Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
SMITH COUNTY — A woman has been arrested after reportedly stealing more than $100,000 from an East Texas nonprofit. According to our news partner KETK, Palestine Police said they received a report of a possible embezzlement on Friday involving 75-year-old Jo Ellen Walley, the former treasurer of Harvey Women’s Club, a nonprofit.
During the investigation, detectives learned that Walley had made several transactions paying herself or personal bills from the club accounts amounting to more than $100,000 throughout the last few years.
Walley was taken into custody on Monday after officers executed a search warrant of her home on Chaparrel Run. She was booked into the Smith County Jail and charged with misapplication of fiduciary property.
RICHMOND (AP) — More than two dozen cars of a Union Pacific train derailed Wednesday morning in a Texas town near Houston, causing an ethanol leak from two of the cars that officials said didn’t pose a threat to the public.
The derailment happened around 5 a.m. CDT in Richmond, a town of 13,000 people about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Houston. No injuries were reported, Union Pacific spokesperson Robynn Tysver said.
Two of the derailed cars began leaking ethanol after the accident, said Fort Bend County Fire Marshal Justin Jurek. Both leaks were later contained, he said.
Ethanol, typically made from corn, can be used as a fuel additive.
“It is not posing a current threat to the public and air monitoring is ongoing as a precaution. There’s no need for evacuation at this time,” Jurek said.
A third derailed car leaked corn syrup, officials said. That leak was also contained, Tysver said.
The derailment caused traffic delays for several hours in Richmond and nearby Rosenberg. Traffic began to clear up after several blocked railroad crossings were cleared.
There was no timeframe on how long the cleanup could take but Union Pacific was “working as safely and as efficiently as possible to clean up the site and reopen the crossings,” Tysver said.
“The incident is under investigation,” she said.
CORPUS CHRISTI (AP) – Corpus Christi leaders on Tuesday unveiled new projections suggesting that the city could be just two months away from triggering emergency water measures.
At a marathon city council meeting that stretched for 10 hours, Nick Winkelmann, interim chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water, outlined five potential scenarios — two of which would push the city into a level one water emergency by May. At that point, the city’s water supply would be projected to fall short of demand within 180 days.
When pressed by council member Kaylynn Paxson on which scenario the city is preparing to follow, staffers at the water utility said they expect to narrow the possibilities down to two or three in the coming weeks as more data becomes available.
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott — who sharply criticized Corpus Christi leaders for their handling of the crisis recently — has ordered agencies to suspend normal procedures in an effort to buy the city more time.
Complicating the outlook are bleak seasonal forecasts. Projections from the National Weather Service show little to no rainfall expected between July and September, limiting inflows to key reservoirs that supply the city, including Choke Canyon, Lake Corpus Christi and Lake Texana.
Despite the mounting concerns, the city has not finalized a curtailment plan that would lay out how much — and how soon — residents and businesses would have to reduce their water use.
“If we get to the point where we have to declare a level one water emergency, we need to be ready for that and we have no precedent to follow and we have no there’s no manual, there’s no video, there’s no, ‘This is how we did it the last time,’ ” City Manager Peter Zanoni told the council, adding that a curtailment plan could take weeks or months to finalize and implement.
Tuesday’s meeting marked the culmination of a crisis that has been years in the making. For a decade, Corpus Christi has aggressively courted large companies to build refineries, natural gas export terminals and other industrial facilities along Corpus Christi Bay while promising the city would have sufficient water to meet the expected demand.
Much of that confidence hinged on a planned seawater desalination plant that was supposed to deliver 30 million gallons of water per day by 2028 — most of it destined for industrial customers. But when the city council killed the project last year amid public opposition to its rising cost and potential environmental impacts on the bay, it upended the city’s long-term water planning.
City leaders are now hoping to restart the desalination project, which received more than $750 million in low-interest loans from the Texas Water Development Board.
Earlier this year, one model projected that the city’s water supply could drop below expected demand as soon as June 2027, at which point the water system would not be able to move water to customers.
The city recently boosted production from its primary water pipeline that pulls from Lake Texana and the Colorado River, increasing capacity by 24 million gallons per day, even as a deepening drought threatens to cut off that extra water.
Under the drought plan for the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority, which operates the lake, when the lake reaches 50% capacity, the agency must reduce customers’ water supply by 10%. The reservoir is currently at 54% of capacity.
The governor’s office Friday ordered the river authority to change that trigger point to 40% to guarantee more water to the city. The authority is meeting on Wednesday to make that change, according to the governor’s office.
Meanwhile, several major water infrastructure projects remain months or even years away from completion, leaving a critical gap as water demand continues to climb.
To close that gap, the city has turned to drilling wells in two fields in rural Nueces County that are expected to produce up to 26 million gallons daily once fully operational. One field is completed and another has some wells ready to operate soon, but is awaiting a permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Corpus Christi officials say the delays could push the city toward a water emergency sooner.
“The only thing holding us up is a piece of paper,” Zanoni, the city manager, said at a Friday press conference.
On Friday, Abbott directed the TCEQ to fast-track temporary permits and loosen certain regulatory requirements to accelerate the city’s drilling projects.
“Corpus Christi is an important economic driver not only for Texas but also the nation,” said Andrew Mahaleris, the governor’s press secretary. “The State of Texas is committing significant investments to ensure Corpus Christi has the water resources it needs to serve citizens. The Governor is further stepping in and has waived regulations to ensure TCEQ can issue temporary permits on an expedited basis — while still preserving public input.”
TCEQ did not immediately comment on whether those permits have been issued.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the council also voted to accelerate the second well drilling project — despite not yet having the permits needed to pump.
The Evangeline groundwater project would include 24 wells and is projected to produce about 24 million gallons of water per day from neighboring San Patricio County. It could be finished by 2028, according to a city memo.
“We’re taking a calculated risk and continuing the design and we’re going to build,” Zanoni told council members. “We’re going to start building the project in about five weeks, without the permits, without the drilling permits.”
Officials say the design for the project is about 60% complete and the wells could deliver roughly 4 million gallons of water per day by November, though that timeline depends heavily on when the city receives permits to start pumping.
City officials acknowledged their action could face legal challenges.
The local groundwater district initially approved the city’s well permits in San Patricio County, but when the city of Sinton and two other parties contested them, the permits were put on hold until there’s an administrative hearing. No date has been set for that hearing, which Corpus Christi officials said could trigger a contested case that delays the project by up to two years.
The city of Sinton and San Patricio County Groundwater Conservation District did not immediately reply to comment on the city’s decision to move forward.
Zanoni defended the aggressive timeline and financial risk on Tuesday, saying the project is critical to avoiding water restrictions.
“It’s the only thing right now that’ll keep us out of a level one water emergency,” he said. “So yes, it’s expensive, but it’s the only thing.”
Mayor Paulette M. Guajardo echoed that urgency.
“We need this water, we cannot let it go,” she said. “We have to move this forward and hope for the best and do everything we can.”
Council member Rolando Barrera questioned whether the city is committing too much money to a project that is not guaranteed to move forward. Council member Mark Scott raised similar concerns about moving ahead without permits.
“My heartburn is that I thought it was a no-brainer to get these permits,” Scott said. “Now I’m walking the plank … about to spend, how much money, based on the assumption that we’re going to get those permits.”
The council unanimously approved moving forward with construction — earmarking nearly $190 million for it — and also voted to spend $170 million on land that comes with groundwater rights.
“It’s a little scary,” said council member Gil Hernandez, “but we’re in a situation where we should be afraid right now.”
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Closing arguments concluded Tuesday in a trial pitting Elon Musk against Twitter shareholders who say the world’s richest man engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform in 2022.
The case is now in the hands of eight jurors, who will decide whether Musk is liable for defrauding investors with tweets and statements he made in the months leading up to his purchase of Twitter.
The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which he later renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share. The price represents a sliver of the Tesla CEO’s fortune, now estimated at $837 billion.
Much of the trial focused on Musk’s claims about the number of bots on Twitter. Musk testified, as he long contended, that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5% it disclosed in regulatory filings. He used what he called Twitter’s misrepresentation of the number of fake accounts on its service as a reason to retreat from the purchase.
After Musk tried to back out, Twitter went to court in Delaware to force him to honor his original deal. Just before that case was scheduled to go to trial, Musk reversed course again and agreed to pay what he had originally promised.
Mark Molumphy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, asked jurors to hold Musk accountable and compensate thousands of investors who lost money because of tweets Musk sent, including one from May 13, 2022, that said the deal was “on hold.”
“He knew what he was doing,” Molumphy said.
The plaintiffs argue that, as Tesla’s stock price declined and buying Twitter became too expensive for Musk, he tweeted statements that drove down the stock price in the hopes he could renegotiate the deal for a lower price or get out of it altogether.
Musk’s tweets, the plaintiffs’ lawyer argued, were not some “innocent mistake” or a “stupid tweet” off the top of his head, but carefully calculated to drive down’s Twitter’s stock price.
Michael Lifrak, a lawyer for Musk, however, countered that the plaintiffs did not present “one shred of evidence” to show that Musk purposely plotted to drive down Twitter’s stock price. He reminded the jury that according to their instructions, even motive and intent to commit fraud is not enough to prove that actual fraud has taken place.
Lifrak also said there’s “zero evidence” that Tesla’s stock price decline during the time he was in the process of buying Twitter was the issue.
Everyone “wants to pay less and not more,” he said, adding that “you can’t just say” he wanted a lower price and therefore he committed fraud.
The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn’t new at the time Musk negotiated the deal. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
But Musk claimed the number was much higher, at least 20% according to some analysts. Saying the bot number was at least this high was like “saying the grass is green or the sky is blue,” Musk said.
Twitter’s former CFO Ned Segal disputed this claim and said on the witness stand that the number was actually closer to 1%.
Asked if Twitter ever filed false filings to the SEC that misstated its spam numbers, Segal said it did not. But he mentioned that the company once restated its finances after it became aware of a mistake in its calculation of daily users. In 2017, Twitter said it had been overstating its monthly user numbers by mistake because it was including users of a third-party app it should not have.
Molumphy showed jurors tweets Musk sent before he agreed to buy Twitter, including ones from 2020 complaining about the number of fake accounts on the platform. He also referred to Musk’s testimony from last week, where, when he was asked whether he thought Twitter was “exaggerating” their user numbers before signing the deal, Musk replied, “Yes.”
Referring to Musk’s May 13 tweet of the deal being “on hold” that’s become central to the case, Lifrak, his lawyer, used visual aids to try to make it clear to the jury that it was not a false statement. First, he showed a screen with the words “people who said the tweet was false at the time:” with a blank space underneath. A second screen said “people who said the tweet was false at the trial:” with another blank space underneath.
He also addressed animosity toward Musk, and urged jurors, who hail from around the Bay Area not to “fall for a San Francisco us vs. Elon Musk dynamic.”
“He may tweet stupid things,” Lifrak said. “But this isn’t a stupid tweeter trial.”
Rather, “it’s a trial on whether this man committed securities fraud and whether they proved it — and they didn’t.”
On Monday, the two sides met to go over instructions to the jury. Judge Charles R. Breyer noted that many in the jury pool had negative views on Musk. But, he added, a person who is “not universally liked” still deserves a fair trial, and should not be treated in a discriminatory or prejudicial way.
Musk, however, seems to already contend he hasn’t been treated fairly in the courtroom and earlier this month filed a motion for a mistrial, saying he has been deprived of his right to a fair trial because of the plaintiffs’ — and in some cases the judge’s — conduct.
TYLER — The City of Tyler hosted an open house on Tuesday morning to provide updates on the progress of improvements to the downtown square.
During the open house, city officials announced that construction on College Street is expected to be completed by May, when it will transition from a one-way street to a two-way street. Officials used renderings to outline the timeline for the remainder of the development and discussed the expected benefits of the ongoing work. The project aims to improve safety and accessibility in the area through infrastructure changes and updated traffic patterns.
Garnett Brookshire, co-owner of the Plaza Tower, has monitored the construction progress from his office window. He noted that the project represents a significant capital investment that could change the district’s atmosphere. Read the rest of this entry »
EAST TEXAS — Several East Texas firefighter crews have been deploy to help respond to wildfires and elevated fire conditions being reported across the state. According to our news partner KETK, Smith County Emergency Services District 2 has deployed a NWCG qualified dozer operator, a dozer operator trainee and a heavy equipment boss trainee to Childress to help fight wildfires there.
The district said this was the first time the Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System (TIFMAS) has been used to deploy their dozer operators. TIFMAS Coordinator Josh Bardwell said their deployment has been years in the making.
“A couple of us former TFS heavy equipment operators that came to the County years ago are proud to see this come to fruition,” Bardwell said. “We retooled the county’s fire dozer training and qualification process to meet state standards years ago and it’s paying off.” Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration likes to promote its immigration enforcement agenda through numbers, with ambitious goals to deport 1 million people, report zero releases at the U.S.-Mexico border and arrest thousands of alleged gang members.
For all the boasting, the administration has been releasing less reliable, carefully vetted data than its predecessors on a signature policy that has become one of the most contentious of Trump’s second term.
The gap in information and a loss of figures from an office that has tracked immigration data back to the 1800s have left researchers, advocates, lawyers and journalists without important statistics to hold the Republican administration to account.
“They aren’t publishing the data,” said Mike Howell, who heads the conservative Oversight Project, an advocacy group pushing for more deportations. Instead, Howell said, the Department of Homeland Security has put out numbers in news releases “that purport to be statistics with no statistical backup and the numbers have jumped all over the place.”
With mass deportations a priority, new restrictions and increased enforcement have led to a surge in immigration arrests, detentions and deportations.
But finding the metrics that once measured those changes can be hard. It is an extension of earlier administration moves to limit the flow of government information by scrubbing or removing federal datasets or by the firing last year of the top official overseeing jobs data.
The Office of Homeland Security Statistics is responsible for publishing figures from Homeland Security agencies, including removals and the nationalities of those deported, to provide a comprehensive picture of immigration trends at the border and inside the United States.
Originally known as the Office of Immigration Statistics, it tracked such data since 1872. In its current form, created under the Biden administration, it also started publishing monthly reports that allowed researchers to track developments almost in real time.
But key enforcement metrics on its website have not been updated since early last year. A note on the page where the monthly reports were says it “is delayed while it is under review.”
“It’s the most timely data. It’s the most reliable data,” Austin Kocher, research professor at Syracuse University who closely follows immigration data trends, said about the monthly reports. “It has the most omniscient view of immigration enforcement across the entire agency.”
An interactive dashboard launched by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December 2023 once let users examine whom the agency was arresting, their nationalities, criminal histories and removal numbers. ICE called it a “new era in transparency.”
Though intended for quarterly updates, the latest data is from January 2025. The agency’s annual report, typically released in December, had not been published as of mid-March.
Other agencies also publish data that touches on immigration, and parts of it do continue to roll out, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics detailing border encounters or data from the Department of Justice’s immigration courts.
But experts say other data has slowed.
The State Department’s most recent visa issuance data is from August. Key statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have not been updated since October.
The now-missing data had helped researchers study the effects of different policies. Lawyers could cite the figures to support their litigation. Journalists saw in them a powerful tool to hold the government to account on public claims or to report on important trends.
“We’re all a little bit in the dark about exactly how immigration enforcement is operating at a time when it’s taking new and unprecedented forms,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.
DHS did not respond to detailed questions about why it was no longer releasing specific data.
“This is the most transparent Administration in history, we release new data multiple times a week and upon reporter request,” the department said in a statement.
Figures the administration has released are inconsistent and unverifiable.
In a Jan. 20 news release, DHS said it had deported more than 675,000 people since Trump returned to the White House. A day later, in a second release, the department put the figure at 622,000. In congressional testimony March 4, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the figure was 700,000.
But ICE, an agency within DHS, also releases figures on how many people it has removed from the country, part of a large data release mandated by Congress. An Associated Press analysis of the figures put that number at roughly 400,000 over Trump’s first year.
DHS has said 2.2 million people who were in the U.S. illegally have gone home on their own, but the department has given no explanation for the count. Experts have questioned the source of that figure, saying this was not something that DHS historically has tracked.
The department did not respond to questions about where that data came from.
With key sources of data halted, researchers, advocates and others have had to rely on information the administration is obliged to report or that has come to light through legal action.
The publication of ICE detention figures — how many people are detained, for how long and whether they have committed a crime — is required by Congress and is generally released every two weeks. But the figures’ release has faced some delays and its data gets overwritten with every new publication, complicating the work of people who need access to it.
The University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, a research initiative, successfully sued through the Freedom of Information Act to access data about ICE arrests including nationalities, conviction status and whether arrests occurred at jails or in the community.
Graeme Blair, co-director of the project, said every administration has struggled with transparency in immigration enforcement, and given the Trump administration’s ambitious enforcement goals, the team wanted to secure and verify information that the government might not publicly release.
“Given the scale of what they were talking about doing, it seemed really important to be able to understand, to be able to double check those numbers,” he said.
But there are limitations, he said. The data obtained through the lawsuit only runs through Oct. 15. It does not cover recent operations such as the Minneapolis enforcement surge, when federal immigration officers fatally shot two protesters, leading to widespread demonstrations and scrutiny of enforcement tactics.
The absence of data is one of the few issues that has drawn bipartisan criticism.
“We deserve to know the numbers, just like we deserve to know who’s in our country and who needs to leave,” Howell said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed a Texas-based oil and gas company Friday to restore operations in waters off southern California that were damaged by a 2015 oil spill, invoking the Defense Production Act.
Restoring Sable Offshore Corp.’s Santa Ynez unit and pipeline off Santa Barbara aims to address supply disruption risks, according to a department news release. The unit includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility. The facility can produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day and would replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month, officials said.
“The Trump Administration remains committed to putting all Americans and their energy security first,” Wright said in a statement. “Unfortunately, some state leaders have not adhered to those same principles, with potentially disastrous consequences not just for their residents, but also our national security. Today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.”
On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse former President Joe Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the move.
“This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,” Newsom said in a statement. “California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment, and our $51 billion coastal economy. The Trump administration and Sable are defying multiple court orders, and we will see them back in court.”
In January, California sued the federal government for approving Houston-based Sable’s plans to restart pipelines along the coast. Democratic state Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the time that the state oversees the pipelines through Santa Barbara and Kern counties and the federal government “has no right to usurp California’s regulatory authority.”
RUSK — The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Rangers, HEAL Corp, ALERT Academy and Houston County Search and Rescue are conducting another search for Rusk missing man James David Blount.
According to our news partner KETK, Blount was last seen near his residence on Dec. 2, 2025, more than 90 days ago. The 57-year-old white man is around 5-feet-9-inches tall, weighs about 200 pounds and has brown hair and blue eyes. His vehicle was later found abandoned on U.S. Highway 84 at the Neches River.
The sheriff’s office is searching the woods behind Blount’s house and workshop on Highway 84. Officials are searching this area more thoroughly on Friday and Saturday in order to rule out the area immediately surrounding Blount’s home.
Cherokee County Sheriff Brent Dickson told KETK News that “a bunch of different stuff” was found during their search but they can’t say whether any of the items are actually related to Blount’s disappearance. Dickson added that they’re looking into all of the things they’ve found during their continuing search. Read the rest of this entry »
NACOGDOCHES — A judge ruled on Thursday that Stephen F. Austin State University must maintain all existing women’s sports teams, after the university cut several sports teams in August 2025. According to our news partner KETK, a U.S. District Judge approved a stipulated agreement requiring SFA to continue its current women’s teams with funding, staffing and benefits comparable to other varsity intercollegiate programs while the plaintiffs’ claims proceed in court.
“We are pleased that SFA has entered into this agreement, which will preserve the existing women`s teams and allow the case to move forward as quickly as possible,” the Arthur Bryant Law Firm said in a statement.
The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by several women athletes in August 2025 alleging the Nacogdoches-based university violated their Title IX rights when it decided to cut the women’s beach volleyball and bowling teams, as well as the women’s and men’s golf programs.
JACKSONVILLE — The Jacksonville Police Department has arrested a man following a lengthy investigation into alleged sexual coercion, stalking and harassment involving multiple victims. According to our news partner KETK, Jacksonville PD said Dewayne Scott Chapline, 58, was taken into custody Friday after investigators linked him to a prolonged campaign of online harassment carried out through email accounts, social media platforms and impersonation-style identities.
According to investigators, Chapline allegedly used threats and intimidation to pressure a victim into sending sexually explicit images. Police said he then used those images to blackmail the victim, continuing to demand additional content while threatening further harm.
Chapline faces charges of sexual coercion, stalking, online impersonation, obstruction or retaliation and harassment. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration this week stepped up its ambitious effort to replace about $1.6 trillion in lost tariff revenue that was eliminated by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a range of the president’s import taxes.
Recovering that lost revenue, which the White House was counting on to help offset the steep, multi-trillion dollar cost of its tax cuts, is possible but will be challenging, experts say. The administration has to use different legal provisions to impose new duties, and those provisions require longer, complex processes that U.S. companies can use to seek exemptions. It could be months or more before it is clear how much revenue the replacement tariffs will yield.
“I wouldn’t bet against this administration being able to get back on paper the same effective tariff rate they had before,” said Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. But the new approach will “make it easier for people to contest the tariffs, which is going to put a big asterisk on the revenue until all that is settled.”
On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the administration will investigate 16 economies — including the European Union — over whether their governments are subsidizing excessive factory capacity in a way that disadvantages U.S. manufacturing. The investigation will also cover China, South Korea, and Japan, Greer said.
In addition, he said there would be a second investigation of dozens of countries to see if their failure to ban goods made by forced labor amounts to an unfair trade practice that harms the United States. That investigation will also cover the EU and China, as well as Mexico, Canada, Australia, and Brazil.
Both investigations are being conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which requires the administration to consult with the targeted countries, as well as hold public hearings and allow affected U.S. industries to comment. A hearing as part of the factory capacity investigation will be held May 5, while a hearing on the forced labor investigation will occur April 28.
It’s a far cry from the emergency law that President Donald Trump relied on in his first year in office, which allowed him to immediately impose tariffs on any country, at nearly any level, simply by issuing an executive order.
Moments after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports under a separate legal authority, but that duty can only last for 150 days. The president has said he would raise it to 15%, the maximum allowed, but has yet to do so. Some two dozen states have already challenged the new tariffs. The administration is aiming to complete its Section 301 investigations before the 10% duties expire.
The effort underscores the importance that the Trump White House has placed on tariffs as a revenue-raiser at a time when the federal government is facing huge annual budget deficits for decades into the future. Previous administrations, by contrast, used tariffs more sparingly to narrowly protect specific industries.
Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, noted that the first investigation covers roughly 70% of imports, while the second would cover nearly all of them.
“That breadth suggests the goal isn’t to address the issues at hand, but instead to recreate a sweeping tariff tool,” she said.
Trump sees tariffs as a way to force foreign countries to essentially help pay the cost of U.S. government services, even though all recent economic studies find that American companies and consumers are paying the duties, including ones from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and economists at Harvard University. In his state of the union address last month, Trump even touted his tariffs as a potential replacement for the income tax, which would return the United States’ tax regime to the late 19th century.
Trump also wants tariffs to help pay for the tax cuts he extended in key legislation last year. The tax cut legislation is expected, according to the most recent estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to add $4.7 trillion to the national debt over a decade, while all Trump’s duties, including ones not struck down by the court, were projected to offset about $3 trillion — or two-thirds of that cost.
The court’s ruling Feb. 20 that he could no longer impose emergency tariffs eliminated about $1.6 trillion in expected revenue over the next decade, according to the CBO.
Some of Trump’s tariffs remain place, including previous duties on China and Canada that were imposed after earlier 301 investigations. The administration has also slapped tariffs on some specific products, including steel, lumber, and cars. Those, combined with the 10% tariff for part of this year, should yield about $668 billion over the next decade, the Tax Foundation estimates.
“It’s going to take a really big patchwork of these other investigations to make up for the (lost) tariffs,” York said.
The administration’s efforts are also unusual because they reflect an overreliance on tariffs to bring in more government revenue. Trump has also said the duties are intended to return manufacturing to the United States, and he has used them to leverage trade deals.
“What makes this really different,” said Kent Smetters, executive director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, “it is really the first time tariffs have been mainly used as a revenue raiser.”
Patel, meanwhile, argues that raising revenue can be done more reliably and straightforwardly by Congress. Laws like Section 301 are traditionally intended to be used to address specific trade policy concerns in particular countries.
“It’s not supposed to be there to raise revenue,” she said. “If we want to raise revenue through tariffs, then Congress should impose a broad based tariff.”
DALLAS (AP) – Jet fuel prices are rising as the war in the Middle East disrupts global oil supplies, putting cost pressure on airlines as the busy summer travel season approaches.
Experts say it’s not a question of if airfares will go up, but when, for how long and by how much. The impact may be felt most on long-haul international routes, which burn significantly more fuel than shorter flights.
Some airlines outside of the U.S. have announced fare increases or fuel surcharges in an effort to offset the growing expense. In the U.S., United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby recently warned that airfare increases will “probably start quick” as increasing fuel costs work their way through the industry.
The war is constraining oil exports and prompting major producers like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq to scale back output as shipments face growing obstacles.
Iran has attacked commercial ships across the Persian Gulf and targeted oil infrastructure in Gulf Arab nations following U.S. and Israeli strikes. The attacks have effectively halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage that carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.
The volatile crude oil prices causing retail gasoline prices to swing up sharply have had the same effect on the price of jet fuel. The average price in the U.S. reached $3.99 per gallon on Friday, up from $2.50 the day before the war started two weeks ago, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index. The index tracks the average price airlines pay for jet fuel across major U.S. airports.
Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics show that U.S. airlines paid about $2.36 per gallon for fuel in January, the most recent data available.
Some airlines are partially protected from sudden price spikes through fuel hedging, a strategy that allows them to lock in fuel prices months or even years in advance. But not all airlines hedge, and those that do are usually only protected for a portion of their fuel needs, meaning prolonged price surges may cause more carriers to raise fares.
“No one hedges anymore, and even if you do, hedging the crack spread is really hard to do,” Kirby said at a Harvard event last week. The crack spread is the difference between the price of crude oil and the price of products produced from it, like gasoline.
Another factor for airlines: Air space closures have required rerouting flights around parts of the Middle East, which can mean longer routes, additional fuel burn and higher operating costs.
Travelers may feel the impact in several ways.
Airlines can add or increase fuel surcharges, an extra fee common among carriers outside of the U.S. that’s added on top of the base ticket price.
Major U.S. carriers, however, don’t charge a separate fuel surcharge. Instead, they build fuel costs into the overall ticket price, meaning any increase is more likely to show up as a higher base fare for travelers, according to Tyler Hosford, security director at global risk management firm International SOS.
Airlines also may adjust what they charge for premium add-ons — such as seat upgrades, extra legroom seats, checked bags or priority boarding — as another way to offset higher operating costs. For consumers, that means even if the base fare doesn’t rise immediately, the total cost of a trip could still increase once additional fees and upgrades are factored in.
If higher fuel prices persist, airlines may also adjust schedules or reduce certain routes, said Christopher Anderson, a professor at Cornell University’s business school whose research includes operations and information management in the hospitality and airline industries.
It’s difficult to predict exactly how much ticket prices could increase as a result of costlier oil and fuel. Industry analysts say the impact of higher jet fuel costs can vary based on the route, airline and travel demand.
Fuel typically accounts for 20% to 25% of an airline’s operating costs, making it the second-largest expense after labor, according to Rob Britton, an adjunct marketing professor at Georgetown University and retired American Airlines executive. A sharp rise in fuel prices therefore can have a major impact on airlines’ budgets.
So far, most fare increases and fuel surcharges are coming from airlines based in the Asia-Pacific region, but experts expect more airlines — especially those without fuel hedging — to follow if high jet fuel prices persist.
Hong Kong’s flag carrier, Cathay Pacific, said it would increase its fuel surcharge starting Wednesday.
“The price of jet fuel has approximately doubled since March amid the latest developments in the Middle East,” the airline said in a statement Thursday.
Other airlines with price increases or new surcharges include:
— Air France-KLM said roundtrip economy fares on long-haul flights could rise by about 50 euros (about $57).
— Air India introduced fuel surcharges Thursday on certain routes. After March 18, the carrier says the surcharge will increase by up to $50 for all tickets to Europe, North America and Australia.
— Hong Kong Airlines increased fuel surcharges across several routes as of Thursday.
— FlySafair in South Africa announced a temporary fuel surcharge
Experts say travelers planning summer trips may be able to limit the impact of rising airfares by booking earlier rather than waiting for last-minute deals.
Locking in ticket prices sooner — especially with flexible booking options that allow changes — can help secure lower prices before airlines adjust rates further.
Hosford, the security director at International SOS, suggests travelers stay flexible with travel dates, check fares at nearby airports and set alerts for price drops. He also recommends using frequent flyer miles or credit card points to book flights instead of holding out for a “perfect deal.”
“If you were going to spend cash on the flight but now you’re not, then that’s a good redemption deal,” he said.
SMITH COUNTY — With many East Texas students on spring break this week, parents are being asked to keep track of their children’s locations after d several reports of kids banging on neighbors’ doors late at night in Chapel Hill.
Smith County Precinct 4 Constable Josh Joplin stated that after reviewing camera footage, it was confirmed that a number of boys were banging on doors and ringing doorbells at around 2 a.m. in residential Chapel Hill neighborhoods.
Joplin said that while kids may view it as a harmless prank, knocking on a stranger’s door late at night could become dangerous and possibly deadly. “We most certainly don’t want an injury or death to occur in this community from a prank gone wrong,” Joplin said. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — When COVID-19 wrought havoc on society in early 2020, today’s youngest schoolchildren were infants or yet to be born. Now in their early school years, researchers are beginning to see how the pandemic years have shaped their education, even though many had yet to set foot in a classroom when it began.
First and second graders continue to perform worse than their pre-pandemic counterparts on math and reading tests, according to a report published Tuesday by the education assessment and research group NWEA. But while math scores have inched up every year, reading scores remain stagnant, the report shows. The data suggests the slump in academic performance is not rooted only in instructional disruption. Broader societal shifts might be at play.
In the youngest students’ failure to recover, “there’s something kind of systemic here happening … within schools and outside of schools,” said Megan Kuhfeld, a researcher at NWEA. “We can’t pinpoint one specific cause.”
The pandemic’s effects on older children’s academic achievement are well-documented. COVID-19 forced kids out of classrooms and into online learning. Students lost out on face time with instructors, their mental health suffered in the isolation, and their well-being deteriorated as some families endured hardship. Some schoolchildren stopped showing up to school altogether.
The federal government gave billions of dollars to school districts to help students catch up — with mixed results. In 2024, reading scores for fourth- and eighth-graders continued a downward slide, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Math scores, however, trended upward.
Testing for younger kids is less common, so the NWEA report offers insights into the depth of the academic disruption. It’s based on assessments given to students in the 2024-25 school year.
Kindergarten scores for math and science remained roughly the same throughout the pandemic. First and second graders are trending in the same way as their older peers. Math and reading scores are still falling short of pre-pandemic levels, although math scores are slowly rising. Reading scores have remained roughly the same since the spring of 2021, when the first full school year in the pandemic was wrapping up.
It’s unclear what is depressing the scores. Kuhfeld pointed to emerging data showing that fewer parents are reading to their children, an activity that has been shown to boost literacy. A 2024 survey of parents in the United Kingdom found that less than half of children under 5 were regularly read to, a 20-point drop from a dozen years prior. Less than half of parents indicated they enjoyed reading to their kids, too.
Schools are beginning to make concessions to accommodate students with weaker literacy skills and short attention spans. Many teachers no longer assign books to their students.
In Minnetonka Public Schools outside Minneapolis, school leaders say that while reading scores dipped during the pandemic, they have since recovered. Teachers now focus more on phonics and also regularly assess students on literacy. Students who are behind receive extra help on the parts of reading where they struggle. A student who has difficulty reading aloud might be asked to read to one of their classmates, for example.
But some things are out of the district’s control. During the pandemic, Associate Superintendent Amy LaDue said, many young children were homebound. They missed out on activities like going to museums and playing with other children, which are helpful for language and literacy development. She believes that’s one factor that continues to hamper kids, especially those from low-income families.
“These kids weren’t in school when the pandemic happened, but (some) were … in early childhood and preschool,” LaDue said. “Their opportunities … to have those experiences outside of their home that build literacy skills and to apply them with peers probably were impacted because they were home.”
Along with interventions at school, a growing number of states and cities are investing in pre-kindergarten to help children with early literacy. California has introduced universal pre-kindergarten, and New York City is expanding its pre-kindergarten program to 2-year-olds, giving toddlers an early start on learning. New Mexico has made child care free for nearly all families.