BERLIN, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Firefighters battled for hours to contain a blaze ​that engulfed the former Nazi guest house ‌known as "The Eagle's Nest" in southern Germany, while police investigated the cause after detaining a man near the ​scene, authorities said on Saturday.

Around 200 ​firefighters and emergency workers near Berchtesgaden in Bavaria were ⁠battling the flames after the building, known ​as the Kehlsteinhaus, caught fire on Friday, police ​said.

Built in 1938 as a guest house for Nazi officials and their guests, the building sits in a spectacular Alpine ​setting above Berchtesgaden. Adolf Hitler used it occasionally, earning it ​the nickname "Hitler's Tea House". It is separate from his ‌nearby ⁠summer residence, the Berghof.

Bild newspaper quoted a police spokesperson as saying the building, preserved after World War Two as a historical monument linked to the Nazi era, had ​been so ​badly damaged ⁠that it "could probably not be saved".

WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump confirmed on Saturday he may move the White House ​press corps to a different location.

In a social media ‌post, Trump dismissed a report that he planned to remove the White House press room and restore a historic swimming pool on the site, ​saying he had never "even thought to do such a ​stupid thing."

But he said he could relocate the press ⁠corps from its current position in the White House.

"I may ​move the Fake News to a less obnoxious location," Trump said ​in the post. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Trump had urged then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt in August to move news conferences out ​of the White House's James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, although ​the idea was never implemented.

According to the report, the president told aides he ‌would ⁠rather have an indoor therapy pool that was installed at the site during Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. The Nixon administration replaced the pool with the press briefing room.

Trump has regularly accused ​US media of ​unfair reporting about ⁠his administration.

Oct 24 (Reuters) - Iran has ramped up efforts to target US personnel, and lethal plots by Tehran against American citizens have reached "advanced ​stages", a senior intelligence official in the Trump administration warned in a memo seen ‌by Reuters.

The alert from Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton came after Washington scaled back staffing at its mission in Saudi Arabia earlier this week in response to intensified attacks by Iran-allied Houthi forces.

Those attacks on one ​front of the nearly eight-month-old regional conflict triggered by the Iran warhave coincided with a rise in ​attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Earlier this month, sources told ⁠Reuters Iran was preparing a more forceful response if the United States resumes large-scale military attacks on ​its territory.

"Specifically, through various channels, we have received intelligence that Iran has substantially increased efforts to ​target US personnel," Clayton wrote to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a message dated October 23.

Eight years ago, at the height of the shale-oil boom, a committee of industry giants and public officials unveiled a bold plan to make Corpus Christi “drought proof.”

With this plan, a consultant explained to city officials at the time, their semi-arid stretch of coastline in South Texas could finally overcome the economic limitations of its scarce water supply.

“Industry can continue to operate,” said a slideshow the consultant, Frank Brogan, presented to Corpus Christi City Council. “Industry can justify expansion. Community can attract new industry.”

The plan seemed simple. The region’s largest water users — Texas-based titans like OxyChem, Valero and Citgo — would pay Corpus Christi to build the state’s first-ever seawater desalination plant, which would produce millions of gallons of freshwater per day at minimal cost to the public. In exchange, the companies wouldn’t face pressure to throttle back operations at their refineries and chemical plants during future dry spells.

“We don’t want to have the reputation of having a water problem,” said Brogan, a former executive at the Port of Corpus Christi, the top U.S. port for crude-oil exports, in the August 2018 presentation.

City leaders unanimously approved the plan, hailing it as a breakthrough: Giant corporations had agreed to front the money for an innovative project that other communities could only dream of affording.

But instead of securing Corpus Christi’s water future, the plan pushed Texas’ eighth-largest city to the brink of a water-supply disaster, burned through tens of millions of public dollars, and engulfed the city in political turmoil.

The city has spent at least $50 million on the promised desalination plant, but it has yet to materialize — a victim of political dysfunction, the coronavirus pandemic, rapid inflation and frequent turnover in the city’s political leadership, among other factors. And the companies that had originally agreed to pay for it now contribute only a fraction of what the plant is expected to cost. Residents would have to pay for the rest.

Meanwhile, Corpus Christi has honored the commitment it made back in 2018: It has not pressured the companies to cut back on water consumption, even when the area slipped into a punishing drought.

By this spring, the region’s main reservoirs almost dried up entirely. The industrial giants raced to drill emergency water wells, the city’s credit ratings slipped, and local business leaders raised the specter of mass layoffs if the water ran out.

In the face of an unprecedented emergency, city officials debated meager measures like closing public pools and fining residents for washing cars, rather than imposing restrictions on the chemical plants and refineries that use more water than all 500,000 residents of the seven-county Coastal Bend region combined.

For years, 7-year-old Israel Solis couldn’t communicate with the world around him. Born with autism and nonverbal, he would bite and scratch himself in frustration when someone couldn’t understand his needs. Therapy through a state-subsidized program gave him a voice: using a picture system he’s learned from his providers in Houston, he’s now able to convey his desires.

But Texas wants to eliminate the state program, which allows some families to pay nothing for services, because of state budget cuts. In its budget request to the Legislature for the 2028-2029 biennium, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) proposed eliminating funding for the Children’s Autism Program (CAP) entirely, stunning advocates, providers and parents.

“If the doors just completely close to access that at all, you just feel like it’s all caving in on you, like ‘how am I going to get some help?’” said Israel’s mother Elizabeth Solis, who has another son who obtains services through a CAP-funded program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake’s Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities; she pays nothing for their services.

CAP, which started in 2008, contracts with 16 providers across Texas to provide focused applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy to autistic children at a reduced cost based on their families’ incomes and insurance coverage. Children are eligible for up to 720 hours of ABA therapy, which advocates consider the gold standard for autism treatment, over their lifetime.

Over the last two years, the state spent $13.7 million on the program, and this year even expanded the program, extending eligibility to those up to 21 years old and removing a cap on yearly hours. In fiscal year 2026, the state autism program funded treatment for 583 children, but contractors report there are at least 1,000 more children on waitlists statewide.

“We were really shocked to see nothing, and it’s just blank where the line item should be,” said Jacquie Benestante, executive director of the Autism Society of Texas. “We’re used to having to fight for funding, but to actually have a program just slashed and canceled is pretty shocking.”

• Trump's foreign policy agenda appears stalled heading into November midterms

• Iran stalemate looms large

• Some world leaders push back against Trump

• US-China summit heavy on pomp, papering over differences

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - From his high-profile address to the UN General Assembly to his high-stakes White House summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump this week was looking to reassert himself on the world stage.

But Trump’s diplomatic flurry has done little to dispel the view among many analysts of a president beset by problems at home and ​abroad. Those include a widening Iran war that has driven up US gasoline prices and cratered his approval ratings, while his relations with allies worsen and the AI challenge from China intensifies.

With the limits of his ‌power exposed, Trump has begun facing pushback from world leaders on issues ranging from the crisis in the Middle East to Russia's war in Ukraine, leaving the impression of a foreign policy agenda that has stalled. This comes as Trump's Republican Party faces midterm elections in November that could further constrain him politically.

Even so, Trump’s speech to the United Nations on Tuesday was a stark reminder of how, since returning to the White House last year, he has shaken up the rules-based global order that Washington helped to create from the ashes of World War Two. Standing atop the rostrum of a world body dedicated ​to peacemaking, he issued a fresh threat to “annihilate” Iran if it did not agree to a deal, defended his coercive approach to OPEC member Venezuela by asserting “to the victor belong the spoils,” and signaled he may not be done deploying ​the US military to achieve his international aims.

Despite that strident stance, Trump’s talks with Xi on Thursday put the US president up against a Chinese counterpart who appeared to be in stronger position, ⁠overseeing a surge in his country’s trade with the world while the US grapples with the economic fallout from the Iran conflict.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A proposed desalination plant that could produce up to 100 million gallons of drinking water a day for the Coastal Bend has cleared its final permitting hurdle.

The Port of Corpus Christi announced Wednesday, Sept. 23, that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) approved its request to discharge water from the proposed Harbor Island Desalination Facility into the Gulf.

The approval completes the permitting process for the large-scale project, which would turn seawater into drinking water for industrial and municipal use.

The Port said it will now withdraw its smaller discharge permit approved in late 2022, following a commitment made by the Port Commission in May 2025.

The newer plan moves both the plant's seawater intake and discharge offshore, rather than using the nearby bay system.

Port of Corpus Christi CEO Kent Britton said the project has been in development for nearly a decade as the region continues to search for a reliable water supply amid drought conditions.

"Through that process, we have engaged with the communities we serve and have addressed reasonable concerns for our local bay system by moving the plant intake and discharge offshore," Britton said.

The proposed facility would be capable of producing up to 100 million gallons of drinking water daily, helping meet the region's long-term water needs.

Just weeks before the pivotal midterm elections, Texas election officials have discovered that an unknown number of voter registration applications have not been processed due to an error by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

DPS failed to send the applications, which were submitted by voters through its online driver’s license portal, to county voter registrars for processing, according to an email sent to county officials and provided to Votebeat. The state confirmed to Votebeat that it would begin delivering the unsent registrations to county officials overnight.

State officials said the affected transactions produced incomplete voter registration records, which prevented them from being transmitted to county registrars. Officials have not said what information was missing, what caused the records to be incomplete, how many voters were affected, or exactly when the problem began.

The DPS portal is a major voter registration channel in Texas. From 2020 through 2024, about 6 million Texans used it to register to vote, according to testimony DPS officials provided to state lawmakers in 2025. Texas has more than 18 million registered voters.

The Texas Association of County Election Officials is collecting information from its members to determine the scale of the issue. DPS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The problem comes less than two weeks before the Oct. 5 voter registration deadline, and the sudden arrival of older applications from DPS is likely to add to counties’ voter registration processing backlogs at one of the busiest points in the election calendar.

Voters whose registrations were affected by this issue can still have their ballots counted as long as they submitted their registration before the Oct. 5 deadline, said Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office.

“A voter who registered through DPS online services but does not appear on the rolls can cast a provisional ballot,” Pierce said in an email to Votebeat. “Election officials have an established method with DPS to check the transaction. If that voter did register, the provisional vote will be counted.”

Texas does not have online voter registration, but since September 2020, after voting rights groups sued the state and DPS, eligible Texans who renew their driver’s license and state ID or update their address online can also choose to register to vote through that same online portal.

The secretary of state’s office became aware of the problem last week, when election officials flagged that they’d noticed a surge in “older” voter registration applications coming from DPS in TEAM, the state’s voter registration system.

Ten lions found dead in a wildlife reserve in Tanzania are suspected to have been poisoned, according to wildlife officials. The animals were discovered on Friday in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, home to pastoral tribal communities that raise cattle. It is also one of the most visited tourist destinations in the country.

"Preliminary findings suggest the animals may have died after ingesting poison," a statement from The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority said, adding the authority has launched a full investigation "to determine the cause of the incident and identify those responsible."

Large animals are under threat across East Africa, in places where they frequently come into conflict with humans. An investigation is underway in neighboring Kenya, where over the summer, 18 elephants died from suspected poisoning. Police have arrested four people.

According to Kenya's Wildlife Service, preliminary tests showed the elephants may have ingested cyanide. Tomato farmers in the Amboseli region are known to use banned pesticides on their crops. But growers deny using cyanide.

Tanzania is home to Africa's largest lion population, about half the world's wild lions. But they are listed as a vulnerable population by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Lions are under threat from shrinking habitat and poaching.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania is a UNESCO World Heritage Site protected under international law. It is the location of the Ngorongoro Crater and home to the Big Five game animals -–the elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON, September 21

(Reuters) - In the four months since the leaders of the two global superpowers last met, Xi Jinping has overseen a surge in China's trade with the world while Donald Trump has struggled with falling ​approval ratings at home.

That shift in fortunes has tempered expectations for their summit in Washington this week, analysts say, with Xi in no rush to make concessions and Trump constrained by ‌a costly war with Iran that has hurt both his popularity and Americans' wallets.

While thorny issues like Taiwan may surface, the main focus of the September 24 meeting is whether the leaders will signal an extension to a trade truce struck last year that averted a major shock to the global economy.

"Xi is not really looking for anything tangible. He wants to extend the gentleman's agreement with Trump so that China has time to fortify itself," said Jon Czin, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution who ​formerly served as China director at the US National Security Council.

'LIVING IN XI'S WORLD'

White House officials have sought to downplay the potential for major breakthroughs. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier ​He Lifeng helmed preparatory talks in New York on Sunday aimed at teeing up some potential agreements on AI guardrails and trade in non-sensitive products.

That is a far ⁠cry from Trump's vow when he returned to office in 2025 to use tariffs to address a trade imbalance with China that was "killing" the United States.

But since agreeing the truce with Xi in October of that ​year, his attention has been divided among myriad other foreign policy battles, from the wars in Iran and Ukraine to disputes with Europe over free speech. China has faced its own challenges, such as slowing domestic demand and a ​protracted property crisis, but the export juggernaut that Trump sought to tame has kept roaring in what economists are increasingly referring to as China Shock 2.0.

China's global trade surplus is on pace to top $1 trillion for a second straight year.

Under President Donald Trump’s second administration, encounters with federal immigration agents have resulted in several shootings and more than a dozen people dying while in custody.

An adult man in north Austin was the latest to be shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Sunday, according to city officials. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was released from the hospital into federal custody by Sunday evening, according to his lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.

This follows the fatal shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston in July and of American Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island in March 2025.

A crackdown on illegal immigration was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 campaign for reelection, which he claimed was fueling violent crime in the country. Since taking office again, he has embarked on mass deportation efforts and deployed thousands of ICE agents across the country.

The impact of Trump’s immigration enforcement has been particularly felt in Texas, which reportedly holds the most migrants of any state at its 23 detention facilities.

Since 2025, at least 14 people in ICE custody have died after being held in Texas detention sites, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of federal detainee death notifications and media reports.

Here’s what we know about ICE operations in Texas:

An ICE agent shot an adult man after a “small foot pursuit,” Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said during a news conference. Medical responders received a call shortly before 1 p.m. on Sept. 20 of a man with a single gunshot wound to the torso. The man was transported to the hospital.

During the press conference, officials said they did not yet know the nationality or name of the man. But Wilber Rafael Garces Perez’s lawyer later identified him as a 28-year-old from Venezuela and said he had a valid work permit and entered the U.S. legally.

Austin police and Texas Rangers plan to investigate the shooting along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Davis said. The Travis County District Attorney’s office requested to be “co-equal partners” in the investigation and access to evidence from the federal government, noting there could be “violations of state law”.

Under President Donald Trump’s second administration, encounters with federal immigration agents have resulted in several shootings and more than a dozen people dying while in custody.

An adult man in north Austin was the latest to be shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Sunday, according to city officials. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was released from the hospital into federal custody by Sunday evening, according to his lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.

This follows the fatal shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston in July and of American Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island in March 2025.

A crackdown on illegal immigration was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 campaign for reelection, which he claimed was fueling violent crime in the country. Since taking office again, he has embarked on mass deportation efforts and deployed thousands of ICE agents across the country.

The impact of Trump’s immigration enforcement has been particularly felt in Texas, which reportedly holds the most migrants of any state at its 23 detention facilities.

Since 2025, at least 14 people in ICE custody have died after being held in Texas detention sites, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of federal detainee death notifications and media reports.

Here’s what we know about ICE operations in Texas:

An ICE agent shot an adult man after a “small foot pursuit,” Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said during a news conference. Medical responders received a call shortly before 1 p.m. on Sept. 20 of a man with a single gunshot wound to the torso. The man was transported to the hospital.

During the press conference, officials said they did not yet know the nationality or name of the man. But Wilber Rafael Garces Perez’s lawyer later identified him as a 28-year-old from Venezuela and said he had a valid work permit and entered the U.S. legally.

Austin police and Texas Rangers plan to investigate the shooting along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Davis said. The Travis County District Attorney’s office requested to be “co-equal partners” in the investigation and access to evidence from the federal government, noting there could be “violations of state law”.

As Don Huffines settled into his new post this summer as the new Texas comptroller overseeing the state’s finances, he arranged meetings to introduce himself to top level staff and to get to know their work. Often, he was accompanied by his second-in-command.

Call him “Mr. Betz,” Huffines instructed in one such meeting, referring to his fresh-faced top deputy.

Mr. Betz is Noah Betz, a Gen-Z political wunderkind who graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in business administration in 2023 and is now holding the second-most powerful position at the state agency with 3,000 employees. Betz did not disclose his age. Public records suggest he is either 24 or 25 years old.

Betz’s appointment as chief clerk — commonly referred to as deputy comptroller — comes as dozens have left or been pushed out, representing the loss of hundreds of years of institutional knowledge and experience at the agency, in what five former employees described as a chaotic start to Huffines’ temporary tenure. Those workers spoke on the condition of anonymity, out of fear they could be reprimanded by their new employers or that speaking publicly can affect their job prospects.

Betz is earning $306,000 a year, according to records — double the salary of previous acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, who left the job at the end of July. That puts him in the top 1% of salaries for government employees. (Huffines says he’s not accepting a government salary.)

Most of Betz’s experience in the three years since graduating has been in consulting for hardline conservative politicians — including Huffines’ current campaign for a full four-year term — and leading Huffines’ real estate and development firm, according to a review of Betz’s hiring paperwork, LinkedIn profile, and previous news coverage that featured his work.

Betz declined to be interviewed for this story.

“Comptroller Huffines is a successful businessman who certainly knows how to run an organization and staff a talented team. He doesn’t need hiring advice from liberal activists,” Jeff Norwood, associate deputy comptroller of external affairs, said in response to a list of detailed questions. “Comptroller Huffines has appointed a strong and experienced leadership team that has contributed to his immediate efforts to reform the agency with dramatic improvements, all to the benefit of the taxpayer.“

Among those who were fired or who left are several top level administrators like Lisa Craven, the former deputy comptroller who served in the role for eight years after three decades as a legislative staffer, as well as others who are retiring like Brad Reynolds, who has been the chief revenue estimator for five years and who had been with that division since 2010.

Betz’s assignment is the latest example of how Huffines is overhauling a state agency that is responsible for some of the state’s most important business, like issuing state revenue estimates that establish how much money the Legislature has to draft Texas’ budget every two years. To be sure, Huffines’ leadership team includes members who have decades worth of experience in tax law, fiscal operations, law enforcement and government.

Huffines is set to face Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, an Austin Democrat, in November’s general election, who said she’s worried about the dramatic loss of expertise being pushed out.

“The office is being weaponized,” Eckhardt said. “My concern here is we are seeing the depth of knowledge being routed out of the comptroller’s office.”

On the campaign trail and in some of his earliest remarks as comptroller, the former state senator and Dallas businessman has vowed to upend the status quo — as he has pledged for most of his time as a GOP elected official, building a reputation as a champion of limited government.

“In just 30 business days, we’ve made tremendous progress protecting Texas taxpayers and making this office more efficient by eliminating redundancy and flattening the management structure,” “I’ve spent my career building organizations, and the first rule is simple: You are only as successful as the people you hire,” Huffines said in a press release Monday announcing his leadership teams. “I’ve recruited experienced people who have spent their careers in tax law, state finance, criminal investigations, and government affairs, and they share my commitment to serve the taxpayer with urgency and efficiency — not to serve government bureaucracy.”

Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush and longtime Texas GOP political consultant, said he will vote for Jon Rosenthal, a Houston Democrat running to serve the Texas Railroad Commission, after Republican Bo French posted racist comments on Sunday about South Asian students at the University of Texas at Austin.

Rove made the comments at a members-only lunch event at the Headliners Club in Austin, where he called French a “bigot,” according to three attendees to whom The Texas Tribune has granted anonymity to discuss the conversation.

Rove said he has only ever voted for one Democratic candidate, Texas Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, who was up for reelection in 1994.

Neither Rove nor French were immediately reachable to comment.

Late Monday, President Donald Trump said Rove was “bad” for Republicans and often wrong on the social media site Truth Social.

“He suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome primarily because, for almost 10 years, I beat back and won against so many of the people and things that he wanted and espoused,” Trump said.

French came under fire Sunday for sharing a post on X showing a photo of the student section cheering a Texas Longhorn victory against Ohio State, referring to the students as “foreigners” who displaced Americans, without having any information about their status.

“I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” French wrote, drawing excoriation from Democrats and Republicans alike, many of whom called on French to delete the post.

Earlier Monday, French doubled down on his comments and said Republicans who criticized him were “less conservative.”

The Battle for I-35 returns Saturday afternoon as UT San Antonio and Texas State add another chapter to a budding rivalry between schools separated by about 50 miles.

Kickoff is at 2:30 p.m. at UFCU Stadium in San Marcos. The Roadrunners lead the series, but Texas State has won the last two meetings, including last season's matchup at the Alamodome.

The game will be broadcast on The CW and streamed on ESPN+.

Roadrunners coach Jeff Traylor said Texas State quarterback Brad Jackson, a San Antonio Reagan graduate, presents one of the biggest challenges for the UT San Antonio defense.

"He's definitely the straw that stirs their drink and I have so much respect for him. But we have no confidence that we can contain that rascal. He's just that good. Not that I'm saying anything bad about my players. That's just the respect we have for Brad."

UT San Antonio enters Saturday with some early momentum after a convincing season-opening win over UT Rio Grande Valley at the Alamodome.

The Roadrunners have enjoyed a sustained run of success under Traylor, winning back-to-back conference championships and reaching a bowl game in each of his first six seasons. They have also won their last three bowl games.

Texas State, meanwhile, is looking to rebound after a lopsided season-opening loss at Texas in Austin. The Bobcats return home with a chance to win their third straight Battle for I-35 and further shift the balance of the rivalry.

There is also some personal history on the sidelines. Traylor coached Texas State head coach G.J. Kinne during Kinne's senior year at Gilmer High School in East Texas.

Saturday's game could mark another milestone for UT San Antonio. The Roadrunners are one victory away from their 100th since launching the football program in 2011.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appears to have violated federal ethics law in significant ways when filing recent disclosures of his assets and liabilities, creating confusion about his net worth and holdings, a review by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found.

Among them: Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, reported owning seven homes but said he earned no income from any. Yet all but one was listed for rent during the reporting periods, and some current residents and neighbors at those addresses confirmed that the properties were rented, the news organizations found. Receiving income and not reporting it is a violation of federal disclosure law, three ethics experts said.

Additionally, Paxton did not disclose mortgages for three condos at a Utah golf resort that federal law requires him to list as liabilities if they are not personal residences.

He also valued his stake in a vacant plot of Texas land at up to $50,000 on last year’s filing, but his business partner told the newsrooms Paxton’s share for years has been worth about $1 million. Federal financial disclosure law requires property to be listed at fair market value.

The apparent errors and omissions the newsrooms found obscure the extent of Paxton’s income streams, assets and debt, making it difficult for voters to make sense of his finances as they mull whether to support him in November’s election, the ethics experts said.

“It reflects either pure sloppiness on Paxton’s part or a deliberate effort to conceal some of his investments and property holdings,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the nonpartisan good-government group Public Citizen.

If Paxton wins, an incomplete picture of his finances could prevent watchdogs from evaluating his conflicts of interest as a senator, Holman and others said.

The apparent omissions are part of a pattern for Paxton. Over three terms as attorney general, he has withheld financial information that could explain how he became a multimillionaire and had the resources to purchase more than a dozen properties in five states. He began including many of these on his state disclosures only after the Texas Ethics Commission closed a loophole in 2024 that Paxton had cited to leave them off. Most were acquired while Paxton earned a government salary of $153,750.

In the new federal disclosure, filed in August after Paxton received a three-month extension, he reported a net worth between $1 million and $27 million. That is a significantly higher range than the negative $1.9 million to $11.1 million net worth he reported a year ago, before he had secured the Republican nomination but after he had declared his candidacy for federal office.

The spike was driven not by Paxton’s acquisition of more assets but because the reported value on several of his properties soared.

Paxton’s report omitted listing as assets seven properties worth about $5.2 million collectively, including the Utah condos for which he did not disclose mortgages. He co-owns all of his known real estate holdings with his estranged wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, property records show. The eight he reported are held by their blind trust, which is managed by a family friend.

Federal rules do not require candidates to report as assets personal homes or properties from which they don’t earn money, even if the properties are worth millions.

At a time when voters feel anxious about their own personal finances and dislike the idea of politicians getting rich in office, it would be wise for Paxton to be more transparent about his wealth, said Texas ethics and campaign finance lawyer Andrew Cates.

“If it were me trying to get people’s vote, I would err on the side of transparency rather than not,” Cates said.

ORLA — Elected officials and industry leaders warn that Texas is at the “precipice” of running out of underground space to dispose of the nearly 1 billion gallons of wastewater that oil and gas production generates every day in the Permian Basin.

The toxic wastewater, known as produced water, is usually injected underground into disposal wells. But these wells have increased underground pressure, triggering earthquakes and blowouts. Instead of underground injection, the oil industry is now seeking alternatives to treat and reuse produced water.

Industry experts made clear last week, at a legislative hearing in Austin and a conference in Midland, that a lack of disposal space could soon constrain oil production in the Permian Basin.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is developing two permitting programs for re-using treated produced water. The agency began accepting permit applications to discharge the treated wastewater into rivers in 2024 but has yet to issue any permits. The agency released a proposed rule earlier this year to allow treated produced water to be applied on land for irrigation or rangeland restoration.

In public testimony last week, Commissioner Jim Wright of the Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas, emphasized the urgency of providing alternatives to disposal wells.

“Continued delay could restrict oil and gas development across the Permian Basin,” he said during a Texas Senate hearing. “I respectfully urge TCEQ to finalize and issue workable permits as soon as possible.”

While political pressure mounts on the TCEQ to issue permits, pilot projects using treated produced water are ongoing. Researchers are still gathering data to publish more peer-reviewed papers that will inform the permitting programs. Advocates question whether regulators are jumping the gun by drafting permits as research continues on the safety of treated produced water and treatment technologies.

TCEQ declined an interview request from Inside Climate News. The agency did not respond to individual questions regarding the scientific basis of its rulemakings or when the agency anticipates issuing the first permits for produced water discharges, but it provided a statement.

“TCEQ develops permits that are unique and reflect site-specific conditions of a single entity’s proposed activities and the location of the activity,” spokesperson Victoria Cann wrote. “Permits are drafted to ensure compliance with the Texas Surface Water Quality Standards and protective of drinking water, aquatic life, and other existing uses of the receiving waterway.”

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Total U.S. debt has topped $40 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, drawing fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is brewing as ballooning costs for social safety-net programs and interest payments far ​outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts.

The Treasury's latest daily cash and debt balances statement showed total public debt outstanding at $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, a total that includes Treasury securities held by the public ‌of $32.266 trillion and intra-governmental debt holdings of $7.782 trillion.

The federal government's IOU has now more than doubled in less than a decade, from $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump was sworn in for the first time in January 2017. Roughly one-third of that increase occurred during two years of frantic government borrowing to fund the COVID-19 pandemic responses undertaken by Trump and former President Joe Biden, while the fiscal policy choices of both presidents combined with long-running tax-and-spending imbalances to account for the rest.

Budget watchdog groups have been anticipating the crossing of the threshold for weeks and have issued stark ​warnings that a full-blown debt crisis could erupt unless lawmakers confront an unsustainable fiscal outlook and raise taxes, cut spending or both.

"Forty trillion dollars of debt doesn’t exist solely on the government’s ledgers; it is felt ​throughout the economy and finds its way to the pocketbooks of people one way or another," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

"The more ⁠we borrow, the more we exacerbate inflation, squeeze out other priorities in the budget, and leave ourselves vulnerable to emergencies at home and turmoil abroad," MacGuineas said in a statement just after the Treasury data was released.

She noted that ​the $40 trillion figure was reached less than five months after debt reached $39 trillion, and has quadrupled in less than 20 years after taking until 1981 to reach $1 trillion for the first time. "It is staggering how predictable the fiscal decline of a global ​power can become," MacGuineas added.

Global U.S. creditors may already be growing wary.

Days after a $25 billion auction of 30-year Treasury bonds went off at the highest yield since 2021, yields on so-called long bonds on Tuesday hit their highest levels in nearly two decades as investors demanded greater compensation in the face of hefty U.S. government bond issuance. On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took a bold step to push long bond yields back, announcing a doubling of buyback sizes for 10- to 30-year Treasuries to at least $4 billion per operation. The term premium for 10-year Treasuries — ​a measure of how much of the security's overall yield is accounted for by the perceived risk of holding them over a decade — rose this week to its highest in more than a dozen years.

Against all that, demand for U.S. ​debt by foreign investors — who hold nearly one-third of all Treasuries — has been declining over the past year, leaving more bonds to fall to more price-sensitive buyers, which can exacerbate market volatility, John Canavan, lead financial market analyst in Oxford Economics' Macroeconomic and Investor ‌Services group, wrote ⁠on Tuesday.

For more than a quarter of a century, Texas has diligently updated its state water plan every five years, a process designed to forecast water supply and demand 50 years into the future — and give communities enough warning about potential water shortages to do something about it.

That warning matters because water projects can take years — sometimes decades — to plan, finance and build.

For Corpus Christi and the rest of the Coastal Bend, it never came.

That’s because the planning process is built largely around past droughts — in fact, some regional plans still rely on the epic 1950s drought of record, the longest statewide dry spell in history. But some experts now say using historical droughts isn’t working because climate change is making droughts more frequent, longer and severe — raising doubts that yesterday’s worst-case scenario is also tomorrow’s.

That means the models that help secure money and political will for new water projects may be dramatically underestimating both future water needs and how quickly communities could face shortages.

“We need to be planning and developing infrastructure for the climate of 2050, the climate of 2100,” said Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at Columbia University who studies drought in North America.

Nowhere were the weaknesses more evident than in Corpus Christi. A report released Wednesday by Texas 2036, a nonpartisan think tank that researches the state’s long-term infrastructure, population and economic needs, found that five state water plans adopted over 25 years sent conflicting signals about whether the Coastal Bend region, which includes Corpus Christi, could face shortages in the 2020s.

Tech companies are lining up to voice support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s audit of data centers seeking to connect to the power grid, although little is known about what the audit will entail or what it means for the data center construction boom.

Since the Aug. 3 announcement, at least 43 companies — including juggernauts like Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services — have issued public statements expressing support for Abbott’s audit, despite the governor ordering regulators to not approve any new grid connections until the audit is completed. The governor has similarly touted their endorsement of his plan.

“We share your commitment to ensuring data centers are true partners in every Texas community where we operate — protecting residential ratepayers, strengthening grid reliability and promoting responsible water stewardship,” read a letter to the governor sent Tuesday by the Data Center Coalition, a trade association representing many of the largest tech companies in the world.

Abbott directed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, to conduct the audit, but it’s unknown how long the audit will take, how long the moratorium on grid connections will last, how many data centers will be audited and how the information gathered in the audit will be used by regulators and legislators.

Without these questions answered, it’s unclear how much of this audit will address the public’s concerns about data centers, particularly their impact on energy access, water use and the environment.

Citing polling data that shows growing discontent among rural Texans toward the buildout of data centers and competitive General Election contests for governor and U.S. Senate, Texas Politics Project Director Jim Henson said the moves by Abbott and the companies raise questions about how impactful the audit and freeze of approvals will actually be.

“It’s all very performative, it’s performative on everybody’s part,” Henson said.

Abbott’s office has largely directed questions about the audit to his public statements on the topic since Aug. 3. The PUCT and ERCOT have also remained largely silent on the matter, and the PUCT scheduled an emergency meeting for Friday morning to discuss the issue.

ERCOT did say in a Monday filing it expects the audit will last “several months” and is expected to begin shortly after Aug. 20.