A Federal Appeal Court has frozen Texas’s controversial immigration law, one of the toughest laws of its kind enacted by a US state in modern times.
Report says, the decision came just hours after the Supreme Court allowed the measure, SB4, to take effect pending an appeal.
The legislation would allow officials in Texas to detain and prosecute unauthorised migrants.
Mexico, which borders Texas, has said it will refuse to accept any migrants deported by its authorities.
Migrant arrivals at the southern US border have risen to record highs during President Joe Biden’s administration, making it a top concern among US voters ahead of November’s presidential election.
The SB4 law in Texas was due to come into effect on 5 March but the Biden government has challenged it, calling it unconstitutional.
The decision to freeze the law is the latest in a string of judicial rulings deciding its fate.
If it were to come back into effect, it would mark a significant shift in how immigration enforcement is handled, as courts have previously ruled that only the federal government can enforce the country’s immigration laws – not individual US states.
A Texas Judge has ruled that a school district did not discriminate against a black high school student when it punished him over his dreadlocks.
Barbers Hill Independent School District suspended Darryl George, 18, last August, saying his hairstyle violated its dress code.
According to report, the judge found the Houston-area school did not break a state law banning race-based bias on hair.
An attorney for the family said they plan to file an appeal.
Meanwhile, the student will remain on suspension and removed from the school’s regular classrooms.
Chambers County Judge Chap Cain III ruled in favor of the school district after about three hours of testimony on Thursday.
Mr George spoke of his “anger, sadness, disappointment” outside court after the decision.
The school district referred to its dress code, which says hair cannot be “below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down”.
But Mr George refused to cut his braided dreadlocks, with the family citing its cultural significance in the black community.
Last year Texas passed the Crown Act, a state law designed to prohibit race-based discrimination against people based on their hairstyle.
Darresha George, the student’s mother, filed a complaint on her son’s behalf, accusing the district of violating the newly passed law.
The school district filed its own lawsuit in September, asking the court to settle the matter, and Thursday’s ruling was the outcome of that case.
However, Barbers Hill High School’s superintendent Dr Greg Poole defended the school’s decision, saying that the Crown Act did not mention hair length specifically.
Since the start of Mr George’s past year at Barbers Hill High School, in August, he has been handed multiple disciplinary penalties for refusing to cut his hair.
He was removed from class and placed on in-school suspension, and later required to attend an off-campus programme.
“He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle,” his mother told the Associated Press in August.
“That’s very uncomfortable. Every day he’d come home, he’d say his back hurts because he has to sit on a stool.”
Barbers Hill ISD has previously made news headlines over dress code conflicts with its black students.
De’Andre Arnold and Kaden Bradford were required to cut their dreadlocks in 2020, and the two students’ families sued.
In that case, a federal judge ruled the district’s hair policy was discriminatory.
A federal version of the Crown Act passed in the House of Representatives in 2023, but did not pass in the Senate.
A Texas woman has been charged with threatening to kill a judge who is overseeing a criminal case against former US President Donald Trump.
Abigail Jo Shry, 43, allegedly phoned the court in Washington DC on 5 August and used a racial slur in her message for US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Ms Shry also allegedly threatened to kill a Democratic member of Congress.
She admitted making the call after investigators traced her phone number, according to a court document.
In the call, Ms Shry allegedly told the judge, who is overseeing an election conspiracy case against Mr Trump: “You are in our sights, we want to kill you.”
Prosecutors say Ms Shry added: “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”
The caller also threatened all Democrats in Washington DC and the LGBT community, according to the court filing.
She allegedly also threatened to kill Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a black Texas Democrat who is running for mayor of Houston.
When federal agents visited Ms Shry’s home in the Houston suburb of Alvin three days later she said she had harboured no intention of going to Washington DC to carry out her threats, according to the court filing.
But she allegedly added that “if Shelia Jackson Lee comes to Alvin, then we need to worry”.
A day before the threatening phone call, Mr Trump had posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, in all capital letters: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” He had been arraigned a day earlier on the election plot charges.
Last Friday Judge Chutkan warned at a court hearing that both sides should avoid any “inflammatory statements” about the case.
A Texas woman was attacked by a hawk and a snake at the same time after the bird – which eats snakes – accidentally dropped the wriggling serpent on her.
Peggy Jones, 64, was mowing her lawn last month when a passing hawk dropped a snake on her before swooping down to angrily try to reclaim its meal.
The snake wrapped itself around her arm and began striking her face as the bird sunk its talons deep into her flesh.
The terrifying ordeal left her with cuts and bruising to her arm and face.
The bizarre incident took place on 25 July in the town of Silsbee, Texas, near the Louisiana border.
It began after a snake suddenly fell out of the sky and landed on her. Before she could remove it, the hawk attack began.
“As I was trying to sling my arm and sling the snake off, the snake wrapped around my arm,” she told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
“The snake was striking in my face, it struck my glasses a couple of times… I was slinging and slinging, he was striking and striking, and he just kept hanging on.”
She realised it must have been dropped by a passing bird, since she was not standing under trees when it happened. Her assumption was quickly confirmed when the hawk swooped down and joined in the melee.
“Then the hawk appeared just as fast as the snake appeared,” Mrs Jones said.
“The hawk grabbed the snake that was wrapped around my arm and pulled it like he was going to carry it away. And when he did, it flung my arm up. The hawk was carrying my arm and the snake with it.”
The hawk struggled to remove the snake from Mrs Jones body, stabbing her with its talons repeatedly as it attempted to snatch back its food.
Eventually the snake was pulled from her arm, leaving her startled husband to drive her to the hospital.
“There were puncture wounds, cuts, abrasions, scratches and severe bruising,” she said, adding that the snake’s attacks to her face damaged her glasses.
Mrs Jones described the attack as severely traumatic, adding that she thought she was going to die and has had trouble sleeping since it happened.
She told CBS that living in rural Texas, she is no stranger to wildlife encounters.
“I’ve actually seen a hawk pick up a snake. That’s something they do, that’s how they kill their prey,” she said.
But now, she says, its something that she will always keep in mind.
Federal authorities are investigating whether the gunman who killed eight people including children at a Dallas shopping mall had far-right links.
The attacker, who was shot dead at the scene by a police officer, has been named as Mauricio Garcia, aged 33.
Investigators are reviewing social media to look into his ideology, the BBC’s US partner CBS News reports.
During the attack, he wore a clothing patch with the letters RWDS which stands for “Right Wing Death Squad”.
This is a phrase popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacy groups.
One line of enquiry is whether he was motivated by these ideals and whether he had links to like-minded people, a law enforcement source told CBS.
The gunman used an AR-15-style rifle and wore combat gear during the shooting, with multiple rounds of ammunition found on him.
Witnesses described scenes of panic and horror when the gunman got out of his car in a mall parking lot and began firing on shoppers.
The rampage was brought to an end by a police officer who was attending a different call and happened to be nearby.
Six people were pronounced dead at the scene in the north Dallas suburbs, while two died later in hospital.
At least three injured victims remained in critical condition on Sunday.
President Joe Biden described the rampage as “the latest act of gun violence to devastate our nation”.
He confirmed that children were among those killed, saying that “too many families have empty chairs at their dinner tables”.
The president called once again on his political opponents in the Republican party to support tougher gun control.
The Republican governor of Texas, Gregg Abbott, told Fox News Sunday his aim was to target the possession of weapons by criminals and deal with a rising mental health crisis, rather than consider wider bans.
The state was working on new laws to get guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and to increase penalties for criminals to possess guns, he said, noting an increase in anger and violence in the country.
“What Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it.”
Garcia was reportedly working as a security guard at the time of the shooting and did not have a serious criminal record.
Footage seemed to show the suspect stepping out of his vehicle in the mall car park, and opening fire on people walking nearby without warning.
One woman working in the mall said the first she knew about the attack was a customer approaching her and warning: “You all need to close the doors.”
“I was confused. Next thing you know, we hear gunshots… all you hear is like 50, 60 gunshots,” she said.
“We kept our calm as best that we could, tried to keep our customers calm… we shut the door, everything is closed. Nobody can buy anything. We’re all hiding in the back.”
Another witness, Elaine Penicaro, said she was finishing her shopping trip when she heard “all this popping”.
“So we kind of just all just stopped. But then a second later, like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And we saw sparks flying like it was right in front of us,” she said. “So we just ran into the Converse store. They locked the door. We all hunkered down in the back – and that’s where we stayed.”
Speaking to CBS, Steven Spainhouer described how he rushed to the scene after getting a call from his son who reported a shooting. He spoke of “unfathomable carnage”.
He said at least three victims could not be saved even after he applied CPR. “The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes,” he recalled. “So I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side, and she had no face.”
He helped a boy who was under his mother’s dead body.
“When I rolled the mother over, he came out. I asked him if he was OK and he said, ‘My mom is hurt, my mom is hurt’. So, rather than traumatise him anymore, I pulled him around the corner and sat him down.”
The boy was “covered from head to toe” in blood, Mr Spainhouer said.
The US Justice Department will investigate the police response to the mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers.
Public anger is growing after it emerged that officers waited in the hallway as children trapped with the shooter made desperate 911 calls.
US President Joe Biden is in Uvalde to meet families devastated by the attack.
He will also meet survivors and first responders.
First Lady Jill Biden, herself a teacher, accompanied the president to a memorial at Robb Elementary School. They were seen comforting the school’s principal Mandy Gutierrez, beside a carpet of floral tributes for the teachers, and children – all under 10 years old – who lost their lives.
Both were seen wiping tears from beneath their sunglasses. Mrs Biden touched each child’s photo in turn.
The couple then attended a Catholic Mass at the local Sacred Heart church. Protesters outside the church shouted, “Do something!” as the president walked out.
“We will,” he answered.
Announcing its Critical Incident Review on Sunday, the US Justice Department said the goal was to “provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events”.
The shooting has provoked new calls for gun control measures, in a country reeling from two vicious shootings in under 10 days – although leading Republicans oppose tightening rules.
The US has now surpassed 200 mass shootings since the beginning of 2022.
A mass shooting is defined as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter.
White House officials say Mr Biden is unlikely to offer specific policy proposals or seek to issue an executive order in the coming weeks to avoid interfering with delicate negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans.
The gunman’s rampage lasted for over an hour and police found as many as 1,657 rounds of ammunition and 60 magazines in his possession after he was shot dead.
Authorities have struggled to give a clear timeline of how events unfolded in Uvalde.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his condolences over the Texas elementary school shooting, calling it “a cowardly attack.”
“Children and teachers were murdered in a cowardly attack in their Texas school,” Macron said in a tweet. “We share the shock and grief of the American people, and the rage of those who are fighting to end the violence.”
On his part, Pope Francis says his ‘heart is broken’ over shooting
Pope Francis delivers his speech during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, on May 25. (Andrew Medichini/AP)
The Roman Catholic pontiff expressed his condolences over the Texas school shooting tragedy and sent his prayers to the victims and their families during today’s morning weekly audience.
He also called for stronger gun controls and commitment so that “such tragedies can never happen again.”
Other European leaders, including the prime ministers ofSlovakia, Ireland and Finland, are also sending their condolences today.
Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger said “I was deeply saddened by the news from Texas, where lives of children were taken in a murderous rampage,”
Meanwhile, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin called the shooting “an appalling and shocking tragedy” and offered his “heartfelt sympathies” to families of the victims.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin also sent her thoughts to the families of the victims.
“My heart goes out to all who lost their children and loved ones during the mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas,” Marin said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez separately expressed their condolences over the Texas school shooting.
“Our thoughts are with the injured and the bereaved of the victims of this inconceivable massacre for which hardly any words can be found,” Scholz said in a tweet.
Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez shared on Twitter a video of the emotional speech given by Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “I would like to express my condolences to all of the relatives and family members of the children who were killed in an awful shooting in Texas,” Zelensky said, speaking through a translator, via videoconference at a breakfast event moderated by Fareed Zakaria in Davos.
To highlight the frustrations over the incessant mass killings in the US and lack of political will to tackle the menace, NBA’s Steve Kerr said:
“50 senators in Washington are going to hold us hostage, It’s pathetic, I’ve had enough.”
In recent years, a number of Nigerians have projected the country in the limelight of the medical profession.
These outstanding individuals have through hard work and dedication to duty, projected themselves and earned the respect of their contemporaries in countries of across the globe.
These Nigerians have left indelible prints in the sands of time in countries including; America, Canada, Australia and Europe.
One of such people is Dr Oluyinka Olutoye.
Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye is a renowned fetal and pediatric Nigeria born surgeon based in Texas, USA.
In 2016, he successfully operated on a baby-in-utero.
The mother, at the 23rd week of pregnancy had gone for a routine ultra-sound and it was discovered that her baby had a rare birth defect known as sacrococcygeal teratoma, a large tumor located on the fetus’ tailbone.
“This is a very opportune time to be joining the organization as we build upon the already impressive success of our surgical services to help children around the country and increasingly around the world,” he said.”
Dr Oluyinka Olutoye
“I look forward to the privilege of leading and collaborating with this team in the next phase of our journey.”
Olutoye led a team of 21 doctors to remove the tumor. The five-hour surgery involved removing the baby from the uterus for 20 minutes so as to remove the tumor and then placing the baby back into the womb for the remainder of the gestation period, after which she was safely delivered.
For this groundbreaking feat, Olutoye was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the US.
He now leads one of the largest children’s hospital surgery departments in the world.
Olutoye received his medical degree from the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. In 1996, he went on to earn his PhD in anatomy from Virginia Commonwealth University.
He completed his residency in general surgery at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, Virginia Commonwealth University, and his fellowships in pediatric and fetal surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr Olutoye is certified in surgery and pediatric surgery by the American Board of Surgery.
He is also a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the West African College of Surgeons. Olutoye is a member of the American Surgical Association, the American Pediatric Surgical Association and past president of the International Fetal Medicine and Surgery Society.
In 2019, Olutoye was appointed Professor and the E. Thomas Boles Chairman of the pediatric surgery at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.
He has not ceased blazing the trail in this chosen career of his.
