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TEXAS – The nation’s average price of gasoline has declined for the second straight week, falling 3.4 cents compared to a week ago and stands at $3.10 per gallon, according to GasBuddy® data compiled from more than 12 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is up 1.8 cents from a month ago and is 54.6 cents per gallon lower than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has decreased 2.7 cents in the last week and stands at $3.519 per gallon.

“The national average has seen its second straight weekly decline, with gas prices falling in over 40 states. However, some states have seen increases due to localized price cycling,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “With oil prices rallying over the past week, we may start to see the downward trend in gas prices begin to stall. So far, 2025 has been relatively calm at the pump for most Americans, thanks in part to OPEC’s ongoing restoration of oil production and continued uncertainty surrounding tariff policy and its potential impact on the global economy. Regardless, Americans are currently spending over $200 million less per day on gasoline compared to this time last year.”

AUSTIN – A press release from the Office of the Attorney General states that Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a motion to appoint a Consumer Privacy Ombudsman in the 23andMe bankruptcy case. This is done to ensure that the highly sensitive, personal, and genetic information of Texans is safeguarded throughout the bankruptcy proceedings.

“The importance of safeguarding Texans’ genetic data and preserving their privacy rights cannot be overstated,” said Attorney General Paxton. “We have robust state privacy laws that include data deletion rights, and I would encourage any Texan concerned about their data to exercise the right to have their data securely deleted. I will continue to stand up for Texans’ privacy rights, which is why I’m fighting to have a Consumer Privacy Ombudsman appointed in this case.”

23andMe, a company whose services include direct to consumer genetic testing, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Eastern District of Missouri. According to pleadings filed in the case, 23andMe seeks to sell unspecified assets that potentially include the sensitive genetic data of adults and children, health information, and other personally identifiable information.

Attorney General Paxton’s motion asserts that this case presents an unprecedented situation at the intersection of bankruptcy law, consumer data rights, and genetic data privacy rights. Therefore, the appointment of a Consumer Privacy Ombudsman serves the interests of consumers and creditors.

Under the Texas Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing Act and the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, Texas consumers have the right to request that their data be deleted from 23andMe’s database, and that the genetic sample or results be destroyed. Texans may exercise their rights by going to the 23andMe website where they can request deletion of their data, opt to have test samples destroyed, and revoke permission for their data to be used for research: click here to download or request deletion of your 23andMe data.

Any Texans who experience problems in exercising their rights, do not receive a response from the company, or have other concerns related to their 23andMe data may file a complaint at the Office of the Attorney General’s website.

AUSTIN – The New York Times reports that in 2023, professional bettors in Europe were trying to find an American partner to help pull off an audacious plan to buy up virtually every ticket ahead of just the right lottery draw in the United States. Then something remarkable happened in Texas. Officials in Austin essentially blessed the rigging of their own state lottery. “What we had was a criminal enterprise within our government,” said State Senator Bob Hall, a Republican investigating the caper. In a state known for its aversion to government regulation, the successful manipulation of a Texas lottery has taken on deep meaning. The Texas Senate has held hearings. Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered investigations. The Texas House zeroed out the funding for the state lottery in its budget this month. Still, with their winnings in the tens of millions of dollars, the perpetrators remain very much unscathed. Just how the Texas lottery was fixed in 2023 has been explored by news outlets and in state capitol hearing rooms. But less understood is the key role of state regulators. The Times has unearthed new details and video evidence that underscore just how integral the state’s lottery commission was in helping to secure a jackpot. In plain view of the authorities, the founders of Colossus Bets, a British bookmaker, worked with a struggling American start-up called Lottery.com and two other firms to buy virtually every combination of possible numbers and ensure a win that April.

But they could only do so because lottery officials looked the other way when it came to potential violations of lottery rules and expedited the delivery of dozens of new lottery terminals to print out tens of millions of paper tickets. They hit the jackpot, $95 million, after purchasing nearly 26 million tickets for $1 each. The state lottery commission presented it as a win-win: The bettors in Europe ensured every ticket would be sold, a boon worth tens of millions of dollars to the state’s public schools, which get a cut of the proceeds. Editors’ Picks Our 17 Most Lemony Recipes It’s Springtime on Polaris-9b, and the Exoflowers Are Blooming Hitting the Trails on the Wilder Side of a Party Island But some elected officials see the lottery scheme differently, as an international conspiracy with the collusion of state officials. “It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” Mr. Hall said. To high-stakes international gamblers looking for a big play, the Texas lottery was a good bet. Lotto Texas had a relatively low number of possible ticket combinations, around 25.8 million number mixes, and a low price per ticket, $1. (In comparison, the odds of the Powerball are about one in 300 million.) Buying them all could be worth it for a large enough jackpot.

AUSTIN – The San Antonio Express-News reports that Texas is facing a $30 billion question about the future of its electric grid: Is it time to create a new, stronger backbone that can grow along with the booming demand for electricity? Or should it stick with the current system and run the risk of playing catch-up a short time later? Utility regulators this week could decide between expanding the grid with more of the 345,000-volt power lines that have crisscrossed Texas for 65 years or starting a new system that can carry more than twice as much voltage. In simpler terms, they’ll be considering whether the grid should start moving more electricity across Texas on a new system of high-speed multi-lane superhighways or keep expanding its system of smaller, two-lane roads.

It’s a key question. Texas already is dealing with overcrowded transmission lines that pose risks to reliability and could even cause cascading blackouts from a single overtaxed circuit near San Antonio. It comes as data centers are flocking to the state in search of massive amounts of power — and as population growth and increasingly severe weather are already testing the grid’s limits. The latest estimates suggest demand will grow an unprecedented 75% by the end of the decade. Grid experts worry that without the new approach, the state risks seeing its grid falling further behind its pace of growth. “We’re at a pivotal point to decide,” Kristi Hobbs, a system planner with state grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, told regulators earlier this year. “Do we want to continue building the system the way we always did, or do we want to consider a higher voltage that will set us up for the future?”

AUSTIN (AP) – Texas’ massive, multi billion-dollar mission to reinforce its border with Mexico helped Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland hire two full-time deputies and three part-timers. It gave him the money to buy equipment and new vehicles. In the lawman’s words, it “kept us alive” as the number of illegal border crossings skyrocketed under the Biden administration to record highs.

And Cleveland, who became sheriff after 26 years as a Border Patrol agent, still has needs. He said he hopes and prays to be able to hire more deputies.

But he also has worries about the state plowing billions of more taxpayer dollars into border security as the border gets quieter and quieter — and President Donald Trump vows mass deportations of undocumented immigrants living throughout the country.

“With President Trump being in the White House, I would foresee the federal government spending more money. The state Legislature surely shouldn’t have to spend that much more money,” he said in an interview. “Why are we asking (for) that?”

Three hundred and thirty-five miles east of Terrell County, state lawmakers and leaders in Austin are asking for just that.

As the Legislature irons out the details of the state’s spending plan for the next two years, $6.5 billion for border security has sailed through both chambers with little fanfare. Meanwhile, the number of arrests along the border has dwindled to a trickle and the federal government has begun expanding its immigration enforcement apparatus to deport as many people as Trump promised on the campaign trail.

If approved, the appropriation would increase the tab for the state’s border security spending to nearly $18 billion since 2021, when Gov. Greg Abbott began the state’s own crackdown, Operation Lone Star, in response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies. That new sum would be more than five times the $3.4 billion that state lawmakers spent on border security over the 14 preceding years, when lawmakers began regularly allocating money for border operations.

“It’s hard to make the argument that the politics around immigration and the border have ever been especially preoccupied with good governance,” said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project at UT Austin.

The project’s December poll, after the presidential election, found that 45% of Texas voters felt the state was spending too little on border security. That number increased to 63% among only Republican voters.

“If you’re trying to balance good governance and some semblance of fiscal responsibility with politics on this issue, as a Republican legislator or a Republican elected official, the politics are still weighing very heavily on that scale,” Henson said.

At various points in the last four years, Abbott has said the state must maintain its presence — and spending — along the border until it achieved “operational control” of the border.

“Texas will not stop until we gain full operational control of the border,” Abbott said in June when he welcomed troops to a new military base the state built in Eagle Pass.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last month that the nation is close to reaching that goal.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection “literally has almost 100% operational control (of) the border which means that our country is secure and that we know who’s coming into this country,” Noem told NewsNation.

In a statement, Abbott Press Secretary Andrew Mahaleris noted that the state devoted money to border security before 2021.

“Gov. Abbott will continue working with the Legislature to determine appropriate funding levels,” Mahaleris said. “This funding is critical to ensure Texas can continue working closely with President Trump and his administration to protect our state and nation.”

State Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who is a lead writer of the state budget, also appeared open to the idea of redirecting the money currently earmarked for border security. She said she was closely monitoring illegal crossings and the flow of drugs and weapons with the governor’s office, state leadership and state police “in order to determine the appropriate level of state support required to fully secure the border and keep Texans safe.”

In a statement to the Tribune, Huffman said Texas “is undoubtedly benefiting from the Trump Administration’s focus on reinstating security at our southern border. … It is essential that the state uses taxpayer funds prudently and in coordination with the federal government’s ongoing efforts.”

But it’s not clear how much appetite there is to make a change to the state’s recent multi-billion-dollar border commitment.

During a budget debate in the House last week, Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, D-Richardson, unsuccessfully tried to shift the border security budget to give Texas teachers a pay increase. “We could give you a trillion dollars, and you would still cry with this red meat nonsense,” Rodríguez Ramos said.

A few weeks ago, State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, an Austin Democrat who serves on the upper chamber’s border security committee, went to Del Rio to check out the state’s military operations, the international port and Operation Lone Star staging. When she toured the Rio Grande, she said a tent set up to book people arrested under Operation Lone Star held a lone individual — a U.S. citizen from Texas accused of a crime, she said.

Eckhardt said in an interview that the $6.5 billion currently being considered might not even cover the cost of some immigration-related proposals that lawmakers are now considering. She pointed to a potential prohibition on granting bail to undocumented immigrants accused of felonies — which could increase the costs for the local government if it is not allowed by the state to release the individual.

“We are shifting the cost of Trump’s goal onto state and local taxes,” Eckhardt said.

Selene Rodriguez, a border and immigration expert for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, said the state will always have a role to play in border security. But she would like more transparency when it comes to spending.

“I myself am a big proponent of increased public safety efforts because I believe that is one of the few legitimate roles of government,” Rodriguez said. “But if you’re going to do it, do it correctly. Line the pockets appropriately, and if you don’t need 5,000 Guardsmen at the border maybe don’t have them there.”

At least two bills this session called for auditing Operation Lone Star. Both bills, one in each chamber, were referred to committee. As of mid-April, neither had received a hearing.

___

This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

AUSTIN – Federal judges have ordered immigration officials to temporarily restore the legal status of three people from India who came to Texas on student visas.

Manoj Mashatti, Chandraprakash Hinge and Akshar Patel are among more than a thousand students nationwide whose permission to be in the U.S. was revoked. International students have been discovering in recent weeks that their immigration status was marked as terminated in a database used to keep track of international students known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS.

Mashatti obtained an F-1 student visa to pursue a master’s degree in business analytics at the University of Texas at Dallas. He graduated in May 2024 and then applied for and received authorization to work as a full-time data engineer, according to his lawsuit. UT-Dallas informed him his status was terminated on April 2 based on a prior arrest for driving while intoxicated. He had completed probation for that charge.

Court documents provide fewer details about Hinge and Patel. Their attorney said they were both students at the University of Texas at Arlington and have graduated.

Hinge came to the U.S. in 2020 to get a graduate degree. Patel was an undergraduate student who says his immigration status was terminated from SEVIS solely because of a November 2018 arrest for reckless driving. That case was dismissed.

Both their LinkedIn profiles indicate they still live and work in North Texas, Hinge as a thermal engineer and Patel in the computer science field.

Steven Brown, the immigration attorney representing the students, filed separate lawsuits for each one against Todd M. Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in federal courts in Washington, D.C.

The judge in Hinge’s case said ICE had offered conflicting positions in both its court filings and oral arguments about what effect its actions had on Hinge’s visa. The judge wrote in his order that the student’s legal status should remain unchanged.

Brown said none of his three clients have left the country.

He added that he may be bringing more lawsuits against ICE on behalf of other international students in Texas and across the country whose legal immigration status has been revoked.

Brown said the way ICE is targeting students appears to be “arbitrary” and “capricious.” That’s also how four UT Rio Grande Valley students who have sued the Department of Homeland Security have described federal immigration officials’ actions. Those students’ attorney, Marlene Dougherty, declined to comment to The Texas Tribune on Friday.

The federal government has said it is targeting people who have committed crimes or participated in protests it views as antisemitic.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement to the Tribune that it regularly reviews whether visa holders are complying with requirements to remain in good standing. SEVIS terminations may occur for various reasons, the statement said, including if they stopped going to school or working. When it finds violations, the agency added, it notifies the Department of State, which may consider revoking the students’ visa after considering their criminal history and other national security concerns.

“This process is nothing new and is part of a longstanding protocol and program,” a senior DHS official said. “Individuals who remain in the U.S. without lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal. If a SEVIS record is terminated or a visa revoked, the individual will be notified and typically given 10 days to depart the country voluntarily. The safest and most efficient option is self-deportation using the CBP Home app.”

A Department of State spokesperson said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation and its actions in specific cases for privacy reasons.

The Consulate General for India could not be immediately reached for comment on Friday.

International students across the country are asking federal judges to temporarily block the government from changing their legal immigration status. In this week alone, judges in at least five states have granted their requests, according to CNN and Reuters.

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

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at a Texas Walmart — one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history — is expected to accept a plea deal in a state court on Monday to avoid the death penalty.

Patrick Crusius has acknowledged he targeted Hispanics on Aug. 3, 2019, when he opened fire in the store crowded with weekend shoppers from the U.S. and Mexico in the border city of El Paso.

Under the offer, Crusius would plead guilty to capital murder and receive life in prison with no possibility of parole, El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya has said.

Texas prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty. Montoya says the decision was driven by a majority of victims’ relatives who want the case to be over.

Crusius already has been sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms at the federal level after pleading guilty to hate crimes and weapons charges.

If the plea arrangement proceeds, families will be able to give victim impact statements. Dozens of people made emotional statements during a similar hearing in federal court in 2023 that lasted three days.

Crusius, a white community-college dropout, was 21 years old when police say he drove more than 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) to El Paso from his home near Dallas.

Not long after posting a racist rant online warning of a Hispanic “invasion,” he opened fire with an AK-style rifle inside and outside the store. Police arrested Crusius shortly after.

Joe Spencer, a defense attorney in the state and federal cases, said Crusius was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder that can be marked by hallucinations, delusions and mood swings and has suffered from debilitating mental illness for most of his life.

“You are talking about an individual with a broken brain,” he said Thursday.

The people killed at Walmart ranged in age from a 15-year-old high school athlete to elderly grandparents. They included immigrants, a retired city bus driver, a teacher, tradesmen including a former iron worker and several Mexican nationals who crossed the U.S. border on routine shopping trips.

DALLAS (AP) — The long-running criminal case against a Texas gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack targeting Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019 is on the verge of coming to a close.

Patrick Crusius, 26, is expected to plead guilty Monday to capital murder and receive a sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole for the massacre near the U.S.-Mexico border. El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya said last month he was offering Crusius a plea deal and that he wouldn’t face the death penalty on the state charge.

Crusius has already been sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences in federal court after pleading guilty in 2023 to hate crime and weapons charges. Under the Biden administration, federal prosecutors also took the death penalty off the table.

Crusius is expected to serve his time in a state prison. Crusius initially was arrested by local authorities and will enter the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice if he is sentenced on the state charges, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.

The attack
Crusius was 21 years old when authorities say he drove for more than 10 hours from his home in suburban Dallas to El Paso and opened fire at the Walmart, which is popular with shoppers from Mexico and the U.S.

Prosecutors have said Crusius was wearing earmuffs that muted the sound of gunfire when he began shooting people in the parking lot.

He then moved inside the store and continued firing an AK-style rifle, cornering shoppers at a bank near the entrance where nine were killed before shooting at the checkout area and people in aisles.

Exiting Walmart, he fired on a passing car, killing an elderly man and wounding his wife.

Crusius was apprehended shortly after and confessed to officers who stopped him at an intersection, according to police.

Targeting Hispanic shoppers
In a posting to an online message board just before the massacre, Crusius, a white, community-college dropout, said the shooting was “in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” He said Hispanics were going to take over the government and economy.

On social media, he appeared consumed by the nation’s immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and posts praising the hard-line border policies of Republican President Donald Trump, who was in his first term at the time.

After the shooting, Crusius told officers that he had targeted Mexicans.

Joe Spencer, one of Crusius’ attorneys, on Thursday described Crusius as “an individual with a broken brain.” Spencer said Crusius has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which can be marked by hallucinations, delusions and mood swings.

The victims
The people who were killed ranged in age from a 15-year-old high school athlete to grandparents. They included immigrants and Mexican nationals who had crossed the U.S. border on routine shopping trips.

They included Jordan Anchondo and Andre Anchondo, who were killed while shopping with their 2-month-old child, Paul, who survived. Authorities have said Jordan Anchondo shielded the baby from gunfire while her husband shielded them both.

Guillermo “Memo” Garcia and his wife Jessica Coca Garcia were fundraising for their daughter’s soccer team in the parking lot when they were both shot. She suffered leg wounds but recovered. He died from his injuries nearly nine months after the shooting, raising the death toll to 23.

A week after the shooting, Coca Garcia rose from her wheelchair to give a speech across the road from the county jail where Crusius was being held.

“Racism is something I always wanted to think didn’t exist,” she said. “Obviously, it does.”

A long-running court case
Montoya said he decided to offer the plea deal because a majority of victims’ relatives were eager for the case to be resolved. He acknowledged not all the families agreed.

Montoya, a Democrat, said he supports the death penalty and believes Crusius deserves it, but the case might not have gone to trial until 2028 if his office had continued seeking the death penalty.

When Montoya took office in January, he became the fourth district attorney to oversee the case in nearly six years. One of his predecessors resigned in 2022 under pressure over her handling of the case. He said the pandemic also caused delays.

Stephanie Melendez, whose father, David Johnson, died shielding his wife and granddaughter, said she initially wanted Crusius to get the death penalty but as the case dragged on she wanted it to end.

“I just wanted it to be over,” Melendez said. “I was done reliving everything. I was done going to court for hours. I was done with the briefings that happened after that would last hours and it was just the same talk over and over again. We were just ready to be done with it all because, honestly, it’s like reliving the trauma over and over again.”