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 8, 2026
Today’s lead
Commissioners approved county financials that included Mark Meurer's disputed salary, Lubbock Lights' records review found
While Mark Meurer kept drawing a commissioner's salary after Jason Corley returned to the Precinct 2 seat, Lubbock County commissioners approved claims, budget amendments and monthly financial reports that county sources said included his pay, Lubbock Lights reported Wednesday. On March 23 alone the court approved more than $4.8 million in claims and the February financial report.
The reports lump commissioner pay into one account, so Meurer's salary never appears by name. Commissioner Mike Dalby said in September that "every one of us missed it." Meurer says County Judge Curtis Parrish repeatedly told him to keep the salary; Parrish says payroll belongs to the full court. Lubbock Lights has requested more records.
Sources Lubbock Lights
More Local
TxDOT says several beams on the Loop 289 frontage bridge over I-27 must be replaced, with no timeline for reopening
The northbound I-27 frontage road at South Loop 289 stayed closed Wednesday after a truck hauling an excavator struck the bridge Tuesday evening, and TxDOT said several bridge beams were damaged and will need to be repaired or replaced. Traffic is being detoured to US 84.
TxDOT said the frontage road will stay closed until debris is cleared and the beams are secured so nothing falls on traffic below, and it has no timeline for the repairs. DPS ticketed the driver for an over-height load, and TxDOT said it seeks damages when state property is damaged. Drivers can check drivetexas.org for status.
Sources KCBD · EverythingLubbock
Lubbock ISD employees' Social Security numbers were exposed in a breach at vendor Frontline Education
Lubbock ISD said Wednesday that Frontline Education, a software vendor, notified the district Tuesday of an Aug. 14 security incident that exposed district employees' Social Security numbers, email addresses and home addresses. Frontline says no student information was exposed, and the district says it will tell families if that changes.
Frontline will begin notifying affected employees Oct. 26 and is offering two years of credit monitoring through TransUnion. It has set up a hotline at 833-516-8792, weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, and has notified the Texas attorney general and law enforcement. The district pointed employees to identitytheft.gov/databreach.
Sources KCBD · EverythingLubbock
Avenues U and P became an all-way stop Wednesday as Loop 88 construction moves into its third phase
Drivers south of Lubbock now face an all-way stop at Avenue U and Avenue P, which took effect Wednesday, Oct. 7, as TxDOT works on phase three of Loop 88, KFYO reported. The stretch from Avenue P to Avenue U is being restriped back to two-way traffic.
The work is meant to connect Avenue U to FM 1585 through a Loop 88 frontage road, and the stop lets crews work without high-speed traffic beside them. Loop 88 is a 12.4-mile outer loop west of US 84 being built in three phases, and drivers should expect slow equipment and delays.
Sources KFYO
D. Williams & Co., Inc.UMC and Texas Tech's health sciences center traded public statements over who may staff OB-GYN care at UMC
UMC CEO Mark Funderburk said in a public notice this week that Texas Tech's School of Medicine will no longer grant the clinical faculty appointments UMC needs to replace two OB-GYN doctors, Dr. Amy Richard and Dr. Amber Coon, who recently resigned. Every doctor at UMC must hold such an appointment.
The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center answered that UMC broke state law and a coordinating agreement by hiring the two doctors in 2021, and that UMC has abandoned its deed promise to be a teaching hospital. Texas Tech says it is recruiting doctors, including talking with Richard and Coon about new jobs.
Sources KCBD
Two people were killed in Tuesday's pipeline explosion in Lea County, the sheriff's office said
The Lea County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday that two people died in the pipeline explosion and fire Tuesday afternoon in the oilfield near U.S. Highway 176 and Bootleg Road, near Eunice. Deputies were called to the industrial accident around 1 p.m. and found both victims dead at the scene.
The sheriff's office called it an isolated incident that remains under active investigation, and said it will not release the names of the people who were killed. Earlier reports had said no evacuations were ordered around the fire.
Sources KCBD
One person was moderately hurt in a stabbing near Clapp Park Wednesday afternoon
Lubbock police were called just after 1:30 p.m. Wednesday to a stabbing near 47th Street and Avenue W, close to Clapp Park in central Lubbock. One person suffered moderate injuries, police said.
Police said a suspect had not been identified Wednesday afternoon, and no arrest had been announced. Both KCBD and EverythingLubbock described the case as developing, and investigators had released no details about what led to the stabbing.
Sources KCBD · EverythingLubbock
A 38-year-old man with Down syndrome who went missing west of Lubbock Wednesday evening was found safe
The Lubbock County Sheriff's Office searched Wednesday night for Brantly Slocum, 38, who has Down syndrome and was last seen at his home near North County Road 1500 and County Road 6400 around 6 p.m. Wednesday, walking west without the glasses he needs to see.
KCBD later updated its report to say Slocum had been found safe. The sheriff's office had asked anyone who saw him to call 806-775-1600 but had not requested volunteers for the search.
Sources KCBD · EverythingLubbock
Lubbock Army veteran Roy Stout looks back on Afghanistan on the war's 25th anniversary
Wednesday marked 25 years since the U.S. began strikes in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and Lubbock's Roy Stout told KCBD how the 9/11 attacks he watched in junior high led him to JROTC and then the Army in 2008. A year later, at 19, he deployed to Afghanistan.
Stout described waking to immediate firefights in harsh mountain terrain he compared to the "Wild West," and said combat quickly taught him it was nothing like a video game. He said enlisting during the War on Terror meant he always knew deployment was coming.
June Burr, who is legally blind, bowls every Wednesday with a cross-generational Lubbock league
June Burr, who is legally blind and has bowled since college, rolls every Wednesday with the Work Dodgers league at Whitewood Lanes near 50th Street and Memphis Avenue, KCBD reported this week. She moved to Lubbock from Washington five years ago.
League president Dianne Black said in about 50 years of bowling she has never seen anyone so determined. Burr said she values a league where a recent high school graduate bowls beside older members, and credits staying active, eating well and sleeping enough.
Sources KCBD
Action PrintingState
Texas executed Jamaal Howard Wednesday, the first U.S. execution since Tennessee's failed attempt on Christa Pike
Texas executed Jamaal Howard, 46, by lethal injection Wednesday evening, and he was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt it, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone public dissent. Howard was condemned for the 2000 killing of convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout in Silsbee.
His lawyers had argued that pentobarbital, the drug Tennessee used when Christa Pike survived her Sept. 30 execution, posed similar risks. In his final statement Howard apologized to Swartout's family and asked for forgiveness. It was the first execution in the country since Pike's.
Sources Fox News · Texas Tribune
Ken Paxton told lobbyists "we have to suck it up" on cutting mandatory federal spending, leaked audio shows
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton told a private Sept. 24 fundraiser with Washington lobbyists that Congress will have to make "reasonable cuts" to mandatory spending, according to audio the Texas Tribune obtained and published Thursday. It is the fourth leaked clip from the event.
About three-quarters of mandatory federal spending goes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Paxton did not say which programs he would cut, and his campaign did not answer questions. The recording was made by an attendee who opposes Paxton in his race against Democrat James Talarico, and two other attendees confirmed the conversation.
Sources Texas Tribune
Trump rallied for Paxton in San Antonio Wednesday as Paxton led a "Where is Talarico?" chant
President Donald Trump campaigned for Ken Paxton at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio on Wednesday, and Paxton led the crowd in chanting "Where is Talarico?" over Democrat James Talarico's 11 days off the campaign trail, Fox News reported.
Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said the Democrat came down with the flu after more than 100 public events and will be back on the trail this weekend, and accused Paxton of answering to billionaire donors. Trump also criticized Talarico on immigration, public safety and education while praising Paxton's record as attorney general.
Sources Fox News
The FDA's court-ordered update on its mifepristone review came due Wednesday, with Texas' lawsuit waiting on it
Wednesday, Oct. 7, was the deadline a Louisiana federal court set for the FDA to report on its promised review of the abortion drug mifepristone, The Texan reported. A separate suit by Texas and Florida to reverse the drug's approval hinges on that review.
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas paused the Texas-Florida case until the FDA finishes the review or until Dec. 1, whichever comes first. Mifepristone is banned in Texas but remains FDA-approved without an in-person dispensing requirement. The FDA did not answer The Texan's request for comment.
Sources The Texan
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin is pressing Texas to release its delayed maternal mortality report before the Dec. 1 deadline
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, told KCBD on Wednesday that the Department of State Health Services should release the state's next maternal mortality report, covering pregnancy-related deaths from 2021 to 2024, before its Dec. 1 deadline. It would be the first look at those numbers since Roe v. Wade fell.
Goodwin said the report is finished and is being held because it could affect the midterms. DSHS said last month the delay reflects a more thorough review. The 2024 report found 85 pregnancy-related deaths in 2020, and 80% were considered preventable.
Sources KCBD
The General Land Office partnered with Texas A&M and Texas Farm Bureau to open state land to young farmers and ranchers
Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced Wednesday, Oct. 7, a partnership with Texas A&M AgriLife and the Texas Farm Bureau to create a working group that will train the next generation of farmers and ranchers and explore giving them access to state land, The Texan reported.
Buckingham said the number of farms is declining and the farm workforce is aging, and that the effort also generates revenue for the Permanent School Fund. Farm Bureau President Russell Boening praised the plan. The GLO said it hopes to bring in the Texas Department of Agriculture later.
Sources The Texan
Duffy Law Firm, PCDemocrat Nathan Johnson is pitching a back-to-basics attorney general's office against Republican Mayes Middleton
State Sen. Nathan Johnson of Dallas, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, is courting independents and moderate Republicans with a promise to move the office away from Ken Paxton's culture-war lawsuits, the Texas Tribune reported in a profile published Thursday, Oct. 8.
Johnson, who flipped a long-held GOP Senate seat in 2018, faces fellow state Sen. Mayes Middleton, who has a large oil and gas fortune. No Democrat has won the office since the mid-1990s, though some polls show Johnson within reach. Johnson campaigned in Lubbock in July. Early voting begins Oct. 19.
Sources Texas Tribune
U.S. & World
Isaias became the season's first Atlantic hurricane overnight and is forecast to strike the northern Gulf Coast late Friday
Isaias strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane late Wednesday, with 80 mph winds early Thursday, after its winds jumped 40 mph in six hours, Fox Weather and the Associated Press reported. Landfall is expected late Friday or early Saturday between the Mississippi coast and the Florida Panhandle, possibly as a Category 2.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared states of emergency. Okaloosa County, Florida, and the west end of Alabama's Dauphin Island ordered evacuations, several Florida school districts canceled classes, and some Gulf oil wells paused production.
Sources Fox Weather · KCBD
The FBI says it stopped an ISIS-inspired plot to attack the Mall of America after selling the suspect a rifle
FBI agents arrested an 18-year-old Minnesota man Tuesday in a Richfield park after an undercover employee posing as an ISIS member sold him an AK-47-style rifle and 200 rounds for $600, federal authorities said Wednesday. The FBI had monitored him since December 2024.
According to an affidavit, he told an informant he planned a mass shooting at the Mall of America on Oct. 24, during a Hmong arts celebration. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said he talked of killing "maybe 30 to 60 people." He made his first court appearance Wednesday in St. Paul.
Sources Fox News · PBS NewsHour
Homeland Security proposed a $70,000 fee for international students who want to work in the U.S. after graduation
The Department of Homeland Security proposed a rule Wednesday that would charge F-1 visa holders $70,000 for an initial Optional Practical Training work authorization and $30,000 for each extension. OPT, which lets foreign students work in their field during and after school, now costs about $500.
A DHS spokesperson said OPT was never meant to be "a back door into the American workforce" and should make foreign students justify their worth to employers. The proposal is the administration's latest move against foreign enrollment and would affect international students at universities including Texas Tech.
Sources Fox News · PBS NewsHour
The Democratic National Committee sued over $20 million in taxpayer-funded ads it calls illegal Trump propaganda
The Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration Wednesday in federal court in Washington, alleging $20 million in federal money was illegally diverted to TV ads that promote President Donald Trump's political message as early voting begins for the midterms.
The suit says Trump personally directed the campaign, violating the federal ban on spending appropriations for publicity or propaganda, and asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the funding. The ads have drawn bipartisan criticism; Trump has defended them as "really good."
Sources Fox News · PBS NewsHour
The Coast Guard enlisted its largest class in nearly 40 years in fiscal 2026, beating its goal a third straight year
The U.S. Coast Guard enlisted 5,445 active-duty members in fiscal year 2026, its largest enlisted class in nearly four decades, up from 5,204 in 2025 and 4,422 in 2024, Fox News reported Wednesday. It also commissioned 346 active-duty officers, the second-highest total in its history.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the numbers show "the call to serve still resonates" and promised the new recruits the tools and training to do the job. It is the third straight year the service has exceeded its recruiting goals.
Sources Fox News
Advanced GraphixThe Tampa Bay Rays swept the Yankees out of the playoffs with a 4-3 win in Game 3 Wednesday
The Tampa Bay Rays beat the New York Yankees 4-3 at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night to sweep their American League Division Series and end New York's season. Victor Mesa Jr. hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning.
A disputed spectator-interference call took away a potential home run from the Yankees' Anthony Volpe. The Rays, the American League's best team this season, advance to the AL Championship Series, and the Los Angeles Dodgers reached the NLCS for a third straight year.
Sources Fox News
