Gov. Greg Abbott: Texas will build border wall amid 'unprecedented crisis'
AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that Texas will build a border wall, although he did not provide details on the cost or location — or how Texas would pay for it.
"I will announce next week the plan for the state of Texas to begin building the border wall in the state of Texas," said Abbott, who spoke after meeting with local and state officials in Del Rio about border security.
Abbott held the meeting amid his ongoing dispute with the Biden administration over a recent surge in border crossings. Administration officials on Monday threatened to sue Texas over Abbott's plan to force state-licensed shelters contracted with the federal government to stop housing migrant children.
The governor has placed a heightened focus on the border in recent months, declaring a disaster in counties along the border because of record numbers of encounters with migrants.
One of Biden's first acts as president was to end construction of former President Donald Trump's border wall, instead vowing to increase technology at ports of entry and create more humane border policies.
Abbott has blamed Biden's approach for an uptick in arrivals at the border, launching in March "Operation Lone Star," which he said would address border issues. The initiative involves sending air, ground, marine and tactical units to “high threat areas,” according to Abbott’s office.
—Austin American-Statesman
Robert Durst hospitalized, judge says, forcing another stay in long-delayed murder trial
LOS ANGELES — Robert Durst, a multimillionaire real estate heir and defendant in a labyrinthine, closely watched murder trial,was hospitalized Thursday morning for an unspecified health issue, forcing another setback in the long-delayed proceeding.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham, who is presiding over the trial, said Durst was sent to a hospital in the Los Angeles County jail system for “some incident this morning involving his health.”
The judge said he did not have much information about Durst’s condition, beyond that jail staff members found the 78-year-old “down” and not in his wheelchair on Thursday morning. Windham dismissed the jury and delayed the proceeding to Monday morning.
Chip Lewis, one of Durst’s attorneys, had no information about his client’s condition beyond what the judge disclosed in court. “All we know is that he was hospitalized earlier this morning,” he wrote in an email.
For the last month, Durst has been escorted into court each morning in a wheelchair to face the charge that he killed his friend and confidante Susan Berman at her Benedict Canyon home in 2000. According to the prosecution’s theory of the case, Durst feared that Berman was going to talk to authorities who had reopened an investigation into the disappearance of his wife, Kathleen Durst, who vanished in 1982 and has never been found.
Durst’s lawyers have argued that he never killed Berman, but stumbled on her body inside her home and panicked, later writing a letter to the Beverly Hills police alerting them to a “cadaver” at Berman’s address.
Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, who is leading Durst’s prosecution, voiced his suspicions that the defendant was faking a medical crisis to force a mistrial.
—Los Angeles Times
California appeals judge’s ruling that overturned the state’s assault weapons ban
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday filed an appeal to a federal court decision that overturned the state’s ban on assault weapons, arguing that the law is needed “to protect the safety of Californians.”
The appeal seeks to reverse Friday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who said the state’s three-decade ban on assault weapons is an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of California gun owners that “has had no effect” on curtailing mass shootings.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined Bonta in making the announcement at Zuckerman San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, a leading facility for treating gunshot victims.
“California’s assault weapons ban has saved lives, and we refuse to let these weapons of war back onto our streets,” said Newsom, who was elected on a platform that included expanding gun control laws. “This is a fight California will never back down from, period.”
The judge issued a permanent injunction against the enforcement of key provisions of the law, but stayed the order for 30days to allow the state to appeal.
Bonta said his filing on Thursday with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco asks for the stay to be extended until the case is decided.
—Los Angeles Times
Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo’s wife pleads guilty to federal drug trafficking charges
The beauty queen bride of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges Thursday and admitted to helping run her husband’s global cartel.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering in D.C. federal court nearly four months after she was arrested trying to board a plane at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
“She’s happy to put this behind her and get on with her life and get back to her children,” Coronel’s attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told the New York Daily News.
Lichtman described the plea as “arm’s length” and said Coronel is looking at significantly less time in prison than her drug lord husband — who she married at 18 — as it’s her first offense.
Coronel’s attorneys, Lichtman and Mariel Colon Miro, were both on El Chapo’s defense team at his 2018 trial in Brooklyn.
Coronel pleaded guilty to to conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and meth to be imported into the U.S. between2012 and 2014, conspiring to launder her husband’s cartel proceeds, and other related charges.
The conviction is the first for Coronel, a California-born dual Mexican citizen who’s maintained close proximity to some of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers since birth.
—New York Daily News
