Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – The Texas Supreme Court tossed temporary injunctions Friday that halted child abuse investigations against parents who allowed their transgender kids to access puberty blockers and hormone therapy, in large part because the state has closed such inquiries into three families who sued and a fourth child is now an adult.
The court’s ruling did not determine whether providing such healthcare to kids constitutes child abuse, as Attorney General Ken Paxton concluded in a nonbinding legal opinion in 2022. The legal battle seeking to shield parents from such state investigations began before Texas banned doctors outright from providing puberty blockers and hormone therapies to kids for gender transitioning.
There was no immediate comment from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Four families and the organization PFLAG, Inc. had won temporary injunctions stopping DFPS from investigating reports of trans minors using puberty blockers and hormone therapy. While the agency’s appeal of the temporary injunctions were pending, DFPS officials permanently closed its investigations and a fourth child has now reached their 18th birthday. As such, the Texas Supreme Court ruled, there was no need to keep the temporary injunctions in place.
“There exists no credible, nonspeculative threat that DFPS will investigate these plaintiffs in the future based on the use of medical treatments for gender transitioning, either because DFPS has already ruled out these families for such an investigation or because the children’s having reached the age of majority deprives DFPS of authority to investigate.”
The case began four years ago shortly after Gov. Greg Abbott notified DFPS that the attorney general’s office had issued an opinion that concluded it is “against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning.” The governor’s letter directed the agency “to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures” in Texas. As a result the agency announced it would follow the law.
A week later, parents of a then 16-year-old child diagnosed with gender dysphoria and a psychologist who treats such children sued the Governor, the DFPS Commissioner, and DFPS in Travis County. A few months after that, three more families brought a similar suit. A Travis County trial court ultimately issued three separate orders temporarily enjoining DFPS and its commissioner from investigating allegations regarding children’s use of drugs for the purpose of gender transitioning.
Three of the families had their cases closed with no further investigation or action. The fourth child, that former 16-year-old, is now an adult and the agency can no longer investigate their case.
DILLEY (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – A flight carrying an Egyptian family to Michigan late Saturday abruptly turned around after a Texas judge ruled that the six should remain in the U.S. pending further litigation.
The last-minute reversal was the most recent development in a dizzying series of events this week that attorneys said added to ongoing questions over the executive’s power compared to the judiciary when it comes to President Donald Trump’s purview of immigration and his administration’s push for expanded deportations.
A Texas federal judge Saturday ruled that the family, believed to be the longest held at the controversial South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, should not immediately be deported after immigration agents suddenly re-arrested the mother and her children hours earlier. A second order by a federal judge in Colorado was issued Saturday evening, reiterating that the family should not be deported.
The rulings came as the family was on a plane to Michigan, from where the government ostensibly planned to quickly deport them to Egypt, where their attorneys said the mother and her children fear persecution.
The plane, the attorney, Michigan-based Eric Lee, posted on X, “constitutionally cannot be allowed to take off.”
It would not have been the first time that Trump’s administration deported immigrants after federal judges ordered against their removal. Among the most well-known cases is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, who was living in Maryland before he was mistakenly sent to a notorious mega-prison in that Central American country last year despite an earlier U.S. court order barring Abrego Garcia’s deportation. His case spurred global criticism, although he has since returned to the U.S., as litigation in his case is ongoing.
“Stop this travesty of justice from taking place,” Lee, the Gamal family attorney, posted on X earlier Saturday, referring to the El Gamal family.
Lee added that the “attempt to remove the El Gamal family is in violation of a federal court order and must be halted immediately. The rights of the entire population and the most basic principles of separation of powers are at stake.”
U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio ruled hours after the family’s re-detention Saturday that given the emergency appeal by lawyers, the family’s deportation to Egypt should be paused. Biery agreed with his own previous ruling as well as one by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney this week that the family, which includes 5-year-old twins who have been held at Dilley for more than 10 months, should be freed while they await an immigration judge’s decision on their asylum case.
The family received widespread attention after the mother and her children earlier this year began publicly raising alarms about the treatment at the facility, including medical neglect, rotting food, impotable water, and disrespect for their Muslim faith. Last week, lawyers said that the mother was rushed to the emergency room after months of suffering from an unidentified bump, which she feared may be cancerous due to her family history and possibly heightened by the lack of medical care at the detention center.
AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – The City of Austin on Friday announced it is updating Austin Police orders to clarify when officers should contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents about people they detain. It is the third city in Texas to revise its policy on local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities this week, amid massive funding threats from Gov. Greg Abbott.
On April 16, the governor’s office warned Austin and Dallas that millions in grants — including more than $55 million in World Cup public safety funding for Dallas — could be at risk if city police failed to change their general orders limiting officers’ coordination with ICE. Austin risked $2.5 million in grants for sexual assault evidence testing, victims assistance programming and other public safety initiatives.
A press release about the new orders states that officers should contact ICE “when operationally feasible” if a person detained by an officer is found to have an administrative warrant issued by ICE. The orders also direct Austin police to “not take an unreasonable amount of time assisting” with the warrants.
The new orders come a day after Austin received a deadline extension to update their rules, which placed restrictions on when and how an officer could contact ICE. It is unclear what exact language was changed, as Austin officials did not immediately provide the text of the new general orders for city police, but said they would be available online next week.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said in a statement that the updated general orders allow the city to properly allocate resources to maintain public safety.
“My focus — and the focus of every Austin Police officer — remains on public safety and community policing,” Davis said.
Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s spokesperson, said in a statement that the governor’s office had lifted the funding hold and “expects full contract compliance moving forward.”
“Governor Abbott has been clear: cities in Texas must fully comply with state law and cooperate with federal immigration authorities to keep dangerous criminals off our streets,” Mahaleris said.
Dallas on Thursday removed its ban on police officers prolonging a person’s detention during encounters like traffic stops to hold them for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux announced that the department had updated its general order to affirm that local officers will “cooperate with federal authorities when required” while still protecting the safety of all residents.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana authorities said Friday they had charged a 17-year-old with murder and were searching for another suspect after bystanders were caught in the crossfire of a shooting at a mall in Baton Rouge that killed one teenage girl and injured five other people.
Baton Rouge Police Chief TJ Morse said the shooting Thursday at the Mall of Louisiana was not a random act and seemed to be driven by “social media beefs and maybe gang-related stuff,” adding that the investigation was ongoing.
“We know that this was two groups of people that met up at the mall, exchanged words and then pulled guns and innocent people were hit,” Morse said.
The chief spoke at a news conference alongside Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who vowed to crack down on gang violence in the capital city and said he had spoken with FBI Director Kash Patel. The Republican governor promised to use state, local and federal resources to address the issue and that consequences “are going to start being felt immediately.”
Landry said he was asking all levels and sectors of law enforcement to “prepare for a targeted warrant sweep” for anyone connected to the mall shooting. He said it would focus on the “neighborhoods that these individuals came out of” without naming specific parts of the city.
“We are not going to allow our streets, our schools and our public spaces to become your battleground,” Landry said. “Those who brought this violence into our public spaces and into the lives of our ordinary citizens, I want you to know you are now the criminal problem and we are focused on you.”
Shoppers and workers inside mall fled and hid for cover as shots rang out at in the food court. Morse said that two officers on duty at the mall ran toward the gunfire without hesitation and rendered aid. Their quick action helped save lives, he said.
Hundreds of police officers — some wearing tactical gear and carrying long riffles — descended on the mall.
Authorities say Martha Odom, a 17-year-old high school student from Lafayette, died in the shooting. Odom was visiting the mall with friends for her “senior skip day,” The Advocate reported. Two other high school students from Odom’s school, Ascension Episcopal School, were among the injured.
In a social media post by the school, Odom was described as “a joyful presence whose kindness and infectious enthusiasm brought light to all who knew her.”
Five people were initially taken into custody following the shooting but later released. A 17-year-old was arrested Friday after turning himself in, Morse said. The teen has been charged with first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and a count of illegal use of a weapon.
Under recently enacted Louisiana law, 17-year-olds are treated as adults in the state’s criminal justice system.
The deadly shooting is the second high-profile case of gun violence in Louisiana this week. A father fatally shot eight children, including seven of his own, in an attack on his family Sunday morning that stretched across two houses in a Shreveport neighborhood, police said. Two women, including the gunman’s wife who was the mother of their children, were critically wounded.
NEW YORK (AP) — It might be hard to imagine the Iran war weighing on stuffed toys with names like Snuggle Glove, Bizzikins and Wobblies, but even plush playthings are not immune when oil shipments from the Middle East are constrained.
Like many soft toys, the creatures developed by a manufacturer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum. Three weeks after the war started, suppliers in China notified Aleni Brands that getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more, CEO Ricardo Venegas said.
“I think this situation demonstrates how much oil permeates throughout our system, and we can’t get away from it,” said Venegas, who founded Aleni Brands last year and is in the process of adding product lines. “Who would have thought that the price of a toy would have a direct relationship with oil?”
It’s not just toys. Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas go into making more than 6,000 consumer products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Computer keyboards, lipstick, tennis rackets, pajamas, soft contact lenses, detergent, chewing gum, shoes, crayons, shaving cream, pillows, aspirin, dentures, tape, umbrellas and nylon guitar strings are just a few of them.
So far, the war’s most tangible and immediate effect for many people outside the conflict zone has been spiking gasoline prices. Travelers also are seeing higher airfares and flight fees as airlines respond to the rising cost of jet fuel. Consumers may find themselves paying more for food, furniture or any of the myriad of goods transported by trucks that run on diesel.
But crude oil isn’t just refined as fuel. It gets turned into chemicals, waxes, oils and other mixtures that appear in a vast array of everyday items, including most made with plastic and rubber. Petroleum derivatives also are used in a lot of packaging. With disruptions to global oil supplies now in their eighth week, higher production costs also could make things more expensive for shoppers, according to trade groups and some companies.
Venegas, a 30-year toy industry veteran, said he would absorb higher material costs for now but expects to increase prices for customers by early 2027, if the war goes on another three to six months.
While 85% of global oil consumption is in the form of fuel, the rest goes into a wide range of consumer products, according to Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University’s School of Business.
Crude oil is mostly a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, which are compounds made of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Refineries and chemical plants separate and break them down to convert them into smaller chemical building blocks known as petrochemicals.
Six petrochemicals — ethylene, propylene, butylene, benzene, toluene and xylenes — are the major foundations of plastics and synthetic materials like nylon and polyesters, which manufacturers in turn use to design and deliver products. More from the Department of Energy: Automobile parts, ballpoint pens, curtains, dice, eyeglasses, fertilizer, golf balls, hearing aids, insect repellant, kayaks, luggage, mops and nail polish.
Materials account for a big share of production costs for many manufacturers, including those that supply carpets, clothing and tires, according to Andrew Walberer, partner and global lead in the chemicals practice of global strategy and management consultancy Kearney.
Take a button-down shirt, for example. Walberer estimated that materials account for 27%-30% of how much it costs a manufacturer to make one. Labor costs contribute 10% to 30%. Business expenses tied to marketing, distribution and administration comprises the rest, he said.
Experts say if oil holds above $90 per barrel for the next several months, cost pressures will accelerate throughout the supply network.
Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America CEO Matt Priest said most of the trade organization’s members keep a two- to three-month inventory of finished products, providing a temporary cushion against higher materials costs.
Roughly 70% of the materials in synthetic shoes are petrochemical-based, and 30% of the costs for those materials are directly tied to oil price rate swings, according to a report the organization published last month on the U.S. footwear industry’s “exposure to oil prices & the impact on shoe costs.”
The FDRA analysis estimated that between materials, factory energy and transportation, companies paying more for petroleum could translate into a 1.5% to 3% increase in the price shoppers pay for a pair of shoes by late summer and the fall.
By the end of April, U.S. shoe and clothing manufacturers need to start signing contracts with suppliers, mostly outside the U.S., for orders of polyester staple fiber and polyester filament yarn to get their designs on retail shelves and online for the holiday shopping season, according to Nate Herman, executive vice president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association.
One kilogram, or a little over two pounds, of the materials used in polyester textiles, has increased in price from an average of 90 cents before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran to $1.33 per kilogram, Herman said. He estimated that each garment will cost 10 cents to 15 cents more to produce as a result.
Some businesses are looking for ways to offset rising costs.
Lisa Lane is the founder of Rinseroo, which sells portable shower head, bathtub and sink attachments for cleaning, pet grooming, and bathing. She recently tripled the number of the slip-on hoses she procures from China each month after her manufacturer said the cost would be 30% higher in another 30 days. She had a few days to decide whether to place a three-month advance order.
The components of Rinseroo’s products include petroleum derivatives like polyvinyl chloride, Lane said. After purchasing 240,000 units instead of her usual 80,000, she is also evaluating cost-cutting options.
Lane said she wants to hold off on increasing prices for retailers that sell the attachments since Rinseroo did that last year to offset higher U.S. tariffs on imports from China. For example, a hose for washing pets in a bathtub went up to $33.95 from $29.95 on retail websites, she said.
“We want to stay at that sweet spot where people want to continue to buy from us and feel like they’re getting a good value,” Lane said.
Another company, which sells wound care products like bandages, dressings, pads and sponges to nursing homes and other medical facilities, plans to raise its prices by 15% in a matter of weeks. Gentell CEO David Navazio noted that adhesives in the products rely on several petrochemicals.
Including energy for production and materials, Navazio estimated the company’s costs are going up by 20%.
Gentell, which is based in Yardley, Pennsylvania but has its main manufacturing location in Toronto, also makes private label products for other companies, including a medical technology firm that supplies retail stores like CVS.
Because bandages and dressings are necessities, Navazio said he doesn’t think his business will suffer if it raises customer prices. Less certain is whether prices will come down once the war ends and oil shipments stabilize.
“In the past, I’ve seen transportation costs come down, but I’ve never seen prices of raw material come down,” he said.
EL PASO (AP) – At the peak of the crackdown, carloads of masked immigration officers were a common sight in the streets of Minneapolis, while thousands of people were being arrested every week in Texas, Florida and California.
“Turn and burn,” top Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino called the strategy, with relentless displays of force and teams of agents descending on restaurant kitchens, bus stops and Home Depot parking lots.
In December, arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide and were nearly as high the next month, according to data provided to UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.
In late January, the killings in Minneapolis of two American citizens by immigration officers and growing concerns over the government’s heavy-handed tactics led to a shake-up of top immigration officials. In the weeks that followed, ICE arrests across the country dropped on average by nearly 12%.
Polling has found the general public felt the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota went too far, a factor that may have contributed to the abrupt firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in early March.
Bovino, who swaggered through raid scenes in tactical gear and was the public face of the Trump administration crackdown, was pushed aside following the killings in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Border czar Tom Homan was then sent to the Twin Cities to chart a new course for immigration enforcement, and he announced the drawdown of immigration agents in the state on Feb. 4.
An AP analysis of ICE arrest records show the department averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide in the five weeks after Homan’s drawdown announcement, , the most recent period for which data is available, down from 8,347 per week in the previous five weeks. Those arrest numbers were still higher on average than during much of the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, and were dramatically higher than during the Biden administration.
The numbers were not, however, uniform across the country.
ICE arrests rose significantly in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina and Florida during those five weeks, in some cases hitting their highest weekly count since the start of Trump’s second term.. In Kentucky alone, weekly arrests more than doubled, reaching 86 by early March.
Those increases were offset by steep drops in a handful of large states, including Minnesota and Texas.
The Trump administration insists it is targeting the most vicious criminals living illegally in the U.S., and the president has referred to them as “the worst of the worst.”
In some cases the description is accurate, but the reality is complicated.
Many of the toughest criminals taken into ICE custody were already in prison, but many others who were arrested have no criminal history.
Nationally, some 46% of the people ICE arrested in the five weeks before Feb. 4 had no criminal charges or convictions, dropping to 41% in the five weeks that followed.
Yet that’s still above the 35% weekly average for the time since Trump returned to office. And in a number of states, even after Feb. 4, the share of noncriminals being arrested went up, not down.
Across the country, thousands of federal court filings offer an imperfect window into how the Trump administration’s deportation tactics remain in high gear, even if activity has waned.
Like the 21-year-old Honduran man with no criminal record who has filed a petition for release after being arrested Feb. 22 in a suburban San Diego traffic stop. The father of three U.S. citizen children — ages 5, 3 and 10 months — had been under ICE surveillance, the petition says, before officers in tactical gear pulled him over.
Or the 33-year-old Venezuelan woman, a well-known South Texas doctor who worked in a region designated as medically underserved, who was arrested earlier this month with her five-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, on her way to her husband’s asylum hearing.
She was arrested, officials said, for overstaying her visa.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the research and advocacy group the American Immigration Council, says he sees signs of change in lower arrest and detention numbers but warns it’s too early to know if those shifts are permanent.
“The Trump administration says: ‘We’re not slowing down,’ ‘Nothing has changed,’” in immigration enforcement, he said. “But it’s very clear that they have pulled back from some of the tactics of Operation Metro Surge,” the crackdown that swept Minneapolis.
TEXARKANA, Texas (AP) — A long-distance runner for Texas A&M-Texarkana died after collapsing during a competition in New Orleans, the university said Saturday.
Graycen Vargo of Dallas suffered a medical emergency and collapsed Friday evening at the Red River Athletic Conference track and field championships hosted by Xavier. He was given on-site medical attention before being taken to a hospital, where he died, Texas A&M-Texarkana said in a news release.
Vargo was a junior computer science major competing in his first year with the Eagles after previously competing at Jacksonville College.
“Our thoughts are with Graycen’s family, teammates, and friends as they deal with this unimaginable loss,” said Ross Alexander, A&M-Texarkana’s president. “Graycen was a respected member of the student body and a beloved member of the Cross Country and Track and Field Teams. His presence will be greatly missed by the entire university community.”
The school said counseling services would be available to students.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration’s historic move to reclassify state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug was cheered by some advocates but for others, it fell far short for the thousands still incarcerated on federal cannabis-related convictions.
The executive order, which acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed Thursday, does not address current penalties for possessing and selling marijuana or those jailed with yearslong sentences.
“While this is a victory, the fight is far from over,” said Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit focused on cannabis criminal justice reform.
Proponents of legalizing marijuana as well as overhauling prison sentencing say this order, which does not completely decriminalize the drug, benefits only cannabis researchers, growers and others in Big Weed. Meanwhile, thousands — many of whom are people of color — are stuck serving harsh sentences for marijuana-related offenses. Or they have served their time but having a conviction on their record has made life difficult.
Now, advocates are calling on Congress and state lawmakers to take concrete steps to ensure those with marijuana-related convictions receive fair treatment or be forgiven altogether.
Prisoners and their families look for hope
Blanche’s order reclassifies state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug. The major policy shift, which both Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden had considered, means cannabis won’t be grouped with drugs like heroin.
But it does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use. It shifts licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. This will likely give licensed medical marijuana operators and cannabis researchers a major tax break and less stringent barriers to doing normal business.
Virtually no one imprisoned at the federal level is there solely for marijuana possession. But many are there for large-scale possession, trafficking offenses or both.
Hector Ruben McGurk, 66, has been serving life without the possibility of parole since 2007 for transporting thousands of pounds of marijuana and money laundering. He is currently imprisoned in Beaumont, Texas, over 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) from his son’s El Paso home. His incarceration has been hard on his son, said McGurk’s daughter-in-law, Ferna Anguiano. And the distance makes visits logistically difficult.
So it’s tempting to see this order as a glimmer of hope, given that the family believes McGurk’s punishment far outweighs his crimes. But Anguiano has no idea how to navigate lobbying for his release.
“His release date is death,” Anguiano said. “I mean, we see all this stuff on the news — bigger cases, fatal cases — and people are going in and out of prison and coming out to their families.”
They try to keep in touch through phone calls and a prison texting service. They’re concerned about McGurk’s health and his diabetes management. It would be a dream come true for him to come home.
“He deserves a second chance,” Anguiano said. “Yes, it was a poor decision he did in his lifetime. He was younger. But he is not a bad person. I think it’s fair to say he has served enough time for it.”
It’s not clear whether punishments would be different had marijuana always been scheduled differently, drug policy experts say.
“In addition to schedule-specific penalties, there are marijuana-specific penalties that have nothing to do with the schedule,” said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. “Even if marijuana were to be moved to Schedule V, those criminal penalties would still exist and there are mandatory minimums for simple possession.”
Racial disparities exist in convictions and Big Weed
Destigmatizing marijuana has long been an issue for both political parties. Obama commuted the sentences of about 1,900 federal prisoners, almost all of whom were incarcerated for nonviolent drug crimes. Biden pardoned 6,500 people convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia. President Donald Trump’s administration has taken far fewer drug clemency actions and does not have an overarching policy directing such actions.
“What many people on the right and the left would like is to move marijuana from this ‘just as bad as heroin’ category and to just sort of de-schedule it entirely,” said Marta Nelson, director of sentencing reform at the Vera Institute of Justice. “Regulate it like you do alcohol or tobacco.”
Studies show Black Americans are roughly 3.7 to 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans, despite usage rates being roughly the same across racial groups. Federal-level marijuana cases are pretty small today, but those serving sentences for federal drug offenses are overwhelmingly Hispanic and Black, according to Justice Department and Bureau of Justice Statistics data.
The racial disparity with drug convictions is reminiscent of 2010 legislation Obama signed reducing the gap between mandatory sentences for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. In 2018, Trump made it apply retroactively.
Because business owners with state medical marijuana licenses are predominantly white, the tax relief created by the rescheduling will also likely give a leg-up to mostly white businesses, Packer said. A lot of equity programs won’t apply.
“This is going to, in my mind, widen the gap, the financial disparities, the business disparities that currently exist between Black and brown, Latino and white owners in the cannabis industry because licenses were not distributed equitably,” Packer said.
Possible next steps for marijuana convictions
In theory, Trump could issue a blanket pardon like he did for Jan. 6 rioters. But Nelson thinks that is highly doubtful.
“Having marijuana convictions on the record for things like mass immigration enforcement is helpful to the administration,” Nelson said.
An impactful next step would be for Congress to outline very comprehensive legislation addressing existing marijuana-related convictions, expungements and industry regulations, she added.
The Last Prisoner Project and other organizations are planning to renew a dialogue with federal lawmakers, including the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, which includes Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and Republican Rep. David Joyce. They will also continue to lobby for Trump to conduct a large-scale act of commutation and clemency.
Advocates are also hoping Trump’s order will prompt every state to rethink their marijuana classification and penalties.
“It is imperative that every state review their situation, as a lot of their controlled substances at the state level are tied to the federal government,” Ortiz said. “We’re gonna see other states that are going to need a little help from the public to remind them what the right thing to do is.”
AUSTIN (AP) — Texas state regulators found nearly two dozen deficiencies in the emergency operations plan submitted in Camp Mystic’s bid to reopen less than a year after 27 children and counselors were killed in a devastating flood.
Camp Mystic’s owners have applied for a license to reopen the all-girls Christian camp in late May in part of the campus that did not flood. That has angered families of the girls killed, some of whom have filed lawsuits against the camp, and prompted several prominent state officials to call for the license to be denied or delayed pending the outcome of ongoing investigations.
The 11-page letter from the Department of State Health Services notes deficiencies that include problems with flood warning evacuation plans, use of an emergency warning and public address system, monitoring safety alerts and training campers on safety.
It was sent to the camp about a week after a three-day court hearing in the family lawsuits when several camp operators and staff acknowledged they missed official flood warnings, lacked a detailed evacuation plan and waited too long to try to get the children out. One of the camp’s owners, Richard Eastland, also died.
The letter notes that Camp Mystic is allowed to revise the emergency plan. Camp Mystic officials said they would work with the agency to address the problems cited.
“Our priority remains the safety and well-being of our campers, and we hope to continue the nearly century-long mission and ministry of Camp Mystic to provide a Christian camping experience for girls that allows them to grow physically, mentally and spiritually,” the camp said.
The camp’s emergency plan was submitted as part of strict new guidelines imposed by state lawmakers after the deadly flood.
DSHS spokesperson Lara Anton said many camps have received deficiency notices ahead of summer opening.
“This is part of the licensing application review process, and most youth camps have received a notice of deficiency letter for their emergency plan due to the statutory changes and increased emergency plan requirements,” Anton said.
Texas lawmakers have scheduled two days of hearings next week on what happened during the flood that ripped through the Guadalupe River and killed more than 130 people in all. Several lawmakers and the Texas Rangers, the state police elite investigations unit, visited the camp site this week.
NACOGDOCHES (KETK) — A Nacogdoches County jury has convicted Ronnie Farrell Jernigan Jr. of capital murder in the shooting deaths of his girlfriend and her mother, ending a case that previously resulted in a hung jury.
According to the Nacogdoches County District Attorney’s Office, jurors on April 23, found Jernigan guilty on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of 48-year-old Laquice Sanford and her 73-year-old mother, Laura Jean Sanford. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Police were first called to a home on Stone Street in October 2023 after a neighbor discovered Laura Jean’s body on the front porch. Investigators said she had been shot in the back of the head, with her head resting in the basket of a bicycle parked nearby.
Officers then entered the residence and found Laquice dead inside. Authorities said she had been shot in the face at close range.
Jernigan, identified as Laquice’s boyfriend, was later located at his mother’s home. He initially denied being at the residence or seeing the victims that day, investigators said.
Surveillance footage from nearby businesses showed Jernigan riding the same bicycle found at the scene and wearing a hat later recovered inside the home near Laquice’s body, according to prosecutors.
During questioning, Jernigan told detectives he had previously purchased a firearm but claimed he had returned it. A neighbor later discovered a gun in a vacant yard behind his mother’s house. Ballistics testing confirmed the weapon was used in both killings and matched the firearm previously sold to Jernigan, authorities said.
Investigators also found gunshot residue on Jernigan’s hands and DNA from one of the victims on his clothing. Cellphone data placed him at the home at the time of the shootings, prosecutors said.
The case had previously gone to trial in October 2025 but ended in a hung jury. A retrial concluded this week with a guilty verdict after jurors also heard accusations of Jernigan’s prior abuse of Laquice and a previous partner.
In a statement, the district attorney’s office thanked jurors for their “diligence and careful consideration,” adding that the sentence ensures Jernigan “will never be released from prison and protects the public from further violence.” Prosecutors also said the case underscores the dangers of domestic violence and its potential consequences.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was 1972 and Apollo astronauts Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Eugene Cernan had just stepped onto the moon’s surface to begin collecting rock and soil samples.
The mission would mark the end of an era for the American space program, but Schmitt already was looking to the future. His voice crackling over a high-frequency radio signal that day, he shared his thoughts with Cernan and those listening in at Mission Control.
“Well, I tell you Gene, I think the next generation ought to accept this as a challenge. Let’s see them leave footsteps like these someday,” Schmitt said.
Schmitt, 90, is one of the four Apollo moonwalkers still alive today. A field geologist, he was the first scientist to set foot on the moon and his expertise helped answer questions about the origin of that big rock up there and what it tells us about the solar system.
Schmitt felt the thrill again when the Artemis II crew rocketed into space on a historic lunar flyby. Pure excitement and the potential for so much more. And he’s hopeful as new generations get back to the moon and beyond.
Interviewed by The Associated Press, the former U.S. senator from New Mexico spoke about everything from the importance of having a lunar base to tapping new energy sources and whether we’re alone in the universe. Dark matter and quantum entanglement also were mentioned, with Schmitt saying many discoveries are yet to come.
“You’ve just got to remember,” he said, “what used to be called supernatural probably should be called unknown physics.”
This interview has been edited for brevity.
Q: What about having a lunar base?
Well, I think a lunar base makes a lot of sense and it always has for a lot of reasons. One is geopolitical. Probably the most important one is a geopolitical presence in deep space — and in preparation for going on to Mars.
The moon has resources that are going to reduce the cost of actually going to Mars and it gains experience. One of the things people keep forgetting about is you’ve gone through several generations and the new generation has to gain experience — psychologically as well as practically about how you work in deep space. And they’re doing that. That was probably the most important part of Artemis II, is it gave the ground people, Mission Control and others, the experience now to really have the risk as real rather than as part of a simulation.
Q: What was your mission during Apollo 17?
I had a lot of understanding of what other crews had learned, what had been learned from some of the early sample analyses and so we were trying to put sort of the frosting on the cake of answering questions in a very complex geologic area called Taurus-Littrow.
Taurus-Littrow actually is deeper than the Grand Canyon and so it has a three-dimensional aspect to it that we hadn’t had on other missions. And plus having a field geologist like myself on board meant that we should be more efficient at gathering samples that had a meaningful aspect to our further understanding of the origin of the moon, its relationship to the Earth and, it turns out, also its relationship to the history of the sun.
Q: So we’re building upon our knowledge of the universe around us?
Well there’s no question that the moon has a history to tell us.
It’s been recording the history of the solar system ever since the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago. That is really what the moon gives us — that library of knowledge, of potential knowledge about how the solar system evolved and then what the sun has been doing in that 4.5 billion years.
In the recent work that I’ve been doing in that layer of debris, the regolith, we find that the sun became even more active than it had been about the same time as we had an explosion of life in the oceans on Earth, and so the oceans may have been and almost certainly were warming to that more active sun and life likes warmth. So it multiplied not only in quantity but in diversity. The mammals started to appear soon after that, life started to move up onto the continents that had formed so things were really starting to move about a half-billion years ago.
Q: Tell us about the moon rocks
This is a sample of a basalt lava and we have a lot of basalt lavas here in New Mexico. This is different in that it is rich in titanium, more rich than most terrestrial basalts. And that titanium turns out to be very important in terms of the resources that are available on the moon. It has a property of concentrating some of those resources, particularly hydrogen and helium.
There’s an isotope called helium-3 and that is going to be, I think, ultimately very, very important in the production of energy. It’s going to be extremely useful in quantum computing, in cancer therapy and other things here on Earth. We just don’t have much on Earth, so the moon is going to be a our reservoir, our source of this very important isotope of helium-3.
Q: How important will this isotope be in the future?
Helium-3 offers a possibility of having nuclear energy without nuclear waste. We’ve known that for decades, and so the moon now offers that opportunity to begin to substitute a nuclear form of energy that doesn’t produce nuclear waste for what we have today.
Q: Is it just as much an energy race as a space race?
There’s no question about it. China is interested in it, we’re interested in it. And that’s probably one of the big technological drivers of this new race to the moon, a new space race, a Cold War that’s on now primarily involving China and I think helium-3 is a big actor in that right now.
Q: What was it like in the Taurus-Littrow Valley?
First of all, we were in a valley deeper than the Grand Canyon. The mountains on either side were as high as the Grand Canyon from the bottom. Secondly, you’re in one-sixth gravity so that means you can walk much more easily than you could here on Earth. Now we were covered by a pressure suit but still walking around was like being a kid again … if you fell you didn’t fall very hard and you certainly didn’t cry about it. But the moon is really a very easy place to work so as long as you have the right equipment surrounding you. You have to have that atmosphere of course to breathe.
Q: Any downsides to working in a weightless environment?
For me, it was a very comfortable environment to be in and you get a little bit lazy. For example, if you’re taking notes with a pad of paper and a pen or pencil and somebody says would you take the SCS switch to off, well you just let go and it floats there and you go over to the switch and come back and start to dictate those notes again.
You’ve got to be careful though because you’re brain gets lazy. When I got on the carrier after splashdown, I was taking my first drink of water and I just let go of the cup and of course it broke on the floor. Human beings tend to take advantage of their environment very quickly and the brain does get a little bit lazy like that. It took about three days to get comfortable again back here on Earth.
Q: So we’ll have no problem living on the moon?
No, I think living on the moon is going to be very good. Now long term civilization on the moon, there’s still some major issues. The radiation issue has to be dealt with and we can. There are ways to do that. Going to Mars is another issue and that’s why you’ll almost certainly need fusion rockets to cut that time frame.
Q: We’ve heard a lot lately about UFOs. What are your thoughts on that?
Well there are billions of sunlike stars out there and so you just have to imagine that life may have originated on some other planet, although the conditions for life to originate here on Earth are really unique. Everything sort of fit together and creation for us sort of leads to you thinking of an infinitely intelligent being that made it all happen. But the technical potential statistically is very high that you could have had the similar kind of conditions develop elsewhere in the universe.
Now are they visiting us? My feeling is if they’re really so advanced they could be here, they’d communicate better than they have and so I just don’t know. But it’s plausible. Let’s put it that way. Unlikely maybe, but plausible.
Q: Would you take the opportunity to go back to the moon or to Mars?
Oh surely. Teresa, my wife, would like very much to go with me — that would be one condition. But I think a trip to Mars is going to be fantastic for those people.
So youth is extremely important and the education of those youth particularly in mathematics is extraordinarily important, and NASA now has a younger agency than they had grown to be during the shuttle era.
Look what has happened since Apollo. The commercial sector has developed new technologies, new ways of doing things and NASA is now trying to integrate those into a new approach to deep space exploration.
HUNTSVILLE (AP) – When he was 19, James Broadnax jotted down rap lyrics, thoughts and even job leads in a notebook that would become evidence at his capital murder trial.
Prosecutors selected lyrics with alleged references to gang affiliation and shootings to convince jurors that instead of life in prison, Broadnax, who is Black, should be put to death after his conviction — a move his lawyers argue biased the almost all-white jury.
Broadnax isn’t the only defendant or even the only person on Texas’ death row whose rap lyrics have been introduced to a jury. Rap lyrics have featured in hundreds of court cases in more than 40 states over the past 50 years, though judges often exclude other forms of creative expression from being used as evidence, researchers have found. Treating rap lyrics as diary entries minimizes their artistic value while playing on negative racial stereotypes to influence jurors, experts say.
“It denies rap music the status of art. It is characterized as autobiography,” said Erik Nielson, co-author of the book “Rap on Trial.” “It really does speak to underlying assumptions that some people have about young men of color — and that’s almost exclusively who this practice targets — that they aren’t sophisticated enough to engage in various literary devices. That there isn’t metaphor here.”
Rap lyrics are commonly used in racketeering or gang-related cases. Prosecutors try to establish the defendant’s involvement in an underlying crime by introducing lyrics as evidence, Nielson said. If someone is charged with a shooting, for example, prosecutors look for lyrics that mention a shooting.
“If the lyrics were written before the alleged crime, the prosecutors will say this is evidence of motive,” Nielson said. “If they’re written afterward, they’re characterized as a straight-up confession.”
Rap lyrics introduced in court as autobiographical
Broadnax and his cousin were charged with murder for the 2008 shooting deaths of two men outside a suburban Dallas music studio. After more than a decade on death row, he is scheduled to be executed April 30.
In their pending appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt Broadnax’s execution, his attorneys argue that a judge should have considered the potential for racial bias and instructed the jury that his lyrics should not be viewed as autobiographical.
“The emphasis on the rap lyrics was a key element in this racially charged narrative,” Broadnax’s attorneys wrote. “Worse, the record in this case confirms that the jury delivered a death sentence based on the racial stereotypes invoked by the rap lyrics.”
Kemba, a rapper featured in the documentary “As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial,” told The Associated Press that introducing rap lyrics is particularly effective with juries because of innate prejudices — and because prosecutors want convictions.
“There’s a lot of people that don’t see rap or Black music as artistic expression,” he said. “And when you’re in a court case, there’s already an assumption that you’ve done something (wrong).”
The defendants in these cases are “almost exclusively young men of color, often with very limited resources,” and many can’t afford a private attorney, Nielson said.
But some high-profile rappers have had their songs introduced in court, like Young Thug, whose lyrics were used as evidence at his trial on gang and racketeering charges. He pleaded guilty to those charges and was released from custody in 2024.
Stereotypes about rap emerge
“The criminalization and the targeting of hip-hop has been going on for all 50 years of the culture,” said Nielson, who noted the use of rap lyrics in court ramped up in the early 1990s.
The monitoring of Black artistic expression dates back to the antebellum South, he said, though that intensified as rap music became more critical of power structures, like N.W.A.’s 1989 song “F— the Police,” which condemns police brutality.
In 2022, The New York Times’ Jaeah Lee looked for non-rap examples of lyrics used at trial from 1950 onward and found only four. Three cases were thrown out and one led to a conviction that was overturned. In that same time period, Nielson found roughly 700 examples of rap lyrics used in court cases, including lyrics that someone rapped but didn’t even write.
Another study conducted by University of Nevada assistant professor Adam Dunbar examined stereotypes of rap. He presented people with lyrics, saying they were from rap, country or metal music. When it came to rap, respondents overwhelmingly considered the lyrics to be autobiographical.
“But if they’re given the same lyrics and told that those are country or heavy metal lyrics, they say, ‘No, it’s just art,’” said J.M. Harper, director of “As We Speak.”
Some rappers have begun directly attesting to the fictional nature of their music. The year before he was fatally stabbed in 2021, Drakeo the Ruler released the song “Fictional” from behind bars because his lyrics were being treated as nonfiction. In 2023, 21 Savage described his raps as “fiction as hell.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that they are doing this for fear of prosecution,” Nielson said.
Rules of evidence can be open to judge’s interpretation
A number of A-list rappers, including Travis Scott, T.I. and Killer Mike, have filed briefs at the Supreme Court in support of Broadnax, cautioning against considering rap lyrics autobiographical.
Prosecutors in the case said Texas law allows evidence relevant to a defendant’s reputation at sentencing and contend the court shouldn’t consider the argument against the lyrics because Broadnax failed to raise concerns in previous appeals. State courts have ruled against other appeals by Broadnax’s attorneys.
“At the end of the day, the most important thing is not the prosecutors,” rapper LL Cool J told the AP in 2024, adding that judges should better block rap lyrics from trials. “The question is: Why is it even admissible?”
Lucius T. Outlaw III, a professor at Howard University School of Law who filed the amicus brief on behalf of Nielson and Killer Mike, said judges enforce rules of evidence specific to each state.
One judge might view rap lyrics as relevant; another may disagree. One might worry about triggering “anti-rap, which is anti-Black, bias,” he said, “where another judge will say, ‘I don’t see that prejudice.’”
“Guidelines about what is relevant when it comes to artistic expression and what is overly prejudicial is so needed,” he said.
Jeff Bellin, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, said current rules tell judges to exclude evidence if it has low value as proof and a danger of creating bias.
“The safeguard should be judges, but they are often not aware of the social issues, or the context, when it comes to rap lyrics,” he said.
New legislation seeks protection for lyrics
Bellin said legislating around the issue is difficult because lawmakers don’t want to create rules that would exclude evidence truly relevant to any case.
In the past five years, at least 27 bills have been introduced federally and in a half-dozen states to limit the use of a defendant’s creative expressions, including rap lyrics, in criminal proceedings, according to an AP analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural.
On April 9, Maryland became the third state to pass legislation, creating “guardrails and a test for judges to impose anytime prosecutors want to use artistic expression, not just rap,” Outlaw said, noting it requires a factual connection between the potential evidence and the charges.
“It’s not the cure-all, but it’s a huge, important step,” he said.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Two young people have been arrested in an alleged plot to attack a Texas synagogue that involved driving through the congregation to “kill as many Jews as possible,” according to authorities and court documents.
The arrests come a month after an armed man crashed his pickup truck into a major Detroit-area synagogue in another attack on Jewish people. Synagogues around the world have increased security and protections for worshippers since the U.S. and Israel launched a war with Iran on Feb. 28.
Angelina Han Hicks, 18, of Lexington, North Carolina, was being held Thursday in the Davidson County jail under a $10 million bond, jail records show. She was arrested Wednesday and formally charged with conspiring with two “male subjects” to commit murder and assault against members of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston on April 21, 2028, according to warrants laying out two felony counts against her.
The FBI office in Charlotte said Thursday in a social media post that a juvenile was arrested in relation to the plot and charged in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. There was no immediate information on whether the juvenile was one of the two male subjects identified in Hicks’ warrants, which listed only their first names and noted their last names as “unknown.”
A Houston Police Department news release on Thursday announced a 16-year-old being arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder related to “a threat directed towards certain Jewish institutions in our area” that the agency learned about Wednesday. The department didn’t identify Congregation Beth Israel specifically. The FBI and the Houston school district police department assisted in the arrest.
“At this time, there is no other known credible threat,” the release said.
Explaining why Hicks’ detention was necessary, District Court Judge Carlton Terry wrote Wednesday in part that the alleged “conspiracy is to kill as many Jews as possible by driving through a congregation at a synagogue.”
“Allowing a co-conspirator a chance to communicate with either of those individuals or those who could relay a message puts lives at risk,” Terry added.
The FBI said its Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force began the investigation Tuesday evening after a tip to a North Carolina law enforcement agency.
While Hicks’ warrants point to a potential attack two years from now, Alan Martin — a senior assistant district attorney covering Davidson County — said in an interview that there had been “some concern that there could be an imminent event” targeting the Houston synagogue. A potential motive for the planned violence wasn’t immediately disclosed in North Carolina court documents. The investigation is continuing.
Attempts to speak by phone with Hicks’ court-appointed attorney were unsuccessful Thursday. The lawyer, Chad Freeman, told the Houston Chronicle that the case was in its early stages and Hicks’ youth could be a factor in her defense.
“I anticipate getting numerous experts involved in the case to look at both investigatory and possible forensic matters,” Freeman told the newspaper. Her next scheduled hearing is May 13.
Congregational Beth Israel is the oldest Jewish house of worship in Texas, founded in the 1850s. It also operates a school going up to fifth grade. The Charlotte FBI’s social media post Thursday mentioned an alleged planned attack at a Jewish school.
The potential threats communicated to congregation leadership by Houston police prompted Beth Israel to close on Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution,” the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston wrote in a social media post. The campus reopened Thursday, the federation said.
“The safety and security of the Houston Jewish community is of utmost importance to all of us,” the federation wrote.
Lexington is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of Raleigh.
The FBI said Ayman Ghazali sought to inflict as much damage as he could on Jewish people when he drove his pickup truck March 12 into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Ghazali, 41, was armed when the truck smashed through doors and into the hallway of an early childhood education area, striking a security guard. He then exchanged gunfire with another guard before fatally shooting himself. No one else among the 150 children and staff was injured.
Ghazali, a Lebanese-born man who was a U.S. citizen, had learned a week before the attack that four of his family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike in his native country.
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Associated Press writers Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and Corey Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan, contributed to this report.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release from immigration custody of the family of a man charged in a fatal 2025 firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, against demonstrators supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio said Hayam El Gamal and her five children can be released from a family immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas, as long as El Gamal and her oldest child, who is 18, wear electronic monitoring. Biery denied the government’s request to stay his ruling so it could appeal. One of the family’s lawyers, Eric Lee, posted on X that they were released later in the day.
El Gamal was born in Saudi Arabia and is an Egyptian national. She and her family have been in immigration detention since June after her husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was accused of throwing two Molotov cocktails at people demonstrating for awareness of Israeli hostages in Gaza. An 82-year-old woman who was injured in the attack later died. El Gamal has said she was shocked by the attack.
Soliman is an Egyptian national who federal authorities say was living in the U.S. illegally. He is being prosecuted in both state and federal court for the attack, which prosecutors say injured a total of 13 people. Investigators say he planned the attack for a year and was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people.” He has pleaded not guilty to state charges, including a murder charge, and federal hate crimes charges.
After the attack, the Trump administration claimed the family was being rushed out of the country. The White House said in social media posts that they “COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT” and that six one-way tickets had been purchased for them, with their “final boarding call coming soon.”
Biery decided to release the family even though an immigration appeals court had dismissed their case to stay and issued a deportation order for them. That came after a federal magistrate judge recommended on Monday that they should be released.
Lawyers for the family claim the deportation order was directed by the “political leadership” in Washington, which the government’s lawyer, Anne Marie Cordova, denied. People who have final deportation orders are normally subject to mandatory detention.
In a statement, acting assistant Homeland Security Secretary Lauren Bis criticized Biery’s ruling.
“Despite receiving full due process and a final order of removal, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets,” Bis said.
Biery had barred the family from being deported until he could hold Thursday’s hearing. One of the family’s lawyers, Chris Godshall-Bennett, told Biery they will also ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to stop the family from being deported while they seek asylum and permission to remain in the United States.
Another federal judge blocked their immediate removal after the attack. Since then, the family has tried several times to be released on bond and return to Colorado while their asylum application is considered.
The magistrate judge recommended this week that they be released after their attorneys argued they have not been treated fairly in immigration proceedings.
LUFKINS – The City’s Click2Gov online payment system will be unavailable this weekend due to a scheduled software upgrade by its vendor. The system is expected to be down for most or all of the day Saturday at least. Joshua Gentry, IT digital content manager for the City of Lufkin, stated the city appreciates citizens’ patience while this upgrade is completed.