Today is
Sunday November 24, 2024
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LA PORTE, Texas (AP) — A massive pipeline fire sent a pillar of flame towering over some Houston suburbs on Monday as first responders evacuated a surrounding neighborhood and tried to keep more nearby homes from catching on fire.
The blaze involving a 20-inch pipeline carrying natural gas liquids must burn itself out, according to its operator, Dallas-based Energy Transfer. The company said the flow was shut off but local officials said it could take hours, if not into Tuesday, for the residual material to burn off.
Local authorities would not speculate at an afternoon news conference about what caused the fire and what role a burned car near the source of the flame may have had. Energy Transfer said in its statement that it was “aware of early reports†that a car had struck some valve equipment but did not offer more details, including the origin of those reports.
Firefighters were dispatched at 9:55 a.m. after an explosion that rattled adjacent homes and businesses in Deer Park and La Porte, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of downtown Houston, long the energy capital of the U.S. The plume of smoke could be seen from at least 10 miles away.
The only injury reported so far was to a firefighter who sustained a minor injury, officials said.
Geselle Melina Guerra said she and her boyfriend heard an explosion at around 9:30 a.m. as they were having breakfast in their mobile home. “All of a sudden we hear this loud bang and then I see something bright, like orange, coming from our back door that’s outside,†said Guerra, 25, who lives within the evacuation area.
Her boyfriend woke up his brother and they ran to their car.
“I was just freaking out, pacing around the living room, not really knowing what to do or what was happening,” Guerra said. “I thought maybe it was an airplane that had crashed down by our house.â€
La Porte city spokesperson Lee Woodward told KTRK-TV that people in nearby schools were told to shelter in place as law enforcement blocked off a wide area.
Energy Transfer said in a statement that air monitoring equipment was being set up in the area.
At nearby San Jacinto College, which closed its campus after the explosion, people who gathered included Evan Wyman, who had gotten word after calling police that her dog, Baxter, and had been rescued from her home, which is in the evacuated neighborhood.
“I just know that my dog is rescued,†Wyman said.
Houston is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries, plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight to residents in Texas’ largest city, including some that have been deadly. The blasts have raised recurring questions about the adequacy of the industry’s plans to protect the public and the impacts of environmental damage.
Video images from KTRK showed a park near the fire had been damaged and firefighters pouring water on adjacent homes. By noon, at least a couple of homes appeared to have caught fire, with smoke pouring from their roofs. There are also several businesses nearby, including a Walmart.
Sanchez said they’re used to evacuations because they live close to other plants near the highway, but he hadn’t seen an explosion before in his 10 years living there.
“We just drove as far as we could because we didn’t know what was happening,†Sanchez said from a parked car at a gas station near his college.
Officials have ordered residents in the Brookglen neighborhood area near the fire to evacuate, Woodward said in an email.
“Please avoid the area and follow law enforcement direction. Further details will be released as available,†Woodward said.
The fire burned through high voltage power lines, and the website PowerOutage.us said several thousand customers were without power in Harris County.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The former Uvalde, Texas, schools police chief made his first court appearance on Monday for his role in the heavily scrutinized law enforcement response to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting.
Pete Arredondo, who was allegedly the incident commander, was part of the slow police response that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Attorneys for Arredondo filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing that the former chief should not be held responsible for the actions he didn’t take that day. The judge did not make a ruling on the motion Monday.
A grand jury indicted Arredondo, as well as responding officer Adrian Gonzales, on multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment earlier this year. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The indictment alleges that Arredondo did not follow his active shooter training and made critical decisions that slowed the police response while the gunman was “hunting†victims.
Arredondo has said he’s been “ scapegoated †for his role in the law enforcement response and should not have been considered the lead commander.
Nearly 400 officers from federal, state and local agencies waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman at Robb Elementary. Multiple state and federal investigations have pointed to failures in communication, leadership and training for law enforcement’s response.
A federal review from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility released Thursday found similar breakdowns in communication and command among Border Patrol agents.
The former schools police chief and Gonzalez, who was indicted on 29 similar counts of endangerment and abandonment, are the only two officers facing criminal charges. If convicted, they can serve up to two years in jail time.
HENDERSON – A Henderson pharmacy has reopened after an early Monday morning armed robbery. According to our news partner KETK, Strong-Hurt Pharmacy on E Main Street was robbed around 7 a.m. Monday. Henderson PD said they have identified an unnamed suspect and they have been taken into custody. Officials also said several items from the robbery have been recovered.
SMITH COUNTY – If your not registered for vote in the Presidential Election on November 5, then you can register to vote starting Tuesday, September 17, on National Voter Registration Day.
Register to vote at the following times and locations on Tuesday in Smith County:
Texas College – The Connector, 2404 N. Grand Ave., Tyler 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Tyler Junior College – Student Union, 1400 E 5th St., Tyler, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.      Â
Tyler Junior College – West Campus, 1530 SSW Loop 323, Tyler, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
UT Tyler, Patio at the Student Center, 3900 University Blvd., Tyler, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 5-6 p.m.
The Smith County Elections Office, 302 E. Ferguson St. Tyler, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Ebenezer AME Church, located at 1101 W. Queen St. Tyler, will be holding an event at 6 p.m.
The East Texas Food Bank will help its members register from 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The deadline to register to vote in the November 5 Presidential Election is Tuesday, October 7.
There are also answers to your frequently asked questions, at http://www.smith-county.com/government/departments/elections/voter-registration
For more about National Voter Registration Day, visit https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org
LONGVIEW – Johnston-McQueen Elementary School students will be released at noon Monday and Tuesday. According to our news partner KETK, the school had a power outage around 8 a.m. Monday. After the power was restored, their air conditioning was still not functioning properly. School officials decided on early release Monday morning. Buses will be on campus at 11:45 a.m. Monday and Tuesday. Anyone with questions are asked to contact the school directly.
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PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — A new abortion clinic has brought the debate over reproductive rights to a small college town in the southeast corner of Kansas. It’s one of the few states left in the region still allowing abortions.
A religious, Republican-leaning semi-rural location like Pittsburg, Kansas, would have been unlikely to host an abortion clinic before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, but that is changing across the country.
The Associated Press reported on the new clinic and the town’s reactions. Here are key takeaways.
Border states are becoming abortion-access hubs
Over the past two years, Kansas is one of five states that people are most likely to travel to in order to get an abortion if their state doesn’t offer the procedure, said Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policies.
Abortions have spiked by 152% in Kansas after Roe, according to a recent analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.
Using Myers’ count, six of the clinics in Kansas, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia that have opened or relocated post-Roe are in communities with fewer than 25,000 people. Two others are in communities of fewer than 50,000.
Kansas voters protected abortion rights
Five weeks after Roe was overturned, voters in Kansas had to decide whether to strip the right to an abortion from the state constitution, which could have led to an outright ban.
Pittsburg is in Crawford County, where 55% of voters were part of the 59% of voters statewide who killed the proposal. But the rural counties surrounding Pittsburg voted for the amendment.
Kansas’ statewide percentage is in line with an Associated Press-NORC poll from 2024 that showed 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.
Abortion in Kansas is generally legal up until the 22nd week of pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood has turned people away in Kansas
The new abortion clinic will be run by Planned Parenthood Great Plains. Its location is a few minutes’ drive from the Missouri border and is less than an hour away from Oklahoma.
All of Kansas’ other abortion clinics are in larger metro areas, where clinics have expanded hours — but appointments are still in short supply. About 60% to 65% of people who call Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas for an abortion appointment are turned away because there isn’t enough capacity, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.
The bulk of people looking for abortions in Kansas are from out of state — mostly Texas, which is about five hours south, Wales said. She added that some come from as far away as Louisiana and even Florida, which now prohibits the procedure after six weeks.
Small towns can be welcoming — or not
Experts said smaller-sized clinics can be less overwhelming for women who are coming from rural areas, like those surrounding Pittsburg. But, often, there is little anonymity in these places where religious and family ties often run deep.
Pittsburg is home to a state university with about 7,400 students. The town is also is increasingly religious, with twice as many white evangelical Protestants as the national average, and the area is increasingly Republican.
Pittsburg State students who The Associated Press talked to are supportive of the clinic, as are many of the Democrats in town.
But churches in Pittsburg are training people on how to protest at the abortion clinic, and Vie Medical Clinic, a crisis pregnancy center, has seen an increase in donations.
LONGVIEW – The Longview Police Department said that one teenager was wounded in a shooting Saturday afternoon. According to our news partner KETK, LPD responded to call of shooting on West Edgefield Avenue, one block south of the South Green Laundromat. There officers found a teenage victim who had non-life-threatening injuries after being shot.
The police investigation revealed the shooting happened after “a verbal altercation escalated into an exchange of gunfire.†The suspect left the scene and was arrested at a residence in Harrison County. 18-year-old Alejandro Gonzalez of Longview was taken to the Harrison County Jail and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The name of the shooting victim was not released.
TYLER – Keith Miller, a Tyler personal injury lawyer known for his TV commercials, died in Tyler on Friday, that according to our news partner KETK. Miller was originally an insurance claims adjuster. This inspired him to become a personal injury lawyer so he could look out for people like his father did before him.
A press release from his law office states, that Miller’s firm will remain open while Miller’s clients will have their cases managed by his partner, Shane McGuire.
“Keith was a legend in the legal field,†McGuire said. “It was an honor to work alongside him on hundreds of cases. I will greatly miss our conversations, not just about legal strategy but about life. My family and I are deeply saddened by this loss.â€
Miller attended Tyler Junior College before graduating from North Texas University in Denton. He then worked as a law clerk and investigator for Erskine, Smith & McMahon before he was hired at State Farm. Keith was an adjuster for two years before becoming an attorney.
Any clients with questions or concerns are urged to call Miller’s office at 903-597-4090.
TYLER – The City of Tyler is seeking feedback from residents regarding their Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) Annual Work Plan. According to our news partner KETK, residents have until Oct. 20 to provide comments and suggestions about projects in the CIP program that will be funded by a half cent sales tax.
The city of Tyler said in a release, “Current projects on the Capital Improvement Plan include drainage improvements, street repairs, updates to Tyler Pounds Regional Airport, railroad crossing improvements, the South Tyler Mobility Study, upgrading traffic signals as part of year four of the Intelligent Transportation Master Plan and more.â€
Those wanting to leave input on the Annual Work Plan, can go so here.
AUSTIN (Nexstar) – The House of Representatives is facing an Oct. 1 deadline to pass a spending bill and avoid a government shutdown with the election only weeks away. House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled a vote Wednesday that would have combined a temporary spending bill with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act due to doubts on whether it could pass.
The SAVE Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and is backed by former President Donald Trump and opposed by Democrats. Other concerns include the length of a stopgap bill which could force the new president to focus on a spending bill quickly after taking office in January.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, voted for the SAVE act but acknowledges that a continuing resolution with the act wouldn’t pass the Senate.
“Under federal law you have to be a legal citizen to vote and [the SAVE Act] tries to enforce that at the state level,†McCaul said. “There’s a lot of loss of faith in our elections and something like this I think would give people more confidence.â€
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said the SAVE Act would unnecessarily disrupt the upcoming election.
“It does not apply just to immigrants. It applies to all of us. If you don’t have your birth certificate, if you don’t have a passport, it’s not good enough to use the REAL ID that gets you through airport security, you won’t be able to vote,†Doggett said.
He believes there is no room for compromise on the act.
“Weeks before the election is supposed to begin, that will cause chaos, and maybe that’s what the objective is,†he said.
Doggett said that the House needs to pass a continuing resolution, but that that is not an ideal solution.
“The disadvantage of a continuing resolution is it’s putting in place last year’s funding without any adjustments for needs at the Defense Department or elsewhere,†Doggett explained. He blamed Republicans for failing to pass appropriations bills, setting up the need for a continuing resolution.
Doggett is hopeful that the Senate will pass a so-called clean continuing resolution, without other legislation attached and Speaker Johnson will allow the House to vote on it. Democrats have a 51 – 49 majority in the Senate.
“Some feel it’s to their advantage to threaten to shut down everything in order to get their way, and we’ve had one after another,†Doggett said. “This particular one is really ridiculous.â€
McCaul also pushed back at the potential for a shutdown.
“I’ve never been a fan of that because that doesn’t accomplish anything,†he told reporters in Washington. “At the end of the day, it hurts our military more than anything,†McCaul added.
The congressman chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. With two decades on Capitol Hill, he’s been through several shut down standoffs before.
“I’ve been doing this for 10 terms and I’ve seen this movie before,†McCaul said.
One difference this time is the uncertainty of who will be in the White House. Some Republicans are pushing for a CR that lasts until after next year’s Presidential inauguration, with the hope that Trump wins the election. Others want the CR to expire before lawmakers leave Washington for the holidays. Which version, if any, will move forward is unclear.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,†McCaul said.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury will soon decide whether a convoy of supporters of then-President Donald Trump violently intimidated former Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis and two others on a Biden-Harris campaign bus when a so-called “Trump Train†boxed them in for more than an hour on a Texas highway days before the 2020 election.
The trial, which began on Sept. 9, resumes Monday and is expected to last another week.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that six of the Trump Train drivers violated state and federal law. Lawyers for the defendants said they did not conspire against the Democrats on the bus and that their actions are protected speech.
Here’s what else to know:
What happened on Oct. 30, 2020?
Dozens of cars and trucks organized by a local Trump Train group swarmed the bus on its way from San Antonio to Austin. It was the last day of early voting in Texas for the 2020 general election, and the bus was scheduled to make a stop in San Marcos for an event at Texas State University.
Video recorded by Davis shows pickup trucks with large Trump flags aggressively slowing down and boxing in the bus as it tried to move away from the Trump Train. One defendant hit a campaign volunteer’s car while the trucks occupied all lanes of traffic, slowing the bus and everyone around it to a 15 mph crawl.
Those on the bus — including Davis, a campaign staffer and the driver — repeatedly called 911 asking for help and a police escort through San Marcos, but when no law enforcement arrived, the campaign canceled the event and pushed forward to Austin.
San Marcos settled a separate lawsuit filed by the same three Democrats against the police, agreeing to pay $175,000 and mandate political violence training for law enforcement.
Davis testified that she felt she was being “taken hostage†and has sought treatment for anxiety.
In the days leading up to the event, Democrats were also intimidated, harassed and received death threats, the lawsuit said.
“I feel like they were enjoying making us afraid,†Davis testified. “It’s traumatic for all of us to revisit that day.â€
What’s the plaintiffs’ argument?
In opening statements, an attorney for the plaintiffs said convoy organizers targeted the bus in a calculated attack to intimidate the Democrats in violation of the “Ku Klux Klan Act,†an 1871 federal law that bans political violence and intimidation.
“We’re here because of actions that put people’s lives in danger,†said Samuel Hall, an attorney with the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The plaintiffs, he said, were “literally driven out of town by a swarm of trucks.â€
The six Trump Train drivers succeeded in making the campaign cancel its remaining events in Texas in a war they believed was “between good and evil,” Hall said.
Two nonprofit advocacy groups, Texas Civil Rights Project and Protect Democracy, also are representing the three plaintiffs.
What’s the defense’s argument?
Attorneys for the defendants, who are accused of driving and organizing the convoy, said they did not conspire to swarm the Democrats on the bus, which could have exited the highway at any point.
“This was a political rally. This was not some conspiracy to intimidate people,†said attorney Jason Greaves, who is representing two of the drivers.
The defense also argued that their clients’ actions were protected speech and that the trial is a concerted effort to “drain conservatives of their money,†according to Francisco Canseco, a lawyer for three of the defendants.
“It was a rah-rah group that sought to support and advocate for a candidate of their choice in a very loud way,†Canseco said during opening statements.
The defense lost a bid last month to have the case ruled in their favor without a trial. The judge wrote that “assaulting, intimidating, or imminently threatening others with force is not protected expression.â€
TYLER – The 2024 Tyler Film Festival, presented by Dobbs & Porter, brought together a diverse array of filmmakers during the three-day event at Liberty Hall. The festival premiered 25 short films from over eight countries with various genres, including documentaries, stop-animation, dramas, comedies and more.Â
In a release from TFF, Craig O’Daniel, festival director and judge said, “The films that won awards this year impressed our judges with their meticulous attention to every aspect of filmmaking, resulting in masterful storytelling. We genuinely thank the teams for submitting their work and giving our little festival a worldwide showcase.”
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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge in North Dakota has temporarily blocked a new Biden administration rule aimed at reducing the venting and flaring of natural gas at oil wells.
“At this preliminary stage, the plaintiffs have shown they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim the 2024 Rule is arbitrary and capricious,†U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ruled Friday, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
North Dakota, along with Montana, Texas, Wyoming and Utah, challenged the rule in federal court earlier this year, arguing that it would hinder oil and gas production and that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is overstepping its regulatory authority on non-federal minerals and air pollution.
The bureau says the rule is intended to reduce the waste of gas and that royalty owners would see over $50 million in additional payments if it was enforced.
But Traynor wrote that the rules “add nothing more than a layer of federal regulation on top of existing federal regulation.â€
When pumping for oil, natural gas often comes up as a byproduct. Gas isn’t as profitable as oil, so it is vented or flared unless the right equipment is in place to capture.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a climate “super pollutant†that is many times more potent in the short term than carbon dioxide.
Well operators have reduced flaring rates in North Dakota significantly over the past few years, but they still hover around 5%, the Tribune reported. Reductions require infrastructure to capture, transport and use that gas.
North Dakota politicians praised the ruling.
“The Biden-Harris administration continuously attempts to overregulate and ultimately debilitate North Dakota’s energy production capabilities,†state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said in a statement.
The Bureau of Land Management declined comment.