NEW YORK – Paige Bueckers will play in her first WNBA All-Star Game while Nneka Ogwumike has earned her 10th selection, the league announced Monday as it named the players who will join Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier as All-Star starters.
Bueckers, who was the No. 1 overall draft pick by the Dallas Wings, will be the 10th rookie to start the game. It’s the third straight season it’s happened, with Clark getting a start last year and Aliyah Boston in 2013. Bueckers is ranked 11th in the league in scoring (18.4 points) and sixth in assists (5.8) to lead all rookies in both categories. She received the sixth most votes from the fans.
Ogwumike, who stars for Seattle, is tied for the third-most All-Star appearances with Tamika Catchings and Brittney Griner. She trails only Sue Bird (13) and Diana Taurasi (11).
Clark and Collier were named captains of the teams on Sunday for receiving the most fan votes. The pair will draft their teams by choosing among the other starters as well as the 12 reserves chosen by coaches. The reserves will be announced this weekend.
New York’s Breanna Stewart and Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson each earned a seventh All-Star nod and will be in the starting lineup. Other starters selected Monday by a combination of fan, media and player voting included guards Allisha Gray of Atlanta and Sabrina Ionescu of New York. The frontcourt also will feature Phoenix’s Satou Sabally and Boston, Clark’s Indiana teammate.
The starters were selected from across the WNBA without regard to conference affiliation. Players and a media panel joined fans in selecting the starters. Fans voting accounted for 50%, while the player and media votes each accounted for 25%.
Boston finished fewer than 1,400 votes behind Minnesota star Collier for second in the fan voting. While Clark finished first in the fan vote, she was ninth in the players’ vote and third in the media voting for guards.
Kelsey Mitchell of Indiana and Angel Reese of Chicago both just missed making the All-Star starters list, finishing fifth and seventh, respectively, at their positions.
The game will be played in Indianapolis on July 19.
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SAN ANTONIO – Before tornadoes, hurricanes, wind or hail storms strike, meteorologists caution the public to take shelter, prepare their property and brace for impact.
But the impact of severe weather is not just physical, it can also hit your wallet hard, especially if you have to have your roof fixed.
Rich Johnson, a spokesperson for the Insurance Council of Texas, said those who have homeowners insurance need to read through and review their policy at least twice a year.
Johnson said doing so can give policy holders some assurance as to what their insurance company will pay for if they need to make a claim.
Outside of the flooding, Johnson said a typical home policy should cover or pay for everything that is damaged by weather.
“That’s including any damage that’s done inside if it was raining or hailing,” Johnson said, “and then of course your roof.”
Whether it is extreme heat, or rain, wind, snow, or hail, the roof takes all the abuse Mother Nature dishes out, and all of that constant pummeling can wear down roof tops, especially hailstones.
Cole Blevins, a sales manager with Rhino Roofers, said hailstones can lift, tear, loosen or put dents in shingles.
He said when it rains those dents could potentially hold water and over time the water and/or the moisture can begin to seep into the shingle.
“All theses shingles are gonna start to wash out, exposing the asphalt,” Blevins said.
“Once that asphalt is exposed to the sun, you’re going have exposed fiberglass and that fiberglass is gonna act like a sponge,” Blevins said. “Anytime it comes into contact with any moisture, it’s going to soak that moisture up and eventually that moisture is gonna work its way into your home.”
When damage from leaks is discovered, it could require repairing or replacing the roof.
“The majority of the homes in the San Antonio area, is probably a safe ballpark is anywhere from $15,000 to $22,000, just depending on the materials,” Blevins said.
Johnson also said that depending on the type of roofing materials needed, the price from repairs or replacement can escalate from there.
Policy holders know from the start that their initial out of pocket expense will is the deductible.
“What people aren’t usually used to is the difference in their deductibles,” Johnson said. “So some companies, some insurance companies will have a different deductible for your roof or for wind and hail damage versus like a fire.”
“That may be a different percentage of your home’s value or it might be a set amount,” Johnson added.
He said policy holders need to be on the look for two terms that can also dictate out of pocket expenses: replacement cost value and actual cash value.
According to Johnson, if you have replacement cost value coverage, homeowners pay their deductible and the insurance company will pay the rest.
But if you have an actual cash value policy, the insurance adjuster will look at your roof and ask questions about your roof and come up with a monetary value as what they think your roof is worth.
“If you have actual cash value,” Johnson said, “you’re gonna get a depreciated value on that roof, so more money could come out of pocket.”
The depreciated value is determined by the answers of several questions, and therefore how big or small the insurance check will be. Those questions include:
When was the roof installed?
How old is the roof?
What kind of shingles does it have?
Johnson said lower premiums also often mean higher deductibles, and encouraged people to make sure they can afford their deductible when selecting coverage.
“When the worst happens and you have to replace a $20,000 roof and you’re going be $7,000 out of pocket,” Johnson said, “what percentage of that can you cover out of pocket, is what you need to be looking at.”
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Immigration and administration lawyers on Monday battled over whether President Donald Trump can use an 18th century wartime act against a Venezuelan gang in a case that is likely to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The law has only previously been used during World Wars I and II and the War of 1812. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told the three-judge panel that Trump’s use of it is inappropriate. “This has only been invoked three times in major, major wars, and now it’s being invoked in connection with a gang,” Gelernt said.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, arguing for the administration, said that courts cannot second-guess a president’s determination that the U.S. faces a threat from abroad and requires extraordinary measures to protect itself. He noted that the only time the high court weighed in on the act was in a case that dates from after fighting in Europe ended in World War II, when the court said it could not second-guess then-President Harry Truman’s assertion that suspected Nazis should still be held under the act because the war was still continuing.
“The president is due the utmost deference” in matters of foreign affairs and security, Ensign said.
Trump’s invocation has already been twice before the nation’s highest court on more technical issues. First, the court found that those accused of being TdA members deserved a “reasonable” amount of time to challenge that designation in court, but that their deportations could only be challenged in the locations they were held. That eliminated a national bar against deportations under the act issued by a federal judge in Washington, who later found the administration possibly committed contempt when it disregarded his orders and continued to fly some held under the AEA to a prison in El Salvador.
Then, after the ACLU and its allies began filing suits all around the country and winning rulings barring deportations under the measure, the high court stepped in a second time. In April it issued an unusual post-midnight ruling stopping the administration from deporting people from a slice of north Texas where there was yet no active ruling against removal.
As multiple lower court judges found the AEA couldn’t be used against a gang, the high court directed the 5th Circuit to consider the issue and how much time those held should have to challenge their designation.
The government, which initially provided minimal notice, now says the standard should be seven days to file an appeal. The ACLU argued for 30 days, the amount of time given to suspected Nazis held during World War II.
The panel that heard Monday’s arguments was comprised of one judge appointed by Trump, one by former President George W. Bush and one by Biden. Whatever it rules can be appealed to either the entire 5th circuit — one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country — or directly to the high court.
Trump has argued that TdA is acting at the behest of Venezuela’s government. The Act allows its use to combat either an “invasion” or a “predatory incursion.”
But the ACLU argues that the connection between the gang and the Venezuelan government is tangential at best, and that an assessment by 17 different intelligence agencies found little coordination between TdA and the government in Caracas. Gelernt contended that, by the standards laid out by the administration, the AEA could have been used against the mafia or any other criminal organization with tangential ties to other countries that has operated in the United States over the past 200 years.
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LONDON – The Royal Train will soon leave the station for the last time.
King Charles III has accepted it’s time to decommission the train, whose history dates back to Queen Victoria, because it costs too much to operate and would have needed a significant upgrade for more advanced rail systems, Buckingham Palace said Monday.
“In moving forwards we must not be bound by the past,’’ said James Chalmers, the palace official in charge of the king’s financial affairs. “Just as so many parts of the royal household’s work have modernized and adapted to reflect the world of today, so too the time has come to bid the fondest of farewells, as we seek to be disciplined and forward-looking in our allocation of funding.’’
The train, actually a suite of nine railcars that can be hitched to commercial locomotives, will be decommissioned sometime before the current maintenance contract expires in 2027. That will bring to an end a tradition that dates back to 1869, when Queen Victoria commissioned a pair of special coaches to accommodate her travels.
The decision was announced during the palace’s annual briefing for reporters on the royal finances.
The royal family will for the fourth consecutive year receive public funding of 86.3 million pounds ($118 million), including 34.5 million pounds to fund the remodeling of Buckingham Palace, in the 12 months through March 2026.
This money comes from a mechanism known as the Sovereign Grant, which sets aside 12% of the net income from the Crown Estate to fund the official duties of the king and other members of the royal family.
The Crown Estate is a portfolio of properties that are owned by the monarch during his reign. The properties are professionally managed and the king cannot dispose of the assets.
The Crown Estate is one of the many relics of Britain’s feudal past. King George III, who ruled during the American Revolution, surrendered management of the crown lands to Parliament in 1760 in return for a fixed payment from the Treasury.
The royal finances remain a topic of public debate, with Charles pledging to slim down the monarchy and cut costs as he seeks to ensure the institution’s survival.
Buckingham Palace was quick to point out that while the Sovereign Grant has been unchanged for the past four years, inflation has eroded its value. If the grant had increased in line with inflation, it would have been about 106 million pounds this year, the palace said.
The basic grant was supplemented with 21.5 million pounds ($29.5 million) of income generated by properties outside the Crown Estate. This income increased by 1.7 million pounds, driven by a record year for visitors to Buckingham Palace and special tours of the newly renovated East Wing.
Craig Prescott, a constitutional law expert at Royal Holloway, University of London who focuses on the political role of the monarchy, said funding for the royals is relatively small when compared to the overall cost of the British state and it provides tangible benefits for the country.
“It’s something that puts Britain on the world stage in a way that few other things do,’’ he said, noting that Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral was the largest gathering of world leaders in history and the coronation was broadcast around the world. “It’s one of those things that people think about when they think about Britain.’’
Over the past year, Charles traveled to Australia and attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa — his first as the organization’s head. The royals also took center stage at the 80th anniversaries of D-Day and V-E Day, which marked the end of World War II in Europe, and welcomed the leaders of Japan and Qatar as they made state visits to the U.K.
Overall, the royals made 1,900 public appearances in the U.K. and overseas. Some 93,000 guests attended 828 events at the royal palaces.
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WASHINGTON – Republicans are inching closer to getting their tax and spending cut bill through Congress with a final Senate vote likely late Monday or early Tuesday.
At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. President Donald Trump has admonished Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by the Fourth of July.
Democrats are united against the legislation and were offering scores of amendments to alter it Monday as the Senate slogged through what is known as a vote-a-rama. Senators can offer an unlimited number of amendments, with each receiving a vote. Once the bill clears the Senate, it would have to pass the House before Trump can sign it into law.
Here’s the latest on what’s in the bill. There could be changes as GOP lawmakers continue to negotiate.
Tax cuts are the priority
Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump’s first term expire. The legislation contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.
The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill. It temporarily would add new tax breaks that Trump campaigned on: no taxes on tips, overtime pay, the ability to deduct interest payments for some automotive loans, along with a $6,000 deduction for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year.
It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200. Millions of families at lower income levels would not get the full credit.
A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It’s a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years.
There are scores of business-related tax cuts, including allowing businesses to immediately write off 100% of the cost of equipment and research.
The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, which would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House’s version.
Middle-income taxpayers would see a tax break of $500 to $1,500, the CBO said.
Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome
The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump’s border and national security agenda, including $46 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.
Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year.
The homeland security secretary would have a new $10 billion fund for grants for states that help with federal immigration enforcement and deportation actions.
To help pay for it, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections.
For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security.
How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs
To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back on Medicaid and food assistance for the poor.
Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.
The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program’s work requirements.
There’s also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services.
More than 71 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps.
The Senate proposes a $25 billion Rural Hospital Transformation Program to help offset reduced Medicaid dollars. It’s a new addition, intended to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that the proposed Medicaid provider tax cuts would hurt rural hospitals.
A ‘death sentence’ for clean energy?
Republicans are proposing to dramatically roll back tax breaks designed to boost clean energy projects fueled by renewable sources such as energy and wind. The tax breaks were a central component of President Joe Biden’s 2022 landmark bill focused on addressing climate change and lowering healthcare costs.
Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden went so far as to call the GOP provisions a “death sentence for America’s wind and solar industries and an inevitable hike in utility bills.”
Under the bill, a tax credit that subsidizes the production of electricity would be eliminated for any wind and solar plant not plugged into the grid by the end of 2027. But Republicans aren’t just looking to roll back the tax breaks Biden put into place: they’re also looking to add a tax for new wind and solar projects that use a certain percentage of components from China.
A tax break for people who buy new or used electric vehicles would expire on Sept. 30 of this year, instead of at the end of 2032 under current law.
Meanwhile, a tax credit for the production of critical materials will be expanded to include metallurgical coal used in steelmaking.
Trump savings accounts and so, so much more
A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities.
The House and Senate both have a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury.
There’s a new excise tax on university endowments. A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated. One provision bars money to family planning providers, namely Planned Parenthood, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee.
Another section expands the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a hard-fought provision from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, for those impacted by nuclear development and testing.
Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for exploration to Mars.
The bill would deter states from regulating artificial intelligence by linking certain federal AI infrastructure money to maintaining a freeze. Seventeen Republican governors have asked GOP leaders to drop the provision.
Additionally, a provision would increase the nation’s debt limit, by $5 trillion, to allow continued borrowing to pay already accrued bills.
What’s the final cost?
Altogether, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would increase federal deficits over the next 10 years by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034.
Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already “current policy.” Republican senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach.
Under the alternative Senate GOP view, the bill would reduce deficits by almost a half-trillion dollars over the coming decade, the CBO said.
Democrats say this is “magic math” that obscures the true costs of the tax breaks. Some nonpartisan groups worried about the country’s fiscal trajectory are siding with Democrats in that take. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Senate Republicans are employing an “accounting gimmick that would make Enron executives blush.”
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Texas State University has officially accepted an invitation to join the Pac-12 Conference, the league and school announced Monday.
The Bobcats will become a full member beginning with the 2026–27 academic year, competing in all conference-sponsored sports.
Texas State joins Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, Oregon State, San Diego State, Utah State and Washington State as foundational members of the new Pac-12. Eight of those programs sponsor football, satisfying NCAA requirements for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) competition.
“This is a historic moment for TXST and Bobcat athletics,” university President Kelly Damphousse wrote in a press release. “Joining the Pac-12 is more than an athletic move — it is a declaration of our rising national profile, our commitment to excellence and our readiness to compete and collaborate with some of the most respected institutions in the country.”
The Pac-12’s board of directors voted unanimously to admit Texas State after receiving a formal application. The Texas State University System Board of Regents held a special meeting Monday morning to approve the move ahead of a July 1 deadline. Exiting the Sun Belt Conference before that date allows the university to avoid a fee increase from $5 million to $10 million.
“We are thrilled to enter a new era in college athletics,” athletic director Don Coryell said in the release. “This historic moment belongs to our coaches, staff, student-athletes, fans, alumni and students, who we thank for making it possible.”
The football program has earned back-to-back bowl wins under head coach G.J. Kinne — the first postseason victories in school history since moving to the FBS in 2012. Texas State led the Sun Belt in overall athletic performance in 2024–25, winning five conference championships.
Texas State Vice President for Athletics Coryell said the move positions the Bobcats to “elevate our programs, compete at the highest level, and pursue excellence on a national stage.”
The university has invested more than $149 million in facilities since 2022, including a $37 million renovation of its football performance center.
Texas State is the first Texas-based school to join the Pac-12. The new version of the conference officially launches July 1, 2026.
SAN ANTONIO – Weeks of growing concern at San Antonio’s immigration court have culminated in a troubling new trend — more minors are being detained after immigration hearings, according to immigration advocates working on the front lines.
Laura Flores-Dixit, an attorney with American Gateways, said she and her team have witnessed a rise in children being apprehended at the downtown court on Dolorosa Street. The detentions follow case dismissals and often lead to migrants being loaded onto a white transport bus parked outside the courthouse.
“We had not been seeing children being internally apprehended in this way in a very long time,” said Flores-Dixit. “Traditionally, children who had been detained in the past were detained as they entered. They were not children who had been living and flourishing here, enrolled in our schools and integrated into our communities.”
Flores-Dixit, whose organization provides legal assistance to migrants, says daily court appearances are becoming more difficult for those navigating the legal system. Migrants are now facing what she calls “two bad options.”
“In order to follow the laws, they are required to come and present themselves in court, but they recognize that they are putting themselves in the potential danger of being detained,” she said.
While some judges are allowing virtual appearances, the decisions vary widely and are not guaranteed.
Adding to the concern, Flores-Dixit said that more people are now choosing not to appear in court.
“Things aren’t getting better,” she said. “We’re seeing more and more no-shows.”
Once detained, migrants are typically processed at another San Antonio office before being transferred to detention facilities in Pearsall, Dilley or Karnes County.
Despite feeling overwhelmed, Flores-Dixit said her organization remains committed to advocating for due process.
“We are committed to continuing to fight in this struggle and to demand due process for our clients and for our community members,” she said.
A rally and march are expected to take place outside the courthouse at 8 a.m. Tuesday, signaling continued unrest and advocacy around the handling of immigration cases in the region.
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A Hartford woman never saw her car again after it was towed while she sat in housing court fighting an eviction.
A home care worker had her car towed while she hurried to assist a patient down the stairs.
A young man lost his car and slipped into financial instability after he mistakenly put his apartment’s parking sticker in the wrong spot.
Late last month, Connecticut lawmakers, following a series of stories by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, passed sweeping reforms to the state’s towing laws that will address many of the issues drivers have complained about. The stories highlighted how towing companies can begin the process to sell people’s cars after 15 days, one of the shortest windows in the country.
Reporters heard from dozens of drivers across Connecticut who had to pay exorbitant fees or had their vehicles sold when they couldn’t afford the charges. Many told reporters about the severe consequences they experienced after their cars were towed or sold, including the loss of jobs, personal mementos and housing.
While some people’s cars might not have been towed under the new law, which takes effect Oct. 1, it doesn’t solve all the problems that vehicle owners raised.
Here are some of their stories, as well as whether the changes in the new law would have helped them.
Towing Home Health Aides
Not fixed: The bill does not address this issue.
Home care worker Maria Jiménez circled the Hartford apartment complex for low-income seniors, looking for a place to park. Jiménez drives patients to and from errands like doctor’s appointments and grocery shopping. Her patient that day last November used a cane, and Jiménez planned to park close so that her patient wouldn’t have to walk too far.
Unsuccessful, Jiménez stopped in front of the building’s entrance.
“I turned on the hazard lights and left the car on, just long enough to let her know I had arrived, since I didn’t have her phone number,” she said. Jiménez said she told a few bystanders she would be right back and asked them to keep an eye on her car.
She said she went inside only briefly, and when she returned, the car was gone. Bystanders told Jiménez the car had been towed and that they’d pleaded with the truck’s driver, to no avail.
Tracy Wodatch, president and CEO at Connecticut Association for Healthcare at Home, said many of her members complain about getting ticketed or towed when they’re doing their jobs helping people.
When it happens frequently enough at a particular complex, she said, an agency might speak with the landlord to ask for a designated spot. But there isn’t a statewide mandate.
New Jersey passed a law in 2018 allowing home health care workers, visiting nurses and others to apply for a placard similar to an accessible parking tag to place in their cars.
“Maybe we can talk to the legislators off session to see if there’s anything we can do,” Wodatch said.
The company that towed Jiménez, MyHoopty.com, was in Watertown, and Jiménez was stranded over 30 miles away in Hartford. “How will I get there if I don’t have a car?” she recalled thinking.
MyHoopty owner Michael Festa said the vehicle was parked in the fire lane without its hazard lights on for 17 minutes before it was towed and that the apartment complex had hired MyHoopty to prevent such parking violations.
“This is a critical safety issue, particularly at an elderly housing complex where the emergency access can be a matter of life and death,” Festa said. (MyHoopty has appeared in other stories in our series.)
The apartment complex owners didn’t respond to calls and emails for comment.
Jiménez said she makes about $290 a week. By the time she got to MyHoopty, the company told her the bill was more than $400.
Her husband footed the bill. But it wasn’t easy: “The only reason I could afford it is because I work mornings, I work nights,” he said.
Short Meters and Unpaid Tickets
Not fixed: The bill does not address this issue.
Marie Franklin paid the parking meter and dashed into Hartford housing court for a December 2023 hearing that would determine if she would get evicted from her apartment. She worried about the parking. People can wait for hours for the judge to call their cases, but the Hartford Parking Authority limits nearby meters to two hours.
So people facing eviction sometimes run the risk of getting a parking violation, getting their cars towed or missing their names being called for hearings, which can cause them to lose their housing in a default judgement for not showing up to court.
Joshua Michtom, a Hartford City Council member and an attorney who has represented children and parents in juvenile court, said although there’s a nearby parking garage, it’s more expensive and it fills up.
“You have to be there, but then you don’t know how long you’re going to have to wait,” Michtom said. “And the courts are not particularly forgiving if you’re not there the moment your case gets called.”
When Franklin’s name was finally called, a judge rejected her plea to stave off eviction. Dejected and stressed about losing her home, she walked out of court only to discover her 2015 Volvo was gone. Franklin had more than a dozen unpaid parking tickets, some of which were nearly 20 years old. She’d forgotten about some, and others were for vehicles she no longer owned. About half of the tickets were for exceeding the meter limit or parking over the line near the courthouse.
“I had paid for the parking meter and everything,” Franklin said. “They drive around, and they look for people’s cars.”
Marie Franklin’s car was towed during her eviction hearing.
Credit:
Shahrzad Rasekh/CT Mirror
Jill Turlo, CEO of the Hartford Parking Authority, said the agency’s officers use license plate scanners to find people with outstanding tickets. Turlo said “high-traffic metered areas,” like the street the courthouse is on, are “regularly patrolled by parking enforcement.” Turlo said that the parking authority has not received any requests to extend the time for metered parking near the courthouses.
While towing cars for unpaid parking tickets is a common practice for cities, Minnesota passed a law last year barring such tows, seeing them as an unfair burden on low-income families. Several cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, have also stopped such tows after a California appeals court ruled that towing cars for unpaid parking tickets violated people’s rights against warrantless seizures, said Rebecca Miller, an attorney with the Western Center on Law & Poverty.
Hartford has one of the strictest policies in Connecticut. A city ordinance allows tows after two or more unpaid tickets that date back to September 2012. Other cities including Danbury and New Britain don’t tow for unpaid tickets. Norwalk and Waterbury will tow if there are four unpaid tickets; Stamford tows for three unpaid tickets or more than $250 owed, officials in those cities said. The limit in Bridgeport is $100, and New Haven’s is $200.
“We do have an ordinance where we can boot a car for unpaid tickets, but we haven’t used it in years,” said Deborah Pacific, director of the Danbury Parking Authority.
When Franklin went to eviction court, she had been trying to hold onto the place she and her daughter lived while she looked for a new job. Between unpaid fines, late fees, and towing and storage charges, it would have cost almost $3,000 to get her car back, she said.
“I would have chose to pay whatever I owed to my housing. So my car, there was nothing I could do,” Franklin said.
The vehicle was towed by Metro Auto Body & Towing, which did not return calls and emails for comment. It was later sold by the lender.
After losing her car and housing, Franklin moved to Florida to stay with her son.
Parking Sticker in the Wrong Place
Fixed: Apartment residents now have 72 hours if caught without a parking permit or with an expired one.
It’s often little discrepancies that lead to big consequences. When Tishawn Tillman moved into his Hartford apartment in September, he got a parking sticker that allowed him to park in the building’s private lot. He said he wasn’t sure where to put it, so he stuck it on the driver’s side window.
But less than a month later, his car was towed by Cross Country Automotive in Hartford.
“There is absolutely no legal documentation in my lease that says that this has to be strictly on the windshield,” Tillman said.
Minor rule violations such as parking crooked or not backing into a space have caused people’s cars to be towed and then sold when they couldn’t afford the fees. Stories like Tillman’s drove legislators to act. Under the new law, the towing company would have had to warn Tillman, giving him 72 hours to get a new sticker and place it in the right spot. The law also says towers have to get permission from the apartment complex to tow a vehicle unless it’s blocking traffic or parked in a fire lane.
Tillman said he assumed his car had been stolen. But the police told him it had been towed.
Tillman contacted Cross Country: “I asked them, ‘Did you see my sticker?’ And they said, ‘We didn’t see the sticker.’” He said he called the apartment manager, but he wouldn’t help.
“When I realized that neither of the parties were going to budge on the matter, I told them that I wasn’t going to pay the fine, even if I had the money, which I didn’t at the time,” Tillman said.
Tillman said his bill was “$200 but growing every day.”
He filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office, which said it unsuccessfully tried to resolve the issue through its voluntary mediation program and recommended he complain to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Sal Sena, Cross Country’s owner, submitted a letter to the attorney general saying there are signs all over the parking lot explaining the rules. The apartment manager, Jack Matos, wrote to the attorney general that he talked with Sena about giving TIllman a discount on the towing fees.
“I reiterated Tishawn needs to make sure that it’s placed on the windshield,” Matos wrote.
Frustrated, Tillman eventually gave up trying to get his car back.
“I went from being a self-made young man with his own apartment and car to having to burn a hole in my pocket just to get to and from work on ride-share services like Uber and Lyft,” he said.
Unable to Reclaim Car Despite Having the Title
Fixed: The law allows vehicle owners to reclaim their cars with other documents besides DMV registration.
Shaleah Carr needed two more weeks until her DMV appointment in April to register the Chevrolet Malibu she had just bought from her mom. It was the earliest appointment she could get.
Her boyfriend had taken the car to his brother’s house to work on it when they decided to take it for a test drive. But the car broke down on U.S. Route 5 in South Windsor, and police called for a tow.
Her boyfriend told the tow truck driver that the car was registered to Carr’s mother and that Carr had the title and proof of insurance. But the towing company, Tolland Automotive, wouldn’t release the vehicle to Carr because she wasn’t the registered owner, said the company’s owner, George Fellows. The vehicle was towed on a Friday afternoon, and by the time Carr was able to get to the lot on Monday morning, she owed more than $300.
“I told them I’m on one income and I can’t afford it,” Carr said. “I just paid my rent for that month, and I even asked, ‘Do you guys do payments?’”
Since then, her Malibu has been sitting in the company’s lot.
Shaleah Carr couldn’t reclaim her car even though she has the title.
Credit:
Shahrzad Rasekh/CT Mirror
Carr’s dilemma has happened to people whose cars have been towed across Connecticut — they’ve been unable to quickly register their cars and then blocked from reclaiming them because they’re not registered in their names yet. By the time they can register their cars, so much time has passed that the tow bill is too expensive or the company has sold their car.
The new law gives consumers time to register their car before it can be towed and requires towers to release vehicles if presented with the title or a bill of sale as proof of ownership. The law also requires towers to accept other forms of payment besides cash and demands towers have business hours on weekends so fees don’t accrue while they’re closed.
Fellows said police called them to the scene. “Then we found out that this guy didn’t own the car at all,” Fellows said. Without the owner there, “it had to come back to our shop.”
Carr called her mother. “I was like, ‘You’re going to have to come up here,’ but even if she does, she can’t really do much,” Carr said. “She didn’t have the money to get it back either.”
Carr said the last time she called Tolland Automotive, the bill was $800. Given that she paid her mother only $500 for the car, she said, it almost wasn’t worth trying to get it back anymore.
Fellows said Carr’s mother did come into the office earlier this month with proof of registration, and he is willing to release the vehicle if she pays what is owed.
“It’s all on them,” he said. “I mean they knew what the issue was back then. Why haven’t they come back?”
Here’s a look at the players to watch when the market opens:
Mitch Marner
Buzz began building over the weekend that the Vegas Golden Knights were working on acquiring the 28-year-old winger’s rights from Toronto and signing him before the rest of the league gets the chance to woo Marner. Clearing cap space by trading defenseman Nicolas Hague to Nashville further fueled that speculation.
Marner’s 102 points last season are 36 more than the next-closest free agent, Mikael Granlund, who helped Dallas reach the Western Conference final after getting traded to the Stars from San Jose in February. Marner is not returning to the Maple Leafs, the team that drafted him fourth in 2015 and with whom he spent his first nine seasons.
If somehow the Knights and Leafs do not get to the finish line, Marner will have no shortage of suitors. A move to the West might fit, far from the pressure cooker of the so-called center of the hockey universe.
Brock Boeser
Six-time 20-goal scorers do not hit free agency before age 30 very often, and Boeser had 40 as recently as 2023-24. He is Marner’s age and he had 25 goals and 25 assists this past season, so everyone from Winnipeg to Washington will be in on Boeser.
The Minnesota native has so far spent his whole career with Vancouver, and the Canucks seem to be sliding into a rebuild. That gives Boeser the opportunity to get a welcomed change of scenery, potentially with a playoff contender.
Brent Burns
One of the oldest players in the league at 40, Burns is still chasing the Stanley Cup and can bring experience and more to a contender. The 6-foot-5 nearly 230-pound defenseman no longer skates top-pairing minutes, but he averaged nearly 23 a game during Carolina’s run to the East final.
Fellow soon-to-be former Hurricanes teammate Dmitry Orlov will also garner interest. Orlov had a rough series against Florida but is still capable and has a Stanley Cup ring from his time with the Capitals.
Aaron Ekblad or Brad Marchand
After locking up playoff MVP Sam Bennett for $64 million over eight years, the back-to-back champion Panthers probably have the cap space to re-sign either Marchand or Ekblad. If general manager Bill Zito figures out a way to keep both, he should get a statue outside the team’s arena in Sunrise — and some room better get cleared to add more banners to the rafters.
Adding defenseman Seth Jones a week before getting Marchand not only primed the Panthers for the another title run but seemed to make him natural replacement for Ekblad. Their blue line is set for the better part of the next decade if Ekblad returns.
There’s no such way to replace Marchand, and even at 37 he’ll be sought after by just about every contender in the league if available.
Ilya Samsonov
The goaltending market is remarkably thin, with fewer than a dozen unrestricted free agents around who played in the league last season. Most are backups or, at best, 1B options, including Jake Allen and David Rittich.
Samsonov is the most intriguing option. He’s only 28, has starting experience and the right goalie coach and locker room could be enough to get his career back on track following consecutive sub-.900 save percentage seasons, one with Toronto and most recently with Vegas.
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UNTIL SUNSET: Few downpours with heavy rain/lightning for some
DAILY AFTERNOON RAIN CHANCE: 20%-30% from 2 pm to 7 pm each day
SAHARAN DUST: It’s arrived, stays with us through Wednesday
4TH FORECAST: Mainly hot & humid
FORECAST
THROUGH SUNSET
Tropical energy is moving through South Central Texas, bringing a few downpours. While no hail or major flooding issues are expected, the spotty rain is moving through during the evening commute. That means there will be ponding on the roads. If you happen to get a downpour, expect brief but heavy rain.
You can watch LIVE RADAR in the video above.
SPOTTY RAINFALL THIS WEEK
We’ll be dodging daily afternoon downpours this week (Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.)
Rain chances today sit at 20-30% and that’ll be mainly during the afternoon. It won’t be for everyone, but a quick 0.50″ or more is not off the table. Otherwise, we’ll see partly cloudy skies and highs in the low-90s. This type pattern is expected through Thursday.
DUSTY SKIES
As promised, the Saharan dust is arriving to the area. It’s not terribly thick and keep in mind that most of the dust is suspended high in the atmosphere above us. Meaning, we’re really not breathing in a ton of dust down here. Still, it could affect a small part of the population. Expect the dust to exit the area by Wednesday.
Saharan dust forecast for San Antonio (Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.)
INDEPENDENCE DAY
Fourth of July will mainly be hot and humid around San Antonio (Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.)
Planning a July 4th celebration? Most of Texas, including San Antonio, is expected to be hot and humid. San Antonio’s high is forecast at 95 degrees.
There’s just a 20 percent chance of an afternoon downpour, but any rain should end before fireworks begin after sunset.
No weather-related interruptions are expected for evening celebrations or firework displays.
The latest 7 day forecast from Your Weather Authority (Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.)
Daily Forecast
KSAT meteorologists keep you on top of the ever-changing South Texas weather.
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