Mayor John Whitmire joined Houston First Corporation on Thursday to celebrate the completion of the GRB South Garage, a 1,000-space facility at 1835 Bell Street near Chenevert Street.

The garage is already being used for Houston Rockets games, concerts and other events at Toyota Center. It will eventually serve guests of the Hilton Americas-Houston hotel and other visitors as construction progresses.

“Houston is a can-do city, and this is demonstration of Houston going forward,” Whitmire said. “The Convention District Transformation has been a priority of my administration since day one and I’m pleased to see the progress that we celebrate today.”

What does the new garage mean for downtown visitors?

The opening comes six months after the demolition of the Avenida South Garage, which eliminated more than 1,400 parking spaces near the convention center.

KPRC 2 previously reported that the closure raised concerns among downtown visitors and nearby businesses about parking availability during construction.

The new garage replaces 1,000 of those spaces, although access remains limited while work continues.

Its completion has also allowed the 660-space Avenida Central Garage beneath Discovery Green to reopen for public parking.

That garage had been reserved for Hilton valet operations following the earlier demolition. Houston First says the hotel will continue using some of those spaces during peak periods until a new tunnel connecting the Hilton to GRB South Garage is completed next year.

A much larger transformation is underway

The garage is just one component of a project intended to reshape the area surrounding the George R. Brown Convention Center.

The first phase includes a 700,000-square-foot expansion known as GRB South, which will connect directly to the existing convention center.

Plans also call for a 100,000-square-foot outdoor event plaza linking the expanded convention center to Toyota Center.

The expansion is designed to accommodate larger conventions and simultaneous events, with additional exhibition halls, meeting spaces, retail and restaurants.

Future phases will include renovations to the existing convention center and the development of a broader entertainment district intended to better connect downtown Houston with East Downtown.

Houston First President and CEO Michael Heckman said completing the replacement garage quickly was an important part of minimizing disruptions.

“It was important that we minimized the time between the demolition of the previous Avenida South Garage and the opening of this new GRB South facility,” Heckman said.

How much progress has been made?

According to Houston First, construction on the first phase began in April 2025.

As of its latest update, the project has recorded more than 730,000 labor hours, with approximately $389 million spent through September.

Crews have also erected more than 8,100 tons of steel and poured more than 33,000 cubic yards of concrete.

The first phase remains scheduled to open in May 2028, ahead of Houston hosting the Republican National Convention that summer.

The broader redevelopment is expected to continue in phases through 2038.

How is the project being paid for?

The redevelopment is supported by Senate Bill 1057, legislation authored by Whitmire when he served in the Texas Senate and signed into law in 2023.

The law allows Houston to capture growth in the state’s portion of hotel occupancy tax revenue generated within a three-mile radius of the convention center over 30 years.

That revenue is projected to provide nearly $2 billion for convention center improvements and related development.

City officials have said the arrangement does not require an additional local tax to fund the project.

The goal is to strengthen Houston’s ability to compete for major conventions and entertainment events while encouraging additional development in the surrounding area.

For now, visitors will see the changes taking shape one project at a time, beginning with the newly completed garage.

A handful of remaining Senate and House races, still to be called by The Associated Press, will determine the strength of Democrats’ majority in Congress. Democrats will hold at least 54 seats in the 100-member Senate next year, and as many as 56 depending on final results in Alaska and Mississippi — where contests remain narrow with votes still outstanding.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is likely to return as majority leader next year, promised in an interview with the AP that Democrats will prevent the Republican president from installing a “right-winger” on the Supreme Court or “crappy nominees” elsewhere in the federal judiciary or in Trump’s Cabinet.

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Ukraine welcomes more help from Melania Trump in the future

Ukrainian officials have praised first lady Melania Trump for her role in a humanitarian ceasefire in the besieged Ukrainian city of Oleshky and hope for more of her help going forward.

Davyd Arakhamia, head of the parliamentary faction of Zelenskyy’s party, and Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, spoke to reporters in Washington a day after a White House event recognizing the recent six-day truce between Russia and Ukraine in Oleshky.

Lubinets says he thinks of the first lady “as a heavyweight” in negotiations, saying her office was instrumental in getting the Russians to open negotiations.

Asked about a greater role for Melania Trump in talks between Russia and Ukraine, Arakhamia said, “we would appreciate it.” He says he wants to expand the ability to get truces in other parts of the war-torn country.

Ukraine expects to see more support from US after midterms

A Ukrainian official says with Democrats winning control of Congress in the midterm elections, they expect American support to surge next year.

Davyd Arakhamia, head of the parliamentary faction of Zelenskyy’s party, told reporters in Washington that he sees “the chances for us to get better U.S. support” financially and generally is “at least double” with the new Congress.

Arakhamia said he and other Ukrainian officials know newly appointed White House chief of staff Stephen Miller “well” and were broadly optimistic about his new role.

But before the congressional changes, “we have the hardest winter ever,” Arakhamia said.

Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. He said the country’s supply of missile interceptors is all but depleted.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair says promoting Miller is ‘putting lipstick on a pig’

Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York said Trump’s decision to name Miller the White House chief of staff “is a desperate and irresponsible cry for attention.”

He said Miller has been the architect of Trump’s immigration policies and voters have “rejected mass deportations, the targeting of Latino communities.”

To give Miller “a fancier title is just putting lipstick on a pig,” he said.

‘I wanted to make a change,’ Trump says, explaining chief of staff shakeup

Trump praised both Wiles and Miller to reporters but said it was time for a change.

“Susie has done a very good job. Great job,” Trump said as he left the White House to travel to Florida. But he said, “We’ve got to make moves sometimes.”

Trump said Miller is great.

“He gets it” and is “very good politically. And he’s a very good man. He’ll do a great job, great manager,” Trump said.

House Oversight’s Garcia warns Stephen Miller: ‘Lawyer up’

Rep. Robert Garcia, who is in line to become chairman of the Oversight Committee, said Trump is “doubling down” on the administration policies that voters just rejected in the midterm election.

“Stephen Miller is the architect of the unconstitutional ICE raids that have terrorized our communities and kidnapped and killed American citizens and immigrant families,” said Garcia of California.

Garcia said the committee continues to investigate Miller “for his misconduct, and we will fight against his hateful policies in Congress and the courts.”

Wiles is the first woman to ever serve as White House chief of staff

Announcing her departure on social media, Wiles called serving Trump “the honor of a lifetime.”

“I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First,” she wrote. “More than anything, I’m grateful for the extraordinary people I’ve had the privilege of working alongside.

“While my role may be changing, my commitment to the President and the mission never will,” Wiles said.

Wiles steered Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign. She has long been seen as a check on some of his most destructive impulses.

Who is Stephen Miller, Trump’s new chief of staff

He’s one of Trump’s most loyal and longest-serving advisers. He came aboard Trump’s longshot 2016 presidential campaign as a speechwriter and has remained in the president’s orbit.

Miller, 41, currently serves as White House deputy chief of staff and, though his portfolio is wide-ranging, Miller is most closely aligned with Trump’s actions and rhetoric on immigration.

He’s a former Capitol Hill staffer who worked for former Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who was Trump’s first attorney general.

During the midterm campaign, Miller took frequent partisan swipes at Democrats, calling them “extremists, freaks and America-hating lunatics” on social media. He also promoted unfounded theories about election fraud in California and Alaska

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy discharged from hospital after stroke

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy says he will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital Friday after suffering a stroke.

Murphy said the doctors are encouraged by the progress he’s made and the time at the rehabilitation center will help him get back to work on the quickest timeline possible. He expects to miss the next several weeks of votes as he continues his recovery.

“I want to be direct with you,” Murphy said in a statement. “So here is my diagnosis. Last Saturday afternoon, I felt something was not right with my body and called 9-1-1 out of an abundance of caution, and I’m glad I did. I was diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.”

Murphy says he’s staying engaged with his colleagues and staff remotely to ensure the work of his office continues.

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Rubio will venture to France for first post-midterm global trip as questions about Trump policies swirl

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to embark on his first post-midterm foreign trip to attend a Group of 7 foreign ministers meeting in France next week.

He’ll likely face questions about the Trump administration’s policies, namely in Iran, after huge Republican losses in elections that gave Democrats control of Congress.

The State Department said Friday that Rubio would travel to Paris to meet his counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Monday and Tuesday.

The G7 nations will confront a number of unresolved world crises, including the Iran and Russia-Ukraine wars. They must also cope with Trump’s often antagonistic approach to allies and concerns that the election results may harden his attitude.

Rubio is often seen as presenting a gentler side to Trump’s belligerence in foreign policy. He may get questions about speculation he might leave the administration to prepare for a 2028 presidential run, which he has adamantly denied.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, is leaving the administration

President Donald Trump said Friday that Stephen Miller was replacing Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, mere days after Republicans lost control of Congress in the midterm elections.

On his social media site, Trump praised Wiles and said she’d continue to work for his political organization.

Miller, long a key member of Trump’s inner circle, is a key architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies.

Wiles, the steely political operator and longtime adviser to Trump, was the first woman to ever serve in that post.

Wiles’ departure comes almost immediately after the GOP’s midterm thrashing on Tuesday. She will be replaced by Stephen Miller, a longtime trusted aide to Trump.

The departure also came months after Wiles indicated she no longer showed evidence of breast cancer after she underwent months of treatment for the disease, a diagnosis she went public with in March 2026.

Wiles is the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Trump, who cycled through four of them during his first four-year term.

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Democrats win the Arizona House, Senate and governor’s office for the first time since 1966

Democrats in Arizona won control of both legislative chambers and retained the governor’s office, giving the party its first trifecta in the state since 1966 as Democrats made major gains nationwide in this week’s elections and took control of both chambers of Congress.

In her first term, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs had vetoed more than 540 measures passed by the Republican-led Legislature on policies including taxes, immigration and voting laws. Hobbs has said she’s looking to address water issues and affordability, and take on fraud and abuse in the state’s school voucher program.

The Associated Press called enough legislative races to confirm that both chambers flipped on Friday. The news organization calls races individually and it can take several days after voting, depending on when election officials tally the votes and how close the elections are. There have not been major disputes or disruptions this year.

In Arizona, Republicans have held the House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s.

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Trump says he wants Gruters to stay on as head of RNC, despite losses

In a Truth Social post, Trump is praising “MAGA Warrior Joe Gruters” and says Gruters should continue to serve as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

“As Chairman, Joe turned the RNC into an efficient, focused, and powerful machine that will continue to empower the America First Agenda for many years to come,” Trump writes, endorsing him for a second term.

“Joe Gruters should return as Chairman of the RNC to continue to build our Party, and be a trusted partner as we MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and ensure Free and Fair Elections,” he says.

“Joe is 100% America First, the Grassroots LOVES him, and I know he will do an incredible job in 2028, and secure Great Success for Republicans all across our Country. Joe has my Complete and Total Endorsement.”

Beijing confirms it’s discussing a Xi-Trump-Putin summit

Beijing confirmed for the first time that it’s discussing a possible meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a regular briefing that China “is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state.”

The three-leader meeting would be historic if it happens during a regional economic summit this month in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. But experts say the trio may not agree on what to discuss when their interests are at odds.

Trump has said he wants to discuss nuclear arms control, while Putin is interested in discussing the war with Ukraine without Kyiv at the table.

If it happens, the meeting is certain to upset Europe, while China hopes to score a diplomatic win by facilitating the summit.

Amazon releases trailer for the follow-up to Melania Trump’s documentary about herself

The minute-long trailer promoting the two-part series features Melania Trump in never-before-seen moments in her roles as wife, mother and first lady.

It will be available on Nov. 20. Amazon Prime Video also produced “Melania,” the documentary, which was in theaters in January.

The first lady said in a September interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” that “Melania: The Series” is different from the documentary “because it’s more conversation, one on one with me.”

She said the docuseries will have some surprises, too.

“So when I was traveling and doing all of the filming, the director was asking me questions, and there are some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before. So it’s kind of exciting,” Melania Trump said.

Houston mayor signs order to limit cooperation with ICE, says ‘elections matter’ after Democrats win

The mayor of Houston on Friday said the city would limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, heralding “a new model” of immigration enforcement after Democrats swept statewide offices in Texas.

Mayor John Whitmire said the city would go after immigrants “that pose a danger, not those that are going about their family business, work and education.”

“Traffic incident will not even ... you write a citation or you warn them and they go about their way. No contact with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) over nonviolent, non-jailable offenses. it reduces the fear and anxiety.”

Details of the change were to be spelled out in an executive order but the move by the nation’s fourth-largest city is one of the first steps to curb ICE’s powers since Tuesday’s election.

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DHS says it acted lawfully in talks with Iran on deportations

Court documents Thursday showed that the Trump administration held secret talks with Iran to deport Iranians during the war.

In its first comments since the revelation, the Department of Homeland Security justified the ongoing contacts in a statement Friday, saying that it’s common practice for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to work with countries to get travel documents.

It said it follows all “established protocols” to allow people to meet with consular officials from their country.

“As promised, the Trump Administration is employing all lawful options to execute the largest deportation operation in history,” the department said.

The judge in a lawsuit challenging the deportations questioned how the U.S. could send people back to a country where they could face a “serious threat of certain death.”

DHS did not respond to a question about the potential danger the deportees might face.

Protesters break into Microsoft data center site as Europe backlash spreads

Some of the protesters climbed a construction crane and set off flares while others clashed with police Friday at the Microsoft data center site in Amsterdam. More actions were planned in other countries after U.S. elections ushered in a wave of Democrats promising to clamp down on data centers.

“We don’t want it to be built. Nobody needs it,” Nathan Timmer of the Push Back group told local broadcaster AT5. “The only thing this will be used for is AI slop. AI warfare, data surveillance, and committing genocides. We don’t want that.”

A Microsoft spokesperson said “we understand that people feel strongly about the project, and we respect their right to express those views peacefully. However, we do not condone any actions that are unlawful or that put people’s safety at risk.”

Sununu points finger at Trump for midterm losses

The New Hampshire Republican, who fell short in his comeback bid for the Senate on Tuesday, blamed Trump’s failure to deliver on his “drain the swamp” promise for the catastrophic results.

“Now it seems like he or his family is in on every transaction and deal that goes on in Washington,” Sununu told former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, according to a transcript released by Kasich’s SiriumXM show.

That, along with Trump’s handling of the Iran war, “caused people to say, ‘You know, I just can’t vote for a Republican while he’s still in office,’” Sununu said.

Colorado Republican Jeff Hurd wins reelection to the House

Republican incumbent Jeff Hurd defeated Democrat Dwayne Romero Friday in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.

Hurd was first elected to the House in 2024, representing Colorado’s rural Western Slope. He was a lawyer before entering Congress. Democrats had targeted the Republican-leaning district as a potential pickup opportunity. Romero is a retired Army officer and former state economic development official. The Associated Press declared Hurd the winner at 11:24 a.m. EST.

New York Republican Anthony Constantino wins House election

Constantino defeated Democrat Blake Gendebien on Friday in New York’s 21st Congressional District,

Constantino took over his father’s printing business and later founded his own, Sticker Mule. He prominently advertises his support for Trump on one of the company’s buildings. He says he was recruited to run by Trump ally Roger Stone and touts a stint as a professional boxer. He’ll replace Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik. The Associated Press declared Constantino the winner at 11:23 a.m. EST.

White House highlights website for Trump’s proposed arch after judge delays construction

The new website features a series of slick renderings showing the proposed 250-foot (76 meter) arch from multiple angles where Trump wants to build it between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The White House highlighted the website the morning after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on the arch for 14 days.

The judge’s decision followed a vote to approve the arch by a federal planning commission stocked with the Republican president’s allies. Thursday’s 8-4 vote came after hours of public testimony in opposition to the arch.

A group of veterans joined the District of Columbia and Virginia as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the arch.

US, allies condemn prison sentence for Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong

The United States and nine of its allies are condemning Hong Kong’s 10-year prison sentence for democracy activist Joshua Wong, demanding an immediate end to “unjust prosecutions” under a strict Beijing-imposed National Security Law.

Wong was sentenced on Thursday by a Hong Kong court for colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security. The U.S. consulate’s condemnation of the punishment was joined Friday by the governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

Their joint statement said the verdict and similar ones handed down recently show how the law “is being used to target individuals for political expression and participation,” and called for “an immediate end to all unjust prosecutions of individuals charged under the NSL.”

Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials have rejected the complaints.

Republicans might not regain a majority to approve justices for years

The Democrats’ sizable Senate margin will hamper GOP efforts to regain ground in 2028, when Republicans will be defending Senate seats in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Iowa.

“Chance of confirming a worthy successor to Justice Thomas and/or Alito during President Trump’s term: Zero,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X after Tuesday’s elections. “Chance of confirming a worthy successor during a hypothetical GOP admin 2029-2033: probably zero (GOP won’t be able to recapture enough seats in 28).”

Even if a surprise Supreme Court vacancy emerges in the coming weeks, a lame-duck confirmation while Republicans still remain in power isn’t a sure thing, given that Trump encouraged the exits of GOP senators Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn. Maine Sen. Susan Collins also attributed her defeat in part to Trump.

White House says it’s Democrats who have politicized the Supreme Court

“President Trump will never let them pack the Supreme Court and ruin the independent judiciary,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said, saying some “extreme Democrats” have been “entertaining plans to pack the Court with liberal justices.”

The two oldest justices, Samuel Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 78, have not publicly indicated an imminent retirement before Democratic majorities control the House and the Senate come January.

“I think the justices must know that if they were to retire now, at this moment, right before Democrats take the Senate, there would be an enormous amount of pressure unlike any we’ve seen to make serious change to the court,” said Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University.

Miller, long a key member of Trump’s inner circle, is a key architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies. He is one of Trump’s closest and longest-serving advisers, joining his long-shot 2016 presidential campaign as a speechwriter. He currently serves as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and oversees a broad portfolio, though he is best known for his role in Trump’s immigration policy.

The staff shuffle signals that Trump, now staring down a combative Congress that will soon be controlled by Democrats, is resisting a conciliatory approach after the GOP's midterm thrashing on Tuesday. Miller is a dogged defender of Trump and his “America First” principles, and has built a deep and sophisticated understanding of a president's executive power and how the federal government operates, portending a potential burst of executive actions in the final two years of Trump's presidency.

Wiles gave Trump her resignation on Thursday night, a person familiar with the events said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation. Trump praised Wiles in a Truth Social post and said she’d continue to work for his political organization.

“Serving President Trump in the White House has been the honor of a lifetime. I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First,” Wiles said in a social media post shortly after Trump’s announcement. She added that her commitment to “the President and the mission” will not change.

Wiles, the steely political operator and longtime adviser to Trump, was the first woman to ever serve in that post and the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Trump, who cycled through four of them during his first four-year term.

The departure also came months after Wiles indicated she no longer showed evidence of breast cancer after she underwent months of treatment for the disease, a diagnosis she went public with in March 2026.

Miller is a longtime Trump aide

During the midterm campaign, Miller took frequent partisan swipes at Democrats, calling them “extremists, freaks and America-hating lunatics” on social media and promoted unfounded theories about election fraud in California and Alaska.

He has been a major part of the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force targeting benefit programs and a decision to suspend Microsoft and others from a green card program. He also served as homeland security adviser at the White House, giving him a perch from which to coordinate with other agencies across the government.

Miller was a veteran Senate aide who worked for former Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., before he joined Trump's nascent presidential campaign in 2016. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump in his first run and later served as his attorney general.

But the immigration policies that Miller is so closely allied with were a major liability for Republicans during the just-wrapped election. The midterm AP Voter Poll found that most voters, about 6 in 10, said the administration’s immigration enforcement actions had gone too far and that they “somewhat” or “strongly” disapproved of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement had handled its responsibilities.

“Just days after the American people rejected his corrupt and lawless presidency, Donald Trump is doubling down,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., who is set to become chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee. “Stephen Miller is the architect of the unconstitutional ICE raids that have terrorized our communities and kidnapped and killed American citizens and immigrant families.”

In a statement, Garcia added: “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.”

Wiles brought order to Trump’s campaign

The veteran Florida operative joined Trump’s team during his 2016 presidential bid to run the campaign in his adopted home state. She performed the same role again in 2020 before overseeing the entire 50-state effort in 2024. She is the second woman to lead Trump’s presidential campaign to victory, although she never embraced the formal title of campaign manager.

Wiles, 69, has been credited with steering the most disciplined of his three presidential bids, and Trump himself has said he was often told that Wiles led his “best-run campaign.” Often called the “ice maiden” by the president, she was seen as the no-brainer choice to serve as White House chief of staff at the start of his second term.

She cut her reputation as someone who brought discipline to the president’s chaotic style and shunned the spotlight, so much so that at Trump’s 2024 election night victory party, she repeatedly shook her head and avoided the microphone as Trump tried to coax her to speak to the crowd.

Wiles showed unusual candor in an interview

But in December 2025, nearing the end of Trump’s first year back as president, Wiles became the headline when Vanity Fair magazine published a series of interviews with her and other top Trump administration officials conducted by the author Chris Whipple, an expert on White House chiefs of staff.

The Wiles interviews stuck out for their candor, which is unusual for a sitting White House chief of staff. She said Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality,” although the president does not drink, and said then-Attorney General Pam Bondi had “whiffed” in her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files while remarking that Vice President JD Vance has been a “conspiracy theorist for about a decade.”

Trump and other administration aides rushed to defend Wiles, who, in turn, disparaged Vanity Fair for publishing what she called a “disingenuously framed hit piece,” though she did not deny making the comments.

In the interviews, which were conducted over a period of several months, Wiles also revealed a bit of her management style, saying she was “not an enabler.”

“I try to be thoughtful about what I even engage in,” Wiles said. “I guess time will tell whether I’ve been effective.”

Trump went through four chiefs of staff in his first term: Reince Priebus, who Trump fired after just six months; John Kelly, who served the longest at 17 months; Mick Mulvaney, who held the role for a little over a year in an “acting” capacity; and Mark Meadows, who served as gatekeeper for the 10 months before Trump left office.

Wiles overcomes personal health struggle

Six months after her diagnosis, Wiles revealed she was “cancer-free," indicating she no longer showed evidence of cancer after her pathology results came back clear. She thanked her family, friends, doctors, and gave special thanks to Trump for his “unwavering support" in a statement.

“She’s tough,” Trump said at a White House event in October. “She’s a tremendous fighter.”

In a rare interview, Wiles told Fox News Digital last month that she hadn’t been planning on getting the mammogram that ultimately detected her cancer. Her doctor suggested she do the exam anyway, because a mammogram machine was available that day and her schedule was too busy and unpredictable.

“Had he not encouraged me to do it that day, I would have gone back to work and probably not thought about it again until July,” Wiles told the outlet. “We would be having a very different conversation in that case. Four months may not sound like a long time, but with cancer, early detection matters. I will always be grateful to my doctor for knowing me well enough to insist.”

Wiles is a seasoned political operative

In addition to Trump, Wiles also ran incumbent Sen. Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida governor and briefly served as manager of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign. She spearheaded Ron DeSantis ’ successful run for governor in 2018, but DeSantis would eventually urge the Trump campaign in 2020 to cut ties with Wiles, creating a rift that led to a particularly vicious effort by those in Trump’s orbit to mock DeSantis throughout his failed run for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump in 2024.

Wiles, the daughter of the late NFL player-turned-broadcaster Pat Summerall, also worked in the offices of former Jacksonville mayors John Delaney and John Peyton. Her first White House job was as a scheduler for President Ronald Reagan.

In addition to her government and campaign positions, Wiles has worked as a lobbyist. She was a partner at Florida-based Ballard Partners, which rose to prominence in Washington during Trump’s time in the White House. Her clients included General Motors, a trade group for children’s hospitals, homebuilders, and the city of Jacksonville.

She was also registered as a lobbyist for the Venezuelan television network Globovisión, which was owned by businessperson Raúl Gorrín, who was charged in Miami with money laundering. The firm later called its work for Gorrín a mistake and said Wiles had almost no role in managing the relationship with Gorrín.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

No suspicious items have been found and no one has been injured, but the threats have raised concern because they came on the heels of other European disruptions — including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems and drone incursions.

Overall, the threats have caused minimal disruption to aviation, according to the European air traffic authority. Eurocontrol said it was aware of bomb threats against 14 flights on Thursday — only 0.05% of all of the nearly 26,300 flights across the European network that day — and seven on Tuesday. The European Union's transportation commissioner, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, said there were 11 more on Friday.

Even so, airlines have to take every threat seriously because they are ultimately responsible for the lives of their passengers, said Robert Jordan, research director at Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank.

Jordan told the BBC that there are more ways than ever to make threats against flights, and secure messaging apps have allowed for greater anonymity.

“The risk appetite for airlines is always going to be incredibly low,” he said, noting the great strides that have been made in airport security in recent years. “It is baked into their safety procedures, and it’s baked into their security procedures.”

Tzitzikostas said after a meeting with Eurocontrol and the EU’s Aviation Safety Agency in Brussels that security experts will meet in the Belgian capital next week to discuss measures needed to deal with the bomb threats.

“Our priority here is clear. The safety of passengers and the smooth functioning of European aviation,” he said.

Fighter jets are scrambled

In Hungary, the defense minister said fighter jets escorted three passenger planes Friday through the country’s airspace within an hour after each received a bomb threat. Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi said the escorts were for flights from Brussels to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, and from Prague to Cyprus and Romania.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s office said four bomb threats were made against aircraft flying over France. The planes landed safely at Paris’ Orly Airport and bomb disposal experts conducted inspections. The office didn’t specify which flights were affected.

Threats were also made against a Prague-to-Bucharest, Romania, flight operated by Romanian carrier Tarom, and a Ryanair flight from the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, to Rome. A WizzAir flight from Prague to Rome was diverted to Venice after a bomb alert, and passengers were evacuated after the aircraft landed.

Eurocontrol said Friday it was monitoring the situation and working closely with airlines, airports, navigation service providers and other groups across Europe “to mitigate any disruption to air traffic flows.”

Nine of the affected flights were coming or going from Václav Havel Airport in Prague, airport spokesperson Denisa Hejtmánková said. They included flights from Denmark, Spain and Britain, and departures to the Netherlands and Britain, in addition to the ones to Cyprus, Italy and Romania. Czech police said security measures were taken that had “a minimal impact on the normal operations at the airport.”

Diverting and inspecting flights is costly, though.

“I think it’s a big problem for aviation that this is happening," Torstein Nymoen, a 52-year-old Norwegian traveler, said at the Prague airport. "It must cost a lot for the companies, the aviation companies. And I think that it’s sad that some people are doing this.”

In Denmark, police deployed to Copenhagen airport for a second consecutive day as a precautionary measure over threats directed at air traffic, and deemed there was no danger to passengers or others at the airport.

No clear evidence on who is behind the threats

More than two dozen flights were affected by threats earlier in the week, with some diverted as authorities scrambled to rule out any danger.

Fake bomb threats are relatively common but it is unusual to see so many in such a short period.

It remains unclear who is behind the airline threats, which come at a time of increased geopolitical tensions and warnings from authorities that Russia may be ramping up so-called hybrid threats in Europe.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Friday that the recent cyberattacks and bomb threats are cause for concern.

“Today we are not in a position to say whether these events are all connected,” she said on the sidelines of an event in Verona. “But they certainly tell us the same thing: that civilian infrastructure is under attack.”

Authorities haven't attributed the threats to any group or state actor, and no evidence has emerged linking the hoaxes to a government. An email containing the threat sent Thursday to airport authorities in Rome and reviewed by The Associated Press purported to come from a group describing itself as anti-feminist and claiming it was targeting a “feminist regime.” Another European airport received a threat with similar wording, but it was unclear if it came from the same sender.

Bomb threats are on pilots’ minds and create unnecessary tension, but crews are prepared to respond professionally, said Paul Reuter, vice president of the European Cockpit Association. Pilots review procedures with cabin crews, identify airports where they could divert and may carry extra fuel, he said.

Reuter called the use of civil aviation for geopolitical disruption or hoaxes “totally unacceptable.”

Broadcasters also received threats

In Ireland, the Dublin headquarters of national broadcaster RTE was evacuated Friday because of a bomb threat, and live broadcasts were replaced with prerecorded programs. Staff returned to the building after a few hours, once police with sniffer dogs had searched the area and declared it safe.

Ireland’s police force, An Garda Síochána, said it has been liaising with Irish media organizations and that the threat will be investigated.

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said the threats to RTE and others “just illustrates how relatively simple it can be to cause disruption and to undermine the normal operation of society through unconventional activities of this kind, which are designed to cause fear and anxiety.”

He said there would be a “very significant security operation” in place next week when Dublin hosts meetings of the European Political Community and European Union leaders.

Separately, U.K.-based broadcaster Sky said it had also received a “security threat.” In a statement reported by Sky News channel, it said that “we are working closely with authorities to ensure our people and operations remain secure.” Sky News remained on air.

Meanwhile, NOVA TV, a private broadcaster in Bulgaria, said it received an email Friday threatening it with a bomb. It said the sender claimed to be behind the threats to European air traffic, and that the broadcaster implemented its standard safety measures without any interruptions to its TV and radio broadcasts.

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Moulson reported from Berlin. These Associated Press reporters also contributed: Jill Lawless in London; Suman Naishadham in Madrid; Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England; Jamey Keaton in Geneva; Giada Zampano in Rome; Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria; Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus; Sylvie Corbet in Paris; and Mark Carlson in Brussels.

Allan Filgueiras, a pilot who helped teach his daughter to fly, was searching for answers as to why the plane plunged from the sky on Sunday. Instead, he found immense pride in how his daughter, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, handled the crisis.

“I did listen to that many times trying to find a clue. In my head. How’d that happen? And wow, she’s tough,” Allan Filgueiras said at a news conference Friday.

“I wanted to be by her side,” he said, at times holding back tears. “Inside the plane. To help.”

In her conversation with air traffic control, Nathalia Filgueiras can first be heard calmly reporting ice buildup on the plane as it flew into a thunderstorm and turbulence tossed it up and down by 700 feet (200 meters). The situation quickly escalated as the aircraft fell at breathtaking speed. “Declare an emergency 722-Bravo-Delta. We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute!” she said.

Her father and aviation safety experts are impressed that Filgueiras continued to call out updates on what was happening even as she realized the plane’s fate was sealed.

“For the family — it’s like having the heart torn from my chest,” her father said in Spanish. “I have to find a way to go on living.”

The family wants to push back against online criticism over whether she had enough experience to be in the cockpit of a high-performance business jet. She had more than 1,300 hours of experience and completed extensive training to earn her commercial pilot’s license and get certified for a Learjet. The plane’s captain, 55-year-old Jeff Gregory, is believed to have been at the controls in the aircraft’s final minutes.

So, on Friday, her father held a news conference that his lawyer said was intended to “preserve not just her memory, but her reputation.”

“She was at the top of her class in everything that she did, and she was perfectly qualified to be the co-pilot on this flight, despite her tender years,” attorney Stuart Grossman said, noting there were no immediate plans to file a lawsuit over the crash.

It’s far too early in the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation to know what caused the crash. As it fell, the Learjet accelerated beyond its design limits and pieces of the plane’s tail were found miles away from the crash site.

Allan Filgueiras said he first took his daughter flying at age 12 and later started teaching her to fly. After she got a job as a pilot, she told her dad she couldn’t believe she was getting paid to do something she loved.

“It was her happiest moment, to fly,” he said.

Retired airline pilot John Cox, who is now the CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said earlier this week that his career began similarly to Filgueiras, as he started flying professionally at age 19. He said she was doing quite well to earn that co-pilot’s seat.

“To be in the right seat of a Lear 60, she had to impress somebody, because that’s a good ride. I mean, that’s great. I know she loved it,” Cox said.

Her father believes she handled the crisis better than most.

“She showed me what it is to be a hero because once you see that coming, a lot of the big boys — military or whatever — they can’t handle. And she was the one over there to the last minute fighting,” Allan Filgueiras said.

The crash victims included technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson; his wife, Helen Sharp; and their two young children, relatives said. The family’s nanny, Ana María Ramírez Cetina, was also killed.

Federal prosecutors say Matthew Farwell killed Sandra Birchmore, 23, and tried to stage her death as a suicide on Feb. 1, 2021, after learning she was pregnant with what he thought was his child. At the time, Farwell was a married detective with the Stoughton Police Department, where Birchmore had participated in a youth program as a child.

“You know on Feb. 1 Matthew Farwell didn’t go to Sandra Birchmore’s apartment for a clean break,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Fogarty told the jury. “He went to clean up the mess he created for himself years earlier, a mess that could bring serious charges and destroy his life. He cleaned up the mess by taking Sandra's life.”

Lawyers for Farwell, who is now 40, acknowledge he had an extramarital relationship with Birchmore. But they say he didn't kill her and didn't have sex with her until she was old enough to consent under Massachusetts law. They also argued that Birchmore had threatened suicide before and took her own life after Farwell left her apartment the night of her death.

Massachusetts State Police officers and investigators, some with personal connections to Farwell, quickly concluded Birchmore’s death was a suicide after she was found slumped on her apartment floor with a strap around her neck.

“When all is lost and all hope is gone and you're alone in the world, are you going to pick your phone up or did she sit down and take that strap and make the pain stop?” Farwell’s attorney, Kimberly Stevens, told the jury in closings.

The nearly monthlong trial — with about 50 witnesses and 500 exhibits — has unfolded in federal court in Boston, partly because local prosecutors never brought criminal charges.

The defense contends there is no evidence that Birchmore was going to tell law enforcement about his alleged crimes.

One of the investigators, Fogarty said, saw nothing suspicious in Birchmore's apartment and concluded this was a “troubled girl who killed herself.”

The state’s medical examiner, relying partly on information from police, initially ruled that Birchmore died by suicide. The office has since changed the official manner of death to “undetermined.”

But Birchmore's friends and family never believed the teacher's aide had killed herself.

She had told dozens of friends about her pregnancy and, according to prosecutors, was thrilled to start her next chapter as a single mom. A stroller, still in the box, was found in her apartment along with an ultrasound photo pinned to her refrigerator.

The FBI began looking into Birchmore’s death in 2023, partly at the urging of a former deputy chief at the Stoughton Police Department who had led an internal affairs investigation into Farwell and several other officers accused of misconduct.

Federal investigators concluded the local probe was rushed and compromised. Farwell was interviewed for just 15 minutes in a parking lot, they said. Investigators didn’t take notes, examine him for injuries or sample his DNA. Police did look at Farwell’s phone, but only after he had deleted texts with Birchmore.

Farwell’s twin brother, Billy Farwell, testified that the lead investigator — a longtime family friend — told him he wanted the case closed and needed the investigation like he needed a “bullet in the head.”

The FBI investigation uncovered about 40,000 texts between Farwell and Birchmore, including some in which they reminisced about having sex when he was 27 and she was 15.

The text exchanges also showed how their relationship grew contentious as Birchmore pressed Farwell to get her pregnant and threatened to tell his wife about their relationship. Texts in late 2020, after she was pregnant, showed they argued over what role, if any, Farwell would play in the child's life.

A paternity test later revealed a different man had gotten Birchmore pregnant.

At trial, a digital forensics expert testified that Birchmore’s phone stopped moving three minutes before the lobby security camera recorded Farwell leaving her building on the night of her death.

An expert hired by prosecutors, Dr. William Smock, testified that Birchmore’s injuries indicated she was strangled with a duffel bag strap and that she struggled before dying.

A defense expert, Dr. Thomas Andrew, the former chief medical examiner in New Hampshire, dismissed Smock's determination that it was a homicide.

Murphy, 53, said in a statement that doctors are “very encouraged by the progress I've made so far" and that the stay at the rehabilitation center will get him back to work on the quickest timeline possible.

Murphy said doctors diagnosed him with a small hemorrhagic stroke, which is a bleed in the brain. He said he called 911 on Oct. 31 out of an abundance of caution after feeling that “something was not right” with his body.

“This has been a scary experience for me and my family, and I appreciate the continued respect for our privacy,” he said.

The press release updating Murphy's condition included a statement from Dr. Jose Suarez, chief of neurosciences critical care at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Suarez said the senator has shown tremendous progress and “we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation.”

In the Senate, Murphy serves on the Appropriations Committee and is a leading voice on immigration and gun policy. He is considered a contender for more senior leadership positions in the Senate and among the many Democrats seen as potential 2028 candidates for the White House.

Murphy said that he has been staying engaged with his team and colleagues remotely and that his staff continues to ensure the work of his office continues uninterrupted.

“I want to extend my deepest thanks to the excellent doctors and staff at Johns Hopkins who have treated me and cared for my family,” Murphy said.

Murphy had been traveling the country in support of House and Senate candidates as his party raced for majority control, which it secured in Tuesday’s midterm elections. A day before the stroke, he posted that he had been campaigning in his home state for Gov. Ned Lamont. The week before, he posted from Minnesota campaigning with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee for the Senate.

Lamont won reelection on Tuesday, and Flanagan won her race, becoming the first Native American female U.S. senator.

The final sprint before Election Day capped Murphy’s whirlwind trip to the Middle East at the start of October for meetings with several leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In early September, Murphy completed his annual “walk across Connecticut,” covering about 70 miles (113 kilometers) over four days, talking with residents about their concerns along the way.

Three other Senate Democrats have had strokes in recent years.

Sens. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland had strokes in 2022 and have since recovered. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman had a stroke while campaigning for his seat that year and now uses adaptive technology in the Senate, including live captioning on a phone or tablet that transcribes words as people speak to him and helps him process the conversation.

Fetterman said on social media the day after Murphy's stroke that his family was “rooting for Chris and his family for a full and speedy recovery.”

The S&P 500 rose 0.7% and trimmed its loss for the week to 2.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 84 points, or 0.2%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% higher.

The relative steadiness for Wall Street halted what had been a worldwide tumble for stocks. Indexes dropped 6% in Tokyo and 6% in Seoul following the U.S. market’s plunge on Thursday, which was its worst since President Donald Trump shook markets in April 2025 with his “Liberation Day” tariffs. European indexes have fewer stocks tied to the artificial-intelligence industry, but Germany’s DAX nevertheless lost 1.9%.

Friday’s biggest lift for the S&P 500 came from Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the face of the boom and possible bust of the AI frenzy. Its stock climbed 3.6%, coming off drops of 9.3% and 3.2%.

It and other companies tied to the build-out of AI data centers tumbled this week on worries that Democratic victories in statehouses across the country could mean a slowdown in further construction, particularly in Texas. Voters across political parties say they’re wary about AI and don’t like increases to power bills caused by data centers.

That built on top of worries already rattling the industry that further construction of AI data centers may slow because of how expensive it’s become to borrow money. Before that, even, critics were saying AI stock prices had shot too high and were in a bubble.

But political power in Washington will still be split between a Democratic Congress and a White House run by the Republican Trump, who retains the power to veto. That could limit federal efforts to rein in the AI industry.

In the meantime, companies in the industry still see strong growth.

IREN, a company that delivers data centers, compute and software for AI training, reported stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its stock jumped 19.4%, and it also announced two new contracts signed since the end of the quarter.

“We own the land, the power and the data centers under all of it, which gives us more ways to fund growth and lets us set its pace,” co-CEO Daniel Roberts said.

Lam Research, a company whose equipment and services help make semiconductors, climbed 8.5% after announcing a program to send up to $25 billion to its investors by buying back shares of its own stock.

That helped other stocks that have benefited from the build-out of AI data centers recover some of their own sharp losses. CoreWeave, which rents out access to AI chips to customers over the cloud, rose 5.8%. Micron Technology, which sells memory for computers, climbed 5.6%.

Outside of AI, the U.S. stock market was mixed, and more stocks fell within the S&P 500 than rose.

Axon Enterprise tumbled 17.1% after the seller of Tasers reported weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also announced a $1.2 billion investment in Skydio, a drone technology company.

Charter Communications sank 5.7% after the internet and video provider reported a loss for the latest quarter, when analysts were expecting a profit.

Despite all its vicious swings this week, the S&P 500 remains only 5.3% below its all-time high, which was set last month.

In the bond market, Treasury yields steadied following sharp drops earlier in the week triggered by tumbling stock prices and hopes that split control of Washington could limit how much more the U.S. government adds to its debt.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.85% from 4.84% late Thursday. It had topped 5.30% last month when worries about inflation, higher interest rates and rising government debt were spiking.

Helping to support yields was a report showing U.S. employers hired many more workers last month than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the U.S. economy continues to chug along despite high inflation.

On one hand, the encouraging data could mean the U.S. economy may be able to absorb a slowdown in construction of AI data centers. But at the same time, the strong growth in jobs could push upward on inflation. Following the report, traders saw a greater probability of the Federal Reserve hiking its short-term interest rate at its next meeting in December, according to data from CME Group.

Rate hikes by the Fed can rein in inflation, but they do so by making borrowing money more expensive for everyone and slowing the overall economy.

A separate report, meanwhile, suggested that sentiment among U.S. consumers unexpectedly improved. The preliminary report from the University of Michigan said sentiment rose for lower- and middle-wealth Americans but fell for those with the largest stock portfolios.

Perhaps more importantly for the bond market, the survey also suggested expectations for inflation in the coming year eased for Americans. That could prevent a vicious cycle where expectations for high inflation drive behavior that only worsens inflation.

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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

Meanwhile, deadly airstrikes at a popular market in a city in neighboring Yemen killed at least 30 people Friday, the health ministry run by the country's Houthi rebels said.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Friday. Read our full coverage here.

Trump discusses de-escalation efforts with Qatar's emir

The telephone call between Trump and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani centered on international efforts to end tensions, according to a statement from the Qatari ruler's media office. The two discussed in particular Qatar’s mediation efforts aimed at reaching “a comprehensive agreement that ends the crisis and achieves security and stability in the region.”

Qatar has been mediating between the United States and Iran to end the war. Qatar and other U.S.-allied Gulf Arab countries came under heavy fire by Iran earlier in the U.S.-Iran war and have been anxious to avoid a new escalation that could leave them vulnerable to attacks.

During the call, Sheik Tamim “stressed the importance of continuing dialogue and adopting diplomatic means to resolve disputes, sparing the region further escalation, and ensuring freedom of maritime navigation and the security of energy supplies,” according to the statement.

Iran's foreign minister continues telephone diplomacy with regional counterparts

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held separate phone calls with his Iraqi and Tunisian counterparts on Friday to outline diplomatic progress aimed at easing tensions in the region.

Araghchi outlined in his call with Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein the Islamic Republic’s vision to resume negotiations with the U.S., according to Iraq’s News Agency.

Araghchi said Iran’s vision, which he said was presented to the U.S. before the midterm elections, includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, setting a timetable for the start of negotiations, and adding issues related to Iran’s nuclear program, Iraq's state media said.

Earlier this week, he talked with Turkey and Gulf leaders about regional developments and securing freedom of maritime navigation.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty stressed the need to prioritize diplomatic solutions during a call Thursday with Araghchi.

Abdelatty urged all sides to display flexibility and compromise to reach a political solution and avoid further escalation, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nader Zaki said.

One of the deadliest strikes in Yemen since fighting resumed

Airstrikes hit a popular market in southwestern Yemen on Friday, killing at least 30 people, according to an official with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

If confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest attacks since fighting resumed between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces.

Yemen’s Saudi-backed military and the Houthi rebels traded accusations over responsibility for the deadly airstrike on the market. The Associated Press could not independently verify their claims.

Another eight people were wounded in the airstrikes on the market in al-Waziyah in the province of Taiz, a Houthi health ministry spokesperson, Anees Alsabahi, said on X.

Taiz is mostly controlled by the Houthis, who have besieged the provincial capital, where the Saudi-allied government and its forces are based.

Italians detained in the West Bank

Italy’s Foreign Ministry said Friday it was seeking the release of several Italians detained by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank while assisting Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest.

The ministry said the group may include four Italian activists and two Italian journalists, though officials were still verifying the number and identities of those involved.

Italy’s embassy in Tel Aviv and consulate in Jerusalem have asked Israeli authorities for their immediate release and for consular access. The detainees are being held at a police station in the Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit and are expected to be transferred to a holding facility at Ben Gurion Airport pending deportation on the first available flights.

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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

Chief Justice-elect Maggie Ellis, a Democrat elected Tuesday, has expressed opposition to a policy allowing Texas judges to decline officiating weddings that conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs.

The policy, adopted by the Texas Supreme Court in October 2025, protects judges who choose not to perform certain marriage ceremonies, including same-sex weddings.

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Ellis has indicated she wants to revisit those protections, raising questions about whether judges who voluntarily officiate weddings should be required to serve all legally eligible couples.

On Friday, the Plano-based First Liberty Institute criticized her position, accusing the incoming chief justice of undermining religious freedom.

Ellis has opposed the policy since before her election

Ellis’s opposition is not new. In a 2025 candidate questionnaire submitted to Stonewall Democrats of Austin, she identified the Texas Supreme Court’s decision as a motivating factor in her campaign.

“When the TXSC issued its order on October 24 of this year stating that judges would not be penalized for refusing to perform same-sex (or other) weddings based on a deeply held religious belief, I found that to be an attack on our community and our Constitution, and I made the decision to run for a seat on that Court,” Ellis wrote.

“We must do what we can within our power to protect our rights and the rights of our community.”

Ellis, who has served on Texas’ Third Court of Appeals since January 2025, campaigned on expanding access to justice and removing politics from the judiciary.

Her opposition centers on a distinction between a judge’s right to decline officiating weddings altogether and a judge’s ability to perform ceremonies for some couples while refusing others.

Under the approach First Liberty says Ellis supports, judges would remain free to stop officiating weddings but could not selectively refuse ceremonies based on religious objections.

Religious liberty group vows to defend existing protections

First Liberty Institute, a legal organization specializing in religious freedom cases, issued a statement Friday condemning Ellis’s position.

“It’s sad that an incoming Justice’s first public statement is one against religious freedom,” said Kelly Shackelford, the organization’s president, CEO and chief counsel.

“We’ve won in litigation on this very issue. Religious freedom and accommodation are fundamental rights rooted in the history and tradition of America. The new Chief Justice is off to a regrettable start.”

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Shackelford said the organization stands ready to defend judges affected by any change to the policy.

First Liberty argues that judges should not be forced to choose between officiating weddings and following their religious convictions.

The organization has previously represented judges involved in disputes over same-sex marriage ceremonies, including a McLennan County justice of the peace whose case helped shape the current protections.

A yearslong legal battle

The dispute traces back to Judge Dianne Hensley, a justice of the peace in McLennan County who stopped performing weddings for same-sex couples because of her Christian beliefs.

Hensley continued officiating opposite-sex weddings and developed a referral system directing same-sex couples to other officiants willing to perform their ceremonies for the same price.

In 2019, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued Hensley a public warning, finding that her conduct raised concerns about judicial impartiality.

Hensley challenged the disciplinary action, arguing that it violated her religious freedom rights.

The case eventually reached the Texas Supreme Court, which ruled in 2024 that Hensley could pursue certain legal claims against the commission.

Then, on Oct. 24, 2025, the court adopted a new comment to the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct:

“It is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.”

On Jan. 9, 2026, the court issued another decision addressing whether judges could publicly refuse same-sex weddings for moral or religious reasons while continuing to perform opposite-sex ceremonies.

The justices concluded that the judicial conduct provision at issue did not prohibit that practice.

The ruling reinforced the protections that Ellis now wants the court to reconsider.

What could change?

Despite Ellis’s election, the existing judicial policy remains in effect.

Changing the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct would require action by the court, meaning Ellis could not unilaterally eliminate the accommodation upon taking office.

The issue also does not change the legality of same-sex marriage in Texas.

Same-sex couples have had the constitutional right to marry nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

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Instead, the disagreement concerns the responsibilities of judges who choose to perform marriage ceremonies as an authorized service.

Ellis’s position raises questions about equal treatment by public officials, while First Liberty argues that the existing policy protects religious conscience.

With Ellis preparing to lead the state’s highest civil court and First Liberty signaling its willingness to challenge any changes, the dispute could become an early test of how the incoming court balances religious liberty and judicial impartiality.

With Uruguay’s President Yamandú Orsi on hand at Carrasco International Airport to welcome him and bells pealing at parishes and churches across the nation, the pontiff landed in Montevideo after a nearly 14-hour flight from Rome. It is the first papal visit in nearly four decades to Uruguay, Latin America’s most secular country; Pope John Paul II last visited in 1988.

The packed three-day itinerary in Uruguay includes a visit to a neighborhood plagued by gang violence, a Mass in Paysandú, around 375 kilometers (230 miles) from the capital, and another Mass in the city of Florida, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Montevideo.

The aircraft, adorned with the flags of the Vatican and Uruguay, touched down at 4:20 p.m. local time. The pontiff was offered a selection of traditional gifts, including a handwoven wool blanket and a traditional gaucho horse tack set.

After Uruguay, Leo will travel to Argentina, the homeland of the late Pope Francis, who never visited during his 12-year papacy. His last stop is Peru, where Leo holds citizenship and spent two decades as a missionary and bishop.

The trip to Latin America marks the longest and farthest of his pontificate, all being undertaken as the 71-year-old pope continues his recovery. The trip will also bring him to neighboring Argentina and finally back home to Peru, where Leo served as a missionary priest and bishop for two decades.

“His stamina is fantastic. The way that he's singing is incredible. And you can only sing if your lungs are really strong,” said María Montserrat Alvarado, the Vatican's new communications chief. She noted that Leo has passed the 14-day convalescence period required by doctors after his Oct. 13 surgery and is eager to get on the road.

“His doctors are very confident and he'll have plenty of medical care on board should something happen, but we don't see that in his prognosis or even in the way that he's acting,” she said.

Secularism rules in Uruguay

In Uruguay, which hasn’t had a papal visit since 1988, Leo is expected to try to remind the 3.5 million people of their strong Catholic heritage stemming from the times of Spanish colonial rule. He's likely to propose the faith anew as an answer to today’s challenges and problems.

Leo will meet with Orsi, leader of the center-left alliance that assumed power in March 2025, and then deliver his welcome address to government officials and diplomats. He finishes the long day with a vespers service at the city's cathedral.

Leo will find in Uruguay a country unlike any other in Latin America, which is home to around 40% of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Uruguay is considered the most secular country in the region, where only a fraction of people who identify as Catholic actually go to Mass regularly.

Uruguay’s secularism has roots in the weakness of its colonial church. With no gold or silver to mine, Spain valued the land of cattle ranches mainly as a buffer against Portuguese Brazil and left it largely unsettled. Montevideo was founded only in the 1720s, roughly two centuries after Mexico City and Lima.

With few priests and no local bishop, the church never became the powerful institution it was elsewhere in the empire. “Uruguay was colonized late, and that made Catholicism weaker,” said Gerardo Caetano, a Uruguayan historian.

Montevideo awoke to its usual calm. Along the waterfront, joggers were out for their morning runs and residents walked their dogs along the very same promenade that the pope is set to visit just a few hours later.

“We still don’t understand why he chose Uruguay, given that it’s a secular country, but we hope he leaves something positive behind," said Mary Fernández while drinking mate, Uruguay's beloved beverage.

The origins of the separation between church and state can be traced back to the 19th century, particularly to the spread of liberal ideas promoted by European intellectuals, who viewed religion as a symptom of backwardness or a lack of rationality, said Luis Bahamondes, a professor at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Chile.

“While Latin America also experienced a separation of church and state, the Catholic Church has nonetheless maintained strong ties with the various states in the region,” he said. “In this context, Uruguay stands out as a paradigmatic example of how secularism can be implemented.”

This process went so far as to include the renaming of certain holidays to reflect their secular character — such as “Family Day” and “Tourism Week” — signaling that the “inherent weight of Catholicism had no place within the State’s official framework,” Bahamondes added.

Since then, Uruguay has become the first country in the world to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the second country in Latin America to decriminalize abortion, and the third country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage.

More recently, it became the first country in the region to approve assisted dying legislation despite the strong opposition of the Catholic Church.

Uruguayan church officials have marveled at the apparent enthusiasm that the visit has provoked, with reports that tickets to Leo’s prayer vigil at Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium were snapped up after two days.

“It seems that the pope’s presence is shifting something here and is gradually breaking down this veil that has always sought to obscure and diminish the presence of the Catholic tradition that lies at the country’s foundation,” said Guzmán Carriquiry, the Uruguayan former head of the Vatican’s pontifical commission for Latin America.

Recalling the Catholic origins of independence

Carriquiry said that he expects Leo will seek to revive the Catholic roots of Uruguay, especially when he travels to the city of Florida on Sunday to mark an important Catholic feast day.

The Nov. 8 feast commemorates the Virgin of the Thirty-three, a small wooden icon of the Virgin Mary that is intricately connected to Uruguay’s independence movement. According to tradition, 33 independence patriots acquired the Guaraní statue and had it with them when independence was declared from the Brazilian empire in Florida on Aug. 25, 1825.

“So the number 33 is an ecclesiastical symbol, a national symbol,” said Carriquiry. “And so the pope will speak there about the Catholic tradition that lies at the origin of Uruguay — that stems from Uruguay and gave rise to Uruguay — in order to revive and renew the Catholic tradition in the hearts of Uruguayans.”

Andrew Chesnut, chair of Catholic studies and an expert in the Latin American church at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that he wasn’t surprised that Leo’s visit had generated enthusiasm and that he will be welcomed warmly.

“But that’s not necessarily going to translate into folks in the pews,” he said. “If the overarching goal is trying to revitalize Catholicism in the most Catholic region on Earth, Uruguay is kind of a lost cause, and it has been for decades.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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This story has been corrected to show that the last name of the Vatican’s new communications chief is Alvarado, not Alvar.

Rockefeller died Thursday night at his home in Washington, said Mary Stewart, vice president for external affairs at WETA, the public broadcasting station where Rockefeller’s wife, Sharon, serves as president and CEO.

Rockefeller came from one of the nation’s richest families to spend a half century in public service in one of the poorest states. He arrived in 1964 as a worker in an anti-poverty program, was elected governor a dozen years later and served two terms, then spent 30 years as a U.S. senator.

“I could not imagine a more rewarding career,” Rockefeller said upon his retirement in 2015.

He was born John D. Rockefeller IV in New York City. His great-grandfather, Standard Oil Co. founder John Rockefeller, died a month before Rockefeller’s birth. His father, John D. Rockefeller III, was a well-known philanthropist. Uncles Winthrop (Arkansas) and Nelson (New York) were Republican governors. Another uncle, David Rockefeller, ran Chase Manhattan Bank.

A detour from his family's path

Jay Rockefeller went in a different direction.

A few years out of college at age 27, Rockefeller moved to the West Virginia mining community of Emmons to participate in the Volunteers in Service to America program, a time that Rockefeller said proved transformative.

“It explains every policy I pursued and every vote I have cast. It was where my beliefs were bolted down, and where my passions met my principles,” he said in an emotional farewell speech from the Senate floor on Dec. 4, 2014.

While he intended for his stay in the state to be brief, Rockefeller broke from his family’s Republican tradition and was elected to the state House of Delegates as a Democrat in 1966. By combining money with hard work in a traditionally Democratic state, Rockefeller overcame suspicions of political opportunism and rose from state legislator to secretary of state to governor.

A turning point came after Rockefeller’s only political defeat in the 1972 governor’s race to Republican Arch A. Moore Jr., whose daughter, Republican Shelley Moore Capito, was elected in 2014 to Rockefeller’s Senate seat upon his retirement. Capito on Friday called Rockefeller “a true gentleman" who treated her with respect, kindness and encouragement.

“Over the years, we developed a wonderful friendship that transcended politics, and I will always be grateful for that,” she said in a statement.

After the defeat, Rockefeller remained in West Virginia, a decision he called the most important of his career. He became the first without a theological degree to become president of West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1973. His popularity there — and a change in his stance to embrace strip mining — translated to a landslide win over Republican Cecil Underwood in the 1976 governor’s race.

As governor, Rockefeller emphasized development of the state’s infrastructure, such as roads, sewers and bridges. Those issues, he said, are “not very sexy things, I grant you but very, very necessary in West Virginia.”

Current Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Rockefeller helped shape the state and left a lasting mark on the lives of generations of West Virginians.

“From his early work in some of our state’s most disadvantaged communities to his efforts to strengthen healthcare, protect coal miners and their families, and support our veterans, Senator Rockefeller demonstrated a deep commitment to the people of West Virginia,” Morrisey said in a statement.

Onward to Washington

After Rockefeller defeated Arch Moore in a rematch in 1980, he won a U.S. Senate seat in 1984 after the retirement of longtime Democrat Jennings Randolph. It came despite a landslide victory that year for Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Rockefeller and his wife, Sharon, daughter of former Republican Sen. Charles Percy of Illinois, fit easily into the capital’s social scene, purchasing a multimillion-dollar estate for their family. Never shy or apologetic about using his inherited $150 million fortune to win his races, he spent millions upon millions from his own pocket. He won by comfortable margins in each of his five terms.

Rockefeller’s vast wealth was always a source of conversation and an undercurrent in his political races. He spent at least $21 million of his own money in his political campaigns, including $9 million to win a close 1984 Senate race against Republican novice and fellow multimillionaire John Raese. In Rockefeller’s 1980 gubernatorial race against Republican Arch Moore Jr., bumper stickers appeared saying: “Make Him Spend It All, Arch.”

The state’s junior senator for 25 years, Rockefeller carved his own path of influence in Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s immense shadow. Byrd died in 2010 as the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, winning an enduring reputation for steering billions of dollars over many decades to boost his impoverished state.

Rockefeller’s influence was less showy. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, he championed consumers’ rights, upgrading broadband infrastructure and sponsoring a bill to block companies from tracking online activity of their customers. He authored legislation in 1997 that created the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which assists poor families whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid.

He also was head of committees on Veterans' Affairs and Intelligence, frequently sparring with President George W. Bush over foreign policy. Rockefeller said he regretted his 2002 vote to authorize the war against Iraq.

But Rockefeller also differed with the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama over mining-related regulations. With his state the nation’s second-biggest coal producer, Rockefeller was among several West Virginia officials who opposed the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency’s oversight of the mountaintop removal method of surface mining.

College studies in Tokyo laid the groundwork for Rockefeller’s efforts to bring business from Japan to West Virginia. He had known Toyota’s founding family since the 1960s and was instrumental in helping the Japanese automaker pick a Buffalo, West Virginia, cornfield for an engine parts plant in 1996. The $2 billion plant now employs about 2,200 workers.

___ An earlier version of this report had an incorrect spelling of West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s last name.

___

Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez sentenced Brown to three years of probation, during which time he will have to attend weekly counseling sessions and not possess a firearm, among other conditions.

Wearing a black leather jacket and white pants, he spoke sparingly and in a low voice during the brief proceedings in Miami state court. As he entered his guilty plea, the judge asked him to speak up.

Outside the courtroom, Brown thanked God and said he wanted to “get back to life” and his family.

He declined to answer other questions, but his lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh, said they were “extremely grateful” the case was behind them.

“My client was facing 30 years in prison with a 20-year minimum mandatory, and he was given an offer he just couldn’t refuse,” he said. “Probation was too good to turn down, and we’re both very excited about the outcome.”

The plea to the reduced charge allows the All-Pro wide receiver to avoid prison time and a criminal conviction.

Brown had initially been charged with attempted murder after police say he grabbed a handgun from a security staffer at the event and fired two shots at a man he had been in a fistfight with earlier.

Brown, 38, maintained he was defending himself from an attack as others were trying to steal jewelry from him.

Florida’s Stand Your Ground law allows people who believe they face death or serious injury to use deadly force to defend themselves without a duty to retreat.

Prosecutor Howard Rosen said in court Friday that his office was seeking to reduce the charge against Brown because there was “a question” of whether he was actually attempting to shoot the victim, who had been walking away from the altercation at the time.

He noted the victim, who was grazed in the neck, was in court for the hearing and has said publicly that he wouldn't cooperate with police and didn't want to press charges.

“Rather than the entire case going away and there being no opportunity for Mr. Brown to receive what's ultimately going to be some therapeutic treatment, we all came together — the defense and the state — and decided that this was in the best interest of everybody,” Rosen said.

The victim, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, has said previously that he’s since forgiven Brown.

“We are grateful to the Court for ratifying this carefully crafted agreement,” Richard Cooper, his lawyer, said in a statement. “We have maintained that we wish Mr. Brown healing and a path closer to God.”

Brown spent 12 years in the NFL, most of it with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021 under quarterback Tom Brady.

The following season, though, Brown effectively ended his career when he inexplicably took off his jersey, shoulder pads and gloves and ran off the field during a game. The Buccaneers released him after the incident.

Brown has dealt with other legal problems in recent years.

He previously was accused of battery on a moving truck driver, several domestic violence charges, failure to pay child support and other incidents.

Brown was extradited in November 2025 from Dubai, where he has business interests, after an arrest warrant on the attempted murder charge was issued in June of the same year.

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Marcelo reported from New York.

Agents searched two units rented by Thomas Markle Sr. and “seized approximately 78 items, including slides, film negatives, and books” that contained suspected child sexual abuse images, said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in Los Angeles.

Some images appear to depict him with children, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.

“These allegations are extremely serious, and we will prosecute Mr. Markle to the fullest extent of federal law,” Essayli said in a written statement.

Markle was arrested in Polk County and appeared Friday in federal court in Tampa. Phone and email messages seeking comment from his court-appointed attorney were not immediately returned.

Materials found overseas led to US investigation

His arrest followed reports by The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, that Meghan’s half brother found a collection of child sexual abuse images while clearing out their father’s home in the Philippines. That discovery led to information about the U.S. storage units in the Los Angeles area, which Markle has rented since 2008.

The Daily Mail, another British tabloid, first reported Markle’s arrest.

Essayli told the AP that there's no evidence of victims in the United States, based on the seized material, but the investigation was ongoing.

Markle was living in the Philippines earlier this year when he suffered a stroke and had his left leg amputated. That forced him to return to the U.S.

The Sun reported that Thomas Markle Jr. found “hundreds, if not thousands” of child sex abuse images in boxes at his father’s home in Cebu City. Markle Jr. told The Sun that he reported the images to police in the Philippines and contacted the FBI.

“I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years — but that stops now,” Markle Jr. said. “I won’t speak to my father ever again unless I’m called to give evidence against him.”

Essayli said Markle's mental health would be discussed in court to determine if he can be released on bond. He said his office is aware of public reporting that Markle could have dementia.

Meghan has distanced herself from her father

Meghan, an American citizen who starred in the U.S. television drama “Suits,” married Prince Harry at Windsor Castle in 2018. They have two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

She recently said she was “deeply distressed” by allegations that a collection of child sexual abuse images had been found at her father’s former home. She also revealed that a letter containing “troubling allegations” about him had been sent to police in London in 2019.

“It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated,” Meghan said of the letter. “I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children was for one reason: to protect them.”

There was no immediate comment from Meghan’s representative on Friday, and Buckingham Palace is not expected to say anything about the arrest.

While Harry is the second son of King Charles III, he and Meghan are not working members of the royal family, meaning they don’t carry out public engagements on behalf of the king. They walked away from royal duties when they moved to California in 2020. After they returned to the U.K. in August, Charles issued a statement saying their status had not changed.

Thomas Markle Sr., a retired television lighting and photography director, has never established a relationship with Meghan’s in-laws. He didn’t attend the wedding after a scandal that emerged when he posed for pictures that were staged by a British tabloid newspaper. Their estrangement has continued ever since.

___

Durkin Richer reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press journalists Ed White in Detroit; Danica Kirka in London; Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; and Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles contributed.

___

This story has been corrected to show Meghan said the letter was sent to police in London in 2019, not 2018.

María Montserrat Alvarado, the Mexican-American former head of the Washington, D.C.-based EWTN Catholic broadcasting empire, took over as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications on Nov. 1, succeeding Paolo Ruffini.

Alvarado is the first woman to lead the office, one of the largest and costliest parts of the Holy See bureaucracy. Its size reflects the Vatican's mission to communicate the Catholic faith around the world.

But the office has long faced criticism from Vatican financial officials over its budget and staffing, and from journalists who complain that it is too slow to respond to requests for information and comment — if it responds at all.

Overall, Vatican communications is very much beholden to the generally secretive and defensive ethos that guides the Holy See, where the concept of the public’s right to know is unheard of and there is often a general distrust of secular media.

Already a new style on display

Alvarado offered a glimpse of her communications style at her inaugural press conference this week, joining Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni for the traditional briefing to journalists ahead of Leo’s three-nation tour of Latin America.

Bruni provided details on Leo’s schedule and fielded questions, particularly about his health. Alvarado made clear that she had access to Leo and could speak for him, including about how he felt about returning home to Peru and what he wanted people to understand about the trip.

“Certainly the homecoming piece is very important to him. He feels that very deeply. This is a place that gave him his ministry and inspired who he is as a pastor,” she said.

She relayed a message he had prepared for journalists and asked her to share, as if to assert a degree of proximity that Vatican spokespeople haven’t necessarily enjoyed since the era of St. John Paul II’s spokesperson Joaquín Navarro-Valls.

In the message, Leo said he hoped the media would help him show the world how the diversity of the Latin American church can be a force for healing and peace.

Alvarado spoke casually and even sparked a minor media kerfuffle when some Spanish-language outlets took too seriously her quip that Leo would, eventually, go to Mexico. It was something the Vatican foreign minister had said the previous week, but nevertheless caught some by surprise.

Gone were the careful and sometimes stiff institutional responses that usually characterize Vatican communications. In their place was a looser style of informality.

“He is so excited,” she said. “He knows these streets.”

Leo has wanted to reboot church communications

The American pope, who has long expressed appreciation for the work of journalists, told reporters Friday that Alvarado’s arrival would address some of the “challenging” concerns facing Vatican communications.

“And so now we have the wonderful experience, the creativity and the life and liveliness of Montse, who will be accompanying us on this trip and helping the Vatican and myself in the very important dimension of communication,” he said, using Alvarado's nickname.

Leo has said he wants to reform the way the Catholic Church in general, and the Holy See in particular, communicates to make it come from more of an "explicitly missionary perspective."

In an interview with EWTN before leaving, Alvarado said she believed Leo tapped her because “we are in a moment where digital communications and traditional communications are coming together.”

She said Leo “was looking for a next-generation professional, thatʼs clear, and God willing, I'll be able to fill those shoes.”

EWTN News, which Alvarado had led since 2023, describes itself as the world's largest Catholic media organization. Its operations include television, radio, online and publishing operations in seven languages. The EWTN family, which generally skews conservative, includes the Catholic News Agency, National Catholic Register and ACI Group news agencies, among other branches.

Born in Mexico City, Alvarado moved to the United States as a young girl. She joined EWTN as a news anchor in 2021 after holding leadership positions in the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has waged church-state legal battles in the U.S. to protect religious freedom.

Alvarado is taking on a demanding job. The dicastery controls the Vatican press office, the television, radio, online, publishing, photographic and newspaper operations, all working in multiple languages. Vatican Media has modernized much of its content in recent years, but not all of it: the daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano still publishes a print afternoon edition.

In the EWTN interview, Alvarado said her main priority would be to communicate the Catholic faith and what is in Leo’s heart, not her own vision.

“Communicating Christ to the world is the mandate of the communications dicastery, and it will be done in concert with the Holy Father,” she said. “In no way am I imposing a vision. Iʼm very much receiving one and executing it.”

Under a new executive order signed by Whitmire, HPD officers will no longer contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) solely because someone has an administrative immigration warrant during a routine encounter that does not result in an arrest.

Instead, officers will contact ICE when a person is arrested for a jailable offense and also has an administrative immigration warrant.

Whitmire said the decision was intended to reduce fear among Houston’s immigrant communities, while acknowledging that Tuesday’s election results played a significant role in his decision.

“I do this to begin a healing process. Reduce fear and anxiety across our community,” Whitmire said during Friday’s news conference. “I also do this knowing that elections matter.”

The announcement comes just days after Democrats won several major statewide races in Texas, including the governor’s and attorney general’s offices, potentially changing the political landscape surrounding immigration enforcement.

What changes under the new policy?

Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz said the department began implementing the new directive Friday, with instructions already distributed to officers.

“The message is clear. ICE will only be contacted if someone commits a jailable offense,” Diaz said.

For example, if an officer pulls someone over for a minor traffic violation and issues a citation, that person will be allowed to leave, even if an administrative ICE warrant appears during the encounter.

Previously, officers could contact ICE upon discovering such a warrant, even when the person had not committed a separate arrestable offense.

Administrative immigration warrants are civil documents issued by federal immigration authorities rather than judges. They are different from criminal arrest warrants.

The new policy does not eliminate all contact between HPD and ICE. Officers will still notify federal authorities when someone with an administrative immigration warrant is arrested for a jailable offense.

Whitmire said that once the individual is taken to jail, responsibility for subsequent decisions involving ICE would fall to Harris County authorities.

Diaz also emphasized that HPD does not participate in a federal 287(g) immigration enforcement agreement, which allows certain local law enforcement agencies to carry out designated immigration functions.

“We don’t have a 287-G program. Never have,” Diaz said.

Why is Whitmire changing course now?

The announcement marks another major development in a months-long dispute over Houston’s immigration enforcement policies.

In April, Houston City Council approved an ordinance limiting when HPD officers could contact ICE. However, the measure quickly faced opposition from state officials, who threatened to withhold more than $110 million in public safety funding if the city did not change course.

Whitmire subsequently pushed to amend the ordinance, arguing that protecting essential city services required maintaining a working relationship with state leadership.

On Friday, Whitmire defended his earlier decisions, saying he had been balancing his personal opposition to Senate Bill 4, Texas’ law restricting so-called sanctuary city policies, against the potential financial consequences for Houston.

“We cannot run the city government without state and federal grants, bottom line,” Whitmire said.

The mayor said he has already spoken with several newly elected statewide officials and believes the incoming administration will take a different approach to immigration enforcement.

“Up until today, what was best is work with the leadership that is being replaced. What’s best is for me to talk to the newly elected leadership,” he said.

Whitmire acknowledged the policy change could still draw opposition from current state officials or the federal government.

“I understand there’s risk,” he said. “I will take that risk and I know I’m doing right.”

Months of scrutiny over HPD’s interactions with ICE

The policy change follows sustained criticism of HPD’s contact with federal immigration authorities.

As KPRC 2 previously reported, the department’s latest quarterly immigration report documented 88 immigration-related ICE contacts between July and September.

Of those encounters, 17 resulted in individuals being transferred to ICE, while 58 people were released at the scene.

The report also showed that the average traffic stop detention time rose to 46 minutes by September, raising additional questions about how the department handled encounters involving immigration warrants.

Council Member Alejandra Salinas previously called on HPD leadership to reform its policies, arguing that residents seeking police assistance should not have to fear immigration consequences.

During Friday’s news conference, Diaz said the department would continue tracking encounters under the city’s existing reporting requirements.

He said the updated directive would be read at every police roll call for five days, with additional reminders planned afterward.

Diaz also said the department reviews body camera footage involving these encounters to monitor officers’ compliance with policy.

Immigrant advocacy group calls announcement a victory

Immigrant advocacy organization FIEL Houston welcomed the announcement, describing it as a victory for residents who had spent months demanding changes to HPD’s policies.

“Today Houston won. Today our community can breathe easier. This is your victory thank you Houston!” FIEL Executive Director Cesar Espinosa said in a statement Friday.

Espinosa argued the changes should have been implemented months earlier, when City Council initially approved restrictions on HPD’s interactions with ICE.

“This is what needed to happen since day 1,” Espinosa said. “The City of Houston city council had already decided this months ago. Now it is time to follow though.”

However, the organization made clear that its broader demands have not changed.

“AS A COLLECTIVE WE STILL DEMAND ICE OUT OF HOUSTON,” Espinosa said.

FIEL announced plans to hold its own news conference Friday afternoon to respond to the mayor’s decision.

What happens next?

Whitmire said he hopes Houston’s approach will become a model for other Texas cities navigating the relationship between local policing and federal immigration enforcement.

The mayor also reiterated his belief that broader reforms to ICE operations must come from Washington, including improved training, body cameras and de-escalation procedures.

For now, the policy change applies to HPD officers and does not prevent federal immigration agents from conducting their own enforcement operations in Houston.

KPRC 2 has reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on the mayor’s executive order and is awaiting a response.

Whitmire said he believes the change will help restore confidence in local law enforcement.

“This really unifies Houston,” he said. “And what it really does, which is still my highest priority, is public safety.”

While the tests results have been what he called “reassuring” in coming back positive, the cause of the medical condition remains unknown, Henderson said in a lengthy post on his Instagram account.

“I will continue working closely with my specialists and physical therapists to focus on my recovery, as these symptoms have affected my strength, coordination and some of my physical functions,” Henderson wrote. “I am committed to doing everything necessary to return to full health. My health and long-term well-being remain my foremost priorities.”

The 24-year-old Henderson has not practiced since Oct. 29, when he was listed as having an illness, and was ruled out of playing in 24-19 win over Miami on Sunday. The second-year NFL player has been limited to 203 yards rushing and a touchdown, with 45 yards receiving, in six games this season.

That’s a considerable drop off for a player who combined for 1,131 yards from scrimmage (911 rushing) and 10 TDs in his rookie season last year.

With no timeline on Henderson's recovery, coach Mike Vrabel said he's focused on providing whatever emotional and informational support to the player and his wife Mackenzie.

“I know he is well-loved and respected on our football team. My support shows up in a lot of different ways,” Vrabel said Friday. “To support him the best way I know is to care for him, listen to him and do whatever we can to get him healthy and get him back and help this football team, and do what he does best.”

Aside from ruling him out from playing against Green Bay on Sunday, Vrabel added it would be premature and unfair to the player to discuss any plans of placing Henderson on a long-term injured list.

Led by Rhamondre Stevenson, the Patriots are carrying three running backs on their roster rounded out by Corey Kiner and Lan Larison.

Vrabel also ruled out receiver A.J. Brown, who has not practiced this week because of ankle and knee injuries. Tight end Hunter Henry (foot) and cornerback Marcus Jones (foot) will be listed as questionable to play, Vrabel said.

Henderson thanked his wife, medical team and the Patriots for their support.

He closed his message by writing: “We respectfully ask for continued prayers and privacy as we focus on my health and recovery. Love Trey.”

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Senators voted 39-3 to reject Peña’s request for another 72 hours to prepare his defense. He said he received the summons only hours before the session, along with some 300 pages of accusations and evidence, which left him no time to review the case. Presidents impeached in recent years in other countries, including the United States and Brazil, have had weeks to prepare.

Peña is accused of using his political influence to steer hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds into the bank while allowing regulators to overlook its financial irregularities.

His lawyers, Ricardo Preda and Adolfo Ferreiro, argued that senators should have accepted the resignation he submitted to the Senate Thursday instead of pressing ahead with the trial. Opposition lawmakers insist Peña should be removed through impeachment.

The legal distinction matters. Paraguay’s Constitution gives democratically elected former presidents a lifetime Senate seat, and with it immunity from prosecution, unless they are convicted in an impeachment trial. Prosecutors on Thursday opened three criminal investigations into the bank’s collapse, including complaints against Peña, Vice President Pedro Alliana and current and former officials at the central bank and the state pension fund.

“He must go, but not home. He must go to a maximum-security prison,” opposition Sen. Yolanda Paredes told reporters. “The public is fed up with impunity.”

Protests were planned for later Friday after three straight days of mass demonstrations in which crowds demanding the return of their frozen savings and accountability for the bank’s collapse have clashed with police firing rubber bullets and pepper spray.

“This was an enormous betrayal of trust,” said Yinal López, a worker at the state electricity company, whose employee pension fund also had money at Ueno. “The president made a mockery of the people. He used their money, the people’s money, to do whatever he wanted.”

A bank collapse becomes a political reckoning

In just three days, Ueno’s implosion has plunged Paraguay into its deepest political crisis in more than a decade. Regulators seized the bank before dawn Tuesday. By Thursday afternoon, Peña had offered to resign as his own party turned on him, led by its chief and Peña’s longtime mentor, former President Horacio Cartes.

It was a staggering reversal of fortunes for Peña, a telegenic technocrat and former International Monetary Fund economist who owed his rapid political ascent to Cartes. The tobacco magnate, widely considered Paraguay’s richest man, governed from 2013 to 2018. He made Peña his finance minister and twice backed him for the presidency over objections from rival party factions.

But once in office, Peña quietly built a power base to rival Cartes’, analysts say. Ueno Bank, which absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds, became the core of his own business empire, and he courted provincial governors with state money in a bid to break free of his patron.

“It's like a Shakespearean drama. He tried to displace his mentor, his political patron,” said Miguel Carter, director of DEMOS, a Paraguayan research center. “But he did so on very fragile grounds.”

Cartes’ camp began pushing back. In September, senators loyal to the business tycoon demanded answers from the central bank about Ueno’s lending, citing leaked internal reports that warned the bank’s loans to related companies put its solvency at risk. When the bank collapsed this week, so did Peña’s leverage, and Cartes, who was himself once sanctioned by the U.S. over alleged corruption, publicly backed his ouster.

“He had no political base to rely on, and he was left high and dry,” said Andrew Nickson, a Paraguay expert at the University of Birmingham.

A bank built on public money

The impeachment charges center on Peña’s ties to Ueno. In just a few years, the little-known lender in Asunción became Paraguay’s fifth-largest bank by deposits, its splashy logo on everything from the national soccer stadium to the bank cards of street vendors. Fueled by more than $800 million in public money, it signed up more than two-thirds of the country’s adults as customers.

In the charges, lawmakers point to Peña’s stake in Ueno’s holding company, which he formally divested under pressure last year, and his appointment of a former Ueno executive to run the central bank that regulated it. They also accuse him of letting the state pension fund deposit $355 million at the bank, beyond legal limits.

Peña has denied wrongdoing, saying nothing illegal took place when he held shares in the company.

Analysts say Ueno’s meteoric rise was inseparable from its proximity to power, with the central bank — long the mainstay of the economic discipline that investors prized in Paraguay — looking the other way.

“The central bank under Peña began to lose credibility, lose neutrality and then relax all its control mechanisms to favor the business group that had Ueno Bank as one of its pillars,” said José Tomás Sánchez, a political theory professor at the National University of Asunción.

The cracks began to show in July, when the banking superintendent was pushed out after warning in a departing memo that Ueno was funneling deposits into loans to its own companies. The memo soon reached Cartes’ allies, who used it to press the central bank for answers. By October, reports put those loans at about $150 million, and foreign investors were dumping Ueno’s bonds.

Frozen accounts, rising anger

The seizure of the insolvent bank left Ueno’s nearly 3 million customers unable to access their life savings, withdraw cash or use their bank cards. The digital lender had aggressively courted Paraguayans who had never had a bank account, and the damage cut across every social class. Even players on the national soccer team say their accounts are frozen, according to a statement posted by team captain Gustavo Gómez.

"The ripple effect on the general population has been immense throughout the whole country," Nickson said. “That has fueled the ire of many people in Paraguay who are not particularly politically aware or very interested in politics. That's what makes this different."

Some depositors began recovering their money Thursday. The central bank said the first payments would go to customers with deposits of up to 10 million guaraníes (about $1,600) who have no debts to Ueno and hold an account at another institution, and that more groups would follow. It calls the collapse an isolated case and insists the broader financial system is safe.

Former Ueno CEO Miguel Vázquez has been charged with crimes including breach of trust and attempted fraud, and a judge has ordered six bank directors held in pretrial detention. Police and prosecutors raided company offices in Asunción and confiscated nine luxury vehicles from Vázquez’s home early Friday.

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DeBre reported from Salto, Uruguay and Batschke from Montevideo, Uruguay.

The shift in the nation’s fourth-largest city is one of the first actions to restrict U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations since Democrats’ rout in Tuesday’s midterm elections. It also is a sign that results are already having an impact in Texas, where Republican leaders have enthusiastically embraced President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The stunning victories included Democrat Gina Hinojosa ousting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, which will make her Texas’ first Latina governor and the first member of her party to hold the office in more than 30 years.

“I’ve said many times, elections matter,” Mayor John Whitmire said.

ICE would only be contacted for jailable offenses

Whitmire, a Democrat, said the city would go after immigrants “that pose a danger, not those that are going about their family business, work and education.” In the case of a traffic incident, “you write a citation or you warn them and they go about their way,” he said.

Under the mayor's new directive, Houston police should contact ICE only if the person it stops is arrested on a charge that is subject to jailing or if ICE issues an administrative warrant, which is an order signed by a senior ICE official indicating that the person is wanted by immigration officials.

“The fact that a person is, or is suspected to be, subject to immigration enforcement shall not, by itself, be a basis to contact ICE, to prolong any detention, or to take any person into or hold any person in custody,” the two-page order states.

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Houston has sparked protests after an ICE officer fatally shot a Mexican homebuilder this summer and another struck a man with a car.

Spokespersons for ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the mayor’s announcement.

Cooperation with ICE has sparked protests in Texas cities

A grand jury last week indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors say Morales intentionally rammed his car into Miguel Parra Hernandez, whose leg was broken. ICE has asserted that Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, an account that prosecutors say is contradicted by video.

Despite a one-time $75 billion infusion from Congress, ICE remains heavily dependent on local police to find people subject to deportation and turn them over. It has done so partly by signing about 2,600 agreements — many in Texas — to deputize local police and other state and local agencies to enforce immigration laws. Texas has been a primary target for ICE arrests.

Abbott has closely aligned the state with the Trump administration to collaborate on enforcing federal immigration laws. In April, he had threatened to take away nearly $200 million in public safety grants from Austin, Dallas and Houston after city officials in Houston tried to limit police officers’ cooperation with ICE.

Houston's City Council passed an ordinance eliminating the requirement for Houston police officers to wait 30 minutes for ICE agents to pick up someone with a nonjudicial administrative warrant. If ICE agents didn’t show up in time, police officers took a detained person’s information and were able to release them.

Abbott said the ordinance violated the terms of millions of dollars in state grants Houston had received for police and security during the World Cup games the city hosted in June. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit, accusing the city of violating a 2017 state law that prevents cities from adopting policies that limit the enforcement of immigration laws.

The city changed the ordinance two weeks after passing it to delete language stating that administrative warrants — which ICE agents use to take individuals into custody, unlike warrants signed by a judge — are not enough for officers to arrest or detain an individual.

Advocate calls the change a ‘sigh of relief’ for immigrant communities

FIEL, an immigrant rights group in Houston that has been working with the family of Parra Hernandez, planned to hold a press conference Friday afternoon in light of the announcement.

Prior to the changes, immigration enforcement “looked like a complete collaboration between Houston Police Department and ICE,” Cesar Espinosa, executive director at FIEL, said in an interview with The Associated Press. He said the collaboration paralyzed communities too afraid of getting stopped for a traffic ticket or getting referred to ICE when calling for help when witnessing a crime.

“It gives our community a sigh of relief in that we know of many people in the city of Houston that will not even go to the grocery store because they’re afraid that they’re going to get caught up by ICE or they’re gonna get pulled over by HPD and HPD is gonna call ICE on them,” Espinosa said.

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Wilder reported from Austin, Texas, and Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

A tougher regulatory environment for AI giants and data center developers is expected to follow, even if President Donald Trump — perhaps the industry’s biggest champion — stalls any federal crackdown.

Data center regulation itself was not on most midterm ballots, and it wasn't among the top issues for most voters. But hard-line stances against the server warehouses were woven into the platforms of many candidates, including the Democrats who upended longtime Republican control of the governorships in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Nevada and Iowa, many of which are data center hot spots.

Skepticism of data centers, and their impact on electricity prices, often blended with the fight for affordability — a key campaign talking point for Democrats.

In Texas, Clayton Tucker, the first Democrat elected state agriculture commissioner since 1986, said his pledge to fight data center development was critical to his victory. Everywhere he went, he said, ranchers worried that data centers posed an existential threat to their dwindling water supplies.

“You know, there’s an old saying around here that ‘whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,’” Tucker told The Associated Press. “And that’s exactly what happened.”

Data centers were a persistent bogeyman in attack ads

According to data from AdImpact, campaigns large and small spent more than $380 million on television ads mentioning data centers. Democrats outspent Republicans on the topic by a more than 3-to-1 ratio.

Sweeping wins by Democrats could have far-reaching implications for data centers. Besides taking control of Congress, Democrats flipped at least five governors’ offices and took full control of state governments in six more states: Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan.

Data Center Watch, a project of AI security consultancy 10a Labs, said it tracked winning candidates for Congress and governorships and found the vast majority had expressed support for stronger regulation or even a moratorium.

Among governors, 32 of the 34 victorious candidates in races where AP called a winner support stronger regulation or restrictions. Twelve of the 34 support bans or moratoriums, it said.

During the campaign, Wisconsin Gov.-elect David Crowley, a Democrat, changed his position under pressure from his Republican opponent to take a harder line against data centers. Initially opposed to any moratorium, Crowley later said he supported one as well as abolishing the state’s sales tax exemption for data center operators and developers.

In an interview Thursday with AP, Crowley said he’s having discussions now about what he'll propose once he takes office.

In the mix are things like requiring developers to disclose more about their water and energy consumption, ensuring a community supports a project before it can go forward and insulating ratepayers and taxpayers from the energy costs of the projects, Crowley said.

The industry sees a need to build trust

AI giant OpenAI published a framework Thursday enumerating new commitments to the communities where it develops data centers. The company said it was asking federal, state and local policymakers to write “clear rules for how the industry builds.”

“Lawmakers should establish rules to advance responsible investment, protect residents, and ensure that the benefits of AI infrastructure are broadly shared,” the post said.

An industry association, the Data Center Coalition, echoed the sentiment that developers need to keep trying to build trust with public officials and communities. A coalition official, Dan Diorio, said the industry is aware many midterm winners have vowed to impose a moratorium.

“We should expect them to want to deliver on those promises, but there are going to be real-world consequences of that,” Diorio said in an interview.

Those consequences, Diorio said, could include host communities missing out on tax revenue or payments from tech companies. Data centers are also driving a broader economic expansion that encourages investment in domestic manufacturing, he said.

Wall Street sees red lights ahead after the election

The election of data center skeptics adds challenges to stock markets riding high on the AI boom.

On Thursday, the Nasdaq, which is full of AI-related and other tech stocks, sank 11% below its all-time high amid worries that data center construction may slow because it’s getting costlier to borrow money.

AI data center construction is driving much of the U.S. economy’s growth, and any slowdown could have a broader chilling effect.

In an analyst report, Morgan Stanley said decisive results for Democrats carry "greater expectations for data center restrictions" that, under new state regulations, could “split the country into areas that are open to new data centers and those without.”

It singled out Texas' election of Democrat Gina Hinojosa for governor as the “most important election result" for data center development. Hinojosa has said she’d block a permit for a data center if it wasn’t a good deal for Texans or residents hadn’t gotten a say in the matter. She defeated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who had touted Texas as "the epicenter of AI development” before trying to clamp down on it late in the campaign.

Morgan Stanley also said Ohio's election of Democrat Dr. Amy Acton as governor “creates significant risk of data center project delays in the state.” Acton has pledged to block a data center project unless it meets certain standards.

Local elections didn’t go well for data centers, either

Voters in local referendums cast ballots overwhelmingly in favor of restricting data centers, according to an analysis by polling and data science firm Redbud Consulting.

Redbud tracked 47 referendums in 44 municipalities in 12 states, including 21 in Ohio alone, eight in Maine, seven in Illinois and four in Kansas. Restrictions were approved in 44 of the 45 elections where counting was complete, Redbud reported.

Most voters don't want a data center built near them

About three-quarters of U.S. voters oppose the construction of a new data center in their community, according to The AP Voter Poll.

In red and blue states alike, majorities of voters were opposed to adding a data center where they live.

Support was higher in some traditionally red states, including Wyoming, West Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi. In Texas, voters in the Senate race were similarly likely to say they oppose a new data center being built in their community.

Despite voters’ deep opposition to data centers near them, The AP Voter Poll suggests it was not a particularly motivating issue in this election.

About one-quarter of U.S. voters said AI data centers were “crucial” to their vote for Congress, which is well below the shares that said government corruption or the cost of living were highly important to their vote.

The stakes were especially high in Texas

Texas is poised to overtake northern Virginia as the largest global data center market by 2030, according to a report by commercial real estate giant JLL.

In the campaign, Hinojosa aggressively attacked Abbott as having rolled out the welcome mat for data centers.

Stephen Sanders, a Republican who co-founded a data center protest group in Lubbock, said Texans were especially attuned to the issue because of talk that data centers pose a threat to their electricity and water in the drought-stricken state.

“I would say data centers were on the ballot,” Sanders said.

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Associated Press reporters Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Kaitlyn Huamani in Los Angeles and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Marc Levy at http://x.com/timelywriter

“There’s a potential in that we can finally start to deliver for working-class people across this country,” Mamdani said. “What we heard today was the fact that so often what’s described as a natural crisis here in Puerto Rico is in fact a political crisis, one that is the result of political choices.”

Hochul said the election results represent “a whole new day” for Puerto Rico and warned that the federal government will be held responsible.

“What we’ve seen over the last two years is really an abandonment of that commitment," she said. "And we hope to have all those wounds heal, making sure that we continue bringing resources for resiliency, energy projects, building up the grid, as well as healthcare being restored, nutrition programs.”

Mamdani and Hochul are part of a group of New York government officials who are in Puerto Rico for a four-day, annual conference. They met with local nonprofits on Friday as officials announced a $280,000 partnership to help the island confront emergencies.

Puerto Rico struggles to emerge from crises

The partnership between Hispanic Federation and the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York comes as Puerto Rico struggles with chronic power outages and intermittent water shortages while it tries to rebuild from Hurricane Maria and other disasters.

The nonprofit Hispanic Federation said the money would equip 10 community-run resiliency hubs across the island with increased water storage capacity; some also would receive rain-collection systems, kitchen infrastructure and solar power with battery storage.

“We have to start working with the leadership to make sure that the Puerto Rico agenda is not forgotten,” Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of Hispanic Federation, told The Associated Press.

“In Puerto Rico, there are still some huge challenges," he said. “All the public policies have been so harmful to Puerto Rico.”

The announcement comes months after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump canceled solar projects in Puerto Rico that were supposed to help thousands of low-income families. One project, worth $400 million, would have seen the installation of solar and battery storage systems in low-income homes and those with medical needs.

The U.S. Department of Energy has said the money initially slated for solar projects would instead be used to help maintain Puerto Rico’s crumbling power grid, which was razed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. The grid, however, was already weakened given a lack of maintenance and investment.

The decisions prompted outrage on the island as federal support for solar projects fades.

Puerto Ricans sue US government

Last week, six Puerto Rico residents sued the U.S. Energy Department and its secretary, Chris Wright, following the scrapping of a $1 billion federally funded program to provide solar power and battery storage to those who most needed it.

“The cost of such systems remains out of reach for the majority of Puerto Ricans,” the lawsuit stated.

Among those suing is 63-year-old Arecibo resident Ileana Ríos, who is diabetic and needs to refrigerate her insulin. Meanwhile, her son has asthma and needs to use a nebulizer, which requires electricity.

The lawsuit noted that Ríos “regularly loses power when the weather is stable and always loses power during storms, sometimes for several weeks at a time.”

The other residents who sued also have serious health conditions and need equipment or medications that rely on electricity.

The lawsuit requests that a judge order the U.S. Energy Department to reinstate the grant program, among other things. The agency said in a brief statement Friday that it is working closely with Puerto Rico's governor to stabilize the island's power grid as it criticized the previous administration for “advancing their Green New Scam agenda over helping Puerto Rico build an affordable, reliable, and secure electrical grid.”

The funding loss has been a blow to nonprofits and others who faced months of uncertainty and confusion as they awaited the Trump administration’s decision on whether and how it would continue the program.

“We had a lot of uncertainty. ... At some points it just felt like we were talking to no one," said Sybelle Rodriguez del Valle, director of operations at the energy resilience nonprofit Barrio Eléctrico, which was part of the U.S. Energy Department program.

Barrio Eléctrico provides electric service to more than 500 families and was poised to provide resilient energy for 1,200 families with funds from the federal program. It had only completed about one-third of its projects before the program ended, losing an estimated $16 million to $20 million in funding.

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Associated Press reporter Gabriela Aoun Angueira contributed to this report.

Nathan Timmer of the protest group Geef Tegengas, a phrase that translates as Push Back, told local broadcaster AT5 that protesters were occupying the site in an effort to stop construction.

Campaigners against data centers in Europe are expected to stage protests and other actions in several countries on Friday and Saturday, demanding a moratorium on large-scale developments to address social and environmental concerns around the energy-hungry behemoths.

“We don’t want it to be built. Nobody needs it,” Timmer said. “The only thing this will be used for is AI slop. AI warfare, data surveillance and committing genocides. We don’t want that,” he added, vowing to continue protesting until construction is halted.

Pro-Palestinian activists also joined the demonstrations in the Dutch capital. By late afternoon police were escorting activists off the construction site, though some still remained, local media reported.

Dutch police said Friday evening that they detained 150-200 people suspected of trespassing during the protest.

Microsoft said it was aware of the Amsterdam demonstration. “We understand that people feel strongly about the project, and we respect their right to express those views peacefully," a spokesperson said. “However, we do not condone any actions that are unlawful or that put people’s safety at risk.”

The demonstrations come days after the U.S. midterm elections ushered in a wave of Democrats promising to clamp down on data centers, which face resistance around the world due to the massive amounts of computing power and water they use.

Dozens of civil society and grassroots groups have said they will join the “Stop Dirty Data Centres” events on Friday and Saturday in 15 European countries, including Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and the U.K., organizers said.

“There’s a gulf between where elected leaders are at in terms of buying into the hype about AI and where people are at,” said Owen Espley, coordinator of StopDirtyDataCentres.eu.

In Germany, a dozen protesters gathered in front of a data center on the outskirts of Berlin on Friday.

“We want to put a stop to this blind construction of data centers around Germany, regardless of any environmental concerns,” said the protest spokeswoman Caro Weber. “This is really, really dangerous for our future.”

Around 100 people also protested against data centers in front of the Polish parliament on Friday, representing communities around Warsaw where new centers are planned.

In Italy, the fast-growing data center industry faces an equally rapid rise in grassroots opposition, particularly in the northern Lombardy region, the country’s main hub for digital infrastructure.

Activists argue that the boom in facilities serving cloud computing and artificial intelligence is moving faster than public consultation and environmental oversight.

The movement reached a milestone on Oct. 10, when more than 1,000 people and representatives of around 40 local committees gathered in Milan’s Piazza della Scala for what organizers described as Italy’s first national demonstration against data centers.

Protesters called for a moratorium on new projects and demanded a national strategy governing the industry’s growth. The demonstration followed a series of increasingly large mobilizations in towns around Milan.

Europe is projected to attract $5.6 trillion in cumulative data center capital expenditure from 2026 through 2050, accounting for around 18% of global investment, according to PwC’s Global Data Centre Outlook 2026–50.

The U.S. is forecast to attract $15.1 trillion in capital spending on data centers during that period, the report said.

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Naishadham reported from Madrid. Associated Press journalists Giada Zampano in Rome, Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin and Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw contributed to this report.

The site's debut is yet another sign of how much Trump is leaning into his efforts to make over the White House and Washington to his own gilded tastes, even after his party lost control of Congress in a midterm-election drubbing. It was the fourth day this week alone that the administration promoted his projects.

The website declares that the 250-foot (76-meter) structure — which is slated to rise in a mass of blindingly gold ornamentation and stately gray granite between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery — will be formally known as the United States Military Triumphal Arch.

Describing the arch as “an American vision finally realized,” the site offers bird's-eye views of the proposal from many angles and shows off the declarations it will feature: “One Nation Under God” on one side and “Golden Age of America” on another. It's also set to have towering gold doors complete with panels of sculptures at its base.

At its very top, the structure features a golden-hued cherub hoisting a flaming torch that recalls a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty.

The website does not say how much the project will cost or how it will be paid for, although some estimates have reached as high as $100 million.

The White House highlighted the website the morning after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits work on the site for 14 days. That order followed a vote to approve the arch by a federal planning commission that is stocked with Trump’s allies.

With Democrats taking control of Congress in January, Trump’s renovation projects will encounter far more scrutiny and roadblocks — from his effort to put his own name on the Kennedy Center to remaking a public golf course and building his massive White House ballroom and the arch.

The arch will feature an event space — and ‘provisions for a sniper nest’

The president on Monday focused his final remarks before the midterm elections talking up his costly and problem-plagued effort to overhaul the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool. The day after the losses, on Wednesday, he took reporters on a tour of the ballroom's construction site. And his first official action after his party lost control of Congress was to declare, on Thursday, that the Oval Office would become a national monument.

The arch website features the word “Triumph” in gold cursive script recalling the typeface used at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and similar flourishes that have been affixed to the White House as part of his overhaul of the Oval Office and West Wing.

The arch plans feature an event space in the horizontal part of the structure reached by elevators and stairs.

But inside its “massive columns will be storage for munitions,” the site states, as well as areas on the pedestal and observation deck that will be “set aside for snipers, countersnipers, and provisions for a sniper nest.”

An open ground area at the monument's base “will be designed for launching drones and other homeland security assets,” the site says, while also noting that the arch “will be Highly Secretive but, at the same time, a Top Level and Lethal structure, the likes of which has not been seen in this Country before.”

“It is long overdue, and has been sought for many years, especially by the Military,” it says.

Trump has said for months that the monument would be inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and that Washington has wanted a similar structure for centuries — even though that's not true. He previously joked that it might be called the “Arc de Trump.”

The website repeats Trump's inaccurate claims. It also features a picture of the president and quotes him as saying, “This will be the greatest and most beautiful triumphal arch, anywhere in the world.”

Based on Tim Burton’s beloved 1988 film, “Beetlejuice The Musical” follows Lydia Deetz, a teenager who finds herself caught between the living and the dead after meeting a recently deceased couple and a mischievous demon with a serious personality.

The touring production brings the story to life with larger-than-life sets, wild special effects, catchy music and plenty of the dark humor fans love.

And here’s a fun behind-the-scenes detail: Ryan Stajmiger, who plays Beetlejuice, does his own makeup for the character after learning from makeup designer Joe Dulude II, who also created Idina Menzel’s iconic Elphaba look in the original Broadway production of “Wicked.”

“Beetlejuice The Musical” runs through Sunday, November 8, at the Hobby Center, with performances Friday, Saturday and Sunday, including matinee and evening shows.

For tickets and performance times, click HERE.

Tune into Houston Life at 1pm as Lauren Kelly gets a behind-the-scenes look at how it all comes together.

In her first term, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs had vetoed more than 540 measures passed by the Republican-led Legislature on policies including taxes, immigration and voting laws. Hobbs has said she's looking to address water issues and affordability, and take on fraud and abuse in the state's school voucher program.

The Associated Press called enough legislative races to confirm that both chambers flipped on Friday. The news organization calls races individually and it can take several days after voting, depending on when election officials tally the votes and how close the elections are. There have not been major disputes or disruptions this year.

In Arizona, Republicans have held the House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s.

Overall, Democrats took full control — both statehouse chambers and governors’ offices — in at least six states where they previously shared power with Republicans. Besides Arizona, those wins were in the battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin.

The flips weren't just in states that are normally competitive. Democrats won control of the Texas House, which Republicans have held since 2003, and elected Gina Hinojosa as the state's first Democratic governor since George W. Bush ousted Ann Richards in 1994. Republicans held onto the state Senate.

Democrats also flipped the lower chambers of the legislatures in Maine and North Carolina and both chambers in New Hampshire, where Republican Kelly Ayotte was reelected. The count could grow as results are tallied in additional states.

The National Council of State Legislatures says it's likely to end up as the election with the most legislative seats and chambers changing parties since the 2010 election, when Republicans took over governments across the country amid the Great Recession.

Democrats will also hold the governor's office in at least 28 states. Results are still pending in Alaska and Kansas.

Located about just about an hour north of Houston, the nation’s largest Renaissance festival welcomes more than half a million visitors each year.

The 70-acre festival grounds feature 21 stages, more than 400 artisan shops and plenty of unique attractions and dining experiences.

Guests can enjoy live performances, themed entertainment, elaborate costumes and returning fan-favorite attractions, along with new experiences throughout the season.

The festival runs through November 29, 2026, including the Friday after Thanksgiving.

For tickets, schedules and more information, visit texrenfest.com.

Tune into Houston Life at 1pm as Lauren Kelly takes us inside the grounds for a look at all the fun.

Shelton, with 19 aces, won 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 under the roof at Plenitude Arena after converting two of four break points. It was his third win in five meetings between them.

The third-seeded Shelton ended Paul's hopes of qualifying for the ATP Finals in Turin this month.

As a result, another American player, Frances Tiafoe, clinched a spot and will debut at the season-ending tournament.

“Frances has had an outstanding year. One of my best friends, and to see him make Turin for the first time is amazing,” Shelton said. “I’m super happy for him. We have had a lot of Americans competing for that spot, it’s been a big year from all of us, and it’s cool that we are all in the mix.”

Only one singles spot remained open at the Finals. The qualifiers so far were top-ranked Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Shelton, Daniil Medvedev, Flavio Cobolli and Arthur Fils.

Taylor Fritz could join them if he defeats Alcaraz later Friday. If Fritz loses, Rafael Jodar will qualify.

Shelton will next play local Luca Van Assche, who took almost three hours to defeat qualifier Rinky Hijikata 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-5.

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See AP’s full tennis coverage here

It was a striking midterm victory that demonstrated the strength of the religious left as a counter to the stalwart evangelical support for President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans.

“This attempt to corner the market on Christianity by evangelicals was repudiated,” said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist pastor and editor of a progressive faith and politics site.

Instead, American mainline Protestantism, with its less-strident theology, took the election spotlight.

Seminarian James Talarico in Texas, megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas and Iowa ministers Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James flipped key seats in the U.S. Senate and House. They’re part of the mainline Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran branches with moderate or progressive beliefs.

Unlike the nationalists wanting America to privilege a particular Christian worldview in public life, the mainline candidates in keeping with their Christian values backed church-state separation and sought common ground across religions, Kaylor said.

"There were so many people in our country who felt so strongly that what was happening in D.C. was not moral,” Hamilton told The Associated Press. "It didn’t reflect our national values."

That’s why he and the other candidates ran, he said, and why they were elected.

Mainline denominations have historically been part of the country’s civic establishment as the church home of most presidents and other elites. But membership has been sliding for decades. Despite that shift, the wins show these Protestants can still have significant influence — though not with white evangelicals.

Across the board, white evangelical Protestants stayed consistent in their overwhelming midterm support for Republicans. Most Protestants who identify as “liberal” or “moderate,” about 7 in 10, voted for Democrats, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters.

The four mainline candidates also got a big boost from voters who reject organized religion. At least 7 in 10 religiously unaffiliated voters supported Democratic Senate and House candidates in Texas, Kansas and Iowa, The AP Voter Poll showed.

Others said being a progressive pastor wasn’t the prime factor in these victories.

“If I hear a story about the Democratic Party scouting out pastors to run in 2028 based on Talarico and Hamilton, I think they’ve totally missed the upshot from this election,” said Ryan Burge, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies religious demographics. “It’s about economic issues. It’s about disdain for Trump. It’s about high prices.”

Talarico takes Texas as critique of his Christianity continues

In the longtime GOP stronghold of Texas, Talarico flipped a U.S. Senate seat — the first election in 30-plus years that Democrats won statewide races — by defeating Republican Ken Paxton, an evangelical.

Voters also ousted Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who chaired Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission and declared, “There is no separation of church and state.”

In Talarico’s acceptance speech, the 37-year-old state legislator recounted how his grandfather, a Baptist preacher, taught him about Jesus, a “barefoot rabbi” who commanded people to love God and neighbor. And not just the neighbor who looks, prays or votes like him, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminarian and former middle school teacher said.

“Two thousand years ago, when the people at the top hurt his neighbors, that barefoot rabbi didn’t stay in his room and pray. He walked into the seat of power, and he flipped over the tables of injustice. … Texas, it’s time to start flipping tables," Talarico said.

A longtime Texas Trump supporter and Southern Baptist pastor, the Rev. Robert Jeffress, maintains that the pluralistic religion promoted by Talarico and other candidates is not actually Christianity, a criticism raised by others during their campaigns.

“People want to choose a religion that’s nice and warm and fuzzy, whether it’s built on truth or not,” said Jeffress, who leads First Baptist Church in Dallas. “What James Talarico believes, according to the words of Jesus, is not true.”

He attributes the Democrats’ success to a trifecta of inflation, the Iran war and “less than ideal candidates.” Jeffress also suspects many evangelicals stayed home.

White evangelical Protestants made up a slightly smaller share of the electorate than in 2024, when Trump was running for president: 21% in 2024, compared with 17% in 2026, The AP Voter Poll showed. That could be due to lower turnout among white evangelicals or higher turnout among other groups. About 2 in 10 voted for Talarico in Texas and Hamilton in Kansas.

Kansas pastor candidate says kindness doesn't require religion

Burge, the professor who studies religious demographics, asserts that the Democratic clergy members who won were strong candidates but also benefited from very favorable political winds.

“If you ran Adam Hamilton in 2024, he’s beat by double digits and we’re not having this conversation,” Burge said.

Hamilton, pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist congregation, called for “decency” in politics, drawing on Jesus’ Golden Rule in his victory speech: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“I can’t not talk about my faith. It’s just, it’s my life. It’s what I eat, sleep, drink and breathe,” he told the AP. But being religious isn’t required to follow biblical injunctions "to do justice, to love kindness."

While campaigning for Hamilton’s Republican opponent, Sen. Roger Marshall, Vice President JD Vance questioned Hamilton’s religiosity.

“It was so ridiculous that there was no reason to even respond to it,” said Hamilton, who welcomes a conversation with Vance and other critics about faith and theology.

Iowa pastor candidates prioritize coalition building

Democrats Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James, who flipped U.S. House seats in Iowa, didn’t have political ambitions when they pursued ordination.

Trump’s 2016 election sparked James’ involvement. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) chaplain sees her ministry experience — from church potlucks to the pews — as a strength when connecting with all voters.

“I spent time bringing people together across difference,” she told the AP in March.

Trone Garriott, a state senator and a pastor in the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, thinks the religious right’s high profile in national politics has made some progressive Christians wary of sharing their faith publicly.

But she sees the power in diverse coalition building. In her acceptance speech, she evoked hope and the power of loving your neighbor. “When people come together on our common ground, we will do powerful things,” she said.

Midterm successes for other Christian candidates

Among Republicans, clergy candidates for Congress also prevailed, including Mark Harris of North Carolina, a Southern Baptist pastor, and Tim Walberg of Michigan, a former pastor.

Black Protestants vote overwhelmingly Democratic and have long comfortably talked faith and politics in a way white mainliners have not. This year, victorious Democrats included at least two Black clergy members — the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, a Baptist from Texas, and U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, a United Methodist minister from Missouri.

In North Carolina, Democrat LaKesha Womack unseated a Republican incumbent in the U.S. House. She is an ordained deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a historically Black Protestant denomination.

Womack told the AP her faith prompts her to advocate for “policies that address poverty and immigration and making sure everybody has access to healthcare.” And she defends religious freedom for all.

“With the white Christian nationalists almost taking over the narrative of what it means to be a Christian, I think there are a lot of people of faith in this country who wanted to reclaim that narrative,” she said.

Womack said that Democrats shouldn’t read too much into this year’s clergy victories.

“I don’t think we should go out and try to recruit ministers to become politicians if that’s not what they’re called to do,” she said. “It has to be authentic.”

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AP reporter Tiffany Stanley contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Our next cold front moves through Friday. There isn’t enough moisture in the atmosphere for rain to fall, but it will bring lower temperatures this weekend to Houston. Some clouds early but we should see some sunshine break out into the afternoon.

Our weekend forecast:

This weak front will help to drop temperatures back into the mid 70s for Saturday. In fact, that is probably the best day of the weekend for any outdoor activities and area college football kickoffs.

Sunday will see a disturbance moving in from west Texas that brings in light to moderate rain across the area. Not a washout but there will be anywhere from an inch to a few inches the further south down the coast you go.

Tracking the tropics:

The remainder of this hurricane season will limp to the finish line, and this disturbance is a good example. The area in the yellow color has a 10% chance of becoming our next named storm. It is moving east and will not affect the United States. The next name on the list is Kyle.

The extended forecast:

This fall feel will stay through the next 10 days. Our average high for this time of year is 76°, and we’re pretty close to this through Saturday, next weekend. And I don’t have a morning temperature above 62°.

The shooting happened around 1:18 a.m. in the 7700 block of Westbank in the Carriage Lane area, according to Harris County Precinct 1 deputies.

• Could Texas Republicans strip power from the new lieutenant governor?

Investigators say an argument between the father and son may have led to the shooting.

Emergency radio traffic obtained by KPRC 2 provides a look at what deputies encountered when they first responded to the home.

“There’s people screaming. Looks like the victim is going to be on the front door. We’re going to have a female yelling next to the victim,” a responding deputy reported over the radio.

Investigators later confirmed the father was found dead inside the residence.

According to HCSO, the teenager’s mother and two younger siblings, believed to be 12 and 14 years old, were also inside the home when the shooting happened.

Neither the mother nor the two children were injured.

Investigators are interviewing the family members to determine what happened before the shooting.

Authorities say relatives described previous arguments between the father and son, although the circumstances surrounding Friday’s confrontation remain unclear.

Investigators have not determined whether the father was assaulting the teenager or whether the teenager was assaulting his father.

The 17-year-old left the home on foot following the shooting, according to investigators.

Precinct 1 deputies searched the surrounding neighborhood, but authorities have not located the teenager.

Investigators say they do not know whether he is still in the area or whether someone picked him up.

HCSO officials say they want to speak with the teenager to hear his account of what happened.

Despite the ongoing search, investigators do not believe he poses a threat to the surrounding community.

No decision has been made on whether criminal charges will be filed.

Investigators say the circumstances surrounding the confrontation are critical to determining what happens next.

“It’s not totally clear right now exactly what transpired right before the shooting,” an HCSO sergeant said.

Investigators are also working to determine whether the firearm used in the shooting has been recovered and whether law enforcement previously responded to the residence for other incidents.

The identities of the father and son have not been publicly released.

Here’s what she promised ENOUGH’s Stephania Jimenez on property taxes, data centers, Medicaid, and school vouchers.

Hinojosa sat down with ENOUGH’s Stephania Jimenez to answer questions about her plans for Texas -- from property taxes and school vouchers to data centers, health care and border security.

Hinojosa made several commitments, including pushing for Medicaid expansion, supporting a repeal of the state’s private school voucher program and fighting to end tax breaks for large data centers.

Here’s what Hinojosa told ENOUGH — and what Texans should watch for now that she has won.

• Who are the 4 people leading Hinojosa’s transition team

$1,500 back to every Texas household

Hinojosa says she wants to send Texans a one-time $1,500 refund check.

Her plan would use money from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, which she said has grown to approximately $27 billion.

She believes the state should keep about $10 billion in reserves and return the remaining $17 billion to Texans.

When Stephania asked how she could work with Republicans in the Legislature, Hinojosa pointed to the proposal as common ground.

“My plan is to send money back to the people, $1,500 to every Texas household as a refund,” she said.

She argued the money should be circulating in the economy instead of sitting in Austin.

“We should send it back to the people so it can work in the economy, especially at a time when Texans are struggling so much,” Hinojosa said.

NEXT: Hinojosa says she would direct lawmakers to pass a bill authorizing the checks. The proposal would require legislative approval.

SEE MORE: Hinojosa campaign promises

Data centers: End tax breaks and make companies pay

Stephania pressed Hinojosa about her previous vote on data center tax incentives.

In 2023, Hinojosa voted for House Bill 3104, which would have expanded tax exemptions for larger data center projects. The bill ultimately failed in the Senate.

Stephania asked why Hinojosa now wants a moratorium on new data centers and an end to tax breaks.

Hinojosa said her 2023 vote was about allowing union contractors to benefit from the tax incentives, arguing that Texas jobs should benefit if companies are receiving taxpayer subsidies.

“If anybody’s getting a tax break, it should go to subsidize Texas jobs,” she said.

But Hinojosa now wants a much broader change.

She told ENOUGH that data centers should pay sales taxes on the electricity they consume, arguing the current exemption costs Texas more than $1 billion a year.

“We are all paying for the data centers to be here,” she said.

She also raised concerns about water use, describing conversations with residents in Amarillo who fear a massive data center project could threaten their water supply.

“These hyperscale data centers are having hyperscale impacts on our communities, and we’re just left unprotected,” she said.

NEXT: Hinojosa wants an immediate moratorium on new data centers, an end to tax giveaways and new protections for communities. Those changes would require action from lawmakers.

School vouchers: Would she repeal the program?

Hinojosa has voted against school voucher proposals and opposed the 2025 legislation creating Texas’ education savings account program.

Stephania asked directly whether she would repeal the program if elected governor.

Hinojosa said she cannot do that by herself, but she would work to keep public money in public schools.

When Stephania asked whether she would support a bill repealing the private school portion of the program, Hinojosa said she would.

“My priority is public money and public schools,” she said.

She acknowledged, however, that getting a repeal bill through the Legislature could be difficult.

“If that’s the bill that were to make it to my desk, I don’t see that as a reality, frankly, because it would have to make it through both the House and the Senate,” she said.

NEXT: Hinojosa says she would support repeal legislation if it reached her desk. She would need lawmakers to pass it first.

Health care: Expand Medicaid

Stephania asked Hinojosa a straightforward question: Would she push the Legislature to expand Medicaid for more low-income Texans?

“Yes,” Hinojosa said.

She said her priority would be ensuring every Texas child has access to health care.

“The way we do that is by expanding Medicaid, and that’s my position,” she said.

When Stephania asked how she would pay for it, Hinojosa said the federal government would cover most of the cost.

“The federal government mostly pays for that,” she said.

Her campaign also promises to strengthen rural hospitals and crack down on insurance companies that deny coverage in bad faith.

NEXT: Hinojosa says she would push for Medicaid expansion. That would require cooperation and legislative action.

Property taxes: Wants to eliminate residential taxes

Property taxes were another major point of discussion.

Stephania asked Hinojosa about claims from Abbott’s campaign that she voted 40 times to raise property taxes. She also asked whether local governments should have more freedom to raise property tax revenue when they say they need it.

Hinojosa disputed the attacks on her record and defended local control.

“Local communities, they elect their local leaders to make those decisions with communities, and that’s my position,” she said.

Her campaign platform goes further, promising to end corporate subsidies and use the savings to reduce property taxes, with the ultimate goal of eliminating residential property taxes.

NEXT: Hinojosa would need the Legislature to approve changes to corporate subsidies and the property tax system. She did not provide a specific timeline for eliminating residential property taxes.

Border security: No specific spending cuts promised

Stephania asked whether Hinojosa would cut the billions Abbott has spent on border security or keep spending at the same level.

Hinojosa criticized Abbott’s approach, saying billions were spent prosecuting immigrants for trespassing and paying for their legal defense.

She pointed to a previous example in which she said she contacted the Biden administration about border crossings and an international bridge closure. She said federal officials negotiated an agreement with Mexico that helped reduce crossings.

But she did not promise to eliminate border security funding.

“Public safety shouldn’t be a political stunt,” she said. “I will spend the money it takes to keep our community safe, not for political theater.”

NEXT: Hinojosa says she would prioritize public safety and results over what she considers political theater. She did not provide a proposed border security budget or specific spending cuts.

What should Texans hold her accountable for?

At the end of the interview, Stephania asked Hinojosa what she would want Texans to hold her accountable for if she becomes governor.

“Helping to make their lives better,” she said.

She argued that elected officials should be working for the people who fund government.

“We pay for this government. It should be working for us,” Hinojosa said.

That’s the standard she says she would set for her administration.

Now, the question is whether she can turn those promises into action.

Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa is scheduled to be sworn in as the Governor of Texas in January.

According to TxDOT, Harris County leads the state in DWI fatalities. However, traffic crash data from the last four years shows some improvement. From 2022 to 2025, alcohol-related fatal crashes decreased by 28%.

TxDOT says the campaign is about reminding drivers that every decision behind the wheel matters. It has now been more than 26 years since Texas last had a death-free day on its roadways. That streak began on Nov. 7, 2000.

TxDOT Public Information Officer Danny Perez says the consequences of dangerous driving decisions can extend beyond the person behind the wheel.

“A lot of times we are seeing that person survive, and they cause a crash and then it’s the other person that dies,” Perez said.

Drivers are encouraged to plan before going out. Anyone drinking should arrange for a designated driver, use a rideshare service or take public transportation rather than getting behind the wheel.

PEDESTRIAN SAFETY

The campaign also highlights the importance of protecting pedestrians. For Maybel Wong, that message is personal. Her 73-year-old mother, Shuet Wong, was killed while crossing Houston Street in November 2024.

Maybel says her mother was following the rules, waiting for the walk signal before crossing. But just steps from reaching the median, a truck hit her. Shuet was thrown 62 feet from the crosswalk.

Maybel says the driver said they did not see her mother. A picture of Shuet’s wallet shows scuff marks on her cards that were once inside, after the crash, offering a glimpse into the severity of the impact. Her death is a reminder that pedestrian safety requires both people on foot and drivers to do their part.

TxDOT’s “End the Streak” campaign encourages Texans to slow down, put away distractions, watch for pedestrians, buckle up and never drive impaired.

Texas has gone more than 26 years without a single day free of traffic deaths. More than 95,000 people have died on Texas roads since the last death-free day.

Behind every number is someone who never made it home.

Friday, November 6

• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Texas Renaissance Festival
• “Beetlejuice” at Hobby Center
• Fluff Bake Bar
• Dodie’s Beer + Wine Shoppe

Thursday, November 5

• ‘Holiday in the Gardens’ returns to Moody Gardens for the 2026 holiday season
• • Moody Gardens
• Houston is home to the world’s largest quilt show! Here’s how you can attend
• • International Quilt Festival
• Stress-Free Winter Getaways: 3 All-Inclusive Marriott Resorts to Know
• • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider
• New trees at Bellaire high school stem from Chevron partnership with Trees for Houston
• • Follow Chevron in Houston on Instagram
• KPRC 2 Insiders, here’s your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card! (October 2026 - February 2027)

Wednesday, November 4

• Inside a Stafford Hindu temple, where the community brings Diwali traditions to life
• • BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir
• Honor Flight
• More than a college experience | Exploring the lasting impact of HBCUs
• • Reginald “Cool Mill” Shareef
• Why one mom chose a facelift at 43 after cancer treatment
• • Dr. Mihail Climov Your Aesthetic Edge
• Taylor Kinney & Miranda Rae Mayo chat 300th episode of ‘Chicago Fire’
• • NBC’s “Chicago Fire”
• Join UT MD Anderson’s 11th annual Boot Walk to End Cancer® at Helix Park Nov. 14
• • UT MD Anderson’s Boot Walk to End Cancer^®

Tuesday, November 3

• Election Day Helpline
• The Parking Spot
• • The Parking Spot Holiday Travel Sweepstakes
• HealthSpring
• Thanksgiving Menu Made Easy: Stretch your budget with Tanji Patton of Goodtaste TV
• • Goodtaste with Tanji
• Houston Ballet celebrates 10 years of Stanton Welch’s “The Nutcracker”
• • Houston Ballet
• Houston mural honors six women who helped shape the city
• • Anat Ronen
  • The Women’s Home

Monday, November 2

• Houston’s young Scholastic Kid Reporters share their love of reading
• • Scholastic Kids Press
• Academy Sports + Outdoors celebrates new Willis store grand opening
• • Academy Sports + Outdoors
• Board-certified periodontist and dental implant specialist explains what to ask before getting implants
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Celebrating Diwali: Chef Anita Jaisinghani Shares Indian traditions & a sweet recipe
• • Pondicheri
  • Pondicheri’s Besan Mithai Recipe

Friday, October 30

• Happy Barc-O-Ween! How find you new furry family member this weekend with adoption fees waived
• • BARC
• Magician Paul Driscoll brings Houdini’s magic into the spotlight on National Magic Day
• • Magician Paul Driscoll
• Haunted boat tours bring Galveston’s ghost stories to life
• • Island Tours of Galveston
• Can You Die Dramatically? The Cast of Drunk Dracula Puts Houston Life to the Test
• • Drunk Dracula

Thursday, October 29

• Landry’s Chef Series: Celebrate the Holidays at Mastro’s Houston
• • Mastros
  • Enter for your chance to win $200 in Landry’s Gift Cards
• What the midterms could mean for your retirement taxes
• • Impact! Partners Financial
• Alan Cumming chats twists, treachery and tension of ‘The Traitors: New Blood’
• • NBC’s “The Traitors: New Blood”
• Get 2 Know: KPRC 2 traffic anchor and reporter Leigha McNeil
• • Leigha McNeil

Wednesday, October 28

• Crime Stoppers of Houston
• Follow Crime Stoppers of Houston CEO Rania Mankarios on Instagram
• Behind the bar with Slowpokes Coffee: Tips for making your favorite drinks at home
• • Slowpokes
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• Taylor Kinney & Miranda Rae Mayo chat 300th episode of ‘Chicago Fire’
• • NBC’s “Chicago Fire”
• Papa Johns

Tuesday, October 27

• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
• Houston’s young Scholastic Kid Reporters share their love of reading
• • Scholastic Kids Press
• How new windows and doors can refresh your home and improve comfort
• • Renewal By Andersen
• Harris Votes
• Houston homeowner’s ‘Dolly-ween’ display honors Dolly Parton and her Imagination Library
• • Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
  • Harris County Public Library
• Is Hotel Galvez really haunted? Houston Life explores one of Galveston’s spookiest hotels
• • Grand Galvez Ghost Tours

Monday, October 26

• Houston Christian University College of Science and Engineering
• Halloween pet safety: VEG ER for Pets helping keep your furry friends safe this spooky season
• • Veg ER
• What do tarot’s scariest cards really mean?
• • Tarot Card Reader Amber Ambrose
• From basic to bloody and store-bought to snatched, how to elevate your Halloween makeup and wig
• • Makeup Artist Darcie Teasley

Friday, October 23

• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• KLA Schools of River Oaks Brings Curiosity-Driven Learning to Houston
• • KLA Schools River Oaks
• Alley Theatre’s newest production, ‘Uhuru’ explores identity, culture, and belonging
• • Alley Theatre “Uhuru”
• Is it time for a hearing test? A Houston audiologist’s guide to spotting hearing loss
• • Dr. Lacey Brooks
• Space City Fest
• Build a DIY Haunted House at Home: A Family-Friendly Guide
• • Home Improvement Expert, Kathryn Emery | Be The Best Home
  • Mr. Dylan Emery | Kid-Trepreneur, Entertainer & Spokesperson

Thursday, October 22

• Caring for a loved one? Here’s how male caregivers can find support at the AARP Men Who Care Conference
• • AARP Men Who Care Conference
• What to expect at Lopesan Costa Bávaro: pools, dining and family fun
• • The Travel Mom
• Brenner’s Steakhouse
• Unlock your confidence: “American Idol” alum Justin Guarini on transforming fear into an ally and owning your story
• • Justin Guarin
  • Justin Guarini’s book “Center Stage Confidence”

Wednesday, October 21

• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Your one-stop shop for Halloween is right around the corner
• • Kroger
  • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
• Harris Votes
• “Mrs. Doubtfire” musical brings laughs, heart and the iconic nanny to a Houston stage
• • TUTS “Mrs. Doubtfire”
• Mötley Crüe ready to rock to Vegas: Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee chat new residency
• • Tickets to Mötley Crüe: The Las Vegas Residency

Tuesday, October 20

• KPRC 2 Insiders, here’s your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card! (October 2026 - February 2027)
• Grow it, make it, use it | Using fresh herbs in your skincare routine
• • Annual Herb Fair
• Novatio School
• Plot-twist trips, paranormal adventures and AI-powered vacations, where will 2027 take you?
• • Your Bucket List Guide
  • Booking.com
• Premier Legal Group
• Join UT MD Anderson’s 11th annual Boot Walk to End Cancer® at Helix Park Nov. 14
• • UT MD Anderson’s Boot Walk to End Cancer^®

Monday, October 19

• Fort Bend Women’s Center shares resources for domestic violence survivors
• • Fort Bend County Women’s Center
• Día de los Muertos: Simple ideas for a meaningful ofrenda honoring a loved one
• • Walmart (visit your local stores for Día de los Muertos items; Selection varies by store)
• Fortis College
• Great Wolf Lodge Halloween Fun: Trick-or-Treat Trails & Family Activities
• • The Travel Mom
  • Great Wolf Lodge
• 3 years after getting full mouth dental implants, this Houston man’s smile is still sparkling
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, October 16

• Houston Life celebrates 10 years on the air with epic lookback of the broadcast

Thursday, October 15

• BOO! HL visits Houston Zoo to preview their annual Zoo Boo and all the month-long creepy crawly fun
• • Houston Zoo
  • Zoo Boo

Wednesday, October 14

• Monster Jam returns to Houston with The Amazing Spider-Man Truck
• • Monster Jam
• The Woodlands Christian Academy takes learning beyond the classroom
• • The Woodlands Christian Academy
• Fortis College prepares Houston students for careers in Sterile Processing
• • Fortis College
• Landry’s Chef Series: Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse celebrates 45 Years with new Fall menu
• • DelFrisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse
• Meet Gonzo247, the man behind some of Houston’s most iconic street art
• • Gonzo247

Tuesday, October 13

• 3rd annual Buffalo Bayou Mural Festival celebrates 105 murals in Houston’s East End
• • Buffalo Bayou Mural Festival
• Smart home upgrades to refresh your space from floor to garage
• • Home Improvement Expert, Kathryn Emery | Be The Best Home
• Conjure up two bewitching Halloween drinks with Cursed Cauldron
• • The Cursed Cauldron
• Is Hotel Galvez really haunted? Houston Life explores one of Galveston’s spookiest hotels
• • Grand Galvez Ghost Tours

Monday, October 12

• Join UT MD Anderson’s 11th annual Boot Walk to End Cancer® at Helix Park Nov. 14
• • UT MD Anderson’s Boot Walk to End Cancer^®
• Houston Filipino Street Festival brings food, music and fireworks to Sugar Land
• • Houston Filipino Street Festival
• Houston Dynamo Legends Brian Ching & Wade Barrett celebrate Ching’s legacy ahead of big honors
• • Houston Dynamo FC Texas Derby Game
  • Brian Ching to be inducted into Houston Dynamo FS Ring of Honor
  • Brian Ching to be inducted into Houston Sports Hall of Fame
• The Perfect Pumpkins brings picture-perfect fall porches straight to your door
• • The Perfect Pumpkins

Friday, October 9

• Walt Disney Elementary teacher Jo Meek named KPRC 2 Teacher of the Month
• • KPRC 2 and Houston Life launch Teacher of the Month Contest to celebrate outstanding K-12 educators across Houston
• Thing 1 and Thing 3 stir up trouble ahead of Cat in the Hat’s return to the big screen
• • The Cat in the Hat | Official Movie Site | Warner Bros. Pictures
  • Houston Pumpkin Festival at Discovery Green
• Plan a fall day in Pearland: From haunted tours and seasonal dining to boutique shopping and more
• • Visit Pearland
• From “Ghost” to “Scandal” to “Law & Order”: Tony Goldwyn chats latest chapter
• • NBC’s “Law & Order”
• KPRC 2 Insiders, here’s your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card! (October 2026 - February 2027)

Thursday, October 8

• Landry’s Chef Series: Fall flavors land at Morton’s The Steakhouse
• • Morton’s The Steakhouse
  • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for a chance to win a $200 in Landry’s gift cards!
• Huzzah! The 52nd annual Texas Renaissance Festival opens this weekend
• • Texas Renaissance Festival
• The classic American road trip is back! Why you should head west to Nevada’s Reno-Tahoe Territory
• • Your Bucket List Guide
  • Reno-Tahoe Territory
• Kid‑tested spooky‑season toy guide: slime, heroes, zombies and more
• • Mr. Dylan Emery | Kid-Trepreneur, Entertainer & Spokesperson
• Join UT MD Anderson’s 11th annual Boot Walk to End Cancer® at Helix Park Nov. 14
• • UT MD Anderson’s Boot Walk to End Cancer^®

Wednesday, October 7

• Dr. Ian Smith shares nutrition tips for navigating Menopause in his 30th book
• • Dr. Ian Smith’s new book ‘The New Menopause Kitchen’
  • ‘The New Menopause Kitchen’ Facebook group
• Texas Oncology Breast Care
• 7th annual ‘In a Pickle Festival’ bringing a whole lot of dill to Kingwood
• • In a Pickle Festival
• Walt Disney Elementary teacher Jo Meek named KPRC 2 Teacher of the Month
• • KPRC 2 and Houston Life launch Teacher of the Month Contest to celebrate outstanding K-12 educators across Houston

Tuesday, October 6

• Houston Attorney featured on new season of NBC’s The Traitors
• • NBC’s “The Traitors: New Blood”
• Veg ER
• “Gloria: A Life” brings Gloria Steinem’s story to the stage at Cypress Stage
• • “Gloria: A Life” at Cypress Stage
• Michael Douglas looks back on 60 years in Hollywood with new memoir ‘One Helluva Ride’
• • ‘One Helluva Ride’ by Michael Douglas

Monday, October 5

• Ventriloquist, singer and comedian Terry Fator chats new tour, new book and new music
• • Terry Fator
• Ready to hoop? The H-Town Classic is coming to the Academy in Katy this weekend
• • Academy Sports + Outdoors
• Best-selling author Brad Meltzer inspires readers with 40th book in his children’s series
• • Follow Brad Meltzer on Instagram
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, October 2

• Houston Bluesfest brings generations of blues to POST Houston
• • Houston Bluesfest (10% off tickets with code HL10)
• Join UT MD Anderson’s 11th annual Boot Walk to End Cancer® at Helix Park Nov. 14
• • UT MD Anderson’s Boot Walk to End Cancer^®
• Meet Gonzo247, the man behind some of Houston’s most iconic street art
• • Gonzo247
• One of the most famous love stories of all time: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ now on stage at Alley Theatre
• • “Romeo and Juliet” at Alley Theatre

Thursday, October 1

• Houston Cinema Arts Festival opens with Mahershala Ali’s new film, “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother”
• • Houston Cinema Arts Festival
• What is a “poop root”? How tree roots can cause plumbing problems
• • Mission AC & Plumbing
• Call Me Mother exhibition spotlights Black maternal health
• • “The Call Me Mother Experience” at The Health Museum
  • Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton
• Pack your skis! Why Austria’s Skiwelt should be on your winter bucket list
• • Your Bucket List Guide
• Houston Christian University

Monday, September 28

• Oktoberfest 101: 4 beers, fun facts, food, and stein hoisting
• • What’s on Tap Radio
  • Equal Parts Brewing
• Matthew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson chat new Apple TV comedy “Brothers”
• • Apple TV’s “Brothers”
• 3 simple design tips to make your space feel more stylish with Benjamin Johnston
• • Ben Johnston Design

Friday, September 25

• Tokyo X brings Japanese culture, sumo wrestling and 10-yen cheese coins to Houston
• • Tokyo X
  • Shōgeki Sumo
• Inside the AI-powered Novatio School, rethinking what a school day can look like
• • Novatio School
• What to know before bringing home a puppy plsu spotting puppy mill red flags
• • Houston Humane Society
  • Texas Humane Legislation Network

Thursday, September 24

• Join UT MD Anderson’s 11th annual Boot Walk to End Cancer® at Helix Park Nov. 14
• • UT MD Anderson’s Boot Walk to End Cancer^®
• Grab your boots and get ready for some serious fair fun at the 90th annual Fort Bend County Fair
• • Fort Bend County Fair and Rodeo
• Dessert Gallery celebrates 31 years of keeping Houston sweet
• • Dessert Gallery
• Making magical memories: The Travel Mom takes her 3-year-old grandson on a Disney Cruise
• • The Travel Mom
  • Disney Cruise Line
  • Vacation Giveaways

Wednesday, September 23

• BOO! HL visits Houston Zoo to preview their annual Zoo Boo and all the month-long creepy crawly fun
• • Houston Zoo
  • Zoo Boo

Tuesday, September 22

• A book lovers dream returns to POST Houston this weekend at Readers Fest
• • Readers Fest at Post Houston
• A double knee replacement didn’t stop this Houstonian from skiing, golfing, and playing tennis
• • Dr. Berger Outpatient Hip and Knee
• Cheers to Fall: Pumpkin drinks, dishes and desserts to try this season
• • Goodtaste TV with Tanji Patton
• How Allied Outdoor Solutions can completely transform your space
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions
• From Gotham to H-Town: Who’s behind the wheel of Houston’s Batmobile?

Monday, September 21

• Kindness and community returns to Houston with award-winning ‘Come from Away’ at Stages Houston
• • ‘Come from Away’ at Stages Houston
• A Look Inside Surgical Tech Training
• • Fortis College
• How the City of Houston is keeping older adults in mind during Falls Prevention Awareness Week
• • Falls Prevention Awareness Week
• Full-arch implants in Houston: rebuild your smile with lasting stability
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• ROCO, Houston’s Chamber Orchestra, kicks off season 22 with packed lineup for opening weekend
• • ROCO Houston Chamber Orchestra

Friday, September 18

• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Salvador Dalí’s rare art comes to Houston thanks to Madame Christine Argillet, the last living link to the iconic artist
• • The Argillet Collection
  • “Salvador Dalí: The Argillet Collection”
• KPRC 2 Community: Standing with Houston families facing childhood cancer
• • Candlelighters
• The wait is over! Houston hot spot Burger Bodega has landed in Katy
• • Burger Bodega
• What’s in your water? Water purification company NECOA shows how Houston’s water measures up
• • NECOA
• Look Up: Discover Astrotourism in Australia’s Northern Territory
• • Australia’s Northern Territory
  • Your Bucket List Guide

Thursday, September 17

• Ben Chavez brings his “Golden Era” to the stage with “Last Day, County Fair”
• • Tickets to “Last Day, County Fair”
  • Follow Ben on Instagram
• Hands-On Training for High-Demand Jobs
• • Fortis College
• Lauren Kelly visits Jimmy Fallon at Rockefeller Center to chat Rodeo, Beyoncé and his fall season
• • NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”
• Breathtaking destinations for the fall travel season
• • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider

Wednesday, September 16

• Get Growing: What to Plant in Your Houston Fall Garden
• • Urban Harvest Planting Guide
• ‘The Music Man’ brings Broadway charm to the Hobby Center
• • Theatre Under The Stars “The Music Man”
• Meet Fariha Nasir the interior designer crafting spaces that tell stories
• • Fariha Nasir Pennies for a Fortune

Tuesday, September 15

• What’s the beef with beef? Good Ranchers talks imported meats and what to look out for
• • Good Ranchers
• The art and beauty of Ballet Folklórico with Instituto de Arte Nokali
• • Instituto de Arte Nokali
• Comfort Foodies serves up love, culture and big flavor for Latin Restaurant Weeks
• • Comfort Foodies
  • Latin Restaurant Weeks
• KPRC 2’s “Enough”

Monday, September 14

• A cello concert in the great outdoors? Free shows coming to two Texas state parks
• • Wild Notes Foundation
• Houston native Armani Greer steps into the spotlight in Tyler Perry’s ‘Why Did I Get Married Again?’
• • Armani Greer
• Ready for Recess? Inside the new River Oaks spot built for the whole family
• • Recess River Oaks
• Filling the vital need for non-emergency medical transport
• • CarlMichaels Transportation & NEMT

Friday, September 11

• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo “Mission Rodeo” podcast
• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Celebrate Rosh Hashanah with traditional favorites at The New York Deli & Bagel Shop Bakery
• • The Bagel Shop Bakery
• 25 years after 9/11, Todd Hill’s story lives on through faith, purpose and hope
• • 9/11: Reflections of the Past 25 Years
  • Todd Hill 9/11 Memorial Scholarship Fund
• Kefita coffee bringing authentic Ethiopian coffee and culture to Houston
• • Kefita Coffee
• Owen Wilson, Rodrigo Santoro & Scott Waugh chat high-stakes action thriller ‘Runner’
• • ‘Runner’ (2026) in theaters now

Thursday, September 10

• Veteran’s fishing wish granted by nonprofit
• • Twilight Wish Foundation
• Quality roofs, easy process: Why Adams Roofing treats roofs as a complete system
• • Adams Roofing
• The Travel Mom
• • Beaches
  • Trafalgar
  • National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions
• Two veterans, two comebacks: Why they’re saying “you’re not done yet”
• • Fenix Shepard
  • Loved Unconditionally: A Spiritual Memoir of Trauma, Addiction Recovery, and Finding God Beyond Religion

Wednesday, September 9

• The signs and symptoms of prostate cancer
• • Texas Oncology
• 5 tips to avoid plumbing disasters
• • Village Plumbing & Air
• Việt Cultural Fest brings student robotics to Houston
• • Việt Cultural Fest
• The Perfect Pumpkins brings picture-perfect fall porches straight to your door
• • The Perfect Pumpkins

Tuesday, September 8

• The Travel Mom
• • Universal Kids Resort
• KPRC 2 Community: Standing with Houston families facing childhood cancer
• • Candlelighters Fun Walk
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Monday, September 7

• With love, from Fredericksburg! How the visitor bureau can help plan your stay
• • Visit Fredericksburg
• History, wine and Texas Charm at Das Peach Haus in Fredericksburg
• • Das Peach Haus
  • Dietz Distillery
  • Fischer & Wieser
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area
• Step inside history at Fredericksburg’s National Museum of the Pacific War
• • National Museum of the Pacific War
• Make the most of your trip to Texas Hill Country with the Fredericksburg Food & Wine Fest
• • Fredericksburg Food & Wine Festival
  • K Estate Winery & Vineyards
• Dot’s Bakery
• Albert Hotel

Friday, September 4

• Netflix’s “A Different World”
• • Stars from ‘A Different World’ reboot on Netflix chat about why the new series is a must-watch
• Dr. Rosie Thomas
• • Dr. Rosie Thomas explains the tax strategies small business owners need to know
• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week

Thursday, September 3

• Hank Schwaeble
• Hank Schwaeble’s “Normal for the Spider”
• Preemo’s Bakeshop
• “Miss Dee’s Kitchen” at The Hobby Center
• Jurassic Quest
• The Day Savers: A National Tradesmen Day Contest

Wednesday, September 2

• Southern Smoke Festival
• Houston Texans new Rivalries uniform is love letter to H-Town
• • Houston Texans Apparel
• 3 simple design tips to make your space feel more stylish with Benjamin Johnston
• • Ben Johnston Design

Monday, August 31

• National Matchmaker Day: Expert tips for setting up friends like a pro
• • Jenn Pinkerton
• Is your home Wi-Fi ready for back to school? Here’s what parents should know
• • Ezee Fiber
• Transform your existing patio into an outdoor retreat
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions
• The hidden reason you’re struggling to lose weight after 40
• • Optimal Body

Friday, August 28

• Houston Life celebrates 10 years on the air with epic lookback of the broadcast

Thursday, August 27

• Bar Moon brings cocktails, live music and a night out to Post Oak
• • Bar Moon
• Happy 190th birthday, Houston! Celebrate with FREE family-friendly activities at The Heritage Society
• • The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park
• Companion Energy volunteers pamper pets at Houston Humane Society ahead of Clear The Shelters
• • Companion Energy
• Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
• Harris County Public Library
• George Observatory

Wednesday, August 26

• Next Level Urgent Care
• Woodlands Christian Academy
• Happy National Dog Day! How dogs bring us together plus easy homemade treats for your furry friend
• • National Dog Day: Small Treats. Big Wags: The Neighborhood Edition
  • 6 free dog treat recipes
• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Derrick Shore and Cathy Hernandez take on the the ‘Minute-To-Win-It Oreo Challenge’

Tuesday, August 25

• Kam Franklin steps into the spotlight with her first solo album, ‘Land of the Neon Sun’
• • Kam Franklin’s Website
  • Preorder “Land of the Neon Sun” and receive a priority wristband to her album release party
• Singing, dancing, and a little murder, Night Court returns for another year of musical mayhem
• • Night Court at the Hobby Center
• Time Mission lands in Houston, bringing a new kind of social gaming adventure
• • Time Mission Houston

Monday, August 24

• 5 years of STEM magic: Crystal Lister shares 2 fun chemistry experiments
• • Mommy and Me The Listers
• From one restaurant to 6 locations, Local Table has been serving Houston for a decade
• • Local Table
• Next Level Urgent Care

Friday, August 21

• Antico Casa from Antico Pizza brings frozen Neapolitan-style pies to Houston (Aug. 20–23)
• • Antico Fine Food
• Donald and Lisa Pliner share their love story, fashion journey and legacy
• • The Selling of One’s Sole
• Kandi Burruss brings one-woman show “I Do, I Did, I’m Done,” to Houston
• • “I Do, I Did, I’m Done” Tickets
• Houston’s Starduster Lounge puts its spin on the viral martini trend
• • Starduster Lounge
• Next Level Urgent Care

Thursday, August 20

• Houston author Mariah Kingsley brings a fresh perspective to romance stories
• • “Fractured” on Amazon
• Labor Day Getaways: Vail Peaks, Coastal Sun in Corpus Christi and Tennessee’s Real-Deal Travel
• • Visit Corpus Christi
  • Discover Vail
  • Tennessee Vacation Instagram
  • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider
• Easy Back-to-School Lunches Kids Will Actually Eat, Recipes & Packing Tips
• • My Diary of Us Lunchbox Guide

Wednesday, August 19

• Houston humidity, meet your match: Simple tips for frizz-free hair
• • Frequency Salon
• Mambo Seafood
• Meet Fariha Nasir the interior designer crafting spaces that tell stories
• • Fariha Nasir Pennies for a Fortune
• Actors Jeff Daniels and Jared Harris take us inside ‘The Brink of War’
• • The Brink of War

Tuesday, August 18

• What do school accountability ratings really tell us? Local non-profit Good Reason Houston breaks it down
• • Good Reason Houston
• How the UH Mariachi Pumas continue to bring Mariachi to a new generation
• • Follow UH Mariachi Pumas on Instagram
  • Houston Theater Week Presented by Huntington Bank
• How 80s supermodel Kim Alexis is living her best life after 55
• • Kim Alexis
• Clear the Shelters is back: Houston pets are ready for homes
• Next Level Urgent Care

Monday, August 17

• For one Katy grandfather, an 11,000-mile motorcycle ride is about more than the road
• • Do What You Love to End ALZ program
  • Follow Scott “Sugar Bear” Brown on YouTube
• Houston hip-hop legend Willie D is inviting everyone to his big 60th birthday party
• • The Roast of Willie D: Cooked by Legends Tickets
• Personalized Dental Implants: Dr. Michel Azer on restoring smiles in Houston
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, August 14

• Enter to win a getaway for two from The Fredericksburg Convention and Visitor Bureau
• With love, from Fredericksburg! How the visitor bureau can help plan your stay
• • Visit Fredericksburg
• History, wine and Texas Charm at Das Peach Haus in Fredericksburg
• • Das Peach Haus
  • Dietz Distillery
  • Fischer & Wieser
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area
• Step inside history at Fredericksburg’s National Museum of the Pacific War
• • National Museum of the Pacific War
• Make the most of your trip to Texas Hill Country with the Fredericksburg Food & Wine Fest
• • Fredericksburg Food & Wine Festival
  • K Estate Winery & Vineyards
• Dot’s Bakery
• Albert Hotel

Thursday, August 13

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Disco, roller skates and 1980s fun: The Garden Theatre brings the musical world of ‘Xanadu’ to the stage
• • The Garden Theatre’s “Xanadu”
• Melanie Lynskey chats new Netflix film ‘Don’t Say Good Luck’
• • Netflix’s Don’t Say Good Luck
• Houston Dynamo FC celebrates 20 years of its 2006 MLS Cup Championship
• • Houston Dynamo FC
• Next Level Urgent Care

Wednesday, August 12

• Get ready for mystery: ‘The Girl on the Train’ now on stage at Alley Theatre
• • Alley Theatre’s “The Girl on the Train” tickets
• Water heater warning signs Houston homeowners shouldn’t ignore
• • Mission AC & Plumbing
• Humble’s Cris Sosa advances to AGT live shows after hilarious cereal comedy set
• • Comedian Cris Sosa
  • NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”
• Kenny and Ziggy’s owner Ziggy Gruber whips up traditional Jewish kugel for National Deli Month
• • Kenny & Ziggy’s

Tuesday, August 11

• Houston Theater Week is almost here! Here’s how to snag BOGO tickets to 400+ shows
• • Houston Theater Week Presented by Huntington Bank
• Back-to-School Anxiety: What Parents Need to Know
• • Houston Christian University
• How the DiIorio family is celebrating 70 years of family, farming and community
• • DiIorio Farms
• Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly talk love, loyalty and drama of ‘Ransom Canyon’ Season 2
• • Ransom Canyon on Netflix

Monday, August 10

• Clear the Shelters is back: Houston pets are ready for homes
• Eclipse cruises take off: The Travel Mom on why astro‑tourism is booming with Princess Cruises
• • The Travel Mom
  • Princess Cruises
• Bear Grylls takes the cast of ‘The Chosen’ Into the Wild in new Prime Video series
• • Prime Video’s “The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Grylls”
• Next Level Urgent Care
• These women athletes from Afghanistan escaped Taliban rule. Now the players of Houston Shine FC find joy in soccer again
• • Houston Shine FC

Friday, August 7

• Houston’s Pink Phurree dragon boat team heads to France to celebrate breast cancer survivorship
• • Pink Phurree Dragon Boat Team
• Now playing: Queensbury Theatre’s brand new production of Mean Girls The Musical
• • Queensbury Theatre’s ‘Mean Girls The Musical’
• 12-year-old Houston golfer Alaina Villarreal makes her debut on Stephen Curry’s UNDERRATED Golf Tour
• • UNDERRATED Golf Tour
  • Alaina Villareal
• Protein-packed rice for easy weeknight meals with SunRice Protein+
• • SunRice

Thursday, August 6

• Kenny and Ziggy’s owner Ziggy Gruber whips up traditional Jewish kugel for National Deli Month
• • Kenny & Ziggy’s
• Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey brings ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ to Houston
• • Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Presents The Greatest Show On Earth
• Houston City College Is Where Art Meets Innovation
• • Houston City College
• Find Calm at the Coast: Travel Mom Emily Kaufman Celebrates ‘Spa Weekend’ at Terranea Resort
• • The Travel Mom
  • Travel Guard’s Spa Weekend Getaway Sweepstakes

Wednesday, August 5

• It’s National Sandwich Month: Husband-wife duo behind Yuma brings Brazilian flavor to a Cuban classic
• • Yuma
• WWE Superstar Trick Williams previews Survivor Series: WarGames coming to Houston
• • WWE Survivor Series: Wargames
• Ready to dance? Houston Rockets Clutch City Dancers to hold open auditions
• • Clutch City Dancers open Auditions
• Next Level Urgent Care

Tuesday, August 4

• Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly talk love, loyalty and drama of ‘Ransom Canyon’ Season 2
• • Ransom Canyon on Netflix
• Houston’s own Cris Sosa competes on NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 21
• • Comedian Cris Sosa
  • NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”
• Gexa Energy marks 25 Years by volunteering with Meals on Wheels, The Beacon and Houston Habitat for Humanity ReStore
• • Gexa Energy
• Brassica Shares the vegan secret behind its signature chocolate chip cookie
• • Brassica
• Master P Brings Hip-Hop History to Houston With Cash Money and No Limit Reunion Tour
• • Cash Money & No Limit Tour

Monday, August 3

• Houston students and teachers share their work beyond the classroom in new exhibition “The Sequence Is Yours”
• • Contemporary Arts Museum Houston‘s ‘The Sequence Is Yours’ Exhibition
• Sip, savor and celebrate Labor Day Weekend at the Galveston Island Wine Festival
• • Celebrity Chef Brian Duffy serves up a preview of the Galveston Island Wine Festival
  • Moody Gardens Galveston Island Wine Festival
• Modern dental implants give Houston patients natural, comfortable smiles
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, July 31

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• ‘Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live: Glow-N-Fire’ brings high-octane family fun to Houston
• • Hot Wheels Monster Truck Live Glow-N-Fire at Toyota Center
• There’s a story behind every building: Take a tour of Downtown Houston with Preservation Houston
• • Preservation Houston

Thursday, July 30

• Meet the twin sisters who turned their cheesecake passion into a successful business
• • KK Cheesecakes
• How HCU’s high-tech simulation lab is preparing nursing students for in-demand jobs
• • Houston Christian University Linda R. Dunham School of Nursing
• Gexa Energy marks 25 Years by volunteering with Meals on Wheels and The Beacon
• • Gexa Energy
• Garbage Girlfriend

Wednesday, July 29

• Houston Shakespeare Festival is back at Miller Outdoor Theatre with a reimagined lead in “The Tempest”
• • Houston Shakespeare Festival
• In the CLASSROOM with Kroger: How they’re helping parents and kids start the school year happy, healthy, and prepared
• • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
  • Kroger
• Happy National Lipstick Day! Here’s the lowdown on choosing a matte, glossy, or satin pigment 💄
• • Makeup Artist Darcie Teasley
• Tony Danza is coming to Houston this week, here is where to see him
• • Doc’s Houston Presents Tony Danza - “Standards and Stories”

Monday, July 27

• Back-to-school safety: What kids should know and what parents should watch for in case of a school emergency
• • CPR and Safety Lady Gail Gould
  • Back to School Safety Webinar with CPR and Safety Lady Gail Gould
• Anaheim: The Urban Basecamp You Didn’t Know You Needed In Southern California
• • Gabe Saglie The Travel Guy
• Houston students turn thousands of plastic bags into an award-winning business
• • Plastic Free July
  • Next Use
• Allied Outdoor Solutions

Friday, July 24

• Houston celebrates Art House Theater Day with a “Car Wash” screening and preshow party
• • Houston Art House Theater Day
• The best tacos in Texas arrive in Houston this weekend + Texas Monthly Taco Editor‘s spicy gig getting paid to eat tacos
• • 2026 Texas Monthly Taco Fest South
  • Huncho’s Tacos
• BISSELL Pet Foundation Empty the Shelters
• Rosenberg Animal Control and Shelter

Thursday, July 23

• Meet the Houston Rig Hands: The city’s pro 3-on-3 basketball team 🏀🏀
• • Follow Houston Rig Hands on Instagram
  • BIG3 Playing at Toyota Center Tickets
• Houston City College’s Coleman Campus: Training the next generation of health care workers
• • Houston City College
• Vic Mignogna on Anime Matsuri, Star Trek & life with Dominique Sachse
• • Follow Vic Mignogna on Instagram
  • Anime Matsuri

Wednesday, July 22

• 16th annual Mayor’s Back 2 School & Health Fair brings free supplies, screenings to Houston families
• • Mayor’s Back to School & Health Fair
• Tips for Planning the Perfect Summer Getaway
• • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider
  • Marriott Bonvoy
  • Official Guide to Breckenridge
• Celebrate National Tequila Day at Zanti Cucina Italiana in River Oaks
• • Zanti Cucina Italiana
• Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman heading to Houston for blues experience
• • Performing Arts Houston Presents “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience”

Tuesday, July 21

• How CenterPoint Energy says they’re building a stronger, more resilient electric grid
• • CenterPoint Energy Action Center
• NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”
• Ox St. Kitchen
• Ivan Chavez Chavos BBQ
• The world’s fragrance community comes together at FRAGCON in Houston
• • Global Fragrance Convention

Monday, July 20

• Houston’s Girl Gone Grilling shares her buffalo chicken stuffed garlic bread
• • Katherine Salom “Girl Gone Grilling”
• Powerhouse performer Christina Wells, now in a wheelchair, is still lighting up Houston stages
• • Christina Wells
• When a smile needs more than veneers: one Houston patient’s transformation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, July 17

• Hidden Omakase serves up a Summer favorite while continuing its comeback story
• • Hidden Omakase
• East Houston Medical Center works to improve access to health care in the community
• • East Houston Medical Center
• “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
• 13th Annual Ohana Surf Dogs Competition

Thursday, July 16

• 93Q’s Cowboys & Angels Concert Brings Country Stars to Houston
• • 93Q’s Cowboys & Angels
• Here’s Blue Willow Bookshop’s summer reading picks you need to add to your TBR
• • Blue Willow Bookshop
• UniverSoul Circus brings big top thrills to Houston Life
• • UniverSoul Circus

Wednesday, July 15

• Llamas, haunted houses, and mermaids?! Houston realtor Noel Collier talks HGTV’S ‘Extreme Buyers Club’
• • HGTV’s ‘Extreme Buyers Club’
  • Noel Collier Group
• Protect Yourself After a Crash: What to Do If You’re Illegally Solicited
• • The Miller Law Firm, home of The Texas Bulldog
• Skip the oven and beat the summer heat with this no-bake chocolate raspberry tart
• • Florence Jackson
• Raising Cane’s and the Norris family to honor Chuck Norris’ legacy on National Chicken Finger Day
• • Raising Canes

Tuesday, July 14

• Casa de Cultura turns a Houston gallery into a living archive one family story at a time
• • Photographer Violeta Álvarez
  • FreshArts
• The late Chuck Norris continues to empower kids through Kickstart Kids martial arts program
• • Kickstart Kids
  • Raising Canes
• Protein-Packed Plates: Casa do Brasil, Los Tios and a High Protein Bowl with Tanji Patton of Goodtaste TV
• • Goodtaste for the Soul with Tanji Patton

Monday, July 13

• Remembering the iconic artist David Adickes on his 99th birthday and his lasting legacy in Houston
• • David Adickes Art
• Spend the Summer at Moody Gardens: Animal encounters, weekly themes, and how to register
• • Moody Gardens
• There’s a story behind every building: Take a tour of Downtown Houston with Preservation Houston
• • Preservation Houston
• Celebrate 713 Day with Houston Rap Legend Lil’ Keke
• • Follow Lil Keke on Instagram
• Best places and deals around Houston to celebrate 713 Day

Friday, July 10

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Houston Hula Academy brings the spirit of Polynesia to Houston Life
• • Houston Hula Academy
  • Drums of the Pacific
• A car lover’s dream! Where to see life-size Hot Wheels cars in the Houston area
• • Hot Wheels Legends Tour
• Fire Up The Grill: Easy Grilling for a Crowd
• • III Catering
• Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Thursday, July 9

• Meet the Houston 6-year-old golfer makes national tournament history
• • Ascend Golf Academy
• Fort Bend County Fair Celebrates 90 Years with Pat Green, Sawyer Brown and a Star-Studded 2026 Lineup
• • Fort Bend County Fair
• Houston City College: College that fits your schedule
• • Houston City College
• Goode Company Seafood celebrates 40 years
• Goode Company Seafood x Texas Parks and Wildlife

Wednesday, July 8

• Fort Bend County Fair
• Fung’s Kitchen
• East Houston Medical Center hosts free FIFA World Cup 2026™ watch parties and a chance to win a free trip to the final
• • East Houston Medical Center
• Houston’s Ensemble Theatre marks 50th anniversary with premieres, revivals and, honoring the past
• • The Ensemble Theatre
• Stars of Netflix’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ chat reimagining the iconic story
• • Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie

Tuesday, July 7

• KPRC 2 Insider
• Inside the New Era of Fitness: How 24 Hour Fitness Is Rethinking the Modern Gym
• • 24 Hour Fitness
• Cosmic Ice Cream and Trill Burgers teaming up for National Ice Cream day
• • Cosmic Ice Cream
  • Trill Burgers
• Houston Ballet’s Dance 2 Thrive program brings movement, music and wellness to the Community
• • Houston Ballet
  • Dance 2 Thrive registration form

Monday, July 6

• Why Trae Tha Truth Keeps Turning His Birthday Into Houston’s Biggest Give-Back
• • Traeday 2026
• PopUp Bagels lands in Houston — grip, rip and dip your way to a viral bagel
• • PopUp Bagels
• When a smile needs more than veneers: one Houston patient’s transformation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Your Bucket List Guide
• Flora Houston
• Make this at home! The Two-Ingredient Cocktail Popping Up Around Houston During the FIFA World Cup 26™
• • Bucanita by Buchanan’s

Thursday, July 2

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• These women athletes from Afghanistan escaped Taliban rule. Now the players of Houston Shine FC find joy in soccer again
• • Houston Shine FC
• ‘Read With Jenna’ debuts cozy Book Nook aboard MSC Seascape sailing from Galveston
• • ‘Read with Jenna’
• Keep Kids Safe Around Water: Expert Guidance on Supervision and Drowning Prevention
• • Bivona Law Firm
• New Sprouts in Kingwood Is Here | And Yes, You Can Sample Just About Anything
• • Sprouts Farmers Market

Wednesday, July 1

• Celebrate America’s 250th with Houston Life’s special Fourth of July Show
• • Houston Christian University’s Independence Hall
  • Baytown’s Fourth of July Festivities
  • PBS’s Annual A Capitol Fourth celebration
  • Houston Zoo
  • Blue Bell Creameries
• LIST: Fourth of July fireworks, parades, celebrations across Greater Houston

Tuesday, June 30

• This Thai-inspired hot dog brings new flavor to your Fourth of July cookout
• • MaKiin Concepts Hospitality Group
• Firework Safety | Cy-Fair Fire Department, TX
• United Against Human Trafficking
• Houston native shares how being stranded at sea during COVID inspired a documentary, memoir and mission to help others
• • Angela Harger Productions
• 5 Things Houston Homeowners Should Know Before the Next Power Outage
• • GenPro.com

Monday, June 29

• Meet the cast of ‘Young Washington’ ahead of the film’s July 3rd release
• • ‘Young Washington’
• From Houston to American homes: Good Ranchers celebrates America’s 250th with homegrown meat
• • Good Ranchers
• New Zealand by train: Scenic journeys, culture and food
• • Gabe Saglie The Travel Guy
• Gexa Energy gives back: Make-A-Wish reveal brings joy to local child
• • Gexa Energy
• Hands-on training at Houston City College prepares students for high-demand careers
• • Houston City College

Friday, June 26

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Best Friends Animal Society hosts a free pet adoption event this Saturday
• • RSVP to Best Friends “Bring Love Home” Adoption Event
• Houston’s own Tyce Green stars in Disney’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’
• • Houston Broadway Theatre’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”
• Stay connected with reliable internet during hurricane season
• • Ezee Fiber
• Better STAAR scores, bigger goals: Here’s why Good Reason Houston focuses on a path to a living wage
• • Good Reason Houston
• Baytown Is Going Big for the Fourth of July
• • Visit Baytown
• Rodney Atkins

Thursday, June 25

• Best Friends Animal Society hosts a free pet adoption event this Saturday
• • RSVP to Best Friends “Bring Love Home” Adoption Event
  • Best Friends Houston
• A New Sprouts Farmers Market Has Opened in Webster—Here’s What You’ll Find Inside
• • Sprouts Farmers Market
• Why this financial expert says small business success starts with financial organization
• • Aragon Tax Return Services
• Mattress expert links poor sleep to serious health risks
• • Texas Mattress Makers

Wednesday, June 24

• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo announces historic agriculture complex benefitting Texas youth
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Vegan recipes to add to your summer cookout menu
• • Dr. Chinwe Orabuchi
• Could your roof be hiding storm damage: What Houston homeowners should know
• • Adams Roofing
• Companion Energy brings ‘Energy that Cares’ to the Houston Humane Society
• • Companion Energy
• Travel Mom Emily Kaufman says now’s the time to book Australia
• • Travel Mom
  • Visit Sydney
  • Visit South Wales

Tuesday, June 23

• Houston Life goes LIVE from new IKEA Webster ahead of Grand Opening
• • KPRC 2 Insiders, Enter for a chance to win IKEA gift cards!
  • IKEA
  • IKEA Webster: Friends and Family Shopping Event

Monday, June 22

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Family-owned restaurant Foreign Grill shares Uzbek flavors ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ match
• • Follow Foreign Grill on Instagram
• Prime Day Picks to upgrade your home
• • Home Improvement Expert, Kathryn Emery | Be The Best Home
• Meet the Houston skincare brand embracing beef tallow with no frills and all the beneficial ingredients
• • NutréLux Beauty
• Future-Proof Careers: Celebrating the HVAC Technicians Who Keep Houston Cool
• • Fortis College
• Why cruises are the hottest ticket this summer - expert tips & where to go
• • Carnival Cruises
  • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider

Thursday, June 18

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
• • Kroger
• The South Dakota Road Trip You Didn’t Know You Needed
• • Your Bucket List Guide
  • Travel South Dakota
• Hands-on training at Houston City College Southeast prepares students for high-demand careers
• • Houston City College
• Stay connected with reliable internet during hurricane season
• • Ezee Fiber

Wednesday, June 17

• WANTED: An audience ready to laugh at the Texas Outlaw Comics tonight at Houston Improv
• • Texas Outlaw Comics
• The cast of Netflix’s ‘I Will Find You’ talks bringing the bestselling thriller to life
• • Netflix’s Harlan Coben’s “I Will Find You”
• Saunawelt opens Houston’s first public European sauna house
• • Saunawelt
• Village Plumbing, Air & Electric shares summer safety tips as company celebrates 80 Years of servicing Houston
• • Village Plumbing

Tuesday, June 16

• ‘Heart & Hustle: Houston’ Star Muneera Page opens up about fame, friendship and season two
• • OWN’s “Heart & Hustle: Houston”
• Looking for a Father’s Day activity? See more than 100 exotic cars at Velocité in Houston
• • Velocité – A Father’s Day Tradition in Motion
• AEW Star Thunder Rosa balances two wrestling worlds while inspiring fans to chase their dreams
• • All Elite Wrestling at Smart Financial Centre
  • Follow Thunder Rosa on Instagram
• Transform your outdoor space with Carvestone - Plus, a chance to win $5,000 in outdoor furniture
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions

Monday, June 15

• Local 17-year-old filmmaker makes her mark with movie focusing on men’s mental health
• • “Used to Be” tickets
• WWE star Braun Strowman chats season 2 of ‘Everything On The Menu’
• • USA Network’s “Everything on the Menu With Braun Strowman”
• How Houston Habitat for Humanity is helping families build generational wealth
• • KPRC 2 Habitat for Humanity
  • Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Houston’s own Cris Sosa competes on NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 21
• • Comedian Cris Sosa
  • NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”

Friday, June 12

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Why the Rothko Chapel may be Houston’s most transformative space
• • Rothko Chapel
• Keep your home cool and save on energy with these tips from Champion & Nash
• • Champion and Nash
• Marco’s Pizza brings New York-style pizza to your neighborhood
• • Marco’s Pizza
• Meet Yassine Cheuko, personal bodyguard to soccer superstar Lionel Messi

Thursday, June 11

• FIFA Fan Festival™ Houston

Wednesday, June 10

• Houston physician and educator Dr. Tim Garson makes history approachable and relatable to modern life in new book
• • Dr. Arthur “Tim” Garson
  • Book: “Five Thousand Years of Controversies: A Family’s Journey Through World History”
• Ishida Dance Company presents ‘Waiting/Rex’ at Asia Society Texas
• • Ishida Dance Company Tickets
• Father’s Day finds and summer-ready home upgrades
• • Kathryn Emery
• Peptides and functional health: How Antiage Institute helps Houstonians age better
• • Antiage Institute

Tuesday, June 9

• How a community effort saved Houston’s printmaking legacy
• How custom coasters are made by hand at Red Bird Press studio
• • Red Bird Press
• A 34-Day soccer watch party in Houston with Diplo, wagyu burgers and VIP lounges?
• • The Ranch Presents Pitch Live
• Find the right mattress with expert help in Texas
• • Texas Mattress Makers

Monday, June 8

• Meet Saxboy Billy, the man behind the viral “Puerto Rico Song”
• • Follow Saxboy Billy on Instagram
• Celebrate Culture through music and movement with Tx2 Dance Company
• • T2 Dance Company
• NBC’s ‘American Ninja Warrior’ Season 18: What Lauren Kelly learned from the Hosts
• • NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”
• Replace an entire arch, not just a tooth: How ONEARCH changes lives
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Visit San Antonio

Friday, June 5

• The music collective behind the Houston remix for FIFA World Cup 2026™
• • Bombón
  • Official FIFA World Cup 26™ Houston Sonic ID
• Why Alley Theatre’s “Misery” is leaving Houston audiences gasping
• • Misery at Alley Theatre
• Young Houstonians will learn how to train like a pro at the Simple Truth Will Anderson Jr. ProCamp
• • Will Anderson Jr. Football ProCamp

Thursday, June 4

• Magician Michael Carbonaro is ready to wow fans in Houston with his new show ‘WONDERBOY’
• • Michael Carbonaro at Houston of Blues
• HCC Southwest ramps up hands-on training in AI, robotics and cybersecurity
• • Houston City College
• The Travel Mom’s tips for planning and booking a breathtaking Alaskan cruise
• • The Travel Mom
  • Holland America Cruises
• Spice Routes: Cardamom Challenge a culinary passport awaits at Houston’s stunning Ismaili Center
• • Ismaili Center

Wednesday, June 3

• Celebrate Freedom Festival returns to Emancipation Park this Saturday
• • Juneteenth Houston
• Why this red velvet cornbread recipe belongs on your Juneteenth table
• • Chef Cassi
• Houston Rockets Skills Camp returns to various locations this summer
• • Houston Rockets Youth Skills Camp
• KPRC 2’s 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide
• IMDB “Masters of the Universe”

Tuesday, June 2

• CPR and AED basics: Simple skills that can help save a life
• • Register for FREE CPR webinar on June 3
  • Gail Gould
• Meet the local break dancers uplifting women and youth through hip-hop, culture, and the arts
• • BGirl City Worldwide
• Cool Treats in the Heights: Where to find Hawaiian shaved ice and frozen cocktails
• • Happy Go Lucky

Monday, June 1

• Houston Author Jenny Block drops new book about finding authenticity, success and joy in life
• • Follow Jenny Block on Instagram
• The laughs keep coming in season 2 of Netflix’s ‘The Four Seasons’
• • Netflix’s “The Four Seasons”
• Discovery Green celebrating summer with free family fun and soccer-inspired events
• • Discovery Green
• Why natural looking dental implants are the new luxury in facial rejuvenation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, May 29

• Texas Teen Pageant Queens use their platforms to empower foster kids, fight bullying, and inspire future farmers
• • Kyleigh’s Kidz
• Immersive Gamebox is launching ‘Soccer Arcade,’ the world’s first immersive soccer experience
• • Immersive Gamebox
• Tanji Patton reveals what’s next after 11 seasons of Goodtaste TV
• Sweet, Savory & Spicy: Creative cantaloupe recipes worth trying this Summer
• • Goodtaste with Tanji Patton

Thursday, May 28

• Game day skin care tips for FIFA World Cup 2026™ watch parties and summer heat
• • Board-Certified Dermatologist Dr. Sherry Ingraham
• A Quick Drive From Houston, This Louisiana Resort Delivers Vegas-Style Luxury Without the Flight
• • Coushatta Casino Resort
• Licasa Treatment Center Opens in Conroe to expand compassionate mental health and addiction care
• • Licasa Treatment Center

Wednesday, May 27

•  Powering Houston’s future: Electrical apprentices showcase skills at annual Wire-Off Competition 
• • IEC Texas Gulf Coast
• Los Souldees is the local band bringing the sounds you love from the past with a fresh Houston twist
• • Los Souldees

Tuesday, May 26

• Lone Star College
• A Houston little boy’s toughest battle led to a monster surprise!
• • Gexa Energy
• Captain MC’s Seafood
• The Window Source Houston

Friday, May 22

• Get your bike ready for summer rides with these simple safety tips
• • Sun & Ski Sports
• This easy road trip from Houston comes with luxury suites, gaming, and a powerful legacy
• • Coushatta Powwow
  • Coushatta Casino Resort
• Hear the hits - ‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’ in Houston
• • “The Carole King Musical” at Theatre Under the Stars
• Support local veterans while having fun at the Patriots Charity Classic
• • Patriots Charity Classic Event

Thursday, May 21

• The World comes to Houston! Here’s what to expect ahead of the FIFA Fan Festival™ kicking off in EaDo
• • FIFA Fan Festival™
• This easy road trip from Houston comes with luxury suites, gaming, and a powerful legacy
• • Coushatta Casino Resort - New Legacy Tower
• SUMMER SWEEPSTAKES: Enter to win 3 weeks of free airport parking from The Parking Spot
• • The Parking Spot
• Train for Houston’s in demand jobs at HCC Northeast - Public Safety, Automotive, & more
• • HCC Northeast
• Schlotzsky’s Deli launches new stacked subs in Houston - Try three bold flavors
• • Schlotzsky’s Deli

Wednesday, May 20

• Schlotzsky’s Deli launches new stacked subs in Houston - Try three bold flavors
• • Schlotzsky’s Deli
• Swap, shop, sustain: Houston’s eco-friendly clothing event returns this Sunday
• • The Houston Clothing Shop
• A Houston little boy’s toughest battle led to a monster surprise!
• • Gexa Energy
• Early detection, AI tools, personalized care redefine preventive health
• • Fountain Life Houston Clinic
• Get your backyard summer ready with pest control, pool upgrades, trampolines and whole home backup power
• • Kathryn Emery
• Need summer plans? This easy Galveston getaway has dinosaurs, beaches & lazy rivers
• • Moody Gardens

Tuesday, May 19

• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Memorial Day hosting doesn’t have to start from scratch
• • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
  • Kroger
• Moody Gardens
• Houston Ballet closes 2025-2026 season with two standout productions
• • Houston Ballet
• From award-winning tv to action-packed films, Bob Odenkirk chats ‘Normal’
• • Follow Bob Odenkirk on Instagram

Monday, May 18

• Celebrate World Ocean Day in Galveston with art, music & ocean fun for free 🌊 🌊
• • Artist Boat
• A collector’s dream: U.S. Coins & Jewelry opens brand new showroom for buying and selling
• • U.S. Coins and Jewelry
• Mental Health Awareness Month: How to spot the signs when stress becomes something more
• • The Harris Center for Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD)
• Spring couple transforms builder-grade patio into beautiful backyard with Allied Outdoor Solutions
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions
• Why natural looking dental implants are the new luxury in facial rejuvenation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, May 15

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• At Houston’s Alley Theatre, “Dear Alien” explores the beautiful weirdness of being human
• • “Dear Alien at Alley Theatre
• Gear up inside the newly renovated and relocated Sun & Ski Sports Memorial City
• • Sun & Ski Sports Memorial City
• The Travel Mom on the perks of RV life on the road
• • The Travel Mom
  • Go RVing

Thursday, May 14

• Musaafer Houston Beekeeper cocktail program highlights honey from local neighborhoods
• • Musaafer
• Help us save lives at the KPRC 2 Community Blood Drive with Gulf Coast Blood
• • Schedule an appointment
• Port Aransas
• Children’s Museum Houston

Wednesday, May 13

• Why one Fulshear homeowner calls his generator “The Easy Button”
• • GenPro.com
• Family fun meets coastal charm in Port Aransas, Texas’ premier Gulf Coast getaway
• • Port Aransas
  • Red Dragon Pirate Cruises
• Local chef turns pandemic setback into a thriving Filipino food pop-up business
• • Aleng Nina’s
  • Chef Nina’s Pop-up Event at Third Place

Tuesday, May 12

• Rob Riggle among authors featured in ‘A Celebration of Reading’ 2026
• • Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation
• Texas’ legendary 1877 tall ship ELISSA joins Sail250 voyage to New York Harbor
• • The Official Official Tall Ship of Texas
  • Galveston 250 Kickoff Party Tickets
• The Future of noninvasive wellness is in Sugar Land
• • Oasis Aesthetics & Wellness and Oasis Dry Eye Center
• Chef Jose Hernandez on his roots, restaurants, and fresh pasta
• • Savoir Restaurant
  • Patton

Monday, May 11

• Texas breweries shine at World Beer Cup as American Craft Beer Week kicks off
• • What’s on Tap Radio
• Could Retirement Living Actually Feel Like a Resort? Inside Life at Eagle’s Trace
• • Eagles’ Trace by Erickson Senior Living
• Empty Bowls Houston returns for its 20th anniversary
• • Empty Bowls Houston
  • Houston Food Bank

Friday, May 8

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Children’s Museum Houston and Houston Life present a first look inside the ‘Gallery of Wonder’ on KPRC 2
• Easy at-home kitchen STEM activities to spark curiosity with Children’s Museum Houston
• • Children’s Museum Houston
• Rung Film Festival returns to Houston, highlighting Pakistani storytellers on the big screen
• • Rung Film Festival
• Scammed out of $90,000: Houston woman shares warning for seniors
• • AARP Houston
• KPRC 2’s “Eat Like a Local”

Thursday, May 7

• Celebrate National Hamburger Month with OMG! Burger
• • OMG! Burger
• How Houston City College Is Building the City’s Workforce
• • Houston City College
• The Insperity Invitational presented by United Healthcare happening in The Woodlands this weekend
• • Insperity Invitational
• Bridge the Gaps

Wednesday, May 6

• From local finds to feel-good vibes, ‘Shop Fulshear First’ family-friendly night market
• • “Shop Fulshear First”
• Why you keep repeating the same unhealthy relationship patterns and how to change them
• • Jenn Pinkerton
• Houston Grand Opera

Tuesday, May 5

• Bun B announces “UGK Been Ridin’ Dirty,” Celebrating 30 Years of a Southern Hip-Hop Classic
• • Bun B Presents “Been Ridin’ Dirty” Tickets
• From classroom to center stage: The Tommy Tune Awards showcase Houston’s rising theatre talent
• • Tommy Tune Awards Finalists List
• Houston Life co-hosts learn calligraphy with live event artist Jenny Blaschke
• • Jenny Blaschke

Monday, May 4

• “Houston’s Enchilada Queen” Sylvia Casares serving up big flavor & family tradition
• • Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen
• This Houston program uses comedy to build confidence and change lives
• • Comedy Unlocked
  • The Opportunity Center
• Hot products: Summer grillin’ and chillin’ with Lifestyle and Home Improvement expert Kathryn Emery
• • Kathryn Emery
• New Smile: AI-driven design at Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, May 1

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Teatro Indigo
• Teatro Indigo at Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
• Mahjong for a Cause
• Sam Houston Race Park

Thursday, April 30

• St‑Germain Elderflower Liqueur
• National Pet Month is here! Houston SPCA offers tips for responsible pet ownership
• • Houston SPCA
• From Knee Replacement to the Boston Marathon: A Story of Movement, Medicine, and Meaning
• • Dr. Richard A. Berger Outpatient Hip and Knee Surgery
• Tyler Henry “The Hollywood Medium” heading to Houston for unforgettable live show
• • Tyler Henry Live at Smart Financial Center
  • Connect with Tyler Henry

Wednesday, April 29

• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Celebrate Mother’s Day with Kroger, the world’s largest florist
• • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
• Sail into Alaska with Princess Cruises - tips from The Travel Mom, Emily Kaufman
• • The Travel Mom
  • Princess Cruises
• How wearing denim became an international symbol of supporting assault survivors and victims
• • National Denim Day
  • Fort Bend Women’s Center
• Country superstar Parker McCollum surprises nurses ahead of National Nurses Week

Tuesday, April 28

• Inside Golden Roastery: A popular Middle Eastern shop serving traditional desserts and coffee
• How to make a popular Arab dessert Kunafa
• • Golden Roastery (Walk-in offer only; get 20% off Kunafa items from now to May 10)
• Help us save lives at the KPRC 2 Community Blood Drive with Gulf Coast Blood
• • Community Blood Drive at KPRC 2
• Cedric The Entertainer brings the laughs in new Netflix animated film ‘Swapped’
• • Netflix’s ‘Swapped’

Monday, April 27

• Summer safety for kids: what parents need to know
• • Bivona Law Firm
• From Blueprint to Backyard Oasis: A Missouri City Transformation Designed for Real Life
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions
• First annual AAPI Fest coming to Alief
• • AAPI Fest
  • Kaminari Taiko of Houston,
• The story behind Agnes and Sherman where Asian flavors meet American comfort food
• • Agnes and Sherman
  • AAPI Restaurant Weeks
• Hosts Mike “The Miz” Mizanin and Rocsi Diaz chat reboot of ‘American Gladiators’
• • American Gladiators

Friday, April 24

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Step inside August Wilson’s “Fences” at Houston’s Alley Theatre - A timeless story of love, legacy, and second chances
• • August Wilson’s “Fences” at Alley Theatre
• Prime Video’s ‘Cocaine Quarterback’ Owen Hanson visits Houston, shares incredible comeback story
• • “Cocaine Quarterback” on Prime Video
• National Bucket List Day: A Trafalgar River Cruise with The Travel Mom
• • The Travel Mom
  • Trafalgar

Thursday, April 23

• Silambam Houston highlights the beauty of Indian classical dance at the Hobby Center
• • Silambam Houston
• A preview of Great Age on the Green, Houston’s new festival celebrating aging boldly
• • Great Age on the Green
• Kids learn money the fun way with Financial Fortunes card game
• • Financial Fortunes Card Game
• Teeing off for the LPGA’s first major of the season - The Chevron Championship
• • The Chevron Championship

Wednesday, April 22

• Houston is driving the Biotech future - starting with students
• • Texas Medical Center BioPath Program
• From ‘Dance Moms’ to the stage and page: Nia Sioux’s next act
• • Follow Nia Sioux on Instagram
• From ‘Dance Moms’ to the stage and page: Nia Sioux’s next act
• • Nia Sioux’s Memoir “Bottom of the Pyramid”
• Wildflowers, western heritage, and a Mother’s Day to remember at The George Ranch
• The George Ranch

Tuesday, April 21

• Orchid care 101: Simple tricks to keep your orchids blooming longer
• • Ace Berry
  • Flora & More
• Affordable luxury: New upholstered bed collection unveiled at Texas Mattress Makers
• • Texas Mattress Makers
• Music, food and rodeo fun for all at the Galveston County Fair & Rodeo
• • Galveston County Fair & Rodeo
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Monday, April 20

• Robins Landing Neighborhood Floor Plans - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Homeownership Process - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Volunteering - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• ReStore - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Third Ward - Houston Habitat for Humanity

Friday, April 17

• ‘Houston Life’ is live today at the Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market Spring
• • Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market® SPRING
  • Dog Collar World
  • Linked by Stevi
  • The Hive
  • Big Creek Farms
  • EK The Boutique
  • House of Cottonwood
  • ParkerJoe

Thursday, April 16

• TUTS presents ‘Monty Python’s Spamalot’ rides into the Hobby Center
• • Monty Python’s Spamalot at TUTS Tickets
• One ticket, endless fun at the Galveston County Fair and Rodeo
• • Galveston County Fair and Rodeo
• Carpet Giant celebrates 50 years of proudly serving generations of Houstonians
• • Carpet Giant Website (mention Houston Life to get $150 off your purchase of $1,000)
• Faith ‘One Arm Wonder’ Malton and Zack ‘Pitbull’ Ruhl rappel 30 stories for non-profit Camp For All
• • Camp For All
  • Faith Malton

Wednesday, April 15

• Brush up on your makeup routine at Blushington River Oaks
• • Houston Life Deals (Get 20% off beauty services at Blushington River Oaks)
  • Blushington River Oaks
• The King himself shares how to save 20% on tickets to the Texas Renaissance Festival
• • Texas Renaissance Festival
• Ethan’s Ohana
• Cube Against Cancer 2026 Houston
• Cube Against Cancer
• Fortis College

Tuesday, April 14

• Former Texans WR Steven Sims Jr. to host FREE youth football camp
• • Must See Foundation
• Why it’s not just the generator - it’s the company behind it
• • Gen Pro
• How the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce helps local companies grow
• • Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
• Step Onward Foundation uses music to fight homelessness in Texas
• • Step Onward Foundation
  • Sunday Funday Community Celebration

Monday, April 13

• Robins Landing Neighborhood Floor Plans - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Homeownership Process - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Volunteering - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• ReStore - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Third Ward - Houston Habitat for Humanity

Friday, April 10

• Your guide to the Houston Barbecue Festival this weekend: Top pitmasters, unlimited BBQ samples, and more
• • Houston BBQ Festival
• Texas CASA’s partner agencies train volunteers to be a voice and a lifeline for children in the foster care system
• • Become a CASA
• ‘Grow the Game’ Initiative expands soccer access in Houston ahead of the World Cup with Guinness World Records attempt
• • Airbnb GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™
• Houston’s Garden Theatre celebrates 5 years with Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”
• • The Garden Theatre
• Father daughter duo Steve Zahn and Audrey Zahn chat new film ‘She Dances’

Thursday, April 9

• The Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary kicks off 22nd annual ‘Chic Boutique’
• • Chic Boutique
• Aramie Payton brings Broadway pedigree to Alley Theatre’s revival of “Fences”
• • Alley Theatre
• Layoff leads Houston creator to viral small business mission
• • Follow David on Instagram
• At just 19, Jalyn Hall is stepping into his moment
• • NBC’s “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”
• KPRC 2’s “Eat Like a Local”

Wednesday, April 8

• Houston Underwater Film Festival returns this weekend with stunning ocean films 🌊🌊
• • School, college and scuba students: claim a free ticket by emailing huff@hups.org
  • Houston Underwater Film Festival Tickets
• Celebrate Earth Month by sipping sustainably!
• • Wine and Travel Contributor Daniela Garrido
• Shred Day Houston: Safely destroy documents and fight hunger on April 18
• • Comerica Shred Day Houston
• Trade-show-tested home picks: Coffee, Water, Bidets and Moving Gear
• • Kathryn Emery Home Improvement & Lifestyle Expert
• A kid’s guide to top play picks to cut screen time and spark creativity
• • Kid-trepreneur Dylan Emery

Tuesday, April 7

• Grand Marshals Kam Franklin & Brian Ching preview the 39th annual Art Car Parade
• • Houston Art Car Parade
• This Texas artist is turning Titanic artifacts into art
• • Souls of the Titanic
• In Houston, Your Windows May Not Last as Long—Here’s What to Know (and What to Do About It)
• • Pella Windows and Doors
• Houston’s Trillest Chef bringing bold flavors of H-Town the national stage
• • Follow Chef Machete on Instagram
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Monday, April 6

• Houston’s Garden Theatre celebrates 5 years with Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”
• • The Garden Theatre
• Sysco’s World Cup-themed food show is a preview of how Houston plans to feed the world
• • Sysco World Cup-themed food show
• The Houston Art Car Parade

Friday, April 3

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• WWE Wrestler Je’Von Evans
• WWE Monday Night Raw at Toyota Center Tickets
• IBEW Local 66
• KPRC 2’s “Eat Like a Local”

Thursday, April 2

• Disney on Ice
• The Chevron Championship
• Maxine Sharf brings ‘Maxi’s Kitchen’ to Houston Life with her mom
• • Follow Maxine Sharf on Instagram
  • “Maxi’s Kitchen: Easy Go-To Recipes to Make Again and Again”
• Father daughter duo Steve Zahn and Audrey Zahn chat new film ‘She Dances’

Wednesday, April 1

• Spring gets sweeter with two easy recipes: Carrot cupcake and blueberry crumble bun
• • Follow Cookbook Author Florence Jackson on Instagram
• This Houston Restaurant Hasn’t Raised Prices Since Its Food Truck Days
• • Black Restaurant Week
  • Chitalian Pizzeria
• Tarot, the Fool card and finding meaning on Derrick’s birthday (April Fool’s Day)
• • Tarot Card Reader Amber Ambrose
• Theatre Under the Stars presents ‘Back to the Future: The Musical’ through April 5th
• • TUTS “Back to the Future: The Musical”

Tuesday, March 31

• Send Well Wishes to Tessa on her last day
• • Tessa Barrera announces she’s leaving ‘Houston Life’
• Calling all book lovers: Houston indie bookstore crawl returns for its third year of literary adventure
• • 2026 Houston Bookstore Crawl
• Preview the 13th annual Insperity Invitational presented by United Healthcare
• • Insperity Invitational
• Texas roots and coastal growth, how the Oyster Bros in Palacios are redefining the gulf oyster
• • Oyster Bros
• Goodtaste with Tanji Patton

Monday, March 30

• How Autism Moms of Houston became a lifeline for families raising children who are neurodivergent
• • Autism Moms of Houston
  • Autism Awareness Festival
• An offer fit for a new you! Grab the Alloy Personal Training Houston Life Deal
• • Alloy Personal Training Houston
  • Houston Life Deals
• Who’s responsible when a child is hurt at daycare?
• • Bivona Law
• At just 19, Jalyn Hall is stepping into his moment
• • NBC’s “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”

Friday, March 27

• Family fun, charity, & of course golf shine at Texas Children’s Houston Open ⛳
• • Texas Children’s Houston Open
  • TCHO Cleats for Kids

Wednesday, March 25

• Tessa Barrera announces she’s leaving ‘Houston Life’
• Plan aims to turn Garden Oaks Theater into an arts hub before it’s too late
• • Save the Garden Oaks Theater
• Fore! Preview the 2026 Texas Children’s Houston Open
• • Texas Children’s Houston Open
• Women, Wealth, and breaking ‘The Success Lie’
• • Chantell Preston
  • “The Success Lie” by Chantell Preston
• McGovern Allergy & Asthma Clinic
• Gexa Energy

Tuesday, March 24

• From puppy playtime to pesky nipping, helpful springtime tips for dog owners
• • Stephanie Bennett’s Believe in Dog Training
• How one Houston program is helping kids discover confidence—and their future
• • Sam Houston Area Council Boy Scouts of America
• Houston Ballet’s Busy Spring: Nutcracker Market, Sons de L’âme & YAGP Finals
• • Houston Ballet
• Breaking barriers and popping corks with CEO and Master Sommelier June Rodil
• • Master Sommelier June Rodil
  • Goodnight Hospitality

Monday, March 23

• Blooming Wonders at ARTECHOUSE
• • Spring arrives at ARTECHOUSE Houston with ‘Blooming Wonders’
• Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Trusted Dental Implant Care in Houston — Board-Certified Periodontist Helps Complex Cases
• Disability Attorney Marc Whitehead
• • Expert tax advice: Are your Social Security and Disability benefits taxable?
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• • From basic to beautiful: See this stunning backyard transformation in Weston Lakes

Thursday, March 19

• Springtime fun at the Houston Zoo
• • Zoo Bloom
  • All you can Zoo
  • Saving the Galápagos Islands

Wednesday, March 18

• Houston Latino Film Festival celebrates 10 Years with Cheech Marin
• • Houston Latino Film Festival
• Find the good vibes every weekend for Jazzy Sundays in the Parks
• • Jazzy Sundays in the Parks
• Get to know Dash rising star, Avery Patterson
• • Houston Dash
• Kevin Williamson makes fans SCREAM all over again in latest franchise installation
• • Kevin Williamson
• Self Employed? Tax Filing Moves That Help You Qualify for a Mortgage
• • Habayit Home Loans
  • Mortgage Expert Rich Bonn’s Upcoming Webinar

Tuesday, March 17

• Houston’s Mezclada Dance Company blends hip hop, Latin and contemporary dance forms into high-energy performances
• • Performing Arts Houston New/Now featuring Mezclada Dance Company
• METRO rolls out systemwide changes: A first look at the new technology to help streamline your ride
• • Metro Houston
• Houston Life Deals: Fun & savings for the entire family
• • HoustonLifeDeals.com
• Frontier Utilities teams with Kids’ Meals Houston to pack thousands of meals
• • Frontier Utilities

Monday, March 16

• Affordable rodeo-ready outfits you can find at Target this season
• • Target.com
• Houston’s growing need for linemen: Why the trade pays and how to start
• • IBEW Local 66
• ET hosts Nischelle Turner and Kevin Frazier share highlights from the 98th Academy Awards
• • Entertainment Tonight Oscars Coverage
• Houston Ballet principal dancer Karina González brings Frida Kahlo to life in Broken Wings
• • “Broken Wings” at Houston Ballet Tickets
• The Largest Indoor Waterpark in the U.S.? It’s Just a Road Trip from Houston
• • Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

Friday, March 13

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Houston Life Deals: Fun & savings for the entire family
• Outriding the Devil: Angela Ganter’s incredible rodeo comeback
• • Outriding the Devil premieres at River Oaks Theatre
• ‘Aliens’ 40th anniversary cast reunion and more at Pop Culture Con 2026
• • Pop Culture Con
• Alley Theatre brings Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” to Houston with a fresh twist
• • “The Importance of Being Earnest” at Alley Theatre Tickets
• Bounce your way to better fitness: trampoline workouts in West U
• • Motiv Fitness at West University
• Moon 2 Mars Festival returns to Space Center Houston with out-of-this-world fun and concerts this spring break
• • Space Center Houston

Thursday, March 12

• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to see Tim McGraw at RODEOHOUSTON
• The Birthday Joy Program helps kids in foster care, shelters and group homes celebrate their special day
• • the Birthday Joy Program Website
• Inside “The Feminine Universe” Houston’s new all-women immersive art experience
• • The Feminine Universe Art Show Tickets
• Bring the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo home with these sips and bites
• • Entertaining Expert Paul Zahn
• Spring is in full swing at CITYCENTRE Houston
• • CITYCENTRE
• Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

Tuesday, March 10

• Enjoy Spring Break at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
• • Houston Museum of Natural Science
• Honoring the fallen & recognizing community heroes
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
  • BP America
• Houston author Margie Seaman proves it is never too late to chase a dream
• • Margie Seaman
  • “Someday Is Our Horizon” by Margie Seaman on Amazon

Monday, March 9

• NestFest beach cleanup invites volunteers to protect nesting sea turtles on the Galveston Coast
• From bumper boats to STEAM activities, enjoy a FUNonmenal spring break at Discovery Green
• • FUNomenal Spring Break at Discovery Green
• This veteran-owned business is helping Houstonians keep the heat the out and the savings in with new windows
• • The Window Source
• You’ve been diagnosed with cancer, now what? Non-profit CanCare pairs you with survivors who can help
• • CanCare
• Spring Break Staycation: Why The Travel Mom says Houston families love Great Wolf Lodge
• • The Travel Mom
  • Great Wolf Lodge

Friday, March 6

• Houston Life Deals
• Pickle vs. anime: Largest pickle festival in Texas comes to Rosenberg with anime-inspired food
• • In A Pickle Festival
• Expedia’s 2026 Air Hacks: Best days to book, when to fly and top savings
• • Expedia Air Hacks Report
• The Parking Spot making airport parking a breeze
• • The Parking Spot
• A rustic dream venue just outside Houston
• • Country Oaks Venue
• Rare Texas artifacts step out ‘From the Vault’ at The Bryan Museum
• • The Bryan Museum
• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week

Thursday, March 5

• Gold Buckle Foodie Awards at Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Houston Life Deals
• Avoiding vacation headaches: New Vrbo survey on group travel reveals common pet peeves
• • Vrbo
• Houston wellness trend: A local body sculpting technique focused on lymphatic health
• • The Tox
• Catching up with Russell Dickerson ahead of debut RODEOHOUSTON performance
• • RODEOHOUSTON

Wednesday, March 4

• Houston Life Deals
• Moon 2 Mars Festival returns to Space Center Houston with out-of-this-world fun and concerts this spring break
• • Space Center Houston
• What to Wear to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo: Your Ultimate Style Guide 
• • Boot Barn
• Destin-Fort Walton Beach, more than beaches: reefs, fishing, little adventures
• • Visit Destin-Fort Walton Beach
• Baz Luhrmann’s ‘EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert’ gives fans a front-row seat to The King
• • “EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert” Film

Tuesday, March 3

• Diana Ross coming to Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land
• Learn about the untold history of Black baseball
• • Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy
• Houston Life Deals
• Modern dental implants give Houston patients natural, comfortable smiles
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Houston native Kyrie McAlpin Talks ‘The Burbs’, Keke Palmer & a very Seth MacFarlane Christmas party

Monday, March 2

• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• • Houston Life kicks off opening day at 2026 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Suits & Boot Injury Lawyers

Friday, February 27

• Gabriel Basso takes us behind the scenes of Netflix’s ‘The Night Agent’
• • Netflix’s “The Night Agent”
• Mudbug Mania: Tanji Patton celebrates crawfish season in Houston
• • Goodtaste with Tanji Patton
  • Crawfish Shack
  • Crawfish Hideaway
• Theatre Under The Stars reveals 2026-27 season with Broadway tours & local shows
• • Theatre Under the Stars
• Boot Barn
• What to see and do in Malta — beaches, history and booking tips from The Travel Mom
• • The Travel Mom

Thursday, February 26

• Diana Ross at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for a chance to see Creed perform at RodeoHouston
• Get a peek inside RodeoHouston’s World Championship BBQ Cookoff
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Soulful river cruises that connect Black travelers to heritage and culture
• • AmaWaterways Soulful Experience River Cruise
• Houston Life Deals
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• HCC Southeast College

Wednesday, February 25

• Behind the scenes of TUTS’ ‘Million Dollar Quartet’
• • Tickets to ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ at Theatre Under the Stars
• Houston influencers share their best thrifting tips for Rodeo
• • Find your nearest Goodwill store
• Plan the ultimate spring break getaway for everyone at Moody Gardens
• • Moody Gardens
• Ride along: METRO Police Chief explains new safety measures for Houston transit
• • Metro Houston

Tuesday, February 24

• Spring Break, but make it San Antonio
• • Visit San Antonio
• Alley Theatre’s ‘English’ explores identity, belonging, and the weight of learning a new language
• • Tickets to ‘English’ at Alley Theatre
• Looking for a Career Change? Here’s How You Could Be Job-Ready in 10 Months
• • Learn more about programs at United Education Institute Houston

Monday, February 23 (WE ARE BACK!!!)

• Indian Film Festival of Houston celebrates France with film, food and culture
• • Indian Film Festival of Houston Website
• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for a chance to see Riley Green perform at RodeoHouston
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Chris Hemsworth will keep you on the edge of your seat in ‘Crime 101’
• • “Crime 101” Movie Times
• Modern dental implants give Houston patients natural, comfortable smiles
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

February 6 - 20

• Houston is off air due to the Winter Olympics, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop entertaining you. Be sure to follow us on social media to see all the HL fun. We’ll be back Feb. 23.
• • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest

Thursday, February 5

• Papa Johns Pizza
• The Cody Stephens Foundation saves lives with free heart screenings for young athletes
• • Cody Stephens Foundation
• Get ready for the return of the one and only Monster Jam in Houston
• • Tickets to Monster Jam at NRG Stadium
• Getting your best night’s sleep: How the latest materials and technology can help you sleep better
• • Texas Mattress Makers
• What is an “Orphan Generator”? And why it could put Houston homes at risk during an outage
• • GenPro.com
• Follow Mersha the Mini Panther on Instagram (Use MERSHA20 to get a discount at PrettyLitter)

Wednesday, February 4

• Simon & Garfunkel Story at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• Behind the scenes of ‘Real Women Have Curves’ on stage at Alley Theatre
• • Tickets to ‘Real Women Have Curves’ at Alley Theatre
• Decoding body language: How to spot liars, read subtle signals, and communicate with confidence
• • Jan Hargrave
• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Why they are your one stop shop for the Big Game and Valentine’s Day
• • Kroger

Tuesday, February 3

• MFAH’s new exhibit explores Frida Kahlo’s lasting legacy
• • ‘Frida: The Making of an Icon’ at MFAH
• United Way of Greater Houston’s 211: Help is one call away
• • United Way of Greater Houston’s 211 Helpline
• After the freeze - now what? How to care for perennials and shrubs in Houston
• • Gardening with Skip
  • Houston Home and Garden Show
• Go back in time at Popfancy Dessert Bar’s new retro 80’s sci-fi arcade cafe
• • Popfancy Fan Cafe

Monday, February 2

• Kenny G at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• The relationship advice that helps couples feel closer — even during hard conversations
• • Connection Expert Jenn Pinkerton
  • Connectin Cards Couples Edition on Amazon
• Paris Hilton’s “Infinite Icon”
• Arandas Bakery
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, January 30

• Monster Energy Supercross heads into Houston featuring the world’s fastest racers
• • Monster Energy Supercross at NRG Stadium This Weekend
• From Trinidad and Tobago to Top Chef: Tristen Epps’ journey is rooted in culture
• • Chef Tristen Epps
  • A Classically Black Dinner - Vibrant + Modern + African
• Few physicians leave a legacy like this: Houston honors cancer pioneer Dr. Philip Salem
• • Salem Oncology Center
• The Travel Mom: Family-Friendly Wave-Season Deals from Princess
• • The Travel Mom
  • Princess Cruises

Thursday, January 29

• The Simon & Garfunkel Story at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• Former KPRC 2 reporter shares ‘With Love From Harlem’: The story behind America’s First Black power couple
• • ReShonda Tate’s new book ‘With Love from Harlem’
• American Home Buyer
• How personalized aesthetics - Botox, fillers & lasers - can help you age better
• • Anti Age Institute
• The cast of ‘Bridgerton’ takes us behind-the-scenes of the ton for season 4
• • Netflix’s Bridgerton Season 4

Wednesday, January 28

• KPRC 2’s new evening anchor Stephania Jimenez makes her Houston debut with passion and purpose
• • Follow Stephania on her KPRC 2 Instagram Account
• Cars, boats and more: What to know about this year’s Houston AutoBoative Show 2026
• • Houston Autoboative Show (Save $20 with Family Four Pack Option)
• Get a taste of Old Town Katy with Tanji Patton of Goodtaste TV
• • Goodtaste with Tanji Patton
  • Peanut Butter Pie from Southern Dough
  • Southern Dough Baking Co.
  • Humble Grounds Coffeehouse
  • Harvest Kitchen & Bakery
• A Family Business Built on Trust: Luke’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning Serves Houston for Over 30 Years
• • Luke’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning

Tuesday, January 27

• Remembering the iconic artist David Adickes on his 99th birthday and his lasting legacy in Houston
• • David Adickes Art Website
  • Follow ‘Adickes Art’ on Instagram
• Plan a Vacation Day: Experts share 2026 travel trends and how to protect your trip
• • The Travel Mom
  • Follow The Travel Mom Emily Kaufman on Instagram
  • Travel Guard Insurance
• Texans Serving Texans: Gexa Energy gives back
• • Gexa Energy
• Bill Skarsgård steps beyond horror roots in new film, ‘Dead Man’s Wire’

Monday, January 26

• Houston relationship and intimacy expert dishes on the small relationship habits that make love last
• • Houston Relationship Therapy
  • VIVID Relationships app
• Crawfish & Noodles gearing up for a busy crawfish season
• • Crawfish & Noodles
• Traveling smarter in 2026: What travel experts say to book now
• • Travel Expert Jeanenne Tornatore
  • Follow the Outside Insider on Instagram

Friday, January 23

• Discover why Sam Houston Race Park is a top spot for family outings with “Houston Life”
• • Sam Houston Race Park
  • Corgi Races
  • Shannon Jewelers Presents Diamond Dig
  • Wiener Dog Races

Thursday, January 22

• WEIGH IN: What are your must have products during a freeze?
• Cars, boats and more: What to know about this year’s Houston AutoBoative Show 2026
• • Houston Autoboative Show (Save $20 with Family Four Pack Option)
• Honoring Dr. Philip A. Salem for innovations in cancer care and research
• • Salem Oncology Center
• Bert Kreischer talks fatherhood, fame, and his new scripted comedy series, “Free Bert”
• • Netflix’s “Free Bert”
• Last chance to enjoy the Green Mountain Energy Ice at Discovery Green
• • Ice at Discovery Green

Wednesday, January 21

• Seth Rogen, Ike Barinholtz & Chase Sui Wonders chat comedy series ‘The Studio’
• • Apple Tv+’s ‘The Studio’
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• Living Designs Furniture
• The Women’s Resource empowers women and girls through free financial and career coaching services
• • The Women’s Resource
• Houston woman helps bring Black cowboy history to PBS
• • Alma’s Way on PBS Kids
  • Black Cowboy Coalition

Friday, January 16

• School Makes You Super: KPRC-TV reporter and mom Haley Hernandez debuts first children’s book to ease school anxiety
• • Buy ‘School Makes You Super" here
• Children’s Museum Houston celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• • MLK Day Celebration at Children’s Museum Houston
• Two experts explain why Key Largo, Florida should be on your 2026 travel list
• • The Travel Mom
• The man known as “the human lie detector” works to keep serial killers behind bars
• • Killer Confessions

Thursday, January 15

• Young voices, lasting legacy: Houston students honor Dr. King in 30th Annual Oratory Competition
• • Foley MLK Jr. Oratory Competition
• Breaking through the plateau with Dr. Ian Smith’s ‘The Last 15′
• • Follow Dr. Ian Smith on Instagram
  • Purchase “The Last 15″ on Amazon
• Mindful eating tips and a pesto vinaigrette recipe to kickstart a healthier new year
• • Leaf & Grain
• Stay powered and protected with GenPro.com, Houston’s premier generator specialists
• • Call or log on to book an estimate and receive a functional mini generator worth $50 for FREE

Wednesday, January 14

• Check out the fun, food and giveaways for Houston Rockets fans this week
• • Houston Rockets Game Day Tickets
• A Kroger pharmacist’s guide to everyday wellness in 2026
• • Enter for a chance to win a Kroger gift card
  • Kroger
• Mix-MATCH Festival returns with over 20 performances celebrating Houston’s creative spirit
• • Tickets to 3rd Annual Mix-MATCH Festival
  • Daisies & Pancakes

Tuesday, January 13

• Kick off the new year with magic: Magician Curt Miller returns with his show “The Conjurer”
• • Curt Miller
  • Tickets to The Conjurer: An Intimate Magical Experience with Curt Miller
• Brad Meltzer Book Signing
• • Follow Brad Meltzer on Instagram
• Innovative Lasers of Houston

Monday, January 12

• Turn to tea this year to slow down, reset, and satisfy without regrets
• • Tea Please
• The Travel Mom: Family fun at Knott’s Berry Farm - a California getaway everyone will love
• • The Travel Mom
  • Visit Buena Park
  • Knott’s Berry Farm
• Pet adoption events for the new year at Fort Bend County Animal Services
• • Fort Bend County Animal Services
• New Year, New Smile: AI-driven smile design at Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, January 9

• Shop The Sale Houston with proceeds benefitting childhood cancer research
• • The Sale Houston
• A new chapter begins: Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones chat about their new pairing
• • TODAY with Jenna & Sheinelle
• Former radio personality, Sarah Pepper returns to Texas to emcee 2026 Chevron Houston Marathon
• • Follow Sarah Pepper on Instagram

Thursday, January 8

• Belle comes to Houston - Kyra Belle Johnson stars in Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ now at the Hobby Center
• • Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” Tickets at Hobby Center
• Mathew Knowles launches new Destiny’s Child nationwide tribute tour; Houston is first stop
• • Destiny’s Child: Iconic Reimagined Tribute Tickets
• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Wednesday, January 7

• The story behind Luke’s Plumbing and Air Conditioning serving Houstonians since 1991
• • Luke’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning
• Where karaoke meets claw machines: Welcome to Klaw‑Oke Kingdom in Pearland
• • Klaw-Oke Kingdom
• Brace yourself, the 1993 Oilers vs. Bills game is featured in new docuseries ‘Don’t Call it a Comeback’
• • VICE TV’s “Don’t Call It A Comeback”
• New Year, Strong Start: EōS Fitness Experts Share Tips to Crush 2026 Goals
• • EōS Fitness

Tuesday, January 6

• Houston bagel pros talk schmear, slices and specials ahead of National Bagel Day
• • Bagel Shop Bakery
• Comedian Chinedu Ogu takes H-Town-rooted comedy on a national tour
• • Chinedu at Punch Line Houston
• Start your new year weight loss journey at Health Solutions and Weightloss
• • Health Solutions and Weightloss
• Enroll Now: Key deadlines and tips for 2026 Marketplace coverage
• • Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas

Monday, January 5

• Rosca de Reyes Season is here - and this Houston bakery is busy
• • Arandas Bakery
• Damp or Dry January? These non-alcoholic wines actually taste like wine
• • Daniela Garrido | Wine and Travel Expert
• New Year, New Smile: AI-driven smile design at Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Freeze Miser

Friday, January 2

• Tough but fair: NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas visits Houston Life
• • NBC Nightly News
  • Tom Llamas
• Tarot Card Reader Amber Ambrose
• Opening weekend kicks off at Sam Houston Race Park TODAY!
• • Sam Houston Race Park

Thursday, January 1

• New Year’s fitness made simple: Tips and a low-impact workout for beginners
• • Hoodfit
• Chantell Preston
• HiFi at The Finn

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Au’s arrest last year was the first publicly known prosecution under Macao’s national security law since it was enacted in 2009. A Macao court found him guilty of subverting state power, breaching confidentiality and establishing contact with organizations, groups or people outside Macao to commit acts endangering national security.

Critics said that his case reflected Beijing’s emphasis on security and intolerance of dissent, even though Macao’s pro-democracy movement has never been as influential as that in neighboring Hong Kong.

The 69-year-old assisted and cooperated with “hostile organizations” outside Macao for a long period of time in collecting and disseminating political views laden with ideas of subverting state power and false information, according to a court statement. They conspired to incite hatred among Macao residents against the central government, with an intent to overthrow and undermine the country's fundamental system, it said.

“Although the defendant is a first-time offender and admitted to a considerable portion of the criminal facts, he demonstrated a high degree of intent. The degree of unlawfulness and the potential consequences of his crimes are both very serious,” the statement said.

Macao is a former Portuguese colony that has operated, like Hong Kong, as a special administrative region since its return to Chinese rule in 1999.

Au's wife says it's a groundless persecution

In a public letter, Au’s wife, Virginia Cheang, wrote that she only hoped authorities would allow his family to exchange letters with Au and visit him regularly without conditions.

“From a closed-door trial to a public verdict, what kind of operation is this? It's a political trial and it's a groundless persecution to humiliate one's character,” Cheang said.

Au’s daughter in London, Au Hon I, told The Associated Press that her father is a peaceful family man who cares deeply about Macao, and the thought of him spending more time in prison without having done anything criminal was unbearable. She said that a lawyer earlier arranged by her family wasn't able to see him.

She felt that the ruling was setting boundaries of what citizens can do and what rights they have, saying “it’s a very scary chapter that they’re starting.”

“It just doesn’t feel like a safe space anymore being in Macao. And it’s very heartbreaking,” she said.

The court said that a lawyer approved by Au was appointed to act for him during the legal proceedings, and that he had exercised his right to a defense. The court also approved his family’s request to visit him regularly.

Jorge Menezes, a Portuguese lawyer who practices in Macao, said that the trial was held in secret and that specific details — which organizations were involved and what information Au had provided to them — weren't revealed. Menezes noted that the statement said that Au had acknowledged some facts, which might have led people to believe that he had confessed to the crimes.

“From what I see, he did not plead guilty. Otherwise, they would have said. So this is misleading and unfortunate,” he said. “It violates his dignity.”

He said that Au's case was used to send a message to Macao residents that it was about anyone who challenges the authorities. The case could also carry a message for Hong Kong, because Macao is “a sort of laboratory” for the financial hub in situations like this.

Michael Polak, Au's international counsel, urged Portugal and the European Union to demand that Au, a Portuguese citizen, be allowed to leave Macao.

“A sentence like that for someone of that age is a sentence for life,” he said. “If he was left in Macao, he could die in prison.”

The EU deplored the sentencing, saying the conviction confirmed the erosion of the city's political pluralism and freedom of speech. Au had spent almost a year in incommunicado detention after his arrest, it said.

The court found Au colluded with multiple overseas groups

Macao has its own political and legal systems and Macao is the only Chinese city where casino gambling is legal. It has resorts run by affiliates of the American gaming companies MGM Resorts, Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts.

The court found that Au helped overseas organizations spread false and distorted information between 2023 and 2024 to induce foreign countries to take hostile actions against China and Macao, incite hatred against the central government and undermine the smooth running of the 2024 city leader election.

As a lawmaker in 2021, Au leaked to overseas groups confidential information obtained during closed-door committee meetings over the renewal of gaming licenses, it said.

Au’s trial was held behind closed doors in September.

The court earlier said that the judge decided against an open trial to ensure that national security interests wouldn't be undermined.

Au was seen as a mild pro-democracy activist

Au, a teacher-turned-lawmaker, served in the legislature dominated by Beijing loyalists for 20 years before stepping down in 2021. Au was also an organizer of Macao’s commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

Au said that he entered politics because he saw many social problems in daily life that required people to speak out. He said that the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement in 1989 brought him and his like-minded friends together, and he later felt Macao needed people to push forward an open and democratic society.

Before his arrest, Au was a rare voice in Macao who regularly criticized government measures and political developments on Facebook and in interviews, although many considered his critiques to be mild.

But the Macao government supported the ruling, urging all sectors to respect it. It said that the government would continue to strictly enforce the security law.

Beijing's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office said that the ruling demonstrated Macao's firm resolve in safeguarding national security, adding that it also reminded people to remain vigilant about the risks even in times of stability.

China's Foreign Ministry said that it firmly opposes any external forces using individual cases as a pretext to interfere in Macao's affairs.

All six districts that sought voter approval for additional funding — Cypress-Fairbanks, Channelview, Crosby, Huffman, La Porte and Spring ISDs — saw their proposals fail, according to unofficial election results.

The defeats leave districts without hundreds of millions of dollars in proposed operating revenue and more than $2 billion in potential bond funding for school construction, repairs, technology and other improvements.

The results come as several Houston-area school districts grapple with budget deficits, rising operating costs and difficult decisions about how to maintain services without additional revenue.

While each district presented different financial needs to voters, the outcome was remarkably consistent: Not a single proposition passed.

Which school districts had proposals rejected?

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD

The largest defeat came in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, where voters rejected all five propositions, including a $1.636 billion bond package and a separate 9-cent property tax rate increase.

The bond proposals would have funded infrastructure repairs, safety improvements, classroom technology and athletic facility renovations.

The tax rate increase was intended to generate additional operating revenue as the district faces an estimated $80 million budget deficit.

Opposition ranged from approximately 63% to 73% across the five propositions.

“We accept our voters’ decisions,” Superintendent Dr. Doug Killian said in a statement Wednesday. “Our next step is to listen carefully, reassess our options and keep our community involved as we determine a path forward.”

Channelview ISD

Channelview ISD voters rejected all five propositions, including a proposed 7-cent tax rate increase and four bond measures totaling approximately $165.1 million.

The tax proposal would have generated roughly $7.5 million in additional funding for employee compensation, special education staffing, student support services and district operations.

The bond package included funding for school facilities, safety improvements, student technology, athletic renovations and a proposed multipurpose indoor facility.

Approximately 71% of voters rejected the tax increase, while opposition to the bond measures ranged from about 61% to 72%.

Crosby ISD

Voters in Crosby ISD rejected both propositions in a $208 million bond package.

The proposals included funding for a new elementary school, a replacement for Crosby Middle School, and repairs and improvements to existing campuses.

The proposed elementary school would have accommodated approximately 950 students, while the new middle school would have had capacity for about 1,500 students.

Both propositions were rejected by approximately 69% of voters.

Huffman ISD

Huffman ISD voters rejected a proposed 3-cent property tax rate increase, with approximately 74% voting against the measure.

The district said the proposal would have generated about $2 million in additional operating revenue to help address its budget deficit, support employee compensation and preserve instructional programs.

Unlike a bond election, the measure concerned funding for the district’s day-to-day operations rather than borrowing for construction projects.

La Porte ISD

La Porte ISD voters rejected a proposed 12-cent tax rate increase, with approximately 63% opposing the measure.

The district had sought an estimated $8.4 million in additional annual revenue to help address a roughly $12 million budget deficit.

The funding was intended to support employee compensation and help cover rising operating expenses, including utilities, insurance and instructional resources.

The defeat leaves district leaders to determine how to address the remaining financial shortfall without the proposed revenue.

Spring ISD

Spring ISD voters rejected a proposed 2-cent tax rate increase that would have generated approximately $15.5 million in additional funding.

About 55% voted against the measure, while 45% supported it.

The district had planned to use the revenue for rising operational costs, teacher and staff compensation, and student programs.

“While the outcome was not what we had hoped for, I remain optimistic and encouraged by the level of support we received from our community,” Superintendent Dr. Kregg Cuellar said in a statement Wednesday.

Spring ISD said it will continue evaluating how to allocate existing resources while gathering community feedback.

What happens now?

The rejected proposals fall into two categories with different consequences for school districts.

Bond elections allow districts to borrow money for long-term projects, such as constructing schools, renovating buildings and purchasing certain equipment. With the proposals defeated, districts cannot issue the proposed bonds and must reconsider how to finance those projects.

Voter-approval tax rate elections, commonly called VATREs, allow districts to seek voter approval for certain tax rate increases that can generate additional operating revenue. That money can support expenses such as salaries, educational programs and daily operations.

The failed VATREs mean districts will not receive the additional revenue they had sought through those elections.

However, the results do not automatically require layoffs, school closures or program cuts. Those decisions would depend on each district’s finances and the alternatives available to its leadership.

Districts could revisit spending priorities, postpone projects, pursue other funding sources or return to voters with revised proposals in a future election.

For now, the November election has left six Houston-area school districts facing the same question: how to address their financial needs without the additional funding voters declined to authorize.

Another eight people were wounded in the airstrikes on the market in al-Waziyah in the province of Taiz, a Houthi health ministry spokesperson, Anees Alsabahi, said on X.

Yemen’s Saudi-backed military and the Houthi rebels traded accusations over responsibility for the deadly airstrike on the market. The Associated Press could not independently verify their claims.

Taiz is mostly controlled by the Houthis, who have besieged the provincial capital, where the Saudi-allied government and its forces are based.

Footage aired by Al-Masirah showed plumes of smoke rising from the site, with a damaged building containing canned food, destroyed vehicles, scattered fruit boxes and rubble and debris.

The authorities affiliated with the Yemeni government in Taiz blamed the Houthis for the attack and said that no airstrikes were carried out in the area.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said three airstrikes hit the al-Hadara market in al-Waziyah in the province of Taiz at around 7 a.m.

He blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks and claimed warplanes took off from the Khamis Mushait air base and left Taiz province around 8 a.m. He did not provide evidence.

Saudi Arabia’s information ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It wasn't clear how many people were at the market early in the day, though markets tend to be busy on Fridays, a day off in much of the Arab world.

The provincial media office acknowledged in a Facebook statement that there had been an attack on the busy market and said that there were casualties, but didn't provide details.

The media office added that “indiscriminate Houthi missile attacks,” including the use of ballistic missiles, endanger civilian lives. It said markets and populated areas must be protected.

Last month, the Houthis struck Yemeni government forces with ballistic missiles, killing at least 75 soldiers at a military camp and wounding around 200 recruits in the southern province of Shabwa. The rebels acknowledged targeting the camp at the time.

Houthi rebels accused Saudi Arabia in September of striking a prison in the country’s north. The prison in Hazm, the Jawf provincial capital, collapsed when coalition strikes hit the area, killing at least 23 people.

In September, the Houthis ramped up their advance on Taiz, a strategic gateway to southern Yemen, after a lightning-fast capture of the port city of Mokha, an area about 130 kilometers (80 miles) away that is vital to controlling shipping through the Red Sea.

The rebels have tightened their encirclement of the city of Taiz, which is controlled by the internationally recognized Yemeni government, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation among civilians. Residents are struggling to secure drinking water and food supplies as the Houthis restrict movement into the city.

In the hills surrounding Taiz, government forces are trying to repel the Houthis, but face stiff resistance, especially east of the city. Gaining control of Taiz city is vital to the Houthis if they seek to advance south toward Aden and Lahj, analysts say, but that won’t be easy, experts previously said.

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Associated Press writer Toqa Ezzidin contributed.

Aiyuk’s new agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said earlier this week that Aiyuk had officially submitted his paperwork to the NFL to get back and was planning to report to the 49ers on Friday.

A person with knowledge of the situation said the league sent Aiyuk and the NFLPA a letter Thursday saying that he owes the 49ers the money based on bonuses he was paid after signing a four-year, $120 million extension just before the start of the 2024 season. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter was not released.

The Ringer first reported that the Niners were seeking the money back from Aiyuk.

San Francisco general manager John Lynch told the team's flagship radio station KNBR on Thursday that it was a “unique” situation that the team was trying to work through.

“My job is to look out for the best interests of the 49ers, and as such, in this particular situation, we’re working with the NFL management council to navigate through kind of a different situation," Lynch said. “It’s fluid. I’m going to kind of leave it at that because I’ve been recommended to do so, and I think it’s the right thing to do. We’ll look for a pathway for both sides here that works.”

Aiyuk hasn’t played a game in more than two years since going down with a knee injury in October 2024 and has been on the reserve/left squad list after leaving the Niners late last season.

He fired agent Ryan Williams during his long-running dispute with the 49ers and was without representation until he recently hired Rosenhaus.

Aiyuk will remain under contract with the 49ers after he is reinstated by the NFL. Lynch previously has said he doesn’t expect Aiyuk to play for the Niners again, while coach Kyle Shanahan said on Wednesday when asked if Aiyuk could play for San Francisco again that “there are no absolutes in life.”

The 49ers previously voided $27 million guaranteed in Aiyuk’s contract for 2026 for failing to participate in meetings and other team activities last summer when he was rehabilitating his knee injury.

Aiyuk signed the big extension just before the start of the 2024 season following a lengthy contract hold-in that kept him out of training camp. He was coming off a 2023 season when he had 75 catches for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns and was a second-team All-Pro.

Aiyuk had only 25 catches for 374 yards in seven games in 2024 before getting injured. The 28-year-old has 294 catches for 4,305 yards and 25 TDs since being drafted in the first round in 2020.

___

AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this report.

___

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The changes that took effect this fall include caps on loans for particular programs as well as limits on the amount parents can borrow to pay for their children’s schooling. Up until weeks before Frabotta, 25, started her program, it was up in the air whether it would count as a “professional” program with higher loan limits.

Amid the uncertainty, she borrowed around $6,000 in federal loans for her first trimester, taking out private loans for the rest with her mother as a cosigner.

“At least in my circles a lot of people were like, ’I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do, and I’m going to try to make it work,’” Frabotta said.

Students have been turning to private lenders to make up the difference between the cost of their educational programs and the amount they can borrow from the federal government, which offers more flexible repayment terms, the possibility of forgiveness after 10 years in public service, and — for many — lower interest rates.

It's showing up in banks' bottom lines. Private lender SoFi reported in late October that student loan originations hit $2.9 billion in the third quarter, nearly doubling from a year earlier. Days earlier, Sallie Mae, which controls more than half of the private student loan market, said graduate loans were up 119% year-over-year.

Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ put new caps on student loans

President Donald Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill” slashed the amount new graduate students can borrow. Programs designated as professional degrees face federal student loan caps of $200,000, while other graduate programs are capped at $100,000. Previously, graduate students had been able to take out federal loans up to the full cost of their degree.

For new borrowers, the changes include an overall lifetime borrowing cap of $257,500 and limits to the amount parents can borrow to pay for their children’s schooling.

When all the changes are fully phased in, more than half a million borrowers are going to need to borrow an extra $20,000 a year from somewhere other than the federal loan program, estimated Jordan Matsudaira, the director of the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University. The hardest-hit students are in expensive programs like medicine, law and dentistry, an analysis by the center found.

The Trump administration has argued the new limits will curb “excessive borrowing” and force schools to evaluate their costs. Since the loan caps took effect, at least 40 schools have cut the cost of at least some programs, according to the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

But critics say most colleges cannot afford to lower tuition and have raised concerns that the changes will add hurdles for students from poor families.

After being denied by several private lenders, 25-year-old Darian Bogie started a crowdfunding campaign to raise some of the tens of thousands that federal loans didn't cover for his first year of dental school at Howard University. Donations totaling around $76,000 poured in — something he described as “beautifully overwhelming.”

“It was really my absolute last option,” he said.

Students with limited credit histories often rely on family to cosign their loans. But Bogie's father, a sanitation worker, paid out of pocket for everything until last year, and didn't have a strong credit history either.

Colleges are stepping in to help

At South Carolina Student Loan, graduate student borrowing increased 400% this year as it rolled out more options to help students. Some schools, like the law school at the University of Kansas, got into the lending game, too. So far, it has approved eight loans, with more in process.

Steven Freedman, associate dean of admissions at the University of Kansas School of Law, said the loans are important to help provide access to all students.

“Now, frankly, private banks get to choose who goes to law school,” he said.

At Lewis & Clark College, a private liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon, the student aid office has been seeing more private student loans. Its graduate school of education and counseling also began offering a new scholarship this fall for students in financial need because of the loan caps.

Anastacia Dillon, associate vice president for financial aid, described the changes as “really disruptive.”

The private loan market boomed in the 1990s and early 2000s during an era of loan limits. After Graduate PLUS, a federal program, extended how much students could borrow up to the full cost of attendance, private lending began to collapse. But critics argue that Graduate PLUS ushered in new problems, contributing to high default rates because students were borrowing more than they could repay.

Some groups predicted the new loan caps could lead to large numbers of borrowers being denied loans from traditional lenders. But students on the whole appear to be finding ways to finance their education, even if they are turning more to private lenders, said Marc Schoonover, general manager of the lender ELFI.

“What we’re hearing and seeing now is that the number of students who truly can’t find an option is a lot smaller than many initially feared,” Schoonover said during a media call organized by the National Council of Higher Education Resources.

Students struggle to understand changes

A legal fight over which graduate programs would be deemed professional — and therefore eligible for larger loans — extended until just days before the new rule was set to take effect. Ultimately, students pursuing graduate degrees in nursing, physical therapy and several other fields were deemed eligible to take out higher federal student loan amounts — at least for now — after a federal judge blocked part of a Trump administration rule that held them to lower limits.

The last-minute changes caused schools to delay delivering financial aid packages, Jon Witter, the CEO of Sallie Mae, said on an earnings call with investors. He said the peak lending season extended into October as a result.

Dr. Robert Harrington, dean of Weill Cornell Medicine and provost for medical affairs of Cornell University, said the school received dozens of calls from confused students and their families.

Frabotta’s physician assistant program was ultimately deemed professional and eligible for up to $50,000 annually in federal loans. But she decided to borrow just a fraction of that from the federal loan program, fearful of other changes that might be in store.

“This is what I want to do, so if this is the means of how I get there, then if I have to sacrifice at some point,” she said.

Madison Jessen, another first-year Weill Cornell Medicine physician assistant student, said the uncertainty around loan caps prompted her to use most of her savings to pay for her first semester out of pocket. Jessen said she has several younger friends who had planned to go to PA school but pivoted when the loan caps took effect.

That's Harrington's biggest fear.

“What we don’t want to see," said Harrington, himself a first-generation college graduate, "is our programs just becoming the purview of people whose family can afford to pay that bill.”

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.

One of the biggest highlights is ICE LAND: Caribbean Christmas, where the CCA Ice Carving Team transforms two million pounds of ice into incredible sculptures, some reaching 20 feet tall. Guests can explore an undersea Christmas wonderland, race down a giant ice slide and even enjoy a drink at Shiver’s Ice Bar.

New this year, visitors can also experience a Gingerbread House Dining Experience at the Moody Gardens Hotel. The two-hour experience offers breakfast, lunch or dinner inside a giant gingerbread house. Reservations are available through Café in the Park.

Other holiday favorites include the mile-long Holiday Lights Trail, outdoor ice skating, the Arctic Slide, holiday movies, train rides and the new live show, A Very Electric Christmas. Guests can also enjoy Breakfast with Santa, holiday dining, festive treats and special hotel packages that bundle overnight stays with attraction tickets. You can even experience a live penguin encounter!

For a great evening value, the Holiday Evening Pass starts at $55 after 4 p.m. and includes access to several popular attractions, including ICE LAND, the Holiday Lights Trail, holiday films, the Arctic Slide and ice skating.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is likely to return as majority leader next year, promised in an interview with The Associated Press that Democrats will prevent the Republican president from installing a “right-winger” on the Supreme Court and that they are “not going to allow any crappy nominees” elsewhere in the federal judiciary or in Trump's Cabinet.

Democrats will hold at least 54 seats in the 100-member Senate next year and as many as 56 depending on final results in Mississippi and Alaska, giving them a significant majority to block Trump's nominees or just ignore them outright.

After years of being on the losing end of highly partisan confirmation fights against Republicans, especially on Supreme Court nominees, Democrats will be under considerable pressure to wield the same type of aggressive tactics.

This all but erases any prospect that Trump could add to his imprint on the court he established in his first term by naming three of the current justices. In the past, Trump had mused privately that he could end up nominating up to seven people for the nine-person bench by the end of his second term, according to a person with knowledge of those comments.

Schumer declined to say specifically whether he would hold any Supreme Court vacancy open until after the next presidential election, as former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell did in 2016, clearing the way for Trump to nominate the first of his three Supreme Court picks.

“The bottom line is, we’re not going to allow a right-winger on the court,” Schumer said.

The White House said Thursday that “extreme Democrats have a history of politicizing the Supreme Court, even entertaining plans to pack the Court with liberal justices.”

“President Trump will never let them pack the Supreme Court and ruin the independent judiciary," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.

Neither of the court’s two oldest justices, Samuel Alito, 76, or Clarence Thomas, 78, has publicly indicated an imminent retirement. Lifetime appointments typically come with a remove from political upheaval, even of the scale of Tuesday’s elections in which Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate.

“I think the justices must know that if they were to retire now, at this moment, right before Democrats take the Senate, there would be an enormous amount of pressure unlike any we’ve seen to make serious change to the court,” said Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University’s law school.

Alito has publicly mused about retirement in recent months, telling The Associated Press that he’s not sure “how long I’ll be able to continue to do this job.” But he’s also said he’ll stay on the court through the end of the term next summer and told Bloomberg he would not step down during a lame-duck period.

Meanwhile, Thomas is closing in on a record-setting tenure and would become the longest-serving justice in the nation’s history if he served until May 2028.

Trump has shown unusual deference to Alito and Thomas, even as he’s attacked other justices who’ve ruled against him, praising both for their legal acumen and declining to say whether they should step down so the president could nominate their successors.

In a Fox News Channel interview in April, Trump said he has a shortlist of potential nominees but said he did not know whether he would have another vacancy this year, citing Alito’s “very good physical health.”

The Democrats' sizable margins in the Senate also will hamper the Republicans' effort to regain ground in the 2028 elections, in which the GOP will be defending states such as Wisconsin, North Carolina and Iowa where Democrats made significant gains on Tuesday.

“Chance of confirming a worthy successor to Justice Thomas and/or Alito during President Trump’s term: Zero,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X after Tuesday’s elections. “Chance of confirming a worthy successor during a hypothetical GOP admin 2029-2033: probably zero (GOP won’t be able to recapture enough seats in 28).”

Historically, some justices have timed their retirements with the president who would name their successor in mind, but it’s far from the only consideration in their decision-making.

Former liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously resisted efforts from progressives to retire when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, was in office and died in the last year of Trump’s first term, allowing him to replace her with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Barrett would go on in 2022 to join the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which erased the constitutional right to an abortion.

Even if there were a surprise Supreme Court vacancy in the coming weeks, lame-duck confirmations while Republicans still remain in power aren’t a sure thing.

Trump effectively forced Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina out of a reelection bid. That seat was won Tuesday by one of the state's former governors, Democrat Roy Cooper. The president also opposed two Republican incumbents in their primary races, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. Democrats flipped the seat in Texas. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, another Republican who lost, attributed her defeat in part to Trump.

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This story has been corrected to show Democrats flipped a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, not a seat in Texas and a seat in Louisiana.

Sixteen people were injured, three of them seriously, the prefecture in Ain said.

Tabarot visited the scene in a rural area northeast of Lyon, where he described the crash as a “tragic accident” and expressed condolences to the victims’ families.

“This is a bus operated by the regional authority that was transporting about 15 students” and other passengers, he said.

Ain prefect Louis-Xavier Thirode told news broadcaster BFM that preliminary blood tests carried out on the bus driver found “no traces of alcohol or drugs."

Bus passengers included children traveling to middle and high schools in the area. A photograph from the scene showed that the bus had veered off the road, struck trees and landed in a ditch.

Lent Mayor Yves Cristin told broadcaster Franceinfo that “the road was a little wet, there was no fog, and we don’t understand why the bus ... veered off the road.”

“My thoughts are with the victims, the injured and their families,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on X. "The nation stands with them. My gratitude goes to the emergency crews responding to the accident.”

“It is always a difficult moment when our students, our children, are victims of an accident like this,” Education Minister Édouard Geffray told reporters during a visit to a high school in the Paris region.

Zelenskyy's comments in an interview aired late Thursday followed two days of discussions among allies in Brussels that focused on postwar security and reconstruction. They also came before planned three-way talks next week in Abu Dhabi between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, the first trilateral peace discussions since February.

While talks on the contours of peace continue, the grim reality of war remained front and center Friday in Ukraine, with more Russian drone attacks and a rising death toll from Moscow's guided bomb strike Monday on a former school operating as a humanitarian aid distribution center.

Russian overnight drone strikes caused extensive power outages in several regions, including the Kyiv area, while Bulgarian authorities found what they identified as a Russian drone in the Black Sea.

Zelenskyy seeks security guarantees for Ukraine

Two days of talks in Brussels discussed postwar reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by the Ukrainian government’s Western allies. The meetings brought together officials from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and the European Union, along with representatives from the World Bank and the U.S. investment group BlackRock, Ukrainian lead negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote in an online post.

“We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote.

In his television interview, Zelenskyy said he wanted to see tangible results.

“What matters is that it’s clear on paper,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukraine’s private 1+1 television broadcast late Thursday. “The question isn’t dozens of points, but simply an understanding of the outcome: If Russia starts (attacking) again, what will happen? Who will do what, with what means, and when?”

Zelenskyy said it was important to maintain bipartisan support for Kyiv in the United States but acknowledged Democrats’ sweeping victories in this week’s midterm elections could have a positive effect on U.S. assistance, including the faster delivery of Patriot missile interceptors that Kyiv says are vital to fend off Russian airstrikes.

“I believe our chances of getting additional assistance from the United States may now grow,” he said.

Trump met a Russian envoy in Washington

President Donald Trump met Thursday with Moscow envoy Kirill Dmitriev but declined to give details of what they discussed.

“There’s going to be an agreement, it’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that it might include all of Europe.

Trump's son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner said in a social media message that the goal of the Brussels talks was to “develop practical arrangements that address the security concerns of all sides, reduce the risk of future conflict and create a more stable and predictable security environment.”

European Union is skeptical

The European Union played down expectations for an agreement anytime soon.

“We look forward to seeing it materialize, but there’s a lot of work that needs to go into it,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said. The commission hosted the first day of talks Wednesday at its Brussels headquarters.

“Above all, there needs to be a willingness on the side of the one who first started the war, the one who aggressed,” she told reporters, in a reference to Russia. “There’s a very long way to go there because we haven’t seen much movement on that side.”

Moscow awaits details on possible deal flagged by Trump

The Kremlin on Friday did not comment on Trump’s remarks about a possible deal.

“There are no details,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov said Russia had received no ideas from Europe on security guarantees, but added that any discussion of security between Russia and Ukraine would at some point be “impossible” without Europe’s involvement.

The Kremlin spokesman accused the European side of “persistent indecisiveness and a lack of readiness,” adding that European leaders “haven’t even managed to decide who is authorized to speak on their behalf.”

Death toll climbs above 50 following Russian attack on aid location

The death toll from a Russian bomb attack this week on a shelter and a former school now being used as an aid distribution center rose to 53 after more bodies were recovered from the rubble, Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region’s military administration, said in an online post.

Ten powerful guided bombs destroyed the facility at Komyshuvakha, a village in southeast Ukraine. Several dozen people are still believed to be missing after what was one of the deadliest attacks in the region in nearly five years of fighting.

Relentless drone war continues

Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused extensive power outages in seven regions of the country overnight and Friday morning, the Energy Ministry said.

The Kyiv region was hardest hit, with damage forcing continued grid restrictions and crews working on day and night shifts to restore power.

Zelenskyy said the electricity outages and resulting water cuts were worst in the Kyiv area, where “the challenges are very serious” for the capital’s residents and industry.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 227 attack drones, including 86 jet-powered ones, with strikes reported at 14 locations and falling debris at eight more. Overall, Ukraine’s air defenses shot down or suppressed 196 Russian drones overnight into Friday.

In Bulgaria, authorities found and destroyed a Russian Gerbera-2 drone, which was not carrying explosives, in the waters of the country's northern Black Sea coast, the Defense Ministry said Friday. Drones or drone parts have been found numerous times in the sea or on the shore in Bulgaria following the escalation of Russia’s war in Ukraine this year.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Friday that it shot down 142 Ukrainian drones overnight.

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Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Elise Morton in Thessaloniki, Greece; Lorne Cook in Brussels; Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed.

Hiring was far stronger than the 65,000 new jobs that economists had expected.

The jobs report comes three days after voters delivered a stunning defeat to President Donald Trump and his Republican Party in midterm elections. Frustrated with the state of the economy — and especially the high cost of living – Americans handed full control of Congress to the Democrats.

But the latest jobs report looked solid. Labor Department revisions added a combined 84,000 new jobs to the August and September totals.

The unemployment rate fell even though 421,000 people entered the labor force.

Average hourly wages rose 0.4% in October from September, the biggest month-over-month gain since January.

"This was a blowout jobs report,'' said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global strategist at Edward Jones. "Payroll growth exceeded expectations, revisions were positive, the unemployment rate fell, participation improved, and wage growth strengthened.''

The strong job gains will likely make Federal Reserve policymakers more confident in the health of the labor market, giving them leeway to focus on persistently high inflation and raise their benchmark interest rate at their next meeting in December.

The central bank typically seeks to bring down inflation by lifting its key interest rate to cool borrowing and spending. The Fed raised the rate in September but left it alone at its meeting last month. Wall Street investors now see the chance of a December rate hike at 77%, up about 10 percentage points from Thursday, according to CME’s FedWatch.

“For sure, we’re looking at another rate increase in December and possibly another one in early 2027,’’ said Boston College economist Brian Bethune.

Solid hiring also underscores a concern among many Fed officials that their key rate isn’t high enough to slow inflation.

Hourly wages were up a meager 3.1% from October 2025. That means many workers have seen their purchasing power decline over the past year, despite continued hiring.

Professional and business services – a broad category of administrative and managerial workers – added 70,000 jobs. Healthcare companies hired nearly 42,000. Factories added 19,000 jobs. But hotels, restaurants and bars cut 10,600.

The job market has been solid but unspectacular.

So far this year, employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — have added an average of 86,000 jobs a month. That is modest by historic standards but an improvement over 2025, when monthly job creation averaged 9,700. That was the weakest performance outside of a recession since 2002. Last year, high interest rates and President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies discouraged hiring.

Despite recovering this year, hiring remains well below the average of 166,000 jobs created monthly in 2023 and 2024, let alone the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns.

Economists see a “low-hire, low-fire’’ environment in which employers are reluctant to let go of existing workers but aren’t in any hurry to hire new ones. Young people entering the workforce, or those who’ve lost their jobs, can struggle to find work.

The United States doesn’t need as many new jobs as it once did to keep the unemployment rate from rising. That's because baby boomer retirements and Trump’s immigration crackdown mean fewer people are competing for work.

In late 2023, the so-called break-even point was around 166,000 new jobs a month. It’s now just over 5,000, according to an estimate by Yale University’s Budget Lab, which drew on an earlier Federal Reserve report.

The American economy and job market have proven resilient in the face of a series of shocks — Trump’s double-digit tariffs on imports and the war with Iran, which has driven U.S. gasoline prices above $4 a gallon and pinched family budgets.

Gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — advanced at a sprightly 3.4% annual pace from July through September, lifted by strong consumer spending and booming investment in artificial intelligence.

But AI can also mean that businesses need fewer workers.

At SharkNinja in Needham, Massachusetts, sales jumped 21% in the latest quarter as budget-minded shoppers brought the company's appliances – such as coffee- and smoothie-makers-- to save money on dining out.

But CEO Mark Barrocas says he’s slowed hiring – to 5% next year from 8% to 10% the previous two years. The reason: AI. SharkNinja, which has a total global work force of 4,200, has implemented AI tools in such areas as product innovation, media planning and finance.

“It’s allowing people to work on much more higher impact initiatives as opposed to more tedious tasks,” he said. But AI has also created new jobs for people with expertise in using AI to increase efficiency.

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AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York and AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this story.

Researchers in Canada captured images of an unidentified baby North Atlantic right whale, one of the rarest sea mammals in the world, off Anticosti Island in Quebec in September. Scientists with the New England Aquarium in Boston said this week that after analyzing photos and data about right whales, they have determined it was a calf likely born months ago that went unseen during winter surveys for the giant animals.

The discovery puts the number of baby right whales discovered from the most recent birthing season at 24, the most productive year for the whales since 2009 and the fourth-highest count on record, the aquarium said. The whales number only about 380 in the world, and their population has fallen since 2010.

The whale was seen with its mother, a 38-year-old whale known to researchers as Silt, scientists said. Right whales give birth off the southeastern U.S. in winter before venturing north to New England and Canada to feed.

The whales are extensively cataloged with photography by researchers because they are so rare. It's also rare for the researchers who study the whales to miss a baby, but the discovery was a welcome surprise, said Amy Warren, a scientist at the New England Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center.

“Silt was briefly seen in the southeastern U.S. calving grounds in February 2026, so it’s possible she had the calf there but snuck away before they were documented together. This is an exciting discovery for us so late in the year,” Warren said.

Baby right whale births are closely tracked by scientists because the tiny population needs successful calving years to remain viable. There are only about 70 reproductive-age females left in the population, and scientists have said the whales have reached 20 calves in a season only a few times since 2010.

That was when their numbers started falling, as they lost about 25% between 2010 and 2020. The whales are vulnerable to collisions with large ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear, and the warming of the ocean has heightened those threats because they have strayed from protected areas, scientists have said. They also suffered a disastrous year in 2018 when no babies were born.

Recent years have been slightly more encouraging, as the whales have gained back some of their population since 2020. But conservationists have decried recent moves by the U.S. government to delay new protections for the whales for a decade in favor of commercial fishing interests.

The baby whale sighted off Quebec was spotted by researchers with Mingan Island Cetacean Study, a nonprofit research organization in the province's coastal Côte-Nord region. The whale wasn't seen by researchers despite boat-based and aerial surveys along the U.S. East Coast all spring and summer, the New England Aquarium said.

Scientists are celebrating the animal's addition to a successful breeding season for the rare whales, said Richard Sears, founder and director of Mingan Island Cetacean Study.

“It just goes to show you how big the ocean is, and how those animals can get lost out there,” he said.

In a post on social media, CEO Elon Musk said, “Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production.”

The Texas facility is the only location where the Cybertruck is produced.

Teslas, and the Cybertruck in particular because of its unorthodox profile, became a political touchstone as Musk allied himself with President Donald Trump and some right-leaning causes amid a widening political divide in the U.S. and Europe.

European sales of Tesla vehicles tumbled 49% in the first two months of 2025 even as overall sales of EVs grew. Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party in national elections drew broad condemnation.

The vehicle was also plagued by quality-control issues, with a handful of recalls within months of its debut.

Despite enormous anticipation, the Cybertruck never caught on with most buyers, and sales declined almost from the moment it hit the market.

While Tesla does not break out sales of its vehicles by model, Kelley Blue Book estimated that Cybertruck sales declined 48% from 2024 to 2025. From January through September of this year, sales were down 28%, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told a ministerial meeting Friday that a rapid response to potential attacks is essential in the era of AI-generated attacks. She urged both government agencies and companies to step up their preparedness.

The emergency package comes after dozens of companies and government agencies were hit by unauthorized access to their systems and leaks of client data, prompting uneasiness across Japan.

"At this very moment, cases of unauthorized access and data breaches are occurring, causing a major impact on daily lives of the people and corporate activities,” Takaichi said. “Let us increase the response capability across Japan by devoting all government resources.”

Measures in the 10 billion yen ($63 million) package are designed to build a resilient society in which the public and private sectors share information, provide swift assistance to the affected and recover from damage.

It aims to acquire one of the world’s highest levels of cybersecurity.

The government will enhance its capability to access servers used by hackers as a preemptive measure known as “active cyber defense,” which was legalized in October.

In case of a possible challenge to Japan’s national security, the government will deploy a support team of officials from the Defense Ministry, the National Police Agency and the National Cybersecurity Office.

Under the measures in the package, a “top gun" team of cybersecurity experts will be set up by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry by the end of November. Team members will use AI to counter hackers and detect weaknesses in network systems. They are to cooperate with technology companies and advanced AI developers of friendly nations to keep Japan's security expertise up to date.

There will also be a “cyber rescue team” of experts from the public and private sectors to provide initial responses to companies affected by cyberattacks. A separate team will help vulnerable companies to strengthen their defenses.

Despite Trump’s affinity for project management, though, with Democrats taking control of Congress, the work his administration is doing to change the physical face of the District of Columbia is sure to encounter far more roadblocks than it did for the first two years of his second term.

From the renaming of and renovation plans for the Kennedy Center to remaking a public golf course and erecting an arch 100 feet (30.48 meters) taller than the Statue of Liberty without its pedestal, Trump has been deeply involved in how D.C. looks. Democrats have voiced opposition but, in terms of power, have been in the wilderness.

The potential collision point between opposition oversight from Democrats and the Republican president's preoccupation with the projects was evident in his last message to the American public before the election — and in his first afterward, too.

Both focused to some degree on his projects. On Monday, it was the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial; on Wednesday, it was a tour of the under-construction White House ballroom, where he talked columns and steel beams and Corinthian designs.

The clouds of scrutiny are already gathering

Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee with jurisdiction over the Interior Department that is involved with operations at parks and federal lands, spent much of the past year probing and questioning Trump’s projects, laying the groundwork for this moment.

“We’ve pushed back against vanity projects that seek to transform treasured public spaces into gaudy tributes to Trump. We exposed corruption, uncovered the efforts to hijack America’s 250th birthday, demanded accountability, and offered a compelling alternative governing vision grounded in science, fairness, environmental responsibility, and the rule of law,” Huffman said in a letter to colleagues seeking their support to be chairman.

As chairman with a strong Democratic majority, “I will ensure that the Committee’s full investigative and oversight authority is leveraged to uncover wrongdoing, demand accountability, and protect the public interest," he said.

Trump has been rushing the various projects, a point Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer made Thursday at a public hearing when he opposed construction of the memorial arch the president has planned in Memorial Circle directly across the Memorial Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial.

"The appropriations process beginning Jan. 3 will be controlled by Democrats. That will be one of the ways Congressman Beyer will step in,” said Beyer’s spokesman Aaron Fritschner.

A less appreciated impact will be the change in who names the general counsel of the House. The House Speaker has that role, presumably Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.

While Democrats have joined in lawsuits opposing the various projects, their filings don't carry the weight of Congress as the minority. “You’ll see the new majority pulling back the balance of power that (House Speaker) Mike Johnson was willing to cede,” Fritschner said.

A planning commission hearing for the arch featured dozens of witnesses

Beyer has already been a critic, Fritschner said, and cited other members who have signed on in amicus briefs. More than 120 witnesses were on hand for the National Capital Planning Commission meeting, which ran for 9 ½ hours late into Thursday night.

The commission gave the 250-foot (76-meter) arch its final approval on an 8-4 vote, before a federal judge stepped in before midnight to block the Trump administration from breaking ground for 14 days.

The remote, call-in commission hearing — which crashed repeatedly and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned, three-minute comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

The Trump-appointed chairman of the commission, however, launched into a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is considering a motion from three veterans and an architectural historian to stop any work until the lawsuit is resolved. A separate lawsuit filed Saturday by the District of Columbia and Virginia has been consolidated with the existing one. D.C. and Virginia have asked for a temporary restraining order, which Chutkan granted late Thursday with her 14-day delay.

At Wednesday's ballroom construction site tour, Trump spoke about the ballroom, the East Potomac Golf Links and the National Garden of American Heroes proposed for West Potomac Park and the arch. All four have been, or are currently in, litigation.

One of them, the golf course, has turned into an undertaking beyond the potential construction. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes has said she plans to open a “formal inquiry” to investigate if attorneys for the Trump administration violated ethical boundaries during a legal dispute about that project.

Beyond the courts, Congress is now an added bulwark

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in several of the lawsuits, said the switch of control means the organizations that have filed lawsuits and challenged the administration will now be joined by Congress.

Organizations like hers will continue challenging the administration in court, she said, but “the important thing now is that the American people now have a tool that’s not just in the courts.”

Added Perryman: “We hope and we anticipate Congress will fulfill its constitutional duty of checking executive branch excesses.” That includes hearings and investigations into funding plans and sources, she said.

Information about estimates for work on the projects has been slim, even in court, with assessments trickling out during testimony in some cases. One number, for example, revolves around the seawall at the golf course, which would exceed $300 million. Congress appropriated $257 million for the renovation of the Kennedy Center.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Another area that could impact the District of Columbia is the change in governorships. Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Nevada all have Democrats coming into power as a result of Tuesday's elections. They account for more than 600 National Guard members who are part of the mobilization that Trump ordered in August 2025.

Democrats who provided troops during the celebration of the United States' 250th anniversary were roundly criticized for their participation and removed their troops and airmen months ago. Nearly 3,100 are stationed in the city now, up slightly from last month.

Then, twice over the last two weeks, the river surged through his home and outbuildings in far southwestern Colorado, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the resort town of Pagosa Springs. Now a horse is missing, his barn is damaged and the river swallowed a corral. The house is strewn with mud. His tools washed downstream.

“We’re in trouble, all of us are. Not just me, everybody,” Martinez said through tears when he returned Wednesday. He said several families that go back 100 years in the same canyon had similar damage. “Nobody expected this.”

The Navajo, San Juan and Animas rivers are among those that surged beyond their banks when round after round of storms dumped heavy rain across the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

Scientists say a supercharged El Niño event — when warm water in the Pacific disrupts weather patterns — is making heavy rainfall more likely and increasingly intense across the South.

Recent flooding has struck Flagstaff, Sedona and Tucson in Arizona; Pagosa Springs and Durango in southwestern Colorado; Farmington in northwestern New Mexico; tiny Bluff in southeastern Utah; parts of the vast Navajo Nation.

With a break in the weather at last, some evacuees are returning home.

For Martinez, who was out of town for knee surgery, getting back meant navigating a mucky mess with a four-wheel drive vehicle and a lot of patience over beaten gravel roads. And he's finding his struggles may have just begun.

Martinez said he doesn't have flood insurance because insurers wouldn't provide cover for a house so near the water. He estimates at least $200,000 in losses.

He and his fiancée first stayed with one of his sons, then moved to a hotel. Both places subsequently flooded. Now they're in an Airbnb, but he worries they could end up homeless when his emergency voucher runs out in a few days.

"The government spends, you know, just millions and billions of money on overseas and everything. Right now we need that money on this side,” he said. “We need to get this, you know, all this put back together.”

A FEMA representative came to his property and took photos after the first flood. The second flood hit three days later and was twice as bad, he said.

“I know we’re on some list right now,” Martinez said. “So we’ll listen every day and we’ll see what options we have and go from there.”

As he heals from the knee surgery, he's considering whether he should ask family and friends for help cleaning up.

Hauling debris to the dump would cost $300 per load and ultimately could total thousands of dollars he does not readily have, he said.

The flooding did help end months of drought in the Four Corners area, but the raging torrents washed away rich topsoil on his land, leaving just sand and rock. Now he wonders how he'll feed his remaining animals without pasture next year.

“The normal might not ever be normal again,” Martinez said.

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Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The High Court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa issued the sentence for Pastor Paul Mackenzie. He was convicted of murdering 190 children and one adult after he ordered his followers to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.

Mackenzie is also facing terrorism and manslaughter charges for the more than 200 other victims, as well as child abuse and torture charges in two other courts.

Justice Diana Kavedza said that Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, bore the “primary criminal culpability” for relocating his followers to a remote location and ordering them to fast to death.

Mackenzie was charged with the murders alongside 28 of his followers, including guards who enforced his fasting directives and gravediggers who helped conceal the mass graves. All denied the charges, except for one person who confessed and pleaded for leniency.

On Oct. 19, the court found all 29 of them guilty of the murder of 191 people.

In 2023, more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves on the 800-acre (320-hectare) Chakama Ranch in coastal Kilifi County, where Mackenzie’s followers lived in mud huts, away from the scrutiny of local communities and authorities.

More than 60 bodies were positively identified and reburied by their relatives, while many others remain unidentified and unclaimed.

During the sentencing, Kavedza said that 183 victims died of starvation, defined as a complete lack of food, and the deaths of the other eight were classified as murder by direct homicide.

Kavedza said the killings were “cold and calculated” and dismissed claims by some of the accused that the loss of their own children altered the fact that they had participated in the killings of many other children.

The justice said that the perpetrators didn't show remorse and declared they were ready to fast to death as well. During the sentencing, Mackenzie often smiled and chatted with his assistant pastor, Smart Mwakalama, who was sentenced to 160 years in prison.

All of those who were convicted have been granted 14 days to file an appeal.

The prosecution had argued for the death penalty for Mackenzie and life imprisonment for his accomplices.

Defense lawyer Lawrence Obonyo, who represents Mackenzie and several others who were convicted, told The Associated Press that he had already launched an appeal. He said that the decision was “circling around the constitution to give a sentence that is unattainable” since the sentences of between 160 and 200 years amount to life sentences.

A father of seven, Suleiman Ziro, who traveled 120 kilometers (75 miles) for the sentencing, lost six of his children and his wife to the cult in 2023. He said that the sentence wasn't enough especially because he has yet to recover the bodies of his loved ones, calling for the death penalty in the case.

Mackenzie's son, Dan Mackenzie, said that he felt sorry for his father over the conviction, but it was “justice served to the victims." He said that he escaped by “rebelling” against his father's teachings and was often punished for it, but was glad he survived. Two of his younger brothers and three sisters were rescued and are currently at a children's home.

Those sentenced to death in Kenyan courts serve a life sentence. Kenya’s last execution was in 1987.

It's a remarkable pivot for a demographic that had shifted toward President Donald Trump just two years ago.

“We showed our power and flexed our muscle during this election,” said Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who won his battleground district in New Mexico by around 17 percentage points after winning by less than 1 percentage point in 2022.

Democrats capitalized on voters' angst over rising prices and government corruption, riding a wave of frustration to retake control of the House and the Senate.

Hispanics joined in that decisive repudiation of Trump and his Republican Party. In Texas, every county voted more Democratic than it did two years ago, when Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race. But the more heavily Hispanic the county, generally the heavier the shift.

“This is our lightning-in-the-bottle moment, that we were able to make such historic gains that we probably never conjured, especially here in Texas,” said Johnny Garcia, a sheriff's deputy who won a newly created House district in the San Antonio area where Trump won by 10 percentage points in 2024. “The only way we did that is by going after the issues that were meaning the most to people.”

Republicans lost the gains Trump made with Hispanic voters in 2024

About one-third of Hispanic voters said they backed the Republican in their local U.S. House race, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 midterm voters, while roughly 4 in 10 voted for Trump two years ago.

The shift was especially pronounced in Texas, where voters flipped a Senate seat and the governor's office to Democrats along with every statewide office on the ballot.

Roughly 7 in 10 Hispanic voters supported Democrat James Talarico in the U.S. Senate contest, while only about 3 in 10 voted for Republican Ken Paxton. The group was essentially split in the 2024 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of voters and nonvoters.

Younger Hispanics’ shift was even more pronounced, with swings of around 20 percentage points toward Talarico among Hispanic voters in Texas under 65 years old.

Cindy Candia, a 56-year-old lifelong Democrat, was thrilled to see her party find success for the first time in her 20 years living in Texas. She was especially excited about the incoming governor, Gina Hinojosa, who grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, where Candia lives now.

“She’s a woman, she’s Hispanic, she is from Brownsville, and I don’t think anybody thought that Texas would vote for that, for that type of person,” Candia said.

Democrats won every House district that touches the U.S.-Mexico border — which includes seats in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California — for the first time since 2008.

Even in the Senate race in Florida, where Republican Sen. Ashley Moody managed to narrowly win reelection, less than half of Hispanic voters supported Moody, while Trump definitively won this group two years earlier with 55% of Hispanics’ support.

In southwestern Kansas, three Hispanic-majority counties that voted overwhelmingly for Trump flipped to backing Adam Hamilton, who became the first Democrat in nearly a century to win a U.S. Senate contest in the state. Turnout also surged 27% over 2022 in the three counties, Finney, Ford and Seward.

Fourteen Hispanic Democrats were newly elected on Tuesday, 10 of them in districts that are currently represented by Republicans or were redrawn to favor the GOP. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus will have more members than ever before, said Rep. Linda Sanchez of California, chair of the caucus' campaign arm, CHC BOLD PAC.

Latino voters want someone who is “understanding of their issues” to represent them on Capitol Hill, said Leticia Gutierrez, a Democrat who won a Houston-area House district that Texas Republicans redrew in a failed attempt to pick up five more seats in the state.

“I’m gonna carry all of those things with me to Washington to be able to have that lens,” Gutierrez said.

Manny Rutinel, a Democrat who defeated Republican Rep. Gabe Evans in Colorado, said voters responded to his life story, trusting that he understands their economic concerns after growing up in a family that sometimes struggled to make ends meet.

“I think that they elected me because they know that for me it’s deeply personal,” Rutinel said.

Democrats can't take Latino voters for granted

In House districts where at least a quarter of the citizen voting-age population is Hispanic, the Democratic share in Tuesday’s midterms averaged about 11 percentage points higher than Harris' 2024 performance. By contrast, other House districts saw a 7-percentage-point gain on average.

In majority-Hispanic counties, Democratic Senate candidates exceeded their party's 2024 results by more than 15 percentage points.

Latinos have been especially affected by Trump's immigration crackdown, which was a prominent issue alongside economic concerns in some of the most heavily Latino districts.

Though Trump's promise to arrest and deport immigrants living in the country illegally was popular during his campaign, Americans now disapprove of his approach to immigration enforcement.

“Everybody voted for him, but the people that voted for him, he’s locking them up," said Elton Reid, a 44-year-old Latino voter and full-time caregiver for his father in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “Like he promised them the world, and he didn’t come through with it, and now he’s locking them up.”

Reid voted for Democrats in his battleground district, where Democrat Bob Brooks defeated Republican Rep. Ryan McKenzie.

Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, a Latino Democrat, warned that the shift toward Democrats hinges on the party keeping campaign pledges.

“They saw betrayal from Trump after they gave him a chance in 2024,” Tuerk said. “And they went with the Democrats, and they’re giving them a chance now.”

“But," he added, "they’re on probation.”

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Catalini and Cooper reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Linley Sanders, Aaron Kessler and Humeri Lodhi in Washington; John Hanna in Topeka, Kan.; Erik Verduzco in York, S.C.; Fabianna Rincon in New York; and Tassanee Vejpongsa in Allentown, Pa., contributed.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the 2026 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/elections.

The year was 2001. Spears, then just 19, was one of the most famous people on the planet, championed as the ultimate teen dream by legions of fans across the globe and a leering celebrity industry. That year, she'd performed during the Super Bowl halftime show and changed the course of fashion forever — first, showing up with beau Justin Timberlake in matching denim at the American Music Awards and then with an albino python around her neck during her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

She was entering adulthood, full steam ahead, after enjoying a meteoric run with her first two albums, 1999's “… Baby One More Time” and 2000's “Oops! … I Did It Again.” Her third album, “Britney,” was being released just ahead of her 20th birthday and would prove transformative.

Legacy Recordings on Friday is releasing “Britney (25th Anniversary Edition),” an expanded reissue of her pivotal record, which went quadruple platinum in less than two months. The collection features two remixes and five previously unreleased songs from that era, her first new (or is it old?) music since she announced she would “never return to the music industry” in a 2024 Instagram post.

The release is an opportunity to reflect on the album and Spears' unique position in popular culture's imagination — particularly following the news of the last few years. In 2021, she was released from a court conservatorship that controlled the pop singer’s life and money for nearly 14 years. And in February, it was announced that she had sold the rights to her music catalog to Primary Wave for an undisclosed sum.

Listening to ‘Britney,’ 25 years later

The album opens with a spoken-word declaration. Back in 2001, it was considered a provocation — as it often is when a young woman expresses her own prerogative.

“I know I may be young,” Spears seduces over choppy R&B production, courtesy of The Neptunes, the award-winning duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. “But I’ve got feelings, too.”

The song is the single “I'm a Slave 4 U,” where Spears made it clear that the bubblegum pop of her previous releases had been traded in for something decidedly more mature. And that's true even of the album's songs written and produced by previous collaborators Max Martin and Rami Yacoub — tracks like “Bombastic Love” still sparkle, but with newfound edge.

If Spears was borrowing from the teen-to-adult pop star trajectory laid forth by forebears like Madonna or Janet Jackson on “Britney,” she did so while keeping it PG-13 — hinting at developed sensuality as a means to express self-definition, but remaining accessible and agreeable to her younger audience. To put it another way, she toes the line: “I'm not a girl, not yet a woman,” as the single goes.

That's all while proclamations of autonomy — sexual and otherwise — punctuate the album. “Say hello to the girl that I am,” she invites on “Overprotected.” “Now I live for me,” she flips the script on “Lonely.” “She's in control,” on the funky, erotic “Boys.”

A sense of self-reflection is amplified by the fact that the album is self-titled, and that Spears co-wrote five songs on the original album: “Lonely,” “Anticipating,” “Let Me Be,” “That's Where You Take Me” and the spiky “Cinderella.”

The previously unreleased ‘Britney’ songs add to Spears' mythology

The first of the five archival tracks is “She’ll Never Be Me,” co-written with Timberlake, her then-boyfriend, who also sings background. Timberlake cowrote a track on the original album, but the new release comes after Spears wrote about their relationship in her 2023 memoir, sharing deeply personal details about a pregnancy, abortion and painful breakup.

As far as how it fits in with the rest of the album, the song slots in nicely with its vocal effects and propulsive Y2K production — by any measure, it makes for a fine B-side.

The same could be said of the rest, from the slow-burn fake-out “Am I A Sinner” and Latin pop-informed rhythms of “Right Now (Taste the Victory)” to the glitchy, proto-hyperpop “When I Say So” and soulful, unusually lengthy “My Big Secret,” which features Spears' strongest vocal performance of the whole album. It's a stunning falsetto.

Thematically, a number of these tracks could be read as a response to the tabloid press' obsession with Spears' virginity at the time of its release. “I don't want to mislead you,” she sings on “When I Say So.” “You'll get some when I say so.”

And on “Am I A Sinner” she may very well be reflecting back on an unjust media — or any bad relationship: “Tell me, am I a sinner? / Tell me, am I wrong? / Something's wrong with the picture / This is not my fault.”

Since the release of her bestselling memoir, “The Woman in Me” — which details her childhood, rise to stardom, marriages, motherhood and conservatorship — fans have worked to recontextualize how Spears was portrayed early on in her career. These songs will no doubt inspire more detective work. But others may approach it more simply, through the rose-colored glasses of easy nostalgia.

In the end, it is an album written and recorded in the space between adolescence and adulthood, from the woman a generation looked to for guidance on doing the same.

“I thought he would return. I certainly intended to call him up,” Jesus said when he presented his Nations League squad on Friday, a day after Ronaldo announced that he was ending his long and illustrious career for his country.

“He felt that this was the right moment to leave, and that must be respected. We can never overlook what he has meant to Portugal, what he has contributed to the country, or the fact that he serves as a symbol for younger players.”

Ronaldo’s final appearance with Portugal was on Sept. 24 in a 1-0 home win over Wales in the Nations League.

Jesus kept Ronaldo on the bench for the following match and said he didn’t plan to start him in the next one. Ronaldo responded by leaving the team’s training camp.

Ronaldo later apologized. But the Portuguese soccer federation fined him and suspended him from the team for 30 days.

In a long video posted on his social media accounts on Thursday, Ronaldo said “the day has come for me to hand back the No. 7 shirt of our national team.”

The 41-year-old Ronaldo will still play at the club level in Saudi Arabia for Al-Nassr. He is in pursuit of his 1,000th career goal and sits on 985. Of those, a men’s record 146 goals came in 234 appearances with Portugal.

The Portuguese federation said on Thursday that it intends to organize a tribute to Ronaldo, who played in six World Cups and helped his nation win the 2016 European Championship.

Portugal hosts Denmark in Braga on Nov. 14 and three days later visits Wales in Cardiff. Portugal has already qualified for the Nations League quarterfinals.

Jesus took over Portugal from Roberto Martínez after a disappointing World Cup when Ronaldo featured as the point of the attack.

Questions about Ronaldo dominated Friday’s press conference, even though Jesus said he wanted to focus on his team.

He also said he did not take the public split with Ronaldo, an icon in Portugal, personally.

“As for any hard feelings? There are none. Why? Because all of my decisions were made with the team in mind,” he said. “As a coach, I’ve always advocated for what was best for the team, so I’m completely at ease with everything.”

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Portugal squad:

Goalkeepers: Diogo Costa (Porto), Rui Silva (Sporting), Samuel Soares (Benfica).

Defenders: Diogo Dalot (Manchester United), Alberto Costa (Porto), Ruben Dias (Manchester City), Tomás Araújo (Benfica), Renato Veiga (Villarreal), António Silva (Bournemouth), João Cancelo (Barcelona), Nuno Tavares (Lazio).

Midfielders: João Palhinha (Benfica), Ruben Neves (Al-Hilal), Mateus Fernandes (Tottenham), Vitinha (Paris Saint-Germain), João Neves (Paris Saint-Germain), Bernardo Silva (Real Madrid), Pedro Neto (Chelsea), Francisco Trincão (Al-Ahli), Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United).

Forwards: Carlos Forbs (Club Brugge), João Félix (Al-Nassr), Rafael Leão (Galatasaray), Geovany Quenda (Chelsea), Rodrigo Mora (Roma), Gonçalo Ramos (AC Milan), Fábio Silva (Borussia Dortmund), Gustavo Varela (Monza).

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Houston Airports announced six improvement projects focused on upgrading technology, expanding airport capacity and addressing common travel frustrations.

At Bush Intercontinental Airport, one of the biggest changes will be new technology designed to speed up the customs process for Global Entry members.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has confirmed the airport will receive Global Entry walk-through technology in December. The system uses facial comparison technology to verify eligible travelers as they move through the process, eliminating the need to stop at a traditional kiosk.

Bush Airport is also planning improvements to its cell-phone waiting lot. The proposed upgrades include a rebuilt waiting area with restrooms, food options and fuel services, giving drivers more amenities while waiting to pick up arriving passengers.

Meanwhile, Hobby Airport is moving forward with its nearly $500 million West Concourse expansion.

The project will add seven new gates and is expected to begin opening in phases in early 2027. The expansion also includes a new baggage-handling system and a covered walkway connecting the parking garage to the terminal.

The improvements are part of a broader effort by Houston Airports to improve the passenger experience, increase capacity and make airport operations more efficient.

The Global Entry technology is expected to roll out at Bush in December, while the Hobby Airport expansion remains on track for its planned 2027 opening.

The British actor-comedian faces a “significant” prison term when he is sentenced Monday, Judge Joel Bennathan said. Brand had been free, but he was taken into custody after the judge rejected a bail request to let him see his kids because of the possibility he might flee.

“I regret the hardship caused to the children, of course,” the judge said. “But the hardship has been caused by serious criminal offending by their father.”

Brand was a ruthless, calculating, manipulative “sexual predator,” prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones said at trial.

The 51-year-old father of three denied the charges and testified that he was obsessed with sex as a young man and once led a promiscuous life but had never forced anyone to do something against their will.

Brand shows no emotion and tells lawyers ‘I’m good’

He was convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault.

Brand closed his eyes as the guilty verdict on the rape count was read but showed no emotion otherwise. When bail was denied, he gestured to his lawyers that he was OK and repeatedly said, “I’m good, I’m good, I’m good,” before being taken away.

The jury of eight men and four women in Southwark Crown Court deliberated more than eight hours over two days.

After the verdicts, police confirmed they have provided prosecutors with their investigation into two more rape allegations against Brand.

Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy of London’s Metropolitan Police said the conviction was “a testament to the extraordinary courage, resilience and determination of the women who came forward and reported what happened to them.”

“Brand used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women,” he said. “As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement.”

Brand’s evolution from bad boy to born again

Known for edgy stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol, Brand rose to prominence in the early 2000s, hosting television programs and his own BBC radio show. He appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek” and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.

In recent years he has moved away from mainstream media, relocated to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion.

The accusers came forward following a 2023 investigation by The Times and Channel 4 that aired accusations from women who said they had been sexually abused and degraded by Brand.

Allegations of assaults in toilets, bedrooms and workplaces

Brand was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman during a birthday party at a London bar in 2004, but cleared of orally raping her in a restroom.

He was also found guilty of kissing and groping another woman at a London radio station in 2004 or 2005 and of anally raping a fan at his home after meeting her backstage at one of his comedy shows in 2009.

The final conviction was for sexually assaulting a different woman who says the comedian demanded a massage and pressed his face into her groin during the recording of an advertisement in 2009.

Brand was acquitted of raping another woman in a hotel room during the Labour Party’s annual conference in the seaside town of Bournemouth in 1999, and of attempting to indecently assault a woman by dragging her into the men’s bathroom at the London office of music channel MTV.

The Associated Press doesn’t name victims of alleged sexual violence, and British law protects their identities from the media for life.

Prosecutor Karmy-Jones told jurors that women were a “disposable commodity” to Brand and she used his own words to illustrate his sex drive.

“If I want something – whether it’s a job or a woman – I will determinedly, resolutely, remove anything that’s in the way, until I possess the object of my desire,” he wrote in an excerpt from “My Booky Wook,” his 2007 memoir, read in court.

Brand’s former personal assistant Helen Berger testified against him, saying he had an “insane sexual appetite” and treated women poorly. She said his “bad behavior” was normalized by those around him and she eventually got “sick of him” and quit.

Brand rejected testimony by a former roommate who said he wanted to have sex with 5,000 women. But he acknowledged he had used his fame to have sex, which he said was wrong.

Brand told jurors that the criminal case had a devastating impact on his life and family.

“My entire life has been consumed by these events, these allegations, these accusations,” he said.

Brand’s lawyers argued that the alleged victims were undermined by the fact that they only went to police years after the alleged assaults and following the anonymous allegations against Brand in the Channel 4 documentary.

Brand testified that showbiz friends and colleagues had abandoned him.

His wife, Laura, who accompanied him to court, testified as a character witness in his defense, but no one with relevant evidence was willing to give evidence on his behalf, Brand said.

The short-video sharing platform must change the design of its “For You” feed so that users have more control over opting out of seeing certain content, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm said Friday.

The platform failed to assess how its recommendation systems could lead people into “rabbit holes” that threaten their well-being, regulators said, by feeding them similar video clips based on what they've previously viewed or liked even if they are "triggering" such as clips about weight loss and mental health struggles.

TikTok said the European Commission's findings are “fundamentally inaccurate and distort our platform’s architecture and our commitment to user safety.”

“We have a strong record of protecting our community while giving users direct and intuitive control over their content experience,” the company said in a statement.

The company will have a chance to respond before the European Commission issues its final decision, which could include a fine of up to 6% of TikTok's total annual revenue.

“Every time a user scrolls or likes a video on TikTok, the algorithm serves more of the same, leading users down rabbit holes they cannot easily escape from,” European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, who oversees tech sovereignty, said in a statement.

"Today’s preliminary findings show again that TikTok needs to step up its efforts to protect users’ well-being, including those of minors.”

TikTok has added some measures, such as a “not interested” button to reduce the “rabbit hole effect,” but the commission said they're ineffective in reducing how often harmful content is recommended.

European regulators said they want TikTok to make changes to its “For You” feed, including giving more weight to ‘explicit preferences’ of people using the platform, stopping reliance on viewing time as a metric for recommending content, and making user controls more accessible.

It's the latest in a series of enforcement actions targeting TikTok by EU regulators using the bloc's Digital Services Act, a wide-ranging rule book that requires tech companies to adhere to a framework under threat of hefty financial penalties.

The commission opened its investigation into whether TikTok violated the DSA more than two years ago. This year, it has already issued two other sets of preliminary findings, accusing the platform of breaching the rules with “ addictive design ” features that lead to compulsive use by children and charging it with failing to adequately protect children's privacy rights.

The last-minute intervention came after local media reported that Najib had left the prison, after his political party paid a 50 million ringgit ($12.3 million) fine required under the terms of a royal pardon allowing house arrest.

The attorney general's office said in a statement that Najib would remain in prison until the legal matters were resolved.

Najib has been imprisoned since August 2022, when Malaysia’s top court upheld his conviction in his first graft trial linked to the multibillion-dollar looting of state investment fund 1MDB. Malaysia’s king in September granted Najib clemency, allowing him to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest once he pays the court-imposed fine.

The house arrest applies only to his reduced six-year sentence in the first trial. It doesn’t cover a separate 15-year prison sentence imposed in December 2025 for corruption and money laundering in a second major trial tied to the 1MDB scandal. He's appealing that sentence.

The attorney general's office cited legal ambiguities in the house arrest order and raised concerns over how it could affect Najib's consecutive 15-year prison sentence. It said the delay was not to meant to contest the royal pardon allowing house arrest but to ensure it was implemented accurately and in line with the law.

Local media reported that Najib was returned to prison later Friday, after undergoing medical checks.

Police were earlier stationed at Najib's house in Kuala Lumpur and the road leading to it was blocked. Najib's lawyers could not be immediately reached for comment.

Asyraf Wajid Dusuki, secretary-general of the United Malays National Organization, said in a statement that the party had collected sufficient funds through its donation drive for Najib. He said the party had completed payment of the fine at the High Court earlier Friday.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim earlier said that he disagreed with UMNO’s decision to settle Najib's fine because it risked sending the wrong message about large-scale corruption offenses. But he acknowledged it was the party's right.

“That should not give the public the impression that acts of corruption involving billions of ringgit can simply be overlooked," he was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama.

Najib could be imprisoned again if his second appeal fails

Najib set up the 1MDB development fund shortly after he took office in 2009. Investigators say at least $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates through layers of bank accounts in the U.S. and other countries. The funds were allegedly used to finance Hollywood films and extravagant purchases that included hotels, a luxury yacht, art and jewelry.

He was originally sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 210 million ringgit ($51.5 million) in 2020 for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving 42 million ringgit ($10.3 million) channeled into his bank accounts from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB.

In January 2024, the Pardons Board halved his sentence to six years and reduced his fine to 50 million ringgit.

King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar subsequently granted Najib a conditional pardon, paving the way for house arrest until Aug. 23, 2028, provided he paid the fine. If Najib fails to win appeal in the second case, he could face a further 15 years in prison after the current sentence ends.

Public outrage over the 1MDB scandal led to the historic 2018 election defeat of the ruling coalition, which had governed Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957. Despite his conviction, Najib still wields influence in his party, UNMO, which is now part of a new government that took power in 2022.

The three-day festival runs Friday, Nov. 6, through Sunday, Nov. 8, at Sugar Land Town Square, offering visitors a chance to explore artwork from more than 100 juried artists, enjoy live entertainment and sample food from the Sugar Land area.

This year’s festival is moving to a new location at Sugar Land Town Square, an open-air venue surrounded by shops and restaurants. Organizers are also making admission free for the first time.

The festival will feature a curated wine garden, live performances and a variety of artwork from participating artists.

The event is produced by the Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization. Proceeds from the festival help support arts and music scholarships for underserved youth in Fort Bend County.

When and where is the Sugar Land Arts & Music Festival?

The festival will take place at Sugar Land Town Square, located at 2711 Plaza Drive.

Festival hours are:

• Friday, Nov. 6: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
• Saturday, Nov. 7: Noon to 8 p.m.
• Sunday, Nov. 8: Noon to 5 p.m.

Admission is free.

For more information, visit the Sugar Land Arts & Music Festival website.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters that the Japanese government is aware of Russian President Vladimir Putin's order imposed on the Japanese cigarette maker's subsidiaries that operate in Russia.

Japan sent senior government officials to Moscow, where they joined the Japanese ambassador to Russia to lodge a protest and demand the retraction of the measure “to make sure the legitimate interests of Japanese nationals and businesses are not violated,” Kihara said.

The takeover is the latest dispute between the two countries. Tensions have risen since Putin made a visit in August to Iturup, one of four Russian-controlled islands off Japan’s northern coast that Tokyo also claims.

The Soviet Union seized the Kuril Islands from Japan in the final days of World War II. The territorial dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their hostilities.

Tensions escalated in mid-October over the arrest of a Japanese journalist in Russia on suspicion of spying. Following Tokyo's demands that Moscow provide an explanation, consular access and humane treatment, Japanese consulate officials were allowed to meet the Hokkaido newspaper journalist in late October and confirmed he was in good health.

Japan Tobacco said in a statement Friday its four manufacturing subsidiaries in Russia have been placed under the temporary management of a Russian firm by presidential order.

The Japanese tobacco company said it was gathering more information, considering its response and assessing the potential impact on the group.

The move follows a growing number of cases since September in which Russia placed the assets of Western companies operating in Russia under temporary Russian control, Japan's Economy and Trade Minister Ryosei Akazawa said.

“To be honest, we have been cautious," Akazawa said. “We will continue to communicate with the Russian government in order to protect the assets of the Japanese companies.”

Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama, whose ministry holds a 37.55% stake in Japan Tobacco, told reporters Friday that she planned to “respond appropriately by cooperating closely with relevant ministries and JT, while watching the development.”