Southwest
Cause of Houston pipeline explosion and fire identified as authorities rule out terroristic activity
A massive pipeline explosion that shot a pillar of flame toward the sky after a vehicle drove through a fence and struck an above-ground valve on Monday was not terror-related, authorities said.
Police and local FBI agents investigated and found no preliminary reports that would suggest a coordinated or “terrorist” attack on the liquefied natural gas pipeline, saying “this appears to be an isolated incident,” according to officials in Deer Park.
Sherry and Chad Richard told KTRK-TV that the SUV caught their attention “because the car was moving so slow” before it “just veered off.”
The vehicle went through a fence before striking the valve, leading to a “boom” and “fire everywhere,” Sherry Richard told the station.
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A pipeline carrying natural gas liquids burns near La Porte, Texas, on Monday. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi)
Chad Richard told KTRK that he initially thought the driver suffered a medical emergency because the SUV “drifted” and “really wasn’t going that fast” until getting past the fence.
“My thought was she had a heart attack or whatever and drifted over there because it really wasn’t going that fast,” Chad Richard told KTRK. “But once it got over the fence, it just picked up.”
Police block off a highway as a large fire from a pipeline explosion burns near La Porte, Texas, on Monday. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi)
The explosion incinerated the vehicle and the flames scorched a wide radius, severing adjacent power transmission lines and igniting homes at a distance. Nearly 1,000 homes were evacuated and residents sheltered in schools.
Police did not immediately provide any information about the driver’s identity or condition.
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The tower of flame lit up the sky for more than 12 hours. Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. said the ladder trucks showered houses within its radius from above due to the intense heat.
“A lot of the house structures that are adjacent to that are still catching on fire even though we’re putting a lot of water on them,” Mouton said at an afternoon news conference.
A massive pipeline fire burned near La Porte, Texas, on Monday. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi)
On Tuesday morning, the city of Deer Park said in a statement that the spouting flame had subsided, but the fire continued to burn.
“Progress has been made as first responder crews worked through the night. The fire is significantly smaller,” the statement said.
No volatile organic compounds had been detected, Harris County Pollution Control said in a statement Monday afternoon. The statement said particulate matter from the smoke was moderate and not an immediate risk to healthy people, although “sensitive populations may want to take precautions.” The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it was also monitoring the air.
The pipeline’s owner, Dallas-based Energy Transfer, said air monitoring equipment was being set up near the plume of fire and smoke, which could be seen from at least 10 miles away at one point.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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One group of voters could fuel a win for Democrats in the Arizona Senate race while also propelling former President Trump to victory in the key battleground state.
Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris among registered voters in Arizona 49% to 45% in a new poll from the New York Times and Siena College. This was a notable shift from their numbers last month, when Harris came out on top.
At the same time, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., bested Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake 50% to 41%.
A spokesperson for Lake told Fox News Digital in a statement, “President Trump’s consistently strong lead in Arizona proves that Arizonans are tired of and dissatisfied with the policies of Kamala Harris and Ruben Gallego that have caused record-high inflation and made our state less safe by opening the border to millions of unchecked illegal immigrants. As voters learn the truth about Gallego’s voting record and the fact that he has voted for Biden-Harris policies 100% of the time, they will reject Radical Ruben just as they reject Kamala Harris.”
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Former President Trump and Rep. Ruben Gallego were both endorsed by the police group. (Reuters)
Her campaign further pointed to a CNN poll earlier this month which showed Gallego at 47% and Lake at 44%, a much closer margin.
According to the New York Times, “The respondents who said they were splitting their ticket – supporting Mr. Gallego and Mr. Trump – were much more likely to be Latino, less college-educated and lower-income.”
The poll was conducted in English and Spanish on cell phones and landlines in Arizona and 2,077 likely voters were surveyed between Sept. 17 and 21. The margin of error is +/- 2.5 percentage points for the likely electorate and +/-2.4 percentage points among registered voters.
Gallego voted 100% in line with President Biden and Harris’ administration in the 117th Congress, per FiveThirtyEight, and is by no means a fan of Trump, and the former president is an ardent supporter of Lake.
Despite their political disagreements, they’ve managed to simultaneously attract a key group of voters.
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Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (Fox News )
“You always have to consider in American politics whether gender is playing a role,” Melissa Michelson, the dean of arts and sciences and a political science professor at Menlo College in California, told Fox News Digital.
Trump and Gallego are both facing off against women in their respective races.
“What gender scholars will tell you is that when women are running, they face additional challenges,” she explained.
With Trump’s election in 2016, his strength among those without college degrees became evident. He’s also shown an ability to appeal to non-White voters, including Latinos, who are considered integral to the Democrats’ coalition.
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Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is endorsed by Trump. (Getty Images)
His enduring appeal to these types of voters is on display in the latest poll as well. “And yes, those same voters would be more likely to prefer the Latino candidate,” said Michelson, explaining the preference of some of those voters for Gallego in the Senate race.
She noted that Latinos tend to vote Democrat more often than not and that they also tend to vote for Latino candidates. “If a candidate before you is both your shared racial group and your shared party, then that’s easy,” Michelson remarked.
When it comes to women perhaps feeling inclined to vote for women candidates, she pointed out that gender isn’t “as strong of an identity or as strong of a motivator of vote choice.”
“People just don’t think about their gender the same way they think about their race.”
The potential for a split result in Arizona, with Trump winning the presidency and Gallego taking the open Senate seat, would be notable given the recent decline in split-ticket voting.
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Trump has made gains among Latinos. (Getty Images)
Republican strategist Kevin Madden said the vote is ultimately “candidate-dependent.”
“Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Ruben Gallego in Arizona are examples of two candidates running very carefully tailored races that are customized to their state’s political environment,” he told Fox News Digital.
It’s true that Gallego has made a concerted effort to reach a male, Latino audience. For Cinco de Mayo this year, his campaign held a watch party in Glendale at JL Boxing Academy for a match between champion Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez and fellow fighter Jaime Munguía, who was undefeated until that point. The venue was reportedly outfitted with large screens displaying the fight, and the event featured food trucks serving birria tacos and Mexican Cokes outside.
The watch party was expected to draw over 100 guests, mainly Latino Arizonans and their families.
Gallego held another boxing event last week at the same venue.
“They’re doing whatever they can to get out of the national political jet-stream and make their campaign less of a proxy on the presidential contest,” Madden said.
Michelson claimed that recent endorsements from the Arizona Police Association (APA) for both Gallego and Trump could encourage the increasingly rare practice of split-ticket voting. Despite backing Trump and reportedly endorsing Lake during her 2022 gubernatorial bid, the union chose Democrat Gallego in the Senate race in 2024.
However, Lake did get the backing of a separate police union, the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, earlier this month.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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A man was taken into custody after a homeowner in Encino reported a break-in early Thursday morning.
Los Angeles police responded to the home in the 17500 block of Woodvale Road around 2 a.m.
Video showed officers arriving as a man believed to be the homeowner was standing outside talking to personnel from a security company.
The owner told police that a man had broken into his home, according to freelance media fire KNN.
A search of the property resulted in officers taking a man in a striped shirt and glasses into custody.
It was unknown what, if anything, was taken during the incident. It was also unclear if the suspect and the homeowner knew each other.
No injuries were reported.
The race between Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, for Senate in Texas is heating up, something one expert believes should serve as a warning to Republicans in the dependably red state.
“Texas is an interesting political environment and will become a bellwether within the next decade,” Jimmy Keady, the founder and president of JLK Political Strategies, told Fox News Digital. “With the recent influx of West Coasters, and a fast-growing Hispanic population, recent elections in Texas are closer than Republicans want.”
The comments come as Cruz seeks to fend off yet another tight challenge from a Democratic opponent, this time from Allred, who has represented Texas’ 32nd Congressional District in the Dallas area since 2019.
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In 2012, Ted Cruz easily topped his Democratic opponent by nearly 16 percentage points. (Jabin Botsford – Pool/Getty Images)
While the Real Clear Politics polling average shows Cruz with a five-point lead in the race, there are some troubling signs for the Republican incumbent, including recent polls that show Cruz with a lead close to within the margin of error.
Allred has looked to capitalize on the momentum, taking to social media to highlight a Morning Consult poll that showed him with a slim lead in the race.
“For the first time in this race, a new poll has us leading Ted Cruz by 1 point. I don’t know about y’all but I’m fired up and ready to WIN,” Allred said on X. “We’ve got 47 days, let’s do this Texas.”
Prominent Republicans have noticed the challenge, with Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita taking to X to question what is “wrong with the Senate race in Texas” and calling for “some real professionals” to “save” Cruz.
Rep. Colin Allred arrives on the House floor for President Biden’s State of the Union address in the U.S. Capitol on March 7, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Some polls leading up to Cruz’s 2018 Senate race with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, showed a similarly close race, though Cruz was able to hold off the Democratic challenger by under three percentage points.
But that close win was also a stark departure from Cruz’s 2012 victory, when he easily topped former Texas Democratic state Rep. Paul Sadler by nearly 16 percentage points.
That narrowing of the margins in Texas should have Republicans on edge, Keady argued, though he stressed he believed Cruz would be safe in 2024.
The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Sen. Ted Cruz with a five-point lead in his race for re-election. (Allison Bailey/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
“Texas will stay red this November and Ted Cruz will win re-election,” Keady said. “But Republicans should not take the threat of losing this state lightly. As the Republican Party makes a play for blue states, Democrats are going to start making a play for red states… to hold these seats, Republicans will have to stay disciplined on messaging and prioritize candidate recruitment.”
The Cruz campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Request for comment.
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:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/3TY7DABTNZRZCZMWBADLY2QNKQ.jpg "Climate change destroyed a Southwest Alaska village. Its residents are starting over in a new town.")
Climate change destroyed a Southwest Alaska village. Its residents are starting over in a new town.
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