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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

AUSTIN – The Texas Senate gave unanimous approval to a sweeping water bill Wednesday that would address a range of issues that have caused a looming water crisis in the state. The bill focuses on creating new sources of water supply to meet Texas’ growing water needs.

Senate Bill 7, filed by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, was the first bill in a highly anticipated package of water-related bills to pass. It includes proposals to address Texas’ water supply needs by using funds on strategies such as desalination, projects on produced water treatment plants and reservoir projects. It also creates an office tasked with planning and coordinating the development of infrastructure to transport water — referred to by lawmakers as a “water tree” — made by a project.

During the discussion on the Senate floor, Perry reaffirmed his push toward creating new supplies of water. He said the bill prioritizes new water sources, including brackish and marine water, along with “shovel-ready” reservoirs and wastewater treatment in rural communities. Perry has acknowledged in the past that the state’s water infrastructure needs repairs. However, he did not spend much time discussing that concern Wednesday.

Perry said after traveling the state, he believes Texas is 25 years behind on supply development.

“We’ve developed all the cheap water, and all the low-hanging fruits have been obtained,” Perry said.

In addition, Perry stressed that any new water supply plan has to include all of Texas’ 254 counties. He also said it has to be a coordinated planning approach across the state that leverages existing water resources to regional expertise.

Changes were made in Perry’s bill since it was first introduced. The new version of the bill added provisions that would separate the Texas Water Development Board’s funding specifically for administrative costs — up to 2% in funding — and carryover of unused funds. While Texas prohibits using state-funded pipelines for intrastate water transfers, the bill clarifies that out-of-state water can be imported through these pipelines.

One other change offers protections to sources of freshwater by prohibiting projects that extract water from sources with a certain amount. Perry assured lawmakers they were not funding the depletion of existing freshwater aquifers.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, called the bill visionary and applauded Perry on his work.

“It changes water law, it changes water procurement,” Gutierrez said.

Moving forward, the constitutional amendment that will accompany the water bill is House Joint Resolution 7, which will dedicate $1 billion to the Texas Water Fund for up to 10 years. The annual stream of state tax dollars would help cities and local water agencies buy more water and repair aging infrastructure. If approved, Texans can vote on that ballot measure in November.

With the state’s population booming, data shows the state’s water supply is falling behind. According to the state’s 2022 water plan, water availability is expected to decline by 18%, with groundwater seeing the steepest drop. A Texas Tribune analysis found that cities and towns could be on a path toward a severe water shortage by 2030 if there is recurring, record-breaking drought conditions across the state, and if water entities and state leaders fail to put in place key strategies to secure water supplies.

Water experts and organizations celebrated the passage of SB 7.

Jennifer Walker, director of the Texas Coast and Water Program for the National Wildlife Federation, said it’s a step in ensuring Texans have reliable and resilient water supplies. Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network, said he is grateful for Perry’s work on the bill.

“(I look) forward to reconciling the House and Senate approaches to accomplish the best collaborative water policy for Texas to secure our shared water future,” Fowler said.

Jeremy Mazur, director of infrastructure and natural resources policy for Texas 2036, said the unanimous passage of SB 7 is a good sign the chamber wants to move forward with a bold strategy to address infrastructure challenges. However, he said there is still more work for the Legislature to do.

“Even though SB 7 has passed, there are several other big measures in the legislative pipeline that need to be addressed, including the constitutional dedication of state revenues for water infrastructure,” Mazur said.

Perry said the water development board will still have to establish rules for what kind of projects get prioritized for funding. The House will now take up SB 7 for debate. Perry’s Senate Resolution has been referred to a Senate committee on finance but has not been heard yet. A similar House bill, led by state Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, is still pending. Harris’ HJR 7 was passed unanimously out of committee and is waiting to be scheduled for a hearing.

LUBBOCK — Katherine Wells was tapping her phone.

It was the last week of January, and the director for the Lubbock Health Department had a jam-packed schedule. She was working with her team to put in place the new community health plan. Flu cases were on the rise. She had media interviews lined up to talk about stopping the spread.

She refreshed her email again. And there it was — confirmation that someone in nearby Gaines County had tested positive for measles. It was the first for the region in 20 years.

She took a deep breath.

Two months later, with more than 400 cases across Texas, Wells is the first to admit things feel eerily similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. And just like then — when police guarded her home after she received death threats — Wells’ work is facing questions from skeptics.

“People accuse me of creating the measles outbreak to make the health department look more important,” Wells said. She laughed as if she was used to it.

The reputations of public health institutions have taken a beating in the last five years as the pandemic became a political flashpoint. Some people saw public health leaders as heroes for urging people to wear masks, stay away from big crowds and get the vaccine. Others saw them as villains bent on robbing Americans of their freedoms.

Wells has served as the public health director for 10 years. Long before the measles outbreak and COVID, she navigated situations like Lubbock’s high sexually transmited infections and teen pregnancy rates. Lubbock is the largest city in Texas’ South Plains, with nearly 267,000 residents. It’s also largely conservative. More than 69% of Lubbock County voted for President Donald Trump last November.

Lubbock also stands as a critical medical hub for the South Plains, and Wells is the leader. With a dearth of rural hospitals, physicians, and limited care at clinics, people from all over the region flock to Lubbock for health care. This is how Lubbock became entangled in the measles outbreak. Most of the cases have been recorded in nearby rural Gaines County, where 280 cases have been identified. Patients have sought medical care in Lubbock.

Like many public health directors, most people didn’t know Wells until March 2020, when the city and the rest of the country was upended by the COVID pandemic. As she led the city through the crisis, she became a household name — for better or worse.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said public health directors work behind the scenes to stop bad situations from happening. They are invisible shields, he said, which can make their work challenging when it’s suddenly pushed into the public eye.

“When something really bad happens, like with COVID, the fundamental trust wasn’t there,” Benjamin said. “They didn’t have a relationship with the community.”

Misinformation has played a large role in eroding trust in public health institutions. Most adults are uncertain whether health misinformation they have heard is true or false, according to a recent KFF survey,. Another KFF survey found that between 81%-84% of Republicans trusted only four people to make the right health recommendations — their doctor, Trump, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Wells’ job is not likely to get easier any time soon.

A Lubbock’s children hospital is now treating children with severe measles who also suffer from vitamin A toxicity. This comes after Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update the measles guidance to promote the vitamin’s use, which most health experts object to. The Trump administration is eliminating pandemic-era grants that were used to boost the department’s response to the measles outbreak, including paying for employees. And Wells is navigating what could arguably be an even more delicate line than COVID — managing the outbreak of an eradicated, preventable disease, with a worn-out staff and a growing distrust from the public.

“You can’t fix public health overnight,” Wells said. “It’s not like the fire department. I can’t run in, put the fire out and they’re all proud of me. It’s totally different.”

Since the first measles case, Wells’ life has a new daily routine. First, she meets with the state health department. Then she meets with other public health leaders from around the state. Later her staff about new cases or exposures.

Unlike during the pandemic, however, the health department’s other work isn’t on hold. Wells and her team have pulled double duty, also working on STI rates, waning flu cases and substance use prevention.

Wells herself is working seven days a week. It’s given Wells, and her family, deja vu.

“My daughter’s been so sad lately and I asked her what was wrong,” Wells said. “She finally told me, ‘Mommy, this measles thing feels like COVID again. I don’t get to see you.”

Wells’ work — and sacrifices — are driven by a belief that everyone deserves good health.

“Public health should be part of the community,” Wells said. “Public health is all about talking to community members and figuring out what we need to do to make things better.”

Before moving to Lubbock, Wells lived in Austin and worked at the state health department for 14 years. She moved to Lubbock in 2012, still working for the state health office, with the goal of rebuilding the city’s public health system.

Despite her passion, Wells’ work has been far from easy. When Wells started in 2015, she had 10 staff members and an underfunded department. She created a strong team — one that started preparing for COVID two months before it was detected in the U.S.

By 2020, Wells had the support of city leaders. She appeared in weekly virtual COVID briefings for the media and public alongside former Mayor Dan Pope and other Lubbock officials. They worked quickly with first responders to create the vaccine clinic in the city’s civic center.

By 2024, the atmosphere was different. There were new faces on the City Council, including a new mayor, Mark McBrayer. As the health department was preparing to open a new facility, McBrayer was working on a no-new-tax revenue rate for the city’s budget. He was considering cuts to the health department’s budget, among others, to achieve this. Amid the threats and public outrage, the grand opening attracted a major crowd — more than were at Wells’ wedding, she said.

The health department’s budget wasn’t cut, but there have been other bumps in the road. More recently, Wells faced pushback over the Community Health Improvement Plan, a report that provides the city with recommendations to improve the health of its residents. It focused on improving accessibility to health care, educating the community, and strengthening coordination amongst servicers.

Some members of the new council hesitated to approve it, calling the plan an excuse to justify expanding government spending on health care. It led to a long meeting with hours of public comment. David Glasheen, one of the council members against it, said it was redundant because hospitals are mandated to provide indigent care. Council member Tim Collins said part of the plan would help the department become nationally accredited, which would help the city get more grants in the future.

Council member and Mayor Pro-tem Christy Martinez-Garcia supported approving the plan. She told The Texas Tribune some of the members were misinterpreting the plan’s purpose.

“Once they understood why this was so important for future opportunities and grants, it helped,” Martinez-Garcia said. “But, it’s something we’re going to have to face moving forward again, because of the political environment of our society.”

Martinez-Garcia’s view of Wells has come a long way since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Martinez-Garcia is the owner and publisher of Latino Lubbock Magazine, one of only two media outlets — along with El Editor — that cater to Lubbock’s Hispanic community. About 38% of Lubbock’s population is Hispanic.

During the weekly press conferences, Martinez-Garcia would press Wells about getting information out in Spanish. It was important, but also personal for Martinez-Garcia. She lost seven family members to COVID-19, because she says a plan wasn’t in place to help the community. Martinez-Garcia said Wells was receptive to the criticism and made changes. She placed vaccine stations in East and North Lubbock, making it accessible to impoverished and out-of-reach communities.

“She was trying to make it as equitable as possible for everybody,” Martinez-Garcia said.

Last month, Wells prepared an article about measles from the health department for Latino Lubbock Magazine. It was written in English and Spanish.

The community health plan was eventually approved, with Glasheen being the lone vote against it. Wells said she didn’t know where the pushback was coming from, but blamed herself for it. She said she didn’t do enough to reach out to the newer members and explain what her department does.

“It looks like we’ll have some opportunities in the future to explain that,” Wells said.

As the health department in a major medical hub, Wells has a responsibility to support the smaller health departments. Her team has worked with the South Plains Public Health District, a multi-county health department that provides vaccines, STI treatments, and other basic health care. It includes Gaines County, the epicenter of the measles outbreak. Wells and her team have helped craft news releases, providing staffing and information as needed. Wells said their duty is to talk about the measles to the public and calm fears.

She also said their job is “to talk about what we need to do to respond, who’s at risk and put the vaccinated people at ease.”

Misinformation has inflamed the outbreak. Benjamin, from the American Public Health Association, said vitamin A has no role in preventing measles, and public health leaders have to try and correct the misinformation. Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock said they admitted fewer than 10 pediatric patients who were initially hospitalized due to measles complications but also have elevated levels of vitamin A. This is causing abnormal liver function for patients.

“It’s a therapy if you’re already vitamin deficient,” Benjamin said. “It has to be given carefully, and it’s something doctors do in the hospital because these are very sick people. It’s not something at the grocery store.”

Wells doesn’t see the measles slowing down anytime soon. After researching other measles outbreaks, Wells thinks this one could go on for a year.

“We identified this outbreak with two children in the hospital,” Wells said. “Which means there was measles circulating in certain pockets. So we were behind the eight ball in the initial response.”

Vaccination is the most effective way to stop the disease from spreading, but Wells knows it’s a choice people have to make. The city arranged several drive-up vaccine clinics quickly after the first case was identified. She says public health’s role is to counter the messaging around why people are scared of vaccines.

Now Wells is concerned about what else could come back. The measles outbreak shows the potential other diseases such as mumps and polio could have on unvaccinated populations.

“You see measles first because it’s the most infectious,” Wells said. “It doesn’t mean we’re not going to see outbreaks of other childhood viruses.”

As these public health crises have unfolded, Wells has been quietly working on her doctorate. It could be what sets Lubbock apart during the next pandemic. And last week, she successfully defended her dissertation on building public health systems in Texas, and is now Dr. Wells.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

EDINBURG — At 2 a.m. Friday, Rick Saldaña was traveling back to Edinburg from Mercedes, a city about 26 miles away, in an area known as the Mid-Valley.

The roads were flooded. The frontage roads that feed into the expressway resembled lakes. Hundreds of cars were abandoned by people unable to drive further.

The rain kept coming. Winds reached about 60 miles per hour and Saldaña could barely see anything.

“It came with a vengeance,” he said.

Saldaña is the emergency management coordinator for Hidalgo County. In his office in Edinburg, county workers and staff from the Texas Division of Emergency Management were still just at the beginning of what is expected to be a long road to recovery.

The effects from the rainfall killed at least six people. Four died from drowning in the Valley and in Reynosa, Mexico, and two from a house fire suspected of starting from a lightning strike. Hundreds more required rescue from their flooded homes or vehicles. By Monday, three days after the storm, several neighborhoods still remained underwater.

Assessments of the total damage are still underway, but Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for the four counties of the Valley. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was on the ground Wednesday to make their assessment.

Preliminary reports suggest the damage and recovery totals from the flood would likely exceed $100 million, according to the National Weather Service Brownsville.

“We were predicted to get no more than one to two inches of rain,” Saldaña said. “For whatever reason, it shifted. It shifted our way.”

Big storms have hit the Rio Grande Valley region in South Texas before. The most recent in Saldaña’s memory was 2018. March and April when the seasons change can be precarious, he said.

“To me, those are scarier because you have no time to plan, versus with a hurricane, they give you ample time to start monitoring,” he said. “These come in as surprises, and that’s what happened. It surprised all of us.”

Saldaña said the county has made significant strides in improving the drainage system since then by widening the drainage canals to expand the amount of water that can flow through them.

But what the area saw last week was a 100-year flood, he said.

“Our drainage system couldn’t support it,” he said. “It doesn’t make a difference if you have the world’s best drainage system.”

Between March 26 and 28, the Valley received nearly 20 inches of rain, crushing prior daily,

multi-day, and monthly March records in many areas. In a few locations, the amount of rainfall even rivaled the all-time two-day record set by the historic Hurricane Beulah in 1967, according to Barry Goldsmith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Brownsville.

Meteorologists knew rain was coming. The surprise was where it fell.

Forecasts had the storm over the Coastal Bend toward brush country, Goldsmith said.

“It wasn’t until, really, within 12 hours that we were like ‘Oh no, it’s going toward the Valley now!'” he said.

Even at that point, they didn’t know exactly which county or which portion of the Valley was going to get hit.

“It wasn’t until the game was underway that we were able to tell people this is going to be really bad in parts of the Valley,” he said.

A National Weather Service report on the storm acknowledged that their models were off, noting that even the areas predicted to be the strongest hit by the storm were only expected to receive 7-12 inches.

The report explained that the dynamics of the fast-flowing, high-altitude air currents — that are most typical in the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast regions of the U.S. — led to high-energy, recharging of the atmosphere that caused repeated rounds of rainfall and severe weather.

The heaviest rains fell in Cameron County which sustained the most damage where the Valley International Airport in Harlingen had to close for multiple days due to flooding on the runways. Other reports of severe weather included a tornado that briefly touched down in Hidalgo County.

The devastation extended to farmers as well.

Despite longing for rain to sustain their animals and crops during a prolonged period of drought, the huge volume of rain likely destroyed existing crops.

“Torrential storms produced devastating rainfall totals, causing widespread destruction and posing a severe threat to Valley residents, farmers, and ranchers,” Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, said in a statement. “In addition to extensive damage to homes, vehicles, and infrastructure, the region is also facing significant agricultural and livestock losses.”

Sonny Hinojosa, water advocate with the Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2, said many crops were already up and the flooding likely killed those plants.

“Poor farmers, they’re taking a beating,” Hinojosa said. “First, they’re short on irrigation water and then you get a flood event like this and it drowns whatever crop you have.”

There is a silver lining.

One of the reservoirs that provides water to Valley farmers, the Falcon International Reservoir, received 45,663 acre-feet of water from the rain, growing from 11.2% to 12.8% of its capacity.

It’s just a fraction, Hinojosa said. However, if the U.S. receives half of those gains, it could provide three to four weeks of irrigation water for farmers.

“They rose a bit,” Goldsmith said of the water levels at the Falcon reservoir. “But they’re still well below what’s needed to help improve the water resource situation that’s facing the Valley.”

This article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

BERKLEY, CA (AP) – Real estate software company RealPage filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Berkeley, California — the latest city to try to block landlords from using algorithms when deciding rents. Officials in many cities claim the practice is anti-competitive and is driving up the price of housing.

Texas-based RealPage said Berkeley’s ordinance, which goes into effect this month violates the company’s free speech rights and is the result of an “intentional campaign of misinformation and often-repeated false claims” about its products.

“Berkeley is trying to enact an ordinance that prohibits speech — speech in the form of advice and recommendations from RealPage to its customers,” RealPage attorney Stephen Weissman told reporters on a conference call.

The Department of Justice sued Realpage in August under former President Joe Biden, saying its algorithm combines confidential information from each real estate management company in ways that enable landlords to align prices and avoid competition that would otherwise push down rents. That amounts to cartel-like illegal price collusion, prosecutors said. RealPage’s clients include huge landlords who collectively oversee millions of units across the U.S.

In the lawsuit, the DOJ pointed to RealPage executives’ own words about how their product maximizes prices for landlords. One executive said, “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down.”

San Francisco, Philadelphia and Minneapolis have since passed ordinances restricting landlords from using rental algorithms. The DOJ case remains ongoing, as do lawsuits against RealPage brought by tenants and the attorneys general of Arizona and Washington, D.C.

Berkeley’s ordinance, which fines violators up to $1,000 per infraction, says algorithmic rental software has contributed to “double-digit rent increases … higher vacancy rates and higher rates of eviction.”

RealPage said all these claims are false, and that the real driver of high rents is a lack of housing supply.

The company also denies providing “price fixing software” or a “coordinated pricing algorithm,” saying its pricing recommendations — higher, lower or no change — align with whatever property-specific objectives the housing providers want to achieve using the software.

And since landlords already are incentivized to maximize revenue, RealPage argues that real estate management software can show them how best to maintain high occupancy, and this in turn reduces constraints on the supply of homes.

The lawsuit accuses American Economic Liberties Project, an advocacy group that opposes monopolistic practices, of spreading falsehoods that have caused local officials to pursue misguided policies.

“AELP’s false narrative has taken root in certain municipalities that are particularly eager to find a scapegoat for their own hand in impeding the housing supply,” the lawsuit said.

Weissman said RealPage officials were never given an opportunity to present their arguments to the Berkeley City Council before the ordinance was passed and said the company is considering legal action against other cities that have passed similar policies, including San Francisco.

A spokesperson for Berkeley City Council did not comment on the lawsuit and said officials had not been formally served with the complaint. A spokesperson for the AELP did not immediately reply to a request for comment.