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HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that the American Federation of Teachers condemned the state takeover and backed the Houston local as union delegates from across the country meet in Houston this week. In a Wednesday rally at Discovery Green, union leaders reiterated their support for Houston and opposition to the state takeover, which reached its one-year mark with appointed leadership in June. The rally coalesces national support for the the district’s largest teachers union, the Houston Federation of Teachers, led by President Jackie Anderson who vocally opposes the district’s proposed $4.4 billion bond. The district said the bond would go largely to upgrading and rebuilding aging campuses, as well as co-locating schools to other existing campuses. Anderson brought up the bond to a chorus of boos from the crowd.

“And I don’t say ‘no.’ I say ‘hell no,'” Anderson said. She noted reports that began with Spectrum News reporting a charter school network founded by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles charged its Texas schools fees that fed into a general fund that, in part, subsidized one of its Colorado schools. AFT’s Houston convention is also in the public eye with Vice President Kamala Harris scheduled to speak there Thursday, days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and backed Harris to be the Democratic Party nominee. The 1.8 million-member union was the first to endorse Harris for president Monday, according to a union statement. AFT President Randi Weingarten reiterated support for the Houston local, as it opposes the bond and takeover. She decried Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for school vouchers that would put public dollars toward students attending private and charter schools. “What’s going on in Houston is really despicable and duplicitous,” Weingarten said. “Before the takeover, Houston’s schools were on the ascendancy. They had a really good superintendent. They were making progress in every one of the measures that these testing-maniacal people had put in their place.”

EL PASO – The publication Border Report says El Paso County is asking the State of Texas for millions of dollars to cover the cost of jailing individuals arrested through Operation Lone Star. County Commissioners Court on Monday voted unanimously to submit a grant application to the Office of Gov. Greg Abbott for detainee processing, housing, judicial processing and medical costs. The vote authorized a separate application to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission to provide legal assistance to those detainees. Commissioners also gave the green light to County Judge Ricardo Samaniego to send a letter requesting those detained by the Texas Department of Public Safety to be taken to a state jail, rather than the El Paso County Jail. “In order to apply for that we need to submit an emergency declaration. But I really want the community to understand we have been hesitant because we wanted it to be limited – not to have more DPS agents here but to focus on the fact that it has been a huge impact on the community, on the county,” Samaniego said.

AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News reports that President Joe Biden will deliver remarks in Austin on Monday as he returns to public life after his COVID-19 diagnosis last week, White House officials said Tuesday. Biden has not made any public appearances in the days after the diagnosis or since he announced Sunday that he was ending his reelection bid. He returned Tuesday to the White House from his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he had been recovering. Biden will speak at an LBJ Presidential Library event commemorating 60 years since the historic passage of the Civil Rights Act. The event had been postponed after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13. The Civil Rights Act, considered the most sweeping civil rights legislation since the end of slavery, banned racial discrimination in public places, schools and places of employment.

DALLAS (AP) –Southwest Airlines plans to drop its tradition of more than 50 years and start assigning seats and selling premium seating for customers who want more legroom.

HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is slated to continue her days-old presidential push by speaking Thursday to the American Federation of Teachers, the first labor union to formally endorse her candidacy.

Having emerged as the likely Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden exited the race, Harris plans to travel aggressively to spread her message and rally voters. The outreach occurs as the former and retooled Biden campaign, now under Harris’ control, figures out its strategy for generating turnout and maximizing her time in a 100-plus day sprint to the November election against Republican Donald Trump.

But in Trump, Harris is up against the survivor of a recent assassination attempt with tens of millions of loyalists who are devoted to putting him back in the Oval Office. Just as Harris is trying to draw a contrast with Trump, he is trying to do the same with her.

Trump went on the offensive against Harris at a Wednesday rally in North Carolina, telling his crowd of thousands that she is a “real liberal” who is “much worse” than Biden. The former president said Harris had misled voters about the health of the 81-year old Biden and his ability to run for the presidency.

“For three and a half years, Harris shamelessly lied to the public to cover up Joe Biden’s mental unfitness, claiming that ‘crooked Joe’ was at the absolute top of his game,” Trump said. “I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

The vice president’s address at the union’s biennial convention in Houston follows a Tuesday rally in the Milwaukee area and a Wednesday speech to a gathering of the historically Black sorority Zeta Phi Beta in Indianapolis.

“We know when we organize, mountains move,” she told the thousands of sorority members on Wednesday. “When we mobilize, nations change. And when we vote, we make history.”

The 1.8 million-member AFT has backed Harris and her pro-union agenda on the premise that a Trump return to the White House could result in restrictions on organized labor and a potential loss of funding for education.

Randi Weingarten, the union’s president, posted on social media ahead of Harris’ appearance, “We are fully committed to this fight: united, mobilized and ready to vote in this year’s election.”

The AFL-CIO, which represents 60 labor unions including the AFT, has backed Harris. But the vice president has yet to get the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, with its president Shawn Fain telling CNBC in a Monday interview that the decision will be made by his union’s executive board.

Fain spoke at the AFT conference on Wednesday and was blistering in his criticism of Trump. The former president has relied on blue-collar voters to compete politically nationwide, but he failed to win a majority of union households in 2020 and lost to Biden, according to AP VoteCast.

“It’s very clear a Donald Trump White House would be a disaster for the working class,” Fain said. “Donald Trump is a scab. He stands for everything that we as union and in the labor movement stand against.”

After her speech, Harris will return to Washington and meet in the afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A judge on Wednesday rejected Texas’ attempts to compel a deposition from one of the largest migrant shelters on the U.S.-Mexico border, dealing a new legal setback to a widening Republican-led investigation into migrant aid groups.

The ruling by state District Judge J.R. Flores does not stop the state’s investigation into Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which provides temporary housing for as many as 2,000 women and children when border crossings are at their highest. The border nonprofit is among several targeted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over claims that aid groups are helping migrants enter the U.S. illegally.

Catholic Charities and other organizations have denied the accusations, saying the state has produced no evidence.

The one-paragraph order by Flores shields leaders of Catholic Charities from a deposition and is the second time in recent weeks that a Texas court has pushed back on the state’s investigation into migrant aid groups. Earlier this month, a separate judge in El Paso rejected the state’s efforts to close a shelter in a scathing order that accused the state of harassment.

“We hope that we can put this behind us and focus our efforts on protecting and upholding the sanctity and dignity of all human lives while following the law,” said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley is a member organization of Catholic Charities USA but it is a separate nonprofit within the Diocese of Brownsville.

The group opened a shelter for migrants in 2017 that typically receives about 1,000 people a week, most of whom stay only a few days.

In court filings, Catholic Charities said it provided over 100 pages of documents in response to questions from the state in late March about its policies and operations. Paxton’s office then pushed for a deposition of a member who would have direct knowledge of the organization’s operating procedures.

Attorneys for the state argued that a deposition could help them determine whether to sue Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley or stop their investigation.

Texas launched the investigations into migrant aid groups after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to Paxton in 2022 that suggested, without citing evidence, that border organizations could be helping migrants enter the country illegally.

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — A former Uvalde school police officer who was part of the slow law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is scheduled to appear in court for the first time Thursday.

Adrian Gonzales was one of the nearly 400 law enforcement personnel who responded to the scene but then waited more than 70 minutes to confront the shooter inside the school. He’s scheduled to be arraigned in the small Texas town on charges of abandoning and failing to protect children who were killed and wounded. Some families have spent more than two years pressing for officers to face charges after 19 children and two teachers were killed inside the fourth grade classroom.

Gonzales and former Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo were indicted by a Uvalde grand jury in June. Arredondo waived his arraignment and entered a not guilty plea on July 10. Both were released on bond following their indictments.

Gonzales’ attorney has called the charges “unprecedented in the state of Texas.”

“Mr. Gonzales’ position is he did not violate school district policy or state law,” said Nico LaHood, the former district attorney for Bexar County.

Javier Montemayor, who is listed by the Uvalde District Clerk as Arredondo’s attorney, did not return telephone messages left at his office seeking comment.

The May 22, 2024, attack was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The police response has been heavily criticized in state and federal investigations that described “cascading failures” in training, communication and leadership among officers who waited outside the building while some victims lay dying or begging for help.

Gonzales, 51, was among the first officers to arrive. He was indicted on 29 charges that accuse him of abandoning his training and not confronting the shooter, even after hearing gunshots as he stood in a hallway.

Arredondo, 53, was the on-site commander that day. He is charged with 10 state jail felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child. Arredondo failed to identify an active shooting, did not follow his training and made decisions that slowed the police response to stop a gunman who was “hunting” victims, according to the indictment.

Terrified students inside the classroom called 911 as parents begged officers to go in. A tactical team of officers eventually went into the classroom and killed the shooter.

Each charge against Gonzales and Arredondo carries up to two years in jail if convicted.

The case is the latest, yet still rare circumstance of a U.S. law enforcement officer being charged for allegedly failing to act during an on-campus shooting. The first such case to go to trial was a sheriff’s deputy in Florida who did not confront the perpetrator of the 2018 Parkland massacre. The deputy was acquitted of felony neglect last year. A lawsuit by the victims’ families and survivors is pending.

Some families of the Uvalde victims have called for more officers to be charged. Several families have filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media and online gaming companies and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle the gunman used.

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Lathan, who reported from Austin, Texas, is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas.

(HOUSTON) — A suspect has been identified after an abandoned newborn was found crying by a dumpster in Houston, police said Wednesday. A person called 911 early Sunday afternoon reporting that they had heard a baby crying near a dumpster at an apartment complex, according to Houston Police Department spokesperson Jodi Silva.

First responders found the infant in the dumpster area, Silva said. Video captured by a bystander showed first responders rescuing the baby from the dumpster and appearing to swaddle him in a blanket. The newborn was transported to a local hospital and is believed to be in good health, Silva said.

Child Protective Services has since taken custody of him, she said. It is unclear how long the infant was by the dumpster.

Police have been investigating the incident, including checking surveillance footage, to identify who placed the newborn there and any potential witnesses, Silva said.

Police have since identified a suspect and “are continuing to work through the investigation,” Silva said.

No additional details on the suspect have been released at this time, including their alleged connection to the incident. The name of the suspect will not be released until charges have been filed, Silva said.