Rubio pauses worker visas for truck drivers after deadly Florida crash involving illegal immigrant kills 3
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said, “effective immediately,” he would pause the issuance of worker visas for commercial drivers after an illegal immigrant truck driver allegedly caused a crash that killed three people in Florida. In a post on X, Rubio cited public safety for the move. “The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” he wrote. BLUE STATE INVESTIGATES HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER GOT LICENSE BEFORE DEADLY FLORIDA CRASH Concerns about foreign workers driving commercial trucks began after Harjinder Singh, 28, who entered the U.S. illegally, was driving a commercial truck with a trailer on the Florida Turnpike in Fort Pierce when he allegedly attempted a U-turn in an unauthorized area. The turn resulted in the trailer jackknifing and colliding with a minivan, which left all three of the minivan’s passengers dead, authorities said. Further scrutiny of Singh revealed he didn’t pass English and road tests before obtaining a commercial driver’s license. EXPERT REVEALS HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER MAY HAVE GOTTEN COMMERCIAL LICENSE BEFORE FATAL FLORIDA CRASH He was granted a full-term commercial driver’s license in Washington in July 2023 despite not being legally eligible. He was also given a limited-term commercial driver’s license in California in 2024. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been in a heated war of words with the Trump administration over Singh. This week, Newsom’s press office said on X that Singh obtained a work permit during President Donald Trump‘s first term. Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, responded, saying Singh was denied in September 2020, under Trump, but was granted one in June 2021, under the Biden administration. Singh has been extradited to Florida from California to face three counts of vehicular homicide.
ICE chief vows to ‘flood’ Boston with agents after Dem mayor pledges to resist
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons vowed to “flood” Boston with agents after Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu doubled down on her pledge to uphold the city’s sanctuary policies and resist the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Speaking on the local radio program “The Howie Carr Show,” Lyons responded to Wu by saying, “Now you’re going to see more ICE agents come to Boston to make sure that we take these public safety threats out that she wants to let go back into the communities.” He pointed to the Trump administration’s “Operation Patriot,” which sent federal agents into the Boston area in March and yielded over a thousand arrests. “We are going to keep doing it in Boston,” Lyons said. “We’re going to continue to do our mission. We’re going to keep making Boston safe as she’s failing to do with these sanctuary city policies.” LARGEST EVER ICE OPERATION RESULTS IN NEARLY 1,500 ILLEGALS ARRESTED IN BLUE STATE Pressed on whether ICE will surge agents to the Boston area, similar to how agents are in Washington, D.C., Lyons responded, “One hundred percent you will see a larger ICE presence.” “We’re definitely going to, as you’ve heard the saying, flood the zone, especially in sanctuary jurisdictions,” he added. “And, obviously, Boston and Massachusetts decided that they wanted to stay sanctuaries, and sanctuary does not mean safer streets. It means more criminal aliens out and about in neighborhoods.” Lyons pointed out that, during Operation Patriot, ICE pursued “targeted enforcement operations” of criminal aliens released by the City of Boston and Massachusetts. Operation Patriot resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,500 illegal immigrants, including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and child sex predators. Sources at ICE told Fox News that 790 of those arrested had criminal convictions or charges, and 277 had final removal or deportation orders. The sources said that all the targeted criminals were roaming the streets of Massachusetts cities freely before being apprehended. BIKE-RIDING YOUTHS TERRORIZE DEM-RUN CITY AS MOBS SWARM ROADS, WHILE MAYOR STAYS SILENT ON CHAOS The operation ran throughout May and involved ICE teams from other states in the Northeast, as well as authorities from the FBI, DEA and ATF. Speaking on Wednesday, Lyons said, “There’s so many of these criminal aliens that keep getting released to go out and commit more crimes that local law enforcement have to deal with, and we can take that, you know, violent criminal illegal alien instantly out of the neighborhood.” This follows U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi setting a deadline of Tuesday for sanctuary jurisdictions to drop their policies that block cooperation with federal authorities. Speaking on Fox Business, Bondi said she sent letters to 32 mayors and seven governors “telling them you better comply or you’re next.” Bondi highlighted a letter she sent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom in which she warned that “individuals operating under the color of law, using their official position to obstruct federal immigration enforcement efforts and facilitating or inducing illegal immigration may be subject to criminal charges.” SANCTUARY CITIES DEFY BONDI’S DEADLINE TO COOPERATE: ‘NO INTENTION OF CHANGING’ The letter, shared on social media, said cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including on immigration enforcement, “is vital to enforce federal law and protect national security.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Wu publicly rejected Bondi’s demands during a press conference, calling the ultimatum a political stunt. “Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law,” Wu said Tuesday. “This is our city. This is our country, and I’m so proud and grateful to show the world who our community is here in Boston and what we’re made of.” In response to Lyons’ comments, Wu’s office shared a statement from the mayor who was answering another reporter’s question. Wu reiterated, “In Boston, we comply and follow all of the laws, city, state and federal. And we will not back down from communities that have made us the safest major city in the country. “This is a beautiful, diverse, incredible city, and I have said it now very directly this administration needs to stop attacking cities to hide their own failures.”
What’s the Texas redistricting fight about, and how has California reacted?
President Donald Trump and his allies have kicked off a redistricting fight in the United States as the country’s two main political parties angle for advantage in the 2026 midterm elections. In an effort to maintain control of Congress, Republican leaders in the right-wing stronghold of Texas have pushed to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a way that would net the party as many as five additional seats in the US House of Representatives. Trump has encouraged the effort, calling it a “big WIN for the Great State of Texas”. The state’s Senate is expected to vote on the new district plans as early as Thursday evening. But that effort has prompted a backlash. The Democratic-leaning state of California responded in kind by passing a plan on Thursday to abandon nonpartisan redistricting and create new congressional maps that could bring the Democrats five more seats, negating the effort in Texas. Party leaders in other states, including Missouri and Florida, have also indicated they may seek to rejigger their districts to pick up more seats. The standoff points to larger questions about how to ensure fair representation in Congress and how Trump has sought to exert wide-reaching control over the country’s political system. With Trump’s approval rating slipping to about 40 percent, Republicans risk losing their narrow, 219-person majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives in the midterm races. So what is redistricting? And what could it mean for upcoming elections? We answer those questions and more in this quick explainer. What is redistricting? Simply put, the practice of redistricting refers to drawing the boundaries of an election district. Advertisement Ideally, districts should be designed as an accurate and proportionate reflection of the area’s population. Maps are generally updated every 10 years, in accordance with the latest population census. But political parties can take steps to shape districts to their benefit, in a process sometimes referred to as gerrymandering. That involves finding creative ways to maximise the number of seats a party can win by carving districts based on demographics and voting trends, to increase the electoral weight of certain groups and minimise the influence of others. “Politicians can look at information about the partisan and demographic breakdown of an area and stack the decks in their favour,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego. This practice has a long and fraught history in the US, especially in states with histories of segregation and discrimination, where maps were often drawn to dilute representation for minority voters. What is happening in Texas? While redistricting is far from new, Texas has been in the spotlight recently for a particularly overt partisan effort. Part of the controversy stems from the involvement of President Trump, who prompted Texas Republicans to redraw maps. In June and July, reports began to emerge that the White House was holding calls with Texas state leaders to tee up a redistricting battle, in preparation for the 2026 midterms. Despite early concerns that the effort could backfire, Republican lawmakers in the state quickly put the plan in motion. Speaking by phone to CNBC on August 5, Trump seemed to suggest that the makeup of the US Congress should reflect his success in the 2024 presidential race. “We should have many more seats in Congress,” Trump said. “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.” The state’s House of Representatives passed a new election map on Wednesday, and the Texas Senate is expected to do the same in the next few days. The new maps would carve out five additional districts in areas where Trump performed strongly during the last election. How did Texas Democrats respond? Texas Democrats condemned the redistricting as a partisan power grab and tried to prevent a vote on the new congressional map. In early August, they left the state in a bid to deny the Texas legislature the quorum it needed to move the plan forward. But as a minority voting bloc in the firmly Republican state legislature, the Democrats ultimately failed to stop the redistricting scheme. Advertisement While away, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the absent Democrats’ arrest, and the Republicans in the state House echoed that effort with a vote to issue arrest warrants. Abbott also threatened the Democrats with criminal charges, including for bribery, if they solicited funds during their absence. What’s more, the Texas Democrats faced a series of reported bomb threats at their Illinois hotels. Eventually, after two weeks, they returned to their home state, allowing the vote to proceed. Democratic leaders have said that, while they did not stop the redistricting push, they drew attention to the issue and are preparing to challenge the new maps in court. Do both parties gerrymander? Yes, both parties have engaged in gerrymandering, and the practice has been employed throughout US history in varying contexts. In recent years, however, the practice has been more commonly associated with right-leaning states. Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project found that states with the most severe gerrymandering tend to be Republican-led states in the southern US, where the practice has historically been employed to dilute the influence of Black voters. The project also found that a handful of states, such as Oregon, Illinois and Nevada, have partisan election maps that heavily favour Democrats. Some Democrats previously criticised gerrymandering as anti-democratic and pushed for changes to ensure that redistricting is nonpartisan. “Public servants should earn the votes of the people that they hope to represent. What Republicans are trying to do in Texas is to have politicians choose their voters,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently told reporters. But as Trump seeks to increase his party’s advantage, some Democratic leaders have urged the party to change its approach and “fight fire with fire” through more explicitly partisan tactics. Is gerrymandering legal? Courts have, on occasion, struck down gerrymandered congressional maps on the basis that they violate the
US Supreme Court rules Trump admin can cut nearly $800m in health funding
SCOTUS decision impacts DEI programmes that include breast cancer research and HIV prevention. The highest court in the US has ruled that the Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of research funding on breast cancer, HIV prevention and suicide, among other issues, in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. In a 5-4 decision issued on Thursday, the Supreme Court lifted a judge’s order blocking $783m worth of cuts made by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to align with Republican President Donald Trump’s priorities. The justices granted the Justice Department’s request to lift Boston-based US District Judge William Young’s decision in June that the grant terminations violated federal law, while a legal challenge brought by researchers and 16 US states plays out in a lower court. The order marks the latest Supreme Court win for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with cancelling hundreds of grants while the lawsuit continues to unfold. The plaintiffs, including states and public-health advocacy groups, have argued that the cuts will inflict “incalculable losses in public health and human life”. The NIH is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. The cuts are part of Trump’s wide-ranging actions to reshape the US government, slash federal spending and end government support for programmes aimed at promoting diversity or “gender ideology” that the administration opposes. The administration said Young’s ruling required the NIH to continue paying $783m in grants that run counter to its priorities. Advertisement The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January. After Trump signed executive orders in January targeting DEI and gender ideology, NIH instructed staff to terminate grant funding for “low-value and off-mission” studies deemed related to these concepts, as well as COVID-19 and ways to curb vaccine hesitancy. Young’s ruling came in two lawsuits challenging the cuts. One was filed by the American Public Health Association, individual researchers and other plaintiffs, who called the cuts an “ongoing ideological purge” targeting projects based on “vague, now-forbidden language”. The other was filed by the states, most of them Democratic-led. The plaintiffs said the terminated grants included projects on breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV prevention, suicide, depression and other conditions that often disproportionately burden minority communities, as well as grants mandated by Congress to train and support a diverse group of scientists in biomedical research. Young, an appointee of former Republican President Ronald Reagan, invalidated the grant terminations in June. In a written ruling, the judge said they were “breathtakingly arbitrary and capricious”, violating a federal law governing the actions of agencies. During a June hearing in the case, Young rebuked the administration for what he called a “darker aspect” to the case that the cuts represent “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community”. “I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable,” the judge said. Young also said the cuts were designed to stop research that bears on the health of the LGBTQ community. “That’s appalling,” the judge said. The administration has argued that the litigation should have been brought in a different judicial body, the Washington-based Court of Federal Claims, which specialises in money damages claims against the US government. That reasoning was also the basis for the Supreme Court’s decision in April that let Trump’s administration proceed with millions of dollars of cuts to teacher training grants, also targeted under the DEI crackdown. Adblock test (Why?)
US DOJ to probe Fed Reserve’s Cook, urges Powell to remove her: Report
Cook, who has been accused of mortgage fraud, has said she will not be bullied by Trump into resigning. The United States Department of Justice plans to investigate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, with a top official informing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell of the probe and encouraging him to remove her, Bloomberg News has reported. A letter to Powell from Ed Martin, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official who has led similar investigations into Senator Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James, said Cook’s case “requires further examination”, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. “At this time, I encourage you to remove Ms Cook from your Board,” Martin wrote, according to Bloomberg. “Do it today before it is too late! After all, no American thinks it is appropriate that she serve during this time with a cloud hanging over her.” The DOJ did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Asked about the report, a Fed spokesperson referred to Cook’s statement on Wednesday, when she said she had no intention of being “bullied” into resigning after President Donald Trump called for her to step down on the basis of allegations made by a member of his administration about mortgages she holds in Michigan and Georgia. The Federal Reserve Act provides no authority for a Fed chair to remove another member of the Board of Governors. Cook, the first Black woman to be a Fed governor, is serving a 14-year term that began after her second Senate confirmation in 2023. The effort to remove Cook comes as the administration has unleashed a campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and intensifies Trump’s ongoing effort to gain influence over the US central bank and push it to lower interest rates. Advertisement Fed under pressure Central bankers from around the world gathered on Thursday in Grand Teton National Park for the opening of the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, where Powell will give a keynote speech on Friday, sketching out his view of the economy and, investors hope, where rates are headed. “I would just say that I know her to be an outstanding economist and a person of high integrity,” Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack told Yahoo Finance at the event. US Federal Housing Finance Agency director William Pulte, who referred the allegations of Cook’s wrongdoing to the Department of Justice this week, said they arose as part of regular investigations into mortgage fraud by his agency and were not a “witch-hunt”. “Defrauding people is nothing new,” Pulte told Bloomberg Television. “I believe that she committed mortgage fraud.” He said that public records clearly show fraud and that a special exemption should not be made for the powerful. He said the fraud is “self-evident”. Cook has yet to expressly address Pulte’s accusation, saying only in Wednesday’s statement: “I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve, and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.” The Fed has held borrowing costs steady all year in the 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent range out of concern that Trump’s tariffs could reignite inflation that is still running above the Fed’s 2 percent goal. Recent weaker labour market data – including a report showing job gains averaged a paltry 35,000 from May to July – has increased Fed policymaker concern that borrowing costs may be a bit too high, and financial markets are priced for the likelihood of a quarter-point interest-rate cut at the Fed’s September meeting. That would be far short of the several percentage points that Trump has called for. Trump can name a new chair when Powell’s term ends in May. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is leading the search, has nearly a dozen candidates, and all have voiced their support for big rate cuts and big changes to the central bank. Traditionally, Fed chairs resign when their leadership term ends, but there is some speculation that Powell would stay on until his term as governor ends in 2028, denying Trump the chance to install more loyalists to consolidate his control over the central bank. Trump has nominated Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran, a Fed critic and enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s tariffs and other policies, to serve at the Fed in the seat vacated by the surprise resignation this month of Adriana Kugler. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
GOP state Rep. Briscoe Cain files for redrawn 9th Congressional District
The Houston-area district, currently occupied by Democratic Rep. Al Green, is being redrawn by GOP lawmakers to favor Republicans and cover almost entirely new territory.
Hurricane Harvey destroyed this Texas county’s courthouse. Eight years later, it’s still not finished.
The Aransas County courthouse was supposed to open in 2023. But officials have faced voter backlash and a constant stream of design and construction problems that have delayed the opening.
Former Speaker Dade Phelan won’t seek reelection to Texas House
As speaker, Phelan oversaw passage of numerous conservative priorities, but he gave up the gavel under pressure from the far right over the House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Hill Country nonprofit pledges $40 million to help rebuild flood victims’ homes
The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country has a four-pronged recovery plan: rebuilding homes, supporting mental health, economic recovery, and reviving the area’s quality of life.
Doggett won’t seek reelection to Congress if new district is upheld by courts, paving way for Casar
Doggett has represented his hometown of Austin for over 50 years, in both the Legislature and Congress, surviving numerous Republican redistricting efforts to target his seat.