Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Texas is preparing to carry out its second execution of the week Thursday, putting to death a Dallas man who fatally shot his two daughters while their mother listened on the phone. If his pending appeals are denied, John Battaglia, 62, will be the third person to be executed in Texas in 2018.
This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows William Rayford, who is scheduled for execution Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas Hall in Dallas. This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows William Rayford, who is scheduled for execution Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas Hall in Dallas.
This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows William Rayford, who is scheduled for execution Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas Hall in Dallas. less This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows William Rayford, who is scheduled for execution Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas ... more HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Carol Lynn Thomas Hall knew William Rayford had spent time in prison for killing his estranged wife but defended her own relationship with him, telling relatives she believed it was her Christian duty to give the parolee a second chance.
It can sometimes be tempting to go with a fresh new face in a primary and turn out the longstanding incumbent. But smart voters know when to resist that temptation.
Attorneys for a Texas prisoner facing execution this week for killing a woman in Dallas in 1999 are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his punishment after the top Texas criminal court refused to consider their appeal. Lawyers for 64-year-old William Rayford say his execution set for Tuesday evening in Huntsville should be halted so the high court can review whether his trial lawyer during questioning of a witness improperly introduced race as a possible factor jurors could have considered when they decided Rayford, who is black, should die for killing his ex-girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas Hall.
The White House aggravated hard-line conservatives and Democrats when it proposed granting citizenship to 1.8 million Dreamers in exchange for border wall funding and drastic changes to the nation's immigration laws. The Senate majority whip, who has emerged as a key Republican negotiator in talks to resolve the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, says he supports a permanent solution for young immigrants in the country illegally.
The federal agency that regulates firearms received more than 35,000 comments on the legality of "bump stocks," the rapid-fire device used by the Las Vegas shooter that allows a semi-automatic gun to fire at nearly automatic rates. The online comments included dozens from Texans during the one-month commenting period - part of the Bureau Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' process to review whether bump stocks fall into the definition of a "machine gun."
Drawing clever political districts is one way politicians in Texas and elsewhere avoid accountability - by protecting themselves from voters who disagree with them. They do this by stuffing weirdly shaped geographic districts with voters who agree with them.
Texans will feel little to no immediate impact if the federal government shuts down Friday, according to several state and federal agencies. Funding to keep the federal government running is set to run out midnight Friday unless Congress passes a new spending bill.
It's been a jam-packed year of news since President Donald Trump moved into the White House, but it's also been a transformative -- if tumultuous -- year for each member of the first family. Trump and his extended nuclear family's first year in Washington saw new homes in cities, new roles, new books and even a new baby.
If 9-year-old Wesley Trent Stoker was nervous when he took the stage Friday at the 26th annual Gardere Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory Competition in Dallas, he didn't show it. Dressed in a dark suit and a rose-colored tie, Wesley stood at the microphone and spoke fervently for five minutes around the contest's theme honoring the late civil rights leader: "What is your dream for today's world?" More than once, he also seemed to acknowledge that he was the only white student among the competition's finalists.
Texas authorities announced that no charges would be filed against pastor Andy Savage for his 1998 sexual assault against a teenage girl, outraging his critics. The Montgomery County District Attorney's office in Texas released a statement Wednesday night explaining that the statute of limitations for Savage's sexual assault against Jules Woodson had passed and that they could not pursue any legal means against Savage.
The question of what voter data Texas can release to such commissions and what safeguards they must ensure stems from a lawsuit filed in July by the Texas NAACP and the Texas League of Women Voters seeking to block the state from handing over its voter rolls to the federal commission. Texas election law includes provisions that prohibit the information from being used for commercial purposes.
This Sept. 6, 2016, photo provided by Best Fur Friends Rescue, shows Dr. Bill Kinsinger, with Rascal, a dog from Fort Worth Animal Care & Control, in Gainesville, Texas.
Lupe Valdez, the former Dallas County Sheriff, formally launched her Democratic bid for governor on Sunday, touting a campaign aimed at representing all Texans and listing a broad range of topics she plans to address as election season gets underway. "Together, we need to build something new - a new Texas," Valdez told a crowd of supporters here.
Capitol Hill leaders essentially scrubbed earmarks from the congressional experience a few years ago. They toppled the earmarking process like statues of Communist dictators in Eastern Europe, circa 1989.
This week I sit down with Bruce Bartlett, domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan, and Treasury official under George H. W. Bush. Bartlett's expertise is in tax issues, and he was one of the author's of the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which ultimately became the basis of Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut.
The Trump administration has proposed spending $18 billion over 10 years to significantly extend the border wall with Mexico, providing one of its most detailed blueprints of how the president hopes to carry out a signature campaign pledge. The proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for 316 miles of additional barrier by September 2027, bringing total coverage to 970 miles , or nearly half the border, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the matter.
Temperatures plummeted overnight to 2 degrees in the north Georgia mountains, 14 in Atlanta and 26 as far south as New Orleans as the... . Steam rises above the waters of the Mississippi River underneath the Eads Bridge as the temperature hovers around -1 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018, in St. Louis.