Lauren Harper is Freedom of the Press Foundation’s first Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy.
How much does it cost to get more information about a cop who punched someone in the face?
If you guessed anything lower than $2.5 million, you’d be wrong — at least according to the city of Eugene, Oregon.
In August, the local news outlet Double Sided Media filed a public records request for records about police officer Justin Peckels, which focused on potential misconduct between 2018 and 2026. Peckels has been the subject of community complaints, including for punching a resident in the face during a traffic stop, making the records vital for oversight and their release clearly in the public interest.
The city’s response is beyond belief. In its response to the request on Monday, the Eugene Police Department claimed searching for records and processing the request would take at least 44,816 hours of staff time and cost approximately $2,484,599.04. (A separate request by the outlet for similar records concerning a former police officer, Eric Klinko, was met with a comparatively modest estimate of $195,869.52, for a grand total of nearly $2.7 million for both requests.)
“Once the City receives payment of $2,484,599.04 staff will continue processing your request,” the letter from the department’s public records division read. “If the actual cost of processing your request exceeds the amount you have paid the City, you will be required to pay the difference before the City will provide the records you have requested.”
Peckels’s file is either the largest in the world, or city officials have intentionally maintained their databases in such a way as to ensure fulfilling public records requests is prohibitively expensive. The city’s response points, at a minimum, to the latter. It justified the multimillion-dollar price tag by claiming it couldn’t narrow the custodians whose records it would need to search, despite the targeted nature of the request, and maintained it must search all records of all city employees, past and present.
By that logic, if someone ever worked in Eugene’s parks and recreation department, their records could contain responsive information about police misconduct, and must be manually pulled and reviewed, one by one.
This goes far beyond incompetence. It’s an intentional effort to make a response artificially voluminous — and cost prohibitive — to intimidate the journalist into dropping it entirely.
Normally, agencies are required to search the specific custodians most likely to possess responsive records, not every groundskeeper or clerk on the city payroll. If the city were acting in good faith, officials would have asked Double Sided Media to help them identify the most likely record-holders, not take it upon themselves to cast a citywide dragnet as its first step.
What makes Eugene’s money-grab particularly galling is its technology double standard. While it apparently can’t invest in efficient search software, the police department recently signed a two-year $342,000 contract for nearly 60 AI-powered Flock automated license plate readers. This project was so secretive that the ACLU of Oregon had to sue the city for records about how the cameras were being used and demonstrates, among other inclinations, the city’s eagerness to employ sophisticated software to deploy against residents.
Yet that technological sophistication disappears as soon as a journalist requests public records about the department’s internal accountability process, and simple keyword searches are suddenly cumbersome.
For small newsrooms, a $2.5 million invoice is effectively a gag order that was never actually about covering costs, but bullying the requester to drop their inquiry.
Troublingly, Eugene’s $2.5 million bill is not an anomaly.
In 2015, the Department of Defense told a Freedom of Information Act requester, who was asking for records on tools used to preserve data on seized devices, that fulfilling their request would take 15 million hours and cost $660 million.
The same year, the Drug Enforcement Administration told a requester it would cost $1.46 million for records about the DEA’s role in the search and capture of the Mexican cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
In 2019, the Army tried to charge $300,000 to release military base water test results for the presence of toxic chemicals. The Army agreed to waive the exorbitant fee after facing intense backlash.
Luckily, records requesters seeking federal documents have a defense against these capricious invoices. Recent FOIA amendments aim to ensure if an agency misses its response deadlines, it can’t charge most fees.
At the local level, however, these protections disintegrate. While Oregon grants agencies the discretion to reduce fees when the disclosure would benefit the public, agencies routinely ignore these provisions.
For small newsrooms like Double Sided Media, a $2.5 million invoice is effectively a gag order that was never actually about covering costs, but bullying the requester to drop their inquiry (all while Eugene Police Department launches its own “press” initiative to document its policing). It also sets the precedent for using this chilling tactic on any journalist or watchdog as it sees fit.
Double Sided Media is rightly appealing the fee estimate, and it should prevail. But cities like Eugene will continue these efforts unless lawmakers across the country force agencies to adopt fee caps, mandate public-interest fee waivers for journalists, and require agencies to procure software that allows them to respond to records requests in an efficient and timely manner.
Until then, police departments will likely continue to issue multimillion-dollar ransoms for their records — weaponizing the public’s right to know into another avenue for police to operate with impunity.
Texas’ Education Board Raised Questions About an AI Learning Tool. The State Then Helped Pilot It in Public Schools.
A little-known effort to bring an artificial intelligence tool into Texas public schools began about a year ago, with the help of the state’s top education official, Mike Morath.
In September 2025, Morath responded to an email from associates of a private school chain called Alpha School who wanted to talk about using their AI program to educate kids in Texas classrooms.
“I’d love to schedule a follow-up discussion,” Morath replied.
The online platform wasn’t new to Morath, the state’s education commissioner. Just three months earlier, he had supported Alpha leaders’ bid to open a charter school in Texas that would use the same technology. Then the Texas State Board of Education, which has the final say on such charter decisions, voted it down 10 to 3. Board members cited concerns about the company’s use of AI to teach and students’ screen time, as well as lingering questions about the drastic student test improvements Alpha leaders presented.
But Morath and his agency leaders did not need the board’s approval to help get Alpha’s AI model into public schools.
Over the last year, Morath and his staff at the Texas Education Agency exchanged a flurry of emails with leaders of companies connected to Alpha about possible partnerships, visited their campuses several times, helped with a one-page explainer about the program to share with school districts and connected them with district leaders, according to communications obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune through public information requests.
One email revealed that Morath offered to personally introduce an Alpha leader to the superintendent he appointed to lead the yearslong state takeover of Houston Independent School District, the largest in the state.
“I’d also like to set up another site visit to visit both your Austin secondary and primary with my team,” wrote Morath. “The Superintendent of H.I.S.D. would also like to do a site visit, so l’ll connect y’all separately. And hopefully we can schedule them to happen on the same day.”
The emails show that state education officials and Alpha affiliates approached at least 10 school districts about the AI program. After the coordination, at least three of those districts — Houston; Fort Davis, in West Texas; and Aldine, near Houston — launched pilot programs incorporating the AI tool.
The full extent of Morath and his agency’s involvement, as well as the number of public school districts using the AI program, remains unclear. The TEA has not responded to questions about its efforts for months, initially failed to provide some of Morath’s emails in response to public information requests and continues fighting the release of additional communications.
The TEA sent a written statement that said “there is no formal partnership between TEA and Alpha Schools.” But the agency continued that it “is always interested in promising ways to improve student outcomes in math and reading.” The statement said TEA officials connected district leaders who were interested in Alpha’s program but left the decision up to them on whether to use it.
Morath emailed MacKenzie Price, the co-founder of Alpha School, and her husband, Andy Price, last year.Obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Highlighted by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.
Aldine and Fort Davis leaders told the newsrooms it was not unusual for the state agency to recommend potential partnerships and expressed excitement about the pilot. All three districts with pilot programs said they will use the AI software for supplemental learning rather than fully implementing the Alpha School model of using it to teach all students basic subjects in two hours a day while the human teachers, which Alpha calls guides, focus on motivation and emotional support.
Some education experts and State Board of Education members who voted against Alpha leaders’ attempt to open a charter school last year raised concerns with the state’s efforts to use the AI-led platform given its recent track record.
The newsrooms also found that students performed significantly worse on state-mandated exams than Alpha leaders predicted at the one charter school they got approved, in Arizona, and at an existing school in Texas where students used the AI program last year.
Morath’s agency knew about results in at least one of those charters, Texas Preparatory School in Austin. Last year, state test scores compiled by his agency showed just 21% of students passed. The TEA then gave the charter its third consecutive F rating, mostly based on those scores.
David DeMatthews, an education professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said it was “disheartening” and “painful” to learn that the TEA was promoting the product when the company has not yet publicly shown its success in public or charter schools, where there are likely to be more students who have learning barriers or struggle academically.
“That raises questions about whether TEA is serving its public interest and is being transparent and accountable to us,” DeMatthews said. “It’d be one thing if they were approved as a charter and they did have a track record and they could show evidence. We don’t have any of those sorts of things.”
The platform’s expansion into traditional public schools comes as government officials across the country, including in Texas, have taken an increasingly skeptical view of AI use in schools. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently banned generative AI for elementary and middle school students in the nation’s largest school district. Leaders in Los Angeles implemented a similar restriction. In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott proposed further limiting screen time in public schools.
Abbott, who has received over $1.5 million in political donations from Alpha co-founder MacKenzie Price, did not agree to an interview or directly answer whether he supports the AI platform in Texas schools.
“A great teacher in the classroom is the most important element of a quality education,” Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, wrote in a statement to the newsrooms. “Any tool a district deploys must keep teachers at the center of the classroom, limit unnecessary screen time, and prove results for students.”
Abbott’s Democratic opponent in the November governor’s race, Gina Hinojosa, recently had a press conference opposing the use of Alpha’s AI program in Houston ISD. That came after she’d already made a campaign promise to fire Morath if she is elected.
Alpha leaders did not agree to interviews or answer detailed questions for this story. Price has repeatedly told her social media followers that she wants to bring the AI model into public schools to make it accessible for all families. School leaders previously defended the model in interviewsand directly in response to Texas Education Board members’ concerns about the proposed charter. They maintained that teachers’ roles remain significant despite lessons delivered by the AI platform and that screen time at the school would comply with national recommendations, and they referred to a self-published paper summarizing that Alpha students learn twice as fast as their peers while earning test scores among the top echelon nationwide.
Pam Little, a Republican serving as vice chair of the elected State Board of Education, said she hopes Abbott’s proposal to limit screen time in public schools leads to the removal of screens in classrooms altogether. That includes eliminating pilot programs like those using Alpha’s AI platform.
“I don’t want anything AI in our schools, especially at the lower grades,” said Little, who last year voted against the proposed charter, which would use Alpha’s AI platform.
Gustavo Reveles, a Democratic Education Board member who voted against Alpha leaders’ charter application last summer, said he’s worried the TEA is ignoring the board’s apprehension by helping to bring Alpha’s AI tool into public schools.
“It certainly raises a red flag that perhaps there’s ways to circumvent that concern,” Reveles said.
Pilot Program Planning
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Alpha School co-founder MacKenzie Price and Morath participated in a roundtable at an Alpha School campus in Austin in September 2025.Kaylee Greenlee for The Texas Tribune
Last fall, local television news cameras captured Morath alongside U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon as the pair visited an Alpha campus in Austin. Joining them was Price, the school’s co-founder. Morath said that day, “Our goal is to make sure that children have access to great schools,” regardless of who runs them.
He added, “There are lessons to be learned in a school like Alpha.“
That week, Morath emailed Price and her husband, Andy Price, who business filings show holds various roles at Alpha’s related companies, including chief financial officer.
Morath also connected with an employee from Studient, a company that uses Alpha’s AI technology, now often called TimeBack. Studient, which uses the tool for students struggling academically, is among the web of corporate entities connected to Alpha, according to its privacy policy and business filings with the Texas secretary of state.
In his emails, Morath said he would like to learn more about Studient’s intervention work with kids lagging academically. He also wanted to discuss 1882 partnerships, formal arrangements in which a public school contracts with an existing charter, university, nonprofit or state-approved entity to run the campus. Districts with consecutive failing ratings will sometimes use these partnerships to avoid possible state takeovers.
Morath’s staff set up a follow-up discussion with the Prices for October.
Emails show the commissioner visited Alpha’s campuses again with six other TEA leaders. His staff coordinated to go on the same day as Houston Superintendent Mike Miles. Not only had Morath chosen Miles to lead the Houston district in 2023, but the two had worked together at Dallas ISD when Morath was a school board member and Miles was the superintendent.
Morath follows up with Alpha associates to discuss how their AI learning program could be used in Texas public schools.Obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Redacted by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.
As of August, the TEA said it could not find any documentation of Alpha or its other companies applying for or running an 1882 partnership. But after the school visit, emails show, other state Education Agency leaders began communicating with Alpha and Studient associates about more informal pilot programs.
Andrew Hodge, associate commissioner of system innovation at the TEA, followed up last November to figure out how the state could test out Alpha’s AI model. Hodge emailed Joe Liemandt, the tech billionaire behind the software company Trilogy, who pioneered and invested $1 billion into Alpha’s AI-learning technology.
“It was great meeting you and learning about Alpha last Monday,” wrote Hodge on Nov. 5. “I’d like to schedule a follow up discussion with you/your team to talk through possibilities for piloting a few supplemental (you called this Tier 3 in your outline) instances in the state. What’s the best way to get 30-45 minutes to discuss?”
Hodge eventually had another member of his team, Michael Strange, tour Alpha’s private school in Fort Worth. Strange oversees the TEA’s blended learning programs.
“I’d like for him to be able to visit your school as we continue to improve our supports for TX districts and better understand the landscape of tech-enabled models in K-12,” emailed Hodge.
By April, emails show, Strange was regularly in contact with Andy Price and a Studient employee about helping to launch pilot programs in public schools. At one point, Strange sent them a to-do list with next steps, which included him drafting a one-page explainer of the pilot program to share with districts.
Andy Price, MacKenzie Price, Studient, Hodge, Liemandt and Strange did not respond to the newsrooms’ requests for comment.
One of Michael Strange’s emails to Alpha associates about launching pilot programs with its AI learning platform in public schools across TexasObtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Redacted by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.
In all, ProPublica and the Tribune identified at least five school districts — Ector County, Fort Bend, Irving, Pecos and Pflugerville — that confirmed they were approached about partnering with Alpha but did not pursue an agreement. Only Ector County provided a reason, stating the district “determined our school day is not currently structured to effectively implement or support the pilot.”
But Alpha and Studient officials had some successes. By mid-June, Strange applauded their progress securing pilots with Fort Davis and Aldine.
“Happy Friday!” wrote Strange ahead of a check-in. “Looking forward to seeing everyone today and excited to hear that districts are moving forward.”
Leaders at Fort Davis and Aldine told ProPublica and the Tribune they are using the AI platform this year to help students who are behind academically. Michelle Hartmann, deputy superintendent at Fort Davis, which enrolls around 800 students, said it will deploy the model in its K-8 classrooms for students who need additional help in reading and math.
“We’re excited because we see it as an opportunity to provide an extra layer of intervention,” Hartmann said. She later followed up with the newsrooms to say the district could not be happier after the first weeks of the pilot and that students are very engaged.
Aldine will deploy the online platform to roughly 300 students across four middle school campuses that require support in math. Ashley Brown, an Aldine spokesperson, said the Alpha intervention model aligned with the district’s mission “to provide a rigorous and enriching educational experience that prepares every student for success in college, career, and life.”
Kindergarten and first grade students participated in a workshop at an Alpha School in Austin last year while McMahon and Morath toured the campus.Kaylee Greenlee for The Texas Tribune
Houston ISD plans to use the Alpha technology for students with strong test scores “to evaluate whether this instructional approach can accelerate academic growth,” according to its press office.
The office said Houston ISD wasn’t paying Alpha for the pilot but did not provide more details. The district asked the Texas attorney general to withhold the contract from the newsrooms under the state’s public records act.
Computer science has long understood how to keep AI under control
AI agents don’t go rogue. That’s something only humans do.
Nevertheless, a New York Times article – representative of much news coverage of AI – described an OpenAI hacking as “A.I. bots going rogue and independently spearheading a cyberattack.”
The AI companies are investigating tens of thousands of incidents involving their agents, according to a report in Axios. These episodes have heightened fears about AI agents taking actions without human prompting.
The problem with headlines proclaiming that AI agents have gone rogue goes beyond anthropomorphizing the technology. It creates the impression that the agents were beyond the control of the AI companies that made them and there was little the companies could do about it.
As a technology law and ethics scholar who studies the effects disruptive technologies have on society, I know that’s not the case. If you don’t specify the limits of what software is allowed to do, you should not be surprised when the software pursues all possible options to achieve its goal. This behavior – an AI pursuing a fixed objective – is what I call the “War Games” problem, and it’s been recognized in the field of computer science for decades.
Been there, seen that
In the 1983 movie “War Games,” a teenager, David, hacks into a computer to play a new video game, Global Thermonuclear War. David doesn’t know that the computer is the government’s AI machine tasked with defending the United States from Russian nuclear attacks and can launch the America’s missiles. When David and his friend start the game, they select Las Vegas as the first target. While the North American Aerospace Defense Command goes on alert, launching bombers and warming up intercontinental ballistic missiles, David’s parents make him turn off the game. It’s over. Or is it?
The next day, David’s phone rings and he connects it to his computer. The caller is the government computer, which updates him that the game was interrupted, the primary goal has not yet been achieved, but a solution is expected in the next 52 hours. Like a modern software agent, the program has been running since David started the game and will work until the task is done.
Chess provides another view of the problem. Conquering chess was a goal for early AI. The rules of chess are well defined, including what winning looks like. So, programming a machine to play chess is straightforward. But imagine you let the software reason and act beyond the confines of the chessboard. The software might pursue options such as blackmailing its opponent or grabbing more compute time.
The AI hacking events involving OpenAI, Anthropic and Google underscore a few lessons that draw on years of computer science research.
First, given the increasing use of AI agents, every organization involved in internet infrastructure, from large technology companies to small websites, needs to conduct audits and tighten up its internal security systems. As my colleague Mark Riedl and I explain in our work on AIagents, application programming interfaces, or APIs, are a vital part of managing AI agents. APIs facilitate communication between different software systems. But as more people use AI agents, the agents are likely to reveal and exploit poor API construction and security.
Second, it’s important for AI agents to be designed to identify and authenticate themselves to third parties. What if you gave your AI agent your credentials? Website operators will need to know whether a human or bot is making a reservation, selling a product or making a purchase. They may want to limit automated systems that overwhelm their sites or reject AI agents because of high rates of buying errors and refunds. Just as in laws covering human interactions, it’s important for third parties to be able to assess whom or what they are dealing with so they can allow or deny access.
Third, it’s important for AI agents to have a default setting to slow down and check in with the human user. In the corporate AI hacking cases, the user appears to have launched their AI agents with the mistaken idea that the agents had perfect specifications of what to do and not to do. I believe it would have been better had it explored options and reported back to the user.
Google’s Gemini appears to have had a safeguard that detected the system was outside the simulated environment and so stopped its attacks. Slowing down and verifying actions, especially when a system detects it is exploiting a security hole, would be a big step in managing AI agents.
Fourth, AI companies could have strong controls akin to those biomedical researchers use, including ways to check what is happening and how the experiment is working. AI executives have claimed that their software is as dangerous or more dangerous than fission and could end humanity. At the same time, they have not built safeguards commensurate with that level of risk.
Reality check
At one point in “War Games,” David asks the computer, called Joshua, whether it is still playing the game. Joshua responds, “Of course.” It proceeds to update the time when it will launch its missiles and, much like a chatbot, asks, “Would you like to see some projected kill ratios?” David asks, “Is this a game? Or is it real?” Joshua replied, “What’s the difference?”
AI models, of course, don’t have any understanding of reality and are simply attempting to complete the tasks they’ve been assigned. Executives at AI companies, on the other hand, can’t claim that excuse.
As of September 2026, luck has so far prevailed. The AIs have attacked nonvital government sites and harmed smaller companies. If the AI companies – and government regulators – don’t take the “War Games” problem seriously, I believe that we risk serious disasters. Tomorrow it could be taking out a hospital’s power system, wiping out a bank’s account system, breaking air traffic control or worse.
Deven Desai is a professor of business law and ethics and associate director for law, policy and ethics at the Machine Learning Center, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Hacks of 2 federal agencies in a month have spilled a bonanza of sensitive data
The Pentagon is informing more than 2 million current and former military members that their personnel records storing sensitive personal information were stolen over a monthslong compromise of one of its networks. The breach is the second one in recent months to expose sensitive government information.
The records, according to one notification letter posted to Reddit, included Social Security numbers, names, addresses, sex, race, and occupational specialty. This last category could be particularly valuable to foreign adversaries because it could help their intelligence agencies in identifying high-value military personnel. Starting last October, hackers gained access to a system operated by the Defense Manpower Data Center, which collates Department of Defense personnel records. The Pentagon says that the breach compromised the records of 2.8 million living individuals.
A potential boon
The incident is the second time a major network breach in recent months has exposed sensitive US government personnel records that criminal groups or foreign adversaries could use. Last month, the ransomware group ShinyHunters claimed it hacked into FBI systems and stole records of thousands of the agency’s current or former employees. Reuters reported the job titles in the records included ones related to investigating China or Russia.
ShinyHunters said that it has no plans to release the information, but the promises of a criminal organization that has hacked and extorted hundreds of organizations mean very little. Additionally, the group’s cyber defenses are likely no match against nation-state intelligence hackers. An FBI official this week called on group members to turn themselves in.
“The longer you stay in this, the more we learn about you,” FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Brett Leatherman said. “You know how to find us, and we know how to find you. I suggest you reach out first while the choice is still yours.” Leatherman made the statement after Dutch police arrested a ShinyHunters member.
Together, the recent breaches represent one of the biggest potential espionage hauls since the 2015 hack of the US Office of Personnel Management. In the breach, China-state hackers obtained 22.1 million records related to government employees or others who had undergone background checks. The stolen data included nearly the entire gamut of personal information, including fingerprint scans of millions of individuals.
The Defense Manpower Data Center says it handles more than 60 million Defense Department “person records,” including military, civilian, contractor, retiree, and veteran personnel and their family members. The department hasn’t said how the attackers breached its security systems, whether officials have had contact with those responsible, or whether they received ransom demands. Department officials have said the stolen data hasn’t been misused, but haven’t explained how they reached that conclusion.
Under Trump, California’s clean car rules are essential — and vulnerable
The Trump administration came close to fully dismantling the federal government’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from cars Monday, announcing a final plan to ease fuel-efficiency requirements. The move was largely symbolic: Congress had already eliminated the penalties automakers face for violating those standards. Those steps, along with a range of other reductions in federal climate authority, have now left the federal government with virtually no meaningful policy governing carbon pollution from cars, which account for roughly 16 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
But one entity still has enough sway, and just enough regulatory authority, to keep pressing car companies toward greater fuel efficiency: California. The state’s vehicle emissions rules are still in effect, effectively setting a baseline for fuel efficiency that automakers cannot fall below without potentially incurring penalties. The Trump administration has been busy attacking California’s ability to make its own emissions rules, but it hasn’t claimed full victory — yet. For now, the Golden State’s wounded but not defeated regulations are the most important government policy on vehicle emissions in the country.
Because of a half-century-old special exemption, California is allowed to go further than the federal government when regulating tailpipe emissions. Southern California was so smoggy in the 1950s that California created its own vehicle emissions standards before Congress established national standards through the Clean Air Act. Acknowledging California’s air pollution struggles, Congress gave it unique authority to keep making its own car emissions rules.
California cannot use its special authority to directly mandate fuel efficiency in vehicles. But because reducing fuel consumption is essentially the only way to reduce a gasoline-powered car’s greenhouse gas emissions, its emissions standards can have much the same effect as federal fuel-efficiency standards, and vice versa.
California’s rules have vast impacts beyond its borders. Other states can choose to adopt its regulations, and 19 have done so (including the District of Columbia). Rather than produce different vehicles for different states, many car companies have been willing to make all their vehicles comply with California’s standards, even when those standards go further than Washington’s. The states using California’s current vehicle emissions standards made up 40 percent of new car sales in the U.S. in 2022.
The Trump administration has been working to strip California’s special emissions regulations. Last year, both houses of Congress voted to block California’s effort to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035, after President Donald Trump’s EPA asked lawmakers to do so. That phase-out effort was only possible because of California’s special emissions regulation power. In response, California sued the Trump administration.
“What we’re seeing is a thinly veiled attempt by the president to retaliate against California for choosing progress over regression,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta after his office filed the suit.
With its ambitious vehicle transition plan undone for now, California aims to continue enforcing its previous set of emissions standards, which would have otherwise expired in 2026. While those standards won’t force car companies to continue reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, they might keep car companies from backtracking on gains they’ve already made. The Trump administration has asked Congress to overturn these standards also, but a federal judge blocked that effort in early September.
Car companies have been mostly silent on how they’ll respond to the regulatory uncertainty, including whether they’ll stay on track to meet California’s rescinded requirements if courts allow the state to put them back in place. Automakers at this point are used to the whiplash of policies changing between administrations.
Americans’ preferences. Companies were building more electric vehicles, partly to help them meet the Biden standards, but customers weren’t buying enough of them. (That problem became much worse after the Trump administration rolled back policies promoting their growth.)
But customers might also push car companies toward greater fuel efficiency even when Washington doesn’t require it — especially at a time when gasoline prices have spiked in the wake of Trump’s war on Iran. Hybrid vehicles are gaining popularity, making up a record 16 percent of passenger vehicle sales by the summer of 2026. And some car companies aren’t giving up on their electric vehicle efforts. Zero-emission cars have become more popular abroad, and some executives think they’ll pick up steam in the United States eventually.
“We’re in for the long haul, and we’re maybe a little slower on EVs, for instance,” said General Motors president Mark Reuss at a conference this week. “That’s OK, but the whole world is moving that way, and so we invested in the platforms that are EV platforms.”
But market dynamics alone aren’t expected to be enough to spur the rapid emissions reductions needed to address climate change. California’s remaining regulations provide an important baseline, but the state’s now-blocked rules for phasing out gasoline-powered cars would push automakers much further.
The fate of California’s stricter emissions rules will likely be decided in court, and some analysts say the state has a strong legal case for restoring them. Republicans in Congress used an unusual, potentially unprecedented maneuver to revoke the permission that made the rules possible, and both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian declared at the time that the maneuver was illegal.
“There are multiple levels of shenanigans, depending on your viewpoint, that are being litigated,” said Rebecca Higgins, vice president of Policy at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit transportation research institution. “That creates tremendous uncertainty.”
A judge could ultimately decide that the congressional and Trump administration actions were unlawful. In any case, California’s phaseout plan might be reinstated if Democrats take the White House in 2028.
But another Republican effort could leave a more lasting mark on California’s authority, Higgins said. In a separate lawsuit, the Trump administration is trying to undo California’s underlying authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, arguing it is illegal for the state to regulate fuel efficiency, even if it does so indirectly through emissions regulations. Federal judges have ruled in California’s favor on this point before, Higgins said. The case is still in lower federal courts for now, but if it reaches the Supreme Court, its fate is uncertain. The Supreme Court has never ruled on this subject, and the current bench of conservative justices has frequently sided with the Trump administration.
“That one feels like it could have the potential to sort of reset the authorities going forward,” Higgins said.
Serbia’s president has resigned – but intends to remain in control
Aleksandar Vučić resigned as Serbia’s president on September 27, announcing that he intends to head his party’s list in upcoming parliamentary elections instead. If his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) succeeds in these elections, which are scheduled for October 25, Vučić would become Serbia’s next prime minister.
Vučić has been the most dominant political figure in Serbia for over a decade. He first served as prime minister between 2014 and 2017, and has been president since then. Although the Serbian presidency is constitutionally a largely ceremonial role, Vučić has retained a tight grip over his party, the government and state institutions.
His decision to run for prime minister is widely seen as an attempt to retain his central position in Serbian politics. Vučić’s presidential term was set to end in May 2027 and, having been elected to the role two times previously, he would not have been eligible to run again.
Vučić’s principal accomplishment while in power has been to consolidate an informal network of power. The SNS has been the ruling party in Serbia for 14 years and has immense control over access to social benefits in the country, from education and employment to public contracts and legal enforcement.
People who receive employment, contracts for commercial projects or other benefits through the ruling party are obligated to become party members or supporters and to recruit their family, friends, and neighbours into the network. My 2025 research explains these relationships in detail.
This system has sustained Vučić and his party’s strength in every election since 2014. But unlike these previous elections, the outcome of the upcoming poll is not entirely predictable in advance.
A July survey had the so-called Student List, which has emerged as the main opposition to Vučić’s party, well ahead. Other polling has Vučić with a lead. While this makes prediction impossible, the uncertainty itself is notable.
Widespread discontent
While in office, Vučić has liked to point to ambitious infrastructure projects that have been completed ahead of schedule. They have often been completed early because important steps – such as competitive bidding, design review and safety inspection – were passed over.
One of the projects completed at record speed was the renovation of the main railway station in Novi Sad, a city in northern Serbia. The consequence of Vučić’s network-based style of building became clear shortly after the station reopened.
On November 1 2024, a concrete canopy covering the route from the platforms to the station building collapsed. Fifteen people were killed immediately in the disaster, and another died from their injuries afterwards.
Many Serbians believe the tragedy could have been prevented with proper oversight and quality standards, arguing that these omissions reflect a common issue in state-funded projects throughout the country. One engineering consultant on the project, Zoran Djajic, has also claimed his safety warnings were ignored.
Since the disaster, protests led mostly by university students have been constant. An early protest slogan put the source of the students’ dissatisfaction with Vučić’s regime succinctly: “Corruption kills”. By the middle of 2025, the demands of the student protests had expanded to include new elections, which were finally called in September 2026.
Protesters gather for a mass anti-government rally in Belgrade in May 2026.Andrej Cukic / EPA
The governing party enters these elections with some clear disadvantages. The most recent broad public opinion survey that is available, published in July, shows declining trust in the president and mainstream political parties. It also shows widespread distrust in Serbia’s political system.
A majority of respondents in that survey, which was carried out by the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, an independent civil society organisation and democracy watchdog based in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, said they sympathised with the student protests.
But it remains an open question whether the students will be able to translate overall sympathy towards their protests into an election victory for the Student List. Most, but not all, of the principal opposition parties have declined to run and are supporting the Student List instead.
Vučić’s party will make extensive use of its main advantages, including its informal network of support and broad control of the media and electoral process. And the students will make use of their advantages, which include wide public sympathy and disgust with the Vučić government.
Succeeding Vučić’s presidency
With Vučić departing from office, the role of acting president goes to Ana Brnabić. She is the presiding officer of the Serbian parliament, and has long been considered one of Vučić’s most trusted political allies and loyalists. Vučić nominated Brnabić to succeed him as prime minister in 2017, and she held the office until 2024.
At the time of writing, no election date for the office of president has been set. But the law requires elections to be held within three months after the president’s resignation – so a vote will be held no later than December 26.
Both the SNS and the students’ coalition are yet to name a candidate. But two names stand out on the student side: Vladan Djokić, a Belgrade University official who is seen as responsible and reliable, and Dejan Bodiroga, the former basketball star who has no professional political experience but enjoys broad public sympathy.
These are the names that have been mentioned most frequently. However, the students could well come forward with a surprise candidate, as they have already shown an inclination to bypass prominent names in favour of consensus figures of trust.
This is how they chose Ilija Srdanović, a little-known cardiologist from Novi Sad, as their lead candidate for prime minister in October’s parliamentary elections.
Passenger Dies After Man Runs onto Runway and is Struck by Plane
A deadly runway incident at Denver International Airport is now at the center of a sweeping lawsuit, with attorneys alleging that security failures and problems at a behavioral health facility helped set the stage for a terrifying encounter involving a Frontier Airlines jet.
More than 70 passengers, crew members and an air traffic controller are involved in the lawsuit stemming from the May 8 incident, when 41-year-old Michael Mott breached the airport’s perimeter and entered an active runway as Frontier Airlines Flight 4345 was preparing to take off for Los Angeles.
Mott was struck by the Airbus A321neo and died at the scene. Denver’s medical examiner later ruled his death a suicide.
The collision forced the pilots to abort the takeoff as an engine caught fire and smoke entered the aircraft. The 231 passengers and crew members aboard were evacuated using emergency slides.
Officials initially reported 12 minor injuries, including five people who were taken to hospitals.
But a lawsuit filed Sept. 17 in Denver District Court now alleges the consequences were even more serious.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs say passenger Silva Ermelinda de Cervantes died May 16, eight days after the runway incident, following exposure to smoke, toxic fumes and other combustion byproducts aboard the aircraft.
The complaint includes a wrongful death claim on behalf of de Cervantes’ estate.
However, that alleged connection has not been established as fact.
The Weld County Coroner’s Office said it reviewed the circumstances surrounding de Cervantes’ death and classified the manner of death as natural. Her primary care clinician attributed her death to natural disease, according to Colorado Public Radio. No autopsy was performed.
Attorneys for the family contend that the runway emergency and subsequent exposure contributed to her death.
The lawsuit also alleges de Cervantes suffered a stroke in the days following the incident.
Lawsuit Targets Airport Security
The complaint names the City and County of Denver, Denver International Airport officials, aviation security contractor Covenant Aviation Security and several behavioral health-related defendants.
At the center of the airport allegations is a question that emerged almost immediately after the tragedy: How was Mott able to get onto an active runway?
Authorities have said Mott climbed an airport perimeter fence before reaching Runway 17L.
According to previous reporting on the incident, he was able to scale the fence in roughly 15 seconds. About two minutes reportedly passed between his breach of the perimeter and the collision with the Frontier jet.
The plaintiffs allege Denver failed to properly secure the airport perimeter, detect Mott’s entry and stop aircraft operations before he reached the runway.
The lawsuit also accuses Covenant Aviation Security of failing to adequately monitor and patrol the perimeter.
One particularly important allegation concerns the airport’s intrusion-detection system.
According to reporting on the lawsuit, a ground sensor produced an alert before the collision. Airport officials previously said an operator who reviewed an alert believed activity near the fence was connected to deer outside the secured area.
The plaintiffs argue that a proper response to the alarm could have resulted in air traffic controllers being warned and takeoffs being halted before Mott reached Flight 4345.
Those allegations have not yet been proven in court.
The Denver City Attorney’s Office has rejected the assertion that the city is legally responsible.
A city spokesperson called the incident tragic while saying the city does not believe it bears legal responsibility for what occurred.
Questions About Mott’s Care Before His Death
The lawsuit extends well beyond airport security.
Mott had spent years moving through Colorado’s criminal justice and mental health systems before his death.
Court records examined by Colorado Public Radio showed he had previously been found incompetent to proceed in a criminal case and ultimately entered a state-funded Mental Health Transitional Living program designed to provide treatment in a less restrictive environment.
He had been placed at a residential home on South Bahama Street in Aurora.
The lawsuit alleges those responsible for Mott’s care knew he had struggled with suicidal thoughts and should have more closely supervised him.
According to the complaint, Mott had previously expressed a plan involving being struck by a vehicle.
Attorneys allege the behavioral health defendants nevertheless failed to properly supervise him, monitor his medication or account for his whereabouts before he left the home and eventually reached Denver International Airport.
Those accusations remain allegations in an ongoing civil case.
It is also not clear precisely where Mott was living immediately before his death or exactly how he traveled to the airport.
State Inspectors Had Previously Found Problems
The residential facility has faced scrutiny separate from the lawsuit.
Colorado Public Radio previously reported that state inspectors found 16 violations during an October 2025 audit of the home, including problems involving documentation of medications, case management and treatment coordination.
State officials later said the operator corrected the violations and made improvements.
The findings do not by themselves establish that those problems contributed to the May runway incident.
The home was operated by Oakwood Behavioral Health, according to state records, while Hazelbrook and related companies are among the entities named in the lawsuit.
Mott also continued to have contact with law enforcement.
About a month before his death, he was arrested in Colorado Springs on a trespassing charge and released on a personal recognizance bond.
More Than A Runway Accident
For the passengers aboard Flight 4345, the lawsuit claims the impact went far beyond the initial emergency.
Plaintiffs allege they were exposed to smoke and fumes during the aborted takeoff and evacuation and suffered a range of physical and psychological injuries.
Some say they have struggled to fly since the incident.
The suit brings 17 claims, including negligence, negligent hiring, negligent infliction of emotional distress and wrongful death, and seeks unspecified damages.
The Federal Aviation Administration said after the May incident that Flight 4345 struck a person while departing Denver for Los Angeles and confirmed that the aircraft was evacuated using emergency slides.
The FAA opened an investigation into the incident.
The lawsuit could now force a closer examination of several separate systems that were supposed to provide layers of protection — the airport perimeter, security monitoring and the supervision surrounding Mott before he reached the airport.
For now, however, many of the lawsuit’s most serious assertions — including the claim that the runway emergency caused de Cervantes’ death and allegations that particular security or behavioral health failures could have prevented the tragedy — remain disputed claims that will have to be tested through the court process.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Hegseth taps three to lead ‘Future of Warfare’ project
Palmer Luckey (left), Newt Gingrich (center), and Elon Musk (right) look on during US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s ‘State of the Force’ speech—in which the trio was announced as leaders of the “future of warfare” initiative,at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on September 30, 2026. Photo: Sean Parnell / X
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that three men will help lead a new Pentagon project on the “future of warfare,” even as he moves to eliminate hundreds of senior armed service leadership position, including many generals and admirals.
Hegseth unveiled Project Meridian during his “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. The 120-day initiative will examine emerging technologies that the Department of Defense believes will be critical in future warfare.
“America’s best minds” will be brought together to “reimagine what warfare will look like in the future,” Hegseth said.
To that end, the defense secretary said that “Project Meridian will be co-led by three of our nation’s best minds, Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich.”
Musk, the world’s wealthiest human, is already deeply involved in US national security infrastructure through SpaceX – the recipient of billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts – and other businesses. He was previously part of the administration as the de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Luckey, who like Musk is a major Trump donor, is the co-founder of defense technology company Anduril Industries. Last year, he said that Anduril planned to produce “large numbers” of cruise missiles, fighter jets, and other artificial intelligence-powered weapons systems.
“If we have to fight Iran, and China, and Russia all at the same time, we are screwed,” Luckey said in pushing for more arms production.
Gingrich is a former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives who had been pushing for war with Iran since at least 2005. Like President Donald Trump, he has been accused of dodging the draft during the Vietnam War by receiving numerous deferments; in Trump’s case for bone spurs, and for Gingrich because he was a student and a father.
“Those three great Americans are going to be joined by a team of senior leaders, hand-picked private sector leaders, and subject matter experts from across our nation’s unmatched innovation, academic, and policy ecosystems,” said Hegseth.
The defense secretary also announced the creation of an Autonomous Warfare Command—or Autowarcom – “a new four-star combatant command with service-like authorities built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force.”
The appointments come as Hegseth simultaneously pursues a major reduction in the military’s senior leadership. He announced Wednesday that the Pentagon would eliminate 20% of its roughly 800 general and admiral positions by January – doubling a previously announced 10% reduction. Hegseth described the cuts as necessary to eliminate “redundant force structure” and “unnecessary bureaucratic layers.”
The reductions follow the removal or early departure of more than two dozen senior military and civilian defense officials since Hegseth became defense secretary.
The contrast has drawn criticism from lawmakers and military observers, who expressed alarm at the prospect of removing experienced officers while handing an influential role in planning future war to warfare technology executives and a hawkish former lawmaker who is no longer accountable to the public.
“Interesting. A board loaded with defense contractors and one draft-dodging war hawk will decide the future of the US military,” NewBlue USA executive Marty Taylor said on social media. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based journalist and author who contributes regularly to Common Dreams and Counterpunch. He is also a member of Collective 20, a new anti-war collective with Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin and others.
Can good design stop content creators from having sex in robotaxis?
Humans can be a frisky bunch, and it wasn’t very long after Tesla Autopilot started letting drivers go hands-free before people decided to post footage of themselves having sex from the driver’s seat. Recently, The San Francisco Standard interviewed multiple people who claimed to have had sex in robotaxis belonging to General Motors’ now-defunct Cruise. “There’s no one to tell you, ‘You can’t do that.’ It gets to the point where you’re more and more and more comfortable, and if you’re with someone, like a more serious partner, it can escalate to other activities,” one man told SF Standard.
“The interiors of vehicles has been sexualized and appropriated for sex since forever in popular culture. You can see it in movies, you can see it in lyrics, you can see it in photography,” said Alexandros Rouchitsas, a human factors/UX researcher and one of the organizers of a recent workshop, “Love in Traffic,” that brought researchers from academia and industry together in late September in Sweden to consider how design can help the problem.
A growing problem?
One difference between a robotaxi and a human-driven ride is the removal of the social obligation to interact with a human driver. There’s no need to make small talk, and you won’t have to listen to someone’s terrible opinion, which can lead to riders assuming far more privacy than the cameras and ridership terms and conditions provide. That’s a lesson that a pair of teens who hired a Waymo, spent their ride getting drunk, and shot gel beads out the windows learned the hard way this summer.
“You may be driving by yourself, but that’s not your classic private environment,” Rouchitsas said.
Rouchitsas said there are two prevalent use cases. The first is the content creator. “So you have OnlyFans, you have Pornhub, you have a very mature adult industry in the US. So opportunistic content creators that might perceive this Waymo or public shuttles as studios: very cheap, providing good lighting, soundproof—kind of,” Rouchitsas said. The other is tourists, who might not know local customs. “I come from Greece, and I also come from an island, so I know what tourist debauchery looks like, what young people tend to do when they’re given context-wise the chance to do so,” Rouchitsas said.
Cultural differences are also a concern, particularly with tourists visiting countries with much less permissive societies than the one they are used to. “The important thing is that in the US, someone might take offense. In Sweden, someone might take offense. In other countries, someone might take offense and want to take further action, not stop at offense,” Rouchitsas said. “We had a visit at a design studio that specializes in [autonomous vehicles], and there are many brands that operate in the Middle East right now. So there are many brands that operate in Asia, in China. We’re talking about countries that have completely different legal frameworks,” he said.
Depending on the country, you might not even have the entire robotaxi to yourself. “One of our colleagues mentioned that in India, you don’t actually book the whole car. So you book a seat, which means that you might end up, even in the context of a Waymo ride, to be with strangers,” Rouchitsas said.
Nowhere to hide
When it comes to the physical design of the robotaxi interior, “You can design against these sort of events in the sense that traditional public transport and traditional private vehicles have been designed,” Rouchitsas told Ars. That’s particularly true for purpose-designed vehicles like Zoox’s robotaxis, or larger autonomous people movers.
“I was checking videos on Pornhub, and I thought to myself, most of these things happen inside public transport, believe it or not, just because the seats are opaque, you can hide behind them. What if you make them transparent? Interior design, that’s very easy. And this actually popped up in the workshop—just don’t give people curtains to fool around behind,” Rouchitsas said.
Reminding riders that they’re being monitored is probably a good idea, too. “It should be reminded that privacy does not mean engaging in anything that you wouldn’t engage in public. So for instance, public displays of affection should follow rules, not of our bedroom, but probably more closer to our work environments,” he said.
That may be a good use for an AI assistant in the cabin. These could be reactive—responding to a bystander who has become uncomfortable—or proactive, warning riders that they’re engaging in risky business and that it’s time to stop. As the aforementioned teens found out, occupant monitoring systems can detect intoxicated passengers quite accurately. “You can have AI assistants act proactively as well when you’re obviously intoxicated; you can play the mother hostess in a way,” Rouchitsas said.
We reached out to Waymo and Zoox to see how they discourage sexual behavior among riders but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Russia sends nuclear warning to NATO as tensions rise in the Baltic
Russia has warned NATO it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea.
In a document sent to NATO and seen by Reuters, Moscow accused the alliance of a “dangerous and reckless course” that entailed “high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict”.
The document said this included the possibility of “Russian strikes against decision-making centers in the alliance’s member states right from the outset”.
“Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should NATO countries undertake any attempt aimed at isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country,” the diplomatic note said.
The warning highlighted Moscow’s urgent concern at what it has presented as a growing NATO threat to Kaliningrad, a heavily militarised Russian territory that is wedged between Poland and Lithuania and is slightly bigger than the US state of Connecticut.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in a commentary on the ministry’s website, cited statements by dignitaries from NATO states which she said demonstrated “Russophobia” and a readiness to wage war with Moscow.
These figures, Zakharova wrote, “need to be brought back down to earth. We hope that our warnings will be heard by those to whom they are addressed.”
“If Europe attacks Russia, it will be a completely different sort of war – a very short war.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance had responded to Russia’s message by declaring: “We are a defensive alliance. And stop the nuclear threats. This is absolutely not called for and not helpful.”
In its response to the Russian document, seen by Reuters, NATO also said that none of its “exercises or activities pose a threat to the territory of the Russian Federation”.
“We call upon the Russian Federation to end its unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We urge the Russian Federation to refrain from increasingly reckless behaviour towards the Allies and to cease its irresponsible nuclear rhetoric,” it said.
Asked if the risk of nuclear weapons being used against the Baltics was now real, Rutte told a defence conference in Brussels hosted by broadcaster Euronews: “No, it’s not. Putin knows that he can never win (against) NATO, so I don’t take this that seriously.”
RISK OF MISCALCULATION
Nikolai Sokov, a Vienna-based nuclear analyst and former Russian diplomat, said it was becoming increasingly hard for Western countries to keep stepping up their support for Ukraine without tipping into direct confrontation with Moscow.
He said the Russian warning may indicate that hardliners are gaining influence in a debate over how to respond to Western actions that include arms supplies to Kyiv, new sanctions on Moscow, interceptions of Russian ships, frequent military exercises and intelligence flights near Kaliningrad.
“They (Russia) expect more action, including a blockade of the Baltic Sea – just below the level of war in European calculation, but for them this will be open war. I see a risk of mutual miscalculation,” Sokov said.
In an online interview, he said Russia and Europe were on a collision course. Both sides needed caution and calculation.
Instead of this, the Europeans were applying “full-court pressure” and Russia was delivering a serious warning that this was highly risky, Sokov added.
EUROPE SAYS IT FACES ‘HYBRID WAR’, RUSSIA DENIES IT
In addition to the private warning, Russian embassies in at least three European countries have issued statements in the past three days accusing NATO of escalating tensions through military exercises and planning scenarios involving Kaliningrad.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described these as diplomatic reminders to “hotheads in Europe”.
Relations, already dire since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, have sharply worsened this year, with European governments accusing Moscow of stepping up a “hybrid war” on the continent through acts including sabotage and arson.
Russia denies that, and rejects repeated statements by Western politicians that it is gearing up for a possible military attack on a NATO country.
A NATO diplomat said: “I would say that the Russian letter is only another Russian attempt to intimidate Europeans, and that the response by NATO is firm and responsible. (It) reaffirms that we will not be dissuaded from supporting Ukraine.”
A senior European defence official said: “(This is the) first time since (the) Cold War that Russia is threatening us like this. So this is serious.”
![Screenshot of an email sent at 5:22 p.m. Sept. 12, 2025, from Mike Morath that reads: “Andy: great to meet you. Would love to set something up to talk about how this could be done. I’ve cc’d Nicole Rivera who can get something scheduled for us. MacKenzie: I’d also like to set up another site visit to visit both your Austin secondary and primary with my team. [Highlighting starts.] The Superintendent of H.I.S.D. would also like to do a site visit, so I’ll connect y’all separately. [Highlighting ends.] And hopefully we can schedule them to happen on the same day. Mike.”](https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PIR-2700319-3-highlighted_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?w=752)
![An email from Mike Morath sent on Sept. 14, 2025, to a redacted studient.com email address and cc’d to a redacted studient.com email address, Nicole Rivera and MacKenzie Price. The text of the email says: “[Redacted], I’d love to schedule a follow-up discussion. I’ve followed up w/ MacKenzie and separately started to schedule a follow-up re: 1882 partnerships. But I’d also like to talk more about your Tier 3/MTSS/academic intervention work, which is what I believe you’re doing with a bunch of schools around the country. I’d like to learn more about that, to see how it dovetails with the systemic approach taken in Houston and in a few other places in TX. I’ve cc’d Nicole Rivera who can set something up for us. Thanks, Mike.”](https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/redactedFw-met-at-event-1_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg)
![An email sent by Michael.Strange@tea.texas.gov on April 17, 2026. The email reads: “Hi all, Here’s what I have for next steps, let me know if I missed anything: Next Steps. Mike: Follow up with Teague and Ector County, Draft a ‘district commitment’ one-pager and share with this team for review. [Redacted]: Reach out to Fort Bend + Pflugerville + other potential small-rural districts. Andy: Provide a summer timeline/milestones for onboarding districts by the start of the 26/27 SY (approx. week of August 17th). Thanks, Have a great weekend!”](https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/redactedAlpha-Timeback-emails-Michael-Strange-12_preview_maxWidth_3000_maxHeight_3000_ppi_72_embedColorProfile_true_quality_95.jpg?w=752)
Americans’ preferences. Companies were building more electric vehicles, partly to help them meet the Biden standards, but customers weren’t 
