Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
CAMP COUNTY (KETK) — A 40-year-old man has died after drowning in a Camp County private pond while fishing with family on Saturday.
The Camp County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were dispatched to a residence on County Road 3211 near Pittsburg at around 2:37 p.m. after receiving reports of a possible drowning.
Family members told law enforcement that the victim, identified as Angel Gonzales of Pflugerville, decided to swim across the pond while the family was fishing nearby. When he reached about halfway across, he went under the water and did not resurface.
Emergency crews with the sheriff’s office and the Pittsburg Fire Department searched for Gonzalez but could not locate him. The Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens were then called and located him.
The Longview Fire Department’s dive team was then deployed to recover his body. He was recovered at 4:55 p.m., officials confirmed.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration’s $1 billion payout to a French energy company to walk away from U.S. offshore wind development is a novel approach against the industry that supporters see as creative — but opponents see as foolish and extreme.
The Interior Department announced Monday that TotalEnergies agreed to what is essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects instead. The department hailed it as an “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant so that the “American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.”
The tactical shift comes after federal courts have thwarted President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind through executive action.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told The Associated Press on Tuesday the payment “sets a dangerous precedent and is a shortsighted misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Robin Shaffer, president of the anti-offshore wind group Protect Our Coast New Jersey, applauded what he called “out of the box” thinking. Shaffer said after losing in the courts, the administration needed a way to take back leases that never should have been issued because of the harm offshore wind development causes to the marine environment.
“The Trump administration has been relentlessly creative in its efforts to stop offshore wind development in the U.S.,” he said.
While the Republican president has been particularly hostile to offshore wind, he has also blocked dozens of clean energy projects and canceled billions of dollars in grants to promote clean energy, which he derides as the “Green New Scam.” This comes at a time when the U.S. is trying to boost power supplies in an artificial intelligence race against China and keep electricity bills from rising even higher.
The Iran war has also dealt a massive energy shock to the global economy by choking off most exports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz.
A vow to stop offshore wind
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end the offshore wind industry as soon as he returned to the White House. Trump said wind turbines are horrible and expensive and pose a threat to birds and other wildlife.
Connecticut is getting power from Revolution Wind, an offshore wind project, and estimates it will lower wholesale energy costs for the state. The National Audubon Society, which is dedicated to the conservation of birds, has said climate change is a greater threat to birds.
Trump has long opposed offshore wind energy. In 2015, he lost his yearslong battle to stop an offshore wind farm near Aberdeen in eastern Scotland when Britain’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled against him. Trump claimed the 11 turbines would spoil the view from his golf course.
He wants to boost production of oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, because he argues that doing so would give the U.S. the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world.
His first day back in office, he acted on his campaign promise, signing an executive order temporarily halting offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pausing permitting for all wind projects.
The deal comes after the administration is thwarted by the courts
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris vacated Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects on Dec. 8, declaring it unlawful as she sided with state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., who challenged the order. The administration is appealing.
Two weeks later, the administration ordered that construction stop on five major East Coast offshore wind projects, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government didn’t show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt.
TotalEnergies wasn’t one of those; it had already paused its two projects soon after Trump was elected. And the company has now pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a “more efficient use of capital” in the U.S.
Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for U.S. clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said this is “clearly an alternative strategy to recklessly block wind power, since the Trump administration keeps losing in court.”
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond Law School professor who has been following the lawsuits, called it “unorthodox.”
Democrats criticize stopping offshore wind when energy prices are spiking
As crude oil and gasoline prices surge, Democrats in Virginia said the U.S. should be strengthening its energy independence and resilience. Virginia started receiving power on Monday from an offshore wind project targeted by Trump.
“Giving an energy company $1 billion of taxpayer money to pack up its jobs and invest elsewhere — in the middle of an unpopular and unwise war that is spiking energy costs — is beyond idiotic,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said in a statement to AP.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat, questioned whether the payout is legal under appropriations law and said she would question Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about it at the upcoming budget hearings.
Dozens of commercial leases issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management remain active for wind energy development in the U.S.
Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, said she wouldn’t attempt to guess whether the Trump administration will pay to stop any others, but clearly it is willing to go to extreme measures.
“Will they do this again? Maybe,” she said.
AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – New state rules that eliminate natural smokeable hemp products and increase licensing fees will go into effect at the end of the month. Hemp industry leaders say these new regulations will eliminate a majority of their inventory and force those who don’t have extra income to meet these new fees to close stores.
Earlier this month, the Texas Department of State Health Services released regulations on consumable hemp-derived THC products that will go into effect on March 31. These new regulations include child-resistant packaging, a significant increase in licensing fees, new labeling, testing, and bookkeeping requirements. The rules also codify the legal purchasing age to 21, which went into effect last year as an emergency directive.
However, hemp retailers say the regulation that decreases the amount of total THC in products they sell to 0.3% will eliminate popular smokeable hemp products, such as rolled joints and smokeable flower buds, which make up more than 50% of some stores’ inventories.
The Texas Legislature voted to ban the products out of fear that these intoxicating products were consistently getting into the hands of children. But, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the decision last summer, before asking the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and DSHS to increase regulations on the industry instead.
The rules also increase licensing fees for manufacturers of hemp-derived THC from $258 to $10,000 per facility and retail registrations from $155 to $5,000, which industry leaders say will fulfill the ban by forcing businesses to close.
“They did a ban with their own regulatory scheme,” Lukas Gilkey, chief executive of Hometown Hero, a manufacturer of hemp-derived products, said. “The way they wrote the rules, it’s going to eliminate a lot of products that are fully legal and fully fine and not harmed anyone.”
What will Texans no longer be able to buy?
Under the new rules and regulations, Texans will no longer be able to purchase intoxicating smokeable hemp products, including hemp flower or pre-rolled joints. Consumers can still purchase edibles and beverages because they have lower THC concentrations or because they are under the purview of the TABC, which has not banned these beverages.
“We estimate this will hand 50% of the legal market to illicit operators, making our state less safe,” Heather Fazio, director of Texas Cannabis Policy Center, said.
Even though Texas law bans marijuana, lawmakers legalized hemp in 2019. State law defines hemp as containing less than 0.3% levels of intoxicating Delta-9 THC.
To get around the law’s Delta-9 THC restrictions, manufacturers started cultivating hemp plants with another type of THC, called THCA, that, when ignited in a joint or smokeable product, can produce a high. Many lawmakers have said this legal loophole has allowed a recreational THC market to appear overnight without direct approval from the state.
Under the new rules, laboratories tests will now measure the total amount of any THC in a product. If the THC levels exceed the 0.3% threshold even if it’s only activated upon being smoked, the product will be noncompliant under state regulations. As a result, some of the most popular hemp products, like THCA flower and pre-rolled joints, will be banned.
Hemp businesses caught selling noncompliant products will face a range of penalties and fines, including license revocation and up to $10,000 in violation fees for each day these products were sold in stores.
“Many hemp businesses that have operated legitimately for years will have to make a hard decision about whether or not they can keep their doors open,” said Fazio.
What happens if Texans are caught in possession of smokeable THC products?
People in Texas will not be committing a crime if they are in possession of smokeable THC products after March 31.
Fazio encourages Texans to take advantage of the sales on smokeable hemp products over the next couple of days, as hemp retailers are scrambling to clear these items from shelves.
“There is no risk to consumers who possess or consume hemp in any form,” she said.
Andrea Steel, a Houston attorney for several THC businesses, said in theory customers shouldn’t get in trouble, but expects law enforcement agencies will incorrectly arrest people caught smoking hemp products because they might assume smokeable hemp is banned, just like marijuana.
“Just a twist of the consequences of what happens when an agency goes too far,” she said.
Hemp retailers cannot sell to out-of-state customers, said Fazio, meaning store owners will be stuck with any non-compliant products that they can’t sell before the end of the month.
“They can keep it for themselves, but they cannot sell it,” she said.
Why are hemp industry leaders opposed to these changes?
Fazio said many hemp industry leaders are grateful to see tighter restrictions from DSHS, including requiring stores to verify customers’ ages and ensure products have warning labels and child-proof packaging, because many businesses have operated with very little accountability.
“Good actors welcome increased regulatory enforcement, while bad actors should be concerned about this new level of accountability that will protect consumers,” she said. “However, two major changes greatly concern us: licensing fees and regulatory product restrictions.”
Restricting levels of any THC in hemp will wipe out stores’ most popular products, smokeables. Raising licensing fees for hemp manufacturers from $250 to $10,000 and retailer fees from $150 to $5,000 will close businesses, industry members say.
Under the new rules, hemp retailers and manufacturers will also need to keep detailed records for each product type to ensure THC levels are consistent, records for every production run, documentation of raw materials and ingredients, and formal procedures for documenting and investigating complaints, among other requirements.
While larger hemp manufacturers can handle this new demand, some of the smaller THC retailers, usually located in rural areas of Texas, will close because they lack resources, staff, or time to implement those changes. These extra requirements for retailers could inadvertently cut off access to recreational THC in those regions.
“This death by a thousand paper cuts,” Gilkey said. “The problem is that the desire for these products is not going to go away; they will just order them online, where it’s still legal, or off the street, where we have no testing and no guidance.”
Why do state leaders want these types of restrictions?
Supporters of the licensing fee increase say the new regulations are a necessary step to protect children and consumers from hemp products that have dangerously high amounts of THC in them.
“Cannabis advocates say this is a billion-dollar industry. It’s fair and appropriate for the people who profit from selling a billion dollars in intoxicating products to create fees that help cover the cost associated with the regulation and societal burden of the product,” Betsy Jones, director of policy and strategy at Texans for Safe and Drug-Free Youth, told the state health agency earlier this year.
Data provided from the Texas Poison Center Network confirms a sharp increase in cannabis-related poisoning calls starting in 2019, a year after hemp-derived THC was legalized by the federal government, from 923 to a 10-year high of 2,592 in 2024. However, those calls dropped to 1,485 last year. The majority of these calls involve suspected poisoning of children under the age of five and teenagers.
Drug policy experts said these numbers seem alarming, but it is natural for poisoning calls to increase when a drug has become legalized, and the data needs additional context before making conclusions from it.
Concerns about the safety of these high-THC products among youth led lawmakers to attempt to ban hemp-derived THC products outright last year. While the overall ban didn’t succeed, lawmakers did successfully ban vape pens containing THC and other hemp-derived intoxicating chemicals. Lawmakers banned it for everyone because they were concerned cannabis vape pens were so popular among teenagers because they can use them discreetly.
Also, hemp supporters have accused law enforcement agencies of attempting to rein in the industry by unlawfully raiding stores. Law enforcement agencies accused these hemp shops of selling dangerous products, especially to children, and engaging in other unscrupulous activities such as money laundering. Many of those retailers have not yet been found guilty of any crime, according to their attorneys.
What does the future hold?
Multiple hemp industry leaders and advocates say a conglomerate of hemp businesses plan to sue the state to block these new regulations from taking effect.
Gilkey said the hemp industry’s battle to stay alive in Texas started back in 2021 when the state health agency classified any amount of a natural intoxicating hemp compound called Delta-8 THC as illegal, leading to a lawsuit that the Texas Supreme Court is expected to consider this year.
“It has been a long, hard battle,” Gilkey said.
Steel predicts Texans will find workarounds to the new regulations, including smoking “semi-synthetic” or “converted” cannabis products, which are items sprayed with various chemicals to mimic marijuana’s high.
“You’ll see edibles and beverages trying to take that gap, but people want to smoke, and so they’re going to fill that gap with something that complies with the law, or at least on its face appears to comply with the law,” she said.
You can see article as it was published by going to The Texas Tribune.
PORT ARTHUR (AP) – An oil refinery fire near the Texas coast was put out Tuesday and a shelter-in-place order was lifted, hours after a large explosion at the complex shot plumes of smoke into the air, officials said.
No one was injured in Monday’s explosion at the Valero refinery in Port Arthur, about 90 miles east of Houston, Mayor Charlotte M. Moses said. She had urged residents in parts of the west side of the city to stay put.
“There’s been an explosion, yes, but we’re OK; everybody’s OK,” she said. “They’re trying to put the fire out as quickly as possible.”
Residents at least several miles away said they felt their homes shake. Some schools in the area were closed Tuesday as a precaution.
The explosion comes amid a spike in gas prices driven by uncertainty over the global oil supply because of the Iran war.
The refinery has about 770 employees and can process about 435,000 barrels of oil per day, according to Valero’s website. The plant refines heavy sour crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Images and video posted online show a large plume of smoke and flames billowing out from the refinery.
Valero did not respond to emails and a call from The Associated Press seeking comment. Local television stations reported a company spokesperson said everyone was accounted for.
Texas state Rep. Christian Manuel said in a post on social media that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality arrived at the refinery with air monitoring equipment and was working with local and state partners.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy.
TotalEnergies has agreed to what’s essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced Monday.
President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges repeatedly overturned those orders.
The Interior Department hailed the “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant and said, “the American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.?
Environmental groups denounced the deal as an alternate way to block wind projects, with one group calling it a “billion-dollar bribe” to kill clean energy.
“After losing again and again in court on his illegal stop-work orders, Trump has found another way to strangle offshore wind: pay them to walk away,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action.
In his second term, Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says will lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
TotalEnergies had already paused its two projects after Trump was elected.
The company pledged to not develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement that TotalEnegeries renounced offshore wind development in the United States in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees, “considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest.”
Pouyanné said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a “more efficient use of capital” in the U.S.
After it makes those investments, TotalEnergies will be reimbursed, up to the amount paid in lease purchases for offshore wind, according to the DOI.
“We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans’ monthly bills,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said Trump was “using a pay-not-to-play scheme” to pressure the French company not to build offshore wind, calling it “an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars.” Hochul said she remains committed to moving forward with an “all-of-the-above approach” that includes renewables, nuclear power and other energy sources.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said this is “a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country.”
“Our state has the offshore wind potential to power millions of homes with renewable American-made energy. It’s ludicrous and wasteful that the Trump administration is spending $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop it from investing private dollars to create the clean energy we need,” Stein said in a statement.
The Biden administration sought to ramp up offshore wind as a climate change solution. Trump began reversing U.S. energy policies his first day in office with executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas and coal. Globally the offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations.
The Interior Department halted construction on five major East Coast offshore wind projects days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five projects to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show the risk was so imminent that construction must halt.
On Monday, one of the wind farms targeted by the administration, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, started delivering power to the grid for Virginia. The developer, Richmond-based Dominion Energy, announced the milestone.
Ted Kelly, clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, called the proposed deal “an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars to prevent Americans from having clean, affordable power exactly when they need it most.”
East Coast states are building offshore wind because it boosts affordable electricity supply on the grid, even as natural gas prices are rising, Kelly said.
TotalEnergies purchased a lease for its Carolina Long Bay project in 2022 for about $133 million. It aimed to generate more than 1 gigawatt there, enough to power about 300,000 homes. It purchased the lease off New York and New Jersey, also in 2022, for $795 million. This was planned as a larger project, with the potential to generate 3 gigawatts of clean energy to power nearly one million homes. TotalEnergies is involved in major offshore wind projects in Europe and Asia.
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Daly reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina contributed to this report.
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AUSTIN (AP) – As states that already ban abortion look to further restrict access this year, much of the focus is on pills sent by out-of-state providers.
A survey released Tuesday helps explain the emphasis. It suggests that more women in states with bans obtained abortions last year using the pills prescribed via telehealth than by traveling to places where it’s legal.
Most of the states with the political will to impose broad bans have already done so in the nearly four years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to enforcing them. So far this year, just one state has a new one.
Here’s a look at where things stand as many state legislatures are wrapping up or have completed their 2026 sessions.
States are taking steps to make abortion pills harder to get
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, a Republican, signed a bill last week that makes it a felony to advertise, distribute or sell abortion pills.
Similar measures have cleared both legislative chambers in Mississippi this year. There, the House and Senate would need to iron out differences between their versions before it can be sent to the Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.
A survey of state abortion policies from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, finds that at least three states — Florida, Oklahoma and Texas — already have laws that specifically ban providers from mailing the pills to patients. Louisiana has classified one of the drugs, mifepristone, as a controlled dangerous substance.
Bills intended to keep out the pills have cleared one chamber of the legislature in Arizona, Indiana and South Carolina this year. Republicans control the legislatures in all three states and the governor’s office in two of them. But in Arizona, any restrictions that pass could be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Survey suggests abortion pills are a growing option in states with bans
A Guttmacher survey released Tuesday sheds light on why abortion opponents may be focusing on pills.
The report suggests that in 2025, for the first time, more women in the 13 states that ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy obtained pills through telehealth than traveled to other states for abortion.
The prescriptions come from providers in states with laws adopted since the fall of Roe that are intended to protect those who prescribe abortion pills to patients in states with bans.
The estimated increase in mailing pills comes as Guttmacher’s estimates also suggest fewer women are traveling to states like Colorado, Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico for abortion.
Guttmacher’s estimates are based on data from a monthly survey conducted among a random sample of U.S. abortion providers, combined with historical data from every provider in the U.S.
That follows a trend that’s been documented in other surveys of abortion providers.
Court battles are also centered on pills
Multiple states have court challenges to the federal rules that allow the abortion pill mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth.
If they could require in-person prescriptions, it would at least dent the ability of out-of-state providers to get pills into places with bans in place.
Louisiana has such a lawsuit in federal court there; the attorneys general of Florida and Texas have one in Texas; those two states, along with Idaho, Kansas and Missouri, are making the same case in a Missouri court.
Meanwhile, Texas has filed civil cases and Louisiana criminal ones against providers accused of sending pills into their states.
The Food and Drug Administration last year approved a generic version of mifepristone, which frustrated abortion opponents.
One state imposed a ban, but its fate is uncertain
Wyoming is the only state this year that has imposed a new abortion ban.
Under a law signed in March by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, it became the fifth state with a ban on abortion at about six weeks’ gestational age — before many women realize they’re pregnant. Like most of the others, Wyoming’s ban is on abortions once cardiac activity can be detected.
Courts have rejected previous Wyoming efforts to limit abortion.
The Wyoming Supreme Court in January struck down a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
The idea of punishing women is not gaining ground
No state has adopted a measure intended to allow criminal prosecutions against women who have abortions.
Proposals to do so keep getting made but sputter early in the legislative process.
The farthest such a bill has made it was a hearing last year before a Senate subcommittee in South Carolina. One was scheduled for a subcommittee hearing in Tennessee this month, but didn’t get one.
Pregnancy Justice, which advocates for the rights of pregnant people, says it’s tracked new “abortion-as-homicide” measures introduced in six states in 2026 — down from 13 states last year.
The major established anti-abortion groups oppose the approach. “Women require compassion and support,” said Ingrid Duran, the state legislative director for National Right to Life. “Not prosecution.”
Melissa Murray, a professor at New York University School of Law, says that introducing bills with penalties against women can break down the idea that such policies are off-limits.
“You keep pushing the boundary, pushing the envelope, eventually you will get what you’re seeking,” Murray said. “It will no longer feel fanciful or shocking.”
She also noted that women are already sometimes charged with crimes related to their pregnancies. This month, police in Georgia charged a woman with murder after allegedly using an abortion pill and the opioid painkiller oxycodone.
Abortion will be on ballots in November
Abortion questions will be before voters in at least three states in November.
Missouri lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the right to reproductive freedom that they put into the state constitution in 2024.
Elsewhere, voters are being asked to add constitutional amendments that largely mirror current state abortion laws.
In Nevada, a state constitutional amendment to allow abortion until fetal viability — generally considered to be sometime after 21 weeks of pregnancy — passed in 2024. But it needs voter approval a second time to take effect.
A Virginia measure on the ballot would guarantee the right to reproductive freedom, including access to contraception and making decisions on abortion care during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
A large explosion at an oil refinery near the Texas coast on Monday shot plumes of smoke into the air and forced nearby residents to shelter in place, officials said.
No one was injured in the explosion at the Valero refinery in Port Arthur, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Houston, Mayor Charlotte M. Moses said. She urged residents in parts of the west side of the city to stay put, saying firefighters had arrived.
“There’s been an explosion, yes, but we’re OK; everybody’s OK,” she said. “They’re trying to put the fire out as quickly as possible.”
The explosion comes amid a spike in gas prices driven by uncertainty over the global oil supply because of the Iran war.
The refinery has about 770 employees and can process about 435,000 barrels of oil per day, according to Valero’s website. The plant refines heavy sour crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Images and video posted online show a large plume of smoke and flames billowing out from the refinery. Some residents reported hearing a loud boom and seeing their windows shake.
“For your safety please remain in place until the ‘All Clear’ is given by emergency personnel,” the City of Port Arthur said in a post on its Facebook page.
Valero did not respond to an email or call from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Texas state Rep. Christian Manuel said in a post on social media that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had arrived at the refinery with air monitoring equipment and was working with local and state partners.
He told nearby residents to stay inside.
“Please limit outdoor activity, keep windows and doors closed, and follow guidance from local officials,” he said.
HOPKINS COUNTY, Texas (KETK) — Months after a video surfaced of an East Texas breeder shooting a dog, a federal investigation revealed deplorable conditions at her unlicensed facility — charges that could send her to prison for up to 20 years.
An indictment delivered from a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Texas on Monday names Kristine Michelle Hicks, 51, of Cumby and charged her with acting as an unlicensed animal dealer and four counts of wire fraud.
Hicks’ appearance in federal court comes after being arrested on Dec. 21, 2025, for a social media video depicting her allegedly shooting at a dog three times and leaving it for dead, spurring an investigation into her breeding facilities.
Following Hicks’ arrest, search warrants executed in Jan. 10 at her dog breeding and sale business, Giant German Shepherds, found 88 German shepherds held in devastating conditions.
“The dogs had lacked adequate shelter from environmental exposure in their pens,” the indictment said. “Their pens, dirt and mud filled, had rusty buckets clipped to fences in a crowded row that were supposed to be the dogs’ source of food. A few had some kibble in the bottom, but many were empty, and water containers had mostly dirty water in them.”
Dogs were found starving, sick and neglected — many had bite wounds, scars or feces caked on their coats and feet.
An approximate total of 131 dogs were held at the property in December 2025, but Hicks had moved some to another location. Various animal care agencies assisted the remaining 88 dogs, 56 of which were surrendered to the SPCA of Texas for emergency intervention.
Additionally, the investigation into Giant German Shepherds found that Hicks has been running the business fraudulently. She advertised dogs as healthy, met certified parentage and were American Kennel Club (AKC) registered though the indictment found that they were not.
Many of the dogs sold were mixed breeds — not the “purebred” promised on Hicks’ website — and had diseases, the indictment said. Hicks also bought litters through Facebook and allegedly created false AKC documents to defraud buyers.
Four people identified as victims of Hicks’ alleged wire fraud were named in the indictment, including a disabled veteran who received an aggressive dog with false paperwork. The dog, which had medical issues, reportedly drew blood from the buyer several times.
The indictment also states that Hicks knowingly violated the Animal Welfare Act by not obtaining a license from the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture before selling or transporting dogs from June 2024 to December 2025.
If convicted, Hicks could face up to 20 years in federal prison for her count of acting as an animal dealer without a license and four counts of wire fraud.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeal of a Texas-based online citizen journalist who said she was wrongly arrested in a case that drew attention from national media organizations and free speech advocates.
The justices left in place a divided federal appeals court ruling that found journalist Priscilla Villarreal, known online as La Gordiloca, could not sue police officers and other officials over her arrest for seeking and obtaining nonpublic information from police.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing, “It should be obvious that this arrest violated the First Amendment.”
The high court has previously directed the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Villareal’s case in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in another case from Texas. In June 2024, the justices gave a former local elected official another chance to pursue her lawsuit claiming she too was wrongly arrested.
In that case, Sylvia Gonzalez, a former city council member in the San Antonio suburb of Castle Hills, said she was arrested in retaliation as part of a dispute with a political rival.
But the 5th Circuit essentially stood by its earlier ruling and this time, the justices declined to intervene without explanation. “The Fifth Circuit has doubled down on granting officials free rein to turn routine news reporting into a felony,” Villareal’s lawyers wrote in their Supreme Court appeal.
A state judge had previously dismissed the criminal case against Villareal, saying the law used to arrest her in 2017 was unconstitutional. She then sought to sue the officials for damages. The full 5th Circuit ruled 9-7 that officials Villarreal sued in Laredo and Webb County were entitled to legal immunity.
Villarreal had sought — and obtained from a police officer — the identities of a person who killed himself and a family involved in a car accident and published the information on Facebook. The arrest affidavit said she sought the information to gain Facebook followers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from longtime Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed who has sought to test crime-scene evidence that he says will help clear him.
The justices left in place a ruling against Reed from the federal appeals court in New Orleans for the second time in less than three years.
The three liberal justices dissented.
Reed was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. Prosecutors have refused to allow for DNA testing of the webbed belt that was used to strangle Stites as she made her way to work at a supermarket in Bastrop, a rural community about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Austin.
Prosecutors say Reed also raped Stites, but he contends that he was having a consensual affair with her.
Reed has long maintained that Stites’ fiance, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, was the real killer. Fennell was angry about the interracial affair, Reed says. Stites was white and Reed is Black. Fennell, who served time for sexual assault and was released from prison in 2018, has denied killing Stites.
“The killer held that belt tight against her throat for minutes, and must have left his sweat and skin cells—and thus his DNA—where he gripped the belt, both on the surface and deep within the webbing,” Reed’s attorneys wrote.
State and lower federal courts have so far backed prosecutors’ refusal to allow for the testing, which would be paid for by Reed’s defense team.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that it is “inexplicable” why prosecutors wouldn’t allow the belt to be tested, “despite the very substantial possibility that such testing would exculpate Reed and identify the real killer.”
With the high court’s refusal to step in, “the State will likely execute Reed without the world ever knowing whether Reed’s or Fennell’s DNA is on the murder weapon,” Sotomayor wrote in an opinion that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The state’s top criminal appeals court ruled that the Texas law on DNA testing doesn’t apply to items that may have been contaminated. But the state routinely uses contaminated evidence in prosecutions, Reed’s lawyers wrote, and in any event, the state, not Reed, was responsible for the handling of the evidence.
In 2023, the justices ruled 6-3 to send Reed’s case back to a lower court for his constitutional challenge to the state’s law on DNA testing.
The issue before the high court then was whether Reed, sentenced to death more than 25 years ago, waited too long to file his lawsuit claiming that untested crime-scene evidence would exonerate him. Texas courts and the federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that he missed the deadline.
Reed’s efforts to stop his execution have received support from such celebrities as Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey.
Parts of California and Arizona were under extreme heat warnings again Saturday while sweltering summerlike weather even stretched as far north as Nebraska just a day into spring.
Temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 C) were forecast in the Southwest, closing a remarkable week of record-breaking heat. Experts say April, May and June are likely to be hotter than normal almost everywhere in the U.S.
Win Marsh said the heat was a reason to return home early to Utah after she and her husband, Stephen, hiked 170 miles (273 kilometers) over two weeks in Arizona, starting at the Mexico border. Their goal was to complete more than 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) on the Arizona Trail.
“We know our limits,” Marsh, 63, said Saturday. “We can’t hike when our bodies can’t cool down. There’s no shade out there, and water sources are drying up. … We promised our kids we wouldn’t do sketchy stuff. We’re not out there for a search-and-rescue event.”
The National Weather Service predicted 100 degrees (37.7 C) in Tucson, Arizona. The Yuma Desert, a desert community in southwestern Arizona, was headed toward 105 degrees (40.5 C), a day after reaching 112 (43.3 C) — a record for the highest March temperature in the United States.
Two places in Southern California also hit that temperature Friday. Experts say triple-digit days typically arrive by May, not March.
In the Midwest, temperatures exceeding 90 (32.2 C) were predicted across Nebraska, followed by a big drop to the 50s and 60s Sunday. A red flag warning was posted, which means a higher risk for wildfires. Parts of Texas were also at 90 or higher Saturday.
“This heat is likely to break many long-standing records from over a century ago across the area,” the National Weather Service in Omaha, Nebraska, said.
All evacuation orders were lifted in areas affected by Nebraska’s Cottonwood and Morrill fires, which have burned more than 1,200 square miles (3,118 square kilometers) for days but are largely contained, the state Emergency Management Agency said. The areas are dominated by range and grassland.
March’s heat would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, according to a report Friday by World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists who study the causes of extreme weather events.
DILLEY (AP) – Nearly 600 immigrant children were held in a Texas family detention center in recent months without enough food, medical care or mental health services, as their time inside stretched beyond court-mandated limits, according to court documents filed Friday.
Children and families held in the Dilley detention facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were sent earlier this year also faced virus outbreaks and lasting lockdowns in December and January, although the total number of children held at Dilley has fallen in recent weeks, according to the attorney’s reports and site visits.
The case of Ramos, a preschooler who was wearing a blue bunny hat when he was picked up in Minnesota by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stirred protest over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, including among detainees who gathered and held up signs in the yard inside Dilley’s chain-link fences.
Last week about 85 children remained detained at Dilley, but concerning conditions continued, said Mishan Wroe, directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, who visited in mid-March. In early February, a legal advocate for the children observed about 280 children.
The filings cited numerous poignant cases, including that of a 13-year-old girl held at Dilley who tried to take her own life after staff withheld prescribed antidepressants and denied her request to join her mother, as reported by The Associated Press. The government reported there had been “no placements on suicide watch,” according to the filing. The AP obtained Dilley discharge documents that described a “suicide attempt by cutting of wrist” and “self-harm.”
The filings were submitted in a lawsuit launched in 1985 that led to the creation in 1997 of court-ordered supervision of standards and eventually established a 20-day limit in custody. The Trump administration seeks to end the Flores settlement.
“For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left that is antithetical to the law and wastes valuable U.S. taxpayer funded resources,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “Being in detention is a choice.”
Attorneys for detainees highlighted the government’s data showing longer custody times for immigrant children, and also cited worms in food, and poor access to medical care or sufficient legal counsel as reported by families and monitors at federal facilities.
“Dilley remains a hellhole,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. “Although the number of children has decreased, the suffering remains the same.”
Dilley is retrofitted for families, who receive basic necessities including adequate food and water while in detention, and the Trump administration is working to quickly deport detainees, the DHS spokesperson added.
A report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed that about 595 immigrant children were held in custody for more than the 20-day limit in December and January, with some stretching into months, per the filing.
“Approximately 265 of these children were detained for more than 50 days and a shocking 55 children were detained more than 100 days,” the filing stated.
That is up from a previous government disclosure late last year that showed from August to September, 400 children had been held at Dilley beyond the 20-day limit. DHS did not respond to questions seeking comment on the data.
Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California is scheduled to have a hearing on the case later this month.
LIVINGSTON, Texas (KETK) — An investigation into the sale of illegal drugs near a Livingston elementary school came to an end on Wednesday with the arrest of a man following the discovery of drugs in his residence. According to the Livingston Police Department, officers were looking into the sale of illegal drugs near Pine Ridge Primary School in a “lengthy” investigation.
Officers executed a search warrant at a home connected to the investigation, finding the following:
Methamphetamine
Crack cocaine
MDMA
Synthetic marijuana
Illegally possessed prescription medications
Items commonly used to sell and distribute drugs
A firearm
The suspect, Alvin Taylor II was later arrested and charged with six counts of manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
Taylor is currently being held at the Polk County Jail under a $330,000 bond.
Since his residence was in a drug-free zone, some charges were increased and additional charges may be filed.
The Texas comptroller has accepted several Islamic private schools into the state’s voucher program after the institutions sued to gain admittance.
Four Muslim parents and three Islamic private school providers that operate four campuses had sued Texas leaders for excluding the schools while accepting hundreds of other non-Islamic schools.
The two federal lawsuits asked the court to block the private school voucher program from discriminating on the basis of religion. As part of the dispute, U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett has extended the voucher application deadline to March 31 and ordered the state to consider the schools’ request to join the voucher program. The next hearing is set for April 24.
The first lawsuit, filed March 1 by a parent acting on behalf of two children who attend a Houston private school, names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock and Education Commissioner Mike Morath as defendants. A second suit filed March 11 by three parents and three schools names Hancock and Mary Katherine Stout, the voucher program director, as defendants. The two cases are now consolidated into one.
Here’s what to know.
Background:
Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 into law in 2025, which authorized the creation of a statewide program that allows families to use public funds to pay for their children’s private school or home-school education.
Between Feb. 4 and March 31, virtually any family with school-age children in Texas can apply to participate. A lottery will determine who can receive the funds, pending their acceptance to a private school. Private schools interested in joining the program can apply on a rolling basis, as long as they have existed for at least two years and received accreditation.
More than 200,000 students have applied, while more than 2,200 private schools have been accepted.
Hancock — Texas’ chief financial officer whose office oversees the voucher program — in late 2025 requested an opinion from Paxton, asking if he could exclude schools from the voucher program based on their connections to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations or foreign adversaries.
Hancock said schools associated with the accreditation company Cognia had hosted events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group that Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated a terrorist organization. CAIR has sued Abbott over the label, calling it defamatory and false. The U.S. State Department has not designated the organization a terrorist group.
Texas Republicans have made anti-Muslim rhetoric a focal point during primary election season. Hancock, appointed by the governor on an interim basis, ran to serve a full term as comptroller before losing his race.
Hancock shut hundreds of Cognia-accredited schools out of the voucher program, including those that primarily serve Muslim students, Christian students and children with disabilities, which the Houston Chronicle first reported.
Paxton released an opinion in January stating his belief that Hancock has the authority to block certain schools from participating in the program if they are “illegally tied to terrorists or foreign adversaries.” Before the lawsuit, no Islamic schools were known to have been accepted into the state voucher program.
The comptroller’s office said it began inviting groups of Cognia schools that it considers in compliance with the law to participate, though it is unclear what that review entails. The Cognia schools accepted into the program did not include any Islamic institutions until after the federal court intervened.
In mid-February, Texas Senate Democrats called on Hancock to administer the program in a manner “neutral, transparent and consistent with the law and to immediately cease discriminatory and exclusionary practices that single out certain communities without lawful justification.”
Why the parents sued:
Mehdi Cherkaoui, a Muslim father of two children and lawyer representing himself in the March 1 lawsuit, argued that state leaders “have systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion.”
The Islamic schools blocked from joining the program meet the voucher program’s eligibility requirements and “have no actual connection to terrorism or unlawful activity,” the lawsuit states. That includes Houston Qur’an Academy Spring, a private school attended by Cherkaoui’s two children.
Cherkaoui pays almost $18,000 per year in tuition for his children at the Houston private school and wants to apply for the nearly $10,500 per child in voucher funding to offset those costs, according to the lawsuit. But with Islamic schools blocked from participating in the program, the suit says, Cherkaoui cannot complete the application.
“The exclusion is not based on individualized findings of unlawful conduct by any specific school, but rather on categorical presumptions that Islamic schools are suspect and potentially linked to terrorism by virtue of their religious identity and community associations,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit names Hancock, the comptroller, because of his role overseeing the program; Paxton, the attorney general, because of his legal opinion backing Hancock; and Morath, the education commissioner, because his agency works with the comptroller’s office on certain program conditions.
Morath does not oversee private schools in Texas, but schools in the voucher program must receive accreditation from organizations recognized by his agency or the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission.
Before the voucher program’s original March 17 deadline for family applications, the lawsuit asked that the court require the state to accept all Islamic schools that meet program requirements and prevent the state from delaying or denying approval based on schools’ religious identity, alleged “Islamic ties,” or “generalized associations with Islamic civil-rights or community organizations absent individualized, adjudicated findings of unlawful conduct.”
The second lawsuit, filed March 11, makes similar requests. The suit was filed by Bayaan Academy, the Islamic Services Foundation (Little Horizons Academy and Brighter Horizons Academy), and The Eagle Institute (Excellence Academy), which operate private schools in Galveston, Dallas and Collin counties, respectively. Three parents also listed as plaintiffs — Layla Daoudi, Muna Hamadah and Farhana Querishi — have children currently enrolled in private schools that are part of the lawsuit.
Hancock, Paxton and Morath did not respond to requests for comment.
How the state responded:
In court filings, Paxton’s office argued that because families who apply for the voucher program do not have to select a school until July 15, they are not harmed by the exclusion of Islamic schools.
Paxton’s office also said the comptroller’s office has not “denied” any private schools from participating until the July 15 deadline passes. Cognia-accredited schools require independent review, the state argued, due to the company “erroneously” listing schools as accredited without completing final steps. The Islamic schools suing the state are accredited by Cognia, the lawyers noted.
The schools’ “injuries will only manifest if the Comptroller denies their respective applications or otherwise fails to determine eligibility by July 15,” Paxton’s legal filing said.
The state also argued “it would be fundamentally unfair” to extend the application deadline and “disrupt” the educational plans of hundreds of thousands of parents.
“It is noteworthy that, as the day turns over to 12:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 18, neither Parent Plaintiffs nor School Plaintiffs will suddenly begin to experience harm,” the lawyers wrote. “The Parent Plaintiffs will all still be eligible for the lottery and be able to direct funds to an approved school of their choice at a later date if they are selected in the lottery. School Plaintiffs will still presumably be under review by the Comptroller.”
The court ruling and its aftermath:
A March 17 order from U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett prevents the state from considering which families will receive school voucher funding until after the order expires March 31, though Bennett could extend it.
It also requires the state to update its voucher application website to reflect the new deadline and provide the schools that filed the lawsuit an opportunity to register for the program. It does not require the state to add them to the list of approved schools.
The comptroller’s office said March 19 that it accepted into the program schools that sued and that of a parent named in the lawsuit.
“The ongoing process to review and add more schools is also continuing,” comptroller spokesperson Travis Pillow said.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Eviction notices. Vehicle repossessions. Empty refrigerators and overdrawn bank accounts.
Union leaders and federal officials say these are just some of the financial pressures Transportation Security Administration agents are facing during an ongoing government funding lapse — the third shutdown in less than six months that has forced the officers who screen airport passengers and luggage to keep working without pay.
The public is experiencing the consequences in long wait times at some airports as more TSA officers take time off to earn money on the side or cut back on expenses. At least 376 have quit their jobs altogether since the shutdown began on Valentine’s Day, according to the Department of Homeland Security, exacerbating staff turnover at an agency that historically has had some of the U.S. government’s highest attrition and lowest employee morale.
“It’s just exhausting. Every day it just feels like this weight gets heavier and heavier on us,” Cameron Cochems, a local TSA union leader in Boise, Idaho, told The Associated Press.
Airport screeners have spent nearly half of the past 170 days with their paychecks held up by politics — 43 days last fall during the longest government shutdown in history, four days earlier this year during a brief funding lapse, and now 35 days and counting during the current shutdown, which affects only the Department of Homeland Security. They are considered essential so have to keep showing up for work whether they get paid or not.
Cochems, who has worked as a TSA agent for more than four years and is vice president of his regional American Federation of Government Employees chapter, said the number of resignations likely doesn’t fully capture the extent of the agency’s personnel challenges. He thinks many more officers would already have walked away in a stronger job market.
“I think more people are staying with the TSA that don’t want to be here,” Cochems said.
The House Committee on Homeland Security has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to review the partial shutdown’s impact on the TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies within DHS.
A 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that TSA’s workforce has long struggled with some of the lowest morale in the federal government, driven in part by years of comparatively low pay and persistent workplace frustrations. While recent raises have helped, the report said dissatisfaction remained widespread, with officers citing inconsistent management, limited recognition and poor work-life balance.
The starting pay for TSA agents is about $34,500, and the average salary is $46,000 to $55,000, according to the agency’s careers website.
The GAO warned that unless those underlying issues were addressed, the risk of officers leaving the workforce was likely to persist.
For Cochems, the recent shutdowns have upended the sense of stability that drew him to federal service in the first place. He said he already works a seasonal side job screening college sports teams at airports to supplement his income. Now, with his TSA paychecks halted, even that isn’t enough to keep up with basic expenses.
The financial pressure on his family intensified after his wife was unexpectedly laid off from her job two weeks ago.
“Every day I come to the airport and I look at the food drive, see what things I can get for my family,” he said, referring to the donations that his airport, like many others, are soliciting to help TSA workers.
It’s unclear how long airport screeners will have to keep working unpaid. Both chambers of Congress are scheduled to be out of Washington the first two weeks of April. And Democrats have said the department won’t get funded until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.
For travelers, the strain in TSA staffing has made airport conditions increasingly unpredictable. Wait times have stretched into multiple hours at some airports, with passengers in cities like Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans reporting delays long enough to miss flights.
TSA officers missed their first full paycheck last weekend, and absences are climbing nationwide, according to Homeland Security. More than half of scheduled staff were absent Sunday at an airport in Houston. At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, 38% of officers missed work on Wednesday and 32% on Thursday.
“I’ve heard from officers who cannot afford copayments for cancer treatments or office visits for their sick children,” Aaron Barker, a local TSA union leader in Atlanta, said at a news conference outside the airport this week.
Homeland Security has said roughly 50,000 TSA employees would work during the shutdown. Nationwide on Thursday, about 10% of TSA agents missed work, the department reported. The absentee rate was two or three times higher in some places: 33% at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, 29% at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, 27% at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, and 23% at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
The staffing shortages have also forced some airports to close checkpoints, with wait times swinging dramatically throughout the day in some cases. Early Friday, Hartsfield-Jackson had two-hour waits before easing to less than five minutes by early afternoon, and then jumping back up to 90 minutes.
Security line wait times at Houston’s main airport exceeded two hours on Friday afternoon. Videos posted to social media showed lines snaking around the airport and down an escalator, spilling into the baggage claim area.
In a Fox News interview this week, Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl warned that the latest shutdown could have lasting consequences for staffing, saying attrition and recruitment would likely suffer. Staff depatures increased after the record one last fall, Stahl said.
“We saw an uptick of 25% attrition after the last shutdown, and so this is going to continue and worsen — not get better, get worse — if we don’t get a resumption of normal operations, DHS funded and money back into our TSA officers’ pockets,” he said, adding that the agency has exhausted its options, including deploying emergency manpower, to keep airport security checkpoints adequately staffed.
Former TSA Administrator John Pistole has said that about 1,100 officers quit during last year’s shutdown that ended in November.