topics

politics-policy

epstein-files

donald-trump

2026-midterm-elections

immigration

behind-the-curtain

race-and-equity

technology

privacy-tech-regulation

automation-and-ai

tiktok-news

big-tech

social-media

cybersecurity

economy

social-security

inflation

tariffs

federal-reserve

jobs

transportation

business

stock-market-news

retail-news

crypto

media

elon-musk

dealmaking

health

rfk-jr

drug-prices

axios-explains-abortion

public-health

world

israel

axios-explains-ukraine

iran

russia

china

energy-climate

nuclear-energy

climate-energy-policy

climate-change

extreme-weather

alternative-energy

electric-vehicles

science

emerging-tech

biomedicine

newsletters

pittsburgh

atlanta

san-diego

charlotte

boulder

washington-dc

kansas-city

dallas

denver

detroit

des-moines

austin

boston

chicago

cleveland

columbus

houston

indianapolis

miami

nashville

new-orleans

nw-arkansas

philadelphia

phoenix

portland

richmond

salt-lake-city

san-antonio

san-francisco

seattle

tampa-bay

twin-cities

raleigh

huntsville

colorado-springs

axios-local

axios-pro

axios-live

the-axios-show

National

Texas state Rep. Matt Krause, chair of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, announced Wednesday that he's initiating a probe into schools' library books, according to a letter sent to the state's education agency and other superintendents.

Why it matters: The probe focuses on books that discuss race, sexuality or "make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex," Krause wrote in the letter.

The move comes just months after Texas passed legislation curtailing the ways Texas teachers can discuss racism in both current events and throughout U.S. history.

The big picture: Krause included a 16-page list of roughly 850 targetted books, many dealing with topics such as racism, abortion and homosexuality, the Texas Tribune first reported.

The letter asks school districts to detail how many copies of each book on the list they have and where they're located, how much money they spent on the books, and to identify other books or content they have dealing with the aforementioned themes.

Schools have until Nov. 12 to respond, the letter states, without specifying what the consequences of possessing the books will be.

Of note: Texas state Rep. Victoria Neave (D), vice chair of the investigating committee, told Dallas Morning News that the committee did not take a vote on the matter, which she deemed "politically motivated to support their own campaigns.”

Krause, a Republican, is currently a candidate for state attorney general.

Our thought bubble, from Axios' Asher Price: Emboldened by a new law limiting what Texas public school teachers can teach on race, Texas' most conservative lawmakers are now trying to whittle down the narratives students learn in the classroom.

Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina issued a statement Tuesday lambasting the request as "disturbing and political overreach," adding that it amounted to a "witch hunt."

"This is an obvious attack on diversity and an attempt to score political points at the expense of our children’s education," Molina added.

A spokesperson for Austin Independent School District confirmed to Axios that they had received a copy of Krause's letter, adding: "Our legal team is reviewing and working on a response."

A spokesperson for Lake Travis Independent School District said the "superintendent and general counsel are reviewing the inquiry and discussing next steps."

Austin

blue

Axios Austin Partners

Austin Alerts

Alert

Get smarter, faster on what matters in Austin with Asher Price and Nicole Cobler.

Axios Austin

Standard

A daily look at the most significant and interesting stories affecting Austin. Written by Nicole Cobler and Asher Price.

Axios Austin Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

Austin Members

Membership

Texas House probes school library books dealing with race and sexuality

Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina likened the investigation to a "witch hunt."

Photo: Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images

Texas

Politics & Policy

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

There is now legislative language behind the push to tax American billionaires on unrealized capital gains, as Sen. Ron Wyden last night released his 107-page plan.

Why it matters: This would be a sea change in U.S. tax policy, which has only applied to realized gains (otherwise known as income).

Wyden's proposal would apply to those with more than $1 billion in assets or more than $100 million in adjusted gross income over three consecutive years.

The biggest tax bills would come up front, charging a long-term cap gains rates on all unrealized monies for tradeable investments. Payments could be spread out over five years. 

Then, going forward, payers would be on the hook for annual capital gains taxes on new unrealized income — although unrealized losses could be carried forward as offsets.

Pay special attention to the term "tradeable." Not only because it likely applies to crypto, but because it wouldn't apply to illiquid securities or real estate. Yes, there are deferred interest charges included for certain non-tradeable assets — to be paid upon sale or transfer — but, in general, Wyden is an indirect supporter of "stay private longer." 

Be smart: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday pushed back against defining this as a wealth tax, likely for constitutional reasons (and because it's different from Sen. Elizabeth Warren's European-style net worth tax). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also on Sunday, did call it a wealth tax. Pelosi is right.

Be smarter: There are very good philosophical and practical arguments against taxing unrealized gains, but the hand-wringing from some about how this will kill capitalism is just laughable. 

People will still strive to become insanely wealthy because ... well, because they'll be insanely wealthy. And most of them can either sell some stock or take out loans to cover these tax bills (just like they currently take out loans against unrealized earnings).

Be smartest: Democrats haven't yet demonstrated an ability to get any of their major economic plans passed, beyond a COVID relief bill earlier this year. In other words, there's little imperative for celebration or consternation.

The bottom line: The definition of income could be changing, at least for the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Democrats' billionaires tax explained

It would be a sea change in U.S. tax policy.

Illustration of a saw cutting through gold.

Taxes

U.K. COP26 President Alok Sharma told reporters Tuesday that the upcoming talks in Glasgow, widely viewed as the last chance to avoid some of the worst consequences of global warming, will be extremely difficult.

Driving the news: Sharma sought to temper expectations and note that the agenda features some of the toughest items that negotiators have punted on at previous summits.

"What we're trying to achieve a Glasgow is in many ways harder than Paris," Sharma said, referring to COP21 that yielded the Paris Agreement. 

"We are, if I can put it like this, getting towards the end of the exam, particularly on the issue of the rulebook after six years, we still have some of the most difficult questions to answer. And we're effectively in the last half hour of the exam," he said. 

Go deeper: What to know about COP26 in Glasgow

COP26 head warns Glasgow summit will be "harder than Paris"

"We still have some of the most difficult questions to answer," Alok Sharma said.

Alok Sharma, U.K. COP26 president, in Milan on Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Stefano Guidi/Getty Images

COP26

Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

Energy & Climate

Secretary of State Tony Blinken protested the decision to approve 3,000 new housing units in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank during a tense phone call on Tuesday with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, three Israeli officials tell me.

Why it matters: This is the first time new construction in the settlements has been approved since President Biden assumed office, and the Biden administration had been privately pressing the Israeli government not to proceed.

Senior Israeli official on the "very difficult" call between Gantz and Blinken.

The backstory: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had hoped a Ministry of Defense committee would approve the new housing units before he visited Washington in August. But that didn't happen, and then Biden personally pressed him to show restraint on the settlements issue. 

That complicated matters and contributed to a two-month delay. But then last week, the Ministry of Defense announced the committee would convene to approve even more housing units than had previously been planned. 

The top U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem, Michael Ratney, called Bennett’s foreign policy adviser Shimrit Meir to protest the move, in a call the sources described as "difficult."

Behind the scenes: The U.S. pressure escalated on Tuesday when Blinken called Gantz and told him both the number of housing units and their locations deep inside the West Bank were “unacceptable," according to the Israeli officials.

Blinken asked Gantz to take the U.S. position on settlements more into consideration in the future.

Gantz told Blinken he understands the Biden administration's concerns and had decreased the number of building plans up for approval as much as he could.

He also pointed out that he had approved plans for 1,300 new housing units for Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, something that hadn't happened in over a decade.

Gantz also told Blinken that he'd been criticized by his political rivals for meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and for granting legal status to 4,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank, adding "I am planning to take more such steps soon,” according to one Israeli official.

Gantz told Blinken that, the settlements dispute notwithstanding, the new Israeli government’s objective was to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and improve the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, the Israeli officials said.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Sunday called on the U.S. and international community to "confront the fait accompli being systematically imposed by Israel."

Between the lines: The latest flare-up over the settlements began in the same week that Gantz signed an order to designate six Palestinian NGO’s as terrorist organizations, which also sparked criticism from the State Department.

An Israeli delegation is expected to hold talks with State Department officials later this week on the designations.

What's next: After the Israeli government passes its budget next week, and thus ensures its short-term political survival, the Biden administration is expected to resume discussions over reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem — another very contentious issue.

The bottom line: Senior Israeli officials admit that the U.S. position on settlements was tougher than they had expected, but note that the criticism is coming mainly from the State Department, with the White House not weighing in publicly for now. 

“We shouldn’t waste the goodwill we get from this administration," one senior Israeli official said.

Scoop: Blinken protests Israel settlements approval in "tense" phone call

“The U.S. gave us a yellow card," a senior Israeli official told Axios.

Benny Gantz (L) and Tony Blinken. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israel

Conflicts, policies and powers are intersecting and shaping the world. Breaking news and analysis of national security, foreign policy and global crises.

World

A new startup backed by funding from AOL founder Steve Case and Laurene Powell Jobs wants to break up broadband monopolies across the country.

Why it matters: Internet access has been crucial during the pandemic, but it's not ubiquitous, and it can be both slow and unaffordable in swaths of the country.

What's happening: Underline, a community infrastructure company, began building its first open access fiber network in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week.

Under the open access model, Underline builds and operates the fiber network while multiple service providers can use it and offer service to customers.

Residential service will start at $49 per month for a 500 megabits per second connection, with a gigabit connection available for $65 per month. That's much faster than the 25-Mbps benchmark the Federal Communications Commission uses to define high-speed internet service.

Underline chose Colorado Springs for its first project by evaluating several factors, including households that lack internet access, the number of existing providers and how angry customers were with their current internet options, CEO Bob Thompson told Axios.

By the numbers: Underline's project in Colorado Springs involves more than $100 million in capital to build 400 miles of fiber and offer service to 55,000 residences and businesses. 

Underline has a list of about 2,500 target cities for service, Thompson said. 

"We aspire to be the country's first nationwide open access network," Thompson said. "The 2,500 communities have been ignored by the incumbents for years on significant infrastructure upgrades. And they generally won't qualify for the government's infrastructure bill."

Roughly 83 million Americans have only one choice for a home internet provider, according to a report from anti-monopoly think tank the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

The big picture: The open access model is not new, but it's been gaining traction recently, especially as the pandemic has forced people to rely more on home internet.

California this summer passed a law to spend $6 billion on a state-owned open-access network meant to connect communities across the state to high-speed internet.

West Des Moines, Iowa, is planning to build a conduit network with Google Fiber paying the city for access to the network, but the project is facing blowback from the local cable internet provider, Mediacom.

Utah's open access fiber network, UTOPIA, struggled financially in its early days, but the network has become a success story and continues to expand, Ernesto Falcon, senior legislative counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Axios.

What they're saying: Open access fiber networks, already popular in Europe, could catch on in the U.S. as demand for fiber increases, Falcon said.

"Everything needs fiber," Falcon said. "There's this unified infrastructure that exists — a medium of transmitting data — it's fiber optics. If you want to do 5G and satellite, and fiber to the home, you can do all of that with the exact same set of wires.

"But the inefficiency that exists right now is everyone's trying to build their own fiber network."

A new study out Wednesday from EFF finds that wholesale fiber networks are more efficient than other models in getting fiber to households.

Yes, but: Unlike traditional telecom investments, which promise a relatively quick return, it takes a lot longer for fiber networks to turn a profit.

"Underline is one of a few instances in which I think we see a different kind of investment mentality from investors that are putting money into telecommunications," Chris Mitchell, program director for the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, told Axios.

"There are more investors that look at Underline and say, "No, this is a good, long-term stable investment, where, I might not get all my money back in five years, but over the longer haul, I'm going to have good returns over a longer period of time.'"

Funders for Underline include Case's Revolution Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective, FinTech Collective and others.

"Some of the bigger incumbents have a dramatically different cost structure, a dramatically different sort of process through which they're going to build this fiber type," David Hall, managing partner of the Rise of the Rest fund. "Underline is really thinking about it like a startup and I think it's the startup ingenuity that's required."

The startup that wants to disrupt big internet providers

Underline, with backing from Steve Case and Laurene Powell Jobs, aims for broadband competition.

Axios

Wednesday's top stories

Texas House probes school library books dealing with race and sexuality

Democrats' billionaires tax explained

COP26 head warns Glasgow summit will be "harder than Paris"

Scoop: Blinken protests Israel settlements approval in "tense" phone call

The startup that wants to disrupt big internet providers

Top general: China's hypersonic missile test "very close" to a "Sputnik moment"

Climate reckoning for oil and gas CEOs

Trump stars in both sides' ads

Nor'easter slams East Coast with flooding rain and powerful winds

Blinken speaks with Sudan prime minister after his release

Brazil senators vote to recommend criminal charges for Bolsonaro