The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 17, 2026

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to check out our articles at https://thetexan.news/ and leave us a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

The South Jersey store's owner, Johnny Gabagool, says the theft spoiled around $20,000 worth of food. Now, of course, I think it's terrible. The $20,000 worth of food was stolen. But that's not why this story is going viral because people are like, are you really telling me that this New Jersey, like, store owner's name is Johnny Gobble. That would be like meeting a guy in Texas named like Ted Bristead. Well, howdy folks? Welcome back to another episode of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. I'm your host, Senior Editor Rob Lauchess, and joining me today are reporters Mary Elise Obar, Meredith Dyer, Hannah Brewer, and Isaiah Mitchell.

How is everybody doing this morning? Doing well. How about yourself? Cannot complain. Cannot complain. Just enjoying the nice rain that we got over in the Austin area. You know, it's been coming down for about a week. It's been coming down cats and dogs.

But fortunately, it is still within acceptable levels. Well, I saw something about the Peternelis River, which forgive me if I'm pronouncing that wrong. I've heard people have strong opinions about which direction you're supposed to pronounce that. But I've seen that it's, it looks like it's flooding or it's just rising dramatically right now. Yeah, as we are required. recording this on Thursday, it is flooding pretty bad. And apparently I think, I can't remember if they were saying either the river had risen more than it did during the July 4th flooding of last year or if there had been more rainfall. But it is pretty crazy flash flooding going on in the hill country right now.

Yeah, I think the Guadalupe River has risen more than it did last year or maybe more quickly than it did. reports of horizontal rain from Austin, right, Rob? I did have that problem on Saturday. Yeah, I was leaving H.E.B. And it was coming down sideways. So I got absolutely soaked. And even though I didn't have my umbrella,

but it wouldn't have helped. And a lot of my groceries got soaked too. And I had to throw a couple of things away when I got home. Oh my gosh. That was no much. Yeah, that was no fun. Like the cucumbers. It's crazy.

cucumbers. Like I pulled them out of the fridge a couple days ago and they had gone totally slimy, probably because they got super wet. And then I guess I didn't try them off properly when I put them away. So there's no good. I was imagining you with an umbrella that inverted due to the wind and the rain. And then you're like walking almost like, you know, at a 45 degree angle. And then you get like buffed back by the wind. No, you have to imagine that I get picked up like Mary Poppins and I'm actually being like, blown all around the city of Austin by my umbrella.

I'm just riding like I'm surfing on the rain basically. Top dancing, boy land. No, exactly. Well, that's why I had the card so that I could tap dance on the cart while I was being,

while I was flying on my umbrella. So in case you saw that if you live in Austin, that was, that was me. I just wanted to put that out there. We didn't write an article about it. I didn't think it was newsworthy. But speaking of things,

that are newsworthy, Meredith, the largest school districts in Texas have adopted budget deficits for next year amid debates between state lawmakers and legislative leaders over property taxes. Give us the details on that story. So this is one of those, everything kind of feeds into it when you're covering education with enrollment decline, with inflation with all the different things that are going on, a lot of districts, not just the larger ones, but we kind of spotlighted those. But a lot of districts are adopting these budget deficits going into the next school year. Low birth rates, like falling property values, there's so many different things that people are talking about on a lot of different levels that kind of feed into

school finance. And so just, I mean, as an example, I started out the article with Austin ISD, showing that they had a $181 million deficit projection going in April, like going into the next school year. And it is possible to cut those down. And so they did a lot of deliberation and made a lot of really tough calls and hard things for the district, which people are very upset about. And there was a lot of meetings and a lot of public testimony and people being very, like, people were very emotional because they were either maybe going to lose their job. they were going to lose their school, things like that. But they did do it, and they passed a budget. They made $205 million in additional cuts.

And so they were looking at central office pay increases, stipend adjustments, things with like partner-provided student support services, like doing those at the school instead of contracting those out. They did keep librarians and counselors, but they're putting some other assistant principals to part-time, and then classes from second through fifth grade will grow. So those are things that people don't want to hear, but when you have these empty schools that are, we're not empty, but they're like less than capacity or at like very low percentages, at some point you're going to have to make some tough calls. And so they did make a lot of tough calls and cut down their budget. So we just kind of started that out as a reminder that like it is possible to do this, but it's very hard. And the, I also and I SD superintendent, Mattias Sigora in a letter to parents was like, we're not alone in the struggle and like really emphasizing like we're going to go into the next. legislative session in January, we're going to come to like the capital looking for more state

funding and to get things, he said, the funding that our staff and students deserve, which isn't any, that's normal. Every session people are coming for more school funding, but it's really kind of ramping up, I feel like this year. And so we kind of look at Houston, Dallas, and Cyprus, Fairbanks. They have these budget deficits of anywhere from Houston had a 24.6 million budget deficit projected. These are obviously projections based on, you know, what they think attendance will be like, what they think they're going to get with state funding and things like that. And then Dallas ISD had the largest with $104 million projected deficit, which they also, they've been making some records lately. So I don't know if this is a record, but they have

that $6 billion bond that they passed as well. So they have a lot, a lot of deficits and debt in the district, just to be to note that as well. well. And then Cyprus Fairbanks had an $80.9 million projected deficit. And similar statements from all of the different superintendents and saying things like, I know in Cyprus Fairbanks, the superintendent was talking about like fuel utilities, those things would have outpaced. And he specifically mentioned the benefits of HB2, which was that $8.5 billion public ed bill from last session, just saying basically, and I've heard this from multiple districts, like that wasn't enough. Like that didn't do, it was a drop in the bucket. It didn't give us what we wanted,

especially because the basic allotment only increased by $55 with that bill. So Northside focused on this idea of a November, Vader, which is the voter approval tax rate election. So they were giving some numbers of like, this is how much we'll have in reserves. If we get this, it'll decrease it by so many million dollars. And they're undergoing a district optimization plan, which is kind of code word for they might have to close schools. And so that is one of their options that's kind of listed in a really large like slideshow that they have that they show to parents, just different things they're trying to do. But that eventually those discussions often do lead to school closures as we've seen in the past.

And so yeah, the, there was a statewide survey of a lot of different districts and in April and they were looking at responses of how many of them were had a budget deficit in the middle of the year so about 44% of districts were on track to end this fiscal year within a deficit and there was just projections about 70% of districts will need cuts to make cuts and 42% were expected to cut and dip into future fund balance so kind of like their this is a very general term but like a savings account I know it's not exactly like that but for understanding to kind of close those gaps. So yeah, we have a little bit more in there. You can check out in the article. And then we

just talked with Texas Public Policy Foundation, policy director for the taxpayer protection project, James Cantaro at TPF. And he was just giving some insight, kind of pushing back because the general narrative with ISDs is very similar that a lot of them are requesting more funds. And it's pretty much across the board. All of them have the same talking points and concerns. And he was just talking about wanting to see a little bit better management from these districts as they go into the school. You're pointing out that just the frustration that they continue to adopt budgets, it's not just this is a one-time thing. This is an ongoing thing. And some of the deficits seem to get larger, the bonds get to seem larger, get larger. And just this idea that he was suggesting

that the legislature could remedy this issue saying that they have to adopt balance budgets. And that was kind of more about a local level in general. So he just, yeah, he had some interesting insights and thoughts into that. Obviously, we're in the middle of a property tax fight or, I don't know, I don't know to say fight, but it's going to be like a struggle back and forth a little bit between people wanting to really cut those property taxes and then people fighting for it because it does fund public schools. And so obviously there's a lot of different property tax options that have been put out there. And then recently kind of like another thing related is Jennifer Gina Hinojosa, who's running for governor talked about giving $1,500 check from the rainy day fund to each person.

And then Sarah Eckhart, the senator who's running for comptroller, pointed out that, like, the fund is so big that we could pay down every debt on every school district that's running a deficit in the state of Texas and still have $24 billion in that reserve. So everyone is thinking about these debts. They want to see them either get lower or get paid off, depending on which way you're looking at it. Well, thank you very much, Meredith, through your coverage on that story. It's definitely, especially as you pointed out, the connection with Sarah Eckhart, I thought that that was very interesting how she mentioned possibly paying down a school district debts using the rainy day fund. But speaking of the legislature and deficits or the legislature and budgets in general, Isaiah turning to you, this week we saw some of the big three teasing some issues that are going to appear in Texas next biennial budget. What's going on there?

Yeah, as we've been getting closer to session, which starts in January, we've been getting some clues about what the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the Speaker of the State House have in mind as the top issues that should be addressed. And insiders know that the lieutenant governor is the head of the Texas Senate. Justin Burroughs, who's a representative from Lubbock is the head of the Texas House. And they and Greg Abbott issued a joint letter to public entities in Texas that primarily is directing them to review. and cut down on their finances and their appropriation requests. But also, it lists four budget priorities for the state. And the state budget is the number one priority bill, literally. Priority bills have lower bill numbers, and the budget is number one.

And those priorities this time are affordability for Texas consumers and residents, so cost of living affordability, spending cuts for state agencies, steady funding for education programs and property tax reform. So we don't have official agendas or an official list of priorities yet from either Burroughs or Patrick. But this gives a good hint as to some of the issues that they'll consider important to address for the next session. So we shouldn't be surprised if we do see some low number bills that tackle one of these four

things. Well, thank you very much, Isaiah. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the. the state budget, as it always is, budget night on the floor of the Texas House, always, of course, is, goes very late and is very fun to watch. So thank you very much for giving us the details. Meredith, turning back to you, I don't have a good segue for this one, but it is an issue that is sure to unite and divide and inspire probably the most ferocious arguments than any other political topic we've discussed. the U.S. House has passed permanent daylight saving time. What is going on? Yeah, this is one that it was kind of random

when I was even looking for like a bucket to put it in on the website. I was like, what does this one even fall under? But yeah, people are very passionate about it, which has kind of surprised me as well. I haven't been a part of, I know that Mary Lees over saw some of this last year in the house and it was really little spicy.

But yeah, basically the Sunshine Protection Act, is going to make daylight savings time. I also learned it's daylight saving time. I keep saying savings time. So just for all of you out there, daylight saving time. Permanent nationwide, passed in the House, 308 to 117, heads to the Senate. Texas delegation voted majority. Yes, there were some bipartisan no votes in there. And so a handful of those, about seven. Texas has its own trigger law where it passed in the 89th legislature last year, the idea that we will make daylight saving time permanent if federal, if like it comes into effect federally. Obviously, HUD's, not obviously actually learned this as well. Hudspeth and El Paso County stay in Mountain

Time, which is something going back to the 1960s related to some of their commerce and their work with New Mexico and they've stayed in that time zone. I also learned just like on background, how many states have multiple time zones in them. That was kind of interesting to see some of the maps. I think I've only lived in states that have one time zone. So that was kind of it. Or actually, no, well, now I'm in Texas. There's multiple. And just the bill author representative Will Metcalf from Conroe.

Just when he created it in Texas cited things like health concerns, sleep, traffic safety, productivity, which there's lots of those arguments about kids walking to school in the dark. The idea that we need to create stability and not be changing all of our changing the clock. and like messing with our bodies and health concerns and things like that, citing people will cite statistics about heart attacks and strokes and different things like that. So Ted Cruz has been very supportive of this. So as it goes to the Senate, we know that he'll be voting in favor of this. He really wanted to just end that switch, calling it outdated and harmful. Trump swayed in and had some differing opinions, but overall is in favor of changing it to something more permanent.

And then it was interesting. Congressman Keith Self had a really like pointed comment about this. Just he called the bill pathetic. He had voted against it. It called it pathetic and said that Congress is fiddling with the clocks while the country burns. And so Chip Roy, who's also a congressman from Texas, chimed in as well and was like he prefers the permanent standard time. But just like making a point like my priorities are with Save America Act, banning congressional stock trading, border policy.

He just lists off a bunch of things of like, I think he said, color me surprised or something. He was just kind of being sarcastic of like, I don't share it, whatever. I don't agree with this, but there's so many more important things. He also said he agreed with Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas, who's this really ardent opponent to it. And he kind of was part of the 2022. It went through the Senate.

This kind of bill went through the Senate in 2022, too, but he was very, like, made it clear, like, there was an accident. He did not mean to vote for that because it was unanimous. He had a big floor speech last year just about, like, how he will always oppose this and how it makes winter's dark and dismal. He's just very against it. And so, like I said, it's been through this, similar type of bill has been through the Senate a few years ago and passed and then didn't pass in the House. But now that it's passed in the House, we'll see it looks, it seems like there shouldn't be anything crazy stopping it in the Senate. But, yeah, definitely got a lot more people on Twitter and just having like really, really, I talked to a guy

who he's been like trying to advocating for this for like 51 years or something he said. Ever since it's happened, he's just like, it's like his big issue. And so it's just interesting how people really, really care about this. And I was not aware. So I've been informed now. Absolutely. And in fact, in tomorrow's, well, I guess on the day that this podcast comes out, the from the editor's desk newsletter will be sharing the team's own opinions on daylight saving time i think

i'm with you meridif that's saving versus savings i think it's because you talk about having a savings account you know whereas daylight saving time is in the singular so um it ties back to the first story you talk about of course with having kind of a savings account so there's the segue the post hoc segue absolutely uh mary lease without a segue again there's been a development since Governor Greg Abbott called for an investigation into an alleged birth tourism scheme. What's going on there? Yeah, this is a story, I think, that we'll probably be sharing frequent updates on as we, you know, as we published stories as we record this podcast.

But, you know, this is an update in the story we covered last week where Governor Greg Abbott asked the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to launch an investigation and to some alleged birth tourism schemes. Of course, this circulated. This became kind of more of a topic of concern after there were some reports shared online of some apparent billboards. One in particular that appeared to be posted in Mexico advertising birth packages for foreign nationals that are looking to deliver a child in the United States. They had packages displayed on this ad offering, you know, you had natural births for about 4,000 and then C-sections are being sold for a little over. 5,000. And so this this caught a lot of people's attention, especially because it was just

shortly after the United States Supreme Court had ruled in favor of maintaining birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and visiting foreign nationals. So of course, there was that backlash from Republicans. And then we saw these reports come out. So Governor Abbott took this action. He said, you know, I want to see this commission investigating this and seeing, you know, are there any violations of the law here? And he also requested. requested, you know, if you do find any legal violations in your investigation, refer them to the office of the Attorney General. Well, Abbott confirmed that the HHSC did, in fact, refer multiple allegations of health care providers in the state promoting what they called birth tourism to the

office of the Attorney General, which was just the day after, actually, that Governor Abbott had called for an investigation. So they sent a letter, the HHSC sent a letter to package. on July 7th, and they said that they had, quote, received information that suggests several Texas health care providers that receive state or federal funding may be soliciting birth tourism in Texas. And then they said, you know, if this is true, this conduct, this conduct, excuse me, is detrimental to the public interest and may violate both state and federal law. they reference some of these posts that I mentioned a little bit earlier about, you know, circulating these billboards that, you know, one particular in Mexico. They also reference some Instagram posts from 2023.

They shared with the Attorney General this is evidence that leads us to believe that this has been going on for years, that this isn't just something that popped up recently. This has been going on at least since 2023. Current Revolt did report that the website, which is on the billboard, which is Have My Baby in Texas.com, had been active for over three years, so that would track with the 2023. But it did become inactive shortly after the report's surface. So if you go to Have My Baby in Texas.com now is no longer active. They took that down pretty quickly, it looks like. within this letter to the attorney general, they noted that both Mission Regional Medical Center, which is the one who was listed, it appeared that they were the ones on this billboard, which kind of caused all of this attention to come to this in the first place, which is located in Mission, Texas, and then NAP Medical Center, which is in West Laco. They cited them as the potential offenders evolved in that specific Have My Baby in Texas.com scheme.

They also pointed out that they're both affiliated with a California-based nonprofit Prime Healthcare Foundation. If you go to either of their websites, you see this pretty quickly that they're affiliated with Prime Healthcare. Their websites are formatted almost exactly the same, and you see that connection with Prime Healthcare. care. Also, within this referral to the Attorney General, they reference how Paxton sued a postpartum care center that's kind of in the Houston area. In April, he had been arguing that they're facilitating the, quote, invasion of Chinese nationals into Texas. And he said that this was for the sole purpose of birthing children and obtaining birthright citizenship. So there's that birthright citizenship issue coming into play here with the Supreme Court ruling recently. This is

more relevant than ever. So we, another aspect of this topic is the Texas Senate taking up surrogacy and specifically looking into how surrogacy has been exploited by foreign interests. And they held a hearing on this last week, which we covered just discussing, you know, what a surrogacy look like right now in Texas and what ways is it being exploited, how does it need regulated. So this is going to be something that the legislature is definitely responding to, and it'll probably be a pretty interesting topic to follow throughout session. Also, when Abbott called for that investigation, he confirmed he'll be working with the

legislature to develop legislation to respond to specifically these potential birth tourism scheme. So we will definitely see this during next session, and it'll be an interesting topic to follow because it's not going anywhere as we see. Well, thank you very much for your coverage on that story, Mary Elise. Hannah, turning next to you. Tell us about the report that was submitted by the Texas Hemp Business Council this week. Of course, THC has been a big issue.

So what's going on there? Yes, the Texas Hemp Business Council released a policy analysis after last week's Health and Human Services Committee hearing, which Meredith, reported on. During the hearing, State Senator Charles Perry stated that he would be filing another attempt to ban THC during the upcoming 90th legislature. And if you follow this top, you know that calls for banning THC have been present a lot over the last five years to the last decade. Other lawmakers resisted the idea of the ban on topics related to THC's negative impact were covered by panelists including rising numbers of pediatric poisoning specifically in the last five years.

The opinions discussed in hearing led to the THBC's release of their policy analysis, which urge lawmakers to consider THC's public health threat level in the context of other regulated market items like tobacco and alcohol. So partially they were arguing that the policymakers shouldn't push toward prohibition, but just toward regulation. They showed that a comparative health burden, they showed a comparative health burden state resource allocation and state regulatory response appendix. So it's like all laid out in this huge chart. That compares hemp products with tobacco, fattenal, opioids, Ibigine, Ivermectin, alcohol, obesity, and other systemic health challenges. And they're basically arguing that THC needs

to be evaluated, not on its own through one-off risk reports, but with, in the broader health framework and against insisting health burdens. They criticized the hearing saying that it was one-sided T.HBC President Cynthia Cabrera called the cheneering a travesty of the legislative process. And it was one-sided that it ignored critical data. The THBC also argued that the state doesn't apply blanket prohibitions to other drugs. So why would THC be different? And an additional THC news, the most recent edition of the Texas Register on July 10th,

issued a notice that it will reinstate 2021 definitions of cannabis after the recent Texas Supreme Court decision to remove an injunction that paused implementation of those rules. So we've written on this a lot. It's got a lot of mid-gritty details, but if you want to read about it, can check it out. Lucas Gilke, who's the CEO and founder of hometown Hero ATX, which is a cannabis product company that's been involved in a lot of legal battles with the state over a THC regulation, stated about the notice on Twitter that it would impact consumers and producers significantly, that the resumed rules would change the market and then forward with what THC products people can buy and sell. So that's your THC news for this week.

Well, thank you very much, Hannah. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens with THC going forward, given the fact that it did pass last session and then avid vetoed it. So will the legislature craft a bill that can meet the governor's standards? That'll be interesting to see. Mary Elise, turning next to you, moving from the state level to the federal level, U.S. Senator John Cornyn pressed the acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche at his confirmation hearing to fully take over as attorney general. over chemical abortion pills. What's going on there? Yeah, this was a pretty notable moment from Cornyn as he was questioning Blanche.

He, of course, questioned him about a couple of issues, a handful of issues. But he specifically targeted Trump's promises surrounding safety guidelines for chemical abortion pills at this confirmation hearing while he was questioning Blanche. During the hearing, Cornyn referenced this letter, which he had sent along the Senator Tom Tillis the day prior, so that was on Tuesday when they sent this letter. They were requesting that Blanche resolve litigation over whether in-person dispensing requirements, which you've covered a bit, must be reinstated for the chemical abortion pill metapristone.

So they're specifically referring to this case where the state of Louisiana is challenging the FDA for allowing chemical abortion pills to be mailed into the state. And they're arguing that the agency's removal of the in-person dispensing requirements, so you have to go have some sort of in-person. You have to go in-person essentially to pick up these abortion pills. But that's been entirely removed. And that's how we get the pills being shipped online, you know, through the mail. They were arguing that this requirement increased the danger for women consuming the pills with no medical supervision.

So they're also arguing, okay, this is medical. danger. We have these women taking these pill. There's no medical follow-up, no, you know, no interaction with the health care provider. But then there's also the aspect that they're arguing. Louisiana is arguing that it enables abusers. You know, abusers could force women to take the pills against their will, you know, put it in their drink, et cetera. So Cornyn said while he was questioning, Blanche, he referenced this letter and he said, I would appreciate it if you would answer to this letter for the record about the intentions of this administration. So we took a pretty point of stance towards Trump's administration on this issue. He said, quote, if President Trump is

the most pro-life president, this ought to be a pretty easy call because women are hurt as a result of side effects, heavy bleeding, prolonged potentially infection or sepsis, and complete abortion, other complications when this is being sold through the mail or through online prescription. So, Cornyn was saying, will you do that for me? Blanche did say that he would indeed respond to that letter for the record about the intentions of the administration on this issue. The, excuse me, a little more on this case, this Louisiana case. It's again before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. We've covered kind of there's been a little bit of back and forth here.

This litigation's ongoing, but it's back before the Fifth Circuit. And this is after the Supreme Court paused what was a lower court's order that prevented the online distribution of chemical abortion pills, but they paused that order after two distributors of the drug in early May sent them an emergency request asking that this order be reversed, and the Supreme Court did grant that. They paused it temporarily. Because the Fifth Circuit had previously ruled even earlier in May that the in-person dispensing requirements had to be reinstated from Ephraprostown. So this was just interesting to see Cornyn kind of, you know, take this, um, take this pointed line of questioning towards Blanche and talking to, you know, kind of targeting the Trump administration saying,

you know, where do you really stand on this? They've caught a bit of heat from pro-life supporters, um, just in the way that the, the promise of reviewing Mepha Pristone, the way that it's been handled. A lot of people have argued that a lot of pro-life folks have argued that it's been slow walked by the FDA, this top to bottom review that was promised during campaigning and during the early days of the administration. And some pro-lifers have argued that perhaps are not taking it seriously enough. And so, you know, Cornyn is kind of addressing this issue. It's also notable because some might look at this and say that this is an example of Corning kind of being able to take a slightly different direction after essentially being freed

from the shackles of campaigning. But it is also notable that he was pursuing this issue already back in March before that endorsement was issued by Trump. He did file as a first co-sponsor of legislation that would have pulled federal if it passes that would pull federal approval from Ephrapristone and then would allow for those manufacturers to be sued for cause of injury, death, or medical complications. So he was already, you know, taking a particular stance on this on a topic where that a lot of Republicans have kind of put to the wayside and are not generally interested in at the moment. So we'll keep following this. We'll see what Blanche's response to the letter is, if that is sufficient for Cornyn and tell us just watching how this developed because this issue is. of course, just fall into the wayside for the most part, but it's really been re-uped recently,

especially when it comes to chemical abortion pills specifically. Well, thank you very much, Mary Elise, for all your coverage on this issue. Isaiah, turning back to you now, housing affordability has sort of resurfaced as a potential legislative priority for Texas in the next session. Tell us the details. Yeah, to give you a little newsroom. background. We actually wrote this piece before the big three put out that letter that basically named housing affordability a potential legislative priority. But it was already an interim charge that Speaker of the State House, Justin Burroughs, had tasked the Landed Resource Management

Committee with addressing. And they are going to meet on Monday, July 20th to discuss a group of housing bills that do separate, you know, separate things, but they're all generally intended to boost the supply of housing in the state, and that includes apartments and also single-family homes by limiting regulation, including at the local level, which has led to a lot of friction with local governments. So on Monday, this committee, which is chaired by state rep Gary Gates, who represents a Chanka Fort Bend County, the committee is going to take up House Bill 24, Senate Bill 840, Senate Bill 15, and Senate Bill 1567. And this is all legislation that was passed of 89th the last session.

And so it's been in effect for almost a year. They all took effect September 1st last year. And some notable context is that before September 1st, but after the passage, while these are, you know, turning through the legislative process, there were a lot of city councils around the state, especially in suburban areas, especially in North Texas, that passed ordinances making it more difficult or expensive to business. build new housing, in some cases in direct response to the looming effective date of some of these bills, especially SB 840. But what each of these bills, here's the purpose of each one, HB24 limits the power of a small group of neighboring landowners to stall zoning changes for a given area.

SB 840 allows residential development by riot in commercial areas. and that means that developers wouldn't have to seek zoning change and go through that process in order to build an apartment in an area that's been zoned for, say, offices. SB 15, which is, which was a priority bill last session, forbids larger municipalities from imposing certain restrictions on residential lot density. And SB 1567 was actually just aimed point blank at college station. It limits how strictly cities can regulate residential occupancy. And there's a lot of interesting context behind that one.

College Station has had this ordinance for a long time that limits residential occupancy based on kinship, and they started enforcing it pretty strictly in the last few years, and so this was just aimed right at them. But the rest of them have more of a statewide purpose. So the fact that the committee, that boroughs tasked the committee with addressing this issue, and that they're going to take it up next Monday, again, this is another indication of an issue that's going to continue to be, continue to be big in the 90th session. Well, thank you very much, Isaiah. Definitely interesting to see what happens there with housing,

considering that it's such an important issue online, I think for a lot of people, express a lot of concerns about housing affordability and whatnot. So thank you very much. Hannah, turning next to you. The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a big loan to Texas. What's going on there? Yes, the DOE announced a $3.26 billion.

loan to American Electric Power or AEP for the financing of 100 transmission projects across the state. So it comes under President Trump's executive order unleashing American energy. The U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated about the loan that the investment will modernize Texas's electric grid, support energy needed for AI, advance manufacturing, aid the Permian Basin, and keep electricity costs down for Texans. So it's covering a lot of hot topics that I'm sure you've seen in the news recently. Electricity costs, rate payer costs, AI, it's got it all. The loan will go toward rebuilding or reconduct during existing lines and also create new

transmission lines that will span roughly 2,800 miles. It's unclear where exactly those would be located. The topic of Texas citizen shouldering high energy costs has surfaced persistently and with the additive of a new influxive data centers sent to the state. Recently, Greg Abbott remarked at an event in Bullard that data centers needed to bring their own power to the Texas grid in an attempt to address

some of those energy supply and demand squeezes. But the creation of the competitive renewable energy zoning or the CREZ, which is a multi-billion dollar investment that connected West Texas' renewable energy resources to Central and East Texas metropolitan areas via transmission lines has increased rate payer costs in the last five years. A Texas Public Policy Foundation report found that the average AirCOT rate payers paid 57% more in transmission charges in 2024 than in 2010. So, excuse me, the last 15 years. For many transmission line projects, costs are widely socialized across AirCOT's customer base in the

TPPF record accredited this to the creation of the CRUCE and also indicated that most of the new money going toward transmission line projects for new customers is for new customers in new regions instead of old lines that are serving existing AirCOT customers, which they concluded that were likely because of data centers being built. The new lines are stated to, quote, help meet rapidly growing electricity demands from data centers, advanced manufacturing and oil natural gas development in the Kermian Basin, and the loan is also stated to save more than 1 million Texas households and businesses approximately $685 million in electricity costs over the next 30 years. So rate pair costs have been a large point of concern for policymakers who are

wary of tasking rate pairs with shouldering significant costs due to transmission expansion. However, transmission expansion also aims to decongest grids, which may lead to do. So long-term rate-paired benefit as cheap energy becomes more accessible around the state. So you have a lot of people who are very pro-transmission expansion. Well, thank you very much, Hannah, for your coverage on that story. Mary Elise, now turning back to you, after removing its flu vaccine mandate under President Donald Trump's second term, the Pentagon has reinstated it for some parts of the military for a reason that is related to Texas. Tell us why.

Yeah, well, this reason is there's an influenza outbreak at a Texas Air Force base, which prompted the Pentagon to allow for that flu vaccine mandate to be reinstated for some branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Like you said, it was made voluntary earlier this year. And at that time, Pete Higgseth, who is the Secretary of the United States Department of Defense, which is also known as the Department of War, Hegsteth, you know, an alignment with an executive order from Trump decided to change this flu vaccine mandate. And he referenced that time during COVID-19 where he said, you know, we had these mandates implemented for the vaccines between 2021, 2021, 2003. And he described them as being both of these being simply overreaching. He said, our men and women in uniform were forced to choose between their conscience and their country, even when, when those decisions pose no threat to our military readiness.

And he said that that essentially that time of betrayal will now come to an end under Trump's second term. So, you know, they made this voluntary. They made this vaccine mandate voluntary. They issued this updated guidance on the influenza vaccination. And this is got a statement from Chief Ventrcon of spokesman Sean Parnell. and he said, you know, we issued this updated guidance on the flu vaccine. And then there's this flu outbreak, which affected about 220 service members when it was first reported late last month. And then the numbers have risen to about 300 by the end of June.

That was kind of where the numbers were sitting at. So that same week, Joint Base San Antonio Lachlan confirmed the death, actually, one of their military trainees. His death remains under investigation, and they have not officially come out with a statement saying, you know, exactly his cause of death. They're still looking into it. Although Congressman Joaquin Castro has said that they told him that it was due to influenza, but again, there's not an official statement out from Joint Base, Antonio Lackland. So Parnell said that in line with the standard Department of War practice for adapting force health protection measures, they allowed exemptions, sorry, exceptions to the voluntary flu vaccine policy. So these different branches could request an exemption to this voluntary flu vaccine policy.

They reviewed that and determined, okay, you can be an exception to this. And so those include the Department of Army, Navy, Air Force, National Security Agency, and Defense Health Agency who requested these exceptions to it being voluntary, and they were granted that. Parnell said that those decisions were based upon thorough risk assessments, and they're designed to maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations. And they said, you know, those, the Army, Navy, Air Force, et cetera, they're responsible for implementing the exceptions to the policy. So that's in their ballpark to do, implement that. While the, and then turning back to this death of this trainee, the base did, direct.

direct us to a press release that had been published on June 17th for the latest most up-to-date info, which essentially said that the cause of death is not confirmed and that they're investigating medical reviews being done. But like I said, Castro did say on June 18th that he's been informed that the cause of death was influenza. So we'll keep following this to see, you know, how wide reaching this outbreak is. Right now, it's appearing to sit just a little bit above 300. but definitely notable when it comes to these vaccine mandates for our service members and, you know, HegSeth balancing this desire to not force them into being required to take these vaccines, but then also allowing for some exceptions for certain branches as they see fit.

So we'll keep an eye on this one. Thank you very much, Mary Elise. Isaiah, turning back to you now, the San Antonio Police Association, or the San Antonio Police Officers Association is currently negotiating with the city of San Antonio for higher pay. But San Antonio is having a bit of a slump in collecting property taxes.

Give us the details. Yes, this is a situation that's similar across the state as the housing market adjusts. But in San Antonio, voters approved years and years ago the authority of the San Antonio police officers association to negotiate collective bargaining contracts. And there's an exception in state law that allows this, even though state law otherwise generally forbids public collective bargaining.

And they negotiate three-year contracts. And so the last time that they were in this process is 2022, when the housing market was really at its market peak. And since then, the average sale price of a Barra County home has fallen pretty considerably, still into the level of it that was at before the big COVID housing boom or post-COVID housing boom, but considerably. And so they've got their final scheduled collective bargaining meeting for actually the day that we're recording this podcast, but the president of the association, Johnny Perez, told me that they filed an extension for further meetings, and so it'll probably continue until August, according to him.

The two sides of the issue were that SAPOA is looking for, they're seeking several priorities, but the main one is compensation. And according to their numbers, SAPD offers a base pay of about $63,000 a year, while Dallas and Houston both offer a base pay of at least $75,000. And on the San Antonio side, the city is facing a budget gap that's caused, as you noted, partly by a decline in property tax revenue. That's really the reason that the city has returned to in the most recent budget presentations. So specifically, San Antonio estimates that taxable property valuations are going to drop by 2.1% in the next fiscal year. And overall, it's going to result in a 1.7% decline of property tax revenue. And that might not sound like a big percentage, but on records going back to 2016, it would be the first decline in the city's property tax collections. So it's, if Brad was here, he would hate that I'm using the word.

unprecedented because it's bandied about so much, but that that might apply here. And again, to put this in context, the housing, the average price of a Barr County home really rocketed upward in 2021 and 2022. And it reached its peak in the hot season of 2022, which has been homes, you know, seasonally homes, they sell for the highest price in the middle of the year, you know, like May through the end of summer. And in June 2022, the average Bear County home sold for over $364,000. And in May, which is the last month for which the state has available official data, the average sale price of a Bear County home was $342,000.

And so, again, property values have really have really sunk. And it's still higher than it was in, you know, like 2019, but it's a shortfall that local governments in Bear County, you know, the Bear County Commissioner's Court, City of San Antonio, And local government's really around the Texas Triangle are having to deal with because there was so much housing price inflation as mortgages got cheap and people moved to Texas during COVID. Well, thank you very much for your coverage on that issue, Isaiah. I appreciate you pointing out the Texas Triangle, of course.

It's always good to have you covering something related to local government in the Texas Triangle. And I'm not just saying this to tease something that might be coming down the line next week for readers. So keep an eye out. Mary Elise, turning back to you now, a recent case involving the FBI and a transnational electronic trafficking conspiracy had a development. Tell us what's going on there. Yeah, it's a little bit of a mouthful. This transnational stolen electrics and money laundering scheme is to put it precisely. But this is dealing with a man from North Texas.

He was just extradited from Qatar back to Colin County, where he's now going to face charges for his role in this scheme. His name is Abdullah Anwar. He was included in a 2021 superseding indictment, alongside 100 other individuals for conspiracy to commit the following. So you have interfering with interstate commerce, transporting stolen property in interstate commerce, wire fraud, money laundering,

and then the use or brand, of a firearm during a crime of violence. He individually was charged for conspiracy to transport stolen property and interstate and foreign commerce and then also to commit mail-on-wire fraud as well as a charge for money laundering. And so this organization that he allegedly belongs to is this a legal business scheme where the members stole various electronic products from companies such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and then we sold them overseas so that items included laptops, tablets, iPhones, or smartphones, excuse me.

And so they did both allegedly sold them in person through armed robbery and then also through different fraud schemes where they obtained the products through different means. So he was allowed originally to remain on pretrial release in Garland. And then he fled to Pakistan and ultimately authorities caught up with him and could through collaboration with, you know, our officials and also officials in guitar. And then on Friday, which will be the week prior to when you're listening to this podcast, he was returned to North Texas. So now he's in North Texas in custody as he's awaiting his trial.

So we'll see how this turns out for him, but just an interesting case here, kind of a unique scheme here. but the FBI was just sharing that this has been kind of a victory for them to get a hold of this individual and kind of cracking down on this group as a whole, making sure that they are held accountable. Well, thank you very much, Mary Elise. Hannah, last but not least, there has been an update with Space X's new TerraFab project, the semiconductor manufacturing mega facility. So explain the new developments going on there. Yes, another.

mouthful for you, Robb. Two of Grimes County School districts held meetings this week to decide the fate of SpaceX's TerraFab project, which, as Robb said, is a mega facility to produce semiconductors that will create AI competing chips to be used both on Earth and in space. It was interesting. Something my brain can't wrap itself around. But both districts agreed to a partial tax abatement deal through Texas's Jetty program or jobs, energy, technology, and innovation program. It allows companies and school districts to enter into a 10-year agreement with the governor's office. And both ISDs voted five to two in favor of this form of a tax abatement.

So if the company meets investment and job creation requirements, the agreement serves to limit the taxable value of the project for school district maintenance and operations in taxes. In the first phase of the Tarifow project, the investment in Iola ISD will be upward of $6 billion, and the investment in Anderson-Shiro consolidated ISD would be over $10 billion. So Grimes County also agreed to a payment in lieu of taxes or pilot program that allows for them to receive $20 million per year for 35 years from SpaceX, which is also a form of a tax abatement. the deals with the school district requires space X to create

X amount of jobs and require them to invest X amount of money in order to continue the abatement. But it is said that job creation would be in the thousands, including both permanent and temporary jobs. Just to give you context, IOL's population is just over 300 people and the unincorporated community of Anderson

has a population of just over 200. So it's a fairly rural county in Texas, and it's about to undergo some major changes with opening of the Tarifab plant. Public concern has been high. Public hearings show a lot of concern over the impact of the build on small community atmosphere. Several people during hearings stated that they had moved to the area to get away from the industrial corridor and for small town lifestyle, but the build will be in proximity to both Houston and Texas A&M University, so it's likely that the landscape will change pretty drastically. And this is what has been upsetting the public most.

But the county commissioners believe that it's a good move for the schools to make in agreeing to this Jetty application. So we'll see when it actually gets built. I tried to go to the property. It's on a reservoir, but it was all blocked off. So I decided not to trespass. Good citizen. Well, there you go.

We're glad you didn't take any, I suppose, unnecessary risks. But I never know if it's pronounced Jetty or Jedi. Because I want to say Jedi, but I'm never sure about that. Me too. But thank you very much for your coverage on that story, though. it'll be interesting to see, you know, with data centers and whatnot and developments in rural neighborhoods and just going to continue being one of those, I think, permanent issues in Texas politics for the time being. But who has some good tweetery this week? Did anybody see anything good on Twitter?

Did anything good happen on Twitter? If anything good happens on Twitter at all. Well, I saw something good on Twitter. I can share. There's a looks like a middle school age boy, and he was sharing his video. He was sharing his skill of being able to imitate bird sounds so well. It was very impressive. A very cute old guy, he was just, he would name a different bird, and he would do the sound,

and it was really impressive. It sounded like it wasn't coming from him at all. But it was funny. He would do the sound, and then he kind of paused, and I don't know if he's looking at something for the name of the bird, and he'd be like, and this is. kind of crow and then he does it and it was I would encourage folks to see if they can find it if you're on Twitter

see if you can find it because it's very wholesome and very impressive Wow, who's a savant yeah but kind of reminds me of have you all ever watch the show alone Oh yeah they make like moose calls

and stuff and they're just unbelievable Yeah alone rocks I'm surprised that nobody has brought up Brad's waffles like extravaganza yet. Yeah. Because Brad Johnson agreed,

made some bet with his co-founder of the Texas Bullpen to spend a full day in a waffle house but he could take off an hour for each waffle he eats. I think he ended up

spending 11 hours in the Waffle House and I think he interviewed somebody while he was there. I think it was David Spiller. Yeah. And it's just a really well-written tweet thread.

Yeah. It's just really colorful and it's the funniest challenge. Like I just got into Twitter and I'm following a whopping, you know, 200 people right now because I'm still restarting my whole Twitter, Twitter thing. And normally at the top it's like a reporter, a news article or what have you. And now I logged on and I saw that Brad was writing like a long form nonfiction essay about spending a whole day and what he called a Cathedral of American Greatness.

It was just really entertaining. It was so entertaining. I guess I would expect a lot more waffles to be eaten. So I was kind of, I don't, I haven't eaten one of those. I don't know if I've ever eaten a waffle house waffle. And so I guess I'm like trying to think about how dense they're heavy there because somebody had, um, was it Jared Patterson said he'd give $500 for every waffle he ate to a charity. That was, yeah, this is right.

Yeah. And so I would, so people were like, eat more waffles. And I don't know how, like I said, I've never eaten one. So I'm sure maybe you just get sick if you eat. But I would, they looked like, listen, and like maybe you, I don't know, for money you could like binge a bunch and then I don't know. I would have been out of there in an hour. Yeah, I was going to say, Isaiah, I feel like wouldn't it take it that long. What's 24 waffles? Yeah. Seriously. Maybe space and now. Maybe have some coffee in between at some point, but, you know.

Or just do it all at once. Like, if you just. just focus for, I don't know, 30 minutes. Yeah. You got to break it up into manageable pieces, but I mean, we don't take that long. Or just pick it up and eat it kind of like a, I don't know. Well, the real solution would be to take your waffles and stack them and take huge bites as you go through. And then you can eat like two or three or four at a time.

And mentally they feel like one. Exactly. It's all about tricking the burn. Because it's all a mental game anyways. You got to make sure you use it. don't eat before you go. Mine is sort of food related, so I'll

jump in with my tweeterie for the week. So this is a report from CBS Philadelphia, and I'm going to read this report on Twitter exactly as it said. Somerdale Cold Cuts is temporarily closed after alleged thieves stole copper

wires and pipes that supply cold air, the walk-in refrigerator. The South Jersey store's owner, Johnny Gabagool, says the theft spoiled around $20,000 worth of food. Now, of course, I think it's terrible. The $20,000 worth of food was stolen, but that's not why this story is going viral

because people are like, are you really telling me that this New Jersey, like, store owner's name is Johnny Gobble. That would be, like, meeting a guy in Texas named like Ted Bristead. Like, there's no way. There's no way it's Johnny. And like the sopranos gifts and everything and all the moments. and it's amazing

Johnny Gaba Gaw. Somebody in the comments says Jimmy Mordadela, his partner had no comment. That's awesome. When I saw that you'd put this on the docket, I thought, I was expecting like a comedian, somebody who does a character,

and instead it's just this straight-laced news article mentioning a man whose actual name is Johnny Gubbagoel spelled that way. I think it's a guy. It's great, honestly. I mean, look, is it the case that he had to? Apparently, this is not his actual last name. But I think it would be great to imagine that that was his actual last name.

And he, like, tried to go to law school or medical school. And they're like, no, we're not going to take it. So it's like, it was like nominate to determinism. Like, he had to become a restaurateur. Because there was no other job he was going to get with the name Jopagaboole. That's so funny. I think that's fantastic. Well, my tweetery was one that sometimes education stuff does not get any traction and it's just like the same people kind of retweeting it.

But this guy put out like basically tell me your education like a take that gets you and it's that gif or that meme of like all the swords coming. I think it's from Tangled. And so like hot takes. And like I think now almost 18 million people have commented on it. And it is very interesting to hear people as hot takes about education. I know Isaiah you had one. when you care about cursive. Is that right?

I do care about cursive. I do you care about deeply about cursive. Yeah. If you want to talk about your education hot takes, yeah. I would say cursive is important. I remember when I was in the ninth grade, I had William Travis's letter from the Alamo as my smartphone background for a little bit. And I just like to read it, you know?

And I think it'd be a shame if, like, in our lifetime, people couldn't read the Declaration of Independence or the letter from the Alamo. or these handwritten documents without them being digitized. And, you know, like, I'm sure people will still be able to make out the English or whatever. But, yeah, like... You think people are able to make out the English you're saying in cursive? Yeah, I mean, what I'm saying is, like, for example, we've got English documents from, like, the 15th century, 16th century,

that we can still understand without having to study another language. Like, you know, you have to study the language of Beowulf to understand. even though it's still English. But we've got like pretty modern English documents, but it takes special training to actually make them out because we just can't read that handwriting anymore. And so it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if people can't understand cursive

because it's happened before already, but it would be, it would still be ashamed if like that quickly a gender, like some generation of kids in our lifetime just doesn't learn cursive and then they can't read the script of our own historical, documents on their own. So that's that's my education hot day because that cursive is important. We got to keep teaching cursive. I am not against cursive and they use it a lot with dyslexia.

There's some links there and stuff. But I think my bigger, this isn't a hot take. It's just I'm more concerned that people can't read the digitized version even close. I mean, we're like because I talked about this last week. Can like adults could not even read or understand it. That's, so I I love it. Throwing cursive, of course. Let's get it all going. But I think it's the fact that even if they saw a text version, I think it would, we're pretty far away from that, unfortunately. So anyway, it had stuff from spirit, like whether student teachers should participate in Spirit Day, stuff about dress code, stuff about curriculum, things about parents, things about homework. I mean, people really went on things that, and they got really into it. So I was just interesting to see someone who has like a pretty modest following. I mean, like pretty good, like maybe 36,000 followers or something. but to get 18 million responses and views of it is like, not responses, views is pretty wild. So I just thought that was very interesting. And everyone has a lot of opinions about education. There you go.

Well, speaking of education, it looks like Hannah's Twitter is a little bit tangentially related, perhaps. Somehow, this just kind of made me giggle. It's a little bit cheeky, but it made me laugh. It was if you have kids, you know, Miss Rachel, she's like this cute little YouTube lady who does all these like, kids dances and songs and stuff. Anyway, and there's this video of her in Mom Darnie, the mayor of New York City, saying nice to each other doing the babies on the bus go way, we, we, way. Because the connection was that New York rent is the highest.

It's been, like, it's hit a major high this June. And it just made me laugh. I just laughed. Well, I know also Miss Rachel is a bit of a controversial figure, right? because of apparently comments that she has made about Israel and Palestine. And I think Mamdani plays into that. So I think there were several parents I saw online who were a bit frustrated when they discovered that their kid's favorite YouTuber was, you know,

involved in those kind of political causes. So just a bit of controversy. Because I remember as a meme where like people, especially conservatives will post like, then with the crying posted under something so yeah no absolutely that's why instead

you have to you have to give your kids only safe wholesome content like cocoa melon and sponge bob and stuff like that Coca-mellon is a fever dream it's the wildest thing

I've ever seen in my life well don't worry in the future kids won't need to know cursive because they'll have AI generated brain rot videos showing up on their own feeds to keep them entertained 24 hours a day. Let's give our kids books.

That's a hot take right there. That's a hot take. Books only, no screens. That sounds really boring, to be honest. Pretty out there, Meredith. As long as the books are written in print and not in curses, that'd be the important thing. Well, thank you to everybody for joining us on this week's episode of the Weekly Roundup

podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can catch us. every Friday morning here at the Texan. News on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts. So thank you to everybody for joining and we'll catch you all next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, visit us at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team

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