Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
NACOGDOCHES – Nacogdoches County Sheriff Jason Bridges provided an update on Thursday regarding the explosion at the Etoile natural gas well earlier this week. The explosion occurred around 11:20 p.m. on Monday evening. Our news partner KETK said Bridges confirmed that no injuries have been reported, as all workers had evacuated the scene before the blast.
Bridges expressed his gratitude to the local volunteer fire departments who arrived on the scene Monday evening and helped control the fire.
“They are exactly that, they are volunteers, and time and time again I have said what a great job they do and how much our community relies and depends on them, ” Bridges said. “They do a great job for us each and every day and we rely on them so much for what they do.”
The well is currently under what Bridges believes is a controlled burn, and a company from Houston is on the scene to monitor the burn and implement air-quality control measures, as the site is expected to continue burning over the next few days.
NACOGDOCHES (KETK) — A Nacogdoches County jury has convicted Ronnie Farrell Jernigan Jr. of capital murder in the shooting deaths of his girlfriend and her mother, ending a case that previously resulted in a hung jury.
According to the Nacogdoches County District Attorney’s Office, jurors on April 23, found Jernigan guilty on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of 48-year-old Laquice Sanford and her 73-year-old mother, Laura Jean Sanford. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Police were first called to a home on Stone Street in October 2023 after a neighbor discovered Laura Jean’s body on the front porch. Investigators said she had been shot in the back of the head, with her head resting in the basket of a bicycle parked nearby.
Officers then entered the residence and found Laquice dead inside. Authorities said she had been shot in the face at close range.
Jernigan, identified as Laquice’s boyfriend, was later located at his mother’s home. He initially denied being at the residence or seeing the victims that day, investigators said.
Surveillance footage from nearby businesses showed Jernigan riding the same bicycle found at the scene and wearing a hat later recovered inside the home near Laquice’s body, according to prosecutors.
During questioning, Jernigan told detectives he had previously purchased a firearm but claimed he had returned it. A neighbor later discovered a gun in a vacant yard behind his mother’s house. Ballistics testing confirmed the weapon was used in both killings and matched the firearm previously sold to Jernigan, authorities said.
Investigators also found gunshot residue on Jernigan’s hands and DNA from one of the victims on his clothing. Cellphone data placed him at the home at the time of the shootings, prosecutors said.
The case had previously gone to trial in October 2025 but ended in a hung jury. A retrial concluded this week with a guilty verdict after jurors also heard accusations of Jernigan’s prior abuse of Laquice and a previous partner.
In a statement, the district attorney’s office thanked jurors for their “diligence and careful consideration,” adding that the sentence ensures Jernigan “will never be released from prison and protects the public from further violence.” Prosecutors also said the case underscores the dangers of domestic violence and its potential consequences.
TYLER – In a significant milestone for the region, the University of Texas at Tyler has unveiled its cutting-edge School of Medicine Building on Friday morning.
The five?story facility brings education, clinical care and community services together in one place. The new building will not only serve as an educational hub but also as a crucial clinical resource, offering a wide range of services provided by UT Health East Texas clinicians.
From advanced imaging and women’s health services to specialized pulmonary, orthopedic and sports medicine care, the facility is poised to meet diverse healthcare needs. It also boasts eight fully equipped outpatient surgical suites, enhancing its capability to deliver comprehensive medical care.
UT Tyler President Julie V. Philley addressed the attendees, underscoring the university’s commitment to advancing healthcare education and access in East Texas.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was 1972 and Apollo astronauts Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Eugene Cernan had just stepped onto the moon’s surface to begin collecting rock and soil samples.
The mission would mark the end of an era for the American space program, but Schmitt already was looking to the future. His voice crackling over a high-frequency radio signal that day, he shared his thoughts with Cernan and those listening in at Mission Control.
“Well, I tell you Gene, I think the next generation ought to accept this as a challenge. Let’s see them leave footsteps like these someday,” Schmitt said.
Schmitt, 90, is one of the four Apollo moonwalkers still alive today. A field geologist, he was the first scientist to set foot on the moon and his expertise helped answer questions about the origin of that big rock up there and what it tells us about the solar system.
Schmitt felt the thrill again when the Artemis II crew rocketed into space on a historic lunar flyby. Pure excitement and the potential for so much more. And he’s hopeful as new generations get back to the moon and beyond.
Interviewed by The Associated Press, the former U.S. senator from New Mexico spoke about everything from the importance of having a lunar base to tapping new energy sources and whether we’re alone in the universe. Dark matter and quantum entanglement also were mentioned, with Schmitt saying many discoveries are yet to come.
“You’ve just got to remember,” he said, “what used to be called supernatural probably should be called unknown physics.”
This interview has been edited for brevity.
Q: What about having a lunar base?
Well, I think a lunar base makes a lot of sense and it always has for a lot of reasons. One is geopolitical. Probably the most important one is a geopolitical presence in deep space — and in preparation for going on to Mars.
The moon has resources that are going to reduce the cost of actually going to Mars and it gains experience. One of the things people keep forgetting about is you’ve gone through several generations and the new generation has to gain experience — psychologically as well as practically about how you work in deep space. And they’re doing that. That was probably the most important part of Artemis II, is it gave the ground people, Mission Control and others, the experience now to really have the risk as real rather than as part of a simulation.
Q: What was your mission during Apollo 17?
I had a lot of understanding of what other crews had learned, what had been learned from some of the early sample analyses and so we were trying to put sort of the frosting on the cake of answering questions in a very complex geologic area called Taurus-Littrow.
Taurus-Littrow actually is deeper than the Grand Canyon and so it has a three-dimensional aspect to it that we hadn’t had on other missions. And plus having a field geologist like myself on board meant that we should be more efficient at gathering samples that had a meaningful aspect to our further understanding of the origin of the moon, its relationship to the Earth and, it turns out, also its relationship to the history of the sun.
Q: So we’re building upon our knowledge of the universe around us?
Well there’s no question that the moon has a history to tell us.
It’s been recording the history of the solar system ever since the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago. That is really what the moon gives us — that library of knowledge, of potential knowledge about how the solar system evolved and then what the sun has been doing in that 4.5 billion years.
In the recent work that I’ve been doing in that layer of debris, the regolith, we find that the sun became even more active than it had been about the same time as we had an explosion of life in the oceans on Earth, and so the oceans may have been and almost certainly were warming to that more active sun and life likes warmth. So it multiplied not only in quantity but in diversity. The mammals started to appear soon after that, life started to move up onto the continents that had formed so things were really starting to move about a half-billion years ago.
Q: Tell us about the moon rocks
This is a sample of a basalt lava and we have a lot of basalt lavas here in New Mexico. This is different in that it is rich in titanium, more rich than most terrestrial basalts. And that titanium turns out to be very important in terms of the resources that are available on the moon. It has a property of concentrating some of those resources, particularly hydrogen and helium.
There’s an isotope called helium-3 and that is going to be, I think, ultimately very, very important in the production of energy. It’s going to be extremely useful in quantum computing, in cancer therapy and other things here on Earth. We just don’t have much on Earth, so the moon is going to be a our reservoir, our source of this very important isotope of helium-3.
Q: How important will this isotope be in the future?
Helium-3 offers a possibility of having nuclear energy without nuclear waste. We’ve known that for decades, and so the moon now offers that opportunity to begin to substitute a nuclear form of energy that doesn’t produce nuclear waste for what we have today.
Q: Is it just as much an energy race as a space race?
There’s no question about it. China is interested in it, we’re interested in it. And that’s probably one of the big technological drivers of this new race to the moon, a new space race, a Cold War that’s on now primarily involving China and I think helium-3 is a big actor in that right now.
Q: What was it like in the Taurus-Littrow Valley?
First of all, we were in a valley deeper than the Grand Canyon. The mountains on either side were as high as the Grand Canyon from the bottom. Secondly, you’re in one-sixth gravity so that means you can walk much more easily than you could here on Earth. Now we were covered by a pressure suit but still walking around was like being a kid again … if you fell you didn’t fall very hard and you certainly didn’t cry about it. But the moon is really a very easy place to work so as long as you have the right equipment surrounding you. You have to have that atmosphere of course to breathe.
Q: Any downsides to working in a weightless environment?
For me, it was a very comfortable environment to be in and you get a little bit lazy. For example, if you’re taking notes with a pad of paper and a pen or pencil and somebody says would you take the SCS switch to off, well you just let go and it floats there and you go over to the switch and come back and start to dictate those notes again.
You’ve got to be careful though because you’re brain gets lazy. When I got on the carrier after splashdown, I was taking my first drink of water and I just let go of the cup and of course it broke on the floor. Human beings tend to take advantage of their environment very quickly and the brain does get a little bit lazy like that. It took about three days to get comfortable again back here on Earth.
Q: So we’ll have no problem living on the moon?
No, I think living on the moon is going to be very good. Now long term civilization on the moon, there’s still some major issues. The radiation issue has to be dealt with and we can. There are ways to do that. Going to Mars is another issue and that’s why you’ll almost certainly need fusion rockets to cut that time frame.
Q: We’ve heard a lot lately about UFOs. What are your thoughts on that?
Well there are billions of sunlike stars out there and so you just have to imagine that life may have originated on some other planet, although the conditions for life to originate here on Earth are really unique. Everything sort of fit together and creation for us sort of leads to you thinking of an infinitely intelligent being that made it all happen. But the technical potential statistically is very high that you could have had the similar kind of conditions develop elsewhere in the universe.
Now are they visiting us? My feeling is if they’re really so advanced they could be here, they’d communicate better than they have and so I just don’t know. But it’s plausible. Let’s put it that way. Unlikely maybe, but plausible.
Q: Would you take the opportunity to go back to the moon or to Mars?
Oh surely. Teresa, my wife, would like very much to go with me — that would be one condition. But I think a trip to Mars is going to be fantastic for those people.
So youth is extremely important and the education of those youth particularly in mathematics is extraordinarily important, and NASA now has a younger agency than they had grown to be during the shuttle era.
Look what has happened since Apollo. The commercial sector has developed new technologies, new ways of doing things and NASA is now trying to integrate those into a new approach to deep space exploration.
LUFKINS – The City’s Click2Gov online payment system will be unavailable this weekend due to a scheduled software upgrade by its vendor. The system is expected to be down for most or all of the day Saturday at least. Joshua Gentry, IT digital content manager for the City of Lufkin, stated the city appreciates citizens’ patience while this upgrade is completed.
UPSHUR COUNTY – The Texas Department of Public Safety has released details of a two vehicle accident that killed a Longview nurse practitioner and a Longview ISD teacher last weekend. According to the DPS, the collision occurred early Sunday morning in the Diana area involving Longview ISD teacher Kimberly Law and Hospitality Health ER nurse practitioner Joel Mack.
Law was allegedly driving south on the northbound lane of U.S. 259 when she struck Mack’s vehicle, who was driving north in the same lane an initial investigation revealed. Law was pronounced dead at the scene and Mack was transported to a local hospital for his injuries.
DPS said Mack has since died from his injuries sustained in the accident.
BATON ROUGE, La. (WVLA) – Ten people were injured in a shooting at the Mall of Louisiana on Thursday afternoon, police have confirmed.
The Baton Rouge Police Department said two groups of people had gotten into an argument in the mall’s food court at around 1:25 p.m., around the time the shooting unfolded.
Authorities say there is no known threat to the public at this time, but the incident does not appear to be a random act of violence. Authorities also indicated that the perpetrators had not been apprehended.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards joined law enforcement at the scene, saying, “To the thugs who did this, we are going to catch you.”
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry had earlier released a statement on the incident, saying he had been made aware of an “active shooter scene” at the Baton Rouge shopping complex.
“I am aware of the active shooter scene at the Mall of Louisiana. I am in coordination with law enforcement and we will update as we know more. Please avoid the area. Sharon and I are praying for those affected and are grateful for a quick response by our law enforcement officials.”
Mall spokesperson Lindsay Kahn also confirmed a shooting at the shopping complex but referred other questions to police.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill further advised the public to avoid the area.
“Multiple law enforcement agencies are responding – please avoid the area. More details will be available soon.”
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks pulled back from their record heights on a shaky Wall Street Thursday following mixed profit reports from Tesla and other big companies. Oil prices, meanwhile, jumped on worries about what will happen next in the war with Iran.
The S&P 500 fell 0.4% and halted a weekslong rally that had erased all its losses because of the war and then carried it to all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 179 points, or 0.4%, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.9% from its own record.
Tesla helped drag the market lower after sinking 3.6% even though it reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on a big jump in Tesla’s forecast for spending this year, as it builds factories to make robots and other products.
“You should expect to see a very significant increase in capital expenditures,” Elon Musk told investors late Wednesday, “but I think well justified for a substantially increased future revenue stream.”
ServiceNow dropped even more, 17.7%, even though its results for the latest quarter matched analysts’ expectations. The company has been under pressure, along with much of the broad software industry, because of worries that rivals powered by artificial-intelligence technology could undercut its business.
In the oil market, prices leaped as uncertainty built about what will happen with the Strait of Hormuz. A ceasefire is still in place between the United States and Iran, but oil tankers in the Persian Gulf aren’t able to get through the narrow waterway off Iran’s coast and deliver crude to customers.
The U.S. military on Thursday seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the strait. President Donald Trump also said Thursday he ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” Iranian boats that deploy mines to gum up traffic in the strait.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June rose 3.1% to settle at $105.07 and at one point topped $107. That peak coincided with a sudden drawdown for stocks, and the S&P 500 fell as much as 1.3% before it almost as instantly erased half the loss.
The price for a barrel of Brent to be delivered in July, which is the more popular contract for traders, settled at $99.35 after getting as high as $101.
More expensive oil has hurt airlines in particular because of the industry’s big fuel bills, and stocks diverged in the industry following the latest profit reports.
American Airlines Group rose 2.4% after reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. American said demand was strong for flights, and it saw the nine best weeks for revenue intake in its 100-year history.
Southwest Airlines lost 4.1% after reporting weaker quarterly results than analysts expected. It said it would not give an updated forecast for profit this year because of “the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.”
Also on the losing end of Wall Street was IBM, which sank 8.3% despite reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. Investors focused on potentially discouraging numbers underneath the surface, including decelerating growth in trends for its software business.
Paramount Skydance fell 4.5% after Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved selling the business to Paramount. Warner Bros. Discovery sank 1.6%.
Texas Instruments helped limit Wall Street’s losses after breezing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. CEO Haviv Ilan said the semiconductor company is benefiting from growth led by industrial and data center customers, and its 19.4% leap was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 29.50 points to 7,108.40. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 179.71 to 49,310.32, and the Nasdaq composite sank 219.06 to 24,438.50.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.9%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 0.7% for two of the bigger losses.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.9% after the government reported better-than-expected economic growth for the start of the year, boosted by strong exports, particularly of computer chips used in the AI boom. Semiconductor supplier SK Hynix said its revenue for the latest quarter jumped more than analysts expected largely because of AI-related demand.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury erased an early dip and rose to 4.32% from 4.30% late Wednesday as oil prices accelerated.
A report in the morning said slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the number is still at a historically healthy level. A separate, preliminary report on U.S. business output from S&P Global also suggested growth is improving a bit from its near-stagnation seen in March.
Can your old smartphones make a security system? Yes! You need to check out David Rancken’s App Of The Day. It’s called AlfredCamera Home Security. You can get AlfredCamera Home Security in the Apple Store and Google Play below.
RUSK COUNTY – A cyber tip from the North Texas Internet Crimes Against Children lead to the arrest of an East Texas man possessing child pornography on Tuesday. According to our news partner KETK and the Rusk County Sheriff’s Office, investigators obtained an arrest warrant for 35-year-old Christopher Smith II of Mount Enterprise following the cyber tip. A search warrant was also obtained to locate any additional child pornography he may have in his possession.
The sheriff’s office and a Texas Department of Public Safety officer who specializes in digital forensics executed the search warrant at Smith’s home. Smith was taken into custody and several items were seized as evidence, the sheriff’s office said. Smith is currently in the Rusk County Jail under a $65,000 bond for his possession of child pornography charge. According to the sheriff’s office, the case is still under investigation and may result in additional charges.
LONDON (AP) — Opponents of smoking got a breath of fresh air as Parliament passed a bill that will put cigarettes out of reach for future generations.
“The end of smoking, and the devastating harm it causes, is no longer uncertain — it’s inevitable,” Hazel Cheeseman, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, said after a decades-long campaign in favor of legislation approved Tuesday.
Children born after Dec. 31, 2008, will be banned from ever buying cigarettes under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
The legislation that needs approval by King Charles III — a formality — before taking effect will also allow the government to regulate tobacco, vaping and nicotine products, including flavors and packaging.
It is currently illegal to sell cigarettes, tobacco products or vapes to people younger than 18. But most youths today will continue to face a ban their entire life as the minimum age to buy cigarettes rises each year.
The passage gives the U.K. one of the toughest antismoking measures in the world. The law is similar to one New Zealand lawmakers passed in 2022, but that was repealed by a subsequent government.
The number of people who smoke in Britain has declined by two-thirds since the 1970s, but some 6.4 million people — or about 13% of the population — still smoke, according to official figures.
Authorities say smoking causes some 80,000 deaths a year in the U.K, and remains the number one preventable cause of death, disability and poor health.
“Children in the U.K. will be part of the first smoke-free generation, protected from a lifetime of addiction and harm,” Health Secretary Wes Streeting said.
HIDEAWAY – Drivers on Interstate 20 east near Hideaway should expect significant delays Wednesday evening after a crash involving an 18-wheeler and a pickup truck towing a camper. The crash happened around 5:30 p.m. on I-20 between U.S. 69 and FM 14. According to preliminary information from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the pickup truck lost control on the interstate and an 18?wheeler struck the camper from behind.
TxDOT cameras show a miles-long backup in the eastbound lanes, where only one lane remains open. Traffic is moving slowly through the area. Injuries are currently unknown. People are asked to avoid the area at this time.
MARSHALL — The Marshall Police Department announces the arrests stemming from a large-scale disturbance that occurred on March 29, on Sanford Street. The incident involved about 300 individuals during a large party and prompted an extensive criminal investigation by Marshall Police.
Responding patrol officers made initial contact with the disturbance and arrested four individuals for offenses directly related to the incident. Officers also recovered three firearms at the scene. Following the initial response, Marshall Police Detectives initiated a comprehensive investigation of evidence collected during the incident.
Through this investigation, Detectives identified 14 individuals who actively participated in a riot as defined under the Texas Penal Code.
Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 17 million people along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts are at the highest risk of being affected by flooding, with New York and New Orleans standing out, according to one of the most comprehensive studies ever of flood risk.
Researchers at the University of Alabama used 16 different factors including the geographic hazards, the population and infrastructure exposed and the vulnerability of people living there. They then brought in past damages from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s database and applied three different artificial intelligence tools to figure out flood risks from Texas to Maine, calculating that 17.5 million people were at “very high” risk and an additional 17 million were at “high” risk, the next level.
The authors looked at all sizes of flooding and examined separately what FEMA considers the most extreme, which are the top 1% of events. The study found 4.3 million people along the coasts to be at the highest level of risk of extreme flooding, but 20.5 million to be at high risk, the second highest level.
They found a lot of vulnerability, highlighting eight different cities from Houston, which flooded in 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, to New York, which was inundated in 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.
Wednesday’s study in the journal Science Advances found that New York City has 4.75 million people at the two highest risk levels for all flooding, with more than 200,000 buildings likely to be damaged.
And while the number of people at risk in New Orleans is far lower, about 380,000, it involves 99% of the city’s population. That doesn’t mean 99% of the people will be affected in the next hurricane or nontropical flood, but that they might be depending on the storm’s individual path and rain pattern, said study co-author Wanyun Shao, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama.
“Just look at the magnitude,” Shao said. “Those numbers are shocking, are alarming.”
The elderly and poor are most at risk
“When the next big storm hits New York City, when the next Hurricane Katrina -like hurricane makes landfall in New Orleans, people will get hurt, especially those socially vulnerable populations,” Shao said referring to the poor, the elderly, children and the uneducated.
Shao and outside experts said the numbers stunned them even though they were familiar with the worsening effects of climate change.
“New York is known to be susceptible to floods and it has the largest population. But the fact that New York has nearly an order of magnitude more flood-exposed population than any other city is surprising,” said Alex de Sherbinin, a geographer who directs Columbia University’s Center for Integrated Earth System Information. He wasn’t part of the study.
Flood problems are becoming more frequent in New York and New Orleans because of human-caused climate change, the study said.
Other cities are also threatened
Jacksonville has 679,000 people at high or very high risk of flooding, while Houston is just behind at just under 600,000. Other cities highlighted include Miami, Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Mobile, Alabama.
Shao and outside experts said what separates her study from others is the sheer comprehensiveness of all the factors it considers, including sinking land and pavement that doesn’t allow water to seep into the ground, as well as incorporating human social vulnerability such as poverty and age.
“This could be applied to other places in the world, such as Manila,” said University of Virginia engineering professor Venkataraman Lakshmi, who heads the hydrology section of the American Geophysical Union, referring to the capital of the Philippines. He wasn’t part of the study, but said the flooding problems it highlights will get more frequent and intense due to human-caused climate change.
Columbia University’s Marco Tedesco, who wasn’t part of the study, said “it reinforces the crucial concept that future flood disasters are not just about water—they are about where people live, how cities are built, and who is least protected.”
Actions can lessen the risk
De Sherbinin said, “the analysis of the flood risk factors is important for local planners, emergency managers, and even highway crews and utility providers. We all know that low lying areas are more flood prone, but the data they have assembled provide more insights into flood risk, particularly for flash floods.”
Study lead author Hemal Dey, a geospatial scientist, said he hopes local officials look at not just building more dams and levees, but more natural infrastructure such as wetlands, grasslands, rain gardens and estuaries.
“The research is solid confirmation of what emergency managers have been saying for years. Realtors will hate it,’’ said Craig Fugate, a former FEMA director who wasn’t part of the study. “The harder question is what we’re actually going to do about it.”
LONGVIEW — The City of Longview is urging pet owners to take preventative measures to protect their animals due to a potential uptick in wildlife carrying diseases, including distemper.
According to the Longview Animal Care and Adoption Center (LACAC), animal control officers have responded to 26 calls involving raccoons so far this year. Although the LACAC does not frequently test animals for distemper, they stated that local raccoons are showing symptoms similar to the disease.
Distemper is a viral disease that can pose a serious risk to unvaccinated dogs as it attacks their respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems. Dogs at high risk of being impacted include puppies younger than four months and dogs that have not received their vaccinations.
Read the rest of this entry »