Today is
Tuesday June 09, 2026
TYLER – Tyler Fire Marshal Joey Hooton confirmed that one family was displaced after a one-alarm fire at the River Oaks Apartments in Tyler on Saturday. The fire was eventually put out and law enforcement has cleared the scene. Officials from the Tyler Fire Marshall’s Office and the Tyler Police Department responded to the scene in the 4400 block of Troup Highway at around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday.
According to our news partner KETK, the cause of the fire is currently unknown but looks like it started in a closet before it ended up leaving eight units with smoke damage and displacing one family.
HALLSVILLE, Texas (KETK) – The West Harrison Volunteer Fire Department said that firefighters responded to a wildfire near FM 2625 south of Hallsville and Marshall on Sunday.
West Harrison VFD said the Hallsville Fire Department and Emergency Services Districts 3 and 4 responded to the scene off of FM 2625 near Cave Springs Road. Hallsville Fire Department assistant chief Bert Scott told our news partner KETK that the fire was more than 120 acres in size and took three hours to contain.
No structures were damaged by the blaze and officials said the Texas A&M Forest Service also responded to the scene with their bulldozers. The Texas A&M Forest Service said the fire was 138 acres in size and 100% contained as of 6:22 p.m. on Sunday.
Harrison County Judge Chad Sims issued a county-wide burn ban on Oct. 9.
TYLER – Smith County has won a 2024 County Best Practices award from the Texas Association of Counties for their program to recruit jail detention officers from local schools according to our news partner KETK. The county said their Detention Officer Program is the first of it’s kind in the state. The program was started to help address recruitment issues at the Smith County Jail by getting interested high school students to take the state jailer exam after they graduate.
The program was started by Smith County Sheriff’s Office chiefs Jimmy Jackson and Gary Pinkerton. The program has reportedly been a success since Smith County has reported that they’ve gone from having over 20 vacancies for several years, to having zero openings in 2024. One jail officer that was hired right after graduating from John Tyler High School is Justtice Taylor, 19 of Tyler. She, Pinkerton and Jackson have been recruiting at local schools including at her alma mater. Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER – East Texas election administrators are starting to report an increase in registered voters ahead of the general election in November, according to our news partner KETK.
Local election administrators are inputting the last batch of voter registration applications for the 2024 election year. According the secretary of state, Cherokee and Angelina counties are seeing the most voters in their counties’ history. In Deep East Texas, Angelina County’s registration numbers increased from 53,166 applications in 2020 to 55,980 applications in 2024. After the signing of Senate Bill One in 2021, counties began assessing the status of registered voters.
“We currently have 31,191 voters and in 2020 we had about 29,000 registered voters. I think just as Cherokee county grows and people move to this area, we just have an increase in voters as well,†said Kandace Herring, Cherokee County election administrator. Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER – Our news partners at KETK report that Smith County District Clerk Penny Clarkston was arrested again on Monday for yelling at jurors and physically blocking exit doors during a court proceeding, court documents state.According to a document filed by Judge Austin Reeve Jackson, the court told potential jurors they were free to go when Clarkston started yelling that they couldn’t leave without her permission. As district clerk, Clarkston issues writs, abstracts of judgement and prepares warrants. According to the Smith County website, she also serves as the administrator of the county’s jury system. The document stated that on Monday, the court ordered Clarkston multiple times to stop talking to the jurors and to let them leave but she refused. Clarkston would then ignore several of the court’s orders and proceeded to say “you can’t tell me to do anything,†the documents said. Read the rest of this entry »
TEXARKANA – The Texarkana Police Department said that they arrested two individuals after they allegedly attacked and robbed an elderly person who was giving them a ride.
According to our news partner KETK, at approximately 11:30 a.m. the Texarkana PD responded to a call about an injured man in the 500 block of Blake Street. Officers said they found an 86-year-old man bleeding from a wound on his head that told officers he was flagged by two individuals to give them a ride to Blake Street. Police said that the man told them one of the individuals, identified as Danny Williams, started to choke him with a baseball bat and afterwards struck him in the head with the bat.
Texarkana PD said that the man also told them that the other passenger, identified as Dequeener Mitchell, proceeded to grab his wallet and take the cash out of it before the two individuals fled. Read the rest of this entry »
KTBB 97.5 FM will be off the air intermittently this week as we complete the process of moving our transmitting antenna to a new tower. All of KTBB’s programming continues to be available on KTBB AM 600, as well as via online streaming and via the KTBB Mobile App for Apple and Android.
NACOGDOCHES – The Nacogdoches Police Department said that one person was critically injured after a reported shooting at a private club on Sunday morning. According to our news partner KETK, Nacogdoches PD Sgt. Brent Handy said that 911 calls came from the private club at 1600 E. Main St. at around 12:46 a.m. on Sunday. When officers arrived, Handy said, they could tell there had been a disturbance at the scene and then they were called to a local hospital where a shooting victim had been privately taken.
According to Handy, the victim was in critical but stable condition as of 2:40 p.m. on Sunday. Nacogdoches PD is investigating the shooting.
AUSTIN (AP) — A Texas man set to die this month is at the center of another push for clemency in the U.S., this time backed by several GOP lawmakers and bestselling author John Grisham, who say a father’s 2002 conviction for killing his infant daughter deserves a second look. Their pleas to spare Robert Roberson, of Palestine, who is set to die by lethal injection on Oct. 17, comes after Missouri and Oklahoma carried out executions last month over calls to grant two condemned men lesser punishments, underlining how rare clemency remains for death row prisoners.
The cases highlight one of a governor’s most extraordinary powers — whether to allow an execution to proceed. In Texas, the state’s parole board and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott have yet to weigh in on Roberson, whose defenders say was convicted based on faulty scientific evidence. Read the rest of this entry »
WHITEHOUSE – A property owner and Atmos Energy have been at odds over the installation of a natural gas pipeline according to our news partner KETK. With a civil jury trial set, construction continues.
Anthony and his wife Pamela moved to Whitehouse three years ago in search of a dome-shaped home with lots of shade for his medical conditions. “They’ve made my sanctuary into a prison,†Anthony Voss, property owner, said. “I have light sensitivity, being a disabled vet, and eye issues,†Anthony said.
Soon after, they received a letter from Atmos Energy informing the Voss’ they were planning to place a natural gas pipeline through their property. Leading to a long legal battle.
“They just wouldn’t work with us, even though they bored, they’re planning on boring, they could leave the trees, but they decided not to,†Anthony said. Read the rest of this entry »
SMITH COUNTY — According to our news partner KETK, the Troup Volunteer Fire Department declined to renew their contract with Smith County Emergency Service District 2 (ESD2) after claiming expectations are too high. The ESD provides volunteer stations with necessities otherwise hard to obtain without funding.
Though Troup is situated between Smith and Cherokee county, Troup VFD’s decline to recontract with the ESD will allow them to only serve Cherokee county. Now, ESD2’s Troup station off Wilkinson Street will be handling all calls in the community and claim response time will not be a problem.
ESD2 was created by 11 volunteer fire stations in Smith County back in 2007 to help cover Smith county volunteer stations that were not fully staffed. Now, Chief Dustin Rust of the Troup Volunteer Fire Department said the expectation by the ESD are dwindling their man power from 30 to 5 volunteers.
“We’re a volunteer department, anything we can do to help the citizens is great, but when my numbers start falling and I can’t do my job and I can’t guarantee our level of service to people, it’s time to make a change somewhere,†Troup Volunteer Fire Department Chief Dustin Rust said. Read the rest of this entry »
LONGVIEW – According to our news partner KETK, Longview ISD hosted a town hall meeting for educational leaders and Texas lawmakers to make sure their voices are heard, and needs like funding are understood. Basic allotment, which determines how much money public schools get for each student, hasn’t been updated in half a decade.
The meeting comes ahead of the next legislative session, after the previous session didn’t pass house bill one which would have provided more money to schools. Major topics of the discussion that created the most buzz were school choice, basic allotment funding and the mental health of students and faculty. Local representatives heard from districts firsthand, and hopefully can apply what they learned in January at the next legislative session.
For Longview superintendent Dr. Marla Sheppard, funding is something she says her schools and others need in order to continue providing a quality education.
“Money, we all need money,†Sheppard said. “Right now, we are in a crisis as far as funding is concerned, we’ve not had an increase in five or six years and so for us with inflation, teachers needing raises, children becoming more costly to educate, then we all need more money.†Read the rest of this entry »
WASKOM – According to our news partner KETK. three members of a California fire and rescue team were injured in a crash in Waskom while driving to the East Coast to help with Hurricane Helene relief efforts. The San Diego firefighters were traveling in their Ford F-350 truck when they were involved in a collision on Interstate 20 near the border of Texas and Louisiana around 2:45 a.m. Sunday. Mónica Muñoz, a spokesperson for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD), said the injured firefighters were flown to a hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, for treatment. The remaining crew members were sent to Waskom, Texas, to await further instructions.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
“The news of this crash is devastating. We are doing everything we can to offer support to our department and those team members and their families who were part of this deployment,†said SDFD Assistant Chief James Gaboury.
Read the rest of this entry »
LIVINGSTON – On Friday, Republicans and Democrats from the Texas House of Representatives met with death row inmate and Palestine native, Robert Roberson according to our news partner KETK. Roberson is scheduled to be put to death by the State of Texas on Oct. 17 amid questions about the science provided to secure that sentence and bipartisan calls for clemency.
Twenty-one years ago, Roberson was convicted of murdering his daughter Nikki, who doctors at the time of the trial said had suffered from a version of shaken baby syndrome, a diagnosis that has come under question by scientists. Gretchen Sween, an attorney for Roberson, said the case was a tragedy, not a crime.
“This isn’t just about Robert, this is about other people like Robert in similar situations and maybe not just on death row,†said Republican State Rep. Lacey Hull of Houston. “His case is not unique, his case and his hope and all of our hope, is to shine a light on this and to make the necessary reforms to where we are not executing or imprisoning innocent people.†Read the rest of this entry »
TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK) – The Texarkana Police Department arrested two parents on Saturday after their 5-year-old son died on Friday. According to our news partner KETK, the department reportedly got a report of a child not breathing in the 3300 block of Nichols Drive at around 2 p.m. on Friday. When officers responded to the scene they found a 5-year-old boy unresponsive and started CPR. The boy died at the hospital not long after they arrived. On Saturday, Texarkana PD announced that the boy’s parents had been arrested.
Terry Robinson, 35 of Texarkana, was arrested for capital murder of a person under 10-years-old. His bond was set at $5,000,000. Destiny Culvahouse, 24 of Texarkana, was arrested for injury to a child with serious bodily injury or death. Her bond was set at $1,000,000. Robinson and Culvahouse are both being held in the Bi-State Justice Center.