Democrat Christian Menefee won a special election in Texas on Saturday for a U.S. House seat, narrowing the Republican's already slim majority in the House. Menefee, the Harris County attorney, defeated Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member, in a runoff election, according to CBS News and ABC News. He will replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, who died in March 2025.
The seat, representing a heavily Democratic Houston-based district, had been vacant for nearly a year. Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott did not schedule the first round of voting until November, CBS News reported. Menefee and Edwards emerged as the top vote-getters in a 16-candidate, all-parties primary, advancing to the runoff because no candidate secured a majority of the vote.
In his victory speech, Menefee addressed President Trump, stating that the Democratic district "topples corrupt presidencies," according to ABC News.
Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., a partial government shutdown continued, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that Democrats would not help expedite the passage of the Senate-passed funding package, ABC News reported on Saturday. The Senate had voted Friday to separate out extended funding for the Department of Homeland Security after reaching a deal with the White House. The shutdown is now expected to last longer than initially anticipated.
In immigration news, a federal judge in Texas ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, asylum seekers who were arrested last week in Minnesota, ABC News reported late Saturday. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered their release from the immigration detention center at Dilley "as soon as practicable" but no later than Feb. 3. The judge's order also prohibited any removal or transfer of the petitioners while under detention.
Separately, an Illinois firefighter was accused of staging a house fire in November 2020 to cover up a murder and a secret, CBS News reported in an update to a story originally aired in November 2024. The fire occurred at the home of Melissa Lamesch, who was due to give birth in two days. According to Cassie Baal, Melissa's sister, Melissa had spoken about the future and what was to come with the baby during a phone call on the morning of the fire.
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