Browsing: State

The mayors of Houston, Dallas and Austin told lawmakers on Tuesday that they support a proposed $2 billion fund to finance water projects across the state and would like to see less red tape and more conservation efforts.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker told the House Natural Resources Committee that she supports using money from the Rainy Day Fund to create a water development bank that would help local authorities build new water projects and finance conservation efforts. Houston has invested in numerous water projects and delivers 495 million gallons a day to 470,000 customers.

A Senate education panel spent hours Tuesday maligning the state’s standardized testing system, even questioning whether it’s appropriate to ask youngsters across sun-kissed South Texas math problems about the possibility of frost forming on their sidewalks.

By the end of the meeting, it seemed the exam stood only a snowball’s chance in Brownville of surviving the legislative session without a major overhaul.

An East Texas jury sentenced two women to prison Tuesday after convicting them of kidnapping a Houston boy when he was 8 months old and hiding him for eight years before he was found.

Gloria Walker was sentenced to 30 years for injury to a child and eight years for kidnapping, to be served concurrently. Her daughter, Krystle Tanner, was sentenced to eight years for kidnapping and eight years for the lesser charge of reckless injury to a child, also to be served concurrently.

Sanderson Farms notified the city of Palestine and Anderson County today of its intent to build a poultry complex in the region. The announcement immediately followed the completion of the company’s annual stockholders meeting in Laurel, Miss.

FORT WORTH — A 911 recording and documents released Tuesday reveal more about the possible state of mind of the Iraq War veteran charged with gunning down a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend at a Texas shooting range.

Eddie Ray Routh told his sister and brother-in-law that he and the two men “were out shooting target practice and he couldn’t trust them so he killed them before they could kill him,” according to a Lancaster police search warrant affidavit.

The system Texas uses to fund public schools violates the state’s constitution by not providing enough money to school districts and failing to distribute the money in a fair way, a judge ruled Monday in a landmark decision that could force the Legislature to overhaul the way it pays for education.

The Iraq War veteran charged with killing a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had to be shocked with a stun gun and restrained in his jail cell overnight after becoming aggressive, a sheriff said Monday.

A fledgling Texas cancer trials network announced Tuesday that it had shut down after auditors found more than $300,000 in expenses deemed inappropriate in the latest blow to the state’s troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting agency.

The first woman scheduled to be executed in the U.S. since 2010 won a reprieve Tuesday, mere hours before she was scheduled to be taken to the Texas death chamber.

Superintendents of three small rural school districts that allow some teachers to carry guns told Texas lawmakers Monday that the practice provides a critical measure of safety for students in the event of a campus shooting, but a law enforcement expert said it also could put those teachers at “high risk” of being mistakenly shot by responding officers.

Prosecutors on Monday dropped charges against a 22-year-old man who authorities initially believed was involved in a shooting that wounded him and two others at a Houston-area community college.

The beleaguered $3 billion cancer-fighting agency in Texas approved lucrative taxpayer-funded projects despite unfavorable marks from scientists, kept sloppy records and allowed imprudent relationships between top agency executives and recipients of multimillion-dollar grants, according to a scathing state audit released Monday.

A McLennan County woman was arrested for insurance fraud this week as part of a larger investigation into a suspicious November home fire.

Nearly a year after their two children were found living virtually unsupervised in an old school bus in Southeast Texas, the parents regained full custody of their kids Tuesday when a judge dismissed a child welfare case against them.

Texas public schools could save up to $2 billion annually if the state allows families to use public funding on private schooling, a school vouchers advocate testified Tuesday at the ongoing school finance trial.

Texas voters could decide whether to tax themselves to pay for armed guards or other public school safety measures under a plan outlined Tuesday by three Houston-area state lawmakers.

A Dallas woman whose 10-year-old stepson died after she denied him water, even as temperatures soared over 100 degrees, was sentenced Tuesday to 85 years in prison.

Tina Marie Alberson did not react as her sentence was announced. She was convicted last week of reckless injury to a child, a second-degree felony, in the July 2011 death of Jonathan James.

A fight between two people erupted in gunfire Tuesday at a Houston-area community college, catching a maintenance man in the crossfire and leaving students and others cowering in classrooms.

The remains of the only U.S. Navy ship sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during Civil War combat now can be seen in 3-D sonar images from the Gulf’s murky depths, revealing details such as a shell hole that may have been among the ship’s fatal wounds.

Two Army veterans and their wives on Wednesday sued the railroad company whose train hit a truck carrying veterans and their spouses during a parade in Midland.

Texas wants ownership of Warren Jeffs’ massive ranch where prosecutors say the convicted polygamist sect leader and his followers sexually assaulted dozens of children, the state attorney general’s office said Wednesday.

The Department of Justice announced Tuesday the Baylor Health Care System must pay $907,355 to settle allegations of false claims for radiation oncology services.

The Baylor Health Care system is an umbrella term that encompasses the Baylor University Medical Center and the Health Texas Provider Network, two organizations mentioned in the settlement.

None of the organizations are affiliated with Baylor University.

Texas lawmakers are considering possible changes to the Texas Public Information Act, including how to reduce frivolous requests and whether or not the act hurts government contractors.

Texas has one of the best open records laws in the country, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst asked the Senate Open Government Committee to take a look at possible changes when the Legislature meets next year. Needless to say, changing the law that requires the government to make its records public always makes open government advocates, such as journalists, a little nervous.

One week after an election that disheartened many conservatives, citizens from 34 states are petitioning the White House to secede from the Union, and Texas is leading the rebellious pack with more than 103,000 online signatures.

The request from Texans “to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government,” follows a long tradition of wishful and independent thinking in a state that once was its own nation.

From the ill-fated Republic of Texas rebellion of 1997 to the never-say-die Texas Nationalist Movement, the notion of Lone Star independence doesn’t seem to go away.

George P. Bush’s father has issued a fundraising letter asking donors to open their pocketbooks because his son “is considering” running for Texas land commissioner, though a political strategist for the younger Bush said Wednesday that no final decision has been made.

A rising star among Hispanic conservatives, George Prescott Bush is the grandson of one president and nephew of another. He made headlines last week by filing “appointment of a campaign treasurer” forms with the Texas Ethics Commission — the first step toward seeking statewide office.

A former Texas college student from Saudi Arabia was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for trying to make a bomb for use in a religious attack, possibly targeting a former U.S. president.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari was sentenced in Amarillo, where jurors convicted him in June of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Prosecutors say he had collected bomb-making material in his apartment and researched possible targets, including the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush.

Embedded deep within the hubbub of the election day, largely seen as the day the president is decided, is the election for the seat of the Texas State Representative from District 56.

Republican incumbent Charles “Doc” Anderson defeated Libertarian candidate Neill Snider to gain re-election. Anderson won by 79.47 percent, getting 38,521 votes.

Republican incumbent Brian Birdwell was successful in his bid for Texas Senate District 22 Senator, which includes McLennan, Bosque, Coryell, Hood, Johnson, Ellis, Navarro, Hill and Falls County.

Birdwell received 85.7 percent of votes, with a total of 164,335 votes, while his opponent, Libertarian Tom Kilbride, received 14.3 percent of the vote with 27,383 votes.

Texas overwhelmingly elected tea party-backed Republican Ted Cruz to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, completing the former state solicitor general’s once seemingly impossible rise from virtual unknown to the first Hispanic to represent the Lone Star State in the Senate.

Planned Parenthood will continue to receive funds from a joint Texas and federal program providing health care to low-income women, despite the state’s promise to exclude its clinics by Nov. 1 because they are affiliated with abortion providers.