Restricting Texas colleges is focus of priority bill

AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas colleges and universities could face more oversight — including over who is hired, what is taught and how they are following the law — under a wide-ranging priority bill filed Thursday. The Senate proposal would give governor-appointed boards of regents more power to overturn decisions made by campus leaders and review curriculum. The bill also would reduce the role of faculty senates and create a new office to investigate concerns at state schools. Introduced by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, Senate Bill 37 is of one Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s top 40 priorities. Patrick has long said he wants to roll back the “woke left” that is rampant on college campuses. “By reaffirming the authority of the Board of Regents, SB 37 clearly defines university governance roles while increasing transparency in policies, hiring, curriculum, and financial decisions,” Creighton said in a statement.

“With taxpayer dollars and students’ futures at stake, universities must operate with accountability,” he added. Others saw the bill as “an attack on faculty’s role in governance in colleges and universities,” the University of Texas at Austin chapter of the American Association of University Professors said in a statement. “Shared governance is one of AAUP’s top priorities and central to the protection of academic freedom and faculty’s status as professionals,” the statement read. In a statement, the Texas Conference of AAUP said the legislature is “attempting to micromanage and overregulate universities that are already thriving.” The group noted that Gov. Greg Abbott bragged about Texas leading the nation in top research universities on social media Thursday. The state recently significantly expanded the number of schools reaching tier 1 status. “This happens because we have top-notch faculty,” AAUP’s statement read. Under the bill, governing boards would have expanded authority that includes the ability to overrule decisions made by school administrators. The boards would have to send annual reports to the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the House and each state lawmaker on their hiring, curriculum and other issues.

Survey: Texas workers are miserable.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that while Texas has long been considered one of the nation’s top states for business, workers in the state are among the nation’s most miserable, a new study finds. The state’s workforce is the 12th-most miserable in the nation, according to a ranking from Final Round AI, maker of an AI interview virtual assistant, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The analysis focused on four factors: average hours worked, average wages, fatal work injury rates and the rate of nonfatal work injuries and illnesses causing missed workdays. “Not all factors that contribute to a worker’s happiness can be quantified, but paying workers well, providing a good work-life balance and making sure their health is prioritized goes a long way to alleviating a lot of the stress in their lives, allowing them to perform their best when they are at work,” said Michael Guan, CEO of Final Round AI.

Mississippi has the most miserable workers in the nation, the company concluded, standing out for having the lowest average wage in the nation, at $47,570 per year, and the 6th-highest rate of workplace fatalities. Wyoming had the second-unhappiest workforce, with 15.14 fatal injuries per 100,000 employees in 2023, according to BLS data. West Virginia ranked third in this context. By contrast, New York has the happiest workforce in the nation, thanks to a combination of relatively high wages, relatively low hours worked and relatively few workplace fatalities. Texas scored second-worst in the nation, the study found, when it came to workload. On average, workers in the state put in 36.5 hours a week. Texas also has middling wages, with an annual average of $61,240. And in 2023, the most recent data available, the state saw 3.94 fatalities for every 100,000 workers, according to the BLS data. The state’s overall score in Final Round AI’s ranking was 42.8 out of 100, compared to 30.2 for Mississippi and 79.7 for New York. Guan suggested that when workers are unhappy, that can take a toll on the overall business climate. “Happy workers are better workers as they will work harder, smarter, and make fewer mistakes while working,” he said. “Having happy workers is also a glowing recommendation for your company.”

Ten-year-old East Texas girl, mother injured after shooting outside their house

TEXARKANA – A 10-year-old girl and her mother were shot in their sleep around 12:30 Friday morning in the 3000 block of Mason St. according to the Texarkana Police Department.

According to our news partner, KETK, police said they were alerted to the incident by neighbors who reported hearing several shots. When officers arrived, they learned both were injured and another house had been caught in the crossfire after several rounds were fired. The mother and daughter were taken to a Texarkana hospital, but the girl was then transferred to Arkansas Children’s Hospital later on for additional treatment.

As police investigate this case, if anyone has more information on this shooting they’re ask to contact Texarkana Police Department, or Texarkana Area Crime Stoppers.

Immigration accounts for entire US population growth for first time

TEXAS – Newsweek reports that immigration was the sole driver of the United States’ population growth in a single year for the first time since records began, a new study released Wednesday said. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) looked at U.S. Census Bureau data for 2022-2023, the latest available, finding that falling American birthrates factored into the change. The findings come at a time when immigration, particularly illegal immigration, is a key focus of the current White House administration. While plans for mass deportations are being carried out, the other obstacle — a collapsing fertility rate — has been far more vexing for officials, both in the U.S. and other developed nations suffering from the same dynamic. The U.S. immigrant population grew by 1.6 million between 2022 and 2023 to 47.8 million, according to the MPI analysis, with immigrants now representing a 14.3 percent share of the overall population—the highest ever. The Census Bureau started collecting data in 1850 and has tracked immigrant arrivals through the boom in the early 1900s, the bust in middle of the century, and then a steady rise from the 1970s onward.

In 2023, birth rates among American women reached a record low for those aged between 20 and 24, while the rate also dropped overall for the larger group of 20-39 year olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The shift has been noted in other reporting in recent months, including from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), which found that more immigrants were entering the workforce than American-born workers because of an aging population and the declining birthrate. Immigrants made up around 18 percent of the total workforce in 2023, the last year for which complete data is available. In a separate study, the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) looked at estimates from January 2025, finding an even larger rise in the immigrant population. It now stands at around 15.8 percent, according to the CIS analysis. Among the largest nationalities represented in the U.S. immigrant population in 2023 were Mexicans at 23 percent, followed by Indians (6 percent) and Chinese (5 percent).

Greg Abbott cites debunked claim that public schools catered to ‘furries’

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday resurrected debunked rumors that public schools were putting litter boxes in classrooms for students dressed as cats, amplifying right-wing criticism of some educators as he pushes for a statewide private school voucher program. The Texas Republican told a gathering of pastors at a Baptist church in Austin that the so-called furries trend is “alive and well” in communities across the state, and that lawmakers needed to ban it. He endorsed newly filed legislation by state Rep. Stan Gerdes called the “Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education (F.U.R.R.I.E.S) Act,” which would prohibit any “non-human behavior” by a student, “including presenting himself or herself … as anything other than a human being” by wearing animal ears or barking, meowing or hissing. The bill includes exceptions for sports mascots or kids in school plays.

Gerdes’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The bill didn’t have any immediate cosponsors. Abbott’s remarks appeared to call back unfounded rumors from 2022 that public schools across the country were catering to students who identified as animals. In one instance, the GOP chair in Williamson County falsely claimed Round Rock schools were lowering cafeteria tables for furries. “In some small rural sections of school districts in the state of Texas, they have in their schools, what are called furries. Y’all know what this is?” Abbott asked the crowd, which responded with a smattering of “yeahs.” “Kids go to school dressed up as cats with litter boxes in their classrooms,” Abbott said. Abbott referenced two rural school districts but did not name them in his address to the Texas Pastors Policy Conference. When asked about the claims, his office sent a statement saying he has “heard from countless parents growing frustrated at the quality of schools, the substance of what is taught, and failures of ISDs leading to an unwelcoming learning environment for their children. “The Governor recommends concerned parents report any potential issues to the Texas Education Agency for investigation,” said Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for the governor. The governor has ratcheted up his criticism of public schools in recent weeks as he pitches a program allowing public money to be spent on private education, which the governor has made his signature policy push this session. The governor has cast private school vouchers as an option for parents turned off by what he called “the pervasive woke leftist agenda that’s being forced on our kids in our public schools.”

Measles cases linked to Texas outbreak grows to 259, with just 2 among fully vaccinated people

(GAINES COUNTY) ABC — The number of measles cases associated with an outbreak in western Texas has grown to 259, with 36 cases reported over the last three days, according to new data released Friday.

Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown. Two cases have occurred in persons vaccinated with two doses, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Breakthrough infections, when a vaccinated person is infected are rare, as the measles vaccine provides up to 97% protection after 2 doses.

At least 34 people have been hospitalized so far.

In the Texas outbreak, children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases, with 115, followed by children ages 4 and under comprising 86 cases, according to the data.

DSHS said in its update that it expects more cases to be confirmed in the area and in surrounding communities.

Two likely measles deaths have been reported so far in the U.S. One is a confirmed death associated with measles, while the other has been definitively linked to the measles virus but the cause of death officially remains under investigation.

The first reported death was an unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas, according to the DSHS. The child did not have any known underlying conditions, according to the department.

The Texas death was the first measles death recorded in the U.S. in a decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another probable measles death was recorded last week after an unvaccinated New Mexico resident tested positive for the virus.

Gaines County is the epicenter of the Texas outbreak, with 174 cases confirmed among residents, according to the DSHS. State health data shows the number of vaccine exemptions in Gaines County has grown dramatically in the last dozen years.

In 2013, roughly 7.5% of kindergartners in the county had parents or guardians who filed for an exemption for at least one vaccine. Ten years later, that number rose to more than 17.5% – one of the highest in all of Texas, according to state health data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed hundreds of cases in at least 12 states so far this year, including Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington

The majority of nationally confirmed cases are in people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown. Of those cases, 4% are among those who received just one dose of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) inoculation and 2% are among those who received the required two doses, according to the CDC.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. Just one infected patient can spread measles to up to nine out of 10 susceptible close contacts, according to the CDC.

Health officials have been urging anyone who isn’t vaccinated to receive the MMR vaccine.

The CDC currently recommends that people receive two vaccine doses, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster.

Measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 due to the highly effective vaccination program, according to the CDC. However, CDC data shows vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years.

ABC News Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Texas Tech officials trying to determine what caused explosion and fires

LUBBOCK – Lubbock fire officials said Thursday that they are still uncertain about what caused at least one underground explosion and several fires at Texas Tech University the night before that took out power and forced an emergency shutdown of the campus.

Emergency officials said they received several calls regarding a potential gas leak just before 7 p.m. on campus. Upon arrival, firefighters found flames shooting out of manholes, a Lubbock Fire official said during a press conference Wednesday. Video from the Texas Tech campus posted by local news station KCBD shows green flames spewing from one manhole. Officials at a second press conference Thursday said the discoloration was likely caused by copper and other electronic material underground.

Texas Tech Fire Marshal Mike Kennon said teams initially responded to three different fires on campus, but later determined that there were five fires in underground vaults. Officials also said natural gas is being removed from underground, but could not confirm whether it was what caused the fires.

“Was that a result of an explosion, or electrical or a fire, or was it the other way around?” Lubbock Assistant Fire Chief Nick Wilson said. “We know it was present. We don’t necessarily know why.”

Officials on Thursday did not confirm whether there was a single explosion or several, but said on Wednesday there was at least one underground explosion inside a manhole on campus near Engineering Key, a central portion of the campus.

Evacuations began in that area shortly after firefighters arrived, and power was either automatically or intentionally shut off to avoid exacerbating the fires and prevent any further damage. No injuries have been reported.

“An event like this can obviously cascade and cause a lot worse damage than we saw,” said Matt Rose, chief public affairs officer for Lubbock Power & Light. “That being said, we’re taking this very, very seriously.”

About 40% of the campus is still without power as of Thursday afternoon, officials said, and the explosion initially caused outages across campus and at the nearby Texas Tech Health and Sciences Center. Because a bulk of the damaged systems are underground, it is unclear how long repairs may take as officials wait for portions of the tunnels to be deemed safe for repairs.

Spring break for Texas Tech students was set to start Monday, however the university announced it will be closed for the remainder of the week. For students who had chosen to remain on campus during spring break but are now without power, Texas Tech has provided housing accommodations, and food was donated by H-E-B and other groups, as well.

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

Texas lawmakers are pushing harsher criminal penalties

AUSTIN – Texas lawmakers are pushing more than 100 bills to clamp down on crime, threatening to overcrowd the state’s jails and prisons whose populations have continued to grow after dipping significantly during the pandemic.

Lawmakers have proposed at least 121 bills that seek to increase criminal penalties by either creating mandatory minimum sentences or by elevating punishment, according to the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. That nonprofit organization has also tracked 90 bills that would create new felonies and 96 bills that would create new misdemeanors.

Those figures only include bills filed through Monday and are expected to increase once they account for the hundreds of bills lawmakers have filed this week in advance of Friday’s bill filing deadline. Still, the estimates show the state’s growing push towards more punishment.

“Ever since 2015 there has been a pretty steady, incremental growth in the number of crimes [lawmakers] create every session,” said Shannon Edmonds, president of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. That growth signals a “return to the law and order sentiment of previous decades,” he added.

Proposals include bills to crack down on organized retail theft, impose prison time on people who burglarize vehicles more than once and ban the possession of AI-generated child pornography.

Some proposals would provide local law enforcement officers with more tools to crack down on threats from new technology, including artificial intelligence, while other legislation would do little to deter crime and could strain the state’s already overwrought prisons and jails, experts said.

Texas’ prison population is projected to increase by about 10% over the next five years, according to the Legislative Budget Board, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice continues to contend with a staffing shortage.

County jails’ population is also increasing. As of February, their population was about 2.5% higher than the same time last year, according to data collected by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

Some facilities are so short staffed that inmates are sent out of state to Mississippi and Louisiana. About 4,100 Texas jail inmates were housed outside their county of arrest, as of February, according to commission data.

“It’s important to take into account the costs these bills bear on county jails because many of them are already stretched very thin,” said Marc Levin, chief policy counsel at the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice “If you raise things within the misdemeanor level, to a Class A misdemeanor instead of a Class B misdemeanor… you’re going to have more people sitting in county jail.”

Class A misdemeanors are punishable by up to one year in jail while Class B misdemeanors carry up to 180 days in jail. People convicted of felonies are usually held in state prisons, which currently house about 136,000 offenders.

Texas’ prison population decreased during the coronavirus pandemic to lows of about 117,000 people in January 2021. The number of people in state prisons has since grown, contributing to about 31% of the nationwide growth in the prison population over 2022 and 2023, according to a report published this week by the Prison Policy Initiative.

Session after session, Texas lawmakers introduce a slew of bills that increase criminal penalties, often in response to concerns from the public about crimes they have witnessed in their communities. It hasn’t always been that way. The late aughts saw efforts to reduce the state’s prison population by reducing sentences and diverting people away from incarceration. They fizzled around 2015, and since then, the number of new crimes that lawmakers create each session has increased, Edmonds said.In 2023, lawmakers created 58 new criminal offenses and 26 new punishments, a number higher than any of the legislative sessions over the previous 10 years, according to the prosecutors association.

This year, a handful of bills creating criminal enhancements or new crimes are in response to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s interim charges. At Patrick’s behest, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee studied the effects of organized retail crime — where a network of thieves steal large quantities of merchandise that they sell for cash, a growing concern nationally — and also identified ways to strengthen financial crime investigations.

Senate Bill 1300, filed by Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, aims to address the $422 million in stolen goods and approximately $21 million in sales tax revenue Texas lost to organized retail crime in 2022.

The bill would increase the penalty for such crimes, based on the value of property stolen. Current law designates organized retail theft as a Class C misdemeanor — which does not allow for jail time — when the property taken is worth less than $100. The bill would increase that to a Class B misdemeanor. As the value of property stolen increases, the punishment would rise, up to a first degree felony punishable by life in prison if the total value of goods stolen exceeds $300,000.

The committee advanced the bill to the full Senate this week, even though Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, expressed concern that the bill would allow prosecutors to incarcerate impoverished families. A husband-wife couple in poverty could face jail time for stealing formula for their baby, even though the bill seeks to target organized retail theft rings, he asserted to lawmakers. Flores countered that prosecutors need discretion to determine whether to press charges.

Three other bills approved by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee this week target bank and credit card fraud, which bank executives said are occuring at alarming rates. And a bill by Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, creates a specific offense for stealing mail receptacle keys or locks, with stronger penalties for those who target elderly communities.

Other bills address auto theft, an issue Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told lawmakers has hit San Antonio particularly hard.

House Bill 727 heightens the punishment for burglarizing a vehicle when the person carrying it out has a firearm, burglarizes two or more vehicles, or uses a stolen vehicle to carry out the offense. Such crimes would be designated a state jail felony, which could lead to 180 days to two years in state jail. The bill was left pending in committee this week. Also discussed — but left pending in committee — was House Bill 548, which establishes a mandatory minimum of a year in confinement for a second auto burglary offense.

But property crimes are difficult to solve and increasing the punishment would not result in more car burglary cases getting solved, said Staley Heatly, county attorney in Wilbarger County. “It doesn’t necessarily seem like an effective tool to stop burglaries from happening,” Heatly said. “They’re difficult because people leave their cars unlocked, somebody comes by at night and rifles through the car and takes what they can. There’s going to be no witnesses, so they’re just exceedingly difficult to solve.”

Critics who spoke against the bill said burglaries are often carried out by youth who would not be deterred by an increased penalty.

Research shows that juvenile incarceration rarely produces positive results and that investing in intensive juvenile probation programs would be more successful, Levin said.

That argument was echoed during discussion of House Bill 268, which would increase the criminal penalty for making certain false reports, such as hoax calls threatening a call for mass violence against schools.

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

Feds are opening more migrant detention centers in Texas

KARNES COUNTY – After watching news reports of seemingly random immigration raids and hearing White House officials encourage undocumented immigrants to self-deport, a Venezuelan family decided to heed the government’s advice and leave the United States for Canada a few weeks ago.

They were arrested trying to enter Canada, said their San Antonio lawyer, Laura Flores-Dixit.

Now the parents, who are in their 30s, and their two children, ages 6 and 8 — who through Flores-Dixit declined to be identified or interviewed — are among the first families to be jailed at a South Texas immigration detention facility that the Trump administration has repurposed to hold families after former President Joe Biden greatly reduced the practice.

The change at the Karnes County Detention Facility, about 50 miles southeast of San Antonio, is just one of a flurry of developments in recent weeks that’s drawing attention to privately-run immigration detention facilities that have long been criticized for poor conditions, weak standards and even weaker oversight.

When President Donald Trump vowed to deport a record number of undocumented immigrants, it was clear he would face a number of logistical challenges, starting with a limited number of federal agents to search for and arrest people — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency charged with the job, has just an estimated 6,000 officers tasked with monitoring and finding undocumented immigrants. ICE has received help from federal drug agents, Texas state troopers and other law enforcement agencies as it searches for undocumented immigrants.

The second challenge is where to hold the people they apprehend.

Texas is likely to play an outsized role in detaining immigrants because it already has 21 detention facilities that as of late February held 12,186 undocumented immigrants — reportedly the most in any state.

“Texas is the state that has had the largest number of immigrant detainees in the country for quite some time,” said Eunice Cho, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project. “Texas is really the epicenter with respect to immigration detention in the United States.”

More facilities may be opening in Texas soon. The Trump administration plans to reopen a facility in Dilley to hold families as well — which would add space for up to 2,400 people.

Public records obtained by the ACLU through a lawsuit show that ICE has been contemplating expansion of a detention facility in Laredo and considering opening another in Henderson, near the Louisiana border.

Last year, Trump’s top immigration adviser, Tom Homan, said he would accept an offer from Texas state leaders to use a 1,400-acre Starr County ranch as a staging area for mass deportations. Since then, key parties have been largely mum about plans for the property, which the Texas General Land office purchased last fall.

Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who made the initial offer to the Trump administration, said in a statement to the Tribune this week that Gov. Greg Abbott was leading conversations with the Trump administration about the property.

Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris told the Tribune that the governor looked forward to working with the president but did not offer additional details.

“The Governor’s Office remains in regular communication with the Trump Administration on effective strategies to secure the border,” Mahaleris said. “Under the Texas Constitution, any effort to lease or donate Texas land to the federal government must be conducted through the Governor’s Office and these conversations remain ongoing.”

Immigrants rights advocates are alarmed by the expansion of detention facilities and the resumption of detaining families. They say the private prison companies that run the facilities have an assortment of reasons to minimize costs and maximize profits — which for migrants can mean medical neglect and poor living conditions.

Employees at privately-run detention facilities have been accused of sexually assaulting migrants, violating their religious freedom and using punitive forms of incarceration like solitary confinement.

Immigration charges are civil offenses that don’t carry the same protections as those granted to people charged with a crime, said Edna Yang, the co-executive director of immigration advocacy group American Gateways.

“It’s really problematic,” Yang said. “With the jail facilities, there are several constitutional protections because you’re in a criminal process and criminal proceedings that aren’t the same in the civil context. Also a lot of the kinds of protections for individuals in criminal proceedings are enforceable whereas the civil detention standards are not enforceable — they are guidelines.”

No aspect of immigration detention draws as much condemnation as holding children.

The Trump administration resumed the practice last week when it sent 12 to 15 families to the center in Karnes, according to lawyers who began communicating with detainees this week.

The families detained at Karnes are a mix of nationalities and have been in the country for varying periods of time, said Javier Hidalgo, a lawyer with Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, known as RAICES, which is representing numerous families.

The families came from Colombia, Romania, Iran, Angola, Russia, Armenia, Turkey and Brazil, according to RAICES.

“It’s not just folks who recently arrived and are being put through expedited removal,” Hidalgo said. “It seems like the intent is more punitive, which runs exactly against the whole notion that immigration detention isn’t [the same as criminal incarceration] … Immigration detention is supposed to be civil detention — if there really is such a thing — and it can’t be punitive for deterrence.”

The Biden administration greatly reduced family detention but did not stop it entirely. Now advocates are worried the Trump administration will ramp it up to new levels, with Texas facilities becoming the hubs.

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

American Airlines Boeing 737 catches fire at Denver airport

March megastorm may bring blizzards, tornadoes, flooding and even fires across much of US

NOAA (AP) – More than 100 million people in the U.S. will be in the path of an intense March storm starting Friday as the sprawling multi-day system threatens fires, blizzards, tornadoes, and flooding as it tracks eastward across the Great Plains.

Scientists said the storm’s strength and potential for far-reaching impacts is notable, but its timing isn’t particularly unusual. Extreme weather can pop up in spring because storms feed on big temperature differences between the warmth that’s starting to show up and the lingering chill of winter.

“If there’s a time of the year where a storm like this can deliver these coast-to-coast impacts, we are in it,” said Benjamin Reppert, meteorologist at Penn State University.

The National Weather Service forecast strong winds stretching Friday from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, with gusts up to 80 mph (130 kph), which creates a significant fire risk in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, a winter blast was expected farther north in parts of the Rockies and Northern Plains, with possible blizzard conditions in the Dakotas and Minnesota.

The central region from the Gulf Coast to Wisconsin is at risk of severe thunderstorms that could spawn tornadoes and hail. On Saturday, severe storms are forecast to move toward Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and then into Florida. Potential flooding was a concern from the Central Gulf Coast through the upper Ohio Valley.

The turbulent weather is expected to arrive on the East Coast Sunday with strong winds and a flash flooding risk in localized areas. Heavy rain was forecast along the Interstate 95 corridor south to Jacksonville, Florida.

Reppert noted that temperatures in the upper atmosphere in much of the central and eastern U.S. are close to record levels for this time of year, while a cool air mass behind the storm in the western states is one of the coolest on record for that region and this time of year. He said that combination could be behind part of this storm’s expected strength.

Russ Schumacher, a climatologist at Colorado State University, said the storm could become a bomb cyclone Friday afternoon or evening — a designation given when a storm intensifies so rapidly that atmospheric pressure drops a certain amount in a 24-hour period. That would mean higher winds and more intense rainfall.

In addition to fuel from big temperature swings, the storm will be shaped by the jet stream. In a fairly typical position for this time of year, it’s diving south across the U.S. and will help lift air and moisture into the atmosphere to fall back as rain.

The storm also will tap into heat and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, also referred to as the Gulf of America as declared by President Donald Trump, which is 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 to 2.2 degrees Celsius) warmer than historic averages.

“You kind of have this Goldilocks situation,” said Ryan Torn, professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University at Albany, referring to the mix of ingredients in the atmosphere that will add to the storm’s strength.

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FEMA launches review of migrant shelter aid, suggesting smuggling laws were violated

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration has launched a review of organizations that provide temporary housing and other aid to migrants, suggesting they may have violated a law used to prosecute smugglers.

The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” that federal grants used to address a surge of migration under former President Joe Biden were used for illegal activities, wrote Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

His letter, dated Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press, asks recipients of grants from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program to provide names and contact information for migrants served and “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided” within 30 days. The letter says funding will be withheld during the review.

While it doesn’t explicitly threaten criminal prosecution, it raises concerns that recipients may have violated U.S. Criminal Code Section 1324, a felony offense against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States. It also says executive officers must sign sworn statements that they have no knowledge or suspicions of anyone in their organizations violating the smuggling law.

Separately on Wednesday, federal prosecutors delivered subpoenas to shelters in New York City that have been used to house migrants, partially with funding from FEMA.

Subpoenas sent to the Roosevelt Hotel and Stewart Hotel in midtown Manhattan sought the names, birth dates and other personal information about migrants staying in the shelters, according to two people briefed on the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the legal process.

A similar subpoena was delivered to a building that once housed the the Hotel Chandler, which was converted into a homeless shelter years ago but does not primarily house migrants. Local officials speculated the document may have been sent in error. The similarly named Candler building, an office tower near Times Square, currently serves as a migrant shelter.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and for the Justice Department in Washington declined to comment. FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.

The demand appears to be a new salvo against organizations that provide food, housing and travel aid to people who cross the border. Migrants often arrive exhausted, low on money and unsure how to navigate on their own through bus stations and airports.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who was at odds with the Biden administration over immigration and is closely aligned with the Trump White House, took a similar tack against migrant aid groups but was blocked in court. His administration paid to bus thousands of migrants from Texas to New York City, which is required by law to provide shelter to any person who needs it.

New York City leased the empty Roosevelt Hotel, which closed after the COVID-19 pandemic, to serve as the main arrival center for newcomers. Last month, FEMA abruptly clawed back more than $80 million in grants that had been awarded to New York City during Biden’s administration after Elon Musk questioned the legality of the payments. The city has gone to court seeking the return of the money.

Mayor Eric Adams said his administration hasn’t been apprised of the investigation Thursday.

“They don’t tell us anything. We don’t have the authority to go into their reviews on immigration,” he said at an unrelated event.

But the Democrat defended migrant shelter staffers.

“The workers should never get caught up in the politics of this,” Adams said. “That is who my heart goes out to.”

Adams last month announced the shelter at the Roosevelt would cease operations by June. The city is currently housing more than 42,700 migrants in 180 sites, down from nearly 70,000 last January. Spokespersons for the Adams’ administration declined to comment on the subpoenas Thursday, citing the ongoing investigation.

FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program awarded $641 million to dozens of state and local governments and organizations across the country in the 2024 fiscal year to help them deal with large numbers of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico. They include the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Denver, as well as the United Way of Miami, the San Antonio Food Bank and several branches of Catholic Charities.

The Adams administration on Thursday confirmed it received the FEMA letter and was reviewing it.

The Trump administration has fiercely criticized states, counties and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Last month, it sued Chicago over laws that it said thwarted federal law enforcement.

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Associated Press reporters Jake Offenhartz and Philip Marcelo in New York contributed to this report.

Maintenance hole explosion at Texas Tech University causes fires, outages and cancels classes

LUBBOCK (AP) — The power started to come back on Thursday at the Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock several hours after an explosion inside a maintenance hole set off fires and power outages, leading school officials to issue evacuation orders for several buildings and cancel classes for the rest of the week, university police said.

The explosion happened Wednesday evening at the Engineering Key section of campus, which was evacuated. Students were advised Thursday to avoid the area until further notice.

“I heard an explosion and then saw a smoke ring, almost like a cartoon or something,” doctoral degree student Robert Gauthreaux III told KCBD-TV. “It traveled about 200 feet in the air.”

Gauthreaux said he went inside the architecture building, which lost power. He said he and others tried to help someone who was trapped inside an elevator.

Power was being shut down to the entire campus while repairs were underway, said Caitlynn Jeffries, a spokesperson for the university’s police department. She asked that all public and unofficial personnel avoid campus.

“You can go ahead and go home for spring break. We are closing school down for the next couple days,” Jeffries said at a news media briefing.

Firefighters responded to campus about 7 p.m. for a possible gas leak, Lubbock Fire Rescue Capt. Jon Tunnell said at the briefing. They found “multiple manhole covers with active fire and smoke issuing from them,” he said.

No injuries were reported, Tunnell said.

An alert from the university sent to the campus community before the news conference had described the explosion as occurring at a substation.

Videos circulating on social media and TV stations showed a heavy presence of firefighters on campus and fire and smoke coming out of at least one maintenance hole cover.

It wasn’t clear what might have caused the explosion.

There are more than 40,000 students at Texas Tech, and the school sits on 1,800 acres (728 hectares) in West Texas.

Immigrants fuel growth in major US urban counties

HOUSTON (AP) – Immigrants kept the largest urban counties in the U.S. growing last year.

Core counties in the Houston, Miami and Phoenix metropolitan areas grew more than any others in the country primarily because of people moving in from outside the United States, according to population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

Without the international migration, Harris County, Texas, Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Maricopa County, Arizona, would have had nobody moving there last year. That’s because more people already living in the country moved out of than into those counties. Miami-Dade County would have lost population without the immigrants, since the number of births outpacing deaths wasn’t enough to overcome the tens of thousands of residents who moved out.

Immigration in 2024 drove the overall U.S. population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents. The Census Bureau changed how it counted immigrants last year by including more people who were admitted to the U.S. for humanitarian, and often temporary, reasons.

“A substantial excess of births over deaths has long been the primary driver of U.S. population growth, but as this surplus dwindled in the last four years immigration provided the bulk of the nation’s population increase,” Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, said in an email.
Domestic vs. international migrants

The 2024 estimates reflect a continued dissonance this decade between where current U.S. residents and immigrants choose to live. Immigrants last year moved to the urban cores of metro areas, while those already living in the country preferred counties in the far suburban reaches of metro areas.

The most popular counties for international migrants last year were Miami-Dade and Harris counties, followed by Los Angeles County and Cook County, Illinois, which is home to Chicago.

The most popular counties for domestic residents last year were Montgomery County, Texas, north of Houston; Pinal County, Arizona, southwest of Phoenix; and Pasco County, Florida, northeast of Tampa. Also at the top ranks were Polk County, Florida, located between Orlando and Tampa, and Collin County, Texas, in the far northern suburbs of metro Dallas.
New York is on the rebound

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in 2020, the New York metro area and others with some of the densest populations in the U.S. lost tens of thousands of residents to relocation.

But the region has been on the rebound since the pandemic subsided. The New York metro area — the largest in the U.S. with 19.9 million people — added more people than any other metropolitan area in the country last year. As 147,000 residents moved out, nearly 288,000 immigrants moved in, including tens of thousands who arrived on buses provided by the state of Texas. San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are other metro areas that have gained population through international migration, after initially losing them during the pandemic.

The New York metro area also had the nation’s largest natural growth last year, with nearly 214,000 births outpacing 141,000 deaths.

South Florida last year jumped two spots over metro Washington and metro Atlanta to become the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. Metropolitan Charlotte, North Carolina, bypassed metro Baltimore for the 21st spot. Among counties, Tarrant County, Texas, home to Fort Worth, leapfrogged over San Bernardino County in South California as the nation’s 15th most populous county.

Deaths outpace births
in two-thirds of U.S. counties

Nearly two-thirds of the United States’ 3,144 counties grew last year. At the same, deaths outpaced births in two-thirds of U.S. counties, reflecting the reliance on immigration for growth throughout the United States in the years since the start of the pandemic. Nationwide, last year’s natural growth was less than half the average gain of 1.2 million people that the country experienced in the five years before the pandemic, Johnson said.

“These recent levels of natural decrease are unprecedented,” Johnson said.

New York steakhouse owner says he’ll sue after Dan Patrick eats a ‘Texas’ strip

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took to X Tuesday evening to tout the first-ever “Texas Strip” served with “Gulf of America shrimp,” a move which one New York steakhouse owner said he’ll be taking the state to court over. Patrick’s Texas-themed dinner, which cost $99, came after he announced plans to introduce a resolution in the Texas Senate to officially rename the popular steak cut after the Lone Star State. Rebranding the New York strip as the “Texas” strip, he said, would help the state’s cattle ranchers market their beef across the nation. While Patrick said Texas’ cattle industry “sure liked the idea,” Todd Shapiro, owner of the War Room Tavern in Albany, New York, said he will file a lawsuit in the coming weeks over the proposed name change.

“We have a big beef with your lieutenant governor,” Shapiro said. “They’re trying to take away something that’s part of our heritage. People grew up having a New York strip. People all over the country, they eat a New York strip. It’s part of the New York culture.” According to the Little Cattle Company, a Texas-based beef supplier, the New York strip got its name in the late 19th century after it was added to the menu at Delmonico’s, an upscale New York City restaurant that still exists today. Bob’s Steak and Chop House, where Patrick said he was served the “Texas” strip, still refers to it as the New York strip on its website. Bob’s also doesn’t source its beef from Texas, which is the largest produce of beef of any U.S. state, according to a 2022 report from the United States Department of Agriculture. Beef served at its locations, which range from Texas to Arizona, is purchased through “the Chicago-based Stock Yards Meat Packing Company,” according to the website for Bob’s Steak and Chop House. But Patrick said Texas should benefit from the cut’s branding, not “liberal” New York. “Liberal New York shouldn’t get the credit for our hard-working ranchers,” Patrick said in a late February post on X. “We promote the Texas brand on everything made or grown in Texas because it benefits our economy and jobs.”

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