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AUSTIN (AP) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that his office is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Biden administration officials for declaring a rare lizard endangered earlier this year.

The dunes sagebrush lizard burrows in the sand dunes in the Mescalero-Monahans ecosystem 30 miles west of Odessa — the same West Texas land that supports the state’s biggest oil and gas fields.

For four decades, biologists warned federal regulators about the existential threat that oil and gas exploration and development poses for the reptile’s habitat, while industry representatives fought against the designation, saying it would scare off companies interested in drilling in the nation’s most lucrative oil and natural gas basin.

In May, federal regulators ruled that the industry’s expansion posed a grave threat to the lizard’s survival when listing it as endangered.

Now, the state’s top lawyer is suing.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s unlawful misuse of environmental law is a backdoor attempt to undermine Texas’s oil and gas industries which help keep the lights on for America,” Paxton said. “I warned that we would sue over this illegal move, and now we will see them in court.”

Paxton’s statement said the listing of the lizard was a violation of the Endangered Species Act, adding that the Fish and Wildlife Service “failed to rely on the best scientific and commercial data” when declaring the lizard endangered and did not take into account conservation efforts already in place to protect the lizard.

The 2.5-inch-long lizard only lives in about 4% of the 86,000-square-mile Permian Basin, which spans Texas and New Mexico, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. In Texas, the lizard has been found in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward and Winkler counties.

According to a 2023 analysis by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the lizard is “functionally extinct” across 47% of its range.

The listing requires oil and gas companies to avoid operating in areas the lizard inhabits, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to determine where those areas are because it is still gathering information. Oil and gas companies could incur fines up to $50,000 and prison time, depending on the violation, if they operate in those areas.

Paxton’s office said that because the Fish and Wildlife Service has not specified those areas, it has left operators and landowners uncertain about what they can do with their own land.

HOUSTON (AP) — A jury on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of a former Houston police officer accused of being responsible for the 2019 deaths of a couple during a raid that prompted a probe which revealed systemic corruption problems within the police department’s narcotics unit.

Gerald Goines is charged with two counts of murder in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his 58-year-old wife Rhogena Nicholas. Goines has pleaded not guilty.

The couple, along with their dog, were were fatally shot after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock” warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering.

Jurors could also convict Goines of a lesser charge of tampering with a governmental record over allegations he falsified the search warrant used to justify the raid of the couple’s home.

The jury deliberated for about three hours Tuesday afternoon before breaking for the day. Deliberations were set to resume Wednesday.

During closing arguments in a trial that began Sept. 9, prosecutors told jurors Goines, 59, fabricated a confidential informant and manipulated people in order to get a search warrant for the couple’s home that falsely portrayed them as dangerous drug dealers.

Prosecutor Keaton Forcht told jurors everything that happened in the home, including the couple’s deaths and the injuries to officers, “flowed directly” from the falsified search warrant and Goines’ lies. During the raid, four officers were shot and wounded, and a fifth was injured.

“The deaths of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle are a grave, grave injustice,” said Forcht, with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

Goines attorneys admitted the ex-officer lied to get the search warrant but tried to minimize the impact of his false statements. They said Nicholas and Tuttle were responsible for their own deaths.

Tuttle and Nicholas “did not die because there was a bad warrant and officers came into their house” but because they failed to listen to officers’ commands and fired at them, putting the officers’ lives in danger, said George Secrest, one of Goines’ attorneys.

“You can hate Gerald … but he’s not guilty of murder,” Secrest said.

Nicole DeBorde, another of Goines’ attorneys, suggested to jurors that Tuttle’s history of psychiatric problems might have played a role in the shooting. She also suggested evidence did show the couple were armed and dangerous drug dealers.

But prosecutor Tanisha Manning told jurors Tuttle was a military veteran who had a long history of medical problems and that he had every right to fire his gun and defend his home from individuals who had burst through his front door.

Manning said prosecutors weren’t placing blame on the other officers in the house who didn’t know about the falsified search warrant and were justified in defending themselves.

“The only person responsible for that volley of bullets was Gerald Goines,” Manning said.

Investigators said they only found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house.

During the trial, Jeff Wolf, a Texas ranger who investigated the shooting, testified officers fired first when they entered the home and shot the couple’s dog. Wolf said the gunfire and Nicholas screaming at officers likely resulted in Tuttle coming from his bedroom and opening fire at the officers.

Goines’ attorneys have said that officers had identified themselves before entering the home but Wolf testified the couple might never have heard this before gunfire erupted.

Goines’ attorneys argued during the trial that it was Tuttle and not officers who was the first to fire at another person.

An officer who took part in the raid and the judge who had approved the search warrant testified the raid would never have happened had they known Goines had lied to get the warrant.

If convicted of murder, Goines faces up to life in prison.

The probe into the drug raid also uncovered allegations of systemic corruption.

A dozen officers tied to the narcotics squad that carried out the raid, including Goines, were later indicted on other charges following a corruption probe. A judge in June dismissed charges against some of them.

Since the raid, prosecutors have reviewed thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines, who also faces federal charges.

One of the other cases tied to Goines that remains under scrutiny is his 2004 drug arrest in Houston of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer sparked a nationwide reckoning on racism in policing. A Texas board in 2022 declined a request that Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for his drug conviction stemming from his arrest by Goines.

Federal civil rights lawsuits the families of Tuttle and Nicholas have filed against Goines and 12 other officers involved in the raid and the city of Houston are set to be tried in November.

AUSTIN (AP) - Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ‘ Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge.

HUNTSVILLE (AP) — A Texas man who had waived his right to appeal his death sentence received a lethal injection Tuesday evening for killing his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago, one of five executions scheduled within a week’s time in the U.S.

Travis Mullis, 38, was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT following the injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for stomping to death his son Alijah in January 2008.

“I’d like to thank everyone … that accepted me for the man I became during my best and worst moments,” Mullis, while strapped to the death chamber gurney, said after his spiritual adviser offered a brief prayer over him.

He also thanked prison officials and staff for “changes made across the system” that allowed “even the men on death row to show it is possible to be rehabilitated and not deemed a threat and not the men we were when we came into this system.”

He added that while he “took the legal steps to expedite to include assisted suicide, I don’t regret this decision, to legally expedite this process. … I do regret the decision to take the life of my son.” He apologized to his son’s mother, to her family and said he had no ill will toward anyone involved in the punishment.

“It was my decision that put me here,” he said.

The execution was delayed about 20 minutes while technicians worked to find a suitable vein. One needle carrying the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital was inserted in his right arm, the usual procedure. A second needle, rather than entering his left arm, was inserted in his left foot.

He closed his eyes as the drug began taking effect and took seven barely audible breaths before his breathing abruptly stopped. He was pronounced dead 20 minutes late

Mullis was the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. Another execution was carried out Tuesday evening in Missouri, and executions were also scheduled to take place Thursday in Oklahoma and Alabama. South Carolina conducted an execution Friday.

Authorities said Mullis, then 21 and living in Brazoria County, drove to nearby Galveston with his son after fighting with his girlfriend. Mullis parked his car and sexually assaulted his son. After the infant began to cry uncontrollably, Mullis began strangling the child before taking him out of the car and stomping on his head, according to authorities.

The infant’s body was later found on the roadside. Mullis fled the state but was later arrested after surrendering to police in Philadelphia.

Mullis’ execution proceeded after one of his attorneys, Shawn Nolan, said Tuesday afternoon that he planned no late appeals in a bid to spare the inmate’s life. Nolan also said in a statement that Texas would be executing a “redeemed man” who has always accepted responsibility for committing “an awful crime.”

In a letter submitted in February to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mullis wrote that he had no desire to challenge his case any further. Mullis has previously taken responsibility for his son’s death and has said “his punishment fit the crime.”

At Mullis’ trial, prosecutors said Mullis was a “monster” who manipulated people, was deceitful and refused the medical and psychiatric help he had been offered.

Since his conviction in 2011, Mullis has long been at odds with his various attorneys over whether to appeal his case. At times, Mullis had asked that his appeals be waived, only to later change his mind.

The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the application of the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.

If the scheduled executions in Alabama and Oklahoma are carried out as planned, it will mark the first time in more than 20 years — since July 2003 — that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

The first took place Friday when South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death. Also Tuesday, Marcellus Williams was executed in Missouri. On Thursday, executions are scheduled for Alan Miller in Alabama and Emmanuel Littlejohn in Oklahoma.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Texas county that wants to keep 17 books off its shelves — some dealing humorously with flatulence and others with issues including sex, gender identity and racism — argued its case Tuesday before 18 federal appeals court judges amid questions on whether the rights of the patrons or county officials were at risk.

Library patrons filed suit in 2022 against numerous officials with the Llano County library system and the county government after the books were removed. A federal district judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction requiring that the books be returned in 2023. But the outlook became murkier when three judges of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals split three ways on the issue in June — one saying all 17 books should stay on the shelves, another saying only eight had to stay, and another saying the court should leave it up to the county.

The upshot was that eight books were to be kept on the shelves. But the full court voted to toss that ruling and rehear the case. Tuesday’s arguments were heard by the 17 full-time judges of the 5th Circuit, plus Jacques Wiener, a senior 5th Circuit judge with a reduced workload who was part of the original panel.

It is unclear when the full court will rule.

Tuesday’s arguments
Judges closely questioned attorneys on both sides as attorneys supporting the county said government officials’ decisions in curating a library’s book selection amount to protected government speech.

Judge Leslie Southwick expressed concern that allowing the officials to remove certain books amounts to repression of viewpoints,.

Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan was more sympathetic to the county, noting a litany of “weeding” guidelines libraries use in deciding which books to stock based on a variety of factors from the age and condition of the book to subject matter that could be considered outdated or racist.

He raised questions of whether a library could be allowed to remove an overtly racist book by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke or the children’s book “The Cat in the Hat,” which has been criticized for allegedly drawing on racist minstrel show culture.
What are the books?

The books at issue in the case include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson; “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak; “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health” by Robie H. Harris; and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

Other titles include “Larry the Farting Leprechaun” by Jane Bexley and “My Butt is So Noisy!” by Dawn McMillan.

Already divided
In June’s panel ruling, Wiener, who was nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President George H. W. Bush, said the books were clearly removed at the behest of county officials who disagreed with the books’ messages.

Another panel member was Southwick, a nominee of former President George W. Bush, who agreed with Wiener — partially. He argued that some of the removals might stand a court test as the case progresses, noting that some of the books dealt more with “juvenile, flatulent humor” than weightier subjects.

“I do not find those books were removed on the basis of a dislike for the ideas within them when it has not been shown the books contain any ideas with which to disagree,” Southwick wrote.

Also on that panel was Duncan, a nominee of former President Donald Trump, who dissented fully. “The commission hanging in my office says ‘Judge,’ not ‘Librarian.’ ” Duncan wrote.

SAN ANTONIO – The San antonio Express-News reports a Bexar County jail inmate’s death Sunday marks the fifth inmate to die in less that 2 months. The woman “experienced a medical episode exacerbated by her detoxing conditions,” according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. Andrea Nicole Garcia, 31, was in the process of getting booked into the jail at 3:13 a.m. on Sunday when she became unresponsive. Other inmates who were in the same holding cell as Garcia noticed she did not look well and alerted nearby deputies. The sheriff’s office said they immediately called for additional medical assistance and began performing life-saving measures. First responders with the San Antonio Fire Department pronounced Garcia dead at 3:45 a.m. Investigators said they suspect that Garcia’s medical episode was exacerbated by her “detoxing conditions.”

AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News says Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, has found a new home for its headquarters in a city outside of Austin. The social media company — after Musk declared it was leaving California for Texas — has zeroed in on the city of Bastrop, which is roughly 30 miles east of the state capitol, according to a court filing in San Francisco. Although X has office space in Austin, it has leased the property in the smaller city to be its official headquarters and it will ultimately move its employees in the Austin office to the new Bastrop location, the filing said. Last month, X CEO Linda Yaccarino sent an email to employees announcing that X’s San Francisco office would be closing “over the next few weeks,” and those who had been working in that office would need to switch to working out of other X offices, the filing said. X has closed the California office and has taken a number of steps to officially change the address of its headquarters. It employs nearly 120 full-time employees who live and work in Texas.

“X plans to significantly grow its Texas footprint, including by opening new offices, and hiring additional X employees, following its formal headquarters change,” the filing said. Bastrop, which has a population of about 9,700 as of 2020, has positioned itself as a magnet for companies looking to expand to Texas. The city is “perfectly located in the heart of the Texas Triangle, with easy access to Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth’s large commercial and labor markets,” the Bastrop Economic Development Corporation said on its website. Musk has been investing in Texas. Already, electric vehicle company Tesla has shifted its headquarters to Austin from California. In July of this year, Musk posted that SpaceX, the rocket and exploration company, was moving its headquarters in the Golden State to Boca Chica, Texas, which Musk refers to as Starbase. He followed up the X post with another saying the social media company also would move to Texas. “This is the final straw,” Musk posted, linking to a separate post about a new California law that Newsom signed that prohibited mandating that teachers notify families about student gender identity changes. He said “this law and the many others that preceded it” attack both families and companies. Musk, known early on in the Silicon Valley for his work with PayPal, now sits atop the list of the world’s richest people, according to Bloomberg. Musk agreed to buy Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, using one of the biggest leveraged buyout deals in history to take private a 16-year-old social networking platform.

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports the FBI has arrested a Nevada man accused of cyberstalking and threatening two “high-level” University of Texas employees. In addition to cyberstalking, Brian Solomon, who was arrested Sept. 16, is facing a charge of interstate communication with threat to injure. According to an affidavit, first reported by KXAN, a UT employee related to or involved in athletics received thousands of “persistent threatening communications” via Instagram direct messages from the Nevada man, who used multiple accounts to target the employee. The pervasive threats contained profanity, threatened violence against the employee and their family, and included requests for money to travel to their location. The threats against the second UT employee involved sexual violence, the affidavit states.

The threats then escalated to attempts to confront the first employee in person. When the Nevada man said he would be at an event that the employee was publicly stated to be at, the employee, who was unnamed in the court document, “paid out of pocket to hire security,” the affidavit states. The man also threatened to fly to Austin multiple times to hurt the first employee, and he was arrested in the city on charges of stealing a vehicle and “criminal mischief” in late July, about 8 miles from the victim’s house, police told the employee, according to the affidavit. The nature of the first employee’s public schedule caused intense fear, the affidavit said, causing them to change homes and install security cameras. The affidavit states that the Nevada man said he sent “a few thousand” messages to the first victim because he was mad, but also he believed he was “to be married (to the employee) and that he was the second coming of Christ.”

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports ground mechanics and similar maintenance technicians at American Airlines have reached a two-year tentative agreement to extend their current contract with new raises and other perks. The agreement, which still must be ratified by over 34,000 members of the Transport Workers Union-International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, is a two-year extension that goes into effect Jan. 1 and ends in 2027. A deal was reached after a month of negotiations with the Fort Worth-based carrier. IAM Districts 141 and 142 represent mechanics, fleet service and other related workers at American. Average wage increases for members in January will range from 10.8% to 16.7% and 18% to 26% over the life of the extension. The contract also includes increases in license pay, skill pay and crew chief pay.

“The IAM continues to negotiate agreements that are fundamentally changing the landscape of the entire airline industry,” said Richie Johnsen, general vice president of IAM air transport territory in a release. “By continuing to win contracts that push wages and retirement security to new heights, we are lifting every worker and community that makes the world move.” The previous contract, valued at $4.2 billion, was reached in 2020 after the sides took nearly five years to reach a deal. It was one of the most contentious labor battles in the history of the airline. In 2019, American went to court with the union, accusing leaders of telling their members to slow down work and turn down overtime to increase pressure on American as the parties negotiated a new combined contract after four years of talks. The judge ultimately ruled in favor of American and issued a permanent injunction against workers to give stricter oversight over employees until a deal was made. “We are pleased to have reached a tentative agreement on a contract extension with the TWU-IAM Association,” an American Airlines spokesperson said. “With ratification, this agreement would bring significant increases in pay rates and premiums for our technical operations, fleet service, cargo and central load planning team members — further bolstering our commitment to ensuring our team is paid well and competitively.”

AUSTIN (AP) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that his office is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Biden administration officials for declaring a rare lizard endangered earlier this year.

The dunes sagebrush lizard burrows in the sand dunes in the Mescalero-Monahans ecosystem 30 miles west of Odessa — the same West Texas land that supports the state’s biggest oil and gas fields.

For four decades, biologists warned federal regulators about the existential threat that oil and gas exploration and development poses for the reptile’s habitat, while industry representatives fought against the designation, saying it would scare off companies interested in drilling in the nation’s most lucrative oil and natural gas basin.

In May, federal regulators ruled that the industry’s expansion posed a grave threat to the lizard’s survival when listing it as endangered.

Now, the state’s top lawyer is suing.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s unlawful misuse of environmental law is a backdoor attempt to undermine Texas’s oil and gas industries which help keep the lights on for America,” Paxton said. “I warned that we would sue over this illegal move, and now we will see them in court.”

Paxton’s statement said the listing of the lizard was a violation of the Endangered Species Act, adding that the Fish and Wildlife Service “failed to rely on the best scientific and commercial data” when declaring the lizard endangered and did not take into account conservation efforts already in place to protect the lizard.

The 2.5-inch-long lizard only lives in about 4% of the 86,000-square-mile Permian Basin, which spans Texas and New Mexico, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. In Texas, the lizard has been found in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward and Winkler counties.

According to a 2023 analysis by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the lizard is “functionally extinct” across 47% of its range.

The listing requires oil and gas companies to avoid operating in areas the lizard inhabits, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to determine where those areas are because it is still gathering information. Oil and gas companies could incur fines up to $50,000 and prison time, depending on the violation, if they operate in those areas.

Paxton’s office said that because the Fish and Wildlife Service has not specified those areas, it has left operators and landowners uncertain about what they can do with their own land.

SAN ANTONIO – The Texas Tribune reports that Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff raised more than $1 million at a San Antonio fundraiser for Kamala Harris presidential campaign Monday night, the largest presidential fundraiser in the city’s history. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg made the announcement at a reception hosted by Frank and Cecilia Herrera that was attended by prominent area Democrats like Henry Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor and former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Development, State Sen. José Menéndez, and U.S. Rep. Greg Casar. Emhoff also said that voters could also make “serious changes” to the state by flipping some statehouse races and their statewide leaders.