Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Amarillo News Drop. I'm Keli, joined by Hast.

HAST Amarillo courts are moving fast on a serial case. Patrick Farmer, fifty-nine, was sentenced two weeks ago in Randall County to forty years in prison for indecency with a child. This week he was booked into Potter County Detention on two more counts of indecency with a child—charges filed back in October 2024. He has a trial date set for October nineteenth in Potter County. That's less than two weeks out.

KELI The counter here is straightforward. Single case, multiple jurisdictions, stacked sentences—that's how the system processes it. But the timeline matters. Those Potter County charges sat for two years before trial. Farmer was still at large until his Randall conviction last month gave the sheriff a hook to serve the warrants. What you'll want to watch is whether the Potter County trial actually goes October nineteenth, or whether it consolidates with Randall or gets stayed pending his forty-year sentence. Courts move in their own order.

HAST In state news, Governor Abbott is signaling that a seven-point-five-billion-dollar reimbursement from the federal government could fund property tax relief. That's his framing. Texas school finance runs on the Robin Hood mechanism—wealthy districts send money to poorer ones. That federal money could theoretically reduce pressure on both sides of that transfer without cutting school budgets. Abbott hasn't said how much of that seven-point-five billion he'd actually allocate to tax relief versus other budget items. The legislature doesn't meet until next year, so this is positioning, not a deal.

KELI Panhandle traffic incident. One man is dead after a hit-and-run in Texas County, Oklahoma, on Wednesday evening. Texas County borders Beaver County to the north—that's High Plains terrain. Law enforcement is still searching for the vehicle involved. Details are thin this evening, but we'll track it as it develops.

HAST In Bell Textron news from Amarillo, the company recently hosted a delegation from Nigeria marking the start of production of AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters for the Nigerian Air Force. Bell's Amarillo facility has been producing Vipers for years. This is a contract expansion and a signal of continued defense-sector work in the Panhandle.

KELI On this day in 1986, an explosion at the Cipel-Marco fur factory in Kwai Chung, Hong Kong, killed fourteen people and injured ten.

HAST That's the Amarillo News Drop. Full script and sources at inkwell.wiki/news/amarillo.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. The same workshop behind this drop just published the Magnificat — the song Mary sings in Luke, where the powerful are pulled down from their thrones and the hungry are filled.

HAST It reads less like a carol than a manifesto. Find it at inkwell dot wiki, slash giv.