Lead Stories

School voucher-like program in Texas could come with $1 billion price tag in early years

Republicans’ push for a voucher-like program that could funnel state money to private schools could cost an estimated $1 billion a year by 2028, while draining funds from public schools, according to a newly released fiscal note. The analysis by the state’s Legislative Budget Board puts the first price tag on a bill prioritized by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who oversees the state Senate. The legislation would give families $8,000 in public funds to spend on private school or other educational costs. Only students currently enrolled in public school or just beginning their education would be eligible for the newly created “education savings accounts.” A quarter of a million students are currently receiving private education, according to the analysis. The bill’s effects are limited by capacity at such schools, it notes. The analysis assumes 25,000 children will leave public schools to take advantage of the program in the first year, and that the number will grow to nearly 42,000 by 2028.

While the annual cost of the program starts at $512 million, the figure balloons to nearly $1 billion within three years, the analysis found. Meanwhile, the fiscal note said traditional school districts would face a loss of state funding “as a result of this bill due to students leaving public schools to participate in the program.” The analysis does not name a specific number, but it estimates that the state’s Foundation School Program will see annual savings of $335 million by 2028. Hundreds of people signed up to speak on the bill during the first public hearing on Wednesday. Testimony before the Senate Education Committee was expected to run late into the night. Sen. Brandon Creighton, the bill’s author, said parents “have the right to choose the educational setting of their children.” The legislation is “not designed to harm public schools,” he said, noting the funding will come from state general revenue, not the Foundation School Program for public schools. Critics contend that voucher-like programs don’t help students as they often fail to cover the true cost of private schools, which don’t have to accept all students, and haven’t always translated into academic gains in other states.

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Fed raises rates to highest level in 16 years, calls banking system ‘sound and resilient’

The Federal Reserve extended its year-long fight against high inflation Wednesday by raising its key interest rate a quarter-point, despite concerns that higher borrowing rates could worsen the turmoil that has gripped the banking system. “The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient,” the Fed said in a written statement released after its two-day meeting. At the same time, the Fed warned that the financial upheaval stemming from the collapse of two major banks is “likely to result in tighter credit conditions” and “weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation.” The central bank also signaled that it’s likely nearing the end of its aggressive series of rate hikes.

In a statement it issued, it removed language that had previously indicated that it would keep raising rates at upcoming meetings. The statement now says “some additional policy firming may be appropriate” — a weaker commitment to future hikes. And in a series of quarterly economic projections, Fed officials forecast that they expect to raise their key rate just one more time – from its new level Wednesday of about 4.9% to 5.1%. That is the same peak level they had projected in December. The latest rate hike suggests that Chair Jerome Powell is confident that the Fed can manage a dual challenge: Cool still-high inflation through higher loan rates while defusing the financial upheaval in the banking sector through emergency lending programs and the Biden administration’s decision to cover uninsured deposits at two failed U.S. banks. The Fed’s decision to signal that the end of its rate-hike campaign is in sight may also soothe financial markets as they continue to digest the consequences of U.S. banking turmoil and the takeover last weekend of Swiss bank Credit Suisse by its larger rival.

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Experts warn Senate plan for statewide ‘backup generator’ would sink ERCOT free market

Energy experts and electric industry groups are calling a Texas Senate plan to back up the state’s power grid with state-financed fossil fuel power plants the end of the free market in Texas’ electricity economy. Senate Bill 6 is one of nine bills the Senate unveiled earlier this month as a suite of fossil fuel-centric bills that take aim at Texas’ booming renewable energy sector under promises of greater grid stability. The bill from Georgetown Republican Sen. Charles Schwertner could use taxpayer money to finance the construction of 10,000 megawatts of natural-gas-fueled power plants — enough energy capacity to fuel an estimated 7.5 million homes. Building the plants would cost an estimated $10 billion-$18 billion. They would be required to be ready sometime in 2027 or 2028.

Schwertner has called the idea a “backup generator” for a Texas power grid that nearly collapsed amid severe, extended winter weather in 2021. But energy experts warn that it would undo 20 years of free market principles that have kept electricity prices low and that the bill would do the opposite of what its author and Senate leader Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have promised — encourage new natural gas power generation. “It strikes me that we built this whole state’s power system mostly based on competition and this destroys that competition forever,” said Alison Silverstein, an energy consultant who formerly worked with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Public Utility Commission. The energy industry group Texas Competitive Power Advocates, which represents power production companies such as Irving-based Vistra Corp., NRG and Calpine, also warned that SB 6 “signals the end of competitive market” and would hasten the closings of older coal and gas power plants in Texas. “Texas’ competitive electric market has been the envy of electricity markets around the world, but these bills would scuttle that prized market,” the group’s comments said.

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Grand jury weighing Donald Trump hush-money payment scheduled to return Thursday

A Manhattan grand jury considering Donald Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star is scheduled to meet Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, in what will likely be the panel’s last day of deliberations this week as it moves closer to a potential indictment of the former president. The return of grand jurors comes after a scheduled meeting Wednesday was called off by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which is presenting evidence that could lay the groundwork for charges against Mr. Trump. Prosecutors on Thursday could call an additional witness or present formal charges to the jurors before asking that they vote to issue them. Grand jury proceedings are held in secret, and it isn’t clear why the Wednesday meeting was canceled.

While the panel has typically met on Wednesdays, at times prosecutors have told jurors not to come in, the people said. Prosecutors have considered charging Mr. Trump with falsifying business records to hide the payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, which was made ahead of the 2016 election to keep her from going public with allegations that she had an affair with Mr. Trump. He denies the affair and says he has engaged in no wrongdoing. While most evidence and testimony has already been presented to the grand jury, it is possible that Mr. Bragg’s office could call an additional witness to rebut testimony given to the panel on Monday by Robert Costello, a lawyer who appeared at the request of Mr. Trump’s legal team. Mr. Costello said he told the grand jury that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who made a $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels, was an unreliable witness who has told conflicting stories about the hush-money agreement. Any potential indictment of Mr. Trump wouldn’t be public until it is unsealed by a judge. Even if the former president is charged this week, law-enforcement officials believe Mr. Trump is unlikely to come to New York until next week to face the charges.

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State Stories

$16.5 billion in property tax relief passes the Texas Senate

The Texas Senate passed a slate of property tax cut bills Wednesday that backers say will save homeowners hundreds on their tax bills. The bills sailed to approval with a series of unanimous votes in the Legislature’s upper chamber. They will now head to the House, where competing property tax relief proposals continue to be debated. The Senate passed Senate Bills 3, 4, and 5 as well as Senate Joint Resolution 3, a proposed amendment to the Texas Constitution that voters will need to approve in order to enact increases to homestead exemptions. In total, they amount to $16.5 billion in tax cuts over the next two years. The tax cuts would provide relief to all Texans, though increases to the homestead exemption would only benefit Texans who own their homes and not renters — who make up roughly 40% of households in Texas.

The bills would raise the homestead exemption on school taxes from $40,000 to $70,000 for all homeowners who qualify. Homeowners ages 65 and older and the disabled would see their additional exemptions jump from $10,000 to $30,000. Elderly and disabled homeowners would see their school property tax bill cut by about $516 while all other homeowners would see a $324 cut to their tax bill. “It’s a fabulous day,” said said Houston GOP Sen. Paul Bettencourt, lead author of three of the pieces of legislation. Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, authored the fourth, which would confer $1.5 billion of property and franchise tax breaks on businesses. “But wait there’s more,” has been the excited refrain from Bettencourt since he lifted the curtain on the Senate tax relief proposal earlier this month. Bettencourt has led property tax cut efforts in the Senate for several sessions, including previous bumps to the homestead exemption as well as measures that tightened tax revenue caps on school districts, counties and cities. The bills also shuffle $5.75 billion in sales tax and other state tax revenue to school districts to offset local property taxes schools collect. The cut would shave about 7 cents per $100 valuation off a portion of school property taxes.

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Loathsome dud: Jared Patterson’s school-library bill would ban Larry McMurtry’s novel

State representative Jared Patterson has never claimed, through campaign literature or any other medium, to be a reader. If he had, he might not have walked into the trap set for him last night during a House Public Education Committee hearing on his inaptly named READER Act. That proposal would add several new bureaucratic controls on the kinds of books that could be kept in or borrowed from public-school libraries. When Democratic state representative James Talarico, of Round Rock, prodded the Frisco Republican during debate, Patterson took the bait. “There should be no sexually explicit books” in a high school library, he said. Talarico replied that there’s content that could be viewed as sexually explicit in many very good books. (Though he didn’t mention it, the Bible ranks high among them.) Take Talarico’s favorite book, Larry McMurtry’s 1985 novel Lonesome Dove, about two retired Texas Rangers on a cattle drive during the twilight years of the Old West, which has become totemic to generations of Texans. The book includes characters who are prostitutes and scenes of sexual assault and its consequences. It includes birds and bees and all that kind of filth. Talarico asked: Would Lonesome Dove be banned in Texas high schools under Patterson’s bill?

Patterson hadn’t read Lonesome Dove, he replied, committing his first error. But if it contained the ribald passages Talarico indicated it did, well, then, “they might need to ban Lonesome Dove.” There were a lot of interested parties following this hearing, and it was widely understood among Patterson’s allies and enemies alike that he had stepped in it. Lonesome Dove is an easily comprehensible example of the kind of book that deals with difficult subjects but enhances the reader’s understanding of life, and of other Texans. The thought of the novel coming out of high school libraries in a brown paper bag, like a copy of Maxim, made Patterson’s whole bill seem more ridiculous than it already was. Patterson’s allies apparently thought he needed help digging himself out of his hole, so they jumped in with him. Christin Bentley, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, had an idea. Apparently not having read the book either, she tweeted that she had “bought Lonesome Dove on Kindle and did keyword searches.” She searched for “f—,” “p—y,” “sex,” and “vagina,” which don’t appear in the novel, and posted screenshots to prove it. After this deep engagement with the text, she was happy to report on Twitter that the book was not sexually explicit and, therefore, would not be banned under the bill.

Read this article at Texas Monthly - Subscribers Only

Second TEA forum met with more frustration from members of HISD community

The second Texas Education Agency forum at Chavez High School Wednesday night was not as heavily attended but just as loud as the first one -- and felt more like a rally than an informational meeting. Before the meeting started, TEA speakers told the audience they wanted to “set expectations" of being respectful to speakers and community members. Several audience members shouted at the presenters, objecting to the state intervention with chants and cheers. “TEA will not be responsible for running the district the board will,” Alejandro Delgado, a deputy TEA commissioner said. The audience immediately objected. “Pass us the mic, Pass us the mic,” audience members chanted.

The meeting comes a week after the state agency announced plans to appoint a board of managers and new superintendent following chronic low academic achievement at a Fifth Ward high school and prior school board mismanagement. Delgado had a power point prepared, but like the night before he never had a chance to present it. Instead, different community members got in line and took turns speaking in the megaphone in front of the stage. For the most part, they shared their concerns, and occasionally would ask Delgado for answers. Monique Carlisle, an HISD interventionist asked if the community could remove managers they didn’t feel were doing right by the district. Delgado said elected officials could. She reiterated that she was asking about community members. He did not answer the question, and instead said: “I’m going to just let you continue to have these conversations amongst each other.” Several community members went up sharing concerns and fears regarding the looming intervention. Delgado asked if he could interrupt the community members for a 30-minute time check, to get through the submitted questions. The community members continued on.

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Cornyn chides House GOP for targeting Manhattan DA over Trump’s porn star hush money case

With an indictment of former President Donald Trump expected at any time over hush money paid to an adult film star just before the 2016 election, Sen. John Cornyn criticized a House GOP scramble to investigate the New York prosecutor himself. “There’s more than enough to do, and I would hope they’d stick to the agenda that they ran on when they got elected to the majority,” he told reporters Tuesday evening at the Capitol. His comments represent a break from many Republicans who have defended Trump with varying degrees of enthusiasm ahead of the expected indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Texas’ other Republican senator, Ted Cruz, downplayed allegations against Trump, in part by suggesting it’s common for politicians in both parties to cover up affairs with hush money.

“Paying an adulterous lover to keep quiet is something an awful lot of Democrats, an awful lot of Republicans, have done,” Cruz said on his podcast this week. “It’s not good or right or moral. It is typically not illegal to do.” During the 2016 presidential primaries, Cruz denounced Trump as an adulterous liar. Although Trump indicated he expects to be arrested soon, New York authorities have not said when or if that will actually happen. Asked if he is concerned about Trump urging supporters to protest, a call that has stirred memories of the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, Cornyn responded tersely: “It’s a free country.” Federal prosecutors previously have said Trump’s former lawyer and legal fixer Michael Cohen arranged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal ahead of the 2016 election. Both say they had sexual encounters with Trump while he was married. Testifying to Congress in 2019, Cohen recounted an Oval Office conversation at which the president assured him his reimbursement was on the way. The $130,000 paid to Daniels was classified by Trump’s business as legal expenses, and the prosecution reportedly rests on a New York law against falsifying business records.

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Ken Paxton’s office: Whistleblowers should have known settlement funding could take years

The Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says a group of whistleblowers who sued the agency should have known it could take years to get legislative approval to fund their proposed settlement. In a response filed with the Supreme Court of Texas on Monday, Solicitor General Judd Stone argued it’s not the agency’s fault that lawmakers may not fund the $3.3 million settlement this year and accused the four whistleblowers of “coordinating with the media” to influence the negotiations. “Respondents knew and should have known that such approval would likely be controversial and could take at least one additional legislative session,” Stone wrote. “Respondents also should have known that large settlements or judgments can lead to disputes.” “Nevertheless, respondents agreed to a binding [settlement] ‘contingent upon all necessary approvals for funding’ without a timing provision,” he added.

Stone added that the whistleblowers were “indisputably on notice” that lawmakers may need to meet in a special session to approve the funding. Only the governor may call a special session of the Texas Legislature. The settlement agreement, the terms of which were announced last month, was contingent on funding approval from state lawmakers. But attorneys for the whistleblowers released a statement earlier in March stating they were returning to court after they said the agency would not agree to secure the money during the current legislative session, which runs through May. Lawmakers meet in odd years. If funding isn’t approved now, it may not be until 2025. Key lawmakers, including Republican Speaker of the House Dade Phelan, had expressed concern about using taxpayer money to pay the whistleblowers. The four plaintiffs were fired from their high-level jobs working for Paxton after they reported him to law enforcement for allegedly using the power of his office to help a campaign donor. They accused Paxton of swapping favors with Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer under FBI scrutiny, in exchange for a kitchen remodel and a job for a woman with whom the attorney general allegedly had an affair. Based on their allegations, the FBI opened an investigation, which was recently referred to the Department of Justice’s national office. No charges have been filed.

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Survivors of child sexual abuse denounce Texas bill further limiting their ability to sue

Survivors of child sexual abuse rallied at the Capitol on Wednesday to protest a bill that would hinder their ability to hold religious organizations, nonprofits and other institutions accountable for protecting their abusers. The Texas Legislature in 2019 extended the civil statute of limitations from 15 years to 30 years after a victim turns 18, allowing survivors up to age 48 to seek monetary damages from their abusers and the organizations that employed them. But state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who helped pass the 2019 measure, is now championing a bill that would return the statute to 15 years for institutions, as long as they made a good faith effort to create a safe environment for children. The legislation would also create a higher burden of proof for those “non-perpetrator” defendants.

Survivors and advocates said the legislation, which has not yet been assigned to a committee, would make it more difficult for victims to obtain justice. It would also make it harder for the public — and parents, especially — to identify institutions that have a history of defending abusers, they said. “How are institutions held accountable?” said Michelle Simpson Tuegel, an attorney who represents and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse. “A lot of times, even if the pedophile is put in prison, the institution usually doesn't go to prison as a whole. But they have to face accountability, too.” The average age of disclosure for victims of child sex abuse is 52, and the median is 48, according to a 2014 study of more than 1,000 survivors. Tuegel said survivors have been in touch with Leach to voice concerns about the legislation. Leach's office did not respond to a request for comment. The survivors pointed instead to two bills they are hoping will pass this session: House Bill 206 and Senate Bill 751, identical measures that would eliminate the statute of limitations completely and allow survivors of any age to sue. Those bills have bipartisan support in both chambers and have been assigned to committees, but neither had been scheduled for a hearing as of Wednesday.

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Abbott calls for raise to business property tax exemption. Here's what he's proposing.

Gov. Greg Abbott wants lawmakers to increase the property tax exemption for business personal property from $2,500 to $100,000, he told attendees at an Austin Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday. The proposal is part of Abbott’s legislative priority to spend $15 billion or more on property tax relief using the state’s unprecedented $32.7 billion budget surplus. Different proposals for how to deliver that relief have come out of both chambers of the Legislature, with the Senate, led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, prioritizing increasing the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $70,000, and the House’s proposal, spearheaded by Speaker Dade Phelan, focusing on reducing the cap on yearly appraisal increases from 10% to 5%. While Phelan has argued that targeting appraisal increases will provide relief to both homeowners and business owners, Patrick has dismissed the proposal as a “disaster.”

Increasing the business personal property tax exemption to $100,000 — a 4,000% jump — appears to be part of Abbott’s strategy to ensure businesses, and not just homeowners, benefit from property tax relief. The Senate's proposed budget, which passed out of the upper chamber Wednesday and is now headed for consideration in the House, includes $16.5 billion in property tax relief, and allocates $450 million for increasing the business personal property tax exemption from $2,500 to $25,000. Abbott touted Texas’ pro-business policies while delivering a keynote address at a luncheon with the Austin Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. He called on attendees to tell their state lawmakers to pass more economic development incentives to replace Chapter 313, a recently-expired program that incentivized companies to invest in and develop major projects in Texas by providing certain corporate tax breaks. “If we're going to be competitive with other states, we need even more economic development tools that will be different a little bit from what Chapter 313 provided, but we cannot completely abandon it and have the expectation that we're going to be able to continue to compete,” Abbott said Wednesday.

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'Clearly, we need to go deeper': UH confirms 2nd on-campus suicide

University of Houston President Renu Khator issued a series of tweets Monday evening following the university's second apparent student suicide in a month's time. In her messages, Khator confirmed the deceased individual discovered earlier in the day at Agnes Arnold Hall was a student and stated the university would be taking additional steps to address mental health on campus. "Today is another very sad day for UH," Khator tweeted. "We are all shaken by the deaths of two people on our campus this semester and are grieving as a community. We believe both took their own lives."

"While we have shut down activities including classes in Agnes Arnold for now, we still need to sit down with students, faculty and staff in the coming weeks to seriously consider our options in regard to the building...I recognize mental health is posing serious challenges on campuses nationwide, including our own." "Clearly, we need to go deeper into our system and do more," Khator stated. Khator's remarks follow a wave of anger that emerged Monday in response to the university's initial statement regarding its latest on-campus death. Some replied to the school's tweet said that the statement, posted at 2:15 p.m. CT, ran too close to a prior statement issued on Feb. 15 informing students of the year's first on-campus death at Agnes Arnold Hall. Both missives used the phrase "deeply saddened" and announced the school would be canceling classes at the facility as authorities investigate. "The same exact message as last time," replied Twitter user @anttttman. "Are y’all not embarrassed?"

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Nicole Russell: Rep. Dan Crenshaw, ex-Navy SEAL, on U.S. military, wokeness

One of the many things that makes America unique is her military, particularly its strength. To hear some Republicans tell it, the military is growing weaker because it’s focused on political correctness, diversity training and implementing “woke” policies into the ranks. In mid-February, the Defense Department riled up conservatives on social media because it characterized the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion initiative as “a strategic imperative critical to mission readiness and accomplishment” in a tweet. Even Elon Musk tersely responded: “Your strategic imperative is defending the United States.” Whatever your ideology, it’s hard not to disagree. In a recent letter to the Army, a pair of Republican lawmakers demanded the Army release survey findings on why fewer young people don’t want to enlist. Service officials had said safety concerns were recruits’ primary issue, not “wokeness.”

Recently, I interviewed Rep. Dan Crenshaw, the Houston-area Republican congressman and former Navy SEAL, and asked him if the military was on the “brink of wokeness.” His response: “I think there’s some problems. … You’re talking about an organization that’s full of hundreds of thousands of people and conservative media does have a tendency to — and I’m a part of this problem, I’ll take blame for this, too — we certainly highlight the problems. But I don’t want people to have the perception that as soon as they join they want to have rainbow-colored glasses. That’s just not true.” The strengths and weaknesses of the military isn’t the only thing on Crenshaw’s mind. He’s been more vocal in the last year about curbing Mexican drug cartels from his position in Congress, a position he said he wouldn’t give up to run for Senate in 2026 should Sen. John Cornyn retire. Crenshaw sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Energy and Commerce Committee and doesn’t want to give those positions up. Rather than target the border fiasco from within Texas, such as arguing for more funds or more border security personnel, Crenshaw offers a different strategy, one with significant heft — and controversy. He wants an Authorization for Use of Military Force from Congress to President Joe Biden to target Mexican drug cartels that continue to wreak havoc on border security, particularly, bringing in fentanyl-laced counterfeit drugs.

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This Texas beach was just named one of the best in the United States

Padre Island National Seashore has been named one of the best beaches in the United States to visit in 2023 by The Independent, a British newspaper. The Texas beach is up there with stretches of coastline in Hawaii, California and Alabama, the paper argues, in terms of offering a "secluded, underrated" getaway for sand, sunsets and surf. Underrated, for sure. Let's be honest: as much as Texans love our beaches, they rarely appear on national "best beaches" round-ups. Padre Island National Seashore, located on Padre Island between Port Aransas and South Padre Island, is a national park.

In addition to being a "charming" stretch of coastline, travel writer Joanna Whitehead notes, Padre Island is the world's longest undeveloped barrier island. Accordingly, it stands out for its natural resources--and the fact that visitors can camp. "This conservation area, stretching around 66 miles, is a major migratory bird route and home to 350 different species, with nearly half of all north American migratory bird species passing through here at different times of the year," Whitehead notes. There are two developed campsites within Padre Island National Seashore, the National Park Services notes, as well as dispersed beach camping--in other words, just setting up your tent. Day passes to the park cost $10 per day for visitors arriving in a vehicle, or $5 per day for pedestrians and bicyclists.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: If TEA can’t run a meeting, how can it run HISD?

It didn't take long for things to get loud at TEA's first public meeting since announcing its takeover of the largest school district in the state. The audience inside the crowded auditorium at Westbury High School made their frustrations heard. At first just a couple people stood, shouting for a chance to ask questions. Periodic chants broke out, inspiring more people to rise to their feet, cheering in favor. Others would chime in and urge people to quiet down so they could get through the slideshow and onto to the questions. But they didn't let up on the TEA representative stationed at the front of the room. "Next slide," one woman shouted when he seemed to move too slowly through the presentation. The meeting seemed to confirm any bias one might have. If you believe TEA is carrying out a hostile takeover with no genuine community involvement, the agency did not help its case Tuesday night.

If you believe Houston is a chaotic, unruly place that needs the strong hand of an appointed board, you saw that in the shouting. The consensus seems to be it did not go well. If we had to grade it, we’d give it a D, though we also saw reason for hope. About 15 minutes into the slideshow presentation, the crowd’s frustration boiled over at the southwest Houston campus. Answer our questions. Pass the mic. For Teplah Toomey, whose daughter attends the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy in HISD, it was frustrating. Toomey came to learn how her daughter’s A-rated school might be affected and to see whether TEA was open to hearing how parents and students are really feeling. To the first question, she got a rushed and incomplete answer. “If a child’s school runs successfully, we don’t anticipate any impact,” Alejandro Delgado, deputy commissioner for the TEA, told the crowd. To the second, on hearing how attendees felt, TEA failed. Many walked into the first meeting expecting more of an open forum but Delgado and others with TEA made clear that they would be sticking to information and questions about the board of managers application, due April 6, and the selection process only. The audience made clear that that wouldn’t cut it. Their insistence yielded some results but many answers were unsatisfying, with so much still TBD.

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Texas teachers wary of Republicans' plans to 'lift up public schools’

Republicans in the state House and Senate are pushing several major pieces of legislation they say are designed to make teachers’ lives easier — including pay raises, investment in school safety, assistance re-hiring retired teachers, and stricter rules for returning kids with behavioral problems to the classroom. “Teaching has always been a challenging profession, but more and more we’re finding that teachers are feeling overburdened and not feeling valued,” said Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Conroe Republican and chair of the Senate Education Committee. School districts around the state are struggling to hire teachers, and 77 percent of those in the profession have said they were seriously considering leaving because they feel overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated. A task force convened by Gov. Greg Abbott recently recommended better training, higher pay and more support for teachers to help tackle the problem.

Creighton and others said during a Wednesday afternoon hearing that their goal is to “lift up public schools like never before.” One bill heard Wednesday would give an across-the-board pay raise to teachers of a few thousand dollars. It would also significantly expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment program, in which the state funds merit-based raises for teachers. The merit-pay program is a good example of the approach the Legislature is taking toward teachers this session: their stated goal is to uplift teachers, but the methods they’re using to do so are opposed by many teachers. Critics say that, although the merit pay benefits some, it can be difficult to administer or capture what makes a good teacher. It has also steered more money to Dallas ISD than all other districts in the state combined. Meanwhile, Republicans have simultaneously launched a series of measures fueled by a deep suspicion that public schools in Texas are promoting liberal causes and viewpoints, and aimed at silencing teachers on certain issues. This week, the following policies opposed by teachers or education groups received hearings in the Legislature: private school voucher programs that would divert funding from traditional school districts, a ban on all discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms, vast restrictions on books in school libraries and a program allowing the state to purchase instructional materials that schools would be encouraged to use, limiting the influence of teachers in shaping lesson plans.

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Panel gives initial OK to limits on gender-affirming care for minors. Here's what's next.

The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs heard nearly nine hours of sometimes emotional testimony on Thursday as lawmakers debated several legislative proposals to regulate health care for transgender people, including a bill that would ban certain medical treatments for transgender children. Senate Bill 14, filed by Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, and co-signed by nine other Republican senators, would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries — to minors experiencing gender dysphoria. The bill would also ban public funds from going to hospitals, physicians or any other entity that provides such care, and would revoke the medical licenses of doctors who violate the statute.

The committee also heard testimony on a bill that would vastly increase doctors’ and insurance companies’ liability for providing or covering gender-affirming treatments, and on SB 162, which would ban minors from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates. On Monday, March 20, the committee voted to forward SB 14 and SB 162 to the full Senate for consideration, with the committee’s seven Republicans voting in favor of the bills and the three Democrats voting against them. If the Senate votes to pass the bills, they would head over to the House where a committee could schedule a hearing to get more public testimony on the legislation.

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A fungus that presents an 'urgent threat' has been detected in Texas, CDC says

Candida auris, the "emerging fungus that presents a serious global health threat," already has been identified in Texas, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fungus, also known as C. auris, has spread to half of the United States, with 160 infections detected in Texas in the last year. While C. auris has been present in the United States since 2013, it first began spreading quickly through healthcare facilities in 2020 and 2021, when the number of detected cases tripled to 4,041. Part of what makes C. auris concerning is that it often is resistant to anti-fungal drugs and can cause severe infections with high death rates, the CDC said.

C. auris is not considered a threat to healthy people, but can present a risk to those who already are sick and spend time in healthcare facilities, where poor infection control measures and invasive medical equipment, such as IVs and catheters can lead to a rapid spread. The CDC noted that increased testing and strains on the healthcare system due to COVID-19 may have contributed to the rise in detected cases. “The rapid rise and geographic spread of cases is concerning and emphasizes the need for continued surveillance, expanded lab capacity, quicker diagnostic tests, and adherence to proven infection prevention and control,” said CDC epidemiologist Dr. Meghan Lyman. C. auris first was identified in 2009 in Japan, but retrospective reviews found the fungus has been present since at least 1996 in South Korea. It since has been reported in more than 30 countries, though the CDC warns that likely is an undercount due to insufficient testing capabilities in much of the world.

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Bill requires Texas to audit jail inmate mental health care

Melissa Shearer spends her days working with mentally ill Texans caught up in the criminal justice system — 90 percent of whom received care through publicly funded community mental health centers. But Shearer, director of Travis County’s Mental Health Public Defender Office, told lawmakers Wednesday that it’s incredibly difficult to get information about what services are available to her clients through these local mental health authorities and whether they work. That’s why she favors a bill that would require the state to audit and publish performance and outcome data for these centers. “There has to be much more transparency with local mental health authorities about public funds spent on services,” she said during a Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing Wednesday at the Capitol.

Senate Bill 26, sponsored by state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would require the state to audit these authorities and publish online data related to mental health care. If the measure becomes law, it could help the public learn how often overcrowded jails are denied requests for mental health services for inmates. Such denials can have life-or-death consequences in Texas jails. This lack of accountability was highlighted in a Houston Landing investigation published last month that found at least 33 percent – or 178 – of the more than 540 individuals statewide who died of unnatural causes in jail custody over the past decade had been flagged as potentially mentally ill at least once since the 1980s. That number was even higher in the eight counties that make up the greater Houston area, where 46 percent of the 114 people who died of unnatural causes in jail over the past decade had been identified as mentally ill. Yet many of the inmates hadn’t received desperately needed care. A day after the story published in February, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo cited the investigation in awarding $645,000 toward more than doubling the number of people whose competency can be restored through the Harris County Jail’s competency restoration program.

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Texas Senate advances paid parental leave for state employees

Bipartisanship is still alive in the Texas Legislature. While on many hot-button issues that’s not the case, on Wednesday afternoon the Senate unanimously passed SB 222, a bill that would grant paid parental leave to state employees. It’s also a measure some Republicans have said is necessary after the state banned nearly all abortions. Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said his bill would promote “maternal mental and physical health and reduce healthcare costs for the state.” He also said it would send a signal. “The passage of this legislation will highlight the necessity of paid leave for new mothers, and encourage employers to follow suit,” Nichols said.

Currently, state employees who have a baby are not granted paid parental leave. Instead, the worker has to use accumulated vacation or sick time. They can also use unpaid time under the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act. But Nichols’ legislation would grant newborn parents six weeks of paid parental leave. The measure also applies to adoptive parents. Since its inception, the legislation has garnered bipartisan support. Republican and Democratic senators even supported the original version of the bill, which granted four weeks of paid parental leave. Nichols and other members agreed on increasing the time since day care facilities start accepting kids when they are at least 6 weeks old. Senator Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, said the legislation “is going to be incredible help to all of our state employees.” The bill has been sent to the Texas House of Representatives for consideration.

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County Stories

Harris County Jail reports 5th death of 2023 with apparent suicide at processing center

A man died Tuesday while being processed into the Harris County Jail, making him the fifth person to die in the jail's custody this year. The 41-year-old man was found unconscious about 2:30 p.m. in the restroom at the jail's Joint Processing Center after apparently hanging himself with a drawstring from his clothes, the sheriff's office said. He was taken to the jail clinic, and then to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 3:30 p.m.

The man had been arrested on charges of continuous sexual assault of a child and child pornography, the sheriff's office said. The Texas Rangers are investigating the death and an autopsy is pending. The Joint Processing Center has been the subject of several citations from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards for the long time it takes to book inmates into the jail. The sheriff's office was most recently cited by the jail commission last month for keeping some inmates in holding cells for up to 70 hours, nearly a day longer than the maximum of 48 hours allowed by the state. The man who died Tuesday had only been at the processing center for a few hours before his apparent suicide, according to the sheriff's office.

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City Stories

Students, family pray at vigils after Arlington teen fatally shot

Family members, friends and other mourners attended prayer services and a candlelight vigil Tuesday evening for Ja’Shawn Poirier, the student who was fatally shot Monday outside Lamar High School in Arlington. The first vigil was at a prayer garden at Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, at 2100 N. Davis Drive, followed by another service at New World United Methodist Church, at 2201 N. Davis. “Our hearts are heavy and our thoughts are — well — they’re scary right now for our school children, our teachers, our administration, and our staff,” said Joe Ramos, a deacon at Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. “We are here because we need to be here as a community of faithful believers. We pray for our brothers and sisters that we don’t even know, but nonetheless, they are family. We pray for the soul of the young man who lost his life yesterday in this senseless school shooting.”

Poirier, 16, was shot by a 15-year-old classmate outside of the high school around 7 a.m., before school was supposed to start, according to police. A female victim was also injured. Poirier was taken to a hospital in critical condition and died less than two hours later from gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. The girl, who police said is under 17 years old, suffered a graze injury to her cheek and was treated at a hospital. Poirier’s mother, Roshone Jacob, and his sister attended Tuesday’s service at New World United Methodist Church. The family moved to North Texas from Michigan eight months ago, Jacob told WFAA-TV. “My son didn’t deserve this at all,” Jacob said. “He was a nice, sweet, kind boy who just liked to play sports and hang around his friends and family. He didn’t bother nobody.” “For this to happen to him is devastating,” the mother told WFAA. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this situation. Even though I’ve seen him, it’s still like, I’m in disbelief.”

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After shooting wounds student, Dallas ISD chief acknowledges campus ‘vulnerabilities’

After the second shooting in two days at a North Texas high school that took place beyond the reach of safety features that schools across the country have implemented to protect students from gunfire, Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde acknowledged campuses still have “vulnerabilities” that need to be examined. Elizalde’s comments came during a news conference in the library of Thomas Jefferson High School on Wednesday, one day after a student was wounded in the school’s parking lot. On Monday, a student was killed and another was wounded outside Arlington ISD’s Lamar High School. “I would be remiss if I didn’t say, clearly we’re going to have to now look into how we become even more secure with our parking facilities,” Elizalde said.

he also re-emphasized her previous calls for state legislators to provide more money to address school safety needs. She called for an allotment of $200 a student, opposed to the $10 a student currently allocated. Two people were in a car from which shots were fired outside Thomas Jefferson High late Tuesday afternoon, wounding a student in the arm, Elizalde said. Elizalde said two of the three people involved in the shooting were DISD students — one of them being the victim. But she declined to directly say whether the district knows the identities of both people in the car, which drove off after the shooting. No arrests have been made. “The information I have right now is that we do have a suspect,” Elizalde said, declining to discuss specifics because of the ongoing investigation. The shooting happened after classes had been dismissed for the day, and about 300 of the school’s 1,400 students were on campus at the time. Elizalde, along with Thomas Jefferson High School principal Benjamin Jones, credited the actions of three staff members who ran toward the sound of gunfire.

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National Stories

Jeff Roe, top adviser to Youngkin, moves to pro-DeSantis group

The top political adviser to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has joined a political group supporting a likely presidential run by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), according to two people familiar with the matter. Jeff Roe, the head of Axiom Strategies and the top strategist for the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), is now working for Never Back Down, a pro-DeSantis political committee that is likely to serve as a favored outside spending vehicle for a DeSantis presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the planning, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. The hire raises further doubts about Youngkin’s interest in a 2024 presidential campaign, following a recent appearance at a private donor retreat in Sea Island, Ga., where the Virginia governor appeared uninterested in entertaining questions about a run for national office, according to multiple people present.

Roe had previously told others that he felt loyalty to Youngkin, but in a February appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” the strategist said he sees the Republican nomination contest as a two-person race between DeSantis and former president Donald Trump, with “no room for a third or fourth, or even fifth person in this race.” Roe, who later said those comments were not a comment on Youngkin’s potential, has previously indicated that he expects his firm, Axiom, to only work for a single presidential candidate this cycle, rather than splitting loyalties. A spokeswoman for Youngkin’s office did not respond Wednesday night to a request for comment. Roe’s move to Never Back Down was first reported by Politico. Never Back Down, which announced its formation earlier this month, is headed by Ken Cuccinelli, who served as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Trump administration, and Chris Jankowski, a former official at the Republican State Leadership Committee, who has previously worked with Phil Cox, a top adviser to DeSantis.

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Most trans adults say transitioning made them more satisfied with their lives

Transgender Americans experience stigma and systemic inequality in many aspects of their lives, including education, work and health-care access, a wide-ranging Washington Post-KFF poll finds. Many have been harassed or verbally abused. They’ve been kicked out of their homes, denied health care and accosted in bathrooms. A quarter have been physically attacked, and about 1 in 5 have been fired or lost out on a promotion because of their gender identity. They are more than twice as likely as the population at large to have experienced serious mental health struggles such as depression. Yet most trans adults say transitioning has made them more satisfied with their lives. “Living doesn’t hurt anymore,” said TC Caldwell, a 37-year-old Black nonbinary person from Montgomery, Ala. “It feels good to just breathe and be myself.”

The Post-KFF poll is the largest nongovernmental survey of U.S. transgender adults to rely on random sampling methods. More than 500 people who identify as trans answered questions about their childhoods, their feelings and their lives post-transition. The poll builds on a growing but limited body of research. In 2015, the National Center for Transgender Equality polled 27,715 trans people from the United States and its territories, and the nonprofit is in the middle of analyzing data from a much larger pool of respondents who filled out the volunteer survey last year. That project, along with two federal health surveys and a random-sample poll conducted by the Williams Institute, have offered significant insight into the community, but trans people say additional data is needed. Josie Caballero, the director of the National Center for Transgender Equality’s U.S. Trans Survey and a trans woman herself, said polls like it and the Post-KFF survey “provide critical tools for researchers, policymakers and advocates seeking to better understand the needs of transgender people to find ways to improve their lives.” Other studies have shown that the trans community has grown to an estimated 1.3 million adults, and surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention find that the trans adult population is younger than the cisgender adult population at large. Most trans adults are younger than 35 years old.

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Sinema trashes Dems: ‘Old dudes eating Jell-O’

Ever since Senator Kyrsten Sinema became an independent in December, her Democratic colleagues have been restrained about the shift, careful not to alienate the Arizona lawmaker when they only have a single-seat majority and need her support on legislation and nominees. Hoping to get through this year, and then gain clarity about whether Sinema will even seek re-election in 2024 let alone continue to caucus with her old party, Senate Democrats have dodged questions about the mercurial marathoner who’s still barely in their ranks. “It’s really early,” Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Democratic campaign arm, told me. “I don’t know what she’s planning on doing.” But Sinema may be making the Democrats’ deliberations easier.

As she races to stockpile campaign money and post an impressive, statement-making first-quarter fundraising number, Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Biden’s White House. And that’s before an audience. Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments. Sinema’s sniping spree has delighted the Republican lawmakers, lobbyists and donors who’ve taken in the show, giving some of them hope that she can be convinced to caucus with the GOP, either in this Congress or in the case she’s re-elected as an independent. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who Sinema has assiduously courted, remains skeptical, however. Believing she remains a Democrat at heart, McConnell has focused on trying to recruit a non-controversial Arizona Republican into the race, somebody who could attract the moderate GOP voters and independents Sinema would need to win the purple state as an independent.

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Teetering banks put Biden between a bailout and a hard place ahead of the 2024 race

When President Biden explained why his administration stepped in earlier this month to rescue two failed banks, he cast it as a decision to help small businesses make their payroll. And he was emphatic that he was not bailing out Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. "No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Let me repeat that: no losses will be borne by the taxpayers," Biden said. Bank bailouts are politically toxic, something voters made clear after the 2008 financial crisis. But for Biden, the alternative to a bank rescue could have been even worse, as he gears up for what's expected to be a second run for office in the 2024 presidential race.

"It's almost always better to put out fires before they spread. And this certainly looked like a spreading fire, albeit one that had not spread nearly as far as the 2008 fire," said Larry Summers, a top economic adviser in the Obama administration. Biden's poll numbers on the economy have shown a persistent weakness, something strategists say could be challenging for Democrats given the weight that American voters traditionally place on the economy in presidential elections. "I think this administration probably realizes that the biggest risk is erring on the side of doing too little," said Brendan Buck, who was an aide to two former House Republican speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. "If this is a moment that we get through because they act aggressively and it's forgotten about in a few months, then this is not a problem for them," Buck said. "But if this becomes a story we're still talking about a year from now, if there are lots of consequences that last for a while, and if it grows, this could be a presidency-defining, changing moment."

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TikTok is D.C.’s new boogeyman. Can Silicon Valley’s tactics save it?

TikTok’s reputation in Washington as a danger to the American public has been building for years, buoyed by lawmakers who have fixated on the foreign-owned app in response to concerns about the rise of China and the harmful effects of social media on children. Its American tech competitors have fanned these allegations, shifting political scrutiny away from their own practices. But as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faces an impending congressional grilling and the company encounters a perilous suite of problems — capped by pressure from the Biden administration for its Chinese owners to divest their stakes — it is mounting a campaign to wrest itself from its role as Washington’s boogeyman.

TikTok is leaning on the aggressive playbook of its American peers in an attempt to ingratiate itself with Capitol Hill. The company’s strategy has grown increasingly sophisticated in recent months: TikTok has spent record amounts on lobbying, launched an ad campaign touting its contributions to American businesses, and hired a cadre of experienced Washington operators to help push its message to lawmakers. Chew drafted himself into a vigorous charm offensive, making an unusual number of personal appearances with lawmakers, while the company rolls out policy changes intended to assuage concerns about data privacy, misinformation and harms to children. But TikTok, owned by Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, faces steep odds in winning over Washington lawmakers, who have been skeptical of the company’s promise to protect Americans’ data, including a $1.5 billion investment in data security dubbed “Project Texas” developed amid negotiations with Biden administration officials. House Energy and Commerce Committee aides, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity to preview the panel’s hearing, said they do not expect anything that Chew might say in his testimony Thursday to convince lawmakers that Project Texas would sufficiently address their national security fears.

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Democratic infighting complicates Schumer response to banking crisis

Democratic infighting over a bipartisan bill that passed in 2018 to roll back part of the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act is the latest political problem facing Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Liberals led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are pushing for a vote on legislation to unwind a key piece of the 2018 law — co-sponsored by Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other Democrats — that gave the Federal Reserve more discretion over how to regulate mid-sized banks. Both Tester and Manchin both face tough reelection races next year. Warren and other progressive Democrats say the 2018 bill was part of a broader effort under then-President Trump to lighten regulations on banks, which they say set the stage for the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

“Joe Biden says we need tougher bank regulations,” Warren said, arguing that unwinding the 2018 rollback of Dodd-Frank “is exactly that, tougher bank regulations.” “I haven’t seen anyone else propose anything else that actually gets to the heart of the problem,” she said. Warren says she wants her proposal — which has 18 Senate Democratic co-sponsors — to reverse the 2018 rollback to get a vote, but Schumer has hinted that he only wants to bring bipartisan legislation to the floor that has a chance of passing. “We need strong legislation and hopefully we can put something together that’s bipartisan,” Schumer told reporters last week. On Wednesday, he said “there are currently many proposals that are on the table that are worth considering, but of course every one of them will need bipartisan support to pass.” Schumer voted against the 2018 rollback, but he doesn’t appear inclined to put his vulnerable Democratic colleagues in a tough political position now. Several of the Democrats who voted to weaken Wall Street Reform Act before the 2018 midterm election now face reelection races and they don’t necessarily agree that the bill they supported and Trump signed into law put banks and depositors across the country at risk.

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Lead Stories

Fed caught between inflation and bank crisis

All eyes in the financial and economic world will be laser-focused Wednesday on the Federal Reserve as Chair Jerome Powell tries to balance his fight against inflation against a sudden banking crisis. Powell and his colleagues began their meeting Tuesday with the outcome unusually unclear. While most economists expect a quarter-point interest-rate hike, some say policymakers should pause to shore up financial stability. “This tension is leading to existential angst,” said Derek Tang, an economist at LH Meyer/Monetary Policy Analytics in Washington. “Have they gone too far, or not far enough? Both could be true at the same time.” Another important element of this week’s meeting: Policymakers are set to issue updated rate projections for the first time since December, offering crucial guidance on whether they still expect any additional hikes this year.

As of Tuesday afternoon, markets were pricing in about 80% odds that the Fed will raise rates by a quarter point, to a range of 4.75% to 5%, the highest since 2007 on the eve of the global financial crisis. Still, uncertainty over the decision is among the highest since the Covid-19 pandemic sparked emergency rate cuts in 2020. Expectations for rate hikes among investors and economists have declined over the last two weeks, amid the collapse of three US regional banks and the takeover of Switzerland’s Credit Suisse Group AG. Until the bank turmoil erupted, officials were expected to continue — or even potentially step up — their yearlong campaign to raise interest rates and dampen rising prices. “The difficult thing for the FOMC at this meeting will be the tension between bringing down inflation and financial stability risks,” said Jonathan Millar, a senior economist at Barclays Plc in New York.

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The legal intricacies that could make or break the case against Trump

It is the kind of case that emboldens prosecutors and mesmerizes juries: a celebrity defendant authorizing a secret payoff to cover up a tryst with a porn star. As the Manhattan district attorney’s office appears poised to seek an indictment of Donald J. Trump in just such a case, the former president is facing a daunting set of facts. His onetime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, will testify that Mr. Trump directed him to pay off the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and that the former president reimbursed Mr. Cohen and helped cover the whole thing up. But salacious details alone do not make a case. Prosecutors must also work within the law. And the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, may have to pull off a difficult maneuver, connecting the hush-money cover-up — a potential violation of state law — to a federal election. The details of any indictment that may be handed up as soon as this week are not yet known, and Mr. Bragg could charge any number of crimes. But there is a possibility that the case will rely on a legal theory that has never been evaluated by a judge.

A New York Times review and interviews with election law experts strongly suggest that New York state prosecutors have never before filed an election law case involving a federal campaign. Bringing an untested case against anyone, let alone a former president of the United States, carries the risk that a court could throw out or narrow the case. The case could hinge on the way Mr. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, handled reimbursing Mr. Cohen for the payment of $130,000 to Ms. Daniels. Internal Trump Organization records falsely classified the reimbursements as legal expenses, which helped conceal the purpose of the payments, according to Mr. Cohen, who said Mr. Trump knew about the misleading records. (Mr. Trump’s lawyers deny that.) In New York, falsifying business records can be a crime, and Mr. Bragg’s office is likely to build the case around that charge, according to people with knowledge of the matter and outside legal experts. The false business records charge is the bread and butter of the district attorney’s office white-collar practice — since Mr. Bragg took office in 2022, prosecutors have filed 117 felony counts of the charge, against 29 individuals and companies, according to data kept by the office. But for falsifying business records to be a felony, not a misdemeanor, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.

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Rick Perry: Texas education at a crossroads

Texas, it’s time we do the right thing for Texas kids and Texas families. I have always supported empowering Texas parents to make the best decisions for their children. This session, our legislators have an opportunity to do the right thing for Texas kids and families. Despite a history of school choice opposition in Texas, we can now look to evidence of success from states across America. The results are overwhelming and positive, showing that empowering parents and expanding options leads examples of teacher-led innovation, parent-driven accountability, and steadily improving outcomes. Texas education is at a crossroads, especially in rural communities. Fortunately, the Texas Legislature has a chance to help guide us in the right direction through parent empowerment, allowing families to choose the best educational options for their children. That includes career and technical training (CTE). Polls show that parents are worried their children aren’t graduating high school with the tools they need to succeed. When asked if they’re concerned students in their area are not ready to successfully enter the workforce, 69% said they’re concerned, compared to only 27% who said they’re unconcerned.

Better aligning career and technical education with regional workforce demand will strengthen rural communities and local economies. CTE funding for students should also be made portable to support multiple pathways at multiple institutions if a student’s school does not provide a program of study the student is interested in pursuing. The Lone Star State’s rural regions are losing residents as young people graduate from high school and seek opportunities elsewhere. As the Texas Tribune reports, “Texas’ population has grown faster than any other state, but that growth has been concentrated in urban areas—Houston, Dallas and Austin. More than half of all counties in Texas have lost population between 2010 and 2020, and those were exclusively in rural Texas.” As rural populations decline, so too do student numbers in rural school districts. And here’s where parent empowerment can help. There are jobs in rural Texas—often high paying jobs—but the skills mismatch that is impeding our economic recovery is especially pronounced in rural areas. As Business Insider points out, “The jobs are where the workers aren’t.” That’s true of job training opportunities, as well. For example, there are thousands of jobs available for oil and gas production workers. In Texas, only 26 districts offer CTE (career and technical education) programs in that field. That means that 95% of Texas students don’t have access to it—though a high-paying job after graduation would be virtually assured. In fact, in 2019, only 36 students completed the oil and gas CTE programs, yet there are 1,407 job openings annually in this field. Where are workers desperately needed? In these rural areas currently at risk: the Brazos Valley, East Texas, the Coastal Bend, the Permian Basin and the South Plains. Likewise, there’s a huge need for workers in the refining and chemical processes sector; jobs requiring no college at all pay median wages of $70,000 to more than $80,000. Only 22 school districts offer CTE programs in this industry. In 2019, but there were zero Texas students who completed the courses, despite 1,804 annual job openings.

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HISD parents, community leaders demand answers at chaotic TEA forum

The first community meeting hosted by the Texas Education Agency to address questions from the Houston Independent School District community quickly devolved into an emotional, chaotic gathering punctuated by shouting that ultimately left many questions unanswered. The meeting comes less than a week after the state agency announced plans to take over the largest school district in Texas in response to chronic low academic achievement at a Fifth Ward high school and prior school board mismanagement. The state takeover announcement, which followed a years-long court battle, sparked outrage that carried over Tuesday night into a tense public meeting in the crowded Westbury High School auditorium. Alejandro Delgado, deputy commissioner at the TEA, started the meeting with a presentation about the state-appointed board of managers.

It was soon interrupted by someone in the audience. “We got questions,” the man said. “We want to know about our schools, our people, our communities.” Others began shouting, too. “Everybody here has questions,” one said. “We don’t want to talk to you,” someone else said. Delgado sped through the presentation with information about the application process, roles and responsibilities for the managers, who must live within the school district boundaries. The TEA has so far received 138 applications for the board of managers, Delgado said. The question-and-answer session that followed the presentation was similarly loud, with people shouting their disapproval and telling officials not to skip any questions. A state representative appeared to be shuffling through note cards with questions that had been collected from the audience. About 40 minutes into the hour-long session, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was met by applause when she took the stage and restored order in the auditorium while speaking out against the takeover.

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State Stories

Inside the rural Texas resistance to the GOP’s private school choice plan

After a bus driver called in sick one recent afternoon, Robert Lee Independent School District Superintendent Aaron Hood filled in for her. Slipping behind the wheel in a button-up shirt and tie, he rumbled down country roads, past ranches and wind farms to shuttle a few dozen students home in this tiny West Texas town. Out here, where cattle outnumber children 20 to 1, no one is hollering about critical race theory in textbooks or pornography in the library. But those battles raging 250 miles away in the state capital and in far-away suburbs have galvanized a political movement that Hood fears could deal a devastating blow to rural school districts like his. Backed by a surge of campaign spending from far-right Christian megadonors, Republicans in Texas and nationwide are pushing legislation that would siphon money from public education under the banner of “parents’ rights.”

These plans, commonly known as vouchers, would give parents the money the state would have spent educating their children in public schools — between $8,000 and $10,000 per child per year in Texas — and allow them to put it toward homeschooling expenses, private school tuition or college savings accounts. Officials in communities like Robert Lee, which has a population of about 1,000, warn these policies will chip away at already razor-thin public school budgets. With only 250 students — about 18 children per grade — even a slight drop in enrollment and funding can force rural schools like Robert Lee to make hard decisions, Hood said. “We don’t have the same economy of scale as larger districts,” he said, which is one reason he obtained a commercial driver’s license to serve as a substitute bus driver. “If we lose five or 10 students, that’s a teacher salary. But we can’t afford to have one less teacher, so now we’re cutting academic programs, we’re cutting sports, we’re cutting the things that this community relies on.”

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‘There should be no sexually explicit books’: Texas lawmakers debate school library rules

A fierce debate over how to regulate what Texas children can read at school stretched for hours Tuesday night, as the House Public Education committee took up a bill targeting library rules. Rep. Jared Patterson’s READER Act would require book vendors to “rate” titles with sexual content before selling them to school districts. The Frisco Republican said the legislation is an attempt to rid school libraries of books inappropriate for children. But those opposed to his legislation said they fear its definitions could lead to swaths of books getting removed from libraries, specifically those about LGBTQ characters. Books deemed “sexually explicit” couldn’t be sold to districts under the bill. The proposal would also require schools to get parental permission before a child could access “sexually relevant material” in the library.

Patterson denied his bill was a “Fahrenheit 451-style book ban” or meant to silence minority voices. “There is one common denominator in the books that we are addressing with this bill and it’s sexually explicit content,” he said. A fall report found Texas had removed more books from school libraries than in any other state. Roughly 800 books — many centered on race, sexuality and gender themes — were pulled between July 2021 and June 2022, according to PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech. Roughly 80 people signed up to testify Tuesday night, with many saying they want to protect children’s innocence. Several labeled the books in question as filth or pornography, blaming the titles for contributing to a variety of societal ills. Speakers read aloud sexual passages from books that they want out of schools. “Everybody read the diary of Anne Frank, probably, in high school. Great book, right?” said Chad Green, a school board member in McKinney ISD. “You know, that there’s a graphic novel version that has a very explicit scene in one of the chapters?”

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How Texas’ bill for school voucher-like effort aims to sway hesitant rural Republicans

Republicans behind an aggressive push for school choice this session are angling to break the bond that previously thwarted voucher-like efforts in Texas: an unlikely coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats. Gov. Greg Abbott has waged a pressure campaign across the state by promoting his plan at a series of “Parent Empowerment” events in rural areas. A package recently rolled out in the Senate would give families taxpayer money to spend on private school tuition and seems to dangle incentives to reluctant Republicans, such as hefty payments to public schools for every student they lose. But the legislation remains a tough sell, especially in the GOP-led House, which has rejected voucher-like efforts in the past. Several Republicans that represent rural parts of the state said they’re still skeptical for a lot of the same old reasons: a dearth of private schools in sparsely populated areas, a fear of funneling money away from public schools and a lack of transparency.

Rep. Cody Harris, a Palestine Republican who appeared alongside Abbott during his “parent empowerment” tour, said he doesn’t see much benefit to the students in his rural district southeast of Dallas that counts more than 30 public school districts, four public charter schools and two private schools. Public schools are a vital part of rural communities, and he will fiercely defend them, Harris said. “I’m not going to do anything that, in my view, harms our public schools,” he said. However, he added, “With that said, with any legislative policy, I’m not going to stick my fingers in my ears and say I’m not going to listen. I’ll listen to any argument that anybody wants to bring.” The Senate’s priority proposal would give families up to $8,000 in taxpayer money through education savings accounts to send their kids to private school or spend on other educational items, such as books or tutoring. Conroe Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Republican author of the bill, says momentum has never been stronger. “I represent rural counties as well. I feel like that parents more than ever before, they deserve these options and they know what’s best for their kids,” he said. “It will be interesting to see where the discussion goes through the rest of the session. I’m expecting success.” Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, are on the same page in promoting the education savings accounts this year. However, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, has not made the issue a priority.

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Bud Kennedy: Rebel flag groups booted from Fort Worth Stockyards parades

Nothing will ruin the Fort Worth Stockyards’ global success faster than a Confederate invasion. So activists waving and handing out Rebel battle flags had absolutely no business in a Cowtown Goes Green Western parade. Now, they won’t be back. Confederate battle flag activists, barred from Stock Show events for years, somehow fudged their way into the St. Patrick’s parade Saturday. So now their flag-waving is also banned from parades in the Stockyards. In a tourist district built to welcome and serve everyone from all over America and the world — and to celebrate the multiracial and multicultural true history of the West — these resentful Rebels gave everyone a peek backward at the Old South.

Two chapters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, still grieving defeat after nearly 158 years, waved hostile Southern Cross battle flags along with national flags from a parade wagon. They also beckoned to small children and handed flags to little boys and girls running dangerously close to the rolling float. These are the same groups the Stock Show booted years ago from its January parade. Not because they’re Southerners. Because they’re spiteful. They shock tourists and drive away families who came to celebrate cowboys and the Old West, not to see reminders of enslavement or the plantation South. Stockyards events now will ban groups that didn’t come to promote Western heritage, according to a statement late Monday. A spokesperson for Stockyards Heritage Development said that Stockyards businesses support everyone’s right to an opinion “but do not condone the soliciting of propaganda or tolerate divisive symbols or flags of any kind.” Future events will not include groups “that detract from the goal of uniting the community for the purpose of the celebration,” the statement read. In other words, no matter your special interest, from now on, if you come to the St. Patrick’s Day parade, celebrate the Irish. Not your obsession with secession.

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New bills take aim at Texas program blocking driver license renewals over unpaid traffic tickets

The Texas program that allows judges to block driver license renewals over unpaid traffic tickets will face possible changes, and even repeal, this legislative session. It comes after a KXAN investigation revealed more than 980,000 current court orders to block drivers from getting their license renewed, as of October 2022. Those were sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety vendor OmniBase. Already, more than 445,000 Texans can’t get their license renewed or replaced if they are flagged under the state’s Failure to Appear and Pay program, according to DPS data. The system, critics say, leaves some of the state’s poorest drivers in debt, without a license for years, and at risk for more charges — and even jail time — if they get on the road.

“I think a cynical person can say this just looks like a way for them to make money,” Bernal said. “This is not a street crime. [These are] traffic tickets. [These are] parking tickets.” Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, has filed a bill to repeal the program. Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, has also filed legislation to require judges to lift the hold on someone’s license if they enter a payment plan or agree to do community service. Right now, judges have the power to keep the hold even as defendants work to pay the tickets and court fees. OmniBase also adds a fee to the debt owed when judges submit an order to its system. “What I am trying to do is make sure if someone is already complying with the program — they are not finished, but they are trying to make payments — they can get their license back,” Sen. Johnson said.

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DA opposes removing judge from accused Santa Fe shooter case

Less than a week after attorneys representing the man accused of killing 10 people at Santa Fe High School in 2018 sought to remove the judge overseeing the case, prosecutors are formally opposing that request. Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady this week filed a response to a motion to recuse Judge Jeth Jones, arguing defense attorneys’ reasons to seek removing him weren’t enough to show unfair bias. “Even assuming arguendo that defendant’s allegations are true, he has not established bias or prejudice by Judge Jones that would warrant recusal,” the motion asserts. “Indeed, defendant faults Judge Jones only for his remarks, unfavorable rulings and opinions expressed concerning the efforts taken so far, and proposed future efforts, to restore defendant’s competency.”

Defense attorneys must show not just bias, but that the judge’s bias denies a defendant due process of law, the motion asserts. Nicholas Poehl, one of attorneys of Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 22, last week accused the judge of being determined to hire someone to find his client competent to stand trial and moving to do so behind the scenes, even as he publicly agreed to keep Pagourtzis committed for at least another year at the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon. Jones last week said rules around recusal motions stop him from commenting on them. But the motion will be referred to regional Presiding Judge Susan Brown for handling, Jones said. A hearing to determine whether to approve the recusal motion is tentatively set for 9:30 a.m. April 20, according to Galveston County court records. Pagourtzis was committed to the hospital based on mental health evaluations by three doctors.

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Biden creates new national monument in West Texas

President Joe Biden on Tuesday designated a swath of West Texas desert as a national monument, a move that protects the land from future development. The president announced the plan to preserve Castner Range, a former military training and testing site just outside El Paso. The land, which is part of Fort Bliss, is home to ancient rock imagery, natural springs and fields of golden Mexican poppies. At a White House summit on conservation, Biden called the land a “place of incredible beauty.” Local and environmental advocates have long pushed for the designation, arguing it would increase outdoor access and drive economic development through tourism.

Castner lies along the southern end of the Franklin Mountain Range and served as an Army site during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War before closing in 1966. The land must now be remediated to clear unexploded munitions. Before the Army used the land, Castner Range was home to the Apache and Pueblo peoples, the Comanche Nation, Hopi Tribe and Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, according to the White House. The land is home to more than 40 known archeological sites including living structures, hearths, remnants of pottery and other tools, as well numerous petroglyphs and images on rock faces. Castner also boasts abundant plants and wildlife, including yellow and orange poppies, the endangered Sneed pincushion cactus, Texas horned lizards and American peregrine falcons. It is currently off-limits to people.

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West Texas A&M president cancels campus drag show calling them demeaning to women

West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled an upcoming drag show on campus calling them demeaning to women. Wendler sent an email to students, faculty and staff on Monday titled: "A Harmless Drag Show? No Such Thing." The e-mail was in response to a drag show scheduled for March 31 in Legacy Hall.

Wendler said the University will not host the event after all. "As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood," said Wendler. "Any event which diminishes an individual or group through such representation is wrong."

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Outgoing Texas Wesleyan president reflects on accomplishments

Legendary college football coach Bear Bryant once said of his return to the University of Alabama that “Mama called.” Texas Wesleyan President Frederick G. Slabach can relate. He is answering that same call. In July he will leave the school he has led for more than decade in Fort Worth to become the dean of the University of Mississippi Law School, of which he is a graduate. “It’s bittersweet. I love Texas Wesleyan. All three of our kids grew up here,” Slabach said. “But for [wife] Melany and me Mississippi is home. We are excited to the moon.

Before becoming president of Texas Wesleyan in 2011, Slabach served as dean of what was previously the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law from 2003 to 2006 and as the chief executive officer of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation in Washington from 2006-2011. The law school was purchased by Texas A&M in 2013. Slabach’s accomplishment in his 12 years at the helm are numerous, including: Texas Wesleyan’s endowment doubled under Slabach’s leadership and administrators invested more than $50 million into the campus; Freshman applications increased by more than 280% and overall freshman enrollment has increased more than 80%, with the school earning distinctions as both a Hispanic Serving Institution and Minority Serving Institution from the U.S. Department of Education; Total enrollment for fall 2022 reached 2,653 students, the largest since 2012. The football program was reinstated in 2016 after a 75-year hiatus.

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Veteran RB Ronald Jones signing one-year deal with Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys added a pair of veterans on Tuesday. Hours after the addition of offensive lineman Chuma Edoga, the Cowboys also plan to sign running back Ronald Jones to a one-year contract, a person familiar with the deal told The Dallas Morning News. Jones and Edoga were two of three veteran free agents who visited the team Monday. Linebacker Travin Howard was the other. Jones, 25, is a McKinney North graduate whom the Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted in the 2018 second round.

His best professional season came in 2020 when logging 192 carries for 978 yards and seven touchdowns. That season, he won his first of two Super Bowl titles in a three-year span. The second championship came last year as a backup for the Kansas City Chiefs. Jones was in uniform but did not appear in the Super Bowl win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Across six games in 2022, he totaled 17 carries for 70 yards and one touchdown. He offers little value on special teams, which contributed to him being inactive most of the year behind Isiah Pacheco, Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Jerrick McKinnon. Jones would add a veteran presence whose running style can complement Tony Pollard.

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'And Still We Rise': Exhibit at Galveston's new Juneteenth museum tells powerful history

Let's dispense with one Juneteenth legend right away. Major Gen. Gordon Granger, commander of the District of Texas, did not read, as is often imagined, General Orders No. 3 — which informed Texans that slavery had ended — aloud from a balcony of Ashton Villa, the 1859 brick Victorian Italianate mansion on Galveston's Broadway Avenue. Instead, on June 19, 1865, the ordinance issued by the general was more likely posted at key points around the port city. In fact, the Galveston Historical Foundation and the Texas Historical Commission chose the Osterman Building, not Ashton Villa, for the official Juneteenth state historical plaque because that's where Granger's Union headquarters had been located, and thus the point of origin for the ordinance.

The Ashton Villa legend is easy to track down, according to Kathleen DiNatale, an expert guide to a savvy new Juneteenth museum, located in the mansion's former carriage house. "For years, people gathered to celebrate Juneteenth on the Ashton Villa grounds," she says. "And for years, (state) Rep. Al Edwards read the ordinance to the crowds. I'm not absolutely sure it was from a balcony, but he did read it on the grounds." At other times, the ordinance might be read by a historical reenactor. During the 1970s, Edwards, a Democrat from Houston — sometimes called the father of Juneteenth — pushed a bill to name June 19 a state holiday. The legislature passed the act in 1979, and Gov. William P. Clements Jr. signed it into law. The first state-backed Juneteenth holiday came in 1980. These days, a monumental statue called "The Legislator," often identified as Edwards, stands guard by the garden path to the Ashton Villa carriage house, which now serves as home for "And Still We Rise: Galveston's Juneteenth Story," a permanent exhibit that opened on June, 19 2022. The previous year, President Joe Biden signed a bill that designated Juneteenth as a federal holiday. "This exhibit is so powerful," DiNatale says of "And Still We Rise." "People are willing to take time with it. This is history that was hidden, so when people find out about it, they are profoundly affected."

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Houston Rodeo attendance rises in 2023, but falls short of 2017 record

More than 2.4 million people attended the 2023 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at NRG Park, the 20-day annual event that this year featured record-setting auctions, a new addition to the Star Trail of Fame and lots of pony rides, squishmallows and baby chicks. It also featured its first drone light show and its second women's-only event, breakaway roping, during all 20 performances. All told, 2,479,004 people attended the rodeo, more than the 2,417,248 last year but a little short of the record 2.6 million who went to the 2017 event. "It's just so refreshing to see how the community unites and comes together for this event," said rodeo CEO Chris Boleman, who grew up on a ranch outside College Station and holds a doctoral degree in agricultural education from Texas A&M University.

Junior market steer auction sales brought in nearly $23 million this year, with eight auction lots setting RodeoHouston records. Most of the proceeds will be used to support Texas youth, including more than $14 million going to scholarships that will be awarded this summer. On the rodeo side, 360 contestants competed for a share of $2.2 million in prize money. Each event champion received $50,000, in addition to winnings in preliminary rounds. Ky Hamilton of Beaver, Utah, posted the largest haul for any individual athlete, with $62,000 after winning the bull riding championship. On the concert stage, country singer Luke Bryan drew the biggest crowd, with 74,779 attending his concert on March 19. Brad Paisley, who drew a crowd of 74,577 on March 18, was inducted to the rodeo's Star Trail of Fame. This year marked Paisley's 15th appearance at RodeoHouston. At the carnival midway, rodeo-goers won some 725,000 carnival prizes, which were brought to the rodeo on 125 semi-trucks. The year's top stuffed toy, for the second year running, was the Squishmallow, a soft, cute pillow in the shape of animal faces. The top five food items were turkey legs, fried Oreos, funnel cakes, corn dogs and michelaguas — a spicy version of typical aguas frescas.

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Abbott rallies in Austin, Houston to push school voucher plan

With a proposal to help fund private school tuition very much in doubt still, Gov. Greg Abbott took to the rain-soaked steps of the Texas Capitol on Tuesday to rally supportive parents into turning up the pressure on the Legislature. “I cannot win this fight alone,” Abbott told more than 200 parents bused in from all corners of the state. “I need you standing with me — fighting with me on this challenge. And when you stand and fight with me, we are going to win.” He wasn’t stopping there. After the rally, Abbott was immediately on the road to Houston where he planned to lead another demonstration Tuesday night at Cypress Christian School. While Abbott and his allies say the effort is about school choice, critics say they are really private school vouchers that allow people to take money out of the public school system to benefit private schools.

Whatever you call it, the issue is hitting a critical point with the Texas Legislature now halfway done with its regular session that ends in May. Despite the Republican governor's efforts, the issue appears to be where it has historically been for years. In the Senate, the plan has momentum but in the House, it still has a lot of opposition, particularly from rural communities that worry it will take money from their public schools without the benefit of having many private school options. Groups opposed to school vouchers have held regular rallies at the Capitol over the last couple of weeks to pressure lawmakers to reject the idea. One of those groups, the Texas PTA, argued school vouchers hurt Texas public schools because they direct funding away from an already critically underfunded system. But Abbott insists that as a product of public school himself, he will continue to fully fund the system. Abbott attended schools in Longview and then later graduated from Duncanville High School. “I am a strong supporter of public schools in the state of Texas,” Abbott said at the rally Tuesday at the Texas Capitol. Specifically, Abbott has been advocating for the Legislature to expand eligibility for “education savings accounts,” which could allow parents to use state funding for private school tuition.

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Rice defends Affirmative Action while Supreme Court cases sre pending

Rice University issued a strong defense of its affirmative action efforts, even as the Supreme Court is preparing to decide whether affirmative action is legal. “At Rice, diversity, equity, inclusion and excellence underscores everything we do. They are foundational values of the university that we are committed to as a community and believe are essential to our continued success,” wrote President Reginald DesRoches, Provost Amy Dittmar and Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Alex Byrd.

“Like many in the higher education community, the Rice administration is closely following the affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court. Rulings are expected this spring or summer, and while it would be premature for us to speculate or comment before we know the outcomes, we write to you today to affirm Rice’s commitment to uphold diversity, equity and inclusion as a core part of our educational experience and research mission, and our commitment to excellence,” they wrote. “Our admissions office and general counsel are preparing for various outcomes. We will strive to do all we can, within the bounds of the law, to continue to recruit and retain a widely diverse student body. Rice’s student body, faculty and staff are a multicultural reflection of the world, and our goal every year is to enroll a diverse class of the most talented students as well as hire and retain faculty and staff from across the country and around the globe.”

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County Stories

Dallas County prosecutors want judge removed from murder case

Dallas County prosecutors want the judge who criticized them for not ensuring all evidence was turned over to defense lawyers well ahead of trial kicked off their murder case. The motion alleges that state District Judge Amber Givens is not impartial in the murder case against Nina Marano and is biased against lead prosecutor Robin Pittman. Jennifer Balido, a chief in the Dallas County district attorney’s office who wrote the motion, pointed to comments Givens made in hearings about Pittman’s professionalism as proof that Givens’ impartiality could be reasonably questioned. Givens’ “anger” with Pittman was evident during related hearings in January and February, Balido wrote.

“Ms. Pittman has been lackadaisical in her handling of this case,” Givens said in one of the examples Balido quoted. In a brief court filing Monday, Givens declined to recuse herself and requested a hearing on the matter. She did not immediately respond to a late request for comment from The Dallas Morning News. Ray Wheless, presiding judge of the First Administrative Judicial Region, appointed former Dallas County Judge Jim Pruitt to hold a hearing on the recusal matter. Court records Tuesday did not show a date set for that hearing. Marano’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday. During those recent hearings, it was revealed that Dallas police Detective Christine Ramirez failed to turn over hundreds of videos and photos in the case to prosecutors. Some of the videos were permanently deleted because Ramirez did not properly save them, an officer in the department’s digital media evidence team testified during the February hearing.

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City Stories

Most Dallas short-term rental properties would be illegal under proposed rules

Just about all of Dallas’ registered short-term rental properties would not be allowed under proposed regulations, city code officials said Monday, and enforcing those regulations could cost the city more than $1 million. City Council approval of proposed changes in zoning regulations making it illegal for the rental properties to operate in nearly all residential neighborhoods would lead to the city issuing code violation notices to 95% of the 1,735 short-term rental owners, according to Jeremy Reed, an assistant director in the city’s code compliance department. If owners and hosts don’t stop listing their properties on platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo, they risk being fined up to $2,000. The City Plan Commission approved the zoning recommendations as well as proposed city code rules in December, and a City Council vote could happen as early as next month.

But Dallas officials have no idea the full number of operators who would be affected because most aren’t registered with the city, which requires paying a hotel occupancy tax. In Dallas, any entity operating a hotel, motel, short-term rental or bed and breakfast has to collect 9% of the net room receipts from guests and pay it as a tax to the city. Reed said city data shows there are likely at least double the amount of registered operators who have properties listed. Other data shows the number could range between 4,000 and 6,000 properties, he said. “We do believe, regardless of the number, that likely 95% would be a good estimate for how many would not be allowed should CPC recommendations be accepted,” Reed said during a Quality of Life, Arts and Culture committee meeting. Reed estimated the department needing almost $1.4 million to enforce the new rules such as mandatory registration and identifying illegal operators. The money would pay for nine new code compliance workers, new equipment and training and new software to help the department with oversight. Code compliance director Chris Christian said the city plans to ask the hosting platforms also to register with Dallas, provide the city with direct contact information to address any issues, not collect fees from unregistered properties, and give monthly reports on their active Dallas listings.

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Mansfield votes to recall Tarrant Appraisal District chair

The Mansfield City Council became the third taxing entity to recall the Tarrant Appraisal District board chair. The council on Monday voted unanimously to recall Kathryn Wilemon a month after Keller City Council initiated the recall process on Feb. 21. Tarrant County commissioners voted to recall Wilemon on March 7. Council member Casey Lewis explained his support for the recall: “On this city council, we have lowered property taxes twice now in the last several years. We’ve increased our homestead exemption. We hear the calls for property tax relief from our residents. We are one half of that equation. The appraisal is the second half. our residents do deserve the right to have accountability and transparency within TAD and great customer service.”

Chief Appraisal Jeff Law attended the Mansfield meeting and spoke during public comment. He said he intends to visit more taxing entities and was open to suggestions about increasing transparency at the agency. He touted the wealth of information available on the agency’s website, including downloadable appraisal data, as well as the agency’s increased Google business rating from 1.7 to 3.1 stars. The Tarrant County commissioners also certified its recall vote at its Tuesday meeting. Both votes follow a decision by the TAD board to rescind its acceptance of Wilemon’s resignation and proceed forward with the recall process. The board made that decision under threat of lawsuits from Keller and Tarrant County.

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National Stories

GOP to energy companies: We’re here to help. Industry: Meh.

The Republican push to loosen federal permitting rules for energy projects is falling flat with the industry it’s designed to benefit. Publicly, energy industry executives and representatives have praised lawmakers for taking on a problem that both Republicans and Democrats have identified: It takes too long to win approval to build energy infrastructure such as pipelines, liquefied natural gas plants or solar and wind farms. But privately, they say the ideas included in the House bill to overhaul permitting rules miss the point and would do little to help advance major projects that are key to boosting jobs, lowering energy prices and meeting climate targets.

The GOP’s main permitting proposal would rewrite one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws so that federal regulators act more quickly in analyzing projects’ impacts on the environment. But that would not address most of the major legal, financial and practical obstacles that cause projects’ timelines to stretch for years or decades, people experienced in federal energy approvals said. “When you look at what’s on the Hill, we are spending 99 percent of our political capital on a set of reforms that will be of no statistically significant consequence,” said Jim Connaughton, who led permitting efforts as chair of former President George W. Bush’s White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Half-measures are worth zero,” he added. Interviews with 11 energy developers, former Republican administration officials, trade associations and lobbyists representing energy firms revealed a consensus opinion: Lawmakers are spending precious congressional days on feeble or unworkable solutions, potentially stranding billions of dollars in new federal incentives and jeopardizing President Joe Biden’s goal to cut the nation’s planet-warming emissions in half during this decade.

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Ron DeSantis rips Trump’s character, chaotic leadership style

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has finally taken the gloves off and launched a blistering attack on his former mentor President Donald Trump. In an exclusive wide-ranging interview with me airing on Fox Nation’s “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on Thursday, he said “stay tuned” about his widely expected announcement that he’s running for president and declared: I have what it takes to be president and I can beat Biden. But it’s what he said about Trump that will ignite a firestorm in the Republican Party. For months, DeSantis has said nothing as Trump’s escalated his verbal attacks on him, branding his ex-protégé “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron.”

On Monday, Trump went nuts after DeSantis took a shot at him over his anticipated indictment over alleged payoffs to ex-lover Stormy Daniels, saying, “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.” The inferred morally censorious tone sparked a furious response from Trump, who raged on his own Truth Social platform: “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser and better known when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!). I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!” Trump’s mood is likely to deteriorate further when he hears what DeSantis now says about him in our lengthy interview at the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee, the most personal and revealing he’s ever given. It was clear that the governor has had enough of Trump’s constant baiting and felt ready to take him on in what could end up being a ferocious battle for the White House. And in a series of jabs at his likely biggest Republican nominee rival, DeSantis slammed Trump over his character failings, chaotic leadership style, and for his handling of the COVID pandemic — especially in keeping controversial health chief Dr. Anthony Fauci in his post helping to run the White House Coronavirus Taskforce.

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Climate report: Situation more dire than ever, but it’s not too late to act

The recently-released Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a clear message from the world’s best climate scientists: Drastic changes are needed immediately to secure a livable future on this planet. Chief Meteorologist David Yeomans interviewed Dr. Ben Kirtman of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School — a climate science Ph.D and one of the authors of a previous IPCC report — on KXAN News at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Dr. Kirtman said this latest climate assessment paints a stark contrast to previous reports in terms of how quickly and drastically changes to greenhouse gas emissions need to occur in order to cap global warming at 1.5°C (approximately 3°F) by the year 2050. In fact, the scientists in the report found that we now have a greater than 50% chance of surpassing 1.5°C of warming by 2050.

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A deadly fungus is spreading at an alarming rate in the U.S. Here’s what you need to know

A potentially fatal fungus is spreading in the United States, but those with minimal health risks are likely in the clear, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fungal species — Candida auris — spread at an “alarming rate” from 2020 to 2021, according to recently released CDC data. The agency said Monday it is becoming a more dangerous threat to public health and warned health care facilities to be on the lookout for the fungus in their patients. Likely factors for its spread in hospitals include poor infection prevention practices and increased screenings for the fungus among patients, the CDC reported. The fungal infection was first reported in 2016, but why is it resurfacing now and should you be concerned? Here’s what to know about C. auris:

What is it? Candida auris may sound foreign, but you may be familiar with its sibling — Candida albicans — which is typically what causes vaginal yeast infections, explained Dr. Julie Trivedi, medical director of infection prevention at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “Candida in and of itself is found in the intestinal tract and can cause yeast infections, especially in cases where maybe people have had antibiotics,” Trivedi said. C. auris is a type of yeast that can enter the bloodstream and falls under the fungus kingdom, which encompasses a diverse group of organisms. Who’s at risk? People who either spend a long amount of time or are frequently at health care facilities are most at risk for infection, including hospitalized individuals or those in long-term care residences, Trivedi said. Other patients at risk include those with cancer, those who recently had a transplant and those undergoing dialysis. In addition, people with invasive lines, such as catheters or central lines, are also more susceptible to C. auris infection, as they serve as “possible ports of entry” for any bacteria. “Catheters and ports are basically a way for organisms on the outside to be able to get on the inside,” she said.

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Classes remain halted for more than half a million Los Angeles students as school worker strike stretches into second day

Classes in the nation’s second-largest school district remain halted Wednesday as a union representing about 30,000 Los Angeles school workers continues a massive three-day strike for increased wages and better work conditions. The Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents school custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and other student services staff, began picketing Monday with the support of the district’s teachers after nearly a year of unsuccessful negotiations with the school district.

Frustrated union members say they feel undervalued by low wages, minimal staffing and inadequate hours even as they provide essential services to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s students. The union says workers’ average salary is $25,000, requiring many to work additional jobs. “We live in this weird paradox as workers that help feed children and yet we struggle to feed our own children,” union member Adrian Alverez told CNN affiliate KCAL. “We help students go to college, yet we don’t have enough money to send our kids to college.” The union is demanding “equitable wage increases, more full-time work, respectful treatment, and increased staffing levels for improved student services.” The United Teachers Los Angeles union, which is undergoing separate contact negotiations with the district, is honoring the workers’ strike and has urged its 35,000 members to join picket lines and rallies.

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Sources: Special counsel claims Trump deliberately misled his attorneys about classified documents, judge wrote

Prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that former President Donald Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office, a former top federal judge wrote Friday in a sealed filing, according to sources who described its contents to ABC News. U.S. Judge Beryl Howell, who on Friday stepped down as the D.C. district court's chief judge, wrote last week that prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith's office had made a "prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations," according to the sources, and that attorney-client privileges invoked by two of his lawyers could therefore be pierced. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his handling of classified documents.

In her sealed filing, Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege. Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings. In reaching the so-called prima facie standard to pierce Corcoran's privilege, Howell agreed prosecutors made a sufficient showing that on its face would appear to show Trump committed crimes. The judge made it clear that prosecutors would still need to meet a higher standard of evidence in order to seek charges against Trump, and more still to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "It is a lower hurdle, but it is an indication that the government had presented some evidence and allegation that they had evidence that met the elements of a crime," Brandon Van Grack, a former top national security official in the Justice Department who is now in private practice, told ABC News.

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Digital literacy: Can the republic ‘survive an algorithm’?

Shawn Lee, a high school social studies teacher in Seattle, wants to see lessons on the internet akin to a kind of 21st century driver’s education, an essential for modern life. Lee has tried to bring that kind of education into his classroom, with lessons about the need to double-check online sources, to diversify newsfeeds and to bring critical thinking to the web. He’s also created an organization for other teachers to share resources. “This technology is so new that no one taught us how to use it,” Lee said. “People are like, ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ and they throw their hands in the air. I disagree with that. I would like to think the republic can survive an algorithm.” Lee’s efforts are part of a growing movement of educators and misinformation researchers working to offset an explosion of online misinformation about everything from presidential politics to pandemics. So far, the U.S. lags many other democracies in waging this battle, and the consequences of inaction are clear.

But for teachers already facing myriad demands in the classroom, incorporating internet literacy can be a challenge — especially given how politicized misinformation about vaccines, public health, voting, climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine has become. The title of a talk for a recent gathering of Lee’s group: “How to talk about conspiracy theories without getting fired.” “It’s not teaching what to think, but how to think,” said Julie Smith, an expert on media literacy who teaches at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. “It’s engaging about engaging your brain. It’s asking, ‘Who created this? Why? Why am I seeing it now? How does it make me feel and why?’” New laws and algorithm changes are often offered as the most promising ways of combating online misinformation, even as tech companies study their own solutions. Teaching internet literacy, however, may be the most effective method. New Jersey, Illinois and Texas are among states that have recently implemented new standards for teaching internet literacy, a broad category that can include lessons about how the internet and social media work, along with a focus on how to spot misinformation by cross-checking multiple sources and staying wary of claims with missing context or highly emotional headlines. Media literacy lessons are often included in history, government or other social studies classes, and typically offered at the high school level, though experts say it’s never too early — or late — to help people become better users of the internet.

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Lead Stories

Some Trump supporters ambivalent on calls for protests

Former President Donald Trump’s calls for protests before his anticipated indictment in New York have generated mostly muted reactions from supporters, with even some of his most ardent loyalists dismissing the idea as a waste of time or a law enforcement trap. The ambivalence raises questions about whether Trump, though a leading Republican contender in the 2024 presidential race who retains a devoted following, still has the power to mobilize far-right supporters the way he did more than two years ago before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It also suggests that the hundreds of arrests that followed the Capitol riot, not to mention the convictions and long prison sentences, may have dampened the desire for repeat mass unrest. Still, law enforcement in New York is continuing to closely monitor online chatter warning of protests and violence if Trump is arrested, with threats varying in specificity and credibility, four officials told The Associated Press.

Mainly posted online and in chat groups, the messages have included calls for armed protesters to block law enforcement officers and attempt to stop any potential arrest, the officials said. Around the time the Manhattan courthouse complex opened Monday morning, a New York Police Department truck began dropping off dozens of portable metal barricades that could be used to block off streets or sidewalks. The New York Young Republican Club held a small protest in Lower Manhattan on Monday, and incendiary but isolated posts surfaced on fringe social media platforms from supporters calling for an armed confrontation with law enforcement at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. But nearly two days after Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday and exhorted followers to protest, there were few signs his appeal had inspired his supporters to organize and rally around an event like the Jan. 6 gathering. At the Lower Manhattan protest, reporters outnumbered pro-Trump demonstrators. And a prominent organizer of rallies that preceded the Capitol riot posted on Twitter that he intended to remain on the sidelines. Ali Alexander, who as an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement staged rallies to promote Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him, warned Trump supporters that they would be “jailed or worse” if they protested in New York City.

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As book bans ebb, the battle to criminally charge Texas librarians has started

It occurred to Danielle Brigati several times over the past year that her education had not entirely prepared her for the real-world challenges of a modern Texas librarian. There wasn’t a course covering strategies for on-the-job threats. No class instructed her how to behave during police questioning. But last fall Brigati, who has been the director of Kerrville’s Butt-Hollingsworth Public Library for the past decade, found herself confronting both. The threats she brushed off as bluster. But the city’s detective returned for three separate interviews. Her husband, a retired cop, helped settle her nerves. The officer was friendly and respectful, Brigati recalled. But there was little doubt why a handful of citizens had summoned law enforcement to the library. “They were trying to file criminal charges,” she said.

Politically and socially conservative, Texas is a national leader in school book challenges and bans; a Chronicle investigation last summer counted more than 2,000 content reviews of challenged school library books. The state prison system prohibits more than 9,000 titles. Many of the book battles that flared up at school and public libraries across the state in the past year have returned to smolders. Yet behind the scenes an even more consequential campaign is playing out – not merely to place some books off limits, but to prosecute librarians for making them available. Local police have been called out to Texas public libraries to scan books for illegal content in at least five instances. “They are a step away from drawing chalk outlines in the library,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney for The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech advocacy organization. “They are treating librarians as suspects. That should be concerning for everyone.”

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Donald Trump changes tune on early voting, mail-in ballots, vote harvesting

Donald Trump has railed against mail-in and early voting, which has resulted in many Republicans waiting until Election Day to vote, even if it’s inconvenient for the busy or infirm. Now, after critical GOP losses in 2020 and 2022, Trump has somewhat changed his tune. While he’s still against mail-in and early voting, the former president concedes that Republicans should use all voting options available. Trump’s new approach comes as he’s trying to recapture the White House in 2024. On Saturday, he’ll stage a campaign rally in Waco, which could come after a possible indictment in New York on charges related to alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Despite legal troubles, Trump is focused on winning a return match against President Joe Biden, if the incumbent emerges as the 2024 Democratic nominee for president. “Republicans must compete using every lawful means to win,” Trump said earlier this month during his keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “That means swamping the left with mail-in votes, early votes and election day votes. We have to do it.”

Trump is pushing for U.S. elections to be conducted largely on Election Day, with paper ballots given to eligible voters who must produce photo identification. But unlike his stand in 2020 and 2022, when his supporters took to heart his feelings about alternate means of voting, Trump is telling his voters to work within the election systems in place. At the CPAC gathering outside of Washington, D.C., he even said Republicans should engage in ballot harvesting, which is the collection and submission of completed mail-in or absentee ballots by operatives and volunteers, instead of voters submitting their ballots directly to official ballot collection sites or election departments. Texas has outlawed ballot harvesting, but it’s legal in other places. “Until we can eliminate ballot harvesting, we will become masters of ballot harvesting,” Trump said. “We have no choice, beating Democrats at their own game. And we will do it legally.” What about drop boxes for ballots? “We need them in every church,” Trump said. Trump’s new tune is sweet music to Republicans across the country who acknowledge that his criticism of the mail-in and absentee ballot process hurt GOP voter turnout efforts.

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Iran hostages bitter that John Connally may have stalled their release to help Reagan win

For 444 days, Iranian militants held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran, leaving emotional scars for them and their loved ones – and dooming Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The revelation that five months before their release, former Texas governor John Connally encouraged Iran to prolong the ordeal left hostages bitter. “444 days,” Rocky Sickmann, a 22-year-old Marine guard when the U.S. embassy fell, said Monday. “I will never regain those lost days…. Each day you didn’t know if you were going to live or die.” Ben Barnes, a protégé of Connally who served beside him as lieutenant governor, told The New York Times about a three-week trip they took to Middle East capitals during the crisis. Connally, angling to impress Republican nominee Ronald Reagan in hopes he’d be named secretary of state or defense, asked leaders to send word to Iran not to release hostages before Election Day. With Carter, 98, receiving end of life hospice care, Barnes told The Times, he needed to unburden himself of the secret.

“History needs to know this happened,” Barnes, now 84, said. “Carter… didn’t have a fighting chance with those hostages still in the embassy in Iran.” To survivors, the revelation was more appalling than stunning. Democrats and hostages suspected the Reagan camp had a hand in prolonging the ordeal, given the obvious political benefits. “It’s just typical. Politicians do all sorts of things to achieve whatever political agenda they have in mind,” said William Royer Jr., now 91 and a resident of Katy in suburban Houston. On Nov. 4, 1979, when militant college students overran the embassy after the fall of the U.S-backed shah, Royer was an English teacher at the U.S. Information Agency. Over the years he’s recounted the torture – being stripped naked and forced against a wall in front of a firing squad, testing his faith that he was more valuable alive than dead. “I have a lot of respect for Reagan and his policies. And I thought he was a great president,” Royer said, calling Carter “one of the few relatively honest men” to hold the job. “I have a great deal of appreciation for President Carter. He had a bad deal.” The crisis spawned ABC’s Nightline, providing a nightly update on Carter’s inability to end the humiliation. Politically, Election Day – Nov. 4, 1980 – was the deadline to save his presidency. “If we had gotten the hostages home, we’d have won,” Carter’s White House Communications Director, Gerald Rafshoon, told The Times in response to Barnes’ account. “It’s pretty damn outrageous.”

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State Stories

GOP proposal to let judges deny bail for violent, sexual offenses clears Texas Senate

The Texas Senate on Monday approved a proposal to let voters decide whether to allow judges to deny bail outright in a wider variety of cases, a change aimed at locking up more defendants accused of violent crimes as they await trial. Under the proposed constitutional amendment, judges could deny bail for those accused of murder and a handful of “aggravated” charges: kidnapping, robbery, sexual assault and assault with a deadly weapon. It would also apply to defendants charged with repeated human trafficking offenses. For now, the Texas Constitution generally guarantees defendants a right to pretrial release unless they are charged with capital murder or meet certain criteria for repeat violent offenses. The measure, known as Senate Joint Resolution 44, passed on a 30-1 vote. It now heads to the House, where it will need the support of two-thirds of the chamber to be placed on the statewide November ballot.

State Sen. Joan Huffman, the Houston Republican who authored the resolution, said it would serve as a “tool for judges to use in extreme situations.” Under the proposal, judges could only deny bail if they found by “clear and convincing” evidence that doing so was needed to “reasonably ensure” a defendant’s appearance in court or the safety of the community. Republicans have made their version of bail reform a priority in recent campaigns and legislative sessions, arguing that stricter laws are needed to curtail a rise in the number of defendants, particularly in Harris County, charged with new crimes while out on bond. State GOP leaders have pinned most of the blame on local Democratic judges, who they accuse of setting overly lenient bail conditions. Prior versions of Huffman’s constitutional amendment failed to clear the two-thirds threshold in the House two years ago, when the Legislature last met. The lower chamber gave initial approval to an earlier version in the spring of 2021, but it died on the final day of the session when Democrats fled the Capitol to thwart a Republican-backed voting bill. Like in previous sessions, Huffman’s latest proposal earned widespread bipartisan support in the Senate, with all but one of the chamber’s 12 Democrats voting for it on Monday.

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In post-Roe Texas, GOP avoids talk of abortion in pivot to family services

Republican state lawmakers walked out of the 2021 legislative session celebrating the passage of a novel six-week abortion ban. They cheered again last year when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing them to outlaw abortions almost entirely — with no exceptions for rape or incest and only a slim exemption when a mother’s life is at risk. And then came campaign season. GOP leaders struck a softer tone, appealing to centrist voters who could sway the outcome of the midterm election. Some said they were open to an exception for rape and incest, while Gov. Greg Abbott and others said they wanted to clarify the laws to ensure doctors could treat patients with life-threatening pregnancies. Now, in the middle of the 2023 legislative session, few Republicans are willing to touch the issue. Democrats have tried and failed to roll back some of the restrictions, and many of their GOP colleagues are instead pivoting to bipartisan proposals bolstering health care access or aiding new parents. But even that has been contentious among some conservatives.

“They got a political win, and pushing it more now might either make them look extreme or highlight the fact that they're out of step with where most Texans are on the abortion issue,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Focusing on women's health lets Republicans soften the edges of a controversial and divisive policy.” More than 70 percent of Texans support legal access to abortion in cases of rape or incest, if the mother’s life is seriously endangered or if there is a strong chance of a serious birth defect. More than half support access in other circumstances, like if a family has low income or if someone would be a single parent, according to a February poll by the Texas Politics Project. A handful of Republicans, mostly more conservative members, have filed bills to hold more parties accountable for helping someone obtain the procedure. Some have gone even further, targeting emergency contraceptives like Plan B. State Sen. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, filed Senate Bill 1440 to hold credit card companies liable for processing any transactions to deliver abortion pills. That’s on top of a law the Legislature passed two years ago making it a crime to prescribe the drug via mail. He said bills like his are part of the “cleanup” after the Legislature passed the abortion bans in 2021, because “we just don't dream of how people will cheat the system.” Overall, he said, GOP lawmakers came back to Austin in January with the goal of “protecting what we've passed in the prior sessions.” As of Friday, just one bill filed and tagged under “abortion” had been scheduled for a committee hearing. It’s Senate Bill 959, by Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, that would prevent open-enrollment charter schools from “giving taxpayer resources to abortion providers.”

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1 student killed, 1 injured in shooting at Arlington Lamar High

Waiting before sunrise for their classes to start, the victims were sitting close to the outdoor school steps on the east side of the building when they were shot. A teenage boy was taken to a hospital and died there. The cheek of a girl near him was grazed by a bullet. The assailant who opened fire on them early Monday outside Lamar High School in Arlington also attends classes at the school, police said. All are under 17 years old, Arlington police said. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released the name of the homicide victim. Detectives believe the suspect did not intend to shoot more people at the school and that he targeted at least one of the victims, said Officer Jesse Minton, an Arlington police spokesperson. The suspect fired two rounds about 6:55 a.m., Minton said.

Police did not describe a motive for the killing, which was recorded by a surveillance video camera. The suspect ran from the scene and was arrested as officers arrived at the school. The shots were fired about five minutes before two Arlington Police Department school resource officers who are assigned to the school arrived to begin their shift. The suspected shooter never entered the school Monday, police said. The suspect was taken to a juvenile detention facility and he is expected to face a capital murder charge, police said. Because he is a juvenile, police declined to release his name, exact age or grade level. Officers found the gun they said was used in the shooting. Police declined to describe the gun. Lamar High was locked down after the shooting. “We prepare for incidents like this, but it is impossible to prepare for the emotion,” Arlington ISD Superintendent Marcelo Cavazos said at a press conference. “We are heartbroken.” Arlington ISD about 7:30 a.m. sent a message to people connected to the school, notifying them of the shooting and lockdown.

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Houston Chronicle Editorial: Can Texas save kids from social media?

Many of us are familiar with that intoxicating rush of dopamine that comes from getting positive attention from our peers. Children feel it most. Around the age of 10, kids begin craving these "social rewards." It's a natural milestone, the beginning of a roughly 15-year period that psychiatrists believe is one of the most critical stages for human brain growth. It also happens to be the same age that many children, thirsty for visibility and acceptance, begin exploring social media apps from TikTok to Instagram to Snapchat. While these platforms satisfy a child’s desire for social connection they can also distort vulnerable minds like a fun-house mirror. The same regions of the brain that trigger addictions to drugs and alcohol become activated, leading to craving for friends or strangers to tap the thumbs up or heart icon. Teen struggles in decades past — facing school bullies, fear of missing out, not feeling attractive — are amplified and ever present, only a buzz or ping away. We are only just beginning to fully understand the damage these apps can inflict on children as young as 8 years old.

Recent research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly three in five teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021 and one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide. One in five girls had also been the target of electronic bullying. While other explanations for the increase in suicidal ideation and depression are possible — smartphone use in general, for instance — many psychiatrists and experts see a direct association with social media. Statehouses across the country are attempting to respond to this burgeoning crisis, introducing and passing legislation that aims to protect teenagers from the developmental harm that comes with excessive internet use. It's an issue that should have us all concerned and united in finding a solution. The wellbeing of our children is beyond partisanship — it should be, at least. In Texas, the recent approach to tech regulation is unfortunately linked to broader culture war politics. In 2021, the Legislature passed a law — currently being challenged in court — prohibiting large social media companies from banning users’ posts based on their political views, a result of the growing belief among many Republican lawmakers that major tech companies have an anti-conservative bias. Texas is one of 22 states that have instituted bans against the social media app TikTok, largely out of fear that it's owned and operated by a Chinese company which could, in theory, wield our own user data against us.

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HISD must meet these three strict goals to get out of TEA control

After forging ahead with a takeover of the Houston Independent School District, state leaders have outlined three conditions that must be met before transferring power back to the elected school board, a process that will likely take years. Education Commissioner Mike Morath said he wants to make sure the underlying causes for intervention have been addressed before releasing the district from state control. Morath has outlined the following goals: No campuses should get failing grades for multiple years, the special education program should be in compliance with state and federal regulations, and the board should demonstrate procedures and behavior focused on student outcomes. Local education experts say those criteria are reasonable and good benchmarks, although it will be important to hold the state accountable to those standards and get more clarity about how those goals will be met.

"They’re definitely achievable," said Duncan Klussman, former superintendent for Spring Branch ISD. "The state's now in control. It's their responsibility to produce that result, and we'll have to see what happens." Klussmann, now an education professor at the University of Houston, said the academic performance benchmark in particular is "a very strict requirement, a very high expectation." "The biggest challenge here is producing that level of academic outcome in a system that is as large as HISD, where you have those schools at that level," he said. "In a system that large, it's a very aggressive goal." The district has made academic progress in recent years under House's leadership, lifting 40 out of 50 schools from the state's D and F accountability list. Still, largely in response to a single failing high school and backed by state law, the Texas Education Agency will appoint a superintendent and a nine-member board of managers to oversee HISD after June 1. Meanwhile, the powers of the elected board of trustees will be suspended, but elections will continue to be held, according to the state. The appointed managers will serve for up to two years, at which point the commissioner may extend their placement for another two years or announce a gradual transition back to elected control. That transition period could take an additional two years, with the commissioner replacing appointed managers with elected trustees three at a time until full control is restored, according to the TEA.

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Texas companies resumed 2022 PAC donations to Jan. 6 election objectors they had cut off

In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, major companies and trade associations announced they would at least temporarily halt campaign donations to lawmakers who objected to certifying President Joe Biden’s victory. Some swore off campaign donations to anyone, regardless where they stood that day, in hopes that would avoid antagonizing either side. But within months, many of those companies’ political action committees quietly resumed cutting checks as they sought to influence legislation. Critics see short-term virtue-signaling after a mob attacked Congress hoping to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat, before corporate America reverted to self-interest. “These big businesses made a choice to maintain political influence with extremists in Congress rather than help preserve our democracy,” Jeremy Funk, spokesperson for the left-leaning Accountable.US, said in a statement.

Texas-based companies such as Cheniere Energy, a major liquified natural gas producer, put away their political checkbooks after Jan. 6. A week after the attack, the company said its political action committee would suspend donations to individual lawmakers. “We at Cheniere were disturbed and disheartened by the violent and deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol last week that infringed upon our democratic process as part of efforts to delegitimize the election of President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris,” the company said. But months later, the Cheniere PAC resumed donations. It even boosted the total amount to those who had objected to certifying Biden’s victory, compared with the previous election cycle, according to a new analysis from Accountable.US. The group, which seeks to spotlight corporate influence in politics, established a website to track corporate PAC donations to lawmakers who objected to certifying Biden’s victory. Companies aren’t allowed to make campaign donations directly. The analysis covered contributions from the PACs of Fortune 500 corporations and more than 700 trade associations.

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Gray area remains for bump stock owners following reversal of Texas ban

In October 2017, 58 people were fatally shot during a country music festival in Las Vegas. The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history focused scrutiny on the bump stock, a device that allows semiautomatic rifles to fire more rapidly. Bump stocks were banned in the slaughter’s aftermath, but sales recently resumed once more in the Lone Star State. Gun rights advocates are celebrating the news, but those pushing for greater restrictions are sounding the alarm. In January, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the ban by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Shops in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, within the 5th Circuit's jurisdiction, can hawk bump stocks again, but they’re still illegal elsewhere in the country. Federal regulators had ultimately neglected to file a stay to stop the ban’s reversal, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The lifting of the bump-stock ban is “dangerous,” said Nicole Golden, executive director of the advocacy organization Texas Gun Sense. The way she sees it, the move “shows [a] complete lack of regard for victims and survivors of gun violence who have experienced repeated trauma in mass shootings here in Texas and across the country. “Put simply, bump stocks allow semiautomatic rifles to fire faster — resulting in greater deaths and injuries more swiftly,” Golden continued via email. “Texas has a long history of responsible gun ownership, and we know that the majority of gun owners support common-sense public safety solutions in balance with second amendment rights.” After the Uvalde school shooting in May that left 19 students and two teachers dead, around three-quarters of the state’s voters indicated that they support red flag laws, which allow authorities to take weapons away from those deemed a threat to themselves or others, according to a poll by the center-left think tank Third Way and GS Strategy Group, a Republican polling firm. The Lone Star State doesn’t place high when it comes to the strength of its gun laws, ranking at No. 32 in the nation, according to advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. Texas also sees nearly 3,650 deaths by gun per year. Issued by the administration of then-President Donald Trump, the bump-stock prohibition meant that those who owned the devices had to either destroy them or hand them over to ATF. The Dallas Morning News reported that some 60,000 units, worth millions of dollars, were destroyed in 2019.

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Migration numbers not affected by policy or news coverage, Rice study finds

Over the weekend, a large group of people approached the border at a U.S. entry point in El Paso, causing disruptions along the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It may be the latest incident of the migrant caravan, often caused by punitive migration policies like the border wall, according to a new study from Rice University. The study, published by authors Gary Hale and Jie Ma on March 2, found that caravans are largely formed by the same cartels that victimize migrants as a manner of exploiting multiple victims simultaneously. The study also found a need for a comprehensive, all-of-government approach to cartel revenue denial and that there is no specific or targeted revenue-denial program in place to provide a consequence for cartel crimes.

"This has been an ongoing effort to try and understand the reasons and motivations of the migrants, or their sponsors, to form and mobilize en masse," Hale, former chief of intelligence with the DEA in Houston, wrote in an email. "We sought to also determine if U.S. or Mexico immigration policies did or did not play a part in the timely or spontaneous formation of these caravans." While more-lenient immigration policies may generate more migration over the long haul, punitive policies generate a surge in migration to get ahead of the enactment of restrictive policies, potentially resulting in caravans, Hale wrote. Both kinds have done little to deter migrants from crossing into the U.S., however, the study found. In addition, walls, fences, barricades, bridges, patrols, technology and laws do not deter illegal entries. "The effectiveness of immigration policies is elusive and temporary because migrants and migrant smugglers quickly adapt to changes in government position," Hale wrote. The migrants who rushed the border at El Paso over the weekend were likely responding to President Biden's January announcement that the U.S. would return to a Trump-era policy, Hale added.

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Illegal signs cost Houston $300K yearly. 'Sign rangers,' new legislation are fighting back

Luz Lopez could see the writing on the wall, or more specifically the writing on the telephone poles and along the sidewalks and often in the medians of the busy streets in and around her Cloverleaf neighborhood. Between the illegal dumping and the intersections cluttered with signs offering easy money, predatory loans, home sales — even offers to buy diabetic medical supplies — things were not looking good. “At some point, if no one else is going to do it, you just have to do it yourself and you start making a difference,” she said. When it comes to so-called bandit signs and their proliferation around the Houston area and beyond, making a difference is a costly and complicated challenge for communities. Houston spends nearly $300,000 yearly yanking down illegal signs, while state lawmakers are considering increasing penalties for repeat offenders to make hanging illegal signs hurt to the point it isn’t worth it.

For Lopez, 44, doing her part means a lot of detours during her free time as she drives around the neighborhood. When she spots an illegal sign — anything in the public right of way that is advertising — she finds a place to park and takes the sign then and there, or makes a note to come back and retrieve it later. The removals are neither vocation nor vigilantism, but fall somewhere in between. Lopez has a day job offering services from tax preparation to notary approvals and does not work for Harris County in unincorporated Cloverleaf. “I need to get my bills paid,” she said. Instead, she is among 246 certified “sign rangers” trained by the Harris County Attorney’s Office to spot illegal signs and address them, up to and including removing them. Becoming a ranger does not come with a badge, but it comes with a certificate and instruction for what constitutes an illegal sign, techniques for working with local businesses to educate rather than enforce and authority to remove signs in the unincorporated areas of the county when the owners will not. Often, the businesses simply need a little coaching, said Cindy Miller, a ranger and community liaison for Harris County Precinct Two Commissioner Adrian Garcia in the Channelview area. “Most of them do not know,” Miller said. “They are hiring someone to go out there and they’ll pay them per the sign and then they end up in the right of way.”

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The 'Dallas Express': Your go-to source for right-wing, astroturf news

For over 80 years, the Dallas Express operated as a weekly, Black-owned, progressive newspaper that covered racist lynchings, fought against segregation, and focused on the issues that mattered to the Black community in Dallas. Founded in 1892 and shuttered in the mid-1970s, the newspaper focused on issues ignored by the predominantly White press in a segregated city “that had been effectively run by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.” Half a century after the paper went defunct, the Dallas Express was brought back to life under new management. In January 2021, D Magazine reported that the paper was “run by a Chicago-based operation called Metric Media News that owns hundreds of such dubious news sites all across the country.” Metric Media News, founded by conservative Chicago businessman Brian Timpone, is part of a broader network of right-wing websites that masquerade as nonpartisan, local news. One of those companies, Pipeline Media, also boasts Texas billionaire and Republican megadonor Tim Dunn as a board member. Researchers have dubbed such astroturf outlets that hide their true partisan purpose as “pink slime journalism.” Metric Media has also been linked to a series of “pink slime” newspapers that recently attacked Democratic candidates in the run-up to the Illinois Spring elections, according to NPR.

One month after D Magazine linked the Dallas Express to Metric Media, I reported for the Dallas Weekly, a Black-owned weekly newspaper, that Trump-supporting billionaire hotel magnate Monty Bennett was named publisher of Dallas Express. Bennett is the founder and CEO of Ashford Inc., a publicly traded company that controls over 100 hotels. Bennett has described the paper as “strictly objective” and nonpartisan, but their “core values” included clearly conservative talking points like “taxes are generally oppressive” and “regulations undermine individual and business productivity.” These stated values—which were subsequently removed after my reporting—and Bennett’s political activities led me, in the Dallas Weekly article, to describe the website as “right-wing propaganda.” Since January 2021, the Dallas Express has run at least 112 articles and opinion pieces that mention one of four “zombie astroturf groups” in the area: Keep Dallas Safe, Dallas Justice Now, Save Texas Kids, and Protect Texas Kids. As I previously reported for the Texas Observer in a related article, these four groups push conservative policies and received an inordinate amount of coverage from the Dallas Express compared with other regional publications, which have primarily run critical articles about the group, including: the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, Dallas Weekly, Spectrum News, PeopleNewspapers, and the Texas Tribune. National and international outlets like VICE, Jewish Insider, and the Independent have also documented the controversial activities of these groups. The Dallas Express, meanwhile, has not mentioned the groups’ ties to right-wing donors when publishing op-eds and quoting sources from the organizations.

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It’s dangerous for Black women to give birth in Texas, and it could be about to get worse

When Nakeenya Wilson learned she was pregnant with her third child, she felt fear, not joy. The Texas mother had nearly lost her life while giving birth to her son in 2016, leaving her with deep anxiety over her pregnancy the following year. Her unborn child became stuck in her pelvis, a complication known as shoulder dystocia. Medical staff straddled Wilson and manually pushed on her stomach, a painful procedure. He emerged blue, limp and not breathing, recalls an emotional Wilson. The situation grew increasingly dire as she began to hemorrhage, almost bleeding to death. From the outset of her hospital visit she says she received poor care from nursing staff, who were uncommunicative, delayed a scheduled induction and kept forgetting her name. Without first informing her, a nurse gave Wilson a drug to halt the excessive bleeding, leading to a spike in blood pressure that had already been elevated during her pregnancy due to pre-eclampsia, placing her at risk for seizure.

Wilson’s story is emblematic of the risk pregnant patients, particularly Black women, face in the US. The country holds the highest maternal death rate among similarly industrialized countries and is the only developed nation where these deaths are increasing. In 2021, those deaths surged to their highest levels in nearly 60 years, according to new data from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In Texas, where Wilson is from, the maternal mortality rate has historically hovered above or close to the US average over the years, about 20.2 deaths per 100,000 live births before the pandemic. Black women are disproportionately affected both nationally and in Texas, according to the latest data, from 2019. And these disparities persist even when accounting for class: the effects of structural racism on Black mothers overpower socioeconomic factors like household income, so the wealthiest Black women and their newborns will still experience worse outcomes than those from the lowest-income white families, according to a recent California-based study.

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Jason Villalba: Why Texas needs business courts

(Jason Villalba is the CEO of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and a former member of the Texas House.) Non-lawyers are often troubled by the fact that under both civil and criminal law, corporations are often treated the same as people for purposes of disputes, claims to property, ownership of assets, and due process, among other legal issues. Both Republicans and Democrats have complained for decades that corporations should not have the same rights as human beings. Yet, it is settled law in the United States that organizations that have the endorsement of a state’s certification as a corporation, company, partnership or any other form of corporate entity, have rights and protections similar to those shared by you and your neighbors. As an American citizen, you have the right to have your legal issues resolved by a court system that possesses the requisite levels of expertise, understanding and competence. If a court is not qualified to understand and settle your dispute, because the court lacks the proper expertise or simply does not have the time to hear your complaint on a timely basis, you are denied your fundamental right to due process.

That is not acceptable. That is why in Texas, we have specialized family courts, probate courts, municipal courts and justice courts, among others, that ensure that your dispute will be heard by the most competent and capable arbiter available. As a Texan, you are entitled to have your case heard quickly by a court that understands your issues. Likewise, under the law, Texas corporations deserve the same treatment. Yet, every day in Texas, we deny our largest job creators — Frost Bank, Southwest Airlines, H-E-B, AT&T, et al. — the benefit of an expertized, qualified and efficient forum for their legal disputes to be heard. Often, business conflicts lay dormant in the Texas court system for years because the courts are so jammed up with other non-business matters that there are no forums available to hear business-related cases. In other instances, conflicts between these large business entities are often too esoteric or removed from the lives of ordinary Texans to be appropriately adjudicated by a non-expertized jury.

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Pearland police become first in country to get FAA nod for station-controlled drone flight

Pearland’s police department has become the nation’s first law enforcement agency to win Federal Aviation Administration approval to use a system in which drones controlled from a police station can be dispatched throughout a municipality to assess incidents, which officials say can save time, resources and lives. “We’ll be able to better assess a scene prior to getting an officer on the scene,” said Herbert Oubre, a Pearland police officer and drone pilot. “We can either increase our resources going to a call or decrease those resources.” Instead of being controlled by operators stationed nearby or trailing in a vehicle, the police drones will rely on a technology called Casia G, developed by Iris Automation Inc., that enables remote airspace awareness during flight. The drones will use another system, called DroneSense, to relay information to the operator at the station.

The suburb south of Houston seems a fitting place to deploy the technology, as police have a lot of ground to cover. With 129,000-plus residents and 49 square miles, Pearland is a mix of subdivisions, hospitals, schools, colleges, and shopping centers. The city also might become a model for other suburban police departments, many of which lack the financial resources to use first-responder aircraft such as helicopters. In Pearland, “this will expand our capabilities exponentially because we don’t have to have a visual observer,” city police Lt. Jeff Jernigan said. “It’s real-time accurate information,” Jernigan also said. “When you’re talking about lives, it’s seconds, not minutes that we have to get help to a scene, and that’s what this allows us to do.” Drone systems have been used by law enforcement agencies for years but operated under federal regulations requiring that operators be close enough to the drones to see the air space in which they are flying. In 2018, the Chula Vista Police Department in California became the nation’s first law enforcement agency granted FAA approval to use drones for emergency response but with the requirement that the drone pilots — working usually from rooftops or in vehicles — be able to see air space of up to two miles around a drone at any given time to ensure it doesn’t collide with other aircraft.

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Ted Cruz and Texas Republicans decry potential Trump arrest, call it a gift to his 2024 campaign

Texas Republicans seized on former President Donald Trump's declaration that he will be arrested this week, calling it a major gift to his campaign to retake the White House. "If you want to talk about how to unify Republicans behind Donald Trump in the primary, having an unhinged left-wing prosecution — complete with perhaps a perp walk for the cameras — that ends up being thrown out and ends in failure, could be the single biggest in-kind gift to the Donald Trump campaign of this entire cycle," U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said on his podcast. Cruz was one of at least seven Republican members of Congress from Texas who had voiced support for the former president on social media by Monday afternoon. Cruz called the case against Trump "utter and complete crap." Also sounding off were U.S. Reps. Chip Roy of Austin, Wesley Hunt of Houston, Troy Nehls of Richmond, Michael Burgess of Pilot Point, Lance Gooden of Terrell and Ronny Jackson of Amarillo.

Trump's announcement on his social media platform that he will be arrested Tuesday — just days before he is set to hold a rally in Waco this weekend — comes as a grand jury in New York investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president. Trump’s lawyer and spokesperson have said there had been no communication from prosecutors. Still, the former president urged his supporters to protest in an effort to build support ahead of a potential prosecution. Texas Republicans jumped on board over the weekend, arguing that an arrest of a former president — which has never happened — would be destabilizing. "246 years of struggle and progress are about to rocked to their core, because the people who tell you they’re defending democracy would now rather kill it than let Trump seek the White House again," Hunt tweeted. "I pray this latest effort to dismantle President Trump fails miserably, and to all those who seek to take the power from the people to decide who their next President will be, I believe all you have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Jackson, an Amarillo Republican who served as Trump's White House doctor, called it a "DISGRACE."

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Texas senate passes bill on harsher penalties for tampering with ankle monitors

On Monday, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would make it a crime for a person to knowingly remove or disable and ankle monitor tracking device that they’re required to wear as a condition of house arrest, parole or release on bail. According to Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), the bill’s author, 76,940 people are currently on parole in Texas, and 4,315 of them have a monitoring device. She said in the last year, 1,127 monitor straps were either cut, or an active warrant remains for a cut strap.

Currently, it is only a parole violation to tamper with or destroy an ankle monitor. The bill would make it either a third-degree or state-jail felony to do so. A state-jail felony, according to the Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA), is one step below a third-degree felony. The charges would also apply if the person used a third-party to tamper with the device. In a robbery spree that ended at The Domain in June 2022, the Austin Police Department said one of the suspects cut off his ankle monitor two days after getting released from juvenile custody – and about two weeks before he allegedly took part in the robberies. “As we’re trying to move away from incarceration, we’re trying to use technology,” said TMPA Executive Director Kevin Lawrence. “But now we’re finding the more we use that, the more we find people trying to foil those methods.” According to the witness list for the bill, no one spoke in opposition of it.

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Texas workers are owed $13.8 billion in unpaid overtime, according to study

Hardworking Texans aren't getting compensated for their labor, according to a new study. Beyond that, they're lagging other states in being able to collect what they owe on their paychecks. Last year, Texas workers on average clocked 2.6 hours per week of unpaid overtime, according to a wage analysis by the law firm Bisnar Chase. The national average was 2.1 hours of unpaid overtime. When the number of exempt workers is fractured into the equation, then recalculated as an annual rate, the collective amount owed to Texas workers is a staggering $13.9 billion, the data crunching shows.

That shorting of paychecks comes despite state and federal laws ensuring overtime pay. Those positions earning more than $35,000 per year are often “misclassified” into being exempt from overtime, according to Bisnar Chase. Further, increased murkiness around the idea of “free time" could contribute to the problem, Bisnar Chase managing partner Brian Chase said. “Free time is now something that is expected to be given up to one's employer," Chase said in an emailed statement. "The recent trend of working from home due to the pandemic has exacerbated situation, as unpaid overtime has become a widespread and accepted norm."

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City Stories

Bridget Grumet: Traffic in Rainey district is already 'very challenging.' It's about to get worse.

A quick walk around the Rainey Street District, and you can see why Tom Haider is worried. Construction barricades jut into the street on several blocks, temporarily shaving off a car lane here or there, as crews build the skyscrapers that will pack thousands more residents into this tiny pocket of Austin. On-street parking and untended dumpsters have squeezed a few passageways down to a single lane, used by cars going in both directions. Delivery trucks and Uber drivers stop pretty much anywhere they please, even if it brings an entire street to a standstill for several minutes. And then, sometime after March 21, after the South by Southwest crowds have cleared out, a key access point to the Rainey district will be fully closed for at least a month, followed by partial lane closures for 14 to 16 weeks. The temporary closure of Red River Street, between César Chávez and Driskill streets, will allow crews to lay chilled water lines for the Waterline, a 74-story tower that will be one of the tallest buildings in Texas.

“How are we going to get emergency vehicles in here?” asked Haider, a retiree who lives in the Shore Condominiums. “That’s my biggest concern.” City transportation officials say first responders will still have clearance access through three side streets: Driskill, River and Cummings streets, the first two connecting to the Interstate 35 frontage road. But again: It doesn’t take much to bring traffic to a halt in the Rainey district. The temporary closure of Red River Street just south of César Chávez will exacerbate that over the next few months. And those delays will be just a teaser for the gridlock to come unless city planners put together a holistic traffic and mobility plan to support the jaw-dropping amount of growth happening in the Rainey district. Bob Nicks, an Austin Fire Department battalion chief, told me the sheer volume of construction in the Rainey district makes access “very, very challenging.” But he said Fire Department inspectors visit the area a couple of times a day to ensure the roads along the construction sites remain passable for emergency crews.

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National Stories

Oil growth projections hold steady despite market jitters

A market rout triggered by fears of a global banking crisis pushed crude oil prices to near-term lows, but analysts said the state of the economy hasn’t changed that much so expect a return to prior week levels. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York left broader markets in shambles last week. SVB in particular was caught on its back foot because of aggressive rate hikes. Outside of banking stocks, crude oil prices were among the biggest casualties, though neither was enough to sway decisions at the European Central Bank. “Inflation is projected to remain too high for too long," the bank said after raising its lending rates by 50 basis points, or 0.5 percent. Even with support emerging for struggling Credit Suisse, ECB officials said the “banking sector is resilient.”

That leaves the market, including oil prices, turning to the U.S. Federal Reserve, which meets Thursday to consider its next steps in the fight against inflation. Paul Hickin, editor-in-chief at London-based Petroleum Economist, said markets could bounce back this week if policymakers can manage inflation amid uncertainty in the finance sector and the broader economy. This is not Lehman Brothers, which buckled during the subprime mortgage crisis that ushered in the Great Recession. “It’s clear sentiment is running ahead of reality, similar to when oil prices spiked to $130 per barrel after the start of the war in Ukraine, only for it to slide back down and find a new equilibrium that was based more around supply and demand fundamentals — which despite the contagion jitters really haven’t changed too much,” Hickin said. Even with those jitters, economists at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries left their global growth forecast unchanged at 2.6 percent for 2023, though that represents a downturn from the 3.2 percent expansion last year.

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The new Red Scare for red states: Diversity programs

To save free speech on college campuses, Republican lawmakers and governors say it’s time to stop talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. A movement to temper difficult conversations about race in the classroom, promote “patriotic” education and limit how gender is discussed with young kids now includes nixing college DEI initiatives conservatives equate with “wokeness” and Cold War-era “loyalty oaths.” In Florida, lawmakers are advancing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposal to prohibit public universities from funding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and requiring commitments to diversity in statements during hiring. The wide-ranging legislation would also eliminate majors or minors that touch on critical race theory and “radical” feminist or gender theories.

“We are not going to back down to the woke mob, and we will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country,” said DeSantis, who held a roundtable this month on what he called divisive concepts. “Florida students will receive an education, not a political indoctrination.” Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also stepped into this fight, issuing a directive last month instructing public universities across the state to stop considering DEI statements in their hiring practices. GOP-controlled statehouses in Iowa, Missouri and elsewhere are also scrutinizing higher education diversity initiatives, and legislation has been introduced in at least a dozen states aimed at cutting DEI spending and rewriting hiring guidelines at colleges and universities. DEI programs have existed for decades across school and government with the goal of both increasing the share of people on campus or in the office from communities historically discriminated against, such as women and religious minorities, and making them feel accepted once they arrive.

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The CIA’s CTO and deputy director explain the future of spying

It’s been 10 months since the Central Intelligence Agency tapped Nand Mulchandani to become the agency’s first-ever chief technology officer. A veteran of both the public and private sectors, Mulchandani had most recently served as CTO and acting director of the Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Before that, he cofounded several startups including Oblix, Determina, and OpenDNS (acquired by Oracle, VMWare, and Cisco, respectively).

The CIA hadn’t exactly been sitting on the sidelines of innovation prior to Mulchandani’s arrival. It played a key role in a number of advances, from touchscreens to magnetic resonance imaging. But the agency has also come under fire in recent years, with a number of former officers saying it’s been slow to adopt new technologies—and to pivot to combat new technological threats. If the CIA’s involvement at South by Southwest is any indication, the agency hears the criticisms loud and clear. Mulchandani and Deputy Director David Cohen were both on hand in Austin last week for a panel about the future of high-tech spying, and to make a recruiting pitch to attendees.

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Execs make millions via timely trades of competitors’ stock

On Feb. 21, 2018, August Troendle, an Ohio billionaire, made a remarkably well-timed stock trade. He sold $1.1 million worth of shares of Syneos Health the day before a management shake-up caused the company’s stock to plunge 16%. It was the largest one-day drop that year for Syneos’ share price. The company was one Troendle knew well. He is the CEO of Medpace, one of Syneos’ chief competitors in a niche industry. Both Syneos and Medpace handle clinical trials for biopharma companies, and that year they had jointly launched a trade association for companies in the field. The day after selling the Syneos shares in February 2018, Troendle bought again — at least $3.9 million worth. The value of his Syneos stake then rose 75% in the year that followed. In February 2019, Troendle sold much of that position, netting $2.3 million in profit. Two days later, Syneos disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating its accounting practices. The news sent the company’s shares tumbling. Troendle’s sale avoided a 25% loss, the stock’s largest decline in such a short period during either that or the previous year. (Troendle declined to comment.)

The Medpace executive is among dozens of top executives who have traded shares of either competitors or other companies with close connections to their own. A Gulf of Mexico oil executive invested in one partner company the day before it announced good news about some of its wells. A paper-industry executive made a 37% return in less than a week by buying shares of a competitor just before it was acquired by another company. And a toy magnate traded hundreds of millions of dollars in stock and options of his main rival, conducting transactions on at least 295 days. He made an 11% return over a recent five-year period, even as the rival’s shares fell by 57%. These transactions are captured in a vast IRS dataset of stock trades made by the country’s wealthiest people, part of a trove of tax data leaked to ProPublica. ProPublica analyzed millions of those trades, isolated those by corporate executives trading in companies related to their own, then identified transactions that were anomalous — either because of the size of the bets or because individuals were trading a particular stock for the first time or using high-risk, high-return options for the first time. The records give no indication as to why executives made particular trades or what information they possessed; they may have simply been relying on years of broad industry knowledge to make astute bets at fortuitous moments. Still, the records show many instances where the executives bought and sold with exquisite timing. Such trading records have never been publicly available. Even the SEC itself doesn’t have such a comprehensive database. The records provide an unprecedented glimpse into how the titans of American industry make themselves even wealthier in the stock market.

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Switzerland's secretive Credit Suisse rescue rocks global finance

Days before a hastily convened press conference late on Sunday that would make the world's front pages, Switzerland's political elite were secretly preparing a move that would jolt the globe. While the nation's central bank and financial regulator publicly declared that Credit Suisse was sound, behind closed doors the race was on to rescue the nation's second-biggest bank. The chain of events, led to the erasure of one of Switzerland's flagships, a merger backed by 260 billion Swiss francs ($280 billion) of state funds and a move that would upend global finance: favoring the bank's shareholders to the detriment of bond investors. The events that unfolded in the landlocked nation -- long a bastion of political neutrality that has secured its standing as a safe-haven favourite for wealthy elites -- go against one of the key lessons of the 2008 financial crisis. The rescue concentrates even greater risks into one banking behemoth, UBS Group AG.

What is more, making bondholders cushion the blow to stock investors from the UBS-Credit Suisse tie-up rattled lenders, pushing up their borrowing costs in a threat to world economic growth. The Swiss National Bank declined to comment while the finance ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Battered by years of scandals and losses, Credit Suisse for months had been battling a crisis of confidence of its own making. In a matter of days its demise was sealed. Soon after news broke on March 12 that the United States would step in to guarantee all the deposits of two mid-sized lenders struggling to keep up with demands for cash, the spotlight was on Credit Suisse and how it would maintain depositor confidence. Customers had already pulled $110 billion from the Zurich-based bank in the last three months of 2022, outflows that it was fighting to reverse. A rainmaker who brokered a number of European bank rescues during the financial crisis, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that after seeing the U.S. banking collapses there was little doubt UBS would be called upon to shore up Credit Suisse.

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Judge freezes Biden WOTUS rule in 2 states

A federal judge in Texas has put the Biden administration’s signature water regulation on hold in two states amid a mounting push from White House critics, who want the rule stalled until a much-anticipated Supreme Court ruling lands later this year. Judge Jeffrey Brown on Sunday handed the states of Texas and Idaho a victory in their fight to head off the new “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, rule. Two separate lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas had argued that EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers should have to wait for the upcoming Sackett v. EPA decision before implementing the new regulation. One was brought by state officials and one by industry members. Brown, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, agreed to put the rule on ice in the states before it was set to take effect Monday. He granted the states’ request but denied industry associations’ plea to stop the rule nationwide.

The consolidated lawsuits were brought by 18 industry groups and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), alongside state agencies. The litigation contends that the Biden administration overstepped when regulators released the new WOTUS rule in late 2022, in what largely marked a return to Reagan-era oversight of wetlands and waterways under the Clean Water Act. Trump previously rolled back a more expansive rule offered by the Obama administration and replaced it with the Navigable Waters Protection Rule. The Trump rule was struck down in 2021 by a federal judge in Arizona, and the Biden administration had pledged to replace it with regulation that could better withstand legal challenges. The Supreme Court’s upcoming Sackett decision could potentially limit the reach of the Clean Water Act, in conflict with the Biden WOTUS rule. That decision is expected by early summer.

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Lead Stories

Lottery tickets now sold online in Texas, but the legality of the practice is questioned

By allowing the online sale of tickets for such games as Lotto Texas, Powerball and Mega Millions, the Texas Lottery Commission might be running afoul of the 32-year-old state law that established both the state agency and the games it operates, several senior lawmakers say. "I agree that they overstepped their authority," state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who chairs the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee, told the USA TODAY Network. However, Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas lottery, said his agency is not selling tickets to such games as Lotto Texas, Powerball and Mega Millions, over the internet. But private gaming operations, known in the industry as "courier companies," are partnering with authorized retailers to purchase tickets on behalf of online players. He said the commission does not have the power to stop the practice.

The matter came to a head during Grief's appearance before the Finance Committee to discuss funding for his agency for the two-year cycle that starts Sept. 1. That was just weeks after a courier company called Jackpot.com announced it had received $42 million in startup funding from the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and several other professional sports franchises to launch online lottery ticket sales in Texas via a smartphone app. "The Texas lottery does not sell any tickets (or) any products over apps, over the telephone, over the internet, period," Grief said. To state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, that sounded like splitting hairs. "I'd just say it's kind of walking the line a little bit," Perry told Grief. "(The lottery) statute prohibits playing a lottery game by telephone, and so it's kind of dancing around. ... I think a literal reading of what the original intent of the statute was, you're violating it." Several committee members said the law provides the lottery with broad authority to determine how its games are played and the agency is charged with making sure retailers and vendors are following the law to the letter. And, they said, using a phone app, although unheard of when law establishing the lottery was enacted in 1991, is effectively the same thing as using a traditional telephone in the early ’90s.

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McConnell’s absence leaves colleagues wondering about GOP’s future

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) extended absence from the Senate has stirred speculation among Republican senators over how much longer the 81-year-old senator will lead the Senate GOP conference. There’s no word yet on McConnell’s date of return, but some lawmakers expect he may not come back to the Senate until mid-April, after the two-week Easter and Passover recess. “I’ve heard senators say, half-jokingly, I wonder if the people who want to be leader are starting to count votes,” one Republican senator said. “People are thinking this is probably good reminder that he’s not going to be leader in 10 years.” “It’s kind of a state of limbo. Nobody really knows what the situation is and nobody knows how long he’ll be gone,” the lawmaker added. “A couple of folks have said, ‘Who’s in charge right now.’”

Another GOP senator privately expressed concern to The Hill last week about the future of the Senate Republican Conference after McConnell retires. “I think, who would be our next leader and what kind of leader would that person be?” the senator said. “Yeah, I do worry about that.” The Republican Party is changing and some GOP lawmakers fear that could accelerate if former President Trump wins the party’s presidential nomination or general election in 2024. Speculation about Trump is rising again this week as the former president himself predicts an indictment over a hush-money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. Before his injury, McConnell was trying to put his stamp on the future makeup of the Senate GOP conference by playing a significant role in next year’s Senate primaries, helping candidates who have an eye toward governing and the best chance of winning in November. He told Fox News last month that in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania “we’re focusing on now to try to get the very most electable candidate nominated.” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said McConnell’s “got a better instinct for the electorate than virtually anybody in the Senate.”

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As Xi visits Russia, Putin sees his anti-U.S. world order taking shape

For Vladimir Putin, the state visit to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which begins on Monday, provides a giant morale boost and a chance to showcase the much-vaunted new world order that the Russian leader believes he is forging through his war on Ukraine — in which the United States and NATO can no longer dictate anything to anyone. Xi’s visit to Russia, just after cementing his precedent-breaking third term in power, brings together two men who have positioned themselves as leaders for life — and it sets the scene for global confrontation, with Beijing willing to use its partnership with Moscow to counter Washington, even if that means granting tacit approval to Putin’s brutal, destabilizing war.

“The grim outlook in China is that we are entering this era of confrontation with the U.S., the gloves are off, and Russia is an asset and a partner in this struggle,” said Alexander Gabuev, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It remains to be seen whether this confrontation will heat up, pushing three nuclear powers to the brink of World War III, or merely marks the opening chords of Cold War 2.0. But Xi’s visit shows sides being taken, with China, Russia and Iran lining up against the United States, Britain and other NATO allies — in a competition for global influence and for alliances with nations such as South Africa and Saudi Arabia, which seem ambivalent but up for grabs. In an article published Sunday evening in China’s People’s Daily, Putin gushed about the brotherly friendship between Russia and China, which he said were standing “shoulder to shoulder,” including against Western hegemony. “Sticking more stubbornly than ever to its obsolete dogmata and vanishing dominance, the ‘Collective West’ is gambling on the fates of entire states and peoples,” Putin wrote. “The U.S.’s policy of simultaneously deterring Russia and China, as well as all those who do not bend to the American dictation, is getting ever more fierce and aggressive.” He also warned that NATO is “seeking to penetrate the Asia-Pacific.”

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Texas Republicans eye bail reform as it garners national attention

Just two days before he drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee, killing six people and injuring more than 60, Darrell Brooks Jr. posted bail for charges of domestic violence. He had been accused of using his SUV to run over the mother of his child, and a pretrial assessment found Brooks was at high risk of reoffending. But a court official set that bail at a mere $1,000 cash at the request of prosecutors, who later called their recommendation a mistake. For the parade killings, Brooks was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Brooks quickly became the poster child for a Republican-backed push to enact tougher bail policies. The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature is asking voters to ratify a constitutional amendment that would make it harder for violent criminals to get out of jail on bail. GOP lawmakers in other states also are scrambling to make it harder for defendants to get out of jail before trial after branding themselves as tough on crime in the 2022 midterm elections. Their efforts have led to a fierce fight with Democrats over public safety and the rights of criminal defendants.

Recent Democratic overhaul measures in states such as Illinois and New York have sought to eliminate cash bail and lessen pretrial detention on the premise they do more harm than good, especially to marginalized groups. But Republican lawmakers in at least 14 states have introduced about 20 bills so far this year to do just the opposite. Their proposals include increasing the number of non-bailable offenses, requiring more people to pay cash bail and encouraging or requiring judges to consider a defendant’s criminal record when setting bail. Texas's constitution only allows people to be held without bail on rare occasions, such as if the defendant has been charged with capital murder or meets certain criteria for repeat violent offenses. In recent years, state Republicans have sought to change the constitution or work within it to limit bail, often with an eye on Harris County. The number of Harris County defendants charged with new felonies or misdemeanors while out on bond has tripled since 2015, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation. In 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation in Houston limiting the ability of defendants to be released on no-cost or low-cost bail and providing judges with more information about their criminal history while setting bail. That same year, Republicans also pushed to amend the constitution and allow for judges to deny bail on a wider set of violent and sexual crimes, though the measure failed to secure the support of two-thirds of the Texas House.

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State Stories

PolitiFact Texas: Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas is No. 1 state for business, but is it?

Gov. Greg Abbott repeatedly boasts about Texas’ business climate and the Lone Star State’s reputation for being not just among the best states for business — but the top state. “Businesses large and small have led Texas to be ranked the No. 1 state for business every year that I’ve been governor,” Abbott said during his State of the State speech Feb. 16 in San Marcos. This is a popular boast from politicians throughout the country. On March 15, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said his state was the best state for companies to thrive in because of a strong business climate. In September, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he was honored his state was ranked as the best by Area Development magazine. PolitiFact reached out to Abbott’s office and officials cited Site Selection magazine’s Governor’s Cup awards as their source. Site Selection is a well-respected business magazine, experts we spoke to said, that has been around since 1954, according to the magazine’s LinkedIn profile.

Site Selection awarded Texas a 2022 Governor’s Cup based on “total qualified projects,” a March 1, announcement said. The magazine gives out multiple Governor’s Cup awards. Site Selection awarded Kansas a Governor’s Cup for the total number of qualified capital investment projects per capita. Site Selection ranked Texas No. 7 in that category — down from No. 6 in 2021. Experts told us Site Selection is a credible source for business rankings. But it is not the only source. CNBC, Forbes, the Tax Foundation and others provide annual rankings of states’ business climates using a number of factors. Several of these rank Texas among the top states year after year. But they don’t consistently rank Texas No. 1. In 2022, CNBC ranked Texas No. 5 on its list, which considers several factors ranging from workforce to cost of doing business. The last time CNBC named Texas as the best state for business was 2018 — the only time it has named Texas the top-rated state during Abbott’s tenure. The Tax Foundation ranked Texas No. 13 in its most recent State Business Tax Climate Index and has consistently ranked Texas outside the top 10. Texas’ best ranking during Abbott’s tenure is No. 11 in 2016. “There’s no one measure that can capture everything about a state’s business climate, but there’s no denying that Texas is highly competitive, with low taxes, low regulatory burdens, and a strong economy that attracts many businesses and individuals,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of State Projects at the Tax Foundation. “Unsurprisingly, governors across the country tend to highlight the rankings on which their states do the best.”

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Cedric Golden: When the Texas women play bigger, they're usually better

When the Texas women play bigger, they’re always better. Bigs like Taylor Jones, for instance. She’s the biggest Longhorn at 6-foot-5, so when on those rare occasions she falls down, it gets everybody’s attention. The Texas redwood was standing tall for most of the night against East Carolina in the NCAA opener, but she hit the deck in what turned out to be a wildly physical game despite the lopsided result. “There were a few times where I was sort of thrown to the ground or things that I may have thought were fouls weren't called, but that's just how it is being a post,” said Jones, who finished with 16 points and eight rebounds. “Looking at tonight's game compared to all of our Big 12 games, I don't think that it was more physical than any of those.”

So how would you describe your vocation, Taylor? “It's just the post life,” she said. “We get beat up down there.” The 79-40 win was one-sided points-wise, but the upstart Pirates, though outsized, didn’t back down and banged with the bigger Texas posts for most of the first half before Texas’ bulk and brawn eventually got the best of them. The Horns will face a sturdier test in perennial title contender Louisville on Monday night, but on this night, they played up to their size, dominating ECU in points in the paint (40-16), rebounds (44-30) and blocks (12-3). Those are big-girl stats that illustrate just how things went. With Jones, 6-foot-2 DeYona Gaston, 6-foot-4 Amina Muhammad and 6-foot-4 Khadija Faye splitting post duty, there’s always a fresh body underneath and the Pirates, whose freshman Amiya Joyner represents their tallest player in the regular rotation, felt that weight of bulk as the night wore on. “It was extremely physical, but this is what you get at this level.,” ECU coach Kim McNeill said. “Obviously, you know, we're not as big in statute as Texas as you know, they can keep throwing big bodies at you, big bodies at you. Not only from the post, but just from the guards, just big strong bodies. And so it definitely takes a toll on you.”

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Fort Hood commander says Pvt. Ana Basalduaruiz had 'stressors in her life' before she died

Fort Hood’s top commander says that a criminal investigation into the death of Pvt. Ana Basalduaruiz “is not ruling anything out,” but so far, “there are no indications of foul play.” Basalduaruiz. 20, of Long Beach, Calif., who was from Mexico, died last Monday — the circumstances unclear. The post has said nothing about how she might have died, but her parents said she had been sexually harassed at Fort Hood. She was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team’s 91st Engineer Battalion in December 2021 after entering the Army in July of that year. Lt. Gen. Sean Bernabe wouldn’t give details “in the interests of the privacy of the family.”

“What I will tell you is that we are aware of some stressors in Ana’s life, not tied to harassment, but stressors in her life, and I know CID will investigate those stressors fully as they try to understand the context, the circumstances and perhaps the causes of her death,” Bernabe said in a Friday evening news conference at Fort Hood. The general would not confirm claims that the Army told the family she died by suicide and said, “CID is careful not to assume anything or rule anything out, and I defer that question to CID as they conduct their investigation.” CID, an acronym for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, said in a brief statement, “while there have been public comments, there have been no indications of foul play at this point.” Bernabe said Basalduaruiz’s parents were expected to visit Fort Hood in the near future. He issued a command message to troops and civilians on the sprawling post, home to the 1st Cavalry Division and other first-to-fight units, urging them to report harassment of any kind.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: Texas might overpay for reservoir after fumbling Fairfield park deal

Texas has taken a wasteful, big-government approach to the water in Fairfield Lake. Taxpayers are about to pay the price. Since we last wrote about the soap opera in Freestone County, there has been a flurry of activity. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has decided to temporarily reopen Fairfield Lake State Park. Lawmakers have threatened to seize the property by eminent domain. And there have been multiple hearings in Austin during which state officials have discussed freedman’s cemeteries, speculated about future land uses and wrung their hands over the fate of trophy bass. But the topic that has gotten the most attention is water. In two House committee hearings, lawmakers grilled Kim Nygren, deputy division director at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, about a pending application to change the water-use permit at the lake.

Vistra, the company selling Fairfield Lake and its surrounding lands, which include the 1,800-acre state park, was permitted to use the lake water for thermal power-generating purposes when it operated a power plant there. Knowing that any future buyer would likely not be building another power plant, Vistra requested that TCEQ change its permit to include municipal, domestic, agricultural, recreational and industrial uses. Notably, the permit change will not affect the amount of water allowed to be taken from the lake, Nygren testified. Vistra spokesperson Brad Watson called it pro forma. But lawmakers discussed the possibility of interceding to stop the permit change, a naked attempt at disrupting sale of the property to Todd Interests, a Dallas developer. So, with so much concern about the value of water, we were surprised to learn that the state has plans to build another reservoir just down the road at dramatically higher cost. According to long-range planning documents from the Tarrant Regional Water District, the state will build Lake Tehuacana between Fairfield Lake and Richland Chambers Reservoir. The documents say the project is scheduled to start in 2025 and be completed in 2045 at a cost of $500 million. Lake Tehuacana will impound 15,000 surface acres and yield 21,000 acre-feet of water.

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Sarayu Bellary: Here’s why I’m leading a student march for gun reform

(Sarayu Bellary is a junior at Plano West Senior High and the March For Our Lives Dallas chapter co-lead.) My dad always tells me that one of his first memories, right before immigrating to Texas from India, is hearing of the Luby’s massacre in Killeen. Moving from a country where the very idea of a mass shooting was unfathomable to one where news reporters discussed the deaths of 23 people as if it were normal was a sobering moment that shattered his idealized image of the American dream. Thirty years later, another Texas mass shooting haunts my own memories — the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Like father, like daughter right? The lives of 19 innocent children and two school teachers were brutally stolen in my home state. Nineteen children lost their lives in a place that was meant to keep them safe and prepare them for the future. Unlike my dad, however, hearing about mass shootings in the news doesn’t surprise me.

It certainly terrifies me, but it’s something I’ve come to anticipate: scouting out escape routes in all my classrooms at school, feeling my heart beat a little faster anytime there’s a loud noise in class, wondering if I can even go to my dance studio safely, fearing for my immigrant dad’s life every time he has to make a late night trip to Walmart. It’s something that I — and countless young Texans like me — have unfortunately learned to live with. As a 17-year-old girl, it shouldn’t be my job to fight for laws that would keep my own life safe. But am I expected to just sit here when our lawmakers do nothing in the wake of tragedy after tragedy, even going so far as to weaken the existing basic gun safety laws? Firearms are the leading cause of death for young people, and because of this, it is imperative now more than ever that Texas lawmakers enact Senate Bill 145, which would raise the age limit to purchase a firearm.

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Would voucher plan help Texas students do better in math, reading?

Supporters of a proposed program that would allow Texas families to use public money to pay for private school tuition say that it would offer another option to students who are zoned into struggling public schools. But research into school vouchers and voucher-like programs in other states suggests their benefits are far from clear. Studies looking at the effects of voucher programs in Indiana and Louisiana have shown moderate to large declines in academic achievement among students who accepted vouchers, particularly in math. In many cases, those academic declines last for years.

The Texas bill, introduced earlier this month by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, would give families who pull their children out of public schools up to $8,000 in public money to use toward private school tuition. The bill, which is Senate Bill 8, would also protect districts with fewer than 20,000 students from cuts to state revenue associated with enrollment declines. But bigger districts, including the Fort Worth, Keller and Northwest school districts, wouldn’t be shielded from those cuts. Creighton’s bill would also bar districts from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation with students, and require that they notify parents of any changes in their child’s emotional, behavioral or physical health. In a statement, Creighton, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said the bill “has the potential to serve more students than any other school choice program in the nation,” empowering parents to make the best decisions regarding their children’s education. Giving parents the power to choose the best school for their children would foster innovation and competition in education, ultimately benefiting the entire state, Creighton argued.

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University of Texas student leaders call on school to increase campus wages

Last year, Austin Community College approved bumping their minimum wages for all employees, including students, to $20 an hour, citing the growing cost of living in Austin and the difficulties their employees face to afford rent and other expenses. University of Texas undergraduate students leaders want their school to follow ACC's example and increase the minimum wage for student employees from $7.25 to at least $15, if not higher, arguing that students need the increased income amid inflation to afford all the costs associated with attending college. Amanda Garcia, the policy director for the UT Senate, a student-led legislative organization, said the school should follow the trend of employers like the city of Austin and increase its minimum wages for students. She said paying students higher wages not only would allow them to more comfortably pay their expenses, but they'd also contribute more to the Austin community and economy.

“If UT provided more equitable wages on campus, then it would attract more students to work on campus and have those jobs that aren't as physically and mentally taxing as off-campus jobs would be, which would allow them to participate in their community and be what they should be as a college student,” Garcia said. At UT, there are two types of student jobs for undergraduates: academic and non-academic. Freshmen in academic jobs, which include assistants and research assistants, make the lowest hourly minimum wage for academic jobs — $9, according to UT’s online listing of 2022-23 student pay rates. While the website lists the lowest minimum pay for non-academic jobs at $7.26 an hour, the official floor is $7.25 — the minimum wage required by federal law. According to UT data, UT pays a majority of its 3,782 non-academic student employees between $10 and $15 an hour, as of September. About 26% make an hourly wage of $10 or less, and less than 3% of UT students in non-academic jobs make above $20 an hour. Just 18 students made at or below $7.26 an hour as of September, according to UT data obtained through an open records request. Student body president Leland Murphy said increasing wages for on-campus jobs was one of his central platform points when he was elected to the position last year. He said it’s becoming harder for students to focus on their education as Austin rent prices and other expenses become increasingly unaffordable.

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Austin Democrat introduces bill that would change the way public schools are funded in Texas

State Representative Gina Hinojosa wants to change the way public schools are funded in Texas, calling the old system “archaic.” The Democrat from Austin says her bill, HB 31, would base funding on total enrollment, not attendance, and would help all students. “Right now we’re one of only six states to deduct funding when a child is absent,” the Democrat explained on Inside Texas Politics. “We can’t say we fully fund our schools until we fund for every child enrolled in our schools.”

While Republicans are celebrating what they call an “educational freedom” bill filed in Austin, many Democrats, including Rep. Hinojosa, remain adamantly opposed because they argue it siphons money away from, and weakens, public schools. SB 8 would provide $8,000 in taxpayer money, per student, for families to move their children from public schools to private schools, including religious schools. Those dollars would go directly to an approved private school the family preferred. But Rep. Hinojosa says Texas already ranks towards the very bottom in per-pupil funding and the bill would only make it worse. And she argues this shortchanging of districts has not only hurt public schools, but also teachers. “Our teachers are paid about $8,000 below the national average and so we’re losing teachers all over the state,” Rep. Hinojosa told us. “My own 5th grader did not get a teacher in Austin ISD. My junior in High School didn’t get a science teacher in Austin ISD. But this is an example of what’s happening across this state.”

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Exxon launches $2B refinery expansion, making the Beaumont site a behemoth

Fresh steel glistened gray, untouched by rust at the site of Exxon Mobil’s new refinery expansion in Beaumont Thursday — a contrast to the weathered backdrop of the original refinery, now more than 120 years old. A massive heating box pumped warmth into the pipes, allowing the refinery to separate the fuel stream into products such as diesel and kerosene. The heater is big for a reason. “This is probably one of the most efficient units, as we maximize heat integration,” said Rozena Dendy, plant manager of the refinery. “Whatever heat we generate, we reuse it. No heat really goes to waste.” The $2 billion expansion brings the equivalent of a mid-size refinery to the market at a time when refining capacity has been tight.

It increased the site’s capacity to more than 600,000 barrels per day, making it the nation’s second-largest refinery, behind Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery, which can process 630,000 barrels per day. The new unit adds 50 jobs to the site and processes light crude from the Permian Basin into diesel, predominantly, Dendy said. “It's a pretty phenomenal experience and one that’s also unprecedented, to be able to start up a medium-size refinery,” she said, “something that hasn't been done in quite some time.” Construction on the Beaumont expansion began in 2019 and involved 1,700 contractors. The expansion comes as the company works to tighten up its equipment and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Dendy said the site has reduced its emissions to the tune of taking around 140,000 cars off the road.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: 22% pay bump for Texas district judges is too much

A Texas panel reviewing judicial pay is recommending that state district court judges receive a 22% raise over the next two years. But while the reasons provided by the State Judicial Compensation Commission have some merit, that kind of bump in compensation for district court judges is excessive. A smaller increase makes better sense. The Legislature has other pressing pay issues to weigh, such as potential raises for school teachers and increased rates for foster care providers. And locally, many district court judges in Dallas County still face huge backlogs in their dockets, an on-going problem that raises questions about their efficiency. The commission notes in its December 2022 report that district judge salaries haven’t kept pace with inflation — a factor that can’t be overlooked. These trial court judges hear some of our state’s most significant cases, from felony crimes to divorce and child custody disputes to complex civil litigation, and they deserve to be fairly paid. So some increase is warranted.

Also, the $140,000 annual base salary of Texas district judges is significantly less than that of other large states, according to the commission. District judges in California are paid at least $225,074, while those in New York receive $210,900 and those in Florida make $182,060, according to the report. The commission found that Texas ranks 41st nationwide. On top of that, Texans in 2021 passed a constitutional amendment requiring a district judge to have at least eight years of experience as a practicing attorney or judge, yet the last increase in base pay was a decade ago. In 2019, lawmakers passed a tiered pay scale for judges allowing them bonuses based on longevity. Nonetheless, the base pay should be raised to at least $162,294 to keep up with inflation, commissioners said in their report. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht told the House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence earlier this month that low pay makes it harder to get and keep qualified judges, who can make more money in private practice. The price tag over the 2024-25 biennium would be $56.8 million, with about $37 million of that going to district judges. The remainder would be paid to appellate justices, government lawyers and others whose salaries are tied to those of district judges.

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Mason Ayer: Our winding road to restaurant recovery

(Mason Ayer is owner and chief executive officer of Kerbey Lane All Day Cafe.) As a restaurant operator, 2020 was the most professionally challenging year of my life, but you might be surprised to hear that 2022 came in a close second. According to the Texas Restaurant Association, 9,000 restaurants, about 20% in the state, have closed since March 2020. Even as COVID-19 infection rates have subsided, restaurants are facing significant on-going challenges such as pronounced inflation, staffing shortages, supply chain disruptions and the continued impacts of a global pandemic. As we approach the three-year anniversary of pandemic restaurant shutdowns, there seems to finally be a light at the end of the tunnel for our community’s restaurants. Three years ago, the world was forced to pivot when all sense of normalcy vanished. Restaurants could no longer host the most valuable contributors to the service industry business model—our guests. At Kerbey Lane, operating restrictions required us to adjust the 24/7 service for which we’re known, and as the world began moving back to normalcy, labor shortages prevented us from returning to our original service model.

As we examine the food service landscape today, the Austin restaurant scene is bouncing back with new and innovative ways to provide our services through enhanced technologies. Our online ordering system has been a lasting and welcomed convenience for our guests. But with an uncertain economy, I expect we’ll continue to see dining trends shift, and we will all be pushed to adapt yet again. As consumers navigate their expenses more carefully, choosing where to dine essentially becomes an investment strategy. I urge Austin diners to consider the greater community benefit of supporting the local small businesses that have always made Austin feel like Austin. Some restaurants made it through the toughest years in their history and continue to serve the community by providing a place to gather and make memories. Serving this community for over 40 years, we feel fortunate to have created a place where Austinites come for first dates and proposals. We have even hosted a wedding or two. We’re also a place where anyone can feel welcome to swing in with wet hair after a dip at Barton Springs or to hunker down for a long night of studying. We pride ourselves on being an Austin original, and we’re thankful to be part of a unique restaurant community that is woven into the fiber of this city.

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New University of Texas faculty face difficulties affording cost of living in Austin

For a few months during the fall semester, Andrew Augustin drove about two and a half hours on Sunday evenings from his apartment in Houston to Austin so he could teach his class in game level design at the University of Texas. Initially, instead of living full-time in Austin, Augustin, a UT assistant professor of practice, slept every week at his friend’s apartment in the city for two nights before making the drive back to his own apartment. Augustin, who began teaching at UT in the fall, said the “overpriced” Austin housing market meant it was less expensive for him to live in Houston and drive to Austin every week than to live in a similar apartment in the Austin area, although he eventually permanently moved into his friend’s apartment in Austin by mid-fall. “UT does give a pretty solid salary and even relocation packages,” said Augustin, a video game designer and founder of Notion Games.

Several relatively new faculty members at UT told the American-Statesman they are facing difficulties affording the cost of living in Austin, which means they either have to settle farther from the city and deal with longer commutes or contend with the struggle to afford rising rent prices closer to campus. According to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, there are about 374 full-time equivalent assistant professors at UT who make a median salary of $100,000, with full-time equivalent salaries ranging widely from $73,736 to $581,500 based on data from the 2022 fiscal year— the most recent year available from the board. The faculty members who spoke with the Statesman about the cost of living had reported annual salaries ranging from $63,000 to about $79,000 as of October, according to data from an open records request. According to rental marketplace platform Zumper, the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Austin has risen by nearly 34% in the past two years from $1,195 to $1,597. Inflation has also caused groceries, transportation and energy costs to increase, making it difficult for people trying to make ends meet to move to Austin. Jay Hartzell, the university’s president, told the Statesman in September the school had recently purchased the Boulevard on Town Lake apartment complex on Lake Austin Boulevard, and he said UT plans to set aside units at the complex, as they become available, “to experiment with faculty housing."

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Top EPA official tours pollution hot spots in Midlothian, Arlington. ‘I hear the frustration’

Amid high winds and an incoming hail storm, most North Texans were headed inside Thursday afternoon. But, under a small covered pavilion at Kimmel Park in Midlothian, members of an air quality advocacy group had a meeting they couldn’t miss. For the first time, Earthea Nance, regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 6, toured Midlothian and Arlington to learn more about residents’ experiences and concerns with industrial pollution. Region 6 encompasses Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and 66 tribal nations. The visits to Ellis and Tarrant counties were the result of a meeting Nance attended last fall with several North Texas environmental advocacy groups, including Midlothian Breathe. “I found residents who are tremendously knowledgeable about their environment and about the environmental laws and regulations that govern it,” Nance said. “They’re incredibly energized about working and partnering with the EPA to help to bring environmental protection to their families.”

Midlothian’s three major cement plants were at the center of Nance’s visit to the Ellis County city of 37,000. Six of the top 10 industrial polluters in North Texas are located in Ellis County, according to a 2021 Paul Quinn College report. Four of the top five call Midlothian, the “cement capital of Texas,” home. The city is about 30 miles southeast of Fort Worth, on U.S. 287. Jane Voisard, a volunteer with Midlothian Breathe, was encouraged by Nance’s offer to help analyze air quality data and get a state air monitor back up and running. “That is light years difference for us as far as actually being able to talk with someone and put a face and a voice and an interaction together,” Voisard said. “Part of it is us continuing to apply pressure and have a positive flow of communication. That’s what we want: the interaction.” In Arlington, Nance visited several of the natural gas drilling sites that dot the landscape of Tarrant County. The environmental advocacy organization Liveable Arlington has pushed for more regulation and less drilling near sensitive sites such as schools and homes. Her visit comes as the EPA moves forward with new regulations that would crack down on the amount of methane that oil and gas operations can emit. The new rules would also reduce volatile organic compounds and toxic air emissions, like benzene, that are released during oil and gas drilling. Ranjana Bhandari, executive director of Liveable Arlington, has given dozens of tours to visiting scientists and journalists. This tour is the most important she has ever given, Bhandari said, because EPA policy will deeply impact Tarrant County. A 2022 report found that almost 1 million Tarrant County residents live within a half mile of oil and gas activity.

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Dennis Nixon and Michael Hinojosa: Educating all kids is key to Texas’ economic future

(Dennis Nixon is the CEO of IBC Bank and Michael Hinojosa is the former superintendent of Dallas ISD.) Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a proposal to deny in-state tuition to college students who came to the U.S. as children without documentation. Texan and American voters are much smarter than DeSantis. Educating all children regardless of immigration status is popular nationwide. More than 70% of Americans support legal status for Dreamers, according to data from Pew Research, including 61% of Texas voters. Twenty-three other states offer in-state tuition rates to Dreamer college students. And last year in Arizona, 83% of Democrats, 56% of Independents and nearly a third of Republicans voted to support Dreamer tuition, overturning a 16-year ban. All those figures say something: Most people think that depriving young people of education is wrong. It is good politics and better economics to educate every child. It’s also morally right. Texas, proudly, has long been a national leader on this issue, offering in-state tuition rates at state postsecondary institutions to all Texas high school grads, regardless of immigration status, since 2001.

Take it from us, a bank CEO and the former head of Texas’ second-largest school district: We absolutely should not try to do what DeSantis said he would do in Florida. And here’s why: Educating these young people is not our burden but in fact our opportunity, and our crucial investment. Data from the bipartisan research group New American Economy show that Texas Dreamers earn more than $1 billion annually, and pay more than $250 million in taxes every year. Certainly, a large part of those earnings come from Dreamers who’ve attained college educations via Texas’ in-state tuition rates. Further, data from the Higher Ed Immigration Portal show that nearly 60,000 undocumented Texans are enrolled in higher education. Immigrants make up approximately 17% of the U.S. labor force. Undocumented workers make up approximately 50% of the farm labor workforce. We need educated workers in our country to foster economic growth. These immigrants are vital to our future. Consider this current generation of more than 100,000 Texas Dreamers, undocumented young adults, many of whom went through our public K-12 systems. According to the group Every Texan, those who are DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals) recipients have a collective spending power of $3.7 billion. Nearly 40% of them have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher.

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Rep. Ellen Troxclair wants to fix Austin's problems. Others want her out of the way

Republican Ellen Troxclair's approach to governance as a freshman legislator in the Texas House is no different from when she served on the Austin City Council: she is attacking the city's progressive decisions. But, unlike in her four years with the city — when Troxclair was outnumbered on the council by progressive members and achieved little success on her proposals — she now finds herself in good company to preempt city policies. Enjoying her expanded influence as a member of the Legislature's dominant political party, Troxclair, who now calls Lakeway home, filed 30 bills this session — more than one-third directly or indirectly target Austin. The big ones are a proposal to place Austin Energy, the city's electric utility, under state control, and another that would delay or even end construction on a multibillion dollar light rail system that headlines the public transit initiative Project Connect. Another Troxclair proposal would weaken Austin's counterpunch to such legislation by prohibiting local governments from spending taxpayer money on outside lobbyists.

Republicans on the other hand view Troxclair as a savior to fix what they see in Austin as a city in freefall from issues related to affordability, homelessness, and electric and water infrastructure. “She knows where all the bodies are buried, she knows what the problems are, and she knows the games City Hall plays,” said Matt Mackowiak, head of the Travis County Republican Party. “In that way she’s the perfect weapon.” Troxclair represents House District 19, a reliably conservative area that was created through redistricting after the last legislative session. It covers rural counties Blanco, Burnet, Gillespie and Kendall, and a sliver of Austin in western Travis County. But, overwhelmingly, Troxclair's constituents are not from Austin and are not directly affected by her Austin-specific legislation. Though it remains to be seen if her proposals gain traction, Troxclair’s ideas are stoking an ongoing debate about local control and how much, if at all, state lawmakers should dictate policy at the municipal level. A House committee will soon vote on a controversial bill, which Troxclair did not author but supports as a co-author, that threatens to hamstring local governments by blocking them from passing many ordinances.

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County Stories

BCSO increasing presence at two San Antonio high schools; public safety forums to be held

The Bexar County Sheriff's Office plans to increase its presence at Southwest and Brennan high schools for the remainder of the school year in response to increased drug and gun threats to the two schools. The BCSO announced its intention to have more deputies at the schools in a Facebook post Sunday, saying the office will create a School Safety Task Force beginning March 20. The task force will be concentrated in areas within Northside and Southwest independent school districts and will “augment" the efforts of both districts’ police forces.

According to the BCSO's Facebook post, “deputies, support personnel, and assets” will be “reallocated” to form this new task force, with support from other sheriff’s office units, including the Mental Health/SMART unit, Gang Unit, Organized Crime Unit, SCORE, traffic and patrol. “We recognized that both districts share common issues, which we believe all three agencies can work together to address,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said in the Facebook post. Salazar plans to meet with superintendents at Northside and Southwest ISDs this week to discuss their districts’ needs. The BCSO has also created an anonymous tip line for reporting criminal activity in or near both schools, to be emailed to schooltips@bexar.org. On March 9, an ex-student of Northside’s Brennan High School was arrested, and the school went into a brief lockdown, after police found a weapon in the former student’s backpack just outside the school. The BCSO will hold public forums at both districts in the coming days. At Northside, the two-hour forum will be at Bennie L. Cole Elementary on Thursday March 23, beginning at 6:00 p.m. Southwest’s forum has yet to be announced.

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City Stories

Austin City Council could vote to bury power lines after February storm

After the February ice storm led to millions of damaged trees and hundreds of thousands of Austinites without power, city officials could pursue burying power lines. Austin City Council will consider the measure at its March 23 council meeting. If approved, the city will conduct a feasibility study and develop a long-term plan to prioritize the conversions “for high-priority uses and areas without new construction opportunities.” It would also earmark underground lines for future city projects as well as look into underground power line constructions along major transit corridors, including the Project Connect mass transit system and other roadway improvements.

Austin Energy has more than 7,000 miles of distribution lines buried underground, or 58% of the network’s lines, as of 2021 figures. While the council has expressed interest in burying lines, it does come at a cost. During a February AE press conference, AE General Manager Jackie Sargent said the endeavor would cost “billions of dollars.” It’s a sentiment shared by Peter Lake, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Texas. Lake said while it helps prevent power disruptions from fallen branches, buried lines can also be more difficult to repair. “Just like anything they come with pros and cons,” Lake told KXAN in February. “The primary benefit is that when we have ice on trees and branches are falling, if the lines are underground, then outages are less of an issue. The downside of underground power lines is the extraordinary increase in cost.” While estimates vary, Lake said burying one mile’s worth of above-ground power lines can cost approximately $1 million. “In addition, maintenance on underground power lines is also challenging,” Lake said. “Instead of having somebody in a truck on the side of the road up in the bucket work in a powerline, you’ve got to dig up the street, you got to dig up yards, which of course is more disruptive to homes and families.”

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National Stories

School voucher program in jeopardy as Md. lawmakers disagree on spending

A voucher program championed by former Maryland governor Larry Hogan (R) that allows low-income students in the state to attend private schools using state money is quietly causing friction among Democrats in Annapolis. On one side is Hogan’s successor, Gov. Wes Moore (D), who, backed by top leaders of the House of Delegates, moved to slash 20 percent of the $10 million in state-funded scholarships from his first budget, with the goal of phasing the program out, saying public dollars should go to public schools. On the other side are some top Senate leaders who see the Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today, or BOOST, program as a vehicle for equity that affords choices to students living in poverty and attending failing school systems.

“I’ve seen a number of low-income students in my own district really excel and succeed in schools that are doing really great work for them, both academically and socially, and emotionally,” Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said Friday. “And so, my thoughts are that so long as we are fully funding our public schools and doing more than is expected for our public schools that we should help students in different sorts of circumstances.” Some Black Democratic leaders find themselves at odds over the fate of the program, which will be decided as lawmakers hammer out a spending plan in the final weeks of the General Assembly’s 90-day session. The rift highlights ideological differences within Maryland’s supermajority in the legislature and lays bare challenges the governor, a political newcomer, faces within his own party as he advances his agenda. The program has for years drawn the ire of the Maryland teachers union, which views public support of any voucher program — even one whose beneficiaries number in the thousands — as a toe in the door toward privatization that imperils state support of public education.

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White House to counter GOP's soft-on-crime attacks by targeting far-right budget plan

The White House is planning a messaging push on Monday to try to counter Republican criticism that President Joe Biden and Democrats are weak on crime, according to a White House official. The official described Monday’s focus on crime as the opening salvo in a weeklong “offensive” to highlight different provisions in a budget put forward by the far-right House Freedom Caucus. According to the official, “each day this week, the White House will zero in on how the MAGA budget proposal would be a disaster for hardworking families in a different way.” On Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will discuss GOP proposals at the top of her daily press briefing, arguing that the Freedom Caucus budget would cut funding for law enforcement — from local agencies and state grants to the FBI — as well as diminish staffing at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and generally “make communities less safe.” Those comments will be amplified by “an aggressive digital push” on the issue, according to the White House official.

The White House plans to lean on its own administration’s analysis of the Freedom Caucus budget to back up its claims. While House Republicans’ official budget has yet to be released, the White House is latching onto the proposal that represents the views of the House GOP’s most right-leaning members. The budget proposes, among other provisions, capping discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels for a decade. McCarthy and other Republicans criticized Biden’s budget, released earlier this month, as unserious and reckless, in part because of provisions to raise taxes on corporations and Americans making more than $400,000 a year. A number of administration officials are scheduled to be on Capitol Hill this week testifying about the provisions in Biden’s budget. The White House’s decision to focus Monday on crime in America underscores how the issue is influencing the current political debate, and what Biden is choosing to highlight as he’s expected to launch a re-election campaign. Since the 2020 primary, Biden has rejected some of his own party’s approach on crime, saying he opposed a push by some Democrats to “defund the police.” But the president recently upset some of his fellow Democrats — and took them by surprise — when he decided to back a House Republican bill to overturn a local Washington, D.C., crime law that the GOP said would weaken law enforcement efforts.

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Across the country, a push to observe Muslim holidays in school calendars

Instead of fully enjoying celebrations for Eid al-Fitr, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan, Aisha Majdoub has often found herself preoccupied, wondering what her classmates were doing or thinking about missed schoolwork as she tried to commemorate the holiday with family. “If you miss math for one day, it’s pretty tough to get back on track,” said Majdoub, 15, a sophomore at Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, a public high school in San Francisco. Her parents have also felt guilty, she said, “like (they) were depriving me of a day of education.” During Eid al-Fitr, which means “the feast of breaking the fast,” there are two to three days of celebrations with special morning prayers and sweet homemade dishes. Gifts are given to children and to those in need. Muslims are encouraged to forgive and seek forgiveness.

Now, Majdoub is among students and organizers in the Bay Area who are pushing the San Francisco Board of Education — which earlier this month agreed to shift next year’s spring break to accommodate Eid celebrations — to close in observance of the Islamic holiday. Each year, Muslims celebrate two Eids, with Eid al-Fitr happening earlier in the year and Eid al-Adha later. Eid dates change from year to year because the observance and celebration of the holidays are based on the Islamic calendar, which is a lunar calendar. Advocates, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and San Francisco’s Arab Resource & Organizing Center, say moving spring break is a win for now and have vowed to fight until the board reinstates an earlier decision it made in 2022 to add the holidays to the academic calendar. News reports have noted that the board put its decision to recognize the holiday on hold after experiencing significant backlash. The district did not return a request for comment. This effort in San Francisco is happening as districts across the nation are moving toward observing the Islamic holiday.

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Cohen: Trump will ‘absolutely’ take mugshot, be fingerprinted if arrested

Former President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen said on Sunday his former client will “absolutely” go through the formalities of being fingerprinted and photographed if he is arrested in connection to the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into a hush money payment before the 2016 election. “Do I think that Donald will be fingerprinted, swabbed, mugshotted? Absolutely,” Cohen said in an interview with Alex Witt on MSNBC. “Do I think he’ll be handcuffed? No. And in fact, I don’t want to see Donald Trump handcuffed and paraded through… because I respect the institution of the presidency.” Cohen has become a sharp critic of Trump since he began cooperating with prosecutors in a Trump-related case that saw the attorney arrested in 2018 and sentenced to three years in prison. He testified for a second time before the Manhattan grand jury this past week.

His latest comments come after the former president said over the weekend that he expects to be arrested in the case on Tuesday, blasting Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg as corrupt. Trump called on his supporters to protest the possible arrest. Anticipation is building for a possible indictment in the case, which centers around a hush money payment that Cohen admitted that he made to Stormy Daniels during the fall of Trump’s 2016 White House bid to keep her from coming forward about an alleged affair she had with the then-candidate. Trump has denied the affair. Cohen was jailed for his involvement in the hush money payments to Daniels and others. His prison term, much of which was spent in home confinement, ended in 2021. He was also ordered to pay $1.4 million and forfeited another $500,000. Despite the prison term and personal cost, Cohen insists his desire to see Trump held accountable is not due to a personal vendetta. “This is about Donald Trump being held accountable for his own dirty deeds,” Cohen said. “I don’t want to see anyone, and that includes Donald Trump, indicted, prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, because I fundamentally, or the country, fundamentally disagrees with so much of what comes out of his mouth.”

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Trial of 2016 Twitter troll to test limits of online speech

The images appeared on Twitter in late 2016 just as the presidential campaign was entering its final stretch. Some featured the message “vote for Hillary” and the phrases “avoid the line” and “vote from home.” Aimed at Democratic voters, and sometimes singling out Black people, the messages were actually intended to help Donald J. Trump, not Hillary Clinton. The goal, federal prosecutors said, was to suppress votes for Ms. Clinton by persuading her supporters to falsely believe they could cast presidential ballots by text message. The misinformation campaign was carried out by a group of conspirators, prosecutors said, including a man in his 20s who called himself Ricky Vaughn. On Monday he will go on trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn under his real name, Douglass Mackey, after being charged with conspiring to spread misinformation designed to deprive others of their right to vote.

“The defendant exploited a social media platform to infringe one of the most basic and sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” Nicholas L. McQuaid, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in 2021 when charges against Mr. Mackey were announced. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Mackey, who went to Middlebury College in Vermont and said he lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, used hashtags and memes as part of his deception and outlined his strategies publicly on Twitter and with co-conspirators in private Twitter group chats. “Obviously we can win Pennsylvania,” Mr. Mackey said on Twitter, using one of his pseudonymous accounts less than a week before the election, according to a complaint and affidavit. “The key is to drive up turnout with non-college whites, and limit black turnout.” That tweet, court papers said, came a day after Mr. Mackey tweeted an image showing a Black woman in front of a sign supporting Ms. Clinton. That tweet told viewers they could vote for Ms. Clinton by text message. Prosecutors said nearly 5,000 people texted the number shown in the deceptive images, adding that the images stated they had been paid for by the Clinton campaign and had been viewed by people in the New York City area.

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Federal energy forecast throws cold water on Biden climate targets

- New analysis by the Energy Information Administration predicts far slower declines in carbon dioxide emissions and electric vehicle adoption than those targeted by President Joe Biden. The independent agency forecast Thursday that by 2030 U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector, which represent more than 70 percent of total emissions, will decline to between 25 percent and 38 percent of 2005 levels — far from the 50 percent drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions targeted by Biden. As for Biden's target of net zero emissions by 2050, the administration predicted carbon dioxide emissions from energy will at best decline 45 percent by that point. EIA Administrator Joseph DeCarolis attributed the limited progress in emissions reduction to presumed increases in transportation and industrial activity, along with a lower electric vehicle adoption rate than the administration is pushing for.

"We're modeling current laws and regulations, legally binding policies," he said. "In the long run, there's continued growth and sometimes that catches up with (emissions declines)." In the energy administration's modelling, fossil fuels continue to represent a large share of U.S. energy consumption, even as wind and solar energy grow at a fast clip. Domestic petroleum demand, for instance, is projected to stay relatively flat through 2050, while U.S. production actually increases based on demand from foreign markets. In addition, the administration predicts electric vehicles will only represent between 10 percent and 25 percent of new car and light-duty truck sales by 2030, compared to Biden's target of 50 percent. DeCarolis said adoption rates could bump up with policy changes. He pointed to California's plans to ban internal combustion engines by 2035, something that wasn't included in the modelling because the state is still awaiting approval by the Environmental Protection Agency. At present though, he said analysts were seeing limited interest among the majority of car buyers for electric vehicles. "We're not just tracking cost, but consumer preferences too," he said. "We see EVs capturing the luxury market and flattening out (in the mass market). But if theres a major breakthrough that could change."

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Lead Stories

Court rescinds winter storm emergency pricing order that cost Texans billions

A Texas appeals court on Friday ruled that the Public Utility Commission exceeded its authority when it allowed wholesale electricity prices to soar during 2021?s crippling winter storm. The order by the state 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin resurrects talk that consumers and companies that suffered from what one expert said were $16 billion in overcharges might someday see reductions in their power bills. The court ruled that the Public Utility Commission exceeded its authority and violated Texas law when it ordered the price of electricity pinned to a $9,000 per megawatt-hour cap during the crisis. That price is more than 300 times the price per megawatt-hour on a normal day. The commission kept the price at the $9,000 cap for four days as the state saw power cut off to nearly half of Texans on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ power grid. More than 200 people died in the storm. ERCOT is an “energy only” market — one in which generators can only make money on electricity they produce based on prices that are offered in a free market.

According to the court, the PUC violated the tenets of ERCOT’s competitive market design outlined in state law when it set the price at the so-called high cap, the maximum price that was allowed at the time. (The PUC has since reduced the cap from $9,000 to $5,000.) “In extreme circumstances under extraordinary pressure, the Commission exceeded its power by eliminating competition entirely,” Justice Edward Smith wrote for the court. The court remanded the case for further hearings, though it was unclear if further action would be argued at the court or the PUC. The commission refused to comment on the litigation. The lawsuit from Vistra Energy subsidiary Luminant challenged two PUC orders made on Feb. 15 and Feb. 16, 2021, after the state power grid nearly collapsed. Record low temperatures, ice and snow placed intense pressure on the grid while power plants, natural gas wells and fuel delivery infrastructure failed across Texas. As power plants continued to fail, the grid’s frequency dipped to dangerously low levels and came within minutes of a complete shutdown. A statewide outage would have taken months to restore.

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A four-decade secret: One man’s story of sabotaging Carter’s re-election

It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States. It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent. His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal. Then shortly after returning home, Mr. Barnes said, Mr. Connally reported to William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefing him about the trip in an airport lounge. Mr. Carter’s camp has long suspected that Mr. Casey or someone else in Mr. Reagan’s orbit sought to secretly torpedo efforts to liberate the hostages before the election, and books have been written on what came to be called the October surprise. But congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened. Mr. Connally did not figure in those investigations. His involvement, as described by Mr. Barnes, adds a new understanding to what may have happened in that hard-fought, pivotal election year.

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Trump to hold first 2024 rally in Waco this month

Former President Donald Trump will be holding the first rally of his 2024 campaign later this month in Waco. The rally, announced Friday, will be held the evening of March 25 in a Republican state where the former president has a large following, increasing the chances of a packed house. The rally comes as Trump is facing the possibility of becoming the first former president in U.S. history to be indicted, with law enforcement officials in New York currently making security preparations for the possibility of legal action in the coming weeks.

Waco holds deep symbolism as the site of the 1993 Waco massacre, when federal agents seized a compound of the Branch Davidians, a religious cult. The siege lasted 51 days and ended with the deaths of cult leader David Koresh and 80 of his followers in a fire 30 years ago next month. It’s not clear that the city’s history played a role in Trump’s decision. Trump has made numerous visits to the state over the years and Waco is part of McLennan County, which Trump won in 2020 by more than 23 points. But Trump has long railed against federal law enforcement. When his Mar-a-Lago club was searched by the FBI last summer as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents, he broke the news by declaring that his home was “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.” Trump spent the first months of his campaign rarely leaving his Florida club, but has begun to make visits to early-voting states. On Monday, he took his first trip to Iowa, which will hold the Republican Party’s first nominating contest.

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Banks had a meltdown. What comes next?

Global banks just suffered their worst week since 2008. So what comes next? The fallout from this month’s banking turmoil — the surprising bank runs and collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank — has been widespread. In its wake, the global banking system has been shaken. More volatility is in store for the week ahead. But that doesn’t mean this is a repeat of the global financial crisis from 15 years ago. Everyday customers’ deposits are guaranteed and regulators across the globe say the banking system remains healthy. Credit Suisse and First Republic: Two more banks wobbled but remained upright through the week. Beleaguered megabank Credit Suisse announced last week that it will take up to $53.7 billion in support offered by the Swiss central bank to stay afloat. Meanwhile, First Republic bank received a $30 billion lifeline on Thursday from some of the largest banks in the United States.

Still, those lifelines might not be enough to keep them afloat. US-traded shares of Credit Suisse were down nearly 7% and First Republic shares plunged by about 33% on Friday. JPMorgan analysts wrote this week that a UBS takeover of Credit Suisse seems likely. US commercial banks’ profits have been under pressure from deteriorating asset quality, slowing loan growth and rising deposit rates, said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. But SVB and Signature Bank were unique in that much of their deposit bases were largely from the struggling tech and crypto sectors. These banks also held an unusually large proportion of their customer’s deposits in Treasuries — which had dropped in value as the Fed started hiking interest rates, she said. First Republic doesn’t have the same problems Silicon Valley Bank did. Long-term treasury bonds made up 55% of all SVB assets and just 15% of First Republic’s. “Ultimately, investors need to decide if these individual/idiosyncratic crises add up to growing concerns, or mark the start of crisis contagion,” Shah wrote in a note last week. Another red flag: But these meltdowns may not be totally idiosyncratic.

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How a $2 billion federal project is bringing Horns and Aggies, Biden and Abbott together

Decades after fumbling away what once looked like a dominating hold on the 1980s computer revolution, Texas has launched a comeback that threatens to loosen China’s economic grip on America and make the Lone Star State a true tech industry hub rivaling Silicon Valley. Already some of the biggest computer microchip makers and designers like Intel, AMD and Samsung are expanding their footprints in the state, and now the federal government is considering making Texas a $2 billion national research hub for the industry, which has been firmly rooted in East Asia. The prospect is so enticing that it has Longhorns working with Aggies, Democrats with Republicans and even Gov. Greg Abbott is ready to work with President Joe Biden’s administration.

“We’re in a digital race with our adversaries,” U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul said after a meeting last week in Austin with top semiconductor industry leaders and U.S. Commerce Department officials. “We’re on the cusp of something really big.” Semiconductor chips are in everything from cars to computers, to smartphones and appliances. During COVID-19, McCaul said it became abundantly clear that having almost all of the semiconductor chip manufacturing overseas was disastrous for supply chains and is a national security problem, given that chips are vital for the military. That's why he and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn led a bruising effort in Congress last year to pass legislation, called the CHIPS Act, that creates billions of dollars in incentives for semiconductor companies to move to Texas. More than $60 billion is now targeted to come to Texas to grow the industry. And tucked into the legislation is another $2 billion proposal to create a National Semiconductor Technology Center. While Texas is in competition with other states for that site, McCaul said the University of Texas and Texas A&M University are combining forces to land the contract. “I want it here,” said McCaul, whose congressional district stretches from Austin to Katy.

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State Stories

Judge denies Hidalgo County GOP chair’s motion to dismiss in sexual harassment case

An effort by Hidalgo County GOP Chair Adrienne Peña-Garza to remove herself from a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against her brother failed after a state district judge denied a motion to dismiss the allegations against her. On Thursday, state District Judge Mario E. Ramirez Jr. ruled against her motion to dismiss after hearing arguments from both sides during a hearing on Feb. 21. The attorney representing Peña-Garza, Jason Davis, argued during the hearing that the claims against her should be dropped under the Texas Citizens Participation Act.

The TCPA is meant to protect people’s right to petition, speak freely and associate freely by allowing them the opportunity to have a lawsuit dismissed if the lawsuit infringes on those rights. Davis argued this lawsuit did just that. He alleged that Peña-Garza was only being sued because of her association with her brother and because of her position as the chair of the Hidalgo County GOP. However, the attorney representing the young woman who filed the sexual assault claim, Javier Peña, said the TCPA didn’t apply in this case because it involved alleged bodily injury. He added they were not suing Peña-Garza for association but for allegedly protecting her brother when the allegations of assault occurred. “She did nothing to protect those little girls,” Javier Peña said during the hearing. “In fact, she continued to order him to go to these organizations despite knowing that he was abusing little girls.” The allegations laid out in the lawsuit stem from an alleged incident in which Peña III allegedly assaulted Cadence Vaughan, a recent high school graduate involved in the Hidalgo County Teenage Republicans.

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Inside the famous Rattlesnake Roundup: A case study for Texas' culture wars

Miss Texas gripped the body of the decapitated western diamondback rattlesnake, blood trickling onto her pink acrylic nails. Her silver crown glittered from the white overhead lights. The crowd cheered. She looked focused as she pulled to separate the meat from the hide. “You got this, Averie!” someone shouted from behind her. “Put some muscle into it, girl!” another called. She wore a yellow plastic poncho to protect her Miss Texas sash from blood spatter. Tens of thousands attend the Sweetwater rattlesnake roundup each year, which this year collected 2,595 pounds of snakes from hunters around the state. Besides the snakes, there’s a carnival, flea market and gun show. There’s a half-mile row of vendors selling funnel cakes, corn dogs and even alligator-on-a-stick. Inside, you can buy deep fried rattlesnake. It’s been a tradition for about the last decade for Miss Texas to attend the event.

This year's honoree, Averie Bishop, donned camouflage waders and walked through the snake pits, handling the snakes, milking one and skinning one. But one tradition she decided to skip. Behind her was a white wall decorated with the bloody handprints of children. Attendees could pay $20 to skin a snake, after which they were encouraged to press their bloody hands against the wall and sign their name. Most were kids. “There’s an internal conflict, at least for me,” Bishop said, standing in the skinning pit. “Their intentions are good, to support farmers. But at what point does it become sport?” “If someone’s going to do it, I’m not going to tell them not to,” she said. “We’ve all got to draw the line somewhere, right?” Those seeking a distillation of Texas politics in 2023 could do worse than the rattlesnake roundup, even without the obvious snake references — a frontier hardship built into an unlikely economic engine. Visitors now come from around the country, even the world, and it's a source of deep pride for the community. But the exposure has brought pressure to reform. Like Texas, Sweetwater has stubbornly resisted those efforts. The Jaycees who put on the event have successfully fended off political efforts to stop or change the roundup for 65 years, mirroring the state's conservative politicians, who are fighting to preserve their power and values in the face of a rapidly changing state.

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Renters in ‘crisis’ after Texas Rent Relief shutdown

Just 52 hours after Texas opened applications for rent relief, the state was forced to shut down the portal due to extraordinary demand. The Texas Rent Relief program saw an influx of more than 100,000 applications just one day after the system opened, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs said. Prior to this week, the most applications seen in a single day were fewer than 20,000. For beneficiaries like Vanessa Jenkins, the shutdown is disconcerting, but not a shock when compared to the cost of rent. “I worked out throughout the pandemic, I paid my rent. I’m grateful for the program, because they really don’t have to give you anything,” she said. “I was not surprised that it closed so soon, because $96 million will go very fast, high as this rent is.”

The portal is closed as of 11:59 a.m. on Thursday, March 16. “It’s disappointing, but not surprising,” Ben Martin, the research director at Texas Housers, said. “There’s an incredible, extraordinary need for assistance from renters in the state of Texas right now. We’ve seen evictions rising throughout 2022 and into 2023. Renters are really experiencing a crisis right now.” TDHCA will prioritize renters facing eviction for assistance as they begin to distribute the limited funds. Martin points to research from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showing only one affordable housing unit is available for every four extremely low-income renters. “That’s a deficit of 75% of what we need,” he said. “For very low-income renters making about 50% area median income, there’s less than one unit available for every two households looking for them.” TDHCA said closing the portal will help staff review applications and distribute funds more quickly. In the meantime, the department refers those at risk of eviction to seek legal assistance. They provided Texas Law Help as a resource for free or low-cost representation.

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UTSA budget continues to expand ahead of move to American Athletic Conference

When UTSA announced the move to the American Athletic Conference in October 2021, university president Taylor Eighmy set a goal of building the athletics department’s budget to $40 million by 2025. But by the end of fiscal 2022, the program that had spent between $29.5 million and $32.3 million the previous five years was already closing in on that goal, setting a new department record with $39.2 million in total expenses. As UTSA prepares to officially jump to the AAC on July 1, athletic director Lisa Campos said the athletics budget must continue to expand to about “$45 million in today’s dollars” to fund planned increases in coaching salaries, travel, broadcast production and a litany of other areas.

“We’ll definitely need to grow. Forty will probably still put us in the lower quadrant of the American,” Campos said. “It’s a different level in the American. … We know we’re not going to grow it overnight, but we’ve had significant growth. We’ve had significant investment from all sorts of revenue streams, but that’s the trajectory we need to keep moving forward, is growth.” The 2022 cycle marked the first time since 2018 that expenses for UTSA athletics outpaced revenue, which was $38.2 million. But that shortfall can be pinned on the move out of Conference USA putting a short-term hold on certain revenue streams. UTSA reported just $14,268 worth of media rights or conference distributions for 2022, while income in those areas totaled in the range of about $1-2 million during the previous seven fiscal years. The data for 2023 will reflect similar figures to 2022, Campos said, before AAC media rights and conference distributions that are “significantly more than Conference USA” kick in for the 2024 fiscal year. “I think our budget is really healthy, and will continue to be,” Campos said. “There’s strategy to it, and we’ll continue to make sure we’re growing.”

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Did Spec's thwart Walmart's bid to sell liquor in Texas by buying firm once owned by Gabriel family?

Texas law prohibits public corporations from obtaining permits to sell liquor in retail stores — save for two companies that have exemptions. One of those exemptions — which for decades was held by the San Antonio family that owned and operated the Gabriel's Liquor and Don's & Ben's liquor stores — now belongs to the family that owns Spec's Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods. John Rydman, Spec's president and one of the owners of the Houston-based chain, said it acquired the exemption through its purchase of Gabriel Investment Group Inc. on Jan. 1. The purchase, which was done for estate-planning purposes, gives Spec's the option to sell the exemption to a public company in the future, Rydman said. But it also prevented a public company from acquiring the exemption and invading Spec's turf in Texas, where it's the largest distilled spirits retailer with more than 200 stores.

"Of course," Rydman said when asked whether keeping out potential competitors factored into the acquisition. "It had to." He said he didn't know if there were other bidders. But it's been well-documented that Walmart has wanted to break into the retail liquor business in Texas. "I was never privy to that," Rydman said. "I didn't know who I was up against, other than we were negotiating to make a purchase." A spokesman for Walmart said the company had no comment. A representative for Blake-Wilder Companies LLC, a St. Petersburg, Fla., company that had owned an equity interest in Gabriel Investment Group, didn't respond to a request for comment. Rydman wouldn't say how much it paid to acquire Gabriel, but he confirmed it was more than $10 million. He chuckled when asked whether the price more than $60 million, then denied that was the case. Since the deal closed, Rydman said he's been peppered with the same question from industry players: What state is Spec's expanding to next? "My statement is we're still a Texas company," he said. "There's so much good here in Texas and so much growth here in Texas that Texas can keep me plenty busy." Spec's tried to buy Gabriel more than 15 years ago, with negotiations stretching over four years before ending about 2010, Rydman recalled. He said he had talks with principal Johnny Gabriel Sr., who chairs the Rey Feo Scholarship Foundation. Gabriel Sr. didn't respond to a request for comment.

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Texas leads the country in combined wind, solar renewable energy

There’s a certain pride exhibited by Texans when it comes to living here. For example, Lone Star State denizens can be proud of the fact that there were more jobs created in 2022 in Texas than in any of the other 49 states. Now, Texans who are working to save the planet take pride that Texas leads the country in the generation of renewable energy according to a report issued by the United States Energy Information Administration. Not California. Texas. Wind energy is the biggest reason that Texas leads in the creation of sustainable energy. And, it likely won’t be too long before this state overtakes California in solar power. Texas more than doubled what California produced in renewable energy last calendar year. The gap will only widen in the next few years as our state looks for continued increases in solar power harnessing.

The numbers? Texas created over 136,000 gigawatt-hours to California’s nearly 53,000 gigawatt-hours. Iowa (45,000+), Oklahoma (37,500) and Kansas (29,500+) were third, fourth, and fifth respectively. The state with the least creation? Kentucky with just 51 gigawatt-hours of energy created from solar and wind. For context, one gigawatt has the capacity to power close to 750,000 homes. Climate change activists point to solar and wind energy as reliable sources. The combination of nuclear, solar, and wind energy sources powered nearly 38% of the state’s power in 2021. In a state known for its relentless heat in the summer, renewables help keep the power on during those all-too-familiar heat waves. In turn, those renewables, energy powered by the wind and sun, have little, if any, fuel cost. The same thing could be seen for the cold snaps that gripped the state in February 2021 and again in February 2023. Costs were kept down with renewable energy sources while the cost of coal and natural gas were higher.

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Texas Supreme Court dismisses Justice Charter challenge

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that any legal challenges to a proposed charter amendment on policing reforms must wait until after voters weigh in on the measure in the May municipal election. While the court did not expressly deny the idea that the charter amendment could violate a state law prohibiting multi-subject charter amendments, Justice Jane Bland wrote that “voters injured by an election irregularity have remedies to address their injury after the election.” The proposal brought forth by Act 4 SA and other progressive groups seeks to decriminalize marijuana and abortion, ban police chokeholds and no-knock warrants, expand the city’s cite-and-release program for nonviolent, low-level offenders, and create a city justice director to oversee the implementation of those changes.

The measure will be on the May 6 ballot as Proposition A. Bland also suggested that an effort by three Northside councilmen to skip the City Council vote approving the measure for the ballot could have an impact on its future. Manny Pelaez (D8), John Courage (D9) and Clayton Perry (D10) left the dais shortly before the pro forma vote in February, viewing the measure as unenforceable. “Sufficient post-election remedies exist that permit the voter to challenge any infirmity in the proposed amendment and its placement on the ballot — after the voters have had their say,” Bland wrote. Bland was joined by Justices Debra Lehrmann, Jeff Boyd, Brett Busby, Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle and Chief Justice Nathan Hecht in her ruling. The anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life Inc. (TAL) petitioned the Texas Supreme Court on Feb. 10 asking it to force the city to rewrite the proposal as individual ballot measures. The effort drew a letter of support from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, which called the proposal a “grab-bag of provisions” that “flagrantly violates” a state law prohibiting multi-subject charter amendments. Though City Attorney Andy Segovia has deemed almost all of the measures unenforceable, he told reporters last month that the City Council was still legally required to put the proposal on the ballot.

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Meet Lee Kaplan, the political newcomer off to a hot fundraising start in Houston's mayoral race

During the early stages of a mayoral race, polls carry little significance and every candidate says they are organizing a diverse coalition of supporters. There often is only one indicator to differentiate contenders from also-rans: money. Fundraising enables candidates to reach out to voters and introduce themselves in campaign mail, digital ads and, perhaps, on television. That is important in city elections, which typically feature candidates less familiar to residents, and which inspire lower voter turnout and engagement. As of their January campaign finance reports, no candidate aside from state Sen. John Whitmire — who carries a $10.1 million war chest from his decades in the Texas Legislature — has more money on hand for his or her mayoral campaign than Lee Kaplan, an attorney and political newcomer.

Kaplan had about $1.2 million in his campaign account as of January. He has raised about $1.3 million, and lent $200,000 of his own money. That fundraising haul is just shy of two other contenders, former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins and former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards. City Councilmember Robert Gallegos and former Metro Chairman Gilbert Garcia entered the race after the January campaign finance report deadline. Kaplan says he has more money that he is "legally allowed to spend" than any other candidate, an allusion to questions about how much of Whitmire's stockpile is available for use in a city election. The rest of the field has held office or been involved in municipal politics. Kaplan has not, but his fundraising numbers have kept him apace as a contender. “I’ve frequently thought, well, you’re just writing checks,” Kaplan said of his past contributions to candidates. “You can’t complain if you’re not willing to run.”

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Texas beats Penn State, punches ticket to first Sweet 16 since 2008

After Texas wrapped up practice early Saturday afternoon, Rodney Terry gathered his team together in a circle with their arms draped around one another. All eyes fixated on the bespectacled interim coach, waiting for the message to be delivered with that raspy Texas twang. “Seize the day,” Terry told his team. “Seize the moment, man. Live in the present, man. Enjoy this ride. Let’s get it done.” That’s been Terry’s message ever since athletic director Chris Del Conte chose him to take over for ousted head coach Chris Beard Dec. 12. And ahead of the most important game of his career, with the job of a lifetime potentially hanging in the balance, Terry’s speech was as much for himself as it was the players. For a few frantic minutes Saturday night at Wells Fargo Arena, the moment threatened to slip away from the second-seeded Longhorns’ grasp.

And if this had been the Texas of old, the one that had long failed to parlay its wealth of blue-chip talent and abundant economic resources into any sort of March relevance, 10th-seeded Penn State (23-14) would be the team continuing its dance in the Sweet 16. Instead, with Texas’ NCAA Tournament run and potentially Terry’s chance of landing the full-time job on the precipice, the Longhorns steeled themselves and delivered a season-saving performance. Fueled by an iron-willed outing from senior forward Dylan Disu, Texas overcame a late deficit to beat Penn State 71-66 in a taut second-round battle. For the first time since 2008, Texas (28-8) is heading to the Sweet 16. It will play either No. 3 seed Xavier or No. 11 seed Pittsburgh next week in Kansas City, Mo. “It’s not about me,” Terry politely responded when asked about his job status for the umpteenth time. “I’m so happy and blessed to be coaching and working with this group. I want it so much for them. I want it for our former players. I want it for our program.” And, he allowed, “a very little bit for myself.”

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Matthew Gutierrez: Critical time to support, advocate for public school teachers

(Matthew Gutierrez has served Texas public schools for 21 years as a teacher, campus administrator and central administrator in some of the state's largest and diverse school systems. He has served as the superintendent for Seguin Independent School District for the past six years.) The challenges public schools are facing are nothing new, but they have been exacerbated since COVID-19 hit in the spring of 2020. I was encouraged during spring of 2020 when teachers were finally getting the recognition they deserved. At every corner, they were deemed as heroes for going above and beyond to reach students as many families were facing food, job and housing insecurities. They have always worked outside of their contract day, provided wrap-around services, spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on their classrooms, juggled meeting the wide-ranging needs of 20-30 students at one time and met the increasing state demands. It seemed many people, especially parents, started to realize the true depths of teacher responsibilities combined with the altruistic nature of an educator. Unfortunately, their heroism was short-lived and overshadowed by political influences reflected in our nation’s current state.

Fast forward to today, teachers have become part of the political divisiveness that spiraled as a result of COVID-19 mitigation measures. As these issues snowballed, news media outlets and many elected officials began to demoralize teachers as individuals who teach critical race theory, keep “pornographic books” on their shelves, use social-emotional learning to “indoctrinate students,” etc. The result is teachers have been thrown into the middle of the culture wars as they strive to respond to the academic and behavioral crisis. While public school teachers endured the public scrutiny and tackled additional job demands, policy resulted in further challenges in the profession. The state redesigned the 2023 STAAR assessment that has resulted in a complete overhaul of teaching and learning; implemented HB 4545 requiring supplemental instruction for students not passing the STAAR; and implemented House Bill 3 requiring all kindergarten through third grade teachers to attend a "teacher literacy achievement academy" by 2023. Decisions continue to be made that impact overall morale. TEA is looking at changing how College Career & Military Readiness, known as CCMR, is measured.

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Waiting for the courts, asylum-seekers are in limbo on work permits

On Mondays and Thursdays in San Antonio’s immigration court, migrants line a narrow hallway, waiting for pro bono legal assistance to help them navigate a confusing and constantly changing immigration system. Most in line say they crossed the border seeking work to support their families in countries impacted by political chaos and economic collapse. But the existing asylum process makes that difficult. In interviews with migrants and immigration attorneys, many described how confusion and pandemic-era delays leave asylum-seekers with no other choice but to seek work illegally to support themselves while their cases wind through the system. It’s a decision that can put them at risk for exploitation. Data shows the majority will be denied asylum. “Because of the backlog of the immigration courts, it will be literally years before they are notified to show up,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told members of Congress in a January speech. “If [asylum-seekers] do show up [in court], 90% of them will be unsuccessful in obtaining asylum.”

Yet they keep coming. According to recent data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 1.3 million people crossed the Texas border in fiscal year 2022, which began in October 2021. It was a million a year before. Many migrants already in the country are working to navigate the system as it exists, through a process called “defensive asylum.” Upon unauthorized arrival at a border point of entry, a migrant becomes a defendant in a deportation case brought by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They must then prove fear of violence, danger or persecution in their home country to be granted asylum. Three months after a Venezuelan migrant who identified himself as Jose Moreno applied for asylum, a federal judge in San Antonio set his next hearing for March 5, 2024, and urged him to get an attorney. Under the existing rules, the soonest Moreno can apply for a work permit is 150 days, or about five months after he filed for asylum. For now, Moreno drives for Uber using false identification 12 hours a day to support his five children back home.

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Abby McCloskey: What’s more Texan than protecting families and promoting opportunity?

(Abby McCloskey is the founder of McCloskey Policy consulting firm, a former U.S. Senate staffer, and policy director for two presidential campaigns.) Texas has an opportunity to become the first red state in the nation to protect the critical time of bonding between new parents and infants. State Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, D-Houston, recently put forward legislation that would allow parents to take up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child. Yes, she’s a Democrat and the Texas Legislature is controlled by Republicans. Yes, it would be paid for by a payroll tax on employers, a nonstarter for the “read my lips, no new taxes” crew. And yes, her Texas Family Act has a name similar to federal legislation called The Family Act, a fully partisan budget leviathan, pioneered by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. As such, Lone Star Republicans might be tempted to give the proposal a knee-jerk no-siree-Bob. But I’d encourage a thoughtful pause, a big breath, to think about how this could be the foundation of a bipartisan effort in Texas to better support families and babies.

Let’s consider the reality facing new parents in our state. While more and more companies are offering more and more pro-family benefits, it’s the exception not the rule. Three out of four workers don’t have access to paid family leave through their employer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s the 30-year anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, yet nearly half of workers don’t have job protection following birth. While in theory, personal savings could be used to cover a time without income, half of pregnancies are unplanned, according to Brookings, and more than a third of American parents cannot cover an unexpected $400 expense, according to the Federal Reserve, let alone weeks of wage loss. This helps explain why, according to a Department of Labor study, 1 in 4 women return to work within two weeks of giving birth; why approximately half of low-income parents who end up taking unpaid leave following the birth of a child report going on welfare or into debt; and why most parents report taking less time off with their infants than they’d like to, according to Pew Research. As a mother of three, an economist, and a paid leave researcher for more than a decade, I can tell you with full confidence that little good comes from separating parents and children in the first weeks of life. Texas has a chance to come together to protect and support this sacred time. Data show that paid parental leave reduces neonatal fatalities and improves health outcomes for mothers and infants, increasing breastfeeding and reducing postpartum depression.

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UH rallies in second half against Auburn, advances to Sweet 16

Teammates call him “T-March.” Tramon Mark lived up to the nickname Saturday night — just in time to save the University of Houston’s season. Mark had a career-high 26 points and Marcus Sasser added 22 as the No. 1-seeded Cougars erased a 10-point halftime deficit for an 81-64 victory over Auburn at Legacy Arena. “It was a matter of time before it came out,” point guard Jamal Shead said of Mark’s offensive eruption. “He’s prepared for the moment. It was the right timing today.” As the final seconds ticked off the clock, the UH contingent began a chant that's become familiar this time of year. “Sweet 16!” “Sweet 16!”

UH (33-3) will play either No. 4 Indiana or No. 5 Miami, which play Sunday, in the Sweet 16 in Kansas City, Mo. This will be the fourth straight trip to the Sweet 16 for the Cougars. “Survive and advance,” has been a frequent saying here as the Cougars beat No. 16 Northern Kentucky 63-52 on Thursday and escaped a chaotic opening weekend of upsets that claimed No. 1 seeds Purdue and defending champion Kansas. “We’re built for adversity. Look where we were in 2014,” Sampson said of the state of the program upon his arrival. “What’s adversity? We were down 10. We weren’t down 30.” In the days leading up to Saturday, the Cougars had to deal with questions about an injured groin, a hurt knee, perhaps even a bruised ego. Sampson kept reminding them: “We’re still Houston.” That Houston showed up in the second half. That Houston rediscovered its shot, took control of the boards and dialed up the defensive intensity. That Houston “went to its back pocket,” as Sampson described, when Sasser and Shead went to the bench in foul trouble midway through the second half.

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Wise County museum destroyed by fire

Fire destroyed a Wise County museum that housed important artifacts of North Texas history early Saturday, officials said. The Wise County Heritage Museum, located at 1602 South Trinity St. in Decatur, was home to the Wise County Historical Society and Commission and a treasure trove of local history. “We are deeply saddened to announce that the Wise County Heritage Museum has caught on fire tonight,” museum officials posted on social media. “The entire building has been burned.” The Decatur Fire Department said units responded to the three-story stone building around 1 a.m., according to a news release. Smoke was coming out one side. Then fire conditions changed, and crews working to stop the blaze from inside were forced out as flames and smoke spread swiftly through the structure.

No one was on site at the time of the fire and no first responder injuries were reported, officials said. The Decatur Police and Development Services buildings located nearby sustained smoke and odor damage. Officials are investigating the cause of the fire. Wise County Historical Society President Kerry Clower told the Wise County Messenger that it was difficult to process all that was lost. The Lost Battalion Room, which featured photos and uniforms of Texas soldiers who were imprisoned for 42 months after being captured by Japanese troops during World War II, was just one of many exhibits housed in the facility. “It’s gone,” Clower said. “If it’s not water damaged, it’s smoke damaged or what have you.” The building was constructed for Northwest Baptist College in 1893, according to the museum’s website, but the school went bankrupt three years later. The Texas Baptist Convention purchased the property and founded Decatur Baptist College, the forerunner of Dallas Baptist University. The facility had been used as a museum to preserve the heritage of Wise County since 1965. The Wise County Historical Society was scheduled to meet at the museum March 23 and the family event “Night at the Museum” with crafts and a scavenger hunt was scheduled for March 25, according to the museum calendar.

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‘How can you wait 6 months?’ Texans report long waits to get a driver license

There was no line outside the driver’s license mega center in Pflugerville when Kelsea Ledterman walked to the door at 8 a.m. But she was still nervous that her attempt to get a new ID might not work out in her favor. “I tried to make an appointment online, but they were months out, like four or five months out,” Ledterman said. The new mom, and new Texan, only has a few weeks before her California license expires. She was hoping she would get one of the very rare walk-in slots. She didn’t. “Unfortunately, they don’t have openings until September,” Ledterman said. “We will have to see if we can get to another surrounding county or something and find something a little sooner because that is a long time to wait to be able to drive your car.”

The problem looks different across the state. In 2020, DPS moved to an appointment-only system to curb long lines outside its offices. On March 13, KXAN analyzed the earliest available appointments in some of the largest cities in Texas, including Houston, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth. In offices within Houston and Humble, customers trying to get a new Texas license could find appointments as early as the following week. But in other offices across the state, the earliest appointment for a new Texas license was as far as out as June, July, August, and September. DPS calculates the estimated amount of days people will have to wait before getting an appointment at any given driver’s license office. The data shows six of the seven longest wait times are in the KXAN viewing area. The office with the longest estimated wait time is the Giddings driver’s license office at 161 days, meaning its next available appointment should be Aug. 23. Pflugerville Mega Center is estimated as of March 15 to have an appointment wait time of 65 days, meaning its next available appointment would be May 19. But the booking site for appointments showed the next available dates were Aug. 3 and Sept. 7.

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County Stories

Tarrant Appraisal District board votes to keep chief appraiser. But there are concerns

Chief Appraiser Jeff Law, who for months has faced controversy and scrutiny, will remain in his post as head of the Tarrant Appraisal District following two hours of closed-door deliberation by its board of directors. The board voted to draft a “letter of repair” to give Law 90 days to address some of the issues brought by some taxpayers. The letter will be drafted by board member Jungus Jordan and the district’s lawyer, Matthew Tepper. “We want to be able to get back and allow the district to do the job that they do,” said board member Tony Pompa, who made the motion, “which is value properties, provide the role to the taxing entities on time and accurately so that they can determine what they’re going to tax you.” Board member Rich DeOtte made a motion to dismiss Law, but it failed to obtain a second.

Law also addressed some of the concerns that were brought up against TAD, including the June 30 meeting, which left people waiting outside in the heat for hours. Law said TAD had heard a few people might be coming to the June meeting but underestimated the size of the crowd. “I was sitting in the boardroom so I actually did not make any particular decisions about who was going to stand outside, who was going to be in the heat,” Law said. “I again regret that people wound up being outside in the heat. It’s one of those things, if you had the ability to rewind and go back and redo things, those folks should have probably been allowed in the lobby.” The appraisal district has come under fire during the past year over the agency’s handling of a complaint filed to the Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation against a local tax consultant and over the recall of the board of directors chairwoman, Kathryn Wilemon. Most recently, state Rep. Charlie Geren filed a bill to abolish TAD, citing concerns about transparency within the appraisal district. Since the initial grievance with tax consultant Chandler Crouch, TAD director Randy Armstrong has announced he will be retiring and the appraisal district has added oversight policies to rectify employee-filed complaints.

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City Stories

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial: Fort Worth should stop arrests for small amounts of marijuana

There’s been confusion recently about marijuana policy in Fort Worth, thanks to a lack of precision. But it’s also created an opportunity to talk about sensible steps the city should take. District 8 City Council member Chris Nettles asked city staff to brief the council about policy on marijuana arrests. These informal reports are primarily informational, but they often set the stage for changes. A local TV station jumped the gun, though, reporting that the city was considering no longer arresting people on a charge of possessing less than 4 ounces of the drug. That prompted a sharp correction from Mayor Mattie Parker and, predictably, a Twitter dust-up with Nettles. If it doesn’t get bogged down in politics, this is a chance for the city to move cautiously toward decriminalization without going too far, too fast, as many cities around the nation clearly have.

Fort Worth police can currently issue a court summons for charges of possessing small amounts of the drug, up to 2 ounces, rather than make an arrest. But they rarely do; a Nettles aide said that in 2022, it was fewer than 10% of those charged with possession. The policy is referred to as “cite and release,” but it’s important to note what that means: A person must appear before a court for booking. This should become the standard for 2 ounces or less of marijuana. Other Tarrant County cities should jump on board, too. The Tarrant County Jail is strained. Staffing is a constant issue, as it is in so much of law enforcement. Let’s reserve Sheriff’s Office resources for violent criminals and other serious offenders. If a suspect’s only crime is having a small amount of pot, they need not make a trip to the jail. Nettles deserves credit for raising the issue, and he correctly notes that Black and Hispanic residents are disproportionately affected by marijuana laws. But his proposal for a 4-ounce threshold would be too lenient. That’s a relatively large amount of pot. Two ounces would be a better standard.

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National Stories

Trump calls for protests of what he claims is his imminent arrest

Former president Donald Trump called for protests Saturday in response to what he claimed would be his imminent arrest in a Manhattan criminal investigation, even as his advisers said Trump’s team does not have specific knowledge about the timing of any indictment. Writing from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, Trump surprised his advisers by posting an all-caps message on his Truth Social platform Saturday morning that declared he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” His language, along with a fundraising pitch sent out by his 2024 presidential campaign, echoed rhetoric that Trump used in advance of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters. Trump advisers and lawyers have expected for days that he will be indicted in the New York case, which hinges on a $130,000 payment to an adult-film star.

His call to action is a reminder of the attention the former president still wields on social media among his supporters as well as leaders of the Republican Party, even amid questions about how much support Trump has for his third run for the nation’s highest office. His call for “protest” has also alarmed some of his advisers, who said they fear his rhetoric will grow increasingly incendiary as he feels cornered by prosecutors. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said Saturday morning there had been no “notification” of an indictment. Instead, he said Trump’s supporters should attend a campaign rally he is holding next week in Texas. Susan Necheles, a lawyer for Trump, said his remark about the timing of his arrest was gleaned from media reports Friday about local and federal law enforcement officials expecting to convene early next week to discuss security and logistics related to Trump’s expected indictment.

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Florida's 'Stop WOKE' law to remain blocked in colleges, appeals court rules

A federal appeals court has rejected Florida's request to enforce its "Stop WOKE" law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, maintaining a block on some of its provisions while challenges play out in court. DeSantis, a Republican, signed the legislation, passed by the GOP-led state Legislature, in April of last year. Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in November temporarily blocked some provisions in the law — which restricts discussions of race, gender and inequality — from being enforced in public colleges and universities, calling it “positively dystopian." DeSantis' administration then appealed the ruling and asked the court to lift Walker's injunction. That motion was denied by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. “The Court did not rule on the merits of our appeal,” Jeremy Redfern, DeSantis' deputy press secretary, said in a statement responding to the decision. “The appeal is ongoing, and we remain confident that the law is constitutional.”

The state has faced multiple challenges to the law. In August, the ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, the Legal Defense Fund and a national law firm filed a lawsuit against the legislation on behalf of a group of students and educators. They called the legislation racially motivated censorship enacted by the state legislature to tamp down widespread demands to discuss, address and learn about systemic inequalities. Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney for FIRE, a group that participated in a separate lawsuit against the legislation, said, “In the college classroom, you’re supposed to learn from an exchange of ideas, which means that it’s not one viewpoint that’s being inculcated to students.” "You don’t get to replace one orthodoxy with another, and you’re not going to get to freedom of speech through censorship," Steinbaugh told NBC News, adding that legislation pushed by DeSantis has a "chilling effect" because professors fear harsh repercussions for their teachings. Issues of how race and gender are taught have become a focus in DeSantis’ messaging ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run. Last month, Rep. Alex Andrade, a Republican representing Pensacola, introduced House Bill 999, which would allow the state Board of Governors to provide direction to universities on removing majors and minors in subjects including critical race theory and gender studies, and bar spending on programs or activities that support such curricula.

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Trump-DeSantis drama casts a shadow over House GOP retreat in Florida

House Republicans head to Florida this week for their annual retreat — straight into the belly of the beast of the 2024 presidential primary campaign. The Sunshine State is home to both former President Donald Trump, who wants his old job back, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, the young, conservative star who hasn’t announced a presidential bid but is making not-so-subtle moves to wrest away the GOP nomination from Trump. As their three-day issues retreat in Orlando kicks off Sunday, Republicans are desperately trying to stay out of the growing Trump-vs.-DeSantis fray. They’re fighting to keep control of their razor-thin House majority, and are fully aware that a big knock-down, drag-out fight between the two GOP heavyweights could divide the 222-member conference and distract them from that goal.

“I could endorse in the primary but I haven’t endorsed. I could endorse but I haven’t,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy said last week in Washington. His members are trying to keep their public focus on retaining control the chamber. “If we don’t have a majority, the president won’t do us any good,” added Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. After a better-than-expected showing in the November midterms, Democrats only need to flip five House seats and hold their current ones in order to win back the majority in 2024. That challenge may be easier for House Republicans with a strong contender not named Trump at the top of the ticket. NBC News reported Friday that New York law enforcement officials were preparing for a possible Trump indictment as early as this week; Trump on Saturday called on supporters to "protest" and "take our nation back" if that happens. At the JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando this week, Republicans will be debating their messaging and governing strategy for the next two years, including how their conference will secure spending cuts without risking a debt default and keep the American public engaged in countless oversight investigations into the Biden administration and family.

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Jack Shafer: The ousted reporter was right to call Out Ron DeSantis’ propaganda

(Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.) Reporters have been brawling with public relations flacks since the late 1800s when railroads and other corporations established press bureaus to wrangle their relationships with the media. These face-offs can be as light and collegial as a garden party. Or, the scene can be thick with bloodied fur and detached scales, as when a mongoose and king cobra fight to the death. Such a mongoose and cobra match played out in Florida this week. Florida state flacks emailed a press release to reporters about a diversity, equity and inclusion roundtable hosted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that called DEI a “scam in higher education.” Axios Tampa Bay reporter Ben Montgomery promptly replied, “This is propaganda, not a press release.” A state flack tweeted a screen-shot of Montgomery’s response, and other members of the communications staff for the all-but-certain GOP presidential candidate tweeted their shared outrage to Montgomery’s email. Then Montgomery’s boss called him, and he said she canned him.

As is usual in personnel matters like this, Axios has confirmed Montgomery no longer works there. But as Poynter’s Tom Jones reports, Axios won’t explain why. Were there extenuating circumstances behind Montgomery’s departure? If so, the reporting from Poynter, the Washington Post, the Wrap, the New York Post, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay and Fox News has failed to uncover such evidence. For all we know, Montgomery may be a menace to society and in need of home detention and 24-hour surveillance. But I think not. Until greater resolution arrives, we can proceed on the assumption that a very good reporter got bumped off 1) for doing what reporters do every day; and 2) for doing what reporters are supposed to do. It’s easy to take Montgomery’s side in this dispute. Flacks have never been in the truth-telling business, a non-controversial observation that doesn’t need to be defended. From public relations’ earliest days, the flack’s job has been to bathe the client in the cool flattery of the north light and undermine anybody who opposes him. Call it advocacy, call it persuasion, call it spin or call it propaganda, but a flack’s primary job is to frame selected facts into a context that will make his client shine. Ask any salesman.

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Putin visits occupied Mariupol, staking claim to invaded Ukrainian lands

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit on Saturday evening to occupied Mariupol, the eastern Ukrainian city that Russia seized in May after mostly destroying it during a brutal months-long siege. The visit was a symbolic display of bravado by Putin, just a day after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes and right before a state visit to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which begins Monday. But even as Putin personally staked his claim to occupied Ukrainian territory, international condemnation of him grew louder. Germany’s justice minister, Marco Buschmann told the Bild newspaper that German authorities would arrest Putin, in accordance with the warrant, if he set foot in their country. President Biden on Saturday also backed the court’s decision, saying “It’s justified.”

Officials in Russia, which like the United States does not recognize the international court’s jurisdiction, described the warrant as unlawful. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called it “outrageous and unacceptable” but also “null and void” from a legal perspective. The visit to Mariupol was Putin’s first known trip to occupied Ukrainian territory since the start of his invasion in February last year. Since then, the West estimates some 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine. Highlighting the security concerns, the Kremlin announced the visit only on Sunday morning after Putin had left. Ukraine’s defense ministry accused Putin of visiting at night “like a thief.” The Russain president was flown into Mariupol on a helicopter. The city, on the Azov Sea, sits about 60 miles south of active fighting. It is part of the Donetsk region, one of four Ukrainian provinces, along with Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, that Russia claims to have annexed, in violation of international law.

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Lead Stories

Texas Senate approves winter storm gas debt bail out that could benefit consumers

It’s been about a week since the state of Texas issued more than $3.4 billion in bonds to pay off the debt from exorbitant fuel costs gas utilities accrued during the deadly February 2021 winter storm. But those bonds could possibly be paid back within months, leading utilities and their consumers – an estimated 90% of Texans who use gas to heat their homes and cook their meals – to save at least $1 billion under a Senate budget plan approved this week. On Wednesday, the Texas Senate quickly approved Senate Bill 30, the chamber’s supplemental budget that includes a laundry list of one-time payments ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to several billion for programs, facilities and other projects. Among the most expensive is more than $3.8 billion that SB 30 would use to pay back debt that eight Texas gas utilities, including North Texas’ Atmos Energy, racked up during the 2021 storm.

Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, SB 30?s author, estimated that paying off the debt now would save consumers about $1 billion in interest payments that would have shown up in monthly gas bills. All gas utilities in Texas are nonprofit utilities. “The way I look at it, this is $3.8 billion that goes directly to consumers in the state of Texas,” Huffman said. The Legislature finds itself flush with cash with a record breaking surplus, a fattened rainy day fund and massive tax revenues fueled a COVID-19 economic comeback and inflation. Senate leader Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan, both Republicans, have prioritized using the surplus to reduce property taxes. But even with dueling proposals each nearing $17 billion, the state has plenty left to spend. That’s given Huffman, the Senate’s budget writer, plenty of room to answer the myriad of calls for extra funding from state departments. During the February 2021 winter storm that killed more than 200 Texans, natural gas prices on the spot market shot to astronomical levels, earning some production and pipeline companies billions in profits while creating billions in debt for electric and gas utilities.

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World shares up after First Republic aid spurs Wall St rally

Markets advanced Friday in Europe and Asia, tracking a rally on Wall Street after a group of big banks offered a lifeline to First Republic Bank, the latest U.S. lender in the spotlight for troubles in the banking industry. Shares rose in Paris, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong but edged lower in Mumbai. U.S. futures edged higher, while oil prices gained. The S&P 500 jumped 1.8% Thursday, erasing earlier losses following reports that First Republic Bank could get help or sell itself to another bank. Markets have gyrated this week on concerns over the toll on banks from the fastest set of interest rate hikes in decades. The turmoil flared with last week’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. “The market remains cautious; traders do not want to get overexcited, especially with investors still focusing on what can go wrong instead of what could go right,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a report.

Germany’s DAX gained 0.9% in early trading, to 15,102.37 and the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.7% at 7,075.74. In London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.8% to 7,471.98. Credit Suisse’s shares dropped as much as 5% on the Swiss stock exchange Friday, a day after the Swiss central bank agreed to loan the bank up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) to shore up its finances. Shares of Switzerland’s second-largest lender have been whipsawing: They soared as much as 33% on Thursday after plunging by nearly as much the day before when the bank’s biggest shareholder said it would not invest more money. The future for the S&P 500 inched 0.1% higher while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was unchanged. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.8% to 19,548.26 and the Shanghai Composite index added 0.7% to 3,450.55. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 1.2% to 27,333.79 and the Kospi in Seoul was up 0.8% at 2,395.69. Shares in major Japanese banks rebounded after falling sharply at times this week. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.4% to 6,994.80. India’s Sensex was 0.1% higher while Taiwan’s Taiex surged 1.5%. Stocks rallied Thursday on Wall Street after 11 of the biggest banks offered help for First Republic with a combined deposit of $30 billion. Since SVB’s failure, investors have been on the lookout for banks with similar traits, such as many depositors with more than the $250,000 limit that’s insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., tech startups and other highly connected people who can spread worries about a bank’s strength quickly.

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Universities navigate diversity as Abbott and GOP target programs

As Republicans attack diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses, the state’s flagship universities are doing everything they can to assure future students and faculty that they are still committed to diversity while also placating GOP leaders. Over the last two months, top Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have launched an all-out assault on the programs, known as DEI, at public colleges. While universities point to big diversity gains over the last five years, in part because of their DEI efforts, Abbott has called the practices potentially discriminatory, and some state legislators have vowed to cut college funding in retaliation. That pressure increased Thursday as GOP leaders proposed barring the use of state funding for support of DEI programs. The state budget has months of work ahead, but the language added this week is the first concrete signal that millions of dollars are now in jeopardy for college campuses.

College presidents have responded by appealing to politicians who hold the fate of the budgets in their hands, while also trying to assure students and faculty that they are not retreating from efforts to be more representative of what the state’s population looks like. “We’re all looking for ways to have a diverse, vibrant campus that works for all our students, all of our community, and do that in a way with excellence,” the University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell told Hearst Newspapers this week, without directly talking about the anti-DEI campaign. Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said his system is more committed than ever to getting into diverse communities and neighborhoods to recruit both students and faculty. But the University of Texas System has already paused new DEI programs and vowed to review all its existing efforts after Abbott sent warning letters to all public colleges on the issue. The Texas A&M University System also announced last month that it was banning requirements for jobs or admissions candidates to submit DEI statements as part of their applications. The rollback couldn’t be happening at a worse time, according to state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. Diversity programs have been a big reason why colleges have seen improvements in their attempts to address systemic racial barriers, he said. West worries that the anti-DEI campaign will drive students from Black and Hispanic families elsewhere, reversing the gains.

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Texas bill could ‘protect wrongdoers’ like Big Pharma, oil companies from county lawsuits

Counties are sounding the alarm over a Republican bill that would strip away state law that allows them to sue pharmaceutical companies over community costs of their opioids and oil and gas companies over water contamination. Legislation introduced by Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, would prevent counties from filing “public nuisance action” suits over issues that cause harm to the community. The current law has been a crucial argument in the opioid settlements that landed counties $1.8 billion. Democratic committee members questioned the need to pass legislation that would upend counties’ future ability to sue such companies. “Why is it necessary to limit this one avenue or cause of action when it’s obviously most recently used in a very important way that has substantial benefit to the people of Texas?” Rep. Julie Johnson, D- Farmers Branch, asked Harris.

“We’re seeing the slippery slope of public nuisance being used in a way that historically has not been and was not intended,” he replied. Harris said local governments use public nuisance lawsuits to go around the legislature. “This bill is really about the appropriate roles to be played by the three branches of our government,” he told the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee on Wednesday. Harris’ office did not respond to multiple requests for further comment from The Dallas Morning News. Jack Walker with the Texas Trial Lawyers Association said removing counties’ ability to sue companies over impacts to their work or products on communities would leave taxpayers — voters — to pick up the costs. “If this bill passed, it would protect wrongdoers,” he said. Officials from blue urban counties and deep red counties testified, all saying this would handicap their ability to hold companies accountable. Across the nation, governments and tribes allege that Big Pharma ignited a public health crisis by aggressively marketing and selling opioids. Governments have sued these companies to compensate for years of soaring costs on hospitals, law enforcement, courts and families as communities grapple with the aftermath of addiction. Dallas County is set to receive $24.6 million in settlement and plans to spend the funds on substance abuse remediation. “I urge you all to vote against this bill. This is a tool that we need for whatever the next opioid crisis is,” Dallas County’s Assistant Administrator Charles Reed told the committee.

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State Stories

Rep. Harold Dutton lone Democrat cheering HISD takeover as Jackson Lee asks Biden to intervene

State Rep. Harold Dutton stood by himself on Thursday afternoon. The room was almost empty for the Houston Democrat's news conference in support of the state's takeover of the Houston Independent School District, where he addressed just a few reporters and members of his own staff for about an hour. It was a sharp contrast to Wednesday, when the House Democratic Caucus and the Legislative Black Caucus held a packed briefing decrying the move as a frontal assault from Gov. Greg Abbott on the state's public education system. Dutton — never afraid to buck his own party — authored the legislation that caused the takeover to move forward in the first place, a 2015 bill saying the state would take over school districts with a single failing school for five consecutive years.

He is also a graduate of Wheatley High School, the campus whose failure triggered the takeover, and he steadfastly defended the state's takeover of its largest school district. "Somebody asked me and said 'Well, all of these people are against this idea and you seem to be the only one for it,' " Dutton said. "I said, 'Well, maybe that's the case, but I remember something my mother told me: that sometimes, right, you will have to stand by yourself. That you won't be able to stand with a group. So today I stand by myself in hopes that somehow we can change the dynamics of these kids that I know need all the help they can get." House Democrats and members of the Legislative Black Caucus have said the state set up Houston ISD to fail through underfunding, and is now pursuing a takeover as part of a broader attack on traditional public schools in favor of charter schools and private institutions. Abbott has been leading the campaign this session for private school vouchers, while also openly attacking diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools. “This is an attempt to push vouchers, to push (charters), to promote and perpetuate the things that Gov. Abbott believes and hears about, and that obviously isn't diversity, equity and inclusion,” said state Rep. Ron Reynolds then, another Houston Democrat, and the leader of the Legislative Black Caucus.

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Texas Senate pushes to add natural gas power plants, curb growth of renewables

State senators are aggressively pursuing a plan to build more natural gas power plants and curb the growth of wind and solar energy in Texas, getting behind a suite of bills that energy experts say will walk back the state’s deregulated electricity market. The nine-bill package has bipartisan support, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has threatened to force a special session if lawmakers don’t agree to bolster natural gas production this spring. Senators say the federal government offers unfair incentives to wind and solar plants, given how unreliable they can be during extreme weather events, making it tough for non-renewable energy providers to compete.

Texas has to have generation "that can be counted on when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining,” state Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican and the chair of the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, said during a press conference last week. The legislation would add to grid reforms the Legislature passed after the deadly winter freeze in 2021, which Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans have unduly blamed on wind and solar generation. Those failures were mostly attributable to a massive drop in natural gas production that prolonged statewide outages, federal investigators determined. Chief among the proposals is a plan to create a Texas “electricity insurance” program that would pay for 10,000 megawatts of new natural gas fired generation to be ready during an extreme weather event. Schwertner, who authored Senate Bill 6, compared it to a statewide backup generator. Senate Bill 7 would require solar and wind providers to have battery back-ups or agreements with natural gas plants to help them provide electricity if necessary. Another measure would require at least half of all new generation built in Texas to be coal or natural gas-powered – what’s known as“dispatchable” energy – starting in 2024.

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Bills to ban youth transgender medical treatments get first debate in Texas committee

In marathon hearing that lasted well into the evening, a Texas Senate committee on Thursday debated several bills to ban gender affirming care for transgender minors and penalize doctors who provide it.. Senate Bill 14, the first to be heard, would bar doctors from providing a number of common treatments for gender dysphoria to those under 18, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical interventions, commonly referred to as “gender affirming care.” It would also require the state medical board to revoke the license of physicians who provide this care, and bar taxpayer money to entities or individuals that “facilitates or provides” these treatments to minors. Debate on the bills began just after 1:30 p.m. and lasted around nine hours. The committee did not vote on any of the legislation, but could at any future date it meets. If passed, the next stop will be a debate in the full Texas Senate. Both chambers must approve and the governor must sign any bill for it to become law.

Campbell, an ER doctor, said her bill is meant to protect children from what she described as a “cottage industry” eager to capitalize on the confusion and concern of families and kids. The bill would not prohibit these same treatments for non-transgender minors. “Our children need counseling and love, not blades and drugs,” said Campbell, R-New Braunfels. More than 50 members of the public spoke, nearly equally split between those for and against. The debate was mostly polite and subdued, with a few brief bursts of contention and emotion. Contrary to past sessions when transgender youth and their families packed hearing rooms on similar bills, their presence was largely absent this year after the state began investigating gender affirming care given to minors as child abuse. Jacqueline Murphy, 22, waited until 7:00 p.m. to testify against the bill. “I understand that this committee is unlikely to be swayed by the facts of the issue,” said Murphy, a transgender woman from Austin who said she began puberty blockers and hormone therapy as a minor. “Whether it is because of genuine bigotry or merely political expediency, you have made your political mission clear. You are not protecting me.”

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Austin real estate investor Nate Paul gets 11th-hour reprieve from jail time

An appeals court granted an 11th-hour stay that will keep embattled Austin real estate investor Nate Paul from serving 10 days in the Travis County Jail. Paul has made headlines in recent years over a 2019 raid of his office and home by state and federal investigators, as well as his ties to state Attorney General Ken Paxton that became the subject of a whistleblower case by several of Paxton's former top deputies. Back in 2020, the deputies accused Paxton of criminal conduct that they said benefited Paul. Separately, Paul has been entangled in numerous bankruptcy proceedings and legal battles with his debtholders in recent years, and he has lost a number of high-profile properties — including the 3M campus in far Northwest Austin — as a result.

A March 3 letter sent by Elliott Beck, a staff attorney for state District Judge Jan Soifer, said Soifer found Paul in contempt of court. She fined him $181,760 for violating court orders, including making illegal transfers from bank accounts — allegations that Paul denies. Soifer ordered Paul to serve 10 days in jail beginning Wednesday. On Tuesday, Paul narrowly avoided having to report to jail at 10 a.m. Wednesday on the contempt order after the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals granted a motion filed by Paul's attorney, Brent Perry. Soifer's sanctions against Paul stem from a lawsuit the Austin-based Roy F. & Joann Cole Mitte Foundation, a nonprofit that had sued Paul for fraud. Paul has denied wrongdoing in connection with the claims in the Mitte lawsuit, and the allegations involving Paxton in the whistleblower case. Ray Chester, an attorney for the Mitte Foundation, said Tuesday's ruling allows Paul to postpone his jail sentence until the Court of Appeals has considered the merits of his appeal. "He still has to pay us the sanctions tomorrow. That part is not stayed," Chester said.

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Amy O'Donnell: Texas abortion laws protect babies and mothers

(Amy O’Donnell is the communications director of Texas Alliance for Life.) Recently, the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based abortion advocacy firm, filed a lawsuit asking a state court to clarify the scope of the exceptions in Texas abortion laws regarding pregnant women with certain rare but life-threatening medical conditions. The case, filed on behalf of five Texas women and two physicians, is Zurawski vs. Texas. In our modern era, these types of life-threatening situations are rare. Our hearts go out to each woman mentioned in the brief who experienced the loss of her unborn child due to a fatal fetal diagnosis or an unsustainable pregnancy for medical reasons. When we heard about Amanda Zurawski’s case specifically, my organization consulted with six well-informed doctors in this area of medicine. When Zurawski was in her 18th week, well before viability, she suffered from a rare but severe condition known as preterm premature rupture of membranes, or PPROM. In other words, her water broke.

Because the unborn baby was so young, there was little chance for her baby to survive. Without intervention, Zurawski’s life was in danger from infection. All six doctors said the standard of care is to induce labor with the intent to save the mother’s life, knowing that, sadly, the unborn child would not survive, and to do so without waiting until the woman’s death is imminent or for the baby’s heart to stop beating. All confirmed this is permitted under Texas law. Unfortunately, that is not what her physician did. Her doctor waited until Ms. Zurawski developed sepsis before providing the appropriate treatment. Tragically, she lost her baby, and she almost lost her life. But that had nothing to do with Texas law. It is a dangerous lie that lifesaving care is not permitted under Texas pro-life laws. The language of the life of the mother exception in Texas law is clear: no woman with a life-threatening pregnancy should be required to wait before receiving treatment from her physician. Much misinformation and confusion have been widely perpetuated regarding the life of the mother exception within Texas pro-life laws. However, Texas’ laws are carefully crafted to allow doctors to promptly treat women with life-threatening conditions without the risk of criminal or civil liability.

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Texas health leaders provide update on preparations for Medicaid redeterminations, say concerns remain

Presenting on a panel at the 2023 Texas State of Reform Health Policy Conference in Austin on Thursday, senior officials from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), Texas Association of Community Health Centers (TACHC), and Every Texan outlined the statewide coordination that was the start of Medicaid redeterminations next month.

When the Public Health Emergency’s continuous Medicaid coverage provision ends on April 1st, HHSC is required to evaluate the entire state Medicaid population of 5.9 million members over a 12-month period for eligibility. Valerie Mayes, HHSC deputy chief program and services officer, said the agency would be dividing the Medicaid population along two parallel tracks: those who remain eligible for Medicaid and those who benefited from continuous coverage provisions and might not be eligible anymore. The 2.7 million people estimated to be in the latter group will be further divided into three cohorts based on the information that was available and their likelihood to maintain coverage after the process. Mayes said the agency would first check electronic data sources to attempt an ex parte or administrative renewal. If it is unable to make a determination based on that information, the client would be sent a request-for-information packet, which they will then have 30 days to return.

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A costly gender gap: Texas women working full time earn $12,000 less than men annually

Every year, advocates mark Equal Pay Day to draw attention to the nation’s persistent gender-based pay disparities. The day is determined by how many days into a new year the average American woman must work in order to earn what the average American man earned the previous year. Texas women earn an average of $12,475 per year less than white Texas men. But as in the rest of the nation, the size of the gender wage gap varies widely by race. Black women in Texas average almost $27,000 less than white men each year, and Asian American women earn about $21,000 less. For Native American Texans, the gap is nearly $34,000. The gap is largest for Texas Latinas, at almost $36,000. A new report from the National Partnership for Women and Families digs into some of the causes of these inequities.

The biggest driver, according to the report, is “occupational segregation.” The term points to the historical and structural factors that effectively sort women and men toward different fields, driving inequities. Women are often excluded or steered away from the higher-paying jobs in fields dominated by men. Of the 20 highest-paid jobs, women make up less than 30% of the workforce. And even in the high-paying jobs where women are better represented, like lawyers and nurse anesthetists, it’s disproportionately white women in the jobs. Meanwhile, women account for nearly two-thirds of the workforce in the 20 occupations with the lowest median wages. Women of color are overrepresented in many of these jobs like child care, laundry service and cleaning. “We as a society really undervalue the kinds of job where women are concentrated in. And those are often really essential jobs like child care, or home health aides,” Mason said. The lowest-paying jobs are also the least likely to offer basic benefits like paid family and medical leave or paid sick days. That further curbs wages because women still do far more unpaid family caregiving — for children, or elderly relatives — than men. Disability is also a major determinant of wages, the report points out. Women with disabilities who work full time face high levels of occupational segregation, inadequate workplace accommodations and discrimination, and earn significantly less than nondisabled men because of it.

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Texas House panel adopts budget cutting taxes, freezing tuition, helping retired teachers

A House spending blueprint for Texas that would buy down local school property taxes, freeze state college tuition for two years, give retired teachers their first cost of living adjustment in 19 years and begin installing air conditioning in 30 prison units won tentative approval Thursday from the Appropriations panel. What might have been a festive occasion — budget writers have an unprecedented amount of money to spread around this year — turned somber when the usually decorous Appropriations Committee wrangled over a proposed cutoff of any funds for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state colleges and universities. On a party-line vote of 16-10, Republicans turned back Democrats’ impassioned pleas for removal of Dripping Springs GOP Rep. Carrie Isaac’s provision. The committee’s budget bill, more than 1,000 pages, now goes to the printer. A final vote by the panel is expected next week, with a House floor debate expected April 5-6.

As filed in January, both the House and the Senate’s base budgets would spend $130.1 billion of state discretionary money known as “general revenue.” But Comptroller Glenn Hegar forecast the current cycle will end this summer with a record cash balance in the general fund. With steady growth of the economy and revenue in the next two years, the amounts of money on the table before lawmakers became breath-taking. In Hegar’s words, “astonishing.” The base budgets spent $43.6 billion less general revenue than allowed by a “pay-as-you-go limit” Texas voters adopted in the 1940s. That’s in addition to $27.1 billion expected to build up in the state’s “rainy day fund” by Aug. 31, 2025. On Thursday, how much general revenue the House budget would spend wasn’t available, though it appeared to be at least $136 billion. But even that figure obscured reality, after the House panel used the last $5.4 billion of federal COVID-19 relief money for states to pay for prison system salaries “The recommendations that you have made are going to make some very lasting, generational investments for the people of this state in education, in tax relief, in infrastructure,” committee Chairman Greg Bonnen told his colleagues. The Friendswood Republican said budget writers are blessed “to be here at a time when we have a really unique opportunity in Texas history to do some things that some of us who have been here a little while haven’t otherwise had the resources to do.”

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Samsung's new Texas chip plant cost rises above $25 billion

A chip plant that South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co is building in Taylor, Texas, will cost the world's biggest memory chipmaker over $25 billion, up more than $8 billion from initial forecasts, according to three people familiar with the matter. The increase in cost is primarily due to inflation, the people said, declining to be named because the information was not public. "The higher construction cost is about 80% of the cost increase," one of the sources said. "The materials have gotten more expensive," the source added. A second source said "the newly estimated cost could go up even more if the construction of the Taylor plant gets delayed," adding that the estimate could be fluid. "The later the plant is completed, the higher cost we would be looking at."

Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chipmakers are applying for billions in grants from the Biden administration thanks to the CHIPS Act, aimed at ramping up chip production in the United States. But increasing costs raise questions about how far those dollars will go. The bill was proposed in 2020, before a historic run-up in inflation that U.S. officials are still working to tame. U.S. Commerce Department officials said early this month that most government grants will only cover up to 15% of the cost of new plants. Meanwhile, in the three years since lawmakers first floated the $52 billion figure for CHIPS Act grants, of which only $39 billion is now earmarked for direct investment in plant construction, the cost of labor has risen sharply, along with the price of construction materials like steel. That could push up the cost of what are already huge spending plans. Last year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, announced it was more than tripling a planned investment in a new plant in Arizona to $40 billion.

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San Antonio, Austin groups team up to lobby for economic development programs

Greater:SATX, San Antonio's main economic development organization, is working with Opportunity Austin to push for legislation aimed at attracting and retaining businesses. The push includes advocating for a replacement for a controversial tax break program known as Chapter 313 and supporting a bill that would provide incentives for manufacturing projects, said Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, president and CEO of Greater:SATX, a public-private nonprofit formerly known as the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation. "We are specifically focused on economic development ... policies that foster economic growth," she said.

The Chapter 313 program, created in 2001 and named for its location in the Texas tax code, allowed companies to cut a decade's worth of school property tax bills they would otherwise owe on manufacturing and energy projects. The state gave local school districts the taxes the companies did not pay. The Legislature voted to let the program expire at the end of 2022, after a Hearst Newspapers investigation examining the track record of Chapter 313 deals creating jobs and luring companies to Texas instead of other states. Chambers of commerce, trade groups and other business organizations are now urging state lawmakers to create a replacement and warning that companies will opt to put headquarters and projects elsewhere if that does not happen. Gov. Greg Abbott recently told business leaders in Arlington that legislators are seeking "to ensure that we will have economic development tools going forward," the Texas Tribune reported. He also said Chapter 313's expiration influenced Micron's decision to build a computer chip factory in New York instead of Texas.

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'No foul play', but Fort Hood soldier's death sparks cries of harassment, flashbacks of Vanessa Guillén

The parents of a Fort Hood soldier who died Monday say she was the target of sexual harassment and likened her case to the disappearance and murder of Spc. Vanessa Guillén. Fort Hood provided few details about Pvt. Ana Basalduaruiz’s death, including the cause, in a brief news release issued Wednesday. The post said Thursday afternoon “that at this point in the investigation,” no foul play “is evident” in her death, but the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division would continue probing the incident. The post said commanders would “fully” investigate the sexual harassment allegations. Basalduaruiz’s family could not be reached Thursday. The Army said Basalduaruiz, 20, listed her home of record as Long Beach, Calif. She joined the Army in July 2021 and was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team’s 91st Engineer Battalion in December 2021.

“A loss of any one of our soldiers is a tragedy and it is no different in the death of Private Ana Basalduaruiz. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Ana,” said Col. Christopher Dempsey, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. “We have remained in constant contact with both parents of Private Basalduaruiz, and will continue to keep them updated.” The statement said the Criminal Investigation Division and the chain of command were “actively investigating the facts and circumstances surrounding her death” and “in contact with her family to keep them updated, receive any concerns, and provide them all releasable information. “Additionally, the chain of command is also providing support and resources to her family and troopers that served with her.” Basalduaruiz’s mother, Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, said her daughter told her weeks ago that a higher-ranking soldier was “harassing her” and that she’d been the object of repeated sexual advances from other people on the post, according to Noticias Telemundo. In a phone interview from her home in Michoacán, the Mexican state where she lives, Ruiz Zarco added that her daughter said, “everyone wants me to sleep with them” but they were repugnant people. “(She told me) that she wanted to see me, that she wanted to hug me, and she wanted me to hug her a lot, like when she was little,” Ruiz Zarco told Telemundo.

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Texas Democrats ask U.S. government to prioritize union workplaces for clean energy funds

The Texas Democratic congressional delegation, led by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, submitted a letter last week that called on the U.S. Department of Energy to prioritize federal funds for hydrogen energy development for union businesses. The federal government is spending billions of dollars on the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs Program, which, the letter said, will involve hydrogen production, delivery, processing, storage, and end-use and create jobs. Businesses who want a piece of the funding must apply for it, and the letter laid out several things the Texas Democrats want the DOE to consider when doling out the funds. They include “written confirmation” from businesses that they will offer good paying union jobs, a “signed community workforce agreement with participating Texas labor organizations and disadvantaged community groups,” a “written labor peace agreement” as workers decide whether to form unions, and a “written plan for existing unionized fossil fuel workers to transition into unionized hydrogen jobs.”

Texas AFL-CIO president Rick Levy, who spoke in support of the letter in a press release from the Texas Democratic delegation, said with the recent passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and all of its funding for clean energy infrastructure development, workers have a narrow window of opportunity. “This is the moment, and this is where we’re setting the course for these industries for decades and even generations to come,” Levy said. “And that is why we are so committed to putting the resources in to make this happen, because this is going to shape the future for a long, long time. And if we miss this boat, we’re going to be swimming for a long time.” Levy said one of the reasons creating union clean energy was so important to him was that it offered unionized fossil fuel workers a way to retain high-quality, good-paying jobs as that industry eventually winds down. “They know the world is changing under their feet. They see evidence of it every day,” he said. “And what they need to understand is that there is a path forward.” He said one of the problems with how the clean energy industry is currently run is that it lacks unions — meaning low-wage jobs are pervasive. “The solar industry is plagued with low-road employers, contingent employment, just a transitory workforce,” Levy said. “So when somebody tells [fossil fuel workers]: ‘Hey you don’t need to work in your refinery where you get $40 an hour and benefits and union protection, you can go be a solar installer and make $12.25 an hour and get 1099’ed or whatever,’ no, they’re not going to be interested in that.”

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Amanda Zurawski: I’m suing Texas over its abortion laws. Here’s my story

(Amanda Zurawski is one of five patients suing the state of Texas over its abortion restrictions. Two doctors are also plaintiffs. This essay was adapted from a speech she gave announcing the lawsuit.) About six months ago, I was thrilled to be cruising through the second trimester of my first pregnancy. I was carrying our daughter, Willow, who had finally, blissfully been conceived after 18 months of grueling fertility treatment. My husband and I were beyond thrilled. Then, on a sunny August day, after I had just finished the invite list for the baby shower my sister was planning for me, everything changed. Some unexpected and curious symptoms arrived. I contacted my obstetrician to be safe, and was surprised when I was told to come in as soon as possible. After a brief examination, my husband and I received the harrowing news that I had dilated prematurely due to a condition known as cervical insufficiency. Soon after, my membranes ruptured prematurely, and we were told by multiple doctors that, because of the seriousness of this condition, called PPROM, the loss of our daughter was inevitable. I asked what could be done to ensure the respectful passing of our baby, and what could protect me from a deadly infection now that my body was unprotected and vulnerable.

My health care team was anguished as they explained there was nothing they could do because of Texas’s anti-abortion laws, the latest of which had taken effect two days after my water broke. It meant that even though we would, with complete certainty, lose Willow, my doctor could not intervene as long as her heart was beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk and permit the standard health care I needed at that point — an abortion. So even though I had lost all of my amniotic fluid — something an unborn child simply cannot survive without — we had to wait. I cannot adequately put into words the trauma and despair that comes with waiting to either lose your own life, your child’s, or both. For days, I was locked in this bizarre and avoidable hell. Would Willow’s heart stop, or would I deteriorate to the brink of death? The answer arrived three long days later. In a matter of minutes, I went from being physically healthy to developing sepsis — a condition in which bacteria in the blood develops into infection, with the ability to kill in under an hour. What I needed was an abortion, a standard medical procedure.

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APD charges 17 more people in street takeover investigation

Austin police say 17 more people are facing charges in connection with the high-profile street takeovers that happened last month. Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon said Thursday most of the suspects came in from outside the Austin city limits to participate in the viral street "sideshows." Chacon said the work of a statewide task force of law enforcement led to the charges, ranging from misdemeanors for reckless driving to felonies for organized crime. All told, Chacon said 24 people are facing charges — six are still at large. "They came from Houston, from Dallas, from San Antonio and other cities," Chacon said. "And as a matter of fact, most of the arrests that we have already made were not here in the city of Austin. They were actually in other cities across the state."

Chacon said seven intersections in Austin were shut down overnight on Feb. 18. This led to a crush of 911 calls as police scrambled to respond. The statewide investigation is ongoing. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said his department has been working closely with the Austin Police Department and Travis County District Attorney José Garza, who's expected to formally bring charges against defendants next week. McCraw said the issue of street takeovers isn't isolated to Austin, and the investigation, dubbed "Operation Burnout," is a statewide endeavor. "If you're involved in a street takeover, we're certainly going after you," he said. "We're going after your vehicle. You'll ... be arrested, prosecuted, your vehicle seized, and [we're] also going after your driver's license, as well."

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Advocates push for law to criminalize medical child abuse

The disorder in which a caretaker lies about or causes a child’s illness to obtain unnecessary medical care goes by several names: Munchausen syndrome by proxy, factitious disorder imposed upon another, fabricated or induced illness by carers. The act itself is referred to as medical child abuse. One county catches more perpetrators of medical child abuse than any other, according to leading experts in the field. Tarrant County, according to experts, is an anomaly. In Tarrant County, multiple systems are able to recognize, report and investigate suspected cases of medical child abuse in a unique way. But even here, suspected cases are difficult to prosecute. Evidence may show a child is being medically abused, but no laws exist to criminalize medical child abuse specifically. It is not illegal to lie to a doctor about your child’s health, even if those lies result in unnecessary surgery. Authorities have to prosecute a perpetrator for injury caused by a surgery or medical treatment, which experts say creates a convoluted case juries and judges may not understand.

“I think Tarrant County … is doing the best job in the United States of exploring the possibility of Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” said Dr. Marc Feldman, who has been a leading expert in medical child abuse for decades. “But the jury is still out, literally, on how the court system is handling these cases.” But even here, suspected cases are difficult to prosecute. Evidence may show a child is being medically abused, but no laws exist to criminalize medical child abuse specifically. It is not illegal to lie to a doctor about your child’s health, even if those lies result in unnecessary surgery. Authorities have to prosecute a perpetrator for injury caused by a surgery or medical treatment, which experts say creates a convoluted case juries and judges may not understand. “I think Tarrant County … is doing the best job in the United States of exploring the possibility of Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” said Dr. Marc Feldman, who has been a leading expert in medical child abuse for decades. “But the jury is still out, literally, on how the court system is handling these cases.” Advocates want to change that with a groundbreaking Texas state law that would legally address medical child abuse with a specific criminal charge for the first time.

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City Stories

ACS changes San Antonio's dog bite policy, stepping up enforcement after deadly mauling

San Antonio residents whose dogs have been deemed "dangerous" or picked up at least twice for biting someone will soon receive a visit from Animal Care Services. The city will be scrutinizing those dogs more closely after an 81-year-old Air Force veteran was killed by loose dogs that escaped from their West Side yard four weeks ago. San Antonio also is toughening its response to dog bites. The new policy, outlined by City Manager Erik Walsh, stipulates that Animal Care Services will issue criminal citations instead of civil penalties to any dog owner whose unrestrained pet leaves their property and bites a victim. Dogs in such cases will be quarantined for 10 days to be monitored for rabies.

A dog owner whose pet bites someone while on the owner's property will be issued a civil citation. Previously, animal control officials had discretion on whether to issue a civil citation or a criminal citation in such cases. But the city is taking a sterner approach since Ramon Najera Jr. was killed Feb. 24 in an attack that forced San Antonio firefighters to wield axes and poles against the dogs. The dogs' onslaught against Najera was so vicious that the animals would have been shot and killed had police arrived before the firefighters, Walsh said this week. But firefighters had to take matters into their own hands since they rolled up first. "Most pet owners take great care of their animals," Walsh said in a memo outlining the enforcement policy changes to Mayor Ron Nirenberg and City Council this week. "However, irresponsible pet owners need to be held accountable." The council is scheduled to discuss Animal Care Services' strategic plan at a meeting set for 2 p.m. Wednesday.

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Sharon Grigsby: Dallas kids are under assault. What’s behind uptick in violence involving young victims?

Picture your own child or one you care about. Maybe a nephew, a friend’s daughter or a youngster in the Sunday school class you teach. Now think about these children: The three Ellis County kids, ages 5 and 6, who police say were stabbed to death by their mother two weeks ago in an attack that left two younger siblings hospitalized in serious condition. The 11-year-old who police say was fatally shot by his mom’s ex-boyfriend as the youngster slept in his home on the edge of Dallas’ Preston Hollow neighborhood last weekend. The 2-year-old hospitalized in unknown condition the same day after police say he discharged a loaded gun in his Oak Cliff home. The infant whom police discovered unharmed last Sunday night in the northwest Dallas apartment where four adults lay shot and killed. The 7-year-old Dallas boy who police say witnessed his dad being shot to death as they waited in the family car for the pre-arranged sale of two laptops and a cell phone in a warehouse area just south of I-20. It was the little boy who called 911 to seek help for his mortally wounded father.

What if your child had been one of these innocent victims of death, injury or trauma? To those of you who want to stop reading because the awfulness is too much to sit with, stop and think what it was like for the children at the heart of these stories. To those pulled by the undercurrent of bias or disapproving snap judgment, push beyond those reactions. Ignore that desire to say these tragedies occur in families nothing like yours. Let’s quit looking for the differences, shake off our collective numbness and instead focus on how we can help heal this scourge of violence. I don’t have iron-clad answers, but I know we can’t let these children’s stories go unnoticed. We have to stand up for them. The word victim gets a lot of airplay in today’s society. Victims of sexism, racism and ageism. Victims of bad bosses and social media stalkers. The victims you don’t hear from are kids. You don’t see their faces or hear their voices because they can’t stand up and speak for themselves.

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National Stories

Banks borrow $164.8 billion from Fed in rush to backstop liquidity

Banks sought record amounts of emergency liquidity from the Federal Reserve over recent days in the wake of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which in turn helped undo months of central bank efforts to shrink the size of its balance sheet, Fed data showed on Thursday. Banks took an all-time high $152.9 billion from the Fed's traditional lender-of-last resort facility known as the discount window as of Wednesday, while also taking $11.9 billion in loans from the Fed's newly created Bank Term Lending Program. Taken together, the credit extended through the two backstops show a banking system that is still fragile and dealing with deposit migration in the wake of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank of California and Signature Bank of New York last week. Other credit extensions totaled $142.8 billion during the week, which reflects lending by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to bridge banks for SVB and Signature Bank.

On the other side, EPFR Global data cited by Bank of America Corp. showed money-market funds attracted $113 billion of inflows, the most since April 2020, while Treasuries drew the biggest inflows since May 2022 with $9.8 billion in the week through March 15. All told, the emergency loans reversed around half of the balance-sheet shrinkage that the Fed has achieved since it began so-called quantitative tightening — allowing its portfolio of assets to run down — in June last year. And the central bank’s reserve balances jumped by some $440 billion in a week — which “basically reversed all the Fed’s QT efforts,” according to Capital Economics. “It is about in line with what we expected,” said Michael Gapen, head of US economics for Bank of America Securities in New York. Gapen said the higher rates of discount-window borrowing over the new Bank Term Funding facility may reflect the broader set of collateral that banks are able to pledge at the window. On Thursday afternoon, the nation’s biggest banks agreed upon a plan to deposit about $30 billion with First Republic Bank in an effort orchestrated by the US government to stabilize the battered California lender. The US Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. stepped in and exercised unusual powers over the weekend to protect all depositors of both SVB and Signature. Typically, depositors are only insured up to $250,000.

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Flight delay: SpaceX now targeting April for first orbital launch

SpaceX has again revised its timeline for when the first Starship orbital launch is likely to take place. In early January, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said a March launch attempt from Boca Chica/Starbase appeared “highly likely,” though Musk revealed that April is the new target during a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco on March 7. “We’re getting close for our first orbital test of Starship,” he said. “Hopefully in the next month or so we’ll have our first attempt. I’m not saying it’ll get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring.” Repeated timeline revisions are par for the course for SpaceX. In this case, the company’s decision to install a massive water-deluge system to protect Boca Chica’s launch pad from the enormous heat and pressure of the Super Heavy BN7 booster’s 33 engines firing all at once may have played a role in the most recent delay.

SpaceX crews have also been installing shields to protect piping, control panels and other equipment in and around the orbital launch mount and affixing the last thermal tiles to the six-engine Starship SN24, which will sit atop the Super Heavy for the flight. Electronic navigational buoys the company will use to cordon off a wide area of the Gulf to marine traffic during the flight are already on site at Boca Chica and waiting to be deployed. The company conducted a successful “wet dress rehearsal” — everything leading up to the actual launch — on Jan. 23 and a static-fire test of 31 of BN7’s 33 engines on Feb. 9. Super Heavy has roughly 2.5 times more thrust than the most powerful rocket in history, the Saturn V, which sent the Apollo astronauts to the moon. SpaceX’s plan is for Super Heavy to separate from Starship a little over two minutes into the flight and land in the Gulf roughly 20 miles offshore. Starship would continue through the Straits of Florida and achieve orbit briefly before landing in the ocean inside the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility 60 miles north of Kauai, Hawaii. The company is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a launch license for the inaugural orbital flight, though SpaceX President Gywnne Shotwell said on Feb. 8 that she thinks the license will come through around the time Starship-Super Heavy — “Starship” collectively — is ready to launch.

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Much of the 2024 GOP field focuses on dark, apocalyptic themes

Speaking to conservative activists this month just outside of D.C., former president Donald Trump promised to be “your warrior” and “your justice,” vowing: “And to those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” The same day, speaking to a group of conservative donors in Florida, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R) warned, “Joe Biden and the Democrats are destroying our people’s patriotism and swapping it out for dangerous self-loathing.” And speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on March 5, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) argued that his state offered a refuge from a Democratic-led “dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed and their livelihoods were destroyed.” The trio of comments from 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls — either declared or expected — underscore the dark undertones and apocalyptic rhetoric that have pervaded much of the Republican Party in the era of Trump.

President Biden and Democrats often engage in their own existential messaging, warning that some Republicans — whom they deride as “extremists” — are out of step with most Americans, eager, for example, to cut programs like Medicare and Social Security. Pointing to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, some Democrats and activists have also dismissed the former president as an autocrat and authoritarian who must be stopped at all costs. But much of the rhetoric from the declared and potential Republican candidates so far is remarkable for its dystopian tone. In many high-profile moments, these Republicans portray the nation as locked in an existential battle, where the stark combat lines denote not just policy disagreements but warring camps of saviors vs. villains, and where political opponents are regularly demonized. They warn that Biden and a “radical,” “woke mob” of liberals are determined to “destroy” and “ruin” the nation. Frank Luntz, a pollster and communication analyst who said he “came of age in the days of Ronald Reagan,” said that in the current Republican Party, gone is the era of Reagan’s sanguine optimism.

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BNSF trains derail in Washington, Arizona

Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway experienced two derailments this week, one in Arizona and another in Washinton state, with the latter spilling diesel fuel on tribal land along the Puget Sound. BNSF, which was acquired by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2010, said that the cause of both incidents are under investigation. The derailment in Anacortes, Wash., involved two locomotives on Thursday around midnight local time. No one was injured, but some diesel fuel leaked, BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said. “BNSF already has personnel working with local authorities at the scene and the cause of the incident is under investigation,” Kent said in a statement. The spill occurred on the Swinomish Indian Tribe’s property, behind their hotel and casino, according to the Washington Department of Ecology’s spokesperson Scarlet Tang. The tribe has a population of about 4,700, according to the National Congress of American Indians.

The ecology department estimates no more than 2,500 gallons spilled, said Tang. That’s less than its original estimate of 5,000 gallons. The department will update the estimate after BNSF moves the locomotives to a safe location and measures the remaining fuel in it, Tang said. “We were fortunate that this spill went to land instead of the water on the other side of the railroad tracks,” Tang said. The EPA, Washington’s ecology department and contractors will work to clean up the contaminated soil, Tang said. State, tribal and contract cleanup teams were responding and working to remove the remaining fuel from the locomotives before righting them. A hazmat team from a nearby oil refinery was also available to provide additional spill response equipment. The Arizona derailment near Topock, close to the California border, happened Wednesday about 7:40 p.m. local time. The train carrying corn syrup. No injuries were reported. Eight cars were thought to have derailed, and there was no estimate for when the track would reopen, Kent said. A spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, Anita Mortensen, said that she was not aware of any spills or leaks.

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21% of Fox News viewers trust network less after texts revealed in Dominion lawsuit

More than a fifth of Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities, according to a new survey. But only 9% of Fox News viewers say they aren’t watching the network as much as they used to, per research provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group.

A representative for Fox News told VIP+, “There has been no impact to advertising, with no advertisers dropping or pausing,” and confirmed that viewership levels had not been impacted. In addition, 13% of Fox News viewers no longer believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen after reading communications in which the network’s stars, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, were making allegations on TV regarding voter fraud that was inconsistent with what they were saying privately. The survey was fielded online March 10-12, 2023, to 1,524 respondents just days after the latest batch of texts, emails and depositions were released in connection with a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. The communications in question reveal what the network’s stars, as well as top execs including Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, were saying behind the scenes after Election Night in 2020. In one deposition excerpt, Murdoch said he “seriously doubted” election-fraud allegations made by Donald Trump.

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Bank failures cause uncertainty for contractors

Pressure on America’s banks is fueling uncertainty in financial markets, causing concerns of a spillover to overall construction activity, according to economists. After the closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last week, questions surfaced about how those collapses could impact the construction industry. For instance, numerous construction executives attending the Associated General Contractors of America’s national convention in Las Vegas this week have inquired about potential industry impacts from these bank failures, according to Ken Simonson, AGC’s chief economist.

SVB had $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in deposits as of Dec. 31, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., while Signature Bank had $110.4 billion in assets and $88.6 billion in deposits as of Dec. 31. Neither of those closures had any direct impact on contractors nor their projects, said Simonson. But contractors can expect tightening and some tension from small and regional banks, said Greg Ross, industry managing partner at Grant Thornton, a Chicago-based accounting firm. These are big players in the construction industry that will likely tighten their credit lines and make it more difficult to close loans. “[It’s] important for construction companies to build cash reserves and maintain a certain level of liquidity,” said Ross. “Make sure you have some diversity in your investments where you are able to react quickly.” Nonresidential construction activity this year has remained at high levels despite elevated construction and borrowing costs, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis.

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Ex-Mexican governor accused of laundering money through S.A. real estate gets 9 years

The former governor of a Mexican border state whose term in office was marked by the rise of violent criminal organizations was sentenced to nine years in prison Wednesday by a federal judge in Houston. In an indictment filed in 2013, federal prosecutors accused Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, 66, of collaborating with drug traffickers while public safety in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state collapsed. Today, unsolved disappearances and killings are routine in the state, which borders much of South Texas. Yarrington was the governor from 1999 to 2004, and U.S. prosecutors had alleged in a racketeering count that he accepted bribes from the powerful Gulf Cartel, funneled to him through state police officers and one of his top political strategists. During his time in office, the Gulf Cartel and its one-time enforcers, the Zetas, spread from their base in Matamoros, Yarrington’s hometown, to control most of the state’s seaports and international crossings.

The Zetas split with the Gulf Cartel more than a decade ago, increasing violence and instability in Tamaulipas. Fighting between criminal groups in the cities those organizations once controlled continues today. If he’d gone to trial, Yarrington would have faced up to life in prison. The much shorter sentence he received from U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera reflects the lesser charge to which the former governor pleaded guilty in 2021, a single count of money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Yarrington admitted only to taking kickbacks from contractors doing business with the state government. The racketeering charge and nine other counts were dismissed as part of the plea deal. “Even if you are governor of a Mexican state, we will not stand idly by when you use your position to wrongfully fill your pockets and violate the laws of the United States.” said Alamdar Hamdani, the U.S. Attorney in Houston. “Today’s prison sentence for Yarrington concludes a multi-year, multi-agency international investigation spanning two continents concluding in bringing a corrupt politician to justice.”

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Lead Stories

TEA takes over Houston ISD despite community outrage, academic gains

The president of the Houston Federation of Teachers called it “the worst news we can imagine for our students and families.” The head of the NAACP's Houston chapter called it "a crime against public education." Houston's mayor assigned it a letter grade: F. But, amid accusations that Texas Republicans were using Wednesday's long-awaited takeover of the Houston Independent School District to siphon local control of public education and push a pro-voucher, pro-charter school agenda, Gov. Greg Abbott insisted the lone motivation behind the move is HISD's 187,000 schoolchildren. "All that is completely separate from what is happening with HISD," Abbott said of his legislative agenda. Instead, the takeover will make sure Houston schools will “no longer be failing their students,” the governor said.

“There has been a longtime failure by HISD and the victims of the failure are the students,” Abbott said, adding that we need to "come together and reinvent HISD in a way that will ensure that we are providing the best possible education for those kids." The 10:20 a.m. takeover announcement by the Texas Education Agency set off a day of rallies and news conferences, with some vowing to continue the fight against it. Four years in the making, the news hardly came as a surprise as Mayor Sylvester Turner warned Houstonians earlier this month he'd heard it was coming and the elected HISD board late last week voted to ended its long-running legal battle to stave off state intervention. Mike Morath, the TEA commissioner under Abbott, said the takeover is both mandated by law and is the best option for getting the state's largest and nation's eighth-largest school system back on track. The TEA will appoint a board of managers and a superintendent to oversee the district after the school year ends in June. “Even with recent improvements and despite good intentions from many, Houston ISD as a system continues to allow chronically low achievement in multiple schools," Morath said. “State intervention is necessary.”

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DeSantis scores first congressional endorsement over Trump, from Texas Rep. Chip Roy

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis scored his first congressional endorsement for president, as Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a leader in the far-right Freedom Caucus, urged conservatives Wednesday to look past Donald Trump in 2024. Trump has notched dozens of endorsements in the House and Senate for his comeback bid, including a number of Texans. DeSantis has yet to say for sure that he’s running. But he’s been fueling the speculation as he barnstorms the country in a sort of shadow campaign. He spoke earlier this month at Dallas and Houston Republican dinners, though he’d insisted on keeping out news media. Roy’s pitch, that DeSantis is “a vibrant and energetic leader” who has “proven his ability to win at the ballot box time and time again,” was laced with pokes at Trump. “It’s time for younger, but proven, leadership” to take on President Joe Biden next year, the Austin Republican told supporters in an email blast.

Roy, elected in 2018, was a central player in the prolonged 14-ballot drama that eventually led to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s election in January. The three-term Austin Republican was a key negotiator on behalf of right-wing holdouts who used their leverage to win a host of concessions, from committee assignments to rules making it easier to debate and amend bills and remove the speaker. The Democratic National Committee tweaked both Roy and DeSantis by noting that the governor’s first endorsement came from a lawmaker “whose most recent claim to fame is holding McCarthy’s speakership hostage, calling for government shutdowns to repeal caps for prescription drug costs, and advocating for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.” “Roy’s rush to endorse DeSantis is a match made in MAGA heaven – both Republicans have been hellbent on cutting Social Security and Medicare, too,” the DNC said. DeSantis is now tied at one House endorsement with Nikki Haley, Trump’s United Nations ambassador and a former South Carolina governor. Trump’s support runs deep in the Freedom Caucus, and among Texas Republicans.

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With Russia visit, Xi pursues effort to upend U.S.-led global order

Fresh off a legislative congress where he cemented his vision for governing China, Xi Jinping turned to how he would create a better world order. It would be based on mutual respect, tolerance and equality — and China would be its natural leader, he told heads of political parties for an array of countries, including Russia and South Africa, Nicaragua and East Timor. “Chinese-style modernization does not follow the old path of colonial plunder or the hegemony of strong countries,” Xi told them in a video call Wednesday, sitting at a desk surrounded by Chinese and Communist Party flags. “The world does not need another Cold War,” he said, announcing his new concept — the “global civilization initiative,” a set of lofty guiding principles for a “new type of international relations” that China is building. Xi’s comments were a clear rebuke of the United States — and a reflection of the harder tack he is taking as he ramps up China’s diplomatic efforts with an expected visit to Russia.

President Vladimir Putin said in December that he had invited Xi for a state visit in the spring. That trip could happen as soon as next week, Reuters reported Monday. When asked whether Xi is planning a visit to Russia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Tuesday he did not have any information he could share “at the moment.” “China and Russia have maintained close communication on all levels,” he said. Xi is expected to have a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after that trip, according to the Wall Street Journal. It would be their first conversation since the war began. This comes after China brokered an agreement to resume diplomatic ties between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran after a series of secret meetings held in Beijing, an announcement that surprised the Biden administration. On Monday, President Biden said he expected to have a call with Xi soon. The image of China as a peacemaker and arbiter gives Xi a further boost. Newly empowered in his precedent-breaking third term, he is trying to counter what he sees as an American effort to contain Beijing by proposing an alternative global system that accommodates Chinese interests. Under Beijing’s leadership, he says, countries would not need to choose sides in a battle between autocracy and democracy.

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Goldman boosts US recession odds after slashing GDP forecast

Goldman Sachs (GS) continues to lead the charge in sounding the economic alarm bells as a fresh banking crisis rolls through markets and the economy. The investment bank's chief economist, Jan Hatzius, said Thursday he now sees a 35% chance of a U.S. recession in the next 12-months, up from 25% previously. The increase in odds reflects "increased near-term uncertainty" around the economic effects of small bank stress. A day earlier, Hatzius cut his 2023 GDP forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 1.2% in a new note out Wednesday afternoon.

The closely watched economist stands alone on Wall Street at the moment in revising forecasts down for GDP, while also raising the odds of a recession amid the banking turmoil. Recent news flow underscores why Hatzius is trying to get out in front of the potential economic downshift. Silicon Valley Bank's (SIVB) collapse last Friday marked the second-largest bank failure in the U.S., behind only Washington Mutual during the Great Recession. Signature Bank's (SBNY) demise was the third-largest bank failure in history. The turbulent situation caused regulators to spring into action to prevent a banking crisis and mass tech layoffs, which is what likely would have happened if left unaddressed, sources have told Yahoo Finance. Credit Suisse (CS) shares have seen two days of extreme volatility on rising fears of its survival. The investment bank said late Wednesday it would borrow up to $54 billion from the Swiss central bank to shore up investor confidence. Hatzius thinks that while the banking crisis is a concern, it will not trigger a rate cut from the Federal Reserve. In turn, a recession may unfold as lending standards are tightened and consumers pull back while becoming more jittery about the economy.

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State Stories

Houston Chronicle Editorial: HISD can't afford another failure. TEA takeover must get 3 things right.

It’s one thing to say Houston ISD has failed the children of Wheatley High School and other chronically low-performing campuses. No question of that. It’s another thing to say the state can do any better. Its track record in such takeovers is spotty. Its motivations, given the politics of the far right-aligned Republicans running this state, are suspect. And many details of the Houston takeover are unknown. Research tells us that takeovers rarely help and can sometimes make things worse. As the Chronicle's Anna Bauman reported, a 2021 study from the University of Virginia and Brown University, the first cross-state comparison of its kind, examined all state takeovers from 2011-2016 and overall, found "no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits." Still, if this takeover must happen — and Texas Education Agency announced Wednesday that it is indeed happening — we want it to work.

Leadership: Who will lead the district? Morath said the next superintendent to lead the 187,000-student district would be appointed in the summer but the name of the person is less important than his or her qualifications and character. Ideally the person would have knowledge of Houston or at least Texas. Most important, though, is experience running a large district and overseeing a successful turnaround. The next HISD leader should be reform-minded but not for reform’s sake. Morath has acknowledged that much is working well in the state's largest district and many kids are "flourishing," as he told The Houston Landing's Jacob Carpenter. Strategy: Is the plan based on evidence or politics? We know what works in education, and no, it’s not merely more money, smaller class sizes or even parental involvement. Those things can help but only in certain contexts, as Amanda Ripley wrote in her 2013 bestseller The Smartest Kids in the World: and how they got that way. Generally, the ingredients to quality public education, according to research, are higher standards, better trained, supported and paid teachers to implement the higher standards, plus accountability to ensure that they do. End game: This takeover should lead to reform, not purgatory. There’s a reason "independent" appears in the names of districts across this state. We believe, as do many Texans, that local public school should be run locally, by elected leaders accountable to the public. The TEA must outline a clear plan of action and a timeline to get the work done promptly. Morath told The Landing that he doesn't expect state control over HISD to last longer than the typical two to six years. But how will we know when the problems that triggered this takeover are solved? It should be clear to all based on clearly defined standards and benchmarks that TEA sets for gauging success.

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HISD takeover comes as Gov. Abbott touts legacy-shaping education reforms

After years of demanding a state takeover of the Houston Independent School District, Gov. Greg Abbott is finally getting what he wants politically as he pushes to reshape public schools throughout Texas in a much broader way. For years, Abbott has called the HISD leadership a joke and a disaster. “If ever there was a school board that needs to be taken over and reformed it's HISD,” Abbott said back in 2019. The Texas Education Agency announced it would start the takeover Wednesday morning. “There has been a longtime failure by HISD and the victims of the failure are the students,” Abbott said Wednesday shortly after the decision was announced.

While the timing is somewhat coincidental because it was delayed by years of legal and legislative battles, the TEA’s move comes as Abbott, a Republican, is expending significant political capital on a list of education reforms. If he is successful, those reforms will be a significant part of his legacy as he serves his third term in the governor's mansion. Abbott has traveled the state in campaign-like fashion for months blasting school curricula as liberal indoctrination and vowing to give parents more access to what children are being taught. He's also promising the most aggressive push Texas has seen for private school vouchers to allow parents to use state tax dollars toward private school tuition or homeschooling. “We must reform curriculum, get kids back to the basics of learning, and we must empower parents,” Abbott said last month in his State of the State address, a theme he's carried through more than a half dozen speeches around the state since. This is all coming just two years after Abbott called a string of special sessions to demand more restrictions on how teachers talk about racism and slavery in public schools.

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Dallas Morning News Editorial: If Texas leaves national voter fraud prevention group, what next?

Texas’ likely withdrawal from a nationwide consortium designed to clean up voter rolls while boosting public participation in elections could be a setback for democracy in the state. But it may happen if members of the multistate group, Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, fail to agree this week on reforms to address concerns that the group leans too far left. If that happens, and new Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson chooses to pull out of the consortium as expected, she has signaled the state will go it alone. Texas will then work with “other states and jurisdictions” to develop its own interstate cross-check system, her spokesman, Sam Taylor, tells us. That’s a tall order. We still have bad memories of 2019, when one of Nelson’s predecessors bungled a voter roll cleanup and damaged public trust. At the time, the secretary of state’s office sent a list of potential noncitizen voters to counties.

That list used bad data that mistakenly flagged tens of thousands of people who were actually citizens. But the state told counties to figure out on their own the citizenship status of people on the list. Nelson, who was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday and who has enjoyed bipartisan support so far, would do well to remember the previous blunder if she launches her own voter fraud prevention system. If she takes on this important effort, the former Republican lawmaker from Flower Mound should be fully transparent in how she plans to carry out cross-checks of voter rolls with other states and any voter purges. About 30 states and the District of Columbia are members of ERIC. Since its inception in 2012, the nonprofit has cross-matched states’ voter records, motor vehicle data, death certificates and other information to help member states purge millions of ineligible voters from rolls. It has also identified millions more who were eligible to vote but not yet registered.

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Houston lawmakers decry HISD takeover, warn other districts they could be next

With the news today of the Texas Education Agency taking over Houston Independent School District, Democrats in the Texas House warned that Houston ISD was set up to fail through a lack of funding and state support and that it could be the precursor to other state takeover attempts of districts around the state for political reasons. “When it comes to TEA, you can't be the arsonist and the firefighter,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat and chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Democrats argued during a Wednesday afternoon press conference that school funding in Texas has lagged behind inflation for years, that teachers are paid so poorly they’re leaving the profession in droves and that retired educators are languishing in poverty because of the lack of inflation adjustments to their benefits over the last several decades.

The underfunding has brought huge challenges for schools, especially those in large school districts like Houston ISD where there are many children from lower-income families, they said. They pitched a plethora of fixes, including increasing the basic per-student funding number by far more than Republicans have proposed, shifting the funding model from one based on attendance to one based on enrollment and giving retired teachers significant benefit bumps. Although Democrats are the minority party in both the House and the Senate, Martinez Fischer said he believes the House will need to vote on certain measures that require 100 votes to pass. Since Republicans don’t have enough votes to do that on their own, he thinks he has leverage to press for some priorities — with investment in public education “at the top” of that list. One bill they said they hoped to win bipartisan support for was brought by Rep. Alma Allen, a Houston Democrat and vice chair of the House Public Education Committee.

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Texas Senate confirms former colleague Jane Nelson as Texas’ top election official

The Texas Senate confirmed Flower Mound Republican Jane Nelson as secretary of state Wednesday, making the former state senator the first top state election official to get a confirmation in nearly six years. Nelson was unanimously approved by the Legislature’s upper chamber. Her approval had been widely expected after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Nelson’s appointment to replace a more controversial secretary of state connected to efforts to overturn election results in 2020?s presidential election. Nelson, in contrast, had long-established relationships with the senators who approved her. She served 30 years in the Legislature’s upper chamber and was met with bipartisan praise during the confirmation process.

“I will work to safeguard honest and accurate elections in all 254 counties across our great state, while continuing to support business owners by ensuring that government moves at the speed of Texas business, not the other way around,” Nelson said in a statement. “I also look forward to strengthening relationships with all of our international partners and telling the great story of Texas’ economic prosperity to the world.” The secretary of state serves as Texas’ top election official, issuing guidance to county election officials and working with local election administrators to update voter rolls. The office also oversees state business filings and serves in a diplomatic capacity. Nelson’s confirmation occurred with little fanfare Tuesday. Senators approved her nomination as part of a slate of governor appointees, with Sen. Donna Campbell, who leads the chambers Nominations Committee, announcing her appointment after the vote was taken. Nelson was on the Senate floor at the time and was congratulated with hugs.

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State Rep. Julie Johnson's latest bill aims to protect pharmacists from state abortion laws

This week, a federal judge in Texas will begin hearing a case that seeks to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug mifepristone, which is often used in abortions. Last week, state Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Dallas) filed legislation that would protect pharmacists filling prescriptions for a drug often used in tandem with mifepristone in medication abortions: misoprostol. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is set to begin hearing arguments Wednesday in Amarillo on mifepristone. The progesterone blocker mifepristone has more than one use. While it is primarily used to end pregnancies that are less than 10 weeks along, it can also be used by some patients with Cushing syndrome, where it helps to control high blood sugar. If mifepristone is banned, as some doctors and advocates fear it will be, misoprostol can be used alone to induce abortion. While it’s more commonly used alone in other countries, the misoprostol-only regimen has a success rate of 80 to 100 percent.

“I filed this bill just to remove any pharmacist liability under the abortion bills because the liability still rests with the physician —if they write this prescription for use of an abortion, it’s still the physician’s responsibility under the statute,” Johnson says. There are several reasons why a doctor might prescribe misoprostol. Its original use was to prevent stomach ulcers in patients taking anti-inflammatory drugs, for instance. It’s frequently used off-label by gynecologists and obstetricians for a variety of things— so much so that it is on the World Health Organization Model List of Essential Medicines. It makes some gynecological procedures less painful, is used to treat postpartum bleeding, can induce labor, and helps complete a miscarriage. And it can be used in abortions, a fact that has caused increased scrutiny and often refusals by some pharmacies to fill prescriptions. After Texas’ abortion bills became law, women almost immediately began reporting difficulties getting prescriptions of misoprostol filled, even when those prescriptions were used for procedures not related to abortion. Johnson says those refusals by pharmacists spurred her to draft House Bill 3774, which would prevent pharmacists from facing civil or criminal liabilities for dispensing misoprostol when it is prescribed by a doctor, regardless of the reason.

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Following the SVB collapse, are banks in Texas at risk?

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sent ripples through the banking world, causing stocks like Comerica’s to fall as investors looked to guard themselves against a potential domino effect. The fast pace of interest rate hikes has stressed banks across the U.S., creating a higher risk of failure for them, said Gil Sadka, professor of accounting at the University of Texas at Dallas. SVB was in a particularly bad spot as it was focused on the underperforming tech sector and purchased bonds, which have lost value with the interest rate hikes, Sadka said. The second bank failure that came over the weekend, Signature Bank, was focused on another struggling sector, crypto.

“The rising rates made the banks vulnerable, but the collapse was triggered by their portfolios,” he said. “Banks that took significant risks chasing returns and those concentrated in struggling industries are at risk.” Banks that are focused on other struggling industries, such as commercial real estate loans at a time when office space and occupancy rates haven’t fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, are at risk, he said. But banks that are well diversified will likely pull through the tough economic environment, Sadka said. Customers don’t have reason to panic as the government decided to insure all SVB depositors, meaning it will likely protect other depositors should another bank fail, he said. Texas Banking Association CEO Chris Furlow said the banking system in Texas is strong and well-regulated and the banks’ portfolios are diversified. “Texas banks are well-capitalized, asset quality is solid and nonperforming loans are at historic lows, so you can have confidence in your community bank and banks of all sizes,” he said.

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House Democrats: Texas should tap surplus for public schools, teacher pay raises, retirees

House Democrats are proposing to spend much of the state’s record-setting surplus on public education by doling out $15 billion to boost funding for schools, salaries for teachers and pensions for retirees. Not coincidentally, the amount is the same that GOP leaders earmarked from the start of this year’s session for school property tax cuts. House Democrats’ four-point education plan, unveiled Wednesday afternoon at a Capitol news conference, would increase public schools’ “basic allotment” funding by $1,340 a student. That would provide teacher pay raises of $7,000 on average this fall, followed the next year by an additional $3,000 bump. The plan also would peg school funding to student enrollment, not attendance, giving schools more financial certainty — and more money. Retired teachers would see a cost of living increase.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Trey Martinez Fischer said the proposal is “neither radical nor unattainable,” and he didn’t rule out supporting some property tax relief. But the San Antonio lawmaker noted that House GOP leaders’ introduced budget bill actually would shave the amount of state discretionary money used to fund the Texas Education Agency. The state dollars used to buy down school taxes don’t flow to schools. “We have real money,” Martinez Fischer said of the surplus, and the $27 billion of rainy-day fund savings. “If we’re doing a budget about public education, we’re going to lead. … We can do better.” This year, lawmakers have as much as $69 billion in “new money” to spend as they write the next two-year budget. In their “base budgets” filed in January, both the House and Senate set aside $15 billion for property tax relief. Earlier this month, Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Meyer Morgan of Dallas, both Republicans, upped the House tax-cut plan’s price tag to $17 billion. On Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer, and the Senate’s leading GOP tax-policy writers increased their tax-cut proposal to $16.5 billion.

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Dallas firm Arcosa brings in $750 million of wind tower orders

A Dallas firm that specializes in products that support infrastructure said it has $750 million in orders for wind towers thanks to the tax law changes for manufacturing in the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s enough business to open a new factory in New Mexico and hire as many as 250 new workers. Arcosa, a provider of infrastructure-related products and solutions with leading brands serving construction, engineered structures and transportation markets, said wind tower order deliveries will begin in 2024 and continue through 2028. The company would not comment on what firm or agency ordered the wind towers, but said it will support its wind energy expansion project in the Southwest. Production is expected to begin in mid-2024. Arcosa is also planning to open a manufacturing facility in Belen, New Mexico and bring new jobs to the state.

The company plans to invest anywhere from $55 to $60 million to purchase property, modify its existing plant and buy equipment for the New Mexico facility. It is seeking financial incentives from New Mexico and the city of Belen. “We look forward to expanding our manufacturing capacity to New Mexico, where market demand for new wind projects is robust,” said Antonio Carrillo, president and CEO, in a release. “Our new facility will strengthen our position in the wind tower market and enable Arcosa to benefit from growing wind investment in the Southwest.” The new orders are expected to be eligible for the Advanced Manufacturing Production tax credit, a part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Since its passage in 2022, Carrillo said that the company has received over $1.1 billion of wind tower orders.

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‘It’s a wildfire’: Texas sports betting debate prompts worries over gambling addiction

Saul Malek knows the highs — and lows — that gambling addiction can bring. He ran up huge debts as a college sophomore trying to cover losing bets. The 25-year-old Southern Methodist University graduate student is now a recovering gambling addict, counseling and helping others who are going down a similar path. He sees a looming problem for young men like him if Texas passes sports betting legislation. “I don’t think anyone that’s not really in gambling themselves can really appreciate the scope of the damage that it can bring,” he said. For a third straight legislative session, gambling expansion is on the table, including mobile sports betting. The mobile sports gambling bills seek to make the Lone Star State one of the 33 states that allow for people to place bets simply by pulling out their phones.

But for all the money it might bring the state, there is a dark side: gambling addiction. Texas, with its population of 30 million, has long been a target of the sports betting industry. Lobbyists tell lawmakers they could see $250 million a year in tax revenue if sports betting is legalized. Those projections may not play out. But something that is a sure bet, researchers say, is a rise in gambling addiction, particularly among young adults. “It’s a wildfire,” said Matthew McMurray, an assistant professor at Miami (Ohio) University’s Institute for Responsible Gaming, Lotteries and Sport. “It’s a huge boom and everybody in the industry that studies these things saw it coming.” Keith Whyte, the executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, estimates 600,000 Texans could develop a gambling addiction, factoring research that about 2% nationally develop an addiction. Two influential Republicans, Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, are carrying the sports betting bills, which could mean the bills have a better chance than in previous sessions. Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, have also expressed support for expanding gambling in Texas. Both, however, have said they do not want to see slot machines at gas stations or convenience stores.

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Nicole Russell: Texan Chip Roy bravely backs DeSantis for GOP presidential nod

An honorable trait sorely missing from the public sphere is the ability to stand athwart the far right, Trump-obsessed mob and say: “You’re all misguided and wrong. Do it this way instead.” Leave it to a Texas congressman to actually do this and do it well. In an e-mail to supporters on Wednesday, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, gave a full endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president, despite the fact that the man himself has not yet announced his candidacy. “The next president of the United States must be a vibrant and energetic leader with the faith, vision and courage to chart a new course. America needs a leader who will truly defend her and empower the people against the destructive force of unrestrained government and corporate excess, profligate spending and woke cultural indoctrination,” Roy wrote. “That leader is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.”

Endorsements this early in the presidential primary generally don’t matter much, and to be honest, even Roy’s probably won’t matter much at all in the long or short term. But what makes this endorsement noteworthy is that Roy is one of the few people in Washington to actually take a stand and support someone with the character traits Donald Trump lacks and that this country needs. Trump is bad for the country and especially bad for the GOP who has made Trump synonymous with the conservative party. So far, few — if any — politicians have supported anyone in the race, and it’s not because they don’t have opinions on who should be president. They’re waiting to see which way the wind blows. They don’t have the chutzpah to denounce Trump and support his obvious main rival, DeSantis. We need more people like Roy in Congress and in everyday life. If you’re going to be in Congress, you better be sharp. If you’re going to have a legacy, you should be bold and brave. Kudos to Roy for showing some much-needed conviction during a time when few people in power are willing to say what needs to be said when no one else is saying it.

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Harold Dutton: My amendment lets TEA take over HISD. I have no regrets.

When a student fails in school, there are consequences. But when the school fails the student, what happens? Nothing. Well, that was changed in 2015 by House Bill 1842 and the amendment I successfully added to the bill — the amendment now making it possible for the Texas Education Agency to take over Houston ISD. Some people mistakenly believe that the idea first came from Gov. Greg Abbott or some other Republican. But in fact, it came from me, a Democrat. A quick look back will help you understand. As the state representative for northeast Houston and a member of the House Public Education Committee, I was alarmed by the continuing lack of student education success in the schools in northeast Houston.

For example, at that time Kashmere High School had been failing to meet state academic standards for more than seven years. I asked why. I was told Kashmere students didn’t do well on the standardized test, particularly the math portion of the test. Of course I sought more answers, like why Kashmere students consistently failed at math. The answer was dishearteningly obvious, to say the least, and it almost seemed intentional. Simply put, Kashmere High School had not had the benefit of a certified math teacher in more than 10 years. Now there were certainly certified math teachers in HISD. Why none at Kashmere? Because fixing Kashmere was not on the agenda of the entire HISD board, my amendment to HB 1842 was born. This was not my first attempt to remedy the plight of failing schools in Texas. Previously, I’d introduced a bill to divide HISD into four subparts, each of which would elect its own superintendent. That bill failed.

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Senate unanimously passes a bill defining fentanyl poisoning as murder

The Texas Senate has passed a bill (Senate Bill 645) that would define fentanyl poisoning as murder for purposes of prosecution and death certificates. The measure is one of Governor Greg Abbott's emergency items. Senator Joan Huffman, R-Houston, told the Senate that, over the past two years, the Texas Department of Public Safety had seized over 353 million lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill almost every person in the United States. "So, to continue our efforts to keep this drug from hitting our communities," Huffman said, "the committee substitute to Senate Bill 645 increases the penalty for manufacturing or delivery of less than 1 gram of fentanyl from a state jail felony to a third degree felony. Furthermore, if an individual dies from a fentanyl overdose, the penalty would be enhanced to a second degree.”

To underscore the point, Huffman attached a floor amendment to SB 645 defining the manufacturing or delivering of fentanyl as murder if someone dies from an overdose. In addition, the bill makes possession of fentanyl with intent to deliver prosecutable under the statute governing organized crime. Huffman said she'd added that language at the request of prosecutors. "Members, we've reached a critical point in the fentanyl crisis here in Texas," Huffman said. "We have no choice but to take a comprehensive approach to what is going on." Huffman noted that she had added language to SB 1, the general appropriations bill, that allocated more than $18 million for overdose prevention education and reversal medication, such as Narcan, for law enforcement. SB 1 would also appropriate $147 million to the DPS Crime Lab to assist in the prosecution of fentanyl-related crimes. The Senate suspended its normal rules to speed SB 645 through both its second and third readings on the same day. The bill passed 30-0 and now moves to the House.

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Takeaways from CERAWeek, where debate over transition to fossil fuel alternatives took center stage

A frenetic energy pulsed through CERAWeek by S&P Global last week, an event that year after year reflects both Houston's role as the energy capital and the global energy companies that call it home. On display during the massive energy conference that convened more than 7,200 energy industry insiders in downtown Houston were existential debates about the pace of the transition away from fossil fuels, over how quickly the industry can shift into new energy sources and how to address obstacles in the way. “Orderly transition” was arguably the phrase of the week. Big energy companies sought to make clear that order must be maintained as they shift into new energy territories outside of their core oil and gas businesses. “A disorderly transition could be painful and it could be chaotic,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Monday.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm used a modified version of the phrase when she said a balanced market should ensure a “managed transition” as energy begins to take new forms. But “permitting reform” was perhaps the biggest rallying cry of the conference, with energy leaders decrying long wait times as they try to build projects they say are needed to meet the world’s energy demands. Granholm herself addressed the issue during her Wednesday keynote speech. “It shouldn't take over a decade, for example, to get permitting for a transmission project on federal lands,” she said, drawing boisterous applause from the crowd. Granholm promised to work on permitting slowdowns in the system. “We believe strongly in the goals of the national Environmental Protection Act,” she said during a meeting with the Chronicle. “But we also believe that you can permit something in a much shorter period of time and still consistently support the goals of protecting the environment. And some of that just has to do with the bureaucracy.”

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Why mother accused of killing 3 of her children in Italy, Texas was set to lose custody

The woman accused of stabbing her five children — three of them fatally — in Ellis County earlier this month as they were being removed by state investigators lost custody of her kids because of a drug-related incident last year, according to newly obtained court documents. Records obtained by The Dallas Morning News showed 25-year-old Shamaiya Deyonshanaye Hall, who has been arrested in connection with the March 3 stabbings, lost custody of her five children in July 2022 after one of them told a neighbor the mother was “dead on the floor.” The June 30, 2022 incident spurred an investigation by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Less than a week later, an Ellis County judge approved the request for the state to gain temporary custody of Hall’s children.

The children were eventually placed in kinship care in Italy, Texas, the home where Hall is accused of fatally stabbing 6-year-old Legend Chapelle and 5-year-old twins Aaliyah and Ayden Martin. Two other children — a 13-month-old girl and a 4-year-old boy — were seriously injured and hospitalized. Hall was arrested on the night of the stabbings and faces three capital murder charges and two aggravated assault charges, according to jail records. She was still at Ellis County Jail as of Wednesday, and her bail is $10 million. It is unclear whether Hall has an attorney. A constable who responded to the June 2022 incident told a Texas DFPS case worker that a police officer found Hall “unresponsive,” court records stated. The officer reported that Hall did not know the year or where she was after she woke up and described her as “very disoriented and delusional.” He believed Hall was under the influence, and said he saw a “white powdered substance” on Hall’s nose and “multiple wine bottles,” court documents stated.

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County Stories

Attorney general says TAD’s full report on tax consultant grievance will remain confidential

The complete internal report on Tarrant County Chief Appraiser Jeff Law and former director Randy Armstrong’s handling of the months-long dispute with a local tax consultant will not be released to the public, according to a ruling from the state’s attorney general. The Texas Attorney General’s office ruled Feb. 16 that the full report, produced by Walsh Gallegos for the appraisal district, can be withheld under client-attorney privilege. Several individuals and news organizations, including the Fort Worth Report, requested the full report, and the district then sought an opinion from the Attorney General. Tarrant Appraisal District hired Walsh Gallegos to produce this report after Armstrong filed a personal complaint against Chandler Crouch, a local tax consultant, using his official capacity as a district employee, as first reported by the Report.

A brief summary of the full report was provided to the public during the hours-long Aug. 12 meeting where both Armstrong and Law were suspended for two weeks without pay. In the aftermath of the report, the appraisal district has been mired in controversies, including the recall and subsequent resignation of the board of directors’ chairwoman Kathryn Wilemon as well as the threat of litigation from Keller and the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney. Most recently, a high-ranking state representative filed a bill to abolish the Tarrant Appraisal District. Using client-attorney privilege to withhold government documents is common, said Joe Larsen, a media attorney and a Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas board member, and often badly abused by government bodies statewide. “If they wanted you to have this report, they can give this report to you. It’s not confidential by law,” Larsen said. “So the implications, we live with them every day. This is not an isolated incident. It’s by far the more common approach.” In a statement to the Report, TAD thanked the attorney general’s office for reviewing the documents. Transparency should be fundamental to the American form of government, Larsen said.

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City Stories

Fort Worth’s Panther Island gets $20 million from Army Corps

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is allocating an additional $20 million to the flood control portion of Fort Worth’s Panther Island. The money is in addition to the $403 million approved in 2022 to build a 1.5-mile bypass channel on the Trinity River north of downtown that would create a 338-acre island and San Antonio style river walk. The money will be used to start design on the three gates and pump station to control water through the channel.

Design on the north portion of the channel is underway, but the corps is vetting contractors to design the south portion, said spokesperson Clay Church. “The investment of federal funds in this vital project is exactly why I supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which will bring about $20 billion to North Texas,” said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey in a statement Wednesday. Construction on the north portion of the bypass channel is targeted to begin in late 2024 with the southern portion to start in 2025, Church said. He cautioned that the time frames were estimates and are dependent on when the corps finished designing the channel and awards a contract for construction.

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Kimble Park being renamed in honor of Abounding Prosperity cofounder Irene Trigg-Myers

Abounding Prosperity Inc., in partnership with the city of Dallas, is hosting a dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday, March 15, from 11 a.m.-4 p.m., to mark the renaming of the 1.2-acre Kimble Park, at 2215 Warren Ave., in honor of the late Irene H. Trigg-Myers, one of the cofounders of Abounding Prosperity. The ceremony will include the unveiling of renderings of the new Irene H. Trigg-Myers Prosperity Park and performances by gospel artists Vanessa Bell Armstrong and Tramaine Hawkins. State Rep. Venton Jones will issue a resolution from the Texas House of Representatives, and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson will issue a proclamation in honor of the occasion. Those expected to attend include representatives from the Dallas Park and Recreation Department, the Dallas Police Department’s community liaison officer and other city officials.

Irene Trigg-Myers was “a local community activist who had a passion for assisting families in their transition from subsidized housing to self-sufficiency,” according to a press release from Abounding Prosperity. “During her career as a property manager, she became an advocate for fair, safe and sanitary housing practices for families in need throughout Dallas County and nationally. Her work ethic earned her numerous accolades and stellar reviews from the Housing and Urban Development Board. “Her advocacy work led her to lobby for change for low-income and affordable housing and property beautification on many levels. Renaming the park underpins this legacy.” Trigg-Myers also cofounded Abounding Prosperity with her son Kirk Myers, offices for which are located just a few miles from the park. Abounding Prosperity. Under the leadership of Kirk Myers as CEO, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to responding to social and health disparities devastating communities of color in Dallas County.

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National Stories

Why some states are pushing cities out of law enforcement

Missouri didn’t trust St. Louis with weapons. At the start of the Civil War, St. Louis was a Unionist stronghold. Missouri’s pro-secession governor didn’t want the city controlling its own arsenal, so the state took over the local police force — which it then kept for more than a century. St. Louis didn’t get back control of its own police until 2013, after a St. Louis billionaire funded a statewide ballot initiative forcing the issue. Now, Missouri lawmakers seem to believe that the handover was a mistake. Last week, the Missouri House approved a bill that would again give the governor control of the St. Louis police. Legislators pointed to the city’s homicide and overall crime rates, claiming they are causing individuals and businesses to leave the city. “This experiment was 11 years in the making and frankly, the promises have been broken,” said state Rep. Justin Sparks, a Republican from a suburban St. Louis district.

This is part of a larger trend of states not trusting localities when it comes to public safety. Over the past couple of years, Florida, Georgia and Texas have all passed bills blocking localities from cutting police budgets by more than a few percent, in response to efforts to defund police departments or transfer some of their responsibilities elsewhere. Last week, the Georgia House passed a bill to create a state board with the authority to remove “rogue” prosecutors. In Texas, where the state is preparing to take over the Houston school district, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has long championed the idea of having the Texas Department of Public Safety take over the Austin Police Department. The Mississippi Senate has approved a bill that would give state police the authority to patrol throughout the city of Jackson, as well as giving state courts a say in determining the outcome of some local cases. “This is simply a response to Jackson residents who live in this proposed district who want more police,” said state Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent who represents part of Jackson. “I have constituents who will leave Jackson.”

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Sweeping GOP energy bill would sweep away Biden’s climate agenda

House Republicans unveiled legislation Tuesday to repeal a new methane emissions fee and "green bank" to spur low-carbon projects enacted under Democratic control last year, direct regulatory agencies to speed up the approval of energy projects, and more. While the bill in its entirety is unlikely to win a majority in the Democrat-controlled Senate, it lays out a clear picture of Republican views on energy: less worry about the long-term dangers of global climate change and more determination that the U.S. should continue to harvest the near-term wealth and jobs made possible by its domestic fossil energy resources. “This bill counters President Biden’s attack on our domestic energy and includes permitting reforms that will speed construction for major infrastructure projects across the country,” said Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said the bill was a compilation of work from members on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the House Natural Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. According to a summary, the bill would also lift restrictions on the import and export of liquefied natural gas, eliminate royalties that companies pay to extract fossil fuels from federal land or waters and speed the approval of federal permits. For example, for projects to get approval under federal permitting law, the bill would require regulatory agencies to complete environmental assessments within one year and environmental impact statements, which are more rigorous, within two years. After proposals to rewrite America’s permitting laws fizzled last year, Scalise's bill is the first offering on permitting in the new Congress, following bills introduced in the fall by Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., and his home state peer, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Manchin moved to attach his permitting proposal to spending legislation and the annual defense policy bill last year, but those efforts crumbled. The House is expected to vote on the bill, a broader set of energy, infrastructure, permitting and environmental elements, during the last week of March.

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In nursing homes, impoverished live final days on pennies

New pants to replace Alex Morisey’s tattered khakis will have to wait. There’s no cash left for sugar-free cookies either. Even at the month’s start, the budget is so bare that Fixodent is a luxury. Now, halfway through it, things are so tight that even a Diet Pepsi is a stretch. “How many years do I have left?” asks 82-year-old Morisey, who lives in a Philadelphia nursing home. “I want to live those as well as I can. But to some degree, you lose your dignity.” Across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of nursing home residents are locked in a wretched bind: Driven into poverty, forced to hand over all income and left to live on a stipend as low as $30 a month. In a long-term care system that subjects some of society’s frailest to daily indignities, Medicaid’s personal needs allowance, as the stipend is called, is among the most ubiquitous, yet least known.

Nearly two-thirds of American nursing home residents have their care paid for by Medicaid and, in exchange, all Social Security, pension and other income they would receive is instead rerouted to go toward their bill. The personal needs allowance is meant to pay for anything not provided by the home, from a phone to clothes and shoes to a birthday present for a grandchild. One problem: Congress hasn’t raised the allowance in decades. “It’s really one of the most humiliating things for them,” says Sam Brooks, an attorney for The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, which advocates for nursing home residents and has urged an increase in the allowance. “It can really be a point of shame.” Especially when an individual has no close relatives or no one able to financially help, the allowance can breed striking need. When Marla Carter visits her mother-in-law at a nursing home in Owensboro, Kentucky, the scene feels more 19th-century poorhouse than modern-day America. With just a $40 allowance, residents are dressed in ill-fitting hand-me-downs or hospital gowns that drape open. Some have no socks or shoes. Basic supplies run low. Many don’t even have a pen to write with.

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Paid time off is not part of workers' 'salary,' U.S. court rules

Paid time off that workers accumulate is not a part of their salary under U.S. wage law, meaning employers can take away paid leave when salaried workers do not meet productivity quotas, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Bayada Home Health Care Inc did not violate federal wage law by docking salaried employees' paid time off, or PTO, when they did not work required weekly hours. The case marked the first time that a U.S. appeals court was asked whether paid time off counts as part of an employee's salary. The question is important because salaried workers can become eligible for overtime pay if employers make deductions from their wages.

The 3rd Circuit panel said that while a salary is a fixed amount of compensation paid out at regular intervals, paid time off is a fringe benefit that has no effect on a worker's wages and can be paid irregularly, such as when an employee leaves a company. New Jersey-based Bayada operates in 23 states and has about 28,000 employees. The company's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did lawyers for the plaintiffs. A group of Bayada employees, including nurses, physical therapists and social workers, sued the company in Scranton, Pennsylvania federal court in 2016. They said that because Bayada deducted PTO when employees did not reach a weekly productivity quota, they were paid based on how much they worked and were not salaried employees exempt from overtime pay under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Wednesday's ruling affirmed a federal judge's 2021 decision that granted summary judgment to Bayada. The 3rd Circuit panel included Circuit Judges Michael Chagares and Anthony Scirica. The case is Higgins v. Bayada Home Health Care Inc, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 21-3286.

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Thomas B. Edsall: ‘The era of urban supremacy is over’

(Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.) On the last day of February, Glen Lee, the chief financial officer of Washington, D.C., issued a warning to the mayor and members of the District of Columbia Council, who are undertaking such costly ventures as free bus service and expanded affordable housing. “The Covid-19 pandemic,” Lee wrote, “has brought about significant changes in the District’s population and economy, with potential long-term implications.” Revenue estimates, he said, have “been lowered due to 1) a more pessimistic economic outlook and 2) a deteriorating real property market.” In Lee’s view, there are still more danger signals: Recently completed preliminary real property tax assessments, which is the basis for FY 2024 real property tax revenue, are lower than anticipated, and year-to-date revenue collections through January for deed and unincorporated business taxes, both of which are gauges of strength of the real estate market, are drastically lower than last year.

Washington is not alone. Most of the nation’s major cities face a daunting future as middle-class taxpayers join an exodus to the suburbs, opting to work remotely as they exit downtowns marred by empty offices, vacant retail space and a deteriorating tax base. The most recent census data “show almost unprecedented declines or slow growth, especially in larger cities,” William Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, emailed in response to my query. From July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, “New census data shows a huge spike in movement out of big metro areas during the pandemic,” Frey wrote in an April 2022 paper, including “an absolute decline in the aggregate size of the nation’s 56 major metropolitan areas (those with populations exceeding 1 million).” This is the first time, Frey continued, “that the nation’s major metro areas registered an annual negative growth rate since at least 1990.” The beneficiaries of urban population decline are the suburbs. Frey wrote: The combination of domestic migration, immigration and natural increase led to a different outcome in the suburban counties of major metro areas. There, domestic migration increased through middecade to a fairly constant level from 2015 to 2019. It rose after that, especially dramatically during the prime pandemic year of 2020-21, in large part due to an increase in city-suburb movement.

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The Biden administration demands that TikTok be sold, or risk a nationwide ban

The Biden administration is demanding that Chinese-owned TikTok be sold, or the popular video app could face a ban in the U.S., according to a TikTok spokesperson. Whether federal officials have given TikTok a deadline to find a buyer remains unclear. Regardless, it is a major escalation by White House officials who have grown increasingly concerned about the safety of Americans' data on the app used by more than 100 million Americans. It is the first time the Biden administration has explicitly threatened to ban TikTok. President Trump attempted to put TikTok out of business, but the actions were halted by federal courts. The new demand from U.S. officials will almost certainly be met with a legal challenge from TikTok.

The company is "disappointed in the outcome," said the TikTok spokesperson, about the new demand from U.S. officials. An American company acquiring TikTok would require the blessing of Chinese officials, who for years have been hostile to the idea of selling off its first global social media success. For two years, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, has been examining whether U.S. data is properly safeguarded. In response, TikTok has committed to spend $1.5 billion on a plan known as "Project Texas," which would enact a stronger firewall between TikTok and employees of its Beijing parent company. The plan relies on the data supervision of Texas-based software company Oracle. It also includes independent monitors and auditors to ensure that neither corporate owner ByteDance, nor Chinese officials, would be able to access U.S. user data. CFIUS appeared at first to be satisfied with the safety measures TikTok was enacting, though the deal had not been formally approved.

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Wanted: A GOP presidential contender that supports Ukraine

As former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis air their disinterest in more U.S. aid to Ukraine, a number of Senate Republicans are open about wanting a GOP standard-bearer who takes a different approach. “I want a Ronald Reagan when it comes to national security. Peace through strength,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. He prefers a candidate who won’t “kowtow to the isolationist wing of the Republican Party.” The former president and the Florida governor, their party’s presidential frontrunners, are taking a hard line against providing more funding to Kyiv in its year-long bid to ward off a deadly Russian invasion. If either Trump or DeSantis claims the GOP nomination while the war is still going on, their vocal disinterest in maintaining current levels of support for Ukraine could pull the rest of the party in that direction.

At the moment, GOP senators say they are overwhelmingly in favor of still supplying Ukraine with lethal aid, arguing it’s a deterrent against both Russian President Vladimir Putin and China. And some of those Republicans want a presidential nominee who shares their point of view — potentially putting those senators at odds with their party’s conservative base, provided they concur with Trump and DeSantis. Cornyn, a former whip and party campaign chairman, name-checked GOP White House contenders who align with his thinking: “There’s a number of them: [Mike] Pompeo, [Mike] Pence, [Nikki] Haley, Tim Scott if he gets in. I think that’s still where the significant majority of the party is.” Cornyn does not plan to endorse in the presidential primary. While Senate Republicans’ long-hawkish identity on foreign policy has certainly grown more diverse in recent years, most of them have overwhelmingly supported helping Ukraine, including in a standalone vote last year. And to hear some Republicans tell it, it’s not a matter of politics. They realize many of their voters are warmer toward Trump and DeSantis’ position — but insist that backing Ukraine is the right thing to do for the United States’ survival as a world power.

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Credit Suisse shares soar after central bank aid announced

Credit Suisse’s shares soared 30% on Thursday after it announced it will move to shore up its finances by borrowing up to nearly $54 billion from the Swiss central bank, bolstering confidence as f ears about the banking system moved from the U.S. to Europe. It was a massive swing from a day earlier, when shares of Switzerland’s second-largest commercial bank plunged 30% on the SIX stock exchange after its biggest shareholder said it would not put more money into Credit Suisse. That dragged down other European banks after the collapse of some U.S. banks stirred fears about the health of global banks. European bank shares recovered a bit Thursday, with the Euro Stoxx Banks index of 21 leading lenders up 1.6%, following a steep 8.4% drop Wednesday. Bank stalwarts like Commerzbank, Santander, Unicredit and Raiffaisen all rose more than 2%.

Credit Suisse, which was beset by problems long before the U.S. bank failures, said Thursday that it would exercise an option to borrow up to 50 billion francs ($53.7 billion) from the Swiss National Bank. “This additional liquidity would support Credit Suisse’s core businesses and clients as Credit Suisse takes the necessary steps to create a simpler and more focused bank built around client needs,” the bank said. The banking turmoil has cast a shadow over Thursday’s meeting of the European Central Bank. Before the chaos erupted, ECB head Christine Lagarde had said it was “very likely” that the bank would make a large, half-percentage point rate increase to tackle stubbornly high inflation. After European bank shares plunged Wednesday, analysts said the meeting outcome was hard to predict, with some saying the central bank might dial back to a quarter-point increase. Higher rates fight inflation, but in recent days have fueled concern that they may have caused hidden losses on bank balance sheets. Speaking Wednesday at a financial conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehmann defended the bank, saying, “We already took the medicine” to reduce risks.

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Copyright March 24, 2023, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved