EL PASO — Authorities say the girlfriend of a man charged in the fatal shooting of a Texas sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop has also been charged in the officer’s death.

An arrest affidavit alleges that 20-year-old Arlene Pina can be heard on police video saying “beat that expletive” in Spanish after her boyfriend, Facundo Chavez, started striking El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Herrera following the gunshots.

Pina was charged with capital murder on Saturday and is jailed on $1 million bond. Online jail records don’t list an attorney for her.

Chavez was charged with capital murder after being accused of firing 15 shots at Herrera in March after the deputy asked Chavez to exit a car in San Elizario, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of El Paso.

Herrera died two days later.

 

Planes, buses move migrants from crowded border shelters

EL PASO — U.S. authorities are using aircraft to move migrants to less-crowded areas for processing, while others have been bused as far north as Colorado to alleviate the strain on overwhelmed shelters along the border in Texas and New Mexico.

Several dozen migrants were bused to Denver overnight with the help of the New Mexico governor’s office to help crowded shelters in El Paso and neighboring Las Cruces, New Mexico, where one shelter reported running low on food.

It’s likely the bus trips will continue. In addition, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has scheduled daily flights out of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley at least through Tuesday for some migrants.

The flights aim to ensure adults don’t slip through the cracks as agents scramble to process the increasing number of families crossing the border.

 

Mother of Laura Bush dies
MIDLAND — Jenna Welch, the mother of former first lady Laura Bush, has died in Texas. She was 99.

Granddaughter and namesake Jenna Bush Hager said Monday on NBC’s “Today” show that Welch, a longtime Midland, Texas, resident, died Friday. The “Today” co-anchor said her grandmother loved nature and “taught us every star in the sky.”

Laura Bush in an Instagram post called her mother “a true daughter of West Texas who loved her family, books, and nature.” An obituary in the Midland Reporter-Telegram said the family held a funeral Saturday in Midland.

Born on July 24, 1919, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Welch was raised near El Paso, Texas. She and her husband, Harold Welch, moved to Midland in 1946 after he returned from serving in World War II. Harold Welch died in 1995.

 

No air quality concerns after barge collision

BAYPORT — Officials say air monitoring hasn’t raised health concerns as the cleanup continues following a collision at a busy commercial waterway near Houston involving four vessels that caused a toxic gasoline product to leak into the water.

Authorities said at a Sunday news conference 2,700 air samples were tested and none have exceeded levels to cause concern.

Residents around the accident site have reported a gasoline smell. Officials say the spilled product can be hazardous.

Friday’s accident near Bayport, Texas, between a tanker that punctured storage tanks on a tugboat pushing two barges along the Houston Ship Channel released 9,000 barrels of a gasoline blend stock.

Crews are working to remove the gasoline product from the barges.

The ship channel remains partially closed.

The cause of the collision is being investigated.