Lead Stories

Dustin Burrows: Politics at play in timing, threat of school closings in Lubbock, state

In gangster movies, we’re all familiar with shady characters saying, “It’s a nice place you’ve got here. It would be a shame if something should happen to it.” We accept it when we see that on the screen because it advances the plot. However, when it happens in real life, and our children’s education is threatened, we owe it to our kids to push back. As a legislator, it’s my honor to advocate for the families who send their kids to public schools and the teachers who have devoted their lives to their education. That includes pushing for the right balance of school funding and accountability for the administrators who sign the checks. It also includes visibility into school finances, which is why I was frustrated to recently learn about Lubbock ISD’s surprise shortfall and their seemingly rushed proposal for handling it. A scan of newspaper headlines in other Texas cities shows that school boards across the state (and nation) are talking about closing schools. Some districts began this conversation many months ago with a sober tone based upon the numbers. Others seemingly timed their announcements to coincide with early voting to stoke outrage that could affect choices on individual ballots. That said, I do not doubt that LISD has a budget shortfall. Enrollment is on the decline because population densities are shifting. This matters because Texas bases funding on children in schools, not the buildings themselves.

As LISD shrinks, surrounding districts are growing in terms of enrollment and funding. At the same time, LISD is subject to a $3.6 million claw back from Medicaid because the federal government taketh away almost as enthusiastically as they giveth. Also, LISD (like all of us) is having to pay much more for goods and services than in years past because of rampant inflation. In the progressive left’s spirit of letting no crisis go to waste, many are stirring the pot with political statements about school finance and school choice, urging parents to vote for Democrats based on false school finance fears. In choosing this path, those vocal advocates are obscuring the truth of what actually happened during the last legislative Session. Last year, while I worked with my fellow legislators to increase funding, our schools and allow for school choice (without taking any money from local districts), a gang of education associations (such as the Texas Association of School Boards “TASB” and the Texas Association of School Administrators “TASA”), and their lobbyists (paid with your tax dollars) came at us in wave after wave of opposition. This powerful gang is used to getting its way, and has had way too much influence on Texas education policy for decades. Tragically for Texas families, this gang consistently prioritizes the self-serving interests of their adult members ahead of our school children.

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Ken Paxton accuses House Republican of unethical advocacy for death row’s Robert Roberson

Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Republican Rep. Jeff Leach on Monday of making unethical contact with a Court of Criminal Appeals judge in the Robert Roberson case. In a filing Monday, Deputy Solicitor General William Cole reported the correspondence to the Texas Supreme Court, which blocked Roberson’s Oct. 17 execution after the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee issued a subpoena compelling the death row inmate to testify at a Capitol hearing four days after his scheduled lethal injection. In a notice sent to lawyers in Roberson’s case, the appeals court said Leach had contacted an unnamed judge by text message to urge reconsideration of Roberson’s case. The state’s highest criminal court has rejected several requests for a new trial for Roberson, who argues his conviction was improperly based on a now-discredited theory of shaken baby syndrome. The notice from Sian Schilhab, the Court of Criminal Appeals general counsel, said the judge promptly reported the contact.

The court, Schilhab added, viewed Leach’s contact as a “clear violation” of professional conduct rules for lawyers. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit lawyers from any communication outside official channels that seek to influence a judge on a pending matter. Leach has been a licensed lawyer in Texas since 2009, according to the State Bar of Texas. In text messages detailed in Schilhab’s notice, Leach told the judge he struggled with whether and how to “send you this message legally and ethically.” But he felt compelled to do so, he said, noting he has spoken publicly about the case and is neither a party to any active litigation before the court nor representing any party as an attorney. “One Judge,” Leach wrote. “That’s all that is needed to simply say … there are too many questions and too many holes and too much uncertainty … and Robert Roberson deserves a new trial.” Leach called it “my hope and prayer” that the judge would voluntarily speak out to get Roberson a new trial. “Only sending this message to you,” Leach added. “And you alone.” “As my friend and as a wonderful Judge who I have so much faith in,” Leach continued, “I hope you’ll consider doing so.” The judge replied: “I cannot consider your message nor may I discuss any pending matters with you. Thank you in advance for your understanding.” Leach responded that he wasn’t aware of any pending matters before the court but acknowledged his “error.” Leach publicly owned his error as well.

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Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania. Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularly nearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent. Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state. And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.

“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters. “It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said. The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Almost a week before Election Day, he’s pushing to cut into Harris’ margins among Latinos, especially young men who are worried about the economy. But the comments from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday night, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” has reverberated throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the former president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the comments. And with the race essentially a toss up, every vote counts — especially in Pennsylvania. “This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.

Read this article at Politico - Subscribers Only

Families tied to Texas death row ‘shaken baby syndrome’ case disagree on Roberson’s guilt

Conflicting letters were released Monday by separate family members linked to the case of an East Texas man who was set to be executed earlier this month after he was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter. Robert Roberson III, 57, was sentenced to death in 2003 for reportedly shaking Nikki Curtis. He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Oct. 17 in Huntsville, but was spared by an 11th-hour novel legal move in which a state House committee subpoenaed him to testify. A nine-hour hearing took place Oct. 21 but Roberson did not testify as negotiations to bring him to the state Capitol rather than him appearing via teleconference were unsuccessful.

The case — which already garnered international attention because lawmakers say if Roberson is put to death he would be the first person in the country executed in a “shaken baby syndrome” case — gained additional attention because Roberson, if allowed to appear in front of the committee, would be the first condemned prisoner in Texas to testify before state lawmakers. State officials and lawmakers have publicly butted heads in recent weeks, including Gov. Greg Abbott saying the committee “stepped out of line” to delay Roberson’s execution and Attorney General Ken Paxton publishing a statement after the hearing releasing documents to “correct falsehoods” he said the committee amplified. A new execution date could be set in Roberson’s case but under Texas law, it could not take place until about 90 days after a judge sets a new date, pushing the possible execution to at least 2025. An undated letter signed by Nikki’s brother Matthew Bowman, aunt Jessica Rachelle Carriere, and grandfather Larry Gene Bowman, was sent to the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence and multiple news outlets reported on the letter Monday morning. In the letter, the family members said they remain convinced that Roberson is guilty and directly responsible for the death of his daughter. They said there is an “ongoing saga” surrounding Roberson’s case and the facts of Nikki’s death have been “lost in this parade of people who are overeager to proclaim the innocence of a man found guilty by a jury of his peers.” Nikki’s family also said they witnessed “repeated abuse” by Roberson.

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State Stories

Harryette Ehrhardt given Juanita Craft Humanitarian Award

Former state Rep. Harry Ehrhardt was given the Juanita Craft Humanitarian Legacy Award. The seventh Juanita Craft Humanitarian Awards were presented by the State Fair of Texas and the Friends of Juanita Craft Civil Rights House and Museum. Craft was known for fighting to integrate the State Fair among other Dallas establishments. And at a time when local Dallas newspapers published license plate numbers of people parked near the bars on Cedar Springs Road, she and Ehrhardt would park directly in front of JR.’s and taunt the papers to publish their licenses. The Legacy Award is “lifetime achievement award for individuals, families or organizations that have made important and sustained contributions to the understanding and promotion of civil rights.”

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Philadelphia DA sues Elon Musk and his super PAC over $1M sweepstakes

Philadelphia’s district attorney asked a state judge on Monday to shut down tech billionaire Elon Musk’s controversial $1 million giveaway to registered voters, calling it an “illegal lottery scheme.” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, filed the civil lawsuit against Musk and his pro-Trump group, America PAC. “America PAC and Musk are lulling Philadelphia citizens – and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) – to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million,” the lawsuit alleges. “That is a lottery. And it is indisputably an unlawful lottery.” A spokesperson for Musk’s super PAC did not comment on the lawsuit and instead highlighted the group’s latest $1 million winner, announced Monday – a registered voter from Hastings, Michigan.

A judge scheduled a hearing on the matter for Friday, meaning Musk’s sweepstakes could continue at least throughout the week, though Krasner’s office can ask for an expedited hearing. The case has been re-assigned to Judge Angelo Foglietta, a Democrat. In the lawsuit, Krasner’s office argues that Pennsylvania law requires all lotteries to be “operated and administered by the state” – and that Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway must be halted because it’s operating outside of those legal guardrails. “Though Musk says that a winner’s selection is ‘random,’ that appears false because multiple winners that have been selected are individuals who have shown up at Trump rallies in Pennsylvania,” the lawsuit says, arguing that the lottery rules are “deceptive.” The case is based on Pennsylvania’s lottery and consumer protection laws. Krasner said his lawsuit was not about state and federal laws that prohibit vote-buying.

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Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire says kicker’s Donald Trump celebration was ill-timed

Texas Tech head football coach Joey McGuire said Monday that kicker Reese Burkhardt’s hand-drawn message supporting former President Donald Trump was ill-timed and has been addressed internally. After scoring on a fake field goal during Saturday’s 35-34 loss to TCU, Burkhardt celebrated by pulling up his jersey to reveal a message on his white shirt underneath. It read “Trump 2024 MAGA,” a show of support for Trump, the Republican nominee for president. McGuire said Monday the team has dealt with the matter internally. He said he wasn’t aware of the message, which was briefly shown on live broadcasts, until after the game.

“I really didn’t [know] at the time, we were told at the end,” McGuire said. “With him, we have addressed it, we will continue to address it. We’re going to address it internally… “I always think that the greatest thing about football, basketball, sports like that, it’s a team sport, and you always want to make sure that you’re putting your team in the best situation. There’s places that you express your opinions and I don’t think necessarily that’s the time or the place.” Burkhardt, who splits kicking duties with Gino Garcia, missed his first field goal of the season during the loss to TCU. McGuire said he encourages everyone to get out and vote this election season before concluding his weekly interview.

Read this article at Dallas Morning News - Subscribers Only

3 alleged Venezuelan gang members arrested in killing, Farmers Branch police say

Three men allegedly affiliated with the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua have been arrested in connection with an August homicide, Farmers Branch police announced Monday. The three suspects now in custody — Carlos Luis Zambrano Bolivar, Jhonata Nahin Toro Gonzalez and Ehiker Alexander Morales Mendoza — were arrested in other states and are waiting for extradition to Texas on charges of capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. Investigators traveled to Aurora, Colorado, to interview Bolivar and Gonzalez, who had been taken into custody by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a news release posted to the Farmers Branch police Facebook page.

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Shad Rowe, Dallas financial titan and standard-bearer for Parkinson’s, dies at 78

Frederick “Shad” Rowe, Dallas’ highly regarded investment manager and standard-bearer in seeking a cure for Parkinson’s disease, died Friday at his home in University Park from cancer-related complications. The 78-year-old founder and manager of Greenbrier Partners Ltd. suffered with the progressively debilitating disease for 26 years, raising millions of dollars for research and using his body to test leading-edge treatments. He and his wife, Michele, lived in four different houses on Greenbrier Drive during the span of their 48-year marriage — hence the name of his company. “Despite the outward physical symptoms, it was very easy to forget that my dad suffered from Parkinson’s disease,” his son Adam Rowe said. “He almost never mentioned it except to support and celebrate research to find a cure. Even in the last years of his life, when the symptoms became more debilitating, Parkinson’s never prevented him from enjoying what he loved most — his work, and the company of friends and family. It never robbed him of his quick wit and buoyant good humor.”

Rowe said his dad delighted in his 10 grandchildren — whom he affectionately named “critters.” “He would grin and giggle as they crawled all over him. He was a loving and supportive father, and a devoted and adoring husband to my mom. He was a good man in every sense.” In 2007, Rowe and John Neill, co-founder of Telesis Co., launched Great Investors’ Best Ideas (which became known as GIBI and is pronounced gibby) as a way to raise a million bucks for their two favorite charities in an afternoon: the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation. Rowe sweet-talked star-studded speakers into giving their stock and investments ideas for gratis. “Shad was known, respected and appreciated by world-class investors all over the country,” Neill said. “The high esteem other investors held in Shad was truly amazing. His record was held in awe by his peers. “That’s what Shad brought to the party. And it was a party. We all had such fun.” One of Rowe’s selling points was that you didn’t have to wear a tux to attend the Winspear Opera House event. Michael J. Fox called Rowe “a model board member, a great friend and a force of nature” in a statement sent to The News on Monday.

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Harris supporters receive threatening notes in Texas: cops

Just over a week before Election Day, some Texas residents showing support for Vice President Kamala Harris are receiving threatening notes, authorities say. The San Marcos Police Department said Oct. 26 it received two reports of threatening flyers left on political signs. The next day, officers said they recovered more notes that threaten supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate. “YOU have been identified and are now in our National Database of miscreant Harris supporters, either by social interactions with your neighbors who are on our investigations team, or by yard signs, or vehicle bumper stickers,” the typed note read.

“Rather than the hangman’s nooses of the old days, you are now guaranteed that once the magnificent Donald Trump assumes the Presidency again YOU will be IRS tax audited going all the way back to your very first tax return – and at a minimum – 4 years of painful misery and attorney’s fees.” The flyers were signed by The Grand Dragon of Trump Klan #124 in San Marcos. The Grand Dragon, according to the Bullock Museum, is the highest-ranking Ku Klux Klan official in Texas. Police have not confirmed if the flyers are connected to the KKK. Officers said they are investigating who is responsible for leaving the notes. Officers said anyone who receives one of these flyers should call the department’s non-emergency number at 512-753-2108. “It’s a crime in the state of Texas to try to influence or coerce or even prevent a voter from voting,” San Marcos Police Chief Stan Standridge said. “When we identify the suspect or suspects, then we will present that to the district attorney’s office for consideration of applicable charges.”

Read this article at Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Subscribers Only

Are more Republicans or Dems voting early in Tarrant County?

More than 367,700 people have already cast ballots in Tarrant County during the first week of in-person early voting, a substantial increase from the last presidential election four years ago. In-person early voting started Monday, Oct. 21, and runs through Friday, Nov. 1. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 5. In the first five days of this year’s early voting, 367,752 people cast ballots at the county’s 51 early voting sites — roughly 28% of registered voters, according to Tarrant County’s Election Department. That’s higher than in the 2020 general election, when 311,254 people — about 26% of registered voters — had cast ballots in-person during early voting’s first week. Through Saturday, Oct. 27, the county had received 20,773 mail-in ballots. There were 70,821 mail-in ballots received for the entirety of the 2020 election, according to the election department.

An analysis of early voting turnout by Republican political consultant Derek Ryan suggests a GOP edge in Texas. Ryan’s analysis, based on voter history over the past four cycles, found that 38% of Texans who voted in the first four days last week were loyal Republicans — having participated in only GOP primaries. Some 24% of the early-voting Texans had cast ballots only in Democratic primaries. And 34% have only voted in a general election or have no prior voting history. In the first four days of early voting in Tarrant County, those statistics were 36% with only Republican voting histories and 26% with only Democratic, according to Ryan’s analysis. Thirty-five percent have only voted in a general election or have no prior voting history. In 2020, the final vote count in Tarrant County for the presidential race was 49.09% for Trump and 49.31% for Biden. Trump won the state of Texas.

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Greg Brockhouse is helping Clayton Perry’s mayoral campaign

Former City Councilman Clayton Perry has been leaning on two-time mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse to navigate his mayoral bid in the May 2025 election. “We’re talking strategy and we’re talking administration stuff — putting together the social media and things like that — and just overall politics,” Perry said. “Greg knows a lot about the politics here in San Antonio, and of course I reached out to him.” While that may sound like the role of a campaign manager, Perry isn’t ready to call him that. “He’s helping me right now, and that’s where I’d leave it right now,” Perry said. The former District 10 councilman made his mayoral intentions known last month, joining a crowded field to replace term-limited Mayor Ron Nirenberg in the May 2025 municipal election that includes at least three of Perry’s former colleagues: Council Members John Courage, Manny Peláez and Adriana Rocha Garcia.

Brockhouse knows what it’s like to run for San Antonio mayor: he twice sought to unseat Nirenberg, coming tantalizing close in 2019, when he forced the first-term mayor into a runoff. Nirenberg held onto his seat in that runoff by just 2,700 votes. During that election, Brockhouse denied allegations of domestic violence that his current and ex-wife made against him, as detailed in police reports obtained by the San Antonio Express-News. After his runoff defeat, Brockhouse admitted that his wife had called police on him, with her saying she falsely accused him because of postpartum depression. In 2021, Nirenberg handily beat Brockhouse with about 62% of the vote. From there, Brockhouse went on to advise former Republican County Commissioner Trish DeBerry in her campaign for Bexar County judge. Some political insiders blamed his advice for her defeat to Democrat Peter Sakai in the November 2022 election. Brockhouse told the Express-News last fall that he was considering a third run for mayor in 2025, or a campaign for council’s open District 8 seat. Most recently, he penned a guest commentary urging voters to reject the six city charter amendments on the Nov. 5 ballot. He didn’t respond to a request for comment about his involvement in Perry’s campaign. Perry said last month that he’d selected a campaign manager but was waiting to make that person’s name public.

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UTSA's plans to demolish Institute of Texan Cultures building dealt a blow by landmark designation

The Institute of Texan Cultures building has been named a state antiquities landmark, throwing a wrench into plans to raze it, potentially to make way for a new Spurs arena. The designation means the University of Texas at San Antonio, which owns the structure, must consult with the Texas Historical Commission to get approval before making any changes — including demolition. “The commission determines whether the work is permitted,” said Chris Florance, the agency’s spokesperson.

Lewis Vetter, president of the Conservation Society of San Antonio, said the approval was good news. The society has been pushing for preservation of the building, which was erected as the Texas Pavilion for the 1968 World’s Fair, and nominated it for the designation. The commission approved it Friday in a 7-2 vote. “It proves that a lot of concerned citizens working together can be effective,” Vetter said. However, UTSA leaders said they intend to proceed with their plan to tear down the structure at 801 E. César E. Chávez Blvd. and build a new home for the museum either near the Alamo or other downtown property. To pay for it, they have said they will seek proposals for developing the 13½-acre site it now occupies. “UTSA has always acknowledged the historical significance of the Texas Pavilion, which is reflected in our efforts to honor its history with extensive documenting and storytelling in our new museum,” spokesperson Joe Izbrand said. “The university continues to look at how to best maximize and monetize the resources of the Hemisfair Campus to support the temporary and future, permanent homes of the ITC. The university will continue its redevelopment plans.”

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Assault cases brought against Thomas J. Henry law firm by 2 women end without trials

Two lawsuits brought against Thomas J. Henry’s San Antonio-based law firm over allegations of sexual assault have ended without going to trial. In the first, Thomas J. Henry PPLC last week settled a federal lawsuit brought by a former employee who alleged she was drugged and assaulted at a 2019 event in Austin by its then-CEO. The two sides reached a settlement after a one-day mediation conducted by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth “Betsy” Chestney. No details of the settlement were made public. The parties entered a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice — meaning the case can’t be refiled — on Wednesday.

On Friday, a similar stipulation of dismissal was entered by Thomas J. Henry, his firm and a New York woman who alleged in a 2022 federal lawsuit in Austin that she was sexually assaulted by a director hired to work on a film commissioned by the flamboyant lawyer. The director, Robert “Bobby” T. Herrera, and his company Gray Picture LLC, also defendants in the case, signed off on the dismissal as well. No information on how the case was resolved was included in the filing. The San Antonio Express-News is not identifying either plaintiff as a matter of policy because they are alleged victims of sexual assault. Jay Ellwanger, an Austin lawyer who represented both women, didn’t respond to a phone call seeking comment. Lawyers for Henry didn’t respond to an email. The Henry firm is among the most recognizable personal injury law firms in the state, largely due to its heavy advertising in newspapers, on television, billboards and elsewhere touting big-dollar verdicts and settlements. It says it has won more than $1 billion for clients in the past four years.

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Why a Hill Country school district will allow some teachers to carry guns

Fredericksburg Independent School District officials have approved a program that allows some teachers to carry concealed firearms at school, with a district spokesperson saying the plan could provide an additional layer of campus security. Fredericksburg ISD trustees voted last month to authorize district teachers to apply to carry concealed firearms in classrooms, if they meet certain criteria and pass a screening process. The school district is already in compliance with state law that requires an armed police officer or guard on each campus, district spokesperson Rachel Malinak said.

“The main reason that we wanted to start allowing teachers or staff to apply to carry firearms is the safety and security of our staff and students,” district spokesperson Rachel Malinak told the Express-News. “It is our main priority.” Fredericksburg ISD has one school resource officer — a law enforcement officer working at a school — covering the district's six campuses and 3,000 students. However, each campus has armed security and the district has a “very good relationship with local law enforcement," Malinak said. Teachers will need to already have a state-issued concealed carry license to apply to the program, according to district officials. The screening process, which will be conducted by a third-party contractor, will include a psychological exam and a marksmanship test, according to the district.

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Austin moves to require landlords to disclose rental fees up front

Landlords in Austin may soon have to disclose any fees they plan to charge on top of rent before a prospective renter applies for an apartment. Council members voted Thursday on a resolution requiring landlords who rent out at least five homes to divulge monthly and one-time fees, such as those related to pets, parking and trash collection. The council asked staff to finalize the new rule for a vote by next summer. If made official, the ordinance would require landlords to disclose fees at the time a tenant applies for a rental home as opposed to when a renter is signing a lease. The council also asked staff to consider requiring landlords to disclose fees in apartment advertisements. The rule, supporters say, would help renters better understand the true cost of an apartment before submitting an application.

“When these fees are hidden, whether it's at the leasing stage or popped on somebody months in, that’s unfair and a lot of people can’t afford it,” said Council Member Ryan Alter, who represents neighborhoods south of the river, before the vote late Thursday. Earlier this year, researchers at UT Austin published a report detailing the rise of fees in rental housing. They found that it’s common for landlords to charge monthly fees for services such as valet trash, internet, cable, pest control and facilities upkeep. Often renters cannot opt out of these fees even when they don’t use these services. “We’re seeing this around all segments of our economy,” said Shoshana Krieger, program director at the nonprofit Building and Strengthening Tenant Action, or BASTA, which works with low-income tenants. “We see this decoupling of expenses which used to be included in the cost of a product,” including concert and airline tickets. It’s a phenomenon Sara Reeves has seen all over Austin. Reeves’ husband recently accepted a temporary job abroad and when they move out of the home they’re renting later this year she will move into her own apartment.

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Spurs' Gregg Popovich blasts Trump for setting bad example for America's youth

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expressed concern Saturday about the corrosive effect Donald Trump's demeaning rhetoric and lies about the 2020 election might have on the nation's children and future generations. "The biggest whiner that ever walked the face of the earth," Popovich said of the Republican candidate for president. "He's like the poorest example of a fifth-grade bully I've ever seen. I mean, would you want your kids to act like he does?" Responding to a French reporter's question about whether he thought the outcome of the Nov. 5 election would be important for the future of democracy in the U.S., Popovich blasted Trump for continually disputing the integrity of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

"Would you want your kids to make the excuses he does?" Popovich said. "Everybody's come after me, everybody, this, that and the other. I'm doing this for you. Poor me, poor me. Whine, whine, whine. And you look at it, the election that he lost, and he continues to lie about it." The NBA's all-time winningest coach and five-time league champion personalized his comments, wondering what effect Trump's refusal to admit defeat would have on his own grandchildren should they lose an athletic competition. "Do I want him to be their mentor?" Popovich said. "Do I want him to be their example of how to act if it doesn't go well? Like everybody in this room, hopefully all of us taught our children, you're not going to win all the time, but when you win, be humble. When you lose, do it with grace. We all do that. He doesn't do that."

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National Stories

Over 200,000 subscribers flee 'Washington Post' after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of roughly 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon. A corporate spokesperson declined to comment, citing The Washington Post Co.'s status as a privately held company.

“It’s a colossal number,” former Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR. “The problem is, people don’t know why the decision was made. We basically know the decision was made but we don’t know what led to it.” Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis on Friday explained the decision not to endorse in this year’s presidential race or in future elections as a return to the Post’s roots: It has for years styled itself an “independent paper.” Few people inside the paper credit that rationale given the timing, however, just days before a neck-and-neck race between Harris and former President Donald Trump. Former Executive Editor Marty Baron voiced that skepticism in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on Monday. "If this decision had been made three years ago, two years ago, maybe even a year ago, that would've been fine," Baron said. "It's a certainly reasonable decision. But this was made within a couple of weeks of the election, and there was no substantive serious deliberation with the editorial board of the paper. It was clearly made for other reasons, not for reasons of high principle."

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Some of Trump's 2020 'fake' electors from Pennsylvania are back again this year. They say they're prepared to do it again

ive Pennsylvania Republicans who signed on to Donald Trump's 2020 slate of alternate electors are back this year — and some say that, under the right circumstances, they're prepared to do it again. The returnees range from a prominent Lehigh Valley election denier who funded fruitless efforts to uncover fraud in at least three battleground states to county-level GOP officials who, despite scrutiny of their decision four years ago, have maintained their party positions. They will join a group of 14 others chosen by their state party to gather in Harrisburg on Dec. 17 and cast Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes for Trump should he emerge the election's victor — and, perhaps, even if he doesn't. But they draw key distinctions between their actions in 2020 and those of their counterparts from other battleground states — namely language they included in their submission to Congress saying they were putting themselves forward as rightful electors only in the event that a court ruling overturned the state's results.

That caveat helped save them from criminal charges electors faced in states such as Arizona and Wisconsin, and several of this year's Trump electors specifically cited that caveat in explaining why they wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing, if necessary, this year. "I will stand on what I did in 2020," said Andy Reilly, a Republican National Committee member and returning Trump elector from Delaware County, who was subpoenaed by the FBI to testify about the electors scheme in Washington. "It cost me. But I think that if there's lawsuits or any questions about the result that those lawsuits could change, it's advisable — for Democrats and Republicans — if they have to meet the deadline, to meet as contingent electors." The 2020 election — and Trump's efforts to overturn it — cast a spotlight on the role of presidential electors, largely honorary positions typically granted to party loyalists who, up until that year, had conducted their duties without drawing much public attention. As Trump and his allies sought to stop congressional certification of President Joe Biden's victory four years ago with baseless claims of widespread fraud, they turned to GOP electors from Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to falsely attest to Congress that he'd won.

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Fires set at ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington state are 'connected' as hundreds of ballots are lost

Police say they have identified a "suspect vehicle" in connection with incendiary devices that ignited fires in ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state. Surveillance footage captured a Volvo stopping at a drop box in Portland, Oregon, shortly before security personnel discovered a fire inside the box. This incident occurred on Monday and resulted in damage to three ballots, according to Portland Police Bureau spokesman Mike Benner during a news conference. Meanwhile, a ballot box at Fisher's Landing Transit Center in Vancouver, Washington, was spotted smoking early Monday morning. In photos obtained by ABC affiliate KATU, dense gray smoke can be seen pouring out of the dropoff ballot box near Southeast 162nd Avenue just after 6 am.

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Biden administration announces $3 billion for rural electric co-ops

The Biden administration announced more than $3 billion Friday in funding for seven rural electric cooperatives, part of a broader effort to promote renewable energy in rural areas. The grants include nearly $2.5 billion in financing for the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, as well as nearly $1 billion through the Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program for six co-ops. The New ERA program, which uses $9.7 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funds, is the biggest federal investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s. The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association funding will cut electricity rates for members by an estimated 10 percent over the next 10 years, equivalent to about $430 million in benefits to rural electricity consumers.

Meanwhile, the six co-ops announced Friday, some of which will serve rural areas in multiple states, are in Minnesota, South Dakota, South Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska and Texas. “The Inflation Reduction Act makes the largest investment in rural electrification since FDR and the New Deal in the 1930s,” said John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy. “Today’s awards will bring clean, affordable, reliable power to rural Americans from Colorado to Texas to South Carolina.” The announcement comes more than a month after President Biden announced $7.3 billion in funding for rural co-ops in Wisconsin, a critical “blue wall” battleground state in the presidential election. The funding announced in Wisconsin in September included $573 million to La Crosse’s Dairyland Power Cooperative, part of a larger $2.1 billion project that the co-op will use to buy solar and wind power from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. That project is pitched to reduce rates at a higher rate than the Tri-State project — at a reduction of 42 percent over the next 10 years.

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Bosses are calling workers back to the office. That’s good news for landlords.

America’s historic retreat from the office building may finally be winding down. More companies are backing away from the looser workplace policies they adopted during the early years of the pandemic as executives increasingly recommit to promoting an office culture. Amazon called corporate staffers back to the office five days a week last month. The company is now looking for a big block of expansion space in Manhattan, according to brokers. Dell Technologies said it is requiring its global sales team to work from company offices full time. 3M’s new chief executive last week said the company expected higher attendance from senior employees at the company’s headquarters and other large sites. One-third of all companies required workers to be in the office five days a week in the third quarter, up from 31% in the second quarter, according to Flex Index, which tracks workplace strategies.

That terminated a streak over the previous five quarters when that rate had steadily fallen. One reason for that decline was because low unemployment gave employees leverage when pressing for more remote work. Now, the white-collar workforce isn’t growing as much, shifting the balance of power back to managers. No one sees workplaces returning to prepandemic patterns, but most believe the worst is likely over for the office sector. “We looked like we were on a path that we were going to see a drop continue quarter after quarter,” said Rob Sadow, chief executive of Flex Index. “All of a sudden in the third quarter we saw a shift in direction.” These signs of stabilization hardly signal an end to office-market turmoil. The vacancy rate is stabilizing at a near record level of 13.8%, up from 9.4% in the fourth quarter in 2019. Since the second quarter of 2020, U.S. office tenants have vacated close to 209 million square feet of space, the highest amount ever for a four-and-half-year period, according to data firm CoStar Group. A lot of the current empty office space is now considered obsolete. It may never be filled. Defaults and other missed payments also continue to rise. In September, the delinquency rate of office loans converted into securities increased to 8.36%, the highest rate since November 2013, according to data firm Trepp.

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Democrats alarmed Harris’s economic message isn’t breaking through

Democrats are frustrated that Vice President Harris hasn’t done more to sell her economic message and worry that former President Trump continues to have a sizeable advantage on what many voters say is their No. 1 issue. Harris has focused on attacking Trump in recent weeks. But she has lost ground to him in the polls, as voters say they are less likely to be motivated moved by additional criticisms of Trump, whose flaws are well-known after standing in the national spotlight for more than eight years. The Harris campaign says it will put more focus on the economy in the final week of the campaign, but abortion rights and criticisms of Trump’s character get more applause at Harris’s rallies with stars such as Michelle Obama, Maggie Rogers and Bruce Springsteen. Some Democratic strategists view Harris’s scathing criticisms of Trump as necessary and effective, but they acknowledge she could be doing a better job of talking about the economy — a challenge that also vexed President Biden before he dropped his bid for reelection.

“Where I don’t think she’s done a good enough job is [Trump] gets away with saying, ‘The economy is the worst it’s ever been, there’s more unemployment, inflation is the highest it’s ever been.’ None of that is true,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist. “It’s almost like he lies so much you get tired of refuting it, and I think that’s a mistake,” he said, referring to Trump’s ability to frame the Biden economy to voters. One major Democratic donor told The Hill that Harris hasn’t properly made the case on the economy. “Her economic message hasn’t broken through,” the donor said. “And the economy is the issue most people care about. She narrowed the gap a little on the issue, but she’s left a lot of people wondering about her vision.” The vice president has put forth a list of proposals to help middle-class families: a plan to crack down on price gouging, an expansion of the child tax credit, an expansion of Medicare to cover home care, exempting tipped income from taxes, and a $25,000 down-payment to first-time homebuyers. And while Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead on the issue, a recent Reuters/Ipsos found that voters still think Trump has a better approach than Harris on the economy, by a margin of 46 percent to 38 percent. The survey found that 61 percent of voters in battleground states say the economy is on the “wrong track.” Robert Reich, who served as secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, on Monday wrote that Harris’s message needs to “center on anti-elitist economics.”

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Lead Stories

State of the Race: National polls tighten with 8 Days to go

With one week to go until the election, Kamala Harris’s lead over Donald J. Trump in the national polls is starting to get very slim. Overall, she leads by less than one percentage point, according to The New York Times’s polling average. It’s her smallest lead since mid-August. Even so, last week’s polls did offer a silver lining for her: The state polls didn’t seem to lurch toward Mr. Trump, even as the national polling did. The battleground states remain extraordinarily tight, with no candidate holding any material lead in the seven states likeliest to decide the presidency. In a sense, that’s not surprising. What’s interesting is that Ms. Harris remains competitive in the battlegrounds even though her national lead has dwindled. Usually, a tied national vote would not augur well for Democrats. In his first two races, Mr. Trump did much better in the battleground states than nationally, allowing him to defeat Hillary Clinton without winning the national popular vote and almost doing the same against Joe Biden.

In 2020, he lost the national popular vote by 4.5 points, but he lost the core seven battleground states by an average of only 0.9 points — a difference of more than three points. In the current polling averages, the gap between the national polls and the battleground average has fallen beneath one point. The possibility that Mr. Trump’s Electoral College advantage might fade a bit this November isn’t necessarily a surprise. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of signs of it, from the midterm results to the demographic patterns in national polls. Still, these theories don’t necessarily explain why the polls have appeared to trend in different directions over the last few weeks.

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Amid dropping crime rate, PAC takes another swing at unseating Democratic judges in election

For the second election cycle in a row, a political action committee tied to families of slain Houstonians has received a cash infusion from a billionaire-funded group intent on removing Democratic judges from the bench. Signs from Stop Houston Murders PAC have gone up along highways and chain-link fences around the city after the latest influx, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on radio and television advertisements urging voters to pick Republicans instead. “Don’t let soft-on-crime judges ruin another family like they ruined mine,” Jazmen Steele, the sister of Layla Steele, whose boyfriend was arrested and accused in her death in 2021. “Vote them out.”

The PAC made a similar pitch in 2022, when it was founded, and spent nearly $2 million to oust Democratic felony judges and other candidates, such as Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, from their seats The previous effort was mostly unsuccessful. Thirteen Democratic judges in 14 contested races retained their positions, though some political pundits noted that the margins were closer than expected. Despite that, and a steady decrease in reports of violent crime in Houston and nationwide, the group is trying again. Like 2022, Stop Houston Murders focused its spending on the verge of early voting. The group spent $114,000 on advertising between July and September. Most of the ad buys happened at the end of the reporting period, according to state campaign finance records. The amount pales in comparison with the $2.3 million it spent in the same period during the midterm elections.

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Economists warn of new inflation hazards after election

A punishing 2½-year fight to bring inflation down appears to be succeeding. The election could change that. Inflation has fallen thanks to higher interest rates and big assists from healed supply chains and an influx of workers. But whether borrowing costs and price growth continue to ease next year could turn heavily on policy choices by Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Both candidates support policies to boost growth that might keep inflation from falling any farther. But economists and even conservative-leaning advisers worry that the ideas backed by Trump, in particular, risk stoking the embers of inflation. Those include his proposals to slap across-the-board tariffs on imported goods, to deport workers, and to lean on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. “Put them all together, these levers are moving more in an inflationary direction. I’m legitimately worried about inflation worsening in 2025,” said Brian Riedl, a former Republican Senate aide now at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

Moreover, a second Trump term would unfold against a much different economic backdrop than his first one, when price pressures had been low and stable for many years. In recent days, bond yields have risen on expectations that Trump will win the presidency and that his new term would bring higher deficits, inflation or both. Given the changed economic environment and the farther-reaching policies Trump has proposed, it is reasonable to worry that inflation threats would be magnified in a second Trump term, said Marc Short, who served as legislative-affairs director in the Trump White House. Trump’s proposals could draw him into new battles with the Fed, which is mandated to keep inflation low. Inflation is largely driven by global forces, not individual presidents. During Trump’s term, the overhang of the 2008 global financial crisis kept demand and price pressures subdued globally. Inflation soared beginning shortly after President Biden took office, as the U.S. reopened from the pandemic. Strong demand from that reopening received big booster shots from ultralow interest rates and Biden’s fiscal stimulus. All of this ran headlong into crippled supply chains and discombobulated labor markets. Inflation hit 9.1% in 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets.

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Trump’s Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults

Donald Trump hosted a rally featuring crude and racist insults at New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday, turning what his campaign had dubbed as the event where he would deliver his closing message into an illustration of what turns off his critics. With just over a week before Election Day, speakers labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute. “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic whose set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.

His joke was immediately criticized by Harris’ campaign as it competes with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny backed Harris shortly after Hinchcliffe’s appearance. The normally pugnacious Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement. But other speakers also made incendiary comments. Trump’s childhood friend David Rem referred to Harris as “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris ”and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” The marquee event reflected the former president’s tone throughout his third White House campaign. Though he refrained from doing so Sunday, Trump often tears into Harris in offensive and personal terms himself, questioning in recent weeks her mental stability and her intelligence as well as calling her “lazy,” long a racist trope used against Black people. The event was a surreal spectacle that included former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, politicians including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Reps. Byron Donalds and Elise Stefanik, and an artist who painted a picture of Trump hugging the Empire State Building.

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State Stories

Ted Cruz: Bipartisan work brought microchip jobs to Texas

The Kelly-Cruz Building Chips in America Act is an example of bipartisan leadership delivering serious results for Texans. With our military and economy increasingly reliant on advanced technologies, it is critical that we manufacture advanced microchips on American soil. Last year, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., introduced a bill that streamlined the environmental review process for microchip manufacturing plants. This bill was written with good intentions, but it contained a fatal flaw: it would have created a preference for new microchip manufacturing in states that mimic the federal government’s burdensome, time-consuming environmental review laws. These states, the majority of which are exceedingly liberal enclaves like California and New York, would have received a massive leg up over states like Texas in any competition for new microchip facilities. I worked across the aisle with Sen. Kelly and together we rewrote the bill to create a better, fairer solution.

The rewritten bill leveled the playing field for all states, ensuring that federal law didn’t preference blue states like California over Texas so that both can compete fairly for new microchip manufacturing facilities and jobs. Sen. Kelly and I built a strong bipartisan coalition to support our bill. President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo even praised our leadership in streamlining the process for this national security imperative. And Secretary Raimondo explicitly urged Congress to pass the Cruz-Kelly amendment because it will “help us a lot to move faster.” Our bipartisan effort was successful, and in December Majority Leader Chuck Schumer advanced the Kelly-Cruz legislation on the Senate floor with unanimous bipartisan support. Over the last 10 months, I worked hand in hand with Republican leadership and rank-and-file members in the U.S. House of Representatives to secure a vote on our bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly without any changes. And on Oct. 2, very quietly and without fanfare, President Biden signed it into law. I am proud to have led the effort for new microchip manufacturing in the United States, but I also want to make sure we do it the right way. That is why I wrote and passed the Building Chips in America Act, but it is also why I voted against the 2022 Chips and Science Act. That bill combined many other bills, including the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors (FABS) Act — of which I was a co-sponsor — which created tax incentives for new semiconductor manufacturing. But I was forced to vote against the final 2022 version because it gave tens of billions of taxpayer dollars directly to extremely profitable multinational corporations. I oppose corporate welfare; it far too often leads to corruption.

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Voter accused of assaulting election worker released from jail; DA vows to 'vigorously prosecute'

A man accused of assaulting a 69-year-old election clerk at a Southwest Side polling site was released from jail late Friday, Bexar County court records show. Jesse Lutzenberger, 63, was arrested Thursday and charged with injury to an elderly person, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Friday. He faces a third-degree felony assault charge, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Lutzenberger posted a $30,000 bond Friday and was released from the Bexar County jail, court records show.

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said Saturday his office will “vigorously prosecute” Lutzenberger and anyone else who engages in this type of criminal behavior. “The right to vote is sacrosanct in our country and the bedrock of our democracy. But no one has the right to assault, threaten, harass or intimidate an election employee or voter,” Gonzales said. “Please rest assured that if anyone in our community engages in this conduct at a polling site, the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, under my leadership, will hold those individuals accountable.” The assault came after a 69-year-old early voting clerk asked Lutzenberger to remove his red hat bearing a slogan supporting former President Donald Trump. It’s against state law to wear clothing or accessories supporting a candidate, ballot measure, or political party inside a polling site. Doing so is considered “electioneering.” The Texas Election Code prohibits people from electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place.

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Colin Allred embraces his inner Democrat, and a fired-up base responds

For much of his underdog campaign for U.S. Senate, Colin Allred has made pointed appeals to independents and Republicans he hopes will abandon Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred, a Democratic congressman from Dallas, has campaigned with former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to lure disaffected Republicans to his side. Touting his bipartisan credentials and a willingness to criticize President Joe Biden, Allred has downplayed his Senate campaign as a party building exercise. A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide race since 1994. Throughout the summer, Allred has been a tacit supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the White House. He rarely mentions her at his rallies.

Now, in the final days before his Nov. 5 showdown with Cruz, Allred has fully embraced Harris and is making a strong push for voters who strongly identify as Democrats. While he’s still pitching Republicans and independents, Allred is trying to shore up support from potential Democratic voters, especially those infrequent voters who don’t keep up with politics and may not be familiar with him. His job was made easier Friday when Harris publicly endorsed his candidacy in front of more than 30,000 enthusiastic people at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston. Harris told the crowd that Allred would be her partner in moving the country forward and in restoring reproductive rights for women. That was the theme of the star-studded mega-rally that included music sensations Beyoncé, Willie Nelson and Kelly Rowland. “There are many important races, including Colin Allred running for Senate,” Harris said before criticizing Cruz’s record on women’s reproductive rights. “Let’s remember, Texas, your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power.” Before Harris spoke, Allred’s speech drew a thunderous ovation, easily the most intense display of support he’s received on the campaign trail. That the rally occurred at all is significant. Harris has all but conceded Texas to former President Donald Trump. Her campaign chose Houston for the rally because Texas, with its strict abortion regulations, is considered ground zero in the fight for reproductive rights.

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Rice fires football coach Mike Bloomgren

Rice football coach Mike Bloomgren was fired Sunday after seven seasons, athletic director Tommy McClelland announced. Pete Alomar, the Owls’ associate head coach and special teams coordinator, will serve as interim coach for the final four games. Bloomgren went 24-52 with the Owls, including a 2-6 record this season. The Owls lost to UConn 17-10 in Bloomgren’s final game Saturday. “I want to express my sincere appreciation to Coach Bloomgren. Over his seven seasons of service as our head coach, he has represented our university and football program with the utmost class and integrity,” McClelland said in a statement. “However, as I evaluated our program and compared our current and desired trajectory, I determined new leadership is necessary to guide us into the future.”

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Katy ISD ponders new policy after Native American book allegedly made white students ‘uncomfortable’

A Katy ISD proposal to institute a new training on how teachers should discuss "sensitive issues" with students ignited a heated and lengthy debate over critical race theory at a board meeting Monday. The proposed new training was sparked by one teacher's use of an excerpt from a book about a Native American boy. Board members who want to implement the training said the book is designed to make white students feel bad about being white. Opposing board members accused others of “micromanaging” teachers and argued the book is simply a story told from the perspective of a Native American child and not critical race theory.

Sherman Alexie’s 2007 book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” follows the experiences of a Native American high school student navigating a predominantly white school. The novel "tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation," according to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, the book's publisher. "Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot." The book in its entirety was not taught in a Katy ISD classroom. Instruction was one chapter that addressed the character’s concern for his physical size compared to that of his white peers. The new training is designed to make sure teachers are aware of how to “provide guidance in alignment to board policy," said Sanee Bell, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.

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Prairie View A&M leaders want to become a 'top 10' public HBCU. Here's how.

Prairie View A&M University leaders hope a new strategic plan will catapult the 148-year-old institution into the top 10 public HBCUs by 2035. President Tomikia P. LeGrande released the “Journey to Eminence” plan this fall, stating a goal for Prairie View to become a “premier” public historically Black university in the next decade. The university, located about 45 miles northwest of downtown Houston, currently sits at No. 14 among state-funded HBCUs on the heavily cited U.S. News & World Report rankings.

LeGrande said she hopes Prairie View can boost its six-year graduation rate closer to the national average, which is 62%. The latest numbers from the Texas A&M System show that 43% of Prairie View undergraduates who began college in 2017 earned degrees in six years. The strategic plan also builds off LeGrande’s CARE team model, where students are receiving more financial, academic and career supports to better navigate college. Other steps toward improving student success could come through increasing available student grants, alumni engagement and interactions with faculty and staff. An upcoming campus master plan will help identify needs related to student housing, especially for freshmen and sophomores, LeGrande said. Prairie View’s residence halls can accommodate close to 5,000 students, according to the HBCU’s website. More than 8,800 undergraduates enrolled at the university in rural Waller County this fall, and school officials told the Chronicle last year that housing waitlists are typically long. In fall 2023, 1,000 students were on the list.

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Another Houston-area city blocks utility-scale battery storage project. How will it affect the grid?

Battery storage facilities, seen by many as a key component in shoring up the state's fragile electricity grid, have taken fitful steps to gain a foothold in some Houston area cities. After months of delays, League City in September allowed its first under a newly crafted ordinance, and Katy earlier this month voted to block an application. Batteries, which can store excess electricity when it’s plentiful and cheap and sell that electricity back to the power grid when it’s expensive and in short supply, have made key contributions to the Texas power grid over the last two summers. Still, several area cities have paused or denied development, often due to residents’ fears of uncommon battery storage fires. Earlier this month, Katy City Council unanimously voted to deny a permit for a battery storage application.

Dozens of residents wrote to council members or spoke at council meetings against the project, proposed by developer Vesper Energy, many citing its location just over a half-mile from Katy High School. Some also noted that Vesper has no experience operating battery storage facilities, though it has operational solar farms. The opposition in Katy mirrors the wave of protest from residents seven months earlier in League City when battery storage developers began applying to build there. After pausing its consideration of applications in April, the city hired a consulting firm to draft a battery storage ordinance. The ordinance, which requires setbacks of at least 200 feet from homes and schools, or what’s deemed necessary by airborne hazards modeling, passed in July. The community pushback comes as Texas is one of the fastest-growing states for battery storage facilities, a technology that began to take off across the country in 2018. More than 4,700 megawatts of energy storage are connected to the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, compared to just 275 megawatts online in 2020.

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Houston investor and Pappas family member reportedly wants to shake up the Cheesecake Factory

An activist investor and son of a co-founder of Pappas Restaurants is reportedly calling for change at the Cheesecake Factory. James Pappas' JCP Investment Management has acquired about 2% of the California-based restaurant chain, according to a Tuesday report in the Wall Street Journal, and wants to see it spin off several smaller brands into a new public company. The Journal reported that JCP has argued that three of the Cheesecake Factory's brands — North Italia, Flower Child and Culinary Dropout — should become a separate public company, focused on faster growth.

The Cheesecake Factory in an email Tuesday indicated it is aware of JCP's proposal. "We regularly engage with shareholders and consider their perspectives,” a spokesperson wrote. JCP Investment Management, based in Houston, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its investment in the Cheesecake Factory was first revealed in a regulatory filing in August. Pappas, a banker by background, is the son of Chris Pappas, co-founder and owner of Pappas Restaurants, the Houston-based restaurant concept that includes Pappadeaux, Pappasito's and Pappas Bar-B-Q, as well as Pappas Bros. Steakhouse. JCP, which launched in 2009, has developed a relationship as an energetic activist investor. It has sought to create change at restaurant chains including Jamba Juice, Taco Cabana and IHOP, with varying degrees of success. In 2020, for example, JCP put forward a plan calling for Dine Brands, parent company of Applebee's and IHOP, to spin off the latter and let the pancake concept stand alone; this was rejected by shareholders.

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Cowboys running out of time to fix team’s countless problems after another loss to 49ers

The Cowboys went eight weeks into the season before losing on the road. But in so many ways, this team looks lost. Dallas has had worse defeats than the 30-24 setback it suffered at the hands of San Francisco Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium. One of them came on this very same field one year ago. But for a team coming off a 38-point loss at home to Detroit, for a team that had a bye week to discard certain plays, refine others and adapt, the outcome was damning.

A Dallas defense that appeared to take a step forward in the first half reverted to form in the second, allowing the Niners to score touchdowns on their first three possessions to turn a 10-6 halftime deficit into a 17-point lead entering the final period. “You have ebbs and flows of the game,’’ Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said. “We obviously stayed in that valley way too long. “The three, three-and-outs on offense, we didn’t give our defense any relief, either.’’ It should come as no surprise. This defense has now allowed opponents to score to open the second half six times this season, with five of those being touchdowns. Dak Prescott was no better. The Cowboys quarterback keeps saying he’s seeing the game well.

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Texas's first cohousing condos — where community is the star amenity — nears completion in Houston

As a mother of three toddlers, getting out of the house was a chore for Kelli Soika when she lived in Austin. They'd have to pack up and head to a park, where she'd supervise the girls before packing up again to leave. Then, when her children were 3, 4 and 5, she and her partner moved to a cohousing community in Colorado. The difference was palpable. Her toddlers would spill straight out of her first-floor unit into a courtyard, where they could play while neighbors-turned-family-friends helped watch. During community meals, her husband would sometimes hear that a group was planning a bike ride he could join; if the family needed an avocado or to borrow a table, there was a built-in group they could ask.

"Everyone's needs were being met in a really easy way," Soika said. "It just happened. It felt like people were just there." Now, Soika and her family are among the founding members of Texas's first cohousing community, which is set to open January in the East End. Friday morning, she walked the grounds at 114 Delmar St. with Lynn Morstead and David Kelley. There, 33 units — eight still for sale — have been built around a courtyard. On one side is the Common House, with a communal kitchen and common area. Soika mentioned that she planned to cook Monday vegetarian meals for those who care to join. "I'll be there!" Kelley said. Cohousing is a collection of private homes grouped around shared spaces that usually include a communal kitchen and dining area, a guest house and a garden. While shared spaces are nothing new — condominiums and neighborhood associations typically offer rooftop decks or clubhouses — the intent of cohousing developments is much different. Shared spaces serve not as amenities, but as keystones to community. In cohousing, common dining areas are used as gathering places for regularly-scheduled communal meals that bring neighbors closer together. As those bonds form, picking up something for a neighbor from the store or keeping an eye on the kids next door becomes only natural.

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Community members protest HISD bond in Halloween event

About 20 community members channeled their Halloween spirit in protest of Houston ISD's $4.4 billion school bond proposal outside the Metropolitan Multiservice Center on West Gray Sunday, as the last few days of early voting approach. The bond, split into Propositions A and B on the ballot, allocates $3.96 billion for school building renovations and expansions, including safety and security upgrades, and $440 million for technology equipment, systems and infrastructure.

Adults and children, many dressed in costume for the Halloween-themed event organized by Community Voices for Public Education, chanted holding paper masks with state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles' face and slogans reading "Reject the takeover terror!" and "Hands off HISD!" The event is the latest in intense campaigning both for and against the highly-debated ballot measure. Harris County Republicans and Democrats voted to oppose the bond, and a coalition of religious organizations, The Metropolitan Organization, later joined the opposition. State lawmakers urged Houstonians to vote against the bond on the first day of early voting. Volunteers opposing the bond have been talking to voters outside the polls about why to vote no.

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Dallas Hero propositions could have unintended consequences, experts say

It would be historic if voters approved three charter amendment proposals backed by Dallas Hero and touted as a way to address public safety and government transparency. None of the charters in Texas’ largest cities set minimums for police staffing, mandate a public survey that could earn the city manager a bonus or terminated, or waive governmental immunity. Dallas would be the first if Proposition S, T, or U is approved. “We believe our message is a strong one,” said Pete Marocco, executive director of Dallas Hero. “We continue to hear from the community that recognizes that we need more police, and we’re going to continue getting the message out that this is the clearest plan to do so.” The uncertainty of the real impacts has led to uproar from the City Council, with all 15 Dallas City Council members urging voters to vote no on all three proposals.

“If propositions S, T and U pass, their cost would force cuts to things residents tell me they want more of, like street repair, library locations and hours, park upkeep, and it could even affect pay for our tenured police officers,” said council member Gay Donnell Willis. “That’s nothing but bad.” The City Council initially approved three counter-proposals, Propositions K, M and N, to cancel out the Dallas Hero propositions. The Texas Supreme Court in September ordered the council to remove the three amendments because they didn’t clearly tell voters their approval would nullify Dallas Hero’s three proposals. Experts say while the reasons behind why some people support the Dallas Hero propositions may make sense, the proposals could have unintended consequences. “If any of them do pass, it’s likely they won’t be felt immediately,” said Brian Owsley, an associate professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas’ College of Law. “But there is probably going to be some sort of inadvertent impacts down the road.”

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Neiman Marcus criticized for swapping ‘Christmas’ for ‘Holiday’ in catalog title

Neiman Marcus is under fire after pulling the word “Christmas” from the title of its shopping guide. Earlier this month, the Dallas retailer unveiled its annual publication that it now calls the Holiday Book instead of the Christmas Book, a decades-old publication that’s popular among fans of the chain. It features ideas for shoppers including its well-known “Fantasy Gifts.” The decision didn’t sit well with some on social media, drawing attention on X, formerly Twitter, and Threads, which is part of Facebook, and other platforms with some saying they should have retained the name “Christmas” and that they wouldn’t shop there. The New York Post reported on the change this week, and others joined, including Newsmax and The Washington Times. Yet Neiman Marcus said it’s been using the term “holiday” broadly for decades, and it has also become an industry standard. That reflects the entire season that starts before Thanksgiving and runs through the New Year, it said.

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County Stories

Travis County leaders try to fix transparency concerns over DA Jose´ Garza's secret security money

A move from Travis County commissioners could help them avoid litigation over claims they violated the Texas Open Meetings Act. County leaders unanimously approved a motion to "approve funding in the amount of $115,000 to the district attorney for necessary security enhancements" to protect Jose´ Garza's safety. The move happened during Tuesday's meeting, which could clear up a previous vote from March that led to a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The KVUE Defenders revealed in August that commissioners secretly gave Garza the money for home security enhancements. However, Paxton and government transparency experts say it all happened illegally outside of public view. Part of the problem is that commissioners used a vague, overly broad agenda item that critics say did not adequately inform Travis County taxpayers about how their money would be spent.

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Hays County residents sue Commissioners Court over the transportation bond election

Four Hays County homeowners filed a lawsuit last Monday against the Hays County Commissioner Court over its August decision to call a transportation bond election, which Hays County residents are already voting on as Proposition A. On Aug. 14, in a 5-0 vote, the Commissioners Court approved pushing the bond election forward. If voters approve the bond, it would allow the county to execute around 30 transportation projects across the county by adding $0.02 per $100 valuation to the county tax rate – that would break down to about $80 a year for a home valued at $400,000. But the lawsuit’s plaintiffs allege that the Commissioners Court violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by not specifically outlining the scope of the bond package.

“County commissioners hatched this bond package in secret, ordering it onto the ballot at the last minute and in blatant violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act,” said Les Carnes, one of the plaintiffs, in a press release. “Hays County residents were deprived of both the required public notice that a bond proposal was being considered and the right to participate in determining what should be included or excluded, what the total price should be, and what it will mean for our taxes,” he continued. A spokesperson from Hays County said the county does not comment on ongoing litigation. The lawsuit said that several controversial projects were included in the package – some that would go in environmentally sensitive areas like the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.

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City Stories

Liberty Hill bans TikTok on city devices

There are more bans for TikTok in Central Texas – this time from city leaders in Liberty Hill. This week, Liberty Hill City Council voted to ban the use or installation of the app on any device used for city business. The vote aligns the city with Gov. Greg Abbott's directive that TikTok must be banned on government devices. That stems from concerns the Chinese government could watch Texans and collect their data. Abbott’s directive says all Texas cities are required to ban the app on government devices by Nov. 20.

Earlier this year, national leaders proposed a law that would force TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company to sell the app or be banned in the U.S. The social media giant argued that law is unconstitutional and violates free speech. The Department of Justice says the app is a national security threat. TikTok has repeatedly said it does not share Americans’ data with the Chinese government. A panel of judges in a federal appeals court are set to decide the constitutionality of the law in December. If TikTok loses, it could appeal to the Supreme Court ahead of the January deadline to sell or be banned in the U.S.

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National Stories

Business etiquette classes boom as people relearn how to act at work

Since the end of last year, Daniel Post Senning — the great-great-grandson of American etiquette queen Emily Post and co-president of the Emily Post Institute — has been gobsmacked by the growing demand for his family’s services. Senning had anticipated a boom in training requests as companies brought workers back to offices after the pandemic, but it didn’t happen right away. Instead, the wave of interest has come since the turn of the year, with growing numbers of big corporations and small family firms paying to send employees to courses like “Manners at Work” and “Business Etiquette for Professionals.” He’s even seen an explosion of interest in learning to be an etiquette trainer. More than two years after employers began urging white-collar workers back to offices, Americans are still reckoning with the ripple effects of pandemic-induced disruption when it comes to workplace behavior. The years spent apart from colleagues have rusted workers’ social skills, and new ways of working have spawned a host of fresh etiquette issues.

Meanwhile, younger workers are making up an increasing share of the workforce and bringing with them a preference for more-casual working environments, which is creating friction with older generations, experts say. “People are asking: ‘What is business etiquette? Do I need etiquette training?’” said Senning. “And I don’t think it’s just younger employees or newer employees who are more challenged and stressed by this environment.” Workers who had substantial professional experience before the pandemic, including managers and executives, still need help adapting to hybrid and remote work, Senning said. He has been coaching leaders on best practices for such things as communicating through your calendar and deciding whether to call, text or use Slack to reach an employee. Establishing etiquette for video meetings has also been a challenge for many firms, he notes. Bad behavior in virtual meetings has occasionally made headlines in recent years, such as the backlash against Vishal Garg, CEO of the mortgage lending firm Better.com, for announcing mass layoffs over Zoom ahead of the holidays in 2021. “If I had a magic button that I could push that could get people to treat video meetings with 50 percent of the same level of professionalism they treat an in-person meeting, I would make a lot of HR, personnel managers, and executives very, very happy,” Senning said.

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Kamala Harris played hardball with banks. It meant billions for homeowners.

Kamala Harris had been California’s attorney general for about eight weeks when she gathered with her peers in front of a coffee station at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. Attorneys general from across the country were closing in on a multibillion dollar mortgage settlement with major banks, whose risky lending practices leading up to the Great Recession spurred an unprecedented crisis that by early 2011 was still costing Americans their homes. But Harris couldn’t believe her fellow attorneys general were ready to make a deal. The banks’ offer seemed paltry considering the damage people suffered, especially in California, which had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. It also would also give banks some immunity from future lawsuits. Some of the negotiators were concerned Harris might bail and risk killing the settlement. She skipped an afternoon session with her fellow attorneys general and headed to the Justice Department to drill down on what investigators were finding and push the Obama administration to do more.

“I don’t know that anyone can answer our questions,” two of Harris’s top aides recalled her saying after those meetings in March 2011. “We’re going to have to answer our own questions.” Unsatisfied with what she was hearing — from the administration, other attorneys general and the banking sector — Harris walked away from those initial multistate talks six months later. There were no guarantees that move would pay off. But by early 2012, she struck a historic $18 billion agreement for California, far more than what had been on the table before. Harris now describes the saga on the campaign trail as a key example of how she has delivered for middle-class families. The deal was far from perfect: Thousands of Californians still lost their homes, in some cases opting for sales where they lost home equity but avoided foreclosure. Advocacy groups were frustrated by the lack of data showing whether relief went to poorer communities and people of color. The settlement didn’t satisfy widespread ire at the banking system, and in the years that followed, enforcement wasn’t always smooth. Harris also wasn’t the only attorney general struggling with how much to push for, and when to decide enough was enough. When she ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, Harris’s Democratic opponent Loretta Sanchez accused her of exaggerating her influence in the settlement talks and faulted Harris at a news conference for not bringing “one single prosecution against any major bank executive.”

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At the heart of the Boeing strike, an emotional fight over a lost pension plan

At a rally this month in Seattle, machinists union vice president Gary Allen addressed a hall full of striking Boeing workers. “When I'm out on the picket line, I ask everybody, what is the strike about to you?,” he said. Allen didn’t even have a chance to answer his own question before the machinists in the room interrupted. “Pension! Pension! Pension!,” they chanted. Pensions are a major sticking point between Boeing and the union. The machinists want the company to restore the traditional pension plan they lost a decade ago. But Boeing hasn’t budged.

The strike is now in its seventh week after union members rejected the company’s latest proposal. The union said late Sunday night it's "been in communication with the U.S. Department of Labor in an effort to spearhead getting back to the table." The work stoppage has hobbled production at Boeing’s airplane factories in the Pacific Northwest, contributing to a $6 billion dollar quarterly loss for the company. On some issues, the two sides have moved closer to an agreement. But when it comes to the pension plan, they remain very much at odds. “Definitely the loss of that pension is still there right at the heart of this for many,” said Jon Holden, the president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751, after members voted down the company’s latest offer last week. The union says Boeing pushed members to give up their pension plan in 2014, in part by threatening to move production of new planes elsewhere if they didn’t. The company replaced that pension with a 401(k) retirement plan. A decade later, many workers still feel cheated.

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Rogan reflects on podcast interview with former President Trump: 'Got this ability to just keep going'

Podcast host Joe Rogan recently reflected on his interview with former President Donald Trump. Rogan mentioned several takeaways he got from the landmark episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" that he had with Trump on Friday, noting that the former president is authentic and funny. He also marveled that he can hold a focused interview for over three hours. "He's got this ability to just keep going. This is what's crazy, like the podcast was three hours long. The guy didn't pee before the podcast. He didn't pee after the podcast. He just left," the host told guests Eddie Bravo, Brendan Schaub, and Bryan Callen during the latest episode of his podcast.

Rogan’s guest brought up the interview on Saturday, when they asked if he was "nervous" about sitting down with the former president, though Rogan replied that he was more "excited" and "hyped" than anything. "I was definitely hyped up. I was excited, because I wanted – there was a lot of questions I need to answer," he said, denying that he felt any pressure to perform in a certain way, and affirming that he prepared for the conversation ahead of time. Rogan’s first observation about Trump’s personality was that he likes to start on one talking and end up somewhere completely different. "He’s real good at – you ask him a question, and he starts to answer it, but then he takes you on a totally different route… But you got to bring him back in, but you got to be respectful."

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Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 33, while truck ramming near Tel Aviv kills one

Israeli strikes on northern Gaza have killed at least 33 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as Israel's offensive in the hard-hit and isolated area entered a third week and the U.N. secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there “unbearable.” Israel said it targeted militants. In a separate development, a truck rammed into a bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel. The ramming occurred outside a military base and near the headquarters of Israel's Mossad spy agency.

Iran's supreme leader, meanwhile, said Israeli strikes on the country on Saturday in response to Iran's ballistic missile attack earlier this month “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation. It was Israel’s first open attack on its archenemy. That exchange of fire has raised fears of an all-out regional war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran and its militant proxies, which include Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of lower-level conflict. Two Israeli strikes killed eight people in Sidon city in southern Lebanon, with 25 wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. One strike hit a residential building, according to footage taken by an Associated Press reporter.

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Second Post columnist resigns while others defend publication

Michele Norris announced her resignation from The Washington Post in a social media post Sunday following the newspaper’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate this election cycle, making her the second columnist to leave after Robert Kagan. Norris called the non-endorsement a “terrible mistake” and “an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976.” Norris has been connected to The Post since 1988 when she was a reporter. She was also the first Black female host for NPR and has been an opinion columnist at The Post since 2019. However, other journalists inside and outside the organization have been coming to The Post’s defense — not for the editorial board or their decision, but for the reporters and editors who work at The Post and are suffering the consequences of canceled subscriptions and loss of trust.

David Maraniss, a longtime associate editor at The Post, initially reacted to the announcement that The Post wouldn’t be endorsing a candidate by calling the move “contemptible.” He wrote in a Facebook post on Friday, “This is the bleakest day of my journalism career.” But in another Facebook post published Sunday, he explained some of his reflection, writing that while he understands the dismay, he’s “come out on the other side.” “First let me ask: Why have all of you not quit Facebook? Do you think Mark Zuckerberg is good for democracy? Why on the other platform have so many people who cancelled subscriptions announced their actions on X? Do they think Elon Musk is good for democracy? Those questions are both rhetorical and real. I think we all know the reasons. Tradeoffs,” Maraniss wrote. He praised The Post’s reporters and editors who “have done one helluva lot more than anything on Facebook or X to uncover and illuminate the dangerous politics of the moment and the threats to democracy - and will continue to do so despite the craven cowardice of the owner and publisher.”

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Democrats see female ‘ghost voters’ as best chance for Harris victory

Democratic strategists alarmed over former President Trump’s track record of outperforming the polls are hoping that Vice President Harris will benefit from a surge of Democratic “ghost voters,” young women they hope will turn out in large numbers for Election Day even though they are not being captured by recent polls. Polls in battlegrounds states such as Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin are not promising for Harris when considered in light of Trump’s history of winning more votes in these states on Election Day 2016 and 2020 than the polls indicated beforehand. Harris held a rally with Beyoncé in Houston on Friday to further emphasize abortion rights in the final days of the campaign, amplifying a national message targeted at women between the ages of 18 and 35 who are “low-propensity” voters. “You had the ghost voter in 2018 and 2022 because those turnouts were higher — particularly 2022 — higher than the Republicans predicted and it was a surge in young women, pro-choice voters,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

She said Harris could benefit substantially from young women who haven’t voted before, only voted occasionally, and who are not being captured by many polls. Trump has benefited from ghost voters himself, in 2016 and 2020 when he outperformed the polls because non-college educated, working-class voters who didn’t have a history of voting turned out in large numbers to support his candidacy. Some Democrats fear that Trump could outperform the polls again next month, which would be bad news for Harris because polls show the two candidates deadlocked in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Political handicappers say Harris must win these three so-called “blue wall” states to secure victory. “There is a potential for a ghost voter on both sides. The one on the Harris side would be young women,” said Lake, who noted that younger women turned out at a higher rate than any group of men during the Kansas abortion referendum in 2022. Voters in that referendum overwhelmingly rejected an anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution. The women who could become a surge of “ghost voters” for Harris aren’t usually engaged in politics or don’t follow campaign developments though traditional news outlets. “Normally why we miss them is because they are people without vote history or they have a very irregular vote history,” Lake said, explaining why these voters don’t get measured by pollsters.

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Lead Stories

Trump loves Brooke Rollins. His allies don't.

In mid-August, on the day that the Trump campaign announced the chairs of its long-awaited presidential transition team, former Trump aide Brooke Rollins appeared on Fox Business to weigh in on the selections. Her reviews were glowing: Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment executive turned head of Trump’s Small Business Administration, was “remarkable,” Rollins told Fox viewers. Howard Lutnick, the billionaire Wall Street magnate and Trump megadonor, had “the trust of the president.” Their selection, Rollins gushed, marked “a great day for America,” especially for the ongoing efforts to “[reclaim] the country from the hands of the socialists.” “If you put those two [people] together,” said Rollins, knitting her well-manicured fingers into an interlocking pattern in front of her chest, “it’s magic.” The real magic of the moment, though, belonged to Rollins. Though she didn’t say so on air, Trump’s announcement represented a major victory for her. McMahon, a close friend and ally, is the chair of the America First Policy Institute, the pro-Trump think tank that Rollins co-founded in 2021. (AFPI’s other co-founder? Larry Kudlow, the former chair of Trump’s National Economic Council and Rollins’ host on Fox that day.) Trump’s selection of McMahon had sent an unambiguous message across the MAGA universe: AFPI — and, by extension, Rollins — had won the contest for influence over preparations for a second Trump administration.

But even during this moment of apparent triumph, Rollins did something unusual for most Washington insiders: She deflected credit away from herself, showering it on McMahon and Lutnick instead. This wasn’t some spontaneous display of humility. To the contrary, it was a tactic that people who know Rollins say she has used to uncanny effect in her rise from a little-known aide in the Trump White House to the driving force behind the Trump transition effort. Like every good sleight-of-hand artist, Rollins seemed to know that in order to work her magic, she first had to fix her audience’s gaze somewhere else. This skill helps explain how Rollins has become one of the most important Republican operatives you’ve probably never heard of. Through careful maneuvering, Rollins has positioned herself and her organization, AFPI, at the center of the Trump universe without attracting the sort of public scrutiny or Mar-a-Lago melodrama that has torpedoed the careers of so many other ambitious Trump operatives. If Trump wins in November, Rollins will immediately become one of the most powerful conservatives in the country, wielding outsized influence over the shape of Trump’s agenda and the composition of his administration. “President Trump thinks very highly of Brooke,” a senior Trump adviser told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the former president’s thinking. “He has said, ‘She could run any company in the country.’” Despite her growing influence, Rollins remains a polarizing figure within the broader MAGA universe.

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Ted Cruz files complaint accusing Colin Allred and senate Democrats of illegally coordinating on ads

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign manager filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission Thursday, accusing U.S. Rep. Colin Allred's campaign of illegally coordinating on television ads with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Cruz's campaign cited a series of ads running in Texas paid for by the DSCC and Allred's campaign they claim cost $10.6 million, exceeding the $2.8 million cap on coordinated expenditures between a candidate and their party. Campaigns and national committees like the DSCC can spend in excess of that amount on so-called "hybrid ads" that include generic party messaging, but Cruz's campaign is claiming the four ads in question do not qualify under FEC rules.

"Colin Allred's campaign is illegally coordinating with Chuck Schumer and the DSCC. We are calling on the FEC to immediately investigate and put a stop to this flagrant violation of federal law," Cruz's campaign said in a statement. Allred's campaign referred questions to the DSCC, which said the ads followed existing FEC guidance on what is and is not allowed in hybrid ads. "The DSCC is running the same kind of advertisements that the (National Republican Senatorial Committee), the Republican National Committee and Republican members of the FEC all argued are legal — and that are being run by Republican Senate campaigns across the country," a DSCC spokesperson said. A spokesman for the FEC declined to comment, citing, "confidentiality requirements." The complaint comes less than two weeks ahead of the Nov. 5 election, as polls show Cruz, a two-term GOP senator, holding a narrow lead over Allred, a former NFL player. Both campaigns have been spending millions in the final stretch to get out their messages.

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Democrats ready thousands of lawyers for final days of race

Four years ago, Joe Biden assembled hundreds of lawyers to work with his presidential campaign, which took an unusual detour through the courts when rival Donald Trump and his allies brought dozens of lawsuits making unsupported claims of election fraud. Bracing for a flurry of postelection lawsuits to cap what has already been a fiercely litigated presidential contest, Kamala Harris’s campaign has expanded the Democratic legal team considerably, spending the better part of a year trying to anticipate any legal curveball that could arise in the crucial days before—and after—voters go to the polls. “It’s really just making sure we have systems in place—which we do—to monitor what Republicans are doing everywhere,” said Dana Remus, a former Biden White House counsel who is leading the Harris legal operation. “As soon as they file a case, as soon as they start saying election results can’t be trusted, we are prepared to respond.”

Remus, a partner at Covington & Burling, is a Yale Law graduate with a diverse résumé, including a clerkship to conservative Justice Samuel Alito. Her inner circle includes Bob Bauer, a personal lawyer to Biden and White House counsel to former President Barack Obama who also teaches law at New York University. They have assigned priority to better coordination with local lawyers who are steeped in the minutiae of state election laws and how to best navigate their hometown courts. A series of teams, each focused on a specific battleground or priority state, have been running for the past year, with local attorneys working with a designated partner at one of a handful of large, national law firms that are helping to guide strategy. More than 400 lawyers have been writing thousands of pages of draft legal pleadings and memos that could be deployed quickly in fast-moving litigation. A larger network of about 10,000 lawyers is on tap to be on the ground and supporting voter protection at polling places across the U.S. Senior advisers have held weekly brainstorming sessions that in effect work like legal game theory, with top lawyers sketching out strategies for addressing a host of hypothetical scenarios that could arise in legal combat over the election results. The group has focused heavily on planning for potential delays or disruptions to the certification of vote totals, both at the county and state level, and in Congress. They say they are prepared to respond to any efforts to intimidate voters and election workers, including physical unrest on Election Day or during state vote counts afterward.

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Voters are deeply skeptical about the health of American democracy

Nearly half of all voters are skeptical that the American experiment in self-governance is working, with 45 percent believing that the nation’s democracy does not do a good job representing ordinary people, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll. Three-quarters of voters in the United States say democracy is under threat, though their perception of the forces imperiling it vary widely based on partisan leanings. And a majority of voters believe that the country is plagued by corruption, with 62 percent saying that the government is mostly working to benefit itself and elites rather than the common good. The eroding faith in the nearly 250-year-old American system of government follows four years of unparalleled challenges: a violent riot in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the criminal conviction of former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Trump’s continued insistence that the democratic process is rigged.

Coupled with stubborn inflation, divisive culture wars and geopolitical crises, voters are expressing exasperation with American politics and a government that they believe has failed to serve them at the most basic level. “I even have to go to a food bank, and my husband and I make a decent salary, and we still can’t wholly make ends meet with three children,” said Tyra Jackson-Taylor, 51, a social worker from Norfolk, Va. “It’s just a lot, me having to work and him work overtime, just to try to make the ends meet.” Such frustrations have left 58 percent of voters believing that the nation’s financial and political systems need major changes or a complete overhaul. Some wonder why the government seems unable to make significant progress on pressing issues. “I’m 21 years old — it’s always a school shooting,” said Sarah Washington, a temporary worker in New Orleans. “There should be heavier laws in order to obtain a gun, for example. And there’s been discussion about how that should go, and nothing still being done about it. They talk about it, and then another one happens.”

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Harris in Texas, Trump in New York: rivals campaign in surprise spots

Texas is not a usual stop for a Democratic presidential candidate, yet 11 days out from the election, that’s where Kamala Harris could be found. The vice-president held a campaign rally in the traditionally Republican state on Friday, appearing alongside Beyoncé and the Senate candidate Colin Allred. But it is not just Democrats who are venturing into uncharted territory – on Sunday Donald Trump will appear at Madison Square Garden, in the deep blue New York. Both candidates will be visiting key swing states including Michigan and Pennsylvania in the coming days, but these extra-curricular visits give them a chance to tap into key messages, in moments the Harris and Trump campaigns will be eagerly capturing and distributing online. In an election which will essentially be decided by voters in seven or fewer states, it’s also a chance to demonstrate inclusiveness, said Shannon Bow O’Brien, a politics professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

“One of things people criticize the Democrats for, and I think rightly so, is they frequently treat the interior of the country like flyover country, and they routinely ignore these types of places,” O’Brien said. “I think maybe also going down here, is signaling that she’s gonna pay attention to these areas too.” For Harris, the visit to Texas was an opportunity for her to drive home the right to abortion, which she has made one of the key issues of her campaign. Trump has bragged about being responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion in the US. The vice-president’s campaign launched a series of new abortion-related ads this week, telling the story of a Texas woman who contracted a life-threatening infection when was denied proper medical care after miscarrying at 16 weeks pregnant. “Texas is symbolically really important, because abortion for Harris is a strong issue, and Texas has been the origin of a number of really heartbreaking stories about the consequences of an abortion ban. And any meaningful challenges to the ban in front of the supreme court have come from women out of Texas,” said Mona Kleinberg, a professor of political communication at the City University of New York.

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State Stories

In Texas, Donald Trump accuses Kamala Harris of ignoring migrant crime victims

Former President Donald Trump accused Vice President Kamala Harris during a campaign stop on Friday of hanging with "woke celebrities" at a rally in Houston instead of meeting with victims of "migrant crime." Speaking to roughly 200 supporters at a private airport in Austin, Trump vowed to launch the largest deportation effort in history and said he would push for the death penalty for migrants who kill American citizens. He appeared alongside Alexis Nungaray, whose daughter was killed in Houston earlier this year, and shamed Harris for not reaching out to her about her daughter's death. Harris is “not going to meet with any of the victims of migrant crime while she’s here,” Trump said, gesturing to Nungaray. “She’ll not speak to the grieving mothers from whom she has stolen the brightest light in their life.”

The former president was in Texas to record a podcast episode with Joe Rogan at the comedian’s South Austin home. His airport speech came hours before Harris was set to hold a star-studded rally in Houston focused on abortion access. The dueling appearances — just days from the presidential election, and with early voting underway — are unusual in a state not considered a battleground. Multiple polls have found Trump leading Harris by about 6 percentage points. The Republican won the state by 5.6 points in 2020. But the Texas stops come as the state is home to a potentially much closer race that could decide control of the Senate, between U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat. Polling has shown Cruz up by as little as 1 percentage point, though polling averages put Cruz up by at least 3 points. Trump used his speech to again endorse Cruz, who was in attendance and whom he called a "fighter." “I don’t know why anybody would run against him, because he’s really a great senator,” Trump said. “He’s always fighting. He’s fighting for the state, but he’s fighting for the country.”

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Donald Trump, in Austin for Joe Rogan podcast, vows history’s largest deportation program

In a mini-campaign rally billed as remarks to reporters, former President Donald Trump vowed Friday to deport a historic number of undocumented immigrants if he returns to the White House. Trump told supporters attending the event inside an aircraft hangar that he will end what he called a national nightmare on immigration policy. “Immediately upon taking the oath of office, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,” he said. Trump said he would end a catch-and-release policy that frees migrants until their immigration court hearing, push to execute migrants convicted of killing an American citizen or law enforcement officer and invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to eradicate the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.

“It gives you the power to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil,” Trump said. “If they come back into our country, it’s an automatic 10 years in jail with no possibility for parole.” Trump flew into Austin on Friday afternoon for an interview on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. His campaign set aside time for a speech on immigration — a central campaign theme — that touched on many other issues during roughly 40 minutes of remarks. Standing before a backdrop of signs about deporting illegal immigrants and ending migrant crime, Trump was flanked by Border Patrol officials and Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn was killed allegedly by two members of a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua.

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Texans don’t live in a swing state, but Lone Star money fuels Trump, Harris campaigns

Texans have combined to donate more than $65 million directly to the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns, a windfall that helps pay for the deluge of ads and events focused on a handful of swing states far from Texas. Generous Texans have long sent money to out-of-state campaigns, said Brendan Glavin, deputy research director at OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics. “Texas has a history of not just Republicans but Democrats raising a lot of money,” Glavin said. “There’s clearly a good donor base in Texas for candidates.” Texas has not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976, and based on the latest polling that’s not likely to change this year. But like busy commuters stopping by an ATM for quick cash, the major-party candidates and top surrogates have made regular stops in Texas to collect checks from donors.

The candidates’ principal campaign committees — Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc. and Harris for President — are limited to donations of $3,300 per person, per election, or no more than $6,600 this cycle for those who also donated in the primary. These organizations are the source of many of the texts and emails that bombard voters with pleas for smaller donations, and many Texans have responded. OpenSecrets found Texans had donated at least $35 million to Trump and $30 million to Harris in this cycle, through the end of August. Harris’ total includes money donated to President Joe Biden before she replaced him atop the ticket. A breakdown by major metropolitan areas found Dallas sent Harris about $6.9 million and Trump $6.5 million, OpenSecrets said. The Fort Worth-Arlington area gave Trump $3 million and Harris $1.9 million. Those numbers don’t include donations made more recently to the chief campaign organizations for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

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In win over LSU, Texas A&M proves it has SEC’s best built-in advantage

First Missouri’s Brady Cook questioned the acoustics of Kyle Field and lived to regret it, then LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier did the same. Do they not have WiFi in Baton Rouge? Now, if visiting quarterbacks want to make a stink about the engineering of Kyle Field, be my guest. Please. The press box bobs like a cork when fans so much as get up to let someone out of their row. Practically needed Dramamine just to type this. But never, ever challenge Aggies about how loud they can get, because they take it personally. Turns out their football team is making a little noise, too.

Backup quarterback Marcel Reed conducted 14th-ranked Texas A&M’s thunderous second-half comeback against eighth-ranked LSU in a 38-23 win, sending a message loud and clear to the rest of the SEC and up the road to their old rivals in Austin, who narrowly escaped Nashville with a win Saturday over Vanderbilt. The top team in the SEC is the one with the best built-in advantage in the league, as 108,852, the third-largest crowd in stadium history, demonstrated yet again. “There’s a lot of things we’ve got to elevate,” said Mike Elko, who started his postgame presser with a shout-out to the crowd, “but our home atmosphere is not one of them. “That was really special.” The Aggies and Tigers shared a couple similarities going into the game. Both had bounced back from an opening loss with six straight wins, and both were the last undefeated teams left standing in SEC play. The biggest difference between the two? One has an NFL-caliber quarterback. The other is simply a winner.

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Texas vs Vanderbilt: Longhorns weren't perfect, but take a win into bye week

Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian walked into his postgame press conference at FirstBank Stadium on Saturday night holding a sheet of paper that featured some handwritten notes and printed statistics. In the 27-24 win over Vanderbilt, Texas went 9-for-15 on third-down conversions, he pointed out. Wide receiver DeAndre Moore Jr. had a "heck of a game" with a pair of touchdown catches and a recovered onside kick in the closing seconds. Quarterback Quinn Ewers, running back Quintrevion Wisner and defensive backs Jahdae Barron and Michael Taaffe all received postgame praise. The Longhorns, however, were anything but perfect. No. 6 Texas (7-1, 3-1) committed a season-high 10 penalties, Ewers was sacked four times and had two passes tipped at the line of scrimmage that were intercepted. Despite being heavy favorites, the Longhorns were unable to put Vanderbilt away until the final seconds.

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The early voter turnout rate in Texas is down from 2020. You'll still see long lines at the polls

Is turnout up or down in Texas in the 2024 election? It depends on how you look at it. Since early voting began Monday, more than 3 million of the 18.6 million Texans registered to vote have already cast their ballots, with many counties across the state reporting long lines at the polls. When compared to the last presidential election in 2020, the percentage of voters showing up to the polls in person is higher this year. But the overall voter participation rate this cycle is lagging when factoring in mail-in ballots, which soared in popularity amid the coronavirus pandemic. Early voting ends on Friday, Nov. 1. A record 143,625 people voted in person in San Antonio’s Bexar County during the first three days of early voting, a 32% increase over 2020. “Three and a half days in, It is spectacular. We are having more voters than we’ve had in the past, since I’ve been here,” Bexar County’s longtime elections administrator Jacque Callanen said at a press conference on Thursday.

In Harris County, in-person participation is slightly down from 14% to 13% of registered voters. Polling places in some Houston-area counties, especially Fort Bend and Montgomery, are surpassing or meeting 2020 turnout numbers. Despite the high volume of voters, Texas’ overall participation rate is lagging slightly behind 2020. In the first three days of early voting, 15.1% of registered Texas voters cast ballots, slightly down from 15.7% in 2020, according to the Secretary of State’s office. That decrease can be in part attributed to a quirk of the 2020 election, when many voters used mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. In this year’s election, only 221,417 mail ballots had been cast as of Wednesday, less than half of the mail ballots that were cast in the first three days of early voting in 2020. Despite the huge increase of in-person voting in Bexar County, for example, the overall turnout rate is still slightly lower than it was in 2020 because of a drop in mail ballots from 56,573 in 2020 to 15,679 this year.

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Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland introduce Kamala Harris at rally, shout out Houston neighborhoods

Houston native and international pop star Beyoncé introduced Vice President Kamala Harris at her rally Friday to the sound of tens of thousands of fans cheering in the stands at Shell Energy Stadium. Beyoncé and her friend and fellow Destiny's Child star, Kelly Rowland, took the stage around 9:15 p.m. ahead of Harris. The pair gave short speeches calling on Houstonians to come out in droves to support Harris' presidential bid.

"Everyone says Texas plays a pivotal role to change the course of our future," Beyoncé said. "Texans and Houstonians from Third Ward, River Oaks, Sugar Land, Fifth Ward, Alief, Memorial, Southwest side, Northside, all the way down to Mo City — we all have a role to play to make this a reality." "We are grabbing back the pen," Rowland said. "Houston, you already had a hand in creating 'Destiny.' So do what you do and do this thing again." Although she did not perform, the rally featured a number of songs from the Houston singer. "Freedom” became Harris' official campaign theme earlier this year after Beyoncé granted the vice president permission to use the song. That privilege was not extended to former President Donald Trump's campaign, which was served a cease-and-desist earlier this year after the song was used in a video shared by Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.

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Mattress Mack's Trump rally draws modest but fiery crowd of MAGA Republicans: 'The race is on'

Spirits were high in the Gallery Furniture parking lot Friday morning. A line of women led a crowd of Donald Trump supporters in song. Swaying in front of waving American flags, they didn’t need to try hard to get the crowd to join in on chanting "The Race is On." Houston’s Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale held a rally for the presidential candidate at his flagship store off Interstate 45 just hours before Vice President Kamala Harris held her own in Houston. “Major mass migration. Who’s been looking out for you? Tell me, did you steal it?” sang Ginger Howell, who said she came to the rally because no country “should open their borders and allow unvetted people here.”

Howell, who’s a real estate agent, singer and dancer, said many of the the people she works with lean to the left when it comes to politics. “It’s nice to be around like-minded people,” she said, standing among about 100 fellow Trump supporters. “When Trump was in office, I had more disposable income. I wasn’t afraid. All the Democrats have is name-calling.” McIngvale, who announced the rally on Thursday, said he got the idea when Harris County Republican Party Chair Cindy Siegel called him to ask if he’d do it.

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Henry Bell: State lawmakers are right to review laws targeting companies’ investment practices

(Henry Bell is the President of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce, a member of Americans for Free Markets (AFFM).) Last week, the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs held an important interim hearing to discuss “Responsible Investing” – an issue that directly impacts how our tax dollars are used to support retirement accounts, public pensions, as well as financing of local infrastructure projects to support our ever-growing economy. With Tyler becoming one of the fastest-growing metro areas in Texas in recent years, it is absolutely critical for our lawmakers in Austin to pursue smart policies that alleviate burdens on taxpayers to ensure sustained economic growth. Texas legislators have always prioritized common-sense, pro-business legislation that has propelled our state to become the 8thlargest economy in the world. That’s why it’s so important for legislators to continue to examine the data surrounding the economic impact of legislation meant to protect taxpayers, including SB 13 – a 2021 law that bans certain companies from entering into public contracts in Texas if they are deemed to ‘boycott’ the oil and gas industry.

The facts show that, despite being labeled as ‘boycotters’ of the oil and gas industry, many of the financial institutions that have been targeted under this law are among the world’s largest financiers of fossil fuels – including HSBC and UBS group, which have more than $192 and $210 billion worth of fossil fuel projects, respectively, since 2016. Earlier this year, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick – who strongly supported the law that named investment giant BlackRock among the ‘boycotters’ of fossil fuels – acknowledged that “BlackRock has been a big investor in the fossil fuel industry.” Senate State Affairs Committee Chairman Bryan Hughes has always been a thoughtful legislator, and he is right to take another look at how this law is being implemented, including examining how companies can be removed from the list of alleged ‘boycotters.’ This is a meaningful step in the right direction, and we hope Chairman Hughes and his colleagues in the legislature continue to look at the facts when considering any changes to this law next session. Beyond these facts, policymakers should also consider that shutting banks out of doing business with public entities in Texas inherently reduces competition, which is both antithetical to our state’s pro-free market approach and harmful to consumers, taxpayers and the business community.

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Voter assaults Bexar County poll worker after being asked to remove Trump hat

A 63-year-old man was arrested for assaulting a 69-year-old Bexar County election worker at the Johnston Library polling site on Thursday night. Deputies arrested Jesse Lutzenberger at his home shortly after the incident. An incident report said Lutzenberger was “wearing a red “MAGA” or “TRUMP” baseball cap” at the polling site. The election worker asked him to remove it, and Lutzenberger complied at first. Under Texas law, it is illegal to wear or display any campaign or party material inside a polling site. As Lutzenberger walked out of the polling area, he had the hat on again, according to the report.

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Gov. Abbott urges VP Harris to label Venezuelan gang as terrorists

As Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign made a stop in Houston on Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott demanded that she declare Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization. In a statement first reported by KVIA in Austin, Abbott said Harris “must follow Texas' lead” and designate the Venezuelan gang a foreign terrorist organization. “That’s just a start. The Biden-Harris Administration must use the full weight of the federal government to eradicate them once and for all,” Abbott said. Abbott wanted Harris to make the declaration during her visit to Houston Friday. The governor highlighted the death of Houston teen Jocelyn Nungarary, who he said died at the hands of members of TdA, to explain the importance of the declaration. The governor’s office told KVIA that Abbott launched a statewide operation to “aggressively target” TdA to disrupt their criminal gang activity in the state.

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Advocacy group hopes to end Texas program that piles on fees for driver’s with suspended licenses

Brian Camarillo needed to feed his parking meter just one more time while he waited his turn for legal advice on how to get his Texas driver's license renewed. As he walked back down the street in downtown El Paso after shoveling coins into the meter, he realized the irony of the situation. "I literally have no choice," he said about driving with a suspended driver's license. Camarillo was one of about two dozen El Paso residents who went to a free legal clinic put on earlier this month by Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit group that aims to address disparities on issues that include criminal justice, housing, education and immigration, among others. The group was in El Paso because of Texas' Failure to Appear/Pay Program, which they argue disproportionately affects minorities and poor Texans, and makes it increasingly difficult for them to settle debts with the state and regain their ability to legally drive.

That recent Saturday trip downtown wasn’t the only time Camarillo took a chance. He said he takes a gamble every time he drives his wife to her weekly medical appointments. "My wife can’t drive because she’s diabetic and she’s partially blind in one eye and she just got her foot amputated," he said. "Now she’s having kidney issues. So, I have to be taking her to appointments and what not." Texas' program places a hold on driver's license renewals if holders are unable to pay the fines and other fees associated with traffic tickets or other minor infractions. Proponents for ending the program equate it to high-interest fees that accumulate overtime and become, for some, unmanageable debt. The lowest-level speeding ticket in El Paso, with a fine of $159, can increase by more than $100 once fines and warrant fees are assessed if a driver can't or won't pay fines on time or appear in court, according to data compiled by Texas Appleseed. The heftiest speeding fine, at about $558, can top $780 with fees added on. Jennifer Carreon, the director of Texas Appleseed's criminal justice program, said total debt can increase more overtime once a person gets caught in the dragnet of late fees and other fines, including possible jail time.

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Texas county criticized after Indigenous history book re-classified into fiction section

The re-classification of a children's book on Native American history in a Texas library has caused an uproar among consumers, activists and library organizations nationwide. Last month, a citizen committee in Montgomery County, Texas made the decision to re-classify the children's book, "Colonization and the Wampanoag Story" by Linda Coombs from children's non-fiction to children's fiction in the Montgomery County Memorial Library. Following weeks of public complaints, including an open letter signed by 13 organizations, about the decision, the Montgomery County Commission retracted the re-classification on Tuesday, moving the book back to the children's non-fiction section of the library. Teresa Kenney, owner of Village Books in Montgomery County, said she was thrilled by the commissioners' decision.

"This move, to move it (the book) back into nonfiction was the right one, the only decision they could make," Kenney told USA TODAY on Thursday. In addition to the book's re-classification, the county commission approved the creation of a committee to revise the policy that created the citizens review committee and placed a hold on all committee actions made since Oct. 1. Established in March, the committee is made up of five Montgomery County residents who have the ability to provide oversight to the Montgomery County Memorial Library's materials. Per requests made by community members, the committee is able to reassign material to a "more restrictive portion of the library" and remove material from library circulation altogether, according to the policy. The policy does not explicitly permit the committee to re-classify books. Published in 2023, "Colonization and the Wampanoag Story" tells the story of colonization in the New World from the perspective of the New England Indigenous Nations, according to publisher Penguin Random House. The book is intended for children ages 10 and up. The book was written by Linda Coombs, an author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah. She's written several books for the Boston Children's Museum's Native American Program and worked for 30 years in the Wampanoag Indigenous Program, including 15 years as the associate director. Today, Coombs is involved in museum consulting and cultural presentations.

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Inexplicable play call dooms Texas Tech late in heartbreaking loss to TCU

The job of a coaching staff is to put its players in the best position to succeed. Unfortunately, that's not what the Texas Tech football team's head coach and offensive staff did in the closing minutes of Saturday's 35-34 loss to TCU in Fort Worth. Instead, offensive coordinator Zach Kittley made one of the most inexplicable decisions any Texas Tech play-caller has made in recent memory. With Tech trailing by a point with 1:38 to play, the offense faced a 3rd-and-7 at the TCU 27. Already in field goal range (albeit a long field goal), the Tech coaching staff obviously made the decision to sit on the ball and let field goal kicker Gino Garcia try to win the game. But on third down, instead of giving the ball to the team's best and most reliable player, running back Tahj Brooks, Kittley called a designed QB draw for true freshman backup Will Hammond.

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Man accused of shooting Texas police chief prompting Blue Alert arrested in Fort Worth

A man who is accused of shooting a Texas police chief earlier this month has been arrested in Fort Worth. According to judicial records, Seth Altman, 33, was arrested and booked into the Fort Worth Jail for attempted capital murder of a police officer. The Fort Worth Police Department says Altman was taken into custody just before 5 p.m., Friday, near 1300 E. Lancaster Ave. "The arrest was made without incident, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the FWPD and additional law enforcement agencies," the FWPD said in a statement via X. He was later transferred to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, where he is currently in custody. Altman was wanted in connection with the shooting of Memphis Police Chief Rex Plant that took place in Hall County, just southeast of Amarillo, around 11 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, as he and another officer tried to arrest Altman on a burglary charge.

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City Stories

City Council approves $120 million to create new Austin public safety headquarters

The City of Austin will create a new combined public safety headquarters in a historic move that would put all its first responders under one roof. On Thursday, the city council approved spending $120 million to purchase and renovate a building to house Austin Fire, Austin Police and Austin-Travis County EMS. The nearly 400,000-square foot building is located at the corner of Barton Skyway and South Mopac Expressway just south of Zilker Park. The purchase price of the building is $107.6 million with another $13 million for design and renovations. The city will use certificates of obligation, which is a long-term loan that does not need voter approval, to buy the building. Mayor Kirk Watson said the opportunity allows the city to improve working conditions for public safety staff and increases collaboration and efficiency.

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Hillwood adding $262M Smart Port to Alliance

Hillwood, developer of the 27,000-acre AllianceTexas, and partners are building a $262 million Smart Port at the site on the north side of Fort Worth, hoping to amp up its already bustling inland port and bolster the region's supply chain. A recently awarded $80 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, announced Oct. 24, will help pay for the infrastructure of the project. The public-private partnership between Hillwood, the Texas Department of Transportation, the cities of Fort Worth and Haslet and the North Central Texas Council of Governments aims to connect AllianceTexas' inland port to the Texas Connected Freight Corridor and National Highway Freight Network via roads such as I-35 and I-45.

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National Stories

Fact check: Trump revives his lie that schools are secretly sending children for gender-affirming surgeries

Former President Donald Trump continues to repeat his lie that US schools are sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without their parents’ consent — even though his own presidential campaign could not find a single example of this having happened. Trump debuted the tale in late August. It was debunked by CNN and others in early September. But Trump, whose campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars on late-campaign attack ads related to transgender people, has revived the story in October as Election Day draws near. Trump made the claim again last week while discussing education policy during a New York City barbershop discussion filmed by Fox News: “No transgender, no operations — you know, they take your kid — there are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. Okay? Without parental consent.” He added, “At first, when I was told that was actually happening, I said, you know, it’s an exaggeration. No: it happens. It happens. There are areas where it happens.”

Trump didn’t name these supposed “areas.” But he made the claim once more during his Friday interview with prominent podcast host Joe Rogan: “Who would want to have — there’s so many — the transgender operations: where they’re allowed to take your child when he goes to school and turn him into a male — to a female — without parental consent.” Facts First: Trump’s claim remains false. There is no evidence that schools in any part of the United States have sent children for gender-affirming surgeries without their parents’ approval, or performed unapproved gender-affirming surgeries on site; none of that is “allowed” anywhere in the country. Even in the states where gender-affirming surgery is legal for people under age 18, parental consent is required before a minor can undergo such a procedure. Trump’s campaign and four conservative groups contacted by CNN in September about Trump’s claim were unable to find any evidence for it. Experts on health care for transgender people said the situation Trump described simply does not happen in this country. Landon Hughes, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a co-author of a recent study on the prevalence of gender-affirming surgery in the US, said in a September email: “There are no instances of children receiving surgeries or access to surgeries from their schools.” Hughes added: “No provider in the US would perform surgery on a minor under the direction of a school, let alone without parental consent.”

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The Washington Post is in deep turmoil as Bezos remains silent on non-endorsement

One day after The Washington Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election or in the future, its billionaire owner remains silent as the newspaper’s staff are in turmoil. Jeff Bezos has so far declined to comment on the situation, even as his own paper’s journalists reported that it was Bezos who ultimately spiked the planned endorsement. A source with knowledge told CNN on Friday that an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris had been drafted before it was squashed. In the last 24 hours, at least one editor has resigned, and high-profile Post staffers have publicly expressed their dismay as many in the paper’s Opinion section are furious over how the situation was handled.

For many current and former staffers of the venerable newspaper, the timing of the announcement was highly suspect and has led them to believe Bezos’s business interests influenced the decision. Former Post executive editor Marty Baron, who led the paper under Bezos during the first Trump administration called the decision an act of “cowardice.” “To declare a moment of high principle, only 11 days before the election that is just highly suspect that is just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point,” Baron told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday morning. Trump has threatened Bezos “continually,” Baron noted. But when Baron was in charge of the newspaper, Bezos “resisted that pressure” and he was “proud” and “grateful” for that leadership.

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Kamala Harris correct that border immigration has been cut by half

Statement: "As of today, we have cut the flow of immigration by over half." Immigration has been one of the toughest issues for Vice President Kamala Harris to address on the campaign trail; her opponent, Donald Trump, has repeatedly spotlighted a spike of illegal immigration under her and President Joe Biden. But in a recent CNN town hall in Pennsylvania's Delaware County, Harris offered an optimistic data point. "As of today, we have cut the flow of immigration by over half," Harris told moderator Anderson Cooper on Wednesday. She’s right. Depending on when you start counting, the drop is well over half. The night of the town hall, Harris’ campaign pointed PolitiFact to official federal government data on encounters at the United States’ southwestern border with Mexico.

Encounters are occasions when immigration officials stop someone at the border. A single person could be stopped more than once and counted more than once, and encounters do not mean that the person is let into the U.S. But for understanding migration at the U.S. border, encounters are a standard metric. Border Patrol encounters with migrants between ports of entry at the southwestern land border peaked in December 2023 at about 250,000. In September, the latest month with available data and the end of fiscal year 2024, there were about 54,000 encounters. That’s a 78% drop, or more than half, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows. If you start with a different month, the drop is still significant. From September 2023 to September 2024, the number fell from about 219,000 to 54,000, a 75.3% decline. From January 2024 to September 2024, the number fell from about 124,200 to 54,000, a 56.5% drop. U.S. immigration experts said it’s difficult to isolate single causes for changes in border arrival counts, but a Biden executive action that limits immigrants’ ability to apply for asylum at the southwestern border took effect in June and probably has had an effect.

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Faith groups use election scenarios to prepare spiritually, mentally for what’s next

At a Presbyterian church in Virginia, members of the small church met to prepare for the outcome of the 2024 election, praying, reading Scripture and strategizing how they will help their local community depending on who is victorious. At an Episcopal Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, a core group of about a dozen people engaged in a listening process that will influence their programs and budget after the November election. At a Presbyterian church in New York City, congregants planned a meditative service on the Wednesday after Election Day to reflect on the election outcome — or lack thereof — and include immigrants who they expect could feel vulnerable after the votes are counted. As questions loom about the outcomes of the 2024 election, faith leaders and some congregations are taking the matter into their own hands — and imaginations.

Across the country and on many Zoom meetings, lay people and clergy are envisioning different possible scenarios — a Harris victory, a Trump win, a change in congressional leadership or an unclear outcome — and thinking, praying and determining how to respond to each. The congregations in Virginia, Minnesota and New York have followed or been inspired by a “Day 1 Guide” produced by the Vandersall Collective, a consulting firm that aids houses of worship with fundraising and long-term planning. The guide’s focus is not so much on the first day of the next presidential term but, as it reads, “reclaiming perspective in an election year and finding a throughline for shared priorities regardless of election outcomes.” The 20-page guide includes a prayer by Mieke Vandersall, the collective’s founder, that begins: “Holy One, who knows what it feels like to be overwhelmed, Hold our overwhelm.”

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Trump preps for massive campaign rally Sunday at New York City's Madison Square Garden

Former President Donald Trump will hold a massive campaign rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden on Sunday, – just nine days before voters cast their ballots. The event, which was first-come, first-serve, sold out within hours of being announced. The 19,500-seat venue is home of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. The Trump campaign says the program includes political icons, celebrities, musical artists, and friends and family of former President Trump who will all discuss how he is "the best choice to fix everything that Kamala Harris broke."

"This epic event, in the heart of President Trump's home city, will be a showcase of the historic political movement that President Trump has built in the final days of the campaign," the campaign said in a press release. Elon Musk and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White will attend the rally Sunday. Musk has already hit the campaign trail for Trump, delivering a memorable speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, when the former president returned to the same site where an assassination attempt was made on his life on July 13. White, who has been a close friend of Trump for years and played a role in him reestablishing the mixed martial arts company in the early 2000s, introduced the former president at this year’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, telling the crowd the stakes have never been higher. Other notable attendees this Sunday include former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, political commentator Tucker Carlson and former Democrat presidential nominee turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard.

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Elon Musk’s X is boosting election conspiracy theories with AI-powered trending topics

Elon Musk’s social media app X is supercharging the spread of voter-fraud conspiracy theories with the help of artificial intelligence, boosting unfounded claims including two personal smears against Vice President Kamala Harris. The dubious content is spreading in the app’s “explore” section, which says it uses Musk’s AI software, named Grok, to aggregate trending social media topics. The information does not appear to be fact-checked by humans, and in several recent examples it seemed to repeat false or unsubstantiated claims as if they were true. The feature is named “stories for you” and has a label saying it’s in a beta test, meaning it’s an experiment not available to all users. Each “story for you” consists of a feed of posts related to a trending topic. On the desktop version of X, users can also see a paragraph-long summary of the topic written by the Grok software if they look at the history of the “story for you.”

The feature’s placement in X’s explore section gives it prominent digital real estate in the final weeks of the presidential election, in which Musk is backing former President Donald Trump. Its repeated amplification of misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the election follows a string of instances where Musk has personally shared similar ideas, both in live appearances and on his social media. In the past week, NBC News identified five “stories for you” that pushed baseless claims related to the election. Each trending topic curated by Grok includes a warning disclaiming any responsibility for accuracy and telling users to check facts on their own: “Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs,” the disclaimer says. On Monday, Grok uncritically repeated debunked allegations of wrongdoing related to the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems. Grok produced a “story for you” titled “Public Scrutiny of Dominion Voting Systems,” which aggregated posts accusing the company of “election rigging” and “fraud.” Dominion has previously denounced similar accusations as lies, and last year Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion.

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An elections worker wanted to serve her country. A stew of conspiracy theories and vitriol awaited

One morning last month, Cari-Ann Burgess did something completely unremarkable: She made a quick stop at a coffee shop on her way to work. For Burgess, the top election official in a northern Nevada county, such outings could be precarious. As she waited for a hot tea and breakfast sandwich, an older woman approached. “She proceeded to tell me that I should be ashamed of myself — that I’m a disgrace, I’m an embarrassment to Washoe County, and I should crawl into a hole and die,” Burgess said in an interview with The Associated Press the following day.

A morning stop at the coffee shop would be no more. It was added to a growing list of things Burgess no longer did because of her job. She already had stopped shopping for groceries and other basic necessities. Meals were eaten at home. If she and her husband did eat out or go shopping, they would travel an hour away from their Reno neighborhood. “I go to work, I go home, and I go to church – that’s about it,” Burgess said. “I’m very cautious now about where I go.” Still, Burgess said she was looking forward to November and overseeing the presidential election with her team in Nevada’s second most populous county. That came to an end one day toward the end of September, when she was called into a meeting with county officials. The county said Burgess requested medical leave to deal with stress and it has referred to her departure as a personnel matter. In a statement, the county said it was “focused on conducting a smooth and fair election.” Burgess said she was forced out after refusing to go along with personnel changes sought by the county manager’s office. She said she asked repeatedly to stay, even providing a doctor’s note vouching for her health, and has hired a lawyer.

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Lead Stories

With less than 2 weeks till Election Day, Harris and Trump are coming to Texas

With Election Day less than two weeks away, both presidential hopefuls will be making stops in Texas on Friday. Former President Donald Trump holds the first event of the day at 12:30 p.m. with a press conference at a private jet terminal in East Austin. After he leaves, it’s expected he’ll make an appearance on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience". Earlier this week, the podcaster announced on social media that he would interview Trump at his studio in Austin. According to Austin Monthly, Rogan's studio is located inside a home on the shores of Lake Austin. The City of Austin said Thursday to expect all lanes of SH 71 to be closed between U.S. 183 and Woodward Street. All lanes of U.S. 183 will also be closed between SH 71 and Burleson Road. Local officials also said people traveling to the airport in the afternoon should plan on traffic delays.

Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Houston on Friday for a campaign rally from 3 to 8 p.m. That’s according to the National Democratic Party, which boasts that guitarist Willie Nelson will be in attendance, along with Tina Knowles, the mother of Beyoncé. Some reports say Beyoncé herself will appear alongside the Democratic presidential nominee, but no public announcement has been made. Democratic Congressman Colin Allred who’s running for U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz, will also be joining Harris. According to current polls, Trump’s likely to win Texas by five points, similar to his 2020 margin of victory here. Nationally, though, polls show Harris and Trump in a very close race.

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Elon Musk’s secret conversations with Vladimir Putin

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions. At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request. Musk has emerged this year as a crucial supporter of Donald Trump’s election campaign, and could find a role in a Trump administration should he win. While the U.S. and its allies have isolated Putin in recent years, Musk’s dialogue could signal re-engagement with the Russian leader, and reinforce Trump’s expressed desire to cut a deal over major fault lines such as the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the contacts also raise potential national-security concerns among some in the current administration, given Putin’s role as one of America’s chief adversaries.

Musk has forged deep business ties with U.S. military and intelligence agencies, giving him unique visibility into some of America’s most sensitive space programs. SpaceX, which operates the Starlink service, won a $1.8 billion classified contract in 2021 and is the primary rocket launcher for the Pentagon and NASA. Musk has a security clearance that allows him access to certain classified information. Knowledge of Musk’s Kremlin contacts appears to be a closely held secret in government. Several White House officials said they weren’t aware of them. The topic is highly sensitive, given Musk’s increasing involvement in the Trump campaign and the approaching U.S. presidential election, less than two weeks away. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment. The billionaire has called criticism from some quarters that he has become an apologist for Putin “absurd” and has said his companies “have done more to undermine Russia than anything.” During his campaign swing through Pennsylvania last week, Musk talked about the importance of government transparency and noted his own access to government secrets. “I do have a top-secret clearance, but, I’d have to say, like most of the stuff that I’m aware of…the reason they keep it top secret is because it’s so boring.”

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Political divisions deepen over Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson’s innocence claim

A week after death row inmate Robert Roberson was set to die, the extraordinary quest to save his life has morphed into a deepening political battle between Texas House lawmakers and the state’s leading Republicans as they trade bitter accusations and push conflicting narratives around his guilt — or likely innocence. Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday condemned the bipartisan Texas House committee that forced a delay of Roberson’s execution, saying it “stepped out of line.” Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a graphic press release Wednesday, insisted on Roberson’s guilt and accused the committee of pursuing “eleventh-hour, one-sided, extrajudicial stunts that attempt to obscure the facts and rewrite his past.” Lawmakers, in return, blasted Paxton for publishing a “misleading and in large part simply untrue” summation of Roberson’s case.

State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, along with Reps. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, Rhetta Andrews Bowers, D-Rowlett, and Lacey Hull, R-Houston, issued a 16-page, point-by-point rebuttal on Thursday to Paxton’s release, including citations and exhibits shown at trial and since recovered during the appeals process. The Office of the Attorney General attached the autopsy report of Roberson’s 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, whom he was convicted of killing, and a statement from the medical examiner who performed it. But Paxton otherwise referred broadly to the trial record and did not acknowledge any of the new evidence presented in Roberson’s appeals. “There are no new facts in the OAG’s statement, only a collection of exaggerations, misrepresentations and full-on untruths completely divorced from fact and context,” Moody wrote on social media Thursday. The political fight over Roberson’s execution came as a result of the unusual transfer in venue for debate over his case from the courtroom to the broader public discourse — a shift wrought when the courts shut down all of Roberson’s appeals and lawmakers, convinced of his likely innocence or at least of a failure by the courts, turned to their bully pulpit to intervene.

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Judge rules in favor of Harris County's modified guaranteed income program Paxton sued to stop

A judge on Thursday sided with Harris County's latest iteration of a guaranteed income program, denying Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office's application for a temporary restraining order aimed at stopping the initiative from moving forward. The ruling comes a month after Paxton sued to prevent the county from launching the program.

Harris County has spent much of 2024 trying to use some of its federal COVID-19 recovery funds to provide financial support to struggling residents. Its first attempt was Uplift Harris, a guaranteed income pilot program designed to send $500 monthly payments to low-income residents who met the eligibility criteria and were chosen by a random lottery. After the initial program was blocked by the state, the county made modifications to the plan and tried again, renaming it the Community Prosperity Program. Thursday's ruling could allow the rebranded program to move forward. Paxton's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether it plans to appeal the decision. Uplift Harris faced criticism from Republican state leaders who argued that the program violated the state constitution's prohibition on giving away public funds as gifts. Paxton argued the rebranded program still does not meet legal requirements on the grounds that it does not accomplish a public purpose or have sufficient control over how the funds are used.

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State Stories

Byron Cook: Robert Roberson deserves a new trial

When I left Austin in December 2018, I was determined to explore life outside of the political arena. However, I can’t help but speak out and engage in the Robert Roberson case that is now unfolding in Austin. I had the privilege of representing Anderson County as state representative from 2003 through 2018, where this tragic case took place. During my time as chairman of state affairs I heard hundreds of hours of testimony which convinced me that few issues are black and white, rather one has to sort through the grey in making good decisions. I also learned sometimes the facts demand that you change your position. The right to change one’s mind based on the facts is critical to fair outcomes. After listening to the Texas House Jurisprudence committee hearing in seeking truth and justice in this tragic case, I am moved by the committee’s compassion and tenacity.

Frankly, this is a role that rightly belongs to our state, unfortunately our courts have failed in their misapplication of article 11.073 of the junk science bill for which I voted in favor. It is absolutely heartbreaking to me that our great state would ever consider executing a potentially innocent man when there is overwhelming evidence that this was a naturally caused death and a profound tragedy. I am so deeply distressed by this case, as I can see no reason not to have a retrial, it is my hope that the Anderson County officials will reach this decision. Alternatively, they could engage a prosecutorial expert to review the case and reconsider and recommend whether or not to request an execution date, additionally they could also submit a motion for reconsideration of his conviction after review. Simply put, Robert Roberson deserves a new trial. It is what justice demands, and what Texans should expect.

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The Texas PUC will rule on CenterPoint's rate increase next month. Here are the arguments it heard

The monthslong battle over whether CenterPoint Energy can withdraw from a required review of its rates will be resolved Nov. 14, when the Texas utility regulator has committed to making its decision. CenterPoint filed a request in August to withdraw its rate increase application after an outpouring of criticism over its response to Hurricane Beryl. Groups representing Houston-area cities and consumers promptly protested, arguing a withdrawal would deny them the opportunity to angle for a rate decrease. CenterPoint’s pending rate case uses 2023 as the model year to calculate its rates. The utility has proposed refiling its rate case next year with 2024 as the “test year,” which Thomas Gleeson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, said at a Thursday meeting could give the agency an opportunity to hear more evidence about CenterPoint’s Beryl response. The company's critics, however, have said the delay could allow CenterPoint to seek an even higher rate increase given its costly infrastructure improvements since Beryl.

An administrative law judge denied CenterPoint’s withdrawal motion in August, a decision the utility then appealed to the PUC, which has final say. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Mayor John Whitmire have opposed CenterPoint withdrawing its rate case, as both have said ratepayers may be entitled to a rate decrease. Gleeson said Thursday he was undecided and saw merit in both arguments. One of his takeaways from the PUC’s meeting in Houston earlier this month was that Houstonians want the agency to evaluate CenterPoint’s performance during Beryl, he said. “I worry that if we make a decision in a rate case that doesn't also include 2024 with Beryl performance that Houstonians will not be satisfied with that either,” Gleeson said. The PUC has an ongoing investigation into CenterPoint's Beryl response, with a report due to the governor and the Legislature by Dec. 1. Patrick Peters, CenterPoint’s associate general counsel, argued at the hearing that the utility should be allowed to withdraw from the rate review so it can focus on its ongoing efforts to improve resiliency and restore public trust.

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Hidalgo stresses need for community input, shows support for Houston ISD's $4.4B bond proposal

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo threw guarded support behind the facility improvements that are part of Houston ISD's $4.4 billion bond proposal Thursday afternoon, while urging the district's state-appointed leadership to do a better job listening to the community. Hidalgo spoke with concerned community members at the Houston Federation of Teachers' town hall and toured Benavidez Elementary Thursday, which would receive sweeping upgrades if the bond proposal passes Nov. 5. The bond, which would be the largest school bond in Texas history if passed, proposes spending billions to rebuild and renovate schools with “poor facilities and learning conditions,” expand pre-K and career and technical education in the district and make safety and security upgrades at all the district’s campuses.

The proposal has received pushback from both the Harris County Republican and Democratic parties and other community organizations, religious leaders and some Houston ISD parents and teachers. Some community members have rallied behind a "no trust, no bond" movement that emphasizes concerns over financial accountability and a lack of trust in district leaders, especially state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles. Proponents, including Hidalgo, the Greater Houston Partnership and many Houston ISD principals, say school improvements are much-needed regardless of district politics. "I will continue to advocate for increased community involvement, meaningful engagement and, most importantly, the end of the TEA takeover," Hidalgo said in a statement. "At the same time, I believe crucial investments are needed in our schools and cannot wait."

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Council OKs controversial $218 million police contract after hours of public comment

The Austin City Council on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to approve a $218 million contract with the city’s police union. The momentous, 10-1 vote came after the council took more than nine hours of testimony from hundreds of advocates, business leaders and residents who expressed a wide range of viewpoints on the controversial, five-year contract. The Austin Police Association’s last contract expired over a year ago. The latest will give police officers substantial pay raises and a one-time bonus – features that proponents have said will improve the department’s morale, recruitment and retention. It has struggled with all three in recent years. “After years of setbacks and challenges, I really feel we have a real opportunity to restore stability and confidence within our police department,” said pro-police Council Member Mackenzie Kelly, the council’s only conservative member, before Thursday's vote.

Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, one of the more progressive council members, cast the lone "no" vote. “At the end of the day, I don't believe this contract reflects the values of the majority of Austinites," he said. The contract will now go to the police association for a ratification vote. The road to a new, long-term contract was long and rocky. Progressive advocacy groups have vehemently opposed the agreement for alleged violations of the Austin Police Oversight Act, a reform ordinance city voters overwhelmingly approved last year to boost transparency and accountability at the police department. The hefty price tag also has been a major concern. The contract will give officers a 28% raise over its five-year lifespan, which opponents described as excessive – particularly because officers are already among the highest-paid in the state. But as much opposition as the contract faced, its supporters won out. The split sentiment was on full display Thursday when more than 500 people signed up to speak on the agreement ahead of the council vote. Testimony began in the late morning and stretched well into the evening.

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Nate Paul filing: ‘10-day jail sentence is imminent’

Recent federal court filings show Austin real estate developer Nate Paul battling on two legal fronts. On one side he’s fighting a potentially “imminent” 10-day jail sentence for criminal contempt issued by a Travis County district judge in a civil case. On the other side, Paul is seeking to get a dozen criminal counts of bank and wire fraud dismissed. Paul has been ensnared in legal proceedings for years, including civil litigation with the nonprofit Mitte Foundation, which sued Paul over millions of dollars it invested in his real estate company, World Class. The lawsuit tied Paul to allegations against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that Paxton disregarded his official duties to help Paul. Paxton was impeached for those and other allegations but was acquitted last September.

The Mitte Foundation invested in World Class in 2011 but sued the company in 2018 after a disagreement over access to financial records and regaining their funds, according to court filings. An arbitrator sided with the Mitte Foundation in 2021 – a decision that was upheld after the Texas Supreme Court denied an appeal. Amid those court battles, Paul violated orders by Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer, according to her court order. On March 31, 2023, Soifer sentenced Paul to 10 days in jail for six counts of contempt of court. Soifer found Paul had violated a June 2022 injunction by failing to report transfers over $25,000 and committing perjury, according to court records. Paul has fought the sentence at practically every level of the legal system available to him. On Oct. 22, Paul filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court. That same day he filed an emergency petition for writs of habeas corpus and mandamus in the Texas Court of Appeals for the Third Judicial District.

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Mattress Mack will host Trump rally with Harris County Republicans hours before Kamala Harris visit

Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale will host a rally for former President Donald Trump this Friday at Gallery Furniture’s North Freeway location, according to a Thursday news release. The news came days after Vice President Kamala Harris announced her intent to host a Houston rally featuring popstar Beyoncé Friday between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. McIngvale's rally is scheduled for 10 a.m. the same day. According to the release, McIngvale will speak at the event, and so will several unnamed special guests. "This is our chance to stand together and send a strong message," the release read. "We reject the failed policies of the Harris administration and embrace the vision of President Trump – one that prioritizes the needs of the American people, secures our borders, and revitalizes our economy."

McIngvale has been a consistent supporter of Republican candidates and policies on the national and local level. He recently posted a video on X endorsing Dan Simons, the Republican candidate for Harris County District Attorney, and previously supported Alexandra del Moral Mealer, the 2022 Republican candidate for Harris County judge. In 2023, McIngvale filed a lawsuit against the Harris County Elections Administrator’s office, accusing officials of failing to turn over records related to the election. In 2020, McIngvale offered customers who correctly guessed the outcome of the presidential election a 50% rebate on mattresses purchased at Gallery Furniture. Controversy arose after those rebates were delayed, with some speculating McIngvale was withholding payment pending an investigation into unfounded claims of voter fraud during the election.

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Getting high with the “Pot Lady” running for the Texas House

Sally Duval, a 59-year-old first-time candidate for the Texas House, has just taken what can only be described as a heroic bong rip, vigorously bubbling the water in the glass bong’s bottom chamber and then expertly riding the weed-packed bowl out of its holster as she inhaled deeply. Sitting at her kitchen table, she holds it in her lungs for several seconds while making that clenched, expectant face that pot smokers make—like a cat that’s swallowed a canary—before exhaling a cloud of smoke. It’s a product called Presidential Kush, from the High Hippy Flower Company, purchased at an Austin cannabis store, one of an estimated seven thousand across Texas selling what are essentially legal marijuana products. “Is this stuff pretty strong?” I ask. Duval is a lifelong daily weed smoker. Presidential Kush, according to the packaging, is a staggering 38.85 percent THCA. Duval coughs and then hoarsely whispers, “It’ll give you a buzz.”

This is my first time, I think, interviewing a high political candidate. But Duval has an unusual campaign. She’s running against Republican Carrie Isaac, who is seeking a second term, in a ruby red district encompassing parts of Comal County (New Braunfels, Canyon Lake) and Hays County (Wimberley, Dripping Springs). Duval, a business consultant, said she decided to run for office as a Democrat after realizing that Texans wouldn’t get a chance to vote on a ballot measure protecting abortion rights because the Republican-led Legislature would never allow it. “And so I got mad,” she said. (Isaac sponsored legislation last year that would make it illegal to create a website on how to get abortion-inducing drugs.) Duval has no campaign manager and no name recognition—she grew up in Texas but spent fifteen years in Europe after marrying a French man in 2006. By her own admission, she has virtually no chance of defeating Isaac. But in September, Duval cut an attention-grabbing political ad. The video opens with Duval smoking a joint on her back porch, a Hill Country landscape in the background. Duval gestures at her joint and says, “You might already know what’s in this, but do you know who has no idea and no way to test it? Law enforcement. They arrest people every day for marijuana possession, but they don’t have the funding to test if it’s illegal marijuana or a federally legal hemp product. Our laws are confusing and unclear.”

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Presidential election could decide fate of 70,000 Afghans living in the US

The Taliban, an ultraconservative Islamic political group, retook control of Kabul a little more than three years ago, dashing many Afghans’ hopes for a tolerant, democratic government. As U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan days after the Taliban’s resurgence in 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans flocked to the Kabul airport, desperate to be evacuated. Among them were Afghans who worked for U.S. military and NATO forces as interpreters and in other roles – in addition to other people who were afraid of the Taliban. Chaotic and sometimes violent scenes of the poorly planned evacuation captured media attention for weeks, as the U.S. military airlifted nearly 124,000 people out of Afghanistan. Many of the Afghans who fled their country in 2021 went to Iran, Pakistan and other nearby countries. To offer a lifeline to the Afghans who came to the U.S., the Biden administration announced on Aug. 29, 2021, that evacuated Afghans could legally – but temporarily – stay in the U.S.

As a scholar of civil conflict and refugee migration, I have been following the Afghan evacuation and policy responses in Washington since 2021. While President Joe Biden renewed humanitarian parole for approximately 70,000 Afghans in 2023, these people remain in legal limbo, unable to fully move forward in their lives. The upcoming election will likely be decisive in resolving Afghans’ legal status. The U.S. admitted Afghans into the country through what’s called humanitarian parole, a federal program that the president can authorize to offer protection to people in other countries facing extreme emergency circumstances. Humanitarian parole must be renewed by a presidential administration every two years, unlike the U.S. refugee admission policy, which gives foreigners who face legitimate fears of returning home the right to obtain permanent residency in the U.S. But humanitarian parole is not a permanent solution. The Afghan parole program enabled people like Mina Bakhshi – a female rock climber who had no future under the Taliban because of her gender – to enter the U.S. and attend college. It also helped people like Qasim Rahimi, a journalist in Afghanistan, to flee to safety with his family and settle in Kansas City, Missouri. About one-third of the Afghan evacuees who came to the U.S. settled in California, Virginia and Texas, and the rest settled in other states.

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Odessa reignites the bathroom wars

The Odessa City Council has reignited the infamous Texas Bathroom Wars with an Oct. 22 vote to ban transgender people from using appropriate restrooms based on their gender identity. Following what the Texas Tribune called “an emotionally charged exchange between residents and city leaders,” the council passed the bathroom ban in a 5-2 vote by expanding a 1989 ordinance that prohibits individuals from entering restrooms designated for the opposite sex. Residents, the Tribune reports, pleaded with council members not to pass the measure, saying that it and others like it are divisive, would stretch city services and “stoke fear among the community.”

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Tarrant County College cancels Hispanic Heritage Month event

Tarrant County College canceled a Hispanic Heritage month event due to fears it would violate a state law that bans diversity programs at public colleges and universities. The move has drawn criticism and created confusion about the future of other heritage celebrations. The Abranzando al Exito is an annual event to celebrate and inspire Latino students at Tarrant County College during Hispanic Heritage month. It was scheduled for Oct. 4 but was canceled days before the event because school officials say it may be in violation of a state law referred to as SB-17, short for Texas Senate Bill 17. Thirty-seven percent of Tarrant County College’s students identify as Hispanic, according to the college’s enrollment data.

The law, which passed last year and was effective Jan. 1 of this year, states that institutions of higher education cannot: “require as a condition of enrolling at the institution or performing any institution function any person to participate in diversity, equity, and inclusion training.” This would include “a training, program, or activity designed or implemented in reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.” There are several exceptions, such as “an activity of a student organization registered with or recognized by an institution of higher education” and “guest speakers or performers on short-term engagements,” the law says. In a statement from Tarrant County College’s general counsel to the Star Telegram, the college said the statute “limits the extent to which College employees can be involved in the planning and execution of such events.” The Abranzando al Exito event was planned by a committee of faculty and staff.

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Dallas school board to lawmakers: More money for teacher pay, school safety needed

Dallas school board members want the Legislature to boost funding for public schools to help the district pay for teacher raises and safety costs. DISD trustees voted unanimously Thursday night to approve their requests for Austin lawmakers, which also included a demand that legislators hold any school that receives taxpayer funding to certain accountability standards – a sticking point that will likely emerge in the contentious fight over education savings accounts. It remains a priority of Republican state leaders to create a voucherlike program that would allow families to use public dollars to pay for private school tuition. Gov. Greg Abbott failed to secure enough votes last session, but with changes coming after the November election, he may be able to wrestle a win alongside more supportive state lawmakers

Abbott is adamant that parents need a school choice plan that gives them more power to select the best campus for their children. Many public school advocates, meanwhile, worry that such a program will drain money from the districts that educate the vast majority of Texas students. “Many of us are still opposed to vouchers,” DISD trustee Dan Micciche said. “Many of us see that vouchers, you know, are becoming a more likely possibility than they had been in the past.” So Micciche added to the district’s list of priorities a demand that any school that receives public funds should be held accountable for student outcomes, fiscal performance and open records law. Public schools are graded on how well their students perform on standardized tests – with consequences for repeated failures. Private schools, meanwhile, are not rated by the state’s A through F accountability system. The priorities voted on by trustees Thursday night mostly focused on money needed by public schools. The Legislature hasn’t increased the base per-student amount it gives districts since 2019, despite new mandates for spending and huge inflation. Attempts to raise the allocation last year were ensnared in the fight over education savings accounts.

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El Paso, Tucson, San Diego lead nation in migrant encounters

San Diego and El Paso led the nation in migrant apprehensions between ports of entry in September, with Tucson not far behind. And while migrants from all over the world are the ones primarily coming across the border without authorization into California, overwhelming numbers of Mexican nationals are entering through Tucson and El Paso. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows border agents apprehended 13,309 migrants in the San Diego Sector in September, followed by El Paso with 12,507 and Tucson with 11,055. Most encounters involved single adults, especially in El Paso, where only 1,327 detainees came across the border with one or more family members. Agents in the El Paso Sector detained 8,231 Mexicans in September from Hudspeth County, Texas, to the New Mexico-Arizona state line. Of the remaining 4,276 apprehensions, fewer than 1,400 were from countries outside the Northern Triangle of Central America.

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South Texas Border Patrol sectors saw big drops in migrant encounters in Fiscal 2024

The three Border Patrol sectors in South Texas saw huge drops in migrant encounters in Fiscal Year 2024 from Fiscal 2023, according to new data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Rio Grande Valley Sector, which includes McAllen and Brownsville, saw a decrease of 60 percent in migrants encountered between legal ports of entry in Fiscal Year 2024. The RGV Sector reported 135,099 migrant encounters from Oct. 1, 2023 through Sept. 30, 2024. That’s down from 338,337 encounters in Fiscal 2023, according to CBP year-end data released Tuesday. The Del Rio Sector, which includes the border city of Eagle Pass, saw almost a 38% decrease in migrant encounters in Fiscal 2024 with over 244,000 encounters, down from 393,226 in Fiscal 2023. And the Laredo Sector saw nearly a 32% decrease in Fiscal 2024 with 31,108 migrant encounters, down from 45,644 in Fiscal 2023, according to CBP data.

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Oregon school district calls on Cruz to take down transgender ads

An Oregon school district on Thursday asked Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) campaign to take down two ads targeting transgender athletes because they include a photograph of two minor girls who are not transgender and whose parents did not give the Cruz campaign permission to use the photo. Cruz’s campaign ads, part of a multimillion-dollar media blitz hitting his opponent, Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), over his support for trans-inclusive policies, feature photographs of high-profile transgender athletes including former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and CeCé Telfer, a Jamaican-born sprinter and the first out trans woman to win an NCAA title. They also include a photo of two teenage girls who compete in track and field events at neighboring high schools in Western Oregon. Neither of the girls pictured are transgender, though the Cruz ads imply otherwise.

A representative for one of the girl’s school districts said the district and the girl’s family were unaware of the ads until The Hill contacted them. The girl’s parents did not give the Cruz campaign permission to use the photo, the representative said. The parent of the second girl in the photo did not return a phone call seeking comment. The Hill is not releasing the names of the girls because they are minors. In an email sent Thursday to the Cruz campaign, the representative from the Beaverton School District requested the ads be pulled “from any and all distribution platforms,” noting that the two athletes pictured are minors. “The family nor the school or school district ever gave permission for this photo to be used,” the representative wrote in the email, which was shared with The Hill. “It is alarming that your campaign would have produced/distributed/promoted this ad with false information, especially with minor children involved.” The image in the Cruz ad of the two girls appears to come from an April report by Central Oregon Daily News about criticisms levied against a transgender high school athlete in the state.

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Dewitt Peart and Edward Latson: Why the proposed police contract is crucial for Austin's future

(Peart is president and CEO of the Downtown Austin Alliance, and Latson is CEO of Opportunity Austin.) Austin is at a pivotal moment. We keep hearing stories from our neighbors, friends and colleagues about encounters with theft, violent crime, harassment, or lack of police responsiveness that have made them doubt the safety of Austin. The solution to these concerns is long overdue, and the time for action is now. APD is facing a severe challenge. With over 300 officer vacancies, they’ve had to stretch limited resources as far as possible. Response times have slowed, sometimes taking hours, and in some cases, APD has had to stop responding to certain crimes altogether. Thankfully, after good-faith negotiations between the city and the Austin Police Association, the City Council now holds the key in its hands: the tentative five-year police contract. For the safety of our downtown and all communities in Austin, it is essential that this contract be approved on Thursday, Oct. 24.

This police contract represents the most significant step forward the city of Austin can take to improve quality of life and the future of our great city. It addresses officer morale, which will help fill vacancies, while fully implementing the Austin Police Oversight Act to enhance accountability. This contract strikes a balance by improving public safety and transparency, fulfilling the need for stability at APD and the demands of voters. Opposing this agreement now, after years of negotiation and working to meet community demands, would constitute a failure of leadership for all Austinites. In downtown Austin, the need for public safety is particularly urgent. The high concentration of residents, businesses, and visitors creates added pressures. The lack of safety resources poses a significant threat to Austin’s economy and livability. The perception of downtown as a safe and welcoming space is essential not only for residents but also for attracting visitors and events that fuel the city’s economy. For both the Downtown Austin Alliance and Opportunity Austin, maintaining public safety is critical to keeping Austin an appealing destination for businesses, talent and investment.

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National Stories

David Holt: A Republican mayor’s unexpected presidential vote

(David Holt is the 38th Mayor of Oklahoma City. He will be the president of the United States Conference of Mayors in 2025-2026. He is married to a Philly girl (Rachel Canuso).) On January 20, 1989, I was so supportive of George H.W. Bush in his quest for the presidency that my fourth-grade teacher pulled me out of class and rolled a television in front of me so I could watch his Inauguration. As an adult, I have continued to take more than a passing interest in who serves as President of the United States, that person we choose from 337 million Americans to become the face of this great nation. In 2000, I cast my first presidential vote for George W. Bush. From 2002 to 2004, I spent two years serving in President Bush’s White House, and then returned home to Oklahoma to manage what little effort was needed to re-elect him there. I attended the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Republican National Conventions. In 2012, I served as a member of the Electoral College from Oklahoma, voting for Mitt Romney. As an Oklahoma state senator, I successfully authored a law to eliminate the possibility of Electoral College members not voting as they had promised.

During this time period of my adult life that I am describing — across four presidential elections — I viewed policy as the differentiator between candidates. Issues like a strong national defense, limited and competent government, fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, and a free-market capitalist economy all weighed heavily on my vote. It is only in 2016, 2020 and 2024 that I have been forced to recognize that there are criteria inherently more important, criteria that I took for granted. These criteria could be thought of as the three Cs: CHARACTER, COMPETENCE and COMMITMENT to our form of government. When it came to CHARACTER, reasonable people could attempt to draw minor distinctions in each election, but I took for granted that both leading candidates were good and decent people with integrity. I took for granted that even if they had made mistakes in their personal lives, they regretted those mistakes and they worked every day to be better humans.?I took for granted that both leading candidates had a personal story, career and behavior that I would be proud for my kids to emulate.

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‘Firehose’ of election conspiracy theories floods final days of the campaign

In the final days of the presidential election, lies about noncitizens voting, the vulnerability of mail-in ballots and the security of voting machines are spreading widely over social media. Fanned by former President Donald Trump and notable allies such as tech tycoon Elon Musk, election disinformation is warping voters’ faith in the integrity of the democratic process, polls show, and setting the stage once again for potential public unrest if the Republican nominee fails to win the presidency. At the same time, federal officials are investigating ongoing Russian interference through social media and shadow disinformation campaigns. The “firehose” of disinformation is working as intended, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that advocates for responsible use of technology in elections.

“This issue is designed to sow general distrust,” she said. “Your best trusted source is not your friend’s cousin’s uncle that you saw on Twitter. It’s your local election official. Don’t repeat it. Check it instead.” With early voting ongoing, local officials such as Travis Doss in Augusta, Georgia, say they are fighting a losing battle against fast-moving social media rumors. Doss, the executive director of the Richmond County Board of Elections, said many voters in his county do not believe absentee ballots are counted properly. Many think election officials are choosing which ballots to count based on the neighborhood from where they’re sent, or that voting machines are easily hacked. In recent weeks, Doss himself heard a rumor that a local preacher told his entire congregation to register to vote again because the preacher had heard — falsely — that everyone had been removed from the voter registration rolls. “Somebody hears something and then they tell people, and it’s the worst game of telephone tag there ever is,” Doss said. “It’s so hard to correct all the misinformation because there’s so many things out there that we don’t even know about.”

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As prosecutor, Kamala Harris navigated between ‘progressive,’ old-school

Just three months after becoming the chief prosecutor of San Francisco in 2004, Kamala Harris faced a daunting decision: whether to seek the death penalty for a gang member who fatally shot police officer Isaac Espinoza with an assault-style rifle. She could take the standard, old-school prosecution route and pursue capital punishment for anyone who killed a cop. Or she could stand by her campaign promise never to seek the death penalty. She chose the latter option, winning a life-without-parole sentence for the killing and earning the lasting enmity of law enforcement in California. The police officers’ union in San Francisco holds it against her to this day. “We never endorsed her for any of the races” Harris has run since 2004, union president Tracy McCray said recently. “The place that Isaac holds for many of us, it’s opening up old wounds. We’re not changing our position as a union.”

The decision in the Espinoza case typified the line that many modern prosecutors must walk, and which Harris continued to face when she became California attorney general six years later: Keep doing things the way they’ve always been done, or blaze a new path informed by modern experience with race, incarceration and fairness. Some of Harris’s supporters say she was a “progressive prosecutor” before the term was in vogue, launching programs designed to help first-time offenders and keep kids in school while dialing back drug possession cases. But she took other steps that baffled her liberal backers, particularly as attorney general, when she defended the death penalty, fought to uphold wrongful convictions despite prosecutorial misconduct, and defied a Supreme Court order to reduce overcrowding in California’s prisons. Harris has made her law enforcement experience key to her presidential campaign, telling audiences that she has prosecuted predators and fraudsters, so she is prepared to take on Donald Trump — a way of reminding voters of his felony convictions and history of alleged sexual assault and other wrongdoing, all of which he has denied.

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How Democrats can win control of the House even if Trump is elected president

Among the many permutations for how the elections could end, one prospect has sparked chatter in both parties: Donald Trump could win the presidency while Democrats seize control of the House. Such a split would be rare — not since 1989 has a president entered office without his party controlling the House — and give Democrats substantial power over Trump's legislative agenda. Neither side is conceding defeat on any of the electoral battlefields, with both going all out in the final days to capture full control of Washington. But surveys show a stunningly close election with shifting coalitions that point to a path for Democrats to pick up the four seats they need to seize the House even if Vice President Kamala Harris loses the presidency, according to sources in both parties with knowledge of the dynamics and internal polling.

“The most likely scenario is the House goes the way of the presidential, but there’s a world in which Trump wins and we lose the House — if she keeps picking up more in the suburbs and he increases in the inner cities and rural areas,” said a GOP strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the unwanted possibility. “There’s only so many of those rural districts where we have real pickup opportunities.” The theory goes something like this: The competitive districts likely to decide control of the House are disproportionately in the suburbs, which are a weakness for Trump. Republicans fear he could lose ground in those districts and hinder their candidates in those regions that are crucial for the House majority. But surveys also show Trump could modestly improve his standing among nonwhite voters, which might propel him to win some swing states — without helping GOP House candidates, as those voters tend to be clustered in safe blue districts that aren’t close enough to contest. Trump also has a path to win battleground states by boosting his margins of victory in rural areas, which tend to form solidly red districts already represented by Republicans.

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Election workers prepare to handle ‘concerning list’ of poll watchers who could disrupt the vote

During a special election in Wisconsin over the summer, a group of partisan poll watchers showed up at a handful of precincts in Glendale, a suburb of Milwaukee, and created chaos by contesting every absentee ballot that was cast. After they were reminded repeatedly about the rules against making meritless ballot challenges, the groups of poll watchers “turned disruptive,” according to Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy. “They refused to stop challenging, then they were asked to leave. They didn’t, and the police were called,” Kennedy told CNN, adding that once police arrived, the observers left peacefully. “It certainly gave us pause about what we’ll see later.” Turning what are supposed to be routine scenes of counting ballots into tense standoffs that require police intervention is exactly the sort of thing that election officials across the country are hoping to avoid when Americans go to the polls next month.

After conspiracy theories about voting spread rampantly in 2020 – as Trump and his allies tried to reverse his loss to Joe Biden – officials are preparing for a possible wave of misinformation this election season and hoping it won’t be fueled by volunteers acting as observers. Poll watchers are a key component of election transparency, and both Democrats and Republicans have built out their ranks of volunteers and lawyers to observe polling places and vote counting centers. But while Democrats have publicly focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, Republicans have made “election integrity” a centerpiece of their campaign messaging, vowing to deploy tens of thousands of people to monitor the vote across battlegrounds. However, there may be reasons to be skeptical of the GOP’s numbers, largely because they haven’t panned out in prior elections, said Justin Levitt, a CNN contributor and election law expert at Loyola Law School who served as a voting rights adviser in the Biden White House.

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As North Korea, Iran and China support Russia’s war, is a ‘new axis’ emerging?

The thousands of North Korean troops US intelligence says arrived in Russia for training this month have sparked concern they will be deployed to bolster Moscow’s battlefront in Ukraine. They’ve also turned up alarm from the United States and its allies that growing coordination between anti-West countries is creating a much broader, urgent security threat – one where partnerships of convenience are evolving into more outright military ties. Hundreds of Iranian drones have also been part of Moscow’s onslaught on Ukraine, and last month the US said Tehran had sent the warring country short-range ballistic missiles as well.

China, meanwhile, has been accused of powering Russia’s war machine with substantial amounts of “dual use” goods like microelectronics and machine tools, which can be used to make weapons. Last week, the US for the first time penalized two Chinese firms for supplying complete weapons systems. All three countries have denied they are providing such support. Taking stock of the emerging cooperation, a Congress-backed group that evaluates US defense strategy dubbed Russia, China, Iran and North Korea this summer an “axis of growing malign partnerships.” The fear is that a shared animosity toward the US is increasingly driving these countries to work together – amplifying the threat that any one of them alone poses to Washington or its allies, not just in one region but perhaps in multiple parts of the world at the same time.

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Takeaways from NewsNation’s town hall with JD Vance

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) took questions from Republicans, Democrats, and independents during a town hall in Detroit on Thursday with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo. The Republican vice presidential nominee fielded questions on a number of topics including the economy, immigration, abortion and the war in Ukraine and welcomed a call in from former President Trump. The town hall comes as both campaigns are crisscrossing the country less than two weeks out from Election Day. Here are some takeaways from NewsNation’s town hall with Vance. The Ohio senator sought to strike a unifying tone during Thursday’s forum, marking a contrast with former President Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. While Vance was strongly critical of Vice President Harris throughout the town hall, he kept his criticisms to her policies and leadership style rather than making personal insults.

Vance took the opportunity to praise Trump’s fitness for office during the town as Democrats have ramped up their attacks on Trump over the issue. The senator was responding to a question from a viewer who asked who he would go to for advice if he were to become president. Vance said the first confidant he would seek advice from is his wife Usha, but said Trump would “be a good president for all four years.” “Just look at the campaign schedule Trump has kept compared to his Democratic opponents. He’s doing like three public events for every event Kamala Harris has done,” Vance said. The comments come as Harris and other Democrats have accused Trump, 78, of not being fit for office. While Vance was the subject of Thursday’s town hall, Trump made an appearance over the phone during the forum. The former president elicited laughter from the audience when he asked Vance, “How brilliant is Donald J. Trump?” “First of all sir, this is supposed to be undecided voters. I would hope that I have your vote of all people,” Vance said, noting that Trump is “very brilliant.” Vance recounted a conversation between his wife Usha and Trump, during which Trump asked her what she thought about her husband working in public service. “She gives, if you know my wife, a very diplomatic answer,” Vance said. “‘Sir, he really cares about the people of Ohio. He’s thrilled to be able to serve them and I’m happy to support him however I can,’ and President Trump chuckles and says, ‘Yeah, my wife hates it too.”

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Lead Stories

Ken Paxton releases records to ‘correct falsehoods’ about Robert Roberson case

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday issued his first public remarks affirming the prosecution’s case against Robert Roberson III, the death row inmate whose execution was stayed last week after an unprecedented legal maneuver by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. In the evening statement that was released on X, via email and his office’s website, Paxton said he released the autopsy report and a sworn affidavit of the medical examiner who performed Roberson’s daughter’s autopsy to correct “lies” about the case coming from state Reps. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and Joe Moody, D-El Paso. Roberson, an East Texas man, was convicted in 2003 for the death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. He has maintained his innocence since his trial.

The 57-year-old was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 17 by lethal injection in Huntsville, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers carried out a novel legal maneuver that resulted in the state Supreme Court staying the execution. Roberson’s attorneys and lawmakers, including half of the Republican-controlled House, argue his case was based on shaken baby syndrome, a medical determination that abuse has caused serious or fatal head trauma. Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s defense attorneys, said in an emailed statement: “Tonight, a profoundly disturbing thing happened: The chief law enforcement office of the State of Texas, the OAG, issued a stunningly misleading statement designed to quash a bipartisan group of lawmakers in their truth-seeking mission, which has riveted the world. Why the urgency to execute an innocent, autistic man, with a perfect disciplinary record during the 22 years he has been confined on Texas’s death row, largely without any lawyer willing to investigate his claim of innocence?” Until Wednesday, Paxton had not publicly commented on the case. This past weekend, he filed a petition with the Texas Supreme Court asking for the order granting the subpoena to be reversed, which was later denied.

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Here’s why Henry Cuellar is favored to win reelection to Congress — even after a federal indictment

Six months after U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar was indicted for allegedly accepting $600,000 in overseas bribes, the South Texas Democrat appears to be cruising to reelection as Republicans make little effort to challenge him. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which promised earlier this year to try and flip the seat in wake of the criminal charges, has yet to jump into the race. House Speaker Mike Johnson paid the race no mind when he swung through South Texas this month, appearing alongside two other Republicans locked in tight congressional contests. And the GOP challenger has spent a fraction of what Cuellar has campaigning in a district that stretches from Laredo to San Antonio. Locals say it's tough to compete against a politician who is so entrenched.

Cuellar, who is seeking an eleventh term representing Texas's 28th District in Congress and has denied the bribery charges, is campaigning like business as usual. This week he appeared at a ground breaking ceremony in Laredo for a new federal processing center for migrants, followed the next day by an event at a hotel near the Juarez–Lincoln International Bridge at which U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was scheduled to be honored. "He makes it a point that there isn’t a day that goes by there isn’t a story about the money he brings to the community," said Sylvia Bruni, chair of the Webb County Democratic Party "People appreciate that." Even with an FBI investigation hanging over his head, Cuellar faced no challenger in the March primary despite his Democratic opponent two years ago coming within 281 votes of beating him. His opponent in next month's election, Jay Furman, a former Naval officer from San Antonio, has not received any financial support from national Republicans.

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The RNC is rebuilding its legal operation after Trump allies' failed effort to undo the 2020 race

The last time Donald Trump ran for president, the lawyers most directly involved in his efforts to overturn the election wound up sanctioned, criminally prosecuted or even sued for millions of dollars. This time around, Republican party leaders are working to present a more organized, skilled legal operation even as Trump continues to deny he lost the 2020 election and sows doubt about the integrity of the upcoming one. “It has been very important to make sure that in every aspect, we are going to have a fully professional operation,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told The Associated Press.

Among the lawyers with prominent roles are Steven Kenny, the RNC’s senior counsel, who worked at the high-powered law firm of Jones Day; Gineen Bresso, who was nominated by then-President George W. Bush to serve on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and later became chair; and Josh Helton, general counsel for Mike Huckabee’s 2016 presidential campaign. David Warrington, who represented Trump during the congressional Jan. 6 investigation, has also been involved in lawsuits, including one in Michigan challenging the designation of voter registration agencies. The RNC’s litigation so far has been aimed at ensuring voter ID requirements; asserting that non-citizens are improperly voting; and challenging what they see as lax rules on mail-in and absentee voting. Democrats have sounded alarms about the election integrity initiative, calling it an effort to sow distrust in the process and pave the way to cry foul if Trump loses. They have warned that election deniers installed in voting-related positions may refuse to certify legitimate results. And they’ve assembled a team of veteran attorneys, including longtime Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, and filed their own lawsuits, including challenging Georgia rules they fear could be used by Trump allies to delay or avoid certification. A judge last week invalidated seven of the rules.

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Takeaways from Kamala Harris’ CNN town hall

Over and over, Vice President Kamala Harris argued at a CNN town hall Wednesday night that Republican rival Donald Trump is “unstable” and “unfit to serve.” The Democratic nominee’s message in the closing weeks 2024 presidential race is squarely focused on warning Americans – particularly undecided independents and moderate Republicans – that Trump poses a threat to the nation’s core principles. She pointed repeatedly to former senior military figures in Trump’s administration who have called him a fascist and claimed the former president spoke glowingly of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals. She also raised concern over his comments about turning the military against “enemies within.” If Trump wins, Harris said, “He’s going to sit there, unstable and unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list.”

Harris was asked Wednesday night if she considers Trump a fascist. “Yes, I do,” she said. But, she added, she doesn’t want voters to take her word for it. Harris pointed to senior military leaders who served under Trump and have said the former president is a fascist – including the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, retired Marine general John Kelly. “I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted,” Harris said. In one particularly awkward exchange, she told the hosts of ABC’s “The View,” who asked what she would’ve done differently from the president, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” On Wednesday night, though, Harris seemed more comfortable with the proposition and argued that, if she was elected, change would follow. “My administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration,” Harris said. “I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience. I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe that we have to actually take new approaches.” After ticking off a few major policy plans, like having Medicare cover home health care for the elderly, Harris returned to what she described as “a new approach.” “I bring a whole set of different experiences to this job,” she said.

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State Stories

From making films With Nicolas Cage to $41 million healthcare fraud: Ivor Jallah sentenced to 10 years in prison

In 2019, Fort Worth Dunbar graduate Ivor Jallah made headlines in D Magazine and elsewhere for landing Nicolas Cage and Kelsey Grammar to star in his Southern Gothic thriller Grand Isle, which debuted at the Lone Star Film Festival that year. This week, he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for a $41 million health insurance fraud scheme. Grand Isle isn’t rated well on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, but the film won the Spotlight Award at the Lone Star Film Festival and received a Special Mention at the Noir Film Festival the year it came out. According to the federal indictment, Jallah and his partner Shannon Turley (the ex-wife of the now deceased MTV reality TV star Christopher Boykin of “Rob and Big”) had already been committing healthcare fraud for two years before Grand Isle debuted.

Jallah, whose first name is sometimes spelled Iver, was indicted in 2020 and pleaded guilty this summer to fraudulently submitting $46 million worth of fraudulent claims, $41 million of which was reimbursed. Court documents detail how the pair defrauded numerous pharmacy benefit managers and insurance companies, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, United Healthcare, Cigna, and Aetna. The two owned nine pharmacies throughout the state and billed insurance companies for fake prescriptions for headache sprays and pain and scar creams. The indictment says many patients were unaware of the prescriptions ordered on their behalf and never received the products. The co-conspirators paid for patient information needed to order the prescriptions. They created pre-filled forms with the patient info to others involved in the scheme, who would stamp physician names onto the forms and return them to the pharmacy. Their plea papers say they paid “marketers” for patient information and that some patients were aware of the scheme and required payment for their information, while others were unaware of the fraud. Physicians were also paid to provide their stamp on the prescription forms. Other times, the physician stamps were used without the doctor’s knowledge.

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Bulent Temel: New Texas Stock Exchange could bring prosperity to state's economy

(Bulent Temel is an assistant professor of practice in the Department of Economics at the University of Texas at San Antonio and an award-winning former financier.) The announcement about a stock exchange market to be established in Dallas is a promising development that will likely produce significant benefits for the Lone Star State. As an electronic exchange similar to the Nasdaq Stock Market, the Texas Stock Exchange, TXSE, will start trading in 2026. It aspires to provide a more laissez-faire environment to its listed companies and investors than the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, which have long been criticized as overregulating, under-delivering and overcharging. TXSE will accelerate Texas’ rapid rise as a $2.4 trillion economy, already the eighth-largest in the world and the fourth-fastest growing in the U.S. An astonishing 7,200 firms relocated to Texas between 2010 and 2019, partly due to the state’s regulation-wary political culture, lack of corporate and personal income taxes, and high quality of living.

Texas is tied as the second-ranked state for most Fortune 500 companies (52) and private equity-sponsored businesses (1,661). Having a stock exchange market that is less stringent will allow more companies to go public and improve their capitalization and growth prospects. Their investments also will boost job creation. For these benefits to be maximized, however, TXSE has to remain free of any local identity. If it ends up being perceived as a regional project that caters mostly to the businesses and investors in a particular area, it will not escape that association. While such a public image would attract some businesses that identify with that regional culture, it would turn off many others that would be concerned about the possibility of alienating their consumers, investors, suppliers and local officials. TXSE and its listed companies will maximize their profits if TXSE appeals to all cultures and worldviews rather than only a distinct one.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Abbott and Paxton did nothing to save Robert Roberson from execution. Voters can elect a judge who will.

Terre Compton remembers the baby doll. While sitting on the East Texas jury for Robert Roberson’s murder trial 21 years ago, an Anderson County prosecutor picked up the doll and started shaking it – a startling visual demonstration of what Compton and her fellow jurors came to believe Roberson did to his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki. They voted to convict him of capital murder and sentence him to death. Since then, he's spent nearly every day of his life in solitary confinement. Compton never saw medical records indicating that Nikki had severe pneumonia. She was never told that doctors had prescribed the little girl promethazine and codeine, and that toxic levels of the drugs were found in her blood. In fact, Compton said Nikki’s medical history wasn’t even mentioned during the trial.

What prosecutors hammered home repeatedly — with apparently little to no objection from Roberson’s defense counsel — was that Nikki died because her father shook her violently in a fit of rage, causing “shaken baby syndrome,” a medical theory that has since been largely discredited. Now that she knows these details, Compton’s doubts haunt her. During a 10-hour Texas House committee hearing on Monday, she told a bipartisan group of lawmakers she regrets convicting him. “Everything that was presented to us was all about shaken baby syndrome, that is what our decision was based on,” Compton said. “Nothing else was ever presented for us to consider. If it had been told to us now, I would’ve had a different opinion, and I would have found him not guilty.” Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton objected to the hearing, arguing that House members overstepped their authority in calling it, and by subpoenaing Roberson to testify. The creative maneuver persuaded the state Supreme Court to grant Roberson a temporary 90-day reprieve from lethal injection.

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Voting machine maker: Tarrant machines ‘cannot’ change votes

Tarrant County’s voting machines are incapable of changing voters’ ballots, according to the manufacturer. “Tarrant County’s voting devices are among the most secure in the nation and do not ‘flip votes,’” said a spokesperson for Hart InterCivic in an emailed statement. “The devices are tested and certified at the state and federal level and were successfully tested locally in Tarrant County prior to the start of Early Voting.” The company is aware of reports of a Tarrant County man who said a voting machine changed his choice for president at the White Settlement Library on Monday, Oct. 21, and it is taking the allegation seriously, the spokesperson said. “Hart voting machines cannot and do not ‘flip’ votes,” the statement read.

After video of Tony Carpenter talking about his experience went viral, Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig said in a statement posted to X that the machine was working correctly. “What we believe to have occurred is the individual did make a selection on the machine and that selection was printed on their ballot,” Ludwig said on Tuesday, Oct. 22. “When they went to cast their ballot, they checked it and realized that was not the vote that they wanted.” But Carpenter isn’t buying it. “He’s full of [expletive],” he said in an interview on Wednesday, Oct. 23. “I’ll tell him that to his face. He needs to call me. No, he needs to come see me.” Ludwig did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Carpenter checked his full ballot twice and his choice for president three times, he said. His vote might have gone to Vice President Kamala Harris had he been as carefree as others he said he saw voting.

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DFW Reps probe Tarrant, Dallas County unclaimed body policies

Two members of Congress from North Texas are seeking more information from Tarrant and Dallas counties’ medical examiner offices about their processes for handling unclaimed bodies and contacting family members of the deceased. U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas Democrat, sent a letter to the ME offices on Oct. 23 seeking the information. The letter follows a NBC investigation describing how the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth has used unclaimed bodies from Dallas and Tarrant County for medical research and sold some of the bodies to companies across the country. The program has since been suspended. Tarrant County commissioners in September voted to end the county’s contract with UNTHSC related to the handling of unclaimed bodies. A new policy was adopted earlier in October, according to NBC.

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Voter delay, incorrect ballots mark first day of early voting in Dallas County

When he arrived at the South Garland Branch Library to cast his ballot on the first day of early voting Monday, Javier Olivarez was eager to have his voice heard on 18 city of Dallas propositions. But as he began filling the ovals, he realized the ballot didn’t coincide with the precinct where he lives. None of the propositions appeared on his screen, he said. Still, he was committed to getting his vote for president counted. And because Olivarez did not want to hold up a group of colleagues joining him at the library, he decided to fill out the ballot anyway, forgoing the city propositions and his ability to vote on races in his his congressional and Texas House districts. And it hurt.

“As a brown, gay person, these votes affect my life and affect the lives of my friends,” said Olivarez, secretary of the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. “This was really important to me. I take voting very seriously, but I was more concerned with getting my team able to vote.” A software problem caused delays in Dallas County’s electronic check-in system on the first day of early voting Monday, resulting in lines of up to two hours in some locations as devices had to be rebooted. It also caused some voters to receive ballots for precincts where they don’t live. Although many errors were caught immediately, allowing poll workers to issue corrected ballots, an unknown number of voters completed and submitted ballots that weren’t tied to their precinct, Dallas County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia confirmed. Races for the president and county offices weren’t affected because they’re universal for county voters, but Garcia said the defect resulted in some voters submitting ballots without local races or propositions they should have been able to participate in. In other cases, residents may have cast votes in local races they shouldn’t have voted in, he said.

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Texas icon Elizabeth Francis, the oldest living person in U.S., dies at 115 years old

Houston resident Elizabeth Francis, the oldest person in the U.S., died at the age of 115 on Tuesday. Francis was the third oldest person in the world at the time of her death, according to LongeviQuest, a database on the world’s oldest people. Her validated age made her the 54th oldest person to ever live, and the 21st oldest American ever. She had spent most of her life in Houston, where she lived with her 95-year-old daughter, Dorothy Williams. At the time of her death, Francis’ primary caregiver was her granddaughter, Ethel Harrison, according to LongeviQuest. “Ms. Elizabeth was a Houstonian icon and a cherished member of the community,” a news release from the database said.

Francis was born in Louisiana in 1909 and has lived through several notable historical events, including two World Wars, segregation and a global pandemic. She had a sister who lived to age 106 before her death in 2011, according to LongeviQuest. “Ms. Elizabeth Francis was America's Grandmother. She lived a life of faith and love, always crediting the Good Lord for her longevity. She was beloved by her family and community,” said Ben Meyers, a spokesperson for LongeviQuest. “They are in our prayers, especially her daughter Ms. Dorothy Williams, whom she lived with until the end, and her granddaughter Ms. Ethel Harrison whose joyful dedication made it possible for her grandmother to live at home even at age 115.” “May Ms. Francis Rest in Peace; she will never be forgotten,” Meyers said.

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Dallas brings in consultant to study economic impact of high speed rail project

Dallas city leaders are moving forward with an economic impact analysis of a proposed high speed rail line to Houston. City council members on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve a more than half-million dollar contract with The Boston Consultant Group to conduct the study. City leaders have been in discussions with regional and federal officials about the high speed rail project, which would include a station in Dallas. The project had been stalled for years, but has picked up steam since Amtrak announced a partnership with Texas Central last year. The bullet train would travel to Houston in just about 90 minutes. A separate high speed rail project would connect Dallas to Arlington and Fort Worth.

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Archive of novelist Cormac McCarthy at Texas State doubles in size after recent acquisition

Texas State University in San Marcos houses the archive of novelist Cormac McCarthy. Officials announced on Wednesday that a recent acquisition has more than doubled the size of that collection. In 2007, the famed writer of Blood Meridian , No Country for Old Men , and The Road donated his papers to the university's Wittliff Collections. The archive opened in 2009. McCarthy published his last works, the linked novels The Passenger and Stella Maris , in 2022. He died in 2023 at age 89. On Wednesday, the university explained in a statement that he has acquired 36 boxes filled with McCarthy's private journals, photos, correspondence, manuscripts of unpublished novels, and research materials that helped him write his works. The new materials should be available to researchers in late 2025.

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Nearly 250,000 Harris County residents have cast ballots in first two days of 2024 early voting

As of Tuesday night, approximately 242,300 people have cast their ballot in Harris County over the first two days of early voting, according to the Harris County Clerk's Office. On Monday, the first day of early voting in Texas, approximately 125,400 people voted, slightly less than the record of 128,000 set in 2020 but still well above the first-day numbers seen in years prior. According to records, over 1.2 million people participated in early voting for the 2020 general election in Harris County, or about 52% of the total registered voters at the time. This year, there are approximately 300,000 more registered voters in Harris County and 9% of them have already voted. There are currently over 80 early-voting locations and the County Clerk's office is expecting the total voter turnout from early voting, mail-in voting and election day to reach historic levels.

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Walmart mass shooting victim brought gun to courthouse last year, records show

A hearing next week in the Walmart mass shooting case may include testimony about a victim of the attack who brought a gun to the El Paso County Courthouse last year, court and sheriff’s records show. A 39-year-old man, who was among 22 people who survived their wounds in the 2019 mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart, was detained by sheriff’s deputies Oct. 12, 2023, when they found a 9 mm handgun in a diaper bag he was carrying, according to an El Paso County Sheriff’s Office report from that day. He told deputies he forgot he had the gun, and was released two hours later after the District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute him. El Paso Matters is not naming the man because he wasn’t charged and was a victim of a previous crime. He is named in the sheriff’s report.

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National Stories

Republican poll watchers in battleground states worry US election experts

"Be aggressive," Jim Womack, a local Republican Party chair in North Carolina, told the grid of faces who joined the Zoom training session for volunteers to monitor voting on Nov. 5. "The more assertive and aggressive you are in watching and reporting, the better the quality of the election." During the two-hour session, conducted from a Republican Party office featuring a placard of an AR-15 rifle and photos of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Womack, 69, an army veteran and a retired information systems engineer, instructed 40 volunteers on how to spot "nefarious activity." He mentioned a local clergyman who accompanied dozens of Latino parishioners to a voting site "like a shepherd leading a sheep."

Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the United States - despite Trump's false claim, supported by a majority of Republicans in Congress, that the 2020 election was stolen. U.S. election security officials have said the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.” A months-long analysis by the Associated Press found fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud in the six battleground states challenged by Trump. With less than two weeks to go until the Nov. 5 election, officials in Lee County in the battleground state of North Carolina told Reuters they are concerned that training sessions like Womack's, with its call for aggressive scrutiny of the voting process, could lead to disruptions at the polls. The Lee County officials say they are adopting new safeguards to prevent poll workers from feeling intimidated. Womack said that election officials should welcome his North Carolina Election Integrity Team as additional eyes and ears to ensure a fair election. NCEIT has close links to the Republican Party. Reuters observed an Oct. 16 NCEIT training session and obtained previously unreported transcripts of NCEIT planning calls, which raised the prospect of noncitizen voting.

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GOP candidates embrace Trump’s call to abolish Education Department

Closing the Education Department is a central plank in former president Donald Trump’s schools agenda. Inside the Republican Party, he’s not alone. GOP candidates in some of the most competitive Senate and House races have proposed shuttering the agency, in some cases following Trump’s lead. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a future Republican administration, lays out a detailed plan for how to go about ending it. And former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos has said she would come back for a second term if the mission was closing her former department. Together, the pledges raise the question of whether Congress, if controlled by Republicans, and the White House, if controlled by Trump, would act on a promise that’s been floated off and on for decades.

On the campaign trail, a range of Republican candidates are voicing support, in sometimes dramatic terms. In Wisconsin, Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde this month called the agency “one of the worse monstrosities that’s ever been created.” “If I get to the U.S. Senate, one thing I’m going to say is, ‘Hey, there’s a spot to save a lot of money and do America a lot better — closing that thing for good,’” he said in an interview with a conservative podcast. The comment was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience. In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno, who is running for Senate in one of the hottest races, has said repeatedly that he wants to abolish the agency. “We’re going to get rid of some of these agencies that don’t make any sense, like the Department of Education and just move that money to the states,” he said last week in a radio interview. And in Montana, Republican Senate challenger Tim Sheehy says he wants to do away with the agency by “throwing it in the trash can,” the Daily Montanan reported. “We have a Department of Education, which I don’t think we need anymore,” Sheehy said. “It should go away.” Sheehy then pointed to decades-old civil rights legislation that bars federally funded schools from discriminating on the basis of race — rules that are enforced by the Education Department. He said this work is no longer needed so the agency can close. “We formed that department so little Black girls could go to school down South, and we could have integrated schooling. We don’t need that anymore,” he said. Today, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights still investigates allegations of discrimination on the basis of race, as well as sex and other factors. It has also said sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity, stirring opposition from conservatives.

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Massive displacement from Israel-Hezbollah war transforms Beirut’s famed commercial street

Inside what was once one of Beirut’s oldest and best-known cinemas, dozens of Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians displaced by the Israel-Hezbollah war spend their time following the news on their phones, cooking, chatting and walking around to pass the time. Outside on Hamra Street, once a thriving economic hub, sidewalks are filled with displaced people, and hotels and apartments are crammed with those seeking shelter. Cafes and restaurants are overflowing. In some ways, the massive displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from south Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs has provided a boost for this commercial district after years of decline as a result of Lebanon’s economic crisis.

But it is not the revival many had hoped for. “The displacement revived Hamra Street in a wrong way,” said the manager of a four-star hotel on the boulevard, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the problems the influx has caused for the neighborhood. For three weeks after the war intensified in mid-September, his hotel enjoyed full occupancy. Today, it stands at about 65% capacity — still good for this time of year — after some left for cheaper rented apartments. But, he said, the flow of displaced people has also brought chaos. Traffic congestion, double parking and motorcycles and scooters scattered on sidewalks has become the norm, making it difficult for pedestrians to walk. Tensions regularly erupt between displaced people and the district’s residents, he said. Hamra Street has long been a bellwether for Lebanon’s turbulent politics. During the country’s heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s, it represented everything that was glamorous, filled with Lebanon’s top movie houses and theaters, cafes frequented by intellectuals and artists, and ritzy shops.

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Trump assassination attempt: Secret Service knew airspace protection would end with former president onstage

Through public records, interview transcripts and a Senate panel investigating the July 13 security failure, Fox News Digital has learned that the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) knew former President Trump would be onstage at the open-air rally after the Federal Aviation Administration's temporary flight restriction (TFR) expired. An agent testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that they warned a superior in advance but did not receive the requested security extension, citing previous instances when the former president remained at a rally after the restrictions expired. The FAA typically issues TFRs for things like natural disasters, professional sporting events and presidential movements. No aircraft, including civilian drones, are permitted to fly when a TFR is in place.

The Pennsylvania rally site does not sit in controlled airspace, according to public records requested and obtained by Fox News Digital. The lack of restrictions emphasizes a security justification for a presidential TFR, which would block mainstream consumer drones with GPS technology from even entering the airspace. "Depending on the kind of drone, [some] are connected to that airspace database and may even prevent individuals from taking off," James McDanolds, program chair for the School of Unmanned Technology at Sonoran Desert Institute, told Fox News Digital. "[A TFR is] primarily just so the airspace stays cleared and our security and safety is capped." The drone agent assigned to the rally on July 13 testified during the congressional hearing that the Secret Service typically gets a TFR over an area for the time that the protectee, such as a president or major presidential candidate, is present at the location.

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Boeing machinists reject new labor contract, extending more than 5-week strike

Boeing machinists voted against a new labor deal that included 35% wage increases over four years, their union said Wednesday, extending a more than five-week strike that has halted most of the company’s aircraft production, which is centered in the Seattle area. The contract’s rejection by 64% of the voters is another major setback for the company, which warned earlier Wednesday that it would continue to burn cash through 2025 and reported a $6 billion quarterly loss, its largest since 2020. The strike is costing the company about $1 billion a month, according to S&P Global Ratings. New CEO Kelly Ortberg had said reaching a deal with machinists was a priority in order to get the company back on track after years of safety and quality problems.

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Inflation has cooled, but Americans are still seething over prices

The economy is humming. Inflation has cooled off. Americans are well-employed, getting raises and spending freely. But—with an election in less than two weeks—people still haven’t gotten over how much higher prices are today than in 2020. People find it unsettling that price tags don’t look like they did before inflation took off during the pandemic, surging to the highest level in four decades. Even though the growth in prices has eased significantly, prices themselves aren’t getting lower. “It’s hard to adjust,” said Marilyn Huang, a 54-year-old engineer in Doylestown, Pa. As with many Americans, Huang’s pay has increased since 2020, and she and her partner continue to spend on travel and even dine out more than in the past. But the higher prices are aggravating. “You lived with these stable prices for all your life,” she said. “Mentally, it’s hard.”

The couple took to trimming shrubs themselves because they couldn’t stomach forking over $1,000 to landscapers for a seasonal trim. Huang said she paid less for yardwork on a significantly larger property before she moved in 2022, and the cost now feels unreasonably high. Americans are grappling with dramatic price hikes that, for most, are unprecedented. In the latest surge, inflation peaked in mid-2022, with prices up more than 9% from a year earlier. In the years prior to the pandemic, inflation was unusually cool, and the last time it was a real problem was the 1970s and early ’80s. That means most Americans weren’t yet born or were children when worries over prices were last omnipresent—along with disco balls and bell bottoms. Inflation has slowed dramatically in the past two years, and it was down to 2.4% in September, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, employment and consumer spending have stayed strong, and wages have on average grown faster than prices. Many economists and Federal Reserve policymakers consider the current economy to be in excellent shape. Cooling inflation has enabled the Fed to start lowering interest rates after raising them in 2022 and ’23 to try to bring price increases under control.

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Lead Stories

Early-voting data shows Republican reversal appears to be paying off

Americans are voting ahead of Election Day in historic numbers this year. That includes Republicans, who appear to be responding favorably to a new message from former president Donald Trump: It’s okay to vote early. Dozens of states have opened in-person early-voting locations, and turnout has been robust. In Georgia, more than 1.6 million people had cast in-person ballots by midmorning Tuesday — nearly one-third of the total vote from four years ago. North Carolina hit 1.4 million Tuesday, the sixth day of early voting. And in Nevada, Republicans voting in person have outnumbered Democrats — a reversal from four years ago. Nationwide, more than 18 million Americans have cast ballots in person or by mail so far this year, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida. That’s more than 10 percent of the overall total who cast ballots four years ago.

What’s less clear is whether the initial burst of voting enthusiasm will last — and to what extent it reflects a shift from heavy rates of mail voting four years ago during the coronavirus pandemic. Republican participation appears to at least partially reflect Trump’s change of heart on early voting, which he slammed without foundation in 2020 as riddled with fraud but has heavily promoted this campaign season. “If you have a ballot, return it immediately,” Trump told an Atlanta rally crowd on Oct. 15, the first day of early voting in Georgia. “If not, go tomorrow as soon as you can go to the polls and vote.” Trump’s rhetoric in 2020 — which included false allegations that Democrats had cast millions of fraudulent ballots that lifted Joe Biden to victory — suppressed voting by mail and early voting among his supporters. Some in the GOP linked those attacks to lower turnout and even losses in some corners of the country, including in two Georgia runoff elections on Jan. 5, 2021, that cost the party control of the U.S. Senate.

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Trump’s former chief of staff says he fits ‘fascist’ definition and prefers ‘dictator approach’

John Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, entered the 2024 fray in stunning fashion, saying the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and wanted the “kind of generals Hitler had” in a series of interviews published Tuesday. Kelly’s comments, two weeks from Election Day, are the latest in a line of warnings from former Trump White House aides about how he views the presidency and would exercise power if returned to office. In addition to the fascist comments, Kelly — who was Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 — told The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

He also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment. “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” Kelly told The Atlantic he’d asked Trump. He added, “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.” Trump’s campaign denied the exchange. “This is absolutely false. President Trump never said this,” campaign adviser Alex Pfeiffer said. But Democrats quickly seized on the comments. Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said Tuesday night at a rally in Wisconsin that the reported comments about Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell.”

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Controller calls for ethics probe expansion into Mayor John Whitmire's State of the City address

Controller Chris Hollins penned a letter Tuesday to the Office of the Inspector General and City Council Ethics Committee calling on Mayor John Whitmire’s State of the City address to be included in “pay to play” ethics probe requested against him. Whitmire asked for the investigation into Hollins after he solicited sponsorships for Tuesday’s City of Houston Investor Conference — Hollins’ first as controller. In a Thursday news conference, Whitmire said banks called and told him the sponsorships gave the appearance of a “pay to play” system. Hollins fired back later in the day and called Whitmire a “walking conflict of interest,” saying the State of the City address featured plenty of sponsors with city contracts. Whitmire wrote in a statement Tuesday that the investigation requested is "in response to (Hollins) soliciting $100,000 from vendors for a private meeting with him." The mayor added that he did not solicit sponsorships for State of the City and that the "controller's attempt to divert attention from the appearance of the pay to play is under investigation."

"It is the practice of the mayor's office not to comment on active investigations," Whitmire wrote. "I did my job by brining this to light." The letter obtained by the Chronicle states that the controller's office used the same fundraising model the mayor used for the State of the City event. According to the letter, those similarities included: Both events being marketed to city vendors, Both events selling sponsorships, Both featuring VIP receptions for those who gave large monetary contributions, Both using their respective official's names and likenesses in marketing the events, and Both providing respective visibility of both offices. The only difference in the events, Hollins wrote in his letter, was who controlled the proceeds. The mayor controls the money for the State of the City, he said, while funds from the Investor Conference went to BankOn Houston and an independent body.

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Text message warning of ballot markings 'misleading, false and reckless,' Harris County Clerk says

With the early voting period underway in Texas, election disinformation is making the rounds, including a misleading message that has resurfaced from previous years. Houstonians have reported receiving a text message that cautions voters to check for markings on their ballots to prevent their votes from being invalidated, the Harris County Democratic Party said. The same text went out during the 2020 presidential election, according to PolitiFact. The message appears to come from someone qualified to give election advice: "Just finished Poll Manager training! I passed all the classes." It goes on to warn voters to check their ballots for "a letter, a checkmark, a star, an R or a D any writing of any kind" because the "ballot could be disqualified if it is written on."

The text message should be disregarded, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth's office said. The Texas election code requires ballots to be marked with Hudspeth's initials during the early voting period or the polling location presiding judge's initials on Election Day, Hudspeth said in a statement on Monday. "I assure voters that either my initials or the presiding judge's signature is required by the Texas Election Code. Any claims to the contrary are misleading, false and reckless," Hudspeth said.

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State Stories

Kamala Harris to hold a rally in Houston amid early voting in Texas

Vice President Kamala Harris is coming back to Houston for a campaign rally on Friday as the first week of in-person early voting wraps up. The Democrat’s campaign has not announced the exact location, but the rally will be between 3 and 8 p.m. In a statement promoting the event, the campaign said they are coming because the state is ground zero for Donald Trump’s "extreme abortion bans." After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas began banning the procedure without exceptions for rape or incest. Harris is expected to be joined by women who have been impacted by the state's restrictions. It will be Harris’ first stop in Texas since July, when she spent four of her first 10 days on the campaign trail in Houston for speeches and fundraising events.

The visit will be a rare one for a presidential contender this close to Election Day. Texas is not considered one of the nation’s battleground states, where White House contenders spend most of their time. If the state is going to get tighter or flip to Democrats, they need a big turnout in Harris County where Harris will be. The state’s most populous county has become increasingly blue in presidential elections. Joe Biden won 56% of the vote in the county in 2020, the largest percentage for a Democratic presidential contender since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Trump was in Houston and Midland earlier this month for fundraisers but hasn’t done any other in-person campaign events in Texas since speaking at the National Rifle Association Convention in Dallas in May.

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Why speakers at Texas House hearing say AG Ken Paxton's office misrepresented Roberson case

During nine hours of testimony during a Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence hearing over a possibly flawed conviction against death row inmate Robert Roberson and a state law that some lawmakers believe should have granted the condemned man a new trial, witnesses at the Capitol undercut statements that Attorney General Ken Paxton's office made in a bid to stop Roberson from testifying in person at the Capitol on Monday. In a unanimous committee vote Oct. 16, lawmakers approved a subpoena compelling Roberson to "appear before the Committee" at Monday's hearing on a state law providing a pathway for people to overturn convictions based on flawed science. Two hours before Roberson was set to die by lethal injection, Travis County state District Judge Jessica Mangrum on Thursday approved the House panel's request to halt the execution so Roberson could comply with the subpoena. The Texas Supreme Court later upheld the ruling. During Monday's committee meeting, Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, drilled down on statements that Ed Marshall, an attorney in Paxton's office, made during the hearing Thursday in Mangrum's court.

In that hearing, Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, who chairs the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, argued before Mangrum that Roberson's testimony is "vitally necessary" because the East Texas man man was set to become the first American to be executed for a conviction involving a "shaken baby" syndrome. Experts have since questioned the validity of the diagnosis of shaken baby in Nikki's case, as the triad of symptoms she experienced are now known to occur as a result of other conditions. In response, Marshall told the judge that "Shaken baby syndrome just doesn't play a role in this case," insisting that Roberson was "was indicted for a blunt force trauma murder" of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki. He also said that the man had a "history of abuse" against Nikki. Harrison read those statements to a juror in the original 2003 trial and to Roberson's lawyer, both of whom vehemently denied that they were true.

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Texas sues US over noncitizen voting allegations

Texas’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday, saying the federal government was not providing the help it needed in assessing the citizenship status of some of its registered voters. The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas accuses the Biden administration and specifically the Department of Homeland Security of refusing to help it determine the citizenship status of 450,000 of the 17.9 million registered voters in the state. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in U.S. federal elections and state and private reviews have turned up very few instances of them doing so. Still, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have argued that large numbers of noncitizens could vote in the Nov. 5 election, when he faces Democrat Kamala Harris.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has falsely claimed that his 2020 loss to Biden resulted from widespread voter fraud. Paxton’s office said he sent a letter earlier this month asking the U.S. government to verify the citizenship status of people who may be unlawfully registered to vote in Texas by Oct. 19. His office said he proceeded with a lawsuit when his request was not answered. His office said there were nearly half a million voters whose citizenship status has not been verified but acknowledged that the majority of those voters were likely citizens and hence eligible to vote. “While the majority of the voters on the list are likely citizens who are eligible to vote, Texans have no way of knowing whether or not any of the voters on the list are non-citizens who are ineligible to vote without additional information,” his office said.

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A saltwater geyser has stopped flowing in West Texas. Here’s what happens next

A tower of saltwater and poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas that plagued a Reeves County oil field for nearly three weeks has stopped flowing. Kinder Morgan said Tuesday its crews stopped the geyser on Monday, but that work remains onsite to fill and plug the well with cement. The company said it would begin to remediate the site once the well is capped. The Houston-based pipeline giant took control over the saltwater blowout after learning it was coming from a well drilled and plugged in 1961 by its subsidiary, El Paso Natural Gas. The geyser erupted just west of Toyah in Reeves County, an area of West Texas plagued by a recent rash of earthquakes linked to wastewater injection. It remains unclear where the water was coming from and whether it was industry wastewater.

“An investigation into the cause of the incident is ongoing,” Kinder Morgan said Tuesday in a statement. The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, said in a statement last week that it is “investigating all potential sources” of water feeding the geyser. Apache, a Houston oil company, said it had stopped injecting its wastewater into a nearby well “out of an abundance of caution” after it learned about the incident. Landowner Wade Caldwell said Tuesday he was able to survey the damage and found dead vegetation extended beyond the area where oily saltwater pooled at the surface. He said the plants appeared to suffer from “chemical burns” perhaps caused by the gas or the briny spray coming off the geyser. Preliminary water sampling showed the water was mostly brine but that it contained small amounts of oil, he said. More testing is forthcoming that could help determine whether the water was coming from a wastewater disposal well and, if so, which one, Caldwell said.

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Either way, outcome of Texas HD 70 race may signal political shift in Collin County

One of the few competitive races in North Texas is playing out in Collin County —traditionally a Republican stronghold. Democrat Mihaela Plesa Texas is the incumbent in Texas House District 70. But Governor Greg Abbott says Republican Steve Kinard can flip it. And since neither candidate can rely solely on their base for a win, they’ll have to approach their campaigns differently. Plesa and Kinard have been courting voters everywhere they can. Kinard went to a candidate forum at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. Plesa went to a Halloween fundraiser last week for local Democratic candidates. People decked out in spooky costumes gathered on a patio lit with string lights and jack-o-lanterns to hear from Democratic candidates.

Halloween is known for being scary. But Plesa told the crowd she’s not afraid — even though the Republicans have listed her district as a target this election. “I said bring it, Greg Abbott, because we are not scared of you,” she said. Plesa was elected two years ago. She said things are different this campaign. Plesa has name recognition and a legislative record. She was the first Democrat elected to the statehouse from Collin County in decades when she won. But the race was close. It was decided by about 850 votes. Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said it’s not an accident the seat is competitive. Republicans shifted boundaries during redistricting to protect nearby Republican incumbents. Jillson said that leaves a few seats like House District 70 up for grabs. It’s different campaigning in an area that’s more purple than solid red or blue. Jillson said it’s a balancing act. “You've got to be much more thoughtful, much more careful about what you what you say and where you go,” he said. Appealing to independent voters alone isn’t enough. The candidates still need to attract to their party’s base. For Kinard, that’s people at the Prestonwood Baptist Church forum like Darlene Workman.

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Advocacy group tries to halt City Council vote on Austin police contract, court docs say

Equity Action, the advocacy group behind the Austin Police Oversight Act, has filed a temporary restraining order in a Travis County District Court in an attempt to halt Thursday’s City Council vote on a police contract, according to online court records obtained by KXAN. The city’s labor negotiations team and the Austin Police Association (APA) reached a tentative agreement on a contract last month. This document is officially known as a “meet and confer agreement.” It can’t go into effect without council’s permission. The order claims the city is “poised to violate its ministerial duties under the Austin Police Oversight Act… by ratifying a tentative Meet and Confer Agreement on Oct. 24, 2024.”

Equity Action, according to the order, is asking the court to order the city manager to remove the police contract item from Thursday’s agenda. KXAN reached out to Equity Action, the City and the APA for further comment. This story will be updated when we receive a response. Equity Action first filed a lawsuit against the City last year, shortly after voters passed the Austin Police Oversight Act in May 2023. The organization claimed the City was not honoring what the voters put forth, and city staff said they were awaiting clarification about certain police oversight items from a judge. In late August, a judge stated the City acted “unlawfully” by keeping certain police personnel records sealed, and the City has now begun releasing these records via the Texas Public Information Act. As of Tuesday evening, the police contract is still set to be discussed Thursday.

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More people in Travis County voted on the first day of early voting than ever before

More than 46,000 Travis County residents cast their ballots on the first day of early voting, marking the highest voter participation the county has seen in the past three presidential elections, according to the Travis County Clerk's Office. On Monday, 46,646 votes were cast in person and almost 9,000 were mail-ins. Thousands of people have moved to Travis County since 2012, but voter turnout is still considered high when accounting for population growth. Just over 6% of registered voters in Travis County voted Monday, which was on par with the first day of early voting in 2016. Travis County is also touting one of the highest registration percentages of any urban county in the state with 96.3% of residents who are eligible to vote registered for this election. “We worked really hard getting everyone registered and all that would be for naught if people don’t show up to vote,” said Bruce Elfant, Travis County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar.

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Ground Game files ethics complaint as voting begins on McAllen ballot measures

As voters here begin to head to the polls to decide on a voter-driven ballot measure to bring campaign finance reform and direct democracy powers to McAllen, things have devolved into a war of opposing accusations. On the one hand, local officials, led by McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos, have taken to social media in vehement opposition of Propositions A and B on the McAllen ballot. But the proponents of the measures — led by an Austin-based Ground Game Texas — say it’s Villalobos’ own opposition that illustrates the need for the measures in the first place.

To that end, on Monday, Mike Siegel, the progressive group’s political coordinator and legal counsel, filed an ethics complaint against the mayor with state election regulators at the Texas Ethics Commission. The group accuses Villalobos of violating Texas election law by participating in a political action committee that has surfaced to officially oppose Props A and B. “Mr. Javier Villalobos violated Title 15 of the Election Code … by failing to file a treasurer appointment for ‘Concerned McAllen Residents,’ an unregistered political action committee that has spent more than $1050 in opposition to the McAllen Ballot Propositions A and B …” Siegel states in a three-page complaint. Speaking with The Monitor on Tuesday, Siegel went a step further, calling the mayor’s actions hypocritical. “This illustrates, frankly, the hypocrisy of the mayor, who is telling the public in his Facebook messages, in his other advocacy that, ‘We’re McAllen, we’re good, we don’t need this,’” Siegel said.

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San Benito residents petition to recall commissioners, stop charter election

While some residents are requesting commissioners call an election to let voters decide if want to remove them from office, the group is also asking a judge to stop a Nov. 5 election aimed at deciding the fate of five proposed amendments to the City Charter. At Cameron County’s 197th state District court, a judge was set to consider former city official Julian Rios’ request to prohibit commissioners from placing five propositions on the ballot during a 10 a.m. Oct. 28 hearing. City officials are contracting the Cameron County Elections Department to conduct the election at a cost of about $16,885, Elections Administrator Remi Garza said. At City Hall, residents presented officials with petitions carrying signatures requesting commissioners order a recall election asking voters if they want to remove Mayor Rick Guerra and the city’s five commissioners from office, officials said.

In at least decades, it’s the first time San Benito residents have requested a recall election. On Tuesday, Rios, the San Benito Economic Development Corporations’ former president, and former City Commissioner Carol Lynn Sanchez did not respond to requests for comment. “We have to bring the city together,” Commissioner Tom Goodman said in response to the recall drive. “We’ve become our own worst enemies trying to work to keep our city progressing. There are many good things happening in San Benito — residential development, commercial development. There are entertainment venues and more. I don’t understand what the purpose of all this is. There are no perfect politicians.” On Sept. 16, Wayne Dolcefino, owner of Dolcefino Consulting in Houston, announced a group of residents was gathering signatures in a drive aimed at requesting a recall election.

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Tarrant County voter says ballot did not accurately reflect choice for president

A Tarrant County voter said his printed ballot did not accurately reflect his selection for president, prompting elections officials Tuesday to publicly dispel rumors of voter fraud. In a now-viral video on social media, a man said he early voted Monday in White Settlement, a suburb of Fort Worth, and his paper ballot was incorrect. Tarrant County voters make their selections on a screen, then print a paper ballot to review and submit. “I voted for one president, checked it on the video screen. When I got the paper ballot, it had the other candidate’s name on it,” the man says in the video. “Check your paper ballots, everybody.” The video has been viewed tens of thousands of times since it was posted Monday. Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Bo French shared the video on X, later writing that former President Donald Trump was aware of the issue.

But county officials said the incorrect ballot appeared to be a simple mistake. In a video posted Tuesday to X, Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig said officials believe the man accidentally selected the wrong candidate on the screen, then noticed his mistake on the paper ballot. “This is not uncommon,” Ludwig said. The voter notified a poll worker, who voided the ballot, and the man revoted. In a statement, county officials said voters should confirm their selections on their paper ballot before submitting. A county spokesperson told The Dallas Morning News no other incorrect ballots were reported. More than 100,000 people have voted early so far in Tarrant County. “Tarrant County Elections has no reason to believe that votes are being switched by the voting system,” the county said in a statement. The issue could inflame groups that have sought to sow doubt about the integrity of voting, even as election officials offer repeated assurances that voting is secure and accurate. The Dallas County Republican Party last week issued a long list of concerns about voting machines, but a state examination found no problems.

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Capitol hearing extended, then adjourned without hearing from death row’s Robert Roberson

After hearing more than nine hours of testimony Monday on Robert Roberson’s case, the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee stood at ease — instead of adjourning — as lawmakers worked to get the death row inmate to appear in person in Austin. The negotiations were not successful, Roberson remained on death row in Livingston, and the committee adjourned Tuesday afternoon without reopening the hearing. Democratic Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso, chairman of the committee, said he will continue to press for Roberson to testify before lawmakers. “There have been a number of very productive conversations on that front and we will continue to have those and fully anticipate that we will be able to take Mr. Roberson’s testimony in the near future, and we’re working on those details,” Moody said before adjourning.

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Galveston Democrat's misspelled name on ballot won't affect vote tally, clerk says

The name of the Democratic candidate for Texas Congressional District 14, which includes Galveston and parts of Port Arthur, is Rhonda Hart — not "Rhoda" — as it appeared on the printed ballot she received after she cast her vote at the Galveston County Court House Tuesday, she said. Hart told the Chronicle that, while her name was spelled correctly in the voting machine's interface, the physical ballot seemingly dropped the "N" from her first name. Galveston County Clerk Dwight Sullivan said his office was aware of the issue and that he did not expect it to impact the vote in any way. "Apparently the letter N has been dropped from my name, so now I go by Rhoda Hart," she joked. "It sounds like an honest mistake right now. I've been assured it's not going to impact the count in any way shape or form."

She said she became aware of the problem when one of her voters in Texas City, located just north of Galveston Island, reported that Hart's name was misspelled on the ballot there. She didn't didn't think much of it, until she went to cast her vote Tuesday afternoon. "I was a little shy to identify myself publicly at a polling location, but I decided to bring (it) up to the election's judge since this was the second time I was seeing it," Hart said. "He was on top of it. He called the elections office and everything. So, yeah, he was really great." Hart is a political newcomer with a platform built in part on stemming the tide of gun violence. In 2018, her 14-year-old daughter was among the eight students killed during the Sante Fe High School Shooting. Hart swept the Democratic primary, taking 100% of the more than 15,000 votes cast in that election, according to Ballotpedia. The 14th District has been a Republican bastion for more than 30 years. The seat was previously held by Ron Paul from 1996 to 2012. The current incumbent, Randy Weber, was sworn in in 2013, and has represented the district in the U.S. House of Representatives since then.

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Fort Worth vows to catch up on large backlog of rape kits

Fort Worth police Chief Neil Noakes took personal responsibility for a backlog of 969 rape kits that haven’t been fully processed by the city’s crime lab. “This is a completely unacceptable situation we’re in right now,” Noakes said speaking at an Oct. 22 city council work session. He acknowledged the courage it take for a sexual assault survivor to reach out to the police for help, and the hurt they must feel at having their cases delayed because of untested rape kits. “This hurts us to know we’ve hurt others,” he said. Fort Worth sees around 350 sexual assault cases a year, so the backlog could represent roughly two years worth of cases, Distirct 8 Councilmember Chris Nettles said.

The biggest impediment has been entering tested rape kits into a state database used to match DNA from rape kits to an unknown offender. The city budgeted for eight forensic scientists to help process these kits, but has only filled three positions, Noakes said. And only two of the three are certified to enter the tested rape kits into the state database, he said. Of the 969 unprocessed kits, 779 have been tested, but not entered into that database, Noakes said. He stressed that entry into the database is not a prerequisite for prosecution, but can help identify suspects when the assailant is unknown to the victim. The other 190 untested kits have been sent to an outside vendor for testing, Noakes told the council. Roughly 116 of 190 untested kits have been sitting for longer than 90-days, he said. State law requires rape kits to be tested within 30 days of being handed off from a hospital to the police department. If the police department doesn’t meet that threshold, it risks losing grant funding meant to help address the backlog.

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Fort Worth ISD’s interim chief outlines academic growth plan

The Fort Worth school district is at risk of another year of lackluster academic progress if its teachers and leaders don’t do something differently, the district’s interim superintendent told the school board Tuesday. Karen Molinar, who was appointed to lead the district earlier this month after former Superintendent Angélica Ramsey’s departure, emphasized that the district is both morally obligated and legally required to accelerate students who have fallen behind. If the district doesn’t intervene, she projected that nearly three quarters of all students will perform below grade level on next spring’s STAAR exam. “We can’t do everything at once, but we need to do something immediately,” she said.

During the meeting, Molinar presented MAP assessment scores from the beginning of the year, broken out by student subgroups. Across all student groups, the district’s scores this year were almost identical to those from the beginning of the last school year. African American students and special education students lagged well behind the rest of the district — gaps Molinar said the district needs to do more to close. The district’s needs are too great for leaders to be able to focus on every student who needs extra help, she said, but student achievement data can help them figure out which students are furthest behind and target their efforts there. Unlike state tests, which students take at the end of each year, districts give students MAP tests at the beginning, middle and end of each year, giving teachers a look at how students are progressing. MAP scores are a reliable indicator of how well students will perform on STAAR exams, Molinar said.. The district projects that, if nothing changes, 26% of students will score on grade level in reading on the next STAAR exam. Just 20% of students met grade level in reading on last year’s STAAR, so that projection would represent an improvement. But it would still mean that three quarters of the district’s students were behind in literacy. Among other steps, Molinar said the district will send central office staff to campuses to work with students who need extra help. Many central office staffers are certified teachers, she said, and many of them are some of the most effective educators in the district.

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Dallas County lags behind state as first-day voting numbers climb

The number of Texans who showed up at the polls on the first day of early voting is up at least 15% over that for the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. At least 870,000 people cast a ballot Monday, surpassing 2020's opening day by over 87,000, though some counties are still reporting their tallies, according to Texas Secretary of State data. “Higher numbers would make sense for a couple of reasons,” said Matthew Wilson, an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. “The state’s population has grown, so you have more voters than you did four years ago. But there’s also more excitement about this presidential election than there was four years ago.” He also noted residents who may have had to vote by mail because of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 may be casting ballots in person instead. The secretary of state’s office says a record 18.6 million Texans are registered to vote, a nearly 10% increase from 2020.

More than a dozen counties hadn’t reported their first-day numbers of in-person voters to the state as of 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, but initial numbers for the Nov. 5 election this year were higher than thewy were four years ago. Early voting runs through Nov. 1, and most people cast their ballots ahead of Election Day. Still, state data shows record-high first-day early voting presidential election numbers around North Texas boosted the statewide tally. But that wasn’t the case in Dallas County, where numbers dipped below those for 2020 and 2016. The presidential election between Republican former president Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris headlines the Nov. 5 election. Voters are also being asked to weigh in on a wide range of other items on the ballot this year, including the election of a U.S. senator and a series of local races and controversial ballot propositions around the state. Dallas County officials reported 56,074 voters cast ballots on Monday. According to the state, that’s fewer than the 60,573 voters who went to the polls in person on the first day of early voting in October 2020 and 58,775 voters in October 2016. Collin County reported seeing 43,398 voters, more than the 39,469 in 2020 and 31,283 in 2016. There were 49,813 voters who showed up Monday in Denton County, compared with 36,040 in 2020 and 16,936 in 2016. In Tarrant County, 58,247 people voted Monday, more than the 42,351 in 2020 and 43,149 in 2016.

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National Stories

Governor DeSantis calls Florida GOP voters with misleading warnings about abortion, marijuana amendments

I got a phone call from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tonight. At 6:44 pm ET, my cell phone rang with a call identified as “POLITICAL CALL” from an 850 area code, which is Tallahassee, our state capital. Being a curious political junkie — and expecting the call to be a poll — I answered. It wasn’t a poll. The person introducing the call said she was calling with the Republican Party of Florida. “We are currently hosting a live telephone town hall with Governor Ron DeSantis to discuss Florida’s dangerous constitutional amendments on the ballot November 5th,” she said. “Stay on the line and you will connect momentarily to hear from Governor DeSantis or press 1 on your phone to join right now. Please note that this call may be recorded.”

I’m a registered Republican who always votes, so I have been inundated with campaign mail and text messages the past few months, but I’ve been a very outspoken critic of the governor, so the fact that no one at RPOF figured out how to not include me on their call list was an amusing surprise. I quickly grabbed my digital recorder and hit record. After all, RPOF already told me “this call may be recorded,” and if they have the right to record it, so do I. The call was clearly intended for Republican voters, as DeSantis emphasized that RPOF was urging listeners to vote no on Amendment 3 and 4, the amendments on the Florida ballot this year dealing with recreational marijuana legalization and abortion, respectively. It is noteworthy not just that DeSantis has personally been very outspoken in opposition to these ballot amendments, but how his position diverges from former President Donald Trump, who spent weeks dodging questions about how he intended to vote on Amendment 4. Trump has frequently criticized the 6-week ban DeSantis signed into law, and in late August seemed to indicate support for Amendment 4, telling a reporter that “six weeks is a mistake” and “I do want more than six weeks,” but later that day a campaign adviser walked that back and said Trump had yet to decide. He finally clarified on Fox News that he would be voting no, but the ex-president is notably far less strident on the issue than DeSantis, perhaps due to the way the issue is viewed as an obstacle to winning over women voters. Democrats, both nationally and in Florida, are certainly hoping to capitalize on that.

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U.S. officials say Russia smeared Tim Walz, might stoke post-vote violence

U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday said Russians seeking to disrupt the U.S. elections created a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations and are considering fomenting violence during and after the vote. The faked content accused Walz of inappropriate interactions with students while a teacher and coach. The posts drew millions of views on social media, falsely tarring the Minnesota governor ahead of Nov. 5. The officials said the Russian videos were part of the most active attempt by another country to tilt the 2024 election. They added that Russian government agencies and contractors, which generally seek to boost Republican former president Donald Trump’s campaign, are considering trying to instigate physical violence in the fraught period after voters cast their ballots.

“Some of these influence efforts are aimed at inciting violence and calling into question the validity of democracy as a political system, regardless of who wins,” a senior intelligence official told reporters in the latest of a series of background election-threat briefings. Russia is “potentially seeking to stoke threats towards poll workers, as well as amplifying protests and potentially encouraging protests to be violent,” the official added. This was the first such briefing to raise the specter of violence, and the officials struck a tone of greater urgency in describing the disinformation challenges and their limited abilities to counteract them. “The point of this is information is power,” the senior official said. “We’ve been trying to get as much information about these tactics, their methods and how they are manifesting out to the American people, so that they can be as informed as possible.” The Russian Embassy did not respond to emails seeking comment.

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IRS sets new tax brackets, raises standard deduction for 2025

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Tuesday announced its inflation adjustments to tax brackets and deductions for the 2025 tax year, potentially giving Americans a chance to increase their take-home pay next year. Each year, the IRS updates the federal income tax bracket as well as the standard deduction and other tax policies to avoid a phenomenon known as "bracket creep," which occurs when taxpayers are pushed into higher tax brackets due to increasing income despite their purchasing power being unchanged or reduced because of high inflation. While the IRS goes through the process of making inflation adjustments annually, the increases are more significant and impactful for taxpayers during periods of high inflation.

This year, the IRS is shifting brackets higher by about 2.75%. By comparison, last year's adjustment was about 5.4% – which reflects the elevated inflation that was prevailing in the U.S. economy in the preceding year in comparison with the past year. The IRS released its inflation adjustments to the tax code for the 2025 tax year. The higher thresholds for where various tax rates take effect could result in savings for millions of workers across all income brackets. Here's a look at the changes unveiled by the IRS that will take effect for the 2025 tax year and returns that are filed in 2026. Standard deduction: The standard deduction, which reduces the amount of income Americans must pay taxes on, is claimed by a majority of taxpayers. It's set to increase by $400 to $15,000 for single taxpayers, while it will increase by $800 to $30,000 for married taxpayers who file returns jointly. Heads of households will have a standard deduction of $22,500 for tax year 2025, up $600 from this year. Tax brackets for single individuals: The IRS is increasing its tax brackets by about 2.75% for both individual and married filers across various income levels in tax year 2025: 10%: Taxable income up to $11,925; 12%: Taxable income over $11,925; 22%: Taxable income over $48,475; 24%: Taxable income over $103,350; 32%: Taxable income over $197,300; 35%: Taxable income over $250,525; 37%: Taxable income over $626,350.

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Unpacking the most riveting governor contests

The next Jimmy Carter could be on the Nov. 5 ballot. Half a century ago, the Georgia governor and peanut farmer emerged from seemingly nowhere to capture the post-Watergate moment and catapult himself to the presidency. Voters in 11 states will choose governors on Election Day. While these races have been muted by the nonstop noise of the presidential contest — and most of the candidates currently have little national cache — the winners will have a huge impact on their states over the next four years, and some of them may emerge as future presidential contenders. Among the last eight White House occupants, four had previously served as governors. Republicans currently hold eight of the state executive posts up for grabs this year, and GOP incumbents are running in just three of those states. That seemingly gives Democrats a big opportunity to flip some seats and erode Republicans’ narrow 27-23 advantage in state capitals.

But with less than two weeks before Election Day, there’s only one true toss-up — New Hampshire, where polling shows former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte locked in a dead heat with former Democratic Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig. What was expected by many political observers to be the most compelling gubernatorial contest of the election cycle — North Carolina — has turned into a GOP car crash, with the party’s nominee tarnished by salacious revelations about his past conduct. But another contest that wasn’t on many radar screens even a couple of months ago — Indiana — looks surprisingly competitive. That’s due to the strength of the Democratic nominee, Jennifer McCormick, who was previously elected to the state’s top education post running as a Republican. New Hampshire’s race to replace Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is the most competitive in the country. Former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, a Democrat, and former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte are in a statistical dead heat in recent polls, though one early October survey from St. Anselm College showed Ayotte with a three-point lead.

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House Republicans brace for leadership scramble

House Republicans are bracing for potential leadership shake-ups in the coming weeks, a post-election scramble that will heavily depend on who wins control of the lower chamber and White House in November. The biggest wildcard is what Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will do. The Louisiana Republican has said he wants to continue to lead the House GOP conference if they retain the majority, but has been mum on his plans if Democrats take the upper hand in the lower chamber. Amid that uncertainty, Republican lawmakers have their eyes on the next moves of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 House GOP leader; Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has conspicuously worked to increase his fundraising across the conference; and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who has made an effort to repair his relationship with former President Trump.

And hanging over the leadership conversation is Trump himself, whose support could tip the scales in favor of one Republican over another — especially if he wins another term in the White House. In conversations with The Hill, nearly two dozen Republican lawmakers, aides and operatives said next year’s House GOP leadership lineup — which will be determined the after the election — remains up in the air. “I don’t know what the chess board’s going to look like,” one House Republican told The Hill, “but I definitely think there are some people who are trying to make some moves.” Johnson has made it clear that he hopes to keep his gavel if the party retains control of the chamber — particularly if Trump wins the White House and Republicans flip the Senate. But he has not said whether he would seek to lead the House GOP if Republicans lose. Asked about that scenario last month, Johnson told reporters “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

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Rudy Giuliani ordered to turn over his N.Y. apartment and valuables to the former Georgia election workers he defamed

A federal judge in New York has ordered former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to turn over his luxury Manhattan apartment and many of his valuables to the two Georgia election workers he defamed. In a decision released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman ordered Giuliani, a longtime ally of and former lawyer for former President Donald Trump, to transfer personal property "including cash accounts, jewelry and valuables, a legal claim for unpaid attorneys’ fees, and his interest in his Madison Avenue co-op apartment to a receivership" within seven days. Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, filed an action to seize Giuliani's assets in August in an effort to begin collecting on the $146 million in damages they were awarded last year after a judge found Giuliani liable for having repeatedly defamed them. Giuliani had falsely accused the pair of election fraud after the 2020 presidential election.

The judge granted the mother and daughter the right to use a receiver to sell off Giuliani's assets "in order to ensure that the liquidation of the transferred assets is accomplished quickly" while "maximizing the sale value of the unique and intangible items and therefore increasing the likelihood of satisfaction of the Plaintiffs’ judgment." Among the items that are supposed to be turned over are Giuliani's apartment, which is valued at $5.7 million; his collection of luxury watches, including watches given to him by his grandfather and the French president; a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey; a signed Reggie Jackson picture; and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz previously owned by actor Lauren Bacall. Some items not included in the decision are his three New York Yankees World Series rings, because his son, Andrew Giuliani, has claimed that his father gave the rings to him as gifts. The judge said Andrew Giuliani's claim — and Freeman and Moss' claim to Giuliani's Florida condo unit— would be determined later. The unpaid legal fee that Liman mentions refers to $2 million that Giuliani says the Trump campaign owes him for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

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Harris needs young voters of color to win. A new poll finds cracks in her support

When Vice President Harris took over the Democratic ticket this summer, her candidacy brought viral memes, packed rallies and a boost in the polls. Some of the biggest gains were among young Americans, a key Democratic-leaning group that President Biden struggled with before dropping out. But now, with just under two weeks until voting closes, a new poll finds that some of the early enthusiasm around Harris among young voters may be starting to plateau. Harris is continuing to outperform former President Donald Trump among Gen Z and millennial voters 47% to 35%, according to the University of Chicago’s latest GenForward poll released Wednesday. The survey, which was exclusively obtained by NPR, polled more than 2,300 white, Black, Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI,) individuals under the age of 40 from Sept. 26 to Oct. 6.

Despite her advantage, the GenForward poll points to a key challenge still remaining for Harris. While the findings show the vice president performing better with younger Americans than President Biden did before he left the race, she has struggled to match the historically high support that Biden enjoyed from voters under 30 during the 2020 election, especially among young Americans of color. That support diminished during Biden’s presidency, and Harris has been unable to regain it. “The threat of Trump that I think many voters who align with the Democratic Party believe is imminent, I'm not sure young people kind of buy into that narrative,” said Cathy Cohen, a professor at the University of Chicago who founded and serves as the executive director of the GenForward poll. “I also think that for young voters of color, there is a kind of tentative feeling about the effectiveness of democracy anyway,” she added. The GenForward poll details a complicated picture of support for Harris when it comes to young voters — especially when broken down by race and ethnicity.

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Lead Stories

After a 9-hour House hearing about Robert Roberson, panel set to resume testimony Tuesday

A House committee hearing about Robert Roberson III ended Monday without his highly anticipated testimony, but lawmakers are expected to resume hearing comments Tuesday following a marathon session that lasted well into the night. It was not immediately clear from whom lawmakers would hear from during a second day of deliberations. Committee members on Monday vowed to hear from the death row inmate himself at a later date — even if they have to travel to prison to see him. The state House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee intended for Roberson, an East Texas man convicted in 2003 of killing his 2-year-old daughter, to appear in person at the Texas Capitol, but objections from the attorney general’s office derailed the lawmakers’ plans.

“We’re in the process of working out in-person testimony, collaboratively, perhaps by the committee going to Robert instead of him coming to us, which is something we’re fleshing out right now,” Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, said at the conclusion of the hearing. “Under the authority granted to and exercised by this committee under state law and house rules, our expectation is still that we’re going to hear Robert and that’s going to be the next step for this committee.” Roberson, 57, was scheduled to be executed last Thursday by lethal injection in Huntsville until a novel move by the committee spared his life. Members of the committee voted 7-0 Wednesday to subpoena Roberson and ordered him to testify four days after his execution date. That set off a series of appeals and rulings in state courts, with the Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruling Thursday night to halt the execution and bar state corrections officials from impeding Roberson’s ability to comply with the subpoena. The hearing was set to explore the state’s 2013 “junk science” law allowing people to challenge convictions with new science. Roberson’s testimony is needed to gauge how the law was applied in his case, state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican and one of the architects of the subpoena, has said.

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Harris County's elected voter registrar hasn’t swiped into work in four years

The elected official in charge of Harris County’s voter registration and tax collection appears to have been absent from her office for years, last swiping her ID to enter the county building in late 2020, county records show. First sworn into office in 2017, Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett is tasked with a wide array of duties that affect nearly every Harris County resident, from collecting billions of dollars in property taxes to processing millions of vehicle registrations and title transfers every year. As the county’s voter registrar, she also oversees voter registration and maintains records for over 2.5 million voters. In October 2023, Bennett announced that she would not seek a third term, citing a desire to focus on her family and health. The retiring official, however, still needs to lead her office in fulfilling its election duties through this year’s high-stakes presidential election cycle, including assisting voters with any registration issues that may arise.

Her prolonged absence from public view raises questions about what she has done since she was reelected in 2020, when she appears to have stopped showing up at the office. She has also hardly corresponded via email and missed a string of key public appearances last year while state Republican leaders targeted Harris County’s election process. Bennett’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on her badge swipe history, email records, absence from public meetings and events, or criticisms regarding her lack of public engagement. Records obtained through public information requests reveal Bennett has not used her employee badge to access any county facility since October 2020. She swiped her badge 92 times in 2019, seven times in 2020 and not once since then. Additionally, she has sent only 18 emails from her work account since the start of this year, aside from those approving employee time-off requests. Some of these emails were forwarded messages sent to her chief deputy, Wendy Caesar, while the rest dealt with topics such as software access and the office website, according to county records.

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With Election Day 2 weeks away, 15 million voters have already cast a ballot

With two weeks until Election Day, more than 15 million people have already cast their ballots, the clearest sign yet that voting habits were forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic and that early voting has become a permanent feature of the American democratic process. While many people cast a mail-in ballot or voted early in the 2020 election out of necessity amid a dangerous pandemic, a lot of voters are choosing to vote early in this election, too. Some are taking advantage of new laws that expanded early voting options; others simply favor the process that exploded in popularity four years ago. Many states have set records for the first day of early voting. On Thursday, more than 353,000 ballots were cast in North Carolina, a record for the swing state still reeling from Hurricane Helene. On Friday, nearly 177,000 voters cast a ballot in Louisiana, a record for the deep-red state.

The shift has been starkest in Georgia, where voters have set a daily record for in-person early voting nearly every day since polls opened last Tuesday. More than 1.5 million voters have already cast an early ballot in the critical battleground state. The persistent preference of many Americans to vote early — both by mail and in person — comes after the 2020 election prompted a sea change in voting habits for the country. With many fearful of voting in person during the pandemic, 65.6 million people voted by mail that year, and another 35.8 million voted early in person in an attempt to avoid large crowds. Yet as people flood early voting centers this time around, distilling a partisan advantage or what the early vote presages for overall turnout is difficult. The key to parsing early voting trends rests in comparing current turnout with historical trends to try to glean enthusiasm or other advantages for Democrats or Republicans.

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Candidates step up their attacks after Trump erases Harris’s lead

Democrat Kamala Harris is courting a narrow slice of undecided, GOP-leaning voters while trying to turn out her party’s base in the final stretch of the presidential campaign, as Republican Donald Trump doubles down on his strongest supporters with off-script moments that have threatened to overshadow his closing arguments. People close to the campaigns believe the race is still too close to call a clear leader, with early voting under way. Across the seven most watched battleground states, more than 4.8 million people have already cast ballots, according to a University of Florida database. Polls show a neck-and-neck race just over two weeks until Election Day, after Trump clawed back a polling advantage Harris enjoyed in the wake of their only debate. Trump’s strategy has been to use a series of events that can be unconventional, often mixing humor and tough, sometimes crude, talk that plays to his most ardent backers, particularly men. Vice President Harris’s tack, meanwhile, seeks to peel away Republicans and independents from Trump by alleging he is unfit to serve while also corralling a fractious Democratic coalition that has spent much of the year torn apart over Israel.

Harris, who sharpened her criticisms of Trump over the weekend, is expected to hold events on Monday with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney in suburbs in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that have been shifting away from the Republican Party. She is also hosting separate get-out-the-vote rallies later in the week with former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in Georgia and Michigan—swing states where Harris needs to run up large margins in the urban centers and suburbs. Her objective is rooted in the campaign’s analysis that has found a chunk of remaining undecided voters to be soft GOP-leaning voters and moderate independents, according to a person familiar with the data. Those include voters who backed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley over Trump in the GOP primaries. Harris’s advisers believe drawing a sharper contrast with Trump—including warning against the dangers of giving him a second term—can pull in those undecided voters while also exciting liberals. This continues Harris’s tactic in recent days to try to court GOP-leaning voters and independents, which is one reason she sat for a Fox News interview that featured a heated back-and-forth on immigration.

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State Stories

Oil patch jobs are on the rise in Texas. Here's why

The number of Texans directly employed by the upstream sector of the state’s oil and gas industry increased in September for the fourth consecutive month, according to an industry association for Texas oil and natural gas producers. There were 195,400 people employed in the state in jobs related to identifying, drilling for and extracting oil and gas in September, an increase of 800 from August, according to a monthly analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association. The sector has added 2,800 jobs since January, a 1.5% increase. The monthly increase comes as a loss of 900 jobs in the extraction segment was offset by gains in the services sector, which added 1,700 jobs last month, according to TIPRO’s analysis. That’s in line with trends within the industry to spend less on exploration and development, even as domestic oil production hits record highs.

TIPRO’s analysis also cited recently released forecasts from the Department of Energy that projected U.S. crude oil production could rise to 13.5 million barrels per day in 2025, which the industry association said would be a record high. “Rising upstream employment and a record production forecast mean one thing, the world needs more oil and natural gas to meet growing energy demand and Texans are more than willing to accommodate,” TIPRO President Ed Longanecker said in the organization’s statement last week. When demand for fossil fuels will peak is a controversial question, though at least one leading energy authority suggests it could be as soon as this decade as countries try to reduce climate-warming emissions. Nearly 970,000 Texans are employed in the energy industry, the most of any state, according to an August DOE report. More than 471,000 of those jobs are in the oil and gas industry, according to TIPRO’s annual state of energy report released in March. Clean energy jobs are growing fast in Texas too. Nearly 262,000 Texans have jobs related to clean energy technologies, second only behind California, according to the DOE’s August report.

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How the Find Out PAC, Democrats seek to break GOP's lock on Texas Supreme Court

In a widely shared video posted by Beto O'Rourke, a former U.S. representative and gubernatorial candidate, in December, Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine is seen telling a spirited crowd of supporters that he was arrested 37 times for "rescuing at abortion clinics." "Ladies and gentlemen, I want to submit to you that before I ever got into politics, my convictions were forged in the crucible of the pro-life movement," Devine says in the video, taken in 2012, before describing the arrests. "Now, isn't it an irony that today I stand before you as one who could very well win the Texas Supreme Court?" Devine went on to win his first term on the high court in November 2012 and is seeking reelection to a third term in November. O'Rourke shared the video on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled against Kate Cox, a Dallas mom of two who was seeking a legal abortion of a fetus with a fatal diagnosis of trisomy 18.

Her doctor had asserted with "good faith judgment" that carrying the pregnancy to term would put Cox's fertility at risk and could hurt her chances of having a healthy child in the future, according to court filings. Adhering closely to the language of Texas' 2021 and 2022 laws against abortion, the court ruled that Cox had not proved that she met the criteria for an exception to the ban, which requires a doctor to assert with "reasonable medical judgment" that a woman faces a life-threatening condition that puts her at risk of death or "at serious risk of substantial loss of a major bodily function." The justices wrote, however, that their ruling would not preclude a legal abortion if Cox's doctor asserted with "reasonable medical judgment" that she met the exception conditions. The decision captured the nation's attention and highlighted Texas' strict laws against abortions, which make no exceptions for rape, incest or fatal fetal diagnoses. It also trained unusual attention on the election process for justices on the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, which is the state's avenue of last resort for civil matters. After 30 years without a Democratic justice on the bench and with three incumbents facing reelection, O'Rourke is among those hoping that the Cox decision and the court's May ruling against 20 women who sued over the state's abortion bans will give Democrats their best chance yet at flipping a seat. All three justices up for reelection — Devine, Jimmie Blacklock and Jane Bland — are being targeted by a new political action committee exclusively centered on the issue of abortion rights called the Find Out PAC.

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UT Southwestern Med School to pay $900K over claims that Black applicants were denied jobs

Federal labor regulators said Monday that the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has agreed to pay $900,000 to resolve complaints that the school systemically discriminated against 6,100 Black applicants over a two-year period. According to a written statement by the U.S. Department of Labor, a routine review of the research hospital’s hiring practices by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance found that African-American applicants who applied from Aug. 24, 2016 to Aug. 24, 2018 were unfairly discriminated against, violating federal hiring rules. The university, which is a federal contractor, has agreed to extend job offers to 132 applicants along with paying back wages and interest to those covered by the terms of the settlement agreement, the written news release said. The school must also provide training to all managers, supervisors and other company officials involved in the hiring process, officials said.

“Federal contractors must ensure they are not engaging in discriminatory employment practices,” said Ronald W. Sullivan II, a regional director for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance. “Employers must ensure equal employment opportunities and nondiscrimination in hiring for all applicants.”

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City reps pull out of conference after Houston mayor accuses controller of pay-to-play

City representatives slated to speak at this year’s City of Houston Investor Conference will no longer participate after Mayor John Whitmire called for an ethics investigation into “pay to play” sponsorships. The conference – an all-day meeting of financial institutions and representatives from the city, county and other agencies – is typically held every year. This year is the first the controller’s office has solicited sponsorships, Whitmire said in a Thursday news conference, and what ultimately led the mayor to call for an ethics probe. Sponsorships range from $10,000 to $100,000, and each monetary donation allots the sponsor specific benefits. On the original pamphlet, those who gave $50,000 as a “platinum” sponsor or $100,000 as a “title” sponsor were offered a private dinner with Controller Chris Hollins. The private dinner is now only listed as a perk for “title” sponsors. Controller’s office spokesperson Ashley Johnson said Thursday the initial private dinner inclusion under the “platinum” sponsors was a typo.

While Hollins has maintained the dinner offering was just a nice thing to do and that any financial institution that had asked for a meeting had gotten one with his office in the past, Whitmire said banks were calling him asking for advice and saying it was the “appearance of pay to play.” Whitmire also said it was not clear where money solicited through sponsorships was going and who would oversee it. He asked the Office of the Inspector General to look into the matter. "It really doesn't need much explanation," Whitmire said Thursday, "other than it needs to stop. It needs to be exposed.” Whitmire on Thursday said he directed all city employees to not attend the conference and even called for its cancellation. Originally, representatives from Houston Public Works, Houston Airports Systems, Houston First Corporation, Houston Police Pension System and Houston Municipal Employees Pension System were all slated to speak at the conference’s panels. They have all since been removed, according to an updated schedule provided by the Mayor’s Office.

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El Paso prepares for possible arrival of migrant caravans

El Paso city officials are tracking migrant caravans making their way to the border from southern Mexico and stand ready to deploy resources if they come here. “We are monitoring the situation so we can prepare for any potential contingencies,” said Enrique Dueñas, spokesman for the El Paso Fire Department and the Office of Emergency Management. “We don’t know what part of the border they’re going. They might as well go to El Paso or they can end up in McAllen, Texas.” Several Mexican news media outlets have been following caravans that left Chiapas state near the border with Guatemala earlier this month and report that more groups are getting ready to depart in the next few days.

Activists like Luis Garcia Villagran of the Center for Human Dignity in Chiapas say thousands of migrants around the city of Tapachula have run out of resources, can’t get jobs and fear that asylum in the U.S. might be curtailed if Donald Trump wins the presidency next month. The activist also said many have given up on waiting for online appointments in the U.S. through the CBP One app. The vanguard of a caravan that left Chiapas on Oct. 5 was in the outskirts of Mexico City on Thursday while others advanced along the neighboring state of Oaxaca. Some media reported Friday that Mexican authorities detained 118 caravan members and returned them to Chiapas. Dueñas said El Paso officials are in contact for updates from Mexican authorities, with whom they developed a working relationship during past migrant surges in El Paso.

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City of Dallas committee proposes funding pause for Dallas Black Dance Theatre

A Dallas City Council committee has recommended a temporary pause on funding to Dallas Black Dance Theatre due to concerns about the company’s firing of dancers. The recommendation came during a meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee on Monday. The committee voted 5-2 to approve allocations to 55 Dallas-based nonprofit arts groups, but decided to temporarily withhold roughly $248,000 to the dance company for 2024-25. Dallas City Council will vote on whether to withhold funds for the dance company on Wednesday, when they also vote on allocations for the other arts groups. Earlier this year, ten main-company dancers were fired and have been replaced. The company cites a social media video as the reason for the firings. But the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents the fired dancers, says the firings happened because of union efforts. The dancers had unanimously voted to unionize in May to demand better working conditions.

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Dallas’ largest police association says 3 charter proposals spell ‘doomsday’ for city

Dallas’ largest police association urged voters Monday to reject a trio of charter amendment propositions — including one supporters say will significantly boost officers’ numbers, pay and benefits — saying it fears the proposals would cause more harm than good. Dallas Police Association president Jaime Castro said his organization wasn’t consulted about Dallas Hero’s S, T and U propositions, and after reviewing them, its board felt they would negatively impact the police department and residents. A proposal to force the city to make officers’ starting pay and benefits among the top in North Texas ignores tenured officers and could further hamper recruitment, he said. Mandating an increase of around 900 officers to keep a minimum of at least 4,000 would likely strain the city’s budget, force the department to relax its standards to meet the mandate and force cuts to basic services to maintain them, Castro added.

“Budgeting for this level of hiring would not make the city safer, and it would spell doomsday for the city budget,” said Castro from the Dallas Police Association’s headquarters near City Hall. “Parks, streets, libraries and other city services improve our quality of life and contribute to a safer city.” Calls to reject the propositions also came from Black activists and clergymen. They were part of another news conference outside the Dallas Police Department headquarters Monday afternoon. Proposition S would require the city to waive its governmental immunity to allow any resident to file a lawsuit alleging the municipal government isn’t complying with the charter, local ordinances or state law. Proposition T would require Dallas to conduct an annual survey of at least 1,400 residents, rating the city manager’s performance on addressing crime, homelessness, litter, panhandling and the condition of streets. The consequences of the results would range from the City Council approving a financial bonus equal to the city manager’s base salary to termination. Proposition U would require the City Council to approve setting aside at least 50% of any excess yearly revenue for the police and fire pension system, increase the police force by 900 and mandate the city maintain a minimum of 4,000 officers while increasing police starting pay and other benefits to among the highest in North Texas.

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Rapper Travis Scott, Live Nation settle scores of injury lawsuits from Astroworld tragedy

Rapper Travis Scott and venue operator Live Nation have settled lawsuits with nearly 100 plaintiffs who mounted personal injury claims related to the deadly 2021 Astroworld music festival days before a trial was set to begin in Houston. Scott, Live Nation and venue operator SMG, a division of ASM Global Parent Inc., faced a trial Tuesday involving three bellwether plaintiffs whose injuries range from a collapsed lung to emotional distress. The so-called bellwether plaintiffs were chosen to proceed to trial first out of hundreds of plaintiffs who are bringing personal injury claims. The settlement came after the Texas Supreme Court denied a petition from Live Nation trying to prevent the deposition of its CEO, Michael Rapino. Rapino’s deposition was scheduled to take place Monday in Los Angeles.

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Josh T. Smith: How Texas can show the path to energy abundance

(Josh T. Smith is the energy policy lead for the Abundance Institute, a nonprofit focused on growing technologies. He writes at Powering Spaceship Earth.) The recent announcement that Microsoft was helping restart nuclear generation at Three Mile Island has been rightfully celebrated. It signals the importance of nuclear energy for our future. The era of pessimism and unscientific fears of nuclear power are fading. Not all of what it suggests is positive, however. The major downside is its revelation that it remains easier to reopen a plant than to build a new one from scratch. In this light, the move is more about fixing past mistakes than setting up an energy-abundant future. We should aspire to more. And that means attacking the red tape strangling every energy source. Microsoft’s atomic move here represents an effort to meet the challenge of rising demand. The electricity world has been in the doldrums of slow to no growth until only a few years ago. Today, the sector’s companies are worried about meeting demands from artificial intelligence and data centers. “Load growth” to use the industry term, is on every utility executive’s mind.

It’s unfortunate that this emphasis on the coming demands for the grid has been one-sided. It has sparked fear without giving a direction for action and response. This is because it has focused on demand projections without considering latent supply. The AI projections that made waves at the beginning of the year predicted about 35 GW of additional peak demand by 2028. It turns out that the line of would-be generators is even larger — much larger. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s most recent estimates suggest that 2,600 GW of capacity is mired in red tape. Little of this, however, makes it through the interconnection process and onto the grid. If the past is prelude, then just a bit more than a tenth of that capacity will make it through. That’s still 260 GW and about seven times the 35 GW projected AI demand additions. This implies that there is no shortage of methods and opportunities to generate power. Instead, we are short on commonsense connection processes. We need to make it easy and quick to connect and sell power. Here, only Texas shines. The state’s emphasis on an energy-only marketplace simplifies the interconnection process. Because of this, interconnection timelines are growing by years everywhere but the Lone Star state. In fact, timelines have grown to the point where Texas’ grid operators are done in around half the time that others require.

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Democrats target the last 2 Dallas County Republicans serving in the Texas House

Democrats came within a whisker of defeating Angie Chen Button and Morgan Meyer in the 2020 election, and they’re back this November hoping to take out the last two Dallas County Republicans in the Texas House. Republicans in the Legislature came to Button’s and Meyer’s rescue in 2021, redrawing their districts to add more Republican voters. It worked; Meyer won by 12 points and Button by 10 points in the 2022 midterms. Even so, Democrats are sensing an opportunity to flip two seats in a county where Republicans are heavily outnumbered. Button, a 70-year-old certified public accountant and eight-term incumbent from Richardson, is up against Averie Bishop, a 28-year-old former Miss Texas and law school graduate who would become the first Filipino American to serve in the Legislature.

Meyer, a lawyer and five-term incumbent from University Park, faces Elizabeth Ginsberg, an attorney and small business owner who lost to Meyer in 2022. Democrats are motivated by the incumbents’ support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s “school choice” priority to earmark public money for some private school students. Button and Meyer voted last year to create school voucher-like education savings accounts, but the attempt was narrowly defeated by a coalition of Democrats and 21 mostly rural Republicans in the House. The task for Democrats is complicated by more than the new Republican-friendly districts for Button and Meyer. Both lawmakers serve on influential committees, have authored marquee bills and are well-known to voters. “The key thing that supports incumbents like these two is the decade and more that they’ve spent putting down roots in their district,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. Connections with business leaders, neighborhood associations and chambers of commerce offer “support they can draw on to squeak out the next election,” Jillson said. Button was first elected in 2008 and was ranked among the top lawmakers of the past two sessions by Texas Monthly, which in 2023 praised her for avoiding “schoolyard antics” and playing well with others.

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Long wait times during Tarrant County early voting

A woman hustled down Camp Bowie Boulevard toward the UNT Health Science Center’s interdisciplinary research center just after noon on Monday. The school’s polling station had moved to a building further down the street since the last election cycle, her husband had told her. The line was long — a bit to her surprise — but she was unbothered. “This is pretty unusual,” the Fort Worth resident said cheerfully, not breaking her stride. “Or I should say in this neighborhood.” Inside the lounge, a line of dozens of soon-to-be voters snaked around a stairwell and glass-paneled rooms. HSC’s voting site was one of at least a dozen across Tarrant County to clock wait times longer than 45 minutes over the course of the morning and late afternoon on Monday, Oct. 21, the first day of early voting in Texas.

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Voter fraud video was staged, former Tarrant candidate says

Fort Worth police are investigating a video shared during the 2022 race for Tarrant County Judge, in which a man appears to admit to committing voter fraud. The video was staged, according to the Democrat in that contest Deborah Peoples. In September 2022, former Tarrant County Republican Chairman Rick Barnes shared a video in which a man experiencing homelessness told a Fort Worth police officer that he had been paid by Peoples to harvest ballots for the 2020 election. In the video, the man told the officer that he was fooling people into signing filled-out ballots by making them think they were just confirming information. The video was posted on Gateway Pundit, a website with more false than true claims, according to Poynter’s Politifact.

Peoples was county Democratic chair in 2020. In 2022, she ran against County Judge Tim O’Hare for that seat. Barnes is running for county tax assessor-collector. Speaking at a press conference outside Fort Worth’s New City Hall on Monday, Oct. 21, Peoples said she had submitted to the police department’s Internal Affairs Office a video of the man saying he had actually been paid by the police officer who recorded the body cam footage to say what he said in 2020. The video proves that those who shared the video participated in “election interference,” “voter suppression” and “potential collusion” between the police and Republican election officials, Peoples said. “What I am most sad about is the coercion of an unhoused individual, a very vulnerable person in society,” she said. Peoples declined to show the video, citing the investigation by the police department’s Internal Affairs Office.

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AVX Aircraft Co. moves headquarters to Fort Worth’s Alliance

AVX Aircraft Company, which designs vertical lift aerospace technology, is moving to north Fort Worth. The company plans to establish its headquarters and prototype shop at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport, a cornerstone of north Fort Worth’s massive AllianceTexas development. The relocation was announced Oct. 18 by AllianceTexas developer Hillwood. Founded in 2005, AVX specializes in advanced vertical lift technology for commercial and military purposes. The move is expected to create dozens of new jobs; AVX expects to double its 40-person workforce within the next year, according to a news release. The company is already hiring engineers to work in Fort Worth.

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Rural North Texas residents shocked by high water bills

When Jana McGuire moved into a new development near Springtown four years ago, she never imagined paying water bills of over $500 a month. McGuire and her husband, Kendall, who are nearing retirement age, routinely have bills in that range, and they are gone around two weeks a month to work in the Permian Basin in the oil and gas industry. “I don’t know how I would live in my house full-time ...” Jana McGuire said. “When I bought my house, I was single. I almost sold it because I couldn’t afford it. Don’t flush the toilet every time. Don’t take a bath every day. My water bill was just as much as my vehicle payment.” The McGuires’ situation illustrates what people often find when they move to rural areas with fewer people, where water rates are higher than in bigger cities as utilities add new lines to keep up with the growth. Bills can skyrocket when homeowners water their big yards.

The McGuires’ home sits on 1 acre in the Spring Creek Farms development in Wise County, a stone’s throw from the Parker County line. They get their water from the Walnut Creek Special Utility District, which serves a 500-square-mile area with around 33,000 customers in Wise and Parker counties. James Blackwood, general manager of the Walnut Creek SUD, said newcomers often don’t take into account that their water bills will be higher when they move from a quarter-acre lot to one that’s 2 acres. Rhome Mayor Kenny Crenshaw said he gets calls from residents about high water bills. Rhome purchases its water from Walnut Creek. Crenshaw had his own experience with high bills when he moved to the city in 2009. After getting a $400 bill, Crenshaw said he stopped watering his grass, and now, his bills are around $100 a month. He said Rhome is considering a rate increase to keep pace with maintenance and other costs, and the city is looking at ways to increase rates without too much of an impact on senior citizens and others on fixed incomes, he said. “I think every community in North Texas is facing this situation,” he said. Walnut Creek increased its rates on Oct. 1, the first time in seven years. A study by the Texas Rural Water Association determined that Walnut Creek was “falling behind,” Blackwood said.

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West Texas A&M professor leaves amid student assault charges

AWest Texas A&M University professor has left the institution amid allegations that he groped two students. Nabarun Ghosh faces misdemeanor charges of indecent assault and is currently barred by Randall County Court from going within 200 feet of campus, court documents show. A Texas ABC news station reported Friday that the university “terminated” Ghosh, a biology professor, about a week after he was charged on Sept. 25. Jesse Quackenbush, Ghosh’s attorney, told Inside Higher Ed that the professor actually “retired for health reasons.” The two students who accused Ghosh also filed internal Title IX and ethics complaints through the university, Quackenbush said, adding that Ghosh learned those complaints were dropped after he retired. Quackenbush said Ghosh might not have retired had he known those internal complaints would be dropped. But the criminal case against Ghosh continues.

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One of the largest solar projects in the US opens in Texas, backed by Google

One of the largest solar projects in the U.S. opened in Texas on Friday, backed by what Google said is the largest solar electricity purchase it has ever made. Google executive Ben Sloss said at the ribbon cutting, about two hours south of Dallas, that the corporation has a responsibility to bring renewable, carbon-free electricity online at the same time it opens operations that will use that power. Google expects to spend $16 billion through 2040 globally to purchase clean energy, he said. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who attended, said the solar project is a posterchild for the administration’s efforts to incentivize manufacturers and developers to locate energy projects in the U.S.

“Sometimes when you are in the middle of history, it’s hard to tell, because you are in the middle of it,” she said. “But I’m telling you right now that we are in the middle of history being made.” SB Energy built three solar farms side by side, the “Orion Solar Belt,” in Buckholts, Texas. Combined, they will be able to provide 875 megawatts of clean energy. That is nearly the size of a typical nuclear facility. In total, Google has contracted with clean energy developers to bring more than 2,800 megawatts of new wind and solar projects to the state, which it says exceeds the amount of power required for its operations there. Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all recently announced investments in nuclear energy to power data centers, too, as the tech giants seek new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. Google has a commitment to get all of its electricity without contributing to climate change, regardless of time of day or whether the sun is up, but neither it nor other large companies are meeting those commitments with the rise of artificial intelligence.

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National Stories

Musk offers voters $1 million a day to sign PAC petition backing the Constitution. Is that legal?

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and Space X and owner of X who’s gone all-in on Republican Donald Trump’s candidacy for the White House, has already committed at least $70 million to help the former president. Now he’s pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee’s petition backing the Constitution. The giveaway is raising questions and alarms among some election experts who say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the state’s former attorney general, expressed concern about the plan on Sunday. “I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Musk promised on Saturday that he would give away $1 million a day, until the Nov. 5 election, for people signing his PAC’s petition supporting the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and the Second Amendment, with its right “to keep and bear arms.” He awarded a check during an event Saturday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to a man identified as John Dreher. A message left with a number listed for Dreher was not returned Sunday. Musk gave out another check Sunday. What’s the broader context here? Musk’s America PAC has launched a tour of Pennsylvania, a critical election battleground. He’s aiming to register voters in support of Trump, whom Musk has endorsed. The PAC is also pushing to persuade voters in other key states. It’s not the first offer of cash the organization has made. Musk has posted on X, the platform he purchased as Twitter before renaming it, that he would offer people $47 — and then $100 — for referring others to register and signing the petition. Trump, who was campaigning Sunday in Pennsylvania, was asked about Musk’s giveaway, and said, “I haven’t followed that.” Trump said he “speaks to Elon a lot. He’s a friend of mine” and called him great for the country. What’s the issue with that? Some election law experts are raising red flags about the giveaway. Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer, said the latest iteration of Musk’s giveaway approaches a legal boundary. That’s because the PAC is requiring registration as a prerequisite to become eligible for the $1 million check. “There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law,” Fischer said in an email.

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Olivia Nuzzi and New York part ways after review finds no bias or error

New York magazine and Olivia Nuzzi, its Washington correspondent, have agreed to “part ways,” the magazine announced Monday, a month after she went on leave while admitting to having a “personal” relationship with the subject of an article, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the wake of the admission, New York conducted an initial review of Nuzzi’s published work during the 2024 campaign and found no inaccuracies or evidence of bias. It then contracted the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine to lead a more thorough review, and the firm reached the same conclusion, New York said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the magazine and Nuzzi agreed that the best course forward is to part ways,” New York said in the statement. “Nuzzi is a uniquely talented writer and we have been proud to publish her work over her nearly eight years as our Washington Correspondent. We wish her the best.”

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Why are ABC viewers being forced to see a graphic anti-abortion ad?

Over the past weeks, ABC viewers across the country have been shown a graphic advertisement featuring images of aborted fetuses, as part of a campaign by antiabortion rights advocate and long-shot presidential candidate Randall Terry. The ad, which has appeared on network shows such as “The View,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “ABC World News Tonight,” has shocked viewers, who have taken to social media demanding to know why ABC would run it. Some local ABC stations report they have received many calls from upset viewers. But the network said it has no say in the matter. Because Terry is a political candidate on the ballots in about a dozen states, ABC said that it is bound by Federal Communications Commission rules to air the ad, unedited. In addition to the graphic imagery, the ad includes photos of major media personalities and compares them to Nazi leaders and supporters.

The ad has run 795 times this month, costing Terry nearly $200,000, according to data provided to The Washington Post by AdImpact, an ad-tracking platform. It’s a small fraction of the more than $2.7 billion spent on ads during the presidential race. He’s also run eight other ads as part of his presidential campaign. But his graphic ads that aired on national television have attracted the most attention Terry has received in this race. After Republicans have for decades staunchly supported restricting abortions, polling has shown that most Americans opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade and voters have consistently sided with protecting abortion rights. Terry told The Washington Post that he chose to advertise on ABC because he specifically wanted to reach the audience of “The View,” a show he said is particularly disliked by some of the people who donated to help fund his advertising campaign. “When we showed that we could, in fact, run ads speaking the truth there, it helped us raise the money to run more and more television ads,” he said.

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Florida official says DeSantis’s office ordered him to threaten TV stations over abortion ads

John Wilson, general counsel for the Florida Department of Health, wrote in a sworn affidavit that officials from Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) office pushed him to threaten television stations with criminal prosecutions if they did not take down ads in support of a Florida abortion rights measure. Wilson, who resigned from his position on Oct. 10, wrote in the affidavit that he received prewritten letters directing him to send the threatening letters under his name on behalf of the Florida Department of Health. He said he received the letters on Oct. 3 from Sam Elliot, assistant general counsel for the executive office of the governor. Wilson said he was also directed to send the letters by Ryan Newman and Jed Jody, two other officials in DeSantis’s office. Wilson did send the letters, which pressured the TV stations to take down political advertisements in support of Amendment 4, a ballot measure that, if approved, would broaden access to abortion in the state of Florida. The measure, which needs the support of 60 percent of voters to pass, would effectively reverse a six-week ban on abortion.

“A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in his resignation letter reported by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times. “It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.” The Hill has reached out to the DeSantis office for comment. Wilson is now being sued, along with Joseph Ladapo, the Florida surgeon general and head of the Department of Health, by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group sponsoring Amendment 4. It claims the threatening letters sent to the television stations violated their First Amendment rights. The “Yes on 4” advertisement features a woman named Caroline Williams, who was diagnosed with brain cancer while pregnant and made the decision to have an abortion so she could receive life-extending cancer treatment. The ad said the current ban would have prevented her from having the procedure. Florida’s Department of Health previously said the description of the law in the television ad is false and warned TV stations across the state it contained false information that violated the state’s “sanitary nuisance laws.” The ballot initiative’s campaign director, Lauren Brenzel, said in a statement that the department’s letters were “unconstitutional government interference.”

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Conservatives seek to build on recent court wins on education

Conservatives have had an aggressive and largely successful campaign in recent years taking education issues to the court system, a combination of decades of ground work, a better political climate and a friendlier Supreme Court. In the past few years, Republicans have snatched high-profile wins at the high court, including blocking student debt relief and getting rid of affirmative action in college applications, as well as making significant strides in school choice policies. Those on the right are trying to capitalize on that momentum, but experts emphasize that the issues haven’t changed just because former President Trump was able to appoint three Supreme Court justices. “I can’t conceive of anybody who would launch an effort saying, ‘Let’s try to get this school approved now because there’s a 6-3 conservative majority.’ I don’t think it works that way,” said Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I mean, clearly it seems like the legal environment is obviously more congenial to things that conservatives have always wanted, but it’s not like they want those things because there’s a conservative majority,” Pondiscio added. “You might be more likely to pursue legal remedies, you know, to get things done, but it’s a question of carts and horses, you know, like the education cart is not pulling the legal horse, so to speak — it’s the other way around.” The right-leaning Supreme Court was a saving grace for the right in two of arguably its biggest education legal wins in the past few years, stopping universal student loan relief and ending affirmative action in the college application process. And now conservatives are in court defending efforts that include a push to see more Christian teachings in the classrooms. In Louisiana, the governor is fighting to get the Ten Commandments hung in every public school classroom. In Oklahoma, the state superintendent wants a Bible in every classroom and more lessons about the Bible’s impact on American history and culture; meanwhile, a Catholic diocese in the state is refusing to back down in its attempt to create the nation’s first openly religious charter school. All those moves have been been met with lawsuits, with the proponents of the religious charter school asking the Supreme Court to take up the case. Last week, a group of Oklahomans sued the government over the Bible mandate, arguing the lessons and the state’s intention to use taxpayer money to buy the Bibles violate the separation of church and state.

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Inside the Republican drama over Mitch McConnell’s successor

Even as Republican senators prepare to elect Mitch McConnell’s successor as leader, there’s a debate raging among them over how much power to give the winner. On one side are conservatives like Utah’s Mike Lee, who wants candidates for GOP leader to endorse diffusing their own authority by requiring high numbers of Republican senators to endorse critical tactical decisions. On the other side of the divide are senators like North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, who says any Republican agreeing to Lee’s demands would lose his vote for leader. It’s more than a picayune disagreement — Lee and Tillis’ diametrically opposed viewpoints illustrate the stark divisions within the GOP as Republicans careen toward a hotly anticipated election to replace McConnell. The dozen or so conservatives who are tired of feeling sidelined in big decisions want a more prominent seat at the table, and their votes could swing the leadership race between Senate Minority Whip John Thune, former whip John Cornyn and dark horse candidate Rick Scott.

“There’s a significant prize to be won internally. I think a number of members, myself included, will be favorably disposed to support whoever is offering the clearest vision,” Lee told Semafor. Still, plenty of Republican senators see the leader’s job as requiring unpopular decisions, and they note that some of the changes Lee’s group is pushing would dramatically shift how the GOP operates as the party is — according to most polls -— favored to take back Senate control next month. Lee laid down a marker to his colleagues earlier this month, proposing that 75% of Senate Republicans must agree before their leader can shut down amendment discussions and that GOP leaders should only whip support for bills that already count majority backing within the party. In Lee’s view, his group’s requests would increase the next leader’s power by giving his decisions full conference backing and cut back the “concentrated power” in the leader’s office. Tillis was incensed enough by those proposals to fire off his own response to colleagues, warning that Lee’s ideas would handcuff the leader and help Senate Democrats who seek to divide Republicans. Tillis argued that Republican senators would have evicted McConnell as leader long ago if they disliked the way he used his power.

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Republican lawsuits over overseas and military voting hit setbacks in 2 swing states

Two Republican legal challenges to the legitimacy of ballots cast by U.S. citizens living abroad, including U.S. military members, hit setbacks Monday. A Michigan state judge dismissed one of three lawsuits that GOP groups filed in swing states in recent weeks, while in a North Carolina-based case, a state judge rejected the Republican National Committee’s request for the court to order that returned ballots of some overseas voters be set aside and not counted until the voters’ eligibility can be confirmed. In the Michigan case, Judge Sima Patel of the state’s Court of Claims issued an opinion that underscored the fact that the RNC brought its case weeks before the last day of voting in this fall’s election. Patel called the lawsuit an “11th hour attempt to disenfranchise these electors in the November 5, 2024 general election.”

For years, Michigan has allowed eligible uniformed service members and other citizens living outside the U.S. to vote in federal elections, as required by a federal law known as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Guidance issued by Michigan’s secretary of state says: “A United States citizen who has never resided in the United States but who has a parent, legal guardian, or spouse who was last domiciled in Michigan is eligible to vote in Michigan as long as the citizen has not registered or voted in another state.” But in court, the Republican National Committee argued against the eligibility of that category of overseas voters, who, the RNC contended, do not meet requirements under Michigan’s constitution for voters to be state residents. Patel, however, concluded that the guidance language in the secretary of state’s manual for election officials is “consistent with federal and state law, and the Michigan Constitution.”

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Border arrests in September fall to lowest level since 2020, DHS says

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the deportation of migrants from the United States has tripled since June. Luis Miranda, a DHS spokesman, reported that since May 2022, 740,000 people have been returned to their home countries, mostly Mexico. “The majority of deportations are people from Mexico; it’s one of the countries where most of the migrants come from,” Miranda said. According to Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior, 136,439 Mexican nationals were deported between January and August of this year, including 19,433 minors. Of those deportations, almost 32,000 migrants were returned to Mexico via the state of Baja California, primarily the city of Tijuana. But most of the people sent south of the border arrived in the Mexican border states of Tamaulipas and Sonora.

Miranda said since June, when President Biden issued restrictions on asylum, unlawful border crossings are down 54%. “According to numbers that we have, less than 54,000 unlawful crossings took place during the month of September, it’s the lowest figure since 2020.” The president’s executive order has also made it easier to deport people, according to Miranda. “We’ve been able to triple the percentage of people who are going through expedited processing each month,” said Miranda. “We have sent back migrants to 180 countries using repatriation flights as far away as Africa, Europe and Asia.” According to CBP data, the number of migrant encounters at U.S. ports of entry along the Southwest border have hovered around 50,000 a month since June of 2023. Under the

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