The day's top headlines; Afghan asylum seeker's autopsy released

You're listening to North Next Tech. What are we? What's our show called? We're North Nexus Town. I've changed it up. It's official. It's official. We're rebranding starting today. You're listening to North Texas now. I'm Ron Corning. I think I know my name. And I'm Miranda Suarez. Thank goodness I do too. With some of the top stories you need to know today. And we are, of course, starting with data centers. Five Dallas City Council members have called for a meeting and vote to potentially amend the city's development code. So in doing so, they could become the latest Texas City to regulate data center land use. Chad West is one of the five council. members calling for the changes. On social media Wednesday, he said he's hopeful any amendments would give the council and residents more say in how data centers are built in the city. This comes the very same week that the Fort Worth City Council took steps toward issuing a 90-day moratorium on data center development. That would take effect early next year and allow city leaders time to evaluate potential regulations. Fort Worth City Council members also voted to create the Data Center and Infrastructure Committee. They will be tasked with advising the council on the development of data center regulations. Meanwhile, the city of Dallas has added a bond election to the November 3rd ballot. Voters will decide on more than $900 million in public safety-related propositions. One proposition includes combining funding for the Police Academy and relocating emergency services from City Hall. Council member Kara Mendelsohn wanted those items in separate propositions, but that was rejected. The truth is, if we're only going to consider this as a grouping, it doesn't even matter because I will tell everyone to vote no, to vote no for the whole enchilada. Relocating 911 and emergency services from City Hall has been part of the debate on whether to stay or leave the building. Council member Adam Basil Dua also pitched a proposition to include funds for deferred maintenance at City Hall, but that idea was rejected as well. An Alaskan pregnancy surrogate who fled to Texas has given birth against the intended parents' wishes, this according to reporting from the Dallas Morning News. KERA intern Emily DeMott reports McKenna West sought medical care for the baby's hypoplastic left heart syndrome. That's a congenital heart defect in which the left side of the baby's heart is too small and struggles to pump blood. According to court documents, the intended parents asked West to get an abortion and said they'd refuse treatment after birth. West traveled to Texas because state family law recognizes a child's birth mother as their legal parent. Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened and the judge's order stops anyone from refusing necessary medical treatment or removing the child from Texas while the case is pending. You can read more about this case at kera news.org. And the Dallas Black Dance Theater and its dancers have agreed on a union contract. The news comes more than two years after a labor dispute that led to a nearly $600,000 settlement paid to dancers, the temporary loss of city funding, and the ouster of the company's longtime leader. The new contract establishes a joint committee between labor and management to prevent discrimination and retaliation. The contract also improves pay and sets a minimum number of dancers for each season. Tickets for the company.

20th season will go on sale next week. And Dallas County has finally released the autopsy report for an Afghan immigrant who died in ICE custody in March. The medical examiner ruled that Muhammad Nazir Pactewal's death was the result of a severe allergic reaction that worsened his existing asthma, causing him to stop breathing. Methamphetamines were also found to have contributed to his death. But his family disputes that he would have used illegal drugs. Here to explain the report and what led to Pacteowal's... In-custody death is Houston Public Media's politics and government reporter Andrew Schneider. Hi, Andrew. Hello. What is the headline takeaway from this most recent development? I think the headline takeaway here is that we're seeing a little bit more transparency, at least from the local authorities. They were initially very reluctant to make the autopsy report public. They had appealed to the Attorney General's office to try and avoid having to release the autopsy results. It's not entirely clear why they changed their mind. But the autopsy results themselves raise about as many questions as they answer. I mean, there are some details in the autopsy that were available in the death certificate. The attribution is a death by accident. They said that the main cause was anaphylaxis with complications from asthma. They also say that there was methamphetamine in Mr. Pactiwal's system. But what they don't say, among other things, is what sort of treatment he received while he was in ICE custody or while he was in Parkland Hospital. They don't give any indication as how long he had met. in his system or if he had obtained that while he was in custody, how he did so. That's not necessarily the sort of thing that would appear in an autopsy report, but it's something that's raised a lot of questions that the family itself is looking to have answered. And we're hoping that we'll be able to get some more details from that through independent analysis because the family and an outreach group called Afghan Evac, which works with Afghan allies, former soldiers that had worked alongside U.S. forces that have since resettled in the United States. They're planning on doing their own press availability next week at some point where they're planning to unveil the results of some independent testing that they've done on, on some aspects of the report. Why has it been so difficult to get information? Is it just? local and federal authorities not wanting to release it? It's partly that. It's also as with the result of any kind of ongoing criminal investigation, there are some sorts of concerns about trying to interfere with the ultimate results of the investigation. Now, you may remember.

Congresswoman Julie Johnson had an exchange with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. This was back in June. She was demanding an investigation into the case. He pledged that he was going to conduct an investigation. As much as anything else that seems to have been used as a further reason not to be forthcoming with some of these details. But that was the initial reason why the Dallas County Authority has declined to make the autopsy results of it. either to the media or to Afghan Evac or to the family. It's been verified, Andrew, that Pacteol served alongside U.S. Army Special Forces, as you point out in your piece, in Afghanistan for more than a decade before resettling in Texas in 2021. So that's easily verifiable. Yet Homeland Security released a social media post claiming they had no record of it at all. Was that an oversight on their part? Or do we know if that was an effort? to malign that service in the interest of the US because that might bring other people to the table to take a closer look at this. There's no way of knowing for certain without knowing the internal workings of the Homeland Security Department. They were very quick, however, to try and make the case that Mr. Pacte O'Wal was some kind of bad actor. So it's difficult to make any sort of conclusion out of that. It was something that could have been very easily checked and was very fairly easily verifiable, though. So it's not entirely clear why they would say that, knowing that in fact, it was. not true. In fact, you viewed a certificate from the U.S. Army Special Forces thanking Pacteal for his sacrifice and service. Exactly. This is a man who, by all accounts, was exactly the sort of person who services the U.S. valued, who had worked alongside U.S. Army forces at the risk of his own life and safety. He and his family had been brought here after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, and he had been trying to make a life for himself. Andrew, you mentioned before Representative Julie Johnson. demanding an investigation of Pacteal's death. You know, the DHS secretary said they would take that on. Do we know the status of that investigation? We do not. When I was putting this story together, I put in a fresh request to DHS basically saying, look, you know, we're doing this story on the status of Mr. Pacti Wall's death now that the autopsy report has come out. We had had this request or a demand for an investigation. What is the status of that investigation? Usually DHS is relatively quick to respond to media requests I have found, but in this case, there was no response whatsoever. Is it possible with the release of this autopsy report that DHS in this new age of ice has set a new standard of transparency moving forward for other similar cases where the expectation will be they'll at least release that autopsy report?

Well, we need to remember that the autopsy report wasn't released by ICE. It was released by Dallas County. And it's not entirely clear what sort of pressure ICE was putting on Dallas County, if any, to keep them from revealing this. So I think it would be very difficult to make any sorts of assumptions about what this says about transparency from ICE or from DHS or from the federal government in general. This was a decision, if anything, by local and possibly state authorities. Thank you for making that clarification. That's important. Andrew Schneider from Houston Public Media. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And you are listening to North Texas Now.