Democrats scored significant victories in Texas special elections on Saturday, while a partial government shutdown in Washington D.C. appeared poised to drag on longer than anticipated. Christian Menefee won a U.S. House seat, narrowing the Republican's already slim majority, and Taylor Rehmet flipped a GOP-held Texas state Senate seat.
Menefee, the Harris County attorney, prevailed in a runoff election against Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member, for the U.S. House seat formerly held by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025, according to CBS News. The seat representing the heavily Democratic Houston-based district had been vacant for nearly a year. Menefee told President Trump that the Democratic district "topples corrupt presidencies," CBS News reported. Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott didn't schedule the first round of voting until November. Menefee and Edwards were the top vote-getters in a 16-candidate, all-parties primary, advancing to a runoff because no candidate won a majority of the vote.
In another special election in Texas, Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, flipped a reliably Republican state Senate district, ABC News reported. Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist, in the Fort Worth-area district. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet had a comfortable lead of more than 14 percentage points, according to the Associated Press, as reported by ABC News. The district was one that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024.
Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., a partial government shutdown that went into effect Saturday was expected to last longer than initially anticipated, ABC News reported. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated that Democrats would not join Republicans in expediting the passage of the Senate-passed funding package. Jeffries confirmed the Democrats' position in an interview Saturday on MSNOW, according to ABC News. The Senate voted Friday to separate out extended funding for the Department of Homeland Security after reaching a deal.
In other news, five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, asylum seekers who were arrested last week in Minnesota, were ordered to be released by a federal judge in Texas on Saturday, ABC News reported. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered the boy and his father released from the immigration detention center at Dilley "as soon as practicable" but no later than Feb. 3, according to ABC News. "Any possible or anticipated removal or transfer of Petitioners under this present detention is prohibited," the judge wrote in his order, as shown in a screenshot of the order obtained by ABC News.
Separately, an Illinois firefighter was accused of staging a house fire to cover up a murder and a secret, CBS News reported. The story, which originally aired on Nov. 30, 2024, was updated on Jan. 31, 2026. The fire occurred on Nov. 25, 2020, at the home of Melissa Lamesch, who was due to give birth to a baby boy in just two days. According to CBS News, Melissa's sister, Cassie Baal, spoke with her on the morning of the fire for about two-and-a-half hours. Baal said they "talked a lot about the future" and "what was gonna come with the baby." The conversation ended when Melissa saw someone outside her window and said, "you gotta be kidding me. He's like, 'he's freaking here again. I told him he's gotta stop doing this.'"
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