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EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A powerful Mexican drug cartel leader on Thursday made his second appearance in federal court in Texas after being taken into U.S. custody last week.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 76, used a wheelchair for the hearing before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso. Zambada, the longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, eluded authorities for decades until a plane carrying him and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán,” landed at an airport near El Paso on July 25. Both men were arrested and remain jailed. They are charged in the U.S. with various drug crimes.

Discussions during the short hearing Thursday included whether Zambada would be tried with co-defendants or separately. He is being held without bond and pleaded not guilty during a short hearing last week, where he also used a wheelchair.

His next hearing date was set for Sept. 9. His attorneys declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing.

One of his attorneys, Frank Perez, previously has alleged his client was kidnapped by Guzmán López and brought to the U.S. aboard a private plane. Guzmán López, 38, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.

Zambada was thought to be more involved in day-to-day operations of the cartel than his better-known and flashier boss, “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019.

Zambada is charged in a number of U.S. cases, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing enormous quantities of narcotics into the United States.”

The capture of Zambada and Guzmán López has fueled theories about how federal authorities pulled it off and prompted Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to take the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other.

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday there is “no choice” but to initiate a lawsuit against Austin-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike after it caused widespread software outages in July that cost the airline $500 million. Having canceled more than 5,000 flights amid the July 19 outage and in its aftermath after a CrowdStrike software update that rendered Microsoft Windows inoperable, Bastian told CNBC on Wednesday that the incident is unacceptable and serves as a catalyst for more collaborative partnerships in the technology industry. “You can’t come into a mission critical 24/7 operation and tell us we have a bug. It doesn’t work,” Bastian said during an interview with CNBC in Paris.

While Delta had not formally filed a lawsuit against CrowdStrike as of Wednesday afternoon, Bastian said there is no other option for the company after its revenue losses and the millions in additional costs during the five days it took the airline to return to normal operations. “We have no choice,” Bastian said. “Between not just the loss of revenue, but the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels. We did everything we could to take care of our customers over that time.” Coming from an “undetected error” in a software update to the CrowdStrike’s “Falcon Sensor” — an artificial intelligence and machine learning tool to identify and mitigate cybersecurity threats in real time — caused Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the “Blue Screen of Death.” In the days after the outage, CrowdStrike published a preliminary post incident review, confirming that the software error was not hostile in nature and had since been identified and fixed.

DENTON – KERA reports that since May, Denton County has received about 17,000 challenges to local voter rolls, Elections Administrator Frank Phillips said. True the Vote, a Texas-based conservative election-monitoring organization, has been sending complaints nationwide about inaccurate voter rolls with the goal of preventing voter fraud. Founder Catherine Engelbrecht asks people to use a web-based app called IV3 that lets them research voter records and submit voter eligibility challenges to local election offices. Phillips said the Denton County election office has faced three categories of voter eligibility challenges.

“They’re basically following three categories,” he said. “The vast majority of them are people that they believe had moved and no longer live at that address, because they did a national change of address with the post office. That is, overwhelmingly, the majority. They sent a few … where they think a person is deceased [claiming] that we still have on the rolls. … The third category … they’re questioning is if it’s a commercial address versus a residential.” Wired magazine reported in 2022 that little is known about the IV3 app because it isn’t active in most states and requires users to submit personal information and images of the front and back of their identification. Wired analyzed the code and found the app “uses an ineffective and unreliable methodology to determine who should remain on the rolls.” According to a news release, True the Vote says nearly 7,000 people have used IV3 to complete nearly 650,000 voter challenges in 1,322 counties across the U.S. Phillips said the organization’s data is outdated, and he has disputed claims about voter roll inaccuracy. “It looks like they’ve probably got their database, wherever they got it — I’m guessing at the end of last year because we mail out a bunch of registration cards in January, when those start coming back as undeliverable,” Phillips said. “That’s when we put people in suspense.”

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News says that Gateway Church this week parted ways with a founding elder who was on a leave of absence relating to an investigation into sexual abuse allegations against former pastor Robert Morris, a church spokesperson said Wednesday. Steve Dulin, 63, was the executive pastor leading Gateway Kingdom Business Leaders ministry, according to a statement from the church. Gateway elders met with Dulin this week and, following the meeting, decided to “go in a different direction” regarding his position as a staff member and elder. “Steve has served Gateway Church for many years in various roles. We love Steve, his wife Melody, and their family and sincerely thank them for investing their lives here at Gateway Church. They have faithfully served our congregation, our community and our church through the years,” the statement said. Voicemails seeking comment left at a number listed in public records as Dulin’s were not returned Wednesday evening.

Gateway did not cite a specific reason for Dulin being let go but said it was not related to the findings of the investigation into Morris by Haynes & Boone. Gateway hired the law firm to investigate sexual abuse allegations made against Morris by Oklahoma woman Cindy Clemishire, who said the megachurch pastor abused her from 1982 to 1987, beginning when she was 12 years old. Dulin’s departure comes as the Southlake-based megachurch continues to face what elders earlier called “the most challenging time in Gateway’s history.” He had been on a leave since late June, when Haynes & Boone suggested he and three other elders step down temporarily due to a potential conflict of interest relating to the investigation. At the time, all four elders remained on staff, Gateway said in a statement. Dulin and two other elders, Gayland Lawshe and Kevin Grove, had been elders between 2005 and 2007, when Clemishire said she contacted Morris to confront him about the abuse she said she suffered as a child. She said she believed elders knew of her accusation when Tom Lane, a former Gateway elder, responded to her email and tried to call her.

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports that Dallas billionaire Mark Cuban is the top signature of a new group of 100-plus venture capitalist investors from prominent tech regions like Silicon Valley supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for the White House. The group, made up of names like Cuban, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, billionaire cowboy Chris Sacca and many more is calling itself VCs for Kamala and is pledging to vote for Harris in the upcoming 2024 election The news comes shortly after Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump, gained the support of other prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. X/Twitter owner and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has also publicly endorsed Trump. Cuban and Musk have clashed on Musk’s social media platform over diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the past year. Though Cuban didn’t immediately respond to an interview request from The Dallas Morning News, VCs for Kamala’s statement said it’s supporting Harris because of how critical the 2024 election has been described by both candidates.

“We spend our days looking for, investing in and supporting entrepreneurs who are building the future. We are pro-business, pro-American dream, pro-entrepreneurship, and pro-technological progress,” the statement said. “We also believe in democracy as the backbone of our nation. We believe that strong, trustworthy institutions are a feature, not a bug, and that our industry – and every other industry — would collapse without them. That is what’s at stake in this election. Everything else, we can solve through constructive dialogue with political leaders and institutions willing to talk to us.” Cuban, who was at one point considered a longshot vice presidential candidate by gambling company BetOnline, has also reportedly been in talks with Harris’ camp in recent weeks. The former Dallas Mavericks owner told crypto news platform Decrypt that Harris’ camp reached out to him with “multiple questions” about cryptocurrency. Cuban said Harris appears receptive to hearing about new technologies, which could be a good sign for the tech entrepreneur as he’s previously said he believes cryptocurrency will be a determining factor for some voters in the upcoming presidential election.

GALVESTON (AP) — The parents of a former Texas high school student accused of killing 10 people during a 2018 shooting on his campus bear responsibility for what happened because they failed to help their son amid a mental health crisis or to limit his access to the family’s guns, an attorney representing victims’ families told jurors on Wednesday.

“This shooting was premeditated, it was predictable and it was preventable,” attorney Clint McGuire said during opening statements in the civil trial of a lawsuit seeking to hold Dimitrios Pagourtzis and his parents, Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos, financially liable for the shooting at Santa Fe High School in May 2018.

Lori Laird, an attorney for Pagourtzis’ parents, told jurors the couple is heartbroken by the shooting but their son’s mental illness is ultimately to blame for what happened.

“If there had been signs and symptoms, I guarantee you this mom … she would have immediately done something about that,” Laird said.

The lawsuit was filed by family members of seven of those killed and four of the 13 people wounded in the attack.

Pagourtzis was charged with capital murder for the shooting. He was a 17-year-old student when authorities said he killed eight students and two teachers at the school, located about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

The criminal case against the now-23-year-old remains on hold after he was declared incompetent to stand trial. He has been held at the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon since December 2019.

McGuire told jurors that Antonios Pagourtzis and Kosmetatos knew their son was suffering from depression, started getting bad grades and isolating himself, began taking weapons from their gun cabinet and safe, started making disturbing posts on Facebook and began ordering online ammunition and other items such as a knife with a Nazi symbol and a T-shirt that said, “Born To Kill.”

“In spite of the fact he was trying to give them signs, if they did not know he was depressed as they’re claiming, it’s because they failed in their job as parents,” said McGuire, who is representing the families of five students who were killed and two others who were injured. Kosmetatos, who sat at the defense table with her husband, cried as McGuire spoke to jurors.

Laird told jurors Kosmetatos and her husband were good parents who worked hard and tried to do the best for their children. She said Pagourtzis was a typical teenager who was unmotivated and didn’t want to do his schoolwork, but she insisted there were no red flag warnings, such as disciplinary or drug problems. She also said that his parents didn’t know any of their weapons were missing or that he had hidden his online purchases of ammunition and other weapons.

“What needs to be clear to everyone is Dimitrios was suffering in silence. No one saw this,” Laird said.

Laird suggested that some of the blame also belongs with Lucky Gunner, a Tennessee-based online retailer that sold Dimitrios Pagourtzis more than 100 rounds of ammunition without verifying he was old enough to buy it. She also blamed the school for not alerting Pagourtzis’ parents of online searches he had made on a campus computer related to school shootings, suicide and weapons.

Lucky Gunner was a defendant in the lawsuit until last year, when it reached a settlement with the families.

Roberto Torres, who is representing Dimitrios Pagourtzis in the lawsuit, told jurors that while his client did plan the shooting, he was never in control of his actions because of his severe mental illness.

The families are pursuing at least $1 million in damages, but the jury could award a higher amount.

After the trial ended for the day, family members of those killed and wounded in the shooting said the lawsuit wasn’t about money but about people being held accountable for actions that enabled the shooting.

Rosie Yanas-Stone, whose 17-year-old son Christopher Stone was killed, said she was upset by what she heard as excuses from Dimitrios Pagourtzis’ parents.

“I’m sick and tired every time a school shooting happens, it’s always ‘thoughts and prayers’ and that don’t work no more,” Yanas-Stone said. “As long as we got people like these parents and everybody else saying, ‘Not my fault, not my fault.’ So whose fault is it?”

The trial could last up to three weeks.

Similar lawsuits have been filed following other mass shootings.

In 2022, a jury awarded over $200 million to the mother of one of four people killed in a shooting at a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee. The lawsuit had been filed against the shooter and his father, who was accused of returning a rifle to his son before the shooting despite the son’s mental health issues.

In April, Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison by a Michigan judge after becoming the first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on X: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver a eulogy for U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee at a North Houston church on Thursday as days of memorials for the longtime Democratic lawmaker draw to a close.

Harris is poised to be the first Black woman to be a major party’s presidential candidate, and Jackson Lee became one of Congress’ most prominent Black women during nearly three decades representing her Texas district. She helped lead federal efforts to protect women from domestic violence and recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday.

Jackson Lee was 74 when she died on July 19 after being treated for pancreatic cancer. Harris, a former California senator, said in a statement after her death that she was “one of our nation’s fiercest, smartest, and most strategic leaders in the way she thought about how to make progress happen.”

Services for Jackson Lee began on Monday when hundreds of people paid their respects to Jackson Lee as her body lay in state in a flag-draped coffin inside Houston’s City Hall. President Joe Biden was one of the visitors, placing a bouquet of flowers near her casket and visiting with Jackson Lee’s family.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Jackson Lee was remembered at viewings at two different churches.

The Democrat had represented her Houston-based district and the nation’s fourth-largest city since 1995. She previously had breast cancer and announced the pancreatic cancer diagnosis on June 2.

Before being elected to Congress, Jackson Lee served on Houston’s city council from 1990 to 1994.

After first being elected, Jackson Lee quickly established herself as a fierce advocate for women and minorities and a leader for House Democrats on many social justice issues, from policing reform to reparations for descendants of enslaved people. She led the first rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act in nearly a decade, which included protections for Native American, transgender and immigrant women.

Jackson Lee routinely won reelection to Congress with ease. She unsuccessfully ran to be Houston’s mayor last year.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on X: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70