Crime
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Aqua Kingz Owner Trades Luxury Pool Scams for a Very Dry 20 Years in Prison
If you ever looked at a business named “Aqua Kingz”—with a ‘z,’ because nothing says “reputable contractor” like early-2000s street slang—and thought, “Yeah, I’ll hand this man $30,000 for a hole in the dirt,” then Lubbock has officially broken your spirit. Roderick Jeffrey, the mastermind behind the greatest vanishing act since the Buddy Holly Center’s [...]Read More... from Aqua Kingz Owner Trades Luxury Pool Scams for a Very Dry 20 Years in Prison
Local Genius Learns “Resigning” Usually Means You Stop Taking the Company’s Money
In a city where “entrepreneurship” usually just means selling herbal supplements on Facebook or opening a car lot with a neon sign held together by prayer, Joshua Weston has managed to set a new bar for Lubbock business ethics. A jury recently decided that Weston, a former manager and 15% stakeholder at Adobe Auto Sales, [...]Read More... from Local Genius Learns “Resigning” Usually Means You Stop Taking the Company’s Money
Lubbock’s Finest Criminal Geniuses Literally Film Their Own Felonies on the Victim’s Phone
Anthony Jamarillo-Medrano, an 18-year-old resident of our lovely Hub City, was recently treated to a brand new mugshot and a whopping $200,000 bond at the Lubbock County Detention Center. He was arrested on May 4 following a March incident where he apparently decided that committing a sexual assault wasn’t enough—he also needed to make sure [...]Read More... from Lubbock’s Finest Criminal Geniuses Literally Film Their Own Felonies on the Victim’s Phone
Politics
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Shhh, Don’t Tell the Grads: Texas Tech Implements ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Research’ Policy
Welcome back to another episode of higher education theater here in the Hub City. Our beloved Texas Tech University System Chancellor, Brandon Creighton, recently dropped a memo outright banning all future graduate theses, dissertations, and projects centering on sexual orientation or gender identity—because god forbid a research university actually lets people research things. But the [...]Read More... from Shhh, Don’t Tell the Grads: Texas Tech Implements ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Research’ Policy
R.I.P. Thinking: Texas Tech Students Dust Off Their Goth Gear for an Academic Freedom Funeral
Oh look, Texas Tech is making national headlines again, and for once, it doesn’t involve couch-burning or a sports scandal. This Thursday, student groups Raiders Against Censorship and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas are trading in their standard university gear for straight-up Victorian mourning attire. They are staging a full-blown, horse-drawn mock funeral on campus [...]Read More... from R.I.P. Thinking: Texas Tech Students Dust Off Their Goth Gear for an Academic Freedom Funeral
Choose Your Flavor of Chaos: Paxton Leads Cornyn as the Texas GOP Tries to Out-GOP Itself
Just when you thought Texas politics couldn’t get any more exhausting, the latest University of Houston Hobby School poll dropped to remind us that the May 26 Republican runoff is going to be a absolute knife fight. Attorney General Ken Paxton—a man who carries more legal baggage than a carousel at the airport—is currently leading [...]Read More... from Choose Your Flavor of Chaos: Paxton Leads Cornyn as the Texas GOP Tries to Out-GOP Itself
Guns
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West Texas Sends Its Best: Midland Man Learns D.C. Has Actual Gun Laws the Hard Way
Because life in the Permian Basin clearly wasn’t thrilling enough, 45-year-old Michael Marx of Midland decided to export some classic West Texas “charm” straight to the nation’s capital. On Monday afternoon, Marx found himself near the National Mall, right along the route of Vice President JD Vance’s motorcade. Instead of doing normal tourist things like [...]Read More... from West Texas Sends Its Best: Midland Man Learns D.C. Has Actual Gun Laws the Hard Way
Routine Lubbock Traffic Stop Successfully Escalates Into Cross-County Gun Battle
Around 11:35 p.m. on Tuesday night, a Lubbock police officer attempted what should have been a completely mundane traffic stop. But because this is the Hub City—where yielding is a foreign concept and traffic laws are treated as polite suggestions—the driver decided that pulling over was simply out of the question. Instead, they slammed on [...]Read More... from Routine Lubbock Traffic Stop Successfully Escalates Into Cross-County Gun Battle
North Avenue J Proves Once Again That Nothing Good Happens After Midnight in Lubbock
It’s 2:30 on a Monday morning. In normal cities, people are fast asleep, dreading the upcoming workweek. But this is the Hub City, baby, which means the 2100 block of North Avenue J was just getting its second wind. Lubbock police rolled up to a residence expecting a standard-issue suicide call, only to discover that [...]Read More... from North Avenue J Proves Once Again That Nothing Good Happens After Midnight in Lubbock
Public Health
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Texas Medical Board Decides ‘Death’ is Just a Teachable Moment (With a Very Short Quiz)
Welcome to Texas, the only state where “standard of care” has been replaced by “consulting a lawyer while the patient bleeds out.” The Texas Medical Board has finally broken its silence on the deaths of Nevaeh Crain and Porsha Ngumezi, and their solution is exactly what you’d expect from a state that considers a 99-year [...]Read More... from Texas Medical Board Decides ‘Death’ is Just a Teachable Moment (With a Very Short Quiz)
Shallowater: Come for the Small-Town Charm, Stay for the Radioactive Kidney Failure
Our neighbors in Shallowater just got some glowing news from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It turns out the local tap water has officially surpassed the EPA’s “try not to grow a third arm” limit for combined uranium. While the feds suggest 30 micrograms per liter is the maximum acceptable amount for human survival, [...]Read More... from Shallowater: Come for the Small-Town Charm, Stay for the Radioactive Kidney Failure
East Lubbock Hospitality: Now Featuring Free Dental Exams (From Stray Dogs)
Nothing says “Good morning, Hub City” quite like an 8:00 AM cardio session involving a pack of aggressive dogs. On Thursday morning, an elderly woman in the 2400 block of East 8th Street found out the hard way that in Lubbock, the sidewalks aren’t just for walking—they’re a buffet line for neighborhood hounds whose owners [...]Read More... from East Lubbock Hospitality: Now Featuring Free Dental Exams (From Stray Dogs)
Education
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Shhh, Don’t Tell the Grads: Texas Tech Implements ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Research’ Policy
Welcome back to another episode of higher education theater here in the Hub City. Our beloved Texas Tech University System Chancellor, Brandon Creighton, recently dropped a memo outright banning all future graduate theses, dissertations, and projects centering on sexual orientation or gender identity—because god forbid a research university actually lets people research things. But the [...]Read More... from Shhh, Don’t Tell the Grads: Texas Tech Implements ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Research’ Policy
R.I.P. Thinking: Texas Tech Students Dust Off Their Goth Gear for an Academic Freedom Funeral
Oh look, Texas Tech is making national headlines again, and for once, it doesn’t involve couch-burning or a sports scandal. This Thursday, student groups Raiders Against Censorship and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas are trading in their standard university gear for straight-up Victorian mourning attire. They are staging a full-blown, horse-drawn mock funeral on campus [...]Read More... from R.I.P. Thinking: Texas Tech Students Dust Off Their Goth Gear for an Academic Freedom Funeral
Clean Title, Dirty Deals: How Texas Tech and the Feds Scrubbed Bart Reagor’s Mansion for the Chancellor
Remember last month when we told you the Texas Tech University System dropped millions on a new 19th Street mansion for Chancellor Brandon Creighton, courtesy of Lubbock’s most famous federal inmate, Bart Reagor? Well, it turns out getting a state university into the master bedroom of a convicted bank fraudster requires the kind of bureaucratic [...]Read More... from Clean Title, Dirty Deals: How Texas Tech and the Feds Scrubbed Bart Reagor’s Mansion for the Chancellor
Local Government
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Lubbock’s Own Dustin Burrows Leads the Brave Fight to Keep Texas Summer Camps Incommunicado and Hazardous
Remember last year’s catastrophic July 4 floods? The ones where 137 Texans tragically drowned, including 25 children at a Hill Country summer camp who couldn’t be reached because cell towers were down and emergency responders had no way to warn them? In a rare, fleeting moment of actual governance, the Texas Legislature passed a law [...]Read More... from Lubbock’s Own Dustin Burrows Leads the Brave Fight to Keep Texas Summer Camps Incommunicado and Hazardous
Apathy Wins in a Landslide: Lubbock Re-Elects the Status Quo with the Support of Twelve People and a Golden Retriever
The “masses” have spoken, and by “masses,” I mean the approximately 9,533 people who realized there was an election happening between their third and fourth trips to Taco Villa. In a city of over 260,000, Mayor Mark McBrayer coasted to victory with 70.3% of the vote. It turns out that if you promise more police [...]Read More... from Apathy Wins in a Landslide: Lubbock Re-Elects the Status Quo with the Support of Twelve People and a Golden Retriever
Lubbock Early Voting Hits 10-Year Low: Local Democracy Officially Less Popular Than a Dust Storm
Lubbock County just recorded its lowest early voting turnout for a May election since 2014. Over the course of eight grueling days, a whopping 7,800 people managed to drag themselves to the polls. To put that in perspective, we probably have more people waiting in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A on a Tuesday morning than we [...]Read More... from Lubbock Early Voting Hits 10-Year Low: Local Democracy Officially Less Popular Than a Dust Storm
Economics
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We’re #1! Texas Leads the Nation in Utility Shutoffs Because Who Needs Electricity in a Desert Anyway?
Crack open a warm, un-refrigerated beer, Lubbock, because Texas has officially taken the crown. According to a depressing new federal report, the Lone Star State led the entire country in residential electricity shutoffs, racking up over 3 million disconnections. We also swept the competition in natural gas shutoffs, because why settle for just being hot [...]Read More... from We’re #1! Texas Leads the Nation in Utility Shutoffs Because Who Needs Electricity in a Desert Anyway?
Breaking: Lubbock Residents Shocked to Find Out Big Trucks Require Actual Money to Move
In a turn of events that surprised absolutely no one with a basic grasp of geopolitics, gas prices in Texas have skyrocketed to a delightful $3.78 a gallon. Apparently, when you close the Strait of Hormuz during a war, the magic juice that makes your oversized dually go “vroom” gets a bit pricier. While the [...]Read More... from Breaking: Lubbock Residents Shocked to Find Out Big Trucks Require Actual Money to Move
The Great Texas Thirst: Corpus is Out of Water, and Lubbock is Just One Dust Storm Away from Joining Them
While we’re all busy complaining about the latest pothole on Slide Road, our neighbors down in the Coastal Bend are currently starring in their own real-life reboot of Mad Max. At least six small towns around Corpus Christi have officially declared disaster status because their reservoirs are hitting a pathetic 8% capacity. Corpus Christi, the [...]Read More... from The Great Texas Thirst: Corpus is Out of Water, and Lubbock is Just One Dust Storm Away from Joining Them
Police
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Routine Lubbock Traffic Stop Successfully Escalates Into Cross-County Gun Battle
Around 11:35 p.m. on Tuesday night, a Lubbock police officer attempted what should have been a completely mundane traffic stop. But because this is the Hub City—where yielding is a foreign concept and traffic laws are treated as polite suggestions—the driver decided that pulling over was simply out of the question. Instead, they slammed on [...]Read More... from Routine Lubbock Traffic Stop Successfully Escalates Into Cross-County Gun Battle
LPD Proves Even Flashing Lights Can’t Protect You From Lubbock Traffic
It’s a beautiful Tuesday morning in the Hub City, which means it’s the perfect time for everyone to completely forget how basic road infrastructure functions. Right on cue around 9:30 a.m., a Lubbock Police officer and a local motorist decided to have a high-stakes meeting of the minds—and bumpers—at the intersection of I-27 and Erskine [...]Read More... from LPD Proves Even Flashing Lights Can’t Protect You From Lubbock Traffic
The Frankford 500: Four Genius Minds Meet a Light Pole at 114th Street
Nothing says “Saturday night in the Hub City” like thinking you can outpace the law on a street that is basically one long, flat line to nowhere. Around 12:20 a.m., some local visionary decided that “reckless driving” near 82nd and Frankford wasn’t a prestigious enough charge. When an officer tried to pull them over, the [...]Read More... from The Frankford 500: Four Genius Minds Meet a Light Pole at 114th Street