logo
Nacogdoches student named winner of Congressional Art Competition

Nacogdoches student named winner of Congressional Art Competition

Yahoo23-04-2025

ANGELINA, Texas (KETK) – A Congressional Art Competition was held at Angelina College last weekend to showcase artwork from promising young artists in East Texas.
AFFIDAVIT: Parent arrested for giving vodka-laced Jell-O shots to kids at Tyler elementary Christmas party
The Congressional Art Competition is held every spring and is attended by U.S. House Members who select one piece of artwork to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol building. Several high school students from East Texas entered their artwork into the competition. The event was attended by U.S. Rep Pete Sessions, who currently serves as representative of District 17 in Washington.
Photos courtesy of Angelina College.
Alicia Dowell, a student at Nacogdoches High School, was awarded first-place for her submission. Dowell's piece was titled 'Shooting Star' will now be considered among other Texas artists to be displayed nationally.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Clean energy tax credits are critical for SC businesses
Clean energy tax credits are critical for SC businesses

Yahoo

time39 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Clean energy tax credits are critical for SC businesses

The mega-bill passed by the U.S. House last month slashes clean energy tax credits enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. () With the clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, businesses have announced plans to create over 20,000 new clean energy jobs and invest over $32 billion into South Carolina's economy over the next decade. These strategic investments in advanced energy manufacturing, electric transportation, and electric grid resilience are powering job creation, revitalizing rural areas, and positioning South Carolina as a national leader in American-made energy. These clean energy tax credits are critical for businesses, like mine, here in South Carolina in order to maintain investment and continue growing the manufacturing base within the Palmetto State. South Carolina's power grid — like much of the nation's — is aging and under rising pressure. Demand from data centers, manufacturing expansions, and electric vehicles is expected to surge over the next decade. In South Carolina, the commercial and industrial electricity rates are 10.97 cents/kWh and 7.01 cents/kWh, respectively, and both are below the national average. However, electricity rates are up almost 6% from the year prior. Reduced incentivized investment in clean energy infrastructure could lead to even higher prices due to a reliance on more expensive, traditional power sources. Strategic energy investments, supported by stable tax policies, will help us avoid future grid shortfalls, prevent the risk of rolling blackouts, and reduce long-term energy costs for South Carolina families and businesses. Tax credits are not a new concept — they have been a bipartisan policy tool used for decades to support emerging technologies. From artificial intelligence to biotechnology, to government investments driving technologies like GPS and the internet, these investments have repeatedly demonstrated their value. Clean energy technologies are no exception. In 2024, over 2,600 megawatts of solar energy capacity came online in South Carolina, equating to enough power to supply 325,640 homes. Over the next five years, South Carolina is projected to add over 2,500 megawatts of solar capacity. Retaining the existing energy tax credits will allow businesses in South Carolina to continue to develop and deploy renewable energy technologies which are vital to improve grid resiliency, promote greater efficiency that results in lower energy costs for everyone, and foster economic opportunities in our rural communities. Energy diversification mirrors a sound investment portfolio. Just as diverse assets protect against market volatility, multiple energy sources safeguard against physical and cyber threats. In addition, if we're manufacturing these technologies here in South Carolina, we are securing our energy independence by growing our ability to produce what we need at home and having greater control over our supply chain. Businesses have planned with these tax incentives in mind and rely upon them for capital allocation, planning, and project commitments — all of which would be threatened by the whiplash of major changes to these credits or further restrictions. We've already seen a taste of what this disruption can do. Recent federal changes and uncertainty have led to an indefinite pause in the construction of the AESC manufacturing facility in Florence, a $1.6 billion investment that promised to create 1,600 jobs in the Pee Dee. A full repeal of these vital credits would undermine significant progress made in clean energy innovation, economic growth, and national security, and likely cede jobs and progress to China. Now it's up to our elected officials on Capitol Hill to decide whether these clean energy tax credits continue as Congress intended in 2022. These private and public investments will spur domestic production of clean energy technologies which will set the United States up to compete in the global clean energy economy and create thousands more in clean energy jobs that will benefit all South Carolinians. South Carolina businesses are ready to build — ready to invest in local workers, modern energy systems, and secure supply chains. But we need policy certainty to stay competitive. Keeping these energy tax credits will empower American enterprise, protect ratepayers, and secure South Carolina's leadership in 21st-century manufacturing.

Trump's team reportedly pushes Texas Republicans to rig voting maps ahead of 2026 election
Trump's team reportedly pushes Texas Republicans to rig voting maps ahead of 2026 election

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Trump's team reportedly pushes Texas Republicans to rig voting maps ahead of 2026 election

The Trump administration's open disregard for voting rights protections and its open support for voter suppression measures raise serious concerns over the fairness of next year's elections. And fresh reporting from The New York Times further underscores the issue. Trump administration officials have been pushing Texas Republicans to initiate steps to gerrymander the state's districts — even more than they already are — in ways that will increase Republicans' chances at retaining their U.S. House majority, the Times reported earlier this week. According to the Times: President Trump's political team is encouraging Republican leaders in Texas to examine how House district lines in the state could be redrawn ahead of next year's midterm elections to try to save the party's endangered majority, according to people in Texas and Washington who are familiar with the effort. The Times report highlights a meeting Texas congressional Republicans held in the U.S. Capitol earlier this week, in which they discussed redistricting at the administration's behest. And Rep. Pete Sessions told the outlet that Texas Republicans committed to 'bone up' on the proposal and its potential impact on the state's congressional delegation. Some Texas Republicans have expressed skepticism at the plan, according to the Times: The push from Washington has unnerved some Texas Republicans, who worry that reworking the boundaries of Texas House seats to turn Democratic districts red by adding reliably Republican voters from neighboring Republican districts could backfire in an election that is already expected to favor Democrats. Texas is already facing a lawsuit that alleges maps drawn by state Republicans in 2021 violate the Voting Rights Act. And the federal government had been part of that lawsuit against Texas until this year, when the Justice Department under Trump dropped the government's claims. An attempt to redraw districts in the middle of a decade — rather than the beginning of a decade, as is usual — is certain to face legal challenges. The Times was the first to report on Team Trump's push to redistrict. Multiple outlets, including ABC News, have since confirmed the efforts. The White House did not respond to requests for comment from the Times and ABC News. The president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, John Bisognano, said in a statement Tuesday that the details laid out in the Times report mark 'yet another example of Trump trying to suppress votes in order to hold onto power.' 'Texas's congressional map is already being sued for violating the Voting Rights Act because it diminishes the voting power of the state's fast-growing Latino population,' he said. 'To draw an even more extreme gerrymander would only assure that the barrage of legal challenges against Texas will continue.' This desperate push to tip the scales in Republicans' favor using illiberal machinations tracks with recent reporting — in Politico, for example — about Trump and his administration's obsession with helping Republicans retain the House to avoid congressional scrutiny of the administration, which could very well come in the form of more impeachments if Democrats win a majority. This article was originally published on

Gov. JB Pritzker set to testify before congressional committee about sanctuary states amid immigration turmoil
Gov. JB Pritzker set to testify before congressional committee about sanctuary states amid immigration turmoil

Chicago Tribune

time3 hours ago

  • Chicago Tribune

Gov. JB Pritzker set to testify before congressional committee about sanctuary states amid immigration turmoil

WASHINGTON — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has said he plans to use a U.S. House committee hearing Thursday to educate Republican lawmakers on how the state's so-called sanctuary policies have helped create safer communities. But spiraling events triggered by the Trump administration's recent forceful immigration enforcement tactics, including in Los Angeles and Chicago, could turn a politically contentious debate far more combative. Beginning at 9 a.m. Chicago time Thursday, Pritzker will appear alongside fellow Democratic governors Kathy Hochul of New York and Tim Walz of Minnesota, who was last year's unsuccessful vice presidential nominee, in a long-planned hearing before the Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Underscoring a key Trump talking point, the GOP lawmakers repeatedly have tried to link immigration to violent crime and have faulted Democratic officials for limiting the ways state and local police can carry out immigration enforcement. The same Oversight Committee held a March hearing with big-city mayors, including Brandon Johnson of Chicago, to argue the same point. But after much hype, the Republicans failed to make a splash with the mayors' hearing, as city officials largely avoided efforts to be drawn into partisan fights. The mayors insisted that sanctuary laws improved public safety, not jeopardized it. Pritzker seems to be following the mayors' example in trying to sidestep major controversies while also blaming Congress for its inability over decades to pass an overhaul of the country's immigration laws that would allow longtime immigrants without documentation to gain legal status and to help businesses find workers they need. 'Certainly, I'm not there to lecture to (Republican lawmakers),' Pritzker told reporters last week. 'I'm there to take questions from them and respond to them.' 'There may be members on that committee who are simply there for a dog-and-pony show, who simply want to grandstand in front of the cameras. I hope not. That's inappropriate,' he said. 'I'm going there on a serious matter to give them my views about how we're managing through a problem that's been created for the states by the federal government.' Pritzker's comments came before Trump ordered National Guard troops and Marines to Southern California in recent days — over the objection of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, which has sued the Trump administration over the moves. The military forces are tasked with supporting federal agents in immigration enforcement. Closer to home for Pritzker, immigrants and advocates have rallied against the Chicago Police Department, denouncing officers' alleged cooperation with federal agents who detained at least 20 immigrants last week on the Near South Side. The governor said he thinks Chicago police 'followed the law.' But several Latino members of the Chicago City Council have called for an investigation. Sanctuary policies allow police to cooperate in criminal investigations of immigrants but not in immigration enforcement actions, which are civil violations. 'Thursday's hearing is a high-stakes moment to defend our values and push back on the Trump administration's war on immigrants,' U.S. Rep. Jesús 'Chuy' Garcia, a Chicago Democrat, said in an emailed statement. 'I trust Governor Pritzker will stand firm, asserting that sanctuary policies keep families safe, build trust, and reflect who we are.' 'With L.A. still reeling from military-style raids and subsequent military deployments, this hearing is a chance to show the country that Illinois won't be bullied into abandoning its immigrant communities,' Garcia added. Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who studies civil rights and constitutional law, said Trump's deployment of the National Guard in California and comments suggesting Newsom should be arrested likely means Pritzker and the other Democratic governors will face a far different dynamic on Capitol Hill than the big-city mayors did a few months ago. 'The sea change in the political dynamics over (the weekend) puts this on a very different footing,' he said. 'We're just in a wildly different place now, especially once the National Guard starts getting called and lawsuits begin, and arrests are made at a very wide scale.' 'The inclination to be more aggressive in that environment and to be a little more adamant in taking positions might be part of the political calculus for some of the governors in a way that it wasn't for the mayors,' Kreis added. All the governors slated to appear Thursday face political pressure to stake out bold positions, he noted, as Pritzker publicly toys with the idea of a 2028 presidential run and Walz already has a national profile because of his vice presidential candidacy. As Trump took control of National Guard troops against the wishes of Newsom, Pritzker and other Democratic governors blasted the move as an 'alarming abuse of power.' Trump's National Guard order isn't limited to California, although that's the only place where it's been used so far. Newsom has said the guard isn't needed. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois' senior senator, added his voice Monday to the growing chorus of outraged Democrats. 'What is clear is that President Trump manipulated these protests as an excuse to politicize the military and divert resources from pressing national security and disaster relief responsibilities,' Durbin said. Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned why the Trump administration responded so forcefully to protests in Southern California, just months after Trump pardoned nearly 1,500 people who took part in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that sought to overturn Trump's 2020 presidential election loss. Many of those protesters assaulted police officers. 'It appears FBI Director (Kash) Patel's comment (that) if you, 'hit a cop, you're going to jail,' only applies to people who President Trump doesn't agree with,' Durbin said in a speech on the Senate floor. Pritzker arrived in Washington on Monday to prepare for his Oversight Committee testimony. It will be a constraining format for the billionaire governor because congressional hearings are designed to maximize attention for members of Congress, not their witnesses. The Oversight Committee, in particular, is a contentious forum with partisan firebrands from both sides of the aisle competing for attention. There is no specific piece of legislation being considered by the lawmakers at the hearing. Pritzker spokesman Matt Hill said in a statement that the two-term Democratic governor will 'discuss his track record on public safety and the implementation of bipartisan state laws.' 'Despite the rhetoric of Republicans in Congress, Gov. Pritzker will share facts about how this bipartisan public safety law is fully compliant with federal law and ensures law enforcement can focus on doing their jobs well,' Hill said. One point Pritzker is expected to highlight to committee Republicans is that Illinois' Trust Act — which bans state law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities who lack a judicially issued criminal warrant — was signed into law by a Republican, Pritzker's predecessor, Gov. Bruce Rauner. Pritzker retained and is personally paying the Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling to help prepare him for the hearing. It is one of the firms Trump has sought to sanction for its involvement in previous legal cases against him. Dana Remus, who conducted the vetting of Pritzker as a potential vice presidential candidate to unsuccessful Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, is among the legal team assisting Pritzker, according to people close to Pritzker. Republicans plan to paint the prominent governors as weak on public safety. 'The Trump administration is taking decisive action to deport criminal illegal aliens from our nation but reckless sanctuary states like Illinois, Minnesota and New York are actively seeking to obstruct federal immigration enforcement,' U.S. Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement last week. 'The governors of these states must explain why they are prioritizing the protection of criminal illegal aliens over the safety of U.S. citizens, and they must be held accountable,' he added. Congressional Republicans have joined the Trump administration in trying to put pressure on sanctuary cities and states in recent months, often by withholding federal support for other services. Last week, House Republicans passed a bill to remove Small Business Administration offices from sanctuary cities, including Chicago, Boston, Denver and New York. The proposal would support an initiative by SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler in March to relocate the regional offices in six cities, including Chicago. In April, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a memo implying grant money to Illinois and other sanctuary jurisdictions — or those that, like Illinois, allow unauthorized immigrants to drive legally — could be at risk. Maria Castaneda, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said the state wasn't changing its policies in response to the memo. And in February, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to block federal law enforcement grants for Chicago and other sanctuary jurisdictions, although a federal judge in California ruled those actions unconstitutional in April. 'They are absolutely trying to bully (states and cities),' said Debu Gandhi, senior director of immigration policy for the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. 'This overreach will override local control. Withholding community funding from Americans is not an effective way to improve public safety.' Laurence Benenson, vice president of policy and advocacy for the National Immigration Forum, said there are legal limits to the repercussions the federal government can impose on states for not falling into line with the administration's priorities. The Supreme Court, for example, has said financial penalties can't be so severe that they are akin to a 'gun to the head' of states for not complying, Benenson explained. And it's Congress — not the executive branch — that has to set the priorities. 'If they're retroactively saying, 'We're adding all these conditions to this funding you're already receiving,' that's another thing they're going to be challenged on legally,' Benenson said. Since returning to office, Trump has prioritized immigration enforcement with provocative actions, some of which judges have ruled illegal. That includes deporting people to a prison in El Salvador without first holding legal hearings, detaining pro-Palestinian protesters and threatening to block all foreign students from Harvard University. The administration has used plainclothes officers using unmarked vehicles and not wearing badges or agency identification to detain people suspected of immigration violations. Agents have taken people into custody after court hearings and at check-ins with caseworkers. Gandhi said such actions undermine efforts to provide for public safety. 'What we've seen is recklessness and cruelty, not the promised actions that make Americans safer,' he said. 'Immigrants are being targeted for their speech. International students who have not violated the law are having their legal status placed in jeopardy. People are being deported to a notorious foreign prison in a third country with no due process.' Kreis, the law professor from Georgia State, said the Trump administration's tactics have intensified the protests. But once federal agents are in danger, he said, local police are likely to move to protect them. 'As a liberal who is very much against a lot of what the Trump administration is doing with immigration policy, I can also see a very different scenario where the federal government was trying to enforce some civil rights policy that liberals would love,' he said. Garcia, the Chicago congressman, said Thursday's hearing comes as a response to difficulties Trump has faced in pushing key parts of his agenda through Congress and the jolts he has caused in the economy through tariffs and trade policy. 'Trump desperately needs to distract us from his failures,' Garcia said in his statement. 'The economy is on the brink of a recession because the world is calling his bluff. We must stand strong against this cruel, authoritarian war that seeks to scapegoat immigrants to cover up the incompetence and corruption of the President and his administration.' .

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store