Today is
Saturday April 19, 2025
TYLER — Four restaurants in Tyler closed their doors at their South Broadway locations early Monday night, 
because of an electrical problem. According to our news partner KETK, Tyler FD Battalion Chief Cordell Parker said, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee’s, Olive Garden and Golden Corral closed after a call reported smoke detected at Applebee’s around 7 p.m. Crews from ONCOR concluded the HVAC unit at Applebee’s had the electric issue, which caused them to power down all four restaurants. While the four eateries closed Monday evening, KTBB confirmed, they all reopened Tuesday.
TYLER – The Tyler Economic Development Council Monday completed the purchase of 281 acres to develop a New Business Park. The property was bought from the Wisenbaker family and will provide a competitive location for bringing new business to Tyler, leading to more jobs, and increased economic growth. The new property is located three and a half miles north of downtown Tyler, between State Park Highway 14 and U.S. Highway 271.
“The Tyler Economic Development Council launched its Strategic Sites Initiative in early 2021 with the goal of developing real estate that meets the market demand for economic development projects. A fundamental element of any successful economic development program is having suitable real estate to attract new economic development projects. An economic development program without competitive sites is akin to Baskin Robbins not having ice cream,” said Scott Martinez, TEDC President and CEO.
The Wisenbaker property buy is the second major land purchase by the TEDC since early 2023. At that time, the council purchased 412 acres, which is being developed as the Tyler Interstate Commerce Park. More information about the development will be shared on the TEDC website as it becomes available.
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PALESTINE – A retired Anderson County judge who signed death row inmate Robert Roberson’s execution warrant earlier this year has recused herself from his case. According to The Texas Tribune, senior state District Judge Deborah Oakes Evans signed the court filing last Monday. No reason was given for her decision.
“I have not yet been served with this order and do not know anything about what prompted Judge Evans to sign this order soon before Thanksgiving,” Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney, told The Texas Tribune.
Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his chronically ill 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. At his trial, prosecutors accused Roberson of shaking Nikki so violently that she died. But Roberson, who was diagnosed with autism after his conviction, has maintained his innocence.
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TYLER – In honor of Rosa Parks, a seat on each Tyler Transit bus will be reserved for her memory on Monday, Dec. 2. Dec. 1 marks the anniversary of a milestone in the Civil Rights movement. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the colored section of the bus for a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. After refusing the bus driver’s order to move, she was arrested for civil disobedience.
Rosa Parks’ action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation on public transit systems was unconstitutional. The boycott helped end segregation of public facilities in the United States, and Rosa Parks became known as the “mother of the freedom movement.”
PHOENIX (AP) — Reyna Montoya was 10 when she and her family fled violence in Tijuana and illegally immigrated to the U.S. Growing up in Arizona, she worried even a minor traffic violation could lead to her deportation.
She didn’t feel relief until 11 years later in 2012, when she received a letter confirming she had been accepted to a new program for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
“All of the sudden, all these possibilities opened up,” Montoya said, fighting back tears. The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program granted her and hundreds of thousands of others two-year, renewable permits to live and work in the U.S. legally.
But as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, after an unsuccessful bid to end DACA in his first term, the roughly 535,000 current recipients are bracing yet again for a whirlwind of uncertainty. Meanwhile, a years-long challenge to DACA could ultimately render it illegal, leaving people like Montoya without a shield from deportation.
“I have to take his (Trump’s) words very seriously, that when they say ‘mass deportation,’ it also includes people like me,” said Montoya, who runs Aliento, an Arizona-based advocacy organization for immigrant rights.
Uncertainty is nothing new for DACA recipients. As many matured from school age to adulthood, they have witnessed a barrage of legal threats to the program.
DACA hasn’t accepted new applicants since 2021, when a federal judge deemed it illegal and ordered that new applications not be processed, though current recipients could still renew their permits. The Biden administration appealed the ruling, and the case is currently pending.
For those who secured and renewed DACA permits, the benefits have been life-changing. With DACA, Montoya for the first time was able to work legally, get health and dental care, and obtain a driver’s license.
Many recipients had hoped Vice President Kamala Harris would win the presidency and continue fighting for them. But the reelection of Trump, who has repeatedly accused immigrants of fueling violent crime and “poisoning the blood” of the United States, has heightened their fears that DACA could end and they could face deportation.
Out of caution, some are rushing to renew their permits, according to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which has been providing free legal aid to help them through the extensive process.
Others are preparing for potential family separations. Phoenix native and DACA recipient Pedro Gonzalez-Aboyte said he and his immigrant parents, along with his two U.S.-born brothers, recently discussed the possibility of being split.
Gonzalez-Aboyte recalled his parents, who immigrated from Mexico, saying that even if they were unable to stay in the country, “as long as the three of you are here and you’re OK, then that’s what we want.”
“That was a very real conversation we had,” Gonzalez-Aboyte said.
Officials for the Trump transition team did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
While it is unclear how Trump could impact DACA this time, he has suggested scaling back other programs that offer temporary protection for immigrants and is staffing his incoming administration with immigration hardliners, including Stephen Miller and Thomas Homan.
During his first term, Trump tried to rescind DACA. But in 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded his administration ended the program improperly, though it didn’t rule on the program’s legality.
But DACA’s fate won’t be immediately left up to Trump, if at all.
A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — regarded as the country’s most conservative appeals court — heard arguments in October concerning the legality of DACA. The case, initially filed by Texas and other Republican-led states in 2018, now focuses on a Biden administration rule intended to preserve and fortify DACA.
Attorneys for DACA opponents argued that immigrants in the country illegally are a financial burden on states. Meanwhile, the Biden administration, along with intervenors, contend that Texas has not shown the costs it cites are traceable to the policy and, therefore, lacks standing.
The panel doesn’t have a deadline to issue a ruling. Regardless, its ruling will likely be appealed, potentially elevating the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University, said the most likely scenario is the panel affirming that DACA is illegal and that the case goes before the Supreme Court. He doesn’t anticipate Trump immediately trying to end DACA but didn’t rule out the possibility.
“I don’t know that they could actually terminate the program any faster than the current ligation is going,” he said. “They could still do it, but they’ve got an awful lot of immigration policy matters on their plate.”
Yale-Loehr said the Biden administration is limited in how it could help DACA recipients at this stage, but it could enable recipients to renew their permits early and process them as quickly as possible.
Greisa Martinez Rosas is a DACA recipient and executive director of United We Dream, a youth-led advocacy network for immigrants that boasts more than a million members nationwide. She said the immigrant rights movement has grown so much since Trump’s first term, and it’s been preparing for this moment for years, “building a nimble and responsive infrastructure so that we will make shifts as threats emerge.”
She said they’re calling on Americans to offer immigrants sanctuary, preparing to ensure people’s physical and psychological safety in case of mass deportations, planning demonstrations and asking for help from the current administration.
“We still have a couple of months for the Biden administration to use every single tool at its disposal to protect and defend as many people as possible,” Martinez Rosas said at a recent press briefing. “We’re expecting for them to do that now more than ever.”
TYLER – The Tyler Police Department said that one person was injured in a shooting Friday night. According to our news partner KETK, the incident happened in North Tyler, at Queen Street and West Gentry Parkway around 9:15 p.m. Tyler PD public information officer Andy Erbaugh said the injury wasn’t life-threatening, but it wasn’t random. The investigation is still running and no information is available on a suspect.
TYLER – The 22nd annual Tyler Turkey Trot 5K and Fun Run was Thanksgiving morning. According to our news partner KETK, the event started with the kids race at 8:30 a.m. And the 5K got it start at 9 a.m. The event started and finished at the Racquet & Jog on S. Broadway Avenue. The Kids’ race started at 8:30 a.m. and the 5K got started at 9 a.m.
Registration for the Turkey Trot included a medal and a commemorative t-shirt. Funds raised will be given to the Promise Academy private Christian school in Tyler.
“We just love being part of the community, we get to see the people come together, it’s fun just organizing it and seeing the fruits of your labor, so it’s just nice to see families come together in a tradition they can partake in,” said Michelle Pena, race organizer with the Tyler Turkey Trot.
KETK’s Chief Meteorologist Carson Vickroy, placed 5th out of 2250 runners in Thursday’s 5K race. To see the full race results click here.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The NCAA’s yearslong efforts to get lawmakers to address myriad problems in college sports could finally pay off in the new, Republican-controlled Congress.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who is set to take over as chair of the powerful Commerce Committee, said recently that a college sports bill will be a top priority, accusing Democrats of dragging their feet on needed reforms. He still needs Democratic support for any bill to pass the necessary 60-vote threshold in the Senate, and that means some compromise with lawmakers who are more concerned about athlete welfare than giving the NCAA more authority.
“Clearly the situation is much more doable with Republicans in control,” said Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressman who played college basketball and for several years led an association of Division I athletic directors. “From the standpoint of the NCAA’s perspective, this is sort of an ideal scenario for them.”
What’s at stake
Cruz and others want to preserve at least parts of an amateur athlete model at the heart of college sports that has provided billions of dollars in scholarships and fueled decades of success by the United States at the Olympics.
The broad outlines of a bill have been debated for years, with those conversations influenced by millions of dollars in lobbying by the NCAA and the wealthiest athletic conferences. The NCAA has found a more receptive audience on Capitol Hill since Charlie Baker, a former Republican Massachusetts governor, took over as its president in March 2023.
There is some bipartisan consensus that Congress should grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption that would allow it to make rules governing college sports without the constant threat of lawsuits, and that national standards for athlete name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation are needed to override a patchwork of state laws.
Those are the key elements of legislation that Cruz has backed for more than a year. Staffers from his office and those of fellow Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey spent months negotiating a bill that would have been introduced in the current, divided Congress, but those talks stalled.
Bipartisan support key
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the outgoing Commerce Committee chair, has been working to advance college sports reform since 2019 but struggled to build consensus on legislation. Still, she agrees with Cruz on at least one problem that Congress could solve — one she saw play out in her home state with the dissolution of the Pac-12 Conference.
“Right now, big schools and their boosters are pitted against smaller schools. We need a predicable national NIL standard that will ensure a level playing field for college athletes and schools,” Cantwell said in a statement to The Associated Press.
A Supreme Court decision in 2021 paved the way for athletes to receive NIL compensation, and now a pending $2.8 billion settlement of multiple antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA has set the table not only for damages paid to past athletes for the NIL money they couldn’t earn but revenue-sharing by schools to their current and future college stars.
Beyond those changes the NCAA was forced to make by the courts, the organization has expanded health benefits for athletes and made new scholarship guarantees. Those new rules took effect Aug. 1, and the NCAA argues they obviate the need for Congress to mandate such benefits.
“We believe that in the next session, members of Congress are going to see the results of those positive changes, and our goal is to build on those and address the remaining issues that only Congress can address,” said Tim Buckley, the NCAA’s senior vice president of external affairs.
Prickly employment issue
The NCAA’s chief goal — and one that seems achievable with Republicans in charge — is “preventing student-athletes from being forced into becoming employees of their schools,” Buckley said.
There are several pending efforts by athletes seeking the ability to unionize, with at least one already tied in up court.
The NCAA has sent athletes to Capitol Hill to tell Congress they don’t want employee status, and some Democrats who previously supported athlete employment have acknowledged the potential drawbacks. Those include drastic cuts to women’s and Olympic sports that might be needed for universities to meet their payroll obligations and financial complications for athletes whose scholarships and other benefits would become taxable.
“For example, the historically Black colleges and universities came together and said, ‘If you force us to treat student-athletes as employees, it’s going to cause us to cancel most of our athletic programs.’ That would be a disastrous outcome,” Cruz said in an appearance at Texas A&M University in September.
Still, overly broad anti-employment language in any bill could imperil its chances of passage. Democrats are hesitant to approve legislation that is seen as too friendly to the NCAA. Booker, a moderate on the issue of athlete employment and a former football player at Stanford, nonetheless emphasized in a statement that he would only support an athlete-friendly bill.
“For too long, the college sports system put power and profits over the rights and well-being of college athletes. And while we’ve made some hard-fought progress in recent years, there’s still more to do,” Booker said. “My advocacy on their behalf will continue in the next Congress.”
Cruz could also face pressure from his own side of the aisle. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who spent more than two decades as a Division I football coach, has called for Congress to mandate penalties for players who break NIL contracts.
While Cruz understands the need for compromise, he intends to use the power he has to advance his — and, to some extent, the NCAA’s — priorities.
“As chairman, I can convene hearings. I’m in charge of every hearing the Commerce Committee has,” Cruz said on a recent episode of his weekly podcast. “I can decide what bills get marked up and what bills don’t, and it gives you the ability to drive an agenda that is just qualitatively different.”
ANGELINA COUNTY — The FBI is asking for the public’s help in identifying potential victims of an East Texas man accused of running a decadelong series of fraudulent investment schemes that targeted individuals across the country. According to our news partner KETK, Matthew Jess Thrash of Lufkin, has been indicted in the Eastern District of Texas for federal violations of wire fraud and money laundering. The FBI believes that Thrash targeted individuals between 2012 through 2024 using several false investment schemes including a fake sports management company, a fake sports memorabilia store and the fraudulent sale of stock in cannabis dispensaries. He reportedly targeted victims throughout Texas, Las Vegas, Shreveport and Tampa.
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MARSHALL — A Marshall man has been arrested for the murder of a relative. According to our news partner KETK, Marshall Police answered a call of a reported stabbing incident Wednesday afternoon, during the lunch hour, near the intersection of Norwood and Randolph Streets. Upon arriving, investigators found out the caller allegedly stabbed a person that was also his relative. 36-year-old Brian Griffin was booked into the Harrison County Jail and charged with murder. MPD said the investigation is continuing.
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TROUP – A “Buddy Bag” or a K9 Med Kit is now in the hands of the Troup Police Department to protect their four legged officer. According to our news partner KETK, the Troup Police Department applied for the kit donation through Protection4Paws, a non-profit that donates equipment specifically for K9 officers
Each “Buddy Bag” has an oxygen mask, specialized burn sheets, bandages, gauze and other items designed for a dogs needs. In this case, Troup K9 Officer Cooper.
Troup PD said in a press release, “Officer Jones, along with the Troup Police Department, is deeply committed to the safety and well being of his loyal partner, K9 Officer Cooper, and views the Buddy Bag as an essential tool in ensuring that Cooper is always ready and safe to perform his duties.”
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