He's said to be the richest man in Texas politics, but the disclosures Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has filed to the state Ethics Commission have only the barest details.Nowhere does it say the former CIA agent, through a privately held trust, is a major shareholder in a Houston energy and investment company. There's no mention of his far-flung cattle ranches, private bank investments or luxury condo. Nor is there any word of the hedge funds, stocks and bonds or publicly traded fuel distribution company that he acknowledges are or have been part of a trust fund estimated to be worth up to $200 million. more >>
Flooding receded Tuesday in southern Texas and main highways reopened after a deluge of as much as 13 inches of rain, as the drenching weather shifted to the northern end of the state and Oklahoma. Torrential rain flooded an estimated 1,400 homes by Tuesday in Starr County, and at least 243 people evacuated, said Natividad Gonzalez of the county sheriff's department. more >>
A 14-year-old girl allegedly married to jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs with her parents' blessing at age 12 was ordered back into foster care Thursday by a Texas judge. District Judge Barbara Walther said that there was "uncontroverted evidence of the underage marriage" and that the girl's mother, Barbara Jessop, refused to guarantee the girl's safety. The girl, shown in photographs submitted to the court kissing Jeffs, must immediately enter foster care. more >>
Texas Gov. Rick Perry indicated Monday that he supports a school district's decision to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes start this month. Trustees of the Harrold Independent School District approved a policy change last year to allow employees to carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings. more >>
Around the country, Americans are tightening their belts, scrapping vacation plans, eating more dinners at home, getting rid of their SUVs and watching "For Sale" signs linger on front lawns. But in oil-and-gas rich West Texas, folks are living large - again. Most homes sell quickly and command premium prices. Hotel rooms are in scant supply. Gas guzzlers are rolling off auto dealers' lots. Jobs are plentiful in the oil and gas fields and the businesses that serve them. more >>
Lawyers for Texas child welfare authorities and the parents of eight children from a polygamist sect agreed Monday to try negotiating a settlement before beginning new custody hearings. Child Protective Services had asked Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to return the children to foster care, alleging their mothers refused to ensure they didn't have contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages. more >>
A Texas car dealership has settled a lawsuit filed by the widow of a man who killed himself after dropping out of a contest in which participants tried to keep their hand on a vehicle the longest. Details of the settlement between Patterson Nissan of Longview, in east Texas, and Chalala Gutierrez, the wife of contestant Richard Thomas Vega II, are confidential, officials said. more >>
A body found in a remote area was been identified as the clerk whose abduction from a store in a small North Texas town was recorded by security cameras, authorities said Sunday. Mindy Daffern, 46, had been missing since Friday from the store her family owns in the city of Scotland, 130 miles northwest of Dallas. Surveillance camera videotape showed her being confronted at gunpoint by an unmasked man who walked her outside the store. more >>
Authorities in Texas say a body found in a remote area has been identified as the clerk whose abduction in a small town store was recorded by security cameras. Mindy Daffern had been missing since Friday when the security camera videotape showed a man pulling out a gun in the store owned by her family in the town of Scotland and forcing her to leave with him. more >>
A venomous viper that vanished twice in the past month has turned up again after a one-week absence from its Texas aquarium. Moody Gardens spokeswoman Jerri Hamachek says the missing 10-inch African bush viper was found Friday night outside the visitor center entrance. Hamachek says officials believe someone left the snake there. more >>
NASA said Friday it terminated its contract with a Houston company selected in June to supply the space agency's next-generation space suit. NASA said it determined that an unspecified compliance issue required it to halt its contract with Oceaneering International Inc., best known for providing deep water services and products to the oil and gas industry. more >>
A commission created to investigate allegations of forensic misconduct in the nation's busiest capital punishment state will, in its first inquiry, determine whether a man executed in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three daughters actually started the blaze. The Texas Forensic Science Commission agreed to review the original findings that Cameron Todd Willingham set a fire at his family's Corsicana home two days before Christmas in 1991. Its decision came after the Innocence Project, a legal group that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions, requested the case be reviewed. more >>
A tiny Texas district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings when classes begin this month, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements. The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff's Office, leaving students and teachers without protection, said David Thweatt, superintendent of the Harrold Independent School District. The lone campus of the 110-student district sits near a heavily traveled highway, which could make it a target, he argued. more >>
State child welfare authorities have decided that the courts no longer need to oversee 34 children taken from a polygamous sect's ranch in west Texas. The action does not necessarily end Child Protective Services' involvement with the children, but it means officials believe they can be kept safe without court intervention, agency spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said Friday. more >>
A 3-year-old boy was left in his mother's truck in 90-degree heat as she worked her shift at a hospital, then wriggled free from his car seat and even tried to start the ignition or open the windows before he died, officials said. The mother of Cameron Thomas Boone told investigators she forgot to drop him off at day care. She returned to the truck about nine hours later to find him unconscious Thursday. more >>
A 35-year-old Texas woman has been jailed after police say she made her 12-year-old daughter drive her to a bar. Police in Longview say they watched a minivan turn into a driveway without signaling on Wednesday and bump into a home at a low speed. They say the car was driven by Jennifer Lynn Rosenberg's daughter. Police say the girl told an officer she had just dropped her mother off at a bar. They say they found Rosenburg at the bar and that she admitted having her daughter drive her there. more >>
Victoria Osteen, the wife of megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, says her faith never faltered after she was sued for allegedly assaulting a flight attendant over a spill on her first-class seat. "If I had to go through this, I could at least be an example of trying to live out what's right, trying to stand strong and trying to just keep my faith intact," she said. "I stood strong because I believe in the truth." more >>
A member of the infamous "Texas 7" gang of escaped fugitives was executed Thursday for killing a Dallas-area police officer during their weeks on the run. Michael Rodriguez, who had dropped all appeals and volunteered for lethal injection, apologized profusely to the officer's widow and his own former sister-in-law before the lethal injection. He had been serving a life sentence for killing his wife at the time of the 2000 escape. more >>
Federal regulators Thursday declared a San Antonio charter bus company an "imminent hazard" to public safety because of its affiliation with a Houston motorcoach operator involved in a deadly Aug. 8 crash. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ordered Liberty Charters & Tours to stop using vehicles or drivers connected to Angel de la Torre or two of his companies, Iguala BusMex Inc. and Angel Tours Inc. more >>
The state's child welfare agency has cleared a Hurricane Katrina survivor of allegations she abused her five children, who were allegedly kidnapped by their caretaker last month. Child Protective Services spokeswoman Estella Olgiun told the Houston Chronicle in its online edition Thursday that no abuse or wrongdoing was found in its investigation of Erica Alphonse, 24. She said the family "has the right to go on with their everyday lives." more >>
