In the Capitol, Rep. Brian Harrison is a loner. Republican officials publicly deride him and his lack of legislative success — he passed zero of his own bills this year — or they disregard him entirely. But last month, Harrison notched a major victory for himself, drawing attention to a dispute that led to the ouster of a Texas A&M professor teaching about gender identity, and later, to the resignation of the university president.
Harrison took credit for it all.
“Everything you’re seeing at Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Angelo State University — that is 100% a result of my actions,” Harrison said. “I’m not gonna stop until this is all done.”
RELATED: TSU Professor Gets Fired Again
Texas State University professor has again been fired after a court had reinstated him following his initial termination over an allegation that he incited violence.
Thomas Alter was first fired on Sept. 10 after a video circulated on social media showing him talking about political organization at an online socialist conference, which university administration said amounted to “advocat[ing] for inciting violence.” Alter, whose tenure officially began on Sept. 1, subsequently sued the university, alleging they violated due process by dismissing him abruptly.
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Inside the Dallas HERO Effort to Curb Crime
The year before President Donald Trump announced he was sending National Guard troops and federal agents into major cities like Washington, D.C., and Chicago, declaring crime out of control, a Dallas nonprofit made a similar case for putting more police on the streets.
The Dallas HERO (Honest Elections and Reliable Oversight) initiative emerged as a bipartisan local effort of leaders, residents and activists arguing for structural reforms in city government accountability, safety, and financial responsibility.
In 2024, HERO’s Pete Marocco told Dallas City Council members that Dallas was descending into comparable anarchy.
“We cannot wait until Dallas looks like other degenerate cities that have made irreversible mistakes, devaluing their police force and destroying their city center,” said Marocco, who would go on to briefly lead the U.S. Agency for International Development under Trump.
Read all about this investigation here.
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Dallas ICE Shooter Feared Radiation, Parents Say
DALLAS (AP) — The parents of the 29-year-old gunman who opened fire on a Dallas immigration facility in September told police their son was “completely normal” before he moved to Washington state and returned home several years ago believing he had radiation sickness, according to newly released records.
Joshua Jahn had begun wearing cotton gloves to avoid contact with plastic and practiced target shooting with a newly purchased rifle in Oklahoma a month before the deadly rooftop attack on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, according to a report written by a Fairview Police Department officer.
Jahn killed two detainees and wounded another before taking his own life in the Sept. 24 shooting.
SpaceX Launches Make 11th Starship Launch
BOCA CHICA (AP) — SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets on a test flight Monday, successfully making it halfway around the world while releasing mock satellites like last time.
Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — thundered into the evening sky from the southern tip of Texas. The booster peeled away and made a controlled entry into the Gulf of Mexico as planned, with the spacecraft skimming space before descending into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.
It was the 11th test flight for a full-scale Starship, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk intends to use to send people to Mars. NASA’s need is more immediate. The space agency cannot land astronauts on the moon by decade’s end without the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship, the reusable vehicle meant to get them from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.
US Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Alex Jones
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and left in place the $1.4 billion judgment against him over his description of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a hoax staged by crisis actors.
The Infowars host had argued that a judge was wrong to find him liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress without holding a trial on the merits of allegations lodged by relatives of victims of the shooting, which killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut.
The justices did not comment on their order, which they issued without even asking the families of the Sandy Hook victims to respond to Jones’ appeal. An FBI agent who responded to the shooting also sued.
A lawyer who represents Sandy Hook families said the Supreme Court had properly rejected Jones’ “latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused.”
