Texas spending big on border security despite promises

Texas spending big on border security despite promises

AUSTIN, Texas

As a budget shortfall in Texas threatens cuts to colleges and Medicaid, a costly border-security operation is proving largely untouchable despite President Donald Trump’s promises to build a wall and the plunging number of people caught illegally entering the U.S.

A prolonged oil slump has left lawmakers about $6 billion short of the money needed to keep the status quo in Texas, which attracts about a million new residents every two years. But border security is one area where Republicans – who control state government – have all but refused to search for savings.

During a key budget vote Thursday, House Democrats proposed taking dollars earmarked for hundreds of state troopers on the Texas-Mexico border and National Guard patrols, and putting that money instead toward other programs they say are underfunded.

Michigan man gets 5 years in prison after talk of attacks

DETROIT

A Detroit-area man who talked about attacking a church and a hospital on behalf of the Islamic State group was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday after a judge said remorse over his provocative words came “too little, too late.”

Khalil Abu Rayyan, 23, wasn’t charged with a terrorist act. But U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh said he couldn’t ignore Rayyan’s threats and infatuation with terrorism as he sentenced him for gun-related crimes.

Rayyan kept a beheading photo on his cellphone screen, boasted about becoming a martyr and repeatedly expressed support for Islamic State. He said he wanted to skin victims “like sheep.” The FBI learned about his online activities and used an undercover operative to reach out to him during the investigation.

Rayyan apologized in court last week and said he didn’t actually hurt anyone.

Computer-related charges filed after 11-year-old’s suicide

MARQUETTE, Mich.

Prosecutors have authorized computer-related charges against a juvenile after a Michigan mother says a social media and text-ing prank led her 11-year-old son to take his own life.

Marquette police Capt. Michael Kohler said Thursday that the unnamed juvenile is being charged with telecommunication services-malicious use and using a computer to commit a crime.

Katrina Goss says her son, Tysen Benz, was found March 14 hanging by the neck in his room after seeing social media posts and texts that his 13-year-old girlfriend killed herself.

Goss says the girl and some friends orchestrated the prank and that Tysen replied over social media that he was going to kill himself.

UN condemns North Korea’s missile launch

UNITED NATIONS

The Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch and demanded a halt to all missile tests, stressing again that they violate U.N. sanctions and “are significantly increasing tension in the region and beyond.”

A press statement agreed to by all 15 members expresses “utmost concern” at North Korea’s “highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council” by conducting the latest launch less than three weeks after the previous test.

Associated Press