{"id":228241,"date":"2026-10-21T18:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T18:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/paxton-and-talarico-campaign-in-texas-and-the-nbas-second-apron-dilemma-morning-rundown-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T18:07:09","slug":"paxton-and-talarico-campaign-in-texas-and-the-nbas-second-apron-dilemma-morning-rundown-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/paxton-and-talarico-campaign-in-texas-and-the-nbas-second-apron-dilemma-morning-rundown-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Paxton and Talarico campaign in Texas and the NBA\u2019s second apron dilemma: Morning Rundown – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A first-of-its-kind NBC News analysis looks into students\u2019 YouTube activity during school. Texas Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico crisscross the state in the countdown to Election Day. And the dilemma stalking the Knicks\u2019 NBA title defense.
Here\u2019s what to know today.
Over the past decade, YouTube has become ubiquitous in the American classroom. Many districts distribute their own laptops and encourage students to watch educational videos but often struggle to effectively restrict what else kids can watch.
This is Morning Rundown, a weekday newsletter to start your day. Sign up <\/strong><\/em>here<\/strong><\/em><\/a> to get it in your inbox.<\/strong><\/em>
That means millions of students have access to billions of videos on a site where they can go from math lessons to videos containing profanity or sexually suggestive scenes in just a few clicks.
In a first-of-its-kind analysis, NBC News reporters examined more than 17,000 videos viewed on students\u2019 devices through a mix of AI and manual review. Several who have struggled with the lure of YouTube said it swallowed up the hours they were supposed to be learning.
One such student, Richard, watched a mix of sports highlights, police chase video and AI-generated animations \u2014 all on his school-issued laptop, often while sitting in class. His mother eventually asked administrators to block the platform, but they said too many teachers used it for instruction.
\u201cWhy can\u2019t you see what this is doing?\u201d she wondered. \u201cThis constant, immediate gratification on a screen all day long, instead of healthy interactions being taught by a teacher, is so unhealthy.\u201d
Read the full story here.<\/strong><\/a>
With in-person early voting officially underway in Texas, Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico are crisscrossing the state to deliver their final urgent pleas to voters.
Paxton, the Republican candidate, spoke to a crowd of about 350 people yesterday in Fort Worth and touted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his event\u2019s marquee speaker. Paxton addressed voters\u2019 economic worries by calling for a $25,000 tax deduction for medical expenses and making Trump accounts for kids permanent.
About 45 minutes away in Denton, Talarico, the Democratic competitor, drew a crowd of 1,450, according to a campaign official, at an event that featured three cast members of the TV show \u201cFriday Night Lights.\u201d Talarico played up successful grassroots fundraising efforts for his campaign while calling out Elon Musk\u2019s $150 million in donations to pro-Paxton groups.
Subscribe to read the full story.<\/strong><\/a>
The 2026-27 NBA season tips off tonight, with the New York Knicks taking on the Philadelphia 76ers at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are fresh off a once-in-a-generation title run that united the city and captivated the country. But the financial realities of the NBA are threatening to break up the team.
Blame the second apron \u2014 a financial threshold that teams are highly disincentivized from exceeding when they acquire or sign players, or else they face significant hurdles in building their teams. This season, that threshold is $207,824,000.
For the Knicks, not exceeding the second apron could mean seeing Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart sign to other teams. The Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder are also among the teams dealing with the issue.
Why the NBA instituted the threshold and how the rule puts new pressure on players.<\/strong><\/a>
An Australian lawmaker is in critical but stable condition after being hit by a car in what <\/strong>authorities said was a deliberate attack, shocking a nation where political violence is extremely rare.
Helen Haines, a 65-year-old independent member of Parliament, was struck Monday outside her electoral district office in Wangaratta, a town of about 30,000 people in the southern Australian state of Victoria. She underwent surgery overnight. Local media reported that one of Haines\u2019 legs had been amputated and that she was fighting to keep her other leg.
Police charged the driver, who they said was a 43-year-old local man, today with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that according to eyewitnesses, the driver had passed Haines and then performed a U-turn, hitting her as she was standing by the trunk of her parked car.
Political violence is extremely rare in Australia, where lawmakers are often out in public with little or no security and their accessibility is a point of national pride.
\u201cIt\u2019s an Australian tradition to have a chat to a politician that you bump into at the shops,\u201d Josh Roose, an associate professor of politics at Deakin University in Melbourne, told NBC News in an interview.
Read the full story.<\/strong><\/a>
When I was a cub reporter on the DOJ beat, there was traditionally a bit of a lull right around election time, with the Justice Department trying to avoid taking action in politically sensitive cases that could even be interpreted as seeking to influence an election. With the search of Rep. Ilhan Omar\u2019s home last week, that quiet period before Election Day was added to the list of norms we\u2019ve seen broken in Donald Trump\u2019s second term as president.
The Columbus Day search of Omar\u2019s Washington, D.C., home, DOJ alumni say, is exactly the type of \u201covert activity\u201d that the department traditionally sought to avoid. It comes in the same year that the administration attempted to indict six sitting members of Congress over a social media video Trump didn\u2019t like, brought an indictment they now admit was bogus against an Olympic canoeist over a botched installation job at the Reflecting Pool and indicted the former director of the FBI over an Instagram photo of seashells.
There\u2019s still plenty we don\u2019t know about the Omar case, and we\u2019ll likely only see the full evidence if she\u2019s formally charged. But what we do know, as I reported in this story with Kyle Stewart, is that the Justice Department\u2019s actions here break with history<\/strong><\/a>, and that the investigation involves DOJ figures involved in other politically controversial investigations. \u2014 <\/em>Ryan Reilly<\/strong><\/em>, senior Justice reporter<\/em>
A few of our favorite brands just dropped their 2026 advent calendars<\/strong><\/a>. These are the most exciting ones<\/strong><\/a> to buy before they sell out, including picks from Lego, Squishmallow and more. Plus, go behind the scenes at a PR event with Joe Jonas<\/strong><\/a>.
Sign up for The Selection<\/strong><\/em><\/a> newsletter for hands-on product reviews, expert shopping tips and a look at the best deals and sales each week.<\/em>
Thanks for reading today\u2019s Morning Rundown. Today\u2019s newsletter was curated for you by Elizabeth Robinson and Josh Feldman. If you\u2019re a fan, please send a link to your family and friends. They can sign up <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>
Elizabeth Robinson is a newsletter editor for NBC News, based in Los Angeles.
Josh Feldman is a platforms editor for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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For YouSettings news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA first-of-its-kind NBC News analysis looks into students\u2019 YouTube activity during school. Texas Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico crisscross the state in the countdown to Election Day. And the dilemma stalking the Knicks\u2019 NBA title defense.Here\u2019s what to know today.Over the past decade, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}