Today is
Sunday July 19, 2026
NACOGDOCHES (KETK) — A Nacogdoches elementary school hosted a vigil on Sunday to honor the life of a fifth-grade student who was shot and killed over the Fourth of July weekend.
Community mourns 5 victims of Highway 155 crash near Lake Palestine
The vigil for 12-year-old Redarion Davis took place at 6 p.m. on Sunday in the Emeline Carpenter Elementary school parking lot where fellow students, staff, family and friends gathered together to honor his memory.
“It’s not easy to hurt. It won’t go away. The pain won’t stop taking place but it lets the family know that the community, his school and friends are there for them and with them,” Zion Hill Baptist Church pastor Donald Lacey said on Sunday.
Davis sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the head after being involved in a shooting on the fourth of July and later died from related injuries, the Nacogdoches Police Department confirmed.
The Nacogdoches Police Department said 19-year-old Zamarion Douglas has since been arrested and charged with injury to a child in connection to the shooting.
SAN AUGUSTINE (KETK) – The San Augustine Rural Water Supply issued a boil water notice for all of their customers on Sunday after a water line break happened in the City of San Augustine.
East Texas Rep. Moran mourns death of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham
Anyone on the San Augustine Rural Water Supply should bring any water for cleaning or consumption to a vigorous rolling boil for at least two minutes before use.
“Children, Seniors and Persons with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to harmful bacteria, and all customers should follow these directions,” the San Augustine Rural Water Supply said. “To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking and ice making should be boiled and cooled prior to use for drinking water or human consumption purposes.”
The supply said when when the notice is no longer necessary they’ll notify customers that they can go back to normal water use.
Anyone with questions is asked to contact the San Augustine Rural Water System in person at 220 W. Columbia Street in San Augustine or by phone at 936-288-0489.
TEXAS – A widespread and dangerous heat wave was building across the U.S. on Saturday, with triple-digit highs expected in the Southwest and Great Plains this weekend before spreading eastward under a dome of high pressure that meteorologists say could trap oppressive temperatures for a week or more.
Forecasters advised people to stay hydrated and find places to cool off, warning of temperatures 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (8 to 14 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal in many areas, including at night — especially bad for people’s health because their bodies won’t have a chance to recover. The heat dome was expected to affect as much as two-thirds of the continental United States.
“The heat doesn’t necessarily stop when it’s dark out,” said Josh Adam, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota, where temperatures will surpass 100 F (37 C) until Tuesday, a dramatic spike for a state where summer temperatures are typically in the 80s.
Tynika Smith of Bloomington, Minnesota, handed out frozen towels and wash cloths along with battery-operated fans at encampments of homeless people in nearby St. Paul and will continue next week, when temperatures are forecast to climb into the mid- to high 90s. The residents put the ice packs around their necks and on their heads.
“They can’t get into a car with air conditioning or go into a house,” said Smith, who also distributed water, freezer pops, food and hygiene supplies.
The encampments are so secluded that it’s difficult for the residents to walk or bicycle to cooling centers, she said. There also is little outside shade, while the temperature inside their tents gets even hotter than outdoors.
“I can only do so much,” Smith said, “but at least I can help them stay cool for a little bit.”
Temperature records expected to be broken
The National Weather Service predicted that more than 90 U.S. local temperature records will be tied or broken through Wednesday — with two-thirds of those being overnight heat records. Temperatures were not forecast to drop below 80 F (27 C) at night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Miami; Tampa, Florida; Galveston, Texas; and Charleston, South Carolina.
The heat dome — formed when high pressure traps hot air while blocking cooling winds and rain — is one of the strongest to affect the Dakotas in 25 years, said Chad Merrill, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.
Record triple-digit highs were forecast for the weekend in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas.
In Helena, Montana, where temperatures were expected to creep above 95 F (35 C), Last Chance Splash Waterpark & Pool was holding a swim meet for hundreds of swimmers.
The timing couldn’t be better, as it’s uncommon for Helena to get so hot, said Sean Swingley, assistant manager.
“It’s certainly a hot day, but the pool is nice and cool,” Swingley said. “Usually in the summer we have a couple 95 degree days, but it mostly hovers around 85 to 90 in June and July.”
Nevada, a state accustomed to hot weather, was even hotter than normal, said Andrew Gorelow, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Las Vegas. The temperature there was expected to hit 111 F (48 C) on Saturday, Gorelow said.
Hydrating and finding cool spaces is critical, experts said.
They also warned that the heat could spike fire risk in some parts of the country that already are dry, including the Rockies, where Merrill said dry thunderstorms could develop.
Climate change is supercharging heat
Climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is causing more intense and longer-lasting heat waves that cover larger areas, scientists say.
This year’s temperatures also are expected to be affected by El Nino, a natural warming of the equatorial Pacific that alters weather patterns and spikes temperatures across the globe.
The current El Nino — which formed last month and is too young to have affected this heat wave much — is expected to rank as among the most intense since the weather service began tracking the phenomena in 1950, experts said.
By fall it has an 81% chance of becoming “very strong” — the top category — according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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BOWIE COUNTY (KETK) – Four people were killed in a fatal two-vehicle crash on US Highway 259 on Saturday morning near DeKalb.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, a Nissan Altima was heading north along on US Highway 259 about four miles south of DeKalb in Bowie County at around 3:20 a.m. on Saturday.
DPS said the Nissan crossed into oncoming traffic in the southbound lane and collided head-on with a Dodge Charger that was heading south. Four people were pronounced dead at the scene including the three occupants of the Dodge, Joel Ellestad, 22, Payton Butler, 24, Ty Byrd, 20, and the driver of the Nissan, Dru Wilson, 23 of DeKalb.
“The entire Daingerfield-Lone Star ISD community extends its heartfelt condolences to the Butler, Byrd, and Ellestad families during this time of profound loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with each family as you grieve the loss of your loved ones,” Daingerfield-Lone Star ISD said on Friday. “We pray that you find strength in the love of family, the support of friends, and the cherished memories that will forever remain in your hearts. The Blue Tiger Family stands with you, lifting you in prayer and surrounding you with our love, care, and support.”
A DPS investigation into the crash is currently ongoing.
POLK COUNTY (KETK)– The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is seeking more information regarding a 36-year-old man who was arrested on Friday in connection with a woman’s murder.
According to the sheriff’s office, Cody Allen Laviolette was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and unlawful restraint in connection with a woman’s death in May. Laviolette’s mother was also arrested on Friday and charged with manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance.
Prior to the arrest, several women allegedly came forward to investigators to report their interactions with Laviolette, according to the sheriff’s office.
Additionally, the sheriff’s office said they have individuals who may have information about Laviolette but are believed to be reluctant to come forward due to the notion that Laviolette is protected by his family in Onalaska.
“The Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone who may have witnessed criminal activity involving Cody Laviolette or who believe they may have been a victim to contact investigators. Information provided by witnesses and victims may assist in addressing these matters and advancing the ongoing investigation,” the sheriff’s office said.
Polk County Sheriff’s Office seeking further information on suspect recently arrested in connection with a woman’s murder
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected an effort to defend the Texas Dream Act, leaving in place a ruling that ended a longstanding state law that allowed some undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said advocacy groups, Austin Community College and a student could not step into the case to defend the Texas Dream Act because federal law bars states from giving undocumented students a tuition benefit based on residency unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live.
The law allowed students who graduated from a Texas high school or earned an equivalent diploma in the state, lived in Texas and pledged to seek permanent residency when eligible to pay in-state tuition, even if they did not have legal immigration status.
Gov. Greg Abbott praised the 2-1 ruling on X, saying Texas and the Trump administration’s Justice Department “just secured another major victory for the rule of law.”
La Unión del Pueblo Entero and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund called the ruling a disappointment.
“Education is a human right, no matter someone’s immigration status or background,” said Tania Chavez Camacho, LUPE’s president and executive director.
Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, which represents Students for Affordable Tuition, said the organization would seek further review in federal court after consulting with its clients.
Saenz said the panel majority was “now complicit in one of the greatest juridical travesties in recent history,” referring to the swift end of the Texas Dream Act after Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office and the Trump administration agreed the law should be blocked.
Austin Community College said in a statement that it “remains focused on supporting all students and the community we serve” and would follow the law while continuing its mission to provide “accessible, high-quality education and opportunities for all.”
Marco Julian Gonzalez, a University of Texas at Austin business student whose fraternity and sister sorority backed the students in court, said the ruling was disheartening.
“We know who these people are and we know who they are not, and when you have politicians go on the airwaves and call our friends criminal illegal aliens we take offense and that kept us motivated to keep going,” Gonzalez said.
Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote the majority opinion for the 5th Circuit Court, joined by Judge Don Willett. Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez dissented.
Smith was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Willett by President Donald Trump, and Ramirez by President Joe Biden.
The background
Texas was the first state to let certain undocumented students pay in-state tuition when lawmakers passed the Texas Dream Act in 2001 with little debate and broad, bipartisan support.
The law, signed by the Republican former Gov. Rick Perry, allowed certain students without legal status to qualify if they graduated from a Texas high school or earned an equivalent diploma here, lived in the state for at least three years before graduating and signed an affidavit saying they would seek permanent residency as soon as they were eligible.
Supporters said Texas benefited from students educated in its K-12 schools by making college more affordable and moving them into the workforce. But as Republican politics shifted on immigration, the law became a target.
After multiple failed efforts from state lawmakers to change the law, U.S. Justice Department lawyers sued Texas last year. Paxton’s office quickly agreed the law conflicted with federal immigration law and asked a judge to block it. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor approved the agreement and blocked the law the same day.
Students for Affordable Tuition, La Unión del Pueblo Entero, Austin Community College and student Oscar Silva asked the court to let them defend the Texas Dream Act themselves.
Students for Affordable Tuition is a group of students who say they were harmed by the ruling. La Unión del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, is an immigrant-rights group. They asked to intervene along with Austin Community College and Silva, a University of North Texas graduate student who qualified for in-state tuition under the Texas Dream Act.
O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee who sits in the Northern District of Texas’ Wichita Falls division, rejected their request, so they appealed to the 5th Circuit.
What the students and immigrant advocates say
Advocacy groups Students for Affordable Tuition and LUPE, Austin Community College and Silva argued they have the legal right to intervene. They urged the court to apply a more lenient standard for intervention instead of requiring proof that their defense of the Texas Dream Act would ultimately succeed.
Students for Affordable Tuition said the stakes are concrete for its members, who “face significant increases in their higher education costs, putting college out of reach for many of them, some of whom have already spent years in college and will not be able to complete their specific program.”
“The people of Texas are entitled to genuine litigation before a federal court invalidates their democratically enacted statute,” lawyers said in a legal brief to the 5th Circuit.
Thomas Saenz, the lead lawyer for Students for Affordable Tuition, also stressed that affected students did not get due process because of how quickly the Texas Dream Act was overturned.
It is “important to emphasize here how extraordinary that it all occurred as quickly as it did,” Saenz told the 5th Circuit during oral arguments on June 4. “The court needs to look at whether this extraordinary situation violated due process rights held by students for affordable tuition and the other students who benefited or would benefit in the future.”
The groups believed the Texas Dream Act did not conflict with federal law because eligibility was not based solely on residency. Students also had to graduate from a Texas high school or earn an equivalent diploma here, live in the state for at least three years before graduating and sign an affidavit saying they would seek permanent residency as soon as they were eligible.
What the federal government says
Justice Department lawyers sued Texas, saying the Texas Dream Act violated a 1996 federal immigration law. That federal law says states cannot give people who are not lawfully present a higher education benefit unless U.S. citizens can get the same benefit, no matter where they live.
U.S. Department of Justice attorneys arguedvthat the Texas Dream Act so clearly conflicted with federal immigration law that allowing others to intervene and defend it would be futile.
“We opposed intervention … only on the grounds that it’s legally futile because the statutes are preempted,” Andrew Marshall Bernie, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, told the appeals court during oral arguments last month.
Responding to concerns over due process, Bernie argued courts are not constitutionally required to hear from outside groups when a state law is challenged for violating a federal statute. In the end, he said, the outside groups did get due process because their arguments have been heard by the trial court and the 5th Circuit.
Broader impact
The Texas Dream Act opened higher education to more than 57,000 students, lawyers for LUPE, ACC and Silva told the court. The end of the law could cost Texas hundreds of millions of dollars a year through reduced wages, earnings and consumer spending, lawyers for LUPE, ACC and Silva told the court. ACC said it expected lost revenue, administrative burdens and negative effects on programs and services if the ruling remains in place.
Since O’Connor blocked the Texas Dream Act last year, students and colleges across the state have faced confusion over who still qualifies for in-state tuition.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board told colleges to identify and reclassify students who are not lawfully present as nonresidents but did not provide clarity on how to do so. That uncertainty led at least one student with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, to be initially charged out-of-state tuition, The Texas Tribune previously reported.
Students for Affordable Tuition told the 5th Circuit that several Texas colleges had charged DACA recipients out-of-state rates, even though Texas lawyers said they should still qualify for in-state tuition.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
HOUSTON (AP) — Three men inside a van who witnessed the fatal shooting of the driver by an immigration officer in Houston said the Mexican man was shot through a passenger window and that the officer was never threatened, a lawyer who has spoken with them said Friday.
The shooting Tuesday during an attempted traffic stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Houston has revived critical voices deriding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and how ICE operates. Immigration arrests around the country recently surged to 10,000 over a five-day period, fueled in part by massive Congressional funding.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released no evidence to support the officer’s story that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo ignored their commands and rammed into an ICE vehicle with his white van, or that the officer fired in self-defense.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia has said the acting director of ICE told her officers thought someone in the van, but not Salgado Araujo, had a final order of removal but did not share a name.
The officers were not wearing body cameras and neither ICE nor DHS have released photos, videos or other evidence from the scene.
The men tell an attorney that the ICE story is untrue
Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old homebuilder who was shot and killed as he was driving his crew to a construction site. His family said he had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed.
ICE detained the other three men in the van and they all told a lawyer that no officer was in front of the van or even in danger.
“After speaking with these men, I have no doubt that what they’re saying is the truth. I know that these agents — the agency — is going to try to cover it up,” attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said during a news conference.
Images of the van after the shooting appear to show no damage, he said.
ICE has not released the names of the detained men, but family members said they have been able to briefly talk with them. Salgado Araujo’s brother was among those arrested.
Garcia said at the same news conference it was unsurprising that Salgado Araujo drove off when ICE tried to stop his vehicle, given that their vehicles were unmarked and had no lights.
“What would you do if you were being followed by someone and the cars were unmarked?” Garcia said.
Salgado Araujo was at least the eighth person to die during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign. No immigration officers have been charged in the killings and video footage in several previous shootings has contradicted the accounts of federal officers.
The detained men say ICE is pressuring them to self-deport
ICE is pressuring the men to self-deport, which would make it harder for them to share their version of events with investigators or others, said Juana Degollado, who said her stepfather Daniel Tirado Pantoja is among the detained men. She said he has no legal permission to live in the U.S. but has no criminal record.
“It is extremely important that we preserve the integrity of this investigation,” Balderas-Ibarra said. “That will all be out the window if they are deported.”
DHS said allegations that the men have been pressured to leave the country are “categorically false.”
DHS said Thursday that officers investigating a tip weeks earlier saw two white vans at the address of a target. While heading to that address Tuesday, officers saw a white van and someone inside who resembled the person they were looking for, the department said in a statement.
“No one in that van had warrants or any legal problem,” Degollado told The Associated Press in a text message.
ICE refuses to release officer’s name or other information
DHS said it will not release the officer’s name because they could face threats and violence and their family could be at risk.
DHS also has not responded to requests for other information, including how long the officer has worked for ICE or whether anyone involved in the shooting is on administrative leave.
Unlike some previous deaths involving federal immigration officers, few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since Salgado Araujo’s death.
The League of United Latin American Citizens offered a $5,000 reward for video or other evidence, but the positions of the vehicles means surveillance cameras in the area were blocked from recording the shooting, CEO Juan Proaño said.
Local prosecutors are talking to witnesses
Local prosecutors were not invited into the investigation by federal officials but have spent the past three days in the Houston neighborhood looking for surveillance footage and talking to witnesses, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said.
Teare said anyone with video or other information must share it with his office so the truth about the shooting can be determined.
“We will go to the ends of the earth to collect all the evidence, so that we can eventually let the public know what happened,” Teare said.
The FBI is tightly controlling the evidence in the case, but Houston Mayor John Whitmire said he wants a local independent investigation and the police chief will meet with federal investigators next week to see what can be done.
“We recognize that it is a federal police agency that was out of control Tuesday morning,” Whitmire said.
Houston police do not work with ICE and the mayor said he found out about the shooting from the media.
Salgado Araujo’s family said they found out he was dead through the ICE statement instead of directly from the agency. Garcia said officers kept his belongings and sent him to the hospital where he died without including his name.
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Brook reported from New Orleans and Foley from Iowa City, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Rebecca Santana in Washington; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.
Both engines flamed out on a small business jet that crashed on a Texas highway in June, preventing the pilots from being able to reach a nearby airport, the National Transportation Safety Board said in an preliminary investigation report released Friday.
Pilots had looked for a field or other flat areas to land before the crash, but were told by air traffic controllers that there were none close by. The crash killed one person and injured six.
According to the report, the flight crew noticed an “unusual vibration” early in the flight that they had not experienced before. The plane had departed the Mexican resort city of San José del Cabo on its way to Austin, and it was determined that they could proceed to their final destination after discussing it with staff at NetJets, the company that operated the jet.
As the jet approached the U.S.-Mexico border, the flight crew received a message indicating that the right fuel system had low fuel pressure, followed by more messages, and the crew declared an emergency.
The flight crew reported a generator failure and “multiple other failures” to Houston air traffic controllers, such as “fuel level low,” and requested to divert to Laredo International Airport, according to the report. The jet was cleared but while it was on its final approach, the right engine “flamed out,” followed by the left engine moments later.
Video footage showed “two instances of fire flaring up around the airplane as it was on final approach,” the report states.
A pilot asked the Laredo air traffic control tower if there was a field to their right, and an air traffic controller replied that there was not. After the pilot again asked about open area to their right, an air traffic controller replied, “It’s just going to be the main highway, and that’s just about it.”
The flight crew “maneuvered the airplane to touch down” on the highway about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) southeast of the airport. As the jet touched down, it “sheared off several light poles,” struck a vehicle and ended up straddling the edge of an overpass with the main cabin exit door facing up. The door was eventually opened and five people escaped.
The NTSB report also asserts that the jet’s right engine starter generator was “missing multiple screws from the outer housing.” Alan Diehl, a former NTSB investigator, said the jet’s problems likely stemmed from the missing screws and that the flight crew and air traffic controllers acted professionally with the information they had at the time.
“Sounds like the fuel lines, because of the vibration caused by the starter generator’s missing screws, initiated a whole series of cascading events that led to the emergency loss of power,” Diehl said.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former Federal Aviation Administration and NTSB investigator, said signs point to an “airworthiness issue.”
“That might tie back to maintenance procedures from when that unit was overhauled or when the fuel system and fuel sensors were tested,” Guzzetti said.
The fiery crash in Laredo near the Mexican border had sent bystanders racing from their cars to help police rescue passengers and crew from the burning aircraft. Video from the scene showed someone trying to smash the cockpit glass with a sledgehammer, while others used makeshift levers as they worked to open the plane’s door. Local officials said a firefighter entered the smoke-filled jet to extract one person still inside after the rest had escaped.
The jet “sustained substantial damage” to its fuselage, both wings, and the tail, according to the NTSB report.
Two pilots and three teenagers survived the crash and were released from the hospital, according to the Laredo Police Department. A dog on board suffered smoke inhalation but was expected to survive, Jose Baeza, an investigator with the police department, said in June.
The crash killed Joshua Baer, a leader in Texas’ technology and startup sectors.
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This story has been updated to correct the name of the company that operated the jet. It is NetJets, not NetsJet.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Crews are again draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as President Donald Trump’s problem-plagued efforts to revamp the waterway pushes well past his initial goal of having it ready by July 4 to mark the nation’s 250th birthday.
The president at first suggested his renovations would last a century. But, within weeks of the project originally reaching completion last month, the water was beset by an algae bloom and pieces of the new coating appeared to be peeling off the bottom.
Trump has blamed the peeling on vandals, though critics allege it’s from shoddy repair work.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose agency oversees the National Park Service, told conservative podcaster Katie Miller in an interview released earlier this week that the new round of draining was planned. He also said that the water might still contain debris from an extensive Independence Day fireworks display over the National Mall.
“Drain the water, clean up the fireworks stuff,” Burgum told Miller, who is the wife of deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller. “Repair the vandalism that was done. Fill it back up again.”
The work on the Reflecting Pool is just one of a number of projects Trump has spearheaded across the nation’s capital. Most prominently, he demolished the White House’s East Wing to build a $400 million ballroom and plans to build a towering arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
He initially announced his intentions to beautify the Reflecting Pool this spring, saying he wanted it completed before the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations.
Water was drained and Trump directed that the bottom be painted what he called “American flag blue.” In May, the president posted on his social media site of the pool: “The goal is to have it done, at this higher level, prior to July 4th — We are ahead of schedule!”
But problems began quickly after the initial work was finished. Trump blamed vandals, and court documents later showed that the National Park Service reported to the U.S. Park Police a June 9 incident in which a sharp knife or razor cut the pool’s new liner.
On Thursday, former Olympic canoe racer David Hearn pleaded not guilty in D.C. Superior Court to deliberately damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn has said he reached inside the pool to examine the peeled sealant and let go of a chunk when he was told to by a park worker.
His attorneys and other Trump administration critics have derided the case as an abuse of prosecutorial power and maintain he is being scapegoated for the poor job done fixing up the Reflecting Pool.
At least three other people have been charged in the same court with misdemeanors for allegedly removing pieces of paint from the Reflecting Pool, according to online court records. All three pleaded not guilty during their initial court appearances Wednesday.
The pool was closed for the Independence Day celebration, which featured what Trump said was the largest fireworks display in the world. The president had said that the pool would have to be drained anew as part of the new round of repairs.
Burgum has also said that the Trump administration won’t seek bids for the new rounds of repairs. He told CNN’s “State of the Union” last weekend: “We’ll use the same company because they did a fantastic job.”
Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract to install a water-purification system in the Reflecting Pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.
Democratic senators and House members are investigating the pool project, including seeking answers about how much taxpayer funding is involved.
HOUSTON (AP) — Federal officials are refusing to release the name of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop in Houston, and scrutiny of the shooting is growing after authorities said the man killed was not the person ICE was trying to find.
The shooting in Houston has revived critical voices deriding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and how ICE operates, especially after immigration arrests around the country surged to 10,000 over a recent five-day period, fueled in part by massive Congressional funding.
No evidence has emerged to support the Department of Homeland Security’s version of events that led to the killing early Tuesday of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — that he rammed an ICE vehicle when it was chasing his white van and that an officer opened fire in self-defense.
Three other men inside the van told an attorney that officers are lying about what happened and that Salgado Araujo did not ram an ICE vehicle but that he was shot through the passenger side window.
The officers were not wearing body cameras and neither ICE nor DHS, which oversees that agency, have released photos, videos or other evidence from the scene.
Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old homebuilder who was shot and killed as he drove his crew to a construction site, was not who ICE was looking for, Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said. Salgado Araujo’s family said he had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed.
ICE detained the other three men in the van and a lawyer who said he has spoken to them said the version told by DHS is “completely false.”
“At no point did they ever use the van to ram into the ICE agents and at no point were these ICE agents lives ever in danger,” attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said on Instagram.
The other men detained by ICE included Salgado Araujo’s brother. ICE has not released their names, but family members said they have been able to briefly talk with them.
ICE is pressuring the men to self-deport which would make it harder for them to share their version of events with investigators or others, and Daniel Tirado Pantoja has no legal permission to live in the U.S. but has no criminal record, his stepdaughter said.
“We just told him not to sign anything, that we’re going to fight this case,” Juana Degollado told The Associated Press.
DHS said these allegations are “categorically false.”
When asked if officers were specifically targeting Salgado Araujo, DHS said Thursday that officers investigating a tip weeks before the shooting saw two white vans at the address of a target. While heading to that address Tuesday, officers saw a white van and someone inside who resembled the person they were looking for, the department said in a statement.
DHS said it will not release the officer’s name because they could face threats and violence and their family could be at risk.
DHS also has not responded to requests for other information, including how long the officer has worked for ICE or whether anyone involved in the shooting is administrative leave. The department has taken a similar stance after previous fatal shootings involving its officers, unlike many local and state agencies that routinely identify and provide biographical details about officers involved in critical incidents.
Unlike some previous deaths involving federal immigration officers, few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since Salgado Araujo’s death.
The League of United Latin American Citizens offered a $5,000 reward for video or other evidence but the positions of the vehicles means surveillance cameras in the area were blocked from recording the shooting, Proaño said.
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GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — Wally Funk, an aviation pioneer who was the oldest woman to launch into space, has died. She was 87.
Funk died Wednesday at her apartment in an assisted living facility in the Dallas and Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, Texas, Grapevine City Councilwoman Duff O’Dell said Thursday. O’Dell, who described herself as Funk’s caregiver, said she was by Funk’s side. Funk had fallen a couple of times recently and had an infection in her leg.
“It took its toll,” O’Dell said in a phone interview.
Funk was one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests as NASA’s all-male astronaut corps in the early 1960s but never made it into space with that agency. In 2021, she got her chance aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket.
At the time, the 82-year-old was the oldest person to go into space, though the record was later broken by “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and Ed Dwight, America’s first Black astronaut candidate. They were both 90.
Bezos chose Funk as an “honored guest” to ride alongside him and two others on an up-and-down hop from West Texas.
In a post on X, Blue Origin said Funk was a “pioneer in every sense of the word.”
“We were humbled to be part of her journey,” the post said.
O’Dell said Funk was the “most eternally optimistic person” she had ever met.
“She was told by many, many, many men, ‘No, you can’t do this. No you can’t do that,’ ” O’Dell said. “And she never got mad about it. She just was more determined.”
Funk was the first female inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration and the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, according to a brief biography released by the City of Grapevine.
In the 1960s, she and other female pilots went through astronaut training in the Mercury 13 program, but they were not allowed to become astronauts.
“Wally Funk never stopped believing that one day she would reach space. Her passion for flight, perseverance, and love of exploration will continue to inspire generations of Americans. Godspeed, Wally,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted Thursday on X.
HOUSTON – A Mexican man living in the U.S. who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was not the person federal authorities had been targeting in a Houston operation, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said Thursday.
The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the Houston neighborhood where the shooting occurred, said acting ICE Director David Venturella told her the agency has confirmed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “was not a target.”
Salgado Araujo was a homebuilder who had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed early Tuesday morning, according to his family.
“We’ve got to do something. This is just one more death too many,” Garcia said in an interview with MS Now. “And if we’ve got to bring outside, independent folks to come in and look at it, we should do that.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return an email seeking comment late Thursday.
DHS, which oversees ICE, previously said that federal officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest a person in the country without legal status when they attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Salgado Araujo. The agency has said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and that a federal officer fired a weapon in self-defense.
Asked whether ICE agents had been specifically targeting Salgado Araujo, DHS said earlier Thursday that officers had been surveilling a property where they had previously observed two white vans.
“On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop,” the department said.
The federal agents weren’t wearing body-worn cameras, DHS said, and few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since the encounter, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.
In a statement, DHS said the agents at the scene in Houston had not yet been issued body cameras, which it blamed on Democrats and a record government shutdown that was fueled by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, a Democrat who also represents Houston, said if the agents didn’t have the devices, it was because Trump and Republican lawmakers did not want them to be carrying them.
“Houston is done accepting excuses from an agency that has more money than it knows what to do with and still can’t manage basic accountability,” he said in a statement.
The Harris County District Attorney’s office said it would conduct an investigation into the shooting. The office is consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, to learn how they have navigated investigations into federal immigration agents, spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre said.
“Although access to key evidence remains under federal control, we are pursuing investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our reach,” Lemaitre said in an emailed statement.
Three men, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, were detained by ICE during the fatal traffic stop, according to Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who has been communicating with their families.
LULAC has yet to obtain video footage that clearly shows what happened during the moments of the shooting and has offered a reward of $5,000 for information from witnesses, Proaño told The Associated Press. The position of Salgado Araujo’s van and ICE vehicles has obstructed security camera footage LULAC has reviewed, he added.
“It’s going to make it even more difficult to find the truth in all this,” he said.
DHS said the ICE agents involved in the incident were expected to receive body-worn cameras in the next 60 days.
In the aftermath of the fatal Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats had refused to fund ICE and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations designed to increase accountability and transparency. Republicans in Congress eventually passed legislation funding just ICE and CBP for three years.
LUFKIN — Sensitive information may have been stolen from a Lufkin accounting firm, a cyberthreat intelligence program reported in late June, according to our news partner, KETK. SOCRadar, which is an extended threat intelligence platform, helps warn organizations of cyber threats. It found that the accounting firm Todd, Hamaker & Johnson was attacked by ransomware Akira on June 30.
Approximately 40 gigabytes of client and employee data were breached in the attack, and Akira is threatening to release the information publicly, the Lufkin Daily News reported. Akira uses ransomware to impact a wide range of businesses in North America, Europe and Australia, threatening to breach and release information that is sensitive, according to the FBI.
Since 2023, Akira has been known to attack small to medium-sized businesses specialized in many industries, including financial services.
SOCRadar says Akira uses “double extortion tactics,” which encrypt data and exfiltrate sensitive information to pressure victims. The accounting firm has not commented to confirm the information breach, when contacted by news media.
HOPKINS COUNTY (KETK) — An East Texas breeder pleaded guilty last week to four counts of wire fraud after a viral dog shooting video led to the discovery of her unlicensed breeding facility in December 2025.
Kirstine Michelle Hicks, owner of Giant German Shepherds, appeared in federal court after being arrested on Dec. 21, 2025, for a social media video depicting her allegedly shooting at a dog three times and leaving it for dead, spurring an investigation into her breeding facilities.
In March, she was indicted for acting as an unlicensed animal dealer and four counts of wire fraud.
Further investigation found that Hicks had as many as 131 German shepherds on her property in devastating conditions by the end of December 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas said.
Additionally, the investigation into Giant German Shepherds found that Hicks has been running the business fraudulently. She advertised dogs as healthy, met certified parentage and were American Kennel Club (AKC) registered though the indictment found that they were not.
Information presented in court determined that the representations of the dogs she was selling online were false. Instead of selling purebred and AKC-registered dogs, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Hicks sold mixed-breed dogs that were unhealthy, with fabricated documentation for an inflated price.
A March indictment identifies four alleged victims of Hicks’ wire fraud scheme, including a disabled veteran who prosecutors say received an aggressive dog accompanied by falsified paperwork. The dog reportedly had undisclosed medical issues and bit the buyer multiple times, drawing blood.
The indictment also states that Hicks knowingly violated the Animal Welfare Act by not obtaining a license from the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture before selling or transporting dogs from June 2024 to December 2025.
On Wednesday, Hicks pleaded guilty to the four counts of wire fraud before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Love. She could face up to 20 years in federal prison.
“The depraved indifference to animal suffering we witnessed in this case was shocking,” United States Attorney Jay R. Combs said. “My office will continue to advocate for the victims who were defrauded by the defendant, as well as the animals who suffered, and often died, in cruel conditions. The concerned citizens who brought this to light are to be commended, along with the amazing animal rescue organizations who worked so hard to assist in caring for the animals, most especially Big Dog Ranch Rescue.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street and oil prices are holding steadier following their sharp swings the day before in the wait to see what will come next after President Donald Trump raised doubts about the temporary truce in the war with Iran. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% early Thursday, even though the United States launched new airstrikes against Iran, which responded by targeting U.S. allies in the Middle East. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 33 points, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%. The price of Brent crude slipped 0.3% after rising sharply a day earlier. Indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
AUSTIN (The Texas Tribune) – Texans lost more than $1 billion to scams involving cryptocurrency in 2025, according to the FBI, second only to California in the amount siphoned away by fraudsters.
Scams using crypto often involve fraudulent investment opportunities, but criminals are increasingly turning to the digital currency as a fast payoff that is difficult for law enforcement to track.
With cryptocurrency scams on the rise, here’s what to look for and what to do if targeted by scammers.
What are the most common cryptocurrency scams in Texas?
Scams generally fall into two categories, said Michael Levine, chief felony prosecutor for the Cyber and Financial Crimes Division of the Harris County district attorney’s office.
The most common are investment schemes where victims buy fraudulent cryptocurrencies or use crypto to invest in fake businesses.
Even legitimate-looking websites can be a front for a fraudulent operation, Levine said, which is why it’s important to vet sites by seeing if the company has been written about in reputable publications or approved by certain banks.
“The software in these things is wonderful, it looks just like an Ameritrade or E-Trade,” Levine said. “It looks just like a legitimate trading platform to the victim, and because it’s all fake, it looks like they’re making a lot of money.”
The best way to ensure your money is safely invested in cryptocurrency is to use verified, known exchanges. Be sure to do research beforehand or ask your banking institution for guidance.
Another common technique — known as romance scams or “pig butchering,” playing on the image of fattening a hog for slaughter — entices would-be victims through flattery and kindness. Once a relationship is established, the victim is directed to invest through a website or app, or directly asked for money through cryptocurrency.
Scammers are also impersonating law enforcement or state agencies, sometimes providing names of real people who work at the departments they are impersonating. Common tactics include telling victims they missed jury duty and now owe fines, or that someone falsified their signature on a legal document.
To bolster the illusion, scammers can “spoof” phone numbers, allowing them to call victims from numbers of reputable sources like a sheriff’s department or city clerk. The easiest way to determine whether you’re speaking to someone from the agency is to simply hang up and call back, or visit in person.
Texas has also seen a spike in cryptocurrency kiosk scams, ATM-like machines that convert cash to digital currency. Scammers impersonating bank employees or law enforcement direct people to pay bail money or transfer “vulnerable” account funds into these machines, which then send crypto directly to the scammer.
No bank or government agency, including a court, police department or licensing board, will ask for cryptocurrency or request payment through a crypto kiosk. If asked to do so, contact your local authorities.
How can I tell if I’m being scammed?
Whether receiving a phone call from someone claiming to be with law enforcement or a text message about a quick investment opportunity, watch out for:
• Strangers offering business opportunities over social media or text.
• Phone numbers that don’t match the official contact info of an agency or business.
• Conversations directed to a third-party app like WhatsApp or Telegram.
• Being discouraged from sharing your situation or the conversation with others, sometimes under threat of financial or legal consequences.
• Being sent official looking legal documents by text message.
• Being provided a callback number that doesn’t match the original caller’s number.
What if I’m scammed or know someone who was swindled?
After ensuring those involved in a scam are safe, immediately contact your banking institution and local law enforcement to file a police report. Be sure to keep all records, documents and messages involved in the scam.
You should also submit complaints and reports to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as IC3, and the Texas attorney general’s office. IC3 gathers data and complaints to help track scammers, and the attorney general can take action against businesses that falsely advertise services.
Because cryptocurrency is able to move so quickly once deposited into a digital wallet, most law enforcement agencies have roughly 36 to 48 hours to secure stolen funds. Most victims do not recover stolen money — but officials stress that reporting the scam is still important.
Scamming victims often feel shame or guilt about being tricked — a side effect that can deter reporting and hurt victims long after the fraud. Yet being victimized by fraud is not uncommon: one in four U.S. adults have been scammed in their lifetime, according to a 2025 Gallup poll, and one in 10 report being scammed more than once.
“There’s a saying in the [scam] world that no one is unscammable, you just haven’t tried the right script yet,” Levine said. “Please don’t feel like you must be a fool if you fall for one of these scams.”
Who is most at risk for cryptocurrency scams?
Those 60 or older are the most frequently targeted for cryptocurrency scams and who lose the most money, according to FBI data, but anyone is susceptible to scams. Those over 60 lost more than $396 million in 2025 in Texas.
For those with family members who are older or less technologically savvy, it can be helpful to walk them through how to identify spam texts or calls and ask them to inform you whenever strangers ask for money.
How is Texas responding to crypto scams?
Texas has a Financial Crimes Intelligence Center based in Smith County that helps law enforcement statewide investigate financial crimes, including cryptocurrency scams. The Texas State Securities Board also investigates fraudulent cryptocurrency activity.
Before the start of the next legislative session in January, state lawmakers are holding committee hearings on a list of issues designated by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the Senate and House Speaker Dustin Burrows. Those topics include reducing elder fraud and regulating cryptocurrency and associated technologies, including crypto kiosks.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
LUBBOCK (The Texas Tribune) – Faculty groups sued Texas Tech Chancellor Brandon Creighton and the university system’s regents Wednesday, asking a federal judge in El Paso to block classroom restrictions they say have censored professors who teach about race, gender identity and sexual orientation and intentionally discriminated against Black faculty.
The lawsuit, brought by the Texas American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers and the national American Association of University Professors, challenges two memos Creighton issued after becoming chancellor last year.
The groups argue the restrictions outlined in the memos violate the First Amendment by allowing Texas Tech officials to suppress viewpoints they dislike, violate the Fourteenth Amendment by leaving professors unsure what they can teach without being disciplined and discriminate against Black faculty by singling out instruction about Black history, racial inequality and efforts to remedy it.
Creighton’s first memo, issued Dec. 1, told faculty they could face discipline if they did not comply with new limits on course content involving race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. It required faculty to submit course material related to those topics for regents to review and approve.
A second memo, issued April 9, went further, ordering the phase-out of academic programs centered on sexual orientation and gender identity and requiring professors in core and lower-level undergraduate courses to use alternate materials if readings, assignments or lectures included those topics.
The memo said some material could still be taught if needed for patient care, professional credentials or advanced coursework, but the lawsuit argues those exceptions were applied inconsistently.
The policies apply across the five-institution system, which includes Texas Tech University, two health sciences centers, Angelo State University and Midwestern State University.
The complaint includes new accounts of how the restrictions have been applied. It alleges a Texas Tech Health Sciences Center professor in Lubbock was told medical students could not participate in or observe care for transgender patients, even when those patients sought treatment for unrelated conditions such as hypertension, migraines or cancer. It also says a professor was told a Holocaust course would have to leave the core curriculum if it included instruction on gay and bisexual victims of the Nazis, and that regents barred professors from teaching Plato’s Republic and Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ National Book Award-winning book about racism in America.
The complaint also alleges an instructor at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center El Paso was told to not use the word “disparity” in class, affecting their ability to adequately teach students because El Paso County residents have a higher prevalence of diabetes. In addition, women along the Texas-Mexico border have a higher rate of cervical cancer mortality, children are hospitalized more for asthma in border counties, and the pregnancy-related mortality rate among Black women in Texas is 2.5 times higher than that of white women, according to the complaint.
One of the medical-training allegations underscores the lawsuit’s claim that Texas Tech’s stated exceptions were confusing and inconsistently applied. Creighton’s memos said some material could still be taught when needed for patient care or professional credentials. But the complaint says the Lubbock professor was initially required to remove material about transgender and intersex patients from a medical school course, even though the professor considered it vital to the course and necessary for medical certification exams. The professor was later told medical students could treat transgender patients during third- and fourth-year clinical rotations, according to the complaint, but only after some students’ rotations had already passed.
The groups are asking a judge to declare Creighton’s memos unconstitutional and block the system from enforcing them or any similar policy. The lawsuit, saying faculty members have already had to certify compliance for summer and fall courses, argues the restrictions will continue to harm them as well as deprive students of instruction they would otherwise receive.
A Texas Tech System spokeswoman rejected the lawsuit’s allegations.
“Our commitment to academic integrity and the First Amendment rights of our students will not be distracted by lawsuits as we continue to deliver rigorous academic programs, relevant coursework and groundbreaking research,” spokeswoman Erin Wilson said in a statement.
Wilson also pushed back on several allegations in the complaint. Teaching about civil rights and historical events, including Nazi crimes, is permitted and instructors are not required to redact or remove works when sexual orientation or gender identity appears in adopted, industry-standard text or as an incidental reference, she said.
The board of regents also has not altered or rejected any course at Texas Tech’s health sciences centers, she said.
Creighton has previously defended the restrictions as necessary to comply with state and federal law and ensure students are provided with “degrees of value.”
In a December interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education cited in the complaint, Creighton said Texas Tech works to send a message that its “door is open to every walk of life” and said the restrictions were meant to foster “diversity of viewpoint.” Asked whether restricting teaching on gender identity, sexuality and race helped achieve that, Creighton said yes and described the guidance as a “continuum of common sense.”
Creighton, a former Republican state senator, became chancellor in November. In the Senate, he chaired the Higher Education Committee and authored Senate Bill 37, a 2025 law that gave governor-appointed regents more authority over curriculum. Creighton’s Dec. 1 memo described Texas Tech’s course review as the “first step” in implementing that law.
The lawsuit argues Creighton’s memos go beyond what lawmakers ultimately passed. An earlier version of SB 37 would have required regents to eliminate curriculum that taught “identity politics” or was based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression or privilege are inherent in the U.S. or Texas institutions. That language did not become part of the law, but the faculty groups argue Creighton later imposed those restrictions after becoming chancellor.
The complaint points to his broader record as a lawmaker to support its claim that the memos were motivated, at least in part, by racial discrimination. It says that after the George Floyd protests, Creighton opposed efforts to remove Confederate monuments and symbols, backed unsuccessful restrictions on teaching called critical race theory at public universities and colleges and authored Senate Bill 17, the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices and programs in higher education.
“Chancellor Creighton is trying to do through fiat what he couldn’t accomplish in the Texas legislature: erase the history, identities and lived experiences of LGBTQ people and people of color from the classroom,” said Nicholas Hite, senior attorney at Lambda Legal.
The faculty groups are represented by Lambda Legal, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
Texas Tech is not the only Texas university system to restrict course content involving race, gender identity or sexual orientation. Texas A&M University System regents approved a similar policy in November, after a viral recording showed a student confronting a Texas A&M professor over gender identity content in a children’s literature class. That controversy led to the professor’s firing, the removal of two college leaders from their administrative roles and the resignation of the university president as well as a systemwide course audit.
The A&M policy, which was approved before Creighton’s memos, says no system academic course may advocate “race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless the course and relevant materials are approved in advance by the university president. It also says faculty may not teach material inconsistent with a course’s approved syllabus.
Asked why the groups sued Texas Tech and not Texas A&M, Texas AAUP-AFT President Teresa Klein said the organizations are focused on Texas Tech for now but “will be exploring everything.”
Antonio Ingram II, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said Texas Tech represents “one of the most egregious forms of censorship we’ve seen nationwide,” pointing to restrictions on graduate student research and the closure of entire departments. A favorable ruling could affect other systems, including Texas A&M and the University of Texas System, though additional lawsuits might still be needed, he said.
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
Disclosure: Chronicle of Higher Education, Open Campus, Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Texas Tech University System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
AUSTIN (The Texas Tribune) – State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, raised a staggering $30 million from April through June, his campaign announced Wednesday — more than triple the amount brought in by his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The haul is a record total for a U.S. Senate candidate in the second quarter of an election year, Talarico’s campaign said, noting he has now raised more than $70 million from over 1.5 million donations, including 780,000 individual contributors, since launching his bid in September.
“I’m honored to stand alongside more than 780,000 neighbors who are tired of being divided into teams — red versus blue, left versus right, rural versus urban,” Talarico, D-Austin, said in a statement. “We are uniting Texans onto one team to change this broken, corrupt political system and bring down costs for working families.”
Earlier Wednesday, Paxton’s campaign said he had raised over $9 million in the second quarter of the year — a personal best and the largest amount announced by any non-incumbent Senate GOP candidate this cycle, per his campaign. Both campaigns had yet to file their second-quarter reports, due July 15 to the Federal Election Commission, identifying their donors and how much cash they have on hand.
Talarico’s mammoth fundraising has boosted Democratic hopes that he could become the first Democrat to turn a Senate seat blue since 1988, particularly against Paxton, the Republican nominee who has historically posted relatively weak fundraising totals. Some of Talarico’s fundraising edge could be neutralized, however, by a recent Supreme Court ruling that empowers Paxton to tap into the national GOP’s deep coffers.
Recent public polling has found the race essentially tied.
Talarico’s second-quarter haul easily outpaced those of Texas’ recent Democratic Senate nominees, including the $10.4 million raised by former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke in the same period in 2018. Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred raised $7.9 million from April through June 2024 on his way to besting O’Rourke’s then-record fundraising.
Talarico broke records in the first three months of this year, too, when he took in a whopping $27 million — more than any other federal candidate in the country over that stretch.
“Running a truly competitive campaign in a state with nearly three times the population of any other battleground state will take unprecedented resources,” Talarico campaign manager Seth Krasne said in a statement. “While the Supreme Court creates new loopholes for billionaires and special interests to prop up their puppets, we’re going to continue building a movement to take back power for working people. Because Big Money is nothing compared to People Power.”
Talarico has sworn off corporate PAC donations, and his campaign said 97% of donations to his bid were $100 or less. The most common profession among his contributors, his campaign added, was teachers.
Texas did not land on national Democrats’ initial list of top Senate targets this cycle, with Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio seen as the party’s prime pickup opportunities. But turmoil surrounding Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee in Maine, this week has sharpened the importance of Talarico’s campaign to Democrats’ quest to retake the Senate.
Platner ended his bid Wednesday after a woman who dated him told Politico he raped her nearly five years ago and numerous Democrats called on him to drop out of the race. He has denied the allegation.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KETK)– Stephen F. Austin State University announced earlier this week that it has approved a plan to phase out its Early Childhood Laboratory (ECHL) over the next five years.
According to the university, under the new plan, the ECHL will no longer allow infants to enroll in the program starting at the beginning of the 2027-2028 school year. Additionally, children already enrolled in the program will be able to remain through completion.
A part of the university’s decision to phase out the ECHL, which once provided valuable learning opportunities, was due to fewer SFA students completing observations and clinical experiences there. The university said the decline was due to changes in the academic program landscape.
Financial concerns moving forward also forced the university to phase out the ECHL, after it claimed it had put $750,000 into the program over the past five years without receiving any revenue in return.
“This decision reflects the university’s responsibility to balance rising operating costs with available resources while continuing to invest in its academic mission,” the university said. “It is not a reflection of the quality of the ECHL or the dedication of its faculty and staff.”
SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Two New World screwworm cases in dogs are among more than 30 confirmed instances in Texas and New Mexico, prompting warnings Wednesday from veterinarians and humane societies that pet owners need to remain vigilant to protect their animals.
The parasite reappeared in cattle the U.S. in June, more than 50 years after it had been largely eradicated from the country. The pest is actually the larvae of the New World screwworm fly. It eats live flesh and fluids rather than dead material, as the larvae of most fly species do.
Here is what to know about the parasite, the threat it poses to pets and how to protect them:
Screwworm fly larvae can infest any mammal
The fly’s migration north from Panama starting in 2024, and through Mexico in 2025, has agriculture officials warning that it poses a threat to the $113 billion U.S. cattle industry, but the larvae can hatch and breed in any mammal, including wildlife, dogs, cats and occasionally humans.
The problem develops when a female fly lays its eggs in open wounds and mucous. After the eggs hatch, the larvae feed for about a week before maturing, dropping to the ground and continuing to develop into an adult fly.
The American Veterinary Medical Association says newborn animals and animals with open wounds or who have undergone surgery or other medical procedures recently are especially vulnerable. Even a tick bite can host an infestation, Aaron Grady, executive director of the Houston Humane Society shelter, said during a webinar on the screwworm.
Infestation signs include restlessness and bad smell
Animal health experts say pet owners in areas where the screwworm is present — southern and southwestern Texas and southeastern New Mexico so far — should watch their animals closely and examine them for wounds, cuts and bites regularly.
Pet owners should look for any maggots or movement in a wound. Other signs include a foul smell and restlessness or anxiety in an animal, or an animal “hyper-fixating on looking or chewing in a certain area of the body,” said Melissa Stansell, a veterinarian at the shelter Austin Pets Alive!
Any of those signs are reason to contact a veterinarian for possible treatment. The affected animal is likely in a great deal of pain, and that can cause death from shock. The larvae also can cause death if they move into vital organs or by causing infections that turn deadly.
Flea, tick medications can stop an infestation
Humane society officials and veterinarians said shelters across Texas are trying to prevent infestations in animals by giving them prescription flea and tick medications. They recommend that pet owners do the same.
“It will kill the larvae as they ingest the blood and tissue,” Stansell said. “The chemical compositions of those products are what kill the actual larval stages of these flies.”
Veterinarians also can treat infestations and animals can recover if pet owners contact them quickly. Stansell said the treatment could include antibiotics.
“It is only fatal if left untreated,” she said.
An effort to eradicate the fly again is underway
The New World screwworm fly is a tropical species and decades ago would disappear each year when colder weather arrived with the fall or winter.
But state and U.S. Department of Agriculture officials aren’t waiting for the weather to turn. They’ve returned to an eradication method that worked decades ago, breeding sterile male flies and releasing them into the wild. The female New World screwworm fly mates once in her monthslong life, and if her partner is sterile, her eggs won’t hatch — causing the population in an area to drop and then disappear.
For years, the only factory breeding sterile flies in the Western Hemisphere was in Panama, but the USDA invested $21 million to convert a site in southern Mexico from breeding fruit flies to recently start breeding screwworm flies. The agency also plans to spend $750 million on a new fly factory in Texas, set to open next year.
HOUSTON (AP) — A Mexican national fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston had no criminal convictions during his decades living in the U.S. and was driving a crew to a homebuilding site when he was killed, his family and a Texas congresswoman said Wednesday.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was working toward securing legal status in the U.S. and knew what to do if stopped by ICE, his son said.
Ronaldo Salgado said his father may have been scared that the people in unmarked vehicles were coming to steal the tools he used for 35 years to build homes, from sunrise to sunset, so he could send his three American sons to college.
“He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ICE. He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,” Salgado said during a news conference.
The shooting happened Tuesday in Magnolia Park, a neighborhood that has been a hub for Houston’s Mexican American community for a century.
Federal officials say their vehicle was rammed but don’t provide evidence
Salgado Araujo was shot after he ignored commands and attempted to ram an officer who fired his weapon in self-defense, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday in a statement. ICE officers were targeting him because he was living in the country without legal permission, according to the department, which oversees ICE. The man’s car struck an ICE vehicle, the department added.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said Salgado Araujo had no criminal convictions.
Houston firefighters said he was shot in the abdomen. He died at a hospital.
Three other men appeared to be detained as Salgado Araujo lay moaning on the ground, according to his son, who said one of them was his uncle and that no one has heard from any of them since.
Federal officials have not released video or images of the shooting or the alleged damage to the vehicles. Salgado on Tuesday joined civil rights groups and Democratic officials in urging federal authorities to release all the footage and other information it has on the shooting.
In several other shootings involving federal officers, initial descriptions by immigration officials have sometimes been contradicted later by video evidence.
A video shot by bystander Juliet Martinez shows a black vehicle angled towards a white van, their doors wide open. A bleeding and handcuffed man groans loudly on the ground and his leg shakes. Other federal officers stand over at least three other handcuffed men.
Civil rights groups say ICE can’t be trusted with the investigation
The federal crackdown has created a country where it is “open season on Latinos” by officers who think they can “shoot and explain later,” League of United Latin American Citizens President Roman Palomares said during the news conference.
The way ICE has handled previous investigations shows they have not earned the trust of taking their statements as facts without evidence like video to back it up, he said.
“Your pattern has been one of inaccuracies of prejudicial leaks before the facts are known, of twisting the narrative to fit your version of events,” Palomares said.
The league offered a $5,000 reward for information and videos from witnesses as it calls for an independent investigation. Other civil rights leaders begged anyone with videos to not turn them over to ICE, which they said could destroy them.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said Salgado Araujo’s family and the community deserve the truth but federal authorities are exclusively handling the investigation at this time.
There’s been an uptick in arrests in recent weeks
Representatives of ICE and DHS have not responded to repeated requests for comment Wednesday.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin took over the department in March with the aim of keeping it away from the controversies that had marked the tenure of his predecessor, Kristi Noem.
In the months after two fatal shootings in Minnesota sparked a fierce backlash, the number of immigration arrests across the country fell and ICE appeared to recalibrate its tactics. But in late June, arrests around the country surged to 10,000 over a five-day period, fueled in part by massive Congressional funding.
The shooting was at least the eighth death resulting from an encounter with federal immigration officers since the start of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Son says his father worked hard for decades
Ronaldo Salgado said his mother was told something bad had happened to his dad around 7 a.m. Tuesday. After frantically looking for him at his job site and finding his empty van, he saw a video.
“I recognized him, not from his appearance but from his voice crying for help as he lay on the street,” Salgado said.
Salgado Araujo met his wife as a teenager in Mexico. They came to America and built their own home in Houston with help from friends and family who worked on his crew. His wife made his lunch before he left for the day and had a hearty meal ready when he came home. He would listen to music and pet his dog on his porch, Salgado said.
“After nearly 35 years of working to give us the American dream, he made the choice to begin the process of obtaining his American dream through a work permit,” Salgado said. “We dotted every I, crossed every T, filled every document, attended every appointment. He was close to obtaining his legal status.”
Salgado Araujo had biometric scan and fingerprints done earlier this year, his son said, and had carefully studied what to do if ICE pulled him over. If he was speeding away, it was probably because he feared having his tools stolen, his son said.
“Had my father seen an emblem of ICE or an emblem that says anything about a law enforcement agency, my father would have complied,” his son said.
Mexico’s president criticizes the latest killing
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said she is considering legal measures or may ask the United Nations to step in to stop the violence against Mexicans in the United States.
“There has been another tragic death of one of our compatriots in the United States due to detention issues, even though their only ‘offense’ is not yet having proper documentation,” Sheinbaum said.
Texas’ largest city has experienced heightened enforcement operations since the crackdown began last year, and not without public backlash. The Houston City Council voted to pass an ordinance limiting ICE cooperation but reversed course after Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, threatened to cut more than $100 million in state funding for public safety.
HOUSTON (AP) – A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a man in Houston after he attempted to evade arrest in his vehicle during an operation Tuesday, the agency said.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, ignored commands and attempted to ram an agent who fired his weapon in self-defense. The man was targeted in an operation because he was living in the country without legal permission, according to the department, which oversees ICE. The man’s car struck an ICE vehicle, the department added.
Salgado Araujo died after being transported to a hospital, according to DHS.
The death drew immediate calls from some Democratic officials and immigrant rights groups for an independent investigation. Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents the neighborhood where the shooting took place, said the initial account released by federal authorities needs to be independently verified.
“All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,” she said in a post on X.
The FBI’s Houston field office is investigating a potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer, said spokesperson Connor Hagan. In addition, representatives of the office’s evidence response team responded to the shooting at the request of DHS to process the scene, he said.
The shooting comes amid a newly intensified push by the Trump administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue and are surging.
Juliet Martinez said she was on her way to drop off her son at summer school early Tuesday morning in Houston when she spotted two federal officers leaning over a man on the ground. As she slowly drove by, she filmed the man bleeding and handcuffed, his leg shaking as loud groans can be heard.
The video shows a black vehicle angled towards a white van, their doors wide open, and the man lying between the two. One officer is on the phone, with his other hand on the man’s side. Nearby, other federal officers stand over at least three other men handcuffed.
Ronaldo Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s son, said in a post on Facebook that his father works in construction and was on his way to work, picking up his workers, when the shooting happened.
Salgado described his father as a hardworking Mexican man who has been in the U.S. for almost 35 years and was in the process of getting a work permit.
“My father did not deserve this,” he said.
The shooting was at least the eighth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement campaign in the U.S.
Texas’ largest city has experienced heightened enforcement operations since the crackdown began last year, and not without public backlash. The Houston City Council voted to pass an ordinance limiting ICE cooperation but reversed course after Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut more than $100 million in state funding for public safety.
By Tuesday evening, a small group of protesters gathered in the neighborhood where the shooting happened and chanted against ICE.
Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, called for a transparent investigation conducted by local authorities into the shooting. He said his organization is offering a $5,000 reward for information and videos from witnesses.
“We don’t take DHS at their word at all,” Proaño told The Associated Press. “There should be an independent investigation and they should release all the videos.”
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a Democrat, declined to comment on the shooting.
In other other shootings involving federal officers, initial descriptions by immigration officials have sometimes been contradicted later by video evidence. In February, federal authorities launched an investigation into two federal immigration agents who appeared to have made untruthful statements under oath regarding a nonfatal shooting of an immigrant in Minneapolis in January.
Last year, a federal immigration agent shot and killed a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, Ruben Ray Martinez, during a late-night traffic encounter. A grand jury declined to file criminal charges against the agent. DHS said the agent had fired at the vehicle after the driver “intentionally ran over” his fellow agent. Video footage of the encounter released by authorities does not clearly show the vehicle striking the agent.
In January, 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good was shot in the head by a federal immigration agent during a crackdown in Minneapolis. DHS also said Good was trying to hit the agent with her vehicle, which local officials and witnesses disputed, saying she was only trying to drive away.
HOUSTON COUNTY (KETK) — A 9-year-old’s outcry about alleged sexual abuse led to the arrest of an East Texas man on Friday.
The Houston County Sheriff’s Office said the report first came in on June 29, where they learned the child had made an outcry of having been inappropriately touched by a known 37-year-old man.
A forensic interview was then conducted later that day, where the child’s allegations were confirmed. An arrest warrant was then obtained for Ellis Johnta Izquierdo for aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Five days later, on July 3, the Houston County Sheriff’s Office alongside DPS and Game Wardens, executed the warrant at Izquierdo’s home on FM 2663, just east of Latexo.
Izquierdo was then taken into the Houston County Jail on a $300,000 bond. Upon arrest, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole filed a motion to revoke his parole with no bond issued, the sheriff’s office said.
PLANO – Five defendants were sentenced to 903 months in federal prison as U.S. Attorney’s Office advances DOJ mission to protect the he Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative that was established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad.
Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to block Texas from enforcing a state law that requires apps stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors seeking to download apps or make in-app purchases on mobile phones.
Justice Samuel Alito, in a pair of one-sentence orders, denied petitions by plaintiffs who claim that the Texas App Store Accountability Act violates users’ constitutional rights to free speech.
Last month, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law can take effect. The panel suspended a district court’s ruling last December that the law is unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs suing to block the law include the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a defendant in both cases.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the law impermissibly seeks to limit access to content protected by the First Amendment, including news and educational material.
“Equity and the public interest support relief because protecting First Amendment rights — and parents’ rights to supervise their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them they should — is always in the public interest,” wrote attorneys for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas.
Attorneys from Paxton’s office argued that the law protects children from “dangerous modern products.”
“A child with access to an app store and a mobile device (such as a tablet or smartphone) can potentially download any number of software applications, potentially agreeing to invasions of the child’s privacy and sale of the child’s data and be exposed to any conceivable content without parental consent or even parental knowledge,” they wrote.
DALLAS (AP) – An Afghan national who fought alongside U.S. forces died from an allergic reaction while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one day after he was detained for deportation proceedings, his death certificate shows.
Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, 41, suffered “an adverse drug reaction” to an unidentified substance, which triggered anaphylaxis and exacerbated his asthma, according to the document. His March 14 death at a Dallas hospital was ruled to be an accident.
Paktiawal’s sudden death in ICE custody has drawn outrage because he had risked his life fighting as an ally of U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan for a decade. Members of Congress and an advocacy group, AfghanEvac, have demanded answers about what happened.
Out of more than 50 ICE detention deaths during President Donald Trump’s second term, Paktiawal’s is the first to be ruled an accident, according to tracking by The Associated Press. Most of the others have been blamed on natural causes or suicide.
On Monday, AfghanEvac called on Texas authorities to release his full autopsy report, which they have sought to withhold by arguing its disclosure would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation into the death.
“This family has a right to know what happened. Why won’t they release the report?” said Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac. He called on authorities to explain what substance triggered the allergic reaction, how it got into his system and why the date of the injury on the death certificate was listed as the day before Paktiawal was taken into custody.
Paktiawal was evacuated with thousands of others from Afghanistan when U.S. troops pulled out in 2021. He entered the U.S. through a legal process and requested asylum to stay. That claim was pending when ICE arrested him at his home in Richardson, Texas, on March 13 as he was taking some of his six children to school.
ICE has defended its decision to target Paktiawal for deportation, noting he had been arrested on food stamp fraud and theft charges. He has not been convicted in either case.
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A one-page ICE report on Paktiawal’s death said that he was screened at its Dallas field office and denied any medical conditions or allergies. Hours later, he began experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain in a holding room and was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital.
The next morning, hospital staff noted swelling of his tongue while he was eating breakfast and gave him epinephrine, a drug that treats allergic reactions, the report said. He was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later after life-saving measures were unsuccessful.
The certificate lists the cause of death as “anaphylaxis complicating acute asthma exacerbation.” Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction typically triggered by food, drugs or insect venom. The document lists the toxic effects of methamphetamine, heart disease and cigarette smoking as contributing factors in the death.
His family members and coworkers said they did not know Paktiawal to use meth, and a private autopsy performed for the family could not confirm whether he had meth in his system because no blood remained for testing, VanDiver said. His wife has said that he relied on an inhaler for asthma, but ICE agents rejected her attempt to give them the device when he was taken into custody.
The cause and manner of death were established by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office, where a doctor performed an autopsy on Paktiawal.
County authorities have refused to release the autopsy report, citing statements from ICE officials that doing so would interfere with a federal investigation into the death. They have asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for permission to withhold the record under a “law enforcement exception” to the state’s open records law.
In response to the AP’s request for the report, Dallas County official Jennifer Rose wrote that “its release would interfere with the detection, investigation, and prosecution of a crime” but did not elaborate. The medical examiner’s office declined comment.
Paxton’s office hasn’t ruled on the matter, but previously granted a similar request from another Texas county to withhold the autopsy report of a Vietnamese man who died in ICE custody in July 2025, according to documents obtained by the AP.
LUFKIN — City Hall will be closed today due to a power outage caused by a failed electrical transformer, according to a city news release. Repairs are expected by 6:00 PM. Utility collections at City Hall will also be closed during the outage. Online services including Click2Gov are still available. ONCOR is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Watch the news feed here or social media sites for updates.
AUSTIN (Texas Tribune) – The Texas Stock Exchange will commence trading on Monday, kickstarting the first real test of one of the most well-funded new exchanges to launch in decades.
The Texas Stock Exchange, a Dallas-based startup, will initiate a phased rollout to take place over the course of July. On Monday, the exchange will open to TXSE members, including approved broker-dealers, banks and trading firms, to trade test stocks initially, then the symbols for thousands of stocks and other equities will come online over the course of the month, allowing the public to start trading.
By the third quarter, exchange officials hope to have Exchange-Traded Products, or ETPs, listed on the exchange and corporate listings available during the fourth quarter of this year, according to a statement from the exchange.
Both Texas state government and stock exchange officials hope the Texas Stock Exchange, or TXSE, launch will solidify Dallas’ attempt to become a national financial hub and boost the Texas economy by growing the financial services industry in the state and making money for any Texas companies and investors that are doing business through the exchange.
“With the start of full production trading, any last notions that TXSE is theoretical are instantly swept away,” a TXSE official wrote in a statement Thursday.
Monday’s start of trading is critically important to test-run and demonstrate to companies interested in listing on TXSE that it can provide a viable alternative to the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, said Sriram Villupuram, a University of Texas at Arlington associate professor of finance.
“Basic technical things, hopefully will work well,” Villupuram said. “This is the first demonstration. It’s like a new car, a brand new company pushing out their first car. I think they’ll get through it fine, but things can go wrong. This is a high tech exchange at the end of the day.”
While most trading is now done electronically, the location of a stock exchange still matters, said Ray Perryman, president of the Waco-based economic research company The Perryman Group. Investors tend to hold stocks in and trade more on nearby companies, and Texas has both ingredients for a successful exchange — a rapidly growing pool of investors via the growth of the financial sector in the Dallas area, as well as Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state that they can invest in, he said.
“A homegrown national exchange means more jobs, more investment, and more growth opportunities for businesses and communities across the Lone Star State,” said Gabriela von zur Muehlen, senior vice president and chief policy officer at the Texas Association of Business.
Hype around TXSE has been building since the June 2024 announcement that the exchange intended to launch with $120 million in backing from large investment firms like BlackRock and Citadel Securities. In the time since that announcement, anticipation has only grown as the exchange received federal approval and received further investments from some of the largest financial institutions in the world, now totaling $275 million.
At the same time, financial services in the Dallas area have continued to grow. JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab now have thousands of employees based in the region, coined “Y’all Street.”
“The center of gravity for American capitalism is now headquartered in the boom belt,” Gov. Greg Abbott said during a TXSE event in April. “The Texas Stock Exchange is the natural extension of that capitalism.”
Abbott and other state officials have cited the strength of the Texas economy, the eighth largest in the world if it were its own country, as the reason TXSE will succeed where previous exchanges have failed. The second most Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. are headquartered in Texas, leading New York and closely trailing California.
The American investment system has long been centered around the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, both private exchanges based in New York City.
Perryman said decades of consolidation among regional exchanges have led to what is effectively a NYSE and NASDAQ duopoly for companies that wish to be publicly traded.
Since TXSE announced its intention to launch in Dallas, both the NYSE and NASDAQ have created branches of their exchanges in Texas: NYSE Texas and NASDAQ Texas. TXSE officials say those moves validate TXSE’s efforts and show Wall Street is paying attention to the upstart exchange and strength of Dallas’ growing financial sector.
Villupuram said it will take years of effort before TXSE is a true competitor to NYSE and NASDAQ because of each companies’ decades of expertise and reputation among companies that want to be publicly traded.
The creation of NYSE Texas and NASDAQ Texas, rather, are validations of Texas’ economic strength and the size of the financial sector in the Dallas area, Villupuram added.
“There is genuinely business to be made here, and part of it can also be a fear of missing out,” Villupuram said.
Over the past 20 years, New York has seen a 16% growth in investment banking jobs, compared to a 111% expansion in Texas. Across the entire financial services sector, Texas has more jobs — 939,600 — than New York or California, Perryman said.
“Texas has evolved from being primarily a back-office location into a major hub for technology, operations, wealth management, trading support, and increasingly, some front-office and investment banking functions,” Perryman said.
Regardless of the likelihood of TXSE breaking into the NYSE and NASDAQ duopoly, the competition of exchanges in Texas will create a feedback loop that leads to greater investment in Texas companies and more jobs in the financial services sector, Perryman said.
The exchange will be entirely digital but have a physical presence in Dallas, recently signing a lease at the Bank of America Tower in the Uptown neighborhood of Dallas, the Dallas Business Journal reported in May.
TXSE has announced a handful of Exchange-Traded Products, or ETPs, that will be listed on the exchange. Unlike an individual company stock, ETPs allow investors to buy into an entire market, like the S&P 500, oil or gold.
The company is yet to announce any corporate listings, although officials said those will come later this summer and into the fall as the launch of corporate listings gets closer.
Drawing those corporate listings to the exchange will be crucial to TXSE’s long-term survival, Villupuram said. Stock exchanges primarily generate revenue through listing fees collected by companies that are listed on an exchange, he added.
Both NYSE and NASDAQ have strict requirements companies must meet to be listed on the exchanges, including benchmarks for financial solvency, corporate transparency and regulatory compliance. That’s a high bar for companies to meet and achieving those requirements shows a company’s maturity, Villupuram said, but it can also effectively limit the ability of smaller companies to access investors through the NYSE and NASDAQ duopoly.
The $275 million in startup funds is a significant amount of money for a new exchange, Villupuram said, but he also noted that the technology to start and operate an exchange is incredibly expensive. Hundreds of billions of dollars flow through the NYSE and NASDAQ on any given day that markets are open.
As a comparison point, the annual salary of the New York Stock Exchange Group CEO is more than $6 million. NYSE operates as a subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange, which pays its CEO more than $22 million annually.
“There will be several years and years of slowly growing, attracting more listings,” Villupuram said. “So compared to those big ones, it’s maybe not a lot, but from where TXSE is starting and investing, it’s significant.”
TXSE is starting slow with the goal of building toward solvency over time.
All National Market System symbols — such as TSLA for Tesla Inc. — should be available to be traded on TXSE by the end of July as they are slowly rolled out, a TXSE official said. There are more than 12,000 publicly traded stocks available to investors in the U.S., according to financial services company Motley Fool.
Although the ringing of a bell typically symbolizes the start of the trading day in a stock exchange, there will be no bell ringing on Monday in Dallas. If all things go as planned this month, exchange officials hope to have one on hand during a celebration in the near future.
Disclosure: Texas Association of Business and University of Texas – Arlington have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Correction, July 3, 2026, 9:32 a.m. Central: A previous version of the story incorrectly stated when trading will be open to the public. The exchange will open trading initially to its members and then to the public over the course of the month of July.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
AUSTIN – (The Texas Tribune) – Last month, the leader of a small Texas state commission — tasked with aiding criminal defense for low-income Texans — received an unusual request from top officials working with the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Justice needed their help providing legal services to immigrant children in their deportation cases, said Scott Ehlers, the executive director of the state’s Indigent Defense Commission.
The first call to Ehlers came from high-ranking lieutenants with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Then James McHenry, the DOJ’s chief administrative hearing officer, who briefly preceded Pam Bondi as acting U.S. attorney general, reached out, Ehlers confirmed to The Texas Tribune.
The calls raised eyebrows from across the Texas agency, not just because of where they came from, but because the extraordinary request by the Trump administration was well outside of the commission’s experience and scope.
Ehlers told the officials that he did not believe that immigration defense for children was legal under his organization’s mandate, which the state Legislature created explicitly for criminal defense more than a decade ago.
A Justice Department spokesperson, who declined to be named, confirmed that officials with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, tasked with the care of immigrant children, asked for the Texas Attorney General’s office assistance in representing immigrant children, “however, they believed they could not do so, which is why they recommended the Texas Indigent Defense Commission to take on the project.”
The DOJ, the spokesperson said, “was asked to look into the legality” of contracting with the Texas commission. Federal money would be funneled to Texas from ORR, but that agency did not respond to further questions about a proposed contract.
The request comes as the Trump administration seeks to end protections for immigrant children on multiple fronts, including threatening to terminate the existing federally-mandated contract for legal assistance to minors facing deportation. A temporary contract with the longstanding legal services provider, the Acacia Center for Justice, a national nonprofit, is set to end this month. At the same time, the government has abruptly shuttered at least 50 federal shelters detaining immigrant children across Democratic states such as New York, Illinois and Michigan even as federal contractors in Texas advertised hundreds of shelter jobs. Lawyers and advocates say that indicates that they may soon expect to receive children from elsewhere in the country as so few are currently allowed to cross the border.
They worry that the administration’s calls to Texas suggest a broader effort to transfer unaccompanied minors to the state, from where it is easier to quickly deport them.
“We are concerned, as are our legal service provider partners, about a potential transfer of children to Texas where there is no independent oversight of facilities and away from many of the attorneys with whom children have built trust,” said Shaina Aber, executive director of Acacia Center, which holds the overseeing federal contract for legal representation to immigrant children. “We are awaiting the government’s plan for the tens of thousands of children — including over 20,000 who are currently represented — who receive services under this contract, many of whom are outside of Texas.”
Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees ORR, said the administration continues to pursue “every available avenue” to help kids obtain legal representation for their immigration proceedings.
Agency officials did not respond to questions about whether such transfers would occur. They said, however, that many kids initially crossed the Mexico border with Texas, where there is sufficient capacity to detain the nearly 2,000 children currently in nationwide custody.
Spokespeople for Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott did not respond to detailed questions about the involvement of the state.
Trump’s efforts to end protections for immigrant kids
Congress in 2000 passed a bipartisan bill that, among its stipulations, required the government to pay for some legal services for children who cross the border alone, based on the widely-held belief that children should not represent themselves in deportation proceedings.
The demand for funding became more urgent starting in 2012 when hundreds of thousands of immigrant children, mostly from Central America, began crossing the Texas border seeking to escape violence and poverty or reunite with their relatives in the U.S. Because of the federal laws and court settlement agreements intended to protect children, they for years have been among the hardest population to quickly deport.
Since taking office last year, Trump officials have chipped away at these protections, including making it more difficult for relatives to obtain children in custody, arresting them after welfare checks and suing to end a decades-long federal settlement agreement overseeing the rights of children in custody. Children are now staying in federal detention for months, prompting congressional scrutiny.
The administration is also litigating to end the legally mandated representation contract in federal court and have failed to pay providers while last month raiding some organization’s offices seeking evidence of financial impropriety and personal information of children. The government also is considering having military lawyers represent the government in children’s cases, Bloomberg Law reported.
Government lawyers have repeatedly argued that their legal representation is not mandated. At a hearing in April, for example, Jonathan K. Ross, a Justice Department attorney, told the court that “not only is there not a right to direct legal representation at the expense of the Government,” but pro bono lawyers could serve immigrant children at their own expense.
Lawyers for the advocates at the next hearing in the ongoing lawsuit this month plan to argue that the government is in contempt of federal court, partly because of the lack of payment. Kids In Need of Defense, a nonprofit founded by actress Angelina Jolie and the Microsoft Corporation, ended its subcontract with the Acacia Center this week as a result, saying the government owed it more than $20 million for legal services going back as far as December and has drastically reduced its staff.
“The attacks on federally funded legal service providers and the ongoing delay in payments to these organizations, as well as the unreasonable demand for sensitive data, fail to reflect the vital role attorneys play in protecting unaccompanied children and upholding the rule of law,” the organization’s president, Wendy Young, said in a statement this week. “We?are oftentimes ?these?children’s most?critical?line of defense against trafficking, exploitation, and abuse.”
The overarching temporary contract, overseen by the Acacia Center, ends on July 31. Although the administration is required to provide the organization with weeks of notice for how to transition the ongoing legal cases of children, it has not yet done so, which the groups argue is unlawful. At the same time, repatriation organizations in Central America have been told to prepare for a large number of children returned by the same day that contract ends.
In a recent letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who oversees the child resettlement agency, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden wrote that he had received “credible information” that the administration was using an “unprecedented legal framework” to quickly deport more than 500 immigrant children in its custody.
The Oregon Democrat, a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee overseeing the budget, said to the Tribune this week that the Texas calls further add to his alarm about the plans for immigrant kids. Wyden’s staff last week raised concerns with Texas officials about the potential contract for legal representation but did not receive a confirmation of a plan.
“A sole source contract handed out by the Texas Attorney General to handle legal representation of unaccompanied children is not legal representation at all,” Wyden told the Tribune. “It is the Trump deportation agenda being executed by a political ally paid for by taxpayer dollars.”
A Trump-aligned state
Immigration rights advocates say consolidating immigrant children in a border state aligned with the Trump administration would make it easier to deport them.
Jonathan White, a former deputy director of ORR during Trump’s first administration, said that the recent effort is a “transparent part of a larger pattern of moving all of the program’s capabilities and resources into Texas with a friendly political partnership with the governor’s office there and the proximity to the border in order to turn all of these systems into platforms for removal.”
Texas cases are argued to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that has frequently ruled in the Trump administration’s favor on cases seeking to restrict the rights of immigrants. That court, for example, agreed that the government can refuse to release most immigrants from detention. As a result, habeas petitions that argue people are wrongfully imprisoned have overwhelmed Texas federal courts and are taking months to process. Immigration judges in the state deny asylum at a higher rate than elsewhere, according to federal statistics. An average of four deportation flights leave the state daily, the most in the country, according to ICE Flight Monitor, a human rights organization that tracks it.
Texas, along with Florida, also no longer regulates childcare facilities for immigrant children, preventing the state from investigating claims of neglect and abuse as it had for decades. Abbott ended that oversight through an executive order in 2021, blaming the Biden administration for encouraging illegal immigration and conflating the issue with the ongoing longstanding state foster care crisis.
“The state of Texas is not prepared to handle this undertaking in a humane way,” said Rochelle Garza, a South Texas attorney and executive director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a statewide nonprofit legal advocacy group.
Garza, who previously lost against Paxton as a Democrat and serves on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan group created during the Eisenhower administration, said the administration’s outreach to Texas is “simply an attempt to undermine the federal government’s constitutional role and responsibility to execute immigration law.”
Texas Indigent Defense Commission
It remains unclear whether the Texas Indigent Defense Commission can legally take on the work representing immigrant children.
Rodney Ellis, a current Harris County commissioner, was a Houston state senator when he helped usher through a law creating the state’s legal framework for indigent defense. Ellis and two commission board members said the administration’s request for assistance on immigrant children was confounding. Helping to defend kids for civil immigration offenses is not what his bill intended, he said.
The legislation required courts to formalize procedures to provide attorneys for those who cannot afford them and set the stage for the creation of the Texas Indigent Defense Commission in 2011. Since then, the number of misdemeanor defendants without attorneys in the state have dropped by more than a half.
The organization oversees nearly three dozen state public defender offices serving more than 80 counties and operates as an entity funneling state money and highlighting best practices. Abbott’s office asked the commission to help represent the mostly misdemeanor defendants state troopers arrested during the multi-billion dollar border security program, known as Operation Lone Star, that the governor unveiled in 2021.
Despite its successes, the commission faces a significant attorney shortage and not enough resources to meet demand, making Texas the 46th in the nation when it comes to public defense funding per capita. The state only pays about 10 cents out of every dollar of criminal indigent defense costs and the commission is asking the Legislature for an increase of more than $242 million next year to meet some of the needs over the biennium.
“The state has never put any resources into us meeting our constitutional mandate that requires that people be given adequate legal representation,” Ellis said. “This suggestion to expand the mandate is ludicrous and sounds like just a way to ignore the intent of the legislation because you’re trying to thumb your nose at federal procurement rules.”
Jim Bethke, a vice chair of the commission’s board who ran and lost as a Democrat candidate for Bexar County attorney last year, said that the commission was created to improve criminal defense, not initiatives outside of that mandate.
“If the Legislature determines that the commission’s responsibilities should be expanded, it has the authority to do so,” said Bethke, whose term on the commission ends this year.
State Rep. Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat and member of the board, said he too was concerned. Although the Legislature in 2023 expanded the commission’s mandate to help with state family protective services cases, that has never been fully funded.
“What it definitely doesn’t provide for is federal civil defense,” said Moody, adding that he does not believe the state could do so without changing the government code.
It is possible that Abbott could issue an executive order to circumvent that, although the commission’s board remained unclear on that legality.
The government has previously attempted to move immigrant children to the Texas border and quickly deport them. Last year, government contractors awakened Guatemalan children in federal shelters or foster care and with little notification to their lawyers, abruptly transferred them to shelters near the Texas border. A federal judge halted that effort as some children were on a plane in Harlingen about to fly to Guatemala. The litigation is ongoing.
A move of immigrant children to Texas would follow on that Guatemalan attempt, said Marion “Mickey” Donovan-Kaloust, director of legal services for the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a nonprofit organization in California involved in the legal case.
Late this week, her organization noticed that the policy manual on ORR’s website regarding the mandated 48-hour notices to attorneys before children are transferred suddenly went dark, saying “restricted access.” ORR did not respond to questions about that but advocates worry that is another sign that the administration intends to quietly transfer children.
“We’ve seen this pattern before,” said Donovan-Kaloust.
These suspected moves to Texas, she said, would be “the next phase of that same policy playbook.”
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This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Trump administration plans to open a 528-bed holding facility for migrant families and unaccompanied children next to an airport hub, positioning itself to speed up deportations.
The location in Alexandria, Louisiana, would remove logistical headaches caused by wrangling children from foster homes and shelters across the country and not having anywhere to put them during final preparations for flight. Those obstacles were apparent last year when Guatemalan children were awoken at night and given almost no time to get to Harlingen, Texas, where they waited on an airport tarmac for hours.
A federal judge prevented their deportation, but the chaotic episode illustrated the challenges authorities face because they don’t have anywhere to put families and children near the airport. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is calling the Alexandria facility a “staging area,” not a detention center, and says people would only be there a few days at most.
However, several immigration advocates expressed concern that children could be held at the new facility for weeks or months, which happened at other federal immigration holding sites. These advocates are also concerned about oversight, and say the facility represents a departure from how the government manages those children.
“It’s an expansion of the deportation system in ways we haven’t seen before,” said Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at the nonprofit Children’s Rights. “There’s just so much that could go wrong with this facility.”
ICE has tapped a private prison company to run the deportation facility
Unaccompanied children who are in the U.S. without parents or close relatives are not taken to facilities overseen by ICE. Instead, the law says they must be swiftly placed in the care of state-licensed shelters and foster care programs.
Those are run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. However, that agency isn’t involved in the Alexandria facility’s operation, according to a spokesperson at the airfield where it’s being built.
Instead, the facility would be run by a nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison contractor, according to Ralph Hennessy, executive director of the England Airpark Authority. He said it could be operational as early as August.
ICE officials signed a contract late last month to build the facility at the former military base near Alexandria International Airport, roughly 175 miles (280 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans, Hennessy said.
It would operate as a 72-hour holding center for migrants awaiting deportation, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Compass Connections, a Texas-based nonprofit that runs shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children, had originally been tapped to help operate the facility and laid out plans during a public presentation in February.
But the company’s president, Sonya Thompson, told the AP last week that it was no longer involved. She did not elaborate.
Officials have said the facility is for ‘self-deporting’ families
In public board meetings, airpark officials said the facility is a “humanitarian effort” for families that are “self-deporting.” Immigration advocates say families and unaccompanied children sometimes make that decision under pressure or because they don’t understand their options.
“These are people that are volunteering to go back home and they’re going back home as a family unit,” Hennessy told the AP.
The facility would sit next to the nation’s largest hub for deportations. More than 4,400 immigration enforcement flights came into and out of the Alexandria International Airport in 2025, according to data from the ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First. ICE planning documents say families and children at the facility “are in the legal custody of ICE and can only be released at the direction of ICE.”
The agency has instructed contractors that families at the facility cannot be referred to as prisoners, detainees or inmates, records show. The agency ordered contractors to not use bars or cages when transporting families and unaccompanied children. The facility will not be required to engage in headcounts and should allow families to “wear their own clothes,” the agency added.
The private prison company runs other ICE detention centers
Louisiana-based LaSalle Corrections runs a range of private prisons and federal immigration detention centers throughout the South, including the “Louisiana Lockup” inside the state’s maximum-security prison in Angola.
The official contractor for the new ICE holding facility will be the company’s nonprofit arm, the LaSalle Family Foundation. According to its tax records, the nonprofit provides chaplain services and educational programming in correctional facilities.
However, LaSalle Corrections itself will be involved in operating the holding facility and ensuring compliance, the company’s chief financial officer, Tim Kurpiewski, wrote in an email reviewed by the AP.
LaSalle spokesperson Scott Sutterfield declined to comment.
The deaths of two detainees have been reported since April at a LaSalle-run ICE facility in the state.
Winn Correctional Center was also found in June to have violated standards governing environmental health and safety, food service, use-of-force, medical care and other subjects, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.