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LUFKINS – The City’s Click2Gov online payment system will be unavailable this weekend due to a scheduled software upgrade by its vendor. The system is expected to be down for most or all of the day Saturday at least. Joshua Gentry, IT digital content manager for the City of Lufkin, stated the city appreciates citizens’ patience while this upgrade is completed.

BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) — After nearly 30 years, human remains found in Alabama have been identified as those of James Carol Jackson, a man from Groveton, Texas, whose death has been ruled a homicide.

The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama said Jackson was identified using forensic genealogy in April 2026. The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office in Texas confirmed that Jackson was from Groveton.

Officials said in January 1994, a person was walking in the wooded area off of State Highway 225 when they spotted skeletal remains. Found with those remains were a trucker hat, a western shirt, an inhaler, a digital watch, prescription glasses, a mechanical pencil and pen set, as well as a torch tip.

Officials believe the homicide happened in 1988 or 1989, after he arrived in the area around 1987, when he was 50 years old.

Jackson drove a 1978 to 1981 Chevrolet Camaro that the sheriff’s office has not been able to locate.

He was a welder, and in 1987, he told his family he was going to Alabama for work.

At the time, I-65 was being expanded, and officials believe he may have come to the area to help work on the project.

Officials also said he stopped communicating with his family about 12 months after leaving Texas.

It is believed that he may have been living off Highway 225 and may have frequented the Tensaw Lodge.

Family described him as a non-violent, easy-going guy.

Anyone who may have any information on the case can submit a tip through the sheriff’s office website or through Crimestoppers.

AUSTIN (AP) – Three congressional candidates are accused of betting on the outcome of their own elections on the prediction market Kalshi, which said Wednesday that it fined and suspended the three men from their platform for five years.

It is the latest high-profile case of alleged insider trading on prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket, which have brought bipartisan scrutiny from Congress and calls for stricter regulations of the websites where people can put money on just about anything.

Kalshi’s disciplinary documents named Mark Moran, who is running as an independent in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race; Ezekiel Enriquez, who ran in a Texas Republican primary for a U.S. House seat; and Matt Klein, a Democratic state senator running for a U.S. House seat in Minnesota.

Klein and Enriquez both placed bets less than $100 related to their “own candidacy,” Kalshi said. Moran said on social media that he “traded $100 on myself.”

Moran refused to reach an agreement with Kalshi and was fined the most at more than $6,200, while Klein and Enriquez did reach agreements and face penalties of over $530 and $780, respectively, the company said. All were suspended from Kalshi for five years. The agreements are with the company, and not with a government oversight or law enforcement agency.

Far from denying the allegations, Moran took to social media on Wednesday to say that he placed the bets because he wanted to draw attention to the issue.

“We live in a Country destroyed by vice, which Kalshi directly contribute to,” Moran wrote on X, saying the goal of the trade was to “highlight how this company is destroying young men.”

Klein also confirmed Kalshi’s findings in a post on social media on Wednesday. The $50 wager he placed in October was the first time he had used a predictions market, he said in a statement on X, and he was “curious about how it worked.”

“This was a mistake and I apologize,” he wrote, saying that the experience made it clear that the markets need more regulation.

Enriquez, known as Zeke, lost his House race in the beginning of March with less than two percent of the vote. Contact information for Enriquez was not immediately found to request comment.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston city ordinance that limited police officers’ cooperation with federal immigration agents was amended on Wednesday after Texas’ governor threatened to take away millions of dollars in public safety grants.

Houston, as well as Austin and Dallas — three of the state’s biggest cities and Democratic strongholds — are being confronted by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott with threats of losing public safety dollars over policies that dictate how law enforcement interacts with federal immigration authorities. The three cities are being threatened with the loss of about $200 million in public safety funding, including tens of millions expected to cover security at World Cup matches this summer in Dallas and Houston.

Two weeks ago, Houston City Council passed the ordinance, which eliminated a requirement that Houston police officers wait 30 minutes for agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pick up someone with a nonjudicial administrative warrant. If ICE agents didn’t show up in time, police officers took a detained person’s information and then released them.

But Abbott warned city officials that the new ordinance and its limitation on cooperating with ICE agents violated the terms of $110 million in state grants Houston had received for police and security during the World Cup games the city is hosting in June.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had also filed a lawsuit against Mayor John Whitmire and members of the city council over the ordinance, accusing them of violating a 2017 state law that prevents cities from adopting policies that limit the enforcement of immigration laws and which also banned “sanctuary city” policies in the state. There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with ICE.

After more than two hours of discussion during its weekly meeting, Houston City Council voted 13-4 to make changes to the ordinance. Whitmire said he had consulted with Abbott’s office about making changes that would prevent Houston from losing its funding.

The amended ordinance deletes language that highlighted that administrative warrants — versus warrants signed by a judge — that ICE agents use to take individuals into custody are not enough for officers to arrest or detain an individual.

“We have no alternative for Houston to survive, prepare for (the World Cup), patrol these neighborhoods,” Whitmire said. “We’ve got to have today the restoration of the $114 million.”

Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said the governor expects any policy Houston police adopt has to comply with the city’s certification that it will fully cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security.

“This vote is a step in the right direction after Houston leaders put public safety at risk with reckless policies that undermined law enforcement,” Mahaleris said in a statement.

Council member Abbie Kamin, one of three members who had pushed for the ordinance, voted against amending it, saying that doing so was giving in to bullying tactics from state leaders.

“If we rollover now to a bully, what will he come for next?” Kamin said.

Council members Edward Pollard and Alejandra Salinas, who also pushed for the ordinance, said they remained hopeful the changes approved Wednesday would not violate individuals’ constitutional rights and wouldn’t result in people being held on nonjudicial warrants.

Nikki Luellen, an advocate for criminal justice reform for the ACLU of Texas, called the amended ordinance “a greenlight for deeper collaboration between ICE and the Houston Police Department.”

Martha Castex-Tatum was one of several council members who had supported the ordinance but voted in favor of amending it in order to protect the city’s finances.

“For some people, this may feel like surrender. It’s not. It’s real stewardship,” Castex-Tatum said.

Dallas officials have said they are committed to ensuring public safety and would respond to Abbott’s threat by Thursday.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a moderate Democrat, said the local policy complies with state law. He said Abbott’s threat to cut nearly $3 million in Austin would cut trauma aid for police officers and sexual assault victims.

“We don’t have the time and will not play into this political theater,” said Watson.

Austin officials have since indicated they could try to negotiate with Abbott.

The debate in Houston and other Texas cities comes amid the federal government’s aggressive enforcement of immigration laws. Whitmire and other local leaders in many of Texas’ left-leaning urban areas have tried to not get the federal government’s attention amid the aggressive immigration crackdown by President Donald Trump’s administration.