Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
AUSTIN (Texas Tribune)–Roughly 76,000 fewer students enrolled in Texas public schools this academic year — the first non-pandemic decline in nearly four decades — with Hispanic students accounting for the overwhelming majority of the loss, according to a report released Monday.
The policy research group Texas 2036 analyzed the state’s enrollment data and projected that about 100,000 fewer students would attend public schools by the end of the current decade. However, some projections show that the number is growing by nearly half a million over that time.
Hispanic students accounted for 81% of this school year’s enrollment drop, Texas 2036 found. Students learning English and those from low-income families experienced some of the sharpest declines. Over the past year, federal and state leaders increased anti-immigration rhetoric, in some cases detaining Texas students and prompting fear across communities.
Meanwhile, the rate of Texas families having children has declined in recent years. Districts have lost students to other schooling options, with more families expected to opt out of their public neighborhood campuses as the state launches school vouchers later this year.
Texas educates about 5.5 million public school students, 53% of whom are Hispanic, 24% are white and 13% are Black.
“What stands out in the data is that public school enrollment is falling even as Texas continues to grow,” said Carlo Castillo, a senior research analyst at Texas 2036, in a statement. “In many parts of the state, population gains are no longer translating into public school enrollment growth. That points to a broader structural shift policymakers and district leaders will need to plan for.”
The nonprofit shared the findings just ahead of Monday’s education committee hearing for the Texas House. The focus included updates on enrollment trends and the stability of Texas’ school funding system.
The state funds public schools based on attendance. Some districts have cut programs and shuttered campuses recently, despite a nearly $8.5 billion increase to public education funding approved last year.
As the hearing began, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath laid out the enrollment drop to lawmakers, noting, “We cannot tell you the precise cause of this.”
In recent years, growing immigration helped public schools manage the slump in birth rates, Bob Templeton, who studies Texas’ education demographics, said during the Monday hearing.
Now, districts will serve higher concentrations of students with significant needs, but they will have less funding due to drops in the number of children born and slowing immigration, Templeton said. He estimated that public school enrollment could drop by roughly 500,000 in the next four to five years.
“This is not another blip or a one-off,” Templeton told lawmakers. “This is an inflection point.”
Districts in urban areas, the Panhandle and along the southern border disproportionately experienced the enrollment decline, according to the Texas 2036 report. The 2.1% decline in Hispanic enrollment — or 61,781 students — represents “the single largest year-over-year reversal” among the four major demographic groups.
Mary Lynn Pruneda, the director of education and workforce policy for Texas 2036, told The Texas Tribune that her group could not determine to what extent increased immigration enforcement contributed to the enrollment loss.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat running for governor, said during a press conference Monday, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it is contributing to it.”
LUFKIN (KETK) – Officials are warning residents that scam artists are allegedly impersonating Angelina County law enforcement officers and demanding East Texans send them Bitcoin payments. According to our news partner KETK and the Lufkin Police Department, scammers are impersonating a deputy from the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office, where they call residents to claim that they’ve missed jury duty and must pay thousands of dollars to make up for it.
The scammers can make their call appear as if it’s coming directly from the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office but officials insist these calls are not real and should be promptly ignored.
“This scam is oftentimes done by scammers posing as other state and federal agencies, as well,” Lufkin Police Department Chief Travis Brazil said. “These scammers will always create a sense of urgency to make the victims panic and pressure them into paying quickly.”
Scammers will ask residents to make these payments through the new Bitcoin cryptocurrency ATMs that can be found at many convenience stores around the country. Usually, once a Bitcoin transaction is made, police can’t recover any of the funds from scammers, but luckily, Lufkin Police detectives were able to retrieve over $10,000 from a Bitcoin ATM last week after residents reported making their payment to the sheriff’s office.
Similarly, Angelina County Sheriff Tom Selman said a local woman recently showed up to the sheriff’s office with cash in hand and was able to keep her money because she couldn’t figure out how to use a Bitcoin ATM to make the payment that scammers demanded.
“None of these calls are real,” Selman said. “These are scammers scaring you by threatening jail time to get your money. Once the scammer empties the Bitcoin machine, the money is gone and we cannot trace it.”
The Diboll Police Department also warned of similar scams reported in their area, where scammers ask for gift cards and tell residents that they’re under a gag order and can’t talk to anyone about their illegal demands for payment.
“No law enforcement officer will ever call you and ask for any immediate payment in lieu of jail. We do not ask you to get gift cards of any type and we do not ask for you banking information, ever! We will not tell you that you are under a gag order and cannot contact anyone,” Diboll PD said. “If you have received any phone call or text and you even suspect it might be a scam, google the number for your local police department or sheriff’s office, call them and ask.”
The sheriff’s office and Lufkin PD are working to stop these scams but the best way to stop them is for East Texans to learn that these people are only after your money and that no one should ever have to call you for missing jury duty or to pay off a warrant.
“Neither department will call residents about missing jury duty,” Brazil said. “Please hang up on these callers and call either the Lufkin Police Department or the Sheriff’s Office to report the call. Notifying our offices will help you verify it is a scam and will give us more information to track down these scammers.”
Selman agreed and noted that nobody will get a call before being arrested.
“If there is a warrant for your arrest, we will come and arrest you. No one is arrested for missing jury duty,” Selman said.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Office has called for these Bitcoin ATMs and all cryptocurrency machines to be banned at the state level, in light of these recent scams.
LIVINGSTON (KETK) — A member of the Livingston Police Department was fired and arrested on Monday after being accused of having an improper relationship with a student.
According to the department, they were notified by Livingston ISD on May 1 regarding allegations of Ryan Boyd, a 45-year-old police officer, having an inappropriate relationship with a student.
Boyd was subsequently removed from the school campus and was placed on administrative leave while the department opened an investigation.
Boyd was terminated on Monday and was taken into custody by the Texas Rangers. He was later booked into the Polk County Jail and charged with having an improper relationship between educator and student.
“LPD understands incidents like this can damage public trust,” the department said. “We want our community to know that these allegations were taken seriously from the beginning. We remain committed to transparency, accountability and protecting our community.”
The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Polk County District Attorney’s Office at 936-327-6868.
ANGELINA COUNTY – Scammers are calling residents and threatening to put them in jail if they do not pay thousands of dollars in cash right away for missing jury duty. In a released from the county obtained Monday, Sheriff Tom Selman and Lufkin Police Chief Travis Brazil stated that neither the Lufkin Police Department nor the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office will call and demand payment or threaten jail time for missing jury duty.
Calls that appear to be from the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office are the subject of the current scam. The con artist is threatening locals into putting thousands of dollars in cash into a bit coin machine at a nearby convenience store by using a deputy’s name.
After locals called the Sheriff’s office to report making the payment, Lufkin Police detectives were able to retrieve over $10,000 from a bit coin machine last week.
LAREDO (AP) — Six people were found dead inside a cargo train boxcar at a Union Pacific rail yard near the Mexico border in Laredo, Texas, police said.
The people were found Sunday as workers were inspecting one of the cars, said Jose Baeza, a spokesperson for the Laredo Police Department. They did not appear to be alive, he said.
Police and fire crews arrived at the scene shortly afterward. They confirmed that there were six people dead, five men and one woman, Baeza told reporters. They were not named.
Baeza said autopsies would be done. He did not immediately respond to a text requesting information Monday.
The cargo car’s travel history was not known.
“Union Pacific is saddened by this incident and is working closely with law enforcement to investigate,” the rail company said in a statement.
Laredo is a busy land port of entry for trade on the U.S.-Mexico border and a common nexus for the illegal movement of people, although authorities have not said whether the six deaths were related to a smuggling operation.
Last year, two smugglers were sentenced to life in prison for what remains the nation’s deadliest human smuggling attempt across the U.S.-Mexico border. They were convicted in connection with the deaths of 53 migrants found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022.
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. markets hovered near all-time highs Monday and oil rose more than 2% after President Donald Trump appeared to dismiss Iran’s response to a U.S. peace plan.
Futures for the S&P 500 were essentially unchanged, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 0.1%. Nasdaq futures rose 0.1%.
With corporate earnings season winding down this week, rising energy prices and new U.S. inflation data will dominate the stage, along with a high-stakes summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Oil prices jumped early Monday after Trump wrote in a social media post that Iran’s response on Sunday to the U.S.’s latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!”
Brent crude, the international standard, gained $2.71 to $104 per barrel. It was roughly $70 per barrel before the war began in late February. Benchmark U.S. crude was $2.55 higher at $98 a barrel.
With the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil and gas transport, still largely closed and as the U.S. is continuing its sea blockade of Iranian ports, analysts believe oil prices are likely to remain higher for longer.
The Iran war will certainly be an important piece of the agenda during the Trump-Xi summit. China has close economic links with Iran and the U.S. has been pressing Beijing to leverage its influence to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“There remains a glimmer of hope that talks between Trump and Xi later this week could yield positive results on Iran,” ING commodities analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote Monday.
“The hope is that China can use its influence over Iran to push it closer towards a peace deal,” they said. “Clearly, this is easier said than done.” The oil market is still very much “heavily headline-driven,” the pair added.
In the U.S. on Monday, April numbers for U.S. existing home sales will be released. Later this week, the U.S. will release data on consumer and wholesale inflation as well as the latest retail sales figures.
At midday in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was unchanged, while Germany’s DAX fell 0.2% and France’s CAC 40 lost 1.1%.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.5% to 62,417.88 after briefly reaching another record high in intraday trading at above 63,300. Technology-focused investment holding company SoftBank Group, one of Japan’s largest stocks, fell more than 6%.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 4.3% to 7,822.24. It also hit an all-time intraday high, led by gains from tech-related stocks including Samsung Electronics and memory chip maker SK Hynix.
Technology-related stocks and growing artificial intelligence-related interest have supported markets in Japan and South Korea despite the Iran war, with the Nikkei 225 and Kospi rising more than 10% and 30%, respectively, over the past month.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up less than 0.1% to 26,406.84. The Shanghai Composite index climbed 1.1% to 4,225.02, following official data Monday that showed China’s factory gate prices rose 2.8% in April from a year ago, the highest since 2022, as well as better-than-expected export figures released over the weekend.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.5%. Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% higher, and India’s Sensex fell 1.7%.
NEW YORK (AP) – A new poll finds that younger Americans are more pessimistic than older ones about the state of the job market. This is a sudden reversal from just three years ago, when older Americans were more pessimistic. In the United States until 2023 and in many countries globally, young people tend to be more optimistic about the job market than older people. Gallup found that, typically, around the world, younger people are more likely by 10 percentage points than older ones to report their local job market is good. In the United States, younger people are 21 percentage points less likely to do so than older ones.
For years, younger Americans have been more optimistic about the job market than older Americans, even through the depths of the Great Recession. But in an abrupt shift, a new poll released Monday finds young people’s confidence has plummeted over the past two years — while their elders remain more upbeat.
The gap between young and older Americans’ views of the job market now is greater than in any other country among the 141 surveyed, according to the Gallup World Poll. In the United States, 43% of those aged 15-34 believe it’s “a good time” to find a job in the area where they live, well below the 64% of those aged 55 and over who say the same.
Around the world, it’s the opposite. Globally, the median share of younger people who say it’s “a good time” to find work in their local job market is 48%, compared with 38% among older people.
The findings reveal a generational rift in Americans’ views of economic opportunity, with young people feeling increasingly downtrodden about job prospects, while older people still largely think it’s a good time to find work. The schism is likely to continue fueling generational divides in politics, where younger voters have focused on economic issues such as housing costs and have registered less faith in institutions.
“It’s an incredibly new phenomenon,” Benedict Vigers of Gallup said of young Americans’ pessimism. He added that last year was the first time in Gallup’s decades of polling that young Americans were more pessimistic about the job market than their peers in other developed countries. “Has this happened in most other advanced economies? The answer is a resounding no.”
Young people, with fewer physical limitations and family responsibilities — along with an ability to adapt more quickly than older counterparts — normally are more optimistic about their ability to land work.
But the new Gallup analysis finds the U.S. is one of only five countries where younger people are at least 10 points more pessimistic about the availability of work than older ones, joining China, Hong Kong, Norway, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates.
Among the 141 countries surveyed, younger Americans ranked 87th in job market expectations. Even that is striking, Vigers said, because young Americans have long stood out globally for their optimism about job opportunities. Other countries, such as New Zealand and Canada, had lower levels of optimism among the youngest group, but there was no significant generational divide.
The divergence between younger and older Americans happened suddenly. Every U.S. age group registered a drop in confidence in the job market after 2023 — following a post-COVID rebound in 2021 and 2022 — but those 34 and younger saw the largest decline in recent years. The share of younger Americans saying it was “a good time” to find a job plunged by 27 percentage points from 2023 to 2025. That’s comparable to the rate of decline for young people during the 2008 global financial crisis, which also saw a drastic drop in confidence for older Americans. But that hasn’t happened in the last few years. In fact, older Americans’ views have barely dropped.
Older Americans also have a sunnier view of the economic landscape more generally, according to recent AP-NORC polling. About 8 in 10 adults under 35 describe the U.S. economy as very or somewhat poor, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. Only about 6 in 10 adults 55 and older say the same, although a majority still see the U.S. economy negatively.
John Della Volpe, a pollster who regularly surveys U.S. youth for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, said young people are frequently frustrated at how prior generations don’t understand their current economic challenges.
“It’s just another thing that drains their mental health — ‘my parents don’t understand that their pathway at this stage in life that I’m in was so much easier,’” Della Volpe said.
Younger Americans’ job market views now register close to the level they did in 2010, when the country was still deep in the Great Recession. This is not the first Gallup poll to find striking levels of pessimism among young Americans — they also register notably high levels of anxiety about pocketbook issues compared with people their age in other countries.
A separate Gallup survey on perceived U.S. job prospects found pessimism emerging at the end of 2024 and continuing into 2025. That coincides with the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term and the rise of artificial intelligence, which many fear will transform the labor market and eliminate many entry-level jobs.
The new poll finds the most frustrated groups of young people are those who haven’t secured a first job yet, college graduates and young women. But the heightened pessimism spreads across all subgroups of younger Americans, including men and those who haven’t attended college.
“Whoever they are, they are more pessimistic than they were three years ago,” Vigers said of young Americans.
The older Americans who have a less dire view of the job market are themselves more likely to be retired and not looking for work. They’re also more likely to own their own homes, a longtime building block of American prosperity that has increasingly seemed out of reach to younger people.
Day-to-day financial concerns were a key issue in the 2024 election, particularly for younger voters, and Trump improved on his previous performance among this group as he ran on a platform of economic prosperity, fighting inflation and affordability. But like other groups that were important parts of Trump’s 2024 coalition, some younger Americans have soured on the president as inflation continues, recent AP-NORC polling finds.
About 8 in 10 adults under 35 disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy and the cost of living, the recent AP-NORC poll found, compared with about 6 in 10 older adults.
The Texas Tribune – Federal officials opened a civil rights investigation into the state-controlled Houston ISD over its plans to relocate students with disabilities, separating them from classmates.
Some students with disabilities will be required to move campuses next school year where they will learn in a “contained” setting, Houston ISD Deputy Superintendent Kristen Hole announced earlier this week. It is part of an effort to centralize special education services, so programs spread across several campuses could be consolidated into one site. The majority of special education students will not be affected.
Hole said the changes will mean better instruction for children with disabilities with more small-group settings for individualized attention.
However, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is examining whether the move runs directly counter to the federal law that says students with disabilities should learn alongside classmates who do not have disabilities as much as possible.
“Schools cannot exclude students with disabilities simply because of their disability status. Placement decisions must be made individually, based on each student’s needs, rather than by blanket policies that segregate students by disability category,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey wrote in a statement. “The allegations described here are alarming.”
Houston ISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation. The district’s website notes that student services will still closely follow individualized education plans, or IEPs, which is a written plan of each students’ needs.
Federal officials cited concerns from Houston families that their children will lose out on a chance to improve their social skills in general education classrooms. Parents also worry that longer transportation times to these alternative campuses will be challenging for children with medical and behavioral needs.
Houston ISD previously has struggled to provide supports to the more than 20,000 students who qualify for special education services. In 2020, special investigators with the Texas Education Agency found HISD in “systemic and widespread” noncompliance with special education law.
About a decade ago, federal officials found Texas failed to properly educate many students with disabilities.The state had quietly capped the percentage of students that schools could identify as in need of special education services.
Houston ISD has been under state control since June 2023 due to chronic poor academic performance. For the district to regain local control, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said, in addition to improving academic outcomes, HISD must get its special education programs in compliance with state and federal law.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune – Nearly six months after being indicted on federal fraud charges, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar is now facing an attempt to remove him from office.
Former Laredo City Council member Alfonso “Poncho” Casso filed the petition to remove Cuellar in Webb County district court last week, citing the federal indictment and other misconduct allegations. Casso’s filing, which was first reported by The Laredo Morning Times, asked the court to suspend the five-term South Texas sheriff from office pending a trial that seeks to permanently remove him from the post.
Cuellar denied all allegations outlined in the petition and “demands strict proof,” according to a response filed in court on Friday. He already pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, which were unsealed in January.
Casso’s petition largely relies on the five-count indictment, which accuses Cuellar and two other people of misappropriating funds from the Webb County sheriff’s office during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They allegedly opened a private disinfecting business in April 2020 that operated “almost entirely with county employees and supplies,” including to complete a $500,000 contract cleaning schools in Laredo, according to the indictment. Cuellar then received around $175,000 and used it to purchase property in the area, according to federal prosecutors.
Rick Rodriguez, Cuellar’s former deputy who was involved in the business, already pleaded guilty. If convicted, the sheriff could face up to 10 years in federal prison for conspiracy and theft of federal funds charges, and another 10 years for money laundering charges.
Beyond the indictment, Casso’s petition also alleges mismanagement of the county jail as well as violations of the Texas WhistleBlower Act, the Texas Elections Code and procurement laws.
“He has been compromised and has no credibility managing the Webb County Sheriff’s Office or County Jail,” his filing said.
The sheriff is the brother of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, the Laredo Democrat who was indicted in May 2024 on bribery, money laundering and conspiracy charges related to his relationship with an Azerbaijan-run oil-and-gas company and a Mexican bank. President Donald Trump pardoned the representative in December before criticizing him of disloyalty for deciding to run again as a Democrat for his 12th term.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune – As Texas struggles to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, a state fund had $1.28 billion available this year to support projects that could deliver water even in a severe drought.
Unfortunately, 23 worthy projects requested a total of $4.2 billion, prompting the state to deny 13 of them — the first time the SWIFT fund had to say no to an applicant in its 11-year history.
It was lamentable timing for a state plagued by a brutal drought and aging water infrastructure.
“We have more demand than we actually have the capacity to fulfill this year,” said Marvin Cole-Chaney, director of program administration and reporting for the Texas Water Development Board, which administers SWIFT, the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas.
One of the denied projects is a desalination plant with the potential to create 100 million gallons of drinking water a day along the Coastal Bend in South Texas — an area including Corpus Christi, which is in the grips of a devastating drought.
The denial surprised John Byrum, executive director of the Nueces River Authority, which proposed building the plant as a critical source of water for Coastal Bend cities.
Under the scoring system used to set priorities for SWIFT, the river authority’s plant ranked 11th. The top 10 proposals will next submit more-detailed applications for the money.
“We really thought our project would rate higher,” Byrum said. “We were disappointed.”
The river authority requested $140 million to fuel plans to build a seawater desalination plant in Harbor Island, which sits within the cities of Aransas Pass and Port Aransas. A desalination plant filters salt and other minerals out of seawater to make it drinkable.
The proposed project, which received federal permitting in September and is projected to cost $3.2 billion, would distribute water to cities, water districts and businesses across South Texas, including Corpus Christi, which is nearing a water crisis. The coastal city is one of the biggest water suppliers in the region and may be just months away from a water crisis as its main reservoirs have shriveled to below 8% capacity.
Corpus Christi paid $2.7 million to the river authority to reserve an option to buy 50 million gallons of water a day once the Harbor Island desalination plant is running.
City leaders are bracing for a Level 1 water emergency, the point when the water supply is projected to be 180 days from falling short of demand, which could be triggered as soon as September. Commissioners in Nueces County, which includes Corpus Christi, voted unanimously last week to declare a county-wide water emergency, restricting residents’ outdoor watering.
SWIFT offers low-interest loans with extended and flexible repayment plans. The water development board said the denied projects may be eligible for other funding options, such as the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, but Byrum believes the SWIFT fund should place a higher priority on an area’s need for water.
The water development board considers several factors when prioritizing projects, ranking them on a scoring sheet with a maximum score of 86. Projects can earn the most points by serving large populations, with readiness and water conservation among other factors also taken into account.
A project’s “emergency need” carries little weight, earning a maximum five points.
None of the 10 highest-ranked projects earned any points for “emergency need,” a designation restricted to public water systems where supply is expected to fall short of demand within 180 days, federal money was sought or received to deal with the emergency, or the need for water will occur a decade sooner than anticipated by state planners.
The Harbor Island plant, despite targeting an area that critically needs water, earned no emergency need points and lost potential points because it is in rural Nueces County with a relatively low population. Its score of 62 was just one point behind the 10th-place project.
This year’s 10 highest-rated SWIFT projects span the state, including the Riverbend Water Resources District — the top-rated project on the SWIFT scorecard. Riverbend is seeking $2.98 million to assess and expand water infrastructure to meet Texarkana’s growing population.
The North Texas Municipal Water District is asking for nearly $419 million for a pipeline and treatment plant in Leonard, a town in Fannin County. The water district is also receiving around $611 million to design a new raw water pump station.
Money is also being directed to South Texas, where the Hidalgo County Drainage District made a pitch for $120 million for its proposed Santa Cruz Reservoir.
Byrum said the Nueces River Authority is going to apply for the water board’s other funding programs, as well as seek private funding, in hopes of getting the Harbor Island desalination plant built.
SWIFT was created by the Texas Legislature and approved by voters in 2013, allowing the one-time transfer of $2 billion from the state’s rainy day fund. Revenue bonds over the next 50 years, starting in 2015, will finance around $27 billion in water supply projects through SWIFT.
To date, the water development board has committed about $17.2 billion in SWIFT money to 76 projects. The agency estimates the funding saved entities almost $2.1 billion over the life of the debt compared to market rates.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
The Texas Department of State Health Services is lifting a new requirement for youth camps to install “end-to-end fiber optic facilities” in order to allow them to operate this summer, following a lawsuit from 19 camps that called the measure too challenging.
The state health agency announced on Thursday that it reached an agreement with the 19 operators, allowing camps that maintain a redundant broadband internet service to avoid any potential license denial or revocation for not having fiber service this summer, as long as they meet other safety requirements.
“This agreement will ensure that youth camps in Texas operate with the safety provisions envisioned by the Legislature while allowing camps and families to move forward with their summer plans,” said DSHS Commissioner Jennifer Shuford.
The deal came after leaders of the Texas Legislature, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, released statements supporting the removal of the requirement for fiber-optic internet infrastructure at all Texas camps, citing the difficulty of meeting this requirement.
“We also recognize that there may be means other than fiber to provide reliable, redundant internet access, which would satisfy the purpose and spirit of the law,” Patrick and Burrows said in the statement.
In exchange for setting aside the requirement, camps agree to maintain “redundant internet connectivity” through other means, including through cellular or satellite technology. The lawsuit will be set aside until March 1, 2027, according to the agreement.
“This agreement keeps camp doors open for children and families across Texas,” said Brian Anderson, executive director of Camp Peniel, one of the camps that filed the lawsuit. “Camps are places where kids grow, build confidence, and form lifelong friendships, and this outcome makes sure those experiences continue this summer. Camps and campers across Texas are grateful to the state for agreeing to this temporary solution.”
Summer camps in Texas can qualify for licensure through DSHS. To obtain a license, among the steps they must fulfill is submit a sufficient emergency action plan, meet all other safety requirements, and maintain a reliable communication system capable of operating during an emergency, lawmakers said on social media and in statements.
Lawmakers are expected to revisit the camp safety standards in the 90th Legislative session in 2027 while ensuring that camps operate in good faith under these new regulations.
State legislators passed the fiber optic requirement, in addition to mandating a second type of broadband connection, after the July 4 flood in the Texas Hill Country. That flood killed 25 campers, two counselors at Camp Mystic and the camp’s executive director Dick Eastland — information that emergency responders struggled to confirm as one official noted phone lines were down and there was no cell service at the camp.
In April, the group of 19 camps in Texas filed a lawsuit saying the requirement to install fiber optic internet does not make their properties safer, violates the state Constitution and state law regarding property rights, and could prevent them from opening.
The group of camps, which includes Camp Champions, Camp Longhorn and Tejas Ministries, said in the suit that companies advised them that the service either could not be supplied, could not be confirmed as “end-to-end” — a term the lawsuit said isn’t defined — or would cost an amount “that greatly exceeded their resources.”
The suit, filed in a Travis County state district court, offered examples: Camp Liberty, in one extreme, received a quote of $1 million in upfront costs plus a $3,500 monthly service fee over five years. Camp Longhorn received a quote of more than $1.2 million.
The original requirement made no exception for rural camps, where fiber optic internet might not be available or “is so costly as to make it economically infeasible or unreasonably burdensome,” the lawsuit states.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KETK)– For more than a century, Stephen F. Austin State University has served as a cornerstone of higher education in East Texas. Now, the university is undergoing what leaders describe as a once-in-a-generation transformation fueled by the University of Texas System.
SFA officials say a 10-year campus master plan carrying an estimated $1 billion price tag is designed to modernize facilities, improve the student experience and position the university for another century of growth and success.
Construction equipment has now taken over portions of the campus known for its towering pine trees and blooming azaleas, signaling the start of a major expansion effort.
“This institution has a really strong history of being resilient and able to weather storms and get through tough times,” SFA President Dr. Neal Weaver said. “When you take that resilience and match it with the power and resources of the University of Texas System, you see what is happening here right now.”
Since joining the UT System in 2023, at least $58 million has already been invested into SFA. The university recently opened a new cafeteria — the first built on campus since the 1960s — while at least $160 million in additional projects are currently under construction or in development.
One of the most visible projects is underway at SFA’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, where construction crews are building a more than 100,000-square-foot facility aimed at expanding a nationally recognized academic program.
“We’re about to break ground on a brand-new entrepreneurship center, about a $45 million project that should open in 2027,” Weaver said. “Then this summer, we’re breaking ground on a brand-new $70 million residence facility that will add about 350 beds to campus.”
The growth comes as student enrollment continues to rise. SFA welcomed the largest first-time undergraduate class in school history for the Fall 2025 semester and recently recorded its largest spring enrollment increase in more than 15 years.
Weaver credits the university’s focus on affordability and workforce preparation for helping attract students.
“Being a part of the University of Texas System has allowed us to invest in the Purple Promise program,” Weaver said. “That allows students to come to school tuition- and fee-free if they come from a family that earns less than $100,000 a year.”
According to a 2025 economic report from SFA’s Center for Business and Economic Research, the university generates nearly $348 million in local economic activity and supports approximately 4,819 jobs.
“As we see more people coming to town because of SFA, we’re going to see more investment, more consumers, and more workforce candidates being generated through the university,” Kelly Augustine, President of the Nacogdoches Chamber of Commerce, said. “We’re very excited about that.”
The report also found that during the 2022 school year, SFA attracted more than 205,000 visitors to Nacogdoches — spending nearly $9 million at local hotels, restaurants and retail stores.
Students themselves spent nearly $102 million locally, directly supporting about 1,100 jobs. Nearly $40 million of that spending was recirculated throughout the Nacogdoches area economy, supporting hundreds more jobs.
Augustine believes the university’s impact goes beyond economics.
“We see students giving their free time to volunteer activities,” Augustine said. “We see faculty and staff applying their talents and knowledge with nonprofits and businesses across town.”
University officials expect enrollment to reach 15,000 students over the next decade, a number that could significantly reshape the future of Nacogdoches and the surrounding East Texas region.
“Just think about it — $1 billion being spent right here in Nacogdoches,” Weaver said. “That alone is a powerful economic driver for this region. We know there’s going to be a lot of money and jobs coming to Nacogdoches and East Texas.”
As cranes rise and construction continues across campus, university leaders say SFA is not simply expanding buildings — it is investing in the future of an entire community.
LIVINGSTON (KETK)– After being sentenced to death earlier this week, the man responsible for the murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand has been transported to a correctional facility in Livingston.
Former FedEx driver Tanner Horner received the death sentence on Tuesday after pleading guilty earlier this year to murdering Strand in 2022. Horner was given the sentence by a jury in a Fort Worth courtroom that heard nearly a month of testimony and evidence, including audio from Strand’s final moments before her death.
Horner was arrested in December 2022 and charged with capital murder after Strand’s body was found in Wise County. It was later revealed that Horner had kidnapped Strand from her home while he was delivering a package and subsequently strangled her to death nearly an hour afterward.
Horner will now remain at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston for the foreseeable future until a date is scheduled for his execution.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.
Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said the ruling was another sign of GOP momentum heading into the midterms.
“We’re on offense, and we’re going to win,” he said in a statement.
Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court’s opinion but lamented that it overturned the will of the voters: “They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”
Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, criticized the court majority for what she said was a decision that “cast aside the will of the voters,” but she said the people will have the final say.
“In November, they will, and they’ll power Democrats to the House majority,” she said in a statement.
A flurry of mid-decade redistricting
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump started an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year when he encouraged Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party’s narrow majority in the midterm elections.
California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats’ advantage, and Utah’s top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year’s elections.
Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state’s 11 congressional seats.
The Supreme Court’s majority was critical of the state’s redrawing of the congressional maps to benefit one political party. Those justices noted that 47% of the state’s voters supported GOP congressional candidates in 2024 but the new map could result in Democrats making up 91% of the state’s House delegation.
What was in Democrats’ map
Under the Democratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.
The state Supreme Court’s seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn’t have a set ideological profile.
The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.
Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.
The legislature’s initial approval of the amendment occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.
Arguments over the definition of ‘election’
Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature’s initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun for the 2025 general election.
Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.
But, the Supreme Court said in its ruling, “this view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued that an “election” should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, he told justices, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.
The Supreme Court agreed with that argument, writing: “The General Assembly passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the first time well after voters had begun casting ballots during the 2025 general election.”
By the time lawmakers initially endorsed the constitutional amendment, statewide voters already had cast more than 1.3 million ballots in the general election, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast, the court said.
The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms a decision by a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia. The court had placed a hold on that ruling and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.
In the dissent to Friday’s ruling, Chief Justice Cleo Powell said the election for the purpose of considering the amendment does not include the early voting period.
“The majority’s definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning,” she wrote, “only a definitive end: Election Day.”
DALLAS (AP) – Joni Lamb, who with her late husband founded the Daystar Television Network and guided it to become one of the world’s largest Christian TV networks, died Thursday. She was 65.
Lamb, the network’s president, had been suffering from serious health issues before sustaining a back injury that caused her health to deteriorate, the network said in a statement. A cause of death was not released.
“Joni’s love for the Lord and for the people we serve shaped this ministry from the beginning,” the network’s board of directors said in the statement.
The network said its ministry will continue on and that Lamb made sure a leadership team was in place.
She and her husband, Marcus Lamb, who died in 2021, began broadcasting in the Dallas area with a single station in 1993. Five years later, Joni Lamb began hosting her signature daily women’s show.
Based in Bedford, Texas, the Daystar Television Network grew to broadcast in more than 200 countries and has aired shows from many well-known evangelists, including Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes.
The network said it reaches 2.3 billion homes worldwide.
Its ministry was rooted in Pentecostalism, the Christian tradition known for its spirit-filled worship, and its belief in modern-day miracles and everyday battles with evil influences.
In addition to being the network’s president and working behind the scenes, Joni Lamb could be seen on the air hosting “Joni Table Talk” and discussing daily issues.
She stood beside her late husband in 2010 when he admitted on television to an affair with a woman years before. Marcus Lamb also alleged that three people tried to extort money from him to stay quiet.
Joni Lamb said at the time that when she learned of his infidelity she was devastated and prayed to the Holy Spirit, who told her, “He’s worth fighting for.”
The couple said they had healed their marriage and had hoped to keep the matter private.
“All you can do is tell the truth and take your pain and use it to try to help someone else,” Joni Lamb said.
Following her first husband’s death at age 64, she married Doug Weiss two years later. Together they hosted the show “Ministry Now.”