News

The Winchell Fire Department posted this photo on its Facebook page after participating with the North Lake Fire Department in a prescribed on Crappie Island on Lake Brownwood. The post stated, “If you have been to the 4th of July Fireworks show on Lake Brownwood in the last few years you have seen the island catch fire. Though it is an island with no docks or structures, it poses a threat to McCartney Island if it uncontrollably catches fire. Great opportunity for training and agency cooperation!” Photo contributed

NEW YORK (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell is sitting in a Manhattan federal courtroom, waiting to learn how many years a judge says she faces for helping the wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. Tuesday’s sentencing hearing in New York is underway and likely to be lengthy as lawyers squabble over aspects of the law. The sentencing culminates a prosecution that detailed how Epstein and Maxwell flaunted their riches and associations with prominent people to groom vulnerable girls and then exploit them. Maxwell denies abusing anyone. Her lawyers want no more than five years’ imprisonment. Prosecutors say she deserves 30 years or more behind bars.

MADRID (AP) — President Joe Biden arrived in Spain on Tuesday to meet with fellow leaders of NATO with plans to beef up the American presence in Europe at a moment of growing concern about the alliance’s resolve in the face of the grinding war in Ukraine.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston-area sheriff said Monday that he has withdrawn from consideration for Immigration and Customs Enforcement director. President Joe Biden nominated Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to the ICE director’s post in April 2021.

Grocery retailer H-E-B and the Butt Family have committed $10 million to the Uvalde school district to build a new school to replace Robb Elementary, the site of the mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers last month.

RALLS — Lloyd Arthur can run his hand through the soil at his cotton farm and know what kind of year he’s going to have. His dry, cracked field is making him think this could be a repeat of one of the state’s worst years.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The fall of Roe v. Wade shifted the battleground over abortion to courthouses around the country, as abortion foes looked to quickly enact statewide bans and the other side sought to buy more time. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to end constitutional protections for abortion opened the gates for litigation from all sides. Much of Monday’s court activity focused on “trigger laws” that were designed to go into effect when Roe v. Wade was overturned. On Monday, judges in Louisiana and Utah issued orders blocking trigger laws from going into effect. In South Carolina, a federal judge ruled that a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy can take effect immediately.

LONDON (AP) — Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution more than a century ago, further alienating the country from the global financial system following sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine.