Federal appeals court rules Texas' border buoys can remain – at least for now

Texas' sawblade-laden buoys will remain in the Rio Grande, for now, after a federal appeals court granted the state's request to pitch out another judge's order that the barrier must be removed by Sept. 15, the Texas Tribune reports. In a Wednesday ruling, Federal District Judge David A. Ezra sided with the U.S. Justice Department, who argued the Rio Grande buoys — deployed in July as part of Abbott's Operation Lone Star — were installed without authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and threatened foreign relations with Mexico, as previously reported by the Current. Abbott's office immediately appealed Ezra's ruling, writing that it "is prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court," the Tribune reports.