By SARA CLINE and NICHOLAS RICCARDI

It remained unclear Wednesday whether ballots cast during extended polling place hours in Texas’ primary will be counted in two counties that saw mass confusion over voting locations.

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Such votes have been set aside in Dallas County after the Texas Supreme Court stepped in Tuesday night, staying a lower court’s ruling. As of Wednesday afternoon, county election officials were still waiting for direction on whether the ballots should be included in vote totals.

The same issue affected Williamson County, north of Austin, which had hours extended at two polling places and has since had the last-minute ballots set aside.

But for Democrats in deeply blue Dallas County, the state’s second most populous, they say their hopes are dwindling. Terri Burke, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said the Supreme Court’s action was expected because it’s hard to get poll hours extended under Texas law.

“In a lot of ways, nobody was surprised by the writ from the Supreme Court last night,” Burke said. She added it’s likely the late ballots won’t be counted.

It is unclear exactly how many ballots were cast during the extended hours. According to data on the Dallas County Elections Department’s website, 2,316 in-person “provisional” ballots were rejected or pending, a number that includes any ballots flagged for a variety of issues as well as those the high court ordered to be segregated. A total of nearly 280,000 people voted in the county’s election, based on unofficial figures from the department.

Of greater concern, Burke said, was the chaos unleashed by the precinct-only voting system that Dallas County was forced to use because of a change by local Republicans, who refused to use a system that allowed voters to cast a ballot anywhere in the county, as they had done since 2019. Voters instead could cast ballots only at their assigned precinct. Under state law, Democrats had to use the same method.

Confused and frustrated, some voters were turned away from polling places on Tuesday and directed to other locations.

“There is a case to be made, and we can document it, there were people who were disenfranchised,” Burke said.

Primary voters line up to cast ballots at a voting center in Dallas, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

She said she will attempt to push the legislature to repeal the 2006 law that requires both parties to hold a joint primary to prevent this sort of chaos: “If one party wants to wreck their primary, they should be able to do that but they should not be able to wreck someone else’s.”

In Dallas County, a judge ordered polls to remain open for two hours past the scheduled 7 p.m. closing time, citing “voter confusion so severe” that it caused the website of the county election office to crash. The judge was acting on a petition filed by the local Democratic Party in a heavily left-leaning county. The extension applied only to Democratic voting precincts.

There was initial concern that it could affect the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate because Dallas is the home base of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, but she later conceded to James Talarico, a state lawmaker.

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who advanced to a runoff Tuesday against Sen. John Cornyn for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, challenged the lower court’s ruling. Shortly after, the state Supreme Court stayed both decisions in Dallas and Williamson counties. Its brief orders said ballots cast by voters in both counties who were not in line by the 7 p.m. scheduled close of polls should be separated.

Emily French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, a voting advocacy group, said it is standard for ballots that are cast during extended poll hours to be set aside. In El Paso, for example, voting was extended for an hour on Tuesday after problems with voter check-in systems earlier in the day. French said she expects them to ultimately be tallied if no one is contesting the extension.

Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, said the organization is continuing “to monitor this situation and will be weighing all options to ensure every Texan is able to have their vote counted.”

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — A protester and three U.S. Capitol Police officers were treated for injuries in a Senate office building on Wednesday after the protester resisted arrest for disruptive behavior and grabbed onto a doorway as the officers and a Republican senator tried to drag him out of the room.

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The protester, Brian C. McGinnis of North Carolina, was arrested and faces three counts of assaulting a police officer and three counts of resisting arrest and unlawful demonstration, the Capitol Police said in a statement.

“This afternoon, an unruly man who started to illegally protest during a hearing put everyone in a dangerous position by violently resisting and fighting our officer’s attempts to remove him from the room,” Capitol Police said in a statement.

Multiple videos show that McGinnis stood up and started shouting during the Senate Armed Services hearing and that police officers immediately grabbed him and tried to remove him from the room. McGinnis was protesting the U.S. military campaign in Iran, shouting, “America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel!”

The officers pulled McGinnis toward the exit as he violently resisted them and grabbed onto a doorway while they were trying to pull him out. Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican member of the Armed Services panel who is a former Navy SEAL, ran over to assist and pull the protester’s arm off the door as other protesters yelled that McGinnis’ hand was stuck.

Capitol Police said in the statement that McGinnis “got his own arm stuck in a door to resist our officers and force his way back into the hearing room,” and said he was treated for his injuries.

Sheehy said in a statement on social media that he was trying to de-escalate the situation.

“This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one,” Sheehy said, “I hope he gets the help he needs without causing further violence.”

A video posted on an X account under the name Brian McGinnis appears to show the same man standing outside the Capitol on Wednesday morning before the hearing. The account’s description says he is a “Green Party Candidate for US Senate.”

He says in the video that he was “here in D.C. trying to speak out against the Senate” to ask them about sending the country into war.

“Anyone who feels disillusioned and betrayed by our government, you are not alone,” he says in the video.

After a decade of debate and more than two years of review, the St. Paul City Council has approved new regulations around drive-throughs.

Council Member Saura Jost, who took the lead on amending existing drive-through regulations, said she sought to balance business interests and public demand for quick access to food, pharmacies and banking with calls for a safer and more pedestrian-friendly urban environment.

The new rules approved Wednesday do not cap the number of drive-through businesses in the city — which is currently around 75 — but they do bar drive-through lanes within 660 feet of light rail, streetcar or bus rapid transit stations, including planned stations along fully-funded or federally-approved transit corridors. That’s the same distance as a typical city block.

In zoning districts that blend retail and housing, dubbed T3-T4 “traditional neighborhood” districts, the drive-through service windows must be part of a building that is at least four stories in height and 40,000 square feet in floor area.

The ordinance amendment spells out the required number of off-street “stacking” spaces in queuing lanes — six for banks and pharmacies, 12 for fast-food, 14 for coffee shops — and emphasizes that “in no event are vehicles permitted to stack into public sidewalks, trails, bicycle lanes, alleys, or streets.” Additional stacking beyond the minimums could be required by a zoning administrator following site plan review by city staff.

With an eye toward public safety, drive-throughs may continue to operate into the night, long after their on-site dining areas close to the public. A drive-through window is not allowed to double as a walk-up.

For bank, pharmacy and credit unions, drive-through lanes and service windows must be located to the side or rear of buildings and at least 60 feet from a residentially-zoned property, unless that property sits across a major arterial street, or it’s somehow buffered by the building the drive-through is attached to. An exception would be if the residential units are situated in the same building.

If the drive-through is for food and beverages, the distance requirement increases to 120 feet.

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By JONATHAN MATTISE and KRISTIN M. HALL

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Elon Musk’s proposed Tesla tunnel loop under the streets of Nashville was met with opposition Tuesday by the metro council, which passed a resolution to put their concerns about safety, transparency and a lack of local input on the record.

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The resolution, with 20 members voting for and 15 against with two abstaining, can’t force one of Musk’s companies to stop, stall or change their plans for the Music City Loop. But Nashville officials want to register their grievances after the politically connected tech billionaire’s company, The Boring Company, teamed up with willing state government partners to bypass local authority.

In July, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and The Boring Company announced plans for the Music City Loop, featuring an initial 13-mile stretch that would include connecting the airport and downtown, which was later expanded to about 25 miles to include a second leg west of downtown. They promised a project that would come at no cost to taxpayers, albeit with free use of some state land near the Capitol. The first section of the tunnel is supposed to be operational by the first quarter of 2027.

The Nashville loop relies on a fleet of dedicated Tesla vehicles driven by trained drivers, with more than 30 stations being designed and the potential for more routes and stations. The company says the cost to ride is expected to be lower than other transportation options. The cars will be human-driven, though the company says it could explore autonomous vehicles in the future.

“Colleagues, public land needs to be for public good and public infrastructure decisions must prioritize the welfare, safety and express needs of Nashville residents,” said Delishia Porterfield, who sponsored the resolution, Tuesday night before the vote.

John Rutherford, a council member who voted against the resolution, asked his colleagues to set aside their political opinions about Musk. He said a vote of opposition would risk closing the door to any dialogue with The Boring Company.

A representative for The Boring Company did not immediately have a comment when reached by the AP.

The Boring Company has another Tesla tunnel in Las Vegas that already provides rides on the electric cars, though the full route isn’t finished. The company lists some research tunnels in use, including one in Texas in which passengers could travel in autonomous electric pods at upwards of 600 mph (965 kph). Plans for tunnels in some other cities have fallen through. Overseas, another Boring Company tunnel is planned for Dubai.

The Boring Company’s CEO Steve Davis said at the project’s announcement that they chose Nashville based on the need to address traffic and the partnership with state officials.

FILE – People protest against the Music City Loop, an underground tunnel by Elon Musk’s The Boring Company, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

“Nashville has been fantastic. Moved at an incredible speed, so welcoming, so kind, so so friendly,” Davis said.

But Nashville officials, advocates and others seemed mostly blindsided at the announcement, and the council resolution questions why the city wasn’t “meaningfully” consulted about a major change to the transit roadmap in Music City, where transportation projects are still being rolled out after voters approved a transit-funding tax increase in 2024.

The resolution also draws attention to potential geological and environmental concerns, citing its underground porous limestone that creates risks for sinkholes and water movement, in addition to the city’s history of major flooding.

Last month officials from The Boring Company answered questions from the council and heard from residents, who voiced concerns about environmental impacts, safety of the tunnel and whether the company was compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Lindsay Lee, chair of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities, said the company gave vague assurances that the vehicles would be ADA-compliant.

FILE – President and CEO of the Boring Company Steve Davis holds a hat during a news conference announcing the company’s intent to build the Music City Loop, a private transportation tunnel that will connect the airport to downtown, Monday, July 28, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

“As far as anyone is aware, they do not manufacture wheelchair-accessible Teslas,” said Lee in an email interview on Wednesday. “Are we supposed to believe that will change in time for the proposed launch one year from now?”

The Boring Company says it has “a strong track record in safely managing variable ground conditions,” including in Las Vegas. David Buss, the vice president of commercial and government affairs, told the council that Nashville was “a great place to do tunneling,” as evidenced by existing tunnels built previously by other entities.

This isn’t the first time that a Musk-owned company has drawn criticism from Tennesseans for operating around regulatory loopholes and without advance notice. His xAI data center began operating in Memphis in 2024, powered in part by pollution-emitting gas turbines, without first applying for a permit, which led to residents loudly protesting at city meetings.