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The Sheriff did not return phone calls, so details are scarce. At this point, we know two burglars tried to break into a home Saturday just outside Rockport City limits. Sources say the homeowner shot at the burglars, but its not clear if they were hit.

MIDLAND, Texas -— In a faded West Texas town dotted with vacant buildings and potholed streets is a sparkling storefront window and a curious display: rows of diamond-studded Rolex watches, awaiting buyers whose pockets are packed with oil money. The surge in oil drilling has drawn money and men like a magnet to run-down communities that haven't seen a boom since the 1980s. But leaders and residents here are increasingly mindful that the runaway riches tapped by hydraulic fracturing will eventually run out. And they are determined to live by a fondly remembered bumper sticker from the last bust: Please,...

A New York Times investigative article based on two dozen interviews with industry insiders and confidential Obama Administration documents reveals that the catastrophic $500 million Obamacare rollout "has deeply embarrassed the White House" and has the technology companies involved "publicly distancing themselves" from the Obamacare fiasco.  "These are not glitches. The extent of the problems is pretty enormous," an insurance executive who participated in Obamacare conference calls told the Times. "At the end of our calls, people say, 'It's awful, just awful.'" The Times says those closest to the three-and-a-half year-long building of Obamacare, like embattled Health and Human Services Secretary...

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) – A surprising statement from one of Texas’ top leaders: President Obama should be impeached. This came from Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who is running for re-election and appeared at a Tea Party candidates forum. Dewhurst warned that freedoms are being trampled on, and so the President should be impeached. Later he fleshed out his thoughts for the Texas Observer’s Christopher Hooks. “I think this President, Barack Obama, has disregarded federal law. He has tried to do things which are not authorized under federal law. Things he’s disregarded such as immigration. He’s not, not...

The chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, Gilberto Hinojosa, sent the following email Tuesday morning.

(CNN) - Former President George W. Bush's heart situation that caused him to undergo a procedure in August was more serious than originally thought, as two sources close to the 43rd president now confirm he had a 95% blockage in an artery. Bush, 67, had a stent placed in his heart in August at a Dallas hospital one day after the blockage was discovered. While a 95% blockage is significant, Bush's doctors are not commenting about how grave the situation may or may not have been.

On a September morning near the line where Jim Wells and Duval counties meet, truck tracks mark the path to a new oil well like chicken scratch. More than a mile below the surface, ancient rock starts cracking. San Antonio-based Inland Ocean’s new well has drilled into a tight rock formation, which must be fractured before oil will flow — a process common across South Texas with the Eagle Ford Shale oil boom. The site is crowded with pumper trucks, cranes, sand trucks, tanks, a mixer and about a dozen pickup trucks. Around 6,000 barrels of water — 252,000 gallons...

Travelers who attempt to make a joke about strict security procedures at airports have been warned they face arrest. A loudspeaker announcement made by the Transport Security Administration warns the public: 'Any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest.' Concerned passenger Matt Miller recorded the loudspeaker message while passing through George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.

A Houston strip club is suing a businessman for allegedly not paying a $320,000 tab he racked up in just one month. Big spender James Jay Beckman reportedly ran up the gigantic bill by enjoying numerous private lap dances during 14 visits to Privilege between July and August.

Remember Rick Perry and secession? That’s so yesterday. Ever-quotable lieutenant governor candidate Jerry Patterson says he has a better idea. Texas shouldn’t secede – it should just make the U.S. better by throwing liberal states out. California, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. “I get lots of questions all the time, ‘Well, we should secede.’ I say, ‘No, I’ve got a better idea. Instead of secession, I’m a proponent of expulsion,’” he told the AP. “I want to kick about four states out of this union.”

San Juan Police are investigating an attempted murder case where a man stabbed his soon to be ex-wife 24 times. It happened at the 1500 block of Scotty Street sometime before 2:30 this morning. Police Chief Juan Gonzalez tells Action 4 News a man stabbed his wife 24 times then stabbed himself multiple times. The incident started as the couple argued about their divorce. Chief Gonzalez said the husband asked officers to kill him when they found him hiding underneath the house. Police were able to taze and subdue him. Both the victim and the suspect were taken to the...

Did you really have to be a pluperfect political prognosticator to have foreseen that none of Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann or Donald Trump was going to be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee? Yet on today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough—by way of establishing his fortune-telling street cred—boasted of having made those predictions, before proceeding to claim that: 1. Ted Cruz will not be the 2016 Republican nominee; and 2. there's a "very real chance" that Cruz will break from the GOP and run as an independent. View the video Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2013/10/14/scarborough-very-real-chance-cruz-will-run-president-independent-2#ixzz2hhcVlMnX

The bullets start to fly overnight outside a birthday party in north Harris County, and one teenage boy ended up with a bullet in his face. That teen is expected to survive, but the person who shot him remains on the run. It happened at a strip center on Aldine Westfield near FM 1960. Harris County Precinct 4 deputy constables tell us it all started when a group of about 10 to 20 people got into a fight inside the birthday party. They continued to fight in the parking lot, and that's when some of the other guests decided to...

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – The Senate has taken the lead from the House in attempting to devise a plan to reopen the government and avoid a potential default in the coming week. Speaking with Bob Schieffer on Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he is “cautiously hopeful” that the Senate can pick up where House negotiations have become deadlocked, and hopefully avoid the continued government shutdown through bipartisan Senate discussion. “I’m cautiously hopeful, optimistic that we can come to an agreement and open up the government and avoid default based on the bipartisan meetings that are going on,” Schumer said...

A few weeks back, I wrote an article about the twin evils of illegal immigration and Keynesian economics, and how they had decimated various neighborhoods of Dallas, Texas. I called attention specifically to the Valley View Shopping center near where I lived, and how it had been transformed from a fine and fashionable mall into a seedy Mexican swap meet. Several libertarians wrote me and defended such a demise as “the result of capitalism operating in a free society.” But is this so? Is Valley View just a normal part of an ever-shifting marketplace brought on by Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”...

The Republican Party is at war with itself. It's divided over how best to shrink the federal budget and how to undo President Obama's healthcare law. Behind the GOP crackup over the government shutdown lies a much bigger battle for control of the party. And the most important actors aren't Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the tea party members of the House who brought us the government shutdown. The party rift's chief driver is a constellation of hard-line conservative fundraising groups, led in part by a former senator most Americans couldn't pick out of a lineup, Jim DeMint of South...

<p>Need evidence of Cruz's gains of late? He won the 2016 straw poll at the Values Voter Summit on Saturday with 42 percent of the vote and his speech at that gathering of social conservatives was received very warmly. He has become the center of gravity for a certain not-insignificant element of the Republican party. Cruz has proven that he will be “the Tea Party’s one true standard-bearer in the Republican presidential primary,” according to Evan Smith,the CEO and editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune,a independent media outlet covering the Long Star State.</p>

The White House and the Senate are working to squeeze House Republicans into accepting a bipartisan compromise from the upper chamber to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. Any emerging deal, however, will leave ObamaCare largely intact, angering conservatives who have demanded defunding or delaying President Obama’s signature achievement. House Republicans are fuming over the prospect that Senate Democrats and Republicans are working on a plan to jam them with a last-minute deal they would have to accept or risk triggering a federal default. “They are trying to jam us with the Senate and we are not going...

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who has been rumored as being considered to replace Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security, used some very strange language earlier this week to characterize a sentiment for a clean resolution to end the government shutdown. She labeled it a form of “martial law.” Yes, we have heard Ms. Lee say some whimsical and ridiculous things in her time in office, which I’m sure embarrass her fellow Texans, but this has to be one of the most ridiculous ones to date. She pushed that the measure was bi-partisan, including Democrats and...

<p>"..............Bello and her family were among several thousand Houston-area residents who attended an event at Reliant Center on Saturday to learn about their options under the new federal health care law and to get free medical screenings, flu shots and groceries.</p>

Heads up, Freepers. Phony news organizations are pushing a brand new narrative, hot off the press from OFA no doubt. They are pushing bogus push polls conducted in Utah and Texas to give the impression that Cruz and Lee are losing support in their home states, and that Texans and Utahns want their senators to 'compromise more'. This is evidently BS, and is an attempt to give a leg up to Karl Rove and his lackeys who want Obamacare forever, and want to discourage Republicans from standing with Ted and Mike. I would encourage everyone, regardless of which state they...

A Port Isabel man was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child, who was under the age of 6-years-old, and indecency with a child sexual contact. Miguel Angel Aguilera faces a minimum of 25 years in prison with no possibility of parole or early release. The jury will sentence the 22-year-old on Monday. Cameron County Assistant District Attorneys Stephanie Rollins and Brandy Bailey, with the newly created Child Abuse Unit, prosecuted the case. “This unit’s ability to focus on these extreme child abuse cases in collaboration with other key agencies has helped to ensure strong convictions,” District Attorney...

On Monday, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said from the floor of the House of Representatives that America is now under martial law because of the continuing resolution. "This is not an idea of anyone over another person. Republican and Democratic Senators have already voted for this clean bill that we could vote on today. We have martial law. What that means--and my colleagues know what it means--is that you can put a bill on in just minutes," she said.

enate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are taking the lead on talks to raise the debt limit and reopen the government, according to senators. Reid and McConnell are working off a six-point proposal sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that would fund the government for six months and raise the debt ceiling until Jan. 31, 2014. Senators view discussions between the two leaders as a promising sign of potential bipartisan compromise. “Reid and McConnell are talking now and those discussions continue so I see that as progress,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas)....

Sen. Ted Cruz seized the opportunity afforded by a White House invitation to confront President Barack Obama over his healthcare plan. Cruz said he appreciated the chance to go see the president — but then presented him with "substantial" changes for Obamacare. In the meeting, also attended by dozens of other Republican senators, Cruz refrained from using the word "defund," reports Politico. Instead he told Obama that all sides need to "provide substantial relief to the millions of people who are hurting because of Obamacare, who are losing their jobs, being forced into part-time work and losing their health insurance."...

SNA Urges Congress to End Shutdown to Protect School Meals NATIONAL HARBOR, MD (October 11, 2013) – The School Nutrition Association (SNA), a national non-profit representing 55,000 school nutrition professionals nationwide, sent a letter to congressional leaders today urging them to end the Federal Government shutdown to ensure the availability of school meals for America’s students. Starting on November 1, school meal programs will request federal reimbursements for meals served during October, but the US Department of Agriculture has not guaranteed the availability of sufficient funds to reimburse states for all meals served in October. In fact, one state agency...

Appearing on MSNBC on Friday, Congressman Peter King continued his epic verbal assault on Ted Cruz — and, to a lesser extent, Rand Paul — by describing the Texas Senator as a “RINO” (Republican in name only) and a “fraud.” Speaking with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, King called the ongoing government shutdown “the strategy of Ted Cruz” and wondered aloud “why more Republicans around the country didn’t join me in denouncing Ted Cruz” before the shutdown began. “We cannot allow our party to be taken over by the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul,” King continued, describing Cruz and Paul...

Jonathan Bernstein considers what the pointless shutdown fight has done to Ted Cruz’s political prospects: It’s one thing to have a reputation as a loudmouth; it’s quite another to have a reputation as a loser. That’s what the shutdown fight has done to Cruz. Among true believers he’ll be the one who was a leader in a fight that surely would have won if the squishes hadn’t sold them out. But for most party actors, including many sympathetic to Tea Partyism, he’s going to be the guy who ran up the wrong hill. It would have been different if Cruz’s...

A Southmost mother is facing criminal charges after she left her five children home alone with no electricity while she went to a party. Brownsville police arrested 34-year-old Teresa Guevara on five counts of child abandonment early Thursday morning. Investigators told Action 4 News that officers were called to a home on the 2700 block of Granada Drive in the Southmost area of Brownsville around 2:45 a.m. Thursday. Officers found five children ages 2 to 13 years old inside the house with no electricity and no adult supervision. The oldest child told police that their mother had gone to a...

You gotta love it. The one Republican who has the courage to tell it like it is. Ted Cruz lectured the president on the negative effects of Obamacare today at the White House. Earlier in the day Senator Cruz joked that Obama might abduct him when he attends the White House meeting. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Politico reported: Sen. Ted Cruz confronted President Barack Obama over his health care law during a meeting at the White House Friday attended by dozens of GOP senators. Cruz told Obama that any deal to reopen the government must also provide relief for those negatively affected by...

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson condemned members of the “extreme right wing” of the Republican Party for holding the nation “hostage” during the government shutdown because they oppose the Affordable Care Act. “They have an extreme dislike for President Obama, and are willing to do anything to halt the effectiveness of his presidency,” Johnson wrote in a statement to the suburban Dallas Focus Daily News on Friday. “Their behavior is not political, it is personal!” The congresswoman went on about the huge impact the shutdown has on the nation. She complained of hundreds of thousands of furloughed employees, damage to businesses...

<p>Federal agents arrested 13 suspects in connection with an alleged sex trafficking ring in Houston that prostituted underage, undocumented girls from Mexico for up to $500 an hour, according to an indictment unsealed Friday morning.</p> <p>Federal prosecutors allege the ring operated out of several Houston bars and brothels and the suspects charged "premium prices" for sex with underage girls. The girls were locked up and beaten and charged for condoms, the indictment alleges.</p>

If there was a star at Friday morning's session of the 2012 Values Voter Summit, it was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Cruz was the person that fired up the audience with a speaking style that mimics an evangelical preacher. Cruz was the speaker who - to the delight of the audience - refused to be ruffled by the several immigration-reform activists who heckled him during his speech. And Cruz was the one that Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called "a de facto leader of the Republican Party" in an interview with CNN.

A teen who landed in federal immigration detention following a minor drug arrest now faces several months in federal prison for fighting guards at the Tacoma facility. Brought to the United States by his parents at age 4 or 5, Jose Jesus Villa-Chairez was 17 when police in Texas caught him with three tabs of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug. Convicted of a misdemeanor, Villa-Chairez had been locked up for more than a year on immigration-related charges when he fought with guards at the Northwest Detention Center. Federal prosecutors in Seattle contend Villa-Chairez deserves 1½ years in federal prison for scratching...

Texas Sen. John Cornyn condemned President Barack Obama’s nomination of Janet Yellen as the head of the Federal Reserve. The Senator feels the reason why America finds its self in a fiscal predicament is due to stimulus “obsession”, and that the last thing the nation needs is someone who intends more “quantitative easing” because that will further harm the economy. “Ms. Yellen subscribes to the liberal school of thought that the best way to handle to our nation’s fiscal challenges is to throw more money at them,” Cornyn wrote in a press release. Not supporting Cornyn’s opposition of Yellen, is...

The four candidates for lieutenant governor in Texas have vowed to repeal the 2001 Texas law which allows Dreamers who live in Texas to pay state-resident tuition rates in Texas. This has garnered criticism from Latino Democrats – as well as a prominent Latino Republican. Art Martinez de Vara, co-founder of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans, called the vows to repeal in-state tuition for Texas undocumented immigrants as “dinosaur politics,” according to the Dallas Morning News. “It’s unfortunate seeing everybody clamor to see who can be the most extreme on that,” said Vara, explaining he thought this was a...

"For too long, Texas' moral compass hasn't pointed in the right direction for its people. Not for the cancer survivor denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition; not for the woman unable to afford preventive care services; not for the chronically ill whose coverage has been capped; not for the senior citizens caught in the "doughnut" hole of Medicare prescription coverage; not for any of the more than six million Texans lacking health insurance, which gives our state the dubious distinction of leading the nation in that category. But our moral compass has begun to bend toward what's right, thanks...

Who read Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham on the floor of the Senate? The same man who has led the charge to stop Obamacare by tying its defunding to the passage of a federal budget, which has led to the current stand-off in Washington. Here's five things you haven't read about Sen. Ted Cruz, a Tea Party Republican from Texas, who talked to PEOPLE this week: He's a family man. With federally funded attractions closed, Cruz spent the weekend apple-picking and touring Mount Vernon. He's a self-described "movie buff." The Senate race he won in Nov. 2012 was the...

This opinion piece presents the opinions of the author. It does not necessarily reflect the views of Rigzone. Regulation after regulation has been thrown at the oil and gas industry by federal and state agencies since 2009. All 13 federal agencies that regulate a portion of the oil and gas industry have tried in some way to make it more difficult to drill, produce and refine hydrocarbons in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency has been the most visible in many respects with its new air emission regulations that define carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant and sets emission...

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners is tacking on 18 miles of lateral pipeline in the Eagle Ford Shale to carry crude and condensate from its DeWitt County, Texas station to a new facility it will build northwest in Gonzales County. The company’s $74 million pipeline addition would allow it to reach markets along the Houston Ship Channel and a pipeline that services a Phillips 66 refinery in Brazoria County. Kinder Morgan said Wednesday it struck a deal with a large producer in the Eagle Ford to extend the 178-mile pipeline in the South Texas shale play, but did not disclose the...

Two men were executed in the United States with a drug not yet approved by federal authorities. In Texas, which has put to death more people than any other US state, prison authorities said Michael Yowell was pronounced dead at 7:11 pm. Yowell was sentenced to death for killing his parents when he was 28 years old after stealing money from them to buy drugs. He had also opened a gas valve so that the house would explode. In Arizona, 71-year-old Edward Schad died at 10:12 am. Schad was sentenced to death for the 1978 murder of a 74-year-old whose...

In 2014, Texas voters might just see something they haven't experienced in two decades — a competitive race for governor. Current Republican Gov. Rick Perry isn't running for re-election, so it's an open race, with new faces and new optimism for Texas Democrats. Earlier this year, the Democrats were once again facing the prospect of scrambling to find someone to run as their candidate. Then, on June 25, state Sen. Wendy Davis came to the Capitol in Austin wearing running shoes and ready to block a restrictive abortion bill. One 11-hour filibuster and hundreds of thousands of online views later,...

More than half of Texans said that the nearly $50 billion taxpayer bailout of General Motors may deter them from buying from the company, according to a survey released Tuesday. The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a nonprofit ethics watchdog, surveyed more than 500 Texas residents and found that 40 percent said the bailout would “absolutely” affect their decision about buying one of GM’s new pick-up trucks. More than 22 percent said it would “likely” or “very likely” affect their decision, while just 24 percent answered “not too likely.” About 150 of those surveyed said that they were in...

Full title: Brewster County Commissioners Decide Federal Government Has No Right to Shut Down Big Bend National Park BREWSTER COUNTY - Brewster County Commissioners have decided the federal government has no right to shut down the Big Bend National Park and ruin the Brewster economy. With that said, they met last Thursday night to decide what action to take regarding the park and whether or not they were going to file a restraining order. We received a letter from a lawyer representing Brewster County and it says, "I'm in dialogue with both the U.S. Attorney's Office and with representatives of...

Almost lost in all the news about the federal government “shutdown” (which has somehow left 83% of the government funded and functioning) over the last week are several new reports regarding the ongoing massive oil and natural gas Shale Revolution in the United States, First is a new projection from the US Energy Information Agency showing that the United States will likely become the world’s largest producer of petroleum products and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2013. Next is this report about the Eagle Ford shale, detailing that this play a) could become the largest onshore oil reserve ever discovered in...

Kelly Ayotte was furious. One media account after another (as here) has the Republican and theoretically conservative New Hampshire senator angrily attacking Senator Ted Cruz in a recent closed-door Senate GOP Caucus. Behaving as follows, this much cited and notably un-refuted coming from the New York Times, bold print supplied here for emphasis: And on Wednesday at a private luncheon, several Senate Republicans — Dan Coats of Indiana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of... --snip-- NR was spot on here about Ayotte, and there’s one more thing to add about that Ayotte comment of seeking a “thoughtful, bipartisan...

Tea party activist and frequent guest on Fox News has entered the race for governor in Texas, offering an alternative on the right of frontrunner Greg Abbott.

Drilling and production in Texas continues to rise, putting the state on track to be among the world’s largest producers of oil by the end of the decade, a Texas regulator told a Houston audience Monday. Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman said that drilling permit applications are approaching their highest level in nearly 30 years at the same time as oil production continues to rise. “This year we are likely to issue more drilling permits for oil than we have since 1985,” Smitherman said at an event hosted by the Locke Lord law firm downtown. The three-member Railroad Commission...

Authorities arrested Semita Chakravarthy and charged her with capital murder after allegedly killing her 10-month-old son in 2006. Prosecutors said her son was taken to the hospital with three fractures to his skull. The mother claimed he fell off a bed, but at the hospital doctors discovered he was also covered in bite marks that matched Chakravarthy’s teeth. Doctors declared the boy brain dead a few days later. The capital murder trial for the mother began this past September and lasted three weeks. Prosecutors prepared the case over a seven year period. District Attorney Rene Guerra believed his prosecutors had...

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners said that operations are underway at phase one of its 185-acre Battleground Oil Specialty Terminal Co. project on the Houston Ship Channel. Twenty of the 51 storage tanks built during the first phase of construction are being placed into service this month, and the remaining tanks will come online during the next six months. A two-berth ship dock and 12 barge berths are also slated to be in service this month. “We are pleased commercial operations have begun which provide the market with a unique, deepwater terminaling solution that provides high-speed loading and improved barge and...