Today is
Saturday November 23, 2024
JACKSONVILLE – James Warnell Phillips of Jacksonville has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty on Wednesday to two counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child. According to our news partner KETK and the Cherokee County District Attorney’s Office, charges against Phillips were brought after it was determined he had continuously sexually abused minors for 11 years. The case against him was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Richey and Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth.
TYLER – Kenneth Haygood, 54, of Tyler, was arrested in February on three counts of sexual assault and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child. As of now, he faces a total of eight charges, including six counts of sexual assault, one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and another charge of practicing medicine without a license. In a Smith County courtroom this week, Haygood appeared for a status hearing Tuesday in the 114th District Court. His trial date was set for June 23, and status hearings were also set for Feb. 18 and April 17. The final pre-trial hearing is currently scheduled for June 13.
MARSHALL – The Marshall Police Department (MPD) released a statement on their Facebook page regarding the arrest of Benjamin Dale Hawkins, Jr., 45 of Marshall. He was booked into the Harrison County Jail on the charges of Possessing Dangerous Drugs, Credit/Debit Card Abuse, Burglary of Vehicles, and Theft of Materials (Aluminum/Bronze/Copper/Brass valued under $20,000). Authorities were led to Hawkins after a business reported a man “acting suspiciously”. MPD arrived at Hawkins’ residence to question him. During the encounter, Hawkins was found in possession of prescription medication bottles that were not in his name, as well as multiple credit cards belonging to other individuals.
TYLER – Our news partners at KETK report that a father and son are dead due to an apparent murder-suicide. The Tyler Police Department arrived at the scene around 1:25 p.m. and identified both victims. The son is Anthony Gyallai, 45, and the father is Otto Gyallai, 88. Department Public Information Officer Andy Erbaugh announced that a preliminary investigation helped conclude that Anthony shot Otto before shooting himself. Otto’s wife was asleep in the bedroom and did not hear anything. She is physically unharmed, according to Erbaugh. The investigation is still ongoing and any updates will be posted.
LONGVIEW – The Longview Police Department (LPD) released a statement saying they responded to a Sunday evening shooting involving two unidentified men. The two involved reportedly know each other and it occurred in a Lear Park parking lot. LPD also stated that the shooting is under investigation and anyone who has information regarding the shooting is being urged to contact LPD.
TEXAS – Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has differing stances on Former President Trump and Vice President Harris’ trips to the Lone Star State ahead of election day. Perry believe’s Trump’s Texas travel is sending a “powerful message” to Texans and the American people, while the Vice President is wasting her time with the state in the middle of a heated Senate battle. Trump’s former energy secretary went on to further sing his praises on NewsNation, citing Trump’s energy and immigration policies as reasons for why him being in the state is beneficial.
LUFKIN – Since 1980, the Lufkin Mall has been a gem for deep East Texas shopping. Now, according to our news partner KETK, the building, along with the 32 acre property, is for sale. The estimated minimum bid is $1,028,811.78. Documents said beginning at 10 a.m. on Nov. 5, the county will sell to the highest bidder. The Angelina Tax Collector’s Office said the mall’s parent company owes several county entities taxes that total more than $1,000,000. Over 50 stores have called the building along with an AMC Theatre.
TYLER – A Tyler man has been sentenced after police allegedly found fentanyl inside a 6-month-old’s diaper during a traffic stop. Our news partners at KETK report that in a traffic stop on May 5, a vehicle was pulled over for a highway violation. The scent of marijuana led to the officer to conduct a search. The driver, later identified as Dre-Darian Taerondrick Ester, and the passenger, Jada La Nea Speight, the parents of the 6-month-old were asked to change the baby’s diaper. At this moment, the deputy allegedly saw a “bottle of pressed fentanyl†inside the diaper. Ester pleaded guilty to manufacturing/delivering of a controlled substance on Monday and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Speight has a trial date sent for Oct. 28.
TYLER – There’s been a record number of east Texans hitting the polls this early voting session, as many counties, including Smith, are seeing all-time highs ahead of the November 5th election. Our news partners at KETK have compiled a list of early voting totals for every east Texas county which you can find here. You can also find a complete list of polling locations for every east Texas county here. Please check with your local election officials for updated operation times.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will head to reliably Republican Texas just 10 days before Election Day in an effort to refocus her campaign against former President Donald Trump on reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.
Her campaign says Harris will visit Houston for an event Friday with women who have been affected by the state’s restrictive abortion laws, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She’ll be going there after spending time in Georgia, another state with a restrictive law.
Since that 2022 high court decision, most Republican-controlled states have new abortion restrictions in effect, including 14 that ban the procedure at every stage of pregnancy. Harris has argued that Trump — who nominated three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who later voted to overturn Roe v. Wade — is responsible for worsening medical care for women and that he would seek further restrictions.
Campaign officials cast Harris’ plan to visit Texas as a nontraditional way to capture the attention of voters in battleground states who are inundated with campaign ads and run-of-the-mill campaign events. The most recent non-battleground visit Harris made was to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in early September to tout her small business tax plan. Since then, she’s traveled to the seven battleground states.
“Texas is the stage for this event,†said senior campaign adviser David Plouffe. “But for us, the most important audience are folks in the battlegrounds.â€
Plouffe said the vice president is making the trip “to really tell a story about Donald Trump’s role in eliminating Roe v. Wade, what that’s meant for people in a state like Texas, and the stakes — if you live in a state currently without an abortion ban — that could be coming your way if Donald Trump wins.â€
In 2016, Democrats, feeling sure of their chances against Trump in his first run for the White House, sent their nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Texas, Iowa and Ohio in hopes of running up the Electoral College score, while missing signs of trouble in Democratic-leaning states that flipped and sent Trump to the Oval Office.
“We’re not doing that,†Plouffe said, dismissing the notion that the campaign was trying to compete in Texas. “We’re diverting out of the battlegrounds because we think it’ll help us in battlegrounds.â€
He said it “makes a lot of strategic sense†to go somewhere like Texas, “where you have the most horrific and tragic stories about what’s happening, and then directly link that to the threat that voters in these states without current bans should feel about Donald Trump’s potential next term.â€
Women affected by abortion bans have been out campaigning for Harris, including Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who went into premature labor, developed sepsis and nearly died after doctors said they could not intervene to provide an abortion because Zurawski wasn’t in enough medical danger to allow the procedure. Harris has also highlighted the story of Amber Thurman, a Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to treat her complications from an abortion pill.
Harris will be joined Friday by Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. She is also scheduled tape a podcast interview with Brené Brown.
Trump, too, has tried events outside of battlegrounds to energize his supporters. He has a rally planned this weekend at Madison Square Garden in New York and last week had one at the site of the Coachella music festival in California.
Texas encapsulates the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits physicians from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks or before. As a result women, including those who didn’t intend to end a pregnancy, are increasingly suffering worse medical care in part because doctors cannot intervene unless she is facing a life-threatening condition, or to prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.†The state also has become a battleground for litigation; the U.S. Supreme Court weighed on the side of the state’s ban just two weeks ago, leaving a lower court’s ruling in place.
Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion. Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.
Trump has constantly shifted his stances and offered vague and contradictory answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election. He recently said he would vote against a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot that is aimed at overturning the state’s six-week abortion ban.
About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.
In his first year as president, Trump said he was “pro-life with exceptions†but also said “there has to be some form of punishment†for women seeking abortions — a position he quickly reversed.
At the 2018 annual March for Life, Trump voiced support for a federal ban on abortion on or after 20 weeks of pregnancy. More recently, Trump suggested in March that he might support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks before announcing that he instead would leave the matter to the states.
UPDATE: Our news partners at KETK report that the crew involved in the crash in Van Zandt County is OK, the Department of Public Safety said. The Van Police Department also said the Federal Aviation Administration was called to investigate the crash.
VAN, Texas – Vicki McAlister, emergency management coordinator for Van Zandt County confirmed that emergency personnel are responding to a reported plane crash in Van Zandt County. Reports of injuries are unknown at this time and updated will be made when provided by authorities.
NACOGDOCHES – Crews were called to the scene of a major pedestrian crash near Stephen F. Austin State University on Thursday morning. Our news partners at KETK report that authorities arrived on the scene at around 9:49 a.m. The Nacogdoches Police Department said the pedestrian was killed in the crash. The woman was allegedly attempting to cross a four-lane roadway when she was struck by the driver of a Ford pickup. The victim’s identity has not been released and the driver of the pickup did not suffer any injuries.
ATHENS – Our news partner KETK reports that Jerry Fontenot, 59 of Athens, was arrested at his residence for four counts of animal cruelty causing death, 12 counts of animal cruelty and two counts of cruelty to a livestock animal. Deputies arrived at Fontenot’s home they found four dead dogs still in chains, 12 other dogs in bad health along with a pig and a donkey. He’s being held at the Henderson County Jail on a total bond of $26,000.
DALLAS – A Thursday drive-by shooting of a man who left the State Fair of Texas has left him injured. Dallas police said the victim and his friends got into a fight with another group of people. As they were leaving, a car drove by them, and someone in the car opened fire. One man suffered a gunshot wound to his ankle and was grazed in the head. The suspects fled the scene and remain at large. No description was released of the shooter or the car that was involved.
LONGVIEW – The Longview Police Department announced that 2 people were arrested after a search found multiple kinds of drugs and firearms. According to our news partners at KETK, Longview SWAT and the Gregg County Organized Drug Enforcement Unit found fentanyl pills, ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana and two firearms while executing a warrant. Demichael Johnson, 33 of Longview, and Shadiamond Chaseberry, 32 of Longview, were arrested and taken to the Gregg County Jail without incident. Johnson was charged with two counts of manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana and unlawful possession of a firearm and his bond was set at $154,500. Chaseberry was charged with possession of marijuana with a bond set at $1,000.