Priscilla Thompson

Pete Arredondo, the former Uvalde school district police chief who has been widely criticized for his response to the deadly 2022 school shooting, has been arrested and charged with child endangerment. NBC’s Priscilla Thompson reports for TODAY. // Editor’s note: An earlier version of this report included photos taken following the Columbine High School shooting. They have been replaced in this updated version.

ALAMO, Texas — Along the winding Rio Grande in South Texas lies a history many have never heard, of a southern route to freedom for enslaved people on the Underground Railroad into Mexico. “It’s so close, but yet it was so far for so many people,” O.J. Trevino said, peering across the river at the Mexican side of the border from his family’s property. “Knowing that they just had to get there.” Trevino, who grew up just 5 miles from the border, was shocked to learn that his fifth-great-grandmoth…

BUFORD, Ga. — The father of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student killed while she was jogging, is remembering her as a “strong person” who excelled in academics but fears her death is being exploited as a political wedge that has “incited people” for the November election. While politicians have evoked her name at campaign rallies, in speeches and in an eponymous immigration-related bill, turning it into an election year flash point after she was killed, police say, by a suspect who entered th…

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Spring breakers flocking to Texas beaches this month could stumble upon a sight many have never seen — a bright blue and silver sea slug known as the blue dragon. While the tiny, 1-inch creatures may look like fun, researchers warn that touching them could result in a painful sting. “There’s all kinds of stories of people accidentally stepping on these blue dragons or picking them up and squeezing them and getting stung. And yeah, it doesn’t end well,” said Jace Tunnell,…

Six people are dead and dozens injured after tornadoes struck Nashville and the Tennessee town of Clarksville early Saturday evening, officials said. The dead in Clarksville include two adults and one child, according to a statement from Michelle Newell, spokesperson for Montgomery County, where the town is located. Another 23 people were taken to hospitals. Nashville Emergency Operations Center officials said three people also died in a northern community of the city along Nesbitt Lane. They re…

CLEVELAND, Texas — Members of a Texas family, allegedly attacked by a neighbor using an AR-15 rifle, called 911 five times and waited 20 minutes for deputies to come to their aid, a grieving father said. And by the time San Jacinto County sheriff’s deputies arrived, suspect Francisco Oropesa, 38, had escaped, and the bodies of five people, including a child, were found in the latest mass shooting to plague America. Oropesa was still on the run Monday morning, and Wilson Garcia, who lost his wif…

When Brittney Poolaw was in an Oklahoma hospital last year having a miscarriage, she admitted to using methamphetamine during her pregnancy.

The total number of positive cases among the Texas House delegation in Washington is five.

The mother of Ronald Greene, a barber who died after a violent confrontation with Louisiana State Police, said Saturday that the release of body camera video of her son’s arrest has left her “hurting so bad.” The Associated Press on Wednesday published edited body camera footage from Greene’s arrest on May 10, 2019, following a pursuit that may have started with Greene driving erratically, including allegedly running a red light, according to audio from the video. Louisiana State Police Supt. La…