Texas Republican hails ‘Ports to Plains’ highway he co-sponsored – but which was in spending bill he refused to back
The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz called a new highway project “a great bipartisan victory” that will bring “jobs to Texas and millions of dollars to the state”.
The White House responded: “Senator Cruz voted against this.”
Continue reading...About 50 mainly Venezuelan migrants including a baby deposited unannounced at Naval Observatory in Washington
About 50 migrants, including a one-month-old baby, have been sent in a bus from Texas to the Washington DC residence of Vice-President Kamala Harris, in the latest move by Republican-led states to transfer migrants unannounced across the country.
The bus let off the migrants, who are believed to be mostly Venezuelan, outside the Naval Observatory, the traditional home of US vice-presidents, on Saturday morning.
Continue reading...A new ISO-approved measure will also allow sharing of suspicious purchases with law enforcement
Credit card purchases of firearms in the US can now be tracked and purchases deemed suspicious can even be shared with law enforcement, according to a new measure approved by an organization that sets parameters for business transactions.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) voted in favor of creating a merchant code for firearms stores, according to Reuters.
Continue reading...Judge will allow the youth organization to exit Chapter 11 and settle decades of claims by more than 80,000 men
The Boy Scouts of America secured approval of a $2.46bn reorganization plan from a bankruptcy judge on Thursday that will allow the youth organization to exit Chapter 11 and settle decades of claims by more than 80,000 men who say they were abused as children by troop leaders.
US bankruptcy judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Delaware, signed off on the restructuring proposal after the Boy Scouts made changes to address her previous ruling that had rejected portions of the settlement.
Continue reading...Patriot Mobile, a ‘Christian conservative wireless provider’, is targeting school board elections to push its far-right agenda
A conservative Texas-based phone company is planning a takeover of political offices in the US state, starting with public schools.
Patriot Mobile, which calls itself “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider”, has been fueling an extremist conservative movement taking over curriculum in public schools across Texas.
Continue reading...Days of heavy rain caused dangerous currents in the Rio Grande in an area where people frequently cross into Texas
At least eight people were found dead in the Rio Grande while attempting a hazardous crossing in Texas, officials said on Friday.
The discovery was made by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Mexican officials on Thursday while responding to a large number of people attempting to migrate across the river near the city of Eagle Pass.
Continue reading...Pete Arredondo defended the police response to the massacre in a 17-page letter that also lashed out at state officials
The Uvalde school district fired police chief Pete Arrendondo on Wednesday, making him the first officer to lose his job over the hesitant and fumbled response by law enforcement at a Texas elementary school as a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in a fourth-grade classroom.
In a unanimous vote held after months of angry calls for his ouster, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees fired Arredondo in an auditorium of parents and survivors of the 24 May massacre. His firing came three months to the day after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history.
Continue reading...School board in Dallas-Fort Worth area requires reviewing books facing challenges from parents
A Texas school district is scrambling to remove books from its library shelves ahead of the fall semester, after they were challenged by parents and community members. Among the books removed are a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and the Bible.
It’s not clear why more than 40 books were challenged.
Continue reading...Meteorologists issue warnings for more than 13 million people in north-east Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico and Arizona
Millions of Americans are under flood warnings after heavy rain this weekend in a large portion of the south and south-western US.
Government meteorologists issued flood warnings for more than 13 million people after torrent rainfall created life-threatening conditions in a region including north-east Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico.
Continue reading...Civil rights activists and Christopher Shaw’s lawyers are demanding justice after he was severely injured while in police custody in 2021
Lawyers of a Black Texas man and civil rights activists are calling for justice after he was allegedly grabbed and slammed on to concrete ground by police officers at a jail in Beaumont, Texas, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.
On Wednesday, lawyers of 41-year-old Christopher Shaw hosted a press conference that called for justice for Shaw, who was severely injured while in custody in June 2021.
Continue reading...Combined amount of $49.3m is still below the $150m Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis sought after his Sandy Hook shooting lies
After already ordering him to pay $4.1m to the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, the jury hearing the defamation case against far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his falsehoods about the massacre told him to surrender another $45.2m to the grieving family who sued him.
The combined amount of $49.3m is hefty but still below the $150m Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis – the mother and father of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis – had demanded over Jones’s repeated lies that the Sandy Hook elementary school murders in Newtown, Connecticut, were an elaborate ruse carried out by “crisis actors” hellbent on forcing gun control reform.
Continue reading...Jones ordered to pay $4.1m for defaming Sandy Hook parents by claiming shooting was a hoax, but could be forced to pay more
A financial expert testifying for the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting has estimated that Alex Jones and his media company are worth between $135m and $240m as they seek punitive damages beyond the $4.1m they secured a day ago for the US conspiracy theorist’s falsehoods about the massacre.
The expert, Bernard Pettingill, said from the witness stand in an Austin courtroom that Jones and his Free Speech Systems company earned more than $50m annually between 2016 to 2021 – even as popular social media companies banned him from promoting himself through them – due to his “rabid following” of millions.
Continue reading...Far-right Infowars owner faced defamation trial for repeatedly saying the school shooting was a hoax
The jury in Alex Jones’s defamation trial on Thursday ordered the far-right conspiracy theorist to pay $4.1m in damages over his repeated claims that the deadly Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.
Jurors in Austin, Texas, gave their verdict after deliberating about one hour Wednesday and seven hours Thursday at the end of a nine-days-long trial. The verdict levied against Jones was far below the $150m or more the plaintiffs had requested that jurors award them.
Continue reading...A meeting to decide the fate of Pete Arredondo has been delayed and his leave is now unpaid, suggesting a dismissal is imminent
School district officials in Uvalde, Texas, have cut off payments to their police force’s embattled chief, who had been on administrative leave from his job but is still being compensated.
The decision on Friday comes amid scrutiny and criticism of how police handled the deadly attack at Robb elementary, where a gunman killed 21 people nearly two months ago.
Continue reading...City allegedly addresses illegal dumping complaints by people of color more slowly than those from white residents
Houston’s city government is under federal investigation after accusations that it responds to calls from Black and Hispanic residents about illegal dumping more slowly than if the complaints are from white residents, US justice department officials announced Friday.
The investigation into whether the Texas metropolis’ so-called quality of life officials are illegally discriminating against residents based on their race or national origin was prompted by a complaint filed earlier this year by the nonprofit Lone Star Legal Aid clinic, authorities added.
Continue reading...Report that draws from interviews with family members, phone information and testimony given to lawmakers offers the most complete account yet of shooter
Before shooting 21 people to death at Robb elementary in Uvalde, Texas, the killer had threatened suicide, menaced women, stockpiled guns and accessories and made a video of himself riding around while holding a dead cat, according to a preliminary report from a committee of Texas state lawmakers investigating the massacre.
The story of 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos – as portrayed in the report released Sunday – is one of red flags that caretakers and officials of all kinds largely missed until he went to his former fourth grade classroom and murdered 19 students as well as two teachers on 24 May in one of the deadliest school shootings ever in America.
Continue reading...Nearly 400 officers from myriad agencies went to the school, but were stymied by a lack of coordination, report details
There were “systemic failures and egregious poor decisionmaking” involved in the deadly school shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a committee of state lawmakers investigating the massacre has found.
The 77-page report from the Texas legislature – released Sunday – details glaring failures in the years leading up to and during the 24 May shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead, along with 17 others wounded.
Continue reading...The controversial Operation Lone Star, launched in March 2021, is under federal investigation for possible civil rights violations
A Texas national guard member assigned to a border security mission helmed by the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, died this week at his unit’s hotel, leaving him as the latest of several soldiers to die while deployed on the controversial operation.
Alex Rios Rodriguez, a 52-year-old sergeant, suffered a medical emergency from which first responders were unable to revive him while he was at his quarters in McAllen, Texas, said a news release Friday issued by officials with the agency that runs the state’s national guard.
Continue reading...NTSB report corrects initial statement that son, 13, was driving truck that hit van, leaving six golfers and their coach dead
Seven members of a New Mexico college golf team were killed when a pickup truck driver with methamphetamine in his bloodstream hit their van head-on in Texas earlier this year, a preliminary report from federal investigators revealed on Thursday.
The report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) also corrected its initial statement that the driver’s 13-year-old son was driving the truck at the time of the fiery 15 March collision that left a total of nine people dead.
Continue reading...Footage captures gunman entering building amid condemnation of slow law enforcement response
Surveillance footage captured the gunman in the Uvalde school shooting entering the building with a AR-15-style rifle and later shows officers in body armor milling in the hallway outside the fourth-grade classrooms where 19 children and two teachers were killed.
The video published on Tuesday by the Austin American-Statesman shows parts of the nearly 80 minutes that passed between the gunman walking into Robb elementary school through an unlocked door and the time when his death put a stop to the US’s deadliest school shooting in nearly two decades.
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