Independent News Drop

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

HAST Heavy local hour. A murder sentence out of the Panhandle, then school threats, and water trouble across the state.

KELI Roque George Bozeman, 17 years old, was sentenced last week in Ochiltree County to 30 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for a 2025 murder. The case has moved through the system fast — conviction and sentence both in the books now. Ochiltree County, north of here, doesn't see many capital cases that young. The sentence is a hard 30 years in state prison, no parole eligibility stated in the initial paperwork. That's the mechanism: Texas tried him as an adult, convicted him, and locked the door for three decades.

HAST On a different front, Potter County Sheriff's Office is now investigating threats made to juveniles tied to an area school district. No specific district named yet in the alert, but the Sheriff's Office announced the investigation publicly — which means they're asking the school community for information. Threats to kids, threats in social media — those land hard on a school's calendar. We don't have a suspect named yet or a specific threat content, but the Sheriff's Office is moving.

KELI Sticking with water and the state now. The Texas Water Development Board reported this week that more than half of Texas is in drought for the first time in three months. That includes the High Plains. Amarillo and Canyon both still have voluntary water restrictions in place — meaning the yards stay dry, the sprinklers off, the aquifer still drawing down slower than it would under normal use. The state's fighting a structural water crisis across nine regions. We're in one of them.

HAST Texas Comptroller Huffines has announced an investigation into school district spending statewide. No single district named as the target yet, but the Comptroller's office says it's looking at how districts are moving money and where it's going. That's an open investigation — we'll track where it lands.

KELI Before we close, a history note.

HAST In 1880, the British routed Mohammad Ayub Khan's army at Kandahar, ending the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

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

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. There's an essay at Gil's Intelligent Version on what actually happened in 1914 — and how a real historical instinct curdled into false certainty the moment someone tried to measure it to the inch.

HAST It's called The Witness and the Ruler. At inkwell dot wiki, slash giv.