Texas News

The slaying of a popular convenience store owner on Houston's north side was one of three homicides reported to police within about one hour Sunday.

Who agrees with you on immigration? — Use an interactive tool to find the candidate closest to your views. http://www.chron.com/mm/2008finder/immigration/

Texas is known worldwide for killing its killers. But it might also free you on probation - if you murder the right person. And nowhere is that truer than in Dallas County, which put more than twice as many murderers on probation as it sent to death row. This is where insiders speak of "misdemeanor murder." Where you can kill someone in cold blood and never have a conviction on your record. Where innocent people pay the price. Welcome to the other side of Texas Justice.

A mammoth pension fund delivered good news Friday to nearly a quarter million retired teachers and 936,000 active school and university employees. Teacher Retirement System trustees approved a one-time pension payment of up to $2,400 for each of the fund's almost 249,000 retirees and beneficiaries. The check, to be mailed in January, will be retired teachers' first cost-of-living increase in six years.

An employee of a popular skydiving facility in Brazoria County was found dead Friday afternoon, apparently killed after his parachute malfunctioned during a jump earlier this week. Scott Bell jumped alone in the last jump Wednesday but wasn't noticed as missing because he is the person who checks people in before they jump and accounts for them after they jump, said Houston attorney Lee McMillian, the legal adviser for Skydive Spaceland in Rosharon.

A former East Texas nurse, known by her neighbors as a quiet and law-abiding housewife, ended a 33-year flight from justice this week when she grabbed the barrel of a shotgun and confronted law enforcement officers who had come to arrest her for long-ago robberies and jail escapes.

American Airlines Inc. rejected the contract proposal from its pilots' union Thursday, saying the package would increase the carrier's pilot costs by more than $1.4 billion a year.

The Texas Lottery Commission may be violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by allowing tickets to be sold in places where smoking is permitted, the attorney general's office said Thursday.

The attorney general's statement follows a 2006 complaint to the lottery commission made by Lewisville resident Billy Williams, who said he had a severe asthma attack after buying a lottery ticket at a smoky convenience store. Mr. Williams suggested that his rights were violated because smoking was permitted at the retailer.

"A court would probably find that the Texas Lottery Commission violates the Americans with Disabilities Act if it fails to provide Texas residents with 'meaningful access' to state services" – in this case, lottery tickets, Attorney General Greg Abbott's office said.

The wife of executed killer Michael Richard filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of causing the inmate's Sept. 25 lethal injection. Marsha Richard of Houston claims Keller had no authority to prevent what would have been a successful appeal to stay her husband's execution.

Whether or not Pancho Villa is remembered as an infamous outlaw or a revolutionary hero, everyone agrees that the folk hero of the 1910 Mexican Revolution always carried guns. Now two of those firearms, and one that belonged to frontierswoman "Calamity Jane," will be up for bidding in an auction beginning Saturday in Fredericksburg. The auction is open for public preview on Friday.

An 11-year-old boy has died after being bitten on the neck by his family's pit bull, police said. The Killeen Police Department said the dog jumped from the couch at Seth Lovitt when the boy was running through his home with his little brother Tuesday evening. The dog knocked Seth to the ground and bit him.

An illegal alien from Mexico was arrested for drug possession after telling authorities that two masked gunmen had stolen 150 pounds of marijuana from his home. Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies arrived at the home near Penitas in South Texas to find the door kicked in and nearly 15 pounds of pot lying on the floor, Sheriff Lupe Trevino said. Jose Guadalupe Flores, 35, escaped while the men ransacked the house but returned later and told the deputies he had been wrapping the drugs for shipment when the intruders arrived.

The Lancaster school board approved an unusual proposal Monday night to buy annual subscriptions of a local newspaper for all students' families. District officials said the agreement with Lancaster Today will improve teaching and learning and provide better communication with parents. Four board members approved the plan while two, Carolyn Morris and Marjorie King, voted against it. Marie Elliott abstained.

Lancaster Today is owned Kim Petty who also serves as its Advertising Director.

It's become a Saturday morning ritual on a street corner in Spring. Two dozen U.S. Border Watch volunteers, some wearing combat boots and military-style garb, face off with Hispanic day laborers and a half-dozen of their supporters.

As the Birdville school district wrestled last week with a controversy involving the most explosive word in the English language, I went to visit an old friend whose writing more than 120 years ago had sparked the whole furor. Yeah, you know the word -- THE word; THAT word; the N-word; the word often seen in print as n-----.

A pilot has been taken to the hospital after crash landing a single-engine airplane near NW Loop 820, north of Fort Worth Meacham International Airport, officials said.

While the national teen birth rate has slowed, Texas has made far less headway, alarming public health officials and child advocates. Texas teens lead the nation in having babies. Last month, the nonprofit group Child Trends conferred another No. 1 ranking on Texas. In the latest statistics available, 24 percent of the state's teen births in 2004 were not the girl's first delivery.

An ex-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith who is serving a six-year sentence for making criminal threats against her wants a piece of her inheritance, according to documents filed with Los Angeles Superior Court.

Mark Hatten, who lists his current address as the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, dated Smith in 2000 but was later found guilty of threatening her with a knife and assaulting one of her neighbors. He was acquitted of stalking her.

He filed his claim Wednesday in Superior Court. Read more

“We are potentially curtailing their ability to do tollways and maybe push forward the Trans-Texas Corridor”

Associated Press AUSTIN - Two state lawmakers are requesting formal inquiries into whether the Texas Department of Transportation is improperly spending money on advertising. via Valley Morning Star

A man accused of lying about his military record was sentenced to almost three years in prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Richard David McClanahan, 29, whose last known address was Fort Worth, was sentenced Thursday to 34 months in prison, U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said. Mr. McClanahan pleaded guilty in August to one count of making false statements and one count of making false claims about receipt of military medals.