Today is
Tuesday July 21, 2026
TYLER – East Texans are starting to feel relief at the gas pump this week as the statewide average per gallon has dropped following Memorial Day weekend. According to AAA Texas, the average price of gas is currently $3.92 per gallon, 17 cents lower than last week. However, the average price of gas is currently $1.18 higher than it was at this time last year. In East Texas, Tyler residents are paying an average of $3.88 per gallon of regular gas, while Longview residents are paying $3.93 per gallon. San Augustine County residents are paying the most, with an average of $4.16 per gallon. In major cities across the state, El Paso residents are currently paying the most to fill up their tanks at $4.10 per gallon while drivers in McAllen are paying only $3.74 per gallon to fill up their cars according to AAA. Nationally, the average price of gas is $1.26 higher than it was on this day last year and 14 cents lower than last week.
DALLAS (AP) — An explosion and massive fire at a Dallas apartment building Thursday killed a child and at least two other people following a blast that shook nearby homes and happened while firefighters were rushing to a reported gas leak, officials said.
At least five people also went to hospitals with injuries, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesperson Jason Evans said. It was unclear how many residents lived in the two-story complex in the Oak Cliff neighborhood south of downtown Dallas, where a towering plume of black smoke was visible for miles.
Evans did not rule out that more victims could be found as crews continued to sift through the charred remains of the building. By late Thursday, Evans said firefighters had searched less than half of the scene by hand and that some areas would require excavation.
“This was enormous,” Evans said of the fire.
As dozens of firefighters swarmed to the neighborhood, some residents’ friends and relatives worried as they tried unsuccessfully to reach each loved ones. Dozens of firefighters searched through the smoldering rubble of the building even as colleagues continued to drench the blackened debris.
Berry said firefighters were responding to a call of a gas leak when an explosion happened.
“We had the cavalry coming,” Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Mark Berry said. “But the explosion had already taken place.”
Atmos Energy, a natural gas provider, said in a statement they were told by fire officials that a construction crew unrelated to the company had damaged a pipeline near the site of the fire.
Kacee Proctor, a resident of the apartment building, said her mother had smelled gas inside a day earlier, but Proctor didn’t think much of it at the time.
She wasn’t home during the blast and was devastated that her cat, Shirley, was stuck inside.
“I’ve been sitting over there crying for several hours. I don’t know what to do. This is all I have right here,” Proctor said, gesturing to the clothes she was wearing.
She spent the afternoon chatting with neighbors who had evacuated, including a girl who was home babysitting her little sister and carried both the child and their dog to safety.
Natural gas service to the area remained shut off, and company officials were working with investigators on-site, the company said.
Authorities set up a family reunification center at a nearby high school. Several hours after the blaze, Frances Rizo was still trying to find her friend who lived in the building.
“She’s not answering her phone,” Rizo said.
Firefighters rushed to the scene as flames and black smoke billowed into the sky. Some trained their hoses on piles of smoking debris while others removed lumber and other burned wreckage to look for anyone trapped underneath. Little more than a blackened shell of the original building remained.
“The fire is contained, but our members are still working on the scene to do primary searches,” said Dallas Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief James Russ.
Julie Jensen said she was at home less than a block from the burning building when she heard a noise like an explosion that left her ears ringing.
“I was sitting on my couch watching TV — stuff flew off our walls,” Jensen said.
Jensen said she saw rising smoke and neighbors running when she looked out the window. She grabbed her family’s cat and left, finding a nearby parking lot to wait until she knew it was safe to return.
Sal De La Rosa was at work at a nearby auto repair shop when “all of a sudden we just heard and felt this huge boom.”
“We felt where the building kind of shook a little bit,” De La Rosa said.
He said a co-worker went outside and saw thick, black smoke rising into the air.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Frances Rizo’s last name in one instance. It is Rizo, not Rizzo.
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Associated Press journalists Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement through the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term was supposed to be an easy lift for Republicans.
But progress stalled over concerns about the inclusion of White House ballroom security funding in the package and the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to finance claims of government mistreatment. The stumble has not only delayed action on a top GOP priority but also is raising questions about other parts of the party’s legislative agenda, including whether Republicans can enact another catchall, party-line bill referred to in Washington parlance as “Reconciliation 3.0.”
Republicans have spent recent weeks laying the groundwork for such a bill, which they hope will serve as a final sales pitch to voters going into the midterms.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have been meeting with committee and caucus chairs to screen for proposals that have strong buy-in from the rank and file. They are aiming to follow up on last summer’s big tax and spending cuts bill with a measure that would increase Pentagon spending by hundreds of billions of dollars and would include cuts elsewhere to help pay for it, which they are couching as tackling government waste and fraud.
It’s a high-stakes gambit in an election year. Success will reinforce the GOP’s message of being able to deliver on legislative priorities. Failure will underscore some of the Republican fractures under Trump that could leave voters seeking an alternative.
Here’s a look at the coming debate as Republicans hope to pass a bill before leaving for their August recess.
Johnson navigated the House GOP’s slim majority in passing Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill last summer. The vote was 218-214. At the time, Republicans could afford to lose three votes from within their ranks. They lost just two.
They’ll have a thin margin of error again, but Johnson said he’s even more confident of success this time around.
“It will be just as beautiful, but not as big, so it’ll have less provisions and less things to get everybody to yes on,” he said.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Republicans are just as motivated as they were last year on the tax cuts bill.
“This one, I think you’ll have potentially money to support our troops in conflict,” said Arrington, of Texas. “I can’t imagine a Republican not wanting to support our troops and military community in a time of conflict.”
The Trump administration has called on Republicans to provide $350 billion to defense through a reconciliation bill.
But Rep. Brendan Boyle, the lead Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Republicans will have a more difficult path than they did with Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill.
“I think it will be for a couple of reasons. First is the president’s approval rating. He was at a much higher level a year ago than he is right now,” said Boyle, of Pennsylvania. “Number 2, we are much closer to the November midterm elections. So, if you’re one of a dozen or a couple dozen House Republicans who are really vulnerable in a swing district, you have to think even more carefully about voting for something that has even more health care cuts in it.”
The tax cuts bill that passed last summer reduced spending on Medicaid by more than $900 billion over a decade. It also reduced spending on nutrition assistance by about $187 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune called a third reconciliation bill to get around the filibuster a “potential option,” hardly a ringing endorsement.
“We haven’t made any commitments on that, but we’re hearing people out,” said Thune, of South Dakota.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said lawmakers should know what will be in the bill before the legislative process begins. That way, it’s less likely to unravel.
“If it just becomes another exercise where you’re not really sure what’s going to be the end product, then I think it’s a mistake even to pursue it,” Tillis said. “We ought to be smart about it if we do a third one, but it is kind of a moonshot.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she worried about the strategy.
“A third reconciliation may or may not happen. I’m just being direct,” she said.
The House is expected to be in session for about 24 more days before it breaks for its August recess. That leaves little time to pass a budget blueprint in both chambers, which is the first hurdle for pursuing party-line tax and spending bills. Committees would also have to wrap up their work advancing their portions of the legislation.
Another hurdle could be Trump’s treatment of current senators whose votes he will need for any package to become law. Trump endorsed opponents of two senators who faced stiff primary challenges and eventually lost — Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas.
Cassidy has already shown more willingness to buck the president. Fresh off his primary loss, he voted last week to advance a bill that seeks to force Trump to withdraw from hostilities with Iran.
Lawmakers said they could tweak and resurrect some proposals that did not pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian for inclusion in last year’s reconciliation bill. For example, Republicans tried to prevent states from providing Medicaid coverage for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said the bill should rest on three pillars, making the country more affordable and secure while reducing fraud.
Among the group’s recommendations is a proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax on the sale of homes to first-time homebuyers, which they say would incentivize the market, and a proposal to impose a 5% tax on funds sent by noncitizens back to their home countries.
Arrington said he would also like to tighten the rules for the earned income tax credit, a program that increases the financial reward for working but that also has a high rate of improper payments. He also called for prohibiting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally from living in housing units financed by a housing tax credit paid to developers who construct and rehab affordable housing for renters.
“There’s a lot more work to be done to build on what we did in the first one with Medicaid and SNAP (nutrition assistance), with respect to fraud,” Arrington said.
WASHINGTON (AP)- A federal judge has declined to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Republican Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented.
“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote. “Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.”
The legal battle against the provision now shifts to Boston, where voting rights groups have a separate lawsuit seeking to temporarily block the executive order in federal court. The Trump administration has yet to formally issue lists of eligible voters, and those who filed the initial request for a temporary halt said they’d be back if the administration moves in that direction.
“We are ready to resume the fight if and when the administration takes those next steps,” said Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the organizations that sought the stay from Nichols.
Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.
Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.
Democrats and civil rights groups argued it was urgent that Nichols issue a restraining order in the midst of primary season and with states already gearing up for the fall midterm elections.
This was Trump’s second executive order seeking to overhaul elections and voting. His initial election executive order, issued just months after he took office in his second term, has been blocked by multiplefederal judges. That order sought to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key inflation gauge accelerated in April to the highest level in three years, squeezing Americans’ finances and creating political challenges for President Trump and congressional Republicans with midterm elections just five months away.
Inflation jumped to 3.8% in April compared with a year ago, the Commerce Department said Thursday, up from 3.5% in March and the highest since May 2023. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4%, down from the 0.7% jump in March but still higher than the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve would prefer.
Thursday’s inflation report also showed that in addition to gasoline, prices for groceries, clothing and electricity are also on the rise, indicating that inflation could persist. Inflation is also notably above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, which means Fed policymakers may decide to forego any cuts to their key short-term interest rate this year. Some officials have signaled that the central bank’s next move could be a hike rather than a cut.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose to 3.3% in April from 3.2% the previous month. It is the highest core figure since October 2023. One positive sign in the report: Core prices rose just 0.2% in April from March, down from 0.3% the previous month.
Higher prices are also cutting into the incomes of Americans, which were unchanged in April from March. Incomes were weak in part because farm incomes fell after a large government aid package ended last month. Adjusted for inflation, personal income actually slipped 0.1% last month.
Spending rose 0.5% in April from March, though most of that reflected price increases. Adjusted for inflation, spending rose just 0.1% in April, down from 0.3% the previous month.
“Signs of stress are building inside the American household across the economy,” Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax advisory firm, said. “Inflation-adjusted spending, disposable income … point to a slowing in May spending as inflation approaches a peak on the back of a historic supply shock.”
The U.S. economy grew at a modest 1.6% annual pace from January through March, according to a separate report from the Commerce Department Thursday. The country’s gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last quarter of 2025 when growth was hobbled by the 43-day federal government shutdown.
The first-quarter growth, which covered the first month of the Iran war, was a downgrade from the 2% expansion Commerce initially reported.
Gas prices averaged of about $4.50 a gallon nationwide for three weeks this month before slipping to $4.43 on Thursday, according to the AAA motor club. Gas averaged $2.98 a gallon the day before the Iran war began.
Yet the cost of many other goods and services have picked up in recent months, raising concerns among many Fed officials that inflation is being pushed higher by tariffs and other factors in addition to the war. The cost of services such as dental visits, car repairs and veterinarian visits have been rising sharply, and clothes, toys, and groceries are also seeing outsize price gains.
Rapid investment in artificial intelligence centers also appears to be driving up the cost of computer equipment and software, adding to inflationary pressures. Electricity prices have also spiked from a year ago.
MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas (KETK) — A former East Texas coach has been arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in February after driving her home.
According to an arrest affidavit from Titus County, a woman went to the Mount Pleasant Police Department late on Feb. 15 asking to speak privately with an officer. She reported that on Feb. 13 she had been drinking at an unknown residence and that Antione Javon Ross had been asked to take her home.
At about 12:29 a.m., the woman’s mother received a call from a friend saying the woman had been crying and claimed Ross had sexually assaulted her.
Hopkins County man arrested after allegedly stealing mower, power tools
The victim told police she does not remember going home and only recalls waking up and telling Ross to “get off her” before he left. She went to the emergency room for a SANE exam before speaking with officers.
Detectives later went to Mount Pleasant ISD and confirmed Ross was a junior high coach. When they approached him in the parking lot, Ross reportedly said, “I kinda know what you’re talking about,” according to the affidavit. He told detectives he had already spoken with his lawyer and would not answer questions.
Investigators obtained the woman’s SANE kit and related paperwork, which they said provided enough probable cause to charge Ross with sexual assault. Ross was arrested on April 29 and released in early May on a $100,000 bond.
PLANO (AP) — As it turned out, it would never be enough.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried for more than a year to show Donald Trump and Texas Republicans that he and the president were on the same team.
Cornyn posted a photo of himself reading Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.” He proposed legislation to rename a stretch of interstate in Trump’s honor. Perhaps most glaringly, the Senate institutionalist who long supported the filibuster reversed his position in a failed effort to advance voting restrictions that are a priority for the president.
None of it worked. On Tuesday, Cornyn became the latest in a line of Republicans who lost their primaries after falling out of favor with a president with little tolerance for dissent and a seemingly insatiable appetite for retribution. The four-term senator lost by double digits to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed last week as “a true MAGA Warrior.”
Cornyn, on the other hand, “was VERY disloyal to me,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump’s intervention in the Texas runoff came after weeks of successfully backing primary challengers in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky as revenge against incumbents who broke with his agenda.
Cornyn’s attempt to avoid the same fate made even some of his supporters wince.
“You look at the positions he took to please the president and the groveling and whatever,” said former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican and Trump critic who didn’t seek reelection during the president’s first midterm in 2018. “It was rather painful to watch.”
Cornyn’s loss wasn’t for a lack of political gymnastics and astronomical campaign spending.
His campaign began running an advertisement last summer — part of an astounding nearly-$100-million air war by the senator and allied groups — with Cornyn looking into the camera and saying, “I voted with President Trump 99% of the time.”
On Cornyn’s campaign homepage, Trump and Cornyn stand side-by-side with thumbs pointed upward in an image aimed at projecting solidarity. Deeper in the website, the category titled “The Trump-Cornyn Record” notes the senator’s role securing votes for Trump’s signature 2017 tax cut bill.
Cornyn has also been championing provisions in Trump’s signature tax-and-spending legislation to finance work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The senator had dismissed the project as “naive” during Trump’s 2016 campaign. But in January, he stood along a section of completed wall in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley touting the measure’s $11 billion for Texas contractors’ work at “the direction of the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.”
Cornyn’s praise for his party’s leader and president were not unusual, but they clash with a statement Cornyn made in May 2023, when Trump was mounting his presidential comeback campaign.
“Trump’s time has passed him by,” he told reporters. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”
Trump would go on to easily win the nomination and carry every battleground state in the general election.
Cornyn would hew closely to the president for the first 16 months of his second administration, hoping at the outside chance of his endorsement or to keeping him from weighing in at all.
But Trump did not forget the past slights.
“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” he wrote on social media while endorsing Paxton.
Cornyn has playfully worked to promote Trump fandom, last year posting a picture on social media of himself thoughtfully peering into the pages of Trump’s 1987 memoir and business advice book, “The Art of the Deal.”
In a more obvious gesture, he proposed designating a section of a U.S. highway from the Texas Gulf Coast to Montana as “Interstate 47,” to honor a 47th president with a well-documented love of naming things after himself. In a news release about the proposal, filed just over two weeks before Tuesday’s runoff, Cornyn said it would be known as the “Trump Interstate.”
The more tectonic shift occurred in March, after Trump had teased a possible endorsement of either Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.
Paxton swiftly said he would consider dropping his candidacy if the Republican-controlled Senate lifted the filibuster and passed the SAVE America Act, a series of voting restrictions that Trump has described as an essential part of his agenda.
The following week, Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the New York Post — Trump’s favorite hometown newspaper — backing away from his previous support of the filibuster. He vowed to “support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to get the bill “through the Senate and on the president’s desk for his signature.”
Flake watched with unease.
“I know John and his long-held positions on the filibuster and the Senate’s institutions,” he said. “No office is worth that.”
LONDON, Uk. (AP) – BP has ousted its chairman over what it called serious concerns related to “important governance standards, oversight and conduct.”
The departure was abrupt and unexpected, with Albert Manifold having been appointed to the position late last year.
“Albert has helped bring a welcome focus and pace to BP’s transformation,” Amanda Blanc, senior independent director, said in a statement Tuesday. “However, the board has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable and has taken decisive action.”
BP’s board named Ian Tyler as interim chair, effective immediately.
BP, based in London, is a “supermajor,” one of the five largest oil production and exploration companies in the world when measured by revenue and profit.
Manifold, who had been the top executive at Dublin-based global building materials company CRH for 10 years, became the chair at BP in October. BP was looking for someone to revamp the oil giant and went with an industry outsider in Manifold, who had made major strategic changes at CRH.
After a new focus on renewable energy at BP in 2020, by 2025 the company was seeking a return to its roots. BP’s hard reset was criticized by environmentalists, as well as some shareholders.
CEO Murray Auchincloss said last year that optimism over opportunities in renewable energy was misplaced, with the company moving “too far and too fast.”
Changes in leadership at BP in recent years has been tumultuous.
CEO Bernard Looney resigned in late 2023 after BP determined that he had misled the company over his past relationships with colleagues.
Auchincloss stepped down in December, and the company named Meg O’Neill as his successor.
Manifold’s was challenged almost immediately when shareholders defeated company resolutions this spring that would have allowed BP to reduce climate reporting requirements and move its annual meetings fully online. Some 18% of shareholders voted against Manifold’s election as chairman, a high level of opposition for an appointment that is generally rubber stamped by investors.
Legal & General, one of Britain’s largest insurers and investment companies, said at the time that Manifold was responsible for resolutions that would have had “a negative impact on shareholders’ insight into how the company is addressing financially material long-term risks, and seizing long-term value creation opportunities, associated with the energy transition,” the Times of London reported on April 23.
Glass Lewis, an influential shareholder advisor, urged investors to vote against Manifold’s election. It held that BP took “unprecedented action” by refusing to consider a resolution from a group of climate activists and pension funds hoping to force the board to create an alternative strategy should demand for fossil fuels decline, the Times reported.
Like other big oil companies, BP has struggled with falling demand in recent years.
BP’s 2025 earnings fell 16% from a year earlier to $7.49 billion as the price of Brent crude, a benchmark for international oil prices, dropped 16.9%. The company’s preferred measure of earnings is underlying replacement cost profit, which adjusts for one-time items and fluctuations in the market value of inventories. Net income plunged 86% to $55 million.
Last year there were media reports that British oil giant Shell was in talks to buy rival BP. Shell denied the reports at the time.
The search for a new chair is underway, BP said Tuesday.
Shares of BP Plc slid nearly 5% in midday trading on the NYSE.
PLANO, Texas (AP) — Texans are choosing a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election, bringing to a close the extended, bitter and expensive primary where President Donald Trump weighed in late to tip the race in another effort to rid the GOP of leaders less devoted to him.
Trump’s endorsement of state Attorney General Ken Paxton over four-term Sen. John Cornyn gives the challenger a late boost and puts Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.
That’s despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90 million in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton.
It’s the latest GOP contest where Trump has sought to punish a Republican he sees as insufficiently loyal. This month, he has successfully backed challengers to incumbents in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.
Paxton’s campaign and a pro-Paxton super PAC began airing ads promoting the endorsement within 24 hours of Trump’s announcement. Cornyn acknowledged Trump’s move would have an impact but said he wasn’t giving up.
“I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas,” he said hours after the endorsement.
The winner will run in November against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.
Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic U.S. House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party hopes to flip.
The primary has been long, bitter and costly
Cornyn led Paxton in the March primary but failed to win a majority in the three-way contest that also included U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished in a distant third.
That was after Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups waged a monthslong ad campaign, mostly attacking Paxton for ethical and personal questions. The two-term attorney general was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial when allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds.”
The alliance of pro-Cornyn groups have continued its attack, outspending Paxton’s campaign and two allied super PACs $16.5 million to $5.9 million since March 3, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Trump promised to endorse immediately after the primary, asking the unchosen candidate to withdraw. But he didn’t act until after early voting began on May 18.
“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to win,” Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”
Pro-Cornyn groups lately have been airing ads criticizing the attorney general office’s handling of a Waco sex abuse case. Pro-Paxton groups had seized on Cornyn’s awkward relationship with Trump.
Trump snubs Cornyn amid retribution campaign
The negative tenor could diminish turnout in an election already complicated by coming a day after Memorial Day, Texas Republican strategist Tyler Norris said. About 2 million of Texas’ 18.7 million voters participated in the GOP primary.
The dynamic could favor Paxton, whose support draws from more of the most loyal Trump base in Texas, said Norris, who isn’t affiliated with either campaign.
“The defining battle lines are based around hyper-negative messaging, which dampens turnout to begin with,” he said. “So who is going to show up is the hardest of the hard core.”
Trump in his endorsement also poked at Cornyn, as he has done with other Republicans who are not in lockstep with the president.
He blasted Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy as “a Disloyal Disaster” on May 16, before Cassidy lost a GOP primary for the office he has held since 2015. The two-term senator had voted to convict Trump after his 2021 impeachment trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who advanced to a runoff with John Fleming, the state treasurer. Cassidy finished well behind them.
Last week, Trump celebrated as Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a critic of the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, lost his primary to Ed Gallrein. Trump called Massie “the worst congressman in the history of our country.”
In endorsing Paxton, Trump said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough” and that “John was very late in backing me.”
Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the presidency again in 2024 and that his “time has passed him by.” He also was an early critic of Trump’s plan for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — a project he now supports.
Senate GOP leaders backed Cornyn, saying he would be stronger in the general election. Some GOP strategists have argued a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority.
Democrats also will choose US House nominees
Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee and veteran Rep. Al Green are vying for the party nod in Texas’ 18th District, which the Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew last year to help the GOP. The new map led to a contest between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections in the Houston area. Menefee was elected in a special runoff in January to the seat that had been held by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025.
Menefee finished narrowly ahead of Green in the March 3 primary but didn’t win a majority to avoid the runoff.
Former Rep. Colin Allred and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson are competing in the Dallas-area 33rd District. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid and instead is looking to return to the House.
Near San Antonio, Democratic leaders are trying to prevent Maureen Galindo, who has expressed antisemitic views, from winning the party’s runoff with Johnny Garcia. While Texas lawmakers redrew the 35th District to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and don’t want Galindo’s past comments to impede them.
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Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas.
DALLAS (AP) — After three terms in the U.S. House and two unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate, Colin Allred said he’s heard plenty about voters’ suspicions that politicians are just trying to make a buck in Washington.
“‘What about the stock trading in Congress? What about people getting rich in Congress?’” Allred said they ask him regularly. “And I have to say to them, you’re absolutely right about that, too. We need to be better.”
He’s challenging Rep. Julie Johnson in the Democratic runoff for a Dallas-area House seat on Tuesday, and he’s one of several candidates trying to harness populist anger over congressional stock trading. Allred has denounced Johnson for trades involving companies like Palantir, a data analytics firm with ties to President Donald Trump’s administration.
Johnson said her trades were handled by a financial manager, and she accused Allred of being “only out for himself.” She pointed to financial disclosures that showed Allred’s wealth nearly doubling during his own time in Congress, although Allred said his assets were in a blind trust and the money came from his wife’s income as a partner at a law firm.
“To be clear, the sum total I made on that trade was only $90,” Johnson said of her Palantir stock. “My opponent is trying to make it seem like it was hundreds or thousands.”
The bitter campaign is emblematic of broader debates within the Democratic Party over the role of money in politics. Long a refrain of strident progressives and good-government reformers, accusations that political rivals are self-dealing or bought by special interests have become a mainstay of Democratic primaries. The heightened criticism of lawmakers’ personal wealth comes as the party looks to sharpen its anti-corruption message against Trump and to develop a platform for overhauling Washington if Democrats take power in the midterms.
Some are tracking congressional stock trading
Trump campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp,” capitalizing on Americans’ disdain for the Washington establishment. Now that his family is profiting while he’s back in the White House, Democrats are eager to regain the upper hand on an issue that could prove potent with voters.
“The difficulty is that right now, no party has the mantle on anti-corruption,” said Daniel Lobo-Lewis, a political consultant in Washington. “Many voters outside of the beltway see both parties as corrupt, because they see all politicians as bought by the donors or by their own self-interest.”
Lobo-Lewis and Nico Agosta founded the Political Integrity Project last year to track stock trading and corporate donations involving members of Congress.
The organization asks candidates to sign an “integrity pledge” to refrain from trading stocks or accepting corporate donations while in Congress and vow not to work as a lobbyist after they leave office. So far, about 90 challengers and seven sitting lawmakers have taken the pledge.
“If we want to, in any way, start rebuilding trust in our political institutions, it starts with no-brainer changes like this that have an approval rating above and beyond any other issue you could imagine,” Lobo-Lewis said.
Congress has yet to enact a stock trading ban for its members, though insider trading is already illegal for members just like it is for anyone else. There are multiple proposals on Capitol Hill, but none have gained traction.
A bipartisan bill to ban congressional stock trading stalled this year despite receiving Trump’s blessing during his State of the Union. And Democrats remain divided over the number of alleged loopholes in their competing proposals.
Anti-corruption messages spread in Democratic primaries
A crowded race in a Democratic-leaning Utah congressional seat has featured attacks over candidates’ personal wealth. State Sen. Nate Blouin criticized his main rival, former Rep. Ben McAdams, for having equity in a Utah data center firm, and excoriated others in the race for past investments and jobs.
McAdams said the equity of several thousand dollars was payment for a past contract completed by his government consulting firm while he was a private citizen. His campaign defended the data center project by saying it would use no water and run on clean energy.
A spokesperson for McAdams also claimed Blouin “is currently hiding his corporate donations” by removing them from campaign disclosure reports, which McAdams’ campaign claims “is not only deceitful, it breaks campaign finance law.”
In an interview, Blouin rejected the claim that he broke the law, and said that he removed the donations because he returned the money to each donor.
“It was actually quite uncomfortable to return some of those,” said Blouin, because some of the firms included local firms and clean energy companies. “But there is a perception that campaign contributions from lobbyists and companies influence votes, and I think there is some truth to that.”
In a New York City congressional district that includes both Wall Street and the Democratic Socialists of America’s headquarters, the city’s former comptroller, Brad Lander, has accused Rep. Dan Goldman of trying to buy another term by using his own wealth to match campaign contributions. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune, says he entered all of his assets into a blind trust after taking office in 2023.
A spokesperson for Goldman said Lander is “running a deceitful campaign based on absurd lies that Dan is beholden to special interests” and that Goldman has raised more campaign funds than Lander “without taking a dime of corporate PAC money.” Goldman has spent his own money on the race, the spokesperson said: “To ensure that the NY-10 voters can be sure that he is beholden only to them and his principles.”
Lander said Goldman’s spending is “not illegal, but it is certainly anti-democratic when a quarter-billionaire like Dan Goldman not only dumps millions of his own inherited wealth into his elections but also solicits money from the same forces who are rigging the economy and worsening the affordability crisis.”
More candidates are fighting over stocks in California
Even representatives who support a ban on congressional stock trading are feeling the heat.
Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California is facing multiple primary challengers who have criticized the congressman for holding stocks while serving in Congress. Sherman does not trade individual stocks and supports a ban on stock trading.
“I only own three individual stocks, which I inherited from my mother when she passed away, which were originally acquired by my grandmother,” Sherman said. “I have never sold them because I made a promise to my constituents that I would not buy and sell individual stocks.”
One of Sherman’s primary challengers is Jake Levine, a former climate adviser to President Joe Biden, who signed the pledge from the Political Integrity Project. But Sherman said Levine “refuses to disclose key elements of his $18 million stock portfolio, and actively bought and sold stocks while serving on the National Security Council.” Levine has said he cannot disclose the portfolio because it is managed by his family and he has no oversight.
In the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California State Sen. Scott Wiener has critiqued his progressive opponent, Saikat Chakrabarti, over his personal wealth. Chakrabarti is a former software engineer who earned millions as an early employee at the tech firm Stripe. He later served as the first chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Wiener said that Chakrabarti “has enormous investments” and “is trying to buy this seat” while “spreading bogus conspiracy theories” with his own wealth. He criticized Chakrabarti for not disclosing the last decade of his stock trades.
“If you’re making a ban on stock trades a central part of your campaign — as Saikat is doing, running around saying that everyone under the sun is corrupt — how about you tell the voters about your own stock trading history,” Wiener said.
Chakrabarti retorted that his wealth as a private citizen is not relevant to his future time in office and that he would place all of his assets into a blind trust should he be elected. He critiqued Wiener for being supported by super PACs funded by the AI firm Anthropic and other major corporations.
“This is all part of a larger problem, which is just the whole idea of corruption in our politics,” Chakrabarti said. “If you’re in Congress, you sit on committees that oversee a lot of these industries, and it’s unethical to be using that insider information, that knowledge to make stock trades. But that doesn’t apply to a private citizen.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in the Lone Star State will make their second attempt to nominate a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in a primary runoff election on Tuesday, the electoral version of the Texas two-step.
Also on the ballot are primary runoffs in more than a dozen congressional districts, plus state contests for lieutenant governor, attorney general and others.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was the top vote-getter in the March 3 primary, but strong showings by two GOP challengers forced the four-term incumbent to Tuesday’s head-to-head matchup with state Attorney General Ken Paxton, the second-place finisher who received President Donald Trump’s endorsement on May 19.
The contest is Trump’s next opportunity to purge the party of incumbents he views as insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda. It also sets the stage for a general election where Democrats are increasingly optimistic about their chances to score an upset in the heavily Republican state as they look to retake control of the U.S. Senate. Historically, voters have tended to punish the incumbent president’s party at the ballot box in midterm election years.
The winner will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in the general election.
Trump seemed open to endorsing Cornyn following the primary, and he did not excoriate the incumbent in his endorsement of Paxton, as he’s done recently with Republican incumbents in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky. But he said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
Cornyn was critical of Trump ahead of the president’s 2024 campaign.
Since much of the Texas primary campaign has focused on the candidates’ loyalty to Trump, the counties where the president has the most support could play a decisive role. Although many of the counties Trump won in 2024 with 80% or more of the vote are rural and sparsely populated, collectively they made up about a fifth of the GOP primary vote. Paxton beat Cornyn in these counties, 45% to 40%, while Cornyn performed better than Paxton in the rest of the state.
In counties Trump carried with between 50% and 80% of the vote, Cornyn received about 42% of the vote, edging Paxton by a percentage point. Republican primary voters in the 12 counties Democrat Kamala Harris carried in 2024 preferred Cornyn, 44% to 40%. These counties made up 25% of the overall primary vote, larger than the share of Trump’s 80%-plus counties.
Only two incumbent U.S. senators from Texas have lost a primary in the last 100 years.
In 2025, Republicans redrew the state’s congressional districts at Trump’s urging as part of an effort to maintain control of the U.S. House.
Among the notable primary runoffs that resulted from the new congressional map, Democratic U.S. Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green will face each other in the redrawn 18th Congressional District. In the new 33rd Congressional District, Democratic U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson faces a challenge from her predecessor, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:
When do polls close?
Polls close statewide at 7 p.m. local time, which is 8 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET. Most polls are in Central time and close at 8 p.m. ET, while polls in the westernmost part of the state are in Mountain time and close at 9 p.m. ET.
What’s on the ballot?
The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in Republican primary runoffs for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, railroad commissioner, Court of Criminal Appeals, state Senate and state House and in Democratic primary runoffs for U.S. House, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state Board of Education and state House.
Who gets to vote?
Voters who did not participate in a party primary on March 3 may vote in the runoff for either party. Voters who did cast a ballot in a party primary may only vote in the runoff of the same party as they did in the primary. In other words, Democratic primary voters may not vote in a Republican primary runoff or vice versa. Voters in the non-partisan primary may vote in either party’s runoff.
How many voters are there?
As of the March 3 primary, there were nearly 19 million registered voters in Texas.
How many people actually vote?
About 2.2 million Republican primary votes and about 2.3 million Democratic primary votes were cast in the March 3 Texas primary.
In the 2022 Republican primary for Texas Attorney General, turnout was about 1.9 million voters in the primary and about 932,000 in the primary runoff.
How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?
About 63% of the vote in the March 3 Republican primary was cast before primary day.
As of Thursday, about 621,000 Republican primary ballots and about 262,000 Democratic primary ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election.
When are early and absentee votes released?
Counties tend to release all or nearly all results from early and absentee voting in the first vote update of the night, before any in-person Election Day results are released.
How long does vote-counting usually take?
In the U.S. Senate primary in March, the AP first reported results at 8 p.m. ET just as polls closed in most of the state. By 11:39 p.m. ET, 75% of the vote had been counted. Vote results were released continuously until about 5:58 a.m. ET, with about 98% of the total vote counted.
When will the AP declare a winner?
The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
How do recounts work?
Texas requires an automatic recount only in cases of a tie vote. Losing candidates may request and pay for a recount if the margin is less than 10% of the leading candidate’s vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there will be 161 days until the 2026 midterm elections.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.
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Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)
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Election 2026 Texas Senate
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LUFKIN – One person is dead and two have been injured following a single-vehicle crash on U.S. 59 in Lufkin, according to police. The Lufkin Police Department said traffic on U.S. 59 South is was blocked after a single-vehicle crash killed one person. A Grapeland woman, Alishia M. Scott, 43, was pronounced dead at the scene in the 5000 block of U.S. 59 south of Lufkin A man and woman are being treated for their injuries. Her family has been notified. The three were in a Chevrolet Tahoe traveling north toward Lufkin when the accident occurred. An investigation by Lufkin Police and DPS Troopers is under way.
SMITH COUNTY — With the 2025–26 school year coming to an end, East Texas educators are reflecting on the first year of a classroom cell phone ban and the impact they say it had on students.
The end of another school year is here; hallways are empty, and students are already making summer plans. This school year was different as it marked the first year under Texas House Bill 1481, which bans personal communication devices in the classroom. Interim Principal for Winona High School, Jeff Dozier, said that having a state law enforced helped persuade students to keep their phones out of sight.
Teachers at Winona High School, including Theater Director Jeffrey Stokes, said students were more focused on lessons and less concerned about what their classmates were posting on social media.
Longtime math teacher Josh Loeffler at Tyler Legacy High School remembers when cell phones started popping up in the classroom and is glad to see them go. Engagement that helps students build skills both inside and outside the classroom.
JEFF DAVIS COUNTY, Texas – Since news first surfaced late last year that border walls could be built for the first time in the Big Bend region of West Texas, the story has been marked by shifting, unannounced changes to the plan and few clearly communicated details from the Trump administration.
Marfa Public Radio has been closely following developments in the story over the past few months.
Here’s where things stand.
Will there be a border wall anywhere in the Big Bend region?
Yes, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s latest plans.
Physical barriers, in the form of 30-foot-high steel bollard walls, are planned for a 175-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties.
This plan is broken up into three border wall projects:
1. Big Bend 1 — From Sierra Blanca, TX to near the Hudspeth-Jeff Davis County line
2. Big Bend 2 — From Ruidosa, TX to near the Madera Canyon Campgrounds in Big Bend Ranch State Park
3. Big Bend 3 — From the Hudspeth-Jeff Davis County line to Ruidosa, TX
Federal contracts were awarded in March for each of the three projects.
A $1 billion contract for Big Bend 1 was awarded to Barnard Construction. A $1.2 billion contract for Big Bend 2 was awarded to Fisher Sand and Gravel, and a $960.4 million for Big Bend 3 was also awarded to Barnard Construction.
In late April, a $4.4 million federal contract was awarded to Tierra Right of Way Services for “BB-3 Border Barrier Project Construction Monitoring Services.” CBP told Marfa Public Radio this week that the award is for “environmental and cultural monitors” for that stretch of wall project.
CBP also said that the timeline for completion for these three projects is sometime in 2027.
Landowners along this stretch first began receiving letters from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the agency handling real estate acquisition for CBP, in February. The public comment period for this section, which was extended several times, was set to close Friday, May 22.
Will there be a border wall in Big Bend National Park?
No, according to CBP’s latest plans.
CBP told Marfa Public Radio this week that it is not planning a 30-foot-high border wall in the national park.
Still, the park is set to receive a combination of border vehicle barriers, surveillance technology and patrol roads, according to CBP.
This plan is outlined under one project:
4. Big Bend 4 — From near the Madera Canyon Campgrounds in Big Bend Ranch State Park, along the Rio Grande across much of the national park, to the “Lower Canyons” of the Rio Grande east of the national park
Last week, DHS awarded a $1.7 billion contract for the national park project to an Albuquerque construction firm.
Though a federal government spending website shows the Big Bend 4 contract award as being for “a border wall in Big Bend, Texas,” CBP has denied that the contract is for a physical wall.
Anti-wall advocates have expressed skepticism that a border wall in the national park, which was previously on the table, is truly not happening.
What are the latest details on the work in the national park?
Brewster County Judge Greg Henington, whose county contains the national park, and other local officials met with CBP representatives last week for a status update on all the Big Bend area border wall projects.
Henington said he learned in that meeting that CBP plans to improve, but not pave, dirt roads in the national park, including River Road and Black Gap Road.
Some existing paved roads in the national park will both be improved, he said, and vehicle barriers in the form of concrete bollards will be installed at spots along the river like Lajitas, Rio Grande Village and La Linda, Henington said.
According to Henington, CBP representatives told local officials that they plan to utilize cameras and sensors with infrared technology to respect the area’s dark sky designation. Still, Henington said they were ultimately “vague on what electronic surveillance really entails.”
Could the border wall plans for the Big Bend region still change?
Yes, absolutely.
Throughout recent months, CBP’s plans have changed multiple times without any formal announcements, press releases or social media posts from the agency.
The changes have often only been noticed thanks to local residents, advocates and news outlets who have been paying close attention to the agency’s “Smart Wall” map — which even disappeared for several weeks from CBP’s website.
When could actual construction on border walls or other infrastructure begin?
It’s hard to say.
Local officials were previously told by CBP in March that construction could begin as soon as June 1, but the agency has not since provided an updated timeline.
Still, contractors are already mobilizing in the region.
One federal contractor began moving heavy equipment to the Rio Grande earlier this month for the Hudspeth-Jeff Davis-Presidio County wall project. This came after a dustup among contractor crews and local county officials about “unauthorized” road work that began on a rural dirt road to the border in April.
Meanwhile, plans are underway for a 500-person “man camp” housing facility for border wall workers south of Van Horn in Lobo. Construction activity on the land has started in recent weeks, though the local groundwater district is still considering whether or not to allow a designated agricultural water well to be used as a commercial well for the project.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is meanwhile in active negotiations with local landowners about acquiring property for the project. Is it unclear how many landowners have authorized border wall construction at this point, or how many will be facing eminent domain proceedings and when those will be initiated.
How are people reacting to all this?
CBP’s plans for border wall building in the remote Big Bend region have sparked widespread bipartisan opposition in recent months.
Five border county sheriffs spoke out against the plans and more than 2,000 people showed up at the Texas Capitol to protest the Big Bend border wall in April.
This week, seven former superintendents of Big Bend National Park sent Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin a letter urging him not to waive federal environmental laws for border barriers in the park, arguing that even new vehicle barriers and roads would be “highly destructive.”
How the wall will impact wildlife, the region’s dark skies, the tourism-based economy and flooding along the river corridor are among the many concerns raised by residents.
Local officials were largely in the dark about the wall plans for many months, prompting a coalition of border county judges to send a letter to Mullin requesting more collaboration with local communities impacted by the project. Now, they are set to meet with CBP officials once every couple of weeks, according to Brewster County Judge Greg Henington.
“ None of this makes any of us happy, but I think it’s a positive that at least they seem to be moving away from this secret squirrel stuff and being more open about it,” he said.
The state’s top elected officials — namely, Republican Gov. Abbott — have remained mostly quiet on the issue, while area lawmakers Sen. Cesar Blanco and Rep. Eddie Morales – both Democrats – have come out in opposition to the wall plan.
The Center for Biological Diversity, a church preservation group and a local river guide have also sued DHS for bypassing federal environmental laws to speed up border wall plans in the region, arguing the move is unconstitutional and would lead to the destruction of “iconic sections” of the Rio Grande corridor.
Does the Big Bend region need a border wall?
This is, of course, at the heart of the debate over the administration’s plans.
The Border Patrol’s “Big Bend Sector” – which stretches across 510 miles of the border – has historically been one of the least-trafficked areas of the southwestern border.
Apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally in the sector fell 74% from 2023 to 2025, according to CBP data. Autonomous surveillance towers have also cut down on traffic significantly, according to the agency. Local sheriffs have said they believe technology can be used to patrol the region’s border “without the need for extensive permanent infrastructure.”
Still, President Trump has long sought to build a physical wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border since his first term in office. On the first day of his second term in January 2025, he signed an executive order directing the Defense and Homeland Security secretaries to “take all appropriate action to deploy and construct temporary and permanent physical barriers to ensure complete operational control of the southern border.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, approved by Congress in July 2025, included $46.5 billion for border wall construction.
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This story was originally published by Marfa Public Radio and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
FRANKLIN COUNTY (KETK)– A man who was discovered living in Iowa was arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting a child while living in Franklin County in 2000.
According to Franklin County officials, the sheriff’s office received a report in February 2025 from a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted as a child. The victim identified the suspect as 60-year-old Adrian Hernandez, who was found to be using a different name on social media and was believed to be living out of Texas.
During the investigation, law enforcement learned that Hernandez had obtained a Minnesota driver’s license and was living in Kanawha, Iowa. Deputies from the Wright County Sheriff’s Office successfully assisted officials from Franklin County in identifying Hernandez as the suspect.
Hernandez was arrested on three counts of indecency with a child on Wednesday after a Franklin County investigator and a member of the Texas Rangers traveled to Iowa and identified him. Hernandez is currently being held in the Wright County Jail while he awaits extradition to Texas.
According to Franklin County, since Hernandez’s arrest, several additional victims have come forward with information.
“The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office remains fully committed to protecting our residents, standing with survivors and pursuing justice no matter how much time has passed,” the county said. “If you are a victim of abuse, we encourage you to come forward. You will be heard, and we will take action.”
SULPHUR SPRINGS (CBS19) — A retired high-ranking U.S. military official was sentenced on Thursday to serve 40 years in prison for child sex crimes in East Texas.
Ret. Brig. Gen. Mike Houston McClendon, of Sulphur Springs, was found guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 following a trial before a judge in a Hopkins County courtroom. He was then sentenced to 40 years in prison, according to the Hopkins County District Clerk’s Office.
McClendon was arrested back in May 2024 over a sexual assault investigation. Arrest documents say the offense happened in January 2014.
The district clerk’s office said McClendon will have to serve each day of the 40-year sentence with no potential for early release. He also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and court fees.
According to McClendon’s biography on the U.S. Air Force website, McClendon is a 1975 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. The biography says he was a senior pilot with over 10,000 hours in more than 35 types of aircraft ranging from helicopters to fighters to transports. As a civilian, he was a captain for a major airline, flying internationally.”
The Military Times said McClendon retired in 2009.
Courtesy of CBS 19
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington on Thursday without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies, frustrated with the White House and at an impasse over whether to try to block a new $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.
Republicans had already abandoned part of the bill that provided $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom amid backlash from members of their own party. But the settlement announced by the Justice Department this week prompted even more questions, spurring a push to limit the taxpayer dollars that some feared could go to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A tense meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday morning to discuss the settlement only heightened the frustration among senators. Soon after it ended, Republican leaders announced that they would not vote on the immigration enforcement measure until they returned from a Memorial Day recess the week of June 1, which was Trump’s self-imposed deadline for them to pass it.
Blanche “had an appreciation for the depth of feeling” among GOP senators, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said afterward as a growing number of them spoke out against the idea.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former GOP leader, called the settlement “utterly stupid, morally wrong.”
“The nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” McConnell said in a statement afterward.
The last-minute scramble on the bill came as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying to fund Trump’s ballroom when voters are concerned about affordability issues — and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump.
Several GOP senators have spoken out against the Justice Department settlement announced this week, and many were upset by the president’s Tuesday endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in next week’s primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn.
Both sides have acknowledged the tensions. Thune said Thursday that the White House should have consulted Congress before it announced the settlement, which he said made “everything way harder than it should be.” Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn’s opponent also complicated matters, he said.
“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune told reporters. “There is a political component to everything we do around here.”
Trump unloaded on senators in a social media post Wednesday, urging Republicans to fire the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who said over the weekend that parts of the $1 billion White House security proposal did not qualify for the ICE and Border Patrol bill. Trump also renewed his long-standing calls for the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, a Republican bill that would require voters to prove U.S. citizenship, and to end the Senate filibuster.
Republicans need to “get smart and tough,” Trump said, or “you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”
While they have been loyal to Trump on most issues, Senate Republicans have resisted his repeated calls over the years to kill the filibuster, which creates a 60-vote threshold for most bills in the Senate.
Asked Thursday at the White House if he was losing control of the Senate, Trump replied: “I really don’t know. I can tell you — I only do what’s right.”
Hanging over the growing GOP rift is Trump’s surprise endorsement of Paxton. That intervention has Republican senators privately fuming that it could cost them their majority in November as they view the incumbent, Cornyn, as the stronger candidate.
The “anti-weaponization” fund, part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, unexpectedly became one of the main complications in the bill after Democrats announced that they would force votes to block it or place restrictions on it.
Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the immigration enforcement bill through a budget process that allows a long series of amendment votes. The Democratic amendments would block the fund outright or ban any payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The only way for Republicans to get out of this box is to stop backing the slush fund, stop pushing the ballroom, and as soon as we get back, join Democrats in fighting to lower Americans’ costs on health care, on housing, on power, on so much else,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said after senators left town.
As it became clear that the Democratic amendments could pass, Republicans began discussing their own last-minute additions to head that off — an idea that appeared to have support in the GOP conference but could threaten eventual support of the bill in the House or make a presidential veto more likely.
“I think there’s reasonable limitations that can be put on it,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., one of Trump’s top allies in the Senate.
Under the Secret Service’s request, about $220 million would fund security improvements related to the ballroom. The rest would go for a new screening center for visitors, training and other security measures.
After it became clear that Republicans would abandon that proposal, Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that “I don’t need money for the ballroom,” which he had originally said would be paid for with private funds. Still, if Congress doesn’t approve the request, he said the White House “won’t be a very secure place.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the bill was a “bad idea.” The bill should not have included the other security improvements, he said, “because it’s just giving everybody the ‘billion-dollar ballroom.’”
Left in the bill is the money for ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
Democrats demanded changes for the agencies, but negotiations with the White House yielded little progress. So Republicans are using the complicated budget maneuver called reconciliation — the same process that allowed them to pass Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill last year — to fund the agencies through the end of Trump’s term without any Democratic support.
Still, passage requires sign-off from the parliamentarian and unity from Republicans.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said the Senate’s responsibility should be to focus on funding ICE and Border Patrol.
“When other extraneous things get in the middle of it, it makes it more difficult,” he said.
DRIPPING SPRINGS (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is riding high as he heads into the final days of his Republican primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn, now with the weight of the president’s backing behind him.
“I don’t know if y’all noticed this, but Donald Trump endorsed me,” Paxton told a small rally in a town outside Austin, inciting whoops and applause from the crowd.
Tuesday’s election has drawn national attention and gobs of money. It’s also become the latest contest in which Trump is encouraging voters to boot a politician who have displeased him — in this case, Cornyn — in favor of a challenger more aligned with the president. That effort has been largely successful for Trump. Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie lost his Kentucky primary against Ed Gallrein, whom Trump had handpicked and backed. He also has defeated incumbents in Louisiana and Indiana.
Paxton has been turning his focus to the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico. Paxton opened his event Thursday with attacks on Talarico, a sign of his confidence heading into Tuesday.
Paxton then gave a biography of his political life, and tried hammering home the reason he says he should be the Republican nominee: He’s unleashed a barrage of lawsuits defending conservative values for years. It’s the type of resume that endears Paxton to the Make America Great Again faithful, some of his supporters said.
“He’s a fighter, he’s a person of action, he’s proven that as attorney general,” said Jeffrey Sonnier, 72, who attended the rally and echoed what many supporters there voiced.
As for Cornyn, said Sonnier, “he’s inactive for five years and digs out to become a supposed active Republican MAGA person every six years.”
Paxton’s campaign said Thursday that it’s pulling negative ads against Cornyn. Instead, starting after Trump’s Tuesday endorsement, the campaign and a super PAC that supports his candidacy began airing separate ads touting Trump’s favor.
Cornyn’s campaign and groups supporting him, however, were outspending the pro-Paxton groups three-to-one, and had reprised an ad they began airing last year noting Cornyn’s support for Trump’s agenda and featuring video clips of Trump praising Cornyn.
“He’s called me a friend, and that’s no surprise because I’ve supported him and his policies, you may have seen a commercial or two to that effect, 99.3% of the time,” said Cornyn in a video posted to X from a recent event.
Cornyn has also long worked to shift the race to focus not on fidelity to the president but on character.
The campaign has leaned heavily into messaging about Paxton’s past, which includes an alleged affair and an impeachment for corruption in which Paxton was acquitted.
If Paxton is the nominee, that will be litigated in a general election against Talarico, where voters will be less “willing to overlook all the corruption, the self-dealing and the scandals,” Cornyn argued at a recent campaign event. “Ken Paxton would hand it to (Democrats) on a silver platter.”
Paxton supporters at his Thursday rally shrugged off the accusations.
“He’s had his flaws, but so have we; we all make mistakes,” said Daniel Vega, 18, adding, “He’s repented, let’s move on.”
Through this week, Cornyn’s campaign and groups supporting it will have spent roughly $90 million in advertising, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, including more than $20 million since the March 3 primary election.
Paxton’s campaign and the single super PAC have combined to spend roughly $10.5 million on advertising, with roughly $6.1 million since the March 3 primary.
The ads have flooded voters.
“The commercials are leading me against Paxton, that he might be a little crooked,” said Gail Licea, 74, a retired registered nurse, who attended a Cornyn event before Trump’s endorsement. Then again, she said, “I’ve been led to believe that sometimes John Cornyn doesn’t back President Donald Trump, and that concerns me.”
The advertising has been so concentrated, it was unclear how much the late pivot by the groups would affect Tuesday’s outcome, said Wayne Hamilton, former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.
“There is so much noise out there right now,” said Hamilton, who is an adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott and is unaffiliated with either of the Senate candidates. “I don’t know how any one message is going to break through.”
SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas (KETK) – The Sulphur Springs Police Department is currently searching for a man who forced a minor out of a residence on Whitworth Street on Thursday.
Sulphur Springs PD said officers responded to the 400 block of Whitworth Street at around 10:23 a.m. on Thursday and met a male juvenile who told them that a man entered his residence and forced him out of the home towards Lamar Street.
The juvenile was able to get away from the man and went back to the residence.
The man is currently wanted by the Sulphur Springs PD in connection with this incident. He’s described as a Black man in his 20’s who was wearing red pants, a white shirt and a black backpack.
Sulphur Springs PD also said the man had gold teeth and a tattoo on one of his forearms. Officers reportedly checked cameras in the area but the man was never recorded.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Sulphur Springs PD Detective Joe Scott at 903-885-7602.
NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KETK) – The University of Texas Board of Regents approved $70 million in funds for Stephen F. Austin State University to construct their new 100,000-square-foot Lumberjack Crossing residence hall on Thursday.
The board’s also approved the design for new $70 million dorm which will be a four-story structure capable of housing 335 students in double-occupancy rooms, lounge and study spaces, offices and more.
Rendering courtesy of SFA.
The new hall will be located directly to the east of the current Lumberjack Landing residence hall and to the south of the new Pineywoods Dining Hall. The $70 million will also fund new campus cooling capacity by installing a new chiller.
Construction is expected to be substantially completed in 2028.
JASPER COUNTY – No investi-gator needed for this capture. In Jasper County, a 9-and-a-half-foot alligator was captured after stalling traffic on 1013 West Wednesday. According to our news partner KETK, Jasper County Sheriff’s Office deputies can add “alligator catchers” to their list of accolades after successfully removing the alligator from the road. After being captured by deputies, the alligator was handed over to Texas Game Wardens and was safely relocated.
LUFKIN, Texas (KETK)– Lufkin residents gathered at City Hall today to protest a proposed $1 billion data center.
The facility planned by Denver-based developer Amp Z at the former Southland Paper Mill site, faces opposition over concerns about water usage, local infrastructure impact and potential noise. The proposed facility is located outside city limits and the Lufkin City Council did not address the matter during its meeting.
The Amp Z project is a one billion dollar data center intended for a 1,000-acre site. While the land purchase for the development is complete, the project remains in negotiation and planning phases. City officials have stated the facility would use approximately 500 gallons of water daily, utilizing a closed-loop system for water reuse.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, people stood outside city hall, marching, chanting and holding signs to express their opposition to the data center. Residents also raised concerns regarding the potential strain on local infrastructure and the noise levels once the vast 1,000-acre facility becomes operational. Christina Perez, a community organizer, voiced the broader implications of such development.
“This isn’t the only data set; this is just one of many that will probably come to Lufkin and the East Texas area,” Perez said. “For a lot of people, this is just home. It’s something that is replaceable and once we take all these things away, it’s going to be hard to get them back.”
The group of residents plans to present their concerns about the data center project to the Angelina County Commissioners Court. The project is still in the negotiation and planning phases.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Stonewall National Monument, the President’s House Site and the Women’s Rights National Historic Park are among 11 sites on this year’s annual list of the most endangered historic places in the United States compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The 2026 list, announced Wednesday, marks America’s 250th anniversary with the foundational principle that everyone is created equal as the theme, said Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization. The 11 sites offer examples of how, over time, Americans have fought against injustice and for equality, she said.
“We wanted to think about those ideas, especially this notion that all human beings are created equal and find places, sometimes unsung places … that not all Americans routinely think about,” Quillen told The Associated Press.
The sites are spread across the United States — from New York and California on the East and West Coasts, to Alabama and Texas in the South, to Michigan in the Midwest and the Four Corners of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah in the Rocky Mountain West.
At least three of the sites — Stonewall, the El Corazon church in Texas and President’s House in Philadelphia — have been endangered by Trump administration actions.
“We want to save these places,” Quillen said, “not just because the bricks and mortar is important but because the stories these places hold are important.”
For the first time since the list debuted in 1988, each site on the 2026 list will receive a one-time $25,000 grant to help highlight their connections to the principle that all people are created equal and address the threats they face.
The 11 sites are:
Montgomery, Alabama: Ben Moore Hotel
The hotel was a refuge for Black people living under laws that enforced racial separation in the South. Prolonged vacancy has caused structural deterioration and the historic Centennial Hill neighborhood surrounding it faces pressure from development. The hotel housed key players from the Civil Rights Movement, including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy. The Conservation Fund announced in November that it would help preserve the hotel.
Modoc County, California: Tule Lake Segregation Center
Initially known as the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, it was set up as a camp but later became a segregation center where Japanese Americans who were thought to be disloyal to the United States were imprisoned. The site is now a national monument managed by the National Park Service. Only 37 acres of the 1,100-acre site is protected. Most of it is at risk of permanent alteration from a proposed nearby construction project.
California: Angel Island Immigration Station
It was the largest immigration port on the West Coast between 1910 and 1940, particularly for immigrants from Asia and the Pacific. Hundreds of thousands were processed, detained and/or interrogated there because of their race. The station currently is threatened by physical, environmental, political and economic factors. Additional funding is needed for structural repairs and programming to increase awareness.
Somerset, Massachusetts: Swansea Friends Meeting House
Recognized as the oldest surviving Quaker meeting house in the state, it was built in 1701 to serve as a refuge by a congregation fleeing religious persecution and looking for a safe place to worship. The building has been closed for years and needs significant rehabilitation.
Michigan: Detroit Association of Women’s Clubs
Founded in 1921, the association was one of the first Black organizations in Detroit to own their headquarters building, which was purchased in 1941. But the building has been closed since 2024, when water pipes burst and damaged the interior. Money is needed to help the association reopen the building.
New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah: Greater Chaco Cultural Landscape
The landscape is an ancestral homeland sustained for over a millennium by the Pueblo and Hopi people, but is threatened by changes to federal land policy that could open up significant portions to oil and gas development. Permanent protections and tribal consultation are needed to protect its cultural integrity.
Seneca Falls, New York: Women’s Rights National Historical Park
The park tells the story of the first Women’s Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls, in July 1848. It faces a deferred maintenance backlog of over $10 million. Additional funding and support are needed to help preserve the park as a place to teach visitors about the history of women’s rights.
New York: Stonewall National Monument
The first and only U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ history was the subject of administration actions that saw the rainbow Pride flag removed from its flagpole earlier this year before it was restored. The National Park Service had removed the flag in February, citing federal guidance that limited the agency to displaying only the American, Interior Department and POW/MIA flags. But the administration reversed course in April as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by advocacy and historic preservation groups that sought to block the flag’s removal at the Manhattan site.
After Trump returned to office, he ended diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and many references to transgender people were excised from the Stonewall monument’s website and materials. The Republican administration similarly has put national parks, museums and landmarks under a messaging microscope, aiming to remove or alter materials that it says are “divisive or partisan” or “inappropriately disparage Americans.”
Philadelphia: The President’s House Site
The administration abruptly removed exhibits on the lives of nine people enslaved at the site in the 1790s under George Washington, the first U.S. president, who lived there when Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital. The exhibits were taken down as part of a broad effort by the administration to remove from federal properties information it deems “disparaging” to Americans. The issue is currently the subject of litigation between the city and federal government.
Heath Springs, South Carolina: Hanging Rock Revolutionary War Battlefield
The Battle of Hanging Rock was a key battle in the Southern Campaigns of the Revolutionary War and is considered a Patriot victory that helped boost morale and ultimately weaken British control in South Carolina. Only portions of the core battlefield are protected and open to the public, with the area anticipating population growth and increasing development pressures.
Ruidosa, Texas: El Corazon Sagrado de la Iglesia de Jesus
The more than century-old adobe church served as a refuge and place of worship for Mexican and Mexican American farming communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande River. Vacant since the 1950s, the structure has benefited from continued restoration provided by the nonprofit Friends of the Ruidosa Church but remains threatened by proposed construction of a U.S. border wall that could come within a few hundred yards of the property.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Single Gen Z women are outpacing their male counterparts when it comes to buying a home.
They accounted for 35% of all homebuyers in their generation, while single Gen Z men represented 18%, according to survey data from the National Association of Realtors.
NAR surveyed people who bought a home between July 2024 and June 2025. The survey included homebuyers from several generations, from Gen Z, ages 18-26, to the Silent Generation, ages 80 to 100. No other generation had a bigger share of single women homebuyers than Gen Z.
The survey data are the latest sign that single women overall are becoming homeowners at greater rates than single men. Single women across the generations made up a quarter of all homebuyers in the July 2024-June 2025 period, according to NAR. Single men, meanwhile, accounted for 11% of all home purchases.
This has been a longstanding trend going back at least to 1981. In 2006, at the height of the mid-2000s housing boom, the share of homes bought by single women peaked at 22%, according to NAR. For single men, their share of homeownership peaked at 12% in 2010.
Experts say there is no one-size-fits-all answer to why across the generations single women outnumber single men as homeowners.
Women now are outpacing men in college attendance, which can lead to higher incomes, said Jessica Lautz, NAR’s deputy chief economist.
They tend to have a strong desire for homeownership as a way to secure their independence, something they historically could not easily do alone.
“It wasn’t until the 1970s where women were legally protected to have a mortgage on their own,” Lautz said. “And they have embraced this and been very strongly embracing this.”
Overall Gen Zers, which the survey defines as those born between 1999 and 2011, still only made up 4% of all homebuyers during the survey period. And at the time of the survey, the share of U.S. homes bought by first-time buyers of all ages sank to the lowest level on record going back to 1981.
First-time buyers often don’t have equity from a previous home to put toward a down payment. That was the situation for Bri LaFluer. After years of socking away half her pay, working two jobs and aided by a slowing housing market, she bought her own home in 2023 at the age of 24.
“I’ve always been a really independent person and I just wanted my own place to have peace and quiet by myself,” said LaFluer, now 27.
Her home search began in 2021, but historically low mortgage rates made the market ultra competitive, which turbocharged prices. Two years later she finally landed a house in Baldwinsville, N.Y., about 15 miles from Syracuse, that was built in 1900 and has three bedrooms and 1.5-baths and a big yard. She got it for $175,000.
“I feel like it was meant to be and this just ended up being the perfect house for me and my dogs,” she said.
A content creator for a video game company, LaFluer lived with her mom and paid a modest rent, which helped her save up faster for the $20,000 down payment.
Aspiring Gen Z homeowners face a number of challenges to affording a home: They’re typically just getting started in their careers, with their best income-earning years ahead. They are unlikely to be married and may have student loans to pay off.
Their median annual income of $76,000, as of 2024, also was the lowest compared to homebuyers from all other generations, according to NAR.
Years of soaring home prices have further stretched the limits of affordability. While home price growth has slowed and prices have fallen in many metro areas, prices are mostly still rising. The median U.S. home sales price stood at $417,700 last month, up 0.9% from a year earlier, according to NAR.
Still, Gen Z homebuyers are also more likely to receive financial help from family, and many are savvy about looking into community grants or other payment assistance programs for first-time homebuyers. And 1 in 10 tapped their 401(k) retirement savings plan to put toward their down payment, according to NAR.
Other home shoppers have no recourse but to save up on their own.
DALLAS (AP) — As Dallas pulls out the stops for the World Cup this summer, one makeover is causing an uproar: the sudden disappearance of a beloved, giant mural downtown of swimming whales.
“I see that mural almost every day on my way to school and then one day they were painting it over,” Katy Rose Cusick said. “And it was just so incredibly shocking to me that that could happen so quickly.”
Work has been underway this month to paint over the mural that’s graced two entire walls of a parking garage for nearly 30 years to make way for art related to the upcoming World Cup matches. Wyland, the artist who created the mural, said in a statement that its destruction has left him “deeply disheartened.”
“When a piece that has carried meaning for generations can be erased without dialogue, it raises serious questions about how we value public art, artists, and the communities these works were created to serve,” Wyland said.
Cusick and Joshua Hurston, seniors at a local performing and visual arts high school, started a Change.org petition hoping to raise awareness to protect history and art. The petition has gotten hundreds of signatures so far, including from those with fond memories of spotting the mural as children.
“If we couldn’t save necessarily the mural, making sure that something like this doesn’t happen again,” he said.
A spokesperson for the area’s World Cup organizing committee said in a statement they were looking forward to “unveiling a new piece that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026,” adding that a “portion” of Wyland’s mural will be preserved “as a tribute to its lasting impact on the city.”
Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any of the other sites in the event co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with nine matches set to be played at AT&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The retractable roof venue will be called Dallas Stadium for the World Cup.
Downtown Dallas Inc. said in a statement that it was part of the early discussions about the mural and confirmed it wasn’t part of the city’s public art collection before introducing the World Cup organizing committee to the building’s owners. A spokesperson for the building’s owners, Slate Asset Management, said they were approached by Downtown Dallas Inc. and the organizing committee earlier this year about donating the wall for a new public art installation by a local artist.
The mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was dedicated in 1999. Wyland has painted over 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls around the world as part his mission for the conservation of ocean life.
“This was more than paint on a wall — it was part of my work, alongside the Wyland Foundation, to bring people together to protect our oceans and clean water,” he said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The NAACP and Congressional Black Caucus are calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps that the nation’s oldest civil rights group says are restricting Black voting rights.
Launched on Tuesday, the NAACP’s “Out of Bounds” campaign urges current and prospective Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to “withhold athletic and financial support” from major public universities in states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation.”
If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it could deplete rosters for powerhouse football and basketball programs across the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.
The NAACP’s campaign calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina as states to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs of those states’ major universities are especially reliant on Black athletic talent and should protect Black political interests.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, during a news conference in front of the U.S. Capitol, accused Republican-led Southern states of “seeking to reinstitute a sharecropping reality” by recruiting Black athletic talent to play for flagship universities while limiting, in his view, “our ability to elect candidates of our choice.”
The ACC, SEC, Florida State University, the University of Alabama, four Historically Black College and University conferences — the SWAC, MEAC, SIAC and CIAA — and chapter members of the National African American Athlete Alliance in both Texas and Florida did not return The Associated Press’ request for comment.
The NAACP is among groups responding to a wave of gerrymandering in the aftermath of a U.S.Supreme Court ruling that winnowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson repeatedly noted that Black athletes have been a core engine of the college sports business, which drives billions in TV deals, revenue and reputational prestige.
“Black athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power for state institutions while those same states strip political power from Black communities,” Johnson said.
“We will fight with all we have in solidarity with the Congressional Black Caucus to ensure that we have representation, or if we don’t, we will withhold the talent that plays on the football field or on the basketball court, be they male or female,” Johnson told reporters.
The boycott is part of a coordinated effort by Black political leaders and civil rights activists to dissuade Republican-led states from redistricting longtime majority-Black congressional districts. Civil rights activists have mobilized across the South to protest moves by state legislatures to change their maps, while voting rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have filed lawsuits seeking to block potential changes to the districts.
Black lawmakers oppose SCORE Act
And on Monday, the CBC said that it would unanimously oppose the SCORE Act, a bill backed by major athletic conferences that would set new rules for the payment of college athletes, unless the sports leagues oppose the redistricting efforts of GOP-led states.
“The Congressional Black Caucus cannot support legislation benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent while black voting rights and black political power are being systematically dismantled across the South,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters.
“The Congressional Black Caucus believes institutions that profit from Black talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack,” the CBC said in a Monday letter to the commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences, as well as NCAA President Charlie Baker. “Silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality — it is complicity.”
After the caucus’ announcement, the SCORE Act was pulled from the schedule of the House committee overseeing the bill. Clarke said the decision showed that “silence from our institutions in moments of injustice carries consequences.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that the boycott was meant to oppose “a dramatic return to racially oppressive Jim Crow-like tactics.” He added that while athletes ultimately had to make individual choices, they would be supported by lawmakers and civil rights leaders in their decision-making process.
“We’re going to support them, and we know they have options,” Jeffries said.
Initiative’s timing is difficult
The timing of the initiative comes at a moment in the college athletic calendar that might make it difficult for it to have any immediate impact. The transfer portals for the high-profile Division I sports of football and basketball are all closed until 2027.
There may be an opportunity to influence prominent high school recruits who are still weighing their college prospects for the fall of 2027 and beyond. While many schools have received nonbinding verbal agreements from football and basketball players, those agreements won’t become official until late fall at the earliest.
The signing window for basketball opens in mid-November — about a week after the midterm elections — and the 72-hour early signing period for football arrives in the first week of December.
There is a chance that recruits could attempt to put pressure on flagship institutions in the targeted states by threatening to sign somewhere else. The reality, however, is that the pockets of those schools run deep, and asking a teenager to factor politics into a decision that could produce a life-altering financial windfall before they are even old enough to vote could prove tenuous.
Brandon Copeland, CEO of Athletes.org, the emerging college players association that aims to represent student athletes, told reporters that opposition to the SCORE Act and redistricting efforts are linked.
“It’s really a control mechanism,” Copeland said of the SCORE Act’s proposed changes. “That same tool is being used to suppress our voices, suppress our votes,” he said. Copeland, a former professional football player, said his organization will “stand tall alongside our athletes, but also alongside our mothers, our uncles, our aunts, our cousins, and everyone in this nation who deserves a voice.”
Activists seek pressure points
Activists have sought pressure points to dissuade GOP-led states from redistricting maps, including calls for mass protests and economic boycotts, though Johnson and the Black Caucus members did not endorse further measures, like calling for major Southern companies to relocate or for Black voters to leave states that take up redistricting plans.
Johnson cited the 2015 decision by the University of Mississippi to remove the Confederate flag from its campus, and Mississippi’s later decision to change its flag entirely, as successful demonstrations by Black student athletes, who in both cases expressed opposition to the flag’s presence on campus.
In 2024, the NAACP urged student-athletes to reconsider attending Florida universities due to the state’s bans on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and policies on the teaching of history in schools.
Lawmakers and activists have made such calls in the past, like when in 2021 Black lawmakers, activists and clergy called for a boycott of Georgia companies over the Republican state legislature’s implementation of a sweeping law that Democrats accused of enacting “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Major League Baseball decided to move its All-Star Game from the state that year over the protests, a move that enraged Republican lawmakers, who saw the effort as misguided. The All-Star Game returned to the Atlanta area in 2025.
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Associated Press sports writer Will Graves in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, contributed.
NACOGDOCHES COUNTY, Texas (KETK) — Several investigations have been launched by the Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Office due to multiple car burglaries that have taken place over the past week.
According to the sheriff’s office, four car burglaries have been reported across the county since May 14, which have led to several guns being stolen along with other valuables. The most recent incident occurred on Tuesday on Country Road 826 when three cars were burglarized, and one pistol magazine was stolen.
The sheriff’s office said that three juveniles were identified as suspects in an earlier incident, but authorities do not believe the suspects were involved in other burglaries across the county. Although several arrests have been made in relation to the burglaries, the sheriff’s office said they are looking to identify suspects who may live in a different county.
“We are asking the public to remain vigilant during the summer months,” the sheriff’s office said. “Please always lock your vehicle and remove any weapons from it. These thieves are mainly looking for two things: cash and weapons. I have several investigators working on these cases, and the Sheriff’s Office will remain proactive in seeking to bring these criminals to justice.”
Anyone with information about the burglaries is asked to contact the sheriff’s office at 936-560-7777 or Crime Stoppers at 936-560-INFO.
TRINITY COUNTY, Texas (KETK) — A man wanted out of Tennessee with several felony warrants, including counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, was arrested in Trinity County on Monday.
According to the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office, they assisted the United States Marshals Service in executing a high-risk felony warrant for 42-year-old Norman Haun.
Haun had several charges and felony warrants out of Greene County, Tennessee, including the following:
Sixteen counts of sexual exploitation of a minor
Felony warrants alleging violation of sex offender registry requirements
Violations of community supervision for life
Haun was taken into custody without incident.
“Due to the serious nature of the allegations and the high risk classification of the warrant, additional precautions were taken by law enforcement personnel to ensure the safety of the public, officers, and all involved during the operation,” the sheriff’s office said.
Haun was taken to the Trinity County Jail, where he is being held with a $200,000 bond for failure to comply with sex offender registration and online solicitation of a minor sexual conduct. The sheriff’s office said Haun is pending extradition back to Tennessee.
“Crimes involving children are taken seriously, and law enforcement agencies across this country continue to work together to locate and apprehend those wanted for serious offenses,” the sheriff’s office said.
ZAVALLA – An Angelina County home was left with substantial damage after a fire broke out for unknown reasons on Monday morning, officials say. According to the Huntington Volunteer Fire Department, several VFDs were dispatched to assist Zavalla VFD at a structure fire on Kitchen Cemetery Road. The majority of the fire was contained to the attic space, but the home sustained major damage.
The cause of the fire is unknown to fire officials at this time, Huntington VFD said. No injuries were reported and several valuable items were saved.
AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) — Dozens of wind projects in Texas are in limbo after the U.S. Department of Defense paused issuing routine federal permits citing national security concerns, a move that experts say expands the Trump administration’s crusade against wind energy.
According to data collected by the American Clean Power Association, 54 Texas wind projects are waiting for the department to review development plans to ensure that turbines don’t interfere with military operations. It’s part of a broader nationwide logjam that has ensnared 165 onshore wind projects, a figure first reported by the Financial Times.
Federal law requires any structure 200 feet or taller — such as antennas, smokestacks or wind turbines — to be reviewed first by the Federal Aviation Administration, then the military, which must determine whether a structure may interfere with military airspace.
Federal law requires the Department of Defense to conduct those reviews within 60 days of receiving an application from the FAA. But “right now, the entire process has just ground to a halt,” said Dave Belote, a wind energy consultant who helped design the review system when it was established more than 15 years ago.
Normally, the defense department evaluates whether a turbine is within the line of sight of a radar or in a low-altitude military airspace. If so, the department and developer typically agree on mitigation options — a process that usually takes a matter of weeks.
“In the past, those have been fairly trivial — you meet the requirements and you get the permit,” said Jonathon Blackburn, an Austin-based energy consultant.
However, the department has not approved a wind project since August 2025, and in April the department canceled all pending meetings with wind developers waiting for clearance, according to the trade group.
These delays have caused disruptions to developers’ projects, hindering their ability to secure project financing, jeopardizing local permits contingent on federal approvals, and delaying construction timelines, turbine orders, and contractor scheduling.
“There’s a lot of delay coming out of the permitting process from the federal government, and delays add cost,” Blackburn said. “Maybe the federal government is not able to flat-out stop projects, but they are able to drag them out.”
In a statement, a DoD official said that the department is still actively evaluating the projects to ensure they do not impair national security or military operations, a process that requires high levels of interagency coordination.
The department’s evaluation of wind turbines “is inherently complex and time-consuming because it involves balancing two critical, and sometimes competing, interests: developing energy sources while ensuring military operations and readiness are not degraded or impaired to the extent an unacceptable risk to national security is created,” the official said.
The department didn’t respond to questions about why approval wait times have blown past federally required deadlines.
“It’s not clear why these policies are being implemented during an affordability crisis, but I think it shows the level of disdain the administration has for renewable energy in general and wind power specifically,” said University of Texas energy professor Michael Webber.
Texas is home to more wind turbines than any other state, and also has a number of military installations.
According to a 2019 report by the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, there are 17 military bases with flight facilities in the state and large expanses of airspace set aside for military operations. This includes several training routes for Air Force and Navy pilots flying out of Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio, the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, San Antonio’s Randolph Air Force Base and the Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene.
The pause is the latest move by an administration that is attempting to slow the growth of wind power across the U.S. Most of the administration’s efforts have focused on offshore projects.
Last year, the administration suspended leases for five major projects off the East Coast, citing national security concerns related to radar interference. Federal judges later ruled against the administration in all five cases, finding that the government exceeded its authority and failed to prove that the projects posed national security threats. All five projects have since resumed construction.
The Interior Department announced in March that it had reached an agreement with TotalEnergies to pay the company $1 billion to walk away from a planned offshore wind project and instead expand fossil fuel investments.