FORT WORTH (AP) — A tanker truck in Texas hauling gasoline erupted into a fiery blaze Sunday after colliding with another vehicle and knocking over power lines, leaving the truck driver in critical condition, Fort Worth authorities said.
The 18-wheeler was carrying 9,000 gallons of gasoline that began leaking after the truck spun off the road near a gas station. The downed power lines then sparked a fire around 1 a.m., Fort Worth Fire Department spokesperson Craig Trojacek said.
“The driver of the 18-wheeler was trying to do everything he could to keep the gas from draining into the parking lot of the Valero gas station when it lit off,” Trojacek said.
The driver was hospitalized with burns, but no one else was injured, Trojacek said. Fire crews spent hours spraying the tanker with water and used sand to try and contain the gasoline, he said. Firefighters left the scene around 7 a.m.
Videos of the fire show what appears to be front of the truck engulfed in flames as plumes of smoke rise.
One witness, Bailey Moss, said he was staying with a friend nearby when he heard “a loud crash” and peered outside.
“The fire spread quickly, and you could feel the heat even from a distance. It was pretty intense,” Moss said.
SMITH COUNTY — A man was arrested on Sunday morning after he allegedly led Smith County Sheriff’s Office deputies on a chase through downtown Tyler. Jose Juan Barboza, 25, of Rusk, has been identified by the sheriff’s office as the alleged driver. According to the sheriff’s office and our news partner KETK, a deputy started pursuing a white pickup truck at around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday near the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Loop 49. The truck was heading north on Broadway Avenue at speeds over 100 miles per hour and eventually reached downtown Tyler.
Barboza reportedly ran red lights heading north through Tyler and stopped the truck near the intersection of East Queen Street and Broadway Avenue, just north of downtown Tyler. The suspect led deputies on a brief foot chase, and was arrested a short time later, according to the sheriff’s office.
Barboza was arrested and booked into the Smith County Jail for driving while intoxicated and evading arrest.
McALLEN (AP) — For five months, the young father waited for his 3-year-old daughter’s release from federal custody after she crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her mother, hoping through delays for their safe reunion.
Only when he turned to the courts as a last resort did he learn that the girl had suffered alleged sexual abuse at the foster home where she’d been placed after immigration officials separated her from her mother.
“She was so long in there,” said her father, who is a legal permanent resident in the United States. “I just think that if they would have moved faster, nothing like that would have happened.” He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to prevent identifying his daughter as a victim of sexual abuse.
President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting detained immigrant children, like the man’s daughter, last year when it implemented new rules and procedures, which were immediately followed by a dramatic jump in detention times. The federal government intensified efforts to expand family detention indefinitely by motioning to terminate a cornerstone policy ensuring the protection of immigrant children in federal custody.
For months after the girl was placed in foster care, her father’s attempts to be reunited stalled as the government told him it couldn’t make an appointment to take his fingerprints.
During that time, according to court documents, the girl said she was sexually abused by an older child staying with her in foster care in Harlingen, Texas. A caregiver noticed the child’s underwear was on backward, according to the lawsuit. The girl then told the caregiver she was abused multiple times and it caused bleeding. Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father that there had been an “accident” and his daughter would be examined, he told the AP in an interview.
“I asked them, ‘What happened? I want to know. I’m her father. I want to know what’s going on,’ and they just told me that they couldn’t give me more information, that it was under investigation,” the father said.
The girl underwent a forensic exam and interview. Although the father wasn’t told of the outcome, the older child accused of the abuse was removed from that foster program, according to the lawsuit.
The girl was forensically examined and interviewed, according to the lawsuit. The abuse allegations were reported to local law enforcement, said Lauren Fisher Flores, the lawyer representing the girl. The Associated Press does not typically name people who have said they were sexually abused.
“To have your child abused while in the government’s care, to not understand what has happened or how to protect them, to not even be told about the abuse, it is unimaginable,” Fisher Flores said. “Children deserve safety and they belong with their parents.”
The ORR and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, were named in the child’s lawsuit but did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Trump administration changes release policies
The girl and her mother illegally crossed the border near El Paso on Sept. 16 of last year. When her mother was charged with making false statements and they were separated, the toddler was sent to the custody of the ORR, which cares for immigrant children in shelter or foster settings.
Children in ORR’s care are released to parents or sponsors who submit to a rigorous process that has grown more extensive under the Trump administration.
Legal advocates filed lawsuits challenging the policy changes, anticipating that they would result in prolonged detention.
Average custody times for children cared for by ORR grew from 37 days when Trump took office in January 2025 to almost 200 days this February. The total number of children in ORR custody fell by about half during the same time period.
Attorneys are now turning to habeas petitions, which function as emergency lawsuits, to expedite the release of children to their parents and sponsors.
Fisher Flores, legal director of the American Bar Association’s ProBar project, said that this year the organization has worked on eight habeas corpus petitions representing children who have been held in federal custody for an average of 225 days. They had not filed these kinds of petitions for children before the start of this Trump administration.
Fisher Flores said that legal intervention helped prompt the federal government to respond to the father’s sponsorship application.
Alleged abuse wasn’t immediately disclosed to the father
After the monthslong delay, attorneys sent the government a letter in February and prompted them to allow the father to receive appointments for a fingerprinting background check, a home visit and a DNA test. Then ORR stalled again, offering no timeline on her expected release.
Attorneys filed the habeas petition in federal court and two days later, ORR released the girl to her father.
It was while the attorneys prepared the lawsuit that the father realized that the “accident” officials had told him about was alleged sexual abuse.
“Increasingly, we have to turn to the federal courts to challenge these harmful legal violations and demand that children be released,” Fisher Flores said.
The fingerprinting policy was challenged during the first Trump administration by legal advocates including the National Center for Youth Law. Other nationwide lawsuits are opposing more recent changes affecting the custody and care of immigrant children.
“This represents yet another version of family separation,” Neha Desai, managing director at Children’s Human Rights and Dignity at the National Center for Youth Law, said of the 3-year-old girl’s case.
“A bipartisan Congress designed protections around the simple principle that children should be released to their family quickly and safely. This administration has been consistently flouting its legal obligations to release children to their families, profoundly jeopardizing children’s health and well-being,” Desai added.
When the father finally reunited with his daughter, he cried. His daughter was happy to see him, too.
But after her five months in detention, he started noticing changes: She had nightmares and was easily upset. “She was never like that” before, her father said.
The pair now live in Chicago with the girl’s grandparents while her case moves through the immigration court.
UPDATE: The National Weather Service has confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down in Lindale on Saturday morning with winds near 100 mph.
SMITH COUNTY – Easter weekend got off to a stormy start on Saturday as severe weather moved through East Texas, damaging several homes and causing flooding across the area.
According to our news partner KETK, residents near Lindale were the hardest hit on Saturday after a tornado was reported to have touched down in that area. According to the Smith County Sheriff’s Office, one house on FM 18 and another house on County Road 498 were both extensively damaged during when a tornado touched down near Lindale.
Longview residents in Gregg County were also affected on Saturday as heavy rains caused flooding and downed power lines which left some without power for a time.
Over in Marshall, the Marshall Police Department also reported flooding in their streets. In the image below Marshall PD officers can be seen rescuing someone who was trapped when their vehicle was stuck in flood waters under the Franklin Street Bridge.
A Palestinian mother hugs her child as eight children evacuated from Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing during 2023 land attacks due to health issues return to Gaza after completing treatment, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, Palestine, on March 30, 2026. (Photo by Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) -- When Sundus al Kurd and her daughter Bissan were separated at the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, she wasn't sure she'd see her again. Bissan was only a few days old when her mother allowed her to be medically evacuated from the Gaza strip to Egypt.
The premature baby's life was saved, along with others, by the World Health Organization and Palestinian Red Crescent during the height of the conflict, but now the two have been reunited.
"After all this time, my daughter is finally back in my arms!" al Kurd, a young Palestinian mother, exclaims as she held her child for the first time in over two years.
"Every day, I lived with fear -- fear that I might never hold her again, fear that she might forget me. But the moment I held her in my arms again, it felt like she had never been away. That moment was complete joy!" the 27-year-old al Kurd told ABC News.
Bissan, who has spent the last 2 1/2 years in Egypt, had been one of 33 premature babies trapped inside the Al Shifa hospital as the Israeli military laid siege to it in November 2023.
"Being reunited with my daughter is something I cannot fully describe. It is a mix of relief, love, and something deeper -- like life returning to me after being paused for years," al Kurd said.
"The first night we spent together was very emotional. I couldn't sleep. I kept watching her, holding her, making sure she was really there beside me. I was afraid to close my eyes, as if it was all a dream that might disappear," she said.
Bissan's life had been in imminent danger in November 2023, doctors said. The neonatal unit she was in at Al Shifa hospital was running out of fuel and oxygen, cut off by the Israeli army, which had encircled the hospital, saying that Hamas had a hidden command center in its precincts, something both Hamas medical teams there strongly denied.
"They were meant to die without incubators, without oxygen, without water, but they survived every single stage of this terrible reality," Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the former head of plastic surgery at Al Shifa Hospital, told ABC News.
Mokhallalati was one of the few doctors who remained at Al Shifa throughout the Israeli siege.
"Most of the doctors were surgeons, not even pediatricians, but we felt we had to do our best to keep these kids alive," he said. "We felt these kids were like our own babies. Every morning, we would go just to make sure they were still alive."
He said that the extreme danger of the situation forced some parents to abandon their babies.
"There were no parents because the hospital was bombed and people were forced to flee to save their other children," Mokhallalati said. "In the calculus of survival, mothers fled with the children who could run and left behind those who could not, making an impossible choice."
The premature babies were left fighting for their lives for days, with one doctor and six nurses caring for them in ever-worsening conditions, he said.
"We did not know their names, we did not know their parents. They had no one to take care of them. They were wearing only small wristbands, usually with their mothers' names, and that was the only thing we knew about them," Mokhallalati said.
Not all the babies survived those difficult days. Five died as the team struggled to keep them fed and warm, but Mokhallalati was amazed that so many of the babies made it.
"They were meant to die at many stages but they survived every single challenge," adding, "They were the only feeling of hope we had in all of this chaos and destruction."
On Nov. 19, 2023, they were rescued after the WHO and the Palestinian Red Crescent were given access to the hospital. They carried the precious cargo through a war zone to a hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, before taking them across the border to Egypt, officials said.
"Twenty-eight were evacuated to Egypt, but seven more died there due to the difficult conditions, leaving 21 survivors. Of those, 11 have now returned on March 30, while four others came back earlier when Rafah crossing opened, and six remain in Egypt with their families," Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of pediatrics and neonatal care at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, told ABC News.
Among those returning was 2-year-old Azzhar Kafarna. Her mother, Heba Saleh, described the ordeal of their separation to ABC News.
"For two and a half years, I felt something missing all the time," she said.
"I missed everything -- her first smile, her first steps, even the little things that any mother waits for. I used to imagine her ... how she looks now, how her voice sounds, and if she would recognize me when we finally meet," Saleh said.
She was nervous about their reunion, "When I saw her again, I didn't know what to feel. I just hugged her tightly. It felt like I was holding all the days we lost in that one moment."
Al-Farra examined all the toddlers when they returned to Gaza this week.
"All of the children are in generally good condition, with normal weight and growth, but many are facing complications linked to extreme prematurity," he said.
Al-Farra says many of them, "have vision problems and need glasses because their eye nerves were not fully developed," like Bissan, who wears a bright red pair of spectacles.
However, not all of them have come back to happy reunions.
"I don't think all of these children have parents to return to. Some of their families were likely killed during the war," Al-Farra said.
"In one case, there is real confusion over the child's identity, with more than one person claiming the baby. We are still trying to identify the family, but without access to DNA testing in Gaza, we cannot confirm who the child belongs to," he said.
Fear returning to Gaza
Both the mothers ABC News spoke with were nervous about their children returning to Gaza.
"As a mother, I feel everything at once. I'm happy she's finally with me ... but at the same time, I feel guilty, even though I had no choice. I keep thinking about all the moments I wasn't there for." Saled said.
"And of course, I'm worried about raising her in Gaza. I want her to feel safe, to live a normal life, but the situation here is not easy," Saled said.
That sentiment was echoed by al Kurd.
"I am also worried. My daughter has never heard the sound of bombing before. I am afraid of how she might react if she experiences it here in Gaza. This fear is always in my heart."
"I wish for my daughter to have a better future, a life that is safer and more stable than the one we are living now," al Kurd said.
PAYNE SPRINGS – The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department confirmed crews recovered the body of a Mabank man late Friday night after a boating incident. Officials identified the victim as 42-year-old Sammy Matlock. His body was located around 10:30 p.m. Saturday night. According to TPWD, Matlock was not wearing a life jacket when the boat capsized.
According to our news partner KETK, Matlock was one of three men were fishing on Cedar Creek Lake near Payne Springs on Thursday at around 10:30 p.m. when their boat took on water and capsized. Two men made it to shore and contacted emergency crews.
The third individual, Matlock, tried to swim to shore. Witnesses reported hearing him call for help, but he could not be found initially.
TYLER — One person was injured on Friday night after a vehicle crashed into a building on Magnolia Drive in Tyler. According to the Tyler Police Department and our news partner KETK, a vehicle crashed into a Tyler Junior College building at around 8 p.m. on Friday. The driver was injured and taken to a local hospital to be treated. The driver’s condition is unknown.
Tyler PD and the TJC Police Department are investigating the crash. Additional details were not available.
TYLER — Country music band Little Texas will take center stage at the 38th annual Tyler Cattle Baron’s Ball on June 27, bringing star power to one of the region’s biggest fundraisers for the American Cancer Society at the W.T. Brookshire Conference Center. According to our news partner KETK, this year’s gala features a venue change, moving to the conference center after being hosted at the Texas Rose Horse Park in previous years. Over nearly four decades, the Tyler Cattle Baron’s Ball has raised millions locally to support cancer research and families in East Texas.
“Our East Texas community has united to raise over $18.5 million for the American Cancer Society. This incredible achievement is a direct result of the generosity of our donors, supporters and volunteers,” American Cancer Society Staff Partner Melissa Ivey said.
The country music group Little Texas is known for the song “God Bless Texas.” The band has specific ties to the East Texas region, as two of its members were born and raised in Longview.
PAYNE SPRINGS, Texas (KETK) — More than 12 hours after a boat carrying three people capsized on Cedar Creek Lake, emergency crews continue an intensive search for a missing man feared to have drowned.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said three men were fishing on Cedar Creek Lake near Payne Springs on Thursday at around 10:30 p.m. when their boat took on water and capsized. Two men made it to shore and contacted emergency crews.
The third individual, a 42-year-old man, tried to swim to shore. Witnesses reported hearing him call for help, but he could not be found.
The Payne Springs Fire and Rescue said a resident assisted by launching a pontoon boat, transporting firefighters and other residents to begin an initial surface search while additional rescue boats were on their way.
Payne Springs Fire and Rescue conducted a surface and an underwater search before being assisted by the Texas Game Wardens. Search efforts continued until 2 a.m. Friday morning.
Search crews, including Texas Game Wardens, are on the lake on Friday looking for him. However, the search is being hindered by weather conditions and water depth, the department stated.
EAST TEXAS — The average base pay for public school teachers in East Texas remains among the lowest, as salaries across the state have dropped in the past five years, a study reports. In a study conducted by the University of Houston Education Research Center, researchers found that the average base pay of traditional public school teachers dropped in the 2024-2025 school year from $66,449 to $62,715, after seeing an increase the year prior.
According to the study, teacher base pay averaged $69,205 from the 2014-2015 school year to 2020-2021. Since then, the average has stayed “considerably lower” at $65,699.
Average Base Pay of Traditional Public School Classroom Teachers (in Constant 2024 Dollars), 2014–15 through 2024–25. Courtesy of the University of Houston Education Research Center.
(WASHINGTON) -- A U.S. fighter jet appears to have been shot down by Iran over Iranian territory, American officials confirmed to ABC News, marking a new and potentially dangerous point in the conflict.
One crew member aboard the downed two-seater F-15E has been rescued, according to two U.S. officials. The status of the other crew member is unknown, according to the official, and the search and rescue effort continues.
Combat search and rescue missions have become relatively rare for U.S. forces after more than a generation of near-total air dominance, with American aircraft typically operating with limited threats to aircraft in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The early indications that the U.S. fighter was brought down by enemy fire would mark the first time Iran has successfully downed a manned American aircraft in the war, which started in February.
In late March, an American F-18 fighter jet narrowly dodged an Iranian surface-to-air missile, according to a U.S. official. Earlier that month, an American F-35, the Pentagon’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, had to make an emergency landing after being struck by Iranian fire. Three F-15s were also brought down over Kuwait in a friendly fire episode earlier in the war, though all six pilots ejected safely, according to U.S. officials.
There are photos of the fighter jet that were released by Iranian state media that have not been independently verified by ABC News.
President Donald Trump has been briefed on the downed fighter jet, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Another U.S. official said Trump has been briefed on the rescue and condition of the recovered crew member.
Hegseth, Trump touted American air dominance over Iran
The incident comes after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other U.S. officials have said that Iran's military capabilities have been severely crippled and that the U.S. has "total air dominance" over Iran.
Trump, in a primetime address to the nation earlier this week, said the U.S. was "nearing completion" of its military objectives and that Tehran's anti-aircraft abilities had been decimated.
"We’ve done all of it. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten," Trump said in his speech on Wednesday night.
"They have no anti-aircraft equipment," Trump added in his remarks. "Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force."
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has made a number of false claims about U.S. aircraft being downed but the U.S. has pushed back on those.
Iran has maintained at least some ability to continue with attacks targeting U.S. facilities in the Middle East and other countries in the region, wounding more than 300 U.S. service members, according to U.S. officials. The number of wounded has increased at a relatively steady rate each week, data reviewed by ABC News shows. Thirteen service members have been killed in action since the war began five weeks ago, according to Pentagon data.
Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with whom Trump has said he is negotiating, taunted the U.S. over the missing crew member in a social media post on Friday.
In the post, Ghalibaf suggested that the U.S. war effort had shifted from pursuing "regime change" to trying to locate and rescue downed pilots.
Ghalibaf was the first top authority of the Islamic Republic to comment on the missing crew members.
Trump told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl in a phone call earlier this week that the new leadership is better than what Iran had before.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney called the Iranian attack "disturbing" in an interview on ABC News Live.
"As a war like this drags on, it becomes increasingly likely that some incident like this happens. It's disturbing for a couple of reasons. One is it potentially represents a major escalation. If the missing crew member remains missing, huge political pressure in the United States to do anything to find that person. I dare say they'll be uncompromising," Ratney told ABC News Live's Elizabeth Schulze on Friday. "The other problem is it becomes just a huge political preoccupation in the United States. It becomes the sole story anybody thinks about. At the same time, the war is still going on, and there's a lot of crises globally at this point."
What do pilots do to prepare for being shot down?
Pilots undergo training in SERE -- which stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. It's a program designed to prepare them for the possibility of isolation behind enemy lines.
Under survival training, airmen are taught to stabilize themselves in the immediate aftermath of an incident, administering self-aid if wounded and securing basic necessities such as shelter, water and food, according to publicly available Air Force training materials.
Survival training often dictates the pilot leave the crash area, as it’s likely to be a focal point for hostile forces.
"To stay in the vicinity of the crash or parachute landing site may lead to capture,” an Air Force training manual on pilot survival training says.
Evasion training follows -- during which pilots learn how to move undetected through hostile terrain, according to the training materials. Pilots learn to navigate using maps and compasses, as well as natural cues such as stars and terrain features including rivers, bridges and other landmarks to orient themselves and move toward friendly forces.
The curriculum also includes resistance techniques aimed at helping troops endure interrogation and psychological pressure if captured. Finally, escape training focuses on recognizing vulnerabilities in captivity and exploiting opportunities to break free, according to the training materials.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
LUFKIN – A man is dead following an argument and shooting in a residential neighborhood on Chester Street early Friday morning. Lufkin Police arrested and charged 42-year-old Alex Dewayne Walker, with murder in connection with the death of 43-year-old Korsah Lemar Simmons, of Lufkin.
Early Friday morning, police were sent to a disturbance call. As officers arrived, one individual at the home was yelling, “he shot my uncle.”
Walker was standing outside the home and when officers approached, Walker laid on the ground, face down with his hands on his back. Officers found a 9mm gun in Walker’s front pants pocket.
As officers made their way into the home, they found Simmons on the floor in the bedroom with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers began lifesaving measures waiting for EMS to arrive. Simmons was pronounced dead at a hospital later in that morning.
Walker was booked into the Angelina County Jail, charged with murder. Bond has been set at $500,00
BIG BEND (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – In February, the Trump administration waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas, including Big Bend National Park and the adjoining state park, a rugged and scenic stretch with unscalable canyons along the Rio Grande.
But as word spread that the Trump administration planned to erect a 30-foot-tall barrier to deter people from crossing the border illegally, people and officials from both political parties have made their opposition clear.
“A border wall in the Big Bend region is an absurd, wasteful, counterproductive idea that is loathed by nearly every person who has ever lived or visited there,” said Isaac Saul, who writes a political newsletter called the Tangle and has a home in Brewster County, where Big Bend is located.
The sheriffs of Brewster, Culberson, Hudspeth, Presidio and Terrell counties — a mix of Democrats and Republicans — wrote an open letter that said: “Based on decades of combined experience working with this terrain, we believe that construction of a continuous physical border wall in the Big Bend region would not represent the most practical or strategic approach to border security in this area.”
Local officials in nearby Alpine, along with Presidio and Hudspeth counties, have approved resolutions opposing the wall.
After strong opposition, the Trump administration apparently changed its plans: a map on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website no longer indicates that a border wall will be constructed in the Big Bend region from the state park to the Amistad National Recreation Area in Del Rio, as of April 2.
A spokesperson for the Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector told Marfa Public Radio last week that there are “currently no plans for border wall construction” in the state park, which borders Big Bend National Park.
While the Trump administration hasn’t made any official announcement about its plans, the CBP website now shows the agency instead plans to install “virtual wall” technology through the rugged region that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border.
It’s unclear if these plans are final, since the map legend has continuously changed in the past few weeks.
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Advocates and residents say they are happy their efforts have apparently helped halt the plans to build a border barrier through the state park. But the fight isn’t over, they say.
“I don’t consider this a win yet because there’s still a lot of unanswered questions,” said Anna Claire, 29, a photographer who lives near Terlingua and led an online petition with more than 100,000 signatures opposing a barrier. “I would say a win is no border wall, period. The whole basis for this wall is that there is a crisis, but there isn’t a crisis and their own data doesn’t back that up.”
Documents obtained by Inside Climate News show the Border Patrol has sought access to Big Bend Ranch and other state parks to lay the groundwork for border barrier construction. Letters sent by the Border Patrol to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department included detailed maps of where the border barrier would go within Big Bend Ranch, Seminole Canyon and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley state parks.
The Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector, which encompasses 517 miles of the 1,950-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, has historically been the least busy of the nine sectors. In fiscal year 2025, Border Patrol recorded 3,096 apprehensions in the Big Bend sector — accounting for just 1.3% of the 237,538 apprehensions recorded across the entire U.S.-Mexico border.
Last year, Congress approved $46.5 billion for the Trump administration to erect border barriers and add detection technology in different parts of the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. Contractors have started construction in parts of California, Arizona and New Mexico. But in Texas, where land along the border is privately owned, the administration has faced obstacles and opposition.
The government has sent letters to some landowners along the river, threatening to condemn some of their land through eminent domain if owners don’t willingly allow the federal government access to their land.
Luis Armendariz, 83, who owns about 1,000 acres of farmland and a hardware store in Presidio, about 100 miles upriver from Big Bend, said he received one of those letters and doesn’t see the need for a barrier in the area. He worries that a barrier would cut off his access to irrigation water from the river..
“If the wall is going to get in my way, I don’t want it,” he said.
PAYNE SPRINGS — More than 12 hours after a boat carrying three people capsized on Cedar Creek Lake, emergency crews continue an intensive search for a missing man feared to have drowned, according to our news partner KETK.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said three men were fishing on Cedar Creek Lake near Payne Springs on Thursday at around 10:30 p.m. when their boat took on water and capsized. Two men made it to shore and contacted emergency crews.
The third individual, a 42-year-old man, tried to swim to shore. Witnesses reported hearing him call for help, but he could not be found.
The Payne Springs Fire and Rescue said a resident assisted by launching a pontoon boat, transporting firefighters and other residents to begin an initial surface search while additional rescue boats were on their way. Payne Springs Fire and Rescue conducted a surface and an underwater search before being assisted by the Texas Game Wardens. Search efforts continued until 2 a.m. Friday morning.
Search crews, including Texas Game Wardens, are on the lake on Friday looking for him. However, the search is being hindered by weather conditions and water depth, the department stated.
PAYNE SPRINGS — More than 12 hours after a boat carrying three people capsized on Cedar Creek Lake, emergency crews continue an intensive search for a missing man feared to have drowned, according to our news partner KETK.