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FILE – This undated booking photo provided by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office shows Henry “Michael” Dwight Williams. Williams, who sold a pistol to a man who used it to hold four hostages inside a Texas synagogue before being fatally shot by the FBI earlier this year, was sentenced Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, to nearly eight years in prison for a federal gun crime, the U.S. Department of Justice said. (Dallas County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)
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BELLE PLAINE, Kan. — An undersheriff in rural Kansas faces a manslaughter trial Monday for fatally shooting an unarmed man with a homemade beanbag round out of his personal shotgun, a case that comes amid a national reckoning on police violence.
Jury selection will start in the trial of Virgil Brewer, who was with the Barber County Sheriff’s Office at the time of the deadly encounter with Steven Myers in October 2017 outside a shed in Sun City, about 300 miles (555 km) from the Kansas City, Kansas.
A civil lawsuit brought by Myers’ family against Brewer and then Barber County Sheriff Lonnie Small was settled in 2020 after county officials agreed to pay $3.5 million.
Brewer’s criminal trial is expected to focus on whether his lack of knowledge and training with the less-lethal munitions amounted to reckless involuntary manslaughter.
Defense attorney David Harger did not respond to messages seeking comment on the case. Brewer has been on unpaid leave since his 2018 arrest. He has been free pending trial.
“The fact of the matter is that it is not going to be a good outcome for anybody, no matter whether or not he gets convicted,” Steven Myers’ widow, Kristina Myers, told The Associated Press Thursday. “Yes, it will be over in that sense, but this one bad decision has ruined the lives of so many people,”
On the evening of Oct. 6, 2017, Brewer was carrying his personal weapon when he, along with the sheriff and a sheriff’s deputy, responded to a call about a man holding a rifle on a street after an altercation at a local bar.
About five minutes before the fatal shooting, Sheriff Lonnie Small said, “A little luck and he’ll just pass out and die,” a remark captured on the sheriff’s body camera as they searched for Myers. They eventually found him hiding in a shed.
Both Brewer and the deputy later told the Kansas Bureau of Investigation that they could clearly see that Myers was not armed when they confronted him outside the shed, according to the probable cause affidavit obtained by AP.
Body camera footage reviewed by investigators shows Brewer repeatedly told Myers to “get on the ground” before shooting him, while Deputy Mark Suchy gave conflicting commands to “put your hands up now.” Seconds later, Brewer shot Myers with one round.
Brewer told the Kansas Bureau of Investigation during an interview that he was in fear for his and the deputy’s lives when Myers continued to walk toward them, adding that he did not expect the beanbag round to penetrate Myers’ chest.
The deputy’s body camera video showed Myers was not making any aggressive movement at the time Brewer shot him, according to Bureau Agent Brian Carroll in an affidavit in support of the criminal charge against the undersheriff.
“Myers was never told he was under arrest, Myers was never warned that his failure to comply with commands would result in the use of the impending force,” Carroll wrote.
Brewer then discharged his personal weapon at too close of a distance and shot Myers in the chest, a lethal force zone.
Carroll’s affidavit contends that Brewer’s lack of knowledge and training regarding the proper use of less-lethal beanbag munitions recklessly caused Myer’s death. Proper training would have provided critical information about the proper distance to deploy the round and the proper target zone on a person.
Such training would have also informed Brewer about past problems with rectangular-shaped bean bags like the one he used, Carroll wrote. Those are known to penetrate subjects shot with them, and their use has been discontinued for years. The rounds used today are rounded, balloon-shaped bean bags, according to the affidavit.
Before coming to Kansas, Brewer worked in Texas where he was given the beanbag ammunition used the evening of Myers’ death. The affidavit revealed that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation interviewed Travis Martin, the deputy at the Freestone County Sheriff’s Office in Texas who gave Brewer the ammunition.
Martin, who is expected to testify, told the agency that after speaking with the beanbag maker, that type of ammunition would no longer be carried and should not be fired on a person.
Martin told investigators that he “thought he had talked with Brewer about not using the ammunition on a person,” according to the affidavit.
Medical Examiner Timothy Gorrill is also expected to take the witness stand. His autopsy found the cause of death to be a penetrating shotgun bag wound to the trunk with the manner of death ruled a homicide.
Kristina Myers said she has been subpoenaed, adding she hopes to be allowed to watch the trial after her testimony.
“It doesn’t bring him back, but it does give us a sense of justice,” she said. “Everyone, no matter their occupation, should be held responsible for their actions. All actions have consequences.”
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DALLAS — The 30-year-old man charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting of two Dallas hospital employees was on parole and had been given permission to be at the medical facility for the birth of a child, a Texas prison official said Sunday.
Nestor Hernandez was granted leave to be with his “significant other” at Methodist Dallas Medical Center during her delivery Saturday, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez. She said he’d been sentenced to prison for aggravated robbery and was released on parole last October, but did not provide additional details on the circumstances of the shooting.
Authorities have said Hernandez opened fire at the hospital around 11 a.m. Saturday and killed two staff members before being shot and injured by a hospital police officer. The victims have not been publicly identified and it’s unclear what led to the shooting.
Hernandez, who was wearing an ankle location monitor at the time, was taken to another hospital for treatment, hospital officials said Saturday. He was not listed Sunday in Dallas County jail records and it was not immediately clear whether he has a lawyer.
The Texas prison system’s Office of Inspector General is working with police to investigate the shooting, Amanda Hernandez said. Dallas police and a hospital spokesman declined Sunday to provide additional information on the shooting.
It follows hospital shootings in September in Little Rock, Arkansas, that killed a visitor and one in June in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that left four dead.
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CNN
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With the midterm elections less than three weeks away, immigration remains a top issue among Latino voters – but views on legal and illegal immigration vary greatly.
“I think it’s been misunderstood,” said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has studied Latino voter preferences for decades.
While many Latino voters support a more “humane treatment” of migrants and creating a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented, Teixeira said there are many in the community who “are not really interested or delighted by the idea people can just pour across the border. … They also think we need more border security.”
While polls show the majority of Hispanics align with Democrats on immigration, the GOP has recently made significant gains, even while escalating the anti-immigrant rhetoric popularized by former President Donald Trump.
About 55% of Latinos support Democrats on the issue of legal immigration, according to a recent NYT/Siena College poll, which also indicated roughly a third support a border wall along the US southern border.
With candidates racing to capture every last vote, Latinos – who make up more than 30 million of the country’s registered voters – could tilt the scales in major contests across battleground states.
“There’s a vulnerability there. There’s a soft underbelly for the Democrats on this issue, even among Hispanic voters,” Teixera said.
A hardline immigration policy is part of what Abraham Enriquez says attracted him and other Latinos in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley to Trump.
“I think Latinos, we don’t really care much about what you say, it’s about what you’re going to do,” said Enriquez, who founded Bienvenido US, an organization that aims to mobilize conservative Hispanic voters.
The grandson of Mexican migrants, Enriquez says Democrats are losing support among the nations’ fastest growing voting bloc because their rhetoric is out of touch: too critical of the capitalist system and not critical enough of what he calls unrestricted immigration.
“If America is so bad, if America is such a terrible country to live in, why did 50 migrants die suffocated in a trailer to seek a better life in this country?” he asked.
Trump unexpectedly made gains in the Rio Grande Valley in 2020 and the region recently elected the first GOP representative in more than a century, after US Rep. Mayra Flores won a special election earlier this year.
While Republicans are closely eyeing three congressional races in South Texas as a test of their appeal in the community, immigration attorney Carlos Gomez argues campaign promises often don’t lead to change. He says a sensible, balanced approach to reform is sorely needed, but missing from the public discourse surrounding immigration.
“Neither party is addressing the issue well,” Gomez said. “Either they talk to the right, or they talk to the left, but they don’t come (to the border) and talk to us. They don’t see what we’re doing on a daily basis.”
Gomez criticized Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing of migrants to Democrat-led cities as an “inhumane” way to win votes, not a genuine effort to help migrants or border towns.
In Florida, another state with a large Hispanic population, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis similarly took the controversial step in September of flying dozens of Venezuelan asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts – a move that pro-immigration advocate Maria Corina Vegas called a “stunt.”
“It may make for interesting television, to raise money, to play to the base, to feed a narrative of grievance. That’s what populists do, effectively,” said Vegas, a deputy state director for the American Business Immigration Coalition, a group that promotes comprehensive immigration reform.
As a Venezuelan-American who came to the US fleeing Hugo Chavez’s communist regime, she argued the demonization of outsiders among politicians may help motivate some supporters, but will ultimately harm the country.
“I never thought I would see that in this country. I saw that in my country – it tore my country apart. It doesn’t matter if it comes from the right or the left. It’s anti-democratic,” Vegas said.
For Cuban-born entrepreneur Julio Cabrera, the issue is tied inextricably to the American economy: “This country moves because of immigrants and Latinos. … We do the dirty jobs others do not want.”
Cabrera is turned off by anti-immigrant rhetoric, he says, because the vast majority of immigrants entering the US are decent people looking to work and build a better life. He believes the immigration system should be kinder to those who have risked their lives for a better future.
After fleeing Fidel Castro’s communist dictatorship in 2006, Cabrera says he was robbed at gunpoint while traveling through Mexico before arriving at the southern border, where he sought asylum with his daughter.
Now, he is a successful restauranteur, running Cafe La Trova in Miami, where he says most of his staff are immigrants.
“Everybody is an immigrant here and we’ve done something remarkable for this community.”
Younger voters, like Marvin Tapia – a Colombian-American who lives in Little Havana – argues the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiment is tied to nationwide demographic change, which he says is a positive development more politicians should embrace.
“If we’re sharing a country built on immigrants, we should be proud of that. That we evolved and we grow and change. … I believe that growth is pivotal to the growth of a country, especially like the US,” Tapia said. “We should learn from it, instead of run from it.”
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Robstown, Texas — At his first public rally since being subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, former President Donald Trump on Saturday complained again about that panel’s investigation and did not indicate whether he’ll comply with the demand to turn over documents and testify.
Democrats have an uphill battle in Texas — a poll released Friday by UT Austin and Texas Politics Project showed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott well-positioned to win his reelection bid. The poll had his lead up to 11 points — by far his largest lead so far. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton also held double-digit leads in the same poll.
Trump described the Democratic candidates as “against guns, God and oil” and added, “and they say they’re going to do well in Texas? I don’t think so.”
But the rally was held in South Texas, a critical part of the state for both Republicans and Democrats on Election Day, and Trump’s appearance there could help drive up support for the GOP here. Just 120 miles south is the district represented by Democrat Henry Cuellar, who is in the fight of his political life against Republican opponent Cassy Garcia, a former Sen. Ted Cruz aide. Garcia appeared at Saturday’s rally with Trump. Although Trump talked at length about the Jan. 6 committee, he said little that he hasn’t said before, and he offered no comment about whether or not he would be interviewed by the panel.
BRANDON BELL / Getty Images
As Trump started discussing Jan. 6 at the Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds in Robstown, the crowd interrupted him by breaking out into the national anthem. Trump called it “beautiful,” before saying he had initially thought he had been interrupted by protesters. He went back to it later, calling it a “beautiful moment” and said, “We haven’t had that in two years.”
Trump mainly railed about the “unselect committee,” his nickname for the House Jan. 6 committee, and complained that they “don’t talk about” how the size of the crowd at his rally at the Ellipse that day. He also alleged that he authorized 10,000 to 20,000 National Guard troops, a claim that has been disputed by then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller’s testimony before the committee. Miller said he was “never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature.”
Trump railed against the many investigations against him, even joking at one point that his wife, Melania Trump, says “every day you get a subpoena.”
In what was likely the last public hearing by the House Jan. 6 committee, the committee voted last week to subpoena Trump, with committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney calling him “the one person at the center” of what happened on Jan. 6.
The subpoena was issued Friday, with the committee demanding that the former president submit documentary material by Nov. 4, which would be followed by “one or more days” of his deposition under oath “on or about” Nov. 14, according to the panel’s letter.
Trump did not say if he would comply with the subpoena.
Trump insisted the Justice Department had been “weaponized” against him, starting with the “Russia hoax,” which he spent a significant amount of time discussing. Trump only briefly touched on the investigation into his handling of documents after he left office, calling it the “boxes hoax.”
In his nearly two hours on stage, he also teased a possible 2024 run, saying, “I will probably have to do it again,” similar to his comments at his last appearance in Texas, at CPAC in Dallas.
The 27th Congressional District, where the rally took place, went for former President Barack Obama in 2008 but has trended more heavily Republican since then — and Trump won the region by double digits in both 2016 and 2020.
Richard Vallejo, of Corpus Christi, said he had never voted before casting a ballot for Trump in 2020 — and he said he is ready to vote for Republicans this time too.
“I feel like he’s stood more for the people of color – people don’t see that, more people of color were graduating from school, we had the biggest economy in the world, we had a secure border,” Vallejo said. “It’s not about race, but uniting the American people, no matter what the color of our skin was.”
Another attendee, Scott Graham of Robstown, said he had voted for Democrats in the past, but he feels that it’s Republicans who are now “for the people.” He said he had supported Trump “since Day 1.”
Immigration remains one of the top issues for Texans — especially in this region. Trump kicked off the rally by talking about undocumented migrants crossing the border and drugs. He also thanked ICE and Border Patrol – two major employers in the region. Trump called for doubling the amount of ICE and Border Patrol agents.
Abbott, who was in Florida at a fundraiser on Saturday, has made immigration and crime key to part of his campaign, especially since his locally popular busing of migrants to Democrat-run cities has gotten national attention.
Although Abbott wasn’t at the rally, Trump called him a “wonderful man” and blasted his Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke for being against “God, guns and oil.”
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AUSTIN, Texas — Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-founder of energy drink company Red Bull and founder and owner of the Red Bull Formula One racing team, has died. He was 78.
Officials with the Red Bull racing team at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, announced Mateschitz’s death Saturday. There was no immediate word where he died, or a cause of death.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of motor sports governing body FIA, said Mateschitz was “a towering figure in motor sport.”
“The thoughts of all the FIA family are with his loved ones at this time and he will be greatly missed.”
Mateschitz gained fame as the public face of Red Bull, an Austrian-Thai conglomerate that says it sold nearly 10 billion cans of its caffeine and taurine-based drink in 172 countries worldwide last year.
Mateschitz not only helped the energy drink become popular around the world, but also built up a sports, media, real estate and gastronomy empire around the brand.
With the growing success of Red Bull, he significantly expanded his investments in sports, specifically motorsports and extreme sports, and Red Bull now operates clubs, ice hockey teams and F1 racing teams. Red Bull also has contracts with hundreds of athletes in various sports and a deep driver development program to get racers to the top level.
“It’s been hard news for everyone — what he has meant for Red Bull, and of course the sport, and especially for me,” said Max Verstappen, who wrapped up his second consecutive F1 title two weeks ago.
Verstappen on Sunday at Circuit of the Americas will try to tie Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel with an F1-record 13 victories in a season, and he’ll also attempt to clinch the constructors championship for Red Bull.
“What he has done for me, my career so far, and in general my life, it’s really tough, it’s a really tough day,” Verstappen said. “There’s still a race ahead and we’re going to try to make him proud tomorrow.”
Mateschitz and Thai investor Chaleo Yoovidhya founded the company in 1984 after Mateschitz recognized the potential in marketing Krating Daeng – another energy drink created by Chaleo – for a western audience. Red Bull says Mateschitz worked on the formula for three years before the modified drink was launched under its new name in his native Austria in 1987.
Under Mateschitz’ stewardship, Red Bull quickly increased its market share, first in Europe, then in the United States, helped by marketing campaigns promoting the drink’s claimed stimulating properties and extensive sponsorship agreements in motorsports, soccer, extreme sports and the music industry.
The Red Bull Racing team has enjoyed success in Formula 1, winning the constructors’ championship in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, while German driver Vettel won four drivers’ championships in row while signed to the team.
Verstappen started in Red Bull’s driver development program and became the youngest driver in F1 history to start a grand prix when he started with the junior Toro Rosso team at age 17 in 2015. The Dutchman is now the most dominant driver in the sport.
“So many of us have to be so grateful to him for the opportunities he’s provided and the vision he had, the strength of character, and never being afraid to follow dreams, and chase dreams. That’s what he did here in F1, proving that you can make a difference,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports F1.
“We’re just incredibly grateful for him, everything that he’s done, everything that he’s supported us with over the years,” Horner added. “So many drivers, so many team members, so many people in this pit lane owe him so much. He was incredibly proud of the team, incredibly proud of everything we’ve done and have been achieving, and he’s been a passionate supporter and the backbone of everything that we do.”
Red Bull operates soccer teams in top divisions across Austria, Germany, Brazil and the United States. The company started by buying Austrian club SV Austria Salzburg in 2005 and rebranding it in the company colors under the name Red Bull Salzburg.
It repeated the move in Germany, where it bought fifth-tier club SSV Markranstädt in 2009, rebranded it as RasenBallsport Leipzig, and financed its steady progress through the league system till it was promoted to the Bundesliga in 2016. German league regulations prevented the company from naming the team Red Bull Leipzig – its name in German, RasenBallsport, means “grass ball sport Leipzig” but the club just refers to itself as RB Leipzig.
Mateschitz also made headlines for his populist views. He previously criticized German chancellor Angela Merkel for her handling of the refugee crisis over 2015-16. The Austrian Servus TV station, owned by Red Bull Media House GmbH, is known for promoting right-wing provocative views.
Mateschitz bought the Jaguar Racing team from previous owner Ford at the end of 2004 and rebranded it as Red Bull for the 2005 season. Later that year, he then also bought Minardi and renamed it Toro Rosso, astutely using it as a feeder team for Red Bull.
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Auto Racing Writer Jenna Fryer and AP’s Brian Church in London contributed to this report.
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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
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DALLAS — Two Dallas hospital employees were killed Saturday in a shooting inside the hospital and the suspected gunman was shot and wounded by police, authorities said.
The shooting occurred about 11 a.m. inside Methodist Health System, according to hospital spokesperson Ryan Owens.
“A Methodist Health System Police Officer arrived on the scene, confronted the suspect, and fired his weapon at the suspect, injuring him,” Owens said in a statement.
The names of the victims nor their positions at the hospital were not immediately released.
The hospital system said in a statement that it was mourning the deaths.
“The Methodist Health System Family is heartbroken at the loss of two of our beloved team members,” according to the statement attributed to the system’s leadership. “Our entire organization is grieving this unimaginable tragedy.”
The suspect, whose name also was not immediately released, was taken to another hospital in undisclosed condition and under police custody, Owens said.
Dallas police referred questions to hospital police, who did not return phone calls for comment.
The shooting follows hospital shootings in September in Little Rock, Arkansas, that killed a visitor and one in June in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that left four dead.
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CNN Business
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google on Thursday, alleging the tech giant had violated the state’s biometric privacy law by “indiscriminately” collecting voiceprints and facial recognition data from users and non-users of the company’s products without their consent.
The lawsuit, filed in Texas’ Midland County District Court, claims the company’s broad application of facial recognition technology in Google Photos, as well as its use of voice recognition technology in its line of smart speakers and other home products, is a violation of the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act.
Google
(GOOG) didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Google Photos, Google scans uploaded images to identify and categorize pictured subjects, including people who may not have been aware their faces would be analyzed or stored, the complaint said. The company has also allegedly listened in on Texans “without regard to whether a speaker has consented to Google’s indiscriminate voice printing,” according to the complaint.
The complaint describes Google’s Nest Hub Max, a smart home display with a built-in camera, as “a modern Eye of Sauron—constantly watching and waiting to identify a face it knows.”
“All across the state, everyday Texans have become unwitting cash cows being milked by Google for profits,” the complaint said.
Texas is one of just a few states with a law governing the use of biometric data, and this marks the second time that Texas has invoked the 2009 law to file a suit against a company. In February, the state claimed a now-shuttered Facebook photo-tagging tool — which was the subject of a $650 million biometric privacy settlement in Illinois last year — had also been a violation of the Texas biometric law.
Texas has multiple lawsuits ongoing against Google, including two other consumer protection cases and an antitrust case targeting Google’s dominance in digital advertising.
– CNN’s Rachel Metz contributed to this report.
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AUSTIN, Texas — With Formula’s One popularity and viewership booming in the United States, ESPN and the global motorsports series announced a new broadcast deal Saturday through 2025.
ESPN has broadcast F1 in the U.S. since 2018 and the new deal will keep commercial-free, live telecasts for all races on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC, all owned by the Walt Disney Co. ESPN Deportes will continue as the Spanish-language home of F1 in the U.S.
The deal comes ahead of Sunday’s U.S. Grand Prix, which will air on ABC. Financial terms were not disclosed. ESPN did not pay any rights fees in 2018 when NBC Sports Group dropped F1 after five seasons, leaving the series without a U.S. home. ESPN has paid $5 million per year from 2019-22, and the series has only seen growth since then.
“To continue to build and grow and push behind the tremendous momentum that exits with Formula One in the United States for another few seasons is really exciting for us,” ESPN President Burke Magnus said. “We’re not going to let up. We’re just going to continue to push hard because it’s spectacular content and spectacular competition.”
And shortly after the ESPN announcement, the Williams team revealed that reserve driver Logan Sargeant will likely earn a seat in 2023, making him the first American driver in F1 since 2015. American fans and sponsors have aimed for an American driver to push interest even higher.
Under the new deal, at least 16 races will be on ABC or ESPN and all race weekends will include live coverage of practice and qualifying.
Magnus said ESPN has been pleased with its partnership with Sky Sports, which allows ESPN to use the Britain-based broadcaster’s race and practice productions.
“The next step for us is to build around their great production of the races,” Magnus said. “Having a more consistent presence on site, having more highlights on Sports Center, having more editorial coverage.
“The Sky production of the race is world class, I’m not sure we can replicate that ourselves without a lot of time, effort and expense.”
The network said the new deal also expands its direct-to-consumer rights, with details for more content on digital platforms to be announced later.
ESPN has been the U.S. rights holder in a boom time for F1, and the series will expand its calendar to a record 24 races in 2023. That includes three in the U.S. in Austin, Miami and Las Vegas. Only the Texas race was on the calendar when ESPN took over broadcast rights four years ago.
Last season had an average of 949,000 viewers, the network said. That has increased to more than 1.2 million tuning in on average over the first 18 races this season.
“They (ESPN) were really the first to believe on us here in America,” said Stefano Domenicali, president and chief executive officer of F1. “Now it seems easy because we seen the booming of the market. But we will not take it for granted. What ESPN did for the American fans is really special and is a reason why we are renewing this collaboration for the next three years.”
The inaugural Miami Grand Prix on ABC generated an average viewership of 2.6 million, the largest U.S. audience on record for a live F1 race.
Domenicali said the continued growth of the U.S. audience remains critical for F1.
“They (ESPN) know how to connect with the American audience,” Domenicali said. “They know what the American audience wants to hear.”
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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
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A Venezuelan migrant said he received hundreds of dollars in payments to “help coordinate” flights part of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ migrant plane trip program, the Miami Herald reported on Friday.
The man’s claim comes more than a month after DeSantis sent roughly 50 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, via planes from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
The man – who identified himself as Emmanuel – told the newspaper that Perla Huerta, the U.S. Army veteran who reportedly lured migrants onto planes for the stunt last month, recruited him to distribute her business cards to migrants in Texas.
Huerta – who worked for the DeSantis official-linked aviation company that Florida paid over $1.56 million – paid Emmanuel $700 for his work that included haircuts for migrants who were waiting for Martha’s Vineyard flights, the Miami Herald reported.
Emmanuel’s business card distribution, the newspaper noted, was to gauge migrants’ interest in flights to Illinois and Delaware, a plan that was later called off following news of an investigation into the DeSantis program.
Emmanuel, who said he does not have a permit to work in the United States, “turned to Huerta to see if she could help him out with a paid gig,” the newspaper reported.
Huerta’s reported payments to Emmanuel could come in contrast with a Florida state law that requires government contractors and subcontractors to register with and use the federal E-Verify system to verify the work authorization status of all newly hired employees, the law states.
The law also states that subcontractors who enter into a contract with a contractor must provide contractors with an affidavit that states “the subcontractor does not employ, contract with, or subcontract with an unauthorized alien.”
The Miami Herald pointed to comments then-gubernatorial candidate DeSantis made in 2018 where he called to require all employers to use E-Verify.
“Assuring a legal workforce through E-Verify will be good for the rule of law, protect taxpayers, and place an upward pressure on the wages of Floridians who work in blue collar jobs,” DeSantis said during an address to politicians.
The Florida Legislature eventually passed a measure that would lead to the law that requires public employers, not private, and private contractors to use the system.
HuffPost has reached out to DeSantis’ office for further comment on the report.
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AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Department of Public Safety has fired an officer who was at the scene of the Uvalde school massacre and becomes the first member of the state police force to lose their job in the fallout over the hesitant response to the May attack.
Sgt. Juan Maldonado was served with termination papers Friday, said Ericka Miller, a department spokeswoman. The firing comes five months after the shooting at Robb Elementary School that has put state police under scrutiny over their actions on the campus as a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle killed 19 children and two teachers.
Body camera footage and media reports have shown that DPS had a larger role at the scene than the department appeared to suggest after the May 24 shooting. State troopers were among the first wave of officers to arrive but did not immediately confront the gunman, which experts say goes against standard police procedure during mass shootings.
Instead, more than 70 minutes passed before officers finally stormed inside a fourth-grade classroom and killed the gunman, ending one of the deadliest school attacks in U.S. history. Nearly 400 officers in all eventually made their way to the scene, including state police, Uvalde police, school officers and U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Maldonado could not be reached for comment Friday night.
Seven DPS troopers were put under internal investigation this summer after a damning report by lawmakers revealed that state police has more 90 officers at the scene, more than any other agency.
Steve McCraw, the DPS director, has called the law enforcement response an “abject failure” but put most of the blame on former Uvalde school police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was fired in August and can be seen on body cam video searching in futility for a key to the classroom door that may been unlocked the entire time.
But the Uvalde mayor, parents of the victims and some lawmakers have accused DPS of trying to minimize its own failures.
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, reacted to news of the firing by saying that accountability in the department should not end there.
“Ninety more to go, plus the DPS director,” he said.
Gutierrez has sued DPS in an effort to obtain documents surrounding the response to the shooting. Several media outlets, including The Associated Press, have also asked courts to compel authorities and Uvalde officials to release records under public information laws.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for reelection in November, has stood by McCraw and said during a September debate there needed to be “accountability for law enforcement at every level.” A spokesperson for Abbott did not return messages seeking comment about the firing.
One of the DPS troopers put under internal investigation was Crimson Elizondo, who resigned and later was hired by Uvalde schools to work as a campus police officer. She was fired less than 24 hours after outraged parents in Uvalde found out about her hiring.
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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas:
https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting
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LAS VEGAS — The death of a Las Vegas-area teenager from a rare brain-eating amoeba that investigators think he was exposed to in warm waters at Lake Mead should prompt caution, not panic, among people at freshwater lakes, rivers and springs, experts said Friday.
“It gets people’s attention because of the name,” former public health epidemiologist Brian Labus said of the naturally occurring organism officially called Naegleria fowleri but almost always dubbed the brain-eating amoeba. “But it is a very, very rare disease.”
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tallied just 154 cases of infection and death from the amoeba in the U.S. since 1962, said Labus, who teaches at the School of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Almost half those cases were in Texas and Florida. Only one was reported in Nevada before this week.
“I wouldn’t say there’s an alarm to sound for this,” Labus said. “People need to be smart about it when they’re in places where this rare amoeba actually lives.” The organism is found in waters ranging from 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 Celsius) to 115 degrees (46 C), he said.
The Southern Nevada Health District did not identify the teen who died, but said he may have been exposed to the microscopic organism during the weekend of Sept. 30 in the Kingman Wash area on the Arizona side of the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam. The district publicized the case on Wednesday, following confirmation of the cause from the CDC.
The district and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which oversees the lake and the Colorado River, noted the amoeba only infects people by entering the nose and migrating to the brain. It is almost always fatal.
“It cannot infect people if swallowed, and is not spread from person to person,” news releases from the two agencies said. Both advised people to avoid jumping or diving into bodies of warm water, especially during summer, and to keep the head above water in hot springs or other “untreated geothermal waters” that pool in pocket canyons in the vast recreation area.
“It is 97% fatal but 99% preventable,” said Dennis Kyle, professor of infectious diseases and cellular biology and director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases at the University of Georgia. “You can protect yourself by not jumping into water that gets up your nose, or use nose plugs.”
The amoeba causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection with symptoms resembling meningitis or encephalitis that initially include headache, fever, nausea or vomiting — then progress to stiff neck, seizures and coma that can lead to death.
Symptoms can start one to 12 days after exposure, and death usually occurs within about five days.
There is no known effective treatment, and Kyle said a diagnosis almost always comes too late.
Kyle, who has studied the organism for decades, said data did not immediately suggest that waters warmed by climate change affected the amoeba. He said he knew of fewer than four cases nationwide.
A survey of news reports found cases in Northern California, Nebraska and Iowa. A CDC map showed most cases during the last 60 years in Southern U.S. states, led by 39 cases in Texas and 37 in Florida.
“I think this year is sort of an average year for cases,” Kyle said. “But this was a very warm summer. The key point is that warmer weather tends to generate more amoeba in the environment.”
Not many labs regularly identify the organism, Kyle noted. He said that AdventHealth Central Florida recently joined the CDC with programs able to identify it.
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CYPRESS, Texas — A teenager who told Texas police that he and his twin sister were handcuffed and endured horrific abuse escaped their family’s home after he found a handcuff key and hid it in his mouth, authorities said in court records.
The twins, barefoot and holding handcuffs, were seen on doorbell video as they sought help in a Cypress neighborhood, just outside Houston. The video, obtained by Houston TV station KHOU, showed the teens walking door-to-door about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday as they sought help.
The boy was shirtless and the girl was wearing only a plastic grocery bag around her neck as a shirt, according to an affidavit.
Their mother, Zaikiya Duncan, 40, was arrested hours later in Louisiana after police issued a missing children alert for five other children. All seven children, including the twins, are now in Child Protective Service custody, authorities said.
The 15-year-old twins were severely malnourished and told police that abuse had been occurring for months, the affidavit said. They told police that Duncan handcuffed them, forced them to drink bleach and other household cleaners and also sprayed oven cleaner in their mouths “if they talked too much,” the affidavit said.
The twins also told authorities that they were forced to eat and drink feces and urine, according to the affidavit.
Duncan is jailed in Baton Rouge and awaits extradition on charges of aggravated assault. Her live-in boyfriend, 27-year-old Jova Terrell, also faces an assault charge. It wasn’t known whether either had an attorney and they are expected to be extradited to Texas within 30 days, Houston TV station KPRC reported.
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Hospitals in 33 states are seeing a dramatic rise in children suffering from the respiratory virus called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Cases have more than doubled in 25 states, putting a strain on hospitals — with some facilities so overwhelmed, they’re running out of beds.
At Connecticut Children’s hospital, doctors said they’re slammed with a surge in RSV cases. Dr. John Brancato told CBS News that every inch of the emergency room is filled, and the hospital is considering putting a tent on the front lawn to handle the overflow.
The state of Connecticut is even thinking of bringing in the National Guard.
“We’re having patients in hall beds,” Brancato said. “We’re using our orthopedic room. We’re using other treatment rooms as much as possible to take care of everybody.”
RSV cases typically surge from December to February, but this month, the children’s hospital has more RSV cases than any other respiratory illness, including COVID-19.
Further south, almost half of the ICU beds at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, are filled with RSV patients.
“It’s going to be a rough winter,” Dr. Daniel Guzman, who works at the hospital, told CBS News. “I mean, we’re already seeing our numbers spike over the last few weeks with over 550 E.R. visits per day.”
Parents Zoe and Jeff Green said their 4-month-old daughter, Lindy, is in the ICU with RSV. They took her to an urgent care clinic because they were concerned that she had more than just a common cold.
RSV symptoms are similar to a cold, but doctors said parents should watch for signs of respiratory stress, if their child’s nostrils are flaring while breathing, or if their skin is pulling towards their ribs.
Doctors are also expecting an active flu season. They’re asking people to get their flu shots now — while it won’t prevent you from getting the flu, it could make your symptoms mild enough where you wouldn’t need to go to the emergency room.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Google on Thursday, alleging the tech giant violated state consumer protection laws by capturing millions of users’ facial and voice data without their consent, as facial recognition technology comes under increased scrutiny.
Texas AG Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming it took users’ facial and voice data … [+]
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Midland, Texas, claims the company’s Google Photos and Google Assistant apps, as well its Nest security camera—which records people who approach a front door—unlawfully took in biometric data from millions of Texans who use Google products.
By doing so, Google has “blatantly” violated a state law called the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act since at least 2015, according to the suit.
The lawsuit alleges features such as “face grouping,” which creates albums of certain people based on facial recognition records in the Google Photos app, are both “invasive” and “dangerous” because voice and facial data, once “stolen,” cannot be erased or replaced.
Paxton is seeking civil penalties up to $25,000 for each violation.
Google’s biometric data serves its own “commercial ends,” Paxton claims, arguing it allows the company to enhance its face scanning abilities, driving its technological growth.
Google did not respond immediately to an inquiry from Forbes.
Paxton filed another lawsuit against Google in January, claiming false, scripted testimonials on iHeartRadio promoting its Pixel 4 smartphone violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act by misleading consumers. He sued the company again over allegations it “systematically” tracked users’ location without consent, even when users thought they had disabled the tracking feature on their phones.
More than 400 police forces across the country, including 57 in Texas, had partnered with Amazon’s doorbell surveillance company Ring—a competitor to Google’s Nest cameras—in 2019, giving them access to homeowners’ front-door video footage, the Washington Post reported. Under that partnership, police departments are required to request footage from homeowners. But that practice came under scrutiny in June, when Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey (D), sent a letter to Amazon questioning policy violations from 11 instances in which he said footage was taken without homeowners’ consent. An Amazon official claimed those instances involved “imminent danger of death or serious physical injury” in a written response to Markey’s letter.
“Google has a new CEO and a new ethos, having tossed (former) CEO (Eric) Schmidt’s promises into the rubbish heap alongside Google’s abandoned ‘don’t be evil’ mantra,” the lawsuit argues, referencing a promise Schmidt made in 2011 not to build a database around facial recognition.
Texas sues Google for allegedly capturing biometric data of millions without consent (Reuters)
Texas Sues Google for Collecting Biometric Data Without Consent (New York Times)
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Brian Bushard, Forbes Staff
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One migrant is dead, another is wounded and at least seven others are languishing in detention three weeks after twin brothers allegedly opened fire on them in the Texas desert, claiming they mistook them for wild hogs during a hunting trip.
Yet, the accused shooters, 60-year-old brothers Michael and Mark Sheppard, who both worked in local law enforcement, were initially released on half a million dollars bail after being jailed briefly on manslaughter charges.
The case has caused outrage among advocates for the victims and survivors, who say their detention violates a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement directive that calls for giving strong consideration to the fact that they were crime victims who cooperated with authorities in determining whether they should be released.
El Paso County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File
“This is a hate crime that occurred immediately after they were crossing into the United States,” said Zoe Bowman, the supervising attorney at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, who is representing the seven detained survivors.
Michael Sheppard, who was a warden at the troubled West Texas Detention Facility where he was accused of abuse, and his brother, Mark, who worked for the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Office, were recently again taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the Sept. 27 shooting.
The sheriff’s office did not say where they were being held or why they were initially released on bond. The case is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, an arm of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are often victims of crimes, including human trafficking, but most happen south of the border. A clear cut case like this one, in which migrants are the victims of a widely publicized crime on U.S. soil in which charges have been brought against identified suspects, can provide a rare paper trail to protection under a visa for migrants who are crime victims in the U.S., Bowman said.
But despite the August 2021 ICE directive that strongly encourages the release of crime victims while the lengthy visa process is underway, these migrants remain in detention, Bowman said.
Six of the surviving migrants are being held at the El Paso Processing Center — an ICE detention facility — while a seventh is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service and is expected to be transferred to the West Texas Detention Facility, the embattled lockup where Michael Sheppard was a warden.
“It certainly seems like they are not putting the needs of these people first by choosing to hold onto them,” Bowman said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not respond to phone and email requests for comment on the migrants’ detention.
The migrants told authorities they were drinking water from a reservoir on county land in Sierra Blanca, south of El Paso in the hot, dry Chihuahuan Desert, when two men — identified in court documents as the Sheppard brothers — pulled over in a truck. The migrants said they ran to hide.
Mark Sheppard told investigators he and his brother were out hunting and thought they had spotted a javelina, a kind of wild hog, when they opened fire. “Mark Sheppard told us he used binoculars and saw a ‘black butt’ thinking it was a javelina,” court documents said.
But the migrants told authorities the men in the truck yelled and cursed at them in Spanish, taunting at them to come out, and revved their engine as they backed up. When the group emerged from hiding, the driver exited the vehicle and fired two shots at them.
Jesús Iván Sepúlveda was shot and killed. Brenda Berenice Casias Carrillo was struck in the stomach and seriously wounded.
Silvia Carrillo, the wounded woman’s aunt, told The Associated Press that she heard from her niece via WhatsApp on Sept. 25 that the group was beginning the precarious desert journey from Mexico into Texas and was turning off their phones. When she next made contact with Casias two days later, her niece told her the group had been shot at and she lay wounded, fearing she would die.
Carrillo encouraged her niece to call 911 for help. Also in the group of 13 migrants were Carrillo’s two sons, another niece and a son-in-law. Casias told her they were all okay but another man who was with them — 22-year-old Sepulveda of Durango, Mexico — was dead.
“I felt like I was going to die, I was desperate and imagined the worst,” Carrillo said.
When authorities arrived in response to her 911 call, Casias was taken to a hospital and the other survivors were questioned by federal and immigration officials. Their testimonies led to the arrest of the Sheppard brothers, after which the witnesses were placed in ICE custody.
On Oct. 7, Carrillo said she spoke to Casias again, this time from the hospital. Casias sounded weak, but said she was slowly getting better and had one more surgery to go.
Casias remains stable and improving and has some legal protection, her attorney, Marysol Castro, managing attorney for Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services in El Paso, said Tuesday. She declined to provide specifics because she said her client is afraid for her safety since learning of the Sheppard brothers’ initial release.
Bowman said she is seeking visas intended for migrants who are crime victims for her clients, but even though the case has been widely publicized it could take months to produce the necessary court documents.
In the meantime, she has petitioned, without success so far, for them to be released to sponsors in the U.S. — a decision that is solely at the discretion of ICE authorities.
John Sandweg, an attorney who served as ICE director during the Obama administration, said other factors like the survivors’ role as witnesses could mean that authorities choose to keep them in detention so they are nearby to testify in the case.
Still, on the face of it, he said, “there is not a good reason” why these migrants remain detained.
“The bottom line is that study after study after study and ICE’s own data has demonstrated the effectiveness of alternatives to detention,” Sandweg said, adding that the system “is in critical need of reform.”
Meanwhile, Carrillo said she and relatives of the other survivors await answers on the fate of their loved ones in the country they journeyed to for a better life, and are calling for the shooters to be brought to justice.
“I just want them to do justice for my niece and for Jesus, the man who died,” Carrillo said.
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HOUSTON — A woman accused by authorities of killing her 5-year-old daughter near a suburban Houston park because she thought the girl was an “evil child” has a history of mental illness, her attorney said Tuesday.
Melissa Towne has been charged with capital murder in the death of her daughter Nichole and was being held on a $15 million bond. She appeared in court on Tuesday, crying during a brief hearing.
Towne’s court-appointed attorney, James Stafford, told reporters after the hearing she has been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and has been institutionalized at least nine times due to mental illness.
“There’s no doubt there’s some dark demons haunting her,” Stafford said.
Authorities allege Towne took the girl to a wooded area near a park in the Houston suburb of Tomball on Sunday, made her get on her knees and cut her throat with a knife. The girl began to scream and fight before Towne placed a trash bag over her head, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Towne is accused of strangling her daughter for 30 to 45 minutes. Towne “stated she wanted to end (her daughter’s) life because she was an evil child and did not want to deal with her anymore,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities allege Towne then took her daughter’s body to a hospital in Tomball, where a nurse found the girl inside a laundry mesh bag on the floorboard of the passenger side of Towne’s SUV.
Child Protective Services said in a statement it was also investigating the child’s death and that Towne had a prior history with the agency but could not provide additional details due to confidentiality rules. The agency said Towne has three other children, ranging in age from 2 to 18 years old, who are safe and had been living with other relatives.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration plans to continue flying migrants who entered the country illegally to Democratic strongholds, his spokeswoman said Saturday, a day after newly released records showed the state paid nearly $1 million to arrange two sets of flights to Delaware and Illinois.
Documents released Friday show that the two sets of planned flights will transport about 100 migrants to those two states. They were scheduled to happen before Oct. 3 but apparently were halted or postponed. The contractor hired by Florida later extended the window for the trips until Dec. 1, according to memos released by the state Department of Transportation.
When asked why they flights were postponed, DeSantis’ communications director, Taryn Fenske, noted that Florida has been busy dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
“While Florida has had all hands on deck responding to our catastrophic hurricane, the immigration relocation program remains active,” Fenske said in an email Saturday.
The flights would be a follow-up to the Sept. 14 flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, that carried 49 mostly Venezuelan migrants to the island where former President Barack Obama owns a home. Local officials weren’t told in advance that the migrants were coming.
DeSantis claimed responsibility for the flights as part of a campaign to focus attention on what he has called the Biden administration’s failed border policies. He was joining Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the tactic of sending migrants to Democratic strongholds without advance warning.
Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature approved a $12 million budget item to relocate people in the country illegally from Florida to another location. The money came from interest earned from federal funds given to Florida under the American Rescue Plan. While the migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard originated in Texas, the charter plane carrying them made a stop in Florida. DeSantis has said that the migrants’ intention was to come to Florida.
The documents released Friday gave no details of how migrants were recruited in San Antonio for the Martha Vineyard flights or who was hired to conduct that part of the operation.
The Martha’s Vineyard flight has also spawned lawsuits accusing Florida of lying to the migrants to get them to agree to the flights.
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