Texas
Judge won’t block Trump administration from giving SpaceX acres of wildlife refuge
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Monday refused to block the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres (280 hectares) of wildlife refuge as part of a land swap in Texas, while environmental groups vowed to continue their legal challenge.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. declined the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the parcel exchange, saying they failed to prove it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf Coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket operations.
In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres (276 hectares) the company owns in exchange for the federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The 103,000-acre (41,700-hectare) refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks.
Maps show the land SpaceX would acquire would be closer to the company’s launchpad near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The swap amounts to a gift of public lands to SpaceX, “clearing the way for bulldozers to tear into this wildlife refuge as soon as next week and turn a public treasure into a private payday,” said Laiken Jordahl, a spokesperson with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the lawsuit alongside other opponents including tribal groups. Jordahl said Monday that the litigation will continue even as the exchange goes forward.
“This court order is not the final word. These lands hold incredible spiritual, historical and conservation value for the people and wildlife of South Texas. We won’t stop fighting to keep this irreplaceable public wildlife refuge safe from SpaceX bulldozers,” Jordahl said in a statement.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to halt the exchange, which has worried SpaceX opponents in the area who have long criticized the company’s expanding footprint over lost access to beaches and concerns over exploding rockets.
The Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday’s decision. Previously, a spokesperson had said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.
The agency issued a final environmental assessment report in June that determined the exchange would cause no significant impact to the area. The report said the federal government believed the acquisition would represent a “net conservation benefit” and provide “substantial long-term conservation value and improving landscape-scale habitat connectivity across refuges in South Texas.”
The judge said that the plaintiffs offered “relatively weak” evidence of environmental harm.
“While they rightfully argue that the preservation of wildlife and historical lands furthers the public interest, they present no evidence demonstrating that the Property will suffer aesthetic, environmental, cultural, or historical degradation during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Rodriguez wrote in his ruling.
In addition, the judge said a preliminary injunction would result in modifications to SpaceX’s development plans, “placing additional hardship on the company’s ability to meet milestones and contractual obligations.”
The space exploration company first broke ground in Texas more than a decade ago and has expanded rapidly, so much that SpaceX employees last year voted to incorporate their own local government called Starbase.
North Carolina
Lawyer says prosecutors haven’t offered details of teen’s alleged ties to San Diego mosque shooters
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — The attorney for a North Carolina girl accused of helping two teens who carried out a deadly attack on a San Diego mosque says prosecutors haven’t provided enough information to allow him to defend his client.
Sarah Santiago, 17, is charged as an adult with three counts of murder by aiding and abetting and one count of conspiracy. Prosecutors say she helped California teens Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez, who shot and killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18 before killing themselves.
Prosecutors in North Carolina allege Santiago agreed in advance to record and distribute a livestream of the attack made by the shooters and to disseminate their white-supremacist writings. She is also accused of buying a patch bearing a white-supremacist symbol and sending it to one of the gunmen to wear during the attack.
But prosecutors have yet to provide information about how or on what dates Santiago allegedly communicated with the shooters, or give details about the alleged agreement to record and disseminate the livestream, her attorney, Alan Doorasamy, said during a court hearing Monday.
Doorasamy filed a formal request for the information — known as a “bill of particulars” — on Friday, and the judge scheduled a hearing Wednesday on the motion. The motion does not seek to force the prosecutor’s office to turn over actual evidence, but rather to provide more information clarifying the allegations against Santiago.
Prosecutors have not yet responded to Doorasamy’s request.
“She needs to know why she was arrested,” Doorasamy told The Associated Press in comments outside the courthouse Monday. “She’s a child. Of course she’s very scared and she’s worried, but she’s done nothing wrong.”
Santiago was arrested late last month and is being held without bail. Under North Carolina law, the aiding-and-abetting charges — in the event of a conviction — carry the same penalties as if the defendant had committed the attack.
Clark, 17, and Vazquez, 18, stormed the Islamic Center on May 18 before being driven back outside by a security guard who exchanged gunfire with them as he initiated a lockdown, helping to protect 140 children just steps away.
The pair killed the guard, Amin Abdullah, and two other men before taking their own lives in a nearby vehicle. They left behind rambling writings full of vitriol against a wide range of people, and cited the shooter who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, as one of the models for their violence.
Clark and Vazquez also planned subsequent attacks on two other targets: a Jewish temple and Black students at a high school, authorities said. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill credited the guard and other victims at the mosque with saving countless lives.
In a written statement, the Vazquez family said Caleb Vazquez was on the autism spectrum and had grown to resent parts of his identity. The family said it believed those factors, combined with exposure to hateful rhetoric online, contributed to his radicalization.
Judge won’t block Trump administration from giving SpaceX acres of wildlife refuge
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Monday refused to block the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres (280 hectares) of wildlife refuge as part of a land swap in Texas, while environmental groups vowed to continue their legal challenge.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. declined the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the parcel exchange, saying they failed to prove it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf Coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket operations.
In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres (276 hectares) the company owns in exchange for the federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The 103,000-acre (41,700-hectare) refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks.
Maps show the land SpaceX would acquire would be closer to the company’s launchpad near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The swap amounts to a gift of public lands to SpaceX, “clearing the way for bulldozers to tear into this wildlife refuge as soon as next week and turn a public treasure into a private payday,” said Laiken Jordahl, a spokesperson with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the lawsuit alongside other opponents including tribal groups. Jordahl said Monday that the litigation will continue even as the exchange goes forward.
“This court order is not the final word. These lands hold incredible spiritual, historical and conservation value for the people and wildlife of South Texas. We won’t stop fighting to keep this irreplaceable public wildlife refuge safe from SpaceX bulldozers,” Jordahl said in a statement.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to halt the exchange, which has worried SpaceX opponents in the area who have long criticized the company’s expanding footprint over lost access to beaches and concerns over exploding rockets.
The Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday’s decision. Previously, a spokesperson had said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.
The agency issued a final environmental assessment report in June that determined the exchange would cause no significant impact to the area. The report said the federal government believed the acquisition would represent a “net conservation benefit” and provide “substantial long-term conservation value and improving landscape-scale habitat connectivity across refuges in South Texas.”
The judge said that the plaintiffs offered “relatively weak” evidence of environmental harm.
“While they rightfully argue that the preservation of wildlife and historical lands furthers the public interest, they present no evidence demonstrating that the Property will suffer aesthetic, environmental, cultural, or historical degradation during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Rodriguez wrote in his ruling.
In addition, the judge said a preliminary injunction would result in modifications to SpaceX’s development plans, “placing additional hardship on the company’s ability to meet milestones and contractual obligations.”
The space exploration company first broke ground in Texas more than a decade ago and has expanded rapidly, so much that SpaceX employees last year voted to incorporate their own local government called Starbase.
North Carolina
Lawyer says prosecutors haven’t offered details of teen’s alleged ties to San Diego mosque shooters
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — The attorney for a North Carolina girl accused of helping two teens who carried out a deadly attack on a San Diego mosque says prosecutors haven’t provided enough information to allow him to defend his client.
Sarah Santiago, 17, is charged as an adult with three counts of murder by aiding and abetting and one count of conspiracy. Prosecutors say she helped California teens Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez, who shot and killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18 before killing themselves.
Prosecutors in North Carolina allege Santiago agreed in advance to record and distribute a livestream of the attack made by the shooters and to disseminate their white-supremacist writings. She is also accused of buying a patch bearing a white-supremacist symbol and sending it to one of the gunmen to wear during the attack.
But prosecutors have yet to provide information about how or on what dates Santiago allegedly communicated with the shooters, or give details about the alleged agreement to record and disseminate the livestream, her attorney, Alan Doorasamy, said during a court hearing Monday.
Doorasamy filed a formal request for the information — known as a “bill of particulars” — on Friday, and the judge scheduled a hearing Wednesday on the motion. The motion does not seek to force the prosecutor’s office to turn over actual evidence, but rather to provide more information clarifying the allegations against Santiago.
Prosecutors have not yet responded to Doorasamy’s request.
“She needs to know why she was arrested,” Doorasamy told The Associated Press in comments outside the courthouse Monday. “She’s a child. Of course she’s very scared and she’s worried, but she’s done nothing wrong.”
Santiago was arrested late last month and is being held without bail. Under North Carolina law, the aiding-and-abetting charges — in the event of a conviction — carry the same penalties as if the defendant had committed the attack.
Clark, 17, and Vazquez, 18, stormed the Islamic Center on May 18 before being driven back outside by a security guard who exchanged gunfire with them as he initiated a lockdown, helping to protect 140 children just steps away.
The pair killed the guard, Amin Abdullah, and two other men before taking their own lives in a nearby vehicle. They left behind rambling writings full of vitriol against a wide range of people, and cited the shooter who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, as one of the models for their violence.
Clark and Vazquez also planned subsequent attacks on two other targets: a Jewish temple and Black students at a high school, authorities said. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill credited the guard and other victims at the mosque with saving countless lives.
In a written statement, the Vazquez family said Caleb Vazquez was on the autism spectrum and had grown to resent parts of his identity. The family said it believed those factors, combined with exposure to hateful rhetoric online, contributed to his radicalization.
