Category Archives: Texas

Texas may allow families to pay for private schools with public funds

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School voucher bill likely to benefit wealthier families, allowing $10,000 of taxpayer dollars per student per year

Donald Trump’s executive order on school choice last month may soon be wholly embraced by the state of Texas.

Earlier this month, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, announced school choice as an emergency item during his State of the State address, and just last week, the Texas senate easily passed a school voucher bill (known as senate bill 2 or SB2), which House Republicans expect to pass imminently.

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Judge blocks Sandy Hook families’ settlement over Alex Jones bankruptcy

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Texas judge says he cannot approve deal between families who won suits over false remarks about 2012 mass shooting

A bankruptcy judge has blocked a proposed settlement between the families of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting victims who sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his false remarks about the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school.

On Wednesday, judge Christopher Lopez of the US bankruptcy court for the southern district of Texas said he was unable to approve the proposed settlement between the families and Jones’s bankruptcy trustee. Lopez claimed that their efforts to divide Jones’s assets exceeded his court’s authority.

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Winter storm across US south disrupts travel and closes schools

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Flight cancellations pile up and state officials warn of dangerous roads on Saturday with biting cold and wet snow

Flight cancellations piled up and state officials warned of continuing dangerous roads on Saturday in the wake of a winter storm that closed schools and disrupted travel across parts of the southern US.

A storm that brought biting cold and wet snow to the south was moving out to sea off the east coast on Saturday, leaving behind a forecast of snow showers in the Appalachian mountains and New England. But temperatures are expected to plunge after sundown on Saturday in the south, raising the risk that melting snow will refreeze, turning roadways treacherous and glazed with ice.

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Texas teenager accused of using poison to kill rival’s competition show goat

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Aubrey Vanlandingham charged with animal cruelty after reportedly confessing to force-feeding pesticide to goat

A Texas teenager has been charged with animal cruelty after she was accused of using pesticide to poison and kill a rival’s competition show goat.

Authorities allege that Aubrey Vanlandingham, 17, used a drench gun to force-feed toxic pesticide to the goat, named Willie, at a barn at the Vista Ridge high school in Cedar Park in October.

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Volunteers fill in for ‘Pancho Claus’ after Tex-Mex Santa has heart attack

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Richard Reyes has delivered Christmas gifts to low-income children in Houston area for decades in his red zoot suit

A heart attack and subsequent surgery are preventing the Mexican-American version of Santa known to generations of Texas children as Pancho Claus from suiting up this Christmas.

Yet members of Richard Reyes’s community have taken it upon themselves to organize toy drives – and even don his iconic look – to keep his spirit alive for his scores of believers.

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Catholic priest accused of sexual assault fathered children of victims, court hears

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Revelation emerges at hearing for Anthony Odiong, 55, charged with several counts and held in Texas on $5.5m bail

A Roman Catholic priest with links to Texas and Louisiana who is facing criminal charges for allegedly abusing his position of authority within the church to pursue sex with vulnerable women fathered at least two children with victims of his behavior, authorities have alleged.

The stunning information about Anthony Odiong surfaced at a bail hearing on Tuesday in Waco, Texas, where prosecutors have charged him with several counts of sexually assaulting women to whom he ministered.

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Five charged in Texas over alleged $1m ring to certify unqualified teachers

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Prosecutors say impersonators took tests on behalf of applicants, and testing proctor was allegedly bribed

Five people in Texas have been charged in connection with an alleged fraudulent teacher certification scheme, which prosecutors say was used to improperly certify hundreds of unqualified teachers to work in local school districts throughout the state.

At a press conference on Monday led by the Harris county district attorney, Kim Ogg, prosecutors said the alleged scheme generated at least a million dollars and was used to certify more than 200 unqualified teachers who are currently or have previously worked in Texas public schools.

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Beyoncé at Kamala Harris rally says ‘time for America to sing a new song’ – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are tied at 48%, according to a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College.

Published on Friday, the poll, the poll also revealed that 31% of registered voters view Trump as very favorable while 29% view Harris as very favorable.

Ms Harris’s position, if anything, may have declined among likely voters since the last Times/Siena College poll, taken in early October. At the time, she had a slight lead over Mr Trump, 49 percent to 46 percent. The change is within the margin of error, but The Times’s national polling average has registered a tightening in polls over the past few weeks as well, suggesting at the very least that this contest has drawn even closer.

“I don’t think she has Jim Comey in the wings waiting to kneecap her so that’s good.”

“I think she is doing what she needs to do, and…a number of the voters who were at [the CNN] town hall have said she convinced them, that she had shown the kind of empathy and concern about their problems, that she had come forward with her ideas, her suggested policies. So, I think she’s doing what she needs to do.”

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Beyoncé to appear with Kamala Harris in Houston to highlight abortion rights – reports

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Star turn will mean, with Taylor Swift, US vice-president has world’s two biggest musicians behind her – an asset for young voters

Beyoncé will appear with Kamala Harris in Houston on Friday, according to media reports.

The star turn will confirm that, following Harris’s endorsement by Taylor Swift last month, the Democratic vice-president and US presidential candidate has the support of the two most popular musicians in the world – a potentially invaluable asset for galvanising young voters.

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Republicans express alarm that Texas execution nearly went ahead

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Lawmakers unhappy with handling of Robert Roberson case as doubts grow over science used to secure conviction

Republican lawmakers in Texas expressed alarm on Monday at the apparent willingness of state officials to execute a potentially innocent man on the basis of junk science, as the political fallout of the 11th-hour reprieve of Robert Roberson continued to roil the state.

Several Republican members of the state’s House committee on criminal jurisprudence lined up to air their discontent with the handling of the case of Roberson, 57, who was convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis in 2002 by violently shaking her.

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Weather tracker: Francine looking likely to be next Atlantic hurricane

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An area of low pressure in the Gulf of Mexico is moving landward, and is expected to bring intense rainfall

Francine could soon be the next to be ticked off the list of Atlantic hurricane storm names this week. On Friday, a broad area of low pressure emerged in the Gulf of Mexico, designated as Invest 91L. An “invest” – a shorthand for “investigative area” – refers to a region of atmospheric disturbance, characterised by low pressure and thunderstorms, and is closely monitored for its potential to evolve into a tropical cyclone.

Invest 91L is anticipated to encounter more favourable environmental conditions as it progresses northward over the coming days, meandering along the eastern coasts of Mexico and Texas. The National Hurricane Center has now labelled this as a potential tropical cyclone, and it is expected to reach hurricane status before reaching the Gulf coast of the US. It advises that hurricane and storm surge watches will probably be issued on Monday for coastal parts of Texas and Louisiana, with the impacts expected to be felt from Tuesday night.

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Tropical depression, a type of cyclone, may form in Gulf of Mexico next week

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The system by Saturday had been dousing Texas and Louisiana with heavy rains for days

A tropical depression may form next week in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center.

In a forecast on Saturday afternoon, the NHC said that an area of low pressure had formed over the Bay of Campeche in the southern area of the Gulf of Mexico. It had been producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms.

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Dallas police officer killed and two wounded in apparent ambush

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Suspect, 30, killed in shootout with police after officials say he opened fire on officer sitting in patrol car

The Dallas police chief said on Friday that a man intentionally set out to shoot police when he killed an officer sitting in his patrol car and wounded two others in a late-night ambush that set off a highway chase and ended with officers fatally shooting the attacker.

The shooting on Thursday night brought fresh anguish and anger in a city where a gunman’s ambush on police in 2016 killed five officers.

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Competitor at CrossFit Games in Texas dies during swimming event

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  • CrossFit CEO Don Faul ‘deeply saddened’ by death
  • Athlete who died named as Lazar Dukic from Serbia

A competitor in the CrossFit Games has died while competing in a swimming event on Thursday morning at a Texas lake.

CrossFit CEO Don Faul said during a news conference that the organization was “deeply saddened” by the death of one of their athletes, and they were working with authorities on the investigation into the death.

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Texas: judge rules against Black high school teen in hair discrimination case

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Darryl George, 18, filed civil rights lawsuit after Barbers Hill school system punished him for refusing to alter hairstyle

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed most of the claims in a lawsuit filed by a Black high school student who alleged that school officials committed racial and gender discrimination when they punished him for refusing to change his hairstyle.

The ruling in the case of Darryl George was another victory for the Barbers Hill school district near Houston, which has said its policy restricting hair length for male students instills discipline while teaching grooming and respect for authority.

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Top leaders of powerful Sinaloa drug cartel arrested in Texas

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Biden praises law enforcement for fentanyl charges against members of ‘one of the deadliest enterprises in the world’

The US justice department has arrested two leaders of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including the cartel’s co-founder, for leading deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the charges against cartel leaders Ismael Zambada García, known as “El Mayo”, one of the group’s co-founders, and Joaquin Guzmán. Both men face several charges in the United States for allegedly leading the cartel’s criminal operations.

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Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee dies aged 74, family says

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Jackson Lee, who was first elected to Congress almost 30 years ago, had said she was being treated for pancreatic cancer last month

US representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a strong progressive voice in the Democratic party who was outspoken on African American and women’s rights, has died, her family posted on X late on Friday.

Jackson Lee, of Texas, announced last month she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment. She was 74 and had also previously had breast cancer.

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Weather tracker: Hurricane Beryl causes further havoc across Texas

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High winds and heavy rainfall have moved inland towards Houston and other cities, with at least eight reported dead

At the start of this week, Hurricane Beryl crashed on to the shore of the Texas coastline. Sweeping across the coast, Beryl brought sustained winds of 80mph to coastal settlements in Texas, creating a deadly storm surge reaching 4-7ft (1.2m to 2.1m) in places and wreaking havoc in local areas, before moving inland towards Houston and other big cities.

Heavy rainfall was also recorded across some of the upper Texas coast and eastern Texas, with locally close to 15 inches (380mm) recorded in places. At least eight people have died in Texas and Louisiana, which followed at least 10 deaths across the Caribbean.

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Three dead and millions without power as Tropical Storm Beryl hits Texas

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Man, 53, and woman, 74, killed by fallen trees and third person drowns amid howling winds and torrential rain

Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall in south-east Texas on Monday with howling winds and torrential rains, causing the deaths of at least three people, closing oil ports, and knocking out power to more than 2.5 million homes and businesses.

Before making landfall in Texas, the storm had already carved a path through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, where it killed 11 people. It continued on to Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula as a category 2, temporarily dropped in intensity to a tropical storm but again strengthened to a hurricane over the weekend.

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Tropical storm Beryl strengthens into hurricane as it approaches Texas coast

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Storm roars across Gulf of Mexico and is forecast to continue gaining strength as it heads towards the US

Tropical storm Beryl strengthened to again became a hurricane late on Sunday as it neared southern Texas, where its outer bands lashed the coast with rain and intensifying winds.

The hurricane was projected to come ashore early on Monday in the middle of the Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles (161km) south of Houston, but officials cautioned the path could still change.

The hurricane has sustained winds of 75mph (120km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, and was moving north-west at 10mph (16km/h).

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