KTBB News, Weather, Talk

AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – The family of the victim in a child sex abuse case prosecuted by the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office is speaking out against the use of the case by politicians, saying they are “tired of being used.”

Paxton’s Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, in the U.S. Senate race has zeroed in on the case as a major line of attack against the attorney general. Talarico has held at least two press conferences in recent weeks raising questions about Paxton’s handling of the case in which his office offered an initial plea deal of one day in jail to a Waco man charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy.

“We have not given any statement to Talarico. We have not spoke to him. We are tired of being used in this election. We are tired of lies being told by both Paxton & Talarico, tired of the divide and just tired,” the family said in a statement posted on social media by family spokesperson Melissa Dieterich.

Talarico’s campaign in a statement Friday said he is joining the voices of many others who are calling for “justice.”

“This family has gone through hell. They have experienced something unimaginable and deserve our care and respect,” said spokesperson JT Ennis. “Our team has facilitated outreach to offer our support and ensure the family has a way to get in touch at any time, for any reason.”

“Elected officials on both sides of the aisle have called out this plea deal,” he added. “The judge presiding over the case has called out this plea deal. Residents of Waco have protested this plea deal. Texans have demanded justice to ensure this never happens to another family.”

The case involved a 49-year-old lawyer, Adam Dean Hoffman, who was accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy for years. As The Texas Tribune, The Texas Newsroom and KWBU reported in May, court records showed that the case ended in a mistrial, and the victim refused to testify for a second time, severely curtailing prosecutors’ options.

Hoffman, as part of the plea deal, admitted to molesting the victim and surrendered his law license. The details of the deal sparked a public outcry, prompting protests outside the local courthouse, and gaining national attention.

The deal has attracted criticism from local officials in Waco, including the McLennan County district attorney, Republican state representatives and even the judge presiding over the matter. That visiting judge, Roy Sparkman, who previously served on the bench as a Republican, had rejected an earlier version of the deal that would have allowed Hoffman to serve just one day in jail.

Paxton’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A campaign spokesperson has previously said Talarico is “intentionally re-traumatizing the child victim for personal gain.”

“OAG prosecutors have already released information on this, but Talarico cares more about turning a child victim into a political pawn than the truth,” Madison Cercy said. The bottom line is that we stand with the child victim.”

The prosecutors for the attorney general’s office in May issued a letter to a state lawmaker who was publicly raising questions about the deal, saying they were prepared to move forward with a second trial, but the victim was not.

“The child emphasized that he preferred to move on with his life and prioritize his mental and emotional health,” wrote the prosecutors, Brenda Cantu and Dorian Cotlar.

Talarico was not the first to make political hay out of the case. Republican John Cornyn, the four-term incumbent who lost the May 26 runoff to Paxton, had also capitalized on the controversy and published several campaign advertisements criticizing Paxton as a weak top lawyer, citing the Hoffman case and others.

The family, for their part, has also spoken publicly about the case, through spokespeople, and joined state Rep. Jeff Leach and Pat Curry in a May news conference, also outside the McLennan County Courthouse.

Leach read a statement from the mother of the victim who called the agreement with Hoffman a “sweetheart deal” and said “Ken Paxton must be held accountable.” She did not explicitly call on voters to support Cornyn. Dieterich that day said Paxton “does not deserve a promotion to the U.S. Senate.”

To see this article in its original form go to The Texas Tribune.

LUFKIN (KETK) – Lufkin ISD announced this week that they’re no longer hosting their ACE after-school care program after they weren’t selected for a needed state grant this year.

The Texas ACE (Afterschool Centers on Education) program is a free after-school and summer program that provides after school care for around 130,000 students at schools across the state.

Lufkin ISD has been a part of that program for the past five years and has received state grants from the Texas Education Agency in order to pay staff that take care of students after school. Now the district says they haven’t been selected for the 2026-2027 school year ACE grant, leaving students and parents with one less option for after-school care.

“We understand that this news may be disappointing and may create challenges for families who have relied on Texas ACE for academic support, enrichment, summer learning, and family engagement opportunities,” Lufkin ISD Texas ACE Project Director Tamara Anguiano said.

Anguiano thanked ACE staff for all the meaningful work they put in throughout the program’s five years at Lufkin ISD.

“For the past five years, Texas ACE has provided meaningful experiences that helped students learn, grow, and connect,” Anguiano said. “We are deeply grateful to our dedicated Texas ACE staff, participating campuses, principals, teachers, support staff, district administration, and district leadership for their commitment and continued support.”

She also thanked students and parents for trusting and participating in the program while it lasted.

“Most importantly, we thank our students and families for your trust, participation, and enthusiasm. The relationships formed, memories created, and experiences shared will remain an important part of the Texas ACE legacy in Lufkin ISD,” Anguiano said. “Although we are deeply disappointed that the program will not continue, we are proud of what was built together and grateful to everyone who helped make the past five years possible.”

SALINAS, Ca, (AP) – Taylor Farms has expanded a voluntary recall of its iceberg lettuce products sourced from central Mexico because of a potential link to the multistate cyclospora outbreak that has sickened people across the U.S.

Products with the potential to be contaminated with the diarrhea-causing parasite were shipped to 27 states including Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Jersey, the California-based company said in a statement Friday.

“We are actively removing the implicated products,” the statement said, adding that the company has stopped sourcing lettuce from an implicated lot in central Mexico.

U.S. health officials earlier this week identified lettuce from a supplier in Mexico as a source of cyclospora contamination in food served at Taco Bell restaurants in five Midwestern states.

The Taylor Farms recall announcement listed 25 shredded lettuce and salad mix products sold under eight different brand codes. Taylor Farms did not respond to an emailed request for the full names of those brands or retailers. The recalled products were shipped as recently as Thursday and have “best by” dates as late as Aug. 3.

Sysco, the nation’s largest food distributor, has halted distribution of all Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce products sourced from Mexico and instructed customers to destroy them.

Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that infects food that has come into contact with human feces, most commonly when produce is irrigated or washed with contaminated water. When ingested, the parasite causes intestinal illness marked by “frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC.

In 2026, cyclospora has sickened at least 1,645 people in the U.S. and hospitalized 141, according to the CDC, which is investigating more than 5,000 additional illnesses that may be linked to the parasite. This time last year, only 249 cases had been reported.

The CDC initially warned consumers to avoid eating shredded lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

UVALDE (AP) – After deadly floods killed more than 100 people in Texas’ Hill Country last July, officials vowed major changes in hopes of preventing the failures that contributed to the high death toll. They promised better flood warning systems, tighter safety rules for children’s camps and improvements to the state’s water infrastructure.

That work was far from done when a new round of storms began pummeling the state this week, triggering catastrophic flash floods in some of the same areas devastated in 2025. At least two people died. Hundreds needed rescue.

But residents in some hard-hit areas said a year of preparation did make a difference. Newly installed flood sirens sounded in the darkness, warning people to get out. Phones buzzed with alerts that weren’t sent out in last year’s disaster.

Still, stories of people surprised to find their homes inundated by rising rivers illustrate the challenges of trying to bolster early warning systems in a vast, rural area known as Flash Flood Alley.
Some agencies were more proactive about sending wireless alerts

Over the last decade, a variety of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to implement flood warning systems along the Guadalupe River, the AP reported after last summer’s floods killed 136 people, including 28 at a sleepaway camp for girls.

That changed after the tragedy as lawmakers and others scrutinized a lack of preparedness by government agencies and riverside camps.

Unlike last summer, when local officials in Kerr County said they had been reluctant to “cry wolf” and order evacuations and failed to send out wireless alerts to warn of flash floods, Kerr County issued four alerts and the city of Kerrville issued one early on Thursday as the risk for flooding became apparent, according to an Associated Press review of available data.

They warned residents along Quinlan Creek to evacuate to higher ground, and of “extremely dangerous” flash flooding. Those alerts came alongside flood watches, warnings and emergencies sent to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones by the National Weather Service. People who signed up for the CodeRED notification emergency system in Kerr County also received text message warnings.

“Last year, we got no alarms. We had no idea what was going on,” said Suzanne Sutphin Gschwind, of Kerrville.

“This year, very different,” she said, with multiple texts and calls coming in from local authorities, a weather channel and her doorbell camera. One night the warnings arrived “about every two hours.”

“I think we would all like to err on the side of too much,” she said.

The warnings didn’t reach everyone

Between the early morning hours of Tuesday and about 9 a.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service sent 38 alerts to people in certain southwest Texas communities, including 14 tornado warnings and 24 warnings that flooding was occurring or imminent and could be “life threatening.”

Those Weather Service notifications, though, often don’t contain the highly localized information put in alerts sometimes sent by municipal and county emergency agencies — and people in some places may not have gotten any of those local alerts, which can be more decisive for people considering whether to seek high ground.

An Associated Press review of wireless emergency alert data did not find any listed as sent by agencies in Uvalde County, which was hit hard by flooding, though agencies in that county might have used other means to alert the public.

Jaclyn Gonzales was awakened at 2 a.m. Wednesday by a friend who called to warn that a tornado might be headed toward her Uvalde-area home. When she jumped out of bed, the floor was wet.

“It was the shock of the water to my feet that made me really wake up,” she said.

Kat Sprawls only learned floodwaters were nearing her Batesville home when a friend called her at 3:30 a.m. Friday. It took five or six calls before she woke up, because she had her phone on do-not-disturb mode.

“There’s no warning system at all. It’s just like the flood in Kerrville last year — we had no warnings,” Sprawls said. “Over half of Batesville is under water now.”

Zavala County Sheriff’s Department secretary Jessica Belmarez said the department is updating its Facebook page with evacuation information and that law enforcement officers were going door-to-door in affected areas, including Batesville.
The network of flood sirens is expanding

Newly installed sirens in Ingram and in Kerr and Kendall counties were used this week to warn residents, said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who authored legislation in 2025 to help fund the sirens. Twenty-eight additional counties are also eligible for flood warning funding. Most are in the process of putting together implementation plans for review by the Texas Water Development Board.

“Between the outdoor sirens, and the cellphone alerts, the response was very positive in getting people out of the way and to higher ground,” Bettencourt said. “It’s an enormous improvement over a year ago.”

Three of six new sirens installed in Kerr County were used to warn people to seek high ground, said Tara Bushnoe, manager of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority. The other three were in areas with only minor flooding, Bushnoe said.

The small town of Comfort had one warning siren for years. The volunteer fire department recently installed two more.

“Some people just don’t want to leave — that’s our problem here,” said Danny Morales, the assistant fire chief. “But we did set them off twice, probably an hour from one to another, just because we had people just lingering, and not wanting to move.”
Private companies are working to fill the gaps

Ian Cunningham founded River Sentry after the 2025 floods, building flood siren towers for privately owned sites like RV parks, camps and hotels. The sirens are triggered by rising water levels.

So far, the company has installed 104 sirens along the Guadalupe River, Cunningham said, including several near the site of an RV park where more than three dozen people died in 2025.

“We installed them about three months ago and did not expect them to be used so soon,” Cunningham said.

Hononu, which has developed water-level sensor technology and a real-time data network, received a state contract that will make it easier for agencies to purchase its flood warning technology.

Watch Duty, a fire-tracking app used by millions, expanded earlier this year to help monitor floods.
Officials say the changes saved lives

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the lessons of 2025 led to a better emergency response this time.

“Everybody in Texas has been far more prepared to deal with what has happened this year,” Abbott said during a news conference in Uvalde. “Lives have been saved.”

UVALDE (AP) — First responders in storm-battered Texas again rushed to save people trapped in high waters Friday, as more heavy rain widened the danger from floods that have killed at least two people and left hundreds more in need of rescue.

A week of punishing downpours dumped more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) in some areas. The rain was expected to taper off, but another round of showers worsened already swollen rivers and flooded rural communities near the border with Mexico that had largely been spared major damage.

Near Ozona, a small town about 200 miles (322 kilometers) west of San Antonio, floodwaters spilled over Interstate 10. More than 50 people were rescued by boat from flooded apartments and a water-logged RV park.

A section of a bridge also collapsed over the Nueces River in Uvalde County, where months worth of rain has fallen in a span of days. In Uvalde, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio, floodwaters rushed through Miguel Vasquez’s home twice this week, leaving a layer of mud and knocking over his refrigerator and other items.

Debris was strewn around his neighborhood and a neighbor’s shed teetered over a washed-away section of the property. He said Friday that he’d been caught in the waters’ current and nearly been swept away and drowned in trying to get to his house Wednesday.

“I had to grab on with my hands and my feet. You couldn’t swim,” he said. “People think that when there’s a flood, you can swim. Swimming’s not going to help you. It’ll take you. The current’s too strong.”
Almost a trillion gallons of water fell in a flood-prone area

Nearly 1 trillion gallons of water fell on the three hardest-hit counties over three days — enough to fill 1.5 million Olympic-sized swimming pools or supply 11 million homes for a year.

Uvalde County alone got more rain in that period than California has seen over the last month, according to Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

The Hill Country is especially prone to flash floods because the area’s signature limestone is covered by just a thin layer of soil. During heavy rains, water can quickly shoot downhill before filling the narrow river basins.

Emergency personnel across a wide swath of southern and central Texas have rescued more than 570 people, including stranded drivers and people trapped in homes, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Hill Country residents were beginning to clean up after floodwaters again barreled down the Guadalupe River and through communities still reeling from deadly floods a year ago.

Floodwaters on the Rio Grande temporarily closed the two international bridges on the border with Mexico at Eagle Pass, stranding a few people on the wrong side. About 600 huge buoys placed on the river to deter migrants from crossing into the U.S. illegally were set adrift by the rising waters, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said.

Cuellar said about 480 of them were captured by noon Friday. Critics have worried about the damage the buoys might do if they became untethered and got caught along banks and against bridge piers. Each is about 15 feet (4.6 meters) long and weighs 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms).

In the Hill Country, Serena Reyna woke up Thursday morning to find her Kerrville boutique, Nu Accents, covered in debris after four feet of floodwater rushed into the store. She described the store as “a total loss.”

“The floors, I mean they’re soaked in mud and still you know an inch of water in some spots,” she said.

The Texas Department of Transportation said high waters closed a 50-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 57 and that parts of the roadway were not expected to reopen until Monday.

In all, roughly 6 million residents across Texas were under a flood watch at various points this week.

Floodwaters had overrun Uvalde and cut off most outside routes, making it one of the hardest hit cities. The waters were receding Friday, and officials said a major highway, Route 90, had reopened.

One person died while driving on a flooded road, swept away near Uvalde, authorities said.

Another victim, 65-year-old John Mark Steward of Kerrville, died after his mobile home was swept into Goat Creek on the Guadalupe River, his wife said. The same river was wrecked by flash floods last year when two dozen children and counselors died at Camp Mystic. Authorities on Thursday said summer campers were safe.

In Ozona, the seat of Crockett County, authorities used seven rescue boat teams to get people out of the hardest-hit areas. They were taken to the local civic center for shelter.

Eddie Martin, the county’s emergency management director, said the area received 6 inches of rain after midnight, on top of nearly 10 inches of rain before that.

“We have more and more accidents on the interstate,” he said. “We have more and more water pouring into the neighborhoods where we’ve been pulling people out of.”

HOUSTON (AP) – A federal prosecutor in Texas shared new details Thursday evening about the moments before an immigration officer shot and killed a Mexican national and longtime U.S. resident in early July. The disclosure complicates the government’s earlier claim that the man struck an ICE vehicle before he was shot.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, on July 7 as he was driving to a Houston construction job site with three co-workers, one of whom was his brother. The shooting sparked protests in the sprawling Texas city, echoing Salgado Araujo’s family’s calls for transparency. The family describes him as a hardworking father very close to obtaining legal status in the U.S. after living in the country for 35 years.

The shooting came just days before two other men in Florida and Maine died as part of President Donald Trump’s federal immigration crackdown, renewing scrutiny on the Department of Homeland Security’s law enforcement tactics.

Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said for the first time on Thursday that ICE officers were targeting two Guatemalan men who were potentially subject to deportation. He said they were driving a van similar to the one Salgado Araujo was driving when he was killed. In an earlier statement released the day Salgado Araujo was killed, DHS said he was targeted in an immigration enforcement operation, and he was living in the country without legal permission.

Reitz also said that the officers believed that Salgado Araujo and the passengers in his car fit the description of the Guatemalan men the agents were looking for.

Four officers driving two separate law enforcement vehicles attempted to pull over Salgado Araujo’s van using their police lights. Salgado Araujo then made a U-turn and drove over a median to evade getting pulled over, Reitz said.

Later that morning, the officers again encountered Salgado Araujo’s van and for the second time tried to pull him over, this time effectively surrounding the vehicle, Reitz said. Two of the four agents got out of their cars and told Salgado Araujo to put the vehicle in park. Just before he was shot, one of the agents was “partially inside the van or immediately next to it” when Salgado Araujo tried to reverse and then drive forward again, Reitz said.

An earlier DHS statement accused Salgado Araujo of weaponizing his vehicle. The agency said he rammed his van into a law enforcement vehicle and said an officer opened fire in self-defense. The most recent statement from the U.S attorney’s office, however, didn’t mention any collision between Salgado Araujo’s van and a law enforcement vehicle. It also didn’t explicitly say that the officer feared for his life. There are no reported injuries for the officers involved.

The latest statement didn’t name the officer who killed Salgado Araujo, nor did it specify if the officer who fired the shot was the same person who was next to, or partially inside, the van.

Reitz also said in the statement that officers “saw in plain view several small bags of a white, crystal-like substance inside the van” and that the FBI later executed a search warrant to investigate for possible illicit substances. Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van when the shooting happened, has been in ICE detention since the incident. His attorney said the white substance was a salt mixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.

Few photos or videos surrounding the shooting in Houston have emerged on social media, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.