By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, Texas’ most-senior member of Congress, announced Thursday that he won’t seek re-election after a naked photo of him circulated online and a conservative activist released past messages of a sexual nature from him. The photo of the 68-year-old Barton was posted on … Continue reading
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Hundreds of mourners crowded into the tiny town of Sutherland Springs for the first Sunday service since a gunman stormed the First Baptist Church a week earlier, killing more than two dozen people in the worst mass shooting in Texas history. After an emotional sermon held outdoors under a massive … Continue reading
CHICAGO (AP) — Texas church shooting victims and their families could have a hard time successfully suing the government over the Air Force’s failure to submit the gunman’s criminal history to the FBI — a step that would have blocked him from legally buying weapons. Relatives of the more than two dozen churchgoers killed in … Continue reading
LA VERNIA, Texas (AP) — By the time Paul Brunner rolled up in his ambulance to the worst mass shooting in Texas history, the First Baptist Church was a chaotic triage scene. Parents cried and kids screamed, and nearly all the victims appeared to have been hit more than once. Two of the first four … Continue reading
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the scheduled execution of a Mexican citizen in Texas (all times local): 10:35 p.m. A Mexican citizen on death row in Texas has been executed for the slaying of his 16-year-old cousin. Ruben Ramirez Cardenas was given a lethal injection Wednesday night after several federal court appeals failed … Continue reading
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Authorities have reviewed video from inside the small-town Texas church where a gunman killed more than two dozen people, including footage that shows the assailant shooting victims in the head during Sunday services, a U.S. official said Wednesday. The official’s account of the video is consistent with statements made by … Continue reading
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the church shooting in Texas (all times local): 3 p.m. A man who says he’s the uncle of the gunman who killed more than two dozen people in a Texas church is calling his nephew a “coward.” Dave Ivey appeared in an interview Monday with North … Continue reading
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the church shooting in Texas (all times local): 8:35 a.m. Officials in Texas have confirmed the identity of the man suspected of killing 26 people at a South Texas church. The Texas Department of Public Safety on Monday morning said 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley is the suspect. … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is pushing ahead on a $36.5 billion hurricane relief package that would give Puerto Rico a much-needed infusion of cash. The measure also would replenish rapidly dwindling emergency disaster accounts and provide $16 billion to permit the financially troubled federal flood insurance program to pay an influx of Harvey-related claims. … Continue reading
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A judge on Wednesday halted the execution of a man known as the Houston area’s “Tourniquet Killer” so authorities can investigate an alleged scheme in which the inmate says a fellow death row prisoner asked him to confess to another killing. Anthony Allen Shore was scheduled to be given a lethal … Continue reading
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The driver of a semitrailer packed with at least 39 immigrants, 10 of whom died, pleaded guilty Monday to making the deadly smuggling run. James Matthew Bradley Jr., 61, pleaded Monday in federal court in San Antonio to one conspiracy count and a count of transporting the immigrants resulting in death. … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans want their local officials to take on the challenge of battling global warming now that President Donald Trump is withdrawing the nation an international climate change agreement. That’s according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of … Continue reading
North Carolina latest to suffer in 2017 hurricane season WAVES, N.C. (AP) — Winds and storm surge from Tropical Storm Maria lashed North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Wednesday as the storm moved by well off-shore. Dare County Emergency Management Director Drew Pearson said in an email that the high tide early … Continue reading
By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. industrial output plunged 0.9 percent in August, the most in eight years, mostly because of Hurricane Harvey’s damage to the oil refining, plastics and chemicals industries. The storm, which slammed into the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana late last month, lowered industrial production by about … Continue reading
DALLAS (AP) — Crews have removed a statue of Robert E. Lee from a pedestal and carted it away from a Dallas park named for the Confederate general. In an unannounced but expected move, a large crane was brought through the city by a police escort to Lee Park, where it lifted the large statue … Continue reading
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The third night of the Miss America competition gets underway Friday as contestants have one last chance to impress the judges and score points before Sunday’s nationally televised finale. Miss Texas Margana Wood won the swimsuit competition Wednesday, and Miss Utah JessiKate Riley won the talent portion with a classical … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — As high water spreads from Houston through Texas and Louisiana, authorities are bracing for an inevitable wave of fraud and other criminal activity set into motion by Harvey’s punishing rains. In a warning to those who would seek to defraud the government and people wanting to help or seeking assistance, a … Continue reading
HOUSTON (AP) — A sodden Texas coastal community was becoming increasingly isolated Wednesday, as Harvey-fed rains flooded most major roadways leading out of the city and swamped a shelter for those displaced by the storm that ravaged the Houston area. Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy Marcus McLellan said he wasn’t sure where the 100 or so … Continue reading
HOUSTON (AP) — Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast some 175 miles (280 kilometers) from Houston, but the nation’s fourth-largest city has never needed a direct strike from a catastrophic storm to flood. Regularly inundated by floodwaters ever since its settlement in the mid-1800s, Houston looked on warily even before Harvey roared ashore. In … Continue reading
HOUSTON (AP) Photos with pleas for help in finding the missing from Hurricane Harvey are being posted, cut-and-pasted and retweeted by thousands of people as desperate family members seek loved ones who they fear might be dead, but may only have a dead phone. No official number of the unaccounted-for had been released Tuesday night … Continue reading
HOUSTON (AP) — The Latest on Tropical Storm Harvey (all times local): 8 a.m. Emergency vehicles made up most of the traffic in downtown Houston on what would have normally been a busy start of the work week. Due to Harvey, the usually bustling business area was mostly deserted Monday morning. The water had receded … Continue reading
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Hundreds of protesters opposing Texas’ tough new anti-“sanctuary cities” law launched a raucous demonstration from the public gallery in the Texas House on Monday, briefly halting work and prompting lawmakers on the floor below to scuffle — and even threaten gun violence — as tense divides over hardline immigration policies boiled … Continue reading
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A transgender “bathroom bill” reminiscent of one in North Carolina that caused a national uproar now appears to be on a fast-track to becoming law in Texas, though it may only apply to public schools. A broader proposal mandating that virtually all transgender people in the country’s second-largest state use public … Continue reading
TEXAS CITY, Texas (AP) — Family members of a Houston-area high school student who killed herself are rallying for tighter laws against cyberbullying. Brandy Vela’s family says cyberbullying pushed the 18-year-old over the edge, leading her to shoot herself in the chest Tuesday afternoon at the family’s Texas City home as family members watched. Her … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Texas regulators investigated Trump University for fraud six years ago, Donald Trump’s lawyers tried the same defenses the presumptive Republican presidential nominee cited again as recently as Tuesday June 7th — that the now-defunct real-estate workshops were top-notch and the students overwhelmingly satisfied. But internal emails reviewed by The Associated Press … Continue reading
