MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Class Dismissed

The Texas Lege finally acted on the public school funding issue, with the House and Senate each passing the other’s priority school finance reform bill on Monday, according to the Texas Tribune. Lawmakers waited until the eleventh hour to pass the legislation—there are only two days left in the special session. The House passed Senate Bill 16 to form a commission to look at future school funding reform, and the Senate voted Monday night to pass House Bill 21, which would give public schools an immediate $351 million infusion to help address the struggles of small rural schools and students with special needs. HB 21 also adds $212 million to a health insurance program for retired teachers. But as the Dallas Morning News notes, there’s still a lot of work to be done this session on school finance, and “with time so short,” the legislative harmony could fall apart just as soon as it came together.

Deep Trouble

A former South Texas police chief is facing federal drug charges for allegedly working as a member of a drug trafficking organization, according to the McAllen Monitor. Ex-La Joya police chief Geovani Hernandez was arrested by federal agents over the weekend after a federal investigation revealed his ties to an unidentified drug trafficking organization. Court records show Hernandez allegedly had been working with a middleman for drug traffickers, and told several confidential informants that he was helping run drugs over the border. Hernandez also allegedly told an informant that he was a close friend of Gulf Cartel Plaza boss Juan Manuel Loza Salinas, also known as “El Toro.” In November, Hernandez also appeared as an actor in a narco-corrido, or drug ballad, music video for a song about running cocaine from Mission to Houston, which isn’t exactly lying low. Hernandez had been working with the Progreso Police Department as a “provisionary sergeant” at the time of his arrest—Progreso officials announced that Hernandez was no longer with the department effective Monday.

Hazing Scandal

Seven deputies at the Bexar County Jail were put on administrative leave for allegedly participating in a hazing incident at the facility, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar announced on Monday, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The incident happened at a house party on Friday night, when six deputies on the elite Special Emergency Response Team at the jail allegedly hazed a seventh deputy. Salazar said the hazing involved county-issued handcuffs, shackles, and a stun gun. The deputies were placed on leave after video of the incident surfaced. All of the deputies involved viewed it as a joke—apparently involving a deputy’s four-year-old daughter in the hazing process—but Salazar certainly isn’t laughing. “It’s not to be tolerated. It’s not something I’m going to stand for,” he said at a Monday press conference. The deputies could face criminal charges, including hazing, unlawful restraint, and child endangerment.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Ted Talks

Senator Ted Cruz issued a statement condemning the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend after a man described as a Nazi sympathizer drove into a crowd of protesters, killing one person and injuring dozens more. A graduate of Bellaire High School in Houstonwas among those injured in the attack. “It’s tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism once again mar our great Nation with bloodshed,” Cruz said in a statement released Saturday night, according to the Dallas Morning News. “The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to speak their minds peaceably, but violence, brutality, and murder have no place in a civilized society. The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate. Having watched the horrifying video of the car deliberately crashing into a crowd of protesters, I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism.”

Wall March

Hundreds of activists marched to protest the construction of President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall in South Texas on Saturday, according to the Texas Tribune. The protesters gathered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mission and walked four miles to La Lomita Chapel, about 300 yards from the Rio Grande. The latest plan for the wall prompted concerns that La Lomita Chapel will be stuck between the wall and the river. Marchers from different backgrounds participated, as the proposed wall has inflamed private property owners who may lose their land to the wall, conservationists who are concerned about several wildlife refuges in the path of construction, and immigration advocates. The mix of characters resulted in an interesting scene: people walked, used golf carts, and rode bikes during the march, blasting rock music as church bells rang out. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s longtime priest, Father Roy Snipes, led the protesters from the driver’s seat of his baby blue, four-door 1984 Ford Escort with a nearly five-foot statue of the Lady of Guadalupe sitting on top, “accompanied by at least a few of his dogs,” according to the McAllen Monitor.

Defaced

A primarily African-American church in Waco was defaced with Nazi graffiti, the word “Satan,” and the name of President Donald Trump last week, the Waco Herald-Tribunereported on Friday. The vandalism was discovered on Tuesday morning at the thirty-member Willow Grove Baptist Church in McLennan County. A swastika, surrounded by a six-point star and circle, was drawn in ketchup and mustard at the church’s fellowship hall, which is where churchgoers hold Bible studies, Sunday classes, and community events. The total cost of damages is about $3,000. The historic church is nearly 200 years old, and was established by former slaves, A.J Crawford and Buck Manning. Pastor Kenneth McNeil—who is also a U.S. Army veteran—reacted with compassion toward the perpetrators. “Offer them love and forgiveness,” McNeil told the Tribune, echoing how he thought Crawford and Manning would respond to the vandals. “As I read some of their records, I think they would offer forgiveness.”

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Offsides

The National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars became the first professional sports franchise to come out publicly against the bathroom bill on Wednesday, according to the Dallas Morning News. “Dallas was warm and welcoming when we came to this great city 25 years ago,” President Jim Lites said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Dallas Stars stands strongly opposed to any legislation perceived as discriminatory, including proposed bathroom legislation. We welcome fans from all over the globe, and our roster boasts players from half a dozen countries. Dallas welcomes all, and we welcome all.” Lites also references the NHL draft, which Dallas is set to host next year amid protests from LGBT advocates. “We are proud of our home and want every visitor to feel safe at home here, too, and that’s why we oppose this discriminatory bathroom legislation,” Lites said in the statement. As the Morning News notes, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair has been critical of the bill, and the Dallas Cowboys have reportedly been lobbying against it quietly.

Brace Yourself

Texas’s coastal residents should prepare to batten down the hatches this hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Wednesday that the Atlantic hurricane season will result in an above-average fourteen to nineteen storms strong enough to earn names, a prediction that could disrupt energy and agriculture markets now that it looks like a system-softening Pacific El Niño won’t arrive to save the day. “There is a possibility now that the season will be extremely active,” said Gerry Bell, lead hurricane seasonal forecaster at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, according to the Houston Chronicle. “We are now entering the historical peak months of the season. This three month period is when the bulk of hurricanes occur.” This most recent prediction is even harsher than the NOAA’s last hurricane season forecast in May, when the agency said we would be likely in store for between eleven and seventeen major storms.

Bombs Away

Former Exxon CEO and Wichita Falls native Rex Tillerson is in a tough spot. The secretary of State must now put out the massive fire started by President Donald Trump, who earlier this week seemed prepared to go to war with North Korea, saying the country would face “fire and fury” if it does not stop making threats toward the United States. On Wednesday, Tillerson defended President Trump’s remarks, but also downplayed the threat of nuclear war. “What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said in an interview with reporters while flying from Malaysia to a scheduled refueling stop in Guam, according to the Washington Post. “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime that the U.S. has the unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies, and I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part.” Tillerson also told reporters that he does “not believe that there is any imminent threat.”

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Opinionated Perry

Rick Perry offered his two cents on President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops in the military on Friday. “I totally support the president in his decision,” Energy Secretary Perry told reporters after speaking to workers at an air conditioning manufacturer in Waller, Texas. “The idea that the American people need to be paying for these types of operations to change your sex is not very wise from a standpoint of economics.” Perry was an Air Force cargo pilot for five years. “I think the president makes some good decisions about making sure that we have a force that is capable,” Perry said, pointing out the potential medical costs of sex reassignment surgeries as reason for the ban. As the Washington Post notes, that cost is actually minuscule: between $2.4 and $8.4 million a year, according to a study commissioned by the Department of Defense last year, representing a tiny “0.04 to 0.13-percent increase” in military healthcare expenditures. For comparison, the military has spent more than $294 million on Viagra or similar medication since 2011, according to the Military Times. When asked Friday what he thought about the high cost of those pills, Perry said, “You know what, I don’t check on the price of Viagra.”

Hot, Hot, Hot

President Donald Trump’s border wall may be coming sooner than expected in Texas. Well, at least a three-mile section of it. According to the Texas Tribune and ProPublica, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will get started on the construction of the first segment of Trump’s wall in November, building it through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge near McAllen, using newly available money that was shifted around in the agency’s budget. Although border wall preparations have been ongoing in Santa Ana for months, it was thought the construction wouldn’t start until wall funding was approved by Congress (the House recently sent a spending bill to the Senate). But last week, Border Protection officials passed word along to refuge workers that they had enough money to get started sooner. “I was alarmed,” Jim Chapman of Friends of the Wildlife Corridor told the Tribune and ProPublica. “It was not good news.” A wall through Santa Ana could cause serious environmental damage. The 2,088-acre refuge is home to more than 400 species of birds, endangered ocelots and jaguarundi, and some of the last surviving stands of sabal palm trees in South Texas.

Hot, Hot, Hot

It’s really hot, y’all, which, as you well know, is nothing new for summer in the Lone Star State. But this time, instead of simply complaining about the heat, you can now complain about the record-breaking heat. Austin hit 105 on Sunday, breaking the previous record of 104, which had stood for 60 years, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Heat indices across Central Texas were between 103 and 109, and the sweltering Sunday marked the thirteenth straight day of triple-digit temps in Austin. San Antonians, meanwhile, were just as sweaty as their neighbors in Austin over the weekend. The Alamo City broke heat records on Saturday and Sunday, according to the San Antonio Express-News, recording temperatures of 105 and 104, respectively. Saturday’s hot day broke a 67-year record, while Sunday scorched a record set in 1946.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Staying Put

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently took an oddly-timed vacation to Texas, prompting rumors that he was considering quitting his post. CNN reported earlier this week that Tillerson was upset at President Donald Trump’s recent treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump has publicly criticized amid whispers that the AG is on his way out. According to CNN and USA Today, Tillerson is frustrated at being continually undercut by the Trump administration on a wide range of policy issues. “Ultimately, the president is in charge of this country,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Tuesday. “He decides. He’s the boss. And I’ll just leave it at that.” But the former Exxon CEO and Wichita Falls native put to rest rumors of a so-called “Rexit” when he returned to work on Wednesday, telling reporters that he’s “not going anywhere,” and adding that he plans to stay “as long as the president lets me.” When asked how his relationship with Trump is, Tillerson responded succinctly: “good.”

DACA Detainments

Fifteen people were arrested for blocking the street during a protest march for immigrant rights in Austin on Wednesday, including four undocumented immigrants protected by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. According to the Austin American-Statesman, the protesters were arrested during a sit-in on the north side of the Capitol at the intersection of Fifteenth Street and Congress Avenue. They were charged for obstructing a highway or other passageway, which is a Class B misdemeanor. As the Texas Tribune notes, the arrest roundup was a noticeable test to Travis County’s immigration policy, which has been in the middle of a national controversy over immigrant sanctuaries, in which local governments don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities and jails won’t immediately turn over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities. “All the DACA beneficiaries are very aware of the risks of this action,” protest organizer Maria Fernanda Cabello told the Tribune. “We’re counting on Travis County not to cooperate with ICE. If they do decide to cooperate with ICE and go against their policy, we’re going to make sure that all the media knows.” All four DACA recipients were released from jail by late Wednesday night.

Mr. 3,000

Texas Rangers star third baseman Adrian Beltre is closing in on a major career milestone: 3,000 hits. The future Hall of Famer is just four knocks away from joining the exclusive 3,000-hit club after going 3-for-3 at the plate on Wednesday, so he has an outside chance to get there during Thursday night’s game against Baltimore. Beltre has told reporters that he wants to get it over with to get the attention off of him and back on baseball, but he also said that he wants to make sure he reaches the mark in front of his home crowd in Arlington. “I really want to get it in this home stand because I think the fans deserve that and I really want to do it in front of them,” Beltre told reporters earlier this week, according to the Dallas Morning News. “At the same time just get it over with and play baseball.” Only thirty players in the history of Major League Baseball have collected 3,000 hits, and no one has ever accomplished the feat while wearing a Texas Rangers uniform.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Trafficking Tragedy

More details continue to emerge about the dozens of people who were trapped in a hot trailer in a San Antonio Walmart parking lot. Ten people have died, including Frank Guisseppe Fuentes, a 19-year-old Guatemalan. Fuentes had been living in the country legally under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program until his DACA holder status was revoked in March, after he was convicted of assault and battery by a mob in Virginia, according to the Washington Post. Fuentes first entered the U.S. illegally in 2000 and grew up in Virginia. He was reportedly attempting to return to his family when he was found in the trailer, where he died of heat exposure and asphyxiation. Of the 39 people taken off the trailer, thirteen remain hospitalized, including sixteen-year-old Brandon Martinez Deloera. According to the San Antonio Express-News, Deloera left his home in Mexico on July 10, hoping to reach the U.S. so he could better provide for his three-month-old son. “He wanted to buy a house for his kid and his future wife, start a business,” Deloera’s father, Jose De Jesus Martinez Delgado, told the Express-News. Deloera remains in intensive care and has damage to his brain, lungs, and kidneys.

Another Oops

Energy Secretary Rick Perry recently fell victim to a prank call from a pair of Russian jokesters who had him believe he was talking to Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. According to the Washington Post, Perry spoke for a long time to Russian prank callers Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetsov and Alexei “Lexus” Stolyarov, discussing a wide range of topics, including a potential pipeline across the Baltic Sea for Russian gas, cyber attacks on the U.S. power grid, natural gas exploration in Ukraine, and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. The prankers also told Perry about a new biofuel invented by Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko, made out of home-brewed alcohol and pig shit. Perry said he’d like to get more information about the “scientific development.” The biofuel, of course, doesn’t exist. “Secretary Perry is the latest target of two Russian pranksters,” DOE Spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said in an email to the Post. “These individuals are known for pranking high level officials and celebrities, particularly those who are supportive of an agenda that is not in line with their governments. In this case, the energy security of Ukraine.” Oops.

Monkey Business

A monkey allegedly bit a kid at a Buc-ee’s last week. No, seriously. Apparently a man brought a monkey into one of the beaver-themed stores in Terrell, near Dallas, and when a child tried to pet him, the monkey bit the kid, according to the Houston Chronicle. According to Terrell police, the bite wasn’t that bad, but now police are hunting for the monkey’s owner. A surveillance photo shows the man walking through Buc-ee’s cradling a monkey, and police are hoping to locate the man to make sure the primate’s shot records are up to date. Police haven’t released a description of the monkey, but he looks to be maybe, like, a foot tall, with brown fur. If you see something, say something, and remember, do not approach the monkey, because it bites. Buc-ee’s didn’t have much to say about the incident. “We are not making any comments at this time as this is an active criminal investigation,” Buc-ee’s spokesman and general counsel Jeff Nadalo told the Chronicle on Tuesday, adding that animals are not allowed in stores unless they are service animals.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Funding Cut

President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed more than $200 million in funding toward teen pregnancy prevention and research programs around the country, and Texas has seen $8.6 million of funding go up in smoke, according to the Austin American-Statesman. According to the Statesman, the Lone Star State has the nation’s fifth-highest teen pregnancy rate, the fourth-highest teen birth rate and the highest repeat teen pregnancy rate in the country. The federal funding went toward “evidence-based” programs, proven by research to have an impact on lowering teen pregnancy rates. The state, meanwhile, mostly only funds “abstinence-only” programs that lack research-proven results. It’s unclear why these funds were cut—ten Democratic Texas legislators, including U.S. Representatives Lloyd Doggett and Joaquín Castro, wrote a letter on July 14 to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in search of an answer. “Terminating an effective program is another short-sighted decision, done by fiat behind closed doors,” Doggett said in a statement Friday, according to the Statesman. “These programs bring life-changing education to our youth, helping those in our community avoid unplanned pregnancies and make healthy decisions.”

Grand Champion

Jordan Spieth won the British Open on Sunday, bringing him one major victory away from a career Grand Slam. The Dallas native and former University of Texas at Austin golfer won in dramatic fashion, finishing with a flurry after struggling mightily early on. The Associated Press called his closing performance “among the greatest finishes in major championship history.” After leading by three shots going into the final round, Spieth lost the lead on the thirteenth hole, when he sent a shot sailing 75 yards from the fairway, settling in thick grass on a dune “so steep he could hardly stand up, let alone take a swing,” according to the AP. Spieth smartly took an unplayable penalty shot, backed himself up to the driving range, and somehow escaped with a bogey. On the final four holes he went birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie to win. Spieth, 23, is the youngest American to ever win the British Open, and Jack Nicklaus is the only other golfer to have won three different majors at that age.

Trade Rumors

Cleveland Cavaliers star Kyrie Irving has reportedly requested a trade, and San Antonio is the electric point guard’s preferred destination, ESPN reported on Saturday. It’s unclear if the Spurs are interested in making a move for Irving or if they would have the goods to get him, but he’d be great to pair with Kawhi Leonard. Irving averaged 29 points per game in the NBA Finals this season, and he’s a four-time All Star. He’s one of the best point guards in the league, and if the Spurs did somehow get him, it’d really ramp up the already-strong Texas rivalry with the Houston Rockets, who added a star point guard of their own this season, Chris Paul. The Spurs might be willing to part with big man LaMarcus Aldridge, who they reportedly tried to trade during the NBA Draft in June, according to the San Antonio Express-News, but they may need to give up more pieces or involve a third team to land Irving, who said he’d also consider accepting a trade to the New York Knicks, Miami Heat, and Minnesota Timberwolves.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Death Threat

A San Antonio-area man was arrested for threatening to kill Senator Ted Cruz. 59-year old James Amos Headley was arrested on a federal felony charge of threatening to assault and murder a public official with intent to impede, intimidate, and interfere with the official and his duties, the San Antonio Express-News reported on Thursday. Headley allegedly sent Cruz a death threat. “Pretty soon you’re gonna be runnin for your life, just hope your family is not with ya because I’m not gonna insult them, I’m gonna kill them, right after I shoot you right in front of them,” Headley said in a July 11 voicemail left at Cruz’s Washington office, according to court documents. Law enforcement sources told the Express-News that Headley, of Universal City, is a Trump supporter, and he was apparently peeved at Cruz for taking stands on some issues that don’t align with Trump’s views. A court hearing for Headley is set for next week. He faces ten years in prison if convicted.

Party Hard

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant threw an epic party in his hometown of Lufkin on Thursday, celebrating the community where he grew up. He invited everybody in town, setting up bounce houses and giving free haircuts for the kids, holding a kickball game and importing thousands of dollars worth of barbecue and trimmings from Houston, according to the Lufkin Daily News. Thousands of people showed up to the refreshingly wholesome event. Bryant mingled with the crowd, posing for pictures and signing autographs for the kids, talking to younger fans and former teachers from his days at Lufkin High School. Bryant and his friends even wore t-shirts bearing Lufkin’s 936 area code, as a tribute to his hometown. “Believe it or not, my brother and I were just chilling out this week, and it was about 3 o’clock in the morning, and I told him, ‘Hey, let’s go home and do something fun,’” Bryant told the Daily News. “I wasn’t planning on it being a big media deal. I just wanted to spend time with my people and thank them for all the support I get from them.” Bryant said he hopes to make the party an annual event.

Court Battle

The State of Texas is once again being sued by abortion rights groups, this time over a law banning a common second-trimester medical procedure, according to the Texas Tribune. The Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood announced on Thursday that they’re suing Texas over a provision in Senate Bill 8 that bars dilation and evacuation abortions, one of the safest ways for women to get abortions. The common procedure involves a doctor a using surgical instruments to remove pieces of fetal tissue, which abortion opponents have described as “dismemberment,” arguing it’s inhumane. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights’s press release, similar laws have been overturned in Louisiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Alabama. “The law we challenged today in Texas is part of a nationwide scheme to undermine these constitutional rights and ban abortion one restriction at a time,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a press release, according to the Tribune. “We are prepared to fight back using the power of the law wherever politicians compromise a woman’s ability to receive the care she needs.”

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Cool Down

A federal judge ordered a Texas prison to provide air conditioning for its most heat-sensitive inmates, the latest development in a long legal battle by inmates seeking air conditioning. According to the Houston Chronicle, U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison ruled on Wednesday that the state must provide cooler living spaces for 475 elderly, disabled and other heat-sensitive inmates at the Pack Unit outside Houston, not exceeding 88 degrees, and a thousand other inmates must have easy access to cooler areas indoors. The prison also has to develop a heat-wave policy. Wrongful death lawsuits have separately been filed on behalf of eight inmates who died from heat stroke in Texas, and at least 20 prisoners have died from the heat since 1998. Ellison ripped into the Texas prison system in his 100-page order. “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons,” Ellison wrote. “To deny modern technology to inmates today for the simple reason that it was not available to inmates in past generations is an argument that proves too much. No one suggests that inmates should be denied up-to-date medical and psychiatric care, or that they should be denied access to radio or television, or that construction of prison facilities should not use modern building materials. The treatment of prisoners must necessarily evolve as society evolves.”

Cash Cow

Governor Greg Abbott has some really rich friends. He pulled in a ridiculous $10 million toward his re-election campaign in just ten days, including $1 million from Michael and Mary Porter of the Cross Creek Ranch in Doss, a tiny Gillespie County town northwest of Fredericksburg, Texas Monthly‘s R.G. Ratcliffe reported on Wednesday. The Porters are cattle ranchers, and they haven’t been particularly politically active in the past. Other than $5,000 donated to Abbott in 2014, their only other political contribution was $50,000 to state Representative Doug Miller in 2016. “My wife Mary and I care deeply about the future of Texas,” Michael Porter wrote in an email to Texas Monthly. “We believe Governor Abbott has put forth a vision to keep Texas exceptional, and we wanted to do our part in supporting that effort. While we understand the interest this has drawn, we would respectfully decline to comment on further questions.”

Party Protest

A group of teens held a unique protest in Austin yesterday, donning colorful quinceañera and tiaras on the steps of the Capitol to oppose Senate Bill 4. About fifteen girls attended the protest, which included a dance and speeches, according to the Dallas Morning News, wearing sashes that read “No hate,” “Equality” and “United Families.” A quinceañera, of course, is a formal “sweet sixteen”-type birthday party celebrated in Latino culture. “SB 4 makes simply being brown a crime,” 17-year old protester Magdalena Juarez said, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “We will resist by celebrating our families and our culture. We will resist by standing in unity.” SB 4 bans so-called “sanctuary cities” in Texas, and critics of the law say it enables local law enforcement to racially profile Hispanic people and will result in unnecessary deportations. It is set to go into effect in September.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Foggy Future

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has some controversial moves in his plan to reorganize the State Department. Among the offices on Tillerson’s chopping block are the one charged with fighting war crimes and the one that handles coordinating cyber issues with other countries. The former Exxon CEO and Wichita Falls native hasn’t made any final decisions yet, but critics are pouncing on the potential shake-up. Human rights advocates are particularly concerned about the potential closing of the Office of Global Criminal Justice. “This is a very harsh signal to the rest of the world that the United States is essentially downgrading the importance of accountability for the commission of atrocity crimes,” David Scheffer, a professor at Northwestern University who served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, told Foreign Policy. “This sends a strong signal to perpetrators of mass atrocities that the United States is not watching you anymore.” Meanwhile, Tillerson’s plan to fold the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues into the much broader Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs has worried cyber security advocates that the State Department isn’t taking seriously international hacking threats, according to Bloomberg.

Summer Spotlight

The Big 12 conference held its football media days on Monday and Tuesday in Frisco, and fresh blood leading two Texas teams took the main spotlight. The belle of the ball was probably University of Texas-Austin coach Tom Herman, the new guy charged with turning around the struggling Longhorns program. “Losing has to be awful, and you can never get used to losing,” Herman told reporters on Tuesday, according to the Austin American-Statesman. “That is one of the biggest downfalls of a lot of teams, is you get used to losing.” Herman also called to revive UT’s gridiron rivalry with Texas A&M. “I don’t know why we can’t play A&M as our marquee non-conference opponent,” Herman said, according to the Houston Chronicle. New Baylor head coach Matt Rhule, meanwhile, emphasized that his regime is working hard to fix the broken culture at Baylor that led to a massive sexual assault scandal. “That which we don’t acknowledge we’re doomed to repeat,” Rhule said, according to the Waco Tribune. “At the end of the day, I don’t know everything that happened, but I just know something that happened that was wrong. If we don’t talk about it, if we don’t learn from it, then what was the point of it? I want to move forward, but I want to move forward always acknowledging the past.”

Dog Days

The Houston Astros were dealt a big blow to their World Series hopes on Tuesday, when star shortstop Carlos Correa was placed on the disabled list to undergo surgery after tearing a ligament in his left thumb. He’ll miss six-to-eight weeks, so he won’t return until mid-September at the earliest, though baseball players are notoriously slow to recover from serious hand injuries. Correa, an All-Star this season who’s batting .320 to go along with twenty home runs, injured the thumb on July 4, and while he’d been able to play through the pain since then, he tweaked his thumb again during Monday’sgame. “Yesterday it snapped on that swing,” Correa told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday. “On that swing I felt a shock in my finger. It was hurting a lot.” An MRI later revealed a torn ligament. It’s a tough loss for the Astros, who are in the midst of their best season in franchise history, despite suffering myriad injuries, mostly to their starting pitching rotation. The Astros have a commanding 16.5-game lead in the AL West, but they’ll be pretty thin moving forward without Correa. Hopefully he’ll return just in time for the playoffs.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Walled Off 

Federal officials are concerned that construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall would all but destroy the 2,088-acre Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge in South Texas near McAllen, the Texas Observer reported on Friday. Federal employees told the Observer that the Border Patrol plans to build an 18-foot levee wall stretching for three miles through the refuge, and the plans were reportedly made in secret to avoid pubic backlash. Workers were already drilling at the refuge to extract soil samples in preparation for the construction. According to the Observer, the refuge has been dubbed the “crown jewel of the national wildlife refuge system,” and it’s home to 400 bird species and 450 species of plants. The proposed plan for the wall calls for the construction of a new road and the clearing of refuge land on both sides of the wall for surveillance, cameras, and light towers. The Observer‘s report enraged environmental activists, who showed up at the refuge on Sunday to protest, carrying signs that read, “Please help me #SaveSantaAna by contacting your US senators and telling them #NoBorderWall,” according to the McAllen Monitor.

Map Battle

The sixth and final day of the trial over Texas’s congressional district maps came to a close on Saturday, when state lawyers went before a panel of three federal judges to make their final arguments for keeping the maps intact. Civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers argue the map was drawn to intentionally dilute the power of minority voters and with the intent to discriminate, while the state claims that the map was legally gerrymandered for purely political reasons. The map in question was drawn by a federal court as a temporary fix, and the state argued in court on Saturday that lawmakers were simply following the orders of the court when the map was permanently adopted in 2013. According to the Texas Tribune, the judges were not really buying that defense. One of the judges said on Saturday that he found “nothing in the record” that the 2013 lege considered any measures to fix voting rights violations declared by another court at the time. Another judge criticized the state for withholding documents and testimony that would help shed light on the lege’s map making decisions. It’s unclear when the judges will hand down a ruling.

Rough Start

Former University of Texas at Austin running back and current Houston Texans rookie D’Onta Foreman was arrested in Austin on Sunday and charged with misdemeanor charges for possession of marijuana and possessing an unlawful weapon, according to the Houston Chronicle. An attorney for Foreman, a third-round draft pick who rushed for 2,028 yards for the Longhorns last season, said Foreman was in a car with friends when police stopped them and searched the car after smelling marijuana. Foreman told police about his legally-owned handgun before officers searched his car, and he said the marijuana belonged to a friend and that he would submit to a drug test to prove his innocence, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The Texans’s training camp starts next week, and it’s unclear how the team or the NFL will handle Foreman’s arrest. “We are aware of the situation involving D’Onta Foreman, and we are gathering more information,” the Texans said in a statement. As San Antonio Express-News columnist Mike Finger noted on Twitter, Foreman’s arrest means each of the top three single-season rushing leaders at UT have been detained at one point by Austin police (the other two are Ricky Williams and Cedric Benson).

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…

Cartographer’s Court

The battle over Texas’s congressional districts continued in a San Antonio federal court on Monday, where civil rights groups faced off against the state before a three-judge panel on the first day of a trial that could last all week. According to the San Antonio Express-News, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against Texas in 2011 argued that the Republican-controlled Legislature illegally diluted minority voting rights by adopting a map that had been drawn by the court as a temporary fix in 2013. One former Democratic House member, Trey Martinez Fischer, who represented a district in Bexar County from 2000 to 2016, testified that he was part of the redistricting committee during the 2013 special session, and that Republicans rushed to permanently adopt the court-issued maps despite criticism that it was created as a quick fix and didn’t address all of the districts that were improperly gerrymandered. The state of Texas will present its case and call witnesses later this week.

Persian Gulf Parley

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Doha on Tuesday, where the former Exxon CEO and Wichita Falls native will engage in talks with Qatari officials in an attempt to mend the broken relationship between Qatar and its neighbors, according to Al Jazeera. Tillerson was in Kuwait on Monday, and the trip signals a more assertive role for the U.S. in the ongoing conflict in the region, with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, and Egypt imposing sanctions on Qatar after accusing the nation of providing financial support for terrorists. As Reuters notes, Tillerson “forged extensive ties in the Gulf” while at the helm of Exxon, but he’s got a long road ahead of him if he hopes to play peacemaker there. Tillerson is also scheduled to meet with leaders in Saudi Arabia, according to the State Department. If it continues to escalate, the Qatar dispute would likely have a detrimental impact on the U.S.’s military presence in the region and on its counter-terrorism efforts.

Dropping Like Flies

The acting director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission unexpectedly resigned on Monday, the latest high-profile departure for the embattled liquor regulating agency that’s been embroiled in controversy since the Texas Tribune exposed its extravagant spending and mismanagement in March. With his resignation on Monday, Acting Executive Director Ed Swedberg became the sixth major departure since April. In a hand-written letter on Fridaynotifying the TABC of his decision to leave, Swedberg wrote that he was quitting because “my conscience will not allow me to take part in the termination of Amy Harrison from the commission,” according to the Tribune. Harrison, the agency’s licensing director, reportedly helped create a controversial illustrated flier that showed agency officials partying it up and drinking beer while on a flight to an expensive out-of-state conference. Swedberg had been leading the TABC since former Director Sherry Cook stepped down in May. In addition to Swedberg’s departure, the agency’s general counsel, chief of enforcement and head of internal affairs have also left in July.