Ken Paxton

Nov. 19 (UPI) — A federal judge in Texas has ordered state schools to take down displayed posters of the Ten Commandments in supposed violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton directed schools across the Lone Star State to display the Ten Commandments less than a week after a federal court ruled in favor of 11 school districts that fought against the religious exhibition in classrooms.

On Tuesday, federal Judge Orlando L. Garcia issued a preliminary injunction that instructed the state’s districts to remove the display in violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause in the First Amendment.

“It is impractical, if not impossible, to prevent plaintiffs from being subjected to unwelcome religious displays without enjoining defendants from enforcing Senate Bill 10 across their districts,” he wrote.

Garcia’s order was effective December 1.

The case was brought on by 15 families of a multi-faith and nonreligious background.

“All Texas public school districts should heed the court’s clear warning: it’s plainly unconstitutional to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

It’s now the second time a court has ruled against the law signed into law in June by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican.

“Families throughout Texas and across the country get to decide how and when their children engage with religion — not politicians or public-school officials,” Laser continued.

Paxton has sued three school districts for refusing.

A legal representative for the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas said Garcia’s ruling was further affirmation of what’s already accepted legal truth: “the First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in our children.”

Similar laws were struck down in Arkansas and Louisiana, which became the first state to pass the mandate in summer 2024.

Legal experts suggest the issue will eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2015, a Ten Commandment monument was ordered by the state’s Supreme Court to be removed from the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds, arguing that Oklahoma’s constitution banned the use of public property for “the benefit of any religious purpose.”

“Our schools are for education, not evangelization,” Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney for the Texas ACLU, added in a statement. “This ruling protects thousands of Texas students from ostracization, bullying and state-mandated religious coercion.”

Every school district in Texas, she added, was “now on notice that implementing S.B. 10 violates their students’ constitutional rights.”

Nov. 18 (UPI) — A federal court ordered Texas on Tuesday to throw out its redrawn Republican-friendly congressional maps for the 2026 election after finding it constituted an illegal racial gerrymander.

The 2-1 order by the three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court of Western Texas is a significant setback for Republicans after they pushed through an unusual redistricting of Texas’ congressional seats to insulate their slim House majority ahead of next year’s midterms.

President Donald Trump openly urged Texas state lawmakers to adopt the new congressional map in order to help the party’s prospects in Washington. Democratic lawmakers responded by fleeing the state in what was ultimately an unsuccessful attempt to deny Republicans the quorum needed to pass the new maps.

State Rep. Gene Wu, a Democrat who led the quorum break, welcomed the court’s ruling in a post on X.

“Texas House Dems stood up to Abbott & Trump,” he wrote. “We broke quorum & we fought in the courts! We did not back down.”

However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a post on X that he would appeal the order to the U.S. Supreme Court. He criticized what he called partisan gerrymandering in Democratic-led states, including California, Illinois and New York. He added that he expects the Supreme Court to “uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting.”

Republicans currently hold 25 of Texas’ 38 House seats, and the now-scrapped redistricting was expected to give the party an edge by diluting Democratic strongholds.

But U.S. Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, instead focused on how the new map would affect the racial makeup of Texas’ congressional districts.

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” Brown wrote. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.”

In his ruling, Brown cited a July letter from U.S. Department of Justice officials to Paxton and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, directing the state to correct four districts because they were illegal racial gerrymanders.

Brown wrote that the letter was difficult to assess because it contained “so many factual, legal and typographical errors.” But Brown pointed out that Abbott cited the letter as the reason he added congressional redistricting to the legislature’s special session earlier this year.

Nov. 11 (UPI) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Harris County for allocating $1.35 million to help fund legal defense of those facing immigration deportation hearings.

Harris County, which includes Houston and forms the core of the Greater Houston Area, has historically ranked among the top U.S. counties for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers, according to reporting by The Texas Tribune.

Paxton accused the Harris County Commissioners Court of illegally allocating more than $1.35 million in taxpayer funds to “radical-left organizations” that use the money to “oppose the lawful deportations of illegal aliens.”

He called the fund “blatantly unconstitutional” and “evil and wicked” in a news release announcing the lawsuit Tuesday.

“We must stop the left-wing radicals who are robbing Texans to prevent illegals from being deported by the Trump administration,” Paxton said Tuesday in a news release.

“Millions upon millions of illegals invaded America during the last administration,” Paxton said. “They must be sent back to where they came from.”

He said the Harris County Commissioners Court recently voted 4-1 to allocate $1.35 million to several non-governmental organizations that are “dedicated to fighting the deportation of illegal aliens.”

Recipients include the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Justice for All Immigrants, Kids in Need of Defense, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and BakerRipley.

The allocations serve no public purpose and amount to illegal grants of taxpayer dollars to pay for the legal defense of those who should not be in the country, Paxton said.

He said the Texas Constitution prohibits allocating taxpayer funds to individuals or groups that do not serve the public interest and filed the lawsuit in the Harris County Judicial District Court on Monday.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said the county will oppose the state’s lawsuit in court, The Texas Tribune reported.

“This lawsuit is a cheap political stunt,” Menefee said in a prepared statement.

“At a time when the president has unleashed ICE agents to terrorist immigrant neighborhoods, deport U.S. citizens and trample the law, it’s shameful that Republican state officials are joining in instead of standing up for Texans.”

Although Menafee accused the Trump administration of deporting U.S. citizens, the Department of Homeland Security said that is a false accusation and no U.S. citizens have been deported.

“We have said it a million times: ICE does not arrest or deport U.S. citizens,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Oct. 1 in response to a New York Times article accusing ICE of deporting citizens.

Before becoming the Harris County attorney, Menafee’s biography says his private practice “focused heavily on pro bono work, including advising the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, advising immigrants and their families at Bush Intercontinental Airport during the ‘Muslim ban’ and working with Texas Appleseed on expanding alternatives to involuntary commitment for the mentally ill.”

Nov. 3 (UPI) — The Texas-based Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced Monday it reached a deal to purchase Kenvue — the maker of Band-Aid and Tylenol products — for $48.7 billion.

The combination cash and stock transaction will see Kimberly-Clark acquire all outstanding shares of Kenvue common stock. A news release from Kimberly-Clark said the sale will put 10 billion-dollar brands together under the same company.

Kimberly-Clark’s brands include Kleenex, Cottonelle, Huggies, Poise, Pull-Ups, Scott, Viva and Kotex.

“We are excited to bring together two iconic companies to create a global health and wellness leader,” CEO Mike Hsu said.

“With a shared commitment to developing science and technology to provide extraordinary care, we will serve billions of consumers across every stage of life.”

Kimberly-Clark said the sale is expected to close in the second half of 2026 upon approval by shareholders of both companies. Upon completion, Hsu will serve as chairman of the board and CEO of the combined company. Meanwhile, three board members from Kenue will join Kimberly-Clark’s board.

In the wake of the news, Kenvue’s shares increased 20% in premarket trading, and Kimberly-Clark’s decreased by 14% Monday, CNBC reported.

Less than a week before the announcement, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he was suing Kenvue and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, for “deceptively marketing” Tylenol as a safe pain reliever.

The Trump administration announced in September that there was a link between Tylenol and an increased risk of autism, though, on Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to explicitly claim that Tylenol causes autism.