LAREDO, TX (KGNS) - It’s a sight in the sky that is grabbing the attention of many in the Laredo community.

If you have looked up at the sky on Friday afternoon, you may have noticed a ring around the sun.

It is called a halo which is an optical phenomenon produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere.

Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky.

This unique view can appear near the sun or moon.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - A man is facing charges for allegedly firing gunshots and sending police on a brief chase early Friday morning.

The Laredo Police Department arrested Pedro Antonio Almanza and charged him with discharging a firearm, DWI and unlawful carrying of a weapon.

The incident was reported on Friday June 30, 2023, at approximately 12:49 a.m. when officers observed shots being fired from a grey Nissan Altima on Jacaman Street.

When officers attempted to pull the vehicle over, the driver sped off and sent officers on a high-speed chase.

The chase ended at a vacant parking lot on McPherson.

When searching the vehicle, officers found a handgun in the center console along with spent casings.

McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Environmentalists are praising the Biden administration’s announcement that it is rescinding some environmental waivers that had been issued during the Trump administration to quick-start border wall construction.

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced in the Federal Register that back in effect are 27 federal environmental regulatory laws that had been lifted during the Trump administration to build border barriers in the Texas counties of Webb and Zapata.

If the current or future administrations plan border barrier for these counties, they would have to follow environmental regulations and assessments for air, water and land, prior to construction, which could take about two years.

Cortez is part of the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition, which has successfully fought federal border wall construction since 2019. This past year, the group has been fighting the state over its plans to build border walls.

So far, there have not been any border barriers built in Webb and Zapata counties, despite contracts that had been issued to build 71 miles of border wall.

“These sort of waivers of federal laws: Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; Endangered Species, etc. They don’t do that anywhere else in the United States, except here on the border,” Cortez told Border Report on Friday.

The total environmental waivers that have been rescinded include:

• National Environmental Policy Act

• Endangered Species Act

• Federal Water Pollution Control Act

• National Historic Preservation Act

• Migratory Bird Treaty Act

• Migratory Bird Conservation Act

• Clean Air Act

• Archeological Resources Protection Act

• Archeological Resources Protection Act

• Federal Cave Resources Protection Act of 1988

• Safe Drinking Water Act

• Noise Control Act

• Solid Waste Disposal Act

• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act

• Antiquities Act

• Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act

• Farmland Protection Policy Act

• National Fish and Wildlife Act

• Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act

• National Trails System Act

• Administrative Procedure Act

• Rivers and Harbors Act

• Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

• Eagle Protection Act

• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

• American Indian Religious Freedom Act

“This is a historic win for people and wildlife in these South Texas counties,” said Laiken Jordahl, a Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “People have been forced to live as second-class citizens without the protection of our nation’s most important environmental and public health laws. It’s wonderful that the Biden administration is using its power to right the wrongs of these disastrous border wall waivers. Now it should rescind dozens of waivers and get to work repairing the damage border walls have inflicted on wildlife, communities and Tribal nations across the borderlands.”

Laredo City Councilwoman Melissa Cigarroa was a plaintiff in a lawsuit that fought the border wall from being built on her border ranchlands in rural Zapata County.

The lawsuit, which challenged the use of eminent domain and issuance of environmental waivers, led to Friday’s announcement.

It was filed in 2020 in federal district court with another private landowner and Zapata County, which did not want a border wall going through its scenic birding sanctuary in San Ygnacio, Texas.

In March, a federal judge ruled that at the time the waivers were issued for Webb and Zapata counties, then-Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf had not been properly appointed to head the agency.

“Our country’s federal system of divided powers can only function when the rights of the local government are respected,” Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell said in a statement.

“We hope our fight inspires others to challenge the loss of protection of our resources, and that this puts pressure on the government to rescind the waivers all along the U.S.-Mexico border,” Christopher Rincon, the other plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement.

Rincon said he also hopes it will eventually lead to the elimination of the clause in the 2005 Real ID Act that allows for waivers of environmental regulatory laws.

“Border security should not give permission for the infringement of human rights,” he said.

“The fact that we are finally being recognized as citizens — our rights are being restored — is everything,” Cigarroa said. “It shouldn’t have taken so long.”

Abbott, who showed off the first state-built segment of border wall in December of 2021 in Starr County, said it was an “unprecedented action taken by the state of Texas” necessary “to secure our state” from human traffickers and drug smugglers crossing the Rio Grande.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - After a full day of expert testimony, the trial for former Border Patrol Supervisor Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles is set to begin its fifth day.

Yesterday saw the defense and state spar over qualifications and data gathered by the state.

In the end, Judge Joe Lopez ruled FBI Special Agent Andrew Masters’ testimony to be heard by the jury.

LAREDO, Tx. (KGNS) - Former Border Patrol Agent Ronald Anthony Burgos Aviles is currently on trial for the alleged murder of Grizelda Hernandez and her one-year-old son, Dominic.

Day four of the trial started with roughly four hours of interviewing two expert witnesses without jurors present.

On Thursday, two witnesses took the stand and were questioned if the cellphone data gathered the day of the murders would be shown to the jury.

FBI agent Andrew Masters was called to go over the data he gathered from cellphone towers on April 9 2018.

The state wants to prove that Burgos had taken Grizelda and Dominic’s phones after the murders by using the data masters had gathered from the towers.

The defense did not only dispute Agent Masters’ data, but they did question his background.

Masters said he did not have a bachelor of engineering, but had been trained extensively by the FBI.

The defense questioned the validity of technology used to gather the data.

The cross examination took nearly an hour.

The defense called Manfred Schenk from Cherry Biometrics, who is an expert in radio frequency and cellular technology.

Schenk claimed it would not be accurate to get an estimate of the cellphone signals based on the information Agent Masters gathered.

In the end, Judge Joe Lopez ruled to allow the state expert witness, which is to allow the jurors to hear Agent Masters’ findings.

At around 2 p.m. the jurors were finally called in.

The state alleged Burgos had Grizelda and Dominic’s cellphone after the murders happened.

The defense disputed the data.

The jurors were not in the courtroom on Thursday morning because the defense argued the methodology used to determine Burgos was in possession of the cell phones could not be determined.

The defense discredited the accuracy of the information; however, Judge Lopez allowed the testimony to be heard.

“I appreciate your argument. I don’t need a rebuttal from the state or a reply. Your motion to exclude Mr. Masters’ testimony as an expert in this particular narrow area will be denied. Your motion to exclude a portion of the testimony is also denied,” said Judge Lopez.

Jurors were shown the findings of FBI Agent Masters which included Burgos Google service location.

Jurors were shown a map of Burgos route his cellphone picked up on the day of the murders.

Agent Masters said the cellphone data collected also matches police dashcam footage and surveillance video of nearby businesses which backed up his claims.

The just said after Friday, the trial will break and resume on Wednesday July 5.

JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – Organizers are calling on riders from all over North America to join a 370-mile march on horseback marking the centennial of Pancho Villa’s death.

The march begins Sunday at the Millenium Gate south of Juarez and concludes July 19 in Parral, the southern Chihuahua town where nearly 100 years ago a squad of assassins ended the Mexican revolutionary general’s life.

Villa was among a cadre of rebel leaders who fought against Mexican dictator Gen. Porfirio Diaz, then against a general who staged a coup d’etat (Victoriano Huerta), and amongst themselves. Villa is best remembered in the United States for his March 9, 1916, raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

The raid left 18 Americans dead and prompted President Woodrow Wilson to send 6,600 troops into Mexico to hunt for Villa, according to the National Archives. The troops led by Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing returned home almost a year later, empty-handed.

The Village of Columbus holds a binational festival every year to mark the event.

“It will be 100 years since the assassination of the most famous Mexican revolutionary in the world,” said Edibray Gomez Gallegos, secretary of tourism for the state of Chihuahua. “(He) was born in Durango, but the hero, the leader, the legend of Gen. Francisco Villa began in Parral and died in Parral.”

The state government is promoting the cavalcade in hopes of drawing tourism to Chihuahua and establishing a record for the most riders covering the longest distance. They want to have more than 10,000 riders participate in at least one of the legs of the 17-day event.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most runners in a horse race was 4,249 on Aug. 10, 2013, in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. The Mongols also own the record for the largest horse parade with 11,125 participants on Aug. 9, 2013, but the parade only covered 2.49 miles.

Edibray said Parral regularly hosts regional cavalcades to remember Villa. This year, however, the town plans a nine-day celebration, starting with a Mass, a concert and a play on July 14, the arrival of the cavalcade on July 19, and the re-enactment of the assassination on July 20.

“The Tourism Department is assisting with the logistics of the event,” Edibray said. “We are committed to tourism and events like this that generate an economic benefit for our communities.”

The legend of Pancho Villa did not end in a hail of gunfire as he rode in a motor vehicle through the streets of Parral. Three years later, grave robbers stole his skull. And in 1988, The Washington Post raised the possibility that a secretive society at Yale University called Skull and Bones, to which former President George H.W. Bush belonged, possessed Villa’s skull.

The Post’s article says a lawyer for Skull and Bones allegedly told the leader of a historian’s club looking for Villa’s head that, “We don’t have it, but if you can prove we have it, we’ll give it to you.”