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UVALDE (AP) – The school district and sheriff’s office in Uvalde must release their records and documents related to the Robb Elementary School shooting — including police body camera footage, 911 calls and communications, a Texas district court judge ruled last week.

A group of news organizations including The Texas Tribune sued the city of Uvalde, the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office and the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District over access to the records after their open-records requests were repeatedly denied following the May 24, 2022 shooting. Lawyers representing the outlets on Monday announced the ruling from the 38th Judicial District Court of Uvalde County, touting it as a “victory for government transparency.”

Nineteen children and two adults were killed by a teenage gunman in the shooting. The response to the shooting has been defined by a series of police failures of leadership and communication that resulted in surviving children being trapped with the gunman in two classrooms for more than an hour before law enforcement confronted him and killed him.

“This ruling is a pivotal step towards ensuring transparency and accountability,” said Laura Prather, a media law attorney with Haynes Boone who represents the news organizations. “The public deserves to know the full details of the response to this tragic event, and the information could be critical in preventing future tragedies.”

The ruling by Judge Sid Harle was dated July 8 and it gives the sheriff’s office and the school district 20 days, or until July 28, to release “all responsive documents.”

A similar ruling from a Travis County state district judge last year ordered the Department of Public Safety to release law enforcement records, however DPS has appealed that order and has not yet released the data related to its investigation. Ninety-one of the agency’s troopers responded to the shooting, which drew a response from nearly 400 law enforcement officials.

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell had opposed the release of records to the news organizations saying their release could harm her criminal investigation into the shooting response. Two weeks ago, Mitchell announced a grand jury had indicted the former school police chief and an officer on felony charges of child endangerment.

Mitchell and a spokesperson for Uvalde schools did not respond Monday afternoon to requests for comment on the ruling. Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco said, “we have no comments on the order.”

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The majority of Houston outages that followed Hurricane Beryl should be fixed within the next two days, the city’s main utility company said Monday as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to punish CenterPoint Energy even after the lights come back.

The Texas Public Utility Commission, the state’s regulatory agency, announced Monday it had launched an investigation Abbott demanded into CenterPoint’s storm preparation and response as hundreds of thousands of residents sweltered without power for more than a week after the storm. The governor has given the utility until the end of July to submit plans to protect the power supply through the rest of what could be an active hurricane season, as well as trim trees and vegetation that threaten power lines.

But some energy experts question whether Abbott and the Texas regulators, whose leaders are appointed by the governor, have done enough before now to get tough on utilities or make transmission lines more resilient in the nation’s biggest energy producing state.

“What CenterPoint is showing us by its repeated failure to provide power, is they seem to be just incapable of doing their job,” Abbott said Monday in Houston.

Spokespeople for CenterPoint, which has defended its response and pace of restoring outages, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Monday.

A week after Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane — toppling power lines, uprooting trees and causing branches to crash into power lines — the damage from the storm and the prolonged outages has again put the resiliency of Texas’ power grid under scrutiny.

In 2021, a winter storm plunged the state into a deep freeze, knocking out power to millions of residents and pushing Texas’ grid to the brink of total collapse. Following the deadly blackout, Abbott and state lawmakers vowed changes that would better ensure that Texans would not be left in the dark in dangerous cold and heat.

Unlike that crisis — which was caused by failing power generation — Beryl created high winds that brought down power lines and knocked out power to about 2.7 million homes and businesses. Most were concentrated in the Houston area, where CenterPoint reported Monday that it had restored power to more than 2 million customers. Still, more than 200,000 remained without power.

Houston-area residents have sweltered in heat and humidity, stood in long lines for gas, food and water, and trekked to community centers to find air conditioning. Hospitals have seen a spike in patients with heat-related illnesses and carbon monoxide poisoning caused by improper use of home generators.

“This isn’t a failure of the entire system,” Abbott said. “This is an indictment of one company that’s failed to do its job.”

In special meeting of the Houston City Council on Monday, resident Alin Boswell said he was on day eight without power and had not seen anyone from CenterPoint in his neighborhood until that morning. He said the city and the company should have known the potential for damage after storms in May knocked out power to more than 1 million.

“You all and CenterPoint had a preview of this debacle in May,” Boswell told council members.

Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, said the failures extend beyond CenterPoint. He said regulators have been reluctant to ensure that transmission lines are more resilient and trees are sufficiently trimmed.

Hirs said Abbott and other leaders who are solely zeroing in on the utility after Beryl are looking for a scapegoat.

“Of course, not one of them have a mirror around,” he said. “It’s not CenterPoint exclusively. The regulatory compact has totally broken down.”

CenterPoint has at least 10 years of vegetation management reports on file with Texas regulators. In April, the company filed a 900-page report on long-term plans and expenses that would be needed to make its power system more resilient, from tree trimming to withstanding storms and flooding to cybersecurity attacks.

In a report filed May 1, CenterPoint said it had spent nearly $35 million on tree removal and trimming in 2023. It said it would target efforts this year across more than 3,500 miles (5,630 kilometers) of its estimated 29,000 miles (46,670 kilometers) of overhead power lines in 2024.

Vegetation management remains a key issue for avoiding another power outage when the next storm hits, said Michael Webber, a University of Texas mechanical engineering professor with a focus on clean energy technology. But it’s just one ongoing problem for power providers.

Policy makers must rebuild Texas’ energy grid to adapt to its changing climate, Webber said.

“We’ve designed our system for weather of the past,” he said.

The utility has defended its preparation for the storm and said that it has brought in about 12,000 additional workers from outside Houston. It has said it would have been unsafe to preposition those workers inside the predicted storm impact area before Beryl made landfall.

In a message to CenterPoint customers Sunday night, CEO Jason Wells wrote that the company had made “remarkable” progress.

“The strong pace of the restoration is a testament to our preparation (and) investments we have made in the system,” Wells wrote.

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Lathan, who reported from Austin, Texas, is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who has long sought DNA testing claiming it would help prove he was not responsible for the fatal stabbing of an 85-year-old woman decades ago was scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening.

Ruben Gutierrez was condemned for the 1998 killing of Escolastica Harrison at her home in Brownsville in Texas’ southern tip. Prosecutors said the killing of the mobile home park manager and retired teacher was part of an attempt to steal more than $600,000 she had hidden in her home because of a mistrust of banks.

The inmate’s lethal injection was planned for Tuesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

Gutierrez, 47, has long maintained he didn’t kill Harrison. His attorneys say there’s no physical or forensic evidence connecting him to the killing. Two others were also charged in the case.

Gutierrez’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, arguing Texas has denied his right under state law to post-conviction DNA testing that would show he would not have been eligible for the death penalty.

His attorneys argue that various items recovered from the crime scene — including nail scrapings from Harrison, a loose hair wrapped around one of her fingers and various blood samples from within her home — have never been tested.

“Gutierrez faces not only the denial of (DNA testing) that he has repeatedly and consistently sought for over a decade, but moreover, execution for a crime he did not commit. No one has any interest in a wrongful execution,” Gutierrez’s attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.

Prosecutors have said the request for DNA testing is a delay tactic and that Gutierrez was convicted on various pieces of evidence, including a confession in which he admitted to planning the robbery and that he was inside her home when she was killed. Gutierrez was convicted under Texas’ law of parties, which says a person can be held liable for the actions of others if they assist or encourage the commission of a crime.

In their response to Gutierrez’s Supreme Court petition, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office said state law does not provide “for postconviction DNA testing to show innocence of the death penalty and, even if it did, Gutierrez would not be entitled to it.”

“He has repeatedly failed to show he is entitled to postconviction DNA testing. Thus, his punishment is just, and his execution will be constitutional,” prosecutors said.

Gutierrez’s lawyers have also argued that his case is similar to another Texas death row inmate — Rodney Reed — whose case was sent back to a lower court after the Supreme Court in 2023 ruled he should be allowed to argue for DNA testing. Reed is still seeking DNA testing.

Lower courts have previously denied Gutierrez’s requests for DNA testing.

Last week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted against commuting Gutierrez’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a 90-day reprieve.

Gutierrez has had several previous execution dates in recent years that have been delayed, including over issues related to having a spiritual adviser in the death chamber. In June 2020, Gutierrez was about an hour away from execution when he got a stay from the Supreme Court.

Authorities said Gutierrez befriended Harrison so he could rob her. Prosecutors said Harrison hid her money underneath a false floor in her bedroom closet.

Police charged three people in this case: Rene Garcia, Pedro Gracia and Gutierrez. Rene Garcia is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison while Pedro Gracia, who police said was the getaway driver, remains at large.

Gutierrez would be the third inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, and the 10th in the U.S.

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

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Three hikers died over the weekend in suspected heat-related cases at state and national parks in Utah, including a father and daughter who got lost on a strenuous hike in Canyonlands National Park in triple-digit temperatures.

The daughter, 23, and her father, 52, sent a 911 text alerting dispatchers that they were lost and had run out of water while hiking the 8.1 miles (13 kilometers) Syncline Loop, described by the National Park Service as the most challenging trail in the Island in the Sky district of the southeast Utah park. The pair set out Friday to navigate steep switchbacks and scramble through boulder fields with limited trail markers as the air temperature surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).

Park rangers and a helicopter crew with the Bureau of Land Management began their search for the lost hikers in the early evening Friday, but found them already dead. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office identified them on Monday as Albino Herrera Espinoza and his daughter, Beatriz Herrera, of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Due to the jagged terrain, safety officials used a helicopter to airlift the bodies out of the park and to the state medical examiner on Saturday morning, according to the sheriff’s office. Their deaths are being investigated as heat-related by the local sheriff and the National Park Service.

Later Saturday, first responders in southwest Utah responded to a call about two hikers “suffering from a heat related incident” at Snow Canyon State Park, which is known for its lava tubes, sand dunes and a canyon carved from red and white Navajo Sandstone.

A multi-agency search team found and treated two hikers who were suffering from heat exhaustion. While they were treating those individuals, a passing hiker informed them of an unconscious person nearby. First responders found the 30-year-old woman dead, public safety officials said.

Her death is being investigated by the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department. She has not been identified publicly.

Tourists continue to flock to parks in Utah and other southwestern states during the hottest months of the year, even as officials caution that hiking in extreme heat poses serious health risks.

Three hikers have died in the past month at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, where summer temperatures on exposed parts of the trails can exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius). A 50-year-old man from Texas died on July 7 while trying to reach the South Rim. Weeks earlier, a 69-year-old man collapsed and died while hiking in the sweltering heat, and a 41-year-old who had spent the night at the bottom of the canyon was found dead not far from his campsite. Temperatures deep within the Grand Canyon can rise into the triple digits during the summer.

A motorcyclist died earlier this month in Death Valley National Park in eastern California, and another motorcyclist was taken to a hospital for severe heat illness. Both were part of a group that rode through the Badwater Basin area amid scorching weather.

The air temperature in Death Valley reached at least 125 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius) for nine consecutive days July 4-12 — the park’s longest streak at or above that temperature since the early 1900s, the National Park Service announced Monday. Now, parts of the park are experiencing a multiday power outage triggered by a thunderstorm as temperatures continue to linger just above 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Elsewhere on Monday, authorities said a 61-year-old man was found dead inside his motor home in eastern Washington state. The man likely died Wednesday when the temperature in the area reached 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius), Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary said.

Authorities also suspected heat in the death of an 81-year-old man Saturday in Oregon but have released no further details. His death brings the state’s tally of suspected heat-related deaths to 17 since the July 4 weekend, The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com reported.

POLK COUNTY — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said a man has drowned after reportedly entering the river to help family members.
40-year-old drowns in Henderson County on Independence Day

The sheriff’s office responded to a drowning on July 5 in the Trinity River below the Lake Livingston Dam. Officials said 31-year-old Israel Hernandez went into the river to help family members that were stuck in the current.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office and Texas Game Wardens searched the area and further down the river for several days.
3-year-old flown to hospital after nearly drowning in East Texas lake

Hernandez’s body was found on July 10 and has been taken to the Jefferson County medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.

AUSTIN – Inside Higher Ed reports that Texas community colleges underwent a radical shift last year as the state ditched its old funding structure in favor of a new, ambitious performance-based model. Community college leaders say that, so far, the change seems to be paying off. Signed into law last summer, the new structure earned unanimous support from leaders of the state’s 50 community colleges—as well as the trepidation that comes with so significant a change. The goal of the new model is to incentivize community colleges to improve student outcomes and provide them with the cash to do so, rather than base funding on student credit hours, which makes funding heavily dependent on enrollments. To achieve that, state lawmakers budgeted $210 million more for community colleges in fiscal year 2024 than the previous year, according to documents from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that the number of CenterPoint customers in the Houston area without power dipped below 270,000 Sunday night, six days after Hurricane Beryl tore through the Houston area. The company said it expected to bring 350,000 customers online Sunday. The day prior it restored power to around 219,000 homes and businesses amid mounting pressure from government officials and customers alike to return power and provide transparent communication in the wake of Beryl. The company said it had returned power to 1.8 million customers total, about 80% of its service area, but said some restorations could take until July 19. Some areas in Houston do not yet have an estimated restoration time.

As of 8 p.m. Sunday night, Texas-New Mexico Power has restored power to 93% of customers impacted by Beryl, according to a statement. TNMP serves eastern parts of Galveston County and parts of Brazoria County. Around 11,000 customers were out at the beginning of the day, and the company’s crews 3,000 restored through Sunday, accrding to the TNMP statement. “TNMP is dealing with small clusters and individual service-level outages that are taking significant time and resources to restore,” according to an update on its outage tracker. The utility asked customers to report outages via the Report Outage button on the outage map site, by emailing hurricane@tnmp.com or by calling 888-866-7456.