DHS shuts down aerial surveillance on border

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security quietly shut down Operation Phalanx, an aerial surveillance program that intercepts drugs and illegal crossings along the Mexican border. Cuellar, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Homeland Security Subcommittee, is drafting a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson protesting the shutdown.

Alcoa’s new spinoff Arconic taps ex-Cornyn chief of staff as lobbyist

Alcoa signage displayed on a monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 21 Aluminum giant Alcoa's spinoff into two companies is slated to take effect Tuesday - and the new spinoff, Arconic, already has a Washington lobbyist. Arconic has tapped Russ Thomasson, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn , to serve as the company's first hired gun on K Street.

Federal agencies offer conflicting reasons for delay in family benefits for slain border officer

APRIL 11: U.S. Border Patrol agents and a pilot from the U.S. Office of Air and Marine , stop to talk on April 11, 2013 in La Joya, Texas. In the last month the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector has seen a spike in the number of immigrants crossing the river from Mexico into Texas.

GOP mostly powerless in stopping Obama ‘midnight regulations’ – Mon, 19 Sep 2016 PST

Republican lawmakers are bracing for a slew of last-minute rules and regulations, as well as more executive actions to place swaths of land under federal protection, during President Barack Obama's final months in office. "Midnight regulations" are a feature of any lame-duck administration and represent a president's last opportunity to lock in rules on legacy issues.

Analysis: That Silly Perry Vs. Cruz Idea? Don’t Be So Quick to Dismiss It

Pitting Ted Cruz and Rick Perry against each other in a political survey is just the sort of silly clickbait pollsters and headline writers love. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, released a survey this week saying Cruz would lose to the former governor in a hypothetical Republican primary for re-election.

Taking on Ted

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, is not ruling out challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2018, but he's emphasizing that he is not focused on it for now. "Like Reagan said, never say never, but it's not something I'm spending a whole lot of time thinking about right now," McCaul told reporters Wednesday in Austin.

The Brief: A New Look at the Cost of Detaining Asylum Seekers

Protestors left their signs on the fence surrounding the South Texas Family Residential Center near Dilley, Texas on May 2, 2015. A new Washington Post report takes a close look at the $1 billion contract given to the nation's largest prison company by the federal government to build a facility in the South Texas town of Dilley to detain women and children seeking asylum.

Texas has a front row seat to NAFTA, one of the campaign’s most contentious policies.

Caught between the anti-globalist tirades of their presidential standard bearer and their state's close trade ties with Mexico, Texas congressional Republicans are straddling a tricky political line when it comes to talk of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Texas governor makes first public event since hospital stay

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn speaks during the ground breaking ceremony for the Harbor Bridge replacement project at the Ortiz Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, Monday, Aug. 8, 2016. The project will replace the aging hat-shaped bridge that's a signature landmark of the coastal city.

Rep. Joaqu n Castro: Sen. Ted Cruz ‘freaked out’ over potential Senate challenge against him

Sen. Ted Cruz "freaked out" over news reports that Rep. JoaquA n Castro is eyeing a run against him in 2018, the Democrat said Thursday. "He freaked out," Castro told reporters at a Texas delegation breakfast meeting, when asked about a fundraising email Cruz's campaign sent after the Democrat publicly discussed a possible Senate bid .

Roy Kent: School boards are more important than presidents

In the coming weeks and months, we will all be inundated with polls, pundits and speeches telling us one presidential candidate is going to win in November. Be it Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump - no third-party candidate will make even a marginal ripple in the presidential pool party this year - we will have a new president after the polls close on Nov. 8. What does that mean? It means that the decisions of your local school board have a greater affect on you that anything in Washington, D.C. Just look at it this way: school districts around here pass multi-million budgets wherein they spend whatever moneys they have to educate area children.

Texas Gov. Abbott: Targeted killing of police should be a hate crime

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responds to questions about the police shootings during a news conference at City Hall in Dallas in early July. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants the targeted killing of a police officer to be deemed a hate crime in Texas and urged lawmakers to send him such a bill to sign during next year's legislative session.

Bill Whitaker: Can Republicans heal our nation’s festering racial wounds?

Whatever one thinks of his embattled and often erratic presidency, President Obama remains unrivaled as an orator. And America's first black president put both law enforcement and the African-American community on notice during his 40-minute address at Tuesday's memorial service for five Dallas police officers slain by a Black Lives Matter sympathizer bent on cold-blooded murder during an otherwise peaceful protest regarding, ironically, police use of deadly force nationwide.

The next chapter of the gun-control showdown comes to the House this week

The House will vote on gun-control legislation this week as part of a broader package of counterterrorism measures, but it will do little to end the political discord between Republicans and Democrats over how Congress should respond to the recent mass shooting in Orlando. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Friday announced there would be a vote this week on legislation that incorporates a broad swath of Republican proposals to counter radicalization in the United States.

Congress dawdles on Zika as U.S. threat grows

In late February, the White House asked Congress for $1.9 billion in emergency money to stem the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which at the time had been tentatively linked to birth defects in South America. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluded that the virus does cause birth defects, including microcephaly.