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Gulf shrimpers rooting for Trump’s tariffs

PALACIOS, Texas (AP) — While American consumers and markets wonder and worry about President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs, there’s one group cheering him as they hope he’ll prop up their sinking business: Gulf coast shrimpers.

American shrimpers have been hammered in recent years by cheap imports flooding the U.S. market and restaurants, driving down prices to the point that profits are razor thin or shrimpers are losing money and struggling to stay afloat.

Tariffs, they hope, could level the playing field and help their businesses not just survive but thrive.

“It’s been tough the last several years that we’ve tried to fight through this,” said Reed Bowers, owner of Bowers Shrimp Farm in Palacios, Texas. Tough times meant difficult choices for many. “Cutting people off, laying people off, or reduce hours or reduce wages … whatever we can do to survive.”

Since 2021, the price of imported shrimp has dropped by more than $1.5 billion, according to the Southern Shrimpers Alliance trade association, causing the U.S. shrimp industry to lose nearly 50% of its market value.

The shrimpers alliance complains that the overseas industry has benefitted from billions of dollars invested in shrimp aquaculture, cheap or even forced labor, use of antibiotics banned in the U.S., and few or no environment regulations.

More than 90% of shrimp consumed in the U.S. is imported, according to the alliance.

“I’m not a believer in free trade. I’m a believer fair trade,” Bowers said. “So if you’re gonna sell into the United States, I think it’s very important to get the same rules and regulations that I have to have as a farmer here in the United States.”

Craig Wallis, owner of W&W Dock & Ice, has been in the business since 1975 and noted that back then shrimpers would run their trawlers 12 months a year.

Not anymore. That’s no longer affordable as Gulf shrimpers compete with cheaper product coming in from South America, China and India.

Wallis says he’s only able to run his shrimp boats about half the year, yet “the bills keep coming every month.”

“We don’t get any subsidies here. We don’t need any help from the government. What we get for our product is what we have to make it on,” he said.

Wallis, who noted he voted for Trump, has watched the back-and-forth on tariffs in recent weeks.

“I don’t know where the tariffs are going to be settled at,” he said, “but it’s definitely going to help.”

But Trump’s tariffs will also force shrimpers to balance the higher costs of equipment, such as trawl cables, webbing, chains and shackles. Some of those items have recently been increasing in price, Wallis said.

“We got be careful that there’s a good balance,” he said.

If the American shrimping industry collapses, Wallis sees a future where foreign trawlers are operating in the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump renamed the “ Gulf of America. ”

“I’m hanging on to have something when I retire,” said Wallis, who is 72. “If it keeps going like it is, it’s taken away from my retirement that I’ve worked for all my life.”

Phan Tran’s family used to be shrimpers but quit the boats around 25 years ago to open Tran’s Family Restaurant, a place they literally built themselves.

“It was just my dad, me and one welder,” Tran said.

Tran said he doesn’t want to serve imported shrimp to his customers. He doesn’t know what shortcuts foreign shrimper firms take.

“The taste, the size, you could tell the texture of the shrimp, everything. … Domestic shrimp versus imported shrimp, you could tell the difference,” Tran said, adding he’ll be buying straight from the day’s catch at the dock, “as long as we have the restaurant business.”

Tariffs will help keep the market fair for local shrimpers, Tran said.

“We used to have a sign on our window here that says, ‘friends don’t let friends eat imported shrimp,’” Tran said. “And a few people got a little offended by it, so we had to take it off. (But) that’s a true statement that we stand by here.”

Bowers, the shrimp farm owner, hopes seafood tariffs have a positive ripple effect across the industry for American producers.

“I think the price of imported seafood is gonna come up,” he said. “And as that price comes up, it’ll make our seafood, our shrimp, more affordable for everybody else.”

SAVE Act passed, led by Texas Senators, requiring proof of citizenship to vote

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday, led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, to require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

The bill passed 220 to 208, with all voting Republicans and four Democrats – including Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo — supporting the measure. The legislation now heads to the Senate where Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, has cosponsored the bill.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act, would require voters in federal elections to bring a U.S. passport, military identification card or any ID that is consistent with REAL ID requirements that indicates citizenship status to register to vote. Voters could also use a government-issued identification card along with a birth certificate, hospital record or similar form.

The Texas lawmaker argued that the SAVE Act is necessary because of the Biden administration’s immigration policies and non-citizens have been found on voter rolls.

“It’s a growing and increasing problem,” Roy told The Texas Tribune before the vote. “We just want to get in front of it now.”

Non-citizens are not legally allowed to vote in U.S. elections and there is no evidence to suggest that significant levels of non-citizens vote.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced in August that the state has removed 6,500 noncitizens from the voter rolls, including about 1,930 with a “voter history,” since September 2021. However, an investigation by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica revealed Abbott likely inflated that number and removed people who are U.S. citizens from voter rolls.

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, called Roy’s bill “basic housekeeping.”

“Election integrity is everything,” Hunt told the Tribune on Tuesday. “It’s up to us to do the best that we can to make sure that in the future, we have free and fair elections for everyone in this country.”

Democrats argue that the bill places unnecessary hurdles on voting, restricts low-income voters from participating and could cause issues for people who have changed their name — like millions of married women.

“The SAVE Act is a blatant attempt to undermine our election system, weaken American democracy and unfairly suppress millions of eligible citizens from voting,” Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-California, said on the House floor Thursday.

If the SAVE Act became law, voters would also have to present their proof of citizenship in-person when they register to vote or change their registration — such as a name change – including when registering to vote by mail.

Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-New York, said on the House floor that the SAVE Act would cause a “paperwork nightmare,” for voters and “bury voter registration under a mountain of bureaucracy and red tape.”

Roy downplayed this concern about married women who change their names before the vote on the House floor, by listing the women who worked with him on the SAVE Act, including Rep. Mary Miller, R-Illinois.

Miller said the SAVE Act has “robust protections,” for married women who change their name and called Democratic messaging on this issue “scare tactics,” during a March Committee on House Administration hearing.

A similar effort to require proof of citizenship in elections is underway in the Texas state legislature that would put voter ID requirements in place to register to vote in local, state and presidential elections.

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

Woman charged with trying to hire hitman on Tinder to kill ex, his daughter

Camden County Prosecutor's Office of New Jersey

(CAMDEN, N.J. ) -- A New Jersey woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly tried to hire someone on Tinder to kill her ex-boyfriend -- a police officer -- and his teenage daughter, according to prosecutors and a probable cause statement.

Jaclyn Diiorio, 26, was charged with two counts of first-degree attempted murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

A confidential informant allegedly met Diiorio on the dating app, where they exchanged messages and later met at a Wawa in Runnemede in March, according to the probable cause statement.

The two allegedly exchanged "numerous text messages and phone calls" and Diiorio allegedly said she "wants her ex boyfriend killed," according to the document.

The couple, whio had met when she was his barber, had split on March 6, the document said.

Diiorio is set to appear in court on Friday for a pretrial detention hearing, according to court records.

The prosecutor's office was informed of the murder-for-hire plot on April 3.

Diiorio allegedly told the confidential informant that she wanted to have her 53-year-old ex-boyfriend -- a Philadelphia Police Department officer -- and his 19-year-old daughter killed, according to the prosecutor's office. She allegedly offered to pay the informant $12,000 to kill both victims, the prosecutor's office said.

Diiorio met with the informant and gave him $500 in cash on April 4. After the money was exchanged, she was taken into custody, prosecutors said.

She was also found to be in possession of a bottle of suspected alprazolam pills, the generic version of Xanax, according to officials.

An attorney for Diiorio did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

‘Welcome to Wrexham’ season 4 premiering in May

FX has revealed the season 4 premiere date for Welcome to Wrexham.

The fourth season of the docuseries from Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney will premiere with two episodes on May 15. The episodes will also be available to stream the next day on Hulu.

The Emmy-winning show follows the famous friends, who navigate running the third oldest professional football club in the world. They first purchased the underdog team the Red Dragons in 2020 in hopes of turning it into a success story.

The fourth season will follow the team as they take on the English Football League’s League One for the first time in 20 years.

Tourist helicopter crashes in Hudson River in New York City, all 6 on board killed

(NEW YORK CITY) -- A tourist helicopter carrying family members from Spain plunged into the Hudson River in New York City, killing six, including three children.

The New York Helicopters chartered chopper, which was carrying a pilot, two adults and three children, fell into the Hudson River by Lower Manhattan in New York City on Thursday afternoon, officials said during a press briefing.

Agustin Escobar, an executive from European automation company Siemens, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, and their children -- aged 4, 5 and 11 years old -- were killed in the crash along with the pilot, aged 36, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

The crash occurred at 3:17 p.m. off the coast of River Drive in Hoboken, New Jersey, just over 15 minutes after it departed from the Wall St. Heliport. The helicopter reached the George Washington Bridge before turning south and crashing, officials said during the briefing.

The five-person family was from Barcelona, Spain, two Spanish officials told ABC News on Thursday.

"Our hearts go out to the family and those on board," New York City Mayor Eric Adams said during the briefing.

Video from the crash showed the chopper plunging into the water without a tail rotor or a main rotor blade. Officials said it hit the water inverted.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.

Jersey City Medical Center, where the passengers were transported after the crash, tried as hard as they could, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop told ABC News.

President Donald Trump took to his social media platform on Thursday evening, calling the crash "terrible" and saying that the footage of the accident is "horrendous."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a post to X that the news was "devastating." He added, "Five Spaniards from the same family, three of them children, and the pilot have lost their lives. An unimaginable tragedy."

Dani Horbiak told ABC News she watched the helicopter "fall out of the sky" from her apartment window.

"I heard five or six loud noises that sounded almost like gunshots in the sky and saw pieces fall off, then watched it fall into the river," she said.

"I was walking by and the helicopter went down at a 45-degree angle," Eric Campoverde told ABC News. "Big splash -- it was very scary."

"It sounded like a sonic boom," a witness told New York ABC station WABC. He said he saw the "helicopter splitting in two with the rotor flying off."

Another witness told WABC, "One propeller broke into pieces."

The chopper -- identified by the Federal Aviation Administration as a Bell 206 helicopter -- was on its sixth flight of the day. It was found upside-down in the 50-degree water when rescuers arrived at the scene, which was closer to the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, according to sources.

The Jersey City Police Department is taking the lead on the investigation since the helicopter crashed on the Jersey City side of the river, Fulop told WABC on Thursday.

Fulop said the city has had concerns about the air traffic over the Hudson before and is hoping this brings more attention to their safety concerns.

ABC News' Leah Sarnoff and Erin Murtha contributed to this report.

Seven county prison staff arrested for organized crime

NEW BOSTON – Our news partner, KETK, reports that seven correctional staff at the New Boston state prison were arrested on Wednesday after allegedly engaging in organized criminal activity.

According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), seven arrests were made in connection with an ongoing investigation of alleged conspiracy among correctional staff and others to bring in contraband into the Barry B. Tedford Unit of the TDCJ.

“Corruption is not and will not be tolerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,” Texas Board of Criminal Justice Chairman Eric Nichols said. “We appreciate the hard work of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) team and our outstanding law enforcement partners in pursuing this investigation…” Continue reading Seven county prison staff arrested for organized crime

Boiled down, Trump’s tariffs are really all about China.

The story of the month – the story that has pushed Ukraine and Gaza and pretty much everything else off the front page (forgive the anachronistic reference) – is Trump’s tariffs. A 3,900-point drop in the Dow will do that.

This story has its genesis, in part, in the Clinton administration. President Bill Clinton was hellbent on bringing China – a totalitarian communist nation with a struggling economy – into the World Trade Organization.

Clinton’s critics alleged that he and his wife, Hillary, stood to profit personally from giving China the prestige and the enormous economic boost that WTO membership conferred. There is good evidence to suggest that the critics were correct.

Clinton, for his part, told us that bringing China into the WTO would lead to China’s liberalization and its adoption of Western values, all while eventually freeing its 1.4 billion citizens from the yoke of communism.

But it wasn’t just Clinton. George W. Bush, on whose watch China’s WTO membership became official, said this:

Politically, [China] can be a partner in working for peace and security. A China that embraces freedom at home will be a more responsible partner abroad.”

That statement didn’t age well.

What happened instead is that with China enjoying “Most Favored Nation” status, American manufacturers gained access to Chinese manufacturing capacity. However, American companies didn’t go blowing in to help Chinese workers unionize, or to start investing in “green” technologies to make China’s factories more friendly to the environment.

American companies went into China to take advantage of manufacturing unfettered by U.S. environmental regulation, U.S. minimum wage laws, U.S. labor law, U.S. workplace safety regulations, U.S. “green” energy mandates and, indeed, the entire U.S. smorgasbord of rules, restrictions and regulations.

And given just how byzantine and expensive the American regulatory state is, who can blame them?

But there is blame for this. Bringing China into the World Trade Organization effectively gave American manufacturers guilt-free access to slave labor. For American companies it was like being able to eat chocolate eclairs and Blue Bell Ice Cream after every meal without gaining weight.

Since then, upward of 90,000 U.S. manufacturing plants have shut down and millions of manufacturing jobs have evaporated, all at the expense of the American middle class. From a sociological perspective, millions of men who would have otherwise been able to afford to buy homes and raise families, were instead relegated to itinerant employment and permanent second-class status – all for the sake of marginally cheaper consumer goods.

Meanwhile the American economy is now yoked to a corrupt, tyrannical country that has the aim – and is gaining the means – to relegate the whole of the U.S.A. to second-class status.

Yes, the tariffs are scary. My wife’s and my retirement portfolio is, at the moment, even scarier still.

But Trump is at last confronting a problem that must be confronted. That is unless you want your kids saying to your grandkids, “America was the richest nation in the world once. But it’s not anymore because Nana and Grampy wanted a cheaper flatscreen TV.”

RFK Jr., intent to focus on chronic disease, continues to be dogged by impacts of HHS cuts

(WASHINGTON) -- Far as he was from Washington, D.C., as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hiked to the top of a towering sandstone arch in rural Arizona with a group of Navajo Nation leaders, the impact of his agency’s cuts reached farther.

Wearing a shirt with a clear request written on the front, “Save IHS Jobs and Diabetes Program,” a Navajo council delegate, Eugenia Charles-Newton, approached Kennedy to tell him she was concerned HHS cuts were impacting the diabetes program that she relied on for care.

Charles-Newton said she'd heard funding wasn't being renewed for aspects of the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, a program within Indian Health Services (IHS) at HHS. The rapid restructuring at HHS had made it difficult to track the actual impact, she said.

Kennedy, who listened and then walked arm-in-arm with Charles-Newton for the last leg of the hike, promised to look into the program and whether any funding was being impacted by the HHS-wide restructuring. The improvements to Navajo health care that she was asking for seemed like “common sense,” he said.

The president of Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren, also mentioned an impacted program — the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which provides federally funded assistance to reduce utility bills and help with weatherizing homes. Navajo people — living with the extreme temperatures of the desert — relied heavily on its assistance, he said.

But the program was gutted by HHS cuts. Nygren told ABC News he held out hope that Kennedy, made aware of its importance to Navajo Nation, might consider reinstating it.

From the start of the layoffs, Kennedy has insisted that no “essential services” would be cut. “The cuts in all of our agency are not affecting science,” Kennedy told ABC News last week.

But the scope of the cuts — and the work impacted, from utility bill assistance on Navajo Nation, to research into black lung disease for coal miners, to a division that monitors lead exposure among children — has continued to dog Kennedy, raising questions about his oversight and involvement in the major restructuring.

In all, the tribal leaders were resoundingly appreciative of Kennedy's visit, which was part of his first major trip as HHS secretary. The trip focused on combatting chronic disease, with a heavy emphasis on the importance of healthy, unprocessed foods.

Dubbed the Make America Healthy Again tour, Kennedy also visited Utah, the first state in the nation to pass a law to remove fluoride from drinking water systems, and met with local officials. While there, he toured the Osher Center for Integrative Health at the University of Utah, which is aiming to center healthy diet and exercise in the health care conversation, and got aboard their “food pharmacy,” which delivers prescribed healthy foods to patients.

In Arizona, which passed a law to ban SNAP recipients from using the assistance for soda, Kennedy held a press conference with the legislators who championed the bill and toured a Phoenix health center that offers healthy cooking programs for local native communities. He also stopped in for a panel discussion at the 2025 Tribal Self-Governance Conference, sitting with tribal leaders including the chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe, which he fondly described spending time around during his childhood in Massachussetts.

On Navajo Nation, the crowd that gathered at the foot of Window Rock, a memorial, commended him for his devoted attention to issues of outdated medical centers, lack of water infrastructure and inadequate access to healthy foods.

“Processed food hurts all of us. It disproportionately injures Native people,” Kennedy told the group of Navajo leaders, who nodded in agreement.

But they also used the opportunity to tell Kennedy that they needed more support, not less — warning against the impact of his agency’s cuts. It was a conversation that Kennedy was receptive to.

“We are all going back with a long laundry list of tasks that we need to perform. And I'm going to give you my commitment today that I am available and listening to you,” Kennedy said.

In an interview with CBS News that aired on Wednesday, Kennedy struck a similar tone to what he told the tribal leaders on Navajo Nation — that he would look into cuts that he wasn’t aware of, and reinstate those that had disrupted “scientific research.”

"There's a number of studies that were cut that came to our attention and that did not deserve to be cut, and we reinstated them. Our purpose is not to reduce any level of scientific research, that's important," Kennedy said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday.

Kennedy’s comments come after he also told ABC News last week that studies and personnel were being reinstated, adding that the plan was always to make large cuts and then “remedy” mistakes.

But government officials later walked back those comments — and have largely stood by the cuts, which hit nearly one-fifth of the workforce at both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

On Wednesday, HHS did not respond to a request from ABC News for clarity on which research studies Kennedy was referring to in his interview with CBS News, and whether they had been reinstated.

Asked about various cuts in the CBS interview, from a grant for diabetes research at the University of Michigan to over $11 billion in cuts to COVID recovery efforts at the state level, Kennedy said he wasn't "familiar," but would look into it.

Across the CDC, FDA and the National Institute of Health, three of the main public health arms of HHS, there have not been significant changes to the cuts that hit around 10,000 employees last week.

Trump’s tariffs still risk inflation and recession as China trade war looms, experts say

(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump's decision to pause so-called "reciprocal tariffs" for most countries triggered a historic stock market rally on Wednesday, but the levies that remain in place are still expected to hike prices and put the U.S. at risk of a recession, experts told ABC News.

Alongside the suspension of some tariffs, Trump increased duties on Chinese goods to a total of 145%, marking a significant escalation of a trade war between the two largest economies in the world.

Stock markets plunged on Thursday as investors digested Trump's tariff announcement, slashing roughly half of the previous day's rally.

The high tariffs on China, the third-largest U.S. trade partner, are expected to raise prices for an array of widely used products, including smartphones, shoes, clothes and video game systems, experts said.

Plus, experts added, the extra costs for U.S. shoppers and a general sense of policy uncertainty increases the likelihood of an economic downturn.

"China is not the only country we trade with but they are an important trading partner for a lot of goods," Christopher Conlon, a professor of economics at New York University who studies trade, told ABC News.

Even after Trump paused some tariffs, U.S. consumers face an average effective tariff rate of 25.2%, the highest since 1909, the Yale Budget Lab found in report on Thursday. An effective tariff rate factors in the impact of tariffs on imports of finished goods as well as inputs used by domestic firms.

In addition to the tariffs on Chinese goods, the White House kept in place an across-the-board tariff of 10% on nearly all imports. The U.S. also continues to impose 25% levies on foreign autos, aluminum and steel.

Goods from Mexico and Canada face tariffs of 25%, though the measure excludes products covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.

Current tariffs are expected to hike prices by an additional 2.7% in 2025, costing consumers on average about $4,400 per household over that time, the Yale Budget Lab said.

"Higher tariffs will push prices up significantly over the next year or so," Preston Caldwell, chief U.S. economist at Morningstar, told ABC News in a statement on Thursday.

On Thursday, the White House said U.S. tariffs on China stand at 145%, more than the 125% levy that had been widely reported a day earlier.

At the previous tariff level of 125% for Chinese goods, the cost of a nearly $60 car seat would've increased an average of $132.75 for a new price of about $192, according to the left-leaning Center for American Progress, or CAP. A Playstation 5 video game system, meanwhile, would've increased $623.75 for a new price of roughly $1,122, CAP found.

Under the current 145% tariffs, those price increases would rise further.

Smartphone prices are also expected to rise, experts said. China accounted for more than four of every five of smartphones imported into the U.S. last year, S&P Global said in a note to clients on Thursday.

Experts told ABC News they anticipate price hikes will coincide with an elevated risk of a recession.

They pointed to risks of a slowdown for businesses mired in higher tax costs, as well as a shopping slump as consumers curtail spending to pad their savings to help weather price increases and a possible economic downturn.

"It was encouraging to see the President reverse himself on the so-called "reciprocal" tariffs yesterday, but I wouldn't take much solace in it as the global trade war continues to rage," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said in a post on X. "I still put the odds of a recession this year at 60%."

The view echoed a note J.P.Morgan sent to clients hours after Trump's tariff pause on Wednesday.

"The drag from trade policy is likely to be somewhat less than before, and thus the prospect of a recession is a closer call," J.P.Morgan said. "However, we still think a contraction in real activity later this year is more likely than not."

For now, the economy remains in solid shape by several key measures.

The unemployment rate stands at a historically low level. Meanwhile, inflation cooled in March, putting price increases well below a peak attained in 2022, fresh data on Thursday showed.

Meanwhile, hiring surged in March, blowing past economists' expectations and accelerating job growth from the previous month.

Conlon, of New York University, said the likelihood of a recession eased after Trump's tariff pause but the risk of a downturn remains elevated.

"A lot of the permanent disruption and damage has been done, mostly because you'll see consumers and companies react to this uncertainty by pulling back," Conlon said. "People will be way less likely to go out and make big-ticket purchases because of recession fears and that can be self-perpetuating."

21-year-old on Texas most wanted for double homicide

NEW BOSTON – A Northeast Texas man suspected in two counts of capital murder has been added to Texas Top 10 Most Wanted list with an up to $5,000 reward for his capture, officials say.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Rondarrius Davon Idae Evans has ties to several Texas counties including Camp, Franklin, Titus and Morris.

He is wanted for his alleged involvement in a July 2024 double homicide shooting that killed Nicholas Webster and Princeton Washington in New Boston, according to a KTAL investigation. The warrants were issued out of Bowie County back in August 2024. Continue reading 21-year-old on Texas most wanted for double homicide

Chapel Hill sixth graders injured in vehicle crash

MT PLEASANT – Chapel Hill ISD sixth grade students on a field trip were reportedly injured after a vehicle crashed into a Cicis Pizza restaurant in Mt Pleasant on Thursday.

According to the school district, emergency personnel are on site and the district is working with them to ensure all students are accounted for and safe. Our news partner, KETK, reports that students who are not injured will be taken back to campus once the scene has been secured.

“We will share confirmed updates as they become available,” the district said. “Out of respect for emergency responders, we ask families not to go to the scene.”

The Mt Pleasant Police Department said the district has notified all parents whose children were involved. Parents or guardians can contact the junior high campus office at 903-572-9096 EXT 497.

Wingtip of one plane hits another on taxiway at Reagan airport: FAA

(WASHINGTON) -- The wingtip of an American Airlines plane hit another American Airlines plane on a taxiway at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

No one was hurt, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said. Both planes returned to gates and airport operations weren't impacted, the agency said.

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., tweeted that his plane was "stationary on the runway" when another plane "bumped into our wing."

"Thankfully everyone is ok!" he added.

His colleague, Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., was also on the flight.

"I'm grateful no one was hurt today, but this incident underscores this urgent need restore all FAA jobs that keep our runways safe," she said on social media.

Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who was also on the plane, agreed with Meng, writing on social media, "Recent cuts to the FAA weaken our skies and public safety."

The congressmembers’ flight was headed to JFK International Airport in New York. The other plane was headed to Charleston, South Carolina.

The FAA said it's investigating.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Verifying hand-counted ballots may be easier under GOP bill

GILLESPIE COUNTY – A year after Gillespie County Republicans hand counted thousands of primary ballots, a bill from a Republican Texas lawmaker whose district includes parts of the area could make it easier to verify the accuracy of hand-counted election results.

State Rep. Ellen Troxclair of Lakeway filed House Bill 3113, which would require counties opting for hand counts to use a ballot that is capable of being scanned and tabulated by voting machines using optical scanning technology.

By law, Gillespie County Republicans were allowed to design their own ballots, and they didn’t choose to use ballots that could be scanned. That meant their primary results could only be verified manually.

If passed, the bill would allow for a faster recount or audit of any hand-counted results. Hand counts can take days and involve hundreds of people. Studies have shown the method is time-consuming, costly and less accurate than using machines.

“It will improve accuracy so that we can have greater confidence in the outcome,” Troxclair said.

The bill does not prevent a hand count or require an audit, she said, but simply makes a faster recount of hand-counted ballots an option.

Last year, Republicans in Gillespie County, home to Fredericksburg, west of Austin, hand-counted every ballot cast in their primary. There were about 8,000 ballots, each of which contained choices for more than 30 races, including Troxclair’s. Days later, during the canvass, Votebeat reported that election officials found errors in the results of all but one of the county’s 13 precincts.

Troxclair said Votebeat’s reporting on Gillespie’s hand count helped her understand where the process “could improve to ensure accuracy,” leading her to propose legislation. The bill was discussed during a House Elections Committee hearing Wednesday and is awaiting a committee vote.

Texas requires partial recounts only for ballots that are tabulated electronically. There is no provision in state law to require a recount or audit for the results of a hand count. The Texas secretary of state’s election division does not have the authority to audit the election unless Gillespie is one of the counties the office randomly selects.

Public records showed the effort in Gillespie was costly for taxpayers. It required 350 people, who worked more than 2,300 hours on Election Day at $12 per hour, totaling more than $27,000 in wages. The amount did not include hourly wages for election clerks at each of the county’s 13 precincts on Election Day who checked in voters and performed duties other than counting.

Jim Riley, the Gillespie County elections administrator, testified in favor of the bill Wednesday.

Riley told lawmakers that there’s no way to know exactly how many errors and inaccuracies were made in the primary because the ballots could not be scanned and recounted.

“Unreadable penmanship, simple math errors, transposing numerals, all of those things made a difference in whether or not we were accurate,” Riley told lawmakers.

Those opposing the bill, including members of the Fredericksburg Tea Party who led the hand count in Gillespie, said it would create additional costs for counties who choose to hand-count because voting equipment vendors would have to be paid to program the machines to handle the ballots.

“Why should counties who choose to hand-count like us, or who are considering returning to hand count, be forced to contract with the very machine companies they’re trying to separate from?” said Jeannette Hormuth, a Fredericksburg Tea Party member who helped organize last year’s hand count.

Christina Adkins, elections division director at the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, said that under federal and state law, counties must provide at least one accessible voting machine for voters with disabilities at each polling location, whether counties hand-count or not. That means counties already are required to have the capabilities to format ballots so they can be scanned.

Riley said the bill would not create additional burdens on the county. In fact, last year, his office offered to format the primary ballots so they could be scanned. The decision was up to the county GOP.

“We said they could hand-count the complete election at their leisure after it was over, but that was turned down,” he said.

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

‘Saturday Night Live’ to debut British version of the show in 2026

Live from London, it's Saturday night!

Saturday Night Live is set to launch its first-ever British edition of the series. In partnership with Sky, the NBC late-night sketch show will premiere Saturday Night Live U.K. in 2026, according to Sky News.

The original show's creator, Lorne Michaels, will be an executive producer on the new version of the show as he continues to run the American version. Based in London, the new edition of the show will follow the exact same format as its U.S. counterpart.

British comedians will get the spotlight on this new show. While there are no announcements about its cast, hosts and premiere date at this time, those details can be expected in the coming months.

Cecile Frot-Coutaz, the chief executive of Sky Studios, said the network is thrilled to bring the late-night series across the pond.

"For over 50 years Saturday Night Live has held a unique position in TV and in our collective culture, reflecting and creating the global conversation, all under the masterful comedic guidance of Lorne Michaels," Frot-Coutaz said. "The show has discovered and nurtured countless comedy and musical talents over the years and we are thrilled to be partnering with Lorne and the SNL team to bring an all-British version of the show to UK audiences next year — all live from London on Saturday night."

Saturday Night Live U.K. will air on Sky Max and the streaming service NOW in 2026.

Demand for Texas child care subsidies is skyrocketing

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Express-News reports for the past three decades, working parents in Texas who make below the state’s median income have been eligible for financial help from the government to pay for daycare. But as the cost of raising children has exploded in recent years and the state has moved to force more people to carry out their pregnancies, demand for the subsidies has far surpassed supply. More than 20,000 families in the San Antonio and Dallas regions alone were waiting to access the program as of late last year, the most recent data available. In the 13-county region that includes Harris County, nearly 30,000 families are in line for assistance, with an average wait time of about 14 months, according to Jennifer Starling, manager of child care and financial aid for the Gulf Coast Workforce Board.

“I’ve been in child care for 20-plus years, and I haven’t seen it this long in a very long time,” she said. “It’s hard. I just want to take them all.” The growing wait times have made it difficult for new parents to return to the workforce and further stretched families’ limited budgets, providers say. Texas has done little to help. The state contributes the minimum match amount required to access the federal grant dollars, even as other GOP-led states like Florida and Alabama have ratcheted up their financial support. A report by the First Five Years Fund, a D.C.-based nonprofit, found that the Texas program reaches just 13% of all eligible families. “Without additional state money, we’re only going to see the waitlist continue to grow,” said Cody Summerville, CEO of the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children. The Texas House is considering a proposal this year to add $100 million into the program, enough to cover several thousand new families. The push is being led by state Rep. Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat who tried unsuccessfully in 2023 to get lawmakers on board with a $2 billion boost in funding for child care providers.