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ATLANTA (AP) — Hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other extreme weather can also kick up storms of anxiety.

Thankfully, there are several ways to reduce that stress, according to mental health experts who have helped people who have experienced disasters. One of the most important things to do is have a plan, they say.

“Preparation is always one of the most powerful tools that I can imagine — not just for safety, but also for mental health,” said Ruben Juarez, a health economist at University of Hawaii professor who directed the Maui Wildfires Exposure Study, which looked at health and social impacts of the deadly 2023 fires.

And when the disaster is over, they say, try to restore a sense of normalcy by seeking out support, returning to routines and helping others.

Kevin Westmoreland, who co-owns The Corner Kitchen in Asheville, North Carolina, learned meditation techniques and breathing exercises to deal with the stresses that the restaurant industry can present. When the remnants of Hurricane Helene unleashed torrents of rain on the state two years ago, water and mud poured into the restaurant and “everything was tossed around inside the building as if it was in a blender,” he recalled.

“All you could do to get through it is try to take a breath and move forward, step by step,” he said.
Plan ahead for unpredictable weather

One way to ease anxiety is to prepare as best you can ahead of time, including hashing out a plan for what to do during a disaster.

Making an evacuation plan and putting together an emergency kit can provide a sense of control, said Melissa Brymer, a psychologist and director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

She recommends a step-by-step guide for families at ready.gov/plan. The American Red Cross also has extensive guides for hurricane preparedness. Make sure to consider special preparations for anyone with disabilities, special needs, new mothers and expectant mothers, Brymer advises. Also make sure that pets are included in disaster plans.

Weather is unpredictable, so it helps to accept that there are things you won’t be able to control.

AUSTIN (AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN) – In the litigation from false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a government hoax, attorneys for Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC, the Austin-based parent business of his Infowars media platform, returned to state court to contest collection efforts. In order to postpone efforts to sell or license Infowars assets to pay the Sandy Hook families, his counsel argued that the judge should impose a nominal bond. According to decisions in Connecticut and Texas, Jones owes the families around $1.5 billion.

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the State District Court in Austin stated that in order to continue delaying an order to start paying them, he must post a $4.3 million bond. The Onion, a satirical media site, may be able to purchase or license Infowars if he is unable to make the bond. However, the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals will make that determination. Last month, it ordered stays on collections in both the Connecticut and Texas rulings.

The judge rejected the testimony of Jones’s and the company’s attorneys last week that he has a negative net worth of $1.35 billion. In her decision on Friday, she stated that she “had no faith in the integrity of evidence given by (Free Speech Systems) as to its own net worth.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is slated to appear Tuesday in the Senate to answer questions about the agency’s budget, at a time of intense scrutiny about how the Trump administration is carrying out immigration enforcement and preparing for the World Cup.

Mullin’s appearance at the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security comes as the Senate is weighing legislation that would fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of President Donald Trump’s term in a maneuver that would bypass the need for support from Democrats, who have demanded restraints before agreeing to fund the agencies.

But, the attempt to fund those two agencies for the long term has been stalled over separate Republican opposition to a $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.

Mullin, who was tapped by Trump to lead Homeland Security after his predecessor Kristi Noem was fired, is appearing in the Senate Tuesday for the first time since his confirmation hearing in March.

The hearing also comes at a time when Mullin, who projected himself as a steadying hand at a department wracked by instability during Noem’s tenure, has set the travel industry on edge with threats to withdraw U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Such a move could upend international travel at a time when millions of visitors are gearing up to come to the U.S. for the World Cup.

Mullin said during a news conference Monday that if needed, he has a plan to pull CBP officers from airports to help with security at the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, where demonstrators have been protesting conditions inside. But he said the state is working to provide security there so it’s not needed right now.

New Jersey state police on Friday relieved federal immigration enforcement agents who had been facing off against protesters at the facility for days. The mayor of Newark Sunday also imposed a curfew around the center.

“As long as we continue to have this partnership with local and state law enforcement then there will be no need to do so,” Mullin told reporters during a news conference in Dallas Monday, in response to questions about whether he would be pulling CBP officers from airports.

Mullin can also expect to face questions over a recent announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that demands that most green card seekers apply for permanent residency from their home country, changing longstanding policy that allowed them to do so from the U.S. and prompting widespread confusion among immigration lawyers and their clients.

EL PASO (AP) – An investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press has found that hundreds of detainees across at least 33 states allege immigration detention facilities are failing to provide adequate medical care.

Detainees allege they didn’t receive medications on time — or at all — for conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and HIV. Requests for help went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugars rose. Infections festered. Cancers remained untreated. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.

U.S. jails and immigration detention centers have long struggled to meet the medical needs of the people in their charge. But the system is sagging under an influx of detentions since President Donald Trump returned to office: More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from around 40,000 a year earlier.

KFF Health News and AP asked the Department of Homeland Security to respond to the findings six days before publication but it did not provide comment. DHS acting chief medical officer, Sean Conley, previously said “it is both policy and longstanding practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody” and that the department recruits healthcare professionals to maintain high standards. “This is better, more responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever received in their entire lives,” he has said.

Individual facilities and private prison companies contracting with DHS that responded to requests for comment on this story said they follow ICE standards and detainees receive adequate medical care when it is required. Some said they were unfamiliar with the allegations outlined in court documents; others blamed the detainees themselves for lapses in their medical care.

KFF Health News and AP analyzed thousands of court cases filed since Trump’s second inauguration that use a legal route known as habeas corpus to argue people are being held illegally by ICE. The records offer a rare window into how those detained say — often under penalty of perjury — ICE is handling their medical needs. Reporters also interviewed more than 50 detainees, family members and lawyers.

The investigation revealed that medical neglect is alleged across the sprawling detention system, including in offices not designed to house people, county jails and quickly staged sites with nicknames such as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The full story can be read here. Here are the takeaways:

Sick people remain detained

Previously, detainees with serious medical needs would likely have been released on humanitarian parole, in part to avoid the cost of their care, Vermont attorney Andrew Pelcher said.

Now, under “mandatory detention,” people are staying locked up with serious — and expensive — conditions.

A Romanian citizen underwent several heart surgeries, including an emergency triple bypass in April 2025, before he was arrested in July. As part of his recovery, the 52-year-old was required to take 16 daily medications. While detained by ICE in Baltimore, his court filings allege, he went two days without any medication before officials moved him to a facility in New Jersey.

The AP and KFF Health News are not naming anyone identified in court documents without their consent.

He was hospitalized three times with chest pains, in part because the detention center did not provide all his medications despite “countless requests,” medical records and court documents say. Hospital discharge papers cited by his lawyer show he received only eight of the 16 medications after his second release from the hospital.

Several weeks later in August, he had a stroke while on a video call with his daughter, according to court filings. “He was struggling to breathe, and was pointing at his chest where he was again experiencing pain, and suddenly stopped speaking.” His daughter screamed for help through the video monitor, according to his petition. “Eventually an officer came in to assist him and cut the feed.”

The man lost his ability to speak for four days, the document says. He was returned to detention, where he remained until a federal judge ordered his release in November.

Desperate families try to help from afar

Detainees receiving inadequate healthcare have little recourse. The Department of Homeland Security last year gutted the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. In early May, they shut the office entirely arguing that Congress didn’t fund it.

Ombudsman staffers used to help facilitate medical care or investigate complaints of neglect, according to Matt Boles, an immigration attorney in Georgia. Now, he said, there’s no one to call.

Meanwhile, detainees’ families said they feel helpless, making desperate calls to facilities, the government and their legislators while watching their loved ones deteriorate.

Riya Khan saw her mother get sicker at the California City Detention Facility, which is owned by CoreCivic, a private prison company. When she visited a week after her mother arrived at the facility in the Mojave Desert, Riya said, the 64-year-old woman was shaking as she stumbled into her seat. Her breathing was labored.

Masuma Khan came to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1997. Like 70% of those in detention, Khan has no criminal history. She was detained in October when she showed up for her regular ICE check-in.

For the month she was detained, according to her daughter, she only intermittently received her medications for conditions including high blood pressure, hypothyroidism and prediabetes.

CoreCivic treats chronic conditions in line with applicable medical standards, spokesperson Brian Todd said.

“Nothing matters more to CoreCivic than the health, safety and well-being of the people in our care,” Todd said.

Khan said she got her asthma medication for the first time two days before she was released and her eye drops for glaucoma never arrived. Staffers told Khan she needed to buy some of her medications from the commissary but it didn’t stock them, her daughter said.

‘Brazen indifference to really obvious problems’

Dora Schriro, who worked for ICE and now serves as a special adviser to the American Bar Association, said case law requires the government to treat people in immigration detention with the same care it affords those in traditional jails awaiting trial. But administrators are granted discretion and medical care standards vary.

Detainees are frequently moved across the country, often without warning, interrupting treatment. A woman from El Salvador said she missed a week of HIV medication when she was transferred from Colorado to a county jail in Wyoming.

A Russian man wrote that, while detained in Texas, he saw a gastroenterologist about his painful gallstones and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon. “Unfortunately, I never got to see him, due to my being moved around various detention centers.”

Advocates say that even obvious disabilities, like legal blindness, are ignored.

A detainee who lost one eye and had severe glaucoma in the other required twice-daily drops to maintain what vision remained. But, he said, some days the drops never came.

He wrote that his vision was quickly deteriorating, and he was scared he’d lose it entirely and never be able to see his infant son again.

POLK COUNTY (KETK) — After receiving multiple allegations of ongoing sexual abuse, Polk County officials have arrested a volunteer of several local churches last week. According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, they received reports on May 27 from adults and minors that 40-year-old Doyle Hodge II was sexually abusing them. After opening an investigation, deputies identified five possible victims, with additional individuals continuing to come forward.

Detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Hodge to ensure the safety and well-being of the children involved. On Friday, he was taken into the Polk County Jail for sexual assault of a child and is being held on a $100,000 bond.

The investigation remains active, and additional charges are expected to be filed.

According to the sheriff’s office, Hodge was a volunteer at several of the local churches. Anyone with any additional information regarding the case or who believes they may be a victim is encouraged to contact investigator Kayla Hemperly at 936-327-6810.

CORPUS CHRISTI (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Corpus Christi City Council is set to discuss Tuesday whether to revive a controversial and ambitious endeavor to build a desalination plant to convert seawater into drinkable water — a project the council rejected nine months ago over high costs and environmental concerns.

A stubborn drought and rising demand has left the city strapped for water, but the coastal community is still divided on whether an expensive plant is worth the cost to taxpayers and the local ecosystem.

Desalination removes salt and other minerals from seawater or salty groundwater, but plants are expensive to build and require lots of energy to run.

The city’s water department, the mayor and some City Council members view the proposed plant, the Inner Harbor Desalination Project, as the key to a long-term, steady water supply. City Manager Peter Zanoni often calls it a “drought-proof” solution capable of producing up to 30 million gallons of drinking water a day.

If approved Tuesday, the earliest the facility would deliver water is late 2029, too far away to help the city dodge its immediate emergency needs. According to projections, the city is expecting to impose emergency water restrictions in December, when demand is expected to exceed supplies in six months, though recent rain may push restrictions back into early 2027.

Mayor Paulette Guajardo, a strong supporter of the project, said the city needs to think long-term. “At the blink of an eye, three years will be here,” she said.

The facility is estimated to cost $978.8 million, which the water department said is a “guaranteed maximum price.” That’s about 25% cheaper than previous cost estimates.

The water department has already corralled a number of contractors to jump on the plant, which would be built along the bay in Hillcrest, a historically Black neighborhood. It’s fully permitted and about 60% designed. The soonest it would deliver water, if approved Tuesday, would be late 2029.

Climbing costs played a big role in the City Council’s September decision to abandon the original plan, but critics are also concerned about where the plant’s salty leftovers would be released. Under the proposal under consideration Tuesday, millions of gallons of the brine byproduct — which can be twice as salty as seawater — would be discharged into Corpus Christi Bay, home to a variety of fish, crabs and seagrass.

The city hired a consultant, Spheros Environmental Group, to review the Inner Harbor project’s ecological impact on the bay. The report, finalized last week, concluded that the plant would not disrupt the bay’s ecosystem, Zanoni said.

That report follows a 2020 study evaluating the city’s original desalination project by Freese and Nichols, an engineering consulting firm based in Houston, which found that sea creatures living in the bay can tolerate high salt conditions, and that the proposed plant’s discharge would not surpass that threshold.

But Isabel Araiza, co-founder of the citizens group For the Greater Good, is not convinced.

“It just makes sense in a practically closed-based system, you don’t dump 54 million gallons of brine and sludge into the bay every single day and not expect that to destroy the bay,” Araiza said.

She’s asking city leaders to instead focus on forcing the region’s largest water users — oil refineries and petrochemical plants — to conserve water. Over the past decade, Corpus Christi aggressively courted large industrial facilities that require large amounts of water, promising a sufficient supply.

Now, the city’s main reservoirs have shriveled up, threatening 25% water cuts for all city customers that could begin in December or early 2027. City leaders on Tuesday also will discuss how those restrictions would be implemented, and how high surcharge rates would be, if a Level 1 emergency is triggered — the point when the city is six months away from supply falling short of demand.

Araiza said the proposed desalination plant is “not a sustainable solution economically or environmentally, it’s an industrial want,” and that “the right moral and ethical choice” is to reject it again.

But some community members view the desalination plant as the city’s last lifeline.

Nelda Martinez, who lives along the bay, pleaded with City Council members to move forward with the Inner Harbor project.

“People that you serve are worried if they’re going to have their job tomorrow,” she said during a March meeting. “There have been businesses that have shut down. There have been businesses that now are planning their exit plans. There are people and entities that have decided that they’re not going to move here.”

Ginny Cross, vice president of advocacy for United Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce, said she hopes city leaders move forward with a desalination plant because an evergreen water source could save businesses from threats of future surcharges. Mandatory restrictions would be especially hard on car washes and landscaping companies, she said.

“We obviously want our public officials to be good stewards of our tax dollars, but I fear that the days of plentiful, inexpensive water are gone,” Cross said. “I hate that reality for everybody, but I think we’re either going to have expensive plentiful water, or expensive scarce water. I think if we’re going to pay for it, we’d rather have lots of it.”

The city is also considering two desalination plant proposals from private companies. In March, the City Council agreed to hear a plan from Aquatech, a desalination company offering to finish building a water plant for plastics manufacturer Corpus Christi Polymers if the city agrees to purchase water from it.

City representatives also are in talks with AXE H2O, a 2-month-old Houston company that is offering to fully fund and build a desalination facility in the Coastal Bend area. Before work could begin, the city would have to commit to buying at least 50 million gallons a day for at least 30 years.

Kenneth Dees, a water resources engineer based in Fort Worth, said Corpus Christi and the rest of the state should start preparing to shell out more for water, including desalination plants, as the drought deepens and infrastructure ages.

“We’re not running out of water, we’re running out of cheap water,” Dees said.

The original article for this story appears here.

LONE STAR (KETK) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the results of a months long investigation into child exploitation on Friday, including the arrest of one East Texas man for possession of child pornography.

Operation Soteria Shield was conducted in the months of March and April with the goal of finding “offenders who exploit children through online platforms, social media, messaging applications, and other digital environments.”

In that time, the FBI’s Dallas field office cooperated with over 90 Texas law enforcement agencies to arrest 276 people, reportedly rescuing 89 children in the process. Operation Soteria Shield arrived in East Texas when the Lone Star Police Department was assigned a cybertip.

The cybertip was from the social media platform X, formerly called Twitter. The tip claimed a person living near Lone Star in Morris County was using the X artificial intelligence platform “Grok” to generate “life like images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).”

On March 27, Lone Star Police Department officers, Morris County Sheriff’s Office deputies , Ore City Police Department officers, Mt. Pleasant Police Department officers, Hawk Cove Police Department officers and FBI agents took Jesus Aleman Jr. into custody in connection to the cybertip.

According to Lonestar PD, Aleman admitted to having CSAM on his phone at his Morris County residence. After Aleman was arrested on a warrant for possession of child pornography, officers got a search warrant for his phone, which was found to contain over a thousand CSAM images.

“The men and women of East Texas Law Enforcement want all abusers and exploiters of children to know that the internet that was once your playground is now our hunting ground and you can no longer hide on the net,” Lone Star PD said on Friday.

Aleman was a registered sex offender from a previous conviction, meaning his case is being forwarded to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for federal prosecution, according to Lone Star PD.

“Operation Soteria Shield brought together over 90 agencies from across the state of Texas,” FBI Dallas special agent in charge R. Joseph Rothrock said. “Together, we were able to make a significant impact in the ongoing battle against predators who exploit children in our communities. This would not have been successful without the resolve of each participating agency. The FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue to prioritize the safety of the most vulnerable members of our communities.”

The operation’s namesake, Soteria, was an ancient Greek pagan goddess who personified safety, salvation and protection from harm.

WASHINGTON (AP) — David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the Capitol with a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion new fund for people claiming to be victims of a weaponized government.

He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.

“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”

Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate the Republican president’s allies who believe they were politically prosecuted.

A bipartisan backlash to the fund and a legal roadblock have not dimmed the celebratory response from Jan. 6 rioters clamoring for a share of the taxpayer money. Some are staking claims even though the government has not established an application process and a judge has frozen the fund’s formation, at least temporarily.

Rioters seek compensation payouts

The fund’s critics see it as another vehicle for Trump and his allies to whitewash the events of Jan. 6, retroactively justify the mob’s assault on a pillar of American democracy and reward some of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Jason Riddle, a military veteran from New Hampshire who was sentenced to 90 days behind bars after pleading guilty to riot charges, publicly rejected a pardon from Trump. Likewise, he said it would be “ridiculous” for him or any other Jan. 6 rioter to get government compensation.

“I’d love money, but I can’t accept that. That would bother me for the rest of my life,” he said. “We weren’t innocently persecuted just because of who we are or who we vote for. We were persecuted for committing criminal behavior in the Capitol of the United States.”

Plenty of other “J6ers” do not share Riddle’s reluctance.

A Florida man who posed for photos with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s podium argued on social media that he deserves to be compensated for the cost of his infamy. A rioter from New Jersey described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer hailed the fund as “good news not just for J6ers but all victims of weaponization.” A Texas man who received a seven-year prison sentence for storming the Capitol with a metal tomahawk celebrated the fund as “payback” for “victims of Biden’s tyranny,” referring to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Oregon resident Pamela Hemphill, sentenced to 60 days in jail for her conviction, rejected a pardon from Trump but has drafted a written claim for compensation from the fund. Unlike scores of rioters who claim to be victims of a government weaponized by Democrats, Hemphill blames Trump for her legal troubles. Her claims letter says she is seeking $5 million in compensation.

“I wouldn’t have been through all of this if Trump hadn’t lied about the election being stolen,” she said during a telephone interview. “It’s a direct result of his lies that I was even there that day.”

Fund faces legal and political challenges

It is an open question whether anyone convicted of a Capitol riot-related crime could be eligible for payments from a fund created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has not ruled out that possibility. Blanche said there are no limits on who can apply, but he noted that the fund’s five commissioners — all yet to be named — will decide who deserves to be compensated and why, based on factors such as “what the person did, his sentence, how much time he was in jail.”

“That’s up to the commissioners,” Blanche told The Associated Press on Thursday when asked about his position on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants should be eligible for payments.

“You have to define something and then stick to it. That’s something I’ve been hesitant to try to do, because it’s very fact-intensive,” Blanche said. ”Me sitting here and talking in hypotheticals is something that I don’t think is fair to the process.”

It is unclear whether Congress would block payments to Jan. 6 defendants. Senate Republicans who are angry about the settlement have said they want to place parameters on the fund as part of a Department of Homeland Security spending bill. They abruptly left town earlier this month after a tense meeting with Blanche and will return on Monday with the situation unresolved.

A federal judge in Virginia has frozen the fund’s establishment and temporarily blocked any processing or paying of claims. The judge issued that ruling Friday in one of at least three lawsuits challenging the fund.

Brendan Ballou, a former prosecutor who tried several Jan. 6 cases before leaving the Department of Justice last year, sued on behalf of two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from the mob. Ballou views the fund’s creation as part of a broader Trump campaign to undermine democratic institutions and rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

“And if the president is successful in that effort, if he’s able to get people to either forget or condone that day, he knows that he can get people to accept any attack on democracy,” Ballou said.

Rioters emboldened by Trump’s Jan. 6 recasting

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump issued mass pardons and ordered the dismissal of all pending Jan. 6 cases. Trump also freed far-right extremist group members who were imprisoned for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden.

The self-described “J6 community” isn’t the only pro-Trump constituency angling for cuts of the money.

Meshawn Maddock, who was charged as being a fake elector for Trump in Michigan before a judge dismissed the case last year, said she and her husband, state Rep. Matt Maddock, “absolutely” plan on making a claim. She believes the fund’s use of taxpayer money is justified because it “paid for the prosecution and investigation of the years that I was being hunted down.”

“I want vengeance and I want retribution,” Maddock said.

Trump’s campaign to recast Jan. 6 as a peaceful protest seems to have emboldened many convicted rioters.

Johnston’s eagerness to help other Capitol rioters with claims contrasts with his remorse at sentencing in 2022. He apologized for his “terrible lapse in judgment” before a judge sentenced him to three weeks in jail and three months of home detention. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge.

“It was a dumb, dumb thing to do,” Johnston told the judge. “I am 100% responsible for what I did that day.”