HOUSTON — Texas-based searchers are headed to Arkansas to help look for a missing 4-year-old Houston girl after a community activist said the man arrested in connection with her disappearance confessed he disposed of her body there.

Tim Miller, director of Texas EquuSearch, says his group will fly to Arkansas on Friday to search for Maleah Davis’ body.

Sheriff James Singleton in Arkansas’ Hempstead County said his agency and others had begun searching Friday afternoon outside of Hope, Arkansas.

Quanell X, a local civil rights activist, says he spoke on Friday in jail with Derion Vence, the ex-fiance of Maleah’s mother, who had claimed Maleah was abducted May 4.

Quanell X says Vence confessed he dumped Maleah’s body in Arkansas. Quanell X declined to comment on what happened to Maleah.

 

‘Dangerous’ overcrowding
at El Paso border facility

EL PASO — An inspection at an El Paso Border Patrol station where detained migrants are held found this month that there were 900 people crammed into the 125-person facility at one point.

The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security found “dangerous overcrowding.” A majority of detainees were held past the maximum allowed 72-hour period.

Inspectors found migrants held in standing-room only spaces for days and some standing on toilets.

An unprecedented number of families with children have arrived at the border this year.

The government built a temporary tent in El Paso and plans to open a bigger facility within 18 months.

The report released Friday and first reported by CNN comes two days after El Paso agents arrested a group of 1,036 immigrants — the largest encountered.

 

Atmos Energy settles
suit after girl’s death

DALLAS — Atmos Energy has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of a 12-year-old girl who was killed in a 2018 natural gas explosion at her home in northwest Dallas.

The terms of the settlement have not been revealed, but the attorney for the family of Linda “Michellita” Rogers says the girl’s parents are pleased.

A gas buildup led to an explosion that killed Michellita in February 2018. There had been three such blasts in the area in three days. The lawsuit accused Atmos of negligence for not warning the neighborhood.

Internal Atmos emails revealed its employees were probing and fixing gas leaks behind the Rogers family home before the explosion.

The Texas Legislative has since passed two natural gas safety bills that are awaiting the governor’s signature.

 

San Antonio approves $10M
in incentives for Toyota

SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio City Council has approved about $10 million in incentives in hopes of luring Toyota to bring a $392 million upgrade to a truck plant there.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that the City Council approved the incentives on Thursday. Mayor Ron Nirenberg and his council colleagues approved the package after praising Toyota for the impact it has already had in the area.

The Japanese automaker is considering all of its North American plants for the investment in production-line technology, and San Antonio officials hope it selects the plant there.

The company is expected to make the decision sometime in June.

 

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