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TEXAS – Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has differing stances on Former President Trump and Vice President Harris’ trips to the Lone Star State ahead of election day. Perry believe’s Trump’s Texas travel is sending a “powerful message” to Texans and the American people, while the Vice President is wasting her time with the state in the middle of a heated Senate battle. Trump’s former energy secretary went on to further sing his praises on NewsNation, citing Trump’s energy and immigration policies as reasons for why him being in the state is beneficial.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A Texas man who wore a hat supporting former President Donald Trump punched an election worker who told him that wearing items endorsing a candidate are prohibited at voting sites, a sheriff said Friday.

The election worker, identified as a 69-year-old man, was treated at the scene Thursday and returned to his election post at a San Antonio library on Friday, officials said. The suspect was arrested on felony charges of assaulting an elderly person and could face additional charges, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said.

The alleged assault happened at the end of the first week of early voting in Texas, where long lines have stretched outside some polling places.

Both the sheriff and county elections administrator urged voters to stay calm and patient during sometimes long waits to vote during what they described as a contentious election.

“Thankfully there was nothing life-threatening about what occurred, but it was still an ugly incident,” Salazar said.

The suspect, identified as Jesse Lutzenberger, remained in jail Friday evening, according to Bexar County records. Jail records did not list an attorney and a phone number for Lutzenberger’s home could not immediately be found Friday.

Under Texas law, wearing clothing for or against a candidate inside a polling place is prohibited, as it’s considered electioneering. Lutzenberger allegedly entered the polling location in a red “MAGA or TRUMP” baseball cap, according to an arrest affidavit.

After being told he had to remove his cap in the voting area, Lutzenberger did and proceeded to cast a ballot, according to Salazar. He then put the cap back on before leaving, followed by the clerk again telling him remove the hat while inside the building.

As the clerk escorted him out of the library, Lutzenberger allegedly threw an elbow or arm back toward the clerk and then turned to punch him in the face multiple times, according to Salazar.

The clerk was treated at the scene by emergency medical personnel, Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said.

Salazar said there have been “several” incidents of voters wearing prohibited clothing or caps into polling places, but they then removed them when the state law was explained to them.

“Nothing here is worth getting hurt for, going to jail for,” he said.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Donald Trump tried Friday to turn a major celebratory event for Kamala Harris into an attack line tied to one of his favorite subjects, immigration.

Hours before the vice president was scheduled to appear with superstar Beyoncé in Houston, Trump made his own stop in Texas and accused Harris of hanging out with “woke celebrities” but not with the families of people who have been killed by migrants.

With 11 days until the election, Trump and Harris both took a detour from their travels in battleground states for brief forays into solidly Republican Texas. Neither believes the state is competitive, but they’re using it as a backdrop to drive a message about the issues they hope voters will have front of mind when they cast ballots. For Trump, that’s border security. For Harris, it’s abortion rights.

Trump’s trip to Texas, his second stop in a border state in two days, comes as the former president escalates his already dark and apocalyptic rhetoric against illegal immigration.

“We’re like a garbage can for the rest of the world to dump the people that they don’t want,” Trump told supporters Friday in Austin. Trump has continued to push the unfounded idea that foreign governments actively send criminals to the U.S.

Harris said the remark is “just another example of how he really belittles our country.”

“The president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are, and invests in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are,” Harris told reporters in Houston.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has routinely appeared with grieving relatives of people who were hurt or killed by people living in the country illegally. On Friday, he ceded the microphone to the mother of a 12-year-old Texas girl, Jocelyn Nungaray, whose body was found in June. Prosecutors have charged two Venezuelan men in the U.S. illegally with capital murder.

“She was just being a child, and due to the Biden-Harris policies we have here … she’s not here anymore,” Alexis Nungaray said.

During a rally Thursday in Arizona, Trump railed against Harris for the Biden administration’s record on the border, which he said had “unleashed” an “army of migrant gangs” that are “waging a campaign of violence and terror against our citizens.”

At an event in Las Vegas later in the day, Trump claimed towns had been “invaded and conquered” by violent immigrants, adding: “We have a lot of towns that haven’t yet been infected.” Trump has long echoed tropes about immigration in portraying migrants as disease carriers, dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump views immigration as the issue that won him the White House in 2016. He accuses Harris of perpetrating “a wicked betrayal of America” and having “orchestrated the most egregious betrayal that any leader in American history has ever inflicted upon our people,” even though crime is down.

While migrants have been charged with some high-profile crimes that Trump repeatedly highlights, research has shown that immigrants — including those who entered the country illegally — are charged with fewer violent crimes than American citizens.

He has also spread false theories that Democrats are registering immigrants without legal status to vote.

While in Austin, Trump also will sit down with Joe Rogan, the nation’s most listened-to podcaster, creating another opportunity for the Republican nominee to highlight the hypermasculine tone that has defined much of his 2024 White House bid. The interview is expected to be released Saturday.

Rogan interview underscores Trump’s focus on masculinity
Trump has made masculinity a central theme of his campaign, appearing on podcasts targeting young male voters and tapping surrogates who sometimes use crude language.

At a Trump rally Wednesday, former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson called the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, a “weak man” and compared Trump’s return to the White House to a dad who comes home ready to punish his misbehaved children.

“When Dad gets home, you know what he says?” Carlson asked. “You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you are getting a vigorous spanking right now.”

Rogan and Trump have a complicated relationship. Rogan had previously said that he declined to host Trump on his podcast before because he did not want to help him.

Earlier this year, Trump criticized Rogan after the podcaster said that then-candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. was the only person running for president who made sense to him. Kennedy has since suspended his bid, endorsed Trump and joined him on the campaign trail.

“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring???” Trump wrote on his social media site in August, referring to Rogan’s experience as a commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The podcaster is known for his hourslong interviews on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which is listed as No. 1 in the United States, according to Spotify’s charts. He calls women “chicks” and once laughed as a comedian friend described repeatedly coercing young women comics into sex.

HOUSTON (AP) — During his four years in office, Donald Trump erased a half a century of hard-fought progress for women when he appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, Kamala Harris will say Friday in Texas during a rally with Beyoncé, according to excerpts of her speech.

“And now, he wants to go even further. Let us be clear: If Donald Trump wins again, he will ban abortion nationwide,” Harris will say, according to excerpts ahead of the rally highlighting the medical fallout from abortion restrictions.

The message was intended to register in the political battlegrounds away from Texas, where the Democratic nominee is hoping that the aftereffects from the fall of Roe v. Wade will spur voters to turn out to support her quest for the presidency.

“For anyone watching from another state, if you think you are protected from Trump abortion bans because you live in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, California, or any state where voters or legislators have protected reproductive freedom, please know: No one is protected,” she will say. “Because a Donald Trump national ban will outlaw abortion in every single state.”

Trump has been inconsistent in his message to voters on abortion and reproductive rights, though he’s said he’d veto a national abortion ban. He has repeatedly shifted his stance and offered vague, contradictory and at times nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election.

Harris will also be joined at the rally by women who have nearly died from sepsis and other pregnancy complications because they were unable to get proper medical care, including women who never intended to end their pregnancies.

Some of them have already been out campaigning for Harris and others have told their harrowing tales in campaign ads that seek to show how the issue has ballooned into something far bigger than the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Since abortion was restricted in Texas, the state’s infant death rate has increased, more babies have died of birth defects and maternal mortality has risen.

With the presidential election in a dead heat, Harris is banking on abortion rights as a major driver for voters — including for Republican women, particularly since Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right. He has been inconsistent about how he would approach the issue if voters return him to the White House.

Harris’ campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the message dovetails with the vice president’s emphasis on reproductive freedom. The singer’s planned appearance Friday adds a high level of star power to Harris’ visit to the state. She will be the latest celebrity to appear with or on behalf of Harris, including Lizzo, James Taylor, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Eminem. While in Texas, Harris also will tape a podcast with host Brené Brown.

Trump was also in Texas Friday, where he predicted he’d break records for the number of people deported from the United States if he wins the election. He was also taping a podcast with host Joe Rogan.

There is some evidence to suggest that abortion rights may drive women to the polls as it did during the 2022 midterm elections. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.

“Living in Texas, it feels incredibly important to protect women’s health and safety,” said Colette Clark, an Austin voter. She said voting for Harris is the best way to prevent further abortion restrictions from happening across the country.

Another Austin resident, Daniel Kardish, didn’t know anyone who has been personally affected by the restrictions, but nonetheless views it as a key issue this election.

“I feel strongly about women having bodily autonomy,” he said.

Democrats warn that a winnowing of rights and freedoms will only continue if Trump is elected. Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S. have been rejecting Democrats’ efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, for example.

“In America, freedom is not to be given. It is not to be bestowed. It is ours. By right. And that includes the fundamental freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have the government telling her what to do,” Harris will say, according to prepared remarks.

Democrats also hope Harris’ visit will give a boost to Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred will appear at the rally with Harris, and in excerpts said when he is elected he’ll help codify reproductive rights.

When Roe was first overturned, Democrats initially focused on the new limitations on access to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies. But the same medical procedures used for abortions are used to treat miscarriages.

And increasingly, in 14 states with strict abortion bans, women cannot get medical care until their condition has become life-threatening. In some states, doctors can face criminal charges if they provide medical care.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Texas encapsulates the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits physicians from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks or before.

As a result, women, including those who didn’t intend to end a pregnancy, are increasingly suffering worse medical care. That’s in part because doctors cannot intervene unless a woman is facing a life-threatening condition, or to prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”

The state also has become a battleground for litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the side of the state’s ban just two weeks ago.

Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion.

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

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

HOUSTON (AP) – Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is seeking to protect his personal social media accounts from being sold in the upcoming auction of his Infowars media platform to pay more than $1 billion he owes relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, claiming selling those accounts would violate his privacy and deny him a chance to make a fresh start after bankruptcy.

The trustee overseeing the liquidation and selloff of the assets of Infowars and its parent company Free Speech Systems, asked a federal judge on Friday to include the social media accounts as part of the auctions scheduled for November and December. The judge delayed a decision on the matter for at least a week.

Jones’ lawyers argue the personal media accounts that use his real name are not owned by Infowars or FSS, but are controlled by him personally, and should be considered part of his “persona” that cannot be owned by someone other than himself.

They argue that trustee Christopher Murray does not have a right to the social media accounts as property that can be sold, and warned that a purchaser could face lawsuits as to whether they were rightfully obtained.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said a proposed order regarding the potential sale of the social media accounts that preserved Jones’ right to sue over ownership later was unclear, and tentatively scheduled another hearing in a week.

“We should have great clarity and everybody agrees that something can be sold before it can be sold,” Lopez said. “I want a purchaser or a bidder to know exactly what they think they can buy. I don’t want to create litigation risk for a potential purchaser.”

The trustee is also seeking to be allowed to sell off the rights to royalties from Jones’ book “The Great Reset: And the War for the World” published in August 2022, and his video game “Alex Jones NWO Wars” released in 2023, that features Jones as the hero in a shooting game.

Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones has vowed to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also has suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in the company’s home city of Austin, Texas.

In seeking the rights to the social media accounts, the legal team for the trustee argued in court filings that Jones’ X account, and others on Telegram, Gab, Parler and other platforms, “are frequently used to promote and post Infowars content, and in some cases, have a significant number of followers.” Jones’ X account has nearly 3 million followers.

The trustee argued that social media accounts of influencers, celebrities and political personalities have become valuable assets, and that Jones’ accounts have drawn particular interest from multiple parties in buying them.

If sold, Jones’ attorneys said litigation would depend on who purchased them.

“We got comfortable with the trustee that if certain parties were the successful bidder, there would be litigation later, but if certain parties were the successful bidder, there wouldn’t be litigation later,” Vickie Driver, one of Jones’ attorneys, told the judge.

“There is value to some folks in buying these assets and using them in one way, and value to other folks to use them in another way,” Driver said.

Jones and his company both filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 — the same year Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional distress lawsuits against Jones for his repeatedly calling the 2012 school shooting a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to get more gun control legislation passed. Twenty first-graders and six educators were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting.

During two civil trials in Texas and Connecticut, parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ hoax conspiracies and his followers’ actions. They said they were harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.

Jones is appealing the civil jury verdicts, citing free speech rights and questioning whether the families proved any connection between his comments and the people who harassed and threatened the relatives. He has since acknowledged that the shooting did happen.

AUSTIN – Since joining Texas Monthly in 2019 as the country’s first taco editor, José R. Ralat has visited thousands of taquerias, restaurants, and taco trucks across Texas. He’s highlighted the delicious food he’s come across, shared the stories of the people behind the dishes, and taken readers on a journey through the state’s wide variety of Mexican food, capturing the cultural complexity and fascinating history behind one of the most influential culinary traditions in the world. Now Ralat, the state’s preeminent taco expert, has released his first definitive list of the best tacos and taquerias in the Lone Star State.

To compile the rankings, Ralat traveled roughly 14,000 miles, visiting more than 400 taquerias in about six months. He looked for tacos that met a certain level of craft, quality, creativity, and flavor. As he took notes, he observed a new movement among taquerias—one that has created a new type of cuisine. Ralat calls this movement New Tejano, which describes dishes that marry nostalgic Mexican or Mexican American food with native Texan ingredients. Ralat’s comprehensive list features multiple examples of New Tejano cuisine.

The list’s No. 1 spot is Ana Liz Taqueria, in Mission, and the chile relleno as its standout taco. The restaurant, run by James Beard Award-winning chef Ana Liz Pulido, specializes in nixtamalization, the ancient Mexican process through which corn kernels are cooked and steeped in an alkaline solution to loosen the outer shell and release vital nutrients, and then made into corn tortillas.

Elemi, just outside El Paso, came in second for its New Tejano dishes that use local ingredients and are a nod to the Mexican roots of owners Emiliano and Kristal Marentes. Elemi’s conejito pibil is its tortilla-wrapped standout.

The third spot went to Azteca Taco House, in Houston. Ralat identifies the taqueria’s costillas en salsa verde as the taco of choice. Azteca, run by co-owner Carlos Gallegos and his family, ranked high not only for its delicious food but also because it makes customers feel at home.

Rounding out the Top 10 are:

No. 4 Revolver Taco Lounge, in Dallas

No. 5 Taqueria El Tiger, in El Paso

No. 6 Taconeta, in El Paso

No. 7 Papalo Taqueria, in Houston

No. 8 Stixs & Stone, in San Antonio

No. 9 Maskaras Mexican Grill, in Dallas

No. 10 Nixta Taqueria, in Austin

“There has never been a more exciting time for tacos and those who love them,” says Ralat. “Variety, tradition, and boundary pushing exist simultaneously. There are tacos for everyone everywhere. We are on the verge of a new age of tacos.”