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Officials: Six people were killed after two historic military planes collided during a Dallas air show Saturday
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Tag: Texas
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Horrific Tragedy At Dallas Airshow As Fighter Collides With B-17 Bomber
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Composite image from onlooker cellphone: two halves of B-17G ‘Texas Raiders’ spin to the ground and … [+]
The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) is a major collector, restorer and operator of vintage aircraft. Each year, the organization holds the Wings over Dallas airshow to show off their remarkable fleet of World War II warplanes on Veterans Day weekend.
Attendees at the show’s second day of events at Dallas Executive Airport on Saturday witnessed a horrifying tragedy. During a parade of bombers and escorting fighters, the pilot of a single-engine P-63 Kingcobra fighter misjudged a turn and slammed into the fuselage of a four-engine B-17G Flying Fortress bomber named Texas Raiders, completely severing its rear fuselage from the wings and nose.
In three horrifying seconds, the P-63 disintegrated while the B-17’s two halves plummeted to the Earth and exploded in a massive fireball.
The aircraft were flying far too low for the crew to have time, or sufficient altitude, to bail out. Besides the pilot flying the P-63, six were believed to be onboard the B-17 when it exploded, including crew from the CAF’s Gulf Coast Wing.
Debris showered across Texas Highway 67 caused a fire to breakout, necessitating closure of the highway. There were not so far any reports of casualties among spectators on the ground.
According to Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Bureau have taken over the cleanup and investigation effort, with support from the Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire Rescue.
This article will be updated as more details come to light.
About the Aircraft
The B-17 Flying Fortress is perhaps one of the most iconic American military aircraft, active in in both the Pacific and European theaters not just as a strategic bomber but also as transports and even adapted for use as a remote-control kamikaze drone. The final (and most numerous) G model is distinguished by the gun turret mounted under the aircraft’s chin. Texas Raiders one of only five B-17Gs in flying condition, though six more are in airworthy condition according to the CAF.
USAF Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress named ‘Texas Raiders’ taking-off through a cloud of black smoke … [+]
Texas Raiders was one of the last B-17s built in July 1945, going on to serve the U.S. Navy from 1945-1955 experimentally fitted with a AN/APS-20 radar in her bomb bay to test early airborne-early warning radar technology in a program called Cadillac II.
After being retired, she was purchased by a private company for high altitude photographic mapping. In 1967, she was bought by the CAF, which transferred the old bomber its Gulf Coast Wing in 1974.
USAF Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress named ‘Texas Raiders’ in the flying-display at the 1997 … [+]
The P-63 Kingcobra is a heavily evolved version of the sleek but flawed P-39 Aerocobra fighter extensively exported to Russia via Lend Lease, and used by the U.S. Army Air Force early in the war.
Camarillo, California,USA- August 19,2017. WWII P-63 King Cobra fighter airplane at the 2017 … [+]
As its non-turbocharged engine resulted in poor high altitude performance, the P-39 developed a negative reputation with the USAAF, resulting in the much improved P-63, but it attracted little interest. However, some 2,400s P-63s were accepted for combat use by the Soviet Union’s air force, which was a big fan of the Aerocobra.
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Sebastien Roblin, Contributor
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Vintage military aircraft collide mid-air at Dallas air show | CNN
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CNN
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A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra collided and crashed at the Wings Over Dallas airshow around 1:20 p.m. on Saturday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“At this time, it is unknown how many people were on both aircraft,” the FAA said in a statement.
Authorities responded to the incident at Dallas Executive Airport, Jason Evans with Dallas Fire-Rescue told CNN on Saturday.
There are currently more than 40 fire rescue units on scene, the agency’s active incidents page shows.
The Commemorative Air Force identified both aircraft as being out of Houston.
“Currently we do not have information on the status of the flight crews as emergency responders are working the accident,” a statement from the group said, adding it is working with local authorities and the FAA.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the collision. The NTSB will be in charge and is expected to provide additional updates.
The event, which was scheduled to run through Sunday, has been canceled, according to the organizer’s website.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a tweet after the crash, “As many of you have now seen, we have had a terrible tragedy in our city today during an airshow. Many details remain unknown or unconfirmed at this time.”
“The videos are heartbreaking. Please, say a prayer for the souls who took to the sky to entertain and educate our families today,” Johnson said in a separate tweet.
Debris from the collision fell onto southbound Highway 67, according to a report from CNN affiliate WFAA. Southbound and northbound lanes of the highway were shut down after the incident, the Dallas Police Department said.
The B-17 was part of the collection of the Commemorative Air Force, nicknamed “Texas Raiders,” and had been hangered in Conroe, Texas near Houston. It was one of about 45 complete surviving examples of the model, only nine of which were airworthy.
The P-63 was even rarer. Some 14 examples are known to survive, four of which in the United States were airworthy, including one owned by the Commemorative Air Force.
More than 12,000 B-17s were produced by Boeing, Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed between 1936 and 1945, with nearly 5,000 lost during the war, and most of the rest scrapped by the early 1960s. About 3,300 P-63’s were produced by Bell Aircraft between 1943 and 1945, and were principally used by the Soviet Air Force in World War II.
This is a developing story.
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Fire at Dallas Fort Worth airport causes ground stop
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A fire at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport’s fuel farm on Friday morning caused the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a ground stop at the airport, officials said. Flights resumed early Friday afternoon, the FAA said.
The airport tweeted that the fire had been put out and the affected pump was shut off. After performing safety inspections, the airlines’ fuel contractor “restored operations at their facility, and they are in the process of sending fuel to aircraft,” the airport said.
“It will take some time to get fueling operations back to normal,” the airport said. “Travelers should continue to check with their airline for flight updates.”
During the ground stop, all inbound flights were being held at their departure airports, the FAA said in a statement.
American Airlines, the carrier with the largest presence at the airport, told CBS News that the ground stop affected arriving and departing flights.
As of late Friday afternoon, flights in and out of the airport were still seeing delays, according to FlightAware.
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Texas man accused of slipping abortion drug in wife’s drinks
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AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas grand jury has indicted a husband accused of slipping a medicine used for abortions into his wife’s drinks in hopes that it would end her pregnancy.
Mason Herring, a 38-year-old Houston attorney, was indicted on two felony counts, including assault of a pregnant person, under charges handed up last week by a Harris County grand jury. Court records show he was originally arrested in May and released on a $30,000 bond.
Nicholas Norris, an attorney for Herring, declined to immediately comment Thursday.
Prosecutors told Houston television station KTRK that the baby was born prematurely but was healthy and well.
According to court documents, Herring’s wife told authorities her husband in March began lecturing her on hydration and offering water. She said she became severely ill and after drinking from the first cup that appeared cloudy, which her husband allegedly explained was perhaps the result of the cup or water pipes being dirty.
Herring’s wife became suspicious, according to court records, and began refusing multiple other drinks her husband offered. She said she later found in the trash packaging for a drug that contains misoprostol, a medicine used to induce abortion.
The couple had separated earlier this year and were attending marriage counseling when she told him about the pregnancy, according to court documents. She said Mason Herring expressed to her in text messages multiple times that he was unhappy about the pregnancy.
A spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Herring was also indicted on an assault charge of attempting to an induce an abortion.
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Texas man executed for mother’s strangling death after court rejects lawyers’ appeal based on mental illness claim
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Texas man executed for mother’s strangling death after court rejects lawyers’ appeal based on mental illness claim
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Federal Judge Tells A Texas County Not To Harass Black Voters
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After an NAACP chapter alleged voter intimidation in a predominately Black community in Texas, a federal judge ordered officials at a polling place in Jefferson County not to harass or intimidate voters. This includes refraining from asking them to read their addresses aloud or standing near them as they fill out their ballots.
The judge, Donald Trump appointee Michael J. Truncale, emphasized that he was not making “a finding of fact.” Still, he did grant a temporary restraining order stopping the reported behavior and instructing the county’s clerk to implement the order by 7 a.m. Tuesday.
White poll workers at the John Paul Davis Community Center, including a GOP-appointed election judge, “repeatedly” asked Black voters in “aggressive tones” to recite their addresses within earshot of other voters, poll watchers and poll workers, “even when the voter was already checked in by a poll worker,” according to the lawsuit. Around 90% of people who vote at the community center are Black, the suit claimed.
By contrast, the election judge at the community center did not ask white voters to recite their addresses, the complaint continued.
The named plaintiff, Jessica Daye, who is Black, “plans to try to vote somewhere else on Election Day because she fears that — among other things — the poll workers at the Community Center will ask her to recite her address out loud in front of everyone,” according to the suit.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which helped bring the suit and operates the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline, said in a press release Tuesday that it had “received multiple complaints about white poll workers at the Beaumont polling place asking Black voters to loudly recite their addresses after already being checked in and verified to vote, in a gross instance of invasion of privacy and voter intimidation.”
White poll workers also allegedly “followed” Black voters and voter assistants around the polling place, including standing “two feet behind a Black voter and the assistant” as the voter was casting their ballot. Poll workers also allegedly helped white voters scan their ballots into voting machines but did not similarly help Black voters.
Jefferson County, the county’s commissioners’ court, the county clerk, and the specific election judge in charge of the community center were named defendants in the lawsuit. Lawyers representing the county didn’t respond to HuffPost’s request for comment Tuesday. However, a court record shows that an emergency hearing Monday night lasted approximately three hours, including recess and time for the court’s ruling.
The complaint noted that before filing the suit, a pastor who is also a member of the NAACP chapter relayed concerns about the center’s election judge, Mary Beth Bowling, to the county clerk, but “no action was taken.” Plaintiffs alleged the actions they described violated the Voting Rights Act, as well as the U.S. Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments. Plaintiffs also submitted several affidavits from poll workers, a voter assistant, and the president of the Beaumont Chapter of the NAACP flagging the behavior.
“I have never before gotten so many complaints about how uncomfortable and difficult it has been for my congregants to vote at the Community Center,” wrote affiant Airon Reynolds, Jr., an NAACP member and pastor at the Borden Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, a short drive from the polling place. Reynolds said he went to the polling place and asked Bowling to “adjust” her behavior — saying that “drilling” voters about their addresses was “demeaning” — but she refused.
The voter assistant, Joyce Roper, wrote that Bowling “stood right behind me as I was assisting an elderly Black man” and only moved after being asked twice. Over 10 days of early voting, Roper added, more than 60 Black voters “told me they felt intimidated, uneasy, and uncomfortable voting in the Community Center.”
Reynolds’ own experience was similarly fraught. He wrote: “When I walked into the Community Center, there were two white poll workers standing and looking at me suspiciously. They watched every step I took. When I went to the voting booth, they came closer, walking toward me. They both stood about five feet behind me and watched me like I was getting ready to steal something. After I voted, they stared at me as I put my ballot into the scanning machine and as I walked outside. I saw them do the same to a handful of other Black voters who were in the polling place at the same time as me.”
In his order Monday, Truncale denied the plaintiff’s requests to prohibit Bowling from working as an election judge. But he granted their request prohibiting election workers and others “from requesting or ordering any voters to publicly recite their addresses before allowing them to vote,” as well as prohibiting them “from positioning themselves near voters who are marking their ballots such that they can view voters’ selections,” aside from certain exceptions spelled out in Texas law.
Truncale also prohibited election workers at the community center from turning away eligible voters.
In a press release Tuesday, Beaumont NAACP President Rev. Michael Cooper wrote that he was “thankful for Judge Truncale’s fair assessment to ensure that Black voters in Beaumont won’t face any additional violations as they exercise their right to vote.”
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O’Rourke hopes to upset Texas Gov. Abbott’s bid for 3rd term
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AUSTIN — Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sought a record-tying third term Tuesday while Democrat Beto O’Rourke reached for an upset in America’s biggest red state in one of the most expensive midterm races in the U.S.
More than 5 million early votes had already been cast ahead of Election Day in Texas, where anger over the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead in May intensified an already heated contest in which both candidates’ campaigns combined spent more than $200 million.
Five months later, Texas state police still face pressure for failing to confront the gunman sooner at Robb Elementary School. O’Rourke said the shooting, one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history, crystalized the stakes of the election as Abbott waved off calls for tougher gun laws.
But Abbott, 64, has remained formidable in a state where Republicans have won every governor’s race since 1994.
He has rallied his base around a record number of illegal border crossings from Mexico to the U.S., aggressively courted Hispanic voters in South Texas, and seized on economic anxieties and recession fears that have created headwinds for Democrats nationally.
A victory by Abbott would strengthen his position as a potential presidential contender in 2024, secure his place as the second-longest serving governor in the state’s history and extend decades of GOP dominance.
O’Rourke on Tuesday was set to embark on one last campaign blitz through Dallas, San Antonio and Houston before heading home to wait for election returns in his hometown of El Paso. Abbott was spending election night Tuesday in the southern border city of McAllen, underscoring the GOP’s rising confidence in a region that has long been a stronghold for Democrats.
O’Rourke’s hard-charging challenge has rekindled Democrats’ hopes while appealing to voters soured by the Uvalde shooting, a strict new abortion ban and the deadly collapse of the state’s power grid in winter 2021. The former El Paso congressman has cast himself as a fresh start for Texas and a check on a GOP-controlled Legislature, while vowing to legalize marijuana and expand Medicaid.
But four years after O’Rourke, 50, nearly won a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, raising his profile in the Democratic Party, he has confronted more skeptical voters. Abbott has painted him as a liberal crusader, and O’Rourke has been forced to answer for positions he took while running for the White House, particularly his support of mandatory gun buybacks.
A day after the shooting in Uvalde, O’Rourke interrupted an Abbott news conference, telling him, “This is on you,” in reference to the governor’s opposition of tougher gun measures. To Republicans, the moment was a tasteless political stunt, but O’Rourke’s supporters saw it as an authentic reflection of their anger.
During early voting in suburban Dallas, Deborah Thompson said she voted for all Democrats, including O’Rourke, out of concern that Republicans threaten voting and abortion rights.
“I think that an 18-year-old girl that’s been raped should be able to get an abortion,” the 56-year-old Richardson resident said. “I’m not going back. I’m not going back to the ’50s … and I’m so angry at all of this.”
Janie Helms, a retiree, said worries about inflation led her to vote for Abbott.
“I see him as a conservative who will watch our money,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Jake Bleiberg contributed from Plano, Texas.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.
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Sansom Park officer shot during active shooter training at elementary school, police say
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FOREST HILL, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) — A Sansom Park police officer is in critical condition after reportedly getting shot during an active shooter training session at an elementary school Saturday afternoon.
At approximately 2:12 p.m. Nov. 5, Forest Hill police received a call that an officer was down during a “training accident,” Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said.
Spencer said the officer was shot with a live round and then taken by ambulance to John Peter Smith Hospital where she is in critical but stable condition. Her identity has not been released at this time.
The session was put on by a third party training provider at David K. Sellars Elementary in Forest Hill, Spencer said. Several other agencies, including the Sansom Park Police Department, also participated in the training.
Spencer said the third party provider supplied the equipment used and that there was no plan for there to be any live fire training.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office along with the Texas Rangers are currently investigating the incident.
Spencer said he is unsure if anyone has been placed on administrative leave at this time.
Forest Hill Mayor Stephanie Boardingham has since asked the community to send prayers and condolences to the family of the officer.
“We would just like to send our prayers and condolences to the family of the officer that was shot. Also, we ask for the same for our officers here in Forest Hill, as well as all officers that were attending this training,” Boardingham said. “Please help us to pray for the officers, and for everyone who is conducting the investigation so that we can all get through this.”
Watch the full press conference below:
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Deadly tornadoes hit Texas and Oklahoma, flatten buildings
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IDABEL, Okla. (AP) — Residents in southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas began assessing weather damage Saturday, working to recover and thankful to have survived after a storm stretching from Dallas to northwest Arkansas spawned tornadoes and produced flash flooding, killing at least two people, injuring others and leaving homes and buildings in ruins.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt went to the town of Idabel to see the damage. He said on social media that all the homes had been searched and a 90-year-old man was killed. Keli Cain, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Emergency Management, said the man’s body was found at his home in the Pickens area of McCurtain County, about 36 miles (58 kilometers) north of Idabel.
Morris County, Texas, Judge Doug Reeder said in a social media post that one person died as a result of a tornado in the far northeastern Texas County, offering no other details.
Reeder and other county officials did not immediately return phone calls for additional comment.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also reported a 6-year-old girl drowned and a 43-year-old man was missing after their vehicle was swept by water off a bridge near Stilwell, about 135 miles (217 kilometers) north of Idabel. The drowning has not been officially attributed to the storm and will be investigated by the medical examiner, Cain said.
Saturday afternoon Stitt declared a state of emergency for McCurtain County, where Idabel is located, and neighboring Bryan, Choctaw and LeFlore counties.
The declaration is a step in qualifying for federal assistance and funding and clears the way for state agencies to make disaster-recovery related purchases without limits on bidding requirements.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said damage assessments and recovery efforts are under way in northeast Texas and encouraged residents to report damage to the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
“I have deployed all available resources to help respond and recover,” Abbott said in a statement. ”I thank all of our hardworking state and local emergency management personnel for their swift response.”
National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Darby in Tulsa said the far-reaching storm produced heavy rain in the Stilwell area at the time, around 4 inches (10.16 centimeters).
Idabel, a rural town of about 7,000 at the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, saw extensive damage, Cain said. “There are well over 100 homes and businesses damaged from minor damage to totally destroyed,” Cain said.
Trinity Baptist Church in Idabel was preparing to complete a new building when the storm ripped apart their sanctuary and flattened the shell of the new structure next door, according to Pastor Don Myer.
The 250-member congregation was to vote after the Sunday service on whether to move ahead with he final work to complete the building, Myer told The Associated Press.
“But we didn’t get to that. Every vote counts and we had one vote trump us all,” Myer, 67, said. “We were right on the verge of that. That’s how close we were.”
Myer said the congregation is going to pray on what happened, see how much their insurance covers and work to rebuild. On Saturday morning, a few members of the church took an American flag that had been blown over in the storm and stood it upright amid the wreckage of the original church building.
Shelbie Villalpando, 27, of Powderly, Texas, said she was eating dinner with her family Friday when tornado sirens prompted them to congregate first in their rented home’s hallways, then with her children, aged 5, 10 and 14, in the bathtub.
“Within two minutes of getting them in the bathtub, we had to lay over the kids because everything started going crazy,” Villalpando said.
“I’ve never been so terrified,” she said. “I could hear glass breaking and things shattering around, but whenever I got out of the bathroom, my heart and my stomach sank because I have kids and it could have been much worse. … What if our bathroom had caved in just like everything else? We wouldn’t be here.”
Terimaine Davis and his son were huddled in the bathtub until just before the tornado barreled through Friday, reducing their home in Powderly to a roofless, sagging heap.
“We left like five minutes before the tornado actually hit,” Davis, 33, told The Associated Press. “Me and my son were in the house in the tub and that was about the only thing left standing.”
In their driveway Saturday morning, a child’s car seat leaned against a dented, grey Chevrolet sedan with several windows blown out. Around back, his wife, Lori Davis, handed Terimaine a basket of toiletries from inside the wreckage of their house.
The couple and the three kids who live with them did not have renter’s insurance, Lori Davis said, and none of their furniture survived. “We’re going to have to start from scratch,” she said.
They hope to stay with family until they can find a place to live.
“The next few days look like rough times,” Terimaine Davis said.
Judge Brandon Bell, the highest elected official in Lamar County where Powderly is located, declared a disaster in that area. Bell’s declaration said at least two dozen people were injured across the county.
Powderly is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Idabel and about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northeast of Dallas and both are near the Texas-Oklahoma border.
The National Weather Service in Fort Worth confirmed three tornadoes – in Lamar, Henderson and Hopkins counties – Friday night as a line of storms dropped rain and sporadic hail on the Dallas-Fort Worth area and continued to push eastward.
The weather service’s office in Shreveport, Louisiana, said it was assessing the damage in Oklahoma.
Weather service meteorologist Bianca Garcia in Fort Worth said while peak severe weather season typically is in the spring, tornados occasionally develop in October, November, December and even January.
“It’s not very common,” Garcia said, “but it does happen across our region.”
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Miller reported from Oklahoma City. Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas contributed to this report.
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Deadly tornadoes hit Texas and Oklahoma, flatten buildings
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Residents in northeastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma began assessing weather damage Saturday, working to recover and thankful to have survived after tornadoes tore through the region, killing at least two people, injuring others and leaving homes and buildings in ruins.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt went to the town of Idabel to see the damage. He said on social media that all the homes had been searched and a 90-year-old man was killed. Keli Cain, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Emergency Management, said the man’s body was found at his home in the Pickens area of McCurtain County, about 36 miles north of Idabel.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also reported a 6-year-old girl drowned and a 43-year-old man was missing after their vehicle was swept by water off a bridge near Stilwell, about 135 miles north of Idabel. The drowning has not been officially attributed to the storm and will be investigated by the medical examiner, Cain said.
The small town of Idabel saw a church, medical center and a school torn apart.
“There’s a lot of damage” in the town of about 7,000, Cain said. “There are well over 100 homes and businesses damaged from minor damage to totally destroyed.”
Saturday afternoon Stitt declared a state of emergency for McCurtain County, where Idabel is located, and neighboring Bryan, Choctaw and LeFlore counties.
The declaration is a step in qualifying for federal assistance and funding and clears the way for state agencies to make disaster-recovery related purchases without limits on bidding requirements.
The National Weather Service said tornadoes also were reported in Texas and Arkansas.
Morris County, Texas, Judge Doug Reeder said in a social media post that one person died as a result of a tornado in the far northeastern Texas County, offering no other details.
Reeder and other county officials did not immediately return phone calls for additional comment.
One community hit hard was Powderly, about 45 miles west of Idabel and about 120 miles northeast of Dallas. Both Powderly and Idabel are near the Texas-Oklahoma border.
Shelbie Villalpando, 27, of Powderly, said she was eating dinner with her family Friday when tornado sirens prompted them to congregate first in their rented home’s hallways, then with her children, aged 5, 10 and 14, in the bathtub.
“Within two minutes of getting them in the bathtub, we had to lay over the kids because everything started going crazy,” Villalpando said.
“I’ve never been so terrified,” she said. “I could hear glass breaking and things shattering around, but whenever I got out of the bathroom, my heart and my stomach sank because I have kids and it could have been much worse. … What if our bathroom had caved in just like everything else? We wouldn’t be here.”
Terimaine Davis and his son were huddled in the bathtub until just before the tornado barreled through Friday, reducing their home in Powderly to a roofless, sagging heap.
“We left like five minutes before the tornado actually hit,” Davis, 33, told The Associated Press. “Me and my son were in the house in the tub and that was about the only thing left standing.”
In their driveway Saturday morning, a child’s car seat leaned against a dented, grey Chevrolet sedan with several windows blown out. Around back, his wife, Lori Davis, handed Terimaine a basket of toiletries from inside the wreckage of their house.
The couple and the three kids who live with them did not have renter’s insurance, Lori Davis said, and none of their furniture survived. “We’re going to have to start from scratch,” she said.
They hope to stay with family until they can find a place to live.
“The next few days look like rough times,” Terimaine Davis said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said damage assessments and recovery efforts are under way in northeast Texas and encouraged residents to report damage to the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
“I have deployed all available resources to help respond and recover,” Abbott said in a statement. “I thank all of our hardworking state and local emergency management personnel for their swift response.”
Weather service meteorologist Bianca Garcia in Fort Worth said while peak severe weather season typically is in the spring, tornados occasionally develop in October, November, December and even January.
“It’s not very common,” Garcia said, “but it does happen across our region.”
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Officials say a second person has died in tornadoes that hit Texas and Oklahoma
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Officials say a second person has died in tornadoes that hit Texas and Oklahoma
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Democrat Beto O’Rourke takes his shot with Texas voters again
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Texas’ incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott could be facing his closest Democratic challenger ever, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the one-time Democratic star who is risking his second straight election statewide loss in Texas.
Early voting ended Friday, with almost 4.8 million Texans voting before Election Day, far fewer than the nearly 9 million who voted early in 2020, a presidential election year.
Former President Donald Trump, who won the state twice, visited South Texas to help drive up voter participation and campaign for Republicans. He also hit the deep-red 27th Congressional District, although his rally was in Nueces County, which he won twice, but O’Rourke carried it in 2018. Abbott skipped the rally, but Trump lavished praise on him anyway, calling him a “wonderful man” and saying O’Rourke wanted to “abolish guns, God and oil.”
Brandon Bell/Getty Images, Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Abbott is seeking a third term, while O’Rourke, his Democratic challenger,is hoping to become the first Democrat to be elected statewide in Texas since 1994, when George W. Bush won the governor’s race against Ann Richards.
Abbott has opened up a double-digit lead in two recent polls, coming after months of what appeared to be a tightening race. Both O’Rourke and Abbott have raised huge sums of money, with over $100 million raised this year alone.
He was first elected in 2014 by 20 points and won reelection in 2018 by 13 points – the same year as O’Rourke’s failed Senate run. Abbott has been mentioned as a possible presidential contender, too, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, Bush and former Gov. Rick Perry.
Despite his consistent lead in the polls, Abbott hasn’t taken this election lightly, especially given O’Rourke’s strong run for Senate in 2018 and President Joe Biden’s relative success, compared to any Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1996, losing to Trump by under 6 points.
O’Rourke spent the summer traveling the state as part of a “Drive for Texas,” hitting 70 cities over around 50 days. After a brief hiccup at the end – hospitalization and a break from the road – he ended up crisscrossing the state and hitting Republican areas (Alpine in West Texas and Lockhart in central Texas), swing areas (the Rio Grande Valley and the Dallas suburbs), the diverse cities (Houston and San Antonio) and the Democratic heart of Texas, Austin.
Caroline Linton
O’Rourke needs them all to win: Voters of color, Republican Texans to flip, suburban swing voters, youth voters and all the true blue Texas Democrats he can get. He brought out two larger-than-life Texas Democrats, Cecile Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, and Luci Baines Johnson, the daughter of the late President Lyndon Johnson to campaign with him in Austin.
O’Rourke told CBS News in an interview in September that while he was out on the road, he saw “so many people demanding change – and they’re not typing it out on Twitter, or yelling it at the TV.”
“They’re showing up at our events and then signing up, to go knock on doors and meet voters and win this election so that we can overcome these challenges,” he added. On his social media feeds, O’Rourke often highlights Trump supporters or Republicans who have decided to vote for him – and said in the interview that when he was in El Campo, a Trump supporter asked him to sign a MAGA hat.
But as O’Rourke hit the road this summer to travel to 70 cities throughout the state, at many of his stops, he was greeted by protesters and hecklers. At his last stop of that trip in Lockhart, Texas, at the beginning of September, a group of protesters said they consider themselves the “three Musketeers” who protest O’Rourke.
“He isn’t welcome, especially in Bastrop,” said Monica Carson, the legislative chair of the Lost Pines Republican women and one of the protesters at the Lockhart event. Former President Donald Trump carried Bastrop County by more than 13 points in 2020. “There’s so many people moving here from Democratic states that are trying to turn Texas blue. And us Texans are standing up [against] it.”
In 2018, O’Rourke appealed to donors outside Texas borders, bringing in a record $80 million over the course of the race and eventually landing more than 4 million votes – more than 2 million more than the last Democratic candidate for Senate in the state. But he still fell almost 3 points short of toppling Cruz.
Caroline Linton
It’s been a rocky road since then. O’Rourke launched a presidential bid that first garnered huge attention – a Vanity Fair cover and a then-record-breaking first-day fundraising haul of over $6 million – but he dropped out in Nov. 2019 before any votes were cast after going to the left on guns. Only a month later, the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee leaked advised candidates not to appear with him, showing his possible vulnerability even in his own state.
Despite his continued strength in the state, Abbott has been preparing for O’Rourke, filling a war chest of $55 million in June 2021, six months before O’Rourke even announced he would be running.
But he has moved further to the right in the past eight years, launching a National Guard mission along the border called Operation Lone Star, loosening gun laws, signing a restrictive abortion law in 2021 – ahead of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe – and pushing through a voter law that led to Democrats fleeing the state.
Then there was the 2021 Texas freeze, which led to a dayslong power outage throughout most of the state, exposing the state’s shaky power grid. According to a Dec. 2021 report by the Texas Department of Health Services, 246 deaths were blamed on the storm, making it one of the state’s worst natural disasters in history.
The criticism of Abbott’s response to the freeze stood in stark contrast to the praise he received for the response to Hurricane Harvey, which slammed the Gulf Coast with days of rain in 2017. Days after the hurricane hit near Corpus Christi as a Category 4 storm, Abbott elevated a moderate Democrat, Texas A&M University chancellor John Sharp, to lead the newly-formed Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas. The state’s top emergency management official praised Abbott as being “24/7” to the Texas Tribune, and Trump praised Abbott when he came down to Corpus shortly after the hurricane hit.
CBS News
When O’Rourke launched his bid for governor, he hit Abbott hard over the grid failure – and continued through a February 2022 storm when Abbott said “no one can guarantee” the power would stay on.
But that slip didn’t compare with what was to come from Abbott. On May 24, an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers before being shot and killed by a Border Patrol officer who responded. At a press conference with local and state officials in Uvalde the day after the shooting, Abbott said the shooting “could have been worse” if not for the response of law enforcement.
In the days and weeks following the shooting, local authorities provided shifting – and often conflicting – accounts of what happened. Abbott was forced to backtrack, said he’d been “misled” about the shooting, and although O’Rourke and other Democrats called for Abbott to call a special session of the Legislature to investigate, Abbott instead convened a committee of three legislators to conduct a probe.
Ahead of the report’s release, surveillance video of the shooting was leaked that showed officers waiting in the hallway for 77 minutes – in some cases, even as the screams of children could be heard. The committee’s report found that 376 law enforcement officers in total responded to the shooting, and said there had been “systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making.”
On May 25, O’Rourke crashed Abbott’s press conference and confronted him over gun laws, telling him “you are doing nothing” and blasted him for not acting after other deadly mass shootings in the state. In typical O’Rourke fashion, the video went viral and led to a fundraising blitz.
A dark money group called “Coulda Been Worse” has taken out millions in advertisements targeting Abbott and other Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In Austin two weeks after the shooting, Imelda Garza, who said she was a gun owner and a Republican, of nearby Georgetown said she messaged a friend and recalled that after seeing O’Rourke confront Abbott. Garza said she is from South Texas and came from a family of gun owners, but she said the shooting and the response was “outrageous.”
“All he was trying to do was stand up for the children of Texas, and if Texas changes, maybe we can change more states and more hearts,” she said about O’Rourke at the press conference.
It’s the type of voter O’Rourke needs, and he knows it O’Rourke has often touted his forays into the redder parts of the state, even kicking off his road trip this summer in rural Texas, which carried Cruz to victory in 2018 with a more than 50-point advantage.
As he got back on the campaign trail in Laredo at the end of August, O’Rourke said “for us to make up this ground right now, we need you all. It will not be the Democratic party, it will not be the candidates by themselves. It will not be some magical amount of money or mysterious message that we come up with ourselves in a focus group, it is going to be the people of this community, in this room right now, who have been written out of this democracy before.”
One of O’Rourke’s frequent lines on the campaign trail is “it does not matter, no me importa, if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, or an independent” as long as you’re there to listen.
But at one town hall in Mineral Wells, Texas – located about 50 miles from Fort Worth, straddling the border of the red Texas Panhandle – O’Rourke lost his cool on a hecker who laughed as he talked about the Uvalde shooting. “It may be funny to you, motherf*****, but it’s not funny to me,” O’Rourke said as the room erupted in cheers.
O’Rourke told CBS News in the Sept. interview that he feels “bad for them, their candidate won’t show up. They’re never seen Greg Abbott.”
“They’re every bit as important as every other Texan, whether they support me, or oppose me,” O’Rourke said. “And what I’ve often found is that when we invite these protesters in, they’ve got very thoughtful questions, they have concerns that are the same ones, frankly, that I have about the direction of this state.”
Abbott has tried to tie O’Rourke to rising crime and the Biden administration, especially on immigration and the economy. A CBS News poll from June had gas prices, inflation and the economy ranked as the three most important issues to Texans. Immigration and crime were not listed, although Abbott has run ads accusing O’Rourke of supporting the “defund the police” movement.
In April, Abbott started busing migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C., saying he was “going to take the border” to the Biden administration. He followed up by sending migrants to the Democrat-run cities of New York and Chicago. Mayors Muriel Browser of D.C. and Eric Adams of New York have criticized the move, and Adams has alleged Abbott never contacted him before sending migrants to the city.
While O’Rourke has on the trail decried the program as a “stunt,” a majority of Texans support the program, according to a Texas Public Policy poll from Sept. O’Rourke, who represented a border city, El Paso, has not shied away from immigration and has campaigned extensively in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.
The two candidates met at what will likely be the only debate on Sept. 30, in the Rio Grande Valley. O’Rourke slammed Abbott on immigration, noting that he’s been in power for eight years and still, “you blame everyone else” for the immigration crisis.
Prior to the debate, a focus group told Nexstar that 40% supported Abbott, 27% backed O’Rourke, and 33% were undecided. After the debate, 50% supported O’Rourke, 43% supported Abbott, and 7% were undecided.
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Winless Pegula tries to see bright side of WTA Finals debut
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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Jessica Pegula dropped her head to the table in front of the microphone, smiling while hoping there might be just one victory awaiting the American in her WTA Finals debut.
She couldn’t even get a consolation prize.
The Buffalo native was New York honest about going winless in all three singles matches, capped by a 6-3, 7-5 round-robin loss to Aryna Sabalenka on Friday before a loss in her final doubles match that night with fellow American Coco Gauff left her 0 for 6.
Pegula also tried to remember the strong season that got her to Texas with a No. 3 ranking, and made her and Gauff the first Americans to debut at the WTA Finals in singles and doubles since Lindsay Davenport in 1994.
“I keep telling myself I had such a great year, but that’s the tough thing with tennis is you end the year really well and then I come here and I lose all my matches,” the 28-year-old said. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve lost this many matches in a short amount of time, this is like the same amount in like three months or something, almost?”
No. 7 Sabalenka finished 2-1 in group play and advanced to the semifinals when fifth-ranked Maria Sakkari won the first set of the late match against Ons Jabeur, eliminating the No. 2 player. Sakkari, who went on to a 6-2, 6-3 victory, had already qualified for the semis.
Sabalenka, who didn’t qualify for the semifinals in her WTA Finals debut last year in Guadalajara, knew a straight-sets victory improved her chances of advancing.
The 24-year-old got it — and a fourth consecutive straight-sets win over Pegula — despite double-faulting three times serving for the match at 5-3. She did the same thing earlier in the second set.
Pegula had a chance to force a tiebreaker on her serve, but Sabalenka finished her off with a backhand crosscourt winner on her second match point.
“I kept telling myself just stay focused, just keep fighting,” Sabalenka said. “It doesn’t matter, two or three sets. Just keep fighting. Just get the win, get extra points and then move on.”
The hard-hitting Sabalenka never trailed in overpowering Pegula from the start, finishing with a 26-13 edge in winners and five aces.
Even with her attacking style, Sabalenka had fewer unforced errors, finishing with 23 to 26 for Pegula, who mumbled to herself after many of hers.
“I feel like this week was a little bit of a grind,” Pegula said. “It definitely feels like I hit a wall a little bit today, just as far as physically, mentally.”
Pegula qualified for the WTA Finals on the indoor hard-court at Dickies Arena by reaching the semifinals in San Diego. Then a week before showing up, she got her first title of the season — and second of her career — by beating Sakkari in Guadalajara.
While saying she underestimated the difficulty of playing singles and doubles this week, Pegula didn’t regret it. She and Gauff, already eliminated, were blown out in their finale 6-2, 6-1 by Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova. The Czech duo was already in the semifinals and finished 3-0 in group play.
Gauff also is out of contention in singles with an 0-2 record, the No. 4 player set to wrap up against top-ranked Iga Swiatek in the final singles match of group play Saturday night.
“We’re used to playing both,” Pegula said. “But obviously this week, I think maybe the end of the year, it just kind of caught up, I don’t know about her, but it caught up to me a little bit.”
American Desirae Krawczyk and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands advanced to the semifinals in doubles with a 7-6(2), 6-3 victory over China’s Xu Yifan and Yang Zhaoxuan.
Sakkari took a 5-1 lead in the first set against Jabeur and was never threatened in her third victory over a top 10 player this week — all in straight sets — after coming in with just one all season.
“It was higher than the rest of the season, for sure,” Sakkari said of her confidence coming in. “But it wasn’t ultra high that I was feeling, like, unstoppable or anything. I was feeling good with my game.”
Sabalenka didn’t qualify for the season-ending event until the last week of the regular season in Guadalajara, and was two points from defeat in her opener before rallying to beat Jabeur, a U.S. Open finalist this year.
“That’s what I was thinking about, that no matter what happens, just win another match,” said Sabalenka, who has won nine of her 10 career titles on hard courts. “Just do it for the future. Even if I’m not gonna get through this group, I’ll take positive things from this one.”
She gets to play for more now.
___
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Pilot union rejects American Airlines offer, seeks more pay
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DALLAS (AP) — U.S. airlines will have to pay more than they expected to reach new contracts with pilots, who are using the leverage of a pilot shortage and rising travel demand to seek significant wage increases.
The Allied Pilots Association said Wednesday that its board voted 15-5 to reject an offer by American that included raises of 19% in three steps over two years.
Union spokesman Dennis Tajer said American’s management is focused on keeping pay increases as low as possible and has ignored crew-scheduling changes that the union claims will reduce the number of canceled and delayed flights.
“Management’s failure to invest in a pilot contract that levels up to meet passenger demand only creates more uncertainty for the holiday travel season and even next summer,” he said.
American, which has about 15,000 pilots and is based in Fort Worth, Texas, did not immediately comment.
The decision by the union at American followed overwhelming rejection by United Airlines pilots of an offer including pay raises totaling 14.5% over 18 months, and a strike-authorization vote by Delta Air Lines pilots. Both groups are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association.
Taken together, the developments at the nation’s three largest airlines show labor’s resolve to get the best possible contract while the airline industry is struggling with pilot shortages at smaller regional carriers. Pilots at Southwest, the nation’s fourth-biggest airline, are also negotiating a new contract.
Pilots from several airlines have picketed at airports in recent months, but federal law prohibits airline workers from striking unless federal mediators determine that further negotiations are pointless — which hasn’t happened at any of the carriers. Even then, Congress and the president can intervene to stop a walkout.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton ordered American Airlines pilots to keep flying minutes after a strike deadline passed. In 2010, pilots at Spirit Airlines went on strike for several days over pay before negotiators for the union and airline settled the dispute.
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1 dead, dozens hurt as tornadoes hit Texas and Oklahoma
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POWDERLY, Texas — Tornadoes tore through parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Friday, killing at least one person, injuring two dozens others and leaving dozens of homes and buildings in ruins.
Tornadoes hit hard in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, in the southeastern corner of the state. Cody McDaniel, the county’s emergency manager, confirmed one death although he didn’t immediately provide details.
The small town of Idabel saw a church, medical center and a school torn apart.
“There was total destruction on the south and east sides of Idabel,” Steven Carter, an emergency management coordinator for McCurtain County, told the Texarkana Gazette.
Carter told the paper people were still trapped late Friday.
Gov. Kevin Stitt said search-and-rescue teams and generators were being sent to the Idabel area.
“Praying for Oklahomans impacted by today’s tornadoes,” Stitt tweeted.
Keli Cain of the Oklahoma Emergency Management Office said at least three other counties were also hit by storms, with flash flooding in some areas.
The National Weather Service said tornadoes also were reported in Texas and Arkansas and a storm system was heading toward Louisiana.
In Texas, authorities in Lamar County said at least 50 homes were damaged or destroyed and 10 people were treated at one hospital, including two with critical injuries. No deaths were immediately reported.
Judge Brandon Bell, the county’s highest elected official, declared a disaster in the area, a step in getting federal assistance and funding. Bell’s declaration said at least two dozen people were injured across the county.
One community hit hard was Powderly, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Idabel and about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northeast of Dallas. Both Powderly and Idabel are near the Texas-Oklahoma border.
The Lamar County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management said the tornado touched down shortly after 4 p.m. and traveled north-northeast through the communities of Hopewell, Caviness, Beaver Creek and Powderly.
Randi Johnson, chief of the Powderly Volunteer Fire Department, told The Paris News newspaper that she wasn’t aware anyone had been killed but knew of injuries.
“It’s going to take a long time to get this cleaned up, but the community came together,” Johnson said. “It’s really heartbreaking to see.”
Churches opened their doors to serve as shelters for those whose homes were impacted.
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At least 1 dead, dozens of homes damaged in tornadoes that ravaged Texas and Oklahoma
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At least 1 dead, dozens of homes damaged in tornadoes that ravaged Texas and Oklahoma
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Tornadoes rip through Texas and Oklahoma, causing injuries
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POWDERLY, Texas — Tornadoes ripped through parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Friday, flattening homes, a church and toppling trees, with local officials in one Texas county reporting at least two dozen people injured.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said search and rescue teams as well as generators were being sent to the Idabel area in McCurtain County, which state emergency officials said was the hardest-hit by the storms.
“Praying for Oklahomans impacted by today’s tornadoes,” Stitt said in a Twitter post.
Photographs showed Idabel’s Trinity Church and Kiamichi Family Medical Center had been torn apart by the tornado.
Keli Cain of the Oklahoma Emergency Management Office said at least three other counties were also hit by storms, with flash flooding in some areas. Officials in Oklahoma did not yet have official details on any injuries or deaths because authorities were still trying checking on people and homes.
The National Weather Service had issued multiple tornado warnings on Friday stretching from the Dallas-Fort Worth area into Oklahoma. The storm system was then headed toward Arkansas and Louisiana.
In Texas, one community hit hard was Powderly, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Idabel and about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northeast of Dallas.
Lamar County Judge Brandon Bell — the highest elected official in the county that includes Powderly — declared a disaster in the area, a step in getting federal assistance and funding. Bell’s declaration said at least two dozen people were injured across the county in what he said was a confirmed tornado.
The Lamar County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management said in a news release that 10 injured people had been treated at an area hospital, and two of those people had critical injuries. It said at the time the news release was issued there had been no deaths reported.
The Sheriff’s Office said the tornado touched down shortly after 4 p.m. and traveled north-northeast through the communities of Hopewell, Caviness, Beaver Creek and Powderly. It said about 50 homes had been damaged or destroyed.
Randi Johnson, chief of the Powderly Volunteer Fire Department, told The Paris News newspaper that she wasn’t aware anyone had been killed but knew of injuries.
“It’s going to take a long time to get this cleaned up, but the community came together,” Johnson said. “It’s really heartbreaking to see.”
Churches opened their doors to serve as shelters for those whose homes were impacted.
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Storms rip through parts of Texas, flattening homes and causing at least two dozen injuries
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Storms rip through parts of Texas, flattening homes and causing at least two dozen injuries
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“It ripples through the entire economy”: Climate change costs cotton farmers billions
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Lubbock, Texas — Many tractors and other farm equipment are sitting idle across Texas as the cotton harvest season gets underway. Climate change is threatening the $7 billion industry.
“Never has it ever been this bad,” said Ricky Yantis, a fourth-generation farmer in west Texas.
The region produces more than a third of the nation’s cotton. Yantis has just 168 acres of healthy plants on his 6,000 acres — less than 3% of his land.
“Where our harvest nearly normally lasts a month, month and half, it will last a day,” he said.
Extreme drought and a sustained summer heatwave taking an unprecedented toll. Farmers like Yantis had to plow fields without irrigation because plants were burning up. Statewide, almost 70% of cotton crops were similarly abandoned.
Economists predict a $2 billion hit to Texas.
“Most of these towns — probably 75% to 80% — is derived from cotton,” said Texas Tech University agricultural economist Darren Hudson. “So when that goes away, it has a huge impact on rural communities.”
Hudson says crop insurance will help only farmers. Elsewhere, thousands of jobs will be affected — from truckers, who drive cotton, to small town restaurants and grocery stores, where workers spend paychecks, to cotton gins, which are now eerily quiet after normally running around the clock.
Gin operator Guyle Roberson says he’ll hire fewer workers.
“We are normally about 100,000 bales per year,” Roberson said. “I think we’ll be lucky to gin about 20,000 bales this year.”
With less cotton available, everyone will be paying more, experts say.
“We would anticipate impacts on prices for consumer goods,” Hudson said. “It ripples through the entire economy.”
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