Today is
Friday June 05, 2026
tYLER – Starting this April, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP will no longer allow purchasing candy or drinks with more than 5 grams of sugar or artificial sweetener.
Items that can no longer be purchased through SNAP next month include:
– Candy
– Soda
– Energy Drinks
– Yogurt and chocolate-covered fruit
– Gum
However, SNAP card shoppers will still be able to purchase electrolyte drinks, coffee creamers and any ingredients on the baking side.
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SMITH COUNTY – A babysitter was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly committing a series of sexual assaults against a child over five years in Whitehouse. According to our news partner KETK, arrest documents from Smith County revealed that a parent had called the Whitehouse Police Department in February to report that her child had been sexually assaulted by John Bonner. He had babysat her two children for about five years, and the abuse had occurred at his residence.
Authorities interview the children and found that Bonner had sexually assaulted one of the children throughout that time. During an interview with the Whitehouse Police Department, he reportedly admitted to being aroused when he babysat and that he had kissed and sexually touched one of the children. Bonner was arrested on Tuesday for continuous sexual abuse of a child, a victim under 14, and booked into the Smith County Jail. He is being held on a $750,00 bond.
MOUNT PLEASANT- In February 2026, the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigations Division received a tip about an individual uploading Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM). On March 6, the Texas DPS CID executed a search warrant at a residence in Mount Pleasant, owned by Wayne Renning.
During the search of the residence, multiple devices were seized and later determined to contain CSAM. An arrest warrant was obtained, and Wayne Renning was arrested on March 25, on the charges of Possession of Child Pornography, Possession of Visual Material Depicting the Sexual Assault of a Child.
The Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division was assisted by the Titus County Sheriff’s Office and the Collin County Child Exploitation Unit in the arrest of Wayne Renning. Renning is currently held in the Titus County Jail.
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LUFKIN — The City of Lufkin will conduct a county-wide test of its emergency alert system at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, April 2. This test will push out alerts through text message, email and phone call. This also will include land-line phones. Cell phones will sound an alert, and a message will be on the screen explaining this is a test.
Lufkin’s emergency management coordinators, in conjunction with Angelina County’s emergency officials, will use this test to ensure the system is working properly. Should there be a large-scale emergency, this system will be used to alert residents of the situation and allow for instructions and directions to keep everyone safe.
“We appreciate the cooperation of our local law enforcement, school districts, hospitals, and other entities to spread the word about this test,” Fire Chief Jesse Moody said. “It is our focus to keep our residents safe.
City of Lufkin residents are encouraged to sign up for Lufkin Alerts! This emergency notification system enables the city to provide you with critical information quickly in a variety of situations, such as severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons and evacuations of buildings or neighborhoods, Moody said.
To sign up go to this link. Residents can expect to receive the message on multiple platforms.
SMITH COUNTY – Construction contracts for four major projects totaling more than 16 miles of road were awarded Tuesday, March 24, by the Smith County Commissioners Court. Texana Land & Asphalt Inc. came in as the lowest bidder on all four projects, which will all entail completely rebuilding the roadways and overlaying with asphalt.
County Road 129, from CR 113 to U.S. Highway 69; and CR 146 will have 2.595 miles of roads improved for $704,852. Smith County Engineer Frank Davis said the project will take about three months and will be paid for out of the Road and Bridge Budget. Both roads are south of Tyler and are in Smith County Commissioner Precinct 1.
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DEL RIO (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – The state quietly shuttered a jail booking facility in Val Verde County last summer that had operated as a hub of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border crackdown, state officials acknowledged Tuesday.
Texas officials had opened two such sites for the governor’s border initiative, which surged Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and State Guard members to the more than 1,250 miles of border Texas shares with Mexico. Operation Lone Star was started early in the Biden administration in response to the White House’s immigration policies and continued as the number of illegal border crossings reached new highs.
At the facilities, officers booked asylum-seeking migrants on state charges of criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail, and human smuggling, a more serious felony that was largely leveled against thousands of young Americans.
Abbott credited President Donald Trump’s return to the White House when he shut the first facility in Jim Hogg County last March. However, internal booking logs showed the reality was more nuanced, as the number of illegal border crossings had been decreasing for months before tanking further under Trump’s second administration.
The closure of the facility in Val Verde, home to Del Rio, had not been previously reported or acknowledged by state officials until Tuesday. DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen confirmed the closure to The Texas Tribune in response to questions about internal records that suggested no one had been booked at the facility since May 2025.
Officials closed the Val Verde site in August 2025 after DPS officials began booking inmates into local jails that month, Nolen said.
“Thanks to increased collaboration at the state and federal levels over the last year, our border is now more secure than it has been in years — and the Val Verde Temporary Processing Facility, which was used to support local jails overwhelmed by the record number of arrests along the border, was closed,” Nolen said.
Texas DPS officers are making an average of nearly 100 arrests per week along the Texas-Mexico border, Nolen said. That is a small fraction of the number being detained under Operation Lone Star during the Biden administration, when local jails were overwhelmed until the state set up the booking facilities and began holding migrants at state prisons.
The massive state police agency has reallocated much of its resources to the interior of the state, where troopers are working on specific teams to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest thousands of undocumented immigrants. The state has labeled the mission “Operation Lone Star 2.0” to underscore its newfound focus on immigration operations hundreds of miles away from the border.
The Legislature earmarked $3.4 billion for border security for the current two-year state budget that runs through the fall of spending plan.
To see this article in its original form, go The Texas Tribune.
PALESTINE – A traffic stop in Palestine led to the arrest of four others after officers found more than 16 grams of suspected methamphetamine in the vehicle on Wednesday. According to our news partner KETK and the Palestine Police Department, an officer conducted a traffic stop on a Dodge Ram pickup truck early morning Wednesday on North Loop 256 near North Queen Street.
The vehicle was occupied by four individuals, including passenger 49-year-old Robert Anderson, who had an active warrant out of Travis County for criminal trespass of a habitation. While Anderson was being arrested for the warrant, officers reportedly located a bag containing a meth pipe that belonged to him.
Officers conducted a further search of the vehicle and found several glass pipes with residue and containers containing about 16.44 grams of suspected methamphetamine. Another small bag of suspected meth, weighing less than a gram, was found.
The substances tested positive for methamphetamine and the other three passengers were arrested for drug charges.
EDGEWOOD – A police pursuit through Van Zandt County ended Tuesday afternoon when a fleeing driver slammed into a patrol car and was taken into custody. According to our news partner KETK, the Van Zandt County Sheriff’s Office, officers from the Edgewood Police Department responded to a call on U.S. Highway 80, near The Lumber Yard Cafe, after receiving reports of a disturbance.
When officers arrived, they saw a 47-year-old man get into a 1999 Ford pickup and speed off. As he fled, the driver allegedly struck an Edgewood patrol vehicle, sparking a pursuit. Officers requested help from the Department of Public Safety and the Van Zandt County Sheriff’s Office as the chase continued toward downtown Wills Point on Highway 80. DPS deployed two sets of spike strips, successfully slowing the vehicle.
He was taken to a local hospital for evaluation before being booked into the Van Zandt County Detention Center, where he was charged with aggravated assault of a public servant and evading arrest in a vehicle. Authorities said his name is not being released at this time.
During the pursuit, Wills Point ISD was placed on hold and was lifted at around 3:40 p.m. as a precaution to ensure student safety.
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SMITH COUNTY – Smith County residents can take one free trip to the landfill during the annual Smith Countywide Cleanup, which runs from March 30 through May 1, 2026. The Smith County Sheriff’s Office Environmental Crimes Unit and Commissioners Court are once again offering the yearly program, which allows residents to take one truckload of bulky items (3 cubic yards of solid waste) to the Greenwood Farms Landfill for free.
During National County Government Month in April, one voucher per resident is available in-person only at the Smith County Courthouse Annex, the Smith County Fire Marshal’s Office/EOC or any of the Justice of the Peace/Constable Offices throughout the county. The City of Whitehouse is also a voucher pickup location again this year. The vouchers are available beginning March 25, and can be used beginning Monday, March 30, through Friday, May 1, 2026.
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CAMP COUNTY (KETK) — A 40-year-old man has died after drowning in a Camp County private pond while fishing with family on Saturday.
The Camp County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were dispatched to a residence on County Road 3211 near Pittsburg at around 2:37 p.m. after receiving reports of a possible drowning.
Family members told law enforcement that the victim, identified as Angel Gonzales of Pflugerville, decided to swim across the pond while the family was fishing nearby. When he reached about halfway across, he went under the water and did not resurface.
Emergency crews with the sheriff’s office and the Pittsburg Fire Department searched for Gonzalez but could not locate him. The Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens were then called and located him.
The Longview Fire Department’s dive team was then deployed to recover his body. He was recovered at 4:55 p.m., officials confirmed.
TYLER – Smith County District Clerk Penny Clarkston resigned from her position on Tuesday. According to our news partner KETK, Clarkston said in a letter to Smith County Judge Neal Franklin, the resignation is due to personal family reasons. The resignation takes effect immediately. Earlier this month, Clarkston lost in the Republican primary elections for district clerk. Gaye Boynton won the candidacy with 67.12%.
Clarkston was previously booked into the Smith County Jail for civil contempt of court on two accounts. In July 2024, she allegedly did not hand over information related to a capital murder case. In October 2024, Clarkston reportedly yelled at jurors and physically blocked exit doors.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration’s $1 billion payout to a French energy company to walk away from U.S. offshore wind development is a novel approach against the industry that supporters see as creative — but opponents see as foolish and extreme.
The Interior Department announced Monday that TotalEnergies agreed to what is essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects instead. The department hailed it as an “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant so that the “American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.”
The tactical shift comes after federal courts have thwarted President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind through executive action.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told The Associated Press on Tuesday the payment “sets a dangerous precedent and is a shortsighted misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Robin Shaffer, president of the anti-offshore wind group Protect Our Coast New Jersey, applauded what he called “out of the box” thinking. Shaffer said after losing in the courts, the administration needed a way to take back leases that never should have been issued because of the harm offshore wind development causes to the marine environment.
“The Trump administration has been relentlessly creative in its efforts to stop offshore wind development in the U.S.,” he said.
While the Republican president has been particularly hostile to offshore wind, he has also blocked dozens of clean energy projects and canceled billions of dollars in grants to promote clean energy, which he derides as the “Green New Scam.” This comes at a time when the U.S. is trying to boost power supplies in an artificial intelligence race against China and keep electricity bills from rising even higher.
The Iran war has also dealt a massive energy shock to the global economy by choking off most exports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz.
A vow to stop offshore wind
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end the offshore wind industry as soon as he returned to the White House. Trump said wind turbines are horrible and expensive and pose a threat to birds and other wildlife.
Connecticut is getting power from Revolution Wind, an offshore wind project, and estimates it will lower wholesale energy costs for the state. The National Audubon Society, which is dedicated to the conservation of birds, has said climate change is a greater threat to birds.
Trump has long opposed offshore wind energy. In 2015, he lost his yearslong battle to stop an offshore wind farm near Aberdeen in eastern Scotland when Britain’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled against him. Trump claimed the 11 turbines would spoil the view from his golf course.
He wants to boost production of oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, because he argues that doing so would give the U.S. the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world.
His first day back in office, he acted on his campaign promise, signing an executive order temporarily halting offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pausing permitting for all wind projects.
The deal comes after the administration is thwarted by the courts
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris vacated Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects on Dec. 8, declaring it unlawful as she sided with state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., who challenged the order. The administration is appealing.
Two weeks later, the administration ordered that construction stop on five major East Coast offshore wind projects, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government didn’t show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt.
TotalEnergies wasn’t one of those; it had already paused its two projects soon after Trump was elected. And the company has now pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a “more efficient use of capital” in the U.S.
Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for U.S. clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said this is “clearly an alternative strategy to recklessly block wind power, since the Trump administration keeps losing in court.”
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond Law School professor who has been following the lawsuits, called it “unorthodox.”
Democrats criticize stopping offshore wind when energy prices are spiking
As crude oil and gasoline prices surge, Democrats in Virginia said the U.S. should be strengthening its energy independence and resilience. Virginia started receiving power on Monday from an offshore wind project targeted by Trump.
“Giving an energy company $1 billion of taxpayer money to pack up its jobs and invest elsewhere — in the middle of an unpopular and unwise war that is spiking energy costs — is beyond idiotic,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said in a statement to AP.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat, questioned whether the payout is legal under appropriations law and said she would question Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about it at the upcoming budget hearings.
Dozens of commercial leases issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management remain active for wind energy development in the U.S.
Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, said she wouldn’t attempt to guess whether the Trump administration will pay to stop any others, but clearly it is willing to go to extreme measures.
“Will they do this again? Maybe,” she said.