Police are still searching for the person or persons who murdered three members of a Mansfield family living in Georgetown, north of Austin. The victims identified by police are 34-year-old Alonzo Hawkins; his cousin, 39-year-old Doneisha Brooks; and her daughter, 8-year-old Olivia Brooks. Relatives told KXAN the three recently moved to Georgetown for a fresh start. When they did not hear from them over the weekend, a family friend went to do a welfare check. Friends, family and their pastor held a press conference Tuesday afternoon at a park in Mansfield. “If anybody has any information that can lead to the capture of the perpetrator, that’s what’s most important when it comes to the family,” said Pastor Michael Evans. According to the family, the move from Mansfield to Georgetown in May 2024 was supposed to be a fresh start for Doneisha and her daughter, Olivia. “Got her life together, got a car, apartment, got a job,” said cousin Nicholas Ford. “She was doing good. She was happy.” Ford’s brother Alonzo was Doneisha’s cousin. He followed her to Georgetown, seeking a safer place to live and a new start. Hopes were crushed Saturday evening when police in the Austin suburb said…

Talk of Powerball is heating up nationwide as Saturday’s draw edges toward a staggering $1.8 billion, making it the second-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history. The record jackpot was $2.04 billion, won on Nov. 7, 2022, according to Powerball. Zooming in on Texas tells a different story. Since joining the multi-state Powerball lottery in February 2010, the state has seen only two jackpot winners. Both came from small North Texas towns, and both wins happened less than two years apart. On May 29, 2013, a Quick Pick ticket purchased in Bells in Grayson County matched all numbers for a $40 million jackpot. Less than two years later, on Feb. 11, 2015, in Collin County, a Princeton player claimed part of a $564 million prize using their own numbers. No Texan has taken home the top prize since. What are the odds of winning Powerball in Texas? Technically, the odds are the same everywhere: about 1 in 292.2 million for a single ticket, according to Powerball. But Texas history tells its own story. With three drawings each week, more than 2,300 drawings have taken place since the state joined the game. Out of all those chances, only two jackpots were won in Texas. That means Texans have claimed…

The first human case of the flesh-eating parasite called “New World Screwworm” has been detected in the United States according to the Maryland Department of Health and Human Services. State leaders in Texas have already been on the lookout for the parasite. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maryland Department of Health, the infected person recently traveled to El Salvador and has since recovered from the infection. Health officials said there is no indication that the parasite was passed to other people or animals. “This is the first human case of travel-associated New World screwworm myiasis (parasitic infestation of fly larvae) from an outbreak-affected country identified in the United States,” HHS spokesperson Emily G. Hilliard said in a statement. Federal health officials said the risk to the public from this case is low, but concerns are growing in Texas, where the agriculture community has already been on alert. “It’s a real nasty infection. I can’t … describing it, you know, it will almost gross you out. It’s about as bad as anything you can imagine, being eaten alive by maggots is what it is,” said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. The screwworm spreads its eggs…

The U.S. plans to build a $750 million factory in southern Texas to breed billions of sterile flies, ramping up its efforts to keep flesh-eating maggots in Mexico from crossing the border and damaging the American cattle industry. Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture hopes to be producing and releasing sterile male New World screwworm flies into the wild within a year from the new factory on Moore Air Base outside Edinburg, about 20 miles from the Texas-Mexico border. She also said the USDA plans to deploy $100 million in technology, such as fly traps and lures, and step up border patrols by “tick riders” mounted on horseback and train dogs to sniff out the parasite. In addition, Rollins said the U.S. border will remain closed to cattle, horse and bison imports from Mexico until the U.S. sees that the pest is being pushed back south toward Panama, where the fly had been contained through late last year through the breeding of sterile flies there. The U.S. has closed its border to those imports three times in the past eight months, the last in July, following a report of an infestation about 370 miles from…

Texas lawmakers will take their search for answers following the deadly July 4 floods to the heart of the devastation in Kerr County, where local officials were expected to face questions over their response to the disaster that swept away homes and campers along the Guadalupe River. The hearing on Thursday is the first time a panel of lawmakers is visiting the hard-hit Texas Hill Country since the floods, which killed at least 136 people. Most were in Kerr County, including 27 young campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp. Local leaders who have defended their preparations and response to the fast-rising waters were among those invited to testify. Residents will also have the chance to address lawmakers. The hearing comes as authorities have begun publicly releasing records and audio — including 911 calls — that have provided new glimpses into the escalating danger and chaos in the early hours of the July Fourth holiday. These include panicked and confused messages from residents caught in trees and families fleeing with children from homes with water creeping up to the knees. “People are dying,” one woman tells a 911 operator in call logs released by nearby Kendall County. She says she had…

Attorneys for Robert Roberson have filed two motions in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for an emergency stay of execution and for the court to hear evidence they say proves his innocence. On July 16, Judge Austin Reeve Jackson set an Oct. 16 execution date for Roberson, who is accused in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. Roberson’s emergency motion for stay of execution asks that his recently set execution date of Oct. 16 be stayed to ensure the court has sufficient time to complete its review of his pending subsequent application for habeas corpus relief. The second, a motion for oral argument, has never been held before the CCA since his innocence was first raised in 2016. “The emergency motion today is reminding them, kind of pushing them, prodding them, saying, hey, listen guys, we have this proceeding that’s been pending since February,” said appellate lawyer Chad Ruback. Ruback is not associated with Roberson’s case. He said statistically, a conviction in a death penalty case will withstand appellate scrutiny. “They have knocked on a whole heck of a lot of doors, and they’ve had all of those doors slammed in their faces,” he said of…