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HOUSTON (AP) — The number of Texas deaths after Hurricane Beryl came ashore and knocked out power to millions of residents climbed to at least 36 on Thursday as officials confirmed more people who died in homes that were left without air conditioning during sweltering heat.

The medical examiner’s office in Fort Bend County confirmed nine more deaths, including four that were at least partially attributed to hyperthermia, or when a person’s body temperature rises far above normal. At least a dozen other residents in the Houston area also died from complications due to the heat and losing power, according to officials.

Most Houston residents had their electricity restored last week after days of widespread outages during sweltering summer temperatures. Officials had said some residents and businesses would need to do repairs to damaged equipment they are responsible for before being able to get power.

CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells, the head of the city’s power utility, apologized to customers Thursday for the company’s response after Beryl and told state regulators the utility was already working to better prepare for the next storm. The Gov. Greg Abbott and lawmakers have demanded answers from the utility over why electricity was out for so long.

“We will do better. While we cannot erase the frustrations and difficulties so many of our customers endured, I and my entire leadership team will not make excuses. We will improve and act with a sense of urgency,” Wells told the Public Utility Commission of Texas during a meeting in Austin.

Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall July 8, knocking out electricity to nearly 3 million people in Texas at the height of the outages. Most of those left without power were in the Houston area. Beryl unleashed heavy rain and winds that uprooted trees and damaged homes and businesses along the Texas Coast and parts of Southeast Texas.

At Abbott’s direction, the utilities commission has begun investigating CenterPoint’s preparedness and response to Beryl. A final report is expected by Dec. 1.

A special Texas Senate committee formed to review how utility companies responded to Beryl was set to have its first meeting on Monday in Austin.

During Thursday’s Public Utility Commission meeting, Wells said CenterPoint’s efforts to improve will include better partnerships with local communities and officials, assigning more workers to manage vegetation that could damage power lines, and making lines more resilient to extreme winds.

CenterPoint says it will also have a new cloud-based outage tracker after their previous tracker was removed due to technical difficulties following a May 16 storm that had left about 1 million customers without power. After Beryl hit, some residents tried to determine which areas in Houston had power by using the Texas-based fast food chain Whataburger’s app and seeing which of its locations were open.

Utilities commissioners told Wells and other company officials that while they appreciated CenterPoint’s desire to be held accountable and to begin regaining the trust of the community, the improvements they were putting in place were things the company should have already been doing.

“But at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words,” said Commissioner Lori Cobos. “So, we need to get through the hurricane season. And that’s what needs to happen. And these actions need to be taken. And we hope that you do.”

The only speaker during the meeting’s public comment section, Houston school district trustee Savant Moore, read the names of the victims from Beryl and asked that the utilities commissioners not forget what Houston and its residents experienced, and criticized CenterPoint’s response.

“I ask what will this board and the governor do to protect Texas lives from such mismanagement?” Moore said.

UVALDE (AP) — A former school police officer who was part of the slow law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of failing to take action as a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers inside a fourth-grade classroom.

Adrian Gonzales was among the nearly 400 law enforcement personnel who responded to the scene but then waited more than 70 minutes to confront the shooter inside the school.

During a court hearing in Uvalde, a city of roughly 15,000 people about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of San Antonio, teary-eyed family members of some of the victims watched as Gonzales was arraigned on charges of abandoning and failing to protect children who were killed and wounded.

Afterward, Gonzales left the courthouse and walked to his car as victims’ relatives stared at him.

Some of the families have spent more than two years pressing for officers to face charges, and some have called for more officers to be charged.

“For only two to be indicted, there should have been more because there was a lot of ranking officers during that day that knew what to do but decided not to. But they only got these two,” Jerry Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess was killed, said after the hearing.

“We’ll take what we get and we’re just gonna continue fighting for the kids and the two teachers and see it all the way through,” Mata said.

Gonzales and former Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo were indicted by a grand jury in June. Arredondo waived his arraignment and entered a not guilty plea earlier this month. Both were released on bond following their indictments.

One of Gonzales’ attorneys, Nico LaHood, said after the hearing that his client “feels he’s innocent.” LaHood, the former district attorney for Bexar County, said such charges against a law enforcement officer are “uncharted territory.”

“He feels all he did was try to show up to help those children,” the lawyer said.

Although there is “justifiable, righteous anger in this situation,” Gonzales’ defense team’s position is that it shouldn’t be directed at him, LaHood said.

“We have not seen or even heard of a theory of why Mr. Gonzales is being singled out,” he told reporters.

Javier Montemayor, an attorney for Arredondo, said his client also believes he isn’t guilty.

“We do submit that these allegations not only against Mr. Arredondo, but against law enforcement in general, are not a common practice in the state of Texas. It’s something that is unfounded,” Montemayor told The Associated Press by phone Thursday.

The May 24, 2022, attack was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The police response has been heavily criticized in state and federal investigations that described “cascading failures” in training, communication and leadership among officers who waited outside the building while some victims lay dying or begging for help.

Gonzales, 51, was among the first officers to arrive. He has been indicted on 29 counts of abandoning or endangering a child, accused of abandoning his training and not confronting the shooter, even after hearing gunshots as he stood in a hallway.

Arredondo, 52, was the on-site commander that day. He is charged with 10 counts of abandoning or endangering a child. Arredondo failed to identify an active shooting, did not follow his training and made decisions that slowed the police response to stop a gunman who was “hunting” victims, according to the indictment.

Terrified students inside the classroom called 911 as parents begged officers to go in. A tactical team of officers eventually went into the classroom and killed the shooter.

Each charge against Gonzales and Arredondo carries up to two years in jail if convicted.

It is the latest — yet still rare — case in which a U.S. law enforcement officer was charged with allegedly failing to act during a school shooting. The first such case to go to trial was a sheriff’s deputy in Florida who did not confront the perpetrator of the 2018 Parkland massacre. The deputy was acquitted of felony neglect last year. A lawsuit by the victims’ families and survivors is pending.

Several families of Uvalde victims have filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media and online gaming companies and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle the gunman used.

HOUSTON (AP) — The number of Texas deaths after Hurricane Beryl came ashore and knocked out power to millions of residents climbed to at least 36 on Thursday as officials confirmed more people who died in homes that were left without air conditioning during sweltering heat.

The medical examiner’s office in Fort Bend County confirmed nine more deaths, including four that were at least partially attributed to hyperthermia, or when a person’s body temperature rises far above normal. At least a dozen other residents in the Houston area also died from complications due to the heat and losing power, according to officials.

Most Houston residents had their electricity restored last week after days of widespread outages during sweltering summer temperatures. Officials had said some residents and businesses would need to do repairs to damaged equipment they are responsible for before being able to get power.

CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells, the head of the city’s power utility, apologized to customers Thursday for the company’s response after Beryl and told state regulators the utility was already working to better prepare for the next storm. The Gov. Greg Abbott and lawmakers have demanded answers from the utility over why electricity was out for so long.

“We will do better. While we cannot erase the frustrations and difficulties so many of our customers endured, I and my entire leadership team will not make excuses. We will improve and act with a sense of urgency,” Wells told the Public Utility Commission of Texas during a meeting in Austin.

Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall July 8, knocking out electricity to nearly 3 million people in Texas at the height of the outages. Most of those left without power were in the Houston area. Beryl unleashed heavy rain and winds that uprooted trees and damaged homes and businesses along the Texas Coast and parts of Southeast Texas.

At Abbott’s direction, the utilities commission has begun investigating CenterPoint’s preparedness and response to Beryl. A final report is expected by Dec. 1.

A special Texas Senate committee formed to review how utility companies responded to Beryl was set to have its first meeting on Monday in Austin.

During Thursday’s Public Utility Commission meeting, Wells said CenterPoint’s efforts to improve will include better partnerships with local communities and officials, assigning more workers to manage vegetation that could damage power lines, and making lines more resilient to extreme winds.

CenterPoint says it will also have a new cloud-based outage tracker after their previous tracker was removed due to technical difficulties following a May 16 storm that had left about 1 million customers without power. After Beryl hit, some residents tried to determine which areas in Houston had power by using the Texas-based fast food chain Whataburger’s app and seeing which of its locations were open.

Utilities commissioners told Wells and other company officials that while they appreciated CenterPoint’s desire to be held accountable and to begin regaining the trust of the community, the improvements they were putting in place were things the company should have already been doing.

“But at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words,” said Commissioner Lori Cobos. “So, we need to get through the hurricane season. And that’s what needs to happen. And these actions need to be taken. And we hope that you do.”

The only speaker during the meeting’s public comment section, Houston school district trustee Savant Moore, read the names of the victims from Beryl and asked that the utilities commissioners not forget what Houston and its residents experienced, and criticized CenterPoint’s response.

“I ask what will this board and the governor do to protect Texas lives from such mismanagement?” Moore said.

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Stengle reported from Dallas.

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

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world and known for running the cartel’s smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

A Mexican federal official told The Associated Press that Zambada and Guzmán López arrived in the United States on a private plane and turned themselves in to authorities. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized discuss the matter.

The U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the capture of Zambada, who eluded authorities for decades.

Zambada and Guzmán López oversaw the trafficking of “tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will “face justice in the United States.”

“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Mexican authorities didn’t immediately comment on the arrests.

U.S. officials have been seeking Zambada’s capture for years, and he has been charged in a number of U.S. cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid. Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, “one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.”

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartel’s strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019 and is the father of Guzmán López.

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

“I’m terrified of being incarcerated,” Zambada said. “I’d like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.”

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Although little is known about Zambada’s early life, he is believed to have gotten his start as an enforcer in the 1970s.

By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with “El Chapo” Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambada’s detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of “El Chapo” Guzmán, Ovidio Guzmán López. Zambada’s son pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in San Diego in 2021 to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.

In recent years, Guzman’s sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or “Chapitos” that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the U.S. market.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested and extradited to the U.S. last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA, said Zambada’s arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the U.S. Joaquín Guzmán López was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos, Vigil said.

“This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I don’t think so,” Vigil said.

“It’s not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him,” Vigil said.

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Verza and Sherman reported from Mexico City.

McALLEN (AP) — A Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder after self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit against the local sheriff and prosecutors over the case that drew national outrage before the charges were quickly dropped, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton denied a motion by prosecutors and the sheriff to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing in the border city of McAllen. Lizelle Gonzalez, who spent two nights in jail on the murder charges and is seeking $1 million in damages in the lawsuit, did not attend the hearing.

Texas has one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans and outlaws the procedure with limited exceptions. Under Texas law, women seeking an abortion are exempt from criminal charges, however.

Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez and other defendants have argued their positions provide them immunity from civil lawsuits.

Rick Navarro, an attorney for the defense, argued that it was “at worst a negligence case” during the hearing. Ramirez has previously told The Associated Press that he “made a mistake” in bringing charges.

Tipton asked Gonzalez’s attorneys whether they could prove the prosecutors knew of the exception.

“What we intend to show is that negligence doesn’t explain this oversight. It is the role and function of prosecutors to be aware of the elements of the statutes that they are charging,” said David Donatti, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who is representing Gonzalez.

Gonzalez was indicted in 2022 after she took the drug misoprostol while 19 weeks pregnant. She was treated at a Texas hospital, where doctors later performed a caesarian section to deliver a stillborn child after they detected no fetal heartbeat.

Her lawsuit filed in March also named the county, which runs the small hospital where Gonzalez was treated, claiming that hospital staff violated patient privacy rights when they reported the abortion. An amended complaint alleged that the sheriff’s office interviewed Gonzalez and arrested her later under direction from the prosecutors.

The charges were dropped just days after the woman’s arrest. In February, Ramirez agreed to pay a $1,250 fine under a settlement reached with the State Bar of Texas. Ramirez also agreed to have his license held in a probated suspension for 12 months.

Wednesday’s decision will allow the case to move forward.

McALLEN (AP) — A judge on Wednesday rejected Texas’ attempts to compel a deposition from one of the largest migrant shelters on the U.S.-Mexico border, dealing a new legal setback to a widening Republican-led investigation into migrant aid groups.

The ruling by state District Judge J.R. Flores does not stop the state’s investigation into Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which provides temporary housing for as many as 2,000 women and children when border crossings are at their highest. The border nonprofit is among several targeted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over claims that aid groups are helping migrants enter the U.S. illegally.

Catholic Charities and other organizations have denied the accusations, saying the state has produced no evidence.

The one-paragraph order by Flores shields leaders of Catholic Charities from a deposition and is the second time in recent weeks that a Texas court has pushed back on the state’s investigation into migrant aid groups. Earlier this month, a separate judge in El Paso rejected the state’s efforts to close a shelter in a scathing order that accused the state of harassment.

“We hope that we can put this behind us and focus our efforts on protecting and upholding the sanctity and dignity of all human lives while following the law,” said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley is a member organization of Catholic Charities USA but it is a separate nonprofit within the Diocese of Brownsville.

The group opened a shelter for migrants in 2017 that typically receives about 1,000 people a week, most of whom stay only a few days.

In court filings, Catholic Charities said it provided over 100 pages of documents in response to questions from the state in late March about its policies and operations. Paxton’s office then pushed for a deposition of a member who would have direct knowledge of the organization’s operating procedures.

Attorneys for the state argued that a deposition could help them determine whether to sue Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley or stop their investigation.

Texas launched the investigations into migrant aid groups after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to Paxton in 2022 that suggested, without citing evidence, that border organizations could be helping migrants enter the country illegally.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that the American Federation of Teachers condemned the state takeover and backed the Houston local as union delegates from across the country meet in Houston this week. In a Wednesday rally at Discovery Green, union leaders reiterated their support for Houston and opposition to the state takeover, which reached its one-year mark with appointed leadership in June. The rally coalesces national support for the the district’s largest teachers union, the Houston Federation of Teachers, led by President Jackie Anderson who vocally opposes the district’s proposed $4.4 billion bond. The district said the bond would go largely to upgrading and rebuilding aging campuses, as well as co-locating schools to other existing campuses. Anderson brought up the bond to a chorus of boos from the crowd.

“And I don’t say ‘no.’ I say ‘hell no,'” Anderson said. She noted reports that began with Spectrum News reporting a charter school network founded by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles charged its Texas schools fees that fed into a general fund that, in part, subsidized one of its Colorado schools. AFT’s Houston convention is also in the public eye with Vice President Kamala Harris scheduled to speak there Thursday, days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and backed Harris to be the Democratic Party nominee. The 1.8 million-member union was the first to endorse Harris for president Monday, according to a union statement. AFT President Randi Weingarten reiterated support for the Houston local, as it opposes the bond and takeover. She decried Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for school vouchers that would put public dollars toward students attending private and charter schools. “What’s going on in Houston is really despicable and duplicitous,” Weingarten said. “Before the takeover, Houston’s schools were on the ascendancy. They had a really good superintendent. They were making progress in every one of the measures that these testing-maniacal people had put in their place.”

EL PASO – The publication Border Report says El Paso County is asking the State of Texas for millions of dollars to cover the cost of jailing individuals arrested through Operation Lone Star. County Commissioners Court on Monday voted unanimously to submit a grant application to the Office of Gov. Greg Abbott for detainee processing, housing, judicial processing and medical costs. The vote authorized a separate application to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission to provide legal assistance to those detainees. Commissioners also gave the green light to County Judge Ricardo Samaniego to send a letter requesting those detained by the Texas Department of Public Safety to be taken to a state jail, rather than the El Paso County Jail. “In order to apply for that we need to submit an emergency declaration. But I really want the community to understand we have been hesitant because we wanted it to be limited – not to have more DPS agents here but to focus on the fact that it has been a huge impact on the community, on the county,” Samaniego said.

AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News reports that President Joe Biden will deliver remarks in Austin on Monday as he returns to public life after his COVID-19 diagnosis last week, White House officials said Tuesday. Biden has not made any public appearances in the days after the diagnosis or since he announced Sunday that he was ending his reelection bid. He returned Tuesday to the White House from his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he had been recovering. Biden will speak at an LBJ Presidential Library event commemorating 60 years since the historic passage of the Civil Rights Act. The event had been postponed after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13. The Civil Rights Act, considered the most sweeping civil rights legislation since the end of slavery, banned racial discrimination in public places, schools and places of employment.