Texas
Texas investigations into Charlie Kirk posts spark free-speech lawsuit
What we know about the return of cancel culture
People sharing critical posts online about Charlie Kirk have faced suspension at work. This is what we know now about cancel culture.
A Texas teachers union has sued the state over what it said was a trampling of educators’ free speech rights when hundreds came under investigation for their comments after the killing of Charlie Kirk.
The Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers filed the federal lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner Mike Morath on Jan. 6, the union said. The suit claims investigations into at least 350 teachers after Kirk’s death were “unlawful” and that a letter issued by Morath to superintendents around the state targeting “reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media” prompted punishment and retaliation against teachers.
Kirk, 31, was fatally shot on Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The cofounder of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth-focused organization, Kirk was a close ally of President Donald Trump. Shooting suspect Tyler Robinson has been charged with his murder.
After Kirk’s death, a wave of backlash came in response to online posts condemning his views or otherwise criticizing him. Right-leaning public figures and prominent social media accounts called for firings of people whose posts they deemed inappropriate.
Morath’s letter on Sept. 12 directed superintendents to report “inappropriate conduct being shared” to the Texas Education Agency’s Educator Investigations Division, which investigates teachers for allegations of misconduct, the Texas AFT said in its suit, which was reviewed by USA TODAY. The union said teachers were investigated not for speech made in classrooms, but for posts made on their personal, often private social media pages.
“In the months since, the consequences for our members have run the gamut from written reprimands and administrative leave to doxxing and termination from their jobs,” AFT Vice President and Texas Chapter President Zeph Capo said at a news conference.
The Texas Education Agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Jan. 7.
Lawsuit claims teachers were disciplined for exercising free speech
The lawsuit filed by the Texas AFT claims that teachers in public schools have a constitutionally protected right to free speech, and that their speech in their personal capacity, such as on social media, is protected. The suit claims that teachers’ rights were violated when they were investigated or faced disciplinary action for their posts about Kirk. It also alleges that the policy to report teachers for “inappropriate” content was unfairly vague.
“These teachers were disciplined solely for their speech, without any regard to whether the posts disrupted school operations in any way,” the lawsuit reads.
Teachers whose cases are mentioned in the lawsuit were kept anonymous, Capo said, to protect them from further harassment. Many teachers are fearful to express any more opinions, effectively silencing their speech, he said.
One of the teachers, who made a post described in the lawsuit as one that “simply raised questions about the circumstances of Mr. Kirk’s death and did not promote violence in any way,” was shared by a lawmaker who used it as part of an election campaign and called for the teacher’s dismissal. The high school English teacher, who has taught for 27 years, was placed on administrative leave and later fired. She settled a wrongful termination claim with the school district, the lawsuit said.
Another teacher of 16 years and a military veteran who previously won “Teacher of the Year” in his school district and made posts criticizing Kirk for his views on Black Americans is under an ongoing investigation by the state agency, the lawsuit said.
“We denounced Charlie Kirk’s assassination, we denounced violence after Uvalde. We denounce violence,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “What happened in the next few days (after Kirk’s killing), wasn’t about violence or denouncing violence, it was about muzzling the expression of constitutionally protected nonviolent speech.”
Dozens lost jobs over posts about Kirk
In the wake of Kirk’s death in September, USA TODAY counted dozens of examples of people who lost their jobs, were suspended or investigated over posts or comments they made about the conservative podcaster, including educators, lawyers, doctors, first responders and others.
They include a dean at Middle Tennessee State, Laura Sosh-Lightsy, who was fired for a social media post saying she had “zero sympathy” for Kirk; a Marine who called Kirk a “racist man” who was “popped”; and Jimmy Kimmel, whose ABC show was temporarily suspended after he made comments about Kirk.
Some educators who lost their jobs filed lawsuits alleging their free speech rights were violated. A teacher in Iowa who compared Kirk to a Nazi; a South Carolina teacher’s assistant who posted a Kirk quote and said she disagreed with him but called the death a “tragedy”; and an employee of an Indiana university who said Kirk’s death was wrong and condemned some of his beliefs all filed suits on free speech, according to reporting from the USA TODAY Network. Each case kicked up a flurry of social media outrage and calls for the educators’ firings.
In Tennessee, a tenured theater professor at Austin Peay State University was reinstated after originally being fired for comments he made online after Kirk’s killing, the Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, recently reported.
Texas
Paxton hails Trump’s endorsement as ‘most powerful force in politics’ after Texas runoff win – US politics live
Trump endorsement ‘most powerful force in politics’, says Paxton after runoff victory
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton said Donald Trump’s endorsement is “the most powerful force in politics” as he comfortably won the Republican nomination for the Senate last night.
Paxton defeated four-term senator John Cornyn in the latest contest where president Trump sought to oust an incumbent he saw as insufficiently loyal, AP reported.
Trump endorsed Paxton, calling him a “true MAGA warrior”, with Paxton’s victory in the runoff making Cornyn – who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 – the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.
“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. “President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”
Cornyn’s loss followed primaries this month where Trump successfully backed challengers to Republican lawmakers who had displeased him in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.
“After a public service career lasting more than four decades and 18 consecutive campaign wins, tonight we’ve come up short in this primary runoff,” Cornyn said shortly after the race was called. “I’ve always supported the GOP ticket. I intend to do so again this general election.”
The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
In other developments:
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Christian Menefee defeated Al Green to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th congressional district. Green, 78, had served 11 terms as a Democrat, earning a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s top critics, when he became the first member of Congress to call for his impeachment, as early as 2017. Menefee, 38, began serving in Congress earlier this year after he won a special election. The two Democrats faced off against each other in this year’s election after Republican redistricting saw their home districts near Houston redrawn.
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Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.
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Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
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Trump completed his annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
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The Trump administration considered asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.
Key events
Trump moves Camp David cabinet meeting to White House as Iran talks continue
Robert Tait
Donald Trump will host the 12th cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday as talks on ending the nearly three-month war with Iran reach a crucial stage amid conflicting signals over whether an agreement is close.
The gathering had originally been scheduled to take place in the bucolic setting of Camp David, the presidential retreat that had previously been the site of sensitive Middle East negotiations, including the historic Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.
But Trump switched it back to its more accustomed White House setting, citing adverse weather forecasts.
“Based on the possible bad weather conditions tomorrow, we will be having our Cabinet Meeting in the White House, and will be postponing the Cabinet trip to Camp David,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Heavy rain is expected in the area on Wednesday.
The initial decision to stage it at Camp David had raised eyebrows, given that Trump had visited the presidential retreat deep in the Maryland countryside, 62 miles north-west of Washington, much less frequently than most of his predecessors.
Veteran Texas congressman Al Green beaten in Democratic primary runoff
Uwa Ede-Osifo
Christian Menefee, a freshman Democratic US representative, beat veteran congressman Al Green on Tuesday in a fierce runoff that was the product of Republican gerrymandering.
Last year, the Republican-dominated Texas legislature unveiled a congressional map designed to flip seats in the GOP’s favor. Donald Trump had urged the state’s lawmakers to safeguard the party’s congressional majority.
Under the new map, Green, a congressional fixture for over two decades and a staunch Trump critic, saw his reliably Democratic ninth district effectively eliminated. He announced a bid for the 18th district in November.
Menefee was sworn into the seat in January, after winning a special election to replace the late US representative Sylvester Turner.
On the campaign trail, Green sought to link Menefee with big-money politics, accusing his challenger of being aligned with “Trump crypto cronies”, Houston Public Media reported.
Green’s protests of the Trump administration have garnered national attention in recent years.
In February, he was ejected from the president’s State of the Union address after holding a sign that read “Black people aren’t apes!” It was a counter to Trump sharing a racist AI-generated video where Barack and Michelle Obama were depicted as the simians.
Trump endorsement ‘most powerful force in politics’, says Paxton after runoff victory
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton said Donald Trump’s endorsement is “the most powerful force in politics” as he comfortably won the Republican nomination for the Senate last night.
Paxton defeated four-term senator John Cornyn in the latest contest where president Trump sought to oust an incumbent he saw as insufficiently loyal, AP reported.
Trump endorsed Paxton, calling him a “true MAGA warrior”, with Paxton’s victory in the runoff making Cornyn – who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 – the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.
“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. “President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”
Cornyn’s loss followed primaries this month where Trump successfully backed challengers to Republican lawmakers who had displeased him in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.
“After a public service career lasting more than four decades and 18 consecutive campaign wins, tonight we’ve come up short in this primary runoff,” Cornyn said shortly after the race was called. “I’ve always supported the GOP ticket. I intend to do so again this general election.”
The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
In other developments:
-
Christian Menefee defeated Al Green to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th congressional district. Green, 78, had served 11 terms as a Democrat, earning a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s top critics, when he became the first member of Congress to call for his impeachment, as early as 2017. Menefee, 38, began serving in Congress earlier this year after he won a special election. The two Democrats faced off against each other in this year’s election after Republican redistricting saw their home districts near Houston redrawn.
-
Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.
-
Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
-
Trump completed his annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
-
The Trump administration considered asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — NASA laid out its moon base plans, and the operation has Texas ties beyond the Johnson Space Center.
Only weeks have passed since NASA sent humans further in space than ever before. While the agency achieved something new, on Tuesday afternoon, NASA said it’s only the beginning.
The agency said a moon base is coming. A place where astronauts will explore, perform experiments, and provide data to get to Mars.
Although NASA has sent humans before, NASA’s moon base program manager, Carlos Garcia-Galan, said this moon base mission is different.
“Eventually, when we matched the assets, habitat modules with the logistics and all the things to move the logistics around,” Garcia-Galan explained. “Then we’ll be able to say, we’re permanently here, and we’re not giving it up.”
The plan, NASA said, is to build a moon base in three phases over 75 launches over the next six years. The first steps, officials said, will be by the end of the year when they start to send supplies to the moon, ahead of astronaut lunar missions scheduled for 2028.
Rice University physics and astronomy professor Patricia Reiff said it’s ambitious but doable. “I think this was a very sensible way to proceed,” Reiff said.
NASA isn’t doing it alone. The agency said it’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars with private companies to build the base.
On Tuesday, it announced that Firefly Aerospace, based in Austin, will deliver drones to the moon. Axiom Space, based in Houston, said it’ll work with the company selected to build the new lunar rovers.
“I think it’s fantastic news because even the ones not based in Houston will be having people here in Houston to work closely with the Johnson Space Center,” Reiff explained.
A moon base, NASA said, is ready to start just weeks after completing Artemis, not just for its own exploration, but what could one day benefit us on Earth.
“We go for the technology we will pioneer to get there,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said. “The science and all that we will learn that’ll make life better here on earth. To advance humankind on this great adventure.”
While NASA plans to send supplies to the moon starting later this year, astronauts won’t be with it. NASA said it plans to launch astronauts into space next year to test its lunar landers.
Then, in two years, it says it plans to start sending humans back to the moon.
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