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EL PASO – El Paso Matters reports that the El Paso District Attorney’s Office improperly directed the alteration of court records as it prepared to appeal the dismissal of dozens of cases against migrants charged with rioting when they entered the country earlier this year, a judge ruled this week. “The State’s failure to notify the trial Court that the Certification Order had been altered, and its refusal to respond to requests for a hearing by the Defense to ensure that the record that was transmitted to the Court of Appeals was correct, indicate that the State was not and is not acting in good faith to ensure an accurate record,” County Court at Law 7 Judge Ruben Morales wrote in an order issued late Wednesday. “The lack of good faith by the State is further evidenced by its refusal to cooperate with the trial Court in setting this matter for an evidentiary hearing and its reluctance to participate in the hearing.” He ordered that the altered record be removed from the hearing record provided to the 8th Court of Appeals, which could make it more difficult for prosecutors to challenge Morales’ June 6 decision to dismiss charges against migrants who were arrested as part of Texas’ Operation Lone Star, which seeks to deter illegal entry into the United States and use state charges to prosecute those who do.

BEDFORD – The Dallas Morning News reports two ministries that broadcast TV shows on Daystar Television Network have announced they are parting ways with the Bedford-based company, which has been rocked by a family rift over child abuse allegations. LoveIsrael, a Bible teaching ministry led by Baruch Korman, announced in a YouTube video Tuesday that the organization is taking its shows off Daystar’s network. And Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, an author and former co-host of The 700 Club Canada, announced last month that she was removing her show, Laura-Lynn Live at the Eagle’s Nest, from Daystar. Daystar did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the departures of LoveIsrael and Thompson.

“I could no longer be a part of it [the network],” Thompson told The Dallas Morning News in a Dec. 18 interview. She said her show had been airing on Daystar for about six weeks before she terminated the relationship. “When I saw Joni Lamb make a brief statement… and talking about performance reviews and that he [Lamb’s son] has engaged in a smear campaign, my heart as a mother sank,” Thompson said. Korman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the video, Korman said his organization has had a relationship with Daystar for about 10 years, and would be severing its relationship with the network “as soon as possible.” LoveIsrael says on its website that its weekly TV program is broadcast in about 190 countries, including on Daystar’s network. Daystar broadcasts a slate of around-the-clock programming to over 100 TV stations across the country, and its programming includes shows hosted by some of the most influential evangelical televangelists and pastors including Joel Osteen and Dallas’ Bishop T.D. Jakes.

PECOS (AP) — Federal officials investigating the deadly West Texas collision between at Union Pacific train and a tractor-trailer hauling a wind turbine base said Friday they were trying to determine why the tractor-trailer was stopped on the tracks, leading to the crash that derailed the train and propelled the enormous wind turbine base into the air.

Two employees of Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific were killed in the collision Wednesday at a railway crossing in Pecos. The National Transportation Safety Board said it hasn’t yet determined how long the tractor-trailer was on the tracks before the collision or if anyone tried to contact the railroad through the emergency number posted at the crossing.

The train was traveling at about 68 mph (109 kph) before the crew applied emergency brakes prior to impact, the NTSB said.

The collision caused the wind turbine base to fly into a nearby building, NTSB said. The Chamber of Commerce building was damaged in the collision, and a Reeves County official has said that some people in the building were injured.

The Pecos police chief has said all of the three injuries from the collision were minor.

NTSB said that a data recorder recovered from the wreckage is being transported to its lab.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A teacher at a San Antonio-area day care was killed and another employee and five toddlers were injured when a parent’s car accelerated into another vehicle in the parking lot and both vehicles crashed into a play area, authorities said.

The crash happened Thursday afternoon as parents were leaving a holiday performance at the preschool in Boerne. The teacher who died was Alexia Rosales, 22, authorities said.

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said a 23-year-old employee and five 1-year-olds were injured and taken to the hospital.

Sheriff Javier Salazar said a parent had put her children into her vehicle and suddenly accelerated for an unknown reason. He said her vehicle hit another in the parking lot, sending both vehicles through a fence and into an area where students were playing.

“It appears to be just a very tragic accident,” Salazar said.

AUSTIN (AP) — A second attempt by Texas lawmakers to bring a man on death row to the state Capitol over doubts that he killed his 2-year-old daughter failed again Friday, dimming the likelihood of Robert Roberson testifying publicly after a last-minute subpoena halted his execution.

Roberson, who had been scheduled to be die by lethal injection in October, would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed over a conviction tied to shaken baby syndrome, a diagnosis that medical experts have questioned.

The latest unsuccessful effort to have Roberson testify comes after Texas’ attorney general asked a court to block a second legislative subpoena issued by lawmakers, who are running out of time until the Legislature reconvenes in January and the subpoena expires.

“We have been attempting to fight accommodation since October, and they have never responded to anything meaningfully because they don’t want to have Robert here,” said Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody, one of the lawmakers who led the effort to halt Roberson’s execution.

Roberson, 58, was convicted of killing his daughter in 2003. Prosecutors argued that he violently shook his daughter back and forth, causing severe head trauma in what’s called shaken baby syndrome.

The state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, has staunchly defended Roberson’s conviction and said the science around shaken baby syndrome has not changed enough to absolve his guilt.

In the court order, Paxton’s office said that “it is not the role of the Legislature to adjudicate offenses” and that lawmakers overstepped their power when they halted his execution.

The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued their first subpoena for Roberson to testify one day before his scheduled execution — an unprecedent legal maneuver that successfully staved off his execution.

A new execution date has not been set.

Texas has a “junk science law” that allows people wrongfully convicted on dubious science to have their sentences overturned. The House committee said they wanted Roberson to testify about this law and how they believe it has not worked as intended for his case. Criminal justice advocates say the state’s highest criminal court has deliberately misinterpreted the law.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled in November that although the subpoena was valid, it cannot be used to circumvent a scheduled execution.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has maintained that Roberson was rightfully convicted. The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole voted unanimously to not recommend him clemency in October.

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DALLAS — The Texas Employment Forecast released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates jobs will increase 1.6 percent in 2024, with an 80 percent confidence band of 1.5 to 1.7 percent.

This is smaller than the previous month’s forecast of 2.2 percent for 2024.????????

The forecast is based on an average of four models that include projected national GDP, oil futures prices,?and the Texas and U.S. leading indexes. Three of the four forecasts declined this month as a result of weaker leading indexes and lower oil futures prices. Downward benchmark revisions to second quarter job growth also played a role.

Texas employment growth has disappointed in recent months, increasing only an annualized 0.9 percent in November and 0.1 percent in October.

“Texas employment expansion was weak, with only 10,000 jobs added in November,” said Jesus Cañas, Dallas Fed senior business economist. “Gains were concentrated in smaller private sector services, such as information and financial activities, although some larger sectors also expanded including the education and health sector and government.”

The forecast suggests 230,000 jobs will be added in the state this year, and employment in December 2024 will be 14.2 million.????

The unemployment rate, which takes into account changes in the total labor force along with other factors, increased in almost all of Texas’ major metros in November. This includes Brownsville–Harlingen, Dallas–Plano–Irving, El Paso, Fort Worth–Arlington, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, Laredo and San Antonio–New Braunfels, according to?seasonally adjusted numbers?from the Dallas Fed.???? ????

The rate was unchanged in Austin–Round Rock.

The Texas statewide unemployment rate increased to 4.2 percent in November.?????

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas is putting up dozens of billboards in Mexico and Central American countries warning migrants of the dangers of trying to come to the U.S., Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday. The billboards will offer bleak messages in multiple languages. “Many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped,” one will say. “Your wife and daughter will pay for their trip with their bodies,” will read another. A third will ask, “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?” “This is tough medicine,” Abbott told reporters in Eagle Pass, describing the roughly $100,000 marketing campaign as an attempt to push back on messaging by cartels and smugglers. He did not say where the money for the ads was coming from.

“We are trying to provide a push back against that narrative and provide reality — facts — for immigrants thinking about coming here to save their lives, to save them from sexual assault — save them from being arrested, and let them know there are consequences if they take any further steps to come to the state of Texas,” Abbott said. The governor rolled out the campaign on a border ranch where the owners say they have found migrant women beaten and “left to die.” “It makes you terrified to go outside of your own house and enjoy your own property,” Kimberly Wall said. Sexual assault of migrants has been documented for years, though there is limited data on its prevalence. The New York Times in 2019 found more than 100 documented reports of sexual assault of undocumented women along the border in the past two decades, a number the paper reported is probably far from a complete accounting. Reuters reported last year that criminal investigations of rape in the Mexican border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros were the highest on record, as more migrants were waiting there for legal entry into the country to claim asylum.

(BELLVILLE) — A family in Austin County, Texas, is anxiously waiting for the return of their 3-year-old kangaroo after the marsupial pushed a gate open and hopped a fence.

The 5-foot-tall kangaroo, named Rowdy, was last seen early Wednesday morning on Pyka Road near Interstate 10 in Austin County, according to the kangaroo’s owner.

Local radio DJ Dana Tyson said she saw the kangaroo while heading to work, she told Houston ABC News affiliate KTRK.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think a kangaroo would jump in front of my car,” Tyson told KTRK.

Tyson recorded the kangaroo on camera and said she later found out a nearby resident, Marsha Matus, was missing one.

Matus said she is anxious for Rowdy’s safe return because she knows he is scared.

“He is our baby. He is not your stereotypical kangaroo. He is our pet,” Matus told KTRK.

Rowdy is one of three kangaroos owned by Matus, she said. After Rowdy got out of the pen, she said he jumped the perimeter fence and ran off. Daphne, another pet kangaroo, only got as far as the yard. And Rocky, the youngest kangaroo, who is still a baby, remained inside the house.

Matus said she loves her kangaroos and she even has kangaroo signs, yard art and a personalized license plate that reads “Roo Mom.”

“They’re unique,” she said. “I’m worried to death.”

On Thursday night, Matus told KTRK a stranger even drove down to help Matus search for Rowdy using his drone that is equipped with thermal imaging. Matus and her husband also used their drone to try and find Rowdy.

In a post on Facebook, Matus says Rowdy spends his days laying down and resting because kangaroos are nocturnal. She urges that if anyone sees him that they call the Austin County Sheriff’s Office.

“Please if you spot him anywhere you can contact myself, Austin Co Sheriff’s office or DPS,” Matus posted on Facebook. “He will not go to anyone, he will not harm anyone or anyone’s pets. He knows my voice and will come to me.”

Matus hopes Rowdy is safe and that he can make it back home.

“I just hope he’s safe because I know he’s scared. I just want him home.”

ABC News reached out to the Austin County Sheriff’s Office for comment and did not receive a response.

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WASHINGTON – The Texas Tribune reports members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability are asking Texas’ maternal mortality committee to brief them on the controversial decision to not review pregnancy and childbirth related deaths from the first two years after the state banned nearly all abortions.

The maternal mortality committee announced in September that it would not review deaths from 2022 and 2023, instead jumping ahead to 2024. At a recent meeting, committee chair and Houston OB/GYN Dr. Carla Ortique defended the decision as necessary to offer more contemporary recommendations on reducing maternal deaths.

But U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas-area Democrat, and three other members of the House Oversight Committee are questioning whether this decision was influenced by the “chilling effect on reproductive care” in Texas.

“Ignoring pregnancy-related deaths during one of the deadliest periods in Texas for pregnant women directly contradicts [the maternal mortality committee’s] statutorily required mission of eliminating preventable maternal deaths in Texas,” says the letter sent to the Texas Department of State Health Services Thursday morning.

The letter was signed by Crockett, ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

They are requesting a briefing from the state health agency no later than Jan. 2. A spokesperson for the agency did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Noting that Texas was the first and largest state to implement an abortion ban, the letter says the state’s “top priority” should be analyzing maternal deaths from that period and sharing their findings with the Centers for Disease Control and other states.

Last year, Texas legislators allocated money to create a new maternal death tracking system with the goal of ending the state’s participation in national data sharing. Members of the committee, including Ortique, have raised concerns about this change and its impact on data gathering both in Texas and nationwide.

The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee studies maternal deaths to better understand why so many women are dying or nearly dying from pregnancy and childbirth in Texas. The 23-member committee also issues recommendations to improve outcomes in its biennial report.

This year’s report, released in September, showed maternal deaths jumped in 2020 and 2021, reversing two years of improvement. Every group saw worsening outcomes, even with COVID deaths excluded, except for white women. Black women remain disproportionately impacted.

Many researchers and reproductive health care advocates anticipate an increase in maternal mortality as a result of new abortion restrictions. Texas’ law allows doctors to perform an abortion to save the life of the pregnant patient, but confusion and fear of the strict penalties has led some to delay or deny medical care. Dozens of women have come forward with stories of having to leave the state for life-saving care, and ProPublica has reported on three pregnant Texans who have died since these laws went into effect.

After the news organization reported on two similar deaths in Georgia, all members of that state’s maternal mortality review committee were removed from their roles.

Texas’ committee has previously skipped some years to offer more timely recommendations. But the latest decision has set off alarm bells for advocates, researchers, doctors and pregnant women, many of whom voiced their concerns at a recent committee meeting.

“I know that we’ve always talked about how we want to be as contemporary as possible,” Nakeenya Wilson, a former member of the committee, testified. “What I am concerned about is the fact that the two years that we were skipping are the most crucial years of reproductive health in this country’s history.”

In a statement, Crockett said Texas was trying to “bury the truth” of abortion-ban related deaths.

“Texas Republicans know there is nothing ‘pro-life’ about the stories of these women and the broken families they leave behind,” she said. “I and my fellow House Oversight Democrats will not allow Texas Republicans to hide the consequences of their deadly law … The people of Texas deserve the truth.”