Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
Tyler – City offices will observe the following schedule on Friday, April 3, in observance of Good Friday.
City Hall
City Hall offices will be closed Friday, April 3.
Tyler Water Utilities
The Water Business Office will be closed on Friday, April 3.
The kiosk at the drive-through offers 24/7 access for utility customers with its ability to accept checks, money orders, credit/debit cards and cash payments. Those choosing to pay with cash should be aware that no change will be given.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee library board has fired the county’s top librarian for refusing to comply with its vote to move more than 100 LGBTQ books from the children’s to the adult section over its claims that they promote “gender confusion.”
The Rutherford County Library Board voted 8-3 on Monday evening to fire library system director Luanne James. James has previously said that relocating the books would violate her and county residents’ First Amendment rights and compromise her professional obligation against government-mandated viewpoint discrimination.
The case establishes the county southeast of Nashville as another focal point in the yearslong national fight over library content, often centering on racial and LGBTQ themes.
“Her story will echo from the Courthouse in Murfreesboro, TN, across the county, as emblematic of the fight against censorship and suppression,” said Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program for PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression on behalf of writers.
Last fall, a former Wyoming library director won $700,000 to settle a lawsuit after her firing. Terri Lesley was removed during an uproar over books with sexual content and LGBTQ themes that some people sought their removal from youth shelves, though Campbell County officials contended that only her performance played a role in her firing.
Additionally, in December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on a Texas free speech case that allowed local officials to remove books deemed objectionable from public libraries.
The Tennessee decision stems from a March 16 vote by the board to relocate the books to the adult section in county libraries. During that meeting, board Chairman Cody York said it is dangerous and inaccurate to tell children, particularly those going through puberty, that boys can be girls and girls can be boys.
Two days later, James emailed the board and said she would not move the books. The meeting Monday was peppered with cheers and boos from the audience. When it was James’ turn to speak, she said, “I stand by my decision and I will not change my mind.” After the board voted to fire her, James’ attorney read a statement from her in which she said she thought the firing was an unlawful act of viewpoint discrimination.
“Librarians should not be used as a filter for political agendas,” the statement said. “I stood up for the right to read, standing for the citizens of Rutherford County.”
Rutherford County school board member Caleb Tidwell, meanwhile, spoke in favor of moving the books out of the section for youth readers.
“Follow the law,” said Tidwell, who started his public comments with a prayer. “Protect the children. Hold the line.”
Last year, the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office sent letters to library systems across the state requesting immediate reviews of what was in their children’s sections. They say libraries that receive federal and state funding have to comply with applicable laws, and mentioned Trump’s executive order about gender ideology.
James was appointed as the county library director in July 2025. She has worked for more than 25 years in public library roles, including directorships in Texas and South Carolina.
SMITH COUNTY – Smith County welcomed Gaye Boynton as district clerk on Monday as she was sworn in by the 241st District Judge Debby Gunter. Boynton was appointed to the position by the Smith County Council of District Judges after former district clerk Penny Clarkston resigned from the office on March 24. In her resignation letter, Clarkston cited personal family reasons.
Boynton was set to begin serving as district clerk on Jan. 1, 2027, following her win in the March primary election against Clarkston. The new district clerk brings more than 40 years of legal experience, having previously worked as a certified paralegal.
SMITH COUNTY – A mother has been sentenced to 10 months in jail, one year after deputies found her newborn dead in a bathtub. According to our news partner KETK, the Smith County Sheriff’s deputies were alerted by a hospital emergency room in March 2025 after a woman reported she had delivered a placenta at home earlier that day.
But, when the woman, 27-year-old Esmeralda Duran Rodriguez, arrived at the hospital, staff noted she did not have a baby with her. Deputies then went to her home to investigate, where they met with Rodriguez’s brother, who allowed them to search for the baby. They found the placenta on a bed along with a severed umbilical cord, according to a sheriff’s office press release. Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER- The Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary is having a benefit style show and luncheon Friday, April 10, at the Holiday Inn in Tyler. Funds from this event will go toward the auxiliary’s new ID program.
KTBB spoke with Auxiliary President Cynthia Scott about the ID program. She said, “This is something we are excited about. It provides for people who are homeless and are struggling, to find job and so forth with their ID. And we take that for granted. Because we have one and its easy for us to obtain. But, when your homeless, that’s very difficult. So, our new ID program will help put them with a liaison who will help them get a drivers license, get their birth certificate. This way, they can apply for jobs, apply for housing. So, we are really happy that the funds we are raising in our style show April 10th will go to this new program that we just implemented.”
Some tickets are still available. You can get them here.
SMITH COUNTY – Smith County will join other agencies in the area to test its emergency alert notification systems on Thursday, April 2. The Texas Division of Emergency Management has asked that Smith County, along with other cities and agencies throughout the state, test their alert systems between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Thursday. Smith County will be testing its IPAWS system and its Rave system.
IPAWS (the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) is FEMA’s national system for local, state and federal officials to send life-saving emergency alerts to the public. These alerts can be sent by Smith County and its Emergency Operations Center for specific incidents in our county to citizens without them signing up for it.
The Rave mass notification system allows emergency officials to notify citizens of necessary information in times of local emergency or disaster. Citizens must sign up to receive these notifications. You can do that here.
Weather alert warnings are sent out by the National Weather Service and not local agencies. For more information, visit Smith County Emergency Management.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The founder of a Texas megachurch who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child in the 1980s was released Tuesday after serving six months in an Oklahoma jail.
Robert Preston Morris, 64, was released just after midnight, said Osage County Sheriff’s Capt. Matt Clark.
Morris pleaded guilty last year to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child as part of a plea agreement under which he received a 10-year suspended sentence with the first six months to be served in the Osage County Jail.
The abuse began in 1982 when the victim was 12 and Morris was a traveling evangelist staying in Hominy, Oklahoma, with her family, according to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, whose office prosecuted the case.
Morris was the senior pastor of Gateway Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, where he led one of the nation’s largest megachurches until June 2024 when — faced with the victim’s allegations — he resigned. He was indicted last year by an Oklahoma grand jury.
Morris must register as a sex offender and will be supervised by Texas authorities via interstate compact. He also was ordered to pay his costs of incarceration, including any medical expenses, and restitution to the victim.
The victim, Cindy Clemishire, who is now in her 50s, did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment, but said in a statement when Morris was sentenced that “justice has finally been served, and the man who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old innocent girl is finally going to be behind bars.” The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Clemishire did.
In a statement released Tuesday by one of Morris’ attorneys, Bill Mateja, Morris apologized to Clemishire and her family and praised them for coming forward.
“What I did to Cindy decades ago was wrong. There is no other word for it, and there is no excuse for it. I am deeply sorry,” Morris said. “I have carried the weight of that wrong for a very long time, and I am grateful — genuinely grateful — that the Clemishires had the courage to bring this into the light.
“Many years ago, I sought their forgiveness privately, and as Cindy’s father recently noted, he extended that grace to me — a grace I did not deserve and have never taken for granted.”
Gateway Church was founded by Morris in 2000. He has been politically active and formerly served on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board. The church hosted Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.
YUMA, Az. (AP) – Antonio Bustamante has kept a watercolor of labor leader César Chavez for more than 35 years, hanging it on the wall of his law office in Yuma, Arizona. As a young man, he was moved by Chavez and helped organize workers before joining his security team.
Like many others, Bustamante must now wrestle with reconciling the man he adored with the allegations Chavez groomed and sexually abused women and young girls.
“I’m trying to figure out how emotionally and intellectually I’ll be able to understand my perception of him as an extremely good man,” Bustamante said, his voice heavy with emotion, “compared to these things that are said he did.”
Chavez built a national reputation organizing in the fields. With Dolores Huerta — also one of his victims — he co-founded the United Farm Workers union, led a hunger strike, a grape boycott with Filipino farmworkers, and eventually pressured growers to negotiate better wages and working conditions for Mexican American farmworkers.
Nearly two weeks after a New York Times report detailing allegations of sexual abuse, communities and rights groups across the country are still figuring out how he should be remembered. His name and image have already been erased from monuments, streets and murals around the country.
Reckoning with a legacy
Bustamante said he learned of the allegations when an old friend called to tell him about the upcoming report. What flashed through his mind, he said, were the faces of others who had known and admired Chavez, and “how their eyes would be devastated.”
“We were looked down upon by society, we were Mexicans,” Bustamante said, recalling the first time he saw Chavez speak outside the Arizona Capitol in 1972 as he launched a hunger strike. He “gave us worth, and for young people that was everything.”
Now, some of Bustamante’s friends have taken down images of Chavez. In his community, Bustamante likened it to denouncing Catholicism and removing photos of the pope.
For many, it’s an example of why movements should not be tied to a single leader.
Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, said the contradiction between the Chavez’s legacy and the allegations is unavoidable.
“We have in one hand César Chavez, the man who committed horrible acts that we’re not going to justify,” Romero said. “On the other hand, we have César Chavez, the organizer who brought thousands and thousands of people together to be able to work for farm workers, and improve their lives and working conditions.”
Unfortunately, both of those things came from the same person, Romero said.
Sehila Mota Casper, executive director of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, said the farmworker movement was always driven by collective effort.
“The rights and protections that came from it belongs to the people that built it,” she said. “It wasn’t just one individual.”
That perspective, she said, offers a way to move forward: recognizing Chavez’s role without letting it overshadow the contributions of others, including Huerta, and the challenges they faced.
Advocacy groups like the nonprofit Voto Latino took a similar stance, saying, “The women who organized, marched, and sacrificed alongside farmworkers carried this movement on their backs.”
Dismantling a man, preserving history
The allegations also prompted swift public action. Within days, statues were removed and celebrations cancelled or renamed, including events tied to the federal César Chavez Day on March 31.
Political leaders from both parties have condemned the alleged abuse. Some Republicans, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, cited it as part of a broader criticism of Chavez’s progressive legacy.
Abbot said Texas — a state with dozens of Confederate monuments — would no longer celebrate César Chavez Day, saying the allegations “undermine the narrative that elevated Chavez as a figure worthy of official state celebration.”
At the same time, groups like the nonpartisan Latino Victory Project, which focuses on developing Hispanic political leadership, said this current moment should not distract from the still-ongoing civil rights battles.
“Those legacies are unchanged,” said Paul Ortiz, a labor history professor at Cornell University and director of graduate studies for Latino Studies. “And those legacies are all about people power.”
What seems inevitable, Bustamante said, is that there will always be an asterisk next to Chavez’s name.
“Does that take away the greatness of what his accomplishments were, the meaning of them? No, it doesn’t,” he said. “But can we look past that to honor him? That’s the tough part.”
GALVESTON (AP) – One of the world’s rarest whales lives in only one place: the Gulf of Mexico, where the Trump administration wants to expand oil and gas drilling that scientists fear could push the giant mammal to extinction.
Endangered Rice’s whales live their entire lives in the gulf, where they’re vulnerable to vessel strikes, noise pollution, oil spills and climate change — all of which could increase with more drilling, scientists said. Other animals, including threatened manatees and endangered sea turtles, also could be put at risk, experts said.
As the Iran war pushes energy prices sharply higher, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invoked national security in seeking an exemption from endangered species laws, which make it illegal to harm or kill species on a protected list. The seldom-used Endangered Species Committee granted that request on Tuesday.
What is known about the Rice’s whale?
It’s the only whale species that lives year-round in the Gulf of Mexico, where there are fewer than 100 — and possibly fewer than 50 — left, scientists said.
Recognized as a distinct species in 2021, the Rice’s whale is usually found in a narrow area in the northeastern part of the Gulf, in waters 100 to 400 meters (328 to 1,312 feet) deep.
Many climate change impacts are “baked in,” meaning they will persist even if fossil fuels were eliminated today, said Letise LaFeir, chief of conservation and stewardship at the New England Aquarium.
But the Trump administration proposal “is just compounding the immediate risks locally and the longer-term risks,” LaFeir said.
What about other species?
Although a government filing specifically mentions Rice’s whales, other threatened and endangered animals also could be harmed by oil spills or other dangers, scientists said.
“The ocean is connected, so when there is this kind of action somewhere else, it does have implications across the waters,” LaFeir said.
For example, hundreds of sea turtles — including endangered Kemp’s Ridley and loggerheads — are rescued and rehabilitated every year before they are released into the Atlantic Ocean and swim for their nesting grounds in the Gulf, she said.
Michael Jasny, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s marine mammal protection project, said consequences could be far-reaching.
“It’s … sea turtles, it’s manatees, it’s whooping cranes, it’s various seabirds, it’s Rice’s whales, it’s sperm whales, it is endangered corals,” he said. “It is every endangered or threatened species in the Gulf of Mexico.”
What is the ‘God Squad?’
It was established in 1978 as a way to exempt projects from Endangered Species Act protections if a cost-benefit analysis concluded it was the only way to achieve net economic benefits in the national or regional interest.
The seven-member committee is led by the secretary of the Interior, with five other federal officials and with affected states getting one shared vote. Five votes are required for an exemption.
Before Tuesday, the committee had only issued exemptions twice. The first was for construction of a dam on a section of the Platte River considered critical habitat for whooping cranes, though a negotiated settlement won significant protections that led to overall ecosystem improvements. The second was for logging in northern spotted owl habitat, but the request was withdrawn after environmental groups sued, arguing that the committee’s decision was political and violated legal procedures.
Jasny fears the Trump administration wants to eliminate rigorous scrutiny of future exemptions and “turn this … into a thing that could be invoked at any time, almost for any purpose.”
If it can be done for drilling in the Gulf, he said, “why not California? Why not Alaska?”
“If you can declare an emergency to just kill sea turtles and manatees and whales in the Gulf, you know no species is safe.”
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HENDERSON – A former Henderson ISD teacher was sentenced to six months in state jail and 10 years in probation after she pleaded guilty to an improper relationship with a student. According to our news partner KETK, Kathryn Prior, of Henderson, was arrested in December 2024 for having an inappropriate relationship with a student. The former vocational agriculture education teacher was also charged with possession of child pornography and indecency with a child.
According to the Rusk County District Attorney’s Office, Prior’s guilty plea allowed her not to be convicted of the indecency charge, but it was taken into consideration for her sentencing. Prior’s child pornography charge was dropped and First Assistant Prosecutor Allen Ross said they “couldn’t move forward with that case.” As a part of the plea deal, Prior had to surrender her teaching license.
Prior’s 180 days in jail begin on March 30 with 10 years in probation to follow. If Prior violates her probation, she will serve the 10 years in state jail, Ross said.
LONGVIEW – A worker at Trinity Industries in Longview has tragically died after suffering severe burns in an industrial incident that happened Monday. According to our news partner KETK, Longview Fire Marshal Marcus Delaney said they received 911 a report of a patient who had been burned in an industrial incident at around 10:27 a.m.
The Longview Fire Department responded to the scene on Jordan Valley Road with a fire engine, along with EMS, who transported a man to a local hospital to be treated for life-threatening burns. Delaney said the man later died at the hospital. The fire marshal’s office is currently investigating the cause of the man’s fatal burns. Delaney was unaware of any similar incidents ever happening at the Trinity Industries facility in Longview. Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER — The City of Tyler is asking residents to consider following a watering schedule and to practice water-saving habits as warm temperatures and the lack of rain are increasing demand. According to our news partner KETK, the voluntary schedule suggests that residents limit outdoor watering to two days per week and only before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Officials add, that following the schedule helps keep water pressure up across the community and reduces evaporation.
Residents whose house address ends with an even number should water on Sundays and Thursdays, while odd-numbered addresses should water on Saturdays and Wednesdays.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — About 100 of the nation’s most contaminated toxic waste sites are in areas prone to flooding and wildfires, a potential public health threat to millions of Americans in surrounding communities, the internal watchdog at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found.
The EPA’s Office of Inspector General issued a trio of reports last week assessing the weather-related vulnerabilities of the 157 federal Superfund sites prioritized for cleanup due to the serious risk they pose to public health and the environment. About 3 million Americans live within a mile of a Superfund site, while 13 million people live within 3 miles (4.8 kilometers).
Some of the Superfund sites were found to be at risk from multiple natural-disaster threats. The studies found 49 in coastal areas are at risk from sea-level rise or storm surge from hurricanes, with many located near highly populated areas and important ecological locales like Chesapeake Bay. Another 47 are in low-lying sites prone specifically to inland flooding from heavy rain. The review also found 31 sites in areas at high risk for wildfires.
Despite these risks, the five-year plans governing the expensive and time-consuming cleanups at the sites often failed to account for damage posed by flooding from sea-level rise and more frequent storms and wildfire, the IG’s review found.
“That is a big problem because it means the site managers are not planning mitigation measures,” said Betsy Southerland, a former director of the agency’s water protection division who spent over 30 years at the EPA.
“The communities living near those sites should be made aware of this planning failure and should insist on robust plans,” she said.
At locations with little or no planning for floods, contaminants could be released into surrounding communities and taxpayer dollars already invested in remediation could be wasted, the review found.
The EPA said it is reviewing the IG’s findings and that the Superfund program does factor “the impacts of extreme weather events and other hazards as a standard operating practice in the development and implementation of cleanup projects.”
Last year, President Donald Trump fired EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell at the beginning of Trump’s second term, and the office’s new review makes no mention of climate change, a term the Republican administration has scrubbed from federal websites. But the new reports issued by the IG’s remaining staff still lay out the risks posed by a warming planet to the nation’s most dangerous toxic waste sites.
Lara J. Cushing, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who has studied the effects of a changing climate on the nation’s toxic waste sites, petrochemical plants and other hazardous areas, called the new reports “noteworthy and important.”
“Although President Trump may wish to ignore it, the fact is the climate is changing and we need to be proactive in responding to rising seas and more extreme weather or face the consequences of increasingly frequent cascading natural-technological disasters that poison communities and local?ecosystems,” said Cushing.
The inspector general’s findings echo a 2017 investigation by The Associated Press that found 327 Superfund sites vulnerable to flooding driven by climate change. The AP’s review was launched following Hurricane Harvey, which caused extensive flooding in parts of Houston that included seven Superfund sites and triggered spills from tanks holding cancer-causing toxic waste.
The EPA’s new report said that during Harvey, dioxin chemicals were carried by flooding into neighboring streets, yards and homes close to the San Jacinto River, an area highlighted by AP’s reporting.
At the time, the EPA under the first Trump administration criticized AP’s reporting as fear-mongering “yellow journalism.” Trump has called climate change a hoax, blocked renewable energy projects and sought to boost the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.
“This series shines a light on potential threats to federal facility Superfund sites and the critical role of five-year reviews in addressing them,” said Kim Wheeler, the spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office. “By identifying sites at risk from these weather-related events, we aimed to raise awareness and encourage forward looking planning.”