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EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — The cries of Liliana Olivero watching from Venezuela through a cellphone pierced through the somber Christian music and gusts of wind as her son’s casket was lowered into the ground.

Gustavo Alfonso Garcia Olivares died at 24, drowning in the Rio Grande not far from where he was buried Thursday at the Maverick County Cemetery in Eagle Pass, a Texas border town of about 30,000 people. About 10 people attended the service, which was streamed live to his parents in Venezuela.

It was the first funeral service for a migrant by Border Vigil, a human rights organization on the U.S.-Mexico border, one of the world’s deadliest.

“Today we’re trying to bring back some of that humanity not just by giving his name but also by having his photo and having his family in the service,” said Amerika Garcia Grewal with Border Vigil, which is supported by Frontera Federation.

It came a day after Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited Eagle Pass, which became a flashpoint between the Biden administration and Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, over who polices the border and how. The Trump administration and Abbott are closely aligned on border policy.

Border Vigil started in 2023 amid an increase in border crossings that led to many migrant deaths. The International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project has tallied 6,438 dead and missing on the U.S.-Mexico border since 2014.

The U.S. Border Patrol’s published data goes through the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2022, when 895 bodies were discovered by its own agents and other government agencies.

Garcia Olivares’ parents last saw their son alive in a video shared by a friend showing him crouched in a corner of a fast-moving train heading to Mexico’s northern border in 2023.

Victor Garcia recalled their last conversation: “Dad, I’m going to make it, Dad. Don’t worry because you won’t be in need anymore. I’ll buy Mom a house and I’ll help improve your business.”

He described his son as brave and ambitious, having learned to become a barber at 14. He encouraged his son to go to college, but he decided to seek a life in the United States. His mother never had a chance to say goodbye. Not until Thursday.

The ceremony “was very sentimental, sad, but at the same time we are able to breathe a sigh of relief,” the father said.

Garcia Olivares’ body was swept up in the river and identified through Operation ID, an academic organization that partners with state, federal and international agencies. Although his family preferred to have him buried back home, they could not afford the nearly $9,000 cost.

A church volunteer built the white pine paneled coffin. As the ceremony closed, a backhoe shoveled dirt into the grave and a placard was placed by a simple, white cross near two dozen similar crosses laying nearby in a corner lot of the cemetery near a maintenance shed.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the organization that supports Border Vigil. It is Frontera Federation, not Fronteras Fund.

ENNIS, Texas (AP) — One man died and three of his family members were injured when their RV flipped over several times at the Texas Motorplex during a strong thunderstorm that caused widespread damage in an area about 25 minutes south of Dallas on Saturday.

Strong winds of up to 90 mph (145 kph) ripped the roof off a Days Inn along Interstate 45, damaged homes throughout Ellis County and toppled at least seven semitractor-trailer trucks on Interstate 35. The strong storms also knocked out power to nearly 20,000 people, but didn’t generate any tornadoes. Fewer than 300 customers remained without power Sunday evening, but service was expected to be restored by the end of the day. Some quarter-sized hail also fell in the area.

Becky Hogle, who works the front desk at the damaged hotel, told the Dallas Morning News that she and the owner moved quickly to evacuate everyone after the storm hit and opened up many of the second-floor rooms to the sky.

“So I pulled my hair up in a scrunchie, ran over and we started knocking on doors telling people they had to vacate,” she said Sunday.

The 42-year-old man who died was T.J. Bailey from Midlothian, Texas. His wife and two sons were inside an RV that rolled over at the racetrack, Ellis County Justice of the Peace Chris Macon told The Dallas Morning News. Bailey’s family members were treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. The boys were released, but their mother remained under observation at the hospital Sunday.

Macon said he’d never seen such strong and sustained winds in his lifetime of living in Ellis County.

“I can honestly say, I’ve known the wind to blow, but never like that for that long of a period of time,” he said.

Ennis Mayor Kameron Raburn said in a statement Saturday that the city is beginning to pick up debris and work on recovering from the storm.

“The safety of our residents is our top priority,” Roburn said.

Oncor, the power company, said some of the power restoration work was slowed by fallen trees and other debris that had to be cleared by bulldozers before the utility’s workers could get into the area.

The nearby city of Waxahachie had to cancel the weekend events for its Tulipalooza festival because of the storm damage.

GALVESTON – The Houston Chronicle reports the Battleship Texas, a staple Houston-area tourist attraction and the last still-floating ship to serve in both World Wars, has finally found a home. Tony Gregory, president and CEO of the Battleship Texas Foundation, said the warship will likely arrive at its permanent home at Galveston Island’s Pier 15 sometime between late fall 2025 to early 2026. Pier 15 is located on the east side of the island near the crossing to Bolivar Peninsula. “We have a tentative timeline of sometime around Fall 2025, but it might not be until 2026 that people actually get the opportunity to purchase tickets and climb aboard,” Gregory said.

HONDO – The Washington Post reports that Jaylee Williams needed to find somewhere to deliver her son. The 19-year-old knew more about barrel racing on her horse Bet-n-pep than the complicated metrics of who takes what health insurance. But relief for Williams and her boyfriend, Xander Lopez, came when they realized Medina Regional Hospital — just 15 minutes from their home — accepted Medicaid, the federal-state program that covers medical costs for lower-income Americans. Provider groups an hour away in San Antonio had refused to take the insurance, she recalled while cradling little Ryker. “You never know when something could happen,” Williams said, with Lopez adding, “I have no idea where we would have gone” without Medina Regional Hospital. But the lifeline that the 25-bed critical-access hospital offered to Williams and Lopez could disappear in Hondo and other communities like it.

Rural hospitals across the United States fear massive Medicaid cuts favored by the Republican Party could decimate maternity services or shutter already struggling medical facilities in communities that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. Nearly half of all rural hospitals nationwide operate at a deficit, with Medicaid barely keeping them afloat. Already, almost 200 rural hospitals have closed in the past two decades, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rural hospital leaders in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas who spoke to The Washington Post warned that the enormous cuts congressional Republicans are weighing could further destroy limited health-care access in rural America. Proposals to slash up to $880 billion over 10 years — which is expected to be accomplished largely by scaling back on Medicaid — would also impact those who do not rely on the program but do rely on the medical facilities that are financially dependent on the program’s reimbursements.

LAREDO – KSAT reports that a private prison company has signed an agreement to reopen an immigrant detention facility in Texas that previously held families with children for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the business said Wednesday. Nashville-based CoreCivic announced the contract with ICE and the city of Dilley regarding the 2,400-bed South Texas Family Residential Center, located about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Laredo and the Mexico border. The center was used during the administration of President Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s first presidency. But President Joe Biden phased out family detention in 2021, and CoreCivic said the facility was idled in 2024. “We do acknowledge that we anticipate housing families” at Dilley, CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin told The Associated Press.

CoreCivic said in a statement that the facility “was purpose-built for ICE in 2014 to provide an appropriate setting for a family population.” The new contract runs through at least March 2030. ICE officials did not immediately respond to messages seeking information about who will be held at Dilley and how soon. The agency — which mostly detains immigrants at privately operated detention facilities, its own processing centers and local prisons and jails — entered this year with zero facilities geared toward families, who last year accounted for about one-third of arrivals on the southern border. The Trump administration has expanded the detention of migrants to military bases including Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba, via flights out of Army installations at El Paso, Texas, as it promises to ramp up mass deportations.

AUSTIN – The Dallas Observer reports Texas is one of 13 states that does not require air conditioning in its state prisons, but a new bill that would enforce humane treatment for the incarcerated has been filed for this legislative session. House Bill 2997, filed by Rep. John Bryant, a Democrat from Dallas County, would require Texas to keep prisons between 65 and 85 degrees. A similar bill failed to pass the Senate last session, with critics claiming that installing HVAC systems would be too costly. The previous bill asked the state for half a billion dollars to install and repair air conditioning units within prisons. Two-thirds of state prisons do not have air conditioning, and the temperatures within those prisons can easily exceed 100 degrees. A 2022 study from Texas A&M University found that one had topped out at 149 degrees. When the heat index is above 125 degrees, there is an extreme risk of heat stroke.

“We have the resources. We just seem to not have the compassion to do it,” a former state representative, Carl Sherman from DeSoto, said during a press conference after last year’s bill failed at the Senate. The bill comes as a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice moves through the legal system. The lawsuit was originally filed by Texas inmate Bernie Tiede. His criminal case has caught media attention and was even the inspiration for an eponymous film directed by Austin filmmaker, Richard Linklater. Tiede, convicted of murder in 1999, has been considered a model prisoner and now stands at the forefront of this branch of criminal justice reform. Now he has been joined by a group of criminal justice activist organizations that say the lack of proper temperature regulation creates inhumane conditions. “If cooking someone to death does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, then nothing does,” the complaint said. Prison conditions don’t just affect the incarcerated, the guards and administrators working the prisons are also subject to the same conditions. “[Guards are] in the same conditions for maybe 16 hours that someone who’s incarcerated is in. It’s not fair for either one, by the way,” Andy Potter, founder of One Voice United, an advocacy group for correctional officers, said to the Observer. Aside from the death and debilitation that comes from prolonged exposure to high temperatures, an increase in heat has been linked to interpersonal violence, further perpetuating the tensions that already exist within prisons. The bill from Bryant is modeled after an existing rule within the Texas Administration Code that requires county jails to keep their facilities between 65 and 85 degrees. The law has stood since 1994. A night’s rest on the metal cot of the drunk tank is hospitable compared to the life-threatening conditions of a summer weekend spent in solitary.

AUSTIN – The Dallas Observer reports that supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) benefits are once again being targeted by Republican lawmakers. In Texas, state officials are ushering forward a ban on purchasing soda using food stamps, and national leaders have passed a budget resolution that could slash a significant amount of the funding allocated to the program. According to data released by the North Texas Food Bank and Feeding Texas, more than 185,460,000 meals were purchased in Dallas County using SNAP benefits in 2024. Collin County families were able to purchase 25,600,000 meals last year, and Rockwall County recipients purchased more than 3,226,000. But the consequence of slashed SNAP benefits won’t just be families going hungry, the organizations warn.

The numbers show that every dollar given to North Texas families for food assistance played a massive role in the economy last year, totaling a 54% return on investment. Statewide, $6.97 billion was distributed to families in 2024, generating $10.73 billion in economic activity. “Families who participate in SNAP to put food on the table would not be the only Texans harmed by the steep cuts that are being proposed,” Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, said in a statement. “Retailers, farmers, workers and communities across our state all participate in a highly interconnected economic ecosystem and would feel the impact of SNAP cuts. If current proposals move forward, hungry families will suffer, food businesses will suffer, and our overall economy will be weaker.” Using the USDA’s SNAP Multiplier Report, the organizations estimate that 8,677 jobs in Dallas County are supported by the SNAP economy. Trisha Cunningham, president and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank, said that any cuts to the SNAP program would negatively coincide with a dramatic spike in demand being noticed by food assistance groups. Cunningham said the current demand across North Texas food pantries is reaching peak-pandemic level. Multiple states are introducing legislation that would ban sodas, candy and other foods deemed unhealthy from SNAP purchases. Texas Congressman Keith Self, whose district includes McKinney, filed the Funding is Zero for Zero Nutrition Options, or NO-FIZZ, Act, in January.

LLANO – The Austin American-Statesman reports Llano County has agreed to settle a lawsuit over its firing of librarian Suzette Baker amid a pressure campaign to remove several books from its public libraries, according to a Thursday court filing. While the county and Baker have tentatively agreed to the “material terms” of the settlement, details will not be made public until they are finalized, Baker’s attorney told the American-Statesman. “We are pleased that defendants were willing to resolve this matter relatively early on in the litigation,” said attorney Iris Halpern of Rathod Mohamedbhai, a firm based in Colorado, in response to an inquiry from the Statesman. The tentative agreement signals the end of a yearlong legal battle in U.S. District Court between Baker and Llano County officials, whom she accused of firing her in 2022 because she refused to pull library materials that a group of conservative activists had deemed inappropriate for children, some of which focused on race and LGBTQ+ experiences.

The county eventually removed 17 books, ranging from the children’s book “I Broke My Butt!” to the nonfiction work “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent.” Outside of Baker’s lawsuit, the county is still facing a federal First Amendment lawsuit over the book removals. The book removal campaign and resulting litigation have drawn national attention to Llano, a rural Texas community in the Hill Country about 80 miles northwest of Austin. The settlement announcement comes a day before a documentary film about Baker’s story will be featured in the South by Southwest festival. Showings will take place Saturday and Sunday in Austin. Baker, a 57-year-old veteran and mother of five adult children, has worked as a cashier at a hardware store for the past year. In August, an Austin federal judge denied the county’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, making clear that officials would have to settle or take the case to trial. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in the August order that Baker had plausible claims for First Amendment retaliation, wrongful termination and employment discrimination. The parties will notify the court of a final settlement and ask for the case to be dismissed within 45 days, as per Thursday’s filing.

HOUSTON – Houston Public Radio reports that Houston-based NRG Energy has announced a venture to build four new natural gas power plants in the U.S. to power artificial intelligence data centers, with some slated for Texas. NRG said it has partnered with energy company GE Vernova and The Industrial Company (TIC), an engineering, construction and procurement company. The goal of the project is to advance the construction of four natural gas combined cycle power plants. Each plant is expected to produce more than 5 gigawatts. In the announcement, NRG Executive Vice President Robert Gaudette said the new plants will be necessary to keep up with the exponentially increased power need associated with the AI industry.

“The growing demand for electricity in part due to GenAI and the buildup of data centers means we need to form new, innovative partnerships to quickly increase America’s dispatchable generation,” Gaudette said. “Working together, these three industry leaders are committed to executing with speed and excellence to meet our customers’ generation needs.” Although NRG did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding exactly where the new plants will be built, the company said the new facilities will serve the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the Texas power grid, and the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) regions. The first new plants — accounting for 1.2 gigawatts — are expected to be brought online in 2029. The companies plan to have the remaining plants completed by 2032. The announcement of this joint venture comes several months after NRG began pursuing the construction of three natural gas plants in the Houston area.

TEXAS – Inside Climate News reports that Texas widened its lead as the country’s renewable energy leader in 2024, with growth in solar and wind power, according to federal data. Solar and wind also grew nationwide at the same time that coal continued on a long-term decline. Natural gas had a small increase and remains way out in front as the country’s top fuel for producing electricity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration released electricity generation data last week for December 2024, which means we now have a full picture for the year. Despite fears that this information would be taken down as part of the Trump administration’s reductions in public access to government data, the numbers are here and they tell many stories about how our electricity mix is evolving.

First, the topline: U.S. power plants generated 4.3 million gigawatt-hours in 2024, an increase of 2.9 percent from the prior year. That’s a large increase, but within the bounds of normal. Since 2010, the annual percentage increase has been more than 2 percent three other times; the highest was 3.6 percent in 2018. The numbers are preliminary and could be revised. Natural gas power plants generated 43.3 percent of the country’s electricity last year, up from 43.2 percent in 2023. Utility-scale renewables, which include wind, utility-scale solar and hydropower, among others, were 22.7 percent, up from 21.4 percent. Nuclear was 18.2 percent, down from 18.5 percent. And coal was 15.2 percent, down from 16.1 percent. That leaves less than 1 percent of “other,” which mainly includes oil and other petroleum-based fuels.

SAN AUGUSTINE – Our news partners at KETK report that San Augustine ISD has announced that Dr. Virginia Liepman has stepped down as their superintendent after 11 years with the district.

“Reflecting on the past 11 years, I am truly amazed by the strength, resilience, and steadfast commitment of our employees in keeping the focus on the children of this community,” Liepman said. “It has been an honor to serve alongside them and I have cherished every moment at SAISD.”

In a letter shared by San Augustine ISD on Feb. 28, Liepman announced that assistant superintendent Marc Griffin was named as the district’s interim superintendent.

Griffin assumed the role of interim superintendent on Feb. 25 and Liepman said she’s delegated all of the powers and duties of the office to him as a way to insure a smooth transition.

“The support of this community has been unwavering. You have helped our district achieve so much over the years and your input is invaluable. I encourage you to continue making your voices heard and to remain actively involved with our district. My family and I have deep roots here and I will always be grateful for the support and encouragement this community has shown me throughout my tenure. I look forward to seeing SAISD continue to thrive under Mr. Griffin’s leadership.”

Dr. Virginia Liepman

Liepman said she’ll continue on as the district’s Superintendent Emeritus until June 30, 2027. As a San Augustine native, Liepman graduated from San Augustine High School in 1971 before attending the University of Texas at Austin and Stephen F. Austin University.