The Ledger is Lubbock Lights’ daily digest of the news that matters to Lubbock and the South Plains — our reporting first, then short summaries of stories reported by other newsrooms, each linked to its source. How we build it →
Daily Ledger
Daily digest straight from the source
Thursday, October 1, 2026
Today’s lead
StarCare opens the expanded Sunrise Canyon Hospital and a new Hope Center
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and State Sen. Charles Perry joined local leaders Wednesday, September 30, to cut the ribbon on the expanded Sunrise Canyon Hospital and the new Hope Center at 1905 Aspen Avenue, doubling Lubbock's inpatient psychiatric capacity.
The 70,000-square-foot complex, operated by StarCare Specialty Health System, now holds 60 inpatient beds plus an attached assessment and observation diversion center built to keep people in acute mental health or substance use crisis out of emergency rooms and jails. It also adds a treatment mall, six therapeutic courtyards and a half-court gymnasium for recreational therapy. Walk-in crisis services run around the clock at the Aspen Avenue complex, and StarCare's 24-hour crisis line is 806-740-1414.
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District Attorney Sunshine Stanek refers the county 'double salary' investigation to Midland County
Criminal District Attorney Sunshine Stanek's office has handed the investigation into Lubbock County's 'double salary' payments to prosecutors in Midland County, KCBD reported Wednesday, September 30, a day after Stanek disclosed that she had recused herself.
The county paid Mark Meurer nearly $70,000 over nine months after County Judge Curtis Parrish appointed him to the Precinct 2 commissioner's seat, having found that Jason Corley automatically resigned when he ran for Congress. A visiting judge ordered Corley restored in December 2025 and the paychecks kept going anyway. Commissioners on September 21 approved a non-binding resolution supporting an outside law enforcement investigation. Who oversees the Texas Rangers referral now rests with Midland County.
Sources KCBD
Dan Patrick campaigns in Lubbock on lowering the senior homestead exemption to 55
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, running for a fourth term, campaigned in Lubbock on Wednesday, September 30, pitching a property tax plan that would drop the senior homestead exemption age from 65 to 55.
'By lowering the senior exemption to 55, it will save the average homeowner about $10,000 to $12,000 in that 55-65 range,' Patrick said. He also said he intends to eliminate school maintenance-and-operations taxes for homeowners within two legislative sessions, and tied grid pressure to data center demand. His Democratic opponent, state Rep. Vikki Goodwin of Austin, has campaigned on data center incentives and trailed Patrick 35% to 42% in an August poll. Registration closes October 5; early voting opens October 19.
Sources KCBD
Amarillo City Council adopts its tax rate and an 11% water and sewer increase
The Amarillo City Council adopted its 2026-27 budget Tuesday and held the tax rate at $0.4307, the same as 2025, in a pair of 4-1 votes with Councilmember Les Simpson against.
The budget carries an 11% increase in water and sewer fees: 8% for capital improvements and 3% for debt service on a $60 million loan for the Hollywood Road Wastewater Treatment Facility. Assistant City Manager Donny Hooper said staff has identified $247 million in other water and sewer work, including mains first laid in the 1940s. Mayor Cole Stanley asked that rates be cut if a consultant's study, due back in October, finds the full increase is not needed.
Sources Amarillo Tribune
Advanced GraphixA Lubbock man gets 20 years for delivering the fentanyl pills that killed a woman in 2024
Donnie Ford, 40, pleaded guilty Wednesday, September 30, to manufacturing and delivery causing death, a second-degree felony, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for supplying the counterfeit pills that killed D. Vargas in 2024.
Lubbock County Assistant District Attorney Russell Mayne said the statute 'was really designed to go after our drug kingpins, the guys who are moving tons of weight.' Defense attorney Nick Olguin argued that making fentanyl delivery a near strict-liability murder case is not fair. Vargas's mother told the court the sentence cannot undo her loss, and said she hopes accountability will help her live with what happened; her daughter's child was placed with another family.
Sources KCBD
The National Weather Service confirms two Panhandle tornadoes from Tuesday night's storms
The National Weather Service office in Amarillo confirmed Wednesday, September 30, that two tornadoes touched down in the Texas Panhandle during Tuesday night's storms. Neither caused damage, injuries or deaths.
The first touched down about four miles southeast of Claude at 7:12 p.m., stayed on the ground roughly three minutes and traveled nearly a mile at a maximum width of 75 yards. The second formed about six miles north of Canyon at 9:37 p.m., lasted about six minutes, traveled 0.59 miles and reached 25 yards wide. Both were rated EFU, meaning forecasters found too little damage to estimate wind speed. Fourteen tornado warnings were issued across the area that night.
Sources KCBD
Three people walk away from an aircraft found off a roadway in Scurry County
Scurry County authorities spent Wednesday afternoon, September 30, working an aircraft found in a wooded area north of Winston Airport outside Snyder. All three people who had been aboard were found outside the plane, and no injuries were reported.
Scurry County EMS, the Scurry County Sheriff's Office, the Snyder Police Department, Snyder Fire Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Division of Emergency Management and TxDOT responded, according to the City of Snyder Office of Emergency Management. There was no fire or visible smoke. Crews monitored a fuel spill at the site, and the sheriff's office stayed overnight to secure the area.
Sources KCBD
A cold front arrives Thursday and Friday brings the coolest day since spring
A cold front reaches the South Plains on Thursday, October 1, finally breaking the warmth, KCBD meteorologist Steve Divine said Wednesday evening. North then northeast winds will gust around 30 to 35 mph behind it.
A few showers with possible thunder may develop late Thursday night into Friday morning. Friday looks like the coolest day of the next seven, with lows in the 50s and highs in the 60s and 70s, before a cool, mostly dry weekend with increasing sunshine and lighter winds. For scale: Lubbock has not recorded a temperature below 60 degrees since late May, and its last high under 70 was May 1, at 62 degrees.
Sources KCBD
The owner of One Guy From Italy speaks at the White House
Gabriel Vitela, who owns Lubbock's One Guy From Italy and Giorgio's Pizza on Broadway, spoke at a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration at the White House on Wednesday, September 30, after President Donald Trump invited him to the podium while thanking supporters.
Vitela thanked the president for the no-tax-on-tips-and-overtime provision, now a federal income tax deduction. 'A Hispanic man that owns an Italian restaurant, married to a white woman from Lubbock, Texas, getting to speak at the White House,' he said. He told the crowd he had waited tables and bartended himself, and that when the deduction comes up he sees working parents trying to buy groceries and pay light bills rather than numbers.
Sources KCBD
Texas Tech lists three players out for Saturday's Big 12 road opener at Colorado
Texas Tech released its availability report Thursday, October 1, ahead of the Red Raiders' first Big 12 road test at Colorado. Cornerback Ashton Hampton, linebacker Adam Hill and offensive lineman Elias Gillen are listed out.
Six players are questionable: safeties Mikal Harrison-Pilot and Oliver Miles III, tight end Terrance Carter Jr., cornerback Amier Boyd and offensive linemen Cash Cleveland and Howard Sampson. Four are probable, among them linebacker Austin Romaine, who took Big 12 weekly honors after returning two interceptions for touchdowns in Saturday's 49-14 win over Sam Houston. Joey McGuire's team stayed ranked as high as No. 10 in the coaches poll after that game.
Sources Texas Tech Athletics · Staking The Plains
Mullin Hoard & Brown, LLPState
A former Lufkin officer gets five years for 100 counts of misusing the Flock camera network
Zachary Anthony Klein, 33, a former Lufkin police officer, pleaded guilty Wednesday, September 30, to 100 counts of misuse of official information for searching his department's Flock license plate reader system, and was sentenced in Angelina County District Court to five years in prison.
District Attorney Amy Wren said investigators counted more than 25,000 misuses and that charging each one would have been redundant. Judge Todd Kassaw credited Klein with 42 days served. Lufkin Police Chief Travis Brazil said the case does not define the rest of his department. The sentence lands while a Lubbock petition drive is gathering signatures to ban this city's roughly 160 Flock cameras.
Sources KCBD
DPS says it stopped a planned attack on the Texas Capitol
The Texas Department of Public Safety arrested a 40-year-old man in the San Antonio area early Wednesday, September 30, over what it called a credible threat to attack the Texas Capitol in Austin the following day.
Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed the arrest Wednesday evening, writing on X that 'Texas DPS and the FBI stopped a planned attack on the Texas Capitol.' DPS said it worked with the FBI to test the threat's credibility before making the arrest. An arrest warrant affidavit says a friend told officers the man had made verbal threats to assault the Capitol building and had expressed anger toward the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Sources The Hill
Ken Paxton brings his Senate campaign to El Paso
Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, drew more than 200 people to the Summit Ballroom in El Paso on Wednesday, September 30, his first stop in the city of the general election campaign.
Paxton, 63, pitched a doubled child tax credit and deductions for health care and housing costs, and pointed to $3.4 billion in opioid settlements and a $1 billion child safety settlement with Meta. 'Every poll in this race is razor thin,' he told the crowd. He attacked Democrat James Talarico, an Austin-area state representative, over taxes and transgender athletes. Brandon Herrera, the Republican nominee in the 23rd Congressional District, appeared alongside him. Election day is November 3.
Sources El Paso Matters
U.S. & World
The Senate blocks a bill on who pays for data centers' power, 57-43
Senate Democrats blocked a Republican bill Wednesday, September 30, that would have required utility regulators to consider a federal standard charging large power customers the cost of the grid upgrades built to serve them. The 57-43 vote fell three short of the 60 needed.
Sponsor Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio told colleagues the bill was 'the only game in town' for showing voters whose side they are on before the midterms. Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the measure a fraud because the standard would have been optional rather than mandatory. The fight runs parallel to Lubbock's own data center moratorium and Texas's audit of pending projects.
Sources NBC News · PBS NewsHour
Senate negotiators reach a bipartisan permitting deal that makes data centers pay transmission costs
Four senators announced a bipartisan permitting agreement Wednesday, September 30, that would speed environmental reviews for energy and infrastructure projects and require data centers to pay all transmission costs rather than passing them to households and businesses.
Republicans Mike Lee of Utah and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia negotiated it with Democrats Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The text limits legal challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, eases siting of interstate transmission lines and strengthens federal authority over concurrent state reviews. Capito called it 'monumental.' Lee expects a vote in the November lame-duck session.
Sources The Hill · PBS NewsHour
Tennessee cannot put Christa Gail Pike to death, and the governor orders a review
Tennessee failed to execute Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday, September 30, after giving her two doses of pentobarbital. Pike, 50, was alive and snoring afterward and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, her attorneys said in court filings.
A federal appeals court had stopped the lethal injection an hour before its 10 a.m. start; the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that stay hours later. Gov. Bill Lee ordered a third-party review of what happened and halted the state's one remaining execution this year. The Department of Correction said it followed the approved protocol. Pike was convicted of the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.
Sources KCBD · PBS NewsHour
D. Williams & Co., Inc.Hegseth orders the military to cut 20% of its generals and admirals
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Wednesday, September 30, that the military will cut 20% of its flag and general officer positions by January 1, doubling the 10% reduction he ordered in the spring.
He also announced a new four-star command for autonomous and robotic capabilities. 'I call it accountability and long overdue,' Hegseth said. Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, said the secretary is purging a generation of leaders over a personal grievance. Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said trimming a heavy top may have some validity but that he wants to see the plan first.
Sources The Hill · PBS NewsHour
Trump announces $54 billion in South Korean investment for an Alaska gas pipeline
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday, September 30, that South Korea plans to invest roughly $54 billion to export natural gas from Alaska, in an Oval Office event alongside Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who faces a competitive reelection race against former Rep. Mary Peltola.
The project is an 807-mile pipeline carrying gas from Alaska's North Slope to a liquefied natural gas export terminal in the south of the state. Officials said construction would take three years and exports would begin two years after that, contingent on financing. The money comes from a 2025 trade deal under which South Korea pledged $350 billion in U.S. investment for lower tariffs. Sullivan called it 'huge for Alaska.'
Sources Anchorage Daily News · PBS NewsHour
The Justice Department charges 10 permanent residents with voting illegally in Minnesota
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Wednesday, September 30, that 10 lawful permanent residents have been indicted for voting or attempting to vote in Minnesota elections after allegedly claiming U.S. citizenship to register.
The charges cover the 2022 and 2024 general elections and Minnesota's August 2026 primary. 'Voter fraud erodes the public's trust in our electoral system,' Blanche said, adding that the most basic way the department can restore that trust is to make sure only eligible American citizens vote. The department says it has charged more than 90 people with voter fraud offenses since the administration took office, including 50 noncitizens in the past five weeks.
Sources Fox News
Russia threatens a nuclear response if NATO moves on Kaliningrad
Moscow warned NATO in a diplomatic document that it is prepared to use 'the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons' if the alliance tries to isolate Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia, Reuters reported Wednesday, September 30.
Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and hosts elements of Russia's Baltic Fleet. The document also raised the possibility of striking decision-making centers in NATO states at the outset of a conflict. NATO rejected the allegations, said none of its exercises threaten Russian territory, and urged Moscow to stop what it called irresponsible nuclear rhetoric.
Sources Fox News
