Today is
Wednesday June 03, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas ( THE TEXAS TRIBUNE)– Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing online messaging platform Discord, accusing the tech company of exposing children to predators using the service and deceiving users about the safety of the platform.
Paxton filed the lawsuit Friday in a Collin County state district court, the latest in a recent flurry of lawsuits by Paxton’s office against tech companies and other businesses ahead of his U.S. Senate GOP runoff against incumbent John Cornyn on Tuesday.
Texas joins Nevada, Indiana and New Jersey as states that have recently sued Discord. Florida announced its investigation of the company in March. Many private lawsuits have been filed in recent months, as well, largely from families accusing the messaging service of allowing children to be sexually abused or exploited while using Discord.
East Texas Primary Runoff Election Guide: Where to vote & what’s on the ballot
Paxton first opened an investigation into the messaging platform in 2024, along with several other tech companies, all broadly focused on user data privacy. Paxton announced last October, following the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, that he would expand the investigation of Discord to include a focus on the sexual exploitation of minors and extremist content on the platform.
Discord is an online messaging service generally used by people to communicate while playing video games. It also includes chat functions and the ability for users to create topic-based servers. Paxton has sued other video game and social media platforms, like Snapchat, Tiktok and Roblox, in recent months over similar concerns that they are violating users’ data privacy and allowing their platforms to be used to exploit children.
“Discord has allowed and invited all kinds of nihilistic violence and evil,” Paxton said. “We live in a time where the dangers children face online have never been greater, and every parent in Texas deserves to know their child is protected.”
A Discord spokesperson said the platform has robust safety features for teenage users and is continuously working to improve existing safety features. The spokesperson noted roughly 80% of Discord’s users are adults and the service requires its users to be at least 13.
“The lawsuit’s characterization of Discord does not reflect the platform we have built or the investments we have made in user safety,” a Discord spokesperson wrote in a statement. “We look forward to collaborating with policymakers in working toward a safer online experience for all users on Discord and across the internet.”
In 2023, Texas lawmakers strengthened laws requiring social media platforms to protect minors from inappropriate content online. That legislation, called Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act, is still fighting its way through the courts and parts have been blocked for being unconstitutionally vague.
Paxton has used the remaining provisions of the SCOPE Act to bring lawsuits against Discord and the other tech companies.
The lawsuit asks the courts to require Discord to implement age verification for all users under that law, the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act. The lawsuit also seeks for Discord to pay fines under the state Deceptive Trade Practices Act, arguing the company has misled users about the safety of the platform.
Paxton cited a 2025 lawsuit filed by the family of a 13-year-old girl who says she was groomed on Roblox, then later Discord, before being sexually assaulted in her home. The family’s lawsuit argues the companies failed to protect the girl.
This week, Paxton also sued WhatsApp and its parent company Meta, alleging the platform can access users’ private messages.
DALLAS (AP) — After three terms in the U.S. House and two unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate, Colin Allred said he’s heard plenty about voters’ suspicions that politicians are just trying to make a buck in Washington.
“‘What about the stock trading in Congress? What about people getting rich in Congress?’” Allred said they ask him regularly. “And I have to say to them, you’re absolutely right about that, too. We need to be better.”
He’s challenging Rep. Julie Johnson in the Democratic runoff for a Dallas-area House seat on Tuesday, and he’s one of several candidates trying to harness populist anger over congressional stock trading. Allred has denounced Johnson for trades involving companies like Palantir, a data analytics firm with ties to President Donald Trump’s administration.
Johnson said her trades were handled by a financial manager, and she accused Allred of being “only out for himself.” She pointed to financial disclosures that showed Allred’s wealth nearly doubling during his own time in Congress, although Allred said his assets were in a blind trust and the money came from his wife’s income as a partner at a law firm.
“To be clear, the sum total I made on that trade was only $90,” Johnson said of her Palantir stock. “My opponent is trying to make it seem like it was hundreds or thousands.”
The bitter campaign is emblematic of broader debates within the Democratic Party over the role of money in politics. Long a refrain of strident progressives and good-government reformers, accusations that political rivals are self-dealing or bought by special interests have become a mainstay of Democratic primaries. The heightened criticism of lawmakers’ personal wealth comes as the party looks to sharpen its anti-corruption message against Trump and to develop a platform for overhauling Washington if Democrats take power in the midterms.
Some are tracking congressional stock trading
Trump campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp,” capitalizing on Americans’ disdain for the Washington establishment. Now that his family is profiting while he’s back in the White House, Democrats are eager to regain the upper hand on an issue that could prove potent with voters.
“The difficulty is that right now, no party has the mantle on anti-corruption,” said Daniel Lobo-Lewis, a political consultant in Washington. “Many voters outside of the beltway see both parties as corrupt, because they see all politicians as bought by the donors or by their own self-interest.”
Lobo-Lewis and Nico Agosta founded the Political Integrity Project last year to track stock trading and corporate donations involving members of Congress.
The organization asks candidates to sign an “integrity pledge” to refrain from trading stocks or accepting corporate donations while in Congress and vow not to work as a lobbyist after they leave office. So far, about 90 challengers and seven sitting lawmakers have taken the pledge.
“If we want to, in any way, start rebuilding trust in our political institutions, it starts with no-brainer changes like this that have an approval rating above and beyond any other issue you could imagine,” Lobo-Lewis said.
Congress has yet to enact a stock trading ban for its members, though insider trading is already illegal for members just like it is for anyone else. There are multiple proposals on Capitol Hill, but none have gained traction.
A bipartisan bill to ban congressional stock trading stalled this year despite receiving Trump’s blessing during his State of the Union. And Democrats remain divided over the number of alleged loopholes in their competing proposals.
Anti-corruption messages spread in Democratic primaries
A crowded race in a Democratic-leaning Utah congressional seat has featured attacks over candidates’ personal wealth. State Sen. Nate Blouin criticized his main rival, former Rep. Ben McAdams, for having equity in a Utah data center firm, and excoriated others in the race for past investments and jobs.
McAdams said the equity of several thousand dollars was payment for a past contract completed by his government consulting firm while he was a private citizen. His campaign defended the data center project by saying it would use no water and run on clean energy.
A spokesperson for McAdams also claimed Blouin “is currently hiding his corporate donations” by removing them from campaign disclosure reports, which McAdams’ campaign claims “is not only deceitful, it breaks campaign finance law.”
In an interview, Blouin rejected the claim that he broke the law, and said that he removed the donations because he returned the money to each donor.
“It was actually quite uncomfortable to return some of those,” said Blouin, because some of the firms included local firms and clean energy companies. “But there is a perception that campaign contributions from lobbyists and companies influence votes, and I think there is some truth to that.”
In a New York City congressional district that includes both Wall Street and the Democratic Socialists of America’s headquarters, the city’s former comptroller, Brad Lander, has accused Rep. Dan Goldman of trying to buy another term by using his own wealth to match campaign contributions. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune, says he entered all of his assets into a blind trust after taking office in 2023.
A spokesperson for Goldman said Lander is “running a deceitful campaign based on absurd lies that Dan is beholden to special interests” and that Goldman has raised more campaign funds than Lander “without taking a dime of corporate PAC money.” Goldman has spent his own money on the race, the spokesperson said: “To ensure that the NY-10 voters can be sure that he is beholden only to them and his principles.”
Lander said Goldman’s spending is “not illegal, but it is certainly anti-democratic when a quarter-billionaire like Dan Goldman not only dumps millions of his own inherited wealth into his elections but also solicits money from the same forces who are rigging the economy and worsening the affordability crisis.”
More candidates are fighting over stocks in California
Even representatives who support a ban on congressional stock trading are feeling the heat.
Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California is facing multiple primary challengers who have criticized the congressman for holding stocks while serving in Congress. Sherman does not trade individual stocks and supports a ban on stock trading.
“I only own three individual stocks, which I inherited from my mother when she passed away, which were originally acquired by my grandmother,” Sherman said. “I have never sold them because I made a promise to my constituents that I would not buy and sell individual stocks.”
One of Sherman’s primary challengers is Jake Levine, a former climate adviser to President Joe Biden, who signed the pledge from the Political Integrity Project. But Sherman said Levine “refuses to disclose key elements of his $18 million stock portfolio, and actively bought and sold stocks while serving on the National Security Council.” Levine has said he cannot disclose the portfolio because it is managed by his family and he has no oversight.
In the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California State Sen. Scott Wiener has critiqued his progressive opponent, Saikat Chakrabarti, over his personal wealth. Chakrabarti is a former software engineer who earned millions as an early employee at the tech firm Stripe. He later served as the first chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Wiener said that Chakrabarti “has enormous investments” and “is trying to buy this seat” while “spreading bogus conspiracy theories” with his own wealth. He criticized Chakrabarti for not disclosing the last decade of his stock trades.
“If you’re making a ban on stock trades a central part of your campaign — as Saikat is doing, running around saying that everyone under the sun is corrupt — how about you tell the voters about your own stock trading history,” Wiener said.
Chakrabarti retorted that his wealth as a private citizen is not relevant to his future time in office and that he would place all of his assets into a blind trust should he be elected. He critiqued Wiener for being supported by super PACs funded by the AI firm Anthropic and other major corporations.
“This is all part of a larger problem, which is just the whole idea of corruption in our politics,” Chakrabarti said. “If you’re in Congress, you sit on committees that oversee a lot of these industries, and it’s unethical to be using that insider information, that knowledge to make stock trades. But that doesn’t apply to a private citizen.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in the Lone Star State will make their second attempt to nominate a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in a primary runoff election on Tuesday, the electoral version of the Texas two-step.
Also on the ballot are primary runoffs in more than a dozen congressional districts, plus state contests for lieutenant governor, attorney general and others.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was the top vote-getter in the March 3 primary, but strong showings by two GOP challengers forced the four-term incumbent to Tuesday’s head-to-head matchup with state Attorney General Ken Paxton, the second-place finisher who received President Donald Trump’s endorsement on May 19.
The contest is Trump’s next opportunity to purge the party of incumbents he views as insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda. It also sets the stage for a general election where Democrats are increasingly optimistic about their chances to score an upset in the heavily Republican state as they look to retake control of the U.S. Senate. Historically, voters have tended to punish the incumbent president’s party at the ballot box in midterm election years.
The winner will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in the general election.
Trump seemed open to endorsing Cornyn following the primary, and he did not excoriate the incumbent in his endorsement of Paxton, as he’s done recently with Republican incumbents in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky. But he said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
Cornyn was critical of Trump ahead of the president’s 2024 campaign.
Since much of the Texas primary campaign has focused on the candidates’ loyalty to Trump, the counties where the president has the most support could play a decisive role. Although many of the counties Trump won in 2024 with 80% or more of the vote are rural and sparsely populated, collectively they made up about a fifth of the GOP primary vote. Paxton beat Cornyn in these counties, 45% to 40%, while Cornyn performed better than Paxton in the rest of the state.
In counties Trump carried with between 50% and 80% of the vote, Cornyn received about 42% of the vote, edging Paxton by a percentage point. Republican primary voters in the 12 counties Democrat Kamala Harris carried in 2024 preferred Cornyn, 44% to 40%. These counties made up 25% of the overall primary vote, larger than the share of Trump’s 80%-plus counties.
Only two incumbent U.S. senators from Texas have lost a primary in the last 100 years.
In 2025, Republicans redrew the state’s congressional districts at Trump’s urging as part of an effort to maintain control of the U.S. House.
Among the notable primary runoffs that resulted from the new congressional map, Democratic U.S. Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green will face each other in the redrawn 18th Congressional District. In the new 33rd Congressional District, Democratic U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson faces a challenge from her predecessor, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:
When do polls close?
Polls close statewide at 7 p.m. local time, which is 8 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET. Most polls are in Central time and close at 8 p.m. ET, while polls in the westernmost part of the state are in Mountain time and close at 9 p.m. ET.
What’s on the ballot?
The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in Republican primary runoffs for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, railroad commissioner, Court of Criminal Appeals, state Senate and state House and in Democratic primary runoffs for U.S. House, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state Board of Education and state House.
Who gets to vote?
Voters who did not participate in a party primary on March 3 may vote in the runoff for either party. Voters who did cast a ballot in a party primary may only vote in the runoff of the same party as they did in the primary. In other words, Democratic primary voters may not vote in a Republican primary runoff or vice versa. Voters in the non-partisan primary may vote in either party’s runoff.
How many voters are there?
As of the March 3 primary, there were nearly 19 million registered voters in Texas.
How many people actually vote?
About 2.2 million Republican primary votes and about 2.3 million Democratic primary votes were cast in the March 3 Texas primary.
In the 2022 Republican primary for Texas Attorney General, turnout was about 1.9 million voters in the primary and about 932,000 in the primary runoff.
How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?
About 63% of the vote in the March 3 Republican primary was cast before primary day.
As of Thursday, about 621,000 Republican primary ballots and about 262,000 Democratic primary ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election.
When are early and absentee votes released?
Counties tend to release all or nearly all results from early and absentee voting in the first vote update of the night, before any in-person Election Day results are released.
How long does vote-counting usually take?
In the U.S. Senate primary in March, the AP first reported results at 8 p.m. ET just as polls closed in most of the state. By 11:39 p.m. ET, 75% of the vote had been counted. Vote results were released continuously until about 5:58 a.m. ET, with about 98% of the total vote counted.
When will the AP declare a winner?
The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
How do recounts work?
Texas requires an automatic recount only in cases of a tie vote. Losing candidates may request and pay for a recount if the margin is less than 10% of the leading candidate’s vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there will be 161 days until the 2026 midterm elections.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.
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Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)
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May 19, 2026 5:55 PM
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Election 2026 Texas Senate
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FR171627 AP
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LUFKIN – One person is dead and two have been injured following a single-vehicle crash on U.S. 59 in Lufkin, according to police. The Lufkin Police Department said traffic on U.S. 59 South is was blocked after a single-vehicle crash killed one person. A Grapeland woman, Alishia M. Scott, 43, was pronounced dead at the scene in the 5000 block of U.S. 59 south of Lufkin A man and woman are being treated for their injuries. Her family has been notified. The three were in a Chevrolet Tahoe traveling north toward Lufkin when the accident occurred. An investigation by Lufkin Police and DPS Troopers is under way.
COLLIN COUNTY (TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the online messaging service Discord, claiming that the tech company misled users about the platform’s security and exposed kids to predators. In advance of his U.S. Senate GOP runoff against incumbent John Cornyn on Tuesday, Paxton filed the lawsuit on Friday in a Collin County state district court. It is the most recent in a string of lawsuits his office has filed against tech companies and other businesses. Texas has recently filed a lawsuit against Discord, joining Nevada, Indiana, and New Jersey. In March, Florida declared that it was looking into the platform. In recent months, a number of private lawsuits have also been filed, mostly by families who claim that Discord permits children to be sexually abused or exploited while using the messaging app.
Along with a number of other tech companies, Paxton initiated an investigation into the messaging platform in 2024, with a general focus on user data privacy. After conservative pundit Charlie Kirk was killed in October of last year, Paxton declared that he would broaden the scope of his investigation into Discord to include a focus on the platform’s extremist content and the sexual exploitation of minors. People typically use Discord, an online messaging service, to talk to each other while playing video games. Additionally, it has chat features and lets users set up topic-based servers. Paxton has filed lawsuits against other social media and video game companies, including Roblox, Tiktok, and Snapchat, alleging that these companies violate user privacy.
SMITH COUNTY — With the 2025–26 school year coming to an end, East Texas educators are reflecting on the first year of a classroom cell phone ban and the impact they say it had on students.
The end of another school year is here; hallways are empty, and students are already making summer plans. This school year was different as it marked the first year under Texas House Bill 1481, which bans personal communication devices in the classroom. Interim Principal for Winona High School, Jeff Dozier, said that having a state law enforced helped persuade students to keep their phones out of sight.
Teachers at Winona High School, including Theater Director Jeffrey Stokes, said students were more focused on lessons and less concerned about what their classmates were posting on social media.
Longtime math teacher Josh Loeffler at Tyler Legacy High School remembers when cell phones started popping up in the classroom and is glad to see them go. Engagement that helps students build skills both inside and outside the classroom.
JEFF DAVIS COUNTY, Texas – Since news first surfaced late last year that border walls could be built for the first time in the Big Bend region of West Texas, the story has been marked by shifting, unannounced changes to the plan and few clearly communicated details from the Trump administration.
Marfa Public Radio has been closely following developments in the story over the past few months.
Here’s where things stand.
Will there be a border wall anywhere in the Big Bend region?
Yes, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s latest plans.
Physical barriers, in the form of 30-foot-high steel bollard walls, are planned for a 175-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties.
This plan is broken up into three border wall projects:
1. Big Bend 1 — From Sierra Blanca, TX to near the Hudspeth-Jeff Davis County line
2. Big Bend 2 — From Ruidosa, TX to near the Madera Canyon Campgrounds in Big Bend Ranch State Park
3. Big Bend 3 — From the Hudspeth-Jeff Davis County line to Ruidosa, TX
Federal contracts were awarded in March for each of the three projects.
A $1 billion contract for Big Bend 1 was awarded to Barnard Construction. A $1.2 billion contract for Big Bend 2 was awarded to Fisher Sand and Gravel, and a $960.4 million for Big Bend 3 was also awarded to Barnard Construction.
In late April, a $4.4 million federal contract was awarded to Tierra Right of Way Services for “BB-3 Border Barrier Project Construction Monitoring Services.” CBP told Marfa Public Radio this week that the award is for “environmental and cultural monitors” for that stretch of wall project.
CBP also said that the timeline for completion for these three projects is sometime in 2027.
Landowners along this stretch first began receiving letters from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the agency handling real estate acquisition for CBP, in February. The public comment period for this section, which was extended several times, was set to close Friday, May 22.
Will there be a border wall in Big Bend National Park?
No, according to CBP’s latest plans.
CBP told Marfa Public Radio this week that it is not planning a 30-foot-high border wall in the national park.
Still, the park is set to receive a combination of border vehicle barriers, surveillance technology and patrol roads, according to CBP.
This plan is outlined under one project:
4. Big Bend 4 — From near the Madera Canyon Campgrounds in Big Bend Ranch State Park, along the Rio Grande across much of the national park, to the “Lower Canyons” of the Rio Grande east of the national park
Last week, DHS awarded a $1.7 billion contract for the national park project to an Albuquerque construction firm.
Though a federal government spending website shows the Big Bend 4 contract award as being for “a border wall in Big Bend, Texas,” CBP has denied that the contract is for a physical wall.
Anti-wall advocates have expressed skepticism that a border wall in the national park, which was previously on the table, is truly not happening.
What are the latest details on the work in the national park?
Brewster County Judge Greg Henington, whose county contains the national park, and other local officials met with CBP representatives last week for a status update on all the Big Bend area border wall projects.
Henington said he learned in that meeting that CBP plans to improve, but not pave, dirt roads in the national park, including River Road and Black Gap Road.
Some existing paved roads in the national park will both be improved, he said, and vehicle barriers in the form of concrete bollards will be installed at spots along the river like Lajitas, Rio Grande Village and La Linda, Henington said.
According to Henington, CBP representatives told local officials that they plan to utilize cameras and sensors with infrared technology to respect the area’s dark sky designation. Still, Henington said they were ultimately “vague on what electronic surveillance really entails.”
Could the border wall plans for the Big Bend region still change?
Yes, absolutely.
Throughout recent months, CBP’s plans have changed multiple times without any formal announcements, press releases or social media posts from the agency.
The changes have often only been noticed thanks to local residents, advocates and news outlets who have been paying close attention to the agency’s “Smart Wall” map — which even disappeared for several weeks from CBP’s website.
When could actual construction on border walls or other infrastructure begin?
It’s hard to say.
Local officials were previously told by CBP in March that construction could begin as soon as June 1, but the agency has not since provided an updated timeline.
Still, contractors are already mobilizing in the region.
One federal contractor began moving heavy equipment to the Rio Grande earlier this month for the Hudspeth-Jeff Davis-Presidio County wall project. This came after a dustup among contractor crews and local county officials about “unauthorized” road work that began on a rural dirt road to the border in April.
Meanwhile, plans are underway for a 500-person “man camp” housing facility for border wall workers south of Van Horn in Lobo. Construction activity on the land has started in recent weeks, though the local groundwater district is still considering whether or not to allow a designated agricultural water well to be used as a commercial well for the project.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is meanwhile in active negotiations with local landowners about acquiring property for the project. Is it unclear how many landowners have authorized border wall construction at this point, or how many will be facing eminent domain proceedings and when those will be initiated.
How are people reacting to all this?
CBP’s plans for border wall building in the remote Big Bend region have sparked widespread bipartisan opposition in recent months.
Five border county sheriffs spoke out against the plans and more than 2,000 people showed up at the Texas Capitol to protest the Big Bend border wall in April.
This week, seven former superintendents of Big Bend National Park sent Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin a letter urging him not to waive federal environmental laws for border barriers in the park, arguing that even new vehicle barriers and roads would be “highly destructive.”
How the wall will impact wildlife, the region’s dark skies, the tourism-based economy and flooding along the river corridor are among the many concerns raised by residents.
Local officials were largely in the dark about the wall plans for many months, prompting a coalition of border county judges to send a letter to Mullin requesting more collaboration with local communities impacted by the project. Now, they are set to meet with CBP officials once every couple of weeks, according to Brewster County Judge Greg Henington.
“ None of this makes any of us happy, but I think it’s a positive that at least they seem to be moving away from this secret squirrel stuff and being more open about it,” he said.
The state’s top elected officials — namely, Republican Gov. Abbott — have remained mostly quiet on the issue, while area lawmakers Sen. Cesar Blanco and Rep. Eddie Morales – both Democrats – have come out in opposition to the wall plan.
The Center for Biological Diversity, a church preservation group and a local river guide have also sued DHS for bypassing federal environmental laws to speed up border wall plans in the region, arguing the move is unconstitutional and would lead to the destruction of “iconic sections” of the Rio Grande corridor.
Does the Big Bend region need a border wall?
This is, of course, at the heart of the debate over the administration’s plans.
The Border Patrol’s “Big Bend Sector” – which stretches across 510 miles of the border – has historically been one of the least-trafficked areas of the southwestern border.
Apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally in the sector fell 74% from 2023 to 2025, according to CBP data. Autonomous surveillance towers have also cut down on traffic significantly, according to the agency. Local sheriffs have said they believe technology can be used to patrol the region’s border “without the need for extensive permanent infrastructure.”
Still, President Trump has long sought to build a physical wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border since his first term in office. On the first day of his second term in January 2025, he signed an executive order directing the Defense and Homeland Security secretaries to “take all appropriate action to deploy and construct temporary and permanent physical barriers to ensure complete operational control of the southern border.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, approved by Congress in July 2025, included $46.5 billion for border wall construction.
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This story was originally published by Marfa Public Radio and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
STARBASE – SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday, an upgraded version that NASA is counting on to land astronauts on the moon.
The redesigned mega rocket made its debut two days after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he’s taking the company public. It blasted off from the southern tip of Texas, carrying 20 mock Starlink satellites that were released midway through the hourlong spaceflight that stretched halfway around the world.
The spacecraft reached its final destination — the Indian Ocean — despite some engine trouble, before erupting in flames upon impact. That last part was not unexpected, according to SpaceX.
Musk called it “an epic” launch and landing.
“You scored a goal for humanity,” he told his team via X.
It’s the 12th test flight of the rocket that Musk is building to get people to Mars one day. But first comes the moon and NASA’s Artemis program.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman flew in for the launch, saying Starship is now one step closer to the moon.
The last of the old space-skimming Starships lifted off in October. SpaceX’s third-generation Starship — a souped-up version dubbed V3 — soared from a brand-new launch pad at Starbase, near the Mexican border. Last-minute pad issues thwarted Thursday evening’s launch attempt.
SpaceX was hoping to avoid the fireworks it experienced during back-to-back launches last year when midair explosions rained wreckage down on the Atlantic. Earlier flights also ended in flames.
There was no fireball this time until the very end. The spacecraft plummeted upright into the Indian Ocean under seemingly full control, then toppled over and ignited.
While the liftoff itself went well, not all of the engines fired as the booster attempted a controlled return. The spacecraft also had to make do with fewer engines, but kept heading eastward 120 miles (194 kilometers) up. A pair of modified, camera-equipped Starlinks ejected from Starship provided brief views of the spacecraft in flight — a remarkable first.
At 407 feet (124 meters), the latest model eclipses the older Starship lines by several feet (more than 1 meter) and packs more engine thrust.
The revamped booster sports fewer but bigger and stronger grid fins for steering it back to Earth following liftoff, and a larger and more robust fuel transfer line to feed the 33 main engines. This fuel line is the size of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first-stage booster. The retro-looking, stainless steel spacecraft also has more of everything — more cameras and more navigation and computer power — as well as docking cones for future rendezvous and moon missions.
Starship is meant to be fully reusable, with giant mechanical arms at the launch pads to catch the returning rocket stages. But on this latest trial run, nothing was being recovered. The Gulf of Mexico marked the end of the road for the redesigned first-stage booster, and the Indian Ocean for the spacecraft and its satellite demos.
NASA is paying SpaceX billions of dollars — and also Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — to provide the lunar landers that will be used to land Artemis astronauts on the moon.
The two companies are scrambling to be first.
While Starship has reached the fringes of space on multiple flights lasting an hour at most, Bezos’ Blue Moon has yet to lift off, although a prototype is being readied for a moonshot later this year.
NASA is following April’s successful lunar flyaround by four astronauts with a docking trial run in orbit around Earth planned for next year. For that Artemis III mission, astronauts will practice docking their Orion capsule with Starship, Blue Moon or both.
A moon landing by two astronauts — Artemis IV — could follow as soon as 2028 using either Starship or Blue Moon, whichever lander is safer and ready first. It will be NASA’s first lunar landing with a crew since 1972’s Apollo 17. The goal this time is a moon base near the lunar south pole, staffed by astronauts as well as robots.
SpaceX is already taking reservations for private flights to the moon and Mars on Starship.
The world’s first space tourist, California businessman Dennis Tito, and his wife signed up 3 1/2 years ago for a flight around the moon. The timing is uncertain.
This week, another wealthy space tourist — Chinese-born bitcoin investor Chun Wang — announced he will fly to Mars on Starship’s first interplanetary mission. Wang previously chartered a SpaceX polar flight in a Dragon capsule last year and, along with his hand-picked crew, became the first to orbit above the north and south poles.
No price tag or date was revealed for his Mars cruise.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
ZAVALLA (KETK) – The City of Zavalla has voted to dissolve its police department and is currently considering an agreement with the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office to patrol the area.
Thousands of dollars missing from vacant East Texas evidence room, Texas Rangers investigating
According to the Zavalla City Secretary, the Zavalla City Council voted to deactivate its police department on May 1. The Zavalla Police Department had five members in 2025 and was budgeted $180,397 in the 2023-2024 year, a drop of more than $50,000 from their $234,832 2022-2023 budget.
That drop in the department’s budget came as the city reported a drop in revenue from $1,011,372 in 2022-2023 to $988,928 in 2023-2024.
Zavalla City Council met with Angelina County Sheriff Tom Selman on May 11. During the meeting, they discussed a proposed agreement that would supply the city with regular deputy patrols in the city and 911 dispatch services.
Selman stressed that the deal would ultimately save the city money while still providing it with law enforcement coverage, including crime scene investigation and detective work.
“What were you paying before? The reason that this is structured this way is designed to save the city money. Your gonna get patrol services, you’re gonna get your calls answered, you’re gonna get all the things we do at a much lessened cost,” Selman said.
Selman did explain that their patrolling deputies won’t enforce the city’s ordinances for loose animals and that the city will have to put in a request to pay extra for them to enforce the ordinances. The sheriff’s office also offered to help with the defunct police department’s evidence locker.
The city requested several changes to the agreement, so a revised draft is now being reviewed by the city attorney. The City Council is expected to consider the updated agreement at its next regular meeting on June 8 at 6 p.m.
FRANKLIN COUNTY (KETK)– A man who was discovered living in Iowa was arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting a child while living in Franklin County in 2000.
According to Franklin County officials, the sheriff’s office received a report in February 2025 from a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted as a child. The victim identified the suspect as 60-year-old Adrian Hernandez, who was found to be using a different name on social media and was believed to be living out of Texas.
During the investigation, law enforcement learned that Hernandez had obtained a Minnesota driver’s license and was living in Kanawha, Iowa. Deputies from the Wright County Sheriff’s Office successfully assisted officials from Franklin County in identifying Hernandez as the suspect.
Hernandez was arrested on three counts of indecency with a child on Wednesday after a Franklin County investigator and a member of the Texas Rangers traveled to Iowa and identified him. Hernandez is currently being held in the Wright County Jail while he awaits extradition to Texas.
According to Franklin County, since Hernandez’s arrest, several additional victims have come forward with information.
“The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office remains fully committed to protecting our residents, standing with survivors and pursuing justice no matter how much time has passed,” the county said. “If you are a victim of abuse, we encourage you to come forward. You will be heard, and we will take action.”
SULPHUR SPRINGS (CBS19) — A retired high-ranking U.S. military official was sentenced on Thursday to serve 40 years in prison for child sex crimes in East Texas.
Ret. Brig. Gen. Mike Houston McClendon, of Sulphur Springs, was found guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 following a trial before a judge in a Hopkins County courtroom. He was then sentenced to 40 years in prison, according to the Hopkins County District Clerk’s Office.
McClendon was arrested back in May 2024 over a sexual assault investigation. Arrest documents say the offense happened in January 2014.
The district clerk’s office said McClendon will have to serve each day of the 40-year sentence with no potential for early release. He also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and court fees.
According to McClendon’s biography on the U.S. Air Force website, McClendon is a 1975 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. The biography says he was a senior pilot with over 10,000 hours in more than 35 types of aircraft ranging from helicopters to fighters to transports. As a civilian, he was a captain for a major airline, flying internationally.”
The Military Times said McClendon retired in 2009.
Courtesy of CBS 19
ATLANTA (AP) — Waymo has suspended driverless car services in Atlanta and Texas after one of its vehicles was stranded by flooding during heavy rains that will likely also hinder travel in a large swath of the U.S over the holiday weekend.
Severe thunderstorms with large hail and gusty winds were possible Friday in Texas and other parts of the Southern and Central Plains, the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters warned of possible flash flooding along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana on Saturday, when rain and thunderstorms were expected across much of the central and eastern U.S.
The Waymo vehicle got stuck during a downpour in Atlanta on Wednesday that flooded streets and even part of a downtown highway. The vehicle was not occupied and was later recovered, the company said in a statement. At least one other Waymo vehicle was waylaid during the storm.
Waymo serves only the city of Atlanta in Georgia, and services several cities in Texas.
The company paused service in Texas “out of an abundance of caution for the forecasted severe weather,” the statement said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday loosened federal rules requiring grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cooling equipment, a step that President Donald Trump said would help lower grocery costs.
Trump said at a White House ceremony that the action by the Environmental Protection Agency would “substantially lower costs for consumers” by delaying costly restrictions that limit the type of refrigerants U.S. businesses and families can use.
The move to relax the Biden-era rules on harmful pollutants known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, emitted by refrigerators and other appliances was the latest attempt by the Republican administration before pivotal elections in November to try to address rising voter concerns over the cost of living.
It is not clear how much or how quickly grocery prices could be impacted. Industry groups said it could even raise prices because manufacturers have already redesigned products, retooled factories and trained workers to build and service next-generation refrigerant equipment.
Inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, amid price spikes caused by the Iran war and Trump’s sweeping tariffs. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.
The regulation from the Democratic Biden administration was “unnecessary and costly and actually makes the machinery worse,” Trump said at a ceremony joined by top executives from Kroger, Piggly Wiggly and other grocery chains. He said the EPA action would protect hundreds of thousands of jobs and save Americans more than $2 billion a year.
The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which represents more than 330 HVAC manufacturers and commercial refrigeration companies, said the change in approach would “inject uncertainty across the market” and could even raise prices.
“This rule works against basic supply and demand,” said Stephen Yurek, the group’s president and CEO. “By extending the compliance deadline” for phasing out HFCs, the administration “is maintaining and even increasing demand in the market for existing refrigerants while supply continues to fall.”
The net result will be “higher service costs and higher costs for consumers,” he said.
Trump’s action marks a reversal after he signed a law in his first term aimed at reducing harmful, planet-warming pollutants emitted by refrigerators and air conditioners. That bipartisan measure brought environmentalists and major business groups into rare alignment on the contentious issue of climate change and won praise across the political spectrum.
The 2020 law reflected a broad bipartisan consensus on the need to quickly phase out domestic use of HFCs, which are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and are considered a major driver of global warming.
The EPA action highlights the second Trump administration’s drive to roll back regulations perceived as climate-friendly. The plan is among a series of sweeping environmental changes that the agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, has said will put a “dagger through the heart of climate change religion.”
Environmentalists criticized the administration’s actions, saying the new rule would exacerbate climate pollution while disrupting a yearslong industry transition to new coolants as an alternative to HFCs.
The 2020 law signed by Trump, known as the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, phased out HFCs as part of an international agreement on ozone pollution. The law accelerated an industry shift to alternative refrigerants that use less harmful chemicals and are widely available.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Chemistry Council, the top lobbying group for the chemical industry, were among numerous business groups that supported the law and an international deal on pollutants, known as the Kigali Amendment, as victories for jobs and the environment. U.S. companies such as Chemours and Honeywell developed and produce the alternative refrigerants sold in the United States and around the world.
The 2023 rule, now being relaxed, imposed steep restrictions on HFCs starting in 2026. Zeldin said the rule from the Democratic Biden administration did not give companies enough time to comply and that the rapid switch to other refrigerants caused shortages and price increases last year. Some in the industry dispute this.
The Food Industry Association, which represents grocery stores and suppliers, applauded the EPA action.
The earlier rule “imposed significant costs and unrealistic compliance requirements and timelines that threatened to drive up grocery prices and create substantial implementation challenges for food retailers,” said Leslie Sarasin, the group’s president and CEO.
Kroger CEO Greg Foran, whose company operates 2,700 U.S. stores, told Trump the EPA action ensures “an orderly transition” that allows the company to update its equipment “in a way which keeps the price of groceries down. And that’s something that we’re desperately focusing on, Mr. President.”
Kevin McDaniel, whose company operates 14 Piggly Wiggly stores in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, said the Biden-era rule would have forced many independent grocers out of business.
“It was thrown together too fast,” he said. “The technology is not there yet. It’s just way too fast. That’s the problem. Good idea, but it’s terrible.”
David Doniger, a senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called Trump’s action “a lose-lose for the environment and the economy. It will harm consumers and the climate and reduce American competitiveness in the global markets emerging for environmentally safer refrigerants.”
Rather than address affordability, Trump is imposing “thinly veiled environmental rollbacks that leave the United States stuck with outdated technologies of the past,” Doniger said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington on Thursday without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies, frustrated with the White House and at an impasse over whether to try to block a new $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.
Republicans had already abandoned part of the bill that provided $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom amid backlash from members of their own party. But the settlement announced by the Justice Department this week prompted even more questions, spurring a push to limit the taxpayer dollars that some feared could go to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A tense meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday morning to discuss the settlement only heightened the frustration among senators. Soon after it ended, Republican leaders announced that they would not vote on the immigration enforcement measure until they returned from a Memorial Day recess the week of June 1, which was Trump’s self-imposed deadline for them to pass it.
Blanche “had an appreciation for the depth of feeling” among GOP senators, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said afterward as a growing number of them spoke out against the idea.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former GOP leader, called the settlement “utterly stupid, morally wrong.”
“The nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” McConnell said in a statement afterward.
The last-minute scramble on the bill came as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying to fund Trump’s ballroom when voters are concerned about affordability issues — and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump.
Several GOP senators have spoken out against the Justice Department settlement announced this week, and many were upset by the president’s Tuesday endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in next week’s primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn.
Both sides have acknowledged the tensions. Thune said Thursday that the White House should have consulted Congress before it announced the settlement, which he said made “everything way harder than it should be.” Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn’s opponent also complicated matters, he said.
“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune told reporters. “There is a political component to everything we do around here.”
Trump unloaded on senators in a social media post Wednesday, urging Republicans to fire the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who said over the weekend that parts of the $1 billion White House security proposal did not qualify for the ICE and Border Patrol bill. Trump also renewed his long-standing calls for the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, a Republican bill that would require voters to prove U.S. citizenship, and to end the Senate filibuster.
Republicans need to “get smart and tough,” Trump said, or “you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”
While they have been loyal to Trump on most issues, Senate Republicans have resisted his repeated calls over the years to kill the filibuster, which creates a 60-vote threshold for most bills in the Senate.
Asked Thursday at the White House if he was losing control of the Senate, Trump replied: “I really don’t know. I can tell you — I only do what’s right.”
Hanging over the growing GOP rift is Trump’s surprise endorsement of Paxton. That intervention has Republican senators privately fuming that it could cost them their majority in November as they view the incumbent, Cornyn, as the stronger candidate.
The “anti-weaponization” fund, part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, unexpectedly became one of the main complications in the bill after Democrats announced that they would force votes to block it or place restrictions on it.
Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the immigration enforcement bill through a budget process that allows a long series of amendment votes. The Democratic amendments would block the fund outright or ban any payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The only way for Republicans to get out of this box is to stop backing the slush fund, stop pushing the ballroom, and as soon as we get back, join Democrats in fighting to lower Americans’ costs on health care, on housing, on power, on so much else,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said after senators left town.
As it became clear that the Democratic amendments could pass, Republicans began discussing their own last-minute additions to head that off — an idea that appeared to have support in the GOP conference but could threaten eventual support of the bill in the House or make a presidential veto more likely.
“I think there’s reasonable limitations that can be put on it,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., one of Trump’s top allies in the Senate.
Under the Secret Service’s request, about $220 million would fund security improvements related to the ballroom. The rest would go for a new screening center for visitors, training and other security measures.
After it became clear that Republicans would abandon that proposal, Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that “I don’t need money for the ballroom,” which he had originally said would be paid for with private funds. Still, if Congress doesn’t approve the request, he said the White House “won’t be a very secure place.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the bill was a “bad idea.” The bill should not have included the other security improvements, he said, “because it’s just giving everybody the ‘billion-dollar ballroom.’”
Left in the bill is the money for ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
Democrats demanded changes for the agencies, but negotiations with the White House yielded little progress. So Republicans are using the complicated budget maneuver called reconciliation — the same process that allowed them to pass Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill last year — to fund the agencies through the end of Trump’s term without any Democratic support.
Still, passage requires sign-off from the parliamentarian and unity from Republicans.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said the Senate’s responsibility should be to focus on funding ICE and Border Patrol.
“When other extraneous things get in the middle of it, it makes it more difficult,” he said.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX got within a half-minute of launching its newest and biggest Starship on a test flight Thursday evening before a cascade of problems halted the countdown.
The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket was poised to begin a space-skimming journey from Texas extending halfway around the world. But issues cropped up with the brand-new pad at Starbase near the Mexican border, and the company ran out of time.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk later said the hydraulic pin holding the launch tower’s arm in place did not retract. If the problem can be fixed quickly, another launch attempt will be made Friday, he noted.
Thursday’s launch attempt came one day after Musk announced that his rocket company would be going public.
Starship holds 20 mock Starlink satellites to be released before the spacecraft’s controlled entry into the Indian Ocean at the end of the hourlong flight. It will be the 12th test flight for a Starship and the first since last fall.
NASA is relying on this latest version of Starship to land astronauts on the moon in a few years.