KTBB News, Weather, Talk

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that less than a day after President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs against U.S. trading partners, Texas Republicans were divided on whether to endorse a trade war that business leaders say is likely to hurt the state’s economy. Many jumped up to support the president, even as financial markets dropped and trade partners ramped up threats of counter tariffs. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, cheered Trump on X for “restoring fairness and strength to the global stage on behalf of the American people.” U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, R-Woodville, said Trump’s tariffs weren’t starting a trade war, “they’re ending one.” “For decades, other countries ripped off American workers with unfair tariffs and barriers. Now, we’re finally fighting back. America First!” he wrote on X.

Meanwhile U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, viewed as a possible presidential candidate in 2028, appeared on Fox News Thursday proclaiming his distaste for tariffs, which he called, “a tax on consumers.” “Time is going to tell in the next month or two or three what happens,” he said. “My hope is these tariffs are short lived, and they serve as leverage to lower tariffs across the globe.” Many Texas Republicans chose to say silent on trade moves that stood to hurt businesses and farms across Texas, which exports more goods overseas than any state in the country. U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw, Chip Roy, Tony Gonzales and Jody Arrington, chair of the House Budget Committee, made no mention of the tariffs on social media as of Thursday afternoon and their offices did not respond to requests for comment. Nationally, some Republicans are already speaking out against tariffs, following a recent downturn in global financial markets. The S&P 500 is down 10% since Trump took office Jan. 20 with the promise to upend longstanding trade relationships.

WEST TEXAS (AP) – Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico reported new measles cases this week, with the outbreak expanding for the first time into central Texas.

Already, the U.S. has more measles cases this year than in all of 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. Other states with outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include New Mexico, Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma. Since February, two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes.

The multi-state outbreak confirms health experts’ fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization said last week that cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.

Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.

Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.
How many measles cases are there in Texas and New Mexico?

Texas’ outbreak began two months ago. State health officials said Tuesday there were 22 new cases of measles since Friday, bringing the total to 422 across 19 counties — most in West Texas. Erath and Brown counties, in the central part of the state, logged their first cases. Forty-two people have been hospitalized since the outbreak began.

New Mexico announced four new cases Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 48. New Mexico health officials say the cases are linked to Texas’ outbreak based on genetic testing. Most are in Lea County, where two people have been hospitalized, and two are in Eddy County.

A school-age child died of measles in Texas in late February, and New Mexico reported its first measles-related death in an adult on March 6.
How many cases are there in Kansas?

Kansas has 24 cases in six counties in the southwest part of the state as of Wednesday. Kiowa and Stevens counties have six cases each, while Grant, Morton, Haskell and Gray counties have five or fewer.

The state’s first reported case, identified in Stevens County on March 13, is linked to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks based on genetic testing, a state health department spokesperson said. But health officials have not determined how the person was exposed.
How many cases are there in Oklahoma?

Oklahoma logged one new measles case Tuesday — for a total of eight confirmed and two probable cases. The first two probable cases were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, the state health department said.

A state health department spokesperson said measles exposures were confirmed in Tulsa and Rogers counties, but wouldn’t say which counties had cases.
How many cases are there in Ohio?

Ohio reported one new measles case Thursday in west-central Allen County. Last week, there were 10 in Ashtabula County in the northeast corner of the state. The first case was in an unvaccinated adult who had interacted with someone who had traveled internationally.

In central Ohio, Knox County officials reported two new measles cases in international visitors, for three cases in international visitors total. Those cases are not included in the state’s official count becuase they are not in Ohio residents. A measles outbreak in central Ohio sickened 85 in 2022.
Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?

Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines an outbreak as three or more related cases. The agency counted five clusters that qualified as outbreaks in 2025 as of Friday.

In the U.S., cases and outbreaks are generally traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. It can then spread, especially in communities with low vaccination rates. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.
Do you need an MMR booster?

The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.

People at high risk for infection who got the shots many years ago may want to consider getting a booster if they live in an area with an outbreak, said Scott Weaver with the Global Virus Network, an international coalition. Those may include family members living with someone who has measles or those especially vulnerable to respiratory diseases because of underlying medical conditions.

Adults with “presumptive evidence of immunity” generally don’t need measles shots now, the CDC said. Criteria include written documentation of adequate vaccination earlier in life, lab confirmation of past infection or being born before 1957, when most people were likely to be infected naturally.

A doctor can order a lab test called an MMR titer to check your levels of measles antibodies, but health experts don’t always recommend this route and insurance coverage can vary.

Getting another MMR shot is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says.

People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective measles vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said. That also includes people who don’t know which type they got.
What are the symptoms of measles?

Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.

The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.

Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
How can you treat measles?

There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.
Why do vaccination rates matter?

In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.”

But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.

The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.

___

AP Science Writer Laura Ungar contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department quietly decided in the final weeks of the Biden administration not to prosecute Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, effectively ending the corruption investigation that cast a long shadow over the political career of a close ally of President Donald Trump, The Associated Press has learned.

The decision not to bring charges — which has never been publicly reported — resolved the high-stakes federal probe before Trump’s new Justice Department leadership could even take action on an investigation sparked by allegations from Paxton’s inner circle that the Texas Republican abused his office to aid a political donor.

The move came almost two years after the Justice Department’s public integrity section in Washington took over the investigation, removing the case from the hands of federal investigators in Texas who had believed there was sufficient evidence for an indictment.

Two people familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, confirmed the department’s decision to decline to prosecute. Though the date of the decision was not immediately clear, it was made in the final weeks of the President Joe Biden’s presidency, one of the people said.

Politically appointed Justice Department leadership was not involved in the decision, which was recommended by a senior career official who had concerns about prosecutors’ ability to secure a conviction, according to another person briefed on the matter. Political appointees are not typically involved in public integrity section matters to avoid the appearance of political interference.

One of Paxton’s lawyers, Dan Cogdell, told the AP on Wednesday night that he had not been informed by the Justice Department of any decision in the investigation but noted: “I never thought they had a case they could make.”

In a social media post on X responding to the news Thursday, Paxton characterized the investigation as a “bogus witch hunt,” mimicking Trump’s descriptions of his own past legal troubles.

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

Paxton is weighing a run for the U.S. Senate next year, setting up a potential primary against Republican Sen. John Cornyn, ambitions that reflect his political durability despite spending years under clouds that also included felony securities fraud charges and an investigation by the Texas state bar over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Biden.

The federal investigation had been the most serious inquiry still facing Paxton, who settled the securities fraud case and was acquitted of corruption charges in the Texas Senate in 2023 following a historic impeachment. Paxton agreed last year to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution under a deal to end criminal securities fraud charges over accusations that he duped investors in a tech startup near Dallas.

The allegations against Paxton were stunning in part because of who made them.

Eight of his closest aides reported him to the FBI in 2020, accusing him of bribery and abusing his office to help one of his friends and campaign contributors, Nate Paul, who also employed a woman with whom Paxton acknowledged having had an extramarital affair. The same allegations led to Paxton’s impeachment on articles of bribery and abuse of public trust, but he was acquitted by the Republican-led Texas Senate, where his wife is a senator but did not cast a vote during the trial.

Paul pleaded guilty in January to a federal charge after he was accused of making false statements to banks to obtain more than $170 million in loans.

“After the November election, the DOJ accepted a guilty plea from Nate Paul and is apparently letting Ken Paxton escape justice,” TJ Turner and Tom Nesbitt, attorneys for two of the whistleblowers, said in a statement to the AP. “DOJ clearly let political cowardice impact its decision. The whistleblowers — all strong conservatives — did the right thing and continue to stand by their allegations of Paxton’s criminal conduct.”

The Justice Department’s public integrity section, which oversees public corruption cases, took over the Paxton investigation in 2023. The Justice Department has never publicly explained its decision to recuse the federal prosecutors in west Texas who had been leading the investigation. The move was pushed for by Paxton’s attorneys.

Paxton said last year that he would not contest whistleblowers’ claims in a lawsuit that they were improperly fired for reporting Paxton to the FBI. His push to end the whistleblowers’ lawsuit came as he faced the likelihood of having to sit for a deposition and answer questions under oath.

Paxton has become one of Trump’s most loyal supporters and defenders in recent years, and his name had been floated as a contender to lead the Justice Department under Trump’s second term.

Paxton went to court in a show of support last year when Trump stood trial in his New York hush-money case, which ended in a conviction. And he was among several Republican attorneys general who traveled to Washington last month for Trump’s campaign-style speech at the Justice Department in which the president vowed retribution for what he described as the “lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls.”

There had been investigative activity in the corruption probe as late as last August. Aaron Reitz, who was recently confirmed as Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, was questioned that month before a grand jury about Paxton’s firing of the whistleblowers in 2020, Bloomberg Law reported.

Reitz, who served as a Paxton aide, was asked by members of Congress weighing his Justice Department nomination to detail what he told the grand jury. Reitz declined to answer in a questionnaire sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, stating the federal investigation was ongoing.

“I believe that Attorney General Paxton is innocent and has committed no crimes,” Reitz told the committee.

Grand jury records from 2021 obtained by The Texas Newsroom last year showed that federal authorities were investigating Paxton for several potential crimes, including bribery and witness retaliation. It’s unclear whether the scope or focus of the investigation changed when the public integrity section in Washington took it over.

During Paxton’s impeachment trial, former advisers testified that he pressured them to help the campaign donor, Paul, who was under FBI investigation. The testimony included arguments over who paid for home renovations, whether Paxton used burner phones and how his alleged extramarital affair became a strain on the office. Paxton decried the impeachment effort as a “politically motivated sham.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A crackdown on foreign students is alarming colleges, who say the Trump administration is using new tactics and vague justifications to push some students out of the country.

College officials worry the new approach will keep foreigners from wanting to study in the U.S.

Students stripped of their entry visas are receiving orders from the Department of Homeland Security to leave the country immediately — a break from past practice that often permitted them to stay and complete their studies.

Some students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism or criminal infractions — or even traffic violations. Others have been left wondering how they ran afoul of the government.

At Minnesota State University in Mankato, President Edward Inch told the campus Wednesday that visas had been revoked for five international students for unclear reasons.

He said school officials learned about the revocations when they ran a status check in a database of international students after the detention of a Turkish student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The State Department said the detention was related to a drunken driving conviction.

“These are troubling times, and this situation is unlike any we have navigated before,” Inch wrote in a letter to campus.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, and federal agents started by detaining Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card-holder and Palestinian activist who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week students are being targeted for involvement in protests along with others tied to “potential criminal activity.”

In the past two weeks, the government apparently has widened its crackdown. Officials from colleges around the country have discovered international students have had their entry visas revoked and, in many cases, their legal residency status terminated by authorities without notice — including students at Arizona State, Cornell, North Carolina State, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas and the University of Colorado.

Some of the students are working to leave the country on their own, but students at Tufts and the University of Alabama have been detained by immigration authorities — in the Tufts case, even before the university knew the student’s legal status had changed.
Feds bypass colleges to move against students

In this new wave of enforcement, school officials say the federal government is quietly deleting foreigners’ student records instead of going through colleges, as was done in the past.

Students are being ordered to leave the country with a suddenness that universities have rarely seen, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

In the past, when international students have had entry visas revoked, they generally have been allowed to keep legal residency status. They could stay in the country to study, but would need to renew their visa if they left the U.S. and wanted to return. Now, increasing numbers of students are having their legal status terminated, exposing them to the risk of being arrested.

“None of this is regular practice,” Feldblum said.

At North Carolina State University, two students from Saudi Arabia left the U.S. after learning their legal status as students was terminated, the university said. N.C. State said it will work with the students to complete their semester from outside the country.

Philip Vasto, who lived with one of the students, said his roommate, in graduate school for engineering management, was apolitical and did not attend protests against the war in Gaza. When the government told his roommate his student status had been terminated, it did not give a reason, Vasto said.

Since returning to Saudi Arabia, Vasto said his former roommate’s top concern is getting into another university.

“He’s made his peace with it,” he said. “He doesn’t want to allow it to steal his peace any further.”
Database checks turn up students in jeopardy

At the University of Texas at Austin, staff checking a federal database discovered two people on student visas had their permission to be in the U.S. terminated, a person familiar with the situation said. The person declined to be identified for fear of retaliation.

One of the people, from India, had their legal status terminated April 3. The federal system indicated the person had been identified in a criminal records check “and/or has had their visa revoked.” The other person, from Lebanon, had their legal status terminated March 28 due to a criminal records check, according to the federal database.

Both people were graduates remaining in the U.S. on student visas, using an option allowing people to gain professional experience after completing coursework. Both were employed full time and apparently had not violated requirements for pursuing work experience, the person familiar with the situation said.

Some students have had visas revoked by the State Department under an obscure law barring noncitizens whose presence could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Trump invoked the law in a January order demanding action against campus antisemitism.

But some students targeted in recent weeks have had no clear link to political activism. Some have been ordered to leave over misdemeanor crimes or traffic infractions, Feldblum said. In some cases, students were targeted for infractions that had been previously reported to the government.

Some of the alleged infractions would not have drawn scrutiny in the past and will likely be a test of students’ First Amendment rights as cases work their way through court, said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.

“In some ways, what the administration is doing is really retroactive,” she said. “Rather than saying, ‘This is going to be the standard that we’re applying going forward,’ they’re going back and vetting students based on past expressions or past behavior.”

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department over the issue. It’s unclear whether more visas are being revoked than usual, but officials fear a chilling effect on international exchange.

Many of the association’s members have recently seen at least one student have their visas revoked, said Bernie Burrola, a vice president at the group. With little information from the government, colleges have been interviewing students or searching social media for a connection to political activism.

“The universities can’t seem to find anything that seems to be related to Gaza or social media posts or protests,” Burrola said. “Some of these are sponsored students by foreign governments, where they specifically are very hesitant to get involved in protests.”

There’s no clear thread indicating which students are being targeted, but some have been from the Middle East and China, he said.

America’s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the world’s brightest minds — and they’ve brought important tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U.S. colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.

“We should not take for granted that that’s just the way things are and will always be,” she said.

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is gearing up for a potential U.S. Senate run while no longer shadowed by a federal corruption investigation that hung over his rising profile in the Republican Party.

That durability would be tested against Republican Sen. John Cornyn should Paxton embark on what would likely be one of the country’s most contentious 2026 primary battles.

Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has hinted at challenging Cornyn for more than a year but has not said when he will make a decision.

In the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Justice Department decided not to pursue its investigation into Paxton over bribery allegations, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Though the date of the decision was not immediately clear, it was made in the final weeks of the President Joe Biden’s presidency, one of the people said.

The accusations were arguably the most serious of multiple legal troubles Paxton has faced since becoming attorney general in 2015, including felony securities fraud charges that hovered over him for nearly a decade before he agreed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution fees. The attorney general also faced an investigation by the Texas State Bar for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Paxton characterized the investigation as a “bogus witch hunt” in a social media post on X responding to the news Thursday. He also tacked on a fresh barb toward Cornyn.

“Care to comment now, John?” Paxton posted.

Paxton declined an interview request through a spokesperson Thursday.

Spokespeople for Cornyn did not immediately respond to phone and email requests seeking comment.

The quiet dismissal underscores Paxton’s political resiliency and ascendency among his party’s hard-right in recent years while also potentially giving his opponents less fodder for political attacks.

“There are no more clouds over him,” said Bill Miller, a longtime Texas lobbyist and friend of Paxton.

Paxton has targeted Cornyn since the senator became one of few prominent Republicans to criticize him. Cornyn, who helped push a bipartisan gun control bill after the 2022 mass shooting at an Uvalde elementary school, also previously came under criticism from conservative activists who have driven the party’s agenda farther to the right.

Cornyn, who also served as Texas attorney general, has served in the Senate since 2002 and is a popular member of the GOP conference. But Cornyn lost to South Dakota Sen. John Thune in a close bid to become Senate majority leader. If Paxton enters the race, it will likely be the senator’s most competitive primary campaign to date.

In 2020, eight of Paxton’s closest aides accused him of using his office to benefit a Texas real estate developer who employed a woman Paxton was having an extramarital affair with. He was impeached and acquitted in the Texas Senate in 2023.

Nate Paul, the real estate developer, pleaded guilty in January to federal charges for lying to banks to receive millions of dollars in loans.

___

Associated Press reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. Lathan 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.