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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Jennifer Heath Box had few worries as she exited her cruise ship at Fort Lauderdale’s port on Christmas Eve 2022.

The Texan and her husband had spent six days at sea celebrating with her brother, a Georgia police officer who had just completed cancer treatment. In two hours the couple had a flight home to Houston, where they would spend Christmas with their Marine son, who was leaving for a three-year deployment in Japan, and two other adult children.

But according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday by Box against the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, its deputies wrongly arrested her as she disembarked and then jailed her for three days, subjecting her to a body cavity search and blasting her cell with death metal music and freezing air.

Deputies accused the 50-year-old financial systems administrator of being a much younger woman with a similar name who was wanted in Harris County, Texas, for felony child endangerment. Harris County had mistakenly put Box’s photo on its warrant, but none of the other information matched.

“I’ve never done anything to where I would find myself on the other side of bars,” Box said at a Thursday press conference near Port Everglades, Florida. “It was really difficult for me because I had to call my kids and tell them that I wasn’t going to be there” for Christmas.

Box said while being booked, a male inmate tried to enter her cell several times, which she called “terrifying.” She said even after Harris County told Broward they had the wrong woman in custody, she wasn’t released for another day and missed her son’s departure.

“It was humiliating, degrading,” Box said of her treatment.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office issued a statement Thursday saying while it “sympathizes” with Box, the department and deputies Peter Peraza and Monica Jean did nothing wrong. It blames the situation on its Texas counterparts.

“The BSO deputy (Peraza) followed the appropriate protocols in handling this matter, and after receiving confirmation of the Harris County warrant, arrested Ms. Box,” the statement said. “Had it not been for the arrest warrant filed by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Customs and Border Patrol would not have flagged Ms. Box, BSO would not have been notified and she would not have been arrested.”

The groundwork for Box’s mistaken arrest was laid when she boarded the ship nearly a week earlier. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol conducts background checks on cruise passengers and matched her to the Harris County warrant. When her ship returned, she was already targeted for arrest.

Border Patrol officers stopped Box after she scanned her ID to leave the ship and summoned Peraza and Jean.

While it was Box’s photo on the warrant, she and her attorneys say the deputies and later their supervisors refused to acknowledge several obvious discrepancies. Box’s middle and last name were not the same as those on the warrant. She is also 23 years older and 5 inches (13 centimeters) taller than the real suspect and has different colored eyes, hair and skin tone.

Charges against the real suspect were dropped days later by Harris County prosecutors, who called the case “weak.”

Box’s attorney, Jared McClain of the nonprofit Institute for Justice, said they aren’t suing Harris County because it simply had one employee make a mistake. He said Broward sheriff’s officials, on the other hand, repeatedly refused to look at the evidence and work to correct a mistaken arrest that should have been obvious, even when contacted by Box’s police officer brother.

“At none of those red flags did anyone in Broward County stop and say, ‘Maybe we’re making a mistake here. Maybe we shouldn’t put this woman in jail over Christmas.’ So that’s why we’re here in Broward County,” McClain said.

The lawsuit does not seek a specific monetary amount, but McClain said the arrest cost Box and her family thousands of dollars in additional hotel and legal costs.

Body camera video shows that Box, wearing a sweatshirt reading “Santa Baby,” and her husband are flabbergasted when told she is being arrested, but they remain calm. In return, the deputies never get physical with her or raise their voices.

Box tried to point out the warrant’s discrepancies, but Peraza pointed to the matching photo and said he had to arrest her. Box removed her jewelry, handed it to her husband and then put her hands behind her back to be cuffed as passersby watched.

After Box was placed in Peraza’s patrol car, the deputy again seemed to study the warrant. He opened the door, asked Box again for her full name, which she provides. She points out that both “Jennifer” and “Heath” are common names. He slowly closes the door as he again reads the warrant, but then drives her to jail.

Box says even though the jail was extremely cold, she was given a thin jail uniform while the guards wore stocking caps, heavy jackets and gloves. She said she and her cellmate slept together back-to-back to keep warm.

Finally, a day after she says Broward learned of Harris County’s mistake, she was released. She said she expected an apology, but none was given.

Instead, she says, she was told “stuff happens.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four men who were among the first rioters to assault police officers and the first to breach a security perimeter during the attack on the U.S. Capitol were sentenced on Thursday to prison terms ranging from one year of intermittent confinement over weekends to eight years behind bars.

Before handing down the punishments, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb decried misinformation being spread in the public about the riot and efforts to downplay the violence that left more than 100 police officers injured.

Cobb said the “temperature remains too high,” citing threats against public officials and the apparent assassination attempts targeting former President Donald Trump. The judge said it “scares” her to think about what could happen after the next election.

“Not in my lifetime have I seen a situation where the peaceful transfer of power was threatened like it was on Jan. 6,” she said.

Stephen Randolph, a certified nursing assistant, was sentenced to eight years in prison. James Grant, who was accepted to the University of Alabama’s School of Law before his arrest, was sentenced to three years. Jason Blythe, a delivery driver, was sentenced to two years and six months. Paul Johnson, who owns a tree removal business, was sentenced to one year of intermittent confinement over weekends followed by two years of home confinement.

They were all convicted of felony offenses for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, siege. A fifth co-defendant, Ryan Samsel, will be sentenced on a date yet to be determined.

The five men didn’t know each other before they converged on a traffic circle outside the Capitol. But prosecutors say they spearheaded the first assault on police officers guarding the Capitol from a crowd of Donald Trump supporters.

At Peace Circle, the co-defendants lifted two metal bike racks into the air and drove them into a police line, striking Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards in her face. Edwards slammed her head against a metal handrail, knocking her unconscious and giving her a concussion.

Randolph then jumped over the barricade, grabbed Capitol Police Officer David Cruz and pulled him toward the crowd before another officer intervened.

The breach at the Peace Circle “opened the floodgates” for thousands of rioters to storm the Capitol, prosecutors said.

“The importance of this initial breach cannot be overstated,” they wrote.

Prosecutors recommended sentencing Randolph to 11 years and three months in prison. They asked for Blythe, Grant and Johnson to be sentenced to nine years behind bars.

Attorneys for Randolph, Blythe, Grant and Johnson said their clients regret taking part in the Jan. 6 riot.

“I’ll forever regret my decision to approach the fence that day,” a tearful Randolph said of the bike rack barriers that separated the police from rioters.

Grant’s attorney, Robert Feitel, called it “almost incomprehensible” that prosecutors would seek such a lengthy sentence for the man. Grant has been behind bars since January 2022 after he was charged with driving while drunk with an assault rifle in his car and will get credit for the time he has already spent locked up.

“I think I’ve been sufficiently punished,” Grant told the judge.

Grant’s attorney said he should be eligible for release almost immediately after getting credit for time served and good behavior in jail. The judge ordered Blythe and Randolph to be taken into custody immediately after their sentencing hearing.

Johnson and Blythe both turned to apologize to two Capitol police officers who were sitting in the courtroom.

“I stand for you guys,” Johnson said. “I don’t know where my mind was that day.”

“I’m sincerely sorry for what I did,” Blythe said.

The co-defendants’ conduct wasn’t limited to the first breach.

Randolph, 34, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, stayed at the Capitol for hours on Jan. 6, climbing to the Upper West Terrace and watching other rioters assault police officers guarding a tunnel entrance.

Blythe, 29, of Fort Worth, Texas, had to be forcibly removed by police as he resisted their efforts to clear him and other rioters from the Upper West Terrace.

Grant, 31, of Cary, North Carolina, climbed into the Capitol through a broken window and entered a senator’s office. After his arrest, he told investigators that the FBI was “the biggest threat to Americans” and that prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters was “a big witch hunt.”

Johnson, 39, of Lanexa, Virginia, used a megaphone to exhort other rioters to attack, yelling at others to “get on the front lines.” After the initial breach, he continued to “rally rioters at strategically significant points,” prosecutors said.

“Johnson not only dictated orders akin to a military commander, he also engaged in combat against officers,” they wrote.

In February, Cobb presided over a trial without a jury before she convicted the co-defendants of charges including obstructing police during a civil disorder.

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — A pipeline fire that burned in a Houston suburb for four days finally went out Thursday as authorities announced a criminal investigation into the blaze that had roared into a towering flame, forcing neighborhoods to evacuate and melting parts of nearby cars.

Before the fire fully stopped Thursday evening, officials announced that human remains were found in an SUV that had been next to the flame since the explosion happened Monday. Investigators say the fire began after the driver of that car went through a fence alongside a Walmart parking lot and struck an above-ground valve.

Officials in Deer Park, where the explosion occurred, described the crash as an accident, and said police and local FBI agents have not found evidence of a coordinated or terrorist attack.

“This has developed into a criminal investigation and will be actively ongoing until more information is available,” the city said in a statement late Thursday.

As authorities worked to identify who had driven the vehicle, residents who were forced to flee the towering blaze returned to assess the damage on Thursday. They found mailboxes and vehicles partially melted by the intense heat, a neighborhood park charred and destroyed and fences burned to the ground.

“Devastated, upset, scared. We don’t know what we’re going to do now,” said Diane Hutto, 51, after finding her home severely damaged by water that firefighters poured on it to keep it from catching fire. Hutto’s home is located only a few hundred feet from the pipeline.

Before the fire went out, its reduced size meant police finally had access to the area around the pipeline. Investigators removed the white SUV and towed it away Thursday morning.

While medical examiners with Harris County were processing the vehicle, they recovered and removed human remains found inside, Deer Park officials said in a statement.

Officials say the underground pipeline, which runs under high-voltage power lines in a grassy corridor between the Walmart and a residential neighborhood, was damaged when the SUV driver left the store’s parking lot, entered the wide grassy area and went through a fence surrounding the valve equipment.

But authorities have offered few details on what caused the vehicle to crash through the fence and hit the pipeline valve.

Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based company that owns the pipeline, on Wednesday called it an accident. Deer Park officials said preliminary investigations by police and FBI agents found no evidence of a terrorist attack.

The pipeline is a 20-inch-wide (50-centimeter-wide) conduit that runs for miles through the Houston area. It carries natural gas liquids through Deer Park and La Porte, both of which are southeast of Houston.

Authorities evacuated nearly 1,000 homes at one point and ordered people in nearby schools to shelter in place. Officials began letting residents return to their homes on Wednesday evening.

Hutto said Thursday the fire incinerated her home’s backyard fence and partially melted a small shed where her husband stored his lawnmower. Inside the home, mold and mildew were starting to set in from the water damage, and part of the ceiling in her daughter’s bedroom had collapsed.

“Everything is just soaking wet,” she said. “It smells bad. I don’t think there’s really anything we can salvage at this point.”

Across the street, Robert Blair found minor damage when he returned to his home Thursday morning. It included broken and cracked windows and a window screen and irrigation system pipes that had been melted by the heat.

“We were very lucky here. It could have been worse,” said Blair, 67.

The pipeline’s valve equipment appears to have been protected by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Energy Transfer has not responded to questions about any other safety protections that were in place.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official, said Thursday that officials will look at whether they can require companies like Energy Transfer to install better security measures, including concrete structures around pipelines and their aboveground valves.

“If they had that around it, I don’t think this would have happened,” Blair said.

Energy Transfer and Harris County officials have said that air quality monitoring showed no immediate risk to individuals, despite the huge tower of billowing flame that shot hundreds of feet into the air when the fire first began, creating thick black smoke that hovered over the area.

Houston, Texas’ largest city, is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight in the area, including some that have been deadly, raising recurring questions about the adequacy of industry efforts to protect the public and the environment.

Hidalgo said some residents she spoke with told her they don’t feel safe living in the area after this week’s fire.

Hutto, whose husband works in a petrochemical plant, said living near such facilities has always been a concern, but this week’s fire has changed things for her.

“I don’t think I want to live here anymore. I’m just too scared to stay here,” Hutto said.

___

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

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. (AP) — The politics of immigration look different from the back patio of Ardovino’s Desert Crossing restaurant.

That’s where Robert Ardovino sees a Border Patrol horse trailer rumbling across his property on a sweltering summer morning. It’s where a surveillance helicopter traces a line in the sky, and a nearby Border Patrol agent paces a desert gully littered with castoff water bottles and clothing.

It’s also where a steady stream of weary people, often escorted by smugglers, scale a border wall or the adjacent Mount Cristo Rey and step into an uncertain future. It’s a stretch of desert where reports of people dying of exhaustion and exposure have grown commonplace.

“It’s very obvious to me, being on the border, that it’s not an open border,” said Ardovino, who pays for fencing topped by concertina wire to route migrants around his property. “It is a very, very, very difficult situation.”

As immigration politics have moved to the forefront of this year’s presidential election, they’ve also dominated contests for hotly contested congressional seats that could determine which party controls Congress. The urgency is greater in some districts than others.

Three of 11 districts on the Southwest border are rematches in districts that flipped in 2022 with the election of Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez in New Mexico and Republican Reps. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona and Monica De La Cruz in Texas.

A partner in a decades-old family business, Ardovino lives in one border district in Texas and works in Vasquez’s New Mexico district.

“It’s frustrating for people who need a border bill of any kind, any time, to start dealing with the big picture,” Ardovino said.

Early voting starts Oct. 8 in Sunland Park, where partisan control flipped in 2018, 2020 and again in 2022 with the election of Vasquez.

Democrats in Congress, including Vasquez, are aggressively touting border initiatives. He emphasizes his knowledge of the region as the U.S.-born son of immigrants with relatives on both sides of the border.

“With migrant activity along the border, we have had to adjust our approach,” said Vasquez. “I can say here that the sky is blue for 50 years, but when it turns red, you have to admit that it’s turning red.”

Here, border politics are literally a matter of life and death. Federal and local authorities describe a new humanitarian crisis along New Mexico’s nearly 180-mile portion of the border, where migrant deaths from heat exposure have surged.

In the Texas race, Democratic challenger Michelle Vallejo has taken a hard line, shocking progressive allies. She openly courts Republican allies in her campaign against De La Cruz. One of her recent ads describes “chaos at the border” and calls for more Border Patrol agents.

In Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, Republican incumbent Ciscomani calls border enforcement his top priority but has distanced himself from Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead, Ciscomani tells an immigrant’s story — about his own arrival in the U.S. at age 11 from Hermosillo, Mexico. He received citizenship in 2006.

“We have a responsibility to enforce the law on the border, and we also are a community of immigrants – myself included,” he said.

U.S. Border Patrol arrests of migrants on the Southwest border plunged to a 46-month low in July. In New Mexico, where coordinated law enforcement raids in August targeted houses where smugglers hide migrants, the trend has been less pronounced.

Vasquez, looking to become the first Democrat to win reelection in New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District since 1978, has pitched legislation to disrupt cartel recruitment of young Americans as migrant couriers and stepped up efforts to detect fentanyl at the border.

In 2022, after Democrats redrew congressional maps to split a conservative oil-producing region into three districts, Vasquez ousted one-term Republican Congresswoman Yvette Herrell by 1,350 votes.

Herrell, running for the seat for the fourth consecutive time, joined Republican House leaders in alleging that Democratic rivals undermined U.S. elections by voting against a proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voters.

“It’s our sovereignty over the open border,” said Herrell at a rally in Las Cruces.

Noncitizens already are prohibited from voting in federal elections. Vasquez says the requirement would make participation harder for legitimate voters.

Some say Herrell’s rhetoric could alienate a voting-age population that’s 56% Hispanic.

“It’s a tightrope that she’s got to walk in trying to get any of the pro-Trump enthusiasm,” said Gabriel Sanchez, director of the University of New Mexico Center for Social Policy.

Herrell’s approach resonates with retired Border Patrol agent Cesar Ramos of Alamogordo.

“People here in Alamogordo are 110% behind legal immigration, but despise that there are criminal acts of smuggling, and just breaking into the U.S. with no legal documentation,” he said.

Elsewhere in the district, concerns about border enforcement and inflation are testing Democratic Party allegiances.

Luis Soto, of Sunland Park, said migrants who cross the border impact his efforts to open a cannabis dispensary.

“I’m waiting for a fire marshal inspection and he’s busy saving people in the desert, rescuing bodies from the river, helping people out that are locked in a trailer,” said Soto, 43, the son of immigrants from Mexico in a family of lifelong Democrats, “We come from immigrants as well, but I think if the system was fixed, it would work out even better for them as well as for us.”

Vasquez in New Mexico and Ciscomani in Arizona are near ideological opposites, but they’ve co-sponsored bills to modernize temporary farmworker visas, spur local manufacturing and combat opioid trafficking.

“Juan and I play basketball together, and he has become a good friend,” Vasquez said. “There are solutions on the border that we can do today that may not look like comprehensive immigration reform.”

Ciscomani said he’s eager to collaborate with Democrats. His Democratic challenger, Kirsten Engel, scoffs at that notion, saying Ciscomani publicly rejected a major bipartisan border bill in February, days after Trump told GOP lawmakers to abandon it. The $20 billion bill would have overhauled the asylum system and given the president new powers to expel migrants when asylum claims become overwhelming.

“We’re very disappointed that it was rejected so swiftly by the very elected officials that talk about having border solutions,” said Engel, a law professor and former state legislator.

At Sunland Park, an off-road Border Patrol vehicle kicks dust into the morning air. An unmarked bus arrives for detained migrants. Ardovino, from his deck, gazes at Mount Cristo Rey and wonders aloud what it will take to make this work for people coming in search of a better life — and for those already here.

“The whole desert is unfortunately littered with people’s lives,” he said.

___

Valerie Gonzalez contributed to this report from McAllen, Texas.

WISE COUNTY – An effort in one North Texas city to rename a public street after former President Donald Trump has so far hit roadblocks, but supporters aren’t giving up. Some Republicans in Wise County have sought to change the name of Airport Drive in Decatur to “Trump Way.” The quarter-mile road leads to the Decatur Municipal Airport on the northern side of the city. The issue came up multiple times this summer at the Decatur City Council, including Sept. 9, but officials took no action. Several council members said it’s important that the council and the city remain nonpartisan. However, if supporters get enough signatures from registered voters, the proposal for “Trump Way” could come up for a vote on a future ballot.

Rick Lifto, the chairman of the Wise County Republican Party, told the Star-Telegram that there are many streets, highways and buildings throughout Texas named for former presidents — but not Trump. “I thought well, if we’re going to recognize him in some way, what would be the most appropriate? It seemed appropriate that we should name something after Trump,” Lifto said. The Metroplex has several highways bearing the names of former commanders-in-chief, most notably those who are from the Lone Star State. The 52-mile President George Bush Turnpike, honoring the 41st president, wraps around the northern suburbs of Dallas — and happens to intersect with the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway. George H.W. Bush’s name is also on Houston’s airport. As for Bush 43, there’s Bush Drive that leads to his presidential center at SMU, as well as an elementary school in Collin County and the southbound I-44 bridge at the Red River (which was a tribute bestowed by the state of Oklahoma, which also has a 20-mile stretch of U.S. 287 called Trump Highway in the Panhandle). Hundreds of thousands of people each day take Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway, also known as Interstate 20, through Arlington. And up in McKinney, there’s a small neighborhood where every street is named after presidents, including Clinton and Carter drives. In Decatur, population roughly 8,000, the would-be Trump Way is nowhere near as traveled as those other presidential roadways, nor does it have many addresses. There’s a Texas Army National Guard recruiting office on the corner, though technically its address isn’t Airport Drive. Google Maps images show a few potholes along the short stretch of asphalt, which doesn’t even have center striping. Lifto, the Republican county chair, said he first approached Wise County government leaders about renaming a road after the 45th president (who also hopes to become the 47th). In his view, Lifto said that Trump supported several pieces of legislation that benefited Wise County, including bills calling for high-speed Internet in rural areas.

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News says Texas schools won’t receive A-F accountability grades after a judge granted a new order temporarily blocking them on Wednesday. A coalition of school districts sued over the system alleging the grades are invalid because they’re based on flawed STAAR tests. A trial on the case is set for February. Travis County Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle temporarily granted dozens of districts’ requests to prohibit Education Commissioner Mike Morath from publishing campus grades for last school year. Texas Education Agency officials plan to appeal the decision, agency spokesman Jake Kobersky said.

The grades are based largely on how well students perform on the STAAR tests. This is the second year in a row some districts sued to block the grades’ release. The current lawsuit alleges grades released by the state would be invalid. The suit questions the use of computers to score students’ essays on the assessment. Large numbers of students scored zeroes on their written answers last year. “During the 2023–24 school year, the Commissioner radically changed the way the new STAAR test is being administered by replacing human graders with AI grading,” their lawsuit states. “This change was made without ensuring that this radical change would not impact the new STAAR test’s validity and reliability.” Morath has repeatedly defended the A-F system as valid and critical to students’ success. Supporters of the system argue families need to know how their local schools are performing and school leaders need to know where to direct resources. Some school district leaders in North Texas, including those in Dallas ISD, released their projections for how schools would perform on A-F, saying it was important to remain transparent with families.

TEXAS (TEXASTRIBUNE) – In 2020 and 2021, the number of deaths due to pregnancy or childbirth in mothers rose in the state of Texas. The Texas Tribune reports that the rates are the highest since the state started tracking maternal deaths in 2013. Even excluding deaths related to COVID-19, the numbers were worse than usual. The maternal mortality rate in 2020 was 27.7 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 17.2 in 2019. With COVID-related deaths excluded, the rate was 24.2. This is according to a report released this month by the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee. In 80% of these cases, the committee determined there was at least some chance of saving the patient’s life – a decline from 90% from the previous report. A quarter of women died due to infections, the most common cause of death, followed by cardiovascular conditions, obstetric hemorrhage, embolisms and mental health conditions.
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