Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
BULLARD – Bullard and Winnsboro ISD were both awarded state grants this week to help support students with autism. Both districts were selected by the Texas Education Agency to receive the grant, which will provide $530,000 in the first year and $750,000 in the second year to help expand support for students with autism.
According to our news partner KETK, the grant will allow both districts to install the following initiatives that will provide support to autistic students while also providing tools to educators to create a better learning environment: Increasing opportunities for students to learn in inclusive classrooms, using proven, research-based teaching strategies, offering more resources and training opportunities for parents and providing additional training for teachers and staff.
“We are so excited about what these grant funds will allow us to do to better serve our students with autism,” Bullard ISD Director of Special Education and 504 Director Shelley Tiner said. “By working together, our districts are building a strong model that best supports our students and families.”
JEFFERSON — An East Texas judge is disputing accusations that he assaulted both a minor and an adult at a 2025 Halloween party, casting scrutiny on the timing of the adult’s complaint, which surfaced months after the incident. According to our news partner KETK, Marion County Judge Leward LeFleur, who ran uncontested in the March 3 Republican Primary, was first accused of a Class C assault misdemeanor against the minor at a fall 2025 party. After the county recused itself, the case was handed to the Morris County District Attorney’s Office.
The City of Jefferson was then handed the case for review, where acting Jefferson City Attorney George Hyde requested additional information on the allegation from the Jefferson Police Department. There, they discovered a second assault that an adult alleged happened at the same Halloween party.
“After receiving this information, it revealed additional information regarding the alleged assault and included information and a new complaint against Judge Lafleur arising from the same event and which occurred close in time to the alleged assault,” a statement from Hyde’s office said. Read the rest of this entry »
BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) — After nearly 30 years, human remains found in Alabama have been identified as those of James Carol Jackson, a man from Groveton, Texas, whose death has been ruled a homicide.
The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama said Jackson was identified using forensic genealogy in April 2026. The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office in Texas confirmed that Jackson was from Groveton.
Officials said in January 1994, a person was walking in the wooded area off of State Highway 225 when they spotted skeletal remains. Found with those remains were a trucker hat, a western shirt, an inhaler, a digital watch, prescription glasses, a mechanical pencil and pen set, as well as a torch tip.
Officials believe the homicide happened in 1988 or 1989, after he arrived in the area around 1987, when he was 50 years old.
Jackson drove a 1978 to 1981 Chevrolet Camaro that the sheriff’s office has not been able to locate.
He was a welder, and in 1987, he told his family he was going to Alabama for work.
At the time, I-65 was being expanded, and officials believe he may have come to the area to help work on the project.
Officials also said he stopped communicating with his family about 12 months after leaving Texas.
It is believed that he may have been living off Highway 225 and may have frequented the Tensaw Lodge.
Family described him as a non-violent, easy-going guy.
Anyone who may have any information on the case can submit a tip through the sheriff’s office website or through Crimestoppers.
LINDALE — The Texas Rangers are investigating the death of a Lindale ISD student following a choking incident at school, district officials confirmed on Wednesday. In a letter addressed to parents and the community, Lindale ISD said the student, Adrian Thompson, suffered a medical emergency that prompted immediate lifesaving efforts on campus. According to our news partner KETK, staff responded by performing the Heimlich maneuver, using a LifeVac device and administering CPR. Emergency services were then called, and Thompson was transported for treatment before being taken to a medical center in Fort Worth.
The district commended the actions of staff, including teachers, aides, the school nurse and first responders, for their quick response. Lindale ISD also emphasized that safety protocols and lifesaving equipment have been in place across the district for medical emergencies.
The Texas Rangers are now leading the investigation into the incident. District officials said the findings will be shared with Thompson’s family and the community once available. In addition, Lindale ISD said it will seek an independent review of its safety equipment and emergency response procedures. Read the rest of this entry »
Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting plan Tuesday that could boost Democrats’ chances of winning four additional U.S. House seats in November’s midterm elections that will decide control of the closely divided Congress.
The constitutional amendment narrowly backed by voters bypasses a bipartisan redistricting commission to allow the use of new districts drawn by Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly. But the public vote may not be the final word. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the plan is illegal in a case that could make the referendum results meaningless.
The Virginia redistricting referendum marked a setback for President Donald Trump, who kicked off a national redistricting battle last year by urging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts. The goal was to help Republicans win more seats in the November elections and hold on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power during midterm elections.
But the Virginia redistricting referendum could help nullify Republican gains elsewhere.
“Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms,” Democratic state House Speaker Don Scott said in a celebratory statement. “At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power before voters have a say, Virginians stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country.”
Virginia vote is part of a national redistricting battle
The redistricting in Texas led to a burst of redistricting nationwide. So far, Republicans believe they can win up to nine more House seats in newly redrawn districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they can win up to five more seats in California, where voters approved a similar mid-decade redistricting effort last November, and one more seat under new court-imposed districts in Utah.
Democrats hope to offset the rest of that gap in Virginia, where they decisively flipped 13 seats in the state House and won back the governor’s office last year.
Tuesday’s narrow victory for Democrats contrasted with last fall’s vote in California, where a Democratic redistricting plan passed by a nearly 29-point margin.
“As we saw in California, when voters have a say, they are rejecting Republicans’ attempt to rig the system,” said U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, of Washington state, who is chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Republicans pledged to continue the battle over Virginia’s new map in court.
“Serious legal questions remain about both the wording of this referendum and the process used to put it before voters,” Virginia House Republican Minority Leader Terry Kilgore said. “Those questions have not been resolved, and they now move where they belong: to the courts.”
U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, of North Carolina, who is chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the “close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander.”
The back-and-forth redistricting battle also could continue in Florida, where the Republican-led Legislature is to convene April 28 for a special session that could result in more favorable congressional districts for Republicans.
Voters focus on fairness, with different perspectives
The campaign over Virginia’s redistricting referendum focused heavily on fairness.
Republicans argued that it was unfair to gerrymander Virginia’s districts to Democrats’ advantage. But Democrats argued that they were creating a fairer election landscape nationally by counteracting Republican gerrymandering elsewhere.
Matt Wallace, of Alexandria, said he voted for the Democratic redistricting amendment “to help balance the scales a bit until things get back to normal.”
But Ruth Ann McCartney, who voted in the town of South Hill just a few miles north of the North Carolina border, said she cast her ballot against the amendment.
“I look at it more as we don’t have the population as northern Virginia,” she said. “And as a rural area, we just need to be heard.”
A lobster-like district could aid Democratic efforts
In Virginia, Democrats currently hold six of the 11 U.S. House seats under districts that were imposed by the state Supreme Court in 2021 after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a map based on the latest census data.
The new plan could help Democrats win as many as 10 seats. Five seats are anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads dilute the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia lumps together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.
Democrats portrayed the Virginia redistricting as a response to Trump. Ads for the “yes to redistricting” campaign featuring former President Barack Obama flooded the airwaves.
But opponents of the redistricting also distributed campaign materials citing statements from Obama and Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who had both criticized gerrymandering in the past.
Virginia court weighs whether lawmakers acted illegally
Congressional redistricting typically is done once a decade after each census.
In 2020, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment meant to diminish political gamesmanship by shifting redistricting responsibilities away from the legislature.
But lawmakers endorsed a new constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade redistricting last fall, then passed it again in January as part of a two-step process that requires an intervening election in order for an amendment to be placed on the ballot. The measure allows lawmakers to redistrict until returning the task to a bipartisan commission after the 2030 census.
In February, they passed a new U.S. House map to take effect pending the outcome of the redistricting referendum.
Republicans have filed multiple legal challenges against the redistricting effort.
A Tazewell County judge ruled that the redistricting push was illegal for several reasons. Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. said lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session. He ruled that their initial vote failed to occur before the public began casting ballots in last year’s general election and thus didn’t count toward the two-step process. And he ruled that the state failed to publish the amendment three months before that election, as required by law.
If the state Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, the referendum results could be rendered moot.
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Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in South Hill, Virginia, Gary Fields in Alexandria, Virginia, and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
TEXAS – The battlefield is narrowing and the timeline is tightening in a congressional redistricting contest among states seeking a partisan advantage ahead of the November midterm elections.
Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment authorizing a Democratic redistricting plan that could help the party win several additional House seats in this year’s elections. Next up could be Florida, where lawmakers are to begin a special session April 28 for a Republican attempt at congressional redistricting.
Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But President Donald Trump triggered an unusual round of mid-decade redistricting last year when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterm elections. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.
So far, Republicans believe they could win up to nine additional seats in states where they have redrawn congressional districts while Democrats think they could gain up to 10 seats elsewhere because of redistricting. But that presumes past voting patterns hold in November. And that’s uncertain, especially since the party in power typically loses seats in the midterms and Trump faces negative approval ratings in polls.
Democrats need to gain just a few seats in November to wrest control of the House from Republicans, potentially allowing them to obstruct Trump’s agenda.
Next up on redistricting: Florida
Current map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans
Proposed map: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has called a special legislative session to begin April 28 on congressional redistricting. Republicans haven’t yet publicly released a specific plan.
Challenges: The state constitution says districts cannot be drawn with intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.
Where new House districts were approved
New U.S. House districts have been adopted in seven states since last summer. Five took up redistricting voluntarily, one was required to by its state constitution and another did so under court order.
Texas
Current map: 13 Democrats, 25 Republicans
New map: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a revised House map into law last August that could help Republicans win five additional seats.
Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in December cleared the way for the new districts to be used in this year’s elections. It put on hold a lower-court ruling that blocked the new map because it was “racially gerrymandered.”
California
Current map: 43 Democrats, nine Republicans
New map: Voters in November approved revised House districts drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature that could help Democrats win five additional seats.
Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in February allowed the new districts to be used in this year’s elections. It denied an appeal from Republicans and the Department of Justice, which claimed the districts impermissibly favor Hispanic voters.
Missouri
Current map: two Democrats, six Republicans
New map: Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a revised House map into law last September that could help Republicans win an additional seat.
Challenges: A Cole County judge ruled the new map is in effect as election officials work to determine whether a referendum petition seeking a statewide vote complies with constitutional criteria and contains enough valid petition signatures. The Missouri Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit claiming mid-decade redistricting is illegal. It’s scheduled to hear arguments in May on claims the new districts violate compactness requirements and should be placed on hold pending the potential referendum.
North Carolina
Current map: four Democrats, 10 Republicans
New map: The Republican-led General Assembly gave final approval in October to revised districts that could help Republicans win an additional seat.
Challenges: A federal court panel in November denied a request to block the revised districts from being used in the midterm elections.
Ohio
Current map: five Democrats, 10 Republicans
New map: A bipartisan panel composed primarily of Republicans voted in October to approve revised House districts that improve Republicans’ chances of winning two additional seats.
Challenges: None. The state constitution required new districts before the 2026 election, because Republicans had approved the prior map without sufficient Democratic support after the last census.
Utah
Current map: no Democrats, four Republicans
New map: A judge in November imposed revised House districts that could help Democrats win a seat. The court ruled that lawmakers had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters when adopting the prior map.
Challenges: A federal court panel and the state Supreme Court, in February, each rejected Republican challenges to the judicial map selection.
Virginia
Current map: six Democrats, five Republicans
New map: Voters approved a constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts backed by Democrats that could help the party win up to four additional seats.
Challenges: The state Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed, but it has yet to rule whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a Tazewell County judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated their own rules while passing it.
Where redistricting efforts were denied
Governors, lawmakers or partisan officials pushed for congressional redistricting in numerous states. In at least five states, those efforts gained some initial traction but ultimately fell short in either the legislature or court.
Maryland
Current map: seven Democrats, one Republican
Proposed map: The Democratic-led House in February passed a redistricting plan backed by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore that could help Democrats win an additional seat.
Challenges: The legislative session ended in April without the Democratic-led Senate voting on the redistricting plan. The state Senate president said there were concerns it could backfire on Democrats.
New York
Current map: 19 Democrats, seven Republicans
Proposed map: A judge in January ordered a state commission to draw new boundaries for the only congressional district in New York City represented by a Republican, ruling it unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of Black and Hispanic residents.
Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in March granted Republicans’ request to halt the judge’s order, leaving the existing district lines in place for the 2026 election.
Indiana
Current map: two Democrats, seven Republicans
Proposed map: The Republican-led House passed a redistricting plan in December that would have improved Republicans’ chances of winning two additional seats.
Challenges: Despite pressure from Trump to adopt the new map, the Republican-led Senate rejected it in a bipartisan vote on Dec. 11.
Kansas
Current map: one Democrat, three Republicans
Proposed map: Some Republican lawmakers mounted an attempt to take up congressional redistricting.
Challenges: Lawmakers dropped a petition drive for a special session on congressional redistricting in November, after failing to gain enough support.
Illinois
Current map: 14 Democrats, three Republicans
Proposed map: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in October proposed a new U.S. House map that would improve Democrats’ chances of winning an additional seat.
Challenges: The Democratic-led General Assembly declined to take up redistricting, citing concerns about the effect on representation for Black residents.
DALLAS (AP) — Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday in a victory for conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more religion into schools.
The ruling sets up a potential clash at the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue in the future. Arkansas and Louisiana have passed similar laws, which have also been challenged in courts.
And Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a similar law earlier this moth.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said in the decision that Texas’ law did not violate the First Amendment, which protects religious freedom and prevents the government from establishing a religion.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, called the ruling “a major victory for Texas and our moral values.”
“The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day,” Paxton said.
Andrew Mahaleris, spokesperson for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the mandate from the state was a “commonsense law, consistent with our history and tradition.”
Organizations representing the families who challenged the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.
“The court’s ruling goes against fundamental First Amendment principles and binding U.S. Supreme Court authority,” the statement said. “The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights.”
The ruling reverses a district court’s judgment that had blocked school districts from displaying the commandments.
The decision says the law “does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams.”
“No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin,” the ruling goes on to say.
Texas’ law took effect on Sept. 1, marking the largest attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools. About two dozen school districts had been barred from posting them after federal judges issued injunctions in lawsuits against the law. But the commandments went up in many classrooms across the state as the school year started.
Tuesday’s ruling comes after the appeals court heard arguments in January in the Texas case and a similar case in Louisiana. In February the appeals court lifted a block that had been placed on Louisiana’s law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
In a post on social media after the ruling in the Texas case, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a post on social media: “Our law clearly was always constitutional, and I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us.”
Arkansas has also enacted a similar law requiring the posting of the commandments, which a federal judge last month blocked in a lawsuit there.
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Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report from Honolulu, Hawaii.
AUSTIN (AP) – The satirical news outlet The Onion is back with a new plan to take over the Infowars platforms of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as his company faces liquidation over more than $1 billion in defamation judgments owed to relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Under a proposal submitted Monday to a state judge in Texas, The Onion would be granted an exclusive, temporary license to the intellectual property of Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, allowing the outlet to put its own content on the Infowars website and social media accounts.
Ben Collins, chief executive of The Onion, said the deal could be in place around April 30, if approved by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin. He said The Onion has already hired people to run Infowars as a parody site including Tim Heidecker, one half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric known for their work on the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” shows.
“We’ll build this into a bigger comedy network,” Collins said in phone interview Monday, adding the Sandy Hook families would receive profits from the new operations.
“A big part of it for us is that the way people consume news now is they see somebody who has no idea what the (expletive) they’re talking about staring into their camera and just like coming up with conspiracy theories or telling you health hacks that will actually get you poisoned, things like that,” he said. “We’re going to create a bunch of characters and worlds around those kinds of things.”
After the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, Jones called it a hoax staged by “crisis actors” in an effort to increase gun control. Many relatives of the victims, along with an FBI agent who responded to the shooting, sued Jones and his company for defamation and infliction of emotional distress.
On his show Monday, Jones vowed to fight the licensing proposal in court but acknowledged he and his crew could be kicked out of the building at the end of the month. He said he would continue his shows in another studio he is preparing, and they would air on his personal X account and other new social media accounts and websites, as well as dozens of radio stations. He also has set up new websites for the merchandise he sells, including dietary supplements and clothing that bring in millions of dollars a year.
“I’m going to continue the exact same show,” he said. “It’ll just be called the ‘Alex Jones Show.’ So, it’s the same satellite, same system. It’s a different news site and news studio. So I’m not going anywhere.”
The licensing deal with The Onion would be for six months, with the right to renew it for another six months as a court-appointed receiver works to eventually sell the assets of Infowars’ parent company, Austin-based Free Speech Systems, and give proceeds to the Sandy Hook families. The receiver is supporting the plan, which calls for The Onion to pay $81,000 a month to cover the rent for the building housing Infowars’ studios, along with utilities and other costs.
During a trial of the defamation suit in Connecticut in 2022, victims’ relatives testified that people whom they called followers of Jones subjected them to death and rape threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media over the hoax claims. Jones argued there was never any proof that linked him to the actions of others.
A jury and judge awarded the families and the FBI agent more than $1.4 billion in damages. In a similar lawsuit in Texas, the parents of a child killed at Sandy Hook were awarded nearly $50 million. Jones appealed both awards. He lost his challenges to the Connecticut judgment, while his appeal of the Texas award is still pending.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in late 2022. In those proceedings, an auction was held in November 2024 to liquidate Infowars’ assets to help pay the defamation judgments, and The Onion was named the winning bidder. But the bankruptcy judge threw out the auction results, citing problems with the process and The Onion’s bid.
The attempt to sell off Infowars’ assets later moved to the state court in Texas, where Guerra Gamble appointed a receiver to liquidate the assets of Jones’ company. Jones is also appealing that ruling, which has put a hold on the liquidation.
A lawyer for the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones in Connecticut said they support The Onion’s plan.
HENDERSON COUNTY— An East Texas man was sentenced to life in prison last week after he was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child. According to our news partner KETK, 81-year-old former truck driver Randall Tidwell was arrested in 2025 after two underage girls reported that he had sexually abused them over multiple years.
While both girls were living with Tidwell, he allegedly sexually abused both of them inside his truck and at his home in Seven Points. The victims later revealed Tidwell’s actions once they left his home and were living in Kansas. During the investigation, Tidwell admitted to sexually abusing the girls on more than one occasion and was given two life sentences in prison last week after he was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
“The children had so much support during the trial, from the eldest’s former principal and her 1st grade teacher, to witnesses from Kansas who flew and drove in from out of State to ensure they received justice for what happened to them,” Henderson County District Attorney Jenny Palmer said “The jury took less than 20 minutes to reach their two life sentences verdict. Tidwell will never again see freedom.”
TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK)– Officials are urging motorcyclists to drive safely after one person was killed in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash in Texarkana on Sunday.
Man dies from injuries in high-speed Texarkana motorcycle crash
According to the Texarkana Police Department, the crash occurred around 9:20 a.m. on St. Michael Drive. The driver of the motorcycle, identified as 35-year-old Jared Furlow, was pronounced dead on the scene.
This was the second fatal motorcycle crash to happen in Texarkana in the past two weeks and the Motorcycle Safety Foundation is providing tips to help keep motorcyclists safe on the roadway, including:
Avoid riding in blind spots of cars and trucks
Wear a quality helmet and eye protection
Use turn signals for all turns and lane changes
Make sure your headlight works and is on day and night
Use lane positioning to see and be seen.
“We urge all motorists and motorcyclists to use extra caution on our roadways, remain alert, and look out for one another,” the Texarkana Police Department said.
TYLER – Multiple East Texas schools have received threats over the last few weeks, including Chapel Hill, Rusk, Alto, and Troup. Now, according to our news partner KETK, law enforcement agencies are examining the most effective tactics to prevent these threats from escalating.
Chief Kyndal Brown with Troup ISD recalled an incident on April 13: “So last week we received a phone call just after lunches were over that an individual stated that he was going to come into our high school with an AR-15 style rifle and then he was going to go down to the middle school and obviously, we immediately responded. Both officers were able to immediately secure the exterior,” Brown said. He added that the call was non-credible and that they don’t need to update their protocols in light of these threats.
Troup ISD uses the state-wide Standard Response Protocol: HOLD, SECURE, LOCKDOWN, EVACUATE, AND SHELTER. On Monday, the school entered a ‘SECURE’ status. Read the rest of this entry »
RUSK COUNTY — Four people were arrested on Saturday after deputies uncovered a suspected cockfighting operation in Rusk County, where dozens of roosters were found dead. The Rusk County Sheriff’s Office said they received information about cockfighting taking place at a property off FM 839 in the Reklaw area. The sheriff’s office patrol and criminal investigation unit, alongside other East Texas sheriff’s offices, arrived at the property and saw the illegal activity. During the investigation, they found 56 dead roosters and 11 that were alive and seized.
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DAINGERFIELD, Texas (KETK) – The Daingerfield-Lone Star ISD Board of Trustees has called for voters to pass a $45 million bond proposal that would fund a new elementary school campus and more.
LIST: 11 East Texas school districts put bond measures on May ballot
According to the district, the bond proposal came about after a comprehensive districtwide facilities assessment identified several needs across the district, including the aging West Elementary and South Elementary schools, which were both built in the 1950’s.
Beyond their aging campuses, the district has undersized classrooms, asbestos in certain older materials and a lack of secure entry areas.
If voters approve the $45 million bond, the following items would be funded:
A new PK–5 elementary school to replace the existing two campuses.
Security vestibules at the junior high and high school.
Demolition of the current elementary buildings (retaining South Elementary’s library wing for repurposing).
Additional high school parking for improved access and safety.
The district estimates that the Interest & Sinking (I&S) rate will rise by $0.38 per $100 of property value if the bond is passed. As per state law, homeowners 65 and older with a homestead exemption will not see any increase if the bond passes.
To learn more about the proposal, visit Daingerfield-Lone Star ISD online.
WHITEHOUSE – According to the Sheriff’s Office, one person was injured and one was arrested after a stabbing in Whitehouse Sunday morning. The stabbing suspect was taken into custody after a 45-minute standoff with deputies. The incident started on Judy Street in Whitehouse and one man was injured in the stabbing. The suspect was stopped by a deputy in the 1700 block of Centennial Parkway. The suspect refused to get out of the car and deputies negotiated with the suspect for about 45 minutes before he surrendered, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office said the suspect was arrested on an unrelated warrant. The sheriff’s office decline to name the suspect as the Whitehouse Police Department is investigating this as an aggravated assault case.
LONGVIEW – UPDATE: Just days after the crash that killed a Longview teacher and a nurse practitioner, Joel Mack’s final act of generosity is unfolding: in less than 24 hours, his organs will be donated to save others.
Newly released details from the Texas Department of Public Safety shed light on the U.S. Highway 259 crash that killed a Longview nurse practitioner and a Longview ISD teacher last weekend. Our news partners at KETK report that the collision occurred at around 3 a.m. on Sunday in the Diana area, involving Longview ISD teacher Kimberly Law and Hospitality Health ER nurse practitioner Joel Mack, DPS confirmed.
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