BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to purchasing a gun for a Mexican drug cartel that was linked to the deadly kidnapping of four Americans.
Roberto Lugardo Moreno Jr., 42, of Harlingen, Texas, appeared before a federal judge in Brownsville and entered his guilty plea to charges of straw purchasing and smuggling a firearm.
Lugardo Moreno bought a multi-caliber AR-style pistol at a pawn shop in 2019 and lied on a form stating he was the buyer when he purchased it for a Gulf Cartel member in Mexico, according to a federal complaint.
“All too often, firearms are trafficked into Mexico where they end up in the hands of criminals who use them to murder, rob and extort innocent people,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said in a statement. “This case is a textbook example of the dangers involved when criminals transport weapons into Mexico.”
Sentencing was scheduled for August.
A public defender appointed for Lugardo Moreno did not respond to a call and email request for comment.
The kidnapping occurred in Matamoros, Mexico, which is located just across the border from Brownsville.
The serial number of a firearm Lugardo Moreno purchased in October 2019 matched that of a gun recovered by authorities that was linked to the March 3 kidnappings, according to the federal complaint. Lugardo Moreno said he didn’t apply for a license to export the firearm from the U.S. to Mexico and knew it would be illegally exported, according to the complaint.
Moreno told authorities that he received $100 for the purchase of the guns.
Four friends who were traveling to Mexico in March so one member of the party could have cosmetic surgery were caught up in a drug cartel shootout in Matamoros. After a vehicle crashed into their van, men in tactical vests with rifles arrived in another vehicle and surrounded them.
Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown appeared to have been killed immediately, and their bodies were loaded into a truck with the two survivors, Eric Williams and Latavia McGee. The bodies and the two living friends were found days later in a shack.
While many universities are proud to talk about how they fight climate change, some also invest in and accept donations from the same oil companies that drive global warming. Experts and students are calling those schools hypocritical and are demanding change.
CBS News’ “On the Dot” environmental series investigates the scope of the problem, starting with the University of Texas System, which collected $2.2 billion in oil and gas royalties last year.
Drill ‘Em Horns
When it comes to sustainability, the UT Austin campus promotes itself as a leader among universities by reducing emissions and waste, conserving energy and water resources and building green buildings.
“I still want to give credit to the university for taking action on reducing emissions on campus. But that’s only a small part of the picture,” said Ella Hammersly, a student and climate activist at the university.
The bigger picture comes into focus hundreds of miles from the Austin campus, in the Permian Basinoil fields of West Texas, where 30% of the America’s oil is drilled. That’s where the UT System owns 3,000 square miles of property.
On the property energy companies lease land, extract oil and gas and pay royalties to the university system, which includes Austin and 12 other locations.
Oil revenue has helped make the University of Texas the richest public university system in America, with an endowment of $42.7 billion, according to a report by The National Association of College and University Business Officers. Number two is the Texas A&M System, with $18.2 billion, which also gets a cut of oil royalties from university properties in West Texas.
The scope of the emissions that come from burning the oil and gas drilled on university land has never been calculated before.
Oil wells dot the landscape on a plot of land owned by the University of Texas system in West Texas.
For this story, CBS News asked the McGuire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University to run those numbers for the first time and found those emissions are 20 times higher than they are on campus.
“UT has a sustainability symposium every year. We have a sustainability master plan. All of these things are going on while at the same time billions of dollars are being invested into oil and gas,” Hammersly said.
Under Texas law, the money generated from oil and gas royalties is primarily used for campus construction projects across the state. Less than 1% goes toward financial aid.
UT student activist Anya Gandavadi says it’s time to update the law and its emphasis on oil profits.
“I think that investing in the future of the country, in the world, involves taking into account what science says, what people say, what communities say are hurting them and rewriting those laws,” she said.
For the world to limit the worst effects of climate change, nations will have to drastically reduce their carbon emissions. The International Energy Agency, a global group with a mandate of ensuring energy security, in 2021 called for an end to investment in new oil and rapid transition to renewable energy sources.
That’s not happening on university property in the West Texas oil fields where new lands are being leased and new wells are being drilled.
Dr. Michael Mann, climatologist at the University of Pennsylvania and a critic of the fossil fuel industry, is calling for change, even in Texas.
“What more influential message would it send if the flagship university of one of our most fossil fuel-driven states, Texas, were to take true leadership when it comes to the clean energy transition? It would impact the entire conversation here in the United States and around the world,” Mann said.
The University of Texas system declined to be interviewed for this story and provided this statement:
“The oil and gas production in the Permian Basin is responsible in large part for the United States’ remarkable energy independence, and it is a strategic national resource that would be tapped regardless of ownership.
Through ownership of the University Lands, beginning with the Texas Constitution of 1876, royalties received by the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M System have positively impacted millions of people who have benefitted from historic investments in financial aid, faculty support, teaching, research, medical buildings and more.”
While the university does lease some land for wind and solar farms, those projects account for 0.2% of its 2022 revenue from university property. Mann believes that the state of Texas, blessed with wind, sun and wealth, can and should lead on America’s energy transition.
“So that little sliver has to become the full thing. It has to become 100% and they need to move dramatically away from using that land to worsen the climate crisis, to using that land to make a profit in helping lead us down this path of clean energy,” he said.
University research and fossil fuel donations
A university doesn’t have to own its own oil fields to benefit from the fossil fuel money. Many schools, including Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, accept donations from oil and gas companies to support climate change research.
Between 2010 and 2020, Stanford accepted $56.6 million in donations from oil and gas companies, according to research by the progressive think tank Data for Progress. That puts Stanford in the Top 10 of universities accepting fossil fuel donations.
June Choi is a PhD student who came to Stanford to study at the new, $1.7 billion Doerr School of Sustainability. She was angry to learn the school would accept funding from fossil fuel industry partners.
“A total contradiction,” she called it.
In response, Choi and other students and faculty created a group called the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability and protested last year’s ribbon-cutting celebration at Stanford’s Doerr School.
“We were kind of crashing the party, really. And there was just so much energy. So, it created a lot of excitement,” she said.
Mann, at Penn, says when universities accept fossil fuel company donations for climate change research, it can cast a positive light on the very industry that’s at the root of the problem.
“[The fossil fuel companies] are purchasing the name Stanford University, and that is worth a lot to a fossil fuel industry that’s trying to purchase credibility. ‘Hey look, we’re trying to solve the problem and we’re working with the greatest universities around to do so,’” he said.
Protesters at Stanford believe their efforts have led to a more open dialogue with the university about the funding of research through donations from fossil fuel companies.
Philippe Roberge
What the Stanford activists want is a university ban on those donations, like the policy Princeton University in New Jersey was the first and only university to implement in 2022. Princeton created a list of 90 fossil fuel companies from which it will not accept donations.
In a process called dissociation, Princeton targeted companies involved in the “most-polluting segments of the industry” and a history of spreading “corporate disinformation” about climate change.
The biggest corporation on the list is ExxonMobil, which says it had donated $12 million to Princeton. In a statement to CBS, ExxonMobil wrote: “Close collaboration between industry and academia is essential to finding practical solutions to climate change.”
Princeton’s policy allows for companies to re-associate with the university in the future if they can meet the school’s criteria.
“And that’s great because then the university is really in a position to say, look like we are really constructively engaging with these companies and contributing to shifting the needle on their actions, Choi said.
The work of student organizers at Stanford is beginning to pay off. The university, which declined to be interviewed for this story, recently formed a committee to “review fossil fuel funding of research.”
“It’s a very positive sign, because that is exactly the beginning of a transparent process that we’ve been asking for,” Choi added.
Exiting fossil fuel investments
Many large institutional investors, including universities, buy stock in fossil fuel companies. In a nationwide movement, 50 universities or university systems have exited those investments. It’s a process called divestment.
Rutgers University is the largest state university system in New Jersey. After years of pressure from students and faculty, Rutgers announced in 2021 that it would permanently sell off those investments.
“I think you’re seeing increasingly universities becoming uncomfortable trying to pursue revenue streams in these industries that they know are punishing the earth,” Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said.
Six universities have fully exited their investments: Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan.
One has partially exited: University of Pennsylvania.
Three maintain their fossil fuel investments: Notre Dame University, University of Texas and Texas A&M University.
At Rutgers, a committee of faculty, students and staff helped create a divestment policy that put an end to all investments in fossil fuels, moved those investments to environmentally friendly index funds which actively seek investments in renewable energy.
“If we don’t do this work for the future that we’re not going to see, the one thing we know is the future will be worse. We know that. So, if we know that, don’t we have an obligation to do something about it? I think we do,” Holloway said.
Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, whose border includes more than 300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, tells “Face the Nation” that amid the fighting in Washington, “immigration reform gets further and further behind.”
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At least two people are dead and 10 others were taken to the hospital after a possible tornado struck around 4 a.m. Saturday along the southern coast of Texas, near the Mexico border, officials said.
Crews are searching for more survivors amid extensive damage in Laguna Heights, which is between Port Isabel and Laguna Vista, according to the City of Port Isabel.
Multiple structures and power lines were damaged, and crews from several agencies are helping with cleanup and recovery, the city said in a Facebook post.
The National Weather Service in Brownsville said it has a survey team headed to the area “to determine if a tornado did occur.”
A man fatally shot his girlfriend in Dallas this week after learning that she had gone out of state to undergo an abortion procedure, authorities said.
Harold Thompson, 22, allegedly shot and killed 26-year-old Gabriella Gonzalez in a parking lot Wednesday after he learned that she had traveled to Colorado to have an abortion and returned the previous day, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by CBS News. Nearly all abortions are banned in Texas.
Thompson was believed to be the father, the affidavit read, and “did not want” the victim “to get an abortion.”
The shooting was captured on surveillance video and it showed the suspect first putting Gonzalez in a choke hold, shooting her once in the head and then firing several more shots after she fell to the ground, police said in the affidavit.
Gonzalez died at the scene.
Gonzalez’s sister also told officers that she happened to be passing by and saw the couple together in the parking lot just prior to the shooting, and then heard the gunfire, “looked back and saw her sister on the ground,” the affidavit states.
Thompson was later arrested on murder charges.
Texas is one of several states which enacted trigger laws banning abortion in response to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
The Texas law, which bans nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, took effect last August.
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Texas Lutheran University senior Ashley Adams is gearing up for graduation this month. But Adams’ parents won’t be in the audience cheering her on — they’ll be graduating too.
For the first time in the university’s history, a mother, father and daughter from the same family will be earning their degrees at the same time, the school said in a news release.
Adams is majoring in education, while her mother, Robyn Adams, is earning a master’s degree in accounting and her father, Greg Adams, is majoring in business.
While it’s not a typical college student experience, Ashley Adams said she enjoyed having her parents studying on the same campus as her and was supportive of their decisions to pursue higher education.
“My parents didn’t get to finish their education because they wanted to start a family and there were better opportunities at the time to obtain that goal,” Ashley said in the TLU statement. “I remember how proud I was when they decided to go back to school at a local community college.”
Greg Adams, a retired Army veteran and first-generation student, and Robyn Adams were originally pursuing their degrees at Northeast Lakeview College, but after visiting TLU during their daughter’s admission process, they fell in love with the campus and asked if she was okay with them attending the same school as her, TLU said.
Ashley Adams said she was happy to have her parents join the Bulldogs family. Despite being surrounded by younger classmates, the parents have made the most of their time on campus — with Robyn Adams serving as a supplemental instructor for an accounting course and Greg Adams joining the golf team.
Robyn Adams said she is looking forward to celebrating her family’s achievements at graduation.
“I’m going to be watching my husband and daughter and it’s going to be surreal,” she said. “I’m so very proud of Ashley, but to get to watch from a behind-the-scenes perspective is really neat and something I would never give up.”
Ashley Adams hopes to become a math teacher in the future, while Robyn and Greg Adams have accepted jobs at CPA firm Forvis and the Randolph Air Force Base, respectively, the university said.
“Going back to school and getting a degree after 22 years in the Army. Taking the time to be a supplemental instructor and help your classmates while getting your bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I just can’t express how proud and impressed I am,” Ashley said of her parents.
TLU’s commencement ceremony will take place Saturday.
The Allen, Texas, mall shooter had three guns on him and five more in his car when he began his attack over the weekend, authorities said in a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Mauricio Garcia, 33, who shot and killed eight people – including three children – targeted the Allen Premium Outlets mall while people were shopping on Saturday, said Hank Sibley, regional director of the North Texas region at the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The shooter targeted the location rather than a specific group of people, Sibley said. “He just shot people,” he said.
An Allen police officer who was at the mall for another reason was able to shoot and kill the shooter within 3-4 minutes, Sibley said, “saving countless lives.” Authorities are not releasing the police officer’s name at this time due to the ongoing investigation.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was able to trace the shooter’s eight guns and found that he had purchased them legally, Sibley said.
Authorities said the shooter had no known criminal record and was “not on the radar of police at all,” said Sibley.
He had an expired Texas security guard license and had worked at various firms, but hadn’t worked in a while, Sibley said. Authorities wouldn’t confirm whether he previously worked at the mall.
Sibley said the shooter had neo-Nazi ideations, which authorities determined from the patches he wore and tattoos he had. The FBI has the shooter’s computer and phone, and authorities said they are gathering information and digital evidence as part of the ongoing investigation.
The shooter was discharged from the Army in 2008 before completing boot camp for possible mental health reasons, Sibley said, but that didn’t preclude him from purchasing firearms. “Every weapon he purchased was legal,” Sibley said.
A Republican Texas state lawmaker resigned Monday ahead of an expected vote to expel him after an investigation found he had inappropriate sexual conduct with a 19-year-old intern.
Rep. Bryan Slaton, 45, had faced mounting calls from the state Republican Party and conservative groups to resign after the House investigation determined last week that he gave the intern and another young staffer alcohol at his home, had sex with the intern after she was intoxicated, and later showed her a threatening email but said everything would be fine if the incident was kept quiet.
Slaton also asked a fellow lawmaker to keep his behavior secret, the House General Investigating Committee report noted.
The chairman of the investigating panel, Rep. Andrew Murr, said he still plans to call for a vote to expel Slaton because he remains an officer of the state until a successor is elected and sworn in. The vote is expected Tuesday.
Slaton’s resignation letter did not address the allegations, which his attorney previously called “outrageous” and “false.”
Slaton said it had been an honor to serve in the Legislature from his East Texas district and thanked his colleagues.
“I look forward to spending more time with my young family, and will continue to find ways to serve my community and all citizens across our great state,” he wrote.
State Republican Party leaders welcomed his departure and said House members should be held accountable for misconduct.
“The misconduct described in the General Investigative Committee Report should never be tolerated and is proper grounds for expulsion,” party officials said in a statement. “These actions have betrayed the trust that the people of Representative Slaton’s district put in him as an elected official, and he has rightly resigned.”
Slaton’s legislative biography describes him as holding values and principles formed by church and family gatherings. It also cites his degrees from a Baptist seminary and work as a youth minister. He has been outspoken against children at drag shows and advocated a legislative ban on their attendance, criticizing parents who take their kids to performances as “perverted adults” who are “obsessed with sexualizing young children.” He is married with a son.
The misconduct investigation began after two 19-year-old legislative aides and a 21-year-old legislative intern filed complaints in April.
Two of the women said they tried to dissuade the intern from spending time with Slaton and suggested his behavior was inappropriate. But the intern, who one complainant described as “naive,” agreed to Slaton’s request to visit his apartment. The other women went with her, according to the report, and the lawmaker served them alcohol.
One of the young women drank enough to vomit and the others got so drunk they were dizzy and had “split vision,” the investigation report noted.
Two women eventually left but the intern stayed, according to the report. She told her friends Slaton drove her home the next morning, stopping at a drugstore so she could obtain emergency contraception.
The Associated Press found that between 2017 and 2021, at least 120 state lawmakers in 41 states faced public allegations of sexual misconduct or harassment. They often run again for office and are re-elected, and efforts to remove them are rarer.
Seven people remain hospitalized in Brownsville, Texas, as a candlelight vigil is planned Tuesday in another Texas border town for the eight others who were killed when a vehicle plowed into a group of people at a bus stop over the weekend.
While the victims have not yet been publicly identified, authorities say several immigrants were among those killed when a Land Rover hit the group in Brownsville on Sunday, across the street from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, a non-profit homeless shelter helping to house migrants in the border town, authorities say.
The director of the Ozanam Center, Victor Maldonado, described those killed and injured as asylum seekers.
“They came seeking refuge. They were staying at our shelter because they arrived in this country with very little,” he said.
During the Tuesday evening vigil in El Paso, advocates and community members are expected to mourn the lives lost and call “for the humanization of migrants who have made the harrowing journey and difficult decision to leave their country in search of safety, opportunity, and a better life,” organizers said in a news release.
“As one united front, Border communities across Texas stand in solidarity with migrants and refugees across our state and country who have arrived in search of safety and opportunity. You are not alone, no estan solos,” said Fernando Garcia, Executive Director of the Border Network for Human Rights, one of the groups organizingthe vigil.
The fatal crash comes as Brownsville and other border towns brace for a migrant surge when the public health emergency measure known as Title 42 lapses on Thursday.
Brownsville recently declared a state of emergency after receiving an influx of thousands of migrants, many from Venezuela, in the past several weeks, CNN previously reported.
CNN interviewed migrants staying at the Ozanam Center in December. At the time, the center’s director said migrants from all over the world were starting to stay at his shelter and he was seeing an uptick in stays.
The driver, identified as 34-year-old George Alvarez, was charged with eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Brownsville Police chief Felix Sauceda said Monday.
Police say they are still investigating the cause of the violent crash.
Alvarez ran a red light and lost control of his vehicle, whichflipped on its side and hit a total of 18 people, the chief said. Alvarez then tried to flee the scene before he was detained by bystanders, police said.
Alvarez has an extensive rap sheet, including prior charges of assault and driving while intoxicated, according to police.
Exclusive video obtained by CNN shows a group of people trying to restrain the man after the crash.
Cesar Romero, 34, is a Venezuelan nationalwho said he witnessed the crash and saw his friends run over by the vehicle.
“Some of the men killed had just arrived the night before,” he said while tears rolled down his face.
Romero said that after the crash, the driver got out of his vehicle and appeared to be impaired. He said the driver tried to run away and yelled obscenities, but witnesses stopped him.
The driver was uncooperative after the crash and gave authorities different names, Brownsville Police spokesman Martin Sandoval said.
“We are looking at it three different ways,” Sandoval said. “One, to see if he was intoxicated. We took a blood sample, and we have to turn it over to the Texas DPS crime lab. Two, we have to look at it as a malfunction of the car. Or three it could be intentional. All of these are possibilities.”
Eight people, including three children, were killed when a man opened fire at shoppers Saturday afternoon at a mall in Allen, Texas. A memorial outside the mall is growing bigger as mourners pay their respects to the victims. CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca reports.
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A family of four has become a family of one after a 6-year-old’s parents and brother were fatally shot by a gunman at a Texas outlet mall Saturday, a GoFundMe post by the family’s friends said.
The Houston office of the South Korean Consulate confirmed Monday that three Korean Americans – husband Cho Kyu Song, 37, and wife, Kang Shin Young, 35, as well as one of their children – were killed in the shooting, according to the Dallas Morning News. The child’s name and age were not given.
“Cindy, Kyu and three year old James were among those victims that tragically lost their lives and the family is in deep mourning,” a GoFundMe post read, written by friends of the family, referring to the family by their American names. “After being released from the ICU, their six year old son William is the only surviving member of this horrific event.”
Eight people were shot dead and at least seven others wounded before the gunman was killed by an Allen police officer who was already at the retail center on an unrelated call, police said.
It was one of more than 200 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter. People going about their daily lives in schools, parks, grocery stores and medical buildings in communities big and small must now grapple with the trauma and grief that lingers when the shooting stops.
Here’s what we know so far about those killed in the Texas shooting:
The Cho family was at the mall for a day that should have been “filled with light, love and celebration,” but ended in tragedy, according to the GoFundMe campaign.
William, who just celebrated his birthday, lost his mother, father and younger brother in the shooting, according to the post.
Sisters Daniela and Sofia Mendoza were both elementary school students in the Wylie Independent School District, according to a letter sent to parents by the district.
Daniela was in fourth grade and her sister was in second grade, the letter said. Their mother, Ilda Mendoza, is in the hospital in critical condition.
“Words cannot express the sadness we feel as we grieve the loss of our students,” the letter reads. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Mendoza family, the families of the victims, and all those affected by this senseless tragedy.”
Cox Elementary School Principal Krista Wilson described the sisters as “rays of sunshine” in the letter.
“Daniela and Sofia will not be forgotten,” the letter read. “Hug your kids, and tell them you love them.”
The school district says it is not announcing the news to the students and is leaving it up to parents to have that conversation with their children. Counseling services are being offered for students, staff and families, the letter said.
“Please hold the Mendoza family close to your heart. We know in times of tragedy, our community rallies around each other, and we will do all we can to support the family and friends of the precious students we lost.”
Christian LaCour was a well-liked security guard at the outlets.
“Christian was a sweet, caring young man who was loved greatly by our family,” his sister Brianna Smith told CNN.
The 20-year-old was “the kind of person who would just walk into the store and everyone in the room would light up because he was there,” said Max Weiss, a mall store employee.
“Every time he was in the store, it felt safer,” Weiss added. “He brought laughter and joy and always knew what to say.”
Aishwarya Thatikonda was killed while visiting the mall with a friend, CNN affiliate WFAA reported.
Thatikonda was a few days away from turning 28, Ashok Kolla, a spokesperson with the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) told CNN. The organization helps the Telugu community in the United States.
Family and friends described Thatikonda as a loving and hard-working person who was respected by co-workers, Kolla said.
Thatikonda worked as an engineer, a family representative told WFAA.
She moved to the United States about five years ago to pursue her master’s degree, Kolla said. She graduated with that degree from Eastern Michigan University in 2020.
“We were deeply saddened to learn this morning that an Eastern Michigan University graduate, Aishwarya Thatikonda, was among those killed in Saturday’s shooting at a mall outside of Dallas, Texas,” the university said in a statement. “Aishwarya graduated from Eastern in Dec. 2020 with a Master of Science in construction management.”
“As the nation has to once again grapple with a senseless act of gun violence, we share our condolences with Aishwarya’s family and friends,” the school added. “She will forever be remembered as a strong Eastern Michigan University Eagle.”
Thatikonda lived in McKinney, but her family is mourning her loss from their home in India.
The family plans to have her body sent to India, Kolla said.
CNN has reached out to the consulate general of India in Houston for more information.
In a statement released Monday, the Texas Department of Public Safety also identified 32-year-old Elio Cumana-Rivas as a victim in the massacre.
John Dickerson reports on a mass shooting in Texas, a preview of President Biden’s meeting with congressional leaders on the debt ceiling, and a new plan for airlines to compensate passengers for avoidable delays and cancellations.
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DALLAS (AP) — The people killed by a gunman at a mall near Dallas over the weekend include two elementary-age sisters, a couple and their child, a young engineer and a security guard who worked there, and they represented a multicultural cross-section of the area’s increasingly diverse suburbs.
Cox Elementary School students Daniela and Sofia Mendoza, grades four and two, were among those slain Saturday at Allen Premium Outlets, according to officials in the Wylie Independent School District. They were remembered as “the kindest, most thoughtful students with smiles that could light up any room,” Principal Krista Wilson said in a letter to parents.
Also killed at the outdoor shopping center were three members of a Korean American family: a couple and one of their sons. Another son was wounded and was still hospitalized, said Myoung-Joon Kim, head of mission at the Consulate of the Republic of Korea in Dallas. The parents were identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety as Kyu Song Cho, 37, and Cindy Cho, 35.
Andria Gaither, assistant manger at the mall’s Tommy Hilfiger, said she was devastated to learn the day after running for her life when shots rang out that one of the dead was Christian LaCour, a security guard who previously worked at the clothing store and often stopped in to chat.
Just a few nights earlier, she had called LaCour when a customer wanted in after hours. He came and asked the man to leave, and then offered a security escort to her and two teenage employees.
“He wanted us to feel safe,” Gaither said.
“I’m just in shock,” she added. “He was very young, very sweet, came in all the time to visit with us.”
Also killed was Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26, who was from India, held a graduate degree in construction management and worked as a civil engineer at a the Dallas-area firm Perfect General Contractors.
She was “always prepared to give her very best,” company founder Srinivas Chaluvadi said via email.
He said her parents live in Hyderabad, India, where her father is a judge.
“She came to the United States with a dream to make a career, build a family, own a home and live forever in Dallas,” Chaluvadi said.
Chaluvadi said Thatikonda would have turned 27 next week and she had become like like family: “She attended birthday parties at my home, we celebrated festivals together and we had family dinners.”
Ashok Kolla, treasurer of the Telugu Association of North America, told The Dallas Morning News that he didn’t know Thatikonda but the association often helps families and he is working to send her body back home.
DPS has identified the eighth victim as Elio Cumana-Rivas, 32.
Authorities are still trying to piece together what led to the attack, which ended when the suspected gunman — 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia — was fatally shot by police.
Federal officials are looking into whether Garcia expressed an interest in white supremacist ideology, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official cautioned that the investigation is in its early stages.
Federal agents have been reviewing social media accounts they believe Garcia used, as well as posts that expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, said the official, who could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Alvarez reported from Los Angeles and Reynolds from Louisville, Kentucky. Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed.
A suspect in the Brownsville, Texas SUV crash that killed at least eight people, all reportedly migrants, has been charged in connection with the incident. CBS News homeland security and justice reporter Nicole Sganga has more on the crash, in which the vehicle plowed into a group of people waiting at a bus stop near a migrant facility.
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BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The driver of an SUV that killed eight people when it slammed into a bus stop in Brownsville, Texas has been charged with manslaughter, police said Monday as investigators tried to determine if the crash was intentional.
Authorities believe driver George Alvarez, 34, of Brownsville, lost control after running a red light Sunday morning and plowed into a crowd of Venezuelans outside a migrant center.
Police Chief Felix Sauceda said Alvarez was charged with eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Officials are awaiting toxicology reports to determine whether Alvarez was intoxicated, Sauceda said, adding that there was no motive that he could discuss.
A police officer is consoled after Sunday’s incident that authorities said left eight people dead.
The SUV ran a red light, lost control, flipped on its side and struck 18 people, Sauceda said at a news conference Monday morning. Six people died on the scene and 12 people were critically injured, he said. Officials have said the death toll later rose to eight.
Alvarez tried to flee, but was held down by several people on the scene, he said. His bail was set at $3.6 million.
Victims struck by the vehicle were waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville after spending the night at the overnight shelter, said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.
Most of the victims were Venezuelan men, shelter director Victor Maldonado said. Brownsville has seen a surge of Venezuelan migrants over the last two weeks for unclear reasons, authorities said. On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in Border Patrol custody in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelan.
Police retrieved a blood sample and sent it to a Texas Department of Public Safety lab to test for intoxicants.
Twitter and its owner Elon Musk are facing criticism after some of the social media network’s users posted graphic images of the victims of the deadly Allen Premium Outlets mall shooting in Texas, with critics calling the presence of such images “unethical” and “horrible.”
The spread of the graphic images on Twitter highlights the content moderation changes at the social media service under billionaire Elon Musk, who bought the company last year and has overhauled many of its policies.
In an email to a question about the graphic images, Twitter responded with a poop emoji — the automated reply to any inquiries sent to press@twitter.com. Ella Irwin, vice president of trust and safety at Twitter, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Musk has cut back on content moderation since he bought Twitter last year, firing workers who battled misinformation on the social media platform. Most big social media networks have teams dedicated to tracking hate speech and enforcing rules against harmful content, but under Musk, hate speech has proliferated at the service.
Some users complained about the graphic images of the attack, in which a gunman killed eight people and wounded several others, although it doesn’t appear that the billionaire has responded as of Monday morning. In the days after the May 6 shooting, Musk tweeted a photo of himself on the cover of Time Magazine and posted a poll asking users if their feeds are as “compelling as possible,” among other tweets.
There is nothing virtuous or ethical about showing easily indentifiable dead children and adults, whose families might not yet know they are dead. It’s deeply unethical – it strips victims and their families of privacy and dignity in death. It serves only Musk’s click farm
“There is nothing virtuous or ethical about showing easily indentifiable dead children and adults, whose families might not yet know they are dead,” wrote Emily Bell, a professor and director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, on Twitter. “It’s deeply unethical — it strips victims and their families of privacy and dignity in death.”
One Twitter user posted that they reported an account for posting graphic images of the shooting, and received a response from the platform that the images didn’t violate its “sensitive media policy.”
“Mind you, this was reporting the images of children and adults being brutally shot to death in Allen, TX,” the user wrote.
Another user complained that the lack of moderation “made it almost impossible to avoid graphic images.”
American flags will be lowered to half-staff this week at the White House, on military bases, and at all public buildings to honor the victims of the deadly mass shooting in Texas over the weekend. In the wake of the massacre, President Joe Biden again urged Congress to act: “Too many families have empty chairs at their dinner tables. Tweeted thoughts and prayers are not enough,” he said.
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Eight people were killed and at least seven others were wounded when a gunman opened fire at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday — the latest mass shooting to shatter an American community. A Dallas-area medical group said it was treating patients ranging from age from 5 to 61 years old. The 33-year-old shooter was killed by a police officer who was already at the Dallas-area mall on an unrelated call. The gunman was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and had multiple weapons in his vehicle, according to police. The shooter’s motive remains unclear at this time, but officials are investigating his potential ties to right-wing extremism after he was found with an insignia on his clothing worn by some members of extremist groups, a law enforcement source said. Officials have also found he had an extensive social media presence that included neo-Nazi and White supremacist-related posts.
Britain’s King Charles III was crowned Saturday in a once-in-a-generation royal event witnessed by hundreds of high-profile guests inside Westminster Abbey, as well as tens of thousands of well-wishers who gathered in central London. Scores of foreign dignitaries, British officials, celebrities and faith leaders attended the deeply religious ceremony. Once the King was crowned, his wife, Queen Camilla, was crowned in her own shorter ceremony. On Sunday, thousands of events and parties took place across the UK as part of the “Coronation Big Lunch.” But the historic weekend did not go without a display of dissidence. Police arrested more than 50 people during the coronation after controversially promising a “robust” approach to protesters.
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The US is expecting to see an influx of border crossings when Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allowed officials to swiftly expel migrants who crossed the border illegally during the Covid-19 pandemic, expires on Thursday. Without Title 42, the primary border enforcement tool since March 2020, authorities will be returning to decades-old protocols at a time of unprecedented mass migration in the region, raising concerns within the Biden administration about a surge in the immediate aftermath of the policy’s lifting. Also on Thursday, the House is set to vote on Republicans’ wide-ranging border security package, GOP leadership sources told CNN. Last month, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Republicans have the necessary votes to pass the legislation in the chamber.
U.S. prepares for a surge of migrants ahead of the end of Title 42
A child in Maine has tested positive for measles, officials said, marking the first case in the state since 2019. Measles was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 thanks to an intensive vaccination program, according to the CDC. But vaccination rates in the US have dropped in recent years, sparking new outbreaks. The CDC recommends all children get two doses of the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine; the first dose between 12 to 15 months of age and the second between the ages of 4 to 6. The child who tested positive had received a dose of the measles vaccine, but is being considered “infectious out of an abundance of caution,” the Maine CDC said. There have been a total of 10 documented cases of measles in eight states this year.
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ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, can pick stocks better than your fund manager, analysts say. A recent experiment found that the bot far outperformed some popular UK investment funds — and funds managed by HSBC and Fidelity were among those selected. Between March 6 and April 28, a dummy portfolio of 38 stocks gained 4.9% while 10 leading investment funds clocked an average loss of 0.8%, the results showed. The analysts asked ChatGPT to select stocks based on some common criteria, including picking companies with a low level of debt and a track record of growth. Microsoft, Netflix, and Walmart were among the companies selected. While major funds have used AI for years to support their investment decisions, analysts say ChatGPT has put the technology in the hands of the general public — and it’s showing it can potentially disrupt the finance industry.
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“This tangled web around Justice Clarence Thomas just gets worse and worse by the day.”
— Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, telling CNN on Sunday that “everything is on the table” as the panel scrutinizes new ethics concerns around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The conservative justice is receiving criticism after a bombshell ProPublica report detailed he accepted several lavish trips and gifts from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas also accepted free rent from the Republican billionaire for his mother and allowed him to pay the boarding school tuition for his grandnephew, according to ProPublica.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the state would focus on addressing “mental health problems” behind gun violence, but didn’t address calls for gun reform after another devastating mass shooting at a shopping center this weekend.
Eight people were killed and at least seven others injured at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday after a gunman opened fire on the crowded facility. Authorities identified the shooter as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, who was killed by a police officer on the scene.
It was the second mass shooting in Texas in recent weeks after another gunman killed five of his neighbors in Cleveland, Texas, after they asked him to stop firing his weapon at home.
The twin shootings have renewed calls for increased gun control at both the state level in Texas and nationwide. But Abbott alluded Sunday the rise in gun violence is linked to a “dramatic increase” in “anger and violence,” not access to firearms, even after Fox News host Shannon Bream cited a poll showing strong support for increased gun control measures.
“What Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause which is addressing the mental health problems behind it,” the governor said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding there have been shootings “in states with easy gun laws as well as states with very strict gun laws.”
“People want a quick solution,” Abbott continues. “The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue.”
The governor has faced fierce criticism from Democrats, who have pointed to GOP-led efforts to make gun purchases even easier in Texas. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) said Sunday he was “disgusted” with the governor and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) for doing “NOTHING to keep us safe.”
President Joe Biden this weekend asked Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines after the mall shooting, saying he would sign such legislation “immediately” if it reached his desk.
“We need nothing less to keep our streets safe,” the president said.
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Police are preparing to arrest the hospitalized driver of an SUV that slammed into a crowd, killing eight people waiting for a bus Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas. At least 10 others were injured, authorities said.
With no bench at the unmarked city bus stop, some of the victims were sitting on the curb around 8:30 a.m. when the driver hit them, surveillance video from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center showed. Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval, who confirmed the latest death Sunday evening, said police did not know whether the collision was intentional.
Shelter director Victor Maldonado said the SUV ran up the curb, flipped and continued moving for about 200 feet (60 meters). Some people walking on the sidewalk about 30 feet (9 meters) from the main group were also hit, Maldonado said. Witnesses detained the driver as he tried to run away and held him until police arrived, he said.
“This SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about 100 feet (30 meters) away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” said Maldonado, who reviewed the shelter’s surveillance video.
Victims struck by the vehicle were waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville after spending the night at the overnight shelter, said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.
Most of the victims were Venezuelan men, Maldonado said. Brownsville has seen a surge of Venezuelan migrants over the last two weeks for unclear reasons, authorities said. On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in Border Patrol custody in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelan.
The driver was taken to the hospital for injuries sustained when the car rolled over, Sandoval said. There were no passengers in the car, and police didn’t immediately know the driver’s name or age, Sandoval said Sunday afternoon.
Sandoval said there are three possible explanations for the collision: “It could be intoxication; it could be an accident; or it could be intentional. In order for us to find out exactly what happened, we have to eliminate the other two.
“He’s being very uncooperative at the hospital, but he will be transported to our city jail as soon as he gets released,” Sandoval said. “Then we’ll fingerprint him and (take a) mug shot, and then we can find his true identity.”
Police retrieved a blood sample and sent it to a Texas Department of Public Safety lab to test for intoxicants.
The surge in the number of migrants this week has prompted Brownsville commissioners to indefinitely extend a declaration of emergency during a special meeting Thursday.
“We don’t want them wandering around outside,” Pedro Cardenas, a city commissioner, said Sunday after the crash. “So, we’re trying to make sure they’re as comfortable as they can be so they don’t have to go out and look for anywhere else.”
Brownsville has long been an epicenter for migration across the U.S.-Mexico border, and it has become a key location of interest for next week’s end to pandemic-era border restrictions known as Title 42. The Ozanam shelter is the only overnight shelter in the city and manages the release of thousands of migrants from federal custody.
Maldonado said the center had not received any threats before the crash, but did afterward.
“I’ve had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us,” Maldonado said.
About 2,500 migrants have crossed through the river daily into Brownsville in the past few days, Cardenas said. He said the Border Patrol is aware of the city’s capacity of 1,000 at their processing area near the crossing point and a downtown building where city employees and volunteers guide migrants on how to purchase bus or plane tickets to their final destinations. The city is considering expanding services to accommodate needs in the coming days, Cardenas said.
While 80% of people released from federal custody leave the same day, the city’s emergency management official said, a bottleneck has formed over the past few days.
“Most of the people coming across don’t want to stay in Brownsville, but we don’t have enough buses for them to buy their ticket to leave,” Cardenas said. “Some are waiting for family members.”
The Ozanam shelter can hold 250, but many who arrive leave the same day. In the last several weeks, an uptick in border crossings prompted the city to declare an emergency as local, state and federal resources coordinated enforcement and humanitarian response.
“In the last two months, we’ve been getting 250 to 380 a day,” Maldonado said.
While the shelter offers migrants transportation during the week, they also use the city’s public transportation.
Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement shared Sunday afternoon: “I hope that today serves as a wake up call, and that state officials will begin investing in a humanitarian response that might have helped the people who were impacted by this morning’s tragedy.”
U.S. Rep. Vicente González said Sunday that local officials are in communication with the federal government about the crash.
“We are all extremely sad and heartbroken to have such a tragedy in our neighborhood,” he said.
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Valerie Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. Travis Loller contributed to this report from Nashville, Tenn.
ALLEN, Texas (AP) — A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others — three critically — before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said.
Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center, but witnesses reported seeing children among them. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
A 16-year-old pretzel stand employee, Maxwell Gum, described a virtual stampede of shoppers. He and others sheltered in a storage room.
“We started running. Kids were getting trampled,” Gum said. “My co-worker picked up a 4-year-old girl and gave her to her parents.”
Dashcam video that circulated online showed the gunman getting out of a car and shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off.
Allen Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd said seven people including the shooter died at the scene. Nine victims were taken to area hospitals, but two of them died.
Three of the wounded were in critical condition in the evening, Boyd said, and four were stable.
An Allen Police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the police department wrote on Facebook.
“The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel,” it added.
Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the United States this year: an average of about one a week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
The White House said President Biden had been briefed on the shooting and the administration had offered support to local officials. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called it an “unspeakable tragedy.”
Fontayne Payton, 35, was at H&M when he heard the sound of gunshots through his headphones.
“It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.
People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said. When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes lay nearby.
Once outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground.
“It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said.
Further away, he saw the body of a heavyset man wearing all black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies it had not been covered up.
Tarakram Nunna, 25, and Ramakrishna Mullapudi, 26, said they saw what appeared to be three people motionless on the ground, including one who appeared to be a police officer and one who appeared to be a mall security guard.
Another shopper, Sharkie Mouli, 24, said he hid in a Banana Republic store during the shooting. As he left, he saw what appeared to be an unconscious police officer lying next to another unconscious person outside the outlet store.
“I have seen his gun lying right next to him and a guy who is like passing out right next to him,” Mouli said.
Stan and Mary Ann Greene were browsing in the Columbia sportswear store when the shooting started.
“We had just gotten in, just a couple minutes earlier, and we just heard a lot of loud popping,” Mary Ann Greene told The Associated Press.
Employees rolled down the security gate and brought everyone to the rear of the store until police arrived and escorted them out, the Greenes said.
Eber Romero was at the Under Armour store when a cashier mentioned that there was a shooting.
As he left the store, Romero said, the mall appeared empty, and all the shops had their security gates down. That is when he started seeing broken glass and people who had been shot on the floor.
Video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot amid the sound of gunshots.
More than 30 police cruisers with lights flashing were blocking an entrance to the mall, with multiple ambulances on the scene.
A live aerial broadcast from a news station showed armored trucks and other law enforcement vehicles outside the mall.
Ambulances from several neighboring cities responded.
The Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded.
Allen, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, has roughly 105,000 residents.
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Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas contributed to this report.
