind energy accounted for 63% of all electricity generated which is the largest share of total in-state electricity generation than any other state. Oklahoma is third, Kansas fourth and Illinois fifth. California was tenth in wind generation. As a matter of reference, one gigawatt hour of power can power as many as 725,000 homes for a year.

Hospital bollard bill, sparked by KXAN, to get Senate hearing

A bill aimed at making Texas hospitals safer is now officially set to have a public hearing on Tuesday. Senate Bill 660 was filed in direct response to a series of KXAN investigations into the deadly crash at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center more than a year ago. It is one of more than 400 similar incidents our team uncovered over the past decade. The bill would require crash-tested barriers, called bollards, at most hospital entrances. Without a state or federal requirement, KXAN found a patchwork system where some hospitals are protected while others are left vulnerable. “We talk a lot about patient safety,” Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, told KXAN this month. “You certainly don’t want to have to think about walking out of an ER, or being close to an ER, and having someone crash through it.”

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Can Austin clean up 'Dirty Sixth' Street? How the city hopes to reinvent the iconic strip

On a Friday night in February on East Sixth Street, a steely-eyed bar doorman rushed around a crowd agitating on the sidewalk and whipped a flashlight above his shoulder. He flicked it on and off toward the street where on-duty Austin police officers were on patrol. A fight was brewing. As a tiff among a group of women turned physical, at least half a dozen officers rushed in. About half of them worked to yank the women off each other while the rest cordoned off the scene with outstretched arms. Police slammed one of the women to the ground and swiftly ushered her away in handcuffs. It was one of four fights that broke out that night on Austin’s most infamous street, nicknamed “Dirty Sixth” years ago by locals. Such melees are the main feature of a YouTube channel dedicated to street fights that has almost 90,000 subscribers.

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A major new initiative aims to change that. Late last year, the Austin Police Department quietly rolled out a pilot program to reopen East Sixth Street to car traffic between Red River and Brazos streets on weekend evenings. The thinking was that breaking up the large crowds that congregate in the streets would reduce violence and the need for such intense police presence. The move was provocative not just because it sought to reverse a decades-old practice — the street has been regularly shuttered on weekends since the 90s — but because past city leaders deemed it unfeasible as recently as a few years ago. Preliminary statistics from the first two months of 2025 suggest that the change has led to a decrease in violence — including at the hands of police officers — as well as injuries to officers and arrests. While initially billed as a temporary pilot program that would end in March, the city decided to continue on given the promising statistics. But fundamentally transforming a street that for decades has largely served a young and working-class night-time crowd — and cultivated a reputation among locals as the stepchild of downtown Austin — is no easy lift. Leaders have tried and failed to do it for decades. Experts say a successful overhaul will require a full embrace of nearly everyone who touches East Sixth Street: business owners, visitors, law enforcement, investors, local elected leaders and other city officials. It's a massive task that will play out in the coming months and years.

Under Brooke Rollins, USDA cuts funding to Texas food banks for buying from local farms and ranches

Texas farmers are taking yet another hit from President Donald Trump’s administration during the early weeks of his second term in the White House. The administration has already cut foreign aid programs that have left farm exports stalled at ports like in Houston, and tariffs have rattled farmers already struggling through drought and diseases like the bird flu outbreak. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has eliminated a pair of programs with about $2 billion that helped community food banks and schools buy fresh food from farms and ranches. In a Fox News interview, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins called the programs “nonessential” and “an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that was not necessary.”

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However, the cut will have real impacts in Texas, according to reporter Tom Orsborn. The nonprofit San Antonio Food Bank stands to lose about $3 million just because of the cuts to one program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program. Cuts to that program and the Local Food for Schools program, combined, will cost Texas about $200 million used to buy locally grown food, according to research from Reuters. Texas Agriculture Commission Sid Miller, a Republican and big Trump advocate, is a big supporter of farm-to-school and farm-to-food-bank programs but said he understands why the Trump administration is re-evaluating the federal programs. “I support a fair and consistent approach, which is precisely what the Trump Administration is implementing,” Miller said. “This is not a final decision—it’s a reassessment. There’s always room for refinement, and we may see a revised version of the policy down the road that is even better for agriculture producers.” As for the bigger picture for farmers, Rollins, a Texas native, earlier this week acknowledged that things have been “a little bit bumpy,” but she said in the long term they will benefit from greater prosperity from all of the moves Trump has been making. “I believe in President Trump’s vision,” Rollins said.

Houston Congressman Al Green calls for hearing after postmaster labels USPS watchdog 'unnecessary'

Allegations that the U.S. Postal Service’s watchdog agency has outlived its usefulness have sparked a call from U.S. Rep. Al Green for a congressional hearing. It came after U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy criticized the Postal Regulatory Commission, labelling it a "burdensome" agency responsible for inflicting $50 billion in damages on the USPS. Green, writing in a letter to fellow lawmakers Friday, urged Congress to formally hear the matter before DeJoy allows Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to allow the PRC to be "extinguished or marginalized.”

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"Postmaster DeJoy recently sent you a letter claiming that the PRC, which was designed to oversee the actions of the USPS and protect Americans, is a barrier to a more efficient and effective postal service and is unnecessary. He has further indicated that he will work with DOGE to eliminate inefficiencies," Green wrote. "I propose that Congress hold a hearing before its watchdog is DOGEd." The PRC, established under the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, is comprised of five commissioners appointed by the president who serve six-year terms. Only three of the five may be of the same political party as the president, according to the act. The PRC's mission is to "ensure transparency and accountability of the USPS to foster a vital and efficient universal mail system," according to the commission's website. DeJoy, also writing to congressional leaders, wrote in a Thursday letter that the commission held antiquated views regarding the role of the USPS and that it stood in the way of efforts to improve the country's mail system. The postmaster's letter came a little over a month after the PRC issued an advisory opinion that found significant flaws in the Delivering for America plan, a 10-year blueprint passed under the Biden administration aimed at modernizing the USPS.

'Not a raging wildfire': Crabapple Fire near Fredericksburg 55% contained

Paul Hannemann, a 73-year-old volunteer firefighter, returned home around 1 a.m. Sunday covered in a black layer of soot, a result of the hours he spent fighting the raging Crabapple Fire that had consumed an estimated 9,500 acres northeast of Fredericksburg. His wife, Janalee, met him with relief. Hannemann’s phone had died around 11 p.m., leaving his wife unable to track his location. Early Sunday, the firefighter brought the stench of smoke to their home in the heart of Fredericksburg, about eight miles away from where the wildfire began on Crabapple Road. “I don't know if he sat down in our den last night or was just walking through, the smoke smell was still there,” Janalee said. "That smoke is just overwhelming, the smell,” she said.

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Paul Hannemann, a 73-year-old volunteer firefighter, returned home around 1 a.m. Sunday covered in a black layer of soot, a result of the hours he spent fighting the raging Crabapple Fire that had consumed an estimated 9,500 acres northeast of Fredericksburg. His wife, Janalee, met him with relief. Hannemann’s phone had died around 11 p.m., leaving his wife unable to track his location. Early Sunday, the firefighter brought the stench of smoke to their home in the heart of Fredericksburg, about eight miles away from where the wildfire began on Crabapple Road. “I don't know if he sat down in our den last night or was just walking through, the smoke smell was still there,” Janalee said. "That smoke is just overwhelming, the smell,” she said.

Tony Quesada: Could ‘toilet to tap’ water work for San Antonio like it will for El Paso?

(Tony Quesada is an Express News columnist.) As I occasionally check in with the news where I grew up, I took particular interest in an item with potential long-term application where I live now. El Paso Water, a city-owned utility akin to San Antonio Water System, recently broke ground on a $295 million advanced water purification facility. This facility, called the Pure Water Center, will further treat water taken from the discharge of an existing sewage treatment plant and send it to city’s potable water supply. The Pure Water Center is projected to produce up to 10 million gallons per day — roughly 9% of El Paso’s typical total water demand. The idea of converting water that people flushed into water people drink — sometimes referred to as “toilet to tap” — carries a certain “ick” factor. But El Paso residents appear to have gotten over that a while ago, as El Paso Water Communications Manager Christina Montoya-Halter explained to news outlets there three years ago while the advanced purification facility was on the drawing board. She cited a survey then showing that 80% of El Pasoans supported the idea of advanced purification.

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“El Pasoans know that we live in the desert. They know that water is an important issue for us,” Montoya-Halter said. “We have to look at these other sources. So they are understanding, and they accept these other sources.” And with the technology having evolved to a point that it can yield potable water at utility-scale, a lot of eyes are on West Texas’ Sun City. It’s been reported that Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., are moving toward following El Paso’s lead, as are some Texas communities, including ones in the Hill Country. San Antonio likely wouldn’t be compelled to consider advanced purification for many years. With the addition of tens of millions of gallons per day flowing here from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Central Texas through the Vista Ridge Pipeline, which came on line nearly five years ago, San Antonio likely has plenty of runway before it would need to approach the idea. But the kind of growth — San Antonio’s population has doubled in the past 30 years — that spurred the $2.8 billion investment in Vista Ridge could bring us there sooner than we’d like to hope.

Kelley Shannon: Shining a light on government brings together Texans of all kinds

(Kelley Shannon is the executive director of the nonprofit Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.) What unites Texans of all political persuasions is the nonpartisan principle that our government must operate in the sunlight. We have the right — and responsibility — to keep watch on how tax money is spent and how public officials make decisions. But it takes access to information to do it. Our state transparency laws envision citizens having power over government. Every legislative session, updates and improvements are needed so that the Texas Public Information Act and the Texas Open Meetings Act function as intended. The Texas Sunshine Coalition, representing 16 organizations with varying interests, works to protect the public’s right to know. Supporters of the coalition testified this month before a key Texas House committee on enhancing public information laws. As we embark on national Sunshine Week (March 16-22) and call attention to open government, let’s embrace these bipartisan sunshine proposals in the Texas Legislature:

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Enforcement. When governments don’t respond to information requestors or don’t provide all the releasable records, common sense enforcement is necessary in the Public Information Act. Requestors deserve a solid system for filing complaints with the attorney general, and government officials found to have acted wrongly should face consequences such as additional open government training. Senate Bill 919 by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, and HB 4219 by Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, would achieve this. If a requestor must file a lawsuit to force release of information, there should be a way to recover attorneys’ fees if the requestor prevails. Texas appellate court decisions have made that difficult, allowing governments to hand over records at the last minute — often after costly litigation — and avoid paying legal fees. Those who successfully sue a government to obtain information need to recover attorneys’ fees or, as Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, recently pointed out, “that’s not a fair fight.” Pending legislation would clarify legal fee provisions. SB 824 by Middleton, HB 2248 by Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, and SB 1291 by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, address the issue. User friendly Initiatives. Legislative proposals to help citizens and governments better use and carry out the Public Information Act include requiring that the attorney general’s office operates a toll-free open government hotline; ensuring that the government official or outside legal counsel who responds to citizens’ requests completes open government training; and allowing for mediation between a requestor and a government. These are contained in SB 1294 and SB 1295 by Johnson and SB 1130 by Middleton.

SXSW transforms in 2026: Music weekend gone, half-price badges available now

The South by Southwest Conference and Festival is undergoing a dramatic transformation. With dwindling band numbers and a surge in Film interest, the event will present a trimmed-down schedule that eliminates a dedicated music weekend in 2026. SXSW is also offering a lifeline to cash-strapped, would-be attendees with unprecedented early bird discounts slashing badge prices in half for a limited time. Is the Music fest, once the headliner, now more like the opening act that nobody quite remembers? They used to pack in 2,000 bands, in a chaotic symphony of sound. In 2025, that number was 1,012. 35% were international acts, representing their countries with pride, and often sponsored in part by government ministries.

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The Film and TV Fest, once the awkward sibling shoved into the corner, has suddenly become the cool kid everyone wants to hang out with. Thanks in part to Penske Corp. — 50% owners of SXSW since 2021 and Hollywood heavyweights who own your favorite film industry and music mags — the Film fest now feels like the VIP lounge. Suddenly, everyone's clamoring for screen time, not stage time. Next year, the festival and conference will run from Thursday March 12 to Wednesday March 18, ditching the second music-centric weekend. The fest is also offering deep early bird discounts at sxsw.com through March 31. You can snag a Platinum pass for a $1,135. Interactive badges are going for $785, Film and Television for $700. And $475 for a music badge. Walk up prices this year were wallet whopping: Platinum $2,295, Interactive $1,695, Film and Television badges $1,395, Music badges $995). Worth noting: For the last several years, badges for each track granted secondary access to other festival tracks. Next year, the Platinum pass is the only badge that will grant access to all festival tracks.

Adrian Lopez: Parents need access to child care to maintain employment

(Adrian Lopez has more than 25 years of community and economic development experience. He has dedicated his career to public service, working in City, County, Council of Governments, nonprofits, local housing authorities and currently as the CEO for Workforce Solutions Alamo – leading one of the 28 workforce boards in the State of Texas.) For many parents in Workforce Solutions Alamo’s 13-county region, child care is not a luxury, it is a requirement for employment. Their ability to work can rely on the availability of affordable, high-quality care for their children. When parents find it difficult to find affordable child care, it can then cause challenges that affect their ability to maintain consistent employment, pursue education or engage in job training. The ripple effect of inadequate child care extends beyond families as employers face higher turnover rates, productivity losses or are unable to fill roles. Today, there are more than 29,000 jobs available in the Alamo Region. Workforce Solutions Alamo (WSA) works directly with 620 child care centers in this area to provide scholarships to families, however, the current demand exceeds capacity. Although there are 14,781 children receiving early education through these centers, we still have another 4,058 children who remain on the waitlist, leaving many families struggling to find the support they need to care for their children while they work, attend school or pursue job training.

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o address the high demand for financial assistance and reduce waitlists, we must seek out ways to continue to invest in programs like WSA’s Child Care Services that support working families. Lawmakers can create funding strategies and economic incentives to strengthen our state’s child care system. By establishing additional funding streams, such as tax credits for employers and subsidies for extended-hour care, we can make child care more accessible and affordable. Reducing operational costs for providers and offering business incentives can also encourage more centers to open and operate sustainably. To address the shortage of child care in certain areas designated as child care deserts, we can create “Child Care Opportunity Zones.” By offering financial incentives, like expedited regulations and tax credits, we can attract investment and development in these underserved communities. Many child care providers, particularly in rural areas, struggle to access the capital they need to operate or expand. Creating a child care capital access program or loan guarantee program could help address this issue. Prioritizing loans under $100,000 would be especially beneficial for smaller centers. In addition, a rural child care fund could support the creation of childcare co-ops in underserved rural communities, providing families with more local and affordable options.

Lawmakers file bills to create Texas Cyber Command

Matagorda County Judge Bobby Seiferman is used to handling emergencies as his county sits in hurricane alley, but he and his colleagues faced a different type of emergency at the beginning of 2025. “Everything was knocked out,” Seiferman explained. “So the county clerk was down. You couldn’t file deeds — you couldn’t close on any property.” His county of a little more than 36,000 people was hit by a cyberattack. It started when an employee in the county jail clicked on something in the early hours of Jan. 24 that triggered the attack. Later that day by breakfast time, Seiferman said the Department of Information Resources (DIR), the Department of Public Safety, Texas Department of Emergency Management, and the FBI were on the ground helping with the attack.

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Five weeks after the attack, Seiferman said 90% of his county was back and still working on bringing all services back to full power. “These sorts of things affect so many people,” Seiferman explained. His county is part of a growing list of government entities being targeted in the state of Texas. He said he received a call from another Texas city asking for a copy of his county’s emergency declaration because they were going through its own cyberattack. A spokesperson for DIR said the agency “blocks more than a billion cybersecurity intrusion attempts on the State of Texas network every day.” According to a cybersecurity report filed by the agency in 2024, there is a growing trend over the past two years where, “Texas water systems experienced several significant cyberattacks, highlighting the vulnerability of the state’s critical infrastructure and potential dangers of cyberattacks on these systems.” DIR delivers technology solutions to Texas state agencies. Part of their responsibility is also cybersecurity. A spokesperson for the agency said, “The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) takes our role in assisting other government organizations with cybersecurity incidents very seriously and strives to protect the information entrusted to us by organizations who have been impacted. With its booming technology industry, critical infrastructure, and many government agencies, Texas is a prime target for cyberattacks.”

National Stories

As Musk’s business empire falters, Trump summons a wave of conservative support

President Donald Trump sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Before him was Elon Musk. In an expansive mood, Trump offered a favor: Was there anything the administration could do for the car company Musk leads, Tesla? Nothing immediately came to mind for Musk during the early 2020 meeting, details of which have not been previously reported. But last week, Trump appeared to deliver a fantastic favor to the billionaire tech entrepreneur, the biggest donor of the 2024 election cycle and his closest ally. In an unprecedented event — part news conference, part infomercial — the president showcased Tesla vehicles on a White House driveway and announced that he had selected one of them — a cherry red Model S — for himself. The event sparked a wave of conservative support for Tesla, a company facing a plummeting stock price, investor frustration, consumer boycotts and sometimes violent protests at facilities across the country.

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As Tesla shareholders press Musk to return his attention to the firm that made him the world’s richest person, the event also highlighted how Musk’s deepening alliance with Trump has been boon and burden to his expansive business empire. Trump and his deputies are threatening those who vandalize Teslas, saying they will classify anti-Tesla protesters as domestic terrorists. “If you’re going to touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out because we’re coming after you,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a Friday interview on Fox Business. “And if you’re funding this, we’re coming after you. We’re going to find out who you are.” Meanwhile, Republican politicians and MAGA influencers are urging their supporters to purchase Musk’s EVs. Gesturing at a Tesla in a Friday X post, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said: “This may be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” The campaign has triggered an uptick in searches for “Buy a Tesla” in many traditionally red states, according to Google Trends data, and Tesla’s stock has rebounded slightly. But it risks alienating the liberal customers who spawned its early success. And as Tesla falters, some of its executives have eyed opportunities outside the company in recent days, according to a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Trump administration deports hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador despite court ruling

Hundreds of mostly Venezuelan alleged gang members were deported from the United States to a prison in El Salvador on Sunday, with the Trump administration invoking wartime powers to speed up removals despite a court ruling halting the move. In the latest dramatic showdown between the White House and the judiciary, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s ability to use the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act on Saturday evening, and verbally ordered any planes in the air carrying some of those migrants to turn back to the US. US District Judge James Boasberg said the temporary restraining order will remain in effect for 14 days “or until further order of the court.” One person familiar with the matter said the planes were already in the air at the time of the judge’s ruling.

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“Particularly given the plaintiffs’ information, unrebutted by the government, that flights are actively departing and planning to depart, I do not believe that I’m able to wait any longer,” said US District Judge James Boasberg during the hearing. “Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States.” But on Sunday night, President Donald Trump defended his use of the Act, telling reporters on board Air Force One: “I can tell you this, these were bad people. That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres.” Previous use of the Aliens Enemies Act has taken place during times of war, but Trump argued that “this was a time of war” and an “invasion” of migrants and criminals – repeating his past claims about the Biden administration’s handling of immigration. When asked whether his government had violated the judge’s order, Trump replied: “You’d have to speak to the lawyers about that.”

DOGE cuts reach key nuclear scientists, bomb engineers and safety experts

They handled the secure transport of nuclear materials — dangerous, demanding work that requires rigorous training. Four of them took the Trump administration’s offer of a buyout and left the National Nuclear Security Administration. A half-dozen staff members left a unit in the agency that builds reactors for nuclear submarines. And a biochemist and engineer who had recently joined the agency as head of the team that enforces safety and environmental standards at a Texas plant that assembles nuclear warheads was fired. In the past six weeks, the agency, just one relatively small outpost in a federal work force that President Trump and his top adviser Elon Musk aim to drastically pare down, has lost a huge cadre of scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers — all in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation.

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The nuclear agency, chronically understaffed but critically important, is the busiest it has been since the Cold War. It not only manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads, it is modernizing that arsenal — a $20-billion-a-year effort that will arm a new fleet of nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles. Since the last year of the first Trump administration, the agency has been desperately trying to build up its staff to handle the added workload. Though it was still hundreds of employees short of what it had said it needed, it had edged up to about 2,000 workers by January. Now, with the Trump administration’s buyouts and firings, the agency’s trajectory has gone from one of painstaking growth to retraction. More than 130 employees took the government’s offer of a payout to resign, according to internal agency documents obtained by The New York Times that have not previously been reported. Those departures, together with those of about 27 workers who were caught up in a mass firing and not rehired, wiped out most of the recent staffing gains.

Trump says Putin talks will discuss Russia and Ukraine ‘dividing up certain assets’

President Donald Trump said late Sunday that negotiators in Washington and Moscow have begun discussing the division of assets between Russia and Ukraine in an effort to bring to an end the three-year-long war between the two countries. The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that he plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and that the conversation would discuss "dividing up certain assets," including land and power plants. “I think we have a lot of it already discussed by both sides — Ukraine and Russia,” Trump said. “We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”

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The talks expected to get underway Tuesday will see Trump attempt to win Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the U.S. and Ukraine after their delegates met in Saudi Arabia last week, but which Putin said needed to meet crucial demands made by the Kremlin. Putin and his officials have repeatedly indicated that they want to cement Russia's land grabs during the three-year war and stop Kyiv from ever joining NATO. Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko reiterated those goals Monday, telling Russian outlet Izvestia that Russia will seek "iron-clad security guarantees” to ensure Kyiv’s exclusion from NATO in any peace deal and Ukraine's neutrality regarding the bloc. Pressure has been mounting on Russia to cede to Trump's demands after Ukraine accepted the ceasefire proposal last week, though Grushko's comments Monday made no reference to the ceasefire proposal.

Trumps takes jab at Biden over 'autopen signature' following concerning report over who ran the White House

President Donald Trump trolled former President Joe Biden in a social media post on Sunday, highlighting the controversy surrounding his alleged "autopen signatures" during his presidency. On Truth Social, Trump posted three images side-by-side – his official portrait from his first term, a picture of Biden's autopen and then finally his official portrait for his second term. Trump then pinned the post. "The person who was the real President during the Biden years was the person who controlled the Autopen!" Trump wrote in another post on his account.

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"The man was grossly incompetent. All you have to do is take a look, he signs by autopen. Who was signing all this stuff by autopen? Who would think to sign important documents by autopen?" Trump asked reporters. "These are major documents you're signing, you're proud to sign, yet you have your signature on something and in 300 years, they say ‘oh look.’ Can you imagine everything was signing by autopen? Almost everything. Nobody has ever heard of such a thing. It should have never happened," Trump continued. The post sparked a firestorm on social media with many backing Trump as Democrats have faced backlash over accusations that they dismissed Biden's health concerns and engaged in a cover-up throughout the end of his term. "President Trump JUST POSTED the AUTOPEN that ran the White House from 2021-2025 next to his portraits," one X user commented.

Survivors pick through ruins after monster storm kills 39 across U.S.

The inclement weather was supposed to pass around midnight late Friday, so Christopher Mattox figured his trailer home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, was safe. When his wife, Dolores, asked whether he was worried, he recalled responding: “No, baby, I sleep real good when it storms.” Lounging in his flannel pajamas and sipping a Pepsi, Mattox flicked on the news. Then came the sound of hail pounding his roof. Suddenly, the three-bedroom mobile home shook, and Mattox gripped his mattress. Mirrors and his TV were flung across the room as the home tipped a few inches off its base. “It felt like I was literally on a carpet ride,” Mattox, 68, told The Washington Post. When the tornado passed a few seconds later, Mattox’s home was destroyed. He shined a flashlight through a shattered window to make out dismantled mobile home parts littering his neighborhood’s gravel. Mattox heard his neighbors calling for help, but he could barely move himself.

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A flurry of questions swirled in his mind: Where am I going to live? What am I going to do next? How do I move on from losing everything? Survivors have been asking similar questions in more than a half-dozen states after a monster storm system spawned tornadoes that pulverized homes, dust storms that caused freeway pileups, and fires that scorched hundreds of structures over the weekend. At least 39 people have been killed. The storms were caused by two strong low-pressure systems — one that tracked across the Plains on Friday and another in the Deep South on Saturday. The systems drew unseasonably warm and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, causing high levels of atmospheric instability, which is thunderstorm fuel. In Oklahoma, low humidity and gusts of wind powerful enough to overturn tractor-trailers sparked fires. Four people died in the state and 142 were injured, authorities said, in incidents related to fires and high winds.

Lead Stories

Trump’s New World Order tests the dollar

President Trump has launched an unprecedented challenge to a geopolitical order that has prevailed for decades. One potential victim: the U.S. dollar. In just weeks, a steep increase in tariffs and uncertainty over trade have sparked fears that U.S. growth will slow. At the same time, major shifts in U.S. foreign policy have led to a surge in optimism about the European economy—driving the dollar down sharply against the euro, sending stocks in Europe to records and spurring the biggest jump in German bond yields since just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The WSJ Dollar Index has declined seven of the past nine weeks, nearly erasing gains made since the Nov. 5 election. Such financial upheaval, if sustained, could have ramifications for everything from global investment flows to the direction of trans-Atlantic tourism. For generations, U.S. political leaders have generally embraced the dollar’s primacy in the global financial system, in part because it has led to cheaper government borrowing. The country’s spending on defense has helped bolster that position by driving up the budget deficit, financed in large part by foreign investors, who hold about a third of U.S. debt.

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Now, though, Trump and some of his advisers are making it clear that they want to expend fewer resources protecting allies. And they are saying they want a weaker currency to boost domestic manufacturing, by making goods cheaper to foreign buyers. “When you look at these policies in a macro way, they have a method to them,” said Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. “The risk to the markets is dislocation in the short term. But I think our republic will be better off if we spend a few thousand dollars more for a car in return for having a workforce that can make things and can afford what they make.” Many on Wall Street, however, fear the downside of such changes. A weaker dollar would make imports more expensive, boosting inflation and making it harder for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. Outflows from U.S. assets that depress the dollar could also drive down stock prices and lead to higher U.S. borrowing costs. Few believe that a huge decline in the dollar is imminent, partly because U.S. interest rates are higher than almost anywhere else in the developed world, promising continued foreign investment.

Texas has the highest rate of uninsured children, and it’s getting worse

Almost 1 million Texas children and teens went without health insurance at some point in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available. Many of them live in Houston, which has a higher rate of uninsured children than any other major metropolitan area in the nation. Overall, Texas has the worst coverage rate for kids in the country, with nearly 12% going uninsured in 2023 — up from nearly 11% in 2022. The Dallas metro area had the second-highest rate of uninsured children while San Antonio was third in the nation. A number of issues are driving the numbers. But the fact that many uninsured Texas children are actually eligible for public insurance exposes what experts say are alarming gaps in the state’s enrollment and outreach system — gaps that can limit health care access for low-income kids and endanger their health.

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Among the issues is a backlog of thousands of families who applied for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. For most of 2024, the average waiting time for a decision by the state was well over two months, which triggered a federal probe under the Biden administration. The application process remains tedious and confusing, requiring families to sometimes round up dozens of documents to prove they’re eligible. Some give up. The state has booted more than 1 million children from Medicaid since it began reviewing recipients’ eligibility again in 2023, after a pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were dropped not because they were ineligible, but for procedural reasons, such as their parents’ failure to submit a renewal packet. Texas lawmakers also have rejected or stalled proposals that typically help more children access CHIP or Medicaid. A 2023 state House bill would have streamlined Medicaid and CHIP enrollment for children by relying on information already verified via other state benefit programs, such as food assistance. Despite bipartisan support, the bill failed to advance. It’s been introduced again in this year’s session. Texas has shunned broad proposals enacted by other states, such as expanding Medicaid for low-income adults. Research shows Medicaid expansion has a “welcome-mat” effect for children, with parents on Medicaid more likely to sign up their eligible children as well.

Democratic anger over 'Schumer surrender' shows party's deep divisions on how to take on Trump

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer faces a moment of turmoil after retreating from his initial threat to block a six-month government funding bill written by Republicans, a move that infuriated fellow Democrats in the House and liberal advocates — and raised questions about his effectiveness as party leader. Schumer, who has served as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate for eight years, has typically managed to find consensus within his party. But he now finds himself on the defensive in one of the first major legislative fights of the second Trump administration, even drawing rebukes from longtime allies. In an extraordinary move, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of California, called on Senate Democrats to defy him and reject the GOP bill, while continuing to push for a shorter-term bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government funded ahead of a midnight deadline.

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“Democratic senators should listen to the women,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Appropriations leaders Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray have eloquently presented the case that we must have a better choice: a four-week funding extension to keep [the] government open and negotiate a bipartisan agreement. America has experienced a Trump shutdown before — but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse.” House Democratic leaders returned to Washington on Friday from a retreat in Leesburg, Virginia, to urge their Senate colleagues to vote against the funding bill. Asked if it was time for new leadership in the Senate, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer's fellow New York Democrat, responded: "Next question." Highlighting the party’s identity crisis, liberals erupted with anger after Schumer announced Thursday he would vote to advance the GOP bill, with the co-founder of the activist group Indivisible, Ezra Levin, labeling it the “Schumer surrender” and urging Democratic senators to defy him.

Large wildfire near Fredericksburg declared a disaster, evacuations underway.

A large 8,640-acre wildfire northeast of Fredericksburg has been declared a disaster and is prompting evacuations as the fire crossed Highway 16 and is heading east toward FM 1631, officials said Saturday afternoon. “Anyone in the path should evacuate immediately,” officials posted on social media about 4 p.m.

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In a 10 p.m. update Saturday night, officials reported that the fire was zero contained. They reported the fire is generally still moving east to southeast and is located between Lower Crabapple and FM1631. “Thankfully, the wind has subsided in the Texas Hill Country and our crews are working to stop the forward progress of the Crabapple Fire,” Fredericksburg Fire Chief Lynn Bizzell said. “Our team will continue work throughout the night, including monitoring FM1631 to make sure the fire doesn’t progress.” Currently, there are two known road closures: state Hwy. 16 North from the Fredericksburg city limits to Eckert Road as well as Lower Crabapple from Eckert Road into Fredericksburg. As a precautionary effort, Central Texas Electric has cut the power to the fire affected area. Gillespie County Judge Daniel Jones has issued a declaration of disaster, which allows for officials to evacuate, close roads, and control ingress/egress as needed. For those that have been misplaced, a shelter is available through the Red Cross at Zion Lutheran Church at 426 W Main St in Fredericksburg. City officials are asking everyone to avoid the area. “People in the area should listen to crews on the ground about evacuations and prepare to evacuate,” officials said about 4 p.m.. “Anyone between Highway 16 North and FM 1631 and between Ranch Road 1323 and Ranch Road 2721 should be prepared to evacuate.”

Houston congressman hints at challenging John Cornyn for reelection in 2026

U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt isn’t being shy about building a statewide profile as he positions himself to run for higher office. Hunt, a Houston Republican in his second term in office, just started running statewide ads on conservative talk radio shows trying to introduce him to potential future voters. “I’m Wesley Hunt and I’m calling on all Texans to continue supporting our great president,” Hunt says in the ad, which is paid for by a political action committee he controls called Hellfire PAC. “As Texans we fight for what’s right. And with President Trump at the helm, there’s no stopping America.”

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Hunt, 43, makes no mention about what office he might try to run for in 2026, but he’s one of the names being floated in GOP circles as a potential challenger to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. While the 2026 election seems far off, the primary elections are in March less than a year away. That means the first absentee ballots will be going out in 10 months. When I asked Hunt about why he's running the ads and if it were for a potential Senate run, he would only say he wanted to promote Trump's successes. Cornyn, 73, has already declared he is running for reelection. Two weeks ago he hosted a campaign fundraising kickoff in Washington, D.C. and has another big fundraiser planned on Monday in Houston. “I look forward to again working hand in glove with President Trump to implement his agenda,” Cornyn told Punchbowl News after the D.C. fundraiser. Hunt’s radio ads make clear he’ll be leaning into his own relationship with Trump if he gets into the race officially. In the 30-second ads, he tells listeners he was the “first congressman to endorse President Trump in 2022.”

State Stories

Deadly crash on I-35 in N. Austin: What we know about fatal semi-truck collision

A deadly semitrailer crash Thursday on Interstate 35 in North Austin has spurred a series of questions from the public and news media. Some of those should be answered Saturday afternoon when the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the collision, is expected to hold a news conference. One person has been arrested in the collision that killed five people, including an infant and a child, and injured at least a dozen others. At least 17 vehicles were involved and the crash occurred shortly after 11:30 p.m. on southbound I-35 near Parmer Lane, police initially said. An Austin police officer later wrote in an affidavit that 19 vehicles were involved. Semitruck driver Solomun Weldekeal Araya, 37, was charged with several counts of intoxication manslaughter and intoxication assault in connection to the crash. It was confirmed Saturday that he worked was driving a load for Amazon but worked for a Dallas-based transport company.

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Police responded about 11:21 p.m. Thursday to the 12900 block of North Interstate 35 southbound, according to the affidavit. A 2016 Volvo 18-wheeler — believed to have been driven by Araya — in the center lane failed to brake as traffic slowed. The truck then crashed into several other motorists, police say, killing five and injuring a dozen. Araya was reportedly the only person in the truck. He told authorities at the scene that a car cut him off and that he tried to stop but the brakes "did not activate," police wrote in the affidavit. A total of 17 people were hurt in the crash, five of them fatally. In the affidavit, police say the injuries range from "major" to "life threatening." They were transported to several different local hospitals, according to Austin-Travis County Emergency Management Services. The victims have not yet been identified but police say two minors, including an infant and child, and three adults were killed.

Late Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner laid to rest in heartfelt ceremony

Saturday afternoon, politicians and loved ones alike flocked to The Church Without Walls to say one final goodbye to late former mayor and Houston area congressman Sylvester Turner. Attendees, many donned in blue—Turner's favorite color—rose to their feet as an honor guard led Turner's American flag-wrapped casket into the crowded congregation. Members of Turner's closest circle, including his daughter Ashley Paige Turner Captain, her husband Jimmy and children, sat near the pulpit, which was adorned on either side with bouquets of white roses.

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"Sylvester Turner was Acres Home born, grown and owned," said Dr. Samuel J. Gilbert II, pastor at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church. "He will always be remembered by where he came from." Gilbert II shared a story about advice Turner received when he was preparing to retire after 27 years of service in the Texas House of Representatives. The advice was simple yet powerful: "If you’ve got gas in your car, don’t park your car." Before the services began, a video played featuring remarks from the late mayor and congressman. In it, Turner’s voice could be heard recalling an important lesson: "As long as there is work to do, there is a job for us to do." The video highlighted his years of leadership and dedication to public service. "The other day Turner ran out of gas, and the Lord said park your car and come on up," Gilbert II said.

Here's how Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar's departure may influence state politics

Glenn Hegar might be about to start a food fight, or at least the political equivalent of one. It's not that the three-term Republican state comptroller is a troublemaker. It's just that he's vacating a powerful statewide elective office that a lot of other people might want to fill. Hegar, 54, was recently named the sole finalist in the national search to replace retiring Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp. By law, the Texas A&M board of regents had to name a finalist for the position before actually offering the job. Barring a lightning strike that nobody sees coming, Hegar will leave office soon after Sharp ends his 14-year run as Aggie-in-chief sometime in June. Just hours after the regents announced their final pick for the system's top job, Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick announced her candidacy for comptroller in the 2026 election cycle.

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Not long after, former state Sen. Don Huffines said he'd be running as well. The buzz around the Capitol is that a lawmaker or two are also interested in the job that's often to referred to as the chief financial officer of the state. But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. Once the comptroller's office becomes vacant, it will be up to Gov. Greg Abbott to name a replacement to serve out the remainder of Hegar's four-year term. Technically, that appointment would require Senate confirmation. However, the regular session of the Legislature will have ended before Hegar steps aside, so senators won't weigh in unless Abbott calls a special session. If Craddick and Huffines, both Republicans, are the only announced candidates when the office becomes vacant, it wouldn't be terribly surprising if the governor names Craddick to the post since Huffines challenged Abbott in the 2022 GOP primary and had few nice things to say about the incumbent who was seeking a third term. A Craddick appointment would mean a vacancy in the three-member Railroad Commission, and it would be up to Abbott to fill that post temporarily. Craddick's six-year term ends in 2028, but the appointee's term would end in 2026. A special election would need to be called next year to fill the final two years left in the term.

Keller school board calls off plan to split district

The Keller school district announced March 14 that it has abandoned a plan to split the district in half using U.S. 377 as the dividing line. The proposal was revealed in January and met with stiff opposition from residents, especially those living west of 377, the area colloquially known as the “Alliance Independent School District.” The plan divided a tight-knit community that has always been proud of its schools. It prompted state legislation, lawsuits, criminal complaints, a student walkout and the loss of a superintendent who was on the job just over a year. Neighborhoods rallied against the plan. A parody Alliance ISD Facebook page was launched, a resident sold snarky sweatshirts and mugs about the other side of the tracks and residents wrapped gold ribbons around trees to show support for a unified district.

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School board president Charles Randklev and interim superintendent Cory Wilson announced the decision Friday afternoon in an email to district residents. They did not say who made the decision. Two board members, Chelsea Kelly and Joni Shaw Smith, said they were unaware of the news until the email went out. Randklev and Wilson wrote in their email that the district did not have resources to go through with the plan because of the high costs to distribute $700 million worth of bond debt between the two districts. Dividing the debt would “require tens of millions in additional funding — resources we simply do not have. This added financial burden would not best serve the Keller ISD students and community.” Randklev shared the email in a Facebook post. “To be clear and despite false innuendos, our District and School Board have always been motivated and driven to find solutions to the unprecedented challenges our district and many others are facing,” he wrote.

Glenn Rogers: Austin’s plan to silence local government

Apologies to Abraham Lincoln, but instead of “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” Texas now has a government of a few megadonors, by a few megadonors and for a few megadonors. In the Texas Legislature, representative government is on life support, and we need true grassroots local government input more than ever. Stopping an Austin power-grab disguised as a ban on lobbyists is a good place to start. Traditionally, conservative Republicans stood for limited government, both federal and state, and for local control. While state leaders rail about the growth of our federal government, our state government continues to expand at an alarming rate as the voices closest to the people, including county, city, school and other political subdivisions, are increasingly silenced. This demise of taxpayer-funded representative government has been financed primarily by a few wealthy opportunists who control state elected officials at the highest level through money and intimidation.

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As many sources, including me, have reported, the two most powerful people in Texas are unelected donors Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. As an exercise to prove this point, readers might ponder the following questions with particular attention to their own elected officials. Have they ever accepted money from Dunn, Wilks or one of their allied organizations? Have they donated money to one of these allied organizations? Have they ever voted with a Dunn-Wilks allied organization to avoid a primary challenge? The number of Republican legislators who can honestly say “no” to all three of these questions is rapidly trending toward zero. With this many donor-compliant members, it is more important than ever that local grassroots government continues to have a voice. Lobbying is often depicted as a group of people sliding money under the table, paying for expensive meals and trips. The public’s image of all lobbyists is sleazy and dishonest, with the sole objective of buying influence. But that’s a caricature. While glaringly imperfect, lobbying simply means advocating. For example, the Texas Farm Bureau Agfund advocates (lobbies) for more than 500,000 farm and ranch member families. Very few of these rural citizens would have the time or financial resources to advocate for themselves at the state Capitol. The Agfund isn’t engaging in corruption, but democracy. The ominous term “taxpayer-funded lobbying” is defined as a governmental agency seeking to influence another governmental body. Typically, in Texas, this happens when smaller governments, without paid intergovernmental staff, use lobbyists to advocate for their needs with the Texas Legislature. School boards, cities, counties and several other different types of local political subdivisions use lobbyists (primarily through associations) to bring specific local needs to the attention of legislators, to encourage the Legislature to act in a way that improves the lives of local citizens, and to maintain meaningful professional relationships between the local and state governments. Undoubtedly, there are groups that lobby for positions I personally oppose, in a democracy, they have a right to do so. Which would be worse: hundreds of lobbying groups representing various interests (a swamp) or concentrated legislative influence primarily to please only a few billionaires (a cesspool)?

Ken Paxton opinion says state IDs cannot be changed to accommodate transgender Texans

In a written opinion issued Friday, Attorney General Ken Paxton questioned the validity of court orders directing state agencies to change a person’s biological sex on driver’s licenses, birth certificates and other identification documents. Identification previously changed under court orders sought by transgender Texans should be reissued with the original sex designation, the nonbinding opinion said. The Texas Department of Public Safety requested the opinion in September, about a month after it stopped accepting court orders to change gender markers on driver’s licenses. The Department of State Health Services also stopped allowing gender changes on birth certificates unless the hospital made an error. In a 19-page opinion to DPS Director Freeman Martin, Paxton said the public safety agency has had “exclusive discretion” to issue corrected licenses with “the quantum of proof necessary” since 1968.

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“Birth certificates are no different,” the opinion said. “For the last century, DSHS has been singlehandedly charged with ensuring ‘uniform observance … and … maintenance of a perfect system of registration.’” The attorney general concluded that district courts lack the authority to force DPS and the health department to amend documents. “The Transportation Code as well as the Health and Safety Code contain no provision for judicial review over the contents of driver’s licenses or birth certificates,” he wrote. “Neither can DPS or DSHS change a person’s ‘sex’ designation without supporting evidence that, as a matter of law, cannot exist on the facts you describe.” Paxton said such court orders direct the agencies “to violate the very laws they are bound to obey.” “The resulting orders are void,” he said. “State agencies must immediately correct any unlawfully altered driver’s licenses or birth certificates that were changed pursuant to such orders.”

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee files to replace Sylvester Turner in U.S. Congress

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee is vying to replace U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner in Congress, according to a Federal Election Commission document filed Saturday evening by Menefee’s campaign. The filing comes hours after Turner’s funeral in west Houston. Menefee will run as a Democrat. Turner, who had just recently taken the seat replacing his longtime friend U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, died March 5 following “enduring health complications,” according to a statement from his family. He was 70, and had previously served two terms as Houston’s mayor, as well as 27 years in the Texas House. Jackson Lee died in July following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

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Menefee has been the county attorney for more than four years. Neither Menefee, his campaign treasurer nor a representative for his office could be reached for comment late Saturday evening. Before Turner was elected to the 18th Congressional District, he told the Houston Chronicle editorial board he didn’t want to hold the position for more than two terms. Instead, he said, he wanted to be “a bridge from where we are right now” and pass the reins over to a new generation of leaders. Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to call a special election to fill Turner’s seat. The law requires a race to be held within two months on a Tuesday or a Saturday if Abbott calls an emergency election. Otherwise, the race to fill the seat will happen in May.

Former councilman Reed Williams to challenge Rep. Marc LaHood

The newest member of San Antonio’s state House delegation, state Rep. Marc LaHood, (R-San Antonio) has barely been on the job three months, but he’s already drawn his first high-profile challenger. Former San Antonio Councilman Reed Williams filed a treasurer’s report on March 7 to begin raising money for a campaign in House District 121, which won’t be on the ballot until 2026. Though Williams has run for office before as a Republican, he said he’s since realized how little he has in common with today’s GOP, and is instead running under the banner of the Democratic Party. “I believe that the Democratic Party right now is a lot bigger tent,” he told the San Antonio Report. Williams’ move comes as a growing number of local Republicans have grown so frustrated with their party’s rightward march that they’re willing to team up with Democrats to try to stop it.

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LaHood won the seat last year after defeating then-state Rep. Steve Allison (R-Alamo Heights) in the Republican primary — part of an expensive effort among conservative groups seeking to root out Republicans who oppose school vouchers. Across the state, 11 candidates endorsed by Gov. Greg Abbott ousted GOP incumbents. After his primary loss, Allison, along with former GOP state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, took the unusual step of endorsing the Democrat running against LaHood, who lost 52.6% to 47.4%. “It’s kind of disturbing,” Williams said of that race. “Because [Allison] took one vote different, they spent [$1 million] just moving him out of the way and putting somebody else in there.” Williams said he plans to help fund his own campaign with personal resources. At the state Capitol, major policy discussions in the House have been slow to start this session.

Mayor Whitmire’s efficiency study is making its rounds in Austin. Will it help Houston’s wish list?

As Houston Mayor John Whitmire passed his first year in office, the former dean of the Texas Senate stumbled upon a surprise — the connections in Austin he touted throughout his campaign weren’t getting him as far as he thought. The city’s budget deficit under his leadership has grown to around $320 million, largely due to a denied appeal in a lawsuit that requires the city to put millions more toward streets and drainage. Whitmire has pitched going to lawmakers to supplement the city’s wallet with state funding. But so far, his connections haven’t always paid off. “Nobody works as hard as we do,” Whitmire said in a December interview as he spoke about how lawmakers didn’t think Houston needed the money it was asking for. “The people saying that, they don’t even stop to consider we got a tougher revenue cap than any big city. We're growing rapidly. We are the life growth of the state of Texas. How Houston goes is how the state goes.”

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The trouble, political experts say, is the Republican legislature’s dismissive view of the state’s large cities, which lean Democratic. Now, Whitmire and his team, led by Chief of Staff Chris Newport and Deputy Chief of Staff Steven David, are trying to make Houston stand out among other blue cities to help its financial case as its deficit grows. The key, they hope, lies with a new city-commissioned study by the Houston accounting firm Ernst & Young that analyzed the efficiency of every city department. The goal is to cut unnecessary costs and make every tax dollar count. City officials hope to show lawmakers that they’re doing their part to weed out waste. David and Newport last Wednesday presented the study’s findings to the House’s “Delivery of Government Efficiency” committee in a pitch to receive financial help. The mayor’s office noted the city’s work on the study has been done preceded the committee, and started well before its creation.

Mother of newborn tests positive for measles at Lubbock hospital, others exposed

The mother of a newborn has tested positive for measles at a Lubbock hospital, according to reporting first published by NBC. Staff was unaware the mother, who gave birth at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital Wednesday, had the disease until after she was admitted to the hospital, NBC reported. A total of 259 people have been infected with measles in Texas since January, according to The Texas Department of State Health Services. One person, a school-aged child who was not vaccinated, has died.

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An unspecified number of mothers and newborns were exposed to the virus at UMC, according to NBC. A hospital spokesperson told NBC they could not put an exact number on how many people at the facility were at risk for measles. The news came just before UMC, which has been on the front lines of Texas’ measles outbreak, introduced new policies meant to help curb the spread of the disease. The hospital announced a temporary masking mandate Thursday, which it said will help protect immunocompromised or other at-risk patients. “To protect our patients, visitors, and staff amid rising measles cases in surrounding communities, UMC is implementing a temporary masking requirement in the 1st and 2nd floor common areas of the children’s hospital,” the hospital wrote on Facebook. “The health and safety of our patients, especially our newborn and immunocompromised populations, remain our top priority.”

City of Austin launches campaign to hire laid-off federal workers

Austin city leaders are aiming to hire thousands of federal workers who were laid off by the Trump administration. Earlier this week, the city launched the “Get Hired in Austin" campaign in an effort to fill more than 2,000 job openings. The campaign was introduced at a time when tens of thousands of federal government employees are being laid off or fired as part of efforts by the Trump administration to downsize the federal workforce. “We are currently hiring for many vacancies at various skill levels and areas of expertise,” Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in a Tuesday news release. "With so many dedicated public servants looking for work where they can make a difference, it only makes sense to let them know the City of Austin is a rewarding option.”

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Former State Rep. Geanie Morrison weighs in on UHV’s move to Texas A&M System

A long-debated higher education transition in Texas may soon become a reality. The effort to transfer the University of Houston-Victoria (UHV) to the Texas A&M University System, which failed over a decade ago, is now gaining momentum with strong backing from state and local leaders. One key figure in the original push, former State Rep. Geanie Morrison, who represented District 30, was involved in a similar effort back in 2011. That attempt did not pass, but now, with renewed legislative support, the transfer could officially move forward. Supporters of the transition cite expanded academic opportunities and long-term benefits for students and the local workforce. Morrison, a longtime advocate for the move, believes this shift will provide UHV with additional resources, particularly in agriculture-focused programs.

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“The Texas A&M System offers exceptional programs, particularly in agribusiness and agricultural economics, that will directly benefit our students and strengthen our regional economy.” Morrison said. With the bill now filed, supporters say this move marks a new era for UHV. If approved, the transfer will position the university within a system known for its expertise in agricultural and engineering education, further aligning UHV’s academic offerings with the needs of the region. As the process moves forward, state leaders and education officials will continue discussions to ensure a smooth transition. If finalized, UHV will become the 12th higher education institution within the Texas A&M University System.

Current, former Gateway members react to church founder’s indictment on child sex charges

“You’re still the great ‘I Am.’ I’m still within your hands,” worship leader Austin Benjamin sang at the beginning of Gateway Church’s Saturday service. Much of the auditorium’s balcony was empty, but on the first floor, chairs were almost full. A row of people young and old stood in front of the stage, lifting their hands and swaying. The Southlake megachurch held its first weekend service on March 15 since its founder and former senior pastor Robert Morris was indicted Wednesday on sexual crimes to a child charges. Morris, a celebrity televangelist who founded Gateway in 2000, was charged with five counts of indecent or lewd acts to a child and faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted on all charges, according to the Oklahoma attorney general. Cindy Clemishire publicly accused Morris in June of sexually abusing her from the ages of 12-17.

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Morris has not responded to letters and at least five phone calls from The Dallas Morning News since June seeking comment. The News called three phone numbers listed in public records for Morris on Wednesday and left voicemails at two of them and did not receive a response. At Gateway on Saturday, turquoise light bathed the room as worship leaders urged the audience to focus on God. At a quiet moment near the end of worship, Anna Byrd, kneeling on the stage, filled each word with emotion. “Just to feel you here is everything,” she sang. “It’s all about you, all about you,” she repeated, her voice joined by a driving drumbeat as she stood again. Worship was followed by a ritual that’s become unusually common at Gateway — a leader, during announcements, addressed a new development in the scandal surrounding the church and its past. Nic Lesmeister, executive pastor of global outreach at Gateway, acknowledged that congregants may have seen media coverage about Morris. “I’m sure that stirred up a lot of emotion for you. It stirred up a lot of emotion for us,” he said. “Reliving our challenging history can be, at times, odd. We don’t know what to do with our emotions.” Lesmeister highlighted that Gateway is not involved in the investigation that led to Morris’ indictment and said the church doesn’t plan to “continually update” congregants on the court proceedings going forward.

San Antonio has entered the worst drought category possible. Any rain soon?

The ongoing South Texas drought is becoming unrelenting. Since the start of 2025, San Antonio has recorded just 1.77 inches of rain, which is only 36% of the average rainfall through this point in the year. When you go back to last year, the numbers get even worse. Since last August, San Antonio has only recorded 5.99 inches of rain, which is more than 13 inches below average for that time frame. Because of this, a large portion of South Texas has now been placed into exceptional drought, the highest category of drought assessed by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The latest data shows exceptional drought in 55% of Bexar County, which covers the central through southern portions of the county, including downtown San Antonio.

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Feds look to seize $1M Texas mansion from dead drug smuggler's wife

The federal government is aiming to seize a $1 million Brownsville mansion from a dead drug smuggler's wife, according to a civil forfeiture lawsuit. The house was purchased by Juan De Dios Gomez-Gonzalez and his wife — Maria Guadalupe Ramos Castro — in February 2013 for $330,000. Today, the home and the one-acre lot it sits on are worth about $1 million, a ValleyCentral.com report states, citing Cameron County Appraisal District records. According to the forfeiture suit, filed by federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Gomez-Gonzalez was the head of a drug trafficking organization "responsible for importing large quantities of cocaine from Mexico into the United States" and "transporting illegal drug proceeds from the United States into Mexico" from 2009 until his death in 2023.

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National Stories

Vance discusses Elon Musk's 'mistakes' and 'incremental progress' on the economy in NBC News interview

Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Friday that Elon Musk has made “mistakes” while executing mass firings of federal employees and emphasized that he believes there are “a lot of good people who work in the government.” “Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake. I’m accepting of mistakes,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News. “I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes. But I’m also very aware of the fact that there are a lot of good people who work in the government — a lot of people who are doing a very good job. And we want to try to preserve as much of what works in government as possible, while eliminating what doesn’t work.”

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Vance’s gentler tone represented a contrast from the chainsaw approach that Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has taken as he leads President Donald Trump’s initiative to slash federal spending and reorient the federal bureaucracy. The firings of thousands of government employees has been the centerpiece of Musk’s work over the first seven weeks of Trump’s second White House administration, with the cuts yielding lawsuits and pushback from judges. Musk has broadly characterized federal workers as "fraudsters" who can’t be trusted to do their jobs. “I think some people clearly are collecting a check and not doing a job,” Vance said when asked about such comments from Musk. “Now, how many people is that? I don’t know, in a 3 million-strong federal workforce, whether it’s a few thousand or much larger than that.” “However big the problem is, it is a problem when people are living off the generosity of the American taxpayer in a civil service job and not doing the people’s business," he added. "That doesn’t distract or detract from the fact that you do have a lot of great civil servants who are doing important work. But I think most of those great civil servants would say we want to be empowered to do our job. We don’t want the person who doesn’t show up five days a week to make it harder for us to do what we need to do.”

At least 32 dead in massive US storm after new fatalities reported in Kansas and Mississippi

Violent tornadoes ripped through parts of the U.S., wiping out schools and toppling semitractor-trailers in several states, part of a monster storm that has killed at least 32 people as more severe weather was expected late Saturday. The number of fatalities increased after the Kansas Highway Patrol reported eight people died in a highway pileup caused by a dust storm in Sherman County on Friday. At least 50 vehicles were involved. In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that six people died in three counties and three more people were missing. There were 29 injuries across the state, he added in a nighttime post on the social platform X. Missouri recorded more fatalities than any other state as scattered twisters overnight killed at least 12, authorities said. The deaths included a man whose home was ripped apart by a tornado.

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“It was unrecognizable as a home. Just a debris field,” said Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, describing the scene that confronted rescuers. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.” AP correspondent Julie Walker reports well over a dozen deaths in a monster storm across the US. Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing people trapped in their homes Friday night found five bodies scattered in the debris outside what remained of his aunt’s house in hard-hit Wayne County, Missouri. “It was a very rough deal last night,” he said the following day, surrounded by uprooted trees and splintered homes. “It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night.”

How MAHA Moms and RFK Jr. are spooking food companies

A federal health roundtable last week ended with an unusual twist: a White House video featuring Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others struggling to pronounce ingredients found in pantry items from Pop-Tarts to Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies. “Carrageenan, riboflavin, monosodium glutamate and 20 others that I can’t pronounce,” said Kennedy. Education Secretary Linda McMahon took a stab at saying sodium stearoyl lactylate. “It doesn’t sound good. Polysorbate 80, that stuff’s really bad,” said Claire Guernsey, the wife of a senior Trump administration health policy adviser and a “MAHA mom.” The minute-long video capped a week of meetings for Kennedy with food executives and mothers who have championed his Make America Healthy Again agenda—events where he pledged an overhaul of the ingredients found in American grocery products.

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It is an early sign of the pressure that food manufacturers face as the nation’s top health official and his supporters try to bend a major U.S. industry by swaying public opinion. Kennedy campaigned for president on a vow to strip chemicals from the food supply, blaming them for a wide range of health problems. Since Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump in August, the president has largely embraced the MAHA movement and directed a commission to develop a strategy for tackling chronic disease. The White House posted the video on its social-media feed following a closed-door MAHA Moms Roundtable, a gathering that included Trump cabinet members and administration staff. The meeting covered topics including food additives, infant formula and screen time, according to the White House, an agenda viewed by The Wall Street Journal and people in attendance. The food influencer Vani Hari, also known as the Food Babe, collaborated with the White House on the video. At the meeting, she presented a list of ingredients in U.S. foods that she said aren’t used in similar products overseas. “This hypocritical double standard has to stop today,” she said.

'Bloody Saturday' at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

Journalists showed up at the Voice of America today to broadcast their programs only to be told they had been locked out: Federal officials had embarked on indefinite mass suspensions. All full-time staffers at the Voice of America and the Office for Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television Martí, were affected — more than 1,000 employees. The move followed a late Friday night edict from President Trump that its parent agency, called the U.S. Agency for Global Media, must eliminate all activities that are not required by law. In addition, under the leadership of Trump appointees, the agency has severed all contracts for the privately incorporated international broadcasters it funds, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

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The termination notices for grants for the funded networks, two of which were reviewed by NPR, carried the signature of Trump's senior adviser Kari Lake, whom he placed at USAGM, not the agency's acting chief executive. Lake does not appear in her current job to have the statutory authority to carry out that termination. "I am deeply saddened that for the 1st time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced," the network's director, Michael Abramowitz, said in a statement posted on his personal Facebook account. "VOA needs thoughtful reform and we have made progress in that regard. But today's action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission." He wrote that he was among those 1,300 journalists, producers and support staff put on leave. Grant Turner, the former chief financial officer at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, called it "Bloody Saturday" for the agency and its networks.

Pope Francis, showing plans to stay on, starts new Catholic reform process

Pope Francis approved a new three-year process to consider reforms for the global Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Saturday, in a sign the 88-year-old pontiff plans to continue on as pope despite his ongoing battle with double pneumonia. Francis has extended the work of the Synod of Bishops, a signature initiative of his 12-year papacy, which has discussed reforms such as the possibility of women serving as Catholic deacons and better inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Church. The synod, which held an inconclusive Vatican summit of bishops on the future of the Church last October, will now hold consultations with Catholics across the world for the next three years, before hosting a new summit in 2028.

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Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from Rome's Gemelli hospital, where he is being treated, the Vatican said on Saturday. The pope has been in hospital for more than a month and his prolonged public absence has stoked speculation that he could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign from the papacy. His friends and biographers have insisted, however, that he has no plans to step down. The approval of a new three-year process indicated he wants to continue on, despite his age and the possibility he might face a long, fraught road to recovery from pneumonia, given his age and other medical conditions. "The Holy Father ... is helping push the renewal of the Church toward a new missionary impulse," Cardinal Mario Grech, the official leading the reform process, told the Vatican's media outlet. "This is truly a sign of hope."

Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups

The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny. Federal officials told the university it must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.” The demand was among several described as conditions for receiving federal funding, including $400 million already pulled over allegations of antisemitism. Across academia, it was seen as a stunning intrusion. “It’s an escalation of a kind that is unheard of,” said Joan Scott, a historian and member of the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors. “Even during the McCarthy period in the United States, this was not done.”

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President Donald Trump has been threatening to withhold federal funding from colleges that do not get in line with his agenda, from transgender athletes’ participating in women’s sports to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. On Friday, his administration announced investigations into 52 universities as part of his DEI crackdown. But he has held particular fervor for Columbia, the Ivy League campus where a massive pro-Palestinian protest movement began with a tent encampment last spring. Officials continued to ratchet up pressure on the school Friday, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying the Justice Department is investigating whether it hid students sought by the U.S. over their roles in the demonstrations. Trump and other officials have accused the protesters as being “pro-Hamas,” referring to the militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The letter also demands that Columbia ban masks on campus meant to conceal the wearer’s identity “or intimidate others,” adopt a new definition of antisemitism, abolish its current process for disciplining students and deliver a plan to ”reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices.” The letter “obliterates the boundary between institutional autonomy and federal control,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education. For generations, the federal government has given colleges space to manage their own affairs, within the constraints of federal law. The Supreme Court has long treated academic freedom as an extension of the First Amendment. Higher education leaders say autonomy is what sets America’s colleges apart and makes them a destination for top international scholars.

Judge blocks Trump after he invokes wartime Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations

A federal judge barred President Donald Trump on Saturday from using a wartime powers act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing, ordering the administration to turn around any planes that had already taken off after the Alien Enemies Act quietly went into effect. Trump signed a proclamation Friday to deploy the act for the first time since World War II to swiftly remove Venezuelans allegedly involved in the transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua. The act has been used only three times before to bar citizens of hostile enemy governments from the United States, and only during a declared war. The White House kept the proclamation under wraps until after advocates for immigrants sued Saturday, fearing he was already sweeping immigrants out of the country. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge in the District of Columbia, quickly blocked officials from deporting Venezuelans under the proclamation, starting with five men facing imminent deportation and then expanding it later in the day to anyone in custody who might be subject to the proclamation.

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Trump targets two national monuments in California for elimination

President Donald Trump plans to eliminate two massive national monuments in California established by former president Joe Biden, the White House confirmed Saturday. Less than a week before leaving office, Biden signed proclamations establishing the 624,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California and the 224,000-acre Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in northern California. Native American tribes that consider these landscapes sacred had urged Biden to put them off-limits to drilling, mining, clean-energy development and other industrial activity. The plan to repeal the proclamations, first reported by the New York Times, underscores how Trump has sought to dismantle Biden’s sweeping environmental legacy. The Environmental Protection Agency this week began the process of undoing Biden’s most consequential climate regulations, including rules aimed at speeding the nation’s shift to electric vehicles and slashing planet-warming emissions from power plants.

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Lead Stories

Greg Abbott cites debunked claim that public schools catered to ‘furries’ in latest voucher push

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday resurrected debunked rumors that public schools were putting litter boxes in classrooms for students dressed as cats, amplifying right-wing criticism of some educators as he pushes for a statewide private school voucher program. The Texas Republican told a gathering of pastors at a Baptist church in Austin that the so-called furries trend is “alive and well” in communities across the state, and that lawmakers needed to ban it. He endorsed newly filed legislation by state Rep. Stan Gerdes called the “Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education (F.U.R.R.I.E.S) Act,” which would prohibit any “non-human behavior” by a student, “including presenting himself or herself … as anything other than a human being” by wearing animal ears or barking, meowing or hissing. The bill includes exceptions for sports mascots or kids in school plays.

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Gerdes’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The bill didn’t have any immediate cosponsors. Abbott’s remarks appeared to call back unfounded rumors from 2022 that public schools across the country were catering to students who identified as animals. In one instance, the GOP chair in Williamson County falsely claimed Round Rock schools were lowering cafeteria tables for furries. “In some small rural sections of school districts in the state of Texas, they have in their schools, what are called furries. Y'all know what this is?” Abbott asked the crowd, which responded with a smattering of “yeahs.” “Kids go to school dressed up as cats with litter boxes in their classrooms,” Abbott said. Abbott referenced two rural school districts but did not name them in his address to the Texas Pastors Policy Conference. When asked about the claims, his office sent a statement saying he has “heard from countless parents growing frustrated at the quality of schools, the substance of what is taught, and failures of ISDs leading to an unwelcoming learning environment for their children. “The Governor recommends concerned parents report any potential issues to the Texas Education Agency for investigation,” said Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for the governor. The governor has ratcheted up his criticism of public schools in recent weeks as he pitches a program allowing public money to be spent on private education, which the governor has made his signature policy push this session. The governor has cast private school vouchers as an option for parents turned off by what he called “the pervasive woke leftist agenda that's being forced on our kids in our public schools.”

Many Americans see Trump's actions on economy as too erratic, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

A majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump is being too “erratic” in his moves to shake up the U.S. economy, as his imposition of tariffs against some of the nation's top trading partners hammers stock markets, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Some 57% of respondents, including one in three Republicans, said the president’s policies have been unsteady as his efforts to tax imports have set off a global trade war, according to the two-day poll that closed on Wednesday. Americans instead want Trump to continue to focus on combating high prices even as there are growing concerns his policies will drive costs up, not down, the poll found.

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Trump’s imposition of tariffs on allies such as Canada and Mexico and his refusal to rule out a recession has spooked U.S. markets. The S&P 500 has lost more than $3 trillion in value since its all-time peak last month. In response, the White House has said that some short-term economic pain might be necessary for Trump to implement his trade agenda, which is intended to drive manufacturing back to the U.S. Wall Street has been shaken by some of Trump's whipsaw policy reversals. On Tuesday, Trump announced more severe tariffs on Canadian metals – causing stocks to fall - and then dropped the threat later that day after Canada made a concession. Overall, 44% of respondents said they approved of the job Trump was doing as president, unchanged from a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted March 3-4. He got particularly weak marks on the issue of the cost of living, where just 32% of respondents approved of his performance.

Texas leaders want to crack down on squatters. Their bill would make it easier to evict any renter

Ahead of this year’s legislative session, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked state lawmakers to look for ways to “secure Texas” against the plight of people illegally occupying residential spaces. Gov. Greg Abbott also promised to tackle "the increasing problem that we face in the state caused by squatters.” But the legislation that emerged has little, if anything, to do with what housing experts typically think of as squatting. Instead, it would radically transform the eviction process for millions of Texas renters, making it easier for landlords to evict them, often without notice or a legal proceeding. Tenant advocates, judges and lawyers have raised the alarm about House Bill 32, calling it a Trojan Horse that would strip tenants of their due process rights and erode judicial authority.

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“The presumption here is that landlords have the correct case and any defense that a tenant has is false,” said Ben Martin, research director at the nonprofit Texas Housers. “It makes the eviction process in Texas, once and for all, a rubber stamp for landlords.” Under current law, landlords have to give tenants a three-day notice to vacate before they begin eviction proceedings. Once an eviction is filed, every case is scheduled for a hearing before a justice of the peace. But the proposed law would eliminate the requirement to provide a notice to vacate when a landlord is evicting a tenant for any reason other than falling behind on rent. If a tenant was accused of smoking in a non-designated area, for instance, a landlord could file immediately to evict them, which becomes part of the tenant’s rental history. Tenants who fall behind on rent would still receive a notice to vacate. But in both instances, if a landlord asserts there are “no genuinely disputed facts” in the case, they could request a summary judgment, meaning the eviction case would be decided without a trial. HB 32, authored by state Rep. Angie Chen Button of Richardson, appears to have emerged from an interim charge issued by Patrick, who leads the Texas Senate. In a hearing last year, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, invited property owners to share “squatter horror stories” and promised to help property owners “come and take it back.”

Immigration accounts for entire US population growth for first time: Survey

Immigration was the sole driver of the United States' population growth in a single year for the first time since records began, a new study released Wednesday said. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) looked at U.S. Census Bureau data for 2022-2023, the latest available, finding that falling American birthrates factored into the change. The findings come at a time when immigration, particularly illegal immigration, is a key focus of the current White House administration. While plans for mass deportations are being carried out, the other obstacle — a collapsing fertility rate — has been far more vexing for officials, both in the U.S. and other developed nations suffering from the same dynamic. The U.S. immigrant population grew by 1.6 million between 2022 and 2023 to 47.8 million, according to the MPI analysis, with immigrants now representing a 14.3 percent share of the overall population—the highest ever. The Census Bureau started collecting data in 1850 and has tracked immigrant arrivals through the boom in the early 1900s, the bust in middle of the century, and then a steady rise from the 1970s onward.

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In 2023, birth rates among American women reached a record low for those aged between 20 and 24, while the rate also dropped overall for the larger group of 20-39 year olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The shift has been noted in other reporting in recent months, including from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), which found that more immigrants were entering the workforce than American-born workers because of an aging population and the declining birthrate. Immigrants made up around 18 percent of the total workforce in 2023, the last year for which complete data is available. In a separate study, the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) looked at estimates from January 2025, finding an even larger rise in the immigrant population. It now stands at around 15.8 percent, according to the CIS analysis. Among the largest nationalities represented in the U.S. immigrant population in 2023 were Mexicans at 23 percent, followed by Indians (6 percent) and Chinese (5 percent).

State Stories

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick lays out second round of Texas Senate priorities. Here's the list.

Two months into the 89th Texas legislative session, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced a second slate of priority bills he hopes the Senate will approve this session as lawmakers in the upper chamber continue to pass bills at a "breakneck pace." Patrick, the three-term Republican who presides over the state Senate, announced the first 25 of his top 40 priorities in late January, with many of those bills buttressing the conservative culture-war agenda the lieutenant governor has championed alongside Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump. Ten of Patrick's 40 priorities have already passed out of the Senate, including three items on his new list released Thursday. Six of those bills had not yet been filed. Patrick said he hopes all 40 of them will head to the House by mid-April for consideration. "We are moving rapidly to ensure all these bills, which reflect the will of the conservative majority of Texans, have ample time to pass the Texas House and arrive at Gov. Abbott’s desk to be signed into law," Patrick said in a statement.

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Patrick's second round of priority bills include a teacher pay bill that would give educators a raise of up to $10,000 and boost funding for the Teacher Incentive Allotment program, which is meant to reward high-performing teachers. SB 26 passed unanimously late last month. The Senate has also passed a proposed ban on lottery courier services, which act as a physical proxy for a lotto player who buys a ticket online. The practice has recently been thrust into the spotlight after a courier sold the winning ticket for an $83.5 million jackpot in February, drawing scrutiny from Patrick who has pointed to a longstanding Texas law that bans lottery sales via telephone. The lieutenant governor's priority list also includes legislation that have not yet been filed, including a proposal for business tax relief and a pair of apparently abortion-related bills. SB 31 is dubbed the "Life of the Mother Act" and could be related to calls from Abbott and Republican leaders to clarify the state's wide-ranging abortion ban to protect mothers at risk of death.

Baylor is scaling back class size, research plans fearing Trump cuts could cost university $80M

Uncertainty over health research funding is prompting the elite Baylor College of Medicine to scale back plans to expand the university’s research efforts and to reduce its incoming graduate school class size by about 15 students. The developments reflect the anxiety that has gripped the Texas Medical Center in recent weeks, as the Trump administration seeks to slash research funding and broadly target language that falls under the banner of diversity, equity and inclusion. A judge blocked the research funding cuts from taking effect earlier this week, but university officials are still bracing for future reductions. Baylor College of Medicine, which received the most National Institutes of Health grant funding in the state last year ($326 million), would be among the hardest hit. Dr. Paul Klotman, Baylor’s president and CEO, estimates that the university could lose as much as $80 million if the NIH follows through with the significant cut it ordered earlier this year. The cuts also threaten Baylor’s investments in the Texas Medical Center’s new biomedical campus, Helix Park.

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“We’ll basically have to cease recruitment,” said Klotman. “We'll just slow the entire research engine down. It's no longer 65 miles an hour; it’s 35 miles an hour.” The funding concerns extend to faculty members at medical center institutions who are managing NIH-funded projects or applying for new grants. Executive actions have snarled the grant review process, forcing committees to cancel or reschedule meetings in which they normally assess new grant submissions or award funding. The NIH also has started canceling grants en masse because they do not meet “agency priorities,” including grants related to gender identity and diversity in the workforce, according to the science journal Nature. In addition to Baylor, other large research universities have reduced class sizes and cut back spending in other areas. “This entire environment has a profound effect not only on the bottom line and the research portfolio at every academic institution, but also the life’s work and livelihood and morale of the hundreds of thousands of federally funded investigators,” said Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy and regulatory counsel at the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Girl deported with parents to Mexico while trying to reach Houston for brain cancer treatment

A 10-year-old girl on her way to Houston for brain cancer treatment last month was deported to Mexico along with other members of her family, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project. The girl was born in the United States, but her parents are both Mexican nationals who had been living in the United States for more than 10 years, according to the group. When they were stopped in February, the parents were given a choice to leave the country with or without their children, the group said. The family's story was first reported by NBC News. The Texas Civil Rights Project didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday. In a statement late Thursday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol called the NBC report "inaccurate" but didn't provide any details to dispute the article.

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"For privacy reasons, we cannot comment on the specifics of this case," an agency spokesman said. In a statement, Texas Civil Right Project president Rochelle Garza called the case an example of the notorious family separation policies from President Donald Trump's first term in office "We witnessed devastating family separations during Trump’s first administration, causing irreversible harm to the children forced to endure these policies," Garza said. "Now, we are seeing these dangerous tactics resurface, and we must act before another generation suffers these injustices.” The group used pseudonyms to refer to the family in a press release. NBC News wrote it wasn't releasing the names of the family because they were "deported to an area in Mexico that is known for kidnapping U.S. citizens."

Texas workers are miserable. Here’s what one survey found.

While Texas has long been considered one of the nation's top states for business, workers in the state are among the nation's most miserable, a new study finds. The state's workforce is the 12th-most miserable in the nation, according to a ranking from Final Round AI, maker of an AI interview virtual assistant, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The analysis focused on four factors: average hours worked, average wages, fatal work injury rates and the rate of nonfatal work injuries and illnesses causing missed workdays. "Not all factors that contribute to a worker’s happiness can be quantified, but paying workers well, providing a good work-life balance and making sure their health is prioritized goes a long way to alleviating a lot of the stress in their lives, allowing them to perform their best when they are at work," said Michael Guan, CEO of Final Round AI.

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Mississippi has the most miserable workers in the nation, the company concluded, standing out for having the lowest average wage in the nation, at $47,570 per year, and the 6th-highest rate of workplace fatalities. Wyoming had the second-unhappiest workforce, with 15.14 fatal injuries per 100,000 employees in 2023, according to BLS data. West Virginia ranked third in this context. By contrast, New York has the happiest workforce in the nation, thanks to a combination of relatively high wages, relatively low hours worked and relatively few workplace fatalities. Texas scored second-worst in the nation, the study found, when it came to workload. On average, workers in the state put in 36.5 hours a week. Texas also has middling wages, with an annual average of $61,240. And in 2023, the most recent data available, the state saw 3.94 fatalities for every 100,000 workers, according to the BLS data. The state's overall score in Final Round AI's ranking was 42.8 out of 100, compared to 30.2 for Mississippi and 79.7 for New York. Guan suggested that when workers are unhappy, that can take a toll on the overall business climate. “Happy workers are better workers as they will work harder, smarter, and make fewer mistakes while working," he said. "Having happy workers is also a glowing recommendation for your company."

Texas reports players and administrators had roles in sports gambling violations

According to an open documents request obtained by the Austin-American Statesmen, the University of Texas self-reported five members of its school for impermissible sports gambling. The bets were placed on the daily fantasy app PrizePicks with the group making $14,885.76. The NCAA bans athletes, coaches and any athletics staff members from betting on sports whether it’s intercollegiate, amateur or professional. Of the five individuals reported two played on the football team, one was an athletic department employee, a student assistant and one was associated with but not a player for the tennis program. One of the football players was reinstated and was required to pay the value of his winnings to the charity of his choice. The second received no punishment because he had left the school and quit college football.

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U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales has a plan to rally centrists on Capitol Hill

After narrowly surviving the Texas GOP’s efforts to purge its moderates in the primary last year, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) has a new plan to promote his centrist values on Capitol Hill. Gonzales, 44, has regularly butted heads with Congress’ conservative wing, which exercised tremendous influence in D.C. after Republicans took control of the House in 2022. When lawmakers returned after the November election, however, Gonzales took over chairing the GOP’s Congressional Hispanic Conference (CHC) — which added members as Hispanic voters swung hard toward the Republican Party. Republicans have a razor-thin 218-214 majority in the House, setting the stage for Gonzales’ CHC to be a deciding factor in any legislative priorities they intend to pass without Democrats’ help.

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“We’ve seen what [conservative groups] have been able to do as a bloc,” Gonzales said in a March 10 interview with the San Antonio Report. Going forward, “the Congressional Hispanic Conference is going to have a seat at the table.” Last month the CHC previewed that approach in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), calling on Congressional Republicans to support President Donald Trump’s border security and immigration efforts, while also preserving elements of the social safety net — like SNAP food stamp benefits and Pell Grant funding for college students with financial need — that have been singled out for cuts in the GOP’s ongoing spending fight. “Hispanic Americans stood with us because we stood up for them on the issues that matter,” eight of the CHC’s members said in the letter. “… They are closely watching to see if we will govern in a way that honors their values and delivers results.” Though the 11-member CHC is still smaller than some of the other caucuses on the Hill, Gonzales said it still has plenty of potential to be influential. The Trump administration is quite proud of the inroads its made with Hispanic voters, and Gonzales, who represents the largest stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, was already recently invited to join Vice President J.D. Vance on a trip to Del Rio and Eagle Pass.

FEMA withholds millions to repay San Antonio for migrant aid

The Trump administration is temporarily withholding millions of dollars in reimbursements for expenses the city of San Antonio incurred for its now-shuttered Migrant Resource Center as the agency reviews how the money was spent — and compiles the names of immigrants the facility served. Cities and organizations that operated migrant assistance centers around the U.S., including Catholic Charities of San Antonio, were notified this week of the decision to freeze reimbursement payments. Catholic Charities ran the day-to-day operations of the center on San Pedro Avenue. The city paid for security and janitorial services, as well as to lease the site.

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The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” that federal grants used to address a surge of migration under former President Joe Biden were used for “illegal activities,” acting Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Cameron Hamilton wrote in a noncompliance letter obtained by the Associated Press. While it doesn’t explicitly threaten criminal prosecution, the letter raises concerns that recipients of grants from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program may have violated U.S. Criminal Code Section 1324, a felony offense against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the U.S. Recipients were asked to provide names and contact information for migrants served, and “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided” within 30 days. Funding will be withheld during the review, the letter says. San Antonio has spent $35.9 million on migrant operations, City Manager Erik Walsh said in a Wednesday memo to Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the City Council.

Texas House colleagues celebrate life of Sylvester Turner in chamber where he once served

Although he served eight years as Houston's mayor and most recently started his first term in Congress, which was cut short by his death, former state Rep. Sylvester Turner was remembered Thursday with mixture of reverence and laughter on the floor of the Texas House where he had served for 27 years. "When Congressman Turner got up to speak, this chamber was as quiet as it is right now," said House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Republican who served one term alongside the late Democrat. "It's not this quiet for everyone, but when he spoke, everybody wanted to know what he had to say. He still remains the most gifted orator that I knew in the chamber." The body of Turner — a Harvard-educated lawyer who represented a working-class majority Black district in Houston from 1989 until becoming mayor in January 2016 — returned to the House to lie in honor until Friday. Turner, who was elected to Congress in November, had served only two months in Congress before he died March 4 at 70 years old.

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Turner's casket arrived at the Texas Capitol before 11 a.m. Thursday and was carried by a military honor guard up the stairs to the west entrance, the side that is home to the House. Inside, several legislative staff members and many in the lobby lined the walls as the flag-draped casket made its way to the main stairwell leading to the House chamber. The service members in full dress uniform marched in step up the two flights of stairs with the casket and carried it to its place beneath the speaker's rostrum. Once there, uniformed sentries stood guard. One at the end of the casket that was covered by the flag's stars, the other at the end cloaked by the stripes. After a private gathering for Turner's family, friends and some of his colleagues, the chamber's doors swung open and a ceremony to honor his life and service began at noon. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston, who with 52 years of seniority is the House's longest-serving Democrat, served as mistress of ceremonies.

Gateway Church founder Robert Morris indicted on child sex abuse charges in Oklahoma

Robert Preston Morris, the founder of Gateway Church, has been indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office said Wednesday. Morris, 63, resigned from his position as senior pastor of Gateway in June, several days after Cindy Clemishire publicly alleged he sexually abused her from the ages of 12 to 17 in the 1980s. Clemishire told The Dallas Morning News that Morris met her family after visiting their church in Oklahoma while he was a traveling preacher. At the time the alleged abuse began, Morris was 21 years old, married and had a young child.

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When Clemishire first publicly alleged Morris abused her, legal experts told The News the statute of limitations for a criminal case against him may have expired. In a Wednesday news release, the Oklahoma Attorney General said that was not the case, as “Morris was not a resident or inhabitant of Oklahoma at any time,” according to the release. “After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” Clemishire told The News on Wednesday. “Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable,” she said. “My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail.” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond briefly represented Clemishire in 2007, when she sought a lawsuit against Morris. “There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children,” Drummond said in the Wednesday news release. “This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position. The victim in this case has waited far too many years for justice to be done.”

Does Gen Z even know SXSW is a music festival? Does it matter?

“South By Southwest was a music festival!?” That’s what one of my Gen-Z co-workers said when she heard me and another co-worker reminiscing about all the shows (and cruel hangovers) we caught during the festival back in our 20s. They were everywhere. In downtown Austin, out on the Drag, on the eastside. I’ve even found myself at a show hosted at a mansion on the Colorado River 30 miles northwest of Sixth Street. At 33, my body occasionally tells me it’s in a transitional phase, between young and old. But hearing someone act shocked that the main draw for SXSW was once music makes me feel like I’ve already earned the senior discount at Denny’s. In Gen-Z’s defense, music is definitely not the focus of SXSW anymore, and hasn’t been for a while. This has led a lot of people to declare the festival dead or over, but this is cyclical. Back in 2011, an article in TechCrunch opined whether calling SXSW passé was itself passé. The festival’s not what it used to be, but it’s a cultural force, and as far as institutions in Texas go, its gravity can’t be ignored.

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SXSW was founded by Roland Swenson, Louis Jay Meyers, Louis Black, and Nick Barbaro in 1987 as a music and media conference and had roughly 700 attendees that year. By 1994, the festival added interactive and film and had 4,550 total registrants. In 2018, attendance grew to 308,970. “South By took off in part because the New Music Seminar up in New York was a headache,” said Alan Berg, founder of the Arts+Labor, a creative video production agency. Berg is president of the board of directors for the Society for the Preservation of Texas Music. “You’re trying to get around this giant city, you can’t park to unload your gear,” Berg told The Barbed Wire “It’s expensive to get there. It’s expensive to stay there, and nobody’s having any fun.” The main draw for Austin was that in the ‘80s it was small and, during the University of Texas’ spring break, the city would be more empty than usual during one of the few times of the year when the weather is actually perfect. “That’s how they got the clubs to sign on. They said, ‘We’re gonna put people in here when the students are out of town,’” Berg said. Berg went to the first SXSW in ‘87, and thought it was just a cool event to catch some bands. In ‘94 though, he saw a seismic shift. “That was a watershed year. They brought Johnny Cash in as a keynote speaker and sort of ratcheted it up a level,” he said. “Here’s this major star that everybody knew and there’s sort of a ripple effect from that.” Those early days were mostly about music discovery and in some ways catered to the music industry’s apparatus. There’s a laundry list of artists who caught a big break at the festival — Odd Future, John Mayer, The White Stripes, Spoon, and Amy Winehouse are a few. Adele played to an empty room.

Proposed Texas laws target proliferation of AI-generated child pornography

Legislation fighting the proliferation of AI-generated child pornography has unanimous support in the Texas Senate as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle target what they call one of the most insidious trends in artificial intelligence. Senate Bill 20 by Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, was approved 31-0 Wednesday and sent to the Texas House. It would ban the possession of obscene images and other visual material that appears to depict minors — including computer-generated material and AI, cartoons, and animation that depict artificially created child characters or depict an actual child. “As Texas enters the digital age, our state must be very careful about our approach to artificial intelligence,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement. “With the proliferation of AI-generated pornography, steps must be taken to protect Texans, and specifically children, from harmful computer-generated content and the crimes that arise from it.”

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Patrick, a Republican, has made the issue a priority for the Texas Senate. Under SB 20, violations would be a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine, with harsher penalties available for repeat offenders. Texas law does not explicitly ban obscene materials that appear to depict a child if there is no identifiable child, said Flores, who chairs the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. It’s time, he said, for Texas to join the 37 states, run by Democrats and Republicans, with similar laws. “It is not uncommon for the law to have to catch up with technology,” Flores said Wednesday. “Technology has allowed the creation of this material to be easier, quicker and more prevalent than ever before.” SB 20 is the leading edge of a package of House and Senate bills that strike at the intersection of AI and child porn. “It is horrific how common this is becoming, that it is spreading,” said Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, who was vice-chair of a Senate AI task force before the legislative session began. “In terms of critical items for this session, I don’t think there can be anything that is higher on our list of priorities than protecting our children.”

In wake of Robert Morris allegations, Texas lawmakers push to end NDAs in sex abuse cases

Four North Texas lawmakers are proposing to abolish nondisclosure agreements in child sexual abuse settlements, which often force victims to stay silent for the rest of their lives about their abuse. The bills are awaiting hearings in House and Senate committees. Leading the fight to do away with NDAs — often signed as part of an agreement to settle sexual abuse lawsuits — is Plano Republican Rep. Jeff Leach, whose House committee last year heard Oklahoma resident Cindy Clemishire, 55, tell of her abuse as a child by Southlake megachurch pastor Robert Morris, then a traveling evangelist. According to her testimony in the October public hearing at the state Capitol, Clemishire first came forward at age 17, but nothing happened to Morris. When she sued in 2005 to collect money to cover her counseling expenses, she was offered $25,000 to settle and sign a nondisclosure agreement, Clemishire testified.

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Her refusal to sign the NDA, she said, gave her the strength to survive the trauma as an adult because she was allowed to talk about it. “I’m sitting here today because I did not accept that offer and refused to sign an NDA saying I couldn’t speak about my life,” she told the committee. Healing, she said, “is a lifelong journey, and to tell someone they cannot speak of that ever again, I don’t know how that could ever be in the best interest of a victim.” Morris, 63, was founder and senior pastor at Gateway Church in Southlake when Clemishire made her allegations public in media interviews last summer. Morris resigned a few days later and was indicted Wednesday in Oklahoma on five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child in connection with Clemishire’s allegations, the Oklahoma attorney general announced. Leach has filed House Bill 748, which would render “void and unenforceable” any nondisclosure agreement that prohibits victims of child sexual abuse to report the abuse to law enforcement or talk about it publicly or privately. Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, has identical legislation in the Senate. Similar proposals also have been filed by Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, and Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield.

Restricting Texas colleges with more oversight is focus of priority bill

Texas colleges and universities could face more oversight — including over who is hired, what is taught and how they are following the law — under a wide-ranging priority bill filed Thursday. The Senate proposal would give governor-appointed boards of regents more power to overturn decisions made by campus leaders and review curriculum. The bill also would reduce the role of faculty senates and create a new office to investigate concerns at state schools. Introduced by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, Senate Bill 37 is of one Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s top 40 priorities. Patrick has long said he wants to roll back the “woke left” that is rampant on college campuses. “By reaffirming the authority of the Board of Regents, SB 37 clearly defines university governance roles while increasing transparency in policies, hiring, curriculum, and financial decisions,” Creighton said in a statement.

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“With taxpayer dollars and students’ futures at stake, universities must operate with accountability,” he added. Others saw the bill as “an attack on faculty’s role in governance in colleges and universities,” the University of Texas at Austin chapter of the American Association of University Professors said in a statement. “Shared governance is one of AAUP’s top priorities and central to the protection of academic freedom and faculty’s status as professionals,” the statement read. In a statement, the Texas Conference of AAUP said the legislature is “attempting to micromanage and overregulate universities that are already thriving.” The group noted that Gov. Greg Abbott bragged about Texas leading the nation in top research universities on social media Thursday. The state recently significantly expanded the number of schools reaching tier 1 status. “This happens because we have top-notch faculty,” AAUP’s statement read. Under the bill, governing boards would have expanded authority that includes the ability to overrule decisions made by school administrators. The boards would have to send annual reports to the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the House and each state lawmaker on their hiring, curriculum and other issues.

City Stories

City of Dallas breaks silence on new Mavs arena, vows to keep team ‘where they belong’

Behind-the-scenes dialogue between the Mavericks and the city of Dallas about potential sites for a new arena has intensified in recent days. It’s also no longer behind the scenes. “The Mavericks have called the City of Dallas home for the last 45 years,” City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said Tuesday in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “We are committed to the long-term relationship we have established with them and are working closely with team officials to keep them in Dallas — where they belong.” Tolbert’s remarks come as the city of Irving considers rezoning that could pave the way for an arena, destination resort — and potentially a casino — on 182 acres primarily owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp., whose COO is Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont.

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On Tuesday, Mavericks CEO Rick Welts emphasized to The News that the franchise, first and foremost, is focused on building an arena in Dallas. He characterized Mayor Eric Johnson, Tolbert and other city officials as extremely enthusiastic and encouraging. The most immediate goal, Welts said, is within 12 months identifying and securing a 30-to-50-acre site for an arena and “full-blown entertainment district.” “What we’re saying to the city is we want to exhaust every possible option in the city of Dallas before considering pivoting to another location in the Metroplex,” he said. “That’s our commitment. That’s our desire. That’s the outcome we want, to be doing this project in the city of Dallas.” Earlier Tuesday, Welts expressed the same goals and sentiments during a conference call with the 28-member Dallas Mavericks Advisory Council, composed of a diverse cross-section of North Texas community and business leaders. City of Dallas officials and the Mavericks declined to divulge potential arena/entertainment district properties, largely because doing so could drive up the price for securing potential sites.

National Stories

Senate works to avert partial government shutdown ahead of midnight deadline

The Senate finds itself on Friday in a familiar position, working to avoid a partial government shutdown with just hours to spare as Democrats confront two painful options: allowing passage of a bill they believe gives President Donald Trump vast discretion on spending decisions or voting no and letting a funding lapse ensue. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer gave members of his caucus days to vent their frustration about the options before them, but late Thursday made clear he will not allow a government shutdown. His move gives Democrats room to side with Republicans and allow the continuing resolution, often described as a CR, to come up for a vote as soon as Friday. A procedural vote Friday will provide a first test of whether the package has the 60 votes needed to advance, ahead of final voting likely later in the day. At least eight Democrats will need to join with Republicans to move the funding package forward.

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“While the CR still is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said. Congress has been unable to pass the annual appropriations bills designed to fund the government, so they’ve resorted to passing short-term extensions instead. The legislation before the Senate marks the third such continuing resolution for the current fiscal year, now nearly half over. The legislation would fund the federal government through the end of September. It would trim non-defense spending by about $13 billion from the previous year and increase defense spending by about $6 billion, which are marginal changes when talking about a topline spending level of nearly $1.7 trillion. The Republican-led House passed the spending bill on Tuesday and then adjourned. The move left senators with a decision to either take it or leave it. And while Democrats have been pushing for a vote on a fourth short-term extension, GOP leadership made clear that option was a non-starter. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and others used their floor time Thursday to make the case that any blame for a shutdown would fall squarely on Democrats.

Egg prices are rapidly falling so far in March

Egg prices have fallen sharply so far in March on some progress in ending a shortage, giving consumers some much-needed relief with the supermarket staple. The cost of white large shell eggs declined to $6.85 per dozen, on average, last week, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That represents a decline of $1.20 per dozen, and a 15% pull back the USDA’s prior update on Feb. 28. “Demand for shell eggs continues to fade into the new month as no significant outbreaks of HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] have been detected in nearly two weeks,” the USDA wrote in its March 7 weekly update. “This respite has provided an opportunity for production to make progress in reducing recent shell egg shortages.”

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Egg prices have become a key pressure point for consumers that are tired of sticky inflation and worried about more potential price increases due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on a wide array of imports. While it is still unknown the full ramifications of the duties on Canada, China and Mexico, stocks have so far pulled back in 2025 on concern the moves could further raise prices of goods and tip a sagging economy into a recession. To be sure, the price of eggs have still skyrocketed more than 170% from a year ago, USDA data shows. The rise has spurred an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into allegations of anticompetitive practices from some of the largest egg producers in the country. Firms including Cal-Maine Foods have touted a crushing avian flu outbreak, which has forced the culling of millions of egg-laying hens, as the major catalyst for the rise in egg prices. “The primary reason for the drop is actions taken by the administration’s Department of Justice to investigate the companies for possible antitrust violations,” said Joe Maxwell, president of Farm Action Fund, told CNBC. “The dominant firms have so much control over the market that they can increase prices and lower prices almost at will.”

Democrats plan nationwide blitz of town halls in Republican districts

The Democratic Party is planning an extensive series of town halls in Republican-held districts in all 50 states to draw attention to the Republican leadership’s recent warning that G.O.P. lawmakers should avoid such open forums. The initial wave of what Democrats are branding “People’s Town Halls” is planned to target nine House Republicans in battleground districts, from Arizona to Pennsylvania, who Democrats believe will be vulnerable in the 2026 midterm elections. The incursions into Republican territory come as the Democratic Party tries to find its political footing after a turbulent first 50 days of President Trump’s second term, and as Republicans control every facet of the federal government — and are exercising their power aggressively. Party officials said the first nine town halls were just the start, with the goal of eventually holding events across the country to highlight some of the less popular proposals pressed by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

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The effort seeks to capitalize on private advice this month from Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chair of the House Republican campaign arm, that G.O.P. lawmakers stop having in-person town halls after some devolved into shouting matches. “If they won’t talk to their own voters, then Democrats will,” Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement to The New York Times. “That’s why we’ll be hosting People’s Town Halls in all 50 states across the country, starting now with vulnerable G.O.P.-held target districts.” This weekend, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, is set to headline two of the events, which have previously been announced. The idea of Democrats’ hosting town halls in Republican districts began with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has already held five such town halls, drawing thousands of people. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is expected to join him for at least one event. Separately, Representative Ro Khanna of California has announced plans to hold events this weekend in the districts of three California Republicans, all of whom are in battleground seats. And Representative Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida, said this week that he was also planning to hold town halls in Republican districts.

Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona dies at 77

Longtime Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., a leading progressive voice on the environment and climate change, died Thursday from “complications of his cancer treatment,” his office announced in a statement. He was 77. First elected to Congress in 2002, Grijalva won re-election 11 times. He rose to become chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, a post he held from 2015 to 2019, and most recently was the top Democrat on the committee. He also was the longest-serving co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, from 2009 to 2019, in addition to being a senior member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

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"He was steadfast in his commitment to produce lasting change through environmental policies — as he would say, 'It’s for the babies.' He led the Natural Resources Committee without fear of repercussion, but with an urgency of the consequences of inaction," his staff said in a statement. "His strong belief was that no matter where you’re from, one truth unites us all: everyone deserves the freedom to live a healthy life, and every child deserves a safe and fair chance at their future," the statement said. Grijalva is the second House Democrat to die in office this month. First-term Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, suddenly died March 5 after he attended President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress the night before. The Republican majority in the House has been extremely tight this Congress. Grijalva's death means

Elon Musk made visit to U.S. spy agency

Elon Musk visited the National Security Agency on Wednesday, current and former U.S. officials said, meeting with leadership a week after saying the intelligence and cybersecurity outfit needed an overhaul. The discussion with the NSA, Musk’s first known visit to an intelligence agency, centered on staff reductions and operations, officials said, with one describing it as a “positive” conversation. Musk is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of government and align every agency’s mission with the president’s “America First” vision. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been leading the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government. It isn’t clear whether Musk inquired about specific intelligence or military operations, one of the officials said. The visit came a day before the deadline for federal agencies to submit reorganization plans.

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In a statement, an NSA spokesman confirmed that Musk met with NSA chief Gen. Timothy Haugh. A spokesman for DOGE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The NSA, housed at Fort Meade in Maryland, is, like other U.S. government organizations, under Musk’s microscope. Posting to his social-media site X, Musk wrote last week that “The NSA needs an overhaul.” He didn’t specify exactly what reforms he sought, but U.S. intelligence officials have long expected Musk’s attention to turn to the broader community and are bracing for swift changes. Musk’s quiet trip is another sign of the central role he plays in the Trump administration. The world’s richest man has free rein to visit one of the most storied and secretive U.S. intelligence agencies, making clear he wields outsize power for someone who coyly called himself “tech support” during a cabinet meeting in February. The NSA director also leads U.S. Cyber Command, which falls under the Defense Department and is likewise located at Fort Meade. Musk says one of his main missions of DOGE is to improve on government computer systems. “Many of these systems are extremely old. They don’t communicate. There are a lot of mistakes in the systems. The software doesn’t work,” he said during the February cabinet meeting. But his most visible changes have been a swift reduction in the federal workforce, closing the U.S. Agency for International Development and downsizing other parts of government.

Trump's economic troubles put Republicans on the defensive

President Donald Trump's full-speed-ahead approach to making radical change has forced his allies to fight from a defensive posture — explaining his plans after they have been executed — and raised alarms in his Republican Party that it could all end in a wreck. The concerns are particularly acute when it comes to the economy, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average having lost about 7% of its value this month and many economists projecting either slower growth or a coming recession. Those fears haven't deterred Trump from continuing to impose tariffs on foes and friends — which figure to raise prices on U.S. consumers — and slash federal government jobs, grants and contracts. "There are worries," said a person who has been involved in discussions about the economy with White House officials. Those effects on the markets and the economy are felt immediately, while policies aimed at spurring growth — including cutting taxes and regulations — will take much longer to implement, this person said.

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Privately, officials at the White House's National Economic Council have indicated fears that it could be difficult to rebound quickly from a downturn, two people familiar with internal White House discussions said. A second person who speaks frequently to administration officials said the White House is trying to take a long view of the economic tremors. But that approach comes with significant risk — both to the economy and to Republicans' political standing — if the turnaround doesn't happen. Many of those administration officials think tariffs aren't sound policy — and won't ultimately be enacted for any extended period of time — but, this person said, Trump "doesn't want to talk to them right now." The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. The dark economic clouds are forcing Trump administration officials into the awkward position of explaining why a president who promised to boost the economy simply by winning election now faces falling stock prices, job losses that he incurred with unilateral cuts to government agencies and mounting predictions of a sluggish economy. "This was always part of the plan," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday on Fox News, perhaps forgetting Trump's campaign trail promises. "The president is so focused on — not the short term. ... He truly wants to fix America." That's a different sentiment from what Trump expressed on the campaign trail as he asked for votes.

Judges order Trump officials to offer jobs back to thousands of fired workers

Two federal judges on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to immediately offer jobs back to thousands of fired probationary workers as they imposed separate, broad roadblocks on the administration’s efforts. The rulings — in Maryland and California — mark the most significant challenge so far to Trump’s campaign to shrink and reshape the sprawling, 2.3-million-person bureaucracy. Trump would now have to appeal and win in two, separate legal cases — or seek Supreme Court involvement — to get his workforce reduction effort back on course. In Maryland, U.S. District Court Judge James K. Bredar required 18 federal agencies to rehire any probationary employees they had terminated since Jan. 20, when Trump took office, and to submit reports to the judge by March 17, outlining compliance with his order and naming each reinstated employee.

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His ruling came in response to a multistate lawsuit accusing the federal government of illegally terminating tens of thousands of probationary workers, arguing those firings were conducted in an opaque way that has overwhelmed state government support systems for unemployed workers and caused economic harm. Hours earlier in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said at a court hearing that the Office of Personnel Management — which serves as the federal government’s human resources agency — had no legal authority to direct the mass firings in conference calls and written communications last month. He added that individual agencies could downsize their staffs by following the steps laid out in the federal Reduction in Force Act, a process that administration officials have already put in motion. The government’s effort to cut its workforce, championed by Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk, has sparked mounting legal and administrative challenges across the country. The lawsuit in federal district court in Maryland came from a cohort of 20 Democratic attorneys general nationwide. They argued that the Trump administration had falsely categorized mass layoffs as terminations based on poor individual performance — which gave the government much more leniency to swiftly fire people — when they were actually a Reduction in Force, part of the administration’s plan to restructure and downsize the entire federal government.

Lead Stories

Texas farmers, a key Trump constituency, raise the alarm over growing trade war

In early February, the Texas Farm Bureau defended President Donald Trump as he moved to enact tariffs on foreign goods coming into the United States, saying they trusted him to "protect the interests of farm and ranch families." But now, after more rounds of tariffs and counter tariffs by nations including China, Canada and the European Union have started to hit demand for U.S. agriculture goods overseas, Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening acknowledged his members are growing anxious. "We understand that's his negotiating tool, but at the same time tariffs can be hard on agriculture," he said. "If you're in a good spot you can withstand this, but you worry about the producer who has only been in this five or ten years and doesn’t have a lot of equity built up. Those are the operations that could be in trouble."

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Texas farmers, already struggling from drought and low commodity prices, are on the front line of a growing trade war between the United States and its longtime trading partners. And as a key Trump constituency, their discomfort is likely to be of particular concern to a White House that has already gone back and forth over enacting tariffs. Cotton, a staple for farmers in West Texas, hit its lowest price in four years earlier this month after China announced a 15% retaliatory tariff on a number of U.S. agricultural goods. China, the largest buyer of grain sorghum in the world, has also virtually stopped buying the crop from Texas farms, Boening said. And it's looking increasingly likely that Mexico, a major buyer of U.S. rice, a big crop in East Texas, will be turning to farms in South America if Trump goes ahead on his threat to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada on April 2, S&P Global Intelligence, a research firm, reported earlier this month. Lobbyists for the farm bureau have been reaching out to the administration and members of Congress from Texas to warn them of the immediate risks posed to farmers by a trade war.

Signs of weakness are showing up in spending on everything from basics to luxuries

American consumers have had a lot to fret about so far this year, between never-ending tariff headlines, stubborn inflation and most recently, fresh fears about a recession. These concerns seem to be hitting spending by both rich and poor, across necessities and luxuries, all at once. Take low-income consumers: At an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago in late February, Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon said “budget-pressured” customers are showing stressed behaviors: They are buying smaller pack sizes at the end of the month because their “money runs out before the month is gone.” McDonald’s said in its most recent earnings call that the fast-food industry has had a “sluggish start” to the year, in part because of weak demand from low-income consumers. Across the U.S. fast-food industry, sales to low-income guests were down by a double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, according to McDonald’s.

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Things don’t look much better on the higher end. American consumers’ spending on the luxury market, which includes high-end department stores and online platforms, fell 9.3% in February from a year earlier, worse than the 5.9% decline in January, according to Citi’s analysis of its credit-card transactions data. Costco, whose membership-fee-paying customer base skews higher-income, said last week that demand has shifted toward lower-cost proteins such as ground beef and poultry. Its members are still spending but are being “very choiceful” about where they spend, Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip said. He said consumers could become even pickier if they see more inflation from tariffs. Department stores are seeing signs of penny-pinching all around, too. On Tuesday, Kohl’s CEO Ashley Buchanan said consumers making less than $50,000 a year are “pretty constrained” on discretionary spending, but added that “it’s also pretty challenging” for those making less than $100,000. The company gave a much weaker sales forecast for the full year than Wall Street expected, causing its share price to plunge 24% on Tuesday. Last week, Macy’s CEO Tony Spring said the “affluent customer that’s shopping [at] Macy’s is just as uncertain and as confused and concerned by what’s transpiring.”

Texas measles outbreak grows, while New York and California report new cases

Los Angeles County in California, Suffolk County in New York and Howard County in Maryland detected their first confirmed cases of measles this year, while Oklahoma reported two possible cases, local health authorities said this week. The spread of the highly infectious disease comes as an outbreak of more than 200 cases has continued to grow in Texas, and as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned health-care workers and potential travelers to “be vigilant” ahead of spring and summer travel. Health officials in Los Angeles County — the most populous county in the United States — reported a case Tuesday in a resident who may have been exposed onboard a China Airlines flight that landed at Los Angeles International Airport on March 5. The New York state health department announced on Tuesday its first known case of measles outside New York City this year. The patient, who is under 5 years old, lives in Suffolk County on Long Island.

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In Howard County, just west of Baltimore, health authorities on Sunday reported a confirmed case in a resident who recently traveled abroad and was at Washington Dulles International Airport on March 5. Two individuals in Oklahoma reported symptoms consistent with measles and had potential exposure to outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, the Oklahoma Health Department said Tuesday. It praised the individuals for “immediately excluding themselves from public settings.” “With measles outbreaks happening both in the United States and internationally, this recent case in our county highlights how important it is for anyone who has not been immunized to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine,” Muntu Davis, the Los Angeles County health officer, said in a news release. “Measles spreads easily through the air and on surfaces, and a person infected with measles can pass it on to others before they feel sick or have symptoms.” In Canada, at least 146 confirmed cases have been detected this year up to March 6, along with 22 probable cases.

Private school vouchers: Ohio’s richest families access scholarships

Nearly 20% of state spending on private school vouchers goes to families at the top income brackets in the state – people who make six- and seven-figure salaries or more, a recent state report shows. Ohio has five scholarship programs to assist families with tuition at private schools. In recent decades, public spending on private schools has skyrocketed, including last year, when the state spent just short of $1 billion on private school vouchers. Last year was the first when families of all incomes could qualify for at least a partial scholarship under a voucher program known as EdChoice-Expansion. About 19% of the EdChoice-Expansion state payments during the 2023-2024 school year went to families with incomes of 451% or higher of the federal poverty level, according to the report by the nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission.

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EdChoice-Expansion amounts are determined by a family’s income level relative to federal poverty rates. For a family of four, 451% is $140,712 a year. For context, the median annual income of a household in Ohio was $69,680 between 2019 and 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The per capita income was $39,455. Ohio is poorer than most other states. The national average household income is $78,538 and per capita income is $43,289. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people in higher tax brackets in the Buckeye State. According to the LSC report sent to state lawmakers Nov. 12, just under 35,000 students were from families of incomes of 451% or higher -- about 39% of all scholarships awarded. About 86,800 students used EdChoice-Expansion vouchers last year, an increase from the previous year of 22,600, the report states.

State Stories

'We have beef': New York steakhouse owner says he'll sue after Dan Patrick eats a 'Texas' strip

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took to X Tuesday evening to tout the first-ever "Texas Strip" served with "Gulf of America shrimp," a move which one New York steakhouse owner said he'll be taking the state to court over. Patrick's Texas-themed dinner, which cost $99, came after he announced plans to introduce a resolution in the Texas Senate to officially rename the popular steak cut after the Lone Star State. Rebranding the New York strip as the "Texas" strip, he said, would help the state's cattle ranchers market their beef across the nation. While Patrick said Texas' cattle industry "sure liked the idea," Todd Shapiro, owner of the War Room Tavern in Albany, New York, said he will file a lawsuit in the coming weeks over the proposed name change.

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"We have a big beef with your lieutenant governor," Shapiro said. "They're trying to take away something that's part of our heritage. People grew up having a New York strip. People all over the country, they eat a New York strip. It's part of the New York culture." According to the Little Cattle Company, a Texas-based beef supplier, the New York strip got its name in the late 19th century after it was added to the menu at Delmonico's, an upscale New York City restaurant that still exists today. Bob's Steak and Chop House, where Patrick said he was served the "Texas" strip, still refers to it as the New York strip on its website. Bob's also doesn't source its beef from Texas, which is the largest produce of beef of any U.S. state, according to a 2022 report from the United States Department of Agriculture. Beef served at its locations, which range from Texas to Arizona, is purchased through "the Chicago-based Stock Yards Meat Packing Company," according to the website for Bob's Steak and Chop House. But Patrick said Texas should benefit from the cut's branding, not "liberal" New York. "Liberal New York shouldn’t get the credit for our hard-working ranchers," Patrick said in a late February post on X. "We promote the Texas brand on everything made or grown in Texas because it benefits our economy and jobs."

Here's why the Austin store that sold $83.5M Lotto winning ticket is under investigation

The Austin retailer that sold the winning ticket for last month's $83.5 million Lotto Texas jackpot is under investigation for unspecified violations of the Texas Lottery Commission's rules, and several other retailers that have worked with so-called courier companies have lost their licenses to sell tickets. Lottery Executive Director Ryan Mindell made the revelations Tuesday to the legislative panel with direct oversight over the agency that operates the state-run games of chance, which bring in about $2 billion annually to the treasury. "I have opened enforcement investigations against all of the known retailers affiliated with couriers and we have discovered and are pursuing (lottery license) revocations based on violations to existing rules or statutes," Mindell told the House Licensing and Administrations Procedures Committee.

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Mindell and the board that oversees the lottery have come under stinging criticism from lawmakers this year over the agency's acceptance of lottery couriers, or third-party operators that offer smartphone apps to players who wish to purchase game tickets online as a workaround to the state statute that forbids using a telephone for the direct sale of tickets. The Senate has passed legislation to outlaw courier companies in Texas, and a separate proposal to ban the bulk purchase of lottery tickets is awaiting the chamber's consideration. The House has yet to act on either bill, or on long-shot legislation that would abolish the lottery altogether. Despite repeated claims to lawmakers by Mindell that he lacks authority to regulate couriers, last month he took steps to effectively put them out of business in Texas. Under his proposal that still awaits formal ratification by the Lottery Commission, retailers that do business with couriers face losing their state license. The Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers, a trade organization that represents third-party ticket buyers Jackpocket, Jackpot.com and Lotto.com, has endorsed the legislation to ban bulk purchasing. And it supports a separate proposal, House Bill 3201, to allow couriers to operate in the Texas provided that they are licensed and regulated by the state.

'Transformational': Texas Senate Bill 568 would overhaul special education funding

As a Texas public school student in the 1960s, Brent Hagenbuch was the only second grader in his class who couldn’t read. He said he had fallen behind and was at risk of sliding further. But then his father, a firefighter with a high school education, worked with Hagenbuch's teacher to find an expert doing early research on dyslexia, a learning disorder that affects reading and writing. The diagnosis was life-altering. After learning skills to adapt, Hagenbuch went on to graduate as his high school's valedictorian, attend the Naval Academy and Stanford University, and run a successful business. Now, a Republican state senator from Denton, Hagenbuch recounted his story Tuesday to his colleagues on the Senate Committee on Education K-16 in support of a proposal that proponents have called “transformational” for special education funding in Texas.

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Senate Bill 568, by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, would overhaul the formulas Texas uses to budget for its 775,000 students with disabilities, increasing overall funding, offsetting schools’ costs for initial evaluations and adding new grants and teacher incentives. The proposal is “great,” Hagenbuch said, "because this provides help to so many more kids who need it. I think they have to catch them early, or they lose their confidence." Hagenbuch told the American-Statesman about a neighbor his age growing up who he believed had dyslexia but whose parents refused to seek a diagnosis for him. The boy didn't graduate from high school. "I think that would have been me" without treatment, he said, choking up. In the Tuesday education committee hearing, Bettencourt said his 57-page proposal would help boost the state's underfunded special education programs. “This is a groundbreaking special education bill ... that I think will lead to stunningly better outcomes for a number of our 775,000 school children with disabilities," Bettencourt said.

What ever happened to ethics reform?

In the early 1970s, Texas experienced one of the most explosive political scandals in its history. House Speaker Gus Mutscher was convicted, and several other top state officials were implicated for their roles in a bribery scheme in which they received profitable stocks from Houston banker Frank Sharp in exchange for passing favorable legislation in Austin. This saga, which became known as the Sharpstown scandal, toppled the Texas ruling class of conservative Democrats—including the speaker, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. It also ushered in a brief but forceful era of progressive reform, led by a coalition of Republicans and liberal Dems, centered on cleaning up state government. The resulting laws formed the bedrock of open government and ethics regulations in modern Texas government—from disclosure of campaign financing and paid lobbying to the state’s open records and open meetings laws—which have helped let some sunlight into the backrooms of power.

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Fast forward 50 years to the latest battle for the Texas House speakership, in which a bloc of self-proclaimed conservative reformers invoked the Sharpstown reckoning in their crusade to take down Republican Speaker Dade Phelan and root out an alleged cabal of corrupted “RINOs” who they claim have conspired with lobbyists and Democrats to control the chamber at the expense of the GOP grassroots. “The problem then (as now) was the transactional system of loyalty and compromise the Speaker had created,” state Representative Mitch Little, a first-term conservative who became a ringleader of the “reform” bloc, said in a lengthy post on social media titled “Sharpstown 2.0.” This crew released a series of demands for a GOP speaker who had support from a GOP majority and commitments to procedural reforms in the chamber—such as banning the longtime practice of appointing some Democrats to chair committees. They rallied around North Texas Republican Representative David Cook as their chosen insurgent and stirred up enough discontent to force Phelan to back out of his bid to retain the gavel. But Phelan was quickly replaced by one of his top lieutenants, Lubbock state Representative Dustin Burrows. This, the right-wing bloc argued, was evidence of a new Sharpstown-esque scandal involving the speakership and a bank. Phelan and Burrows, you see, had both been top lieutenants under the ill-fated and brief speakership of Dennis Bonnen, who was brought down by the tactics of the same right-wing groups sounding the alarm now.

Monty Bennett is the secret mastermind behind Dallas charter school group

Last week in The Cedars, a group of about 40 local education advocates and community leaders gathered for the launch of a new nonprofit. They were there at the invitation of the Dallas Education Collective (DEC), which was making its public debut in the offices of the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL), whose founder and CEO, Alan Cohen, had signed on as an advisor for the new group. While it’s not unusual for CPAL to lend its gathering space to another like-minded nonprofit, this March 4 event would raise eyebrows as some of the people in attendance later learned important details about DEC’s origins. Lynn McBee, a former mayoral candidate and leader of philanthropic efforts too numerous to recount, was in attendance. As a longtime supporter of public education, she also had agreed to serve as an advisor to DEC, and she gave remarks in support of the new group. The person who had convened the gathering was Nakia Douglas, the newly hired executive director of the Dallas Education Collaborative. He had previously served as the founding principal of DISD’s Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy, in southern Dallas. Douglas is a respected figure in Dallas education circles, which is why Cohen, who was not in attendance, let DEC use CPAL’s meeting space.

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Neither the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Observer, nor KERA News covered the event. In fact, the only media organization that covered DEC’s launch was the Dallas Express. Bennett is a wealthy hotelier and Republican donor who has worked for years to direct tax dollars toward private schools. His latest effort focuses on Princeton ISD, north of Dallas. Texas Monthly published a story last year about the Princeton matter. The subhead neatly sums it up: “Monty Bennett is trying to get a Collin County school board to adopt a scheme that would let students across the state attend private academies on the taxpayer’s dime.” Bennett tried to do the same thing in Wimberley. Bennett’s interest doesn’t end with education. He was behind the shadowy Dallas HERO Initiative, which last fall put forward three controversial ballot propositions, successfully passed two, and upended traditional Dallas politics in the process. The short version is that Dallas now has the impossible task of hiring 900 additional police officers, throwing the city’s finances into chaos, and is now open to lawsuits for things like not dispersing homeless people quickly enough. Dallas HERO has threatened to sue the city for just that reason. But Bennett’s efforts to reshape Dallas began years ago, when he began secretly funding a network of advocacy groups—such as Keep Dallas Safe and Dallas Justice Now—that have sought to influence local elections and political discourse. He has amplified those groups in the Express, without disclosing his relationship to them. Bennett also once paid a company to hire actors to stage a fake protest outside of D Magazine’s office that was covered only by the Express. So when the Express was the only outlet to cover the launch of DEC, that was a major clue that Bennett was involved. IRS and Texas Secretary of State filings confirm this.

Dallas mayor tells Congress the private sector, not government, is key to affordable homes

Government can best address high housing costs by getting out of the private sector’s way, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson testified Wednesday before a U.S. Senate committee. “The most effective way to bring down housing prices is to encourage the private sector to increase homebuilding throughout the United States, but particularly in cities like Dallas, where we see unprecedented demand for our existing housing stock because of our economic growth and success,” Johnson said. Johnson appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs alongside a Harvard University economist who has studied housing markets, an official with a major mortgage lender and the head of a group that advocates for affordable housing for low-income people.

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Johnson left the Democratic party for the GOP in 2023, and his testimony fit with Republican efforts to shift the conversation about how to promote affordable housing. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the committee chairman, emphasized the need to cut government regulations to make homebuilding easier. Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the committee, said a nationwide shortage of housing is driving up rents and pushing home ownership out of reach for average Americans. Warren criticized Housing Secretary Scott Turner and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they have frozen affordable housing development projects across the country and proposed deep cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s workforce. “These actions will make it harder, not easier, for families to access housing, and they will raise housing costs,” she said. “If the federal government is going to be a good partner to local communities to address the housing crisis, we need a well resourced and well staffed HUD.”

U.S. Education Department to lay off all Dallas employees amid widespread national cuts

The U.S. Department of Education will lay off all employees at its Dallas office, the department said Wednesday morning. The Dallas office is just one of the regional offices getting eliminated as part of national cuts to the agency. Other affected offices include San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, according to NBC. The Education Department announced plans Tuesday to lay off over 1,300 of its more than 4,000 employees as part of a reorganization that’s seen as a prelude to President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency. Even before the layoffs, the Education Department was among the smallest Cabinet-level agencies. Its workforce included 3,100 people in Washington and an additional 1,100 at regional offices across the country, according to a department website.

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Judge rules in Fort Worth lawsuit over Airbnb-type rentals

The city of Fort Worth prevailed in a lawsuit challenging its rules on short-term rentals like those listed on Airbnb and VRBO. Short-term rental operators sued the city in June 2023 alleging the rules violated their property rights. But a Tarrant County District Court judge on Thursday ruled that Fort Worth had the authority to make that regulation. The ruling comes just over two years after the City Council passed new zoning rules prohibiting short-term rentals in single family neighborhoods. The city’s rules also require operators to register and pay all applicable taxes. Members of the Texas Neighborhood Coalition, a group opposing the proliferation of short-term rentals, celebrated the decision. “These unstaffed mini-hotels are completely incompatible with the nature and character of residential neighborhoods. They supplant long-term residents with a revolving door of strangers,” said the group’s co-founder, David Schwarte, in a statement.

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He also said short-term rentals threaten neighborhood security and the sense of community that leads people to buy homes in residential neighborhoods. Lauren Brady, president of the Fort Worth Short-Term Rental Alliance, declined to comment Tuesday on the court’s decision, saying she needed to brief the other plaintiffs before speaking publicly. “The City of Fort Worth appreciates the Court’s ruling in the short-term rental litigation, which reinforces the City’s authority to regulate STRs,” said city spokesperson Reyne Telles, adding the decision is significant not only for Fort Worth, but other cities around Texas facing similar challenges to their regulations. “The ruling underscores the City’s commitment to maintaining the character of its neighborhoods and ensuring a balanced approach to land use,” Telles said. “Fort Worth will continue to defend its position in any appeal and remains dedicated to policies that protect residents and support responsible short-term rental practices.”

Dallas-Fort Worth no longer leads U.S. in population gain

Dallas-Fort Worth no longer leads the country’s metro areas in population gain, according to numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau released March 13. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area, home to an estimated 8.3 million people as of July 2024, had held the growth title after it gained nearly 153,000 residents between July 2022 and July 2023. DFW gained more new people the following year — almost 178,000 between July 2023 and July 2024 —but the region lagged behind the New York and Houston metropolitan areas in numeric growth.

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The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area gained the most people between July 2023 and July 2024: just over 213,000. The Houston area added the second most — 198,000. No other Texas metro areas ranked in the top 10. Dallas-Fort Worth has grown from 7.6 million in 2020 to 8.3 million in July 2024. Tarrant County added just under 33,000 people between July 2023 and July 2024, the population gain ranking 10th among U.S. counties. Harris County gained the most new people: just under 106,000. Collin County added the fourth most, 47,000 and Montgomery County near Houston gained just over 34,000, the ninth most. Dallas-Fort Worth grew 2.18% between July 2023 and July 2024, down from 2.41% between July 2022 and July 2023. Two metro areas in Texas ranked among the 10 fastest growing in the country: Midland and Odessa, neighboring areas that each grew by 2.8%, according to the new census estimates. But even as growth slows, Dallas-Fort Worth, the nation’s fourth largest metro, is gaining on Chicago, the third largest metro, with a population of 9.4 million. In the past two years, DFW has added 231,000 more residents than Chicago, which grew by 71,000 in 2024 and 28,000 in 2023. Looking at individual counties, Kaufman County outside Dallas saw the second fastest growth, jumping by 6%, lagging behind only Dawson County in Georgia, which saw 6.4% growth. Liberty County outside Houston grew the sixth fastest (5.4%), Montgomery County in the Houston suburbs grew the seventh fastest (4.8%) and Caldwell County south of Austin grew the ninth fastest (4.6%).

Gov. Greg Abbott awards Round Rock semiconductor supplier $2M in Texas CHIPS Act funding

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott awarded a $2 million Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund to Round Rock-based semiconductor supplier KoMiCo Technology. Abbott announced Thursday that KoMiCo would receive the fourth TSIF grant for its facility in Round Rock, located at 201 Michel Angelo Way, just past North Austin. According to Abbott, the funding will support the creation of 70 new jobs and a $36 million capital investment. “Texas is leading the American resurgence in semiconductor manufacturing and making strategic investments to secure critical domestic supply chains,” Abbott said in the statement Thursday. “KoMiCo’s $36 million investment to expand their clean room capacity and production lines in Round Rock supports increased chip production right here in Texas." KoMiCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of South Korea-based KoMiCo Ltd., works with global chipmakers on semiconductor equipment parts cleaning, coating and repair.

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FEMA launches review of migrant shelter aid, suggesting smuggling laws were violated

The Trump administration has launched a review of organizations that provide temporary housing and other aid to migrants, suggesting they may have violated a law used to prosecute smugglers. The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” that federal grants used to address a surge of migration under former President Joe Biden were used for illegal activities, wrote Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. His letter, dated Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press, asks recipients of grants from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program to provide names and contact information for migrants served and “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided” within 30 days. The letter says funding will be withheld during the review.

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While it doesn’t explicitly threaten criminal prosecution, it raises concerns that recipients may have violated U.S. Criminal Code Section 1324, a felony offense against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States. It also says executive officers must sign sworn statements that they have no knowledge or suspicions of anyone in their organizations violating the smuggling law. FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday. The demand appears to be a new salvo against organizations that provide food, housing and travel aid to people who cross the border. Migrants often arrive exhausted, low on money and unsure how to navigate on their own through bus stations and airports. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who was at odds with the Biden administration over immigration and is closely aligned with the Trump White House, took a similar tack against migrant aid groups but was blocked in court.

A transgender congresswoman was called ‘Mr.’ by a Texas Rep. Keith Self. This was her response

A United States House Foreign Affairs committee meeting came to a sudden halt Tuesday after an exchange over gender titles between a Republican legislator from Texas and a transgender Democratic committee member. In the hearing, chairman of the committee Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, recognized Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., by saying: "I now recognize the representative from Delaware: Mr. McBride," a video of the hearing on Instagram posted by ABC News shows. She countered with "Thank you, Madame Chair." McBride is the first transgender person elected to Congress.

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Affairs committee meeting After the exchange between the two, Rep. Bill Keating, D-Massachusetts, asked Self, "Can you repeat your introduction again please?" Self replied "Yes, we have set the standard on the floor of the House and I'm simply ... " Keating asked "What is that standard Mr. Chairman? Would you repeat what you just said when you introduced a duly elected representative from the United States of America please." Self said "I will. The representative from Delaware, Mr. McBride." Keating told Self he was "out of order. Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean I've come to know you a little bit but this is not decent." Self tried to continue the hearing but Keating said, "You will not continue it with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way." Self picked up the gavel and adjourned the hearing.

Bill targeting squatters gets pushback at Texas Capitol hearing

A bipartisan bill framed as a way to crack down on squatters received pushback from dozens of housing advocates, local officials and some Democratic lawmakers Wednesday in a public hearing at the Texas Capitol. House Bill 32 by Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, also received support from individuals who spoke on behalf of the Texas Apartment Association before the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence. Button said the bill, a priority of House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, is aimed at speeding the eviction of squatters after she had read about difficulties with a process that could take months. “This legislation aims to make the eviction process timely, fair and predictable, balancing the rights of property owners and residents while improving the overall stability and safety of our community,” Button told the committee.

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HB 32 proposes significant changes to the eviction process, including new methods for notifying tenants of eviction citations, an express track allowing landlords to win eviction without a hearing and a quicker process for trials. More than 80 witnesses registered to speak in opposition to the bill, while at least 24 signed up in support. Opponents said they feared the proposed change would eliminate due process for tenants and could lead to an increase in homelessness. Andrew Sommerman, a Dallas County commissioner, testified against the bill on behalf of the Commissioners Court. Sommerman said he was concerned about a provision requiring local governments that give money to organizations providing legal assistance or advice to tenants to provide equal funds to pay for relocation services for tenants.

National Stories

Democrats look to save face in shutdown battle

Senate Democrats say privately that they will not allow the government to shut down on Saturday, despite growing pressure from activists and liberal lawmakers who want them to kill a GOP-crafted six-month stopgap spending bill. Senate Democratic sources say Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is giving plenty of room to centrists in his caucus to vote for the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) if doing so is the only way to avoid a government shutdown at week’s end. And one Democratic senator familiar with the internal deliberations said Senate Democrats will ultimately vote to keep the government open, despite the rumblings of liberals within their caucus who are heaping scorn on the House-passed funding bill.

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Still, the private assurances don’t rule out the possibility that something unexpected could happen to change the political calculus. Schumer on Wednesday said Democrats would insist on voting on a month-long CR to give congressional negotiators more time to reach a deal on an omnibus spending package. And he threatened that there are not enough votes to pass the House-approved funding bill. But Democrats familiar with internal deliberations say that maneuver is designed to save face. They say the Democratic leader is giving members of his caucus space to vote how they see fit on the House-passed bill — recognizing it’s probably the only way to avoid a shutdown. So far, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has been the most outspoken Democratic senator about the need to avoid a shutdown. “Now it’s a CR that we all agree we don’t like — but for me we can’t ever allow the government to shut down,” he told CNN Wednesday, echoing comments he made earlier in the week.

As Trump steamrolls ahead, Democrats see a growing 'heartbeat' of resistance

In an interview on MSNBC, Faiz Shakir, a senior advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders, described "thousands and thousands" of people showing up to recent rallies held by the Vermont senator in Republican-held congressional districts. Shakir said the crowds were "angry and frustrated" with Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's apparent grip on government spending, and "urging Democrats to stand up and do something." "In my mind," he said, "I have Bernie Sanders holding a stethoscope up to the Democratic Party and saying, 'Hey, listen to this: the heartbeat of America.'" Shakir's remarks reflected a growing sentiment among Democrats, progressive protesters and others displeased with the way President Trump has steamrolled back into office and over long-standing Democratic norms. Shaking off an earlier sense of resignation that had dampened protest in the days following Trump's return to power, they are finding their voices, landing on new resistance strategies focused on what they see as Trump's most egregious overreaches, and delivering those messages to receptive audiences at town halls, rallies, marches and street protests.

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On Friday, hundreds of scientists marched in Los Angeles at a "Stand Up for Science" event, part of a larger nationwide day of protest against Trump policies that have slashed federal funding for scientific research and threatened agencies dedicated to weather forecasting and environmental protection. On Saturday, the arrest of Columbia University student and Palestinian protest organizer Mahmoud Khalil by federal immigration officers, despite his facing no criminal charges and being a green card holder, sparked protests in New York and around the country. On Sunday, Trump was again on everyone's mind as Democratic lawmakers joined thousands of others for a march to commemorate the 60th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," when law enforcement brutalized voting rights activists in Selma, Ala., in 1965. "At this moment, faced with trouble on every side, we’ve got to press on,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. Still, the resistance seems in some ways to be ratcheting up, and has clearly started to reach — and aggravate — the White House. For weeks now, activists have been targeting Musk, the world's richest man and head of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, by going after his bottom line. They have called for a boycott of Tesla, Musk's electric automaker, and staged protests outside Tesla showrooms and dealerships. Partly as a result, the automaker's sales and stock price have plunged. Trump blasted those efforts Tuesday as somehow illegal, and said he would buy a Tesla as a "show of confidence and support" for Musk. "Elon Musk is 'putting it on the line' in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World's great automakers, and Elon's 'baby,' in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for."

U.S. budget deficit surged in February, passing $1 trillion for year-to-date record

The U.S. debt and deficit problem worsened during President Donald Trump’s first month in office, as the budget shortfall for February passed the $1 trillion mark even though the fiscal year is not yet at the halfway point. Government spending eased slightly on a monthly basis though it still far outpaced revenue, according to a Treasury Department statement Wednesday. The deficit totaled just over $307 billion for the month, nearly 2½ times what it was in January and 3.7% higher than February 2024. Receipts and expenditures set records for the month, a Treasury spokesman said. For the year, the deficit totaled $1.15 trillion through the first five months of fiscal 2025. The total is about $318 billion more than the same span in 2024, or roughly 38% higher, and set a record for the period.

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Net costs to finance the $36.2 trillion national debt edged lower to $74 billion for the month. However, the total net interest payments year to date rose to $396 billion, just behind national defense and health. Social Security and Medicare are the largest costs in the U.S. budget. The deficit swelled in the final three years of former President Joe Biden’s term, growing from $1.38 trillion to $1.83 trillion. Trump has made getting the government’s fiscal house in order a priority since taking office. Since taking over, he created the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk. The advisory board has spearheaded job cuts across multiple departments in addition to early retirement incentives. A Treasury spokesman said there were no apparent impacts yet from the DOGE efforts but referred further comment to the Musk-led panel. At the same time, Trump wants to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, spearheaded during his first administration. While Trump has touted growth that the tax reductions would bring, multiple think tanks say renewing the act also would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

DOGE makes its latest errors harder to find

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has repeatedly posted error-filled data that inflated its success at saving taxpayer money. But after a series of news reports called out those mistakes, the group changed its tactics. It began making its new mistakes harder to find, leaving its already secretive activities even less transparent than before. Mr. Musk’s group posted a new set of claims to its website on March 2, saying it had saved taxpayers $10 billion by terminating 3,489 federal grants. Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE, Mr. Musk’s government-restructuring effort, had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for. That allowed the public to fact-check its work by comparing its figures with federal spending databases and talking to the groups whose funding had been cut. This time, it did not include those details. A White House official said that was done for security purposes.

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The result was that the group’s new claims appeared impossible to check. The New York Times, at first, found a way around the group’s obfuscation. That is because Mr. Musk’s group had briefly embedded the federal identification numbers of these grants in the publicly available source code. The Times used those numbers to match DOGE’s claims with reality, and to discover that they contained the same kind of errors that it had made in the past. Mr. Musk’s group later removed those identifiers from the code, and posted more batches of claims that could not be verified at all. That shift was a major step back from one of Mr. Musk’s core promises about his group: that it would be “maximally transparent.” The website is the only place where this very powerful group has given a public accounting of its work. That accounting is still incomplete: It itemizes only a fraction of the money that the group claims to have saved, $115 billion as of Wednesday. But it is extremely valuable, providing a window into the group’s priorities, and revealing its struggles with the machinery and terminology of government.

Vaccinating poultry could help cut soaring egg prices but US remains hesitant

Vaccines could be a key means of suppressing bird flu and avoiding the slaughter of millions of chickens, which is blamed for egg prices averaging nearly $6 a dozen. But the move has been delayed in part because of concerns it could jeopardize chicken exports worth billions of dollars a year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced plans to spend $100 million to study bird flu vaccines to fight the disease in concert with meat chicken, egg and turkey groups. That’s part of a larger $1 billion effort to invest in more protections to keep the virus off farms that President Donald Trump believes will help lower egg prices. Chicken meat producers remain the most resistant to vaccines because of concerns they could harm meat exports, which totaled nearly $4.7 billion last year. Egg and turkey producers sell most of their products in the U.S. and have been hit hardest by the virus.

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Without a new policy including vaccines, the government will continue to slaughter every flock with a bird flu infection to limit the spread of the disease. Those deaths have totaled over 166 million birds in the U.S. since 2022. Most birds killed are egg-laying chickens, and the death of so many hens is the main reason egg prices keep rising. The average price per dozen has hit $5.90, and in some part of the country, it is far higher. Poultry veterinarian Simon Shane, who runs www.Egg-News.com, said the government is hesitant to use vaccines and change its policy of killing birds largely because of the meat chicken industry’s opposition. “Basically this is a political issue, and this only came to a head because eggs are at $8 to $9 a dozen, and it’s embarrassing the government — embarrassing the present administration,” Shane said. Before using vaccinations, the government must decide how to devise an effective system and monitor for outbreaks within vaccinated flocks that might not show any symptoms, said John Clifford, the USDA’s former longtime chief veterinary officer, who now works with a poultry industry export group. Once that is figured out, the industry can negotiate with countries to minimize trade problems. “What the industry wants is the ability to develop the strategic plan to share that with the trading partners and then find out what kind of impact that that will have on trade,” Clifford said.

Rubio could face an unfriendly reception from close G7 allies over Trump's policies

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may be walking into unusually unfriendly territory this week when he meets his counterparts from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies — strong American allies stunned by President Donald Trump’s actions against them. Just hours after Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs kicked in — prompting responses from the European Union and Canada and threatening to ignite full-scale trade wars with close U.S. partners — Rubio arrived at the scenic Quebec town of La Malbaie on the St. Lawrence River for two days of talks starting Thursday with the top diplomats of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. All of them have been angered by the new American president’s policies. Rubio will likely be hearing a litany of complaints about Trump’s decisions from once-friendly, like-minded countries in the G7 — notably host Canada, to which Trump has arguably been most antagonistic with persistent talk of it becoming the 51st U.S. state, additional tariffs and repeated insults against its leadership.

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Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, the official host who will see each participant separately, said that “in every single meeting, I will raise the issue of tariffs to coordinate a response with the Europeans and to put pressure on the Americans.” “The only constant in this unjustifiable trade war seems to be President Trump’s talk of annexing our country through economic coercion,” Joly said Wednesday. “Yesterday, he called our border a fictional line and repeated his disrespectful 51st state rhetoric.” Rubio downplayed Trump’s “51st state” comments, saying Wednesday that the president was only expressing what he thought would be a good idea. The G7 grouping “is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada,” Rubio said, noting that they would focus on Ukraine issues and other common topics.

Trump official tasked with defending DOGE cuts posted fashion influencer videos from her office

As the Office of Personnel Management oversaw the layoffs of thousands of federal workers and pressed others to justify their positions, the agency’s chief spokesperson repeatedly used her office for a side hustle: aspiring Instagram fashion influencer. In at least a dozen videos filmed in her OPM office, political appointee McLaurine Pinover modeled her outfit choices for the day, while directing followers from her Instagram account to a website that could earn her commissions on clothing sales. On the same day OPM sent a government-wide memo pressing federal officials to identify barriers they faced in their work to “swiftly terminate poor performing employees,” Pinover posted a video blowing a kiss to the camera with the caption “work look” and the hashtag #dcinfluencer. Her Instagram account linked to a site where viewers could buy the $475 purple skirt she wore in the video.

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One watchdog group said her videos could run afoul of rules restricting the use of government property for personal benefit because, while in the workplace, she was using a website that pays content creators commissions from the clothing brands they promote. Former OPM staffers during the Biden administration also told CNN that they were offended by Pinover posting as a fashion influencer on government property while defending mass layoffs of federal workers – at a time when top Trump administration officials have accused career employees of being lazy and wasteful. “Your number one job as a leader is to protect and support your people,” said Jack Miller, who preceded Pinover as the politically appointed OPM communications director under President Joe Biden. “So instead of fighting tooth and nail to keep your team, we’re posting fashion videos. It’s absurd.” Pinover, who started her job at the federal government’s human resources agency in January, has issued numerous statements backing the Trump administration’s moves to lay off probationary employees and offer buyouts to tens of thousands of others.

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