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DALLAS — The Texas Employment Forecast released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates jobs will increase 1.6 percent in 2024, with an 80 percent confidence band of 1.5 to 1.7 percent.

This is smaller than the previous month’s forecast of 2.2 percent for 2024.????????

The forecast is based on an average of four models that include projected national GDP, oil futures prices,?and the Texas and U.S. leading indexes. Three of the four forecasts declined this month as a result of weaker leading indexes and lower oil futures prices. Downward benchmark revisions to second quarter job growth also played a role.

Texas employment growth has disappointed in recent months, increasing only an annualized 0.9 percent in November and 0.1 percent in October.

“Texas employment expansion was weak, with only 10,000 jobs added in November,” said Jesus Cañas, Dallas Fed senior business economist. “Gains were concentrated in smaller private sector services, such as information and financial activities, although some larger sectors also expanded including the education and health sector and government.”

The forecast suggests 230,000 jobs will be added in the state this year, and employment in December 2024 will be 14.2 million.????

The unemployment rate, which takes into account changes in the total labor force along with other factors, increased in almost all of Texas’ major metros in November. This includes Brownsville–Harlingen, Dallas–Plano–Irving, El Paso, Fort Worth–Arlington, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, Laredo and San Antonio–New Braunfels, according to?seasonally adjusted numbers?from the Dallas Fed.???? ????

The rate was unchanged in Austin–Round Rock.

The Texas statewide unemployment rate increased to 4.2 percent in November.?????

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas is putting up dozens of billboards in Mexico and Central American countries warning migrants of the dangers of trying to come to the U.S., Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday. The billboards will offer bleak messages in multiple languages. “Many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped,” one will say. “Your wife and daughter will pay for their trip with their bodies,” will read another. A third will ask, “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?” “This is tough medicine,” Abbott told reporters in Eagle Pass, describing the roughly $100,000 marketing campaign as an attempt to push back on messaging by cartels and smugglers. He did not say where the money for the ads was coming from.

“We are trying to provide a push back against that narrative and provide reality — facts — for immigrants thinking about coming here to save their lives, to save them from sexual assault — save them from being arrested, and let them know there are consequences if they take any further steps to come to the state of Texas,” Abbott said. The governor rolled out the campaign on a border ranch where the owners say they have found migrant women beaten and “left to die.” “It makes you terrified to go outside of your own house and enjoy your own property,” Kimberly Wall said. Sexual assault of migrants has been documented for years, though there is limited data on its prevalence. The New York Times in 2019 found more than 100 documented reports of sexual assault of undocumented women along the border in the past two decades, a number the paper reported is probably far from a complete accounting. Reuters reported last year that criminal investigations of rape in the Mexican border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros were the highest on record, as more migrants were waiting there for legal entry into the country to claim asylum.

(BELLVILLE) — A family in Austin County, Texas, is anxiously waiting for the return of their 3-year-old kangaroo after the marsupial pushed a gate open and hopped a fence.

The 5-foot-tall kangaroo, named Rowdy, was last seen early Wednesday morning on Pyka Road near Interstate 10 in Austin County, according to the kangaroo’s owner.

Local radio DJ Dana Tyson said she saw the kangaroo while heading to work, she told Houston ABC News affiliate KTRK.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think a kangaroo would jump in front of my car,” Tyson told KTRK.

Tyson recorded the kangaroo on camera and said she later found out a nearby resident, Marsha Matus, was missing one.

Matus said she is anxious for Rowdy’s safe return because she knows he is scared.

“He is our baby. He is not your stereotypical kangaroo. He is our pet,” Matus told KTRK.

Rowdy is one of three kangaroos owned by Matus, she said. After Rowdy got out of the pen, she said he jumped the perimeter fence and ran off. Daphne, another pet kangaroo, only got as far as the yard. And Rocky, the youngest kangaroo, who is still a baby, remained inside the house.

Matus said she loves her kangaroos and she even has kangaroo signs, yard art and a personalized license plate that reads “Roo Mom.”

“They’re unique,” she said. “I’m worried to death.”

On Thursday night, Matus told KTRK a stranger even drove down to help Matus search for Rowdy using his drone that is equipped with thermal imaging. Matus and her husband also used their drone to try and find Rowdy.

In a post on Facebook, Matus says Rowdy spends his days laying down and resting because kangaroos are nocturnal. She urges that if anyone sees him that they call the Austin County Sheriff’s Office.

“Please if you spot him anywhere you can contact myself, Austin Co Sheriff’s office or DPS,” Matus posted on Facebook. “He will not go to anyone, he will not harm anyone or anyone’s pets. He knows my voice and will come to me.”

Matus hopes Rowdy is safe and that he can make it back home.

“I just hope he’s safe because I know he’s scared. I just want him home.”

ABC News reached out to the Austin County Sheriff’s Office for comment and did not receive a response.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON – The Texas Tribune reports members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability are asking Texas’ maternal mortality committee to brief them on the controversial decision to not review pregnancy and childbirth related deaths from the first two years after the state banned nearly all abortions.

The maternal mortality committee announced in September that it would not review deaths from 2022 and 2023, instead jumping ahead to 2024. At a recent meeting, committee chair and Houston OB/GYN Dr. Carla Ortique defended the decision as necessary to offer more contemporary recommendations on reducing maternal deaths.

But U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas-area Democrat, and three other members of the House Oversight Committee are questioning whether this decision was influenced by the “chilling effect on reproductive care” in Texas.

“Ignoring pregnancy-related deaths during one of the deadliest periods in Texas for pregnant women directly contradicts [the maternal mortality committee’s] statutorily required mission of eliminating preventable maternal deaths in Texas,” says the letter sent to the Texas Department of State Health Services Thursday morning.

The letter was signed by Crockett, ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

They are requesting a briefing from the state health agency no later than Jan. 2. A spokesperson for the agency did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Noting that Texas was the first and largest state to implement an abortion ban, the letter says the state’s “top priority” should be analyzing maternal deaths from that period and sharing their findings with the Centers for Disease Control and other states.

Last year, Texas legislators allocated money to create a new maternal death tracking system with the goal of ending the state’s participation in national data sharing. Members of the committee, including Ortique, have raised concerns about this change and its impact on data gathering both in Texas and nationwide.

The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee studies maternal deaths to better understand why so many women are dying or nearly dying from pregnancy and childbirth in Texas. The 23-member committee also issues recommendations to improve outcomes in its biennial report.

This year’s report, released in September, showed maternal deaths jumped in 2020 and 2021, reversing two years of improvement. Every group saw worsening outcomes, even with COVID deaths excluded, except for white women. Black women remain disproportionately impacted.

Many researchers and reproductive health care advocates anticipate an increase in maternal mortality as a result of new abortion restrictions. Texas’ law allows doctors to perform an abortion to save the life of the pregnant patient, but confusion and fear of the strict penalties has led some to delay or deny medical care. Dozens of women have come forward with stories of having to leave the state for life-saving care, and ProPublica has reported on three pregnant Texans who have died since these laws went into effect.

After the news organization reported on two similar deaths in Georgia, all members of that state’s maternal mortality review committee were removed from their roles.

Texas’ committee has previously skipped some years to offer more timely recommendations. But the latest decision has set off alarm bells for advocates, researchers, doctors and pregnant women, many of whom voiced their concerns at a recent committee meeting.

“I know that we’ve always talked about how we want to be as contemporary as possible,” Nakeenya Wilson, a former member of the committee, testified. “What I am concerned about is the fact that the two years that we were skipping are the most crucial years of reproductive health in this country’s history.”

In a statement, Crockett said Texas was trying to “bury the truth” of abortion-ban related deaths.

“Texas Republicans know there is nothing ‘pro-life’ about the stories of these women and the broken families they leave behind,” she said. “I and my fellow House Oversight Democrats will not allow Texas Republicans to hide the consequences of their deadly law … The people of Texas deserve the truth.”

WASHINGTON — The Texas Tribune reports that U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs chair, called Tulsi Gabbard a “baffling” pick to lead the nation’s Intelligence Community, offering one of the sternest rebukes from a Republican yet.

President-elect Donald Trump selected the former Democratic congresswoman to be the next director of national intelligence, a cabinet-level position that oversees 18 agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. Gabbard ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and later made a hard pivot to supporting Trump. She recently bought a residence in Leander.

Gabbard has stirred controversy for making comments sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin after his 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Gabbard also met in 2017 with recently ousted Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, who has used chemical weapons on his own people as part of the Syrian civil war. Both Assad and Putin are under U.S. sanctions.

“For someone to have this history of comments that appear to be pro-Putin and pro-Assad, who have historically been our enemies, to head up our intelligence to me is a bit baffling,” McCaul said during a wide-ranging interview in his Capitol Hill office Tuesday. When asked if Gabbard’s selection caused him concern, McCaul said, “Yes.”

Gabbard has argued against continued aid for Ukraine in its defense against Russia — a priority that McCaul has fought hard for throughout his time in Congress. She posted on social media in 2022 that the “war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns.”

Gabbard is still subject to confirmation by the Senate, and several senators have kept quiet on how they would vote on her nomination. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, met with Gabbard in his Washington office on Wednesday. His office has not said whether he would support Gabbard’s confirmation, though he said after the meeting that he found her “impressive” and that he looked forward to the confirmation process going forward. Cornyn sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he finds Gabbard to be “a very impressive person,” noting her service as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.

“She’s smart. She’s serious. I think Tulsi is going to be confirmed. We’ll have a confirmation process for every one of these candidates. Under the Constitution, the Senate has a responsibility to advise and consent. But I believe at the end of the day, that all of the Trump Cabinet nominees are going to be confirmed,” Cruz said in an interview with Dallas’ WFAA.

As a member of the House, McCaul does not have a formal say in Cabinet appointments. He predicted senators would tank the nomination.

“The Senate, they typically pick and choose, and one of them will have to go down. If I were betting, I would say it’s probably the ODNI,” McCaul said, using an acronym for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several of Trump’s picks for Cabinet positions have stirred controversy. Trump named former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to be his attorney general. Gaetz faces allegations of sexual abuse that made him subject to a federal investigation and a probe by the House Ethics Committee. The federal investigation into sex trafficking ended without charges last year. The House Ethics Committee, which includes El Paso Democrat Veronica Escobar, voted to release its report some time before the end of the year, CNN reported Wednesday.

Gaetz withdrew from the running after his nomination caused considerable controversy and Senate Republicans indicated little confidence in his confirmation.

Trump also named the Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be the next secretary of Defense. Hegseth faces allegations of alcohol and sexual abuse, which he denies, and does not have a résumé typical of Defense secretary nominees. He was a U.S. Army major and also has run advocacy groups for veterans. By contrast, Jim Mattis, Trump’s first Defense secretary, had served as commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander for transformation before serving as commander of U.S. Central Command.

Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, has derided the Justice Department as politically weaponized against conservatives. The Justice Department includes the FBI. He has vowed to gut the agency and disperse agents around the country, turning the FBI’s current Washington headquarters into a “museum of the deep state.”

McCaul, who previously chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and worked as a Justice Department prosecutor before his time in Congress, had less critical things to say about Hegseth and Patel.

McCaul acknowledged that Hegseth “has got baggage” but said he exhibits “some leadership qualities” and could be “very positive” as Defense secretary.

“I do think he’s probably going to make it,” McCaul said of his Senate confirmation.

McCaul expressed sympathy to Patel’s calls for streamlining the FBI, saying “with any department or agency, there’s always a case to be made for getting rid of the dead wood, and making it more agile and effective.” But he added the Justice Department “does extremely important work.”

“There are a lot of good men and women in there, the FBI and the DOJ,” McCaul said. “They’re not waking up every day thinking, ’How can I politically go after somebody?’ In fact, we never wore our political beliefs on our sleeve.”

McCaul said he was willing to buy the argument that the department was weaponized “to some extent, but I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I do think the institution itself is very necessary to protect our national security.”

SOUTH TEXAS – The Texas Tribune says in December 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott traveled to South Texas to inaugurate the first 880-foot stretch of the state’s newly constructed wall on its border with Mexico. At the press conference, with cameras zoomed tightly on him against a backdrop of the three-story high, slatted wall in Starr County, the Republican governor declared the barrier to be impenetrable. He banged a mallet on a metal beam to drive home his point. “It’s heavy and it’s wide,” he said assuredly. “People aren’t making it through those steel bars.” Three years and $3.1 billion later, Abbott may be right. Migrants and smugglers aren’t breaching the bars. They don’t have to, because they can walk around them. Today, that completed segment, now 2 miles wide, is an island of metal and concrete surrounded by farmland — hardly an obstacle for migrants who have traveled sometimes thousands of miles to reach the United States. An investigation by The Texas Tribune has identified for the first time where Texas has built its border wall, information the state keeps secret as it pours billions into the highly touted infrastructure project. It has revealed that the unprecedented foray into what has historically been a federal responsibility — Texas is the first state to build its own border wall — has so far yielded little return on billions of dollars invested.

The 50 miles constructed through November, totaling 6% of the 805 miles the state has designated for building, are far from the endless barrier Abbott often presents the wall to be in video clips he shares on social media. The wall is not a singular structure, but dozens of fragmented sections scattered across six counties, some no wider than a city block and others more than 70 miles apart. Each mile of construction costs between $17 million and $41 million per mile, depending on terrain, according to state engineers. The Tribune also found the wall building program has been hampered by landowners on the border, who are resistant to letting the state build on their property. Since 2021, the state has asked hundreds of property owners to sign easement contracts, under which the state pays a one-time fee for the permanent rights to a strip of land to host the wall. Officials cannot seize private land for the wall like they can for other public infrastructure projects because the Legislature prohibited the use of eminent domain for the wall program. Landowners in a third of the 165 miles the state is currently trying to secure said they were not interested in participating, the firm overseeing land acquisition wrote in a wall progress report last month. This has resulted in gaps limiting the barrier’s effectiveness in the few areas the state has built. Mike Novak, executive director of the Texas Facilities Commission, the agency in charge of the project, has said in public meetings that land acquisition is the most daunting hurdle in completing the program. As a result, construction appears to be driven by where the state can most easily acquire land, instead of where wall would be most effective at deterring illegal crossings, said several border security experts who reviewed the Tribune’s findings. Texas has mostly built on sprawling ranches in rural areas, the Tribune found, while the experts said the priority should be urban centers where people sneaking across can easily disappear into safe houses or waiting vehicles.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas led the nation in population growth again in 2024, according to new data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, marking at least the 14th year in a row that Texas has added more residents than any other state in the country. Texas added over 560,000 residents in 2024, according to the bureau’s latest population estimates. That’s nearly 100,000 more than second-place Florida, and more than twice as many new residents as California, which was third in population growth. The Lone Star State is now home to over 31 million residents, a nearly 2% increase from 2023 and over 7% jump since 2020. Only Idaho and Florida have grown at higher rates since 2020, census data shows.

Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter said that Texas’ relative affordability, coupled with its growing economy and the job opportunities that come with it, have made the state a destination for over a decade. “Relative to other states, Texas is still affordable,” Potter said. “We don’t have income tax, so those factors — the jobs that we have, the affordability and the overall quality of life in Texas — make it an attractive place for people to move to.” Texas’ continued surge comes amid a year of remarkable population growth across the entire country, which the Census Bureau said was driven by an increase in international migration. The 1% growth nationwide marks the fastest annual population growth since 2001. The Census Bureau also, for the first time, included refugees in its count of immigrants in the U.S., though only at a national level. Immigrants accounted for about 84% of the 3.3 million new people in the U.S. in 2024, the bureau said. It was not immediately clear how many of those 2.8 million people were considered refugees, but part of the spike comes from improved methodology within the bureau to track net migration, the agency said. In Texas, more than half the state’s new residents between 2023 and 2024 were international migrants, Census Bureau data shows, the third-most in the nation after Florida and California.

WASHINGTON – The Dallas Morning News reports President-elect Donald Trump lambasted U.S. Rep. Chip Roy after the Texas Republican pushed back on Trump’s call to suspend or abolish the debt ceiling. Trump posted criticism on social media Thursday that included an implicit political threat to the Austin congressman as he invoked the example of U.S. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who lost in the primary this year after getting crosswise with Trump. “Chip Roy is just another ambitious guy, with no talent. By the way, how’s Bob Good doing?” Trump said on Truth Social. “I hope some talented challengers are getting ready in the Great State of Texas to go after Chip in the Primary. He won’t have a chance!” Trump and his allies, including Elon Musk, torpedoed a deal that House Republican leaders negotiated with Democrats earlier this week to keep the government funded past a Friday night deadline and avoid a partial shutdown.

Roy joined Trump and other critics in blasting the deal, in part for including too much spending and too many concessions to Democrats. But he balked at a key Trump demand that the deal address the debt ceiling, a law that caps how much the government can borrow. Congress previously suspended the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, but the Treasury Department can deploy extraordinary measures expected to push the deadline until at least the spring. That sets up Democrats to make demands of Trump next year in exchange for votes to raise the debt ceiling, which is necessary to avoid a potentially devastating default. The incoming president wants to avoid being put in that situation. Roy said on a conservative radio program Thursday that Trump’s desire to deny Democrats leverage is understandable, but he emphasized ditching the debt ceiling without accompanying reforms would be a bad move. “I will not vote for a debt-ceiling increase without structural reforms to spending,” Roy said on The Sean Hannity Show. “I’m not going to do that. I wasn’t sent to Washington to do that.” Republican leaders came up with a new proposal, which Roy described as a “watered-down version of the same crappy bill that people were mad about yesterday” but with the addition of a two-year debt ceiling suspension.