Today is
Friday November 22, 2024
TEXARKANA – A 30-year-old registered sex offender is behind bars after evading arrest when a Texarkana mother found her teenager in his car early Monday morning, according to our news partners at KETK.
According to the Texarkana Police Department, a Texarkana mother called police when she found her 13-year-old daughter in a car parked in front of a house with Tyjae Clark, 30 of New Boston, instead of asleep in bed.
The police department said Clark kicked the girl out of the car and sped off when the mother confronted them. The mother was able to provide authorities with a car description and license plate number. Texarkana PD said the Wake Village Police Department found the car and stopped it a short time later.
It was then that Clark got out of the car and ran away from police. After a perimeter was set up in the area an officer spotted him and placed him under arrest, the police department said.
Clark was taken to the Bowie County Jail where he was originally only charged with evading detention until a search of Clark’s phone revealed several inappropriate messages between him and the girl, officials said.
According to police, the girl clearly told Clark, who has a lifetime requirement to register as a sex offender, that she was only 13-years-old.
The police department said based on the information and evidence, arrest warrants for aggravated sexual assault of a child and online solicitation of a minor were served to Clark.
Clark is being held at the Bowie County Jail on a total $410,000 bond.
MARSHALL – 
Our news partners at KETK report that a pedestrian is injured and a driver is behind bars after a Tuesday night crash in Marshall, authorities said. According to the Marshall Police Department, officers were called around 7:50 p.m. to the intersection of West Burleson and North Bishop Street where a pedestrian had been hit by a vehicle. The department said officers found a male victim who reported that a dark-colored vehicle had hit them and then fled. Officials said the victim was taken to a local hospital to treat their broken leg. Marshall PD said an investigation identified 30-year-old Jonathan Olvera, of Marshall, as the driver. Police said Olvera cooperated with investigators and was charged with accident involving serious bodily injury. Olvera was booked into the Harrison County Jail and also has an outstanding warrant for tampering with physical evidence out of Marion County. “This investigation is ongoing, and no additional details are available at this time,†Marshall PD said.
DALLAS (AP) — A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz†are on the auction block nearly two decades after a thief stole the iconic shoes, convinced they were adorned with real jewels.
Online bidding has started and will continue through Dec. 7, Heritage Auctions in Dallas announced in a news release Monday.
The auction company received the sequin-and-bead-bedazzled slippers from Michael Shaw, the memorabilia collector who originally owned the footwear at the heart of the beloved 1939 musical. Shaw had loaned the shoes in 2005 to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
That summer, someone smashed through a display case and stole the slippers. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018.
Now the museum is among those vying for the slippers, which were one of several pairs Garland wore during the filming. Only four remain.
Grand Rapids raised money for the slippers at its annual Judy Garland festival. The funds will supplement the $100,000 set aside this year by Minnesota lawmakers to purchase the slippers.
The man who stole the slippers, Terry Jon Martin, was 76 when he was sentenced in January to time served because of his poor health. He admitting to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case in what his attorney said was an attempt to pull off “one last score†after an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value.
The auction of movie memorabilia includes other items from “The Wizard of Oz,†such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West and the screen door from Dorothy’s Kansas home.
TATUM – Our news partners at KETK report that after an unsigned check was taken from a local pastor’s desk, an employee that was working on the church is behind bars with a felony forgery charge, the Tatum Police Department said. According to the police department, a Tatum church pastor, who has not been named, stopped by the station and filed a report on Nov. 1.The police department said the church was having carpentry work done when an employee “began prowling†through the pastors office when he was alone. The man accused, identified as Oliver Martinez-Cruz, reportedly discovered an unsigned check in an unlocked desk drawer. Tatum PD said Martinez-Cruz would go on to take the check, make it out to himself, sign and endorse it. Read the rest of this entry »
AUSTIN – KUT reports that the Texas Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Travis County Republican Party alleging there were not enough Republican election workers at polling sites. The Texas Elections Code requires the county to ensure election workers at each polling location represent both major political parties – Democrat and Republican – to the best of its ability. The Travis GOP sued the Travis County Elections Division last week, naming Dyana Limon-Mercado in her role as the county clerk and election administrator. The Third Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit, and the Travis GOP appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
On Monday, Texas Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Blacklock along with two other justices ruled there was not enough information to substantiate the GOP’s claims, especially just hours before Election Day. “The evidentiary record it has provided to this Court lacks the degree of clarity and specificity that would allow this Court to know with certainty what exactly has transpired and what practical effect this kind of last-minute judicial intervention would have for election day in Travis County,” the ruling states. In the meantime, the county was ordered to comply with the Election Code to the greatest extent possible. At a press conference Monday morning, Limon-Mercado said the county has assigned teams of bipartisan workers across the 176 polling sites on Election Day. “We have great teams of bipartisan election workers,” she said. “Not only at the poll sites, but here in our office, at our central count process, ensuring the integrity of our election and that all election laws are followed.”
AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the U.S. Department of Justice for its plans to send election monitors on Tuesday to eight Texas counties, including Dallas, as voters are casting ballots. The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court and announced by Paxton Monday evening, alleges that the election monitors are “unlawful†since state law governs election administration and does not grant authority to federal officials to be present inside a polling place or central counting location. Paxton is asking for a temporary restraining order to block the monitors from entering polling or counting locations and a permanent injunction on federal election monitoring in Texas. The legal motion was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, a federal trial court where a slew of conservative plaintiffs have filed lawsuits before the single sitting judge, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department on Friday announced its plan to send election monitors to 86 jurisdictions across 27 states on Election Day. The department regularly visits precincts during elections to ensure compliance with federal election law, but the number of sites on the list has nearly doubled since 2020. The eight Texas counties expected to be visited by federal monitors were Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto and Waller. Texas state law lists 15 categories of people who are allowed inside polling locations, including voters and minors accompanied by voters, state and local election officials, and poll watchers who have completed state mandated training. Paxton’s lawsuit references the approved list and points out that the federal election monitors do not fit any of these criteria. A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday evening. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting, allowed federal officials to observe polling places and sites where ballots are counted. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling that struck down provisions of the law made it so that the Justice Department needed a court order or cooperation from state and local officials to enter polling sites, according to reporting by The Washington Post.
DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports the Texas General Land Office announced this week it purchased two ranches near the nation’s southern border. The first property is a smaller 1,402-acre property in Starr County where state leaders plan to build a 1.5-mile stretch of border wall along the Rio Grande. The second is the massive 353,785-acre Brewster Ranch near Big Bend National Park. The state land office did not immediately respond to questions from The Dallas Morning News regarding the transaction. News releases from the agency did not reveal the purchase prices. This story may be updated with responses. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said the Starr County property’s frontage on the river makes it an ideal location for enhancing border security.
She alleged that the federal government has “abdicated its job to secure our southern border.†Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the state’s plan to build a border wall three years ago. By July, the state had built about 34 miles of steel wall — far from the 1,254 miles needed. The state has paid roughly $25 million per mile of wall, the Texas Tribune reported. Buckingham told the Texas Tribune there are a variety of leasing options for the larger Brewster Ranch, including hunting, agriculture, mineral and the storing of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the soil. In a news release published by the Land Report, Buckingham said she bought Brewster Ranch to prevent “foreign adversaries from purchasing this land.†Buckingham did not elaborate further on interested parties. Brewster Ranch was previously owned by Brad Kelley’s Texas Mountain Holdings. Kelley, a tobacco tycoon who lives in Tennessee, is Texas’ largest private landowner. He owned more than 940,000 acres in the state, according to the 2024 Land Report 100.
GREGG COUNTY – 
Our news partners at KETK report that nearly a decade after the shooting that led to John Allen Franco’s death, a Kilgore man has been sentenced. According to arrest documents, the shooting stemmed from a threat to show nude photos. In 2017, a person allegedly told Gregg County investigator that Jessie Brown hunted down Franco because of a threat Franco made to show nude photos of Brown’s relative. That interview gave police enough information to charge Brown with the 2015 murder. Read the rest of this entry »
THE VALLEY – Inside Climate News reports that the year was 1897. Floodwaters from the Rio Grande submerged entire blocks of downtown El Paso. The New York Times described the crash of crumbling houses and the “cries of frightened women and children†on its May 26 front page. The raging river displaced hundreds of people and destroyed scores of adobe homes. In Mexico, the Rio Grande is known as the Rio Bravo — the rough, or wild, river — signifying the force that caused several devastating floods in El Paso and neighboring Ciudad Juárez. Today, these historic floods are hard to imagine. The river channel in El Paso-Juárez now only fills during the irrigation season. Farther downstream, the river is frequently dry in a 200-mile section known as the Forgotten Reach. Inside Climate News documented this remote stretch of the river in July on a flight with the nonprofit Light Hawk. Other than limited flows from springs and creeks, known locally as arroyos, this section of the Rio Grande barely has water.
That’s because reservoirs now harness the flows of snowmelt and monsoon rains that once defined the river and deliver that water to thirsty cities and sprawling farms. Making matters worse, climate change is increasing temperatures and aridification in the desert Southwest. Competition over dwindling water is growing. All that leaves little water to support fish, birds and wetland ecosystems that once thrived along the Rio Grande. But environmental scientists and local conservation advocates say there are opportunities to restore environmental flows — the currents of water needed to maintain a healthy river ecology — on the Rio Grande and its West Texas tributaries. Proponents of environmental flows are restoring tributaries and documenting little-known springs that feed the river. They are working with counterparts in Mexico to overcome institutional barriers. Samuel Sandoval Solis, a professor of water resource management at the University of California Davis and an expert on the Rio Grande, compared this restoration model to a “string of pearls.†“Ultimately, we start connecting these pearls,†he said. “And we start putting it back together.†But to replicate and expand these local initiatives will require more funding and political support on the embattled binational waterway.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Republicans vying to replace longtime leader Mitch McConnell have been crossing the country to campaign and fundraise for colleagues, making their final arguments before a consequential ballot the week after the presidential election. But their pitches are mostly behind closed doors, and most GOP senators won’t yet say which lawmaker they are backing. South Dakota’s John Thune, McConnell’s current No. 2, and John Cornyn of Texas, who held that job before Thune, are the front-runners in the Nov. 13 secret ballot to replace McConnell. The Kentucky senator is stepping aside from the post in January after almost two decades as leader. The winner could steer the direction of the party for years to come and possibly become the next Senate majority leader if Republicans win enough seats in Tuesday’s election. The outcome is, for now, uncertain.
Only a few Republican senators have publicly endorsed a candidate. Many say they are still undecided. The third senator in the race — Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who is dealing with his own reelection bid — could act as a spoiler. Another candidate could still jump in. In many ways, “the two Johns†are remarkably similar, making the choice difficult for their colleagues. Both are well-liked and, in the mold of McConnell, lean toward the more traditional wing of the Republican Party. But both have also suggested they will try to move on from the McConnell era with a more open approach. “I’m trying to find differentiation because they’re both great guys,†said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has worked closely with both of them. The two men are also trying to distinguish themselves from McConnell by making clear that they support Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election. Like McConnell, they have both sparred with Trump in the past, especially after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But both Thune and Cornyn have talked to Trump frequently in recent months, attended campaign events and visited his Florida home.
AUSTIN (AP) – Unable to keep up with the growing number of leaking and erupting wells in the state’s oil fields, the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, has asked lawmakers for an additional $100 million in emergency funding — which would be equal to about 44% of the agency’s entire two-year budget.
Danny Sorrell, the agency’s executive director, sent the letter two months after the commission filed its annual budget request in August, according to the Houston Chronicle. He said the agency’s $226 million budget request did not include enough money “to protect the groundwater and the environment†from increasingly common well blowouts.
The agency follows a rating system to determine which wells it needs to plug first, according to Texas law. Priority 1 wells are leaking wells that pose environmental, safety, or economic risks. An uncontrolled flow of water occurring at a well constitutes an emergency, said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesperson for the agency. In an emergency, agency staff “respond immediately to plug it,†he said.
The agency said that it addresses actively leaking wells regardless of whether it has enough money in the designated budget for well remediation, a practice that Sorrell said has become unsustainable and caused the agency to plug fewer non-emergency wells each year.
“These high-priority wells need to be taken care of before they themselves become emergency wells,†he said.
There are approximately 140,000 so-called orphaned wells in the U.S. and more than 9,000 of them are in Texas, according to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. These are abandoned wells that have been inactive for at least 12 months and have no clear ownership.
When left unattended, orphaned wells are prone to blowouts that spew contaminated water onto the surrounding land. Experts said the routine industry practice of injecting fracking wastewater — called produced water — into underground rock formations, contributes to the problem.
At least eight wells have leaked and burst since last October, Sarah Stogner, an oil and gas attorney, told the Texas Tribune earlier this month. Stogner has tracked such wells for years.
In December 2023, an abandoned well that blew out in Imperial, southwest of Odessa, took more than two months to plug. That well alone cost regulators $2.5 million to cap and clean up.
In October, another well in Toyah burst and released a torrent of water that took weeks to contain. Kinder Morgan, the energy firm that assumed responsibility for the well, did not say how much it cost to seal.
The briney water is laden with chemicals it collects underground, including hydrogen sulfide, a toxic and deadly gas.
Congress approved $4.7 billion to plug orphan wells on public and private lands as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021. Texas received $25 million of that money in 2022 and another $80 million in January.
The Railroad Commission used that money to plug 737 wells — 10% of the estimated orphaned wells in Texas. It also plugged 1,754 wells through an initiative funded by $63 million in state money.
The efforts have not been enough.
Sorrell’s letter to Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan said that regulators need the money to staff a team of inspectors who can investigate the cause of the blowouts, which they associate with produced water injections. Sorrells said the agency’s ability “to assess, characterize and evaluate these events is limited by the currently available resources.â€
Sorrells said the cost to plug wells, which includes labor and materials like cement and rigs, has increased by 36% since 2022.
Both oil and gas industry leaders and environmental advocates in Texas applauded the commission’s request.
“We have long supported increases in funding for the Commission in this and other areas,†said Ben Sheppard, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association. “We would support the Legislature going above and beyond the Commission’s request for plugging and remediation funding. The industry generates billions of dollars every year, and it seems appropriate that more of these dollars could be utilized for this important purpose.â€
Julie Range, a policy manager for Commission Shift, an oil and gas watchdog group, commended the agency’s request.
“We hope the investigation team will prompt the Railroad Commission to scrutinize their approval process and deny more injection wells that pressurize underground aquifers and cause many of these wells to reach emergency status,†she said.
For years, a growing chorus of experts and ranchers have warned the commission about the rising threat the wells pose to the environment and the region’s vulnerable groundwater resources.
In August, researchers at Southern Methodist University found a link between the common practice of injecting wastewater from fracking underground and the blowouts occurring across the oil-rich Permian Basin — a 75,000-square-mile region straddling West Texas and New Mexico.
SMITH COUNTY — Smith County saw 50 percent of the registered voters cast their ballots early in the 2024 Presidential Election. During the past two weeks of early voting, 84,436 ballots were cast in Smith County. That includes 81,554 in-person votes and 2,882 mail-in ballots. Although the numbers of voters in the current election were more than those who early voted in the 2020 Presidential Election, the percentage of voters was lower.
Smith County saw 79,787 ballots cast during three weeks of early voting in the 2020 Presidential Election. That’s 60 percent of the 146,700 registered voters at that time. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, early voting was extended to three weeks instead of the normal two. There are 162,000 registered voters in Smith County for the current election. Read the rest of this entry »
HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle says that about 1,600 patients covered by Medicare Advantage plans are expected to lose insurance coverage at MD Anderson Cancer Center by the end of this week, officials at the cancer hospital said Wednesday. The patients have been covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, which previously announced that its Medicare Advantage members would no longer receive “in-network” access to the hospital as of Nov. 1. That means those patients could not receive care at heavily discounted rates. The number of impacted patients has not been previously reported. “Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas made the difficult but necessary decision to remove The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston from our” Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans, the insurer said in a statement last week.
The decision affects “fewer than five” Medicaid patients, according to an MD Anderson spokesperson. The hospital has arranged to continue treating roughly 600 Medicare patients after the deadline and “is working to determine best options for others,” the spokesperson said. The separation will not impact Medicare Advantage plans for retirees and retiree dependents who have health insurance through the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System, the hospital previously said. Medicare Advantage plans are offered by private insurance companies and, like original Medicare, cover people over the age of 65 or people with certain disabilities.
HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Marathon Oil will lay off more than 500 people as result of its $22.5 billion merger with oil giant ConocoPhillips, the company said in a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission this week. Marathon did not detail how many employees would be affected by the layoff, nor the types of positions that would be cut. However, the energy firm estimated that there would be “more than 500 employees at the company’s facility located at 990 Town and Country Blvd†— the address of Marathon’s headquarters in CityCentre. The layoffs would occur within a year after the merger is finalized in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to the letter. “While these employees will be notified of specific employment end dates within a month of close, many will be retained for transition roles. Transition role scope and duration are currently being finalized and more than 50% of these transition roles are expected to extend beyond six months,†said Jill Ramshaw, senior vice president of human resources, in the letter to the state. Ramshaw said the Town and Country Boulevard office would remain open, despite the layoffs.
TEXAS (AP) – Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred are making their final pitches to Texas voters in a frenzied burst of travel across the state near the end of one of the nation’s most expensive and closely watched Senate races. Cruz, who finds himself in another competitive contest after narrowly winning a second term in 2018, is leaning into conservative pledges for tougher border measures and attacks on policies that support transgender people, including at a bus tour rally outside of San Antonio on Tuesday. Allred, who would become Texas’ first Black senator, spent a day criss-crossing Houston, the state’s biggest city and a crucial Democratic stronghold for the underdog congressman, who needs a big showing from loyal Democrats to unseat the incumbent.
At a rally at Texas Southern University, a historically Black college, the three-term congressman emphasized his support for abortion rights and blamed Cruz for limiting women’s access to reproductive healthcare. Statewide races in Texas have been out of reach for Democrats for decades, but recent signs that the race might be tightening have led some to think 2024 might finally be the year. It’s an ambitious target but one of the few pickup opportunities for Democrats in a year when they are defending twice as many Senate seats as Republicans nationally.A surprise win in Texas would dramatically boost their chances of maintaining their narrow Senate majority. Both candidates combined have raised more than $160 million in the race. Last week, Democrats backing Allred announced a $5 million ad campaign on reproductive freedom for women. At one of his stops in Houston, Allred asked voters to turn the page on divisive politics and look to leaders who can accomplish something. “I don’t spend my time throwing bombs,†he said. “I work hard not because bipartisanship is the end goal, because that’s how you get things done.†Some 250 miles to the west, at a rally in the rural South Texas town of Jourdanton, Cruz cast himself as the reasonable candidate.