In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump announcing he hopes to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America," a Texas congressman offered a Lone Star-sized suggestion for compromise.
"Interesting compromise," Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw posted as a caption to a map showing the Gulf of Mexico’s label replaced with the emblem of a grinning Buc-ee the Beaver in his trademark red ball cap.
His post gained some traction on social media as someone commented enthusiastically: "The Gulf of Buc-ee’s!"
While it has only started to increase its northward footprint, the Lake Jackson, Texas-based interstate-side gas station/meal-stop/country-store/convenience behemoth has a cult-like following in the South – as evidenced by the response to Crenshaw and others floating the idea.
Known for 100-plus gas pumps dispensing at loss-leader prices that help draw in crowds, Buc-ee's has been described as both a 7-Eleven "on steroids" and "an amusement park without the rides."
Cooks can be heard regularly calling out "Fre-e-esh brisket on the board," as they continuously resupply visitors with Texas BBQ from a station in the middle of the store, while cheeky billboards advertise their massive, spotless bathrooms for miles.
The stores are also known for their mascot’s prized "Beaver Nuggets" snacks, fresh-made fudge, "wall" of jerky; vacation needs like camp chairs, clothing and even meat smokers.
On Tuesday, Trump said he would change the name of the Gulf to the "appropriate" and "beautiful" "Gulf of America."
In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum posted an image of herself in front of an 18th century map showing a large portion of the United States as "Mexican America" and suggested facetiously that the name should revert.
Of Crenshaw’s "Gulf of Buc-ee’s" idea, social media was ablaze with support for the red hat-bedecked beaver.
"I’d support that," one X user wrote.
"Gulf of Buc’ees gets my vote -- that means brisket sandwich and a pitstop with hundreds of clean bathroom stalls every 3 hours...maybe picking up an iron skillet, crawfish boiler, or pair of Buc-ees pajamas too," a second user daydreamed of the idea.
Another commenter said they had yet to visit a Buc-ees but quipped, "I hope to someday be named among the blessed who have entered through the Brisket Gates. Gulf of Buc-ee’s -- I can support that."
During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump renewed his criticisms of the Biden administration for selling off border wall materials at "five cents on the dollar," saying: "These people either hate our country or they’re stupid."
He also slammed the private company managing the border wall sales for attempting to sell the materials back to his incoming administration at a significant upcharge.
"You know what they were doing. They were calling us up and saying: ‘We'll sell it back to you at 200 cents.’ In other words, double what we paid for it," he said. "So, they were going to buy it from this guy [President Joe Biden] for five cents on the dollar. They were making deals."
The Biden administration has been auctioning off border wall parts since at least 2023, with parts listed for sale on auction marketplaces, after it abruptly shut down most border wall construction in 2021.
An official at the Department of Defense told Fox News Digital in December that the materials being sold through online auctions were already sold off by the federal government earlier in 2024, with a large percentage of the materials being sold to a government surplus retailer called Gov Planet.
Speaking in December, Trump said the Biden administration’s border wall sales were "almost a criminal act" that would cost American taxpayers "hundreds of millions of dollars."
Trump said on Tuesday the private retailer was "calling us, asking us to pay them 200 cents because it's a good deal because we can have it immediately."
But to this, Trump said: "You know what ‘immediately’ is? Just leave it in place."
"Fortunately, we had a very smart judge that stopped it cold," he went on. "But think of it. They were selling the wall. That was exactly the wall that the Border Patrol wanted that was designed by them: steel, concrete, rebar… Everything was top of the line, very expensive. It would be double what we paid for it then, six years ago."
Speaking of the Biden administration, Trump said: "These people either hate our country or they’re very stupid."
"They were selling the wall for five cents on the dollar and trying to resell it back to us for 200 cents, or less, but for 200 cents on the dollar." he said. "That deal is like all the other things that these people do."
I moved to Celina, Texas, in 2022, and I love living here.
Claire Gautreaux
I moved to Celina, Texas, in 2022 and absolutely love living in the city.
I like the area's small-town feel and the sense of community among its residents.
There are tons of local shops and restaurants, and there always seems to be an event downtown.
When I first moved to Celina, Texas, I was excited to live in an area filled with young families and business-minded people.
However, I didn't realize the up-and-coming town, which many residents call Rollertown, would top the Census Bureau's list of the fastest-growing US cities with at least 20,000 residents, based on its data recorded between 2022 and 2023.
Celina, which had just 6,000 residents in 2010, grew to over 43,300 people in 2023, according to recent Census data. The quaint town, pronounced "seh-line-ah," is about an hour north of Dallas and gives Texans a place to escape the hustle and bustle of the city and form lasting roots within the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
Since relocating from nearby Frisco, Texas, in 2022, I've seen the city make significant investments in its expanding shopping centers and downtown area to accommodate its increasing population.
Here's why I love living in Celina.
I was drawn to Celina's small-town vibe
Celina offers quite a few local shops and restaurants to explore.
Claire Gautreaux
One of the things that drew me to Celina is that although the city is growing, it still has a small-town feel.
Popular chains like Costco, Lifetime Fitness, PetSmart, and many big-name food stores are opening just down the road from my apartment, but Celina also has a rich downtown area filled with local shops.
During the day, I love walking my dog and stopping at the library or Granny's Bakery, a local shop with delicious fresh-baked treats. Small boutiques give me the opportunity to find unique outfits without relying on big-box stores.
Celina is also full of great restaurants. I like to go to Heyday, a late-night hangout spot serving elevated cocktails with an upscale dinner menu and atmosphere. It's a great place to celebrate an accomplishment or catch up with my friends.
Celina offers a real sense of community
I love walking through the Celina Historic Square.
Claire Gautreaux
The downtown Celina Historic Square hosts community fairs, holiday events, and local markets. I love seeing the Square transform for events like the Friday Night Market, an opportunity for residents to purchase local produce and handcrafted items, or Cajun Fest, where attendees can feast on crawfish and watch live alligator shows.
Seeing children with face paint running around, watching friendly competitions, and having the chance to support local artists makes each event feel special.
Residents also show their commitment to the community as football fans decked out in Bobcat orange fill the stands at Celina High School on Friday nights. I attend the games to cheer on my younger sister as she takes the field with her flag during the halftime color-guard show.
I'm grateful to call Celina, Texas, my home
I have no regrets after moving to Celina, Texas.
Claire Gautreaux
I have no regrets after moving to Celina, Texas, and I'm proud to call it my home.
The sense of community here is amazing — I felt like I belonged in town from day one.
The beautiful scenery and friendly faces make Celina an awesome spot to settle down, whether you're starting a family or just looking for a place to connect with others.
Business Insider looked at the purchasing power of a six-figure salary in different Texas cities.
We adjusted $100,000 for Texas' 25 metro areas using cost of living data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Based on 2023 data, the purchasing power of $100,000 would be $102,438 in the Austin metro area.
One of Texas' big draws for the thousands of Americans who move there each year is its relatively low cost of living.
However, purchasing power isn't the same across Texas metros. If you had $100,000 in Austin, it wouldn't have the same value as in Longview, Corpus Christi, and other places in the state.
To compare people's purchasing power depending on where they are, Business Insider calculated what $100,000 means for each Texas metropolitan statistical area when adjusted by its regional price parity. That gives a sense of how much $100,000 at national average prices would actually buy in those cities based on their local cost of living.
"Whether you are considering a job offer in a more expensive city, looking for an affordable place to retire, or are just curious about how price levels compare between different parts of the country, our regional price parities can help," Vipin Arora, the director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, said in a December post.
Texas has longbeen an attractive state for movers. Census Bureau data showed Texas had the largest positive net domestic migration — or the biggest number of people moving in from elsewhere in the US minus people leaving Texas for another state —from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, among states.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that many kinds of healthcare workers make over $100,000 on average in Texas. Ship engineers, postsecondary business teachers, and management analysts are a few of the other jobs that make over $100,000 on average in the Lone Star State.
The Dallas metro area had the highest regional price parity among the 25 Texas metros. Given the regional price parity for Dallas was 103.3 in 2023, that would mean the adjusted value of $100,000 at average national prices equals around $96,800 in that city.
Below is what $100,000 is worth in cities across Texas, ranked from lowest adjusted value to highest. We also included the2023 regional price parity for each metro in Texas.
Meta is moving its safety and content moderation teams from California to Texas and other states.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the shifts would help address concerns of bias and over-censorship.
Zuckerberg's Meta appears to be following the lead of Elon Musk's X in prioritizing free speech.
Mark Zuckerberg is moving Meta's platform security and content oversight teams out of California and shifting staff who review posts to Texas in a bid to combat concerns about liberal bias and over-censorship at his social-media empire.
The CEO of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads' parent company said on Tuesday that the moves would help return Meta to its "roots around free expression and giving people voice on our platforms."
Zuckerberg wrote that Meta would "move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US content review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content."
California is widely recognized as a progressive state while Texas is traditionally conservative. Zuckerberg likely hopes that shifting oversight of his social networks to red states like Texas will help assuage claims that blue-state liberals are silencing conservative voices.
Meta's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, confirmed the changes in a blog post, writing that the company will relocate the teams "that write our content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other US locations."
He told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday that Meta was seeking to "rebalance" and "rebuild trust" among users who felt their perspectives were not wanted on its networks.
"We want to make sure that they understand that their views are welcome and that we're providing a space for them to come onto our platforms, engage, express themselves, engage in the important issues of the day or not in the important issues of the day and just whatever it is they want to talk about and share," Kaplan said.
Meta's Joel Kaplan with CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Chesnot/Getty Images
Zuckerberg, Meta's billionaire cofounder and largest shareholder, also laid out plans to replace fact-checkers with Community Notes. He will also lift restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, ease overall censorship and instead focus on stopping illegal and severe policy violations, return civic content to users' feeds, and work with President-elect Trump to resist pressure from foreign governments to make US companies censor more.
Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in late 2022 and rebranded it X, has made free expression a priority on his platform and spearheaded the use of Community Notes as a substitute for fact-checking and censorship.
Musk also shut X's headquarters in San Francisco last fall in favor of operating the company out of Bastrop, Texas.
The Biden administration on Friday said it would stop selling off materials slated to be used to build a border wall ahead of the incoming Trump administration, which has promised to bring back tougher efforts to combat illegal immigration.
The Biden administration confirmed to a court that it will agree to a court order preventing it from disposing of any further border wall materials over the next 30 days, allowing President-elect Trump to use those materials, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.
The Biden administration has been auctioning off border wall parts since at least 2023, with parts listed for sale on auction marketplaces, after it abruptly shut down most border wall construction in 2021.
President-elect Donald Trump then urged the Biden Administration to stop. Fox News Digital has reached out to Trump's representatives.
"We have successfully blocked the Biden Administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office," Paxton said.
"This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda," he added.
In a news release, Paxton's office said that if the Biden administration disposes of border wall materials purchased with funds subject to an injunction in violation of a court order, "it would constitute unethical and sanctionable conduct and officials could be held in contempt of court."
Texas has said it intends to do all it can to help the incoming administration build the wall at the southern border when Trump enters office.
The Biden administration abruptly ended border wall construction in January 2021 after 450 miles had been built in the first Trump administration. While border hawks say a wall is a critical tool to stopping illegal immigration, some Democrats have said a wall project is xenophobic and ineffective.
The auctioning off of border wall parts began in 2023 with parts listed for sale on GovPlanet.com, an online auction marketplace. The Defense Department's logistics agency told media outlets that the excess material had been turned over for disposition by the Army Corps of Engineers and was now for sale.
Those auctions have continued, with officials in Arizona telling Fox News Digital that auctions have been occurring weekly for some time. The practice drew attention last week when The Daily Wire published video showing unused wall parts being transported on flatbed trucks in Arizona, even though the materials could be used in the next Trump administration.
Trump previously called Biden's efforts to sell unused border wall materials at a discounted rate "almost a criminal act."
Trump said the auctions would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to re-purchase the large steel bollards and concrete. He called on President Biden to "please stop selling the wall" and suggested his team would obtain a restraining order to halt the sales.
"What they're doing is really an act, it's almost a criminal act," he said. "They know we're going to use it and if we don't have it, we're going to have to rebuild it, and it'll cost double what it cost years ago, and that's hundreds of millions of dollars because you're talking about a lot of, a lot of wall."
Fox News Digital's Adam Shaw, Brooke Singman and Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.
A Texas man is being charged with attempting to smuggle over 100 illegal immigrants into the U.S. in a locked tractor trailer.
Juan Manuel Aguirre, 49, is facing a three-count indictment of conspiracy to transport an undocumented alien within the United States and the transportation of an undocumented alien within the United States for financial gain, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas on Monday.
Aguirre, a resident of the South Texas city of Laredo, was observed by law enforcement loading a large group of migrants into a white trailer in a warehouse parking lot on Dec. 2. After it departed, authorities conducted a traffic stop on the white truck hauling the trailer and allegedly found 101 undocumented immigrants, including 12 unaccompanied children, crammed in.
The Justice Department statement said two of the migrants reported having difficulty breathing and feared for their lives due to the conditions in the trailer.
Aguirre is facing 10 years in prison for each of the three counts and fines of up to $250,000.
The number of individuals sentenced for alien smuggling offenses in the U.S. has steadily risen under the Biden administration, reaching 4,731 in fiscal year 2023, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
The top five districts for human smuggling are all along the southern border. With Texas accounting for over 60% of the U.S. border with Mexico, the top two districts for human smuggling were both in Texas.
There were 64,124 alien smuggling offense cases reported in 2023. About 10% of alien smuggling cases involve unaccompanied minors.
In October, local news source KGNS reported a concerning rise in human smuggling incidents in Laredo, resulting in high-risk vehicle pursuits and other dangerous situations.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched a new billboard ad campaign in Mexico and Central America to warn potential illegal migrants of the dangers of attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally.
"We’re here to expose the truth to immigrants who are thinking about coming here, the truth about the traffickers who assault so many of the women and children along the way," the governor said. "The message is: Do not risk a dangerous trip just to be arrested and deported."
San Jose State women’s volleyball star Brooke Slusser warned the NCAA after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the organization over transgender inclusion in women’s sports.
Paxton filed the lawsuit on Sunday, accusing the organization of deceptive marketing practices for allowing transgender women to compete against biological females. Paxton said in a news release the NCAA violated the Texas Trade Practices Act "which exists to protect consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick them into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised."
Slusser, who was a part of a lawsuit against her own school and the NCAA for allowing a transgender woman on the Spartans’ roster this season, posted about Paxton’s suit.
"Hey NCAA, just in case you haven’t realized yet this fight will just keep getting harder for you until you make a change!" Slusser wrote on X.
Slusser and other plaintiffs had asked a judge to grant an injunction to prohibit Blaire Fleming from competing in the Mountain West Conference women’s volleyball tournament last month, but they were denied.
San Jose State made it to the finals of the tournament but lost to Colorado State.
Paxton accused the NCAA of "engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females."
"The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and well-being of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions," Paxton said in a statement. "When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women – not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports."
Paxton said he was seeking a court to grant a permanent injunction to prohibit the NCAA from allowing transgender athletes in women’s sports in Texas or "involving Texas teams, or alternatively requiring the NCAA to stop marketing events as ‘women’s’ when in fact they are mixed sex competitions," the news release said.
The NCAA released a statement to Fox News Digital later Sunday.
"College sports are the premier stage for women’s sports in America, and while the NCAA does not comment on pending litigation, the Association and its members will continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships," the organization said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Sunday and accused the collegiate organization of deceptive marketing practices for including transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Paxton said in a news release the NCAA violated the Texas Trade Practices Act "which exists to protect consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick them into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised."
He accused the NCAA of "engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females."
"The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions," Paxton said in a statement. "When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women—not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports."
Paxton said he was seeking a court to grant a permanent injunction to prohibit the NCAA from allowing transgender athletes in women’s sports in Texas or "involving Texas teams, or alternatively requiring the NCAA to stop marketing events as "women’s" when in fact they are mixed sex competitions," the news release said.
The NCAA released a statement to Fox News Digital later Sunday.
"College sports are the premier stage for women’s sports in America, and while the NCAA does not comment on pending litigation, the Association and its members will continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships," the organization said.
NCAA President Charlie Baker was grilled over transgender participation in sports while he was on Capitol Hill last week. He was also asked about it during an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show."
When McAfee asked Baker how the parents of daughters should feel about trans athletes in women's sports and the NCAA's record on it, Baker downplayed the impact.
"There are 510,000 college athletes playing in the NCAA, there are less than 10 transgender athletes, so it's a small community to begin with," Baker said.
Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a new billboard campaign on Thursday to warn potential illegal immigrants about the "horrific" reality of human trafficking, violence and danger facing them if they attempt to illegally enter the U.S.
Abbott said the state is placing dozens of billboards with warnings in several languages throughout Mexico and Central America.
"We’re here to expose the truth to immigrants who are thinking about coming here, the truth about the traffickers who assault so many of the women and children along the way," the governor said. "The message is: Do not risk a dangerous trip just to be arrested and deported."
Abbott, who recently made another trip to the border with the incoming border czar, Tom Homan, also emphasized that the new Trump administration will "prioritize for deportation illegal immigrants who have been arrested."
Billboards will be written in Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic, and will be placed along migrant travel routes.
The governor made his announcement at a ranch on the southern border. He was standing by a burned "rape tree," where property owners have said migrant women were routinely raped. Abbott said the billboards "tell the horror stories of human trafficking" and "inform potential illegal immigrants about the reality of what will happen to them if they try to enter Texas illegally."
One billboard written in Spanish depicts a little girl and simply asks: "How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?"
Another depicts a pregnant woman and says: "Your wife and daughter will pay for their trip with their bodies."
Abbott criticized governments and private groups who "make it sound like it may be harmless going into the state of Texas," and said the state is trying to "provide reality facts for immigrants thinking about coming here to save their lives, to save them from sexual assault, save them from being arrested and let them know there are consequences if they take any further steps to come to the state of Texas."
"This is tough medicine, but we want no more rape trees in Texas," said Abbott. "Do not make the dangerous trek to Texas."
The governor went on to lament the historic surge in illegal immigration under the Biden administration, saying: "It's a deadly situation, a horrific situation, a horror that we fully expect to end beginning in about a month when President Trump takes office and shuts down the border and restores safety and normalcy to the immigration process."
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing a New York-based abortionist for violating Texas law by shipping abortion drugs into the state.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, however, is pushing back, saying a recently passed "shield law" protects abortion providers from prosecution by other states, setting the stage for what some call an abortion "civil war" scenario.
Paxton released a statement saying the out-of-state doctor "caused serious harm" to the Texas woman and explained he was launching the suit because "in Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents."
The lawsuit, filed in the federal District Court for Collin County, posits that New York abortionist Dr. Margaret Carpenter violated Texas law and endangered a 20-year-old Texas woman by illegally shipping drugs into the state without first conducting an in-person examination of the woman to determine the gestational age of her baby.
Chemical abortions, which now account for more than 60% of all U.S. abortions, are known to present a risk of severe complications and infection in some cases. Despite this, the Biden administration further rolled back restrictions on chemical abortion, permanently allowing the drugs to be prescribed via telemedicine, shipped through mail and obtained at retail pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens.
Some states, however, including Texas, continue to restrict chemical abortion from being distributed through the mail or without a doctor’s consultation.
The 20-year-old Texas woman who obtained the abortion pills from Carpenter ended up being admitted to a local hospital because of a hemorrhage or severe bleeding as a result of the drugs, according to the Paxton lawsuit.
"Carpenter provided abortion-inducing drugs to the pregnant Collin County woman, which caused an adverse event or abortion complication and resulted in a medical abortion," the suit claims. "Carpenter’s knowing and continuing violations of Texas law places women and unborn children in Texas at risk."
The suit requests civil penalties and a permanent block on Carpenter from sending more abortion drugs to Texas women.
However, New York state has a so-called "shield" law that explicitly protects abortion providers from prosecution for prescribing abortion pills to patients in states where it is illegal. This is the first legal challenge to be launched by a state pitting one set of abortion laws against that of another.
Hochul responded to the Texas lawsuit by saying, "I will do everything in my power to enforce the laws of New York State."
"No doctor should be punished for providing necessary care to their patients," she said, adding, "As Texas attempts to limit women's rights, I'm committed to maintaining New York's status as a safe harbor for all who seek abortion care, and protecting the reproductive freedom of all New Yorkers."
Experts believe the Texas challenge could eventually be bound for the Supreme Court.
Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for the pro-life group Students for Life Action, told Fox News Digital that she is hopeful the Texas lawsuit makes its way to the Supreme Court so that it could re-examine the question of national safeguards on abortion pills.
Hamrick said that though the Supreme Court ruled against re-implementing abortion pill restrictions in a case called AHM v. FDA earlier this year, the court made it clear it was not shutting the door on restoring the safeguards through another case.
"The Supreme Court did not say that everything with the pills was great, they could be sold as they were [and] there were no problems with the pills," she explained. "What the Supreme Court said is you need to go back and start again, you've come to us with the wrong victims, they didn't have what the court called ‘standing.’"
"So, the three states have already joined in saying we have standing, we are a victim because we are paying higher emergency room bills because of these pills," she went on. "The state has a right to defend its laws. So, the state, on the face of it, has a right to defend itself and its laws and the laws of its citizens and its duly elected representatives. So, yeah, they have standing."
Students for Life Action recently launched its own challenge against abortion pills in the form of what is called a "citizen petition." The petition demands the FDA delay its plans to broaden the use of abortion drugs once again, this time to treat miscarriages, until the agency re-examines how the pills are contaminating the nation’s water supply.
"The Biden-Harris administration during COVID essentially created a de facto right to pollute and that pathological medical waste [from abortion pills] is going into the water supply across America, no one is checking on that," she said. "Abortion and miscarriage are not the same. But if you're going to conflate that and then hand out even more of these drugs without any environmental assessment, without any sense of the health and safety risks, that is reckless and dangerous and that is federal."
A State Department agency – which has been chided by conservatives for its alleged blacklisting of Americans and news outlets – is set to be refunded in the continuing resolution (CR) bill currently being hammered out among lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The Global Engagement Center has been included in page 139 of the CR. Although it doesn’t specify its budget allocation, a previous Inspector General report shows the agency’s FY 2020 budget totaled $74.26 million, of which $60 million was appropriated by Congress.
The provision in the CR can be found under "Foreign Affairs Section 301. Global Engagement Center Extension," and comes despite the State Department saying in response to a lawsuit that it intended to shut down the agency by next week.
The GEC, according to reporter Matt Taibbi, "funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer and insidious—and idiotic—new form of blacklisting" during the pandemic.
Taibbi wrote last year when exposing the Twitter Files that the GEC "flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.’"
"State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. website ZeroHedge, claiming it 'led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.'" ZeroHedge had made reports speculating that the virus had a lab origin.
Elon Musk previously described the GEC as being the "worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation."
"They are a threat to our democracy," Musk wrote in a subsequent tweet.
The GEC is part of the State Department but also partners with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Special Operations Command and the Department of Homeland Security. The GEC also funds the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).
Taibbi offered various instances in which the DFRLab and the GEC sent Twitter a list of accounts they believed were engaged in "state-backed coordinated manipulation." However, a quick glance from Twitter employees determined that the list was shoddy and included the accounts of multiple American citizens with seemingly no connection to the foreign entity in question.
DFRLab Director Graham Brookie previously denied the claim that they use tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have "an exclusively international focus."
A 2024 report from the Republican-led House Small Business Committee criticized the GEC for awarding grants to organizations whose work includes tracking domestic as well as foreign misinformation and rating the credibility of U.S.-based publishers, according to the Washington Post.
The State Department, in response to a lawsuit, said it intended to shut down the agency on Dec. 23. But the CR provision means, if passed, it will continue to operate.
The lawsuit was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Daily Wire and the Federalist, who sued the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other government officials earlier this month for "engaging in a conspiracy to censor, deplatform and demonetize American media outlets disfavored by the federal government."
The lawsuit stated that the GEC was used as a tool for the defendants to carry out its censorship.
"Congress authorized the creation of the Global Engagement Center expressly to counter foreign propaganda and misinformation," the Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a press release. "Instead, the agency weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.
The complaint describes the State Department’s project as "one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.’"
The lawsuit argued that The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and other conservative news organizations were branded "unreliable" or "risky" by the agency, "starving them of advertising revenue and reducing the circulation of their reporting and speech—all as a direct result of [the State Department’s] unlawful censorship scheme."
Meanwhile, America First Legal, headed up by Stephen Miller, President-elect Trump’s pick for deputy chief of staff for policy, revealed that the GEC used taxpayer dollars to create a video game called "Cat Park" to "Inoculate Youth Against Disinformation" abroad.
The game "inoculates players … by showing how sensational headlines, memes, and manipulated media can be used to advance conspiracy theories and incite real-world violence," according to a memo obtained by America First Legal.
Mike Benz, the executive director at the Foundation For Freedom Online, said the game was "anti-populist" and pushed certain political beliefs instead of protecting Americans from foreign disinformation, per the Tennessee Star.
A State Department spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending legislation when asked for comment by Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reached out to the GEC for comment on its potential refunding but did not immediately receive a response.
Fox News Nikolas Lanum and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
A federal appeals court ruled against Texas doctors who had tried to sue President Biden's administration over its transgender policies this week.
The three judges making up the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals did not rule on the merits of the case, but instead unanimously found that the doctors did not have standing to sue. The court's Monday decision asserted that the doctors had not violated the policy, nor did they face any threat of enforcement.
The Biden policy bans discrimination against transgender people in health care. Monday's ruling overturns a previous favorable decision for the doctors handed down by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.
Biden's Health and Human Services Department announced a rule change in 2021, choosing to interpret a section of the Affordable Care Act that banned discrimination on the basis of sex to also apply to transgender people. The three Texas doctors argued that interpretation goes beyond the text of the law.
The doctors further argued that the policy could force them to administer treatments they do not support. They cited examples like prostate cancer in a transgender woman, which would require treatment based on the individual's biological sex.
The ruling comes just weeks after the Supreme Court heard arguments in its own case on transgender policy, one relating to whether the Constitution allows for state bans on transgender surgeries for minors.
Conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared reluctant in oral arguments to overturn the Tennessee law in question in the case. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that state legislatures, rather than courts, are best equipped to regulate medical procedures. The Constitution leaves such questions "to the people's representatives," Roberts noted during arguments, rather than to nine justices on the Supreme Court, "none of whom is a doctor."
Justice Samuel Alito, however, cited "overwhelming evidence" from certain medical studies listing the negative consequences for adolescents that underwent gender transition treatments. Should the justices rule along party lines to uphold the lower court's decision, it will have sweeping implications for more than 20 U.S. states that have moved to implement similar laws.
Petitioners in the case were represented by the Biden administration and the ACLU, which sued to overturn the Tennessee law on behalf of the parents of three transgender adolescents and a Memphis-based doctor.
At issue during Wednesday's oral arguments was the level of scrutiny that courts should use to evaluate the constitutionality of state bans on transgender medical treatment for minors, such as SB1, and whether these laws are considered discriminating on the basis of sex or against a "quasi-suspect class," thus warranting a higher level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
Fox News' Breanne Deppisch and Reuters contributed to this report.
EXCLUSIVE – Ahead of President-elect Trump's inauguration, conservatives in the most populous red state in America are launching a new Texas Republican Leadership Fund (TRLF) to elect "true" conservatives to crucial leadership roles.
Despite being led by a strongly conservative Republican governor and having a commanding majority in the legislature, the last four Texas House speakers have been elected through the support of Democrats. The result has been Democrats exercising an outsized level of power and influence in the largest Republican state in the nation. An inside track with the Texas speaker also gives Democrats significant control over some of the most important issues affecting the nation, such as enforcement of Texas’ more than 1,250 miles of border.
Alex Fairly, the TRLF’s principal donor, told Fox News Digital it is time for that to change.
TRLF, which is officially registering with the Texas Ethics Commission Tuesday and launching with $20 million of initial funding, has the support of many of Texas’ most influential leaders who are intent on making the state the definitive leader in conservative politics.
While he hopes that all Republicans in the Texas House will stand with the caucus to elect a conservative leader, Fairly said the $20 million will be available for use in the primaries and upcoming 2026 general election to hold elected officials "accountable" if they side with a Democratic-backed speaker.
According to Fairly, Texas conservatives are fed up with lukewarm Republicans cutting backroom deals with Democrats in the state legislature. And as Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, he said it will be more important than ever for Texas to support the new administration’s agenda through strong conservative leadership at the state level.
"Texas leads the way on many of the biggest conservative issues," he said. "I don't think there's any question that having a Republican majority in the House… has a massive impact on what happens across the country and supporting President Trump and his agenda."
This comes amid an ongoing battle in the Texas legislature over who will be the next speaker of the House. The most recent speaker, Rep. Dade Phelan, who came to power in 2021, dropped out from consideration after facing intense criticism from Republicans for failing to pass key conservative priorities such as school choice and for his role in the unsuccessful impeachment effort against vocal Trump ally Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Now, the Texas House of Representatives is set to elect a new speaker on Jan. 14. There are two frontrunners: Phelan ally Rep. Dustin Burrows and Rep. David Cook, who is backed by more hardline conservatives.
After going to the Democratic side of the aisle to help him secure the necessary 76 votes to win the speakership, Burrows declared the race over.
However, Burrows’ attempt to bargain with Democrats has caused outrage from many conservatives, even including Donald Trump Jr., who said the move was not in line with voters’ election night "mandate" to Republicans.
"It’s unbelievable what is happening in Texas right now," he said on X. "There is a group of so-called Republicans cutting a deal with liberal Democrats to elect a speaker instead of uniting behind the Republican nominee, @DavidCookTexas! Unbelievable! Republicans have a mandate!"
Fairly, who is an entrepreneur and health care executive who has been a vocal supporter of school choice, says the race for the speakership is not set in stone. This time, he believes there is strong resolve among Texas Republicans to stop moderates from handing over control to the Democrats.
"In spite of the progress made in this past election cycle toward… conservative priorities, there may still be work to do in the next primary cycle," he said. "These funds will be available to help expand a true Republican majority."
"Democrats don't give their votes away for free, they want things in return," he went on. "So, we end up with a House that's not really run by the majority, it's co-run by Democrats and a minority of Republicans. It just puts Texas in just such a weak position to accomplish what we could if we really were led by a majority of Republicans."
"This time we're bringing this out into the light."
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is petitioning a county in the Texas Rio Grande Valley to incorporate its launch site into an official town called "Starbase, Texas," to serve as the company’s headquarters and "gateway to Mars."
Months after announcing he was moving SpaceX’s headquarters out of California, Musk exclaimed in an X post last week that "SpaceX HQ will now officially be in the city of Starbase, Texas!"
Located within Cameron County in far-south Texas, Starbase is currently an unincorporated community that serves as the hub for much of SpaceX’s rocket manufacturing, launches and operations, including the historic "rocket catch."
The rocket catch is part of SpaceX’s "Starship" program, which is housed in its Starbase facilities and is seeking to make the first fully reusable rocket designed to propel manned missions to establish a human presence on the moon and Mars.
But to get to Mars, SpaceX says it needs Starbase, Texas, to become official.
"To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That is why we are requesting that Cameron County call an election to enable the incorporation of Starbase as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley," Starbase general manager Kathryn Lueders said in a letter to Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino.
To be incorporated into a city in Texas, a county judge must order a special election in the community.
According to Lueders, incorporating Starbase will streamline the process to make Starbase a "world-class place to live" and enable the Starship program to "fundamentally alter humanity’s access to space."
Musk announced SpaceX was moving its former headquarters in Hawthorne, California, to Starbase in July. The reason for the move cited by Musk was California’s SAFETY Act, which prohibits schools from requiring teachers to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender.
"This is the final straw," Musk said on X. "Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas."
Now, Lueders said that SpaceX is investing billions in infrastructure in Cameron County and generating hundreds of millions in income and taxes for local businesses and government, "all with the goal of making South Texas the gateway to Mars."
In her letter to Trevino, Lueders called Starbase a one-of-a-kind location for SpaceX’s future.
"Starbase is a one-of-a-kind location for manufacturing, testing, and launching the most advanced rocket and spaceships ever conceived – a fully and rapidly reusable system that paves the way for humanity’s return to the Moon and eventual travel to Mars," she said. "We look forward to continuing its transformation into a world-class hub for the men and women working to make life multiplanetary."
SpaceX has submitted a petition requesting an election on incorporating the company's Starbase launch site as a city, according to a letter sent to local officials on Thursday.
Musk has been floating the idea of turning the launch site into a city for several years, with SpaceX first approaching officials in Cameron County, Texas, about the plan in 2021.
Holding an election to incorporate Starbase is the next step. In the letter to local officials, Starbase general manager Kathryn Lueders wrote that the goal of the site was to make South Texas "a gateway to Mars."
She said thousands of SpaceX employees work at the launch facility, with several hundred living on-site.
Reposting the letter on X, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the "city of Starbase" will also be the site of the company's new headquarters.
The billionaire said the move was in response to a California law prohibiting rules requiring teachers to notify parents if a child changes their name, pronouns, or gender identity at school.
Musk has also frequently clashed with local regulators. SpaceX sued the California Coastal Commission after members criticized his political views and denied a request to increase the number of launches in the state.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, has filed a lawsuit against a New York doctor who allegedly prescribed abortion drugs to a woman in the Lone Star State, violating Texas law.
Paxton accused Dr. Margaret Carpenter of mailing pills from New York to a 20-year-old woman in Collin County, Texas, where the woman allegedly took the medication when she was nine weeks pregnant, according to the lawsuit.
When she began experiencing severe bleeding, she asked the baby's father, who had been unaware she was pregnant, to take her to the hospital.
The filing does not state if the woman successfully terminated her pregnancy or if she experienced any long-term medical complications from taking mifepristone and misoprostol.
Paxton's lawsuit is the first attempt to test legal protections when it comes to states with conflicting abortion laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal protection on the matter.
Texas has enacted an abortion ban with few exceptions, while New York protects access to the procedure and has a shield law that protects providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions, which has been viewed as implicit permission for doctors to mail abortion pills into states with restrictions.
Texas has promised to pursue cases like this regardless of the shield laws, though it is unclear what the courts may decide on this issue, which involves extraterritoriality, interstate commerce and other legal questions. New York’s law allows Carpenter to refuse to comply with Texas' court orders.
It is also unknown whether New York courts would side with protecting Texas' law, which prohibits prescribing abortion-inducing drugs by mail and prohibits treating Texas patients or prescribing medication through telehealth services without a valid Texas medical license.
Texas’ abortion laws prohibit prosecuting a woman for getting an abortion, but do allow for physicians or others who assist a woman in receiving the procedure to be prosecuted.
The lawsuit says Carpenter, the founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, knowingly treated Texas residents despite not being a licensed Texas physician and not being authorized to practice telemedicine in the state. Paxton urged a Collin County court to prohibit Carpenter from violating Texas law and impose civil penalties of at least $100,000 for each violation.
"In this case, an out-of-state doctor violated the law and caused serious harm to this patient," Paxton said in a statement. "This doctor prescribed abortion-inducing drugs — unauthorized, over telemedicine — causing her patient to end up in the hospital with serious complications. In Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents."
Carpenter also works with AidAccess, an international abortion medication provider, and helped found Hey Jane, a telehealth abortion provider.
EXCLUSIVE: The House Small Business Committee is releasing its year-end interim report on what it found to be the "weaponizing [of] federal resources" for political purposes within the Small Business Administration.
Earlier this year, Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, committee chair, issued a rare subpoena to Small Business Administration officials over their work in connection with an official Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) forged with the Michigan Department of State.
The MOU was in accordance with President Biden’s 2021 executive order "14019: Promoting Access to Voting." However, the committee alleged the SBA had been involved in partisan voter registration outreach in a key swing state – rather than simply aiding voters across the board.
The committee report, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, found Biden's executive order to be an "improper use of executive authority" and that SBA actions in accordance with it thereby "pose unnecessary risks to the integrity of U.S. elections."
"The SBA’s MOU with the State of Michigan and travel patterns of senior SBA officials indicate the conflation of official duty and partisan political activities," the committee found.
"Either intentionally or negligently, the SBA has failed to refute concerns of this MOU’s partisan nature."
The committee’s report also found the SBA "strayed from its core mission" in working with Michigan under the voter registration MOU, and that it "engaged in a protracted campaign to obscure the makeup of its implementation of E.O. 14019 and obfuscate the truth of alleged political activities at the SBA to the committee."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., praised the work of the committee and its interim report, saying it rightly exposed "not only the improper use of executive authority but also significant concerns about actions taken by an agency that may jeopardize the integrity of U.S. elections."
"The stark contrast between the SBA’s core mission and its involvement in voter registration activities highlights the urgent need for greater transparency and accountability," Johnson said.
Johnson added he and the GOP caucus are looking forward to working with President-elect Trump to end such "abuses."
The 47-page report further alleged the SBA exceeded the requirements of state and federal laws, including the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, the Anti-Deficiency Act, and the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from politicking in their official capacity.
In May, Williams and his committee, along with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, demanded travel schedules, official calendars and other documents from the SBA. In addition, at least one Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit was separately launched by the right-leaning Oversight Project for some of the same documents as Congress was being purportedly "stonewalled."
Williams initially accused the SBA and Administrator Isabel Casillas-Guzman of shirking her responsibility to help "Main Street" and instead focusing on registering voters in heavily Democratic parts of Michigan like Detroit and Saginaw – while ignoring committee oversight demands.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., chair of the House Administration Committee – whose panel has oversight over legislative matters relating to elections – said that while elections are partisan affairs, election administration should not be.
"The Biden-Harris administration partnering with the Michigan Department of State to use your taxpayer dollars for a partisan purpose should never be allowed," he said.
Digging into the executive order that the SBA’s actions aimed to align with, Williams’ report found it changed the way the executive branch enforces the National Voter Registration Act, and uniquely requires agency officials to work with the White House to find ways to support federal employees who wish to volunteer as election workers or watchers.
The report added that the choice of Michigan as the petri dish for the SBA’s work under the executive order caught the committee’s attention early, due to its routine status as a swing state and the fact its top officials were "sympath[etic]" to the Biden-Harris campaign.
"This interim report illustrates how the MOU blurs the line between personal political beliefs and the official duties of SBA and Michigan state employees," the document reads.
The report also included copies of email chains between the White House, SBA and/or outside advocacy organizations.
"The committee discovered that many senior SBA employees have relationships with these left-leaning organizations," it read.
"Notably, the Biden-Harris Administration ‘warmly welcomed’ these relationships between nonpartisan agencies and left-leaning organizations."
In summing up and reacting to the report, Williams said the SBA was created to "aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns."
In previous remarks to Fox News Digital, the top Democrat on Williams' committee expressed dismay at the subpoenas and investigatory practices by Williams in probing the MOU.
In a statement, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., said the committee had long prided itself on "bipartisan cooperation to help American entrepreneurs."
"Unfortunately, with [these] subpoenas, Republicans have rejected these principles to pursue a partisan inquiry," Velazquez said.
Representatives for the SBA have repeatedly denied the allegations made by Congress’ investigation.
In October, a spokesperson for Guzman said the explicit allegations of "stonewalling" the committee’s work were "demonstrably false."
A spokesperson for the SBA told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that any allegations of "stonewalling" are "demonstrably false."
"For nearly two years, the SBA has cooperated with the committee’s inquiry, testifying at multiple hearings, providing the committee staff with briefings, making agency officials available for transcribed interviews, and producing thousands of pages of documents responsive to their inquiry," the spokesperson said, calling the allegations "baseless."
America's 14-year drought of women's figure skating Grand Prix champions ended Saturday when Amber Glenn overcame elite Japanese opponents to take first place.
Glenn won the first women's singles final gold medal for the U.S. since 2010.
She held off Japan's Mone Chiba, Hana Yoshida, Kaori Sakamoto, Rino Matsuike and Wakaba Higuchi, who finished second through sixth in that order. Glenn's victory came by a margin of just 0.69 points over Chiba.
At 25, the Texan is the oldest Grand Prix Final winner since Russia’s Irina Slutskaya won her fourth and final title in December 2004 at 26. It sets Glenn up as a top contender at the world championships in Boston March 23-30, less than a year out from the 2026 Olympics.
There was a time in Glenn's career when it appeared she would achieve a feat like this much sooner. In 2014, she won the U.S. junior championships. But she stepped away from skating in 2015 over issues with depression.
She returned later that year but had one of the worst performances of her career with a sixth-place finish at the 2015 Autumn Classic International. She has since called the experience "a disaster," according to The Washington Post.
She took another leave from the sport after that and has since revealed that, during that time, she was told by doctors to leave the sport "indefinitely." But she returned to training in early 2016. Glenn never quite lived up to her 2014 junior championship form in senior level competitions after that.
In December 2019, Glenn announced she was pansexual, meaning she's romantically attracted to people regardless of gender.
"The fear of not being accepted is a huge struggle for me," she told Dallas Voice. "Being perceived as ‘just a phase’ or ‘indecisive’ is a common thing for bisexual/pansexual women. I don’t want to shove my sexuality in people’s faces, but I also don’t want to hide who I am."
Glenn cited the North Texas-based ice skating team of Ashley Cain-Gribble and her queer partner Timothy LeDuc as "role models" in her accepting her sexuality, according to Dallas Voice.
In an interview with Team USA in 2021, Glenn said her experience growing up as a figure skater introduced her to gay stereotypes. She later said she developed "crushes" on female skaters.
"Growing up in figure skating, the stereotype was always that the men were gay," Glenn said. "At 16, when my friends and training mates were starting to look at the opposite sex, I was crushing on both males and females."
Glenn has only been known to have a romantic relationship with men's figure skater Nathan Chen. The two dated in 2016, expressing their affection through Instagram posts.
"My love for you formed gradually. Your personality, your voice, your hair, your eyes, your humor, everything. You’re the one person I need to talk to when I’m having a bad day, the one person I can rely on to not judge me. You’re my rock, my best friend, and the most amazing boyfriend I could ask for," she wrote to Chen in an Instagram post.
Their relationship is believed to have ended in 2017, and she came out as pansexual two years after that. Glenn said that she was afraid being openly pansexual "would affect her scores" in an interview with NBC Sports in January.
"When I came out initially, I was terrified. I was scared it would affect my scores or something," she told the ouglet.
It didn't affect her scores enough to keep her from winning a historic medal Saturday.
Glenn is now in position to make her first Winter Olympics team.
