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Pillen visits Texas again, pledges more border help at Nebraska’s expense | Nebraska Examiner

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Pillen visits Texas again, pledges more border help at Nebraska’s expense | Nebraska Examiner


LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen joined more than a dozen other Republican governors in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Sunday, pledging continued state taxpayer support for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s months-long dispute with President Joe Biden over border security.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen listens to a briefing near Eagle Pass, Texas, from Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday. (Courtesy of Nebraska Governor’s Office)

Presidents of both parties have struggled to curb illegal border crossings between the United States and Mexico. Republicans in recent years have made a tradition of raising the political temperature along the nation’s Southern border during election years. The latest wrinkle under Abbott has been seeking unreimbursed help from other red-state governors.

Pillen has already spent $1 million in state funds on deploying drone pilots from the Nebraska State Patrol and 61 members of the Nebraska National Guard to South Texas. He has said he would dip into federal pandemic relief funds to offset the costs to state taxpayers but acknowledged that Nebraskans are footing part of the bill. 

On Sunday, he pledged more state help for Texas but didn’t say what type. He said he still needs to meet with National Guard leaders, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency and State Patrol leadership to see what’s needed and what’s feasible.

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He and other GOP governors who have participated in Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star” say they are trying to help stem the tide of illegal crossings, which ramped up to record numbers after dipping unusually low during the COVID-19 pandemic, with its tighter restrictions. In all, 25 GOP governors have committed to help Texas, Abbott said.

Why Nebraska says it is sending people

Pillen and leaders with the State Patrol have said their efforts help reduce the number of people and illegal substances being trafficked across the border. They say both end up in Nebraska and other states with disastrous consequences for people and public safety. They often point to illegal fentanyl imports and the drug’s role as a top killer of young people.

President Joe Biden, joined by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, delivers remarks on the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel in the State Dining Room of the White House on Oct. 10, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“We’re a border state even though we’re in the middle of the United States,” Pillen said Sunday. “We want to help secure the border.”

Pillen, in an interview after a 90-minute briefing with Abbott and the Texas Department of Public Safety, said what the governors are doing isn’t political. One of the speakers Abbott featured was Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Pillen attended but did not speak during Abbott’s press conference.

Costs of immigration rhetoric

Local Latino critics of Pillen’s approach, including the League of United Latin American Citizens of Nebraska, have said he and other elected leaders in the state unnecessarily increase negative feelings toward all Nebraska Latinos, not just immigrants without documentation.

They say he hurts some residents’ faith in law enforcement by pandering to conservative audiences with his immigration rhetoric for political gain.

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Elsa Aranda of Omaha, the group’s local president, said she is disappointed by the constant emphasis on the immigration issue by elected leaders in Nebraska without pressure for solutions. 

“This is hurting people like me, people at my church, people who work,” she said.

Joe Henry, a regional director of LULAC s in neighboring Iowa, said the GOP governors are doing “political grandstanding.”

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump participates in a Fox News Town Hall on Jan. 10, 2024, in Des Moines. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Henry said if the governors are really serious about addressing border security, they ought to be telling the congressional delegation to support the immigration plan the Senate is working out. It reportedly would speed up the asylum-seeking process, streamline the process for securing work permits and give the president the authority to shut down the border if enough people cross.

House GOP leaders have expressed skepticism about the prospects for a deal.

“This is spending state tax dollars to play politics at the border while at the same time Congress has worked out a bipartisan deal at the border,” Henry said. 

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Possible Senate deal, or not

Immigration rhetoric has ramped up again in recent weeks, after former President Donald Trump, campaigning for the presidency, has publicly opposed a potential deal with Senate negotiators to improve presidential authority to tamp down on border crossings and deport people rather than capturing them and releasing them until their court date.

Abbott’s disagreement with the Biden administration has escalated into a court fight over whether a state can defy federal authority over the border. Abbott has drawn criticism from migrant advocates for adding buoys and razor wire to the Rio Grande River and restoring barriers the feds have removed for environmental and safety reasons, among others.

Abbott defended the razor wire near Eagle Pass, saying it contributed to a sharp decline in crossings, from 3,000 or 4,000 a day to about three a day recently. (The port of entry at Eagle Pass has seen crossings drop into the hundreds, according to the Associated Press.) Others argued that the cartels have simply shifted their crossing points.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol about border policy negotiations on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

The Supreme Court ruled the Border Patrol could cut the razor wire, but Texas reinstalled it. Texas also has restricted the Border Patrol’s use of a riverfront park in Eagle Pass. The razor wire drew national attention last month after a mother and her two children drowned in the river. Abbott has said the Biden administration is responsible and pledged to expand the use of the wire. 

He and other GOP governors say the feds need to work harder to dissuade more people from coming. Abbott and Pillen said Sunday the administration has made things worse than they were under Trump. 

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said the State of Texas and border agents had stopped 169 people from entering the country who were on the terror watch list in 2023. 

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Abbott’s legal fight has, in some instances, pushed border patrol agents off certain Texas land, citing a provision in the Constitution allowing states to protect themselves. Most legal scholars argue the federal government has primacy over immigration enforcement. Abbott and other red-state governors have drawn criticism for busing migrants to blue-led states. 

“We’re here to send a loud and clear message that we are banding together to fight to ensure … that states will be able to defend against any type of imminent danger or invasion,” Abbott said Sunday, adding later. “Joe Biden, it’s your turn now.”

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North Texas middle school closes after a norovirus outbreak

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North Texas middle school closes after a norovirus outbreak


A middle school in the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD is closed Friday after an outbreak of norovirus.

According to the school district, they closed Creekview Middle School in Fort Worth on Friday to sanitize and clean the building. The district said they plan on reopening the school on Monday.

The district said children started to get sick on Tuesday with what appeared to be a stomach virus and that on Wednesday it spread to a larger group.

EMSISD said they reached out to the Tarrant County Public Health Department and that they recommended disinfecting and cleaning the school on Wednesday night and reopening the next day.

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More cases continued to be reported on Thursday, so the public health department then recommended that they clean again and close the campus on Friday.

Parents were notified of the district’s decision on Thursday afternoon.

The district has not said how many students and staff were sickened in the outbreak.

Officials with Children’s Medical Center said that because norovirus is highly contagious and resistant to many common hand sanitizers, it presents a unique challenge for families.

The hospital says hand sanitizer isn’t enough and recommends thorough hand washing with soap and water. They also recommend parents keep their children home for a full 48 hours after symptoms stop to prevent further outbreaks.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are approximately 2,500 norovirus outbreaks in the United States each year and that they are most common from November through April. For further tips on preventing the spread of norovirus, visit the CDC.



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Trump heads to Texas, where 3 friends are battling it out in the Senate Republican primary

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Trump heads to Texas, where 3 friends are battling it out in the Senate Republican primary


WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump just can’t seem to choose among friends in the Texas Senate Republican primary.

So when he travels to the state on Friday for his first post- State of the Union trip, where he plans to promote his energy and economic policies, Trump will have all three candidates in the competitive race join him — just days before his party casts ballots in the primary race.

Sen. John Cornyn is battling for his fifth term and is being challenged by state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary fight that has become viciously personal. And all three men, missing the coveted endorsement from Trump, have been trying to highlight their ties to him as they ramp up their campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

For his part, Trump will be seeking to ride the message of his State of the Union address from Tuesday, where he declared a return to economic prosperity and a more secure America — two centerpiece arguments for Republicans as they campaign to keep their congressional majorities this fall.

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Trump’s hesitation to endorse in the Texas Senate primary speaks to the tricky dynamics of the race.

Cornyn is unpopular with a segment of Texas’ GOP base, in part for his early dismissiveness of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign and for his role in authoring tougher restrictions on guns after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But Senate GOP leadership and allied groups see Cornyn as the stronger general election candidate, in light of a series of troubles that have shadowed Paxton.

Paxton beat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and has faced allegations of marital infidelity by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, right, is joined by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, left, during a campaign stop in Austin, Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Credit: AP/Eric Gay

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have urged Trump to endorse Cornyn. They and allied campaign groups argue that the seat would cost the party hundreds of millions more to defend with Paxton as the candidate.

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“It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” Scott told Fox News on Wednesday.

Hunt, a second-term Houston-area representative, was a later entry to the race, but claims a kinship with Trump, having endorsed him early in the 2024 race. Hunt campaigned regularly for Trump and earned a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

If no candidate reaches 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 26 runoff.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas,...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, arrive before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. Credit: AP/Allison Robbert

Cornyn’s campaign and a half-dozen allied groups have poured more than $63 million into the race since last fall, chiefly trying to slow Paxton but recently attacking Hunt in an effort to keep him from making it to the runoff.

Earlier this month, Trump feinted toward weighing in on the race when he said he was taking “a serious look” at endorsing in the Texas primary. He has since reaffirmed his neutrality.

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Still, you wouldn’t know it from watching TV in Texas. Cornyn has been airing ads since last year touting his support for Trump’s agenda, even though his relationship with the president has been cool at times. Paxton and Hunt both have ads airing now featuring them standing with Trump.

“I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” Trump said earlier this month.

The GOP battle comes as Democrats have a contested primary of their own in Texas between state Rep. James Talarico, a self-described policy wonk who regularly quotes the Bible, and progressive favorite U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Trump hasn’t been shy about wading into other contested Republican primaries in the state. Parts of Corpus Christi fall within Texas’ 34th congressional district, where former Rep. Mayra Flores is fighting to reclaim her seat against the Trump-endorsed Eric Flores. (The two are not related.) The winner of the primary will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, long a target of the GOP, whose district was redrawn to make it easier for a Republican to win.

Eric Flores will be at the Trump event at the Port of Corpus Christi, which technically is located in a neighboring district.

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Elsewhere in the state, the president has also endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is fighting calls from his own party to resign from Congress after reports of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Gonzales is refusing to step down and has said that there will be “opportunities for all of the details and facts to come out” and that the stories about the situation do not represent “all the facts.”

Gonzales is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who Gonzales defeated by fewer than 400 votes in their 2024 runoff. The White House did not return a request for comment on Thursday on whether Trump stands by his endorsement of Gonzales.



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Man sentenced to 15 years in Texas crash that killed founding member of The Chicks

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Man sentenced to 15 years in Texas crash that killed founding member of The Chicks


EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after admitting his reckless driving caused a head-on collision in rural West Texas that killed Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country music group now known as The Chicks, prosecutors said.

Domenick Chavez, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Dec. 22, 2023, crash in Hudspeth County, according to a news release Tuesday from El Paso County District James Montoya, who also oversees nearby Hudspeth County.

The news release said Chavez was driving a truck westbound when he tried to pass four vehicles on a two-way undivided highway and collided head-on with Lynch’s eastbound truck. Lynch, 65, of Dell City, was trapped in her vehicle and died. Prosecutors said Chavez was traveling between 106 mph and 114 mph.

Prosecutors said alcohol wasn’t a factor in the crash but that Chavez was driving on a suspended license, which had been revoked due to his failure to comply with DWI-related surcharges and penalties from convictions in 2014 and 2017.

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Lynch, along with Robin Lynn Macy and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, formed The Dixie Chicks in the late 1980s. Lynch and Macy eventually left the band and Natalie Maines joined the sisters. The trio hit commercial fame with their breakthrough album “Wide Open Spaces” in 1998 and have won 13 Grammys. In 2020, the band changed its name to The Chicks.

In a social media post after Lynch’s death, The Chicks said Lynch had “infectious energy and humor” and was “instrumental” in the band’s early success.



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