Amarillo | featured news

If this is a Friday during football season, then Lo Pham is leaving behind his job as a project manager for Western Builders and is on an expenses-paid trip flying somewhere.
A year ago at this time, he was in South Bend, Ind. The next week, he was in Knoxville, Tenn. He’s somewhere through the end of November, even to Hawaii.
Today, he’s flying from Amarillo to Dallas, from Dallas to Milwaukee and renting a car to Green Bay, Wis. He will ultimately end up at the not-so-frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, one of football’s most famous pieces of real estate.

“I didn’t get to meet Michael Phelps — that’s the main person everyone asks me if I met,” said Shaylee Dunavin, the alternate for the U.S. women’s trampoline gymnastics team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
But Dunavin did meet Helen Maroulis, winner of the first Olympic gold for U.S. women’s wrestling. She also spent time mingling at the USA team house with some of the nation’s top athletes, including Simone Biles.

Police said a 45-year-old Amarillo woman died Thursday afternoon when the black Lexus she was driving northbound on South Washington Street collided with the rear of a northbound tow truck stopped in the street’s middle lane near the intersection with Interstate 40.
Police said the female driver appeared to have switched lanes at the last moment before colliding with the truck’s rear.
There were no other occupants in the Lexus. The truck’s driver was uninjured.

Texas is appealing the dismissal of its lawsuit against the federal government and a refugee resettlement agency over the placement of Syrian refugees in the state.

A Childress County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy accidentally shot a man while making an arrest after a high-speed chase, Sheriff Mike Pigg said Thursday.
About 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, a Childress County district attorney traffic enforcement officer attempted to stop a sports utility vehicle driven by Jonathan Sergio Bryant, 33, of Oveido, Fla., on the east side of Childress, according to a news release.
Bryant did not stop, the release said, and he evaded law enforcement officers on southbound U.S. Highway 287.

Amarillo police said a 45-year-old woman died in a crash on Washington Street near the intersection of Interstate 40 Thursday afternoon.
The woman, identified as being from Amarillo, was driving a black Lexus car northbound on South Washington Street and collided with the rear of a northbound tow truck that was stopped in the street’s middle lane.

Walter V. Wendler, former chancellor of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, was formally named the president of West Texas A&M University on Thursday.
Texas A&M University System Board of Regents unanimously finalized the appointment during a regularly scheduled meeting. Wendler will begin work at the university with a starting salary of $335,265.

COPPELL, Texas (AP) — Retail gasoline prices across Texas are up 3 cents this week to reach an average $2.04 per gallon.
AAA Texas on Thursday reported the average price at the pump nationwide rose 2 cents this week, to reach $2.22 per gallon.
Corpus Christi has the cheapest gasoline statewide at an average $1.95 per gallon. The association survey found Amarillo has the most expensive gasoline this week across Texas at an average $2.09 per gallon.

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — On Sunday, Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh participated in a ceremony in Amman, Jordan, to mark the United States hitting its target of taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees in a year-old resettlement program. On Wednesday, the 47-year-old former construction worker and his family were walking grocery aisles, stocking up on roasted chicken, milk and lemons for their new home outside San Diego.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An explosion has rocked the SpaceX launch site in Florida.
NASA says SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred Thursday morning. The test, considered routine, was in advance of a planned Saturday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.