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NEW MEXICO (AP) – The Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration agreed to conduct anti-drone laser tests in New Mexico after the military’s deployment of the lasers led the FAA to suddenly close airspace in Texas twice in the last month.

The newly announced testing was being carried out to “specifically address FAA safety concerns,” the military said Friday in a statement. It was to take place Saturday and Sunday at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Lawmakers were concerned about an apparent lack of coordination after the Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser in early February without notifying the FAA. The federal agency that ensures safety in the skies decided to close the airspace over El Paso for a few hours, stranding many travelers.

The Trump administration said it was working to halt an incursion by Mexican cartel drones, which are not uncommon along the southern border.

On Feb. 26 the U.S. military used the laser to shoot down a “seemingly threatening” drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said.

The incident led the FAA to close the airspace around Fort Hancock, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of El Paso.

“We appreciate the coordination with the Department of War to help ensure public safety,” the FAA said of the testing, in a separate statement. “The FAA and DOW are working with interagency partners to address emerging threats posed by unmanned aircraft systems while maintaining the safety of the National Airspace System.”

The military is required to formally notify the FAA when it takes any counter-drone action inside U.S. airspace.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the ranking member on the Senate’s Aviation Subcommittee, called previously for an independent investigation after the two February incidents.

GROVETON, Texas (KETK) – A man was arrested on Saturday morning after he was found in a vehicle with a minor near the Dollar Store in Groveton, according to the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office.
Nacogdoches County fugitive arrested after yearslong search

The sheriff’s office shared that a deputy was doing his routine patrol at around 4 a.m. on Saturday when he noticed a suspicious vehicle parked behind the Dollar Store in Groveton.

The deputy contacted the people inside the vehicle but could tell something was “not right” about the situation. According to the sheriff’s office, a 20-year-old man and a local minor were inside the vehicle behind the Dollar Store.

The sheriff’s office said they learned through an investigation that Oscar Venegas Torres, 20, had arranged online to meet with the local minor in person. Torres allegedly travelled from Houston to meet the minor in Groveton.

Torres was arrested and booked into the Trinity County Jail for online solicitation of a minor, according to Trinity County Jail records. The sheriff’s office added that they learned Torres is not a legal resident of the United States.

Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said that more charges may be filed against Torres in this case and he urged parents to consider to the following suggestions:

“Know who your children are communicating with online.”
“Monitor social media and gaming platforms.”
“Know where your kids are going and who they are meeting.”
“Talk openly with your children about the dangers of meeting strangers from the internet.”

“The internet allows our kids to connect with friends and the world, but it also gives predators the ability to reach into our homes,” Wallace said. “Many predators use social media, gaming platforms, and messaging apps pretending to be someone younger or someone they are not.”

Wallace also asked anyone with information about this case to contact the sheriff’s office at 936-642-1424.

UNION CITY, Mich. (AP) — Authorities searched through rubble and debris in southern Michigan on Saturday after suspected tornadoes tore through the region and killed four people, including a 12-year-old boy, during powerful storms also blamed for two deaths in eastern Oklahoma.

First responders from multiple agencies in the Union Lake area near Union City looked for more possible victims and worked to clear roads, authorities said. Photos and videos posted on social media showed flattened homes and downed trees in a lakeside neighborhood.

The National Weather Service said an initial assessment confirmed that an EF3 tornado with winds of at least 150 mph (241 kph) struck the Union Lake area Friday.

The weather service also reported seven preliminary tornado tracks in eastern Oklahoma that same day, according to the state’s emergency operations center.

The threat of severe weather continued Saturday in the nation’s midsection, with tornado watches posted in the afternoon for eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania and New York.

Severe thunderstorms that began in northern Indiana appeared to spawn multiple tornadoes in southern Michigan the previous day, said meteorologist Lonnie Fisher of the National Weather Service, which sent teams to the region to evaluate the damage and confirm tornadoes.

“Mostly likely there were three distinct tornadoes, but we won’t know 100% for sure until they finish the survey,” Fisher said, adding that the storms intensified rapidly in southern Michigan after hitting northern Indiana.

Three people were killed and 12 were injured in the Union Lake area, according to the Branch County Sheriff’s Office. It was the second tornado to hit Union City in two years. An EF1 tornado with 95 mph (153 kph) winds touched down briefly in May 2024 and destroyed a machine shed.

Lisa Piper stood on her back deck and took video of a terrifying scene that played out on the other side of frozen Union Lake as a funnel cloud formed and then dropped toward the ground Friday. Trees were torn from their roots, and debris flew into the air.

“It’s lifting houses!” she said. As the devastation continued, she exclaimed: “Oh my heart is pounding. Oh, I hope they’re OK.”

Dan Taylor raced home to Union City from his cleaning job at a nearby hospital that day to find his brother and two dogs safe. But a tree fell on his home of 20 years, and portions of the roof of a house across the street blew into his yard.

“I didn’t know what to say. I was lost for words,” he said Saturday. “I’m just thankful that my brother’s all right, my dogs, because it could have turned bad. We’re not guaranteed of anything.”

About 50 miles (81 kilometers) southwest of Union Lake, a 12-year-old boy died and several other people were injured during a possible tornado, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office said. Sheriff Clint Roach said in a Facebook post that Silas Anderson’s parents found him injured and provided first aid, but he later died at a hospital.

Disaster relief workers went door to door in the Union City and Three Rivers areas to offer meals and cleanup supplies. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she would declare a state of emergency in Branch, Cass and St. Joseph counties.

In Beggs, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a tornado was blamed for the deaths of two people in a house on Friday, the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office said. Two others were taken to a hospital.

The tornado cut a roughly 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) path of damage in Okmulgee County including Beggs, said Jeff Moore, the county’s emergency manager. Large trees toppled and power outages were reported.

Suspected tornadoes also were reported in northern parts of Tulsa, where a building at the Tulsa Tech Peoria campus was damaged.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt declared a state of emergency in several counties to free up support and resources.

The Oklahoma deaths came a day after storms killed a 47-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter in their vehicle in Fairview, in the western part of the state.

The spring storms come near the start of what many call tornado season, which generally begins at various times in different parts of the U.S. Experts recommend a few simple safety steps to take before tornadoes hit, including having a weather radio and a plan for where to take shelter.

In parts of the South, the weather pattern was expected to usher in extremely warm temperatures for this time of year by the weekend.

NEW YORK (AP) — Ford has issued two recalls affecting nearly 1.74 million of its cars in the U.S., due to software issues that impact the vehicles’ rearview camera displays.

According to notices published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week, an internal component inside the infotainment system of certain 2021-2026 Ford Broncos and 2021-2024 Ford Edges may overheat and shut down — preventing the rearview image from displaying when drivers are going in reverse. Meanwhile, some 2020-2022 Ford Escapes and Lincoln Corsairs, as well as 2020-2024 Lincoln Aviators and Explorers, may show a flipped or inverted rearview image.

The recalls cover 849,310 Broncos and Edges as well as 889,950 Escapes, Corsairs, Aviators and Explorers. Ford estimates that all of these vehicles have the defects. But the company is not aware of any injuries or accidents spanning from either recall, NHTSA documents show.

Still, the NHTSA is warning drivers that both issues could increase crash risks.

For impacted Bronco and Edge owners, Ford is offering a free software update for the vehicles’ Accessory Protocol Interface Module (APIM). Owner-notification letters will be mailed out at the end of the month, with the fix available either at a dealer or through an “over-the-air” update.

But a remedy is still under development for the recall impacting the Escapes, Corsairs, Aviators and Explorers, this week’s recall announcement noted. In the meantime, interim letters to notify owners of the safety risks are set to be mailed out in the coming months.

The Associated Press reached out to Michigan-based Ford for further comments on Saturday.

For more information, drivers can visit the NHTSA website and Ford’s online recall lookup using their vehicle’s VIN number, or call the company’s customer service line at 1-866-436-7332.

NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil surged higher and showed no signs of halting its rapid climb a week after the U.S. and Israel launched major attacks on Iran that escalated into a war in the Middle East.

The conflict, in which nearly every country in the Middle East has sustained damage from missiles or drone strikes, has left ships that carry roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Gulf that is bordered on its north side by Iran.

The shipping disruption and damage to key Middle East oil and gas facilities has interrupted supplies from some of the world’s largest oil producers. Kuwait, for example, said on Saturday that it would reduce its oil production as a “precautionary” measure due to the war, which could jolt global energy markets even further.

Oil prices surpassed $90 a barrel Friday, with American crude settling at $90.90, up 36% from a week ago, and Brent, the international standard, climbing 27% over the course of the week to land at $92.69.

The fallout is ratcheting up what consumers and business will pay for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, with some drivers already feeling it at the pump.

“It’s crazy. It’s not needed, especially at a time when people are already struggling, but not unexpected from all this turmoil that’s going on,” said Mark Doran, who was pumping gas in Middlebury, Vermont Friday. “I don’t think there’s been an end in sight to any Middle East conflict that’s been started by us, so the fact that they say that there’s going to be an end that quickly is not believable, and the Middle East is, you know, a place that the U.S. is not going to solve.”

President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. expected its military operations against Iran to last four to five weeks but has “ the capability to go far longer.” On Friday, Trump appeared to rule out talks with Iran absent its “unconditional surrender.”

“The more news we get, the more it seems like this is going to last a really long time,” said Al Salazar, head of macro oil and gas research at Enverus.

In the U.S., a gallon of regular gasoline rose to $3.41 on Saturday, up about 43 cents from a week ago, according to AAA motor club. Diesel was selling for $4.51 a gallon Saturday, up about 75 cents from last week.

The price shocks were felt even more heavily in Europe and Asia, markets that rely more heavily on energy supplies from the Middle East. Diesel prices doubled in Europe, and jet fuel prices rose by close to 200% in Asia, according to Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy.

Energy prices climbed throughout the week as Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and the conflict widened. Iran also hit a major refinery in Saudi Arabia and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Qatar, halting flows of refined products and taking about 20% of the world’s LNG supply offline.

“We keep seeing news of vessels being hit or refineries or pipelines, so the list is very long,” Galimberti said. As a result, roughly 9 million barrels of oil per day are off the market because of facilities being hit or producers taking precautionary measures, he said. “Right now, with all of this shut in, we are in a situation of extreme deficit.”

The U.S. is a net exporter of oil, but that does not mean it is immune to increases in the price of oil or gasoline, or that its producers can just make up the difference.

Oil is traded on global markets, so even the oil produced in the U.S. has risen in price based on what’s happening in the Middle East. And for many American oil producers, “if you put more wells in the ground, there’s about a six-month lag before you get that production uplift,” Salazar said.

In addition, the U.S. can’t simply turn all of its crude oil into gasoline. That’s because most of the oil produced in the U.S. is light, sweet crude, and refineries on the East and West coasts are primarily designed to process heavier, sour crude. As a result, the U.S. exports some of its crude oil and imports some refined products such as gasoline.

Jerry Dalpiaz of Covington, Louisiana, said he started filling up his cars and gas cans on “the day that they announced that the United States has started military operations against Iran” because he assumed gas prices would climb.

“I can weather the storm because I’m in good financial position, but I feel sorry for my fellow citizens who are living paycheck to paycheck because they have to drive to get to work and they have to change their oil and all those things,” Dalpiaz said. “And they need some relief and it doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.”

Trump issued a plan Friday to insure losses up to approximately $20 billion in the Gulf region, aiming to restore confidence in maritime trade, help stabilize international commerce and support American and allied businesses operating in the Middle East.

But some energy experts said extra insurance won’t solve the problem.

“The problem is that in the oil trading, oil shipping world, people are worried about counterterrorism,” said Amy Jaffe, director of the Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University, adding that they’re worried about automated drone speedboats, weapon-carrying, flying drones and mines or other devices. “In order for the United States to create the atmosphere that undoes the current bottleneck at the Strait of Hormuz, there has to be some credible demonstration of solutions to the counter-terrorism problem.”

Salazar wondered what the “new normal” would look like if the Strait of Hormuz was effectively re-opened, and what effective security would look like.

“All it takes is one individual with a RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) to stand on the shore and take out a tanker, right?” Salazar said. “And this is forever, do you know what I mean?”

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil shot to its highest price since 2023 after surging again Friday because of the Iran war, and a weak update on the U.S. job market knocked stocks lower to cap Wall Street’s worst week since October.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.3% after a report showed U.S. employers cut more jobs last month than they created and after oil prices spiked above $90 per barrel. The combination of a weak economy and high inflation is a worst-case scenario for investors because the Federal Reserve has no good tool to fix both problems at the same time.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged as many as 945 points before finishing with a loss of 453, or 0.9%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.6%.

“You can’t sugarcoat this report,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management. “A negative payrolls number combined with a big jump in oil prices will have traders worrying about stagflation risks.”

Stagflation is what economists call the miserable mix of a stagnating economy with high inflation, and a separate report released Friday added to the sourness after showing that U.S. retailers made less money in January than economists expected. It raised the disconcerting possibility that spending by U.S. households, the main engine of the economy, may be stretched near its maximum.

Usually when the economy is unsteady and the job market is weakening, the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to give things a boost. Lower rates can make it easier for households to get mortgages and for companies to raise money to expand, while also lifting prices for stocks and other investments. The Fed cut its main interest rate several times last year and had indicated more were to come this year.

But lower interest rates can also make inflation worse. And the Fed’s hands may be increasingly tied because spiking oil prices are pushing inflation higher due to disruptions for the energy industry.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, leaped another 8.5% to settle at $92.69. It briefly rose above $94 to touch its highest level since September 2023.

A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude breached the $90 level for the first time since 2023 and jumped 12.2% to $90.90.

Oil prices have surged, with Brent up from near $70 late last week, as the war has expanded and included areas critical to the production and movement of oil and gas in the Middle East. Much will depend on what happens with the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast, where roughly a fifth of the world’s oil typically sails.

The U.S. government gave details Friday about a plan President Donald Trump announced earlier to offer insurance to ships crossing the strait, but it had little effect on the market.

If oil prices spike further, like to $100 per barrel, and stay there, some analysts and investors say it could be too much for the global economy to withstand.

To be sure, the U.S. stock market has a history of bouncing back relatively quickly following conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as long as oil prices don’t jump too high for too long. Uncertainty about just how high oil prices will go this time around and for how long caused frenetic swings across financial markets this past week, sometimes hour by hour.

On Monday, the S&P 500 tumbled to an immediate 1.2% loss at the start of trading but made it all back and ended the day with a tiny gain.

Trump’s most recent signal on the war was that he wants an “unconditional surrender” of Iran, apparently ruling out negotiations.

In the bond market, Treasury yields wavered, with higher oil prices pushing upward on them and the discouraging updates on the U.S. economy pulling downward.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury initially rose toward 4.19% before pulling back to 4.14%. That’s up from 4.13% late Thursday and just 3.97% a week earlier.

Smaller companies often feel the bite of high borrowing costs more because many need to borrow to grow. Smaller companies can also be more dependent on the strength of the U.S. economy for their profits than big multinational rivals, and the smallest stocks on Wall Street took Friday’s sharpest dives.

The Russell 2000 index of small stocks fell a market-leading 2.3%.

Among the big companies in the S&P 500, companies with high fuel bills helped lead the way lower. Old Dominion Freight Line sank 7.9%, cruise line Carnival fell 5% and Southwest Airlines lost 5.3%.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 90.69 points to 6,740.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 453.19 to 47,501.55, and the Nasdaq composite sank 361.31 to 22,387.68.

In stock markets abroad, indexes slumped in Europe following a better finish in Asia. London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.2%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.7%.

South Korea’s Kospi was nearly unchanged after plunging 12.1% Wednesday for its worst loss in history and then rebounding 9.6% Thursday.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A private jet that crashed in Maine in January, killing all six people aboard, remained on the ground 8 minutes longer than it should have after receiving a deicing treatment in a snowstorm, according to a preliminary report issued Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The plane should have waited no more than 9 minutes from the start of when the deicing treatment began before taking off in those cold and snowy conditions, according to Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. But the NTSB report said 17 minutes passed before takeoff.

The cockpit voice recorder captured the pilot commenting that it was “standard” to have 14 to 18 minutes and that if the wait was more than 30 minutes, they would return to the ramp to have the plane retreated, and the copilot concurred, the report states. Aviation safety consultant John Cox said that comment “makes me wonder if they actually ran the time” because the guidelines make it clear they didn’t have that much time.

The report does not identify the cause of the crash, which won’t come until the final report is done sometime next year. But aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and FAA, said the preliminary report “removes some of the mystery of what happened here.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that the loss of control at liftoff — which was accompanied with an aerodynamic stall warning and sudden right bank — was likely due to snow and ice contamination on the right wing,” Guzzetti said.

He said the pilots’ comments about how long they could wait before getting a second deicing treatment raises questions about how much experience the Texas-based crew had with flying in cold weather. The NTSB will examine that as well as the procedures the airport used in the deicing process, the quality of the chemicals applied and every other factor that could have contributed to the crash.

Deicing guidelines designed to keep planes safe

The FAA guidelines on how long a plane can wait before taking off are an estimate of how long the deicing treatment will keep the wings free of ice, which is crucial to allowing it to fly. Regulations dictate that pilots should never take off with ice on their wings because countless crashes have been caused by ice buildup.

The deicing process includes treating a plane with two different chemicals. The first one is designed to remove any ice from the plane. The second chemical helps prevent ice from accumulating again. The FAA calculates the recommended holdover time from the start of the application of the second anti-icing chemical, which happened at 7:27 p.m. before this crash. The plane didn’t try to take off until 7:44 p.m.

The plane actually sat at the deicing pad for almost five minutes after it was treated while it restarted its engines. And even after it reached the runway it sat for almost four more minutes before the pilots told the tower they were ready to takeoff.

“We know this much. The airplane exceeded the holdover time chart,” said Cox, who is the CEO of Safety Operating Systems and a former airline pilot

A snowy stopover on the way to Europe

The luxury Bombardier Challenger 600 jet that was owned by a Texas law firm had stopped in Bangor to refuel en route to Paris amid light snow, mild winds and near-zero temperatures as a massive storm began to reach Bangor. Another plane had just aborted takeoff, radioing to the tower that they chose not to fly because visibility wasn’t great and they would need another application of deicing fluid.

The snow would eventually accumulate to about 9.5 inches, but it was only beginning at the time of the crash. Investigators, who were initially hampered by the extreme weather conditions, recovered the cockpit voice and data recorders for analysis.

After it crashed, the plane landed upside down on the runway and burst into flames. The airport remained closed for several days afterward.

“There were multiple airport CCTV cameras that captured the airplane during the takeoff,” the report states. “Several of these cameras showed the airplane impact the ground followed by multiple explosions as the impact sequence progressed.”

Two previous icing crashes involving this plane model

More than two decades ago there were two other fatal crashes involving ice buildup on a Bombardier Challenger 600 like this one in Birmingham, England; and Montrose, Colorado. There have been several other incidents involving this plane model where icing contributed to an unexpected roll on takeoff in cold weather but pilots were able to recover in those cases.

The FAA published new rules afterward to make clear to pilots and airports that even a small amount of frost on the wings can be a problem. The agency also clarified the standards for deicing to make certain that all frozen particles are removed from the wings, and it required a combination of tactile and visual inspections.

Bombardier was also required to add a cold weather operations warning to the plane’s flight manual, but more than 1,000 of these Challenger 600s have been delivered, and the plane maker said they are designed to be safe.

The four passengers and two pilots had stopped to refuel in Bangor as they traveled from Houston to France on Jan. 25. The passengers included Houston lawyer Tara Arnold, 46, and three people who worked for her luxury travel company.

The other victims were event planner Shawna Collins, 53, of Houston; chef Nick Mastrascusa, 43, and sommelier Shelby Kuyawa, 34, both of Hawaii; and pilots Jacob Hosmer, 47, of Pearland, Texas, and Jorden Reidel, 33, of Texas.

The international airport in Bangor, about 235 miles north of Boston and 130 miles north of Portland, is one of the closest in the U.S. to Europe and is often used to refuel private jets flying overseas. The Bombardier was headed for the Champagne region of France when it crashed.

AUSTIN (AP) — The abrupt decision by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales to not seek reelection clears the path for a self-described gun rights “absolutist” to secure the Republican nomination in a sprawling Texas congressional district.

Brendan Herrera, 30, originally gained notoriety by posting videos of himself shooting weapons, calling himself “The AK Guy.” He lost a close contest to Gonzales two years ago but forced him into a runoff in Tuesday’s primary.

Gonzales dropped out of the race on Thursday night after having admitted to an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide, meaning Herrera suddenly has no competition for the Republican mantle in the state’s 23rd congressional district. Democrats hope to pull off an upset by casting Herrera as a fringe figure from the hard right, but it will be a challenge in a deep red district that stretches 800 miles along the border with Mexico.

“I appreciate Tony Gonzales for making the appropriate decision,” Herrera said in a statement. “I look forward to being the voice of TX23 that our district deserves.”

Herrera moved to Texas from North Carolina in 2020, and he built a following of millions with YouTube videos about guns that he tested on a shooting range. He describes himself as a “Second Amendment Absolutist” and he sharply criticized Gonzales’ support for gun safety legislation after the Robb Elementary school shooting in Uvalde, which is in the district.

He has also faced criticism for comments about the Holocaust. In a 2022 video, Herrera described a German submachine gun as “the original ghetto blaster,” and he goose-stepped to German songs.

While firing the weapon at a can of White Claw, another man wearing a mask asks Herrera if he is “hiding any White Claw underneath the floorboards?”

Herrera says yes and then shouts, “Gestapo right there!” before shooting a case of drinks. Then he adds, “they did not see that coming,” pronouncing “not see” like “Nazi.”

Later in the video, Herrera said, “I’m not really a big fan of fascism,” and said he was making jokes about history.

The Democratic nominee for the district, attorney and former schoolteacher Katy Padilla Stout, swiftly criticized Herrera over that particular video on Friday morning.

“Parents I talk to in #TX23, particularly those in Uvalde, are disgusted that this man could represent our families in Congress,” Padilla Stout posted on social media.

Yet Republicans have no fear of losing the district, and dismiss Democratic hopes of snatching the seat with Herrera as the nominee.

“Texas’ 23rd District is deep red, and Democrats know it,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Christian Martinez. “While they talk a big game in Washington, they don’t even have a credible recruit and are too busy defending their own vulnerable members across Texas to compete here.”

Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist in Texas, said his party has to decide whether Herrera is worth the “headache” during a difficult midterm election cycle.

The party wants to feel like the district is “in the bag and off the board,” he said, but “it probably won’t be.”

“They’re going to take a look at this one,” Steinhauser said. “Does it hurt the Republican Party to support this particular candidate?”

The district is the second-largest in the country and was one of Congress’ perennial battlegrounds before it was redrawn in 2021. It was a Republican stronghold in 2024 when President Donald Trump carried the district by nearly 15 points.

Trump had previously endorsed Gonzales. Last month, a lawyer representing the president sent Herrera’s campaign a “cease and desist” letter accusing it of sending deceptive mailers with Trump’s image.

But support for Gonzales began to evaporate during the scandal over his affair and the woman’s subsequent suicide, and House Republican leadership urged him to end his campaign.

However, Gonzales said he would serve out his current term, helping his party maintain its slim majority in the House.