Texas
Boeing will plead guilty to fraud and Hurricane Beryl lands in Texas
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Today’s top stories
As Congress returns from recess today, Democrats are in for a tough family conversation. Four senior House Democrats said on a private call yesterday that they believe President Biden should drop out of the 2024 race. Others have publicly criticized those calling for Biden to step aside. Meanwhile, Biden campaigned in Pennsylvania yesterday like a man on a mission.
Democrats from across the country are weighing in on whether President Joe Biden should remain the party’s nominee for president.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
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SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
- 🎧 NPR’s Tamara Keith tells Up First that “the whole point” of Biden’s campaigning in Pennsylvania “seemed to be to show his critics that he has the stamina to beat Trump.” She adds that many House members are looking for clues from top leadership like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — but they haven’t shown their cards yet.
- ➡️ In an effort to quell concerns about his ability to do the job for four more years after a weak debate performance last month, Biden sat down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Here are six takeaways from their conversation.
- ➡️ Vice President Kamala Harris is the top alternative to replace Biden if he exits the race, according to current and former Democratic leaders. It’s put her under intense scrutiny, even if he stays in. Here are the other up-and-coming Democrats that could be contenders this year or in 2028.
- ➡️ Who is backing Biden, and who wants him to step down? Keep up with NPR’s tracker.
Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from two fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, the Justice Department said in a court filing on Sunday. As part of the plea deal, Boeing will pay a $243.6 million fine, invest upwards of $450 million toward safety and compliance programs and be on probation for three years.
- 🎧 The crash victims’ families hate this deal, NPR’s Joel Rose reports. They say it’s a “sweetheart deal for Boeing.” They’ve urged a federal judge to reject the deal. Many hoped for bigger fines and personal accountability for the company’s leaders. Rose adds that federal law enforcement is looking separately into an incident in January when a door plug blew off a Boeing jet operated by Alaska Airlines midflight.
France’s far-right party fell far short of getting a majority after a historic number of voters participated in the country’s snap elections. The country saw a 67% voter turnout.
- 🎧 NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley describes it as “a huge surprise and upset” for the far-right party. Voters tell her they became frightened after the first round of voting last week when the far-right was in the lead. At a gathering in Paris, Beardsley reports voters from the left were “exhilarated” after the results were announced. But moving forward, she expects a “big political mess.” President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party and the far-left worked together to defeat the right, but Beardsley says they don’t have much in common.
- ➡️ NPR’s international correspondents will cover major elections from across the world all year. Keep track of them all here.
Beryl made landfall in Texas this morning as a Category 1 Hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said in its 5:00 a.m. ET update. More than 100 counties are under a state disaster declaration, and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said yesterday more may be added. More than 2,500 responders have been dispatched across the state.
Life Advice
If you order more food than everyone else, how do you split the check? Chef and writer Kiki Aranita offers advice.
Malaka Gharib/NPR
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Malaka Gharib/NPR
Dining out with your friends is all fun and games until it’s time to pay for your meal. Splitting the bill is a fine art. New York Magazine food editor Kiki Aranita says there should be “a sense of equality in how the check is divvied up” when the meal ends. She offers advice on how to keep things “fair and square”:
- 🧾 If you arrive late and everyone has already ordered appetizers and drinks, consider telling your server you want your food and drinks on a separate check.
- 🧾 Speak up if you didn’t order alcohol and everyone else did. Chances are, your friends will reconfigure the bill more fairly.
- 🧾 Make life easier for your server by putting down one or two credit cards and paying each other back if you’re a large group.
- 🧾 Make sure everyone is on the same page before you order appetizers for the table.
Picture show
Bolivian women skateboarders — wearing traditional garb — demonstrate their skills on the half pipe.
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Indigenous arts and culture from across Latin America were on display at this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival. From an all-female Bolivian skateboarding crew to artists singing and painting to weaving, people from the Latin American contingent at the festival shared their stories and expertise with excited onlookers like 2-year-old first-time skateboarder Poppy Moore. One of the artists NPR’s team met was Ubaldo Sanchez from Guatemala. His portrait of former President Obama was selected for his White House collection, and he successfully painted a giant kite by the festival’s closing.
📷 See photos from the festival and read about the special connection Sanchez found with NPR’s Marc Silver.
3 things to know before you go
Jennifer Privett takes her Himalayan cat Jean Claude out for a stroll in San Francisco.
Chloe Veltman/NPR
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Chloe Veltman/NPR
- In the U.S., whether cats should be allowed to roam freely outdoors is a controversial topic. Some cat owners (including me!) navigate the issue by taking their furry friends on leashed walks.
- Companies like Walmart and McDonald’s are transforming how they think about higher education by convincing schools to allow employees to earn college credit for what they learn on the job.
- Angela Zhao was 10 years old when she entered her first piano competition in 2020. She began to doubt herself before the performance until her unsung hero, a fellow competitor, gave her the “precious gift” of a kind smile.
This newsletter was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi. Anandita Bhalerao contributed.
Texas
Triple-digit heat returns to North Texas before weekend storms bring relief
Dallas weather: July 8 morning forecast
High pressure starts to build back into North Texas, which lowers our rain chances and brings triple digit temperatures to parts of the region. Expect partly to mostly sunny skies today, with highs near 100.
DALLAS – A building system of high pressure is bringing triple-digit temperatures back to North Texas, though the intense heat will be short-lived before a weekend weather shift brings relief and renewed chances of rain.
Wednesday forecast
We expect partly to mostly sunny skies Wednesday, with high temperatures reaching near 100 degrees across much of the region. While hot and dry conditions will dominate, a low chance of scattered rain showers remains possible, primarily in areas east of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
The heat is expected to solidify Thursday as the upper-level ridge settles firmly over the area. We have removed all chances of precipitation from Thursday’s forecast, locking in dry conditions and an afternoon high temperature of 100 degrees.
However, relief is on the horizon for the upcoming weekend. The high-pressure ridge will lose its grip on North Texas as it begins to shift westward toward the desert southwest.
Weekend forecast
By late Saturday and continuing into Sunday, the atmospheric shift will establish a northerly flow aloft. This pattern change is expected to funnel a series of weather disturbances into the region, triggering a return of widespread rain and thunderstorm opportunities.
The unsettled weather pattern is forecast to linger well into next week. The persistent cloud cover and moisture associated with the continuing rain chances will successfully suppress the heat, keeping afternoon highs closer to historical norms for this time of year.
7-Day forecast
The Source: Information in this article is from the FOX 4 weather team.
Texas
US immigration officer shoots and kills man in Texas
Man, identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, is latest to be killed by ICE officers since President Trump took power.
Published On 8 Jul 2026
A United States immigration agent fatally shot a man in Houston, Texas, while officers were attempting to stop his vehicle, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.
The man killed on Tuesday was identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, described by ICE as a Mexican national and “illegal alien” who attempted to evade arrest during a “targeted enforcement operation” by federal immigration officers.
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Ronaldo Salgado, who identified himself as Salgado Araujo’s son, told the Spanish-language television station Telemundo Houston that his father was shot while he was looking for workers to hire in the area.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said Salgado Araujo ignored commands to stop his vehicle, saying he “rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer”.
In past shooting incidents, including the January killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, immigration officials had said that their officers were being attacked when the two were shot, claims vigorously disputed in both incidents.
Video footage captured on Tuesday by a surveillance camera from a nearby business and reviewed by the Reuters news agency showed a person lying on the ground beside a white van and surrounded by officers, in what appeared to be the aftermath of the shooting.
Salgado Araujo was targeted in an operation because he was living in the country without legal permission, according to DHS.
Democratic US Representative Sylvia Garcia called for an independent and thorough investigation of ICE’s claims about the fatal shooting.
“All available footage, communications, and other evidence should be preserved and reviewed as part of a full and impartial investigation,” Garcia posted on social media.
Juan Proano, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, echoed Garcia’s calls for a transparent investigation into ICE’s actions.
“We don’t take DHS at their word at all,” Proano told The Associated Press news agency. “There should be an independent investigation, and they should release all the videos.”
There have been at least six fatal shootings by federal immigration officers since the start of President Donald Trump’s intensified immigration enforcement crackdown.
Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, was shot in the head by a federal immigration agent during a crackdown in Minneapolis. DHS also said Good was trying to hit the agent with her vehicle, which local officials and witnesses disputed, saying she was only trying to drive away.
The backlash from Good’s killing and other similar incidents led ICE to step back from some of its more controversial operations.
However, Tuesday’s deadly confrontation in Houston came amid a recent increase in the number of ICE arrests nationwide, with immigration officers picking up about 2,000 migrants a day last week, Reuters reported.
Texas
Trump takes credit for Toyota moving some truck production from Mexico to Texas: ‘That’s what tariffs do’
Toyota is planning a $3.6 billion expansion of its Texas truck assembly plant. President Donald Trump took credit for the investment.
On Monday, the automaker announced the multibillion-dollar investment to add a second vehicle assembly line at its San Antonio manufacturing campus to support production of the Tacoma pickup. Toyota said the expansion project would shift some of the midsize truck’s production from its Mexico plants to San Antonio over roughly 4 years. Toyota will still build some Tacoma models and the Corolla in Mexico.
While Toyota did not attribute the expansion to tariffs in its announcement and the company is not fully exiting production in Mexico, Trump said the fresh investment was a sign that his tariffs were working.
“It came over the wires that Toyota is moving out of Mexico into the United States, and building one of the biggest truck and car plants ever built,” Trump said on Tuesday during a visit to Ankara, Turkey. “It’s amazing. That’s what tariffs do, properly used.”
Toyota said the investment will create 2,000 jobs and add 2.5 million square feet to the site, doubling the company’s Texas footprint by 2030.
Toyota
On Monday, Ted Ogawa, president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America, said the investment reflected the company’s “confidence in the region’s workforce, innovation, and long-term growth potential.”
The move gives Trump a high-profile example of a well-recognized company creating manufacturing jobs. His administration has argued that tariffs incentivize companies — particularly automakers — to reshore manufacturing in America and reduce reliance on foreign production.
Toyota’s announcement also comes amid major uncertainty for automakers with plants in North America. The USMCA — the trilateral free trade pact between the US, Canada, and Mexico struck during Trump’s first term — is under review after the US declined to renew the treaty in its current form on July 1. The Trump administration is reportedly pushing to change the agreement so 50% of all automotive parts and manufacturing would happen in the US.
Toyota also nodded to that trade uncertainty in its release, saying it remained committed to operations in all three countries while encouraging “a quick resolution to USMCA” to keep North America globally competitive.
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