(Ed.'s Note: We received word that Joe Rivera, a Robstown native who came to Brownsville decades ago and ran for Cameron County Clerk at the time that Ray Ramon was county judge and Eddie Lucio Jr. was county treasurer, died today after suffering complications from his battle with cancer. He ran for office and served as county clerk in 1974 until 1982. After a four year hiatus, he ran again for office in 1984 and served continuously until 2014, holding the seat for over 30 years. He worked with six different county judges in his lifetime and later ran for county judge himself. Our condolences to his friends and family.)
Tariffs raise the cost of doing business outside the United States. Yet even firms that manufacture in the United States can be affected, since many rely on foreign parts and materials as intermediate goods.
Whether consumers ultimately feel the impact of those higher costs can vary by industry and product.
Lots of negotiation occurs among a U.S. importer, an overseas producer and any middlemen before a tariff is collected, said Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves, a supply-chain consultancy.
Some companies, including Target, Best Buy and Hyundai, have said they would pass some of the higher costs of the tariffs along to their customers. Walmart, meanwhile, has sought to pressure its Chinese suppliers to lower their costs in anticipation of the tariffs — and has been met with resistance.
Other companies, especially luxury-goods sellers, charge enormous markups on goods they import into the United States and may ultimately decide they can live with hits to already-high profit margins, Fuller said. Other firms that enjoy large market shares will also decide whether they will absorb higher costs to maintain their dominant positions.
Even for companies that absorb the cost of the tariffs and don’t raise prices, there will still be a cost. Those companies will have less money to invest in growing their businesses, which can have a negative impact on the labor market if it leads to laying off workers or not adding jobs.
TARIFFS AND TARGETED COUNTRIES
Steel and aluminum: A 25 percent U.S. tariff on imports of steel and aluminum from all countries took effect on Wednesday, March 12.
European Union: The EU has responded to those metals duties with counter-tariffs on $28 billion in U.S. goods from April. However, the EU delayed the implementation of some of those tariffs until mid-April — including a 50 percent duty on American whiskey, which had prompted Trump to threaten a 200 percent tariff on European spirits.
Canada and Mexico: Trump's across-the-board tariffs on its U.S. neighbors went into effect on Tuesday, March 4. Just two days later, Trump confirmed the US would pause tariffs on goods and services compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) until April 2. For its part, Canada retaliated to the steel and aluminum tariffs with new duties on about $20 billion of US goods.
China: Trump has enacted new blanket tariffs of around 20 percent on top of existing 10 percent duties that went into place during Trump's first term. China has responded with up to 15 percent duties on US farm goods such as chicken and pork, which went into effect Monday, March 10.
Venezuela: Trump said the US will impose a "secondary tariff" on Venezuela, to take effect on April 2 — any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela would face a 25 percent tariff when trading with the US.
Bringing manufacturing to the United States can also increase the cost of production, because labor,
regulatory and building costs are higher in the United States, which in turn could raise the prices of end products for consumers. If companies do bring production to the United States, the number of jobs could also be limited because manufacturing has become more automated. Auto plants or steel mills that once employed tens of thousands of workers now employ just several thousand.
Building manufacturing plants in the United States could get even more expensive as a result of the tariffs, because it would cost more to import the building materials, parts and equipment needed for the plants.
It could be nearly impossible to make other products, like shoes or T-shirts, in the United States at competitive prices because the United States doesn’t have the available labor or supply chains to make them on a large scale.
(Ed.'s Note: We received a text and photo from two of our friends who spent a few days in Central America, Honduras, to be exact. They texted us that they were spending a week on the Island of Guanaja, off Honduras' eastern coast. This set us thinking that we had come across that island in the past during our recounting of Central American history. We looked, and we had. It was here that a group of captured natives was being taken to enslavement aboard a Spanish caravele, at that time the most advanced sailing vessel that had crossed the Atlantic to the New World. Incredibly, the natives – used to canoes – seized control of the ship and sailed back home, to the shock of their captors. We post that story and thank our intrepid travelers for reminding us.)
By Juan MontoyaThe year was 1515.
Spanish Queen Isabella had, in 1503, issued the astonishing and momentous order to permit the enslavement of natives in the New World "discovered" by Columbus only 11 years earlier.
While ostensibly it protected natives from capture or injury, it made an exception of "a certain people called Cannibals" who had been asked to mend their ways and become Christians but who had hardened their hearts and "continued to eat Indians and kill Christians."
This was all propaganda being brought back to the catholic queen by her conquistadors who were decimating the native population by demanding a daily gold tribute as they tried to enrich themselves but found that the natives were dying faster than they could amass their wealth.
For this reason the Queen said: "For the present I give license and power to all and sundry persons who may go by my orders on the Islands and Terra Firme of the Ocean Sea discovered to the present, as well as to those who may go to discover other islands and Terra Firme, that is said cannibals continue to resist and do not wish to admit and receive to their native lands that Captains and men who may be on such voyages by my orders not to hear them in order to be taught our Sacred Catholic Faith and to be in my service and obedience, they may be captured and taken to these my kingdoms and domains and to other parts and places and sold."
And so it came to be that 12 years later Diego Velasquez de Cuellar was sending out ships on slave raids to replace the Cuban natives who were being used up. In a letter he wrote then to Diego Columbus in Santo Domingo, Velasquez told the Admiral's son about an incident that had happened when a ship and a bark were sent from Santiago to hunt slaves in the Guanaja Islands (the Bay Islands off Honduras discovered by Columbus in 1502).
Bartolome de Las Casas quotes from the letter which was later copied and published by Herrera in Decade, II, Bk. 2, ch. 7. "The bark remained to hunt more Indians, and the ship returned to the port of Carenas (the present Havana), with its captured Indians confined below.
While most of the Spaniards were taking their ease on the Cuban shore the Indians broke the hatch, seized the ship, ran up the sails, and fled. That they made it back home was known when the wreck of the ship was found on the Bay Islands by a party Velasquez sent out to avenge the affront."
This incident – preceding the hijacking of the ship Amistad by African slaves in 1839 from a Cuban schooner after a mutiny by some 324 years – has been forgotten in the mists of history. But while the African slaves, led by Cinque, were tricked by two Spanish sailors to sail northward from Cuba instead of east toward Africa, the natives of the New World actually succeeded in returning home sailing the ship themselves.
When I read this account from Carl Ortwin Sauer's The Early Spanish Main to my kids, their questions were predictable.
"How could Indians who had never been aboard a Spanish sailing vessel manage to successfully sail it back to their island?" asked one. "How far was it from Guanaja to Havana and back?"
We looked it up in the World Atlas and found that Guanaja is approximately 300 miles by sea from present-day Havana. Also, that in order to return the way they came, the Indians had to navigate a complex path and negotiate through winds and currents from the north side of Cuba, around the island, and head southwest toward Honduras.
This mystified my kids and their questions abounded. "How could they learn how to do that if they were kept in the ship's hold all the time?" asked another. "Were they watching the Spaniards from below after they were captured and made slaves?"
We must remember that at the time this happened, the Spanish ships were the culmination of Portuguese and Spanish technology that had taken them around the cape of Africa and beyond. They were the cutting edge of maritime vessels.
One can only imagine what the more timid souls among the natives argued, but some of their objections to strike a blow for freedom are predictable. "What if we can't sail it? What if we sink? What if we are punished? What if slavery turns out to be not so bad compared to the unknowns?"
I could not in honesty answer my children on the motives that drove the Indians to their eventual decision, but only asked them what they would do if they they knew they were destined to be sold as slaves and had no other recourse. Would they dare to navigate through uncharted waters, to brave the dangers, to learn what was necessary to survive as free people?
Freedom, it is said, is a powerful motivator. The freedom to choose what you want to do, to not allow someone else to dictate to you what you can do with your person, your home and family, or your belongings is the most basic of human drives.
Apparently, this was not the only time natives attempted to take the ships into which they were bound to be thrust into slavery. At least one other attempt has been documented in that era, but alas, it failed. We can only guess at the fate these unfortunates suffered at the hands of the queen's conquistadors.
But somewhere on beautiful Guanaja, those natives who overcame their fears and took the chance of controlling their own destiny and not allow outside intruders to take what they valued and loved most, prospered and eventually became inhabitants of a free country.
(As for our friends, a justice of the peace and her attorney husband: Welcome back and thanks for rekindling those memories.)
Trump news: It’s hard to believe this video was filmed in the United States. It no longer should be. This is the future republicans want for us. In the words of the judge overseeing this blatant disregard for the constitution. "Nazis had more due process than these students." El Pais is reporting that the dictator in El Salvador is taking these people in exchange for trump sending back the “leaders of the MS 13” who were supposed to stay in prison- turns out he made a pact with the gangs.)
By Aymann Ismail
Slate
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Ph.D. scholar on a student visa at Tufts University, was walking down a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Tuesday night to meet friends to break her Ramadan fast when a man in a dark hoodie and baseball cap crossed the street toward her.
Chilling surveillance shows the moment he approaches: “Excuse me, ma’am,” he says politely, his tone disarming. Ozturk hesitates and tries to sidestep him. Another man in plainclothes appears across the street. One reaches for a radio. The other moves in. Watch, with the sound on:
One of the men goes for her phone. The other grabs at her hands. Ozturk screams. Shock and fear ripple through her voice. Two masked women join them, tugging at her backpack, peeling the straps from her shoulders. “I’m going somewhere, I need to call someone,” she pleads. “We’re the police. Relax,” one of the men says in response.
They surround her. Then, one by one, they pull their neck gaiters up to cover their faces. “You don’t look like police,” a voice off screen says. “Why are you hiding your faces?” The questions continue, but the figures don’t respond. Instead, they cuff Ozturk, cross the street, and put her in an unmarked SUV. She is gone.
The video is haunting. You can see Ozturk’s panic set in, and the clear impunity the agents feel in taking her and vanishing with no explanation. Just days after the Trump administration successfully pressured Columbia University to ban masks at campus demonstrations, these agents concealed their identities and arrived in an unmarked vehicle, asserting only that they were the authorities, period.
Ozturk’s lawyer later said she hadn’t been able to contact her and had no idea of her whereabouts; the New York Times reported she appeared to have been moved to a facility in central Louisiana, as with Mahmoud Khalil, whose own shadowy deportation case has been at the forefront of a constitutional crisis. (Khalil, a Columbia graduate and lawful permanent U.S. resident, was detained and accused —again without evidence — of supporting Hamas. His green card was revoked, and he was taken away from his eight-months-pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen. He too also briefly disappeared.)
It would be hard to believe this scene was happening in the United States if this was not the explicit and proud policy of the Trump administration. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson later claimed Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization.” The person said Ozturk, who is from Turkey, had had her student visa revoked.
To be perfectly clear, Ozturk is not accused of breaking the law. The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t bothered to explain its reasoning, but several outlets reported that Ozturk co-authored a student opinion piece urging Tufts to recognize the International Court of Justice’s declaration of a “plausible risk of genocide” unfolding in Gaza and to divest from Israel. You can read the article if you like. It does not mention Hamas.
As a Muslim American, in moments like these, it feels like there isn’t much else left to say. The Trump administration is trying to normalize a disquieting new chapter of something that’s happened now for nearly three decades. In that time, we’ve watched our communities surveilled, detained, blacklisted, and interrogated under the guise of national security.
After 9/11, hundreds of Muslim immigrants were swept up and held without charge — some in solitary confinement for months. The NYPD mapped our neighborhoods, infiltrated our mosques, spied on our student groups at places like Yale, Rutgers, and the University of Pennsylvania. (I once discovered it kept a file on me.)
None of it produced a single terrorism lead. These stories don’t just vanish when the news cycle goes on. They remain with us, in a country where many of us were born but will always be viewed with suspicion. The message has been clear: The government will find a reason to come for us.
By petition for writ of mandamus filed in cause number 13-24-00566-CV and by notice of appeal filed in cause number 13-24-00579-CV, the City of San Benito (City) and Mayor Ricardo Guerra seek to set aside trial court orders that restrain them “from adopting [or] confirming any results from the November 5, 2024 election relating to the propositions and/or charter amendments identified in Order Number 2024-0806-001” and rendering void “all votes strictly from the November 5, 2024 election relating to the propositions and/or charter amendments identified in Order Number 2024-0806-001.”
(On Nov. 4 in Cameron County’s 197th state District Court, visiting Judge Michael Garcia voided the election following two weeks of early voting, citing a violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
“The city disagrees with the judge’s decision to void the election and plans on taking any and all action necessary to fully protect the rights of its citizens to vote and the legitimate outcome of the votes cast by the citizens of San Benito,” city officials said then in a news release and appealed his decision to the 13th Court of Appeals.)
"We address both causes in a single opinion in the interests of judicial economy and efficiency In cause number 13-24-00579-CV, we reverse and remand, and in cause number 13-24- 00566-CV, we dismiss.
"On August 2, 2024, the City posted a notice for a regularly scheduled meeting of the City Commission to be held on August 6, 2024. The notice included eight “CONSENT AGENDA ITEM(S),” which were “considered to be routine,” would “be approved by one motion,” and for which “[t]here [would] be no separate discussion.” One of these items was identified as, “Consideration and possible action to approve Order Number 2024-0806-001, for the City of San Benito November 5, 2024, Charter Amendment Special Election.”
"At the meeting, the City Commission approved Order Number 2024-0806-001, which provided for an election to be held on November 5, 2024, for the purpose of voting on the following five proposed amendments to the San Benito City Charter:
Proposition A
Amendments to the City of San Benito Charter for consistency with state law.
Proposition B
An amendment to the City of San Benito Charter requiring all members of
the City Commission to reside within the City limits during their term of
office.
Proposition C
An amendment to the City of San Benito Charter authorizing the City Commission to make appointments to the City Commission in the case of a vacancy where there is less than 365 days remaining in the vacant term.
Proposition D
An amendment to the City of San Benito Charter to allow the City Manager to reside outside the city limits.
Proposition E
An amendment to the City of San Benito Charter to provide for process and reasons for removal of municipal judges.
"On October 17, 2024, Julian Rios, a registered voter residing in San Benito, filed a lawsuit against the City and Guerra alleging that they “violated the Texas Open Meetings Act [(TOMA)] by failing to provide the public with proper notice of the vote on and substance of Order Number 2024-0806-001.” Rios thus asserted that Order Number 2024-0806-001, the propositions, the charter amendments, and any votes cast regarding the propositions were void. Rios sought declaratory relief and injunctive relief. The trial court thereafter issued two restraining orders which are not at issue in these proceedings.
"On November 5, 2024, voters passed four of the five propositions regarding amendments to the City Charter. Specifically, voters passed Propositions A, B, C, and E, but they did not pass Proposition D, which would have allowed the city manager to reside outside the city limits.
"The City and Guerra (appellants) present seven issues asserting that the trial court abused its discretion in granting injunctive relief because: (1) the TOMA claim and injunctive relief claim under it were not ripe; (2) Rios failed to establish a probable right to recovery for the TOMA claim and failed to establish irreparable harm; (3) the TOMA claim is moot; (4) the orders improperly interfered with an election; (5) the orders create an undue hardship; (6) the injunctive relief exceeds the status quo; and (7) the trial court granted affirmative relief in the absence of a showing that the injunction was necessary to prevent irreparable injury or extreme hardship.
"...(T)he trial court’s orders improperly interfered with the elective process, once it had begun, in violation of the doctrine regarding separation of powers and the judiciary’s deference to the legislative branch...Accordingly, we conclude that under the circumstances present here, the trial court’s orders represented an impermissible exercise of judicial power that interfered in the political process. As stated previously, we dismiss the original proceeding filed in 13-24-00566-CV as moot. We likewise dismiss the motion to stay, previously carried with the case, as moot."
SAN BENITO — Locked in a year-long legal battle with the developer of San Benito’s first resaca-side commercial development, officials are going to court against Texas Regional Bank, accusing the financial institution of placing a “fraudulent” $3.4 million lien on city-owned land.
In the lawsuit filed in Hidalgo County, the city’s Economic Development Corporation claims the bank did not receive the agency’s approval when it placed the lien on 9.8 acres on which sits the Resaca Village development.
About two weeks ago, a Texas Regional Bank representative notified EDC officials the bank had placed the lien on the agency-owned land in 2023, Micheal Pruneda, the EDC’s attorney, said during a news conference Thursday.
In the lawsuit, the EDC, a bank customer, demands a jury trial while seeking $1 million in damages.
On Thursday, Jacque Kruppa, Texas Regional Bank’s chief legal officer, did not respond to messages requesting comment.Now, the EDC’s requesting the court remove the bank’s lien.
“SBEDC, the landowner subject to the fraudulently filed (lien), seeks an order from the court that would result in the removal from all records, public and private, (the lien) recorded by TRB with the knowledge that the document was a fraudulent lien against real property and interests, filed with the intent that the lien be given the same legal effect as a valid lien and recorded knowing that it would cause financial injury,” the EDC states in the lawsuit.
The EDC argues the bank placed the lien on the property “without the lawful consent of the SBEDC’s board of directors and the elected governing body, resulting in a breach of its fiduciary duties” and “against the interests, financial and otherwise, of SBEDC.”
In the lawsuit, officials accuse the bank of negligence, claiming “it knew or should have known that SBEDC would suffer harm from the breach of the duties that it owed to SBEDC proximately resulting in actual damages to SBEDC.”
The lawsuit also argues the bank violated its relationship with the EDC as its customer.
“TRB, as a depository of SBEDC, was in a fiduciary relationship with SBEDC and owed it certain fundamental and non-waivable duties in connection with its administration of accounts, assets and interests,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit argues the bank violated its responsibilities to the EDC including its duties “not to exceed the authority granted to it, … to make and timely disclose conflicts of interest, … to make and timely disclose material facts that might affect SBEDC’s interests, … to treat SBEDC fairly and impartially” and “to act competently.”‘For lease’ signs dot a cluster of empty storefronts Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022, at Varco Real Estate’s Resaca Village on Business Highway 77 in San Benito. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)The lawsuit widens the city’s legal battle surrounding Resaca Village a year after officials became locked in court actions with VARCO, the Brownsville-based real estate company developing the plaza off Business 77.
Among Texas Regional Bank’s board of directors is Carlos Varela, who is a partner at VARCO.
At Resaca Village, the bank’s branch office anchors the development nearing completion.
In court, the city and VARCO are disputing the Resaca Village’s ownership.
In April 2024, VARCO filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming San Benito’s economic arm breached the parties’ contracts surrounding the development of Resaca Village, failing to "honor its obligations" under an agreement extending its construction timeline while claiming its amendments “void” because city commissioners had not approved them.
In response, the city filed counter suit claiming VARCO breached its contract when the company failed to comply with the city’s agreements granting extensions on the project’s completion, originally set for 2022.
12. Consideration and possible action on the renaming of the TSC Legal Center
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
A unanimous board of the Texas Southmost College voted Thursday to rename the TSC Legal Center to the Ruben Herrera Legal Center after the late board member, a Brownsville attorney.
With only trustee Tony Zavaleta absent due to illness, the motion to rename it was made by TSC board president Adela Garza and seconded by trustee Delia Saenz and passed without dissent.
Said trustee Alejandra Aldrete: "I would like to say that he deserves this recognition because he was the pioneer wanting to make the legal center."
Trustee Delia Saenz: "I had the honor and the privilege of working with Ruben...and he was most enthusiastic about this project. He talked to everybody about it. He got everybody on board. I remember the day we went to the federal courthouse and he told us 'our building is going to look like this.'...and he said, 'our students deserve only the best. And we're going to have the best.' And look what was raised. We have a building like no other. I know Ruben would be very proud to see the progress that has taken place in this past year. We're going to miss this next week when we have the first mock trial. I just want to say that it's an honor to have that building named after Ruben."
Trustee Dr. Norma Lopez-Harris: "I know how passionate he was with this legal center and he is most deserving of this named for him. I'm very happy for that."
Trustee Edgar G. Garcia, P.A.: "For me it is an honor of a lifetime for me to be filling in his shoes and legacy he left behind...For me that motivates me and propels me to continue on the legacy he has built...and doing this for him., I think is a great tribute to his legacy to the continuation of many generations to follow.""
Trustee Edward C. Camarillo: "There is no doubt that he has left a positive impact on this campus. When he was supporting my campaign and me, I knew that he was doing it for the love of TSC. It is quite fitting that this building and all his efforts that went into this was for future generations...I know he is missed every single day."
A visitation for Andres "Andy" Vega will be held Tuesday, April 1, 2025 from 2:00 to 9 P.M. at St Luke Catholic Church, 2800 Rockwell Dr., Brownsville.
A mass will occur Wednesday, April 2, 2025 at 10 A.M. St. Luke's and bburial will occur Wednesday, April 2, at 11 A.M. at Rose Lawn Memorial Gardens, 4464 Old Port Isabel Road.
On March 23, 2025, Andres Vega, Jr. passed to eternal rest peacefully while surrounded by his family.
He was genuinely dedicated to the love of his life, Olivia. Married for 64 years, they were always together for family functions, attending their children's sports and band events, church events, and other community activities.
Sundays after church were spent traveling throughout the Rio Grande Valley with the kids in the back seat, showing them the sights of this great valley and its beaches. As a couple, they travelled to the Holy Land, where he was baptized in the Jordan River and walked the streets Jesus walked.
Andy was born in Brownsville, Texas, on February 26, 1937, and was raised in Los Fresnos, Texas, where he attended school and graduated from Los Fresnos High School in 1955.
He served the United States Armed Forces, 7th Army from 1957 to 1959, stationed in West Germany, and received an Honorable Discharge on April 30, 1963.
He graduated in 1963 from the Rio Grande Valley Police Academy. He began his law enforcement career with the Brownsville Police Department. From 1963 to 1972, he was a Uniformed Patrol Officer, Criminal Investigations Detective, Special Intelligence Service, District Attorney Case Preparation and Liaison Officer, and Director of Narcotics - Intelligence Services.
In 1972, he was promoted to Acting Police Chief, and later that year, he earned the position of Police Chief, which he held until 1989. While serving as Chief, he attended Texas Southmost College and earned an Associate of Applied Science Degree. He attended Pan American University, and earned Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice (Magna Cum Laude) in 1979. He continued his education in crime, law enforcement and criminology, community policing, and forensics, to name a few. He attended the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and attended crime and criminal justice seminars. He was a member of the Texas Police Association, serving as President from 1982 through 1983.
From November 1989 to April 1990, Andy served as Brownsville Acting Texas City Manager, from April 1990 to 1993 as Assistant City Manager, and from 1993 to 1997 as City Manager.
He is survived by his wife: Olivia G. Vega; his children: Andres Angel Vega (Lisa) and Cynthia Stella Vega; his siblings: Maria Esparza, Anita Vega (Allen), Brigida 'Nena' Dominguez (Leroy) and Alfredo Vega (Amparo); his grandchildren: Andres Aaron Vega and Adrienne Estella Vega.
He was preceded in death by his parents: Andres Vega, † and Nicolasa Salazar Vega †; his siblings: Vicente Espinoza †, Jose Macario Vega †, Antonio Vega † and Maria de la Luz Vega †.
When the board of the Brownsville Independent School District voted at their last meeting in March not to hold elections May 3 because of the shortened campaign period for candidates, they also precluded district residents from voting for candidates because the next uniform election is in November, past the Texas Education Agency mandated 180-day period.
The next uniform election is in November 4, way past the 180-day period which ends August 14. Place 7 became vacant when the late Erasmo Castro died February 15.
During the March 14 meeting, there was a list of 25 who wanted to fill the the position, with board members picking the top three and submitting them to board counsel Eden Rodriguez. The top three were Augustine J. Anduiza, Blanca E. Perez and Eugenio Longoria Saenz. El Rrun-Rrun filed a Public Information Request (PIR) to get the list of applicants pictured above.
A motion to appoint Anduiza failed to garner a second, and counsel told members that they were not limited to the 25 applicants in eventually appointing someone, but that unless they chose someone then they should be ready to accept "consequences" from the state. The board is now under the gun to make the appointment.
Ironically, leading the charge against the appointment and insisting that an election be held were Carlos Elizondo and Minerva Peña, apparently unaware that by then voting against the following agenda item to hold the election this May they were, in effect, denying the voters a chance to elect their choice.
Even more ironic is the fact that Elizondo had just said that he supported attorney John Shergold in having district voters choose their representative. He then voted against holding one in May. Shergold said at the meeting that he was withdrawing his application because he felt the voters should be given the opportunity to choose their representative. Peña joined Elizondo and Frank Ortiz feebly joined the duo.
(Ed.'s Note: Every time we have inclement weather we are reminded - and shamed - at the callousness of the City of Brownsville and the Brownsville Urban System toward it's bus riders, the majority of them low-income residents. While we can funnel millions to Rose Gowen's hike and bike trails and include sheltered rest stops, scenes like this of shoppers toting their bags waiting for a southbound bus across Old Port Isabel Road from the Walmart in the rain make us question their priorities.
The elderly, children and entire families weather the elements to take their purchases to their homes. BUS released a list of the next sites to have a bus shelter, and this one is not included. The owner of the house once placed a sofa at the stop for people to sit while they wait, but a city maintenance crew removed it.
How about it Rose? Now that you got yourself appointed to the chairmanship of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation with it's annual $6 million in sales tax revenue, sister can you spare a few bucks and a dime from your pet projects and throw them a crumb and have a shelter put up there? After all, it's from sales tax, and as you can see, they're kicking in into the kitty so it's also their money.)
(Ed.'s Note: One of our seven readers sent us this photo of a Brownsville Independent School District buses that veered off the road and ended in the backyard of a home near the corner of Boca Chica and Monroe. Once in the rain-soaked back yard, it got stuck in the muck and had to have assistance from Transportation to get out. The BISD board, stuck at a 3-3 impasse, may also need a little help to get going.)
The Atlantic magazine has published fresh messages from a group chat including top US officials where they discuss operational details of plans to bomb Yemen.
The initial revelations by the magazine and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the chat on the messaging app Signal, have sparked a huge outcry in the US, with the Trump administration facing withering attacks over the disastrous leak of sensitive information.
However, the magazine did not include specific details of the attack in its initial article, saying it did not want to jeopardize national security. But numerous Trump administration officials, responding to the scandal, have said that none of the information on the Signal chat chain was “classified information” – despite the Atlantic describing it as operational details of the US strike on Yemen’s Houthi militia, which has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
In a new article published on Wednesday – hours before a House intelligence committee hearing was set to begin featuring two participants in the chat, the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe – the Atlantic said it was now releasing that information.
“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in non-secure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine said. The magazine then reproduced numerous messages from the text chat between the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth – who said on Tuesday that “nobody was texting war plans” – and top intelligence officials, including Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who was in Russia at the time.
They included details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions.
They also mention specific weapons to be used, timings for attacks and references to a “target terrorist”, presumably a Houthi militant. There is further discussion of confirmation that a target had been killed, and the use of several emojis.
“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic,” the Atlantic wrote.
Trump administration officials yesterday claimed that the messages contained no classified information. Gabbard and Ratcliffe, who were participants in the chat, said the leak contained no classified information.
The Atlantic also quoted an email response from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, after the magazine contacted the Trump administration to say it was considering publishing the entirety of the email chain, in which she said the chat did not include classified information but also that the White House did not want the messages released.
“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat,” Leavitt wrote. “However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation.”
Donald Trump, when asked on Tuesday about the leak, also said: “It wasn’t classified information,” while adding that the leak was "the only glitch in two months."
After the story was published, Leavitt once claimed on X that “these were NOT ‘war plans’. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
Democrats will probably use the intelligence committee hearing to demand an explanation of how operational attack plans are not classified information and how the details included in the messages are not war plans.
Last week, NPR reported that the Pentagon and its staff specifically warned its staff specifically against the use if Signal because of its security vulnerabilities. In a Pentagon “OPSEC special bulletin” sent on 18 March, it warned that Russian hacking groups could aim to exploit the vulnerability.
The messages in the Signal chat were set to automatically delete in under four weeks. The Federal Records Act typically mandates that government communication records are kept for two years.
The Atlantic said it withheld the name of Ratcliffe’s chief of staff on request, but otherwise published the messages unredacted. It said it did not generally publish information about military operations if it could possibly harm US personnel but that accusations from the Trump administration that it was “lying” caused it to believe that “people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions”.
“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in non-secure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine wrote.
WASHINGTON—In an effort to restore what he said were traditional American values that the previous administration had attempted to destroy, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday decreeing that all children born while President Joe Biden was in office would be renamed after Confederate generals.
“Parents across the country were shamed by angry liberals into giving their kids ‘woke’ names like Tyler and Justin when they should have been naming them Stonewall and Forrest,” said Trump, claiming that the approximately 15 million children born during the Biden administration were all given names that denied America’s true history.
“Biden, he made it illegal to name your kid Lee, he did that, but we’re going to restore all those kids’ names that got taken away. Every last one. So no more Noahs, no more Liams. They are all going to be Johnny Reb Beauregard now. These people are ashamed of America. Many of these kids should be named Bragg, but got named Braydon instead, and I’m fixing it. And if you don’t do it, we’ll be picking the name for you. This goes for girls, too.”
Trump added that any parents who failed to comply with the executive order would see all federal funding withheld from their state of residence."
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights?
It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
"Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities."
On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car.
At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation.
At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights.
I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention.
For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
"I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear."
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.
Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration's latest threats.
My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation.
"Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice."
The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
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