AND STARSHIP 14 FIRST ORBITAL TEST FLIGHT IS OFF...

By MARCIA DUNN 

The Associated Press

SpaceX launched its enormous Starship into orbit for the first time Monday and successfully delivered the most advanced Starlinks yet, but decided to cut short the flight.

SpaceX said the spacecraft would reenter over the Pacific and splash down north of Hawaii three hours after blasting off from Texas. The company had been aiming for a 10-hour flight, spanning six full laps around Earth, to prove its readiness for NASA’s Artemis moon program.

The spacecraft almost didn’t make it to orbit after one of its engines shut down too soon. But with everything else working well and the bad engine no longer needed, flight controllers decided after several tense minutes to proceed as planned.

“Starship is orbital,” Mission Control announced to cheers.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated SpaceX on reaching orbit and “managing every step in a safe, responsible and especially inspirational way.”

Rocket carries 26 of Musk’s most advanced Starlink satellites

Founder Elon Musk’s showpiece rocket — the biggest and most powerful ever built — carried 26 of the latest and most advanced Starlink satellites to join the 11,000 older models already providing internet service. They popped out of the spacecraft one by one, drawing more cheers from the SpaceX crowds looking on from the launch site at Starbase, Texas.

The decision to end the flight early came soon afterward. No reason was provided.

It was Starship’s 14th full-scale launch from Texas’ southern tip in three years. The earlier test flights ventured no farther than the Indian Ocean halfway around the world, often crashing in flames and briefly skimming space.

This time, SpaceX was intent on circling the globe from an altitude of 170 miles (275 kilometers) — not just once but six times over almost 10 hours, ending with a Pacific splashdown near Chile. While Starship achieved the proper orbit zipping along at 17,500 mph (28,000 kph), flight controllers opted to play it safe and bring it back several hours sooner, after just a couple laps.

The first-stage booster was never meant to return to the Starbase launch site either, instead dropping into the Gulf of Mexico within minutes of the morning liftoff.

SpaceX wants to ensure that everything works before flying Starship back to Starbase. If the spacecraft breaks apart over land and rains debris onto people, “our popularity would diminish very rapidly,” Musk said at a business summit earlier this month. “That’s why we’re being extremely cautious here.”

IN A MORNING LIKE THIS 167 YEARS AGO, "CHENO" TOOK OVER BROWNSVILLE

By Juan Montoya
It was a morning just like today's – a balmy September day along the U.S.-Mexico border 167 years ago – that the residents of the new border town of Brownsville received an unpleasant surprise. 

The region, at the southern edge of the Nueces Strip, had just become part of the United States a scant 11 years before after a bloody two-year war that ceded the strip to the United States in 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe, as well as nearly on third of the Mexican territory that now makes up the American Southwest.

Relations between the newly-arrived Americans and long-settled Mexicans and land-grant Tejanos had not gone well. The new arrivals were hungry for land and wealth, and saw the Mexicans and Tejanos as inferior obstacles to attaining both. With the help of the U.S. military and armed vigilantes, land soon transferred hands and abuses against Mexicans were winked at, if not supported by, the U.S. authorities at the municipal, state and national level.

Even Brownsville, which had been laid out in 1848 by a land company owned by Connecticut-born

merchant Charles Stillman, rested on disputed land titles that would remain in litigation long after he left the border. The distrust between these groups occasionally erupted into bloodshed, with the law usually taking the side of the newcomers and winking at their crimes and abuses against the Mexicans.

Such animosity had lingered just beneath the surface for more than a decade when local rancher and land-grant heir Juan Nepomuceno "Cheno" Cortina rode into town with approximately 70 to 80 other men that September morning and took over the city and started hunting for his enemies and the persecutors of local Mexican residents.

Historians say – variously – that he held the town for three days, two days, and then for only 13 hours and left only after five men had been killed and the military garrison from Matamoros, including some of his relatives, talked him into lifting the siege after frantic pleas for their help from Brownsville authorities and residents. They saw nothing wrong in inviting the army of a foreign nation to enter sovereign U.S. territory to defend them against another American citizen.

Cortina was just 35 when he took over Brownsville, but he was 22 when he had joined the Defensores de la Patria irregulars under General Mariano Arista and met Zachary Taylor's 4,000-strong invading army of occupation March 20, 1846 at the Paso Real (Taylor's) Crossing at the Arroyo Colorado and warned them that any further advance would be considered an act of war against then-Mexican territory.

"Los Mexicanos no conocemos el miedo," a member of the Defensores – probably Cortina – is said to have shouted at the soldiers on the opposite bank of the Arroyo. However, the mounted vaqueros did not prevent the army from crossing the waterway and continuing on toe Port Isabel.

If it was Cortina, he was standing on familiar ground, since his mother's land-grant portion of the Espiritu Santo Grant was bound on the north by the Arroyo Colorado and it's southern boundary was the Rio Grande. It included the land on which Brownsville would be "founded" by Stillman. He would be present with a group of the irregular Mexican cavalry at the May 8 and  May 9 battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Guerra which paved the way for Taylor to occupy Matamoros, invade northern Mexico, and make his way to Monterrey.

The signing of the treaty formally made the area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande American territory and guaranteed land-grant Tejanos the right of citizenship and recognized the titles to their
properties. 

But what was written on paper was soon disregarded by the Anglo newcomers and their new courts and the law. Lawyers would tie up titles to land and what could not be taken by the law was taken by force and violence by vigilantes or the Texas Rangers. Cortina's own mother - Dona Estefana-eventually had to sell some of her land-grant section to lawyers as payment to protect the rest of the property.

Cortina, who took the oath of citizenship and pledged allegiance to the new nation and lived on his mother's ranch in El Carmen just a few miles upriver from Brownsville, worked with the quartermaster at Ft. Brown, and soon chafed under the abuses of the Anglo authorities and criminals and on the morning of July 13, he saw Marshal Robert Shears brutally arrest a former ranch employee named Tomas Cabrera in front of a cafe located on what is today Market Square. 

When he offered to take him away, Shears is said to have answered violently "What it it to you, you damn Mexican?" and Cortina shot him in the shoulder and took Cabrera to his mother's ranch.

With a warrant on his head, Cortina rode into town with his followers seeking his revenge just 75 days later on September 28. One of the men he sought and found was Peter Neale, son of Brownsville mayor William Neale, who he accused of murdering Mexicans and still walking free in the city with impunity. Peter Neale was shot through a window of his father's house as he lay in bed.

After the raid, he routed a local posse who called themselves the Brownsville Tigers and took their  cannon. The Tigers included a number of Matamoros soldiers. After they were defeated, they were joined by a detachment of Texas Rangers sent by Gov. Sam Houston which were also routed by Cortina's forces. The local authorities had captured Cabrera and held him in jail and when the Rangers arrived they took the old man out of jail and lynched him.

But it wasn't until U.S. Army regulars under Major Samuel Peter Heintzelman joined the fray that he was driven into Mexico after a battle at Rio Grande City.

And so began the Cortina Wars that troubled the border for decades after. Even Robert E. Lee was one sent to hunt down Cortina, with no success.

But while in Mexico, Cortina joined the Mexican military and rose in the ranks. He was at Puebla on May 5, 1862, three years later, when fellow Tejano Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the French, took part in the capture June 1867 of Emperor Ferdinand Maximilian, and was present at his execution in the Cerro de las Campanas in Querétaro.

He attained the rank of Brigadier General and at different times, including the period of the U.S. Civil War, was the alcalde of Matamoros and military governor of Tamaulipas under Benito Juarez and Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada. After supporting Porfirio Diaz to overthrow Lerdo in 1875-1876, the pressure from the American government forced Diaz to remove him from the border and to help his presidency gain American recognition.

He was held at the Santiago Tlatelolco prison in Mexico City and many years later – with this pleas to

return to the border denied by Diaz numerous times – was released from prison and placed under house arrest in Mexico City in 1892 and where he died in 1894.

Though he wished to be buried next to his mother at her ranch in Santa Rita (near modern-day Brownsville, Texas), attempts by his descendants to bring his remains back across the border were prevented by historical events like World War I and the Great Depression, leaving him buried in Mexico City. He lies in the Panteon de Dolores de los Hombres Ilustres. Even then, his Texas enemies opposed his return.

Was Cortina just a murderous bandit, as his Texas detractors have asserted? Or was he just trying to force the government to recognize the rights that it had guaranteed its new citizens at the end of the war?

In the second proclamation he issued after the raid, Cortina writes how Texas Mexicans gave up their Mexican citizenship and became  naturalized to be citizens of the new country, only to find that the new authorities would not respect the promises made in the treaty:

 

"And how can it be otherwise, when the ills that weight upon the unfortunate republic of Mexico have obliged us for many heart-touching causes to abandon it and our possessions in it, or else become the victims of our principles or of the indigence to which intestine disturbances had reduced us since the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo when, ever diligent and industrious, and desirous of enjoying the longed-for boon of liberty within the classic country of its origin, we were induced to naturalize ourselves and form part of the confederacy..."

Brownsville's own J.T. Canales – a descendant and a relative – disagreed with his detractors. In a letter to fellow LULAC founder and author Alonso Perales, he tells him that his struggle was actually a precursor to their fight for recognition of Mexican-American civil rights.

"I was happy to receive your letter February 14 and also note the high opinion you have of (Goldfinch's thesis) on General Cortina," Canales wrote. "You are right. Cortina was our predecessor in fighting for our people and against race discrimination. He used a different method to accomplish this from the one you and I have been using...

"He used force because that was the only means he had at the time," Canales wrote Perales. "We have used education and an appeal to reason, but it is the same fight and we are merely carrying on what he began in 1859."

Viva Cheno! Viva La Raza!

1965 TELEGRAM WARNING BHS EAGLES OF SAN JACINTO MEXICAN BATTLE LOSS: "DON'T BE SANTA ANNA!"

Graphic from Bronsbil Estacion

Galena Park boosters sent Eagles coach Joe Rodriguez a telegram reminding them San Jacinto battlefield was visible from Yellow Jacket baseball field. Graphic courtesy of Prax Garcia.

By John Bourg

myRGV

Longtime Brownsville baseball fans remember the championship 1965 Golden Eagles baseball team under then-29-year-old coach Joe Rodriguez..

Locals cannot recall the last time Brownsville has won district, but it probably had been 30 years. The Eagles were in the rugged 14-4A with Corpus Christi schools and the other South Zone schools Harlingen, McAllen, Edinburg, and Alice.

Coach Rodriguez, said, “We had great pitching and defense, and were so fast our four speediest challenged and beat the Eagles’ 4×100 relay team.”

Two Superb Pitchers

The Eagles had two superb lefthanded pitchers. (K=strikeouts; ‘nos’=no-hitters; ERA=Earned run average — average runs/game from hits and walks, not errors)

Charlie Vaughan (Left, with Atlanta Braves.)

13-3, 0.39 ERA, 139 K, 2 ‘nos’

Tony Barbosa (Right, with Los Angeles, Calif. Angels)

12-1, 1.01 ERA, 203 K, 3 ‘nos’ including a perfect game vs. HHS

Hardly ‘Hitless Wonders’

The Eagles didn’t need much hitting, but a local sportswriter was way off base calling them "Hitless Wonders." Arnie Alvarez led the Valley with a .478 average; Cesar de la Garza hit .385; Tony Barbosa, 1st baseman when not pitching, hit .353; and there were no "automatic outs" in the rest of the lineup.

District Champions at Last

The Eagles won the South Zone with a 9-1 record (23-6 season), and played Corpus Christi Ray Texans for the 14-4A championship. After the Eagles and Texans split the first two games, the 3rd game was in Brownsville's Eagles Park with hundreds of overflow fans standing behind ropes. Charlie Vaughan was the starting pitcher.

After Tony Tamayo hit a 3-run homerun in the 4th, the Texans tied the game 3-3 in the top of the 7th. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th, Rene Torres hit a homerun over the left field fence. (That's Torres pictured at right when he was with the Pan American Broncos.)

Rene could barely get through the mob of fans who broke through the ropes to greet him rounding third with the winning run. District champions at last.

March to State Final

That year, the Eagles swept Waco Richfield in bi-district; defeated San Antonio Lee in regionals; and beat Galena Park 7-1 in the state semifinal. Though they lost the final to Dallas Samuel, the Eagles had achieved a historic playoff run for a Valley team.

After the Galena Park telegram was read to the team, player Praxedis Garcia remembered that coach Rodriguez had told them to "Remember the Alamo!"

"If I remember correctly, that was a massacre, too."

IN MICHIGAN, GOP SENATE CANDIDATE BREAKS WITH TRUMP, SAYS WAR HAS TO STOP

Someone tell Mike that it's a kiddie cart. At that time, two years ago, he blamed a potential Biden-Harris victory for what he said would be high grocery prices. Now he blames the war in Iran (but not Trump).

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Various Sources

The Brief:

Mike Rogers is campaigning in Southeast Michigan as the 2026 midterms enters its final stretch.
The Republican is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat.
The election is just under six weeks away.

(FOX 2) - Republican Mike Rogers repeated calls for an end to the Iran war amid climbing gas prices while framing the election for U.S. Senate as one between the "American dream" and what he describes as divisive politics.

The backstory:
Rogers and his opponent Democrat Abdul El-Sayed are vying for one of the most competitive seats in this election cycle.

The balance of power in Congress could be determined by its outcome. Michigan's purple status again places its electorate in the spotlight as uncertainty over who will have majorities in the U.S. Senate as well as what issues are motivating voters in 2026 remains some of the biggest questions that will be answered in November.

While recent election polling gives El-Sayed a better chance of winning, the possibility of an error like what was revealed in the Democratic primary underscores the lack of certainty in who has the edge.

EVERYTHING'S UP, LIKE GAS, FOOD, DIESEL, RENTS...EXCEPT YOU!

HEY, MAYBE ICE GOONS CAN PICK THE CROPS AND MILK THE COWS...

Sal LoDolce

I have a suggestion, call the White House and ask them to help find workers for the money you want to pay for an hour 

Jan Walters

Who'd a thunk?

Beth Spindler

I’m a farmer…and I say, 

By Texas Cattle Feeders Association

A joint statement from Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Kansas Livestock Association and Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association regarding the ongoing ICE operations in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas:

“The Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association are closely monitoring reported U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity affecting agricultural communities in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.

Our organizations respect the responsibility of federal agencies to enforce the law. At the same time, cattle producers, feedyards, dairies, livestock markets, processors, and other rural businesses depend on a stable workforce to care for animals, protect food safety, and keep the supply chains operating. 

Sudden workforce disruptions can create immediate animal-welfare, operational, and economic consequences that extend well beyond an individual business. These ICE operations are having a massive chilling effect on the legal, documented, skilled workers that put beef on the table and keep the cattle supply chain moving. Additionally, these types of disruptions will lead to higher beef prices for consumers.

Reported impacts to our organizations throughout the past few days have been:

* Thousands of fed cattle slated for shipping to processors now delayed, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs.

* Workforce disruptions at numerous supply chain chokepoints such as feedyards, dairies, processors, feed and grain companies, transportation hubs, and community services.

These disruptions come at a time of enhanced focus and pressure on the cattle and beef supply chain. They are a costly and unnecessary impact to cattle producers already suffering from unwelcome political interference to both the markets as well as the physical supply chain. Frustratingly, the harm these actions cause to cattle producers last for days and weeks after such operations conclude.

We urge federal officials to conduct enforcement actions in a lawful, orderly, and transparent manner; respect due process; and communicate clearly with affected employers and communities.”

YOU CHEERING FOR THIS, VETERANS FOR GEN. BONESPURS TRUMP?

How Can Draft Dodger Trump and Pentagon Deny Fallen Soldier’s Families “DEATH BENEFITS” Saying: Iran Not Real War? 

Is This The Ultimate Disgrace To Our Fallen Heroes?

THINK TWICE ABOUT JUMPING B-TOWN COPS NEXT TIME, DUDE! I'VE GOT $5 ON THE COPS!

 

EN QUE TRABAJA EL MUCHACHO ESE, STEVE GUERRA? EN NADA?

AT WHAT POINT WILL THIS FARCE OF SHAM HISTORICAL "RESTORATION" STOP?

$404,000 JUST TO MOVE THE REMNANTS OF THE WILLIAM NEALE HOUSE,

AND ANOTHER ESTIMATED $0.5 MILLION TO TRY TO "RESTORE" IT

(Click to enlarge.)

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The contractor who moved the Neale House said that the only parts that he could move from Texas Southmost College property to the Linear Park was the core of the building, which had been altered numerous times from its original design to house the local American Legion post and later, the Brownsville Art League.

He said that the wood – some of it in the the foundation dating back to 1824 – for the most part was rotten and that he had to replace part of it with new wood so it would remain together.

"There's some parts where you can't step on the remaining floor because it's rotten and you'll fall through," he said Thursday. That's more than 200 years old."

All this expense to honor Stillman, Brownsville's "founder" who swindled the land-grant owners of their land through legal chicanery before he left town and for Neale, the city's first elected mayor and a runaway slave catcher who went into Mexico for money to return these human beings to bondage.

(Click on graphic to enlarge)

The farce of historical preservation on this structure will continue, nonetheless, and the Brownsville City Commission seems wiling to plod on and keep pouring the city taxpayers' money into the charade.

This is about par for the course and has the Charles Stillman Laureles Ranch House "restoration" as precedent. In that case, a similar amount of cash was spent "restoring" the carcass of the structure that had been abandoned in a corner of a Corpus Christi museum as an eyesore. See the "miracle" for yourself below.

Expect the same with the Neale House compliment of your taxes.

LATEST MARIST POLL SHOWS GINA LEADING MAMON ABBOTT FOR GUV

Team Gina

Yes, you read that right.

ANOTHER poll was released late last night showing me leading this race for Texas governor. NPR/Marist has me at 49 percent with Abbott behind at 46 percent.

This is not a fluke. It’s the "second" poll in less than a week showing that we have pulled ahead of Greg Abbott. After taking more than $20 million from data centers, he calls for an audit, not, mind you, a moratorium. Que Mamom!

The electoral landscape in Texas is shifting beneath our feet. A few months ago, every poll had us down. But as we’ve successfully reached persuadable voters across all 254 Texas counties, we have done something remarkable:

First, we brought this race to a tie. Now, we have taken the lead.

Meanwhile, Abbott’s numbers are going in the exact opposite direction. His approval rating is underwater. His favorability is underwater. Never in Abbott’s twelve year career as governor has he been more vulnerable than he is today, and his top campaign advisors have admitted outright they believe our race will be close on Election Day.

But yesterday, Abbott unleashed a $12 MILLION wave of attack ads against me — his first negative ad spending of the entire campaign. The more scared of losing Republicans become, the more money they will throw at us to mislead voters and erase our real chance at victory. And the truth is: they have enough money to swing this race back in their favor.

That’s why meeting our $3,000,000 goal before tomorrow’s TEC deadline is not negotiable. That’s the minimum amount we need to respond to Abbott’s flood of negative TV and radio ads.

Abbott’s attack ads are being aired across Texas as you read this email. So we have no time to waste if we want to hold onto our lead and win.

Please help me close our fundraising gap by chipping in $5 right now so we can reach our $3,000,000 goal and defeat Greg Abbott on November 3rd.

FORGET COMMON-SENSE GUN LAWS; GOD DOESN'T NEED A LICENSE

 

Democrats Public

Nineteen young children and two teachers were massacred in the Uvalde school shooting, the third-deadliest in American history.

Leaked audio reveals Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, said it was a “plan” by “God,” adding that “life is short.”

Throughout his time in the Texas legislature and as attorney general, Paxton has consistently opposed common-sense gun safety legislation.

Disgusting. Texas deserves better.

COURT ORDERS DONALD TRUMP TO GIVE MEDIA ACCESS TO WHITE HOUSE

MS NOW

THE WHITE HOUSE – Under a federal judge's order, the Trump administration restored White House access Thursday to journalists from MS NOW, CNN and Politico who had their press passes revoked after President Donald Trump criticized the outlets’ coverage.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the Trump administration early Thursday to temporarily restore White House access to journalists from the three national news organizations as litigation on the matter continues.

Despite that overnight ruling, MS NOW White House reporter Laura Barrón-López and an MS NOW producer were denied access and had their passes confiscated when they first attempted to enter early Thursday, while another MS NOW producer was granted access. Politico said at least one of its reporters was blocked. CNN said some of its staffers were denied access, but at least one was allowed in.

MS NOW, CNN and Politico filed a notice of noncompliance after their reporters were denied access Thursday morning, asking Kelly to set an immediate hearing. The judge ordered the Trump administration to respond by 12:30 p.m.

Less than an hour before that deadline, MS NOW journalists whose White House passes had been confiscated by the U.S. Secret Service were allowed back onto the grounds.

“I was just allowed back into the White House through the northwest gate,” Barrón-López said on air. “They first cleared me through that outer perimeter, and then I arrived at the northwest gate, showed my government ID again, and was returned my badge.”

Politico said one of its journalists also had a White House pass reinstated.

The White House and the Secret Service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

LAWSUIT: PORT OF B'VILLE EMPLOYEES FUNNELED $386,000 PAYMENTS TO VENDOR AT A VACANT HOUSE; STEVE GUERRA WAS CHAIRMAN IN MIDDLE OF SCHEME PERIOD

By Tez Romero

AIG Insurance

Risk, Compliance and Legal

"The case is a textbook example of how a sham vendor, cooperative insiders, and weak procurement controls can combine to produce a six-figure loss that only surfaces when someone finally checks the invoices against the loading dock".

An AIG subsidiary says three port authority employees and two outside accomplices ran a fake-vendor invoice scheme worth $386,410. Now it wants the money back.

National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh - part of the AIG group - filed the complaint on September 15, 2026, in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. National Union paid out the claim under an employee-theft policy and is now standing in the insured's shoes, chasing recovery from the people it says caused the loss.

The insured is the Brownsville Navigation District of Cameron County, the public entity that runs the Port of Brownsville – the only deep-water port on the US-Mexico border, according to the complaint.

Here is what the filing alleges happened.

Between roughly February 2022 and October 2022, three BND employees conspired with an outside vendor and its principal to "misappropriate funds from BND through fraudulent purchases of electronic equipment." The vendor was a company called C&A Industrial Supply, LLC and its agent is listed as Claudia Llamas.

(Just before, in 2018, Steve Guerra, now running for Cameron County Judge, was elected to the board, and then in May 2022 – in the period in the middle of the theft scheme – was appointed chairman and reappointed in 2024. The public – despite Guerra's claims of accountability and transparency – was never informed of the theft scheme or investigation. How can you pass a balanced budget missing $386,410? )

BND's then-director of human resources Jaime Martinez  allegedly placed the orders. The complaint lists a Cisco Firepower firewall priced at $224,000, 30 Cisco Catalyst switches for $126,000, and four Cisco transceivers at $9,102.52 each. Two IT department employees - Juan Blanco, a supervisor, and Carlos Cardenas, coordinator - allegedly signed off on the payments.

None of it was what BND thought it was buying, the filing says. The items listed on C&A's invoices "were either never delivered to BND or were replaced with inferior, outdated, or used equipment."

The scheme started to unravel in October 2022, when BND's deputy port director spotted what the filing calls "potentially irregular purchasing practices." By December 7, 2022, Eddie Campirano, the port director, had authorized a full audit. Current Port Director William Dietrich was then the port's police chief.

What turned up was hard to miss. The complaint states that C&A's invoiced address was "a vacant residential property with disconnected electricity." (The lawsuit dies not list the house address ) 

Between December 8 and 20, 2022, BND interviewed IT staff. According to the filing, not one of them could identify the items on C&A's invoices. What they found instead was "inferior, outdated, or used equipment that did not match the quality or value of the items specified."

Then things moved fast. The complaint alleges the IT supervisor and coordinator resigned without notice during the investigation and "deleted all of their stored emails, making them irretrievable." The HR director was subsequently terminated.

National Union says it indemnified BND under Policy No. 011352891 and has stepped into BND's shoes to pursue recovery. The total alleged loss is $386,410.

The insurer is pressing three counts: fraud against all five defendants, breach of fiduciary duty against the three former employees - the legal obligation people in positions of trust owe to act in their employer's best interests, not their own - and civil conspiracy against all five. National Union is seeking $386,410 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, interest, and costs.

For claims teams and underwriters handling fidelity and crime portfolios, the case is a textbook example of how a sham vendor, cooperative insiders, and weak procurement controls can combine to produce a six-figure loss that only surfaces when someone finally checks the invoices against the loading dock.

TRUMP & HEGSETH TO OUR CHAVELITA GONZALEZ: YOU DON'T COUNT...

By Tena Olson

Hegseth's Pentagon says she DIDN'T die in the Iran war.

The Washington Post reported at least four MORE military deaths than the Pentagon has disclosed. 

Hegseth called the report "DISGUSTING and FAKE."

Her name was Isabella Gonzales, and she grew up in Carrollton, Texas. She graduated from Hebron High School in the spring of 2025 and enlisted in the Army soon after. She finished basic training in December, joined an air defense unit in Germany, and shipped out to an air base in Jordan.

On July 17, an Iranian missile hit the base. Isabella was killed. So was Staff Sgt. Angel Rampersad, 28, of Queens. Two more soldiers died over the next two days.

After the strike, The Insane Maniac posted: "Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!"

Within a week, Hegseth's Pentagon PULLED all four of them off the Iran war's official list of the dead and filed them under a separate heading, "Overseas Operations." A spokesman blamed a "temporary data disruption." Then the story changed. The government now says they died during a ceasefire.

An Iranian missile, during a ceasefire....?? C'mon...

Their names were never put back: Isabella Gonzales, Angel Rampersad, Tyler Feehan, Michael Swinton.

Isabella's battle buddy from basic training, Elizabeth Medina, told Spectrum News:
"She was more than just a casualty in this war. She was more than just another number."

Now the Post says the count is SHORT again. Five officials said some of the uncounted troops didn't die in the fighting itself, but all of  them were serving in the Middle East during the war. 

 One official told OAN: "Even if we wanted to attempt to hide a combat death, we never would and we never could."

Friday, which was also National POW/MIA Recognition Day, the one with the flag that says "You Are Not Forgotten." Hegseth attended the Pentagon's ceremony.

On Saturday, he kicked off what he calls his "Send Me Tour" with an early-morning workout alongside the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets 

The name comes from the Book of Isaiah, where the prophet answers God's call: "Here am I; send me."
Isabella Gonzales already answered. Trump and Hegseth's Pentagon WON'T count her.

STARBASE TO ANNEX 7,133 ACRES, PLUS THE 444 DISANNEXED BY B'VILLE

By Nadia Tamez-Robledo

myRGV.com

STARBASE — City commissioners voted unanimously Monday to approve the annexation of about 7,133 acres of land and voted to approve the voluntary annexation of 444 acres of land recently disannexed by Brownsville.

Commissioners also approved a resolution of intent to annex State Highway 4, the long span of public road that connects the rural SpaceX launch site to Brownsville.

The city gained signatures in support of the annexation from more than 50% of landowners whose property is within the 7,133-acre area, according to the annexation ordinance that commissioners voted on. It said that the annexation will “establish clear, cohesive municipal boundaries; reduce jurisdictional confusion; (and) improve coordination with local, state, and federal partners” in law enforcement. It will also improve public safety, essential services and long-term planning, the ordinance states.

Mayor Bobby Peden and commissioners Jordan Buss and Lois Wallace declined to comment on the annexation.

Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, read public comments prior to the vote on behalf of landowners affected by the annexation who live out-of-state and could not be present to speak in-person. Hinojosa criticized city officials for, she said, disallowing landowners to submit public comments via email, virtually or to watch the meeting online.

The city appeared to be recording the meeting via Microsoft Teams, but it’s not clear if the recording will be made available to the public.

“We’ve been talking to impacted landowners who do not want to get sucked up into the city of Starbase and be forced to live in a town that is ruled by SpaceX employees and where Elon Musk has a lot of control,” Hinojosa told The Herald, adding that residents are concerned about the environmental impacts, more rocket launches and of what may done with the land. “It’s clear they’re intentionally not being transparent and making meetings inaccessible to impacted land owners.”

To read rest of article, click on link: https://myrgv.com/local-news/2026/09/22/starbase-annexes-7000-acres-intends-to-take-portion-of-sh4/

JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP'S WHITE HOUSE BAN ON CNN, MS NOW, AND POLITICO

NY Times 

A federal judge on Thursday said that President Trump’s order barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House was likely unconstitutional and ordered the administration to restore access to the three news outlets.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington granted a 14-day restraining order and told the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the press credentials held by employees of the three outlets.

The news organizations were likely to succeed in their claim that the White House had violated their constitutional due process rights by revoking their press credentials without advance notice or an opportunity to respond, Judge Kelly wrote in the order issued in the early hours of Thursday.

He also rejected, for now, the administration’s argument that revoking the outlets’ press credentials was necessary to protect national security. 

SLAVERS REUNITED: NEALE HOUSE, STILLMAN LOVE SHACK ON LINEAR PARK

 

Movers arrive at Linear Park Tuesday with a dismembered section of the William Neale house to be reassembled next to the Charles Stillman Laureles Ranch house (right). 

By Juan Montoya

"Dios los hizo, sus hijos los juntaron a cuestas del público." 

The salvageable carcass of the William Neale house, the first mayor of Brownsville, and a runaway slave catcher for money, joins the reconstructed  Charles Stillman  Laureles Ranch house – another slave owner who stole the site of downtown Brownsville through legal chicanery – on Linear Park.

At a cost of more than $404,000 for the preparation and relocation of the dilapidated remains of the house, the city commission has joined these two U.S. Confederate States of America adherents and established a de facto Slaver's' Plantation Row smack in the heart of the city. 

(Click on graphic to enlarge)

Mind you, the $400,000-plus bill doesn't include the "restoration" of the structure. Before they're done, it might climb up to $1 million taxpayer dollars to honor a man who profited from depriving human beings of their freedom and returning them to bondage. The same thing was accomplished for Stillman who deprived the rightful owners of their land. 

When they are done with the house, the pieces of the structure will become a mansion, as did the Stillman ranch house which arrived here reeking like an abandoned whorehouse. This same process will take place with the Neale house since major structural alterations were made on it when it was used as a canteen by the American Legion post and later by the Brownsville Art League.

 

BEFORE....AND $100,000S AFTER

Descendants of these men, Sandy Stillman and John Cowen – the latter currently Brownsville's mayor – played a personal role in the embellishment of their ancestors' shrines, with the convenient assistance of

the public treasury. The city commission was only too pliant to lean on local taxpayers to glorify its slaver past.

Even at this late hour, adherents of the South's glorious heritage and its "lost cause" – the false historical myth that claims the South fought the American Civil War for honor and states' rights rather than to protect and keep slavery – periodically gather (just last week) to glorify the myth near the Washington Park site where the old stone monument that was erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy to honor Jefferson Davis, the president of the CSA, stood until public protest forced the city commission to remove it. 

(Incidentally, the Cowen family also claims they are descendants of Confederate Col. John "RIP" Ford, the Texas Ranger responsible for protecting Richard King's ranch and his cattle as well as large landowners like Stillman and indiscriminately hunting down and murdering suspected Mexican and Tejano "bandits.")  

Ford also served as Brownsville mayor and was a member of the nationalist anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party and – along with Texas Governor Sam Houston – a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle who advocated the seizing of parts of three Mexican states, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, to establish a separate country as a refuge for slave owners and an extension of the Confederacy once it was defeated by the Union armies.  

Some historic ironies were not lost at the house's transfer today. 

The two pro-confederate structures lie in the shadow of the Union federal courthouse, which defeated the confederacy. And Polk Street intersects with 7th Street where the buildings are located. The street is named after James Polk, the expansionist president who manufactured a war that resulted in the U.S. expanding from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, making it possible for rapacious men like Stillman, Neale, and Ford to ply their wares and despoil the land and disposes its people of their properties.

NO DENYING IT: STEVE GUERRA UP TO HIS NECK IN HUACHICOL

 

DO WE WANT THIS FUTURE FOR CAMERON COUNTY?

 

WHEN THE RAINS COME, BROWNSVILLE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO HOLD ITS BREATH

By Dr. Laura E. Cisneros

When heavy rain begins falling in Brownsville, many families do not simply listen to it from the comfort of their homes. They begin watching the street. They look toward the drainage ditch, move their cars to higher ground and wonder whether the water will reach their door.

For some residents, the sound of rain brings anxiety instead of peace.

Flooding is not an abstract issue when your home, vehicle or small business is at risk. It means missed work, damaged belongings, costly repairs and fear that the next storm will bring the same hardship again.

St. Charles and Sam Perl (Downtown)

Brownsville is home.

I was born here, spent part of my childhood in the Rio Grande Valley and returned because this community has always remained close to my heart. I have watched our city grow and change. Growth can bring opportunity, but it also requires responsible planning—especially when it comes to drainage, roads and flood control.

Our families should not have to accept repeated flooding as simply part of living in Brownsville.

Important drainage and infrastructure work has been done. But when the same streets and neighborhoods continue to flood, residents understandably wonder whether we are solving the underlying problem or merely responding after the damage occurs.

Price Road along Alice Road and 77-83 Frontage

We need to examine whether our drainage systems have enough capacity, whether they are properly maintained, whether new development is increasing runoff into older neighborhoods and whether local and state projects are being coordinated effectively.

To begin gathering those facts, I have submitted a Public Information Request to the Texas Department of Transportation seeking information about state funding, projects and plans related to flooding, drainage and road infrastructure affecting our area. We need to understand what has already been funded, what work has been completed and what remains to be done.

“With all the technology, engineering knowledge and progress available today, Brownsville’s persistent flooding problem cannot simply be accepted as inevitable. Solving it may take years, but residents deserve to see a serious plan, measurable progress and evidence that something meaningful is being accomplished.”

Addressing flooding will require cooperation among local officials, drainage districts, engineers, developers and state agencies. Brownsville needs a clear, long-term flood-mitigation plan with measurable priorities, transparency and public accountability.

Resaca overflows next to Brandywine Apts. on Paredes Line Road

In Austin, I would fight to ensure that Brownsville receives its fair share of state infrastructure and flood-mitigation funding.

We cannot control how much rain falls, but we can control how seriously we prepare for it.

Sincerely,

Dr. Laura

SILK ROAD FOUNDER THANKS TRUMP FOR PARDON AT GOP CONVENTION

By Jeff Aurand

I have no idea how this isn’t all over Facebook or the news. At the midterm Republican Convention, one of their keynote speakers was Ross Ulbricht.

Who is he? Ross Ulbricht created and ran The Silk Road, a dark web website that facilitated the sales of narcotics, illegal firearms, human beings, and any other illegal merchandise you can imagine.

In 2015, he was sentenced to TWO life sentences PLUS 40 years for multiple charges, including attempted murder for hire, conspiracy to commit narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking. He is suspected to be responsible for trafficking the most amount fentanyl in the history of our country.

During his trial, prosecutors said Ulbricht's website sold more than $200m worth of drugs alone between 2011 and 2013 when he was arrested.

Trump pardoned him in January.
This is the person they picked to represent their party. A narcotics trafficker. A HUMAN trafficker. A weapons and explosives trafficker.

A PERSON WHO PAID FOR MURDER. This guy was undoubtedly responsible for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of deaths all over the world. 

Someone who was supposed to spend TWO LIFETIMES in prison, then stay an extra 40 years. How can they claim to the party of family values? 

How can they claim to be the party who respects the law? What is even HAPPENING????

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-life-federal-prison-creating
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1386096/dl?inline

https://youtu.be/P95U8mUMmIs?si=MzPzkMDh8DzCmv7u

START YOUR WEEK ON THE RIGHT FOOT! JOIN THE ELKS

 

COMMISH GUS DE LEON SHUFFLES STORY, SAYS LAWSUIT MAY STILL BE ON...

Special to El Run-Rrun

In July, Gustavo De Leon was the one speaking for the family and "negotiating" for a $1.2 million settlement with his colleagues on the city commission, the city manager and city attorney, the latter two his subordinates which he could vote to hire or fire. 

KRGV reported that he described himself as the executor of the property and said the City of Brownsville went onto the family’s land, put down asphalt millings without permission, and kept working after they were told to stop. He said he contacted the City Attorney, sent a cease-and-desist, and filed a police report.

Now his story has changed.

In a recent Facebook reply, Gustavo says his immediate family has “stepped out of the law suit” and that the City will have to deal with the other two owners of the Vera-De Leon Trust.

Does that mean, by his own admission, that the dispute is still alive?

He may no longer be the person out front, but by his own words, the City is still dealing with the remaining owners over the same property.

So the real question is simple:

If Gustavo says he and his family have nothing to do with the lawsuit anymore, did they also give up any financial interest they may still have in the property?

Because stepping away from the fight is not the same thing as walking away from the money. Will he still expect his cut?