Category: CNN Regional

By Burt Levine

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    August 4, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — Texas politics are beginning to rumble, and the loudest tremor may arrive at the ballot box.

On Tuesday, November 3, Texans will choose a U.S. senator, governor, attorney general, all 150 members of the Texas House and a long list of congressional, judicial and county officials. Early voting runs Monday, October 19, through Friday, October 30. The voter-registration deadline is Monday, October 5, and applications for a ballot by mail must be received by Friday, October 23.

Those dates matter because 2026 is shaping up as one of Texas’ most competitive election years in more than three decades. Democrats have not won a statewide Texas election since 1994, while Republicans enter the fall defending offices they have controlled for a generation. That history gives this election its “tectonic” label—but political earthquakes are never caused by polls alone. They happen when voters show up.

The open U.S. Senate contest is drawing national attention. Democratic state Rep. James Talarico faces Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated longtime Sen. John Cornyn in the May 26 Republican runoff. A Fox News survey conducted July 23–27 placed Talarico ahead 51% to 48%, exactly within its three-point margin of error. A newer Texas Southern University survey conducted July 27–30, showed Talarico leading 47% to 45%, also within the margin of error. Translation: nobody should order victory balloons just yet.

A Talarico win would make him the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 reelection. A Paxton victory would extend Republican control of the seat and add another statewide win to a record that already includes three successful attorney general campaigns.

The governor’s race is just as closely watched. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is seeking another term against Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, a civil-rights and labor attorney who previously served as president of the Austin ISD Board of Trustees. Fox News gave Abbott a one-point advantage, while another July survey placed him ahead 45% to 42%. Both results were within their respective margins of error. If elected, Hinojosa would become Texas’ first Latina governor and its third woman governor, following Miriam “Ma” Ferguson and Ann Richards.

For attorney general, Republican state Sen. Mayes Middleton faces Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson. A July poll placed Middleton at 39% and Johnson at 38%, with 18% undecided. Texas last elected a Democratic attorney general when Dan Morales won reelection in 1994.

Beyond the statewide marquee, every Texas House seat is on the ballot. Contests across the suburbs, South Texas and major metropolitan counties could influence the Legislature’s direction on public education, property taxes, insurance costs, health care, water and the electric grid. The top-of-ticket races may attract the television cameras, but state representatives write laws that follow Texans into classrooms, businesses, hospitals and monthly household budgets.

The political ground is also shifting closer to home. Harris County voters will choose between Democrat Letitia Plummer and Republican Orlando Sanchez for county judge. In Fort Bend County, Democrat Dexter McCoy faces Republican Daniel Wong. In Brazoria County, Democrat Eugene Howard faces Republican Rob Giesecke. These county executives influence emergency management, public health, roads, budgets and the everyday machinery of local government—proof that the “down-ballot” is often where politics lands closest to the front porch.

Houston Style Magazine encourages every eligible voter—Democrat, Republican, independent or still deciding—to check their registration, compare candidates, study the full ballot and make a voting plan. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and Election Day is not the time to discover your registration still carries an old address.

Texas may be preparing for a political earthquake. But the people—not pundits, parties or polling averages—will determine how far the ground moves.

OFFICIAL VOTER INFORMATION Texas registration, voting requirements and election information: VoteTexas.gov Harris County voting locations and sample ballots: HarrisVotes.com Fort Bend County Elections: Fort Bend County Elections and Voter Registration Brazoria County Elections: Brazoria County Clerk Elections Department

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Kierra Lee
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By Ben Jealous

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    August 4, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — In 1836, four white apprentices beat Frederick Douglass nearly blind in a Baltimore shipyard.

He named them years later. Ned North. Ned Hays. Bill Stewart. Tom Humphreys. One came at him with a brick. One swung a handspike into his head. Fifty white carpenters watched. None said stop.

They said the Black caulkers were “eating the bread which should be eaten by American freemen.” Douglass saw past that. The white man, he wrote, “is robbed by the slave system of the just results of his labor.” The men who owned that system taught poor whites to fight poor Blacks. It kept them both poor.

He escaped to New Bedford, a trained caulker in a free town of Quakers and abolitionists. A shipowner tried to hire him. Every white man on the vessel threatened to walk. He shoveled coal instead.

Still no bench for him.

In 1853 he asked Harriet Beecher Stowe to help him build a school where Black boys could learn a trade. There were fathers, he said, “whose minds are tossed by day and by night with the anxious enquiry, ‘what shall I do with my boys?'”

The school was never built. The question never went away.

Ask it again now. Manufacturing jobs peaked in June 1979 and fell for forty years. In the 1950s, 98 of every 100 American men in their prime worked or looked for work. Today it is 89. Black men lived this first.

Then we told every child that college was the only road. Georgetown researchers project only 42 percent of jobs will require a degree by 2031. We closed the shop classes and called it progress. The old track had sorted Black and brown children into dead ends. We did not fix the sorting. We tore out the ladder and left the wall.

Now hear what we tell the boys. The Pentagon studied who could enlist. Seventy-seven percent of Americans aged 17 to 24 cannot qualify. Too heavy. A record. A pill. A test.

Three out of four, told they are not wanted. Then the Army did something quiet. In 2022 it opened a course at Fort Jackson for the ones who failed the standards. It taught them until they met them. About 95 percent passed.

Chaz Andrews had wanted to serve since he was 19. He failed the entrance test more than ten times. He was 29 when the course got him through. Nothing was wrong with Chaz Andrews.

Hugh Price saw this coming. He helped start the National Guard Youth Challenge Program, which lifts dropouts’ earnings 20 percent. The military, the former Urban League president wrote, “figured out long ago how to nurture the potential of aimless young people.”

He did not want to militarize childhood. He wanted the method. High expectations for everyone. A mentor who knows your name. A refusal to sort children into the ones worth teaching and the ones worth writing off.

Charlie Rangel asked the other half. He came home to Harlem from Korea with a Purple Heart and pushed for universal national service. “If we are going to send our children to war,” he wrote, “the governing principle must be shared sacrifice.”

Rangel answered who serves. Price answered how people are made.

Maryland is testing both. Republican Larry Hogan dropped the degree requirement for most state jobs, and hiring without degrees rose 41 percent in four months. Democrat Wes Moore built the first statewide service year in America.

That is real. So is this. Congress has not reauthorized the National Apprenticeship Act since 1937.

Further along than we were. Nowhere near done.

My father ran a Head Start center in San Diego in the late sixties. What surprised him was who objected. Not only men who hated Black children. Also, comfortable people who did not want anybody’s poor children given a head start, white ones included.

We would rather sort children than teach them.

Douglass asked what he should do with his boys. We still owe him an answer.

Ten years after Los Angeles burned, I stood backstage waiting to speak. Jack Kemp was at the lectern, pounding it. Our kids, he shouted. Our kids. Our kids.

An elder from South Central asked me where he was from. Upstate New York, I said.

Then whose kids is he talking about?

All of them, ma’am. They are all American children.

The notion stunned her. It should not stun anyone. It still does.

A country is not a nation until it claims them all.

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Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and former president and CEO of the NAACP.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Kierra Lee
KIELEESTYLE@GMAIL.COM
4096658446

By David Aguilar, Jeremiah Martinez

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    Calaveras County (KCRA) — Crews worked overnight to try to keep a wildfire that prompted evacuations in Calaveras County from continuing to spread. On Tuesday morning, a large plume of smoke and hazy skies covered the area.

The Gann Fire started shortly before 5:30 p.m. Monday near Hogan Dam and Gann roads near New Hogan Lake.

Gann Fire evacuations Evacuation orders have been issued for zones CCU-147, CCU-139, CCU-110 and CCU-109. An advisory is issued for zone CCU-130.

An evacuation order means people need to immediately move out of the area due to an imminent threat. Under an advisory, residents should follow local recommendations or watch for further instructions.

Evacuation Centers An evacuation shelter is located at Jenny Lind Memorial District at 189 Pine Street, Valley Springs, California 95252, according to Red Cross. The organization said volunteers will provide water, meals and emotional support.

Community members displaced by the fire are encouraged to bring the following for each member of their family and small pets:

Prescription and other emergency medication Extra clothing Pillows and blankets Hygiene supplies Important documents Diapers, formula and toys for children The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office said all displaced livestock can be taken to the Calaveras County Fairgrounds at 2465 Gunclub Road in Angels Camp. An emergency shelter is set up at 300 W Daphne Street in Valley Springs where domesticated animals are welcomed, according to the sheriff’s office.

Gann Fire acreage, containment and conditions Cal Fire said when the Gann Fire started, it burned rapidly uphill through dry grass and brush. As of 9:33 a.m., the fire has burned at least 3,000 acres, up from the 2,100 acres reported at 5:52 a.m.

Crews worked through the overnight hours trying to keep the fire from making it to the other side of the mountain, where residences are.

As of 9:33 a.m., there is no established containment around the fire’s burn area, Cal Fire said. The fire continues to burn at a moderate rate of spread.

More than 250 personnel are combating the fire, Cal Fire said. Among the resources deployed were Firehawk helicopters, which have the capability of responding to wildfires at night.

Rollover and crash during fire There was a dozer rollover reported, injuring a firefighter, who was taken to a hospital and is being medically evaluated. The condition of the firefighter is unknown.

As crews were on scene, a pickup truck crashed head-on with a fire engine blocking the road, according to footage from a KCRA 3 news crew. The crash resulted in major damage to the front of the truck.

California Highway Patrol officers moved the truck out of the way to clear the road for fire crews.

Gann Fire smoke concerns On Tuesday, the Calaveras Unified School District said it is monitoring air quality throughout the area, including in Valley Springs and San Andreas.

The school district has decided that, based on current conditions, it will keep schools open and in session Tuesday. However, outdoor activities, including recess, may be modified.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Steven Albritton

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    CINCINNATI (WLWT) — Members of Cincinnati City Council will meet Tuesday morning for the first time since back-to-back rounds of rain caused severe flooding on Cincinnati’s East Side.

Tuesday’s meeting comes as many families and businesses continue to clean up.

This will be a lot more involved than a typical committee meeting: The assistant fire chief and head of the Metropolitan Sewer District are both expected to speak.

It’ll be the first major debrief about last month’s historic rainfall, which impacted homes and businesses in Mt. Lookout, Hyde Park and Oakley.

More than 1,800 damage claims have been filed in the weeks since.

At a community meeting Monday night, one couple shared their financial struggles, after their newly bought home was filled with water.

“It came with so much force that it blew the back door open. So it’s coming up through the sewer, it’s coming through the back door. It’s just terrible. This has been the most overwhelming first house experience I could ever imagine,” the couple said.

MSD says there was little they could do to prepare, calling this a thousand-year flood, with too much rain for even the biggest system to handle.

But, city council is looking at several solutions, including the potential of expanding “green” infrastructure to reduce stormwater runoff, changing flood planning to prioritize watersheds and creating a Flood Resilience Task Force.

“We need to get more creative and think more holistically, not just about what they call ‘gray infrastructure’, the pipes, but how do we convert surface parking to more permeable, how do we capture some of the rain in more upstream maybe in some of the parks before it comes down,” councilmember Mark Jeffreys said.

The Sewer District is also moving forward with several flood mitigation projects. Hamilton County Commissioners are looking at options for federal funding.

At the local level, the city of Cincinnati has opened a hotline for families and businesses affected by flooding.

Tuesday morning’s discussion will begin at 10 a.m.

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By Aki Nace

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    MINNESOTA (WCCO) — A teenager was severely injured Monday evening after falling nearly 20 stories inside an abandoned grain elevator in Minneapolis.

According to Minneapolis police, a group of teenagers was trespassing inside the decommissioned Checkerboard Grain Elevator near 38th Street and Hiawatha Avenue around 8:30 p.m.

One of them, an 18-year-old, fell onto an elevated platform and suffered life-threatening injuries.

Minneapolis fire crews needed to use a ladder truck to reach the teen and provide medical care, authorities say.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Anthony Bettin, Esme Murphy

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    MINNESOTA (WCCO) — Mike Lindell, MyPillow CEO and Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, is accused of violating campaign laws by giving away pillows promoting his candidacy at a July Fourth parade.

A complaint filed on July 22 alleges Lindell and others from his campaign “threw pillows to spectators” during a parade in Delano, Minnesota. According to the complaint, the packaging of the pillows said “Mike Lindell for Governor” and their value is about $35.

The complaint said this violates the state’s Fair Campaign Practices law, which “prohibits giving something of monetary value, or promising something of value, to a person in order to induce or deter voting in a particular way in an election.”

Lindell told WCCO the allegations in the complaint are wrong, and that the value of the pillows was actually $4.90, less than the $5 carve-out for allowable campaign giveaways. He said his team checked on the rules and “dotted their Is and crossed their Ts.”

“It was a set-up hit job, and I feel very confident that there was no violations,” Lindell said. “We did all our due diligence. The lawyer, there were so many pieces here. We talked to the campaign finance board.”

An Instagram post from Lindell on June 19 showed the pillows being given away at a parade in Foley, Minnesota.

Shawn Towle, a political writer, testified as a witness against Lindell. He says he saw Lindell getting ready to throw pillows.

“So I approached him, and I said, ‘Do you know you’re in violation of the Twinkie law?’ And he says, ‘We’ve got all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed, and our lawyers, you know, they have a handle on it.'” Towle said.

Lindell says those filing the complaint got his simple, naked pillow confused with his premium covered and decorative pillow, which he sells for more than $34.

“These are called roll and go pillows and there’s different versions, but these are these expensive cases that they roll into their own case,” he said.

The judge is taking the pillow case under advisement and says he will issue a ruling in the next few days.

Lindell was already the leading Republican candidate, according to a Survey USA/KSTP poll, when he earned an endorsement from President Trump last month. Kendall Qualls, who earned the state party’s endorsement, and Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth are also vying for the Republican nomination.

Early voting is underway for the Aug. 11 primary. Whoever wins the GOP nomination is likely to face Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the presumptive favorite for the Democratic candidacy, in the November election.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.