By VALERIE GONZALEZ

Two South Texas bakery owners are guilty of concealing and harboring employees in the U.S. illegally, a jury found Wednesday afternoon following a trial that only lasted three days.

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Leonardo Baez and Nora Avila-Guel, a Mexican couple who have legal permanent residence in the U.S., were charged after being arrested at their bakery along with eight employees in February. It’s a rare case in which business owners are charged with criminal offenses rather than just a fine.

Six of the employees had visitor visas, and two were in the country illegally. None had permission to work in the U.S. Employees lived in a room with six beds and shared two bathrooms in the same building as the bakery, according to the federal affidavit.

Baez and Avila-Guel were tried this week in Brownsville, a border city about a 20 minutes’ drive southeast of their Los Fresnos bakery. The jury heard from five government witnesses, including an agent who was present during the raid, before U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. The defense presented no witnesses.

Videos of the interviews with the two employees in the country without visas or work authorization were played during the trial. Both employees said they were not held against their will and were compensated for their work, according to local reporting.

Baez and Avila-Guel were allowed to return to work while they awaited trial. When they reopened their bakery in April, the business had a steady stream of customers return to lend their support. They will continue to be released on bond until their sentencing, which is scheduled for November.

Reunited country trio Rascal Flatts will return to the road next year, with a Jan. 23 stop planned at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, a venue they last played in 2011.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster. Chris Lane and Lauren Alaina will open.

Second cousins Gary LeVox and Jay DeMarcus were pursuing fame in Nashville in 1999 when they met guitarist Joe Don Rooney, who was leading Chely Wright’s band at the time. The trio hit it off and formed Rascal Flatts. They signed a record deal at the end of that year and had their debut single “Prayin’ for Daylight” at radio stations in February 2000.

The single was an instant hit and, for the next decade, Rascal Flatts landed 22 singles in the Top 10, including “Bless This Broken Road,” “Fast Cars and Freedom,” “What Hurts the Most” and “My Wish.” That said, their biggest selling single to date — a cover of Canadian musician Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is a Highway” — only made it to No. 18 on the country charts.

They continued to score radio hits in the ’10s, but by the end of the decade they announced they were embarking on a farewell tour in 2020. It was postponed due to the pandemic and never happened. In late 2021, LeVox quietly announced the band had broken up.

But in late 2024, the trio revealed they had reunited. After performing together for the first time in nearly five years at Donald Trump’s Commander in Chief Ball, they hit the road for a sold out tour celebrating the band’s 25th anniversary.

Starting Sept. 3, Xcel Energy Center will be named Grand Casino Arena. Minnesota Sports & Entertainment and Grand Casino announced a 14-year naming rights partnership on June 17.

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man has been charged with cyberstalking a family member of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, allegedly leaving threatening voicemails that expressed glee about Thompson’s killing within hours of the fatal shooting, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

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Shane Daley, 40, is accused of placing multiple calls to Thompson’s family member after the shooting, justifying the killing and saying that the person deserved to die in a similar manner, according to a criminal complaint.

Daley, of Galway, New York, a small town north of Albany, was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon. Information on whether Daley had an attorney was not immediately available in online federal court records.

In a statement, Acting United States Attorney John A. Sarcone said that “Brian Thompson was gunned down in midtown Manhattan. Daley, as alleged, gleefully welcomed this tragedy and did all that he could to increase the Thompson family’s pain and suffering.”

FILE – Members of the New York police crime scene unit photograph bullets lying on the sidewalk as they investigate the scene outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)

Thompson was fatally shot outside a hotel in New York City in December by a man who prosecutors said was angered over what he viewed as corporate greed. The suspect, Luigi Mangione, has pleaded not guilty.

CARO, Mich. (AP) — A pickup truck went through a stop sign in rural Michigan and crashed into a van carrying members of an Amish community, killing at least six people, authorities said.

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The crash occurred Tuesday afternoon in Tuscola County’s Gilford Township, 100 miles north of Detroit.

Thirteen people were in the two vehicles, including 10 in the van, the sheriff’s office said.

“Multiple passengers were ejected from the van and the pickup,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. “At this time there are 6 confirmed fatalities and the condition of the additional patients is unknown.”

Members of a local Amish community were in the van, Undersheriff Robert Baxter said Wednesday.

“They had a paid driver in the van,” he told The Associated Press. “I’m not sure where they were headed or where they were coming from. They’re county residents.”

Baxter said seven people were taken to a hospital. He had no update on their conditions.

The Amish generally follow basic Christian beliefs while maintaining a degree of separation from common society. They typically rely on horse-drawn buggies for transportation and do not operate their own cars or trucks but will ride with in vehicles driven by people who are not Amish.

About 61% of North America’s Amish population lives in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, according to Elizabethtown College, though Michigan also has a relatively large share.