Lead Stories

Gov. Abbott endorses Hillary McMurry Hickland in primary against Rep. Hugh Shine

Jasper native Hillary McMurry Hickland, who now lives in Belton, has announced her candidacy for State Representative for District 55, which served the Bell County area in Central Texas. Hickland, a Republican, will be challenging the current State Representative, fellow Republican Hugh Shine, who served in that seat from 1986 to 1991, and again from 2016 to the present. Shine and twenty other Republicans recently raised the ire of conservatives across the state when they joined Democrats in supporting an amendment which stripped Education Savings Accounts from a major article of education legislation, and effectively gutted the original intent of the bill.

"Hillary Hickland is the kind of new conservative leader we need in Austin to deliver results in the Texas House," Abbott said in a statement. “This past year, she worked relentlessly to empower parents by traveling to Austin to advocate for Texas families and students.” Abbott’s endorsement of Hickland is the first time he has backed a primary opponent to a House Republican since May 2022, when he backed Stan Kitzman, the successful opponent to Rep. Phil Stephenson, R-Wharton. Before that, Abbott endorsed three primary challengers to House Republicans in 2018 and one prevailed.

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Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state who shaped decades of U.S. policy, dies at 100

Henry Kissinger, the toweringly influential former secretary of state who earned a reputation as a sagacious diplomat but drew international condemnation and accusations of war crimes for his key role in widening the American presence in Vietnam and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, died Wednesday. He was 100. Kissinger's consulting firm announced his death, saying he died at his home in Connecticut. No cause was given. Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, reached the pinnacle of the American political establishment and in turn became an unlikely household name. He was secretary of state and national security adviser under two Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and advised powerful leaders in both American political parties for decades.

He came to be seen as one of the leading diplomats and international relations intellectuals of the 20th century, an exponent of “realpolitik” who orchestrated the normalization of relations with China and helped ease tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the settlement that ended the Vietnam War, jointly receiving the award with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, who refused the honor. Kissinger helped open diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China during the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. But he was also one of the most singularly reviled public figures of his age, one whose legacy is inextricably bound up with bloodshed around the world. In the eyes of his critics, he was synonymous with the brutality of American power and some of the costliest foreign policy decisions in modern history. Kissinger’s detractors denounced him for the central role he played in expanding U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, bringing a wide-scale bombing campaign to Cambodia and supporting brutal regimes in Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and Pakistan. His most vociferous opponents labeled him a war criminal, and some called on him to face charges at the Hague. In academia and politics, Kissinger strove to “project the myth of being a no-nonsense, half-European realpolitiker capable of explaining to naive America how to behave on the international stage,” according to Mario Del Pero, who wrote the 2009 book “The Eccentric Realist: Henry Kissinger and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy.”

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McCarthy privately recounts terse phone call with Trump after ouster

In the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) traveled down to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and threw a lifeline to the former president, who was under a cloud of controversy for provoking the historic assault. The fence-mending session between the two Republican leaders ended with a photo op of the two men, grinning side by side in a gilded, frescoed room. The stunning turnabout of the House GOP leader, who had previously blamed Trump for the deadly attack, paved the way for the former president’s return to de facto leader of the Republican Party. When the tables were turned almost three years later, however, Trump did not return the favor.

During a phone call with McCarthy weeks after his historic Oct. 3 removal as House speaker, Trump detailed the reasons he had declined to ask Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and other hard-right lawmakers to back off their campaign to oust the California Republican from his leadership position, according to people familiar with the exchange who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose a private conversation. During the call, Trump lambasted McCarthy for not expunging his two impeachments and endorse him in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the conversation. “F--- you,” McCarthy claimed to have then told Trump, when he rehashed the call later to other people in two separate conversations, according to the people. A spokesperson for McCarthy said that he did not swear at the former president and that they have a good relationship. A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment. The transactional — and at times tumultuous — relationship has seemingly endured despite McCarthy’s ouster. The two continue to speak and text, according to people with knowledge of the relationship. McCarthy has previously grappled with discrepancies between his private, disparaging comments about Trump to others and his continued fealty to the former president. In her new book, former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) accused McCarthy of repeatedly lying about his relationship with Trump after the Jan. 6 attack.

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Texas grid regulator Will McAdams confirms plans to resign by the end of the year

Will McAdams, one of five regulators overseeing Texas utilities including the state’s power grid, on Wednesday morning confirmed his intention to resign by the end of the year, ending weeks of rumors about his next steps. McAdams said he would resign from the Public Utility Commission of Texas to take more time to focus on his family and health. He made the decision public at a meeting Tuesday of stakeholders in the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “This is the time for my family and myself to reset. I’ve got to focus on them, I’ve got to focus on my health,” McAdams said in an interview. “We need that rotation of new and good people that’ll help continue the momentum that we’ve started.”

He declined to give an effective date for the resignation, saying instead that the timing would be subject to discussions with Gov. Greg Abbott’s office. McAdams’s term was set to expire on Sept. 1, 2025. He was appointed by Abbott in April 2021 as a part of a full overhaul of the PUCT after February’s Winter Storm Uri triggered prolonged outages in much of the state and contributed to the deaths of at least 210 people. The impending departure leaves two vacancies on the five-person commission, which was expanded from three after Uri. Peter Lake resigned as PUCT chair in June 2023, with Kathleen Jackson currently serving as interim chair. He also took issue with proposed rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that he worried would retire coal-fired power plants too quickly, vowing to fight these regulations “all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

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State Stories

Are school vouchers inevitably going to pass in once-resistant Texas House?

While Gov. Greg Abbott and school choice supporters didn’t peel off many rural Republicans in the Texas House’s recent vouchers vote, many experts believe the Legislature eventually will pass some form of public funding of private schools. As recently as two and a half years ago, there were 50 House Republicans willing to take at least a symbolic vote against vouchers. But earlier this month, when the House killed the launch of a voucherlike program, just 21 voted against. “State and national pressure to pass some form of school choice is too high for Republican leadership to ignore,” said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. “The question isn’t if it happens but when.” A review of two decades of voucher-related roll call votes in the House by The Dallas Morning News showed desires and actions of the House speaker may influence members more than outside forces – including Abbott, whose 18-month-long campaign to pass education savings accounts hasn’t succeeded.

For certain families, the accounts would publicly fund private school. Interviews with a dozen veterans of the Legislature’s fights over vouchers underscored key “soft spots” for both sides: Opponents fret about shrinking numbers of longtime House Republicans who, siding with superintendents, school boards and teacher groups, have blocked voucherlike plans. Many have retired or will pack it in next year. Younger GOP state representatives haven’t lived through budget cuts, and are more optimistic about the Texas treasury’s ability to easily pay for new, taxpayer-subsidized educational options, even in recessions. Proponents of education savings accounts, or ESAs, want to get their foot in the door before the economy slumps or public school advocates pick off some conservative GOP lawmakers. House Republicans saw their numbers decrease in two consecutive elections after a dramatic voucher fight in 2005, and again after school budgets were slashed by $5 billion by the 2011 Legislature. In 2018, Democrats picked up 12 House seats, largely because of Beto O’Rourke’s meteoric U.S. Senate bid but also in the wake of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s successful pressuring of the Texas Senate to advance voucherlike proposals. With only one exception, which came during a House budget debate last spring, the chamber’s Democrats since 2005 have formed a solid wall of opposition to voucher-type uses of state funds. This year, “school choice” advocates have reason to worry that Abbott is overplaying his hand, Rottinghaus said. Pressure by governors is often necessary to pass a big policy change such as vouchers, he noted.

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How Mark Cuban’s Mavs sale could push gambling expansion forward in Texas

Mark Cuban’s surprise sale of a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to Las Vegas’ Adelson family could set the stage for another battle in Austin over the future of legalized gambling and sports betting in Texas. The Dallas billionaire is a proponent of legalizing gambling in Texas to bring in resort casinos. Though the state has killed any efforts to allow sports betting or gambling, industry experts say Cuban’s move could be what finally pushes Texas lawmakers to act. “I have to believe that the political leadership has got to be a little tired of looking at all the tail lights leaving Texas,” said Alan Feldman, a distinguished fellow at the University of Las Vegas International Gaming Institute. “There’s a lot of money leaving the state. And at some point, I think they’re going to realize if they don’t get in the game, Texas is just going to be exporting money to other states.”

Cuban sold a majority interest in the NBA team to Miriam Adelson, the biggest shareholder in one of the world’s biggest casino operators, Las Vegas Sands, and a widow to Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Cuban made clear last year that he hoped to eventually partner with the Adelson family to build an arena and resort-style destination in Dallas. Texas is one of the biggest states to not yet legalize casino gambling or sports betting. But with a fervent fanbase for its sports teams and a growing population, Texas, and Dallas specifically, are seen by proponents as perfect locations for casinos and gambling companies to set up shop, said Andrew Brandt, executive director of the Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova University’s Law School. “Texas is such a big stage. So much of a revenue base could come from sports betting and it’s the reason why a lot of states have implemented it,” he said. “It’s an anomaly that large states like Texas and California are sitting on the sidelines in this industry.” The Texas Sports Betting Alliance, relying on a report from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, estimates that more than $8 billion is illegally bet in Texas annually. The sports betting market was estimated to be nearly $77 billion in 2021. Data Bridge Market Research thinks that figure could soar globally to $297 billion by 2030. Texans also spend roughly $5 billion a year in adjacent states and Las Vegas, according to another estimate.

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Harris County Democrats vote to move forward with proposed resolution condemning DA Kim Ogg

Harris County Democrats on Wednesday decided to move forward with a formal process to admonish District Attorney Kim Ogg, a second term Democrat who is facing a competitive challenge in the upcoming March primary from former prosecutor Sean Teare. Supporters of the resolution won a slim majority after hours of debate over whether Ogg represents the party's values. The Harris County Democratic Party resolutions committee met two weeks ago to consider dueling Ogg proposals – one in support, one against – but the group decided to postpone the vote to give participants more time to review them. On Wednesday, the two factions discussed these proposals during the committee meeting. A measure supporting Ogg failed with six in favor, 13 opposed and one abstention. The committee then narrowly voted for the resolution put forward by Ogg's critics, advancing it with 11 votes in favor, nine opposed and one abstention. Next, the party's steering committee will take up the matter at its meeting on Saturday, Dec. 2.

If the steering committee advances the measure, it will go to a final vote at the party's Dec. 10 county executive committee meeting, where it would need support from a simple majority of precinct chairs in attendance in order to pass. "A narrow vote of 11 to 9 resolution committee insiders does not represent the Democratic voters of Harris County," Ogg said. "A few partisan extremists will never subvert the rights of voters in the upcoming March primary. I trust the people of Harris County to base their vote in the upcoming election on facts, not lies and misinformation propagated by my opponent and his supporters." Over 100 participants joined the contentious Wednesday night meeting on Zoom, a remarkable change of pace for a committee that rarely draws enough attendees to achieve a quorum. Some of Ogg's supporters defended her record, while others focused their efforts on urging the party not to take a position during the primary process.

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Mayorkas travels to Uvalde as migrant surge prompts international bridge closure

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the head of Border Patrol traveled to Uvalde on Wednesday for a briefing on the nearby stretch of border that is one of the busiest crossings in the nation. The trip comes as the latest surge of migrants into Texas earlier this week prompted federal authorities to close one of two international bridges in Eagle Pass, about 60 miles southwest of where Mayorkas and Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens were expected to be. The Department of Homeland Security said the two would “receive operational updates from the U.S. Border Patrol’s Del Rio Sector and meet with members of the workforce.” The agency provided no additional information on the visit, which was closed to media.

Border Patrol reported 38,211 encounters with migrants in the Del Rio sector in October, making it the second-busiest crossing that month, according to the latest available data. On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed International Bridge I in Eagle Pass to people and vehicles crossing into the country from Mexico. The agency said it was closing the bridge and also reducing vehicle crossings at an international bridge in Lukeville, Ariz., to cope with “increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals and encourage migration.” “Law enforcement is in overdrive at the border and our trade is suffering by the minute,” said U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a San Antonio Republican who represents most of the border. “Ending this chaos should be everyone’s number one priority — Congress, the White House, and everyone in between.” Mayorkas was in something of unfriendly territory as he visited a district represented by Gonzales, who has led a push to impeach the secretary.

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2 inmates back in custody after escaping jail in northeast Texas

The two escaped inmates out of Fannin County, who eluded authorities for four days, were back in custody Wednesday evening. Raymond Ross and Ramon Perez escaped custody Saturday while at the south annex of the Fannin County jail on County Road 4200, according to the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office. Perez turned himself in to law enforcement about noon Wednesday in Bryan County, Okla., according to a sheriff’s office spokesperson. It’s not clear if he had already been brought back to Fannin County. Ross was taken into custody about 4:50 p.m. at the Texoma Housing Authority complex in Bonham, the spokesperson said, adding he may be facing additional charges. During the search for Ross, a person called 911 saying Ross tried to flag them down and ask for a ride near Bonham High School, the spokesperson said. Bonham is a city of 10,000 about 70 miles northeast of downtown Dallas.

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Michael Taylor: After the anesthesia, Texans feeling the pain of jacked-up prices, surprise billings

The largest anesthesiology provider in Texas and its private equity owners were recently sued by the Federal Trade Commission, with the lawsuit accusing the company of scheming to monopolize the market and driving up prices for patients. The company, U.S. Anesthesia Partners Inc., is the dominant provider in Houston and Dallas — and 10 times larger by revenue than its nearest competitor in Texas. According to the complaint, private equity firm Welsh Carlson Anderson & Stowe noticed a fragmented market 11 years ago. It began a process of “rolling-up” anesthesia practices in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Tyler and Amarillo, building a behemoth involving 1,000 doctors, 750 nurses and more than a dozen practices.

As a result of its dominant position in its major markets, the FTC claims, the firm controls 60% of hospital-only anesthesia costs statewide and 43% of cases. With that, the company has been able to raise prices significantly, with reimbursement rates twice the median of other providers in Texas. The FTC quotes an email from a member of the firm who wrote “Cha-ching” after completing another anesthesia practice acquisition, on the expectation that investors would be able to extract monopolistic profits from their dominant position. I have three reasons for mentioning this lawsuit. The first and most trivial point is the dangers of email in business. This is in no way legal or financial advice, but seriously: Avoid writing “Cha-ching” in a celebratory email if you work for a private equity firm. Sure you can think it, and you might even say it to your buddy over post-acquisition drinks, just please don’t write it down. That email could cost you and your partners a lot of money. The second, more profound point, is that this case gives us insight on an important federal government and national business trend. My third reason for bringing this up is personal. This is a follow-up to an earlier column I wrote in which I mentioned an anesthesia-billing problem I found to be absolutely egregious.

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How Texas A&M landed Mike Elko amid rumors of hiring Mark Stoops

Gen. Mark Welsh, sole finalist for the Texas A&M presidency, realizes his new gig won’t always include an active role in a whirlwind search for a football coach. Thankfully. “It turns out that hiring a top-tier major college football coach is complicated,” Welsh said with a slight chuckle. “It’s hard.” Welsh and his fellow Aggies also are adopting the approach that all’s well that ends well following what Welsh dubbed the “adrenaline rush stage” of the hiring process. The one that landed Duke’s Mike Elko on Sunday but also included Kentucky’s Mark Stoops late in the mix this past weekend. About that …

“There were a couple of lessons I personally learned because I’ve never done this before or watched it being done,” Welsh told a crowd gathered at Kyle Field’s Hall of Champions to welcome Elko on Monday. “The first one is you can’t make everyone happy. The second one is the rumor mill is ‘stupendous.’ “The third one is that facts are sometimes optional on social media. And the fourth one is nothing is final until it’s final.” Stupendous … Stoopendous … get it? Here is one thing multiple people aware of the process insist on, and this is key: Mark Stoops never was officially offered the A&M job. The only one who was officially offered and officially accepted was a thrilled Elko, a former A&M defensive coordinator who was 16-9 the last two seasons at hoops-happy Duke. Elko deferred to A&M athletic director Ross Bjork when asked when he was contacted about the A&M opening following the Nov. 12 firing of Jimbo Fisher, Elko’s former boss at A&M from 2018-2021.

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Controller continues to block funding for massive IAH terminal overhaul, citing unresolved concern

The existing terminal is undersized, outdated and unable to support United Airlines’ new aircraft, according to city officials. To accommodate more and larger aircraft, United has announced a massive project, estimated to cost $2.6 billion, to expand the terminal, as well as building an upgraded ticket lobby, a new baggage system and other amenities.The current plan would require the city to contribute $624 million in three installments and United to cover the remaining costs. City Council was supposed to consider the first installment of $150 million in early November, but the controller – the city’s financial watchdog – has so far declined to certify that the money is available. This has blocked the item from reaching the council floor.

Two weeks ago, council members approved a memorandum of agreement without any financial commitment to signal their support for the project. On Wednesday, the body, once again, was not able to vote on the funding appropriation due to the absence of the controller’s certification. The Controller’s Office told the Chronicle on Wednesday that Brown would not greenlight the proposal without a feasibility study for the more than $600 million of city bond debt required under the terms of the deal. “We look forward to welcoming United’s business after this concern has been addressed or remedied,” said John Seydler, a spokesperson for the Controller’s Office. Mario Diaz, the director of the Houston Airport System, said in a recent memo that his team has started to update a study completed earlier this year. Mary Benton, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office, did not provide an estimated timeline for completing the updated study and told the Chronicle on Wednesday that the administration believes it has already completed all necessary evaluations. She said that the funds for the initial $150 million are available.

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U.S. Sen. John Cornyn fights against labeling guns a public health crisis

While U.S. Sen. John Cornyn helped pass federal gun reforms after the Uvalde school shooting, he made clear this week that he’s going to fight attempts to use public health laws to disarm gun owners. At a hearing in Washington, the Texas Republican warned that Democratic senators are trying to declare gun violence a public health epidemic as a “guise” to take away guns from law-abiding citizens. He said he won’t work with them like he did on legislation after Uvalde. “We can find ways to come together to get things done, but using public health authorities as a blanket excuse to strip away constitutional rights or framing gun violence as an epidemic divides us more than it unites us,” Cornyn said moments after U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Chicago Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised him for his work after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Democrats and gun control advocates say gun violence is a health emergency as deaths and injuries climb. Calling it such can help to develop more federal studies and research on the issue and target federal funding for ways to reduce the dangers. They’ve likened the effort to when the U.S. declared car accident deaths an emergency in the early 1970s, leading to a series of safety measures that reduced traffic deaths even as more cars were on the roads. But Republicans and the National Rifle Association see the move as a more nefarious effort to target gun owners. Cornyn pointed to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who declared gun violence a public health emergency in September because of growing deaths and injuries in her state. She then issued a 30-day suspension of open and concealed carry laws in Albuquerque, which produced backlash from gun rights groups. The courts quickly blocked the measure, which Lujan Grisham has since retooled it to only apply to parks and playgrounds.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Republicans are fighting for Hispanic voters. That's a good thing.

Hispanic voters in Houston this week finally got the type of attention they deserve. In an attempt to shore up support for President Biden ahead of next year’s elections, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the Hardy Senior Center on the Northside at an event hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a group of Democratic members of Congress that includes U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia. Meanwhile, the newly formed Hispanic Leadership Trust held a fundraiser at a home in Houston that brought in $250,000 to support conservative Hispanic candidates running for U.S. Congress, organizers said. They intend to erode the advantage Democrats have long had in many Latino communities.

Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district includes two-thirds of the Texas-Mexico border, was joined by five House members from Arizona, New York and California, along with three candidates including his former chief of staff Luisa Del Rosal, who is running for a Dallas-area seat. Four of them also stopped by the Chronicle offices Tuesday to meet the editorial board. No matter what party prevails in the 2024 battle to control Congress, the increased competition for Hispanic voters is a win for the country. More diverse representatives in Washington will lead to better policy, on immigration and a host of other issues. As Democrats discussed abortion, gun violence, mental health and small businesses at their event, Garcia said, “Really every issue is a Latino issue.” That’s not how the Republican members of the Hispanic Leadership Trust put it, though the underlying message is similar. In our meeting Tuesday, they stressed the universality of Hispanic voters’ core issues. “We’re no different than any other community; we’re a reflection of America,” said Juan Ciscomani, a first-term representative who won an Arizona district previously held by Democrats. The son of a Tucson bus driver, Ciscomani said his parents emigrated from Mexico when he was 11 in search of better jobs, safe neighborhoods and a good education for their children.

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After ousting NRG CEO, activist investor Elliott targets 3rd Houston company this month

Activist investor Elliott Investment Management has targeted another Houston company, disclosing a $1 billion stake in Phillips 66 as it criticizes the company for what it views as underperformance, according to a Wednesday letter sent to the refining and chemical company’s board. The size of Elliott’s investment in the Houston company appears to place it behind institutional investors such as Vanguard Group, whose $4.95 billion position, according to Bloomberg data, reflects a 9% stake in the company. On Monday, it disclosed it had a $2 billion stake in Houston-based telecommunications infrastructure company Crown Castle, calling for a new CEO and fresh board leadership. Earlier this month, it succeeded in pushing NRG Energy to replace its CEO and add four independent directors to its board.

In its letter, Elliott said Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, who ascended to the top job last year, deserves investor support while he works to improve profits. Still, it said, investors are “skeptical” of these efforts after its costs per barrel of fuel “soared in recent years, shaking investor confidence in the company’s ability to run its refining operations efficiently.” To address this, Elliott Partner John Pike and Mike Tomkins, a portfolio manager, said in the letter to the board that Phillips 66 should appoint two new directors with experience running refining operations. Such experience on the board is “limited,” they said. Of the 13 members of the board, three — including Lashier and Executive Chairman Greg Garland — worked at companies directly involved in refining, according to its most recent proxy statement. Lashier said in a statement that his leadership team has engaged in discussions with Elliott and welcomes its feedback.

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Former President Bill Clinton endorses Sheila Jackson Lee in Houston mayoral race

"Sheila Jackson Lee has been a tireless advocate for Houston's infrastructure, economic development, and prosperity for residents of all backgrounds," Clinton wrote in a Monday statement. "I'm proud to endorse her to serve as Houston's next mayor—make sure you have a plan to vote and bring your friends on Saturday, December 9th." Jackson Lee said she was honored to receive an endorsement from one of the nation's most impactful presidents in American history.

"President Clinton's influential work played a pivotal role in shaping our country's educational and welfare reforms, as well as the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993," she wrote. "His leadership also extended to signing the NAFTA agreement, contributing significantly to economic growth not only in the U.S. but also fostering positive impacts on Mexico and Canada, which, in turn, greatly influenced my home state of Texas.” Jackson Lee has been a Clinton family supporter for years and even backed Hillary Clinton for president in the 2008 Democratic Party primary, going against the will of many of her Black constituents who were Barack Obama supporters at the time.

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South Central Texas financial institution hit with enforcement action by federal banking regulators

An alarming drop in the value of a South Central Texas financial institution’s bond portfolio has triggered an enforcement action by federal banking regulators. Cuero-based TrustTexas Bank was found to have “unsafe or unsound banking practices relating to interest rate exposure, deterioration in capital protection and earnings, and deficiencies in management and oversight by (its) Board,” the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. The bank, with $444.5 million in assets as of Sept. 30, neither admitted nor denied the findings in agreeing to the issuance of the Oct. 26 consent order.

“Regulators always put the most serious issues first and that is clearly interest rate risk management, something that has been on the FDIC and other regulators’ radar since the Silicon Valley Bank failure,” said Ken Thomas, a Miami-based bank analyst and president of Community Development Fund Advisors. Silicon Valley Bank owned many ultrasafe long maturity U.S. Treasury bonds, which dropped in value when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates — resulting in the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history when it collapsed in March. TrustTexas Bank has experienced the same drop, though not on the scale of Silicon Valley Bank. In TrustTexas Bank’s case, it was in a $42 million hole in its bond portfolio at the end of September. About $4.2 million of that came in the last quarter alone, shrinking the bank’s equity capital — or net worth — to just $3 million. That’s down from more than $43 million two years ago.

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Texas battery operators worry new ERCOT regulations could hinder response to grid emergencies

The air is crisp on a November afternoon as a steady buzz hums across power lines feeding into the Texas grid from what once was an empty field on the outskirts of Austin. Rows of white shipping containers house enough batteries to power 81,000 Texas homes, pushing out about 100 megawatts at full blast. It’s mostly quiet — other than when the units’ air conditioners are cranking to keep the batteries cool in Texas’ brutal summer heat. “This is our outage season,” Jose DeLaFuente, who manages the site for Key Capture Energy, says of the work his team does to ensure the system is ready for its next test. Recently, they were maintaining the containers’ HVAC systems and changing air filters to ensure the dozens of batteries packed inside are ready to perform during freezing temperatures this winter.

After the Electric Reliability Council of Texas failed to add the reserve power it said was needed to to avoid a grid emergency through a severe cold snap, battery companies like Key Capture say their role is even more vital. For the past year, they’ve been stuck on a roller coaster of ERCOT’s making — largely tied to regulations battery operators say could hinder their ability to step up during an emergency. “As winter approaches and temperatures are dropping, Texans will need every megawatt of energy we can get to sustain through the season,” said Stephanie Smith, chief operating officer at Eolian, one of the state’s leading battery companies. The pending regulations — which the Texas Public Utility Commission could vote on Thursday — will instead reduce battery companies’ participation, Smith said. The reason: They would impose costly penalties for those that don’t maintain the level of battery charge the grid operator wants to require. The upshot of prohibiting batteries from being discharged when their power is needed, Smith said, is that ERCOT could leave “megawatts on the table when Texans need them the most.” ERCOT, though, says the rules are necessary to accurately gauge how much power is available. But it acknowledges they’re a stopgap until its systems are upgraded to better handle the technology.

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County Stories

County Judge Peter Sakai planning for a post-Spurs future for Frost Bank Center

Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said Wednesday that he’s starting to plan for the possibility of the Spurs leaving the county-owned Frost Bank Center for a new downtown arena. Sakai and his staff, including Chief of Staff Matthew Polanco, have been discussing how to keep the multi-use arena humming if it loses the Spurs as its marquee tenant. The Spurs played their first game at the county’s 19,000-seat arena on the East Side in 2002, and they have been the facility’s biggest regular draw since then. This season, the NBA franchise is scheduled to play 39 home games at the Frost Bank Center. The team’s lease for the facility expires in 2032.

The county judge said he also brought San Antonio Livestock Exhibition, the nonprofit whose San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo takes over the arena and neighboring county-run Freeman Coliseum every February, into the discussion. (A Spurs departure would not affect SALE’s ability to use the facility for the beloved annual event.) Sakai plans to tap experts in neighborhood development and the re-purposing of sports stadiums so the county can devise a strategic plan to convert the site into a “an economic generator for that community” if the Spurs decamp for the center city. “I’ve got big plans for the East Side,” he said told the Express-News Editorial Board on Wednesday. The city has not been part of these discussions, and likely won’t be for awhile. “I ultimately see that the city and county are going to have to sit down and come to an agreement” about the Spurs’ future, he said. “And as anybody who does any negotiating (knows), you don’t lay your cards out and then expect that you’re going get the best deal.”

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Judge reopens lawsuit between Dallas County commissioners and juvenile department

State District Judge Eric Moyé has agreed to reopen a lawsuit between Dallas County commissioners and the county juvenile department. Darryl Beatty, the department’s executive director, asked Moyé to reconsider the case for commissioners to approve routine annual staff raises. The dispute started during spring over access to juvenile records that allegedly suggest minors were left alone in detention for extended periods, among other concerns brought to commissioners court by parents of detained minors. Beatty alleged in late summer that commissioners rejected 5 percent raises for his department’s staff in retaliation because they were denied access to juvenile records. Before the Thanksgiving holiday commissioners voted to approve a $50,000 contract to pay attorneys representing both sides in the lawsuit. Commissioner John Wiley Price, who was removed recently from the juvenile board after two decades, voted not to pay attorneys.

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National Stories

The oil baron running the climate talks — and the U.S. envoy who’s had his back

Climate activists and progressive lawmakers unleashed their scorn when the CEO of one of the world’s most powerful oil companies got the job of helming this year’s global climate summit. “Do you take us for fools?” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore asked. “Completely ridiculous,” Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said. Hundreds of green groups and 130 lawmakers in the EU and U.S. joined in. But United Arab Emirates oil chief Sultan al-Jaber has a defender in his corner at the summit known as COP28, which debuts Thursday in Dubai: John Kerry, whose two and a half years as President Joe Biden’s climate envoy have included an aggressive courtship of al-Jaber as a partner in the fight against greenhouse gas pollution. That partnership will be put to the test this week, as an expected 70,000 people from nearly 200 nations meet amid war, inflation woes and a global energy boom in a Persian Gulf city built by the UAE’s oil wealth.

So will a central tenet of Kerry’s climate diplomacy — the notion that the countries, companies and executives who have profited the most from greenhouse gas pollution, those with the power to steer energy markets and the money to kickstart multibillion-dollar disaster funds, should play an essential role in solving the problem. Trusting an oil mogul to run the talks carries risks — it’s even an “experiment,” as Kerry acknowledged in a recent interview. It began to appear even riskier this week, when leaked documents from al-Jaber’s COP28 team, first reported by the BBC, indicated that the UAE was planning to use the summit to pitch oil and gas deals with more than a dozen countries. Al-Jaber denounced the report and the other complaints in a fiery appearance Wednesday in Dubai. “These allegations are false, not true, incorrect, and are not accurate. It is an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency,” he said. “Let me ask you a question — do you think the UAE or myself will need the COP or the COP presidency to go and establish business deals or commercial relationships?” To the UAE’s critics, the newest allegations confirm their worst fears about allowing al-Jaber to run the negotiations. But if Kerry shares those misgivings, he has not aired them publicly.

Read this article at Politico - Subscribers Only

After 50 years, US to return to Moon on January 25

More than 50 years after the last Apollo mission, the United States will try once again to land a craft on the Moon on January 25, said the head of what could be the first private company to successfully touch down on the lunar surface. The lander, named Peregrine, will have no one on board. It was developed by American company Astrobotic, whose CEO John Thornton said it will carry NASA instruments to study the lunar environment in anticipation of NASA's Artemis manned missions. Several years ago, NASA opted to commission US companies to send scientific experiments and technologies to the Moon -- a program called CLPS. These fixed-price contracts should make it possible to develop a lunar economy, and provide transport services at a lower cost.

"One of the big challenges of what we're attempting here is attempting a launch and landing on the surface Moon for a fraction of what it would otherwise cost," said Thornton Wednesday at a press briefing at his company's base in in Pittsburgh. "Only about half of the missions that have gone to the surface of the Moon have been successful," he said. "So it's certainly a daunting challenge. I'm going to be terrified and thrilled all at once at every stage of this." Takeoff is scheduled for December 24 from Florida aboard the inaugural flight of the new rocket from the ULA industrial group, named Vulcan Centaur. The probe will then take "a few days" to reach lunar orbit, but will have to wait until January 25 before attempting landing, so that light conditions at the target location are right, Thornton said. The descent will be carried out autonomously, without human intervention, but will be monitored from the company's control center.

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Pope punishes leading critic Cardinal Burke in second action against conservative American prelates

Pope Francis has decided to punish one of his highest-ranking critics, Cardinal Raymond Burke, by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against a conservative American prelate this month, according to two people briefed on the measures. Francis told a meeting of the heads of Vatican offices last week that he was moving against Burke because he was a source of “disunity” in the church, said one of the participants at the Nov. 20 meeting. The participant spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal the contents of the encounter. Francis said he was removing Burke’s privileges of having a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary as a retired cardinal because he was using the privileges against the church, said another person who was subsequently briefed on the pope’s measures. That person also spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to reveal the details.

Burke has not received any notification of measures being taken, his secretary said in a text message Tuesday to The Associated Press. Burke, a 75-year-old canon lawyer whom Francis had fired as the Vatican’s high court justice in 2014, has become one of the most outspoken critics of the pope, his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and his reform project to make the church more responsive to the needs of ordinary faithful. Twice, Burke has joined other conservative cardinals in issuing formal questions to the pontiff, known as “dubia,” asking him to clarify questions of doctrine that upset conservatives and traditionalists. In the first, they asked Francis to clarify his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and Francis never replied. In the second, they asked whether same-sex couples could receive church blessings — and received a conditional maybe in response. Then, on the eve of Francis’ big meeting of bishops last month, known as a synod, Burke presided over a counter-synod of sorts just steps away from St. Peter’s Square. There, Burke delivered a stinging rebuke of Francis’ vision of “synodality” as well as his overall reform project for the church. “It’s unfortunately very clear that the invocation of the Holy Spirit by some has the aim of bringing forward an agenda that is more political and human than ecclesial and divine,” Burke told the conference titled “The Synodal Babel.”

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Truce in Gaza extended another day but talks over remaining hostages held by Hamas could get tougher

Israel and Hamas agreed Thursday to extend their cease-fire by another day, just minutes before it was set to expire. Any further renewal of the truce in Gaza appeared increasingly difficult as most women and children held by the militants have already been released in swaps for Palestinian prisoners. As word of the extension came, gunmen opened fire on people waiting for buses along a main highway entering Jerusalem, killing at least three people and wounding several others, according to police. The two attackers, brothers from a Palestinian neighborhood in annexed east Jerusalem, were killed. Hamas said they were members of its armed wing and celebrated the assault, but called it “a natural response” to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere. It was unclear if the attack had been ordered by Hamas’ leaders or if it would have an impact on the truce.

International pressure has mounted for the cease-fire to continue as long as possible after nearly eight weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign in Gaza that have killed thousands of Palestinians, uprooted more than three-quarters of the population of 2.3 million and led to a humanitarian crisis. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on his third visit to the region since the start of the war, said “my heart goes out” to the victims of the Jerusalem attack. Blinken is expected to press for further extensions of the truce and the release of more hostages. “This process is producing results. It’s important, and we hope that it can continue,” he said. Qatar, which has played a key role in mediating with Hamas, announced that the truce was being extended. In the past, Hamas has released at least 10 Israeli hostages per day in exchange for Israel’s release of at least 30 Palestinian prisoners. The announcement followed a last-minute standoff, with Hamas saying Israel had rejected a proposed list that included seven living captives and the remains of three who the group said were killed in Israeli airstrikes. Israel later said Hamas submitted an improved list, but gave no details.

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Elon Musk apologizes for antisemitic tweet but tells advertisers ‘go f**k yourself’

Elon Musk, in his first interview with mainstream media since his antisemitic post on X earlier this month, apologized Wednesday for what he called his “dumbest” ever social media post. But he lashed out at advertisers leaving his platform because of rising antisemitism on X. “I don’t want them to advertise,” he said at the New York Times DealBook Summit in New York. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go f**k yourself. Go. F**k. Yourself,” he said. “Is that clear? Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel” he added, referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who spoke earlier at the summit on Wednesday. Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s remarks.

Musk made the remarks as the X CEO, Linda Yaccarino, sat in the audience. Yaccarino was brought into the company to woo back big-name advertisers. In a meandering conversation that lasted well over an hour, Musk also said he has no problem being hated. “Hate away,” he said. “There’s a real weakness to wanting to be liked. Clad in a leather jacket, black jeans leather boots, and a necklace given to him by a family member of an Israeli hostage that says “bring them home,” Musk added that it’s been “a hell of a year,” and admitted that he sometimes says “the wrong thing.” A number of prominent brands paused their advertising on X, formerly known as Twitter, this month following Musk’s public embrace of an antisemitic conspiracy theory favored by White supremacists. The advertising exodus included media companies like Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent of CNN. But he also said his tweet, slammed as antisemitic, might be “the worst” he’s ever done.

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New billionaire heirs overtake self-made ones as $5.2 trillion wealth transfer begins

Billionaires minted in the latest year accumulated more wealth through inheritance than entrepreneurship for the first time since UBS started tracking the fortunes of the world’s richest almost a decade ago. And billionaire heirs are more likely than their parents to focus on the major opportunities and challenges facing the global economy, investing in sectors such as clean energy and artificial intelligence, the Swiss lender said in a report Thursday. “The great wealth transfer is gaining significant momentum as many billionaire entrepreneurs age,” Benjamin Cavalli, who oversees strategic clients in the global wealth management unit at UBS, told reporters. “This is a theme we expect to see more of over the next 20 years as more than 1,000 billionaires pass an estimated $5.2 trillion to their children.”

UBS (UBS), which counts half the world’s billionaires as clients, found that $150.8 billion was inherited by 53 heirs over the 12 months to April, exceeding the $140.7 billion accumulated by 84 new self-made billionaires over that period. Overall, the number of billionaires globally climbed 7% to 2,544. Their combined wealth rose 9% to $12 trillion, before taking inflation into account. That total remains below a peak of $13.4 trillion reached in 2021, when the global billionaire community grew to 2,686 individuals following a post-pandemic rally in assets such as stocks and property. The report’s findings also reflect the subdued state of the IPO market through 2022 and early 2023, which limited the opportunities for entrepreneurs to list their businesses and so increase their wealth. “Economic, geopolitical and policy uncertainty have been a challenge to entrepreneurial wealth creation of late,” said Max Kunkel, chief investment officer for family and institutional wealth management clients at UBS.

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Gulf oil drilling faces reckoning after leasing slowdown

Oil companies maintain that without regular leasing by the federal government, the costs and risk of drilling the depths of the Gulf will increase, potentially pushing investment to oil fields abroad. “Conversations are already happening,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association. “You see the potential for a service company to ask whether it’s worth putting money into their facilities in the U.S. when there’s less lease sales and should we shift to South America and Asia.” The outlook becomes less certain in the latter half of the 2020s. New oil discoveries in the Gulf aren’t keeping up with current production, putting the region on the path to decline, said Justin Rostant, an analyst at research firm Wood Mackenzie. And with Biden pulling back on leasing, companies can no longer sit back and pick up leases as they need them, rather when they see a potential discovery they have to buy leases in bulk. and hope they pay off.

“You’re holding more blocks as inventory, chewing up more of your exploration budget,” Rostant said. “It’s like everything else. When you have more government intervention it just makes it a little more expensive and harder.” How much of a difference those increased hurdles will have on production in the Gulf remains to be seen. At least part of their increased interest stemmed from concern they might not get another chance to buy leases for awhile, Milito said. “The administration made clear they wanted to curtail development through leasing during the campaign,” he said. “On day one we had the leasing pause, and we’ve seen it ever since.” But buying up blocks for oil and gas wells that might never be drilled can get costly, with some blocks, which run 9 square miles, leasing for as much as $100 million. For some oil companies the risk is worth it, as technological advances allow drillers to not only access deeper and higher pressure deposits but better assess how much oil and gas they will ultimately produce. “In the Gulf of Mexico, they always seem to find a way to stave off that decline,” Rostant said.

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Lead Stories

Mark Cuban is selling majority interest in the Dallas Mavericks to Miriam Adelson

Mavericks governor Mark Cuban is selling majority interest in the franchise to Miriam Adelson, the widow of Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a person familiar with negotiations confirmed Tuesday to The Dallas Morning News. Cuban, 65, would maintain operational control, even though Adelson, 78, and her family would own a greater than 50% stake, the person said, without divulging the percentage that the Adelsons are purchasing. The pending deal, if finalized and approved by the NBA Board of Governors, would merge the interests of Cuban and the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which have planned to partner in building a Dallas resort casino and arena, if gambling is legalized in Texas. Cuban as of Tuesday evening had not responded to a request for comment about the sale, but last December he told The News: “My goal, and we’d partner with Las Vegas Sands, is when we build a new arena it’ll be in the middle of a resort and casino. That’s the mission.”

NBA insider Marc Stein was first to report Cuban’s plans to sell an unspecified stake of the Mavericks to the Adelson family. At 3:07 p.m. Tuesday, Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced that Miriam Adelson was selling $2 billion of Sands Corp. stock. In its Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Sands Corp. stated that the $2 billion, “along with additional cash on hand,” will “fund the purchase of a majority interest in a professional sports franchise pursuant to a binding purchase agreement, subject to customary league approvals.” In other words, Adelson and Cuban have entered a binding agreement on the sale. Once finalized, the sale still would need approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors. For anyone wondering whether the NBA would give pause to having a majority team owner who is tied with the gambling industry, Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta’s Landry’s, Inc. owns Golden Nugget casinos in Nevada, New Jersey, Louisiana and Mississippi. Despite the significant caveat that Cuban will maintain operational control of the Mavericks, Tuesday’s news was shocking given Cuban’s passionate ownership style from the moment — on Jan. 4, 2000 — he purchased a majority stake of the Mavericks from Ross Perot Jr. for $285 million.

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Texas Supreme Court appears hesitant to clarify emergency exception in state's abortion ban

Several of the Texas Supreme Court’s Republican justices appeared hesitant on Tuesday to clarify an emergency exception in the state’s abortion ban despite claims from nearly two dozen women that they were forced to continue medically dangerous pregnancies. “Our job is to decide cases, not to elaborate and expand laws in order to make them easier to understand or enforce,” Justice Brett Busby said. The case was initially filed in March by five women — a number that has since ballooned to 22 as more plaintiffs have been added — who say they were denied abortions despite having dangerous or unviable pregnancies. They say their doctors feared violating the law, which could result in lengthy prison sentences, tens of thousands in fines and the loss of their medical licenses.

Unlike other litigation, their lawsuit is not trying to overturn the Texas ban or others like it, but instead clarify exactly how physicians can provide abortions during dangerous or unviable pregnancies. The ban currently allows the procedure only when there is a “substantial” risk to a mother. Lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the women, say the exception is overly vague and that the lack of care their clients received violates the Texas Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights regardless of sex, among other provisions. The state’s attorneys, meanwhile, argue that doctors are at fault for failing to intervene in each of the cases, not the law, and that the women don’t have the right to sue the state because they’re not actively in danger. Justice Jeff Boyd said he was having trouble understanding the state’s argument about the women’s right to sue, pointing to one of them, Amanda Zurawski, who developed sepsis while her doctor made her wait for an abortion. Because of her complications, Zurawski will likely not be able to conceive again without medical intervention. “Why doesn’t she have standing to say, ‘Hey, we need someone to tell us what this statue means so that … I know what my rights are going forward, and my doctor knows what he or she can do moving forward’?” he asked.

Read this article at Houston Chronicle - Subscribers Only

Supreme Court weighs Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement power

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a broad legal attack on the Securities and Exchange Commission, giving the conservative majority another chance to curb the power of federal agencies. The case is one of three on the Supreme Court's docket considering what has been broadly described as an attack on the administrative state led by conservative groups and business interests. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has frequently been supportive of such efforts. The challenge focuses on the power the SEC has to enforce securities laws, including those prohibiting insider trading. The SEC uses in-house proceedings presided over by administrative law judges or sues in federal court. In both sets of proceedings, it can seek financial penalties. Those subject to the in-house proceedings have bristled, saying they violate their rights and give the SEC too much power by essentially creating a home-court advantage.

One critic is hedge fund manager George Jarkesy, who brought the legal challenge after he faced SEC claims that he violated securities laws by making misstatements and omitting relevant information in communications with investors while he was overseeing two hedge funds. “It is widely recognized that the SEC virtually always wins in its own home courts,” Jarkesy’s lawyers said in court filings. After an in-house proceeding in 2014, Jarkesy and his firm were ordered to pay a $300,000 penalty, and he was barred from certain roles in the securities industry. The firm was also ordered to return nearly $685,000 in what the SEC considered "illicit gains." Jarkesy's legal crusade has the backing of billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. The case raises three weighty constitutional questions that could weaken the SEC's powers, at least when it comes to the in-house proceedings. One is whether the adjudication of cases by the in-house judges violates the right to trial by jury under the Constitution's Seventh Amendment.

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In a shaky oil market, OPEC has bitter decisions to make

These are tricky times for the world’s major oil producers: Prices are lower, the health of the global economy is uncertain, and, even as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries tries to cut output, supplies from other producers, notably the United States, are growing. No wonder the group postponed its year-end meeting. Initially scheduled for last weekend in Vienna, the meeting is now planned for Thursday, barring another postponement. The agenda — whether to cut production further, and by how much — is likely to be unpalatable for many of the 23 members. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, has fallen to about $82 a barrel, from a high of more than $96 this year and $128 at its height early in the Ukraine war. It has dropped even as producers in OPEC Plus, a bigger group that includes Russia, have cut production, but the coming months seem unlikely to give oil producers a respite from this squeeze.

After three years of pandemic recovery and robust increases in demand for oil, appetite is expected to slow in 2024. The main reasons: China, which accounted for three-quarters of global demand growth in 2023, is facing an economic slowdown. Overall economic expansion is expected to be tepid while more efficient energy use and increasing numbers of electric vehicles reduce oil consumption. With production expected to increase outside of OPEC Plus, there will be little need for increased output from the producers group in the early part of 2024 or, perhaps, longer, analysts say. The weak market is pressuring Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC Plus, to push to continue and perhaps even deepen production cuts. Saudi Arabia and Russia, for instance, may roll over into the new year the trims of one million barrels a day and 300,000 barrels a day that they agreed to last summer. Russia’s cut applies to its exports of oil. Some smaller OPEC producers, including Nigeria and Angola, are being asked to sign off on lower production limits that are more reflective of their recent output history, while the United Arab Emirates has received a higher level. “There is a good chance the group will agree to some sort of additional cuts,” said Richard Bronze, head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects, a research firm.

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State Stories

Ex-Hidalgo staffer files motion to block new search warrants in COVID contract case

One of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's former staffers is pushing back on new search warrants seeking personal cellphone records, arguing the county District Attorney's office and Texas Rangers "improperly obtained" the warrants in an ongoing investigation into a canceled COVID-19 public outreach contract. Two of the warrants issued earlier this month compel AT&T and WhatsApp to hand over personal phone communications after investigators alleged former staffers tampered with evidence by withholding some messages related to the case. But attorneys for Alex Triantaphyllis, one of four former Hidalgo aides named in the warrants, argued in a motion filed Monday that he already provided those communications to investigators and accused them of issuing the new search warrants "with reckless disregard for the truth."

In the motion, attorneys asked the court to stay the warrants' execution, conduct a hearing into the matter and ultimately void the warrants. Joe Stinebaker, a spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, rejected the defendant's claims. “If Mr. Triantaphyllis is so confident he has turned over all the required material, why is he hoping to suppress the search warrants? This is just the most recent example of the defense’s attempts to try this case in the media. We, however, look forward to trying it in the proper venue – a courtroom," Stinebaker said Tuesday in a statement. The investigation dates back to 2021, when Harris County Commissioners Court awarded an $11 million contract to Elevate Strategies, a political consulting firm, to conduct a COVID-19 vaccine outreach campaign. The former Hidalgo aides are accused of steering the contract to Elevate Strategies founder Felicity Pereyra by giving her early access – an allegation they have denied.

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Ex-Houston hedge fund boss fights SEC backed by Musk, Cuban

Houston hedge-fund manager George Jarkesy said he didn’t recall more than 800 times during questioning at the SEC about deceiving investors. A judge at the agency said he was so evasive his testimony was all but worthless. A decade later, Jarkesy may have the last laugh. The U.S. Supreme Court is now using his case to consider stripping the Securities and Exchange Commission of a key weapon in its arsenal – the ability to go before its in-house judges to seek multimillion-dollar penalties. The court hears arguments Wednesday with a ruling likely by June. Jarkesy, a former Wall Street broker and television commentator, is the new face of a long-running effort to undercut what critics say is an unfair advantage the SEC holds when it tangles with alleged wrongdoers. The SEC uses its in-house system for hundreds of cases a year – even after scaling back in response to a 2018 loss at the Supreme Court.

Backed by Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, Jarkesy contends that defendants in SEC cases have a constitutional right to make their case to a federal jury. A win for Jarkesy would reduce the SEC’s leverage to extract expensive settlements. “The effect for defendants would be significant,” said Nicolas Morgan, a lawyer with Paul Hastings and former SEC litigator who filed a friend-of-the-court brief for Musk, Cuban and three other business leaders who have clashed with the commission. “Potentially, you would see fewer defendants settle if they know they’re going to be able to plead their case to a jury.” Depending on the court’s reasoning, the case could also affect the Federal Trade Commission, which uses in-house judges as well. Jarkesy in 2007 set up the first of two Houston-based funds that eventually raised $24 million from 120 investors. He became a conservative commentator on Fox Business News and CNBC, talking about the financial markets and government regulation.

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Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to give annual state of the city speech over the radio

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says he’ll deliver his latest state of the city address this week over the radio, a departure from him giving the annual speech in-person inside a venue. The mayor’s address is scheduled to be broadcasted Thursday evening on WBAP News/Talk 820 AM and 99.5 FM-HD2. It’s not clear why a radio format was chosen or why the speech will be broadcasted on WBAP, which broadcasts on both frequencies. Alheli Garza,Johnson’s chief of state, said Tuesday that there are no alternative broadcast options to experience the speech and that the audio will also be streamed on WBAP’s website. She didn’t immediately respond to questions Tuesday on why Johnson chose to give the speech via the radio or whether it will be read live on-air or pre-recorded.

The city owns a separate station, WRR-FM (101.1), which has been managed by public television and radio operator KERA since last year. Outside of that, Catherine Cuellar, Dallas’ director of communications, outreach and marketing, told The Dallas Morning News that the city has the capability to broadcast or stream the speech. The City Charter requires the mayor to give a yearly report to the public on Dallas’ accomplishments, financial condition as well as future plans and needs. Prior mayors, including Johnson’s immediate predecessor Mayor Mike Rawlings, have delivered their yearly address to the Dallas Regional Chamber during an event not publicly broadcasted at all. But other than his first speech months after being elected in 2019, Johnson has given the address in-person during events broadcasted by the city. “Mayor Johnson has made it his goal to deliver the annual remarks in a public way — returning the address to its roots — rather than during a private luncheon with business leaders,” read a mayor’s office news release announcing Johnson’s 2021 state of the city address. Johnson has delivered the address twice from Fair Park: in 2020 from the Hall of State in a virtual address and from the Briscoe-Carpenter building in front of a crowd last year.

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Your electric bill could rise from Oncor proposal that takes advantage of little-known law

Dallas-Fort Worth residents could see a bump to their electric bills coming soon under a request from the company that owns power lines for vast swaths of North Texas and beyond. Oncor Electric Delivery is seeking roughly $53.5 million from electricity providers in costs that likely will be passed on to electric bills. It is the second time the power line company has asked for a rate increase in a matter of months. If all costs are passed through to consumers, the average North Texas resident would see a 76-cent increase to their monthly electric bill, according to filings at the Public Utility Commission and usage numbers compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Public Utility Commission of Texas is set to approve Oncor’s latest request Thursday.

Oncor spokesperson Kerri Dunn said cities served by Oncor and the company agreed on the rate, and that any increase would take effect on Dec. 28, pending regulatory approval. “Even with this slight increase, Oncor’s rates remain among the lowest among all transmission and distribution utilities in Texas,” Dunn said in an emailed statement. Until recently, companies such as Oncor were only allowed to seek a rate increase once a year. However, a law passed this year at the Legislature now allows electric distribution companies such as Oncor in North Texas and CenterPoint in the Houston area to seek two rate increases per year. The Public Utility Commission, which regulates Texas’ power utilities and ERCOT, approved Oncor’s first request earlier this month. The request was made in May. That rate increase approved at the beginning of November could increase residential bills by about $2.07 a month. That will bring in $152.5 million for the company. Weatherford Republican Sen. Phil King, the bill’s author, said in April at the Capitol that the bill would streamline litigation in rate increase cases that would save power distribution companies money, “which will translate into lower rates paid by your customers.”

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One of North Texas’ largest water suppliers is latest victim of cyberattack

The North Texas Municipal Water District, which supplies water to sprawling Collin County suburbs, is the latest target of a ransomware attack. A district official stressed the breach has not disrupted service to more than 2 million customers who receive drinking water, as well as wastewater and stormwater management, nor is there indication that it will. The attack, recently detected by district officials, comes as numerous North Texas entities have faced similar breaches and just one month after Dallas County fell victim to a cyberattack. Ransomware group Daixin Team claimed responsibility for the attack on the dark web and said it obtained names, dates of birth, medical record numbers and Social Security numbers from the district. According to screenshots posted on social media by cybersecurity experts, the group said it stole 33,844 files and threatened to release data soon.

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Mark Cuban has been the face of the Mavericks franchise. Why would he get out now?

For better or worse, Mark Cuban has been joined at the lip with Jerry Jones in this market ever since he bought the Mavs nearly 24 years ago. Together with Jerry they became the most bombastic pair of sports owners in one market anywhere, anytime, and we have the scars to prove it. Besides an insatiable thirst for the spotlight, both ran their own circuses, making Ray Davis, the Rangers’ owner, seem like a recluse in comparison. But, in selling a majority share of his beloved Mavs to the Adelson family of Las Vegas, Cuban is doing something Jerry would never do. He’s getting out, slowly but surely. The only question is why?

Cuban offered no explanation Tuesday for the stunning news. He was in his usual seat for the Mavs’ 121-115 win over the Rockets, within an arm’s reach of the Mavs’ bench, next to his longtime financial pal, Charlie McKinney. Just like old times. Like breaking national news had never happened. Even got up a couple times to vent. But not a peep about selling. A Mavs spokesman referred media “to the Adelson family for comment,” and it’s not hard to see why they’re interested. For one thing, Forbes ranks the Mavs as one of the NBA’s 10 most valuable franchises at $4.5 billion, which makes Cuban’s reported $2 billion cut after forking over $285 million in 2000 quite a windfall. But that’s just the start of it. Cuban made clear last year that he hoped to eventually partner with the Adelson family, which owns the Las Vegas Sands Corp., to build a new arena and casino adjacent to Dallas’ new convention center. Only two problems at the moment: The Mavs’ lease with American Airlines Center doesn’t expire until 2031, and the state of Texas has yet to legalize gambling. In bringing the Adelson family to the front lines, perhaps Cuban thinks the push to persuade lawmakers will bring different results. Miriam Adelson, widow of Sheldon Adelson, who built his $33 billion empire in Vegas, donated $1 million last year to Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign, which is certainly a start.

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Spurs hope to make Wembanyama’s next monster outing count

Devin Vassell listened as the numbers were read aloud to him, eyes widening with each one. Having been at last debriefed on the raw statistics Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama put up Sunday in Denver, Vassell couldn’t contain himself. “That’s a crazy-ass stat line,” the Spurs guard said. Individually speaking, the 19-year-old Wembanyama acquitted himself well in his first entanglement with the defending NBA champions. He had 22 points, 11 rebounds, four blocks and a season-best six steals. No player in NBA history had amassed those totals in less than 35 minutes. Wembanyama did it in 25. There were other numbers the Spurs enjoyed less, such as the digits on the Ball Arena scoreboard, which illuminated a 132-120 Nuggets victory. Then there was the Spurs’ losing streak, which hit 12 in a row.

As for those occasionally eye-popping Wembanyama box scores? “It’s unfortunate they’re coming in losses,” center Zach Collins said. As the Spurs’ record has dipped to an unsightly 3-14, worst in the Western Conference, everyone in the locker room and coaches’ office agrees: The kid is doing his part. Now it is up to more of the other Spurs to do theirs. “We’ve got to continue looking to help him,” Vassell said. “He is obviously helping us.” In 13 November games, Wembanyama is averaging 20.1 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.8 blocks. It ought to set Wembanyama up for a run at his first Western Conference Rookie of the Month award, although Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren could have something to say about that. Holmgren was averaging 19.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game in November going into Tuesday's game versus Minnesota. The losses piling up have made it difficult for Wembanyama to appreciate his historic box scores and the potential accolades that might accompany them. “Not when we’re losing,” Wembanyama said. “Not at all.”

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Feds decline to list two Edwards Aquifer species as endangered

Two aquatic species found in the Edwards Aquifer, the San Antonio area’s primary source of drinking water, will not be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday. The two species — the Texas troglobitic water slater and the mimic cavesnail — do not meet the standards required to be listed as endangered under the federal act, USFWS officials decided after a “thorough review of the best available scientific and commercial information.” “After completing status reviews of the species and consulting with academia, state agencies, species experts and others, the Service concluded that neither species are in danger of extinction or likely to become in danger of extinction throughout all of their range or in any significant portion of their range and do not meet the definition of threatened or endangered species,” the USFWS stated in a press release.

Both species could still be threatened by environmental impacts, however, such as reductions in groundwater quantity and groundwater contamination, the agency added. The mimic cavesnail is a small freshwater snail that lives deep within the Edwards Aquifer in Bexar County. The species is minute, measuring just 1 millimeter on average. The snail is a type of gastropod mollusk and has a single gill and a curly shell. The Texas troglobitic water slater is a tiny, eyeless unpigmented groundwater crustacean that lives deep within the Edwards Aquifer. These small isopods range between 3 to 4 millimeters in length and feed on organic matter created by a unique strain of underground bacteria. They are mostly found mostly in the Hays County region of the aquifer. In 2007, WildEarth Guardians petitioned the USFWS to list the slater — and several hundred other species — as endangered. After several delays, USFWS found in 2009 that the water slater may be warranted for listing based on “presented substantial scientific or commercial information.” Since then, officials have been reviewing the species’ status.

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Texas’ anti-LGBTQ+ laws driving some to flee state

The latest demographic data show that Texas continues to see population growth but there are signs that some communities are leaving the state due to the passage of anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Bob McCranie, a Dallas based real estate broker, created Flee Red States — a real estate service to help marginalized people in Texas find new welcoming homes. "A lot of my friends kept talking about 'what's your plan B? Where are you going to go?' Oh, I've already moved to Puerto Vallarta or I'm moving to Massachusetts or I'm getting out," McCranie told TPR. "So I just started talking about a conversation that's been going on in the gay community very subtly, very quietly for a while. I just started talking about it publicly in a way that caught on." He said Texas elected leaders have made it clear to LTBTQ+ people that they are not wanted here.

“Every legislative session, our rights are the ping pong balls that they play with. They are passing bills that attack our community,” McCranie said. “Why would you stay there when there are other places that want you to come that will treat you with respect and protect your civil rights?” Eleven anti-LGBTQ+ laws were passed in the last legislative session. State lawmakers banned puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans kids, banned trans athletes from college sports and labeled drag shows as sexual conduct. McCranie said this past legislative sessions was the breaking point for many to decide to pack up and move to a more welcoming state. “They can feel safer and not having the Proud Boys at Pride events to intimidate and provoke our community,” he said. In 2021, about 500,000 people left Texas for a variety of reasons. However, the state still saw a population increase. McCranie predicts the exodus trend will increase as Texas continues to target the LGBTQ+ community.

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X suit against Media Matters to be heard in Fort Worth court

Fort Worth U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman recused himself from a lawsuit filed by X (formerly Twitter) against Media Matters for America and the case was reassigned Tuesday to Judge Reed O’Connor, with the suit to be heard in a federal court in Fort Worth, according to court documents. The suit, filed in the Fort Worth division of federal court in the Northern District of Texas on Nov. 20, alleges the nonprofit media company “knowingly and maliciously” created side-by-side images in a report to depict advertisers’ posts on X appearing next to Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist content. The suit alleges Media Matters created these images to drive advertisers away from the platform and to “destroy” X. Media Matters has said that the company stands by its reporting and expects to prevail in court, according to a report by the Associated Press.

“This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X’s critics into silence,” the nonprofit’s president, Angelo Carusone, said in a prepared statement. Pittman’s recusal was filed Tuesday, requesting the suit to be assigned to another judge. According to notes entered in court records the same day, the suit was reassigned to O’Connor, who is also based in Fort Worth. In addition to the images Media Matters allegedly created with malicious intent, the lawsuit says X and its predecessor, Twitter, have “long been the target of Media Matters.” The media company published over 20 articles in November that threatened X’s relationship with massive multinational advertisers and global publishers, including Amazon, eBay, MLB, the New York Times, Samsung, among many others, the suit says. The articles were “disparaging” to X and its CEO Elon Musk, according to the suit. As a result of the images in the Media Matters report, several companies withdrew ads from X, including Apple, Comcast, NBC Universal and IBM, some of X’s largest advertisers, the suit states. Eric Hananoki, a writer for Media Matters, is also a defendant named in the suit.

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Austin Energy customers can expect to see another increase to their December bills

Austin Energy customers should expect to see another increase to their utility bills starting Friday. The city’s energy company said customers will see a 5%, or about $2 per month, bump. Matt Mitchell, a spokesperson for Austin Energy, said the increase is for what is called a pass-through charge that the utility company pays to the state’s power grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT. “This is purely for cost recovery,” Mitchell said. “It only goes to pay the utility back for money that the utility already spent on behalf of our customers for power during this extremely hot summer and during the cold winter months as well.” The change comes after customers saw an increase this month of slightly more than $2 in their monthly energy bills.

Residents also saw increases in water bills and other city fees, including trash, this year. Previously, residents were told to expect an increase of about $14 per month or $172 per year in combined utilities, according to the city's tax impact statement. The new increase means residents should expect to pay about $24 more on top of that. Austin has worked to expand its customer assistance program that gives discounts to low-income residents and others in need. Utility bill discounts can help reduce bills by an average of $560 a year, according to the city. “That program is there and we want people to use it,” Mitchell said. “Certainly around the holidays, we know things can get tight. If for some reason you are falling into financial distress please call us. Do not wait.”

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TEA launches special investigation into San Antonio-based charter network Great Hearts Texas

The Texas Education Agency has launched a special investigation of Great Hearts Texas, a San Antonio-based charter network that last month accused its Arizona parent organization of illegally siphoning millions of dollars from its state funding. The Texas group’s board, meanwhile, accepted the resignation Monday of Brendan Miniter, the superintendent who had steered it on a more independent course that clashed with the Arizona leadership. It was unclear if his departure was connected to the state probe. The board’s president, Shannon Sedgwick Davis, thanked him for his contributions but neither she nor other board members mentioned the investigation. A TEA spokesperson confirmed it was underway but could not say why or provide any other details.

After Monday’s meeting, Miniter declined comment and said he planned to send an email to parents in the coming days. In a prepared statement provided to the San Antonio Express-News in response to questions about the TEA action, Great Hearts Texas said it was “aware of an investigation and is fully cooperating” with the agency. It declined to make anyone available for an interview. Great Hearts Texas serves 10,000 students in 22 schools, including seven in San Antonio, where the first one was planted almost a decade ago. The investigation comes just weeks after it abruptly dropped a lawsuit against its affiliate, Great Hearts America, based in Arizona, where the group was founded. The litigation convinced a judge to issue a temporary restraining order on Oct. 24, halting an alleged attempt by Great Hearts America to assert control of the Texas group’s board, agreeing that it likely violated guidelines to their relationship that had made the Texas charter possible. Parents received a letter from Great Hearts Texas the next day describing a serious rift between the groups triggered by the Texas board’s decision to no longer cooperate with Great Hearts America’s practice of “charging millions of dollars in fees to Texas since at least 2017 in a manner that was not compliant with the law.”

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Houston to interview UTSA's Jeff Traylor for coaching job

UTSA coach Jeff Traylor interviewed for the job at the University of Houston on Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the situation said. This is believed to be at least a second interview with the school, the source said. Dana Holgorsen was fired Sunday after going 4-8 in the school's first Big 12 season. Holgorsen was 31-28 in three losing seasons in five years.

Traylor, 55, interviewed earlier this month for the Texas A&M opening. At UTSA, Traylor had a 12-win season in 2021 and 11-win season in 2022, both times winning the Conference USA title. The Roadrunners went 8-4 in their first season in the American Athletic Conference and will play in a fourth straight bowl game.

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HISD's payments to Superintendent Miles spark concerns of conflict of interests

A curious payment that appeared on Houston ISD’s financial ledgers was made to appointed Superintendent Mike Miles to cover his moving expenses and a temporary contract at the beginning of his tenure, HISD officials said. About $64,072 was awarded to Miles over the course of three payments on June 28 and June 30, according to HISD’s online check registry, raising concerns about a conflict of interest in violation of board policy. District policy, in defining a conflict of interest, states that no employee, including a superintendent, can be involved in business that is paid for using district funds. HISD communications chief Leila Walsh, in response to questions from the Houston Chronicle, said that Miles was paid $42,981.12 on June 30 for his work between June 1 and June 22, when the state-appointed Board of Managers approved his permanent contract, and $25,000 in moving expenses.

Two other checks for $14,860.06 and $6,231.10 were issued to Miles “in error,” Walsh said, and voided in June. The superintendent was compensated outside of the standard payroll process on this occasion because the temporary contract called for him to be paid by July 1, before the district’s scheduled payday of July 5, Walsh said. Taxes, Medicare and retirement contributions were withheld from the June 30 payment and it was subsequently added to his payroll detail to be included on his year-end tax forms. Miles, a former superintendent in Dallas and charter school operator, was appointed to lead HISD by the Texas Education Agency after Wheatley High School failed state evaluations seven years in a row, triggering a 2015 law that allowed the state’s education authority to replace the district’s superintendent and elected Board of Trustees. House was quickly appointed superintendent of Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland after being replaced by Miles.

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Two Dallas physicians charged in $12 million fraud scheme

Drs. Desi and Deno Barroga were indicted for allegedly receiving $12 million from fraudulent claims and illegally distributing hydrocodone to patients from the Dallas pain management clinic where they operated. The physicians are accused of carrying out a fraudulent scheme between 2016 and 2022 against Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and United Healthcare. The doctors required patients to visit once a month, where they would allegedly stay for only fifteen minutes, often leaving with a prescription for a Schedule II narcotic. While at the clinic, the Barrogas would bill insurance for injections of anti-inflammatory steroids without administering the medicine. According to the indictment, the doctors would put a needle against the patient’s skin without piercing the skin to mimic an injection. Other patients received small amounts of steroids.

Next, the Barrogas would bill insurance as if the patient had received dozens of injections when the prosecution claimed that most of them had received no injections or small amounts. The physicians allegedly billed for 80 injections on a patient in a single visit. Court records show that the clinic sometimes billed more than $4,000 for services on a single day for a patient. The clinic allegedly created fake health records to reflect the fraudulent billing, often copying and pasting the record from patient to patient with little to no variation. The Barrogas submitted the false records to the insurance companies to justify the alleged fraud. The defendant billed insurance companies for $50 million, of which they were paid $12 million for the fraudulent work. According to the Texas Medical Board, Deno Barroga was accused of improperly prescribing controlled substances to patients in 2015. As a result, his practice had to be monitored by another physician, and he had to take a professional development course on physician prescribing. In 2018, he was accused in a State Board of Administrative Hearing document of failing to assess and treat a patient who died from a drug overdose from the controlled substances he prescribed the patient.

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City Stories

San Marcos film studio set to break ground in February

Construction on an 800,000-square-foot film studio in San Marcos is set to begin Feb. 4. The first phase of construction on Hill Country Studios will include two 25,000-square-feet sound stages and a two-story 24,000-square-foot support building, according to the filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. It's estimated to cost $20 million. Interested in what you’re reading? Become KUT’s newest member. Your support helps keep our website paywall-free, with no traditional advertising. Tap here to join us today. "Having a state-of-the-art movie production studio here will draw a lot of attention to our area," Page Michel, president and CEO of the San Marcos Area Chamber of Commerce, said. Michel said there will be a significant and diverse set of new jobs coming to town, including suppliers and businesses that will work near the studio. That means local hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues could also see more business.

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Houston activist Laurence Payne dies at 73, remembered for dedication to community

For the past 20 years, Tiffany Thomas and Laurence Payne met at Harry’s Restaurant for coffee, community and conversation. But the Houston City Councilwoman is now reflecting on her time shared with the Houston activist. Payne died of cancer Nov. 26. He was 73. Hailed as a voice for social justice and economic equality, Payne’s reach in Houston extended in many directions. Mayor Sylvester Turner described Payne as a “facilitator, educator, mentor and personal friend.”

“Very few people anywhere in this country could have successfully facilitated a consensus with 45 people representing community activists, police officers, labor, business, faith and nonprofit leaders,” Turner said in a statement. “The 104 reforms presented were broadly accepted and helped our city navigate challenging times.” Breakfast with Payne began more than 20 years ago, said Thomas who represents Westchase. The tradition not only allowed her to spend time with a dear friend, but also get advice and counsel from a man many in Houston celebrated as community-driven leader. “Larry was really focused in on Houston 2036,” Thomas said. “When Larry and I were at breakfast, he was talking about in 2036 he envisioned an address from a mayor and what will the mayor be saying about the city in 2036 and whatever the mayor is saying in 2036, we have to get started on that today.”

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Fort Worth OKs $3.5M payment for Atatiana Jefferson’s nephew

The Fort Worth City Council voted to approve a $3.5 million settlement for Atatiana Jefferson’s nephew, who witnessed a Fort Worth police officer shoot and kill his aunt in her home more than four years ago. The council voted unanimously to approve the settlement on Tuesday, which was also Jefferson’s birthday. She would have been 33. Because Jefferson’s nephew, Zion Carr, is a minor, the settlement will also need to gain the approval of the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit before it can go into effect. James Smith, who was Jefferson’s neighbor, spoke during Tuesday’s council meeting and raised a concern he’s said he’s heard about the settlement amount. “It might not be enough,” Smith said to the council. “But time — four years — this young man is struggling. He needs to move on with his life.”

Jefferson was killed in October 2019, after police responded to a concerned call from Smith, who lives across the street, about Jefferson’s front door being open late at night. When former officer Aaron Dean responded to Jefferson’s home, he saw Jefferson through the window of her house and shot her once, killing her. Jefferson had been watching her nephew, Zion, who was 8 years old at the time. The boy witnessed the killing, and testified in Dean’s murder trial. The killing rattled North Texas, and the country, and triggered calls for justice in the face of police brutality. Dean was convicted of manslaughter in December 2022. He has since appealed his conviction. Meanwhile, two civil court cases have wound their way through the justice system: One was filed on behalf of Jefferson’s estate, and the other was filed on behalf of Zion. The now-approved settlement would close out the second of those cases. “It does feel short, it’s not enough, but it’s the right gesture on behalf of the City of Fort Worth,” said Mayor Mattie Parker. “We don’t always agree on everything but there was full agreement on this issue along the way.”

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National Stories

Gaza war complicates U.S. efforts to normalize Gulf relations with Israel

The war in Gaza is testing newly strengthened ties between Arab Gulf countries and Israel, raising questions about an American-backed vision for regional order that emphasizes economic ties over political differences and historical rifts. While the conflict is unlikely to lead to the severing of diplomatic relations, it has scrambled the calculations of emergent Gulf powers that see in Israel a potential security partner and a counterweight to regional rival Iran. Now, leaders must grapple with an outpouring of public anger over a war that has killed more than 13,300 people and left much of Gaza in ruins. In speeches, statements and social media posts, Gulf leaders have condemned the death and destruction in Gaza, but they have also been careful to stress the importance of regional stability and lines of communication. Qatar, the country most diplomatically engaged in the crisis, does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, but has succeeded in mediating a temporary pause in the fighting — allowing for the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

The United States has championed Arab normalization with Israel across two administrations. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain formalized ties with Israel in 2020 under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, followed by Morocco and Sudan. Washington had hoped that Saudi Arabia — the Gulf’s dominant power — would be next. Now, those plans are on hold. “I cannot prove what I’m about to say,” President Biden said earlier this month. “But I believe one of the reasons why Hamas struck when they did was they knew that I was working very closely with the Saudis and others in the region to bring peace to the region by having recognition of Israel and Israel’s right to exist.” Saudi Arabia has called for a comprehensive cease-fire in Gaza, describing the war as a “dangerous development” and a “humanitarian catastrophe.” At home, the kingdom has taken steps to channel public expressions of solidarity with Palestinians into relief and fundraising efforts. Speaking on Nov. 18 at the IISS Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to Washington and senior member of the royal family, said the crisis in Gaza has shown that regional peace efforts that fail to address the occupation of Palestinian land are an “illusion.”

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Elon Musk's Cybertruck, which is being built in Texas, is already a production nightmare for Tesla

The Cybertruck hasn’t even hit the market yet and Elon Musk already is lamenting that Tesla Inc. has dug its own grave. Its stainless steel body may be able to withstand bullets and arrows but it’s going to be a bear putting the panels together. It will be Tesla Inc.’s first high-voltage vehicle, offering the benefit of faster charging but also potential pitfalls. And it will be Tesla’s only product dependent on in-house battery cells that are years behind schedule. “Model X became kind of like a technology bandwagon of every cool thing we could imagine all at once,” Musk said of the SUV in May 2017. “That is a terrible strategy. You really want to start off simple and add things over time.”

Emphasis on simplicity and designing for ease of manufacturing served Tesla well with its next product, the Model 3 sedan, and the smash-hit Model Y SUV that followed. The two were the first electric vehicles to break into the mainstream, making Tesla far and away the most valuable automaker and its CEO the world’s wealthiest man. Musk remarked when the Model 3 was starting production in 2017 that it wouldn’t have “all sorts of bells and whistles” like the Model X, which featured double-hinged doors and floating second-row seats. Last month, on the same earnings call where Musk referred to Tesla digging its own grave, he warned that the Cybertruck “has a lot of bells and whistles.” Tesla may eventually overcome what its CEO has described as enormous challenges making the Cybertruck in high volumes, and without burning through cash. But Musk himself has estimated this will take from 12 to 18 months of “blood, sweat and tears.” He’s also said Tesla is unlikely to reach an annualized production rate of 250,000 Cybertrucks until sometime in 2025. Ahead of the company starting Cybertruck deliveries Thursday, one analyst has gone so far as to suggest the company should cancel the vehicle, saying it probably would be positive for Tesla’s shares.

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Wildlife impacts of Gulf oil spill from Louisiana pipeline under investigation

The extent of environmental impacts from a large oil spill this month in the Gulf of Mexico are still unknown, though early observations from a unified command team of federal and state agencies identified surface oil patches and emulsified tar balls that researchers said could affect wildlife. Brian Spears, a regional coordinator from U.S. Fish and Wildlife who is on the unified team, said on Nov. 21 he had observed oiled pelicans while on a monitoring vessel, and that “the response has deployed several overflights and boats out in the near shore and offshore looking for potential wildlife impacts.” However, in a Nov. 28 update, the response team said that so far it had “not received any reports of shoreline impact or injury to wildlife directly related to the suspected release.”

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New CDC life expectancy data shows painfully slow rebound from covid

Newly published data on life expectancy in the United States shows a partial rebound from the worst phase of the coronavirus pandemic, but drug overdoses, homicides and chronic illnesses such as heart disease continue to drive a long-term mortality crisis that has made this country an outlier in longevity among wealthy nations. Life expectancy in 2022 rose more than a full year, to 77.5 years, in data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than four-fifths of this positive jump was attributable to a drop in covid-19 deaths. But the rebound in 2022, which the CDC had anticipated after studying death rates, regained less than half the years lost to the pandemic, the federal health agency reported.

“The amount of recovery is not as much as we’d like to see,” Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, said after reviewing the report. He said many peer countries suffered smaller drops in life expectancy and rebounded more quickly from covid-19’s impact. “It’s disturbing but not surprising to me that we have not experienced the recovery that other countries have,” Woolf said. In 2019, U.S. life expectancy at birth stood at 78.8 years. That figure cratered to 76.4 in 2021, the lowest since 1996. That was due partly to the extraordinary wave of covid deaths in January and February of that year as the United States had only begun to roll out vaccines. The following winter saw another short but intense wave of deaths as the omicron variant of the virus reached the country, creating the last major surge in pandemic deaths.

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As Congress weighs aid to Israel, some Democrats want strings attached

Democrats in Congress are clashing with each other and the Biden administration over a push from the left that would attach conditions to an emergency infusion of security aid for Israel during its war with Hamas, the latest reflection of a growing rift within the party over support for the Jewish state. The debate is a striking departure from longstanding practice on Capitol Hill, where for decades, lawmakers have approved huge amounts of military funding for Israel with few strings attached. Now, as Israel battles Hamas in a conflict whose civilian death toll has soared, a growing number of Democrats are voicing worry about how American dollars will be used. The issue could come to a head on the Senate floor as early as next week, when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has said the chamber could begin work on a legislative package including the aid measure.

The disagreements among Democrats simmered behind closed doors on Capitol Hill and at the White House on Tuesday. At the White House, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, huddled with roughly 20 Democratic senators who have raised concerns about how Israel might use U.S. assistance on the battlefield. Later, at a private party lunch in the Capitol, several of the same Democrats argued to their colleagues that any aid package should increase humanitarian assistance to Gaza and ensure that Israel do more to avoid civilian casualties. “We want the president to secure express assurances from the Netanyahu government regarding a plan to reduce the unacceptable level of civilian casualties, and we want the Netanyahu coalition to commit to full cooperation with our efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat leading the effort, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. “The bottom line is we need those express assurances. How we achieve that is something that we are discussing right now.” Mr. Van Hollen spearheaded a letter this month to President Biden that was signed by half of the Democratic caucus and raised concerns about whether the weapons provided by the United States would be used in keeping with international law.

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Democrat starts official clock for Santos expulsion vote

Fierce Democratic critics of Rep. George Santos have officially triggered another push to expel him — the most serious threat against the indicted lawmaker to date. The privileged motion, led by Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), means the House must act on expulsion within two legislative days. That’s almost exactly two weeks after the release of a damning bipartisan House Ethics Committee report that found “sufficient evidence” of Santos’ criminal wrongdoing. “The time has finally come to remove George Santos from Congress. If we’re going to restore faith in government, we must start with restoring integrity in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Garcia said in a statement.

Although their effort is unlikely to succeed, with Republicans loath to remove one of their own on a Democratic resolution, it puts pressure on House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.), to act on his own expulsion effort. Guest has already introduced his resolution, but not under the process that forces a quick vote, though he has told POLITICO that he plans to do so. Guest said Tuesday night that he expects his resolution to come to a vote sometime this week, though he's unsure which day, and added that he doesn't "fault" Garcia for moving ahead on the separate proposal. House Republican leadership is not currently planning to whip their members on the Santos expulsion vote, according to two sources familiar with a Tuesday afternoon Republican leadership meeting. “It’s our understanding that the speaker and George have had conversations up until recently — even an hour ago — about the right thing possibly for him to do would be for him to examine the position and resign,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.). Johnson didn't say explicitly he had urged Santos to resign, Hern added, but said that it would save people from having to take “tough votes.”

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Nikki Haley needs more than Koch cash to beat Trump

Welcome to the new Never Trump. The 45th president’s enemies on the right are mustering for a final big money showdown designed to crush his hopes of a third consecutive Republican nomination less than 50 days before voting starts in the GOP primary race. Nikki Haley will be the lavishly funded vessel carrying the hopes of the influential network funded by billionaire Charles Koch and top industrial and corporate donors who think Donald Trump is a risk too far next November. Their bet is that the former South Carolina governor can succeed where busted 2016 $100 million front-runner Jeb Bush, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, two impeachments, old school Republicans like Mitt Romney, millions splashed by the Club for Growth and the Lincoln Project and allied groups, a 2020 election defeat, a pliant House GOP majority and several special counsels failed.

Tuesday’s endorsement from Americans for Prosperity Action is the latest indication that Haley – on the strength of a shrewd campaign, a new generational message, and several strong debate performances – is now the GOP establishment’s favorite as the Trump-alternative. But despite the advantage of the Koch network’s tens of millions of dollars and its vast political machine, the endorsement poses new questions for Haley – the latest woman to take a turn trying to break the highest glass ceiling in politics. First, will this new boost relatively late simply make her one of the best-financed runners-up in US political history? Or can she use it to mount a serious challenge to the ex-president in building a path to the GOP nomination that does not yet seem to exist? At the very least, the decision of one of the premier networks in conservative politics to climb on board the accelerating Haley train could help create the only conditions under which Trump could be beaten in a GOP primary that he is currently leading massively, according to polls in early voting states and across the nation. It might speed the process of Haley eclipsing rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

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Lead Stories

Political vendettas shape endorsements from Abbott, Paxton in Texas House GOP primaries

Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton are backing opposing candidates in at least 11 Texas House primary races this spring — and both are motivated by political vendettas. Abbott recently endorsed the 58 Texas House Republicans running for reelection who supported his priority school voucher plan, which would allocate state dollars to send children to private schools. The announcement came after the House last week voted yet again to quash the proposal during the fourth special legislative session of the year. Paxton, meanwhile, has endorsed a handful of candidates challenging incumbent House Republicans who voted to impeach him in May. The attorney general, defiant after his acquittal by the state Senate in September, has promised political retribution for anyone who aided the effort to remove him from office.

Political experts say their involvement in GOP primaries is unusual in its narrow focus, but both issues have become representative of broader divides within the Texas Republican Party. Endorsements alone are not enough to secure a win, they say, and it remains to be seen whether Abbott and Paxton back up their political threats with money and on-the-ground campaigning that can make the difference in tight elections. The primary results may offer new insight into the pair’s political prowess — and because their endorsements are so personal, the races may produce candidates who have a strong allegiance to one of them, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “There’s a chance that the infighting could result in loyalty to people instead of to policy,” Rottinghaus said. “They’re no longer concerned about exactly what’s on the menu. They’re concerned about who’s cooking the meal.” Jillson said the primaries will be a temperature test of the districts and incumbents’ sway there. In the case of private school vouchers, also known as education savings accounts, Republicans who opposed the measure said they worried it would negatively affect their constituents’ public schools. Abbott will try to convince their voters it’s actually the opposite.

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Even most Biden voters don’t see a thriving economy

Presidents seeking a second term have often found the public’s perception of the economy a pivotal issue. It was a boon to Ronald Reagan; it helped usher Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush out of the White House. Now, as President Biden looks toward a re-election campaign, there are warning signals on that front: With overall consumer sentiment at a low ebb despite solid economic data, even Democrats who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 say they’re not impressed with the economy. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six battleground states, 62 percent of those voters think the economy is only “fair” or “poor” (compared with 97 percent for those who voted for Donald J. Trump). The demographics of Mr. Biden’s 2020 supporters may explain part of his challenge now: They were on balance younger, had lower incomes and were more racially diverse than Mr. Trump’s. Those groups tend to be hit hardest by inflation, which has yet to return to 2020 levels, and high interest rates, which have frustrated first-time home buyers and drained the finances of those dependent on credit.

But if the election were held today, and the options were Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, it’s not clear whether voter perceptions of the economy would tip the balance. “The last midterm was an abortion election,” said Joshua Doss, an analyst at the public opinion research firm HIT Strategies, referring to the 2022 voting that followed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling. “Most of the time, elections are about ‘it’s the economy, stupid.’ Republicans lost that because of Roe. So we’re definitely in uncharted territory.” There are things working in Mr. Biden’s favor. First, Mr. Doss said, the economic programs enacted under the Biden administration remain broadly popular, providing a political foundation for Mr. Biden to build on. And second, social issues — which lifted the Democrats in the midterms — remain a prominent concern. Take Oscar Nuñez, 27, a server at a restaurant in Las Vegas. Foot traffic has been much slower than usual for this time of year, eating into his tips. He’d like to start his own business, but with the rising cost of living, he and his wife — who works at home answering questions from independent contractors for her employer — haven’t managed to save much money. It’s also a tough jump to make when the economy feels shaky. Mr. Nuñez expected better from Mr. Biden when he voted blue in 2020, he said, but he wasn’t sure what specifically the president should have done better. And he is pretty sure another Trump term would be a disaster.

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Car chases by Texas police near border have led to 74 deaths in two years, report says

High-speed car chases by Texas police officers resulting in deaths near the U.S.-Mexico border have sharply increased in the more than two years that Gov. Greg Abbott launched a multi-billion dollar border security operation, according to a report published Monday by the nonprofit Human Rights Watch. At least 74 people have died and 189 have been injured over a 29-month period, the report said. Some of those killed have been bystanders, according to the organization, which investigates allegations of human rights’ abuses around the world. “Public safety doesn’t require careening around Texas roadways or crashing into Texans’ cars and homes,” Alison Parker, the deputy U.S. director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Texas’ Operation Lone Star is maximizing chaos, fear, and human rights abuses against Texans and migrants, which might be a cynical way to win political points but is not a responsible way to run a government.” When reached for comment, Ericka Miller, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of Public Safety, referred The Dallas Morning News to an interview Col. Steve McCraw, the DPS director, gave to The New York Times. The Times reported last week that law enforcement agencies across the country have changed their policies aimed at reducing the number of high-speed chases. Not so for Texas state police and sheriff’s offices, which have retained broad discretion to give chase whenever their officers deem it appropriate, policing experts told The Times. The approach differs from several big city departments in the state, including Houston. McCraw told the newspaper the department relies on its own troopers to decide when to start and end a pursuit. The troopers also use different tools to try to stop drivers who are fleeing from the police. “I would argue you can certainly mitigate risk,” McCraw told The Times. McCraw said that if a trooper did not use appropriate caution, they would be held accountable. He defended the chases because without them “all you’re doing is rewarding the Mexican cartels.”

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Texas Supreme Court hears case challenging state abortion ban’s limits on emergency pregnancy care

The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit challenging restrictions on how doctors can treat dangerous pregnancy complications under the state's abortion ban. The case is before the high court after the state appealed a Travis County district judge’s ruling this summer found the law unconstitutional. The law allows the procedure only when there is a “substantial” risk to a mother or if a fetus has a fatal diagnosis. But many doctors and hospitals have been fearful of immediately intervening in emergency cases even when there is a clear danger, given the state’s stiff penalties for anyone who violates the ban — they face potential prison sentences of up to 99 years, tens of thousands in fines and the loss of their medical licenses.

The case was initially filed in March by five women — a number that has since ballooned to 22 as more plaintiffs have been added in the months since — who say they were denied abortions despite having dangerous or unviable pregnancies. Two Houston physicians who say they’ve been constrained from providing necessary health care because of the law are also part of the suit. The case is believed to be the first brought by individual women against state abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Unlike other litigation, the lawsuit is not trying to overturn the Texas ban or others like it, but instead clarify exactly how physicians can provide abortions during dangerous or unviable pregnancies. Lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the plaintiffs, say the denials of care violate the Texas Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights regardless of sex. The Texas attorney general’s office quickly appealed the Travis County judge’s August ruling, arguing that “under the guise of seeking clarity in the law,” plaintiffs are looking to the judicial branch to overturn the Legislature’s will. “Plaintiffs ask the courts to broaden the statutory description of medical conditions that will allow a woman to obtain an abortion and to enshrine their preferred language in the Texas Constitution,” the state’s lawyers wrote in court filings. “This Court should decline that invitation.”

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State Stories

Can ERCOT show the way to faster and cheaper grid interconnection?

In a landmark decision, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in July ordered transmission providers to revise their interconnection rules to help ease a massive backlog of requests by generators and energy storage developers for permission to connect to the grid. While the new requirements are viewed as a major improvement, the Department of Energy and others are already looking at possible next steps for improving interconnection processes, including “connect and manage,” the interconnection process used by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. In her concurrence to FERC’s interconnection rule, Commissioner Allison Clements pointed to connect and manage as a potential template for interconnecting energy-only resources. It was also the focus of Beyond FERC Order 2023: Considerations on Deep Interconnection Reform, a white paper released in August by Tyler Norris, a doctoral student at Duke University and former vice president of development at Cypress Creek Renewables.

Connect and manage is “certainly worth exploring” in any future interconnection action at FERC, Karin Herzfeld, senior transmission counsel to the agency’s acting Chairman Willie Phillips, said at a Nov. 2 meeting hosted by WIRES, a trade group for utilities, grid operators and other companies in the transmission sector. ERCOT is the only U.S. grid operator to use connect and manage. The Texas grid operator focuses its interconnection request studies on what local upgrades are needed for a project to connect to the grid. In contrast to the rest of the U.S., it doesn’t examine the possible need for broader network upgrades. ERCOT manages any grid bottlenecks caused by a new generator through market redispatch and curtailment. With roughly 85 GW in peak load, ERCOT is a mid-sized grid operator, but in the last two years leads all U.S. grid operators and transmission providers in interconnecting generation to the grid. ERCOT brought 14.2 GW online in 2021 and 2022 while in the PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. grid operator, 5.6 GW started operating during those two years, according to data from S&P Global.

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Latest migrant surge prompts closure of international bridge in Texas

The latest surge of migrants into Texas has prompted federal authorities to close one of two international bridges in Eagle Pass. Starting at 3 p.m. Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed International Bridge I to people and vehicles crossing into the country from Mexico. The span remained open to traffic in the opposite direction. The bridge is normally open to pedestrians and vehicles from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Customs and Border Protection said it was closing the bridge and reducing vehicle crossings at an international bridge in Lukeville, Ariz., to cope with “increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals and encourage migration.”

Closing the one bridge and limiting traffic at the other allows authorities “to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody,” CBP said in a statement. “In response to this influx in encounters, we will continue to surge all available resources to expeditiously and safely process migrants,” the statement said. “We will maximize consequences against those without a legal basis to remain in the United States. CBP will continue to prioritize our border security mission as necessary in response to this evolving situation.” International Bridge I connects downtown Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico. It’s one of two international bridges in Eagle Pass. The other, International Bridge II, also known as Camino Real International Bridge, remains open. That bridge is larger and is open 24 hours a day. Bridge I was closed for several weeks starting in late September after thousands of asylum-seekers crossed into Eagle Pass, according to the news site Border Report. Authorities closed Bridge I so they could divert CBP personnel to help process migrants beneath Bridge II. That earlier closure cost the city at least $500,000 in trade and cargo traffic, Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr. told Border Report.

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Texas Wesleyan University hit by data breach

Ahacking attack targeting Texas Wesleyan University exposed students’ personal data, including Social Security numbers and information involving passports and financial accounts. The attack last month is the latest data breach related to the Russian ransomware gang Cl0p, which was behind the widespread MOVEit breach earlier this year. MOVEit is software focused on file transfers that works with education-focused entities, including the National Student Clearinghouse and the teacher retirement fund TIAA. Texas Wesleyan University experienced a network disruption on Oct. 6, which prompted the institution to disconnect access to the affected server and involve an outside cybersecurity firm, according to a notice filed on the university’s website.

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At 75, Dallas’ Meadows Foundation boasts grants in all 254 Texas counties

The Dallas-based Meadows Foundation is celebrating its 75th anniversary, which President and CEO Peter M. Miller attributes to the largesse and legacy of Algur H. Meadows, an American oil tycoon, art collector and benefactor of Southern Methodist University and other institutions. Meadows was the great-uncle of Miller, the fourth family member to lead the foundation, which he calls “a Texas-only foundation — one of the largest Texas-only funders in the state. From 1948 on, we’ve granted $1.36 billion toward 10,000 grants for 3,700 different organizations,” he says. Such statistics are unusual and impressive, especially in light of the 21st century being a trying time for philanthropy at large. Miller said the foundation has allocated grants in each of the state’s 254 counties. They have ranged from $15 to $45 million over the foundation’s lifetime.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region alone, he said, “We’ve granted $510 million in the form of 4,000 grants to approximately 1,000 different organizations.” That means that 40% of the Meadows’ philanthropy has been in the D-FW area “and the balance outside. Miller is proud that “our funding has been in arts and culture” — at a time when the arts are struggling, especially in the wake of a global pandemic — but also in “civic and public affairs, education, the environment, health and human services.” The goal over time, he said, “has been to be innovative. An example of that would be the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, which we started 10 years ago. When we started it, no one talked about mental health. And today, of course, it’s top of mind.” In his words, “between COVID-19 and Uvalde and just general health, the biggest problem in mental health these days is finding help, finding a therapist. So, people are talking about it. A lot.” Miller said that one of the foundation’s primary missions is an effort “to end depression, certainly in North Texas. Ending depression would be defined as diagnosing and treating. You can never end depression, but you can diagnose and treat it.”

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How will the departure of longtime Democratic lawmakers affect local delegation?

The Dallas-area Democratic delegation in the Texas House is among the most tenured in the Capitol with all but three members having more than one session under their belts. But the 17-member delegation is losing two of its more experienced lawmakers as Reps. Carl Sherman of DeSoto and Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch are seeking office in Congress. While losing members is nothing new for delegations inside the Texas House, current lawmakers agree losing both will be a big loss since the candidates who replace them will have to work to establish themselves. Some lawmakers pick up the ebbs and flows of the Legislature quicker than others. And while there’s little risk that Johnson or Sherman’s seats will flip since they are in districts that lean more Democratic, current lawmakers said that there will also be a responsibility for senior members to mentor the incoming freshmen lawmakers.

Sherman is running in the Democratic Senate primary, challenging Sen. Ted Cruz. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred are also running to try to unseat Cruz. Johnson launched her campaign for Allred’s seat in the 32nd Congressional District. For a moment, it appeared that the delegation would lose a third lawmaker after Rowlett Democratic Rep. Rhetta Andrews Bowers announced she was going to challenge Johnson for Allred’s seat. She ended up changing her mind and will seek reelection for her House seat in District 113, which encompasses east Dallas County and includes the cities of Garland and Mesquite. Running to replace Sherman is Democratic candidate Aicha Davis, a member of the State Board of Education who has served since 2018 representing parts of Dallas County and Tarrant County. There are three Democrats vying for Johnson’s seat: Attorney Cassandra Hernandez, former federal prosecutor Kate Rumsey and businesswoman Scarlett Cornwallis. “They’ll be trying to find their way around, get a sense of their committee assignments and other people that they’ll be dealing with,” said Cal Jillson, an SMU political science professor. “Senior members have the experience that allows them to exercise influence.” Some freshmen lawmakers, however, are able to have an impact early on. Freshman Dallas Rep. Venton Jones focused on matters of health care equity and also sponsored a bill that would have repealed Texas’ unconstitutional law that criminalized gay sex. That bill ended up dying in the House after the chamber ran out of time to vote it out.

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Put Texas foster care in receivership? Children’s lawyers ask judge to weigh tough remedy

Lawyers for Texas foster children in a long-running lawsuit are asking a federal judge to not only slap the state with large fines for disobeying her orders but place into receivership at least some parts of its long-term foster care system. Placing parts of the program under a court-appointed administrator would be “an extreme remedy,” said plaintiffs’ lawyer Marcia Robinson Lowry of New York. But she said the move is warranted because Texas has dragged its feet on needed improvements, such as ending a practice of having overworked Child Protective Services workers babysit children in hotels, churches and rental houses for days on end. Private lawyers defending the state have countered that Texas has “indisputably complied with the vast majority” of U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack’s remedial orders.

Allyson N. Ho of Dallas, a Gibson Dunn & Crutcher partner who’s now in charge of Gov. Greg Abbott’s defense strategy in the 12-year-old suit, said in a recent filing that in the year’s first eight months, there was an average nightly census of 62 “children without placement” or CWOP. Given that about 8,000 foster children are covered by the lawsuit, “these children without placement represent less than 1 percent of the class,” Ho wrote. “Replacing officials who were appointed by the state’s duly elected chief executive officer and confirmed by the state’s Senate with appointments by a federal court raises profound federalism concerns — even more so than injunctions or contempt,” she said in another reply brief. Jack previously had ruled that children too often linger for years in unconstitutionally unsafe foster care, suffering assault, rape and over-medication. Kids regularly emerge from the system in worse shape than when they entered, she found. The state has pointed to how the Legislature has poured more money into Child Protective Services in the past decade and insisted that Jack’s monitors Kevin Ryan of New Jersey and Deborah Fowler of Austin and their dozens of employees checking on compliance have been overly critical.

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County Judge Lina Hidalgo talks mental health needs during VP Kamala Harris' visit

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told Houstonians on Monday that they'd be hard pressed to find an administration that has done more for the Hispanic community than President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris.' Federal dollars from the Biden-Harris administration have been used to help the Hispanic community with issues such as wraparound services for people with diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as mental health, Hidalgo told a crowd at the Hardy Senior Center ahead of a conversation with Harris hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. She brought up her recent stay at a mental health facility as she treated depression.

When referred to a psychologist, Hidalgo said, she was even reluctant to take medication. “It's just something we don't talk about in our culture,” Hidalgo said. “But that doesn't mean it's not happening. It's just like the high blood pressure. It's just like the diabetes. You cannot exercise your way out of it. You cannot pray your way out of it. You cannot rest your way out of it. You cannot will your way out of it.” She encouraged broader conversations about mental health. “If it's not you, it's your mom,” Hidalgo said. “It's your sibling. It's your significant other. So let's talk about it.” Monday’s discussion came days after Biden officially filed to be on Texans’ ballots in 2024. Among topics discussed were gun violence and abortion. The visit was part of a broader nationwide initiative by White House officials and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to highlight accomplishments among Hispanic voters. Hidalgo told the crowd it was a big deal Harris was there — she doesn’t show up to these often. “She knows we named the county after her,” Hidalgo joked, before adding that the vice president contacted her during her stay at the Ohio mental health facility. Later on during the discussion, Harris applauded Hidalgo’s strength in seeking treatment.

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Texas A&M's new coach Mike Elko vows to build 'premier program'

New Texas A&M coach Mike Elko gathered with his wife and children for a family picture on the grass of Kyle Field on Monday afternoon when a photographer kindly asked the crew to flash a “Gig ’em.” Every single family member knew in a flash exactly what to do — give the school’s thumbs up hand sign — because they’d been here before. The Aggies welcomed back Elko, a former Aggies defensive coordinator who’s spent the past two seasons as Duke’s head coach, as the fired Jimbo Fisher’s replacement, and Elko made no bones about his intentions for well-resourced A&M. “My vision for this program is very simple,” Elko told a receptive welcoming crowd in Kyle’s Hall of Champions. “We are going to build the premier football program in the country. … We will become the absolute best version of ourselves as quickly as possible. (And) the best version of Texas A&M football wins the national championship.”

If Elko, 46, wins the Aggies’ first national title since 1939, he’ll also get paid like a national championship coach. A&M athletic director Ross Bjork had pledged an incentive-based contract for A&M’s next coach following the mess for the university concerning Fisher’s guaranteed contract, and that’s what Elko received (along with a nice pay bump). Elko’s deal features a $7 million annual base salary over six years, and an extra $3.5 million if the Aggies win a national title. He’ll receive an additional $2.5 million if the Aggies play in the national title game, $2 million if they play in the College Football Playoff semifinals, $1.5 million if they play in the CFP quarterfinals and/or win an SEC title, and $1 million if they make the CFP, which expands from four to 12 teams next year. The incentives do not add up as the Aggies progress in the postseason. For instance, if A&M wins the national title Elko would make $10.5 million between the base salary and championship incentive. “Given where we are and given our resources and our commitment to football, if we have the right coach and the right plan, we should be in the hunt every year for those playoff spots,” Bjork explained of the contract’s setup. “We know there has to be a base salary, and the rest is built off of making your way through the CFP.”

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Texans to submit questionable officiating calls in Sunday's loss to NFL

Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said Monday he will submit some calls from Sunday’s 24-21 loss to the Jaguars to the NFL for review. “We’ll let the league handle that from that perspective,” Ryans said about questionable calls from the game. When asked what calls he would submit, Ryans said: “We’ll talk to the league about that.” Most of the infractions that caught the ire of Texans fans after the game were for defensive pass interference at crucial moments. Cornerback Steven Nelson was called for a hold on 3rd-and-7 in the fourth quarter on a drive that resulted in a 53-yard field goal and a 24-14 lead for Jacksonville.

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Why Midland, Texas' oil capital, is challenging wastewater drilling permits

Attorneys for the city of Midland, the oil capital of Texas, made an unusual request to state regulators this year: Could they be allowed to challenge drilling permits? Midland isn’t contesting permits to drill for oil. The city is challenging applications by Houston-based Pilot Water Solutions to inject oil and gas wastewater deep underground adjacent to the T-Bar Ranch, where Midland gets about 30% of its drinking water. City leaders worry that Pilot’s disposal wells could jeopardize their long-term water supply. The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas drilling and disposal wells, agreed in June to give Midland standing to challenge the permits. The case will go before a Railroad Commission administrative judge in January. The dispute highlights two rising challenges in West Texas: where to dispose of billions of barrels of toxic oil and gas wastewater and how to get enough freshwater to keep the taps flowing.

Midland Mayor Lori Blong, herself the co-owner of the oil and gas company Octane Energy, traveled to Austin in June to appeal to the Railroad Commission in an open meeting. “Midland has an independent and friendly relationship with the oil and gas industry,” Blong told the commissioners, adding that disposal wells are “essential” to that industry. “However, I also understand that all SWD (saltwater disposal) well construction procedures and applications are not created equal, and across Texas, they must demonstrate that groundwater is protected,” Blong said. Zachary Neal, Pilot Water Solutions’ executive vice president, said the company has introduced multiple layers of protection in the proposed wells and will take groundwater samples to monitor the safety of the community’s water supply. Neal said these steps “exceed regulatory requirements.” Midland’s water woes are nothing new. In 1965, the city bought the 20,229-acre T-Bar Ranch in Winkler County, a rural part of the Permian Basin near the New Mexico state line, for future water supply. That decision proved prescient after the drought of 2011 in the Permian Basin. That year, reservoirs dipped lower and lower and Midland and Odessa introduced water restrictions for the first time. Midland, the quintessential oil boom town, acknowledged that development would grind to a halt if there wasn’t enough water to go around.

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Communities in Schools is key to how FWISD provides mental health care to students

Carly Kandel ensures Briscoe Elementary is a good place for her students. Nearly all of the Fort Worth ISD school’s students come from low-income homes, and their basic needs aren’t always being met, said Kandel, a program manager for Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County. Kandel does all she can to make students feel safe and as ready to learn as possible — food, warmth, clean clothes — whatever students need. “We can’t get to that higher level of thinking until we address all the things that are going on holistically for our kids,” she said.

School districts in Fort Worth use Communities In Schools as part of their toolkits to care for students’ well-being. They also offer counselors, telemedicine options and programs tailored to meet the specific needs of students. Research supports Kandel: Students whose mental health needs are addressed tend to perform better in school. Communities In Schools has found 90% of students it serves see improved grades as well as better behavior — and 96% of students are promoted to the next grade. Texas is among the states with a higher prevalence of mental illness and lower rates of access to care for young people, according to the national nonprofit Mental Health America. The group ranked the state last in mental health access in 2022. Half of school districts in Texas have no mental health services. The rest offer some access or telehealth only — few have adequate resources.

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Takeaways from the first Houston mayoral runoff debate between Jackson Lee and Whitmire

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and state Sen. John Whitmire sparred over public safety, racial relations and corruption accusations Monday evening at City Hall in the first Houston mayoral runoff debate. Whitmire and Jackson Lee received 42.5% and 35.7% of the vote, respectively, in the general election earlier this month. With neither of them securing a majority of voter support, they are now set to compete in a runoff election on Dec. 9. Whitmire highlighted accusations of corruption during the Turner administration, including the recent investigation at Houston Public Works where an employee was accused of hiding a personal relationship to steer waterline maintenance contracts to a family member.

The state senator also cited Houston’s months-long dispute with Pappas Restaurants earlier this year when the city awarded a lucrative concession deal at the William P. Hobby Airport to another company. These cases are results of a “pay-to-play” procurement process where friends of the administration get unfair benefits, Whitmire said. “Procurement is broken in the city of Houston,” he said. “I will scratch our current system and start from scratch.” Jackson Lee, who faces the tough challenge of reversing Whitmire’s lead in a short timeframe, spent much of the hour drawing distinctions between her and the state senator. “I look forward without arrogance to the voters deciding what kind of mayor they would like to have,” Jackson Lee said, adding that the choice was between a forward-looking leader who wants to bring people together and a backwards-looking mayor who focuses on past controversies. She boasted her efforts working with city, county and state workers on COVID-19 testing and vaccine sites during the pandemic. “I didn't see my colleague at all,” she said, referring to Whitmire, who noted his ability to work with other stakeholders, as well. Jackson Lee also called attention to Whitmire’s work for Locke Lord, a politically connected law firm that employs lobbyists at the Legislature, which has continued to generate controversy. Whitmire denied any conflict of interest on Monday, saying he could not keep track of every one of the hundreds of lawyers at the firm.

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Texas at Texas A&M football reunion has a Thanksgiving weekend date

One year from this week, Texas and Texas A&M are scheduled to play football for the first time in 13 years. UT will play at A&M on Nov. 30, 2024, which is Thanksgiving weekend, ESPN announced Monday. ESPN also announced the Aggies will play at Florida on Sept. 14, against Arkansas on Sept. 28 in the programs’ final scheduled meeting in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, and host LSU on Oct. 26. Georgia will play at Texas on Oct. 19 and Texas will play at Arkansas on Nov. 16. LSU had taken the place of UT’s Thanksgiving weekend slot after A&M exited the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012, but with Texas and Oklahoma entering the SEC in 2024 the Longhorns and Aggies will meet again in the regular season finale, at least in 2024, just like the old days.

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City Stories

Facing food insecurity, Del Valle residents continue calls for better food access, an H-E-B

Irene Ray knows her bus routes well: Take the 271, transfer at the library to the 311, then transfer again just past Interstate 35 onto the 801. That’s to get Ray from her Del Valle address to the H-E-B at East Slaughter Lane and South Congress Avenue, her supermarket of choice. The 801, 10, 311 and 271 bus routes bring her home. If traffic flows well, each half of the commute can be completed in an hour and a half. The semi-retired 76-year-old makes the trek regularly, often once a week, to buy fresh produce at an economical price and look for specific products, such as dog foods and types of fideo, that she said either are not available or are priced high at the convenience stores and mini-markets in her neighborhood. Ray cannot drive for medical reasons, and she relies on the bus whenever her husband leaves town for work.

The trips remain somewhat supplemental — between the biweekly grocery stops she does with her husband — but she believes them crucially important to eating as she wants to eat. “It can be too much of a hassle sometimes. My legs are hurting,” Ray said of her bus commutes. “There’s a lot of us that are already too old to be going too far away out there.” Like many members of her partially unincorporated community, Ray has long wished for a comprehensive grocery store in her neighborhood. Del Valle has none, despite the waves of development that have brought apartment complexes, trailer parks and houses onto the once-rugged prairie. The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau placed the population living within the Del Valle school district boundaries — which includes Del Valle, the eastern part of Montopolis and part of eastern Travis County from Hornsby Bend south — at approximately 85,000. Yet, for local food access, residents remain reliant on convenience stores, mini-grocers and charitable food distribution.

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Rhonda Nail, the matriarch of Dallas bars, dies at 67

In March of 2023, The Dallasite celebrated its 50-year anniversary. It is one of the oldest continuously-operating bars in Dallas, and it’s the oldest bar in the history of the city that was owned solely by a woman. But that woman is now gone. Owner Rhonda Nail died on Nov. 25, 2023 at the age of 67 after a long battle with cancer. Nail was preceded in death by her mother Bettye Brown Carver, father James Carver Sr. and brother, Walker Carver. She’s survived by two sisters, numerous nieces and nephews, and countless friends. Nail, an Oak Cliff native, bought the Dallasite with her husband James Nail in 1973. It was then located on Gaston Avenue near Fitzhugh. At the time they married, they also owned the Office Lounge, in the spot that’s now The Goat. After 16 years of marriage, Nail lost her husband. Last March, she told me, “He died in the Office Lounge. He had a brain aneurysm and fell to the floor,” pausing with emotion. After his death she couldn’t bear to keep the bar, so she sold it.

“But I kept the Dallasite,” Nail said. In 1995, the city rezoned the Gaston location, prohibiting alcohol sales. So Nail moved the bar to Ross and Hall. The Dallasite resided in that location for 12 years until the landlord sold the building, forcing another move. Nail then moved the bar to its current location on the corner of Bryan Street and Fitzhugh, catty-corner to the venerable Jimmy’s Food Store. When I talked with Nail prior to the Dallasite’s 50th anniversary, it was easy to understand why she was a successful neighborhood bar owner and has become something of a legend in Dallas. Heaping praise on her customers and staff, she was both humble and proud with a balance of grit, grace and style. Nail was the one constant over the decades at the local dive bar. Regulars would hope to see her white Corvette parked out front when they pulled in. Here’s what some employees and patrons said about her.

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‘Full circle’: Dallas Zoo names Zoo Knoxville’s Lisa New next CEO

In a move both parties consider to be a “full circle moment,” the Dallas Zoo has named Lisa New, longtime leader of Zoo Knoxville, its next CEO. New, who has served at the helm of Zoo Knoxville since 2013, will assume the position Jan. 15, becoming the first woman to hold the title in the Dallas Zoo’s 135-year history. Her appointment follows the 16-year tenure of Gregg Hudson, whom she called a mentor and friend. Hudson died in April after a battle with cancer. He was 64. “The Dallas Zoo has been very special to me, so it is full circle, having the opportunity and the privilege to build on Gregg’s legacy,” New told The Dallas Morning News. “I’m just so honored that I can have an impact at another organization.”

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National Stories

House GOP chaos might just give Senate GOP a fundraising edge

A month after the House GOP lost its single-best fundraiser as it careened into chaos, Senate Republicans are amplifying their pitch to donors: We’re your best possible investment. The House GOP’s campaign arm lagged in fundraising last month, raising just over $5 million. And there could be more difficult times ahead. On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate map is rife with pickup opportunities — including in deep red states like Montana and Ohio — and that chamber’s Republicans have not been shy about framing them as a best-chance insurance policy to act as a bulwark against a potentially united Democratic government in 2025. “We compete for the dollars with every other national committee and we just have to make a better case than everybody else,” said Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), adding that so far they’ve had an “excellent case to make.”

Senate Republicans have to flip only one or two seats to win back the majority, and at least one looks like a near certainty now that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) isn’t running for reelection. In preparation, top party hands have ramped up recruitment efforts and primary intervention strategies to box out potentially risky candidates seeking a spot on the 2024 ticket. Compared to the Republican presidential primary and the House GOP, Republican senators look like the capable adults in the room, and they know it. “Lots of uncertainty in the House and lots of uncertainty in the White House,” is how Scott Jennings, a longtime ally to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, summed it up. “But the Senate Republicans have a clear line of success.” “Donors are going to be smart enough to realize exactly where an investment is gonna make a huge amount of difference,” Jennings added. There is already some indication that the GOP strategy is working. Senate Leadership Fund and its sister organizations, all of which are allied with McConnell, are on track to surpass the $400 million they raised in the 2022 cycle, according to a person close to the group who was granted anonymity to speak freely. SLF and its nonprofit arm One Nation had a record fundraising haul for a non-election year in the first half of 2023.

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Elon Musk wields Starlink in Israel to curb uproar over antisemitism

A week ago, Elon Musk was facing international backlash after endorsing antisemitic content on his social media platform, X. Corporations including Apple Inc. and Walt Disney Co. stopped advertising on the site in protest of hateful and racist commentary. And yet on Monday, Musk was in Israel being welcomed by the nation’s political elite — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to visit the region where the Islamic militant group Hamas murdered 1,200 people on Oct. 7. For all of Musk’s stumbles, world leaders can’t afford to criticize or alienate him for long: The world’s richest person holds the keys to powerful technological tools. In this case, Starlink, his satellite internet provider, is at the heart of his political clout. Starlink, which is owned and operated by Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, formally named Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has provided him with the ability to woo world leaders from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to officials at the Pentagon, by offering essential communications services.

“Musk is not just a player that should be regulated by the American government. He’s a global order player, who should probably have a seat at the UN Security Council,” said Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. “Elon Musk can simply shirk his responsibilities and that’s because of his power.” While Musk toured the Kfar Aza kibbutz, where some of the worst violence occurred last month, wearing a protective vest and snapping photos or videos on his phone, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi tweeted about a deal the ministry is discussing with Starlink. A representative for SpaceX didn’t reply to a request for comment. Musk had proposed providing internet services to Gaza last month and said Starlink could help support connectivity with “internationally recognized aid organizations.” But Karhi rejected the offer at the time, saying “Hamas will use it for terrorist activities.” Musk, who calls himself a free-speech absolutist, often weighs in on political matters on X, which he bought last year for $44 billion. But he may have gone a step too far earlier this month after agreeing with an antisemitic post, which said that Jewish people hold a “dialectical hatred” of white people. The global response was swift and fierce. The New York Times reported that the exodus of advertisers could cost X as much as $75 million in lost revenue this year. It wasn’t clear how Musk’s trip to Israel came about, whether he was invited by Netanyahu or requested the trip himself. But his generally warm welcome in the country mixed pleas for regulating antisemitic commentary on X with discussions of satellites.

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Will the George Santos show go on?

The curtain could fall as soon as this week on the congressional career of freshman Rep. George Santos, whose defiance in the face of overwhelming accounts of brazen lying has made him one of the most notorious lawmakers this year. News outlets uncovered the first lies tied to his campaign soon after his election. Federal prosecutors charged him on 23 felony counts related to that campaign. And the House Ethics Committee released a highly critical report on Nov. 16 that detailed how even his own staff thought he needed to seek treatment for his constant lying. Santos, whose staple Capitol Hill dress in a sweater underneath a suit jacket was part of a “Saturday Night Live” send-up, has twice survived House pushes to boot him from office. But at least one effort to expel him from Congress is on tap this week in the wake of the ethics panel report.

The New York Republican said in a lengthy and profane X Spaces session on Nov. 24 that he won’t resign and that he anticipates being expelled from the House. If that happens, he would be only the sixth member ever to be expelled from the House, and the only one on that list without ties to the Confederacy or a conviction in court. As the House mulls its gravest attempt yet at kicking Santos out this week, here’s a rundown of what the Ethics Committee, federal prosecutors and public reporting has borne out about perhaps the most baffling member in recent history. The House Ethics Committee report said the panel skipped some procedural steps and immediately disclosed its findings out of a “duty to safeguard the integrity of the House and the interests of justice.” The report pointed out the sheer totality of the accusations. Several members filed complaints about Santos to the panel and resolutions to expel him. Federal prosecutors have ongoing criminal cases against Santos and others on his campaign, and the Federal Election Commission is investigating.

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Sunday air travel set record: TSA

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that Sunday set an agency-wide record for the busiest air travel day ever. More than 2.9 million people were screened at airports across the United States on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the TSA said on X, formerly Twitter, marking “the busiest day ever for air travel.” The TSA also reminded customers to arrive at airports early amid the high demand for air travel during the holiday season. Earlier this month, the TSA forecasted the holiday season could break records for air travel across the country. Sunday’s numbers were in line with TSA’s initial estimates from earlier this month, when the agency predicted 2.9 million people would pass through security checkpoints that day.

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Biden highlights Trump’s renewed effort to shelve Affordable Care Act

President Biden on Monday jumped at the chance to tussle with Republicans over the 2010 health-care law known as Obamacare after Donald Trump wrote on social media this weekend that he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to it, something for which Republicans had all but abandoned trying to fight. “My predecessor, once again … called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions Americans and Medicaid,” Biden said Monday at the White House. “They just don’t give up. But guess what? We won’t let these things happen.” Staffers at the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., expedited plans to focus on health care and the contrast between Trump and Biden on the issue, according to two campaign officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that were not yet public.

The campaign will run new TV ads this week in swing states to highlight the president’s efforts to lower prices for some prescription drugs and spotlight Trump’s call to repeal the Affordable Care Act. On Tuesday, the campaign will host a press call with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), both of whom plan to slam Trump for promising to repeal the health-care law, the campaign officials said, and campaign staffers also are digging through the archives to resurface Trump’s attempts over the years to terminate the law. The Biden campaign touted polling Monday that demonstrated the popularity of the Affordable Care Act. “40 million people — more than 1 in 10 Americans — have health insurance today because of the Affordable Care Act and Donald Trump just said he would try to rip it away if he returns to power,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a statement. “He was one vote away from getting it done when he was president — and we should take him at his word that he’ll try to do it again.” Moussa added: “Donald Trump’s America is one where millions of people lose their health insurance and seniors and families across the country face exorbitant costs just to stay healthy. Those are the stakes next November.”

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US gasoline prices fall for 60 straight days in win for US holiday spending

Gasoline prices have fallen for 60 consecutive days — the longest streak of declines in more than a year — letting American drivers pass on savings at the pump to consumer retailers during the US economy’s all-important holiday season. A gallon of gasoline now costs $3.25 on average in the US, more than 60 cents below the year’s peak in mid-September and about 30 cents cheaper than this time last year, according to data from the American Automobile Association. In 14 states, average prices are now less than $3 a gallon. Cheaper pump prices are welcome news for President Joe Biden, whose reelection campaign is touting “Bidenomics” as the answer for inflation-plagued consumers. The gasoline reprieve may also give retail stores a boost during the critical year-end shopping season by padding pockets with a little more cash. US consumers, whose consumption spending makes up around two-thirds of the US economy, spent a record $9.8 billion online during Black Friday.

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Lead Stories

Donations to GOP drop as worries mount about the party’s finances

The Republican Party’s finances are increasingly worrisome to party members, advisers to former president Donald Trump, and other operatives involved in the 2024 election effort, according to 10 people familiar with the matter. The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House. The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.

“It’s a revenue problem,” Tennessee RNC member Oscar Brock said. “We’re going through the same efforts we always go through to raise money: the same donor meetings, retreats, digital advertising, direct mail. But the return is much lower this year. If you know the answer, I’d love to know it. The staff has managed to tighten down on expenses to keep the party from going into the red.” Donors have not cut as many large checks to the RNC in recent years, and the party’s small-dollar program has also suffered, according to people familiar with the party’s finances, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party details. Some donors aren’t giving to the RNC because they think that will help Trump, which they don’t want to do, these people said, while others have said they prefer to wait until 2024 to give. Some have grown frustrated with the party’s leadership, people close to major donors said. The party cut certain expenditures this year after projected money did not come in, according to people familiar with the decisions.

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Kamala Harris will be in Houston on Monday to court Hispanic voters for Biden's campaign

Just days after President Joe Biden’s campaign officially filed to be on the ballot in Texas next year, the White House is dispatching Vice President Kamala Harris to Houston on Monday to court Hispanic voters. Harris is scheduled to attend an event in U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia’s district to outline how the administration’s agenda is helping the Hispanic community at a time when polls show those voters cooling on Biden.

“This visit emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing the specific needs of the Latino population,” said Garcia, a Democrat who has represented Houston’s East End since 2018. More than 75% of Garcia’s district is made up of Hispanic residents. The visit is part of a broader, nationwide initiative that has White House officials and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus touring the nation to highlight their accomplishments with Hispanic voters. Recent stops in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico focused on veterans programs, first-time homebuyer initiatives and infrastructure spending under Biden and Harris. The event in Houston is expected to highlight health care programs, according to a news release put out by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “These events serve as a platform to connect with our communities, to listen to their concerns, and to let them know about the tools and resources available for success,” said U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragán, a California Democrat who is chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and will be part of Harris’ visit to Houston.

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Contrasting styles emerge in Democratic primary to face Sen. Ted Cruz

Democratic Party candidates for Senate have different views on how to beat incumbent Ted Cruz and represent Texas in an often gridlocked federal arena. U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, the leading contender, has touted his bipartisanship and ability to produce results in a challenging political climate. He says beating Cruz will take a coalition of Texans. “You have to have bipartisanship to get anything done in Congress,” Allred said in an interview. “That doesn’t mean you sacrifice your values, and I never have during my time in Congress.” State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, counters that bipartisanship is a fantasy, and Texas needs a progressive fighter who will stand up to what he calls Republican overreach. “People in this state are tired of the same status quo politician telling you this nice word of ‘bipartisanship,’ " he said. “It’s not real.”

On March 5, Democratic Party voters will decide which approach is best in what’s expected to be a crowded field. The filing deadline for the primaries is Dec. 11. Most Democrats agree on most of the major issues. Primary voters want results, said former state Rep. Lorraine Birabil, a Dallas lawyer. “What we need are problem-solvers who value public service over viral sound bites and salacious commentary,” she said. “The Democratic Party nominee will be the candidate who makes the most progress in building the war chest and earning the broad trust needed to relieve Texas of our Ted Cruz burden.” The progressive agenda entices many Democrats who vote in primary elections. “People are looking for folks who can potentially get something done, but it’s a mixed bag,” said Eric Cedillo, a Dallas immigration lawyer and adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University. “While voters usually want someone who can work across the aisle,” he said, “the folks I’ve been speaking with are moving toward a more progressive agenda, and someone who will push back against Republicans who have gone so far afield.” Primary voters want a “real Democrat” who will go to bat for them, not necessarily somebody that wants to negotiate or find Republican partnerships, said North Texas political consultant Jeff Dalton, adding, “I don’t think the average Democrat really believes that can happen anymore.”

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Irregular meals, benches as beds. As freed hostages return to Israel, details of captivity emerge

Plastic chairs as beds. Meals of bread and rice. Hours spent waiting for the bathroom. As former hostages return to Israel after seven weeks of Hamas captivity, information about the conditions of their confinement has emerged. The 58 hostages freed under a cease-fire deal over the past three days have largely stayed out of the public eye, with most still in hospitals. Nearly two months after Hamas militants dragged them into Gaza during a bloody cross-border attack on Israel that also killed 1,200 people, most freed hostages appear to be in stable physical condition. Information about the conditions of their captivity has been tightly controlled, but family members of the released hostages have begun to share details about their loved ones’ experiences. Merav Raviv, whose three relatives were released by Hamas on Friday, said they had been fed irregularly and had eaten mainly rice and bread. She said her cousin and aunt, Keren and Ruth Munder, had each lost around 7 kilograms (15 pounds) in just 50 days.

Raviv said she’d heard from her freed family members that they had slept on rows of chairs pushed together in a room that looked like a reception area. They said they sometimes had to wait hours before going to the bathroom. Adva Adar, the grandchild of 85-year-old released hostage Yaffa Adar, said her grandmother had also lost weight. “She counted the days of her captivity,” Adar said. “She came back and she said, ’I know that I’ve been there for 50 days.’” Adar said that her grandmother was taken captive convinced that her family members were dead, only to emerge to the news that they had survived. Still, her release was bittersweet: She also found out that her house had been ravaged by militants. “For an 85-year-old woman, usually you have your house where you raised your kids, you have your memories, your photo albums, your clothes,” said Adar. “She has nothing, and in her old age she needs to start over. She mentioned that it is tough for her.” In the 50 days since the hostages were taken captive, Israel has devastated the Gaza Strip with a ground and air offensive that has killed at least 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Under the current four-day cease-fire, Hamas has agreed to release a total of 50 Israeli hostages in exchange for Israel releasing 150 Palestinian security prisoners and ramping up aid to the pummeled enclave.

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State Stories

Killeen gives Austin a run for its money among relocating millennials, study finds

Austin may be growing like a weed, but Central Texas' Killeen has a bigger draw for millennials, according to a new survey. Killeen was the eighth-most-moved-to city in the nation in 2022 among this set, according to a study by SmartAsset that defined millennials as adults ages 24 to 44. That's according not to gross numbers of young newcomers but to the percentage of the city's population for which they account. Just over 16,850 millennials moved to Killeen in 2022, making up 10.8% of the city's population, according to SmartAsset. Out of the 20 cities on the list, Killeen had the second-lowest median age, at 30.4 years.

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The issue that led to a competitive Democratic primary for a Texas House seat

A trend is emerging of Republican lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives facing challengers aiming to push out either those who supported Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment or stood in the way of Gov. Greg Abbott’s repeated efforts to pass an education savings account program. However, the intraparty fighting also extends to the other side of the aisle. In one Houston-area district, a Democratic incumbent known for supporting progressive causes now faces two primary challengers after a controversial vote she took earlier this year. Texas Rep. Shawn Thierry, D-Houston, said she’s seeking re-election for a fifth term to represent House District 146 in south Houston. However, she’ll have to fend off the most challengers she’s ever faced to win her party’s nomination for this reliably blue seat. In her own campaign announcement, Thierry listed her policy successes that included addressing maternal mortality, enhancing school safety, combating human trafficking and working on tax relief efforts. She also said she would keep working across party lines if voters send her back to the Capitol.

The latest candidate to jump in the race against Thierry is Lauren Ashley Simmons, a union organizer and mother of two who experienced a viral moment this summer. Video of her remarks at a community meeting about the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District exploded online — with one clip garnering more than 8 million views on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. Cameras captured her criticizing Mike Miles, the man appointed by the state to serve as the district’s superintendent, and accusing him of possibly being “Greg Abbott’s pawn sent down here to destroy the largest district in this city.” Simmons said she intends to make supporting public education as one of her main focuses during the primary campaign. She also called expanding access to health care as another priority, which is part of the reason why she decided to challenge Thierry. Ashton Woods, who founded the Houston chapter of Black Lives Matter, previously challenged Thierry in the 2020 Democratic primary but lost that race by nearly 35 percentage points. He announced his intent to face her again the day after Thierry voted in favor of SB 14. That led to a a bump in early campaign donations, Woods said. “It definitely needs to change,” he said about the district’s leadership. “I think the status quo is no longer acceptable, especially when we elect people to represent all of us in the district, regardless of our gender identity or sexual orientation or race.” Rather than discuss which issues will serve as the focus of his primary campaign, Woods said the first thing he’d like to do is “build space” for his community.

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Adam Kovacevich: On social media content moderation, a tale of two Paxtons

(Kovacevich is the founder of tech industry coalition Chamber of Progress. He has worked at the intersection of tech and politics for 20 years, leading public policy at Google and Lime and serving as a Democratic Hill aide.) Last September, after a court ruled in favor of HB20, a Texas law that would prohibit social media platforms from moderating users' content based on their viewpoint, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that, "Big Tech's reign of endless censorship and their suppression of conservative viewpoints is coming to an end." His victory lap was a celebration of efforts by MAGA Republicans to limit the ability of online platforms to curb the spread of harmful content and misinformation on their services. These efforts by far-right lawmakers have become so commonplace, they're no longer surprising. The Trump-led Republican party has made it clear they'll do whatever it takes to stop online platforms from removing dangerous and hateful content that's beneficial to Republican causes. What is surprising, though, is that Paxton and other MAGA republicans like Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody recently joined a lawsuit against Meta alleging the opposite premise—that online platforms aren't doing enough to moderate their platforms for minors.

Putting aside the extensive efforts by Meta to protect children and teens, the MAGA Republicans who joined the suit against Meta appear to be undercutting their fellow AGs' case. The very tools that Paxton and Moody want internet platforms to use to "protect kids" in the Meta lawsuit are the same ones they've asked the Supreme Court to eliminate. NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody will be SCOTUS' most significant internet cases this term, and will be a critical turning point in the struggle to protect minors from online threats. The Paxton case revolves around Texas law HB20, which forbids online platforms from moderating users' content. While Paxton and Moody contend that HB20 protects the First Amendment rights of Texans, it would actually open up Americans—including kids—to a deluge of lawful, but awful content online. Contrast that with Paxton's efforts in the AGs' lawsuit against Meta. The case against Meta alleges that Meta hasn't done enough to limit kids' exposure to harmful or inappropriate content online. There's a worthwhile debate policymakers should engage in over what empirical research says about the impact of social media on minors and users, and how social media can better protect minors without isolating marginalized communities. But the bottom line is this: If Ken Paxton wants social media companies to moderate more content for minors, a great first step would be stopping his crusade for a law that will make social media companies liable for every post they take down.

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Trading places: 'Texodus' becomes Texas, California exchange

There’s been talk of a great California exodus as residents have flocked from the Golden State to places like Texas in search of more affordable real estate and better tax incentives. But why are people moving to Texas, and is the trend starting to reverse? According to recent Census Bureau data making the rounds in news articles lately, it seems like there’s a bit of a resident exchange between two of the country’s largest states. According to new data from the Census Bureau, some 102,000 Californians moved to Texas. This is likely not surprising to anyone familiar with the “Texodus” headlines outlining the large number of California expats moving to the Lone Star State for more economic opportunities, cheaper real estate, and no state income tax. Business Insider, citing Realtor.com, said the average home in Ross’s new homestead runs roughly $749,000 while homes in Silicon Valley average upwards of $1.53 million, showing exactly why so many have chosen to move to Texas to avoid skyrocketing real estate prices in California.

However, housing prices might not be the only thing enticing Californians as Ross said the school districts and the safety of fewer natural disasters also made the move to Texas obvious for him and his family. Ross also told Business Insider there was a lack of diversity in thinking in his former home state, saying he felt he couldn’t share his political ideals openly in California. Further, he said the preconceived notions about Texas turned out to be untrue. Business Insider reports Ross said his new town, Fair Oaks Ranch, is “culturally diverse, the culinary scene is better, road infrastructure was higher quality, and his community as a whole much friendlier than California.” While more than 100,000 Americans are making the move from the Golden State to the Lone Star State, there’s some migration in the reverse as well. Census Bureau data shows that in 2021-22 more Texans moved to California than from any other state – 42,000 to be exact.

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Texas A&M in talks to hire Mike Elko as next head coach, reports say

After the brief window of time where many thought Mark Stoops was headed to Aggieland, it appears Texas A&M has zeroed in on another man to replace former head coach Jimbo Fisher. Multiple reports indicated Sunday afternoon that Duke head coach Mike Elko has become the leading candidate in College Station, and that he is expected to be hired by the Aggies as both sides continue negotiations. The Houston Chronicle reported an announcement from A&M athletic director Ross Bjork could come “as soon as Sunday night or perhaps Monday.” Elko took over as head coach at Duke in 2022 after spending four seasons as Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator. Elko is 16-9 over two seasons as Duke’s head coach. In his four-year tenure with the Aggies, Elko led the Aggies to the FBS’s second-best run defense and the SEC’s best overall defense in 2020 and the FBS’s third-best scoring defense in 2021. Before going to A&M, Elko led Notre Dame’s defense for the 2017 season in which the Fighting Irish finished 10-3 after a 4-8 season in 2016.

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Baylor fires OC Jeff Grimes, coach Dave Aranda to reportedly call defensive plays

With Dave Aranda reportedly back for the 2024 season, the Baylor head coach is already tweaking his staff after the Bears went 3-9 overall and 1-7 at home in 2023. Baylor offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes was reportedly fired Sunday afternoon, according to SicEm365. Grimes — who was hired in 2021 — helped lead the Bears to a program-best 12-2 season that year, in which they won a Big 12 championship and the Sugar Bowl. ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg also reported that first-year defensive coordinator Matt Powledge will return but that Aranda will take over play-calling, so Baylor will have new play-callers on both sides in 2024. Aranda, who took the Baylor job after four years as the defensive coordinator at LSU (2016-19), hasn’t called plays on defense since the 2022 Armed Forces Bowl, when the Bears lost to Air Force 30-15 in Fort Worth. Aranda had fired then-defensive coordinator Ron Roberts in the weeks preceding that bowl.

Grimes was a top-five finalist for the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant, after the 2021 season. He was also a finalist for the award when he served as the offensive coordinator for BYU in 2020. Grimes was a rumored candidate for prominent head coach openings entering the 2022 season. Baylor’s offense averaged over 30 points per game in Grimes’ first two years as OC but dropped to 23.1 points per game in 2023. Dave Campbell’s Texas Football also reported that Aranda will be looking for an offensive coordinator with “head coaching experience and an explosive offensive style,” mentioning Matt Wells (offensive analyst at Oklahoma), Dino Babers (former Syracuse head coach), Sean Lewis (OC at Colorado) and Jake Spavital (offensive coordinator at Cal).

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Congressional dysfunction holds up money earmarked for North Texas projects

DART’s busy underground Cityplace/Uptown Station has an aging fire suppression system with parts that need replacement. DFW International Airport wants a new mobile command post and bomb squad vehicles for emergency response, while a host of road projects are planned to help address traffic congestion. Republicans and Democrats representing North Texas have included millions of dollars for those and other local projects in the annual spending bills Congress was supposed to finalize by the end of September. “Our communities depend on them,” Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said. The wait will continue at least a couple months longer. Unable to get an agreement in time, Congress extended last year’s spending into early 2024, leaving those earmarks in limbo. Lawmakers have long sought to “bring home the bacon” by earmarking money for pet projects.

Pressure to reform pork barrel spending mounted after high-profile scandals involving members such as Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who went to prison after his earmarking corruption was exposed by a 2006 Pulitzer-winning investigation by The San Diego Union-Tribune. Other projects weren’t criminal, just politically embarrassing, such as an infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska that became such a national punchline it was eventually abandoned. After trying in vain to clean up the process, Congress adopted a 10-year moratorium on earmarks, which Democrats lifted in 2021, adopting fresh guidelines on top of previous rules aimed at avoiding conflicts of interest. Republicans opted to keep earmarks as they took back the House this year. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, who became chair of the Appropriations Committee in January, has generally defended earmarks, although Republicans further tightened the rules this year under her direction. That included declaring several of the spending bills, including defense and financial services, off limits for earmarks. Earmark funding is capped at .5% of total discretionary spending, and members are required to submit a written statement detailing why the project should qualify for federal dollars. The earmarks are attached to individual spending bills and must be approved by the committee and then Congress as a whole.

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From Lockheed to Alliance, signs of Kay Granger’s economic impact abound

In 1988, when Ross Perot Jr. began to implement his vision for Alliance Airport and the 27,000 acres then north of Fort Worth, there were plenty of issues to work through. Mike Berry, now president of Hillwood, the company behind that project, took the plans for the development to the city’s zoning commission to shepherd the many annexation and zoning details through various legal requirements. Leading the zoning commission was a young former schoolteacher and small businesswoman just beginning her political career: Kay Granger. “That happened under her watch,” said Berry, recalling those days 35 years ago. “I think my facts are correct, that at that time, that was the largest single annexation by a city in the state of Texas,” he said. “It was a big deal, and she was there.” AllianceTexas, now part of Fort Worth, is home to over 560 companies. It has generated $111 billion in regional economic impact and created 66,000 direct jobs, according to its latest report from March of this year.

With the announcement that Granger, R-Fort Worth, will not seek reelection for a 15th term in Congress, local leaders say they know she will be difficult to replace, personally, professionally and as a champion of economic development. “Congresswoman Granger has been a tireless advocate for our region’s economic growth, job creation and business prosperity,” said Steve Montgomery, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, in a statement. “Her leadership has been instrumental in capturing opportunities for Fort Worth and ensuring our national security. She will leave an enduring legacy in our community.” Jim Riddlesperger, professor of political science at TCU, said Granger’s influence and clout have often been underestimated. “When she voted against Rep. Jim Jordan as speaker of the House, I noticed the national media called her a ‘veteran legislator,’” he said. “That’s wrong. She’s one of the most — if not the — most important legislators in the country.” As chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, Riddlesperger said, Granger is key to the $5 trillion that flows through the federal government. “That all has to be approved by her committee,” he said. “If what we care about is what we attach money to, Kay Granger is the most important member of Congress.” And, he notes, she sees to it that an ample supply of those funds ends up in North Texas.

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UH fires football coach Dana Holgorsen after five seasons

On the day he was hired at the University of Houston in early 2019, Dana Holgorsen toasted with a Red Bull and proclaimed: “Y’all want to go win some games? Let’s go win some games!” Five years later, there was not enough winning. After years of unfulfilled expectations and continued fan frustration over the direction of UH’s underachieving football program, the Cougars fired Holgorsen on Sunday after going 4-8 in their debut Big 12 season.

UH president Renu Khator and board of regents chairman and megadonor Tilman Fertitta met late Saturday night to discuss Holgorsen's future, just hours after the Cougars' 27-13 season-ending loss to UCF wrapped a third losing season in the last five years. Holgorsen finished 31-28 over those five seasons. “Over the course of his five seasons with the Cougars, Dana made strides in our football program in many ways and laid the groundwork for our transition to the Big 12 Conference,” athletic director Chris Pezman said in a statement. “Ultimately, the results on the field fell below our standards of excellence. We are grateful to Dana for his efforts and commitment to our student-athletes, and we wish him the very best in his future endeavors." Assistant coach Corby Meekins will serve as interim head coach, the school said. Players were told of Holgorsen's dismissal in a team meeting Sunday afternoon.

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Stadium districts display options for Astros' plans at Minute Maid Park

The Astros this month flashed more signs that they're ready to make a run at building a ballpark district outside Minute Maid Park. The club seems eager to join a growing list of pro teams that benefit financially from a permanent entertainment venue just outside the confines of a professional sports stadium. Among baseball stadium districts, one of the first — and one Astros executives have said could be a model for theirs — is Ballpark Village in St. Louis. Proposed more than 20 years ago as the new owners of the St. Louis Cardinals eyed building a new Busch Stadium, Ballpark Village took more than a decade to complete, wrapping up years after the team's new stadium opened in 2006.

If the Astros see it as a prototype for Minute Maid's district — proposed for the 2 acres bounded by Texas, Capitol, Hamilton and Avenida de las Americas — the team and its fans should expect delays, cost overruns and a completed project that could look vastly different than what is initially proposed. Astros executives say no specific plan exists and that construction, once expected to begin this year, won't start until late 2024. Until then, Astros fans can look to other stadium districts and try to envision what the parking lot at the southeast corner of the Juice Box will become.

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Booming Port of Laredo a linchpin in global trade, and San Antonio's 'right in the heart of it'

The Port of Laredo is fast emerging as the nation’s top port — a linchpin in global commerce supplying Americans with new cars and electronics and keeping their refrigerators full of fresh produce. With an airport, rail bridge and two bridges carrying multiple lanes over the Rio Grande, the port’s traffic soared with the growth of the Texas-Mexico manufacturing ecosystem and as companies shift production from China to avoid tariffs and simplify supply chains, a trend known as nearshoring. Tesla Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. are among those investing in factories on both sides of the border. And it’s only a 2.5-hour drive from San Antonio.

“We’re kind of right in the heart of it, because much of what’s happening in Mexico is happening in northern Mexico. That trade is coming across the border, and it has to cross in Laredo,” said Sarah Carabias-Rush of Greater: SATX, the region’s economic development organization. “We see ourselves really as one large pipeline, one large mega-region.” That pipeline keeps getting bigger. The Port of Laredo has long vied with the Port of Los Angeles and Chicago-O’Hare International Airport to be America’s top port by trade value, taking the lead for a month or two but missing the mark in yearly rankings. This year, it has maintained a lead with $241 billion in value up to September, compared with $217 billion for the Port of Los Angeles and $197 billion for Chicago-O’Hare. It’s not just a blip. The port’s trade value has been growing faster, too, putting it on a trajectory to stay at the top. Between 2021 and 2022, Port of Laredo trade grew 20.6% to $299.4 billion, compared with a 5.3% increase for the Port of Los Angeles and 8.3% for Chicago O’Hare. “It used to be Port Laredo would be number three, two or one dependent upon the month and the seasonality of Christmas presents coming in from China or an automotive tariff that might have been put in by past-President (Donald) Trump,” said Gene Lindgren, president and CEO of the Laredo Economic Development Corp. “But we’ve been consistent since last October.”

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At Lackland, Air Force brass aims to build a smarter boot camp

On a cloudy, damp October evening, the recruits step off a bus and onto the grounds of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. “Let’s go, come on! Let’s go, come on!” an airman barks at them as they began falling into ragged lines. “Move it!” he calls out a moment later as the young men and women stand ramrod straight, holding their bags. There is no screaming in the recruits’ faces, no swarm of instructors circling them like sharks, no verbal abuse or harassment hurled their way.

It’s a different experience than recruits would’ve had 15 or 20 years ago when arriving at Lackland, the home of Air Force basic training, where thousands of recruits are trained each year. The days of scaring the hell out of raw recruits for the sake of letting them know who’s boss are over. A new philosophy has taken root in the Air Force and its sister services, driven by the belief that young people these days don’t respond to the old, harsher methods. There has been an intentional shift away from the traditional boot camp strategy of breaking down the new troops and rebuilding them. Instead, the Air Force has decided to focus on teaching and coaching new recruits during Zero Week, the first five days of basic military training, and to rely on mentoring and relationship-building to make it all work Military leaders say the changes are being made for very pragmatic reasons: They want to flatten the learning curve for recruits and lessen the percentage who don’t make it through boot camp.

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‘Game Changer’ for research, ranking of Texas universities

Harrison Keller, the Texas Commissioner of Higher Education, was “thrilled” when voters approved a state proposal earlier this month to establish a $3.9 billion endowment to support the state’s “emerging” research institutions. “The proposition was a strong endorsement of the vision that the board has laid out in our state’s strategic plan for higher education,” Keller said. The initiative, Building a Talent-Strong Texas, is focused on supporting academic research and innovation, increasing degree attainment, and keeping graduates working in the state. The new endowment is called the Texas University Fund, or TUF, and was approved by over 60 percent of voters on Nov. 7. It is designed to support four “emerging” institutions across the state—Texas Tech University, Texas State University, the University of Houston and the University of North Texas—and help boost their research capabilities and enhance their reputations locally and nationally.

Shreekanth Mandayam, vice president for research at Texas State University, described PUF as “transformational” and said it helped Texas A&M and UT Austin recruit distinguished faculty and fund the research opportunities and state-of-the-art facilities that drew them there. Mandayam and others believe the creation of the Texas University Fund will enable his and the other three institutions to become as research-focused, academically rigorous and nationally respected as the state’s two flagship institutions. “This passage of the endowment is a game changer,” Mandayam said. “Every dollar invested in higher education in this manner will return tenfold back in tax-paying citizens, in jobs that are created and in local economic impact.” The endowment also gained one last boost of support in 2021, when UT announced that it would be leaving the Big 12 NCAA Conference to join the Southeastern Conference. Lawmakers introduced the bill to create TUF a month later, a decision some viewed as a response to the conference swap. Neal Smatresk, president of the University of North Texas, said in an email that his institution, which is the third largest in the state and has nearly 47,000 students, is helping drive the economy in a rapidly growing region.

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County Stories

San Antonio officers’ association launches social media campaign against DA Joe Gonzales

The San Antonio Police Officers’ Association has launched a social media campaign against District Attorney Joe Gonzales after a string of violent officer-involved shootings. “We will no longer stay silent,” states the first video, posted earlier this month on X, formerly Twitter. “Tune in to the DA Chronicles to uncover the truth.” In a second video, SAPOA said Gonzales is “putting law enforcement at risk” by not keeping repeat offenders behind bars. It focused on Jesse Garcia, 28, the man accused of wounding three police officers in August during a four-hour standoff. He was indicted by a Bexar County grand jury earlier this month. The SAPOA video showed Garcia’s criminal history dating back to 2018. It stated that several of his cases were dismissed and he was released twice on bond, most recently in February. Gonzales released a statement after the video was released, calling it “false and blatantly misleading.”

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City Stories

Houston’s Hindu youth will soon have a summer campsite of their own

After nearly four decades, a summer camp for Hindu children and teens has a permanent home. On Saturday (Nov. 18), the Hindu Heritage Youth Camp, the predominant Hindu summer program based in Houston, officially began construction of the Texas Hindu Campsite on a 52-acre plot of land. While construction was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the campsite is set to open for a new round of campers by the summer of 2024, just one year before the camp’s 40-year anniversary. “This will unite the Hindu community,” said Vijay Pallod, a longtime volunteer of HHYC and founder of hindusofhouston.org. “This is where the future Hindu leaders are going to come from.” Saturday’s Bhumi Pujan, or ground-breaking ritual to Mother Earth, was attended by members of various Hindu religious organizations, among them priests from the 45 temples in the greater Houston area who blessed the land,

This Bhumi Pujan meant even more to volunteers like Pallod, whose wife and children have been heavily involved with the camp since the ’90s. To them, the dream of having a space just for the needs of Hindu youth has finally been realized. “Our youth are not going to the temple as my generation are,” said Pallod. “But they will go to camp.” There’s a reason that hundreds of kids flock to the HHYC every year. Uniquely, this is a space for American Hindus by American Hindus — run entirely by the second generation, many of whom were campers themselves. From daily yoga to mini festivals like Holi, the camp centers on approachable Hinduism: life lessons that are deeply spiritual just as much as they are fun. Philosophical discussions on Hindu values don’t come without at least one reference to pop culture, says Bharat Pallod, Vijay’s 34-year-old son. “When you’re learning from your peers, people who have grown up with the same life experiences as you, you’re way more engaged in the whole process,” said Bharat, who started attending the camp as a second grader. “The kids understand better how we want to see Hinduism.”

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National Stories

Rep. George Santos says he expects to be kicked out of Congress

Rep. George Santos has said he expects to be expelled from Congress following a scathing report by the House Ethics Committee that found substantial evidence of lawbreaking by the New York Republican. In a defiant speech Friday sprinkled with taunts and obscenities aimed at his congressional colleagues, Santos insisted he was “not going anywhere.” But he acknowledged that his time as a member of Congress, at least, may soon be coming to an end. “I know I’m going to get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor,” he said Friday night during a conversation on X Spaces. “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good.” The comments came one week after the Republican chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Michael Guest, introduced a resolution to expel Santos once the body returns from Thanksgiving break.

While Santos has survived two expulsion votes, many of his colleagues who formerly opposed the effort now say they support it, citing the findings of the committee’s monthslong investigation into a wide range of alleged misconduct committed by Santos. The report found Santos used campaign funds for personal purposes, such as purchases at luxury retailers and adult content websites, then caused the campaign to file false or incomplete reports. “Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” investigators wrote. They noted that he did not cooperate with the report and repeatedly “evaded” straightforward requests for information. On Friday, Santos said he did not want to address the specifics of the report, which he claimed were “slanderous” and “designed to force me out of my seat.” Any defense of his conduct, he said, could be used against him in the ongoing criminal case brought by federal prosecutors. Instead, Santos struck a contemplative tone during the three-hour livestream, tracing his trajectory from Republican “it girl” to “the Mary Magdalene of the United States Congress.” And he lashed out at his congressional colleagues, accusing them of misconduct – such as voting while drunk – that he said was far worse than anything he’d done.

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Police arrest suspect in the shooting of 3 men of Palestinian descent near the University of Vermont

Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent who were attending a Thanksgiving holiday gathering near the University of Vermont campus Saturday evening. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Jason J. Eaton, 48, while conducting a search of the shooting area in Burlington at 3:38 p.m. Sunday, the Burlington Police Department said in a statement. Authorities collected evidence during a search of Eaton’s apartment in a building in front of the shooting location. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, police said. The attack that injured the three men around 6:25 p.m. Saturday may have been a hate crime, authorities previously said. Two of the men were in stable condition and the other suffered “much more serious injuries,” Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said in a statement Sunday. The three, all age 20, were walking during a visit to the home of one of the victim’s relatives when they were confronted by a white man with a handgun, police said.

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Dems think they can send the Freedom Caucus Chair packing

Marine Corps fighter pilot Lt. Col. Mike O’Brien voted via an absentee ballot in the 2020 election in Montgomery County, a Philadelphia suburb. Weeks later, on Jan. 6, O’Brien followed the news as MAGA-hat-wearing, confederate-flag-wielding rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol while GOP lawmakers challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election. O’Brien watched to see who contested the vote—his vote—in his home state. “And that was Scott Perry. That was the Republican delegation. And so at that point, it became personal for me, and I wanted to do something about it,” O’Brien said. That “something” is campaigning to unseat the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus chairman, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA). And the retired TOPGUN F-35 stealth fighter pilot—the aviators made famous by the Tom Cruise “Top Gun” movies—is opening fire on Perry’s role in trying to steal the 2020 election.

O’Brien is one of seven Democrats vying to replace Perry who thinks they will finally topple the six-term congressman. Democrats are convinced they have a real shot at ousting the infamous Trump ally this cycle by banking that voters in Perry’s district will reject his role in the “Big Lie” and hardline brand of politics. “Everything from his attempts to steal the 2020 presidential election, to his extreme views on issues that are important like abortion, I think this district is primed to be extremely competitive,” Pennsylvania Democratic strategist Mike Mikus told The Daily Beast. Perry, as the current leader of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, was allegedly a key player in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, connecting former President Donald Trump with DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who backed Trump’s election denialism. As part of an FBI probe into efforts to overturn the election, in August 2022, the FBI confiscated Perry’s phone with a court-authorized search warrant—though the FBI has been unable to access the phone amid legal challenges. But as Mikus put it to the Daily Beast, politically, “it’s never a good thing with voters when the FBI seizes your cell phone.” Democratic challengers are counting on that sentiment to turn the tides in Perry’s Pennsylvania district, which encompasses Dauphin County—home of the state capitol Harrisburg—as well as parts of Cumberland and York counties. While the district is an R+5 in the Partisan Voting Index—basically a measure of how many more percentage points a district is Republican or Democrat—recent polling suggests Perry is vulnerable. An October Public Policy Polling poll found that Perry has just a 34 percent approval rating in the district and holds just a two-point lead against a “generic Democratic candidate.”

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Mileah Kromer: Democrats are panicking about the wrong thing

(Mileah Kromer is an associate professor of political science at Goucher College and the director of Sarah. T. Hughes Center for Politics, which conducts the Goucher College Poll. She is the author of Blue State Republican: How Larry Hogan Won Where Republicans Lose and Lessons for a Future GOP.) Democrats are freaking out about the wrong polls. It’s been a season of ugly polling for President Joe Biden, no doubt about it.??A recent NBC poll found Biden’s approval rating at the lowest level of his presidency, with a majority of voters holding “negative” feelings toward him. Only a quarter of American voters want Biden to run for reelection, according to a mid-November poll conducted by The Economist/YouGov. And then there’s that much-discussed NYT/Siena College Poll showing former President Donald Trump leading Biden in five of six key battleground states, which generated so many screaming headlines and distraught Democratic operatives.?? ? But it’s important not to lose the signal through the noise here. Horse race polls, approval ratings and other candidate-centered indicators a full year out from the 2024 election aren’t something Democrats need to set their hair on fire over — at least not yet. Instead, what should be causing a considerable sense of panicked urgency is what voters have been telling pollsters about economic issues.??

Over the last year, polls have shown voters holding a decidedly grim economic outlook. Most Americans rate current economic conditions as “poor.” Many think we are in a recession and aren’t optimistic that things will improve. They view Republicans as better able to address economic issues and, in the crucial battleground states, have more trust in Trump than Biden to do a better job on the economy — and by a whopping 22 points. An October poll from PRRI found that, in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, “increasing costs of housing and everyday expenses” topped the list of the most important issues for voters. Other polls have found similar results.? The expressed economic anxiety is understandable even if not entirely rational. Voters hold these attitudes while the inflation rate has steadily decreased from its peak last summer, unemployment rates remain low with U.S. employers continuing to add jobs and many facets of Biden’s economic plan are popular. Even so, with prices of everyday goods and services stubbornly high, it might be enough to cost Biden his reelection.?? Yet there are lessons to be drawn from the state level, even in solidly blue Maryland. During the first two years of the Biden administration, it was home to Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who was one of the nation’s most popular governors. One of Hogan’s first moves was to use executive power to cut tolls, notably to cross the heavily traveled Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and a series of fees in the summer of 2015. It seemed small-bore at the time. State Democratic leaders derided this move as short-sighted political showmanship that would harm the state’s budget.?? Voters did not see it that way. They liked that something was a little cheaper. Moreover, the toll cuts reinforced a key theme of Hogan’s first campaign that he would protect their pocketbooks from a Maryland Democratic Party who “never met a tax they didn’t like, or at least one they didn’t hike.”?

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Will livestreaming be TikTok’s Amazon-killer?

TikTok is trying to tap in to shoppers in the U.S. So-called social shopping is already a huge phenomenon in Asia. Success isn’t guaranteed—and politics could intervene. But given how effectively TikTok has already disrupted the social-media landscape, U.S. e-commerce giants like Amazon should be watching their back. The viral short-video app, owned by China’s Bytedance, rolled out its e-commerce platform to its 150 million monthly active users in the U.S. in September. TikTok isn’t a stranger to selling goods through livestreaming and short videos. The phenomenon has been around in China for many years and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has been particularly successful there. TikTok’s foray into e-commerce has also been off to a good start in Southeast Asia over the past couple of years.

The logic of the expansion into e-commerce is clear. TikTok is already a channel where hundreds of millions of young users discover new products, particularly in categories such as apparel and cosmetics, worn or highlighted by influencers on the platform. Allowing actual sales is the next step. TikTok aims to increase the total amount of such goods sold on its platform, or gross merchandise value, to $20 billion this year globally from less than $5 billion in 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier. The growth of the segment in China is instructive: Livestreaming e-commerce is flourishing there, despite a general slowdown in consumption. Goldman Sachs expects gross merchandise value for livestreaming e-commerce in China to grow 18% a year in the next couple of years—compared with 11% for overall e-commerce. The bank expects the segment to make up around 24% of the whole e-commerce market in 2025. And last week’s results from Kuaishou, a smaller domestic rival to Douyin, lend further credence to such predictions. The company’s gross merchandise value grew 30% from a year earlier, for the quarter ending in September. That drove a 21% increase in overall revenue and a 35% rise in gross profit. In comparison, traditional e-commerce giant JD.com increased revenue by 2% year on year in the quarter. Kuaishou’s GMV for the year ended September was around $153 billion.

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How U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson helped derail a fight against election lies

Back in July, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. A federal court had recently granted a temporary injunction, in Missouri v. Biden, finding that the Biden administration had violated the First Amendment by coercing social media companies to remove content, related both to elections and the COVID-19 vaccine, that it deemed false and harmful. The ruling is being appealed to the Supreme Court, which last month temporarily blocked the order. But one committee member wanted to press the advantage. “What is disinformation?” asked Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La. “Disinformation is inaccurate information…” Mayorkas began. “Who determines what’s inaccurate?” Johnson interjected almost immediately. “Who determines what’s false? You understand the problem here?”

Moments later, Mayorkas testified that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a unit of DHS whose activities were part of the case, focuses on fighting disinformation from foreign adversaries — speech that would likely enjoy fewer First Amendment protections than speech by Americans. But Johnson was ready. “No, sir,” Johnson said. “The court determined you and all of your cohorts made no distinction between domestic speech and foreign speech. So don’t stand there under oath and tell me that you only focused on … foreign actors. That’s not true.” “I so, so, regret that I’m out of time,” Johnson concluded. Johnson’s forceful performance lit up right-wing media, burnishing his credentials as a conservative stalwart and a fiercely effective Republican partisan. This was hardly the first time that Johnson had put the Biden administration on the defensive over its efforts to fight online disinformation — false or misleading information that is deliberately spread to advance a political or ideological goal. In fact, in recent years, there appear to have been few national issues on which Johnson, who in October was elected by the GOP as speaker of the House, has played a more prominent role. Johnson’s efforts have largely succeeded. Since 2020, the federal government and social media companies have scaled back their work to counter online disinformation — thanks in part, experts say, to the furious pushback from Johnson and other leading Republicans.

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Summary outlines Gov. Bill Lee's plan to expand school vouchers across Tennessee

Gov. Bill Lee is preparing to announce a plan to dramatically expand Tennessee's controversial school voucher program, allowing K-12 students to receive taxpayer funding for private school regardless of need, according to talking points obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates. The plan — which critics argue would upend traditional public schools all across the state — would even provide funding for students to attend unaccredited private schools with little track record of success. Lee's office has been trying to convince Republican lawmakers to stand with him for an announcement currently slated for Tuesday afternoon, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing the governor's office. "Tennessee's Education Freedom Scholarships will empower parents with the freedom to choose the right education for their child — and give them a say in where their taxpayer dollars are spent," says the one-page summary provided to NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

Right now, a limited number of low- and middle-income students in Davidson, Hamilton and Shelby counties are entitled to receive about $9,000 a year to attend eligible private schools under the Education Savings Account (ESA) pilot program, according to the Tennessee Department of Education's website. Lee's new proposal for an Education Freedom Scholarship Act would provide an estimated $7,000 per student beginning in the 2024-25 school year, the one-pager says. According to the summary, in the first year, eligible students would be those who are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, have a disability or are eligible for the existing ESA pilot program. Beginning in 2025-26, the plan calls for "universal eligibility for all students entitled to attend a public school." Funding would be provided "for a minimum of 10,000 scholarships, increasing over time until all Tennessee students who desire a scholarship are awarded one." The private schools entitled to receive state funding would be programs in Category 1 (schools approved by the Tennessee Department of Education), Category 2 (schools accredited under programs authorized by the Tennessee Department of Education), Category 3 (schools accredited by regional entities), Category 4 (schools that are members of religiously affiliated organizations) and Category 5 (schools that are unaccredited and not members of any religious associations).

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Oklahoma Christian leaders seek to join suit opposing state-funded Catholic school

Four Christian leaders and education advocates are seeking the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s permission to join a lawsuit filed by the state’s attorney general that aims to prevent the opening of an online Catholic charter school. The plaintiffs — Melissa Abdo, Bruce Prescott, the Rev. Mitch Randall and the Rev. Lori Walke — contend that the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s decision to sponsor the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School undermines religious freedom in the state and will lead to discrimination against nonreligious students. “The separation of church and state is not the sole responsibility of the state; the church has to do its part to hold that line and continue to honor that separation,” said Walke. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be the country’s first publicly funded religious charter school.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond has argued in his own filings that the decision violates Oklahoma’s Constitution. He has said he is ready to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed. The Oklahoma faith leaders are represented in their effort to sway the case by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Education Law Center and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They previously filed a separate lawsuit in a district court this summer. The board is represented by the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. When she learned about the board’s decision to allocate public funds to St. Isidore, Abdo, a Catholic resident of Tulsa County, immediately felt the need to counter assumptions that the lawsuit was an anti-Catholic effort. “I’m Catholic; this happens to be a Catholic school effort, but I would never expect people of another faith to pay for educating children in the Catholic faith,” she said. A longtime public education advocate, Abdo sits on the public school board in Jenks, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa, and the Oklahoma State School Boards Association board of directors. Besides her misgivings about religious freedom, she also expressed concerns about whether St. Isidore will be able to comply with all obligations imposed on public schools, such as holding open meetings and keeping records open.

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Copyright November 30, 2023, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved