Today is
Saturday November 23, 2024
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AUSTIN -Â A Longview resident claimed a top prize winning ticket worth $1 million in the Texas Lottery. The ticket was purchased at a Food Fast convenience store, located at 3305 South Eastman Road, in Longview. A release from lottery officials said, the prize winner has elected to remain anonymous.
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RUSK – Officials from Rusk ISD Friday addressed on a social media post, what they call an “incident” at Rusk ISD, that happened on October 2. Parents say the incident was caught on video, reportedly showing a student being assaulted in an administrative office. The video has been shared extensively on social media. Rusk ISD did not explain the nature of the “incident†in their statement. District officials also said that guardians of all students involved were informed immediately after the incident and they plan to work with the guardians to seek a resolution.
The Facebook post went onto to say, “Rusk ISD will have zero tolerance for this type of behavior from our students and while we cannot discuss individual disciplinary actions, please know that we will follow state education codes and local policies to ensure the disciplinary consequences align with the seriousness of the offense,†according to the district. “The safety of our students remains our top priority, and we will continue to review our policies and procedures to maintain a safe and secure environment for everyone on campus.â€
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LINDALE — The Lindale Fire Department responded to a crash of an 18-wheeler on Thursday after the tanker rolled over and spilled about 5,000 gallons of hot asphalt. According to our news partner KETK, the tanker rolled over and crashed at I-20 and mile marker 548, westbound near Lindale. The driver of the 18-wheeler was taken to a hospital, their condition is unknown.
Initially, Smith County ESD2 used their plow to help contain the spill. As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, a hazmat crew was at the scene working to clean up the spill.
The Lindale Fire Department said on their Facebook page the cause of the accident is still under investigation.
TYLER – Even with it being October, hot and dry weather is persisting. This can create a fire hazard. Some counties in East Texas have issued burn bans. You can see the list provided from our news partner KETK with this link.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A TikTok personality known as Mr. Prada is charged in the bludgeoning death of a Louisiana therapist whose body was discovered over the weekend in a rolled up tarp near a state highway, authorities said Thursday.
The body of Nicholas Abraham, 69, of Baton Rouge, was found Sunday in rural Tangipahoa Parish, which is east of Baton Rouge and north of New Orleans. On Tuesday, police in Dallas County, Texas, arrested 20-year-old Terryon Thomas, who is known on social media as Mr. Prada, after Baton Rouge police said he fled from them in Abraham’s car.
Thomas’ relationship to the victim and a motive for the killing were unclear as of Thursday morning, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Thomas is charged with second-degree murder and was awaiting extradition From Texas to Louisiana, the news release said.
“At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that Thomas was a client of Abraham,†the release said.
Online booking records in Dallas County did not list an attorney could be contacted for comment on Thomas’ behalf.
Abraham was seen on surveillance video entering Thomas’ apartment Saturday night, according to an arrest warrant from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. He was wearing the same clothing he had on when his body was discovered, the warrant says.
Witnesses told investigators that Thomas was seen hours later struggling to drag something wrapped in a blue tarp down the apartment building stairs before placing the tarp in Abraham’s car, according to the affidavit. Investigators later got a search warrant for Thomas’ apartment, where they found signs of a struggle, including blood “throughout the apartment,†and indications that Thomas had tried to clean up before departing, the affidavit said.
“It was a very physical and very violent attack,†Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Gerald Sticker told WAFB. “He was bludgeoned about in the head shoulders and neck.â€
Two of Thomas’ multiple TikTok accounts each has more than 4 million followers.
A biography of Abraham on his website says he had 30 years of experience treating substance abuse, depression and anxiety. It also said he spent 11 years as a Roman Catholic priest.
“Dr. Abraham was a very kind, very tender, very gentle man,†said Jarret Ambeau, a Baton Rouge lawyer who has represented Abraham in legal matters and also counted him as a friend. “No one deserves to die this way, but I would have never expected someone of his disposition to have been violently murdered.â€
HOUSTON (AP) — The sentencing of a former Houston police officer convicted of murder in the deaths of a couple during a 2019 drug raid was put on hold Thursday after he suffered a medical emergency in the courtroom.
A prosecutor was addressing jurors during closing arguments in the punishment phase of Gerald Goines’ trial when the ex-officer could be heard breathing heavily as he sat at the defense table.
The jury was taken out of the courtroom, and Goines was helped by one of his attorneys and a bailiff as he walked to a holding area outside the courtroom. Goines was later seen on a stretcher that was loaded onto an ambulance parked in front of the courthouse.
His condition was not immediately known. Due to a gag order in the case, neither prosecutors nor Goines’ attorneys would comment on what happened.
One of the other cases tied to Goines is his 2004 drug arrest in Houston of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer sparked a nationwide reckoning on racism in policing. A Texas board in 2022 declined a request that Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for his drug conviction stemming from his arrest by Goines.
One of Goines’ attorneys, Nicole DeBorde, had told jurors during closing arguments that the 60-year-old’s “health is destroyed†after being shot in the face during the deadly raid.
State District Judge Veronica Nelson later told jurors closing arguments could resume either Friday or Monday.
Goines is facing up to life in prison after being convicted last week in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his 58-year-old wife Rhogena Nicholas. The couple, along with their dog, were fatally shot after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock†warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering.
During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony and evidence they said showed Goines lied to get a search warrant that falsely portrayed the couple as dangerous drug dealers. The raid resulted in a violent confrontation in which the couple was killed and four officers, including Goines, were shot and wounded and a fifth injured.
Goines’ lawyers had acknowledged the ex-officer lied to get the search warrant but minimized the impact of his false statements. His lawyers had portrayed the couple as armed drug users and said they were responsible for their own deaths because they fired at officers.
After the raid, investigators said they only found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house.
An investigation into the raid revealed systemic corruption problems within the police department’s narcotics unit.
A dozen officers tied to the narcotics squad that conducted the raid, including Goines, were later indicted on other charges following a corruption investigation. A judge in June dismissed charges against some of them.
Since the raid, prosecutors have reviewed thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines, who also faces federal charges.
Federal civil rights lawsuits filed by the families of Tuttle and Nicholas against Goines and 12 other officers involved in the raid and the city of Houston are set to be tried in November.
PALESTINE – A Palestine High School student was removed from campus after weapons were found in a vehicle on Thursday morning. According to our news partner KETK, a routine check from a drug dog alerted school officials of a rifle and a “small machete†that were discovered in the vehicle.
Palestine ISD said in a release that, “Parents were notified, and the student removed from the campus pending further investigation.â€
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SMITH COUNTY – The Lindale Fire Department reports a traffic wreck involving a rolled over 18-wheeler. The wreck is stalling westbound traffic on I-20, west of Lindale at mile marker 548. The Lindale FD Facebook page said “This is currently a hazmat incident and Lonestar Hazmat is responding.†Officials added that traffic is down to one lane in the crash area and as of 2 p.m. clean-up will take several hours.
Also on Thursday, Lindale Fire units responded to the scene of a three vehicle accident that happened around 3 p.m. at I-20 and mile marker 552 westbound. In both cases traffic is being diverted. Lindale Fire Department asks drivers to continue to use caution and avoid the accident areas.
NEW YORK (AP) — The massive port workers’ strike that has crippled all the major dockyards on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. is highlighting a fear held by many workers: Eventually, we will all be replaced by machines.
The International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents the approximately 45,000 dock workers who walked off the job Tuesday, is testing whether it’s possible to fight back.
The union is demanding, along with hefty pay raises, a total ban on the automation of grates, cranes and container-moving trucks in its ports. But it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to stave off a trend that has seeped into virtually every workspace.
The growth of automation and technological advances have created tension between workers and management since the Industrial Revolution, when machines first began to manufacture goods that had previously been made by hand. And with the growing use of artificial intelligence, the group of jobs workers perceive as threatened with disruption is ever-widening.
“You cannot bet against the march of technology,†said Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. “You cannot ban automation, because it will creep up in other places.â€
History of pushback against automation
It’s not the first time that port workers have resisted automation. In 1960, as ports on the West Coast introduced machinery to move cargo once moved by hand, the union representing longshoremen negotiated protections for workers, including assurances that the current workforce would not be laid off, according to the International Longshore & Warehouse Union.
Harry Bridges, who led the union at the time, negotiated pay increases and job security arrangements for some of the workers, said Adam Seth Litwin, associate professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University.
“He saw that this was going to become potentially a real problem if he didn’t try to get ahead of it,†Litwin said. “Essentially what he was saying was, ‘I recognize the reality of what’s happening here, and the way to best represent my members is to make sure that they are protected.’”
The downside was that as port machinery became more common, the size of the union eroded precipitously over the years.
The coal industry went through a similar reckoning as conveyor belts and other machines displaced laborers. Union leader John Lewis negotiated for job security and pay increases for existing workers, but the encroachment of machines led to fewer hires, and over time the workforce and union ranks shrunk.
“Amongst coal miners today, he isn’t necessarily a big hero, but he knew what he was doing. And I think he also recognized that fighting automation rarely makes a whole lot of economic sense, particularly if you’re talking about a market that’s at all competitive,†Litwin said.
Some dockyards outside the U.S are far more automated and efficient, especially ports in Dubai, Singapore and Rotterdam, Sheffi said.
How to protect workers
There are ways unions and employers can protect workers. Some unions have negotiated that employees must receive guaranteed employment protection if companies bring in technologies that could make their jobs obsolete. Others have bargained for employers to provide tuition reimbursement or retraining programs so workers can shift into other roles when machines come in.
“The trick is to make it over time, not to do it haphazardly,†Sheffi said.
When health care giant Kaiser Permanente switched from paper to digital medical records a decade ago, dozens of unions bargained together to ensure workers wouldn’t lose jobs or face wage reductions as a result of the technology deployment. Drivers who moved boxes of medical records to warehouses and librarians who retrieved paper files who were trained and reassigned to roles such as medical librarians or coders, Litwin said.
“They ultimately all got pay increases because they ended up being in jobs that ended up being more highly skilled,” Litwin said.
AI is starting to disrupt white collar jobs
Workers such as cashiers or file clerks who perform routine tasks and have lower levels of education face the greatest risks of their jobs being automated, according to Dawn Locke, a director at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. But the growth of artificial intelligence is increasingly threatening cognitive jobs.
In the months after the launch of ChatGPT, a generative AI tool that can compose essays, write computer code and engage in conversations, job postings for writers, coders and artists plummeted.
“Now we see law firms putting AI to use and cutting the number of junior associates,†Sheffi said. “But it’s a problem. How do you become a senior associate arguing before the Supreme Court if you don’t start as a junior associate?â€
When companies embrace artificial intelligence, it doesn’t always result in workers losing jobs. In some cases the productivity gains enabled by automation or AI make workplaces more profitable, enabling them to hire even more workers.
But unions aren’t taking any chances. In September, video game performers reached an agreement after striking with 80 games that provided protections around exploitative uses of artificial intelligence.
Last year, Hollywood screenwriters concerned that scripts would soon be written by artificial intelligence won protections against the use of AI after a five-month strike.
“More and more people who thought they were immune from automation are probably looking to groups like the longshoremen and thinking, ‘Wait a second, actually, I may not be that far removed from this,’” Litwin said.
ODESSA, Texas (AP) — West Texans will have their say this week regarding a proposed carbon dioxide injection site when the Environmental Protection Agency holds a series of public meetings in Ector County.
The proposed project — which has been under review for the last two years — would be the largest of its kind in the United States. Occidental Petroleum Corporation, or Oxy, an oil and gas company based in Houston, wants federal approval to capture and store an estimated 722,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in three injection wells 4,400 feet underground.
“We know that achieving global net zero by 2050 requires technological solutions that can quickly reduce emissions on a large-scale,†William Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for Oxy, said in a statement. Oxy “has been safely and securely storing CO2 underground for more than 50 years.â€
Known as Stratos, the facility would be located 20 miles southwest of Odessa. Oxy previously broke ground last year. Public testimony begins Wednesday with an information session at 7 p.m. and ends Oct. 7. The agency can take up to 90 days to issue a final decision, including changes to the proposal.
If approved, Oxy would receive what’s known as Class VI permits, the first of their kind in Texas and the surrounding region that includes New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and 66 Tribal Nations.
Certain sectors of the energy industry have embraced carbon capture and storage to propel the nation toward its climate goals. For its part, the federal government has put up about $12 billion for eligible projects under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Climate advocates argue that the evidence about the advantages of decarbonization is insufficient and that it falls short of offsetting the greenhouse gases emitted by removing them from the atmosphere.
Companies are pursuing projects anyway. Multiple plans to capture and store carbon dioxide are underway in Texas, including a natural gas power plant in Baytown owned by Calpine Texas CCUS Holdings, which was eligible for up to $270 million in federal dollars. A second San Antonio-based gas company, Howard Energy Partners, was awarded $3 million in federal money to “evaluate the technical and economic feasibility†of transporting 250 million tons of carbon dioxide from the Gulf Coast. Another project in southeast Texas, owned in part by Chevron, spans almost 100,000 acres.
None, however, are close to the amount of carbon dioxide Oxy hopes to capture, inject and store underground.
Oxy is one of the top oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin. With roughly 2.8 million acres between Texas and New Mexico and the biggest direct air capture facility in its portfolio, the company has become a household name in the Texas oil and gas industry. The proposed injection sites will create 120 jobs, Oxy said in a statement.
Oxy said the Stratos project will provide more jobs, workforce training programs, educational opportunities and economic development in the region, but did not provide specifics. Earlier reports said the site will cost about $1 billion to construct.
While it is unclear whether this project qualified for federal incentives, 1PointFive, the company’s subsidiary dedicated to carbon capture, in September received $500 million for a direct air capture plant in South Texas.
Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of oil and gas production. When a fossil fuel company burns coal, crude oil, or natural gas, it emits carbon dioxide. The greenhouse gas traps heat and prevents the atmosphere from cooling.
Oxy intends to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and put it underground. Federal regulators determined that the energy firm met every requirement under the Safe Drinking Water Act and accounted for the protection of groundwater. Their review also concluded that the risk of seismicity due to the injections was minimal.
And if necessary, the permit “also puts requirements in place in the event of potential groundwater contamination and/or seismic activity, including shutting down injection operations,†an agency spokesperson said.
Oxy will capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through direct air capture, or DAC. The technology separates the gas from other particles in the air and then raises the temperature to incinerate them, leaving only the carbon dioxide. The equipment compresses the remaining gas by raising the pressure until it is the consistency of a brine that is transported and stored permanently in pockets of rock underground.
According to the proposal, Oxy will monitor the pressure and temperature of the proposed sites on the surface of the well and downhole. Temperature and pressure gauges will be measured every second on the surface and every ten seconds in the well, providing a reading every ten minutes. A change in pressure could indicate a problem.
The proposal stated that operators would monitor corrosion in the well four times a year or every three months. Similarly, the groundwater will be monitored every three months unless the regulators ask for additional testing. After three years, groundwater monitoring will occur once annually. The company must alert the EPA 30 days before most tests or if there are any changes. It must also alert them of any malfunctions within 24 hours.
The oil and gas industry introduced carbon capture and sequestration to remediate excess greenhouse gas emissions from its operations since the 1970s. These emissions harm human health and deteriorate the atmosphere, and scientists agree they spur climate change. Industry leaders say it will help the country meet its climate goals and cool global temperatures.
The benefits of carbon capture and storage have been fiercely debated for as long as the technology has existed. Climate advocates and scientists have been skeptical. They say no project has worked fast enough to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from major emitters.
A handful of proposals in Louisiana were subject to backlash from the community, which expressed concerns over contamination.
Commission Shift, a Texas-based watchdog group, said carbon capture and storage threaten groundwater sources. In a statement, the organization said the EPA should refrain from approving the project until the state resolves other lingering issues with saltwater injections, another underground disposal technique contributing to earthquakes in West Texas.
“Outside of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of (carbon caputure) as a climate mitigation solution, the injection and sequestration of carbon dioxide is dangerous to the land, water, communities, and ecosystems nearby,†Paige Powell, senior policy manager for Commission Shift, said in a statement on Friday.
Ramanan Krishnamoorti, senior vice president of energy at The University of Houston, said neither the public nor the industry should consider carbon capture a permanent solution. He said that residents should pay particular attention to the precautions that Oxy and the EPA will take in case of a leak or contamination.
“We need not build up our hopes that this is the be-all, end-all solution, but the solution that has a time and place,†said Krishnamoorti, an advocate of carbon capture and sequestration technology. “Let’s use it as appropriate, but with very clear eyes that we understand what the hazards are, what the risks are, and how do we make sure that we lessen the risk to the maximum extent possible, and yet be able to do it reasonably.â€
Tyler PD announced Wednesday afternoon that Mann was found safe in his vehicle in Lindale
TYLER — The Tyler Police Department said an investigation is underway for a 25-year-old Tyler man. According to our news partner KETK, missing is Christian Mann. TPD Public Information Officer Andy Erbaugh said Mann is described as having brown hair and hazel eyes and being 6 foot 1 inch and weighs approximately 160 pounds.
Mann was driving a black 2017/2018 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport. He was last seen on Sunday. Erbaugh added on Wednesday, that no foul play is suspected at this time. Police ask if you have information on the location of Christian Mann to call the the Tyler Police Department at 903-531-1000.
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