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Health officials say federal cuts will hurt Texas’ measles response

GAINES COUNTY – The Trump administration this week announced plans to clawback $11 billion in pandemic-era grants that could harm local Texas public health departments as they battle a historic measles outbreak.

In Lubbock, where many of the 40 Texans infected with measles have been hospitalized, grant funding affected by the announcement has paid for an epidemiologist who has directly responded to the measles outbreak in West Texas that has killed a 6-year-old girl. In Dallas, the grant funding was helping to equip a biolaboratory that will support more testing for pathogens, including measles.

“It’s kind of crazy to have this funding cut,” said Lubbock’s public health director Katherine Wells. “I don’t have a savings account in public health.”

The Trump administration confirmed Tuesday that it was going to eliminate funding that had been created to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritizing instead on projects that address chronic diseases and the president’s Make America Healthy Again initiative. Much of that funding, however, has been used to pay for infrastructure to respond to infectious diseases other than COVID, including measles, local health officials have said.

The Texas Department of State Health Services notified public health departments late Tuesday of the federal government’s plans. State officials have not provided specifics on how much money is cut or how many health departments are impacted.

“DSHS was notified that the federal grant funding for Immunization/COVID, Epidemiology Laboratory Capacity (ELC/COVID), and Health Disparities/COVID, is terminated as of March 24, 2025,” according to the the notice from the agency’s associate commissioner Imelda Garcia. “The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS or System Agency) is issuing this notice to pause all activities immediately. Please do not accrue any additional costs as of the date of this notice.”

Wells said the funding cut will impact her office’s work combating the spread of measles. Lubbock has been using three grants to help pay for extra temporary staff, a part-time nurse and a full-time epidemiologist to help with vaccinations, answering phones and working with testing of patients. Two of the city’s three grants were not set to expire until 2026.

Ten of the state’s 327 measles cases have been confirmed in Lubbock and 226 cases have been in Gaines County, about 90 minutes southwest of Lubbock.

This measles outbreak has further exposed Texas’ threadbare public health system.

The grants, she said, allowed her to hire eight people to help shoulder the workload the outbreak has brought. Since January, Lubbock hospitals have treated many of the more than 300 patients infected with measles, including a 6-year-old who died on Feb. 26.

“We’re trying to figure it out,” Wells said. But with state and federal funds cut, city and county health department that counted on those COVID-19 era grants for new programs and outreach will now have to go to local taxpayers to help shore up the abrupt shortfall.

Dallas County has already broken ground on a $52 million biolab to help combat future health threats. Their health director, Dr. Philip Huang, said the grant money Dallas County had received was going to be used to help equip that new lab.

“It was a lot of equipment,” Huang said. “These machines can help with COVID but these machines also help with our preparedness and ability to test a lot of other pathogens … including measles.”

Like Wells, he and other public health officials are now going to have to determine how to still move forward without this funding.

“The things that we’re doing and using the funds for COVID have great implications for our future preparedness for everything else so we’re not in the same situation at the start of COVID,” he said. “We had seen how little investment there had been in public health, so it’s very short sighted to say, ‘OK, well these were COVID funds it’s over.’ It’s not.”

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

3 missing US soldiers found dead in Lithuania, search continues for 4th soldier

(PABRAD?, Lithuania) -- Three of the four U.S. Army soldiers who went missing during a training mission near Pabrad?, Lithuania, last week were found dead on Monday, but the search is ongoing for the fourth soldier, the Army said.

Their identities were not released.

The M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle the soldiers were in when they went missing was removed from a swamp early Monday morning after six days of work to retrieve it, the Army said.

The soldiers, who are all based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, went missing on Tuesday during a training exercise, the Army said.

On Wednesday, their 63-ton-vehicle was found submerged in about 15 feet of water and "clay-like mud" in a training area, the Army said.

"Most likely, the M88 drove into the swamp," and the vehicle "may have just gone diagonally to the bottom," Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene told ABC News via phone last week.

The multiday search effort was complicated by the swamp's muddy conditions, officials said.

The Army said last week it brought in assets including "a large capacity slurry pump, cranes, more than 30 tons of gravel, and subject matter experts."

"The Polish Armed Forces have also volunteered a unit of military engineers, which is bringing in an additional water pump, tracked recovery vehicles, other additional equipment and supplies needed along with 150 personnel," the Army said.

On Saturday, a U.S. Navy dive team arrived at the site, joining Lithuanian divers, the Army said.

Mortgage company Rocket buying Mr. Cooper

COPPELL (AP) -The mortgage company Rocket is buying competitor Mr. Cooper in an all-stock deal valued at $9.4 billion, just weeks after acquiring real estate listing company Redfin.

Rocket Cos. said Monday that bringing Mr. Cooper Group Inc. into the fold will create a business representing one in every six mortgages in the United States and give it almost 7 million additional clients. The deal will boost loan volumes, the company said, while lowering client acquisition costs.

“By combining Mr. Cooper and Rocket, we will form the strongest mortgage company in the industry, offering an end-to-end homeownership experience backed by leading technology and grounded in customer care,” Mr. Cooper Chairman and CEO Jay Bray, who will become president and CEO of Rocket Mortgage, said in a statement.

The U.S. housing market has been slumping for years with homebuyers, and sellers, buffeted by soaring mortgages rates and sky high prices that have put homes out of reach for many Americans.

Companies like Rocket, which is on an acquisition streak, are attempting to create more of a one-stop shopping experience for frazzled would-be homebuyers.

Bray will report to Rocket Cos. CEO Varun Krishna.

Mr. Cooper shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 11 Rocket shares for each share of Mr. Cooper common stock. Mr. Cooper is based in Coppell, Texas.

Rocket shareholders will own approximately 75% of the combined company, while Mr. Cooper stockholders will own about 25%. The combined company’s board will have 11 members, with nine being from Rocket and two from Mr. Cooper.

Earlier this month Rocket, based in Detroit, announced that it was buying Redfin in an all-stock deal worth $1.75 billion.

Redfin, which was founded in 2004, has more than 1 million for sale and rental listings on its online platform.

The National Association of Realtors announced this month that existing home sales rose 4.2% in February from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million units. That was in part thanks to easing mortgage rates and more properties on the market encouraging home shoppers.

The U.S. housing sales began to slump in 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

Texas Democrats select Kendall Scudder as state party chair

AUSTIN – The Texas Democratic Party’s governing board on Saturday elected Kendall Scudder to lead the party forward as its new chair after a devastating performance in November and years of electoral defeats.

“The challenge that we’re facing right now is terrifying for this country and for this state, and a lot of people are counting on us to come together and do the right thing and make sure that we are building a Texas Democratic Party that is worthy of the grassroots in this state,” Scudder said upon taking the gavel. “Let’s build a party that the working men and women of this state can be proud of.”

Scudder took 65 out of 121 votes, an outright majority in the seven-way race.

Scudder will take over as chair of the state party at a moment when Democrats are grasping for a way forward after blowout losses up and down the ballot last year, including President Donald Trump’s victory and a surge to the right by traditionally Democratic groups, such as Hispanic voters in South Texas.

After proclaiming Texas a competitive state where Democratic candidates had a fighting chance of winning statewide for the first time in three decades, party leaders instead watched as Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz trounced their Democratic challengers by roughly 14 and 9 percentage points, respectively. Democrats also ceded ground in the state Legislature and lost nearly every contested state appellate court race, in addition to 10 judicial races in Harris County — eating away at years of Democratic dominance in Texas’ largest county.

That left many Democrats concerned that, after appearing to come within striking distance of winning statewide in 2018, the party was back at a sobering low.

Longtime Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa announced his resignation shortly after the election, acknowledging the party’s poor performance and a need for a new direction.

That push for a fresh vision defined the race for party chair. Scudder will be the incumbent come 2026, when a broader group of delegates will elect the next full-term chair at the party convention in Corpus Christi. The 121-member State Democratic Executive Committee chose Hinojosa’s successor at the Saturday meeting, its first quarterly meeting of the year, because he resigned in the middle of his four-year term.

During his campaign, Scudder, an East Texas native, emphasized the importance of listening to the “grassroots.” Even before he launched his candidacy, he had accused party leadership under Hinojosa of ignoring those voters and activists. He wants to “recalibrate” the party toward a focus on working people.

“The reality is simply that Democrats on the ground don’t have a lot of confidence in party leadership anymore,” Scudder told The Texas Tribune in an interview on Thursday.

He wants the party to pay attention to areas he says it has previously written off, like rural communities, and put a priority on Spanish-language communications.

Scudder has worked in affordable housing and real estate. He came onto the state party stage through the SDEC, although he began his political activism with the Texas Young Democrats and the Texas College Democrats.

Scudder’s leading opponents, former Harris County Democratic Party Chair Lillie Schechter and former Annie’s List Executive Director Patsy Woods Martin, had offered similar but competing visions to re-establish Democratic credibility on kitchen table issues and reconnect with voters in their communities. During the campaign, Schechter and Woods Martin emphasized their experience getting Democratic candidates elected.

The SDEC hosted a candidate forum in Austin on Friday evening before toasting Hinojosa, the outgoing chair.

There, and at the panel’s meeting on Saturday, party insiders discussed how to rebuild credibility with working class voters, engage young people, fundraise and build a party infrastructure that better facilitates elected officials’ involvement in races around the state.

“The problem is that every Democrat thinks that if they had 10 more minutes, they could explain it to you,” Scudder said on party messaging during the forum. “We’ve got to get to a point where we’re speaking to people at their gut, because people vote with their guts and not their brains.”

While most party chair contests are shaped by region and race and decided at the party’s convention during midterm election years, this race was a more insular affair whose outcome was determined by a small group of the party’s activists, many of whom are progressives dissatisfied with the party’s strategies and operations.

Although the SDEC was prepared to go multiple rounds with their ranked choice ballot, Scudder’s 65 allowed him to win in the first round. Woods Martin took 27 votes, and Schechter took 26. Denton County Democratic Party Chair Delia Parker-Mims took two votes, and Meri Gomez rounded out the count with one vote. Eight candidates appeared on the ballot, but one dropped out before the election.

As the votes were tabulated, members passed out to-go shots of blue liquor — and non-alcoholic options — in an effort to liven spirits after a difficult 2024 election and an unprecedented chair race.

The candidates were largely aligned ideologically. And they especially all agreed on the need for change in the party’s direction.

“We are at an inflection point right now,” Schechter said, “and if we don’t learn lessons from the last election, and continue doing things status quo, we’re never going to win in Texas.”

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

Stocks slide as Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs loom

(NEW YORK) -- Stocks fell on Monday ahead of the expected introduction of President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on Wednesday, measures the president said will impact "all countries."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 10 points, or 0.03%, while the S&P 500 declined 0.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 1.5%.

Tesla, the electric carmaker led by billionaire Trump-advisor Elon Musk, dropped nearly 5%.

The downturn in U.S. markets followed a wave of selloffs worldwide.

Japan's Nikkei index fell more than 4% and South Korea's KOSPI slipped 3% after opening on Monday. In Europe, the British FTSE 100 fell by 1.18%, the German DAX index fell by 1.82% and France's CAC 40 dropped by 1.76%.

Gold -- a traditional safe-haven asset -- reached a new record high of $3,128 per ounce.

Trump told reporters this weekend that his tariffs could affect "all the countries."

"The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America," he said.

"Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has never been ripped off in history and we're going to be much nicer than they were to us, but it's substantial money for the country," Trump said.

Auto tariffs of 25% are among those expected to come into effect on April 3. The measures will apply to imported passenger vehicles, including cars, SUVs, minivans, cargo vans and light trucks, according to a White House statement released last week.

Analysts widely expect the tariffs to raise prices for foreign-made cars, since importers will likely pass along a share of the tax burden to consumers.

Cars produced in the U.S. are also expected to undergo significant price hikes since manufacturers will bear higher costs for imported parts and face an uptick in demand as buyers seek out domestic alternatives, experts have told ABC News.

Trump dismissed concerns about auto tariffs this weekend. "The automakers are going to make a lot of money," he said. "American automakers or international automakers, if you're talking about them, are going to build in the United States."

"The people that are going to make money are people that manufacture cars in the United States," he continued. "Outside of the United States, that's going to be up to them. I don't care too much about that. But you have a lot of companies coming into the country to manufacture cars."

ABC News' Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

Desperate search for survivors continues in Bangkok high-rise collapse from 7.7 quake

(BANGKOK) -- A desperate search for survivors continued Sunday -- from a collapsed high-rise building that was under construction in Bangkok, Thailand, to the rubble of ancient buildings in neighboring Myanmar -- as a series of powerful aftershocks from Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake made it precarious for rescuers digging through debris, officials said.

The death toll in the Bangkok metropolitan region rose to 18 on Sunday, according to government officials. In Myanmar, the epicenter of Friday's earthquake, at least 1,644 people were dead and another 139 were officially missing. At least 3,408 people were injured in Myanmar alone, officials said.

The number of deaths across the devastated region is expected to rise, officials said.

In the Bangkok metropolitan area, home to more than 17.4 million people, search-and-rescue workers were focused on a collapsed high-rise building in the Chatuchak district of Bangkok. At least 11 people, believed to all be construction workers, have been confirmed dead and another 78 people remain missing in the rubble of the 34-story Sky Villa condominium, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan administration.

More than 30 people were injured when floors of the building that was under construction began to pancake on top of each other around 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday, trapping construction workers in the debris and creating a large dust cloud that enveloped the area, officials said. The building collapsed about half an hour after the powerful earthquake, centered in Myanmar, struck.

Family members of the missing construction workers gathered near the collapsed building as search-and-rescue crews dug through the pile of debris by hand, racing against time in a search for survivors.

One brother and sister told ABC News their parents were among the workers who were in the building at the time of the collapse and are now among those unaccounted for.

American tourists Garret Briere and his wife told ABC News they never could have imagined that their first vacation to Thailand would end up being one of the most terrifying experiences of their lives.

The couple from Washington state was in the mall across the street from the Sky Villa construction site when the massive earthquake hit. Briere said he watched in horror as the building fell in the quake's aftermath and described panicked people running for their lives away from the structure. Briere said a huge dust cloud enveloped the area.

"We ran out of the building because it started shaking," Briere said. "I grabbed my wife’s hand and I said, 'Don’t let go.' Immediately, we were just covered in dust and debris, and we couldn’t see, and there were thousands of people just in a panic."

It took just several seconds for the entire building to be reduced to a 7-story-high pile of rubble, the couple said.

The epicenter of the earthquake was in Mandalay, Myanmar, the country's second-largest city. Bangkok is about 600 miles from the epicenter.

A series of aftershocks continued to shake the region Sunday. A 5.1 magnitude aftershock struck about 17 miles north of Mandalay on Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The USGS also recorded another strong aftershock as a 4.2 magnitude quake struck near Shwebo, which is about 68 miles northwest of Mandalay, earlier on Sunday.

Several videos emerged Sunday showing rescuers pulling survivors from the rubble in Myanmar. The Myanmar Fire Services Department released a video overnight showing rescuers pulling a woman alive from a collapsed building. People could be heard cheering in the background as the woman was taken to medics for treatment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted Friday about the potential U.S. response to the earthquake.

"My prayers go out to the people of Burma and Thailand who are impacted by the earthquake," Rubio wrote in a social media post. "We've been in contact with these countries and, as @POTUS said, stand ready to provide assistance."

Rubio also confirmed the State Department’s teams in the affected countries were "safe and secure."

The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar has suspended nonemergency consular services for the time being. The U.S. mission to Thailand has not reported any disruption in services.

ABC News' Karson Yiu, Gamay Palacios and Preechaya Rassadanukul contributed to this report.

Musk hands out $1M checks after efforts to block the giveaways in court are rejected

(MADISON, WI) -- Just hours after the state Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul's effort to block Elon Musk from handing out $1 million checks on Sunday night, the billionaire took the stage at a town hall in Green Bay and gave away two $1 million checks to attendees in his latest effort to support conservative candidate Brad Schimel.

Urging the crowd to back Schimel, Musk cast Tuesday as "a vote for which party controls the House of Representatives" and implied "the future of civilization" is at stake.

One of the recipients of a large, showy check, Nicholas Jacobs, is the chair of the Wisconsin College Republicans.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court's order came just minutes before the event was set to start.

Notably, the court also rejected a bid from Musk's lawyers to ask two justices, who had campaigned for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, to recuse themselves.

The ruling came after an appeals court on Saturday denied Kaul's emergency motion to stop the giveaway from taking place.

Kaul wrote in his initial filing on Friday that he was asking for emergency relief to stop Musk and America PAC "from further promoting a million-dollar giveaway to attendees of a planned event on Sunday, March 30, 2025, and prohibiting Respondents from making any payments to Wisconsin electors to vote."

However, the judge assigned to the case, the Honorable Columbia County Circuit Court Judge W. Andrew Voigt, refused to hear the lawsuit before Sunday's Green Bay rally with Musk -- prompting Kaul's emergency motion asking a Court of Appeals to take action.

After that emergency motion was rejected, Kaul appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to step in on Sunday.

Lawyers for Elon Musk and America PAC then filed motions for the recusal of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Rebecca Frank Dallet and Jill J. Karofsky.

They argued that because Dallet and Karofsky campaigned for Crawford, and Crawford has been critical of Musk, "to avoid any potential perceptions of bias and manifestations of possible bias, Justices Dallet and Karofsky should decline to participate in consideration of this matter."

The lawyers also framed the planned Sunday night giveaways as "spokesperson agreements" for spokespeople for the PAC.

In the initial lawsuit, shared by Kaul's office, Kaul argued that "Musk's announcement of his intention to pay $1 million to two Wisconsin electors who attend his event on Sunday night, specifically conditioned on their having voted in the upcoming April 3, 2025, Wisconsin Supreme Court election, is a blatant attempt to violate" state law, which "forbids anyone from offering or promising to give anything of value to an elector in order to induce the elector to go to the polls, vote or refrain from voting, or vote for a particular person."

The suit asked for a restraining order "prohibiting Defendants from any further promotion of the million-dollar gifts to attendees of the planned Sunday March 30, 2025," as well as a temporary restraining order "prohibiting Defendants from making any payments to Wisconsin electors to vote," and injunctive relief to "restrain and prohibit all actions by Defendants taken in furtherance of a planned violation" of the state law.

In addition to presenting the checks on Sunday night, Musk said his PAC is launching a "Block Captain" program ahead of the election on Tuesday, where participants will make $20 for each picture they post of someone with a Schimel sign and a thumbs up outside of their home.

So far, two political groups aligned with Musk -- America PAC and Building America's Future -- have poured nearly $20 million into supporting Schimel for the open seat.

The world's richest man has used cash giveaways in the past, including a controversial $1 million sweepstakes offered to voters in swing states during last year's election cycle as part of an effort to boost President Donald Trump's chances of winning in those states.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court election, on Tuesday, has generally become the center of a political firestorm, and has become the most expensive state supreme court race in American history, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Zelenskyy urges ‘tough’ Russia measures after Trump shows frustration with Putin

Danylo Antoniuk/Anadolu via Getty Images

(LONDON) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for further "tough measures" against Russia to push President Vladimir Putin into a ceasefire agreement, suggesting after another round of drone strikes that Moscow "couldn't care less about diplomacy."

Long-range cross-border strikes have continued throughout U.S.-mediated efforts to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, intended as a springboard for a broader peace deal to end Russia's 3-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

Both Kyiv and Moscow last week agreed to freeze attacks in the Black Sea and on energy infrastructure, though both have since accused the other of violating the pause on attacking energy targets.

In a Sunday evening video address, Zelenskyy reported "more strikes and shelling" in seven Ukrainian regions. "The geography and brutality of Russian strikes, not just occasionally, but literally every day and night, show that Putin couldn't care less about diplomacy," he said.

"For several weeks now, there has been a U.S. proposal for an unconditional ceasefire," Zelenskyy continued. "And almost every day, in response to this proposal, there are Russian drones, bombs, artillery shelling and ballistic strikes."

"Russia deserves increased pressure -- all the tough measures that can break its capacity to wage war and sustain the system that wants nothing but war," Zelenskyy said. "Sanctions against Russia are essential. More air defense for Ukraine is essential. More cooperation and unity among all partners is essential."

President Donald Trump on Sunday hinted at his apparent frustration with the lack of progress toward a peace deal in Ukraine, telling NBC News he was "very angry" at Putin after the Russian leader again criticized Zelenskyy and called for his removal in favor of a transitional government.

Trump added that he would consider applying new sanctions on Russia's lucrative oil exports and on any nations purchasing its oil. China and India are among the most significant customers for Russian oil products.

The president later told reporters on Air Force One that his administration was making significant progress toward ending the war. Asked about his relationship with Putin, Trump responded, "I don't think he's going to go back on his word."

"I've known him for a long time," Trump said. "We've always gotten along well despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax."

The president said he was "disappointed" by Putin's latest attacks on Zelenskyy. "He considers him not credible, he's supposed to be making a deal with him, whether you like him or you don't like him, so I wasn't happy with that."

Asked if there was a deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire, Trump suggested there was a "psychological deadline." He added, "If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it."

Russia and Ukraine continued cross-border strikes through Sunday night into Monday morning.

Ukraine's air force said Russia launched two missiles and 131 drones into the country overnight, of which it said 57 drones were shot down and 45 lost in flight without causing damage. The Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions were affected by the attack, the air force said in a post to Telegram.

Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down 66 Ukrainian drones overnight -- 41 over Bryansk region, 24 over Kaluga region and one over Kursk region.

ABC News' Hannah Demissie and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.

Trial will determine who will pay $600 million settlement in disastrous Norfolk Southern derailment

(AP) – Norfolk Southern wants two other companies to help pay for the $600 million class-action settlement it agreed to over its disastrous 2023 train derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and the toxic chemicals that were released and burned.

The railroad filed the motion that is set to go to trial starting Monday to force the railcar owner GATX and the chemical manufacturer OxyVinyls to share the cost of the settlement because Norfolk Southern believes those companies are partly responsible for what happened in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023.

This lawsuit won’t change anything about how much money residents will receive from the settlement or any payments the village or anyone else is set to receive because those are all established in various settlement agreements. This case will only affect which company has to write the checks to pay for the class-action settlement.

Residents are still waiting to receive most of the money from the settlement because of pending appeals, although some payments have started to go out.

An assortment of chemicals spilled and caught fire after the train derailed in East Palestine. Three days later, officials blew open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride because they feared those cars might explode, generating a massive black plume of smoke that spread over the town and forced evacuations.

Many residents still worry today about potential health consequences from those chemicals.

The derailment was the worst rail disaster since a crude oil train devastated the small Canadian town of Lac-Megantic and killed 47 people in 2013. It prompted the U.S. to focus on rail safety and reforms, which were proposed in Congress before stalling without passing.
Norfolk Southern says companies share the responsibility

Norfolk Southern already lost a similar lawsuit last year when it tried to force GATX and OxyVinyls to help pay for the environmental cleanup after the derailment that has cost the Atlanta-based railroad more than $1 billion. It is making similar arguments again to try to get help paying for the class-action settlement.

“Norfolk Southern alone has paid the costs relating to the derailment despite ample evidence that other parties share in the responsibility. This trial is about reinforcing the role shippers and railcar owners play in transportation safety and ensuring everyone responsible pays their fair share,” the railroad said in a statement.

Norfolk Southern, like most railroads, doesn’t own most of the cars it hauls, and the railroad says everyone involved in shipping hazardous chemicals bears some responsibility for ensuring their safety under federal regulations.

Norfolk Southern argues GATX bears some responsibility for the derailment because it owned the railcar filled with plastic pellets that caused the derailment when its bearing overheated, caught fire and failed that night, sending 38 cars off the rails.

Norfolk Southern also said it believes OxyVinyls should pay because the railroad says chemical manufacturer provided inconsistent and inaccurate information about its vinyl chloride before officials decided to release and burn it.
Companies say Norfolk Southern was responsible for safety

Both GATX and OxyVinyls say it would be ridiculous to hold them responsible for the derailment when Norfolk Southern operated and inspected the train and all the cars and was responsible for delivering the cargo safely.

“Norfolk Southern’s claims against GATX are baseless,” the railcar owner said in a statement.

GATX said it complied with all the relevant regulations for taking care of its railcars. The company said that even if the car was damaged six years earlier by standing parked in the middle of floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey, the railroad should have spotted the problem and repaired it, sending GATX the bill for the repairs.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the crash was caused by the failure of an overheating bearing on GATX’s railcar. The railroad’s sensors spotted the bearing starting to heat up in the miles before the derailment, but it didn’t reach a critical temperature and trigger an alarm until just before the derailment. That left the crew scant time to stop the train.

Norfolk Southern recommended the vent-and-burn operation to release the vinyl chloride based partly on information about the chemical that OxyVinyls had published beforehand suggesting a chemical reaction could happen and cause the tank cars to explode.

But the NTSB confirmed in its investigation that was unnecessary because the tank cars were starting to cool off and the railroad failed to listen to the advice from OxyVinyls’ experts or share their opinions with the officials who made the decision.

“This trial is nothing more than Norfolk Southern’s continued attempt to shift the blame, attention, and financial responsibility for its train derailment, response, and vent and burn decision to anyone other than itself,” the Texas-based company said. “OxyVinyls did not cause the derailment, its tank cars did not breach, and it did not make the decision to vent and burn the VCM (vinyl chloride monomer) cars.”

The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.

US immigration officials look to expand social media data collection

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. immigration officials are asking the public and federal agencies to comment on a proposal to collect social media handles from people applying for benefits such as green cards or citizenship, to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The March 5 notice raised alarms from immigration and free speech advocates because it appears to expand the government’s reach in social media surveillance to people already vetted and in the U.S. legally, such as asylum seekers, green card and citizenship applicants — and not just those applying to enter the country. That said, social media monitoring by immigration officials has been a practice for over a decade, since at least the second Obama administration and ramping up under Trump’s first term.

Below are some questions and answers on what the new proposal means and how it might expand social media surveillance.

What is the proposal?

The Department of Homeland Security issued a 60-day notice asking for public commentary on its plan to comply with Trump’s executive order titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.” The plan calls for “uniform vetting standards” and screening people for grounds of inadmissibility to the U.S., as well as identify verification and “national security screening.” It seeks to collect social media handles and the names of platforms, although not passwords.

The policy seeks to require people to share their social media handles when applying for U.S. citizenship, green card, asylum and other immigration benefits. The proposal is open to feedback from the public until May 5.

What is changing?

“The basic requirements that are in place right now is that people who are applying for immigrant and non-immigrant visas have to provide their social media handles,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, managing director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program at New York University. “Where I could see this impacting is someone who came into the country before visa-related social media handle collection started, so they wouldn’t have provided it before and now they’re being required to. Or maybe they did before, but their social media use has changed.”

“This fairly widely expanded policy to collect them for everyone applying for any kind of immigration benefit, including people who have already been vetted quite extensively,” she added.

What this points to — along with other signals the administration is sending such as detaining people and revoking student visas for participating in campus protests that the government deems antisemitic and sympathetic to the militant Palestinian group Hamas — Levinson-Waldman added, is the increased use of social media to “make these very high-stakes determinations about people.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service said the agency seeks to “strengthen fraud detection, prevent identity theft, and support the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible.”

“These efforts ensure that those seeking immigration benefits to live and work in the United States do not threaten public safety, undermine national security, or promote harmful anti-American ideologies,” the statement continued. USCIS estimates that the proposed policy change will affect about 3.6 million people.

How are social media accounts used now?

The U.S. government began ramping up the use of social media for immigration vetting in 2014 under then-President Barack Obama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In late 2015, the Department of Homeland Security began both “manual and automatic screening of the social media accounts of a limited number of individuals applying to travel to the United States, through various non-public pilot programs,” the nonpartisan law and policy institute explains on its website.

In May 2017, the U.S. Department of State issued an emergency notice to increase the screening of visa applicants. Brennan, along with other civil and human rights groups, opposed the move, arguing that it is “excessively burdensome and vague, is apt to chill speech, is discriminatory against Muslims, and has no security benefit.”

Two years later, the State Department began collecting social media handles from “nearly all foreigners” applying for visas to travel to the U.S. — about 15 million people a year.

How is AI used?

Artificial intelligence tools used to comb through potentially millions of social media accounts have evolved over the past decade, although experts caution that such tools have limits and can make mistakes.

Leon Rodriguez, who served as the director of USCIS from 2014 to 2017 and now practices as an immigration attorney, said while AI could be used as a first screening tool, he doesn’t think “we’re anywhere close to where AI will be able to exercise the judgment of a trained fraud detection and national security officer” or that of someone in an intelligence agency.

“It’s also possible that I will miss stuff,” he added. “Because AI is still very much driven by specific search criteria and it’s possible that the search criteria won’t hit actionable content.”

What are the concerns?

“Social media is just a stew, so much different information — some of it is reliable, some of it isn’t. Some of it can be clearly attributed to somebody, some of it can’t. And it can be very hard to interpret,” Levinson-Waldman said. “So I think as a baseline matter, just using social media to make high-stakes decisions is quite concerning.”

Then there’s the First Amendment.

“It’s by and large established that people in the U.S. have First Amendment rights,” she said. This includes people who are not citizens. “And obviously, there are complicated ways that that plays out. There is also fairly broad authority for the government to do something like revoking somebody’s visa, if you’re not a citizen, then there’s steps that the government can take — but by and large, with very narrow exceptions, that cannot be on the grounds of speech that would be protected (by the First Amendment).”

Drugs, gun, stolen vehicle recovered after chase ends in Henderson

HENDERSON — The Panola County Sheriff’s Office said that drugs, a firearm and a stolen vehicle were recovered after a chase ended in Henderson on Saturday. According to our news partner KETK, the sheriff’s office said that one of their deputies found a vehicle in Carthage that was reported stolen by the Bossier City Police Department in Louisiana. The deputy conducted a traffic stop but the vehicle’s driver allegedly refused to leave the vehicle and then fled on Highway 59 North, according to the sheriff’s office.

The driver took Highway 59 into Harrison County before heading westbound on Interstate 20 with deputies from Panola County and the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office pursuing the vehicle along with a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper. Continue reading Drugs, gun, stolen vehicle recovered after chase ends in Henderson

In Focus: 03/30/25 – Lexington Fowler – Communications Director for the Children’s Advocacy of Smith County

Airdate: 03/30/25

Guests: Lexington Fowler – Communications Director for the Children’s Advocacy of Smith County

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3.5 magnitude earthquake reported near Nacogdoches

NACOGDOCHES — The Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Office reported that a 3.5 magnitude earthquake struck the county on Friday night, according to our news partner KETK. The United States Geological Survey reported that the earthquake happened at 10:05 p.m. on Friday night at a location 13 kilometers northeast of Wells near Lake Nacogdoches.

Deputies with the sheriff’s office and local volunteer firefighters checked on local residents as a precaution and luckily no injuries were reported. The sheriff’s office said that residents should be careful and turn off their gas if they suspect the earthquake has damaged their lines.

The earthquake was mostly felt near Nacogdoches but was also reportedly felt as far north as Henderson and as far south as Lufkin, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Local Grandy’s closed for good

TYLER — Grandy’s at 1226 S Beckham Ave in Tyler has permanently closed down, according to a sign posted on their door and drive-thru window obtained by our news partner KETK. The sign states that the store was closed permanently on March 23. The Tyler Grandy’s was one of more than 45 Grandy’s locations across the country. The Grandy’s chain started in 1972 and currently has it’s headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee.

Investigation underway following fatal wreck on Hwy 31

TYLER — One person is dead following a car crash on Friday afternoon on Highway 31 west, near Bellwood Lake Road. According to Tyler Police Department Public Information Officer Andy Erbaugh and our news partner KETK, the crash happened around 3:00. Erbaugh said both drivers were taken to a hospital, where one of them died. Additional details were not available.