dankusner

It was the time of year / Just after the summer's gone

When August and September / Just become memories of songs To be put away with the summer clothes And packed up in the attic for another year

•••

We had decided to stay on / For a few weeks more Although the season was over now / The days were still warm

And seemed reluctant to give up and hand over to winter for another year

Indian... Indian summer

His parents had rented a house on the shore

’Though I stared at him all summer / We never really talked

In the end... At the summer's end I wish we could turn it around and start it again ••• He shared a house with his sister and mother It belonged to a painter, who rented out for the summer His father had already gone home The days were quiet and we were both alone Intensified by the lack of competition We walked along the ocean / And put off decisions To keep us from saying goodbye

Indian... Indian summer

In the distance the city lights / Flickered in the bay But any previous existence seemed a world away In the end At the summer's end I wish we could turn around and start it again

Indian... Indian summer

A former Houston police officer who filmed herself using racist slurs will go before an independent examiner to ask for her job back, according to her attorney.

Scott Siscoe, a former Houston officer and attorney who handles many cases of police discipline, confirmed that he’d filed a notice of appeal on behalf of Ashley Gonzalez and that he expected the hearing to be scheduled in October.

Police Chief Noe Diaz fired Gonzalez in April amid a chorus of people calling for her ouster after she posted the video on social media.

In firing her, Diaz called the behavior “abhorrent, disgusting and entirely unacceptable.”

Mayor John Whitmire applauded the decision, saying Diaz acted as quickly as allowed under Texas civil service rules.

In the video, posted on Instagram, Gonzalez appeared to be sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle.

She made racist comments about Black people, used the N-word and talked about slavery.

She also said she used a slur while arresting someone.

Gonzalez had been with the department since 2023, according to a copy of her personnel file acquired through an open records request.

In her time with the department, she received one group commendation for tracking down a suspect in a burglary at a Family Dollar.

She had no listed discipline before Diaz terminated her employment, records show.

POLITICS

AUSTIN — Secretary of State Jane Nelson will resign July 17 after overseeing the state’s primary and runoff season.

Nelson, 74, did not provide a reason Tuesday for leaving.

A former Republican state senator from North Texas, she served as the state’s top elections official for over three years.

“It has been my goal to ensure that voting in Texas is secure, accessible and fair,” she said in a news release.

“We have worked extensively to ensure accurate voter rolls and to educate voters about what they need to know to vote with confidence.”

Gov. Greg Abbott, who appointed Nelson, saluted her “long and loyal service.”

“She has represented our state with grace and honor across the globe, and Texas is better because of it,” the governor said.

Abbott will now appoint a successor who will oversee the November midterm elections.

The secretary of state administers elections, manages business filings.

Nelson also acted as the state’s ”chief international protocol officer.” Nelson drew criticism from Democrats in January after providing the federal government with Texas’ voter registration rolls for a review of potentially ineligible voters, a move opponents said invited federal overreach.

During her tenure, the agency renovated its headquarters, revamped its website and digitized millions of records.

Jury seated in Frisco track meet stabbing trial despite defense objections

McKINNEY — Collin County prosecutors and defense attorneys spent hours Wednesday whittling down a pool of about 250 prospective jurors, selecting the people tasked with deciding the fate of a teenager accused of murder.

The Karmelo Anthony case has shaken Frisco, drawn national headlines and stoked racial animus on social media.

The teenager he is accused of fatally stabbing, Austin Metcalf, was white. Anthony is Black.

Defense attorneys late in the day accused prosecutors of striking three Black jurors — the only Black candidates left in the jury pool — without proper cause.

Prosecutors are required to provide a “race neutral” reason for striking the jurors, and they said it was because all three were educators.

District Judge John Roach Jr. sided with prosecutors.

The 12 jurors and six alternates will be asked to decide the case only on what they see and hear in court over the next two weeks.

The trial centers on a confrontation under a tent during a rainy high school track meet in Frisco last year.

Anthony is charged with murdering Metcalf.

Both were 17 at the time.

The questions from both sides sketched the outlines of the case jurors are expected to hear.

Prosecutors appeared focused on whether jurors could hold a young defendant responsible for murder if the evidence supported it.

Defense attorneys signaled they may center their case on Anthony’s self-defense claim, highlighting Texas law on carrying knives and asking whether jurors would hold it against someone who chose to defend themselves rather than retreat from a threat.

Jurors

About 600 Collin County residents were summoned for jury duty in the case, with prosecutors and defense attorneys beginning Wednesday morning with the pool of roughly 250.

Sandra Guerra Thompson, a University of Houston Law Center professor who has studied jury selection, said larger jury pools like the one in Collin County are generally used in cases that have drawn significant public attention or pretrial publicity.

Calling a large pool of potential jurors could reflect prosecutors and the defense “erring on the side of caution,” because many people summoned for the case could be dismissed for a variety of reasons, Thompson said.

Generally, prosecutors or defense attorneys can ask to remove potential jurors for cause, but the judge decides whether there is a legal reason to excuse them, such as if they cannot be fair or follow the law.

Each side also has a limited number of peremptory strikes, which allow lawyers to remove potential jurors without having to prove they are unfit to serve.

Strikes based on things like profession are allowed, but under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky , lawyers cannot use those strikes to remove prospective jurors because of race.

Thompson said successful Batson challenges are rare, in part because the evidence needed to prove the strike was made on racial grounds and because lawyers accused can offer other rationales.

“It’s very hard to come by,” she said.

Defense

Mike Howard, Anthony’s lead defense attorney then asked whether they would hold it against someone who chose to “stand their ground” and defend themselves rather than walk away from a threat.

Howard hinted that the knife found at the scene after Anthony’s arrest was small enough to legally carry in public.

Howard also asked prospective jurors to rate their view on the current state of immigration enforcement in the county on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 1 meaning they strongly supported it and 10 meaning they were strongly opposed.

The most common answer was 5, though a handful of prospective jurors placed themselves at either end of the scale.

Others declined to answer.

Lisa Blue, a Dallas jury consultant, lawyer and psychologist who is not involved in the Anthony case, said the question was likely aimed at gauging the political leanings of those in the jury pool.

The case has drawn outsized attention from right-wing influencers, and the discourse has often focused on race.

Outside the courthouse Wednesday, the gatherings were smaller than they had been at the start of the trial, when dozens of demonstrators supporting both Anthony and Metcalf stood on opposite sides of the street.

The attention around the case has extended beyond the courthouse as well.

On Tuesday, Frisco police arrested Jake Lang, a far-right influencer and Jan. 6 defendant pardoned by President Donald Trump, on a criminal trespass warrant tied to an incident at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, where the stabbing happened last year.

Frisco ISD previously confirmed trespassing charges had been filed after Lang posted a video online showing he had entered the stadium after Metcalf’s death.

After the jury panel was seated, Roach, the judge, sent them home.

“I’m going to say it again,” he said, “don’t discuss the case with anyone.”

FRISCO

Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, influencer arrested

Pardoned Jan. 6 Capitol rioter Jake Lang was arrested Tuesday in Frisco, one year after he published a video of himself breaking into David Kuykendall Stadium.

Lang, a far-right provocateur and influencer, was booked into the Collin County jail on criminal trespass charges, jail records show.

Video is circulating on social media of his arrest outside Frisco City Hall, where a “Rally Against Rednecks” rally drew a few dozen counter protesters, some with guns and white supremacist messaging.

Earlier in the day, Lang posted a video of himself outside the Collin County Courthouse holding a sign that read “White Lives Matter” and demanding justice for Austin Metcalf.

Metcalf, 17, was fatally stabbed last year at a Frisco track meet at the district’s Kuykendall Stadium.

The trial for 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony, who said he was defending himself, is underway at the Collin County courthouse in nearby McKinney.

The case has sparked a deluge of misinformation and racist and divisive rhetoric on social media.

Metcalf was white.

Anthony is Black.

Last April, Lang hosted a sparsely attended Protect White Americans rally outside the stadium where Metcalf was stabbed.

He later posted a video on X saying he broke into the stadium.

“I gotta get out of here before the police come,” Lang said in the video.

“I just hopped the fence to get in here.”

He pointed to a dark streak on the ground near the bleachers and alleged it was the blood of Austin Metcalf.

School district officials said at the time the video was filmed on the opposite side of the stadium from where Metcalf was stabbed.

The district said it was pursuing charges in the case.

An arrest warrant obtained Wednesday by The Dallas Morning News confirmed Lang was arrested in connection with the break-in.

The document noted the stadium is surrounded by a six foot chain-linked fence topped with barbed wire, and has several signs noting it’s for “FISD use only.”

“Based upon Lang’s statements, he clearly understands he is prohibited from being inside the gated area of the stadium,” an officer wrote in the warrant.

Lang could not be reached for comment Wednesday, and it was not clear if he had hired an attorney.

He recently told The News that he wanted to stand up for Metcalf.

Lang was in jail awaiting trial on several charges related to the U.S. Capitol attack, including assaulting a law enforcement officer, when he and nearly 1,600 others received pardons last year from President Donald Trump.

Lang, who posted photos and videos of himself at the Capitol, could be seen in other posts swinging a baseball bat at officers, according to court documents.

The Florida activist returned to a Frisco City Council meeting last month to fight plans for a new mosque, Hindu temple and Jain temple. Wearing an army green vest and Confederate flag patch, he told city council members that Muslims and Hindus were teaming up to take over Texas.

“Good evening Frisco-istan, what are you guys doing inviting the enemy?” he said.

“These people don’t want to assimilate … if Jainism, if Hinduism is so great, why are their countries s—holes?”

“If I lived in Texas, I would burn down one of these … mosques,” Lang shouted.

Why CBS fired San Antonio-born '60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley

'The waste is heartbreaking,' Pelley wrote in a statement following his Tuesday termination.

This undated file photo released by CBS shows "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley.

According to audio transcripts obtained by Status, Pelley's dismissal followed a tense introduction with Bilton during a Monday staff meeting.

During that introduction, he once again called editor-in-chief Bari Weiss' leadership into question

San Antonio-born veteran “60 Minutes” reporter Scott Pelley was fired Tuesday by CBS News, just one day after a heated clash with the program’s new executive producer, former technology journalist and filmmaker Nick Bilton.

Here’s what to know about the months-long chain of events leading up to Pelley’s ousting.

Pelley and Bilton’s Tense Introduction

According to audio transcripts obtained by Status, Pelley’s dismissal followed a tense introduction with Bilton during a Monday staff meeting.

During that introduction, he once again called editor-in-chief Bari Weiss' leadership into question by raising concerns over Bilton’s hiring.

Bilton is replacing 27-year veteran Tanya Simon, daughter of former correspondent Bob Simon, after a spate of firings ushered in by Weiss last week.

Pelley reportedly said Bilton has “slender qualifications for this job” and accused Weiss of attempting to sabotage the program.

When Bilton said, “Bari loves this institution… She loves '60 Minutes,'” during the meeting, Pelley reportedly fired back: “She’s murdering '60 Minutes,'” Pelley said.

“She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it — and she’s doing exactly that.”

Pelley also called attention to Simon’s firing during the heated exchange, along with that of former correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, demanding to know why they were ousted.

“Why should we expect any of this is going to be any better?” he asked of Bilton.

According to Variety, Bilton tried to deflect Pelley’s questions and ended the meeting early.

Bilton’s Letter to Pelley

Pelley’s termination notice was issued later Tuesday evening.

In a letter to Pelley shared by CBS, Bilton wrote that Pelley “hijacked” his first staff meeting “to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt.”

He stated that Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you… your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”

Pelley’s Statement

Scott Pelley, renowned “60 Minutes” reporter with CBS, charged "the new owner of our network" with casting aside the “60 Minutes” legacy "to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration."

However, in a statement from Pelley, the veteran news correspondent shared a different perspective, charging “the new owner of our network” with casting aside the “60 Minutes” legacy “to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.”

He also accused new management of pressuring him to “to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and of telling him to insert “assertions that are unverified” into his stories.

More 'Censorship' Issues

Additional criticisms over perceived censorship have been shared by Pelley’s former “60 Minutes” colleague, Cecelia Vega.

In a May 29 report from the Los Angeles Times, Vega said she and her colleagues faced pressure “to insert political bias into our stories” at the program, noting that reporting teams held back certain pitches due to the “fear of the internal repercussions.”

“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven,” Vega said.

“It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”

Former “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who was also ousted amid Weiss' staffing overhaul, also chided new management for what she viewed as politically motivated editorial interference.

In December 2025, Weiss pulled the program’s segment investigating El Salvador’s CECOT maximum-security prison, described as a “black hole for human rights,” hours before it was scheduled to air in December 2025.

While Weiss said the story was pulled because the piece didn’t have an on-camera response from the White House, ex-correspondent Alfonsi said she believed the decision to pull the segment was “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

If “the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story,” Alfonsi added, “we have effectively handed them a 'kill switch' for any reporting they find inconvenient.”

In his statement following his Tuesday termination, Pelley said he and his “60 Minutes” colleagues “fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon.”

However, he said the program “lost its DNA” when senior leadership, along with Vega and Alfonsi, were fired amid last week’s staffing overhaul.

“Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience,” he wrote.

“They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos… The waste is heartbreaking.”

According to multiple reports, Bilton and Weiss aim to lead the program in a new direction.

For Bilton, “60 Minutes” — a show known for its in-depth investigative journalism — isn’t producing enough quick-hit content:

“The show is on the air one day, one night, one hour a week,” he told Variety.

“To me there is an incredible opportunity to take the show and do a lot of things with it,” he added.

He noted that he aims to shift the program toward a mobile audience and “reach a different generation of consumers that don’t tune in to the broadcast channel but still want to experience ‘60 Minutes’ in all its forms.”

Representatives for CBS News' parent company, Paramount, did not immediately respond to Express-News' request for comment.

Scott Pelley accuses CBS News boss of ‘murdering’ ‘60 Minutes’ The CBS television network logo is seen outside their offices on 6th Avenue in New York, in May 2016.

CBS News faced a fresh wave of turmoil today after Scott Pelley, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, laced into the show’s newly hired executive producer during a staff meeting and accused Bari Weiss, the network’s editor-in-chief, of “murdering” the long-standing Sunday news program.

In an extraordinary exchange, Pelley, his newscaster’s baritone sometimes shaking in anger, told Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, that he had “slender” qualifications for his new job and questioned the network’s commitment to the future of the program, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

The 10 a.m. gathering, held at the program’s midtown Manhattan headquarters in New York City, was intended as a formal introduction to Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker who was appointed last week as part of a major shake-up at “60 Minutes.”

CBS fired Tanya Simon, the previous executive producer, and her deputy, along with Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, two of the show’s correspondents — an event that Pelley referred to as “Black Thursday.”

The meeting quickly turned tense — not a surprise after months of strain between veteran journalists at “60 Minutes” and Weiss, an opinion journalist who was a longtime critic of legacy media institutions before she became the head of one last year.

She was appointed by David Ellison, a tech scion who took control of CBS’ parent company Paramount in a multibillion-dollar merger.

Bilton, who has never worked in traditional broadcast news, opened today’s meeting by trying to assuage the anxieties of staff members who believed he might fundamentally change the decades-old DNA of the country’s top-rated news program.

“For me, the journalism is the journalism,” Bilton said, according to the recording.

“That is why I am here. That is why we are all here.”

He added: “The rumors people are spreading, that I’m going to turn the show into 60 one-minute episodes, that it’s going to be like TikTok, that is not changing. The show is going to stay exactly like it is for now.”

He also warned that the broadcast television industry that incubated “60 Minutes” would soon be obsolete.

“Broadcast is an ice cube that is melting, OK?” Bilton said, saying the show had to adapt.

“Bari loves this institution,” he added.

“She loves ‘60 Minutes.’”

At that, Pelley interrupted.

“She is murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” the correspondent said.

“She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.”

Pelley added:

“She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”

Bilton responded: “Well, I will show you. That’s what I have to say. That is my plan over the next two weeks. I’ll be meeting with everyone. I’m very excited to meet with everyone, yourself included.”

A representative for CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment today.

Weiss did not attend the gathering.

A CBS executive at the meeting said that Weiss had been “prepared to come, and we asked her not to,” citing the staff’s ill feelings surrounding the firings.

Pelley pressed Bilton repeatedly on why CBS had fired Alfonsi and Vega.

Bilton said those decisions predated his hiring.

Pelley asked Bilton why he had accepted a position at a program “knowing that you will never be welcome here.”

“I have no problem taking a job in a place that I am not welcome in,” Bilton said.

“I don’t think that will be the case.”

He added: “You are not going to intimidate me in front of this group of people. I want that to be clear.”

Bilton said that he wanted to help “60 Minutes” avoid the fate of old-media stalwarts that had failed to adapt, citing Time magazine.

“I care so deeply about this institution,” Bilton said, to which Pelley interrupted: “Oh, please.”

At one point, Charles Forelle, a top deputy to Weiss, urged Pelley not to act “rude” toward Bilton.

“I’m not being rude,” Pelley responded.

“You know what was rude? Black Thursday was rude.”

Weiss’ handling of “60 Minutes” has generated internal turmoil for months.

In December, she pulled a segment reported by Alfonsi, about the brutal treatment of migrants in a Salvadoran prison, saying that it needed more reporting.

The segment was critical of the Trump administration, and Alfonsi said the decision was “political.”

The piece ultimately aired with some additional comments from the Trump administration.

Bilton today moved to conclude the meeting after roughly 15 minutes.

He encouraged the assembled staff members to partake in the food that had been laid out.

“I just want to thank everyone for graciously being so welcoming,” Bilton said.

“I look forward to talking to you in a one-on-one setting as these meetings are scheduled. And enjoy the bagels.”

The “60 Minutes” staff applauded Pelley after Bilton departed.

In his termination letter to longtime ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, the show’s brand-new executive producer, Nick Bilton, complained that Pelley had decided to “ambush” him with “a performative display of hostility” during a Monday meeting with the show’s staff.

There was certainly an element of the theatrical in Pelley’s confrontation with his new boss, with Pelley delivering the kinds of withering lines that aggrieved employees can only dream of.

Pelley clearly wanted a fight.

The question then became how Bilton and the person who hired him, Bari Weiss, would respond to this massive display of disrespect. They chose not only to fire Pelley, but to blame the entire dispute on him. Weiss doubled down the next morning, telling staff on a conference call, “I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.” She added, “That’s the path he chose.”

Could Weiss have handled it all differently? “I think there’s managerial incompetence. Even if you have disagreements with talent, you have to find a way for there to be a graceful transition,” said one CBS staffer. “It sounds like Pelley didn’t make that easy, but you still have to find a way to do it.”

STOP THE PRESSES

Bari Weiss Chooses War

By Charlotte Klein, a features writer and media columnist at New York Magazine

In his termination letter to longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, the show’s brand-new executive producer, Nick Bilton, complained that Pelley had decided to “ambush” him with “a performative display of hostility” during a Monday meeting with the show’s staff. 

There was certainly an element of the theatrical, possibly even the premeditated, in Pelley’s confrontation with his new boss, with Pelley delivering the kinds of withering lines (“You have slender qualifications for this job”) that aggrieved employees can only dream of — all of which were instantly leaked to sympathetic reporters and spread far and wide. 

Pelley clearly wanted a fight.

The question then became how Bilton and the person who hired him, Bari Weiss, would respond to this massive display of disrespect. 

They chose not only to fire Pelley, but to blame the entire dispute on him. 

Bilton’s letter accused Pelley, a 30-year veteran at CBS, of having “no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.” 

Pelley fired back that Weiss and her team, among other offenses, “instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”

Weiss doubled down the next morning, telling staff on a conference call, “I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here, when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.”

MEDIA

‘60 Minutes’ faces turmoil

NEW YORK — “This is ‘60 Minutes,’” Harry Reasoner announced on Sept. 24, 1968, introducing his new CBS News show alongside fellow correspondent Mike Wallace.

“It’s kind of a magazine for television.”

He added: “We do think this is sort of a new approach.”

More than a half-century and 58 seasons later, that same term — “new approach” — is being deployed by CBS News leader Bari Weiss to explain her sweeping changes at the most renowned news program in TV history: firing the top producer and two correspondents, among others, and installing a new chief with no TV broadcast experience.

Now, one of the show’s most famous faces, Scott Pelley, is gone too — fired after a tense confrontation with bosses.

“We realize, of course, that new approaches are not always instantly accepted,” Reasoner said on that night in 1968.

And Weiss’ “new approach” has been greeted with biting criticism from some corners.

Moreover, the turmoil has become a top news story in itself, with competing narratives flying — none of them flattering to CBS News.

The essential question percolating on Wednesday: Where does 60 Minutes go from here?

To one prominent analyst of TV news, it seemed Wednesday that something had already evaporated — if only, perhaps, a long-held perception that 60 Minutes , which manages to be both old-school and pugnacious, was something essentially untouchable.

“My first response is, it started in 1968 — not a bad run,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture.

“Because it really does look like this is systematically deconstructing what (the show) was.”

He felt, though, that there were concerning signs.

The show is suddenly down four correspondents.

Three have been dismissed, including Pelley, and Anderson Cooper is leaving of his own accord.

There have also been unsettling accusations launched by Pelley.

“New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” the correspondent and former evening news anchor contended in a statement Tuesday.

“I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified.”

CBS News denied the charge.

“There is no political interference at CBS News, not from ownership, not from Bari Weiss,” said a statement from a spokesperson Wednesday night.

“The only ‘interference’ is the normal back and forth between editor and correspondent that happens in every newsroom.”

Turmoil had been evident at 60 Minutes for more than a year, after President Donald Trump sued the show over its editing of a 2024 interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

It became part of a broader upheaval at CBS News after Weiss was named to the new role of editor-in-chief by parent company Paramount late last year following David Ellison’s arrival as the network’s corporate leader.

Could Joe Rogan replace Anderson Cooper on ‘60 Minutes’? Here's what we know

CBS News is reportedly searching for a replacement for “60 Minutes” correspondent Anderson Cooper, and network executives may have their sights set on Austin-based podcaster Joe Rogan.

RadarOnline, a celebrity and entertainment news site, reported that CBS considering Rogan, who boasts 20.9 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, “PowerfulJRE,” and millions of viewers of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” would be “strategy,” not “stunt casting.”

Rogan would bring “a core connection to over 50 percent of the country,” an unnamed media executive told RadarOnline, saying the 58-year-old media mogul speaks to “viewers who feel ignored or mocked by legacy media,” a viewership that, if reengaged, would solve the network’s ratings and credibility problems.

The American-Statesman reached out to Rogan’s team for comment. CBS and “60 Minutes” have not confirmed the reports.

Cooper announced in February that he was stepping away from “60 minutes” after more than two decades, saying in a statement that he wanted to spend “as much time” as possible with his kids. His last broadcast was May 17.

What’s on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’

Rogan’s podcasts feature a variety of guests discussing a range of topics, most notably politics and culture.

What politics gets wrong about sex

The natural, beautiful and mysterious doesn’t fit well into economic models

A Catholic priest, I am not celibate.

Rather, I’m a married father of five.

Many readers know this, but since it’s rare and relevant to the topic of this column, I mention it again.

When my wife and I converted to Catholicism, we were pregnant with our first child.

Our daughter is in high school now.

Our youngest starts pre-kindergarten this year.

Our home is noisy and messy.

Ever since becoming Catholic, we have indeed been fruitful, multiplied.

We know the rules.

For a married priest like me, a convert, some restrictions apply.

It was John Paul II back in the 1980s, as an act of unity, that made it possible for someone like me to pursue the priesthood, yet he did set parameters.

For instance, I can never get remarried.

If my wife passes to glory before me or tires of me, suddenly I’ll be celibate.

I try not to think about that.

Also, only the pope himself can dispense a priest from celibacy.

Yet I am nonetheless quite thankful.

If you’ll forgive the joke, I’m grateful to be one of the few people in the world to have written papal permission to have sex.

Now I say all this by way of preface, because I want to talk about sex and reproduction and civilization.

And before you shut me down simply for being a priest, if that’s your prejudice, I think it’s important you know that I’m a strange priest — a priest for whom the subjects of sex and children are not merely academic.

Reproduction is something a lot of people are talking about these days.

The headlines, the podcasts, studies half-read and quoted, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Oz, Elon Musk: All of it has coalesced into a nervous vibe and a warning.

It seems that not enough people are having babies.

It seems we’ve dropped below the “2.1 children per woman” replacement rate.

“Under-babied” is how Dr. Oz put it. Secretary Kennedy recently called it an “existential crisis.”

Plentiful, of course, are theories about what exactly may be behind this drop in fertility.

Economists and politicos point to things like inequality and affordability.

Some blame feminism.

Others have pointed to the deskilling effects of technology: how by moving so much of our social life to apps on constantly surveilled screens — everything from dating to sexual gratification — we have slowly forgotten the most basic mores of human love.

Whatever there is to any of these theories, I’m certainly not qualified to answer.

I’m merely grateful we’re now having the discussion, that we’re beginning to crowdsource the problem.

That’s good.

And it’s why, inexpert though experienced as I am, I feel able to join this important conversation, not to criticize policy proposals or demographers’ theories, but to suggest that what might be underneath our present antinatalist anxieties is something more than fear related to the economy or to political or cultural instability.

I’d like to suggest that what is depriving us of the joys of sex and the good of children is that we have abandoned our sense of the nature of sex — the naturalness of it, our nature too.

I invoke here the idea of nature in the full sense of the word, in the ancient sense.

The word I suppose we’d use today is holistic.

To invoke nature in this sense, what I suggest is that human biology necessarily implies an ethic, even a political philosophy.

That is, biology is not merely the collection of carbon-based mechanisms that can be easily replaced by technology but rather the first incarnation of human flourishing.

This is why Aristotle’s Politics has much to say about children and the inevitability of affection and the homes that make both good citizens and a good city.

Fertility is not first a problem of economics or technology but of meaning.

Humans find themselves in the mood to have sex and bear children less when they are thinking about economics and politics and more when they’ve simply fallen in love — when they are in harmony with nature, with the meaning of nature in its fullest sense.

Now believe it or not — and stay with me here — this is one of the reasons I find Catholicism compelling.

Because I think Catholicism is the last great champion of this more natural understanding of sex and children.

You see, the whole point of Catholic sexual ethics is that sex is good because creation is good and because human beings are good; and that it’s natural to fall in love, to find oneself aroused by one’s spouse, to give oneself completely to one’s spouse as both give themselves to the risk-filled mystery of life and death.

Which, of course, sometimes results in children.

Catholicism simply teaches that this adventure is best embraced naturally rather than under the duress of management or control.

It teaches that sex is an organic thing, something best enjoyed without artificial constraints or interventions, uncoerced by material ambitions or political or cultural pressures or by the whims of personal will.

And as a corollary, Catholicism teaches that to be just one should work to create a society wherein such natural love is cherished and supported.

But then Catholicism teaches something funny.

For in the same breath, it teaches that none of this really matters all that much, that although sex is naturally significant, what ultimately matters is supernatural.

Here we bump up against the apparent strangeness of Catholicism praising natural sex and procreation while at the same time saying that virginity is even better, for virginity and celibacy point to a more eternal creation not dependent on us.

Which, aside from whatever Catholicism’s cultural despisers, pundits and psychoanalysts may say, at least frees us from the burden of having to save civilization.

The point of human life is not to have sex and produce children for the sake of the nation or the economy or the species or even the church.

Rather, the point is to love and be loved and to worry about little else; it’s simply to be loved by one’s spouse and one’s neighbor and one’s God such that one feels free enough to love in return, carefree because God takes care of the rest.

Which is why Catholic sex is the most liberating sex possible and why it may just be the key to the West’s fertility crisis.

It kicks worrying about macroeconomics and saving civilization out of the bedroom, preferring instead the whispers of more careless and eternal love, the only love that’s truly creative.

Deputies released the woman when she went to a hospital, initially avoiding death on their watch

On her first night in the Dallas County jail, paramedics rushed Julie Buelna to a hospital with a head injury and blood coming from her ears.

But the sheriff’s office never told her family she was in emergency surgery fighting for her life.

When she died 11 days later, the sheriff’s office didn’t notify state regulators within 24 hours as mandated by Texas jail standards.

It also failed to alert the attorney general within 30 days, a requirement spelled out in state law.

Instead, Dallas County jail officials quietly — without a judge’s order — released Buelna from their custody hours after the 48-year-old woman arrived at the hospital on Feb. 25.

The move came at the request of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, the agency that was supposed to pick Buelna up from the jail because she had been arrested in Dallas County on a felony theft warrant from Plano.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Office had no authority under Texas law to cancel Plano’s warrant without judicial involvement after Buelna had been booked into the Dallas County jail, legal experts told The Dallas Morning News.

“It would appear that this was not an authorized release,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a University of Houston Law Center professor.

By releasing Buelna from custody before she died, the agencies delayed a state investigation into how she was fatally injured on Dallas County’s watch.

The probe began four weeks later, after The News learned of the case and began asking questions.

Advocates and legal experts see a troubling trend, raising questions about how many jail-related fatalities are going unreported in Texas.

Since 2023, Texas Jail Project, a nonprofit that advocates for incarcerated people, has identified 23 unreported jails deaths across Texas, prompting most of them to be investigated later by state officials.

Buelna’s mother, Joann Proper, first contacted The News , and a reporter asked Texas Jail Project executive director Krish Gundu about the last-minute release.

Alarmed, Gundu notified the state commission about Buelna’s case.

The state agency requires a third-party investigation of all in-custody fatalities, regardless of whether the incarcerated person takes their final breath behind bars or in a hospital.

TCJS director Ricky Armstrong said he determined Buelna’s death should have been counted as occurring in-custody after Gundu’s message, saying the commission does not recognize the way in which she was released from custody.

It made Buelna the third official Dallas County jail fatality so far in 2026.

Collin County Sgt. Jessica Pond said the office directed Dallas County jail officials to release Buelna when she was hospitalized as “an administrative action related to her medical status.”

Pond said the release did not dismiss Buelna’s felony charge and the warrant was reactivated so she could be re-arrested after her hospitalization.

Pond declined to clarify the rationale for releasing Buelna from custody during her hospital stay.

Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown did not respond to phone calls or emailed questions for this story.

Buelna’s case comes after the Dallas County jail’s death rate rose 50% from 2018 through 2025 compared to the previous eight years, according to an analysis by The News .

In Brown’s first eight years as sheriff, 71 incarcerated people died; 48 died in the eight years before when the jail’s average population was even higher.

Failing to report jail deaths, or removing people from custody as they are dying from injuries sustained behind bars, allows counties to dodge medical costs and scrutiny, Gundu said.

“It’s basically washing your hands off because then the death doesn’t have to be reported and they don’t have to worry about an investigation,” Gundu said.

Tom Cox, a Dallas criminal defense attorney, said incarcerated people with active charges are typically released through bond provisions, a court-authorized medical release or when the issuing agency releases a warrant.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Office had no legal basis to release Plano’s warrant over a “medical status,” he said, raising questions about motivation.

“We all understand they don’t release people from any of these jails just simply because they have a bad health condition,” said Cox, a member of the Dallas County Bail Bond Board.

‘We are in agony’

Nearly three months after Buelna died, her family still doesn’t know what happened to her in the Dallas County Jail.

The sheriff’s office denied The News’ request for the incident report and camera footage, citing confidentiality, and asked the attorney general to decide its release.

“We are in agony not knowing what truly happened to Julie,” said her mother, Joann Proper.

“She was loved and had a very big heart and in no way has deserved what has happened to her.”

Buelna grew up in Washington and moved to Dallas in 2008 to be near family, Proper said.

She loved fashion and dreamed of becoming an esthetician.

But she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 14 and struggled with substance abuse much of her life, according to her mother.

Buelna was arrested on Feb. 22 by Addison Police on the Plano felony warrant alleging she stole Botox and other services from a medical spa that cost at least $2,500 combined.

Because the arrest took place in Dallas County, she was held in the Richardson holding facility and booked into Lew Sterrett on Feb. 24 to await pickup by Collin County, according to records.

A Dallas County magistrate set her bond at $20,000.

Pond said Dallas County officials notified Collin County Buelna was booked and ready to be transferred to the McKinney jail.

A Lew Sterrett employee called 911 at 11:29 p.m. that evening, saying Buelna “jumped from the upper level,” according to Dallas Fire Rescue audio obtained by The News through a public records request.

Paramedics arrived seven minutes later, but it took them nine minutes to reach Buelna with a “staff delay,” according to EMS records.

Susy Solis, a fire rescue spokesperson, said the lag was due to the jail’s mandatory security screenings, credential verification for EMS personnel and escorts through secure access points.

When paramedics reached Buelna, she had been down for about 15 minutes and jail staff had put her in a neck collar and head bandage, according to an EMS report. It states her eyes were open but she was not responsive and she had blood coming from her mouth and ears.

They transported her to Methodist Dallas Medical Center, the closest trauma center.

Dallas County officials then informed Collin County Buelna was hospitalized, according to Pond.

At the direction of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, Dallas County jail officials released Buelna from their custody at 12:31 p.m. on Feb. 25, about 13 hours after the incident, according to release records.

Neither sheriff’s office notified Buelna’s family she was in a hospital, Proper said.

Two days after the incident, on Feb. 26, Proper said she received a call from a hospital employee stating Buelna was in critical condition after emergency surgery.

Proper and Buelna’s sister, Lorilee Cody, took the first flight from their home in Arizona.

When they arrived, Buelna was in a coma on a breathing machine.

She had a broken collarbone and a collapsed lung.

The front of her skull had been removed.

“We could not believe what happened and we wanted to get some answers,” Proper said.

Proper and Cody went to the sheriff’s office the next day. Cody said they met with a lieutenant, who told them camera footage showed Buelna jumping from a second-story ledge.

The family asked to view the footage but Cody said the sheriff’s officials declined.

Proper and Cody have difficulty believing Buelna would have tried to die by suicide.

In a phone call from the Richardson holding facility the day before, Proper said her daughter was talking about getting her things from an apartment she had to vacate and working on getting bail.

If she jumped, the family questions how the jail gave her access to do so.

But after meeting with the lieutenant, they said the sheriff’s office stopped responding to their calls and emails.

Buelna died March 7.

“It’s a nightmare,” Proper said.

“We think about this every day.”

Custody rules

Earlier this year, deaths in Texas jails were on the brink of even less scrutiny.

On Feb. 12, Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion stating third-party investigations are only required by law when deaths occur inside a jail, not when incarcerated people die in an ambulance or after transfer to a hospital.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards tasked with overseeing jails resisted, stating regulators would continue to investigate in-custody deaths no matter where they occur.

State law still directs sheriffs to inform the attorney general of jail deaths within 30 days. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor offense.

The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office had not filed a custodial death report for Buelna with the attorney general as of May 27 — 81 days after she died and nearly two months after the state commission declared the case a Dallas County in-custody death.

Of the 23 unreported deaths Texas Jail Project has identified since 2023, some were due to no-cash bonds issued as incarcerated people were dying.

Some counties said they did so to give families a final moment with their loved ones.

But sheriffs have authority to allow family contact while an incarcerated person is still in custody in a hospital, said Armstrong, the state jail commission director.

Law enforcement may also take dying people out of custody through a compassionate release process, but that requires a judge’s ruling.

Thompson, the University of Houston Law Center professor, said she had never heard of a sheriff’s office releasing someone from jail without judicial action.

Buelna’s family is holding on to hope that the state’s investigation will provide answers.

But those probes can take months or years to complete.

Until then, they wait.

Inmate’s Death Deserves Inquiry

Jail authorities ducked their duty to report it

Almost three months after Julie Buelna was fatally injured in the Dallas County jail, the Sheriff’s Department has yet to notify the Texas attorney general’s office about her death.

State law requires notification within 30 days.

Sheriff Marian Brown hasn’t explained why her agency neglected that duty.

She hasn’t returned our phone calls or those of Tracey McManus, our newsroom colleague who broke the story.

Buelna’s unexplained death and the Sheriff’s Department’s silence about it are shameful, but McManus’ reporting revealed even more concerning behavior.

Buelna was critically injured on her first night in jail.

After the ambulance arrived at the facility, it took about 10 minutes for Dallas Fire Rescue paramedics to be cleared through security and reach Buelna.

Are there measures that detention officers could have taken to prepare for their arrival and avoid the delay?

Buelna’s family was not notified that she was hospitalized in critical condition until two days later — and it was hospital staff, not someone from the sheriff’s office, who contacted her relatives.

When her mother and sister asked the Sheriff’s Department for information, they were told Buelna had jumped from a second-story ledge in the jail.

The sheriff’s office has not disclosed any other details or provided evidence to verify that explanation.

There are so many things wrong with this picture that it’s hard to know what to address first.

Buelna, 48, had struggled with bipolar disorder since her teens and was being held in Dallas on a theft warrant out of Collin County.

She was severely injured at the jail and transported directly to the hospital.

Notified that Buelna was hospitalized, Collin County directed Dallas to release her as “an administrative action related to her medical status,” a spokesperson for the Collin County Sheriff’s Office told McManus.

Dallas County then officially released Buelna from its custody.

That maneuver didn’t absolve the sheriff of the moral responsibility, or the legal duty, to notify the Texas Commission on Jail Standards and the Texas attorney general when she died 11 days later.

The jail standards commission reaffirmed in February that all in-custody deaths, even if they happen outside of the jail, must be reported to the commission within 24 hours.

They also must be investigated by an outside agency.

The commission’s director confirmed to McManus that Buelna’s death should be considered an in-custody death.

McManus’ previous reporting has shown that more than 70 people have died in Dallas County’s custody since Brown was first elected in 2018.

At least 10 of those inmates’ deaths were caused by medical conditions that experts say probably would have responded to treatment had they been caught earlier.

We still don’t know the details of what happened to Buelna.