Texas

William Byron is back in Texas with more big wins since getting Hendrick's 300th there last fall

Published

2 years ago

April 13, 2024

William Byron is back in Texas with more big wins since getting Hendrick's 300th there last fall

FORT WORTH, Texas — When William Byron first met Rick Hendrick a decade ago, the teenager who had learned racing on a computer wasn’t all that confident how things would work out as he revealed his goal to drive one day for the NASCAR team owner.

There is certainly no lack of confidence now for Byron, who at 26 is getting race wins for NASCAR’s winningest team, and some significant ones at that. A week after Byron’s 13th career win in a 1-2-3 finish for Hendrick Motorsports at Martinsville as the team marked the 40th anniversary of its first victory, the series is back at Texas, where he led only the final six laps last September to get Hendrick’s 300th victory.

“For me, just felt like a full-circle moment. Just with all the history of Martinsville, with being in the 24 (car) …. talking to Rick on the phone and then going to celebrate with him,” Byron said Saturday.

Byron opened this season by winning the Daytona 500, the record-matching ninth for Hendrick but first since 2014. He also won three weeks ago in the other Texas race in Austin.

Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson is the points leader going into Sunday’s race at Texas, a 1 1/2-mile track like Las Vegas, where he got his victory this season. He led 99 laps at Texas last fall but got loose and spun into the wall with 85 laps to go. Larson won from the pole in the 2021 fall race there, where he also won NASCAR’s All-Star race there earlier that year.

“It’s always been a really good racetrack for me,” Larson said. “Last year, I just screwed up on one of the late restarts and spun and crashed, but we had a dominant race car that day. Hopefully we’ll have another race car just like it.”

Larson’s 18 wins since joining Hendrick in 2021 include the team’s record-setting 269th victory that year at Charlotte Motor Speedway to pass Petty Enterprises for the most.

Byron grew up in NASCAR’s hotbed of Charlotte, North Carolina, and idolized seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 car for Hendrick. Now Byron is in his seventh season in the famed No. 24 that Jeff Gordon drove to win four Cup titles and 93 races.

“I was put into Jeff’s car and that was a lot of pressure. And I had to just, we had to, kind of make it our own,” Byron said. “Jeff is a great mentor and a great asset for our team. … He’s made it known when I got in the car that it’s my own.”

After getting to victory lane for the first time in his 98th start, in 2020, Byron got another win in 2021 and two more in 2022 before a Cup-high six wins last year. His three victories this season are on drastically different tracks — the 2 1/2-mile tri-oval at Daytona, the road course in Austin and that half-mile paperclip at Martinsville.

“I think I started a little bit slower than I wanted to start. I feel like some of that was just chemistry and just learning the Cup Series as a whole, and I probably just didn’t get the most out of those first couple of years that I would like to,” Byron said. “Once we started winning races in the third year, won a race, and then the next year we won another one and really started to win races at places that are difficult to win, I just felt like we started to click.”

The 48-year-old Johnson will race at Texas for the first time since 2020, as a driver-owner in the No. 84 Chevrolet for Legacy Motor Club. Johnson finished 28th at Daytona in his only start so far this season. He has raced 35 times at Texas, where he is the all-time leader with seven wins and 1,152 laps led.

“It’s funny now the way the place drives. Just have a lot of anxiety about Turns 1 and 2,” said Johnson, whose last win here was in 2017, the first year after the track was repaved and reconfigured in those turns. “The previous configuration, that was really the most fun that you can have on a mile-and-a-half, was Turns 1 and 2. So bummed that it’s still not there.”

For the first time in 20 years, the only Cup race at Texas will be in the spring. The track hosted two Cup races each season from 2005-20, but the last three years the lone stop each year was a playoff race in the fall. The track was a spring-only stop from its opening in 1997 through 2004.

Texas was reduced from 334 laps to 267 last September, the first time it wasn’t scheduled for 501 miles. It is set for 400.5 miles this year, the 44th race at Texas. … Larson, like he was last fall, is listed as the favorite to win Sunday, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

___

AP NASCAR: https://apnews.com/hub/nascar-racing

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Texas

Texas sues Netflix for allegedly spying on kids, addicting users

Published

7 hours ago

May 12, 2026

Press Room

Texas sues Netflix for allegedly spying on kids, addicting users

Netflix was sued Monday (May 11) by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who accused the streaming company of spying on children and other consumers by collecting their data without consent, and designing its platform to be addictive. Ram Nabong reports.

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Texas

Texas sues Netflix, alleges platform spied on kids and collected data

Published

19 hours ago

May 11, 2026

Press Room

Texas sues Netflix, alleges platform spied on kids and collected data

Evercore ISI senior managing director Mark Mahaney joins Varney & Co. to discuss the departure of Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings and to address questions about the company’s future leadership and strategy.

The state of Texas announced a lawsuit against streaming giant Netflix on Monday, accusing the company of spying on children and other consumers by collecting their data without consent and designing the platform to be addictive.

Texas claims that Netflix has falsely represented to consumers that it didn’t collect or share user data while it actually tracked and sold viewers’ habits and preferences to commercial data brokers and advertising technology companies.

The lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claims that “Netflix’s endgame is simple and lucrative: get children and families glued to the screen, harvest their data while they are stuck there, and then monetize the data for a handsome profit.”

The state of Texas announced a lawsuit against streaming giant Netflix on Monday. (Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“When you watch Netflix, Netflix watched you,” Texas added in the lawsuit.

NETFLIX CO-FOUNDER REED HASTINGS TO STEP DOWN, DEPARTURE IS ‘SPOOKING INVESTORS’

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
NFLX	NETFLIX INC.	85.39	-2.10	-2.40%

The complaint quotes comments made by former CEO Reed Hastings who said in 2020, while he was still leading the streaming company, that “we don’t collect anything,” amid questions over Big Tech companies’ data collection practices.

Netflix was also accused of quietly using “dark patterns” to keep users watching on its platform, such as an autoplay feature that starts a new show after a different show ends.

NETFLIX RAISES SUBSCRIPTION PRICES ACROSS ALL PLANS

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit. (Cheney Orr/Reuters)

Paxton said in a press release that Netflix “has built a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans’ personal data without their consent, and my office will do everything in our power to stop it.”

The attorney general said he’s charging Netflix under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act and seeks to require Netflix to stop the unlawful collection and disclosure of user data, require Netflix to disable autoplay by default on kid’s profiles, and to secure injunctive relief and civil penalties.

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FOX Business reached out to Netflix for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Texas

6 people found dead inside a boxcar in Texas, officials say | CNN

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2026

Press Room

6 people found dead inside a boxcar in Texas, officials say | CNN

Six people were found dead inside a cargo train boxcar in a Texas city along the southern border on Sunday, officials said.

The bodies were found in a Union Pacific train at a rail yard in Laredo, around 160 miles south of San Antonio, just after 3:30 p.m. local time, said Jose Espinoza, a public information officer with the Laredo Police Department.

The circumstances of their deaths are unknown, said Laredo police spokesperson Joe Baeza, according to CNN affiliate KGNS, and an investigation is underway.

Union Pacific operates across the border and is the only railroad that services all access points into Mexico, according to the freight company’s website.

Temperatures on Sunday afternoon in Laredo were in the low-mid 90s, though it’s unclear whether heat was a factor.

Union Pacific said it was saddened by the incident and is working closely with law enforcement to investigate.

Laredo police said they received a call around 3 p.m. from an employee at the Union Pacific rail yard, KGNS reported. The bodies were discovered during a routine rail car inspection, police said. No survivors were found.

CNN has reached out to Laredo police for more information.

“It’s a very early phase of the investigation. There’s not a lot to reveal right now,” Baeza said, KGNS reported.

The immigration status and ages of the deceased are not yet known, Espinoza said.

US Customs and Border Protection referred CNN to the Laredo Police Department, saying “The incident remains under investigation by Laredo Police Department and Homeland Security Investigation and Texas Rangers.”

CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, HSI and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“It’s a very unfortunate event,” Espinoza told CNN. “It was too many lives that were lost.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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