Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
AUSTIN (AP) – Less than half a percent of federal money spent on child care scholarships in Texas was considered “improper,” a new report ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott found.
Abbott’s directive followed allegations of a $110 million child care fraud scheme in Minnesota. Experts say the Minnesota allegations in December were unfounded. But they did follow years in which the state reported high rates of improper payments in its child care scholarship program, and those allegations came at a time when the state was beleaguered by fraud scandals in other programs.
Improper payments in Texas include any payment made of an incorrect amount — over or under — or they could be fraudulent.
The allegations in Minnesota caused a ripple across the country. The federal government froze funding for child care in five states, and states themselves turned inward to ensure their fraud prevention systems were up-to-date. Child care advocates worry fears of wide-spread fraud will cause regulators to tighten requirements for child care providers, which are already underfunded and struggling, making it impossible for them to operate effectively. Or worse, that regulators cut funding as a result of fears over fraudulent activity.
“While you do want to address the issue (of fraud), you also don’t want to over-correct and create issues where they currently do not exist,” said Radha Mohan, the executive director of the Early Care and Education Consortium, a national nonprofit association of child care providers.
The Texas Workforce Commission and Texas Health and Human Services Commission are two of four agencies that oversee Texas’ child care system — and were tagged with investigating payments by the governor. The report released in February by the two Texas agencies details the state’s ongoing safeguards to prevent, stop and prosecute fraud and what is being done to clamp down on it further. It also highlighted part of the last improper payment report submitted to federal regulators, that says Texas’ improper payment rate is .44% — equivalent to about $4.3 million of the more than $990 million budget.
“This report confirms that Texas maintains strong anti-fraud measures that have kept improper payments extraordinarily low compared to other states,” said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary. “Governor Abbott will continue working to further enhance oversight, fraud reporting tools, and enforcement to ensure every taxpayer dollar serves its intended purpose.”
What child care looks like in Texas
The Texas child care subsidy program is notoriously overwhelmed.
More than 100,000 children were waiting for scholarships to cover the cost of preschool tuition in November of 2025. Tuition to attend preschools in Texas is, in many cases, more expensive than attending a four-year university.
The subsidy program, which spent more than $980 million in 2022, provides scholarships to families with incomes at 85% of the state’s median income and lower. It allows parents to go to work or school. The scholarships often cover only part of child care tuition.
And many communities in the state are “ child care deserts,” meaning there are few to no places actually available for kids to attend preschool.
The issue of cost and the lack of child care programs across the state prompted lawmakers to assign another $100 million to the child care subsidy program using leftover dollars from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Fund. It was an historic investment that was eaten up by rampant inflation before the end of 2025.
Federal dollars are also given to the Texas Workforce Commission, which then allocates the money to 28 local workforce development boards across the state. And they are, by no means, enough to meet the needs of families, Mohan said.
“Of the millions of children that qualify for Child Care and Development Block Grant, less than a quarter actually receive assistance through the program,” Mohan said. “The program is woefully underfunded at the federal level.”
Nobody wants to see that money be wasted on fraud, Mohan said. That’s why there was such a large reaction to allegations of fraud in Minnesota.
In December 2025, YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming child care centers run by Somalians in Minnesota had defrauded the state government of more than $110 million through this program. Shirley’s claims in Minnesota have not been verified.
In response to the video, however, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services froze access in January to the Child Care and Development Fund, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Social Services Block Grant — which can be used to subsidize child care — in five states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York.
Advocates have been walking a fine line since these allegations because of the heightened response by the federal government and state governments, including Texas.
“This is very delicate,” said Kim Kofron, the director of early childhood education with ChildrenatRisk, a child care advocacy and research group. “In Minnesota, there really wasn’t fraud. There were inconsistencies and errors — but that’s not fraud.”
What the report found
In response to the allegations in Minnesota, Abbott issued six directives to the state workforce and human services commissions to identify if Texas had a problem with improper payments, specifically with fraud.
He wanted the two agencies to: review current data collection efforts to make sure they’re sufficient; identify high-risk providers and bring them into compliance; ensure all providers data on children receiving scholarships is accurate; make sure the state’s oversight process is upheld uniformly across the state; improve the online fraud reporting portal; and submit fraud investigations to state or federal prosecutors if necessary.
Of the approximately 7,500 child care providers who accept child care scholarships, 125 were flagged as high risk by the state agencies during this investigation.
Other fraud prevention measures include: regular, in-person assessments of child care providers; an attendance tracking system; a hotline and online portal for allegations of fraud, and a quick response to those allegations by state boards.
Sherry Durham, the senior director of Child Care for Workforce Solutions of Deep East Texas, said the regulations Texas has in place make sense and are easy enough to maintain. The state’s safeguards could be a model for other states, she said.
“First and foremost is child safety,” Durham said. “But then, also, if there’s money coming from the federal government, you want to be good stewards of it.”
These measures, many of which have been built upon since 2011, cut improper payments from 8.28% in 2007 to less than .5% in 2022, according to the latest report, which cited the federal improper payment report submitted to the Administration for Children and Families, the largest federal human services administration, every three years.
This national average for improper payments is 3.96%.
The last report submitted by Texas was in 2022. The next report is due later this year.
What’s next
The child care fraud report detailed the next steps Texas agencies are taking to further crack down on fraud. But experts worry these measures may add unnecessary burdens on an industry that is largely made up of small businesses.
As a result of the investigation, Texas began creating a monthly report that details high-risk providers to keep an eye on. The state also created more training opportunities for local agencies investigating fraud and added to state requirements for providers tracking child attendance in child care.
Kathlyn McHenry, the director of state government relations for the Early Care and Education Consortium, worries that additional requirements will make life harder for providers with no real benefit. For example, Texas is now requiring all providers to use one child care management system in an effort to improve attendance reporting.
Before this requirement, providers could use a child care management system that worked best for them, for their families, for their structure, McHenry said. Those systems usually integrated attendance with payment programs and updates for parents.
“Mandating one specific child care management system for thousands of providers removes their ability to choose the system that works best for them and their families,” McHenry said. “And it potentially creates an unfunded mandate on providers … when there really is no indication that this will prevent any additional fraud from occurring.”
In the future, there will be enhanced data sharing between state agencies regarding programs receiving child care scholarships, the state report said. Local boards will be required to withhold funding from parents who owe the state money. There will be improvements to the state’s online fraud reporting portal and the hotlines.
The Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee is asking for public recommendations and ideas on fraud prevention in the child care and Medicaid system. The meeting is at 9 a.m., April 8, in the Capitol Extension Office. The notice does not indicate whether online participation will be permitted.
GRAPEVINE (AP) — A generational divide over the Iran war surfaced Thursday between older attendees and their political heirs at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, as the group’s leaders pleaded for unity in a challenging midterm election year for Republicans.
Younger conservatives spoke of disappointment and even “betrayal” over President Donald Trump’s launch of strikes against Iran, saying in interviews with The Associated Press that the president’s actions run counter to his many pledges to oppose foreign entanglements.
Meanwhile, older conservatives were looking past Trump’s campaign criticism of military action to topple foreign regimes, arguing the war in Iran is a pragmatic act forced by threats to the United States.
The bright dividing line emerged in conversations with a dozen participants on either end of the age spectrum who gathered for the annual meeting of conservatives, being held outside Dallas. That split could reflect flagging enthusiasm for Trump among some younger voters, a potentially troubling sign for Republicans heading into midterm elections and for the conservative movement as it looks to build beyond Trump’s tenure.
“We did not want to see more wars. We wanted actual America-first policies, and Trump was very explicit about that,” said Benjamin Williams, a 25-year-old marketing specialist for Young Americans for Liberty. “It does feel like a betrayal, for sure.”
Williams, from Austin, Texas, worries about his friends in the military, especially his Air Force officer brother. More broadly, he sees the war as an unnecessary disruption to the stability in the Middle East that could have long-term negative effects on the U.S. economy.
“Trump’s rhetoric was very important for people of my generation,” Williams said.
Auburn University sophomore Sean O’Brien’s support for Trump has slipped, especially with talk of sending U.S. troops into the Middle East. “I’m not happy,” he said.
Sending troops into Iran, he said, “would be full betrayal.”
In light of the U.S. military preparing to deploy at least 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East in the coming days, O’Brien said, “That’s what keeps me up at night.”
Older CPAC participants were far more forgiving, describing Trump as wisely responsive to what they described as the threat Iran posed. Several, in fact, suggested Trump did not initiate the war, but that Iran had decades ago.
“I don’t believe he started a new war. He was acting in response to a 40-year-old war by Iran,” said 70-year-old retired defense contractor Joe Ropar of McKinney, Texas. “How long were we supposed to wait? I think he did what he had to do when he had to do it.”
“Do nothing? I’m not on board with that,” Ropar said.
Echoing a common theme from older participants, Kelle Phillips said Trump’s decision was a pragmatic reaction to a real threat that overrules the best hopes of campaign rhetoric.
“You campaign on what you want to do and then the world’s dynamics happen,” said Phillips, a 61-year-old author and religious instructor from Frisco, Texas. “I think the difference is if you have someone in the Iranian regime who wants to destroy America. You can’t reason with them.”
Trump’s goals in Iran, as James Scharre believes, are short-term and not a concern for those adverse to a long slog overseas.
Scharre, 61, also interprets Trump’s early campaign opposition to government overthrow as a preference, not an ironclad promise.
“I think he said he was against it,” he said. “Trump is a wise leader. He does what works. And I’m for it.”
Cracks in the conservative coalition began appearing early in the war, led by influential opinion leaders like podcaster Tucker Carlson.
This month, Joe Kent, the director of the Center for Counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security, quit his Trump administration post, saying in his departure statement that “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran” and that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
Right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon, who is expected to speak at CPAC, has worried aloud that a protracted Mideast military engagement would cost Republicans support by pushing some conservatives to sit out the November midterms.
This comes at a time when Republicans’ hold on the U.S. House is in jeopardy and the GOP’s thin Senate majority is not as secure as it was a year ago.
A recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates that while Trump’s approval rating is holding steady, the conflict could be turning into a major political liability for his administration. About 59% of Americans say U.S. military action in Iran has been excessive, the poll found.
CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp acknowledged conservatives were divided over Iran and said the convention’s annual straw poll will include a question about it. The results will be released Saturday, the convention’s final day.
“Any consensus is still to be determined. I think people trust President Trump, so I don’t think there’s been any shaking of his support,” Schlapp told the AP. “But I think underneath there’s concern about where does this lead.”
Tiffany Krieger, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, said her onetime level-10 support for Trump has dipped to five over the war.
“It seems like the love for him is plateauing. We see our party splitting apart and we’re supposed to be united,” said Krieger, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “I think this issue with the war has put a line through the conservative movement.”
Almost if addressing Krieger directly, Mercedes Schlapp, senior fellow for the CPAC foundation, opened Thursday’s session of the conference in Texas with a direct appeal.
“We cannot divide from within,” she told an audience of hundreds from the stage at the convention center. Referring to political opponents, she added: “Let’s stay united. They want us divided.”
Many of the celebrations and holidays honoring the late farmworker labor leader César Chavez are being renamed, postponed or completely canceled in the wake of allegations that he sexually abused women and girls while at the helm of the United Farm Workers Union.
Labor rights activist Dolores Huerta revealed last week that she was among those who say they were abused by Chavez, who died more than three decades ago.
The allegations have prompted swift fallout, including from the United Farm Workers, which announced it would not take part in any events named after the organization’s former leader.
States and cities are canceling or renaming holidays
Several states previously recognized a day on or near Chavez’s March 31 birthday as an annual holiday, and in 2014 President Barack Obama signed a proclamation commemorating March 31 as César Chavez Day.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to rename César Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day. The state Senate approved the legislation earlier in the day with bipartisan support.
Minnesota lawmakers took similar action Thursday, sending a bill to Gov. Tim Walz that would strip Cesar Chavez Day from the state’s calendar.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that his state would not observe the holiday this year, and he directed all state agency heads to comply with the change. Abbott also said he would work with legislators to remove the holiday from state law.
Lawmakers in Colorado are considering a bill to rename the voluntary state holiday there to Farm Workers Day. Denver renamed its annual celebration “Si Se Puede Day” while removing a bust of Chavez from a city park. Grand Junction, Colorado, officials renamed an event there the “Si, Se Puede Celebration.”
“Sí, Se Puede” translates into the farmworkers movement’s rallying cry — Yes We Can.
The César Chavez Peace and Justice Committee of Denver canceled a celebration set for April 11.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office said the state won’t recognize Cesar Chavez Day, instead focusing on Dolores Huerta Day on April 10, her birthday.
Utah recognizes Cesar Chavez Day, but the state’s legislative session ended at the start of March, before the sexual abuse allegations came to light. Eliminating or renaming the holiday would require a change to state law.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has declined to recognize March 31 as César Chavez Day as she has in the two prior years, Hobbs’ spokesperson Liliana Soto said last week. While it is not a state holiday, some Arizona municipalities recognize it, closing schools or government offices. Officials in Phoenix voted unanimously Wednesday to rename the city holiday Farmworkers Day.
Events are being canceled across the US
The city of Lansing, Michigan, canceled its Legacy of César Chavez Dinner on March 25. The featured speaker was to be Chavez granddaughter Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who was campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.
“We remain committed to honoring the Latino community, and the service, dignity, and rights of farmworkers. We will be working on further events and celebrations in the future,” the city said.
The city of Milwaukee also canceled its annual celebration.
The Coconino County Hispanic Advisory Council in Arizona postponed an annual César E. Chavez Community Breakfast, with plans to reschedule it to focus on the contributions and achievements of Hispanic residents in the county.
The city of Tucson, Arizona renamed its annual celebration the “Comunidad y Labor Unity Fair.”
San Jose, the largest city in Northern California, is canceling its César Chavez celebration, the mayor announced on March 18. Matt Mahan said the city would identify ways to honor the legacy of the farmworker movement without celebrating “individuals who caused such profound harm to the community.”
The Hispanic Advocates and Business Leaders of Austin, Texas, announced that an annual march honoring Chavez set for March 28 would no longer take place. Several Austin city leaders also announced that they support the renaming of César Chavez Street.
Officials at the AFL-CIO said the allegations came as a shock and that the federation of unions would not participate or endorse any activities for César Chavez Day.
“Our thoughts are first and foremost with any victims of assault and abuse who have described experiencing what no one — especially children — should ever have to survive,” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler and secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond said in a statement. “No legacy can excuse it.”
The organization continues to support farmworkers and said the rights they have won “cannot be erased by the horrific actions of one person.”
Calls for name changes
are increasing
Dozens of schools, streets and other locations across the United States are named for Chavez, including the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California.
Dennis Arguelles, the director of the National Parks Conservation Association in Southern California, said renaming the national monument would require an act of Congress. He said the site should continue to honor the farmworker movement and leaders who fought for dignity, better working conditions and fair wages.
The Los Angeles Unified school board on Tuesday approved plans to rename schools and to recognize Farmworkers Day on March 31 rather than César Chavez Day. The Los Angeles County Board of Commissioners approved similar plans.
The Lubbock Democratic Party in Texas on Wednesday called on city leaders to rename César Chavez Drive to honor Dolores Huerta.
In Wisconsin, Milwaukee City Alderperson JoCasta Zamarripa said discussions will begin soon on what to do about a street named after Chavez.
Portland, Oregon, city councilor Candace Avalos said she would start a petition to rename a city boulevard after Huerta. City rules require 2,500 signatures to start a renaming effort, Avalos wrote on social media, urging her constituents to stay tuned for ways to help with the effort.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, issued a statement Wednesday saying abuse of any kind, especially against children, is indefensible and a betrayal of the values that Latino leaders have championed for generations.
“His name should be removed from landmarks, institutions and honors,” Luján said of Chavez. “We cannot celebrate someone who carried out such disturbing harm.” ___ Associated Press reporters around the United States contributed.
Problems at U.S. airports could worsen beyond hours-long security lines and missed flights if Congress does not agree on a way to pay Transportation Security Administration officers. Federal officials have warned that staffing shortages may close some smaller airports to passengers and commercial flights.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the TSA’s acting leaders said they expected more airport screeners to quit or call out of work after Friday, when TSA personnel were set to miss their second full paychecks since mid-February.
Johnny Jones, the leader of the labor union that represents TSA officers, said Thursday that the agency created a list of about 75 airports that could be closed to free up officers to send to major hubs with long security wait times. Jones suggested that could mean that flights at decent-sized airports surrounding large hubs could be grounded if the security officers are reassigned. Previously most of the speculation had focused on tiny airports with only a few officers operating a single checkpoint.
Jones said he hasn’t seen the list, and the airports on it haven’t been made public.
But President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will sign an emergency order to pay TSA officers as Congress struggles to reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
The officers have been required to work without pay since funding for DHS, which the TSA falls under, lapsed on Feb. 14. If Trump succeeds in finding a way to pay them, that may bring an end to the recent extreme security delays at airports.
“This level of disruption is unprecedented,” Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s acting administrator, said of the financial strain on TSA workers leading to high absentee rates. “We are being forced to consolidate lanes, and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers.”
McNeill, who spoke during a House committee hearing on Wednesday, did not specify at what point closures might occur. She said the TSA officer staffing shortages were “a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation.”
“The agency has to look at it as, ‘Wow man, at the end of the day, we still have to do essential work and protect the American people.’ It becomes very difficult to do when you have this going on,” said Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Jones added that officers who fear they could be reassigned are worrying about how they would adjust. It could mean spending more money on longer commutes, or temporarily upending their lives to stay in a faraway city.
About 11% of officers nationwide missed scheduled shifts this week, but at some airports, the share has topped 40% on some days, according to DHS. Passengers standing in massive security lines have filled terminal lobbies and stretched out the door at times in Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta.
Here are some things to know about the DHS funding lapse’s impact on air travel and the questions that remain:
How likely is it that the funding lapse will lead to airport closures?
With few confirmed details, it’s hard to say. But officials have suggested that the possibility of closing airports will become more likely the longer TSA workers go without pay.
Aviation security expert Sheldon Jacobson, whose research contributed to the design of TSA PreCheck, said that Trump administration officials appear to be floating the possibility of closed airports in an effort to pressure Congress to reach an agreement on funding DHS.
“This is a situation that, once again, the politicians are trying to move the needle to get people to compromise by making threats. Are these threats realistic? Yes. Are they a good idea? No,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson and other aviation experts said the messaging also suggests that sending federal immigration officers to help out at airports with security staffing problems hasn’t been a successful solution.
The White House has said ICE officers helped reduce lines by monitoring crowds and checking IDs. TSA union leaders and other critics have called the move ineffective, arguing that immigration officers don’t have the required expertise and experience.
Which airports are the most at risk for closures?
Larger airports with hundreds of officers can close some of their checkpoints and even their TSA PreCheck lanes and continue operating. The smallest of the 440 U.S. airports with security screeners don’t have that option.
Smaller airports that only have a single checkpoint might have to shut down temporarily if they can’t get enough officers to operate them. That could happen if a number of their officers don’t report for any given shift.
Small airports have “a smaller pool of people that you can draw from to keep the airport open,” explained Eric Chaffee, a Case Western Reserve law professor who studies risk management, including in the aviation industry. Larger airports, by contrast, are often “much better able to absorb a handful of people calling out.”
The closing of these airports would likely be “uneven,” Chaffee said — potentially affecting facilities ranging from airports with just a few gates to small regional hubs. But, he warned, that any temporary closure of small airports could cascade through the broader air traffic network because it is a “highly interconnected web.”
What would be the impact of small airport closures?
Experts stressed there would be consequences for the aviation system as a whole.
“Every airport, no matter its size, has some impact to the National Airspace System,” said airport security expert Jeff Price.
Jacobson, who is a professor at the University of Illinois, said airlines rely on passengers from small airports to fill out their flights at major hubs.
Others point to ripple effects for the communities smaller airports serve.
“Despite the fact that we’re talking about small regional airports, this is a big deal,” Chaffee said, pointing to disruptions for both businesses and travelers. “Ultimately, if this does occur, having to drive a half hour to an airport is a lot different than having to drive three hours to an airport.”
If flights stop operating at some smaller airports, it could hit nearby communities and their economies hard, especially businesses operating in hospitality and tourism. It could also jeopardize airport workers’ jobs, such as janitors and employees of restaurants and shops that serve travelers.
Meanwhile, financial strains would continue to pile up for TSA officers going without pay.
With there being a slew of potential economic repercussions from air travel disruptions, Jacobson said “We are playing with fire right now when we are threatening such a large contributor to our GDP.”
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AP Airlines and Travel Writer Rio Yamat contributed to this story.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Separate natural gas explosions in January 2024 that destroyed two homes in Jackson, Mississippi resulted from underground pipes pulling loose from their fittings as spongy clay soil expanded and contracted with rainfall, according to a federal report released Thursday.
The first explosion killed Clara Barbour, 82.
The National Transportation Safety Board found that the natural gas utility in the city, Dallas-based Atmos Energy Corp., had detected the leaks before the explosions, but didn’t evaluate them as severe enough for quick repair. The board also found that Atmos didn’t do enough to assess risks and make repairs to its pipeline system and didn’t do enough to educate the public or emergency officials about how to respond to natural gas leaks. It urged regulators to take a closer look at the company.
“Atmos has had significant safety shortfalls in recent years,” the board wrote “Thus, Atmos’s multistate operations require broader oversight.”
Company spokesperson Bobby Morgan said safety remains “our highest priority.”
“We will work diligently in the coming days and weeks to evaluate the findings as part of our ongoing safety efforts to further our vision to be the safest provider of natural gas services,” Morgan said in a statement.
The company distributes natural gas in Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
One explosion and fire in south Jackson on Jan. 24 killed the elderly woman Barbour and slightly injured her husband, Johnny Barbour. Three days later and three-quarters of a mile (1.1 kilometers) away, another explosion leveled one home and burned a neighboring home. No one was injured there.
Investigators found that in both cases, gas pipes feeding the homes had pulled loose from their couplings as soil expanded and contracted, allowing dangerous levels of gas to build up, setting the stage for the explosions.
Much of the Jackson area is built atop a soil layer known as Yazoo clay that expands in wet weather and contracts in times of drought. Besides causing building foundations to crack and roadways to heave, the expansion and contraction can cause pipes to disconnect, and the pipe couplings that an Atmos predecessor installed are not resistant to pulling out, the board found. Investigators recommended that Atmos find and replace all those couplings.
The leak at the Barbour home had been detected Nov. 17, 2023, after the homeowner smelled an odor compound that is inserted into methane gas. An Atmos technician declared the leak nonhazardous, meaning Atmos might not repair it for a year or more. The leak at the second home was detected Dec. 1, but Atmos evaluated it as even less hazardous, scheduling it for repair within three years.
The report indicates the company re-evaluated leaks in Jackson following the explosion and found others that were more serious than initially reported.
The safety board faulted Atmos for not doing more to identify threats posed by expansive soils, noting regulators had been warning about the issue since 2008 and that the NTSB identified expansive soils as a factor in a 2018 Atmos explosion in Dallas that killed one and injured four.
Investigators said Atmos had different safety procedures in different states and that if stricter state rules in Kansas had been followed in Mississippi, the explosions could have been prevented.
“Atmos’s siloed state operations, including leak monitoring procedures that differed by state, demonstrate that Atmos has not applied lessons learned in one state to the other states it operates in,” the board wrote.
DALLAS, Texas (KETK) – Two children at the center of an AMBER ALERT issued on Thursday have been found, according to the Dallas Police Department.
The Dallas Police Department had issued an AMBER ALERT for 1-year-old Ky’aire Epperson and 8-year-old Sariah Roy-Ford, who were last seen in Dallas on Thursday.
According to the alert, Ky’aire is a 1-year-old Black boy who weighs around 20 pounds, is around 2-foot 5-inches tall and has black hair and brown eyes. Sariah is an 8-year-old Black girl with a black braided ponytail and brown eyes who’s around 4’8? and weighs around 70 pounds.
Ky’aire and Sariah were last seen in the 6400 block of Maple Avenue in Dallas at around 3:04 p.m. on Thursday. Ky’aire was last seen wearing a brown onesie with an animal print, green shorts and white socks. Sariah was last seen wearing a blue shirt, pink shorts and blue shoes.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Airport security video shows another way federal agents are taking immigrants to detention centers — in some cases they’re using commercial flights, with escorts dressed like any other passenger.
Video obtained through a public records request shows the 5-year-old boy, who became a face of the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis when he was detained while wearing a bunny hat, being flown with his father to Texas on a Delta Air Lines flight, just a day after they were taken into custody.
Adrian Conejo Arias and his son Liam Conejo Ramos seemed calm in these recordings as they were being escorted through the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by a man and two women dressed in plain clothes. Since the father and boy didn’t appear to be in custody, their trip to San Antonio likely went unnoticed by fellow passengers.
The Trump administration, like its predecessors, is mostly using ICE Air Operations charter flights as it detains hundreds of thousands of people for deportation. Human rights monitors are trying to keep track as detainees are loaded onto planes in shackles in parts of airports the public can’t easily see.
The video of Liam and his father, they say, exposes another route that’s harder for them to document, despite happening in plain view inside the same airport terminals where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing tactical, military-style gear are now being deployed to support security checkpoints.
What happened in this case?
The father, who was seeking asylum from Ecuador, and son were detained by ICE officers in Minnesota on Jan. 20 and taken to Texas. They were released on a judge’s orders and returned to Minnesota but then an immigration judge denied their asylum request. The family’s lawyer said they’re appealing.
The video that revealed their commercial airline travel was first obtained by Nick Benson, an aviation enthusiast and activist with MN 50501, a grassroots group involved in anti-ICE and No Kings protests. Benson said he’s never seen children while monitoring ICE charter flights, so he suspected ICE was flying them commercially. He identified the time and day the father and son were flown out of Minneapolis, filed a public records request for the security video — and there they were.
The Associated Press obtained the same video through a similar request to the MSP Airport Police Department. It shows Liam’s dad carrying the boy’s Spider-Man backpack as a woman shows an airline agent their boarding passes. A man and the other woman follow them onto the jetway.
Delta declined to comment on the video. But the airline said most government travel is booked through third-party agencies, with no advance notice about who is flying or why. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
What is ICE Air?
ICE Air Operations transfers and deports people mostly using flights chartered through airline broker CSI Aviation, which has subcontracted with small airlines such as GlobalX, Eastern Air Express, Bighorn Airways, Key Lime Air and Avelo Airlines.
ICE Air continues to rapidly expand both domestic transfer and deportation flights, according to Human Rights First, which documented 1,630 immigration enforcement flights in February alone — an average of 42 per day, up from 39 in January. Of that total, 183 were deportation flights and 1,170 were domestic transfer flights.
ICE also uses U.S. Coast Guard planes. Flight Monitor said it tracked hundreds of flights since June 2025 in which Coast Guard planes were used to transport immigrants domestically.
“It seems that ICE sometimes uses commercial flights to destinations where they don’t carry out kind of larger scale ICE Air deportation flights,” said Savi Arvey, director of research and analysis for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First.
The monitors use flight-tracking websites to follow the charter planes, but these tools can’t track individual passengers on commercial flights, making them “less in the public eye,” Arvey said. “It adds another level of opaqueness.”
HOUSTON (AP) — George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the symbol for how the ongoing partial government shutdown has wreaked havoc on the nation’s air travel system.
While long security lines have hobbled airports across the U.S., Bush Intercontinental’s problems have been more pronounced. Frustrated travelers at Houston’s largest airport have confronted warnings of four-hour wait times to get through security, as many Transportation Security Administration workers aren’t showing up for their shifts since they’re not getting paid during the shutdown.
“And we’ve been in this airport since 8 o’clock in the morning. Very tired, queuing and queuing and very slow,” Edgaer Fernando, who was traveling to Guatemala, said on Tuesday.
Union and airport officials have offered a variety of reasons why Bush Intercontinental seems to be worse than other airports.
These include the Houston airport having one of the highest callout rates of TSA workers in the country due to the economic challenges they are facing, higher passenger traffic as the airport is a major hub for United Airlines, and a busy tourism month for Houston.
More TSA workers in Houston are not coming to work compared to other cities
Both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, the city’s other major airport, have had some of the highest callout rates in the U.S.
While 11% of TSA workers nationally did not show up for work on Tuesday, at Bush Intercontinental, that number was nearly 40%. At Hobby, it was even higher — 43%. The callout rate in Houston has averaged between 35% and 40%, said Johnny Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers nationwide.
But Bush Intercontinental is much busier than Hobby, having served over 48.4 million passengers in 2024, compared to 14.6 million passengers at Hobby.
Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System, said that at Bush Intercontinental, 37 TSA checkpoint lanes are usually operating. Only between a third and 50% of lanes are currently being operated, he said.
“We worry conditions will only get worse at airports across the U.S. until Congress ends this shutdown,” Szczesniak said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.
TSA workers were already dealing with financial difficulties and debt from last year’s shutdown, and with higher costs for groceries and gas, employees “are just tired of it,” Jones said.
“There could be a million factors, but I can just tell you as simple as this: If everybody’s being paid, you wouldn’t have no lines,” Jones said.
Bush Intercontinental is among the nation’s largest hub airports
The Houston airport is one of the nation’s busiest and is also a major hub for United Airlines. Of the 48.4 million passengers that went through the airport in 2024, 34.8 million were from United Airlines.
“There’s high call outs, but it’s also the excessive origination point for a lot of flights,” Jones said.
With the high volume of passengers, the Houston airport might have also been experiencing a staffing shortage even before the shutdown, as no TSA workers have been hired around the country in about a year, Jones said.
March has been a busy month for Houston
Besides spring break travelers, Houston has hosted a variety of high-profile events this month.
These include games during the World Baseball Classic and CERAWeek, a major energy conference with more than 10,000 participants from around the world. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo reportedly drew 2.6 million attendees, many from outside the metro area, during its three-week duration. And this week, two of the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 games will be played in Houston.
“While the delays are frustrating for travelers, they do not appear to be impacting tourism. In fact, Houston is experiencing the strongest month of March in terms of hotel rooms and reservations in the city’s history,” Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement.
Wait times at Bush Intercontinental seemed to improve on Wednesday as it took less than two hours to get through TSA security.
“Everyone’s trying their best. And thanks to all the TSA members who are here,” Raj Chauhan, who was traveling to Miami, said on Wednesday.
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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
Growth rates in U.S. metro areas dropped the steepest in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border last year because of declines in immigrants while counties along Florida’s Gulf Coast lost residents due to a series of hurricanes, according to new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The estimates showed that a majority of metro areas and counties had slower population gains last year, which the bureau attributed primarily to a slowdown in international migration, compared to the previous year when an influx of immigrants had helped urban areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic a few years earlier.
The average growth rate for metro areas fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025.
The figures, covering one year through July 2025, reflect the initial months of President Donald Trump’s second term and the beginning of his administration’s immigration crackdown, With an aging America and birth rates in the U.S. declining over the past two decades, immigration has become an important source of growth in many communities.
“With so little natural increase, migration determines whether an area grows or declines, particularly in the big metro cores that have continuous domestic out-migration and are dependent on immigration,” said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
Immigrant losses
Three metro areas along the U.S-Mexico border stretching from Arizona to Texas had the steepest drops in population growth rates in 2025, according to the Census Bureau.
The growth rate in Laredo, Texas, dropped from 3.2% to 0.2%. It went from 3.3% to 1.4% in Yuma, Arizona, and declined from 1.2% into negative territory at -0.7% in El Centro, California. All three experienced growth in 2024 because of an influx of thousands of immigrants.
“That pattern suggests a sharper rise-and-fall effect in border regions, where international migration plays a more central role in year-to-year population change,” said Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center.
As in 2024, the top destinations for immigrants in pure numbers in 2025 were counties that are home to Houston, Miami and Los Angeles. But the drop in immigrant numbers in those counties was stark. Nine out of 10 U.S. counties had lower levels of immigration in 2025 compared to 2024, according to the Census Bureau.
Hurricane migration
Two destructive hurricanes, Helene and Milton, tore through Gulf Coast counties in Florida in fall 2024, leaving behind tens of billions of dollars in damage. The storms also caused residents to leave, according to the population estimates.
Pinellas County, which is home to St. Petersburg, lost almost 12,000 residents, the second most in the U.S., trailing only Los Angeles County, which has been losing residents all decade. Pinellas County relies on migration for growth because deaths outpace births more than in any county in the U.S.
Taylor County, a tiny community ravaged by the hurricanes in Florida’s Big Bend area, had the steepest growth rate decline among U.S. counties last year, with a -2.2% drop.
But the hurricane migration wasn’t limited to Florida. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the county that is home to Asheville, North Carolina, had more than 2,000 residents leaving in the months after the remnants of Hurricane Helene destroyed homes and cut off power and communications to mountain towns.
Growth leaders
The New York metro area slid from growing by the most people in 2024 to ranking No. 13 in 2025 because of the drop in immigrants.
Instead, two perennial growth powerhouses this decade, the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metro areas, were at the top of the list, followed by the Atlanta, Phoenix and Charlotte, North Carolina, metro areas.
Several midsize metros in Florida and South Carolina had the largest growth rates. Ocala, Florida, located 80 miles (129 km) northwest of Orlando and known for its horse farms, led the nation at 3.4%. It was followed by: metro Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which has become a retirement haven; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Lakeland, Florida, located between the much larger metros of Tampa and Orlando; and Punta Gorda, Florida, about 35 miles (56.3 km) north of Fort Myers.
Sunbelt exurban growth
The far-out suburbs were top destinations among those who had moved from somewhere else in the United States.
They were led by Collin County, Texas, outside Dallas; Montgomery County, Texas, outside Houston; Pinal County, Arizona, outside Phoenix; and Pasco and Polk counties outside Tampa.
The rapid growth of far-flung exurbs is an after-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau. Rising housing costs drove people farther from cities, and remote work allowed many to do their jobs from home at least part of the week.
Where the babies are
Even though New York had more people moving out than moving in, births allowed the metro area to gain more than 32,000 residents. The New York metro area led the nation in natural increase, or births outpacing deaths, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metros.
The metros where deaths outpaced births in the greatest numbers were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several Florida communities with large senior populations — the Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Tampa metro areas.
The two Texas metro areas topped the charts in natural increase because of their age structure and the fact that they have gained more people than anywhere in the U.S., You said.
“Decades of domestic and international in-migration have produced relatively young populations, with a large share of residents in childbearing ages, alongside comparatively smaller proportions of senior populations,” she said.
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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.
TYLER — Starting this April, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will no longer allow purchasing candy or drinks with more than 5 grams of sugar or artificial sweetener. However, SNAP card shoppers will still be able to purchase electrolyte drinks, coffee creamers and any ingredients on the baking side.
Celia Cole, with Feeding Texas, says the responsibility for following the new rules will not fall on shoppers. “Shoppers will not be penalized. It is up to the retailers to make sure that they are implementing the restrictions accurately,” Cole explains. Read the rest of this entry »
LUFKIN — The City of Lufkin will conduct a county-wide test of its emergency alert system at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, April 2. This test will push out alerts through text message, email and phone call. This also will include land-line phones. Cell phones will sound an alert, and a message will be on the screen explaining this is a test.
Lufkin’s emergency management coordinators, in conjunction with Angelina County’s emergency officials, will use this test to ensure the system is working properly. Should there be a large-scale emergency, this system will be used to alert residents of the situation and allow for instructions and directions to keep everyone safe.
“We appreciate the cooperation of our local law enforcement, school districts, hospitals, and other entities to spread the word about this test,” Fire Chief Jesse Moody said. “It is our focus to keep our residents safe.
City of Lufkin residents are encouraged to sign up for Lufkin Alerts! This emergency notification system enables the city to provide you with critical information quickly in a variety of situations, such as severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons and evacuations of buildings or neighborhoods, Moody said.
To sign up go to this link. Residents can expect to receive the message on multiple platforms.
DEL RIO (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – The state quietly shuttered a jail booking facility in Val Verde County last summer that had operated as a hub of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border crackdown, state officials acknowledged Tuesday.
Texas officials had opened two such sites for the governor’s border initiative, which surged Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and State Guard members to the more than 1,250 miles of border Texas shares with Mexico. Operation Lone Star was started early in the Biden administration in response to the White House’s immigration policies and continued as the number of illegal border crossings reached new highs.
At the facilities, officers booked asylum-seeking migrants on state charges of criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail, and human smuggling, a more serious felony that was largely leveled against thousands of young Americans.
Abbott credited President Donald Trump’s return to the White House when he shut the first facility in Jim Hogg County last March. However, internal booking logs showed the reality was more nuanced, as the number of illegal border crossings had been decreasing for months before tanking further under Trump’s second administration.
The closure of the facility in Val Verde, home to Del Rio, had not been previously reported or acknowledged by state officials until Tuesday. DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen confirmed the closure to The Texas Tribune in response to questions about internal records that suggested no one had been booked at the facility since May 2025.
Officials closed the Val Verde site in August 2025 after DPS officials began booking inmates into local jails that month, Nolen said.
“Thanks to increased collaboration at the state and federal levels over the last year, our border is now more secure than it has been in years — and the Val Verde Temporary Processing Facility, which was used to support local jails overwhelmed by the record number of arrests along the border, was closed,” Nolen said.
Texas DPS officers are making an average of nearly 100 arrests per week along the Texas-Mexico border, Nolen said. That is a small fraction of the number being detained under Operation Lone Star during the Biden administration, when local jails were overwhelmed until the state set up the booking facilities and began holding migrants at state prisons.
The massive state police agency has reallocated much of its resources to the interior of the state, where troopers are working on specific teams to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest thousands of undocumented immigrants. The state has labeled the mission “Operation Lone Star 2.0” to underscore its newfound focus on immigration operations hundreds of miles away from the border.
The Legislature earmarked $3.4 billion for border security for the current two-year state budget that runs through the fall of spending plan.
To see this article in its original form, go The Texas Tribune.
TEXARKANA – A 30-year-old is on the run after allegedly assaulting an elderly man on Bowie Street in Texarkana on Tuesday afternoon.
The Texarkana Police Department reports that an elderly couple unintentionally collided with a parked car while they were pulling into a convenience store parking space. The husband was seated in the passenger seat when Freddie Miller, the car’s owner, came out of the store and spoke briefly with him.
The conversation eventually turned violent, as Miller made an attempt to steal the money the man was carrying.
According to the Texarkana Police Department and our news partner KETK, “Miller hit the man multiple times in the face and took the money when he tried to resist.” He then briefly returned to his car, got out, and took the wife’s purse out of her hands.”
Later on, the purse was discovered in the middle of the road, but it was empty. Miller drove off in a Ford Fusion after the incident. When the police arrived at Miller’s house after tracking the car, he was not there. The Texarkana Police Department stated, “Incidents like this—senseless violence, especially involving senior citizens—are particularly troubling and something we take very seriously.”
Please call the police department at 903-798-3116 if you have any information about his whereabouts. If people want to stay anonymous or ask about a reward, they can submit any information online at http://www.p3tips.com or the Texarkana Area Crime Stoppers at 903-793-STOP
RIO GRANDE VALLEY (AP) – Over the past five years at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Rev. Brian Strassburger has gone from ministering to throngs of asylum-seekers in overcrowded shelters to celebrating Mass with detained and deported migrants.
But while border crossings have drastically shrunk under President Donald Trump’s administration, the Jesuit priest said his mission remains centered on embodying the Christian message “that God is accompanying you on your journey.
“And the journey, whether it’s northbound or southbound, involves a lot of suffering,” Strassburger added. “We have a faith that speaks to us amid that suffering. We have a God who says, ‘I want to be one of you.’”
Based in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Strassburger heads the Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, a trio of Jesuits who have been providing Mass and other sacraments to migrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border since 2021.
Back then, thousands of migrants crammed into bare-bones shelters daily before and after crossing the border in record numbers.
Nearly 2.5 million people crossed the border illegally or came legally through a system for those seeking humanitarian protections from May 2023, when Joe Biden’s administration ended COVID-19 restrictions on asylum, until January 2025, when Trump declared a national emergency at the border at the start of his second term.
Strassburger celebrated Mass in packed shelters in McAllen, Texas, and just across the Rio Grande in Reynosa, Mexico, where many thousands slept in tents in makeshift shelters and hundreds more waited outside for a chance to cross into the United States even as the Biden administration started to impose restrictions.
He was there, at a shelter run by Catholic nuns, the day after the Trump administration canceled all border appointments would-be asylum-seekers had made through an app to enter the United States.
After celebrating Mass, he asked people how they were managing the news. Most said they were feeling devastated, terrified and deceived. But one woman raised her hand and said, in Spanish, “The last thing we lose is hope.”
“Sandra, she doesn’t place her hope in a smartphone app or in a presidential administration or in a government. She puts her hope in the Lord, and that is a hope that doesn’t disappoint, even in the midst of the despairing moments of life,” Strassburger recalled. “If Sandra can say that, in that day and in that moment, how can I lose hope in my own ministry here on the border?”
The 41-year-old pastor’s journey to the priesthood and border ministry was one of grace more than planning, Strassburger said.
Raised in Colorado by Catholic parents, he dreamed of becoming a dad, math teacher and basketball coach in a Jesuit high school like the one he attended. It was after college, while volunteering with the Augustinians — among whom he met the future Pope Leo XIV — that he first considered a religious vocation, especially when ministering to AIDS victims at a hospice in South Africa.
“I’d always thought a religious vocation or a priesthood was like this cross that you bear because God tells you you have to. He’s like, ‘Sorry, Brian, you’re one of those ones who has to be a priest.’ And you’re like, ‘OK, God,’” Strassburger said. “I started to think, what if the life of priesthood isn’t this great burden, but actually the way for me to be my best self?”
In 2011, he entered the Jesuit novitiate and five years later, despite knowing no Spanish, he was sent to Nicaragua for more than two years. On his return, newly bilingual, he spent a summer at the Kino Border Initiative in the two Nogales — the cities in Arizona and Mexico just across the fence.
That’s where he found his mission, the ideal place for his ability to navigate a bilingual context and serve as a bridge. After ordination, his superior asked him to establish a Jesuit presence in the Rio Grande Valley, literally at the country’s margins, the places where Pope Francis had urged the church to go.
“I couldn’t have said yes fast enough,” Strassburger said, adding that the local bishop then assigned him and another Jesuit a simple mission. “He said, ‘Read the reality and respond to it.’ And that’s what we’ve been trying to do since then. And we identified very quickly the need for pastoral accompaniment of the migrant population.”
With the ongoing immigration crackdown, Strassburger has been focusing on celebrating regular Masses at two large Texas detention centers as well as in shelters in Mexico.
One of them, in Matamoros, is run by Mexican authorities for people who’ve been deported — some of them after decades in the United States, like one woman with six children, all U.S. citizens, ages 19 to 6. She was arrested after 29 years in the country, right before Christmas at an immigration court check-in.
“She’s like, ‘I just keep thinking, was it a mistake for me to even try to regularize my status? Like, if I had not gone to court that day, would I be celebrating Christmas with my six kids?’” Strassburger recalled. “That’s the kind of thing we encounter every day.”
Five years ago, William Cuellar was deported back to his native Mexico, which he left when he was 4. He’s now also staying in a shelter in Matamoros, which abuts Brownsville, Texas, to facilitate visits from his mother and adult children who remain in the U.S.
He started attending Mass with Strassburger six months ago and sees him as a friend more than a priest.
“When I met Father Brian, I was like, ‘Cool, I can communicate in English with someone else,’” Cuellar said. “He provides me with the time to hear me out.”
In addition to sacraments such as Mass, confession and baptisms, it’s that consoling, listening presence from Strassburger and the other Jesuits that helps migrants the most, added Sister Carmen Ramírez, who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Reynosa with another Catholic nun.
“They bring hope to people,” Ramírez said. “These men, they bring the Gospel, a glance of empathy, of compassion.”
The shelter now hosts about two dozen people mostly from Honduras and Mexico. When the Jesuits visit twice a week, another 50 families come for Mass and activities focused on mothers and children, most of whom are from Haiti.
“Father Brian is a man who knows how to relate to children. I imagine Jesus when I see them running to hug him,” Ramírez said. “His apostolate is of listening, of sitting down to listen, looking at people straight in the face, saying that there is a God who loves them through this encounter.”
GRAPEVINE (AP) — Conservatives are holding one of their largest annual gatherings at a perilous political moment for President Donald Trump and with open division on the right over the war he launched in Iran.
While Trump maintains broad support among conservatives, the war in Iran is more than a wrinkle for activists drawn to his “America First” campaign pledge against getting involved in foreign conflicts. A new AP-NORC poll shows about 59% of Americans think the military action in Iran is excessive. The debate will be a subtext — and likely flare publicly — as thousands of activists, influencers and Republican lawmakers gather at the Conservative Political Action Conference that begins Wednesday outside Dallas.
The event also comes a day after a Democrat flipped the Florida state legislative seat that’s home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The gathering will be a contrast to the celebratory meeting one year ago when Trump, newly returned to office, vowed to “forge a new and lasting political majority” and Elon Musk wielded a chain saw to symbolize how the Republican administration was slashing the government workforce and red tape.
This year, neither Trump nor Vice President JD Vance has been publicly announced as speaking to the gathering. But among those who are slated to speak are big names in the MAGA movement who have voiced conflicting views on the Iran war.
“This is obviously going to be a hot topic,” said John Gizzi, a CPAC veteran and columnist for the conservative media outlet Newsmax, who noted the possibility of greater U.S. involvement over an uncertain length of time.
Among the featured speakers scheduled at the four-day event is longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon. Bannon said during his “War Room” podcast this month that should the war become “a hard slog,” it could cost the GOP conservative voters ahead of the midterms.
“We are going to bleed support,” Bannon said.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who supports the war, also is on the agenda at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center.
“I think President Trump was exactly right to act to protect Americans,” Cruz said last week in a CBS News interview.
Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s scheduled speaking slot is a reminder of the disagreement among some conservatives about the U.S. military alliance with Israel against Iran.
Gaetz, host of a show on the conservative One America News Network, has said the U.S. has been too cozy with Israel as popular conservative personalities such as Tucker Carlson have challenged conservatives’ longtime bond with the country, prompting criticism from GOP groups, including pro-Israel Republicans, of antisemitism.
Others scheduled to speak include Trump border czar Tom Homan and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who is running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.
A year after Trump presided over the group’s jubilant conference upon his return to office, he is in a much different place.
At war while worries about jobs and household costs linger, his approval is down. His signature domestic policy, aimed at tightening voting rules ahead of November’s midterm elections, has stalled in a Congress his party controls, while the House Republican majority is in jeopardy and the party’s hold on the Senate is less certain than a year ago.
Despite the dividing lines, Trump enjoys enduring approval from his party’s right flank. Eighty-six percent of conservatives said they approved of the president’s job performance in a February AP-NORC poll.
And while Trump’s supporters remain devoted, some within the most conservative circles say division over Iran could signal trouble for Republicans in November.
Texas Rep. Steve Toth, who plans to attend CPAC, suggested that Trump’s support remains robust among conservatives but that Republican messaging on the war could be stronger.
“From MAGA people, for the most part, I don’t hear frustration with the president,” said Toth, who beat incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw in Texas’ March 3 primary. “I don’t know that we’re doing a great job at communicating the full ramifications.”
Another stark reminder of the contrast with last year is Texas’ unresolved Senate primary, a particular political headache for Trump.
Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, who is challenging four-term GOP Sen. John Cornyn, not only is attending the event but also has one of the event’s premier speaking roles, the Ronald Reagan Dinner on Friday evening. Cornyn is not attending the Texas conference.
Trump said three weeks ago he would soon endorse one of them after Paxton finished narrowly behind Cornyn in the March 3 primary, though neither received a majority to avoid a May 26 runoff.
Trump implored whoever didn’t get the endorsement to drop out, writing in a social media post that the bitter contest “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”
The deadline for candidates to remove their names from the May 26 runoff ballot passed last week, as Paxton and Cornyn were launching stepped-up attack ads targeting one another.