KTBB News, Weather, Talk

Organizations that help pay abortion costs are capping how much they can help as travel costs rise and the wave of “rage giving” that fueled them two years ago has subsided.

Abortion funds, which have operated across the U.S. for decades, in many cases as volunteer groups, ramped up their capacity fast after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending a national right to abortion. Donations rolled in from supporters who saw the groups as key to maintaining abortion access as most Republican-controlled states implemented bans.

The expansion of the funds and increasing access to abortion pills are major reasons the number of abortions has risen slightly despite bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy in 14 states and after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, in another four.

But the funds have found that even with record budgets, it’s not enough to fill all the gaps between the cost of obtaining abortions and what women seeking them can afford as they have to travel farther for legal procedures.

The National Abortion Federation, which helps people seeking abortions across the country, used to cover half the cost of the abortion for callers who couldn’t afford it. Since July, it’s pulled back to 30%. Brittany Fonteno, the organization’s president and CEO, said the allocations had to be cut because of the rising demand and costs — even though the fund has a record $55 million budget this year.

“We’re at the point now where we know that people who are most impacted by funding shifts — and by abortion bans which have caused the funding shifts — are the people who can least afford to be kept away from care,” Fonteno said. “And that includes people of color, younger people, immigrants and people with lower incomes.”

Other groups have also imposed limits on aid to keep from exhausting their funds.

The Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, based in Virginia, hits its budget limit nearly every week and has to put requests on hold until the next week.

The Cobalt Abortion Fund in Colorado has had to cap how much it can spend. Its president, Karen Middleton, said groups like hers are used to being scrappy.

“It’s the bake sale of the abortion rights movement,” she said.

Abortion funds have existed for decades out of the spotlight. Many were — and some remain — volunteer-run. Nearly all of them ramped up as the abortion landscape shifted.

Cobalt, for instance, spent $206,000 in 2021. Of that, only about $6,000 was for for travel costs — and much of that came in the form of gas cards to help people in outlying parts of Colorado get to clinics.

This year, the group expects to spend $2.2 million — 10 times as much as in 2021. In the first six months of this year, it spent more than $600,000 on travel and other logistical costs. Now they’re booking hotel rooms and flights — mostly on short notice.

“We’re a travel agency as much as we’re an abortion fund,” Middleton said.

In Colorado, like other states between the coasts, the influx of patients began late in 2021 when a ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect in Texas. That’s since been replaced by a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

For the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, a big change arrived after May 1, when Florida’s ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect. Before that, Florida, the nation’s third most populous state, was a destination for people traveling from other Southern states that had stricter limits.

Greene said her fund helped 20 people from Florida from January through April. When the ban took effect, it left Virginia as the nearest state where abortion was available past 12 weeks and without a 72-hour waiting period. Greene said the fund helped about 40 Florida residents from May through August.

Their average travel cost per Floridian has been about $3,000, she said — more than any other state.

Fonteno said the spike in requests from Florida — six times as many each month since the ban began — was an impetus for its abrupt policy change earlier this year. Blue Ridge and other funds have been trying to make up the difference.

“We’re seeing more and more patients with more funding gaps,” Greene said.

To try to stick to its weekly aid budget, the fund has cut back when it accepts calls requesting help to two mornings a week instead of two full work days. Greene said her fund collaborates with others to try to cover costs.

The New Jersey Abortion Access Fund responded to the National Abortion Federation’s cuts by increasing what it sends every week to a solidarity fund to help people seeking abortions from other states to $5,000 from $3,000, said Quadira Coles, the group’s president.

The organization also sends block grants to New Jersey abortion clinics to use to help pay for patients who cannot afford their fees. Coles said the group has increased that funding, too, after hearing from clinics that it had been running out halfway through the month.

The groups could see some of their financial pressure eased depending on the outcomes of measures on the November ballots that would add a state constitutional right to abortion in nine states.

In four of the states — Florida, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota — passage would overturn current bans and potentially mean that many people could access abortion without traveling.

In other states, the change would be more subtle. For instance, part of the Colorado amendment would allow state government employee health plans to cover abortion — possibly reducing the number of people who would seek help paying.

In the meantime, organizers of some of the funds say that some supporters have been contributing to the ballot measure campaigns, at the expense of the funds.

Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of Faith Roots, which helps pay the costs of people traveling to New Mexico for abortion, said many donors who started around the time of Texas’ restrictions, often called Senate Bill 8, or the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling make recurring gifts — though others gave just once.

“For those who felt that, whether it was the righteous anger or compassion, that led them to donate after S.B. 8 and after Dobbs, we’re still here, and the need is still here,” she said. “We still need them.”

BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate approved a resolution Wednesday intended to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in criminal contempt for failing to testify before a Senate panel.

The senate approved the measure by unanimous consent.

Members of a Senate committee looking into the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care adopted the resolution last week after de la Torre refused to attend a committee hearing last week despite being issued a subpoena. The resolution was sent to the full Senate for consideration.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said de la Torre’s decision to defy the subpoena gave the committee little choice but to seek contempt charges.

The criminal contempt resolution refers the matter to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to criminally prosecute de la Torre for failing to comply with the subpoena.

A representative for de la Torre did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sanders said he wanted de la Torre to explain how at least 15 patients at hospitals owned by Steward died as a result of a lack of medical equipment or staffing shortages and why at least 2,000 other patients were put in “immediate peril,” according to federal regulators.

He said the committee also wanted to know how de la Torre and the companies he owned were able to receive at least $250 million in compensation over the past for years while thousands of patients and health care workers suffered and communities were devastated as a result of Steward Health Care’s financial mismanagement.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the committee, said communities were harmed because of the actions of Steward and de la Torre.

“Steward’s mismanagement has nationwide implications affecting patient care in more than 30 hospitals across eight states including one in my home state,” he said.

In a letter sent to the committee ahead of last week’s hearing, Alexander Merton, an attorney for de la Torre, said the committee’s request to have him testify would violate his Fifth Amendment rights.

The Constitution protects de la Torre from being compelled by the government to provide sworn testimony intended to frame him “as a criminal scapegoat for the systemic failures in Massachusetts’ health care system,” Merton wrote, adding that de la Torre would agree to testify at a later date.

Texas-based Steward, which operates about 30 hospitals nationwide, filed for bankruptcy in May.

Steward has been working to sell a half-dozen hospitals in Massachusetts. But it received inadequate bids for two other hospitals, Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, both of which have closed as a result.

A federal bankruptcy court this month approved the sale of Steward’s other Massachusetts hospitals.

Steward has also shut down pediatric wards in Massachusetts and Louisiana, closed neonatal units in Florida and Texas, and eliminated maternity services at a hospital in Florida.

Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts said over the past decade, Steward, led by de la Torre, and its corporate enablers, “looted hospitals across the country for profit, and got rich through their greedy schemes.”

“Hospital systems collapsed, workers struggled to provide care, and patients suffered and died. Dr. de la Torre and his corporate cronies abdicated their responsibility to these communities that they had promised to serve,” he added.

Ellen MacInnis, a nurse at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, testified before the committee last week that under Steward management, patients were subjected to preventable harm and even death, particularly in understaffed emergency departments.

She said there was a time when Steward failed to pay a vendor who supplied bereavement boxes for the remains of newborn babies who had died and had to be taken to the morgue.

“Nurses were forced to put babies’ remains in cardboard shipping boxes,” she said. “These nurses put their own money together and went to Amazon and bought the bereavement boxes.”

DALLAS (AP) — Leaders of Southwest Airlines are set to explain how they plan to remodel the airline to change with consumer tastes — and maybe keep their own jobs.

They will give more details at an investor meeting Thursday about dumping so-called open seating, charging a premium for the best seats, and launching red-eye flights.

The changes to some of Southwest’s quirky habits are designed to reverse its shrinking profits and slumping stock price. It’s unclear whether the changes will work, but they could leave an airline that bears little resemblance to Southwest over the last 50 years — a carrier that still has a core of rabid fans.

Southwest has been contemplating an overhaul for months, but the push for radical change became even more important to management this summer, when Elliott Investment Management targeted the company for its dismal stock performance since early 2021.

Elliott now owns more than 10% of Southwest shares and is the airline’s second-biggest shareholder. The hedge fund wants to fire Chairman Gary Kelly and CEO Robert Jordan and replace two-thirds of Southwest’s board.

Southwest gave ground this month, when it announced that six directors will leave in November and Kelly will step down next year. The airline is digging in to protect Jordan, however.

Despite its demand that heads roll, Elliott has said it wants to work with Southwest to improve the company’s financial results. Southwest doesn’t seem interested in collaboration. It adopted a poison-pill defense to make an Elliott takeover more difficult.

Elliott, the hedge fund controlled by billionaire financier Paul Singer, increased its pressure on Southwest this week by saying that it intends to call a special shareholder meeting as soon as next week to make the case for a board overhaul. Elliott has a slate of 10 potential nominees, including former airline CEOs.

“We do not support the company’s current course, which is being charted in a haphazard manner by a group of executives in full self-preservation mode,” Elliott said this week in a letter to other shareholders.

CEO Jordan fired back on Wednesday, saying it is Elliott that wants to fly solo by lobbing “another negative press public ambush” instead of contributing to Southwest’s “transformational plan.”

“We’re willing to compromise, but acquiescing to a single shareholder’s demand for control of the company is not a compromise,” Jordan said. “There’s a lot to be excited about in Southwest, and we will not allow Elliott’s public attacks to distract us.”

While Thursday’s event is aimed at investors, it will also be of keen interest to consumers, who should learn new details about how assigned seating and premium seats will work on Southwest. The open-boarding system it has used for more than 50 years will disappear, and passengers will be assigned seats, just like on all the other big airlines.

Southwest says its surveys show that 80% of its customers now want to know their seat before they get to the airport instead of picking among the open seats when they board the plane.

Southwest still lets passengers check two bags for free. Jordan said recently that Southwest has no plans to end that policy, but the airline has surveyed customers about it.

U.S. airlines brought in more than $7 billion in revenue from bag fees last year, with American and United reaping more than $1 billion apiece. Wall Street has long argued that Southwest is leaving money behind.

But Southwest has built years of advertising campaigns around bags-fly-free. Taking away that perk could change the airline’s DNA as much as — or maybe more — than dumping open seating.

Tom Fitzgerald, an airline analyst with TD Cowen, said investors will be interested to see if Southwest introduces bag fees, a cut-rate “basic economy” fare, or offers changes to its Rapid Rewards frequent-flyer program.

The analyst said a major topic of interest to investors will be whether Southwest plans to reduce its flying next year instead of growing, and whether it plans to keep shrinking the workforce. Southwest expects to cut about 2,000 jobs this year through attrition.

Company management heads into the investor day having angered an important interest group: its own workforce. The airline told employees Wednesday that it will make sharp cuts to service in Atlanta next year, resulting in the loss of 340 pilot and flight attendant positions.

The pilots’ union said it was “simply amazing” that Southwest was retreating in such a huge market “because this management group has failed to evolve and innovate.” That echoed a key Elliott talking point.

“Our flight attendants are overwhelmed. They are paying the price for poor management decisions on behalf of Southwest Airlines,” added Alison Head, a flight attendant and union official in Atlanta.

The unions are watching the fight between Elliott and airline management, but they are not taking sides. “That’s between Southwest and Elliott, and we’ll see how it plays out,” Head said.

However, the unions are concerned that more of their members could be forced to relocate or commute long distances to keep their jobs. Southwest’s chief operating officer told employees last week that the airline will have to make “difficult decisions” about its network to improve its financial performance.

Elliott seized on that comment, saying that Southwest leaders are now “taking any action – no matter how short-sighted – that they believe will preserve their own jobs.”

Elliott’s demands include that Southwest bring in new leaders from outside the company, overhaul its board, and conduct a comprehensive business review to consider all options for increasing profitability.

The hedge fund succeeded in seeing its favored candidate become the new CEO at Starbucks earlier in September.

Shawn Cole, a founding partner of executive-search firm Cowen Partners, whose firm has worked for other airlines but not Southwest, believes Southwest is too insular and should follow the recent examples of Starbucks and Boeing and hire an outsider as CEO. He thinks many qualified executives would be interested in the job.

“It would be a challenge, no doubt, but Southwest is a storied airline that a lot of people think fondly of,” Cole said. “If Boeing can do it, Southwest can do it.”

HOUSTON (AP) — A Black high school student in Texas who was punished for nearly all of his junior year over his hairstyle has left his school district rather than spend another year of in-school suspension, according to his attorney.

But Darryl George, 18, would like to return to his Houston-area high school in the Barbers Hill school district for his senior year and has asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order that would prevent district officials from further punishing him for not cutting his hair. It would allow him to return to school while a federal lawsuit he filed proceeds.

George’s request comes after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown in August dismissed most of the claims the student and his mother had filed in the federal lawsuit alleging school district officials committed racial and gender discrimination when they punished him.

The judge only let the gender discrimination claim stand and questioned whether the school district’s hair length rule causes more harm than good.

“Judge Brown please help us so that I can attend school like a normal teenage student during the pendency of this litigation,” George said in an affidavit filed last month.

Brown has scheduled an Oct. 3 court hearing in Galveston on George’s request.

In court documents filed last week, attorneys for the school district said the judge does not have jurisdiction to issue the restraining order because George is no longer a student in the district.

“And George’s withdrawal from the district does not deprive him of standing to seek past damages, although the district maintains that George has not suffered a constitutional injury and is not entitled to recover damages,” attorneys for the school district said.

The district defends its dress code, which says its policies for students are meant to “teach grooming and hygiene, instill discipline, prevent disruption, avoid safety hazards and teach respect for authority.”

In court documents filed last week, Allie Booker, one of George’s attorneys, said the student was “forced to unenroll” from Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and transfer to another high school in a different Houston area district because Barbers Hill officials placed him on in-school suspension on the first and second day of the new school year, which began last month.

This “caused him significant emotional distress, ultimately leading to a nervous breakdown. As a result, we had no choice but to remove him from the school environment,” Booker said.

George’s departure “was not a matter of choice but of survival” but he wishes to return, as his mother moved to the area because of the quality of the district’s schools, Booker said.

George was kept out of his regular high school classes for most of the 2023-24 school year, when he was a junior, because the school district said his hair length violated its dress code. George was forced to either serve in-school suspension or spend time at an off-site disciplinary program.

The district has argued that George’s long hair, which he wears to school in tied and twisted locs on top of his head, violates its policy because if let down, it would fall below his shirt collar, eyebrows or earlobes. The district has said other students with locs comply with the length policy.

George’s federal lawsuit also alleged that his punishment violates the CROWN Act, a recent state law prohibiting race-based discrimination of hair. The CROWN Act, which was being discussed before the dispute over George’s hair and which took effect in September 2023, bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, locs, twists or Bantu knots.

In February, a state judge ruled in a lawsuit filed by the school district that its punishment does not violate the CROWN Act.

Barbers Hill’s hair policy was also challenged in a May 2020 federal lawsuit filed by two other students. Both withdrew from the high school, but one returned after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction, saying there was “a substantial likelihood” that his rights to free speech and to be free from racial discrimination would be violated if he was barred. That lawsuit is still pending.

HOUSTON (AP) — A former Houston police officer was convicted Wednesday of murder in the deaths of a couple during a 2019 drug raid that revealed systemic corruption problems within the police department’s narcotics unit.

A jury found Gerald Goines guilty of two counts of murder in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his 58-year-old wife Rhogena Nicholas. The couple, along with their dog, were fatally shot after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock” warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering.

Goines faces up to life in prison. The same jury that convicted him will also decide his sentence after hearing additional testimony and evidence during the trial’s punishment phase.

During the trial — which began on Sept. 9 — prosecutors presented testimony and evidence they said showed Goines lied to get a search warrant that falsely portrayed the couple as dangerous drug dealers.

During closing arguments in the trial, prosecutor Keaton Forcht said Goines’ actions wrongly led officers to the couple’s home, resulting in a violent confrontation in which the couple was killed and four officers were shot and wounded and a fifth was injured.

Goines’ lawyers had acknowledged the ex-officer lied to get the search warrant but minimized the impact of his false statements. They said his actions did not merit a murder conviction and he had been overcharged. Nicole DeBorde, one of Goines’ attorneys, portrayed the couple as armed drug users and said they were responsible for their own deaths because they fired at officers who entered their home.

The couple, along with their dog, were killed after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock” warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering.

Prosecutors said Goines falsely claimed that an informant had bought heroin at the couple’s home from a man with a gun. Goines would later change his story to claim he had bought the drugs himself but authorities said that also was a lie. After the raid, investigators said they only found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house.

During the trial, Jeff Wolf, a Texas ranger who investigated the shooting, testified officers fired first when they entered the home and shot the couple’s dog. Wolf said the gunfire and Nicholas screaming at officers likely resulted in Tuttle coming from his bedroom and opening fire at the officers. Goines’ attorneys have said that officers had identified themselves before entering the home but Wolf testified the couple might never have heard this before gunfire erupted.

Goines’ attorneys argued during the trial that the first to fire at another person was Tuttle and not police officers. Prosecutors placed the blame for the shootout between Tuttle and officers on Goines’ actions.

An officer who took part in the raid and the judge who had approved the search warrant testified the raid would never have happened had they known that Goines had lied to get the warrant.

The probe into the drug raid also uncovered allegations of systemic corruption.

A dozen officers tied to the narcotics squad that carried out the raid, including Goines, were later indicted on other charges following a corruption probe. A judge in June dismissed charges against some of them.

Since the raid, prosecutors have reviewed thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines, who also faces federal charges.

One of the other cases tied to Goines that remains under scrutiny is his 2004 drug arrest in Houston of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer sparked a nationwide reckoning on racism in policing. A Texas board in 2022 declined a request that Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for his drug conviction stemming from his arrest by Goines.

Federal civil rights lawsuits the families of Tuttle and Nicholas have filed against Goines and 12 other officers involved in the raid and the city of Houston are set to be tried in November.

___

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas, agree that Texas can expect new jobs and economic development from a bill easing permitting requirements on new semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The two sparred sharply this week, however, over which of them deserves credit for getting the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk. Allred’s camp noted that he co-sponsored the original House bill. Cruz said he rewrote it in the Senate and convinced House GOP leaders to push his version over the finish line. The dispute comes as the two candidates are locked in a competitive race, with each pitching himself as the best option to deliver on job creation.

“A win for Texas! The House passed our bill, the Building Chips in America Act, to streamline permitting and advance CHIPS Act projects,” Allred said on X. “Thanks to a team from both sides of the aisle, we got this done.” Repeating his criticism that Cruz is more interested in self-promotion than finding solutions, Allred added: “Ted Cruz is trying to claim credit. Classic Ted acting like a ‘me guy.’ ” A prime example, Allred says, was Cruz’s vote against the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act that was intended to boost domestic production of microchips and is helping bring billions of dollars to new Texas facilities. Cruz says he enthusiastically supported the 2022 bill’s tax and regulatory incentives for new manufacturing facilities but strongly objected to its direct corporate subsidies. “I am not a fan of giving taxpayer money directly to private corporations, and I think history has shown that it can lead to bad results,” Cruz said. “Once the bill passed, I have actively urged as many of those dollars as possible to go to Texas.” Cruz said he was particularly interested in speeding those new manufacturing facilities through a federal environmental review process that can delay projects for years. He recounted seeing an Allred news release announcing the original proposal to ease those requirements.

SAN ANTONIO – The Texas Tribune reports that second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff raised more than $1 million at a San Antonio fundraiser for Kamala Harris presidential campaign Monday night, the largest presidential fundraiser in the city’s history.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg made the announcement at a reception hosted by Frank and Cecilia Herrera that was attended by prominent area Democrats like Henry Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor and former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Development, State Sen. José Menéndez, and U.S. Rep. Greg Casar.

“We have to work, even here in Texas,” Emhoff told the guests at the fundraiser. “We can’t take any state off the map. We gotta make sure we’re doing the work here. And even if we can’t turn Texas blue this time around you have a good chance of sending [U.S. Rep.] Colin Allred to the Senate.”

Emhoff also said that voters could also make “serious changes” to the state by flipping some statehouse races and their statewide leaders.

He acknowledged that the presidential election was very close and urged the guests to knock on doors, register to vote and help raise more money for the campaign to continue its fight all over the electoral map.

Earlier in the day, Emhoff attended a rally organized by Texas Democrats in San Antonio. He stumped with down-ballot Texas Democrats and railed against Republican efforts that he said were “attacking the right to vote.”

“Under the guise of election integrity, they have made it harder to vote,” Emhoff said. “They know the only way they can win is if fewer people vote. … Texas, unfortunately, has been ground zero for unchecked MAGA power grab.”

Emhoff, who was making his first visit to Texas since his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, became the Democratic presidential nominee, said if Trump returned to the White House it would usher a national abortion ban, more inaction on mass shootings and policies that benefited only the wealthy.

But he sounded a note of confidence even as a New York Times/Siena Poll Monday morning showed Trump leading Harris in Arizona by five percentage points and also ahead in the battleground states of North Carolina and Georgia.

“I am really excited about Texas. Are you?” he said to applause from about 1,200 people in the gymnasium at the Candler Physical Education Center at San Antonio College. “Are we going to send my wife Kamala Harris to the White House?”

The rally included brothers Julián Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio.

The effort was part of the Texas Democratic Party’s “Texas Offense,” an effort to coordinate voter contact efforts and political resources from the top to the bottom of the ticket. Comedian and actress Cristela Alonzo and social media influencer and political activist Olivia Julianna also attended the event.

The Democratic speakers attacked Republican state officials for what they said were efforts to suppress the votes of people who do not align with their political views. They pointed to recent investigations by Attorney General Ken Paxton on Latino groups who work to register people to vote. The speakers urged the crowd to make their voice heard in November by casting ballots for Democrats.

Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa told the crowd that Republican officials like Attorney General Ken Paxton were “attacking the vote” because of the tight races for president and U.S. Senate.

“He knows they’re in trouble,” Hinojosa said.

Emhoff’s visit is a boost for Texas Democrats. National politicos may not see the state as a battleground — despite the state party’s best efforts — but any boost to down-ballot candidates could help the minority party make up ground in state elections. It also gets those candidates in front of new potential voters.

Texas political leaders tried to energize the crowd through Emhoff’s visit.

“Texas is in play and if you need proof of that, we’ve got second gentleman Douglas Emhoff here,” Casar said.

The event also included Kristian Carranza and Laurel Jordan Swift, two San Antonio Democrats vying to unseat Republican incumbents in crucial statehouse races.

Republicans hold a majority in the Texas House and are likely to push for legislation that would allow for the use of public money to pay for private education at least in some way. The issue is a top priority for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Democrats are trying to make dents in the majority to hold the line against that type of legislation.

Carranza’s race against Republican John Lujan is seen as one of the top targets for Democrats and Swift is running for a seat that is vacant because moderate Republican incumbent, Steve Allison, was defeated in the primaries by Marc LaHood, a Republican challenger who is further to the right.

John Harrison, 72, of Kerrville who drove about an hour to attend the event with his wife Jo, said Emhoff’s visit showed that national Democrats were still throwing some support behind the state.

“It means they haven’t given up in Texas and that they can turn some races blue,” Harrison said. “I hope we can beat Cruz and Trump. It’ll be tough but still possible.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — An executive at the Austin-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike apologized in testimony to Congress for sparking a global technology outage over the summer.

“We let our customers down,” said Adam Meyers, who leads CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence division, in a hearing before a U.S. House cybersecurity subcommittee Tuesday.

Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike has blamed a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off a global tech outage in July that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers.

“We’re deeply sorry and we are determined to prevent this from ever happening again,” Meyers told lawmakers.

CrowdStrike’s faulty software update crashed about 8.5 million computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Meyers said he wanted to “underscore that this was not a cyberattack” but was, instead, caused by a faulty “rapid-response content update” focused on addressing new threats. The company has since bolstered its content update procedures, he said.

SHELBY COUNTY – Our news partners at KETK report a man was found dead from a gunshot wound and another person injured Monday afternoon, according to the the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the sheriff’s office, at around 5:45 p.m. deputies were called to County Road 1459 in Center.

When authorities arrived, a 26-year-old man, identified as James Ray Daniels, of Center, was found dead from a gunshot wound, the SCSO said. According to deputies another person, whose identity has not been released, was also found injured.

“This case is under investigation and no further information will be released at this time,” Shelby County Sheriff Kevin W. Windham said.