The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 31, 2023

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup 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 subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Former Gov. Rick Perry’s exclusive interview with The Texan on school choiceA House committee hearing testimony on a bill to legalize sports betting and some casinosThe House passing a bill to eliminate sales taxes on feminine hygiene productsThe divide between House Democrats over a bill to remove “sexually explicit” books from public school librariesFormer President Trump criticizing his rival Ron DeSantis at his Waco rallyThe movement of bills on transgender athletes in women’s sports and child gender modificationU.S. Senators from Texas Ted Cruz and John Cornyn working on designating a new interstate highwayThe ongoing case of Army Sgt. Daniel Perry who shot and killed an Austin protester in 2020The Austin Police Department’s new departures this month amid its existing attritionThe Texas DPS sending troopers to alleviate the stress of Austin’s police staffing crisisA Texas man facing over a century in prison and a $4 million fine for COVID-19 loan fraudCarroll ISD voting to leave the Texas Association of School Boards

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses former Governor Rick Perry's exclusive interview with a Texan on school choice, a House committee hearing testimony on a bill to legalize sports betting and some casinos, the House passing a bill to eliminate sales taxes on feminine hygiene products, the divide between House Democrats over a bill to remove sexually explicit books from public school libraries. Former President Trump criticizing his rival Ron DeSantis at his Waco rally. The movement of bills on transgender athletes in women's sports and child gender modification. U.S. Senators from Texas Ted Cruz and John Cornyn working on designating a new interstate highway.

The ongoing case of Army Sergeant Daniel Perry, who shot and killed an Austin protester in 2020. The Austin Police Department's new departures this month amid its existing attrition. The Texas DPS sending troopers to alleviate the stress of Austin's police staffing crisis, a Texas man facing over a century in prison and a $4 million fine for COVID-19 loan fraud, and Carol ISD voting to leave the Texas Association of School Boards. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode okay people it's mckenzie it's brad it's cameron it's matt it's hayden hayden is burying his face

in his hands it's been quite a morning i i can't anymore i'm getting up and leaving hayden had never seen the taylor swift i knew i knew you were trouble goat remix it just this has been the most bizarre morning of my week and we decided to show him i think it was like the hardest i've ever seen hayden laugh or one of the hardest hayden gets the giggles for sure and it's wonderful but that was one of the hardest times i've ever seen you laugh it made my morning i'm glad i could be of service um it was pretty great brad how are you this morning how are you are you excited about opening day no not at all not at all no it's it's a morose day for me how do you think the dodgers will figure this season well they have a pretty good team unlike my tigers

we're gonna be terrible all year but it is what it is i got you well that's been how it is most of my life i understand i'm very sorry about that no you're not i am i like a happy brad brad happy in the office is like better for everybody don't you think well you do your darndest to make it the opposite you said that so seriously now i'm like they second guessing all of my things i say to you um i'm secretly keeping a notebook of all the things all the ways you have wronged me we do have office grievances in a spreadsheet so we have a literal record of wrongs and an excel spreadsheet but the thing is they aren't like the actual wrongs the wrongs kind of you know i did file a grievance against holly for filing frivolous

grievances oh that's good which in itself is a frivolous grievance has maslin seen that yet i don't know if she's opened it she might quit upon opening it so let's hope she doesn't because we really don't want to be without an admin assistant again yeah maslin's our newest team member she's awesome and has been kicking tails since she got here. I think she's getting used to how rambunctious y'all are. I'm looking around the table here. I have nothing to do with it. You don't do anything.

Yeah. But we may have to shield her from that spreadsheet. And to your point. Okay, Cameron, let's jump into the news here. Former Governor Rick Perry gave us an exclusive interview. You chatted with him about school choice and the future of education. Why now? And what did he have to say? Well, the school choice movement here in Texas has tremendous momentum. And I just think Perry wanted to recognize that and wanted his name

on the record for how he views the whole situation. So when we spoke to him, we got into where this really originated with him. And he brought up the 1999 stint as Lieutenant Governor, and he was a proponent of school choice at that time. And he also pointed to the fact that he understands the rural mindset and the rural communities and why there has been so much contention, let's say, about the reasons to protect those communities and when school choice is going to be instituted, how they will be affected. And he said his main reason for his support of school choice is because it gives the choice back to parents. And he said parents should be empowered to decide where their children go to school. And he also spoke about how the rural communities need to be focusing and training on vocational and technical skills so they can continue to stay competitive in this evolving economy.

Yeah. Did he mention anything about why school choice is so strong right now? Yeah, I made sure to ask him why school choice now, as opposed to when he was lieutenant governor and governor, has momentum that it does. And he said that we are a state that believes in freedom and liberty, and that is what is really empowering the parents to come forward at this time. And he also pointed to the fact that the pandemic highlighted a lot of issues

where schools were failing parents. Got it. And fascinating that he, like you said, chose to kind of put his name to the record at this point. The governor, the current governor, Gray Abbott, has been vocal about his support of school choice. Did former Governor Rick Perry say anything about that? Yeah, Perry said that Abbott is absolutely correct in his support and made sure to say that school choice is best for everyone. So it was really interesting and it was

great to hear from the former governor wanting to reach out to us and put his name on the record for how he felt. So it was a great opportunity. And I hope everyone gets a chance to read it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Cameron. Certainly worth going and checking out and reading at the texan.news. Hayden, we're coming to you. Lawmakers in the State Affairs Committee heard testimony on casino bills and sports betting legislation. What are the bullet points of the bills they laid out? There are a few casino bills and sports betting proposals that have been filed in the legislature, but the Texas House State Affairs Committee last week heard testimony on a sports betting proposal

by Representative Jeff Leach and casino bills by Speaker Pro Tem Charlie Guerin and Representative John Kempel on casinos. And as a reminder, we've talked about this on the podcast before, but because casinos are constitutionally banned in Texas, the state would need to approve in a referendum an amendment or multiple amendments to the state constitution to authorize either sports betting or casinos or both. The casino bills that have been presented, however, would not create a free market for casinos. Just anyone wouldn't be able to open one. They would need to apply for a casino license. Kempel's bill sets up the Texas Gaming Commission and provides for members of that commission to be appointed with the advice and consent of the Texas Senate, but appointed by

the governor. Casino licenses would require all kinds of financial disclosures for the holders of these licenses, and it would also require that those who are on the Gaming Commission pay a significant bond, so to speak, to be on the commission contingent on their faithful service or legal service on the Texas Gaming Commission. So there would be a lot of money involved. The main supporters of these bills are outfits like Las Vegas Sands, who have the money to make commitments to build what would be called destination resorts. And they would be spread out among several metropolitan areas, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, etc. So that's the casino side of things. There would be the constitutional amendment, which Guerin has filed, and then Kempel has filed the enabling legislation, which is something like 130 pages long that lays out all of the specifics. Jeff Leach also filed a sports betting bill that would create

what he calls a regulatory framework for sports betting. It would impose a 10% tax, much like the tax on casinos that has been proposed. And Texans would be able to legally place bets on their cell phones. And this is a bill that is backed by sports betting associations and professional sports teams as well. So that's a flavor of the bills that were laid out in front of state affairs. So then let's delve into the arguments for and against these proposals. The arguments for the proposals are the potential tax revenue that would be brought in by the state. Multiple proponents of this have estimated $180 million from sports betting. It's a little bit more difficult to estimate how much tax revenue

would come in from casinos because it wouldn't be creating a free market. Obviously, we have no casinos, so that is hard to pinpoint. The argument also has a personal liberty aspect to it. One of the comments that Leach made was Texans value freedom and liberty. We also love our sports, end quote. And then there's also the argument for that this would already sports betting is something that is already taking place. For instance, the senior counsel for the Houston Astros, Giles Kibbe, said that $7 billion in illegal bets are being placed in Texas every year. So this would just protect consumers from being taken advantage of by engaging in this activity illegally. And Texas can capture the tax

revenue from something that's already going on. So those are the arguments for. But then you also had socially conservative organizations testify in state affairs that any expansion of gambling would result inevitably in increased addictions. And it would not be these corporations helping people in that case. It would be the taxpayers via public assistance helping people after they gamble away their savings or gamble away the money that's meant to feed their family. And then there are also family values arguments. There are moral arguments against it. The opponents emphasize those. And then they also say that the tax revenue would not be what it's promised to be. And then an interesting point made by Rob Kohler of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

He contended that it's not just adding a legal framework to something that's already happening, but this would create millions of new point of sale locations because everyone would then have access to sports betting on their cell phones. So in his view and the view of many opponents, it is inevitably or indisputably a massive expansion of gambling and not just regulating something that's already happening. So those are some of the arguments for and against it. The hearing took some interesting turns for sure. What were the unexpected aspects of testimony? There were some humorous moments in this hearing. I will say it was one of the more strange hearings that I've attended because there

definitely were some rabbit trails. But one comical moment that really highlighted the dynamics of this debate is a witness from Eilers and Kerchak Gaming. Christopher Grove rose and gave his pitch for sports betting. And he opened it up for questions and Representative Slauson asked him to clarify where he was from because he had accidentally put down on the witness registration form that he was from Las Vegas, Texas instead of Las Vegas, Nevada. And Chairman Todd Hunter said, we hope you calculate better than this form. And it was not the best moment for him as a witness in favor of this bill. There was also a strange moment where things got on a rabbit trail. Baptist because many of the organizations that testified against the bill were evangelical Christian Southern Baptist organizations.

And so he got up and started talking about his history as a Baptist, which wasn't the most relevant thing to the bill, but something that he felt like he needed to do. Is there a point of order germanness problem there? There was no point of order on that, know they give a little bit more leeway in committee um and then a lot of leeway yeah uh lots of latitude but uh and then just to wrap up i think the the punch line of this committee was when rob kohler was talking about the tax revenue and the potential for the state to benefit from this. And he said, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. That was my favorite moment of the entire thing.

It was just, it's so good. And talking about it was the best. Okay, Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. We so appreciate it. Bradley, we're going to come to you. The Texas House passed its first set of bills this week, and one of them was a House priority. Tell us about it. So the first set of four bills week, and one of them was a House priority. Tell us about it.

So the first set of four bills made it through without much issue at all. The headliner was House Bill 300 by Representative Donna Howard. That is a priority bill from House leadership, and it exempts feminine hygiene products, diapers, maternity clothing, and other similar items from sales tax collections. That bill, interestingly, saw the first House amendment of the session tacked on with Representative Brian Slayton's addition of the definition of diapers to adult diapers, not just children's. And it's interesting, after all of the attempted amendments he had last session,

I don't know if any of which got tacked on. Probably not. And it's interesting after all of the attempted amendments he had last session. I don't know if any of which got tacked on. Probably not. If it was, it was a very small amount. He got the first one. I was going to say, who would have thought that it would be, if you would have told me it was a Donna Howard bill, but the first one that passed, I'd be like, okay, that's not overly surprising. But knowing that the first amendment of the session, successful amendment of the session was a Brian Slayton amendment, particularly on a Donna Howard bill, that would have been very surprising. Well, clearly the house was trying to get on the board, you know, get some bills passed before they bring up the really big items.

We got the budget next week. So that's going to be huge. And now things are really starting to roll. But interestingly, on the Donna Howard bill on Tuesday, there was not a lot of opposition. But I was sitting by the journal clerks and Representative Steve Toth came over and pulled an amendment. Not sure what it was. It wasn't uploaded to tlo yet but uh so there was some going to be some attempt to amend the bill in some fashion but that was pulled at the last minute so what we thought might have a little bit of of interesting you know feuding over some minor aspect uh didn't really have much at all yeah absolutely what other bells passed

so the three others were first one was uh striking the term mentally retarded from statute and replacing it with um intellectual disability or something like that and so that was by representative uh tom craddock the second second one was restricting what may be labeled Texas honey. And so we want a little bit more detail on that was actually pretty interesting. The fight there was a bit of a fight on that. I talked about in the back blank. So go check

it out if you want to read that one of those really weird esoteric kind of issues, but drew some some criticism. And then the third one was allowing the sale of fireworks before diwali which had a grand total of two no votes so not a lot of opposition yeah on these absolutely okay brad thank you we're going to stick with you and talk about another topic a very notable bill that got a very lengthy hearing finally received committee approval this

week with perhaps some surprising support. What happened there? So representative Jared Patterson's Reader Act, a bill that would prohibit sexually explicit materials in schools, sanction vendors who supply those materials to schools, and require parents to opt their child in to being able to access any sexually relevant material in school. That's HB 900. relevant material in school um that's uh hb 900 and the difference between the two categories is sexually explicit is patently offensive and then sexually relevant is all this other stuff it's a way of differentiating things that is uh obviously obscene versus something that's just

you know more educational value, I suppose. Vendors, though, under the bill must maintain a rating system for the books they supply. And then if anything is deemed sexually explicit, they are not allowed under state law, under this proposed state law, to supply that to a school district. So these vendors, they supply tens of thousands of books to these school districts. And so a lot of times, and Patterson said this in his hearing, a lot of times they don't even know that these books are in there. So they, at least one of them, Permabound, that Patterson has dealt with, wanted to get its own house in order on this, he said,

but the state is still looking at setting the requirement. So the bill was voted out of committee, the Public Education Committee, 10-2, with three Democrats voting for it. Oscar Longoria, who is a joint author of the bill, Harold Dutton and Alma Allen. That was pretty surprising. Um, especially Allen, I would say joining, uh, at least I didn't expect that going in. I knew Longoria would support it because he's a joint author. Dutton is always a wild card on things. But interesting that Allen jumped onto and the two that opposed it were James Tallarico and Gina Hinojosa. Which are expected. Yes. Yes. Especially, you know, Tallarico grilled Patterson over the bill during the committee hearing and what it may or may not do. After that,

Longoria jumped in to tell the author author i didn't know how big of an issue this was until he brought it to my attention so it's gonna be very interesting to see where the chips fall on the house floor on this on this topic has anyone else jumped in on that bill yes so on monday this week democrat sean theory defended the bill on twitter uh she took a lot of criticism from the progressive twitter sphere over it uh she was she did not back down though she was very uh forceful in making her point that uh these books in her opinion these books should not be allowed in schools and actually defended republicans saying that they're not trying to uh you know just ban books carte blanche um so it's clearly an issue that is dividing the minority party and i'm not sure how many will vote for this ultimately but i think of any of

these social issue type things this probably has stands the best chance of getting a substantial amount of minority party support yeah certainly brad thanks for your coverage matt you were uh traversing the state a little bit this week and by that we just mean you went up to waco but the 2024 presidential election got underway this past weekend here in texas for president donald trump held his first rally on the campaign trail you were there in attendance tell us how it was and what you saw i have the sunburn to prove it yeah along with uh you gotta bring sunscreen you know these things you're a veteran of this kind of coverage veteran okay yeah uh so uh myself along with about 15 other a thousand other people uh as estimated by local officials, got a nice sunburn. I think we

were all under the impression that it was going to be like in a hangar or something like that. It was at the Waco Regional Airport and there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was supposed to be pretty warm that day. It was. And it turned out it was just out on the asphalt tarmac. So no clouds. It got a little warm. So even if I had a had sunscreen, I'm not sure how much it would have helped me. Regardless, the Trump campaign later estimated that they had about 20 to 25,000 people sign up for it. And people from all but probably three Texas counties were present for the event, according to the campaign. It was the first campaign on the road for the 2024 presidential campaign for President Trump. During the event, he announced his Texas leadership team, including Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick,

who headed up the campaign effort last time, and I believe in 2016 as well. I think so, yeah. I think that's correct. Along with statewide elected officials, including Agriculture Commissioner Steve, or I'm sorry, Sid Miller. I was thinking of the rock star. Land Commissioner Don Buckingham, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and they also released 11 current Republican congressional members, including one former one, Mayra Flores, as part of their Texas leadership team. Noticeably, not all the congressional members that Trump has endorsed for election were on the list. And a lot of those officials have not made an endorsement yet. So that's something that we're going to be keeping an eye on for a subsequent story. During the president's roughly 90-minute speech, included a lot of his usual campaign talking points.

But for a good chunk of it, he had turned his attention towards what seems to be one of his favorite topics lately, and that is his fellow Floridian, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump attacked DeSantis' record on crime, on Social Security, Medicaid, a number of different issues. But in particular, what caught my attention was his remarks on how he handled the state's response to COVID-19, saying that his administration gave states the option to close down, but that he shut his state down and really condemned him for a lot of the ways that he handled it along with a lot of states.

Sort of an interesting thing. While I've been on the reporting trail in Texas, I've heard a number of former Trump White House officials actually indicating that there was sort of a back-channel communication to a lot of governors, including like the Texas response, promoting a lot of these things. So it's a little bit of an interesting dynamic between what the public messaging is on how the Trump administration handled the COVID shutdowns and what happened actually behind the scenes. And we have some of those details in the story. In the end, Trump pointed to a lot of the more recent polls that has DeSantis slipping

at different points in time. Like back in November, an RPT poll had Trump or DeSantis leading in Texas. Now it's the opposite. Most polls out right now also has the former president leading. But it'll be interesting. Once again, DeSantis isn't even an official candidate in the race, but he has been the consistent second place favorite, so to speak. So he's getting a lot of attention. And it was interesting to see all that breaking down right here on Texas this past Saturday. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for your coverage, Matthew.

Cameron, we're coming to you. Some of the biggest stories this week have surrounded some very hot social issues that have seen movement in both the House and the Senate in one way or another. Let's start with the Senate. They passed two priority pieces of legislation. What were they and what happened with these bills? Yeah. So Senate bills 14 and 15 that both made Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's priority list this year. They cover topics that, like you mentioned, have gained some national attention, transgender athletes and women's sports and the banning of gender modification for minors. Very uncontroversial topics. Very uncontroversial. You know, it makes a day easy. Yeah.

So, what was interesting is when Donna Campbell brought Senate Bill 14 to the floor, she was getting lots of questioning and there was lots of potential amendments that were being proposed. One notable one was an amendment that was actually proposed by Campbell that would allow children under 18 that are currently on gender modification medications for 90 days prior to the bill becoming law, they can remain on those medications. And that amendment was passed without objection. So as of now, what we know, Senate Bill 14 passed with its initial vote of 19 to 12, but will require a third vote before it reaches the House. And Senate Bill 15, the Save Women's Sports Act, that was passed by a vote of 19 to 10. There you go. So there's also a House committee that heard testimony about

ending child gender modification. Again, uncontroversial. What happened there and why did it gain so much attention? Well, just an introduction of the bill, it seeks to end the use of gender modification treatments on children. And the bill would allow the Texas Medical Board to rev was getting lots of attention, and there was hundreds of activists that had protested before the testimony happened. They were at the state capitol, and they were holding prayer vigils. They had a traditional dance by an indigenous group. They had television hosts and gay rights activist Jonathan Van Ness showed up and spoke some words to the crowd. And the testimony itself really produced some viral clips. So we had, let me see here, Tony Tenderholt. He was very adamant in his questioning where he was asking, are you a teacher? What is a woman? And with the asking of these questions to

the individuals giving their testimony, it produced some interesting responses. So with one of these individuals who came and gave testimony was Jessica Zwiner, who is a consistent face at a lot of these public testimonies. She is an endocrinologist whose clinic offers these hormone treatments for gender modification. And when she was asked if a man could have a baby by Tinder Holt, she said, there are plenty of transgender men out there. A transgender man who feels like a man in his brain, who has taken testosterone, who looks like a man externally, who occupies a man's role in society, who's treated as a man, whose driver's license says that he is a male. These people sometimes have babies. And so this entire back and forth

went viral on social media. Tenderholt made sure to give his piece during the back and forth and said he fundamentally disagreed with the exchange or with her proposition about transgender men having babies. And as we were going through this testimony, as I was listening in, there was a lot of information being proposed, both in support and opposition to the banning of modification treatments for children. And what I wanted to really do with this piece, I went into a lot of depth with the information I want to present to our readers. So I went all the way back to the driving philosophies of people like John Money and his sexual experiments, let's say, on children. I gave information on the philosophies of Judith Butler and how that drives a lot of the information that is being used in schools. And a lot of these names were mentioned in testimony or referenced in testimony. And so what I made sure to do is I wasn't just pulling names out of the hat and presenting them to our audience and our readers.

I wanted to make sure if names or facts were mentioned during the testimony, I wanted to provide where is this information coming from and why are they using it either in support or opposition. So, for example, there's a lot of times when the opposition to bills like these, they will say hormone therapies are reversible. You can pause puberty with these hormone drugs, and then you can just go right back to being in the puberty stages of childhood. Well, I wanted to present some information with scientific evidence, with peer-reviewed studies that show a lot of the information that the activists in these testimonies present is built on a lot of shaky science, not very rigorously tested. And I wanted to offer an alternative to why some of these legislators have caution when they're approaching

trying to create laws about banning child modification. So everything from bone density studies to brain maturation to how just taking hormone treatments affect the size of the genitalia of young people to where it affects their fertility. And so, I wanted to make sure that all that information was there for our readers. Also, one of the big things that we often hear in these testimonies from people who oppose these bills is, would you rather have a trans child or a dead child? And they prey upon the emotionality of the legislators and the listeners during these testimonies. And I wanted to see, are they using actual statistics to drive this narrative? Or is this just something they're using to evoke harsh emotion? So I presented some information in this story about the suicidality rates of young people as contrasted with the young people who might identify as transgender.

And again, there is not a huge difference between young people who identify as transgender. And again, there is not a huge difference between young people who identify as transgender who commit suicide and young people who have other mental illnesses. We're talking about anxiety. We're talking about depression, eating disorders. And so what's really important, at least in my mind with this piece, is it's going to present both sides of this argument and allow the reader to come to their own conclusions on what should be done about this national issue. Yeah, absolutely. It's great information. And again, I encourage folks to go to the text and read all about it. Very sobering information on both sides and an

unbelievably difficult testimony to listen to for 12 hours. So Cameron, thanks for doing that for us so we don't have to. Real fast, what happened after all the testimony was given? So the protests continued. And in the piece, I make sure to link to all the protests, videos and things if people want to check those out, because they are pretty interesting. But so there was no vote at the end of the committee, even though there was 3,000 people. I want to mention there was 3,000 people that signed up. They saw a fraction, a small fraction of those people because they allowed a lot of questioning back and forth during the testimony to go on. So they didn't vote.

They will vote in an upcoming meeting. So I'll stay tuned into that. Absolutely. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Matt, we're coming back to you, sir. Both U.S. senators from Texas are working together on a new interstate highway that is estimated to bring billions in business to the state when completed. We've written about it before, but there were some updates this week. Give us those details. Well, the infrastructure project is known as the Ports to Plains route, which has been a vision for many years to establish a commercial trade route from the southern border of Texas and running north through the Panhandle to Oklahoma and other states. The idea was apparently born by the Lubbock business community a number of years ago, and it's been slowly coming together ever since.

The new route, which would be designated as I or Interstate 27 on the northern end of the roadway, spans some 963 miles, beginning at Laredo, picking up a couple of other border communities like Del Rio, turning north. It'll have a branch that runs to the Midland-Odessa area, including Big Spring, then run up through Lubbock, Amarillo, before crossing and going into other states. Now, the legislation that was jointly carried this week by Cruz, Cornyn, and a number of other lawmakers was the official, I guess, necessary work to advance other enabling legislation to move the project forward. Also, Cruz's office noted that a study on the impact of the trade route would increase commercial traffic in the state 44% by 2045. It's estimated to create 22,000 new jobs and increase Texas's gross domestic product by $2.8 billion. That's quite something. Thank you, Matt,

for your coverage. Picking up where Kim left off. We miss you, Kim. And Matt has provided great coverage of this issue and will continue to. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast and our up-close and personal coverage of the 88th legislative session from the Capitol here in Austin, subscribe to The Texan right now. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep doing our jobs. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month.

And we've brought back that fan favorite merch item. New subscribers will get a fake news stops here mug, by far our most popular item. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Let's jump back into the stories from this week. Hayden, you've been covering a very high profile murder trial here in Austin. You've been in the courtroom. Tell us about the criminal charges against Sergeant Daniel Perry. Army Sergeant Daniel Perry was working as an Uber driver on July 25th, 2020, when he navigated onto Congress Avenue from 4th Street and shot a demonstrator named Garrett Foster with a handgun. Foster was carrying an AK-47 that Perry claims made him fear for his life, and Foster was carrying that

AK-47 on a sling. I have been in the courtroom, and jurors have been hearing testimony about the circumstances that led up to Foster's death. Perry is facing first-degree murder charges. He's also facing aggravated assault charges, and he could be sentenced to up to life in prison if he's convicted. The state is still in its case, and testimony has been intense so far. What have to come over here to record the podcast, and I missed opening statements earlier this week, but I have heard most of the state's witnesses, and there have been very emotional moments in this trial. There was one moment that was pretty good for the defense. Another Uber driver, also ironically, his last name is Garrett. So Robert Garrett testified that when Perry navigated onto Congress Avenue, all the protesters swarmed his vehicle,

and the phrase he used was like ants on a piece of candy. And they were kicking and hitting his vehicle. And this case centers on Perry's ostensible fear for his life that led him to shoot Foster. So that was a good moment for the defense. A moment that was good for the state was when Foster's fiance testified on the stand. And it's a little bit unclear because she identified herself as his wife. And I heard another reporter question, at what point did she become his wife? Because previously she'd been identified as his fiance or girlfriend. Needless to say, they had been living together for some time. Foster was her caretaker because she no longer has arms and legs after becoming ill in 2010. But she testified that when she

heard the gunshots, because she was there with Foster at that time, she instinctively jumped out of her wheelchair and was on the ground and of course helpless because she does not have the use of arms or legs. So it was a very emotional moment in the trial. Her family was in the courtroom having a difficult time with that, obviously. And whether or not the shooting was justified legally, it was very difficult for the friends and family of these individuals to hear her testify about being in that helpless position of having her fiance shot and then her being helpless on the ground. So that was a powerful moment for the state. And without unpacking all of the witness testimony, there have been witnesses that have said Perry drove his vehicle aggressively into the crowd.

Others who say that they feared for their safety and their lives. There was one witness that got a little bit snarky with the defense team that didn't do a lot for the state's case. But I'm not going to say who I think is winning the trial because the state is still in its case in chief and the defense has yet to call any witnesses. So that would not be proper for me to speculate on who's winning the trial. But the defense could bring up Detective Fugit's allegations that he was blocked from providing exculpatory evidence. Detective Fugit was the original APD detective who was investigating this case, and he has accused DA Jose Garza of witness tampering because he was apparently told to exclude certain things from his grand jury testimony. So the defense will likely bring that up as well. They've started working until six in hopes of shaving a day off of the jury trial and shortening that time the jurors are occupied.

So the witness testimony has been very intense so far, and I expect it to continue to be in the courtroom. Certainly. And as you're in the courtroom, you're seeing, like you said, jury reactions, even though that often is not what they're called to do. But still, you can sense what's going on. You can kind of see how statements are received by those in the courtroom when they are made by the legal defense or the witnesses themselves. What are some of your other observations just from being there in the courtroom? This is different because being a statewide news outlet, we often, usually when I'm writing about these types of cases, I have to rely on what others have observed and news releases. But it's very different being in the courtroom observing people's organic reaction. And another aspect of this trial is it's not being live streamed because there were apparently concerns about witness tampering.

And most high profile trials like this in a state courtroom are live streamed. So they're there.'re, like I said, in the gallery, the emotions have been high. It's a small courtroom. It's a very plain Jane courtroom. It has three rows of seating in the back. It's a very, very packed. Uh, I will say the, the Travis County Sheriff's office has done, um, a very professional job of keeping everything orderly, but I was literally shoulder to shoulder with some of the people there to support the prosecution because that's the side of the courtroom that the media are able to sit on. And there was some agitation with some things that

were said on the witness stand. Again, things that wouldn't be picked up even if the trial was being live-streamed. But Judge Brown, Clifford Brown, who's presiding over the 147th District Court where the trials is taking place, he hasn't tipped his hand one way or the other how he feels about this. He's been very stoic, very maintained a neutral demeanor throughout these proceedings as far as I've seen all the times I've been in the courtroom. So it's a very emotional trial, but Judge Brown is keeping a tight rein on this courtroom. And so far, everything has gone very professionally. And with such a high emotion case, I'm hoping that there are no

courtroom outbursts or anything like that, because that's definitely possible in a case where emotions are running this high. I would encourage anyone interested in the trial to follow you on Hayden Twitter. Oh my gosh, on Twitter, Hayden. You've been live tweeting when you are able to make it over the courtroom, and we've made it a priority to get you over there as often as we can. And it's very illuminating and in a lot of ways, heartbreaking to hear some of those testimony from witnesses and kind of gives a picture that you would not see from some of the coverage by other outlets. So we appreciate you going over. It's been very illuminating to read. And I, again, encourage folks to read your coverage

at The Texan and also just follow you on Twitter if they want more live updates. Hayden, thanks for your coverage. Let's stay with some Austin news here. Brad, you wrote a piece this week on the state of the Austin Police Department's attrition. What do we know about that? So APD has, for a few years now, struggled with attrition in its ranks as officers leave for other departments, retire, some retiring early, or getting out of the profession entirely. APD is not the only department struggling with this, but it is probably, certainly in Texas, among the most prominent faces of it. Response times have ballooned.

Specialized units have been cannibalized into beat patrol to make up for it. The department is really struggling to cope with the loss of staffing, the inability to replace those staff members, and all the unintended consequences that comes with it. What do the attrition numbers show? So since January 1st, there have been 89 separations, amounting to a total of 281 vacancies and that's on top of the 150 positions nixed by the 2020 budget cut um so i terrible at math but that's quite a quite a uh a large number of policemen that were uh were on staff in 2019 that are not now and it's showing in the um the response

times which uh were about last year about eight minutes on average to an emergency call and about 10 minutes to a non-emergency call we saw this really big situation blow up make national headlines someone who was involved in a drunk driving vehicle wreck that officers didn't respond to for two hours now that was a big outlier but still a huge problem so in 2022 the attrition rate was nearly 30 per month. APD told me this is an unprecedented rate and outside of even the highest rates of attrition we've experienced in the last few years. APA, Austin Police Association President Thomas Villareal told me he expects another 10 to 15 to leave by the end of April. And that also that he's aware of some shifts having only one to two units available for the entirety of it.

Gosh, wow. So what's causing this? In short, many officers don't feel like continuing at APD is worthwhile, whether it's the risks associated with safety risks that seem to be growing, the growing antipathy from portions of the general public. We saw what happened with the 2020 riots across the country. Also, in Austin specifically, the perceived lack of respect from Austin's elected officials is contributing to it you ask it i'm sure any officer would say this but everyone that i've talked to feels just a general abrasion towards the city council over the policies that has implemented over the last few years and so um additionally we're coming off

this labor contract fight that we've discussed on this podcast before, and nothing has been decided yet. But we're also awaiting two probably pretty intense ballot proposition fights in May that will determine the strength of the Office of Police Oversight. Another thing contributing to the dissatisfaction of police officers with the way things are in the city, especially because the OPO has been found to have exceeded its authority, to have violated the guidelines set forth in the current but expiring police labor contract. And so that is that's another thing, another reason why this is happening. And so Mayor Kirk Watson, when he rejected the, and the rest of the city council, not the rest of it, but other portions of the city council, rejected the four-year proposal that was announced. He did so to give deference to the voters, to allow them to have a say on these two propositions in May. And so I'm not sure which way it's going to go. Certainly something we'll be watching, but there doesn't appear to really be an end in sight to the staffing problem. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you, Brad, for your coverage. Let's continue talking about this because soon after your story published, there was a huge announcement from the Austin Police Department, the city and the Department of Public Safety, DPS. What did they say? Yeah, it was really fortuitous, I guess, or serendipitous timing. Wasn't intended at all. But later that afternoon, when we published this piece on Monday, the trio announced DPS will supplement APD with their own officers to help respond to vehicle accidents and monitor traffic.

From what I've been told, the actual responsibility of DPS officers is in fluctuation. They're still trying to hammer out what it is they're going to be prioritizing. Is it going to be prioritizing responding to violent crime? It's possible. They announced on Monday that it would be more traffic-focused,

but this thing is very much in flux, including how many officers the DPS will be. I have not heard a public number. I've been told guesses from the inside on what will be appropriated to the Austin Police Department. They also did say that the state is footing the bill for this. City of Austin's not going to pay for it. So I'm not sure how much of a solution this is, especially long-term, but this is something that the state feels it needs to do. And

Watson and apd were welcoming of it which is also pretty interesting we'll see how long that lasts and it would not have happened i think it's pretty safe to say under steve adler's mayor that would not have happened so or at least it wouldn't have been done with the city's blessing so we'll see where it goes thank you bradley hayden there was some serious fraud happening in the Texas panhandle during the pandemic. Tell us about the $4 million paycheck protection fraud. The COVID-19 relief fund frauds start to sound very similar when you line up these pieces back to back. an individual named Andrew Johnson, 58 years old, of Plainview, used both real entities and a fake one to receive more than $4 million in federal relief funds that were passed in the early weeks

of the pandemic. He lied about the number of employees they had, grossly inflated the amount of payroll of a business and a nonprofit organization. And then he also made up a business and claimed that it had employees that it didn't and that it had all these payroll expenses. use the identities of 11 people, uh, four of whom were not even aware he was using their identity to pretend that he had independent contractors. So he could steal additional, uh, COVID-19 funds. And now he's pleaded guilty and faces 102 years in prison. So he'll get out just in time to be dead.

Oh my gosh. How did he spend the funds he stole i'm still not over that phrasing um he really invested in his future that he's not gonna have he paid for college tuition cosmetic surgery oh my god wedding expenses i don't know if he got married or somebody else did uh equipment for an unrelated business venture not a very good uh investments meritally by the person who he allegedly married right you know i mean unless you like shuttling back and forth between your home and a federal prison he also renovated his home which he's not going to need anymore and he's i guess he did have the

vacations that he spent money on but he'll have that to remember he'll have the vacations that he spent money on, but. He'll have that to remember. He'll have the memories when he's eating stale bread and wearing a yellow jumpsuit. The Department of Justice provided quite a list of fun things that he did with all this money that he agreed that he would pay back when he pleaded guilty. I don't know how you pay back $4 million that you've already spent, but apparently he thinks he's going to find a way. Maybe he'll start a business in prison. Or GoFundMe. He's going to work from home. Earning 30 cents an hour making,

I don't know what federal prisoners make when they work. Not license plates. Probably if he starts making some toilet uh some toilet liquor you could probably pull in a pretty penny but i've never heard of that you have to look at the bright side he'll only be 170 years old when he's out oh that's just a drop in the bucket i'll have his whole life ahead of him i mean think of how much money i'll have after all that stuff compounds interest over that time. Oh, my gosh. Well, now that that has happened, this has been great. Thank you for your coverage.

Cameron, let's move on to, I think, the last story we're going to cover on the podcast today. In a first of its kind of moves, Carol ISD voted to separate from the Texas Association of School Boards, known as TASB. We've been waiting for some school board in Texas to make this move. How did this come about? Well, the whole movement was initiated after Rep. Brian Harrison issued a public statement criticizing the National School Board Association for labeling parental involvement at school board meetings as heinous actions and calling it equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism, as well as TASB's delayed action

to disassociate itself from the NSBA. He advocated that every Texas public school leave TASB. And so this led Carroll to put together a resolution that would have them leave TASB in 2024. There you go. So what happened during the vote? So the board has a conservative majority. So when the vote commenced and the board members had a chance to comment, we heard comments from all of the different board members about fiscal responsibility and a contrasting of values between TASB and the parents, there was one dissenting voice who argued that alternatives

to TASB had not been established, but other members of the board assured her that the groundwork and research had already begun. And so the vote ended up being five to one. So this resolution will have some time to work itself out. And there was a lot of commentary online from legislators congratulating Carol ISD for making this move. So we'll see what happens. Is Carol in his district? In Harrison's? No.

Oh, okay. Not in his district. Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Okay, let's move on to the tweeter-y section. We're already almost an hour here, so we're going to hit the tweeter-y section and see if we have time for a fun topic. I don't think we will, but if it is, it'll be like budget night, and that's fun for some people.

Why'd you look at me when you said that? I don't know, Brad. Why would I ever look at you about budgets? Fine. Okay. Okay. So, Cameron ever look at you about budgets? Fine. Okay. So, Cameron, let's have you start. Okay. What's your tweeter-y from this week?

Well, I'm a fan of hot sauce. Put a hot sauce on everything. Eggs, chicken. You know, so Texas Pete hot sauce. I'm with you. It's huge. Huge. Huge.

Well, did you know Texas Pete hot sauce is not from texas oh yeah wow it's imposter so maybe they need this uh this hot sauce version of the texas honey bill we could yeah we could see this come together are Are you guys fans of hot sauce? I love hot sauce. Oh my gosh. I can't eat. I don't think I eat much without hot sauce. I grew up eating stuff so bland. Well, that's an insult.

My dad probably listening. He'll take an offense to that. But I never used hot sauce really. And then I discovered it in college and it changed my life. It's so good. Well, someone's suing Texas Pete hot sauce because they feel duped that Texas Pete Hot Sauce is not from Texas. Because apparently it actually is in North Carolina. Texas, North Carolina.

I mean, technically they're not wrong then. There's a town in North Carolina called Texas? Well, I guess so. And they're saying that this is just one of 15 places in America with the name Texas. And so what this lawsuit is saying is because on the bottle, there's like a cowboy with a Lone Star flag. And it kind of shows itself to be from Texas. But apparently it's not from Texas. I was very disappointed by this.

So a misleading marketing angle there. Misleading marketing, even though the hot sauce is Louisiana style hot sauce. There's all kinds of wires being crossed here. That's what I'm saying. So this is, it might just be like someone's doing hot sauce. This is incredibly complicated. So

I'm sure there's going to be a giant podcast that comes out about this. You know, hours and hours of discussion. Yeah, exactly. This is our next true crime. Hayden will be covering this. You're like the guy from Always Sunny who's trying to piece together the conspiracy

oh that's me that's you yeah also cameron i really like how when you talk on the pod you have your hands on the mic like a little t-rex dinosaur and you just pivot like this well if i if i could i would if i was allowed to i'd take this microphone out of the stand and hold it. Like you were giving a TED Talk? Not so much a TED Talk, like I was a rock star or something. Okay. You know, reaching up to the sky, moving it back and forth to change the vocal inflection. All of the above.

Yeah. Well, I think chicken pairs well with hot sauce so hayden we're gonna have you go next my tweet is from dallas texas tv it is a trailer with 42 000 pounds of frozen chicken that burst into flames on i-30 this morning or yesterday morning excuse me and if you look at the video it's pretty intense intense. It's just 42,000 pounds of chicken on fire. 42,000 pounds? On the side of I-30, which is probably not even the craziest thing that happened on I-30. I hope it wasn't on the way to the Chick-fil-A population in Dallas.

Otherwise, there will be an uprising. Wow, the emergency vehicles. This is quite, oh my goodness. It's like seven fire trucks. population in Dallas. Otherwise, there will be an uprising. The emergency vehicles. Oh my goodness. It's like seven fire trucks. I'm not counting them, but it looks like a lot of fire trucks. Wow. Do they know why or how it caught on fire?

I have no clue. I did no background research on this. I think this is great. Thank you, Hayden. It's mesmerizing. I can't stop watching it. I just lost him. I lost Hayden for a second there. I was wondering what I was

going to do for lunch and now I think I've figured it out. A little Chick-fil-A? I'm going to go walk down to Gus's Fried Chicken. Ooh, Gus's is good too. They might not have any chicken because it might have burned up in the truck. Panic! Yeah, honestly. Okay, you know what pairs well with chicken aliens matthew what's next for you it does oh it totally does aliens um a plucked

chicken looks a lot like an alien you know that's a bit of a stretch i mean it's it's not it wouldn't be a big stretch for that aliens guy on the History Channel. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't doubt it if the next episode is like, you know, what caused the great. Do you watch alien shows on the History Channel, Matthew? I can neither confirm nor deny. No, I just look through all the funny memes that are made based off that show, Ancient Aliens. Oh, yeah, totally. There's this meme where the guy's like, I'm not saying it's because of aliens,

but it's because of aliens. And there's so many different ones that are absolutely hilarious. I realize now that you're aliens, what you're talking about is illegal aliens, not extraterrestrial beings. There you go. Okay, what's your tweet?

So, I shared the texas department of public safety spokesperson's twitter account uh this morning because he had a number of pictures and videos of an arrest uh mass arrest that texas dps conducted in culberson county and in far southwest County in southwest Texas that had found a cave with 36 illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia, all wearing military-style camouflage inside the cave. And they were all illegally present in the United States. It caught my attention out of all the many things that I see about the border, because Culberson County, for those that don't know, is right next to my home county of Jeff Davis County. So it's right nearby, not too terribly far away. So this was a bit of a close to home tweet

from my perspective. But it was some pretty striking videos and pictures on twitter that i shared of um of of this batch that just kind of denotes the ongoing border crisis yeah absolutely thank you matthew bradley what do you have for us well i was gonna say budget night but uh i'm gonna pivot to something else i literally had you go last so we could talk about budget night i mean if you want to talk about budget what was your other option i was gonna talk about baseball baseball but cameron was the only one you got it out of the way tell me about baseball brad i want to hear well you see there are two texas teams this year. As there are every year. The Astros, which are amazing.

Coming off a World Series championship. Very good. The Rangers made a few big signings. Shout out Phil's. Here's Rangers. They look like they could compete. And then you have... Astros just going to beat them again.

That's probably true, but, uh, who knows? Um, so yeah, it's a, it's a holy day.

I have bias here for the Astros cause my little league team was the Astros. Yeah. Okay. Moving on. I'll, I'll touch on budget night now. real fast. I will say I had a slight panic moment cause I knew opening day was today,

but I didn't know when the Rangers opening day, like opening day like if it coincided with like the whole i think almost all teams play today okay um but i was doing my due diligence because i'm going up to at&t stadium for the taylor swift concert this weekend and i got very nervous that there is going to be one 70 000 people packed into at&t stadium and then also rangers opening day happening at the same time within like two blocks of each other. But thankfully it's one day difference. We're never going to see you again because you're going to be stuck in traffic forever. I don't

want to think about it. I think it's funny that the topic of baseball opening day came up and instead of talking about her Seattle Mariners she mentions Taylor Swift. Brad, we are over an hour. The Rangers who are coming off of a really good season and making the playoffs you should be and sorry mariners i was gonna say mariners had a very

good season you should be more excited but i was kept up to date on that because of phil particularly phil would text me and be like i don't know your mariners are doing well and i i don't know why that was my phil impression it does not do him justice ph Phil, do not be offended. Anybody ever read the stories about all the stuff around getting Taylor Swift concert tickets? I almost just called you Hayden. I don't know why. Matthew, I was one of those people trying to get Taylor Swift concert tickets. I can tell you a firsthand account. It was awful.

So you contributed to the big monopolistic cartel on concert tickets? No, I was a victim of the big monopolistic cartel on uh concert tickets no i was a victim of the big monopolistic a willing victim 100 and i did not secure a ticket that way and had to go around about uh methods to secure one and i did so i'm very grateful you bought one off the black market correct no i need a regulatory framework to protect people buying i'm just kidding i have i have a lot of problems the ticket master i'll just say that there's a lot of problems and then my sister a friend of hers got tickets because she waited in line on ticket master this whole time and my sister was like oh yeah mackenzie did i tell you i'm going to taylor swift she i said no and she goes yeah i was like on the beach for my honeymoon and my friend texted

me and said she had an extra ticket if she wanted it and i just looked at her with vitriol yeah and i broke down crying i'm not even kidding you i was very tired that contributed to it no i should have because i should have been so elated for her but i was so sad i was so sad that she didn't even care that much and had gotten tickets. Anyway. Budget night, Brad. Next Thursday. Yes. So we'll be recording the podcast next week on Budget Day. What can we expect? Why is

it a big deal real fast that Budget Day is looming? Well, it's one constitutional requirement the state has, the state legislature has to pass. During the session. During the session. So there's that. Add to that all of this uh record surplus talk and the spending that will come with it um what do we put in the budget what do we uh keep outside of it in these extra constitutional funds to avoid

busting the spending cap then what little nuggets can can members tack on little writers it's all very interesting we'll probably have 200 writers submitted at least and gosh i have to read through all of them fun it'll be delightful and last session we saw kind of a test vote on medicaid expansion that. So that's the kind of thing that if you're not paying attention, you won't notice. But another one was school choice, a voucher system. So it's not just about the budget itself. It's about all these other proxy fights that go on over different issues that pertain to it. And it's an opportunity for members who may not see a bill they support or have filed,

like some sort of Medicaid expansion, to get a vote on the House floor, whether it be, you know, Republicans on the outside of the leadership circle or Democrats on the outside of the leadership circle who don't have that option or whether there's just not support in the House. It's an, you know, it's an opportunity for them to bring forward some sort of policy item that they find important and get a vote on it. Um, and guarantee you'll see those votes on a lot of mailers going out next election cycle.

So budget night's a big deal and it can go on until either, you know, 10 or 11 PM or more often it goes till one, two, 3 AM. So I think we got off easy last session, but yeah, because eventually they said everyone pulled their riders.

Yeah. After a long time, but amendments. Yeah. Peace out. Went home. Yep. But we'll see. It'll their riders. Yeah. After a long time. Amendments. Yeah. Peace out. Went home. Yep.

But we'll see. It'll be fun. Awesome. Anything to add on that Hayden? I know you've kind of been at the, uh, done the budget night thing before and seen how it all goes down. It is usually like drinking from a fire hydrant because they're throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to nitpicking every

little thing and last night i think brad and i were at the capital last night last budget night two years ago i think we were at the capital after midnight right yeah well i don't remember exactly i know we were expecting it to go longer and And then at some point, everyone agreed mutually to stop. Was that one of the nights that they chubbed? Because it seems like they... Have we talked about what chubbing is on this podcast recently? I don't think so. Not recently.

It's when they talk about... They unpack topics in excruciating detail that don't need to be unpacked in order to run out the clock. Kill other things that are on the calendar. The Texas House of Representatives version of filibustering. Right. Because you can't filibuster in the House, but you can ask everything to be explained in painstaking detail of the speaker from the back. You can't read Green Eggs and Ham, but you can ask the bill to be explained in painstaking detail of the speaker from the back you can't read green eggs and ham but you can ask the bill to be spelled out like how exactly do eggs come about like is it which came first the chicken or the egg right and like they start at the beginning

right let's go all the way and then the speaker will go well to go back to the 14th century and they'll like regale everybody with one of my as you have um was it is it 10 minutes per bill that's local and consent my favorite one was uh chubbing was jonathan stickland and he gets up there and he goes he starts reading the actual bill and that was in order to do and he goes be it enacted by the legislature of the state of texas period that's chubbing that's chubbing and we love to see it chubbing uh oftentimes more will happen on like a deadline night and maybe not budget night as much but it still can happen if there are some moments they just don't want to get to. So fun stuff. We're excited to follow it. Folks, thank you for listening. This has been

a little bit of a longer podcast. We appreciate, as always, you tuning in to hear us babble. Oh, a new one. Yeah, I can't remember. You just said blather. Blather. I couldn't remember my normal word. What, Cameron? We did a lot of chubbing on this podcast. We did. That's exactly. We chubbed on this podcast.

So folks, thanks for listening to us blather. And we will catch you 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, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the Texan.News.

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