Today is
Tuesday July 21, 2026
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A fast-growing wildfire sparked by the fatal crash of a small medical plane outside Ruidoso, New Mexico, has triggered evacuations for a rural area north of the Capitan Mountains and closures in the Lincoln National Forest, officials said Monday.
The plane was en route from Roswell Air Center to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport when it crashed before dawn Thursday, killing the four people aboard. They were identified as pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara with the company Generation Jets and flight nurses Jamie Novick and Sarah Clark with Trans Aero MedEvac.
“Our hearts remain with the families and loved ones navigating an unimaginable loss,” Matt Goertz, vice president of Trans Aero MedEvac, said in a joint statement with Generation Jets.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
The wildfire grew rapidly over the weekend amid dry and windy conditions, nearly doubling in size between Sunday and Monday morning to more than 19 square miles (50 square kilometers). It was burning out of control in a sparsely populated area despite the efforts of more than 600 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and several interagency Hotshot crews.
Adam Turner, a public information officer for the fire, said steep, rugged terrain has made it impossible for crews to engage the fire directly.
“This is what firefighters call ‘mountain goat territory,’” said Turner, adding that crews were instead working to contain and steer the fire away from several evacuated cattle ranches to the northeast and the community of Arabella to the west.
A red flag warning remained in effect across southern New Mexico on Monday, with wind speeds forecast between 20-30 mph (32-50 kph).
GALVESTON (AP) – Recent outbreaks of hantavirus and norovirus on cruise ships are making headlines, but they’re unlikely to dim the growing popularity of vacation cruises, according to industry representatives and travel experts.
In fact, many within the industry still expect a record number of people worldwide to take cruises this year despite three passengers aboard the MV Hondius dying from hantavirus after the ship stopped in Argentina and a recent norovirus outbreak aboard a British ship docked in Bordeaux, France.
“The cruise consumer seems to be somewhat Teflon when it comes to stories like this,” said Rob Kwortnik, an associate professor at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration who closely watches the cruise industry.
In mid-April, an annual forecast by the Cruise Lines International Association, an industry trade group, estimated that 38.3 million people would travel on ocean-going ships this year, 4% more from a record 37.2 million passengers last year.
Industrywide sales figures are closely held. Asked about potential impacts from what happened aboard the MV Hondius, the trade association said it doesn’t comment or speculate on bookings. Several big cruise companies didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press about customer demand, including Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival.
Oceanwide Expeditions, the Dutch company that owns the MV Hondius, said it doesn’t foresee any changes to its operations. It has a cruise setting sail from Keflavik, Iceland, on May 29.
Veteran cruisegoers said the outbreak would not affect their plans.
“I have eight cruises booked, and I’ll absolutely be booking another,” said Jenni Fielding, who blogs and posts social media videos about cruise trips under the moniker Cruise Mummy. “Cruising is as safe as any other type of holiday, provided travelers follow sensible health advice and stay aware of official guidance.”
Scott Eddy, a hospitality influencer, is currently on a cruise and docked in Monaco. Fellow passengers have not mentioned the hantavirus outbreak, he said.
“The average traveler understands that this is an isolated health situation and not something unique to cruise travel itself,” Eddy said.
CruiseCompete.com, an online marketplace where consumers making vacation plans can compare offers from travel agents, booked 31.7% more cabins in the first half of May compared to the same period last year, CEO Bob Levinstein said.
“I can categorically say that we have not seen any drop in demand,” Levinstein said.
Levinstein said that norovirus — an extremely contagious stomach bug that thrives in crowded environments — is conflated with cruises in the minds of many Americans because the U.S. Centers for Disease Control requires ships to disclose when 3% or more passengers report symptoms.
On a ship with 5,000 passengers, an illness impacting 3% of them “goes completely unnoticed by the vast majority of vacationers, and experienced cruisers know this,” he said.
Current news cycles rarely impact passengers’ decisions to join a cruise because the trips generally are booked at least 6 months — and often as much as a year – in advance, Kwortnik said.
“People who are booking cruises tomorrow are thinking about the holidays,” he said.
During a conference call Thursday with investors, Switzerland-based cruise line Viking said demand for its river cruises softened briefly during the first three months of this year after the Iran war began but then quickly rebounded.
Viking said 92% of its 2026 cruises and 38% of its 2027 cruises were booked. The company didn’t mention hantavirus or norovirus.
Andrew Coggins, a cruise industry analyst and professor in Pace University’s Lubin School of Business, said even if travelers set to embark on a cruise soon are unnerved by the latest news, they’re unlikely to get a refund.
“I think if there’s any impact on demand, it would be in the long term. If you’re cruising in the next few months, you’re past the point at which you can get your money back,” he said.
Coggins said he thinks the hantavirus story got a lot of attention because it reminded people of the Diamond Princess, which was quarantined off Japan for two weeks in early 2020 after the coronavirus that grew into a global pandemic was detected on board.
The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the cruise industry, shutting down many smaller operators. Cruises didn’t see an upswing in passengers again until 2022, Coggins said.
There are still fewer cruise passengers from China and Japan than there were before COVID, according to CLIA. But Coggins said demand elsewhere is booming.
“There are new ships on order out to 2037. The cruise lines are bullish. They see demand growing and they want to offer new bells and whistles, new ports, new destinations,” he said.
One reason for cruising’s growth is broad appeal across generations and income levels. In a recent U.S. survey, Bank of America found that Generation Z respondents and millennials were the most likely to say they planned to cruise over the next 12 months.
The survey also found that cruise spending rose for lower-income households even as those households spent less on airfare and lodging. Cruise lines have been wooing those passengers in recent years with shorter, more affordable itineraries.
Kwortnik said cruising also offers travelers value for their vacation dollars.
“On average, it costs more just to stay at a hotel in Miami than it does to sail on a cruise out of Miami – and the cruise includes lodging, multiple destinations, food, entertainment, and transportation all in the fare,” he said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — China has agreed to ramp up trade for U.S. agricultural products such as beef and poultry, buying at an annualized rate of $17 billion per year for 2026 and at that level for 2027 and 2028, the White House announced Sunday, two days after President Donald Trump returned from a high-stakes summit in Beijing where he sought to ease the impact on American farmers from the trade war he launched last year.
China would restore market access for U.S. beef and resume imports of poultry from U.S. states determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be free of the bird flu, the White House said. The deals are on top of China’s soybean purchase commitments last year.
The agreements offer some hope to American farmers harmed by the trade war as they saw a major export market for soybeans and other products dry up. Farmers also are feeling new pressure from Trump administration policies — the war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran has curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade corridor that has restricted global fertilizer supplies and sent those prices soaring.
There was no immediate confirmation of the terms from Beijing.
China’s Ministry of Commerce on Saturday said the two sides would “resolve or make substantial progress toward resolving certain non-tariff barriers and market access issues” regarding agricultural goods.
The U.S. would “actively work” to address China’s concerns regarding detention of its dairy products, seafood, the export of potted bonsai, and the recognition of Shandong province as a bird-flu-free zone, while the Chinese side will “likewise actively work” to address U.S. concerns regarding the registration of beef processing facilities and the export of poultry meat from certain states to China, a ministry spokesperson said.
The two sides also agreed to expand trade, including that of farm goods, through measures such as reciprocal tariff reductions on “a specific range of products,” though the spokesperson did not specify the products.
China, recognizing the link between food security and national security, has diversified its sources of imported soybeans, beef and other farm goods, turning increasingly to Brazil, Argentina and other countries over the U.S.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show China’s imports of U.S. agricultural goods peaked in 2022 with $38 billion but fell to $8 billion in 2025. These figures include nearly $18 billion in soybean purchases in 2022 and $3 billion in 2025.
It’s not immediately clear how much more China would buy from American soybean farmers, who were hit especially hard in the trade war. China, traditionally the largest foreign buyer of American soybeans, stopped purchasing them altogether last year after Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese goods.
The latest agreement builds on a trade truce Trump reached with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October in which China agreed to resume buying U.S. soybeans. The White House said then that China committed to buying 12 million metric tons in the current marketing year and 25 million metric tons for each of the next three years.
According to the White House, hundreds of U.S. beef plants, including those run by Tyson and Cargill, also will be able to export again to China, though it’s not immediately clear how much beef American businesses will be selling to China.
China let licenses for hundreds of U.S. beef plants expire last year, and the import value for 2025 fell to less than $500 million, according to USDA figures. China’s purchases of U.S. beef had peaked at $2.14 billion in 2022, the government data shows.
The U.S. export of poultry meats and products to China was $286 million in 2025, down from more than $1 billion in 2022.
During the summit last week, Trump and Xi discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation, including expanding market access for American businesses in China and increasing Chinese investment into U.S. industries, the White House had said. The two leaders agreed to set up separate boards of trade and investment — though offered few details on the proposals or how they would differ from existing trade dialogues.
The Board of Trade will allow the two governments to manage trade of “non-sensitive goods,” and the Board of Investments would provide a venue for the two sides to discuss investment-related issues, according to the White House.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said the two bodies would address respective concerns regarding trade and investment. The Board of Trade, the ministry spokesperson said, would allow the two sides to discuss issues such as tariff reductions on specific products. “In principle, the two sides agreed to reduce tariff on products of respective concern at equivalent scale,” the spokesperson said.
Xi said last week that China’s door of opportunity will open wider when he met with U.S. business leaders joining Trump on the trip. Among those who traveled to Beijing was Brian Sikes, CEO of the agricultural giant Cargill.
Soybeans, which are used for livestock feed and biofuels in China, are among the top U.S. agricultural exports. Soybean exports to China in the past had accounted for about half of U.S. exports of agricultural goods to the Asian nation.
USDA data shows the U.S. exported 10.9 million metric tons of soybeans to China as of May 7, putting China on track to fulfill its previous commitment by the end of the marketing year on Aug. 31. This is well below the 25 million to 30 million metric tons that China purchased in past years.
Before Trump’s initial planned trip to Beijing in late March — which was postponed by the Iran war — the American Soybean Association urged him to prioritize soybeans in the trade talks with Xi.
Scott Metzger, president of the association, said Thursday the group would like to see “additional soybean purchases this marketing year, as well as continued progress toward fulfilling future purchase commitments.”
“Greater certainty and consistency in the marketplace help provide farmers with the confidence they need as they make decisions for the year ahead,” he said.
SAN AUGUSTINE (KETK) – The San Augustine Police Department has arrested a juvenile after a shooting happened at a Texaco convenience store on Sunday afternoon.
San Augustine PD said officers were sent out to the Texaco Convenience store on MLK Drive in San Augustine in the early afternoon on Sunday after two people reportedly pulled up to the store and started shooting at each other.
After interviewing witnesses at the scene, the officers were able to determine who the two shooters might have been. One of the suspected shooters is a juvenile and has been arrested on a warrant unrelated to Sunday’s shooting.
San Augustine PD said there’s no ongoing threat to the the public and they’re continuing to investigate what exactly led to the shooting. No injuries have been reported in connection to Sunday’s shooting.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call San Augustine PD at 936-275-2384.
WASHINGTON (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a $1.7 billion federal contract listed for border wall construction in the Big Bend region, fueling public confusion over the project after a previous assurance from a top agency official that no barriers would be built at the region’s national park.
The contract, awarded Monday, is designated “for border wall in Big Bend Texas” in its description. The $1.7 billion allocated in the contract is the single-highest amount awarded for a contract in Texas related to the border wall, according to listings on usaspending.gov, the U.S. government’s official public spending database.
A second contract for $4.5 million was awarded on Thursday for “resource monitoring support” of border wall construction in a separate area of the Big Bend region.
The new awards come a week after CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told the Washington Examiner there would be no border wall built at Big Bend National Park because of pushback from local residents. Scott’s statements to the Examiner and a statement from CBP last week to The Texas Tribune indicated the agency would instead pave roads along the border in the national park and use digital surveillance equipment.
CBP did not respond to an immediate request for comment about the $1.7 billion award.
Opponents of wall construction in the region have seen their frustrations with the project mount as communication from the Trump administration about the project has been limited, and there have been few formal announcements about plans in the area.
“We obviously, at this point, don’t trust anything, but it’s like a roller coaster,” said Lico Miller, a business owner in Terlingua, a small, rural town a few miles west of Big Bend National Park.
An interactive “Smart Wall” map on the CBP website shows the agency planned to install roads and “virtual wall” technology that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border in the “Big Bend 4” region. The $1.7 billion award is intended for a Big Bend “segment identified as BBT-4,” according to its description. CBP officials took down the Smart Wall map in late April, but later added it once more with changes in mid-May. The map currently states that no is wall planned around the national or state park despite the awarded contract.
“They have made it a mission to obfuscate and make this as confusing of a process as possible,” said Laiken Jordahl, National Public Lands Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “From constantly changing the online smart wall map — I mean, they’ve made dozens and dozens of changes to that thing without announcing any of them — to taking it down entirely.”
Jordahl said that even paved roads along the border would likely be harmful to wildlife in the region and could make border crossings easier in areas where terrain would otherwise be difficult to traverse. He also said roads would inevitably make barrier installation easier in the future if CBP changed its mind later on.
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On Thursday, the Trump administration waived environmental protections in the Big Bend region in preparation for construction, according to a federal notice first reported by Marfa Public Radio. The notice described Border Patrol’s 517-mile Big Bend sector as “an area of high illegal entry.” The sector is the least busy of the nine sectors, with agency apprehensions in the region accounting for 1.3% of more than 237,000 across the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025.
Residents point to the infrequency of border crossings in the area as only adding to the confusion and frustration.
“We’re 1.3% of the problem. What is this billions of dollars stuff when we are not an issue?” another Terlingua business owner Cynta de Narvaez said.
Thursday’s waivers follow similar action in February, when Trump administration officials waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas that initially included Big Bend National Park.
Advocacy groups in the region filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in mid-April arguing it had illegally waived those environmental laws and need Congress to sign off.
FORNEY (KETK) – The Forney Police Department has confirmed that three people were injured when their plane crashed during an emergency landing on Saturday morning.
According to Forney PD, Forney police officers and Forney Fire Department firefighters responded to the area of Sage Hill Parkway and Helms Trail at just after midnight on Saturday after a single-engine aircraft crashed in a field while attempting to make an emergency landing.
Three people were on the plane and two of them had to be taken to a local hospital for treatment, while the third person was treated for their injuries at the crash scene. Forney PD said they’re working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Texas Department of Public Safety to investigate the crash.
The FAA identified the crashed aircraft as a Bellanca Downer 14-19-3 single-engine plane. The Dallas Police Association Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 716 said the three passengers were all off-duty police officers traveling together in the plane while returning a personal trip.
The lodge said two of the officers received minor injuries while one officer has significant injuries that they are still being treated for.
TYLER – A new lithium mining project planned in Northeast Texas has received the green light from the Trump Administration.
“What’s exciting about East Texas in particular is the lithium grade there,” CEO of Standard Lithium, Jesse Edmondson, said.
According to our news partner KETK, parts of the East Texas region will be home to Standard Lithium’s second commercial project to extract the precious mineral from saltwater thousands of feet underground.
” We see most of the growth of our company over the next decade will be in East Texas,” Edmondson said.
The Canada-based company went through a federal permitting review process in the U.S., which determined a very minimal environmental impact to our water, air, and landscape.
“You’re talking about on the order of a dozen to two dozen well pads, each one of which can have multiple wells drilled off of them. Then the surface disturbance is really limited to those well pads themselves and then the central processing facility,” Edmondson said.
The company’s flagship projects in the U.S. are located in what’s called the ” Smackover Formation.” It focuses on the areas in Franklin County and parts of Hopkins and Titus counties.
The average grade for our Franklin project is just over 600 milligrams per liter, but we’ve actually drilled a hole in that project area that was as high as is 800 milligrams per liter, so these are truly globally significant world class numbers and it’s really exciting for the company, we think for East Texas and for our country that we’re currently reliant on China for lithium and for lithium chemicals, so which are critical for modern battery technology,” Edmondson said.
Edmondson said the project is different from Lithium-ion battery storage facilities and focuses on extraction.
Most recently, a storage project was halted by a district judge in Van Zandt County.
“We don’t have the capacity to fight those kinds of fires, so if they don’t comply with the fire code, they should be redesigned,” Van Zandt Co. Precinct 2 Commissioner Cliff Williams said.
Williams hopes the new mining project will comply with state and national codes and not kick people out of their homes.
“That [mining project] is done in such a way that it respects the property ownership of those owners that live out there next door to where these operations are going to be taking place,” Williams said.
The extraction project is still in the early stages, and construction wouldn’t begin until at least 2030. Standard Lithium said this massive project will bring hundreds of jobs to the area.
AUSTIN (AP) — The small plane that crashed while carrying four pickleball players to a tournament near Austin last month had problems with freezing instruments before it broke apart midair, according to a preliminary federal investigation report released Friday.
The Cessna 421C took off from Amarillo on April 30 at 9:10 p.m. and crashed at about 11 p.m. in Wimberley, a city about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Austin. Pilot Justin Appling and passengers Hayden Dillard, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick and Seren Wilson died.
The National Transportation Safety Board report said that during the flight, the pilot reported problems with the plane’s anti-icing system that protects onboard instruments.
He later reported an instrument that measures airspeed had “iced up” and that he was using backup gauges. He was cleared to descend to 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) and told air controllers he wanted to get to a lower altitude to try to “warm back up.”
Over the last 15 minutes before the crash, the plane flew at altitudes where temperatures hovered just below freezing, according to the report.
The pilot’s last radio transmission with air controllers was made at 10:59 p.m. The plane then made a series of descending left and right turns before crashing to the ground.
Investigators found pieces of the plane over a 1.25-mile (2-kilometer) debris field, distribution consistent with an “inflight breakup,” the report said.
It was mostly cloudy in the area shortly before the crash, and there was a thunderstorm two hours later, the National Weather Service said.
A second plane traveling with the group landed safely in New Braunfels.
EAST TEXAS (KETK) — Attorney General Ken Paxton has notified more than 130 Texas cities on Thursday that they are barred from raising property taxes above the no?new?revenue rate after his office determined they failed to meet state audit and transparency requirements under a new law.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, more than 1,000 Texas municipalities were asked to provide documents showing whether they complied with SB 1851, which requires every city to complete annual financial audits and meet state transparency standards. After reviewing those submissions, investigators identified more than 130 cities that allegedly failed to meet the required benchmarks for the upcoming fiscal year.
Thirteen East Texas cities appear on the AG’s list:
* Berryville
* Chireno
* Corrigan
* Elkhart
* Eustace
* Huntington
* Livingston
* Mount Enterprise
* Red Lick
* Redwater
* Rusk
* Tool
* Yantis
Letters sent by the state warn those municipalities that they may face enforcement actions and penalties under SB 1851 and cannot legally approve property tax increases beyond the no-new-revenue rate until compliance issues are resolved.
The Attorney General’s Office said the list of cities currently identified as non-compliant is preliminary and that additional municipalities could face similar restrictions as the investigation continues.
Paxton said the effort is intended to protect Texas taxpayers from unlawful tax increases and ensure local governments follow state law. State officials indicated that further enforcement actions may follow if additional cities are found to be out of compliance with the financial reporting requirements outlined in SB 1851.
“Cities cannot ignore state audit and transparency requirements without consequences,” Paxton said in a statement. “My office will continue enforcing the law to protect taxpayers across Texas.”
Statements from East Texas cities:
City of Tool
“We respect and understand the Attorney General’s determination regarding the City of Tool’s current audit status. To date, the City of Tool is completing its 2024 audit and have already corresponded with our third-party auditors in regards to our 2025 fiscal year audit, expected to be completed by the end of this fiscal year. We are committed to being fiscally responsible and strive to not only be in compliance with state law, but to continue to provide a level of transparency and commitment with taxpayers’ money.”
City of Huntington
We were notified by the Attorney General’s office yesterday afternoon that we were in violation of the provisions of SB 1851, which will effectively prevent the city from adopting a tax rate that exceeds the no-new-revenue rate for 2026.
As you are surely aware, the effective date on those provisions was September 1, 2025. The City’s 2026 fiscal year budget and 2025 tax rate had already been adopted by ordinance before that effective date, so the provisions did not apply for the setting of the 2025 tax rate.
Public hearings were published and held in accordance with the Public Meetings Act prior to those ordinances being adopted.
Our financial records have been in the hands of Mr. David Godwin and his capable staff since February 2026, but the audit was not completed by the required deadline of March 30, 2026. We are still awaiting the completed audit and expect that to be submitted for Council review in the near future. City officials are absolutely aware of the provisions that will restrict this year’s tax rate and plan to abide by the letter of the law.
As far as transparency is concerned, the City’s 2026 fiscal year budget and the audit for fiscal year 2024 are on the City’s website – http://www.cityofhuntington.org – under the Finance Department tab. As soon as the audit is completed and received by our office, it will be posted on the website posthaste.
City of Rusk
The City of Rusk has received notice from the Texas Office of the Attorney General regarding the City’s compliance with Local Government Code Chapter 103 and related requirements f fiscal year 2025.
The City understands that, based on the Office of the Attorney General’s determination, the City has been found not to have complied with the audit and financial statement requirements applicable under state law and is therefore subject to the enforcement provisions set out in Local Government Code 103.055(c).
The City has been diligently working to resolve the issue and recently completed its 2024 audit.
The City remains committed to transparency, fiscal responsibility and full compliance with Texas law.
Under the applicable statute, the City may not adopt an ad valorem tax rate that exceeds its no-new-revenue tax rate until compliance is achieved. The City intends to be in compliance as soon as possible.
The City will continue working diligently to address this matter.
KETK News has contacted additional East Texas cities for comment and is awaiting their responses.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to capture and prosecution of a former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran in 2013 and was later charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government.
Monica Elfriede Witt, 47, was indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including transmitting national defense information to the government of Iran. She remains at large.
Witt “allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities,” Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, said in a news release Wednesday.
“The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts.”
It wasn’t immediately known why the FBI was bringing attention to Witt’s case. The United States and Iran have been at war since Feb. 28.
Witt served in the Air Force between 1997 and 2008, where she was trained in the Farsi language and was deployed overseas on classified counterintelligence missions, including to the Middle East. She later found work as a Defense Department contractor.
The Texas native defected to Iran in 2013 after being invited to two all-expense-paid conferences in the country that the Justice Department says promoted anti-Western propaganda and condemned American moral standards.
Before that, Witt had been warned by the FBI about her activities, but told agents that she would not provide sensitive information about her work if she returned to Iran, prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, Witt placed at risk “sensitive and classified U.S. national defense information and programs,” the news release said.
“Witt allegedly intentionally provided information endangering U.S personnel and their families stationed abroad. She also allegedly conducted research on behalf of the Iranian regime to allow them to target her former colleagues in the U.S. government,” it said.
PORT ISABEL (AP) — Until recently, young children ran in and out of their public housing homes in this Gulf Coast town, playing on sun-dappled lawns as mothers looked over their shoulders for the school bus to drop off their older kids. Suddenly, couches, dressers and refrigerators started appearing curbside for movers or garbage collectors.
Within weeks, the neighborhood was a ghost town and the playground was empty.
What prompted the mass exodus was a bungled message from the housing authority in Port Isabel, a South Texas community of 5,000 people, many of whom are immigrants working at hotels and restaurants on the beaches of nearby South Padre Island. The Port Isabel Housing Authority indicated a Trump administration proposal was about to take effect that would end housing assistance to families with at least one member in the country illegally. The events that followed provided a glimpse of what could happen in communities across the U.S. if the proposed rule is actually finalized.
“The impact was not limited to undocumented immigrants, but really to immigrants who are here legally as well as people within their families who are citizens,” Marie Claire Tran-Leung, senior staff attorney at National Housing Law Project, said.
For decades, families with at least one legal or eligible resident have been allowed to live in public housing provided those who are here illegally or are otherwise ineligible due to their immigration status pay a full, unsubsidized share of rent. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to reverse that.
Advocates estimate up to 80,000 people would be kicked out of their homes nationwide under the measure that is part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. They include U.S. citizens, many of them children born in this country but whose parents were not.
A message from the Port Isabel Housing Authority
On Feb. 3, the Port Isabel Housing Authority sent residents a letter saying that the Trump administration wanted every household member to prove legal status within 30 days or face eviction. Three weeks later, the agency sent a note of “clarification” that no such proof was required.
It was already too late.
Half of residents living in Port Isabel public housing left within a month of receiving the first letter. The occupancy rate plunged from 91% in January to 43% in May, far below the national average of 94%.
The proposed rule from HUD still has not taken effect.
The housing authority gave no explanation for the initial misunderstanding and officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Rumors and panic
Fears about eviction and rumors that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement might get involved prompted panic among some residents.
“My kids and I spoke and wondered what we were going to do, but then we said it’s better to leave and avoid any retaliation,” a single mother from Mexico raising two teenagers who are U.S. citizens told The Associated Press. She, like other former residents, spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears of being deported.
She turned to legal service organizations that told her and others they could stay in public housing. But she and her children decided it was too risky and left their home of nearly a decade, finding an apartment within the same school district that costs about $500 more per month.
The move also added about 10 minutes to the commute to the island, where both the mother and her daughter work. The 18-year-old gets home from school at 4:30 p.m. and grabs a quick dinner before her mom drives her to a job that starts at 5 p.m. The daughter is a top student in her senior class and plans to go to college in the fall with help from scholarship offers, but she worries how her family will make ends meet. Her brother was laid off, and their mom underwent cancer treatment last year, depleting her energy and straining their finances.
Other families face even greater challenges.
A mother of three said she moved her family into a one-bedroom trailer home illegally parked between two other trailer homes. Her oldest son sleeps in the living room.
Another family of three sold beds and other furniture so they could squeeze into a small trailer home, only to find out the landlord wouldn’t let them use the mailing address, affecting her children’s school and health insurance.
“Since we got the letter, everything changed from one day to the next. It wasn’t the same anymore. Before the letter, the kids were happy, playing outside,” the mother of two said.
A preview of a Trump administration proposal
The Trump administration proposed in February that any household with one ineligible resident would disqualify an entire family, estimating that 24,000 recipients were ineligible in 20,000 households.
“We have zero tolerance for pushing aside hardworking U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit decades-old loopholes,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said at the time.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income families, estimates that 79,600 people could be forced to leave their homes, with a disproportionate impact on children and Latinos.
The rule drew more than 16,000 public comments, many of them critical, including from city leaders across the U.S.
For example, the New York City Council told HUD that an estimated 12% of city of households have at least one member who lacks legal status. Some 240,000 children are in those homes.
“This proposed rule will unequivocally lead to increased displacement, homelessness, poverty, and decreased educational and health outcomes,” the council wrote.
HUD is expected to publish a final version of the rule after considering public comments.
It is almost certain to face legal challenges.
ANGELINA COUNTY, Texas (KETK)– A traffic stop in Angelina County earlier this month led to a man being arrested after officers discovered he was in possession of over 300 images of child pornography and illegal narcotics.
According to the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office, a traffic stop was initiated on May 5 after deputies observed 33-year-old Wayne Cassels making several traffic violations while driving on U.S. Highway 59 south of Lufkin.
During the stop, deputies found two bags that were believed to contain 59 grams of methamphetamine inside the vehicle. Leading deputies to suspect Cassels was involved in drug trafficking, deputies opened an investigation.
Deputies were able to obtain a warrant to search Cassels’ cell phone after it was suspected that he was in possession of child pornography following a forensic interview. During the search of the phone, over 300 photos of child sexual abuse material were stored on his device, according to officials.
Cassels is currently being held in the Angelina County Jail and his bond has been set at $600,000 after being charged with the following offenses:
Five counts of possession or promotion of child pornography
Manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance
Tampering with physical evidence
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Gary Grief, the former executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission who was accused of conspiring to defraud Texas lottery players, was indicted by a grand jury in Travis County last month on a felony charge for abuse of official capacity related to an April 2023 lottery win. But the Travis County district attorney’s office dismissed the case for “prosecutorial discretion.”
Assistant District Attorney Rob Drummond signed the motion to dismiss the case just three days after the grand jury indictment. Nexstar reached out to the Travis County DA’s office for an explanation for the dismissal and are waiting to hear back.
Nexstar also asked the office if District Attorney José Garza had any say about the motion to dismiss or if ADA Drummond acted on his own.
Grief retired in 2024 just before a Houston Chronicle investigation revealed a group of investors were able to purchase nearly every single number combination to almost guarantee a $95 million jackpot in an April 2023 Lotto Texas drawing. Lotto Texas is a draw game where players select six numbers between 1 and 54.
The indictment accuses Grief of “intentionally and knowingly misuse government property, services, personnel, or a thing of value belonging to the government” in the April 22, 2023 Lotto Texas drawing.
ANGELINA COUNTY (KETK) — The City of Lufkin Animal Services was recently awarded a $150,000 grant to expand its spay-and-neuter services across Angelina County.
According to the City of Lufkin, the grant was provided by the Texas Health and Human Services’ Public Health Region and will allow the shelter to provide low-cost sterilization services. The service will help reduce overpopulation and decrease shelter intake.
Through the grant, residents will only pay $25 to have their pets spayed or neutered, with the remainder of the treatment covered by the shelter, the city said. Along with making sterilization services more affordable for pet owners, the grant will also help in reducing the stray and unwanted animal population in Angelina County.
“This funding is a tremendous opportunity to make a lasting impact on animal welfare in our community and across the region,” Lufkin Animal Services Manager Morgan Williams said. “By increasing access to spay and neuter services, we are taking proactive steps to reduce homelessness among pets, improve public safety, and support healthier communities.”
Residents can schedule the first round of sterilization services by contacting the Lufkin Animal Shelter at 936-633-0218. A $25 deposit fee will be required for each appointment.
LIVINGSTON (KETK) — Two students and a school bus driver were taken to the hospital after a Thursday morning crash in Livingston involving a school bus and a pole.
According to the Livingston Independent School District, the crash happened early Thursday on Highway 59 in front of the hospital when one of their buses struck a road post. EMS evaluated all students at the scene, and parents were notified.
Two students and the driver were transported to the hospital for further evaluation. The remaining students were taken to their campus on another bus.
“We appreciate the quick response of emergency personnel and school staff in ensuring the safety and care of our students,” the school district said.
POLK COUNTY, Texas (KETK)– A Polk County resident was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Tuesday after failing to comply with his sex offender registration requirements.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, a detective who was assigned to monitor registered sex offenders discovered in November 2025 that a 55-year-old Rayford Ellis had failed to comply with sex offender registration requirements, prompting an investigation to be opened.
The detective later became aware that Ellis had not completed his required annual 2024 registration verification through the sheriff’s office. As the investigation continued, detectives issued a compliance check at his residence, but no contact was made.
An arrest warrant was eventually obtained for Ellis, and he was taken into custody in Cleveland, Texas and charged with failure to comply with his sex offender registration requirements.
Following a sentencing hearing on Tuesday, Ellis was sentenced to 25 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“The goal of the sex offender registry is to protect the community and its members from sexual predators,” the Polk County District Attorney’s Office said. “For the registry to work and help protect those it’s intended to protect, offenders must comply with the law. When they fail to comply, our office will hold them accountable. Our office will continue working with law enforcement and the community to ensure their safety.”
BEAUMONT – A Mexican national illegally living in the Eastern District of Texas, has pleaded guilty to immigration violations, announced U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs. Jose Perez-Segura, 41, pleaded guilty to unlawful reentry by a deported alien before U.S. Magistrate Judge Zack Hawthorn on May 13.
According to information presented in court, Perez-Segura was arrested by the Lufkin Police Department in August 2025 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Further investigation revealed Perez-Segura was an alien illegal present in the United States after having been previously deported in 2011 and did not have permission to return to the United States.
This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office, and the Lufkin Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald S. Carter.
CROCKETT – An investigation is underway after an industrial building in Crockett caught fire on Tuesday night, which officials expect to continue to burn for the next few days. According to our news partner KETK and the Houston County Emergency Management Office, the building was identified as Animal Comfort Group. The fire started before 11 p.m.
The cause of the fire is unknown at this time and is under investigation, the Crockett Fire Department said. There were no reported injuries as of 8 a.m. on Wednesday.
“This fire is contained and will likely continue to burn for a few days,” the fire department said. “CFD will continue to monitor the area and work with property ownership to ensure it remains contained.”
Residents are asked to use caution in the area and be respectful of personnel working the scene.
AUSTIN (AP) – The city of Austin will pay $35 million to three men and the family of a fourth who were wrongly accused of the 1991 rape and murder of four teenage girls at a yogurt shop, a case that initially sent one of the men to death row and another to life in prison, under a tentative settlement reached Tuesday.
Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn and Maurice Pierce had all insisted they were innocent of one of the city’s most notorious crimes. They were finally declared innocent by a judge in February after investigators determined the crime was committed by a suspect who died in 1999.
The settlement must still be approved by the city council at a later date. Details of the payments to the men and their families were not released.
“This settlement closes the final chapter of a devastating story in Austin’s history,” Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in a statement. “We are pleased to have reached an agreement with those who were wrongly accused and wrongly convicted in this case and hope that this settlement brings a sense of closure to everyone affected by this horrific event.”
Scott and his attorney Tony Diaz said in a joint statement they are hopeful the settlement will help improve investigation practices and safeguards against wrongful convictions.
“Discussions and negotiations are ongoing regarding police reforms that would help ensure that nothing like what occurred in this case ever happens again,” they said.
Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, ages 17 and 15, were bound, gagged and shot in the head at the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt” store where two of them worked. The building was set on fire.
Investigators chased thousands of leads and several false confessions before the four men, who were teenagers when the girls were killed, were arrested in late 1999.
Springsteen and Scott were convicted based largely on confessions they insisted were coerced by police. Both convictions were overturned in the mid-2000s.
Welborn was charged but never tried after two grand juries refused to indict him. Pierce spent three years in jail before the charges were dismissed. He died in 2010 in a confrontation with police after a traffic stop.
Prosecutors wanted to try Springsteen and Scott again, but a judge ordered the charges dismissed in 2009 when new DNA tests that were unavailable in 1991 and the previous trials revealed another male suspect.
Investigators determined in 2025 that new DNA science and reviews of old ballistics evidence pointed to Robert Eugene Brashers as the sole killer.
Since 2018, authorities had used advanced DNA evidence to link Brashers to the strangulation death of a South Carolina woman in 1990, the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee and the shooting of a mother and daughter in Missouri in 1998.
The link to the Austin case came when a DNA sample taken from under Ayers’ fingernail came back as a match to Brashers from the 1990 killing.
Brashers died in 1999 when he shot himself during an hourslong standoff with police at a motel in Kennett, Missouri.
TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK) — Two people are dead and one person is recovering at a hospital after a domestic dispute led to a shooting at Texarkana Aluminum early Tuesday morning, the Nash Police Department confirmed. According to Nash PD, the shooting occurred at the facility’s parking lot at around 6:37 a.m. 48-year-old Eddie Hill Jr. was attempting to intervene in what is believed to be a domestic dispute between 40-year-old Wendell Champion Jr. and his wife, who worked at Texarkana Aluminum.
Champion Jr. then shot and killed Hill Jr. and shot his wife. She was transported to a local Texarkana hospital and is in stable condition, the police department said. Champion Jr. then shot and killed himself, Nash PD said. Champion Jr. had been convicted of murder in Harris County in 2010 and was released on parole in 2025.
There is no danger to the public at this time, the police department said.
Both Hill and Champion Jr.’s wife were employees of Texarkana Aluminum, which will continue operations as normal but has counseling available for employees.
TEXARKANA (KETK) – Two people are dead and one person is recovering at a hospital after a domestic dispute led to a shooting at Texarkana Aluminum early Tuesday morning, the Nash Police Department confirmed. According to our news partner KETK and the Nash PD, the shooting occurred at the facility’s parking lot at around 6:37 a.m. 48-year-old Eddie Hill Jr. was attempting to intervene in what is believed to be a domestic dispute between 40-year-old Wendell Champion Jr. and his wife, who worked at Texarkana Aluminum.
Champion Jr. then shot and killed Hill Jr. and shot his wife. She was transported to a local Texarkana hospital and is in stable condition, the police department said. Champion Jr. then shot and killed himself, Nash PD said. Champion Jr. had been convicted of murder in Harris County in 2010 and was released on parole in 2025.
There is no danger to the public at this time, the police department said. Both Hill and Champion Jr.’s wife were employees of Texarkana Aluminum, which will continue operations as normal but has counseling available for employees.
LIVINGSTON (KETK) – Two people have been arrested after law enforcement discovered a possible pipe bomb near a Livingston home on Monday. According to our news partner KETK, the Livingston Police Department said officers were notified of a possible pipe bomb on Banks Drive and several nearby homes were evacuated as a perimeter was secured.
With the help of the Montgomery County Bomb Squad and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, technicians safely disabled the device and began an investigation.
A search warrant was conducted on a nearby home, leading Livingston PD officers to more explosive components. The home’s residents, 44-year-old Brian Humphreys and 37-year-old Shaney Humphreys, were arrested on the scene for possession of explosives and booked into the Polk County Jail.
“This investigation is still active and more charges are possible,” Livingston PD said. “At this time there is no threat to the public.”
NEW YORK (AP) – Rex Reed, the prominent and outspoken film critic and journalist known for his longtime column in The New York Observer, died Tuesday. He was 87.
Reed died at his Manhattan home after a short illness, publicist Sean Katz said on behalf of Reed’s friend William Kapfer.
In a career spanning more than six decades, Reed became one of the most well-known voices in cultural criticism. He published eight books, acted in movies (playing himself in “Superman”), counted movie stars like Angela Lansbury as friends and often found himself in the spotlight for controversial comments. Most infamous among them was his assertion that Marlee Matlin’s Oscar win for “Children of a Lesser God” was a pity vote, and, decades later, comments about Melissa McCarthy’s weight and size in a review for “Identity Thief.” He also perpetuated a false conspiracy theory that Marisa Tomei’s 1992 Oscar win for “My Cousin Vinny” was fake.
When it came to the movies, he had a reputation for being a bit of a crank as well, often bemoaning the old days and feeling out of step with the next generation of film critics.
“I like just as many films as I dislike,” Reed told The New York Times in 2018. “But I think we’re drowning in mediocrity. I just try as hard as I can to raise the level of consciousness. It’s so hard to get people to see good films.”
Reed was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 2, 1938, and spent his childhood moving around the South for his father’s job. He told the New York Times in 2018 that his origin story as a “controversial writer” began in the eighth grade, when he started writing a gossip column in the school paper and plotted his exodus to a more cosmopolitan life.
One of his first jobs was in the publicity department at 20th Century Fox, during the making of “Cleopatra,” but he was laid off due to budget cuts. The way he told it, he faked his way into film journalism while gallivanting around Europe with friends and looking for ways to fund a ticket home, including writing a Buster Keaton story for The New York Times. In the 1960s and ‘70s, he established himself as an in-demand magazine and newspaper writer and became a television staple, appearing on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and “The Dick Cavett Show.”
One of his most famous profiles was of Ava Gardner in 1967 for The New York Times (“There Is Nothing Like This Dame”), which was included in his collection “Do You Sleep in the Nude?” with profiles of Barbra Streisand, Lucille Ball, Warren Beatty and others. His work appeared in Vogue, Esquire, GQ and Women’s Wear Daily. He spent nearly four decades writing about films for the Observer.
Reed also acted occasionally, playing the pre-transition Myron in “Myra Breckinridge” and appearing alongside Laurence Olivier in the Korean War movie “Inchon.” He never married and has no immediate survivors. It was his writing that was his legacy.
“I’d like to be remembered as someone who really tried to make things better,” Rex told his Observer editor earlier this year. “Or at least respected what was good when it happened. Not as a curmudgeon. That’s not what I am in real life.”
NEW YORK (AP) — More than 20 years after it redefined fast shipping, Amazon is preparing to raise the bar on consumer expectations again by offering to fulfill customers’ most urgent product needs in a half-hour or less for an extra fee.
The company, which revolutionized online shopping in 2005 with two-day deliveries for Prime members, is rapidly opening small order-processing hubs in dozens of U.S. and foreign cities to cater to shoppers who can’t or don’t want to wait for cough medicine to relieve flu symptoms or tomatoes for tonight’s dinner salad.
The ultrafast service, called Amazon Now, first launched in India last June. Amazon says 30-minute deliveries now are also available in urban areas of Brazil, Mexico, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The mini-warehouses devoted to Amazon Now are about the size of a CVS drugstore. They stock about 3,500 products for expedited delivery, including beer, diapers, pet food, meat, nonprescription medications, playing cards and cellphone charging cables.
“We know that customers love speed and always have,” Beryl Tomay, Amazon’s head of transportation, told The Associated Press on Monday. “What we see customers doing, when we offer faster speeds, are they purchase more from Amazon. And Amazon becomes more top of mind for that or other types of items as well.”
In the U.S., the company first tested Amazon Now in Seattle, the home of its headquarters, and in Philadelphia. Most residents of Atlanta and the Dallas-Fort Worth area now have access as well. The service also is live or expected to land by year-end in Houston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Florida, and dozens of other cities, Amazon said.
The service charges for Amazon Now start at $3.99 for Prime members, who pay an annual fee of $139, and $13.99 for non-members. A $1.99 small basket fee applies to orders under $15, Amazon said.
The company’s bet on a need for speed also comes as some consumers are rebelling against rushed deliveries as they weigh the potential impact on the environment and the workers tasked with preparing orders at a rapid rate.
A relentless focus on speed helped Amazon build a logistics and e-commerce empire. After it made two days the new delivery time normal, Amazon moved into one-day and same-day deliveries for its Prime members. This spring, the company began making 90,000 products available in one hour or three hours at an extra cost.
The scaled down and sped up microhubs that are designed to handle 30-minute orders represent another step in Amazon’s pursuit.
Only a handful of people prepare orders from aisles of shelves in the 5,000- to 10,000-square-foot facilities, unlike the sprawling fulfillment centers storing millions of items where Amazon employs a mix of human workers and robotics to pick and pack orders.
Amazon tailors the product inventory to each location and uses artificial intelligence and other technology to analyze what customers buy, as well as when and how often. The most popular U.S. purchases so far include soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, toilet plungers, bananas, limes and wireless earbuds, Amazon said.
Amazon’s attempt to up the instant gratification ante provides direct competition to on-demand food delivery platforms like Instacart, Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, which don’t have the scale of the e-commerce titan, according to independent retail analyst Bruce Winder.
“What Amazon brings is their prowess in supply chain,” Winder said.
These smaller companies said they don’t see Amazon as a threat, though, citing the hundreds of thousands of items they are able to deliver to users’ doorsteps by partnering with various merchants and restaurants.
“DoorDash has a mission to empower grocers and retailers and augment their existing footprint, not to replace them,” DoorDash spokesperson Ali Musa said in an emailed statement. “We win only when they win, which is how we can offer over half a million grocery and retail items in under an hour across the country.”
Amazon also is in a race with Walmart to become the retailer that reliably gets orders to online shoppers in under an hour.
For an additional $10 on top of standard delivery charges, shoppers can place Walmart Express Delivery orders from among more than 100,000 products that are guaranteed to arrive in an hour. Many customers, however, are receiving the items under 30 minutes, Walmart CEO John Furner told analysts in February.
Companies have promised deliveries in 30 minutes or less before, but the landscape also is littered with failed attempts to break the speed barrier.
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a flurry of companies that promised 10- to 15-minute grocery deliveries from microwarehouses in dense neighborhoods, according to Sucharita Kodali, an analyst at market research firm Forrester Research.
But soaring operating costs, low customer loyalty and the drying up of investor money ultimately caused most to fail before the pandemic was over, analysts said.
Domino’s in 1984 pushed a guarantee that customers would receive their pizzas for free if they weren’t delivered in under a half-hour. The company amended the “30 minutes or it’s free” policy after two years, providing only a $3 discount for late deliveries.
The promotion helped Domino’s win market share, but it ended up tarnishing the company’s reputation. It dropped the guarantee in December 1993 after a string of crashes and lawsuits involving drivers racing to meet the deadline.
Brad Jashinsky, a retail analyst at information technology research and consulting firm Gartner, said he thinks Amazon should take the pizza chain’s experience as a cautionary tale.
“You get in trouble when you start overpromising something like that,” he said.
Amazon won’t be making any time guarantees and instead plans to keep customers who chose the 30-minute delivery option updated on the progress of their orders, Tomay said.
“There’s no rushing either in our building workers or the gig workers,” she said.
Kodali thinks Amazon will need a lot of people placing orders around the same time from the same or adjacent apartment buildings for the 30-minute service to be cost-effective.
Consumers may appreciate rapid receipt of products like toilet paper and batteries, but retailers and logistics experts said they also see some online shoppers, especially members of Generation Z, choosing no-rush shipping for products they don’t need in a hurry.
Amazon for several years has invited customers to skip one- or two-day delivery and to receive their orders on the same day in as few parcels as possible. Consolidating orders into fewer packages by electing to have them delivered at the same time cuts down on boxes, shipping envelopes and fuel use, analysts said.
“The millennials who came to age in an era that was on fast delivery came to expect it de facto, whereas … Gen Z is more accepting of a slower speed than previous generations before them,” said Darby Meegan, a general manager at Flexport, a supply chain and logistics company that fulfills orders for thousands of online merchants.
Still, Amazon executives have cited positive early results for Amazon Now in India, where they said Prime members tripled their requests for 30-minute deliveries once they started using the service.
Amazon Now also is attracting more repeat American customers, Tomay said.
“It’s in early days and time will tell,” she said. “I think that it will be interesting to see how it evolves.”
GRAPEVINE (AP) – Online seller eBay is rejecting an unsolicited $56 billion takeover offer from GameStop, calling the proposal “neither credible or attractive.”
Ryan Cohen’s GameStop disclosed earlier this month that it was pursuing a takeover of eBay, seeing it as a vehicle to compete with online retail giant Amazon.
The national gaming retailer said at the time that its approximately 1,600 U.S. stores could become drop-off and shipping locations. One proposal included live sales broadcasts from GameStop locations featuring eBay products.
GameStop’s bid is worth $125 per share in cash and stock. The equity value of the proposed deal is $55 billion on paper. The company previously said that it started accumulating shares in eBay beginning in February and currently has a 5% stake.
In a letter from eBay Chairman Paul Pressler sent to Cohen, eBay’s board said that it had completed its review of GameStop’s offer and believes that eBay is a “strong, resilient business.”
“With its differentiated global marketplace and a clear strategy, eBay’s board is confident that the company, under its current management team, is well-positioned to continue to drive sustainable growth, execute with discipline, and deliver long-term value for our shareholders,” the letter said.
GameStop did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company’s stock fell 4% before the market open on Tuesday.
Missouri’s top court is hearing an important legal challenge Tuesday to one of President Donald Trump’s earliest redistricting successes while lawmakers in Louisiana and South Carolina weigh whether to become the most recent Republican states to redraw U.S. House districts ahead of the midterm elections.
Rather than waning, a national redistricting battle that began 10 months ago has intensified as the November elections draw nearer — inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act and provided grounds for states to try to eliminate voting districts with large minority populations.
Missouri was the second Republican state after Texas to heed Trump’s call last year to redraw congressional districts to help the GOP win additional seats in the midterms. At issue before the Missouri Supreme Court is whether the new districts violate a state constitutional requirement to be compact, and whether they can remain in place for this year’s elections despite an initiative petition seeking to force a public referendum.
In South Carolina, the issue facing Republican lawmakers is whether redrawing the state’s lone Democratic-held seat could open the door to a clean sweep for Republicans or backfire with additional losses by making more districts competitive for Democrats. State senators must decide whether to allow consideration of a redistricting plan put forth in the House after the legislature’s regular work ends Thursday.
Congressional redistricting also is under consideration in Louisiana, where the Supreme Court’s recent ruling invalidated a majority-Black district as an illegal racial gerrymander. The state’s May 16 congressional primaries already have been postponed. What remains undecided is how many seats Republicans will try to pick up while redrawing the districts.
Alabama also is poised to switch its congressional districts for this year’s elections, after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order for it to use a map with two largely Black districts.
Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new House maps enacted so far in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.
South Carolina weighs political risks of redistricting
A South Carolina House committee is to consider Tuesday whether to send a congressional redistricting plan to the full chamber for debate. The House also appears poised to pass legislation that could delay the June 9 congressional primaries until August to allow time for new districts to be enacted. That comes even as some absentee and overseas military ballots already have been cast.
But any redistricting effort also must clear the Senate, where support is less certain. Two-thirds of senators have to agree before the regular General Assembly session ends Thursday to let the legislature take up redistricting later.
Trump said on social media Monday that he was closely watching the redistricting vote, urging South Carolina senators to “be bold and courageous” and to delay the House primaries so new districts can be drawn.
Although Republicans have a supermajority in the chamber, several senators aren’t sure the proposed map guarantees the GOP will win seat held by long-serving Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. And they think enough Democratic voters could be pushed into other districts that the plan could backfire, resulting in a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split.
Some also question whether it is fair for Republicans to get all the seats in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate has gotten at least 40% of the vote every election this century, even if Trump is asking for the new map.
Louisiana GOP looks to target one or two seats
State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who oversees the Louisiana Senate committee tasked with redistricting, said his panel plans to vote Tuesday on a U.S. House map, with a full Senate vote expected Thursday.
The committee has several options, including versions that would leave Democrats favored in only one district or none. Kleinpeter said a map eliminating all majority-Black districts would be difficult to hold up in court.
Last Friday, dozens of people urged lawmakers to retain two majority-Black districts during a grueling nine-hour hearing that featured civil rights activists and the only four Black congressmen elected to represent the state since the end of the Reconstruction era.
Missouri map splits Kansas City district
Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats under a map passed by the Republican-led legislature after the 2020 census. But with Trump’s backing, Republican state officials adopted a new map last September that improves their chances of winning an additional seat by targeting a Kansas City district held by longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who previously was the city’s first Black mayor.
The new House map places portions of Kansas City in neighboring Republican districts and stretches the remainder of Cleaver’s 5th District far eastward into Republican-heavy rural areas. A state judge in March rejected an assertion that the map violates a constitutional compactness requirement, finding that the new districts on average are more compact — even if the 5th District is not. That was appealed to the state Supreme Court.
A separate case also being argued Tuesday at the state Supreme Court contends the new districts should have been automatically suspended in December when opponents submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum.
But Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins contend the new districts can be suspended only if — and after — Hoskins determines the petition meets constitutional requirements and has enough valid signatures. Hoskins has until Aug. 4, the day of Missouri’s primary elections, to make that determination.
A state judge in March agreed with the Republicans’ position while also ruling that the plaintiffs lacked grounds to sue and had done so too soon.
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Brook reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Collins from Columbia, South Carolina, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.
LUFKIN (KETK) – Officials are warning residents that scam artists are allegedly impersonating Angelina County law enforcement officers and demanding East Texans send them Bitcoin payments. According to our news partner KETK and the Lufkin Police Department, scammers are impersonating a deputy from the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office, where they call residents to claim that they’ve missed jury duty and must pay thousands of dollars to make up for it.
The scammers can make their call appear as if it’s coming directly from the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office but officials insist these calls are not real and should be promptly ignored.
“This scam is oftentimes done by scammers posing as other state and federal agencies, as well,” Lufkin Police Department Chief Travis Brazil said. “These scammers will always create a sense of urgency to make the victims panic and pressure them into paying quickly.”
Scammers will ask residents to make these payments through the new Bitcoin cryptocurrency ATMs that can be found at many convenience stores around the country. Usually, once a Bitcoin transaction is made, police can’t recover any of the funds from scammers, but luckily, Lufkin Police detectives were able to retrieve over $10,000 from a Bitcoin ATM last week after residents reported making their payment to the sheriff’s office.
Similarly, Angelina County Sheriff Tom Selman said a local woman recently showed up to the sheriff’s office with cash in hand and was able to keep her money because she couldn’t figure out how to use a Bitcoin ATM to make the payment that scammers demanded.
“None of these calls are real,” Selman said. “These are scammers scaring you by threatening jail time to get your money. Once the scammer empties the Bitcoin machine, the money is gone and we cannot trace it.”
The Diboll Police Department also warned of similar scams reported in their area, where scammers ask for gift cards and tell residents that they’re under a gag order and can’t talk to anyone about their illegal demands for payment.
“No law enforcement officer will ever call you and ask for any immediate payment in lieu of jail. We do not ask you to get gift cards of any type and we do not ask for you banking information, ever! We will not tell you that you are under a gag order and cannot contact anyone,” Diboll PD said. “If you have received any phone call or text and you even suspect it might be a scam, google the number for your local police department or sheriff’s office, call them and ask.”
The sheriff’s office and Lufkin PD are working to stop these scams but the best way to stop them is for East Texans to learn that these people are only after your money and that no one should ever have to call you for missing jury duty or to pay off a warrant.
“Neither department will call residents about missing jury duty,” Brazil said. “Please hang up on these callers and call either the Lufkin Police Department or the Sheriff’s Office to report the call. Notifying our offices will help you verify it is a scam and will give us more information to track down these scammers.”
Selman agreed and noted that nobody will get a call before being arrested.
“If there is a warrant for your arrest, we will come and arrest you. No one is arrested for missing jury duty,” Selman said.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Office has called for these Bitcoin ATMs and all cryptocurrency machines to be banned at the state level, in light of these recent scams.
LIVINGSTON (KETK) — A member of the Livingston Police Department was fired and arrested on Monday after being accused of having an improper relationship with a student.
According to the department, they were notified by Livingston ISD on May 1 regarding allegations of Ryan Boyd, a 45-year-old police officer, having an inappropriate relationship with a student.
Boyd was subsequently removed from the school campus and was placed on administrative leave while the department opened an investigation.
Boyd was terminated on Monday and was taken into custody by the Texas Rangers. He was later booked into the Polk County Jail and charged with having an improper relationship between educator and student.
“LPD understands incidents like this can damage public trust,” the department said. “We want our community to know that these allegations were taken seriously from the beginning. We remain committed to transparency, accountability and protecting our community.”
The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Polk County District Attorney’s Office at 936-327-6868.
ANGELINA COUNTY – Scammers are calling residents and threatening to put them in jail if they do not pay thousands of dollars in cash right away for missing jury duty. In a released from the county obtained Monday, Sheriff Tom Selman and Lufkin Police Chief Travis Brazil stated that neither the Lufkin Police Department nor the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office will call and demand payment or threaten jail time for missing jury duty.
Calls that appear to be from the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office are the subject of the current scam. The con artist is threatening locals into putting thousands of dollars in cash into a bit coin machine at a nearby convenience store by using a deputy’s name.
After locals called the Sheriff’s office to report making the payment, Lufkin Police detectives were able to retrieve over $10,000 from a bit coin machine last week.
The Texas Tribune – Federal officials opened a civil rights investigation into the state-controlled Houston ISD over its plans to relocate students with disabilities, separating them from classmates.
Some students with disabilities will be required to move campuses next school year where they will learn in a “contained” setting, Houston ISD Deputy Superintendent Kristen Hole announced earlier this week. It is part of an effort to centralize special education services, so programs spread across several campuses could be consolidated into one site. The majority of special education students will not be affected.
Hole said the changes will mean better instruction for children with disabilities with more small-group settings for individualized attention.
However, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is examining whether the move runs directly counter to the federal law that says students with disabilities should learn alongside classmates who do not have disabilities as much as possible.
“Schools cannot exclude students with disabilities simply because of their disability status. Placement decisions must be made individually, based on each student’s needs, rather than by blanket policies that segregate students by disability category,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey wrote in a statement. “The allegations described here are alarming.”
Houston ISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation. The district’s website notes that student services will still closely follow individualized education plans, or IEPs, which is a written plan of each students’ needs.
Federal officials cited concerns from Houston families that their children will lose out on a chance to improve their social skills in general education classrooms. Parents also worry that longer transportation times to these alternative campuses will be challenging for children with medical and behavioral needs.
Houston ISD previously has struggled to provide supports to the more than 20,000 students who qualify for special education services. In 2020, special investigators with the Texas Education Agency found HISD in “systemic and widespread” noncompliance with special education law.
About a decade ago, federal officials found Texas failed to properly educate many students with disabilities.The state had quietly capped the percentage of students that schools could identify as in need of special education services.
Houston ISD has been under state control since June 2023 due to chronic poor academic performance. For the district to regain local control, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said, in addition to improving academic outcomes, HISD must get its special education programs in compliance with state and federal law.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.