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HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports the nation’s second-largest oil company said Friday it planned to move its headquarters to Houston from San Ramon, Calif., later this year, consolidating even more big oil industry power in the nation’s energy capital. Chevron follows Exxon Mobil, the nation’s largest oil company, which last year moved its headquarters to its Houston campus from Irving. “Texas offers a business-friendly environment, a more affordable cost of living, and better proximity to key counterparts in the service sector, our industry and academia,” the company said in a statement. “We are currently in the process of evaluating which positions will relocate, and which positions will remain in San Ramon to support our California operations. We expect to complete this evaluation before the end of the year.”

Chevron’s decision follows a surge of punitive policy changes for the oil industry in California following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2022 climate commitments that promised to quicken the state’s shift to renewable energy. At the time, Newsom said the state was in the business of “holding Big Oil accountable.” The following year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against Chevron, four other oil and gas majors and the American Petroleum Institute alleging a years-long climate change deception campaign in the state. “We have previously stated that we believe state policy makers have pursued policies that raise costs and consumer prices, creating a hardship for all Californians, especially those who can least afford it,” the Chevron statement said. “These policies have also made California investment unappealing compared with opportunities elsewhere in the U.S. and globally.” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston, said Chevron, which has a major refining presence in California, “continues to be at odds with the California regulators and the new state legislation that is impacting all companies operating in California. The state of Texas is much friendlier to the energy business and their moving to the state reflects that.”

HOUSTON (AP) — A Frontier Airlines flight that had been set to go from Houston to the Dallas area last week got canceled not because of weather, but because one of its pilots got arrested.

The pilot, Seymour Walker, was arrested by officers around 4 p.m. Thursday before passengers began to board the plane at Bush Intercontinental Airport, according to Houston police.

Walker was taken “into custody without incident,” Houston police said. Walker, 45, was wanted on an assault-family violence arrest warrant that had been issued by the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Department of Public Safety.

It was not immediately known if Walker was still in custody Monday. The Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Department of Public Safety did not immediately reply to an open records request seeking comment.

Walker could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a statement, Frontier Airlines confirmed the pilot’s arrest and that it was not related to the airlines’ or the pilot’s performance of his job duties.

A replacement for the pilot was not immediately available, forcing the flight’s cancellation, Frontier Airlines said.

“Impacted customers were offered the option of a full refund, credit or re-accommodation on the next available Frontier flight, later that evening. Passengers were also provided a $100 flight voucher, and overnight hotel accommodations as needed,” the airline said.

BASTROP – KVUE reports that central Texas-based tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is opening a school in Bastrop this fall. The school is called Ad Astra, a Latin phrase that translates as “to the stars.” According to its website, the school’s mission is to “foster curiosity, creativity and critical thinking in the next generation of problem solvers and builders.” The school’s curriculum is focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). “Ad Astra School admits students based on merit, regardless of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school,” the school’s website reads. The website further says that the school is centered on hands-on and project-based learning, where children are encouraged to explore, experiment and discover solutions to real-world problems. It also states that it will “tailor learning experiences to each child’s unique needs, pace and interests.”

TEXAS – The Wall Street Journal reports that when illegal migration surged across the U.S.-Mexico border last fall, Phoenix’s largest migrant shelter was so busy that cots filled the cafeteria and lined the hallways. Today the shelter, housed in a converted elementary school, is empty. The U.S. has experienced a stark decline in illegal border crossings in the past six months, thanks to a newly sprung security gantlet migrants encounter traveling to the U.S. border through Mexico. On the Mexican side, security checkpoints dot highways. Mexico’s National Guard patrols the southern banks of the Rio Grande, aiming to prevent mass concentrations of migrants. Thousands of asylum seekers caught heading north have been put on buses and sent back to southern Mexico near Guatemala. Aid organizations liken the busing strategy to the board game Chutes and Ladders, as migrants are moved around the country. The policy aims to discourage them from heading north. Many decide to return to South America, migrants say.

The Americans also have a new tool. An order issued by President Biden in June disqualifies migrants from winning asylum if they enter the U.S. illegally. As a result, many more of them can be deported quickly, and far fewer have been released into the U.S. The moves mark an unprecedented level of cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico, both motivated by presidential elections this year, to bring down illegal border crossings in hopes of diverting attention away from the issue. The effort has worked beyond anything the U.S. could have predicted, at least so far. The progress gives Vice President Kamala Harris a potential counter to efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies, who are painting her as the face of failed U.S. policies on immigration. The U.S. recorded about 57,000 illegal crossings in July, according to a person familiar with unpublished government data, down from around 250,000 in December, when they reached an all-time high. That is the lowest monthly figure since 2020, when crossings were still relatively low because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “This is just what the administration wanted,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “Not that Democrats are going to win on this issue, but that chaos at the border won’t be on the front pages anymore.”

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration has temporarily suspended permits for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to enter the United States and stay up to two years amid concerns about fraud by their financial sponsors, officials said Friday.

Nearly 500,000 people from the four countries arrived through June under presidential authority after applying online with financial sponsors in the United States and flying at their own expense. It is a major piece of the Democratic administration’s policies to create or expand paths for legal entry while restricting asylum for those who cross the border illegally.

The Homeland Security Department said it “temporarily paused” new authorizations while it reviews the backgrounds of financial sponsors.

The department said it has not identified any security or public safety concerns about people from the four countries who benefit, just their sponsors. Beneficiaries “are thoroughly screened and vetted prior to their arrival to the United States,” it said in statement that promised to “restart application processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards.”

Homeland Security didn’t say when processing was suspended. But the news broke after the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that favors immigration restrictions, cited an internal Homeland Security report that raised questions about fraud.

The Associated Press did not confirm details of the internal review, which neither Homeland Security nor FAIR provided. But FAIR said the report found, among other things, that 3,218 sponsors were responsible for more than 100,000 filings and that 24 of the top 1,000 Social Security numbers used by sponsors corresponded to dead people.

Republican critics pounced. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “This program should have never existed in the first place. It’s just another way the Biden-Harris administration has welcomed hundreds of thousands of aliens into our country unchecked.”

The policy — introduced for Venezuelans in October 2022 and for the other three nationalities in January 2023 — is aimed at countries that send large numbers of people to the United States and generally refuse to accept those who are deported. It is paired with commitments from Mexico to take back people from those countries who cross the U.S. border illegally.

Under the policy, the U.S. accepts up to 30,000 people a month from the countries for two years with eligibility for work authorization. More than 194,000 Haitians, 110,000 Venezuelans, 104,000 Cubans and 86,000 Nicaraguans benefited through June. according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Concerns about sponsors seeking a quick profit surfaced almost from the start. Facebook groups with names like “Sponsors U.S.” carried dozens of posts offering and seeking financial supporters.

Arrests for illegal crossings have plummeted among the four nationalities. Cubans were arrested 5,065 times during the first half of the year, compared with more than 42,000 arrests in November 2022 alone. Haitians were arrested 304 times during the first six months of the year, compared with a peak of nearly 18,000 in September 2021.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Attorneys for Elon Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors are asking a Delaware judge to vacate her ruling requiring the company to rescind a massive and unprecedented pay package for Musk.

Friday’s hearing follows a January ruling in which Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick concluded that Musk engineered the landmark 2018 pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, but that sum has fluctuated over the years based on Tesla’s stock price.

Following the court ruling, Tesla shareholders met in June and ratified Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, again by an overwhelming margin.

Defense attorneys say the vote makes clear that Tesla shareholders, with full knowledge of the flaws in the 2018 process that McCormick pointed out in her January ruling, are adamant that Musk is entitled to the pay package.

“Honoring the shoulder vote would affirm the strength of our corporate system,” David Ross, an attorney for Musk and the other individual defendants, told McCormick. “This was stockholder democracy working.”

Ross told the judge that the defendants were not challenging the factual findings or legal conclusions in her ruling, but simply asking that she vacate her order directing Tesla to rescind the pay package.

McCormick, however, seemed skeptical of the defense arguments, peppering attorneys with questions and noting that there is no precedent in Delaware law for allowing a post-trial shareholder vote to ratify adjudicated breaches of fiduciary duty by corporate directors.

“This has never been done before,” she said.

Defense attorneys argued that, while they could find no case that is exactly comparable, Delaware law has long recognized shareholder ratification as a cure to corporate governance errors, and has long acknowledged the “sovereignty” of shareholders as the ultimate owners of a corporation.

“I candidly don’t see how Delaware law can tell the owners of the company that they’re not entitled to make the decision they made,” said Rudolf Koch, an attorney for Tesla.

Donald Verrilli, a lawyer for an induvial stockholder who owns more than 19,000 Tesla shares, suggested that it would be wrong for the lone shareholder who filed the lawsuit to thwart the will of the majority of Tesla shareholders. At the time the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiff owned just nine shares of Tesla stock.

“The voice of the majority of shareholders should matter…. This lawsuit is not representing the interest of the shareholders,” Verrilli said.

Thomas Grady, an attorney for a group of Florida objectors who own or manage almost 8 million Tesla shares with some $2 billion, argued that for McCormick to rule for the plaintiff, she has to “disenfranchise” all other Tesla shareholders.

Greg Varallo, an attorney for the plaintiff, urged McCormick not to give any credence to the June shareholder vote, saying it has no legal precedent in Delaware or anywhere else. There also is no reason for the court to reopen the trial record and admit new evidence, he said.

Under Delaware law, stockholders have no authority to overrule courts by trying to use a post-trial ratification vote as a “giant eraser,” Varallo argued.

“Ratification is not magic, and it never has been,” Varallo added. “This should end here and now.”

McCormick gave no indication on when she would rule. She also has yet to rule on a huge and unprecedented fee request by plaintiff attorneys, who contend that they are entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $7 billion.

HOUSTON (AP) — Family members of a 12-year-old Houston girl who police say was killed by two Venezuelan men who entered the U.S. illegally said Friday that they are supporting legislation that would severely limit the ability of federal immigration authorities to release immigrants they detain.

The proposed legislation runs counter to what migrants’ rights groups advocate — a move away from detention — with one such advocate calling the measure an effort “to bloat the immigration enforcement system” and “to demonize immigrant communities.”

Venezuelan nationals Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, have been charged with capital murder in the death of Jocelyn Nungaray, whose body was found in a creek June 17 after she disappeared during a walk to a convenience store. A medical examiner concluded that she was strangled.

The two men entered the United States illegally earlier this year on separate occasions near El Paso. They were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol but later released with orders to appear in court at a later date, according to the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Their release came through ICE’s Alternatives to Detention programs, which allow detained immigrants to be freed while their immigration cases are pending. ICE uses GPS monitoring, phone calls and a phone app to monitor them and ensure they make their court appearances.

“The two men who ripped my daughter away from me should have never been here. They should never have been roaming our streets freely, as freely as they were,” Alexis Nungaray, Jocelyn Nungaray’s mother, said at a news conference.

Following the girl’s death, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, both Republicans from Texas, introduced legislation called the “Justice for Jocelyn Act.” It would prevent federal authorities from releasing a detained immigrant if there are open beds available at a detention center.

If detained immigrants are released, they would be subject to continuous GPS monitoring and have a nightly curfew, and any violation of the terms of their release would result in immediate deportation.

“These are crimes committed by illegal immigrants who were apprehended and that the Biden-Harris administration chose to release,” Cruz said.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, said she supports the legislation because “it will make us safer and because crime is bigger than partisanship.”

Republicans have used recent cases of immigrants who entered the country illegally and were charged with crimes to attack what they say are President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policies. In Georgia, the arrest of a Venezuelan man accused of killing nursing student Laken Hope Riley became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration. The suspect, Jose Ibarra, appeared in court Friday as his attorneys have asked his case be moved to another county.

Nayna Gupta, director of policy for the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center, said the proposed legislation is “seeking to exploit … an awful situation.”

Gupta said it would eliminate the limited due process that detained immigrants have to make the case that they are not a danger and should not be held in a “detention system where deaths, abuse and medical neglect are really increasing with alarming frequency.” The bill’s mandatory GPS monitoring would be a “huge expansion” of ICE’s surveillance system, Gupta added.

“This bill is just an attempt to bloat the immigration enforcement system in a politicized manner by fearmongering and using a tragic incident, again, to demonize immigrant communities,” she said.

A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on its Alternatives to Detention programs, which have been in place since 2004.

On its website, ICE says participants are thoroughly vetted and immigration officers review several factors, including criminal and supervision history and family and community ties.

Migrants’ rights groups have urged federal authorities to rely less on detention, saying it is inefficient and ineffective and alternatives are more humane and cost-effective.

Many studies have found that immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens.

“Does our immigration system need to be fixed? Yes. But not because of these individual crimes. It needs to be fixed because it’s been broken and outdated now for decades,” Gupta said.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

About 10 miles from Johnson Space Center, a Houston-area church takes a moment during Wednesday Bible studies and Sunday evening services to pray for two members who cannot be there.

In fact, there’s no way on Earth for NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Tracy Dyson to show up at Providence Baptist Church. They’re in space, orbiting the planet. More specifically, these two members are working on the International Space Station together.

Like many astronauts before them, they brought along their faith when they launched into space.

“God uses all of us in pretty neat ways, and I think I get the most joy from what I do thinking about it in those terms,” said Dyson, discussing her job on the “Bible Project” podcast ahead of her March launch on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Dyson’s six-month mission isn’t scheduled to end until September, but Wilmore and his fellow NASA test pilot, Suni Williams, should have been back weeks ago. They are staying longer than expected following thruster failures and helium leaks on Boeing’s inaugural crew flight for its Starliner capsule. Wilmore and Williams have said they are confident the capsule will return them home safely; engineers are still poring over Starliner test data.

There’s no return date yet, which means the congregation’s worries have subsided for now since they are safe aboard the space station, said Tommy Dahn. He is a pastor for the Pasadena, Texas, church where Dyson worships as a newer member and Wilmore is a longtime elder.

It’s the launch and return days that ratchet up their anxieties — and prayers.

“We will definitely be on vigil as we find out when that’s going to happen,” said Dahn, who is in close contact with Wilmore and his wife during the latest mission.

Wilmore paused before boarding the Starliner on each launch attempt, huddling in prayer with technicians and Williams. He acknowledged the risks of spaceflight — especially on a test flight like his.

“Our families have been a part of this from the beginning. … As far as preparing them, they’re prepared. We trust in sovereign God. Whatever the plan is, we’re ready for it, whatever that might be,” he told reporters ahead of the flight.

Wilmore’s faith that God is in control gives his family great peace, his wife, Deanna Wilmore, said via text message. He is content on the space station, neither worrying nor fretting, she said.

“We’re not saying this means that nothing bad will happen or the Starliner will bring Barry home safely, but whatever the Lord does, will be for our good and for His glory,” even if they don’t fully understand it, she said.

The U.S. space program has had stunning achievements and devastating tragedies.

Former NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins knew space exploration was high-risk, but didn’t feel its full weight until his first assignment. A life insurance company drove that home ahead of his Soyuz rocket launch in September 2013, Hopkins said, recalling being told they didn’t insure astronauts.

Hopkins realized he was not spiritually ready. Between trainings, he began converting to Catholicism, a faith he’d been immersed in since he began dating his Catholic wife but insisted he would never join.

“It’s the idea of being an astronaut and recognizing the risks that we take,” he said. “It felt like something was missing for me.”

When he received Communion for the first time, he was overcome with a clarity and peace that he wanted to take into space. With his priests’ help, Hopkins secured permission to take a pyx of consecrated hosts. He administered weekly Communion to himself and on long, intense spacewalk days.

“It just set the tone for the day,” he said. “Then, you just go through the step-by-step process of executing the spacewalk but doing it knowing that Christ is with me.”

Others have taken Communion in space, including Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin after landing on the moon with Neil Armstrong in 1969.

The Rev. Wencil Pavlovsky, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in the Houston area, helped former astronaut Mark Vande Hei bring Communion into orbit. Vande Hei was aboard the space station in 2017 when Pope Francis called it.

Pavlovsky says ministering to astronauts isn’t much different than supporting others: “What I do find unique and what I truly, truly appreciate is that they have a very different perspective because they get to look back at us the way God does.”

Relatedly, there is a phenomenon that philosopher Frank White calls the Overview Effect, when someone’s worldview shifts after looking at Earth from space.

Thirty-six St. Paul the Apostle parishioners have been astronauts, Pavlovsky said. Established in the 1960s to serve the growing space community, the church embraces its history, including with stained-glass windows designed from Hubble Telescope images and its curated collection of space travel memorabilia.

It is unknown how many have practiced their faith in orbit, according to NASA, because some keep it private. But flight-certified religious items are permitted. In 2023, astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli celebrated Hannukah on the space station, sharing a video featuring a menorah, a spinning dreidel and her view of Earth.

Houston Rabbi Shaul Osadchey encouraged a member of his congregation and then astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman to bring the first Torah into space on his final shuttle mission in 1996. Osadchey tracked down a miniature scroll, and he and about 40 synagogue members attended the launch in Florida.

“We bring our culture and our backgrounds with us where we go,” said Osadchey, noting Hoffman read from the Torah, the start of Genesis specifically, on Shabbat. “Jeff brought the Jewish tradition into a new domain — new world that is being conquered by humans.”

The three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 broadcasted their reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve as they flew around the moon, starting with “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth.”

NASA says it helps observant astronauts stay connected to their faith community. Because of Dyson and Wilmore, their Southern Baptist congregation, which numbers around 250 people on any given Sunday, has had unique opportunities.

Despite the distance, women in the church arranged a care package of sorts — notes of encouragement — for Dyson, said Dahn.

“Barry, he ministers to us almost,” he said, noting how Wilmore makes encouraging calls to congregants while in space.

After Wilmore arrived on the space station in early June, he and Dyson appeared live via video at a Providence Baptist Sunday service and gave the congregation a tour of the station, Dahn said. Wilmore taught a lesson before he and others aboard the space station led the congregation in singing “Amazing Grace.”

“It’s kind of thrilling,” said Dahn, adding that thoughts of God come easily when the astronauts show Earth through the space station’s window. Like other theologically conservative Christians, he believes God is the creator of the universe as depicted in the Bible, not the Big Bang or other theories.

“It’s confirming. I don’t want to be crass, but it kind of makes us laugh at the ‘Flat Earthers,’” he said.

Wilmore uses his experience in space to enhance people’s understanding of their Christian beliefs, said Dahn, noting his speaking engagements with the Answers in Genesis ministry, which runs the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, evangelical attractions in Kentucky.

Few others can do what Dyson and Wilmore do, although they are unlikely to say so themselves, said Corey Johnson, another Providence Baptist pastor. He thinks of how Wilmore organized a group to build a fence at his home, and how Dyson gladly read his sons a book while visiting.

“These are uniquely gifted individuals,” he said, but “there’s more to them than what they do for their day job.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.