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Thursday June 04, 2026
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer D4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found seven months ago in his apparently abandoned Tesla, authorities said Thursday. D4vd’s lawyers declared his innocence.
Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that homicide detectives arrested the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer, whose legal name is David Burke, on suspicion of murder in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Defense attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter responded in an email: “Let us be clear — the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death.”
Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on Monday. The office said in its own statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.
“There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously defend David’s innocence,” the defense lawyers added.
It was their first public statement on the case. Authorities did not publicly name Burke as a suspect until his arrest. He was being held in jail without bail.
The singer had been under investigation by an LA County grand jury looking into the death of Rivas Hernandez. The probe was officially secret, but its existence — and the designation of D4vd as its target — was revealed on Feb. 25 when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.
The long-dead body of Rivas Hernandez was found in a Tesla towed from the Hollywood Hills on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in court documents.
The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer’s name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.
Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” court documents said, and “detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.”
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Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bag and “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.
D4vd, pronounced “David,” gained popularity among Generation Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit “Romantic Homicide,” which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP “Petals to Thorns” and a follow-up, “The Lost Petals,” in 2023.
When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, “Withered.” Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA’s Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.
TYLER (KETK)– While Texans have experienced an increase in gas prices over the past couple of months, they have felt relief over the past few days as prices begin to drop.
According to AAA, gas prices have declined over the past week as crude oil continues to trade below $100 a barrel following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran earlier this month.
Across the state, the average price of regular unleaded fuel is currently $3.74 per gallon, 13 cents lower than a week ago. The national average has also decreased over the past few days to $4.09, which is eight cents lower than last week, according to AAA.
“Texas drivers are seeing some welcome movement at the pump as crude oil prices remain below $100 a barrel,” Daniel Armbruster, AAA Texas spokesperson, said. “That’s helped ease pressure on gas prices for now, but the situation remains fluid, and any escalation involving the Strait of Hormuz could quickly affect energy markets.”
McALLEN (AP) – A Venezuelan man pleaded his case to asylum officials on Thursday in an interview that his wife, a well-known doctor in South Texas, planned to attend until she was detained at the airport with the couple’s 5-year-old daughter.
Milenko Faria was interviewed at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices near Los Angeles, while his wife, Dr. Rubeliz Bolivar, entered her sixth day in immigration custody in Texas and was unable to attend the appointment they had been waiting for for more than 10 years.
Bolivar, who worked as a doctor in an area federally designated as medically underserved, was arrested by Border Patrol agents at McAllen International Airport on Saturday. She was with their American-born daughter, preparing to board a flight to join her husband and attend their asylum interview together.
Bolivar, 33, was the second Venezuelan physician arrested in the area within the span of a week. On April 6, Dr. Ezequiel Veliz was detained by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint in South Texas. After spending about ten days in detention, his attorney, Victor Badell, said he was able to successfully request a bond hearing and secure his release on Thursday after paying a bond of $8,000.
The arrests are part of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies. Following an enforcement surge in Minnesota in January, in which two U.S. citizens died, the Department of Homeland Security has focused on less visible arrests.
Bolívar worked in the emergency room of a hospital in McAllen, city of about 150,000 in the Rio Grande Valley near the Mexican border, starting in June 2025, when she was accepted into her medical residency program.
“She was always focused on the community, and when she was accepted, it was an immense joy,” Faria, 36, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “We have never done anything outside the law. We have done everything by following the steps in accordance with the law to obtain permanent residency.”
The husband said that she arrived at the U.S. with a tourist visa in 2016, after graduating from medical school in her native Venezuela.
Before her authorized period of stay expired, she was included in the asylum application filed by her husband, he said. Both are also seeking a green card through an application for skilled workers, processed by Faria’s employer, a California company where he has worked as an information systems technician since 2019.
The couple was beneficiary of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela that shielded more than 600,000 Venezuelans from deportation. Trump terminated the protections for Venezuela, Haiti, Syria, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and other countries, a decision that has been challenged in federal court.
The Department of Homeland Security said that Bolivar was arrested because she was in the country illegally.
“She has overstayed her visa since 2017, nearly a decade, and had no legal status,” said DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis.
Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney in South Texas, noted that around September or October 2025, she observed a change in policy regarding travel of individuals with pending applications before USCIS.
”It just became a very apparent trend where anyone that had some kind of application pending with USCIS, whether it was an adjustment of status or asylum, anything like that, they were going to be arrested,” said Goodwin.
Faria and Bolivar lived together in Santa Maria, California, until she moved to Texas in the summer of 2025 for her medical residency. He said he traveled every two months to visit his wife and daughter. The day of her arrest was the first time Bolívar had traveled since moving to Texas.
Bolivar was arrested by Customs and Border Protection officers before passing through transportation security screening, where she was asked to show her identification. She showed her driver’s license — bearing the “Real ID” endorsement required to domestic flights — and a work authorization valid until 2030.
She told them that she was adjusting status to a green card and was traveling to California for an asylum interview but the officer detained her after asking for her nationality and demanding that she provide proof of legal permanent residency, said Faria. He received text messages from his wife at the time she was being arrested.
Their 5-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, was also arrested and handed over to her grandfather 19 hours later. The girl is currently in California with her father.
The doctor was transferred to ICE custody on Sunday and is being held at El Valle Detention Facility in Texas.
She has asked several times why she was detained but has not received any response yet, Faria said.
Ezequiel Veliz, the other Venezuelan physician, came to the United States to become a doctor in 2018 under a tourist visa. His friend, Hector Ruiz, described him as a kind-hearted doctor who loves his pet cats and is devoted to his work.
Veliz adjusted his immigration status as a student and later as a doctor at a South Texas hospital in the Rio Grande Valley working under TPS. The pause in the protection status had immediate consequences on his two-year residency.
“He was one year and four months into that. He couldn’t continue working legally. He had to stop,” said Badell, his attorney.
He was waiting for a visa requested by the hospital when he was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint traveling to Houston with his husband on April 6.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Artemis II astronauts who ignited a lunar renaissance gave high marks Thursday to their moonship, especially the heat shield, for its performance during reentry.
In their first news conference since returning to Earth, the three Americans and one Canadian said their lunar flyby puts NASA in a much better position for a moon landing by a crew in two years and an eventual moon base. They spoke from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, their home base.
Commander Reid Wiseman later told The Associated Press that he’s been so busy since getting back that he hasn’t had time to gaze up at the moon, let alone Carroll Crater, the name suggested by the crew for a bright lunar crater in honor of his late wife. They shared two daughters whose anxieties and fears over their father’s journey ended with his safe splashdown late last week.
“Being 252,000 miles away from home was the most majestic, gorgeous thing that human eyes will ever witness,” he said in an interview with the AP. But hurtling back through the atmosphere at 39 times the speed of sound, “that is scary and that is risky.” That’s why he yearned for home midway through his flight. “You just want to hold your kids and you just want them to know that you’re safe.”
Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen launched to the moon from Florida on April 1, NASA’s first lunar crew in more than a half-century and by far the most diverse.
They became the most distant travelers ever — breaking Apollo 13’s record — as they whipped around the lunar far side, illuminated enough to reveal features never viewed before by the human eye. The sight of a total lunar eclipse added to the wonderment.
Their Orion capsule, which they named Integrity, parachuted into the Pacific last Friday to close out the nearly 10-day voyage. Artemis II’s Houston homecoming the next day coincided with the 56th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13.
Wiseman said he and Glover “maybe saw two moments of a touch of char loss” to the heat shield as Integrity plunged through the fastest, hottest part of reentry. Once aboard the recovery ship, they peered at the bottom of the capsule as best they could, leaning over to view any signs of damage. They spotted a little loss of charred material on the shoulder, where the heat shield meets the capsule.
“For four humans just looking at the heat shield, it looked wonderful to us. It looked great, and that ride in was really amazing,” Wiseman said.
He cautioned that detailed analyses still need to be conducted. “We are going to fine-tooth comb every single, not even every molecule, probably every atom on this heat shield,” he said.
The heat shield on the first Artemis test flight in 2022 — with no one aboard — came back so pockmarked and gouged that it pushed Artemis II back by months if not years. Instead of redoing it, NASA opted to change the capsule’s entry path to minimize heating. Future capsules will sport a new design.
As the parachutes released right before splashdown, Glover said he felt like he was in freefall — like diving backward off a skyscraper. “That’s what it felt like for five seconds,” he said, adding when the ride smoothed out: “It was glorious.”
Since their return, the four astronauts have endured round after round of medical testing to check their balance, vision, muscle strength and coordination, and overall health. They even put on spacewalking suits for exercises under conditions simulating the moon’s one-sixth gravity of Earth to see how much endurance and dexterity future moonwalkers might have upon lunar touchdown.
NASA already is working on Artemis III, the next step in its grand moon base-building plans. The platform from which the rocket launches headed back Thursday to Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be prepped for next year’s Artemis launch.
Still awaiting an assigned crew, Artemis III will remain in orbit around Earth as astronauts practice docking their Orion capsule with one or two lunar landers in development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Artemis IV will follow in 2028 under NASA’s latest schedule, with two astronauts landing near the moon’s south pole.
NASA is aiming for a sustainable moon presence this time around. During the Apollo moonshots, astronauts kept their visits short. Twelve astronauts explored the lunar surface, beginning with Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969 and ending with Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972.
Koch said that since returning, she and her crewmates are “feeling even more excited and just ready to take that on as an agency.”
“We made it happen,” she added.
Everyone will need to accept extra risk to achieve all this and trust that any future problems can be figured out in real time, Hansen noted. “We’re not going to be able to pound everything flat before we go. We’re going to have to trust each other,” he said.
While everything went smoothly for them, “it was also very clear to us that it can get pretty bumpy,” he said. Future crews will have to “understand it can get real bumpy real fast.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
TEXARKANA, Texas – A Texarkana, Texas man has been sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence for drug trafficking violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs. Timothy Brooks, 46, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and was sentenced to 255 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III on April 15, 2026.
According to information presented in court, a federal drug trafficking investigation led authorities to Brooks. A search of his Texarkana residence in May of 2024 revealed an ice chest containing 10.8 kilograms of methamphetamine. Also located at the residence was a firearm, marijuana and other drugs, and various drug trafficking paraphernalia such as digital scales.
This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Postal Inspection Service; Texarkana, Texas, Police Department; and Miller County, Arkansas, Sheriff’s Office.
MIAMI (AP) — A longtime informant who traveled the world partying with rogue U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents avoided a prison sentence this week after admitting he failed to pay taxes on nearly $4 million he received for years of undercover work.
Andres Zapata was sentenced Wednesday in Austin, Texas, to time served after agreeing to cooperate in a decade-long investigation that has implicated several agents in misconduct, according to two people who weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing inquiry and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Zapata, 48, was extradited to the U.S. last year from his native Colombia, where he had worked closely with José Irizarry, a former DEA agent serving a 12-year sentence for skimming millions of dollars from money laundering stings to fund luxury travel, expensive sports cars and frat-house style parties.
The DEA paid Zapata, a professional money launderer, $3.8 million from 2015-2020 for his work as a confidential informant, court records show. He pleaded guilty last July to a single charge of failing to report those earnings on his tax returns. Informants are required by the DEA to report such income to the IRS but are rarely prosecuted for failing to do so.
The Justice Department’s criminal division, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment. The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zapata’s lawyer, Don Bailey, argued at the sentencing hearing that it was unusual for prosecutors to target someone who had risked their life helping U.S. law enforcement combat violent cartels for an offense he didn’t even know he was committing.
Zapata and other informants “don’t get 1099s or W-9s,” Bailey said, referring to forms typically filed by independent contractors to report income. “You don’t know what you owe. You sign a piece of paper for money. You don’t get receipts.”
At the hearing, Zapata told a federal judge he was ready to move forward with his life after having spent over a year in a rough prison near his hometown of Medellin awaiting extradition.
“I’ve learned my lesson,” he said, according to a transcript of the proceeding.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra described Zapata at the hearing as having been “very cooperative” with the government. He denied a request by the AP to unseal sentencing records. In sentencing Zapata to time served in Colombia, the judge also ordered the former informant to pay $1.2 million in restitution, an amount reflecting the tax loss to the U.S. government.
Internal DEA records obtained by the AP show the agency first signed up Zapata as an informant in 1998, employing an erstwhile vacuum salesman whose brother-in-law got jammed up for drug trafficking.
Over the next two decades, he became one of the agency’s most prolific informants, arranging covert cash pickups and assisting in investigations from Peru to Los Angeles, the records show, earning more than $4.6 million from the DEA.
But he didn’t supply agents with just tips.
Under the cover of a DEA assignment, the Colombian-American dual national crisscrossed the globe with agents and sometimes prosecutors from Miami in what Irizarry has described as a “world debauchery tour” that flouted strict rules against cozying up to informants.
A secret WhatsApp chat agents used to revel in their three-continent joyride details Zapata’s role procuring prostitutes — and helping what Irizarry coined “Team America” get out of trouble. In 2018, Zapata had been on assignment in Madrid drinking with an agent who was briefly detained and accused of sexually assaulting a woman.
Irizarry told investigators that Zapata kicked back some of the reward money he earned as an informant. He recalled a night Zapata showed up at his apartment in Colombia with a bag containing $40,000 in cash — money Irizarry used to purchase a Tiffany ring for his wife.
Zapata also allegedly served as a go-between for payments Irizarry admitted to taking from Colombia’s “Contraband Czar” Diego Marin — a one-time DEA informant arrested in 2024 in Spain as part of a Colombian bribery investigation. Marin and Zapata appear in a video obtained by the AP partying with agents at a Madrid restaurant.
DALLAS COUNTY (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Allen West, the Dallas County Republican Party chair, resigned Wednesday, according to Dallas County Elections Department officials.
The announcement comes after West said on March 17 he agreed to use countywide polling sites for the May 26 runoff election, a decision that drew opposition from some party members.
Dallas Republicans initially planned to hand count primary ballots before scrapping the plan due to lack of staffing. Instead, they chose to require voters to report to precincts instead of countywide vote centers for the March 3 primary, causing chaos and confusion across the county. More than 12,000 voters from both parties showed up at the wrong polling location on Election Day.
West’s resignation, however, was not tied to the Election Day confusion but followed his later decision to support a return to countywide voting for the May runoff.
West did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the Dallas County Elections Department said West informed county elections administrator Paul Adams of his resignation Wednesday afternoon. The department declined to comment further.
West had for months supported the use of precinct-based sites for the primary and the elimination of the countywide polling place program, which allows voters to cast ballots anywhere in the county and had been used for years. But in a March 17 statement he said that using assigned precincts again for the runoff would expose the county party to “increased risk and voter confusion.”
“To then shift for the one day runoff election to precincts would bring about large-scale disruption,” West said in that statement in March.
West expected pushback from his own party for that decision.
In a blog post on the party’s website April 6, he said that continuing to use precinct-based voting for the runoff election would expose the county party to “a most dangerous course of action.” He said the party would face a lawsuit “alleging willful and intentional voter disenfranchisement.”
“The decision that I made was one rooted in years of understanding leadership and its responsibilities, namely, protecting your Troops,“ West, a former Florida congressman and Army veteran, wrote. “If there are those who do not see this as noble and honorable, that is fine with me. I have stated my position and under my watch as Chairman of the Dallas County Republican Party will not expose this organization to potential damaging legal efforts.”
Some Republicans in Texas have for years pushed to eliminate the countywide polling place program to eliminate the use of electronic voting machines and instead hand count ballots. It’s a push that began soon after the 2020 election and the lies President Donald Trump spread about the outcome.
Republican critics of countywide voting claim it makes elections less secure because it could allow people“to double or triple vote, though there’s no evidence that countywide voting is less secure. Texas election officials use procedures to prevent double voting, including the use of technology that tracks in real time who has voted and where.
Texas election officials say the countywide voting program, which has been in use in Texas for more than 20 years, allows counties to save money by operating fewer, centralized polling locations with fewer workers and less equipment.
To read this article in its original format, go to The Texas Tribune.
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury found Wednesday that entertainment giant Live Nation, which hosts tens of thousands of concerts a year, and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had a harmful monopoly over big venues.
The ruling, in a lawsuit brought by dozens of states, won’t immediately bring relief for concertgoers who have long complained about high ticket prices. But it could cost Live Nation hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps force the company to sell some of its concert venues when the judge hands out penalties later.
Among other things, the jury found Ticketmaster’s anticompetitive practices led to people in 22 states paying an extra $1.72 per ticket, which the judge could order the companies to pay back.
A jury in New York deliberated for four days before reaching its decision. State attorneys general who sued Live Nation said the verdict could potentially lead to lower ticket prices for music fans.
Live Nation said in a statement that the verdict “is not the last word on this matter.”
The company predicted that once a remedy phase of the litigation is completed before the judge and all appeals are resolved, the outcome likely won’t be much different from what the federal government achieved with a settlement it reached with the company just after the trial began.
That deal included a cap on service fees at some amphitheaters, plus some new ticket-selling options for promoters and venues — potentially allowing, but not requiring, them to open doors to Ticketmaster competitors such as SeatGeek or AXS.
The trial gave fans the equivalent of a backstage pass to a business that dominates live entertainment in the U.S. and beyond.
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino testified, answering questions about matters including the company’s Taylor Swift ticket debacle in 2022. Rapino blamed a cyberattack.
Jurors also got to see a Live Nation employee’s internal messages to another employee declaring some prices “outrageous,” calling customers “so stupid” and boasting that the company was “robbing them blind, baby.” The employee, Benjamin Baker, who has since been promoted to a position as a ticketing executive, apologetically testified that the messages were “very immature and unacceptable.”
Live Nation Entertainment owns, operates, controls booking for or has an equity interest in hundreds of venues. Its subsidiary Ticketmaster is widely considered to be the world’s largest ticket-seller for live events.
The verdict could cost Live Nation and Ticketmaster hundreds of millions of dollars, based on the jury’s estimate that customers paid an extra $1.72 per ticket. The companies could also be assessed penalties. In addition, sanctions could result in court orders that they divest themselves of some entities, including venues such as amphitheaters that they own.
In its statement, Live Nation said the jury’s award of $1.72 per ticket applied to “a limited number of tickets” sold at 257 venues and representing about 20% of total tickets sold. The company estimated the aggregate single damages figure would be below $150 million, though it would be trebled.
The civil case, initially led by the U.S. government, accused Live Nation of using its reach to smother competition — by blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers, for example.
Live Nation insisted it is not a monopoly, saying that artists, sports teams and venues decide prices and ticketing practices. A company lawyer said its size was simply a function of excellence and effort.
“Success is not against the antitrust laws in the United States,” attorney David Marriott said in his summation.
Ticketmaster was established in 1976 and merged with Live Nation in 2010. The company now controls of 86% of the market for concerts and 73% of the overall market when sports events are included, according to an attorney for the states, Jeffrey Kessler.
Ticketmaster has long drawn ire from fans and some artists. Grunge rock titans Pearl Jam battled the business in the 1990s, even filing an anti-monopoly complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to bring a case then.
Decades later, the Justice Department, joined by dozens of states, brought the current lawsuit during Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Days into the trial, Republican President Donald Trump’s administration announced it was settling its claims against Live Nation.
A handful of the states joined the settlement. But more than 30 pressed ahead with the trial, saying the federal government hadn’t gotten enough concessions.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a release after the verdict that Live Nation’s “illegal, anti-competitive practices” had driven up ticket prices and made it harder for fans to see their favorite acts.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the verdict “a landmark victory.”
After the victory, Kessler would not say specifically what the states will seek in the next phase of the litigation, which was expected to involve another lengthy legal proceeding before penalties are decided.
But he celebrated the moment.
“It’s a great day for consumers,” he said.
AUSTIN (AP) — The security guard at Camp Mystic the night of last year’s deadly flood acknowledged Wednesday that if a general evacuation order came early in the storm, lives could’ve been saved.
Glenn Juenke, who helped move some girls to a two-story building before getting trapped inside a cabin himself, also saved a group of campers when he told them to run to higher ground as flood waters rose.
He testified at the end of a three-day hearing in a legal fight between the camp operators, who want to reopen the all-girls Christian Camp this summer, and families of some of the victims who died in the July 4th flood that swept through the Guadalupe River in the predawn hours.
Juenke, called as a witness for the camp operators, said it was his decision to tell a group of campers to scramble on foot up a hillside as floodwaters rose, and was not an order from camp directors or authorities.
He did not recall camp operators ever training the campers, counselors and staff where to go in case an emergency evacuation was needed.
The camp’s plan to reopen has angered families of the girls who were killed, and the camp license is still under review by state health regulators. A judge last month ordered the camp to preserve damaged areas as evidence for pending lawsuits. That ruling is under appeal.
The hearing has produced the most extensive details from camp operators of what happened in the flood, including missed chances to prepare for the storm, and the delayed decisions to evacuate.
Describing the storm that came roaring through camp, Juenke said he first joined camp directors Dick and Edward Eastland in driving some of the girls away from their cabins. But Juenke later abandoned his truck when the water got too high to drive.
Now on foot, Juenke ordered a group of young girls to run to higher ground. He returned to another cabin where he was soon trapped in waist-deep water. Storage trunks were tossed around the current before they were sucked out and away.
Juenke ordered the girls in the cabin to get on air mattresses, and they stayed floating there for several hours.
“It was a long night. We were getting bitten by fire ants. There were spiders … The girls did everything I told them to do,” Juenke said. None of the girls in that cabin died.
Juenke said they emerged around dawn. He then met up with Catie Eastland, one of the camp directors, near the two-story recreation building where about a hundred girls had escaped the flood.
“I said y’all could have had a million different evacuation plans, nothing would have worked,” Juenke testified.
Lawyers for the families have zeroed in on the lack of a detailed evacuation plan and the failure to send orders to get out of the cabins. A short emergency notice posted in cabins, one that had passed state inspection just two days earlier, had told campers to stay in their cabins until given instructions by staff.
In all, 25 campers and two teenage counselors were killed. Camp co-owner Dick Eastland also died.
“You can blame it on Mother Nature or God Almighty, but if anyone had used the speakers or walkie talkie and told them to leave before 3 (am), they would’ve survived,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney for the family of Cile Steward, 8, the only camper whose body still has not been recovered.
Juenke defended his actions and those of the staff that night.
“We did everything we could do in the time that we had,” Juenke said.
MORRIS COUNTY (KETK) – An update has been provided regarding the ongoing cleanup efforts following the oil spill in the Ellison Creek Reservoir in March.
According to Morris County Judge Doug Reeder, Railroad Commission inspectors have reported significant improvement across the reservoir, including on the western shoreline, where cleanup operations appear to be nearly complete.
Inspectors also reported that crews are continuing to contain and remediate affected areas on the eastern side of the reservoir, where oil can still be observed around nearby dock structures. Inspectors are also reporting that, following a test of the reservoir’s water, no significant change in its composition has been found.
“Our top priority is the protection of our natural resources and the safety of our citizens,” Reeder said. “We will continue to provide updates as state agencies provide us meaningful information.”
Residents with any questions about the status of the reservoir are asked to contact the Morris County Sheriff’s non-emergency number at 903-645-2232.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Republican leaders across the U.S. are encouraging chapters of the conservative political group Turning Point USA in all public high schools in the wake last year’s assassination of co-founder Charlie Kirk, an effort they describe as countering the oppression of conservative voices in education.
The group’s endorsement by Republican governors — at least eight so far — has stirred debate about free speech in America’s schools, with critics arguing many of the same conservative leaders have sought to silence others with measures to restrict what teachers can say on sex education, LGBTQ+ issues and other topics.
Adding to the divisions has been some governors’ invocation of Christian religion in their support of the clubs.
At her news conference last month announcing a partnership with Turning Point USA, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said God had worked through Kirk to grow the conservative group and that she hoped it would spark “the exact type of civic engagement that we want to see” among high school students.
“It’s never too early to learn the values of faith and freedom that power our country,” she said.
For Fayetteville High School student Lily Alderson in Arkansas, that crossed a line. Alderson, president of the school’s Young Democrats club, said the governor’s endorsement violates the requirement that governments not favor a particular religion.
“We’re a public school,” Alderson said. “We shouldn’t be a school — or a state, even — that is telling people what they should believe in.”
At the same high school, Lukas Klaus leads the local Turning Point USA chapter. As he sees it, the Republican governors are ensuring conservative voices like his are allowed to be heard.
“I’ve heard numerous other stories from around the states of Club America chapters trying to get started where they’re having serious problems with the administration straight-up saying ‘no,’ ” said Klaus. He said he has never heard of a public school disallowing a Young Democrats club.
The push gained momentum after Charlie Kirk’s death
In recent months, the Republican administrations of Nebraska, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, Florida, Tennessee and Indiana have each announced partnerships with Turning Point USA to promote school chapters, called Club America, in every high school in those states.
Already, there are nearly 3,400 Club America chapters across the 50 states, according to Turning Point USA, which says it has more state partnerships in the works.
While the partnerships don’t require schools to establish the conservative clubs, they do make clear that efforts to start the clubs can’t be rejected by school administrators.
Turning Point USA got its start in 2012 on college campuses, promoting itself as a hub for young people committed to conservative values. Kirk was the co-founder and the face of the group, known best for his “ Prove Me Wrong ” events on college campuses where he invited students to challenge his conservative views on political and cultural issues. Kirk was killed by a sniper in early September while speaking on a college campus in Utah.
While Kirk was praised by conservatives as a champion of free speech, he was also criticized for comments that many other Americans found hateful toward LGBTQ+ communities, non-Christians, people of color and women.
Some of those critics faced a backlash from Republicans who saw them as dishonoring Kirk, leading to firings by universities, sports teams and media companies. Florida’s education commissioner also promised to investigate teachers over objectionable comments about Kirk. In Texas, a teachers union has sued the state’s education department, accusing it of an improper “wave of retaliation” against public school employees over their social media comments following the assassination.
Critics say governors are elevating Turning Point over other clubs
The governors’ endorsements of Turning Point USA, to the exclusion of other student clubs, has come under criticism from teachers unions and civil liberties groups.
Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said he could only imagine how Republican leaders would react if a Democratic governor announced they were calling for a democratic socialist club in every high school.
“They would be running to the press to talk about how awful that is,” Royers said. “How is this fundamentally any different?”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas said the state’s support for the clubs amount to “differential treatment based on the content or viewpoint of the clubs, and a problem under the First Amendment.”
Turning Point USA spokesman Matt Shupe called objections from the ACLU hypocritical, noting the civic organization’s mission to protect free speech rights.
“The state of Arkansas is not forming our chapters; they’re not doing our job or our students’ jobs for us, nor are they saying other groups can’t be formed,” Shupe said in an email. “They’re simply stating students cannot be blocked from forming a Club America or a TPUSA college chapter when students want to start one.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is set to take up the reauthorization of a divisive program that lets U.S. spy agencies pore over foreigners’ calls, texts and emails, with supporters like President Donald Trump saying it has saved lives while critics point to longstanding concerns about warrantless surveillance of Americans.
A key provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permits the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze vast amounts of overseas communications without a warrant. It incidentally sweeps up the conversations of any Americans who interact with those foreigners targeted for surveillance.
The program expires Monday, and critics want changes, including a requirement for warrants before authorities can access the emails, phone calls or text messages of Americans. They also want limits on the government’s use of internet data brokers, who sell large volumes of personal information gleaned online, offering the government what critics say amounts to an end-run around the Constitution.
Despite bipartisan criticism, the chances of significant reforms dropped when Trump announced his support for the program’s renewal, saying it had proven its worth in supplying information vital to recent U.S. actions in Venezuela and Iran.
“The fact is, whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our military,” Trump said on social media Tuesday.
U.S. authorities say the program, known as Section 702 of the law, is vital to national security and has saved lives by uncovering terror plots. Critics question what they call a dangerous infringement on civil liberties and privacy.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said a different FISA provision was used to spy on his 2016 campaign but that he supported Section 702’s renewal despite misgivings that political adversaries could use parts of the law against him in the future. He called on lawmakers to extend the foreign surveillance program for another 18 months.
“My administration has worked tirelessly to ensure these FISA reforms are being aggressively executed at every level of the Executive Branch to keep Americans safe, while protecting our sacred Civil Liberties guaranteed by our Great Constitution,” Trump wrote.
Trump is a longtime critic of the nation’s intelligence services and was once opposed to Section 702 before he reversed himself. “KILL FISA” Trump posted on social media in 2024, when the provision was last reauthorized.
Trump isn’t the only one-time critic to change their mind: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sponsored legislation to repeal Section 702 as a Hawaii congresswoman but now supports it after being tapped to coordinate the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies.
Gabbard says new protections added since her time in Congress helped change her mind.
In addition to a requirement for a warrant to access Americans’ data, critics also want greater protections on how the FBI or other agencies can search communications and how that is reported to the public.
“Journalists, foreign aid workers, people with family overseas, all could have their communications swept up in this surveillance merely because they talked to someone outside of this country,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The longtime critic of the law is pushing for changes that he said will ensure the government isn’t violating civil rights in secret.
Several Republicans also have suggested changes, such as the warrant requirement.
“National security and civil liberties are not mutually exclusive,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. “We can give our intelligence professionals the tools they need to target foreign threats while ensuring that Americans are not subjected to unconstitutional surveillance.”
Gabbard’s office releases an annual report showing the number of foreign surveillance targets and number of searches likely to identify an American.
For 2025, the number of foreign surveillance targets increased to nearly 350,000 from almost 292,000 in 2024. Searches using terms likely to identify an American decreased slightly to 7,724 from 7,845 in 2024.
The totals are incomplete because agencies like the FBI have found ways to access the data without reporting the searches publicly, said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when searching for intelligence related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and racial justice protests in 2020, according to a 2024 court order.
“It’s reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure at the FBI,” Goitein said, referring to the FBI’s founding director who used illegal surveillance to harass and spy on Americans. “They can pretty much target anyone.”
Despite bipartisan concerns about the law and its implications for civil liberties, time is running out for Congress to make any changes before Monday’s expiration.
Trump’s support also reduces the odds that enough Republicans will break ranks and join Democrats to push for reforms.
Wyden said Section 702 votes are routinely delayed until the last minute, then lawmakers are told that national security demands they vote yes. Lawmakers are told, he said, that “if they vote for any amendments, the program will die and terrible things will happen and it will be all their fault.”
The best chance for inserting changes likely is the House, where a large number of lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns.
But Rep. Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, is backing Trump’s call for an 18-month renewal.
Crawford has taken aim in the past at what he calls the weaponization of intelligence but said last month that he believes the government can empower spy agencies while also holding them accountable.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Crawford said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders who were sentenced to prison terms for leading members of the far-right extremist groups in attacking the U.S. Capitol to keep President Donald Trump in office over five years ago.
Trump commuted the prison sentences of several Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders last January in a sweeping act of clemency for all 1,500-plus defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who didn’t receive pardons last January.
The move to abandon the convictions represented a stunning reversal from the Biden administration, which hailed the guilty verdicts as a crucial victory in its bid to hold accountable those responsible for what prosecutors described as an attack on the heart of American democracy. It’s part of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack and downplay the violence carried out by the mob of Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured.
In court filings, prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions so that the government can permanently dismiss the indictments.
“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Juries in Washington, D.C., convicted the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
The department’s dismissal request also includes the convictions of Oath Keepers members Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Jessica Watkins and Proud Boys members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.
Other extremist group members, including former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, received pardons from Trump on the first day of his second term in the White House.
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison after he and several lieutenants were convicted in one of the most consequential cases arising from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
Prosecutors said Rhodes and his followers stockpiled guns for possible use by “quick reaction force” teams at a Virginia hotel, but they never deployed the weapons.
Nordean’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, said they are grateful to the Justice Department for its “wise decision” in seeking dismissal of the convictions.
“We don’t want a precedent that says that any physical confrontation between protesters and law enforcement means a crime akin to treason, such as seditious conspiracy,” Smith said.
Former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was dragged into the mob and suffered a heart attack after a rioter shocked him with a stun gun, was disappointed but not surprised by the latest milestone in the dismantling of Capitol riot prosecutions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Resignations came quickly this week from two congressmen accused of sexual misconduct toward staff members. Yet for many of the women of Capitol Hill, the moment of accountability was years in the making — and far from enough.
Reps. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, both announced within hours of each other Monday that they were leaving Congress. Their decisions came the day before the House returned to Washington and as both faced the prospect of being expelled from the chamber by their colleagues.
It was a reckoning of sorts for Capitol Hill, the most striking since the careers of roughly a dozen male politicians were toppled during the heights of the #MeToo movement. Yet some congresswomen said that the pair of resignations took too long and proved what they’ve long been saying: that more must be done to rid Capitol Hill of sexual predation.
“Today was an important turning point,” said Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. “That it should — that abuse of power — should never be accepted, and above all, in public office. And so, I think this is an important resetting point for the institution.”
A bipartisan group of congresswomen had threatened on Tuesday to file resolutions that could have forced votes on expelling Swalwell and Gonzales. Their moves forced the two men to act and came swiftly after the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN had reported Friday that a woman said Swalwell sexually assaulted her.
The initial allegations against Swalwell date back to 2019 and 2024; they were followed with other allegations of inappropriate behavior made by other women. Swalwell has denied engaging in any sexual misconduct but acknowledged mistakes in judgment. Gonzales for months had resisted calls for his resignation after he admitted to a 2024 affair with a staff member who later died by suicide.
“Accountability can happen. We can hold men accountable when they abuse women, and we’re going to do more of it,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who chairs the Democratic Women’s Caucus.
It is against the House Code of Conduct for any member to have a sexual relationship with their staff members.
Following the #MeToo movement, the House changed its rules to require annual trainings on sexual harassment and discrimination for members. The House also approved legislation to speed the slow-moving process for harassment complaints, require more disclosure of settlements and force lawmakers to personally pay any penalties they’re required to make.
Former Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who led the movement for reforms around sexual assault, told The Associated Press that problems still persist after those reforms.
“What we do in Congress is basically look the other way,” she said, adding that she was calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to “really tighten the rules and create a safe environment for these women to report.”
While Johnson said he did not talk with the lawmakers before they announced their resignations, he told reporters that the episode had played out “appropriately.”
“This is the right thing for the institution,” he said.
Sexual abuse has been top of mind for lawmakers as they investigate the actions of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. A handful of Republican women, mostly hailing from the right wing of their party, played crucial roles in forcing Congress to take up the issue.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, alongside Rep. Lauren Boebert and then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, rebuffed pressure from President Donald Trump and Johnson last year as they joined with Democrats and forced a vote on a bill mandating the release of many of the case files on Epstein.
Mace, who in 2019 shared her own account of surviving rape, has continued an outspoken campaign advocating for victims of sexual assault. She and Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna had repeatedly called for Swalwell and Gonzales to resign.
Mace has also extended that demand to Republican Rep. Cory Mills, who is facing an ethics investigation on allegations of sexual misconduct and violence against an ex-girlfriend. Mills has said he will disprove the allegations.
Meanwhile, Mace and Luna are also calling for the resignation of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat. The House Ethics Committee found evidence that she broke campaign finance law related to a mistaken overpayment of $5 million from the state of Florida to her family’s health care business. She has said she did nothing wrong.
“Clean house. Expel them. Hold every last one accountable,” Mace said on social media. “The American people are watching.”
At the same time, Mace herself is under investigation by the ethics panel for allegations she improperly claimed housing reimbursements. She has denied wrongdoing.
As accusations of sexual abuse continued to land against Swalwell, some Democrats found themselves in a moment of reflection and contrition, especially those who kept close company with him.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a close friend of Swalwell’s who chaired his presidential campaign, called reporters to his office on Tuesday for an emotional press conference.
“I messed up. I’m human. I trusted this man,” a teary-eyed Gallego said.
Under intense questioning from reporters, Gallego acknowledged that he had heard rumors about Swalwell being “flirty,” but contended that he trusted him as a close family friend.
“I definitely look at the world in a different way now,” Gallego said. “I personally am going to make sure that I’m going to take personal steps and office steps to make sure that we don’t even get close to a gray line.”
Speier, who entered politics by first working as a congressional aide and experienced harassment from a supervisor, said that part of the problem in Congress is that members are given wide latitude to run their offices. All 535 lawmakers are bosses of their own hand-selected staff.
“There’s really no one overseeing you,” Speier said. “There’s a sense of entitlement that kind of overtakes many of these members.”
Speier, alongside then-Rep. Bradley Byrne, led the effort to pass legislation to make it easier to report sexual harassment and discrimination, including banning nondisclosure agreements to protect members of Congress.
Since the 2018 reforms began requiring the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to report awards and settlements related to formal complaints, there have been eight payments made by House members’ offices, totaling just over $400,000. Those payments cover all types of violations of workplace rights, not just sexual harassment, and the violations could have been committed by other congressional staff in the office.
Speier said that it was crucial to keep making it easier for survivors to report sexual abuse.
“Unless someone comes forward, you know the conduct continues,” she said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s Tax Day on Wednesday, the deadline for most Americans to file taxes, and the Trump administration says millions of people have already used new breaks such as no tax on tips and overtime, exemptions for interest on certain car loans, deductions for some seniors, and Trump Accounts for children’s savings.
More than 53 million filers claimed a deduction under one of those provisions from Republicans’ massive tax and spending law, a Treasury official told reporters Tuesday ahead of the deadline, with 6 million people claiming no tax on tips, 21 million claiming the overtime deduction and 30 million older Americans claiming the enhanced deduction.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the numbers, said the 2026 filing season was a success from the administration’s perspective.
Still, the latest data comes as most Americans, or 7 in 10, still think their taxes are too high, according to recent polling, despite the passage of the Republican tax law which promised big savings for taxpayers.
As the tax season kicked off in January, the White House boasted that average returns were projected to rise by at least $1,000. But currently, the average refund amount is $3,462, according to the latest IRS data, which is up 11% or about $350 from last tax year’s $3,116 average refund payment.
Treasury has shifted its messaging to tout that tax refunds this season are up 24% compared with the four-year average of refunds before President Donald Trump took office.
The White House has been trying to promote Trump’s tax cuts as a way to get voters more enthusiastic about the way he’s handling the economy ahead of November’s midterm elections, but the message has been overshadowed for weeks by higher gas prices caused by the war in Iran.
The 2026 season comes as the IRS has gone through a leadership turnover and reduced its workforce by 27% over the past year through cuts brought on by the Department of Government Efficiency.
IRS CEO Frank Bisignano is set to testify in front of the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday.
In his public testimony to lawmakers, Bisignano planned to tout the IRS’ implementation of the Republican tax law.
However, Democratic lawmakers zeroed in on IRS disclosures of confidential taxpayer information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of an agreement between ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to share information for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally in the U.S.