Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
Many of the celebrations and holidays honoring the late farmworker labor leader César Chavez are being renamed, postponed or completely canceled in the wake of allegations that he sexually abused women and girls while at the helm of the United Farm Workers Union.
Labor rights activist Dolores Huerta revealed last week that she was among those who say they were abused by Chavez, who died more than three decades ago.
The allegations have prompted swift fallout, including from the United Farm Workers, which announced it would not take part in any events named after the organization’s former leader.
States and cities are canceling or renaming holidays
Several states previously recognized a day on or near Chavez’s March 31 birthday as an annual holiday, and in 2014 President Barack Obama signed a proclamation commemorating March 31 as César Chavez Day.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to rename César Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day. The state Senate approved the legislation earlier in the day with bipartisan support.
Minnesota lawmakers took similar action Thursday, sending a bill to Gov. Tim Walz that would strip Cesar Chavez Day from the state’s calendar.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that his state would not observe the holiday this year, and he directed all state agency heads to comply with the change. Abbott also said he would work with legislators to remove the holiday from state law.
Lawmakers in Colorado are considering a bill to rename the voluntary state holiday there to Farm Workers Day. Denver renamed its annual celebration “Si Se Puede Day” while removing a bust of Chavez from a city park. Grand Junction, Colorado, officials renamed an event there the “Si, Se Puede Celebration.”
“Sí, Se Puede” translates into the farmworkers movement’s rallying cry — Yes We Can.
The César Chavez Peace and Justice Committee of Denver canceled a celebration set for April 11.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office said the state won’t recognize Cesar Chavez Day, instead focusing on Dolores Huerta Day on April 10, her birthday.
Utah recognizes Cesar Chavez Day, but the state’s legislative session ended at the start of March, before the sexual abuse allegations came to light. Eliminating or renaming the holiday would require a change to state law.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has declined to recognize March 31 as César Chavez Day as she has in the two prior years, Hobbs’ spokesperson Liliana Soto said last week. While it is not a state holiday, some Arizona municipalities recognize it, closing schools or government offices. Officials in Phoenix voted unanimously Wednesday to rename the city holiday Farmworkers Day.
Events are being canceled across the US
The city of Lansing, Michigan, canceled its Legacy of César Chavez Dinner on March 25. The featured speaker was to be Chavez granddaughter Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who was campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.
“We remain committed to honoring the Latino community, and the service, dignity, and rights of farmworkers. We will be working on further events and celebrations in the future,” the city said.
The city of Milwaukee also canceled its annual celebration.
The Coconino County Hispanic Advisory Council in Arizona postponed an annual César E. Chavez Community Breakfast, with plans to reschedule it to focus on the contributions and achievements of Hispanic residents in the county.
The city of Tucson, Arizona renamed its annual celebration the “Comunidad y Labor Unity Fair.”
San Jose, the largest city in Northern California, is canceling its César Chavez celebration, the mayor announced on March 18. Matt Mahan said the city would identify ways to honor the legacy of the farmworker movement without celebrating “individuals who caused such profound harm to the community.”
The Hispanic Advocates and Business Leaders of Austin, Texas, announced that an annual march honoring Chavez set for March 28 would no longer take place. Several Austin city leaders also announced that they support the renaming of César Chavez Street.
Officials at the AFL-CIO said the allegations came as a shock and that the federation of unions would not participate or endorse any activities for César Chavez Day.
“Our thoughts are first and foremost with any victims of assault and abuse who have described experiencing what no one — especially children — should ever have to survive,” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler and secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond said in a statement. “No legacy can excuse it.”
The organization continues to support farmworkers and said the rights they have won “cannot be erased by the horrific actions of one person.”
Calls for name changes
are increasing
Dozens of schools, streets and other locations across the United States are named for Chavez, including the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California.
Dennis Arguelles, the director of the National Parks Conservation Association in Southern California, said renaming the national monument would require an act of Congress. He said the site should continue to honor the farmworker movement and leaders who fought for dignity, better working conditions and fair wages.
The Los Angeles Unified school board on Tuesday approved plans to rename schools and to recognize Farmworkers Day on March 31 rather than César Chavez Day. The Los Angeles County Board of Commissioners approved similar plans.
The Lubbock Democratic Party in Texas on Wednesday called on city leaders to rename César Chavez Drive to honor Dolores Huerta.
In Wisconsin, Milwaukee City Alderperson JoCasta Zamarripa said discussions will begin soon on what to do about a street named after Chavez.
Portland, Oregon, city councilor Candace Avalos said she would start a petition to rename a city boulevard after Huerta. City rules require 2,500 signatures to start a renaming effort, Avalos wrote on social media, urging her constituents to stay tuned for ways to help with the effort.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, issued a statement Wednesday saying abuse of any kind, especially against children, is indefensible and a betrayal of the values that Latino leaders have championed for generations.
“His name should be removed from landmarks, institutions and honors,” Luján said of Chavez. “We cannot celebrate someone who carried out such disturbing harm.” ___ Associated Press reporters around the United States contributed.
Problems at U.S. airports could worsen beyond hours-long security lines and missed flights if Congress does not agree on a way to pay Transportation Security Administration officers. Federal officials have warned that staffing shortages may close some smaller airports to passengers and commercial flights.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the TSA’s acting leaders said they expected more airport screeners to quit or call out of work after Friday, when TSA personnel were set to miss their second full paychecks since mid-February.
Johnny Jones, the leader of the labor union that represents TSA officers, said Thursday that the agency created a list of about 75 airports that could be closed to free up officers to send to major hubs with long security wait times. Jones suggested that could mean that flights at decent-sized airports surrounding large hubs could be grounded if the security officers are reassigned. Previously most of the speculation had focused on tiny airports with only a few officers operating a single checkpoint.
Jones said he hasn’t seen the list, and the airports on it haven’t been made public.
But President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will sign an emergency order to pay TSA officers as Congress struggles to reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
The officers have been required to work without pay since funding for DHS, which the TSA falls under, lapsed on Feb. 14. If Trump succeeds in finding a way to pay them, that may bring an end to the recent extreme security delays at airports.
“This level of disruption is unprecedented,” Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s acting administrator, said of the financial strain on TSA workers leading to high absentee rates. “We are being forced to consolidate lanes, and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers.”
McNeill, who spoke during a House committee hearing on Wednesday, did not specify at what point closures might occur. She said the TSA officer staffing shortages were “a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation.”
“The agency has to look at it as, ‘Wow man, at the end of the day, we still have to do essential work and protect the American people.’ It becomes very difficult to do when you have this going on,” said Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Jones added that officers who fear they could be reassigned are worrying about how they would adjust. It could mean spending more money on longer commutes, or temporarily upending their lives to stay in a faraway city.
About 11% of officers nationwide missed scheduled shifts this week, but at some airports, the share has topped 40% on some days, according to DHS. Passengers standing in massive security lines have filled terminal lobbies and stretched out the door at times in Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta.
Here are some things to know about the DHS funding lapse’s impact on air travel and the questions that remain:
How likely is it that the funding lapse will lead to airport closures?
With few confirmed details, it’s hard to say. But officials have suggested that the possibility of closing airports will become more likely the longer TSA workers go without pay.
Aviation security expert Sheldon Jacobson, whose research contributed to the design of TSA PreCheck, said that Trump administration officials appear to be floating the possibility of closed airports in an effort to pressure Congress to reach an agreement on funding DHS.
“This is a situation that, once again, the politicians are trying to move the needle to get people to compromise by making threats. Are these threats realistic? Yes. Are they a good idea? No,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson and other aviation experts said the messaging also suggests that sending federal immigration officers to help out at airports with security staffing problems hasn’t been a successful solution.
The White House has said ICE officers helped reduce lines by monitoring crowds and checking IDs. TSA union leaders and other critics have called the move ineffective, arguing that immigration officers don’t have the required expertise and experience.
Which airports are the most at risk for closures?
Larger airports with hundreds of officers can close some of their checkpoints and even their TSA PreCheck lanes and continue operating. The smallest of the 440 U.S. airports with security screeners don’t have that option.
Smaller airports that only have a single checkpoint might have to shut down temporarily if they can’t get enough officers to operate them. That could happen if a number of their officers don’t report for any given shift.
Small airports have “a smaller pool of people that you can draw from to keep the airport open,” explained Eric Chaffee, a Case Western Reserve law professor who studies risk management, including in the aviation industry. Larger airports, by contrast, are often “much better able to absorb a handful of people calling out.”
The closing of these airports would likely be “uneven,” Chaffee said — potentially affecting facilities ranging from airports with just a few gates to small regional hubs. But, he warned, that any temporary closure of small airports could cascade through the broader air traffic network because it is a “highly interconnected web.”
What would be the impact of small airport closures?
Experts stressed there would be consequences for the aviation system as a whole.
“Every airport, no matter its size, has some impact to the National Airspace System,” said airport security expert Jeff Price.
Jacobson, who is a professor at the University of Illinois, said airlines rely on passengers from small airports to fill out their flights at major hubs.
Others point to ripple effects for the communities smaller airports serve.
“Despite the fact that we’re talking about small regional airports, this is a big deal,” Chaffee said, pointing to disruptions for both businesses and travelers. “Ultimately, if this does occur, having to drive a half hour to an airport is a lot different than having to drive three hours to an airport.”
If flights stop operating at some smaller airports, it could hit nearby communities and their economies hard, especially businesses operating in hospitality and tourism. It could also jeopardize airport workers’ jobs, such as janitors and employees of restaurants and shops that serve travelers.
Meanwhile, financial strains would continue to pile up for TSA officers going without pay.
With there being a slew of potential economic repercussions from air travel disruptions, Jacobson said “We are playing with fire right now when we are threatening such a large contributor to our GDP.”
___
AP Airlines and Travel Writer Rio Yamat contributed to this story.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Separate natural gas explosions in January 2024 that destroyed two homes in Jackson, Mississippi resulted from underground pipes pulling loose from their fittings as spongy clay soil expanded and contracted with rainfall, according to a federal report released Thursday.
The first explosion killed Clara Barbour, 82.
The National Transportation Safety Board found that the natural gas utility in the city, Dallas-based Atmos Energy Corp., had detected the leaks before the explosions, but didn’t evaluate them as severe enough for quick repair. The board also found that Atmos didn’t do enough to assess risks and make repairs to its pipeline system and didn’t do enough to educate the public or emergency officials about how to respond to natural gas leaks. It urged regulators to take a closer look at the company.
“Atmos has had significant safety shortfalls in recent years,” the board wrote “Thus, Atmos’s multistate operations require broader oversight.”
Company spokesperson Bobby Morgan said safety remains “our highest priority.”
“We will work diligently in the coming days and weeks to evaluate the findings as part of our ongoing safety efforts to further our vision to be the safest provider of natural gas services,” Morgan said in a statement.
The company distributes natural gas in Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
One explosion and fire in south Jackson on Jan. 24 killed the elderly woman Barbour and slightly injured her husband, Johnny Barbour. Three days later and three-quarters of a mile (1.1 kilometers) away, another explosion leveled one home and burned a neighboring home. No one was injured there.
Investigators found that in both cases, gas pipes feeding the homes had pulled loose from their couplings as soil expanded and contracted, allowing dangerous levels of gas to build up, setting the stage for the explosions.
Much of the Jackson area is built atop a soil layer known as Yazoo clay that expands in wet weather and contracts in times of drought. Besides causing building foundations to crack and roadways to heave, the expansion and contraction can cause pipes to disconnect, and the pipe couplings that an Atmos predecessor installed are not resistant to pulling out, the board found. Investigators recommended that Atmos find and replace all those couplings.
The leak at the Barbour home had been detected Nov. 17, 2023, after the homeowner smelled an odor compound that is inserted into methane gas. An Atmos technician declared the leak nonhazardous, meaning Atmos might not repair it for a year or more. The leak at the second home was detected Dec. 1, but Atmos evaluated it as even less hazardous, scheduling it for repair within three years.
The report indicates the company re-evaluated leaks in Jackson following the explosion and found others that were more serious than initially reported.
The safety board faulted Atmos for not doing more to identify threats posed by expansive soils, noting regulators had been warning about the issue since 2008 and that the NTSB identified expansive soils as a factor in a 2018 Atmos explosion in Dallas that killed one and injured four.
Investigators said Atmos had different safety procedures in different states and that if stricter state rules in Kansas had been followed in Mississippi, the explosions could have been prevented.
“Atmos’s siloed state operations, including leak monitoring procedures that differed by state, demonstrate that Atmos has not applied lessons learned in one state to the other states it operates in,” the board wrote.
MARSHALL — A Marshall man was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison after using an illegal firearm in a 2024 armed robbery. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of Texas, 20-year-old Jaquallon Tyjuan Hargett was arrested in 2024 after robbing a person of $100 at an ATM in Daingerfield using a pistol equipped with a machine gun conversion device. The conversion device, often referred to as a glock switch, can be attached to the rear of a firearm, allowing a semi-automatic weapon to be converted into a fully automatic machine gun.
“This case demonstrates why we cannot, and we will not, allow Glock-switches to proliferate on the streets of East Texas,” U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs said. “This sentence, 100 months in prison for robbing $100 from a citizen of our community, shows that crime simply does not pay on our watch. Law enforcement conducted an excellent investigation that led to this criminal being brought to justice. They have my sincere appreciation.”
The Daingerfield Police Department, the Marshall Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and the Texas Department of Public Safety investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak.
DALLAS, Texas (KETK) – Two children at the center of an AMBER ALERT issued on Thursday have been found, according to the Dallas Police Department.
The Dallas Police Department had issued an AMBER ALERT for 1-year-old Ky’aire Epperson and 8-year-old Sariah Roy-Ford, who were last seen in Dallas on Thursday.
According to the alert, Ky’aire is a 1-year-old Black boy who weighs around 20 pounds, is around 2-foot 5-inches tall and has black hair and brown eyes. Sariah is an 8-year-old Black girl with a black braided ponytail and brown eyes who’s around 4’8? and weighs around 70 pounds.
Ky’aire and Sariah were last seen in the 6400 block of Maple Avenue in Dallas at around 3:04 p.m. on Thursday. Ky’aire was last seen wearing a brown onesie with an animal print, green shorts and white socks. Sariah was last seen wearing a blue shirt, pink shorts and blue shoes.
AUSTIN — Less than two months before the May runoff, U.S. Senator John Cornyn has locked down a wave of support, with more than a dozen elected Republican lawmakers lining up behind his bid for the U.S. Senate.
Cornyn edged out Paxton by just 1.2% in the March election, sending the race to a May runoff. Since then, he has added endorsements from 19 more Texas Republicans, including East Texas U.S. Rep. Nathaniel Moran, bringing his total to more than 500 current and former Texas elected officials.
“I’m honored to have the endorsement of many longtime friends in Texas politics, who I have gotten to know during our time in office and with whom I’ve been proud to work,” Cornyn said. “I’ve always worked hard to earn the trust of our elected officials, so we can roll up our sleeves and work together for the betterment of all Texans. I look forward to continuing our important work together upon my re-election to the United States Senate.” Read the rest of this entry »
BULLARD – The Bullard board of trustees approved a project on Monday to renovate an old middle school into an early childhood campus. The facility is expected to be completed by 2027. The new campus will serve students in pre-K, kindergarten and first grade. Funding for the renovation is provided by a bond measure that voters originally approved in May 2022.
According to our news partner KETK, the decision to repurpose the facility followed a review of student enrollment data and campus capacity by district officials. The Bullard interim superintendent noted that the move was made after evaluating the current space available to accommodate the growing student population. This analysis was conducted to ensure the project meets the district’s long-term facility needs for its youngest learners.
The renovation was included as a component of the school district’s original bond proposal from May 2022. By shifting the former middle school to an early childhood model, the district intends to better manage population distribution across its campuses. The board of trustees finalized the approval for the change during their regular meeting on Monday.
The renovation project is expected to be completed by Aug. 20-27. The district will begin accepting students for the new pre-K, kindergarten and first-grade programs once the facility is ready for the start of the school year.
HOUSTON (AP) — George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the symbol for how the ongoing partial government shutdown has wreaked havoc on the nation’s air travel system.
While long security lines have hobbled airports across the U.S., Bush Intercontinental’s problems have been more pronounced. Frustrated travelers at Houston’s largest airport have confronted warnings of four-hour wait times to get through security, as many Transportation Security Administration workers aren’t showing up for their shifts since they’re not getting paid during the shutdown.
“And we’ve been in this airport since 8 o’clock in the morning. Very tired, queuing and queuing and very slow,” Edgaer Fernando, who was traveling to Guatemala, said on Tuesday.
Union and airport officials have offered a variety of reasons why Bush Intercontinental seems to be worse than other airports.
These include the Houston airport having one of the highest callout rates of TSA workers in the country due to the economic challenges they are facing, higher passenger traffic as the airport is a major hub for United Airlines, and a busy tourism month for Houston.
More TSA workers in Houston are not coming to work compared to other cities
Both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, the city’s other major airport, have had some of the highest callout rates in the U.S.
While 11% of TSA workers nationally did not show up for work on Tuesday, at Bush Intercontinental, that number was nearly 40%. At Hobby, it was even higher — 43%. The callout rate in Houston has averaged between 35% and 40%, said Johnny Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers nationwide.
But Bush Intercontinental is much busier than Hobby, having served over 48.4 million passengers in 2024, compared to 14.6 million passengers at Hobby.
Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System, said that at Bush Intercontinental, 37 TSA checkpoint lanes are usually operating. Only between a third and 50% of lanes are currently being operated, he said.
“We worry conditions will only get worse at airports across the U.S. until Congress ends this shutdown,” Szczesniak said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.
TSA workers were already dealing with financial difficulties and debt from last year’s shutdown, and with higher costs for groceries and gas, employees “are just tired of it,” Jones said.
“There could be a million factors, but I can just tell you as simple as this: If everybody’s being paid, you wouldn’t have no lines,” Jones said.
Bush Intercontinental is among the nation’s largest hub airports
The Houston airport is one of the nation’s busiest and is also a major hub for United Airlines. Of the 48.4 million passengers that went through the airport in 2024, 34.8 million were from United Airlines.
“There’s high call outs, but it’s also the excessive origination point for a lot of flights,” Jones said.
With the high volume of passengers, the Houston airport might have also been experiencing a staffing shortage even before the shutdown, as no TSA workers have been hired around the country in about a year, Jones said.
March has been a busy month for Houston
Besides spring break travelers, Houston has hosted a variety of high-profile events this month.
These include games during the World Baseball Classic and CERAWeek, a major energy conference with more than 10,000 participants from around the world. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo reportedly drew 2.6 million attendees, many from outside the metro area, during its three-week duration. And this week, two of the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 games will be played in Houston.
“While the delays are frustrating for travelers, they do not appear to be impacting tourism. In fact, Houston is experiencing the strongest month of March in terms of hotel rooms and reservations in the city’s history,” Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement.
Wait times at Bush Intercontinental seemed to improve on Wednesday as it took less than two hours to get through TSA security.
“Everyone’s trying their best. And thanks to all the TSA members who are here,” Raj Chauhan, who was traveling to Miami, said on Wednesday.
__
Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
Growth rates in U.S. metro areas dropped the steepest in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border last year because of declines in immigrants while counties along Florida’s Gulf Coast lost residents due to a series of hurricanes, according to new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The estimates showed that a majority of metro areas and counties had slower population gains last year, which the bureau attributed primarily to a slowdown in international migration, compared to the previous year when an influx of immigrants had helped urban areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic a few years earlier.
The average growth rate for metro areas fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025.
The figures, covering one year through July 2025, reflect the initial months of President Donald Trump’s second term and the beginning of his administration’s immigration crackdown, With an aging America and birth rates in the U.S. declining over the past two decades, immigration has become an important source of growth in many communities.
“With so little natural increase, migration determines whether an area grows or declines, particularly in the big metro cores that have continuous domestic out-migration and are dependent on immigration,” said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
Immigrant losses
Three metro areas along the U.S-Mexico border stretching from Arizona to Texas had the steepest drops in population growth rates in 2025, according to the Census Bureau.
The growth rate in Laredo, Texas, dropped from 3.2% to 0.2%. It went from 3.3% to 1.4% in Yuma, Arizona, and declined from 1.2% into negative territory at -0.7% in El Centro, California. All three experienced growth in 2024 because of an influx of thousands of immigrants.
“That pattern suggests a sharper rise-and-fall effect in border regions, where international migration plays a more central role in year-to-year population change,” said Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center.
As in 2024, the top destinations for immigrants in pure numbers in 2025 were counties that are home to Houston, Miami and Los Angeles. But the drop in immigrant numbers in those counties was stark. Nine out of 10 U.S. counties had lower levels of immigration in 2025 compared to 2024, according to the Census Bureau.
Hurricane migration
Two destructive hurricanes, Helene and Milton, tore through Gulf Coast counties in Florida in fall 2024, leaving behind tens of billions of dollars in damage. The storms also caused residents to leave, according to the population estimates.
Pinellas County, which is home to St. Petersburg, lost almost 12,000 residents, the second most in the U.S., trailing only Los Angeles County, which has been losing residents all decade. Pinellas County relies on migration for growth because deaths outpace births more than in any county in the U.S.
Taylor County, a tiny community ravaged by the hurricanes in Florida’s Big Bend area, had the steepest growth rate decline among U.S. counties last year, with a -2.2% drop.
But the hurricane migration wasn’t limited to Florida. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the county that is home to Asheville, North Carolina, had more than 2,000 residents leaving in the months after the remnants of Hurricane Helene destroyed homes and cut off power and communications to mountain towns.
Growth leaders
The New York metro area slid from growing by the most people in 2024 to ranking No. 13 in 2025 because of the drop in immigrants.
Instead, two perennial growth powerhouses this decade, the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metro areas, were at the top of the list, followed by the Atlanta, Phoenix and Charlotte, North Carolina, metro areas.
Several midsize metros in Florida and South Carolina had the largest growth rates. Ocala, Florida, located 80 miles (129 km) northwest of Orlando and known for its horse farms, led the nation at 3.4%. It was followed by: metro Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which has become a retirement haven; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Lakeland, Florida, located between the much larger metros of Tampa and Orlando; and Punta Gorda, Florida, about 35 miles (56.3 km) north of Fort Myers.
Sunbelt exurban growth
The far-out suburbs were top destinations among those who had moved from somewhere else in the United States.
They were led by Collin County, Texas, outside Dallas; Montgomery County, Texas, outside Houston; Pinal County, Arizona, outside Phoenix; and Pasco and Polk counties outside Tampa.
The rapid growth of far-flung exurbs is an after-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau. Rising housing costs drove people farther from cities, and remote work allowed many to do their jobs from home at least part of the week.
Where the babies are
Even though New York had more people moving out than moving in, births allowed the metro area to gain more than 32,000 residents. The New York metro area led the nation in natural increase, or births outpacing deaths, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metros.
The metros where deaths outpaced births in the greatest numbers were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several Florida communities with large senior populations — the Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Tampa metro areas.
The two Texas metro areas topped the charts in natural increase because of their age structure and the fact that they have gained more people than anywhere in the U.S., You said.
“Decades of domestic and international in-migration have produced relatively young populations, with a large share of residents in childbearing ages, alongside comparatively smaller proportions of senior populations,” she said.
___
Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.
SMITH COUNTY — The Smith County Council of Judges has accepted the resignation of district clerk Penny Clarkston and has appointed her successor. Clarkson formally resigned from her position on Tuesday, citing personal family reasons. Following Clarkson’s resignation, it was announced that paralegal Gaye Boynton has been appointed to complete Clarkson’s term, which runs through the end of the year.
Boynton recently defeated Clarkston in the March Republican primary election and is currently running unopposed in the general election this November.
Prior to running for local office, Boynton served in several leadership positions, including as President of the Tyler Area Association of Legal Professionals (TAALP), and had more than 10 years of experience in the Women’s Ministry at Green Acres Baptist Church.
TYLER — Starting this April, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will no longer allow purchasing candy or drinks with more than 5 grams of sugar or artificial sweetener. However, SNAP card shoppers will still be able to purchase electrolyte drinks, coffee creamers and any ingredients on the baking side.
Celia Cole, with Feeding Texas, says the responsibility for following the new rules will not fall on shoppers. “Shoppers will not be penalized. It is up to the retailers to make sure that they are implementing the restrictions accurately,” Cole explains. Read the rest of this entry »
LUFKIN — The family of a man who was killed in a Lufkin car crash on Jan. 17 is suing the pediatrician, George Fidone. A family is seeking $1 million from Lufkin pediatrician, George Fidone, for allegedly driving while intoxicated and killing husband and father, D. Marcus Hadnot, in a January car crash.
The crash occurred on College Drive when a Mercedes, driven by Fidone, crashed into Hadnot’s Kia at around 10:15 a.m. Hadnot and his dog, who were in the car, were later pronounced dead following the crash. Fidone told officers he was on his phone and allegedly admitted that the crash was his fault before heading to the hospital for minor injuries. He was later arrested after blood collected from the crash reported a 0.14 blood alcohol level, an arrest affidavit stated.
He was booked into the Angelina County Jail and charged with two counts of intoxicated manslaughter with a vehicle and two counts of intoxication assault with a vehicle. Read the rest of this entry »
SMITH COUNTY — Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with the deadly Sunday morning shooting that left two dead and another injured, the Smith County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.
Tyler teenagers, Brandon Young, 18, and Andru Davis, 18, were identified by investigators to be directly involved in the shooting and were believed to be at a known address in Houston. On March 24, Smith County Investigators worked with the East Texas Anti-Gang Center to notify Houston officials of their location. A team was sent to the address and attempted to apprehend the suspects.
Upon arrival, Young was quickly found and taken into custody without incident. However, Davis fled the scene, according to the sheriff’s office. Law enforcement personnel were surrounding the residence, and Davis was apprehended shortly by a police K-9 and taken into custody. Due to being bitten, Davis was transported to a local hospital.
Young was booked into the Smith County Jail for warrants of engaging in organized criminal activity and deadly contact. He is being held on a $750,000 bond. Read the rest of this entry »
CAMP COUNTY — A 40-year-old man has died after drowning in a Camp County private pond while fishing with family on Saturday. According to our news partner and Camp County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were dispatched to a residence on County Road 3211 near Pittsburg at around 2:37 p.m. after receiving reports of a possible drowning.
Family members told law enforcement that the victim, identified as Angel Gonzales of Pflugerville, decided to swim across the pond while the family was fishing nearby. When he reached about halfway across, he went under the water and did not resurface. Emergency crews with the sheriff’s office and the Pittsburg Fire Department searched for Gonzalez but could not locate him. The Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens were then called and located him.
The Longview Fire Department’s dive team was then deployed to recover his body. He was recovered at 4:55 p.m., officials confirmed.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy.
TotalEnergies has agreed to what’s essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced Monday.
President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges repeatedly overturned those orders.
The Interior Department hailed the “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant and said, “the American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.?
Environmental groups denounced the deal as an alternate way to block wind projects, with one group calling it a “billion-dollar bribe” to kill clean energy.
“After losing again and again in court on his illegal stop-work orders, Trump has found another way to strangle offshore wind: pay them to walk away,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action.
In his second term, Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says will lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
TotalEnergies had already paused its two projects after Trump was elected.
The company pledged to not develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement that TotalEnegeries renounced offshore wind development in the United States in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees, “considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest.”
Pouyanné said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a “more efficient use of capital” in the U.S.
After it makes those investments, TotalEnergies will be reimbursed, up to the amount paid in lease purchases for offshore wind, according to the DOI.
“We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans’ monthly bills,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said Trump was “using a pay-not-to-play scheme” to pressure the French company not to build offshore wind, calling it “an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars.” Hochul said she remains committed to moving forward with an “all-of-the-above approach” that includes renewables, nuclear power and other energy sources.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said this is “a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country.”
“Our state has the offshore wind potential to power millions of homes with renewable American-made energy. It’s ludicrous and wasteful that the Trump administration is spending $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop it from investing private dollars to create the clean energy we need,” Stein said in a statement.
The Biden administration sought to ramp up offshore wind as a climate change solution. Trump began reversing U.S. energy policies his first day in office with executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas and coal. Globally the offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations.
The Interior Department halted construction on five major East Coast offshore wind projects days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five projects to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show the risk was so imminent that construction must halt.
On Monday, one of the wind farms targeted by the administration, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, started delivering power to the grid for Virginia. The developer, Richmond-based Dominion Energy, announced the milestone.
Ted Kelly, clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, called the proposed deal “an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars to prevent Americans from having clean, affordable power exactly when they need it most.”
East Coast states are building offshore wind because it boosts affordable electricity supply on the grid, even as natural gas prices are rising, Kelly said.
TotalEnergies purchased a lease for its Carolina Long Bay project in 2022 for about $133 million. It aimed to generate more than 1 gigawatt there, enough to power about 300,000 homes. It purchased the lease off New York and New Jersey, also in 2022, for $795 million. This was planned as a larger project, with the potential to generate 3 gigawatts of clean energy to power nearly one million homes. TotalEnergies is involved in major offshore wind projects in Europe and Asia.
___
Daly reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.