Today is
Friday June 05, 2026
DALLAS (AP) – James Talarico rode viral video fame to the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Texas. Now Republicans want to turn years of candid on-camera musings against him.
Conservatives are digging through Talarico’s social media history and finding a trove of progressive commentary on hot-button cultural issues like race, gender, religion and immigration. They hope it will torpedo his candidacy in a red state like Texas that Democrats have spent decades struggling to turn blue.
Talarico was a state legislator barely known outside his district before he started building a national profile by making himself ubiquitous. He sat for lengthy podcast interviews and posted heavily on social media. The grandson of a Baptist preacher and a seminary student himself, Talarico often makes a Biblical case for progressive policies, using a gift of gab that many Democrats believe will help him connect with voters across Texas.
It’s also given his critics hours and hours of material to mine. And after he defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, conservatives started uploading an arsenal of video clips.
“God is nonbinary,” Talarico once said during a legislative floor speech. He later explained that he was being “a little provocative” to make the theological point that “God is beyond gender.”
“Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front,” Talarico said in a clip that cuts off the rest of his sentence — “and a lock on the door.”
“Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country,” Talarico wrote five years ago in a post lamenting mass shootings targeting Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans.
Republican consultant Chris LaCivita shared that post on social media and suggested it was “great ad copy” for his party. LaCivita is working for a super PAC supporting incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who faces state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a runoff for the Republican nomination.
President Donald Trump even joined in, telling Politico in an interview that Talarico is “a terribly weak candidate” who is “more woke than even the very highly untalented Jasmine Crockett.” He predicted Talarico would be “much easier than her” to defeat in a general election.
“He is radically out of touch with Texans and they will not vote for this in November,” said Samantha Cantrell, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
During a victory speech Wednesday, Talarico primed his supporters for the onslaught of criticism, which he blamed on billionaires and political elites desperate to hold onto power.
“They’re going to throw everything they have at us,” he said. “They’re going to call me a radical leftist. They’re going to call me a fake Christian. They’ll call our movement un-Texan, un-American. They’ll call us a threat.”
The criticism is coming, Talarico said, “because we’re a threat to their corrupt system.”
“Our campaign is building a movement poised to change the politics of this state and take power back for working people,” said Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis. “While they lob stale attacks to mislead Texans, we are uniting the people of Texas to win in November.”
Democrats are hoping that Republican runoff voters will favor Paxton, who has weathered allegations of corruption and infidelity and has his own history of controversial remarks.
Trump has promised to make an endorsement in the race, but he hasn’t said when he’ll announce a decision or who it will be. Republican leaders want him to line up behind Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign provides a recent model of a Democrat who overcame intense scrutiny for progressive statements that became a political liability. Mandani went on Fox News and apologized to New York Police Department officers for past criticism, such as a calling to “defund this rogue agency” in 2020.
Still, New York and Texas are worlds apart politically. Trump won Texas by nearly 14 points and lost the state of New York by nearly as much.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas said late Thursday he was withdrawing from his reelection race, after having admitted an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide, but he vowed to finish out his term in Congress.
He had faced calls from GOP leadership to end his reelection bid, and from others in Congress to resign.
“After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election,” Gonzales said in a statement posted late Thursday to X.
The move is the latest in a quickly changing situation that stunned Capitol Hill and resulted in a House Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct. Gonzales’ decision to bow out of the race appears to clear the field. On Tuesday, he had been forced into a May runoff against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube gun-rights influencer who narrowly lost to him in the 2024 primary.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and the GOP leadership earlier Thursday had called on Gonzales to withdraw from reelection after Gonzales, a day earlier, acknowledged a relationship that has upturned the political world in his home state and in Washington.
“We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” said Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Whip Tom Emmer, and GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain in a statement.
“In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for reelection.”
Johnson, R-La., has been under enormous pressure from his own GOP lawmakers to take action, and several Republicans have already called for Gonzales to step aside. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., has introduced two resolutions to punish Gonzales. The first seeks to remove him from his assignments on the House Appropriations and Homeland Security committees, while the second seeks to censure him.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, meanwhile, said he would support expelling Gonzales from the House, a rare step that requires a two-thirds vote from the chamber.
GOP leaders notably did not call for Gonzales to resign from office as they struggle to maintain their slim majority in the House, which they hold by only a handful of seats.
Their move came after Gonzales, appearing on the “Joe Pags Show,” was asked whether he had a relationship with the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles.
Santos-Aviles, 35, died after setting herself on fire in the backyard of her home in Uvalde, Texas. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled her death a suicide.
“I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said.
The congressman, now in his third term, had said he would not step down in response to the allegations, telling reporters recently that there will be opportunities for all the details and facts to come out.
Gonzales, a father of six, first won his seat in 2020 after retiring from a 20-year career in the Navy that included time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the interview broadcast Wednesday, Gonzales said he had not spoken to Santos-Aviles since June 2024. She died in September 2025.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with her tragic passing, and in fact, I was shocked just as much as everyone else,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales went on to say he had reconciled with his wife, Angel, and has asked God to forgive him. He also said he looked forward to the Ethics Committee investigation.
Johnson and GOP leadership urged that committee to “act expeditiously.”
Under House ethics rules, lawmakers may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House under their supervision.
EL PASO (AP) — Serious medical and mental health emergencies have been routine at the nation’s largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility since its opening, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Data and recordings from more than a hundred 911 calls at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, along with interviews and court filings, offer a disturbing portrait of overcrowding, medical neglect, malnutrition and emotional distress.
Current and former detainees describe a camp where about 3,000 people have lived per day in loud and unsanitary quarters. They say detainees struggle to obtain health care as disease spreads, lose weight because of a lack of food, and fear security guards known to use force to put down disturbances.
“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,” said Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager in Columbia, Missouri, who spent several weeks in the camp before his deportation in February to the Netherlands. “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison.”
AUSTIN, Texas (The Texas Tribune) — Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday he would consider dropping out of the U.S. Senate race if Senate GOP leaders agreed to abolish the filibuster and pass a priority piece of legislation for President Donald Trump.
Paxton made the statement in a social media post that also criticized his opponent in Texas’ Senate Republican primary, incumbent John Cornyn, for being against scrapping the filibuster to pass the bill, known as the SAVE America ACT. It would require people to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and present photo identification at the polls, among other new election-related rules.
Cornyn is a supporter of the legislation, though he and other Senate Republicans have long bristled at talk of abolishing the filibuster. CNN reported last month that Cornyn would not say whether he backed ending the filibuster to pass the proposal.
Paxton’s offer to drop out appears designed to make a political point, more than anything else, by drawing attention to Cornyn’s reluctance to get rid of the filibuster. But it marks the first time he has raised the prospect of leaving the race amid intense lobbying by Senate GOP leaders for Trump to endorse Cornyn.
Paxton forced Cornyn into a runoff after Tuesday’s primary – and immediately set off a scramble to win the backing of Trump, who was neutral in the first round. Trump said Wednesday he would make an endorsement “soon” and would expect the candidate he did not endorse to drop out, citing “the good of the Party.”
Since then, Cornyn and his allies in Senate leadership have renewed their case to Trump that he should back the incumbent because he is more likely to win the general election than Paxton. Before his social media post about the SAVE America Act, Paxton had insisted he would not drop out even if Trump endorsed Cornyn.
“The people in Washington can have their own opinion,” Paxton told conservative personality Benny Johnson on Thursday. “The president can have his own opinion. But I’ve been in this race for almost a year, and we’re going to win this race in the runoff.”
Paxton’s defiance appeared to irk Trump, who told Politico in an interview Thursday, “That is bad for him. So maybe, maybe that leads me to go the other direction.” The public split was notable given Paxton’s long-running loyalty to the president, displayed most visibly when he waged an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, has been skeptical of finding ways around the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, let alone abolish it. But Trump has kept up the pressure.
“The Republicans MUST DO, with PASSION, and at the expense of everything else, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT – And not the watered down version,” Trump wrote Thursday on his Truth Social network. “This is a Country Defining fight for the Soul of our Nation!”
Disclosure: Politico has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
AUSTIN (AP) – As Texas waits on President Donald Trump’s promised endorsement, Sen. John Cornyn isn’t holding back on his runoff opponent in the Republican primary.
His campaign is releasing a new video Thursday with a litany of ethical and personal accusations against state Attorney General Ken Paxton. It’s an initial salvo in a second round of campaigning that could be even more bitter and expensive than the first.
The video revisits issues like Paxton’s impeachment trial on corruption charges, which ended in an acquittal but exposed an extramarital affair, and a state fraud indictment for securities fraud, which Paxton resolved with a plea deal without admitting guilt.
Cornyn’s team said it’s spending tens of thousands of dollars to keep the video in front of voters’ eyes. It’s pocket change in a race where spending surpassed $110 million before Tuesday, but a possible foreshadowing of a future deluge if the six-minute clip is edited into television spots.
Trump did not endorse a candidate in the primary, frustrating Republicans who fear that they’re wasting time and resources in Texas that could be devoted to more competitive battleground states. The president said Wednesday that he would weigh in on the May 26 runoff and expect the candidate without his endorsement to drop out, but he hasn’t announced a decision.
Cornyn narrowly finished first in the primary that ended on Tuesday, but he did not cross the 50%-plus threshold necessary to avoid a runoff. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt finished third and was disqualified.
Party leaders are pushing for Cornyn, a stalwart incumbent seeking his fifth term, and warn that Paxton has too much baggage to be successful in a November general election against James Talarico, the Democratic nominee.
But Paxton has proven resilient to attacks over the years, and he’s fashioned himself as a political warrior for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. He told conservative influencer Benny Johnson that he wouldn’t drop out, no matter what happens with the endorsement.
“I’m going to give people in Texas a choice,” Paxton said. “The people in Washington can have their own opinion. The president can have his own opinion.”
Paxton made a different offer on social media. There, he said he would consider dropping out if Senate Republican leaders lifted the filibuster to pass legislation supported by Trump to create strict new proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting. The proposal has stalled in the Senate.
Trump appeared frustrated by Paxton’s intransigence.
“That is bad for him,” he told Politico. “So maybe, maybe that leads me to go the other direction.”
The president previously wrote on social media that he would endorse a Texas candidate because the divisive contest cannot “be allowed to go on any longer.”
AUSTIN (AP) — Newly released police body camera footage shows bargoers and pedestrians fleeing and ducking for cover in the moments after a gunman began firing outside a Texas bar, leaving three dead in what is being investigated as potential terrorism.
“Everybody down!” one officer yells. “Where is he?”
The terrifying moments captured on video by officers and surveillance cameras that were released Thursday show how the shooting that wounded more than a dozen others unfolded quickly early Sunday in downtown Austin’s entertainment district.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said officers arrived within 56 seconds of the first 911 call, shooting and killing the suspect after he fired at police.
Davis said the investigation is ongoing and would not discuss a possible motive for the shooting that erupted a day after the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran.
The FBI has said it’s investigating the shooting as a potential act of terrorism and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the gunman was wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and bearing the words “Property of Allah.”
Police have identified the gunman as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne and say he legally bought the pistol and rifle that he used in the attack outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden. The venue is on Sixth Street, a nightlife destination filled with bars and music clubs close to the University of Texas at Austin..
Authorities now know 19 people were hit by gunfire, including the three who died, Davis said Thursday. One person remains in critical condition.
Most of those who were shot were outside the bar, including one victim who was waiting for a ride, she said.
Screaming and shouts of “get down” can be heard on a 911 call released Thursday. “There has been a shooting at Buford’s,” one caller said. “There are people dead over here. We need help right now.”
Diagne was not on the radar of authorities before he opened fire early Sunday. Davis said investigators have found he was the subject of a mental health-related welfare check, possibly in 2022, by an agency elsewhere.
He fired the first shots from his SUV then parked his vehicle and emerged with a rifle, police said. He shot another person before officers rushed to the intersection and shot and killed him, Davis said.
Jorge Pederson, 30, an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter, died from his gunshot wounds Monday. He had just moved to Texas from Minnesota. His former gym, the Academy Martial Arts Gym, said in a Facebook post that he brought “light and joy into the grueling work of training.”
Also killed were 21-year-old Savitha Shan and 19-year-old Ryder Harrington.
Shan, a business student at the University of Texas at Austin, had a job waiting for her at a consulting firm, her family said in a statement released through the university. It said she was an only child and described her death as “profoundly unfair.”
Harrington had attended Texas Tech University through last fall, and his former fraternity brothers at Beta Theta Pi recalled in an Instagram post his ability to “make ordinary days unforgettable.”
TEXAS – Fuel prices continue to climb across the U.S., with gasoline surging toward its highest level since 2024 and diesel pushing to fresh multi-year highs.
As of 8 a.m. ET, the national average price of gasoline stands at $3.246 per gallon. That’s now just 1.4 cents shy of its highest national average since 2024 — and, based on GasBuddy’s tracking, the highest national average so far during President Trump’s two terms.
Gasoline: A Fast Move Higher — and It’s Starting to Add Up
The national average is now up 26.1 cents per gallon from a week ago, an unusually strong weekly climb.
That matters because even “a quarter per gallon” adds up quickly at a national scale. With U.S. gasoline demand at seasonal levels, a +26.1¢/gal increase implies Americans are collectively spending about:
~$95 million more per day on gasoline versus a week ago (roughly, based on current demand)
If prices remain elevated and/or continue rising as expected, the incremental cost can approach hundreds of millions of dollars per week — and could move closer to the $1B/week range if the national average climbs further or demand strengthens as we move deeper into spring.
The Increases Are Broad — Not Isolated
This isn’t just a one-region story. Price gains are widespread:
12 states are up 30 cents or more from a week ago
29 states are up 25 cents or more
39 states are up 20 cents or more
49 states are up 10 cents or more
Hawaii is the lone outlier, where prices are up only a few cents so far.
What’s Next for Gasoline
From here, I still see room for the national average to rise another 10–15 cents per gallon over the next week or so, to $3.30-$3.45/gal as retail continues catching up to wholesale increases.
Seasonal pressure could also build again in mid-March, when another step in the transition to summer gasoline typically increases production costs and can tighten supply in some regions.
That said, we’ve already seen the pace of rise slow down, and as we get closer to the weekend, I expect the pace of gasoline increases to slow further— not reversing, but climbing less aggressively once the market finishes absorbing the initial run-up.
Diesel: The Bigger Story Right Now
Diesel is where the stress is showing more clearly.
The national average price of diesel is now $4.124 per gallon, the highest level since December 2023 — which is more than two years ago (about 27 months).
Diesel has surged nearly 40 cents in the last week, and the speed is notable:
Roughly +37–40¢ in a week
One of the top ten fastest weekly increases in GasBuddy’s diesel history going back to 2005
The largest diesel surge since the 2022 energy crisis (based on weekly/monthly change comparisons)
An especially striking move: about 38 cents in just four days
Why Diesel Is Spiking More Than Gasoline
The diesel market is simply tighter, and with drone attacks on a Saudi refinery, Qatar shutting down natural gas production, boosting heating oil use, and lower U.S. inventories amidst cold weather, diesel has out-rallied gasoline.
Diesel is driven less by commuter demand and more by:
freight and trucking
industrial activity
agriculture
construction
global distillate flows
When distillates tighten, they can move faster and stay elevated longer — and that’s what we’re seeing now.
My expectation is that diesel may continue to climb into early next week, even if gasoline’s pace cools sooner. Diesel often lags on the way down, too.
Bottom Line
Gasoline is moving quickly and broadly higher, with the national average approaching a 2024 high and rising 26 cents in a week. Diesel is moving even faster, reaching its highest level since December 2023 after a weekly surge that ranks among the steepest in decades of GasBuddy tracking.
The near-term outlook:
Gasoline: increases likely continue, but the pace may slow by the weekend
Diesel: may keep climbing into early next week
(THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Nearly one in four registered voters in Texas cast a ballot in Tuesday’s primaries, a high-water mark for midterm elections in the state’s recent history, driven by electrifying momentum surrounding both parties’ races for U.S. Senate.
In all, nearly 4.5 million Texans voted across the Democratic and Republican primaries, according to unofficial numbers on the Texas Secretary of State’s Office as of 8 a.m. Thursday. The turnout was divided between 2.3 million ballots in the Democratic primary and nearly 2.2 million on the Republican side; it was the first time with higher Democratic turnout since 2020, when voters flocked to weigh in on the party’s open presidential primary.
The energy across both parties this year was clear from the start. In the first seven days of early voting, the state recorded more ballots cast than in any recent midterm or presidential election year. There are roughly 18.7 million registered voters in the state.
The higher turnout on the Democratic side, despite the draw of spicy contests at the top for both parties’ ballots, has helped fuel Democrats’ hopes that backlash to President Donald Trump’s policies could propel them to their first statewide win since 1994.
Should that become reality, the political trophy could be claimed by their nominee for Senate, state Rep. James Talarico, who Democratic voters selected over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas. Meanwhile Republicans sent two party stalwarts, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, into a runoff to decide who will face Talarico in November.
Democratic turnout was significantly higher than in 2018, the last midterm when Trump was in office. That March, about 7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the Democratic primary, compared to 12 percent in this year’s intraparty contest. That November, then-Congressman Beto O’Rourke of El Paso came within 2.6 points of unseating GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
A geographic analysis of turnout suggests there was political energy propelling voters to the polls virtually throughout the state. Nearly two-thirds of Texas counties — 158 of 254 — saw higher percentages of their registered voting population participate in either the Democratic and Republican primary this year compared to the 2022 primary, the most recent midterm.
About 17% and 18% of registered voters participated in the 2018 and 2022 primaries, respectively, compared to about 24% this year, according to the latest unofficial figures Wednesday afternoon.
The widespread propulsion was laid bare in the Tribune’s geographic analysis, which found the highest turnout came in the state’s solidly red counties — from bigger population centers like Lubbock County to the many sparsely populated rural counties — along with the fast-growing suburban counties such as Tarrant and Fort Bend.
Both saw turnout north of 25%, followed closely by the nearly 24% clip in the biggest liberal counties. Turnout was lowest — 16% — in the border counties, though all four geographic buckets saw an increase in turnout rate from four years ago.
To be sure, there were far fewer competitive races in 2022 — when the gubernatorial contest was the top statewide draw — compared to barnburner Senate and down-ballot races during this year’s primaries. Voters on Tuesday also picked nominees for an unusually large number competitive statewide offices.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrapped up two days of scrutiny in Congress on Wednesday, appearing for the first time in front of lawmakers since the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement officers.
Noem came under blistering criticism from Democrats — and a few Republicans — over allegations that under her authority, immigration officers have abused the rights of immigrants and American citizens and used excessive force. She was also slammed over how her department is spending the billions of dollars allocated to it by Congress and accused of dodging accountability.
Noem, the secretary leading President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, argues she has strengthened the nation’s security by stemming migration from the southern border. She said immigration enforcement officers are following the law in the face of violent protesters. Most Republicans backed her stance, portraying Noem as a leader out to rectify immigration left unchecked by President Joe Biden’s administration.
Here’s a look at some highlights from her testimony.
During both days of testimony, Noem was repeatedly made to answer for her characterization of the two killed protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as armed agitators. Bystanders’ video and accounts have contradicted Noem’s depiction of events.
The top Democrat on the House committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, pushed Noem about her comments.
“You told a lie about them. You said they were domestic terrorists,” Raskin said.
Other Democrats questioned why DHS officers used force to yank people out of vehicles or why they’d pulled an American citizen from his Minneapolis home in his pajamas.
Noem also faced criticism from some Republicans, including most notably retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who on Tuesday called her leadership a “disaster.”
Over the two days, Noem pushed back on the allegations, saying that Democrats didn’t have their facts correct and defended how her officers operate.
“We do targeted enforcement based on intelligence and go after the worst of the worst,” Noem said.
Speaking Tuesday of her comments after the shootings, Noem said she was relying on information from people on the scene and blamed “violent protesters” for contributing to the chaos officers encountered.
In the letter obtained by The Associated Press, Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said DHS leadership has “systematically obstructed” the office’s work in 11 instances, including one criminal investigation with a “nexus” to the department.
Cuffari said that his department was not allowed to access databases or take other steps that were necessary for their investigations.
Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia asked Noem about the letter, saying that her department had a “pattern of obstructing investigations.”
Noem denied the accusation and said Cuffari hadn’t outlined what information he wanted and the timeline for his request.
“He wants unfettered access to every single thing in the department. And that’s not the process,” Noem said.
Noem’s department was infused with $170 billion, money granted by Congress that has since sparked questions over where and how it is being spent.
The secretary on Wednesday was asked about her department’s decision to carry out a $220 million ad campaign featuring Noem that encouraged people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily.
Democrats questioned whether the contracts went through a competitive bidding process and whether Noem’s associates unfairly benefited from the process.
“You’re using millions of dollars of taxpayer money in this way,” said Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse, who called it fraud. “Ultimately I think there’s going to be accountability.”
Noem said the spending was carried out lawfully.
The top Democrat on the committee also hammered Noem over her department’s purchase of luxury jets.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that federal officers were asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter a suspect’s home without a judge’s warrant — something legal experts say infringes on constitutional rights.
Noem on both days said the warrants were appropriate and legal. She said their use in forcible entry was limited, saying that they were only used 28 times under her authority, without saying where they were used.
“We do use it, but it’s very rare when we do,” Noem said.
But the warrants’ use received pushback even from Republicans. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said he’s a “strong proponent of the Fourth Amendment, and I think it would be helpful if we stuck to that.”
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat from California, asked Noem about her relationship with Corey Lewandowski, a special government employee who is one of the secretary’s top advisers.
Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and was long one of his most vocal supporters. He later became a key Noem supporter, helping her gain access to the former president’s political orbit.
When Noem took the position at DHS, Lewandowski became a special government employee — a position that is supposed to limit the number of days that he’s allowed to work at the department. But he’s been a constant presence at Noem’s side, raising questions about how many days he’s actually working and about the nature of the pair’s relationship.
Kamlager-Dove said Lewandowski wields “unchecked” and “unconfirmed” power and asked whether Noem and Lewandowski were having an affair.
“At any time during your tenure as director of the Department of Homeland Security have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?” said Kamlager-Dove.
“Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we are going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today,” Noem said. She denied the allegations, calling the questioning offensive and said Lewandowski does not have decision-making authority.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A defiant Elon Musk on Wednesday took the stand in a jury trial to defend himself against accusations that he engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter before he finally completed the takeover.
The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, a social media service he renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share. The price paid by the world’s richest man represents sliver of a fortune now estimated at $841 billion.
The case, which represents Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, revolves around allegations that Musk violated federal securities laws while taking a series of calculated steps to drive down the company’s stock price in an attempt to either blow up the deal or wrangle a lower sales price.
Musk maintained the deal merited re-negotiation or termination while insisting Twitter’s board duped him about the percentage of fake, or “bot,” account on its platform — a stance he took again during his Wednesday testimony in a black suit and a tie.
When asked if he had threatened to “hunt down” Twitter’s board unless they returned to the negotiating table to discuss a revised sales price, Musk didn’t rule out that possibility in an answer that reflected the acrimony surrounding the deal.
“There were a lot of threats going back and forth from both sides,” Musk said. “I was pretty upset with the Twitter board because I felt they had engaged in fraud.”
The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn’t new at the time Musk negotiated the deal. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years, while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
In Wednesday testimony, Musk repeatedly described the information that Twitter’s board provided with an abbreviation for a bull’s scatology. “I did make it clear that I thought it was BS,” Musk said of Twitter’s calculations asserting that only about 5% if its accounts were bots.
But the allegations in the case accuse of Musk making a series of misleading statements about the Twitter deal before he served notice in July 2022 that he was pulling the plug on the deal.
After Musk backed out, Twitter went to court in Delaware to force him to honor his original deal. Just before that case was scheduled to go to trial, Musk reversed course again and agreed to pay what he had originally promised.
Musk testified Wednesday that he ended up completing the deal because his lawyers advised him that Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathleen St. Jude McCormick, the judge in charge of the case, was “extremely biased” against him and he had no chance of prevailing.
He pointed out that McCormick voided a $55 billion pay package awarded to him as CEO of electric automaker Tesla, but that decision wasn’t made until January 2024 — 15 months after he completed the Twitter takeover. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick’s ruling late last year.
By tying his belief that McCormick was biased against him to his lawyers, Musk insulated himself from extensive questioning about the decision through legal protections shielding discussions between attorneys and their clients.
But U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Wednesday cited other evidence that Musk may have personally concluded McCormick was biased, which could lift attorney-client privilege. Breyer indicated he may rule on the matter later in the trial currently scheduled to continue through March 19.
In his testimony, Musk asserted that his decision to follow through on the deal at the original sales price provided a huge windfall for most Twitter shareholders.
But Twitter’s shares fell below $33, or about 40% below Musk’s original purchase price, while the deal was hanging in limbo. That downturn costs shareholders who sold their stock during the uncertainty caused by what the lawsuit alleges was Musk’s deceitful behavior.
“I can’t control whether people sell their stock, but everyone who held the stock fared extremely well,” Musk said.
This isn’t the first time that Musk has been dragged into court to defend himself against allegations of duping investors with his social media posts. Three years ago, Musk spent about eight hours testifying in a San Francisco federal trial about his plans to buy Tesla — the electric automaker that he still runs as publicly traded company — for $420 per share in a proposed 2018 deal that never materialized. A nine-member jury absolved Musk of wrongdoing in that case.
Before his Wednesday testimony concluded, Musk acknowledged that his frequent posts on social media probably reveal too much about what his going on his mind.
“What I think privately is what I say publicly,” Musk said.
Musk is expected to return to court Thursday to continue his testimony.
DALLAS (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he soon will endorse a Republican candidate in the Texas Senate race, warning that the divisive contest “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”
But Trump, a former reality television host, continued to stoke suspense over his decision by not immediately naming his choice, even as Republicans on Capitol Hill pushed him to support four-term Sen. John Cornyn over conservative firebrand Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general.
“IT MUST STOP NOW!” Trump wrote on social media after Cornyn and Paxton advanced on Tuesday to a May 26 runoff for the nomination. “I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair? We must win in November!!!”
Paxton said he wouldn’t drop out no matter whom Trump backed.
“I’m staying in this race,” he told Real America’s Voice. “I owe it to the people of Texas.”
Republicans are deeply concerned that the 83-day sprint to the runoff will be expensive and divisive as the party fights to maintain control of Congress in competitive states across the nation.
Texas, a state Trump carried by 14 percentage points, was not supposed to be among this year’s political battlegrounds. But operatives in both parties believe Democrats have a real chance to claim a Senate seat here for the first time in nearly four decades.
Democrats nominated state Rep. James Talarico, a 36-year-old Christian progressive who Republicans privately believed to be a stronger general election candidate than his primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
There was already pressure on Trump to endorse Cornyn before the president’s social media post Wednesday afternoon.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that Cornyn was “the best bet to win the general election.” Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Mike Rounds of South Dakota said they have been sending similar messages to Trump.
The drumbeat has grown loud enough that Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Trump ally from Texas, said the expectation is the president will endorse Cornyn.
“It’s going to be probably more difficult for Paxton to beat Talarico than Cornyn,” said Jackson, who has not made an endorsement. Because Cornyn has been “dumping tons of money in the race,” Jackson said it makes sense to avoid spending even more “picking each other apart for weeks and then going into the general election as the nominee wounded.”
Cornyn and his allies spent nearly $70 million to survive the first round of the primary. He was slightly ahead of Paxton with more votes still being counted Wednesday.
Some right-wing allies of the president warned him against backing Cornyn, whom they view as insufficiently loyal to Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement.
“Endorsing Cornyn will be more gutting to the base than the Iran air strikes,” wrote conservative influencer Mike Cernovich on social media.
It is unclear whether any level of attack can deter Paxton, who has long been shadowed by allegations of corruption and infidelity. He has fashioned himself as the kind of diehard supporter that Trump needs in Washington.
Paxton was defiant when speaking to a few hundred supporters at a Dallas hotel ballroom on Tuesday night, a far different scene from Cornyn’s small news conference.
“We just sent a message, loud and clear, to Washington,” he said. “We are not going to go quietly, and we are not going to let you buy the seat.”
Cornyn’s campaign argued that a runoff would not have been necessary without the “vanity campaign” by Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished a distant third. It is not known how Hunt’s voters would line up in the runoff.
The pro-Paxton Lone Star political action committee, in a memo, described Cornyn as a “Washington relic.”
“The D.C. establishment has done its job: it rallied around its wounded incumbent, opened the fundraising spigot, and flooded the airwaves. But the results, the data, and the reality on the ground all point to the same conclusion: John Cornyn has no viable path to the Republican nomination,” the memo said. “Cornyn should suspend his campaign, concede the nomination to Ken Paxton, and refuse to allow another $100+ million in Republican resources to be burned in a race that is already decided.”
While Trump’s endorsement looms, Cornyn made it clear that he would make the case himself. He told reporters that Paxton would be “a dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans” in November.
“I’ve worked for decades to build the Republican Party, both here in Texas and nationally,” Cornyn said. “I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years.”
Cornyn will face intense fundraising pressure, having already spent so much money in the first round of the primary. Aides said he had some small fundraisers planned but nothing in the days immediately after the election as he returns to Washington.
DALLAS (AP) – It remained unclear Wednesday whether ballots cast during extended polling place hours in Texas’ primary will be counted in two counties that saw mass confusion over voting locations.
Such votes have been set aside in Dallas County after the Texas Supreme Court stepped in Tuesday night, staying a lower court’s ruling. As of Wednesday afternoon, county election officials were still waiting for direction on whether the ballots should be included in vote totals.
The same issue affected Williamson County, north of Austin, which had hours extended at two polling places and has since had the last-minute ballots set aside.
But for Democrats in deeply blue Dallas County, the state’s second most populous, they say their hopes are dwindling. Terri Burke, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said the Supreme Court’s action was expected because it’s hard to get poll hours extended under Texas law.
“In a lot of ways, nobody was surprised by the writ from the Supreme Court last night,” Burke said. She added it’s likely the late ballots won’t be counted.
It is unclear exactly how many ballots were cast during the extended hours. According to data on the Dallas County Elections Department’s website, 2,316 in-person “provisional” ballots were rejected or pending, a number that includes any ballots flagged for a variety of issues as well as those the high court ordered to be segregated. A total of nearly 280,000 people voted in the county’s election, based on unofficial figures from the department.
Of greater concern, Burke said, was the chaos unleashed by the precinct-only voting system that Dallas County was forced to use because of a change by local Republicans, who refused to use a system that allowed voters to cast a ballot anywhere in the county, as they had done since 2019. Voters instead could cast ballots only at their assigned precinct. Under state law, Democrats had to use the same method.
Confused and frustrated, some voters were turned away from polling places on Tuesday and directed to other locations.
“There is a case to be made, and we can document it, there were people who were disenfranchised,” Burke said.
She said she will attempt to push the legislature to repeal the 2006 law that requires both parties to hold a joint primary to prevent this sort of chaos: “If one party wants to wreck their primary, they should be able to do that but they should not be able to wreck someone else’s.”
In Dallas County, a judge ordered polls to remain open for two hours past the scheduled 7 p.m. closing time, citing “voter confusion so severe” that it caused the website of the county election office to crash. The judge was acting on a petition filed by the local Democratic Party in a heavily left-leaning county. The extension applied only to Democratic voting precincts.
There was initial concern that it could affect the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate because Dallas is the home base of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, but she later conceded to James Talarico, a state lawmaker.
The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who advanced to a runoff Tuesday against Sen. John Cornyn for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, challenged the lower court’s ruling. Shortly after, the state Supreme Court stayed both decisions in Dallas and Williamson counties. Its brief orders said ballots cast by voters in both counties who were not in line by the 7 p.m. scheduled close of polls should be separated.
Emily French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, a voting advocacy group, said it is standard for ballots that are cast during extended poll hours to be set aside. In El Paso, for example, voting was extended for an hour on Tuesday after problems with voter check-in systems earlier in the day. French said she expects them to ultimately be tallied if no one is contesting the extension.
Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, said the organization is continuing “to monitor this situation and will be weighing all options to ensure every Texan is able to have their vote counted.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas acknowledged for the first time Wednesday having an affair with an aide who later died after setting herself on fire, a revelation that came on the same day the House Ethics Committee announced it was initiating an investigation into the congressman.
Gonzales, appearing on the “Joe Pags Show,” was asked if he had a relationship with the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles.
“I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales went on to say he reconciled with his wife and has asked God to forgive him. He also said he looked forward to the Ethics Committee investigation. Under House ethics rules, a lawmaker may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House under their supervision.
The top Republican and Democratic members on the committee said in a joint statement that an investigative panel would look into whether Gonzales engaged in sexual misconduct toward an employee in his office and whether he discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.
The congressman, now in his third term, has said he would not step down in response to the allegations, telling reporters at the Capitol recently that there will be opportunities for all the details and facts to come out.
“What you’ve seen is not all the facts,” Gonzales said.
In his interview broadcast Wednesday, Gonzales said Santos-Aviles was thriving at work and he was shocked when he learned of her death. He said he had not spoken to her since June 2024 and she died in September 2025.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with her tragic passing, and in fact, I was shocked just as much as everyone else,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales was also asked if he can still be effective for his congressional district as some members of his own party are calling for his resignation.
“I absolutely can, and I am,” he said.
Gonzales, a father of six, first won his seat in 2020 after retiring from a 20-year career in the Navy that included time in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Tuesday, he was forced into a May runoff against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube gun-rights influencer who narrowly lost to Gonzales in the 2024 primary.
The San Antonio Express-News reported that it had obtained text messages in which Santos-Aviles wrote to a colleague that she had an affair with the congressman.
The AP has not independently obtained copies of the messages. A lawyer for Adrian Aviles, Santos-Aviles’ husband, has said the husband found out about the affair before his wife’s death.
Santos-Aviles, 35, died after setting herself on fire in the backyard of her home in Uvalde, Texas. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled her death a suicide.
AUSTIN (AP) — A Texas judge on Wednesday ordered Camp Mystic to preserve damaged cabins but stopped short of blocking reopening plans after a family of one of the 25 girls and two counselors who died last summer sued to keep the camp closed.
The family of 8-year-old Cile Steward, who was swept away in the flood last Fourth of July and whose body still has not been recovered, had asked District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble to prevent the owners from reopening the facility and to halt any construction while the lawsuit is pending. Their request for a temporary injunction maintains that any changes at the camp could destroy evidence needed for their lawsuit.
Gamble ruled that Camp Mystic’s owners must not alter or demolish the cabins where campers were housed during the floods, and said they must not use the portion of the camp closest to the Guadalupe River where those cabins were located.
“What we’re trying to do is preserve the evidence that’s there so that we can understand, so that future campers will never be put in a situation like this again,” Will Steward, Cile’s father, told reporters after the hearing.
The campers and counselors were killed when the fast-rising floodwaters roared through a low-lying area of the summer camp before dawn on the Fourth of July. All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.
The camp, established in 1926, did not evacuate and was hit hard when the river rose from 14 feet (4.2 meters) to 29.5 feet (9 meters) within 60 minutes.
“The worst thing you can do is put a bunch of 8-year-olds on a bus and try to drive them out of there. They all would have drowned,” said Mikal Watts, an attorney for Camp Mystic and its family of owners.
In a packed courtroom Wednesday, family members of the deceased girls wore buttons depicting their images as lawyers for Camp Mystic displayed pictures of trees planted in their memory and architectural renderings of plans to rebuild parts of the camp outside a 1,000-year flood zone.
Attorneys for Camp Mystic have expressed sympathy for the girls’ families but maintained there was little they could have done during the catastrophic flooding that quickly overcame the camp. Pictures of the rising floodwaters were shown in court Wednesday.
“Nobody had every seen a prior flood anything like we saw in 2025,” Watts said.
More than 850 campers have already signed up to attend camp this summer, he said. The camp still needs to be approved for a license by state regulators to operate this summer.
Edward Eastland, the son of camp owner Richard Eastland, who died in the flooding, testified Wednesday that his mother, his wife and their children as well as another staff member were at a camp house when “the double doors of the house broke open” from floodwaters. They had to break out a separate window to climb out and evacuate to higher ground. All survived.
The camp had security cameras around the campus, Eastland said, but no one was watching the live feed in the middle of the night as the waters rose. When he tried to pull it up about 3 a.m., he wasn’t able to.
And when pressed about the camp’s flood plans, Eastland said he didn’t know if there was anything more detailed than a one-paragraph slide shown in the hearing. Will and Cici Steward said they don’t believe the camp has adequate safety measures in place to welcome new campers while they still search for their daughter.
“They didn’t have a plan, and they don’t have a plan moving forward,” Cici Steward said.
The camp’s decision last year to partially open and to construct a memorial on the grounds drew outrage from many of the girls’ families who are mourning their loved ones and who said they weren’t consulted on the plans.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked Texas regulators not to renew the license for Camp Mystic while the deaths are being investigated and cited legislative probes that are expected to begin in the spring.
Families of several of the girls who died have sued the camp’s operators, arguing that camp officials failed to take necessary steps to protect the campers as life-threatening floodwaters approached.
LONE STAR (KETK) – An East Texas woman was arrested in February after it was discovered that she provided THC to a Daingerfield Junior High School student. According to the Lone Star Police Department and our news partner KETK, on Feb. 24, officers were called to Daingerfield Junior High School to take a report of a child abuse case involving a student. After officers filed the report, Child Protective Services was contacted the next day and conducted an interview with one of the students involved in the case.
During the interview, officials said a cookie tin containing THC gummies was found in the student’s possession, leading to the arrest of Cynthia Shaffer, who had provided the drugs to the student. Shaffer was charged with the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance and the delivery of a controlled substance to a child.