News Roundup: The 2018 Texas Dove Season Begins Saturday

Our daily look at Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelAugust 29, 2018 3:10 pm

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

The state’s 90-day dove hunting season kicks off this Saturday – September 1. Steve Lightfoot is a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesperson and a self-described dove hunter. He explains what people should keep in mind if they’re heading out to bag some birds.

“Well, I think the first thing people should know is there’s going to be a lot of hunters out there,” Lightfoot says. “I guess next to Friday night football; Texas dove hunting brings more people out into the fields each September than any other activity. We’ve got about 300,00 Texas hunters that participate in dove season and it’s a big deal.”

Lightfoot says dove hunting is kind of a gateway to hunting, in general.

“There’s not a whole lot of equipment or knowledge required. You don’t need a hunting lease to participate, just a gun, some ammo, a hunting license and a nice sunflower field,” he says.

Texas hunters harvest nearly one-third of the mourning doves taken nationwide each year – far outpacing any other state.

And Lightfoot says those doves can make a tasty meal.

“If you go to any September barbecue you’re liable to find bacon-wrapped doves stuffed with jalapeño and bit of cream cheese and those are just delightful,” Lightfoot says.

Lightfoot points out hunting licenses for the 2017-2018 season do expire this Friday, August 31.




U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 160 workers at a trailer manufacturing plant in north Texas on federal immigration violations. In total, about 500 people work at Load Trail in Sumner, Texas.

One of them is Oscar Ramirez. He described the scene to KETR News.

“We were just working, like normal day and everything, and all of a sudden the polices came in,” Ramirez said.

Special Agent in Charge, Katrina W. Berger with Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas, called Tuesday’s raid one of the largest at a single site in a decade. It involved 300 federal agents descending on the family-owned business that was first started in 1996. Berger said in a press conference following the operation that when businesses hire unauthorized employees it creates an uneven playing field.

“Those hiring an illegal alien workforce can pay their workers less, and can therefore charge less for the products,” Berger says.

ICE staff will be interviewing all of the people arrested.




The Austin-based company at the center of a legal fight over designs for 3D printable guns now says it will send those files through the mail. That’s after a federal judge earlier this week blocked their plans to release the files for free on the Internet.

Cody Wilson is the founder of Defense Distributed. He announced Tuesday his company will send people USB drives with the files on them. Customers can pay what they want for the plans.

Wilson spoke with CBS News today, and was asked how many of the blueprints his company has sold.

“Oh, gosh, many hundreds, we’re probably in the thousands at this point, the news was, ya know, well received,” Wilson says.

19 states and the District of Columbia are suing over Wilson’s plans to publish the files online. They argue making untraceable guns widely available could put their residents in danger.