By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas police charged a 28-year-old schoolteacher in the killing of a married couple who were hiking with their children at Devil’s Den State Park, finding him in a nearby city after a five-day search and public pleas for trailgoers to look through their photos.

State Police arrested Andrew James McGann at a barbershop in Springdale, said Col. Stacie Rhoads, commander of the department’s criminal investigation division. He was charged with two counts of capital murder and was being held without bond Thursday in the state’s Washington County jail.

The map above locates Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas. (AP Graphic)

Police announced the arrest at a Wednesday night news conference but would not discuss a motive. McGann had been hired at Springdale Public Schools as a teacher candidate for the upcoming year but had not yet come into contact with any of its families or students, the district said in a statement.

A lawyer couldn’t be located for McGann, and a message was left for a number listed for him. His first court appearance was scheduled for Friday.

“If you commit a violent, senseless act here in our state, our law enforcement will hunt you down and bring you to justice, because that’s what the people of Arkansas frankly deserve,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

Springdale is roughly 30 miles north of the state’s remote Devil’s Den park, where trails have remained closed since Saturday’s killings.

Police flooded with tips

Clinton David Brink, 43, and Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, were found dead on a walking trail at Devil’s Den. Their daughters, who are 7 and 9, were not hurt and are being cared for by family members, authorities have said.

The State Police have released few details about the investigation, including how the couple was killed. In the days after the attack, police released a composite sketch and then a photo of a person of interest that showed them only from behind. Authorities urged trailgoers who had been at the park to check their camera rolls for photos or video that might help point to a suspect.

Rhoads said the public’s help and video footage they received was instrumental in capturing McGann. Tips came in from as far away as Washington state, she said.

“It was overwhelming,” she said.

Suspect taught in Oklahoma before Arkansas job

McGann was a teacher at a small Oklahoma school district until May and then resigned to take a job in another state, according to a statement from Sand Springs Public Schools, which is near Tulsa. It added that McGann had passed all background checks.

This photo provided by Washington County Sheriff’s Office shows Andrew McGann. (Washington County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

McGann had not yet started his new job in Arkansas at Springdale Public Schools, said Jared Cleveland, the district superintendent. He said the district could not provide more information, citing the investigation.

“Our entire team extends our deepest condolences to the Brink family. Their children are especially in our thoughts and prayers,” Cleveland said.

Sierra Marcum said three years ago, her son was a student in McGann’s fourth grade classroom in Flower Mound, Texas, and described him as the “most standoff teacher she had ever met.” Her son’s yearbook includes a photo of McGann.

“Pretty cold. You could ask him a question and he would give you a one word response,” she said. “Overall just pretty disinterested in his students.”

Victims had recently moved before hike

Clinton and Cristen Brink had just moved from South Dakota to the small city of Prairie Grove in northwest Arkansas. Their water had been connected less than two weeks ago, Mayor David Faulk said.

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Clinton Brink had been scheduled to start a job as a milk delivery driver Monday in the nearby Fayetteville area, according to Hiland Dairy, his employer. Cristen Brink had been licensed as a nurse in Montana and South Dakota before moving to Arkansas.

The Brink family said the couple died “heroes protecting their little girls.”

“Our entire state is grieving for the tragic loss and senseless and horrific crime that’s taken place in this area,” Sanders said.

Devil’s Den is a 2,500-acre state park near West Fork, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock, the state capital.

The park is known for its hiking trails and rock formations, and it is a short drive from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and Walmart’s Bentonville headquarters.

It was selected as a state park site in the 1930s and the park’s trails lead to the surrounding Ozark National Forest.

Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden contributed from Seattle.

(Ben Sargent)

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section or find Observer political reporting here.

The post Loon Star State: Render unto Trump… appeared first on The Texas Observer.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — Summer has returned to Yosemite National Park’s High Country — the snows have melted along the park’s famed Tioga Road, purple lupin and yellow buttercups are in bloom and the lakes provide a stunning backdrop to massive granite domes.

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But one common fixture has been in short supply in recent years: campers.

That’s about to change. The largest campground in Yosemite National Park — and one of the largest at any national park in the United States — is reopening after being closed for three years for a major upgrade.

Workers have finished construction on a $26.2 million renovation of Tuolumne Meadows Campground. It is set to reopen Aug. 1.

Located at 8,600 feet along Tioga Road more than an hour’s drive from Yosemite Valley, the campground has 336 campsites that serve more than 140,000 visitors a year, offering a key starting point where generations of hikers and backpackers have set out to explore Yosemite’s wilderness of sub-alpine meadows, Ponderosa pine forests and scenic granite peaks.

The campground originally was built in 1934 by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps. Back then, the goal was to stop people from parking randomly in the fragile meadows. The facilities they built created countless vacation memories over the decades. But time took its toll.

“This is a well-loved campground,” said Kathleen Morse, Yosemite’s chief of strategic planning during a recent visit.

“It has a historic and more rustic atmosphere than Yosemite Valley,” she said. “But it was getting pretty dilapidated. Drainage was poor. Sites weren’t level. It was a free-for-all with parking.”

Crews rebuilt the campground’s aging water and sewer systems. They upgraded electrical equipment, and replaced every picnic table, fire ring and food locker at 336 campsites. They renovated the outdoor amphitheater, repaved the access road, added disabled parking spaces, and moved 21 sites out of the floodplain of the Tuolumne River.

“Yosemite gets 4 million visitors a year,” Morse said. “That’s hard on infrastructure. We want to protect the natural resources so they are here forever, and provide a good visitor experience. This is a crown jewel park. We want to have crown jewel facilities that the public can be proud of.”

The Tuolumne Meadows Campground is more than a stop on one of the most famous mountain roads in the American West. It’s also a critical access point for the public.

With campsites for cars, groups and walk-in users, Tuolumne Meadows makes up nearly one-fourth of the roughly 1,500 campsites in all of Yosemite National Park. It has been closed since 2022 for the construction, which could only take place in summer months because the area is buried in up to 6 feet of snow during winter.

Last week, a few early visitors wandered in to see its rebirth.

“This is one of the nicer places we’ve seen on our trip,” said Kevin Thurston, who was visiting with his wife and two sons from Houston. “If we lived closer we’d come up here more. Definitely thumbs up.”

Nearby, Meg Henry, visiting with her husband, Bill Henry, and their two nieces from Los Osos in San Luis Obispo County, remembered how the old campground had aging facilities and a scattershot parking system.

Meg Henry, of Los Osos, fills her camelback with water as her husband, Bill Henry, and their nieces look on at the Tuolumne Meadows Campground in Yosemite, Calif., on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

“There used to be cars everywhere,” Meg said. “Instead of cars you see nature.”

Campsites at Tuolumne Meadows are $36 a night. Reservations for all Yosemite hotels and campgrounds can be made at recreation.gov.

The upgrade is the latest in a series of major renovations at Yosemite in recent years. Last year, the park built a new $12.5 million visitor center in the heart of the valley near the Village Store, and completed a $19 million renovation of the trails, restrooms, parking lots, signs and wooden boardwalks around Bridalveil Fall.

This month, crews broke ground on a $220 million project to rebuild the park’s 45-year-old wastewater treatment plant at El Portal.

The money for the Tuolumne Meadows Campground, the El Portal upgrades and several other key projects came from the Great American Outdoors Act. That law, signed by President Trump during his first term in 2020, provided $6.5 billion in new funding to the National Park Service and $3 billion to the U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal lands agencies to upgrade long-overdue maintenance projects.

A buck feeds from a branch at the Tuolumne Meadows Campgrounds in Yosemite, Calif., on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. After three years of being closed for major renovations, the campground, originally built by Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, will open on Aug. 1. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Republicans who have in recent years voted against similar environmental efforts embraced the bill after two Western senators, Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, and Steve Daines, R-Montana, were up for re-election in 2020 and urged the White House to embrace a major parks bill they were supporting to help their chances. Daines ended up winning his election. Gardener lost to Democrat John Hickenlooper.

The money, however, continues to fund projects across the United States and the West. In California, it has paid to rebuild water lines at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, upgrade a wastewater system at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, and repave roads and build a new drainage system at Yosemite’s Glacier Point.

Frank Dean, a ranger at Yosemite from 1990 to 1995, also served for 10 years as president of the Yosemite Conservancy, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that has raised private donations to fund hundreds of projects to improve the park’s facilities and restore its environment.

Dean said that although Yosemite Valley receives most of the attention and visitors, Tuolumne Meadows and the park’s higher elevations are singularly beautiful.

“Yosemite Valley is incredible,” Dean said. “Everyone should be able to see it at least once in their life. But to get into the heart of the park’s high country is really special. If you haven’t been up there, you should go. The meadows are flat. You can walk along the river. You can see iconic peaks. It’s an amazing place and it is easy to get to. It’s very special up there.”

Jonathan Winters of the National Park Service and his dog, Tuli, walk past one of the renovated campsites during a tour of the Tuolumne Meadows Campgrounds in Yosemite, Calif., on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. After three years of being closed for major renovations, the campground, originally built by Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, will open on Aug. 1. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

By JESSICA DAMIANO, Associated Press

When I was a kid, my friends and I spent long summer days outdoors, picking daisies, observing roly-poly (also known as pill) bugs, holding caterpillars and trying to catch fireflies (lightning bugs).

It’s still not hard to entice the under-5 set to make mudpies, smell flowers and eat string beans off the vine, but as children get older and turn to screens, nature exploration often falls to the bottom of their boredom-buster lists.

With a little creativity, however, parents can nurture an interest in the great outdoors and inspire a lifelong love for gardening. The key is starting kids young — and giving them ownership.

Let them pick the plants

Take children to the nursery and let each decide what they would like to grow. Annuals and perennials should be limited only by the site’s conditions (sunny? poor drainage?) and their non-toxicity (children tend to put things in their mouths). Leaves and stems of tomato, potato and rhubarb, for instance, are toxic, so if you grow them, you’ll need to monitor little ones closely (if you’re uncertain about a plant, call the national Poison Control center at 1-800-222-1222 for guidance).

Otherwise, let the kids have complete control. Vegetables should be ones they like to eat; they’ll take pride in a meal that includes ingredients they grew themselves. Growing edibles can also play a role in influencing a lifetime of healthy food choices.

While you’re at the nursery, pick up some child-size rakes, hoes, spades and gloves — or scout for used ones at neighborhood garage sales or online marketplaces. Ordinary kitchen spoons can also be used for digging.

Let them lay out the garden and name it

Back at home, let each child use a yardstick to measure a 3-square-foot plot of land to call their own. If you don’t have garden space, give them a container (be sure to poke drainage holes in the bottom).

Name the area or container for the child and let them design a sign that reads, for instance, “Olivia’s Garden” or “Noah’s Nasturtiums.” Let them name their individual plants, too. They will feel protective over them and take pride in their growth.

Offer advice on plant care

Teach kids that gardens need to eat and drink like they do — and that gardens, too, get cranky when they’re hungry or parched. Show them the symptoms, then let them figure out when their plants need water or fertilizer.

Observe the sun’s movement across the sky together and, if possible, situate the plot where others can admire it.

Be available to offer advice, but don’t insist on perfection: Teach children not to step on plants, but let them get dirty.

Mistakes are often the best teachers, so, if they insist, allow them to pick an unripe tomato. They will quickly learn that an unripe tomato doesn’t taste as good as a ripe one, and that an early harvest is wasteful. The same goes for immature potatoes, garlic, carrots and radishes. These are the lessons that stick.

Hang a calendar somewhere visible — in their bedroom or on the refrigerator — to schedule watering and weeding. Let them take responsibility for checking it and alerting you when those tasks need to be done. Crossing off completed items will also impart a feeling of accomplishment — I know it does for me.

Gardening offers food and flowers, yes, but it also teaches patience, responsibility and the satisfaction that comes from nurturing something over an extended period. It’s also relaxing and creates precious one-on-one time that they’ll remember long after the flowers have faded. And that’s the best harvest of all.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.