Texas News

A tornado touched down over an open field in Central Texas as severe storms dropped hail over parts of the state.

“All of the children have safely been removed from the ranch”

The 16-year-old girl whose phone call triggered the massive raid on a polygamist sect's West Texas compound told a local family violence shelter that her husband beat and raped her, according to court documents ... via KHQA-TV Quincy

“At one point in the conversation, I asked her if she was doing OK, and she said, 'Yes, I'm fine. I'm happy,'”

A deputy prison warden's wife who disappeared with a convicted murderer in 1994 and spent a decade on the run with him has been charged with helping him escape. via Examiner.com

The 70,000 barrel per day Texas oil refinery closed by an explosion in February reopened at about half-capacity on Monday, but part of the Alon USA Energy Inc. via PR-inside.com

“The time it takes, the research, there's just not an awareness of this at all”

The deadliest form of skin cancer is a little-studied type you've probably never heard of. After he died, Martin Whatley's classic rock 'n' roll guitar became his last weapon against it.

Whatley's frustrated widow carefully pulled the pristine 1964 Fender Stratocaster from under their bed and put it up for auction on eBay, pledging half the proceeds for Merkel cell carcinoma research and the rest to pay his medical bills. She knew scientists were having little luck finding money to study a killer so rare that few doctors recognize it, much less know how to treat it. Read more

A small earthquake awoke residents in south Texas Monday, but there are no reported injuries. via KARE-TV Minneapolis

“Texans need and deserve real solutions to our growing traffic challenges, not just blind opposition to new lane and highway construction”

A crowd marched through the heart of downtown Austin to the state Capitol on Saturday to protest Gov. Rick Perry's plan for 4,000 miles of toll roads across Texas.

The Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed network of superhighway toll roads, rankles opponents who characterize it as the largest government grab of private property in the state's history and an unneeded and improper expansion of toll roads.

Rally participants carried signs with slogans like 'No TTC!' and 'Whodoes TTC benefit?' while listening to the band the Texicans play 'The Trans-Texas Corridor Blues,' the Austin American-Statesman reported for its Sunday editions. Read more

It appears that Jay-Z and Beyoncé Knowles have finally tied the knot. There was a swirl of activity Friday at the rap mogul's Tribeca apartment. Delivery trucks funneled in and out of the building, dropping off silver candelabras and white flowers. A white tent was set up on the roof, and stars including Beyoncé's former Destiny's Child bandmates, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, along with Gwyneth Paltrow, were spotted arriving.

The Web sites of celebrity magazines People and Us Weekly reported the couple married and threw a lavish but small party at the apartment Friday, citing unnamed sources who are friends with the pair. The Web sites reported their families attended the party.

Rumors circulated all week about the event after a report that the couple had taken out a marriage license in Scarsdale, N.Y. Representatives for Beyoncé and Jay-Z declined to comment on reports ahead of the event. Jay-Z's publicist had no comment Saturday.

A top Roman Catholic leader suggested that violent drug traffickers have been "generous" to their communities, drawing a swift rebuke Saturday from another high-ranking church official and ruling-party politicians.

Texcoco Bishop Carlos Aguiar Retes, president of the Mexican Bishops Conference, said drug lords had financed public works in rural areas that are little served by the government and also had built churches.

Authorities stormed the temple of a Texas ranch that's home to a rogue Mormon sect Saturday, as part of a search for victims of physical and sexual abuse, police said. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a rogue branch of the Mormon church and forbids nonbelievers from entering its temples.

Earlier Saturday, 131 children and young women were removed from the ranch, bringing the total of people removed from the ranch to 183 since law enforcement officers raided the compound Thursday. The majority of the 137 children removed from the ranch were girls. About 40 boys were removed, said Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the Texas Child Protective Services.

A man shot and killed his wife's doctor Friday outside a medical office building before being critically wounded himself by a police officer, authorities said.

The officer had been nearby when Julie Abbott was shot in the building's parking lot, and he found a man standing over her with a gun in his hand, San Antonio police spokesman Gabe Trevino said.

The officer ordered the man to drop the gun, then fired several rounds when the suspect advanced toward him, authorities said.

The suspect was listed in critical condition after undergoing surgery, University Hospital spokesman Leni Kirkman said. Authorities said they were withholding his name pending formal charges. Read more

“I think the issue continues to be that the development of new wind generation is almost all occurring in West Texas, and it's happening at a pace faster than transmission can get constructed”

By ELIZABETH SOUDER / The Dallas Morning News esouder@dallasnews.com The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state power grid, estimates that building enough transmission lines to handle ... via Denton Record-Chronicle

“About lecturing with your head enclosed in a diving helmet”

Here is a familiar sight: Mike Wallace on camera. He's grilling Henry Kissinger on "the immediate issue that will decide the fate of our freedom, certainly - and possibly even of our survival." But hold on: The ... via CBC News

“Based on crude oil continuing to sell for more than $100 per barrel, it is unlikely lower gas prices lie ahead between now and the Memorial Day holiday weekend”

The records kept coming at Texas gasoline pumps this week. Regular self-serve prices rose 4 cents from last week to an average of $3.21 per gallon statewide this week, according to the AAA Texas survey released ... via KAUZ

“We have been working very closely with the adults at the ranch, and they have been assisting us in our search”

Child welfare officials planned Saturday to continue interviewing dozens of girls taken from a secretive West Texas religious retreat after a 16-year-old complained of physical abuse at the compound built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

Officials from Texas Child Protective Services, escorted by state troopers, took 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, from the remote retreat on Friday afternoon. By the end of the day, 18 were put legally into state custody, and CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said interviews would continue. Read more

The Baytown eighth-grader accused of killing her newborn son by trying to flush him down a toilet in a school bathroom initially sought help from a campus nurse who thought the teen was experiencing menstrual cramps and sent her back to class, her friends said Thursday.

North Texans awoke early Friday to a thundrous drenching from a severe storm that also brought damaging winds and large hail to some areas in the region. Some Denton County residents near Krum and at the county fairgrounds were responding to hail damage to roofs and windows after storms rolled through the area around 3 a.m. producing soft-ball sized hail. Nearly three hours later, nickel-size hail was reported from a storm pushing east from southeast Johnson County into western Ellis County, but there were no immediate reports of damage from that storm.

A baby born to a 14-year-old mother in a restroom at her junior high was alive at birth, dying only after she tried to flush it down the toilet, officials said Thursday. Police also announced Thursday that the baby born Wednesday was a boy. Baytown police Lt. Eric Freed said the baby boy was probably full term and cried once before his mother tried to flush him down the toilet. An autopsy confirmed the infant was alive.

A fugitive from a private San Antonio jail has been captured in Boerne. Lone Star Fugitive Task Force agents and Boerne police captured Esequiel Pena, 35, at the Arbor Apartments in the Hill Country town Wednesday, according to a U.S. Marshals Service statement. A citizen tip alerted Boerne police to Pena's presence at the apartment complex, according to the statement. The police and task force agents mobilized and took Pena into custody about midday Wednesday.

A Fort Worth couple married for 75 years were buried Tuesday afternoon, after dying within five hours of one other. JC Cox, 100, and his wife Josie, 96, were married on Christmas Day in 1932.