Tom Phillips, chief justice of Texas supreme court, endorses James Talarico in Senate race
Tom Phillips, a longtime chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a staunch Republican, endorsed Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race on Monday.
In an op-ed published in the Austin American-Statesman, Phillips, a Republican who served as the state’s chief justice from 1988 to 2004, said that he believed that Talarico would be a better representative of Texas in the Senate, and more willing to engage in productive bipartisanship.
By contrast, he said, Paxton would be a Trump acolyte who would enable the president’s excesses and self-dealing, steering the Republican Party away from the ideals Phillips believes it should embody, such as limited government and free enterprise.
He also felt that Paxton’s history of scandal would cast a shadow over his Senate tenure, regardless of his future conduct.
“However exemplary his future conduct might be, Paxton’s longstanding reputation will embarrass Texas in ways our state simply cannot afford,” Phillips wrote. “While I, like many Republicans, do not agree with all of Talarico’s past statements or current positions, I am confident that he would serve this great state with dignity and honor.”
Phillips said he believed there were still Republican candidates on the ticket who were worthy of serving. Paxton just wasn’t one of them.
“Thus, while I enthusiastically support the statewide Republican judicial candidates and many Republican candidates for other statewide offices, my choice for United States Senator must be James Talarico,” Phillips wrote.
Key events
In latest campaign attack, Vance connects Abdul El-Sayed to protests in Paris
At a campaign stop in Michigan, JD Vance further escalated a war of words he’s exchanged with the state’s Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed.
Speaking to the crowd in Howell, Michigan, Vance sought to connect El-Sayed’s politics to the left-wing protests in Paris that have led to thousands of arrests – what Vance described as “hordes of masked rioters, many from distant lands, taking over historic city centers.”
He also continued to play up El-Sayed’s relationship with left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker.
“The scene of destruction in Paris may be an ocean away, but ask yourselves, are they really so hard to imagine here in the United States of America?” Vance said. “And I guarantee you, if those rioters were burning down New York, or Detroit, the Hasan Pikers and El-Sayeds would be right there leading them and cheering them on.”
He continued: “What we saw in France, the hatred, the ingratitude, the desire to destroy rather than the desire to build, that exact same cancer is what has corrupted Abdul El-Sayed.”
Vance has made several visits to Michigan as Republicans seek to hold onto the seat El-Sayed is vying for, leading the two to exchange barbs at campaign rallies and on social media.
Trump administration boat strikes continue with attack in Eastern Pacific
Another US strike on a purported drug-smuggling vessel in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday killed 5 people, according to the US military.
The strikes is just the latest in dozens of similar attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed more than 240 people, and that the Trump administration has claimed are targeting drug traffickers, branded “narcoterrorists” by the president. But they’ve been widely criticized as illegal extrajudicial killings, and the administration has not furnished evidence that all of those killed are connected to the drug trade.
Read more about the latest strike here.
DoJ asks Washington state not to count ballots from possible noncitizens
The US justice department has asked Washington state not to count any mail ballots received from more than 400 residents who it says may not be US citizens, Reuters reports, opening a new front in the Trump administration’s push to expand control of election administration ahead of next Tuesday’s midterms.
The letter, which resembled a request earlier this month that California not count any ballots received from around 20,000 alleged noncitizens, marked an escalation in the Trump administration’s pressure on state election officials over alleged noncitizen voting.
Multiple state audits and independent studies have found that voter fraud, including voting by noncitizens, is extremely rare and has not affected election outcomes.
The pressure campaign is a rare intervention by the Justice Department in the voting process in the weeks before an election. Donald Trump’s Republican party is locked in a tight battle to retain slim majorities in both chambers of the US Congress, and centrist Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s campaign to hold onto her southwest Washington seat is one of 10 key races that could decide control of the US House of Representatives.
In the letter, dated 26 October, the top federal prosecutors in Seattle and Spokane asked Washington secretary of state Steve Hobbs, the state’s top elections official, to determine whether the more than 400 people were in fact US citizens and to not count their ballots until their citizenship was determined. The letter said the justice department would seek “emergency relief” if the state could not take those actions by noon local time tomorrow.
There were 5 million registered voters in Washington state as of 2024, according to the secretary of state’s office.
In a statement, Hobbs said his office would only respond to requests that follow due process.
“The timing of this request — one week before the General Election — is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results,” Hobbs said.
A justice department spokesperson said: “With his [Hobbs’] help, we can ensure that only American citizens vote in Washington’s elections.“
In its letter to Washington state officials, the justice department acknowledged that some of the individuals flagged as possible noncitizens may have since naturalized, but it did not say how many.
Federal law enforcement agents searched a home in suburban Los Angeles early today as part of an investigation into Eric Swalwell, who resigned from Congress amid a wave of sexual misconduct allegations, a law enforcement official and two people familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press.
Agents searched the Beverly Hills home of wealthy developer and Swalwell donor Stephen Cloobeck, where the Democratic ex-congressman spent time before resigning from office in April, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
Swalwell has denied criminal wrongdoing.
Messages seeking comment were left for Swalwell’s attorney and for a lawyer who represented Cloobeck in another matter.
Cloobeck, the founder of the Diamond Resorts International timeshare company, told the New York Post in April that he cut ties with Swalwell as accusations against him mounted.
“I am no longer associated with a man that takes advantage of women,” Cloobeck told the newspaper. “I support women’s rights.”
Today’s search is the latest escalation in the federal investigation of Swalwell – one of several probes begun after a woman came forward with allegations that he sexually assaulted her twice, including when she worked for him.
The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.
More on this story here:
Trump’s cuts have exposed US to ‘cascade’ of El Niño dangers, experts warn
Gabrielle Canon
Sweeping cuts to the premier US climate agency under Donald Trump have severely hampered the country’s capacity to forecast, research and respond to extreme weather events, former government officials and scientists have warned, as the US faces a cascade of hazards fueled by a potentially historic El Niño this winter.
From the start of his second term, the president has taken aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), slashing staff levels, canceling contracts and grants, and shutting down databases and research laboratories. The agency that has long been considered a global crown jewel in climate science and forecasting, has lost roughly 20% of its staff since January 2025.
The National Weather Service, which is housed within Noaa, has also taken a hit. Weather stations have had to delay data collection and cut operating hours, with hundreds of meteorological and other technical positions still vacant across its 122 forecast offices.
The effects have already been felt at Noaa, where a chaotic and volatile environment has sent morale plummeting, increased burnout and hampered vital work. While capacity has quietly unravelled, a large-scale disaster will quickly expose the most dangerous gaps.
“The system has not really been tested since all the cuts happened,” said Tom Di Liberto, a former Noaa climate scientist who now works as the media director of Climate Central.
That test could soon be coming.
This year’s super El Niño, a climate phenomenon characterized by warmer than average equatorial sea surface temperatures, has the ability to fuel extreme weather events around the world. It’s already climbing off the charts and is expected to strengthen through the northern hemisphere’s autumn and winter.
Along with dangerous spikes in temperature, El Niño will supercharge storms in parts of the American west, raise sea levels in California by up to a foot, and set the stage for debris flows, landslides and flash floods.
“Whether we as a country can handle the kind of coast-to-coast extremes that could potentially happen this winter is a big question,” Di Liberto said.
Read the full report here:
In the latest episode of our Stateside podcast, Carter Sherman speaks to Julian Borger, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, about how historic elections in Serbia, Brazil, Israel and the United States could reshape the political world order in just 10 days – and why the upcoming US midterm elections are the biggest test for global democracy.
Trump refers to oil tanker he’ll show off in Texas as a personal “gift” from Venezuela
Before heading to Texas, Trump spoke in blunt terms about the US’s relationship with Venezuela, describing a massive shipment of oil he’ll show off at a campaign stop as a personal gift from a subdued country.
“We took over Venezuela, very successfully,” Trump said. “And they’ve sent me as a gift, a boatload of a million barrels of oil, and I’m giving that to the United States of America.”
The Trump administration deposed Venezuela’s former leader, Nicólas Maduro, in January, dragging the autocrat off to a Brooklyn jail after a nighttime incursion into the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. His US-friendly successor, Delcy Rodriguez, who took power with Trump’s backing, has since brokered deals with the Trump administration that would see Venezuela oil revenues funneled into US coffers.
The oil shipment from Venezuela is part of Trump’s efforts to tamp down voters’ outrage over soaring gas prices due to the war in Iran.
“We’re going to accept a million barrels of oil, and I’m going to give it to you people to use it the way you want,” Trump said.“Oil prices are going to be dropping very sharply, very soon.”
Trump says he’ll respect election results ‘if they’re honest’
Pressed on the tarmac en route to a pair of Texas campaign events on whether he would accept the election results of the 2026 midterm elections, President Trump gave a familiar reply: “I will, if they’re honest.”
He also said he would be open to working with, and potentially making deals, with a Democratic majority if Republicans were to lose control of Congress.
“I hope that won’t be the case, but if it is, that’s happened before with many presidents,” Trump told reporters. “You have strong veto, and you end up working out deals.”
Trump-appointed CDC deputy director to resign after six months on the job
Jessica Glenza
The deputy director and chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will resign after six months on the job, according to an agency email obtained by the Guardian.
Dr Jennifer Shuford was appointed by Donald Trump in April as part of a four-person senior leadership team.
The appointments were meant to stabilize the agency after the previous CDC director, Susan Monarez, left less than a month into the job – publicly describing the directives of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, as “unscientific”.
“I am leaving to spend more time with my family,” Shuford said in a statement, sent via email by the CDC director, Dr Erica Schwartz. “I am so thankful to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for giving me the opportunity to help lead CDC. It has been an amazing experience, and I will be forever grateful for it.”
Shuford is expected to leave her post on 12 November, after the midterm elections.
The deputy director was appointed as part of a four-person team in April, alongside Schwartz and two other top leaders. Shuford’s appointment was cheered by public health leaders, such as Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), who would have known her work as Texas health commissioner.
In the time since Shuford has worked at the agency, Kennedy has made significant changes that undermine vaccine trust and access. In just a few recent examples: Kennedy fired all 17 of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel members and replaced them with ideologically aligned appointees, slow-walked death updates to the agency’s measles dashboard, and forced the CDC to publicly contradict scientific consensus on vaccines and autism – a change the Autism Science Foundation said left it “appalled”.
At the same time, the agency has lost one-third of its workforce and 48 distinct measles outbreaks have roiled the US, particularly in Pennsylvania. The overwhelming majority of Americans – including Maha supporters – trust vaccines.
Tom Phillips, chief justice of Texas supreme court, endorses James Talarico in Senate race
Tom Phillips, a longtime chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a staunch Republican, endorsed Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race on Monday.
In an op-ed published in the Austin American-Statesman, Phillips, a Republican who served as the state’s chief justice from 1988 to 2004, said that he believed that Talarico would be a better representative of Texas in the Senate, and more willing to engage in productive bipartisanship.
By contrast, he said, Paxton would be a Trump acolyte who would enable the president’s excesses and self-dealing, steering the Republican Party away from the ideals Phillips believes it should embody, such as limited government and free enterprise.
He also felt that Paxton’s history of scandal would cast a shadow over his Senate tenure, regardless of his future conduct.
“However exemplary his future conduct might be, Paxton’s longstanding reputation will embarrass Texas in ways our state simply cannot afford,” Phillips wrote. “While I, like many Republicans, do not agree with all of Talarico’s past statements or current positions, I am confident that he would serve this great state with dignity and honor.”
Phillips said he believed there were still Republican candidates on the ticket who were worthy of serving. Paxton just wasn’t one of them.
“Thus, while I enthusiastically support the statewide Republican judicial candidates and many Republican candidates for other statewide offices, my choice for United States Senator must be James Talarico,” Phillips wrote.
