Today is
Wednesday June 03, 2026
ATLANTA (AP) — Hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other extreme weather can also kick up storms of anxiety.
Thankfully, there are several ways to reduce that stress, according to mental health experts who have helped people who have experienced disasters. One of the most important things to do is have a plan, they say.
“Preparation is always one of the most powerful tools that I can imagine — not just for safety, but also for mental health,” said Ruben Juarez, a health economist at University of Hawaii professor who directed the Maui Wildfires Exposure Study, which looked at health and social impacts of the deadly 2023 fires.
And when the disaster is over, they say, try to restore a sense of normalcy by seeking out support, returning to routines and helping others.
Kevin Westmoreland, who co-owns The Corner Kitchen in Asheville, North Carolina, learned meditation techniques and breathing exercises to deal with the stresses that the restaurant industry can present. When the remnants of Hurricane Helene unleashed torrents of rain on the state two years ago, water and mud poured into the restaurant and “everything was tossed around inside the building as if it was in a blender,” he recalled.
“All you could do to get through it is try to take a breath and move forward, step by step,” he said.
Plan ahead for unpredictable weather
One way to ease anxiety is to prepare as best you can ahead of time, including hashing out a plan for what to do during a disaster.
Making an evacuation plan and putting together an emergency kit can provide a sense of control, said Melissa Brymer, a psychologist and director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
She recommends a step-by-step guide for families at ready.gov/plan. The American Red Cross also has extensive guides for hurricane preparedness. Make sure to consider special preparations for anyone with disabilities, special needs, new mothers and expectant mothers, Brymer advises. Also make sure that pets are included in disaster plans.
Weather is unpredictable, so it helps to accept that there are things you won’t be able to control.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is ticking toward more records Tuesday as winners of the artificial-intelligence boom keep driving higher.
The S&P 500 rose 0.2% a day after setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 140 points, or 0.3%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher. All three indexes erased modest losses from earlier in the morning.
AI chip companies helped drive the market upward. Their growth has skyrocketed because of how hungry customers are for more AI computing power, and Broadcom rose 4.4%, while Nvidia added 0.7%.
Marvell Technology leaped 28.4% toward its best day in three years after Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, suggested at a conference in Taiwan that Marvell could be “the next trillion-dollar company.” The latest entry into the growing club was last week by Micron Technology, which is likewise riding the AI wave. Nvdia’s total value, meanwhile, has exploded over $5.8 trillion.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s stock soared 23.3% after it reported a profit for the latest quarter that blew past analysts’ expectations. It credited demand from customers building their AI capabilities.
Generac climbed 5.7% after saying it signed a deal to provide backup power generators to an unnamed “leading hyperscale data center operator.”
Such “hyperscalers” are spending tremendous amounts of money to build the huge AI data centers that are powering what proponents believe will be the next great revolution for the global economy.
Alphabet is one of them, and the parent company of Google said it’s raising $80 billion in cash to help pay for its investments by selling shares of its stock. It’s planning to spend as much as $190 billion on equipment and other investments this year.
That’s more than all the stock of The Walt Disney Co., is worth, and Alphabet is forecasting its spending on investments next year will “significantly increase.”
Such huge sums raise the question about whether AI can produce the profits and productivity necessary to make all the investment worth it. Critics have already been talking about the possibility of a bubble in AI investment, and Alphabet’s stock fell 1.8%.
Analysts have been saying the broad U.S. stock market may be set for a slowdown following an unrelenting streak of nine straight winning weeks for the S&P 500, its longest since 2023. The rally has been due to strong profit reports from U.S. companies, as well as hopes that the United States and Iran will reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That would allow oil to flow freely again from the Persian Gulf and hopefully lower its price.
In the oil market, prices were calmer following Monday’s bounce back. Brent crude oil, the international standard, fell 0.3% to $94.67 per barrel, though that’s still well above the roughly $70 level it was at before the war.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were relatively steady.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.45% from 4.47% late Monday. It briefly jumped after a report said that U.S. employers were advertising many more jobs at the end of April than economists expected, a potential signal of continued health for the U.S. labor market. But it quickly pulled back to where it was just before the report’s release.
High yields worldwide recently have threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. They have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level in nine months, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.
In stock markets abroad indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.5% for one of the world’s biggest moves.
MARSHALL – A quick response and some enterprising investigative work by Marshall Police Department patrol officers led to the recovery of stolen property and the arrest of a suspect after a reported theft Friday afternoon, May 29.
At approximately 2:46 p.m., Friday, officers responded to the Wingwood Terrace area regarding the theft of a weed trimmer that had been taken from a resident’s driveway. Officers obtained surveillance footage from the victim’s security camera and were able to identify a vehicle believed connected to the theft.
While following up on the investigation, an officer began checking local pawn shops and located the suspect vehicle at one of the businesses. The suspect was found inside the pawn shop attempting to pawn the stolen weed trimmer. During the investigation, officers conducted a search of the vehicle and recovered a chainsaw believed to be stolen. Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER – The first phase of Tyler’s Downtown Revitalization Project is now complete, as city leaders celebrated the reopening of Erwin Street and College Avenue to two-way traffic on Friday.
Construction on Erwin Street and College Avenue started in September, during which detours, barricades, and limited access made it harder for customers to reach local businesses. Rick’s manager, J. Wright Witcher, said Rick’s and neighboring businesses have experienced a 30% decrease in profit since September. However, with Erwin Street opening back, Witcher is viewing it as a silver lining due to the street’s accessibility to Rick’s.
“It’s a lot more walkable, so we’re going to have some parking spots, and it’s going to be a lot better, you’ll be able to drive through Erwin,” Witcher said.
Phase two of the project began Monday, and no parking will be allowed on the south side of West Reguson Street, while Broadway and Erwin will have a protected left light. An increase in police presence will also be in the area to help facilitate the traffic change.
POLK COUNTY (KETK) — After receiving multiple allegations of ongoing sexual abuse, Polk County officials have arrested a volunteer of several local churches last week. According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, they received reports on May 27 from adults and minors that 40-year-old Doyle Hodge II was sexually abusing them. After opening an investigation, deputies identified five possible victims, with additional individuals continuing to come forward.
Detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Hodge to ensure the safety and well-being of the children involved. On Friday, he was taken into the Polk County Jail for sexual assault of a child and is being held on a $100,000 bond.
The investigation remains active, and additional charges are expected to be filed.
According to the sheriff’s office, Hodge was a volunteer at several of the local churches. Anyone with any additional information regarding the case or who believes they may be a victim is encouraged to contact investigator Kayla Hemperly at 936-327-6810.
WISE COUNTY – On Monday, June 1, at 7:00 a.m., Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol Troopers responded to a single-vehicle motorcycle crash in rural Wise County.
A preliminary investigation indicated that the rider of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle was traveling south on FM 920 at an unsafe speed and failed to negotiate a curve. The rider went off the road and laid the motorcycle over. The rider was not wearing a helmet.
The rider, Shaun Allan Waits, a 56-year-old male of Weatherford, Texas, was pronounced dead on the scene.
This investigation is ongoing, and no additional information is available at this time.
CORPUS CHRISTI (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Corpus Christi City Council is set to discuss Tuesday whether to revive a controversial and ambitious endeavor to build a desalination plant to convert seawater into drinkable water — a project the council rejected nine months ago over high costs and environmental concerns.
A stubborn drought and rising demand has left the city strapped for water, but the coastal community is still divided on whether an expensive plant is worth the cost to taxpayers and the local ecosystem.
Desalination removes salt and other minerals from seawater or salty groundwater, but plants are expensive to build and require lots of energy to run.
The city’s water department, the mayor and some City Council members view the proposed plant, the Inner Harbor Desalination Project, as the key to a long-term, steady water supply. City Manager Peter Zanoni often calls it a “drought-proof” solution capable of producing up to 30 million gallons of drinking water a day.
If approved Tuesday, the earliest the facility would deliver water is late 2029, too far away to help the city dodge its immediate emergency needs. According to projections, the city is expecting to impose emergency water restrictions in December, when demand is expected to exceed supplies in six months, though recent rain may push restrictions back into early 2027.
Mayor Paulette Guajardo, a strong supporter of the project, said the city needs to think long-term. “At the blink of an eye, three years will be here,” she said.
The facility is estimated to cost $978.8 million, which the water department said is a “guaranteed maximum price.” That’s about 25% cheaper than previous cost estimates.
The water department has already corralled a number of contractors to jump on the plant, which would be built along the bay in Hillcrest, a historically Black neighborhood. It’s fully permitted and about 60% designed. The soonest it would deliver water, if approved Tuesday, would be late 2029.
Climbing costs played a big role in the City Council’s September decision to abandon the original plan, but critics are also concerned about where the plant’s salty leftovers would be released. Under the proposal under consideration Tuesday, millions of gallons of the brine byproduct — which can be twice as salty as seawater — would be discharged into Corpus Christi Bay, home to a variety of fish, crabs and seagrass.
The city hired a consultant, Spheros Environmental Group, to review the Inner Harbor project’s ecological impact on the bay. The report, finalized last week, concluded that the plant would not disrupt the bay’s ecosystem, Zanoni said.
That report follows a 2020 study evaluating the city’s original desalination project by Freese and Nichols, an engineering consulting firm based in Houston, which found that sea creatures living in the bay can tolerate high salt conditions, and that the proposed plant’s discharge would not surpass that threshold.
But Isabel Araiza, co-founder of the citizens group For the Greater Good, is not convinced.
“It just makes sense in a practically closed-based system, you don’t dump 54 million gallons of brine and sludge into the bay every single day and not expect that to destroy the bay,” Araiza said.
She’s asking city leaders to instead focus on forcing the region’s largest water users — oil refineries and petrochemical plants — to conserve water. Over the past decade, Corpus Christi aggressively courted large industrial facilities that require large amounts of water, promising a sufficient supply.
Now, the city’s main reservoirs have shriveled up, threatening 25% water cuts for all city customers that could begin in December or early 2027. City leaders on Tuesday also will discuss how those restrictions would be implemented, and how high surcharge rates would be, if a Level 1 emergency is triggered — the point when the city is six months away from supply falling short of demand.
Araiza said the proposed desalination plant is “not a sustainable solution economically or environmentally, it’s an industrial want,” and that “the right moral and ethical choice” is to reject it again.
But some community members view the desalination plant as the city’s last lifeline.
Nelda Martinez, who lives along the bay, pleaded with City Council members to move forward with the Inner Harbor project.
“People that you serve are worried if they’re going to have their job tomorrow,” she said during a March meeting. “There have been businesses that have shut down. There have been businesses that now are planning their exit plans. There are people and entities that have decided that they’re not going to move here.”
Ginny Cross, vice president of advocacy for United Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce, said she hopes city leaders move forward with a desalination plant because an evergreen water source could save businesses from threats of future surcharges. Mandatory restrictions would be especially hard on car washes and landscaping companies, she said.
“We obviously want our public officials to be good stewards of our tax dollars, but I fear that the days of plentiful, inexpensive water are gone,” Cross said. “I hate that reality for everybody, but I think we’re either going to have expensive plentiful water, or expensive scarce water. I think if we’re going to pay for it, we’d rather have lots of it.”
The city is also considering two desalination plant proposals from private companies. In March, the City Council agreed to hear a plan from Aquatech, a desalination company offering to finish building a water plant for plastics manufacturer Corpus Christi Polymers if the city agrees to purchase water from it.
City representatives also are in talks with AXE H2O, a 2-month-old Houston company that is offering to fully fund and build a desalination facility in the Coastal Bend area. Before work could begin, the city would have to commit to buying at least 50 million gallons a day for at least 30 years.
Kenneth Dees, a water resources engineer based in Fort Worth, said Corpus Christi and the rest of the state should start preparing to shell out more for water, including desalination plants, as the drought deepens and infrastructure ages.
“We’re not running out of water, we’re running out of cheap water,” Dees said.
The original article for this story appears here.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices are rising Monday following the latest fighting to threaten the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, but Wall Street isn’t very worried, and U.S. stocks are hanging near their records.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged from its all-time high set on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 102 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was flat. Both are also coming off records.
Some of the sharpest losses hit companies with big fuel bills hurt by the rise in oil prices. United Airlines lost 2.9%, and cruise-operator Carnival fell 2.7% after the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 6.7% to $97.22. That clawed back a chunk of its loss from last week and means it’s still well above its price of roughly $70 from before the war.
Expensive oil has already sent inflation around the world higher, which not only increases bills for households but also pushes up bond yields. High yields worldwide recently have threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments.
Some of the hardest hit by high interest rates are smaller companies, which have a tougher time borrowing to grow when loans are more expensive to repay. The Russell 2000 index of the smallest U.S. stocks sank 1%, much more than the rest of the market.
But hope seems to be remaining on Wall Street that the United States and Iran will ultimately reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, allow deliveries of oil to resume from the Persian Gulf and ease the upward pressure on inflation.
Strength from several market heavyweights also helped to overshadow such fears.
Nvidia was the strongest force pushing upward the market and rose 4.8% after CEO Jensen Huang announced several product updates at a conference. Among them, he said the company’s next-generation artificial-intelligence platform, Vera Rubin, is ramping into full production. That helped calm some investor concerns about potential delays, analysts said.
What Nvidia does matters immensely for the U.S. stock market because it’s the biggest in terms of overall market value. That means the movements for its stock carry more weight on the S&P 500 than any other’s.
And Wall Street’s biggest companies have been growing so much that they’re dominating the market. The top 10 stocks control nearly half the S&P 500’s total market value, a 40-year high, according to Thomas Carroll, equity market strategist at Stifel.
That worked well as those Big Tech companies shot higher thanks to exuberance around AI. But it could also weigh on the index if the market’s leadership broadens, Carroll warns. Even if most stocks end up rising in such a rotation, stagnation or declines for Big Tech heavyweights could drag on S&P 500 index funds.
And a key indicator Carroll follows about market breadth “is signaling a rotation is coming,” he wrote in a report.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Science Applications International Corp. jumped 12.8% after becoming the latest U.S. company to report bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. SAIC also raised forecasts for upcoming financial results after winning several contracts from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, army and other agencies.
A cavalcade of such profit reports has helped the U.S. stock market push to records despite the war with Iran.
Berkshire Hathaway slipped 0.4% after it said it would buy Taylor Morrison Home for $6.8 billion. It’s one of the first big acquisitions announced by the company under Greg Abel’s leadership following famed investor Warren Buffett. Taylor Morrison Home jumped 22.5%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields rose with oil prices and after a report said growth in U.S. manufacturing accelerated by more last month than economists expected. The yield for the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.50% from 4.45% late Friday.
High yields have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level in nine months, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 3.7% to hit records led by technology-related stocks, as investors continued to see growth in AI and other advanced technologies.
In South Korea, the Kospi index jumped 3.7% to a record. Samsung Electronics, its biggest company, soared 10.1%. Official data on Monday showed that South Korea’s exports surged 53% year-on-year in May, buoyed by global demand for semiconductors.
DALLAS (AP) — Firefighters responding to reports of a gas leak at a Dallas apartment complex had already arrived and were preparing to evacuate residents when the building exploded in a massive fireball, killing three people and injuring several more, the city’s fire chief said Friday.
Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Justin Ball said the first group of four firefighters arrived within two minutes of the call reporting the gas leak on Thursday.
“Right before they were going to enter and evacuate, it exploded,” Ball said.
Firefighters had been on scene for about 10 minutes, conducting necessary safety protocols that include blocking off the street, finding the leak, donning protective gear and setting up a water supply, he said, describing their actions as “heroics.”
Officials stand near rubble following an apartment complex fire, Friday, May 29, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Officials stand near rubble following an apartment complex fire, Friday, May 29, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
“No time was wasted,” Ball insisted. “That takes time to put all the safety protocols in place. I would be criticizing them if they had not done that.”
The explosion shook nearby homes and the resulting inferno razed the two-story complex. A child and two other people were killed and at least five people were injured and sent to hospitals. No firefighters were injured, Ball said.
The building’s 22 units were occupied by 19 families. Ball said authorities searched the charred wreckage late into Thursday night and early Friday morning with drones, cadaver dogs and specialized urban rescue teams, and did not expect to find any more victims.
“There is nobody unaccounted for or we’d still be searching,” Ball said. “We’ve had no one come to us and say, ‘Our family member is missing.’”
Several blocks of streets around the explosion site were still closed off by police cars and police tape Friday. The smell of smoke lingered over the area as law enforcement officials and workers in bright yellow vests circled the rubble of what was once the apartment building.
The cause of the gas leak before the explosion is still unknown.
The National Transportation Safety Board said a team of eight investigators arrived Friday. The agency investigates gas pipeline accidents, and said initial reports indicated a contractor had damaged an underground gas pipeline.
An attorney for the apartment owner said the building was being sold to a buyer who planned to build a new housing unit. He said an engineering firm hired by that company struck the gas line while doing soil testing.
“The owner is shocked by this outcome and likewise mourns this outcome,” attorney Geoff Henley said.
Phone and email messages left with an engineering company that the complex’s owner said was doing soil testing were not immediately returned.
Sherry Woods, who lives in an apartment across an alleyway from the fire site, said Friday she was sitting outside her front door when she and her boyfriend smelled what they believed to be gas.
Moments later, the explosion nearly knocked her down.
Trish Thompson surveyed the site from across a grassy field Friday morning and could see the gap on the block where the apartment complex stood just 24-hours earlier.
Thompson, who lives nearby, described hearing a “loud rumble, something more like a train to me” and seeing smoke and fire.
“Pray for them,” Thompson said.
TYLER – After receiving a grant worth over $300,000 from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) in the 2025 cycle. According to our news partner KETK, the TWC presented TJC staff and state and local officials with the $325,293 grant in a ceremony on Friday. The funding will support students training to be veterinary technologists and technicians and the purchase of medical training equipment for the program.
“These grants will provide students in East Texas the real-world training and technical education they need to have a successful career,” Gov. Greg Abbott said. “The future of our state is in good hands because of the education we are providing to young Texans today.” Read the rest of this entry »
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal immigration officer wanted for shooting a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers to arrest him.
“Today’s arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one. Messages seeking comment were left with ICE, the Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers.
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Donald Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.
Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.
The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
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Tyler – Early Voting for the City of Tyler mayor runoff election is set for June 1-9. Stuart Hene is currently serving as a Tyler City Councilmember and John Nix is a former City Councilmember are running for the position.
Early voting hours will be:
*8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, June 1-5
*9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 6
*8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, June 8-9. Read the rest of this entry »