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AUSTIN – (ABC) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced in a proclamation Monday afternoon that the special election to fill the seat vacated following the death of Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, for the rest of his term will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4, concurrent with Election Day.

But Democrats are arguing he is trying to keep the seat open as long as possible because of Republicans’ slim majority in the House.

Republicans have 220 seats to Democrats’ 213, and the special election would most likely install a new Democrat in the seat, given the district’s Democratic lean, cutting back on the GOP majority.

In a statement, Abbott blamed Harris County, where the district is located, for election administration issues, saying that is why he had to schedule the election for November.

“Forcing Harris County to rush this special election on weeks’ notice would harm the interests of voters. The appropriate time to hold this election is November, which will give Harris County sufficient time to prepare for such an important election,” Abbott wrote.

Abbott gave that reasoning in a recent local interview as well, telling local station KXAN on Thursday that the county will “need to have adequate time to operate a fair and accurate election, not a crazy election like what they conducted in the past.”

State audits found that Harris County had issues with administering elections in 2021 and 2022, according to Votebeat. Those issues included not properly training election workers and not issuing enough ballot paper at various places. But the county has also been a target for unfounded theories or allegations about elections.

However, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth noted in a statement on Friday that the county has successfully run eight elections since election administration duties were given to the Harris County Clerk’s Office in September 2023 and said the county is prepared to run the special election.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said on Monday afternoon that an announcement is “forthcoming” on litigation over filling the seat.

“The Republicans are on the run on the economy … and they’re on the run legislatively, which is why Gov. Abbott is conspiring with House Republicans to rig the system and not call a special election,” Jeffries said at a news conference in the U.S. Capitol.

In a later statement on Monday after Abbott announced the date, Jeffries said House Democrats are still considering legal action. The Texas Democratic Party has also threatened to file a lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Abbott’s office, when asked on Monday by ABC News about the governor’s response to Democratic allegations about margins in the House and the allegation that Abbott is following President Donald Trump’s or Republicans’ direction, pointed to Abbott’s comments from the local news interview, without elaborating.

The spokesperson did not address how Abbott might respond to any litigation.

Abbott’s announcement means the congressional seat will be vacant for about eight months since Turner’s passing in March, if the new date holds.

Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist who works for various Texas Democratic clients, told ABC News on Monday that the seat vacancy comes “at a time when people absolutely need their congressional representation” as the Trump administration implements sweeping tariffs and cuts to the federal government.

From a legal standpoint, however, Texas state law appears to give the governor wide latitude to choose when to set special elections.

Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, told ABC News on Tuesday that the amount of time the seat will remain vacant in this case is much longer than previous occurrences in 2018 and 2021, when Abbott also called special elections to fill vacancies.

But Blank pointed out that Abbott, a former state attorney general and state Supreme Court justice, is likely sure he is on solid legal ground: “Gov. Abbott doesn’t seek out lawsuits against him. He was a sophisticated legal operator before he became a sophisticated politician and a sophisticated governor, and that really suffuses his politics and his approach.”

Chad Wilbanks, a Republican strategist and former Texas GOP executive director, told ABC News on Friday, “The governor is the sole authority of calling the special election for when he wants.”

“Democrats at the state and federal level support boys playing in girls sports, they support open borders and drags shows in public libraries,” he added, referring to LGBT and immigration issues. “There is no urgency because of their policies that Texans oppose.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is resigning over a deal to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally in the U.S., according to two people familiar with the decision.

Melanie Krause, who had served as acting head since February, will step down over the new data-sharing document signed Monday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The agreement will allow ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records.

Two people familiar with the situation confirmed Krause was resigning and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The IRS has been in upheaval over Trump administration decisions to share taxpayer data. Acting Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell announced his retirement from the agency after roughly 40 years of service in February as furor spread over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency gaining access to IRS taxpayer data. Krause replaced him.

Acting chief counsel William Paul was removed from his role at the agency last month and replaced by Andrew De Mello, an attorney in the chief counsel’s office who is deemed supportive of DOGE, according to two other people familiar with the plans who were also not authorized to speak publicly.

The Treasury Department says the agreement will help carry out President Donald Trump’s agenda to secure U.S. borders and is part of his larger nationwide immigration crackdown, which has resulted in deportations, workplace raids and the use of an 18th century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants.

Advocates, however, say the IRS-DHS information-sharing agreement violates privacy laws and diminishes the privacy of all Americans.

The basis for the agreement is founded in “longstanding authorities granted by Congress, which serve to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans while streamlining the ability to pursue criminals,” said a Treasury official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to explain the agency’s thinking on the agreement.

Tom Bowman, policy counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said disclosing immigrant tax records to DHS for immigration enforcement “will discourage tax compliance among immigrant communities, weaken contributions to essential public programs, and increase burdens for U.S. citizens and nonimmigrant taxpayers. It also sets a dangerous precedent for data privacy abuse in other federal programs.”

Todd Lyons, acting ICE director, told reporters at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix on Tuesday that the agreement will help ICE find people who are collecting benefits they aren’t entitled to and are “kind of hiding in plain sight” using someone else’s identity.

Working with Treasury and other departments is “strictly for the major criminal cases,” Lyons said.

The IRS had already been called upon to help with immigration enforcement earlier this year.

Noem in February sent a request to Bessent to borrow IRS Criminal Investigation workers to help with the immigration crackdown, according to a letter obtained by the AP. It cites the IRS’ boost in funding, though the $80 billion infusion of funds the federal tax collection agency received under the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act has already been clawed back.

A collection of tax law experts for the NYU Tax Law Center wrote Monday that the IRS-DHS agreement “threatens to violate the rights that many more Americans have under longstanding laws that protect their tax information from wrongful disclosure or dissemination.”

“In fact, it is difficult to see how the IRS could release information to DHS while complying with taxpayer privacy statutes,” they said. “IRS officials who sign off on data sharing under these circumstances risk breaking the law, which could result in criminal and civil sanctions.”

The memo states that the IRS and ICE “will perform their duties in a manner that recognizes and enhances individuals’ right of privacy and will ensure their activities are consistent with laws, regulations, and good administrative practices.”

McALLEN (AP) – The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to use a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants it accuses of being gang members, ending the temporary halt on deportations ordered by a federal district judge.

But the court also ruled that the administration must give Venezuelans it claims are gang members the chance to legally fight any deportation orders. The ruling did not address the constitutionality of the act.

The Monday ruling came after the wartime law was used last month to fly more than 130 men accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, where the U.S. has paid to have the men held in a notorious prison. The Trump administration argues that the gang has become an invading force.

The Venezuelans deported under the act under the act did not get a chance to challenge the orders, and attorneys for many of the men say there’s no evidence they are gang members. It remains unclear how the ruling will affect those men.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said it was an “important victory” that people must now be given the right to challenge their removal orders.

The Trump administration welcomed the ruling, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying an “activist judge in Washington, DC does not have the jurisdiction to seize control of President Trump’s authority to conduct foreign policy.”

Meanwhile, the administration is also looking to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, Todd Lyons, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, told reporters Tuesday during Border Security Expo, a trade show in Phoenix.

What is the Alien Enemies Act?

In 1798, with the U.S. preparing for what it believed would be a war with France, Congress passed a series of laws that increased the federal government’s reach. The Alien Enemies Act was created to give the president wide powers to imprison and deport noncitizens in time of war.

Since then, the act has been used just three times: during the War of 1812 and the two world wars.

It was part of the World War II legal rationale for mass internments in the U.S. of people of German, Italian and especially Japanese ancestry. An estimated 120,000 people with Japanese heritage, including those with U.S. citizenship, were incarcerated.

Can the U.S. use a wartime law when it’s not at war?

For years, Trump and his allies have argued that the U.S. is facing an “invasion” of people arriving in the country illegally.

Arrests on the U.S. border with Mexico topped 2 million a year for two straight years for the first time under President Joe Biden, with many released into the U.S. to pursue asylum. After hitting an all-time monthly high of 250,000 in December 2023, they dropped sharply in 2024 and dramatically more after Trump took office.

The Trump administration has increasingly described the migrant issue as a war, most notably by designating eight Latin American criminal groups, including Tren de Aragua and MS-13, as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Trump’s invocation of the act, which was publicly announced March 15, the same day as the deportations, said Tren de Aragua was attempting “an invasion or predatory incursion” of the United States.

Administration officials now regularly use military terminology to describe the situation, with Trump telling reporters last month that “this is a time of war.”

Trump’s critics insist he is wrongly invoking an act designed for use during declared wars.

“Trump’s attempt to twist a centuries-old wartime law to sidestep immigration protections is an outrageous and unlawful power grab—and it threatens the core civil liberties of everyone,” Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said in a statement after the Monday ruling.

How has the legal case proceeded?

The ACLU and Democracy Forward preemptively sued Trump hours before the March 15 deportations began, saying five Venezuelan men held at a Texas immigration detention center were at “imminent risk of removal” under the Alien Enemies Act. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg blocked their deportation, prompting an immediate Justice Department appeal.

Later that day, Boasberg issued a new order to stop the deportations being carried out under the centuries-old law, and said any planes in the air needed to turn around. By then, though, two ICE Air planes were heading across the Gulf of Mexico and toward Central America. Neither came back.

LAKE GRANBURY (AP) – Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson received a memorable welcome from an ostrich at a state park in Texas when the towering two-legged bird gave him a peck, according to a video Sunday.

AUSTIN (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is running for the U.S. Senate in a primary challenge against Republican Sen. John Cornyn, setting up what is likely to become one of the GOP’s most contentious and expensive contests of 2026.

Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, made the announcement Tuesday after spending more than a year openly flirting with a Senate challenge. During that time, Paxton has sought to position himself as a national leader among the GOP’s ascendant hard right, launching some of the first criminal investigations in the U.S. over abortion bans and gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

His entry into the race, which he made official in an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” comes as Paxton is no longer shadowed by legal troubles that had hung over him for nearly a decade but did not weaken his ability to win reelection twice.

“I’m running for U.S. Senate to fight for President Trump’s agenda and take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment,” Paxton said in a post on X. “Together, let’s send John Cornyn packing.”

Cornyn’s campaign responded by calling his challenger a “fraud” and leaning into Paxton’s historic impeachment in 2023 after eight of his closest aides accused him of corruption and reported him to the FBI. Paxton was later acquitted in a trial the Texas Senate, where his wife is a state senator but was not allowed to cast a vote.

“This will be a spirited campaign and we assure Texans they will have a real choice when this race is over,” Cornyn’s campaign said in a statement.

Paxton’s decision to enter the race highlights his political resiliency and popularity among Texas Republicans after a decade of legal woes that, at times, seemed to imperil his future: felony securities fraud charges, impeachment after an extraordinary revolt by his closest aides and an FBI corruption investigation. Paxton reached a deal to end the criminal case and the Biden administration quietly decided not to prosecute him.

Cornyn, a respected and popular senator within the GOP conference in Washington, will likely now have to face his most competitive campaign since taking office in 2002.

He recently lost his bid to lead the GOP as Senate majority leader in November after he spent several years as Sen. Mitch McConnell’s No. 2 in leadership. A former Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court justice, Cornyn has helped the party raise millions of dollars throughout his decades-long career and has worked with Democrats on bipartisan bills.

Cornyn has received criticism from Paxton and other Republicans after he suggested that Trump might not be the best Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.

Paxton has also expressed discontent with Cornyn’s support of a 2022 bipartisan gun bill that strengthened background checks for buyers under 21, increased prosecution for unlicensed sellers and funds for youth mental health services in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.

Amidst several legal battles, the Texas attorney general has become a well-known figure on the right for his litigation against former President Joe Biden. Notably, Paxton led a lawsuit attempting to overturn Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020, an effort that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected.

In 2023, the GOP-controlled Texas House voted to impeach Paxton for bribery offenses related to a wealthy real estate donor before his acquittal in the Senate, where Paxton was once a lawmaker. The Justice Department decided not to pursue its investigation into Paxton over the allegations in the final weeks of former President Biden’s term, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier this month, a district court awarded a combined $6.6 million to four former senior Paxton aides in a whistleblower lawsuit after they were fired shortly after reporting Paxton’s actions to the FBI. Paxton’s office has said he will appeal.

In 2022, when Paxton was last on the ballot, Republican George P. Bush made Paxton’s legal troubles the cornerstone of a primary challenge. Paxton won easily in a runoff.

A Democrat has yet to enter next year’s Senate race in Texas, where their party hasn’t won a statewide office in more than 30 years.

AUSTIN – KUT reports that just a week into a push to get workers back into the office, employees with Texas’ transportation agency are struggling to find parking. So, they’re parking illegally. An employee with the Texas Department of Transportation reached out to KUT on Thursday, saying the agency is allowing workers to park in fire lanes at its 1,600-employee campus near Stassney Lane and Burleson Road. The person asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. Another person filed an Austin 311 complaint about the parking Thursday, but it was closed. A screenshot from the app that the complainant shared with KUT says “DPS [Department of Public Safety] supervisor did not allow [the] officer permission to enter and cite vehicles in the fire lane.” Austin Transportation Public Works confirmed in a statement to KUT that an officer was called out to TxDOT on Tuesday, but no tickets were issued. Under Austin’s city code and state law, it’s illegal to obstruct or park in front of a fire lane.

“The officer was granted access by security and noted the improperly parked vehicles were located on TxDOT’s private property,” the statement read. “Transportation and Public Works manages vehicle parking on public right-of-way and does not regulate parking on private property.” In a statement, TxDOT spokesperson Adam Hammons told KUT parked cars “maintained the required clearance standard on the road for emergency vehicles.” He said the agency anticipated parking issues. “TxDOT allowed some workers to park along the outside curb of the parking garage in anticipation of a possible overflow, which was not the case,” he said. “This did not impede emergency vehicles to access the facility.” Five TxDOT campuses were consolidated into a new 49-acre site that opened in South Austin in 2022. During planning for the site, TxDOT cited the ability for employees to work remotely as a reason to scale back plans for more parking.

FRISCO (ABC) — The family of a 17-year-old student charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of another student at a high school track meet last week is “sincerely saddened” over the death, the teen’s attorneys said in their first public statement since the incident.

The incident occurred on April 2 at a Frisco Independent School District stadium during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district.

Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, died after police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.

The suspect in the deadly stabbing — Karmelo Anthony, a student at Frisco Centennial High School — has been charged with first-degree murder, police said.

His family has retained Dallas-Fort Worth-area defense attorneys Billy Clark of the Clark Law Firm and Kim Cole of K Cole Law in the case, according to a joint press release from their firms.

“Karmelo and the entire Anthony family are sincerely saddened that a life was lost and offer their condolences to the family of Austin Metcalf,” the attorneys said in a statement on Monday.

“During this difficult time, we urge the public to refrain from rushing to judgment before all the facts and evidence are presented,” they continued. “Karmelo, like all citizens of the United States, is entitled to a fair and impartial legal process; we are committed to ensuring that Karmelo’s rights are indeed protected throughout each phase of the criminal justice system.”

Anthony is being held in the Collin County jail on $1 million bond.

The attorneys said they plan to work with the Collin County District Attorney’s Office to seek a reduced bond and a “better determination of the filed charge.”

“This will certainly be a long road ahead and during this challenging time, we ask for prayers for both families and we ask for your patience and respect for the legal process as we seek the truth,” the attorneys said.

In the wake of the incident, Anthony’s family has launched a fundraiser on the platform GiveSendGo, which as of early Tuesday afternoon has raised more than $236,000. The fundraising page did not detail how the funds will be used.

Anthony allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report.

One officer who responded to the scene said Anthony told him unprompted, without being asked any questions about the incident, “I was protecting myself,” according to the arrest report.

When the officer advised another responding officer that he had “the alleged suspect,” Anthony reportedly responded, “I’m not alleged, I did it,” according to the arrest report.

Anthony “made another spontaneous statement” and reportedly asked an officer if what happened “could be considered self-defense,” according to the arrest report.

The stabbing occurred under the Memorial High School tent in the stadium bleachers at approximately 10 a.m. on April 2, according to the arrest report.

Responding officers said they spoke to multiple witnesses, including one who reported that the altercation began after Metcalf told Anthony to move out from under their team’s tent, according to the arrest report.

The witness reported that Anthony allegedly reached inside his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens,” according to the arrest report.

Metcalf grabbed Anthony to move him, according to a witness, and Anthony allegedly pulled out what the witness described as a black knife and “stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran away,” the arrest report stated.

“Just doesn’t make any sense,” Metcalf’s mother, Meghan Metcalf, told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA in emotional remarks last week. “Just because the kid was mad, my son is not here anymore, and I don’t understand it.”

Frisco Police Chief David Shilson called the incident a “senseless act of violence” in a lengthy statement last week while offering his “deepest condolences to all the families involved especially the Metcalf family.”

He also warned that false information related to the stabbing was being circulated on social media and “to only trust information that comes from official releases and verified sources.”

Shilson said police are investigating a fake account created using his name that was “perpetuating misinformation” on the incident. Police said they are pursuing felony charges.

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LUBBOCK (AP) – A day care facility in a Texas county that’s part of the measles outbreak has multiple cases, including children too young to be fully vaccinated, public health officials say.

West Texas is in the middle of a still-growing measles outbreak with 505 cases reported on Tuesday. The state expanded the number of counties in the outbreak area this week to 10. The highly contagious virus began to spread in late January and health officials say it has spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mexico.

Three people who were unvaccinated have died from measles-related illnesses this year, including two elementary school-aged children in Texas. The second child died Thursday at a Lubbock hospital, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral in Seminole, the epicenter of the outbreak.

As of Friday, there were seven cases at a day care where one young child who was infectious gave it to two other children before it spread to other classrooms, Lubbock Public Health director Katherine Wells said.

“Measles is so contagious I won’t be surprised if it enters other facilities,” Wells said.

There are more than 200 children at the day care, Wells said, and most have had least one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which is first recommended between 12 and 15 months old and a second shot between 4 and 6 years old.

“We do have some children that have only received one dose that are now infected,” she said.

The public health department is recommending that any child with only one vaccine get their second dose early, and changed its recommendation for kids in Lubbock County to get the first vaccine dose at 6 months old instead of 1. A child who is unvaccinated and attends the day care must stay home for 21 days since their last exposure, Wells said.

Case count and hospitalization numbers in Texas have climbed steadily since the outbreak began, and spiked by 81 cases from March 28 to April 4.

On Tuesday, the state added another 24 cases to its count and two additional counties, Borden and Randall. One more person was hospitalized since Friday, with 57 total.

Gaines County, where the virus has been spreading through a close-knit Mennonite community, has the majority of cases, with 328 on Tuesday. Neighboring Terry County is second with 46, followed by Lubbock County with 36.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met with Texas officials Monday to determine how many people it would send to West Texas to assist with the outbreak response, spokesman Jason McDonald said Monday. He expected a small team to arrive later this week, followed by a bigger group on the ground next week.

The CDC said its first team was in the region from early March to April 1, withdrawing on-the-ground support days before a second child died in the outbreak.

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