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DEVINE, Texas -- Most middle school take-home permission slips are about field trips. But the one in Devine is asking if students can talk with federal investigators. Although the population in Devine is 60 percent Hispanic, the middle school girls volleyball team is not. Some of the girls' parents complained to the Department of Education about discrimination, alleging there is a large amount of white girls that make up the A team compared to the heavily Hispanic B team. And it has this small town of 4,400 talking about racial disparity. Next week the Department of Education is sending investigators...

As of today, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is accepting comments for a proposed rule change that would enable you to hunt this fall with quieter firearms, making your outdoor experience safer and more enjoyable. Scott Vaca, TPWD Assistant Chief of Wildlife, said the proposed suppressor regulation covers hunting, and if approved at the March 29 meeting of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, hunting with suppressors will begin on September 1, 2012. The proposal is now official, because it’s been announced in today’s Texas Register (search for “Chapter 65” or “sound-suppressing”). According to the TPWD news release:...

TEMPLE (KCEN) - Police say a man who received treatment at Scott and White Hospital for a gunshot wound could be a man involved in an attempted home burglary. The attempted burglary occurred Thursday just before noon in the 3900 block of Lower Troy Road. The victim told police two Hispanic male suspects forced entry into his home and then ran when they spotted the victim inside. Officers say the homeowner fired one shot from a handgun at the suspects. Around 12:30 p.m. a man matching the description of one of the suspects came into Scott and White ER with...

ARLINGTON, Texas - A two-time “Teacher of the Year” in Arlington is now fighting to keep her job after allegedly telling a Hispanic student to “Go back to Mexico.” Barnett Junior High School math teacher Shirley Bunn has 24 years of teaching experience. But her career could end with what she called a moment of frustration. Bunn admitted she lost her temper on Sept. 30 while distributing Title 1 forms to her eighth grade students. According to public documents, a student who had a history of being disruptive repeatedly asked his teacher for a form printed in Spanish by saying,...

When Rick Melartin of Bellaire, Texas heard his neighbor calling for help Monday morning, he sprang into action. Melartin's neighbor had just been robbed at gunpoint as he was getting into his car. The robber got distracted and the victim grabbed his gun and screamed. Melartin called 911 and came outside with his pistol. The robber took off without his gun and headed for an 89-year-old neighbor's backyard. "She's a very, very dear friend of mine," Melartin said. "She's 89-years-old and I love her to death. I figured when he turned around and proceeded to go through to the gates...

GINGRICH: No. It just means that we're going to have to pick up all those delegates in late May, just before the California primary, when we hope to pick up more delegates out here. That still means that on super-Tuesday, we're looking at Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, we're looking at Ohio. It means the week after super- Tuesday, we're looking at Alabama and Mississippi. Now, we have hopes that we're going to keep picking up delegates everywhere and continue. This race is going on for a long time, I think. And what Texas moving back means, combined with California being in...

MCALLEN - The secretary of Homeland Security is heading to the Valley. Janet Napolitano will be in McAllen on Monday and Tuesday. She'll be meeting Customs and Border Protection acting Commissioner David Aguilar. Napolitano will also spend time with state and local law enforcement officials. They're set to discuss border security, travel and trade. No other details on her trip have been released.

SAN ANTONIO -- Police say a homeowner on the city's northwest side shot a man in the head Wednesday morning for trying to steal a potted plant from his yard. The homeowner, in his 60s, grabbed his handgun around 8 a.m. and took several shots a man he claims was stealing a potted plant and other items from his yard at 708 Shadwell, said Sgt. Chris Benavides, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department. Officers caught up to the suspect at the Cabana Apartments, where he lives. He told officers that he had just finished dropping his kids off...

SAN ANTONIO: In the final moments of Tuesday’s redistricting hearing, a three-judge panel said Texas’ primary elections likely will not occur before May 29. While Judge Jerry Smith, one of three federal judges in the San Antonio redistricting case, said the likely date of the primaries will be May 29, he did not commit to the date. Smith, however, told the state’s two major political political parties that they should prepare proposals based on that assumption The Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party will prepare a schedule in the coming days that will include dates for early...

A Texas congressman wants to know why the former treasurer of a Mexican border state who's under indictment in that country — and has connections to San Antonio — was granted a visa and was released after his arrest this month in Texas. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, said he asked the State Department why Hector Javier Villarreal, the former head of the tax office for Coahuila who's facing fraud-related charges, was allowed to enter the United States. Villarreal was granted a visa in October, Gohmert said, shortly after Mexican officials released him on bail. Gohmert said he also wants to...

A former state trooper who was seeking election to the Precinct 1 constable’s seat was arrested Monday on money laundering charges after law enforcement officers found more than $1 million packed inside suitcases stored in his car’s trunk.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews. Jon Bruning told LifeSiteNews.com that 12 states had signed onto a scathing critique of the mandate and were preparing to take more serious action. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning On Friday, ten state attorneys general addressed a scathing letter to President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis....

n his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer revealed how members of Congress enrich themselves and their relatives using earmarks and insider information. Now, the Washington Post, following in Schweizer’s footsteps, has conducted a study that found 16 members of Congress have used their power of the purse to benefit companies, colleges, and community groups tied to their relatives. *snip* Among those cited in the Washington Post report were the following (below):

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A store owner who says he was just protecting his north Houston business shot and killed a suspected thief overnight. That owner claims he had no other option but to use deadly force. Tamika Hall came back to the New Land convenience store on West Little York near Andy Street, where her brother, the accused robber, was shot and killed. Hall says she needed answers. "He didn't have to shoot him like that when he was behind the glass," she said. But according to police, Hall's brother, 33-year-old Terrance Hall, showed up at the convenience store last...

HUFFMAN, Texas – People who live in a Huffman neighborhood weren’t surprised when Bradley and Dennis Turner made headlines this week. They say their Lake Houston-area neighborhood was peaceful until four years ago when the Turner family moved in. Deputies say it was the Turner brothers who broke into a woman’s home in the Commons subdivision earlier this week. She hid her 10-year-old son in a closet, grabbed a gun and fired at the suspects. "I was scared and trembling," said her son, who heard the shot. She missed and the robbers fled, but they left fingerprints behind, according to...

HOUSTON - A northwest Houston food store owner shot and killed a man he said was trying to rob him, but police did not find a gun on the man, investigators said Friday. Houston police said the 49-year-old owner of the New Land Food Store, 822 West Little York, called 911 at 9:30 p.m. Thursday and said a man was trespassing. Investigators said Terrance Hall, 33, was agitated when he entered the store and tried to get into a back room. When he couldn't, he climbed onto an ATM machine, over plexiglass and fell behind the counter, police said. During...

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Investigators have made an arrest in a home invasion near Lake Houston, thanks in part to fingerprints left at the crime scene. The home invasion happened Wednesday, on Yonder Way in the Commons subdivision. According to Harris County deputy constables, a mother and her 10-year-old son were home by themselves when two robbers broke in. The woman put her son in a closet and grabbed her gun, shooting at – but missing – one of the suspects. On Thursday, deputies said they caught one of those suspects, Bradley Wayne Turner. They believe the other suspect is...

Local law enforcement agents arrested a suspect early Friday morning at an Odessa hotel, several hours after a Midland bank was robbed. Mark David Willmann, 42,was charged with bank robbery, a federal offense. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Counts granted a temporary motion by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to hold Willmann without the possibility of bond. -snip- Law enforcement agencies received tips identifying Willmann from a photo of the bank surveillance video released to local media outlets shortly after the robbery .... Two people positively identified Willmann about an hour after the photo and story were posted on the Reporter-Telegram’s social...

USA --(Ammoland.com)- “Mom Runs Burglars Off with Gun,” Damali Keith of MyFoxHouston reports. “A couple of burglars chose the wrong woman to pick on,” she writes. “They came sneaking into her house, and she sent them running out. Perhaps they didn’t count on the woman fighting back, but that’s just what she did.” “Conventional wisdom” says kids and guns don’t mix. The gun she used to repel the home invader was a .22 rifle that belonged to her son. “Conventional wisdom” says get a dog for home defense. She had two, including a 200-pound English Mastiff, that the intruders were...

stvan Benke, a Houston electrical engineer and business owner who escaped Hungary in the belly of a ship during the Communist takeover, has died from cancer. He was 86. Benke, who died Feb. 5, was born on Dec. 13, 1925, in Budapest. He attended a Hungarian military school and earned an electrical engineering degree. When the Soviet Union forced its political and social system on Hungary in the aftermath of World War II, the Communist Party tried to recruit Benke for three years. He repeatedly refused the invitation, said a longtime friend, Marlene Hankes of Houston. One day some of...

Makers of an upcoming documentary that seeks to counter the anti-hydraulic fracturing film “Gasland” have raised over $36,000 through crowdsourcing in a matter of a few days. The creators of the new documentary called “FrackNation” hope to dispel what they view as inaccuracies in the Oscar-nominated film “Gasland” and give more voice to those who live in the communities that are benefiting economically from natural gas drilling. Phelim McAleer, formerly a journalist with The Economist and Financial Times, is teaming up with his wife Ann McElhinney, a fellow former journalist, in making the film. The Irish couple in the past...

Savannah Aulger will never have snapshots with her father on her first birthday, on Christmas or at a school event. The only picture she will ever have of them is the one as sweet as it is heartbreaking. Hooked up to an oxygen mask at the hospital, the man she would call dad cradled her in his arms for 45 minutes...

C-SPAN's coverage of the 39th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) continues Friday with speeches by the leading presidential candidates and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. The three top GOP candidates for the Republican nomination -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum -- are taking a break from the campaign trial to address attendees. Rep. Ron Paul was invited to speak but will instead continue campaigning.

Fumes from the University’s tobacco policy have ignited conversation over the future of the substance on UT grounds. Because of a new provision from one of the University’s top research funders, UT will need to enact a tobacco-free policy or risk losing millions of research dollars. The Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, a voter-mandated organization that awards millions of research dollars each year to entities pursuing cancer research, released a statement on Feb. 2 stating it will now require all current and future grantees to create tobacco-free workplaces as a condition for accepting the Institute’s funds. UT currently receives...

TEXAS -- Less than an hour- that's how long Mark Aulger got to see his daughter, Savannah, before he died. The Colony father had recently learned that he had survived colon cancer, but his wife said months of chemotherapy badly deteriorated his lungs. "It was basically like his lungs were soaked in concrete," Diane Aulger said. "They couldn't inhale or pass oxygen throughout the body, he was in essence, suffocating to death." In January, his condition worsened, and he was admitted to the hospital. Doctors said his lungs were badly scarred and he was given just days to live. His...

An employee shot and killed a man who reportedly tried to rob a store in north Houston Thursday night. The shooting occurred at the store at 822 W. Little York near Andy about 9:30 p.m., according to the Houston Police Department. Police said the man, whose name has not been released, was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No other injuries were reported.

EDINURG — A capital murder suspect made his involvement in the kidnapping and slaying of a coworker too obvious when he hid the body at his brother’s property, Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. A passer-by found the body of German Duque Gonzalez, 65, on Feb. 1 under a pile of tires in the 4600 block of Marshall Street north of Palmview. Gonzalez, a baker, left his Alton home at 1 a.m. that same morning to begin his bread-making shift at Valeria’s Bakery in Mission — a routine he had followed for the past two years. He never made it to work....

The director of counseling at a nonprofit for veterans in Houston confessed Wednesday to lying about his military record and falsely claiming a Silver Star and other medals. Paul Schroeder, 40, portrayed himself as a decorated Special Forces sergeant first class who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and Central and South America. In his job at the nonprofit PTSD Foundation of America, Schroeder mentored veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and led group therapy sessions at local churches and the Star of Hope Mission. He also lectured at least half a dozen...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Littering the landscape with plastic shopping bags is indeed a problem. The proposed solution — banning them — doesn't address the problem at its source, which is the people doing the littering. A bag ban only removes bags from their arsenal, much like a ban on so-called "assault" rifles can change the cosmetics of a law-abiding gun owner's home arsenal. For an inanimate object, the plastic bag, like the assault rifle, has attained quite a reputation for villainy. Truth is, its penchant for premeditated environmental depredation is overblown. Lift an empty one to appreciate the tininess of...

Dear (ShadowAce), Energy and jobs are two things that Americans need to survive. The Keystone XL Pipeline would provide both, free of cost to American taxpayers. That is why this week, I introduced the bipartisan Keystone for a Secure Tomorrow Act (K-FAST) to allow Congress to act immediately and approve the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Congress has the obligation and the legal ability to say yes. In fact, in 1973, after years of delay, Congress took similar action and passed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act in order to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline is a...

PLANO, Texas — Standing in front of a massive crowd at a rally in Plano, Texas, Rick Santorum unleashed criticism of Barack Obama and threw out some campaign red meat to supporters hungry for it, telling them the president has an “overt hostility to faith.”“(He’s) trying to weaken them, churches, trying to say that anybody who believes in the values of the Judeo Christian policies,” Santorum said to about 2,000 people in a converted barn, one of his largest audiences of the campaign. He told the audience at the raucous rally that Obama is restricting religious freedoms in this country,...

... LBJ high school teacher and coach is charged with delivering a dangerous drug to a student after a parent accused her of giving the morning after pill to the student. Tracy Steinberg, 32, resigned after the allegation surfaced on January 26.... When the student became ill after taking the pills, she told her mother about the situation and the mother contacted AISD police, who began an investigation.

After paying $16 to file a one-page claim to an empty, $340,000 home in an upscale Dallas suburb, Kenneth Robinson moved in furniture, hung a "No Trespassing" sign in the front window and invited television cameras inside for a tour. ... But Robinson's time in the house ran out Monday. Bank of America wants possession after foreclosing on the home last month, and a judge on Monday gave Robinson until Feb. 13 to appeal or move out. Rather than wait to be evicted, Robinson slipped out before sunrise Monday, skipped a morning court hearing and refused to say where he...

Mexico arrests figure in Fast and Furious gun-smuggling scandal REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities have arrested a reputed enforcer for the country's most powerful drug cartel -- a man also alleged to have amassed weapons from the U.S. government's failed Fast and Furious gun-smuggling operation (link, in Spanish, includes video). Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, 33, is also wanted by U.S. officials on drug-trafficking charges in El Paso. Mexican and U.S. authorities say he served as a top lieutenant to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Sinaloa Cartel and was in charge of operations in the border state of...

A federal judge on Monday upheld the Texas law requiring women to have a sonogram before having an abortion, saying an appeals court had forced him to declare the law constitutional. District Judge Sam Sparks had previously struck down parts of the law, but his latest ruling said he's bound to follow the direction of the New Orleans-based appeals court. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services said the ruling clears the way for full-enforcement of the law, which was supposed to take effect Oct. 1 but has ping-ponged through the federal courts in legal challenges. The agency...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Texas' attorney general agreed Monday to temporary voting maps that add new Hispanic-dominated districts and could save the April 3 date for primary elections statewide. But at least one influential minority group said it would fight the new plan. Still, the proposal marks a rare moment of agreement in a bitter legal clash that has dragged on since last summer, even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. Minority groups filed a lawsuit alleging the GOP-controlled Legislature drafted redistricting maps that were discriminatory and ignored a burgeoning Hispanic population. A San Antonio federal court had given the state...

An argument during a poker game in north Harris County ended in a shootout early today, leaving one man dead and three more hurt, KRTK reports. The incident began in a house on Varnell near Northington when a disruptive poker player was asked to leave: According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, there was a gathering of people at the home while a poker game was going on. Witnesses told them the suspect started causing a problem, so several people asked him to leave and shoved him down the driveway. The suspect then went to his car, got a gun,...

LAS VEGAS — Newt Gingrich is wooing NASCAR voters. As he charts a possible course to the Republican nomination, aides say Gingrich will paint frontrunner Mitt Romney as the candidate of the PGA golf tour while the former House speaker pursues the blue collar mantle of Dale Earnhardt. It’s a strategy that exploits the class warfare Gingrich professes to oppose. Still, it could pay dividends once the GOP race again swings South. Gingrich sees delegate-rich Texas as a firewall in April. But he must slog through more than 30 contests before that....

SNIPPET: "Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities." SNIPPET: "It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awalki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag." SNIPPET: "The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago."

You know the border is a place where drugs and illegal immigrants transit every day. But you have no idea how bad things really are.

Mexico Drug Cartels ... Steeped in Witchcraft, Human Sacrafice.. Demonic Influence? According to a Christian pastor who serves along the Texas-Mexican border drug cartels are tied to human sacrifice, witches, and " the adoration of death in ancient Aztec days." David Elijah says... "There are few places in America more evil, or more steeped in witchcraft and demonic influences, along with false prophets, divination and corruption, than the border region of northern Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas.."

DALLAS - No one would say being a single mom is easy. Especially being a single, teenage mother. But the State of Texas appears to be encouraging teenage girls to become pregnant so they can receive free dental care under Medicaid. Our investigation last year found hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money spent for free braces on kids' teeth under Medicaid. That spurred a federal investigation, because cosmetic braces aren't supposed to be paid for under Medicaid. If that is an example of good intentions gone bad, Latricia Banks and her mom, Patricia Jones, may exemplify a good...

One man is dead and another is wounded after the Mexican military allegedly shot them while they were fleeing into the United States. It all happened just east of Sullivan City late Thursday afternoon. Law enforcement officials told Action 4 News that the men are believed to have been involved in a gun battle south of the border in Diaz Ordaz, Tamaulipas. Mexican military officials did not cross into the United States during the incident but opened fire on the two men as they fled across the Rio Grande River. Law enforcement said a body was found on the American...

The story seemed suspicious: That 5-year-old Candy Flores died after just falling off a toilet and hitting her head. Paramedics who responded to the 911 call Tuesday night at the one-bedroom apartment where she lived with 14 others were wary of her family's explanation. So were Houston police officers called by the paramedics and homicide investigators now looking into her death. Candy had a bump on her forehead as well as one on her nose, but the child also had bruises and scratches from her head to the bottom of her feet, said HPD homicide investigator Kevin Carr. She had...

A homeowner took action to protect his property when he determined a burglary attempt was happening once again. An unidentified 51-year-old man informed the Beaumont Police Department he had fired shots at the culprits who were attempting to burglarize his barn shortly after 3:15 a.m., Monday, in the 5300 block of Seale in Beaumont. The homeowner had installed surveillance equipment on his barn following several previous thefts at the location and interrupted the burglary in progress on Monday. He informed police he had fired shots at the burglars and possibly struck one. While police were at the scene of the...

An Overton ninth-grade math teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave after a freshman student said the teacher threw a mechanical pencil at him. Overton Police Department Cpt. Clayton Taylor said a 15-year-old and his parents went to the police station Wednesday to file assault charges against the teacher. Taylor said the student, who has Tourette syndrome, told police that the teacher threw a mechanical pencil at him Monday afternoon. Clayton said the pencil left a cut on his lip. Overton ISD Superintendent Alan Umholtz said the ninth-grade teacher, whose name will not be released, was placed on paid...

MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. Embassy in Mexico says two Americans have been slain outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey, an area plagued by drug violence. It identifies them as John and Wanda Casias. The embassy says the former Amarillo, Texas, couple's family has been notified and it is providing relatives consular services. The embassy hasn't confirmed reports that the killing happened Tuesday. Its statement provides no other details. Valerie Alirez in Greeley, Colo., is John Casias' eldest child. She says he and his wife were found dead Tuesday in Santiago, Nuevo Leon, by one of her brothers.

An intruder is in the hospital after a mother walked-in on him in her house, according to Fort Worth police. The woman picked her son up from school and arrived at her home on Peggy Drive around noon Friday. She said she walked inside her home and found a man in her house. She confronted the unwelcome guest and shot him once in the leg, police said. The man ran out of the house and the woman continued to chase him down the road. The man was quickly found by officers hiding in a nearby creek. He is being treated...

LIBERTY COUNTY, TX (KTRK) -- When military men and women leave home to serve the country, they expect to return to their homes once their tour of duty is over. But a military couple in the Liberty County town of Splendora almost lost their home to squatters who've been arrested for more than just taking over the couple's house. It was an unusual call for the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, but even more disturbing for homeowner Hollie Burbank. "It makes me sick," Burbank said. The home that's been in Burbank's family for three generations had some uninvited guests all while...

A man accused of robbing a taxi driver at gunpoint, then fleeing from another cab stopped for a traffic violation, said he was trying to recruit the second driver into his terror cell, police said. Ali Abdullal Mayberry, 29, was taken into custody late Wednesday and is being held at Bexar County Jail on one count of aggravated robbery. A judge set bail at $50,000. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, a taxi driver on Jan. 10 went to pick up a fare in the 10300 block of Royal Estate, where he had driven Mayberry the morning before. Mayberry did...