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NACOGDOCHES – Due to low water pressure and water outages caused by a water line break near Hollywood Street and Lenwood Drive, the City of Nacogdoches has issued a boil water notice for portions of the city. As of 8:51 p.m. Saturday, the city shared a notice. Water utility workers are attempting to isolate the break and return the water pressure to normal. Due to the loss of pressure, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is mandating that consumers west of Press Road and south of Main Street boil their water before using it.

The notice advised locals in the impacted area to boil water before using it for any kind of consumption, including drinking, cooking, making ice, or brushing their teeth. Before using water, the city advises bringing it to a rolling boil for two minutes. Until the notice is lifted, residents are asked to use bottled water or another appropriate source. Until the city certifies that the water is safe to drink, the boil water notice will be in force.

The Nacogdoches Water Utilities Department can be contacted by locals with inquiries.

What’s for dinner? Lately, at Apral Jack’s house, it’s whatever is on sale.

Jack, 50, scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys groceries. When she reaches the store, she looks in the weekly circular for coupons she might have missed. If shelf prices look too high, she tries to find lower prices someplace else.

“The apples went up here, the ones I eat, so now I’m not going to get them here,” Jack said as she pushed a cart into a Stop & Shop near her home in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Couponing, comparison shopping and cutting back on favorite foods are new habits for her and millions of other Americans as they absorb the biggest jump in grocery prices in a half-century. Buying food to eat at home has gotten 33% more expensive since the beginning of 2019, according to government figures.

With a conflict in the Middle East creating more price pressures, the cost of filling refrigerators, freezers and pantries has made affordability a central issue in the fall midterm elections.

Residents of four urban areas where food inflation has exceeded the national average shared how steadily rising prices are changing the way they shop. They described hunting for discounts, switching to store brands and feeling grateful for food banks. Some are buying less meat and skipping nonessentials like cookies. Others are buying less food overall.

Meat becomes a luxury for a family in Texas, the nation’s top beef producer

Beef epitomizes out-of-control grocery prices for many Americans. The price of a pound of ground beef reached $6.82 in June, which is 79% more than at the beginning of 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Ada Torres, 60, who lives 45 miles northeast of Houston in Cleveland, Texas, is one of the people no longer buying it. She does the grocery shopping and cooking for the home she shares with her daughter and three grandchildren.

“Prices are sky-high. One hundred dollars’ worth of groceries these days is nothing,” Torres said.

Chicken and cold cuts are the family’s main source of animal protein now that fresh meat is a luxury, she said. Her grandchildren, ages 12, 15 and 16, miss eating lasagna with ground beef, beef fajitas and steak with plantain chips.

Torres’ daughter is the family’s main provider. Her work for a mobile car-washing service dwindles during the rainy season; the family only can afford one full meal a day, Torres said.

Shopping outside Boston takes research and multiple stores

Apral Jack, a care provider and part-time Amazon worker, has fewer mouths to feed now that her three daughters are adults. But she spends more cautiously than she once did.

Instead of shopping at Whole Foods, she builds her weekly menu around discounts and digital coupons.

“Typically, I’ll try to pick the meals based on that. So like chicken fajitas: there was a three-day sale on chicken” Jack said.

Nabisco Ginger Snaps and Nilla Wafers are off her shopping list. Jack won’t buy store brand replacements. To her, they don’t taste the same.
Three generations share food pantry eggs and produce to get by in San Francisco

San Francisco has a reputation as foodie city. Food preoccupies 33-year-old Jack Chang for other reasons. The self-employed barber has three young children and a partner who is unemployed.

“Since I have five mouths I have to feed, basically — and then sometimes my mom, too — it’s a lot on me financially,” Chang said.

Their family is not one that goes out for boba milk teas or artisanal ice cream. They visit a Japanese entertainment center with $1 ice cream cones. Milk is the only organic product they consume.

“I look at my credit card every month and I’m like, ‘Wow, how am I going to pay this?’ So I’m a little behind on bills, honestly,” Chang said.

When their 4-year-old daughter’s preschool has leftover meat or bread, Chang’s partner, Tina Chhous, offers to take it. Chhous also receives monthly food assistance through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“Without that, I don’t know what I would do,” Chang said.

Chang’s 77-year-old mother, Lien, receives SNAP aid, too, and visits two food banks each week. She shares the canned food, eggs and produce she gets with the rest of the family.
Prices in the Honolulu area keep a pastry chef from shopping and eating local

High grocery bills come with living in Hawaii. The state gets nearly all its food from cargo ships that have traveled thousands of miles, making prices vulnerable to oil market spikes.

Local products also got costlier this year. The cost of shipping goods between the Hawaiian Islands skyrocketed amid rising fuel prices tied to the Iran conflict.

Amanda Tabadero, 28, a pastry chef on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, remembers buying Maui-grown strawberries and blueberries for $7.99 per pound in 2024. Now that they cost $11, she buys berries from California or Mexico at Costco for $5 when she bakes.

Tabadero also doubts she will buy lychee again anytime soon. Kaimana lychee, the variety grown in Hawaii, mostly comes from the Big Island. Tabadero said an iced coffee and a bag of fruit she recently purchased in Honolulu’s Chinatown came to $30.

“It makes me sad,” Tabadero said. “I want to use local stuff.”

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This report is a collaboration between The Associated Press and The Lexington Observer in Massachusetts, La Esquina in Texas and Honolulu Civil Beat in Hawaii. AP Video Journalist Terry Chea contributed from San Francisco.

EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — The black campaign bus with “Talarico for Texas” across its side came to a steaming stop at Memo’s Restaurant along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bibi Valdez’s eyes lit up. She marched in heels over to the bus, phone camera trained on its door, chatting about the locals whose political leanings shifted two years ago.

“A lot of people, for some reason, especially the Hispanics, changed to Republican,” she said as security guards created space for James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. “I just don’t see what the logic was.”

Talarico is on a quest to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas since 1994. Memo’s Restaurant was one stop on a winding trip along the border this month, where he was searching for support from the predominantly Hispanic counties that became national political curiosities after the 2024 election.

Once consistently Democratic, most had voted for Republican President Donald Trump, some by a lot, as Hispanic voters shifted to the right nationally. Along this stretch of border, residents and elected leaders alike tend to point to two reasons: the rise in both border crossings and everyday prices. One dropped dramatically since 2024, and it wasn’t the cost of eggs.

While Trump has tamped down on illegal border crossings — once Democrats’ Achilles’ heel — the cost of living is still high, giving Talarico a topic he’s been hitting on repeat as he campaigns against Republican Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general.

Whether Talarico’s message can sway Hispanic voters who moved to the GOP to return to the Democratic Party will help decide the Senate race, and could determine whether Democrats can win control of the Senate.

So Talarico, a former middle school teacher and state lawmaker, was taking time to shake hands and pose for photos with people outside Memo’s Restaurant, which was at capacity with people wanting to see him. Valdez, waiting her turn, pondered aloud why those she knew had voted Republican.

“They thought a better economy, but obviously it didn’t,” she said, before beaming for a photo with the candidate.
Talarico says the economy is rigged against working people

Inside Memo’s Restaurant, the crowd was revved up, shoulder to shoulder, below beating fans, as Talarico opened his speech.

“So many politicians show up at the border to demonize and weaponize,” Talarico said. “We are doing the opposite. We are showing the beauty of our border communities.”

It was one of the few times Talarico referenced the border during his stop, turning instead to an economy he says is rigged to help “mega donors” and criticizing Paxton as a “puppet politician” for the wealthy.

“We can’t get ahead no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we save, because the system is rigged against us,” he said.

Talarico is not the first Democratic Senate candidate in recent years to draw crowds and give the party hope of winning in the reliably Republican state. Beto O’Rourke went on a similar mission in 2018 and failed.

Republicans remain confident about Texas, but Democrats see some reason for optimism.

While Trump gained with Hispanic voters in 2024, opinions of the president have fallen among Hispanics overall since he took office, according to AP-NORC polling. Only 29% of Hispanic adults nationally approved of his performance as president in a June AP-NORC poll, an apparent drop from 41% at the start of his second term.

With illegal border crossings down, residents worry about high costs

In communities along the Rio Grande, which defines the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the ebb and flow of migrants isn’t an abstract political issue. People here still recall — often with empathy — hundreds huddled in reflective emergency blankets under a bridge, and the hit to local businesses and town coffers.

Little aid, many said, came from President Joe Biden’s administration.

“It was a nightmare because of him. Now, you don’t see no immigrants,” said Hector Flores, 72, sitting with his two friends at a McDonald’s in Maverick County, about an hour’s drive south of Memo’s Restaurant.

Maverick County had one of the sharpest swings toward Trump than any county in the country in 2024, from backing Biden by 10 percentage points in 2020 to supporting Trump by 19.

The three men of varying political persuasions weren’t following the Senate race particularly closely. But the issues on their minds were the same ones Talarico and Paxton have been talking about, from high costs to ICE and social issues.

Under past presidents, costs were OK, said Eduardo “Lalo” Riojas, 73, who sat next to Flores. Now, “You go down to HEB to buy merchandise, groceries,” he said, trailing off without the right English word.

“Expensive,” Flores offered.

“Yeah,” said Riojas, who supports Talarico. “Mr. Trump is crazy.”

For Flores, who works with orphanages across the border in Mexico, those high prices aren’t making him question his Republican vote. Nor is he politically moved by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sometimes lethal operations in the interior, which have ruffled some Trump supporters, both Hispanic and otherwise.

“I love ICE,” said Flores.

Mike Garcia, 76, who sat across from the two and said he voted for Trump three times in a row, was more wary.

“The ones they’re killing, some of them, been here in the United States for years and years and got children,” Garcia said.

He said Paxton, who has been impeached, then acquitted, and faced allegations of corruption and extramarital affairs, has a “horrible reputation.” But he also is bothered by comments Talarico has made about God’s gender, a statement Paxton has used to attack his opponent as he appeals to Texas voters’ conservative values.

Garcia still didn’t know which candidate he’ll support come November.

Talarico and Paxton both criticize Biden’s border policy

Paxton has leaned more on immigration enforcement as an issue, including during his own border stop in the Rio Grande Valley.

Speaking in a circle of supporters in McAllen, Paxton first plugged the lawsuits he filed against the Biden administration over immigration enforcement, and his endorsement from the National Border Patrol Council.

He then returned to some of his core attacks on Talarico, including repeating the Democrat’s statements that “God is nonbinary,” which Talarico — a seminary student — said on the Texas House floor several years ago, citing Scripture.

His campaign’s director of Hispanic outreach said Paxton has delivered what Hispanics want, including taking on criminals and companies that gouge consumers, and attacked Talarico as “wimpy.”

“Hispanics know Ken Paxton is a strong man who shares our values, and we see in James Talarico a wimpy liberal,” Alex Alarcon said. “No one looks at him and thinks, now there’s a guy who’ll protect us from the cartels.”

Talarico didn’t avoid talk about immigration enforcement completely during his border tour.

At a news conference, he stood in Sanderson, Texas, alongside local sheriffs to pledge investment in surveillance tech to catch illegal crossings and to hire more border patrol agents and immigration judges.

Later, after a town hall where voters aired their frustrations over affording rent, property taxes and healthcare, Talarico spoke with The Associated Press about what’s been happening here.

“The Biden administration failed border communities like this, and so people were feeling disillusioned. They were open to an alternative and Republicans came down here with some big promises,” he said.

Now, “they’re seeing a lot of those promises weren’t kept.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Temperatures hit sweltering highs across much of the central United States on Saturday as forecasters warned that dangerously hot weather from Dallas to North Dakota would push into next week, with roughly 80 million people facing heat advisories.

A heat dome, where atmospheric conditions trap heat, was forecast to create sustained high temperatures and accumulating discomfort. Meanwhile overnight lows were not expected to come down enough for people to have much chance to recover, allowing heat stress to build as the bad weather lingers, forecasters said. With the high humidity, it feels even worse.

The oppressive midsummer weather was forecast to affect a huge stretch of the country, from the desert Southwest to the Gulf Coast and reaching up into the Midwest and Great Plains. Some records around the Denver area could be broken, forecasters said, and temperatures were expected to be 10 F to 15 F (5.6 to 8.3 C) above normal.

“It looks like it is going to be pretty much stationary in that position as we go through the week,” said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Hot weather changes plans and makes life harder for those who work outdoors

Places under a National Weather Service extreme heat warning included western Nebraska, where temperatures Saturday and Sunday were forecast to reach 108 F (42 C).

At the Museum of the Fur Trade near Chadron, Nebraska, there were fewer visitors than usual for this time of year. Fur hats and pelts in the gift shop were not selling so hot.

“I’m sure no one would be willing to wear it on a day like this,” museum employee Hannah Lovelace said. Loose-fitting, period-correct fabric shirts, on the other hand, remained popular sellers among folks headed to historical frontier reenactments called rendezvous, she said.

The region’s heat was forecast to continue through the week, with temperatures topping 100 F (37 C) even in normally moderate areas of Montana and Wyoming.

Las Vegas was also expected to see near record-breaking highs. On Saturday, when temperatures reached around 114 F (45 C) in the valley, HVAC repair technician Kristian “Flaco” Santos spent hours outside fixing air conditioning units. His job involves climbing onto homeowners’ roofs or in their attics, where temperatures can be 15 degrees warmer.

“It is brutal,” Santos said, adding that not everyone can work in the heat. “I’m not Superman, but I do, I do take care of myself when I’m in the heat.”

Santos wears long-sleeve shirts and hoodies to protect himself from the sun, drinks lots of water with electrolytes to stay hydrated and takes small breaks to cool down. He encouraged people who work outside to do the same.

“You want to get home to your family safe,” Santos said.

There might be some relief in the central U.S. toward next weekend, but even that might be temporary, Oravec said.

Some areas will be spared. The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast should avoid the extreme heat, as will much of the Pacific Northwest.

This is the latest miserable stretch of weather during a summer that has already had a lot of it. The eastern U.S. endured an unbearably hot early July that forced communities to cancel Independence Day celebrations and disrupted the country’s 250th anniversary. Another heat wave in mid-July hit the Southwest and Great Plains.

It’s not just the United States: A June heat wave devastated Europe, with France recording at least 5,700 more deaths than usual.

On Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, fans for the Brickyard 400 will be offered water refill stations and places to get cool, and packed coolers will be allowed. In Denver, recreation centers will set aside areas for people to get out of the heat and in front of air conditioning.

In an already hot year, heat extremes are dangerous

Authorities warned that this heat dome will be dangerous. Children and older adults, along with people with medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious conditions including heat stroke. The basics are important: Seek out air conditioning or a cooling center, and make sure to drink enough water and limit time under the direct sun.

The weather will shift somewhat through the week, with the worst pockets of heat becoming particularly severe across Texas and parts of the Gulf Coast by Wednesday.

It can be difficult to know exactly how climate change contributes to particular events in real time. But rising carbon dioxide levels from burning fossil fuels makes it more likely that hotter weather becomes more frequent and extreme, said Andy Pershing, chief program officer at Climate Central, a climate change communications nonprofit.

“We are experiencing exactly what the climate models in the 1990s said we should experience now. That is more frequent, more severe heat waves, bigger temperature anomalies, more humidity, higher overnight temperatures,” Pershing said. “These are all part and parcel of the climate story.”

The continental U.S. endured the second-hottest first half of the year on record in 2026, according to average temperature tracking by the National Centers for Environmental Information. June itself was the 18th warmest.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Jessica Hill in Las Vegas contributed.

STARBASE, Texas (AP) – SpaceX’s mammoth Starship rocket blasted off Friday on another test flight stretching halfway around the world, this time releasing 20 of the most advanced Starlinks.

Towering 407 feet (124 meters), Starship soared from the company’s base at the southern tip of Texas. NASA monitored the space-skimming flight, a critical step toward using the Starship as a lunar lander for moon crews.

The hourlong journey ended with a splashdown so soft that the spacecraft remained afloat in the Indian Ocean as the SpaceX webcast drew to a close, drawing cheers from employees back at the launch site.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX had replaced six of the 33 engines on the first-stage booster after some of them failed to ignite last week, resulting in a last-second launch abort. The previous Starship flight in May also experienced engine trouble, which prevented the booster from making a controlled return.

This time, all of the engines fired at liftoff, but not enough of them lit back up for the booster’s return, causing it to descend too fast and slam into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft continued soaring eastward, popping out the Starlinks one by one 124 miles (200 kilometers) up before reentering.

It was the 13th flight of the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket, and the second this year of the new version dubbed V3. Like the previous demo, neither the booster nor spacecraft was meant to be saved, instead plunging into the sea.

The stainless steel, retro-looking spacecraft hovered upright over the Indian Ocean before lowering into the water, more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) from where the flight began.

It was the best reentry yet, according to SpaceX, with the intact booster floating amid just a few flames. Previous flights ended with the spacecraft engulfed in flames and exploding at splashdown — or rupturing in midair.

“We’re really pumped about this,” said SpaceX engineer Kate Tice, calling it “lucky flight 13.”

The Starlinks accomplished all their jobs before reentering over the Indian Ocean.

After being ejected from the Starship’s Pez-like dispenser, the Starlinks had just 20 minutes to communicate via lasers and radio before reentering. SpaceX said its engineers made contact and even downloaded data from each one. With more than 10,000 Starlinks currently providing internet, SpaceX boasts the world’s largest satellite constellation.

Six of the newly launched Starlinks carried cameras that photographed Starship’s heat shield at flight’s end, beaming back amazingly crisp shots even as the spacecraft bobbed in the ocean. The heat shield was also equipped with sensors to measure the extreme pressure placed on the spacecraft during launch. Most of the heat shield’s thermal tiles were black, but some were deliberately painted white to simulate missing tiles, part of an experiment to test the shield’s robustness.

“We got all the heat shield data we needed and then some!” Musk said on X.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman offered congratulations. “Excited for what will be learned from this mission,” Isaacman noted on X.

SpaceX wants to make sure Starship’s heat shield can withstand the heat of entry before trying to return it to the Starbase launch pad near the Texas-Mexico border. The company already has used a pair of giant mechanical arms at the pad to capture a Starship booster. The company plans to do the same with the actual spacecraft, which is designed to be totally reusable.

NASA needs Starship to wrap up testing and reach orbit soon so the Artemis III astronauts — three Americans and one Italian — can practice docking their capsule with it next year.

Starship is also the vehicle with which Musk intends to build a city on Mars. He’s already booking tourist trips to Mars, as well as the moon.

The latest test flight was delayed first by the July 16 launch abort, then again on Thursday by thick clouds from Tropical Storm Bertha.

WILLS POINT – The Federal Aviation Administration said that a plane crash in Wills Point on Thursday afternoon resulted in no injuries. Around 12:50 p.m., a Glasair plane ground looped and came to a stop east of the runway, causing significant damage, according to preliminary FAA data. The landing gear, tail, and empennage were all damaged in the collision. Wills Point Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ed Leipply said the plane remained upright in the crash, but sustained damage, including to its propeller and elevator.