TYLER – Our news partner, KETK, reports that a 37-year-old Tyler man has been sentenced to 50 years in prison with out parole for sexually abusing two children. The Tyler Police Department investigated the case into Saldierna.
Jorge Perez Saldierna, 37 of Tyler, was convicted and sentenced for continuous sexual abuse of of two children under 14 on Wednesday in the 114th District Court of Smith County, according to a press release.
The district attorney’s office said that Saldierna “subjected his two victims to various types of sexual abuse over several years†and was “mostly emotionless when the jury sentenced him to 50 years confinement without parole.†The prosecutors in his case, Emil Mikkelsen and Catherine McQueen, had the victims, their families and an expert from the Children’s Advocacy Center in Tyler testify at trial.
According to a press release, the expert testified about how children speak out about abuse and the barriers that can prevent them from coming forward after abuse happens. “The Children’s Advocacy Center is an invaluable partner in the fight against child abuse,†said Smith County District Attorney, Jason Putman.
TEXARKANA – Our news partner, KETK, reports that the Texarkana Police Department has arrested a man for unauthorized use of a vehicle after a chase on Tuesday.
According to Texarkana PD, an officer saw a car that matched the description of a stolen vehicle at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Officials said the officer then reportedly turned to follow the vehicle.
“As soon as he went to turn around, the driver hit the gas and tried to make a quick getaway—speeding through alleys like he was in a high-speed chase scene from a movie. Unfortunately for him, real life doesn’t come with a stunt coordinator,†Texarkana PD said.
Officials said the driver tried to onto West 6th Street and lost control of the vehicle, crashing into a fence in the process. After crashing, the driver got out and fled into the woods nearby. Texarkana PD officer Cole Bredenberg and K9 officer Thor arrived on the scene and reportedly found the driver within minutes, Texarkana PD said in a post on Thursday.
Johnny Washington, 63 of Texarkana, Arkansas, was arrested and jail records show he was booked into the Bi-state Jail on a total bond of $20,000 for the charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle and fleeing or attempting to allude a police officer.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A new initiative from two Texas state departments aims to crack down on dangerous driving that contributes to serious and fatal crashes.
The Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Department of Public Safety unveiled their safety partnership at a joint press conference on Thursday. The day marked the 24th anniversary of the last time Texas saw a deathless day on state roads: Nov. 7, 2000.
“It’s astonishing to believe that every day for the past 24 years, someone has died on a Texas road,†TxDOT’s Executive Director Marc Williams said. “Every. Single. Day.â€
TxDOT detailed plans to develop traffic safety solutions and inform drivers on safer driving habits, while Texas DPS troopers will distribute tip cards during traffic stops to help promote better-driving behavior. The cards will be passed out over the next two weeks, officials confirmed.
Those messages will target some of the largest contributors to serious and fatal crashes, including unsafe driving speeds, impaired or distracted driving as well as travelers not buckling up.
More than 87,000 people have died in the past 24 years since the last death-free day on Texas roads. Nearly 4,300 people died on state roads last year, and the state is now averaging 10 traffic deaths a day based on current 2024 figures.
Prior to the somber anniversary, TxDOT announced this summer $17 billion allocated to roadway safety improvements as part of the state’s 10-year Unified Transportation Plan.
(NEW YORK) -- A surging stock market, low unemployment and robust growth -- by just about every measure, the economy stood poised to deliver victory for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The exception, of course, was inflation, and it appears to have overshadowed other indicators. More than two-thirds of voters say the economy is in bad shape, according to the preliminary results of an ABC News exit poll.
Inflation likely shaped negative voter perceptions of the economy and helped fuel anger toward the party in power, just as it has done across the globe since the pandemic unleashed a wave of rapid price increases, experts told ABC News.
The political potency of inflation stems from the visceral, recurring sense of unease caused by high prices, experts added. That feeling leaves voters insecure about their future and desperate for a leader who can change the nation’s course.
“Inflation has a specific and special power in elections,†Chris Jackson, senior vice president of public affairs for Ipsos in the U.S., told ABC News. “It’s something people see in their face every day -- every time they go to the grocery store or fill up their car.â€
He added, “Inflation is present in people’s lives. It’s something they’re unhappy with and it’s something they rightly or wrongly blame on whoever is in charge.â€
The pandemic set off an acute bout of inflation that impacted nearly every country across the world, when global supply chain blockages caused an imbalance between the availability of goods and the demand for them. In other words, too much money chased too few products.
Prices began to rise rapidly in the U.S. in 2021, catapulting the inflation rate to a peak of about 9% the following year. Inflation soared even higher in many other countries, including the likes of Brazil and England, where leaders faced an angry electorate.
In Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro cut taxes on fuel and electricity in an effort to slash prices over the months preceding an election that concluded in October 2022, the nation nevertheless replaced him with a leftwing challenger.
Earlier that year, in England, Prime Minister Liz Truss responded to the highest inflation in four decades with an economic policy centered on tax cuts and energy price controls. Her tenure in office lasted just 44 days before market reaction and political disarray led to her stepping down.
The post-pandemic pattern has exemplified a high rate of leadership change amid inflation crises around the world over the last half century, according to a study by Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy firm. Examining 57 inflation shocks since 1970, the firm found government turnover in 58% of cases.
Further, when there was an election during or within two years of an inflation shock, it led to a change in government in roughly three out of every four instances, according to Eurasia Group.
“We’re seeing this trend on jet fuel after the pandemic,†said Robert Kahn, the managing director of global macro-geoeconomics at the New York-based Eurasia Group. “The pandemic inflation shock contributes to a sense of instability and a loss of confidence among people in their governments.â€
Carola Binder, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies the history of inflation in the U.S., characterized recent anti-incumbent sentiment in a slightly different way: “When people are experiencing inflation and suffering from it, they want to have someone or something to blame.â€
Inflation has cooled dramatically over the past two years, now hovering near the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%. Even so, that progress hasn't reversed a leap in prices that dates back to the pandemic. Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, consumer prices have skyrocketed more than 20%.
The potential role of inflation in the U.S. election owes to a typical lag between when inflation comes down and when consumers acclimate to new price levels, since a lower inflation rate does not mean prices have come down but rather that they have begun to increase at a slower pace, experts told ABC News.
“When inflation comes back down, the prices of many critical items remain high, especially for people who are stretched and living paycheck to paycheck,†Kahn said.
Consumers will likely acclimate to current price levels over the coming months, but voters will remain sensitive to inflation, experts said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals of heightened tariffs and the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants risk rekindling rapid price increases, some experts said.
When asked about whether inflation could reemerge as an important issue ahead of the next midterm elections in 2026, Jackson said: “If Republicans shoot themselves in the foot, absolutely.â€
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (AP) — Jorge Bazán’s family has lived on the U.S.-Mexico border for generations and voted for Democrats as long as he can remember.
He broke the family tradition this year and voted for Donald Trump because he doesn’t trust the Democratic Party’s economic policies.
“I think they forgot about the middle class,†said Bazán, who works for the utility company in Rio Grande City, seat of the most Hispanic county in the nation. “People are suffering right now. Everything’s very expensive.â€
The South Texas region — stretching from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley — has long been a Democratic stronghold. A slide toward Trump in 2020 rattled Democrats in the predominately Hispanic area, where for decades Republicans seldom bothered to field candidates in local races. However, few Democrats expected the dramatic realignment that happened Tuesday, when Trump flipped several counties along the border including Hidalgo and Cameron, the two most populous counties in the Rio Grande Valley.
In Starr County, where Bazán lives, voters backed a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in a century. The predominantly Hispanic and working-class rural county, with a median household income of $36,000 that’s one of the lowest in the nation, gave Trump a 16 percentage-point victory margin over Vice President Kamala Harris. Roughly 2 million residents live at Texas’ southernmost point, among vast tracts of farmland and many state and federal agents patrolling the border.
Trump’s victories in the Rio Grande Valley starkly showed how working-class voters nationwide are shifting toward Republicans. That includes voters on the Texas border, where many Democrats long argued that Trump’s promised crackdowns on immigration would turn off voters.
“I was always a lifelong Democrat, but I decided to change to Republican with the political landscape that it is now,†said Luis Meza, a 32-year-old Starr County voter. “I felt that going Republican was the better choice, especially with the issues of immigration and everything like that that’s going on.â€
Meza said that he was against Trump at first, but noticed too few changes under President Joe Biden to justify voting for Harris.
Biden won Hidalgo County by less than half the margin that Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Since then, Republicans have invested millions of dollars to persuade Hispanic and working-class voters soured by Democratic policies.
A similar scenario played out in the state’s three most competitive races in nearby counties. Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz claimed a decisive victory in the 15th Congressional District. In the two other races, seasoned Democratic incumbents barely held on to their seats.
Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar narrowly escaped defeat against a political newcomer in the most competitive race of his two-decade career. Cuellar, whose district includes Rio Grande City, was indicted this year on bribery and other charges for allegedly accepting $600,000 from companies in Mexico and Azerbaijan. His support for abortion restrictions makes him one of the most conservative Democrats in the House.
Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez also narrowly escaped defeat by an opponent he comfortably beat two years ago.
Nationally, Black and Latino voters appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago, according to AP VoteCast data. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Trump’s support among those groups appeared to rise slightly compared to 2020.
In McAllen, Texas, Jose Luis Borrego said that inflation and the promise of tougher border restrictions made him vote for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time.
“I wanted to see change and that’s why I did vote for Trump. I did vote red. I would not call myself a Republican†Borrego, 37, said. He said that he voted for Hillary Clinton and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders in prior elections.
Borrego’s whole family voted Trump.
“We just (made) this choice, because we didn’t have another choice that we felt comfortable with,†he said.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said he had months of visits to the region during his campaign race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. In a victory speech on Election Day, Cruz said Hispanic voters are leaving the Democratic Party because of immigration.
“They are coming home to conservative values they never left. They understand something the liberal elites never will: There’s nothing progressive about open borders,” Cruz said. “There is nothing Latino about letting criminals roam free.â€
Michael Mireles, the director of civil engagement for labor rights group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, believes that Democrats did not engage Hispanic voters enough about the issues that concern them.
“I think that folks on the Democratic side have been really slow to have those conversations with Latino households and families.†Mireles said in Hidalgo County after Election Day.
“We can’t wait for a big election to have those conversations. By that point, it’s too late.â€
___ Lathan 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.
___
This story has been amended to correct the spelling of Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s first name and Jose Luis Borrego’s age.
A federal judge on Thursday struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens.
The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply for a green card without first having to leave the country.
The temporary relief from deportation brought a brief sense of security to some 500,000 immigrants estimated to benefit from the program before Texas-based U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker put it on hold in August, days after applicants filed their paperwork.
Barker ruled Thursday that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority by implementing the program and had stretched the legal interpretation of relevant immigration law “past its breaking point.â€
The short-lived Biden administration initiative known as “Keeping Families Together†would have been unlikely to remain in place after Donald Trump took office in January. But its early termination creates greater uncertainty for immigrant families as many are bracing for Trump’s return to the White House.
Trump’s election victory this week sets the stage for a swift crackdown on undocumented individuals after the Republican ran on promises of “mass deportation.†The president-elect energized his supporters on the campaign trail with a litany of anti-immigrant statements, including that immigrants were “poisoning the blood†of the nation.
During his first term, Trump appointed Barker as a judge in Tyler, Texas, which lies in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a favored venue for advocates pushing conservative arguments.
Barker had placed the immigration initiative on hold after Texas and 15 other states, led by their Republican attorneys general, filed a legal challenge accusing the executive branch of bypassing Congress to help immigrant families for “blatant political purposes.â€
Republicans argued the initiative created costs for their states and could draw more migrants to the U.S.
The policy would have applied to people who have been living continuously in the U.S. for at least 10 years, do not pose a security threat and have utilized the existing legal authority known as “parole in place†that offers deportation protections.
Those married to a citizen by June 17, the day before the program was announced, could pay a $580 application fee and fill out a lengthy application explaining why they deserve humanitarian parole. If approved, applicants would have three years to seek permanent residency and obtain work authorization.
It was not immediately clear Thursday whether anyone had received approval under the program, which only accepted applications for about a week before the judge placed it on hold.
Noncitizen spouses are already eligible for legal status but often have to apply from their home countries. The process typically includes a years-long wait outside of the U.S., which can separate family members with different immigration statuses.
HENDERSON COUNTY – Our KETK news partner reports that baggies of marijuana and suspected methamphetamine, individually packaged for distribution, were found in a shoebox during a Wednesday night traffic stop.
According to the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office, investigators stopped Robert Martel Moreno, 55 of Mabank, who was driving a black sedan, shortly after 6:30 p.m. at the intersection of East Quanah Road and Spearman Street. A deputy and his K-9 were called to scene where a positive alert for narcotics was given, HCSO said.
“Narcotics investigators conducted a search of the vehicle and located a white shoe box with a large amount of suspected methamphetamine that was individually packaged for distribution,†the sheriff’s office said. “Also located inside the white shoe box were two Ziploc baggies of marijuana.â€
Moreno was placed under arrest and taken to the Henderson County Jail. He was charged with manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance and is being held on a $100,000 bond.
SMITH COUNTY – Non-emergency Smith County offices will be closed Monday, November 11, 2024, in observance of Veterans Day. County offices will reopen on Tuesday, November 12, for normal business hours.
Smith County has more than 90 employees who are veterans of all service branches, serving the community through their positions in the Commissioners Court, Fire Marshal’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, Road and Bridge Department, Juvenile Services Department, IT Department, Facility Services Department, Veteran Services Office, County Court-at-Law 3, Constable’s Offices, Animal Control, Tax Office and Judicial Compliance/Collections Department.
According to a release from Smith County, the Commissioners Court on Tuesday, November 5, adopted a resolution proclaiming November 11, 2024, as Veterans Day in Smith County, thanking all county employees who are veterans, as well as all veterans in the community, who have served our country to protect our freedoms.
So, wide open borders, sky-high grocery prices, rising crime, boys competing against girls in sports (after changing clothes in the girls’ locker room), taxpayer-funded transgender surgery for prison inmates, high gasoline prices, looming government diktats regarding what kind of car you can buy and what kind of stove you can have in your kitchen, and conspicuous fecklessness regarding conflicts in Israel and Ukraine that could mushroom into World War III – don’t all come together to create a formula for winning the presidency.
Who knew?
Let me admit that though I might claim justification for having had them, my reservations regarding the electability of Donald Trump as expressed in this space during the run-up to the primaries proved unfounded. Donald Trump didn’t just beat Kamala Harris, he obliterated her.
But that drubbing isn’t the real story. The real story lies in how that drubbing came about. Donald Trump created a political coalition on the Republican side of the ticket the likes of which the GOP has never seen. And with that coalition behind him, he demolished the far-left radical agenda that hijacked the Democratic Party.
Sure, Trump did well among core conservative voters. But as I noted in my (often roundly criticized) analyses as to why I harbored reservations about a Trump 3.0 candidacy, those conservative voters alone would not have gotten him elected.
What I didn’t see coming last fall, and what propelled Trump’s electoral victory this week, is the fact that in unprecedented proportions, black voters, Hispanic voters, union workers, high school diploma-only working-class voters and just-out-of-college young voters all abandoned their traditional home in the Democratic Party to vote for him.
Democratic Party leadership, together with their media handmaidens, accelerated the alienation of those traditional Democratic base voters via a toxic combination of condescending to them and taking them for granted.
If in 2019 the combined monthly incomes of you and your spouse were sufficient to make ends meet with some left over for luxuries and savings, and if in 2024 you are, financially speaking, now gasping for air, you’re not really in the mood to be told that Bidenomics is working just fine, that massive illegal immigration is just a right-wing talking point, and that you’d understand these things if only you had a top-tier college degree, admission to elite political, media, corporate or show business circles and the concomitant financial ability to afford a home in a gated community at a comfortable remove from the consequences of inflation, illegal immigration, spiking crime and homelessness.
The question now before us is this. Given the shellacking they just got, will Democrats learn anything?
The normal people who make the country work just repudiated the far-left loons and the condescending liberal elites that control the Democratic Party. Will that repudiation give rise to the kind of introspection the party now clearly needs?
Let’s hope so.
A return to a sane, policy-centric contest between Republicans and Democrats – rather than the lunacy we have suffered since 2016 – would be good for Democrats and Republicans alike.
MOUNT VERNON – Our news partners at KETK report Mount Vernon ISD is mourning the death of one of their high school juniors after he was hit by a vehicle Wednesday night. Mount Vernon Superintendent Jason McCullough said David Reeve, a junior student, passed away on Wednesday due to his injuries. Reeve was a junior at Mt. Vernon High School and a member of the audio visual team who helped produce their Friday night football broadcasts, McCullough said. According to the superintendent’s office, additional counselors will be available for students and staff for support. “Please join me and the rest of the Mt. Vernon ISD community in praying for and supporting David’s family during this time,†McCullough said. “Once we have been made aware of arrangements, we will share that information with you.â€
(WASHINGTON) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is updating its recommendations for testing, treatment and protection for workers who may be exposed to animals infected with bird flu.
The update comes after the agency found evidence of dairy workers with positive antibodies, suggesting more bird flu infections that previously reported, according to a new report released Thursday afternoon.
Serologic testing, which looks at antibodies in the blood, found that eight out of 115 workers, or 7%, who were exposed to bird flu during outbreaks among cows at dairy farms in Michigan and Colorado had evidence of recent infection.
All eight workers said their jobs included either milking cows or cleaning a milking parlor. Four workers recalled experiencing symptoms, mainly conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye. The remaining four patients said they did not experience symptoms when the cows were ill.
As a result, the CDC said it is updating its guidance addressing who should be tested for bird flu to include workers who were exposed to bird flu and do not have symptoms.
"There may be individuals infected but who do not recall having symptoms," Dr. Nirav Shah, the CDC's principal deputy director, told reporters during a media call Thursday morning. "That means we need to cast a wider net in terms of who is offered a test."
Secondly, the CDC is now recommending offering oseltamivir – a prescription medication to treat influenza that's often marketed under the name Tamiflu – to asymptomatic workers who have experienced high-risk exposure to animals infected with bird flu and who did not wear adequate personal protective equipment (PPE).
Shah said a high-risk exposure event could include a splash in the face with raw cow milk, or a culling event without PPE being worn.
He added that the Tamiflu treatment recommendation both reduces asymptomatic cases from becoming symptomatic because they are being treated, and reduces the risk of infected individuals spreading the virus to close contacts.
Lastly, the Shah said the CDC was changing its PPE guidance for workers.
Although the risk of bird flu transmission from dairy cows to humans Is low, the CDC said there have been few reports addressing how PPE is used during work activities on dairy farms.
The new CDC report said the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) offered PPE to all Colorado farms before or during the bird flu outbreak in cows in 2024.
When asked if they had access to PPE before a bird flu outbreak, 88% of workers reported access to gloves, 76% reported access to eye protection such as safety glasses or goggles, 71% reported access to rubber boots or boot covers, and 69% reported access to head covers, according to the report.
"Reported use of many individual PPE items was higher among dairy workers who reported exposure to ill cows in the week before or week after the detection of [bird flu] on the farm compared with those who did not report exposure to ill cows," according to the CDC report.
Shah said that CDC recommendations will now prioritize what PPE a farm worker should wear based on which farm tasks present the highest risk for bird flu.
"Simply put, the higher-risk activities will call for more PPE use," Shah said. "The purpose of these actions is to keep workers safe, to limit the transmission of H5 [bird flu] to humans and reduce the possibility of the virus changing," Shah said.
As of Thursday, there have been 46 human cases of bird flu reported in the U.S. this year, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the CDC's director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during the media call.
Of those cases, 26 were due to the outbreak in dairy cows and 20 were due to people coming into contact with infected poultry. There is one case in Missouri that had no known animal exposure.
All of the patients experienced mild conjunctivitis or mild respiratory symptoms and all have recovered, according to the CDC.
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SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Express-News reports that a Baptist retreat operator has issued a public apology for misusing funds meant to benefit a mother whose daughter was killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde. Jessica Hernandez, whose daughter Alithia Ramirez was among the 19 children and two teachers killed on May 24, 2022, had sued Alto Frio Baptist Encampment, Inc. for money it collected through a GoFundMe fundraising campaign referred to as the “Rebel Give.†Alithia’s name and image were used to promote donations that would go toward Hernandez, but the nonprofit organization used the proceeds to renovate a house on its campgrounds in Leakey, about 40 miles north of Uvalde. For about three weeks before the mass shooting, Hernandez stayed at the house as she worked as a camp housekeeper.
Attorney Javier Espinoza, who represented Hernandez for free, was referred to Hernandez by the San Antonio Legal Services Association, or SALSA. Espinoza filed the case against the non-profit in August 2023. “That money should have gone to her,” he said at the time. The lawsuit was filed seeking compensatory damages, but at the time it was not known how much money was raised. The suit said the name and image of Hernandez’s daughter, Alithia, on the GoFundMe page prompted an outpouring of support from people across the country. Even actor Matthew McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, donated. Discovery and deposition of the camp’s corporate representative since revealed that donations from the GoFundMe to the non-profit were minimal, according to a SALSA statement. Because of the ongoing trauma suffered by Hernandez, and her desire not to relive the events of the slaying in a deposition, all parties agreed to conclude the matter with a publicly filed apology, according to the SALSA statement. Alto Frio Baptist Encampment Inc., its executive director Rusty Brandon and Hernandez’s former supervisor, assistant executive director Kim St. Clair said in the court record, which was filed filed recently, that they apologize for any offense that may have been caused by the GoFundMe.
AUSTIN – KXAN reports that almost 350,000 votes have been tabulated in Austin’s mayoral election. With unofficial results fully reported, KXAN is still unable to make a projection in this race — and we want you to know why. According to the Travis County Clerk’s Office, there are three types of ballots still outstanding: Mail-in ballots that were postmarked by 7 p.m. on Tuesday and received by 5 p.m. Wednesday. Overseas and military mail-in ballots that arrive by Tuesday, Nov. 12. Provisional ballots that have not yet been processed.
Incumbent Mayor Kirk Watson currently has 50.01% of the vote. A candidate must receive more than 50% to avoid a runoff. There are still ballots left to be counted, which means Watson could win outright or be forced into a runoff with second-place Carmen Llanes Pulido. The Travis County Clerk’s Office said there are about 6,000 mail ballots that were sent out but have not yet been returned, and it’s unclear how many of those will be received by the deadline. In addition, there are about 3,200 provisional ballots that still need to be reviewed before it’s determined whether they will be counted. Late-arriving ballots are also possible in Williamson and Hays County, but those totals are expected to be much lower than in Travis County. Both Travis and Williamson County told KXAN they expect official results to be released by the end of next week, after the canvas.
HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle repors that despite growing up in a liberal Mexican American household in Houston’s Denver Harbor neighborhood, Tessie Kempenski hasn’t supported a Democrat in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. For decades, the 67-year-old has been an outlier as a Republican-supporting Latina, but when she woke up to the news Wednesday that Donald Trump had regained the White House — with unprecedented levels of Latino support nationwide — she felt vindicated. “What people don’t understand is my hairdresser, my nail salon, my cleaners, they all voted for Trump because they’re small businesses and they’re taking a hit (economically),†she said as she ate breakfast at the East End staple Doña Maria on Wednesday. “(Democrats) take us for granted and assume we’re going to agree with them on everything.â€
Latinos in Texas and across the country voted for President-elect Trump in striking numbers in the 2024 election, weakening the Democratic voting base and helping contribute to the Republican victory on Tuesday. Exit polling by The Washington Post indicates that 55% of Latino voters in Texas, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate, voted for Trump in this election — a 14-point swing from the 41% who voted for him in 2020. And though Vice President Kamala Harris won a slim majority of Latino voters across the country, her eight-point lead amongst Latinos nationwide is a double-digit drop from Biden’s in 2020. The results could indicate that Republicans made significant inroads into one of Democrats’ most reliable voting blocs. “The realignment continues, and it’s a phenomenon to behold,†said Orlando Sanchez, former Harris County Treasurer and president of the Texas Latino Conservatives.
TYLER – Our news partner, KETK, reports that a 37-year-old Tyler man has been sentenced to 50 years in prison with out parole for sexually abusing two children. The Tyler Police Department investigated the case into Saldierna.
