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VAN, Texas (AP) —
A tornado that cut through an East Texas town, killing two and injuring dozens, was on the ground for nearly 10 miles and left a path of destruction 700 yards wide.
Van Zandt County emergency management coordinator Chuck Allen said Tuesday the two people killed Sunday night in Van were retired Garland police Lt. David Tapley and his wife Brenda.
Allen says two people are hospitalized in critical condition. The twister, with sustained winds of about 140 mph, injured approximately 50 people. Authorities have accounted for all residents in the damaged area, about 70 miles southeast of Dallas.
Allen says the storm damage throughout the county amounts to "several millions of dollars." He says authorities will be watching for profiteers preying on people struggling to recover.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
The Texas Senate has approved a plan that would allow shoppers to buy guns, ammunition and hunting supplies without having to pay sales taxes during the last weekend in August.
The state already designates annual sales tax-free weekends for the purchase of some school supplies and energy-efficient appliances. Sen. Brandon Creighton's plan would extend the same exemption to firearm purchases.
The Conroe Republican noted that Louisiana established in 2009 a tax-free weekend for guns, ammo and hunting supplies during the first weekend in September.
He said Texas' failure to follow suit has put hunting and firearms retailers near the border with Louisiana at a disadvantage.
According to a legislative analysis, Creighton's plan would cost the state more than $11 million in lost sales tax revenue during Texas' two-year budgetary cycle.
JIM VERTUNO, AP Sports Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
Texas state education officials and high school coaches on Friday launched a program aimed at student athletes to prevent and raise awareness of sexual assault and domestic abuse.
The ProtectHer Project, developed in response to a string of high profile assault cases involving professional and college athletes, will initially target public middle and high school athletes but will eventually be expanded to include all students.
The 21,000-member Texas High School Coaches Association, taking the lead in developing the program, plans to have an instructional video ready to distribute at its annual convention this summer.
"Young adult dating violence has become a tremendous problem in our high schools and colleges, affecting our youth in every community across the nation," said D.W. Rutledge, executive director of the coaches association.
Officials say the program will be the first of its kind in the country. All of the money for the program will be raised privately. The NBA's Houston Rockets have already donated $25,000, officials said.
High school coaches are in a unique position of authority and respect to deliver lessons on respect and personal accountability, Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams said. Some of the issues to be addressed will include the legal concept of consent in sexual relations, justice and accountability.
State Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, chairman of the House Public Education Committee, said athletes are a good target audience.
"It's important for young athletes to learn early in life that even if they are fast, aggressive and tough, that they mustn't behave that way in their interpersonal relationships," Aycock said.
AUSTIN -
As spring weather draws more motorcyclists onto Texas roadways, the Texas Department of Transportation is launching its “Share the Road: Look Twice for Motorcycles” campaign to reduce crashes and save lives.
JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press
HOUSTON (AP) —
A massive recall has brought more attention and put more pressure on a century-old Texas ice cream company that has been searching to discover how its products became linked to a deadly string of listeria cases.
Blue Bell Creameries said Tuesday, a day after recalling all its products, that it is getting closer to pinpointing the cause of the contamination. Amid those efforts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that the number of illnesses linked to the company's products has increased to 10.
"As each day passes, we are getting closer and closer to figuring out how this listeria was introduced into our facilities. ... It's a matter of doing the work and not making excuses," said Blue Bell spokesman Joe Robertson. He said consumers "are our No. 1 concern."
The company said a team of microbiologists it hired is working with federal officials at its four facilities in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama to identify the cause of the listeria. Blue Bell is also expanding its cleaning and sanitization system, beefing up its employee training, expanding its swabbing system by 800 percent to include more surfaces and is sending daily samples to a microbiology laboratory for testing.
Blue Bell, which has been in business for 108 years, also said that under a new policy, it will test all products produced at its facilities before sending them out to retailers.
Listeria primarily affects pregnant women and their newborns, older adults and people with immune systems weakened by cancer, cancer treatments, or other serious conditions. Two more illnesses have now been confirmed in Oklahoma and Arizona. The CDC had previously reported eight illnesses in Kansas and Texas, including three deaths in Kansas linked to ice cream contaminated with listeria. Those sickened fell ill between January 2010 and January 2015.
Dr. Robert Tauxe of the CDC said the cause of an outbreak is almost always dirty equipment. Listeria occurs naturally in soil and water, and it could be tracked into a plant on an employee's shoes, introduced through animal feces or spread by employees not washing their hands. It can grow at room temperature or in cold temperatures. It can survive forever if it's not cleaned up.
Tauxe said this outbreak is unusual because it's lasted so long and because it's in ice cream, which hasn't usually been associated with listeria. The pathogen is more commonly found in processed meats, unpasteurized cheeses and unpasteurized milk. It has also been found in fruit in recent years — listeria in cantaloupes was linked to 30 deaths in a 2011 outbreak. More recently, Sabra Dipping Co. announced a recall of 30,000 cases of its Classic Hummus, also due to possible listeria contamination. No illnesses have been linked to that recall.
Blue Bell said its recall, involving about 8 million gallons of ice cream products, will take two to three weeks to complete and that it will be at least that long before products are back in stores. The recall includes ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet and frozen snacks distributed in 23 states and abroad.
The company had 6.4 percent of the U.S. ice cream market in 2014, with $881.8 million in sales, ranking it third in the country, according to market-research firm Euromonitor. Robertson said Blue Bell is not laying off any of its 3,800 employees, as all of them will be needed to help with the recall.
Matthew D'Uva, president of the trade organization the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business, said while Blue Bell's preference would be finding the source of the listeria as quickly as possible, "you also want to get it right."
"The consumer will look at the entire process and positively judge a company who is getting information to them correctly," he said.
The illness was initially tracked to a production line in Brenham, Texas, the company's headquarters, triggering an initial recall of some products. Listeria was later linked to a facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, which has been shut down. Monday's recall was initiated after samples from another production line in Brenham tested positive. While no samples from a plant in Sylacauga, Alabama, have tested positive, products produced there have also been recalled. The company also has 62 distribution centers.
Monday's recall extends to retail outlets in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wyoming and international locations.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) —
A former Bexar (BEAR) County prosecutor has defeated a former San Antonio City Council member to win a runoff election to succeed state Rep. Jose Menendez.
The Democrat Menendez resigned the seat for the western San Antonio district in February to become a Texas senator.
Ex-prosecutor Ina Minjarez (mihn-HAHR'-ehz) took 58 percent of the vote Tuesday to defeat fellow Democrat and former council member Delicia Herrera.
Menendez left the House in February to become a Texas senator, succeeding Leticia Van de Putte (PYOOT). She left the Senate to run for San Antonio mayor.
Minjarez had been the biggest vote-getter on the four-candidate, all-Democratic ballot in the March 31 special primary election.
Tuesday's election finished a series of special elections begun by Van de Putte's departure.
EVA RUTH MORAVEC, Associated Press
Texas lawmakers are closer to gutting the anti-public corruption unit that was at the center of former Gov. Rick Perry's indictment last year.
The Republican-controlled Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to letting the Texas Rangers investigate allegations of public corruption. Under Weatherford Republican Rep. Phil King's bill, the Public Integrity Unit would continue to investigate insurance fraud and motor vehicles tax fraud.
The Senate has already passed a similar measure.
House Democrats had stalled passage of the bill last week, but Republicans are bent on uprooting the unit out of the Travis County District Attorney's Office, which is run by an elected Democrat. The current configuration puts "too much power in one elected official," King said.
If his measure passes, complaints deemed credible by the Texas Rangers would be forwarded to the district attorney in the county where the official was elected.
"There is no perfect answer, but this is a lot better than what we have now in terms of removing politics from the equation," King said.
Perry vetoed funding for the unit in 2013 after District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg refused to resign following a drunken driving arrest. He was later indicted on abuse-of-power charges. The Public Integrity Unit was not involved in the Perry investigation, which was handled by a special prosecutor and remains pending.
"Is this just because of her?" asked Edinburg Rep. Terry Canales, apparently referencing Lehmberg. Canales was one of a half-dozen Democrats whose amendments, many of which attempted to change the venue of the trial to the county where the crime was committed, were defeated.
But 16 amendments to the bill — 10 carried by Democrats — passed, including one to withdraw prosecutors who have relationships with the officials they are meant to probe.
Recently, a district attorney in Collin County — home of state Attorney General Ken Paxton — turned a criminal complaint involving his admitted securities violations over to the Texas Rangers for investigation. He was fined $1,000 for being paid for investment advising without registering, but Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group, filed a criminal complaint.
Texans for Public Justice then criticized Collin County officials for foot-dragging and called for the prosecutor's recusal because he and Paxton are friends and business associates.
Craig McDonald, the group's director, said after the House vote, "Corruption prosecutions are now in the hands of hometown cronies."
Meanwhile, Public Integrity Unit head Gregg Cox on Monday rebuffed a request from the Texas Department of Public Safety to clear the agency's name over $20 million in border security contracts that have come under intense scrutiny. Cox told DPS that his thin staff can't handle any more cases. He said he hopes lawmakers notice that Texas currently has no other agency that can investigate allegations of political malfeasance.
According to a fiscal note attached to King's bill, there were 193 public corruption complaints filed in fiscal year 2013, eight of which amounted to criminal offenses.
SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
With real-time monitors, scientists have linked a swarm of small earthquakes west of Fort Worth, Texas, to nearby natural gas wells and wastewater injection.
In 84 days from November 2013 to January 2014, the area around Azle, Texas, shook with 27 magnitude 2 or greater earthquakes, while scientists at Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Geological Survey monitored the shaking. It's an area that had no recorded quakes for 150 years on faults that "have been inactive for hundreds of millions of years," said SMU geophysicist Matthew Hornbach.
When the volume of injections decreased significantly, so did the shaking.
The scientists concluded that removing saltwater from the wells in the gas production process and then injecting that wastewater back underground "represent the most likely cause" for the swarm of quakes, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
The scientists determined this based on where and when the earthquakes happened; computer models that track pressure changes; and company data from nearby wells. Hornbach said the timing and location of the quakes correlates better to the drilling and injection than any other possible reason.
"There appears to be little doubt about the conclusion that the earthquakes were in fact induced," USGS seismologist Susan Hough, who wasn't part of the study team, said in an email. "There's almost an abundance of smoking guns in this case."
This adds to other studies that linked injecting wastewater from energy wells to a tremendous jump in earthquakes in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, where there have been more than 950 magnitude 2 or higher quakes so far this year, according to the USGS.
In the past, studies have linked quakes to the injection of wastewater after the drilling process This study is different because it also sees a secondary link in another part of the drilling process, when massive amounts of brine is taking out of the ground with the gas, said study co-author William Ellsworth of the USGS. Removing the saltwater changes the underground pressure, Hornbach said.
But the deep injection of the wastes still is the principle culprit, Ellsworth said. The controversial method of hydraulic fracturing or fracking, even though that may be used in the drilling, is not physically causing the shakes, he said.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
University of Texas System regents have formally appointed Greg Fenves as the new president for the flagship campus in Austin.
Fenves, the school's provost and second in command since 2013, was sole finalist for the job. The vote naming him as the finalist had been 5-3, but won formal approval for the job 8-0.
Regent Wallace Hall, who clashed for years with outgoing President Bill Powers, initially voted against Fenves but abstained from the final vote.
The 58-year-old Fenves will be paid a base salary of $750,000, not including other benefits and deferred compensation.
Fenves takes over June. 3. Powers was pressured to resign in 2014 after years of clashes with board members and former Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa.
Fenves also previously served as dean of the Texas engineer school.
Congresista Will Hurd
-Washington, DC
Granjas y ranchos familiares en nuestro distrito son parte de un ciclo tan seguro como el rayo del alba. Ellas preparan su terreno, administran sus ganados y cultivos para proteger su crecimiento y cosechar el fruto de su labor. Aunque cambien los cultivos y los métodos a través de los años, y sus ganancias sean imprevisibles, siempre llega el tiempo de cosecha.
