Today is
Tuesday July 21, 2026
PANOLA COUNTY – Authorities confirmed that an 18-wheeler crashed in Panola County on Thursday morning, killing two people. Around 4:20 a.m., the collision occurred in Panola County at the intersection of Highway 79 and FM 31. The driver and passenger in the 18-wheeler were confirmed dead by the Texas Department of Public Safety. They are both from Missouri. According to the Panola County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Department of Transportation is present and attempting to reopen the road. An investigation is ongoing.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A giraffe named Gracie is missing in Texas, and the search for her has become a tall order.
Gracie, who is about 3 years old, has been missing for nearly two weeks after escaping her enclosure at Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill Country, said Vic Jones, who owns the remote property about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of San Antonio. He said Wednesday that Gracie had wandered into a part of the privately owned preserve that other giraffes previously avoided.
Jones said he has sent up helicopters to look for Gracie, a few sightings have trickled in, and a $5,000 reward is on the table.
But the giraffe, which stands roughly the height of a tree, hasn’t turned up.
“She wound up going up and feeding in an area on the hillside and the rocky ledges that none of the other giraffes had ever gone on before,” Jones said. “And when she came down off of there, she came down on the wrong side of the gate.”
The ranch is in rural Real County, where its roughly 2,700 residents were put on alert to be on the lookout for a missing giraffe. Jones said the search area is extremely remote, and the likelihood of Gracie encountering any humans is low.
“People are not in danger of her because she’s not around people,” Jones said. ‘She’s out in very, very rough, heavily wooded lands.”
The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the country. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the mild climate and rugged terrain seems to serve as a good stand-in for most of the animals’ native African environments.
He rattled off a list of animals that have gone missing over the years, especially after floods, but said this was his first giraffe.
“I’ve had wildebeests, I’ve had water buffalo, I’ve had monkeys, I’ve had zebras, all go missing,” Johnson said. “Sometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don’t.”
While the middle of Texas is not a giraffe’s native environment, Jones said Gracie should be able to find plenty of leaves and other vegetation to eat. He said other animals were not likely to bother her.
Jones said he initially had helicopters searching an area of about 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) with no luck. A few days later, there was a report that Gracie was spotted to the south.
But by the time they could search the area, Jones said, she was already gone.
“We’re always two three days late for where the information is coming from, so that makes it tough,” Jones said.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas would make Bible stories required reading for more than 5 million public school students under a proposal that has reignited debate over widening efforts in the U.S. to put more religion in classrooms.
A final vote by the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education on whether to approve the plan is set for Friday. Last year Texas became the largest state to require every classroom to display the Ten Commandments.
The proposed list has drawn fierce opposition. Critics argue that it violates the constitutional separation of church, lacks diversity and favors Christianity over other religions. Supporters say Judeo-Christian traditions were fundamental to the nation’s founding and that should be reflected in the public school curriculum.
Here’s what to know about the proposal and the broader fight over religion in public schools:
Republicans and Trump have pushed more religion into classrooms
President Donald Trump has pledged to protect and expand religious expression in public schools nationwide, and Texas — a red state that is home to about one in 10 of all U.S. public school students — often sets the agenda.
In 2023, Texas became the first state to allow the hiring of chaplains to counsel students, and the following year, the board narrowly approved an optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools. Last year, Republican lawmakers required public schools to display the Ten Commandments, a measure recently upheld by a federal appeals court.
Texas has about 5.5 million public school students from kindergarten through high school. If approved by the board, the required reading list would take effect in 2030.
“We need to focus on what our nation was founded on and not apologize for that,” Susan Perez, founder of Citizens for Education Reform, told the education board during testimony this week. “It is the truth and we should not be afraid.”
List requires Bible readings from elementary to high school
Picture-book stories for elementary students including “Noah’s Ark,” “David and Goliath” and “Daniel and the Lion’s Den” are on the required reading list. By fourth grade, students would encounter passages about Jesus in the New Testament.
By middle school, students would be expected to read several passages about Jesus, including passages from his most famous sermon, and another where he instructs people to cast aside earthly anxiety and seek the kingdom of God. Another would connect a reading from the Book of Lamentations and its themes of the destruction of Jerusalem with readings about the Holocaust.
In high school, students would read the parable of the prodigal son, portions of the Book of Job, and the story of Adam and Eve.
Some education observers said Texas may be the first state to enact a required reading list, with the added layer of mandated religious text.
Antero Garcia, president of the National Council of Teachers of English and a Stanford University professor, said he doesn’t know of any other state that has such a list. Educators at the district and school level usually choose what texts their students will read, Garcia said.
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said she believes such a mandated reading list would be “unique” to Texas.
“I think there’s lots of state lists that exist that are like advised readings, suggested readings,” she said.
Critics say the proposal favors Christianity over other religions
The required readings rely heavily on the King James Bible, one of the most popular translations, and more recent evangelical translations that critics argue lean too heavily on Christian interpretations of the texts.
Other critics question whether religious stories should be taught at all in schools attended by thousands of children of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other faiths, and others who identify as atheist or agnostic.
“I do think that it’s disturbing that there are no texts from other religious traditions that are included,” said Frank Strong, an English and journalism teacher and co-founder of the student advocacy group Texas Freedom to Read.
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Stengle reported from Dallas.
ANGELINA COUNTY (KETK) — A Lufkin man was pronounced dead on Monday afternoon after his vehicle reportedly drove off U.S. Highway 59 and into the Neches River, officials said.
According to a preliminary report from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the crash occurred at around 1:43 p.m. near the Polk and Angelina County line. A 2022 Ford Bronco was traveling north on the highway before reportedly traveling off the road, down an embankment and into the Neches River.
Mount Pleasant ISD mourns 2 students killed in car crash
DPS identified the driver as 71-year-old Theodore Fajen III of Lufkin, who was pronounced dead on the scene by a justice of the peace.
The investigation remains ongoing and no information is available at this time, DPS said.
McALLEN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) — As the New World screwworm continues to infiltrate livestock and other animals in Texas, many have been asking how the parasitic fly landed here to begin with.
Last week, the Texas Animal Health Commission identified a potential cause: small wildlife and rodents like armadillos, opossums and rabbits.
MAP: Where have New World screwworm cases been reported in Texas?
Until now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has pointed to multiple factors, including border policies under President Joe Biden to the illicit movement of cattle at the hands of drug cartels.
The new finding is based on conversations with entomologists, Lewis R. “Bud” Dinges, executive director of the Texas Animal Health Commission, told the Texas House Committee on Agriculture and Livestock.
However, the source of the first case of New World Screwworm remains under investigation, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Other health experts say it’s still undetermined what allowed the invasive pest to finally breach the Texas-Mexico border.
Tracing the source
During last week’s committee hearing, Dinges said epidemiological investigators have found no evidence so far linking Texas cases to the illicit movement of cattle from Mexico.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said it is still investigating to determine how screwworm spread.
“That’s very much an unknown, still, at this time. But wildlife is susceptible to New World Screwworm in the same manner that livestock and other warm-blooded animals are,” said a spokesperson for Texas Parks and Wildlife.
However, the spokesperson added that small mammals don’t travel long distances such as the distance between the last known detection in Mexico at the time to the location of the first case in Texas, which was detected in LaPryor on June 3.
Moving north
The USDA has repeatedly mentioned that models predicted that screwworm would inevitably arrive in the U.S. after the parasitic fly began moving north from South America in 2023.
The pest began trickling up through Panama after it broke through the Darien Gap, which had served as a barrier for screwworm for decades.
It then slowly moved through Costa Rica until it reached Nicaragua where it traveled quickly, said Jeremy Radachowsky, Mesoamerica and the Caribbean regional director for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
“Not only was it moving very quickly, but it was moving exactly along these paths of cattle trafficking and cattle contraband that we’ve been able to identify earlier,” Radachowsky said.
Screwworm detections followed those cattle-trafficking paths into Honduras and Guatemala. A few weeks later, Mexican officials detected their first case in November 2024.
Screwworm was predicted to have arrived in the U.S. last summer, USDA officials said, but efforts to stop it delayed it for a year.
“We’ve been actively and vocally warning that in order to stop screwworm, you have to stop this illegal and unregulated movement of cattle from south to north,” Radachowsky said. “That is definitely the driver.”
But how it crossed from Mexico into the U.S. remains unclear, he said.
The USDA closed all southern ports of entry to livestock imports from Mexico in May 2025 and have kept them closed since then, preventing cattle from legally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.
The Wildlife Conservation Society does not have clear information on how screwworm crossed into Texas, Radachowsky said, but noted that it can infest and travel with other warm-blooded animals like pets and wildlife.
Governor Abbott launches New World Screwworm tracker website
“At the Texas-Mexico border, you’ve got feral pigs, white tailed deer, other wildlife, basically moving back and forth as well,” he said.
The unknown
There are 13 active cases of New World Screwworm in Texas as of Tuesday. An average of 15 suspected cases are reported to the Texas Animal Health Commission every day, Dinges said during the committee hearing last week.
State Rep. Ryan Guillen, a Republican from Rio Grande City who chairs the committee, asked whether it would be logical to assume there are more cases between the Texas-Mexico border and the location of the confirmed infestations that just haven’t been reported.
Dinges replied that testing for screwworm has been ongoing for over a year and cases had not been detected until now.“We’ve been submitting anywhere from two to six larvae samples a week since last May and we have not detected any New World Screwworm larvae until June 3,” Dinges said.
Despite those assurances, farmers and ranchers throughout Texas are operating under the assumption that screwworm is present in their area.
“There’s just so much country that’s unsurveilled,” said John Sewell, a rancher from Kinney and Uvalde County said during the hearing. “I’m in between two — one south of me and one north of me. Do I think I don’t have it? I would be a fool to think I didn’t have it.”
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
ANGELINA COUNTY (KETK) — A Lufkin man was pronounced dead on Monday afternoon after his vehicle reportedly drove off U.S. Highway 59 and into the Neches River, officials said.
According to a preliminary report from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the crash occurred at around 1:43 p.m. near the Polk and Angelina County line. A 2022 Ford Bronco was traveling north on the highway before reportedly traveling off the road, down an embankment and into the Neches River.
DPS identified the driver as 71-year-old Theodore Fajen III of Lufkin, who was pronounced dead on the scene by a justice of the peace.
The investigation remains ongoing and no information is available at this time, DPS said.
HOUSTON (AP) – Camp Mystic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on Wednesday, nearly a year after catastrophic floods killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors at the all-girls Christian camp in Texas. In paperwork filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas in Houston, the camp listed its debt as exceeding $10 million. The camp along the Guadalupe River said it had assets in the range of 100,001 to $500,000.
Families of the victims filed a lawsuit in November saying the camp operators failed to take the necessary steps to protect the girls as life-threatening floodwaters approached on July 4. Camp owner Richard Eastland also died in the flood. All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.
The bankruptcy filing comes weeks after Camp Mystic halted plans to reopen this summer in the face of outrage from victims’ families and lawmakers that the century-old camp intended to welcome girls back while lawsuits and investigations remained ongoing.
AUSTIN, Texas (KETK) — As Texas continues to attract major technology investments, state lawmakers are raising concerns about how the rapid growth of data centers could affect water supplies, particularly in rural parts of East Texas.
The Texas House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing Tuesday to examine the industry’s water demands as state officials work on the next Texas State Water Plan ahead of the 2027 legislative session.
Much of the discussion centered on whether the state has enough information to accurately predict future water needs as more data centers move into Texas.
Temple McKinnon, director of Water Supply Planning Divisions for the Texas Water Development Board, testified that the agency surveyed industrial facilities, including 341 data centers, earlier this year to better understand water usage in 2025. However, only about 17% of facilities responded.
That response rate drew criticism from lawmakers.
McKinnon acknowledged the low participation and said the agency relies on historical data and estimates when survey responses are unavailable.
“Many facilities, there’s low response rates across the board, there can be, and when we don’t get a response, we do whatever we can to estimate around it. We might roll that over depending on past use,” McKinnon said.
Lawmakers questioned whether those estimates are sufficient given the pace at which data centers are being developed across the state.
State Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, shifted the conversation toward East Texas, where he said some counties lack groundwater conservation districts that monitor and regulate groundwater use.
Ashby asked McKinnon whether a data center located in a county without a groundwater conservation district would face any restrictions on groundwater pumping:
“So if you’re in a county with a data center or proposed data center and there is no GCD (groundwater conservation district), there is no requirement or obstacle if you’re a data center to overcome to pump as much groundwater as you want, am I correct?” Ashby asked.
“There would be no entity in place to regulate that use, yes,” McKinnon responded.
The exchange highlighted concerns from some East Texas residents who worry that growing industrial water demands could strain local groundwater supplies in areas with limited oversight.
Ashby said he has heard from constituents concerned that future data center development could impact water availability for rural communities that depend on wells and aquifers.
Google announces $10M Texas water impact fund; makes data center water use pledges
Lawmakers emphasized that additional studies and more accurate reporting will be necessary to understand the long-term impact that data centers could have on Texas water resources and to determine whether current planning efforts adequately account for future growth.
Texans remain wary of the rapid growth of data centers, citing concerns like noise, water use, energy demand, and land impact. A UT Austin Texas Politics Project poll reflects that sentiment, showing 56% oppose local data?center construction while 29% support it. Still, lawmakers noted a competing pressure: the national?security risk of falling behind China in the race for advanced artificial intelligence.
Throughout the hearing, multiple county?level officials urged the Legislature to give local governments more authority to block or regulate data?center projects. They argued that communities should have a stronger voice in deciding whether these facilities fit their long?term development goals.
The hearing remained underway Tuesday afternoon. Committee Chairman State Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, said discussions could continue into the evening as lawmakers gather information to help shape future water policy and planning efforts across Texas.
DETROIT (AP) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is retreating from a plan to use warehouses to hold up to 10,000 people on a single site, jettisoning a key piece of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $38-billion plan to rapidly expand detention capacity this year.
The federal government, which was sued by Michigan and a Detroit suburb, informed a judge Monday that a warehouse purchased in Romulus will be sold. Plans also are unraveling in Social Circle, Georgia, and the El Paso suburb of Socorro, local officials said.
The three cities are among 11 where the federal government spent a combined $1.074 billion on warehouses.
The New York Times first reported last week that federal immigration officials now plan to get rid of seven of the 11 warehouses — either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright.
DHS didn’t confirm the reports but said in a statement that it is “moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”
Pushback to warehouse purchases was immediate
“Wildly foolhardy” is how Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations described the plans to convert the buildings into immigrant detention.
One issue was that Noem’s purchases were largely carried out of public view and angered communities that were caught by surprise. Some only learned about ICE’s ambitions after the agency bought or leased space for detainees.
After Noem was fired, her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, quickly paused the purchase of new warehouses.
Objections came from Republicans and Democrats alike
Some were opposed on moral grounds to ICE’s presence in their neighborhoods, while others questioned whether the facilities would be a drain on local resources, such as sewer and water systems.
Seven federal lawsuits were filed, and regulatory roadblocks created hassles elsewhere.
Meanwhile, questions about how much DHS paid for some warehouses triggered an internal audit. The agency shelled out double what the New Jersey warehouse was valued at in tax records and nearly five times more than the assessed value of the Social Circle warehouse.
Trickler-McNulty, the former ICE official, said ICE does have a few facilities that it owns that it inherited from its predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but generally ICE has contracted out its detention needs.
“Facilities over 2,000 people just break down. It’s very hard to run a very big facility, to keep it staffed, to keep all of it moving,” she said.
Former head of plumbing business takes over for Noem
Mullin, who took over and expanded his family’s plumbing business before representing Oklahoma in the U.S House and Senate, acknowledged there had been issues at his confirmation hearing.
He noted that most municipalities don’t have the capacity in their infrastructure for waste and water.
Indeed the water issues were such a challenge that a federal lawsuit filed over the Salt Lake City warehouse, the costliest purchased at $145.4 million, said ICE officials told the mayor that they might need to truck water and sewage from the facility as an “interim solution.”
Plans begin to unravel
The New York Times story, which cited internal documents that the newspaper obtained, said the Salt Lake City warehouse is among those that federal immigration officials plans to hand off or sell. Also on the list is the Romulus warehouse, as well as one in New Jersey and two each in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it would have been an “abomination” if the 249,000-square-foot Romulus warehouse was transformed into immigrant detention, as was planned when it was purchased for $34.7 million,
“The ICE warehouse proposal was every bit as ill-conceived as it was cruel and unnecessary, and I am relieved that this chapter is coming to a close,” Nessel, a Democrat, said.
Social Circle, Georgia, announced last week in a statement that it has received notification from U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican, that the Department of Homeland Security is no longer pursuing an ICE detention facility there.
Meanwhile, acting ICE Director David Venturella told officials in the El Paso area during a visit there earlier this month that the agency has changed its plans for three warehouses it purchased in nearby Socorro for $122 million, said Rep. Veronica Escobar, who was present for the visit.
Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said during a news conference that ICE no longer plans to detain up to 8,500 immigrants in the facilities as originally envisioned, and instead will convert the property into an ICE campus, she said. The site will include an unspecified smaller number of detainees but also ICE offices and training space, she said.
Frustrations persist as communities seek details
However, many of the communities remained frustrated, as they struggled to get information about possible sales.
In Pennsylvania, state and local officials said Tuesday that they hadn’t received any new information from DHS about two warehouses bought earlier this year by the department. Both are being held up by the state’s denial of permits over concerns that drinking water and sewer service are inadequate to handle thousands of inhabitants.
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, whose district includes both warehouses, said he met Friday with DHS personnel, but that the agency hadn’t made a decision whether to use them as detention centers or sell them.
In Georgia, the city manager in Oakwood, said Tuesday he is talking to his state congressional delegation, trying to confirm rumors that a warehouse there will be sold. “I have not heard anything yet,” B.R. White said.
Work appears to continue on other warehouses
In Maryland, where a judge extended a stoppage on transforming a sprawling warehouse into a processing facility for immigrants, ICE is currently collecting public comments about the environmental impacts of the facility. And an announcement earlier this month disclosed more details on plans for the facility, including six secure recreation yards.
Patrick Dattilio, the founder of Hagerstown Rapid Response, which formed in opposition to housing ICE detainees in the warehouse, said there has been little communication outside of the lawsuit. But he remains committed to keeping it from opening.
“It’s a big warehouse,” Dattilio said. “It’s not meant for people.”
POLK COUNTY (KETK) — After a two week trial, a Polk County jury has found David Stimmell guilty of murder on Friday in connection to a 2024 shooting in Onalaska that left one person dead and two injured.
On Jan. 2, 2024, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office responded to a shooting in the Kickapoo Marina subdivision. Upon arrival, detectives then located and identified a dead male at the residence, identified as 50-year-old James McClanahan.
Detectives later found and identified another person injured and Stimmell, who had gunshot wounds. Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives and Texas Rangers were able to locate several witnesses who identified many involved parties. Following an investigation, Stimmell was booked into the Polk County Jail and charged with murder, tampering with evidence and violation of protective order with a bond totaling over $1 million.
During the trial this month, evidence presented established that a confrontation at the residence had occurred, which escalated into the deadly shooting, the Polk County District Attorney’s Office said.
“Multiple witnesses testified regarding the events leading up to the shooting and the actions that occurred during the incident,” the DA’s office said. “The jury heard testimony from eyewitnesses, law enforcement officers and other expert witnesses as the State presented evidence detailing the circumstances surrounding the offense.”
On Tuesday, the DA’s office announced that Stimmell had been convicted of murder in the death of McClanahan.
“The successful prosecution of this case reflects the teamwork, dedication, and professionalism of all law enforcement involved, including the investigators, prosecutors, paralegals, and victim assistance staff who worked tirelessly to seek justice for James McClanahan and his loved ones,” Polk County Criminal District Attorney Shelly Sitton said. “The District Attorney’s office joined by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office remains committed to holding violent offenders accountable and ensuring the safety of our community.”
FORT WORTH (AP) — Eight protesters accused by the Justice Department of having ties to antifa were sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded a police officer and prosecutors called an act of terrorism.
One of the defendants, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist convicted of opening fire during the July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, the maximum punishment.
The lengthy sentences were condemned by family members and supporters in a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Hope Song, whose son Benjamin Song received the heftiest sentence, disputed prosecutors’ claims that her son shot the officer and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.”
“The need to deter this type of conduct is high,” O’Connor said.
The seven other protesters received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.
Prosecutors said the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization and a target of the Trump administration. Antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.
The defendants deny any affiliation with antifa and maintain they attended the demonstration in support of detained immigrants.
Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the judge to impose stiff penalties.
“People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison,” Gatto said. “They believe violence is justified.”
Phillip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the courthouse that he takes issue with the idea that the protesters are extremists.
“This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Hayes said. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”
Prosecutors said in court that Song had yelled “get to the rifles” and opened fire, striking a police officer who had just pulled up to the center.
Hayes argued that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer after he arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. He said his client will appeal the 100-year sentence.
“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”
Other defendants and their family members pleaded for leniency in court.
Autumn Hill said the gathering “seemed more like a party to me than anything else” and that she and others who participated “didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”
Amber Lowrey told the judge that her sister, Savanna Batten, is a compassionate person with dreams of opening a bakery. She said Batten’s activism started with animal rights and evolved into anti-war and human rights advocacy.
“She’s the best person I know,” Lowrey said.
Hill and Batten both received 50-year sentences.
Other defendants previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.
Critics warn the case could have wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 people with impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed a bipartisan housing bill on Monday that aims to reduce federal regulations and expand local control, one of the most sweeping efforts in recent decades to increase supply and bring down prices.
The bill, which passed 85-5 and now heads to the House, has been the focus of intense negotiations in recent weeks as lawmakers in both parties try to address housing costs in an election year. The final version of the legislation bans corporate investors from buying single-family homes but doesn’t include a Senate provision that would have required investors to sell newly constructed homes within seven years.
The measure was the result of years of work to “lower costs, expand housing supply, cut red tape, protect taxpayers, and help more Americans achieve the dream of homeownership,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., who worked with Democrats to get the bill passed.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the banking panel, said it is the most significant housing bill to pass Congress since 1990, when the average home in America was sold for $150,000. Now it costs more than $500,000, she said.
The bill “acknowledges that the federal government has a role to play in lowering housing prices,” Warren told The Associated Press. “For the first time ever, private equity will be blocked from buying up single-family homes and trying to turn housing into one more Wall Street investment.”
Senate passage of the bill shapes up as a rare bipartisan legislative achievement when much of Republicans’ agenda has stalled. The House is expected to give final approval later this week and send the bill to President Donald Trump, who has signaled his support.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who helped negotiate the legislation, said it was a “huge step toward finally addressing the affordable housing and homelessness crises in this country.”
Republicans and Democrats have embraced the bill as a way to show they are addressing the nation’s affordability crisis, driven in part by rising home prices due to a shortage of affordable housing. The U.S. housing market has been in a slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows.
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes have been hovering close to a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023 — well short of the 5.2-million annual pace that’s historically been the norm. Sales slowed last year to a 30-year low and have remained sluggish so far this year, declining in January and February versus a year earlier.
The Economic Report of the President in April found a shortage of 10 million homes, while a report this month from the Joint Center For Housing Studies at Harvard University found sales of existing homes were at three-decade lows and inventories were rising due to high home buying costs. “Cost burdens for both renters and owners continue to climb, while assistance remains profoundly underfunded,” the report said.
While the median U.S. monthly rent has been declining for nearly three years, it was still 17.2% higher in May than it was before the pandemic, according to data from Realtor.com.
To increase the supply of housing, the bill would streamline environmental reviews and speed up the construction process.
It would offer funding to local governments that build more housing, including Community Development Block Grant money to places exceeding the median rate of homebuilding. It would also provide new dollars for communities to turn abandoned infrastructure into housing, and offers a framework for communities that want to reform outdated zoning regulations, which often limit larger housing developments.
The legislation would allow banks to invest more in affordable housing and raise limits on the number of public housing units that can receive private financing through Section 8 funding to rehabilitate properties. And it would remove outdated requirements and expand federal financing to make manufactured homes more affordable.
“Manufactured housing produces some of the most cost-effective housing in America, but access to financing has been tightly restricted,” Warren said. “This creates the opportunity for more manufactured housing and, at the same time, creates a structure for people living in manufactured housing communities to organize and protect their investment in their homes.”
One of the sticking points between the two chambers was over a federal disaster recovery program.
An earlier Senate bill had permanently authorized block grant recovery funds, a change intended to ensure that funding requests aren’t needed after every disaster. House lawmakers opposed that provision because of concerns over how the program was run, so they agreed on a three-year authorization instead.
The final bill has received widespread support in the housing community, both from organizations representing landlords and large property owners as well as groups that advocate for tenants and low-income renters.
“There is no magic wand that will fix this crisis overnight, and no single piece of legislation is perfect,” said David Dworkin, chief executive of the National Housing Conference, the nation’s oldest housing coalition.
“Compromise demands that. But this bill is a significant down payment on a long-term effort to make housing more affordable for all Americans.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ruled that a recently revamped version of a federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalize elections can no longer be used.
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls.
“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in an order explaining the decision. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
She said Congress had expressly prohibited the government from centralizing Americans’ personal identifying information and that the federal agencies that created the SAVE program “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”
The decision is a major legal setback for President Donald Trump in his efforts to use federal agencies to encourage a nationwide crackdown on having noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls. The modified SAVE system, which critics had referred to as an unlawful centralized federal database of voter information, had been a key pillar of the second election executive order the Republican president signed earlier this year. The ruling leaves its future uncertain.
“It’s amazing how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist,” James Percival, general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said of the ruling in a social media post.
DHS referred to his post as its comment on the ruling. The Department of Justice said in an emailed statement that it would “continue to aggressively defend President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda and DHS’s use of the SAVE system to verify citizenship.”
The executive order seeking to create a national voter list is among numerous steps Trump has taken during his second term to try to overhaul the way elections are run. He also has tried to force voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, ban mail ballots from counting if they are received after Election Day and prohibit the Postal Service from mailing ballots to people not on an approved list of voters. Most of those steps have been blocked by various courts, in part because the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election rules, but provides no such power to the president.
Voting by noncitizens is already illegal and punishable as a potential felony that could lead to deportation. It also is rare, accounting for just a tiny fraction of those on state voter rolls,
The SAVE program was created under an immigration law mandating that DHS help federal, state and local agencies prevent government benefits from going to noncitizens. At least 25 states used it to check their voter rolls since April 2025, after the Trump administration significantly expanded its search abilities. Since then, at least 67 million registrations have been scanned through the program, but critics worry it could end up purging valid voters from the rolls.
Anthony Nel was one of those whose registrations were wrongly flagged. The South Africa native became a U.S. citizen more than a decade ago but had his voter registration in Denton, Texas, north of Dallas, canceled temporarily last year after Texas ran its voter file through SAVE. The check wrongly identified him as a potential noncitizen.
“I hope others can see this fight and not take their right to vote for granted,” he said in a text message.
The plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and five unnamed U.S. citizens, had alleged the revamped SAVE program violated Americans’ privacy and voting rights. The groups also alleged the Trump administration violated federal privacy laws by ignoring transparency requirements about the changes to the system.
“The agencies were scrambling to comply with an Executive Order aimed at reshaping federal elections, which directed them to create a system for mass voter verification,” the judge wrote. “So they haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable.”
Plaintiffs attorney Nikhel Sus told the court during the October hearing that naturalized citizens face a greater risk of unlawfully being purged from voter rolls.
“They are uniquely vulnerable to errors in the database,” said Sus, an attorney for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Sus said Monday he sees Sooknanan’s ruling as an “across the board victory” and noted the plaintiffs were pleased the judge’s ruling reinforced their argument that the federal government doesn’t have implied authority to freely share sensitive data across agencies.
Mark Johnson, who teaches at the University of Kansas law school and regularly pursues lawsuits over election laws, said “it couldn’t be more clear” that the SAVE program violates federal privacy laws.
He said an executive order from Trump cannot override a federal law.
“It’s an illegal idea. Plus it’s a bad idea,” he said.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, as Trump pushed false claims of widespread noncitizen voting, Republican secretaries of state began requesting improvements to the SAVE system to make it more efficient for catching noncitizens on their rolls. One limitation was that the system had been able to check just a single individual at a time.
DHS, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency delivered on those requests in 2025, according to public announcements. They made SAVE free for election officials, allowed agencies to search voters by the thousands and began permitting queries using names, birthdays and Social Security numbers, as opposed to requiring DHS-issued identification numbers.
Several secretaries of state have said the SAVE overhaul improved its value as one of multiple tools they use to assess voter citizenship. But in her ruling, Judge Sooknanan said the plaintiffs had shown that the updated system had indeed been identifying some lawful voters as noncitizens and that states using it “are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.”
HOUSTON (AP) – Parents of a 2-year-old girl involved in a drowning incident on Memorial Day have sued to stop Texas Children’s Hospital from testing if she’s brain dead, testing a new strategy in Texas’ “right to life” movement aimed at giving people as much access to life-supporting services as possible.
While most fights to keep patients on life support begin after they’ve been given a brain death diagnosis, Annelise Camp’s parents are battling the hospital at an earlier stage, the testing phase.
“This is not settled science,” said state Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, who has helped drive the public’s attention to the Camps, who live in Cypress.
Brain death is defined in Texas law as the irreversible cessation of brain function. Under the law, once a patient is declared brain dead, a hospital can withdraw life-sustaining measures.
According to court documents, the Camps say Annelise shouldn’t be tested for brain death so she can have more time to recover. They also ask that she be transferred to another hospital to explore other treatment options. However, Texas Children’s has stated it wants to conduct testing to determine next steps in her medical care and that it has no imminent plans to end care for Annelise.
This case has drawn the attention of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who posted on X in support of the Camp family: “I am closely monitoring this case and will act to protect this child and honor her parents’ efforts to save her.” Influential anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life has started working with the family, too.
Given growing attention to the Camp family’s fight, bioethics and legal experts say that this could empower other families to fight brain testing, which is becoming more common. The case has already inspired at least one lawmaker to create new laws and build on Texas’ existing laws that protect the rights of patients and their families to extend life-sustaining services and access experimental treatments.
The lawsuit is the latest chapter in a yearslong fight among some right-to-life advocates to end the brain death diagnosis because they believe multiple organs have to fail to be considered a biological death.
Meanwhile, medical experts believe there needs to be a “clear line” that distinguishes life from death otherwise ICUs would lose capacity to treat patients that have a chance of recovery, said David Magnus, a Stanford University medicine and biomedical ethics professor.
It appears no courts in Texas have determined the legality of brain death tests, said Thomas Mayo, professor emeritus of law at Southern Methodist University. If the state district court rules in the family’s favor, it would not be binding in other courts, Mayo said.
However, “if Texas Right to Life is involved in any way, and the family loses, this case would likely go to appeal,” he added.
The Camp family were visiting relatives on Memorial Day, when Annelise wandered into the hotel pool without her life jacket, Johnston Camp, Annelise’s father, told FOX 26 Houston in early June. She was pulled out of the water by family members who began CPR until first responders arrived. Camp was taken to Texas Children’s west Houston location and after an hour her heartbeat returned.
“She never gave up when I asked her to do something… I’m never gonna give up on her,” Camp told the station.
Since the interview, the Camps have declined speaking to The Texas Tribune, citing a court order that prevents them from doing so, said their lawyer Heath Novosad. Texas Children’s has also declined to comment on the case.
Three days after Annelise was hospitalized, her parents filed a temporary restraining order against Texas Children’s after physicians said they had exhausted all treatment options and advised that the child get tested for brain death, according to court documents filed in late May. The documents say Annelise’s heart was beating, although she was dependent on a ventilator. The Camps have refused any brain death testing and want to transfer Annelise to another hospital to receive hyperbaric oxygen treatment or stem cell therapies.
Texas Children’s officials said in court documents they’ve contacted medical facilities to ask about accepting Annelise, but 35 of the 36 have declined and the one pending hospital said it needed her to undergo brain death testing to consider transfer.
The court granted the family’s request for a temporary injunction and the family is asking for a permanent halt to brain testing.
Hospitals usually notify family members, but are not required to get permission from them or the patient to conduct brain death testing.
Under the Uniform Determination of Death Act, if someone is determined brain dead, they are considered legally dead and hospitals have the right to discontinue organ-supporting services.
According to Texas Right to Life, which has long fought the legal recognition of brain death and its use to stop life-sustaining measures, brain death is not consistent with the Christian faith. As long as there is a heartbeat, a person is still alive. The Camp family has stated in court documents brain death testing is against their religious beliefs.
“Texans have the right to say we don’t believe in this,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, adding that his organization has worked with 106 patients to fight for life-sustaining treatment, an increase in the last three years. “A dead person has no rights, and that’s the problem with the brain death concept, in general, is it is a shortcut to deprive individuals of the right to life and other rights.”
Magnus, the Stanford professor, said that if hospitals are no longer able to diagnose someone with brain death and are forced to keep more people on life support, this could strain resources, such as ICU beds.
“Using that scarce resource for somebody who has no chance of ever making any recovery doesn’t really make a lot of sense,” he said. “When the hospital beds are full, Texas will not be a good place to get sick.”
Magnus worries that if hospitals are no longer allowed to recognize brain death diagnosis, organ procurement could decline which places the burden of organ donations on other states or else, many Texans could be at risk of dying.
“That means that if you have renal failure, you die. You have liver failure in Texas, you’ll die. When you have heart failure in Texas, you’ll die,” he said.
While some of the loudest critics of the brain death diagnosis have been among anti-abortion advocates, not all are in agreement. Texas Alliance for Life points out that the definition of death in state law is based in “sound medical science,” its executive director Amy O’Donnell said. She declined to comment specifically on Camp’s case.
In the last few decades, Texas legislators made attempts to create and fine-tune “right to life” laws that expand the rights of those who have been declared brain dead. None have addressed brain death testing, which is ripe ground for new legislation.
“We passed legislation in the state of Texas and we think people will just follow it,” Toth said.
In 2023, state lawmakers expanded the Right to Try law – originally limited to terminally ill patients – to give chronically ill patients access to investigational treatments if they had exhausted approved options. The same year, the Legislature changed the Texas Advance Directive Act, so that hospitals must give families of patients 25 days’ notice before pulling life support, increasing it from 10 days. Although, groups like Texas Right to Life believe that there should be no time limit.
This change came three years after the family of 1-year-old Tinslee Lewis challenged the advance directive act, also garnering national attention. Lewis was born with a rare heart defect that kept her on life-support in Cook Children’s Medical Center’s ICU from birth. Leveraging the law’s life-support time limit, doctors at the Fort Worth hospital wanted to take Tinslee off life support against her mother’s wishes and an appeals court ruled in the family’s favor. Lewis was discharged after two years, according to CBS.
Toth, who carried the House version of the bill that changed the Right to Try law in 2023, said he would push to give families the right to contest the brain death test and make it difficult for hospitals to procure organs from patients declared brain dead.
Toth, who won the Republican primary for Texas’ 2nd Congressional District in Houston in the spring, ultimately wants to eliminate the brain death diagnosis on a national level.
“I think that we’ve got to be really careful at just observing the rights of parents to make this decision, this call for themselves,” said Toth.
Texas does not have legislation that provides for a reasonable accommodation of a religious objection to brain death, said Mayo.
If the brain death diagnosis was taken off the books, hospitals can still leverage the Texas Advance Directive Act which places a time limit on how long a hospital is responsible for life-supporting treatment, Magnus said, but “courts in Texas have been inconsistent about applying their own law.”
“Courts in other states have gone back and forth over whether a determination of brain death can be done at all, and whether once it’s done, the physician’s findings are determinative of further treatment or stopping treatment. I think it’s a very, very emerging question that is getting disparate treatment in various jurisdictions,” said Mayo.
In these cases, the courts will usually tell the hospital to keep the patient on life support, said Magnus. “Basically the courts don’t want to be the one that makes (the brain death) determination,” he said.
NEW YORK (AP) — The top U.S. auto regulator opened an investigation Monday after a Tesla using an automated driving feature slammed into a Texas home at high speed and killed a 76-year-old woman standing inside.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it’s opening a special investigation into the Tesla Model 3 crash on Friday near Houston, a significant probe because the car was using technology that Elon Musk considers key to the company’s future.
The Tesla CEO is rolling out robotaxis using automated software in several U.S. cities this year and plans to invite Tesla owners to put their cars into the fleet using the same system across the country.
The driver told the Harris County Sheriff’s Office that he was using the technology, according to a police report on the crash, but it’s not clear what role, if any, it played in the incident.
The police report also noted that the driver was not drunk and is cooperating. It identified the woman killed as Martha Avila.
Video obtained by KHOU-TV shows the car traveling at top speed over the front lawn of a brick home in Katy, then ramming into a front room. The next shot shows the car encased in the home amid piles of crumbling plaster, split beams and bits of furniture.
Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The auto safety regulator, known as NHTSA, has launched several investigations into Tesla, including one late last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.
A few months earlier, the NHTSA opened an investigation into why Tesla apparently had not been reporting crashes promptly as required.
As for special crash investigations, the NHTSA has opened 46 involving Teslas using self-driving or driver-assistance technology over the past decade, according to the agency’s records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person — a driver, passenger or pedestrian — was killed.
Tesla stock fell sharply early last year as car sales plunged amid a boycott of Musk after he waded into politics, leading President Donald Trump’s budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency initiative and embracing European extremist candidates.
Musk has since shifted the Tesla story to one less about car sales and more about AI and robotaxis, and done so successfully. The stock is up 16% in the past year.
BOSTON (AP) — A Delta Air Lines jet was roughly 300 feet (90 meters) from an American Airlines plane during a close call at Boston’s airport that forced the Delta aircraft to abort a weekend landing attempt, an aviation expert said Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating the incident between two commercial flights that happened Saturday at Boston Logan International Airport.
Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer at Boeing, estimated the distance between the two jetliners using Flightradar24, a website that tracks flights. Curtis now coproduces a podcast about flight safety issues.
“This is a significant incident,” Curtis said, adding that it was particularly concerning because it involved two professional airline crews.
He said federal aviation officials have been concerned about such runway incursions for a while now and will scrutinize Saturday’s close call.
Near-misses and runway incursions at U.S. airports will be the subject of a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The Senate Commerce?Subcommittee?on?Aviation, Space,?and Innovation will?seek ways to strengthen safety across the national airspace system.
The Delta flight from Dallas had to execute a go-around, or aborted landing, to avoid the American plane departing from an intersecting runway, according to the FAA and flight logs.
The crew of Delta flight 2351 coordinated with air traffic control to perform the go-around, an airline spokesperson said. The plane, which had 129 passengers and six crew members on board, landed safely and deplaned normally, according to the spokesperson.
Go-arounds are safe, routine procedures performed at the discretion of the pilot or air traffic controllers, according to the FAA.
KATY (AP) – A driver in a Tesla vehicle that was allegedly in driver-assist mode crashed into a Texas house Friday night, killing a woman who was inside the home, investigators said.
Michael Butler was traveling in his Tesla Model 3 around 8 p.m. local time in Katy, Texas, and was operating the vehicle “with an automated driving assistance system,” the Harris County Sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Butler allegedly failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway and struck the residence, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Butler’s Tesla entered through the brick residence, at a high rate of speed, and struck M. Avila who was inside the residence,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Avila was airlifted to a hospital where she was later pronounced dead, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators said Butler, who was injured, showed no signs of intoxication and he was cooperating with officers. Attorney information for the driver wasn’t immediately available.
The investigation is ongoing and as of Saturday afternoon there were no charges.
HOUSTON – Monday, Chevron Corporation announced that a 20-year power purchase agreement has been signed between Microsoft Corp. and Energy Forge One LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary, to develop a co-located power facility in West Texas that will supply dedicated electricity to a Microsoft-operated data center. Project Kilby is the development that Chevron and Engine No. 1 have been working on together.
Kilby is anticipated to provide roughly 2.67 gigawatts of capacity, constructed using a modular, phased architecture that allows for gradual expansion. Large GE Vernova turbines and related electrical infrastructure will provide the majority of the generation, with Solar Turbines, a fully owned subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc., contributing additional capacity. By utilizing America’s natural gas edge, this places Kilby among the biggest co-located natural gas power and data center expansions in the United States and supports the next stage of American AI growth.
HOUSTON COUNTY – After heavy rains swept through the area overnight on Saturday, several roads near Crockett and across Houston County have been left flooded or damaged.
The Crockett Fire Department issued a public safety alert on Saturday morning after heavy rainfall caused flooding on several roadways throughout the area, making many roads completely impassable.
The Texas Department of Transportation shared that they’ve closed FM 228 in Houston County after it was damaged and partly washed out by heavy rainfall on Saturday. They said repairs are underway and are expected to be finished on Saturday night.
The Crockett Fire Department gave the following safety tips for anyone on the road during flooding and heavy rains:
Stay home unless travel is absolutely necessary.
Do not drive through flooded roadways.
Turn around, don’t drown.
Use extreme caution if you must be on the roads.
Monitor local weather and emergency updates.
HOUSTON COUNTY (KETK) – The body of a teenage driver from near Houston was recovered from a creek near Crockett on Saturday after his car left the roadway.
Flooding leaves Houston County roads damaged, blocked
The Houston County Sheriff’s Office said they got a call at around 11 a.m. on Saturday about a young teen who was overdue at his home near Houston after he left Houston County Lake.
Deputies started searching along FM 229 in the areas that usually flood during times of heavy rain like the storms that moved through Houston County on Saturday morning. At around 1:45 p.m., the Houston County Emergency Management Coordinator was travelling on FM 229 when they noticed a damaged guardrail.
That damaged guardrail runs along FM 229 and over a creek which is just off of Loop 304, to the northwest of Crockett. The coordinator and a deputy went around 70 yards down the creek and found a front bumper of a car that had the missing teen’s license plate on it and then they found the roof of a car submerged about 30 yards further down the creek.
A Texas Parks and Wildlife Search and Rescue team that was in the area to help with flooding and the Houston County Search and Rescue team both responded to the scene and they were able to remove the young man’s body from the submerged car.
“This is a tragic event that will affect many of this young man’s family and friends,” Houston County Sheriff Zak Benge said on Saturday.
The cause of the crash is currently under investigation by the Crockett Police Department.
KAUFMAN COUNTY – Nine people were sent to local hospitals on Saturday after a 13-vehicle crash happened near FM 2965 on Interstate 20 westbound in Kaufman County.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), a multi-vehicle crash happened in the westbound lanes of Interstate 20 leaving several people injured.
The nearby Elmo Fire Department reported that multiple crashes happened on I-20 westbound near mile marker 511 at around 10:55 a.m. on Saturday. They also reported several other minor crashes on the eastbound side of I-20 from mile marker 509 to mile marker 511.
Video courtesy of Bonnie Rose.
In total, the Elmo Fire Department said 24 people were assessed for injuries at the scene and nine of those people had to be transported to local hospitals to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries. They said the crashes at the scene involved a total of 13 vehicles and four 18-wheelers.
The Elmo Fire Department added that mass casualty incident triage had to be established to help treat those injured at the scene. DPS said the roadway was reopened to traffic at around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.
FRISCO (AP) — Newly released video from an officer’s body camera and a surveillance camera at a Texas running track captures the moments after a teenage athlete fatally stabbed another teen from a rival team in the stadium bleachers during a high school meet last year.
Karmelo Anthony, 19, was convicted of murder on June 10 in the death of Austin Metcalf, 17, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. A jury rejected Anthony’s claims of self-defense. The videos were included in a batch of evidence released by the Collin County court following the conclusion of the trial.
The surveillance video shows the track and bleachers on a rainy day. Suddenly a figure wearing a gray sweatshirt is seen popping up from behind a yellow tent and then running down the steps. The video has no sound.
He got to the bottom of the bleachers, tripped and fell on the ground, and then kept running along the edge of the fencing that separates the bleachers from the running track. He stopped briefly, turned to look at what appeared to be someone chasing him, and then kept running.
After making his way part way around the track, he was joined by an unidentified person. They stopped to talk and then hugged. They started walking again and were joined by another person. After talking more, Anthony walked toward the fence where he appeared to meet up with a police officer.
The officer put him in handcuffs and walked him toward the police cruiser. Anthony obeyed the officer’s commands and then started crying.
“He put his hands on me,” Anthony said in a broken voice. “I told him not to. He put his hands on me.”
The officers escorted him to the police cruiser and placed him inside.
HOUSTON COUNTY (KETK) – After heavy rains swept through the area overnight on Saturday, several roads near Crockett and across Houston County have been left flooded or damaged.
The Crockett Fire Department issued a public safety alert on Saturday morning after heavy rainfall caused flooding on several roadways throughout the area, making many roads completely impassable.
The Texas Department of Transportation shared that they’ve closed FM 228 in Houston County after it was damaged and partly washed out by heavy rainfall on Saturday. They said repairs are underway and are expected to be finished on Saturday night.
The Crockett Fire Department gave the following safety tips for anyone on the road during flooding and heavy rains:
Stay home unless travel is absolutely necessary.
Do not drive through flooded roadways.
Turn around, don’t drown.
Use extreme caution if you must be on the roads.
Monitor local weather and emergency updates.
KAUFMAN COUNTY (KETK) – Nine people were sent to local hospitals on Saturday after a 13-vehicle crash happened near FM 2965 on Interstate 20 westbound in Kaufman County.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), a multi-vehicle crash happened in the westbound lanes of Interstate 20 leaving several people injured.
The nearby Elmo Fire Department reported that multiple crashes happened on I-20 westbound near mile marker 511 at around 10:55 a.m. on Saturday. They also reported several other minor crashes on the eastbound side of I-20 from mile marker 509 to mile marker 511.
In total, the Elmo Fire Department said 24 people were assessed for injuries at the scene and nine of those people had to be transported to local hospitals to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries. They said the crashes at the scene involved a total of 13 vehicles and four 18-wheelers.
The Elmo Fire Department added that mass casualty incident triage had to be established to help treat those injured at the scene. DPS said the roadway was reopened to traffic at around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.
PANOLA COUNTY – One man was shot and a woman injured after she reportedly jumped from a vehicle that was involved in a pursuit near the Texas-Louisiana border in Panola County on Friday, according to a news release and our news partner, KETK.
Panola County Sheriff Cutter Clinton said dispatchers received a 911 call at around 10:30 p.m. on Friday. In the background, they could hear a man and a woman arguing. The woman on the call then reportedly told dispatchers that she had jumped from the moving vehicle and was injured.
Sheriff’s office deputies, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper, the Flatwoods Volunteer Fire Department and UT Health EMS were all sent to where the woman’s phone was pinged on FM 2517 near County Road 4702 and the state border with Louisiana.
A deputy and sergeant with Panola County Sheriff’s office stopped the vehicle on FM 2517 near County Road 470. The driver was identified as the woman caller’s brother, Napolean Cordell “Polie” Lockett of Beckville.
The sheriff’s office said Lockett then fled in his vehicle by turning onto FM 3359 and heading towards Louisiana before he reportedly turned onto County Road 455 where his vehicle crashed and rolled over.
Deputies helped remove Lockett from the crashed vehicle and discovered that he had been shot in the abdomen. The deputies arrested him for evading arrest with a vehicle, violation of conditional bond in a family violence incident and an unrelated grand jury indictment for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Lockett was taken to a hospital in Shreveport to be treated for his non-life-threatening gunshot wound and was booked into the Panola County Detention Center after he was discharged from the hospital on Saturday morning.
The woman caller was transported to a hospital in Longview to be treated for her injuries from jumping out of the vehicle. The case is currently under investigation by the Panola County Sheriff’s Office, which has contacted the De Soto Parish Sheriff’s Office since part of the case took place in Louisiana.
The Texas Highway Patrol is investigating the crash and the sheriff’s office said more charges will be filed in this case.
AUSTIN – A jury in Bexar County sentenced a child predator to life in prison, after he was found guilty of abusing children, according to a news release from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office. Joe Suarez Jr., 71, was found guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child and indecency with a child, after the jury listened to four days of testimony. It took only four hours to reach a verdict. The court ordered a sentence of life without parole and two consecutive 20-year sentences, the maximum punishment allowed by law.
“My office worked tirelessly to put this child predator behind bars for life and secure justice for the victims of these heinous crimes,” said Attorney General Paxton. “We are committed to standing up for victims of sexual assault and will use every tool available to us to ensure that child predators are prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law allows.”
In March 2016, an 8-year-old child made an outcry of sexual abuse to a teacher at her school. Following her outcry, two additional victims came forward to report that they had also been subjected to chronic abuse by the same offender, Joe Suarez Jr. Their reports of abuse were referred to the San Antonio Police Department (“SAPD”) by the Department of Family and Protective Services (“DFPS”). SAPD conducted an investigation and referred the case to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, where it remained for several years awaiting grand jury presentation. After District Attorney Joe Gonzalez was elected and recused his office from the prosecution, the case was referred to another district attorney’s office in Texas before being transferred to the Office of the Attorney General in late 2023.
Given the years that had passed since the initial investigation, Sgt. Andres Alaniz investigated the case again. In 2025, at the conclusion of the OAG’s investigation and in conjunction with SAPD’s prior work, the defendant’s charges were presented to a Bexar County grand jury. Suarez was subsequently indicted for continuous sexual abuse of young children, and aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child.
The evidence showed that the defendant, who played in a local mariachi group, would offer mariachi lessons to children in the community to gain their trust, according to the attorney general. The defendant took advantage of the trust his family and community placed in him, and sexually abused multiple children in his home. He also worked as a truck driver and would sexually abuse children in the cab of his 18-wheeler.
LEGGETT (KETK) – The Alabama-Coushatta tribe of Texas and the Naskila Casino in Leggett are celebrating their growth with an eye toward expansion in Deep East Texas.
The vision is coming to life in Polk County as they made the first official step towards the future on Thursday with leaders of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas breaking ground on the future casino resort set to open in late 2028.
The future property will span across 95 acres of tribal land here in Legget, Texas, featuring an expansive gaming floor, more than 350 hotel rooms, a resort-style pool, and an event and conference space.
“It’s a long time coming really, it’s something that’s needed,” Alabama Coushatta Tribe of Texas Chairman Ricky Sylestine said. “We started out from nothing, now to where we are today, just because of the gaming aspect of it, we’ve really been blessed at this point.”
Thursday’s groundbreaking happened as the existing Naskila casino celebrates its 10th anniversary. Casino officials said the Naskila Casino generates an annual economic impact of $251 million dollars each year and has created over a thousand local permanent jobs. They added that this new casino resort will only expand that impact in East Texas.
To learn more about the tribe, their history and their enterprises, visit the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas online.
DALLAS (AP) — As people gather across the U.S. to celebrate Juneteenth, former President Barack Obama’s presidential center opened its doors Friday to the general public for the first time.
Located on a sprawling campus on Chicago’s South Side, the center honoring the nation’s first Black president has been designed to inspire people to make the change they want to see in their own communities. It’s the kind of contemplation that also comes as Americans gather for Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S.
The holiday marks June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas at the end of the Civil War with an order declaring the state’s enslaved people to be free with “absolute equality.” By then, 2 1/2 years had passed since the Emancipation Proclamation declared the freedom of enslaved people in the South.
“Juneteenth represents not just a commemoration of the end of slavery but it’s also part of the ongoing struggle for absolute equality and that ideal in American life,” said W. Caleb McDaniel, a Rice University professor and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Sweet Taste of Liberty.”
Obama’s presidential center in Chicago
The grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center includes days of events following Thursday’s star-studded dedication ceremony.
The center’s public opening arrives as a symbolic convergence of legacy and liberation. The nation is deeply divided politically and grappling with renewed questions about the arc of racial progress as the Supreme Court hollowed out the Voting Rights Act, endangering Black political representation in Congress.
The nearly 20-acre (8-hectare) campus includes a museum featuring a life-sized replica of the Oval Office, a garden designed by former first lady Michelle Obama complete with lettuce and strawberry plants, a professional-grade basketball court, a picnic area with grills and a new branch of the Chicago Public Library. Visitors can experience high-tech and hands-on exhibits spanning the campaigns, key moments of Obama’s presidency and life at the White House.
The spaces are designed to bring people together on a campus expected to draw as many as 1 million visitors annually, but the center also aims to encourage personal reflection. Louise Bernard, the museum’s director, has said they’re “inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large.”
The history of Juneteenth
This is the fifth year since Juneteenth was designated as a federal holiday by former President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president. But the celebrations, which began in Texas and then spread across the country, have a rich and long history in Black America, with the day often spent gathering for picnics and cookouts.
The holiday — a combination of “June” and “nineteenth” — marks the day when U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Texas port city with the declaration of freedom in General Order No. 3.
As the third year of the Civil War neared, President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring the freedom of “all persons held as slaves” in the still rebellious states of the Confederacy. Though, for many, it did not mean immediate freedom but a promise of liberation, to be secured with a Union victory.
“It really required the force of arms and the success of U.S. armies to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation,” McDaniel said.
About six months after Granger’s arrival in Galveston, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery nationwide was ratified.
Celebrations across the nation this year
Juneteenth’s birthplace is celebrating with a daylong gathering at a Galveston park with music and fireworks, a parade and a worship service in a historic Black church. Nearby Houston lined up of musical artists and a domino tournament at Emancipation Park, established in 1872 by a group of formerly enslaved men.
Hundreds of other cities across the U.S. announced events over the long weekend, including a parade in Atlanta, a bike ride in Los Angeles and a festival on Martha’s Vineyard.
Several cities across the U.S. will host walks named for Opal Lee, the Texas woman who pushed for years to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Participants will walk 2 1/2 miles to symbolize the 2 1/2 years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to be enforced in Texas. Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” turns 100 this year.
Reflecting on a continuing struggle
Black Texans embraced the date of Granger’s arrival as one to celebrate, even as the Ku Klux Klan was established in Texas by 1868. By the 1880s, “it was difficult to find a significant community in Texas where it wasn’t being marked by African Americans,” McDaniel said.
“They made it a community celebration, they made it a celebration of not only freedom but also a demonstration of community empowerment and institution-building,” he added.
Corey D.B. Walker, dean of Wake Forest University’s divinity school, said the holiday offers a way to recognize the nation’s “complex history” and what it means to be a U.S. citizen, especially amid efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to undermine the retelling of Black history.
“I think it really reminds people the importance of understanding a fuller, more robust portrait of our nation’s history and the many contributions of many individuals who have contributed to America’s experiment with democracy,” Walker said.
ATLANTA (AP) — Bina Ramroop broke down in tears when she realized she wasn’t going to get the World Cup tickets she had bought for her grandson’s 13th birthday.
As thousands poured into Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday to see Spain face Cape Verde in what turned out to be a remarkable scoreless draw, Ramroop stood outside, increasingly stressed as she went back and forth for hours between StubHub representatives on the phone and FIFA representatives in the ticket booth. Each blamed the other.
No one could figure out why the tickets Ramroop bought months ago on StubHub for $485 apiece couldn’t be transferred from the original seller to the FIFA ticketing app. StubHub offered her a refund and, as Ramroop heard the crowd roar for the start of the match, she knew she had no choice but to give up and take the offer.
“I didn’t want a refund, I didn’t want my money back,” Ramroop said. “I wanted to go to the game.”
The World Cup has delivered thrills on the pitch, but fans have flooded social media with complaints about tickets that never arrived, orders that were canceled at the last minute and hours they spent trying to sort out problems between FIFA’s ticketing system and outside resale platforms. The vast majority seem to be about industry titan StubHub, but people who bought through competitors such as SeatGeek and Vivid Seats have also reported issues. Interviews with fans and industry experts show that some cases stem from technical glitches in the transfer process, while others could involve sellers who never had tickets to deliver in the first place, though StubHub denies such sales happen on its platform.
A grandmother’s disappointment
FIFA has urged fans to buy resale tickets through its own marketplace, where it slaps a 30% surcharge on every resold ticket — 15% each from the buyer and seller. But many fans bought through other resale sites, either out of habit or because those sites have lower prices or are easier to navigate.
Ramroop didn’t realize she was taking a risk when she bought through StubHub, which she had used in the past without issues.
As she and her grandson Elijah Gomes took the long, lonely train ride back to the Atlanta suburbs, Elijah followed the score on his phone. The match had ended scoreless, and he tried to cheer up his devastated grandmother by telling her they hadn’t missed much after all (Cape Verdeans would beg to differ ).
“He’s telling me, ‘Grandma, it’s OK, Grandma.’ And he’s trying to console me,” Ramroop said the next day.
She was hardly alone. An Associated Press journalist witnessed more than a dozen frustrated fans at the match who said they were stuck in similar situations.
StubHub blamed FIFA for the transfer problems that buyers like Ramroop have experienced. In a statement, it said FIFA has “poor technology infrastructure,” enacted last-minute transfer restrictions and didn’t launch its new ticketing app until a few weeks before the tournament. The company also called out organizers that “take anti-competitive actions” that limit where fans can buy and sell tickets.
Asked about the technical issues, FIFA on Wednesday reiterated that sales through its official site are guaranteed to go through.
An industry’s longstanding problem
Industry observers say the problems appear to stem from more than one cause. For some, it may indeed be technical glitches — an issue that StubHub says is “very, very rare” and one that it is hard at work to solve. For others, they say it’s likely a more longstanding scourge: speculative sellers.
Scott Friedman, an industry veteran and co-founder of a consultancy called the Ticket Talk Network, said some sellers list tickets before they actually have them, betting that prices will fall closer to the event so they can buy the tickets at a better price later. But because World Cup ticket prices have surged since the tournament began, those sellers have been forced to either buy expensive tickets to fulfill their orders or cancel and accept penalties from resale platforms. StubHub’s penalties are typically 200% of the ticket price, Friedman said.
“This is not new at all,” said Friedman, pointing to other high-profile events where frustrated fans were left empty-handed, including Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. “This has been going on, but it’s making global news because it’s the World Cup.”
StubHub says it requires sellers to prove they have tickets before they list them.
But regardless of the reason for the canceled sales, Friedman said “StubHub should fill every single order to make sure fans get in the biggest global sporting event that happens every four years.”
That’s what many fans say they expected when they purchased through StubHub.
StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee promises replacement tickets or a refund if tickets fail to arrive. But the policy repeatedly says those remedies are provided at StubHub’s “sole discretion,” meaning the company can choose a refund instead of securing replacement seats.
“That is pretty explicit language,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert at the University of New Hampshire. McCann noted that a buyer could try to challenge the language under state consumer protection laws, but it would be an uphill battle.
A father’s regrets
Pape Ndaw is crestfallen that the high school graduation gift he got for his son — tickets for them to see the Netherlands and Japan near their home city of Dallas — never arrived.
He bought the tickets for about $550 apiece in December. Then, two days before the June 14 match, he received an email from StubHub telling him, “The seller can’t deliver your original tickets.”
Ndaw accepted store credit rather than a refund, thinking he would use the funds to quickly get replacements, only to then realize that the cheapest last-minute tickets were going for more than $1,500 each. Not only were they not going to get to go to the game, but Ndaw said StubHub rejected his belated request for a refund instead of store credit.
Breaking the news to his soccer-obsessed son was brutal, Ndaw said.
“It was a disastrous thing,” he said. “He had told all his friends that he was going to that game. He literally cried. I mean, he is a 17-year-old kid, but he cried.”
A family’s attempt to make the best of it
Others fared somewhat better.
Patrick O’Neil of Pittsboro, North Carolina, traveled to Atlanta with his wife, son and relatives after purchasing five tickets through StubHub for the Spain-Cape Verde match. Two tickets transferred successfully, but three never arrived.
O’Neil’s 15-year-old son and his uncle ended up using the two tickets, while O’Neil, his wife and another relative watched from a nearby bar.
After local media caught wind of their ordeal, O’Neil said StubHub contacted the family and offered tickets to another game. Since the family had already bought tickets to one, though, he and his wife asked the company to instead give the seats to local nonprofit Soccer in the Streets so they could go to people who otherwise might not be able to attend a match.
“StubHub is not evil, but they’re part of the whole system that makes it really hard for just normal kids and people who might want to see a match get to go,” O’Neil said.
On Thursday, a StubHub representative confirmed to the AP that the company would honor the O’Neils’ request and send tickets to the nonprofit.
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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators John Cornyn, and Alex Padilla (D-CA) today introduced legislation that would reauthorize Preventing Outages With Enhanced Resilience and Operations Nationwide (POWER ON) Act. The law will help weatherize electric grids across the nation, according to Sen. Cornyn.
“Texas is no stranger to extreme weather events, and it’s imperative that we have the infrastructure capable of withstanding the gamut of everything from freezing cold temperatures to sweltering heat waves, flooding, and devastating wildfires,” said Sen. Cornyn. “This bipartisan legislation would reauthorize the grid resilience program Senator Padilla and I created, which is essential to preventing outages and ensuring Texans can depend on the power they need to weather any storm.”
“As we continue to grapple with threats to the electric grid from extreme weather, investing in projects to improve the flexibility and resiliency of the power system is crucial,” said Sen. Padilla. “The GRIP program is a major success, driving improvements and innovation to make the electric grid more secure and efficient. Our bipartisan effort will continue to help us keep the lights on and keep costs down for future generations.”
Background:
In February 2021, record amounts of snow, ice, and prolonged sub-zero temperatures overwhelmed the Texas power grid and forced the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to shut off electricity for more than four million Texans, leaving them without heat for days on end. More than 200 lives were lost. This disaster laid bare the vulnerabilities of our electric grid infrastructure and the need for electricity providers and suppliers to protect against future extreme weather events. Insufficient grid resiliency increases the likelihood of blackout events, which threaten lives and cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars.
Following Winter Storm Uri, Senator Cornyn introduced the Preventing Outages with Enhanced Resilience and Operations Nationwide (POWER ON) Act, now law, which established the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to provide critical resources to help states weatherize electric grids.
This legislation would reauthorize the grid resilience grant program at the DOE to prevent a lapse in federal funding that is essential to protecting energy facilities and energy infrastructure against future extreme weather events.