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CASS COUNTY, Texas (KETK) — A 12-foot-long alligator has been killed after being hit by a vehicle early Tuesday morning in Cass County.

According to Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD), Texas Game Wardens were notified at around 4 a.m. of the incident on FM 3129, which led to the euthanization of the alligator due to its injuries.
13-foot alligator removed from Sam Rayburn Lake
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For alligators in Texas, it’s mating season, and they are on the move, looking for new waterways and mates. TPWD said that if they are left alone, they will more than likely move on.

“Alligators by nature are shy animals that, if left alone, keep to themselves and play an important role as apex predators in aquatic ecosystems,” The TPWD said. “Like any predator, it’s best not to approach them, and it is illegal to feed or harass them.”

The TPWD considers removing and relocating alligators as a last resort, saying that it is only generally done if it has been identified as a nuisance or an immediate danger to the public.

COLLIN COUNTY – U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs announced that a McKinney man who was involved in the Homeland Security Task Force for trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine in the Eastern District of Texas has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III sentenced Eraldo Orozco-Fernandez, 34, to 180 months in federal prison after he entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine.

Orozco-Fernandez was pulled over for a traffic infraction in McKinney on March 31, 2023, according to information provided by the court. During the stop, a search of the car turned up more than $2,800 in cash, a gun, and about 3.76 kilograms of cocaine. Another eight kilograms of methamphetamine, about one kilogram of cocaine, and $6,000 in US dollars were found during a search of Orozco-Fernandez’s McKinney home. Orozco-Fernandez acknowledged taking part in a plot to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine in the Eastern District of Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The director of the Texas summer camp where 27 campers and counselors were killed by a devastating flood in 2025 testified Monday he did not see official warnings issued the day before the storm hit, that staff had no meetings about the pending danger and that they did not make the call to evacuate until it was too late.

Over several hours of sometimes emotional testimony at a court hearing packed with families of campers who were killed, Edward Eastland provided the most detailed description yet of how camp staff did or didn’t respond as floodwaters along the Guadalupe River quickly rose to historic levels, trapping children and counselors in cabins before they were swept away in the early morning dark of July Fourth.

“I wish we never had camp that summer,” Eastland said near the end of his testimony. He acknowledged lives could have been saved if camp staff acted sooner, but insisted they could not have anticipated the severity of the storm.

This week’s hearing comes during a legal battle between the camp owners and victims’ families who have filed multiple lawsuits and the families’ demands to preserve the damage at the camp site as evidence.

And it comes as Camp Mystic plans to reopen in less than two months. The camp has applied with state regulators to renew its license so that it can open an elevated area that did not flood. Camp operators have said nearly 900 girls have registered to attend.

Eastland acknowledged the camp had no detailed written flood evacuation plan. He also said more campers would have survived if he and his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, as well as a camp safety director had made quicker decisions to evacuate.

By the time they did, the waters were so high and so fast they were producing rapids that swirled around some cabins, he said.

Eastland also acknowledged staff didn’t use simple measures like using campus loudspeakers to tell campers and counselors to leave their cabins and get to higher ground earlier in the storm.

Cici Steward, whose 8-year-old daughter Cile is the only camp victim still missing, said after the testimony the state should deny the camp’s license.

“It is so clear they are incapable of keeping children safe,” Cici Steward said.

Eastland attorney Mikal Watts declined comment immediately after the hearing.
Missed warnings and missed chances to evacuate

Eastland said he and other staff were signed up for an emergency warning system on their phones and used other weather apps. But he said he did not see flood watch social media posts by the National Weather Service and the Texas Department of Emergency Management on July 2 and 3.

Eastland said he thought the local “CodeRED” mobile phone alert system and phone weather apps staff had at the time “was enough.”

A July 3 National Weather Service alert asked area broadcasters to note that locally heavy rainfall could cause flash flooding in rivers, creeks, streams and low-lying areas, all features of the Camp Mystic property.

Eastland said that his father typically monitored weather issues and that he did not believe camp staff held a meeting about the alerts and warnings that day.

The storms would hit in the overnight hours, killing 25 campers, two teenage counselors and Richard Eastland, who had loaded up his large SUV with campers before the vehicle was swept away. None survived.

“We did not expect what was going to happen,” Edward Eastland said.

“You were warned,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing the Steward family.

Eastland says campus loudspeakers were not used to issue a weather warning

The courtroom heard part of a video of “Taps” played over loudspeakers when the campers went to bed at around 10 p.m. July 3.

Eastland said he went to bed about 11 p.m. and never received a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m.. He said he slept through a CodeRED alert text at the same time that warned of a flood event that could last several hours.

His father called him on a walkie-talkie shortly before 2 a.m. to tell him about hard rain falling and the need to move canoes and water equipment off the riverfront. They did not move to evacuate cabins at that point.

“It was not reasonable to do that at that time,” Eastland said. “The water wasn’t out of the Guadalupe River. It was pouring down rain and lightning and the cabins were safe at that time.”

Richard Eastland made the call to evacuate cabins about 3 a.m., Edward Eastland said.

Lawyers for the families introduced a signed statement from a counselor who described the horror of the night. She woke up during the storm and could see girls running for shelter.

“The water was rising faster than anything I have ever witnessed,” the counselor wrote. She said Edward Eastland eventually approached the cabin in knee-deep water, told her it was too late to leave and they should ride out the storm there.

The counselor said she tried to keep the children out of the rising water pouring in before she was eventually swept away herself.

Eastland also tearfully described trying to grab two girls and a third who jumped on his back while he stood bracing himself in a cabin doorway before they were washed away. He and a counselor eventually were pushed into a tree.

“The water was over my head very quickly. The water was churning,” Eastland said.

At one point, several family members left the courtroom during a cellphone video taken the night of the flood. Someone could be heard yelling “Help!” in the background.

Flooding killed at least 136 people along the Guadalupe River

All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.

Texas health regulators said last week they are investigating hundreds of complaints filed against the camp owners. The Texas Rangers are also helping look into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state’s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.

The hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas said Monday he will retire from Congress after bipartisan calls to expel him.

Gonzales had already said he would not seek reelection after admitting to an affair with a staff member who had later died by suicide. His retirement announcement came just hours after Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California said he would be resigning from Congress as he also confronted allegations of sexual misconduct.

House Republican leaders had already called on the three-term Gonzales to not seek reelection as they try to hold on to a strongly Republican district in November’s midterm elections. And the House Ethics Committee had initiated an investigation. Under House ethics rules, lawmakers may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House under their supervision.

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all,” Gonzales said in a social media post. “When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office.”

He said it has been a privilege “to serve the great people of Texas.” He gave no further details on his plans to step down. Previously, he had insisted he would serve out the remainder of his term as the GOP works to hold its slim House majority.

Last month, the top Republican and Democratic members on the House Ethics Committee said in a joint statement that an investigative panel would look into whether Gonzales engaged in sexual misconduct toward an employee in his office and whether he discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.

That announcement came the same day that Gonzales, appearing on the “Joe Pags Show,” was asked if he had a relationship with the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles.

“I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales went on to say he had reconciled with his wife and had asked God to forgive him. He also said he looked forward to the Ethics Committee investigation.

But as lawmakers returned from a two-week break on Monday, there was a growing clamor among members to take a stand against alleged sexual misconduct. Swalwell’s alleged transgressions brought renewed attention to the issue.

Comments from lawmakers on social media suggested some were open to an expulsion trade-off of sorts that would affect each party equally.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., said both Gonzales and Swalwell “are not fit to serve in Congress given their sexual transgressions against women who work for them.”

“There’s already been a resolution announced to expel Swalwell that I will support. I will introduce a resolution to expel Rep. Gonzales,” Leger Fernandez said.

In a separate post that came after the Texas lawmaker made his retirement announcement, she challenged Gonzales to make it “effective immediately.”

“He has until 2PM tomorrow — when we will file his expulsion,” she said on X.

SPRING, Texas (AP) — The man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI founder Sam Altman’s home in San Francisco was opposed to artificial intelligence and had list of other AI tech executives, according to court documents.

Authorities allege Daniel Moreno-Gama threw the incendiary device about 4 a.m. Friday, setting an exterior gate at Altman’s home alight before fleeing on foot, police said. Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI’s headquarters and reportedly threatened to burn down the building.

On Monday morning, FBI agents went to Moreno-Gama’s home in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston, where they spent several hours before leaving. He has been charged with possession of an unregistered firearm and damage and destruction of property by means of explosives.

When Moreno-Gama was arrested Friday, officials found a document on him in which he “identified views opposed to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the executives of various AI companies,” court documents say.

Moreno-Gama wrote of AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending extinction,” according to the criminal complaint.

Advocacy groups that have issued grave warnings about AI’s risks to society condemned the violence.

Anthony Aguirre, president and CEO of the Future of Life Institute, said in a written statement Friday that “violence and intimidation of any kind have no place in the conversation about the future of AI.”

Hours after the attack on his house, Altman posted a photo of his husband and their toddler in a blog post addressing the threats against him.

“Normally we try to be pretty private, but in this case I am sharing a photo in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me,” Altman wrote.

He added that “fear and anxiety about AI is justified” but it was important to “de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.”

TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK) — A man has died from his injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash on Friday in Texarkana.

According to the Texarkana Police Department, 53-year-old Russell Daily of Arkansas was traveling eastbound on West Seventh Street at a high speed when his motorcycle left the curved roadway past the CPKC Railroad underpass.

Daily struck a metal bench at the T-Line bus stop at Elm Street and was transported to CHRISTUS St. Michael Hospital. The police department said he later died from his injuries.

“Traffic investigators determined that excessive speed and the use of a vehicle tire on the motorcycle were the primary contributing factors in this crash,” the police department said. “It was also noted that Mr. Daily was not wearing a helmet.”

The police department urges all drivers to ensure motorcycles are properly equipped and to take precautions while on the road.