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AUSTIN – Texas lawmakers are considering following President Donald Trump’s lead and renaming the body of water that touches 367 miles of the state’s coast to the Gulf of America.

If approved, the bill would require the name to be changed in every official reference made by a state agency, resolution, rule or publication. The Sunset Advisory Committee would be required to include these changes in future reviews of state agencies.

The fiscal note said any associated costs could be absorbed using existing resources and there would be no significant fiscal impact on local government.

Senate Bill 1717 by Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican, was passed with 20 out of 31 senators in favor of the bill. This means the House will now get the bill for consideration.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 38, which recognizes the “strategic importance” of the Gulf of America, was also passed to engrossment with 22 senators voting aye.

“Senate Bill 1717 reignites the spirit of American Exceptionalism,” Middleton said. “America is a beacon of hope. We are that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan said. We are a nation set apart from the rest of the world, upholding that sacred right of life and liberty and property.”

Democratic Sens. José Menéndez of San Antonio and Juan Hinojosa of McAllen aired their concerns about the legislation in a debate on the Senate floor.

Menéndez wanted to know whether this bill solved any problems and if this move was just a whim based on the current federal administration. Hinojosa argued the name is historical, used widely by the rest of the world and that this move was purely political.

“I guess what it means is next time that you get another president that believes we ought to change the name back to the Gulf of Mexico … then again, we’ll have to change everything?” Hinojosa asked.

Middleton maintained that the bill was not a whim, and said the lawmakers were always welcome to introduce a bill later to change the name within the state code.

Sen. Pete Flores, a Pleasanton Republican, took up for the measure by pointing to changes made by former Gov. Ann Richards, who changed the names of several Texas landmarks. He did not provide examples of these changes on the Senate floor.

Trump signed an executive order changing the name of the waterway along the southern U.S. border to the Gulf of America on Jan. 20, leading to widespread debate. Other world leaders, however, said they would not likely follow suit, including Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“They can continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico,” Flores said. “What your bill is doing is codifying the name of the Gulf of America to reflect the maps that the United States government has put into effect.”

Middleton said this move is to reflect those changes.

A similar bill in the Texas House, by Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Deer Park Republican, was referred to the House State Affairs Committee in March. It has not moved since.

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

AUSTIN – A lottery courier company is suing the Texas Lottery Commission in an effort to block the agency from placing a ban on their services in less than a week.

Lottery courier Lotto.com filed the lawsuit Thursday against the commission and its new acting director, Sergio Rey. The lawsuit calls the potential courier ban an “about-face” from the agency’s previous stance on couriers, as lottery commission officials had previously told lawmakers they lacked the ability to regulate the services, the company said.

“It is time to reconsider the agency’s politically motivated decisions regarding lottery couriers and restart good faith collaboration between our companies and fresh leadership at the TLC,” said a statement from the Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers, a group formed in 2025 that represents Lotto.com and other couriers.

Couriers are third-party services that sell lottery tickets online. The services print tickets at licensed retailers they own and send digital scans of purchases to customers. Lotto.com comes in second to the nation’s largest retailer, courier Jackpocket, as the state’s highest-selling lottery retailer.

The lottery commission indicated it would ban the businesses after a heated Senate Finance Committee hearing in February, during which lawmakers voiced concerns about the potential for money-laundering through couriers or bulk purchase of lottery tickets.

Amid the mounting scrutiny, Ryan Mindell, the lottery commission’s executive director, resigned on Monday.

The lawsuit claims the commission violated 30-day rule-change notice requirements when it announced in February it would seek to ban couriers and confiscated dozens of lottery terminals from couriers that same day. It also claims that because the lottery commission had previously indicated multiple times to lawmakers that the agency could not regulate the services, the ban is invalid.

The 57-page lawsuit also cites communications between Lotto.com and the lottery commission as an indicator that agency officials were aware of Lotto.com’s operation and communicated with them repeatedly.

Lawmakers’ money-laundering concerns and others, such as illegal sales to minors and out-of-state players, have drawn couriers and the lottery further into lawmakers’ scrutiny. The commission is now under two separate state investigations by the attorney general’s office and the Texas Rangers, a division of the Department of Public Safety. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick also has listed banning couriers as one of his top legislative priorities, and a bill criminalizing the services passed through the state Senate unanimously in February.

Senate Bill 28, authored by Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, has yet to be heard in the House. The lottery commission will vote on their courier ban on April 29 if the judge does not file an injunction before the meeting.

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

Tennessee health officials confirmed a measles outbreak on Thursday, bringing the number of U.S. states with outbreaks to 10.

Nearly a week ago, the U.S. was up to 800 cases of measles nationwide. Texas has more than 600 known cases with the outbreak in the western part of the state approaches the three-month mark.

Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses in the epicenter in West Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness.

Other states with active outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.

North America has two other outbreaks. One in Ontario, Canada, has sickened 925 from mid-October through April 16. And as of Tuesday, the Mexican state of Chihuahua state has 514 measles cases, according to data from the state health ministry. The World Health Organization has said cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.

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

As the virus takes hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates, health experts fear the virus that the spread could stretch on for a year. Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.
How many measles cases are there in Texas and New Mexico?

Texas state health officials said Tuesday there were 27 new cases of measles since Friday, bringing the total to 624 across 26 counties — most of them in West Texas. Two more Texans were hospitalized, for a total of 64 throughout the outbreak, and Bailey County logged its first two cases.

State health officials estimated about 2% of cases — fewer than 10 — are actively infectious.

Sixty-two percent of Texas’ cases are in Gaines County, population 22,892, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has had 386 cases since late January — just over 1% of the county’s residents.

The April 3 death in Texas was an 8-year-old child, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Health officials in Texas said the child did not have underlying health conditions and died of “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure.” A unvaccinated child with no underlying conditions died of measles in Texas in late February — Kennedy said age 6.

New Mexico announced two new cases Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 65. Six people have been hospitalized since the outbreak started. Most of the state’s cases are in Lea County. Two are in Eddy County and Chaves and Don?a Ana counties have one each.

State health officials say the cases are linked to Texas’ outbreak based on genetic testing. New Mexico reported a measles-related death in an adult on March 6.
How many cases are there in Kansas?

Kansas was steady this week with 37 cases in eight counties in the southwest part of the state. Finney, Ford, Grant, Gray and Morton counties have fewer than five cases each. Haskell County has the most with eight cases, Stevens County has seven, Kiowa County has six.

The state’s first reported case, identified in Stevens County on March 13, is linked to the Texas outbreak based on genetic testing.
How many cases are there in Oklahoma?

Oklahoma confirmed one more case Tuesday for a total cases of 13: 10 confirmed and three probable. The first two probable cases were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, the state health department said.

Custer, Oklahoma and Cleveland counties had public exposures in the past 42 days. The state health department is not releasing which counties have cases.
How many cases are there in Ohio?

The Ohio Department of Health confirmed 32 measles cases in the state Thursday. The state count includes only Ohio residents. There are 16 cases in Ashtabula County near Cleveland, 14 in Knox County and one each in Allen and Holmes counties.

Health officials in Knox County, in east-central Ohio, said there are a total of 20 people with measles, but seven of them do not live in the state.
How many cases are there in Indiana?

Indiana confirmed two more cases Monday in an outbreak that has sickened eight in Allen County in the northeast part of the state — five are unvaccinated minors and three are adults whose vaccination status is unknown. The cases have no known link to other outbreaks, the Allen County Department of Health said Monday.
How many cases are there in Pennsylvania?

In far northwest Pennsylvania, Erie County health officials declared a measles outbreak April 14 after finding two new cases linked to a measles case confirmed March 30. The state has had nine cases overall this year, six of which are not linked to the outbreak, including international travel-related cases in Montgomery County and one in Philadelphia.
How many cases are there in Michigan?

Montcalm County, near Grand Rapids in western Michigan, has four linked measles cases. State health officials say the cases are tied to Canada’s large outbreak in Ontario. The state has eight confirmed measles cases as of Monday, but the remaining four are not part of the Montcalm County outbreak.
How many cases are there in Montana?

Montana state health officials announced five cases Thursday in unvaccinated children and adults who had traveled out of state, and confirmed it was an outbreak on Monday. All five are isolating at home in Gallatin County in the southwest part of the state.

They are Montana’s first measles cases in 35 years. Health officials didn’t say whether the cases are linked to other outbreaks in North America.
How many cases are there in Tennessee?

Tennessee has six measles cases as of Thursday. Health department spokesman Bill Christian said all cases are the middle part of the state, and that “at least three of these cases are linked to each other” but declined to specify further. The state also did not say whether the cases were linked to other outbreaks or when Tennessee’s outbreak started.

The state health department announced the state’s first measles case March 21, three more on April 1 and the last two on April 17, but none of the news releases declared an outbreak. Tennessee is on a list of outbreak states in a Thursday CDC report.
Where else is measles showing up in the U.
S.?

There have been 800 cases in 2025 as of Friday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.

Cases and outbreaks in the U.S. are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.
What do you need to know about the MMR vaccine?

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

Getting another MMR shot is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says. People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective measles vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said.

People who have documentation that they had measles are immune and those born before 1957 generally don’t need the shots because most children back then had measles and now have “presumptive immunity.”

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

But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots. The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.
What are the symptoms of measles?

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

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

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

There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.

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AP Science Writer Laura Ungar contributed to this report.

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

AUSTIN (AP) — Texas lawmakers on Thursday passed a $1 billion education bill that allows families to use public money to pay for private school tuition, a major victory for school voucher proponents nationwide that was cheered on by President Donald Trump.

The measure won final approval from the state Senate and now heads to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who had muscled the GOP-majority Legislature to pass the bill and has vowed to quickly sign it into law.

“This is historic school choice legislation,” Abbott said in a statement posted on X. “Thanks to the dedication of our lawmakers, Texas families will soon have education freedom!”

More than 30 states have implemented some sort of voucher program in the U.S., and about a dozen states in recent years have launched or expanded programs that make most students eligible. Texas’ version will be among the largest in the nation and is seen as a major victory for proponents who hope to push a similar effort on the federal level.

For decades, the push in Texas had failed in the face of stiff resistance from Democrats and rural Republicans who called it a threat to public schools in a state that now has more than 5 million students in public classrooms.

But supporters gradually gained ground and Abbott, a three-term governor, threw his political muscle behind it in the 2024 elections by backing numerous candidates who would support it. That effort built the majority support the issue needed after decades of failure.

Trump played a key role in getting the measure through a critical state House vote a week ago, when he spoke with a group of Republican lawmakers on a speakerphone call and urged them to approve it.

The program in its first year would be capped at $1 billion and used by up to 90,000 students, but it could grow to nearly $4.5 billion per year by 2030. The money can be used for private school tuition or costs for home-schooling and virtual learning programs. Families could get up to $10,000 each year per student under the program, and a student with disabilities would be eligible for as much as $30,000 per year.

Supporters of the measure say the vouchers can help parents get their children out of poor-performing public schools and create competition that will force public schools to improve.

“The one thing that is missing from our education process that has really made America great is competition,” said Republican state Sen. Bob Hall.

Critics, however, argue it will weaken public schools by draining money and resources and giving them to private schools, who can have selective enrollment and may not operate under some of the same rules.

And they argue it will put money in the pocket of wealthier families already sending their children to costly private schools.

The bill is “not about ‘school choice,’” the Senate Democratic caucus said in a statement. “It’s about public subsidization of private schools’ choice. It’s a step backwards for Texas.”

The issue is not settled among Republicans nationwide. On Monday, North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong vetoed a private school voucher program in that state, saying the bill fell “far short of truly expanding choice as it only impacts one sector of our student population.”

___ 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.

SAN MARCOS (AP) — A grand jury has declined to indict a man who was arrested in connection with a Texas apartment fire that killed five people in 2018, prosecutors said Thursday.

The grand jury this week decided against indicting 31-year-old Jacobe Ferguson in the arson causing death case, the Hays County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. He’d been accused of starting the July 20, 2018, fire in San Marcos, a city of about 70,000 southwest of Austin that’s home to Texas State University.

Ferguson was arrested in July 2023 — five years after the fire that authorities said was intentionally set. The district attorney’s office said Ferguson has been free on bond and that the grand jury’s decision releases him from that bond.

Hays County District Attorney Kelly Higgins said in the news release that his office would continue to work with law enforcement to continue the investigation into the fire.

Ferguson’s attorney, Kristin Dow of the nonprofit Neighborhood Defender Service, said they were “extremely grateful” that the grand jury took the time to review the facts of the case and decided no charges were warranted.

Ferguson was a student at Texas State University at the time of the fire. And four of the victims were either current or former students there.

BROWNSVILLE (AP) — Migrants subject to removal from the U.S. under the contested Alien Enemies Act are getting about 12 hours to decide if they want to contest their removal, according to court documents unsealed Thursday — a window the government contends complies with a Supreme Court decision giving those detained under the act a “reasonable” time to appeal.

Lawyers for people subject to removal say that’s far too short a period.

“This is a dramatic turn in these cases,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union representing migrants. “They’re not giving any information about how they should do it, how much time they would have to do it, and 12 hours is clearly insufficient for them to reach an attorney and decide what they want to do and how they should do it.”

Under the wartime act, the government has sent Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua from the U.S. to El Salvador’s prison known as CECOT.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said in court documents that people are considered subject to deportation if they don’t say they want to challenge their removal within 12 hours after being served with a form about their legal rights. They then have 24 hours to file documents in court.

The form is only available in English, though ICE said it’s read to people in a language they understand. It tells them they can make a phone call, but doesn’t explicitly say they can challenge their removal under the 18th century law.

The government had wanted to file the document under seal, claiming the information was law enforcement sensitive, but a judge ordered it be made public. The ACLU says the time period violates the Supreme Court order that allowed the Trump administration to continue deportations under the Alien Enemies Act but required the government to give detainees a “reasonable time” to argue to a judge that they should not be removed.

That high court order has led to multiple new lawsuits across the country, including the Texas one, over the invocation of the act, which has only been used three times before in U.S. history, most recently during World War II. Then, the ACLU says, suspected Nazis were given 30 days to challenge their designation in court.

A judge in Colorado on Tuesday ruled that the government had to give at least 21 days notice. In appealing that decision, the Trump administration argued it was providing constitutional due process under the current timeline. “The notice will allow the noncitizen a reasonable time to indicate and then file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus as well as telephone access,” the Justice Department’s Tim Ramnitz wrote.

Government attorneys previously told a federal judge in Washington that detainees were given a 24-hour notice. The official also explained in his Texas declaration that detainees subject to the Alien Enemies Act are often held for several days before removal, allowing them more time to express intention to file and contest their removal.

An earlier version of the form filed in federal court in Washington explicitly said there was no opportunity to ask a judge to intervene. But that was before the Supreme Court intervened.